From Sydney With Love Hindi Movie
Carrying forward the legacy of his late grandfather Pramod Chakravorty who made films like Ziddi, Love In Tokyo, Jugnu, Warrant, Nastik in the early '70s, comes Prateek Chakravorty who makes his foray into filmdom with a rom-com From Sydney With Love. The film has been in the pipelines for long and after a constant battle for shows in multiplexes and theaters, it finally sees the light of the day. Whether it turns out to be worth the wait or not let's find out.
Meghaa Bannerjee (Bidita Bag), a small town girl from Bolpur in West Bengal, lands herself in Sydney with a scholarship at the New South Whales University. Her first day itself and she gets taken for a ride by Raj Baksi (Prateek Chakravorty) while finds her aides in Rohit Khurana (Sharad Malhotra), Lubaina Snyder (Evelyn Sharma) Suhail Syed (Karan Sagoo) and Kalpana Chatterjee (Reshmi Ghosh). Life goes good as she enjoys her days in Sydney until her drink gets spiked one day at a party and she ends up sleeping with Rohit, her boyfriend by then.
Too much to take for her rural morals, Meghaa heads back to India while the lovelorn Rohit follows her all the way till there with Raj in tow. Whether he wins over Meghaa or not follows through the rest of the plot.
Debutant Prateek Chakravorty dons far too many hats in a go and in a clear case of fingers being in too many pies ends up offering a shoddy platter. The first half and the second could well be two individual movies in themselves. Especially the second which goes on like a separate entity altogether into an unending saga giving glimpses of various Bollywood films ranging from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge to Badhai Ho Badhai.
The entire first half could've been covered up in the series of montages, but the filmmaker chooses to include multiple songs, forced sequences for example, that of a rugby match challenged by Suhail out of a blue for no rhyme or reason.
Another major hindrance in the film is Prateek Chakravorty himself. He gives himself excessive screen space almost to the point of annoyance. And if he needs to work the script or the direction, he also needs to work on himself. With his annoyingly podgy self which he uses to make a mockery of his own self, he doesn't get too far in pleasing the audience. Moreover, he fails no chance to project himself as a hero by giving himself romantic song and dance sequences.
As for the rest of the characters, Sharad Malhotra proves to be the best of the lot. But even at that, his acting is average at best. Bidita Bag should work on her dialogue delivery whereas the likes of Sabyasachi who plays Meghaa's father, Karan Sagoo, Reshmi Ghosh and Evelyn Sharma are passable.
To sum it up, From Sydney With Love is shoddily executed mashup of many romantic films of the past. Watch it if only if you have nothing else to do.
