BNA INDIA - March / April 2015

ROY
For what kind of target audience you
actually made this dear film-maker?
FILM REVIEW
Certain films make you feel so annoyed and
restless sitting in the theatre watching an allstar
casting that you just wish to catch someone
from the team and ask him that whether this
was really made on a so called script of say 100
pages? And whether the team really knew what
they were making and for what kind of target
audience precisely?
Giving that exact experience to the viewer,
ROY literally tests your patience
in its 150 minutes of lengthy duration
and is arguably one of those
movies that repeatedly shakes
your confidence in Hindi Cinema
and its talented film-makers in
comparative terms. Supposedly
inspired from the romantic link
between western directors Quentin
Tarantino and Sofia Coppola
as admitted by its debutant director
Vikramjit Singh in his interviews,
ROY straight away pays a
tribute to the genius director in its
very first sequence with a mention
of a two part film. And then begins
at such a lazy pace that you
are amazed to see the confidence
(or over-confidence) of its makers
as if they are making a deep psychological
thriller with many hidden multi layers
with some great poetic depths………….,
whereas in reality it doesn’t even have the
layers of a simple sandwich.
The viewers keep waiting for it to come up with
something engaging after bearing the extremely
slow initial 10-15 minutes. But the film is
simply not interested in leaving its boring, amateurish
or ‘Pakaao’ mode and then keeps moving
on a silly self-obsessed path with all
worthless content which in turn makes the actors
also look like fools acting in those meaningless
scenes so professionally. In fact the
way they all talk looks like we are listening to
a few professors of psychology having a seminar
kind of thing on life and its basic issues
without caring about whether their words are
even reaching out to the audience or not. Making
a constant effort to connect or find its
storyline, I honestly couldn’t do that after an
hour despite few catchy tracks
and thus failed to get any of its
story progression, cameos or
double role as projected.
In short it was Friday the 13th
and the date clearly had its impact
on our Hindi cinema since
ROY turned out to be one of the
worst films of the year 2015
without a doubt. However luckily
I still managed to have a good
time in the single screen theatre
post intermission when I joined
a group of college friends who
were regularly delivering many
entertaining comments over the
film’s various sequences, making
the best use of the dark. And
here are some of those funny
remarks they came up extempore
that actually helped me remaining awake
watching the torture called ROY. Post almost
90 minutes into the film, Arjun expressed
"Main Jab Yahan Aaya Tha To Kahani Nahin
Thi".....A voice from the audience replied,
"Hamare Paas Abhi Bhi Nahin Hai!"As the
song "Yaara Re" began......the college group
started singing along...
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BNA INDIA March / April 2015
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