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Thursday, April 17, 2008

U Me @ Krazzy 

U Me Aur Hum

The credits begin with quotes from Einstein, Gandhi, Emily Dickinson, etc written with clouds in the sky.. which give an indication that the film to follow will either be too cute or too pretentious, Ajay Devgan’s U Me Aur Hum is a bit of both.

Still, it must be said, that just like Aamir Khan took up the subject of dyslexia for his first film Taare Zameen Par, Devgan picks the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease; so if nothing else, it’s a first in Bollywood mainstream cinema. Now senile dementia, the most prevalent cause of the illness, would be too unglamorous—so the young woman in the film is one of the rare ones who gets it at age 28. Like Khan, Devgan too has the vanity to cast himself as an angel of compassion.

Before the film reaches this tragic point, there’s a ghastly portion on a cruise ship to be sat through, where Dr Ajay Mehra (Devgan), with an irritating entourage of two couples (Sumeer Raghavan-Divya Dutta, Karan Khanna-Isha Sharvani) in tow, is having a blast when he falls in love at first sight with a waitress Piya (Kajol). He woos her rather aggressively, going to the extent of reading her childish diary and doing everything she likes (now where have we seen this before?)

This part has an uncomfortable resemblance to Mann (which was inspired by An Affair to Remember), and almost stuns the viewer with its riotous treatment, candy visuals and profusion of unflattering close-ups.

By the time Ajay and Piya get married and she shows signs of memory loss—terrific scene in the rain when she forgets her address and even her husband’s name—Devgan calms down, so to say. The entourage is still around, and another doctor (Sacin Khedekar) is added to it— one who recommends a care facility for Piya.

Her memory lapses get acute and dangerous for her and her newborn, and Ajay is persuaded to send her away. But it is a love story and has to have some kind of happy ending, since the disease has no cure.

One grouse is that Devgan has taken the trouble to select an unusual (for Bollywood), given it a partially realistic touch, then airily wandered off into the improbable. In India, there is no such fancy life-long care facility for the mentally ill, and the issue is not even raised, because here there is a brightly painted, five-star hotel like asylum.

Except for a couple of scenes, Devgan never even goes into the problems even a devoted husband (see the gut-wrenching film Iris) and child could face with a family member with this traumatically degenerative disease—typically escapist Hindi film approach, where the real ugliness and pain is kept off screen, because the newly-developed audience for pseudo ‘cause’ films might not be able to take it.

Still Devgan is forgiven most lapse for a few really emotionally stirring scenes he ably handles in the last half hour or so of the film, and the performance he delivers himself plus gets out of Kajol. They are both fine actors anyway, but they have surpassed themselves.


Krazzy 4

The producer of this film had to pay up for plagiarizing a tune, what about the whole film, that is picked up from The Dream Team and ‘Indianised?’

Like the original, in Jaideep Sen’s debut film, four men from a mental asylum are taken by their doctor to watch a cricket match. Dr Sonali (Juhi Chawla) gets kidnapped and the four and left to their own devices.

Raja (Arshad Warsi) has anger management problems, Gangadhar (Rajpal Yadav) believes he is a freedom fighter, Dr Mukherjee (Irrfan Khan) has obsessive compulsive disorder, Daboo (Suresh Menon) is retarded—would the four even be in the same group for therapy? That kind of fine distinction between various kinds of mental illness, our filmmakers cannot be bothered about.

The four eventually figure out that their doctor has been kidnapped, there’s a conspiracy behind it and they have to save her and themselves.

The film relies on their quirks for its laughs—like Mukherjee takes off on anyone who litters; Gangadhar gives patriotic speeches and so on. Some of their lines are really funny and unlike the recent comedy One Two Three, there no vulgarity. Except maybe Rakhi Sawant’s raunchy item number, that ends with Mukherjee trying to wipe the tattoo on her waist.

If it’s not uproariously funny, it’s because there are too many complications (who kidnapped the doc and why?) and ridiculous script shortcuts. For instance, the four have no money (there’s a song in which they try to borrow a rupee for a phone call) but get around the city with remarkable ease. And at a crucial juncture, Mukherjee just happens to run into his daughter, and Raja into his former girlfriend (Dia Mirza), who is now a TV reporter.

