The Xpose movie review
The Xpose is directed by Ananth Mahadevan, who also plays the director of one of two competing films within the film. He wears a showman hat with the aura of a boy that has just clicked a selfie within a selfie-fashioning a campy murder mystery set against the backdrop of Bollywood of Yore. A mutant resulting from the cross-pollination of two genres, this merits two separate reviews:
Let’s start with The Xpose: the whodunit thriller. Popular actress Zara (Raut), fresh from a catfight with rival Chandni (Afroz) at a post-awards party, finds herself on the rocks with a bottle beside her. These rocks are unfortunately situated on the seashore below the venue, and the bottle is smashed.
The suspects are the only ones that look like they’re attending a retro costume ball throughout the film. They are also the ones that often end up standing in a circle so that the camera can pan from one contorted face to another. One of them is South Indian superstar Ravi Kumar (Reshammiya).
Appropriately, he is everything but an actor. His eyeballs dart frantically from one suspect to the other in court, where he renders the judicial system inconsequential. For good measure, Zara falls from the balcony three more times during flashbacks of the three alleged murderers. I feel for the mortician entrusted with preparing her body for the funeral-which is morbidly where she looks her resplendent best.
One star for mystery that aims for Hitchcock, but retains production values consistent with a Sunday game of Cluedo.Now, let’s move to The Xpose: a throwback to 60s B-Town. Solely as a parody of nostalgia, this qualifies as a masterpiece. Even if you notice palace windows that resemble plasma screens showcasing animated fireworks, you must understand that movies back then were made with the same technical expertise.
Intentional or not, this film gets away with it the same way Om Shanti Om does-not designed as biopics (Heroine) but as unwaveringly cringe worthy stories mirroring the era they represent, the kind where the title appears over a can of ‘Exposed’ film reels.
Ravi Kumar always holds an unlit cigarette, consistently trolling the ‘Smoking kills’ warning on screen. Translations of his lines read as: “The quantity of blood in your body is lesser than the amount of urine I pass every morning.” The lack of acting is its greatest strength.
Honey Singh proves to be mildly competent, thereby not fitting into the scheme. Still, this is nothing that can’t be overcome with a rowdy gang of friends and pre-screening tequila shots. 3 stars for the entertainment. Note that the final rating is the Arithmetic Mean-still two more than the number of stars in the film.
The Xpose movie review