Kya Yahi Sach Hai Review

Rating: **

Frankly speaking, when I ventured into 'Kya Yahi Sach Hai', I was expecting an all around terrible show. Pathetic promotion hadn't helped my cause either, poor release was a further deterrent while an absolute absence of anything that would have made me root for the film wasn't a pleasant feeling either. Really, this was one movie this year which I saw as a job than being genuinely interested. And that, by the way, is quite rare for me. However the end result did manage to change my pre-conceived notion to some extent at the least. Of course it didn't turn out to be a pleasant surprise but then it wasn't terrible either.

The first few sequences though did make me feel that I was tortured into yet another round of 'Chitkabrey', 'Happy Husbands' or 'Impatient Vinod', some of such select films that had actually made me loose patience with myself in the recent times. Shoddy opening credits accompanied by a never ending parade (where the essence of parade is tutored and not just narrated) were enough to make me settle down to hopelessness. Meanwhile as I hunted for the central character in the film, a sub-plot of a further sub-plot actually turned out to be a half an hour long exercise which made me truly wonder - 'kya yahi sach hai'.

However the real story began 45 minutes into the film and (let me honestly confess) it didn't turn out to be a bad deal after all. Introduction of an 'imaandar' IPS Officer (Rajiv Ruda), a corrupt senior (Bobby Vats) and a stereotype politician (Raju Mavani) were reasons good enough to make me enter into the world of 80s where such good cop v/s bad system prevailed. Now this is where filmmaker Y.P. Singh (who was once a cop himself and has supposedly based the film on his own story) came in handy as he brought in some of the facts, even though not shocking, to the forefront that did come across as an insider's tale.

Rates being fixed for promotions/transfers, nexus of mafia, bar owners, rave party organisers, stock exchange brokers, industrialists, politicians and cops are the kind of stories that one has heard before but it is the realistic treatment, despite the shoddy technicalities on display, actually manages to hold your attention. In fact it won't be wrong to say that at places you do see the stark reality of the police world and also wonder if Ram Gopal Varma may be covering a thing or two in his 'Department'.

Of course one is totally let down by the performances and most of the other things that work behind or in front of the camera. Shot taking belongs to the kind that was left way back in the era of 80s Doordarshan serials, dialogues are straight out of the Government vocabulary, background score is sheer torture (in the most serious of scenes, there is a sudden avalanche of parade music that starts playing), editing jerky and most importantly, performances are (by and large) poor. Sets are shoddily designed while cinematography isn't striking either. Music is terrible.

Surprisingly though the actor who ends up making the most impression is Bobby Vats who was actually quite unimpressive in his last release 'Chitkabrey - Shades of Grey'. In this movie he is one of the most believable of the lot and plays his part in a very convincing and balanced manner. In a central role Rajiv is just about okay and his deadpan expressions don't help the cause either. Raju Mavani is loud but makes his presence felt in a big way. Sanyogita Maheshwari, who plays the socialite, is decent while Shalini Chandran (who plays Rajiv's wife) fits in well.

Still, 'Kya Yahi Sachi Hai' finds it's redemption in the fact that the politics within the police department is believable. Whether it is the presence of a middle man who fixes deal, a righteous cop who attacks corruption at the ground root level as the head honchos of the corporate world, a socialite woman who knows a thing or two about 'striking a deal', the frequent case transfers from one department to another, the wrongs getting President's medal and the rights being thrown out of the department, the bureaucrats as well as the cops falling at the feet of Ministers - now these are the kind of scenes that do add some credibility at the least to 'Kya Yahi Sach Hai'.

Rating: **