Drona : 10 things that went wrong
1. Babujee kehte the. First you thought you were watching Chamku, each time this dialogue is repeated. Then each new time Babuji gyan is mentioned… you have this strong inner urge to meet the Babuji and slam the idiot for doing so much kehte the to his daughter. Mercifully Babuji never shows up and neither does Matajee kehti thi begin after Babuji.
2. The Crying Game. No, no transsexual shows up though you wish they would to provide any remote entertainment that could have been squeezed in. Each time any character cries, one sits watching the crying scene in an unaffected manner. The characters never reached within a mile of its audience.
3. Arrogance is in… and out So far I though this was the exclusive right of Vivek Oberoi… but now he has company in the form of Abhishek Bachchan. Both now have achieved a rarely seen before event in Hindi cinema. They both have perfected the mistake where instead of looking arrogant-in-character behind the camera, they look-arrogant-in-character at the camera, which in short means YOU.
4. Hit hammer to head to understand Anurag Kashyap for his No Smoking has competition from Goldie Behl for his Drona. Scenes need special tutors standing by the side to help you understand what they mean. The bubble scene in water which shows up twice or thrice is bound to give even the research scientists a complex, so does the Abhishek – Abhishek underwater scene. Maybe we all are too dumb to comprehend what these scenes were. We all need a new hobby.
5. Open Letter to Shri Kay Kay Menon WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? It is high time we all sit down together and have a few cups of chai and samosas and really point out the limitations… your limitations… our depressions. Shaurya and now Drona… roles requiring a heavy-duty-screen-presence and an on-screen-earth-shattering persona with a booming voice riding on the back… is and tragically could only be executed by the late Amrish Puri. Don’t you see it? They are trying to mould you into an Amrish Puri-saab. Which you are not! Your strength lies in the common man. Those complex amalgamation of human emotions running through the common-man-character, that you so brilliantly make it your own, breathing such life into it that very few else can. Watching you play such Drona roles makes us do just one thing… slash our wrists as we walk out of the theater. Stop it!
6. Open Letter to Dear Jaya Bachchan Watched your performance in Drona… and I cried… because I’ve never been so let down by you. I had to call Mom in India to warn her not to watch Drona. She being your ardent fan, having followed your career from day one of your first film… she would go on a hunger strike for a week, if she ever did (watch Drona). And (my) Babuji would be forced to follow suit.
7. Foreign Techs don’t mean it’s the best Either the producers of Drona were taken for a ride or perhaps the Foreign techs had so little equipment or days or budget to work out the stunts for Drona, that we get leftovers of leftovers of leftovers in Drona. All the talk in a part of the media about the supreme “stunts” and “fx” in Drona is bull.
8. Know thy strengths With due apologies, but Goldie Behl should get out of direction and stick to perhaps film production. Direction is not yet his forte.
9. Overconfidence Over the top Why would one even put a last shot that provides a glimpse of a sequel to the movie, a movie that is really bad in all its departments. What were they thinking? And what kind of environment of over-dozed praise – self or by people around, does the team of Drona live in? Above all who are the people who kept praising the team while Drona was a work-in-progress that it must have prompted the writer & director to include the wheels of a sequel in the movie. We, you, all of us need to stay away from such people.
10. Walk out but don’t rampage the theater It’s not the theater’s fault. The fault directly lies with the team of Drona, so don’t throw shit at the screens. It was tragic to hear about such incidents happening at many theaters in California.
11.
HEY!!! You said 10 things!
Ok I lied. Unless and until Eros gets a good new set of strategies and plans, only luck and their expertise in money management can save them from filing bankruptcy – if they continue to blindly back such commercial products.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
aahhh DRONA, i live for such films. after this weekend i want to grow up to be either goldie or sanjay, both are the new mavericks of film making….if only they would start a film school, ceeti-woods anyone?
gotta catch DRONA this weekend, cant remember the last time a film was so hyped up for me. hopefully it will live upto its expectations….
p.s- i guess eros is one lucky company, for every drona they can showoff a OM SHANTI OM…so i guess its a while before they need to give bankruptcy any thought….
Making fantasy film is not a Childs play,
One should understand the mythology and fairy tale genre;
Oz, was waiting for ur review on this movie….just second guesed u wud write one after readng thru ur torture series….once u had mentioned abt 80s being pathetic abt movies….80s was also the beginning of the small budget movies made by new debutant directors….and this trend of torturous movies has been omnipresent….
i think everyone had this inkling tat drona wud be a disaster….and KK menon…dnt know wats he doing in such movies….dnt know why he was present in maan gaye mughleazam as well or eve in mumbai meri jaan….perhaps he just isnt getting any other movies to act in????
I hate to admit that I saw Drona on the internet, I really had no other option. Even then, I would want my money back, for the time I spent watching this movie for the first one hour, for giving me a sleepless night thinking about the “Babuji kehte hain” thing.
But then, it is really my fault for watching a movie directed by the same guy who directed “Bas Itna sa Khwab hain”.
I believe the Bachchans have done a lot of reshooting after they were very unhappy with the first cut…looks like it has gone more haywire. Of course, I have not seen it yet and so shall reserve my comments!
i sincerely thought tat ‘bas itna sa…’ had a very good premise. but was let down by bad screenplay and direction. anyways, goldie behl will have to do a re-think before he starts shooting a sequel of this movie.
i heard small-B tell in some interview tat a movie need not be a hit to be followed up by a sequel. goldie already has the story of the sequel in mind and has only to put it down on paper. actually, at this rate he can start shooting straight away and waste some reels rather than paper. go green
Great write up,Oz. Don’t even think i am going to go anywhere close. And that makes me wonder, why is Kay Kay wasting his time with these kinda movies? Guess maybe he needs it for his bread and butter.
