John Day is a thriller from the producers of the 2008 acclaimed thriller A Wednesday.
John Day – movie review…
Directed by Ahishor Solomon,John Day is lifted from the 2002 Spanish film, La Caja 507 (Box507).
It begins with teenage boy impressing his girlfriend by driving into dense forest, and then taking her into an abandoned estate. She is impressed, but that’s the last time we see her and the next scene is her parents carrying out her final rituals and laying her body to peace.
What would have been a taut thriller, the film goes haywire as the screenplay loosens its pace and at times it is frustratingly slow.
John Day(Naseeruddin Shah) is a bank manager, and a happy family man with his wife (Shernaz Patel) and a teenage daughter. This young girl, after lying to her parents, goes off on a vacation with her boyfriend. The boy wants to be different, and he doesn’t take her to any known hill station or picnic spot. Incidentally, the girl dies and this leaves her parents haunted by the nightmares of her death.
It is now over two years, but the lady is yet to come out of the shock of her daughters loss.
A courier man assaults the banker’s wife, ties her up and calls the bank manager John Day to co-operate with his accomplice who drills several bank lockers after the banking hours. The banker’s wife is hit on her head and slips into coma therefore has to be kept under intensive care at the hospital.
Another character introduced in a torturous scene is that of ACP Gautam (Randeep Hooda), a corrupt cop who ruthlessly ‘treats’ a goon by forcibly overfeeding him biryani rice and making him swallow hard cash.
From here, the story leads further into confusion, and Gautam happens to be interested in the search of Property deeds and papers of a certain Casablanca estate, which towards the end is revealed is the same place where the bank manager’s daughter died.
Initially, it is shown that the sadistic cop indulges in savage like treatment to his subjects, and then the gentleman banker is portrayed as loosing his senses and resorts to self defense naturally going to the extent of biting off a large piece of the neck of one of the baddies.
The film has flashes of unique narrative style, while overstretching the moments in several scenes. There are several unexplained things such as how the ACP could own a grand bungalow with a swimming pool, and a phirangi mistress having all the time in the world… just waiting for him.
John Dayis solely watch able for Naseeruddin Shah as the revenge hungry father out to avenge his daughter’s death. Randeep Hooda is made to use excessive expletives (which appear unwanted in several situations), just to make him appear as menacing? It doesn’t work.
Several instances where the scenes are so overstretched that one begins to lose interest in the core subject. The screenplay wanders off the track after such an impressive beginning.
Cast of John Day:
Naseeruddin Shah as John Day
Randeep Hooda as ACP Gautam
Shernaz Patel as Maria (John’s wife)
Sharat Saxena – Khan
Vipin Sharma – Shinde (Constable)
Elena Kazan – Tabassum Habibi
Makarand Deshpande – Krishnan
Bharat Dabholkar – Ashok Deshmukh (Mayor)
Anant Mahadevan – Editor
Anant Jog
Kenneth Desai
Vipin Sharma
Credits of John Day:
Banner – Channel F Entertainment, Anjum Rizvi Film Company
Produced by – K. Asif, Anjum Rizvi, Aatef A Khan
Director – Ahishor Solomon
Editor – Arindam Ghatak
Story – Ahishor Solomon
Music Director – Sandeep Chowta
Executive Producer – Naren Kumar
Music Director – Kshiti Tarey, Strings
Cinematography – Prakash Kutty
Action – Aino Shaikh
Art – Gautam Sen, Shabiya Rakesh