Saturday, May 10, 2008
Bhoot+Jimmy
Bhoothnath
Big movie star seldom read scripts, but the narration of Bhoothnath must have sounded pretty interesting for stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan to sign up, and the BR Films banner to produce.
Unfortunately, there is a slip between narration and execution, because Vivek Sharma’s debut film is not only boring for most part, but also manages the near-impossible feat of getting an indifferent performance from Bachchan.
It starts out well enough, a chirpy young couple is spooked out of a haunted Goa mansion in the midst of their romantic dinner. Next, a family moves into Nath Villa—Aditya (Shah Rukh Khan), his wife Anjali (Juhi Chawla—surprisingly listless) and kid Banku (Aman Siddiqui—spirited enough). They are warned about the resident ghost, but pay no heed.
The kid is told there are no ghosts, only angels, so when he comes across the scruffy Kailash Nath (Bachchan), he is not scared. Of course, it’s odd that the ghost wants to drive away the new tenants (shades of Casper), but plays tricks only on the kid and the drunk (Rajpal Yadav) hired to clean the house, since Anjali can’t find domestic help.
There are some faintly amusing scenes of Banku in school with a gluttonous principal (Satish Shah) who steals the kids’ lunch boxes; and the usual flying objects kind of spooky stuff, but nothing that audiences haven’t seen before, and done better, even in the days when special effects weren’t so advanced (Chamatkar and Mr India, for example), not to mention the really fancy CGI they see in Hollywood films and TV serials.
What really kills the film, however, more so for kids, is the sudden turn in the second half towards heavy duty melodrama. Looks like the Chopras haven’t forgotten the success of Baghban, because there is a condensed repeat here—Kailash Nath’s neglectful son (Priyanshu Chatterji) abandons grieving parents (Neena Kulkarni as the sobbing mother) and goes to America. When he returns, it’s only to sell the house. No wonder his dad dies and turns into a ghost!
Bhoothnath sorely lacks the humour and lightness of touch that a film for children should ideally have, and when it comes to the songs, Sharma does a set piece in which kids dress and dance like adults; and in another scantily clad girls turn up to dance with the bhoot.
There is some inconsistency in the ghost’s powers as well—he can levitate the kid and move through walls at will, but can’t save Banku from taking a lethal toss down the stairs!
Having yawned through this one, what really makes your hair stand on end is the threat of a sequel with that fatal ‘to be continued’ line in the end.
Jimmy
Most star sons get launched with a a bit of fanfare by their fathers, some of them continue to ride on their star dads’ names much after their debuts. If nepotism in the industry is an accepted thing, then poor Mimoh Chakraborty deserved a better film than this tawdry Jimmy, which looks well past its sell-by date.
Mimoh playing Jimmy an automobile engineer by day and DJ by night, is given a lot of dances—but the Michael Jackson style ‘Moonwalk’ steps are not just horribly outdated, but look ridiculous on his large frame.
His bulked up body is topped by his mother Yogita Bali’s round face, long, stringy hair and a voice that sounds like an adolescent’s breaking croak. With so many disadvantages to begin with, he needed a really great script and director to salvage his ill-fated debut.
Raj NC Sippy is still stuck in the seventies—the plot is borrowed from Majboor, the dialogue is so awful that the film turns unintentionally funny in places, and the visual style extremely shoddy.
Today’s films may not be high on logic, but it’s hard to beat the senseless plot of this one, in which the villain easily manipulates the hero and everyone else. Jimmy is told he has a “last stage” brain tumour and only one week to live, but nobody in our films ever takes a second opinion. Then he is offered a large sum to pay off his dead father’s debts if he will take on a murder rap, and he accepts.
It gets worse, but only the very brave or the very kinky will last through Jimmy—it will definitely make it to the list of cult bad films, like some of Mithun Chakraborty’s C–grade actioners.
Mimoh is cast opposite a non-descript girl (Vivana) in huge hoop earrings, and to keep him company is a very hammy Zulfi Sayed, an uncredited actress playing the stereotyped mother, constantly offering her son breakfast and Shakti Kapoor turns up in a guest appearance to utter some sleazy lines.
