One Night Stand (2016) Movie Review
Ever since the time Sunny Leone stepped into Bollywood, there has been no looking back for the actress. Besides being an eye candy to the cinegoers, she is now also attempting to come out of her comfort zone and do challenging roles. This week’s release ONE NIGHT STAND is one such film, wherein the film’s makers have tried to present Sunny Leone in an interesting role. Will Sunny Leone’s magic work at the Box-Office or will it simply bow down to the competition, let’s analyze.
ONE NIGHT STAND starts off with a flashback that’s being narrated by Urvil (Tanuj Virwani). It is the flashback and a series of events from his past that has defined his today. The flashback starts off with a fashion show organised by his event management agency. And after completing the event successfully, Urvil and his colleagues go drinking to celebrate. It is here that his friends challenge him to speak to a rank stranger (Sunny Leone) for a few thousand rupees. An attempt to win the bet gets him introduced to the stranger who, in turn, introduces herself as Celina. What follows after that, is unlimited liquor drinking by the two of them, which ultimately lands them up in bed together. But, the very next day, when Urvil gets up, he finds out that Celina has already left the room, without leaving any details of her whereabouts. And when Urvil comes back to his home in Pune, he is welcomed by his beautiful and dutiful wife Simran (Nyra Banerjee). Things are absolutely smooth between the couple, until one day Urvil accidentally spots Celina in the same mall wherein he has gone for shopping with his wife Simran. That very sight of Celina freshens up his ‘one night stand’ with her, which, in turn, gets translated into his desperation to meet her again. Thereafter begins his unending quest to hunt down Celina from the length and the breadth of the world. Amidst all this, Urvil gets extremely busy with his company’s big-budget event of a product launch. It is here where he gets introduced to his rich client and his family, which takes the daylights out of Urvil.
What is it about the client and his family that shocks Urvil, does Urvil ever meet Celina again, what ultimately happens of his marriage with Simran and is Celina the stunning lady whom Urvil had a one night stand with or is there more than what meets the eye… is what forms the rest of the story.
The story and screenplay by Bhavani Iyer seems to be the real culprit of the film. ONE NIGHT STAND has an interesting plot and concept, but Bhavani fails to expand it into an engaging narrative.
ONE NIGHT STAND sees the debut of a promising director by the name of Jasmine Moses-D’Souza, who does a commendable job in the film. Despite the story-screenplay being average, Jasmine Moses-D’Souza needs to be applauded for putting the film together quite well. She has refrained from portraying Sunny Leone as a (quintessential) sex symbol, unlike in other Sunny films. While the film just about manages to hold your attention till the first half that is interspersed with romance and love, the film’s second half seems to drag. Here, one definitely needs to make a mention of the interval point that sets the tempo for the proceedings, thus giving way to a big revelation in the film. The film’s second half deals with the issue of stalking, but the sad part is that it lacks the necessary thrill to give edge of the seat moments. Had the makers added a few thrill elements whilst addressing the stalking scenes, it definitely would have worked in the film’s favour and would have taken the film to a different level altogether.
As for the performances, the film rides on the shoulders of Sunny Leone, whose sincere efforts in putting up a good performance, shows in the film. Her role in the film is definitely a big departure from her earlier parts, which were more focussed towards skin show and titillations. People expecting a lot of skin show from this film might be disappointed.
As for Tanuj Virwani, even though he does justice to his character, there are places wherein his struggle to get the right expressions become very evident. Despite his amateurish body language at many places, one has to admit that, with ONE NIGHT STAND (his third film), he has improved a lot as compared to his earlier two films (PURANI JEANS and LUV U SONIYO). Nyra Banerjee, who plays Tanuj Virwani’s wife in the film, shows immense promise as an actress and is also the most natural performer amongst the rest of the actors.
On the other hand, seasoned actors like Khalid Siddiqui and Ninad Kamath do justice to their respective roles.
The film has very good music (Jeet Ganguly, Meet Bros, Tony Kakkar, Vivek Kar) and some of the tracks like ‘Do Peg Maar’ and ‘Ijazat’ are already very popular. The film’s background music (Sandeep Shirodkar) is good and helps push the narrative. The film’s cinematography (Rakesh Singh) is fabulous and makes the film look slick. Whereas, the film’s editing (Rameshwar S Bhagat) is decent and crisp.
On the whole, ONE NIGHT STAND suffers due to a weak script. It does have its moments, however at the box-office, the film will struggle fighting the competition from other big releases.
