Sunday, November 01, 2009
LD+Aladin
London Dreams
You know a film is hitting the wrong notes, when the hero flagellates himself, because he has allowed himself to be distracted by a girl, and instead of flinching, the audience sniggers. For a film that is about a man's passion for music, the music is the weakest part; makes you wonder if creating tepid pop tunes for a vague, faceless audience of 'goras' who can't even understand the Hindi lyrics is a valid, lifelong ambition?
But in London Dreams, Arjun, born in a Punjab village aspires to be "Mai ka lal Jaikishan" (Aaargh). Orphaned, he is taken to London by his uncle (Om Puri), but he runs away, begs for coins and actually walks into some big, sombre Music Academy. As a character in the film says a couple of time, we are just paying back the Brits for 200 years of ruling us.. maybe that's the hidden agenda of Vipul Shah's film. In that he succeeds-- the old imperialist would cringe at the sight of an Indian singer taking over Trafalgar Square!
Arjun is devoted to music, and along with two Pakistani dudes (Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor) and a back-up girl Priya (Asin) forms a band, manages a contract with a 'gora' music company and is on the road to success. Dull so far, Salman Khan has to come and rescue the film. He is Mannu, the buddy Arjun had left behind in the village, and he is not the 'bholabhala' villager of yore, but the rural stud and gadabout.
Mannu is taken to London by Arjun, and when the man's on stage, he walks away with the show. He is effortlessly talented; soon London Dreams and Priya have been snatched from under Arjun's morose nose. He then plots Mannu downfall, with the usual honey trap-- you wonder how a fairly smart chap can't tell the difference between salt and cocaine, but Mannu gets addicted, and there is a showdown at Wembley.
Think Amadeus, think lofty emotions, devious villainy, heart-rending tragedy and weep at Shah's wishy-washy attempt to recreate it. You hate to say this, but the awful Shakalaka Boom Boom, also based on the same idea, suddenly acquires merit in hindsight. When everything else fails (the dialogue is effective and the cinematography is fine, though), it is Ajay Devgan's on-tap intensity and Salman Khan's comic chatter that really keeps the audience going. Both are a little too old for the parts-- Salman definitely over the age of playing cute, wisecracking rake-- but without them, the film would have little else except London scenery-- and that has been seen in so many films already.
Aladin
The film has been produced by a banner called Bound Script, so presumably there was one, and presumably the actors read (or heard) it. Didn't they apply their minds at all?
The idea sounds interesting-- a reworking of the Aladin and the Magic Lamp tale, that every kid has heard or read with fascination. The film begins promisingly too, with the action set in a fictional town of Khwaish (wish), that looks deliberately fairytale-ish, with lovely mansions and cobbled streets. (That the interiors look stuffed with Chor Bazaar fake antiques is sympomatic of the film-- it gets just that much right, and so much wrong.)
Here, the unfortunately named Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh) spends his life running from bullies who keep forcing him to rub lamps. Aladin is in college, he has a bag on his back at all times and wears a red sweater with a 'a' on it. Such a nerd is asking to be ragged. Then Aladin falls in love with new college girl Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandez) and as if by magic, he gets The Lamp, from which Genius the Genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. His 'look' is something between his Jhoom Barabar and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna get-ups -- in short too garish.
Still, so far it's bearable and Genius does the usual magic stuff like turning Aladin's guitar into a frog, that will amuse kids. All this is CGI and quite well done, but the the point of the whole exercise is the three wishes, and when it comes down to business the story (or bound script) fails. Aladin stutters some silly stuff, because all he has on his mind is Jasmine.
The villain has to enter at some point, and Sanjay Dutt as Ring Master rolls in with his menagerie of freaks, including a masked girl who spews fire (must be the most unfortunate debut in cinema, a girl gets to slink all over Sanjay Dutt, but her face remains hidden). There is some gibberish about a comet that can bestow great power. But by the time the climax comes around, the viewer has been subjected to a hell of a lot of boring song-and-dance (Aladin tera bheja hai khali types), with the genie doing most of it.
Surely Amitabh was not tempted to do this film just to wear ghastly costumes and dance? Riteish Deshmukh, usually so good with comedy, has to wear one prune-faced expression. And the newcomer Jaqueline Fernandez just comes up with her dazzling 'full battisi' smile whenever asked to face the camera. If this what a bound script delivers, maybe, a haphazard written-on-the-sets style of working is actually better-- Amitabh Bachchan has done a fair amount of this in his career, and nobody complained.
