Blue
Director: Anthony D souza Producer: Dhillin Mehta Starring: Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif, Rahul Dev, Zayed Khan Music: A R Rahman
Spending close to 100 crores on an underwater adventure, a genre that has never been tried in Bollywood is a humongous risk. With the responsibility on a man who is expected to bring in the audiences to theaters, not enjoying the best of years, just makes it riskier. Featuring Akshay Kumar - Sanjay Dutt - Zayed Khan - Lara Dutta - Katrina Kaif - Rahul Dev, Anthony D'Souza the director of Blue promises close to two hours of thrill. Sadly, Blue falls way short of expectations.
Anthony D'Souza had the best of talent at his disposal - Akshay Kumar as the lead star, a sizzling Lara Dutta, Peter Zuccharini (Pirates of the Caribbean) as the underwater cinematographer and not to forget A.R Rahman as the music composer and Resul Pookutty as the sound designer; both Oscar winners. But it's the script that turns out to be the damn squib. Anthony's efforts as the captain of ship are praise worthy, but with a script full of loopholes, he fails to save it from sinking.
The plot is absurd. We have Aarav (Akshay Kumar) who is a rich Casanova; he is friends with Sagar (Sanjay Dutt), a fisherman and a sea diver. Aarav is obsessed with a treasure hidden deep inside the sea in a 50 year old wreck - Lady in Blue. Only Sagar knows the exact location of the treasure, but due to an unfortunate incident that led to the death of his father, he is unwilling to direct Aarav to the wreck.
Now, when the movie begins to stagnate, Zayed Khan makes an appearance along with Katrina Kaif. Zayed is game for any risk as long as the pay is good. He takes up the task of delivering a bag in 30 minutes to an undisclosed location. On the way, as the cops chase him, the bag is lost. He is asked to pay 50 million dollars in return. To save his life, he goes back to unite with his brother Sagar.
Meanwhile a couple of bike chase sequences, that remind you of the Dhoom series, keep the pace up. A couple of songs featuring a sexy Lara Dutta and the visibly uncomfortable Sanjay Dutt drag the so called adventure thriller.
At this point, with the viewers having almost forgotten about the adventure that leads to the treasure, the director gets to the point and the search begins. Now the real shocker, the ease with which the characters get to the treasure, amidst killer sharks, has been poorly executed. In fact the whole adventure portions are shorter than Katrina's special appearance, which was about 10 minutes long. Also, the pre interval portions are a perfect example of how money can be wasted.
Akshay Kumar and Lara Dutta stand out, more for their fitness and physique than acting histrionics. Zayed Khan has very few scene with the helmet off, hence very little to emote. Sanjay Dutt looks terribly out of shape. Katrina Kaif looks great.
To sum up, Blue is poorly written and terribly executed. Stay home and watch National Geographic and AXN instead!
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