CINE TALK

A NK u R A Ro RA Mu RD e R C AS e

STArring: Kay Kay Menon, Arjun Mathur, Vishakha Singh, Paoli Dam, Tisca Chopra and Manish Chaudhary DirECTor: Suhail Tatari HHHHH

Amother watches her young son being wheeled into the operation theatre for a minor operation. He never returns. Medical negligence is passé. Medical arrogance is the new menace. Enter a high-end seven-star hospital and you’re bound to run into the incredibly arrogant Dr. Asthana (Kay Kay Menon, back in fabulous form), who addresses the media as though he is obliging them by giving out information and who tells his junior, “Medicine is not just about healing. It’s also about making money. Who pays the bills of those who can’t afford them? The rich, of course”.

The pragmatism underscoring the Hippocratic Oath bypasses the young idealistic Rohan (Arjun Mathur), the intern who dares to speak out of turn to question Dr. Asthana’s supreme authority in the hospital.

Taking the conflict between the blasé megalomaniac medicine-man and the idealistic intern as the central point in the plot, Vikram Bhatt has written a script that is partly a conscience-pricking morality tale, and partly a racy thriller set in the spick-and-span corridors of a high-end hospital where, for the record, an eminent surgeon has just goofed up.

But shhhh! No one in his intimidated medical team is allowed to speak up.

This is one of the most gripping moral dramas in recent times. The deftly crafted script raises the question of right and wrong in the medical profession without getting preachy or hysterical. Somewhere, Dr. Asthana’s medical arrogance connects with each one of us who has in one way or another encountered deadends in healthcare.

The characters are convincing, yet distant from what we generally perceive to be authentic cinema. The narration