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U-Turn

Farhad Dalal
By-
Farhad Dalal
Rating
3 Star popcorn reviewss

Introduction

Onto the next release of the weekend and I finished watching the new Hindi film U-Turn which is now streaming on Zee5. It is an official adaptation of the original Kannada film U Turn which has been remade in other languages as well. In fact, as many as 10 remakes/adaptations have been made making it truly a Pan India Adaptation(with a couple of adaptations in Filipino and Sinhalese as well). Now the moment you have as many adaptations being already made, with its Hindi one being the latest adaptation to the list, you know that the subject has been done to death with.

I was actually not quite eager to watch the hindi adaptation of U-turn given that I have previously watched the original Kannada version of it long back. And honestly, even the hindi dubbed version of it was available on Youtube, so it did baffle me as to why would there be a creative decision to remake a film in the first place. A part of me was wondering if this is a delayed project but I couldn’t be so sure about it. In the recent spate of not so good remakes like Shehzada, Gumraah and Forensic, I was wondering if this film would stand on its feet. With much skepticism, I did venture into U-turn fearing the worst for it. So thrn does U-Turn spring a surprise, lets find out.

Story & Screenplay

An official adaptation of the 2016 Kannada film U Turn, U-Turn follows the story of the investigation behind the mysterious deaths of individuals with a common thread between them being that of illegally crossing a divider on a flyover. The story here is really good and for most people who may have watched the original film already would agree to this notion. But it is the screenplay here that does spring a surprise, a change at the end that I did not quite see it coming!

Instead of getting into the details of the screenplay here, I did think of doing a comparative analysis straight up. So first things first. The length of the original film was well over 2 hours which did give the viewers time to invest in the characters. Here, the length of the film is just about 100 minutes which does get straight into the thick of things. For me, this was a good creative decision given that most people are already familiar with the source material. So to get on with things was a better approach as opposed to rebuilding a world which people are almost familiar with. That being said, for those who haven’t watched the original film will actually love the fast paced narrative here which does have a surprise or two up its sleeve.

The proceedings here are fairly engrossing. The drama here does follow a similar beat as that of the original with fairly similar events in place. But there is a hint of originality pertaining to the family of the protagonist here that did fit the piece quite well. One of the demerits of the Hindi adaptation are the events in the middle related to the supernatural which was cliched and didn’t quite have the bite to instill fear in the minds of the audience. And you know that when the makers do resort to jump scares as opposed to building on the atmospherics, something that the original had done well. So in other words, the film did kind of get stuck and slightly convoluted in the middle. I did say convoluted particularly because there was a change in the finale that didn’t allow the supernatural element to fit in its narrative.

This does bring me to the final act wherein the grand reveal does take place. The makers did well to attempt to do something different from its source material(although slightly dramatic), it was indeed a brave attempt. We have seen previously in films like Forensic wherein the end was laughable with mamy questioning the motive of the makers. But here, the ending did make sense too. It was a much more believable end from the original but the downside being that the end here did ensure that the emotional angle was quite diluted. But overall, the screenplay here was a much better adaptation as compared to the recent adaptations of the original. There are several moments which will keep you invested although folks who have watched the original may want to stick around just for the end.

Dialogues, Music & Direction

The dialogues are decent but there is nothing much to shout about. The BGM is good and does enhance the excitement in a few scenes. The cinematography is alright but it could have been better. Likewise for the editing which was slightly choppy at certain places. Director Arif Khan does a good job in sticking to the strengths of the original source material and making minor tweaks here and there that did ensure a good watch despite me knowing the original source material.

Performances

The performances are quite good here. Ramandeep Yadav, Grusha Kapoor and Ashu Sharma have their moments to shine. Aashim Gulati as Aditya has a good screen presence and he does a good job despite a limited screen time. Shriidhar Dubey as Yadav is top notch as is Rajesh Sharma as HSP Saxena. Manurishi Chadha as Dhillon is just outstanding and he does such a brilliant job in comedy and in serious scenes. Priyanshu Painyuli as Arjun is wonderfully restrained in a job well done. Alaya F is such a powerhouse of a talent! As Radhika, she is stupendous here and I really liked the clarity that she did bring to her performance which was nothing short of spectacular. She would definitely be ruling the roosts this decade provided she does make the right creative choices!

Conclusion

U-Turn does spring a surprise with its ending, and its good performances ensure that this is a better adaptation as compared to the other recent ones. Available on Zee5.

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