Review of One 2 Ka 4

Introduction

The first ever anamorphic title for Soven entertainment is quite dismal and poor. Its a shame really as initially the DVD was supposed to be authored by DEI. But due to complications they backed out of this title and Soven gave the film to Super Digital to author. Having seen their average work on DVD`s like Hari Bahri (2001) and Mohabbatein (2000), I knew this DVD was to be similar in quality.

But I was wrong this DVD is poorer then the two mentioned titled which shows how bad most Indian DVD companies really value consumers. Even the so called 5.1 soundtrack on this DVD is really a 1ch mono track poured out to all five speakers, hearing dialogues in all channels all the time! This adds frustration as the film had a great Dolby Digital soundtrack on the cinema which was active and bombastic. Anyway to the review..........

Video

The DVD is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1 which presents us with the original vision of the director, a great move from Soven as this is their first title to present the film in its original aspect ratio for the DVD format. The 35mm print negative source used for this DVD appears to be in average condition. The reason being is that the source used has been taken from the print used in cinema projections systems rather then the clean interpositive negative in India. Because of this blemishes like small white dots, and black lines can be detected. While they don`t distract viewing they are noticeable, especially since this is a rather newly released film.

The DVD had small signs of compression artefacts during some points when detail was vital. Though the picture don`t break up as vividly or as often they were detectable in props or the sky. Film grain was also visible in a couple of scenes, but this is due to the source material used. A reason for the use of the poor source material, and the poor encoding of the picture, could be that the authoring process was quite rushed to release the title quickly inorder to beat off the pirate market.

But this rushed work has its overall effect on the picture quality. Examples are seen in the sharpness level which was very low and distorted picture information causing it to be blurred. Shimmering and moiré effects are also seen during many parts of the main feature, but they were never a concern. The colour fidelity founded on this title was however incorrectly done. The whole film seemed to have a golden brown, yellow and red hue feel to it, invading the whole frame. Yet on the big screen the film had many vibrant and bold moments of colours that are clearly missing on this DVD. Problems like colour bleeding was also seen, especially during the scenes in the nightclub.

As there were no high or correct definition on the colours, the same problem is seen with the black details and contrast levels. Both were totally off balance and are presented here as being weak. The shoot out scene, which was shot at night, was hard to view with the naked eye and showed why much care is needed when defining details like so on DVD.

Audio

As mentioned earlier the sound is presented in a false 5.1 Dolby Digital track that really is shameful and disgusting. The film sounded excellent on the big screen and that is totally missing on this DVD as the sound is presented in 5.1 mono. Because of the way the sound was encoded problems like echoes, hissing and muddled up sound effects are part of the hearing experience. Rahman excellent songs score sounds weak and bland on this disc.

Features

The menus are poor and cheap which reflects this DVD`s persona futhermore, as does the awful sleeve design. On the other hand the English subtitles are excellently produced, but they are only available on the dialogues, and not on the songs. No other extras are to be found. I should also mention that there are no chapter leaflet present within the box. But Soven provide a generous amount of chapter marks present on the main feature, making navigation quite easy.

Conclusion

With a poor director (whose last movie Grahan (2000) was god-damn awful) and script writer behind this film, which has been in the making for a a while, not a lot of expectations was placed on this film from critics or audiences alike. Despite the excellent song soundtrack by A.R. Rahman, which broken sales in many countries, and the starcast all of whom are talented, it failed disastrously at the box office.

The film is quite embarrassing at some places, and the plot has inconsistencies which makes viewing rather diminishing and broken. If it wasn`t for the inconsistencies in deciding what the film is trying to be genre wise (be it romance, suspense or comedy) the film could have had such potential, especially with the character Geeta, which was excellently played by Juhi Chalwa. Here the actor who shows great comic timing before intermission, really produces the belly laughs. Shahrukh Khan and Jackie Shroff also doesn`t disappoint but their characters are neither interesting or plausible. In fact the whole police task force they work for seems more like a joke; riding on motorbikes, with leather straps and pants, with thier unlimited bullets from their slick guns! Also the performance of actor Nirmal Pandey is too exaggerated and adds more grief to the film.

Some moments of this film blatantly steals from other movies, particularly the climax which rips off the excellent action flick Face Off (1997). Here technical values seemed too rushed, and are not as good as present movies being released in India. Even the background score by A.R.Rahman, while is good in its own right, doesn`t help with the overall narrative and is perhaps his weakest work ever. While viewing this film on the big screen I was really distraughted by the whole process and found myself bored. If it wasn`t for the songs, and for Juhi Chalwa, this film would be a total washout. In a few years it will certainly be forgotten.

With poor picture and sound presentation this is a disappointing DVD. While a cut above many of thier pervious titles Soven still need to improve if they want to be known for quality.