Topic started by Bhuvan (@ cache92.156ce.scvmaxonline.com.sg) on Sun Apr 20 00:45:54 .
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
THE HERO
2/10
It is apparent that Indians lack a certain sense of cinematic aesthetic and grammar. Movies are no more than cheap getaway from life's troubles. Movies are seldom, if ever, art.
This film boasts of a mega-budget. It is a blatant manifestation of exorbitant nonsense. The screenplay is so bad that I'm not going to talk about it. Let's go to the technicalities.
Sound - This film was presented in Dolby EX 6.1 - but that is just a technology. Knowing how to use it is quite another thing. The sound design and effects were pedestrian by today's standards. The voice dubbing was atrociously done with syncing mistakes in virtually every single scene of the movie. In comparison, many small budget films are way ahead of this film in this aspect. It's not a difficult thing to fix. It's just that the filmmaker either doesn't care, or he is too lazy and assumes that the Indian audience is stupid anyway. My assumption is that the actors did not follow the screenplay of the film and forgot the lines in the dubbing room and 'replaced' the scenes with whichever lines that came in their head. Apparently, this means that they also didn't record guide voice tracks on location to help in the dubbing. Otherwise, in one of the scenes, why is Kabir Bedi mouthing,"And then", but we hear "Aur phir"?
Cinematography - Kabir Lal strikes again with unintentionally super-shaky dollying and tracking. Not to mention, a plethora of out-of-focus shots. It makes one wonder what he has been learning all these years in the industry. Check out all his films, the problems are always so similar that you would think this was a 'style' of his work. Pardes, Taal, Yaadein and Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai come to mind. Expectedly, there are bound to be people here who think that those films have nice cinematography.
Set design - Sunny, the fat super spy enters a 'chemical' factory a la Mission impossible via some duct. He spies on a security guard who watches over CCTV cameras connected to, voila! A multitrack sound mixing control! What the heck is that?!!!!! I started laughing at this comedy scene. At the same time, i felt strangely embarrassed that the Indian audience was seriously gulping down this gobbledygook. Later on, an African-American man speaking with an Indian accent arrives to repair the faulty CCTV cameras. He pulls out a couple of 1/4 inch sound jacks from the multitrack mxing control to 'correct' the problem!
Editing - It was all poor Suresh Urs could do to stick this sorry excuse of a film together.
Music - The music was ok, but not quite befitting of the 'biggest' Indian film ever. Also, I noted that the music was probably arranged by someone else. Someone younger and more enterprising.
Why I gave it 2/10 at all? Preity Zinta's restrained performance and certain scenes that worked because of her.
If we give our hard-earned money to money-spinning filmmakers like these, we are telling them, "Go ahead...go ahead making trash. Why bother with quality? We don't care. Just bash those Pakis and listen to the cash registers ringing!"
Tell your friend about this topic