Wednesday, June 24, 2009
KKD+2
Kal Kisne Dekha
Nihal Singh from Chandigarh (that’s how he is referred to all the time), played by newcomer Jackky Bhagnani in Kal Kisne Dekha, comes to Mumbai to study science, in a college with an enormous campus and a building with gigantic Doric columns—which couldn’t possibly be in Mumbai, but that is the least of the film’s problems.
In the only time NS from C, enters a classroom, he asks his physics professor (Rishi Kapoor—why this?), who is teaching post-grads about Newton and the apple, “Why do we dream?”
The rest of the time, he sings, dances, races bikes, chases spoilt rich miss (Misha Vaishali Desai), gets into scraps with college bullies, and generally poses around in various foreign locales, where his father (Vashu Bhagnani), the producer of the film, could afford to splurge on shoots.
When it’s almost interval time, the director Vivek Sharma (or someone else) must have asked, “But where’s the story?” And so, Nihal’s ability to ‘see’ the future is dusted and trotted out, as he tries to prevent some vague terrorists (Rahul Dev and moll) without a cause from blowing up Mumbai. Even as he runs about, with Mumbai’s police force behind him (since when do they go entirely by some college student’s intuition and not their own intelligence?), he pauses to sing, dance etc., at various pretty places, flinging his arms out a la Shah Rukh Khan and trying to look soulful. Meanwhile, the professor grins evilly and a loony don (Riteish Deshmukh) with gay sidekicks does nothing in particular. And there’s Archana Puran Singh, shrieking around too, unrecognizable and not at all a rustic “bebe” type.
If Jackky Bhagnani and the over-made up, badly dressed Vaishali Desai have any talent or star quality, it’s not visible in Kal Kisne Dekha. In fact, if a producer dad wanted to deliberately sabotage his son’s acting career, he couldn’t have done a better job that this.
Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation
The film’s title is a dead give away, and in scene two, if a character sees a ‘ghost’ wandering in the woods, any regular Hindi moviegoer can figure out the rest. Not to mention that the plot of Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation is that of Chetan Anand’s Kudrat with cosmetic changes.
New York based Vikram (Carlucci Veyant), visits his father Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatge) in Ooty after many years, accompanied by his wife Anna (Alma Saraci). Vikram is angry with his father and wants to go back as soon as possible.
But Anna starts getting visions, and seems to know Ooty well, though she has never been there before. It doesn’t take to figure out that there is reincarnation involved, and that the ‘ghost’ (Claudia Ciesla) is Linda, who was murdered thirty years ago, and has been reborn as Anna.
Vikram does not believe his wife at first, but an internet search (would papers even archive a snippet about the disappearance of a tourist so many years ago?) he also sets about trying to unravel the mystery.
The plot, old though it is, has enough interest to keep the viewer interested, director M.R. Shahjahan has worked in a competent paint-by-number mode, without a touch of freshness or any surprises. If at all there are a few convenient coincidences, like Linda’s friend and compatriot still around in Ooty, after what happened, and not aged a bit in thirty years.
Alma Saraci has an innocent charm that is appealing; the rest of the cast do their parts adequately. Hindi cinema has had so many excellent films on the theme of reincarnation (most of them studded with exquisite songs) that for an Indian viewer, there is absolutely no novelty here, though the film has been making the round of foreign film festivals and even winning awards.
Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya
The heart and mind are in the right place—a film that sends out a ‘Save the Trees’ message—but the script is not.
Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya is just the kind of film the Children’s Film Society used to (and presumably still does) churn out regularly, hoping to uplift kids with moral sermons. Girish Girija Joshi has got together a cast of energetic kids, some well known grown up actors in tiny parts and Amitabh Bachchan to do a voiceover, but his film is long, mostly dreary and, in the end, not even all that moving or inspiring.
Four kids living in a suburban high rise, fight with a homeless beggar (Mithun Chakraborthy—effective get-up) for some flimsy reason, and build a ‘house’ in the only tree in their building, to keep an eye on him; they do so at all hours of the day and night, with no parental intervention. In fact, parents are hardly seen, and the building doesn’t even seem to have a watchman. Helping these kids is Ram (Ashwin Chitale ) the son of a labourer working on a construction site nearby—the unselfconscious friendship between kids from diverse backgrounds is a really nice touch.
Predictably, the villains are a builder (Gulshan Grover) and his henchman (Mahesh Manjrekar), who want to cut down the tree. By now the beggar and the kids have become friends, and they unite to thwart the builder’s axe-wielding underlings.
It’s all very well to get all huffy about one tree, but the idea conveyed is that any random bunch can actually stop any project for eccentric reasons. The kids want to save the tree not for aesthetic or environmental motives, but just because their little wooden look-out is on it. And they manage to save it, not by convincing others that it is important not to cut trees, but by using the ‘religious’ excuse that is so often pulled out to prevent perfectly legit developmental projects. As film meant for children, it just sends out confusing signals.
The film may win awards for its simplistic environment conservation lesson, but is hardly likely to win a kiddie fan following. Which is a pity, because rarely do so many actors (Seema Biswas, Mahesh Manjrekar, Riya Sen, Raj Zutshi) come together just for a cause, and the purpose is not even served.
