cinemaah

AA+Khichdi

2010-10-02T12:19:00.000+05:30

Anjaana Anjaani

Die Another Day

At: Suburbia and other cinemas
Directed by Siddharth Anand
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and others
Rating: Three stars

Before one actually gets down to looking at Anjaana Anjaani, there are a few questions. Like why are so many mainstream filmmakers making what look like English films in Hindi. Can’t simple love stories take place in Indian? Is there nowhere to take a road trip in this big, wide country?

American films have barely begun to acknowledge the existence of Indians in the US, but in our made-in-America (or any other foreign location), Hindi speaking Indians are everywhere. People living and working in the West, routinely speak to each other in unaccented Hindi and even address strangers in this language, when there’s no means of knowing if the other person is of Indian origin. But apart from all this annoying sheen of artifice, the designerwear clad characters, consuming gallons of alcohol and dancing in nightclubs (to Hindi songs) wearing really tiny outfits, sleeping in the same bed, are actually all desi at heart— the guy and the girl are coyly waiting for the right person, to, you know, ummm, do it!

Then, no matter how ‘original’ the film may be, it still has a seen-it-somewhere look and feel—hundreds of Hollywood films and dozens of Karan Johar kind of films. Everything so, so déjà vu!

Akash (Ranbir Kapoor) just lost a fortune in a stock market crash, Kiara (Priyanka Chopra) cannot get over heartbreak, so both end up on a bridge to commit suicide. Then after many failed attempts, decide to live for a few more days and do what they always wanted to do. Money, still doesn’t seem to be a problem when it comes to hiring boats, or paying for gas to take a road trip across the US, or paying hospital bills!

One doesn’t really mind the farfetched part of the film, it is the calculated-ness, the look-at-me cuteness that starts to grate on the nerves very soon, and the film goes on and on much after patience has run out. There are some really nice moments though (like the two stranded mid-ocean), and a couple of funny ones (like Akash’s jig in a gay bar), but the characters’ plight never really touches the heart.

Also, it is completely incomprehensible how people in films never seem to know when they are in love, when everyone else can. Then they are hit on the head with the realization when a conveniently at hand friend, at the right moment, mentions it. Then predictably the rush to find the loved one. Oh, but they don’t have each other’s numbers, not even email ids.. what about Facebook or Twitter? This is the stupidity you encounter in films that get their ideas from other films.

However, the film really looks good enough to be a come-to-America advertisement. And Ranbir Kapoor can still give his stilted, early Shah Rukh Khan-esque character some genuine heartfelt moments. He is totally without inhibition –whether it is lounging in pink slippers, or letting the girl rescue him from an almost-rape. Priyanka Chopra has the chirpy part, all talk and tears, but it is Kapoor who delivers the goods. The kind of film teens will giggle and chomp (popcorn) through and forget about the moment they step out of the cinema.

Khichdi The Movie

At least, filmmakers are looking in different directions for inspiration—Khichdi The Movie is the first television sitcom to be adapted into a movie in India. Friends, or Sex In The City it ain’t but the film, written and directed by Aatish Kapadia who also created the sitcom, has its share of madcap moments.

The characters in the series-- the ineffectual patriarch and his idiotic brood -- have all the quirks of a Gujarati family, even though people as moronic as these would be difficult to imagine—or rather imagine a whole lot of Rowen Atkinsons and Jim Careys on speed, but dressed in Indian costumes.

Kapadia has the ability to wring humour out of the most mundane situations and every line has a pun popping out. If it also had better production values and a coherent plot, the film might actually have been trendsetter. Not having seen a single episode of the serial, one has no way of gauging whether it is faithful to the original or not, but as a standalone entity, this Khichdi needed a lot more salt and pepper—or why not simply watch reruns of the episodes at home. The idea of getting Himanshu (JD Majethia) a bride along with a memorable love story is too thin to stretch over a full-length film.

The positive thing is that some of the very good comic actors in here would never have got an opportunity to star in a film. Supriya Pathak, Rajeev Mehta and JD Majethia are hilarious. And the film, in spite of its over the top silliness and amusing in parts. It actually looks like a large part of the low budget must have been spent on junior artistes in low rent finery, because so many scenes are simply overpopulated with garishly dressed people. Like the 65-member Punjabi family next door to the Patels, all called Parminder!

Dabangg

2010-09-10T14:22:00.002+05:30

Dabangg

Okay, first a few thoughts: The ecstasy in certain quarters over Dabangg seems to prove that no matter how much we may try to impress the West with sophisticated films set amidst the diaspora, or realistic films about starving farmers, we actually just want updates of the old B-Cinema, where the hero is macho and beats up 20 guys but worships his mother, the heroine is suitably feminine, the sex appeal is provided by the ‘item’ girl, and the villain exists only to get thrashed by the hero in the end. The only difference is that in the old days the hero was high-minded and noble; now in keeping with Salman Khan’s Bad Boy image, he is a crude bloke, with no scruples.

But even this small town cop has been played by Amitabh Bachchan in a few films, by Mithun Chakraborthy in hundreds, later by Sunny Deol, Suneil Shetty and Akshay Kumar, and too many Southern films to count. But those films have been forgotten, so the action genre revived in Bollywood by Wanted and Ghajini has been taken forward with Dabangg by Abhinav Singh Kashyap, who must have grown up on Mithun actioners. So while some of use may groan at seeing the scene of the hero’s entry by kicking the door down, because it has been done so often, today’s teen or young tapori will be thrilled with it. Add to that some CGI special effects and the new packaging is complete.

Then, over the last few months, the supposedly media-hating Salman Khan has pulled out all stops to promote the film—from dancing on reality shows to appearing in his cop uniform on TV soaps, to allowing controversies about his personal life to flourish. With Dabangg socking potential audiences in the face every few minutes, they become duty-bound to see it, maybe even like it for fear of being thought as cranks or snobs. That is enough for the film to get a huge opening, to be declared a blockbuster, and put Salman Khan on a higher pedestal.

That said, what Kashyap has really contributed to the otherwise derivative film (from old Bolly to Jason Stratham stunt scenes) is root it in a northern milieu and culture, rather than some hybrid neverland where so many of our mainstream films are located. The dialogue has sparks and Salman plays the bad-English-speaking cop (which will thrill the lower stalls in single screens cinemas), who swaggers about with his sunglasses dangling at the back, and even flirts with a pretty potter (Sonakshi Sinha) with a hint of aggression.

Tragic to see Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia—once the best-looking stars in Bollywood—now whiten their hair, stoop their backs and play parents to a 40-plus star trying to pass off as a young man. These roles used to be played at one time by AK Hangal and Nirupa Roy—and it is painful to watch these two.

Azbaaz Khan plays Salman—or Chulbul Pandey’s—half-brother Makhhi, who goes over to the side of the villain Chhedi Singh (Sonu Sood) only to realize that he was being used. There’s not much of a plot to begin with, characters like the political leader (Anupam Kher) and the heroine’s drunk father (Mahesh Manjrekar) and crippled brother come and go with no ostensible purpose; so the audience sits back and waits for the action scenes, during which the hero stops to wiggle his hips to a cell phone tune, before proceeding to bash the villain’s henchmen. He even drops by to wiggle some more with the ‘item’ girl (Malaika Arora) in the Munni badnaam song.

Because he doesn’t take off his shirt throughout the film, in the end it is ripped off his back by an act of God, so Salman and Sonu Sood have a six-pack-displaying fist fight.

Is Dabangg a good film? Not by a long shot. Is it an enjoyable film? Maybe. But there’s no arguing with the box-office and a star’s fan following. At least it is better than Tere Naam and Wanted, and even if your don’t take anything away from it, at least words like dabangg and jhunjhaar were brought out of cold storage… and it has the weirdest line in a song “main zandu balm hui, darrrling tere liye.” Who can beat that!

WAF

2010-09-03T14:46:00.002+05:30

We Are Family

It’s as if Siddharth Malhotra and his producer are stuck somewhere in the fifties or in regressive Balaji TV limbo-- how else can one explain a woman telling another, that all women are born to be mothers?

The idea of ‘perfect’ motherhood in We Are Family (and in the original Stepmom) is obsessing about kids 24/7 – cooking (a make of modular kitchen and storage boxes are brand partners), packing their tiffins, reading them bedtime stories and pinning fairy wings on their birthday costumes. All of which, presumably leaves no time for being a person. In spite of that, the supermom’s teenage daughter resents her ‘uncool’ mother and the youngest one seems to be in arrested development, lost in a world of angels, fairies and magic wands. The son is the only one who appears normal.

There was plenty wrong with Stepmom (which makes you wonder why Johar even bothered to remake it) and it’s even worse in We Are Family. Forget the melodrama, what it says is that ultimately women are wives and mother and easily interchangeable for a younger, cooler model. The husband (Arjun Rampal) has already dumped frumpy ‘supermom’ (Kajol) and acquired a pretty trophy girlfriend (Kareena Kapoor), a careerwoman who has to be pushed towards her destiny of cookie-baking ‘momdom’. The kids also seem to prefer the new model, who makes chocolate smileys on boring milk glasses and makes them look smarter.

If it so fulfilling to be perfect homemaker, how comes the husband leaves and the kids look gleeful at the sight of potential stepmom? Worse, how come a successful careerwoman (and one as gorgeous as Kareena) wants nothing more than play ayah to her boyfriend’s kids and perfect the doormat role, even after he has dumped her and returned to look after dying ex-wife? Oh, you see, she lost her mother at age six and hence was misguided into thinking that she could choose a career over fulltime motherhood. The man, of course, plays the old-fashioned provider, who turns up dutifully for birthdays and school functions. The rest of the mucky stuff is not his problem, even though those three obnoxious kids are his. (They live in Australia, speak without accents and behave as if divorce is a contagious disease!)

Disturbingly, three stars—Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal—who, from all accounts, live contemporary, urban and progressive lives, think this is the kind of sap they should support?

If the film succeeds, then it is Karan Johar’s marketing savvy, if it fails, then the industry will say, we told you woman-oriented films don’t work at the box-office. And as always, it will the woman’s fault—though the producer and director are male.

A & A

2010-08-28T12:37:00.000+05:30

Aashayein

Death Wish

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand remains the definitive Hindi film on
death and the meaning of life. Predictably, it gets a nod in Nagesh
Kukunoor's Aashayein.

Kukunoor, once an indie trend-setter, has steadily been sinking into
Bollywood formula-ism, and with Aashayein just drags himself a few
notches up, but not enough to satisfy fans who expect non-conformism
from him.

Aashayein has chain smoker Rahul (John Abraham) being diagnosed with
lung cancer and given three months to live, just after he has won a
huge sum of money in a all-or-nothing gambling dare.

He leaves devoted girlfriend Nafisa (Sonal Sehgal), goes to a distant
hospice and bribes his way in. The hospice, a cheerful, spacious,
resort-like place has the usual 'specimens' with their own back
stories. Rahul continues to smoke (nobody seems to mind) and doesn't
look like he is suffering too much. An angry young girl Padma
(Anaitha Nair) befriends him and a toothy kid (Ashwin Chitale) sends
him off on a surreal Indiana Jones dream world.

The problem is that Kukunoor tries to go down too many tracks and
doesn't do justice to any. Just the unlikely love story between Rahul
and Padma would have make a moving film, the rest—particularly the
Indian Jones bits-- just seem like irritating confetti.

John Abraham makes up with charm, what he lacks in depth, and is
upstaged every minute by young Nair. The supporting cast has Girish
Karnad and Farida Jalal with nothing to do. Unlike the masterpiece it
tries to ape and pay homage to, Aashayein does not make you laugh or
cry. Which is a pity, since death has enough drama to evoke many more
emotions.

Antardwand

After practically ignoring the ‘other’ India for years, Hindi cinema has
started looking for stories outside of the urban milieu. Which is, of
course, a welcome sign. Watching designer costumed, gym-toned stars on
foreign locations all the time is like getting nothing to eat but
pizza. Daal-chawal is good for the soul, provided it provides taste
as well as nutrition.

However, two things have happened over the last few years, audiences want
their money’s worth of entertainment if they are spending big bucks at the
multiplex; the other is that television has gone into rural India and
created a weirdly unreal picture of affluence and conservatism. If
urban audience now see the heat and dust of rural India, it is only
because a star is pushing it.

Still, Sushil Rajpal’s debut effort Antardwand is to be lauded for taking
up a relatively lesser known social issue in Bihar. The media has
exposed the ‘pakadwa’ wedding already, so has a popular TV serial
(Bhagyavidhata), but there is hardly any follow up about what happens
to the hapless brides and grooms of these forced marriages.

In north India, an unmarried girl is a problem of both ‘izzat’ and wealth
depletion. Some rich and powerful men in rural Bihar found a way out, that is typical of a lawless society. If there is a shortage of eligible males,
just kidnap one and force him to marry the daughter of the family. More
often than not, the groom eventually reconciles to the situation and dowry
money is saved. It had come to the point when young men would not travel to
their hometowns without bodyguards! Rajpal's story is a realistic, if
very stolid, take on this bizarre phenomenon.

Raghuveer (Raj Singh Chaudhary) an IAS aspirant, carries a premium in
the marriage market. His father (Vinay Pathak), turns down a proposal
by a rich man (Akhilendra Mishra), holding out for a better offer,
that is bigger dowry. Rajveer wants to marry his pregnant girlrfriend
in Delhi, and is not willing to be sold to the highest bidder.

The enraged father-of-the-bride has Raghuveer kidnapped and tortured,
then drugged and married to his daughter Janki (Swati Sen). The girl,
her mother and her sympathetic sister-in-law have no say in the
matter-- it is a male-dominated society, when the women are just
ordered about at home, or seen as nautch girls to entertain drunken,
debauched men.

Raghuveer is locked up with the bride after the wedding, but sullenly
refuses to accept the girl, who is helpless and humiliated. There is
just one chilling scene in the film, that says more about the
condition of women in that feudal society. Taunted, goaded and drunk,
Raghuveer rapes Janki. The next morning she gives her sister-in-law a
small 'mission accomplished' smile.

The film drags it's one-point story to a boring length, and ends on a
too-idealistic note. The performances are competent, but the casting
is a bit strange-- Pathak does not look old enough to be the father of
Chaudhary, who does not look young enough to be a student. The girl's
mother looks younger than her daughter-in-law. Not an easy watch,
Antardwand is still worth a look—maybe better as home viewing.

LP+ 1

2010-08-21T12:35:00.000+05:30

Lafangey Parindey

The Mumbai ‘wadi’-bred tapori isn’t seen around in cinema all that much these days—but if he were to turn up, he certainly wouldn’t look like Neil Nitin Mukesh, and a ‘wadi’ girl would not look as chic as Deepika Padukone. Suspending disbelief to accept these two stars as poor dreamers is the least of the problems with Pradeep Sarkar’s Lafangey Parindey. The words that come out of their mouths may be peppered with Mumbai slang, but don’t sound right. Nor does a chawl girl’s aspiration to be a skating champ ring true—some Hollywood influence as work here. Closer home, inspiration from Gulzar’s Kinara and Telugu film Nuvvu Vasthavani. In short, not a film Pradeep Sarkar seems comfortable with.

One-shot Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is called by the nickname because he knocks opponents down in one blow in the boxing matches organized by Usmaanbhai (Piyush Mishra). He has the usual filmi bunch of idle cohorts around him with names like Chaddi, Diesel, Gulkand (and not a Circuit among them.) On a rainy night, helping a bhai (Kay Kay Menon) escape, he knocks down and blinds Pinky (Deepika Padukone).

Guilty at ruining her life and her ‘India’s Got Talent’ dreams, he trains her to work around her handicap and reluctantly becomes her dance-skating partner. All this while, a cop doggedly investigates and the threat of Nandu’s secret coming out looms over him.

But, there is hardly any drama, little build-up and no surprises. Both actors look like they were visiting from a neighbouring YRF set, and just trying out lines for fun. A YRF slum can never look convincingly grungy or their characters sufficiently downtrodden. And because of that Pinky’s desire to get out of their just never reaches the viewer’s heart. Plus large chunks of it are dull, and the skating scenes never make the spirit soar, as they were meant to. It just looks like one of those films that was put together because they had the stars’ dates, and a gap in the production schedule.

And Once Again

Even if you missed the credits, it would be quite clear that the Government of Sikkim is associated with Amol Palekar’s And Once Again. The mountain state is seen in all its touristy glory-- the landscape, the monasteries, folk dances and all. Somewhere in there, is a flimsy story about a man coming out of a personal trauma only to be confronted with his past again.

Rishi (Rajat Kapoor) and Manu (Rituparna Sengupta) come to Sikkim, and when they are walking around pointing out the sights to the audience, he sees his ex-wife Savitri (Antara Mali), long believed dead. The plot, tedious enough as it is, tries itself up in knots by needlessly going back and forth in time, when it would work perfectly well in linear format, had it been better written, instead of cringe-makingly florid English.

Eighteen years ago, Savitri has been thought dead in a bomb blast, while Rishi—already suffering from the deaths of his parents and sister in other accidents-- unravels completely. Manu is the daughter of his shrink (Gerson da Cunha), and insists of marrying him, kinks and all. Savitri is now a monk, with shaven head and a neat S-shaped scar on her face, raising an irritating foundling. On sighting her Rishi understandably goes into a funk, and sends Manu into hysterics as well.

All this while, the meagre multiplex audience is probably wondering what happened to the once talented Amol Palekar, some of whose films like Ankahee and Daayra are still memorable. They must have spent hefty multiplex rates to see a trace of the old Paleker, and felt short-changed. Despite the unflattering get-up Antara Mali is the only one among the actors who makes an attempt to do some justice to her part.

Peepli Live

2010-08-18T19:07:00.000+05:30

Peepli Live

It is to the credit of Anusha Rizvi, that she chose to make a realistic film set in rural India, and got Aamir Khan’s Bollywood clout behind it. Farmer suicides in Indian villages is an issue that doesn’t even create a buzz in the media anymore, except maybe adding a number to the statistics. Two excellent Marathi films—Gabhricha Paus and Jhing Chik Jhing have been made and a really powerful documentary, Nero’s Guests. After these, Peepli Live, with all its merits tends to leave one a bit underwhelmed.

