Review: X The Film

Superior Style, Really Tiresome Content

2 stars

Mini Review:

One laughed at Pyar Ka Punchnama which painted women as gold diggers and vain, but this one takes many many gorgeous women and plonks them in beds in bras, wanting to have babies of a man who is a stalker, and a self-confessed 'loser'. It's a humorless, tedious watch, except for one story which is simply outstanding. Such a pity.

Main Review:

As much as I loved the idea of ten (or is it 11) directors who chose to come together and shoot one man's story, I hated watching the slow paced, tedious story where you wanted to perk it up with some Criminal Minds style action just to get over the trite, 'If this were Hollywood, I'd be tearing your clothes off and if it were Bollywood, we'd be sitting on the bed like good boy and girl...' type dialog.

Besides gagging at the stupidity (it's at a film festival! Which delegate even remembers Hollywood or Bollywood when watching world cinema? Sigh!), I was so bored I almost clapped when the girl at the bar slaps the protagonist who doesn't know his wine, and has pick up lines so gauche you suddenly like Pyar Ka Punchnama and remember Sophie Chowdhary was so much cooler when she asked Rahul Bose, 'Coffee?' 

And when the hero (Poor Rajat Kapoor!) continues to mouth super dumb lines like, 'I haven't written a word since last six months' you have no sympathy left for him and heckle, 'Maybe you need a different day job, asshole!'

If only Huma Qureshi's character had a whip (or an old fashioned wooden 'ruler' in her hand) her trouser-less avataar would have been more fun.

If only the Calcutta girl who was reading rubbishy 'thoughts' in the lad's diary edited and made corrections (and he goes on to publish the corrected version as his own book) I would have loved his story more.

If only the maid had added a mirchi to the vodka...

If only his wife had passed off another man's child as the director's instead of whining about, 'You fucked her? You fucked her?' 

If only the protagonist had enough cojones to kill his whiny wife with extra chillies...

It's like the directors have missed watching the brilliant short called Ahalya where the saucer eyed Radhika Apte behaves like a woman who knows her mind. All these stories had so many possibilities. They just ended up being boring. Why would so many beautiful women clad in bras falling on the bed, their curly hair spread beautifully on the sheet wanting to see 'little Ks running around the house.'?

'More like little K's sitting in the corner and moping!'

But the whole movie has been edited and put together so beautifully, you regret wanting to slap everyone.

And then there's the story of Swara Bhaskar seducing young K which made me sit up and go slack-jawed. She walks home, knowing the young man is following her. Wow! She just seduces everyone in the theatre. The movie just becomes brilliant. Both the stars this movie earns are here. One for this story, and the second for not having subtitles and allowing the simple Tamil to seduce you.

Unfortunately one part of ten doesn't a hit make.