Sunday, April 23, 2017

Noor review: "Definitely not the noor of the audience!!!"

With just a week left for "Baahubali: The Conclusion" to hit the screens, there are no other major releases in the horizon. Well it's quite understandable after all this mammoth movie will certainly swallow anything in its path in the initial phase. However, we did have women centric movies take centre stage amidst this lull with "Begum Jaan" last week & Sonakshi's "Noor" this weekend. To be frank, I didnt even know that such a movie was even going to release & hence had no expectations at all. Hmm...in such a scenario it should be easier to satisfy the audience in me isnt it, but did it mange to do that???


Noor (Sonakshi Sinha) is a journalist who aspires to be the next "Barkha" but her boss assigns her to cover news on subjects which is nowhere even remotely related to meaningful journalism. Her personal life was also a mess & she spent most parts of the day cribbing about her very existence. The only people who brought a smile to her face were her close buddies, Zara (Shibani Dandekar) & Saad (Kanan Gill). But things started to look brighter when she meets Ayan Banerjee (Purab Kohli), an ace photographer & they hit off in due time. On the professional side as well, she stumbles upon an organ harvesting scam when her domestic help, Malti (Smita Tambi) confides in her about the misfortune that had befallen on her brother. Will this story be the break that Noor was waiting for???


Based on Saba Imtiaz's "Karachi, You are Killing Me!" (which I haven't read), Sunhil Sippy have made a movie which is a concoction of rom-com & investigative journalism. But the sad reality is he wasn't able to do justice to either of them especially the latter one. The manner in which the protagonist goes about her job would have even made an amateur journalist cringe in embarrassment. Even when Noor messes up stuff, instead of standing up & sorting it out, Sunhil chose to make the character run away from it. The only thing that actually works (that too, partially) is the rom-com part which kinda reminded me of "Bridget Jones's Diary". 

On the technical side, Keiko Nakahara's visuals were fine while the music by Amaal Mallik was average. Even though the movie is just under 2 hours, it still manages to test our patience. Sonakshi has done a fine job in the lighthearted portions but ends up short in the other parts. Smita Tambe was brilliant while Shibani, Purab & Kanan have done justice to their parts. 

Verdict: "Noor" will struggle to stay afloat beyond this weekend even though there is no other competition. Sunhil could have surely done a lot better with the basic story line that he had, unfortunately it wasn't the case as it culminates in a muddled climax as well. In short, don't bother!!!

Rating: 2/5

Regards...Ben

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