This review is under the wrong category but believe me I did try to look for the right category. After long hours of searching categories like torture, nonsense, irritation, I just for the heck of it searched for “Qayamat” under entertainment, and surprise surprise!! I found it there listed under the category Bollywood Movies…Ah if Qayamat is a movie, then I am David Copperfield.
But since MS lists it as a movie let me respect community rules and treat this as a movie.
Path breaking characterization:
Thanks to:
Harry Baweja – Director
Karan Razdan – Script Editor
Supran Verma – Screenplay
…and all the actors and actresses ….
What strikes you most about the movie is the complex and multi faceted characters. For starters you have villains who will haunt you long after “the experience”… you would make time out of your busy schedule, to wonder if they were comedians in the villains garb or the other way around. All three characters (played by Sanjay Kapoor, Arbaaz Khan and Isha Koppikar) can be threat to any City, by virtue of their sheer irritability. Then you have a research scientist (debutant Aashish Chowdhry), who alternates between suave, intelligent, I am-in-control-leader of the research team to the weak-hearted-wobbly legged-wet-chicken at other times. So much for a role with varying shades. Add to this a cameo (?) by Chunkey Pandey that re-emphasizes the dilemma – was he comedian gone awry or villain gone crazy?? I realize we haven’t even started talking about the main players yet…
The CBI Officer is supposed to be a tough cop with a poet concealed somewhere inside him, Suniel Shetty with his one-dimensional acting capacities does an excellent job of keeping the poet concealed and the cop looking like a prop. The other hero (Ajay Devgan) probably has the most tolerable role in the movie. He doesn’t open his mouth for the 90% of his screen time (if you take away the songs you can conveniently make that 99%). Now to Neha Dhupia who does a Ursula Andress (or is it Undress?? which inspired Halle Berry and then our own Bipasha Basu) by walking out of the sea in Bikini. Sadly for the audience and the movie, she walks towards the shore!! But then her role is not restricted to singing songs, she also emotes (laughs in the first few scenes, cries in all others after that, it appears that she even tried to speak a few dialogues in between). I am sorry I will not go into details of other characters played by Riya Sen, Raveen Tandon (she comes and goes before you can spell R A V E E N A, my advice, ditch her, watch the spelling!!!), and add to this list Kulbushan Kharbanda, Anjan Srivastava, Govind Namdeo, Ayub Khan…ah even talking about them means nothing but re-living the torture for me.
Mind-blowing (literally) special effects:
Thanks to:
Sanjay Gupta - Cinematography
Nitish Roy - Art Direction
Allan Amin - Stunts oops its called Action co-ordination
Have you ever seen a virus? Well if you haven’t please do not miss this movie. Have you seen flubber (yeah the same green and funny looking mass that Robin Williams played around with in the movie that had the same name), If yes then you can give this movie a miss. It’s the same thing albeit in smaller and more defined spherical shape that you get to see as the most deadly virus that is going to be used to destroy Mumbai (hasn’t anyone told the story writer that if any new virus were to be introduced into Mumbai, chances are that the virus might get infected, rather than the other way around).
A advanced cell phone tracking device that will automatically detect objectionable words like “murder, bomb, kill” etc and give you the location of the person using the mobile phone, including the room number of the hotel in which the user is talking from.
Elphinstine Prison… You have to see it to believe it or better still, believe me and don’t take the trouble.
Brilliant and original concepts:
A Pakistani general who funds young Indian terrorists in an attempt to destabilize India - Don’t tell me you have heard that before!!!
A police officer who wants a criminal serving term for murder and theft released, to help him nab terrorists. If the Criminal with his long hairs (on his head and his face, I mean) reminds you of Sean Connery or Anthony Hopkins in some yesteryear Hollywood flicks then you are probably hallucinating.
The chase in the underground tunnels on a wheel barrows(?) is not taken from Indiana Jones series, nor is the entry into a high security research centre copied from MI 2; neither are the gymnastic efforts to hop around the laser beams (lol..sorry couldn’t help that) a direct “lift” from Entrapment (Catherine Zeta Jones, drooooool! Sorry, I digressed), when you see one of the heroes and a few of the Villains leap in the air and fly putting some birds to shame, you might wonder about the pathetic attempt to imitate Charlie’s Angels, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or maybe even Matrix, but believe me those are just figments of your imagination.
The characters who lead such intense and pressure packed life, give a lesson on stress management – take a break. The Terrorists find time to visit discos and dance to their hearts fill. The Criminal turned Hero(before and after reform) breaks into a song and dance ritual for no apparent reasons, then the … I am sorry I give up!! But somewhere in between most of the songs I was busy trying to figure as to, what was more disturbing the movie or the songs…
But the path breaking concept is that of one of the Heroes (I am not telling you who incase, you are crazy enough to watch the movie after what I have said all this while) actually dies after being hit by a few bullets from the Villains. Now that’s definitely a first for a movie of this genre in Bollywood. Another futuristic aspect of this movie is the fact that, it talks about autonomy to states. The CM of Maharashtra, is in control of Air Force Operations. This is not just within the limits of the state, but he also orders the fighter planes to bomb the Pakistani training camps in Pakistan [since they could not bomb the Elphinstine Prison, as it got rescued by our Hero (will not say which one) by the time they reached there]. We also get to see a neat little CGI of the bombing of Pakistan, Oh wow what more does a movie need to do, to be a hit??
The Plot…
Ha ha ha, you must be kidding. If you want to see something that makes sense, pick up the VCD/DVD of the Hollywood flick - The Rock. If you miss the variety also hire out a few out of the movies, I have mentioned above and yes! Pause the VCD/DVD keep switching on to a music channel (that plays dumb Hindi songs), once every fifteen minutes.
The Rating:
Sadly mouthshut does not allow me to rate zero stars; hence I had to give this movie a star.
The Cribbing:
“Qayamat – City under threat”, true to its name is a threat to every city that it plays in. Also it would have been apt to name this one, “Qayamat – Sensibilty under threat” or maybe “Qayamat – an insult to intelligence”
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