“Ra-One” does not live up to its hype..!

Good or bad ..there were two movies in production last year at the same time with similar plots. People were spreading rumors that one is the copy of other. Both were made with almost equal budgets and equally powerful star cast. But one of them was released first and set a bench mark good movie making in India with all its innovative techniques, approaches, a good story line and many other good things. But the success of this movie became a bottleneck for the other. No one knew what the plot was all about, but the hype around second movie was quite high before its release. At last the movie got released and unfortunately it turned out that it was nowhere near the bench mark set by the first movie.
That is what happened to the latest release Sharukh starrer "Ra.One". It has not been able to break or even match the bench mark set by "Robot".
For all the hype created by Shahrukh's "Ra.One" I watched the movie with my family. Coincidentally even ROBOT was coming up on the same day on SONY TV. That’s all the more reason to compare both of them.
I never get carried away by any reviews on any movie; I just go, watch, feel for myself and then try to see if the director has genuinely tried to deliver a good movie. I watch any movie for the actual movie and not for any stars.
A movie’s success primarily depends on its storyline/plot, narration, screen play, star cast, editing, music, cinematography and then followed by choreography, special effects and sound design..etc.,.
If the primary functions are not doing well in a movie, the enabling functions just become helpless. End result is the movie falls flat on its face. We cannot lift any movie just by doing great in enabling departments.
The storyline of "Ra-One" is quite simple; it is a story of a father and his relation with son, where the father is ready to do anything to impress his son. As per son's wish he will design a computer game where in the bad guy is more powerful and is pitted against a very normal hero. But due to unexpected turn of events, the villain gets into the real life of father, mother and son and tries to kill them. And at the end good wins over evil forces and it is a happy ending.
It is a good imagination..! Not bad all! We could still have got a decent movie had the story been treated with some sensitivity and caution.
As soon as the movie begins , there is a one deliberate sequence involving Sharukh, Priyanka and Sanjay Dutt with some old Bollywood tunes coming up in the background. Till the end I could not relate this anywhere to the main story. It just stands apart. There are many such sequences which do not gel well with the primary story.
The first half revolves around the hero Shekhar Subramaniam, his gaming company, staff, his wife and son and how the bad guy of computer game enters their lives. The characterization of Shekhar as a Tamilian Father settled in UK, his bonding with his MTV class son should have been handled very well. The treatment given to this part is very shoddy. The director would like to say that Shekhar is a traditional Tamilian engineer who respects all family values and a little orthodox and expects his son to be a good guy always. There are many way how this character would have been groomed. We could have borrowed from Sharukhs own character of a NASA Scientist in Swades.
But here hero is eating noodles and curds with hands !!! I don’t think any of our Tamil friends would agree to these kind of scenes. It just does not look authentic. The movies wiki page says they have done close to 3+ years of pre-production work from 2004 to 2007. But unfortunately I don’t see any of that work showing up in the movie. Anubhav Sinha has clearly shown his inexperience here. I personally felt a genuine good Tamil Movie director should have directed this whole sequence.
Now moving onto Shekhar's son Prateik. Why such a girlish like look to Prateik..? My daughter actually asked me whether he is a boy or a girl..? No explanation!
There is one sequence where Prateik calls his father as Coward. In another sequence Shekhar actually confronts the bad guy Ra-one to save his son. Both these sequences needed lot more punch, some good dialogues and action to showcase father-son relationship and their bonding.
Then comes the owner of the gaming company and his staff. I did not understand why the owner has been shown like a comic character when we are making a serious sci-fi movie. Being a technical company head, we never see him as a serious person, when so much has happened in his company and the gaming characters have actually entered the real life of some one, he is simply selling the same software and looks totally unaware of what is happening.
So problem with first half is lack of emotional punch, continuity in story and poor grooming of characters. We see the movie in bits and pieces which distract the viewer.
When Shekhar dies, the G-One the good character of the computer game comes in to rescue and protect the family. This is where the film actually picks up some space and looks quite promising. There are some really good action sequences here which you would enjoy seeing in a bollywood movie.
But again after the interval, the director loses control and struggles to narrate and take the story forward. The whole second half is a simple computer game with only two characters G-One and Ra-One. There are not many characters to support them and make the story interesting. You might feel you are playing one simple computer game sitting in the theatre.
The pre-climax sequence with Mumbai Local Train is one silver line in the movie. It is done very neatly. The two songs Chammak Challo and Dildaara are good. Acting wise there is no challenge for any one here. Whatever opportunities were there in the movie, they have been wasted. Playing the role of Tamilian Gaming Engineer Shekhar would have been good challenge for Sharukh. But as I already mentioned, he does not seem to be comfortable in that role at all. He looks great in super man role and Chammak Challo song.
Overall the movie does not appeal to you as a single piece, it appears as more of series of events packaged together. There is serious lack of research in the movie. Special effects are good, but not great. Songs are good, but Vishal-Shekhar's music looks little loud in the second half. Cinematography by Nicola and Manikandan (of Tamil movie Ravanan fame) is great. Editing by Sanjay and Martin is decent.
At the end, a strict focus on story, screenplay and narration would have made this movie as one of the best in recent times. A little rigor on the characterization of hero, his son, wife and Ra-one character would have helped a lot. At some point, it seems director has tried too hard to deliver a decent movie and failed because of that.
Because of all these, the hard work of technical crew, singer Akon, brief appearance by Rajini sir and Voice over by Amitabh Bachchan seem to have gone in vain.
This does not mean that Sharukh will lose money in this movie. The producer is a smart business man, he has released 3500 prints across the world. Satellite rights have been already sold. Even if the movie runs in all the theatres for decent one /two weeks, the producer will recover his investment and make good profits.
One last thing, there is an attempt in the end to keep the story open and bring up a sequel to Ra-One. But unless a serious attempt is made to do good research and exercise control on the story, screenplay and narration, I don’t think the sequel is worth producing!
I would give TWO out of FIVE for this movie.

