Movie Review: D-Day..is a Disaster of epic proportions

I know this is an unusually strong statement but such was indeed the sentiment as I exited the hall. What started as a taut, racy thriller – the kind seldom offered by Bollywood – soon became less than ordinary and one witnessed such a fall from grace that it still hurt long after the impact was made. How could Nikhil Advani get it so wrong after such a promising start – one can only wonder

This movie further bolsters the belief that following the commercial, more popular reviews is a big mistake. D-Day has been hailed as a slick, unconventional thriller with great plot twists and tense action amongst the media. In my view, none of this is true. It starts off in that mould, I’ll give it that. Then the age-old issue of songs interfering with plot developments crops up. That alone, I could have still sat through, but after that the additional love angles and slow pace of the movie kill whatever interest one would have developed previously

The movie intermissions at a point where you only hope that the second half is much better than the first. It isn’t. In fact, its much worse than the first. At one point you are left wondering what the movie is really building up to, if anything at all. At times, it almost looks like a deliberate attempt to make a dysfunctional movie practically as an intentional spoof. If that were true, it could still have made some sense, but the movie tries to show itself as serious and patriotic and that simply looks forced. There are plotholes that are too gaping to ignore as well. As for the plot twist, I didn’t find it convincing at all but that’s probably because it looks more incidental than a real shocker as part of the mainstream plot

The fact that Nikhil Advani had a fairly accomplished cast of characters further added to the disappointment of the movie being so ordinary. Irrfan does a good job but even his best efforts can’t really save the movie. Neither is the striking Huma Qureshi able to do so despite no fault in her performance. Rishi Kapoor in his unusual avatar is probably the worst utilized – while his character starts off menacing as intended, it deteriorates to practically the aforementioned spoof.

Nikhil Advani made Kal Ho Na Ho well. The setup for this one is demanded radically different treatment. While he attempts a good transition to this genre, it seems as if he himself lost the plot somewhere along the way. The first half of the first half, if I were to put it that way, is a laudable effort. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie becomes almost a laughable effort. A movie that I believe deserved such a title more was probably 16th December. Something of that nature presented with a little more finesse and with this cast of characters would have given a lot more ‘bang’ for your buck

As it stands though, D-Day is a disaster but not the kind, the movie wanted to portray – here’s hoping for a better outcome next time around, Nikhil Advani