Impressive, worth a watch
1 Feb 2013 12:00 AM GMT
Three chapters, three different decades and three characters and the only thing tying them together is their name. David.
Yes, sounds like the perfect Bollywood potboiler where some absurd connection crops up between the three otherwise disconnected points and in some nice song and dance and action another decent movie can be laid to rest.
David is not that. In fact, it is quite a surprise in its own style. You cannot expect otherwise from Bejoy Nambiar. This movie has some very sexy scenes. Flitting between three years on the calendar — 1975, 1999 and 2010, Nambiar starts three stories on same dates, just decades apart. 1975 sees Neil Nitin Mukesh playing David, the right hand of a gangster in London. In 1999, Vinay Virmani plays David, a struggling musician in Mumbai and in 2010, Vikram is David in Goa; a perpetually drunk fisherman.
All three stories move at their own pace, not in a choronological order but one after the other as the plots develop. While David in London is caught between the girl he loves — played by Monica Dogra — and the man who brought him up and who he must eventually kill; David in Goa falls in love with the girl (Isha Sharvani) his best friend wants to marry. David in Mumbai struggles to find ground between avenging the insult his father faced and learning to deal with the pain of life being ‘unfair’.
Nothing ideally connects the three characters except the name, and only two of them meet face to face to discuss the weight the name carries in the movie. And, though, as luck would have it, minus all the weight the name David might have borne over history, in Nambiar’s movie it becomes all about doing what is right when the crucial decision arrives. Even if it means that the rest of their lives become all about dealing with collateral damage.
Minus some loopholes, David is quite impressive. Saurabh Shukla as a ghost who morphs into the next available body to make his point to his son may raise a few laughs to start with, but after a point they become repetitive and tad bit irritating. Isha Sharvani’s wide-eyed innocence is irksome and just because you have signed her on, doesn’t mean you need to make her dance dear director. Make her act instead?
David however can boast of some brilliant cameos, Tabu as Frenny, Monica Dogra as Noor, Rohini Hattangadi as Malati Tai and Nassar as Father Noel and Milind Soman. There is also Prahlad Kakkar and Sarika in very tiny roles. Tabu as Frenny is perhaps the most impressive, she fits in her role with brilliant ease and she’s a complete delight. Lara Dutta’s cameo role as Neelam is rather insipid. The movie has a very good background score, the music gels well as the stories flit through time.
David strikes a fine balance between Bollywood excesses and Hollywood influences. The stories arrest you, though we must point out that the crisis of David in London and the David in Mumbai seem more grave and that of David in Goa. However heartache is always a heartache and it is not always love that gets it about. If Vishwaroopam is banned after all – go for David.
Yes, sounds like the perfect Bollywood potboiler where some absurd connection crops up between the three otherwise disconnected points and in some nice song and dance and action another decent movie can be laid to rest.
David is not that. In fact, it is quite a surprise in its own style. You cannot expect otherwise from Bejoy Nambiar. This movie has some very sexy scenes. Flitting between three years on the calendar — 1975, 1999 and 2010, Nambiar starts three stories on same dates, just decades apart. 1975 sees Neil Nitin Mukesh playing David, the right hand of a gangster in London. In 1999, Vinay Virmani plays David, a struggling musician in Mumbai and in 2010, Vikram is David in Goa; a perpetually drunk fisherman.
All three stories move at their own pace, not in a choronological order but one after the other as the plots develop. While David in London is caught between the girl he loves — played by Monica Dogra — and the man who brought him up and who he must eventually kill; David in Goa falls in love with the girl (Isha Sharvani) his best friend wants to marry. David in Mumbai struggles to find ground between avenging the insult his father faced and learning to deal with the pain of life being ‘unfair’.
Nothing ideally connects the three characters except the name, and only two of them meet face to face to discuss the weight the name carries in the movie. And, though, as luck would have it, minus all the weight the name David might have borne over history, in Nambiar’s movie it becomes all about doing what is right when the crucial decision arrives. Even if it means that the rest of their lives become all about dealing with collateral damage.
Minus some loopholes, David is quite impressive. Saurabh Shukla as a ghost who morphs into the next available body to make his point to his son may raise a few laughs to start with, but after a point they become repetitive and tad bit irritating. Isha Sharvani’s wide-eyed innocence is irksome and just because you have signed her on, doesn’t mean you need to make her dance dear director. Make her act instead?
David however can boast of some brilliant cameos, Tabu as Frenny, Monica Dogra as Noor, Rohini Hattangadi as Malati Tai and Nassar as Father Noel and Milind Soman. There is also Prahlad Kakkar and Sarika in very tiny roles. Tabu as Frenny is perhaps the most impressive, she fits in her role with brilliant ease and she’s a complete delight. Lara Dutta’s cameo role as Neelam is rather insipid. The movie has a very good background score, the music gels well as the stories flit through time.
David strikes a fine balance between Bollywood excesses and Hollywood influences. The stories arrest you, though we must point out that the crisis of David in London and the David in Mumbai seem more grave and that of David in Goa. However heartache is always a heartache and it is not always love that gets it about. If Vishwaroopam is banned after all – go for David.
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