It has happened in the past with ace director David Dhawan and popular actor Govinda. They both reached the top hand in hand and then they thought they could do better without each other. They both fell flat on their faces and their individual ventures had to bite the dust at the box office not once but many times till they learnt their lesson the hard way. History repeats itself this Friday with the release of two films - Shabd and Black.
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali fell through with his once favourite Aishwarya Rai whose magical personality had ensured the millions in cinema halls. Black is Sanjay's adventure and Shabd is Aishwarya's bid to move ahead with vengeance without Bhansali's direction. What coincidence that both the films have been released together. While Black will still be praised for its making, Shabd is perhaps too archetypal to be accepted even by regular moviegoers what to talk of family audience.
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The main hindrance of Shabd is the theme that is meant to defy the basis of the Indian social milieu. Sanjay Dutt as 21st century husband ends up looking like a weak man as the love triangle is definitely miles ahead of even Bollywood norms. Shabd is too abstract and too experimental in its approach.
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Debutant director Leena Yadav tells a story in Shabd that is very modern in its approach. Writer of Sajaan comes back in Shabd as Shaukat (Sanjay Dutt). If he was a famous poet in Saajan (A super hit film of 80's with Salman and Madhuri), in Shabd, Sanjay Dutt plays an extremely brilliant writer.
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He does not believe in failure but when it comes to him as his own debacle, he is not able to accept it easily. He has a beautiful wife Antara (Aishwarya Rai) who is very sensitive and very caring. She will do anything to make her husband smile. Having earned disrepute with his offbeat novel, Shaukat now makes a bid to enact the novel in his real life using himself and Antara as the pivotal characters.
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Antara meets Yash (Zayed Khan) who is hell bent on getting this sexy diva in his arms and will fear nothing. Antara is disheveled by his behaviour but remains quiet as she is already a married woman. All attempts by Yash to entice her fail and then Shaukat enters the scene. He wants his wife to enter into a relationship with Yash so that the contours of his story start developing. But, little does he know that Antara will actually defy the novel storyline and fall in love with Yash in real life too. The story has an unexpected twist as Antara falls head over heels in love with Yash. And there is no looking back for her.
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To say the least, Leena Yadav has built a strange story in her attempt to look different. The film gives the feel of a sorry soap that comes up with bizarre things just to continue their run beyond 100 episodes.
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The film moves on with jerks and fails to even establish one equation among the protagonists of the love triangle. Even the editing is loose and and there is poor support on the dialogues. Even the best cinematography cannot make a film work if the idea is weird.
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Among actors, Aishwarya is going to suffer the most from the failure of this film. She was in need of a hit desperately but luck has played with her again. She is totally miscast and her character is lousy. The lines and situations written for her are not well thought of and all this only makes her presence go useless on screen. Aishwarya needs to learn her lessons fast, in her attempt to make a niche for herself overseas. Even Sanjay Dutt is a misfit in his role. Zayed Khan looks impressive as far as his screen presence is concerned.
Music of the film too goes overboard and does not help to make the film any better. On the whole, Shabd is a very weak affair at the box office and will not be able to leave any mark on the audience.
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