Big movie star seldom read scripts, but the narration of Bhoothnath must have sounded pretty interesting for stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan to sign up, and the BR Films banner to produce.
Unfortunately, there is a slip between narration and execution, because Vivek Sharma’s debut film is not only boring for most part, but also manages the near-impossible feat of getting an indifferent performance from Bachchan.
It starts out well enough, a chirpy young couple is spooked out of a haunted Goa mansion in the midst of their romantic dinner. Next, a family moves into Nath Villa—Aditya (Shah Rukh Khan), his wife Anjali (Juhi Chawla—surprisingly listless) and kid Banku (Aman Siddiqui—spirited enough). They are warned about the resident ghost, but pay no heed.
The kid is told there are no ghosts, only angels, so when he comes across the scruffy Kailash Nath (Bachchan), he is not scared. Of course, it’s odd that the ghost wants to drive away the new tenants (shades of Casper), but plays tricks only on the kid and the drunk (Rajpal Yadav) hired to clean the house, since Anjali can’t find domestic help.
There are some faintly amusing scenes of Banku in school with a gluttonous principal (Satish Shah) who steals the kids’ lunch boxes; and the usual flying objects kind of spooky stuff, but nothing that audiences haven’t seen before, and done better, even in the days when special effects weren’t so advanced (Chamatkar and Mr India, for example), not to mention the really fancy CGI they see in Hollywood films and TV serials.
What really kills the film, however, more so for kids, is the sudden turn in the second half towards heavy duty melodrama. Looks like the Chopras haven’t forgotten the success of Baghban, because there is a condensed repeat here—Kailash Nath’s neglectful son (Priyanshu Chatterji) abandons grieving parents (Neena Kulkarni as the sobbing mother) and goes to America. When he returns, it’s only to sell the house. No wonder his dad dies and turns into a ghost!
Bhoothnath sorely lacks the humour and lightness of touch that a film for children should ideally have, and when it comes to the songs, Sharma does a set piece in which kids dress and dance like adults; and in another scantily clad girls turn up to dance with the bhoot.
There is some inconsistency in the ghost’s powers as well—he can levitate the kid and move through walls at will, but can’t save Banku from taking a lethal toss down the stairs!
Having yawned through this one, what really makes your hair stand on end is the threat of a sequel with that fatal ‘to be continued’ line in the end.
Jimmy
Most star sons get launched with a a bit of fanfare by their fathers, some of them continue to ride on their star dads’ names much after their debuts. If nepotism in the industry is an accepted thing, then poor Mimoh Chakraborty deserved a better film than this tawdry Jimmy, which looks well past its sell-by date.
Mimoh playing Jimmy an automobile engineer by day and DJ by night, is given a lot of dances—but the Michael Jackson style ‘Moonwalk’ steps are not just horribly outdated, but look ridiculous on his large frame.
His bulked up body is topped by his mother Yogita Bali’s round face, long, stringy hair and a voice that sounds like an adolescent’s breaking croak. With so many disadvantages to begin with, he needed a really great script and director to salvage his ill-fated debut.
Raj NC Sippy is still stuck in the seventies—the plot is borrowed from Majboor, the dialogue is so awful that the film turns unintentionally funny in places, and the visual style extremely shoddy.
Today’s films may not be high on logic, but it’s hard to beat the senseless plot of this one, in which the villain easily manipulates the hero and everyone else. Jimmy is told he has a “last stage” brain tumour and only one week to live, but nobody in our films ever takes a second opinion. Then he is offered a large sum to pay off his dead father’s debts if he will take on a murder rap, and he accepts.
It gets worse, but only the very brave or the very kinky will last through Jimmy—it will definitely make it to the list of cult bad films, like some of Mithun Chakraborty’s C–grade actioners.
Mimoh is cast opposite a non-descript girl (Vivana) in huge hoop earrings, and to keep him company is a very hammy Zulfi Sayed, an uncredited actress playing the stereotyped mother, constantly offering her son breakfast and Shakti Kapoor turns up in a guest appearance to utter some sleazy lines.
Labels: Cinemaah
Friday, May 09, 2008
Anamika+MWMB+Pranali
Anamika
A call centre gets a call for an escort for a visitor from Rajasthan. Oh-oh, you think, Hitckcock meets Bhandrakar in Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Anamika.. what now?
