Beginning with the weird title, it actually becomes the biggest downer for the project killing or failing to generate any excitement around even 'a Kajol film' coming after a long gap. Revolving around the character of a young aspiring singer girl, who later becomes a single mother raising his son running a tiffin box business and then gets admission in her son’s college only to complete her graduation, HELICOPTER EELA comes up as an unentertaining mix of a few familiar and recently used plots that doesn't serve any purpose at all repeating the same things.
It begins well taking you back into the 90s when Indi-Pop music was on the top and individual singers were ruling the charts along with the Hindi Film music. Small cameos by the ‘then singing sensations’ like Ila Arun, Baba Sehgal and more fairly keep you engaged, but then everything fails to impress post this short initial phase, with an all seen before story progression, uninteresting twists and a predictable, routine climax.
The writer/director convey a simply bizarre reason for the separation between the loving couple and then present an urban makeover of NIL BATTEY SANNATA moving towards the clichéd plot of 'an once aspiring singer' being given a chance, without anything fresh in their unmoving narration. As a result neither Kajol nor Riddhi Sen, Neha Dhupia or anyone else is able to make an impact, vaguely trying to be realistic in its various sequences.
Reportedly based on a Gujarati play, HELICOPTER EELA doesn’t work and misses both the emotional and comic connect with the viewers offering them the same old things, yet again in an upgraded but familiar setup. Wonder what the makers found exciting in such ‘recently exploited’ plots put together and why Kajol agreed to do it, probably assuming to be a project based on a woman’s spirited fight with the world around.
Above all, here we have a film based on the people learning and willing to perform music, without any good songs or soundtrack, once again remaking an old hit track of the 90s, proving the current musical bankruptcy in our Hindi cinema. Moreover a Punjabi speaking mother is also there adding into the cliches as usual. Perhaps the Hindi film makers are really finding hard to stay away from Punjabi characters, songs and the language for the obvious reasons.
So you can go for it at your own risk or just wait for it to be released soon on the online portals.
Ratings : 1.5 / 5
Tags :
HELICOPTER EELA Review by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, New Hindi Films Reviews by Bobby Sing, New Bollywood Movies Reviews by Bobby Sing
