Just two shows on the first day and less than 10 viewers in the theater for a rare Bollywood film made on the subject of medical malpractice! Why?
Because in our country we don’t really like to see or talk about the real problems and just wish to enjoy a fantasy world presented along some action, dance and music, featuring our favourite actors. Also, because here cinema is just meant for ‘a time pass entertainment’ and is not considered anywhere close to something significant like literature, music or painting. As a result, neither the exhibitors are willing to give any major attention to off- beat projects like these, nor the viewers are interested in WASTING their time on such meaningful, preachy and socially relevant movies quite frankly (Pun intended).
So in that scenario, when one clearly knows that it will be tough to get a good number of shows as well audience into the theaters, I would first like to congratulate the producers of ANKUR ARORA MURDER CASE, who had the blessed vision to finance such a film for a market which is widely known to stay aloof and discourage this kind of film-making from last few decades. Thankfully we still have such responsible people in the industry who do care to address some burning issues of the society through the medium of cinema, so all is not lost yet.
Talking about the film itself, usually I am not supportive to projects which unofficially borrow from some hidden foreign sources heavily. But ANKUR ARORA MURDER CASE can be left as an exception since it does raise a very important issue of our Indian society at present, regarding the questionable status of life saver DOCTORS & their Private Hospitals. The whole medical premise of its script and the proceedings of the court with the mention of number1 being changed to 9 is straight away taken from Sidney Lumet’s THE VERDICT (1982) starring Paul Newman, which itself is a true masterpiece from the West revealing the ugly commercial aspects of this noble profession (Included in my ‘Movies To See Before You Die List’ too). Interestingly the makers of AAMC are widely publicizing it to be based on a real life happening. But if it really is about an actual incident then either this is a rarest of rare case of real life copying the reel life or The Almighty must have seen THE VERDICT before repeating an exactly similar case in this part of the world.
However getting over with the inspired status of the film, AAMC is a decently made flick focusing on an irresponsible mistake by a famous and reputed doctor, who instead of admitting & apologizing, tries to cover up the case with his powerful influence. As the truth comes out, a case is filed on the hospital and the doctor, turning the film into a court room drama in its second half which is both intense and emotional in its execution. Now though it surely could have been much more hard hitting and impressive in its overall portrayal of the issue as expected. Yet it is no doubt a pretty decent and worth praising attempt from the entire team for sure, including many spellbinding performances from the cast led by Kay Kay Menon.
In few words, AAMC deserves to be seen both for its crucial issue raised, as well as for its brilliant key performance by Kay Kay as the culprit doctor, Tisca Chopra as the helpless mother and Arjun Mathur as the honest intern together. No one can deny the fact that Kay Kay is one of the most under-rated actors we have at present who truly deserves more good roles and praises both. But here Tisca Chopra shines even brighter in the film as the silent mother witnessing the justice denied by the court with only her tearful eyes looking into the dark. The lady once again proves the unexplored hidden talent in her, post TAARE ZAMEEN PAR in 2007 and she truly needs to be given much more chances like these to come up with even better. Arjun Mathur makes the best use of the opportunity given in the role of a revolting intern having a ‘still alive conscience’ and Vishakha supports him well as his colleague. In the court room sequences, Paoli Dam delivers a powerful act playing the lawyer with some great dialogues and Manish Chaudhari, Vishesh Tiwari (The Kid) and Harsh Chhaya perform just fine. The camera captures the tragic emotional sequences in the film beautifully and the Background Score gives it full support in generating the desired impact.
Admittedly, it’s not a great classic film which would force you to stand up and clap as you might be thinking. It has its own set of flaws, like an unwanted sub-plot of suicide attempt along with the love angle & few songs, as usual. But still it does successfully makes you think about the state we are living in, wherein the established doctors are more worried about their huge hospital running expenses and the intern doctors are more worried about their future careers instead of admitting the mistake they all had made in the operation theater.
It makes you fearful, watching the way a reputed doctor performs a minor operation with an absent mind and over confidence leading to some adverse consequences beyond control. And it even forces you to question that have we lost this noble God-like profession too in the current monetary race of our blind society?
AAMC also needs to be considered as a trend setting film because we have simply stopped making projects talking about our own social issues quite sadly and moreover the viewers too have stopped showing any kind of interest towards such relevant movies. In fact that is what we have lost in our Hindi Cinema since the 80s and the only film which was made on this issue of ‘Medical Malpractices’ happened to be NASOOR in the year 1985 almost three decades back. Honestly it was quite surprising to see the film written & presented by the recent ‘Horror specialist’ Vikram Bhatt and skillfully directed by a not so known director Suhail Tatari. So these two men also deserve their own share of praises for coming up with this thought provoking film in the present commercial times.
As a concluding message, we need to grow up and support films like ANKUR ARORA MURDER CASE because it’s a universal cause the film has been made for. A medical condition doesn’t differentiate between a rich or poor coming from any region or religion and thus the film should be taken as a “Wake Up Call” for every single person reading this review, especially the aspiring doctors and the ones currently practicing the divine profession.
Nevertheless, the other side of the coin is that in the new millennium, we are certainly not willing to see any film questioning our own corrupted souls & social system together. So I can easily predict that this is going to be a FLOP and there will be no-one to see this in the theaters in the coming days. In India we have a die-hard habbit of not addressing an issue till it reaches our own homes and we are not used to being shown the ugly mirror with the truth, right at our faces.
Rating : 3.5 / 5
(Update : The film can now be seen at Netflix and probably at Youtube too)
