Opening Doorz

By Martin D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | January 12, 2018

Rating: 0 / 5

The essence: If this was supposed to be a stylish film, which shoots off the hip, then it has been lost on me. Akshat Verma who makes his debut as a director paints a colourful picture which does not depict anything. It’s as if he’s saying: “Make what you want of it!”

Rileen. Yes, that’s his name. He tells us his name almost in the last shot. Maybe because he is dying, so that someone remembers to mark his tombstone with the proper name.

For most of the film, Saif Ali Khan is doped out. Yes, Saif is Rileen. What a relief it is for him as it gives him the license to go berserk, doing mad stuff, knowing fully well the script has been tossed in the bin.

Rileen is told that he has stomach cancer and he wonders why he led a straight life. So this one night, he decides to go ballistic. He pops a pill that makes him see strange things and do even stranger things.

He hooks a hooker who is ‘neither here nor there’, kisses a photographer, takes panga with a cop, all this while there are two other parallel stories playing out—all in one night. Deepak Dobriyal and Vijay Razz are the other characters in the film whose story is playing out along with Kunal Roy Kapur and Sobhita Dhulipala. All three stories are convoluted, somewhat like Anurag Kashyap’s No Smoking where Paresh Rawal and John Abraham had no clue as to what they were doing.

If this was supposed to be a stylish film, which shoots off the hip, then it has been lost on me. Akshat Verma who makes his debut as a director paints a colourful picture which does not depict anything. It’s as if he’s saying: “Make what you want of it!”

Sobhita Dhulipala is arresting with her screen presence and performance. Ditto Isha Talwar. These two stand out with their delivery, adding a dash of depth to their characters in a film where Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz and Saif Ali Khan try to find their footing.

CREDITS
Producer: Rohit Khattar, Ashi Dua
Director: Akshat Verma
Star Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Sobhita Dhulipala, Deepak Dobriyal, Vijay Raaz, Shenaz Treasuryvala, Isha Talwar