Saturday, January 10, 2004
Paisa Vasool
Paisa Vasool
A chick flick that doesn’t flinch while admitting the ages of the two leading ladies ages (30), or past (one a divorcee, one a gold-digger); a chick flick that actually has the women doing all the work, including the scheming and fighting; a chick flick in which the women don’t weep.
Alas, the rah-rahs for Paisa Vasool produced by Manisha Koirala and directed by Srinivas Bhashyam have to stop here. The film flicked from High Heels and Low Lifes tries hard to be hip and clever, but falls flatter than a ruined soufflé.
Maria (Manisha Koirala), the nervous, bespectacled baker, has, for some unexplained reason, inherited a bungalow in Mumbai and a bakery from stranger. Builders eye the property and keep trying to evict Maria.
Baby (Sushmita Sen) failed actress resigned to be a dancer in films, meets Maria in a pub (what was Maria doing there alone anyway?). Between one thing and another, Maria invites Baby to live with her, over the protests of her crippled neighbour Johnny (Sushant Singh). Baby’s irrepressible sense of mischief and desire for quick money get the two girls embroiled in a blackmail game involving a booty of stolen diamonds.
Their innocent prank trigged off by a cross connection leads to a trail of dreaths, and a brush with Biryani, the kinky henchman (Makrand Despande) of a gangster (Tinnu Anand).
After the two main characters are introduced, the film moves in a zig-zagging, directionless way, littered with as many flat jokes as somewhat comic gags (a newbie hitman with an empty gun, or Baby zapping Biryani with hooker lingo).
Sushmita Sen quickly takes charge with a full-of-beans performance, and Manisha Koirala is content to be the sidekick. Too bad the film doesn’t work, because it will just makes industry folk reiterate, we-told-you chick flicks don’t work in India. Fact is, even if the two protagonists had been played by men, the film would be equally awful.
A chick flick that doesn’t flinch while admitting the ages of the two leading ladies ages (30), or past (one a divorcee, one a gold-digger); a chick flick that actually has the women doing all the work, including the scheming and fighting; a chick flick in which the women don’t weep.
Alas, the rah-rahs for Paisa Vasool produced by Manisha Koirala and directed by Srinivas Bhashyam have to stop here. The film flicked from High Heels and Low Lifes tries hard to be hip and clever, but falls flatter than a ruined soufflé.
Maria (Manisha Koirala), the nervous, bespectacled baker, has, for some unexplained reason, inherited a bungalow in Mumbai and a bakery from stranger. Builders eye the property and keep trying to evict Maria.
Baby (Sushmita Sen) failed actress resigned to be a dancer in films, meets Maria in a pub (what was Maria doing there alone anyway?). Between one thing and another, Maria invites Baby to live with her, over the protests of her crippled neighbour Johnny (Sushant Singh). Baby’s irrepressible sense of mischief and desire for quick money get the two girls embroiled in a blackmail game involving a booty of stolen diamonds.
Their innocent prank trigged off by a cross connection leads to a trail of dreaths, and a brush with Biryani, the kinky henchman (Makrand Despande) of a gangster (Tinnu Anand).
After the two main characters are introduced, the film moves in a zig-zagging, directionless way, littered with as many flat jokes as somewhat comic gags (a newbie hitman with an empty gun, or Baby zapping Biryani with hooker lingo).
Sushmita Sen quickly takes charge with a full-of-beans performance, and Manisha Koirala is content to be the sidekick. Too bad the film doesn’t work, because it will just makes industry folk reiterate, we-told-you chick flicks don’t work in India. Fact is, even if the two protagonists had been played by men, the film would be equally awful.
Labels: Cinemaah
Plan
Plan
Hriday Shetty’s debut film Plan is a ‘formula’ dude film. Serious male bonding, lots of action, quite a bit of skin, and street lingo peppered with sexual innuendo. The height of cool? A gangster who wears “Armani suits, Gucci shoes, Rolex watch” with spiked hair, soul beard and sexy moll.
This is the Mumbai that welcomes four youngish men who have left their dreary small town lives to look for excitement. They meet on the train and immediately become best buddies.
A friend of Lucky’s (Sanjay Suri) is a pimp, who knows all the right strings to pull. The four guys end up sharing large digs in Mumbai. Omi (Rohit Roy) wants to have fun, Jai (Bikram Saluja) wants to look for his girlfriend and Bobby (Dino Morea) wants to be a star.
When the money runs out and they build up a huge gambling debt, the four kidnap Moosa (Sanjay Dutt), thinking he is a rich wastrel. Moosa turns out to be a dreaded gangster and now they are in deeper trouble.
However, Moosa has an enemy in Sultan (Mahesh Manjrekar), and he needs the help of the four failed kidnappers. This far the film is fine – moves fast, has lots of light moments and no air of doom like the recent Supari, in which the heroes found themselves in a similar predicament. After the revelation of Moosa’s identity, this Suicide Kings-inspired film loses momentum.
Gratuitous ‘emotional’ tracks seep in, the gang war sequences are too déjà vu and the buddy-buddy thing gets too heavy-handed. After all the fun the dudes have had, the moralistic end looks fake too.
Sanjay Dutt could now play a ‘bhai’ in his sleep, in Plan he has made an attempt to look different. The four fellas give good performances—Dino Morea is shaping up into an actor to watch, and Sanjay Suri has presence too. The women are just ‘item’ numbers, so they can be ignored.
For a first film, Plan is not at all bad. Hriday Shetty handles action with style and comes up with an unpretentious entertainer. It’s just that we have had an overdose of ‘bhais’ and could do with some better ideas for action films.
Hriday Shetty’s debut film Plan is a ‘formula’ dude film. Serious male bonding, lots of action, quite a bit of skin, and street lingo peppered with sexual innuendo. The height of cool? A gangster who wears “Armani suits, Gucci shoes, Rolex watch” with spiked hair, soul beard and sexy moll.
