Friday, June 04, 2010
Rajneeti
Raajneeti
Prakash Jha’s Bihar films like Mrityudand, Gangajal and Apaharan had moments of great power and genuine insights into a land and culture that the director knows closely. That’s why it is doubly disappointing that a filmmaker of his accomplishments should want to make a tepid version of The Godfather mixed with bits of the Mahabharat, and let news dribble out that it is based on the Gandhi family. Expectations from Raajneeti were high because Jha is one of the few filmmakers who has the capacity and courage to be original, and knows of life at the grassroots level that is increasingly lost to cinema. That’s why the disappointment is further mutiplied, since it fails to live up to those expectations.
Jha is still able to give the first half of the film an epic sweep and well shot, realistic crowd scenes, then you watch with increasing discomfort as the film descends to the level of a shlock gangster film, abandoning subtlety for over-the-top violence.
Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) one of the two sons of a politician father (Chetan Pandit), doing his doctorate in Victorian poetry abroad, and dating an Irish girl (Sara Thompson) comes to India to find his life going to pieces. His uncle, the Chief Minister of the state gets a paralytic attack, and his position is eyed both by his brother (Samar’s father) and his son Veerendra (Manoj Bajpai), while Samar’s older brother Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) is also in the fray. All the mayhem is controlled and directed by the benign-looking Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar), like Krishna of the Mahabharat.
The aggressive and uncouth Veerendra gets the support of rising Dalit leader Sooraj (Ajay Devgn), who, unknown to all, is the illegitimate son of Samar and Prithvi’s mother Bharti (Nikhila Trikha—a weak link). When their father is killed, Samar and Prithvi declare war against their cousin Veerendra by setting up their own political party. Samar becomes the brain behind it all and completely cold-blooded, willing to blackmail and murder; to dump Sara for rich girl Indu (Katrina Kaif), for election funds and then dump Indu, who loves him, so that she and her millions can marry his CM-aspirant brother.
Sara comes to India, and becomes an irritant in the plot, playing no part in the film except increasing the running time with her constant whining. More blood is shed, Indu is pushed into electoral politics, and Samar takes on even more shades of Michael Corleone as his ruthlessness knows no bounds.
What work are the Mahabharat bits, like the Sooraj/Karna subplot and Devgn plays him with the ferocious intensity he is known for, almost walking away with the film, with only Ranbir Kapoor’s smoothly evil Samar for competition.
Even if such a story is told well, it is déjà vu for the audience—it is Sarkar, with just more characters and a different milieu, and both these films owe their core to The Godfather, which must be the most imitated (call it homage or tribute, it is still a copy) film in history.
Jha’s casting is fine, even the minor parts played by Shruti Seth, Vinay Apte, Dayashankar Pandey, Kiran Karmarkar, Darshan Jariwala leave some kind of impact. But on the whole the film does not say anything about politics that is not already known and documented ad nauseum in cinema. From Prakash Jha’s firsthand experience of electoral politics, one wanted more than just an ‘end justifies the means’ conclusion. Only he was capable of making the definitive Indian ‘dirty politics’ film and he took the easy way out.
Prakash Jha’s Bihar films like Mrityudand, Gangajal and Apaharan had moments of great power and genuine insights into a land and culture that the director knows closely. That’s why it is doubly disappointing that a filmmaker of his accomplishments should want to make a tepid version of The Godfather mixed with bits of the Mahabharat, and let news dribble out that it is based on the Gandhi family. Expectations from Raajneeti were high because Jha is one of the few filmmakers who has the capacity and courage to be original, and knows of life at the grassroots level that is increasingly lost to cinema. That’s why the disappointment is further mutiplied, since it fails to live up to those expectations.
Jha is still able to give the first half of the film an epic sweep and well shot, realistic crowd scenes, then you watch with increasing discomfort as the film descends to the level of a shlock gangster film, abandoning subtlety for over-the-top violence.
Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) one of the two sons of a politician father (Chetan Pandit), doing his doctorate in Victorian poetry abroad, and dating an Irish girl (Sara Thompson) comes to India to find his life going to pieces. His uncle, the Chief Minister of the state gets a paralytic attack, and his position is eyed both by his brother (Samar’s father) and his son Veerendra (Manoj Bajpai), while Samar’s older brother Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) is also in the fray. All the mayhem is controlled and directed by the benign-looking Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar), like Krishna of the Mahabharat.
The aggressive and uncouth Veerendra gets the support of rising Dalit leader Sooraj (Ajay Devgn), who, unknown to all, is the illegitimate son of Samar and Prithvi’s mother Bharti (Nikhila Trikha—a weak link). When their father is killed, Samar and Prithvi declare war against their cousin Veerendra by setting up their own political party. Samar becomes the brain behind it all and completely cold-blooded, willing to blackmail and murder; to dump Sara for rich girl Indu (Katrina Kaif), for election funds and then dump Indu, who loves him, so that she and her millions can marry his CM-aspirant brother.