Rizvi’s point is not so much rural poverty as it is media insensitivity and venality —and this has been dealt with in films like Front Page, Network, Ace In The Hole, and many others. Anyone who watches the news, knows how sensational and superficial television news can be, there is no great revelation here. In so many films, elections and caste politics are used as triggers, that’s no big deal either.

What Rizvi does, is make people laugh at poverty and death, instead of evoking compassion for the poor who are forced to die because they cannot repay loans of tiny amounts that urban rich probably blow up in one evening at a pub. When a film with mainstream backing had the opportunity to wring the conscience of people, all it does it entertain them with satire and some black humour. The young urban rich for whom poverty is as alien as ET, will see the film, enjoy it, and come out feeling nothing for Natha (Omkar Das) and his desperately poor family. He and his brother Budhia (Raghuvir Yadav) are cutely dopey, his wife is a dragon—how cute—and that foul-mouthed old mother, is a laugh riot. Haha, how funny! Those media people—especially the one who analyses Natha’s excrement--- are so weird!

Nobody expected a feature film to go deep into socio-economic conditions in villages, or political opportunism, bureaucratic corruption, government indifference and all that. But still, superficiality is always excused when it comes to entertainment.

Rizvi’s dialogue is sharp, Shankar Raman’s visuals adequately shorn of glamour, the characters look and speak like the people they play, whether it is an elitist English TV journalist (Malaika Shenoy) or a small town Hindi reporter (Nawazuddin).

Under the haha, the real story is that of the poor, starving man who dies while a media circus gathers outside the home of Natha, who only threatened suicide. Rizvi accuses the media in the film of not being sufficiently interested in that man, but she doesn’t care either. People actually dying of hunger don’t interest anybody—because you can’t laugh at them. And if you can, then it says more about you than about the objects of the film’s satire.

Still, the film is to be commended for at least trying to do something other than making ‘it’ stars parade in designer clothes at foreign locations. Peepli-like villages are where the other half lives, and thanks to Anusha Rizvi and Aamir Khan for reminding us of it.

Aisha

2010-08-18T18:25:00.000+05:30

Aisha

There was a time when films used to be talked about for their content or performances; now they are talked about for their style. Before the release of Rajshree Ojha’s Aisha, Sonam Kapoor made sure she was seen in public wearing trendy designer togs, and be crowned style queen. That image is what she capitalizes on in the film.

Aisha is the ‘Dilli’ version of Clueless, which was an update of the Jane Austen novel Emma. The original was set at a time when there was the big divide between the aristocracy and ‘commoners’, and the wealthy had nothing to do except party and picnic, and marry in the right social circles. Transplanted to contemporary Delhi, the film, does, up to a point capture the lives of the idle rich with a wry sense of humour, and well-written dialogue.

Emma in the Austen novel was an inveterate matchmaker, which young girl today would be worried more about the love lives of her friends and relatives, rather than her own? Aisha, as her neighbour and nemesis Arjun (Abhay Deol) says, is “shallow” – all she does is parade around in stylish clothes, shops, dabbles in ‘causes’ and treats her friends as ‘projects’ to be improved. Such a heroine is amusing up to a point, but her very shallowness drags the film down, because that’s all there is to it.
Aisha and her friend Pinky (Ira Dubey) try to get a ‘behenji’ Shefali (Amrita Puri) into stylish mode and match make for her with a mithai tycoon Randhir (Cyrus Sahukar). Aisha’s meddling causes the poor Shefali a lot of anguish, and complicates her own life too.

Because the film tries to be light and all pretty looking, it misses having any emotional connect with the audience, except perhaps teenage girls who are busy admiring the clothes and accessories. It’s not as if one has anything against chick flicks about airheads, but they should be funny and enjoyable, which is a prerequisite for romcoms. Or, one should end up rooting for the main character—by the time Aisha is left standing alone on a dance floor to emphasize her isolation, the viewer is part caring.

As far as performances go, Amrita Puri as the helpless innocent being tossed around for the amusement of her rich friends, is charming and nicely cast. Sonam Kapoor’s ‘look’ is more impressive than her performance, and Abhay Deol sleepwalks through his role.

Once Upon a Time..

2010-07-30T22:58:00.000+05:30

Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai

The family of Haji Mastan need not have gone to all that trouble and expense to halt the release of Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai; Milan Luthria’s film all but canonizes the man.

The film is a well-made trip into seventies nostalgia, with enough real characters and incidents to feed the publicity machinery, but with enough fictional masala to escape being called a boring documentary.

The good things first—the dialogue (Rajat Aroraa) of a quasi-poetic quality that sounds wonderful to hear, even though high-flown Urdu from the mouths of Catholic and Tamilian characters is odd. The production design, visual quality, costumes—all must have taken hard work. (And before others can praise it, the team has been going though a self-congratulatory binge in the media for months!)

The film harks back to the innocent times when smugglers dealt in gold and electronic items. Drugs, weapons, extortion, supari killings and militancy were still far away from the horizon. Gangsters like Haji Mastan, Karim Lala and Vardarajan – all of whom have been immortalized by cinema—are now seen in retrospect as benevolent dons, who looked after their ‘people.’

Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgan) is a criminal who does not believe in violence and loves the city enough to want to keep it clean. His weakness is a starlet Rehana (Kangana Ranaut) who has Zeenat Aman glamour and Madhubala hole in her heart! Mirza picks up a cop’s son Shoaib (Emraan Hashmi) as a protégé—who was a problem kid with a sharp tongue-- complete amoral and ruthless in his ambition to become a ‘bada aadmi.’

Mumbai, the crowded by-lanes of Dongri, the docks and the sleazy cabaret dens of the period come vividly to life. The film is narrated in flashback by a disheartened cop Agnel Wilson (Randeep Hooda) who believes he let loose the Shoaib (Dawood Ibrahim) monster, as a result of which Mumbai went into a slow decline and erupted into violence, greed and communal hatred, for which this gangster with grandiose ‘Don’ aspirations was responsible; while the idyllic seventies were peaceful and prosperous because of the bhais. Which may be giving a little too much importance to criminals. Constantly referring to them as kings of Mumbai is perhaps unjust to the millions of hard-working, law-abiding citizens of Mumbai. Rarely is a film about gangsters able to stem this gush of admiration. As a character in the film says, why wouldn’t a gangster be a young man’s idol? He has power, money and a film star at his side.

The film with a surprisingly low level of violence, moves at a leisurely pace, with conversations taking the narrative forward, and the romance—Sultan-Rehana, Shoaib-Mumtaz (Prachi Desai) sweetly old-fashioned, yet modern in the live-in sense.

The music (Pritam) is pleasing and the performances outstanding. Ajay Devgan may have done the laconic macho thing before, but there’s nobody better at it than him. Emraan Hashmi plays the cheeky, brash, vain character with obvious relish. These two are a pleasure to watch on screen, still capable of unpredictability.

Once Upon a Time In Mumbaai may not be the definitive Mumbai underworld film—in fact fictional scripts have made better films that this kind of half-realism-- but Luthria has made a strangely engaging film, that gives youngsters a glimpse of the past… the rest can soak in nostalgia.

Khatta Meetha

2010-07-24T12:17:00.002+05:30

Khatta Meetha

It’s obvious that Priyadarshan picked up an old Malayalam film and
recycled it into Khatta Meetha. His films usually exist in some weird
la la land, where people live in distinctly Malayalam homes, have
Maharashtrian surnames and speak in Hindi. Sometimes one of them,
like Maalamaal Weekly work, but this one is scraping the bottom of the
barrel, even for a conveyor belt director like him.

It would be tough to say what Khatta Meetha is about. The protagonist
Sachin Tichkule (Akshay Kumar) is a loser. He tries to make a go of a
business of road building, but is faced with corruption all the way,
and no support from his villainous brothers and caustic father.

It’s not even as if the film does a good job of exposing corruption—
despite the device of planting Sachin’s old flame Gehna (Trisha)
as a municipal commissioner, who is opposed to his ways. The script
fans out into dozens of directions and just never reaches anywhere.
There is a mildly amusing sub-plot of Sachin winning a decrepit road
roller from the municipal corporation, but that is abandoned
summarily. There is another subplot of a bridge that falls down and
kills people, but that leaves no impact either.

What happens over most of the film is that Sachin yells at the top of
his lungs at a variety of people—his workers, government officials,
his family—and they yell back equally loud. The film is supposed to
be a comedy, not a yelling match; if it were, Manoj Joshi would have
won the gold medal. In between, at random points, there are song and
dance breaks.

Even his worst films were not so slapdash; this one seems like
Priyadarshan was deliberately trying to make a flop, and Akshay
Kumar walked into the trap. Common Man indeed! How many common men do we know, who walk about with file, pouch, umbrella and aviator glasses at all times!

3 This Week

2010-07-16T22:39:00.002+05:30

Tere Bin Laden

Unusual for an Indian film to be set in Pakistan, but a story like Tere Bin Laden could only have taken place there (though shot in Hyderabad). Low budget and tacky, this Abhishek Sharma film makes up for lack of production values with its cheeky humour.
Ali (Ali Zafar) TV reporter for a third rate channel is obsessed with the idea of going to America, but can’t get a visa. While shooting a cock crowing competition in a sleepy village, he discovers an Osama Bin Laden lookalike.

Noora (Pradhuman Singh) is an eccentric poultry farmer, who is conned into recording a threatening message to America. Ali and his sidekick (Nikhil Ratnaparkhi) sell the video to their own skinflint boss (Piyush Mishra). The release of this ‘breaking news’ footage creates a sensation and sends a posse of paranoid American agents, led by the buffoonish Ted Wood (Barry John) to Pakistan.

It is a terrific idea, and the film is peppered with loads of wit, and barbs at American warmongering, but it fails to rise up to its true potential as a political satire like Wag The Dog or the recent Brit comedy In The Loop—it is content to remain at the level of school boy farce.

Still, it entertains, it has its own innocent charm, the actors are all peppy and enthusiastic—Chirag Vora as the meek editor of the video, Sunanda Garg as the make-up expert and Rahul Singh as the voice artist. But Ali Zafar and Pradhuman Singh really fuel this madcap comedy. The latter is a real find, and deserves to be ‘discovered’ by mainstream Bollywood.

Tere Bin Laden, despite its shortcomings, is just the kind of impish film that should be coming up more often on the indie circuit.

Udaan

Vikramaditya Motwane’s debut film Udaan, about a young boy’s rebellion against a monster dad is realistic and has moments of power, but still leaves you with mixed feelings.

Seventeen-year-old Rohan and his friends are expelled from boarding school from running off to watch a porn film. Rohan goes home after eight years, to find that he had a six-year-old half brother Arjun (Aayan Boradia) and his father (Ronit Roy) mistreats the child.

The father wants to make a “man” out of Rohan, his idea of discipline is cruelty, emotional deprivation and complete control. The suggestion is that he was treated thus by his own father, and this is how he thinks he should treat his sons.

However, sympathy often swings away from Rohan, because he is hardly a model son—he steals, sneaks off to drink and hang out with pals, flunks exams and does not, till the situation goes out of hand, have the courage to do the right thing. The end also seems too easy and idealistic.

The relationship between Rohan and his perpetually terrified kid brother is tender, but the father’s weird character remains unexplained and somewhat incomplete. Still, Udaan portrays a side of the Great Indian Family that is at odds with what if fed to audiences through television and mainstream cinema. Ronit Roy makes the best of his unidimensional part and Ram Kapoor as his genial brother makes a good foil to his relentless grimness. Rohan Barmecha has the vulnerability required for the role, but little Aayan Boradia’s haunted eyes say a lot more about what lies behind the walls of so many ordinary homes.

Lamhaa

Rahul Dholakia's last film Parzania, against the backdrop if the Gujarat riots was hard-hitting and dare to take a contentious stand. His new film Lamhaa declares that it tells the untold story of Kashmir, and you expect--and hope for-- a piece of cinema that goes beyond Bollywood cliches.

Dholakia has shot in Kashmir and it is stunningly beautiful. He has also used a documentary style to capture the streets, by lanes and everyday life in the state. No fake cheery visuals of flowers-laden shikaras on Dal Lake, and rosy-cheeked girls in phirans. He captures the grimy reality of a state reeling under terror and the lack of a political will to solve the terrible problems afflicting the people.

But he also ends up falling into the Bollywood trap and makes a film full of the usual politicians-are-the-baddies cliches. Nothing that the audience doesn't already know. Sanjay Dutt plays Vikram an Intelligence man who is sent undercover to find out about a brewing plot. He walks conspicuously around the city, a keffiyeh flamboyantly wrapped around his neck asking questions and, surprisingly, gets correct answers. If it were that easy, Kashmir would not have been such a trouble zone.

The theory that Dholakia keeps repeating is that various groups have turned Kashmir into a "company" and profit by it. He comes up the notion that militancy is stoked in Kashmir because it ensures large budgets for the ministry concerned. Ultimately, it is one politician (Anupam Kher), who is behind it all. As if the huge terrorism issue is one of his little backyard and not an international headache, as it was once famously described.

Bipasha Basu is miscast as a Kashmiri women's activist, while Kunal Kapoor does well as an aspiring politician. Sporadically the film gives a small hint of something it might have turned out to be, were it not tied up with star glamour -- the track about the half-widows of Kashmir, and the innocent kids indoctrinated with hate and sacrificed. (The implanting bombs in human bodies bit, shamelessly lifted from Hurt Locker).

The one hair-raising scene, of Bipasha being attacked by burqa-clad women in the street, does not any impact on the plot later, so is merely used as an ‘item.’ A sun-plot of Kashmiri girls forced into prostitution is abandoned after one hurried scene. In fact, it looks like the film wanted to say a lot more, but hesitated—either due to the hassles the director faced while shooting, or a desire to remain non-controversial. If everything is trivalised, then nobody will take a film seriously enough to protest and picket theatres. Even so, it has been banned in a few Islamic countries, which goes to show how intolerant we are getting to be.

Except for the brisk pace and camerawork, nothing much to recommend in this disappointing film.

MM

2010-07-16T22:38:00.002+05:30

Milenge Milenge

It doesn’t seem so long ago, but there was life without Google and Facebook. There were also typically silly Bollywood films, where a girl could fall love with a boy, propose to him (“I want to grow old with you”) without even knowing his full name. That was the time, when actors and actresses weren’t ‘styled’ within an inch of glossy perfection. But there was still an innocence to those films, which you can’t find in today’s paint-by-number, made-for-NRIs movies.

Satish Kaushik’s Milenge Milenge, merrily ripped off charming Hollywood romance Serendipity, with no threat of a lawsuit, has been in the making for about five years-- started when its lead pair Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor were dating in real life. But when you see the garish and clunky film, you realize with a little shock that our films have altered beyond recognition in the interim; not so much in content, much of which is still ripped of foreign movies, but in the look. Everything and everybody now looks sleek and stylish.

If Kareena saw her own bleached blond hair and awful costumes today, she would sink into the seat in mortification; so would Shahid if he saw how gauche he looked and how badly he acted.

Priya (Kareena Kapoor) and Immy (Shahid Kapoor) meet in Bangkok, and she falls in love believing in a clairvoyant’s prediction that he’s the one for her. He pretends to be the ‘One’ by reading her diary and doing whatever she likes. She finds out, is heartbroken and deals with his pleas that they are destined for each other by writing his number on a currency note and her own on a book, and casting them away. If they are destined to meet, she says coldly, they will come across each other’s numbers. (Odd that in Delhi she is not harassed by crank calls!)

Three years later, both are engaged to other people and on the verge of getting married, but realize with a sudden jolt that they ought to have given destiny a hand and looked for their soul mate. Today, it would be a matter of searching on the net but back then, it involves a tedious (for then and for us) process of tracking each other down, using the inadequate bits of information they have—and she doesn’t even know his real name.

So, through most of the post-interval part of the film, the two don’t meet. He accompanied by a weird-looking friend scours the market for the book; and she, with her friend in tow, goes hunting for him. There are the usual close brushes meant to create dramatic tension, when they almost meet, but of course, that has to wait till the last scene.

If the film had better music, a less ridiculous supporting cast, a bit more humour, some more drama, it could still have worked, despite being so dated. Now you just see it and marvel how much Kareena and Shahid have changed.

IHLS

2010-07-16T22:37:00.002+05:30

I Hate Luv Storys

I Hate Luv Storys

It’s a cheeky idea… how does industry kid Punit Malhotra disguise the fact that his idea of love stories is confined to Dharma and YRF candy floss romances? He designs his film I Hate Luv Storys as a spoof on Bollywood love stories. The odd spelling is probably meant to appeal to the limited language skills of today’s teens, the prime target for such films with young, trendily dressed stars. Their costumes alone could fund a small budget film.

How to spoof Bollywood romances without sounding boring? After all these films have overcooked the formula anyway—how many films do not end with a scene of the besotted lover running after a train or into an airport? Malhotra sets the film against a filmmaking backdrop, and to make it more ‘haha’ takes the most digs at producer Karan Johar’s films; followed by Aditya Chopra and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s films.

The autocratic and eccentric director in the film, Veer (Samir Soni) is supposed to be modelled on Bhansali—look for barbs at Devdas, Saawariya and Black. The love story- hating hero Jai (Imran Khan) works as an assistant to Veer and the love story-adoring heroine Simran (Sonam Kapoor) is a production designer.

Jai—who likes to be thought of as cool and pronounces his name as ‘Jay’ hates romance, ostensibly because his parents spilt up. Pop psychology anyone? He makes fun of Simran (the name of the DDLJ heroine, get it?) because she is in love with a boring banker called Raj (the name of the DDLJ hero), who gives her white flowers (is it for a funeral, quips Jai) and wears shirts colour-coordinated with her dresses.

There is no substance to the fluffy plot—Simran falls for Jai, he rejects her; then he falls for her and she rejects him. Then all his friends and acquaintances conspire to get them together, after the predictable airport scene—this is not a spoiler, hardly anybody has thought of a more imaginative ending!

The other characters vary between silly (the leading man of the film within the film, played by Aamir Ali) and very irritating, the mandatory fat best friend and his fat girlfriend.

So in effect, what Malhotra does is make a very clichéd Bollywood love story, while pretending to be lampooning such films. Maybe he meant it as a tribute, because what the film also seems to say in the end is that these films dictate how real life romances go, and that maybe so in the narrow world view of a Bollywood filmmaker.