Nihal Singh from Chandigarh (that’s how he is referred to all the time), played by newcomer Jackky Bhagnani in Kal Kisne Dekha, comes to Mumbai to study science, in a college with an enormous campus and a building with gigantic Doric columns—which couldn’t possibly be in Mumbai, but that is the least of the film’s problems.
In the only time NS from C, enters a classroom, he asks his physics professor (Rishi Kapoor—why this?), who is teaching post-grads about Newton and the apple, “Why do we dream?”
The rest of the time, he sings, dances, races bikes, chases spoilt rich miss (Misha Vaishali Desai), gets into scraps with college bullies, and generally poses around in various foreign locales, where his father (Vashu Bhagnani), the producer of the film, could afford to splurge on shoots.
When it’s almost interval time, the director Vivek Sharma (or someone else) must have asked, “But where’s the story?” And so, Nihal’s ability to ‘see’ the future is dusted and trotted out, as he tries to prevent some vague terrorists (Rahul Dev and moll) without a cause from blowing up Mumbai. Even as he runs about, with Mumbai’s police force behind him (since when do they go entirely by some college student’s intuition and not their own intelligence?), he pauses to sing, dance etc., at various pretty places, flinging his arms out a la Shah Rukh Khan and trying to look soulful. Meanwhile, the professor grins evilly and a loony don (Riteish Deshmukh) with gay sidekicks does nothing in particular. And there’s Archana Puran Singh, shrieking around too, unrecognizable and not at all a rustic “bebe” type.
If Jackky Bhagnani and the over-made up, badly dressed Vaishali Desai have any talent or star quality, it’s not visible in Kal Kisne Dekha. In fact, if a producer dad wanted to deliberately sabotage his son’s acting career, he couldn’t have done a better job that this.
Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation
The film’s title is a dead give away, and in scene two, if a character sees a ‘ghost’ wandering in the woods, any regular Hindi moviegoer can figure out the rest. Not to mention that the plot of Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation is that of Chetan Anand’s Kudrat with cosmetic changes.
New York based Vikram (Carlucci Veyant), visits his father Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatge) in Ooty after many years, accompanied by his wife Anna (Alma Saraci). Vikram is angry with his father and wants to go back as soon as possible.
But Anna starts getting visions, and seems to know Ooty well, though she has never been there before. It doesn’t take to figure out that there is reincarnation involved, and that the ‘ghost’ (Claudia Ciesla) is Linda, who was murdered thirty years ago, and has been reborn as Anna.
Vikram does not believe his wife at first, but an internet search (would papers even archive a snippet about the disappearance of a tourist so many years ago?) he also sets about trying to unravel the mystery.
The plot, old though it is, has enough interest to keep the viewer interested, director M.R. Shahjahan has worked in a competent paint-by-number mode, without a touch of freshness or any surprises. If at all there are a few convenient coincidences, like Linda’s friend and compatriot still around in Ooty, after what happened, and not aged a bit in thirty years.
Alma Saraci has an innocent charm that is appealing; the rest of the cast do their parts adequately. Hindi cinema has had so many excellent films on the theme of reincarnation (most of them studded with exquisite songs) that for an Indian viewer, there is absolutely no novelty here, though the film has been making the round of foreign film festivals and even winning awards.
Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya
The heart and mind are in the right place—a film that sends out a ‘Save the Trees’ message—but the script is not.
Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya is just the kind of film the Children’s Film Society used to (and presumably still does) churn out regularly, hoping to uplift kids with moral sermons. Girish Girija Joshi has got together a cast of energetic kids, some well known grown up actors in tiny parts and Amitabh Bachchan to do a voiceover, but his film is long, mostly dreary and, in the end, not even all that moving or inspiring.
Four kids living in a suburban high rise, fight with a homeless beggar (Mithun Chakraborthy—effective get-up) for some flimsy reason, and build a ‘house’ in the only tree in their building, to keep an eye on him; they do so at all hours of the day and night, with no parental intervention. In fact, parents are hardly seen, and the building doesn’t even seem to have a watchman. Helping these kids is Ram (Ashwin Chitale ) the son of a labourer working on a construction site nearby—the unselfconscious friendship between kids from diverse backgrounds is a really nice touch.
Predictably, the villains are a builder (Gulshan Grover) and his henchman (Mahesh Manjrekar), who want to cut down the tree. By now the beggar and the kids have become friends, and they unite to thwart the builder’s axe-wielding underlings.
It’s all very well to get all huffy about one tree, but the idea conveyed is that any random bunch can actually stop any project for eccentric reasons. The kids want to save the tree not for aesthetic or environmental motives, but just because their little wooden look-out is on it. And they manage to save it, not by convincing others that it is important not to cut trees, but by using the ‘religious’ excuse that is so often pulled out to prevent perfectly legit developmental projects. As film meant for children, it just sends out confusing signals.
The film may win awards for its simplistic environment conservation lesson, but is hardly likely to win a kiddie fan following. Which is a pity, because rarely do so many actors (Seema Biswas, Mahesh Manjrekar, Riya Sen, Raj Zutshi) come together just for a cause, and the purpose is not even served.
Labels: Cinemaah
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