RAVAAN
ROBIN HOOD MEETS APOCALYPSE NOW COURTSEY
Aishwariya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vikram, Govinda,Ravi Kishen, Priyamani
Director: Mani Ratnam
Music: A.R Rehman
Review by: Dr Usman Khawaja
What is the problem with Bolly scripts, as here a man like Ratnam takes movies like "Gangajal", "Jungle" and Hollywood classics like 'Apocalypse Now' mixing it is a mish mash of action and silly stunts and packages it with pseudo artistic visuals from Coppola's war epic as billowing smoke stands in for mist.
Anyway Vikram is a good cop, married to Aishwariya and they are posted in a lawless Indian rural paradise much like" Gangajal " which is ruled by a gangster cum robin hood Abishek Bachchan as Beera, and he is both Ravaan and ram all in one while Aishwariya Rai as Sita is still married to the real ram Vikram is a stand in for Ram.
I am really confused here as I think this akin to making Ganges flow backwards but than anything goes and after a lot of action stunts, songs and we end up on a suspension bridge for the climax thanks to Indiana Jones.
Never mind as Aishwariya Rai gets loads of sequences which just require running and jumping in Indian hinterland with no dramatic requirements, while Abhishek Bachchan is a joker as "Raavan" who plays it like a clownish big hearted Heath ledger, and the whole pulpy vision is just a borrowed bonanza , where Vikram is the only performer who breathes some air in this dead horse, but fails to flag it still in the fuzzy visuals with mystical mists enshrouding the screen in a paradox of obscure origins.
Cops and gangsters and heart of gold robbers mix with untouchables, who rob the rich and there is enough plunder and gruesome killings to appease any sadistic masochist, while A.R Rehman composes an unusual score which is not synchronised with the milieu of a thriller and interrupts the narrative as does the redundant leading lady who looks uncomfortable between the husband as hero and the great hearted villain on the periphery as a toy boy.
Abishek Bachchan looks as un-winsome as Ravaan, with some extremely bizarre getups, and is overshadowed by Vikram in every aspect from action to talent, and he tries to give a edgy paranoid look which unfortunately misfires.
Ratnam who made Yuva and Dilse and Bombay here is laden with a banal script with a laconic cat and moose game played in a forest which is very similar to R.G.varma's Jungle, and "Coppola's Apocalypse Now, but not a fraction as interesting, and the climax on a suspension bridge suspend all brief and is inadvertently hilarious.
This is not entertainment or art it is pulp mixed with trash packaged with shamelessly stolen visuals and it does no favours to Ramayana in its lousy duration of 2 hors and 20 minutes with a paranoid narrative with misty forests and green ravines and a lush middle aged, Aishwariya Rai trying to desperately cope with two men she obviously is not very fond of in reality or onscreen too.
Mr. Ratnam please go back to real actors like Ajay Devgan and Manisha koirala and turn out something with an original script with some credible gimmicks rather than the falling bodies of aishwariya and a diving Beera.
A rather sullen and desynchronised, somewhat stylised version of so called Ramayana borrowed from multiple sources.
On second thoughts did Mani Ratnam really direct this or was it being ghost directed by Ravaan himself in a surreal reincarnation, and that will explain the rather inscrutable and lacklustre slumber that graces the screen at a slovenly clumsy pace, for Aishwariya Rai runs much faster than the screen time itself
Loading...
12:31
Making Of Ravaanby IndiaTV12,320 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)