Cinemaah

Pleasant Surprise


When you have almost given up on being surprised by anything mainstream cinema throws up, and have no expectations from a film as boringly titled as Band Baaja Baaraat…  you get an enjoyable romantic film. 

Directed by newcomer Maneesh Sharma, the film has nothing novel in terms of plot, but the treatment is fresh and the film is suffused with a joie de vivre that is infectious.

The director also shoots docu style in Delhi mohallas and seedy bazaars,  with mostly unknown (and very good) actors.  He also catches the capital’s nouveau riche vibe and the Delhi-accented sparkly dialogue falls pleasantly on the ears.

Bittoo (Ranveer Singh) is a village boy, dreading the idea of returning to his father’s sugarcane farms after he graduates. Her runs into bright and ambitious Shruti (Anushka Sharma) and inveigles himself into her wedding planner business (“binnis” he calls it in his desi accent-- cute).  First he has to promise not to be anything more than a friend, because she does not believe in mixing work with romance.  Her aim is to reach the posh Sainik Farms via downmarket colonies.

Their company Shaadi Mubarak delivers great weddings each time and prospers, but Shruti breaks her own rule and falls for Bittoo, who is too confused to reciprocate. It results in a bitter break-up of the business.

After this, the pace slows down, till the film reaches the inevitable end,  but BBB is worth a look for its homespun charm, the ordinariness and ‘Dilliness’ of the characters and the performances by the lead pair who fit perfectly into their parts.

Unfunny Business

Many of Anees Bazmee’s films are successful, but they would hardly come under the category of quality cinema. Still, as long as people get their ‘timepass’ they don’t mind.  Bazmee is reported to have said in an interview, that for his comedies, people are not required to leave their brains at home.  Well, too bad, because as far as his latest No Problem is concerned,  they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.  This is easily one of the worst films of this year.

However, what is truly distressing that on the one hand, actor like Anil Kapoor is looking to enter international cinema and on the other he is acting in and co-producing this kind of junk. There must a reason for Sanjay Dutt, Paresh Rawal and Akshaye Khanna to star it in, and if it something more than money, you’d like to know what it is!

Set in South Africa-- where, of course, everyone speaks Hindi-- the police commissioner of Durban is an Indian (Shakti Kapoor), and the biggest cop around is a buffoon called Arjun (Anil Kapoor), whose wife (Sushmita Sen) goes on a rampage ever so often to kill him.  You can sympathise with her.

The other loonies who populate the film are a guy called Zandulal (Paresh Rawal) whose bank is robbed, Yash (Sanjay Dutt) and Raj (Akshaye Khanna) the petty thieves who rob it,  the mad wife’s batty sister (Kangna Ranaut), a gangster Markus (Suneil Shetty) and his band of weirdly outfitted goons. (One of them passes an electric current through anyone who touches him.)

What is the film about? Much ado about a cache of stolen diamonds. Beyond that, the writer and director Bazmee certainly has no clue. You can only marvel at the size of his ego, because he appears in behind-the-scenes footage during the end credits, looking as if he were carefully directing a masterpiece.

The actors run around the scenic locations aimlessly—didn’t it occur to anyone to stop and ask what the hell was going on?  It doesn’t matter if a comedy has a thin plot, if the gags are funny.  Here, the producers can actually run a contest giving a prize to anyone in the audience who laughs even once.