7 Khoon Maaf : Movie Review

7 Khoon Maaf is monotonous

Director : Vishal Bhardwaj

Cast : Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah, John Abraham, Irrfan Khan, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Annu Kapoor, Aleksander Dyachenko, Vivaan Shah, Usha Uthup & Konkana Sen Sharma.

All that shines is not gold. Promising to have enough potential Vishal Bhardwaj's latest dark drama 7 Khoon Maaf does not meet up to its expectations. Now the fact that 7KM does not click has some serious reasons, since it has some of the most noted people of contemporary cinema associated with itself. It's not like a very bad film but the kind of expectation one has from a Vishal Bhardwaj flick makes 7KM look a pretty ordinary stuff in the end. In fact I am a big fan of Bhardwaj's work including Maqbool, The Blue Umbrella, The cult classic Omkara and even Blood Brothers, his short film on HIV AIDS. But ever since giving these much applauded films the graph has started tumbling the other way round for Bhardwaj. It started from Kaminey and continues in 7KM. The audiences expected a lot more from a Vishal Bhardwaj movie than what they were served in Kaminey, however the goodwill of Omkara perhaps helped the box office collections of Kaminey  and made it a hit before people could make out that the latter in no way appeared to be a work of a director who gave us Langda Tyagi. But fate is what one would say, that movies like Omkara are refrained from attaining a 'hit' title, but the Kaminey kind does a better job at the box office. Sad to say even the luck does not work for 7KM.

Based on Ruskin Bond's short story 'Susanna's Seven Husbands', 7KM is a story of Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Priyanka Chopra) and her quest to find true love. She marries six men during her lifetime, however does not find anyone as 'the one' she's been looking for. Her first husband Major Edwin Rodriguez (Neil Nitin Mukesh) has an imperfection of being over possessive and is unable to bear the fact that such a beautiful wife would ever be faithful to him. The second one is Jimmy Stetson (John Abraham), a professional singer whose flaw is pride and changes after having a taste of fame and ultimately moves to drugs. Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan Khan), a subtle poet by vocation happens to be her third husband who pertains a nasty beating habit while expressing his love towards Susanna ending up with some real painful bruises to the lovely lady. The fourth husband is a Russian Spy Nicolai Vronsky (Aleksandr Dyachenko) leading a double life. He has a wife and 2 kids before marrying Susanna and has not unveiled this hidden aspect of his life to Susanna. Her fifth husband is a lusty Police Inspector Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor) who marries her for physical appetite. Her last husband is Dr.Modhusudhon Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah), a bankrupt Bengali doctor who convinces Susanna to marry him with a motive to acquire all her property after her death. The seventh man in Susanna's life is Arun Kumar (Vivaan Shah) who noticed Susanna since his childhood and has nurtured a crush on her. 

7KM explains 'anger' as an emotion like love and also the fact that both are complimentary to each other. A lot of love or even a desire of the same may come up with extreme anger. And in a flash all is gone. Its only after a deadly showdown of Russian roulette, Susanna realises that she did something out of anger to someone she loved the most. After 5 seconds of the shot, the blood spilled on the wall makes her realise that she just shot her husband dead. Love kills and has no scope of mercy. This is how a loving lady kills her husband whom she loved the most. And when she does it with 6 men...Its called 7 Khoon Maaf. Wondering what her 7th crime was. Anyhow it is an Interesting plot indeed but how can you see the same thing happening repeatedly one after another. The same story works as a book since one has an option of not completing a book at one go, however when being shown in a 3 hour film makes it monotonous to watch. After 2-3 kills the story starts becoming a lot predictable which is another drawback of 7KM. A couple of uninteresting stories should rather have been excluded from the film.

Performance wise also 7KM fails to leave any strong impact. This is certainly not the best performance by Priyanka Chopra and it could have been a lot better. Her on screen presence in most parts of the film also does not help her to make it look anything beyond an average attempt. Also, great talents like Naseeruddin Shah and Irrfan Khan are wasted. The only exception we have here is of Annu Kapoor who makes the character of Keemat Lal look so very special by his lewd instincts. Special mention for Neil Nitin Mukesh who gives his best performance till date in the role of a cold hearted Army officer.

Bekaraan... and Daaarling... are the best songs we have in 7KM. Apart from this, anything which needs a special mention in 7KF is Gulzar's lyrics and Ranjan Palit's cinematography. I give 2/5 to 7KM. Please stop disappointing your fans Vishal including me. Hopefully next time we have something that suits your caliber.





