Rog

Father-Daughter Bhatt have embarked on a mission to ensure Film-Noir is a set genre for Bollywood audience. Jism, Murder and a few other movies of theirs are adaptations of Hollywood movies from years ago. ROG is one of the better movies they have produced, and most of it's credit goes to a brilliant performance by Irfan Khan. I am not exaggerating when I say he is the worthy successor to Naseeruddin Shah in the ease with which he slips into any role he portrays.

This movie follows the murder investigation of a beautiful model, Maya Solomon, by 'super-cop' Inspector Uday Rathore (Khan) who suffers from mild-insomnia. While conducting the investigation and piecing together the past of the model, the cop starts falling in love with the image of the dead woman; all the while trying to find her killer.

With a cast of a few extras (including a loud 'accented' confused-desi), none of the other performances are worth note. Yet, the movie itself is well made (a proper script, whoa!) with a beautiful score (M.M Kreem) and a brilliant lead performance. The twists (save one) are a little predictable, but the presentation is a revelation for a low-budget Indian movie. Kudos to the director Himanshu Brahmbhatt for a job well done (he is Mahesh Bhatt's AD from the Gumrah & Sadak).

If nothing, the movie is worth for the Irfan Khan alone. I have set myself up to watch any movie this man stars in. Oh, and the music is awesome.

My Rating ---> 2.5 of 5

Trivia: * Irfan Khan is the same titular 'The Warrior' from Asif Kapadia's epic English movie (which I thought was very slow). * M M Kreem insists on proper poets to pen lyrics for his songs, else he doesn't compose music. (Never expect a 'David Dhawan' song from him). * This movie is a remake of Laura (1944)

Where to start. It is one my favourite sunday afternoon movie, where I want to see some passionate cinema with deep philosophical dialogues. Just watch the first scene of the movie and you will be hooked.

According to credits, movie is written by Mahesh Bhatt and is loosely based on Hollywood movie Laura (which I have not seen). The movie is among those Indian movies which feature normal everyday language dialogues with deeper meanings, which is found otherwise in Anurag Kashyap cinema. It has real life-like grey characters instead of mythological Ram or Ravan characters, out of which majority of Indian cinema is composed of.

The actress Ilene Hamann (Maya) has done the job given to her. She is supposed to be beautiful, mysterious and mesmerizing. She does all the three jobs beautifully. Some of the dialogues in this movie are outstanding which are rarely seen in Indian cinema.

Suhel Seth (Harsh) is an irritating character (to me), though it might be a deliberate characterization.

Irfan Khan (Inspector Uday Rathore) has played his role excellently where he is shown as a depressed policeman falling for a woman who he has seen only in a picture. The chemistry between Irfan and Illene is outstanding depicting two lonely souls finding solace in purity of their affection. I wanted to see more scenes of main lead couple, but alas, it's not a romantic movie.

Munish Makhija has played his part well as assistant and friend of Irfan. He should be in more movies.

Another outstanding feature of the movie is its music by M.M. Kareem. KK and Udit narayan are marvellous in 'Maine Dil se kaha' and 'Khoobsoorat', both of which are written by Nilesh Mishra. Lyrics of these songs beautifully describe the intended meaning and situation in the story, which used to be a feature in old movies but is absent nowadays and already readymade songs being fitted into situations. Overall you should see the movie for Irfan Khan's Acting, some great dialogues, gripping suspense and Ilene's mesmerizing beauty.

Song/music is nice khoobsurat hai woh itna ki saha nahi jata (udit Narayan rocks), irfan khan good actor.

The only thought I had in my mind after watching Rog was why Irrfan did this movie. Rog is so bad that even Irrfan Khan's acting looks average. It's quite evident that most of the supporting cast, including the lead actress, are not full-time actors. The dubbing of the lead actress is simply pathetic. Other actors didn't even require dubbing artists to ruin the act, they did it themselves. If you can turn a blind eye to all that is bad in this movie, then you may enjoy the music, which was surprisingly much better. Overall, it's just a forgettable pseudo-erotic thriller, like many others made during the 2000s. Just go watch Laura, the 1944 film starring Gene Tierney.

If you observe just Irfan Khan in this movie his craft his work then this is one of the best movie to watch.