Review : Shikhar

Although not bad by general Bollywood standards, this film is a dissapointment coming from Mathan, who directed the excellent Sarfarosh. This film is not only excessively preachy, it suffers from shallow characterization; everyone in the film is either bad/black or extremely pure/white. There are no grey shades to give depth.OK, so we have ex-businessman Vardhan (Sheikh) giving up his tycoon-dom to build an ashram near tribal-lands and turn all pious and holy. Then we have builder GG (Devagn) trying to get at the fertile lands of the ashram and surrounding areas, to build a modern township for the NRIs. But Vardhan Guruji amid mutterances of “Shubham” stands unmoved refusing to sell land, and even stopping GG by means of a court order. Having failed all methods of persuading Guruji, GG then tries influencing Guruji’s young son Jaidev (Kapoor). Jaidev is young, lacks common sense and easily falls prey to GG. So does he go against darling Dad or “friend” GG ?

Guessing the ending is left as an exercise to the reader. If you’re using more than one grey cell to think about this, you’re working too hard.

OK, for starters, let’s use our heads and not call the villain “GG”, it sounds like you’re addressing your sister ! Next let’s not pepper the film with articulations of “Shubham” or “Voila” – not only is this nauseating, it has left me supremely traumatised to the sound of either. Thirdly, let’s not do the “holier than thou” thing; besides being extremely annoying to watch, it also alienates viewers. Therefore, from the above statements we can infer that the film while having potential failed to execute on aforesaid potential, and left me snorting in disbelief and writhing in paroxysms of annoyance.

The story of the film, is well, not unbelievable but very predicatable, which kind of takes the fun out of things, me thinks. And the music is terrible. However, in it’s defense the film is qualitatively shot, and is bolstered by Devgan’s performance. Bipasha Basu and Amrita Rao remain inconsequential as the women in GG and Jaidev’s lives. Shahid is the usual : bad. Sushant Singh who was so admirably used in Sehar is truly wasted in a semi-comic (??) role. Javed Sheikh, while spouting “shudh” Hindi remains stony.

And Mathan has either lost his head or his touch.

Still, relatively better than regular Bollywood fare, this is watchable. If you have one of those anti-“Shubham” shields, keep it handy.