Films that are based on real life stories have a better connect with the audience. Farhan Akhtar’s Lucknow Central promises to be an account of a real life story where jail inmates had formed a band and thus reformed their lives.
What’s it about: Kishan Mohan Girhotra (Farhan Akhtar) is a typical small town boy with stars in his eyes. His days are spent struggling to cut an album of his own, that he wants to hand out to his idol, post which, he believes, his musical career will take off. Life is not perfect but Kishan and his father are on a song. But their lives are turned upside down.
Well, a lot of things actually. Firstly, the film doesn’t take any time to establish Kishan as a character. It goes in for sympathy, trying to portray Kishan as this wronged guy, but fails to elicit empathy, which is so integral to the plot of films like these. It is necessary to get the audience to root for the underdog but throughout the film, I only found myself being a mere spectator, not really vouching for Kishan at any point in time. Secondly, apart from Kishan, all other characters seem like caricatures. The makers surely had no idea about the fifty shades of grey for all the characters in the film were either all black or all white, on the other hand you have Kishan, the wronged guy, who has accepted his fate. At a time when Bollywood is thankfully breaking free from such flat, lackluster portrayals, a film that conforms to the cliche is a bit of a turn-off really. At one point in time, the film got uncannily similar to Shah Rukh Khan’s Happy New Year. However, frankly, you would root more for Deepika and her dancers than Farhan and his band. Why, you ask? Well, for one, like some badly scripted reality show, the jail rock band competition seemed pretty one sided from the word go.
What to do: Lucknow Central isn’t a fun watch, it isn’t enlightening, As a film, it fails in its purpose of making an impact. And yet, the novelty of seeing inmates being offered a chance at reformation is refreshing. We certainly need more such stories but yes, they need to be told better too.
Farhan Akhtar’s Lucknow Central movie fails to hit the right notes!
