New Delhi: A smart resolution is as much a part of a good film as the overall plot. It's that moment when you lean back in your seat as the lights come on and say "Damn! Didn't see that coming." The climax is what filmmakers offer you after two hours of emotional conflict.
And when a filmmaker settles for anything less than an epic climax you go home feeling cheated. This year I listed five films that were remarkable but robbed me of that killer punch in the end.
London, Paris, New York: As a film that only has snatches of witty banter to take it forward, London Paris New York works on many levels. Ali Zafar and Aditi Rao Hyderi track their romance over three different cities and complicated phases in their respective lives. It's not that difficult to buy the assumption that two strangers can fall in love overnight in an alien city. It has a When Harry Met Sally feel to it, but the similarities end there. First time director Anu Menon tells a poignant story but leaves the ending at the mercy of a larger audience looking for a candyfloss climax.
Kahaani: Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani has been deconstructed and analyzed by critics several times this year. It's a brilliantly-made crime thriller that won Vidya Balan tons of praise and made stars out of Bengali actors Parambrata Chatterjee and Saswata Chatterjee. But the bloody retribution and a delicious twist was weighed down by a very Bollywood-like climax and a narration.
Agent Vinod: What can I say about Sriram Raghavan's Agent Vinod without smarting a bit? As agents go, Saif's escapades across several countries ran into a massive running time that literally dragged the movie down. India has seen very few spy drama that are technologically sound and visually charming. This one wanted to be and is to some extent. But the film should have ended with Kareena Kapoor's demise after giving Saif the code he needed to deactivate a bomb. It's a criminal waste of an idea to let the end scene drag on to another event.
Shanghai: Seen as one of the modern day films with a 'different' ending, 'Shanghai' actually failed to bring the claim to reality. IAS Krishnan (Abhay Deol) arm-twists the senior most administrator of the state, Kaul (Farooq Sheikh) into revealing the facts about an activist Dr Ahmadi's (Prosenjit) murder. Though the director tried hard to make it look natural but Krishnan's sudden awakening was throughout predictable. He never looked in a dilemma; further his argument with Kaul looked artificial for two simple reasons. Kaul's rapport with the CM and media was shown very cordial which couldn't be demolished so easily. Secondly, the base of the whole argument was a sound clip which was so vague that not many courts would like to acknowledge it as a proof. The ultimate shot of 'Shanghai' features Prosenjit directly looking into the camera while the entire story belongs to Joginder Parmar (Emraan Hashmi) and Krishnan. This doesn't work even as a metaphor because a Bollywood-ish climax kills the relevance of 'IBP' in the story. 'Shanghai' remains more of a typical 'masala' film than a satire on the system.
Cocktail: Saif's latest romantic comedy about his relationship with two housemates Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty stopped short of being a hip new genre of lifestyle films. Homi Adjania decided to give it a tame ending that reaffirmed all the known clichés about the liberated woman. Deepika gets over her 'selfishness' and sacrifices her own feelings to ensure that Saif and Diana get their happy ending. But for audiences of good cinema the climax was far from happy. (With inputs from Rohit Vats)
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