No such luck, they just don’t the difference between a secretarial help and escort service! Jia (Minissha Lamba) is the escort provided to Vikram Sisodiya (Dino Morea), and so dumb is she, that he proposes marriage! And do desperate is she, living in an overcrowded hostel, that she accepts.
He takes her to his Gajner Palace, magnificent if desolate structure in the middle of the desert. You already know that the film has been inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which was based on Daphne du Maurier’s splendid novel and has already been made into the watchable dark musical Kohra by Biren Nag.
How could anyone go wrong with this film? Unfortunately, Mahadevan does. The setting is perfect, but the eeriness just does not build up. Instead of the spooky housekeeper, Mrs Denver, there’s Malini (Koena Mitra), who hangs around the palace, without any purpose, dressed in skimpy clothes.
The palace, which is meant to be converted into a hotel, is severely understaffed, and there’s an inexplicable suited-booted mad man in a twig hut in the desert. Everyone talks about Vikram’s dead wife Anamika, who was so perfect, that the naïve Jia cannot match up to her. Sniffing around for leads to Anamika’s disappearance is Vikram’s cop brother-in-law (Gulshan Grover).
Anamika is not about the innocent young girl being driven mad, it never gives you goosebumps, you just can’t feel for Jia’s plight, because no matter how much she tries, Minissha comes across as silly rather than helpless. And both women seem to be competing in a sexy dress competition (all those bare shoulders and cleavage on display), rather than acting.
If Jia had to be in almost every frame, she needed to be played by an actress far superior to Minissha Lamba in beauty and talent. Dino Morea can carry suit well, that’s about all, and Koena Mitra looks as if her make-up would crack if she showed any emotion.
There’s the grand palace as an attraction, but might as well buy a ticket to Bikaner and see the real thing!
Mr White Mr Black
If by the end of Mr White Mr Black, you forget how it began, it doesn’t matter, director Deepak Shivdasani doesn’t have a clue either.
He just seems to have rounded up any actor he could find wandering around Film City and told them to do anything—he would find a way to fit it into the film later! There isn’t any plot that can you can see or even a rough screenplay. Whoever turned up for the shoot probably ad-libbed his or her lines and hoped their scenes would end up in the same film—once called Gopi Kishen and then renamed Mr White Mr Black, which must refer to the two lead actors’ character traits and not their complexions!
Gopi (Suniel Shetty), in orange dhoti, white kurta, oily hair and silver mace in hand (why?) comes to Goa to look for Kishen (Arshad Warsi) and take him back to Hoshiarpur, where he is to get a piece of inherited land.
Among the many sub-plots is one about three bikini babes (Sandhya Mridul being one of them) stealing a don’s diamonds. The don called Laadla (Ashish Vidyarthi), with a squeaky-voiced sidekick, has a major Oediopus complex and bursts into tear at the sound of the word ‘Ma.’ Funny? Not really!
Kishen has invented a twin, so that his girlfriend (Rashmi Nigam) doesn’t figure out that he is a conman. There is also a crooked taxi river called Tulsi (Manoj Joshi), an inept cop called Mr Brown (Sharad Saxena)—the only one in all of Goa, since everyone goes to him!
There is resort owner’s daughter (Anishka Khosla), who falls in love with the illiterate Gopi, because he lectures her on her wild ways and refuses to kiss her. When you settle down for a caper, suddenly there’s a sister angle – Kishen’s sister has been studying in London, while he pretends to be a hotel magnate. So when she has to get married everyone pretends Gopi and Kishen own the resort, which gives the entire cast an excuse to assemble there for a Priysdarshan style mad scramble climax. In the midst of all this the real owner (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) returns, and instead of just calling his daughter and asking what’s up, he skulks about the premises. There’s also a pointless Sardar character with his spendthrift wife, who must have walked in from another film.
By the time, the heroes, the various girls, villains, sidekicks, cops, dads and the large floating population assembles for the climax, it’s a wonder someone remembered who was playing what, and the continuity department deserves kudos for keeping track of Suniel Shetty’s silver mace, though the bag of diamonds keeps changing shape and colour.