You know a film is hitting the wrong notes, when the hero flagellates himself, because he has allowed himself to be distracted by a girl, and instead of flinching, the audience sniggers. For a film that is about a man's passion for music, the music is the weakest part; makes you wonder if creating tepid pop tunes for a vague, faceless audience of 'goras' who can't even understand the Hindi lyrics is a valid, lifelong ambition?
But in London Dreams, Arjun, born in a Punjab village aspires to be "Mai ka lal Jaikishan" (Aaargh). Orphaned, he is taken to London by his uncle (Om Puri), but he runs away, begs for coins and actually walks into some big, sombre Music Academy. As a character in the film says a couple of time, we are just paying back the Brits for 200 years of ruling us.. maybe that's the hidden agenda of Vipul Shah's film. In that he succeeds-- the old imperialist would cringe at the sight of an Indian singer taking over Trafalgar Square!
Arjun is devoted to music, and along with two Pakistani dudes (Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor) and a back-up girl Priya (Asin) forms a band, manages a contract with a 'gora' music company and is on the road to success. Dull so far, Salman Khan has to come and rescue the film. He is Mannu, the buddy Arjun had left behind in the village, and he is not the 'bholabhala' villager of yore, but the rural stud and gadabout.
Mannu is taken to London by Arjun, and when the man's on stage, he walks away with the show. He is effortlessly talented; soon London Dreams and Priya have been snatched from under Arjun's morose nose. He then plots Mannu downfall, with the usual honey trap-- you wonder how a fairly smart chap can't tell the difference between salt and cocaine, but Mannu gets addicted, and there is a showdown at Wembley.
Think Amadeus, think lofty emotions, devious villainy, heart-rending tragedy and weep at Shah's wishy-washy attempt to recreate it. You hate to say this, but the awful Shakalaka Boom Boom, also based on the same idea, suddenly acquires merit in hindsight. When everything else fails (the dialogue is effective and the cinematography is fine, though), it is Ajay Devgan's on-tap intensity and Salman Khan's comic chatter that really keeps the audience going. Both are a little too old for the parts-- Salman definitely over the age of playing cute, wisecracking rake-- but without them, the film would have little else except London scenery-- and that has been seen in so many films already.
Aladin
The film has been produced by a banner called Bound Script, so presumably there was one, and presumably the actors read (or heard) it. Didn't they apply their minds at all?
The idea sounds interesting-- a reworking of the Aladin and the Magic Lamp tale, that every kid has heard or read with fascination. The film begins promisingly too, with the action set in a fictional town of Khwaish (wish), that looks deliberately fairytale-ish, with lovely mansions and cobbled streets. (That the interiors look stuffed with Chor Bazaar fake antiques is sympomatic of the film-- it gets just that much right, and so much wrong.)
Here, the unfortunately named Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh) spends his life running from bullies who keep forcing him to rub lamps. Aladin is in college, he has a bag on his back at all times and wears a red sweater with a 'a' on it. Such a nerd is asking to be ragged. Then Aladin falls in love with new college girl Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandez) and as if by magic, he gets The Lamp, from which Genius the Genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. His 'look' is something between his Jhoom Barabar and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna get-ups -- in short too garish.
Still, so far it's bearable and Genius does the usual magic stuff like turning Aladin's guitar into a frog, that will amuse kids. All this is CGI and quite well done, but the the point of the whole exercise is the three wishes, and when it comes down to business the story (or bound script) fails. Aladin stutters some silly stuff, because all he has on his mind is Jasmine.
The villain has to enter at some point, and Sanjay Dutt as Ring Master rolls in with his menagerie of freaks, including a masked girl who spews fire (must be the most unfortunate debut in cinema, a girl gets to slink all over Sanjay Dutt, but her face remains hidden). There is some gibberish about a comet that can bestow great power. But by the time the climax comes around, the viewer has been subjected to a hell of a lot of boring song-and-dance (Aladin tera bheja hai khali types), with the genie doing most of it.
Surely Amitabh was not tempted to do this film just to wear ghastly costumes and dance? Riteish Deshmukh, usually so good with comedy, has to wear one prune-faced expression. And the newcomer Jaqueline Fernandez just comes up with her dazzling 'full battisi' smile whenever asked to face the camera. If this what a bound script delivers, maybe, a haphazard written-on-the-sets style of working is actually better-- Amitabh Bachchan has done a fair amount of this in his career, and nobody complained.
Labels: Cinemaah
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