Saturday, March 31, 2007
3 This Week
Khanna & Iyer
It would takes a remarkable lack of imagination to even want to do a cut-rate rehash of Jungle.
In Hemant Hegde’s Khanna & Iyer a South Indian girl Nandini (Aditi Sharma) elopes with a Punjabi boy Aryan (Sarvar Ahuja) and they dive straight into Lal Dora Jungle (really!)
The fathers MLA Iyer (Mushtaq Khan) and builder Khanna (Manoj Pahwa) accuse each other’s kids of having kidnapped theirs and exchange insults of the “you idli Madrassi”, “Aye you Punjabi” variety. (Javed Siddiqi is credited with the dialogue-- unbelievable).
While this is on there is a CD that goes missing – it contains proof of a link between a minister and a terrorist called Donga (Yashpal Sharma). The CD finds itself into Nandini’s bag, which gets stolen and that’s all there is to it—why have a sub-plot that leads nowhere?
The supposedly vast jungle filled with wild animals looks like Film City, and there are no animals to be seen, except a snake and lizard or two draped over the foliage. The eloping couple carry small bags but several costume changes – the girl is actually seen wearing a frilly white skirt and a crochet shrug, hardly the kind of clothes for jungle locations.
The two are lost in forest, but cops, terrorists, tribals, a forest guard and two sets parents with one side-kick each keep running into each other as at a Page 3 party. The fathers even stop at a disco village to dance with tribal girls who emerge from lord knows where and vanish after the song (“Dil garden garden ho gaya”—really) is over.
Outdated, outlandish and ridiculous, Khanna & Iyer is the kind of film that gives small budget cinema a bad name. And if the lead pair has been discovered at some Cinestars Ki Khoj contest, then all you can say is they haven’t khoj-ed hard enough!
Delhii Heights
They spell the name of the Delhi (or Gurgaon?) building Delhii Heights. Not that the extra ‘i’ makes any difference to the loves of the residents of the building or to the quality of the film.
The film by Anand Kumar begins with a droning voiceover about Delhi (it could apply to any metro city, actually) before moving on to the building where most of the film is set. Abheer (Jimmy Shergill) and Suhana (Neha Dhupia) get married, then they sing a romantic song and then they bicker about ‘deals’ because they work for rival marketing companies.
Abheer has a bee in this golden streaked hair over everything from an innocent Holi dance with the flirt-next-door Bobby (Rohit Roy) to a contract that goes to Suhana’s company. Bobby’s bovine wife Saima (Simone Singh) puts up with his constant flirting. The building’s genial Sardar Timmy (Om Puri) minds everybody’s business. Then there’s a bunch of ‘lukkhas’ who hang around the building playing pranks.
It would tough to say what the film is about—there are two weddings, two almost-divorces, one big accident, one small accident, one arrest and no funerals. There’s a Holi song, a wedding song, a street song and a sad romantic song in which the film’s music director (Rabbi Shergill) appears like a ghost in white and the screen inexplicably bursts into giggle-inducing English sub-titles.
Why the extra half star then? Just for the film picking up a plausible urban phenomenon about two people who take their careers as seriously as their marriage.
Say Salaam India
Say Salaam India, like Hatrrick last week, must have been a quickie meant to cash in on cricket fever. The tagline ‘Let’s Bring the Cup Home’ turned out to be a joke, since the Indian team got evicted early from the World Cup.
The film written and directed by Subhash Kapoor is a formulaic underdog- winning-over-arrogant-rich-creeps saga with no surprises. Characters and situations are borrowed from Iqbal, Hip Hip Hurray and other such films.
Still, it’s worth a watch on TV if not the big screen, because of its sincerity and a fairly accurate portrayal of small town life. Students from the downmarket government school in Tejpur aspire to be part of the Under 16s cricket team. For this they have to battle not just the upper class boys from an elitist schools, but their own poverty and their sports teacher (Manoj Pahwa) who forces all the boys to wear langots and learn wrestling.
Hari Sadu (Sanjay Suri) is a gruff cricket coach who believes in hard work, and when he is thrown out of the rich kids’ school for making them slog, he comes to Tejpur to form his own team, and in 15 days trains them to be winners. His subplot includes a supportive wife (Sandhya Mridul) and spastic son.
Milind Soman walks in late into the movie as a smart coach who tests his spoilt students’ cricket knowledge by asking who is Brian Lara’s latest girlfriend! He also prefers to bribe the selectors and umpires instead of playing a straight game. Of course the Tejpur boys would whip the wealthy dudes, though the point of the film, repeated several times, is that most of today’s star cricketers are from small towns and underprivileged backgrounds.
Almost painfully earnest, the film has a few nice scenes with the Tejpur kids and some of the young actors are quite good. At least these boys bring the cup home—wishful thinking.
It would takes a remarkable lack of imagination to even want to do a cut-rate rehash of Jungle.