Sara comes to India, and becomes an irritant in the plot, playing no part in the film except increasing the running time with her constant whining. More blood is shed, Indu is pushed into electoral politics, and Samar takes on even more shades of Michael Corleone as his ruthlessness knows no bounds.
What work are the Mahabharat bits, like the Sooraj/Karna subplot and Devgn plays him with the ferocious intensity he is known for, almost walking away with the film, with only Ranbir Kapoor’s smoothly evil Samar for competition.
Even if such a story is told well, it is déjà vu for the audience—it is Sarkar, with just more characters and a different milieu, and both these films owe their core to The Godfather, which must be the most imitated (call it homage or tribute, it is still a copy) film in history.
Jha’s casting is fine, even the minor parts played by Shruti Seth, Vinay Apte, Dayashankar Pandey, Kiran Karmarkar, Darshan Jariwala leave some kind of impact. But on the whole the film does not say anything about politics that is not already known and documented ad nauseum in cinema. From Prakash Jha’s firsthand experience of electoral politics, one wanted more than just an ‘end justifies the means’ conclusion. Only he was capable of making the definitive Indian ‘dirty politics’ film and he took the easy way out.
Labels: Cinemaah
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Kites
Kites
A post-Kites observation-- Bollywood technicians are far superior to its actors, and actors are far superior to its writers and directors.
A question: Exactly who is Kites for? A large chunk of the film is in English and Spanish, the Spanish bits have English subtitles, so that leaves out many Indian viewers. If it is meant for an international 'crossover' audience, then why would they want to see their own locations and style with a stale story packaged and offered to them, with just a bit of Bollywood garnish?
As it often happens with films that have ambitions bigger than capacity of delivery, Anurag Basu's Kites falls between the two vehicles it tries to ride-- it is neither truly Indian, nor truly international; when you see it as Indian, you are annoyed by the oft-repeated story, and when you see it as international, you are embarrassed by the loudness and melodrama.
Nothing is known about the 'hero' except that he is a hustler who wants to get rich quick. He has an odd name J Ray, and is Indian, or maybe half-Indian. If Basu expects the audience to care for him and condone his actions (that involve a huge body count or innocents and stupendous destruction of expensive props), a bit more of a background was essential
The Mexican girl Linda (Barbara Mori) is given more of a backstory, and you do end up feeling sorry for what she has to go through because of her poverty and misdirected love.
A part of J's hustle is to marry green card seeking women and she is the 11th he marries. Is it that easy to con the US authorities? Let that pass, it is after all a Bollywood film, and hence notoriously contemptuous of logic or authenticity. When he meets her again, she is the fiancee of the nasty son (Nicholas Brown) of Las Vegas casino king (Kabir Bedi), and J himself is dating the daughter (Kangana Ranaut).
He can't take his hungry eyes of her, and they end up on the run with Nick's hoods, cops and bounty hunters after them. The second half of the film perks up a bit and then falls into a predictable pattern of every moment of reprieve being quickly followed by a tragic one.
If it weren't for Hrithik Roshan's traffic-stopping good looks, Barbara Mori's effervescent sex appeal (the much-touted chemistry is very watered down in the Indian version of the film), and Ayanaka Bose's painstaking cinematography, the film would be unbearable.
Too bad then, with all the effort and expense put into it, Kites simply doesn't soar high enough. Give up these ridiculous crossover dreams and trying to please goras.. just come back to Mumbai, Bollywood.. we promise not to demand an Oscar... not even a Palme d 'Or or Golden Lion.
A post-Kites observation-- Bollywood technicians are far superior to its actors, and actors are far superior to its writers and directors.
A question: Exactly who is Kites for? A large chunk of the film is in English and Spanish, the Spanish bits have English subtitles, so that leaves out many Indian viewers. If it is meant for an international 'crossover' audience, then why would they want to see their own locations and style with a stale story packaged and offered to them, with just a bit of Bollywood garnish?
As it often happens with films that have ambitions bigger than capacity of delivery, Anurag Basu's Kites falls between the two vehicles it tries to ride-- it is neither truly Indian, nor truly international; when you see it as Indian, you are annoyed by the oft-repeated story, and when you see it as international, you are embarrassed by the loudness and melodrama.
Nothing is known about the 'hero' except that he is a hustler who wants to get rich quick. He has an odd name J Ray, and is Indian, or maybe half-Indian. If Basu expects the audience to care for him and condone his actions (that involve a huge body count or innocents and stupendous destruction of expensive props), a bit more of a background was essential
The Mexican girl Linda (Barbara Mori) is given more of a backstory, and you do end up feeling sorry for what she has to go through because of her poverty and misdirected love.
