Monday, June 30, 2008
Thoda Thoda
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
There has to be a good reason for a director to pick up a really hackneyed subject to make a film—and that too in these times, when all its Hollywood source material (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee, Enchanted) has been seen (or can be) on TV and DVD.
It’s either a classic he wants to reinterpret in his own way (danger zone!) or there’s something he wants to add to the formula. After watching the promos of Kunal Kohli’s Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, you know exactly what the film is about, how it will go and how it will end. Then what’s your motivation for spending those big multiplex bucks?
Ranbeer (Saif Ali Khan), a surly businessman (he was orphaned in childhood and grew up with deep frown lines) accidentally kills a couple when his car crashes into theirs. The judge (Sharat Saxena) – like in the old hit Dushman—orders him to look after their kids, and do it well, or go to jail.
The four kids (Akshat Chopra, Shriya Sharma, Rachit Sidana, Ayushi Berman), odious enough as it is, giving their relatives a hard time, hate him and go all out to make his life hell. Then God (a chubby Rishi Kapoor) sends an angel Geeta (Rani Mukerji) to earth to sort their problems. She lands up wearing a dress more hideous than her white chiffon angel costume and wins over the kids with magic.
She inexplicably speaks like a Punjabi housewife, takes an instant dislike to Ranbeer’s flighty bimbo girlfriend Malaika (Ameesha Patel) and manages to do the job of bringing kids and ‘enemy’ together, but, predictably ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiyya’ fall in love and it’s God’s problem to solve this one.
Of course, there are special effects, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. Geeta takes the kids to a museum and they get into outer-space, enter a war tableau, participate in the Dandi march, and you wonder why the pari is singing a patriotic song to entertain the kids? If the film was meant for kids, then why the erotic Lazy Lamhe number?
Kohli made the film with a checklist of ingredients, but didn’t get the proportions right – comedy not enough; emotions deficient; romance marginal; action none; performances: kids okay, Rani over done, Saif underdone. Forget Hollywood, see Parichay and Bawarchi—even today they can make the most jaded viewer laugh and cry. That is movie magic, this is just charlatanry.
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
The way television is today, it could be cinema’s favourite whipping boy, but then the film would have be really powerful, not some watery Network collides with Meet John Doe concoction.
The synopsis of Anand L Rai’s Thoda Life Thoda Magic sounds a lot more coherent than the film—it talks about a mysterious man who changes the lives of a bunch of TV professionals, teaching them the importance of relationships and so on. Then, when you see the film, you feel, heck the actors are all there, but where’s the story?
Jackie Shroff plays MK, a vagrant, who is chosen to be the face of Indian Television when Naina (Meera Vasudevan) see him playing cricket with a bunch of street kids. She is involved with Roshan (Arbaaz Khan), a TV channel head, but walks out of the job to join the team that is producing this TRP-busting show for the channel.
Siddharth (Sahil Chadha) and his employers Mr and Mrs Singhania (Parmeet Sethi-Anita Raaj) do a lot of brainstorming, that sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about. Anyway, the jholawala vagabond is put into designer suits, made to host a TV show called Thodi Life Thoda Magic, and utter simple homilies. The show, as a vox populi shot on the streets proves, becomes very popular.
Now suddenly, for no reason that one can see or understand, Siddharth and Naina get very unhappy, think the show has sold its soul, and she spends the rest of the film snapping at the baffled Roshan, or staring at the camera and crying.
There is something very deep supposedly happening below the surface, but neither the writer nor the director can explain it on screen. And you come out the film wondering, what the hell was that all about? There wasn’t much life there, and certainly no magic. It was nice to see Jackie Shroff play himself, and Anita Raaj return to the screen after years, in great shape, but not much of a role.
Try figuring out this one, it’s a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing.
Via Darjeeling
If, by chance, you miss the name of the director in the credits of Via Darjeeling, you can still guess, it must be a first-time director—most probably from Bengal, cine-literate enough to want to do a Kurosawa.
All film buffs have seen (or heard of) Rashomon, and who can remain unaffected by the film, which put forward the simple, yet profound, premise that truth is relative—a matter of perception.
Arindam Nandy takes this idea to craft a clever, but rather pretentious, film in which a cop (Vinay Pathak) narrates at a party at his friends’ house, the story of a honeymooning couple (Kay Kay Menon-Sonali Kulkarni) in Darjeeling. He had investigated the case of the husband who went missing, and was never found.
By itself, the story is not shocking or unusual enough to dine out on, so it’s even more surprising that the hosts (Rajat Kapoor-Simone Singh) and other guests (Sandhya Mridul-Proshanth Narayanan) at the party are so fascinated that they put forward their own ideas about what might have happened.
Each telling, reveals much about the person talking, but confuses the picture further. By a far-fetched coincidence, it actually connects to at least one of the guests. After all the sham drama and mystery, there’s an open end, but with a twist, so that the audience is left to figure out for themselves what it was all about. But never once does the story affect them enough to want to solve the brain-teaser.
Well shot, with good performances all round – though the party folks have very little to do—the film is, at best, a one-time watch, if there is no other film worth watching at the multiplex.
