Issaq Movie Reviews

Issaq Movie Review | Rating: 2/5 stars (Two Stars) | What’s Good: There is just one good thing in Issaq and that...

Do let the bard rest in peace, guys.

They say a 'rose by any other name remains a rose'. Likewise, William Shakespeare's timeless classic 'Romeo and Juliet' by any other name will always arouse tremendous curiosity. The tragedy of two young, star-crossed lovers has always provided fodder to many films [Bollywood/Hollywood]. As a matter of fact, there have been many adaptations and inspirations of this eternal love story. Director Manish Tiwary's ISSAQ is no different

Ask a filmmaker, “What is it that makes interesting ingredients for making an epic love story?” to which he’d say,......

Issaq', directed by Manish Tiwary has texture, some interesting characters, and a premise ripe with potential. Yet all that is squandered away in this rather literal adaptation of Romeo and Juliet because of an incoherent screenplay and sloppy editing. Tiwary sets the film in Benares, where the Kashyaps and the Mishras have a long-standing feud, presumably over common business interests. Their enmity routinely spills onto the streets

All that Issaq manages to be, despite all the sparkling compositions that the cinematographer strings together, is an unconvincing story of ill-fated love. It is not at all easy to sit through.

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs …” – Shakespeare. This love saga leaves us sighing …

For a long time I sat wondering whether this film called Issaq is based on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet or Stan Lee’s Spider-Man. Here is this guy jumping from roof to roof even when there are proper roads below in Varanasi. But then on closer inspection I noticed he wasn’t wearing any bodysuit. Are these then the rejected audition tapes of the last Spider-Man film? And then the guy starts plunging into water bodies

A desi adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Issaq is set against the backdrop of Benares is a love story of Rahul Mishra (Prateik Babbar) and Bachhi Kashyap (Amyra Dastur). Both belong to warring families with burly moustached men who believe in the law of the gun. The first half introduces us to a plethora of characters and sub plots that have minimal importance to the main story. Rahul and Bacchi do the rehearsed routine of courtship

Issaq requires tremendous effort and patience to get through (let alone like), and in the end, it is simply not worth it.

In one of the weirdest character entries/introductions, Prateik in Issaq is seen in a flashback montage defending himself against Naxals and getting shot in the foot. This is intercut with him running at a frenetic pace for no apparent reason on random greenscreen'd footage, and finally jumping into a river. Next, he's seducing a tourist, who's spiritually exploring herself. Why does he jump? No idea. What happened with his foot?

After the recent Raanjhanaa, Varanasi is back in focus in this week's Issaq, as the setting for a love story based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. But neither the town nor the author would be grateful for this representation, which stays consistently high-pitched and doused in blood and bullets and melodrama. I had hopes from the colour-saturated beginning, because everything sprang up with such vividness. The picturesque Banaras, which

Issaq is, then, an insultingly bad film.

Back when he was making his Othello adaptation, Vishal Bhardwaj almost titled the film Issaq -- a take on the Hindi heartland's pronunciation of Ishq. Leading man Ajay Devgan's love for that title aside, better sense prevailed and Bhardwaj went ahead with the alliteratively correct Omkara. This week a film called Issaq releases across the country, and it's yet another Shakespeare adaptation: Romeo And Juliet, this time, set in Benaras

Issaq' is supposedly inspired by Shakespeare’s famous classic tale of the fateful love story of Romeo and Juliet. 'Issaq' (Don’t ask why it is spelt like that. Once you watch the movie, the title would be the least of your concern.) The film first tries establishing the enmity between two families – the Kashyaps and the Mishras, with random shootings and weird goings-on as if it is a private joke, not to be understood by the audience

ISSAQ is being touted as the Indian adaption of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. At least Manish Tiwary has been honest here in revealing the source of his story line. But adapting it to suit Bollywood cinematic sensibilities and the times we live in takes another level of creativity. What Tiwary does here is bring the level of Shakespeare's lovers to something akin to a joke. Even Bunty and Pinky from LOVE STORY (Kumar Gaurav's debut film)

With Bollywood inundated with glorious stories of love, this one just doesn’t make us skip a heartbeat.