A Black day

I don't take watching Hindi movies lightly. To me, it's like Russian Roulette, except that you have 1 in 100 chance of survival. That is the reason it was not until several of my trusted friends recommended me the Hindi movie "Black" I didn't dare face the Black-death like movie.

Let's first get the good things out of the way. The cinematography is one of the best I have seen recently. It's on par with the current international big-budget movies. And the movie has no songs, thank heavens!

Ok, now the bad things. In the first 15 minutes of the movie, I was disappointed to realize that this movie is a shameless and a very poorly executed rip-off of "The Miracle Worker," which tells the story of Helen Keller. It was never mentioned in the movie's promotions or anywhere else. Did the producers think nobody would notice? One must be blind not to see the connection (no pun intended).

If I have to summarize the tone of the movie in one word, it would be "melodrama." Since I don't have to, I will elaborate. Every actor, in every scene, played his/her part with as much exaggeration as possible. A character couldn't sneeze without over-acting it! I am surprised the movie didn't come with a disclaimer, "Any resemblances this movie has to reality are purely unintentional."

Amitabh Bachchan's action was mediocre, you would expect better from such an experienced actor. Calling what Rani Mukherjee did in the movie "action" is an insult to every person who ever acted. It is more like clueless waving of hands, twitching of face and shouting at the top of her lungs. She played the part of a blind girl. Far from researching for her role, I doubt if she ever saw a blind person. You ask why? For one, blind people don't go about running into walls and furniture in their own homes on a daily basis. She seemed to have convinced herself that sporting sun-glasses is sufficient to play the part.

About the screenplay, I don't know where to begin. Apparently, nor did the screenplay writer.

The movie had one of the happiest endings. I mean, I was very happy, ecstatic, that the movie finally ended.