What was cinematographer and director Amal Neerad trying to say, with his latest film, Bachelor Party? Well, chances are that you may have no clues about his intentions, even after you sit in disbelief watching Padmapriya gyrate to some silly tune, as the end titles roll in a corner.
It is fine if a filmmaker decides to entertain the viewers using brilliant visuals and technical wizardry only. In fact, Amal is known for his disregard for a genuine storyline in his films, but here he seems to have gone a bit too far.
The trademark gimmicks from the director are all there. Slow motions, extreme close ups, measured silences, quirky one liners, unbelievable situations, booze, guns, blood, you name it and it’s all there.
And the curious thing here is that ‘Bachelor Party’ has largely been copied from the 2006 Hong Kong action thriller ‘Fong Juk’ or Exiled, directed by Johnnie To. Most of the sequences, including the ‘garden sequence’ outside Toni’s house, the background score, the ‘red colour’ that spreads after a gunshot and even the jewelry that Toni buys for his kid have been carefully reproduced from the original.
Johnnie To has been thanked for his influence in the titles, but then is it fine to copy someone’s film without acknowledging the fact prior to the release of the film and still using convenient terms like ‘inspiration’ or ‘filmography’ in the titles (as it happened with another celebrated film released recently)?
Toni (Asif Ali), Geevar (Indrajith), Benny (Rahman), Ayyappan (Kalabhavan Mani) and Fakeer (Vinayakan) have been childhood friends. Now, two of them are working as henchmen for a gangster named Prakash Kamath (John Vijay) and they target Toni. The other two comes to Toni’s rescue.
In fact the whole film has been set against this wafer thin premise and slick visuals are being used to make up for it. If you are really interested in such visual spectacles and lines mostly adorned with cheap expletives, chances are that the initial portions could work fine to a certain extent. But when basic logic get questioned and the patience of the viewer is tested with an overdose of stylish action, things start going from bad to worse.
Unni R and Santhosh Aechikkanam, who have been credited for writing the script, have added a few scenes to the original and stuffed with one-liners purely aimed at those who are desperate for titillation.
The actors have been stylishly presented, but they have nothing much to do on the histrionics front. Prithviraj has been wasted in a brief role of no real significance. Meanwhile Remya Nambeeshan and Padmapriya are there just for one item number each.
There is a certain madness about Bachelor Party and it has been made known through the film’s publicity materials as well. If you are fine with that, the movie can be entertaining in parts. The rest of the world, who are looking for a genuine storyline, some melodrama or logic, can stay away.
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