Sunday

Rating : 4/10
Running Time : 135 Minutes
Release Date : 25th Jan ‘08
Director : Rohit Shetty ; Writer : Robin Bhatt ; Music : Shibani Kashyap / Daler Mehndi & others
Starring : Ayesha Takia, Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Irfan Khan

Or how to remake a brilliant film into a very timepass movie
Sunday is a slightly loose remake of Anukokunda Oka Roju, a fantastic Telugu film which my wife and I saw only a couple of months ago. I say slightly loose because it effortlessly manages to murder the essence, the surprise elements and the ending. It does dial up the comedy – the combined talents of Arshad Warsi and Irfan Khan do have some very funny moments together, but overall it falls far short of what could’ve been…

The basic premise of the movie is simple. A girl goes to a party. When she wakes up in the morning, she’s a bit hazy about what has transpired and then suddenly finds strange unknown people trying to kill her. Piecing together what happened at the party and making sure she remains in one piece then form the basis of most of the film.

Here, the trailers reveal too much about the plot (destroying some of the surprise), there is not enough time spent on the character development of the girl, too much time spent showing off the big star (Ajay Devgan) or the comic talents of Arshad / Irfan. Also, there are far too many stunts in what’s supposed to be a ‘realistic’ story, the ending is completely illogical – at least a couple of life-threatening flaws and there is a desperate attempt at commercialism via 2-3 unnecessary item numbers. Performances are very ordinary, couple of hummable songs and as mentioned before, there are some very funny moments…but then that’s about it….

I think the director / producer got very confused here – should they make a comedy or a thriller ? Should they stay true to the spirit of the original or bow to commercialism ? In both cases, they unfortunately made wrong choices and led to a waste of a Sunday…