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TIMES POSTCARD
A movie worse than what it tries to parody
By Rajpal Abeynayake
‘One shot’ was said to be mired in controversy. Which is why I went to see it. When I approached the place, the movie's one man driving force Ranjan Ramanayake hung onto a microphone, and was delivering a considerable diatribe inside the Savoy theatre.

Against what or whom I couldn't particularly figure out. I wondered if this was a movie or a speech. Then he said, "Mama paksha walata kade yanne ne-- mama kade yanne janathavata.'' (I do not toady upto any political party I toady upto the people). Was all this verbiage warranted???

I was to decide at movie time.
It was easily one of the crudest flicks I have ever seen.
It was not just formulaic but also astonishingly puerile.
Then why all that political speechifying before the movie??

Apparently Ramanayake was under the impression that the film was to be banned. Judging by the content, maybe he spread the canard himself. What movie hasn't some controversy done some good for??

Some political parodying was no doubt attempted, and there was a tortured caricature of the generic rascal politician. But Ramanayake had to introduce the formula (fights, dances, the obligatory comic scene) because he just wanted to sell his movie - - and in that sense, the movie was almost worse than what it was trying to make fun of.

A few lines about Sorbonne etc., had been introduced for obvious reasons, but there was no parody here -- just an attempt to cash in on some political gossip. An attempt to impersonate a current politician was neither parody nor political in any sense - the man was merely impersonated for the sake of look-alike value. (In the movie he plays a guitarist.)

In the end I walked out maybe three quarters of the way through the movie. There is so much of crudity that one can stand in two hours. Somebody at the exit said, "oyya yanavada?''.(Are you leaving?) It was the same voice in the movie. I turned back. It was Ramanayake himself.

I beat a hasty retreat, mumbling something of an apology.
Hate to see real life imitate farce.

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