Cinemaah

Overdone Farce


Her first two films Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om established Farah Khan as a director with spirit and a sense of humour uniquely her own.  But by the time she comes to her third film, her Bollywood spoofiness is running thin.

Based on Vittorio de Sica’s Peter Sellers-starrer After the Fox,  which had a script by Neil Simon, the uproarious comedy that is created when con man recruits an aging star and organizes a fake shoot to pull off a heist, is turned into a overdone, noisy farce in Tees Maar Khan.

In a plodding overture, an animated infant in his mother’s  (Apara Mehta) womb, learns all about crime when she spends her time watching crime films.  He grows up into a con man Tabrez, also known as Tees Maar Khan. He has three annoying sidekicks, and an item dancer girlfriend Anya (Katrina Kaif).

He is hired by a pair of conjoined twins (Rajiv Laxman-Raghu Ram) to steal a fortune in antiques from a train transporting the treasure. He hits upon the idea of the fake shooting, masquerades as Hollywood director Manoj Day Ramalan, and offers the lead role to star Atish Kapoor (Akshaye Khanna), pining for an Oscar.

The shoot is arranged in out of the way Dhulia and all the villagers involved in the heist.  The first half is still amusing, but the shooting portion in the village is just not funny.  Humour always works better when everybody is not shouting ‘Look Look, ain’t I hilarious!’ and in this film everyone from the lead pair to minor characters like a pair of gay cops overacts; the costumes and sets are garish.  The casual, throwaway lines and gags that Farah Khan sprinkled so lightly on her earlier films, is replaced by a heavy-handedness that is most unappealing.

If a film needs to boost itself on the lead actresses ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’ item number, it is obviously short of inspiration.  From Farah Khan it is a letdown, mainly because one expected better from her.

Slow Coach Ahead


Rajshri Productions films exist in their own sugar-coated world with old-style values (somebody is always talking of sanskar) and a kind of innocence that doesn’t even exist in villages any more.

After Sooraj Kumar Barjatya started making films, their films have pretty much followed a template; it’s only with Vidhi Kasliwal’s Isi Life Mein that a film from the Rajshri stable has got on a slow coach to progress.

From Hum Aapke Hain Kaun, where a young woman is expected to sacrifice her happiness for the sake of her family’s wishes,  to Vivaah where the girl is dumb and bovine, at least in Isi Life Mein, the family (read father) recognizes that a girl can have her own ambitions.  What is disappointing about the film—and one directed by a young woman at that—is that the girl is completely passive.

Rajnandini (Sandeepa Dhar), a bright girl from a rich, conservative Ajmer family tops the class in school, but is okay with the idea of giving up her education to get married. Her mother (Prachi Shah)  encourages her to go to Mumbai to study further, even it involves lying to the stern father (Mohnish Bahl).

She joins a city college and is encouraged to sign up for a drama club run by Vivaan (Akshay Oberoi). A lot of time and footage is wasted over their tomfoolery.  Then she is cast as Kate in a production of Taming of the Shrew.

Vivaan tries to ‘citify’ Rajnandini,  her fuming father drags her back to be married.  Her college gang lands up there, and are frowned upon for being unsuitably dressed.  There is a dowry crisis—the so-called modern kids chip in while the traditional people let the family down.

Strange that the ‘modern’ young people do not protest against the practice of dowry, but contribute to it.  The girl is blissfully clueless – others take decisions for her, good or bad.  The kind of quasi progressiveness the film puts forward, has now been appropriated by television, so the film is like watching a TV serial on big screen.
   
The young lead pair does not get to do much by way of performance, so it is hard to tell if they have the talent to build a career.  (Akshay Oberoi is made to take his shirt off and show off his six-pack, which is now mandatory.)  The music is forgettable too.  Maybe a change of formula is in order.

No Wonderland This

 
At least the venture is a brave one, even if it fails.  Our filmmakers are so keen to prove that what Hollywood does, they can do better, that they often get into self-destruct mode with over-ambitious films like Toonpur Ka Superhero, which blends animation and live action.

Indian animators may have the talent and the infrastructure, but obviously lack the resources of the cinema they aim to emulate. Even the most routine animation films from the West have better ideas and execution than Kireet Khurana’s Toonpur Ka Superhero.

Even with modern technology, animation is hard work, and acting in front of a blue screen tedious for actors.  TKS has a decent enough idea—a father having to prove to his kid that he is a real hero, and that too in a cartoon world.  But Khurana creates toon characters that would be old-fashioned even by Films Division standards.  A fat Gujarati housewife called Big Ben? A Parsi scientist?  A white-bearded Gyandev?  An off-key and bejewelled singer called Gappy Bahari? Villains call Toonasurs?  Really now!

The kiddie audience the film is aimed at, has seen so much better on TV and big screen,  that Toonpur is bound to evoke yawns.  It is so lacking in pace and humour that the really little ones might just doze off.

Ajay Devgn plays Aditya an action star, whose stunts (done by doubles), have won him a fan following even in the TV world of Toonpur.  The Devtoons who live there are harassed by the Toonasurs and need help. A little Sikh toon suggests that they kidnap the Bollywood star.

Aditya, who lives with his wife (Kajol) and two kids, has just been taunted by his son for not being a real hero, so this is chance for him to redeem himself.

The situation is ripe for adventure and comedy—but the characters in the toon world are so dull, the villains Aditya has to fight so non-menacing that the fight has no thrill.  And considering that animation can make anything happen, there’s not a single awe-inspiring moment,  The last few minutes in which Aditya has to defeat the villain in a virtual game redeems the situation somewhat, but by then it is too late.  Think of films like Space Jam and Jumanji and Toonpur Ka Superhero looks so sadly amateurish.  The writing and direction should have made up for what the film lacked in budget (though is couldn’t have been a small budget film).

To add to the film’s woes, the music is below par and actors like Ajay Devgn and Kajol look like they’d rather be somewhere else… strange since thy produced the film.