Anil Kapoor in CHOCOLATE

Chocolate is an Indian film. It is written by Rohit Malhotra and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. Chocolate is the atrocious attempt on the part of Rohit Malhotra. Locations, outfits and cinematography in promos give the impression of a suspense thriller of Hollywood style. The reason was its similarity with ‘The Usual Suspect’ but cinema release brings all the expectations down. The story has many loopholes and although it is made on the flashback technique yet the commentary behind the incidents and events does not make good impression.

The story begins with the massive murder and boat set on fire that create a fear in the environment. The city is London and it seems that after America now London is the target of Al-Qaida. Two Suspects Sim (Tanushree Dutta) and Pipi (Irrfan Khan) are under the custody of London Police. A journalist Moonsoon Iyer (Sushma Reddy) brings this terror story on the scene with the help of her newspaper. Afterwards she investigates the case and on the demands of both suspects arranges a lawyer Advocate Krishen Pundit (Anil Kapoor). All the case is unwrapped during the flashbacks narrate by Sim and Pipi. Like a popular suspense thriller in the first half number of characters introduce to create confusion and is shown them committing crimes and murder. During second half incidents are chained into sequence to solve the mystery of opening terror attack scenes.

The story has all the elements of suspense and thrill but script is too weak to support. Third class dialogues and story written in segments makes the film falls flat. A film could possibly hit the box office if script would be strong and quality of the dialogues does not sacrifice. Let see one by one the minus points of the film.

-          Terror scenes shoot in a way it totally deviates from the methodology universally attached to Al-Qaida. It lacks planning and strategies shown by Al-Qaida in the history.

-          Image of London police is seen like Indian police. At the time of robbery they are foolishly surprised as how it is happened. The cell scene where reporter investigates is the poor directorially attempt.

-          Characterization is seen as the caricature of English actors. What is the need of copying anyone else leaving heresy aside? Artificiality, pompousness and loudness are visible in all the characters.

Looking at the characters, story is presented as a narration by Irrfan Khan and Tanushree Dutta (Sim and Pipi). Irrfan Khan comes up with solid character and leave good impression on viewer’s mind. He is the only character which has passing points. Sim on the other hand fails to come up with good performance. Her loud style and sexual appeal create abhorrence in the audience.

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Anil Kapoor in the form of Advocate is total failure. He loses respect in the eye of audience while appearing without trousers depicting it as his habit. This scene was intended to show his sex hunger which is later used by Tanushree in the coming scenes to deviate his attention from the case. His way of investigation the case while representing London court reduces his esteem further. Arshad Warsi, Emraan Hashmi and Sunil Shetty fail to make impression. There is not much scope for them in the film and rest they waste because of their poor performance. Songs are average and some of them hit the box office before the film release. It is failed attempt on the part of Indian director and writer to compete with the Hollywood suspense thriller. Their system either police or security measures are foolproof or Indians mean act of depicting these things from the wrong end of telescope lower their own Image.

AUTHOR NAME: RAKSHANDA FAWAD