Woodstock Villa

Runtime: 94min 15secs
Tagline: Where The Truth Lies
Language: Hindi (with English subtitles)
Written by: Sanjay Gupta, S Farhan and Rajiv Gopal
Directed by: Hansal Mehta

Plot Outline:
After a successful businessman's stunning wife disappears, hostile & taunting ransom demands follow. As the true nature of stakes for the captor and his captives unfold, the tables turn. A simplistic kidnapping soon transforms to a web of murder, mystery, deceit and suspense.

Overall Impressions:
Why such a small & vague outline? Well, because the content just isn't all that complicated past this. This 94 minute film has songs in it, pointless pace-hindering songs majorly (only the one with Sanjay Dutt seemed plot relevant), but I suppose they were seen as necessary due to this being the debut vehicle of Sikander "and Neha Uberoi".

Since Neha has little scope to do much in the story, filling a glamour quotient through song after song would have to do for her I suppose. So removing her (by which I mean the songs) the true duration is close to 70 minutes.

Closer to 60 if you count all that shaky cam and over-done Tony Scott style seizure shots. Hey.. Let me clarify, I'm all for style, just like Man on Fire was style, but then you get Domino which was basically a seizure captured on film, thats what part of this felt like.

Breaking this down further, the first two thirds of this is highly engaging. You do find yourself wondering about the intention of each character & how these twist & turn situations can ultimately be resolved. Unfortunately, the end they decided upon is a bit of an anti-climax. It sort of works for the story but it breaks the pace of turns in events that we've got used to by this point.

What I can say works positively is that they make the character of Sikander pretty believable, likeable and as some master-mind bad-ass. There is no better way to kick start your acting career really is there? :) This said, he does a perfect job carrying it off. He isn't conventionally handsome, overly built or anything that makes the traditional hero, but this friendly neighbourhood look will be fruitful to his career I'm sure.

A great debut, for Sikander anyway, I can't even remember who what the girl looked like in this. Past the refreshing debut, not so much going for it. Let down by its mediocre resolution. Seemed lazy and so not quite enough to make it worth a watch.