Right Ya Wrong

While as a film critic you try and abandon any preconceived bias before you watch a film, it is unavoidable that when you walk into a theatre to watch a film called Right Yaa Wrong (Missing an extra 'a' there, am I?), you feel pretty much like the proverbial lamb to the slaughter. Face it: under normal movie-going circumstances; I wouldn't be caught dead in a theatre screening this (or most other films that I review, for that matter).
Right Yaa Wrong is about Ajay Shridhar (Sunny Deol) and Vinay Patnaik (Irrfan Khan) who are fellow police officers and the best of friends. A murder takes place that results in a conflict between these friends who find themselves on different sides of the law and of right and wrong. Perhaps with slicker, better direction and a cleverer, darker screenplay that relied on more solid dramatic logic and revealed itself more teasingly, it could even perhaps have been a good noir-ish thriller- but then that's really wishful thinking considering the time and place the film comes from. Which is why when a clunky looking, 3 years in the making film with Sunny Deol actually turns out to be half-engrossing even in its clunky, old-fashioned way- even with a nice moment or two as bonus- you are mighty relieved, even grateful to the makers of the film for not torturing you to death like you expected.
Even with its dowdiness and disturbingly half-baked logic that finally resolves its central moral conflict, Right Yaa Wrong is still surprisingly watchable, because the film mercifully sticks to its real point without digressing much. A few of the actors, especially Irrfan Khan- who manages to impress even here- definitely deserve credit for keeping the film afloat. Sunny Deol, missing from the screen for a while now, returns with a performance that's partly toned-down and partly plain morose, but he manages to pass muster simply with his physical presence. Konkona Sen Sharma also while cast in a part that hardly deserves her, does a sincere job, even delivering a punch line or two with decent panache.
All in all, it's Right Yaa Wrong, despite being dated, is surprisingly decently entertaining- nothing to write about or recommend - but not too bad a watch either if you don't have much to do.
(Technical aspects are pretty average, but a word about the music: what is the reasonably talented music director of Black and Saawariya doing in movies like these, creating instantly forgettable and tuneless music? Or more importantly, are all composers who excel in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's films damned so that they may only shine when they work with him?)