Tasveer 8 x 10 : More dud than thriller
iView Author: Pankaj Mullick (New Delhi,India)
Email: pankajmullick [at] gmail.com
More dud than thriller … and that’s no secret
It’s not every day that we get the promise of a good thriller from a director who has shown some sparks of talent. Dor may not have been a box office success but it did show that the man has a finger on the pulse of human sensitivities and actually managed to draw a stellar performance from airhead babe Ayesha Takia (now Azmi).
That feat however has not been repeated with Tasveer and Mrs Takia Azmi manages a lukewarm performance at best. That is sadly the case for most of the rest of the cast as well. Think about it. With actors such as Girish Karnad, Sharmila Tagore and Anant Mahadevan and no resulting performances that amaze, one wonders what went wrong. One could easily blame the director but in this case what seems more apt is looking at roles which don’t allow for any performances to write home about.
And the script is the one that is likely to disappoint most. Without risking any spoilers, I shall attempt to explain why.
The plot starts out well enough with psychic abilities defining Akshay Kumar’s role. He can look at a picture and connect to the exact moment when it was clicked and to the thoughts of the person whose picture he focuses on. Nice enough premise.
The twist comes with his father, with whom he has a strange equation, drowns while his near and dear ones stand helplessly by. Circumstances don’t warrant suspicion until Javed Jaffrey, a detective with a shady past, who is also connected to the family, comes out of the blue to ask some uncomfortable questions. Javed is also the comic relief in a movie that really needs it but his character is suspiciously modeled on another, much better TV-based detective who suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder.
As it turns out, the father was about to sell of the oil company that he owns and donate all the money to the environmental protection agency that Akshay runs leaving the key shareholders – all of whom are on the boat off which the drowning takes place – in the lurch. Motive established. Good. More than one suspect. Great.
However, at least one strain of the genre tend to set up the audience to believe in the guilt of one suspect after another till the whodunit becomes excruciating. The spectators speculate toying with theories and finally bet on one that seems solid. Then the trick lies in revealing the devious malefactor and flashbacks take you back to the subtle hints scattered throughout the film that in retrospect seem inescapable. And this ‘jaw drop effect’ tends to fuel a belief in the sheer intelligence of the plot.
Nagesh doesn’t entertain any of this and instead brings in a very old hackneyed ploy that makes you want to scream because you have yet again been fooled into believing you would get something new and intriguing. More to the point, you feel your intelligence has been insulted and you could have really, really stayed home. Alas you find out only near the climax which in itself is anticlimactic (I mean who gets off on being fooled).
Nagesh, more was expected of you.
Interestingly, Nagesh made a plea to critics not to reveal the end calling it the thriller’s USP. Though I am tempted (enough to almost text all whose sanity I treasure), I don’t really believe in killing a properly dead horse.
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
Nagesh Kukunoor is one helluva overrated director. Most of his films are heavily inspired from other sources. The much acclaimed Dor is a copy of national award winnig Malayalam film Perumazhakkalam (Heavy monsoon).
He is not or rather never be in the league of top Indian directors. So 8×10 Tasveer is obviously a wash out.
Guess thats the case with any regional movies made in the country . Noone even realises that there are good cinema made in other languages as well . Atleast the film maker should have the conscience to give credit to the original script. its a shame that he didnt.
Unfortunately, Nagesh has more flops to his credit than hits or we could even say sensible movies….
Hyd Blues was good masala, the next one I liked was Iqbal(even though the direction looked a bit amateurish) and finally Dor(splendid performances & photography).
Just three in a decade with excellent producers to back is quite unconvincing and sad. He is really overrated now, may god give him some sense not to venture into unknown domain….
PS: I am not listing his flops, because I do not wish to degrade him by doing that. I still believe he has the passion.
Since when did hits or flops become a indicator of a director’s caliber. Going by that yardstick, Anuraag has given 3 flops and one semi-hit.
I loved Rockford, Bollywood Calling and Teen Deewarein. At the time of their release each of them was as independent as it could get. Hats off to Nagesh for pulling those off. One bad movie doesn’t mean…you write him off or disparage him.
To me, he is still the one of the poster boys of independent cinema
Well said Vindows.
Nagesh’s work is truly laud worthy. He has made some beautiful movies like HB, Rockford, Teen Deewarein, Dor, and my personal favorite Iqbal, which according to me is one of the best Hindi films of the last decade. Writing him off in such manner because of a few ‘failures’ is very unfair.