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Black Friday’s Brilliance Over-hyped?
Two viewings of Black Friday….worthwhile…Friday night..took my breath away, maybe more so by the euphoria created by the media and the response on here, after all it was in waiting for more than 2 years…Sunday i find something missing….does it mean the movie dies on you? I have no answer to it….On the first viewing I loved it, but I also felt that there was something missing in the movie which I couldn’t figure it..and blamed it on the slow first half and the Baadshah Khan track ..there was something in the movie which was stopping it from becoming a masterclass…there was something that all the other reviewers missed..or was I just over-reacting and trying to just find the minutest of mistakes? or that unconvincing factor or that something…no idea…..to start with…the DVD version that I saw had a lot of portions missing and also it had a few portions which I did not see on the larger screen..so it could be a possibility that I might not have seen certain footages and might have missed the details…
As opposed to a lot of viewer/reviewers, Black Friday didn’t send me on a high that it was able to, to most of them…Black Friday to me is a fine product to come out of Bollywood…end of matter…but, to sky-rocket it by calling it a brilliant movie, to call it a masterclass, to call it a cult movie..is stretching it a bit too far. I liked the way Anurag dealt with key notes. How does general viewer remember the movie…he is satisfied if the movie got him engrossed when he left the theatre…he leaves theatre twice..in the interval and at the end….Anurag played his cards perfect here…the scene before the interval was magnificent ( Might argue it was dramatic framing of the events)…the ending was wow..the eerie sounds after the blasts..the bloody faces, the ruk Jaa reh Bande track….In between all these Anurag reaches great heights( I do not want to expand that…gazillion have done it) and also shows he is just two movies old…
For all the talk Black Friday might as well be India’s entry to Oscars…but, then in a country where Jeans is India’s official entry to Oscars….Black Friday deserves to be gift wrapped and sent to Oscars…No denying the fact that Black Friday’s real success lies in the fact that the issue of Black Friday was dealt with…but, one thing I cannot understand is everyone going ga-ga over the matter that Anurag did not take a stance on anything..neither the terrorist nor the cops..he was neutral….If not taking a stance in your movie makes you brilliant…I need producers….The point that I am trying to make here is that…There are some filmmakers who make movies taking a stance and then there are some who don’t…If a filmmaker doesn’t take a side while narrating a story and leaves it to the facts to take care of the judgement….why will that make him more of a brilliant than those who take sides of a certain real-life incident…beats me!!!!
Black Friday to me had a episodic brilliance to it and all kudos to Anurag for it..but then it was episodic…and between each brilliance there was an amateurness which pulls the movie a couple a notches below from where it ought to have been…scene this:
1. The scene where the guys throw grenades in vast populated area….The shot was designed in such a way that you get a nagging feeling that the actors where standing in the shot radius and waiting for the director to shout “ACTION” and the thread is pulled a little harder when you see them running in the direction where they threw the grenade…huh?
2. The Chase Scene: The havaldar is running helter skelter behind Imtiaz Ghavate and then you see two other cops sitting on a railing talking without a care in the world…and then another cop comes in and spots Ghavate and they start running again…huh?
3. The chase scene though was mind-blowing, but the germ of RGV is stamped on it…
4. Asgar Muqqadam…The interrogation was nothing but brilliant…the shot, the acting, the editing..everything..followed by what? Asgar telling a story in such vivid details as if he were a part of all the trades…All right..lets give a benefit of doubt here..saying that Asgar might have come to know later about what exactly happened..but, if you see..right after the blast everyone is at Theda’s Den and they immediately spread out after the news…then..huh?
5. The thread showing Asgar telling all the details was dragged a bit..the slickness in it was missing. the slickness…some may argue was not required in a movie like BF…then again I found the slickness in Dawood Phanse story-telling…Why then not that in Asgar Muqqadam? Faulty editing? Huh?
