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Lopsided foray
Chekravartay takes on the goons.
Durga (Hindi)
Cast: Chekravartay, Priyanka
Dir: Chekravartay
WHERE SATYA ends, Durga begins. It should not have. Then a finely chiselled essay on the underworld would have remained that way. This one is a lopsided foray into the world of bullets and brawn with little brains applied. The way things have been juxtaposed together, the characters seem to have as much strength as the cardboard cut-outs children love to play during their summer vacations. And only as much depth. The film marks the comeback of `Satya' Chakravartay - now Chekravartay. Here he leads a one-man army as the director, screenplay, story and dialogue writer besides, obviously, being the hero. Probably hoping to retrieve the ground he lost to Manoj Bajpai's Bhiku Mhatre in Ram Gopal Varma's film, he has not left much to others. One wishes he had. He is clearly stretched. The film is touted "as not just a love story". Actually, it is a love story against the backdrop of the underworld. The story of Durga who loves Gayatri who reciprocates after the usual dilly-dallying, develops into a peep into the underworld but the view remains as through a peephole - just a glimmer, limited, restricted. Durga is a nice guy all right but he has a past. Rather a father who is very much an important member of the seamier world. Hence, the girl's father's refusal to marry off his daughter to a rogue. From thereon this Chekravartay offering develops into a tale of men who run vast parallel empires but cannot drive their own car, men who cannot walk a mile but can get lives stalled for miles on the road. The director takes too long in filling up the plot and by then most of the people would have filed out of the auditorium. Their fate is truly sealed with a concluding sermon. Now, who advised this otherwise soft-spoken, mild-mannered guy to transform into a moral torchbearer of the society?
The film does not quite grip you, it never gets you involved with the proceedings, your heart doesn't go out to Gayatri torn between parents and love, or for Durga torn between love and pedigree.
Nor does it beat for Durga's crusade against crime. This one is a progressive test of patience. A test most cinemagoers are likely to lose.
ZIYA US SALAM
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