Release
date:
|
July 6, 2018
|
Director:
|
Rucha Humnabadkar
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Ali Fazal, Rajit
Kapur, Omi Vaidya, Melanie Kannokada
Hindi and English
|
It is almost
embarrassing to have to review a film like this one. For Here Or To Go? feels, sounds and looks like the result you
would get if someone handed a lot of pocket money and a camera to a
not-so-bright kindergarten student. We all tend to be generous in our critiques
of children’s work, but the dilemma here lies in the fact that director Rucha
Humnabadkar is not a kid. Time for some tough love then, I guess?
For Here Or To Go? is the story of San
Francisco-based software engineer Vivek Pandit (Ali Fazal) who is in a state of
professional and social limbo because his US visa is on the verge of expiry.
Vivek is surrounded by friends and acquaintances who are in immigration No Man’s
Land, and the film is a call to Indians living abroad to not waste themselves
on countries that are not particularly anxious to have them, when their own
homeland would benefit greatly from their return.
Maybe there is a
story there that needs to be told, but Humnabadkar is certainly not the person
to be telling it. I would like to delve in detail into the directorial and
writing nuances here, but unfortunately there are none. Often in the narrative
you can see how the creator of this shipwreck may have thought she was being
profound, such as in a conversation in which Vivek’s colleague Lakshmi (3 Idiots’ Omi Vaidya) finally reveals to
his friends what was revealed to viewers early on, that he is gay, or when
another friend, Amit (Amitosh Nagpal), speaks of the humiliation of flunking
high school because of his poor English.
No doubt all this
is meant to draw our sympathy for the social outcaste, but the film is too bad
for it to matter. That it expects us to feel bad for its over-smart hero
who was too cocky to treat his visa renewal with urgency is a bit much,
especially when he goes all mawkish over a girl who changes her mind about
being in a relationship with him when he tells her – after sleeping with
her – that he may not be around in the US, which is her home, much longer.
In the midst of all
this rambling around, senior actor Rajit Kapur plays a US-based business tycoon
who is writing a book on why all Indians should go back home. I know there is a
great intellectual point sought to be made through his boring ruminations, and
again through the incomprehensible conversation he has with his daughter about
a life-long misunderstanding between them, and the fact that three women in
Vivek’s life are called Shweta, but I didn’t go searching for the meaning of
any of these because they are poorly expressed and this film is such a waste of
time. Nor will I strain myself too much to find out why Kapur agreed to be a
part of it.
To describe For Here Or To Go? as mediocre would be
a compliment. It is a pathetically written, terribly edited and directed film
in which the dear young leading man gives it more of himself than it deserves.
It must be a measure of Fazal’s struggle to get a foothold in filmdom that he
has graced this whaddyacallit with his presence. It is infuriating to know that
talented people like him and so many promising directors and writers have to
fight so hard to make it, while others get funds to churn out full-length
cinematic travesties like For Here
Or To Go?.
The sweet boy from Fukrey deserves better than this
non-starter.
Rating
(out of five stars): 0 stars
CBFC Rating (India):
|
UA
|
Running time:
|
1hour 45 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/fhtgmovie/