I don’t get it,i seriously don’t…These guys were sitting on a gold mine of a concept,if only they had devoted some more time to the screenplay,we could have had our answer to the Indiana Jones series…
And Abhishek,why oh why did u have to do this role with that paunch of yours,that hairstyle looked ridiculous enough on you without that paunch making you look worse
I recently watch the film and was waiting, when the end credit will come. Not because the film is bad but because i dont like the film. I dont agree even i single point from the above “10 things that went wrong”. Every films has it own weakness. PLZ don’t compare ANURAG KASHYAP’S film NO SOMKING with DRONA, both are of different treatment.Scenes need no special tutors standing by the side to help you understand what they mean. If anyone doesn’t understand the film then they should know that it is not his or her type of film .DRONA’S story line was very week. i dont know what is the USP of the film. Bollywood will improve only when there will be no songs and untill the duration cut down. One should RE-Edit DRONA to 90min and see the how it will come out…CHECK OUT. The problem i found in DRON is : VFX: Over all vfx Quality is good, CC was not that good, Sky replacement was very bad, No new style of VFX. COSTUME & Props: BAKWAS… looks like i am watching a CIRUS show. MUSIC: BAD, ACTING: ABHI’s acting was bad, in every scene he just pose himself as if photo fashion is going on. OVERALL no entertainment, but i appreciate the team work…. hoping for more improvement in future.ALL THE BEST
Oz..good post. I have not watched it because the promos were totally uninspiring. Care to read BR’s take on the film? He seems to be the only one praising it.
@ Anand : BR?
i appreciate the fact that they tried something new and imaginative… i wanted them to go the whole hog and not lift stuff from films like LOTR (Gandalf, the NINE…) or Harry Potter(the villains den…)… Even Kay Kay was inspired by Jack Nicholson’s Joker… the train was inspired from wild wild west (i think
).. but still, warts and all, i would like to applaud goldie for trying out something new.. that we didnt like it is a different matter, hits and flops are a part of the game… but if this process continues i think we can expect a Goopie Gain Bagha Bain in the next 10-15 yrs or so.. 
smthing that is completely Indian and original.. look what the chinese have achieved through Crouching Tiger.., Hero, The Banquet…
So here are my 10 facts about DRONA:-
1) If you create your own clone kill him saying “Afsos aap humare sabse sundar hamdshakal ni hain”
2) If you are dumb and your love interest is dumber buy a horse chances are he will be the smartest
3) You can guard the amrit from the evil even though you don’t know where the amrit is
4) If your father did a SUPER ROYAL ULTRA AWFULLY AWFUL movie (AJOOBA) you can still beat him by doing DRONA.
5) Puppets can cry no no seriously trust me and stone idols can cry too .
6) Your father never taught you this but thank god to save us all Priyanka Chopra’s father did.” Bauji kehte they dushman ko hamesha ek mauka dena chaiye haar manane ka nahin to……… STRIP
”
7) If DRONA is in coma, dance and sing an item number with lyrics “LIFE KI YEH PHILOSPHY”, he will wake up.
8) The KADA which drona flaunts actually does nothing. No super powers no magic its just a shiny cheap looking piece of obsolete jewellery
9) A horse can survive in a desert for years … and you thought Camels are the gifted ones.
10) If you are chasing the devil and the stakes are as high as “Prithvi ka sarvanaash” … sing a duet with your female bodyguard………………..
@12. Papai.
Your view is very refreshing. Even I dint like the movie. But, as you say, it’s a very good start. Lets hope for more good movies in this genre in future.
@14 I totally agree with you… though i am looking forward to raghu romeo… atleast the promo’s loooked promising.
11. Arthi V: Baradwaj Rangan –
http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/10/04/review-drona-kidnap/
Thanks Guys
For saving 500 bugs (2 movies – drona and and kidnap)
What amazes me is that Rangan’s called it lush and visually appealing. From what I’ve seen in the promos, I think it’s quite badly shot and looks tacky and ghastly at times…
some one said DRONA is a reply to SHANKAR of Sivaji. perhaps he was joking.
I dont like Sivaji either;
Such a waste,
‘Nautanki’ is better
I guess Radio Mirchi in Ahmedabad had summed up the movie in single line campaign they ran on the day of the release. The RJ would sing “Dronaaaa….. merey paisey vapas donaaaa…..”
Baradwaj Rangan, writes well, but he does have a soft corner for the Bachans. Can’t say he has been bought over. Every movie reviewer, has some bias or other. James Berardinelli is one of my favorite movie critics, but his bias for Steven Spielberg is way too obvious.
‘Every movie reviewer, has some bias or other.’
Very true. And Rangan has a knack of seeing good things even in the worst of films like Fanaa. He even praised Apna Asmaan to the skies, which I thought for all its sensitivity and good intentions, was way too shoddy.
Well he even liked Bachna Ae Haseeno too. Yeah i know to each his own. But some how of late, his views seem pretty inconsistent to me. While he does try to nitpick with movies like Mumbai Meri Jaan and Rock On, he has been giving a very wide berth to BAH and now Drona. I mean could not understand his review on Drona. It is as if he were trying to justify every weakness in it.
For all his Spielberg bias, James Berardinelli trashed Terminal and the latest Indy Jones clunker.
But actually i do feel most of the Indian critics indulge in verbal sophistry, Rangan included. Many a time i have to read their articles twice or thrice, to understand what they want to say. That is why i prefer reading Roger Ebert or James Berardinelli, most of their reviews are straight to the point. Or maybe i got a pretty Western sensibility, in that i prefer the message to come across straight.
hahhahaa…OZ, that was simply spectacular..
I can’t speak of the D-movie. It leaves me with conjestion in the heart.