A part of J's hustle is to marry green card seeking women and she is the 11th he marries. Is it that easy to con the US authorities? Let that pass, it is after all a Bollywood film, and hence notoriously contemptuous of logic or authenticity. When he meets her again, she is the fiancee of the nasty son (Nicholas Brown) of Las Vegas casino king (Kabir Bedi), and J himself is dating the daughter (Kangana Ranaut).
He can't take his hungry eyes of her, and they end up on the run with Nick's hoods, cops and bounty hunters after them. The second half of the film perks up a bit and then falls into a predictable pattern of every moment of reprieve being quickly followed by a tragic one.
If it weren't for Hrithik Roshan's traffic-stopping good looks, Barbara Mori's effervescent sex appeal (the much-touted chemistry is very watered down in the Indian version of the film), and Ayanaka Bose's painstaking cinematography, the film would be unbearable.
Too bad then, with all the effort and expense put into it, Kites simply doesn't soar high enough. Give up these ridiculous crossover dreams and trying to please goras.. just come back to Mumbai, Bollywood.. we promise not to demand an Oscar... not even a Palme d 'Or or Golden Lion.
Labels: Cinemaah
BBB
Bumm Bumm Bole
Majid Majidi’s Iranian film Children of Heaven (1997) is a masterpiece… a film so simple that it is as poetic as haiku, and its layers emerge slowly like fragrance. It talks of family relationships, love, sacrifice and grace. The film put Iranian cinema on the world map and won an Oscar nomination.
It wouldn’t take genius to remake the film as it is, and it would appeal to audiences anyway. But Priyadarshan had to go ahead and “Indianise” it—which means add songs, melodrama, a terrorism angle too violent for kids, and embarrassingly in-your-face product placements.
Priyadarshan sets his film Bumm Bumm Bole (awful title!) in the North-East, and shoots at picturesque locations, but that’s where the charm of the film ends. The story is about a little boy Pinu (Darsheel Safary) who loses his sister Rimzim’s (Ziyah Vastani) only pair of shoes. The father (Atul Kulkarni) is unemployed, the family is desperately poor—the kids can’t ask for a new pair, so they decide that the girl will wear the brother’s shoes in the morning, run back from school and give them to the boy. This daily exchange obviously causes a lot of stress in the kids’ lives—getting late for school, being the least of them.
There was absolutely need to borrow from Tahaan and add a sub-plot about terrorism and Pinu getting involved in his rich uncle’s schemes. There is rape attempt on the mother (Rituparna Sengupta), the father being arrested for murder, and Pinu’s trauma at school. A couple of things seem out of place—like the very poor family having a TV at home, and the well-fed appearance of the kids and braces on the boy’s teeth. In the end when the father gets a job, he is seen buying shoes at a branded store—where shoes would cost more than his monthly salary! One is not even complaining about the hybrid costumes and funny accents—that kind of meticulous authenticity is not expected from mainstream filmmakers.
Everything rests on the two kids and Ziyah Vastani is cute as a doll. Darsheel Safary wears the same sullen expression he did in Taare Zameen Par. But even together they are not an audience-magnet.
All the synthetic padding to increase the running time, adds nothing to the film, but subtracts from the lyrical beauty of the original. Bumm Bumm Bole is neither for adults nor for kids, neither commercial film, nor artistic. See Children of Heaven on DVD!
Majid Majidi’s Iranian film Children of Heaven (1997) is a masterpiece… a film so simple that it is as poetic as haiku, and its layers emerge slowly like fragrance. It talks of family relationships, love, sacrifice and grace. The film put Iranian cinema on the world map and won an Oscar nomination.
It wouldn’t take genius to remake the film as it is, and it would appeal to audiences anyway. But Priyadarshan had to go ahead and “Indianise” it—which means add songs, melodrama, a terrorism angle too violent for kids, and embarrassingly in-your-face product placements.
Priyadarshan sets his film Bumm Bumm Bole (awful title!) in the North-East, and shoots at picturesque locations, but that’s where the charm of the film ends. The story is about a little boy Pinu (Darsheel Safary) who loses his sister Rimzim’s (Ziyah Vastani) only pair of shoes. The father (Atul Kulkarni) is unemployed, the family is desperately poor—the kids can’t ask for a new pair, so they decide that the girl will wear the brother’s shoes in the morning, run back from school and give them to the boy. This daily exchange obviously causes a lot of stress in the kids’ lives—getting late for school, being the least of them.
There was absolutely need to borrow from Tahaan and add a sub-plot about terrorism and Pinu getting involved in his rich uncle’s schemes. There is rape attempt on the mother (Rituparna Sengupta), the father being arrested for murder, and Pinu’s trauma at school. A couple of things seem out of place—like the very poor family having a TV at home, and the well-fed appearance of the kids and braces on the boy’s teeth. In the end when the father gets a job, he is seen buying shoes at a branded store—where shoes would cost more than his monthly salary! One is not even complaining about the hybrid costumes and funny accents—that kind of meticulous authenticity is not expected from mainstream filmmakers.
