REVIEW: The Film Emotional Atyachar

HARD CHASING AND GORE

The Film Emotional Atyachar is an unpublicised, unheralded production that seems to have made it to the theatres almost sneakily. It is a caper comedy that follows the established tropes of the genre, but one that compares rather favourably with its thematic predecessors like last year’s Kaminey or 2007’s Johnny Gaddaar, films that went far in establishing the heist film as an entertaining sub-genre of contemporary Hindi cinema. 

In terms of plot, it follows a ragtag bunch of ne'er-do-wells all conspiring (unwittingly or otherwise) to end up with a brown leather bag that contains crores of rupees, which is passed around in rather conspicuous fashion. Here, a casino must be saved from foreclosure (of sorts) by taking money from a corporate house no less, funds that had initially been pledged to a factory owner (Mohit Ahlawat) towards a perfectly lawful engineering project. Throw in a couple of corrupt cups (Vinay Pathak & Ranvir Shorey, in deliciously tapori mode) who’re on the case of the casino owner and have decided to keep his sultry wife (Kalki Koechlin) as collateral while one of them (Shorey) nurtures an infatuation for her; and a trio of small time goons (led by a blistering Ravi Kissen) who’ve learned of large sums of money exchanging hands and have turned up to appropriate the loot for themselves; and we’re ready to go.

In what is his first film, helmer Akshay Shere scores well in almost all departments. There is an unrelenting pace to the proceedings, and the performances are top-notch across the board, with just one or two weak links. The cast is aided by a cracklingly witty script, and the motley crew of characters, seasoned hands and pretenders alike, appear to deliver verbal missives with rather more alacrity than they are able to display fleetness with the gun. For all the doom and gloom that may follow the shenaninigans (as is the wont of an archetypal hard chaser), this isn’t a cautionary tale, and we are invited to crack up even in the most morbid situations for e.g. a man trying to retrieve a bullet from his friend’s (a brilliant Snehal Dhabi) open wound with a heated knife in a scene that proves to be excruciating and funny.

Of the cast, Ms Koechlin isn’t initially allowed to expand upon her high-kicking majorette-like persona from Dev.D but towards the end, she manages to lace her under-written part with a vicious tanginess as the film hurtles headlong towards a climax. Anand Tiwary, who plays a Gujju tourist who gets mixed up in all of this while driving from Goa to Mumbai in the dead of night, adds to his rapidly increasing repertoire of scene-stealing cameos (as seen most recently in Udaan and Aisha). However Mr Ahlawat’s businessman is etched with a kind of clean-cuttedness that makes him a bit of a misnomer in the overall scheme of things.

As the twists and turns are neatly tied up, the film comes to an unsatisfactory (and adrupt) end with the spoils ending up with the most insipid character in the set-piece. This isn’t quite an expected pay-off, and comes across as an afterthought rather than a carefully constructed coda. For its chutzpah and its a-thrill-a-minute spiel, and allowing for a certain degree of suspension of disbelief, this is still a worthwhile excursion to the cinema but there’s that little wee bit we do end up feeling short-changed by.

Comments

[deepagahlot]

Go VP Go!

[Deepa Deosthalee]

Should have watched this instead of WAF!