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Yeh Saali Zindagi : Movie Review

Yeh Saali Zindagi is a definite entertainer

Director : Sudhir Mishra

Cast : Irrfan Khan, Chitrangda Singh, Arunoday Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Saurabh Shukla, Sushant Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan & Vipul Gupta.

                Yeh Saali Zindagi happens to be a good entertaining movie made in a long time. A musical romantic thriller in its genre, YSZ surmounts in almost every single department. The credit has to be given to the 2 time National award winning director Sudhir Mishra who gives another master stroke in the form of YSZ continuing his legacy of offbeat films including the likes of Dharavi, Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin, Chameli & Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, but unlike his most of previous work, YSZ is a definite entertainer.

The film stars Irrfan Khan as Arun who works in a finance company of Mehta (Saurabh Shukla), a double dealing deceitful finance goon. The duo are in a black money flip-flop white money business where Arun neatens the unlawful money of gangsters, politicians and high profile businessmen. In an episode of imparting legal imputation on a pub owner with a motive to rack up his property, Arun unintentionally meets a beautiful singer named Priti (Chitrangda Singh), sister and partner of the pub owner and falls for her alluring looks. After having learnt that Priti has nothing else apart from the pub property Arun decides to help Priti come out of this nuisance. However Arun in return obtains nothing but a mere friendship from the stingy Priti, who becomes occupied with her boyfriend Shyam (Vipul Gupta); son of a business tycoon and soon starts avoiding Arun. Mehta warns the infatuated Arun and pushes him to forget Priti and his one sided love story. On the other side Shyam is leading a double life and has a fiance who is a daughter of a politician and this is where the trouble begins.

Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh), an outlaw living in the outskirts of old Delhi is married to Shanti (Aditi Rao Hydari) and has a 5 year old son, however his wife wants to make their ways apart due to the anti social behaviours of Kuldeep. However, he assures her that he will discontinue his crime life forever, but secretly agrees to perform one last job before he retires from the crime world to ensure the financial security of his family. And this last job is nothing but a task of kidnapping the politician's daughter along with her fiance Shyam. A local brigade of outlaws leaded by Kuldeep go for the kill but unwittingly abducts Shyam with Priti instead of the politician's daughter. This is where Arun finds himself in a pickle of either to risk his own life for a girl who does not love him or to leave the city where already people are after his life.

The film has portions of narratives by Arun and Kuldeep, both justifying their enslavement to their respective love interests by doing things which have no personal incentives , unleashing their Unconditional love. Unusual to find such feelings in today's age of flings, we are pushed to believe the Platonic love of Arun by his subtle behaviour towards Priti. And in the midst of all these kidnappings and gunshots the one thing that keeps the entertainment moolah always on the top is the dark humour which the director manages to create quite effectively and 'consistently'. Be it the bad-mouthing one liners of the bizarre gangsters or the conversation of the underworld siblings Bade (Yashpal Sharma) and Chhote (Prashant Narayanan), all comes as a laughter bonus in every scene one after another making the viewer wait for another one to come and believe me the viewers are not disappointed at all. One of my favourite comes from a mad gangster who says "Side Income hai Bhai" after a fellow crook asks the reason why Priti is trying hard to save Shyam. Even the greedy cop Satbeer (Sushant Singh) joins the party and smashes a sixer off the last ball.

Of the cast, Irrfan Khan deserves a standing ovation for enacting such a difficult role effortlessly. He is simply superb and is one of the biggest strength's of the film. Arunoday Singh with the 'Hulk' looks was last seen in Mirch and Aisha earlier, looks like a prominent talent to watch out for. Chitrangda Singh as the mysterious Priti is good. Aditi Rao Hydari was last seen in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi6 in a small role but she makes a good debut in a lead role of the beautiful wife of Kuldeep. Also all the supporting actors have given their best in their respective parts, be it Saurabh Shukla, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan or the Delhi bad boys. The music of the film excellently supports the story with some real nice tracks. Kaise kahein Alvida..., Dil dar ba dar... and Sararara... make the best of songs.

Many of the recent films have had the dialogues which have gone across the line, including the likes of Kaminey, Ishqiya, Peepli Live and No One Killed Jessica. The raw language trend continues with YSZ, infact the film faced some censor issues prior the release on the usage of the word "Saali" in the title of the film. Ironically the script makes YSZ as the most suitable title for this film. Written by Mishra himself YSZ comes up as a winner in the end. Not a movie for family audiences, but this one is a treat to watch for those who like cinema to its core. For a brave move by an ace director and excellent performances, i would go for a 3.5/5 for YSZ. Thank you Sudhir Mishra for the real entertainment!!!

Official Poster

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