Director: Chandan Arora
Cast: Siddharth, Aditya Pancholi, Padmapriya, Ankur Vakil
Quick Take: Siddharth steals the show
Bombay in 1992. In 1988. In 1977. Striker is an art director’s wet dream. The textures are real, the colours authentic and the ambience is bang on. The film with its clever camera work and frames gives you Bombay not Mumbai. The squally lanes, the ghettos of Malvani, the underworld, the struggle, the fire, the angst, it’s all there in Chandan Arora’s Striker. Save for a coherent plotline. The film has some trouble making up its mind as to what it really wants to say, what the story really is about and that’s the principal flaw. Supposedly a loose biopic the film follows the life of Suryakant Sarang a carrom whiz played to perfection by Sidhaarth. The canvas has a moody quality and a wonderful assembly of actors. The background score is intriguing and cleverly used and the songs too flow seamlessly within the narrative. But the story itself is erratic and fails to hold beyond a point. The characters are interesting though be it Surya who rarely smiles (but when he does, the camera springs to life), Zayed (played brilliantly by Ankur Vakil) or Jalil essayed by Aditya Pancholi.
A lot of carrom is played in the film but naturally, but for those who are uninitiated with the game or not interested in it, these bits can be a drag. Romance in the film is strategically used and both the girls Nicollete Bird who plays Noorie and Padmapriya who plays Madhu are charming. Aditya Pancholi who plays the badass Bhai is superlative. He is stylish, forceful and looks like he had a ball doing the role. Sidhaarth’s striking screen presence is only enhanced by his nuanced turn. He makes us root for Surya and plays him with honesty and conviction. We’d like to see him do some fun zany roles in Hindi like the ones he plays with such aplomb in his Telugu films. The actor makes the film worth a dekko. Otherwise despite it’s engaging premise the film doesn’t manage to strike a very strong note.
Sukanya Venkatraghavan
http://www.filmfare.com/articles/striker-442.html
Khalid mohammed reviews Striker - 3/5
ReplyDelete[url]http://passionforcinema.com/carrom-a-cola/[/url]
Scream, life’s no dream. When his sister is killed in a communal riot, he is outraged to the point of crying out to the gods. In fact, whenever the carrom champ lets his frustrations out, he comes across as the New Age angry man – without possessing a stupendous height, powder keg muscles and savage snarls. He’s quite real, as vulnerable as any wayfarer on the street.
Quite clearly, the characterisation of the carrom-board gambler is the most unvarnished element of Chandan Arora’s Striker; the other uncompromised factor is the use of indoor as well as outdoor locations, devoid of the artifice of glamour lighting and floral set décor. A booze joint almost emits the stink of santra-mosambi country liquor. And there are authentic allusions like the one to the Najeevan Society terrace in the heart of central Mumbai, which was once reported to be the hotbed of illicit matka, card games and miscellaneous underworld sport.
The plot hinging on two buddies, Surya (Siddharth) and Zaid (Ankur Vikal), is evidently inspired by a real life story, and in a way almost Martin Scorsesean. The mean streets of Malvani, a distant suburb of Mumbai, as depicted by Arora has no option but to breed losers. And when the desperadoes play too fast-`n’-furiously, tragedy is endemic. Perhaps in recent years, in Bombay-produced cinema Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaastav has stated this, with an unequalled lacerating effect. Arora’s effort does leave an impact but the wallop is not as strong as it could have been. A pity.
Surprisingly, this appears to be because of the frequent obscure and confusing editing. Arora is a professional editor who turned to direction with Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon and Main Meri Patni aur Woh .Without getting into their merits – or the lack of them – suffice it to say that at least they were sharply cut and narrated coherently. Um, what happened? The shift back from the 1992-’93 communal riots to an earlier decade is, alas, much too choppy. So at some point, you quit figuring out the logistics, to concentrate on the meat and potatoes of the story, and ignore the swirling gravy. Burp.
After the convoluted opening reels, you do go with Surya and Zaid, facing their private hells, at home and outside. Surya has been cool at the carrom board since his pre-teenage days. He is now hustled into showdowns with tough-guy contestants at low as well high stake games masterminded by one of those scarfaced underworld dons (Aditya Pancholi, with a Y-shaped gash across his cheek). Carrom as a near-gladiator sport, you are told without mincing any words, thrives alongside a parallel cocaine trade.
Plus, no mealy-mouthed apologies are made. Surya is a hard-drinker and Zaid is deep into the drug world. Their friendship, never exaggerated or trivialised, is believable, ridden with violent quarrels and what-the-hell-let’s-patch-up moments.
So far, so tough. Arora falters though, when he shows Surya so violently upset one night that he rapes the booze joint girl (Padmapriya, quite Tabu-like). Very fantasy-like, he marries her soonest. Abracadabra. Is life in the demi-monde truly that simple? In addition, the sub-strand about the communal riots is left dangling, tackled mainly through the attempts by an upright cop (Anupam Kher, credible) to control the volatile situation by barking orders at drunken and politically engineered police subordinates. Oof.
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All said and seen, Striker lets off steam, like a pressure cooker come to boil. Now only if it had been smoothly edited, you would have said, “Wow.” In its current shape, you end up saying, “Hey, not bad” about this Carrom-a- Cola.
So, do it again Chandan Arora…but look at the final edit objectively. Please.
I don't agree with the idea of youtube release. I know it is a step to reduce piracy, but I don't think it can be a solution. Because paying and watching on youtube is similar to a DVD release which u can buy and watch at home.
ReplyDeleteYes - but it is better than not paying at all and simply downloading the film. Striker is a small film and it will not need so much to recoup costs.
ReplyDelete