In Hemant Hegde’s Khanna & Iyer a South Indian girl Nandini (Aditi Sharma) elopes with a Punjabi boy Aryan (Sarvar Ahuja) and they dive straight into Lal Dora Jungle (really!)
The fathers MLA Iyer (Mushtaq Khan) and builder Khanna (Manoj Pahwa) accuse each other’s kids of having kidnapped theirs and exchange insults of the “you idli Madrassi”, “Aye you Punjabi” variety. (Javed Siddiqi is credited with the dialogue-- unbelievable).
While this is on there is a CD that goes missing – it contains proof of a link between a minister and a terrorist called Donga (Yashpal Sharma). The CD finds itself into Nandini’s bag, which gets stolen and that’s all there is to it—why have a sub-plot that leads nowhere?
The supposedly vast jungle filled with wild animals looks like Film City, and there are no animals to be seen, except a snake and lizard or two draped over the foliage. The eloping couple carry small bags but several costume changes – the girl is actually seen wearing a frilly white skirt and a crochet shrug, hardly the kind of clothes for jungle locations.
The two are lost in forest, but cops, terrorists, tribals, a forest guard and two sets parents with one side-kick each keep running into each other as at a Page 3 party. The fathers even stop at a disco village to dance with tribal girls who emerge from lord knows where and vanish after the song (“Dil garden garden ho gaya”—really) is over.
Outdated, outlandish and ridiculous, Khanna & Iyer is the kind of film that gives small budget cinema a bad name. And if the lead pair has been discovered at some Cinestars Ki Khoj contest, then all you can say is they haven’t khoj-ed hard enough!
Delhii Heights
They spell the name of the Delhi (or Gurgaon?) building Delhii Heights. Not that the extra ‘i’ makes any difference to the loves of the residents of the building or to the quality of the film.
The film by Anand Kumar begins with a droning voiceover about Delhi (it could apply to any metro city, actually) before moving on to the building where most of the film is set. Abheer (Jimmy Shergill) and Suhana (Neha Dhupia) get married, then they sing a romantic song and then they bicker about ‘deals’ because they work for rival marketing companies.
Abheer has a bee in this golden streaked hair over everything from an innocent Holi dance with the flirt-next-door Bobby (Rohit Roy) to a contract that goes to Suhana’s company. Bobby’s bovine wife Saima (Simone Singh) puts up with his constant flirting. The building’s genial Sardar Timmy (Om Puri) minds everybody’s business. Then there’s a bunch of ‘lukkhas’ who hang around the building playing pranks.
It would tough to say what the film is about—there are two weddings, two almost-divorces, one big accident, one small accident, one arrest and no funerals. There’s a Holi song, a wedding song, a street song and a sad romantic song in which the film’s music director (Rabbi Shergill) appears like a ghost in white and the screen inexplicably bursts into giggle-inducing English sub-titles.
Why the extra half star then? Just for the film picking up a plausible urban phenomenon about two people who take their careers as seriously as their marriage.
Say Salaam India
Say Salaam India, like Hatrrick last week, must have been a quickie meant to cash in on cricket fever. The tagline ‘Let’s Bring the Cup Home’ turned out to be a joke, since the Indian team got evicted early from the World Cup.
The film written and directed by Subhash Kapoor is a formulaic underdog- winning-over-arrogant-rich-creeps saga with no surprises. Characters and situations are borrowed from Iqbal, Hip Hip Hurray and other such films.
Still, it’s worth a watch on TV if not the big screen, because of its sincerity and a fairly accurate portrayal of small town life. Students from the downmarket government school in Tejpur aspire to be part of the Under 16s cricket team. For this they have to battle not just the upper class boys from an elitist schools, but their own poverty and their sports teacher (Manoj Pahwa) who forces all the boys to wear langots and learn wrestling.
Hari Sadu (Sanjay Suri) is a gruff cricket coach who believes in hard work, and when he is thrown out of the rich kids’ school for making them slog, he comes to Tejpur to form his own team, and in 15 days trains them to be winners. His subplot includes a supportive wife (Sandhya Mridul) and spastic son.
Milind Soman walks in late into the movie as a smart coach who tests his spoilt students’ cricket knowledge by asking who is Brian Lara’s latest girlfriend! He also prefers to bribe the selectors and umpires instead of playing a straight game. Of course the Tejpur boys would whip the wealthy dudes, though the point of the film, repeated several times, is that most of today’s star cricketers are from small towns and underprivileged backgrounds.
Almost painfully earnest, the film has a few nice scenes with the Tejpur kids and some of the young actors are quite good. At least these boys bring the cup home—wishful thinking.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Namastey London
If one took Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s Namastey London at all seriously (and there’s no reason one should), it could be accused of racism, sexism, parochialism, patriarchy and what not.
