Friday, July 31, 2009
LAK
Love Aaj Kal
Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal takes a look at the Me generation—self-centred, career-oriented, emotionally retarded. They have break-up parties, flirt long-distance; the guys are proud to be called “khula saand”, girls pretend to be coy only to provoke the guy into action.
Well, this could, without meaning to, be the first definitive 21st century love story, with, as an older character in the film says, about a generation that is all mind, no heart. But then maybe box-office considerations come in, what use is a love story that doesn’t end with the lovers in a clinch? Never mind that they have dithered, whined, hurt themselves and other people—and proved to be very unappealing as film characters.
The city is London (what’s wrong with India by the way? No cool people here?): so there’s the cool-as-as-Eskimo engineer Jai (Saif Ali Khan), who is commitment-phobic (like the dude in Salaam Namaste)/ He is not too deeply affected when Meera (Deepika Padukone), the girl he is not sure is his girlfriend, decides to break-up because she wants to concentrate on her career as an art restorer. He gives her the spiel about breaking up only to discover that she had the idea before him. They decide to part ways amicably, throw a break-up party, promise to stay in touch and go their own way.
He woos Swiss girl Jo (Florence Brudenell Bruce) in London, she dates her boss Vikram (Rahul Khanna) in Delhi. But this is not how love stories are supposed to go, according to Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor), a middle-aged Sikh restauranteur and Jai’s confidant. So running parallel to the ‘Aaj’ love story is the ‘Kal’ romance, which is like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, with the brave young man (Khan as the younger Kapoor) storming his girl Harleen’s (Giselle) wedding and eloping with her.
The problem is that after setting up the so-cool and contemporary scenario (with the right trendy outfits to match so young people see the film for the clothes if nothing else), the film goes into territory as old and soggy as Devdas. All that pining, weeping, breaking of relationships is so self-indulgent as to amount to conduct most unbecoming.
The film looks good, Imtiaz Ali is an expert enough director to make so many of the scenes crackle with energy, the song picturisations are zingy; For Saif Ali Khan this part is now like second skin, Deepika Padukone makes up with glamour what she lacks in acting skills; Rishi Kapoor is wonderful. So why does the film still give the feeling that something is sorely lacking? If a guess has to be hazarded, may be what it lacks is heart? Not that a silly little heart will prevent this calculated, all-mind film from being a hit.
Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal takes a look at the Me generation—self-centred, career-oriented, emotionally retarded. They have break-up parties, flirt long-distance; the guys are proud to be called “khula saand”, girls pretend to be coy only to provoke the guy into action.
Well, this could, without meaning to, be the first definitive 21st century love story, with, as an older character in the film says, about a generation that is all mind, no heart. But then maybe box-office considerations come in, what use is a love story that doesn’t end with the lovers in a clinch? Never mind that they have dithered, whined, hurt themselves and other people—and proved to be very unappealing as film characters.
The city is London (what’s wrong with India by the way? No cool people here?): so there’s the cool-as-as-Eskimo engineer Jai (Saif Ali Khan), who is commitment-phobic (like the dude in Salaam Namaste)/ He is not too deeply affected when Meera (Deepika Padukone), the girl he is not sure is his girlfriend, decides to break-up because she wants to concentrate on her career as an art restorer. He gives her the spiel about breaking up only to discover that she had the idea before him. They decide to part ways amicably, throw a break-up party, promise to stay in touch and go their own way.
He woos Swiss girl Jo (Florence Brudenell Bruce) in London, she dates her boss Vikram (Rahul Khanna) in Delhi. But this is not how love stories are supposed to go, according to Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor), a middle-aged Sikh restauranteur and Jai’s confidant. So running parallel to the ‘Aaj’ love story is the ‘Kal’ romance, which is like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, with the brave young man (Khan as the younger Kapoor) storming his girl Harleen’s (Giselle) wedding and eloping with her.
The problem is that after setting up the so-cool and contemporary scenario (with the right trendy outfits to match so young people see the film for the clothes if nothing else), the film goes into territory as old and soggy as Devdas. All that pining, weeping, breaking of relationships is so self-indulgent as to amount to conduct most unbecoming.
