What's wrong with SUMMER 2007? Plenty I guess. For starters, There is no real focus, neither is there a clean stitch in the shift in scenes. The intention is good but the execution is juvenile. I wonder if director Suhail Tatari is in the winter of his career (pun intended).
When the movie ends, there is a line saying that this film is a tribute to the farmers of the country. It also rolls out statistics of farmer suicides and information that the change in government at the Centre did not really bring down the numbers. Fine. But if the intention was to focus on farmers, their plight, and a tribute to the 'Jai Kissan' slogan why deviate from the plot, enter into the campus of a medical college, and take the audience for an almost three-hour ride? Also, why bother showing college politics and student bickering and try to tell 10 stories within one story. In that case, Tatari should have taken the DUS KAHANIYAN route.
The movie begins with a disgusting reference to a real case, which happened in Delhi. Just two years ago, the guilty was awarded the death penalty. I think to even mention the name and repeat the dialogue in print would be being insensitive. One of the characters (Rahul) Sikander Kher mouths this dialogue. If the intention of the director was to drive home the point of the indifference of the youth, he could have used a fictitious name. More importantly, did the Censor Board sleep through this dialogue?
Anyways to get back to what's left of the movie... Rahul and his three medical college friends are shown talking about girls and smoking 'joints'. You get a feeling that this story is about 'out of control' youngsters. But it's not. The camera then moves into the medical college, to focus on campus problems and elections. You then expect some college fest. But before you can say 'Jack Robinson' Rahul and his two friends along with Gul Panag, who is strangely referred to as Mother T (Mother Teresa?) and Uvika Choudhary (is she a twin sister of Karishma Modi, the former Femina Look of the Year Winner?) opt for a training programme in rural Maharashtra to escape the elections. Why? Because of politics, silly.
There they witness farmer suicides and village politics. Again, it is not clear to the viewer what the director is trying to focus on. One particular 'Shankya' (Sachin Khedekar) is suddenly thrown on screen as some sort of saviour who has come out with a new micro something scheme to help the farmers with their loans. And the moneylender (Vikram Gohkale) is not too pleased with him. He wants him dead.
What's really the pick of this flick is Ashutosh Rana and his performance. This man here puts in a superlative performance that puts all the other actors in the shade. Simple, subtle, impressive, totally seeped within the character he portrays.... I could go on and on about him.
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