6. The Blast effect: The blast sequence and the immediate aftermath of it was no short of brilliant..but.. For a blast as powerful as that…I would have expected a couple more police vans and a few more ambulances…nah..not shown..where as the glaring contrasts of that can be seen in the news clippings that are shown…when the movie is shown as the true depiction of events that happened on that day and you are also producing news images of that place to show the similarity this should have been taken care of…huh?
If not for this intermingling of Brilliance and amateurness Black Friday could have gone down the history books as the “BEST-EVER”…Take for instance the metaphors so subtly shown…
1. Baadshah khan is in Tonk with Theda and gang and a dog is shown jumping trying to catch the ball from its master….what a metaphor
2. ( Thanks to oz for this): Just after the grenade attack there is a scene of a couple of guys jumping into a pond merrily…
3. The famous chase where the TV goes “ Ruk Jao warna goli maar doonga” where as the havaldar has just a “lathi” in his hand.
The spark of a genius is evident in Anurag Kashyap, but unfortunately Black Friday is not the movie that would make me believe that would remove the spark in the “Spark of a genius” and make him a genius.
P.S: I agree with most of the reviewers who loved the movie for various reasons…even I loved those various aspects…my point in writing this article is to bring out certain aspects which were not mentioned/noticed or conveniently forgotten. No way denying the fact that it is really good to see movies like Black friday coming from the Bollywood stable and Anurag does need to take a bow, but…
22 Responses to “Black Friday’s Brilliance Over-hyped?”
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hey OM points 1,2 and 3 r valid,
but for 4.Asgar was present at Theda’s den wen all were watching the events of the day on doordarshan…
well my point is wen different stories were being told, they werent told like the different characters like asgar or dawood phanse r teling them themselves (which normally happens in commercial hindi movies like going in flash back), it was more of like reading the book again, it was more of the interpretation of wat cud hav happened based on the interrogations of asgar or dawood phanse which Hussain Zaidi found during his research work, and their pictorial representation, i hope u understand wat i hav to say.
By no means is it a perfect film. Every film has its share of flaws. For me personally, the brilliance of Black Friday first of all lies in the fact that a movie like Black Friday with its tone and style was even made in India to begin with. I think we all take away something much larger from the film than these minor inconsistencies.
I call it a masterpiece not because of supposed historical accuracies, but because the storytelling worked for me. The characters drew me in. Since 2005, I have seen Black Friday at least 6 or 7 times and of course, when you watch a film that many times, you tend to find the flaws. For example, all the exterior shots in Dubai, which are supposed to be set in 1993 show 2003-2004 Toyota Corolla’s and Mazda’s on the roads. Did I notice that the first time I watched the film? No! Second time, No. I only noticed it when I had had my fill of the characters and decided to break the film down in subsequent viewings.
But when you watch the film for the first few times, especially for people like me who lived in Bombay during the riots and the bomb blasts, the film hits home. We don’t look for directorial deficiencies in the film. We’re trying to understand what happened in those times. We tend to look beyond these things, and if we do notice the innacuracies, we forgive them, because for us, this is our story - a story that needed to be told. And THAT is what makes Black Friday a masterpiece in my eyes. It is of no consequence whether the film is sent to the Oscars. We don’t care if it doesn’t win a single award even in India. Black Friday is a film that is above all that for us, because this is our story, and now, it has been told.
