Roy Review and BO Thread

Movies are meant to be a reflection of our reality, and that's what debutant director Vikramjit Singh explores through his staggeringly gorgeous canvas in Roy'. A movie that starts off promising to be a heist film, but ends up slipping into an emotional drama about self-discovery.

It's a classic case of how we rarely (almost never) practice what we preach. Singh's stunning cast voice filmmaking tips that the director blatantly ignores.

"A story must end when it needs to. There's no point stretching it," says his dazzling moviemaker Ayesha Amir, but Singh's own Roy' runs into an exhausting 156 minutes of screen time.

At another point, his droopy-eyed filmmaker Kabir announces, "I don't want to waste your time."

Whether this was as much about Singh's journey as it is of Kabir's, one can never tell, but a line about "how did I make this film?" possibly exposes a connect.

Roy' is textured and tinted marvelously by cinematographer Himman Dhamija, but Singh's story is unable to lend it enough substance. Had Dipika Kalra exercised ruthlessness on the editing desk, it would've tipped the odds in its favour.

Concealed under puffs of smoke and a fedora hat, Kabir's journey comes alive as he hits the keys of his antique typewriter and creates a sinful world of deceit and chase.

His Roy is designed on a celebrated thief, one who caught the director's fancy when he was a young boy.

The story, now in its third stage, culminates in Malaysia, where he chances upon a charming inspiration.

Singh structures his narrative around Kabir's reality and Roy's infamous life. Their stories are intrinsically weaved, and swapped cleverly, to establish contradictions and revelations.

"We humans always want to steal someone else's life and live it as our own," hints the suave, leather-jacketed Roy. Singh further details how the men live magnificently as poster boys, even when they choose a life of secrecy.

The exercise appears tried and tested, and one that holds an uncanny resemblance to Hollywood veterans. Yet, Singh holds his own.

However, the transition isn't clear, and often complicating. Even the conflicts that emerge appear inconsequential.

He uses a watch and cigar to link both the lives, but their actual relevance isn't explained adequately.

Arjun Rampal conveniently hides his broody face under a hat, and an unkempt beard. When he's not wasting much of his screen time sipping iced drinks, he's clouding the frame with his puffs. The camera feeds off Arjun's striking looks, but unfortunately Singh doesn't flesh out his complexities and vulnerabilities convincingly.

Between all this, he finds time to romance, with the entertainment reporters pitching his current flame to number 23. Yet, we don't sense any real chemistry between him or his squeeze.

Jacqueline Fernandez plays two parts, one of a discerning filmmaker, and other of a pretty actress Tia. Apart from the varying wardrobe and hairdo, there's not much distinction in their portrayals, and that's probably planned to unfold a bigger reality, but it never translates cleverly.

Ranbir Kapoor lends mystery to Roy, and never lets off his guard. It's unfortunate though that his character isn't permitted to thrive.

Roy' is a marvelously shot movie, no doubt, and holds immense promise, but never quite sums up into anything of substance.

We only wish it was more about the heist, and less about the heart.

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The very much awaited movie of 2015 called Roy is all set to hit the theatres tomorrow. The film is directed by the debutant Vikramjit Singh, while is produced by the T Series owner Bhushan Kumar along with people like Krishna Kumar and Divya Khosla Kumar under the banner of Freeway Pictures in association with Ajay Kapoor. The movie has Arjun Rampal, Jacqueline Fernandez andRanbir Kapoor in the lead roles along with actors like Anupam Kher and Shibani Dandekar in the supporting roles. Roy is a romantic thriller movie, which has the run time of around 147 minutes. Now, let's dig deep inside the film to get the insight of this romantic thriller film.

The movie has a man called Roy, which is played by Ranbir Kapoor. He happens to be a mysterious thief, who is never caught by any police. On the other side, you have a filmmaker called Kabir Grewal played by the handsome hunk of B Town - Arjun Rampal. He makes loads of profit from this thief Roy by making films on his life and the robberies he has undertaken all these years. All these movies have been a big hit over box office giving loads of money to Kabir. Then you have another filmmaker called Ayesha which is played by Jacqueline Fernandez. She happens to be the new girlfriend of Kabir. Also, Kabir apart from a successful filmmaker happens to be a playboy carrying a Casanova kind of image. Jacqueline has double role in the film; however, the trio are seen entrapped in a love triangle, which becomes an interesting catch for the audience. The climax of the film has interesting mysteries unfolding, which makes the film worthy enough to catch.

