Friday, December 04, 2009
Paa+Radio
Paa
It is a mark of a mature director to engage the viewer at am emotional level without hitting the gratingly high melodramatic notes or trying too hard to wring out tears. R. Balki has taken the progeria idea of Paa from the Hollywood film Jack, and made it his own.
Actually, the story of an estranged couple brought together by their illegitimate kid would have worked just as well with a normal child, so having Amitabh Bachchan play a 13-year-old with a rare genetic disease that causes abnormal aging is just a stunt. But it is a stunt you don’t mind because of the remarkable results. First of all giving Amitabh Bachchan, who must have played every character under the sun, something so uniquely challenging to do; and to top it all playing the son of his own real-life son.
One can only imagine the hard work, discipline and powers of observation that must have gone into the creation of Auro—a bright, naughty, caring kid, stricken with an incurable disease. Bachchan works on his voice, mannerisms, body language and interactions with other kids so well, that you cannot imagine this is a bass-voiced superstar in his sixties.
Abhishek Bachchan (superbly controlled) plays Amol Arte, and idealistic politician, who had years ago broken with his pregnant girlfriend Vidya (Balan-- excellent). She decided to have the baby, carry on with her medical career and raise the child with the help of her mother (Arundhati Nag--outstanding). The relationship between the two women is quite unlike anything normally seen on the Hindi screen. In fact, the bantering between Amol and his politician father (Paresh Rawal— first-rate) is also amusing.
As a chief guest at a school function Amol accidentally comes across Auro and befriends him without knowing that he is his own son. Again the friendship between Auro and Amol, the bonding between Auro and his ‘misfit’ buddy Vishnu (Pratik Katare), and his running away from a sweet girl are funny and poignant (great dialogue all through). Balki resists the Taare Zameen Par urge to pontificate—there is no soap box plea to accept an abnormal child. The kids in his school are not just okay with Auro’s slightly grotesque appearance, they run to his help when his fragile body packs up.
What has no place in the film is the immature and unnecessary harangue against the media—which is not by itself offensive--the sensational way in which it is done, in an otherwise understated film, is odd. Vidya’s pro-life stand is also a little too aggressive—as a doctor she counsels a woman to have a baby quickly or suffer health problems. Which doctor came up with that conclusion?
Anyway, let the quibbles be, the film has enough going for it to merit a look, and you don’t need an astrologer to predict that Amitabh Bachchan will win all the acting awards next year.
Radio
Music is Himesh Reshammiya’s core competency. Despite the surprise success of his first film Aap Ka Suroor, he is not yet an actor, or at least, has not found the groove that would suit his ‘everyman’ personality best.
As a result, he tries very hard to appeal to the youth—Radio, directed by Ishan Trivedi is so self-consciously ‘trendy’ it’s comical. The irony is that you cannot try to be ‘in’—it happens automatically, or it doesn’t.
Copying the ‘chapters’ idea from Quentin Tarantino’s films (or may be old silent movies), each episode in the protagonist RJ Vivan’s (Reshammiya) life is preceded by a card which has supposedly funky chapter headlines like : Talaq aur Ganpatiji, Matinee show aur matar ka keeda, Encounter aur kadhee.
It’s shot like one big music video, as if a moment of stillness or silence would disturb the audience. At the heart of all this ‘cool’ packaging is a contemporary urban love triangle, in which Vivan is caught between his “unpredictable” ex-wife Pooja (Sonal Sehgal) and the “clown” – a perky Shanaya (Shenaz Treasuryvala). Taking to youth lingo Vivan says his relationship status is “It’s complicated” and that he is in “denial mode.”
The triangle does get complicated, when you are not sure if the two women—who become pals—are trying to woo Vivan or offload him on to the other. No wonder the poor guy is “confused” and to let off steam, breaks plates in a restaurant. What else can he do when Shanaya’s mad family dances around him calling him “Damaadji.”
The same film made with a younger, really cool cast might have worked—it does take a look at relationships in the urban double-income-no-kids scenario, when a wife can whimsically divorce her husband because of “incompatibility” (the judge grants it in fast-track mode), and then want him back. But then Himesh wouldn’t be cool if he was left in a freezer overnight, and Shenaz Treasuryvala wouldn’t be hot if she were micro-waved. The only one who fits the part and acts reasonably well is Sonal Sehgal.
Some of the supporting characters are annoyingly over-the-top, like Vivan’s radio boss, and Shanaya’s “South Bombay Ka DCP” father, who is obsessed with his dish antenna. You are not even supposed to wonder how a choreographer and a cop can live in such large, lavish bungalows and the RJ has a sea-facing apartment that looks suspiciously like a hotel suite. If there’s one thing about which there are no complaints, it’s the music. Man ka radio, despite its weird lyrics (Station Koi Naya Tune Kar Le Zara Fultoo Attitude De De Tu Zara) is compulsively hummable.
It is a mark of a mature director to engage the viewer at am emotional level without hitting the gratingly high melodramatic notes or trying too hard to wring out tears. R. Balki has taken the progeria idea of Paa from the Hollywood film Jack, and made it his own.
Actually, the story of an estranged couple brought together by their illegitimate kid would have worked just as well with a normal child, so having Amitabh Bachchan play a 13-year-old with a rare genetic disease that causes abnormal aging is just a stunt. But it is a stunt you don’t mind because of the remarkable results. First of all giving Amitabh Bachchan, who must have played every character under the sun, something so uniquely challenging to do; and to top it all playing the son of his own real-life son.
One can only imagine the hard work, discipline and powers of observation that must have gone into the creation of Auro—a bright, naughty, caring kid, stricken with an incurable disease. Bachchan works on his voice, mannerisms, body language and interactions with other kids so well, that you cannot imagine this is a bass-voiced superstar in his sixties.
Abhishek Bachchan (superbly controlled) plays Amol Arte, and idealistic politician, who had years ago broken with his pregnant girlfriend Vidya (Balan-- excellent). She decided to have the baby, carry on with her medical career and raise the child with the help of her mother (Arundhati Nag--outstanding). The relationship between the two women is quite unlike anything normally seen on the Hindi screen. In fact, the bantering between Amol and his politician father (Paresh Rawal— first-rate) is also amusing.
As a chief guest at a school function Amol accidentally comes across Auro and befriends him without knowing that he is his own son. Again the friendship between Auro and Amol, the bonding between Auro and his ‘misfit’ buddy Vishnu (Pratik Katare), and his running away from a sweet girl are funny and poignant (great dialogue all through). Balki resists the Taare Zameen Par urge to pontificate—there is no soap box plea to accept an abnormal child. The kids in his school are not just okay with Auro’s slightly grotesque appearance, they run to his help when his fragile body packs up.
What has no place in the film is the immature and unnecessary harangue against the media—which is not by itself offensive--the sensational way in which it is done, in an otherwise understated film, is odd. Vidya’s pro-life stand is also a little too aggressive—as a doctor she counsels a woman to have a baby quickly or suffer health problems. Which doctor came up with that conclusion?
Anyway, let the quibbles be, the film has enough going for it to merit a look, and you don’t need an astrologer to predict that Amitabh Bachchan will win all the acting awards next year.
Radio
Music is Himesh Reshammiya’s core competency. Despite the surprise success of his first film Aap Ka Suroor, he is not yet an actor, or at least, has not found the groove that would suit his ‘everyman’ personality best.
As a result, he tries very hard to appeal to the youth—Radio, directed by Ishan Trivedi is so self-consciously ‘trendy’ it’s comical. The irony is that you cannot try to be ‘in’—it happens automatically, or it doesn’t.
Copying the ‘chapters’ idea from Quentin Tarantino’s films (or may be old silent movies), each episode in the protagonist RJ Vivan’s (Reshammiya) life is preceded by a card which has supposedly funky chapter headlines like : Talaq aur Ganpatiji, Matinee show aur matar ka keeda, Encounter aur kadhee.
It’s shot like one big music video, as if a moment of stillness or silence would disturb the audience. At the heart of all this ‘cool’ packaging is a contemporary urban love triangle, in which Vivan is caught between his “unpredictable” ex-wife Pooja (Sonal Sehgal) and the “clown” – a perky Shanaya (Shenaz Treasuryvala). Taking to youth lingo Vivan says his relationship status is “It’s complicated” and that he is in “denial mode.”
The triangle does get complicated, when you are not sure if the two women—who become pals—are trying to woo Vivan or offload him on to the other. No wonder the poor guy is “confused” and to let off steam, breaks plates in a restaurant. What else can he do when Shanaya’s mad family dances around him calling him “Damaadji.”
