Movie Review

Rating :

Verdict : If you have spare time and money then you can watch otherwise skip it

Anjun Rizvi, the producer who gave us an intelligent thriller in the form of the critically and commercially acclaimed ‘A Wednesday, is back with another cat and mouse thriller in form of ‘John Day’. Directed by Ahishor Solomon and starring the talented Naseeruddin Shah and Randeep Hooda in the lead roles, ‘John Day’ has hit the screens today.

Story:-

The story of the film is about John Day (Naseeruddin Shah), an old man who is deeply saddened by his daughter’s sudden and mysterious demise. An upset John decides to hunt down the people responsible for his daughter’s mysterious killing. On the other hand, Gautam (Randeep Hooda) is a corrupt nihilist cop who is indirectly involved in the big scam that killed John’s daughter.

The rest of ‘Johan Day’ is about how John manages to hunt down the big names involved in his daughter’s death and what role does Gautam play in this scenario.

Positive Points:-

In his characteristic style, veteran Naseeruddin Shah gives the best performance in the film. He is convincing in the different emotions he portrays and plays his role as a distraught father to perfection.

Newcomer Elena Kazan looks beautiful and provides the necessary eye candy. The suspense is kept alive right till the last frame and this keeps the viewers interest alive.

Negative Points:-

Randeep Hooda’s performance is just not upto the mark and it shocks to see a talented actor like him portray such unconvincing roles. Though Elena Kazan looks beautiful on the screen, her acting is not convincing.

As the film progresses, the sequences stop making sense and start getting confusing. The narrative gets so complicated that you will only witness the characters running behind each other for no apparent reason at all. The length of the film is too long and the extended climax could have easily been editing smartly. While the first half of the film is too confusing, the second half is hard to digest.

This is not your regular mainstream film that you can go watch with the family because of all the blood, gore and coarse language involved.

Technical Aspects:-

There are only two songs in the film, which is a good thing, as they would have acted as a hindrance in the plot. The screenplay becomes tedious and loses track after a while. The editing is just not good enough and the scenes become confusing as the movie progresses.

Incidentally, ‘John Day’ is the remake of a 2002 Spanish flick La Caja 507 and director Ahishor Solomon manages to tell a never-told before story promisingly only in bits and pieces.