Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Kool and MAHH
Kya Kool Hain Hum
No matter how ‘cool’ one may be, and how tolerant of vulgarity in the name of freedom of speech, Sangeeth Sivan’s Kya Kool Hai Hum would count as one of the most disgustingly crass films of all time.
So okay, a comedy plot need not make sense if the action is brisk and the gags inventive, but do the writers have to descend to the gutters to get a few laugh? Doesn’t good taste count for anything? Maybe not with the ‘tapori’ audience, which patronized Masti. But this one is far filthier and completely junks family audiences and those with a sophisticated sense of humour.
Rahul (Tusshar Kapoor) and Karan (Riteish Deshmukh) are fashion designers, so impoverished that they can’t pay their rent, so they have to borrow clothes, gatecrash parties to eat and climb scaffolding to enter their flat.
By a misunderstanding to idiotic to relate, Rahul is mistaken for a serial killer, and a psychologist Dr Screwvala (Anupam Kher), places the violent Inspector Urmila Martodkar (Ishaa Koppikar) in his house, to try to catch him red handed. By another equally moronic misunderstanding, Karan falls in love with a transvestite (Bobby Darling), while a psychiatrist (Neha Dhupia) tries to cure him. More confusion prevails as Dr Scewvala’s wife (Shoma Anand) thinks her husband is cheating on her.
This could also have made for a frothy, innocent comedy, were it not for the crude dialogue and desperate gags like Dr Screwvala basing his treatment on coloured balls, which is the excuse to use the word constantly to get a few titters. All women in the film, even the walk-on types and the chorus dancers, go about half naked so that the camera can peer down their blouses and up their skirts.
Even if these pathetic attempts at humour are excused (except for a couple of really funny bits like a funeral pundit trying to conduct a marriage and mixing up mantras), what about the inordinate length and terrible performances? It looks as if the director relinquished control at some point, and let everyone do their own thing. Still, some dignity is expected from actors like Anupam Kher.
Main Aisa Hi Hoon
The most offensive thing about Harry Baweja’s I Am Sam rip-off is the theory that rich, bright, intelligent women can’t be happy, and that they need a retarded man to teach them the value of love.
While you are digesting this horrible piece of MCP crap, the rest of Main Aisa Ho Hoon is unfolding in its sacchariny, barf-worthy way. Baweja shamelessly lifts the not-so-great Hollywood original down to the hand-held camera, the coffee shop where the protagonist works, his retarded friends, reclusive neighbour (Lillete Dubey), kindly employer (Anjan Shrivastav) and the works. And he claims to have written and directed it, while Bhavani Iyer takes screenplay credit!
The film tries to tug furiously at heartstrings as it tries to establish that a man with the brain of a seven-year-old is capable of raising a child, because he loves her.
Neel (Ajay Devgan, trying so hard, it’s painful to watch), has a kid by a vagrant hippie Maya (Esha Deol, better than usual), who is actually a poor little rich girl whose daddy in London doesn’t care about her. This is Baweja’s own little invention which doesn’t work, because it doesn’t give a credible reason for why a girl who is ostensibly happy with Neel and his surrogate family, would leave and commit suicide.
When the child Gungun (Rucha Vaidya) ) is seven, her crusty grandfather (Anupam Kher) arrives, lawyer (Vikram Gokhale) in tow, to demand custody of the child. Neel pesters busy lawyer Neeti (Sushmita Sen, attempting a Michelle Pfeiffer and getting nowhere) into taking the case. In the course of the tedious court battle, Neeti realizes that she is a bad mother because she is too busy to play games with her son, and that she would perhaps be better off waiting tables in a coffee shop like Neel, her ideal of love. He is the kind of guy for whom the whole of Shimla turns up holding placards-- which would have been believable if one saw sympathy towards mentally challenged people all around us.
Main Aisa Hi Hoon has all the failings of the original plus plenty of its own. It is not enough to take a cute kid, several adults trying hard to be cuter and create a supposedly wholesome, utterly fake world.
