NOT SO GOOD DEAR

FILM: The Last Lear
CAST: Amitabh Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Priety Zinta
DIRECTOR: Rituparno Ghosh





There is a very popular saying that great people with great ideas make great things. Though it is true that great things can be made only with great ideas but it is not necessary that great ideas always create great things. William Shakespeare, the single writer who is a household name all over the world, is the first kind, great man, great ideas, great works. The director of this movie is unfortunately of the second kind. I have been following Rituda's movies from a long time. He shows flashes of brilliance in every work of his and every work of his comes with a flashy topic. Though technically he is the best director in India, logically he becomes really stupid at times. I have seen his works like Antarmahal, Khela, Choker Bali, Raincoat and many others. He is a gifted person but as I said, great man, great ideas but a messed up cake when we talk about work.

If you ask me what is the much hyped The Last Lear about, I will think for a minute and then say that it is mostly about an eccentric Shakespeare lover, a master stage artist, who left stage only because someone said something bad about his live in girlfriend(Shefali Shah). This man is compelled to do a movie now, his first, by an equally eccentric and almost another Shakespeare freak Arjun Rampal. Partly this movie also becomes a feminist andolan.. and has shown women in completely pure light.

The movie is based on the conversation of three women, Shefali Shah, Priety Zinta(Amitabh's costar in the movie) and Divya Dutta(Amitabh's nurse). They discuss things and the movie goes on.

I rated this movie so less only because of its fake promises and incompletenesses. It touches many sensitive issues very slightly and then moves on. And what it calls a climax is pure nonsense. In one of the scenes which build up the climax, Rampal asks Bachchan to walk without spectacles. He is doing a movie on a joker Maqbool . Now I dont know why a joker cant wear spectacles. And if it is too necessary why cant a contact lens be used?? Using such a weak point the climax was built. And we are made to believe that Rampal for the love of art and belief in perfectness makes Bachchan(75 in the movie) redo a dangerous stunt without any protection which injures him and fractures his spine and he loses every memory of his.

Now the initially fired feminist plot is long lost, the story of Maqbool is lost too somewhere and the weakest point of the story is chosen for the climax. The name of the movie could have been anything, The Last Lear, Maqbool, Three Women, The Conversation, Shake the sphere(haha). I think this point proves it all how waivered the plot was. Though everyone has given their career best performances(not Bachchan,he has done much better) because of Ritu da's greatness one says after the movie that all the good acting was for a complete NOTHING. This movie could have been included in the all time classics if a little more maturity and little less greatness would be associated with the director.