Saturday, December 08, 2012
Khiladi 786
The Pursuit of Rowdyness
Just because Salman Khan can get away doing
total junk (mostly remakes of Southern hits), now the low standard of his
films has become the benchmark for other leading men in search of hits.
Akshay Kumar's Rowdy Rathore came after a row of
flops and put his career on the 100-crore track. But if Khiladi 786 kind of films
are the next step, then the audience is doomed.
The film starts with a foot being thrust into
the audience's face, and several stuntmen flying into the air. The man who
regularly beats up bad guys-- who then obligingly flip around in the air before
landing-- is called Khiladi Bhaiya-- maybe because Akshay Kumar wants to
prolong the Khiladi franchise (not that any of the earlier ones were classics!).
The film is called Khiladi 786, because the hero has 786 etched on his palm.
Why? No particular reason... or maybe to please the young Muslim male
demographic; he also dresses like "Alibaba." (He said it, or
one would have been at a loss to describe his costumes.)
When he is not in bright
kurtas he is in police costume, with top buttons undone and shirt tail
out, walking with a hip-hop gait--he is a fake cop who helps real cops in
Punjab by capturing contraband-carrying trucks. He is called 70 Singh, his
father 71 Singh and so on... a mixed-race clan with one African, one Canadian
and one Chinese wife included. And they all want an Indian bride for 70...
or any bride at all, because nobody wants to marry into a family of crooks.
Meanwhile Mumbai
gangster Tatya (Mithun Chakarborty) can't find a decent groom for his sister Indu
(Asin), because of his criminal lifestyle, and also because she is a
"psycho." She also has an equally psycho boyfriend (Rahul
Singh) in jail.
Failed matchmaker
Mansukh (Himesh Reshammiya--also co-producer, responsible for the idiotic story and
ear-splitting music too) gets the two mad families together, by telling each that
the other is from a family of cops.
Much confusion and
hilarity should have ensued, but so soggy is the humour that Johnny Lever in
his two-scene roles comes as a welcome relief. They all believe that shouting
at the top of their lungs is comic acting. Directed by Asish R. Mohan, all that
this wannabe Rohit Shetty film achieves is bestowing some kind of superman
status on Akshay Kumar—when he hits a wall the entire structure comes tumbling
down. Also, Reshammiya perhaps giving up
his hero ambitions to accept comedian parts. Fine, as long as he doesn’t write
any more film stories like this one.
Labels: Cinemaah
