Viewed: NEW YORK

It's the same stuff and unfortunately it's almost baffling - why does a serious topic need the crutch of a masala treatment all the time?

The answer is evident too - it takes helluva skill to show not tell - to tell a story effectively - to let the tale evoke emotions not dialogues, not cute exchange between characters, not excessive melodrama. But...when your beliefs lie on the other side, where you are convinced that this is the best way to go, then...you play on that.

Well...even that's not too bad but when you flounder in telling the tale well, something isn't correct if you focus on creating characters that are consciously made to appease the audience.

From the other side what do you do when such a film is a success. It makes money! Well..that's the tragedy of our times.

New York is the story of a young student (Neil Nitin Mukesh) who comes to New York to study and befriends a couple - a girl (Katrina Kaif) and a boy (John Abraham). He loves the girl who loves the other guy and the two marry. He pushes off and after a gap of few years, post 9/11 he is picked up by an Indian (Irrfan Khan) working for FBI to go back into the lives of their friends and catch the man, who is a prime terror suspect.

The lost-lover refuses to believe that his friend is a terrorist but when he is excessively pressurized he goes on the mission to prove otherwise and discovers that he was wrong. In the end he tries to change his friend but the ending is tragic.

The story flows in three-acts. Neil is taken-in. He takes time to break down, then joins his pals and focuses in finding out the truth. With truth out he tries to reform the pal but it doesn't happen.

The story could have been told in much shorter time, which would have made it more crisper. The norms of masala cinema are at play - stay with lead players for long to showcase their plight, use impressive dialogues that are smile-inducing all the time, slow-mo is essential to create the bigness of the moments and show the dark side in terms of caricatures.

The themes of muslim exploitation is at the base of this. But there's an interesting twist - the villain is a terrorist but guess what - he doesn't like killing normal people - it's the FBI that he is after. Why? Since FBI are the ones who detain people with suspicion and drive them mad. They back it up with comments after the ending of the film.

This would be true to some extent, but what's interesting is that the nice villain is nice - he has an agenda, though misjudged at least he is not an evil guy. And he is willing to die for that. So...is his love.

There is a good deal if illogical stuff at play. There is betrayal at play between husband and wife. Husband thinks the wife does not know that she is a terrorist. The wife knows but hopes he would reform...on his own. It's kind of weird. Basically, contrived.

Irrfan Khan does bring in his usual powerful presence and makes the frame alive, but if the story isn't too gripping the momentum drops and you are just wondering when will this all end.

However even within given masala norms - it was an interesting story that should have been dealt better. Of course, the film-makers would feel they did a good job since they did get decent reviews and importantly, made the money!


Rating **

[Max Rating ****]


[Viewed at Chembur on 26th March, 2010 courtesy Guru's VCD]