Director: Vikramjit Singh
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez
Rating: 2 Stars
Debutant Director Vikramjit Singh attempted to create something unorthodox with ‘Roy’ with a superb star-cast, of course but failed miserably. The movie is a classic ‘film within a film’ story of a flirtatious film-maker Kabir (Arjun Rampal) whose life runs parallel with one of his characters Roy (Ranbir Kapoor) that causes enough turmoil in his love life. Finally, both the director’s as well as character’s lives merge and bring love back into the film-maker’s life. While the idea is interesting, the director fails to translate his story on celluloid.
Arjun Rampal dons the role of a proud, arrogant and successful film-maker while Ranbir Kapoor is seen as a charming and smart thief who keeps the mystery in his character intact all through the film, though his presence in the film is comparatively short. Ranbir’s role can very well be called an extended cameo. Jacqueline is seen in a double role of Ayesha and Tia, a filmmaker and an actor respectively. And she has played both the roles so differently, for instance, the colour of her lipstick and her hair changes. If Ayesha is pink-lipped, Tia is red-lipped. If Ayesha has long tresses, Tia’s hair is shoulder length. We also see Anupam Kher (as Kabir’s father) and Shibani Dandekar (Zoya) and Rajit Kapoor wasted in their short and almost inexplicable roles.
The brilliant idea of fiction meeting reality is sadly lost in bizarre situations, random dialogues and clueless characters. There is an ageing, ailing father who hits on his nurses, loves cigars and gives philosophical talks to an audience that consists only his son. There is a detective who wears trench coats, smokes like a chimney, bears a pocket watch and does everything to look the palest version of Byomkesh Bakshi or Sherlock Holmes.
While Arjun Rampal will almost convince you that he is a maverick filmmaker and but his idiosyncrasies dont always translate into a pathbreaking performance. Ranbir, who plays a thief, has no history, no layers and no dimensions. His face has a deadpan expression all through, while stealing, romancing, smoking or punching the baddies. Ranbir’s intensity fails to keep us engrossed since his seemes to be a specially badly written character.
Such is the randomness of the film, that in one scene Arjun Rampal says, “One who has guns is always in control” to which Jacqueline replies ” No, the one who has a heart, is.” Jacqueline then breaks into a ballet dance claiming she always wanted to be a ballet dancer. All through this one might actually think it will lead to something meaningful, only to realise that the deep-rooted philosophy between guns, heart and ballet is simply incomprehensible.