Even in an increasingly globalised world, you still see the old stereotypes—white people are debauched drunks, who marry and divorce for a lark; Indian people are all good souls, family-oriented and loving. Of course, if an Asian guy gets a while girlfriend it’s ok, but if an Indian girl wants to marry her white boyfriend, it’s not acceptable. If an Indian woman is unsophisticated the husband will feel embarrassed by her, but he doesn’t mind his daughter marrying a coarse farmer. Ultimately women are happiest in the heart of rural joint family, dressed in a salwar kameez and churning butter!
Still, if this ancient, creaking-at-the joints East vs West story was told with a smidgen of good grace and humour, it might have been palatable. As it is now, it keeps one gagging just like the British babe does at the smell of ‘asli’ ghee. There’s just one funny bit in the film, when the girl is going around meeting Indian men for ‘matrimonial purposes’—one of them says everything thrice, because he sees too many Balaji soaps.
Jasmeet or Jazz (Katrina Kaif) is fed-up of being forced to meet prospective Indian grooms. She gets rid of the latest (Riteish Deshmukh) by telling him the usual yarns about drinking and serial boyfriends. She wants to marry her boss (what does she do except flounce in and out of what looks like an office!) who has the unlikely name Charlie Brown (Clive Standon) and the reputation of having married and divorced thrice.
Naturally, such a man—rich and manor-born though he may be—is no match for Ajrun Singh (Akshay Kumar) from a Punjab ‘pind’, who displays no greater quality then being able to put in huge amounts of booze. When Jazz’s dad (Rishi Kapoor) sees him, he is indulging in what is called ‘eve-teasing’, still he thinks Arjun is a “good boy” and forces Jazz to marry him.
Jazz’s Pakistani buddy Imran (Upen Patel), who has been thrown out by his parents for daring to move in with a white girl, tells her to bring the guy to the UK, where an Indian unregistered marriage will not be valid. Arjun is heart-broken, but determined to win over Jazz from her ‘gora’ suitor, because he has Indian values on his side—though what they might be, except yelling ‘pairi pauna’ to a lot of elders, Shah doesn’t say. Manoj Kumar sang of India’s glories in Purab Aur Pachhim, Akshay Kumar rattles off statistics to a sneering Brit who talks of the Indian rope trick.
The film ends up falling in the watch-and-forget category. This must be Akshay Kumar’s weakest role in a long time— one can’t see him staring moodily at the sky instead of taking on the whole British army. He does win a rugby match, if that counts! Katrina Kaif is lovely and sprightly, but surely in 2007 leading ladies could be allowed a brain?
Even in an increasingly globalised world, you still see the old stereotypes—white people are debauched drunks, who marry and divorce for a lark; Indian people are all good souls, family-oriented and loving. Of course, if an Asian guy gets a while girlfriend it’s ok, but if an Indian girl wants to marry her white boyfriend, it’s not acceptable. If an Indian woman is unsophisticated the husband will feel embarrassed by her, but he doesn’t mind his daughter marrying a coarse farmer. Ultimately women are happiest in the heart of rural joint family, dressed in a salwar kameez and churning butter!
Still, if this ancient, creaking-at-the joints East vs West story was told with a smidgen of good grace and humour, it might have been palatable. As it is now, it keeps one gagging just like the British babe does at the smell of ‘asli’ ghee. There’s just one funny bit in the film, when the girl is going around meeting Indian men for ‘matrimonial purposes’—one of them says everything thrice, because he sees too many Balaji soaps.
Jasmeet or Jazz (Katrina Kaif) is fed-up of being forced to meet prospective Indian grooms. She gets rid of the latest (Riteish Deshmukh) by telling him the usual yarns about drinking and serial boyfriends. She wants to marry her boss (what does she do except flounce in and out of what looks like an office!) who has the unlikely name Charlie Brown (Clive Standon) and the reputation of having married and divorced thrice.
Naturally, such a man—rich and manor-born though he may be—is no match for Ajrun Singh (Akshay Kumar) from a Punjab ‘pind’, who displays no greater quality then being able to put in huge amounts of booze. When Jazz’s dad (Rishi Kapoor) sees him, he is indulging in what is called ‘eve-teasing’, still he thinks Arjun is a “good boy” and forces Jazz to marry him.
Jazz’s Pakistani buddy Imran (Upen Patel), who has been thrown out by his parents for daring to move in with a white girl, tells her to bring the guy to the UK, where an Indian unregistered marriage will not be valid. Arjun is heart-broken, but determined to win over Jazz from her ‘gora’ suitor, because he has Indian values on his side—though what they might be, except yelling ‘pairi pauna’ to a lot of elders, Shah doesn’t say. Manoj Kumar sang of India’s glories in Purab Aur Pachhim, Akshay Kumar rattles off statistics to a sneering Brit who talks of the Indian rope trick.
The film ends up falling in the watch-and-forget category. This must be Akshay Kumar’s weakest role in a long time— one can’t see him staring moodily at the sky instead of taking on the whole British army. He does win a rugby match, if that counts! Katrina Kaif is lovely and sprightly, but surely in 2007 leading ladies could be allowed a brain?
Labels: Cinemaah