The same film made with a younger, really cool cast might have worked—it does take a look at relationships in the urban double-income-no-kids scenario, when a wife can whimsically divorce her husband because of “incompatibility” (the judge grants it in fast-track mode), and then want him back. But then Himesh wouldn’t be cool if he was left in a freezer overnight, and Shenaz Treasuryvala wouldn’t be hot if she were micro-waved. The only one who fits the part and acts reasonably well is Sonal Sehgal.
Some of the supporting characters are annoyingly over-the-top, like Vivan’s radio boss, and Shanaya’s “South Bombay Ka DCP” father, who is obsessed with his dish antenna. You are not even supposed to wonder how a choreographer and a cop can live in such large, lavish bungalows and the RJ has a sea-facing apartment that looks suspiciously like a hotel suite. If there’s one thing about which there are no complaints, it’s the music. Man ka radio, despite its weird lyrics (Station Koi Naya Tune Kar Le Zara Fultoo Attitude De De Tu Zara) is compulsively hummable.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
De Dana Dan
De Dana Dan
To be fair to Priyadarshan and the makers of other such confusion confounded movies, it is a tough genre to work with, and it is a wonder he isn’t bored with it. What it requires is to create a complicated web of misunderstandings, coincidences, mistaken identities—bring the many characters somehow to one venue and let them run wild. This is what many of Priyadarshan’s recent films have been like and this summarizes his latest De Dana Dan. Only, in this film, he has more confusion than he or any sensible viewer can handle.
Blame it on the Bell Boy and The Valet, prepare the base on which this film (also Do Not Disturb recently) set in a Singapore hotel is constructed. (The Pan Pacific gets crores worth of publicity and, hopefully loads of Indian tourist traffic.) The impoverished and desperate Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil Shetty) hole up there waiting to collect a fortune from the former’s monstrous (she keeps kicking him into a pool) boss (Archana Puran Singh) by kidnapping her dog.
The kidnap plan fails—the dog is smarter than the two goofballs and their smile-pout girlfriends (Katrina Kaif-Sameera Reddy). But as part of a wedding party Paresh Rawal, Chunky Pandey, Manoj Joshi and gang land up there. Rajpal Yadav is already there as a bumbling waiter. Add to that Jonny Lever, Asrani, Shakti Kapoor, Sharat Saxena and the Priyadarshan menagerie is complete. Maybe only Om Puri is missing, and Vikram Gokhale is added. There’s Neha Dhupia for some oomph which the other two ladies fail to muster up.
One set of people has to give money to another, the wrong one gets it, a hitman follows the wrong target and in the midst of all the mayhem, Akshay Kumar gets locked in a cupboard, and is, in effect out of the film for most of its running time.
Everyone shouts and screams and like in all Priyadarshan comedies, come together in a watery climax.
Of its nearly three-hour running time, there could be fifteen minutes of real comedy. The rest is like listening to nails being hammered into a wall.
To be fair to Priyadarshan and the makers of other such confusion confounded movies, it is a tough genre to work with, and it is a wonder he isn’t bored with it. What it requires is to create a complicated web of misunderstandings, coincidences, mistaken identities—bring the many characters somehow to one venue and let them run wild. This is what many of Priyadarshan’s recent films have been like and this summarizes his latest De Dana Dan. Only, in this film, he has more confusion than he or any sensible viewer can handle.
Blame it on the Bell Boy and The Valet, prepare the base on which this film (also Do Not Disturb recently) set in a Singapore hotel is constructed. (The Pan Pacific gets crores worth of publicity and, hopefully loads of Indian tourist traffic.) The impoverished and desperate Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil Shetty) hole up there waiting to collect a fortune from the former’s monstrous (she keeps kicking him into a pool) boss (Archana Puran Singh) by kidnapping her dog.
The kidnap plan fails—the dog is smarter than the two goofballs and their smile-pout girlfriends (Katrina Kaif-Sameera Reddy). But as part of a wedding party Paresh Rawal, Chunky Pandey, Manoj Joshi and gang land up there. Rajpal Yadav is already there as a bumbling waiter. Add to that Jonny Lever, Asrani, Shakti Kapoor, Sharat Saxena and the Priyadarshan menagerie is complete. Maybe only Om Puri is missing, and Vikram Gokhale is added. There’s Neha Dhupia for some oomph which the other two ladies fail to muster up.
One set of people has to give money to another, the wrong one gets it, a hitman follows the wrong target and in the midst of all the mayhem, Akshay Kumar gets locked in a cupboard, and is, in effect out of the film for most of its running time.
Everyone shouts and screams and like in all Priyadarshan comedies, come together in a watery climax.
Of its nearly three-hour running time, there could be fifteen minutes of real comedy. The rest is like listening to nails being hammered into a wall.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Kurbaan + 1
Kurbaan
Given the state of the world today, a subject like terrorism is not to be trifled with. And whether it is the intention of the filmmaker or not, the issue becomes politically sensitive-- all the more reason to be careful and balanced. If a film points the finger of suspicion at most Muslims-- an educated, suave professor is a terrorist kingpin, the family next door is hatching a terror plot, the harmless professor sitting by a chess board in the corner is a terrorist, no matter where they live Muslims refuse to owe allegiance to the country that shelters them-- it does nothing for the cause of peace, but tarnishes a whole community.
If we overlook all that and accept Rensil D'Silva's Kurbaan as just another commercial film (It has stars, it is produced by Karan Johar), then the complete lack of logic and glaring plot holes are bothersome.
The film, in brief is about professor Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) who is trapped into a marriage by the charming Professor Ehsaan (Saif Ali Khan), because she is an American citizen and he needs a legal way of entering the country. Once there, he gangs up with his cahoots, who are planning terror strikes in New York. Avantika stumbles on to the secret, and is imprisoned at home; she is not killed because she is pregnant. With her help, reporter, Riyaz (Vivek Oberoi) infiltrating the gang to avenge the death of his girlfriend (Dia Mirza) killed in a suicide bombing, manages to foil their plot.
Now the proboem areas: Avantika is an American citizen, yet when she comes to know of the plane bombing, she does not call 911, but leaves a message on the answering machine. When Riyaz hears the message, he does not inform the cops, but plays detective by himself. Ehsaan is a wanted terrorist with a criminal record, and in these days of biometrics, he travels in and out of India and into the US without being detected. Without even mention of a work permit, Ehsaan is allowed to teach a new course in Islamic studies, suggested by him at a New York college. Riyaz easily gets into the gang by making a facile anti-America speech-- in the age of Google, the terrorist group doesn't even do a basic background check.
Absurdities pile up-- Avantika does nothing to seek help or warn her father who is in danger. She is a professor herself, but listens wide-eyed to an older terrorist's (Om Puri) wife (Kirron Kher), who justifies the killing of innocent Americans, saying that US forces killed innocent Muslims in Afghanistan. In one scene Avantika is seen with a distended belly, but when she does a seduction number on the husband (a still from this scene is on the misleading posters of Kurbaan) her belly is flat.
If Avantika came to sympathise with the cause, in a case of the Stockholm Syndrome, the plot would have made some sense, but neither Ehsaan's feelings towards her, nor hers towards him are clear-- after she discovers the truth about him.
So, the look is slick (some thanks to DOP Hemant Chaturvedi), the pace is brisk, Vivek Oberoi and Kareena Kapoor deliver powerful performances-- Saif Ali Khan wears a baffled look at can't cope with the wishy-washy character-- that is the least that can be expected from a big-budget film. But along with production values, how about also delivering a film that also strong on plausibility and purpose?
Shaabash! You Can Do It
You may not even know that such a film has released, if you do, you are not likely to go see it. Unless, there is a good word-of-mouth, and there isn’t going to be… Shaabash! You Can Do It, directed (?) by Shankar Mondal) with a new cast, will be one of those many also-released films that had come out earlier this year during the multiplex strike. Can’t even say it is a good effort.
The film is set in a college, where rich guy Vikram (Atul Kinagi) and ordinary guy Neil ( Hitesh Agrawal) glare malevolently at each other, because Vikram got slapped by his father (Rajiv Verma) in public because he had slapped Neil…much ado about nothing.The father is a politician and wants to enhance his image of being a fair-minded man. Vikram is in love with Gracy (Vedita Pratap Singh), who is found dead at a college picnic,and Professor Siddhant (Sudesh Berry) is framed. (The professor ought to have been jailed for hamming!) Two silly cops (Vishwajeet Pradhan and sidekick) got about investigating, and there’s a bunch of overage students (one of them gay) and dumb professors tripping over one another.
Then there’s some lecturing about yoga being the cure for all ills, and something called ‘Yoga dance’ at which Vikram and Neil compete. They make it sound as if it a matter of life and death, but the banner behind the tacky dance venue declare “Rotary Club of Bombay Hanging Garden.” Not even the MNS would bother to get up to protest against this one. The best performance? Maybe the professor’s wife lying in a coma!
