When will Hindi Cinema
ever learn that the lifeline of any good film
is its script? For all its good intentions and
in spite of fine performances from most of its
ensemble cast, Metro finally falters
due to a weak, stereotypical screenplay. After
viewing the film, one cannot help but rue it as
a film of missed chances. The film's problems
are compounded by the fact that suddenly Hindi
Cinema is being flooded with multiple stories
and ensemble cast films. For newer films to come
out using this device, they now have to have a
new insight or be treated in a fresh manner be
it through the structure, film flow and treatment
of scenes. Metro for all its efforts fails on
those counts.
To be fair, the film starts off promisingly as
the main characters are established and you feel
the director looks at the various characters,
who for once are etched out with not just black
and white but enough shades of grey, with empathy
rather then being judgemental about who they are
and what they do. But as the film proceed, the
various storylines start getting unstuck and are
finally resolved with so called morally accepted
endings thus undoing much of the film's earlier
good work. In the end you feel all the filmmaker
has shown you characters who were naughty and
have now decided to become good. The one strand
where the characters do go beyond society's norms
to take their happiness into their own hands ends
tragically.
 The
script fails to develop the various tracks convincingly.
The Shilpa Shetty - Shiney Ahuja Brief Encounter
like angle is not gone into suffieciently for
you to believe that they both could actually have
fallen in love in those few meetings. Neither
do you see a convincing change in Konkana's feelings
towards Irrfan for her to realize she loves him.
The Kay Kay - Shilpa marriage is typical and regressive
wherein he expects to be forgiven for a full fledged
physical relationship he's had outside marriage
for two years but cannot take it when wife Shilpa
Shetty tells him she's met someone in the last
4-5 weeks and hasn't even kissed him yet! And
she's made to feel the guilty party! Kay Kay Menon
returns to wife and daughter only because he has
been dumped and not on any great realizaion on
his side what a cad he's been. Of course he's
readily forgiven by the goody-two-shoes doormat
wife who ends all ties with Shiney wishing him
all the best and all is well. Sharman Joshi with
shades of The Apartment as the call centre
executive who gives the keys to his apartment
to use for their various adultrous affairs in
return for climbing up the corporate ladder too
is given a filmi justification of doing what he
does to fulfill his father's dream of opening
a hotel thus diluting his character. The less
said of the Dharmendra
- Nafisa Ali track the better,Supposed to oh-so-cute
and poignant this mature love story is by far
the weakest strand in the film and falls horribly
flat.
For a film like this the city has to be a character
in the film. But what the filmmaker offers is
a very guarded and a set view of just a section
of Metro life. Yes, the has city today has became
synonymous with jobs, wealth and excitement, development
of malls, hypermarts, multiplexes and call centres.
But what of its underbelly, crime rate, poverty
and slums? Barring the shots from high skyscrapers
where you cannot avoid the slums of Mumbai, care
has been taken to avoid showing 'the other side'.
In that sense the film is unidimensional and not
as layered as it could have been.
The film does have its share of likeable moments.
A sequence that particularly stands out is the
one where Sharman has to juggle the various people
who use his apartment as suddenly a date change
of one of the parties tends to throw his entirely
carefully planned scheduled haywire! Another well
handled sensitive sequence is the one of Shilpa
Shetty and Shiney as they slowly and hesitantly
move towards intimacy.
 What
helps the film are the performances of its extremely
competent ensemble cast. Without doubt the track
that works best is the Irrfan Khan - Konkana Sen
Sharma one. The lightest in tone, both the actors
are in fine form showing good chemistry among
themselves. Irrfan in particular is a revealation
possessing a razor sharp sense of comic timing
one was totally unaware of. Konkana compliments
him perfectly. Just see their scene on the terrace
of a tall building as theys scream and let out
their frustartions or as he speaks to his boss
in Punjabi to get her a job in his company. The
fairy tale ending to their romance however was
plain stupid and takes a lot away from the till
then realistic tone of the film. Kay Kay Menon
responds with another fine performance as the
call centre boss sleeping with his employee Kangna
Ranaut while wife Shilpa Shetty who has given
up her career once they have a baby languishes
at home. Shilpa sincerely tries and responds with
one of the better performances of her career though
there are times where you feel she is the most
filmi in the ensemble and must 'act.'. Sharman
Joshi and Shiney Ahuja are ok, the latter needing
a more fleshed out characterization while Kangna
Ranaut is curiously flat and listless. Dharmendra
is badly miscast and Nafisa Ali gives yet another
stilted Nafisa Ali performance.
On the technical side, since the filmmaker wants
to stay with his characters, there is a great
deal of use of the tele lens and attempt to go
for close ups. But it stays at that, just an effort,
as sometimes this leads to some extremely awkward
framing and compositions. The music by Pritam
goes well with the film but the integration of
the band in every song to not just sing the songs
but act as sutradhars as well palls after the
first attempt andappears unintentionally funny
in the more emotional bits and irritating in the
lighter bits and seems totally unnnecessary as
it adds nothing to the film. The film appears
to be curiously low in aspect of Production Design.
What was that set where Dhamendra and Nafisa Ali
get intimate???
All in all. Metro had the potential
to be much much better.
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