Movie Review - Noor by Suhel Johar

If Akira Was Insipid Then Noor Is Stupid.

 

Noor, starring Sonakshi Sinha in the lead titular role and directed by Sunhil Sippy, is a film based on Pakistani author Saba Imtiaz’s novel Karachi, You're Killing Me! The film follows journalist Noor’s misadventures and love life as she navigates her way through Mumbai. If her Akira was insipid then Noor can be described as simply stupid.

28 year old Noor Roy Chaudhary (Sonakshi Sinha) lives with her widowed father. Her two close friends Zara Patel (Shibani Dandekar) and Saad (Kanan Gill) are very dear to her. Noor is a self obsessed journalist, she works for a TV news channel. Noor always wants to do a story based on a real issue but her boss Shekhar Das (Manish Chaudhary) always asks her to do an entertainment story. She is tired of being made to do silly things like interviewing Sunny Leone. For the umpteenth time, Sunny (playing herself) declares that she is an actress with a diverse portfolio and has been offered many great roles in ‘Bollywood’. Noor throws her hands up in despair. Then she goes home to do what all good city journalists in Mumbai do. She listens to the woes of her maid.

Her maid, Malati (Smita Tambe), informs her of a kidney transplant racket run by a well known doctor. Apparently, this evil man steals the kidneys of poor people by offering them employment. Noor is shocked by this revelation, records a few statements of the victims on camera and files her story. But unfortunately, her editor is an idealist turned conformist who deliberately delays the telecast.

Meanwhile, Noor sleeps over the story too. She goes to bed with a journalist she is lusting after, a man called Ayan Banerjee (Purab Kohli) who claims to be a battle scarred war photographer. Between the sheets, she caresses his 'bullet injury’ like she would a valuable textbook from media school. Eventually, there are many forced twists in the story and the story takes its toll.

The biggest drawback of Noor is its story which is quite boring and moves at a snail's pace and to make matters worse is its implausible and scattered script. Much of the beginning of the film comes out through monologues as Noor runs us through a day in her life. It is after this that you get acquainted with the main theme of the film. Noor is a film that is caught in a mouse-trap. On the one hand, it is a rom-com about the love life of an urban professional who drives her own car, goes to the gym and is looking for that impossible combination - a hot guy and a nice guy. But it also presents itself as a film about investigative city journalism, set in a city that has acute problems of civic infrastructure, social inequality and crime. Unable to make up its mind on what it is really about, we are handed some priceless lessons on journalism. There is absolutely nothing in the film that strikes a chord. Noor promised to be an entertainer for the youth turns out to be a poorly written film on wannabe journalists. The end result is a film that makes you laugh out loud at the sheer naivety of its presentation. The film is so bad that perhaps Noor, You're Killing Me! would have been a more appropriate title for the film.

Noor is Sunhil Sippy’s second film after a hiatus of 17 years. His debut film, Snip was definitely more impressive and watchable than his latest Noor which proves to be a damp squib. Althea Kaushal, Shikhaa Sharma and Sunhil Sippy’s is a big letdown. Keiko Nakahara’s cinematography is good. They fail to turn a poor story more interesting and robust with their screenplay. Ishita Moitra’s dialogues are better than the story and screenplay. Editing by Aarif Sheikh is not upto the mark. Music by Naren Chandavarkar and Benedict Taylor is decent.  

After Akira, Noor is another failed attempt of Sonakshi Sinha to reinvent her as a solo-heroine. Her whole clumsy and dim-witted approach as Noor seems extremely forced, just to grab the viewer’s attention and provide comic relief in the film. Her performance due to the monotony and poor screenplay can be said to be just above average. Purab Kohli sleepwalks while Kanan Gill moonwalks through their respective roles. Smita Tambe as the maid is good. Manish Choudhary, Gareth Lawrence, Shibani Dandekar, and Yulian Shchukin do as required of them. Sunny Leone in her cameo is okay

On the whole, Noor is unendurable and a pain...due to its poor screenplay and can easily be given a miss.