I've always wondered what would happen if Michael Bay, with the skill he has got as director (as much as I dislike his style) made a political thriller, or really any sort of serious film which wasn't an insanely dumb action-focused film. I did not really expect to find my answer in one of the most acclaimed Indian films from 2008, and one which appeared to be a respectable attempt to make a straight-faced, serious thriller about terrorism. At least, I expected an enjoyable and well-crafted action film.
"A Wednesday" is, to put it simply, a huge disappointment. Yep, there isn't much of the typical Bollywood here. The humor likes to think it's cleverer, there are no musical numbers, and the style and structure of the film are deliberately far-removed from Bollywood. While the film's intentions may have been acceptable, the film is a mundane, pretentious (yes, it really is pretentious), pointlessly convoluted thriller which may have hit home with a lot of people, but is really almost insulting when you think about how it milked such serious subject matter for such an incredibly cheap film.
Only when you think back to the raw, humanist epic "Black Friday" do you realize just how weak "A Wednesday" truly is. You know how middlebrow Hollywood is often accused of producing manipulative films? This is the ultimate example of that. That Neeraj Pandey's debut as director is more focused on looking 'cool' and 'stylish' than, you know, telling a story, just hammers it home. This relies on so many cheap thriller tactics it's unbelievable. The direction also may be technically competent in that Pandey obviously knows what he's doing, but it's not competent as storytelling. Scenes jump into each other randomly, there are musical cues so inexplicable they induce laughter, countless shots of people walking with purpose down hallways which cut to random pans and zooms of something else. There's no rhythm here, nothing. It's really terrible.
This is ultimately more "Con Air" than "Munich" and even then not nearly as much dumb fun as that, and its desperate desire to say something important makes its falling flat on its face even more embarrassing. Personally I'm amazed at all the praise this film has gotten, especially as I was looking forward to seeing an example of the less mainstream aspect of popular Indian cinema without leaving Mumbai. I don't think many films have made me angrier.
"A Wednesday" is, to put it simply, a huge disappointment. Yep, there isn't much of the typical Bollywood here. The humor likes to think it's cleverer, there are no musical numbers, and the style and structure of the film are deliberately far-removed from Bollywood. While the film's intentions may have been acceptable, the film is a mundane, pretentious (yes, it really is pretentious), pointlessly convoluted thriller which may have hit home with a lot of people, but is really almost insulting when you think about how it milked such serious subject matter for such an incredibly cheap film.
Only when you think back to the raw, humanist epic "Black Friday" do you realize just how weak "A Wednesday" truly is. You know how middlebrow Hollywood is often accused of producing manipulative films? This is the ultimate example of that. That Neeraj Pandey's debut as director is more focused on looking 'cool' and 'stylish' than, you know, telling a story, just hammers it home. This relies on so many cheap thriller tactics it's unbelievable. The direction also may be technically competent in that Pandey obviously knows what he's doing, but it's not competent as storytelling. Scenes jump into each other randomly, there are musical cues so inexplicable they induce laughter, countless shots of people walking with purpose down hallways which cut to random pans and zooms of something else. There's no rhythm here, nothing. It's really terrible.
This is ultimately more "Con Air" than "Munich" and even then not nearly as much dumb fun as that, and its desperate desire to say something important makes its falling flat on its face even more embarrassing. Personally I'm amazed at all the praise this film has gotten, especially as I was looking forward to seeing an example of the less mainstream aspect of popular Indian cinema without leaving Mumbai. I don't think many films have made me angrier.