IHLS is okay for a few giggles, but is hardly likely to make it to the list of trend-setting date flicks, despite of the presence of its attractive and reasonably talented lead pair. Still, spoof or not, you expect some emotional pay-off from a love story, and quote frankly, no one could do the metrosexual weeping-moping- gazing moonily thing as well as Shah Rukh Khan. And he has grown-up now. What a pity!

Raavan

2010-06-20T13:58:00.002+05:30

Raavan

Mani Ratnam seems to have made it a mission to visit every troubled spot in the country and around for his films—Kashmir, Assam, Mumbai, Sri Lanka and now the Naxal-infested territories of Central India with Raavan.

In his other films ‘terror’ films, he gave his stories some background and made some political comment, however garbled and naïve; but Raavan exists in a historical, geographical, political limbo. All Ratnam wants the audience to know is that this is the Ramayan in modern times, when Ram is not all good, Raavan is not all bad, and Sita doesn’t even count in this macho-vesus-macho gladiator ring, except being asked to take a polygraph test instead of an agnipariksha.

What a rich vein of material was here for a thinking filmmaker, more so since Maoists are in the news. Besides the political aspect, to re-examine the attitude towards women in India today.

The tribal character played by Abhishek Bachchan is called Beera Munda, which indicates that he belongs to Central India. The area where he ‘rules’ as a militant Robin Hood is called Lal Maati, obviously shot in lush green and wet South India, with some bits taken to the dry and brown north. There is no background to Beera—why is he an outlaw, what he does, why the are cops hunting him, what is the caste/class equation in the region?

When his sister (Priyamani) is raped by cops in a police station, Beera kidnaps Ragini (Aishwarya), the dancer wife (and she dances even while cooking!) of the region’s Superintendent of Police, Dev Pratap (Vikram). Beera intends to kill her, but the unwashed outlaw falls for the fair princess instead, and that, as his aides say, is the end of him.

He drags Ragini through the muck of tribal villages, but it’s not as if she starts to understand how the poorest of the poor live and why there is strife between these men and the cops. She just glowers at Beera or shoots teary-eyed intense looks at the camera; and if she can’t see the poverty and starvation around, it’s because the inhabitants of the villages look hale and hearty and spend most of their time dancing in the rain!

Dev, his rapist deputy Hemant (Nikhil Dwivedi) and a swinging-through-trees, drunken forest guard Sanjeevani (Govinda) set out to rescue the wife and nab Beera. And the film drags on and on with all of them through the grim water-logged terrain. If there’s a departure from the Ramayan template, it’s that the big fire takes place not in this Lal Maati ‘Lanka,’ but in the police camp. Read into that what you will.

Ratnam, with his Santosh Sivan and Manikanandan- shot pretty frames (but too many people falling in slow-motion down the same cliff into the same waterfall!), is curiously indifferent to his characters – you feel no sympathy, no tension, no shock, no relief.

The better performances come from the supporting actors like Ravi Kissen, Govinda and Priyamani. Abhishek Bachchan, making faces and smearing gunk on his face, strikes no fear or awe; and Vikram manages to scowls consistently, and Aishwarya Rai looks ethereal even in awful costumes and untidy hair. More… much, much more was expected from this over-hyped film by one of Indian cinemas contemporary auteurs. What was he thinking?

Rajneeti

2010-06-04T21:05:00.002+05:30

Raajneeti

Prakash Jha’s Bihar films like Mrityudand, Gangajal and Apaharan had moments of great power and genuine insights into a land and culture that the director knows closely. That’s why it is doubly disappointing that a filmmaker of his accomplishments should want to make a tepid version of The Godfather mixed with bits of the Mahabharat, and let news dribble out that it is based on the Gandhi family. Expectations from Raajneeti were high because Jha is one of the few filmmakers who has the capacity and courage to be original, and knows of life at the grassroots level that is increasingly lost to cinema. That’s why the disappointment is further mutiplied, since it fails to live up to those expectations.

Jha is still able to give the first half of the film an epic sweep and well shot, realistic crowd scenes, then you watch with increasing discomfort as the film descends to the level of a shlock gangster film, abandoning subtlety for over-the-top violence.

Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) one of the two sons of a politician father (Chetan Pandit), doing his doctorate in Victorian poetry abroad, and dating an Irish girl (Sara Thompson) comes to India to find his life going to pieces. His uncle, the Chief Minister of the state gets a paralytic attack, and his position is eyed both by his brother (Samar’s father) and his son Veerendra (Manoj Bajpai), while Samar’s older brother Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) is also in the fray. All the mayhem is controlled and directed by the benign-looking Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar), like Krishna of the Mahabharat.

The aggressive and uncouth Veerendra gets the support of rising Dalit leader Sooraj (Ajay Devgn), who, unknown to all, is the illegitimate son of Samar and Prithvi’s mother Bharti (Nikhila Trikha—a weak link). When their father is killed, Samar and Prithvi declare war against their cousin Veerendra by setting up their own political party. Samar becomes the brain behind it all and completely cold-blooded, willing to blackmail and murder; to dump Sara for rich girl Indu (Katrina Kaif), for election funds and then dump Indu, who loves him, so that she and her millions can marry his CM-aspirant brother.

Sara comes to India, and becomes an irritant in the plot, playing no part in the film except increasing the running time with her constant whining. More blood is shed, Indu is pushed into electoral politics, and Samar takes on even more shades of Michael Corleone as his ruthlessness knows no bounds.

What work are the Mahabharat bits, like the Sooraj/Karna subplot and Devgn plays him with the ferocious intensity he is known for, almost walking away with the film, with only Ranbir Kapoor’s smoothly evil Samar for competition.

Even if such a story is told well, it is déjà vu for the audience—it is Sarkar, with just more characters and a different milieu, and both these films owe their core to The Godfather, which must be the most imitated (call it homage or tribute, it is still a copy) film in history.
Jha’s casting is fine, even the minor parts played by Shruti Seth, Vinay Apte, Dayashankar Pandey, Kiran Karmarkar, Darshan Jariwala leave some kind of impact. But on the whole the film does not say anything about politics that is not already known and documented ad nauseum in cinema. From Prakash Jha’s firsthand experience of electoral politics, one wanted more than just an ‘end justifies the means’ conclusion. Only he was capable of making the definitive Indian ‘dirty politics’ film and he took the easy way out.

Kites

2010-06-02T20:51:00.002+05:30

Kites

A post-Kites observation-- Bollywood technicians are far superior to its actors, and actors are far superior to its writers and directors.

A question: Exactly who is Kites for? A large chunk of the film is in English and Spanish, the Spanish bits have English subtitles, so that leaves out many Indian viewers. If it is meant for an international 'crossover' audience, then why would they want to see their own locations and style with a stale story packaged and offered to them, with just a bit of Bollywood garnish?

As it often happens with films that have ambitions bigger than capacity of delivery, Anurag Basu's Kites falls between the two vehicles it tries to ride-- it is neither truly Indian, nor truly international; when you see it as Indian, you are annoyed by the oft-repeated story, and when you see it as international, you are embarrassed by the loudness and melodrama.

Nothing is known about the 'hero' except that he is a hustler who wants to get rich quick. He has an odd name J Ray, and is Indian, or maybe half-Indian. If Basu expects the audience to care for him and condone his actions (that involve a huge body count or innocents and stupendous destruction of expensive props), a bit more of a background was essential

The Mexican girl Linda (Barbara Mori) is given more of a backstory, and you do end up feeling sorry for what she has to go through because of her poverty and misdirected love.

A part of J's hustle is to marry green card seeking women and she is the 11th he marries. Is it that easy to con the US authorities? Let that pass, it is after all a Bollywood film, and hence notoriously contemptuous of logic or authenticity. When he meets her again, she is the fiancee of the nasty son (Nicholas Brown) of Las Vegas casino king (Kabir Bedi), and J himself is dating the daughter (Kangana Ranaut).

He can't take his hungry eyes of her, and they end up on the run with Nick's hoods, cops and bounty hunters after them. The second half of the film perks up a bit and then falls into a predictable pattern of every moment of reprieve being quickly followed by a tragic one.

If it weren't for Hrithik Roshan's traffic-stopping good looks, Barbara Mori's effervescent sex appeal (the much-touted chemistry is very watered down in the Indian version of the film), and Ayanaka Bose's painstaking cinematography, the film would be unbearable.

Too bad then, with all the effort and expense put into it, Kites simply doesn't soar high enough. Give up these ridiculous crossover dreams and trying to please goras.. just come back to Mumbai, Bollywood.. we promise not to demand an Oscar... not even a Palme d 'Or or Golden Lion.

BBB

2010-06-02T20:50:00.003+05:30

Bumm Bumm Bole

Majid Majidi’s Iranian film Children of Heaven (1997) is a masterpiece… a film so simple that it is as poetic as haiku, and its layers emerge slowly like fragrance. It talks of family relationships, love, sacrifice and grace. The film put Iranian cinema on the world map and won an Oscar nomination.

It wouldn’t take genius to remake the film as it is, and it would appeal to audiences anyway. But Priyadarshan had to go ahead and “Indianise” it—which means add songs, melodrama, a terrorism angle too violent for kids, and embarrassingly in-your-face product placements.

Priyadarshan sets his film Bumm Bumm Bole (awful title!) in the North-East, and shoots at picturesque locations, but that’s where the charm of the film ends. The story is about a little boy Pinu (Darsheel Safary) who loses his sister Rimzim’s (Ziyah Vastani) only pair of shoes. The father (Atul Kulkarni) is unemployed, the family is desperately poor—the kids can’t ask for a new pair, so they decide that the girl will wear the brother’s shoes in the morning, run back from school and give them to the boy. This daily exchange obviously causes a lot of stress in the kids’ lives—getting late for school, being the least of them.

There was absolutely need to borrow from Tahaan and add a sub-plot about terrorism and Pinu getting involved in his rich uncle’s schemes. There is rape attempt on the mother (Rituparna Sengupta), the father being arrested for murder, and Pinu’s trauma at school. A couple of things seem out of place—like the very poor family having a TV at home, and the well-fed appearance of the kids and braces on the boy’s teeth. In the end when the father gets a job, he is seen buying shoes at a branded store—where shoes would cost more than his monthly salary! One is not even complaining about the hybrid costumes and funny accents—that kind of meticulous authenticity is not expected from mainstream filmmakers.

Everything rests on the two kids and Ziyah Vastani is cute as a doll. Darsheel Safary wears the same sullen expression he did in Taare Zameen Par. But even together they are not an audience-magnet.

All the synthetic padding to increase the running time, adds nothing to the film, but subtracts from the lyrical beauty of the original. Bumm Bumm Bole is neither for adults nor for kids, neither commercial film, nor artistic. See Children of Heaven on DVD!

Badmaash+Afterlife

2010-06-02T20:50:00.000+05:30

Badmaash Company

Not so long ago, before the retail boom, foreign goods came at a premium in India, and every area in Mumbai had a friendly neighbourhood smuggler, who provided goodies like jeans, t-shirts, branded shoes, watches, chocolates and cheese. The modus operandi was to send ‘carriers’ to Bangkok or Hong Kong, smuggle in these in-demand goods, in cahoots with the customs guys. The flourishing business came to an end with Manmohan Singh’s liberalization policy.

It’s a very interesting social phenomenon, but a Badmaash Company in a film, smuggling shoes, doesn’t make for very exciting cinema. Middle class Karan (Shahid Kapoor—efficient) wants to get rich quick, and with the help of friends Chandu (Vir Das--likeable), Zing (Meiyang Chang—good screen presence) and girlfriend Bulbul (Anushka Sharma--miscast) forms his own hoodwink-customs ring.

Karan’s too elaborate plan, again, is amusing to read about, but watching it unfold repetitively kills the humour of the story of Indian enterprise. This bit is added on to the true case of how a cancelled consignment of Madras checked fabric that bled, was turned into an triumph of canny marketing. (Captain Nair was the man who had sold the miracle fabric that bleeds concept, but much earlier than the period the film is set in.)

Parmeet Sethi, making his debut as director, hit on a good idea, cast it well, but his filmmaking style is stodgy and does not show any of the innovation that the story idea does. And then, after establishing these guys and gal as cool, he climbs the moral high ground and preaches honesty, stability and family values.

Still, it is to be commended for at least reminding us of a time that is forgotten in the glare of malls laden with international brands. The enterprising smuggler was really an institution, but as the hero of a film? Maybe not.

It’s a Wonderful Afterlife

When Gurinder Chadha made Bhaji On The Beach in 1993, she was this bright young UK filmmaker of Indian origin, chronicling the endearing quirks of her community. The voice was not as fresh and perky by the time she made Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, but still carried a degree of charm.

Now with her latest, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, the tone is sneering and the formula already rancid. This is the picture of Indians in the UK that she wants to show the world, but to Indians it is offensive. There may be characters like the ones she shows in the film, but there are many more who are not the typically desi types, but you hardly see a Laxmi Mittal in the movies, just the aloo-gobhi stereotypes.

Pity that Shabana Azmi had to endorse such a film by wasting her acting talents on it. The film begins with a force-fed man stomach literally bursting, spraying the operation theatre staff with undigested Indian food. From this sick-making scene, the film just never seems to rise.

The cops in London are baffled by a series of murders of Asians, in bizarre ways— like man smothered with a chapatti, a women killed with a rolling pin and another stabbed with a kabab skewer. Worse, the dead ones hover around as ghosts with the ‘murder weapons’ on their bodies, and as the film progresses get increasingly hideous.

There is no mystery, the killer is Mrs Sethi (Azmi), whose sole aim in life is to get her fat daughter Roopi (Goldy Notay) married, so that she can die in peace and join her departed husband. Investigating the murders is an Indian cop Murthy (Sendhil Ramamurthy), who takes a shine to Roopi, though he just has to date her as part of his undercover duties.

The humour in the film is more nasty than funny, none of the characters is remotely likeable—the most irritating being an English girl who returns from India believing she has psychic powers.

Wonderful is not the adjective of choice to describe this film-- woeful, maybe?

Housefull

2010-06-02T20:47:00.000+05:30

Housefull

It’s just not funny—or maybe it is sadly amusing to find a 40-plus actor being made to act coy, saying he doesn’t know what to do on a honeymoon. This is Sajid Khan’s idea of humour in Housefull.

Maybe audiences should be touched that a filmmaker has tried so hard to them laugh—pity that for him comedy means corny exchanges lines like: Q: “Where did you get this sher?” A: “From the sher bazaar.”

Haha! Anyway, Aarush (Akshay Kumar—drumming up the requisite energy) the coy dude, believes that bad luck follows him. Just dumped by his girlfriend (Malaika Arora) in Macau, he piles on to his friends in London— casino croupier Baburao (Ritiesh Deshmukh--okay) and his waitress wife Hetal (Lara Dutta—not bad!). Her father, back in India (Boman Irani—loud!) has been sulking because she married beneath herself, and for this, his mother (Honey Irani) keeps thrashing him. Okay.. haha some more.

Aarush marries Devika (Jiah Khan), who dumps him on the wedding night, to run off with some gora extra. He then falls in love with Sandi (Deepika Padukone). Hetal’s father and Sandi’s stern cop brother Krishna (Arjun Rampal--sleepwalking), land up unexpectedly and Aarush and company are caught up in a hysterical web of lies, so that the two men don’t find out that the girls have married good-for-nothing losers.

A mansion is hired from a loony widow (Lillete Dubey) and a black kid picked up to pass off as a grandson (who vanishes without a whimper when this gag is played out). The ill-timed entries and exits of the characters are out of old-fashioned British faces, so popular with Mumbai’s theatre folk. The lies escalate and blow up into laughing gas (literally!) at the Buckingham Palace.

There may be a section of the audience that goes to the cinema just for ‘timepass’ and will laugh at some of the idiotic gags, because, well, they paid to laugh and might as well try, but there isn’t one fresh track or one original gag in the film. Does anyone even find gay jokes funny any more? Sajid Khan may have paid tribute to everyone from Manmohan Desai to Hrishikesh Mukherjee in the credits, but his influences are those quickie comedies that Hollywood comedians like Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler churn out with such regularity.

No expense has been spared in giving the film a lavish look—shooting in the UK and Italy (where Chunky Pandey turns up as hotel owner called Aakhri Pasta!), the girls cast just for their ability to carry off bikinis.

The makers are bound to claim that Housefull is a big hit; if it does well, it would be because of the timing of the release-- in the midst of vacations and after a long dry spell in the cinemas-- than any special merits.

Apartment+City of Gold+Bird Idol

2010-06-02T20:46:00.000+05:30

Apartment

For his new film Apartment, Jag Mundhra chooses to ape a Hollywood film called Single White Female, that wasn’t even so great that someone would want to remake it. And then, he adds nothing to it, just telling a boring story in a boringly flat style.

Tanushree Dutta plays Preeti, an air hostess, who buys an apartment, but finds the monthly installments tough to handle. Her boyfriend Karan (Rohit Roy) offers to move in and share the expense. But Preeti is a suspicious type, and when she finds him in the flat with a woman – they are standing in the living room, having an innocuous conversation—she flies into a rage and throws him out.

She then advertises for a flat mate and gets a demure salwar-kameez clad Neha (Neetu Chandra), whose has already been seen getting into a train, arriving in Mumbai and getting a job. A glimpse of her madness has also been seen in the train, so you already know she’s trouble. No suspense there.

Neha turns out to be a model tenant, she cleans and cooks, calls Preeti “didi” and waits up for dinner everyday. In the next apartment is a poet called Tanha (Anupam Kher) and his pet cat. Except for a watchman, nobody else is seen in the large building! Even when there are gunshots in the landing. Odd!

Anyway, when Tanha brings about reconciliation between Preeti and Karan, Neha starts acting like a psycho. There isn’t much of a build-up, no spooky dread creeping up on the viewer as the nice small-town girl turns into a monster. And the best Neetu Chandra can do by way of acting and dilate her eyes. The others don’t even strain a muscle.

There is no comment expected or even offered, about life in Mumbai, that compels people to live such isolated lives and drives some of them to such desperate acts of possessiveness. Neha is given a back story and words like “bipolar disorder” thrown about, but it’s no go. He film is just not worth the effort of watching… wonder why people took the trouble of making it.

City of Gold

Central Mumbai today is a hub of high end malls and residential towers. According to the prologue of Mahesh Manjrekar’s film City of Gold (Lalbaug Parel in Marathi), real estate there costs Rs 70,000 per square foot.

