This is the third film of the year that brings about a burning issue to the forefront. The first in the list was Ajay Devgan’s Halla Bol, Nargis’s Pranali and now Summer 2007. Talking about the similarities between the tree movies is the fact that all three of them try to bring in some amount of social awareness.
Rating: 2.5/5
In Halla Bol as well as Summer 2007 you have got the strong supporting characters like Pankaj Kapoor and Ashutosh Rana, who positively steal the show from the lead character. Halla Bol hardly made its point clear so has Summer 2007. Taking up such issues are no doubt noble but putting the idea into work is not that easy.
The headlines of a newspaper may look too interesting but making a full length movie out of it is not so easy. Summer 2007 deals with a major issue like Farmer’s suicide in Maharastra and some pinches of naxalism activities but what lacks is the partial attitude towards both the issues.
These kinds of issues require some amount of research to make the appeal broader; else the whole façade looks superfluous and not whole-heated. Either one is supposed to keep the issue open for judgment or go into details and provide solutions; there is no third way out.
Of course, when a debutant director makes his first ever feature film, he would always try to make it burning, and Suhail Tatari wanted to follow the footsteps of Rang De Basanti and make a wholesome patriotic film. Even, he could have done it had it been blended well enough, the first half of the film is full of fun and frolic, the second part brings about the seriousness with a suddenness and the climax is fully confusing with many smaller subplots.
The movie would be liked by those who like surprises and young college going prankster films, those fooled by the promos would be let down. The film goes on and on, for about a full 3 hours and the script has hardly any breather for the audience. One thing for sure that Sahail Tatari has to understand, one cannot simply put everything into a films and get away with flying colors. One has to stop oneself at a point of time and a director as the sole driver of a film should know where to pull the brakes.
Summer 2007 is about five young and boisterous medical students, who live on the edges of life, enjoying every moment of it. They are the Gen X fighters who live in Xboxes and PSes and study in a high-tech medical college with the power of money. The group head is headstrong Rahul or Butter (Sikander), a lucky-go-merry kind of a person for whom relationships don’t matter, his beautiful ex-girlfriend Priyanka or Pepsi (Uvika Chowdhary), a flirtatious Qateel or Kats (Arjan Bajwa), unlucky Bagani or Bugs (Alekh Sangal) and the all pervasive motherly Mother T or Vishaka (Gul Panag).
A strange turn of events brings this group to a village in Maharastra. Here they meet a dedicated doctor Mukya (Ashutosh Rana), a reformed criminal (Sachin Khedekar), a lady cop (Shewta Menon) cruel landlord (Vikram Gokhale) and his wayward son (Prosshant Narayanan). After coming face to face with poverty struck village farmers who chose death to facing wrath at the hands of the landlord who loans them money on a high interest rate, these interns unwittingly get into a clutching situation.
The climax brings in a lot of questions, some are answered and some are left open. Sounds good enough but the drama is not at all engrossing and the loopholes in script are more than visible.
As usual, Ashutosh Rana is the sole scene stealer with his restrained looks and meaty dialogues. You want more of him but you get Sikander Kher, who is also evolving as a strong actor. Gul Panag is awesome and Shweta Menon is remarkable; we can watch out for more of these two actresses. Uvika is pleasant to the eye as always and she is showing potential as an actress. Alekh Sangal and Arjan Bajwa are pretty good. Sachin Khedekar is underutilized. Prosshant Narayanan comes up as a natural actor.
There was hardly any scope for music in the second half of the film and the music scores are just ok.
Over all, the film is a decent watch but may not please all.
Rating: 2.5/5
