Review : Traffic Signal

[amazon_link id=”B004R2521O” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : Average (3/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2007
Running time : 2 hrs and 20 minutes
Director : Madhur Bhandarkar
Cast : Kunal Khemu, Konkona Sen-Sharma, Neetu Chandra, Sudhir Mishra, Ranveer Shourie

TRAFFIC SIGNAL : DAMP SQUIB !

Another Bhandarkar film. Another film on stark reality. This time on the ubiquitous traffic signal – the one we pass by in a fleeting few minutes. The film looks closely all the people who depend on the traffic signal for their livelihood. A little about each character, their lives, loves, struggles.

Silsila (Khemu) is the “manager” of one traffic signal, that is he collects the “hafta” from each signal squatter plying his trade. There’s Tsunami, a little scavenger boy, hoping for news from his parents lost in the tsunami, there’s Rani – a Gujrati girl selling ethnic clothes on the sidewalk, and there’s Dominic (Ranvir Shourie) – a drug addict and the prostitute (Konkona) who feels for him. Then there’s Silsila himself, who’s an orphan, and reports to Jaffer bhai the local goon.

Jaffer bhai in turn reports to Haji (Mishra) the leader of the local mafia. And the hafta, from each traffic signal and territory Haji controls, seeps upward to the politicians. Life is routine, until Silsila and Jaffer bhai get caught up in a chain of events which threatens the very source of their livelihood – the traffic signal itself, and Silsila must either remain mute with fear or protest . . .

Bhandarkar’s earlier films – “Chandni Bar” and ”Page 3” were stunning in comparison to his later products. His work further spirals downward with “TS”. The film suffers from a lack of plot; it’s more an ode to the Traffic Signal than a film. Bhandarkar could have written a poem instead of making this film, and it would have suited me just fine. The action/plot (so to speak) appears in the last half hour, too late and too weak to make it worth the wait. While the look into the lives of the Signal dwellers is interesting in a documentar-ish fashion, it does not make for engrossing cinema.

The acting is good enough; with some briliant acting going to waste. Konkona and Shourie’s characters don’t impact the story in any way – which is such a pity. Kunal Khemu is OK, as is Sudhir Mishra. The director takes pains to etch out the characters, and to introduce us to the grimy underbelly of Mumbai’s street-dwellers. However this concept of street-side character vignettes doesn’t work without a compelling story.

A very, very average film; a DVD rental might be best.