Everything rests on the two kids and Ziyah Vastani is cute as a doll. Darsheel Safary wears the same sullen expression he did in Taare Zameen Par. But even together they are not an audience-magnet.
All the synthetic padding to increase the running time, adds nothing to the film, but subtracts from the lyrical beauty of the original. Bumm Bumm Bole is neither for adults nor for kids, neither commercial film, nor artistic. See Children of Heaven on DVD!
Labels: Cinemaah
Badmaash+Afterlife
Badmaash Company
Not so long ago, before the retail boom, foreign goods came at a premium in India, and every area in Mumbai had a friendly neighbourhood smuggler, who provided goodies like jeans, t-shirts, branded shoes, watches, chocolates and cheese. The modus operandi was to send ‘carriers’ to Bangkok or Hong Kong, smuggle in these in-demand goods, in cahoots with the customs guys. The flourishing business came to an end with Manmohan Singh’s liberalization policy.
It’s a very interesting social phenomenon, but a Badmaash Company in a film, smuggling shoes, doesn’t make for very exciting cinema. Middle class Karan (Shahid Kapoor—efficient) wants to get rich quick, and with the help of friends Chandu (Vir Das--likeable), Zing (Meiyang Chang—good screen presence) and girlfriend Bulbul (Anushka Sharma--miscast) forms his own hoodwink-customs ring.
Karan’s too elaborate plan, again, is amusing to read about, but watching it unfold repetitively kills the humour of the story of Indian enterprise. This bit is added on to the true case of how a cancelled consignment of Madras checked fabric that bled, was turned into an triumph of canny marketing. (Captain Nair was the man who had sold the miracle fabric that bleeds concept, but much earlier than the period the film is set in.)
Parmeet Sethi, making his debut as director, hit on a good idea, cast it well, but his filmmaking style is stodgy and does not show any of the innovation that the story idea does. And then, after establishing these guys and gal as cool, he climbs the moral high ground and preaches honesty, stability and family values.
Still, it is to be commended for at least reminding us of a time that is forgotten in the glare of malls laden with international brands. The enterprising smuggler was really an institution, but as the hero of a film? Maybe not.
It’s a Wonderful Afterlife
When Gurinder Chadha made Bhaji On The Beach in 1993, she was this bright young UK filmmaker of Indian origin, chronicling the endearing quirks of her community. The voice was not as fresh and perky by the time she made Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, but still carried a degree of charm.
Now with her latest, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, the tone is sneering and the formula already rancid. This is the picture of Indians in the UK that she wants to show the world, but to Indians it is offensive. There may be characters like the ones she shows in the film, but there are many more who are not the typically desi types, but you hardly see a Laxmi Mittal in the movies, just the aloo-gobhi stereotypes.
Pity that Shabana Azmi had to endorse such a film by wasting her acting talents on it. The film begins with a force-fed man stomach literally bursting, spraying the operation theatre staff with undigested Indian food. From this sick-making scene, the film just never seems to rise.
The cops in London are baffled by a series of murders of Asians, in bizarre ways— like man smothered with a chapatti, a women killed with a rolling pin and another stabbed with a kabab skewer. Worse, the dead ones hover around as ghosts with the ‘murder weapons’ on their bodies, and as the film progresses get increasingly hideous.
There is no mystery, the killer is Mrs Sethi (Azmi), whose sole aim in life is to get her fat daughter Roopi (Goldy Notay) married, so that she can die in peace and join her departed husband. Investigating the murders is an Indian cop Murthy (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who takes a shine to Roopi, though he just has to date her as part of his undercover duties.
The humour in the film is more nasty than funny, none of the characters is remotely likeable—the most irritating being an English girl who returns from India believing she has psychic powers.
Wonderful is not the adjective of choice to describe this film-- woeful, maybe?
Not so long ago, before the retail boom, foreign goods came at a premium in India, and every area in Mumbai had a friendly neighbourhood smuggler, who provided goodies like jeans, t-shirts, branded shoes, watches, chocolates and cheese. The modus operandi was to send ‘carriers’ to Bangkok or Hong Kong, smuggle in these in-demand goods, in cahoots with the customs guys. The flourishing business came to an end with Manmohan Singh’s liberalization policy.
It’s a very interesting social phenomenon, but a Badmaash Company in a film, smuggling shoes, doesn’t make for very exciting cinema. Middle class Karan (Shahid Kapoor—efficient) wants to get rich quick, and with the help of friends Chandu (Vir Das--likeable), Zing (Meiyang Chang—good screen presence) and girlfriend Bulbul (Anushka Sharma--miscast) forms his own hoodwink-customs ring.
