A Black day at Twisted DNA

A Black day

Published May 30th, 2006

I don’t take watching Hindi movies lightly. To me, it’s like Russian Roulette, except that you have 1 in 100 chance of survival. That is the reason it was not until several of my trusted friends recommended me the Hindi movie “Black” I didn’t dare face the Black-death like movie.

Let’s first get the good things out of the way. The cinematography is one of the best I have seen recently. It’s on par with the current international big-budget movies. And the movie has no songs, thank heavens!

Ok, now the bad things. In the first 15 minutes of the movie, I was disappointed to realize that this movie is a shameless and a very poorly executed rip-off of “The Miracle Worker,” which tells the story of Helen Keller. It was never mentioned in the movie’s promotions or anywhere else. Did the producers think nobody would notice? One must be blind not to see the connection (no pun intended).

If I have to summarize the tone of the movie in one word, it would be “melodrama.” Since I don’t have to, I will elaborate. Every actor, in every scene, played his/her part with as much exaggeration as possible. A character couldn’t sneeze without over-acting it! I am surprised the movie didn’t come with a disclaimer, “Any resemblances this movie has to reality are purely unintentional.”

Amitabh Bachchan’s action was mediocre, you would expect better from such an experienced actor. Calling what Rani Mukherjee did in the movie “action” is an insult to every person who ever acted. It is more like clueless waving of hands, twitching of face and shouting at the top of her lungs. She played the part of a blind girl. Far from researching for her role, I doubt if she ever saw a blind person. You ask why? For one, blind people don’t go about running into walls and furniture in their own homes on a daily basis. She seemed to have convinced herself that sporting sun-glasses is sufficient to play the part.

About the screenplay, I don’t know where to begin. Apparently, nor did the screenplay writer.

The movie had one of the happiest endings. I mean, I was very happy, ecstatic, that the movie finally ended.

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9 Responses to “A Black day”

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1 Shreemoyee Jun 3rd, 2006 at 4:59 pm

Nothing to do with Black, but what is with this hindi movie bashing attitude in general? So you deined to watch Black and even with your russian roulette chances of survival, you got by didn’t you? Just the point, that many hindi movies might be very silly but many of them are good too.
Why not write about a hindi movie you liked or is it less fun to do that?
2 Twisted DNA Jun 3rd, 2006 at 6:49 pm

My bashing is not specific to Hindi movies. But IMO most Hindi movies are crap. Most Hollywood movies are technologically advanced crap. But there are occasional good Hindi and Indepenent English movies (Dattak, Asthitwa, Garden State etc.). We will get to them eventually. Good reviews are fun to write, but in my experiencce, people don’t find them fun to read.
3 Aditi Das Patnaik Jun 7th, 2006 at 6:31 am

This post has been removed by the author.
4 Aditi Das Patnaik Jun 7th, 2006 at 6:32 am

This post has been removed by the author.
5 Aditi Das Patnaik Jun 7th, 2006 at 6:32 am

By and large i’ll agree, maybe , just maybe i’ll not go so far in being critical, but i’ll say one thing….

for the subject matter the movie was too verbose…
6 Aditi Das Patnaik Jun 7th, 2006 at 6:39 am

Sorry got the same post thrice….some browser craziness….hence deleted two of ‘em!
7 La vida Loca Jul 28th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

I am NOT a fan of hindi movies and will swear loudly while watching them ,with a fairly steady stream of 4 letter words.
This is considered pretty unpatriotic …ahh phooey
8 Alan Sep 6th, 2006 at 5:25 pm

I enjoyed Black. Big B is getting up in years, and he still gets to kiss Rani. There’s hope for me yet!
9 Darsh from Oz Sep 23rd, 2006 at 1:25 am

Hahaha…I agree with this! I’m sorry to the bollywood fans out there. But you do have a point, But there is one that has caught my eye, rang de basanti…it has such passion and soul, I don’t know it seems to depict the current situation of India with a rare form of an authentic plot. There is a lesson to learn from this film,
And as for bollywood rip offs, it’s just a matter of a nostaglia feeling with a dose of melodrama!
Ciao..
Darsh

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