Sunday, 7 December 2014

Action Jackson :: Movie Review


                                                         
Action Jackson is a tacky, cringy, puerile potboiler and is a classic example justifying that when a director tries to put in excess of every element of formulaic filmmaking in a single movie for inducing entertainment, the movie falls flat. For audience, who want to go and enjoy this movie.....I warn them in advance that this movie comes with certain terms & conditions apply tag attached to it, namely.....1. You have to have surrender your  brain to the cinematic vision of Prabhudheva, the moment this movie begins.  2. You can't even dare to awaken your logical senses and put them into practice while watching this movie, else the makers won't be held responsible for your going insane watching the on-screen proceedings. What can you expect from a film in which heroine needs to see hero without pants to get lucky? High flying unrealistic action drama, romance in bits n' pieces and a few comic scenes, this is all the film has for the audience. There is utter chaos & mayhem written all over on each n every frame of the movie. In this completely botched up movie, there are few sparkling moments in the first half but the second half is totally ruckus and works like anesthesia by putting you off to sleep. That's because, the premise of "Action Jackson" looks like an outdated cinematic chimera or rather "partridge and quail cross breeded" kind of cine narration which is created while being in a state of deliriousness. As soon as the narration of "Action Jackson" takes off it straight-away starts bothering you with its logic defying stodgy content. In-fact it won't be wrong to say that sans anything heart or mind quenching in it first half of the "Action Jackson" is tediously overstretched, where everything looks redundant and topsy-turvy. The question that arises after watching Devgn & Devgn (yes, there are two of them in the film ) plus girls, guns, gore and garbage, is....what is "Action Jackson" about ? Is it a tale so deep that we perhaps confuse the trees for the wood? Or inversely, is it a tale so shallow and crass that it parades bombastic and brash tripe as mass entertainment? Tragically the latter option repeatedly stares into our face.


STORY & SCREENPLAY                                           ::                                       The story of the movie has been written by A.C.Mugil & the credit for the screenplay has been shared by Shiraz Ahmed, A.C.Mugil & Prabhudheva. The script for Prabhudheva's film seems to have been scribbled on a series of paper napkins in crowded cafe where fights often break out, quite like the ones we see break out in the public places in Prabhudheva's designer-inanity. Even the screenplay of "Action Jackson" has got a high degree of parity to the narration, where it copiously adds to the amount of disaster created by the story-line The biggest flaw of the screenplay of this movie is that it lacks soul and it looks as if the characters have been set on Auto mode. It gives you a feel as if you are watching a South Indian movie with the only difference being that it stars Bollywood actors in it.  Probably the entire concept or the premise of "Action Jackson" would have looked great on papers to its makers, but in reality it turns out be as disastrous as one can expect, where it has nothing except obnoxious characters, weird dance routines, numerous inane situations sans any entertainment, Southern Movies styled action sequences, raucous music and a few below the belt gags.  As far as the storyline goes, the film starts off with the entry of Vishy (Ajay Devgn) in his regular fashion that's combined with élan and style. For reasons unexplained till almost the interval, Vishy is at the target point of many goons who follow him left, right and centre to bump him off. As if this wasn't enough, there comes Khushi (Sonakshi Sinha) who 'experiences good luck' in succession after seeing Vishy 'family jewels'. With this, Vishy adds one more 'stalker' to his list! It's only towards the interval that the audiences get to know that Vishy has a doppelganger by the name of 'AJ', who by profession is a killer. And then it becomes clear that the goons actually mistook Vishy to be AJ and hence followed him everywhere. And when AJ and Vishy meet, the former explains the reason to the latter and his friend (Kunaal Roy Kapur) that since he refused to marry the dreaded goon and mafia kingpin Xavier (Anand Raj)'s highly obsessed sister Marina (debutante Manasvi Mamgai), the goons are out to kill him and the love of his life Anusha (Yami Gautam). Tracking down AJ in India, Xavier sends his henchmen to India to kill AJ, which is when AJ devises a plot with the help of Vishy to destroy Xavier and his crazy sister Marina and protect his wife and new born baby.