Arshad Warsi is just about the only decent actor in the bunch, and it really isn’t fair to him to have to carry so much deadweight. He tries hard and almost collapses with the strain. Hope someone will give him an award for valour.
Pranali: The Tradition
Pranali: The Tradition claims to be “a never ending journey of a devdasi,” but if unfortunate viewers who stray into the cinema expect a sensitive Ahista Ahista kind of movie, they will be shocked to find a C-grade exploitative film, which, if the makers were honest about its intention, would have had a less pretentious title.
The devdasi bit is dispensed quickly, with a lascivious looking priest, forcing a poor girl into become one, and then keeping her in the temple to ‘serve’ him. He passes her on to a minister in return for land and Pranali (Nargis) ends up in the red light district.
The film then piles on the clichés—the madam, the helpful cabbie, girls giggling and exchanging notes about their ‘exploits’, Pranali’s kid not getting admission in school and a token ‘mad’ woman, who looks rather well-scrubbed. Director Hridesh Kamble avoids obvious vulgarity, there are no extended rape scenes, for instance, but the camera is still made to go lecherously over women’s bodies—even that of a little girl skipping rope.
What is kept off screen is far worse than what is shown on screen –like the death of a child at the home of a pervert. It was punishment sitting through the film beyond the interval, and wait for “Vijay NRI” (Raman Trikha) to come and work with the sex workers and write a book on them. The brochure, full of hilarious glitches puts it thus, “he brought the lives of other helpless sex workers alongwith (sic) Pranali back on track, who were waiting desperately for a reformation which could change their lives for better.” Indeed!
If a film about the flesh trade has be made, it needs sympathy, fresh insights and definitely more taste than Pranali manages—this one just dishes out the dirt and then pretends to be holier-than-thou.
A call centre gets a call for an escort for a visitor from Rajasthan. Oh-oh, you think, Hitckcock meets Bhandrakar in Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s Anamika.. what now?
No such luck, they just don’t the difference between a secretarial help and escort service! Jia (Minissha Lamba) is the escort provided to Vikram Sisodiya (Dino Morea), and so dumb is she, that he proposes marriage! And do desperate is she, living in an overcrowded hostel, that she accepts.
He takes her to his Gajner Palace, magnificent if desolate structure in the middle of the desert. You already know that the film has been inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, which was based on Daphne du Maurier’s splendid novel and has already been made into the watchable dark musical Kohra by Biren Nag.
How could anyone go wrong with this film? Unfortunately, Mahadevan does. The setting is perfect, but the eeriness just does not build up. Instead of the spooky housekeeper, Mrs Denver, there’s Malini (Koena Mitra), who hangs around the palace, without any purpose, dressed in skimpy clothes.
The palace, which is meant to be converted into a hotel, is severely understaffed, and there’s an inexplicable suited-booted mad man in a twig hut in the desert. Everyone talks about Vikram’s dead wife Anamika, who was so perfect, that the naïve Jia cannot match up to her. Sniffing around for leads to Anamika’s disappearance is Vikram’s cop brother-in-law (Gulshan Grover).
Anamika is not about the innocent young girl being driven mad, it never gives you goosebumps, you just can’t feel for Jia’s plight, because no matter how much she tries, Minissha comes across as silly rather than helpless. And both women seem to be competing in a sexy dress competition (all those bare shoulders and cleavage on display), rather than acting.
If Jia had to be in almost every frame, she needed to be played by an actress far superior to Minissha Lamba in beauty and talent. Dino Morea can carry suit well, that’s about all, and Koena Mitra looks as if her make-up would crack if she showed any emotion.
There’s the grand palace as an attraction, but might as well buy a ticket to Bikaner and see the real thing!
Mr White Mr Black
If by the end of Mr White Mr Black, you forget how it began, it doesn’t matter, director Deepak Shivdasani doesn’t have a clue either.
He just seems to have rounded up any actor he could find wandering around Film City and told them to do anything—he would find a way to fit it into the film later! There isn’t any plot that can you can see or even a rough screenplay. Whoever turned up for the shoot probably ad-libbed his or her lines and hoped their scenes would end up in the same film—once called Gopi Kishen and then renamed Mr White Mr Black, which must refer to the two lead actors’ character traits and not their complexions!
