Film review of "Sheen"
Mayank
Shekhar
*YUCK **WHATEVER ***GOOD
****SUPER *****AWESOME
Gone-a-sheen!
SHEEN*1/2
Dir: Ashok Pandit
Cast: Raj Babbar, Sheen
Sheen is set in
the late ’80s/early ’90s when an indoctrinated breed of
foreign-sponsored and domestically brainwashed jehadis unleashed
violence for the first time in the Kashmir Valley.
The first targets of the pogrom, touted as Kashmir’s freedom
movement, were the resident Kashmiri ‘Pandits’ — Hindus — natural
adversaries in a Muslim-majority state that Pakistan stakes claim to
on the basis of a ‘two-religion, two-nation’ theory.
The point of the picture is actually perfect for a
feature-film-based reportage on the plight of J&K’s displaced Hindus
who bear the tag of refugees (an obvious misnomer) within their own
country. The trouble here however is the tacky treatment. Also, that
the film never moves beyond the obvious chest thumping premise.
The cinematic construct for one, looks closest to a technically
deficient, badly lit, poorly picturised (mostly in long-shot) North
Indian regional films. To top this fatigue, you are expected to test
your patience with the world’s worst actors hamming away to glory
(note their flying hand movements).
This amateur theatre production incidentally is led by a shifty
teacher Pandit (Babbar), who keeps shifting between a Kashmiri and a
regular accent. Pandit is the last Hindu man standing in the Valley
along with wife (Kiran Joneja) and daughter (Sheen) who’s in love
with a bumbler who appears for commercial breaks every few minutes
over a quarter dozen dream sequences.
The only unintentional hilarity worth recommendation in this TV
series episode that’s mistakenly entered the cinema is a pot-bellied
news channel editor who urges Pandit to burn homes so that he can
get “visually breaking news”! Whatever, man.
Good intentions alone do not necessarily translate to good cinema.
This is an apt example of that unfortunate case.
By
special arrangement with Mid Day, Mumbai |