However, till 1982, it was the centre of the textile trade, with several mills in the midst of chawls in which families of the workers lived. They had come to the city from outside, yet created in the heart of Mumbai a unique community with its own culture.

The Great Bombay (the city was then not Mumbai) Textile Strike was on 18 January 1982 by the mill workers of under trade union leader Datta Samant. Lakhs of mill workers, hoping for better wages and bonuses, struck work, but the show of strength ended in disaster. Most of the mills were locked out, the people lost their livelihood and over a period of time, the city forgot all about the vibrant community of hard-working people. The nexus between greedy mill owners and politicians as alleged, yet it took many more years for the area to lose its decrepit, defeated look and have a makeover. Today, when wealth can be generated there, who even thinks of the lives that were sacrificed to progress.

Manjrekar, basing his film on Jayant Pawar’s play Adaantar, however, reduces the complex, life and landscape-altering period into a simplistic film about one dysfunctional mill worker’s family and one mill-owning family of evil characters.

The story is narrated by Baba (Ankush Choudhary), a playwright, who feels he doesn’t belong to the noisy, constantly squabbling family, where the father (Shashank Shende) has been laid off work and the mother (Seema Biswas) tries to keep the family together.

The mill owner betrays the union, and the still optimistic workers are devastated. Some commit suicide, some return to their villages; the boys turn to crime and the girls to prostitution. Some of this did happen, but the film unfolds on a single loud, melodramatic pitch that is just never lowered into sensitivity or compassion.

One of Baba’s brothers, Naru (Karan Patel) becomes a gangster, the other Mohan (Vineet Kumar) gets involved in a betting scam, the sister Manju (Veena Jamkar), ditched by her Gujarati boyfriend, married a union leader (Sachin Khedekar) in a bitter arrangement of convenience.

What is really scary is the descent of some of the boys into barbarism, as they loot, extort and kill with glee. Naru’s stuttering buddy Speedbreaker (Siddharth Jadhav) starts his own faction of ragtag followers of gangsters. (Films like Satya and Vaastav have told this side of the story).

The most caricatured, however, are the mill workers and the politician, because they are easy to turn into heartless devils—people will believe the worst of them.

Amongst the generally noisy performances, Karan Patel’s controlled character of the doomed Naru stands out; also Sachin Khedekar as the crushed union leader. The subplot involving the neighbours (Satish Kaushik-Kashmera Shah) was unnecessary.

City of Gold is an important film, in that it reminds Mumbai of its past; but also a short-sighted one, that makes it characters exist in a void without a before-and-after history. A question that comes up is how a playwright is able to afford a flat in the building coming up where his father’s mill used to be?

Bird Idol

Indian animators have been doing backend work for foreign animation films, but Indian animation films have, by and large, confined themselves to mythological themes.

Jyotin Goel’s woefully under-promoted Bird Idol tries its hand at a new theme, which is a relief, though it will be a while before locally-made films can even compete on the same platform as those splashy Hollywood animation masterpieces.

Bird Idol is pure Bollywood—in a forest abode, two birds of different species are forbidden from falling in love, but two of them, with the help a Gujarati-accented hummingbird, escape to the city. Their mixed-breed son Hummi, would be Shahid Kapoor if he were human and his loyal lady love, probably Amrita Rao. Their look and mannerisms are carefully done.

Hummi is enamoured of human music and forms his own band to participate in a show called Bird Idol. The problem is that if he showed the crest in his head on TV, Dhamki, the vulture kingpin of the forest kingdom would send his killers after Hummi’s parents.

His music becomes popular, much to the annoyance of the show’s judges, one of whom, an Owl, bears a striking resemblance to a certain over-bejewelled music director with a Bengali accent.

The film is cute, cheeky and fun in most part. The plot could have been less clichéd—it might put off the target audience of vacationing kids—but the film does spring a pleasant surprise.

P+P

2010-04-22T10:23:00.000+05:30

Paathshala

The country’s education system has become cinema’s new whipping boy—whether it is Taare Zameen Par castigating teachers for not recognizing dyslexia, 3 Idiots asking for a compassionate system, Shikshanachya Aai Cha Gho fulminating against everything.

Milind Ukey’s Paathshala criticizes the commercialization of a “noble profession,” but does it in such a fake, over-the-top manner, that the film can’t be taken seriously. However, all of them have another thing in common—teachers are portrayed as total morons – all but the lead actors, that is. If a film that purports to focus on the ills of the education system has no respect for teachers, the whole exercise is futile.

The school in Ukey’s film stands in splendid isolation (obviously a set in Film City), somewhere in the suburbs of Mumbai. The kids who study there and the teachers seem to live on campus. The principal, Sahay (Nana Patekar) is supposedly so strict that if he asks a kid why he is late, the child pees in fright. Yet, the man is most seen either mooning around his office or mumbling some ineffectual lines.

This is a respected school, but, the kind that has a music period without a teacher. In comes Rahul (Shahid Kapoor) with bouncy hair to teach English, but becomes an all-purpose do-gooder. Ayesha Takia plays the school’s nutritionist, and Rahul’s ally-- the only one dressed as if she were on a hill station.

Problems arise when the school’s greedy management puts the children’s safety at risk and forces them to do publicity and money-making things like participating in nasty reality shows. While the kids are ill-treated, the parents and the principal are conspicuous by their absence.

Rahul leads a revolt against Sahay, and the whole city is agog, but parents seem to be indifferent to their kids’ plight. The film is just so badly written and directed, so ridiculous in every way, that it is a wonder stars like Nana Patekar and Shahid Kapoor agreed to do it. Forget awakening the audience to important issues, this film won’t even be able to keep then sitting on in the moviehall.

Phoonk 2

Ram Gopal Varma’s factory regularly churns out a few of these low budget horror movies in between other kinds of films—maybe to keep the staff busy. There could be no other explanation for a Phoonk 2—there’s no creative challenge left in the horror genre the way these factory-assembled quickies approach it.

And it is a genre perfectly suited for potboilers—stars are not needed, plots come pre-packaged; a good cameraman, a hardworking sound engineer and a special effects team will usually suffice. Those, and actors, (or dubbing artistes) with the lung power to emit blood-curdling screams. If they can also keep their eyes dilated in fear for extended periods of time, it is an added asset. Then, some help from a make-up team, and they can overact to their heart’s desire.

In the first Phoonk, two disgruntled employees of Rajiv (Sudeep), wreaked havoc on the family by using black magic on his daughter (Ahsas Chanana). The sequel, Phoonk 2 has been directed by Milind Gadagkar, who had written the first film (with some inspiration from The Exorcist). Madhu (Ashwini Kalsekar), the evil woman with the loony laugh in the first part, who was defeated by a tantric, returns in spirit form and grotesque get-up. And yes, the stuffed crow is back too!

Rajiv and family are visiting their new beach-front house, but the demonic spirit follows them. After the settling in routing, eerie voices are heard, weird things like reflections vanishing from mirrors, and an ugly doll found and brought home by the kids, daughter Raksha (Chanana) and son Rohan (Rishabh Jain). Then the ghost of a vengeful Madhu traumatizes the kids and Rajiv’s wife Aarti (Amruta Khanvilkar) by possessing her body. Extra characters here, Rajiv's sister Arushi (Neeru Bajwa) and her husband Ronnie (Amit Sadh), just for a change of facial scenery and some noise-making capacity.

The film is scary, but predictably so. You know what’s coming next, and brace yourself in advance. A horror film with so few surprises, is asking for trouble. Logic is not delivered, and not even demanded, but still, sense and suspense ought not to be abandoned completely.

In spite of all the effort by the technical crew that has gone into it, there is nothing in Phoonk 2 that hasn’t been seen before. Varma and his director seemed to have counted on the fact that there is a loyal audience for horror films, and they can be taken for granted. Maybe not any more, as the failure of the slightly superior Shaapit a few weeks back proved. It really is time for some new tricks.

The Japanese Wife+ 2

2010-04-22T10:21:00.000+05:30

The Japanese Wife

A film by Aparna Sen is an event to wait for. Sense, sensibility and a high degree of aesthetic quality are a given in her films.

The Japanese Wife, based on a Kunal Basu story, is a delicately narrated, beautifully shot elegy to love; it's biggest fault being that it belongs to the wrong period. A slightly bizarre story of a marriage between two people who have never met sounds very strange now. But Sen tells it with love and empathy for her characters, with gentle acceptance for their quirks, and makes it almost believable.

Snehamoy (Rahul Bose), a shy schoolmaster in a remote Sunderbans village, starts a pen friendship with a Japanese woman, Miyage (Chigusa Takaku). She proposes marriage and he accepts, but they are both unable, due to family and financial constraints, to travel to meet each other. So the marriage remains long distance, but their love and concern for each other endures over many years, as letters and gifts fly across the seas.

Back in his modest, riverside home, his aunt (Moushumi Chatterjee), stoically accepts the odd situation, even though she harbours hope for a marriage between Snehamoy and the Sandhya, the daughter (Raima Sen) of her friend. Later, a widowed Sandhya moves in to the home with her son, and both make space for each other, that allows them to care, but without any direct imposition.

Till the story unravels with tender humour (the energetic kite-flying scene) and some whimsy, Sen keeps a hold on the audience, in spite of the leisurely pace (tighter editing would have helped), but when news of Miyage's illness arrives and Snehamoy runs around seeking treatment, the film, sadly, descends into bathos.

But, its painterly frames (Anay Goswani), relatively unexplored location, and wonderful performances make up for the improbability of the story. This kind of pure love story brimming over with repressed sexuality would probably work better if the setting was the early 20th century. In the present, it seems ridiculous and the two characters completely unhinged. In spite of this Sen can make their story moving and affecting, it is her skill as a director... to channel emotions without seeming manipulative.

Prince

Every once in a while comes a film that tries to fly before it can walk, and ends up tripping on its shoelaces. There was Drona and there was Veer there’s Prince, so awful that it is enjoyable. You have to see it with a crowd of irreverent college kids, or better still an upper stall audience—they rattle off lines before they are spoken on screen, come up with cheeky responses to the film’s soggy punch lines, hoot with derisive laughter and get their money’s worth this way or that.

It’s just bad luck for Vivek Oberoi that he got saddled with a film for which is so clearly unsuited. To pull off the non-stop nonsense that goes on in Kookie Gulati’s Prince, a guy has to be cute like Matt ‘Bourne’ Damon, or sexy like Daniel ‘Bond’ Craig— Oberoi is neither. He looks like a sad wannabe in black patent leather amidst Batman-like gadgetry.

All the fuss and bother in Prince is over a gold coin that has a chip embedded in it. This chip has memory-altering functions that can be used, as the villain says, to conquer the world. It has already been used to erase the memory of ace thief Prince (Oberoi), and every time he is in a stressful situation, he clutches his head, twitches and faints. Not much of a ‘hero’ – also too many ‘duh’ moments for his own good.

Seeking the coin is villain Sarang (Isaiah) with a bionic limb, the CBI represented by Khan (Sanjay Kapoor) and a top-secret government organization called IGRIP—so secret that its gunmen wear jackets with the name embossed.

There are also three women called Maya trying (and failing) to sex up the proceedings—Neeru Singh, Nandana Sen and Aruna Shields. Prince, with a puzzled frown on his face, is hurtled from one misadventure to another—and all the action takes place in South Africa, with the local cops not even batting an eyelid at the mayhem taking place in their backyard.

The sad fact is that Bollywood maybe able to copy Hollywood action (and stunt director Allan Amin does a lot more than all the actors and the director put together), but how about a new storyline to match the latest gizmos on screen?

Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai

Hindi films are usually quite verbose, but Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai goes one step ahead— it tells and then shows. Like if a character says that ever since he was born, girls turned away from him, there is a shot of three babies in a crib and two of them turning away… the shot holds for sometime. You get the point, but director Milap Zaveri shows the boy being rejected by girls in school and then teenagers too.

But the crucial piece of information—why is he such a turn-off—is never explained. Does he have bad breath? Body odour? Rajesh Parekh (Ritesh Deshmukh) does manage to turn the audience off, because when he is not talking (and telling us what we can already see!) he is whining, or he is weeping, or he is goofing off with best friend Kaushal (Vishal Malhotra), who is obsessed with pornography—this generates a lame running game involving a porn DVD.

Still, Tara, a girl from Venus (Jacqueline Fernandez) visiting Earth to discover what Love is all about, chooses to land in Rajesh’s lap. It is supposedly an advanced civilization—Tara can do some magic tricks—but the girl is dressed in bad cabaret dancer costume, and came to another planet without preparation. Don’t they have the intergalactic equivalent of Google on Venus?

Rajesh lives in a palace, but works as Farah Khan’s (as herself) third assistant and puts up with mistreatment, like tea being spat on his face. He falls in love with the sister (Sonal Sehgal) of the film’s ‘superstar’ Desh (Ruslaan Mumtaz), but of course, she turns him down. So he falls in love with the alien, but to teach her about love, pushes her into Desh’s arms.

Don’t even ask why, this is not the kind of film that makes sense. How did Zaveri (who preens on screen a couple of times) even get to make it, and garner a great deal of publicity for it? After Aladin and now this Jaane Kahan… Ritesh Deshmukh must have figured out that he is better off doing multi-starrer comedies; one more Sad Sack act and his career will fly to Venus. If there is an award for most annoying performance, it should go to Vishal Malhotra. And as for the one-expression-wonder Jacqueline Fernandez, maybe she could go to Mars and learn how to act.

Three This Week

2010-04-06T13:11:00.000+05:30

Tum Milo To Sahi

The true Mumbaikar would have so many Irani café memories, and also great respect for the hard-working Tamilian/Malayali clerks in every office who could make sense of any document. Two of these ‘institutions’ find their way into Kabir Sadanand’s Tum Milo To Sahi—a film that does no justice to the city or its people.

Dilshad (Dimple Kapadia) runs a favourite café and hang-out, that catches the eye of a ruthlessly expanding multinational café chain Blue Bell (the soundtrack trills the name every time a villainous member of the company enters the frame).

Subramanian (Nana Patekar) is just-retired lonely and eccentric bachelor, who finds a family and a cause to keep going in the form of Dilshad’s Lucky Café. In between the admittedly noble and topical cause – keeping the city’s heritage alive-- Sadanand’s film scatters all over the place, gathering along ridiculous characters and wildly unconnected episodes.

The love story of newcomer to Mumbai (Rehan Khan) and his birdbrained classmate (Anjana Sukhani) is just irritating, as is the pointless domestic chaos in the “four-bedroom” home of Blue Bell’s CEO (Sunil Shetty), his nagging wife (Vidya Malavade) and “stressed-out” kid. The many subplots do converge, but not convincingly, and a lot of characters (the man upstairs, the ambitious singer) float around without purpose.

Everyone tries to save Lucky Café, and the end in a courtroom is irrelevant and contrived. A lot of time is wasted in creating back stories and quirks for all the characters, but only Nana Patekar gets his stern Tamilian act down perfectly, accent, costume and all. Dimple Kapadia overacts outrageously, and as for the others, they are lost in the maze of a script that starts to go somewhere and ends up somewhere else.

Pankh

Thanks to films and some fiction, people outside the film industry have a picture of what the 'inside' world is like. A character in Sudipto Chattopadhyay's Pankh describes it as hell. The rundown, debauched men, and desperate women who appear in the film seem to confirm these ideas. Unfortunately it is people in the industry who invariably denigrate it.

This is not to say that the film industry does not have its share of pimps and exploiters, but the collection of cliches in Pankh is a bit much--- the mother pushing her unwilling daughter, crudely described “as fresh, juicy mango,” the casting director who demands his pound of flesh, the effeminate and depraved-looking writer. And above all the two main characters in the film, Jerry (Maradona Rebello) and his ambitious mother Mary (Lillete Dubey)-- she had forced the boy to dress as a girl and do movies in the past, and when he grows up, he is confused about his sexuality. To compound the problem, a young stuntman (Amit Purohit) was in love with the little girl and still fantasizes about her. Jerry, meanwhile, has imaginary conversations with an actress Nandini (Bipasha Basu).

Most of the film takes places in a dilapidated studio, where Jerry has to appear for an audition with a terrified girl (Sanjeeda Sheikh), who is being pushed by her mother (Asha Sachdev) into the arms of the sleazy casting man.

The film aims at a dream-trance-nightmare heavily Gothic atmosphere, but does nothing to create compassion for the boy around whose plight the film revolves.

While the idea is dated (today there is no shortage of girls aspiring to join the industry), it is still interesting, but the film remains on one hysterical note, and covers up for its lack of content with stylised visuals and loud performance styles, that make the film very difficult to sit through and even tougher to like or sympathise with the characters-- least of all Jerry. The film also ends on a very predictable note.

Lillete Dubey, who is usually a wonderful actress is made to shriek and ham and the new actor Maradona Rebello does not have the screen presence or acting range to pull off the complex role. No performance stands out really, in this noisy, excessively melodramatic mess, that gives the world “experimental” or “art house” a bad name.

The Great Indian Butterfly

Just because the banner is called Arthouse Films—underlined for emphasis—do the films that emerge from there have to be so self-consciously ‘arty’?

Sarthak Dasgupta’s The Great Indian Butterfly is an English-language film, obviously meant for urban, multiplex audiences. It can be assumed that this audience has been exposed to Hollywood-- maybe even other international-- films. Why would they accept a badly written, shoddily made film thrown at them?

This small genre of Indian-English films has some honourable antecedents—English August, Hyderabad Blues, Mr and Mrs Iyer. Unfortunately, Butterfly does not come anywhere close.

Bickering couples, woman having baby blues, a strange white man popping in with words of wisdom and Gibran… could tedium have come in a duller package?

Krish (Aamir Bashir) and Meera (Sandhya Mridul), a DINK couple seem to have no love left in their marriage. Their high-pressure jobs leave them no time for each other. Their vacation starts badly when he oversleeps and they miss the flight (why didn’t she set an alarm?). They decide to drive to Goa and fight all the way, screeching at each other and mouthing the most artificial-sounding dialogue imaginable. (Indian English literature has finally crossed that hurdle and people in books talk normally).

The trip is also meant to look for a mythical valley somewhere in Goa, where The Great Indian Butterfly, mentioned in the Mahabharat, is to be found, and seeing (or catching?) it brings love, luck, happiness, etc.