Karan’s too elaborate plan, again, is amusing to read about, but watching it unfold repetitively kills the humour of the story of Indian enterprise. This bit is added on to the true case of how a cancelled consignment of Madras checked fabric that bled, was turned into an triumph of canny marketing. (Captain Nair was the man who had sold the miracle fabric that bleeds concept, but much earlier than the period the film is set in.)
Parmeet Sethi, making his debut as director, hit on a good idea, cast it well, but his filmmaking style is stodgy and does not show any of the innovation that the story idea does. And then, after establishing these guys and gal as cool, he climbs the moral high ground and preaches honesty, stability and family values.
Still, it is to be commended for at least reminding us of a time that is forgotten in the glare of malls laden with international brands. The enterprising smuggler was really an institution, but as the hero of a film? Maybe not.
It’s a Wonderful Afterlife
When Gurinder Chadha made Bhaji On The Beach in 1993, she was this bright young UK filmmaker of Indian origin, chronicling the endearing quirks of her community. The voice was not as fresh and perky by the time she made Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, but still carried a degree of charm.
Now with her latest, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, the tone is sneering and the formula already rancid. This is the picture of Indians in the UK that she wants to show the world, but to Indians it is offensive. There may be characters like the ones she shows in the film, but there are many more who are not the typically desi types, but you hardly see a Laxmi Mittal in the movies, just the aloo-gobhi stereotypes.
Pity that Shabana Azmi had to endorse such a film by wasting her acting talents on it. The film begins with a force-fed man stomach literally bursting, spraying the operation theatre staff with undigested Indian food. From this sick-making scene, the film just never seems to rise.
The cops in London are baffled by a series of murders of Asians, in bizarre ways— like man smothered with a chapatti, a women killed with a rolling pin and another stabbed with a kabab skewer. Worse, the dead ones hover around as ghosts with the ‘murder weapons’ on their bodies, and as the film progresses get increasingly hideous.
There is no mystery, the killer is Mrs Sethi (Azmi), whose sole aim in life is to get her fat daughter Roopi (Goldy Notay) married, so that she can die in peace and join her departed husband. Investigating the murders is an Indian cop Murthy (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who takes a shine to Roopi, though he just has to date her as part of his undercover duties.
The humour in the film is more nasty than funny, none of the characters is remotely likeable—the most irritating being an English girl who returns from India believing she has psychic powers.
Wonderful is not the adjective of choice to describe this film-- woeful, maybe?
Labels: Cinemaah
Housefull
Housefull
It’s just not funny—or maybe it is sadly amusing to find a 40-plus actor being made to act coy, saying he doesn’t know what to do on a honeymoon. This is Sajid Khan’s idea of humour in Housefull.
Maybe audiences should be touched that a filmmaker has tried so hard to them laugh—pity that for him comedy means corny exchanges lines like: Q: “Where did you get this sher?” A: “From the sher bazaar.”
Haha! Anyway, Aarush (Akshay Kumar—drumming up the requisite energy) the coy dude, believes that bad luck follows him. Just dumped by his girlfriend (Malaika Arora) in Macau, he piles on to his friends in London— casino croupier Baburao (Ritiesh Deshmukh--okay) and his waitress wife Hetal (Lara Dutta—not bad!). Her father, back in India (Boman Irani—loud!) has been sulking because she married beneath herself, and for this, his mother (Honey Irani) keeps thrashing him. Okay.. haha some more.
Aarush marries Devika (Jiah Khan), who dumps him on the wedding night, to run off with some gora extra. He then falls in love with Sandi (Deepika Padukone). Hetal’s father and Sandi’s stern cop brother Krishna (Arjun Rampal--sleepwalking), land up unexpectedly and Aarush and company are caught up in a hysterical web of lies, so that the two men don’t find out that the girls have married good-for-nothing losers.
A mansion is hired from a loony widow (Lillete Dubey) and a black kid picked up to pass off as a grandson (who vanishes without a whimper when this gag is played out). The ill-timed entries and exits of the characters are out of old-fashioned British faces, so popular with Mumbai’s theatre folk. The lies escalate and blow up into laughing gas (literally!) at the Buckingham Palace.
There may be a section of the audience that goes to the cinema just for ‘timepass’ and will laugh at some of the idiotic gags, because, well, they paid to laugh and might as well try, but there isn’t one fresh track or one original gag in the film. Does anyone even find gay jokes funny any more? Sajid Khan may have paid tribute to everyone from Manmohan Desai to Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the credits, but his influences are those quickie comedies that Hollywood comedians like Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler churn out with such regularity.
No expense has been spared in giving the film a lavish look—shooting in the UK and Italy (where Chunky Pandey turns up as hotel owner called Aakhri Pasta!), the girls cast just for their ability to carry off bikinis.
