masudalam

Gustad is a lucky director in that he got to do a big film after the mediocre Bombay Boys. For Boom he got the likes of Bachan, Shroff, Zeenat Amaan et al and had the deep pockets to shoot at Burj Al Arab and pretty much wherever he wanted in India and Dubai. He also had the names of Bo Derek and Padma Lakshmi (Salman Rushdie's model girlfriend) to play up in the marketing campaign... and what did he do with all this! He sank it all.

He has three cuties in the cast who are raring to bare it all, and did quite often; he got tremendous performances from the lower league actors, Gulshan Grover and specially Javed Jaffrey; there's the ever sellable cocktail of sex, drugs and money; and despite everything there ARE quite a few laughs in the film. So what went wrong?

The story. Or rather the lack of it. It seems Gustad was shooting on random notes rather than a script. The result is a series of shots - some beautiful, sexy and very funny, others irrelevant or incomprehensible, or both - put together in a jumpy fashion, and served up with a lot of glitter to make it look like a feature film. Sound levels are particularly bad, and some of the dialogue is lost either in strange accents the actors are putting on, or in the sound quality. Seems like the flick was only intended to be watched, not heard.

I watched the movie against many an advice, but I'd like to recommend it to all those who are interested in movies. Just to guage how so much can be squandered to produce so little, if for no other reason.

Aastha is not your standard 'art film' though it seems like one, specially seeing Om Puri's name in the credits. This is a film that starts out great - brilliant cast, good story line, ok direction - but then it kind of fails to do all that it set out to achieve. Nevertheless it has its moments that you won't forget. My favourite is the scene where Rekha - playing a housewife next door - gives in to the advances of Navin ... who would turn out to be her first customer in a career of prostitution she chose unwillingly. Rekha is wonderful, and so is Om Puri. The only aspect that weakens the film is the story itself. Its not very convincing at the crucial moments, and there are some obvious directorial misjudgments. But its still a film you must watch.

Aastha is not your standard 'art film' though it seems like one, specially seeing Om Puri's name in the credits. This is a film that starts out great - brilliant cast, good story line, ok direction - but then it kind of fails to do all that it set out to achieve. Nevertheless it has its moments that you won't forget. My favourite is the scene where Rekha - playing a housewife next door - gives in to the advances of Navin ... who would turn out to be her first customer in a career of prostitution she chose unwillingly. Rekha is wonderful, and so is Om Puri. The only aspect that weakens the film is the story itself. Its not very convincing at the crucial moments, and there are some obvious directorial misjudgments. But its still a film you must watch.