The couple lose their audience in the first 15 minutes, after that you don’t care if they make up or break up, or find the damned butterfly. Sandhya Mridul is unbearably shrill, Aamir Bashir just not up to the challenge of portraying a troubled man. Barry John’s guru type just evokes giggles. Koel Purie turns up in a meaningless cameo as the man’s ex-girlfriend. Might as well take a walk in the park and see some real butterflies.

Three this week

2010-03-26T20:27:00.000+05:30

Well Done Abba

Thank God for some things—like Shyam Benegal coming up with another sensible film on a very relevant subject. After the successful and charming comedy Welcome to Sajjanpur, this time he looks at life in an Andhra village, where everyone speaks a tangy Deccani dialect.

Armaan Ali (Boman Irani) takes leave from his job as a driver in Mumbai to visit his village, where his daughter Muskaan (Minissha Lamba) lives with his troublesome twin brother and his wife (Ila Arun). Water is a problem in the village, and Armaan Ali decides to get a well dug on his property.

That takes a lot of running around, getting this certificate and that and bribing everyone down the line, so that in the end there is no money left to actually dig the well. Muskaan then gets the idea of paying the corrupt bureaucracy back in its own coin.

The film is populated with a lot of colourful characters, but it never rises to the expected heights of absurd or black humour. The newly-married engineer (Ravi Kisshen) who wants his wife (Sonali Kulkarni) to undergo surgery for “enlargement” doesn’t even belong to a Benegal film.

There is very little novelty in the portrayal of bribe-seeking petty officials -- a recent Marathi film Jau Jithe Khau did it with a lot more humour. The story is also deflected from its course with an unnecessary sub plot about young Muslim girls sold in marriage to Arabs.

Sammir Dattani is the mandatory romantic interest and his phone romance with Muskaan just serves a product placement for a service provider. But this is Boman Irani’s playing field and he easily outruns even the most talented actors in the large ensemble cast. There are a few genuinely funny scenes, but not enough to classify the film as an ‘absolutely must see’, but it is the most watchable film of this week… and month.

Hum Tum Aur Ghost

He sees dead people, so the poor thing drinks himself silly and sleeps on railway station benches. Here’s Arshad Warsi—comic actor extraordinaire—who is trying to fight typecasting, by doing so-called dramatic parts. When nobody else trusts him with melodrama, he produces the film himself, gets the crew to London and gets camera wizard Ashok Mehta to shoot it.

That done, he borrow a plot from Ghost Town (David Koepp, 2008), gets Kabeer Kaushik on board as director—the man who gave him his career’s most serious role in the underrated Seher; had that film worked, perhaps Warsi would not have to make Hum Tum Aur Ghost. So ladies and gentlemen of the audience, who did not appreciate his true talent in Seher are responsible for the mess--- good-looking mess, one might add-- that is Hum Tum Aur Ghost. This film that is neither comedy nor drama, neither horror nor romance.

Pity, because Warsi is talented and ought not to have to jump through hoops of vanity to prove it. He plays a fashion photographer Armaan, who is dating the editor of Cosmopolitan—the UK mag with a Hindi-speaking editor Gehna (Dia Mirza), who is constantly having screaming fits in the office, and to show that she works, she once says, “What do we have here?” and peers at some photos. She also gets very excited by a Roberto Cavalli sale… whoever wrote this, does not know their fashion mag biz.

But that is not the point—eventually the ghost of Mr Kapoor (Boman Irani) tells Armaan that since he can communicate with dead people, he must help them complete their mission on earth, so that their souls can rest in peace. After some why-me’s Armaan agrees to help a few ghosts, including a kid, Kapoor and a white woman with blue eye-shadow who wants him to find her son who was lost 35 years ago in Goa! (Anyone who cannot guess the identity of the son, has not seen enough movies). The film perks up very briefly when Irani is on screen, and then collapses again.

Had they stuck with the ghost buddy idea, Warsi and Irani, would have brought the hall down with their comic abilities—look at the scene in the bank. But the point was to allow Arshad Warsi to do ‘herogiri’—romance, weeping and all—since he is the producer. Which is not to suggest that Warsi should stick to comedy, but to display his ‘variety’ he must pick better projects.

Mittal v/s Mittal

Mittal v/s Mittal is about marital rape—very sensitive issue, needs delicate handling, not Karan Razdan’s sledgehammer.

Look at the characters he comes up with, a millionaire hero (Rohit Roy) who marries women who turn down his advances as ‘revenge’. A female lawyer (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi) fighting a crucial case, keeps yelling “this is ridiculous” in court and at one point bursts into tears; a male lawyer (Gulshan Grover) offers everyone “herbal tea”. There’s one of India’s top ten industrialists (Amar Talwar) who is scared of his wife, and this wife (Dolly Thakore), enters any room and demands that the AC be switched on! “Middle class” is thrown as an insult in new bride’s face, when her parents live in a huge bungalow with a garden!

The leading lady, Mitali (Rituparna Sengupta) is a model, who marries rich guy Karan and puts up with abuse from the wedding night itself. She is seen pottering about the house in the same red nightie and at one point flirtatiously telling her husband to say he loves her. “You terrorise me,” he says, and stalks off.

The marital rape is seen over multiple scenes of the wife thrashing out in bed, and the husband not even unbuttoning his shirt; nowhere does the director wonder about the complete lack of desire in the woman (and this was a love marriage), or why she stays on in an abusive marriage, if she is not being forced to. When Mitali does walk out, her mother says, it must be her fault, she must be frigid or something! And finally, the blame for Karan’s boorishness is laid on his mother’s door.

Why make a film on a serious issue and waste the opportunity of creating awareness about it, with such sloppy filmmaking?

LSD+2

2010-03-20T11:43:00.000+05:30

Love Sex Aur Dhoka

Dibakar Banerjee hit on a terrific idea-- people are so hooked on to reality TV, why should they not be fed reality cinema too?

He uses the 'mockumentary' style to tell three stories-- cleverly interconnected-- that try to capture a slice of North Indian life, with brutal frankness.

Love Sex Aur Dhoka has one foot in the world where honour killings still take place, and one in which pornography is avidly consumed by ordinary people; there are sting operations by a sensation hungry media, and 'compromises' demanded from showbiz-obsessed girls, by lechy pop stars.

Using handheld camera, and a cast of unknowns, Banerjee recreates a world as realistically as is possible with the artifice of cinema.

It is an audacious experiment, stymied, if at all, but the fact that the characters are slightly caricatured, even though they seem like people we know in Delhi; the speech patterns are perfectly reproduced, the colloquialisms bang on. But the stories themselves are not too interesting.

The film student paying a tribute to Aditya Chopra turns into a spoof, but the real story of the rich girl-poor but taking place while the filming is on, is contrived.

The second story of a poor salegirl conned into a sexual encounter, the video of which is sold for public consumption without a thought for her feelings is tragic. The tone shifts to over the top again, when a TV reporter teams up with an aspiring actress to 'sting' a pop star.

The performances by the new actors are wonderfully rehearsed to look effortless. The biggest problem with the film is that it tries a satirical comment on voyeurism, but turns the viewer into an unwilling voyeur too. If even a section of the audience watches the film for the cheap thrills it offers, the whole point would be lost.

Lahore

You watch with a certain amount of disbelief that the film, Lahore, does not help you suspend.

If the film were to be believed, then kickboxing is a major sport, the political relations between India and Pakistan depend on it, the media headlines it, a sports minister spends an inordinate amount of time on it, players treat tournaments like battles, fans take out processions when an ‘incident’ happens and throngs collect for the funeral of a player.

If that can be accepted, then Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan’s debut film is an earnest, mostly well shot film; the story is inspired by the recent Apne, and the message at the end is truly noble.

Then again, there are stereotypes like Indians being sportsmanlike, fair and honorable, Pakistanis being murderous sneaks, and so on.

Dheerendra (Sushant Singh) is a promising kickboxer, supported by the national coach Rao (Farooque Shaikh, with an on-off Hyderabadi accent). His main opponent is Pakistani player Noor Mohammad (Mukesh Rishi, competent but overage for the part), whose coach (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) makes every match a matter of national pride.

His brother Veerendra (Aanaahad) is a promising cricketer, who, when crisis strikes, turns to kickboxing and, well, upholds the country’s honour. The last scene, genuinely moving, makes up for a lot of junk that goes before. And in spite of the anti-Pak slant, Chauhan makes a case for forgiveness and friendship.

There are a lot of characters with unexplained or uneven graphs – like another played Gajanand (Kelly Dorjee), who is the sports minister’s (K. Jeeva) darling; the women—mother (Nafisa Ali) and two romantic interests (Shraddha Das-Shraddha Nigam), are so insignificant, as to be dispensable.

Fans of the sport may enjoy the film, some of the scenes of matches are exciting, and Lahore does add to the meagre list of sports films in India. But it’s still puzzling why Warners chose to associate with this film, and how a large cast of credible, if not A-list, character actors (Ashish Vidyarthi, Nirmal Pandey, Surabh Shukla too) signed up for it. Of the lot, only Farooque Shaikh is likeable, accent and all.

Shaapit

Most plots about vengeful spirits have been exhausted, so there is a formulaic feel to Vikram Bhatt’s new horror film Shaapit. It is conventional in structure and approach—scary in parts but not really surprising.

When Aman (Aditya Narayan) wants to marry Kaaya (Shweta Agarwal), he discovers a family curse that kills all girls in her family if they wed. The reason goes back to 300-year-old incident involving her royal ancestors.

Aman and his friend (Shubh Joshi) approach Professor Pashupati (Rahul Dev) for help and embark on a journey to trace the evil spirit that carries the curse, in order to save Kaaya.

There are the stock horror elements, haunted houses, graveyards, loud, startling sound effects and everything shot in the semi dark, so the screen is either sulphurous or hazy blue. There are a couple of different scenes – like sending a spirit to the past to connect with a living being then. After a while Pashupati’s methods get boringly convoluted, the films goes on and on, long after it’s thrills and spills have been stretched to the limit.

A film like it, where atmospherics are bigger than actors is not an ideal debut vehicle, so the best that can be said a about Aditya Narayan is that he is passable as a young man in love; his co-star is just a mask of make-up. Rahul Dev and Natasha Sinha do well in their supporting parts. Shaapit is ok for horror fans, they might enjoy it simply because of their familiarity with tricks of the genre. (Audiences in a suburban cinemahall were reproducing sound effects and shouting dialogue a split second before the scene flashed on screen.)

Right Yaaa Wrong

2010-03-20T11:34:00.000+05:30

Right Yaaa Wrong

The three ‘A’s in the title of Right Yaaa Wrong is just a pointer to the oddness of a film, that seems like it belongs to a bygone era. Neerraj Pathak’s film says that it is okay to kill an unfaithful wife, and the audience should be on the side of a cold-blooded murderer.

Ajay (Sunny Deol) and Vinay (Irrfan Khan) are cops and buddies, but don’t agree on how the letter of the law is to be applied. Ajay believes in a soft approach, while Vinay is harsher. A shootout in the line of duty leaves Ajay paralysed, and things come to such a pass that Vinay has to oppose his friend. Vinay is right, but can’t prove it, and standing against him is his lawyer sister (Konkona SenSharma—out of place).

A decade ago, maybe, Right Yaaa Wrong would have worked as a suspense thriller, but now better stories are being told on TV crime shows. Besides, what good is a film in which action star Sunny Deol is confined to a wheelchair, brooding and seething. You think maybe Irrfan and Sunny should have swapped roles… the former would make a better brooder, and the latter a much better angry law enforcer.

4 This Week

2010-03-05T21:07:00.000+05:30

Thanks Maa

It does not happen too often—you go to see film with zero expectations, despite having read about it and the National Award for its lead child actor—and are blown away. The director Irfan Kamal, son of a popular choreographer in the past, tried to be an actor and made no headway. He made film about a street kid, and after Slumdog Millionaire, what else could he have added to a picture of the underside of Mumbai?

To be fair to Kamal, he made Thanks Maa before Slumdog Millionaire, and it is his own work, not based on a best-selling novel. He has gone with his DOP Ajayan Vincent into the shanties, gullies and dumps of Mumbai, and there is not a spot of beauty or glamour in the film— everything seems to be covered in a grey layer of grime.

A saucer-eyed, curly-mopped kid (Shams Patel) called Municipality for want of a real name, hangs out with a gang of ‘chillars’ – urchins and petty thieves—played to perfection by Salman, Fayaaz, Almas and Jaffer. They all have weird street nicknames- Soda, Cutting, Dedh Shaana, and the sole girl Sursuri.

Unlike the other kids who ran away from home, Municipality had been abandoned, and lives in the hope that one day his mother will come to look for him at the hospital where he had been discarded. To get information, he goes every week to bribe a wardboy (Raghubir Yadav).

While escaping from the remand home and a drooling paedophile of a warden (Alok Nath), he finds a baby, and picks him up with the idea of returning him to his mother. Then starts his adventure, where he encounters all manner of people—some good, many evil.

What Kamal celebrates is the honesty (even though he is a thief) of the boy, who claims never to break a promise and the resourcefulness of the street kids, who systematically and logically go about tracing the child’s mother, using coercion or cuteness depending on the situation.

After a point, it does get too much, the ‘filmi’ contrivances pile up and there is the excessive enthusiasm of the first-time director at work, where he wants to chuck at the audience everything that he has seen and discovered—prostitutes, drug addicts, pimps, eunuchs, rapists and every perversion known in society. But he doesn’t let go of the rawness of the streets, and the tanginess of the lingo, so authentic that it seems to have been picked up fresh and steaming from a wok. Because he is not using it to titillate, you don’t mind the crudity that creeps in once too often. Kamal does not sanitize the lives of the urchins, neither does he go so overboard with his exposure of the city’s ugly side that the viewer flinches in horror or embarrassment.

The children are all such naturals, that the adults all look like they are overacting. The film may not be a masterpiece like Pixote, but it is a very, very good debut.

Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?

Three stars’ dates were managed, a quick one-location film could be produced, keeping a couple of Hollywood films in mind—maybe the audience, always on the lookout for a few laughs, would go for Atithi Tum Kan Jaoge? The film’s title gives the plot away, there is no compelling reason to see it.

The opening scene in which Punit (Ajay Devgn), a scriptwriter, is narrating a story to his producer (Satish Kaushik) and comes up with a scene in which a blind woman sees, mute boy speaks, lame man runs, and so on, you know that this will be one, long, laboured, unfunny attempt at raising sitcom kind of laughs.

There was a real urban comedy in there somewhere, it’s just that Ashwini Dhir couldn’t find it. All he could come up with is a villager passing wind and gargling loudly.

Punit and Munmun’s (Konkana Sensharma) kid wants to know what an ‘atithi’ is, and soon enough a distant Chacha (Paresh Rawal) lands up. Any Mumbai resident could have told Dhir, that nobody in this predominantly nuclear-family, one-bedroom city would willingly let a real relative into the door, leave aside entertaining the bizarre demands of an uncle they don’t even know or know of. One call to the native village would have cleared the Chacha business.

But then don’t expect logic out of such a made-to-order-in-a-hurry comedy. Chacha parks himself in their airconditioned bedroom, while they sleep on the soda bed outside. He orders huge meals and changes their routine to suit his. That is supposed to be funny?

The guest is not such a monster as to make the lives of his hosts totally miserable, so there is no sympathy for the couple; their eagerness to please him and helplessness in the face of his never-ending stay seems strange and unbelievable. But the bhajan-singing Chacha charms the whole neigbourbood, his hosts’ kid and even a bhai, never mind that he comes close to wrecking Punit’s career and Munmun’s peace of mind.

If the film at least tried to understand the city’s problems and attitudes—like the popular comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills or even the far inferior You Me and Dupree, it could have toted up some plus points. Except for Paresh Rawal’s efficient performance, everything about this guest is most unwelcome.

Road, Movie

The idea of a mela happening wherever there is cinema is magical; the fascination with the touring talkies, the freedom of the road, and getting away from the mundane as represented by “tel bechna” – a Hindi speaking person would understand the idiomatic and ironic use of the phrase—Dev Benegal’s water mafia idea carried forward from his last film (Split Wide Open)… the ideas should have come together in a whimsical tribute to cinema and Indian diversity. But Benegal’s Road, Movie, just doesn’t measure up to the expectations built up by its film festival buzz.

Inspired by Cinema Paradiso and probably Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures, plus Fellini’s images and Latin American magic realism, the film starts very well, with young Vishnu (Abhay Deol) escaping from the dreariness of his father’s hair oil business to drive a battered old truck with a projector and a collection of movie classics (glimpses of which you see), across the desert to a mythical destination by the sea.

On the way, he picks up a smart alecky tea-stall boy (Mohammed Faisal), an old fix-anything mechanic (Satish Kaushik) and a gypsy woman (Tannishtha Chatterjee). They drive the truck across barren landscapes occasionally interrupted by colourfully dressed women in search of water. The old man wants to go to a fair—where, he says, they will get whatever they desire. This leads to the film’s truly enchanting scene of a mela like an oasis in the desert. The hallucinatory quality of the scene is in contrast to the reality of being stopped by a cop, who will torture them if their films turn out to be boring.

The water mafia goons turn up at some point and are assuaged in a comically outlandish way… but such moments are few; the film is not whimsical enough to be charming, too slow to be involving, and, for a tribute to the power of cinema, lacking in romance or pleasant surprises. There is homage paid to the old number ‘Sar jo tera chakraye’ though, in a remix version.

It’s not hard to see why the film would appeal to a foreign film festival audience, there is exotica, stunning visuals and a peek into a world not often seen unless wrapped in touristy (Incredible India) messages. Plus good performances… though the alienated characters Abhay Deol is now excelling at portraying are starting to merge into one another. Still, you’d rather watch him than anyone else in this kind of film. At least his presence staves off boredom.

Hello Zindagi

Kavita (Mrunmayee Lagoo) is a teenager full of unexplained angst and anger; her father (Kanwaljit Singh) is sympathetic, her mother (Neena Gupta) is a nag. Of this flimsy soap opera material Raja Unnithan crafts a tedious film about today’s directionless teens. But Kavita is not confused, she is simply odious.

She shoplifts, teases men, smokes on the sly, drinks to much, snorts cocaine with a stranger and wakes up in his bed. After an accident, she is adopted by a doctor (Kitu Gidwani), who takes her to Goa, where she has a peaceful holiday, without a thought for her own recently widowed mother.

