Ek Second... Jo Zindagi Badal De...

Partho Ghosh pathetically rips off Peter Howitt's 'Sliding Doors'. This so-called movie is so stale that it looks older than a D-grade 90s movie. While the main story is a copy of Howitt's film, there are some 'space-filler plots' that are hilariously bad (and they feature unknown amateur actors horrendously delivering atrocious dialogues). The overall dialogue is very obsolete and sleep inducing. The songs are terrible. With the exception of Manisha Koirala, none of the actors even manage to deliver anything even remotely above a bad performance. Jackie Shroff is too old for the role and his makeup (which was an attempt to make him look younger), only makes him look creepier. Even though Koirala turns in a decent performance (the only good thing in 'Ek Second... Jo Zindagi Badal De?), I really wonder what made her agree to do this C-grade junk. Money couldn't have possibly been a motivating factor behind this as 'Ek Second... Jo Zindagi Badal De?' looks tacky and trashy.

The long old practice of getting inspired from the West continues in Bollywood with this new release called "Ek Second - Jo Zindagi Badal De" as its complete title. A very immature copy of "Sliding Doors" released in 1998, it simply offers nothing even close to exciting or thought provoking as compared to its original. In fact the only positive impact it can possibly make is to create enough curiosity in the viewers to watch its real source of inspiration, which no doubt was based on imaginative creative thinking.

But whenever such hugely inspired movies are presented before us, I really wonder that Do the writers and directors actually reveal what they are going to copy in their initial talks with the producers about the project or not? Do they really bring along the Original DVDs of the English movies in those meetings or they simply take the producers as granted. Whatever the case may be, the bitter truth is that Indian Film Industry is still working on the same rotten path of copying and we are still being served very amateurish kind of unofficial versions in the name of entertainment.

Director Partho Ghosh has earlier been associated with projects such as 100 DAYSand AGNISAKSHI which were also clear clones of their English hits. And he keeps following the same old trend in his EK SECOND too. However in his latest version he chooses a wrong movie to get inspired from as the subject is just not apt for the Indian viewers.

The story deals with a female character, whose life gets drastically affected, as she misses on to the tube-train by only one second. From the tube-station itself the narration divides the storyline into two imaginary parts. One part of the movie talks about the girl taking the train in time and then meeting another guy in the tube. Whereas the other part of the story deals with the girl missing the train and then catching her boyfriend at home in bed with another lady. Sounds interesting…….yes it surely is, but sadly not in this below average copy of the real thing, as it completely ruins the innovative subject with its sub-standard treatment.

In few words, EK SECOND is one of those poorly made projects which luckily get to see the light of the theaters due to some reason. The movie seems to be long in the making with names such as Manisha Koirala, Jackie Shroff and Anand Raaj Anand. Many scenes in the film involving some new and uncomfortable actors are simply intolerable. Post intermission, each such new scene featuring the amateur actors forces you to move out of hall at once, which clearly indicates about the quality of the movie as a whole.

Frankly speaking, I should not be taking more of your time writing about the performances, music, cinematography or direction in "EK SECOND". If you really think it's based on an interesting concept, then you may watch "Sliding Doors" (which incidentally is also just an above average stuff only).

Yet, the only comment I can give here for the movie is, Let's move on to something better.

Rating : No Stars (As it's another unofficial rip-off)