The makers are bound to claim that Housefull is a big hit; if it does well, it would be because of the timing of the release-- in the midst of vacations and after a long dry spell in the cinemas-- than any special merits.
It’s just not funny—or maybe it is sadly amusing to find a 40-plus actor being made to act coy, saying he doesn’t know what to do on a honeymoon. This is Sajid Khan’s idea of humour in Housefull.
Maybe audiences should be touched that a filmmaker has tried so hard to them laugh—pity that for him comedy means corny exchanges lines like: Q: “Where did you get this sher?” A: “From the sher bazaar.”
Haha! Anyway, Aarush (Akshay Kumar—drumming up the requisite energy) the coy dude, believes that bad luck follows him. Just dumped by his girlfriend (Malaika Arora) in Macau, he piles on to his friends in London— casino croupier Baburao (Ritiesh Deshmukh--okay) and his waitress wife Hetal (Lara Dutta—not bad!). Her father, back in India (Boman Irani—loud!) has been sulking because she married beneath herself, and for this, his mother (Honey Irani) keeps thrashing him. Okay.. haha some more.
Aarush marries Devika (Jiah Khan), who dumps him on the wedding night, to run off with some gora extra. He then falls in love with Sandi (Deepika Padukone). Hetal’s father and Sandi’s stern cop brother Krishna (Arjun Rampal--sleepwalking), land up unexpectedly and Aarush and company are caught up in a hysterical web of lies, so that the two men don’t find out that the girls have married good-for-nothing losers.
A mansion is hired from a loony widow (Lillete Dubey) and a black kid picked up to pass off as a grandson (who vanishes without a whimper when this gag is played out). The ill-timed entries and exits of the characters are out of old-fashioned British faces, so popular with Mumbai’s theatre folk. The lies escalate and blow up into laughing gas (literally!) at the Buckingham Palace.
There may be a section of the audience that goes to the cinema just for ‘timepass’ and will laugh at some of the idiotic gags, because, well, they paid to laugh and might as well try, but there isn’t one fresh track or one original gag in the film. Does anyone even find gay jokes funny any more? Sajid Khan may have paid tribute to everyone from Manmohan Desai to Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the credits, but his influences are those quickie comedies that Hollywood comedians like Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler churn out with such regularity.
No expense has been spared in giving the film a lavish look—shooting in the UK and Italy (where Chunky Pandey turns up as hotel owner called Aakhri Pasta!), the girls cast just for their ability to carry off bikinis.
The makers are bound to claim that Housefull is a big hit; if it does well, it would be because of the timing of the release-- in the midst of vacations and after a long dry spell in the cinemas-- than any special merits.
Labels: Cinemaah
Apartment+City of Gold+Bird Idol
Apartment
For his new film Apartment, Jag Mundhra chooses to ape a Hollywood film called Single White Female, that wasn’t even so great that someone would want to remake it. And then, he adds nothing to it, just telling a boring story in a boringly flat style.
Tanushree Dutta plays Preeti, an air hostess, who buys an apartment, but finds the monthly installments tough to handle. Her boyfriend Karan (Rohit Roy) offers to move in and share the expense. But Preeti is a suspicious type, and when she finds him in the flat with a woman – they are standing in the living room, having an innocuous conversation—she flies into a rage and throws him out.
She then advertises for a flat mate and gets a demure salwar-kameez clad Neha (Neetu Chandra), whose has already been seen getting into a train, arriving in Mumbai and getting a job. A glimpse of her madness has also been seen in the train, so you already know she’s trouble. No suspense there.
Neha turns out to be a model tenant, she cleans and cooks, calls Preeti “didi” and waits up for dinner everyday. In the next apartment is a poet called Tanha (Anupam Kher) and his pet cat. Except for a watchman, nobody else is seen in the large building! Even when there are gunshots in the landing. Odd!
Anyway, when Tanha brings about reconciliation between Preeti and Karan, Neha starts acting like a psycho. There isn’t much of a build-up, no spooky dread creeping up on the viewer as the nice small-town girl turns into a monster. And the best Neetu Chandra can do by way of acting and dilate her eyes. The others don’t even strain a muscle.
There is no comment expected or even offered, about life in Mumbai, that compels people to live such isolated lives and drives some of them to such desperate acts of possessiveness. Neha is given a back story and words like “bipolar disorder” thrown about, but it’s no go. He film is just not worth the effort of watching… wonder why people took the trouble of making it.
City of Gold
Central Mumbai today is a hub of high end malls and residential towers. According to the prologue of Mahesh Manjrekar’s film City of Gold (Lalbaug Parel in Marathi), real estate there costs Rs 70,000 per square foot.