There has to be a good reason for a director to pick up a really hackneyed subject to make a film—and that too in these times, when all its Hollywood source material (Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Nanny McPhee, Enchanted) has been seen (or can be) on TV and DVD.
It’s either a classic he wants to reinterpret in his own way (danger zone!) or there’s something he wants to add to the formula. After watching the promos of Kunal Kohli’s Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, you know exactly what the film is about, how it will go and how it will end. Then what’s your motivation for spending those big multiplex bucks?
Ranbeer (Saif Ali Khan), a surly businessman (he was orphaned in childhood and grew up with deep frown lines) accidentally kills a couple when his car crashes into theirs. The judge (Sharat Saxena) – like in the old hit Dushman—orders him to look after their kids, and do it well, or go to jail.
The four kids (Akshat Chopra, Shriya Sharma, Rachit Sidana, Ayushi Berman), odious enough as it is, giving their relatives a hard time, hate him and go all out to make his life hell. Then God (a chubby Rishi Kapoor) sends an angel Geeta (Rani Mukerji) to earth to sort their problems. She lands up wearing a dress more hideous than her white chiffon angel costume and wins over the kids with magic.
She inexplicably speaks like a Punjabi housewife, takes an instant dislike to Ranbeer’s flighty bimbo girlfriend Malaika (Ameesha Patel) and manages to do the job of bringing kids and ‘enemy’ together, but, predictably ‘didi’ and ‘bhaiyya’ fall in love and it’s God’s problem to solve this one.
Of course, there are special effects, but there is such a thing as overdoing it. Geeta takes the kids to a museum and they get into outer-space, enter a war tableau, participate in the Dandi march, and you wonder why the pari is singing a patriotic song to entertain the kids? If the film was meant for kids, then why the erotic Lazy Lamhe number?
Kohli made the film with a checklist of ingredients, but didn’t get the proportions right – comedy not enough; emotions deficient; romance marginal; action none; performances: kids okay, Rani over done, Saif underdone. Forget Hollywood, see Parichay and Bawarchi—even today they can make the most jaded viewer laugh and cry. That is movie magic, this is just charlatanry.
Thodi Life Thoda Magic
The way television is today, it could be cinema’s favourite whipping boy, but then the film would have be really powerful, not some watery Network collides with Meet John Doe concoction.
The synopsis of Anand L Rai’s Thoda Life Thoda Magic sounds a lot more coherent than the film—it talks about a mysterious man who changes the lives of a bunch of TV professionals, teaching them the importance of relationships and so on. Then, when you see the film, you feel, heck the actors are all there, but where’s the story?
Jackie Shroff plays MK, a vagrant, who is chosen to be the face of Indian Television when Naina (Meera Vasudevan) see him playing cricket with a bunch of street kids. She is involved with Roshan (Arbaaz Khan), a TV channel head, but walks out of the job to join the team that is producing this TRP-busting show for the channel.
Siddharth (Sahil Chadha) and his employers Mr and Mrs Singhania (Parmeet Sethi-Anita Raaj) do a lot of brainstorming, that sounds like they don’t know what they are talking about. Anyway, the jholawala vagabond is put into designer suits, made to host a TV show called Thodi Life Thoda Magic, and utter simple homilies. The show, as a vox populi shot on the streets proves, becomes very popular.
Now suddenly, for no reason that one can see or understand, Siddharth and Naina get very unhappy, think the show has sold its soul, and she spends the rest of the film snapping at the baffled Roshan, or staring at the camera and crying.
There is something very deep supposedly happening below the surface, but neither the writer nor the director can explain it on screen. And you come out the film wondering, what the hell was that all about? There wasn’t much life there, and certainly no magic. It was nice to see Jackie Shroff play himself, and Anita Raaj return to the screen after years, in great shape, but not much of a role.
Try figuring out this one, it’s a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing.
Via Darjeeling
If, by chance, you miss the name of the director in the credits of Via Darjeeling, you can still guess, it must be a first-time director—most probably from Bengal, cine-literate enough to want to do a Kurosawa.
All film buffs have seen (or heard of) Rashomon, and who can remain unaffected by the film, which put forward the simple, yet profound, premise that truth is relative—a matter of perception.
Arindam Nandy takes this idea to craft a clever, but rather pretentious, film in which a cop (Vinay Pathak) narrates at a party at his friends’ house, the story of a honeymooning couple (Kay Kay Menon-Sonali Kulkarni) in Darjeeling. He had investigated the case of the husband who went missing, and was never found.
By itself, the story is not shocking or unusual enough to dine out on, so it’s even more surprising that the hosts (Rajat Kapoor-Simone Singh) and other guests (Sandhya Mridul-Proshanth Narayanan) at the party are so fascinated that they put forward their own ideas about what might have happened.
Each telling, reveals much about the person talking, but confuses the picture further. By a far-fetched coincidence, it actually connects to at least one of the guests. After all the sham drama and mystery, there’s an open end, but with a twist, so that the audience is left to figure out for themselves what it was all about. But never once does the story affect them enough to want to solve the brain-teaser.
Well shot, with good performances all round – though the party folks have very little to do—the film is, at best, a one-time watch, if there is no other film worth watching at the multiplex.
Labels: Cinemaah
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