Keyur Seta
Mumbai, 24 Jun 2016 13:42 IST
Updated: 25 Jun 2016 12:36 IST
The film directed by Saurabh Varma suffers from deficiencies on many fronts.
Film: 7 Hours To Go (U/A)
Director: Saurabh Varma
Producers: Krian Pictures
Cast: Shiv Pandit, Sandeepa Dhar, Rohit Vir, Varun Badola, Natasa Stankovic
Music: Hanif Shaikh and Sugat Shubham
Runtime: 114 minutes
Rating: 1/5
7 Hours To Go is an action thriller set around a hostage crisis. The film starts off with a group of masked men trying to loot something in a tower in Mumbai, which has the highest possible security. Despite getting quite close, they fail. Six months later, Arjun (Pandit), a cop from Muzaffarabad, visits Mumbai and straightaway enters the Bombay high court, where corporate criminal, Kabeer Khemka (Vir), has just been acquitted of a crime.
Just then, Arjun witnesses a murder. Something goes off in his head and he takes seven people hostage inside the court premises. Quirky cop Ramesh Dhadke (Badola) is forced to handle the case. But Arjun only wishes to negotiate with the ruthless ACP Shuklaji (Dhar). He threatens to kill the hostages one by one if his demand isn’t met in seven hours.
But what is his demand? With a huge police force surrounding the premises, will he be able to survive?
Director Saurabh Varma’s 7 Hours To Go boasts of rich production values, visual effects (VFX) and sleek packaging. But these things are hardly of use if the content itself is weak. And that is the problem with this film. It is a pretentious action thriller, which can only be enjoyed because of the unintended hilarity in it.
It is vital for an action thriller to hold your interest for at least most of its duration to give you at least some satisfaction. In the case of 7 Hours To Go, the entire hostage drama and Arjun’s manner of operations are so illogical that it ensures you lose interest, if you had any, in the initial few minutes. As you can’t relate to the plot itself, it becomes impossible to care what happens next.
Even if you manage to ignore this aspect, the subsequent turns and absurd revelations in the end make you wonder how anyone agreed to finance such a script! If one tries to think of the errors, the list will be long. A few examples should suffice:
(1) Arjun decides to negotiate with Shuklaji after he reads of her heroics in the newspaper in which the samosa he was eating was wrapped.
(2) The security system at Bombay high court allows Arjun to carry an array of weapons and flying gadgets inside its premises.
The song ‘Dalinder Dance’ is worth mentioning. Not because it is enjoyable, but simply because it is the first song in the history of Indian cinema to feature a skimpily clad item girl showing off all kinds of naughty moves during Ganesh visarjan (immersion). To get the song passed by the sanskari (cultured) Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) was an achievement in itself.
7 Hours To Go also suffers from poor casting. Although Shiv Pandit isn’t bad, he doesn’t appear scary enough for us to take him as seriously as we should. Sandeepa Dhar tries her best to act as a no-nonsense police officer but fails. Varun Badola is somewhat of a saving grace. But some of his one-liners fall flat. Radio jockey Rohit Vir makes his acting debut as the villain. He is somewhat convincing.
In a nutshell, 7 Hours To Go makes you count the number of minutes to go before you can exit the cinema hall.