Saturday, April 26, 2014
Revolver Rani
Gangsta Queen
Alka Singh, the gun-toting gangster politician in macho, crime-ridden
Madhya Pradesh, could have been India’s Modesty Blaise. But after establishing
this quirky character, Sai Kabir lets the film slide into confused and tedious
chaos.
As played by Kangana Ranaut with curls, fake tan and dreadful fashion
sense, Alka has the kind of power that allows her to get away with the murder
of her husband (and many others) and pick up a man she fancies. Rohan Kapoor
(Vir Das), a small town Bollywood aspirant, impresses Alka Singh in an
underwear contest for males, and becomes her kept man. She produces a film for
him (no sign of it, though), builds a Chambal Film City for him but keeps him
on a tight leash. It’s not quite clear why the coke-snorting duplicitous actor
simply does not escape, since Alka’s influence remains in the Chambal, but he
turns out to be the reason for her downfall.
It is not enough to just reverse roles (he gets kidnapped by her enemies
and she rides to the rescue) and amuse the audience, there has to be more to a
character like Alka Singh than just male swagger.
Her political rival, Udaybhan Singh (Zakir Hussain) plots and schemes,
but is out manoeuvred by Alka’s uncle Balli (Piyush Mishra), who also wields a
mean pen for speech-writing.
Pity that Alka is neither a tough as she tries to look, nor sympathetic
in her dying-to-be-a-“Mummy” turnaround. It’s as if Kabir put this woman on a
pedestal only to have her crash into the pit of domesticity—it implies that all
women have this wife-mother-homemaker genetic weak spot.
The film with all those gangsters and politicians tries to portray the hinterland
in the way Anurag Kashyap and Tigmanshu Dhulia do, but the inspiration is
Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. If the film does have a sequel, as
promised in the end, it is bound to be a violent rehash of the Hollywood film.
It’s a pity filmmakers cannot see strong women as anything more that
imitation males. Alka does not even seem to have a mind of her own—her uncle is
the puppet master.
Kangana Ranaut does bring flashes of fire to her part, but when the
director is not quite clear what he wants, it’s difficult for the actress to
get the right key. To be told that she is Revolver Rani and end up having her
coo to teddy bears could throw any actress. It was brave of Vir Das to accept
such a thoroughly despicable character, and he balances various shades well;
the other men are all one-note thugs. Sai Kabir’s mixing of mofussil Indian
lawlessness with Hollywood noir, and comic-book action remains uneasy. The only
bit of drollery he pulls off, is in the reporting of all the mayhem around Alka
by a solemn newsreader trying to make sense of the absurdity.
Labels: Cinemaah
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