What is it all about?
Trying to cash on the Indian rural child abuse, trafficking, crime and labor exotica in Bihari lingo, first time writer director Manish Harishankar’s ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokre’ starring Soha Ali Khan in the lead is earnest by heart by trying to depict the plight of children in rural India drawn into a life of crime, brutality and murder.
Ironically Manish Harishankar’s take on the juvenile life of rural India is also juvenile and cliché in its approach making this two hour plus movie finding minimum takers even at a gun point at the box office ditto at the festive art house front.
The Story
Manish Harishankar gives a flimsy and filmy approach to this otherwise high potential reality dynamite starting with Neha (Soha Ali Khan) a software engineer lands up in Hindustan to build a proper school in a small village in Bihar. While planning her moves she encounters three 12 - 13 year old movers and shakers of that area - Awdesh (Harsh Mayar), Ranjan(Aditya Jaswal), and Gorakh (Shankar Mandal) who proudly hold the gun for fun and killing people on the orders of the local powerhouse Lakkhan (Zakir Hussain).
While finding out the reason behind the kids preferring bullets over books Neha is exposed to other heinous crimes of child trafficking, underage marriage, abuse and exploitation. Neha decides to reform Ranjan, Gorakh and Awdesh in this waste that is devoid of any cinematic sandesh (message).
What to look out for
Having the heart at its right place Manish Harishankar’s ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokre’ has very few things to shoot in joy. The performance by those three kids - Harsh Mayar, Aditya Jaiswal and Shankar Mandal in whatever scope they get is fine. Zakir Hussian is perfect. Mukesh Tiwari as the typical cop has its moments. Seema Biswas is excellent.Abhijeet-Sameer and Sudeep music is fine.
What not
Soha Ali Khan is a misfit. She tries very hard though. Lack of detailinbg in script, no vision, no developments in characterization. Its horrifying to note that basic requirements of decent filmmaking is ignored in this writer director Manish Harishankar’s miserable attempt. Knowing that he assisted the prolific Raj Kumar Santoshi makes it more frightening.
Forget about conviction in script and proper storytelling, the movie is such a juvenile effort thanks to its tacky technicalities that we see improper lip-sync, jarred editing, background score and false locations.
Conclusion: If having the heart at its right place is the only requirement for a ‘real’ly good cinema then ‘Chaarfutiya Chhokare’ se badkar koi kahi na.
Rating *and1/2
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