Given the state of the world today, a subject like terrorism is not to be trifled with. And whether it is the intention of the filmmaker or not, the issue becomes politically sensitive-- all the more reason to be careful and balanced. If a film points the finger of suspicion at most Muslims-- an educated, suave professor is a terrorist kingpin, the family next door is hatching a terror plot, the harmless professor sitting by a chess board in the corner is a terrorist, no matter where they live Muslims refuse to owe allegiance to the country that shelters them-- it does nothing for the cause of peace, but tarnishes a whole community.
If we overlook all that and accept Rensil D'Silva's Kurbaan as just another commercial film (It has stars, it is produced by Karan Johar), then the complete lack of logic and glaring plot holes are bothersome.
The film, in brief is about professor Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) who is trapped into a marriage by the charming Professor Ehsaan (Saif Ali Khan), because she is an American citizen and he needs a legal way of entering the country. Once there, he gangs up with his cahoots, who are planning terror strikes in New York. Avantika stumbles on to the secret, and is imprisoned at home; she is not killed because she is pregnant. With her help, reporter, Riyaz (Vivek Oberoi) infiltrating the gang to avenge the death of his girlfriend (Dia Mirza) killed in a suicide bombing, manages to foil their plot.
Now the proboem areas: Avantika is an American citizen, yet when she comes to know of the plane bombing, she does not call 911, but leaves a message on the answering machine. When Riyaz hears the message, he does not inform the cops, but plays detective by himself. Ehsaan is a wanted terrorist with a criminal record, and in these days of biometrics, he travels in and out of India and into the US without being detected. Without even mention of a work permit, Ehsaan is allowed to teach a new course in Islamic studies, suggested by him at a New York college. Riyaz easily gets into the gang by making a facile anti-America speech-- in the age of Google, the terrorist group doesn't even do a basic background check.
Absurdities pile up-- Avantika does nothing to seek help or warn her father who is in danger. She is a professor herself, but listens wide-eyed to an older terrorist's (Om Puri) wife (Kirron Kher), who justifies the killing of innocent Americans, saying that US forces killed innocent Muslims in Afghanistan. In one scene Avantika is seen with a distended belly, but when she does a seduction number on the husband (a still from this scene is on the misleading posters of Kurbaan) her belly is flat.
If Avantika came to sympathise with the cause, in a case of the Stockholm Syndrome, the plot would have made some sense, but neither Ehsaan's feelings towards her, nor hers towards him are clear-- after she discovers the truth about him.
So, the look is slick (some thanks to DOP Hemant Chaturvedi), the pace is brisk, Vivek Oberoi and Kareena Kapoor deliver powerful performances-- Saif Ali Khan wears a baffled look at can't cope with the wishy-washy character-- that is the least that can be expected from a big-budget film. But along with production values, how about also delivering a film that also strong on plausibility and purpose?
Shaabash! You Can Do It
You may not even know that such a film has released, if you do, you are not likely to go see it. Unless, there is a good word-of-mouth, and there isn’t going to be… Shaabash! You Can Do It, directed (?) by Shankar Mondal) with a new cast, will be one of those many also-released films that had come out earlier this year during the multiplex strike. Can’t even say it is a good effort.
The film is set in a college, where rich guy Vikram (Atul Kinagi) and ordinary guy Neil ( Hitesh Agrawal) glare malevolently at each other, because Vikram got slapped by his father (Rajiv Verma) in public because he had slapped Neil…much ado about nothing.The father is a politician and wants to enhance his image of being a fair-minded man. Vikram is in love with Gracy (Vedita Pratap Singh), who is found dead at a college picnic,and Professor Siddhant (Sudesh Berry) is framed. (The professor ought to have been jailed for hamming!) Two silly cops (Vishwajeet Pradhan and sidekick) got about investigating, and there’s a bunch of overage students (one of them gay) and dumb professors tripping over one another.
Then there’s some lecturing about yoga being the cure for all ills, and something called ‘Yoga dance’ at which Vikram and Neil compete. They make it sound as if it a matter of life and death, but the banner behind the tacky dance venue declare “Rotary Club of Bombay Hanging Garden.” Not even the MNS would bother to get up to protest against this one. The best performance? Maybe the professor’s wife lying in a coma!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tum Mile + Wish
Tum Mile
While Hollywood unleashes its mega-budget doomsday thriller on the world in the form of 2012, Bollywood makes its own modest effort to revisit the Mumbai floods of 2005, with Emraan Hashmi as its sole selling point. Kunal Deshmukh’s Tum Mile is not a global warming red alert, however, just a love story set against the deluge.
In Cape Town (discounted rates after Jannat?) aspiring artist Akshay (Hashmi) falls in love with rich girl Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan). They live together in a pretty sea-facing apartment, but soon, the usual financial problems and career crises come in the way, and they split,
Six years later, they happen to meet on a plane to Mumbai. While the encounter leaves him distraught enough to request a change of seat, she dismisses him to a colleague as “just an accident.”
They arrive in Mumbai in the day of the floods. Akshay and his buddy rush to Sanjana’s rescue—they both realize they still love each other. It’s a pretty ordinary story, but Deshmukh’s treatment is sensitive and mature. The early flirtations between the two might be childish, but their relationship is very ‘today’ without waving any flags.
She works as a journalist and runs the home, he does the cooking and washes dishes, and it all looks perfectly normal. Sanjana’s busy father (Sachin Khedekar) is also cool about their relationship status, and her ex-boyfriend catching the vibes, gracefully exits.
Emraan Hashmi growing as an actor with every film he does, is still capable of springing a surprise—his performance is effortless and impressive. Soha Ali Khan also gets to do a role where she is as important as the leading man, and though not yet as polished as Hashmi, she does a fine job of playing a woman, who chooses between love and career, but is wise enough to understand where she went wrong. The characters are not shallow, and their dilemmas not pointless.
Garnished with Pritam’s hummable songs and Prakash Kutty’s expert cinematography (never mind the so-so special effects), Tum Mile is one of the better offerings of the year.
Aao Wish Karein
It’s perfectly alright for an actor to produce a film for himself, but there should be a limit to vanity. Aftab Shivdasani does not have the talent or star power to carry off a film on his own, and certainly not a remake of Big, with himself in the Tom Hanks role.
Add to that the less than adequate abilities of the leading lady, Aamna Sharif (sack the stylist!), and it’s a project doomed from the start. (There was the 20 year old dud Chandramukhi too, on the same subject, which just shows how some people never learn from others’ mistakes.)
When 12-year old Mickey is called ‘kid’ by Mitika (Aamna Sharif), who he has a crush on, he wishes he were older. His wish is granted, he grows into Aftab Shivdasani, who has the unenviable task of playing a cute, childish grown-up, and getting on the viewers nerves. There’s weird character called Hitchcock (Johnny Lever) around too, to add to the irritation. The only one who can legitimately be called cute here is Mickey’s little Sardar friend Bonnie.
The film has some funny moments, but too few – it is neither a children’s film, neither a teen rom com. Except for the picture post card location, there is very little fairy-tale magic happening here.
Aao Wish Karein is a perfect example of what an actor should not do, unless his (or her) ability matches his (or her) ambition.
While Hollywood unleashes its mega-budget doomsday thriller on the world in the form of 2012, Bollywood makes its own modest effort to revisit the Mumbai floods of 2005, with Emraan Hashmi as its sole selling point. Kunal Deshmukh’s Tum Mile is not a global warming red alert, however, just a love story set against the deluge.
In Cape Town (discounted rates after Jannat?) aspiring artist Akshay (Hashmi) falls in love with rich girl Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan). They live together in a pretty sea-facing apartment, but soon, the usual financial problems and career crises come in the way, and they split,
Six years later, they happen to meet on a plane to Mumbai. While the encounter leaves him distraught enough to request a change of seat, she dismisses him to a colleague as “just an accident.”
They arrive in Mumbai in the day of the floods. Akshay and his buddy rush to Sanjana’s rescue—they both realize they still love each other. It’s a pretty ordinary story, but Deshmukh’s treatment is sensitive and mature. The early flirtations between the two might be childish, but their relationship is very ‘today’ without waving any flags.
She works as a journalist and runs the home, he does the cooking and washes dishes, and it all looks perfectly normal. Sanjana’s busy father (Sachin Khedekar) is also cool about their relationship status, and her ex-boyfriend catching the vibes, gracefully exits.
Emraan Hashmi growing as an actor with every film he does, is still capable of springing a surprise—his performance is effortless and impressive. Soha Ali Khan also gets to do a role where she is as important as the leading man, and though not yet as polished as Hashmi, she does a fine job of playing a woman, who chooses between love and career, but is wise enough to understand where she went wrong. The characters are not shallow, and their dilemmas not pointless.
