STRIKER
Strikes with its marvelous performance and detailed settings but pockets very few coins of entertainment
by Vishal Verma

An Indian Films release of a Studio 18 presentation.

Producer-Director: Chandan Arora
Genre: Thriller drama
Target Audience: General

Starring

Siddharth...... Surya
Aditya Pancholi...... Jaleel
Anupam Kher...... Inspector Farooque
Padmapriya...... Madhu
Nicollete Bird...... Noorie
Anchor Vikal...... Zaid
Seema Biswas……….Aai











Technical Analysis

The best way I can describe the style of Chandan Arora’s ‘Striker’ is like this: director Mahesh Bhatt does Vidhu Vinod Chopra by the way of Govind Nihalani, the result is while not entirely devoid of entertainment value, doesn't work as a whole. There are several significant gaps in logic, the protagonist's psychological development and his frustrations are inadequately motivated, the movie is at least 20 minutes too long. I can't help thinking that with tighter editing; the flaws in ‘Striker’ would have been minimized. As it is, things on screen are not intriguing and the problems are magnified and the tensions nullified. 

This thriller set in dark tone gives an impressive picture of the Mumbai slums and moves further from Dharavi and Dagdi Chawl to Malvani in Malad a known area in the suburbs of Mumbai which is famous for many reasons. The helmer mixes the game carrom with the protagonist life where he is a winner a champ but in real life is a loser all the way who finds himself in unwanted situations and faces the price even after winning the game every now and then.

The film starts out in a promising fashion and shows Mumbai during the late 80’s and early 90’s in arguably the best way after Rabindra Dharmaraj showed this city in Charka(1981) starring Smitha Patil and Naseeruddin Shah.

The shanty allies, the gambling joints under those amusement video game shops, the poker machines, the coin machines, cards, ping pong etc are really done with details.

Even the dialogue at some places uses terms that a hard core punter uses in Mumbai like thola (policeman), bamaiya (buddy). The surroundings are right, the performances are praiseworthy where Siddharth excels but the script is feeble which fails to connect with the audience and get them hooked.
Its like a well set carom board and an ivory striker to your perusal but still you can,t ‘break’ the game and manage to pocket only a couple of coins of entertainment cause the board is left rough and is not powdered with the mastery of an involving script and screenplay, making the game a tedious watch that fails to provide any tension or drama to the audience.

Why Siddharth is so frustrated we can,t figure out.
Was the love angle with the borrowed ‘Khidaki’ from ‘Ek Duje Ke Liye’ necessary?
The rape cum love making scene is totally out of sync with the character of Siddharth we are watching in the film.

The tone and the feel of the flick is also a swinger from dark to a routine bollywood social drama that baffles the audience.

P S Vinod’s camera paints the Mumbai in the true colours of 80-90’s for us and the actors perform from their heart where south Indian hotttie Siddharth gives a sincere performance.  
Ankur Vikal as the Siddharth junkie buddy is fantastic. Aditya Pancholi coming with a mark borrowed from Al pacino’s ‘scarface’ is fine. Anupam Kher is wasted. Padmapriya is impressive. Nicollete Bird needs meaty roles to prove herself. Seema Biswas as typical bollywood mother is competent and Vidya Malvade is decent,.

The much talk about seven sur and seven musicians doesen,t zeal with the movie and appears to be a waste.

The movie scores 2 out of 5

One for the setting

One for the performance

The movie losses on vital matters like a convincing script and narration to a well developed setting



The Story

A tedious tale set in a Mumbai ghetto in the mid '80's
Born into a poor family, Surya (Siddharth) grows up with few luxuries. Poor health keeps him away from school often and that is when his elder brother, Chandrakant, introduces him to carrom.

Winning the Junior Carrom Championship at 12 is not enough to keep Surya's fire for the sport burning through adolescence. Hopes for a job in Dubai, replaces the passion for carrom as Surya grows into a young man.

Duped by a bogus overseas employment agency, Surya loses all his hard earned money he had saved for going to Dubai. Surya is forced to cross paths with Jaleel (Aditya Pancholi).

Since the 70's when the settlements in the ghetto began, Jaleel had acquired a strong hold in the area. He had his hands in every illicit activity since then. Feeding on the weaknesses of people, Jaleel was the self-proclaimed king of Malwani.

Reintroduced to Carrom by his childhood friend Zaid (Anchor Vikal), this time to the hustling scene, Surya starts playing again. Being gypped of his hand earned money by the same man who had caused misery for many families; Surya decides to take on Jaleel on his turf.



Promotion

The promoters had smartly used the seven music directors in one flick thingy to market this flick which otherwise gave less scope to the promoters to highlight this film. The media awareness by spice has been reasonable.



Business Analysis

Lack of face value, entertainment moments, will not ‘strike’ much good for this thriller who will fail to score at the B.O. even when there is no quality competition this week.



Other Details

Cassettes and CD's on T-Series. Lyricist: Jeetendra Joshi, Prashant Ingole, Nitin Raikwar, Swanand Kirkire, Gulzar and Blaaze. Music Director: Shailendra Barve, Amit Trivedi, Yuvan Shankar Raja, Swanand Kirkire, Vishal Bhardwaj and Blaaze. Background Music: Shri. Cinematography: P S Vinod. Media Mangers: Spice. Reviewed at Famous Studios, Mumbai on Feb 05, 2010.

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