Finally she finds a purpose in life—saving Olive Ridley turtles, guided by conservationist Arpan (Milind Gunaji). But throughout Kavita’s so-called ordeal, you ask yourself why you are sitting through the movie, and why you are supposed to care for the film’s unpleasant protagonist.

KCK+ Teen Patti

2010-02-27T11:39:00.000+05:30

Karthik Calling Karthik

Karthik Narayan looks like a loser in a film is supposed to – glasses, slicked down hair, boring striped shirt, shuffling walk, timid manner. The girl in the office he is in love with, does not even notice him.

You can see that the guy’s due for a makeover — Vijay Lalwani’s assured debut Karthik Calling Karthik is about how that happens and what transpires when the mouse begins to roar. You can’t even reveal what the film is about without giving the plot away, but there’s a wish-fulfillment fantasy cum suspense thriller in there.

The nerdy Karthik who is bullied by everyone from his landlord to his boss (Ram Kapoor) and co-workers, gets a call one day, from a man who claims to be Karthik, and offers to change his life. He follows the instructions by the voice and suddenly he gets everything he wants — promotion, corner office, smart clothes and most importantly the girl, Shonali (Deepika Padukone). The voice cautions him that he must never reveal the secret to anyone, but Karthik does and the result is traumatic.

It doesn’t take much to guess what is going on, but still, the film is engaging, despite its crawling pace. There is always sympathy for the underdog and Karthik just begs to be saved, how can one not sympathise with the character?

Superbly shot (Sanu Verghese), with the right atmosphere created by the oppressive production design (Devika Shroff)—his bleak bachelor pad, the soulless office. Shonali is like a ray of sunshine in that life and Deepika plays her with the right amount of glamour and simplicity—for all her beauty, Shonali is a loser at romance, and as emotionally fragile as Karthik, but she has learnt to cope.

A premise as intriguing as this is bound to have a prosaic resolution, but it doesn’t matter, while the story is unravelling, you are carried along with the ups and downs in Karthik’s life, and Farhan somehow obliterates his real-life stylish personality to play the drowning protagonist, effortlessly carrying the film through its dull or rough patches. Worth a look for the seeker of offbeat entertainment, who also is willing to suspend disbelief.

Teen Patti

For a filmmaker, getting Amitabh Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley in the same frame is quite an achievement, unfortunately Leena Yadav’s Teen Patti (her second after Shabd) has little else to offer.

Inspired by Hollywood thriller 21, this film is about a professor of mathematics at an institute called BIT (?); Venkat Subramaniam’s (Bachchan), work on the Theory of Probability gets only derision from his colleagues, but he manages to excite a younger professor Shantanu (R. Madhavan) and a bunch of students into applying it to winning ‘Teen Patti’ card games.

Shantanu thinks they should test the theory in a real gambling den, and they all get into disguise and go into a seedy place. They win the games, but get into trouble with a criminal. Venkat is blackmailed into continuing to play and give a section of the winnings to an unseen threatening voice on the phone.

From a reasonably interesting premise, the film goes nowhere. They are a series of repetitive card games in increasingly garish surroundings, their winnings get bigger, so do their problems. A bunch of stars like Jackie Shroff and Ajay Devgan make special appearances as gamblers.

Yadav loses grip on the plot quite soon, and the many little sub-plots she tries to introduce, don’t really add up. Why does Mita Vashist, playing a querulous Mrs Kale, appear and vanish; neither Shantanu’s affair with a glamorous woman, nor his engagement to his girlfriend lead to anything. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a gay angle is introduced. All the frantic comings and goings evoke no response from others on the campus.

The greed and constant high of wealth throws the young people off balance, but never does the viewer feel the thrill or the tension of the situation. Aseem Bajaj’s camera creates a dark, moody ambience, but is just not supported by the script. A hint to the mystery is also thrown in much too early, so when it finally unravels, there is no surprise.

And finally Sir Ben has nothing to do, but listen to Venkat’s narration in a series of flashbacks. But why is the mathematician telling this Cambridge man the story? In the end the moral is laughably simple—greed is bad. Not the kind of thing that comes in a flash of blinding insight. Amitabh Bachchan does his best in an insipid role. The newbies, Dhruv Ganesh, Siddharth Kher, Vaibhav Talwar and Shraddha Kapoor are earnest and enthusiastic, but the film is as disappointing as a lost bet.

TBP+Click

2010-02-20T14:25:00.000+05:30

Toh Baat Pakki

The intention may have been to make an old-style family comedy-drama of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee kind, but everyone who starts out trying to ape the master, just trips himself up.

Kedar Shinde’s Toh Baat Pakki, with its overdone sets and garish costumes, looks like an episode of a TV serial—where women stand around dressed like Christmas trees. And Tabu, who claims to be selective, thought this would be a good film to do? Just shows how limited the choices are, even for talented actresses who have crossed the bimbette age.

Tabu plays Rajeshwari, a shrewish Palanpur housewife, with a browbeaten husband (Ayub Khan). She wants her sister Nisha (Uvika Chaudhary) to marry well. When she comes across a suitable ‘prospect’ from the community, in the form of engineering student Rahul (Sharman Joshi), her mind starts ticking and she practically pushes the sister at him.

When their marriage is fixed, a better prospect turns up—Yuvraj (Vatsal Seth), who has a steady job and company bungalow-- so she callously cancels out Rahul and pitches Nisha to Yuvraj and his mother (Himani Shivpuri). But Nisha has fallen in love with Rahul, who he comes up really convoluted plans to disrupt her wedding —including ingratiating himself with the in-laws.

Badly acted and not remotely funny, the film ends in a messy heap at the wedding ‘mandap’. The detailing is such that Rajeshwari is a bank cashier’s wife, who thinks Rs 1000 is a huge sum, but the mansion they live in and the costumes they wear don’t exactly look middle class. How Rahul has an unlimited source of wealth to fund his plan is not clear either.

If this is what cinema comes up with, why not just sit home and watch TV?

Click

Sangeeth Sivan, director of Click, says in his Note, that he “happened to get a few emails depicting pictures of spirits captured in a photo… being an avid photographer myself, the idea intrigued me and set me thinking…. Keeping this in mind, we set out to write a script.”

What he doesn’t say, is that they just put a DVD of Masayuki Ochiai’s Shutter into the player and simply copied it. But then why copy a bad film? Horror films from Japan and other Far Eastern countries, had their moment of glory and a cult following for a while. Hollywood picked up some of them (legitimately, one might add) like The Ring and The Grudge. But the formula has worn thin now, like the American slasher movies that all look the same, and have been moved to the bottom of the genre. Paranormal Activity has changed the rules of the horror game. The same old schlock elements don’t work any more.

However, horror fans with low expectations might be able to sit through Click. Avi (Shreyas Talpade), a photographer and his model girlfriend Sonia (Sada) run over a woman on a deserted highway, but drive away, for fear of the law.

Sonia feels guilty about not helping the victim, but there seems to be no trace of her. Then eerie things start happening around them, and both are plagued by nightmares. The pictures that Avi clicks also have strange white streaks. Sonia tries to find out more about the girl and discovers that Avi used to know Aarti (Sneha Ullal) in the past, and the accident didn’t happen just like that… there was a motive.

Anyone who has seen a few of these B horror films would know exactly how the plot unfolds, and those who have seen Shutter, can see a straight lift. Sivan doesn’t add any of his own touches to the genre—the usual loud noises and weird happenings, the scariest of which turn out to be nightmares. Use this device more than once, and it seems like cheating.

In this kind of film, the actors have nothing much to do, except look baffled or terrified, which Shreyas and Sada do adequately. Poor Sneha Ullal has to wear fright make up and hang upside down—you feel sorry for anyone who has to do this as a career move! The music is ordinary, but the set are truly bizarre, and not in a nice way.

My Name Is Khan

2010-02-12T16:01:00.000+05:30

My Name is Khan

The character of Rizwan Khan, played by Shah Rukh Khan in this now-controversial Karan Johar film, keeps repeating, “My Name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist.”

That is the film’s single point agenda, to show that post 9/11 Muslims are discriminated against, and that US authorities paint them all with the same brush of hatred and suspicion. It’s short-sighted and simplistic, and not even willing to look seriously at the dangers of fundamentalism.

Rizwan has Asperger’s Syndrome, a kind of autism—he has trouble relating to people, and is scared of noise. He goes to America to join his brother Zakir (Jimmy Shergill) and his wife Hasina— Zakir has always resented the attention their mother (Zarina Wahab) showered on Rizwan. But that area is not explored.

He falls in love with Mandira (Kajol), a divorcee with a son. The child accepts Rizwan easily too, and they are integrated into a white neighbourhood. The romance is handled with typical Karan Johar tenderness—he is unbeatable in this department, and the actors’ ease and comfort level with each other, makes their moments special.

Then 9/11 happens and there is a backlash against Muslims—or any brown-skinned person. Mandira’s son becomes the victim of a hate crime; she is grief stricken and pushes Rizwan away. He sets off on a journey to meet the President and tell him, that his name is Khan and he is not a terrorist, so that he can win Mandira’s love again.

A bit of Forrest Gump, a bit of Ab Dilli Door Nahin and Naunihal and traces of Khuda Ke Liye, in the way Rizwan is arrested and tortured. So far so good, and you are with Johar and Khan, in spite of the political naivete, and the laying off the melodrama a bit too thick.

When Rizwan goes to help a flood hit village, where he had found shelter earlier, and sparks off a media frenzy, the film loses its grip and becomes too self-indulgent and manipulative. It all but canonizes Rizwan Khan, and in doing so, takes away from the film’s humanist message. The scenes with Obama are cringe-making.

With all its sincerity and emotional highpoints, the film stops far short of being an important chronicle of its times, simply because it seems to exist in a Khan-centered limbo, and comes a bit too late. Also makes you wonder if Bollywood filmmakers, are so hung-up on being ‘global’ and ‘crossover’ that they can’t see issues under their own noses and cannot connect with the underprivileged and the alienated in India.

Still, you can be thankful for small mercies, that mainstream Diaspora-targetting Bollywood is trying to score political points. The film gives Shah Rukh Khan the opportunity to exercise his nearly atrophied acting muscles, and he is wonderful as Rizwan—charming even when he is being difficult. It must have been tough to keep that slightly cross-eyed deep-focussing look throughout, with the awkward walk and the mannerisms. Kajol lends adequate support, though she is not given a role half as challenging.

Johar handles a mixed cast, crowds and set pieces, but you can’t see him fitting to well into the skin of an activist. Better films on the subject have been made, and maybe it’s time to move on, unless there is a fresh perspective to share.

Striker

2010-02-07T10:36:00.000+05:30

Striker

If just production design made a film, Chandan Arora’s Striker would have been a winner. The film goes into the dank distant suburbs of Mumbai of the 70s to early 90s, where films usually don’t descend. Malwani is now a swanky area with valuable real estate, but back when Arora’s story starts, it was the back of beyond.

Gangster Jaleel (Aditya Pancholi) runs gambling dens, and a lot of betting is done on games of carrom, at which poor boy Surya (Siddharth) is a champ. The film moves back and forth in time from 1977 to the 1992 riots, and follows the ups and downs in the life of Surya and his buddy Zaid (Ankur Vikal).

This business of getting into the circle of gangs and the hurdles that arise in the way of a hard-working and basically honest guy, has been seen before. Audiences may not have been inside the carrom dens, but then it is not a very visually exciting game. After a point, it becomes tough to drum up any enthusiasm for the cat-and-mouse confrontations between Jaleel and Surya.

Surya is spectacularly unlucky—whether it is a Dubai dream going sour, or his pocket being picked—and the carom matches seem to be the only way out. But no matter how well shot and earnest the story telling is, Striker is a boring watch, and carrom as a metaphor for Surya’s life is a bit too obvious. Odd subplots about his family and his love life leave no impact. And finally telling the view that gangsters engineer communal riots is no great expose. Anupam Kher turns up as the honest Muslim cop, doing nothing much, really.

Siddharth even with his ordinary looks has magnetic screen presence, but is consistently upstaged by Ankur Vikal playing the more colourful character.

Road to Sangam

2010-02-07T10:35:00.001+05:30

Road to Sangam

So many films have been made in recent times, about the Hindu-Muslim tensions and the problem of terrorism. Amit Rai’s debut film Road to Sangam is a gentle take on the subject. It says what it has to say, but does it so in an inoffensive, almost timid manner, so no offence can be taken… nor was any intended.

What strikes you as most refreshing about the film is its recreation of small town (Allahabad) life, and a tehzeeb that may be fast disappearing, where people speak even to their enemies with utmost politeness and their sense of hospitality never falters.

The take-off point for the film is that one of the pots carrying Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes was forgotten in an Orissa locker. Now it is to be brought to Allahabad, and immersed in the Sangam (the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati). It is decided that the same vehicle that had been used in 1948 will carry the ashes, and Muslim mechanic Hasmatullah (Paresh Rawal) is given the task of repairing the ancient Ford engine.

At the same time, a bomb blast is followed by some arrests, and triggers off Muslim protests. A Muslim leader Kasuri (Om Puri) and his friend a Maulana (Pawan Malhotra) call for a strike and all Muslim establishments are to be shut down. Realising the enormity of his task and worried about the fast approaching deadline, Hashmatullah requests to be exempted from the strike, and antagonizes the whole community. He wins over his people gradually, and also says, quite boldly that Muslims should stop blaming others all the time and look within.

The film suffers from a very slow pace and repetitiveness, which calls for reserve of patience from the viewer. There is a glaring lack of dramatic tension where it is required (like the scene when the keys of his workshops are returned, or when Kasuri has a change of heart), but its honesty and persuasiveness are compelling too. Tushar Gandhi (great grandson of the Mahatma) makes an appearance as himself. In spite of all its faults, the last scene, with crowds and ordinary faces at windows and terraces, is immensely moving. It may not be a ‘timepass’ film, but Road to Sangam’s message is important enough to be supported.

Rann+Ishqiya

2010-01-29T13:06:00.000+05:30

Rann

Anyone eavesdropping into conversations at a Press watering hole in the capital, would get their ears smouldering with gossip, and enough stories for ten thrillers. That’s why Ram Gopal Varma’s much tom-tommed media-bashing film is so disappointing. There is enough for the media to get bashed over, and a filmmaker who did a good job would get the eternal admiration of journalists as well as the public. But, sadly, instead of wielding a mean whip, Varma just manages a tepid version of the fabulous 1986 film New Delhi Times (by Ramesh Sharma). And there was a copyright battle over this?

The link between politics and the media is much more complex that Varma’s simplistic good politician-bad politician, good media baron-bad media baron duel, with a smirking industrialist (with a brother problem, get it?) hanging around, adding fuel to the bonfire.

Vijay Harshvardhan Malik (Amitabh Bachchan) is the upright head of a news channel, whose principles have wrecked the TRPs, while unscrupulous rival Amrish Kakkar (Mohnish Behl) is getting ahead. Varma’s idea of a TV channel is: one boss (Bachchan), one reporter Purab (Ritiesh Deshmukh), one clown (Rajpal Yadav) and one CEO (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi)—none of the urgency and chaos of daily news reporting.

Malik’s hotheaded son Jai (Sudeep) wants so badly to succeed that he cuts a deal with evil politician Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal) and persuades his father to run an unsubstantiated clip, implicating the prime minister (KK Raina) in a scandal that rocks the government. Good journo Purab decides to investigate and exposes the game—with a device as simple as a sting in which the victim merrily narrates the whole conspiracy!

As a very elementary thriller, Rann is fine—but as an expose of the wheeling dealing that goes in power circles, it’s a joke. And the scenes are laughably hokey—would a man bribing a mole in the rival organization bribe via a cheque in a public place? Would an industrialist (Rajat Kapoor) supporting a politician, always hang around him like a flunkey? Would a man use a close friend to shoot a fake video? Would an experienced journalist not be able to smell a fake? Why are so many unimportant characters either rewarded with close ups (Pandey’s silent henchman, his mother) or needless footage (the girlfriends, Gul Panag, Neetu Chandra)?

What the film really wants to convey, is finally done with Amitabh Bachchan’s splendidly delivered, searing monologue in the end. An actor like him, who can convey pages of written emotions with just a look, is surrounded by hams—Sudeep who can’t do without a cigarette as a prop, Paresh Rawal who overacts in the old ‘Madras’ style, Rajat Kapoor, who throws in a collection of sneers and grimaces. Only Riteish Deshmukh underplays and manages to portray sincerity.

Far from being a Rann (battle), this one is more like a bout of arm-wrestling in the neighbourhood pub.

Ishqiya

Abhishek Chaubey is Vishal Bhardwaj’s protégé and the Omkara-Kaminey director’s stamp is visible on Ishqiya. Since the original inspirations are Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, this film obviously doffs a hat to the masters of low-life—change the actors and the film could well be set in a dusty Mexican town.

That said, Ishqiya gets the Uttar Pradesh milieu and the salty language of the badlands just right. And like a good Elmore Leonard plot (though this one may have been inspired by Hollywood’s The Big Bounce), there are complications, lies, deceit, a femme fatale and a kind of loyal love.

Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi), an uncle-nephew duo of petty criminals, dodging a murderous don they have swindled, take refuge in the dilapidated home of Krishna (Vidya Balan), recently widowed. Their money gets stolen, they are trapped in dusty Gorakhpur and at the mercy of Krishna’s convoluted plan of kidnapping a steel trader.

Needless to add, since it always happens in films like this, both men fall for Krishna—Khalujaan tries the wooing with music and old-world charm, while Babban is more direct. But the lady has plans of her own. The humour is often bawdy—like the kidnap victim’s secret life—but not offensively so. The language, though coarse, won’t make the viewer wince, and the violence is not excessive or gratuitous.

The film dutifully follows the conventions of the genre, Chaubey comes up with a leisurely paced, and conveniently contrived script. Ishqiya is fun while it lasts, with its look-at-me cockiness, but not a film one remembers or even wants to discuss afterwards. Still, it is an assured debut, there is a sense of camaraderie that comes through between Shah and Warsi—like the actors were really enjoying themselves and trusted the director to bring out their best. Vidya Balan is surprisingly good, and manages the shifts of mood from playful to sombre to aggressive very well, without dropping her slightly sloppy village woman manner—she doesn’t even attempt the Northern accent, though, which the other characters adopt so easily. Nicely shot, with some pleasing music, Ishqiya is watchable, though probably not an absolutely-must-see.

