MACHINE - Strange, they chose such an outdated and awful script for a crucial launch. (Review By Bobby Sing)

Just when the debate of Nepotism (preference to family and known people) was all over in the news, releases MACHINE, the debut film of Mustafa Burmawalla, son of Abbas Burmawalla (from the famous director duo Abbas-Mastan). And it clearly gives out a verdict that nepotism alone cannot establish you in the industry without any exceptional talent and certainly not when the other more important decisive factor is also not on your side i.e. The LUCK.

In other words, nepotism can surely get you an easy first chance. But the rest completely depends upon your destiny (luck), talent, the product and its strategic release in the theaters in that particular order.

Moreover, one also cannot make it when almost every decision regarding his crucial launch turns out to be hopelessly stale, lifeless and quite poor in taste too, shockingly executed by two experienced directors of the industry. Giving you the actual picture, it’s quite surprising that the director duo decided to launch their family boy in such an outdated and awful film based on a script that is an offspring of their own BAAZIGAR (which itself was a very fine inspired version of an English hit). So right from the first car race sequence to the sight of Dalip Tahil as the father, MACHINE strongly reminds you of BAAZIGAR without making any sort of impact and can easily be rated as probably the worst attempt of Abbas-Mastan in their entire career.

Despite having everything as per their trademark style including an eye catching production value, foreign locations, appealing camerawork, racy background score and a lot of forced glamour, MACHINE still fails to leave a mark as it offers nothing novel in its storyline moving on the same old clichéd plot of the 90s following a depressingly boring progression. The dialogues are unable to create any aura and the girls incapable of winning over the audience missing the sex-appeal. In fact lacking the freshness required, Kiara did remind me of Esha Deol at many places to be brutally honest.

Enacting a negative yet tailor made role Mustafa is just okay with no display of any extraordinary sparks of a hero and the same can be said for the girls too playing it in a typical routine manner. Ronit Roy once again looks fine in a negative role whereas Johny Lever is simply there in a few deliberately inserted sequences as the maker’s lucky mascot.

Interestingly music which used to be a key feature of an Abbas-Mastan film adds to the negativity missing any catchy notable song and it was quite weird to see a character singing Punjabi lyrics all of a sudden without any reference of Punjab. Besides here we yet again have a literally ruined cult song as ‘Tu Cheez Badi Hai Mast Mast’ forcing you to visit the lobby for a while till its over.

In all this is a MACHINE which is quite old in its making and thus cannot create anything substantial in terms of the new-age entertainment. So in case you are arguing the topic of Nepotism in any school, college or online debate in the coming days, then go ahead and quote MACHINE as the most recent evident example giving a clear judgment.  

Rating : 0.5 + 0.5 / 5 (with 0.5 for the crew and 0.5 for the debutante making his first effort.)