However, till 1982, it was the centre of the textile trade, with several mills in the midst of chawls in which families of the workers lived. They had come to the city from outside, yet created in the heart of Mumbai a unique community with its own culture.
The Great Bombay (the city was then not Mumbai) Textile Strike was on 18 January 1982 by the mill workers of under trade union leader Datta Samant. Lakhs of mill workers, hoping for better wages and bonuses, struck work, but the show of strength ended in disaster. Most of the mills were locked out, the people lost their livelihood and over a period of time, the city forgot all about the vibrant community of hard-working people. The nexus between greedy mill owners and politicians as alleged, yet it took many more years for the area to lose its decrepit, defeated look and have a makeover. Today, when wealth can be generated there, who even thinks of the lives that were sacrificed to progress.
Manjrekar, basing his film on Jayant Pawar’s play Adaantar, however, reduces the complex, life and landscape-altering period into a simplistic film about one dysfunctional mill worker’s family and one mill-owning family of evil characters.
The story is narrated by Baba (Ankush Choudhary), a playwright, who feels he doesn’t belong to the noisy, constantly squabbling family, where the father (Shashank Shende) has been laid off work and the mother (Seema Biswas) tries to keep the family together.
The mill owner betrays the union, and the still optimistic workers are devastated. Some commit suicide, some return to their villages; the boys turn to crime and the girls to prostitution. Some of this did happen, but the film unfolds on a single loud, melodramatic pitch that is just never lowered into sensitivity or compassion.
One of Baba’s brothers, Naru (Karan Patel) becomes a gangster, the other Mohan (Vineet Kumar) gets involved in a betting scam, the sister Manju (Veena Jamkar), ditched by her Gujarati boyfriend, married a union leader (Sachin Khedekar) in a bitter arrangement of convenience.
What is really scary is the descent of some of the boys into barbarism, as they loot, extort and kill with glee. Naru’s stuttering buddy Speedbreaker (Siddharth Jadhav) starts his own faction of ragtag followers of gangsters. (Films like Satya and Vaastav have told this side of the story).
The most caricatured, however, are the mill workers and the politician, because they are easy to turn into heartless devils—people will believe the worst of them.
Amongst the generally noisy performances, Karan Patel’s controlled character of the doomed Naru stands out; also Sachin Khedekar as the crushed union leader. The subplot involving the neighbours (Satish Kaushik-Kashmera Shah) was unnecessary.
City of Gold is an important film, in that it reminds Mumbai of its past; but also a short-sighted one, that makes it characters exist in a void without a before-and-after history. A question that comes up is how a playwright is able to afford a flat in the building coming up where his father’s mill used to be?
Bird Idol
Indian animators have been doing backend work for foreign animation films, but Indian animation films have, by and large, confined themselves to mythological themes.
Jyotin Goel’s woefully under-promoted Bird Idol tries its hand at a new theme, which is a relief, though it will be a while before locally-made films can even compete on the same platform as those splashy Hollywood animation masterpieces.
Bird Idol is pure Bollywood—in a forest abode, two birds of different species are forbidden from falling in love, but two of them, with the help a Gujarati-accented hummingbird, escape to the city. Their mixed-breed son Hummi, would be Shahid Kapoor if he were human and his loyal lady love, probably Amrita Rao. Their look and mannerisms are carefully done.
Hummi is enamoured of human music and forms his own band to participate in a show called Bird Idol. The problem is that if he showed the crest in his head on TV, Dhamki, the vulture kingpin of the forest kingdom would send his killers after Hummi’s parents.
His music becomes popular, much to the annoyance of the show’s judges, one of whom, an Owl, bears a striking resemblance to a certain over-bejewelled music director with a Bengali accent.
The film is cute, cheeky and fun in most part. The plot could have been less clichéd—it might put off the target audience of vacationing kids—but the film does spring a pleasant surprise.
For his new film Apartment, Jag Mundhra chooses to ape a Hollywood film called Single White Female, that wasn’t even so great that someone would want to remake it. And then, he adds nothing to it, just telling a boring story in a boringly flat style.
Tanushree Dutta plays Preeti, an air hostess, who buys an apartment, but finds the monthly installments tough to handle. Her boyfriend Karan (Rohit Roy) offers to move in and share the expense. But Preeti is a suspicious type, and when she finds him in the flat with a woman – they are standing in the living room, having an innocuous conversation—she flies into a rage and throws him out.
She then advertises for a flat mate and gets a demure salwar-kameez clad Neha (Neetu Chandra), whose has already been seen getting into a train, arriving in Mumbai and getting a job. A glimpse of her madness has also been seen in the train, so you already know she’s trouble. No suspense there.
Neha turns out to be a model tenant, she cleans and cooks, calls Preeti “didi” and waits up for dinner everyday. In the next apartment is a poet called Tanha (Anupam Kher) and his pet cat. Except for a watchman, nobody else is seen in the large building! Even when there are gunshots in the landing. Odd!