You wait for the predictable “They are not mad, society is” line, and voila, it comes at the end. Some things just never change!
Anyway, what the script does not deliver, the actors do—Irrfan Khan is fabulous as the control freak, and Rajpal Yadav’s effortlessly comical as the Gandhian misfit (watch the scene in which he meets a man in Gandhi costume on the street). Arshad Warsi, of course, can tackle such a role without a strain, Suresh Menon is unfairly mute, so his real-life mimicry skills are not utilized.

Sen has managed to fit song breaks into the film, apart from the item dance, there’s Shah Rukh Khan’s appearance that brings the house down. Since audiences probably have no expectations from this film, they won’t be disappointed at least.

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Shaurya & Bhram 

Shaurya

Samar Khan’s Shaurya deals with an important subject of communalisation of the armed forces, but without the compassion or detailing of, say Govind Nihalani’s Dev, which was about communal prejudice in the police.

Khan and his writers shamelessly rip-off Hollywood film A Few Good Men, and Swadesh Deepak’s Hindi play Court Martial, of course, without acknowledging either source.

Captain Siddhant (Rahul Bose) is a lawyer in the army, but seems to do nothing, except bungee-jumping. When he is actually given an “open and shut case” he is bewildered (doesn’t present too good a picture of the army!).

He is posted to Srinagar, to defend Javed Khan (Deepak Dobriyal) who is accused of killing a fellow officer. The prosecuting lawyer Akash (Jaaved Jaffrey) is a buddy and wants Siddhant to “grow up.”

A byline chasing journalist Kavya (Minissha Lamba), gives his conscience a wake-up call and he starts to investigate the case in earnest. Though the accused does not say a word, Siddhant makes a “not guilty” plea and angers not just his friend, but also Brigadier Pratap (Kay Kay Menon), the commanding officer of the regiment to which the accused and the dead man belonged.

Since Khan has not given his borrowed material too much thought, it is not clear why Javed Khan does not protest his officer’s behavior earlier, or complain of human rights violations. One of his men chooses to desert rather than speak up for the truth. (In the original film and play, the accused men’s silence was a matter of honour.) Also giving a personal motive to the officer’s attitude towards Javed, dilutes the message.

Siddhant faces no personal animosity for what he does – the journalist faces the rap—he gets crucial evidence falling into his lap, and at no point is there a feeling that he might not be able to save his client, because he is so clueless.

Rahul Bose, with his eye-popping, twitching, shrugging ‘cute’ act almost brings the film down, it’s the other actors’ (Deepak Dobriyal and Jaaved Jaffrey excel) dignified performances that save the day. And ultimately the film hinges on Kay Kay Menon’s statement in the witness box and a finer example of perfectly pitched acting has not been seen in a long time. Unfortunately, it comes too late in the film to undo the earlier damage.

Bhram

It opens backstage at a fashion show, with bitchy models, gay designer and nosy journalists all lined up, dropping risqué lines—this is presumably how models speak!
Then, with a title like Bhram (illusion) you wait for a Madhur Bhandarkar-like expose on the fashion world.

A few scenes later, that illusion is broken-- all the four letter words, drinking, coke-snorting the main model Antara (Sheetal Menon) and her men indulge in, are just to spice up a trite murder mystery.

Many years ago, producer Nari Hira and director Pavan Kaul used to make video films on fairly bold subjects – Bhram uses that language (censors go deaf?) but not the daring that resulted in films on subjects unusual for the time (the eighties).

Antara, for no other reason but that she is and looks stoned, charms Shantanu (Dino Morea), the younger brother of financial tycoon Dev (Milind Soman). When the girl and the brother come face to face, she accuses him of having raped and killed her sister in Manali many years ago.

A troubled Shantanu takes off to Manali with his friend (Chetan Hansraj) find out if “bro” did it, and Dev’s wife (Simone Singh) utters dialogue about love and trust that seem to have come out of a very bad women’s magazine.

The story moves back and forth between “that day” when the incident happened—which nobody in Manali wants to talk about it—and the present, as Antara gets even more stoned and lands up in hospital.

Did big big brother do it? Does anyone care by the end of it?

Using all the clichés of a thriller—constant rain, obvious red herring, wrong person answering a phone—the film is stylishly shot and packed with good-looking, well-dressed people who cannot act!

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