I just watched the film last night. Was I expecting too much? I think not, since I already had a rough idea what the basic storyline was, having read Othello (albeit years ago). Let's not get me wrong. The film is quite brilliant in many aspects. Saif Ali Khan as Tyagi is superb, and I couldn't have seen him play that role, but kudos to the director for having seen it like that. The cinematography is great. Excellent music, both soundtrack as well as background score. There were however a few things that didn't seem to gel.
The basic character of Omi was written out a bit different from the character of Othello. I don't know whether it is Devgan that did that to the character, but his inner angst didn't hit home too hard.
What was Naseeruddin Shah doing there? A brilliant actor who seemed to have been brought into the cast to only add weight to the movie. It's like commercial cinema adds Bachchan to their cast without having a proper role written out for him.
The screenplay was not as tight as it could've been. Too much slang leaves lot of the audience alienated. Although I must say that a lot of the individual dialog was well-written. Other bits of dialog, however, seemed that they were written to induce a cheer from the audience more than anything else.
Lastly, I would say that the film could've been much shorter. Some serious editing could've been done. i felt that many scenes were stretched and seemed to hang loose in the film.
I do recommend this film to people in order to appreciate the canvas that the movie is set upon. It is quite an undertaking. The treatment of the movie is rather impressive and adds another feather in the cap of Bollywood.
3 out of 6 found this helpful