Garnished with Pritam’s hummable songs and Prakash Kutty’s expert cinematography (never mind the so-so special effects), Tum Mile is one of the better offerings of the year.
Aao Wish Karein
It’s perfectly alright for an actor to produce a film for himself, but there should be a limit to vanity. Aftab Shivdasani does not have the talent or star power to carry off a film on his own, and certainly not a remake of Big, with himself in the Tom Hanks role.
Add to that the less than adequate abilities of the leading lady, Aamna Sharif (sack the stylist!), and it’s a project doomed from the start. (There was the 20 year old dud Chandramukhi too, on the same subject, which just shows how some people never learn from others’ mistakes.)
When 12-year old Mickey is called ‘kid’ by Mitika (Aamna Sharif), who he has a crush on, he wishes he were older. His wish is granted, he grows into Aftab Shivdasani, who has the unenviable task of playing a cute, childish grown-up, and getting on the viewers nerves. There’s weird character called Hitchcock (Johnny Lever) around too, to add to the irritation. The only one who can legitimately be called cute here is Mickey’s little Sardar friend Bonnie.
The film has some funny moments, but too few – it is neither a children’s film, neither a teen rom com. Except for the picture post card location, there is very little fairy-tale magic happening here.
Aao Wish Karein is a perfect example of what an actor should not do, unless his (or her) ability matches his (or her) ambition.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Ajab+Jail
Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani
This Rajkumar Santoshi film is neither ajab nor ghazab, just a throwing of tested old ingredients into a pot, and hoping the stew that emerges is palatable. It may just be, because the staleness is disguised by the super energetic performance by Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif’s cheery presence.
Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani has elements of so many films it’s difficult to start listing… how many films are there that follow this formula:
1) Nice boy loves girl
2) Girl loves someone else
3) Boy helps girl to reunite with her guy
4) Girl realizes she loves boy
5) Girl runs away from wedding to guy
Must be at least a thousand at last count. Then Santoshi adds corny spoof scenes like a statue playing narrator, of a bunch of gangsters dressing in identical black, suits, hats and glares. And what can be said about the hero’s many sidekicks, except : where did he pick these specimens from?
Prem (Kapoor) and his vagabond friends run a Happy Club, with him as the president. He falls in love with Christian girl Jenny and does all he can to win her over (including eating non-veg food), but it turns out that she loves Rahul (Upen Patel). Because Rahul is a beefy and moronic character, the spineless son of an opportunistic politician, you know that he is really no competition for the perpetually sunny Prem.
Ranbir Kapoor goes at the role like he overdosed on uppers, if he keeps at it like this, rescuing dumb films with his hyper energy and charm, he will soon run out of tricks. There is a scene where he wears a women’s strappy top and pretends it is high fashion for men—and he does it without any discomfort showing on his face!
The gags here are of the incredibly silly variety, like a minor villain being made to sit on a cake, and then having his trousers stolen by Prem’s cronies; or a bunch of villains bouncing up and down in a pool when a live wire is thrown into it. If you can forget this is all so hackneyed, and coming from a veteran director like Santoshi, a bit desperate, then the film can be enjoyed to an extent. Otherwise it is a headache inducer.
Jail
Madhur Bhandrakar, known for making dark slice-of-life films, going where no filmmaker has gone before, falters this time. Not only does Jail have a plot inspired by The Shawshank Redemption, it presents view of prison life that has been seen already in many films, and doesn’t add anything to the perception of prisons gained from watching films like Satya, Ek Haseena Thi, Gumrah (which was Bangkok Hilton Indianised) and Teen Deewaren.
What he does succeed with, briefly, is creating a scenario that is every middle-class, law-abiding citizen’s nightmare—being thrown into prison, and nobody to heed their protestations of innocence. Those too powerless or two poor to get legal help can languish all their lives as undertrials, in the filthy hell holes that Indian prisons are. Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young professional with a good job and pretty girlfriend (Mugdha Godse), has the misfortune of offering a lift to his roommate, who, unknown to him is a drug dealer. Cops find a stash in his car, the roomie is injured in a shootout and Parag thrown into prison. He is unable to prove his innocence and after every hearing, chances of reprieve dim.
Bhandarkar’s depiction of prison life is a bit too sanitized, the only problem being overcrowding and open bathrooms with inadequate water. There are corrupt cops and ‘bhais’ ruling inside, but otherwise it is a fraternity of friendly guys, helpful and sympathetic. There is an avuncular fellow prisoner (Manoj Bajpai) who offers wise counsel, while a brash gangster (Arya Babbar) offers hope of escape. There are a couple of real life characters too thrown in for effect—like a professor accused of Naxalism and a rich brat whose drunk driving killed pavement dwellers.
Initially Parag tells his loyal girlfriend and loving mother (Navni Parihar) that he will go mad inside, but Bhandarkar is unable to convey the brutality of jail life, or even show, how—if at all—it scars Parag. His incarceration in the notorious ‘anda cell’ (solitary confinement) is just brushed aside as an ordinary happening. Newspaper reports give out more details of what goes on inside prison walls (the unshakeable hierarchy, sexual exploitation of the weak, a crushing of the psyche) than Bhandarkar, whose research is clearly inadequate.
There are some well done portions like a man’s quick escape in a garbage truck and another’s trauma at losing his family, but mostly Jail is dull, repetitive and, for a Bhandarkar film, much too mild. Neil Nitin Mukesh has the unenviable task of lugging the heavy film on his back, and though he does well, a more varied cast of characters would have given the film a much needed heft.
This Rajkumar Santoshi film is neither ajab nor ghazab, just a throwing of tested old ingredients into a pot, and hoping the stew that emerges is palatable. It may just be, because the staleness is disguised by the super energetic performance by Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif’s cheery presence.
Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani has elements of so many films it’s difficult to start listing… how many films are there that follow this formula:
1) Nice boy loves girl
2) Girl loves someone else
3) Boy helps girl to reunite with her guy
4) Girl realizes she loves boy
5) Girl runs away from wedding to guy
Must be at least a thousand at last count. Then Santoshi adds corny spoof scenes like a statue playing narrator, of a bunch of gangsters dressing in identical black, suits, hats and glares. And what can be said about the hero’s many sidekicks, except : where did he pick these specimens from?
Prem (Kapoor) and his vagabond friends run a Happy Club, with him as the president. He falls in love with Christian girl Jenny and does all he can to win her over (including eating non-veg food), but it turns out that she loves Rahul (Upen Patel). Because Rahul is a beefy and moronic character, the spineless son of an opportunistic politician, you know that he is really no competition for the perpetually sunny Prem.
Ranbir Kapoor goes at the role like he overdosed on uppers, if he keeps at it like this, rescuing dumb films with his hyper energy and charm, he will soon run out of tricks. There is a scene where he wears a women’s strappy top and pretends it is high fashion for men—and he does it without any discomfort showing on his face!
The gags here are of the incredibly silly variety, like a minor villain being made to sit on a cake, and then having his trousers stolen by Prem’s cronies; or a bunch of villains bouncing up and down in a pool when a live wire is thrown into it. If you can forget this is all so hackneyed, and coming from a veteran director like Santoshi, a bit desperate, then the film can be enjoyed to an extent. Otherwise it is a headache inducer.
Jail
Madhur Bhandrakar, known for making dark slice-of-life films, going where no filmmaker has gone before, falters this time. Not only does Jail have a plot inspired by The Shawshank Redemption, it presents view of prison life that has been seen already in many films, and doesn’t add anything to the perception of prisons gained from watching films like Satya, Ek Haseena Thi, Gumrah (which was Bangkok Hilton Indianised) and Teen Deewaren.
What he does succeed with, briefly, is creating a scenario that is every middle-class, law-abiding citizen’s nightmare—being thrown into prison, and nobody to heed their protestations of innocence. Those too powerless or two poor to get legal help can languish all their lives as undertrials, in the filthy hell holes that Indian prisons are. Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young professional with a good job and pretty girlfriend (Mugdha Godse), has the misfortune of offering a lift to his roommate, who, unknown to him is a drug dealer. Cops find a stash in his car, the roomie is injured in a shootout and Parag thrown into prison. He is unable to prove his innocence and after every hearing, chances of reprieve dim.
Bhandarkar’s depiction of prison life is a bit too sanitized, the only problem being overcrowding and open bathrooms with inadequate water. There are corrupt cops and ‘bhais’ ruling inside, but otherwise it is a fraternity of friendly guys, helpful and sympathetic. There is an avuncular fellow prisoner (Manoj Bajpai) who offers wise counsel, while a brash gangster (Arya Babbar) offers hope of escape. There are a couple of real life characters too thrown in for effect—like a professor accused of Naxalism and a rich brat whose drunk driving killed pavement dwellers.