Anyway, when Tanha brings about reconciliation between Preeti and Karan, Neha starts acting like a psycho. There isn’t much of a build-up, no spooky dread creeping up on the viewer as the nice small-town girl turns into a monster. And the best Neetu Chandra can do by way of acting and dilate her eyes. The others don’t even strain a muscle.
There is no comment expected or even offered, about life in Mumbai, that compels people to live such isolated lives and drives some of them to such desperate acts of possessiveness. Neha is given a back story and words like “bipolar disorder” thrown about, but it’s no go. He film is just not worth the effort of watching… wonder why people took the trouble of making it.
City of Gold
Central Mumbai today is a hub of high end malls and residential towers. According to the prologue of Mahesh Manjrekar’s film City of Gold (Lalbaug Parel in Marathi), real estate there costs Rs 70,000 per square foot.
However, till 1982, it was the centre of the textile trade, with several mills in the midst of chawls in which families of the workers lived. They had come to the city from outside, yet created in the heart of Mumbai a unique community with its own culture.
The Great Bombay (the city was then not Mumbai) Textile Strike was on 18 January 1982 by the mill workers of under trade union leader Datta Samant. Lakhs of mill workers, hoping for better wages and bonuses, struck work, but the show of strength ended in disaster. Most of the mills were locked out, the people lost their livelihood and over a period of time, the city forgot all about the vibrant community of hard-working people. The nexus between greedy mill owners and politicians as alleged, yet it took many more years for the area to lose its decrepit, defeated look and have a makeover. Today, when wealth can be generated there, who even thinks of the lives that were sacrificed to progress.
Manjrekar, basing his film on Jayant Pawar’s play Adaantar, however, reduces the complex, life and landscape-altering period into a simplistic film about one dysfunctional mill worker’s family and one mill-owning family of evil characters.
The story is narrated by Baba (Ankush Choudhary), a playwright, who feels he doesn’t belong to the noisy, constantly squabbling family, where the father (Shashank Shende) has been laid off work and the mother (Seema Biswas) tries to keep the family together.
The mill owner betrays the union, and the still optimistic workers are devastated. Some commit suicide, some return to their villages; the boys turn to crime and the girls to prostitution. Some of this did happen, but the film unfolds on a single loud, melodramatic pitch that is just never lowered into sensitivity or compassion.
One of Baba’s brothers, Naru (Karan Patel) becomes a gangster, the other Mohan (Vineet Kumar) gets involved in a betting scam, the sister Manju (Veena Jamkar), ditched by her Gujarati boyfriend, married a union leader (Sachin Khedekar) in a bitter arrangement of convenience.
What is really scary is the descent of some of the boys into barbarism, as they loot, extort and kill with glee. Naru’s stuttering buddy Speedbreaker (Siddharth Jadhav) starts his own faction of ragtag followers of gangsters. (Films like Satya and Vaastav have told this side of the story).
The most caricatured, however, are the mill workers and the politician, because they are easy to turn into heartless devils—people will believe the worst of them.
Amongst the generally noisy performances, Karan Patel’s controlled character of the doomed Naru stands out; also Sachin Khedekar as the crushed union leader. The subplot involving the neighbours (Satish Kaushik-Kashmera Shah) was unnecessary.
City of Gold is an important film, in that it reminds Mumbai of its past; but also a short-sighted one, that makes it characters exist in a void without a before-and-after history. A question that comes up is how a playwright is able to afford a flat in the building coming up where his father’s mill used to be?
Bird Idol
Indian animators have been doing backend work for foreign animation films, but Indian animation films have, by and large, confined themselves to mythological themes.
Jyotin Goel’s woefully under-promoted Bird Idol tries its hand at a new theme, which is a relief, though it will be a while before locally-made films can even compete on the same platform as those splashy Hollywood animation masterpieces.
Bird Idol is pure Bollywood—in a forest abode, two birds of different species are forbidden from falling in love, but two of them, with the help a Gujarati-accented hummingbird, escape to the city. Their mixed-breed son Hummi, would be Shahid Kapoor if he were human and his loyal lady love, probably Amrita Rao. Their look and mannerisms are carefully done.
Hummi is enamoured of human music and forms his own band to participate in a show called Bird Idol. The problem is that if he showed the crest in his head on TV, Dhamki, the vulture kingpin of the forest kingdom would send his killers after Hummi’s parents.
His music becomes popular, much to the annoyance of the show’s judges, one of whom, an Owl, bears a striking resemblance to a certain over-bejewelled music director with a Bengali accent.
The film is cute, cheeky and fun in most part. The plot could have been less clichéd—it might put off the target audience of vacationing kids—but the film does spring a pleasant surprise.
Labels: Cinemaah