Gopi (Suniel Shetty), in orange dhoti, white kurta, oily hair and silver mace in hand (why?) comes to Goa to look for Kishen (Arshad Warsi) and take him back to Hoshiarpur, where he is to get a piece of inherited land.
Among the many sub-plots is one about three bikini babes (Sandhya Mridul being one of them) stealing a don’s diamonds. The don called Laadla (Ashish Vidyarthi), with a squeaky-voiced sidekick, has a major Oediopus complex and bursts into tear at the sound of the word ‘Ma.’ Funny? Not really!
Kishen has invented a twin, so that his girlfriend (Rashmi Nigam) doesn’t figure out that he is a conman. There is also a crooked taxi river called Tulsi (Manoj Joshi), an inept cop called Mr Brown (Sharad Saxena)—the only one in all of Goa, since everyone goes to him!
There is resort owner’s daughter (Anishka Khosla), who falls in love with the illiterate Gopi, because he lectures her on her wild ways and refuses to kiss her. When you settle down for a caper, suddenly there’s a sister angle – Kishen’s sister has been studying in London, while he pretends to be a hotel magnate. So when she has to get married everyone pretends Gopi and Kishen own the resort, which gives the entire cast an excuse to assemble there for a Priysdarshan style mad scramble climax. In the midst of all this the real owner (Sadashiv Amrapurkar) returns, and instead of just calling his daughter and asking what’s up, he skulks about the premises. There’s also a pointless Sardar character with his spendthrift wife, who must have walked in from another film.
By the time, the heroes, the various girls, villains, sidekicks, cops, dads and the large floating population assembles for the climax, it’s a wonder someone remembered who was playing what, and the continuity department deserves kudos for keeping track of Suniel Shetty’s silver mace, though the bag of diamonds keeps changing shape and colour.
Arshad Warsi is just about the only decent actor in the bunch, and it really isn’t fair to him to have to carry so much deadweight. He tries hard and almost collapses with the strain. Hope someone will give him an award for valour.
Pranali: The Tradition
Pranali: The Tradition claims to be “a never ending journey of a devdasi,” but if unfortunate viewers who stray into the cinema expect a sensitive Ahista Ahista kind of movie, they will be shocked to find a C-grade exploitative film, which, if the makers were honest about its intention, would have had a less pretentious title.
The devdasi bit is dispensed quickly, with a lascivious looking priest, forcing a poor girl into become one, and then keeping her in the temple to ‘serve’ him. He passes her on to a minister in return for land and Pranali (Nargis) ends up in the red light district.
The film then piles on the clichés—the madam, the helpful cabbie, girls giggling and exchanging notes about their ‘exploits’, Pranali’s kid not getting admission in school and a token ‘mad’ woman, who looks rather well-scrubbed. Director Hridesh Kamble avoids obvious vulgarity, there are no extended rape scenes, for instance, but the camera is still made to go lecherously over women’s bodies—even that of a little girl skipping rope.
What is kept off screen is far worse than what is shown on screen –like the death of a child at the home of a pervert. It was punishment sitting through the film beyond the interval, and wait for “Vijay NRI” (Raman Trikha) to come and work with the sex workers and write a book on them. The brochure, full of hilarious glitches puts it thus, “he brought the lives of other helpless sex workers alongwith (sic) Pranali back on track, who were waiting desperately for a reformation which could change their lives for better.” Indeed!
If a film about the flesh trade has be made, it needs sympathy, fresh insights and definitely more taste than Pranali manages—this one just dishes out the dirt and then pretends to be holier-than-thou.
Labels: Cinemaah
Tashan+Sirf
Tashan
The credits read “The Saif Ali Khan” “The Kareena Kapoor” etc. That is perhaps supposed to indicate that the ‘ishtyle’ of this ‘phormula phillum’ is like that only.
Vijay Krishna Acharya (dialogue writer of Dhoom) directing his first feature film, is like a kid at the candy store who makes himself sick eating everything in sight, and with fond ‘uncle’ Tashraj films indulging him, he gets to gobble a lot of candy; what does he have to show for it—multi-colour barf.
