Ek Deewana Tha- Reviews and SPOILERS

[Sanyogita]

Taran Adarsh: It lacks the fizz for the spectator to go Deewana!

Reuters India: Never-Ending Nonsense

Times of India: The movie has it's moments but doesn't really put you in the mood for love.

Mansha Rastogi: Easily avoided. Listen to Hosanna on the radio instead.

So as if it weren't ludicrous enough that Amy Jackson is a playing a South Indian, her character in the movie is also apparently a '23 year old doctor'.  

[Sanyogita]

Mihir Fadnavis: This remake is good for nothing except to prove how the same story and songs can be turned into either a classic audience pleaser or a turgid dump.

LOL! I was looking at a Twitter review for the movie and I came across these hilarious tweets that Amy Jackson RTed:

@Gokul_no_fear U r the Marilyn mandro of india!..)

@Lokeshabits Amy you are so beautiful and you are an Indian now...thank you for your role in this movie

Seriously, who are these guys?  

[Sanyogita]

Anupama Chopra: A soggy love story

This is probably my favourite review of the film, I'm glad at Anupama has started reviewing again.

[Dariya]

Oh, you are so mean    I figured it wouldn't be met with a lot of love, but seriously, isn't there one good review?  I had a feeling that the basis of this story and how forceful the male lead is would turn off north Indians, who don't seem too keen on stalking and abuse in their movies.  If only they'd altered that (and maybe not created such a stir with the casting of Amy Jackson), this might have been better received.

Those tweets are pretty idiotic.  I hope they don't represent the majority opinion.

[Sanyogita]

Oh, you are so mean    I figured it wouldn't be met with a lot of love, but seriously, isn't there one good review?

Seriously, there are no good reviews for the film. I was actually pretty kind in not linking to the particularly brutal reviews. For example:

India Today: This reviewer basically abandons all pretence of professionalism and confesses that she wants to tell the lead actors to eff off.

DNA review: Anything will be superior to this insipid, never-ending drama. Unimpressive at it's best and torturous at it's worst.

Those tweets are pretty idiotic.  I hope they don't represent the majority opinion.

Please refer to this and weep for humanity.  

I saw the Tamil version of this film, and while I found Simbu's treatment of Trisha to be quite problematic, I thought the film itself was quite well made. I'm guessing that the Hindi version must just be a terrible film for it to have been given such bad reviews across the board. It's not like Hindi cinema is a stranger to misogynistic tropes, even if the stalking is more commmon down South, so it cannot just be the male lead's behaviour that has made such a bad impression on the critics.

 I thought Endhiran was another SI film that was far worse in it's treatment of women for example, and most Hindi critics  went ga-ga over it. I'm guessing this remake is just really boring/ incompetent.

[Darshana]

Pulkit Datta, in the NRI -- I like him and see him as a guy who thinks his own thoughts:

http://www.the-nri.com/index.php/2012/02/film-review-ek-deewana-tha/

[excerpt - see link for whole review] . . . .Ek Deewana Tha is less about innocent, first love than it is about testing the limits of audience patience.

      One of the film’s glaring flaws from the outset is its writing, with the story and screenplay both by Menon. Both lead characters – Sachin and Jessie – remain flat throughout. Sachin does absolutely nothing except for being consumed by his love. He follows her around and keeps referring to himself as jobless, even though somehow he keeps getting a convenient leg up in the film industry. Jessie, the beautiful and shy Malayali Christian girl, is virtually impossible to grasp in terms of her motivations. She changes her mind about Sachin every other scene, making her annoyingly indecisive and hard to empathize with. It becomes painfully evident early in the film that neither character has a story arc, no evolution in personality or behavior. . . . .

[Dariya]

At last! A good review.    http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/review/13636.html

Reading some of the others, I got the impression that those critics just plain hated the story -- not the Hindi treatment in particular.  Their criticisms were about the script, the pacing, even the music ( ).  Most don't mention the original -- I'm guessing they haven't seen it and would have the same criticisms if they did.  One reviewer even says 'catch this one only if you have a lot of patience and a dedication to love stories', which is exactly how I would recommend the Tamil and Telugu ones.  I feel pretty reassured that since I DID happen to like VTV, I'll also like this.  I'm mostly curious to see how Prateik does -- I really, really like him.  