The question that arises after watching Devgn and Devgn (yes, there are two of him) plus girls, guns, gore and garbage, is... what is "Action Jackson" about? Is it a tale so deep that we perhaps confuse the the trees for the wood? Or inversely, is it a tale so shallow and crass that it parades bombastic and brash tripe as mass entertainment? Tragically the latter option repeatedly stares into our face. There is no mistaking the motivation behind the mayhem and melodrama. - See more at: http://www.greatandhra.com/movies/reviews/action-jackson-review-if-mj-was-alive-he-would-sue-61987.html#sthash.Rjqv3GRs.dpuf
STARCAST                                                              ::                     'Ajay devgn has come to this?' This was the question that gnawed me right from the word go. This dusky-super-sexy man has an acting potential that has over the years churned out some seriously great cinematic experiences. But after watching him in 'Action Jackson', truly, I am disappointed. He has a double role in the movie which could have been a big plus point but alas the script lets him down. Both Devgn's haven't met in throughout their lives, they still have the same hairstyle, beard style, action style and what-not. He has been able to made act loud which doesn't suit his persona at all. Kunal Roy Kapur is a fine actor who just doesn't fit in the plot anywhere & has been made to portray a character which is not cut out for him. Humor is his thing, but in this film he couldn't even make me smile. As for the ladies, Sonakshi Sinha and Yami Gautam, I had to really calculate as to who had lesser screen presence and in the end, Sonakshi won the race. Sonakshi. as a part of pot boilers is now almost an acceptable fact and with Prabhudheva, this being her nth association, she manages to get under the skin of her character. She has ably provided some comic relief in this dud of a movie. As for Yami Gautam, ouch ! The fair and lovely girl just had one song and for the rest of the film, the pretty lady was either getting beaten up by goons or confined to a bed in hospital. Not so fair and lovely after all !Also the movie features Manasvi Mamgai, former Femina Miss India 2010, in the shoes of an obsessed-psycho fan of AJ. In her debut attempt, she has managed to impress by portraying her character to utmost perfection. Ananth Raj looks less frightening and more silly as the bald Xavier Fonseca. Amongst the ensemble starcast, noticeable performances have been given by Ketan Karande as Pedro, Puru Raj Kumar as police Inspector, Razzak Khan as Lala & Shawar Ali as Nawab. 

TECHNICAL FINESSE                                            ::                                          The soundtrack of the movie has been composed by Himesh Reshammiya which is of very average standard with none of the tracks staying with you as you move out after watching the movie. The background music has been composed by Sandeep Chowta whose decibels are so high, they could split eardrums provided you can stay put in your seat through the ordeal. The very talented Sandeep Chowta provides helpful pointers in the background score: "Vishy Vishya" goes the score when Devgn is on the screen. "Bangkok Bangkok" is the chant on the soundtrack for those who like their locations well mapped. The cinematographer of the movie is VijayKumar Arora who has done a fine job. He has captured the outdoor locales brilliantly. The action director of the movie is K. Ravi Verma who has helmed the action sequences and stunts with finesse. The editor of the movie is Bunty Nagi who has kept the run-time of the movie to 144 minutes. The editing of the movie is a bit botchy with lot of disjointed scenes coming into play one after another testing the patience of the audience. As a director, Prabhudheva has failed this time as he has delivered a very average cine flick when the expectations from him were quite high. He has relied too much on the silly humor quotient and action sequences without even bothering to build up a gripping storyline to take the sequences forward which is his biggest flaw. 

CONCLUSION                                                    ::               If you want to sit and crib and test your patience and tolerance levels then you might wanna watch it. Otherwise it can surely given a miss! I am giving it one star out of five.
 
ROHIT SHARMA.
Follow me on twitter at  https://twitter.com/smgr105
rohitreview@gmail.com

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