Saturday, April 1, 2017

Udta Punjab - Movie Review

Punjab's drug problem is at the core of the movie and it affects rock singers  like Tommy Singh, illegal immigrants like Mary Jane and a police inspector whose younger brother is addicted. From my understanding it looks like the drugs are coming over the border, thrown by a team of discus throwers. They are also being manufactured by some pharma companies and are being distributed by politicians. The main reason why drugs are so widely rampant is because there is a rock star named Tommy Singh who sings songs encouraging drugs. So since we cannot catch the discus throwers, nor the pharma companies, nor the politicians - we will catch Tommy Singh.

It's quite sporty in that sense because the illegal immigrant is a district hockey champion who is now working in the fields near the border and literally the skies shower cocaine on her. She takes away the drug and is chased by a team of athletes and finally captured in a place where there are cricket bats (and a dog called Jackie Chan). The policeman falls in love with a beautiful, enthusiastic and naive doctor who looks like she should have married a few years ago and has not, for some serious reason (an upright activist fiance shot dead by drug dealers?). Anyway they unearth a dangerous plot which is already known to us. She dies of guilt - she plans to meet the cop for coffee after submitting a report to the Election Commission and instead meets the cop's brother who for some reason decides to break away from the rehab clinic in a violent manner. He stabs her in the jugular and she dies - in a beautiful posture - leaning against the fence post. She was better off tweeting about it to our Ministers I feel than writing reports to Election Commissioners. Anyway, at some point the director had had enough and so did we, and he finishes all of them, or most of them in a couple of exchanges. Only the true love of Tommy Singh and Mary Jane bears fruit and they end up in Goa hopefully shooting cocaine.

The characters pretty much tell us the story while sitting around. The much feared flashback of the doctor which threatened me all through the movie was thankfully not included. I've had enough of her and her Vespa by then.

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