@ kaafir yes man.. i do understand your point and also you have simplified the aspect pretty neat…but when the things were unfloded during the Asgar iterrogation..the VO( voice Over) was of Asgar..and that is what i could get from it.. so…
@ Vijay..so true…yes this story had to be told and behold..was told by Anurag in a very creative way…but my angst was aginst those reviewers who are treating the movie in a very uni-dimensional way without noticing the defects in the movie….my question is why? Why dont you point to the defects that were glaring ( to some)..what kind of critique is that? And we being so biased and passionate about Anurag..i felt the NEED to point those out…
yes OM u r right, i accept ur point,
there were a little inaccuracies,
but i dont think we r over hyping it,
well the movie is a huge success among PFC readers,
the plaza’s of dadar west r goin housefull,
but u know very few theaters in India r actually
goin housefull over this movie,
i saw this movie in a posh multiplex
in pune and there were only 20 ppl with me,
most normal ppl i speak to in day to day life
dunno anything abt this movie, well for most
ppl in India and i m saying majority r himesh fans,
and for them this is the closest to reality
tat they hav seen,
so i guess some flaws r required to make a movie a earn atleast wat has gone into it,
well i m souding like defending the inaccuracies
which u hav pointed which wasnt my aim while beginning to write,
but alas, i just cant bring myself to say the movie is being overhyped, not just now,
maybe after a few years wen anurag comes up
with another gem, the comparisons may happen,
but for now,
this is the 2nd best movie ever made in India
first being Hazoroon khwahishen aisi……
wow..i can finally nitpick here…
whoever dubbed for the old man in rampur (suna hai 5000 hindu maare gaye) and nafisa (tabiyat kharaab hai) did a very mediocre job. it sounded very plastic.:d
Hi OM,
brutally honest indeed!!!(I havent seen the
movie yet…too many stupid commitments u
know)…My point is …..most of the critics
now-a-days r a frustrated lot of unsuccessful
film makers….so better not give them the
respect they r getting now(god knows why)….I
am sure anurag will take this criticism as a
constructive one….u need people who r honest
in pointing out ur mistakes rather than people
who criticise just to make their name appear in
a tabloid or a newspaper(but it is their bread
and butter man…what else r they capable of
doing?)….what say OM???
Raaj
//OM
Sumeet: I know you told me your view on the phone when we spoke on Sunday, but some of your gripes are very very trivial and if all 6 of your major gripes have to be explained on screen, then the running time would be matching the Salam E Ishq’s.
Would you want me to counter each of those 6 points? Nah, I won’t (not that I cant). All I know is you should give some amount of leeway and let your imagination work to plug the holes.
I saw the movie on Tuesday night in a multiplex
in Pune. The theater was half filled. There was a
bunch of rowdy guys which was poking fun at the
blood wrenched bodies shown in the beginning. But in a few minutes they were silent. They kept
quite for the rest of the movie. There in lies the power of the movie. It has made the a documentary subject watchable for AAM JANTA. Also,many of the minor characters stay with you after the movie. If this requires a few compromises, so be it.
I dont think the movie is overhyped. Recenty I have found a new definition for overhype. In my dictionary,
OVERHYPE = GURU
This may not be Anurag’s best. But I think this was an AWESOME first.
Akash
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Akash, I saw the movie first day first show in Pune too. The guys sitting next to me were saying things like, “kya pakaa rahein hai, yaar”, “haan, theek hai, bahut hua”…They were not poking fun or anything, it was more like, “yeah we know this, what next?”
@ Raaj Pillai, I am fortunate that i am not earning my bread and butter by writing reviews on PFC…:)>-
@ wb…As always thank you mere bhai
@ Anantha I dont get it..when, i was asking for was Slickness..how could the movie be long? I think you did not read my “gripes” carefully…lets discuss after you read it one more time…
@ Aakash please read my P.S in bold at the end of the article :)
@ meeta, thank God we didn’t experience any of that crap in our two viewing
Om: Mebbe I overstated. No, I understand your yearning for slickness, but at least half of the six major (numbered) points you have questioned can be explained with some imagination. If the director had to show all that specifically on screen, then that would affect the running time.
Let me go ahead and do that.
1. Running in the same direction as the grenade - The slum is a maze, so just because the initial movement is in the direction of the explosion does not mean they will end up there.
2. The Ghavate chase - The cops spilt up. One by one they thought they lost Imtiaz inside the maze, except the one that was right behind him. So they sit down waiting for the others to land up. They spot Imtiaz again and start chasing him.
4. Regarding the Dawood Phanse sequence, I felt exactly the opposite when I compared it to the Asghar sequence.
6. More ambulances - There was not one blast, but more than a dozen. So would it be safe to assume that Mumbai’s support system would be stretched by such an unprecedented event?
I shall wait for more from you on 3 and 5.
