Likhna Mana hai …. Review on Darna Mana Hai

… about Darna Mana Hai.Too many reviews about this movie but cant help write about it.

There is an Apple … a bright red apple and there’s a drop on the top of the apple , the liquid starts oozing out dropping all over, its blood , there’s blood on the screen and then … there is a familiar face , the face of Sameera Reddy.

That’s how the movie starts , another experimental by Kay Sera Sera , Ram Gopal Varma’s Production house, this movie is directed by Prawal Raman. Any Bollywood interview finds Directors , Producers, Actors, Gushing Heroines .. .all giving a broad smile and saying the movie that’s releasing shortly … is not like contemporary bollywood movies, its got comedy, action ,romance and its about a boy and a girl and believe me its different … the treatment the director has given is oh so different. Havent we heard of this different fare and how superficial the claims really are … Well here’s someone who is actually different and experimental.

Experiments require among all things, Finance, talent and lots of courage. Most experiments fail and only some succeed and the ones that are lauded are only the successful ones and why … Isn’t it so that just because someone’s idea did not match yours you dismiss it as a foolish adventure.

The plot of this experiment is not great … its about 7 friends wandering into the woods and telling stories to pass their time not realizing that something bizarre is spinning around them at the same time. The stories narrated have an impressive star cast … Aaftab Shivdasani, Revathi,Vivek oberoi, Nana Patekar , Sohail Khan, Antara Mali, Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani , Sanjay Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty, Raghubir Yadav and others.

A Vivacious looking Sameera Reddy , VJ Peeya and the lanky VJ Gaurav Kapoor form three among the seven friends. The Stories are as different as the concept, A couple going on a honeymoon trip whose car breaks down and are confronted with something unnatural, A housewife who purchases apples and is suspicious about them, A smoker who is forced to spend a night in a “No Smoking” Restaurant, A happy go lucky person who gives a lift to someone sinister waiting at the Graveyard (this story is simply awesome) , a teacher who is so used to caning a student who fails to do the homework that he cannot cope when the student actually starts completing the given assignments and a college boy who is suddenly blessed with powers.

The movie is song-free , a trend that is welcome in Bollywood , One couldn’t have imagined Shilpa Shetty dancing with apples or a college love song. The camera angles and cinematography pass muster, the background music by Salim Suleiman is simply awesome. Editing is quite slick and the pace even throughout the movie. The direction is quite laudable for a first time director. The ending is again a disappointment, the built up needs a better ending and some stories defy logic. The performances are respectable with no one going over the top , Gaurav and Sameera are first rate, in the stories Shilpa Shetty, Vivek Oberoi , Nana Patekar , Raghubir Yadav are quite good with the others rendering equally good support.

The bottom line of any review is that whether this movie will taste success at the marquee. This movie being starkly different can have people either loving it or hating it and dismissing it as another flop. It’s a conceptual movie for intelligent minds and people who respect lateral and experimental cinema. This movie cannot taste commercial success in India but it should recover its losses and go down as a brilliant movie attempt made in Indian cinema .