Acharya also seems to belong to the Seveties Bollywood fan club, so there’s a wafer thin plot, an outlandish villain (who has to marry the heroine before he can touch her) his oddball sidekicks, and a couple of childhood sweethearts, who are mercifully not given a song like ‘Jab hum jawaan honge”, a revenge motive, lack of logic and coincidences galore.
You wait for the seventies films allusions to come, and get hit on the head with the “Khush to bahut honge tum” soliloquy from Deewar, delivered by Anil Kapoor in pidgin English. By this time, you have forgotten the rather cool and likeable opening scenes, in which call centre executive Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) is so bewitched by Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) that he agrees to teach English to her gangster boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor). This guy is supposed to be funny—he wears garish clothes, bashes his victims to death and has for sidekicks two guys with a permanent wardrobe malfunction.
Pooja gives Jimmy a sob story, makes him steal 25 crores of Bhaiyyaji’s money and runs off with it. The gangster summons from Kanpur, an illiterate aspiring hitman Bacchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) to take Jimmy and go in search of Pooja. Bachchan is given a long drawn intro, which is when the film, that had started to unravel after Bhaiyyaji’s English lessons, comes apart completely.
How could Acharya even think that a Ram Leela gone wrong sequence with Bachchan playing a be-goggled Ravan had any novelty in it? When the guys trace Pooja, she says she has hidden the money all over the country, so they have to zig zag from Rajastan to Ladakh to Kerala to Greece (for the songs) and UP (for the bachpan ka flashbacks).
Remember how in the old movies, couple on the run used to get into a drama company, borrow costumes do a just-like-that dance number? In Tashan, the three hijack a foreign film unit and force them to shoot a song, because a cop is after them! In the end there is a typical seventies style action sequence when fire, metal or bullets don’t even scratch the heroes, while the villain’s henchmen drop like flies. In an earlier sequence, cops drop like flies too, and nobody seems to be concerned about the high body count.
Like the recent Race, everybody in this film is crooked, so the good guys are bad, and maybe the bad not so horrid. In fact, Anil Kapoor does his part with so much zest, he might become the next kinky villain in Hindi films. While Kareena (at her best) and her two suitors provide the sex appeal.
Okay, so Acharya gives the film an over-the-top visual appeal and some extravagant set pieces (just like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom—same producer, same DOP, Ayananka Bose), which, however, do nothing to make the film more endurable.
Sirf
Sirf comes with a tagline ‘Life Looks Greener on the other side’ – but Rajaatesh Nayar’s debut film seems to be set in arid Mumbai landscape with no greenery anywhere.
The four couples who inhabit the film, are miserable in their own way. One can’t get married because there’s no money to rent a house; the other has a kid with a hole in her heart; two have marital problems that involve major bickering.
The common factor in their lives is a big ad campaign that is to be launched and they are all somehow involved with D-day. Nayar makes some kind of attempt to portray the problems of the middle class in Mumbai—of train and bus commutes, space crunch, sidey real estate agents, endless work pressures. Unfortunately, this has all been done with much greater polish in Anurag Basu’s Metro.
A couple of the tracks are even similar -- Kay Kay Menon reprises his role as top honcho in a big company, whose wife (Manisha Koirala) complains of neglect. Like in Metro, he picks up a young protégé Rahul (Ankur Khanna) to do some unsavoury work for him; again like in Metro, the wife is attracted to, but not involved with a younger man (Parvin Dabas), whose small town wife (Rituparna Sengupta) is an unbearable shrew. There are neighbours of the couple (Sonali Kulkarni-Ranvir Shorey) whose kid is ill, and that leaves Rahul’s whiny girlfriend (Nauheed Cyrusi). Annoyingly, all four woman nag and all four men are misunderstood beasts of burden. Not at all a fair picture of people in the city.
Understanding the woes of the middle class requires the sympathy, delicacy and a touch of humour that Basu Chatterjee of Hrishikesh Mukherjee brought to their films—Nayar just blunders through riding on clichés like city women being scantily dressed, booze-guzzling harridans as compared to the demure wife from Jabalpur. If the overdressed and hideously made-up Rituparna was his idea of comic relief, then he left the audience grinding their teeth in irritation.
