ROY!

With enormously optimistic anticipations as I took out a fifty rupees note from my wallet to buy the ticket for ROY, little did I know that my experience in the theatre would be such an exhilarating one. From the very beginning of the movie one could sense the gripping ‘suspense’ that the film claimed to have in its teasers; the scene where Kabir (Arjun Rampal) is seen using an I-phone to talk and a ‘typewriter’ to type testifies the thrill and twists that the film is an epitome of. The story is not-at-all-simple: Kabir is a filmmaker who has hitherto made two films, both of them based on the feats of an infamous thief Roy (Ranbir Kapoor) whom he had encountered when he was seven years old, and to shoot his third film, he goes to Malayasia where he meets another filmmaker Ayesha (Jacqueline) from London and soon falls in love with her. The love blooms between the two souls but soon terminates owing to Kabir’s womanizing traits. Dejected, Kabir returns to India.

Wait, that’s just one side of the intriguing plot; there is a lot more to relish. Parallel to Kabir’s mind-numbing story runs the story of Roy himself, who, apparently, has not changed much from the first time Kabir saw him when he was seven years old. Unlike Kabir, Roy is not much of a Casanova; his love story with Tia (again Jacqueline) was unsuccessful because of his intentions to rob her. Roy had wooed Tia to break into her magnanimous mansion, in which she lived alone, in order to steal a painting that belonged to her and after the completion of his mission, he abandons her straightaway. Sad, isn’t it?

Now, the connection between the two alluringly ‘mysterious’ stories is what makes up the real plot of ROY. At first watch, one might just gulp down the whole movie in an attempt to decipher the ‘mystery’ and might need to re-watch it to come to a coherent conclusion. See, that’s the kind of ‘suspense’ the film subjects you to! There are two parallel stories going on, but there is no demarcation between the two. Abrupt cuts and awkward transitions, songs jumping in out of nowhere and dialogues making no sense was what Roy was all about.

With films like Barfi, Rockstar and Yeh Jawani Hain Deewani to his credit I don’t understand why Ranbir Kapoor gave his consent to act in a movie like ROY. In terms of performances, Ranbir does well before the dullness of the script obscures his gifted acting flairs. Arjun tries hard to put some life into the otherwise dead story but all his efforts go in vain. Jacqueline yet again idolizes the typical Bollywood ‘beauty without brains’ and utters radically irrational dialogues like “Baatein jhoothi ho sakti hain, kahaniyan nahi”, further adding to the weirdness of the plot.

The film lacks a plot, no doubt but it’s the editing and cinematography that contributes the most towards making the movie a disaster. The shuffle between the past and the present owes its origin to the Theatre of the Absurd but here, it is carried out in such irritating manner that in some scenes, Ayesha appears to be making love with two persons at the same time.

ROY is a complete failure; even Ranbir’s killer looks cannot compensate the futility of the story. It’s so terrible that even if you sleep throughout the movie, you will wake up hating it.

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