Friday, October 09, 2009
Acid Factory
Acid Factory
It isn’t... but it should be the prime reason for making a film, that a filmmaker has a story he badly wants to tell cinematically. Obviously this doesn’t work for Sanjay Gupta and the directors of his factory. Their formula is to take some Hollywood or obscure Korean film, and pass off the idea and screenplay as their own.
The latest, Acid Factory, by Suparn Verma, is a particularly hopeless case, since the film it is copied from, called Unknown is hardly a masterpiece. Then, there is the criminal waste of money, carting a whole unit to South Africa to shoot in an isolated factory, when there are enough such derelict spots all over India; and if cars have to be needlessly blown up, it can be done just as well here.
Then, in its quest to be cool—which means everyone wears black and walks in slow motion at least once—the film goes back and forth in time. How are those who cannot read English, to know that the story has gone “five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier,” and so on…
In brief, the film is about a group of men (Fardeen Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea) who find themselves locked in an acid factory in the middle of nowhere; later a woman turns up (Dia Mirza) in a backless catsuit. Due to a gas leak, they all suffer from memory loss. A phone call from a man called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan), gives them a clue that two of them are to be killed. How is it that the factory got locked from the outside, and how come none of them has a scrap of identifying paper (wallet, credit card) on them or even a cell phone, is not explained. But they are all in black suits and leather, one of them (Dino) has a hat clamped on his curls.
In the outside world, Kaizer is organizing the ransom collection for a kidnapped man, as his wife (Neha Bajpai) and a cop (Gulshan Grover) try to nab him. Gradually, the memories of the men and woman return and they figure out who is doing what to whom… but the audience couldn’t care less. Even the mandatory night club pole dance, elicits bored yawns; and that sudden smooch between Irrfan and Dia, gets a giggle or two—because it is done with such a lack of passion.
Even though it’s slickly shot and only 95 minutes long, it’s a chore to sit through Acid Factory, watching a bunch of (mostly) dud actors.
It isn’t... but it should be the prime reason for making a film, that a filmmaker has a story he badly wants to tell cinematically. Obviously this doesn’t work for Sanjay Gupta and the directors of his factory. Their formula is to take some Hollywood or obscure Korean film, and pass off the idea and screenplay as their own.
The latest, Acid Factory, by Suparn Verma, is a particularly hopeless case, since the film it is copied from, called Unknown is hardly a masterpiece. Then, there is the criminal waste of money, carting a whole unit to South Africa to shoot in an isolated factory, when there are enough such derelict spots all over India; and if cars have to be needlessly blown up, it can be done just as well here.
Then, in its quest to be cool—which means everyone wears black and walks in slow motion at least once—the film goes back and forth in time. How are those who cannot read English, to know that the story has gone “five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier,” and so on…
In brief, the film is about a group of men (Fardeen Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea) who find themselves locked in an acid factory in the middle of nowhere; later a woman turns up (Dia Mirza) in a backless catsuit. Due to a gas leak, they all suffer from memory loss. A phone call from a man called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan), gives them a clue that two of them are to be killed. How is it that the factory got locked from the outside, and how come none of them has a scrap of identifying paper (wallet, credit card) on them or even a cell phone, is not explained. But they are all in black suits and leather, one of them (Dino) has a hat clamped on his curls.
In the outside world, Kaizer is organizing the ransom collection for a kidnapped man, as his wife (Neha Bajpai) and a cop (Gulshan Grover) try to nab him. Gradually, the memories of the men and woman return and they figure out who is doing what to whom… but the audience couldn’t care less. Even the mandatory night club pole dance, elicits bored yawns; and that sudden smooch between Irrfan and Dia, gets a giggle or two—because it is done with such a lack of passion.
Even though it’s slickly shot and only 95 minutes long, it’s a chore to sit through Acid Factory, watching a bunch of (mostly) dud actors.
Labels: Cinemaah
