{"id":679,"date":"2008-11-18T20:56:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-18T20:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/11\/review-drona-2.html"},"modified":"2011-06-13T01:15:26","modified_gmt":"2011-06-13T01:15:26","slug":"review-drona-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/11\/review-drona-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Drona"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"drona1\"<\/a>
Rating<\/strong><\/a> : Below average (2.8\/5)
<\/strong>Genre<\/strong><\/a> : Drama \/ Fantasy
<\/strong>Year<\/strong><\/a> : <\/strong>2008<\/strong><\/a>
Running time : 2 hours 35 minutes
<\/strong>Director<\/strong><\/a> : Goldie Behl<\/strong>
Cast : Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek Bachhan, Jaya Bachchan, KayKay Menon<\/strong>
Kid rating<\/strong><\/a> : PG<\/p>\n

<\/strong>DRONA : BORING AND TACKY<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You know you watch all these foreign fantasy based films, built upon folklore and mythology, and you begin to wonder why there is no desi fantasy\/folklore based film. You have whole generatons of people being bred on Amar Chitra Kathas, and if that isn\u2019t material begging to be ripped off, I don\u2019t know what is. Well, wonder no more people, because here comes Drona, or the Deva vs. Asura war in the modern world.<\/p>\n

And just as they tell it in the comic book version,the Asuras are still serching for the elixir of Life, or Amrit. The Amrit is being guarded by a long line of “Protectors” or Dronas, the most recent of whom is Aditya. Born in England, and leading a very Harry Potter like life, with his mean aunt and cousin, Aditya (Abhishek) is quite unaware of who he is. Well, one day he does find out, courtesy villain Riz Raizada (KK Menon). And then to the rescue come the hidden minions who help Drona escape from his clutches. Yeah well, the film doesn\u2019t quite end there, because the villain is kind of persistent . . .<\/p>\n

Drona\u2019s bodyguard is Sonia, a turbaned, and flowing-robed Priyanka Chopra driving a swanky yellow roadster. This bodyguard, although svelte and fit, has the typical Bollywoodian female’s histrionic traits, with a Babuji hangup; \u201cMy Babuji used to say this\u201d, and \u201cMy Babuji used to say that\u201d, until I wish the woman would just shut up and get on with the movie. Actually, that was the problem with the all the characters in the film – they all talked too much and did too little.<\/p>\n

The story is told partly in flashback, and via animation, which was nicely done. Very Amar-Chitra-Katha-ish, but nice. Once you dig the background, you look forward to the new Drona and his exploits. Unfortunately there are none to talk about (much). Apart from being born Drona, I’m not sure what the hero actually does that shows why he is a hero. We don’t get a feel for who he is, how he thinks or what he feels – thus making it very hard to sympathize with him or give 2 hoots about the film.<\/p>\n

\"Drona2\"<\/a>As far as the casting goes, they could have done much better than junior B, and Ms. PoutyLips. Junior B can\u2019t stop glowering since his Sarkar Raj days ; someone should tell him that glowering is not equivalent to acting, i.e.; you can\u2019t replace one with the other. And Ms. PoutyLips didn\u2019t have much to do, except to look pretty, and well, ummm . . . Pouty (and that\u2018s not really her fault – see her actually act in Fashion<\/a>). One little shoulder injury, and all the fight goes out of the BodyGuard, leaving in her place the empty shell of the traditional desi woman kow-towing to her man. All hail Patriarchal Bollywood !<\/p>\n

Jaya Bahaduri plays her dumpy old self (Wow – I feel strangely mean saying that – but she really is extremely cylindrical and depressed looking in this film) being you know, Wonder Boy\u2019s Mom and all that, and everyone is kind of all in awe of him (I can\u2019t tell why !).<\/p>\n

\"drona30\"<\/a>KK Menon plays at being villain. This villain\u2019s evil (yes we anticipated that), but he\u2019s also kind of twisted, and eccentric, and crazy. Now I\u2019m presuming that they wanted him to be scarily eccentric, but they don\u2019t quite manage to pull that off, even though KK is such a fine actor. For one thing – his hair is kind of Tintin like – and I quite liked Tintin. Would you take someone with Tintin-like hair seriously ? No, I mean really ?<\/p>\n

\"tintin01\"<\/a>
Jokes apart, this could really have been some film, and it isn\u2019t. This thing had potential – an actual Dev-Asura war in this technological advanced world – just imagine what they could have done ! But no, director Goldie is an old stick-in-the-mud going back to the desi emotional rona-dhona<\/em> and faux valor. The film has got some special effects which have been nicely done – like the scene in the desert. But the others stink ; it\u2019s a little better than the Ramayan teleserial effects, but not by much. There are no exceptional fight scenes, no wonderful chases to pump up the thrill factor, and really no action. They talk, and they talk and then they talk some more. And they talk lofty too . If only they walked the walk, while they talked the talk.<\/p>\n

This film is not paisa-vasool – not by a long shot. Overall the film suffers from poor production values (the sets looked tacky), a lustreless screenplay, and uninteresting, perpetually grimacing characters. I got terribly bored, waiting for them to shut up and get on with it. And I got tired of watching the actors ham it up, and spew out dialogues that just brimmed with stupidity and a lack of imagination.<\/p>\n

Quite disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Below average (2.8\/5)Genre : Drama \/ FantasyYear : 2008Running time : 2 hours 35 minutesDirector : Goldie BehlCast : Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek Bachhan, Jaya Bachchan, KayKay MenonKid rating : PG DRONA : BORING AND TACKY You know you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70,76,14,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-70","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-rating-pg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Below average (2.8\/5)Genre : Drama \/ FantasyYear : 2008Running time : 2 hours 35 minutesDirector : Goldie BehlCast : Priyanka Chopra, Abhishek Bachhan, Jaya Bachchan, KayKay MenonKid rating : PG DRONA : BORING AND TACKY You know you … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-aX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}