Anantha..Koi baat nahi yaar..If you may let me explain you my stand on your comments
1. Logically wouldn’t it mean you are running into the crowd…when there was large empty space away from the blast…meaning behind the back of the terrorists
2. The havaldar had a walkie-talkie and he tells one of the cops on it…Ghavate mere saamne hain..on the pipeline..
5. ( I think you were talking about the 5th point and not 4th)… Did you think the slickness on the Phanse track should have been slowed down?
6. the news report shows a lot more number ambulances…and the movie was a replica of news report..wasn’t it? ( atleast the blast)
My take on RGV “germ”..I think i has said it earlier too that the Chase sequences reminded me a lot of the chase in Shiva where Nagarjuna is with his niece…hand held cameras..running on pipelines, narrow lanes, etc..
I do respect your opinion yaar!!!!!
OM:
1. That would mean that they would run straight into a sparse crowd of people that have PROBABLY seen them throw the grenade, right? So what would you do? Run into a maze and into a different crowd even hoping to lose whoever saw you throw it and who was bold enough to try and chase you down and catch you? Or would go straight to them? And in case, if I vaguely remember, there was nowhere to run in the opposite direction since there was a river or something bounding that open space of land.
2. Yes, but not after that. They don’t get a running commentary from the havaldar. Let me see the movie again. I don’t think that the havaldar is even behind Imitiaz when this incident happens (correct me if I am wrong).
5. I thought the Phanse track was not as fleshed out as the Asghar track. For example, Tiger walks on to the beach and asks people where Phanse is and someone tells him that there are more things to be taken care of. Next shot is of Phanse continuing his chatting/drinking with his “friends”/officials. He never comes to the beach. Again, I am committing the same crime as you are, i.e. faulting an otherwise minor angle which, if depicted on screen would have added a couple of minutes more, at least to the running time. Instead you have the scene were AK himself makes a cameo.
6. Would you attribute the lack of ambulances to, (I am being very frivolous here), mebbe the camera angle? I mean, instead of showing a million cars in rows in a open piece of land, you can escape by showing just two rows from an angle. Simplicity man! But frankly, I don’t remember much of this scene (if you are talking about the scenes in the start of the movie) cos like i told I had just walked in, 2 to 5 mins after the movie began.
And as for the RGV resemblance, I have the DVD of Shiva sitting in my shelf for the past two months. My India trip and work issues after that have stopped me from spending any time with that movie! This coming weekend, mebbe!
@ Anantha lets talk on the fone..i currently do not have the energy to types all this…:)
Sorry folks for posting the same comment in two posts. Wasn’t sure whether readers of one post will read the other. Anyway, won’t happen again.
Yeah, you were lucky to have more sensitive people around you while watching the movie, but the point is that some people did get bored. So, it did not have the same effect on everybody.
OM
Quite interesting ur findings r.I have a suggestion for u. why did most of us or critics ignore the flaws? Find out the reason, u will get the answer.
This film is all about an idea…. Dost.Hw does it matter that who presents it and in what way.We have come a long way.This film was the need of hour.And it came out with atleast some accuracy ….. isnt that enough.First-of-its-kind.Expect many more films like this and offcourse better than this.Society has to put in lot of efforts to produce a Fellini or a Makhmalbaf.The more we r willing to pay the price the more honest efforts will come out.
And above all, perfection is such a boring idea that it creates nothing but monotony.Remember the basic theory of Indian and Gothic architecture? Both the traditions denied perfection as a tool for entirely different reasons.Look at the richness of these traditions.
Regards
hi all. nice blog. its very ineresting article.
the only thing i felt missing in black friday was a ‘hero’(that one ‘man’ who utters those immortal lines and does what a common man cannot do, we got so used to it, so we feel something missing)like satya and bhiku mahtre which made satya more endearing and unforgettable..but satya was not a real story and it has no limitations which black friday has…
(it would have been a big hit if the film was made with inspector vijay and not inspector rakesh maria:d)
i enjoyed the film, i don’t know why, but it made me feel proud for what i am