Initially Parag tells his loyal girlfriend and loving mother (Navni Parihar) that he will go mad inside, but Bhandarkar is unable to convey the brutality of jail life, or even show, how—if at all—it scars Parag. His incarceration in the notorious ‘anda cell’ (solitary confinement) is just brushed aside as an ordinary happening. Newspaper reports give out more details of what goes on inside prison walls (the unshakeable hierarchy, sexual exploitation of the weak, a crushing of the psyche) than Bhandarkar, whose research is clearly inadequate.
There are some well done portions like a man’s quick escape in a garbage truck and another’s trauma at losing his family, but mostly Jail is dull, repetitive and, for a Bhandarkar film, much too mild. Neil Nitin Mukesh has the unenviable task of lugging the heavy film on his back, and though he does well, a more varied cast of characters would have given the film a much needed heft.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
LD+Aladin
London Dreams
You know a film is hitting the wrong notes, when the hero flagellates himself, because he has allowed himself to be distracted by a girl, and instead of flinching, the audience sniggers. For a film that is about a man's passion for music, the music is the weakest part; makes you wonder if creating tepid pop tunes for a vague, faceless audience of 'goras' who can't even understand the Hindi lyrics is a valid, lifelong ambition?
But in London Dreams, Arjun, born in a Punjab village aspires to be "Mai ka lal Jaikishan" (Aaargh). Orphaned, he is taken to London by his uncle (Om Puri), but he runs away, begs for coins and actually walks into some big, sombre Music Academy. As a character in the film says a couple of time, we are just paying back the Brits for 200 years of ruling us.. maybe that's the hidden agenda of Vipul Shah's film. In that he succeeds-- the old imperialist would cringe at the sight of an Indian singer taking over Trafalgar Square!
Arjun is devoted to music, and along with two Pakistani dudes (Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor) and a back-up girl Priya (Asin) forms a band, manages a contract with a 'gora' music company and is on the road to success. Dull so far, Salman Khan has to come and rescue the film. He is Mannu, the buddy Arjun had left behind in the village, and he is not the 'bholabhala' villager of yore, but the rural stud and gadabout.
Mannu is taken to London by Arjun, and when the man's on stage, he walks away with the show. He is effortlessly talented; soon London Dreams and Priya have been snatched from under Arjun's morose nose. He then plots Mannu downfall, with the usual honey trap-- you wonder how a fairly smart chap can't tell the difference between salt and cocaine, but Mannu gets addicted, and there is a showdown at Wembley.
Think Amadeus, think lofty emotions, devious villainy, heart-rending tragedy and weep at Shah's wishy-washy attempt to recreate it. You hate to say this, but the awful Shakalaka Boom Boom, also based on the same idea, suddenly acquires merit in hindsight. When everything else fails (the dialogue is effective and the cinematography is fine, though), it is Ajay Devgan's on-tap intensity and Salman Khan's comic chatter that really keeps the audience going. Both are a little too old for the parts-- Salman definitely over the age of playing cute, wisecracking rake-- but without them, the film would have little else except London scenery-- and that has been seen in so many films already.
Aladin
The film has been produced by a banner called Bound Script, so presumably there was one, and presumably the actors read (or heard) it. Didn't they apply their minds at all?
The idea sounds interesting-- a reworking of the Aladin and the Magic Lamp tale, that every kid has heard or read with fascination. The film begins promisingly too, with the action set in a fictional town of Khwaish (wish), that looks deliberately fairytale-ish, with lovely mansions and cobbled streets. (That the interiors look stuffed with Chor Bazaar fake antiques is sympomatic of the film-- it gets just that much right, and so much wrong.)
Here, the unfortunately named Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh) spends his life running from bullies who keep forcing him to rub lamps. Aladin is in college, he has a bag on his back at all times and wears a red sweater with a 'a' on it. Such a nerd is asking to be ragged. Then Aladin falls in love with new college girl Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandez) and as if by magic, he gets The Lamp, from which Genius the Genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. His 'look' is something between his Jhoom Barabar and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna get-ups -- in short too garish.
Still, so far it's bearable and Genius does the usual magic stuff like turning Aladin's guitar into a frog, that will amuse kids. All this is CGI and quite well done, but the the point of the whole exercise is the three wishes, and when it comes down to business the story (or bound script) fails. Aladin stutters some silly stuff, because all he has on his mind is Jasmine.
The villain has to enter at some point, and Sanjay Dutt as Ring Master rolls in with his menagerie of freaks, including a masked girl who spews fire (must be the most unfortunate debut in cinema, a girl gets to slink all over Sanjay Dutt, but her face remains hidden). There is some gibberish about a comet that can bestow great power. But by the time the climax comes around, the viewer has been subjected to a hell of a lot of boring song-and-dance (Aladin tera bheja hai khali types), with the genie doing most of it.
Surely Amitabh was not tempted to do this film just to wear ghastly costumes and dance? Riteish Deshmukh, usually so good with comedy, has to wear one prune-faced expression. And the newcomer Jaqueline Fernandez just comes up with her dazzling 'full battisi' smile whenever asked to face the camera. If this what a bound script delivers, maybe, a haphazard written-on-the-sets style of working is actually better-- Amitabh Bachchan has done a fair amount of this in his career, and nobody complained.
You know a film is hitting the wrong notes, when the hero flagellates himself, because he has allowed himself to be distracted by a girl, and instead of flinching, the audience sniggers. For a film that is about a man's passion for music, the music is the weakest part; makes you wonder if creating tepid pop tunes for a vague, faceless audience of 'goras' who can't even understand the Hindi lyrics is a valid, lifelong ambition?
But in London Dreams, Arjun, born in a Punjab village aspires to be "Mai ka lal Jaikishan" (Aaargh). Orphaned, he is taken to London by his uncle (Om Puri), but he runs away, begs for coins and actually walks into some big, sombre Music Academy. As a character in the film says a couple of time, we are just paying back the Brits for 200 years of ruling us.. maybe that's the hidden agenda of Vipul Shah's film. In that he succeeds-- the old imperialist would cringe at the sight of an Indian singer taking over Trafalgar Square!
Arjun is devoted to music, and along with two Pakistani dudes (Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor) and a back-up girl Priya (Asin) forms a band, manages a contract with a 'gora' music company and is on the road to success. Dull so far, Salman Khan has to come and rescue the film. He is Mannu, the buddy Arjun had left behind in the village, and he is not the 'bholabhala' villager of yore, but the rural stud and gadabout.
Mannu is taken to London by Arjun, and when the man's on stage, he walks away with the show. He is effortlessly talented; soon London Dreams and Priya have been snatched from under Arjun's morose nose. He then plots Mannu downfall, with the usual honey trap-- you wonder how a fairly smart chap can't tell the difference between salt and cocaine, but Mannu gets addicted, and there is a showdown at Wembley.
Think Amadeus, think lofty emotions, devious villainy, heart-rending tragedy and weep at Shah's wishy-washy attempt to recreate it. You hate to say this, but the awful Shakalaka Boom Boom, also based on the same idea, suddenly acquires merit in hindsight. When everything else fails (the dialogue is effective and the cinematography is fine, though), it is Ajay Devgan's on-tap intensity and Salman Khan's comic chatter that really keeps the audience going. Both are a little too old for the parts-- Salman definitely over the age of playing cute, wisecracking rake-- but without them, the film would have little else except London scenery-- and that has been seen in so many films already.
Aladin
The film has been produced by a banner called Bound Script, so presumably there was one, and presumably the actors read (or heard) it. Didn't they apply their minds at all?
The idea sounds interesting-- a reworking of the Aladin and the Magic Lamp tale, that every kid has heard or read with fascination. The film begins promisingly too, with the action set in a fictional town of Khwaish (wish), that looks deliberately fairytale-ish, with lovely mansions and cobbled streets. (That the interiors look stuffed with Chor Bazaar fake antiques is sympomatic of the film-- it gets just that much right, and so much wrong.)
Here, the unfortunately named Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh) spends his life running from bullies who keep forcing him to rub lamps. Aladin is in college, he has a bag on his back at all times and wears a red sweater with a 'a' on it. Such a nerd is asking to be ragged. Then Aladin falls in love with new college girl Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandez) and as if by magic, he gets The Lamp, from which Genius the Genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. His 'look' is something between his Jhoom Barabar and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna get-ups -- in short too garish.
Still, so far it's bearable and Genius does the usual magic stuff like turning Aladin's guitar into a frog, that will amuse kids. All this is CGI and quite well done, but the the point of the whole exercise is the three wishes, and when it comes down to business the story (or bound script) fails. Aladin stutters some silly stuff, because all he has on his mind is Jasmine.
