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I have to admit, I walked into the theater with a lot of expectations.. seeing critics give it four stars out of five in all the national dailies. After the first half an hour I found, I was forcing my self to like the film... which is not a good sign. The film dripped with over acting.. by every character.. especially Mr. Amitabh and the small girl playing the young 'Michelle'. The young 'Michelle' was Deaf and blind.. but for some reason, her performance in the film.. and her look was the same as the young possessed girl in 'The Exorcist'!! She looked scary, violent, possessed.. straight out of a horror movie. There was absolutely no sympathy raised from the audience.. even when her teacher hurt her at times. The teacher (Played by Amitabh) was reeking with over acting. By the second half you get sick of hearing him shouting repeatedly.. non stop.

The film as a whole is no departure from SLB's usual film making style at all. It is high at grandeur and production. It is but another 'Devdas' in Grey... he has also borrowed a lot from his previous film 'Khamoshi'.. where there were emotional speeches given by the deaf and dumb 'Nana Patekar' translated by 'Manisha'.. here there are two speeches by 'Michelle' translated once by her mother.. the second time by her teacher. The film features a 'Triumph' of Michelle, when she graduates.. but the director has failed at giving us, the audience.. that feeling of a moment of triumph. The period of the film and the ___location of the story seems impossible with the high grandeur and long overcoats, etc., thus discrediting any reality in the film. The scene where Michelles father walks into the room (with big paintings, etc) where the new born lay to give news on her being blind and deaf.. the scene looked straight out of the also melodramatic Tim Burtons 'Batman 2' where there was a similar situation.

The film features two parts.. 1) where Amitabh teaches Michelle.. which is portrayed entirely in black.. 2) where Michelle teaches amitabh.. where everything is portrayed in white. This was a totally unnecessary direction to take which looked completely pretentious and contrived.

On the good points of the film.. the last half an hour was very good. A definite tear jerker (though contrived). Editing was slick.. pace was excellent. Camera work, sound editing, etc was excellent.

About the background score.. I guess using the same 16 bars of music.. at every emotional scene.. weather happy, sad, triumphant, etc.. does not make any sense.

According to me.. this film had been 'Designed for awards'. The fact is that SLB is going to have to learn 'How not to make films that look like his style!'

A good Hindi film.. but is it of international standards.. not even close.

Once again a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film has just shown everyone what is wrong with Bollywood, how mediocre and pretentious films can be over glorified by critics, just because it has been made by a "great" director. Black is just another take another take on the ever-green classic Koshish which was made by a truly great director Gulzar. SLB first film Khamoshi was his first attempt at trying to emulate Koshish, he failed that time and frankly he has failed on his second attempt, but I take it from this film, he will continue to attempt to the original until he finally succeeds. Once again SLB has used fanciful camera-work and lavish art direction to cover the gaping holes in his film, something which he has been doing since his first film. I have read many reviews praising Amitabh Bachchan's performance in this film, but I akin his performance to Kiron Kher's performance in Devdas, something which is truly horrific. Rani Mukerjee acted very well, amongst the present crop of actors in Hindi speaking films, her performance is one of the best, but when you widen the scope to all time, she would be way down the list. But lets just compare her acting to that of Seema Biswas or Jaya Bhaduri and you do find her lacking. As for the other faults in the film, once again overly melodramatic, with a background score which keeps pushing the ambiance in to melodrama. Monty's background score once again weak. Though I do admit that apart from A.R Rahman and Maestro Illayraja, there isn't anyone who can do justice to a film with a quality background score. One of the biggest problem with Black, is that it doesn't engage the audience, you don't care about Michelle's struggle and nor are we made to care, until perhaps the last scene where once again the scene is over melodramatic, and has strong shades of Nana Patekar's speech in Khamoshi, which was much better.

Is this the best of Bollywood? I sincerely hope not, these are the kind of films which have caused me to turn my back on Hindi films and look at other films, ranging from Tamil to Japanese. All I can say is that Bollywood lags far far behind

Its a bit late for me to post this review. But memories were rekindled after the Saawariya fiasco of the apparently great Sanjay Leela Bansali. I was in India at that time, and many people talked about Black as if no one every made a movie like that ever. First of all its a remake, so attributing a "genius" tag to Bansali is uncalled for. I also did not appreciate the fact that he did not admit to the fact that it is a remake of The Miracle Worker. I mean, be a man. Tell the world you are making a remake. Secondly, in Bollywood, overacting means good acting seems to be the norm. Rani was as shrill as you can see. You can paint emotion but if the colors just bleed than it looses its grace. Bansali just went overboard. Some scenes make no sense. The empty rooms with slide images portrayed in the background. The needless filled sets. They distracted more. The film has its moments. Especially the one where Rani meets AB after a long time. I will not go into more details for the sake of those who haven't seen it (yet). In the same week, I had the good fortune of seeing Million Dollar Baby and.. boy.. what a difference. To see how emotions are handled subtly.. now THAT was a treat. Perhaps Bansali ought to learn from Eastwood.. if he gets down from cloud 9 that is...

I admire both SLB and AB a great deal. Both are gifted artists, however, this is not among one of their better performances. Right from the beginning, it is clear that Mr. SLB wants to position the movie for awards rather than stay true to the elements of the story that would make for a great movie (albeit a plagiarized one!). The script and direction seem a bit artificial and synthetic. For instance, I felt that the family is shown to be a Christian one to justify the opulent setting and to be able to market it better for the Oscars. There is obviously enough "dramabaji" / touchy-feely stuff to keep average Indian audience engaged and emotionally invested in the movie (no offense, just expressing my thoughts). Overall a disappointing effort from SLB and a waste of ABji's talent.