Review: VODKA DIARIES

Naam Toh Soch Liya. Film Toh Soch Lo Bhai!

½ star

Mini Review:

It’s one thing to want to make a psychological thriller
and another to make it so badly that the audience begins
to wish someone actually slap or beat up the protagonist,
Kay Kay Menon. The whole film revolves around him, and
even though Shutter Island did the same, there can be no
comparison of that prison of the mind story with this
ghastly, cheap remake that ends up looking like an episode
of a TV crime show.

Main Review:

You watch Kay Kay Menon go through the motions of being cop

husband to a poet wife with amusement, and then begin to

wonder: why are they ‘holidaying’ up the mountain when their

own home is just down hill? That’s five minutes into the film!

And if they were on holiday, why is the wife complaining about

him always putting work first? Where did he go running off to

leaving a gorgeous wife (Mandira Bedi) to write poetry? Why

does she have the energy of a corpse? Why is she trussed up

in a saree when the snow is piled up high everywhere? Costumes

apart, you’re already wondering what is the worst that could

happen after such a ghastly mistake? But you’re in for a surprise.

This may be the first of many mistakes…

The film has been shot in a picturesque snowbound small town,

but there is nothing remotely cinematic about the characters

who look like they’re extras from TV cop shows and who should

not be given speaking parts. Including the assistant to the

protagonist who talks so much it’s annoying. And the ‘jokes’

he wants to crack are so lame you wish he were dead instead

of someone who’s been cheating on their girlfriends…

He’s called Ankit (Sharib Hashmi). Every time Kay Kay gets

exasperated Ankit shows up and then vanishes after giving gyan.

You wish he were the victim next for his awful screen presence.

Looks like the filmmakers did not think of practical things in a film:

How does a fancy ACP have no control whatsoever on the

investigation? How does a small town up in snowbound land, have

a ‘forensics’ team that shows up at different crime scenes without

a problem? Is the hotel called Vodka Diaries, or the event at the

hotel nightclub? What do they think they are doing by destroying

snowmen? Why is his poet wife missing? Why does she suddenly

behave like some jealous harpy when Kay Kay shows up as

Rishi Gautam? It’s an assault on the senses, and not in a

good way.

You wonder what Raima Sen is doing in the film, trying to

be mysterious? Is she a dead person too, now haunting

Kay Kay? You wonder which publisher publishes fiction in that

odd size? You wonder why Mandira Bedi carries an empty glass

up to her room instead of a bottle (like most drunk people would

choose to)? And the reveal is so pathetic, you begin to groan

when Kay Kay removes the intravenous line from his hand.

Obviously the filmmakers have never had an IV inserted in their

hands. Removing it is mind-blowingly painful. Just like this film.

(this review appears on www.nowrunning.com )