Published On : Sat, Feb 14th, 2015

Roy : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

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Roy : Classy but tad boring

roy

I wonder how “Roy” got made in Bollywood. That too from a production house like T-Series which is generally focused on masses. Roy is a literary tale. A narrative which tries to explain the relationship of a writer/director and his characters. An attempt to tell a story in a classy manner which will suit Hollywood more than Bollywood. It is a risky film to make.

Did they make it right?

“Roy” is written and directed by debutant Writer-Director Vikramjit Singh who seems to have a taste of elite and classy lifestyle. The story is about writer-director Kabir Grewal (Arjun Rampal) and his 23rd love interest Ayesha (Jacqueline Fernandez). It is also about the protagonist character in Kabir’s Movies, Roy (Ranbir Kapoor) and Tia (Jacqueline Fernandez). Kabir is a suave filmaker who is a talked about Casanova. While shooting in Malaysia, he meets Ayesha (who is also filming her movie) and finds very interesting. They both spend good time with each other and then Ayesha leaves her for some reason without even proper goodbyes. Kabir breaks down and in those times of remorse, he changes for better. His emotions are reflected in his story and his characters go through similar circumstances.

The story basically explains that any creative work is expression of its creators own feelings and circumstances. The screenplay smoothly moves between the real and reel stories in the movie. Everything is classy, elite and contemporarily artistic. But, it lacks entertainment and pace. At least the movie in the movie could have been stylish and fast paced with heists, action and entertainment. But both stories are almost same replicas of each other which doesn’t make sense. One could have been used to provide entertainment and other for class and quality.

Vikramjit makes an impressive debut with a literary quality screenplay and proves he has the skills and the craft. But he falters at the screenplay as explained above and then falls in love with the material at hand and does not allow his editor Dipika Kalra go all ruthless on it. The movie is of 146 mins if they could have made it around 110-120 mins, it would have been much effective than it is right now.

Casting Director Shahid Hasan arranged a dream cast for Vikramjit and they all performed very well. This is actually an Arjun Rampal movie and not that of Ranbir Kapoor one. Ranbir Kapoor fans will be hugely disappointed as he is not used fully and has very less screen time. Both of them did a very good job. This can be said as Arjun’s best lead performance. The lady who acted as his assistant is fabulous.

Jacqueline also portrayed the double role very well. She looks exquisite and exotic. By portraying 2 different characters efficiently, we can now say that she knows how to act. Rajit Kapoor is wasted.

Production quality of the movie is top notch. Cinematography by Himman Dhamija in itself is an USP of the movie. Every frame is visually enriching. Art Direction by Shraddha Johri shows classy touch everywhere. Music of the film is already popular and is a saving grace of the movie. Background music too is worth mention.

“Roy” reminds me of “Lootera” which also was of literary quality, intelligent and classy but was tad boring. Roy is even more boring than “Lootera”. It is like single malt. Only few can appreciate the taste of it. It can be a good movie to savor in a home theater setting with a glass of scotch in hand. But not to watch in theaters unless you can ignore the slow pace.

2-star
Recommendation : Ignore this movie if you expect only entertainment from movies. But if you can live with classy lifestyle portrayal, enjoy the cinematic experiments and literary writing, you can watch it on the big screen.