No matter how ‘cool’ one may be, and how tolerant of vulgarity in the name of freedom of speech, Sangeeth Sivan’s Kya Kool Hai Hum would count as one of the most disgustingly crass films of all time.
So okay, a comedy plot need not make sense if the action is brisk and the gags inventive, but do the writers have to descend to the gutters to get a few laugh? Doesn’t good taste count for anything? Maybe not with the ‘tapori’ audience, which patronized Masti. But this one is far filthier and completely junks family audiences and those with a sophisticated sense of humour.
Rahul (Tusshar Kapoor) and Karan (Riteish Deshmukh) are fashion designers, so impoverished that they can’t pay their rent, so they have to borrow clothes, gatecrash parties to eat and climb scaffolding to enter their flat.
By a misunderstanding to idiotic to relate, Rahul is mistaken for a serial killer, and a psychologist Dr Screwvala (Anupam Kher), places the violent Inspector Urmila Martodkar (Ishaa Koppikar) in his house, to try to catch him red handed. By another equally moronic misunderstanding, Karan falls in love with a transvestite (Bobby Darling), while a psychiatrist (Neha Dhupia) tries to cure him. More confusion prevails as Dr Scewvala’s wife (Shoma Anand) thinks her husband is cheating on her.
This could also have made for a frothy, innocent comedy, were it not for the crude dialogue and desperate gags like Dr Screwvala basing his treatment on coloured balls, which is the excuse to use the word constantly to get a few titters. All women in the film, even the walk-on types and the chorus dancers, go about half naked so that the camera can peer down their blouses and up their skirts.
Even if these pathetic attempts at humour are excused (except for a couple of really funny bits like a funeral pundit trying to conduct a marriage and mixing up mantras), what about the inordinate length and terrible performances? It looks as if the director relinquished control at some point, and let everyone do their own thing. Still, some dignity is expected from actors like Anupam Kher.
Main Aisa Hi Hoon
The most offensive thing about Harry Baweja’s I Am Sam rip-off is the theory that rich, bright, intelligent women can’t be happy, and that they need a retarded man to teach them the value of love.
While you are digesting this horrible piece of MCP crap, the rest of Main Aisa Ho Hoon is unfolding in its sacchariny, barf-worthy way. Baweja shamelessly lifts the not-so-great Hollywood original down to the hand-held camera, the coffee shop where the protagonist works, his retarded friends, reclusive neighbour (Lillete Dubey), kindly employer (Anjan Shrivastav) and the works. And he claims to have written and directed it, while Bhavani Iyer takes screenplay credit!
The film tries to tug furiously at heartstrings as it tries to establish that a man with the brain of a seven-year-old is capable of raising a child, because he loves her.
Neel (Ajay Devgan, trying so hard, it’s painful to watch), has a kid by a vagrant hippie Maya (Esha Deol, better than usual), who is actually a poor little rich girl whose daddy in London doesn’t care about her. This is Baweja’s own little invention which doesn’t work, because it doesn’t give a credible reason for why a girl who is ostensibly happy with Neel and his surrogate family, would leave and commit suicide.
When the child Gungun (Rucha Vaidya) ) is seven, her crusty grandfather (Anupam Kher) arrives, lawyer (Vikram Gokhale) in tow, to demand custody of the child. Neel pesters busy lawyer Neeti (Sushmita Sen, attempting a Michelle Pfeiffer and getting nowhere) into taking the case. In the course of the tedious court battle, Neeti realizes that she is a bad mother because she is too busy to play games with her son, and that she would perhaps be better off waiting tables in a coffee shop like Neel, her ideal of love. He is the kind of guy for whom the whole of Shimla turns up holding placards-- which would have been believable if one saw sympathy towards mentally challenged people all around us.
Main Aisa Hi Hoon has all the failings of the original plus plenty of its own. It is not enough to take a cute kid, several adults trying hard to be cuter and create a supposedly wholesome, utterly fake world.
Labels: Cinemaah
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