Traffic Signal

Traffic Signal

Very painful movie. Madhur Bandarkar knows exactly how to scratch an existing wound and make it bleed and infectious all over again!

Life of Street beggars, of cheap prostitutes, of educated but unemployed Indian men, of men who are interested in continuing their clan….!

During my childhood and even adolescence, I used to hear that the birth of a human being in the form of a female is basically a curse from the higher worlds ! and I used to argue a lot on this point (argumentative Libran after all) saying things like ‘women create' and blah blah – things like we bring forth children and maximum effort in child birth is ours and we have so many jewelry to wear and variety of clothes etc. But on watching this movie I realized that I was wrong after all – for majority of women – it's a curse being born as a woman !!

How humiliating was Konkana's life! She had to satisfy ugly and fat clients everyday even during her chums !! Gosh ! what a pathetic life – and there was an educated young fellow who secretly loved Konkona but could not marry her because of unemployment and later died of drugs !

Then there were flower sellers – who fought for a measly Rs.10/- !….they all will eventually become prostitutes and keep continuing the clan of street beggars !! Sometimes I wonder how our IAS officers and other Indian male and female Administrators are so irresponsible !! No one till date could come up with a viable solution to eradicate such dire poverty !!All that they seem to know is who is the MLA of a certain zone and how India will fair in Sports….which movie got selected for Cannes….which is the longest platform…..which Politician is in possession of illegal land…what is the under world Don's bank balance ….I don't think they know anything more than this !

After watching such movies girls should think twice before jumping in this ‘shit pit' called prostitution. The clients are all the same – fat, ugly and frustrated – even if good looking, slim and tall – they will eventually use and throw you!! The Bollywood makes it very clear – exactly what one has to do in order to become an actress – Page 3 movie showed it all – in which Tara had to sleep with the old haggard Bengali Director all her life – she started sleeping with a good looking young hero – but he was married and clever as well – did not want to tarnish his goody goody image ! – in spite of knowing and seeing so much – I am amazed to see how girls are dying to become models and walk on the ramp in a ‘chaadi and a baniyaan' (bikini) !!I really pity such girls whose parents push them into this ‘shit pit' for money !!

I would like to take this opportunity to reintroduce the concept of reincarnation and Karmic debts here – you see the people in power and with money are doing nothing for the poor and the down trodden and enjoying life - boozing and drinking in the beer bars - watching semi nude Dance Balas ……so in the next life the ones boozing and ‘sleeping around' with style ,money and power will be born in the slums and the slum dwellers will be born in the palace – and will they do anything to redeem the poor and the down trodden? NO! they will take revenge of course – did they – in their previous life help them out of the shit-pit? No na – so why should they help them out !? so this is revenge – the vindictive Human nature !!

Oh this movie sucks!!! This is the immediate reaction that I would give in the review! the quality of Madhur Bhandarkars's movie is deteriorating with each new release. After this movie I really don't know what this director is trying to prove, or he wants to be labeled as the director who shows  reality in its raw form, but I really cant figure out the reason to show child abuse , prostitution and other so called "BOLD Dialogues" in every other movie from Madhur Bhandarkar, or he wants to cash upon these aspects only (the dirty dialogues).

Madhur Bhandarkar also is steroetyped now, while you are watching the movie you will realize that every person in Mumbai is involved in any one of these things:

1) Goes to Prostitutes
2) Child Abuse
3) Drugs
4) Beggar Mafia
5) and if he/she is not any of the above then he/she is definitely a Bangladeshi Immigrant

Mr Bhandarkar we would love to know in which catogory do you fall ? There is a much brighter side to Mumbai which the movie fails to emphasize upon. Or Mr Bhandarkar is showing the darker...darkest.......darkest side of Mumbai to prevent the people from Coming to Mumbai????


I think Madhur Bhandarkar shot some 25-30 small skits and just inserted them anywhere in the movie, the movie just doesn't have any flow, it lacks in story line, the actors doesn't know the A of acting they are just reciting their dialogues as a child would recite any poem, oh I forgot just as Mr Bhandarkar forgot, there is a Beggar Mafia king too in the movie...who is just not scary and looks like a neighborhood uncle!!

I think this movie shouldnt have been made, that is why I think this is some gimmick of turning black money of the producers to white!!!!

Well. just so that this review is taken in an unbaised fashion, lemme start by telling that I have seen all the movies by Madhu Bhandarkar and I love every one of them. But this one.. this is just a big piece of sh** . He seems to have gone too far this time.

In his earlier movies, he seemed to have striked a good balance between characters. Be it Corporate or Page 3 . He was also clear about the agenda of his movies in those cases. But this particular movie is a far cry from any of those movies. He didn't even know what the movie was about. It had everything... starting from a prostitute to an outbound sales executive... Just a glimpse, it had .... beggers, a man who controls all those beggers, a man who controls the man who controls all those beggers and on top of that a man who controls all those men who control the men who control all those beggers :)  . Seems a little too much. Doesn't it? Infact there was a hint in the first half that there was one more man (whom they didnt show in the first half atleast) who was on top of the hierarchy that I just talked about and cotrolled everyone. Appears too contrived to me. And as if this wasn't enough, he had road side sellers, a politician, a prostitute, a gay prostitute, a social activist, an NGO, a builder, a dopchy, a cop,  a mafia and the list goes on and on......

It all just looked like a big mess to me when they showed that intermission screen and for me atleast, it was the end of my mission. I decided I had better things to do at home and left the theater. As for the movie, it was IMHO, by far one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Though I didn't see the later half but there was no way that movie could have been salvaged from where it stood at the interval.

Traffic Signal is too bad movie. Madhur Bhandarkar has tried to become a "social issues" filmmaker. But this time, the theme of the movie seems useless, and it doesn't connect with me at least.
Traffic Signal looks like a amalgamation of several 5-10 minutes skits, with some dose of forced comedy. Till the interval, these skits never connected with each other. and I felt wondering where is it going, whats the story till now ? Just FYI - the skits had everything possible in them - mafia, beggars, bangladeshi immigrants, non-bangladeshi immigrants, prostitution , gay prostitution, corruption, typical bombay stories, good engineer, child abuse ... ah too much ...
 
I would strongly suggest everyone not to see it. I left the movie during the interval - It was such a bore.

- Traffic Signal Movie Review