The film looks good, Imtiaz Ali is an expert enough director to make so many of the scenes crackle with energy, the song picturisations are zingy; For Saif Ali Khan this part is now like second skin, Deepika Padukone makes up with glamour what she lacks in acting skills; Rishi Kapoor is wonderful. So why does the film still give the feeling that something is sorely lacking? If a guess has to be hazarded, may be what it lacks is heart? Not that a silly little heart will prevent this calculated, all-mind film from being a hit.
Labels: Cinemaah
Monday, July 27, 2009
Luck+1
Luck
This dude, dressed in shiny Pathan suits teamed with Western jackets, trades in luck, “Pure business,” he smirks. So sure is this Musabhai (Sanjay Dutt) of his own invincibility, that he runs across train tracks blind-folded and stays alive. So he sets up an international betting operation, in which other lucky people like him are made to go through reality show type of stunts, only these are designed to kill most of them.
If Soham Shah had come up with the idea all by himself, you could have said at least it is novel, though horribly perverse. But this game of extreme cruelty has been done before in one way or another, in films like Condemned, Intacto, 13 Tszameti and Batoru Rowairu . The problem also is, that no matter how stylish the film may look, and how thrilling the stunts (though they are not all that exciting), it is not a very pleasant experience seeing a film about a bunch of mostly nasty people playing Fear Factor on screen.
Among the crowd of vague ‘imported’ extras hired by Musa’s shark Tamag (Danny Denzongpa), is good guy Ram (Imran Khan), who needs to pay back his father’s humungous debt; he is thrown into the gambling pit with a revenge seeking hottie Ayesha (Shruti Haasan), a winning camel racer Shortcut (Chitrashi Rawat), a Major (Mithun Chakraborty) who has to pay for the treatment of his terminally ill wife and a serial killer (Ravi Kissen), who escaped the noose. This utterly charmless bunch is taken to South Africa and made to shoot at one another, jump out of planes with faulty parachutes and battle sharks. It’s not much fun watching them, more so since no sympathetic connection is built with any of them. Also, you know just who the winners will be—how often do highly paid lead stars get beaten by ‘firang’ junior artistes.
The lines are hilariously over the top and have the word luck in every other sentence… sample this: “Laxmi tujhe tika laga rahi hai, aur tu Id ka chand ban raha hai.” Sanjay Dutt, who is introduced with a title song cavorting with bikini-clad dancers, and then always seen loping towards the camera in slow motion with a signature music track, could to this don role without any effort. For Imran Khan and Shruti Haasan, it may be an unfortunate choice of film, since it gives them nothing to do by way of performance. She has the requisite amount of glamour, but he needs to prove that his first hit, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, was not just beginner's luck.
Perfect Mismatch
In NRI land, where they celebrate “Holly”, “Diwolly”, eat parathas, do the bhangra on all occasions and treat wives like unpaid servants, Punjabi boy falls in love with Gujarati girl. Neha (Nandana Sen) Daddy Patel (Boman Irani) objects because he thinks they are classy and Punjabis are crude.
Aman’s (Anubhav Anand) uncle Bhalla (Anupam Kher) is annoyed because he has to take off his shoes at the door before entering the Gujju home, doesn’t get a drink and has to eat sweet vegetarian good. And the entire Punju-Gujju clan behave like ignorant fresh-off-the-boat types when faced with a local talking of playing softball. The Punjabi jokes about “Potels”—what Patel-owned motels are commonly known as -- and Mr Patel takes offence. God knows what sorry world of stereotypes director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad lives in.
The two grown-up ‘kids’ fret and sob (each has an American confidante) because there is such a big regional clash happening between their families over such trivial matters. And someone thought to make whole film about it! How do the two think of solving the problem? Not by having an adult conversation across the table, but taking the two families and friends for a picnic and organizing a tacky Bollywood-style naach gaana show.
