Saturday, October 24, 2015
Shaandaar
The Frog Princess
Vikas Bahl’s Shaandaar tries to spoof, as well as pay tribute to, fairytales and the great Indian wedding movie, but doesn’t quite succeed. So the film turns out a strange bubblegum-meets-laddoo concoction that you can’t relish but don’t want to spit out either.
Like Rani of his last film Queen, Alia (Bhatt) is feisty—she carries a frog around with her, knows all about bikes, is not afraid of the dark and is generally undaunted by anything. She has been adopted by Bipin Arora (Pankaj Kapur) and accepted by her sister Esha (Sanah Kapoor), if not by her mother (Nikki Aneja) or harridan grandmother Kamla (Sushma Seth). In a cute twist to the traditional fairy tale, she is an “ullu” as her exasperated father says, which means she has insomnia, and he hopes she will one day find a man who will help her sleep.
The man, Jagjinder Joginder or JJ (Shahid Kapoor) is a wedding planner (accompanied by “He’s a hottie hottie” chant), a “darpok” afraid of the dark; he has insomnia too, but doesn’t know what the word means. They chat, reveal their secrets and can read each other’s thoughts that appear in animated cloud shaped bubbles.
Of course, the audience knows that Alia and JJ are made for each other and that Esha and Robin are not, so is the space between the beginning and end fun to watch? Sadly, not much. There are extravagant dance sequences, a battle-of-the-sexes qawwali, an animated drug induced trip when all of them get high on dope and magic mushrooms, Karan Johar making a guest appearance. But there is no story and hence, no grip.
The lead pair is spirited and the film will probably work as a date movie. If more was expected it’s because Queen was such a game changer for females in films. Shaandaar is just a piece of fluff.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2
She Devils
The first Pyaar Ka Punchnama had done well, and it’s ‘ditto’ sequel will too, because young couples will go to see it; the men will guffaw at the anti-woman gags, and the accompanying bimbos will giggle along to show that they are such good sports they deserve to be picked as dates. Not like those b****s in the film, no?
If Luv Ranjan gets anything right, it’s the current urban lifestyle, where so many young people live by themselves, work at well-paid jobs and have a degree of independence that allows them to spend their money as they like, and hook up with whomsoever they choose.
In PKP2, the guys don’t even have to break into a sweat to woo girls. They just ogle, or show some interest, and the girls walk into a relationship. Cool! And then, they reduce the guys to slavish dogs.
Delhi boys Anshul (Kartik Aryan), Tarun (Omkar Kapoor) and Siddharth (Sunny Singh) live in an enormous apartment, have lucrative jobs and an enviable lifestyle. All they need are trophy girlfriends, and these are acquired in a matter of minutes. Were they single and chaste all this while, just waiting to meet The One?
At least Siddharth promptly starts dreaming of marriage to Supriya (Sonnalli Seygall), who won’t tell her parents she is dating him, so they treat him like a servant. Tarun’s conquest Kusum (Ishita Raj) does a fine belly dance when he entices her with a strip tease, but while pretending to be the kind who will always share expenses on dates, slyly maxes out his credit cards. Anshul’s girl Ruchika (Nushrat Bharucha) is an airhead, who takes him for granted; she throws a tantrum when he keeps in touch with a former flame on Facebook, but cuddles up with her male buddy and expects him to be understanding.
The guys are portrayed as victims of girls (the same three from the first film, whose careers simply stagnated?) who are mean, selfish and manipulative. Women do not have any redeeming qualities, and they use sex to keep the boys panting on a lease. The only females worthy of respect are, guess who? Mothers!
There are some smart lines with the profanity bleeped out, and the actors are not bad at all, but PKP2 is not even a fun look at the battle of the sexes as played out in the 21stcentury-- it’s plain nasty. And despite Luv Ranjan’s taking up cudgels on behalf of the ‘bechara’ boys, they come across as brainless idiots and losers! Maybe PKP3 should be from the point of view of girls stuck with whiny mamma’s boys.
Labels: Cinemaah
