Genre : Drama
Year : 2003
Director : Nagesh Kukunoor
Cast : Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, Nagesh Kukunoor, Juhi Chawla, Gulshan Grover
TEEN DEEWAREIN : TWIST IN THE TAIL !
I’d heard a lot about this film, and everyone pretty much gave it rave reviews. And while Kukunoor has proved to be quite adepting at presenting stories on the screen (Dor, Iqbal), he is not quite the director, yet. Expecially when he casts himself. Still, this is an interesting film, and well worth the watch.
The film is about 3 convicts on death-row, and a film-maker Chandrika (Chawla) who comes in to interview them and get to know more about their lives and compulsions. There is Jaggu (Shroff) a philosophical almost-poet, who believes he deserves to be hanged and that death is his atonement. There is Nagya (Kukunoor), who tries to convince everyone he knows that he hasn’t committed the crime he’s going to be hanged for. Hope is what his life hinges now, believing that one day his truth will come to light. The 3rd convict is Ishaan (Shah) a small-time con-man, who’s gotten an accidental death on his hands. He seems the most unrepentant of the lot.
Chandrika follows them around their daily chores, talks to them and films them talking about their lives and their guilt. The wife of an abusive man, Chandrika also has her own problems to deal with. But as Ishaan discovers later, Chandrika has motives beside the obvious for choosing to dissect these three convict lives . . .
The story has quite a few twists and turns and unexpected connections. This de-glamourised film is presented sans frills (no song and dance routine here) and is stark and at times brutal (like the scene where Chandrika’s husband tells her he wishes that she was a bit more attractive). The actors do a competent job, although I could have done without Kukunoor as Nagya; it’s not that he’s ineffective, his acting just lacks the punch which comes with a strong delivery.
The script and screenplay are fairly strong, so the film holds your interest, although if you’ve watched other Hollywood convict films (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) you might not be quite as enthusiastic as a greenhorn.
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