Director: Neeraj Pathak
Cast: Sunny Deol, Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Isha Koppikar
Usually one who does the right thing is called the hero. But in Bollywood, whatever the hero does is the right thing. And anything that his opponent does is wrong, irrespective of the ground reality. So what is legally wrong is made cinematically right by director Neeraj Pathak in this debate on Right Yaaa Wrong .
After one tacky item number, two clumsy fight sequences and Sunny’s shady dance attempt in between, the story struggles to start in the third reel. Paralyzing Sunny Deol before the action starts might not be the sanest and safest of ideas but the director takes the risk and restricts the driving force of the film to a wheelchair. Crawling at a sluggish pace, the narrative ironically t( race )s the route of Abbas-Mustan’s thrillers.
Ajay (Sunny Deol) is the crippled officer whose wife (Isha Koppikar) is having an adulterous affair with his stepbrother. The duo attempts to knock off Ajay on the undying life-insurance money motive, only to be double-crossed into death. Ajay’s friend and colleague Vinay (Irrfan Khan) suspects Ajay as the murderer and investigates against him. Vinay’s sister Radhika (Konkona Sen Sharma) defends Ajay in court.
The story penned by Neeraj Pathak, Girish Dhamija and Sanjay Chauhan loosely reminds of 1986 crime thriller Qatl where a blind Sanjeev Kumar plans revenge on his adulterous wife (Sarika) and later proves the same in court. The supposed suspense in the first half is as lame as its protagonist with a perceptible double-cross at the interval point. The identity of the killer is revealed to the viewer soon after and with nothing left to your imagination, the genre changes from suspense-thriller to courtroom-drama.
While the conflict between the cops adds momentum to the drama in the second half, the letdown is that you already know the verdict of the case. Surely the director could have opted for a more imaginative storytelling pattern to maintain the mystery. The script is deceptively devised such that it supports the hero at every step, as he outdoes every cross examination which includes playing an episode of ‘ Sach ka Samna ’.
But when the climax of the film merely ends up being a moral justification of the hero’s wrongdoing as right, the viewer feels wronged. Didn’t we know the hero is always right? Was this the only lousy reason to sit through till the end? With an ordinary end like this, even the two-hour film seems like a lengthy exercise into nothingness.
Technically the thriller is plain average with Monty Sharma’s lackluster background score, Tinu Verma’s uninspiring action sequences and Ravi Walia’s passable cinematography. Ashfaque Makrani’s editing could surely have been tighter.
Sunny Deol is neither good nor bad – simply his standard self. Isha Koppikar suffers with a sketchy characterization. Konkona Sen Sharma fails to impress in an extended cameo. Irrfan Khan is the only saving grace inducing some lively moments.
