Action Replay Review

ACTION REPLAY  is a Hindi feature film which is produced and directed by Vipul Shah. This movie has been said to be inspired by BACK TO THE FUTURE by Robert Zememkis which was released in 1985. This film is also based on a Gujarati play by the same team who are involved in making the film. Earlier too Vipul Shah had made AANKHEIN on a Gujarati play which did do well because of Amitabh Bachchan in the film and Akshay was a hit star that time.  It seems the director has very good rapport with Akshay Kumar which is the reason why he always repeats him in his films. Vipul Shah has made many films starring Akshay Kumar such as Namastey London, Aankhein, Waqt etc.

The cost in making the film (ACTION REPLAY) is estimated as Rs.40 crore. Would it be able to recover its cost? Even it recovers its cost is it so entertaining?

Cast & Crew: Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Roy are two major star cast in this film. Apart from them, Neha Dhupia, Kiran Kher, Om Puri, Aditya Roy Kapoor are other casts of this film. But their parts are sidelined.

The story of the film is such:

Bunty (aditya) is fed of his father Kishen (Akshay Kumar) and mother Mala (Aishwarya Roy Bachchan) because they keep quarrelling on silly matters all the time. Bunty feels that if his parents would not fight his life would have been better. He thinks that since their marriage was an arranged marriage that's why they kept bickering. If they would have done love marriage they would have remained peacefully accepting and forgiving each other's fault. So he wishes that his parents should have done love marriage.

Due to his parents quarrel he doesn't want himself to get married that's why whenever Tanya Sudeepa Singh), his girlfriend, talks about her marriage he runs away from her. This irritates Tanya's grandfather Professor Anthony Gonsalves (played by Randhir Kapoor) who asks Bunty either to marry Tanya or forget her.

Bunty doesn't know what to do. He doesn't want to marry nor does he want to lose Tanya. He gets an idea and steals Professor's time machine. With the help of this time machine, he goes back in 70s and you get to see his father and mother as youngsters. He tries to crate love between them and tries to get they married.

What happens later is the rest of the story.

Akshay Kumar has tried his best to perform well yet he doesn't seem to be confident. It seems that some of his flop films in series have affected his confidence level which can be felt in this film.

Aishwarya Rai is the highlight of the film that looks very beautiful and gorgeous even at this age. Her performance is also excellent but since other factors are not so interesting in the film, the film may not impress you as much as GOLMAAL 3.

The director lacks high imaginative powers which you can feel while watching the film. He had made his actors over act in some scenes. Costumes and make up are also drawbacks of the film.

The music of ACTION REPLAY is far better than GOLMAAL 3. The song Jor Ka Zhatka and Bekhabar has hit the market. Pritam should be admired for his music though he could not do so well in GOLMAAL 3.

The film starts with a very slow pace, which you would find boring and dull. You would hardly get linked with whatever is being shown on the screen. The fight between Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya would seem to be fake and artificial. It seems that since the writer and director want to show you some fights between them, they are fighting.

The film gains a little momentum only in the 2nd hour and you get to see some entertaining scenes.

The writer and the director had got nice opportunities to portray 70s decade but they wasted them. One recent film on 70s titled as ONCE UPON A TIME was well written and well directed by Milan Luthria of Ajay Devgan. But in this film the writer and director have just done nothing apart from giving funny looks of that time. The type of wig Akshay has wore that he looks cartoon more than anything else. Merely by covering anyone with dress and hair style you can't make anyone feel that they are in 70s. You need to do something else too. You may ask yourself a question after watching the film that were all people in that era so loud and looked so funny.

Vipul Shah is lucky as a director as well as a producer too because almost all his films have done well (except LONDON DREAMS) at the box office. This film is not up to the mark (though it is not bad) yet it may earn expected revenue due to the producer's good luck. Otherwise it stands nowhere in comparison to GOLMAAL 3 which released on the same date. The minus point of this film is its script; otherwise Aishwarya and Akshya have huge fan followings which could make this film big hit. Due to Diwali festival and holidays people spend time watching any kind of movies. So this film would get its advantage and may do good business at the box office.

As mentioned above, the biggest drawback of this film is its script written by Aatish Kapadia (who recently also wrote and directed a movie KHICHDI, which was not good and all its characters seemed mentally retarded). The script is not tight and at many places the sequences are irrelevant. There lacks logic in the script (though in fun films logics can be ignored but it's not even totally a fun film. It is rather an irritating film. The director might have assumed it to be a comedy film but they failed to give such result). There are many tracks which you would find incomplete. Why? Were they cut in editing or its writers' fault?

You will not agree with the point that all spouses who don't do love marriage keep quarrelling or all spouses who do love marriage never quarrel or never divorce each other. There are many couples, I know, who despite love marriage, fight on silly matters and divorce and even murder each other. And there are many couples who despite arranged marriage live a very happy life. But the writer didn't think over all these matters.

After watching the film you would feel that you missed something; you did not get to see for what you had gone to watch the movie. You will miss drama and genuine fun and humour in this movie.

Verdict: An average movie. You can watch it if you have extra time and money.