Wake up Gupta!

ACID FACTORY

Cast: Fardeen Khan pursing his lips, many gents in shades of black, olive and brown, Dia Mirza wearing karela-juice colour contact lenses, cars, cars, cars

Director: Suparn Verma

Rating: One and a half stars

No, no. This couldn’t possibly be producer Sanjay Gupta ki Aag!..but what to do? Bar bar cars jump in the Cape Town air like circus acrobats, halt, then achieve a somersault and then break into great balls of fire. Yikes, you can smell the burning tyre.

Choke, so dozens of cars go up in smoke. So what if you have witnessed these a gazillion times, like in those Abbas-Mustan race lulus race? Like it or not, producer Sanjay Gupta, director Suparn Verma and stunt master Tinu Varma appear to believe that there’s nothing more exciting than a four-wheeler in flames. Ummm, that’s Acid Factory for you, then, filched without so much as half an acknowledgement from Unknown (2006), an indie B-grader that had lived up to its name.

So might this Tehzab Karkhana you suspect. Because through its running time of 95 minutes (seems loooooooonger though), you can’t fathom who the hell is doing what to whom and whatever for. How on earth to distinguish the baddies from the absolute maddies? You’re merely locked up in this enormous warehouse where Fardeen Khan wakes up to discover that he has temporary memory loss. Five more Ghajini Hero Types rise, shine and get as bristly as porcupines. Ouch grouch.

Indeed, you don’t know why the factorywallas are on strike, why this huge industrial paradise is abandoned and why a toxic gas should affect only the memory glands. No wonder, Fardeen ramping it out there in out-of-vogue leather jackets,is befuddled. Aftab Shivadasani wakes up slowly while Dino Morea (wearing a hat indoors..was there a draft?) does so surely. Dear Manoj Bajpayee is chained to something or the other, plus he has tomato ketchup on his face. And the ace, of course is Danny Denzongpa strapped to a chair, but SMILING like a dentist’s delight. Cheeeeeese!

Meanwhile, there are these flashbak-baks saying five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier, mmm, one week earlier, which scramble your mental arithmetic. Do dooni chaalis anyone? And outside that padlocked warehouse, waiting to pop up on the scene, are Irrfan Khan (looking as pleased as Punch travelling in a limousine) and his aide, a Backless Catsuit Lady (Dia Mirza, ha ha ha ha ha ha).Dhan te na, Limousine and Backless even kiss, like two goldfish in a bowl. So bowlarious this.

Yesteryear’s Baaaaad Man, Gulshan Grover, is an Expressionless Cop for a change. Honestly, don’t expect any kind of screenplay sustenance here. Since it’s a Gupta production, though, you can expect to sight a row of dudes walking towards the camera, looking as if they wanted to rough up the director. You can also expect a pole dance with white women, cuts to a scalding hot Lamborgini-plus-hot bikes, and you can certainly anticipate the dialogue to include in a limitless number of hey brother and yaaars. Compared to this Gupta Gyaan, Kaante was Ben-Hur. How you long to rent its DVD immediately. Its music still plays in your ears. Factory’s be-bops vanish instantly.

Needless to lament, Gupta and his directors have to wake up and smell the cappuccino fast. Those berserk camera angle and chip-chop editing cuts are passe now. A story of some purpose and emotional content is a must if the producer and his team are to evolve. Occasionally, there is something unconventional about his work, yes, but it’s limited to technique.

Of the cast, Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea and Dia Mirza are extremely tiresome to watch. Ms Mirza, again, seems to be more interested in cosmetics than emoting. Danny sir and Irrfan saab look as if they’ve wandered into a children’s tea party. Surprisingly, Aftab Shivdasani is pretty convincing and confident. Not suprisingly, Manoj Bajpayee with his ability to take the script to another level, is consistently credible.

At some point, someone asks, “What are we doing here?” If you make the mistake of visiting the factory, so will you. For sure.