Chamku Review
Title: Chamku
Director: Kabeer Kaushik
Cast: Bobby Deol, Priyanka Chopra, Arshad Warsi, Ritesh Deshmukh,
Irrfan Khan, Danny Denzongpa, Rajpal Yadav, Arya Babbar.
Synopsis:
Chamku tells the story of Chandrama Singh aka Chamku (played by Bobby Deol). His family was brutally murdered and he was brought up by a Naxal leader, Baba (Danny Denzongpa) in Bihar. He later served as an special agent working as an assassin for secret government organization. He then falls in love with a kindergarten teacher, Shubhi (Priyanka Chopra) and wants to have a normal life but by an accident he again finds himself in the world of crime.
Is Bobby Deol turning into a psycho? I do not know why he loves movies where he gets to play characters who have dark pasts. This is not the first time, Bobby is playing these types of roles. In 2000, he played similar roles in Badal and Bichhoo with Rani Mukherjee. Both the movies did not do very well. The story of Badal revolved around Punjab riot of 1984. The protagonist, Badal, saw the death of his family killed by police first hand and was brought up by a terrorist (Aashish Vidyarthi) who later trains him to become a terrorist. Bichhoo, tells the story of a professional hitman named Jeeva, who saw his mother and two sisters killed themselves.
The movie is nothing very special. The story revolves around a theme that has been dealt with umpteen times; revenge. The title “Chamku” is very unimpressive. Taran Adarsh says:
Another factor that goes against it is the violence/brutality depicted in this 2-hour film. Blood, gore, crudity and brutality is out, but Kabeer Kaushik still believes in the cinema of 1970s and seems to have given action director Tinu Verma a free hand to recreate the violence-laden atmosphere of 1970s. Pistols, guns, knives, swords, blood-soaked bodies, spare us the gore please.
To cut a long story short, there’s hardly any chamak in CHAMKU.
In terms of performance, Bobby Deol gives the best performance but poor script and story shadowed his performance.
Bobby Deol as a Naxalite requires serious suspension of disbelief but with impassive eyes and grim mouth, he strives hard to make it convincing.
But both Kaushik and Deol are hobbled by the screenplay. The plot movement is jerky, the characters are half-baked and the pace is slowed down by unnecessary songs, including an inexplicable item number.
Beyond a point, the incessant violence becomes predictable and tiresome. Chamku had the potential to be an insightful movie about a brutal system but the film manages to be only intermittently engaging. This is strictly average fare.
Buzz 18 says:
Most of Chamku is like a thriller without purpose. Less than half-an-hour into the film, once Chamku moves out of Naxal land to the RAW, the plot comes to a halt. Agreed, the film has well-shot action sequences and the director successfully captures a realistic, gritty look of Mumbai city. But Ram Gopal Varma has been doing this for years. In fact, the entire film struggles to find its own bearing.
Indiatimes says:
What do you do if any of Bobby Deol’s decade old dramas like Badal, Bichoo or Bardasht play on any of the satellite movie channels today? Majority would switch to another channel in search for a better source of entertainment. Chamku assumes the same aura, ambience and act of those archaic artifacts and you know how to act in response to such attempts.
Yahoo Movies India says:
There is a lot about the story which is not novel or new. One does feel that at the story level, a little more detail about the Naxalite period in Chamku’s life would have been more interesting. One never learns about his ideology or the conflicts between the rich landowners of Bihar and the Naxalites. A We That part of the narrative seems rather rushed, even though its memories keep haunting him throughout the film. But one never really learns much about Chamku, the man, but only about what happens to him. He remains a mystery right till the end of the film. Also, the whole love angle seems more forced than natural. But what redeems the film are the actors and the manner in which the director shapes and moulds his narrative.
If you are a die hard Bobby Deol fan then you can go and watch the movie but do not expect anything better. It is just another regurgitated story which has lost its charm long time ago.
Useful Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bichhoo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Deol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badal
http://movies.ndtv.com/reviews.asp?lang=hindi&id=336&moviename=Review%3A+Chamku&ch=245636
http://in.movies.yahoo.com/movies/Chamku/reviewdetails-578.html
http://movies.indiatimes.com/moviereview/3415823.cms
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/13773/index.html
http://www.buzz18.com/reviews/movies/review-bobby-deols-chamku/78131/0
