22 May 2016

U-Turn by Pawan Kumar

After critical acclaim and commercial success of Lucia, the young creative director from Kannada Film Industry is back in business with latest flick U-turn. Initially, his venture post Lucia was supposed to do on a theme related to Nicotone. Due to lack of funding, the director decided to do a literal U-turn and decided to make this movie. 

The story of the movie is based on acts of people on Bengaluru's most in famous flyover connecting Double Road, Lalbagh Road, Richmond Road and Residency Road. The flyover is hopelessly designed to an extent that Bengaluru traffic police had to introduce a traffic signal atop to make it operational !

Google map screen shot of the flyover :)
I was among the first set of audience to watch this movie at premiere show at Cineopolis, Meenakshi Mall on 20th May. Had got the ticket thru online contest conducted by United Square who're official sellers of T-shirt merchandiser of the film.

The following things are noteworthy in the film:
  • Initial credit sequence with inverted frame and Karma background score.
  • Cinematography through Drones: Top shot of the flyover during interval. I guess this should be made by folks from Topshot.
  • Roger Narayan: Hollywood actor playing the role of an inspector. He dominates the screen with his natural performance. The actor who had spent his formative years in Bangalore had acted as a child artiste in films like Akasmika and SP Sangliana. [source]
  • Last but not the least - the message from the movie. It would make lot of difference even if 10-20% people avoid breaking traffic rules on road.
Things which didn't work for me:
  • Climax: I felt something was missing in it. It could have been made more believable. But after discussing with blogging buddy Raveesh, I felt super-natural option was logical for the script and going by natural route would have made the story-line more complex. Do read review of Raveesh at U-Turn: Simple and Thrilling and QnA session organized by Pawan in the embedded video below where he answers lot of queries on the climax :)

  Video Q and A Organized by Pawan Kumar:



 
Trailer of the film:

6 comments:

  1. Yes - even I felt the same about the climax. I guess that was the 'twist' - folks expecting a particular type of ending get an unexpected ending. But yes, second half was a bit of a drag too...

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  2. Pawan indicates well before the climax that it would not be a logical end, if you had observed the dialogues between Rachana(Shraddha Shrinath) and Aaditya(Dileep Raj). Though I felt at times that the mystery when revealed would not be that great, at the end I though it was an intelligent work by Pawan Kumar, connecting the dots and reaching a far wide audience subtly!

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    1. Can't remember the dialogues .. will observe when I watch it for second time

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    2. already planning for a second viewing.. good good :)

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  3. Any updates as now the story is in public domain ??

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    Replies
    1. not much Raveesh. have made a few edits after seeing your comment :)

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