/>
Starring Rajit Kapoor, Harsh Chaya, Rati Agnihotri, Pooja Kanwal, Aham Sharma
Written & Directed by Rajesh Ganguly
Rating; **
An alcoholic woman is murdered, and thus begins a process of deconstruction that takes the plot back to
where it all started.
It's hard pinpoint where Blue Oranges begins. The director has chosen an intricate flashback-and-forth mode
of storytelling that he isn't always able to carry off with élan.But the art is in the right place. Right there on the
wall. A part of the plot is devoted to the hazy world of fake paintings.Names like Husain are mentioned in
passing.
Our sullen hero Kevin (newcome Aham Sharma wearing the scowl like a second skin), we are told in crushed
whispers, paints fakes.He also fakes emotions when the questioning gets too close for comfort.
He's an enigma in a movie that unravels the mystery with insubstantial proof of its expertise.
Kevin probably murdered this rich alcoholic woman (Pooja Kanwal, who five years after her debut in a teen
flick tries to look all grownup in sarees, hiccups and slurred dialogues about f...k ups).
Sullen Hero
didn't show up for their wedding. But he shows up eight years afterwards at her doorstep, his long- haired
painter's look replaced by a short hair, spectacles and terse words that suggest he's secretly unhappy.
Murder suspects pile up rather neatly. And the interrogation is done with a reasonable amount of expertise
and restrain. No jokey cop-sidekicks, no floozies flirting in feathery frivolity, no item songs in smokey dens
and no villains accumulating in the plot's skyline like suspects lined up at the roadside.
At the vortex of this mildly engaging whodunit is a freelance investigative officer Nilesh (Rajit Kapoor) with a
paraplegic daughter who keeps reading books that no teenager should. In fact the girl gives the film its
incongruous title.She's the key to the puzzle of the murdered alcoholic woman who had men barging into her
home unannounced.
If there are no highs in the narration there are no plunging lows either. You come away from Blue Oranges
hoping that murder victims in the future remember not to drive while drunk.
Caution is a predominant strain in the storytelling. The one stand-out performance comes from Rajit Kapoor
who says the most oratorial line with the authority of a librarian who knows every book on the shelf by its
binding.
The rest of cast is passable, sometimes less.But that's the way of the world. You win some, you lost most of
it.
Saturday, September 19, 2009 11:56 IST