********************************Spoilers************************************
Congratulations to all those, who watched Talaash on the
first day, and dismantled an otherwise engaging thriller by giving away the suspense
on statuses, messages and personal calls! When I went for the movie, I had
three rumors to verify and judge, “Which one is the correct one, the ghost,
the serial killer or the psychopath!”. Though I knew the suspense, I personally
loved Talaash, and I was surprised to know that it wasn't the general
perception.
I heard a lot of people that they were let down by Aamir
Khan, a reviewer felt cheated by the end, and then there were the ridiculous
notions, “Ye kya baat hui, end me bhoot nikal gyi!”. I have just one question, why
such a closed response? Why couldn’t an Aamir Khan movie have a supernatural
element? Just because, it wasn’t promoted like that (for obvious reasons)! Or
because, you were expecting a “contemporary” murder mystery. And if it were the
latter, you weren’t really expecting an Aamir Khan movie, were you? Talaash is
just a movie, killed by high expectations, infact, the word is unrealistic.
A movie audience that has hailed “The Sixth Sense” or “The
Others” as masterpieces, has lambasted a very genuine and honest effort on the
part of the writer and director Reema Kagti, and it somewhat bothers me. “Mera
Saaya”, “Wo Kaun Thi”, “Teesri Manzil” were all classics woven together around
the supernatural, and I can’t seem to remember any movie in the recent past that
I could even list with them, infact there is none. Its a genre long forgotten,
where shock wasn’t used as a medium to scare, even a women singing on a cliff,
sent chills down the spine. Its one of the few sensible movies made recently (if
you are one of those, who can’t digest sensible and supernatural in the same
sentence, please try and understand that I am writing about a piece of fiction.),
and when I say sensible, I mean to discourage movies like Dabang, Dabang 2,
Race 2, Agent Vinod, Student of the Year and the likes.
Yes, the movie is flawed, I don’t deny that. The Rani Mukherjee and her dead son saga is overstretched, just for the sake of the entire premise to make sense. There are clues at regular intervals for anyone to decipher, there are dialogues that seem forced and there was no need to show the helping-ghost-underwater sequence at the end. It’s not perfect, but Talaash does come so close and makes an earnest effort with touching characters(yes, I am talking about Kareena Kapoor and Nawazuddin). Its good to see, a Bollywood movie break the norm and attempt something different, so beautifully. To me, its a script, betrayed by the audience.
Yes, the movie is flawed, I don’t deny that. The Rani Mukherjee and her dead son saga is overstretched, just for the sake of the entire premise to make sense. There are clues at regular intervals for anyone to decipher, there are dialogues that seem forced and there was no need to show the helping-ghost-underwater sequence at the end. It’s not perfect, but Talaash does come so close and makes an earnest effort with touching characters(yes, I am talking about Kareena Kapoor and Nawazuddin). Its good to see, a Bollywood movie break the norm and attempt something different, so beautifully. To me, its a script, betrayed by the audience.