The villain has to enter at some point, and Sanjay Dutt as Ring Master rolls in with his menagerie of freaks, including a masked girl who spews fire (must be the most unfortunate debut in cinema, a girl gets to slink all over Sanjay Dutt, but her face remains hidden). There is some gibberish about a comet that can bestow great power. But by the time the climax comes around, the viewer has been subjected to a hell of a lot of boring song-and-dance (Aladin tera bheja hai khali types), with the genie doing most of it.
Surely Amitabh was not tempted to do this film just to wear ghastly costumes and dance? Riteish Deshmukh, usually so good with comedy, has to wear one prune-faced expression. And the newcomer Jaqueline Fernandez just comes up with her dazzling 'full battisi' smile whenever asked to face the camera. If this what a bound script delivers, maybe, a haphazard written-on-the-sets style of working is actually better-- Amitabh Bachchan has done a fair amount of this in his career, and nobody complained.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Fruit and Nut
Fruit and Nut
If everybody who came up with one-liners while hanging around with drunken friends one evening thought of making a film, Bollywood would be in worse trouble than it already is in.
Kunal Vijaykar tries to create a Mr Bean out of Cyrus Broacha, his friend and frequent collaborator on comedy shows (stage and TV), but their kind of humour based on word play and literal translations from English to Hindi is okay in small doses, but if that's all there is in a full length feature film in lieu of plot, character development and some degree of technical finesse, then it quickly turns into a bore.
In Fruit and Nut Broacha plays Jolly Maker, a chronic bumbler who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but also manages to be in the right place at the right time. In the end he has to foil the plans of a mad maharaja Harry Holkar (Boman Irani), a builder Khandhar Zaala and a pizza-chomping scientist (Rajit Kapoor), who have a crazy scheme to take over Mumbai, by blowing up Mantralaya, for which they need the plans of the sewage network below the building (Holkar believes his palace used to be under Mantralaya!)
Holkar who constantly asks everyone if the have had their breakfast (must be some in-joke), keeps kidnapping Khandhar's employee Monica (Dia Mirza), and when Jolly inadvertently rescues her, she falls in love with him. Then suddenly everyone gets into black leather and pretends to be RAW agents.
Not even the real Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) could make this mess watchable, so Cyrus Broacha with his limited acting abilities and screen presence hasn't a chance. Boman Irani seems to be enjoying himself (he even gets a dream sequence jig), can't say the same about the audience.
If everybody who came up with one-liners while hanging around with drunken friends one evening thought of making a film, Bollywood would be in worse trouble than it already is in.
Kunal Vijaykar tries to create a Mr Bean out of Cyrus Broacha, his friend and frequent collaborator on comedy shows (stage and TV), but their kind of humour based on word play and literal translations from English to Hindi is okay in small doses, but if that's all there is in a full length feature film in lieu of plot, character development and some degree of technical finesse, then it quickly turns into a bore.
In Fruit and Nut Broacha plays Jolly Maker, a chronic bumbler who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but also manages to be in the right place at the right time. In the end he has to foil the plans of a mad maharaja Harry Holkar (Boman Irani), a builder Khandhar Zaala and a pizza-chomping scientist (Rajit Kapoor), who have a crazy scheme to take over Mumbai, by blowing up Mantralaya, for which they need the plans of the sewage network below the building (Holkar believes his palace used to be under Mantralaya!)
Holkar who constantly asks everyone if the have had their breakfast (must be some in-joke), keeps kidnapping Khandhar's employee Monica (Dia Mirza), and when Jolly inadvertently rescues her, she falls in love with him. Then suddenly everyone gets into black leather and pretends to be RAW agents.
Not even the real Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) could make this mess watchable, so Cyrus Broacha with his limited acting abilities and screen presence hasn't a chance. Boman Irani seems to be enjoying himself (he even gets a dream sequence jig), can't say the same about the audience.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Blue+ 2
Blue
There is a scene in Blue, in which a bunch of gunmen start shooting into the house of the character played by Sanjay Dutt, and the first thing he does is put on his sunglasses. It’s a just an indication of the fact that a lot of money (Rs 80-120 crores, depending on the source) has been spent on a film, but no thought has been put into it.
Anthony D’Souza’s film is about an underwater treasure hunt, but by the time it actually arrives, you have lost interest; and then that underwater action sequence is finished before any excitement has been generated. It’s like being promised a feast and being served potato chips... after the appetite has been whetted.
Blue is reportedly the most expensive Indian film ever made, the first shot in the Bahamas, the first with extensive under water shooting—it’s okay to have all that garnish, but doesn’t a film need the usual ingredients too… like a story to begin with? Without that, the stunning shots of marine life are just Nat Geo videos.
Aarav (Akshay Kumar) and Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) live in the Bahamas, and seem to have a good life. Aarav is a womanizer (he actually says ‘Can I ride you?’ to a woman he is asking for a lift and she lets him into her car!), Sagar is devoted to his wife Mona (Lara Dutta).
Sagar’s brother Samir (Zayed Khan) runs up a fifty million dollar debt with a gangster (Rahul Dev) in Bangkok, and comes running to “Bhaiya.” There is, it seems, a sunken treasure in a ship called Lady in Blue, that only Sagar knows about, and he reluctantly has to lead Samir and Aarav to it.
There is no great sympathy for the wimpy Samir, who blows up dozens of cars racing mobikes, causes many deaths and mixes up with thugs, then whines, “I am going to die.” There is no great mystery to Sagar’s brooding, and the twist when it comes in the end is laughable.
The actors got free scuba-diving lessons, a paid-for Caribbean holiday, no acting required – Akshay Kumar has a piece of grey rug stuck on his chin and Sanjay Dutt has a paunch that sticks out into the frame. They certainly seem to have more fun than the audience does.
The treasure chest under the sea has a some cheap tinsel jewelley…as for the house that the gunmen attack, when it blows up a few planks fly into the air—so much money drowned and cutting corners on props and FX. Tsk!
All The Best
A rarity for Bollywood—to credit the source, if only in a blink-and-miss flash; Rohit Shetty’s All The Best is based on Neil and Caroline Schaffner’s play Right Bed Wrong Husband, Indianised with some desi ‘tadka.’ It also pays tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s two ‘deception’ comedy classics – Golmaal and Chupke Chupke, but learns nothing from the master.
It is a simple idea of deception again, stretched to breaking point, but on the plus list—it is set in Goa (not in some foreign location with Hindi-speaking locals), it has some really funny in-jokes, a few laugh-aloud lines and Ajay Devgan in his element. In Shetty’s films (Golmaal, Golmaal Returns), the actor sheds his serious, intense persona and has a blast.
Veer (Fardeen Khan) lives off his rich brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt), who sends him pocket money from abroad. Veer’s buddy Prem Chopra (Ajay Devgan) is a racing driver, and in the process of trying to win a race, owes money to a mute gangster (Johnny Lever), who communicates by tapping a spoon on a glass.
Dharam thinks that Veer is married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse), so when he lands up unexpectedly and she can’t be found, Prem’s wife Jahnvi (Bipasha Basu) is presented as the wife. It is a small misunderstanding that could be cleared in a minute, but a whole film is built up on it. Naturally, when Vidya appears, she is passed off as Prem’s girlfriend.
The gags include a hysterical Malayalee maid (Ashwini Kalsekar), a potential tenant called RGV (Sanjay Mishra), who can’t move into Veer’s bungalow because Dharam is stranded in Goa, due to a coup in the country where he was headed. Everybody runs about in a state of agitation, thinking up increasingly outrageous lies to prevent Dharam from catching on.
Sanjay Dutt plays the beefy ‘Bade Bhaiya’ so his flabby appearance doesn’t matter as much as it does in Blue. While bashing up goons he says, “I have just started on comedy, but I have been doing action for 30 years.” Right!
Main Aur Mrs Khanna
The only purpose of making this film seems to be promoting Sohail Khan’s career. He produces it, gets his star brother (Salman Khan) to walk on. Kareena Kapoor must have been enticed with a designer wardrobe.
In Prem Soni’s Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, the marriage of Melbourne-based Sameer Khanna (Salman) and Raina (Kareena) goes through a rough patch, when he loses his job. It must be something important, since the local paper gives it front-page coverage. Odd that Mr Financial Hotshot’s wife works as a waitress, but let that pass.
Sameer, who has been sulking and growling all along, now practically dumps Mrs Khanna at the airport, telling her she must return to India, while he goes too to seek his fortune in Singapore. Luckily for Raina, Akash (Sohail Khan), a waiter at the airport café falls in love with her, and goes all out to help her. Her friends get her a job as a salesgirl in the airport store also run by an Indian (Bappi Lahiri) and a swanky apartment. She is, of course, always togged out in perfect outfits and accessories; emotional distress does no damage to her perfect make-up and perfect hair.
At some point her work permit runs out, and the solution she is given, is to apply for marriage with Akash. The Australian authorities are deemed too dumb to check on her previous marital status. Then Sameer returns, Akash makes some half-hearted attempts to break up the marriage… the film is neither serious, nor comic, and not even close to examining the problems of modern-day marriage or the nature of love.
