This is the harsh reality of Bollywood. While a whole breed of new filmmakers is attempting refreshing ideas and making films like 'Lakshya' and others, there are many who don't even have enough creativity to find out a new name for their films. There was 'Charas' made in seventies with stars like Dharmendra and Hema Malini and now Tigmanshu Dhulia uses the same title for his new film with relatively new comers. Both the films are beyond comparison; the only similarity is that they are based on drug dealing. But while the oldie has this as one of its component, the latter is totally based on it. 'Tigmanshu Dhulia impressed many with his debut film 'Haasil' having campus politics as its core issue.
He returns with 'Charas' that has young audience as its focal point. These two films have one more thing in common; they took more than average time to see light of the day. Tigmanshu is a good director and no one has any doubt about it, but this time the storyteller in him fails. He has borrowed the basic idea for 'Charas' from western films and tried to indianise it with beautiful locales of Kullu Manali. However, the overall impact is lost because he fails to concentrate on its narrative. He had a good concept to make the film, but the ideation and execution part left a lot to be done. The film has another competing release 'Sheen' at the box office today, which does not have a bright future either. 'Charas' deals with drug trafficking. A student of Botany is lost in the Kullu valley and there are no clues about him. His parents in search of him manage to send a cop from their country to find out the reality of the mishappening. This Scotland Yard cop Dev (Jimmy Shergill) has Indian connection too.
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As soon as he lands in India, he finds weird people keeping an eye over him. Among them is an Indian Cop (Uday Chopra) who has duty to keep vigil over every move of Dev. Not knowing that there are several top brass involved in the trade Dev starts unearthing the facts behind the absconding student. The drug trafficker has a supporting minister in Britain, another in Delhi (Jahangir Khan) and still another an ex- police man (Irfan Khan) . Dev and his Indian counterpart do not know each other's reality. Dev gets nearer to the facts but soon he finds himself in trouble as he is taken as a Pakistani agent (can't these Bollywood people find a better alibi for their cause). Things get more dangerous after both the cops team to lift the curtain from the faces of main culprits in the trade as they head for the valley. And, yes there are two heroines (Hrishita Bhatt and Namrata Shirodkar) too in the film. The director needs to tell us about their roles.
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Tigmanshu has a reputation of a good storyteller but in 'Charas' he lacks the instinct of a narrator. The writer betrays the director as he fails to build up strong characters for the story. The whole idea of drug trafficking and taking the narration to unknown land is quite exciting. Though the male characters are solid, the female characters have no bones. Two many sub plots and no concentration on the main story line affects the proceedings of the film. Namrata is a journalist but she does nothing to establish it. She is gorgeous in some scenes but not intelligent enough to be the master of the pen.
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On the other hand, Hrishita is a school teacher but ends up as companion of drug traffickers. Tigmanshu has tried to include too many things of a brilliant film but without all this masala. When there are heroines, they have to fall into love with the heroes, and more the film tries to follow the set path of Bollywood, more it falls short of being an extraordinary film. The end result is that Tigmanshu makes yet another ordinary film. The film loses its pace post- interval and except the portion where Irfan raises his voice against the system most of the portions of the film do not have much impact on the viewers.
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Tigmanshu also did a wrong thing by making it a musical film. In a crime thriller like this the main focus has to be on intrigue. However, the director chooses the other way. Though music director Raju Singh has come out with some hummable track, there was no need of songs in a film like this. The film does have a good visual appeal thanks to brilliant camera work by cinematographer Setu. Dialogues by Tigmanshu Dhulia himself are effective in parts only. Action sequences choreographed by Allan Amin are impressive. If anyone has gained from 'Charas', it is Irfan Khan. After 'Haasil' and 'Maqbool' he once again gives an amazing performance.
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Irfan works wonders in his role first as an honest cop and then as a drug dealer. Though his end is not justified, his overall portrayal of this role will find a place in the history of his acting. Irfan improves his profile with this film once again. Jimmy and Uday have also improved. They face camera more easily now. But Namrata and Hrishita look only as show pieces. They don't have strong roles and they also imbalance the casting of the film. Varun Badola in a short role leaves impression. On the whole, 'Charas' does not have enough material to sustain at the box office. It will find it very hard to even get back its investment. It is a losing affair for most of its exhibitors and distributors.
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