Saturday, September 29, 2012
Oh My God
Define the Divine
The play Kanji Viruddh Kanji by Bhavesh
Mandalia in Gujarati (Sachin Khedekar starred in the original) was adapted into
Hindi as Krishan Versus Kanhaiya and Paresh Rawal’s appearance on stage
turned the play into a craze.
It was inevitable that this kind of success would
attract Bollywood—and the play was converted into a film Oh My God, with
due credit given to the original source, a lesser known Australian film called The
Man Who Sued God.
The idea is provocative—a man who is denied
an insurance claim because the destruction of his property was an act of God, decides
to sue God.
In the very well adapted play which is the
template for the film, Kanji (Rawal) is an antiques dealer, who merrily cons
gullible customers and does not believe in God. His shop is wrecked in an
earthquake that seemed to have targeted only his property. His house is mortgaged and his savings wiped
out; when the insurance company rejects his claim, he drags to court godmen
(and one woman) as representatives of God. If he can prove God exists, he can
claim damages from them, and if he proves God does not exist, then the insurance
company would be liable to pay up.
The case becomes big news, there are as many
people out there wanting to kill the heretic as there are supporters lauding
his courage. Then Krishna Vasudev Yadav (Akshay Kumar), a biker dude lands up
twirling a keychain and claims to be God, who has come down to help Kanji.
The play had some terrific lines that made
fun of phony religious leaders and questioned the notion of religion as a
series of unthinking rituals. They are retained
in the film (Mithun Chakraborty plays a
strange, androgynous godman, and Govind Namdeo the stereotyped fiery mahant),
but the same director, Umesh Shukla, is not able to get rid of the staginess
and use the medium of cinema more effectively to tell his story. In the play there was ambiguity about the
existence of God and irony in the way the crooked Godmen turn their defeat into
victory. The film insists on showing and
telling everything, and then underlining it for good measure, so that the
humour, the points of debate and smartly worded insights into the business of faith,
are flattened. And then the poor
production design and loud TV style acting ruins things further.
But there is intrinsic merit in the script,
there’s the superb Paresh Rawal to hold things together, and Akshay Kumar
playing a cool Lord Krishna. However, it’s not very often that one can say—the play
was better. In fact, the stage
production had been filmed (like NT Live
and Met Live do), it would probably have worked better..
Labels: Cinemaah
Kamaal Dhamaal Malaamal
Missing: Director
After Priyadarshan has finished “filming” his
Malayalam movie remakes, does he watch them?
Because if he really did, he would be embarrassed by Kamaal Dhamaal
Malamaal.
Supposed to be a sequel to the surprise hit Malamaal
Weekly, this one is also set in a village, and has some vague reference to
lottery tickets, but compared to this the earlier film looks like a
masterpiece.
He collects all his favourite actors, takes
them to a picturesque village, gives them Catholic names (Johnny Belinda? Really!), but has them wear
dhotis and speak “vighn mat dalo” kind of Hindi and sings songs with
words like “Ishq ki azmat.” He
couldn’t care less about details or minimal authenticity of setting. Even if
this was meant to be a mid-budget potboiler, doesn’t he director have to at
least stir the pot? Here, he seems to
have told all the actors to ham (Nana Patekar being the self-styled rebel,
clammed) and gone on vacation.
After an introduction to the characters,
which has no connection to the story that follows, you find David (Om Puri) and
his family living in a hut, while his enemy Peter (Paresh Rawal) has grown
rich. David’s son Johnny (Shreyas
Talpade—overacting till it hurts to watch) is in love with Peter’s daughter
Maria (Madhurima), but her three snarling brothers keep dropping by to thrash
the cowardly suitor. Johnny is so lazy
and hopeless that the village has nicknamed him Bakri.
Then, strong and silent man (Nana Patekar)
appears out of nowhere, and parks himself in David’s house. Johnny passes him off a his missing brother
Sam, and he proves to be the good son, helping the family out of poverty. But he is mysterious, there’s something about
a missing church cross, and the film just goes helter-skelter till all the ends
are neatly tied up. Every now and then,
Maria’s brothers come growing into the village bazaar and beat up Johnny.
Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal, is neither comedy, nor drama, not romance, not suspense, not even a
human ant and grasshopper moral tale—just tiresome, loud and so boring that
only the high decibel level prevents the audience from falling asleep.
Labels: Cinemaah
