Movie Review : Luck

As soon as Luck reached the Interval point, I SMSed my friends this – Interval point in ‘Luck’. So far – terrific. What I had seen till then was a thrilling joy ride. I just loved the way the film unfolds. Natural – yet paced. The actors, the locations, the encounters – all of them were too thrilling.

Scene one grips you. Riveting you in the seat. Its pure thrill. And seeing Sanjay Dutt do it all – is pure fun. From then on, Luck starts to engulf you in a rather simple story about a bunch of characters – each with its own set of problems.

The first half primarily focuses on establishing the character. Yes, it takes too much time to do that, but at no point do you feel bored. The characters - complete with their back story and the character conflict - are established in the first half. However, the way it unfolds is not very descriptive, but still very interesting. The visuals in the first half are dark, yet revealing, at times blurred, yet absorbing. The editing was top-notch and never do you feel that you are losing out. At least in the first half.

But second half is where the film actually falters. Not much, but when compared to what was presented to you in the first half – quite considerably. There are moments when you feel that the action could have been faster. Much faster. Second half at times, looks like a dragged-on episode of Fear Factor. Perhaps the writing is to blame here. Not enough is happening in front of the viewers. There are no sharp turns and the thrill-sequences leave much to be desired. One feels let down by all the drama that was built up to the point. The story had potential that could have been tapped well by the director. Still, the second half has its moments.

The climax is perhaps the biggest let-down. The setup was fantastic, and it could have been the most thundering-roaring climaxes any Indian films had seen in recent years – but again a poor imagination, mediocre writing and below-par execution ruins it all. Again, not exceptionally bad, but based on the expectations build by the first half – leaves much to be desired.

For the most part, I liked the dialogues (Soham Shah). However, would have been much better had he trimmed them down a bit. Let me explain what I mean – in one of the scenes, Imran Khan asks Danny – “Tumhe mere bare me itna kaise pata hai”. And Danny replies – “Stock par paisa lagane se pehle company ki poori information nikal leni chahiye”. Now till now, it sounded good. But Danny’s character goes on to explain – “usi tereh, tum par paisa lagane se pehle maine tumhare bare me sab pata kar liya hai”. Clealry, in the explaining part – the dialogue starts losing its effect. (Please note I am writing the dialogues just from my memory. They were not exactly these – and were much better written )

There is not much to write about the story. To be very honest – the story is not something spectacular. The focus here is more on characters and their conflicts, and later on – on visuals. First half just oozes with fast-paced and thrilling photography. The scenes immerse you within themselves. Not much is left to think about the story actually. And you don’t complain, coz it all looks good and keeps you entertained. The drama that is built up till the interval point is so good that you just want to take in every detail that is presented in front of your eyes. And you expect something extra-ordinarily big in the second half. The scene just before the interval when 15 people play the death-game in a desert is just brilliant. Well shots and beautifully executed. Leaves your expectations sky-high.

Sanjay Dutt is as always – fits in the role to a T. The thing is, he has done so many roles in this structure, that when you start writing a story like this, Sanjay Dutt is the only person who fits the bill. The role here is easily an extension of the ones that he plays in Musafir, Plan etc. I would not use the word stereotype, but Sanjay actually looks the part in such roles. His walk still commands attention.

Danny Denzongpa is easily one of the highlights of the film. The man is raw energy. I cannot deny being in awe of him every time he comes on screen. I wish he could do more roles. He is perfect in the role that demanded to look authoritative, demanding, a father-figure, and mean – all at the same time. When Danny speaks – you just have to listen. The way he delivers his dialogues makes you wonder what could have become of Gabbar Singh, had Danny accepted the role in Sholay?

Mithun Chakraborty is another actor that makes you sigh in admiration every time he does an A-grader. Seriously, why are we not using him enough? Forget other stars, Mithun doing a major role in an A-grade Bollywood project is enough for me to go and watch that film. There were two moments in the film where the audience clapped and whistled – both showing Mithun Chakraborty. He still holds a lot of promise.

Imran Khan was good in a role that required him to do action, emote and show a lot of anger. While the guy can do with a little bit of (more) expression, the way he mouths the dialogues is quite good.

Shruti Haasan is a star right from the word Go. She just shines. She’s got a perfect screen-presence, and and got the right kind of looks to become the dominant download on the Internet (the current queen of downloads is Katrina Kaif). This is not to say that she acts perfectly. Far from it, in fact. Her dialogue delivery needs a lot of improvement. It was quite evident that she was not very comfortable mouthing those lines. But with time, this should ease out. She’s got a beautiful face, and trust me – an ahhh-mazing figure – check out the scene where she is emerging from a swimming pool. I can safely say NONE of the current Bollywood brigade has a figure to match.

Ravi Kishan and Chitrashi Rawat are competent. It was actually good to see Chitrashi Rawat in another role after Chak De India.

On the whole, the film was a nice attempt. The focus was on visuals and not so much on the story. Personally I did not felt let down by the lack of story as much as the lack of a competent screenplay. Had there been enough to savour on screen, I could have easily given this one a higher rating.

The film is good in parts. But definitely worth a watch.

Rating – 3-stars

Chalegi?

I think so. The film has created quite some curosity. Though reviews from foreign-film-fed reveiwres have been not so encouraging, the film conects with the masses on some level. In totality, I liked this one better than New York. This one should emerge successful on the box office.