Raina comes across as ditzy, Sameer grumpy, Akash buffoonish (but the producer of the film can at least get others to call him handsome a few times!) and the friends around then, are just noisy props. Preity Zinta appears for a really bad ‘item’ number. There is silly reason why Akash runs around Raina calling her Mrs Khanna, anyone who sits through the film will find out, and also get to see the ‘guest’ star in the end. But, watch at your own risk.
There is a scene in Blue, in which a bunch of gunmen start shooting into the house of the character played by Sanjay Dutt, and the first thing he does is put on his sunglasses. It’s a just an indication of the fact that a lot of money (Rs 80-120 crores, depending on the source) has been spent on a film, but no thought has been put into it.
Anthony D’Souza’s film is about an underwater treasure hunt, but by the time it actually arrives, you have lost interest; and then that underwater action sequence is finished before any excitement has been generated. It’s like being promised a feast and being served potato chips... after the appetite has been whetted.
Blue is reportedly the most expensive Indian film ever made, the first shot in the Bahamas, the first with extensive under water shooting—it’s okay to have all that garnish, but doesn’t a film need the usual ingredients too… like a story to begin with? Without that, the stunning shots of marine life are just Nat Geo videos.
Aarav (Akshay Kumar) and Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) live in the Bahamas, and seem to have a good life. Aarav is a womanizer (he actually says ‘Can I ride you?’ to a woman he is asking for a lift and she lets him into her car!), Sagar is devoted to his wife Mona (Lara Dutta).
Sagar’s brother Samir (Zayed Khan) runs up a fifty million dollar debt with a gangster (Rahul Dev) in Bangkok, and comes running to “Bhaiya.” There is, it seems, a sunken treasure in a ship called Lady in Blue, that only Sagar knows about, and he reluctantly has to lead Samir and Aarav to it.
There is no great sympathy for the wimpy Samir, who blows up dozens of cars racing mobikes, causes many deaths and mixes up with thugs, then whines, “I am going to die.” There is no great mystery to Sagar’s brooding, and the twist when it comes in the end is laughable.
The actors got free scuba-diving lessons, a paid-for Caribbean holiday, no acting required – Akshay Kumar has a piece of grey rug stuck on his chin and Sanjay Dutt has a paunch that sticks out into the frame. They certainly seem to have more fun than the audience does.
The treasure chest under the sea has a some cheap tinsel jewelley…as for the house that the gunmen attack, when it blows up a few planks fly into the air—so much money drowned and cutting corners on props and FX. Tsk!
All The Best
A rarity for Bollywood—to credit the source, if only in a blink-and-miss flash; Rohit Shetty’s All The Best is based on Neil and Caroline Schaffner’s play Right Bed Wrong Husband, Indianised with some desi ‘tadka.’ It also pays tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s two ‘deception’ comedy classics – Golmaal and Chupke Chupke, but learns nothing from the master.
It is a simple idea of deception again, stretched to breaking point, but on the plus list—it is set in Goa (not in some foreign location with Hindi-speaking locals), it has some really funny in-jokes, a few laugh-aloud lines and Ajay Devgan in his element. In Shetty’s films (Golmaal, Golmaal Returns), the actor sheds his serious, intense persona and has a blast.
Veer (Fardeen Khan) lives off his rich brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt), who sends him pocket money from abroad. Veer’s buddy Prem Chopra (Ajay Devgan) is a racing driver, and in the process of trying to win a race, owes money to a mute gangster (Johnny Lever), who communicates by tapping a spoon on a glass.
Dharam thinks that Veer is married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse), so when he lands up unexpectedly and she can’t be found, Prem’s wife Jahnvi (Bipasha Basu) is presented as the wife. It is a small misunderstanding that could be cleared in a minute, but a whole film is built up on it. Naturally, when Vidya appears, she is passed off as Prem’s girlfriend.
The gags include a hysterical Malayalee maid (Ashwini Kalsekar), a potential tenant called RGV (Sanjay Mishra), who can’t move into Veer’s bungalow because Dharam is stranded in Goa, due to a coup in the country where he was headed. Everybody runs about in a state of agitation, thinking up increasingly outrageous lies to prevent Dharam from catching on.
Sanjay Dutt plays the beefy ‘Bade Bhaiya’ so his flabby appearance doesn’t matter as much as it does in Blue. While bashing up goons he says, “I have just started on comedy, but I have been doing action for 30 years.” Right!
Main Aur Mrs Khanna
The only purpose of making this film seems to be promoting Sohail Khan’s career. He produces it, gets his star brother (Salman Khan) to walk on. Kareena Kapoor must have been enticed with a designer wardrobe.
In Prem Soni’s Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, the marriage of Melbourne-based Sameer Khanna (Salman) and Raina (Kareena) goes through a rough patch, when he loses his job. It must be something important, since the local paper gives it front-page coverage. Odd that Mr Financial Hotshot’s wife works as a waitress, but let that pass.
Sameer, who has been sulking and growling all along, now practically dumps Mrs Khanna at the airport, telling her she must return to India, while he goes too to seek his fortune in Singapore. Luckily for Raina, Akash (Sohail Khan), a waiter at the airport café falls in love with her, and goes all out to help her. Her friends get her a job as a salesgirl in the airport store also run by an Indian (Bappi Lahiri) and a swanky apartment. She is, of course, always togged out in perfect outfits and accessories; emotional distress does no damage to her perfect make-up and perfect hair.
At some point her work permit runs out, and the solution she is given, is to apply for marriage with Akash. The Australian authorities are deemed too dumb to check on her previous marital status. Then Sameer returns, Akash makes some half-hearted attempts to break up the marriage… the film is neither serious, nor comic, and not even close to examining the problems of modern-day marriage or the nature of love.
Raina comes across as ditzy, Sameer grumpy, Akash buffoonish (but the producer of the film can at least get others to call him handsome a few times!) and the friends around then, are just noisy props. Preity Zinta appears for a really bad ‘item’ number. There is silly reason why Akash runs around Raina calling her Mrs Khanna, anyone who sits through the film will find out, and also get to see the ‘guest’ star in the end. But, watch at your own risk.
Friday, October 09, 2009
Acid Factory
Acid Factory
It isn’t... but it should be the prime reason for making a film, that a filmmaker has a story he badly wants to tell cinematically. Obviously this doesn’t work for Sanjay Gupta and the directors of his factory. Their formula is to take some Hollywood or obscure Korean film, and pass off the idea and screenplay as their own.
The latest, Acid Factory, by Suparn Verma, is a particularly hopeless case, since the film it is copied from, called Unknown is hardly a masterpiece. Then, there is the criminal waste of money, carting a whole unit to South Africa to shoot in an isolated factory, when there are enough such derelict spots all over India; and if cars have to be needlessly blown up, it can be done just as well here.
Then, in its quest to be cool—which means everyone wears black and walks in slow motion at least once—the film goes back and forth in time. How are those who cannot read English, to know that the story has gone “five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier,” and so on…
In brief, the film is about a group of men (Fardeen Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea) who find themselves locked in an acid factory in the middle of nowhere; later a woman turns up (Dia Mirza) in a backless catsuit. Due to a gas leak, they all suffer from memory loss. A phone call from a man called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan), gives them a clue that two of them are to be killed. How is it that the factory got locked from the outside, and how come none of them has a scrap of identifying paper (wallet, credit card) on them or even a cell phone, is not explained. But they are all in black suits and leather, one of them (Dino) has a hat clamped on his curls.
In the outside world, Kaizer is organizing the ransom collection for a kidnapped man, as his wife (Neha Bajpai) and a cop (Gulshan Grover) try to nab him. Gradually, the memories of the men and woman return and they figure out who is doing what to whom… but the audience couldn’t care less. Even the mandatory night club pole dance, elicits bored yawns; and that sudden smooch between Irrfan and Dia, gets a giggle or two—because it is done with such a lack of passion.
Even though it’s slickly shot and only 95 minutes long, it’s a chore to sit through Acid Factory, watching a bunch of (mostly) dud actors.
It isn’t... but it should be the prime reason for making a film, that a filmmaker has a story he badly wants to tell cinematically. Obviously this doesn’t work for Sanjay Gupta and the directors of his factory. Their formula is to take some Hollywood or obscure Korean film, and pass off the idea and screenplay as their own.
The latest, Acid Factory, by Suparn Verma, is a particularly hopeless case, since the film it is copied from, called Unknown is hardly a masterpiece. Then, there is the criminal waste of money, carting a whole unit to South Africa to shoot in an isolated factory, when there are enough such derelict spots all over India; and if cars have to be needlessly blown up, it can be done just as well here.
