Roy: No joy in this Roy

It is good to see that story telling in Bollywood is changing and film makers are trying different subjects and different formats of storytelling. But being different does not mean that the entertainment quotient is missing or the pace needs to be slow.

Vikramjit Singh the debutant director and writer of Roy completely loose the plot in being different. Roy tells the story of hot shot film maker Kabir (Arjun Rampal) who is not only known for his successful movies but also for his Casanova ways and his link ups. While making his third movie he meets Ayesha (Jacqueline Fernandez) a British film maker while shooting his movie in Malaysia and falls in love. As a film maker he gets the writer’s block in scripting his movie which is based on a thief ROY (Ranbir Kapoor). Somewhere Kabir’s personal life starts reflecting in the script and what happens when Kabir gets entangled in the web of real life and his imaginary life of his movie forms the crux of the rest of the movie.

Vikramjit’s concept is different and very complex and trying such a movie in itself is a big task. But where Vikram jit fails as a writer is his inability to execute the idea both as a story and screenplay. The story had an inherent flaw of being completely abstract and the screenplay pulls down the movie further. The 147 min movie is extremely slow and does not pick up at all; being a thriller this is the biggest flaw. Secondly the audience keeps on expecting some twist but every time it disappoints and the climax completely falls flat. The movie fails in the genre that it belonged, a thriller.

The dialogues again written by Vikramjit and Hussain Dalal is good in some sequences and it does not makes any sense in some and sounds too preachy and completely out of sync.

Performance wise Arjun Rampal as Kabir does complete justice and his earnestness shows. Ranbir Kapoor looks extremely out of sync and completely disinterested in his portrayal of the thief Roy, in some sequences he looks visibly uncomfortable. I think this is one of the weakest performances of Ranbir Kapoor after Besharam, it was sad to see Ranbir not being upto the mark. The bright spot of the movie is Jacqueline Fernandez’s portrayal of both Ayesha as well as Tia. She looked extremely glamorous and shows a huge improvement as a performer. Shernaz Patel, Rajit Kapoor & Anupam Kher are wasted completely in insignificant roles and cameos. Rest of the cast hardly has anything to contribute.

Himman Dhamija’s cinematography is so mesmerizing and he has captured Malaysia so well that you would plan your next vacation at Malaysia. The next strong point of the movie is its music by Amaal Mallik, Meet Bros & Ankit Tiwari. The music is melodious and has been beautifully choreographed by Ahmed Khan.

As a film maker Vikramjit Singh presents the movie with enough gloss & glamour and style, but unfortunately only these elements do not make a Good movie. As a debut film Vikramjit had a fabulous cast and equally good technical team. Even Vikramjit’s overall concept was also fresh and new for Bollywood but he completely wastes this opportunity with a weak story and an extremely slow paced screenplay. I will go with 2 stars…

Movie Rating: (2 / 5)