Release
date:
|
November 1, 2019
|
Director:
|
Tarun Mansukhani
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Sushant Singh
Rajput, Jacqueline Fernandez, Boman Irani, Pankaj Tripathi, Vibha Chibber, Sapna
Pabbi, Vikramjeet Virk
Hindi
|
So it is here at
last: the first direct-to-Netflix release by Karan Johar’s Dharma
Productions.
Produced by KJo,
written and directed by Tarun “Dostana”
Mansukhani, starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Jacqueline Fernandez, Drive is a thriller that
follows the tried-and-tested pattern of a heist within a heist within a
heist. Film industries across the world have explored this genre to fun effect.
India’s Hindi film industry a.k.a. Bollywood proved that it has the chops
for wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels crime back in 1978 with the iconic
Don starring Amitabh Bachchan, more
recently with Abbas Mustan’s Race
in 2008 and the SRK-Farhan Akhtar Don films in 2006 and 2011.
The very least you
would expect after seeing the poster, the credits of Drive and reading its summary is that it would deliver spadefuls of
excitement, pretty people in pretty clothes and swish special effects.
Well, lower those expectations right away.
Sure, Rajput and
Fernandez look hot in the film, both have tremendously fit bodies, and if
you think back on the story, the original concept probably had the potential to
become a slick cops-and-robbers drama. At first it does seem like Drive might prove to be an entertainer but
the narrative, like the special effects, steadily declines as the film
progresses. The SFX are overall so downmarket
that it is hard to believe Drive comes to us from Dharma, whose
signature for at least two decades has been glossy visuals.
Not that anything
else in the film is of high calibre. Well suited to the SFX are the generic
storytelling style, the overall ordinary production quality,
inconsistent audio, a stand-out acting loophole and glaring lack of logic that,
among other things, translates into Delhi roads – notorious in reality for their
traffic jams – obligingly emptying themselves out to accommodate high-speed car
races and chases at all times of day and night.
The reason why Drive is set in India’s capital city is
because a robbery is being planned in Rashtrapati Bhavan. The primary
players in this game are a group of car racing aficionados, an
outsider who infiltrates their inner circle, a criminal known simply as
King – you know, like Don in Don – and
corrupt bureaucrats.
The opening race in
Drive is reasonably well done, the
song ‘n’ dance that follows is kinda nicely choreographed by Adil Shaikh, and Jacqueline Fernandez
has some cute moves in it. From then on it is a downhill
descent.
Gaping gaps in the plotline
recede into the background in the face of ordinary car chases that routinely
look plastic and an embarrassingly low-brow extended climax that feels like the
work of an entry-level animation student. Lightning McQueen’s universe appeared
more real than the vehicles and roads in several of this film’s scenes.
Much has been made
of the fact that a portion of Drive was filmed in Israel, making it the first Bollywood venture to be
shot there. The media has reported that the film was also partly funded by that
country’s government. The true mystery here is why the Israeli sarkar thought
this film would be a good ad for them in India. Be assured that what Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is to New York
City or Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is
to Spain, Drive is absolutely not to
Tel Aviv. At best the city is treated like the geographical equivalent of an ‘item’
number chucked mindlessly into a bad Bollywood film – it springs up out of the
blue and it has no relevance whatsoever to the storyline.
In the face of such
mediocrity, analysing the screenplay almost feels pointless. But a job is a
job, so consider this. Without giving anything away let us just say the only
way the masterplan revealed in the climax of Drive could possibly have worked is if no one in Rashtrapati
Bhavan’s entire security department checked a critical character’s ID carefully
for several days.
Granted that this
point arises only in retrospect, and granted that this person could have had
the world’s top creator of fake IDs backing them, so instead consider this question
that comes up quite early in the film. (Some
people may consider this paragraph a spoiler) The loot could not have
been where it was unless other critical characters managed to easily beat the
security system in the Indian President’s residence for what must have been
months, if not years. If you have visited Rashtrapati Bhavan and
experienced the tight restrictions in place in the complex, you would know how
ridiculous this is. How the crooks aced the system is never explained, we are
simply expected to accept that they did because we are told so. (Spoiler alert ends)
Or consider
this. Person X says in the end that they were expecting to be deceived by
Person Y. But in an earlier scene when X realised they had been
double-crossed by Y, the facial expression – clearly visible in close-up – is one
of shock and not at all “oh well, I knew this was coming”.
Or this. In a key
scene in Drive, a quartet of cars
zips through an airport runway and the occurrence seems not to be a blip
on the radar of Air Traffic Control (ATC), the local police or the news
media at that point or for the two months that the story continues. This
writing laziness is intentional – having ATC, the police and press notice
the breach would have been too much of an inconvenience since it could have
meant the kingpins of the gameplan being discovered before the writer wanted
them to be, you see.
Or consider this.
Snazzy cars with the words “Delhi Police” emblazoned on them zoom about the
city, offering evidence of how little the team of Drive knows the reality of the capital’s ill-equipped force.
As for the acting, well,
Pankaj Tripathi does lend a Pankaj Tripathi touch to his character, but really,
how is one to seriously and fairly critique the performances in such a film?
For a moment let us
set aside thoughts of the cast though, and Johar, Netflix and Israel. Let us
take that moment to mourn the fact that this sub-standard action flick has been
made by the same director who gave us Dostana,
which, notwithstanding its resemblance to a Hollywood film, was, in its
own way, pathbreaking in the Indian social context. From Dostana to Drive is such
a fall.
Rating (out
of five stars): 1/2
CBFC Rating (India):
|
None
|
Running time:
|
119 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Photograph
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive_(2019_film)
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