Now, let's talk about performances, starting with Arjun Rampal in Roy. As we know how Arjun Rampal is choosy about his films, which makes him a man with little regrets in his professional career. Unlike the earlier ones, once again he had a sagacious choice getting a film with a very different story. He never minds even working with any debutant provided he comes across a worthy script. Fortunately, this time again he was right in his decision and has performed par with the attitude, arrogance and pride any successful filmmaker from B Town would have. In fact, with every film, his acting performance has reached to its new zenith point, which speaks volumes about his dexterity in acting and performance. On the other side, Jacqueline Fernandez has once again proved her worth in the film while playing the dual character in the same film. Her performance has matured though she hasn't acted in too many films unlike other seasoned actresses of B Town.

Her dialogues, body language, acting and everything went par and don't forget to catch her incredible song sequence in one of the songs of the film. The choreography by Ahmed Khan simply made the actress fly in air, making the lady rule with her powerful performance. However, talking about Ranbir, he seems to be back after a hiatus as we all know he has no release last year. So the only successful movie he had in his lap was Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani. Essentially Roy is Arjun and Jacqueline's movie considering the fact that the Jagga Jasoos actor had a shorter role in it. Yet while playing the character of a mysterious thief, he was seen pulling off some incredible heists, he has somewhere escalated his performance somewhere to the high-tech thieves played by Aamir in Doom 3 and SRK in Don 2. He is sharp, smart, energetic and incredible, which made him not only dodge the men to catch him but even bullets who fail to touch him alive bringing him down.

The direction though comes from a debutant; however, if you take a close look, gives a sense of professionalism and high order dexterity as witnessed in this young man called Vikram. He has kept a well balanced approach in bringing forth a tangible script backed by powerful performances. Though at times a few hits and misses were witnessed, nevertheless that can forgo for making such a wonderful movie that too when he is doing the first time. That's a wonderful feat hard to find out anywhere. Editing, location, music, etc. everything seemed par, thanks to the wonderful team, which has brought out their hearts and souls in making this film. You are likely to enjoy some of the best locations of Malaysia and other places, which adds a new glamour element in the film.

Last Word : Roy Movie Review

Roy is a film wherein you find thrill, mystery, romance, action and love culminating together to give a typical Bollywood movie mix hard to find. Perhaps with incredible performance and straight and simple script, Roy is likely to dominate your heart and soul and not to forget the box office as well. The soothing music, the incredible locations, the power packed performances of all the three main leads are simply going to steal the show. All these elements makes the film worthy enough to give the rating of 4.0.

DIRECTOR: Vikramjit Singh
STARRING: Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez
RATING: 2.5 Stars

You remember that topper in the class who would never give a straight answer even to the simplest question. You asked him how the weather was and he would start with South Westerly winds, precipitation, condensation, global warming, carbon footprint and end with depleting species in South Africa. Yeah that. The film is that kid. It looks intelligent but is so random that Kiran Bedi's recent delirious interviews begin to make sense.

Roy is a film about a flirtatious filmmaker 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 filmmaker's life. It's an interesting novel idea; alas, the debutant director Vikramjit Singh is unable to translate his own story on celluloid.

Jaqueline-Sallu-bhai-ki-daya-bani-rahe-Fernandez plays a double role, Ayesha and Tia, a filmmaker and an actor respectively. 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. Such distinct traits lend such depth to both the characters.

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 Ted 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 Holmes!!

The dialogues don't help either. Picture this-

The Flirty Filmmaker: One who has guns is always in control.

The Pink-Lipped Lass: No, the one who has a heart, is.

Pause.

The Pink-Lipped Lass: You know I always wanted to be a ballet dancer.

And all this while I am thinking this will eventually make sense and will lead to something meaningful. It does. A ballet performance by the Pink-Lipped at the beach. I am sure there is some deep-rooted philosophy between guns, heart and ballet that my stupid silly mind can't comprehend.

Arjun-Milind-Soman-body-double- Rampal is extremely earnest in portraying the maverick filmmaker and his idiosyncrasies but earnestness doesn't always translate into a pathbreaking performance. He tries his best to show the characters' insecurities and vulnerabilities. Alas, I could feel none.

Ranbir-I-am-yet-not-engaged-to-Katrina-Kapoor plays a thief who has no history, no layers and no dimensions. He has a deadpan expression all through, while stealing, romancing, smoking or punching the baddies to pulp. We don't blame him. It's a badly written character. Besides, one gets exhausted dealing with eggzzaatic accents on a daily basis. Ghar mein Katrina, sets par Jacqueline and between the two of them we have covered the entire Rapidex English Speaking Course.

The film is shot beautifully. The screenplay is clever too. A story that keeps shifting between time and space from real life to reel and vice versa, life can be puzzling but the smart screenplay avoids any such confusion. I just wish they hadn't packed too much randomness in the name of art and intensity.

There is an instance when Ayesha comments on bad films, ''One should end the film if headed in the wrong direction.'' If only the director practiced what he preached!

Watch it for the debutant director's attempt at telling a different story with gorgeous actors that make enough eye candies!

WHAT THE RATINGS MEAN

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