Movie review: Striker

This might be one of the most crucial weeks for the South Indian actor Siddharth. Who made his solo debut in bollywood film named Striker.

Getting the tickets for a Saturday evening show was not a big deal at all with negligible noise at the ticket counter. I could manage very good seats that too fifteen minutes before the show.

With a backdrop of late 1980s and early 1990s, Striker is a movie about a poor boy from Malvani (Mumbai) who has no idea of what his future holds for him but is desperate of achieving something unusual. Adding to this a thin silver lining of communal distress and you get what we call ‘Striker‘.

The cast of the movie includes Siddharth, Aditya Pancholi, Ankur Vikal, Anupam Kher, Seema Biswas, Vidya Malvade, Anoop Soni, Padmapriya and Nicolette Bird.

Siddharth (Surya) – acts as a poor boy from Malvani who thought of making big by going to Dubai, but everything in his side gets ruined in due course of time. Coming to his acting skills, Siddharth still has South Indian touch to his accent which does look good at places but most of the time, It sounds as if he is more of a south Indian than being a Mumbaikar. His performance is far from being perfect.

Aditya Pancholi (Jaleel) – Plays the role of a small goon in Malvani area. Name any illegal activity and you will find Jaleel making his mark there. To me he delivered his best by getting into the shoes of a local goon.

Ankur Vikal (Zaid) – Best buddy of Surya in the film and the sole reason for getting Surya unintentionally into illegal activities. He was perfect and acted flawlessly. Especially, the scene where he is drugged by Jaleel shows his acting excellence.

Anupam Kher ( Inspector Farooque) and Seema Biswas (Mother of Surya) are the veteran artists of bollywood; I am no one to comment on their acting. The script has very less to offer to them but whatever was offered to them, they did a splendid job.

Vidya Malvade (Devi) – Sister of Surya, Her appearance in this movie was limited to very few scenes. To be honest after ‘Kidnap‘, I was not expecting much from her but this time she was bang on in every scene she did.

Anoop Soni (Dada, elder brother of Surya) – He was the responsible member of the family, who also taught Surya how to play carroms but with a good intention. His performance was also limited but made a mark.

Padmapriya and Nicolette Bird (Noorie) did the roles well but they were hardly there in the film.

Chandan Arora – The director,writer and producer of this film made a number of mistakes in the film. Right from the script to the direction, he couldn’t stick to one plot rather than mixed several threads which lead to overall “Khichdi” of the film. Right from scene one, the movie shifts from plots to plots with no clear intention.

Though the movie was around 2 hours, the steam less screenplay made it look longer. The biggest mistake was that the movie starts on a note about carroms but the plot actually fades in the climax.

There were many aspects which were not linked properly and made me confused, to quote with some examples

• How did Jaleel come to know that Zaid pinned him.
• What was Devi along with her husband doing in Mumbai during riots?
• How come Surya was not aware of the situation at the time of entering the city after winning the national championship?

Overall, this movie is a onetime watch and is not a complete paisa vasool movie. Already bitten by piracy the chances of attracting the crowd to theatres are bleak.