The award winning director Onir returns after a long gap of seven years post his ‘must-watch’ gem I AM released in 2010. But his present venture is not even close to the storytelling craft and performances seen in the same. In fact this seems to be a quite uninterestingly made, repetitive film revolving around the same old trademark ‘Madhur Bhandarkar’ kind of subject glancing into the bedrooms of elite class of Delhi’s social circles.
Indicatively titled SHAB (night), the film is yet again about broken characters, rich middle-aged women hiring young struggler boys as their owned-toys, homosexual relationships and lonely people looking for their solace in the dark hours of night finding new friends. Various locations of South Delhi are represented as the most happening places for such puzzled characters emoting as per the directionless writing leading to nowhere. In fact the film conveys nothing and not even a single character reaches out to the viewers with his or her emotional trauma (and they are too many). A feature which was not expected to be a part of a film by Onir, a director who is known for his sensitive presentation of human emotions and relationships as seen in his earlier films.
In short, there are only two bright features of SHAB. One – the way its DOP beautifully presents Delhi in the four difference seasons and Two – a sizzling hot Raveena Tandon, who outshines everyone with her newly found swag and inspiring confidence. Raveena showed the sparks in her recent MAATR in the role of a suffering mother and here she is as a fashionable, classy diva setting the temperatures high. The lady certainly deserves to be given a much more meaningful and well-written role soon exploiting her present form.
Unfortunately no one else comes up with any worth mentioning performance in this 108 minutes long film. At times both the music and background score make their presence felt and a few songs sound soothing too while they get played in some particular sequences. But I frankly couldn’t bear the silly word-play in the lyrics of an otherwise well-sung song using ‘Tanhaiyaan’ ‘Duhaiyaan’ ‘Judaiyaan’ in its lyrics in a pretty awful manner.
Overall, SHAB has nothing you might be expecting from Onir, the director of I AM. Moreover at a ticket price of around Rs.300, I don’t think such off-beat and lesser publicized films hold any kind of chance in the theaters, even in their opening weekend.
Rating : 1.5 / 5
(The article also got featured in UC-News mobile app in July 2017)
Tags :
Shab Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, Shab by Onir, Raveena Tandon in SHAB, New Hindi Films Reviews by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com
