BHOPAL EXPRESS Below Expectations

===BHOPAL EXPRESS Below Expectations===
Tushar K Shukla
Having heard so much about this underground movie, of the likes of Black
Friday, Paanch and many others which are critically acclaimed for the very
reason that hardly anyone has heard about them and this makes the movies
worth a watch, I was looking forward to Bhopal Express. There were many
reasons, the utmost was the director, Mahesh Mathai, who has directed few
Lucky Ali videos, in which I kinda liked his imaginative work. I
understand that when you make a movie on a factual event, you have to
weave a fictional story around the actual event to make it cinematically
presentable, but I would have preferred if the unnecessary love angle was
done away with. Nethra Raghuraman looks like she has come straight down
from Harvards to essay the role of a stereotypical Indian housewife, as if
David Lynch was enough inspiration for her to do this. I am not saying
that this is a badly made movie, but just that it is very predictable.
There is so much that could have been done to the amazing plot line.
Instead of wasting some 30 minutes of on-screen time in useless sequences
of Bashir miyan drooling over ZohraBai, they could have shown a different
perspective of the Bhopal disaster. Public memory might be short, but
Bhopal is something we remember very well, just like Russians can never
forget Chernobyl. When the sequence of the gas eruption started, I thought
now it will get to a sensible track at least, but it follows the Bollywood
tested path of gathering sympathy for the death of a lead character, which
was Naseer in this case. Surprisingly, even Naseer hams in this one. And
you can trust KK to act in such scenes where a high emotional adrenaline
is required, he is no different or unimaginable in his portrayal. Also
though the time period has some good detailing, there is a surprising
ambiguity in the character development. I did not understand what was the
perspective of the director- was he trying to show us why Bhopal happened,
or is he lamenting over it being a systemic failure, or is he just trying
to cash in on the sad memories of people who lost their near one sin the
tragedy? I would have preferred an interspersing of factual details and
interviews, that means a documentary could have been better than this
weirdly titled movie. Disappointed.