Star Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade, Minsha Lamba, Asrani, Vindu Dara Singh, Gurpreet Ghuggi

Director: Shirish Kunder

Producer: Farah Khan and Ronnie Screwala

Music: G.V.Prakash Kumar, Gaurav Dogaonkar

Rating : *

Be it Bollywood or Hollywood, curiosity associated with the incognito world of aliens and UFO has always been a source of fascination for the merchants of showbiz, who always try to offer something innovative and thrilling to cine buffs, in order to keep the cash register ringing.

The newest entrant who is there to prove its mettle in this fantasy adventure genre is Shirish Kunder's self proclaimed sci-fi saga Joker. Starring Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha, Joker opened at multiplexes with an occupancy of 25 %.

Synopsis
Joker, is a tale about a space scientist who returns to his native village, Paglapur, an isolated village undergoing a plight of neglect, for not having any of its mention on the map of India and protagonist's quaint idea to get the recognition for his village.


Story
Agastya (Akshay Kumar) is a space scientist, working on the the development of a communication system, to communicate with aliens. But Agastya, losses the faith of of his seniors and is allotted with a deadline of one month to conclude his project with some substantial results.

In the mean time, Agastya is informed by his friend Diva (Sonakshi Sinha), regarding his father's illness, on hearing this Agastya reaches his native village Paglaapur, whose colorful inhabitants include a man who speaks in gibberish, another who thinks he is a lamp post and everyone else who think that the World War II is still going on?

Soon after reaching there, Agastya finds that he was called on a false pretext of illness by his father.

On getting apprised about truth, Agastya decides to move back to US, but after hearing the plight of the inhabitants of Paglapur, due to the brushing aside of the village by the the government because of its being absent from the demarcated map of India, he makes his mind to come out with some solution for the problem.

As the story proceeds, Agastya comes up with a quaint idea pertaining to the crop circle and arrival of aliens in his village, in order to fetch a recognition for his otherwise isolated village undergoing a plight of neglect ever since the independence.

With frames moving ahead, Agastya along with other villagers creates crop circle in Paglapur and spreads rumor about arrival of aliens in the village. And from their, amid tremendous media hype, takes over some hilarious sequences knitted around UFO and fictitious man made aliens.


Script
Joker very well proves the fact, that it's not necessary for an innovative idea to turn into an interesting cine flick. The story of Joker falls flat on ground, as soon as its takes off.

For some, this may be an innovative idea to blend a fantasy adventure with rustic background, but actually it turned out to be a disaster for Shirish. In fact it won't be wrong to say that the script of "Joker" seemed to be knitted just for heck of doing it.

As far as humour quotient and the sci-fi flavour are concerned, then even these two USPs of the movie seemed to be buried beneath the terrains of Paglapur. In fact Joker seems to be a satire on all UFO and alien movies which have been made so far


Screenplay and Direction
In the absence of a rational and tenable script, the screenplay also seems to be too burdening for the heads of the movie buffs. With a run time, less than of 2 hours "Joker", no where thrills you or leaves you mesmerised with its onscreen offerings.

With narration starting at snail's pace, the movie completely fails in keeping the gazes of the masses glued to the celluloid. As soon as the story starts, comes in a flurry of protagonists with their weird belief patterns, but as the story proceeds, even the short lived humor which tickles you in the prior sequences, starts loosing its appeal.

With narration getting out of proportion and extremely slow in the second half, it becomes cumbersome to sit through the film after a point. In nut shell the pace of the narration of Joker, is even slower than that of a ninety year old granny on an athletic track.


Dialogue
Even in dialogues department, Joker has nothing to offer. Besides some bland humor punches, Joker also tries to induce some humor with some funny pick up lines of, Asrani but even that does not merry the masses.

Acting / Performance
Contrary to his usual style of quick witted and spontaneous humor, in Joker Akshay looks monotonous and repetitive and thoroughly fails in delivering the performance, which is usually expected out of him by the fans.

Sonakshi seems to be assisting Akshay through out the course of the movie, with no scope to exhibit her acting adroitness.

As far as the performance of the Shreyas is concerned, then he looked more of a Tusshar Kapoor scion from "Golmaal" trilogy. In first few sequences his acts of speaking gibberish somewhat induces laughter, but later on they turn in to a torment for the audience.

On the other hand the performance of the supporting cast comprising of Minissha Lamba, Asrani, Vindu Dara Singh, Sanjay Mishra, Vrajesh Hirjee, Pitobash, Darshan Jariwala, Anjan Srivastava, and Avtar Gill further adds on to the plight of the audience.

Music / Lyrics
Just like many other components, songs of Joker also seemed to be something unnecessarily obtruded, just for heck of it. Music of Joker is neither soothing nor peppy. The only song that may charm you is 'Kafirana', picturised on Chitrangda Singh, where as the remaining songs are incorporated to act as fillers.


BO Potential
About BO potential of Joker, the only thing which can be expected is that, it has got all the spices in perfect proportion to emerge as one of the biggest BO disaster of 2012.

Verdict
To sum up, Joker is 105 minutes paid torture, which is meant to end your inclination towards fantasy adventure cine flicks.