EDIT: Okay, so the indiaglitz review is kind of incoherent.  I haven't read their reviews for a while, I forgot they were often poorly written.    

[maru7627]

           
One of the film’s glaring flaws from the outset is its writing, with the story and screenplay both by Menon. Both lead characters – Sachin and Jessie – remain flat throughout. Sachin does absolutely nothing except for being consumed by his love. He follows her around and keeps referring to himself as jobless, even though somehow he keeps getting a convenient leg up in the film industry. Jessie, the beautiful and shy Malayali Christian girl, is virtually impossible to grasp in terms of her motivations. She changes her mind about Sachin every other scene, making her annoyingly indecisive and hard to empathize with. It becomes painfully evident early in the film that neither character has a story arc, no evolution in personality or behavior. . . . .

Interesting comment! The reason VTV captured my fancy was for this very reason - the writing of the heroine in the romance which by itself was fairly ho-hum. Jessie is flighty and capricious, changes her mind on a whim and in general  drives Karthik up the wall because she's so hard to read. Yet she's strong willed and opinionated and interesting to watch.

Not sure which thread it was but I remember a thoughtful discussion on the forum on whether characters need story arcs or whether they can remain in essence the same from start to finish. To my mind VTV seemed to be one story that manged to keep it engaging despite having no huge growth arc for the lead characters. I'm not sure how Prateik and Amy did with their characters, so it may be about the execution not matching the writing. But perhaps the somewhat unconventional female lead didn't resonate even outside of Amy's performance.

[JodhaBai]

Film Critic from The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/arts/cinema/article2906888.ece

[meenkaran]

Menon is a fool for thinking that this kind of movie will be appreciated by the jaded hindi audiences.... they've long since moved on from love at first sight/parental opposition stories to live in relationships/break ups and all. Also romantic dramas are dime a dozen in bollywood, unlike in the south where they come once in a blue moon among all the action-masala movies.

[Simran_Singh]

^ that's a very good point, meenkaran, about the difference between Hindi and South movie audiences

So am I the only forum member who bothered to go see this? I watched it out of a sense of curiosity - because I like Prateik and because the Tamil movie is one of my favourites.

It's basically a scene-for-scene remake of... actually the Telugu version, as opposed to the Tamil version (those of you who have seen both will know what I'm referring to). However, as meenkaran has alluded to and other reviewers have pointed out, the story when set in Mumbai as opposed to Chennai/Hyderabad loses a lot of credibility (especially when they expect us to believe that Jessie's father, living in Juhu, doesn't know who Amitabh Bachchan is ).

However, I think the slightly unrealistic-seeming story could still have made for a good movie, if the two leads put in strong performances. Unfortunately this is not the case. I'm especially disappointed in Prateik, who I believe is really innately talented, and I was excited when I heard he was cast in this because I thought he would be perfect for the role, but he doesn't manage to get as deep into the character's intensity and obstinacy as Simbu did in the Tamil version, for example. The only time his performance really clicked for me was right at the end. Also, his physique was too bulky - I found his thick neck particularly distracting - and they dressed him in baggy clothes making him look very young and sloppy. And his dancing was very stiff.

Amy Jackson was terribly miscast. Jessie is supposed to be a simple Malayalee Christian girl, who dresses in saris and doesn't wear a lot of makeup. Amy's makeup was very noticeable - especially the dark bronzer/blush on her cheekbones and the dark, almost-purple lipstick. She also doesn't look natural in the saris and other Indian wear she is given (this becomes really obvious at the end when Samantha turns up in the AD-turned-actress role she played in the Tamil version). Chinmayi, who also dubbed for Jessie in the Tamil and Telugu versions, has a great, smoky voice - but it doesn't suit Amy at all. The thing is, Amy's performance wasn't that bad for someone who is only two films old, but her 'voice' didn't match her look, and her look didn't match the type of character she was supposed to be playing.

[Dariya]

^ Thanks so much for your review Simran Singh! You seem like a much more fair judge than some of the professional critics.  Was Samantha dubbed or can she speak Hindi?  I have to wait for the DVD, unfortunately.

[NewLaura]

It's basically a scene-for-scene remake of... actually the Telugu version, as opposed to the Tamil version (those of you who have seen both will know what I'm referring to).

Very interesting...  I'd wondered about that and thought it must be the Tamil version since they kept referring to it as a re-make of VTV.