Veer

2010-01-22T22:35:00.000+05:30

Veer

Salman Khan apparently thought up the idea of making this period film, inspired by Hollywood's Taras Bulba (taken from a Gogol novel) about a father and son fighting an enemy of their tribe and country. He ‘wrote’ the story, relocated it to 19th century Rajasthan, identified the enemy as British colonialists, and the heroic tribes as Pindaris; then all pretence to authenticity was thrown out, though credit is given to a researcher.

A Google search of ‘Pindari’ would be helpful and also show that Anil Sharma's Veer is historically and geographically way off the mark. It would not matter if the film was entertaining or at least engaging. But it is a plodding faux epic that borrows liberally from many period/costume films, and looks like nothing on earth.

Why would anyone want to see a new film about decadent Rajput royals, nomadic tribes and duplicitous Brits, unless it had something to say to an audience today. Sharma's Gaddar, also an Indo-Pak period film, had at its heart an intense love story. This is just a Manmohan Desai style 'mard ko dard nahin hota' comic book film-- a complete no-brainer. Salman Khan fans might want to see him parade around in muscle-revealing hybrid cowboy-Roman warrior costume, but the film with its lavish mounting is likely to evoke laughter in place of awe.

Prithvi (Mithun Chakraborty), a Pindari (they were tribes of foragers, who also worked as mercenaries) is betrayed by the Rajput king of Madhavgarh (Jackie Shroff), who joins hands with the British. Prithvi swears revenge for the deaths of his clansmen, but waits till his son Veer (Salman Khan) grows up and also has a sidekick brother (Sohail Khan). As a newborn, Veer was soaked in rain water to make him a tough guy-- so he has muscles of steel when he grows up.

His father feels that they can't beat the Brits till they learn to think crooked like them, so the 'boys' are sent to a mixed race college in England, where Veer talks back to the sneering teacher and is ordered to be caned; the stout sticks break on his back. Yes, sigh, it is that kind of film.

While he is flexing his biceps and bare abs, Veer also finds time to fall madly in love, with Princess Yashodhara (Zarine Khan--bland), who turns out to be the evil king's daughter. Why doesn't that come as a surprise? Now Veer has another way to defeat the king... whip his army and ‘uthao’ the daughter. Old-fashioned feudal thinking? Don't waste that much thought on the movie; at one point Veer protests against animal slaughter. The film obviously shows more respect for animals that it does for women-- many of whom are giggling morons in tacky period costume (et tu Anna Singh?)

The battle scenes (with CGI help) are grand, lots of top shots of dancing in stately mansions in India and England, but not much else…not even a hummable tune to take home from the theatre.

CPD+TWR

2010-01-15T21:48:00.004+05:30

Chance Pe Dance

It is educative to watch a film like Chance Pe dance in a multiplex hall full of screaming teenagers yelling ''So cuuuuute'' every time Shahid Kapoor looked at the camera and made a cute face (which he does a lot) or did a dance step (which he does a lot too). But in between Shahid Kapoor's cuteness and his dances, there is not very much else in Ken Ghosh's film.

It is the typical story of Sameer (Kapoor) a young man who comes to Mumbai to become a ''hero''. He leaves his father's sari shop in Delhi to try his luck in films. But he has to face disappointment because he has no connections. Every time he gives a good audition and is promised a role, he ends up losing it to someone with clout.

As can be expected, he finds a female, Tina (Genelia D'Souza—delivers generic chirpiness) to offer help and support. A struggler's tale has been done recently, and much better in Luck by Chance. There is not much more that Ghosh can add to an aspiring actor's story. The only unusual touch is that he gets thrown out of his rather fancy rented pad and has to live in his car.

To make a living, till he gets his big break, he teaches dance at a school so there's a sub-plot, about how he whips reluctant kids with 'loser' attitude into a winning team. But at no point is there an emotional connect with the character and his problems, more so since it is inevitable that he will succeed.

For once, you also wish that a film were longer, because neither Sameer's work with the kids, nor his own troubles, are seen with any depth. More than an actor, Shahid Kapoor is an 'item boy' in the film, building up towards an eight-pack revealing climax. Now he deserves better.

The Waiting Room

This little film sprang up without any promotion. Chances are that regular moviegoers haven’t even heard of The Waiting Room.

Directed by first-timer Maneej Premnath, it is a nicely shot and well acted suspense story set in the waiting room of a small railway station. The train has been delayed, four passengers are sitting in there, and around then there is drama going on, over the hunt for a serial killer.

It is raining, the atmosphere is eerie, the lights go an and off, the TV delivers macabre news of chopped-up murder victims. Tina (Radhika Apte) fears that the man trying to be too friendly (Raja Choudhary—the actor from Gulal) might be the killer and is jumpy. Karan is suspicious of an older couple, a jeweller (Sandeep Kulkarni) and wife (Pratiksha Lonkar), who also suspect that the younger ones are a runaway pair. Suspense about the identity of the killer is gradually built up.

Unfortunately, the film’s one-location setting and TV-serial like look, might work against it in the cinemas, but it is a good one-time watch on home video.

PI and DMG

2010-01-15T21:48:00.001+05:30

Pyaar Impossible

In spite of having one of the country’s biggest banners backing him, Uday Chopra’s acting career has not exactly taken off, though he did display some comic flair in the two Dhoom films.

This time he has written and produced Pyaar Impossible for himself, with Jugal Hansraj as director. And the result can be summed up as ‘impossible.’ In all fairness, he has played an unattractive geek, who is not even noticed by the girl he loves. Problem is he has played Abhay like a caricature geek—glasses, bad clothes, oily hair, braces on teeth—which makes him look awful, but adds nothing to the performance. Geekiness is not just a ‘look’, and only an actor not sure of his acting skills would play him as such a broad caricature. Unless the idea was to spoof geek-goddess romcoms, which this isn’t. In fact Hansraj directs without even a touch of lightness. The result is a film that sinks before it even starts to swim.

Abhay loves Alisha (Priyanka Chopra) in college, and continues seven years afterwards, when he is still a geek, so dumb that he lets his prize software be stolen by the smooth talker Varun (Dino Morea—well cast), because he left his laptop unattended, without even password protection. Geeks of the world will howl with laughter or outrage or both.

His dad (Anupam Kher) tells him, go to Singapore and get the software back, like he did in DDLJ, in which he told Shah Rukh Khan to go to India to get his girl. SRK had sneaked into her home, Abhay sneaks into the office of the computer company. In between, he also plays nanny to now-divorced Alisha’s six-year-old monster of a brat.

There has to be something wrong with a woman who leaves her daughter in the care of a male stranger. Odder still, she works for an IT company and doesn’t know how to use a computer. In a Singapore school, the kid does a Karz kind of expository song and dance in Hindi—gyrations and all-- and nobody wonders what’s going on

Priyanka Chopra gets to wear super short, super glam outfits, even though they don’t exactly go with her harassed, single working mom character. Because the plot is such a cliché in Hollywood movies, she also acts as if she were in an American film or sitcom, pretending to be Jennifer Aniston—all overdone twitches, giggles, shrugs and simpers.

This film’s tough to sit through, almost impossible to enjoy.

Dulha Mil Gaya

A fifties story palmed off in 2010—even if the film had not been long in the making, it would have been outdated anyway.

Rich Trinidad playboy Donsai (Fardeen Khan) has the rug pulled from under his feet, when, according to his father’s will, he has to marry Punjab village girl Samarpreet (Ishita Sharma). He marries her and leaves, never expecting that a simple Indian girl will land up “saat samundar paar” looking for him.

A model called Shimmer (Sushmita Sen) takes the girl under her wing and glams her up so that Donsai really falls in love with her, without realizing she is the wife he abandoned. Somewhere in 1969 Hrishikesh Mukherjee had made Pyar Ka Sapna, with the same plot; before and since many ugly ducklings have been turned into swans with cosmetic make-overs and contact lenses instead of glasses—the formula is now worn threadbare. Not to mention how regressive it now is for a girl to try and win over a caddish husband. This Miss Punjab also tells Shimmer that Indian girls ought to put career before marriage, which prompts the commitment-phobic model to run and propose to her suitor (Shah Rukh Khan) on her knees.

The character Sushmita Sen plays, with two loony sidekicks, is so over the top as to be hilarious—unintentionally so. She has never looked or acted worse. Ishita Sharma is okay, considering it is her debut. SRK’s knight in designer suits only puts this one out of its misery with less suffering… too little, too late.

Just for the record--last 3 of 09

2010-01-03T12:13:00.002+05:30

Raat Gayi Baat Gayi

For those who need a film fix every week, Raat Gayi Baat Gayi may just be the best bet out of the lot releasing at the end of the 2009. Directed by Saurabh Shukla, it looks like a European comedy of manners, transposed to Indian soil.

It is an elegant looking film with lovely homes, characters that could be on your list of acquaintances, having the kind of party conversations you might hear around them. It’s a Rajat Kapoor and Gang film, the kind they have been making, perhaps for their own amusement… perchance the audience will be amused too.

Kapoor himself plays an ad filmmaker, married to an artist (Irawati Harshe), who gets drunk at a party, chases a skimpily dressed model (Neha Dhupia), and, the morning after, can’t remember what (if anything) happened. His buddy (Vinay Pathak) chucked out of his home by wife (Anu Menon) for surfing porn sites, goes along to piece together those missing hours with the girl. The hosts of the party, a writer (Dalip Tahil), his noisy wife (Navneet Nisshan) and an artist (Aamir Bashir), more of less, complete the cast.

The problem is that the film just doesn’t rise about the clever (though overdone in Hollywood) idea, and doesn’t come up with any new insights into urban life and relationships. Competent performances by Rajat Kapoor, Navneet Nisshan and Neha Dhupia…is perhaps a pleasant drawing room watch. Whether it is worth the high price of a multiplex ticket is debatable.

Accident on Hill Road

Residents of Mumbai know of a Hill Road in the suburbs which is a major street shopping destination. The Hill Road in the title of this film is some desolate stretch of land in some vague part of Mumbai where a drunk female can drive almost undetected, with a smashed windshield and a man’s bottom sticking out of her car.

In Mahesh Nair’s debut film, Accident on Hill Road, lifted from Hollywood film Stuck, Sonam (Celina Jaitly) works as a nurse in an old people’s home by day, and turns into a provocatively dressed junkie, and a drug dealer’s girlfriend by night. While driving drunk and stoned, she hits a man (Farouque Shaikh), and in a panic dumps the car in her garage with the poor victim sticking out.

She doesn’t realize that he is alive and even in that wounded state has enough fight in him to take on the silly young woman and her dumb boyfriend (Abhimanyu Singh).

There was scope for some Misery (the Stephen King book and award-winning film) kind of dark comic thriller, but Nair has no control over pace, and can’t get his cast to deliver. Celina Jaitly must have been cast for her sex appeal and is made to parade around in tight, strappy tops. Shaikh, appearing in a film after such a long time, looks bored—and you can’t blame him, since he has to spend half the film in that undignified ‘bottom up’ position.

Bolo Raam

There is an industry superstition that films released in the first week of the year don’t do well. So the only ones who dare to release their films in this week are the no-hopers—films that haven’t a chance anyway, even if they came over Diwali weekend.

The three films this week open a day earlier, hoping to break the jinx. With a film like Bolo Raam, what can one say, but that there is no tax on optimism, so anyone can dream of a hit. This film by Rakesh Chaturvedi ‘Om’ seems to have been made to launch newbie Rishi Bhutani. To prop him up are actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Padmini Kolhapure and Govind Namdeo.

Early on in the film Raam (Bhutani) is established as the kind of Mamma’s Boy, whose obsession for her (Padmini Kolhapure) borders on Oedipal. The song picturised on the two of them is hilariously lovey-dovey.

Then, the mother is found dead, the murder weapon is in Raam’s hand, and he refuses to speak—hence the title Bolo Raam. Cops Om Puri and Govind Namdeo, plus shrink Naseeruddin Shah are baffled. Two of these actors had starred in Aakrosh, a classic about a tribal who is accused of murder but does not speak. Suffice to say, this isn’t even in the same league, and if there is a reason why the two signed this turkey, it is not evident in the film. The newcomer is more wooden than wooden, if that is possible.

3 Idiots

2009-12-26T11:58:00.000+05:30

Can’t argue with success. When Vidhu Vinod Chopra produces a film with Rajkumar Hirani as director, Aamir Khan as leading man, and a barrage of publicity (the budget of which would probably feed ten villages for a year), the film is a hit before a single shot is taken. A certain standard is expected and that is delivered… if you don’t stop to ask any questions, all izz very well indeed.

The film, based on Chetan Bhagat’s successful novel Five Point Someone, set in a an engineering institute is the story of three friends Ranchhod (Aamir Khan), Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi). Ranchhod’s background is mysterious, but Farhan belongs to a middle class family that has made sacrifices for his education, and Raju to a very poor family that has pinned all their hopes on him.

Ranchhod or Rancho, is established right off as an inventive rebel, who bucks the humiliating, pants-down ragging meted out to the others, by literally electrifying the ragger’s pee (a dangerous stunt if any me-too’s out there are planning to try it). He questions the autocratic principal Viru Sahastrabuddhe (Boman Irani), makes fun of the by-rote teaching methods, but gives his friends all love and support. He also falls for the principal’s daughter Pia (Kareena Kapoor).

What Rancho says is that our education system teaches students to chase success, not excellence, that parents impose their ambitions on their children, and that the resulting pressure can kill – three suicides in the film (one failed), and statistics of high suicide rates among students quoted by Rancho. An example of the mugging system is Chatur (Omi Vaidya), who does nothing but slog for the great Indian dream— success in the US.

In theory, all this bashing of the system is fine, but nobody asks why Rancho who is so anti-establishment, submits to a formal education himself; and if he tops the killer exams with his unconventional ideas, surely the ‘system’ couldn’t be all that rotten. There is a twist to his presence in the college and to what he ends up as, which belies his declarations even more, but revealing that would be a spoiler.

The film romanticizes the rebel, but the rebel is necessarily an achiever—whether it is Rancho or Farhan who gets from him the courage to junk engineering and follow his passion for wild life photography. But with its overflowing optimism, the film (like Khan’s Taare Zameen Par) does not even go into asking what happens to those who have no special talents?

3 Idiots has good performances all round—and every actor gets one big dramatic scene in which to take the spotlight away from the always shining Aamir Khan. It has fabulous dialogue, excellent lyrics, decent music and skilled cinematography. It has humour (the speech-altering is truly funny), emotion, romance in the right doses, no quarrels there—even if there are some cringe-making scenes like Farhan faking a heart attack to reverse a flight, or Rancho and gang helping deliver Pia’s sister’s baby on a rainy night with failed power. You are, of course, not supposed to ask why authority figures always must be such caricatures—whether it is Sahastrabuddhe here or the dean in Hirani’s Munnabhai MBBS (also played by Boman Irani). Or why it is okay to make fun of poverty and why Raju’s poor sister is waiting forlornly for marriage at 28 because her brother has to earn the dowry? Or how come it’s okay to cheat on a big scale but not on a small question paper-stealing level?

But because Aamir Khan has taken on the role of such a guru figure (never mind that he endorses unhealthy cola) on and off screen, one can ask: why stop at bashing the ‘system’ (everybody does that), but not even suggest a better, workable alternative. And if the non-conformist is ultimately up for hire to the highest bidder (American or Japanese), what is actually the moral of the story? That there is no place for failure-- honourable or otherwise? Then sir, despite the happy success-chasing-excellence ending, all izz not so well, no?

Rocket Singh

2009-12-11T23:20:00.001+05:30

Rocket Singh Salesman of the Year

The hottest new star plays a loser-- the kind who becomes a salesman
because he doesn't have the academic track record to become anything
else. Ranbir Kapoor is bearded-turbaned Harpreet Singh, one of the
millions of middle class young men without means, without goals and
without dreams any bigger than being able to make a living. For
putting a common man in the spotlight, for creating a hero who does
not wear designer clothes and flaunt a six pack (not even in a dream
sequence), kudos to Shimit Amin and writer Jaideep Sahni.

Harpreet lives with his grandfather (Prem Chopra) and starts work as a
lowly trainee in a computer assembling company, with a nasty boss
Sunil Puri (Manish Chaudhri), his nastier assistant Nitin (Naveen
Kaushik) and a target-driven over-competitive work force. On his first
assignment, Harpreet is shocked at being asked for a bribe. It would
take monumental naivete for a young man of today to be so clueless,
but the result of his enthusiastic honesty (he files a complaint) is
that he is yelled at and grounded. His colleagues cruelly chuck paper
rockets at him (which leads to the title).

He then teams up with the company's crackpot, porn-addict engineer
(D Santosh) to run his own parallel company to which the telephone
operator (Gauhar Khan), peon (Mukesh Bhatt) and the sneering assistant
are added.

Harpreet goes to meet potential clients with nothing but sincerity and
optimism. Gradually the loss of business hits Puri and he starts to
investigate and eventually reaches the group of moles in his office.

Today with cell phones (and websites) so cheap, it is strange that
Harpreet and gang are stupid enough to use the company's phone, and
facilities without being found out sooner. Puri runs a big operation
and hires a large sales force, but just one engineer? A character
refuses a bribe and says, “These business methods are history.” Since
when? It is these kind of goof ups that take away from the charm of
Rocket Singh. The message is so simplistic-- be nice to clients,
offer service not just sales-- as to be astounding. Add to that a
slow pace, a cursory romance (Shazahn Padamsee as the love interest),
forgettable music, and the plus points that the film gathers in the
beginning are rapidly eroded.

Again it's Ranbir Kapoor utterly endearing performance that makes the
film watchable; he leads a cast of relative unknowns, of whom Manish
Chaudhri as the boss stands out, though the others are well cast too.
The film reminds one of Raj Kapoor's Shri 420, still the best among
films about nice guys in a murky world. But Shimit Amin is not been
able to capture the cut-throat atmosphere of the business world today,
which is fuelled on much more than grandpa's homilies. It could have
been the film to accurately reflect the times and the aspirations of
ordinary people-- pity, it falls so short.

