JohnDay

The posters claim, “An Edge of the seat thriller from the makers of A Wednesday”.  The similarity with A Wednesday unfortunately ends with the fact that Naseeruddin Shah was part of both movies.  The premise and story of JohnDay is significantly different from that of A Wednesday.

The makers could argue that both movies were about a common man trying to seek justice from a system that has been eaten out from the inside.  But in case of JohnDay it would be a stretch because John never seeks justice.  He simply starts his process of revenge aka justice.  If that’s alright then their argument could hold water.

John Day (Naseer Bhai) is a manager of a local co-operative bank.  He and his wife Maria (Shernaz Patel) are struggling to recover from the loss of their daughter, Pearl at age 19.  Pearl goes on a weekend trip with her boyfriend to a farm house in the wilderness and never returns.

The Day’s life should have gotten back to normal slowly but surely.  But a group of bank robbers have other ideas.  They get John to co-operate under duress while one of them holds a gun to Maria’s head.  He eventually crushes her skull sending her into a coma.  That pretty much does it for John who starts digging.

The digging leads him to much more than what he should know and somewhere in the whole picture is ACP Gautam (Randeep Hooda) – a corrupt cop who is trying to make a fast buck through a disputed property called Casablanca Estates.  No points for guessing where Casablanca estate is because it has already been called out in the first minute.

Ahishor Solomon is a debutante – one of many who has come into Bollywood over the past few years.  He holds a lot of promise indeed.  Because he pays a lot of attention to continuity and ensures that the major parts of the script are stitched well.  Like the angle of Casablanca Estates in the beginning or John Day’s running capabilities.

But, like most Bollywood directors “attention to detail” is a gaping hole. Of course he will improve over the years but he will rue his chances of coming into Bollywood with a bang.  Especially when he had a cast that was well picked – including the small role of Elena Kazan who is the only import into Bollywood who has shown some promise.

Ashishor also gets the pace totally awry.  The start seems like a horror movie and then moves into some sort of a soppy one and suddenly goes into the angle of cops that leaves you a bit confused in the first 20 to 30 minutes.  But it slowly falls into place and I recommend that you exhibit some patience on that count.

At the end of the day, JohnDay is kept alive due to the ever reliable performances of the cast.  I so wish that Randeep Hooda gets an opportunity to act with a director like Dibakar Banerjee who will definitely get his best out.  The support cast includes the vastly under rated Sharat Saxena who is superb.  In all, JohnDay is the movie of the weekend for me.  But don’t expect too much.  6 on 10. 

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynAi7Eqo8f4