David: A mish mash of 3 uninspiring stories
I had expected a lot from Bejoy Nambiar’s second offering after ‘Shaitaan’, but was gravely disappointed.
‘David’ comprises of three stories based on three principal characters by the same name DAVID. One story is set in 1975 London, second story in 1999 Mumbai and third story 2010 Goa.
The first story has Neil Nitin Mukesh playing a side kick DAVID of gangster Iqbal Ghani (Akarsh Khurana) in London, 1975. Second story has Vinay Virmani playing DAVID an aspiring Rock singer and a son of a Christian priest Father Noel (Nasser) in Mumbai, 1999. Third story has Vikram playing DAVID a good for nothing alcoholic in Goa who falls head over heels in love with Roma (Isha Sherwani), 2010.
Amongst the 3 stories the first story of the gangster is the only decent one as compared to the other three. Shot is black & white it gives a different mood to the narration and definitely the story had a Bejoy Nambiar stamp all across. The second story of the aspiring rock star never really picks up and is completely flat albeit better than the last story. The last story of the good for nothing alcoholic is the weakest and has no relevance to the other 2 stories. The climax is the biggest let down wherein Nambiar tries unsuccessfully to join the 3 stories.
The story & screenplay written by Bejoy Nambiar & Natasha Sahgal is weak and uninspiring. Other the first story which has some moments the other 2 stories are a washout.
The biggest strength of the movie is the Cinematography & Music. The camera work by R.Rathnavelu, PS Vinod & Shanu Verghese is brilliant and gives a distinct character & mood to the three stories based 3 different eras. The music pulls the otherwise weak movie to a certain level, the music is a blend of folk, rock & retro and Bejoy cleverly has roped in 8 music directors Bramfatura, Mikey McCleary, Maatibaani, Remo Fernandes, Prashant Pillai, Gaurav Godkhindi, Aaron Carvalho, Dub Sharma for the brilliant music, especially the “Mast Kallandar” song sung by Rekha Bhradwaj is a stand out.
Performance wise Neil repeats his Jhonny Gaddar act (its high time he tries something else), Vinay Virmani does not impress much in this movie, Vikram one of the best performance of the movie falls flat due to a weak script. Tabu & Nassar do a decent job, Monica Dogra as Noor is completely miscast, Isha Sharwani looks beautiful (well she was signed to do only that). The most impressive of the other cast is definitely Akarsh Khurana who plays Iqbal Ghani to the T. Other supporting cast Lara Dutta, Rohini Hatangady, Satish Kaushik, Prahlad Kakkar (his debut), singer Shweta Pandit, Shweta Menon do a good job. Sarika in a guest role for the song “Mast Kalandar” was brilliant.
Overall David is a huge disappointment, Bejoy Nambiar after a brilliant “Shaitaan”, gives a complete wash out “David”…I give 2 star (One star for the music and camera work)