Then, in its quest to be cool—which means everyone wears black and walks in slow motion at least once—the film goes back and forth in time. How are those who cannot read English, to know that the story has gone “five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier,” and so on…
In brief, the film is about a group of men (Fardeen Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea) who find themselves locked in an acid factory in the middle of nowhere; later a woman turns up (Dia Mirza) in a backless catsuit. Due to a gas leak, they all suffer from memory loss. A phone call from a man called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan), gives them a clue that two of them are to be killed. How is it that the factory got locked from the outside, and how come none of them has a scrap of identifying paper (wallet, credit card) on them or even a cell phone, is not explained. But they are all in black suits and leather, one of them (Dino) has a hat clamped on his curls.
In the outside world, Kaizer is organizing the ransom collection for a kidnapped man, as his wife (Neha Bajpai) and a cop (Gulshan Grover) try to nab him. Gradually, the memories of the men and woman return and they figure out who is doing what to whom… but the audience couldn’t care less. Even the mandatory night club pole dance, elicits bored yawns; and that sudden smooch between Irrfan and Dia, gets a giggle or two—because it is done with such a lack of passion.
Even though it’s slickly shot and only 95 minutes long, it’s a chore to sit through Acid Factory, watching a bunch of (mostly) dud actors.
Saturday, October 03, 2009
WUP & DKD
Wake Up Sid
Wake Up Sid is a privileged young man’s idea of the problems of another privileged young man. Which could be nothing more serious than having your credit card cancelled and starving for one day because you can’t even cook an egg.
In spirit, it is close to Dil Chahta Hai and Bachna Aye Haseenon, where you know, nothing bad or really traumatic will happen to the leading man Sid, who can best be described as “cute” and that is a compliment. Ayan Mukerji comes from the family tree that includes dozens of film luminaries, so filmmaking was a rather obvious option... and obviously, he would make a film about a character that he would know best, which is goofy, aimless Siddharth (Ranbir Kapoor), with no goal in life except spending his father’s money.
Which is not to take away from young Mukerji’s happy, sunny, romantic comedy. It is a sweet chick flick, only made by a lad… no issues there.
Sid is appalled by the thought of working in his father’s bathroom fittings empire, but no problems flashing the credit card paid for by dad. After he fails in college, and is questioned by his parents (Anupam Kher-Supriya Pathak), he leaves home in a huff. Strangely, for a good-looking rich kid, he seems to have just two equally spaced out friends. So when evicted from dad’s bungalow, he lands up at the home of aspiring writer Aisa (Konkana SenSharma) he has recently befriended, and she takes him in without batting an eyelid. It is already established that she is older, she won’t sleep with him, and the thought hasn’t even occurred to him.
Poor little rich kid suffers no real deprivation or heartache… but he gets a glamorous job, learns to cook, clean and hand wash clothes. The film starts moving slowly towards the inevitable climax, and if you hope it will even glance at (forget an in-depth look) at urban life, aspirations of young people, independence, love, sex, friendship, loneliness, generation gap…forget it.
The film coasts along on the very endearing personality of Ranbir Kapoor, who is so nice and squeaky clean, that his selfishness and immaturity seem like harmless quirks. He invests his whole self into the film, and Konkona SenSharma brings a freshness and enthusiasm into slightly sketchy role. Their chemistry works fine, and the film is a pleasant watch. A bit like instant noodles though – looks good, tastes good… no nutrition.
Do Knot Disturb
Do Knot Disturb is what one could call a typical David Dhawan film, which means it is plagiarized (French comedy The Valet, plus Ray Cooney farce Out of Order), has a few genuine laughs interspersed between acres of nonsensical goings on… and all the actors hamming away in full volume.
It’s a pity that a director, who seems to hit more than he misses, is not getting tired of his own fading formula filmmaking. Okay, so a few single screen cinemas get the taporis chuckling at some crude gags, but is that any kind of creative high to aim for after all these years?
A totally out of shape and as badly costumed as usual Govinda, plays Raj, married to Kiran, a rich woman (Sushmita Sen—huge) who controls the finances, while frolicking with Dolly (Lara Dutta) on the side. The soundtrack screams “Inamorata” every time she walks into the frame—whatever that is supposed to signify.
The wife sees a picture of Raj and Dolly and sends a detective (Ranvir Shorey) to keep an eye on them. But a waiter Govardhan (Riteish Deshmukh) had accidentally been included in the photo, so Raj hires him to pretend to be Dolly’s lover, to throw Kiran off the scent. Dolly’s rejected suitor Diesel (Sohail Khan) and Govardhan’s loony mother (Himani Shivpuri) provide the background noise.
Scene shifts to a hotel where Raj and Dolly have a rendezvous, the snooping detective has a window falling over his head and a lot of time is expended carting the corpse around, with a curious waiter (Rajpal Yadav) jumping in and out.
Needless to say the film tends to go on forever, and seems even more painful when Govinda and Ritiesh inexplicably start yelling in falsetto for no reason at all.
Even if you walk in with zero expectations, you might be disappointed. On the other hand, it is a David Dhawan film, what were you expecting anyway?
Wake Up Sid is a privileged young man’s idea of the problems of another privileged young man. Which could be nothing more serious than having your credit card cancelled and starving for one day because you can’t even cook an egg.
In spirit, it is close to Dil Chahta Hai and Bachna Aye Haseenon, where you know, nothing bad or really traumatic will happen to the leading man Sid, who can best be described as “cute” and that is a compliment. Ayan Mukerji comes from the family tree that includes dozens of film luminaries, so filmmaking was a rather obvious option... and obviously, he would make a film about a character that he would know best, which is goofy, aimless Siddharth (Ranbir Kapoor), with no goal in life except spending his father’s money.
Which is not to take away from young Mukerji’s happy, sunny, romantic comedy. It is a sweet chick flick, only made by a lad… no issues there.
Sid is appalled by the thought of working in his father’s bathroom fittings empire, but no problems flashing the credit card paid for by dad. After he fails in college, and is questioned by his parents (Anupam Kher-Supriya Pathak), he leaves home in a huff. Strangely, for a good-looking rich kid, he seems to have just two equally spaced out friends. So when evicted from dad’s bungalow, he lands up at the home of aspiring writer Aisa (Konkana SenSharma) he has recently befriended, and she takes him in without batting an eyelid. It is already established that she is older, she won’t sleep with him, and the thought hasn’t even occurred to him.
Poor little rich kid suffers no real deprivation or heartache… but he gets a glamorous job, learns to cook, clean and hand wash clothes. The film starts moving slowly towards the inevitable climax, and if you hope it will even glance at (forget an in-depth look) at urban life, aspirations of young people, independence, love, sex, friendship, loneliness, generation gap…forget it.
The film coasts along on the very endearing personality of Ranbir Kapoor, who is so nice and squeaky clean, that his selfishness and immaturity seem like harmless quirks. He invests his whole self into the film, and Konkona SenSharma brings a freshness and enthusiasm into slightly sketchy role. Their chemistry works fine, and the film is a pleasant watch. A bit like instant noodles though – looks good, tastes good… no nutrition.
Do Knot Disturb
Do Knot Disturb is what one could call a typical David Dhawan film, which means it is plagiarized (French comedy The Valet, plus Ray Cooney farce Out of Order), has a few genuine laughs interspersed between acres of nonsensical goings on… and all the actors hamming away in full volume.
It’s a pity that a director, who seems to hit more than he misses, is not getting tired of his own fading formula filmmaking. Okay, so a few single screen cinemas get the taporis chuckling at some crude gags, but is that any kind of creative high to aim for after all these years?
A totally out of shape and as badly costumed as usual Govinda, plays Raj, married to Kiran, a rich woman (Sushmita Sen—huge) who controls the finances, while frolicking with Dolly (Lara Dutta) on the side. The soundtrack screams “Inamorata” every time she walks into the frame—whatever that is supposed to signify.
The wife sees a picture of Raj and Dolly and sends a detective (Ranvir Shorey) to keep an eye on them. But a waiter Govardhan (Riteish Deshmukh) had accidentally been included in the photo, so Raj hires him to pretend to be Dolly’s lover, to throw Kiran off the scent. Dolly’s rejected suitor Diesel (Sohail Khan) and Govardhan’s loony mother (Himani Shivpuri) provide the background noise.
Scene shifts to a hotel where Raj and Dolly have a rendezvous, the snooping detective has a window falling over his head and a lot of time is expended carting the corpse around, with a curious waiter (Rajpal Yadav) jumping in and out.
Needless to say the film tends to go on forever, and seems even more painful when Govinda and Ritiesh inexplicably start yelling in falsetto for no reason at all.
Even if you walk in with zero expectations, you might be disappointed. On the other hand, it is a David Dhawan film, what were you expecting anyway?
