Shree Movie Review: Bollywood Explores Time Travel

Shree Movie Review-In Short:

A man who can be transported to the future has to clear his name after he is accused of committing murders...

Shree Movie Review-Verdict:

A science-fiction thriller set in Mumbai, Shreeis not a bad effort as such, except for the flaws in the story, that might put you off..

Shree Movie Review-Story Plot:

Shreedhar Upadhyay (Hussain Kuwajerwala) is a middle-class accountant working at a telecom company. Shreedhar might come across as an Average Joe, but what he doesn’t know is that he is the subject of an experiment being conducted about time travel. It seems Shreedhar was born during a natural calamity and this makes him capable of being transported into the future (the reasons behind this is something that only the scientist in the movie can explain properly).

When Shree is approached and offered a hefty sum of money to submit himself to the experiment, he readily agrees as he needs the money to buy a house and marry his sweetheart Sonu (Anjali Patil). However, things are not so simple as they appear to be and after the experiment, Shree finds himself being accused of killing the police commissioner, though he has no knowledge about it.

Now, Shree, who has had a glimpse in the future and knows about the crimes that are going to be committed a day after, has to race against time to prevent them from happening and save the day.

Shree Movie Review-Performanes:

This film is Hussain Kuwajerwala’s Bollywood debut and the actor seems to have put in a honest effort. Though it is somewhat amusing to see a middle class mild-mannered accountant having a set of six pack abs (in a couple of scenes where he takes off his shirt), the actor has done a pretty decent job. Anjali Patil as his girlfriend, portrays a middle-class Maharashtrian girl quite well. Paresh Ganatra, who mostly plays comic roles, is seen in a negative shade and the results are not bad. Rio Kapadia as the business tycoon, who funds the research and Shivani Tanksale as his enigmatic assistant, are decent enough too.

Shree Movie Review—Direction:

Bollywood has mostly been shy when it comes to exploring science fiction and time travel is something that we are used to seeing in Hollywood thrillers (Source Code, for example). However, director Rajesh Bachchani deserves kudos for taking this concept and putting it slam bang in the middle of contemporary Mumbai. Though the explanation for why Shree is one of the few men on Earth who can go in the future, does not seem convincing enough, the film overall is not bad as such. However, the screenplay is not so impressive and the second half is very long. There are many flaws in the story too (killing the Commissioner of Mumbai Police is really not as easy as the director seems to think it is). The whole time travel concept also could have been handled more effectively.

Shree Movie Review-Final Word:

Go for this movie, only if you are curious to see how a Bollywood film tries to deal with a Hollywood concept.