Queen

The highlight of Queen to me was this sequence that is built up to quite brilliantly by 2^nd time director Vikas Bahl (Chillar Party). http://zoomtv.indiatimes.com/movies/hungama-ho-gaya-the-new-song-from-queen/videoshow/31110978.cms.  While watching the link may be a spoiler, I would still go ahead and take a look, if I were you to get a glimpse of what has been Kangana Ranaut’s moment of truth.

Queen was hyped all over the place in every conceivable form of media and every fathomable corner critic.  I caught up with it more than 24 hours after my usual Friday morning date and I was riveted to the screen for a good hour and 10 minutes i.e. upto the interval.  After that, a movie that promised a lot drifts away like a rudderless boat for a while before coming upto a worthy climax.

Rani Mehra (Kangana Ranaut) is from Rajouri Garden, New Delhi.  If you have been to New Delhi, you would know what it is like to be a Rajouri Garden type.  My word has Kangana got under the skin of her character!!! Beginning with a complete de-glam look to even defining her Rajouri type email id – happyrani@yahoo.com – Bahl has gone the whole 9 yards and Kangana has complied.

Rani and Vijay (Rajkumar Yadav) are engaged to be married – a story that unfolds in a non-linear fashion in the first half.  A relevant and ironic (you will see) back story because it is Vijay who pursues Rani – his Queen (hence the name of the movie) – over a few years before they decide to get married.  Somewhere along the way, Vijay moves to London and with 2 days to go, calls off the wedding.

A distraught Queen takes a day or two to gather herself and then asks her parents to allow her a chance to experience her honeymoon in her city of dreams – Paris.  This time around she doesn’t have her brother Chintu in tow.  The next 12-15 days moves to Paris where she meets Vijaylakshmi (Lisa Haydon) aka Vijay (how ironic again) and goes on to have the time of her life with 3 new friends in Amsterdam.

Despite its high points – which are many in number – Queen has some conspicuous low points.  For some reason, Lisa Haydon and her French accent seem very forced.  She suddenly speaks a few lines in Hindi towards the end of her role – something that hasn’t been defined through the movie although her roots have been called as part Indian.

There is of course the faux pas with the Mehendi that shuttles between faded and deep red through the first half – in wrong places of course.  A very surprising aspect considering that Bahl has otherwise paid so much attention to detail.  The drifting 2^nd half with an excess of about 25 minutes including an unnecessary angle of a Pakistani pole dancer, doesn’t help the cause.

Those are the reasons why I am giving Queen a 7 on 10.  A movie that could have so easily been and 8 if not higher if only Bahl had stuck to his desire to really drive the dagger in for the kill.  Unfortunately the errors are way too obvious to be ignored and I assure you that I am not nitpicking here.

To sign off, don’t miss out on yet another superb performance from Rajkumar Yadav who people are going to ignore along with the rest of the support cast which is equally brilliant if not better.  Worth every penny for the first half so I would ask you to watch it for sure.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGC6vl3lzf0