Traffic is a remake of Malayalam film of the same name made in 2011. Following its success, the film was also remade into Tamil as Chennaiyil Oru Naal and Kannada as Crazy Star. The film’s story is inspired by a real-life incident, which took place in Chennai, involving the transport of a body organ, a heart, to a donee with strict time limits. The film has multi-narrative scripting with a talented star cast giving equal importance to all.  This is also Endemol India’s foray into film production after making a making television content.

Prosonjit is a big movie star whose daughter is lying in a Pune hospital and needs an urgent heart transplant without which she will not last much longer. That is when a young man, Vishal Singh, a budding journalist, on his way to work on a motorcycle meets with an accident and is pronounced brain-dead.

Prosonjit pressures the young man’s parents by using his clout with politicians as well as the governor to convince them. The governor even calls up the parents to donate the heart.

That done, the main task is to transport the heart to the doctor Parambrata Chatterjee in Pune, for the procedure. With the governor and the politicians by his side, the traffic chief gets on with the job. The task of driving the van to Pune is assigned to Manoj Bajpayee, who sees this as an opportunity to redeem himself from corruption charges.

This needs perfect coordination between the police, the driver and the doctors besides the help of other vehicle drivers. With the governor and the police by Prosonjit’s side, nothing should come in the way.

The Hindi version script has done away with the complicated narrative of the original Malayalam film. But, this takes away the drama and the urgency of whole operation. For the director, Rajesh Pillai, the job is relatively easy as he also directed the Malayalam version.

However, what makes one wary is that Prosonjit is an actor who wields solid clout as well as has money power. Would such efforts have been made for a girl from any ordinary family? If that was the story, this would have been a film with much more human interest. Performances are generally good considering the film has a huge talent pool but that also does not help the proceedings to be convincing. Traffic is a dry film, not the kind for entertainment seekers.

Producers: Deepak Dhar, Sameer Gogate, Sameer Rajendran.

Director: Rajesh Pillai.

Cast: Manoj Bajpayee, Jimmy Shergill, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Sachin Khedekar, Vishal Singh, Amol Parashar, Divya Dutta, Divya Unni, Nikita Thukral, Richa Panai,Kitu Gidwani.

One Night Stand…..Not sunny anymore!

The title, One Night Stand, and its actor, Sunny Leone, make an obvious and convenient combination. One can’t build a story around her really and just an excuse for a story would suffice and expect Sunny to attract the audience.

Tanuj Virwani’s event management company has staged a successful event and, to celebrate the success, Tanuj and his mates decided to celebrate over drinks. During all the fun and bantering that follows, they spot a lonely Sunny sitting all by herself. They dare Tanuj to approach her and strike up a conversation with her. Tanuj accepts the wager, goes and chats up Sunny.

Soon, Sunny and Tanuj are on a drinking binge, getting animated and, at the end of the session, end up in bed together. In the morning, when Tanuj wakes up, Sunny has already left leaving no trace of her whereabouts.

Tanuj heads back home to Pune where life continues with his wife, Nyra Banerjee. All is as usual as if nothing had happened. That is till, one day, Tanuj is out shopping at a mall with Nyra. There he spots Sunny and his passions flare up again and he wants to meet her again.

Sunny is now an obsession with Tanuj as he starts stalking her till his next major event comes up. This event springs a surprise on Tanuj. But, if you expect some twists and turns or shockers, there are none.

The basic inspiration as far as One Night Stand goes seems to have been taken from the English film (1997) of the same name, the complications of the later parts dealing with a friendship and AIDS are avoided.

Everybody seems to come to terms and goes back to the life prior to the encounter. The story and screenplay don’t offer much scope and the director Jasmine D’Souza does not manage to rise above it. The film has some good songs, Do peg maar…….being already popular. Cinematography is good. While the film boasts no great performers, Sunny gets some footage to show expressions which she does not. Tanuj is passable. Nyra is sincere.

One Night Stand counts mainly on Sunny to manage the box office but she already seems to be on a diminishing returns chart.

Producer: Pradeep Sharma, Furquan Khan.

Director: Jasmine D’ Souza.

Cast: Sunny Leone, Tanuj Virwani, Nyra Banerjee.