This is the Mumbai that welcomes four youngish men who have left their dreary small town lives to look for excitement. They meet on the train and immediately become best buddies.
A friend of Lucky’s (Sanjay Suri) is a pimp, who knows all the right strings to pull. The four guys end up sharing large digs in Mumbai. Omi (Rohit Roy) wants to have fun, Jai (Bikram Saluja) wants to look for his girlfriend and Bobby (Dino Morea) wants to be a star.
When the money runs out and they build up a huge gambling debt, the four kidnap Moosa (Sanjay Dutt), thinking he is a rich wastrel. Moosa turns out to be a dreaded gangster and now they are in deeper trouble.
However, Moosa has an enemy in Sultan (Mahesh Manjrekar), and he needs the help of the four failed kidnappers. This far the film is fine – moves fast, has lots of light moments and no air of doom like the recent Supari, in which the heroes found themselves in a similar predicament. After the revelation of Moosa’s identity, this Suicide Kings-inspired film loses momentum.
Gratuitous ‘emotional’ tracks seep in, the gang war sequences are too déjà vu and the buddy-buddy thing gets too heavy-handed. After all the fun the dudes have had, the moralistic end looks fake too.
Sanjay Dutt could now play a ‘bhai’ in his sleep, in Plan he has made an attempt to look different. The four fellas give good performances—Dino Morea is shaping up into an actor to watch, and Sanjay Suri has presence too. The women are just ‘item’ numbers, so they can be ignored.
For a first film, Plan is not at all bad. Hriday Shetty handles action with style and comes up with an unpretentious entertainer. It’s just that we have had an overdose of ‘bhais’ and could do with some better ideas for action films.
Labels: Cinemaah
Chameli
Chameli
The Mumbai pavement looks like a party hall. And the cheap hooker who solicits there – Chameli (Kareena Kapoor)—looks like she is taking part in a fancy dress competition. The plot is old, the screenplay contrived. The viewer gets an airbrushed version of Mumbai’s underbelly by night.
However, with its multiple flaws, Sudhir Mishra’s (he completed it after original director Anant Balani passed away) Chameli can be sat through because of the performances and the unexpected chemistry between the two lead actors—Rahul Bose playing Aman Kapoor a starchy investment banker and Kareena Kapoor playing the streetwalker.
They end up spending time together under the arches of a set passing off as a part of Mumbai’s Fort area. The hooker teasing, taunting and coquettish, the banker recoiling in disgust. Then, some kind of empathy builds up, and he ends up helping her—the circumstances and motive sounding false even to himself as he tries to explain first to his friend and then to a cop how he ended up in a police station with Chameli. “Which world do you live in?” Chameli asks Aman at one point, looking both amused and envious that no ugliness seems to have touched his cushy life.
At first Chameli is painted in the typical colours of filmi hooker—garishly-dressed, foul-mouthed, trying hard to shock. She cooks up horrendous stories about her initiation into prostitution, then laughs because they are designed to get tips from drunken clients. The real story she says, finally, he wouldn’t be able to stomach. Later, along with the bright red lipstick, the pose fades and she emerges as a woman who has other dimensions to her.
As Chameli’s pimp and his hired thugs come on to the scene, the episodes with the excessively friendly and compliant cop (Yashpal Sharma in a terrific cameo) get too far-fetched. But even as the disbelief sets in, there are little touches like Chameli commiserating with a female cop with toothache.
The short running time, the fabulous camerawork (Aseem Bajaj) and of course Kareena Kapoor, over the top, but touchingly eager to get her soft, white, princess hands into the muck, make Chameli worth a watch. Rahul Bose is perfectly cast as the banker and plays him without look-at-me gimmicks.
The Mumbai pavement looks like a party hall. And the cheap hooker who solicits there – Chameli (Kareena Kapoor)—looks like she is taking part in a fancy dress competition. The plot is old, the screenplay contrived. The viewer gets an airbrushed version of Mumbai’s underbelly by night.
However, with its multiple flaws, Sudhir Mishra’s (he completed it after original director Anant Balani passed away) Chameli can be sat through because of the performances and the unexpected chemistry between the two lead actors—Rahul Bose playing Aman Kapoor a starchy investment banker and Kareena Kapoor playing the streetwalker.
They end up spending time together under the arches of a set passing off as a part of Mumbai’s Fort area. The hooker teasing, taunting and coquettish, the banker recoiling in disgust. Then, some kind of empathy builds up, and he ends up helping her—the circumstances and motive sounding false even to himself as he tries to explain first to his friend and then to a cop how he ended up in a police station with Chameli. “Which world do you live in?” Chameli asks Aman at one point, looking both amused and envious that no ugliness seems to have touched his cushy life.
At first Chameli is painted in the typical colours of filmi hooker—garishly-dressed, foul-mouthed, trying hard to shock. She cooks up horrendous stories about her initiation into prostitution, then laughs because they are designed to get tips from drunken clients. The real story she says, finally, he wouldn’t be able to stomach. Later, along with the bright red lipstick, the pose fades and she emerges as a woman who has other dimensions to her.
As Chameli’s pimp and his hired thugs come on to the scene, the episodes with the excessively friendly and compliant cop (Yashpal Sharma in a terrific cameo) get too far-fetched. But even as the disbelief sets in, there are little touches like Chameli commiserating with a female cop with toothache.
The short running time, the fabulous camerawork (Aseem Bajaj) and of course Kareena Kapoor, over the top, but touchingly eager to get her soft, white, princess hands into the muck, make Chameli worth a watch. Rahul Bose is perfectly cast as the banker and plays him without look-at-me gimmicks.
Labels: Cinemaah
