I'm not sure whether the educational aspects of the film regarding the history of poetry during the 60's (The Hungry Generation) made up for the fact that most of the characters motivations and actions seemed contrived.
Injecting new life into the tired old "Serial killing investigated by jaded/alcoholic/retiring cop" is clearly going to be difficult at the best of times, but this film was too drawn out for it's own good.
The performances were fine, but when (apart from one character) they are not given much of a script to work with in the first place then as another reviewer pointed out, then it feels a bit "flat".
I probably missed nearly all the dry sarcasm that others referred to and the denouement seemed far fetched to me.
***************Spoilers Follow******************* I'll try not to spoil it too much here but the alcoholic ex-cop was the only character I thought was well written, but when he turned out to be what he was then I was left wondering about a few things: 1) The guy is so drunk when we're first introduced to him that it's hard to believe that he was capable of doing what he did. 2) The fact that he was an avid chess player and knew tons of poetry indicated that he was probably going to turn out to be what he was. 3) Don't they have any handwriting analysis in India? 4) Was he the other policeman's real father (the subs weren't good enough for me to fully work this out)? 5) You can be banned for life from the police force but then re-instated at the whim of a local inspector? ***************Spoilers End***********************
Like I said: The subs weren't great so if I missed something then I'm sorry, but I think that Kahaani was a much better film in every respect.
Cheers, Will
Injecting new life into the tired old "Serial killing investigated by jaded/alcoholic/retiring cop" is clearly going to be difficult at the best of times, but this film was too drawn out for it's own good.
The performances were fine, but when (apart from one character) they are not given much of a script to work with in the first place then as another reviewer pointed out, then it feels a bit "flat".
I probably missed nearly all the dry sarcasm that others referred to and the denouement seemed far fetched to me.
***************Spoilers Follow******************* I'll try not to spoil it too much here but the alcoholic ex-cop was the only character I thought was well written, but when he turned out to be what he was then I was left wondering about a few things: 1) The guy is so drunk when we're first introduced to him that it's hard to believe that he was capable of doing what he did. 2) The fact that he was an avid chess player and knew tons of poetry indicated that he was probably going to turn out to be what he was. 3) Don't they have any handwriting analysis in India? 4) Was he the other policeman's real father (the subs weren't good enough for me to fully work this out)? 5) You can be banned for life from the police force but then re-instated at the whim of a local inspector? ***************Spoilers End***********************
Like I said: The subs weren't great so if I missed something then I'm sorry, but I think that Kahaani was a much better film in every respect.
Cheers, Will