Vishnu (Abhay Deol) is the son of a small-town oil merchant. Fed up of the monotony of his life and unwilling to step into his father’s shoes, he offers to drive a 1942-manufactured truck containing a travelling cinema across the desert for its owner. The film is about his journey and encounters - with a shabby, golden-hearted mechanic (Satish Kaushik), a boy who wants to run away from his life as a waiter in a desert dhaba (Mohammed Faisal) and a gypsy woman (Tannishtha Chaterjee) who is decidedly sensual. In a journey beset with internal friction, they also encounter a water-lord (Yashpal Sharma) and a corrupt cop (Virendra Saxena) whose favourite pastime is flogging people after hanging them upside down. After a point, their survival, perpetually devoid of the all-important commodity called water, also becomes dependent on whether the truck’s stock of film reels has good movies. And of course there are flights of fantasy too.
Technical Expertise
We have had films without stories and films minus scripts - this one seems to be a mix of both! Overtly harping, perhaps, on the acclaim he has received for his last two films, writer-director Dev Benegal remembers to create authentic atmosphere, rivetting desert shots, nuanced characters and some smart lines (especially in the first half) but forgets the cardinal aim of a feature film - that is, of telling a good story in an interesting way.
Smartly packaged technically, the film emerges soul-less and goal-less and fails to excite, entice, entertain or educate the viewer with its lack of content. At a 90- minute run, despite good performances from Satish Kaushik and the young boy (Mohammed Faizal), the film peters on and seems to end at the writer’s whim. Abhay Deol is little different from his earlier films, Tannishtha is adequate and Saxena and Sharma are their typecast selves. And please, was it necessary to show Abhay’s restricted intestinal movements in such graphic detail?
Rating
One star for Kaushik and Faizal and one for some sparkling moments in the first half.
