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Business rating: 0.5/5 star
Cast: Geoffrey Broderick, master Erik Altemus, Anusha Singh.
What’s Good: Hardly anything.
What’s Bad: The poor script, performances and direction; the dated camerawork; poor music.
Verdict: Will To Live is a poor fare. Flop!
Loo break: Several.
Watch or not?: Watch it at your own risk.
User rating:
Ruby Pictures and NetGuru’s Will To Live tells the story of a father’s search for a secret herb that can save his cancer-afflicted son’s life.
An American citizen, Geoffrey (Geoffrey Broderick), who has recently lost his wife to cancer, is a depressed man because his only son, Will (master Erik Altemus), is also suffering from lymphoma. Taking the advice of his close friend, Janet (Tara Emerson), Geoffrey travels to India in search of sanjeevani, a secret herb that promises to cure Will’s cancer and save his life.
On reaching Calcutta, Geoffrey meets Janet’s Indian friend, Bipasha (Anusha Singh), who is an expert in herbal medicine. Although Bipasha avoids meeting Geoffrey at first, she meets him by accident and soon grows fond of him. Geoffrey also manages to obtain research material about sanjeevani from the widow of a journalist who was killed while doing a story on the herb. Soon Geoffrey, Bipasha and Jarnail Singh, a taxi driver, take off for the deep jungles of Assam in search of the magical herb. Once there, they meet Dr. Gonsalves, an oppressive man who lords over the local tribals. Geoffrey wants to go into the jungle to find the herb but Gonsalves asks him not to so do. Mysterious incidents start happening around Bipasha and Geoffrey, who are staying in Gonsalves’ guest house. Are they able to get the sanjeevani? Is Will’s life saved? The rest of the film answers most of these questions.
Will To Live Review: Script Analysis
Alec Doyle and Sudeshna Roy’s screenplay, based on a story by Kelly Groenveld, Santanu and Sharmi Das, is pathetic. The story has no head or tail and is riddled with loopholes. Why does Geoffrey come to India in the first place when he does not believe in alternative medicine? Why does Bipasha not meet Geoffrey at first and then, all of a sudden, why does she fall in love with him? What is Dr. Gonsavles’ motive behind keeping the sanjeevani away from the world? All these and many more questions are left unanswered by the writers, who have done a very shoddy job of the script. Also, the drama is devoid of any light moments, action or, for that matter, even any entertainment at all.
Will To Live Review: Performances & Direction
The acting department is no better. Geoffrey Broderick overacts like there would be no tomorrow. Anusha Singh acts horribly. Master Erik Altemus is the only one who delivers at least an average performance. Tara Emerson and the rest of the cast do poor jobs.
Directors Charles Sleichter and Paul Emami and co-director Biplab Chaterjee seem to have done absolutely nothing to narrate the aimless story in an intelligible manner. In other words, direction is almost non-existent. All the actors overact, the scenes do not make any sense when put together, one character’s fake moustache keeps threatening to fall off and the climax doesn’t make any sense. There are a few songs that play in the background but they don’t add any value whatsoever. Bappi Lahiri and MC Hammer’s music is below average. Jonathan Lacroix, Luke Kaneki and Srijit’s background score seems to be from another era when loud thumps and jarring sounds were the order of the day. Soumendu Roy and Mike Bartoski’s cinematography is dated (the film seems to have been shot on a digital camcorder). Sudhakar Gupta’s editing is poor. Dubbing is plain bad.
Will To Live Review: Verdict
All in all, Will To Live has no hope of survival at the box-office. Disaster!
Will To Live released in India on August 12th, 2011. The dubbed Hindi version, Jeene Ki Asha, has also opened simultaneously.
