One by Two, Hindi Bollywood Film Movie Review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * *
Hindi film Review
Johnson Thomas
One By Two Film/Movie review: You’ll get pakaoed!
Film: One by Two
Cast: Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Rati Agnihotri, Jayant kripalani, Lillette Dubey, Anish Trivedi, Darshan Jariwala, Geetika Tyagi
Director: Devika Bhagat
Rating: * *
This Abhay Deol starrer aims for quirky and interesting but ends up disastrously tedious, unfunny and entirely disengaging!
The concept was interesting no doubt. Meant to be a coming of age romantic comedy for the two, thirty( meant to be 20) something protags who go through life’s struggles trying to find their innate selves and end up meeting each other. Do not expect any chemistry or sparks to fly, or for that matter, any passion, because the two only become really aware of each other towards the end. Don’t know what purpose that was meant to serve(maybe a sequel expectation?) but for this cinematic experience it appeared like a gross miscalculation. This is a feature that has three-fourths of it’s runtime devoted to tedious, exasperating and entirely un-invigorating exposition- which in analytical terms is an unviable imbalance in content.
The title in fact says it all. Right from the opening credits which are played out on screen in two distinct halves, we are left with no doubts as to where this film is going. Amit(Abhay Deol) is an IT geek hopelessly in love with Radhika. But she doesn’t appear as enamored and before the credits end, she has dumped him for a hot-shot TV dance show producer, Ranjan. Amit though, is desperate to win her back and right to the very end exploits this desperation to unbearable limits. Playing out parallelly is Samara’s story. Samara(Preeti Desai) , the London returned, love child born out of an illicit relationship between a stinking rich Industrialist, Mahtani(Anish Trivedi) and his alcoholic mistress(Lillette Dubey), has issues of abandonment and is yet searching for a stabilizing factor in her life. Dance is what makes her whole but the manner in which it is displayed we wonder at her colossal self-delusional ego. The choreography credited to Ashley Lobo is just not the kind that showcases grace, agility or flexibility. It’s uninterestingly pedestrian and makes you wonder why anyone would choose Samara as a competitor for a much publicized and extremely popular dance show.
The story flits between the two somewhat parallel universes, that intersect superficially from time to time and after about two hours plus of unbearably stretched out runtime, comes to a common meeting point. And fortunately for the viewer, it also signals the end of a miserable, disengaging display of flatulent quirks and shabby talents. The add-on subplots are even more exasperating. Amit’s two friends with their carpy witticisms and his mother’s brother(Jariwala), a singleton, who happens to be a high ranking cop given to delusional and crappy shayari(poetry), pile up the misery full-on!
The narrative takes you through a series of uninteresting set-ups that should have at least been a little bit funny. The writing is distinctly ordinary. Less said about the un-sequestered story and dialogues the better. The helming is a little too loose- Doesn’t feel like Devika Bhagat had any control over the material she was trying to film. Abhay Deol and Preeti Desai have screen presence and try valiantly to rise above the woefully constructed material. And the music by Shankar Ehsaan and Loy is the only distinctive factor in this otherwise horrifyingly disappointing fare which just ends up feeling like too many losers were making merry over something that was well and truly just not meant to be!
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