There’s also some subplot about Aman’s family problems and his career ups and downs, and the film is actually 97-minutes of flat storytelling, with no drama, no comedy and absolutely no insights into NRI lives, beyond what dozens of NRI-made ‘ABCD’ films have already touched upon ad nauseum. Not even Anupam Kher and Boman Irani have any new tricks up their sleeves; the best that can be said about Nandana Sen and Anubhav Anand, is that their accents sound right.
This dude, dressed in shiny Pathan suits teamed with Western jackets, trades in luck, “Pure business,” he smirks. So sure is this Musabhai (Sanjay Dutt) of his own invincibility, that he runs across train tracks blind-folded and stays alive. So he sets up an international betting operation, in which other lucky people like him are made to go through reality show type of stunts, only these are designed to kill most of them.
If Soham Shah had come up with the idea all by himself, you could have said at least it is novel, though horribly perverse. But this game of extreme cruelty has been done before in one way or another, in films like Condemned, Intacto, 13 Tszameti and Batoru Rowairu . The problem also is, that no matter how stylish the film may look, and how thrilling the stunts (though they are not all that exciting), it is not a very pleasant experience seeing a film about a bunch of mostly nasty people playing Fear Factor on screen.
Among the crowd of vague ‘imported’ extras hired by Musa’s shark Tamag (Danny Denzongpa), is good guy Ram (Imran Khan), who needs to pay back his father’s humungous debt; he is thrown into the gambling pit with a revenge seeking hottie Ayesha (Shruti Haasan), a winning camel racer Shortcut (Chitrashi Rawat), a Major (Mithun Chakraborty) who has to pay for the treatment of his terminally ill wife and a serial killer (Ravi Kissen), who escaped the noose. This utterly charmless bunch is taken to South Africa and made to shoot at one another, jump out of planes with faulty parachutes and battle sharks. It’s not much fun watching them, more so since no sympathetic connection is built with any of them. Also, you know just who the winners will be—how often do highly paid lead stars get beaten by ‘firang’ junior artistes.
The lines are hilariously over the top and have the word luck in every other sentence… sample this: “Laxmi tujhe tika laga rahi hai, aur tu Id ka chand ban raha hai.” Sanjay Dutt, who is introduced with a title song cavorting with bikini-clad dancers, and then always seen loping towards the camera in slow motion with a signature music track, could to this don role without any effort. For Imran Khan and Shruti Haasan, it may be an unfortunate choice of film, since it gives them nothing to do by way of performance. She has the requisite amount of glamour, but he needs to prove that his first hit, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, was not just beginner's luck.
Perfect Mismatch
In NRI land, where they celebrate “Holly”, “Diwolly”, eat parathas, do the bhangra on all occasions and treat wives like unpaid servants, Punjabi boy falls in love with Gujarati girl. Neha (Nandana Sen) Daddy Patel (Boman Irani) objects because he thinks they are classy and Punjabis are crude.
Aman’s (Anubhav Anand) uncle Bhalla (Anupam Kher) is annoyed because he has to take off his shoes at the door before entering the Gujju home, doesn’t get a drink and has to eat sweet vegetarian good. And the entire Punju-Gujju clan behave like ignorant fresh-off-the-boat types when faced with a local talking of playing softball. The Punjabi jokes about “Potels”—what Patel-owned motels are commonly known as -- and Mr Patel takes offence. God knows what sorry world of stereotypes director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad lives in.
The two grown-up ‘kids’ fret and sob (each has an American confidante) because there is such a big regional clash happening between their families over such trivial matters. And someone thought to make whole film about it! How do the two think of solving the problem? Not by having an adult conversation across the table, but taking the two families and friends for a picnic and organizing a tacky Bollywood-style naach gaana show.
There’s also some subplot about Aman’s family problems and his career ups and downs, and the film is actually 97-minutes of flat storytelling, with no drama, no comedy and absolutely no insights into NRI lives, beyond what dozens of NRI-made ‘ABCD’ films have already touched upon ad nauseum. Not even Anupam Kher and Boman Irani have any new tricks up their sleeves; the best that can be said about Nandana Sen and Anubhav Anand, is that their accents sound right.
Labels: Cinemaah