Kay Kay Menon and Sonali Kulkarni (badly styled) manage to bring some strength to their parts, Ranvir Shorey is wasted in a hopeless role.
The credits read “The Saif Ali Khan” “The Kareena Kapoor” etc. That is perhaps supposed to indicate that the ‘ishtyle’ of this ‘phormula phillum’ is like that only.
Vijay Krishna Acharya (dialogue writer of Dhoom) directing his first feature film, is like a kid at the candy store who makes himself sick eating everything in sight, and with fond ‘uncle’ Tashraj films indulging him, he gets to gobble a lot of candy; what does he have to show for it—multi-colour barf.
Acharya also seems to belong to the Seveties Bollywood fan club, so there’s a wafer thin plot, an outlandish villain (who has to marry the heroine before he can touch her) his oddball sidekicks, and a couple of childhood sweethearts, who are mercifully not given a song like ‘Jab hum jawaan honge”, a revenge motive, lack of logic and coincidences galore.
You wait for the seventies films allusions to come, and get hit on the head with the “Khush to bahut honge tum” soliloquy from Deewar, delivered by Anil Kapoor in pidgin English. By this time, you have forgotten the rather cool and likeable opening scenes, in which call centre executive Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) is so bewitched by Pooja (Kareena Kapoor) that he agrees to teach English to her gangster boss Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor). This guy is supposed to be funny—he wears garish clothes, bashes his victims to death and has for sidekicks two guys with a permanent wardrobe malfunction.
Pooja gives Jimmy a sob story, makes him steal 25 crores of Bhaiyyaji’s money and runs off with it. The gangster summons from Kanpur, an illiterate aspiring hitman Bacchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) to take Jimmy and go in search of Pooja. Bachchan is given a long drawn intro, which is when the film, that had started to unravel after Bhaiyyaji’s English lessons, comes apart completely.
How could Acharya even think that a Ram Leela gone wrong sequence with Bachchan playing a be-goggled Ravan had any novelty in it? When the guys trace Pooja, she says she has hidden the money all over the country, so they have to zig zag from Rajastan to Ladakh to Kerala to Greece (for the songs) and UP (for the bachpan ka flashbacks).
Remember how in the old movies, couple on the run used to get into a drama company, borrow costumes do a just-like-that dance number? In Tashan, the three hijack a foreign film unit and force them to shoot a song, because a cop is after them! In the end there is a typical seventies style action sequence when fire, metal or bullets don’t even scratch the heroes, while the villain’s henchmen drop like flies. In an earlier sequence, cops drop like flies too, and nobody seems to be concerned about the high body count.
Like the recent Race, everybody in this film is crooked, so the good guys are bad, and maybe the bad not so horrid. In fact, Anil Kapoor does his part with so much zest, he might become the next kinky villain in Hindi films. While Kareena (at her best) and her two suitors provide the sex appeal.
Okay, so Acharya gives the film an over-the-top visual appeal and some extravagant set pieces (just like Jhoom Barabar Jhoom—same producer, same DOP, Ayananka Bose), which, however, do nothing to make the film more endurable.
Sirf
Sirf comes with a tagline ‘Life Looks Greener on the other side’ – but Rajaatesh Nayar’s debut film seems to be set in arid Mumbai landscape with no greenery anywhere.
The four couples who inhabit the film, are miserable in their own way. One can’t get married because there’s no money to rent a house; the other has a kid with a hole in her heart; two have marital problems that involve major bickering.
The common factor in their lives is a big ad campaign that is to be launched and they are all somehow involved with D-day. Nayar makes some kind of attempt to portray the problems of the middle class in Mumbai—of train and bus commutes, space crunch, sidey real estate agents, endless work pressures. Unfortunately, this has all been done with much greater polish in Anurag Basu’s Metro.
A couple of the tracks are even similar -- Kay Kay Menon reprises his role as top honcho in a big company, whose wife (Manisha Koirala) complains of neglect. Like in Metro, he picks up a young protégé Rahul (Ankur Khanna) to do some unsavoury work for him; again like in Metro, the wife is attracted to, but not involved with a younger man (Parvin Dabas), whose small town wife (Rituparna Sengupta) is an unbearable shrew. There are neighbours of the couple (Sonali Kulkarni-Ranvir Shorey) whose kid is ill, and that leaves Rahul’s whiny girlfriend (Nauheed Cyrusi). Annoyingly, all four woman nag and all four men are misunderstood beasts of burden. Not at all a fair picture of people in the city.