FORCE does matter!

Sometimes there may not be anything great in a story and end is predictable. But it is because of the sheer magic touch that director gives to the narration, packages the sequences and takes audience along with him, that movies do make an impact.
You would have seen what happened in Dabaang! It was just the refreshing touch given to a good old story of two brothers.

This is one such movie where the director comes up with an innovative narration, gets the right set of people on board, keeps the narration pacy and delivers on end product. Force is one of the recent best bollywood action thriller films by John Abraham, directed by Nishikanth Kamat.

It is the story of a top cop Yashovardhan (John Abraham) and his team fighting against the drug mafia spread across the country. How the drug mafia runs, how NCB handles them, what are the limitations of system and how honest officers and their personal lives suffer in the hands of anti social elements. This forms the core of the story.

But this simple story is been narrated well with a backdrop of fresh romance between hero and heroine in the first half. Some of the sequences between John and Genelia are brilliant for their sheer simplicity and realism. You will never get to see a single scene between the two which is 'extra'.

The characterization of heroine Maya (Genelia) by director is really good. After a long time I saw a heroine's character not being dumb in an action movie dominated by hero and his actions. Genelia is quite lovely and lively! Don't miss that !

First half goes very fast with encounters between cops and criminals, good action sequences and a romantic track. The entry given to both the hero and villain are simply superb!

John is very comfortable in his role and has truly delivered a power packed performance as macho top cop. But it is the villain whom you simply can't ignore! The negative character Vishnu played by new comer Vidyut Jamwal is very strong and very well groomed. Vidyut comes up with an equally powerful performance against John. Some of his action sequences are so real and believable! I heard he is a model turned martial fighter turned actor who won the audition for this role among the stiff competition from 500+ people. Vidyut is quite promising in his role. Hats off to director for giving equal weightage to both these two characters!

But the icing on the cake is equally impressive star cast and their performances. Everyone has given their best. Coming to other technical aspects, the picturesque locales captured by Cinematographer Ayananka Bose, melodious music by Harris Jayaraj (Don’t know whether he has copied them from his own Tamil movie Khaka Khaka), the crisp and pacy editing by Aarif Shaikh, great Sound Design by Sanjay Mourya & Allwin Rego and last not the least the paisa vasool action by Allan Amin form the core and support the director in his narration in a big way. Overall it is a great team work under a great director who never loses control.

Having said that, there are few grey areas which could have been handled in a little better way. The drug mafia details, how the criminals exactly operate and what different channels they use, would have been narrated in some more depth (like how Manirathnam handles a particular domain.). In this movie it is handled at a peripheral level with more focus given to John and his crew. Also, there is a mention of limitation of the system in handling the whole mafia. This is also treated as a secondary topic.

There is a concept in Hollywood called 'frenemy' where enemy sometimes appreciates his enemy for his intelligence and skills. Many Hollywood movies are based on this concept and come up with more intelligent and innovative action sequences. May be director could have adopted that kind of concept here.

Here hero and villain are always after each other. Had it been the Hollywood way, the director would have got some more head space to introduce even more adrenaline pumping action and a different ending for the movie.(On the lines of Fast & Furious-five where you would see edge of the seat action till the last minute.)
Remember this is not a plain vanilla NRI love story. You many not watch it with your family. This is a truly for action lovers.

But that does not disappoint you at all. Do watch it purely for John's beef cake physique and actions, an impressive debut of Vidyut, bubbly Gelenia and a complete 10/10 performance by all the supporting cast and technical crew.
I have a suggestion for this director, make it a franchise and come up with a sequel soon! :)