Samay -> Review
Samay - "When time strikes"
15th October 2003
There has not been much much publicity or much hype around Samay. And it is quite understandable when you have a debutante director(again!) and no real stars (with due respect to Sushmita Sen). Samay does not have much for a music score and looks like a fast paced thriller in the teasers. Briefly you dont know what to expect from Samay.
Samay falls in a genre which has been scarcely attempted by the Mumbai Industry. As far as my memory serves me, I do not know of any hindi movie which is based on the story of a cop and a serial killer. Sounds promising. It is the story of ACP Malavika, IPS (Sushmita Sen) who is investigating a series of murders which she thinks are linked. It is extremely rare for main protagonists of our films to be wrong, Samay is no exception either. Linked they are and are the handiwork of a serial killer (would be unfair to reveal the identity). The story is how the ACP reaches the killer or interestingly and more accurately, how the killer reaches the ACP. The killer infact, leaves clues at every point for the ACP to decipher. The Movie is fast paced and lots of things happen in quick succession. Robby Grewal, it seems had a clear idea what he wanted to do with the movie.
Samay, in fact, is an experiment which is partially successful. The film does not meander one bit, the mother-daughter relationship (Sushmita is a single-mother) which looks extremely corporeal and plastic, too has its significance which is revealed only towards the end. Performances are adequate without being brilliant and so is the background score, which I feel, is the soul of the films of this genre. The script is fairly taut without being too tense. But on the flip side, there are numerous pitfalls. Firstly, Sushmita Sen as the I-Know-all and invulnerable cop tends to get over bearing at times. Secondly, not only it is important that the identity of the black sheep remains a mystery but the director has to ensure that none of the others besides the main protagonist are beyond the circle of doubt. In Samay, the needle of suspicion moves away from each character as soon as it starts pointing at them. Disappoinitng.
On the whole, Samay is a mixed bag. Go for it if you dont have anything better to do. As for me, I came out thinking about what could have been instead of what was...
Passable...
15th October 2003
There has not been much much publicity or much hype around Samay. And it is quite understandable when you have a debutante director(again!) and no real stars (with due respect to Sushmita Sen). Samay does not have much for a music score and looks like a fast paced thriller in the teasers. Briefly you dont know what to expect from Samay.
Samay falls in a genre which has been scarcely attempted by the Mumbai Industry. As far as my memory serves me, I do not know of any hindi movie which is based on the story of a cop and a serial killer. Sounds promising. It is the story of ACP Malavika, IPS (Sushmita Sen) who is investigating a series of murders which she thinks are linked. It is extremely rare for main protagonists of our films to be wrong, Samay is no exception either. Linked they are and are the handiwork of a serial killer (would be unfair to reveal the identity). The story is how the ACP reaches the killer or interestingly and more accurately, how the killer reaches the ACP. The killer infact, leaves clues at every point for the ACP to decipher. The Movie is fast paced and lots of things happen in quick succession. Robby Grewal, it seems had a clear idea what he wanted to do with the movie.
Samay, in fact, is an experiment which is partially successful. The film does not meander one bit, the mother-daughter relationship (Sushmita is a single-mother) which looks extremely corporeal and plastic, too has its significance which is revealed only towards the end. Performances are adequate without being brilliant and so is the background score, which I feel, is the soul of the films of this genre. The script is fairly taut without being too tense. But on the flip side, there are numerous pitfalls. Firstly, Sushmita Sen as the I-Know-all and invulnerable cop tends to get over bearing at times. Secondly, not only it is important that the identity of the black sheep remains a mystery but the director has to ensure that none of the others besides the main protagonist are beyond the circle of doubt. In Samay, the needle of suspicion moves away from each character as soon as it starts pointing at them. Disappoinitng.
On the whole, Samay is a mixed bag. Go for it if you dont have anything better to do. As for me, I came out thinking about what could have been instead of what was...
Passable...
posted by Ankur Pruthi at Monday, October 18, 2004
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