Understanding the woes of the middle class requires the sympathy, delicacy and a touch of humour that Basu Chatterjee of Hrishikesh Mukherjee brought to their films—Nayar just blunders through riding on clichés like city women being scantily dressed, booze-guzzling harridans as compared to the demure wife from Jabalpur. If the overdressed and hideously made-up Rituparna was his idea of comic relief, then he left the audience grinding their teeth in irritation.
Kay Kay Menon and Sonali Kulkarni (badly styled) manage to bring some strength to their parts, Ranvir Shorey is wasted in a hopeless role.
Labels: Cinemaah
Hope & A Little Sugar
Saloni, the leading lady of Tanuja Chandra’s film believes that there’s nothing that cannot be fixed with hope and a little sugar. That’s the name of her mithai shop in New York and the title of the film. Cute, sort of..
Chandra’s first English-language film, portraying the trauma of an Indian family post 9/11 tries too hard to say something, but it’s as if the words come out in slurred sentences.
Ali (Amit Sial) is a photographer who works as a messenger in New York, when he is mistaken for a Sikh and befriended by the Oberois. He falls in love with Saloni (Mahima Chaudhary), who is married to Harry (Vikram Chatwal), the son of the Oberoi couple (Anupam Kher-Suhasini Mulay).
The Oberois are the usual noisy, bhangra dancing family, and the father, Colonel Oberoi lives in his 1971 Bangladesh war era. The friendship between Ali and Saloni is as half-baked as the romance later, when Harry dies in the World Trade Centre tragedy.
Saloni recovers quickly, but the Colonel refuses to accept the fact of his son’s death and then takes his fury out on Ali, because he is a Muslim. Rather unnecessarily, Ali is given a past—he suffered the Mumbai riots as a child.. Chandra seems to imply that Muslims suffer everywhere—as victims or perpetrators of terrorism, but the deadpan Ali’s face barely registers emotion, leave aside the pain of the community in two continents.
However undeveloped, it is an attempt to understand prejudices, though it looks like a telefilm of the kind seen on HBO. It’s nicely shot, with adequate performances and it’s relief to hear characters speak English with normal Indian accents, not the exaggerated sing-song they are made to put on. It seems as if no NRI film can be made without the presence of Ranjit Chowdhry and here he pops up as the sad Mr Ghosh, who looks as if is wondering whether he is in the right film.
Chandra’s first English-language film, portraying the trauma of an Indian family post 9/11 tries too hard to say something, but it’s as if the words come out in slurred sentences.
Ali (Amit Sial) is a photographer who works as a messenger in New York, when he is mistaken for a Sikh and befriended by the Oberois. He falls in love with Saloni (Mahima Chaudhary), who is married to Harry (Vikram Chatwal), the son of the Oberoi couple (Anupam Kher-Suhasini Mulay).
The Oberois are the usual noisy, bhangra dancing family, and the father, Colonel Oberoi lives in his 1971 Bangladesh war era. The friendship between Ali and Saloni is as half-baked as the romance later, when Harry dies in the World Trade Centre tragedy.
Saloni recovers quickly, but the Colonel refuses to accept the fact of his son’s death and then takes his fury out on Ali, because he is a Muslim. Rather unnecessarily, Ali is given a past—he suffered the Mumbai riots as a child.. Chandra seems to imply that Muslims suffer everywhere—as victims or perpetrators of terrorism, but the deadpan Ali’s face barely registers emotion, leave aside the pain of the community in two continents.
However undeveloped, it is an attempt to understand prejudices, though it looks like a telefilm of the kind seen on HBO. It’s nicely shot, with adequate performances and it’s relief to hear characters speak English with normal Indian accents, not the exaggerated sing-song they are made to put on. It seems as if no NRI film can be made without the presence of Ranjit Chowdhry and here he pops up as the sad Mr Ghosh, who looks as if is wondering whether he is in the right film.
Labels: Cinemaah
