Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Bergorks If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

ajji-2 This recent Bollywood film had been lurking around the shops and I'd hear people refer to it as a 'different' 'offbeat' or 'art' film, not the usual 'masala' entertainment at all. Even though I fully realize that the hey-day of the Indian parallel cinema is over, I do keep on the lookout for the odd experiment or mixing of genres that filmmakers attempt every so often. Well, this turned out to be a hugely underrated little gem. It's off-beat alright, and doesn't have any silly musical numbers that plague the more mainstream Indian films. But what most reviewers and critics have failed to point out about it, is that it is really a good old-fashioned 'film noir', (albeit minus the moody lighting, and with a generous dose of humor) given a bit of post-modern sheen. It's a little too soft-edged (read: wholesome) and could have been a bit more atmospheric, but I suppose that for a first-time attempt, this is pretty good. The script is not as twisty or clever as it may seem at first (certainly won't fool any experienced film-noir buff), and I even guessed the 'big reveal' at the end, long before it came. But these minor quibbles do not get in the way of a thoroughly enjoyable tale, with many finely etched, memorable scenes (including a bizarre dream sequence). The performances vary, and the director seems unsure of the tone he wants his actors to take, but overall they are all good. Honey Chayya is particularly outstanding as the semi-senile old man Sethna. Naseeruddin Shah is wasted as the pot-head pottery maestro, but he plays the role well enough. Dimple Kapadia is a perfect portrait of a shrill, conniving, slutty middle-aged housewife. But Simone Singh is a little too pure and straight-laced (even when she's being shown 'rebelling' behind her hubby's back). Saif Ali Khan is just fine as the protagonist. All in all, a great little comedy/drama/thriller that doesn't outstay it's welcome, and at 83 minutes, is paced quite efficiently. No surprises for noir fans, but a pleasant enough ride through somewhat familiar territories, and an unexpected gem from the outskirts of Bollywood.

lalitdar Being Cyrus treads a dangerously fine line between darkness and humour, something never seen before in Indian cinema. Great film noir rarely gets better than this. It exploits the seedy local milieu through unusual locations around Mumbai and decaying Parsi household interiors, which are used to enhance the ambiance. This gives the film a strikingly distinctive look. The script is terrific. The characterizations and performances are superb. The nasty narration and dialogues in Indian English add to the fun. The climactic twist is most unexpected. This is definitely world class cinema, which should appeal to intelligent audiences everywhere. Strongly recommended!

rethas Now, that is the surprise package of this otherwise average package. The movie begins well, showing the plight of the Sethna family. But I think the plot is revealed only after the first half(which is just 40 mins or thereabouts). The breaking line, before the intermission, as to how the police inspector was going to change the lives of the sethnas, is a little unclear.The positives of the movie, are its novel plot, good cinematography, and actors like Naseruddin Shah and Dimple playing their roles well. Now we know that Dimple can also look disgustingly bad, when wanted! However, the movie lacked the conviction that was required in revealing the plot. The abstractness of the movie, may well be its plus and minus.Coming to think of it, I cant really see the reason behind some scenes in the movie. For example, the scene where Saif walks from the tea shop and shows some kind of care(??) towards the partially dressed lady on the pavement.

Jai Prasad Another addition to the several, recent well-done movies by a new and adventurous breed of Indian film-makers, Being Cyrus must be watched once, and must be watched closely. It promises you insight, a view, a disturbance. But, in my opinion, it falls short of its promises on two fronts. But first things first, let's agree that it has some really impressive performances, especially Naseeruddin, Dimple, and Boman. On Saif, let's hold on for a while! Intense and riveting cinematography, taut dialogs, and an elating flavor of art bursting from the frames, make this movie what it's worth. The characters have been crafted well, and performances are to match. Naseeruddin takes the cake, however, as the artistic dope, who lives in his own world of images and beauty. The movie takes you to a certain height with an easy flourish, and all you eagerly wait for that eventual flight into another world, another view, a different take on life...but you keep waiting, and the movie self-aborts.This brings us to the first front on which the movie fails. The movie promises a closer look at the darker side of our lives, the twilight of good and evil that makes our daily, mundane worlds. But the closer look it offers remains just a trailer, and doesn't touch the breast...as they say. One remembers '1947 Earth' in this light.... That good and evil coexist and the intermittent tussle between the two, now noisy, now miffed, haunts our lives, doesn't hit you in the face. The movie ends up being an exalted thriller-like stuff. The other front, related to the first, is a more serious failure. The pain of recognition of the good and the evil within oneself, to which Cyrus is doomed; the trauma of 'being' Cyrus, living without the illusionary scaffoldings of goodness that support us all, doesn't seem to trouble our protagonist (except in a 20 seconds dream)...at least till the very last scene when he realizes that he has had enough. We do not get a glimpse, leave aside feel, the internal strife in Cyrus. We don't know what goes on inside Cyrus' head, what his heart says; to us, he is opaque. Hanging to this half-bloomed plot, the character of Cyrus, evidently enough, doesn't shape up.Now, about Saif. With a weak plot, the main character becomes undemanding. While all other characters are so well defined, the fuzziness of Cyrus' character hits you even more. Nothing much can be really said about Saif's performance, then. He is indeed excellent, but imagine and replace Saif with anyone of the new breed: Abhishek, Akshay Khanna, even Rahul Bose, and you get the same results! Being Cyrus, you must watch, because it talks of crucial things, at least it claims to! But forget about returning back home with that gnawing, disturbing heaviness of an idea stuck in your head.Another trivia seems unavoidable here. The multiplex-enabled experimentation in Indian cinema has created an upswing for movies with a certain, vaguely definable texture. Remember the various NRI movies? In this upswing, where we get really outstanding and new stuff, we also tend to overrate plots/characters that are not all that new, or impressive. In fact, the experimentation going on is in fact too confined in its sweep to urban, middle class India, and the images that it believes in and identifies with. There is lot of hype, and intellectual feel-good about such movies, a buoyancy that is not necessarily substantiated by content.