Paa+Radio

2009-12-04T22:34:00.000+05:30

Paa

It is a mark of a mature director to engage the viewer at am emotional level without hitting the gratingly high melodramatic notes or trying too hard to wring out tears. R. Balki has taken the progeria idea of Paa from the Hollywood film Jack, and made it his own.

Actually, the story of an estranged couple brought together by their illegitimate kid would have worked just as well with a normal child, so having Amitabh Bachchan play a 13-year-old with a rare genetic disease that causes abnormal aging is just a stunt. But it is a stunt you don’t mind because of the remarkable results. First of all giving Amitabh Bachchan, who must have played every character under the sun, something so uniquely challenging to do; and to top it all playing the son of his own real-life son.

One can only imagine the hard work, discipline and powers of observation that must have gone into the creation of Auro—a bright, naughty, caring kid, stricken with an incurable disease. Bachchan works on his voice, mannerisms, body language and interactions with other kids so well, that you cannot imagine this is a bass-voiced superstar in his sixties.

Abhishek Bachchan (superbly controlled) plays Amol Arte, and idealistic politician, who had years ago broken with his pregnant girlfriend Vidya (Balan-- excellent). She decided to have the baby, carry on with her medical career and raise the child with the help of her mother (Arundhati Nag--outstanding). The relationship between the two women is quite unlike anything normally seen on the Hindi screen. In fact, the bantering between Amol and his politician father (Paresh Rawal— first-rate) is also amusing.

As a chief guest at a school function Amol accidentally comes across Auro and befriends him without knowing that he is his own son. Again the friendship between Auro and Amol, the bonding between Auro and his ‘misfit’ buddy Vishnu (Pratik Katare), and his running away from a sweet girl are funny and poignant (great dialogue all through). Balki resists the Taare Zameen Par urge to pontificate—there is no soap box plea to accept an abnormal child. The kids in his school are not just okay with Auro’s slightly grotesque appearance, they run to his help when his fragile body packs up.

What has no place in the film is the immature and unnecessary harangue against the media—which is not by itself offensive--the sensational way in which it is done, in an otherwise understated film, is odd. Vidya’s pro-life stand is also a little too aggressive—as a doctor she counsels a woman to have a baby quickly or suffer health problems. Which doctor came up with that conclusion?

Anyway, let the quibbles be, the film has enough going for it to merit a look, and you don’t need an astrologer to predict that Amitabh Bachchan will win all the acting awards next year.

Radio

Music is Himesh Reshammiya’s core competency. Despite the surprise success of his first film Aap Ka Suroor, he is not yet an actor, or at least, has not found the groove that would suit his ‘everyman’ personality best.

As a result, he tries very hard to appeal to the youth—Radio, directed by Ishan Trivedi is so self-consciously ‘trendy’ it’s comical. The irony is that you cannot try to be ‘in’—it happens automatically, or it doesn’t.

Copying the ‘chapters’ idea from Quentin Tarantino’s films (or may be old silent movies), each episode in the protagonist RJ Vivan’s (Reshammiya) life is preceded by a card which has supposedly funky chapter headlines like : Talaq aur Ganpatiji, Matinee show aur matar ka keeda, Encounter aur kadhee.

It’s shot like one big music video, as if a moment of stillness or silence would disturb the audience. At the heart of all this ‘cool’ packaging is a contemporary urban love triangle, in which Vivan is caught between his “unpredictable” ex-wife Pooja (Sonal Sehgal) and the “clown” – a perky Shanaya (Shenaz Treasuryvala). Taking to youth lingo Vivan says his relationship status is “It’s complicated” and that he is in “denial mode.”

The triangle does get complicated, when you are not sure if the two women—who become pals—are trying to woo Vivan or offload him on to the other. No wonder the poor guy is “confused” and to let off steam, breaks plates in a restaurant. What else can he do when Shanaya’s mad family dances around him calling him “Damaadji.”

The same film made with a younger, really cool cast might have worked—it does take a look at relationships in the urban double-income-no-kids scenario, when a wife can whimsically divorce her husband because of “incompatibility” (the judge grants it in fast-track mode), and then want him back. But then Himesh wouldn’t be cool if he was left in a freezer overnight, and Shenaz Treasuryvala wouldn’t be hot if she were micro-waved. The only one who fits the part and acts reasonably well is Sonal Sehgal.

Some of the supporting characters are annoyingly over-the-top, like Vivan’s radio boss, and Shanaya’s “South Bombay Ka DCP” father, who is obsessed with his dish antenna. You are not even supposed to wonder how a choreographer and a cop can live in such large, lavish bungalows and the RJ has a sea-facing apartment that looks suspiciously like a hotel suite. If there’s one thing about which there are no complaints, it’s the music. Man ka radio, despite its weird lyrics (Station Koi Naya Tune Kar Le Zara Fultoo Attitude De De Tu Zara) is compulsively hummable.

De Dana Dan

2009-11-29T11:55:00.000+05:30

De Dana Dan

To be fair to Priyadarshan and the makers of other such confusion confounded movies, it is a tough genre to work with, and it is a wonder he isn’t bored with it. What it requires is to create a complicated web of misunderstandings, coincidences, mistaken identities—bring the many characters somehow to one venue and let them run wild. This is what many of Priyadarshan’s recent films have been like and this summarizes his latest De Dana Dan. Only, in this film, he has more confusion than he or any sensible viewer can handle.

Blame it on the Bell Boy and The Valet, prepare the base on which this film (also Do Not Disturb recently) set in a Singapore hotel is constructed. (The Pan Pacific gets crores worth of publicity and, hopefully loads of Indian tourist traffic.) The impoverished and desperate Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil Shetty) hole up there waiting to collect a fortune from the former’s monstrous (she keeps kicking him into a pool) boss (Archana Puran Singh) by kidnapping her dog.

The kidnap plan fails—the dog is smarter than the two goofballs and their smile-pout girlfriends (Katrina Kaif-Sameera Reddy). But as part of a wedding party Paresh Rawal, Chunky Pandey, Manoj Joshi and gang land up there. Rajpal Yadav is already there as a bumbling waiter. Add to that Jonny Lever, Asrani, Shakti Kapoor, Sharat Saxena and the Priyadarshan menagerie is complete. Maybe only Om Puri is missing, and Vikram Gokhale is added. There’s Neha Dhupia for some oomph which the other two ladies fail to muster up.

One set of people has to give money to another, the wrong one gets it, a hitman follows the wrong target and in the midst of all the mayhem, Akshay Kumar gets locked in a cupboard, and is, in effect out of the film for most of its running time.
Everyone shouts and screams and like in all Priyadarshan comedies, come together in a watery climax.

Of its nearly three-hour running time, there could be fifteen minutes of real comedy. The rest is like listening to nails being hammered into a wall.

Kurbaan + 1

2009-11-20T18:29:00.002+05:30

Kurbaan

Given the state of the world today, a subject like terrorism is not to be trifled with. And whether it is the intention of the filmmaker or not, the issue becomes politically sensitive-- all the more reason to be careful and balanced. If a film points the finger of suspicion at most Muslims-- an educated, suave professor is a terrorist kingpin, the family next door is hatching a terror plot, the harmless professor sitting by a chess board in the corner is a terrorist, no matter where they live Muslims refuse to owe allegiance to the country that shelters them-- it does nothing for the cause of peace, but tarnishes a whole community.

If we overlook all that and accept Rensil D'Silva's Kurbaan as just another commercial film (It has stars, it is produced by Karan Johar), then the complete lack of logic and glaring plot holes are bothersome.

The film, in brief is about professor Avantika (Kareena Kapoor) who is trapped into a marriage by the charming Professor Ehsaan (Saif Ali Khan), because she is an American citizen and he needs a legal way of entering the country. Once there, he gangs up with his cahoots, who are planning terror strikes in New York. Avantika stumbles on to the secret, and is imprisoned at home; she is not killed because she is pregnant. With her help, reporter, Riyaz (Vivek Oberoi) infiltrating the gang to avenge the death of his girlfriend (Dia Mirza) killed in a suicide bombing, manages to foil their plot.

Now the proboem areas: Avantika is an American citizen, yet when she comes to know of the plane bombing, she does not call 911, but leaves a message on the answering machine. When Riyaz hears the message, he does not inform the cops, but plays detective by himself. Ehsaan is a wanted terrorist with a criminal record, and in these days of biometrics, he travels in and out of India and into the US without being detected. Without even mention of a work permit, Ehsaan is allowed to teach a new course in Islamic studies, suggested by him at a New York college. Riyaz easily gets into the gang by making a facile anti-America speech-- in the age of Google, the terrorist group doesn't even do a basic background check.

Absurdities pile up-- Avantika does nothing to seek help or warn her father who is in danger. She is a professor herself, but listens wide-eyed to an older terrorist's (Om Puri) wife (Kirron Kher), who justifies the killing of innocent Americans, saying that US forces killed innocent Muslims in Afghanistan. In one scene Avantika is seen with a distended belly, but when she does a seduction number on the husband (a still from this scene is on the misleading posters of Kurbaan) her belly is flat.

If Avantika came to sympathise with the cause, in a case of the Stockholm Syndrome, the plot would have made some sense, but neither Ehsaan's feelings towards her, nor hers towards him are clear-- after she discovers the truth about him.

So, the look is slick (some thanks to DOP Hemant Chaturvedi), the pace is brisk, Vivek Oberoi and Kareena Kapoor deliver powerful performances-- Saif Ali Khan wears a baffled look at can't cope with the wishy-washy character-- that is the least that can be expected from a big-budget film. But along with production values, how about also delivering a film that also strong on plausibility and purpose?

Shaabash! You Can Do It

You may not even know that such a film has released, if you do, you are not likely to go see it. Unless, there is a good word-of-mouth, and there isn’t going to be… Shaabash! You Can Do It, directed (?) by Shankar Mondal) with a new cast, will be one of those many also-released films that had come out earlier this year during the multiplex strike. Can’t even say it is a good effort.

The film is set in a college, where rich guy Vikram (Atul Kinagi) and ordinary guy Neil ( Hitesh Agrawal) glare malevolently at each other, because Vikram got slapped by his father (Rajiv Verma) in public because he had slapped Neil…much ado about nothing.The father is a politician and wants to enhance his image of being a fair-minded man. Vikram is in love with Gracy (Vedita Pratap Singh), who is found dead at a college picnic,and Professor Siddhant (Sudesh Berry) is framed. (The professor ought to have been jailed for hamming!) Two silly cops (Vishwajeet Pradhan and sidekick) got about investigating, and there’s a bunch of overage students (one of them gay) and dumb professors tripping over one another.

Then there’s some lecturing about yoga being the cure for all ills, and something called ‘Yoga dance’ at which Vikram and Neil compete. They make it sound as if it a matter of life and death, but the banner behind the tacky dance venue declare “Rotary Club of Bombay Hanging Garden.” Not even the MNS would bother to get up to protest against this one. The best performance? Maybe the professor’s wife lying in a coma!

Tum Mile + Wish

2009-11-18T10:47:00.000+05:30

Tum Mile

While Hollywood unleashes its mega-budget doomsday thriller on the world in the form of 2012, Bollywood makes its own modest effort to revisit the Mumbai floods of 2005, with Emraan Hashmi as its sole selling point. Kunal Deshmukh’s Tum Mile is not a global warming red alert, however, just a love story set against the deluge.

In Cape Town (discounted rates after Jannat?) aspiring artist Akshay (Hashmi) falls in love with rich girl Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan). They live together in a pretty sea-facing apartment, but soon, the usual financial problems and career crises come in the way, and they split,

Six years later, they happen to meet on a plane to Mumbai. While the encounter leaves him distraught enough to request a change of seat, she dismisses him to a colleague as “just an accident.”

They arrive in Mumbai in the day of the floods. Akshay and his buddy rush to Sanjana’s rescue—they both realize they still love each other. It’s a pretty ordinary story, but Deshmukh’s treatment is sensitive and mature. The early flirtations between the two might be childish, but their relationship is very ‘today’ without waving any flags.

She works as a journalist and runs the home, he does the cooking and washes dishes, and it all looks perfectly normal. Sanjana’s busy father (Sachin Khedekar) is also cool about their relationship status, and her ex-boyfriend catching the vibes, gracefully exits.

Emraan Hashmi growing as an actor with every film he does, is still capable of springing a surprise—his performance is effortless and impressive. Soha Ali Khan also gets to do a role where she is as important as the leading man, and though not yet as polished as Hashmi, she does a fine job of playing a woman, who chooses between love and career, but is wise enough to understand where she went wrong. The characters are not shallow, and their dilemmas not pointless.

Garnished with Pritam’s hummable songs and Prakash Kutty’s expert cinematography (never mind the so-so special effects), Tum Mile is one of the better offerings of the year.

Aao Wish Karein

It’s perfectly alright for an actor to produce a film for himself, but there should be a limit to vanity. Aftab Shivdasani does not have the talent or star power to carry off a film on his own, and certainly not a remake of Big, with himself in the Tom Hanks role.

Add to that the less than adequate abilities of the leading lady, Aamna Sharif (sack the stylist!), and it’s a project doomed from the start. (There was the 20 year old dud Chandramukhi too, on the same subject, which just shows how some people never learn from others’ mistakes.)

When 12-year old Mickey is called ‘kid’ by Mitika (Aamna Sharif), who he has a crush on, he wishes he were older. His wish is granted, he grows into Aftab Shivdasani, who has the unenviable task of playing a cute, childish grown-up, and getting on the viewers nerves. There’s weird character called Hitchcock (Johnny Lever) around too, to add to the irritation. The only one who can legitimately be called cute here is Mickey’s little Sardar friend Bonnie.

The film has some funny moments, but too few – it is neither a children’s film, neither a teen rom com. Except for the picture post card location, there is very little fairy-tale magic happening here.

Aao Wish Karein is a perfect example of what an actor should not do, unless his (or her) ability matches his (or her) ambition.

Ajab+Jail

2009-11-09T10:23:00.002+05:30

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani

This Rajkumar Santoshi film is neither ajab nor ghazab, just a throwing of tested old ingredients into a pot, and hoping the stew that emerges is palatable. It may just be, because the staleness is disguised by the super energetic performance by Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif’s cheery presence.

Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani has elements of so many films it’s difficult to start listing… how many films are there that follow this formula:
1) Nice boy loves girl
2) Girl loves someone else
3) Boy helps girl to reunite with her guy
4) Girl realizes she loves boy
5) Girl runs away from wedding to guy

Must be at least a thousand at last count. Then Santoshi adds corny spoof scenes like a statue playing narrator, of a bunch of gangsters dressing in identical black, suits, hats and glares. And what can be said about the hero’s many sidekicks, except : where did he pick these specimens from?

Prem (Kapoor) and his vagabond friends run a Happy Club, with him as the president. He falls in love with Christian girl Jenny and does all he can to win her over (including eating non-veg food), but it turns out that she loves Rahul (Upen Patel). Because Rahul is a beefy and moronic character, the spineless son of an opportunistic politician, you know that he is really no competition for the perpetually sunny Prem.

Ranbir Kapoor goes at the role like he overdosed on uppers, if he keeps at it like this, rescuing dumb films with his hyper energy and charm, he will soon run out of tricks. There is a scene where he wears a women’s strappy top and pretends it is high fashion for men—and he does it without any discomfort showing on his face!

The gags here are of the incredibly silly variety, like a minor villain being made to sit on a cake, and then having his trousers stolen by Prem’s cronies; or a bunch of villains bouncing up and down in a pool when a live wire is thrown into it. If you can forget this is all so hackneyed, and coming from a veteran director like Santoshi, a bit desperate, then the film can be enjoyed to an extent. Otherwise it is a headache inducer.

Jail

Madhur Bhandrakar, known for making dark slice-of-life films, going where no filmmaker has gone before, falters this time. Not only does Jail have a plot inspired by The Shawshank Redemption, it presents view of prison life that has been seen already in many films, and doesn’t add anything to the perception of prisons gained from watching films like Satya, Ek Haseena Thi, Gumrah (which was Bangkok Hilton Indianised) and Teen Deewaren.

What he does succeed with, briefly, is creating a scenario that is every middle-class, law-abiding citizen’s nightmare—being thrown into prison, and nobody to heed their protestations of innocence. Those too powerless or two poor to get legal help can languish all their lives as undertrials, in the filthy hell holes that Indian prisons are. Parag Dixit (Neil Nitin Mukesh), a young professional with a good job and pretty girlfriend (Mugdha Godse), has the misfortune of offering a lift to his roommate, who, unknown to him is a drug dealer. Cops find a stash in his car, the roomie is injured in a shootout and Parag thrown into prison. He is unable to prove his innocence and after every hearing, chances of reprieve dim.

Bhandarkar’s depiction of prison life is a bit too sanitized, the only problem being overcrowding and open bathrooms with inadequate water. There are corrupt cops and ‘bhais’ ruling inside, but otherwise it is a fraternity of friendly guys, helpful and sympathetic. There is an avuncular fellow prisoner (Manoj Bajpai) who offers wise counsel, while a brash gangster (Arya Babbar) offers hope of escape. There are a couple of real life characters too thrown in for effect—like a professor accused of Naxalism and a rich brat whose drunk driving killed pavement dwellers.

Initially Parag tells his loyal girlfriend and loving mother (Navni Parihar) that he will go mad inside, but Bhandarkar is unable to convey the brutality of jail life, or even show, how—if at all—it scars Parag. His incarceration in the notorious ‘anda cell’ (solitary confinement) is just brushed aside as an ordinary happening. Newspaper reports give out more details of what goes on inside prison walls (the unshakeable hierarchy, sexual exploitation of the weak, a crushing of the psyche) than Bhandarkar, whose research is clearly inadequate.

There are some well done portions like a man’s quick escape in a garbage truck and another’s trauma at losing his family, but mostly Jail is dull, repetitive and, for a Bhandarkar film, much too mild. Neil Nitin Mukesh has the unenviable task of lugging the heavy film on his back, and though he does well, a more varied cast of characters would have given the film a much needed heft.

LD+Aladin

2009-11-01T10:26:00.003+05:30

London Dreams

You know a film is hitting the wrong notes, when the hero flagellates himself, because he has allowed himself to be distracted by a girl, and instead of flinching, the audience sniggers. For a film that is about a man's passion for music, the music is the weakest part; makes you wonder if creating tepid pop tunes for a vague, faceless audience of 'goras' who can't even understand the Hindi lyrics is a valid, lifelong ambition?

But in London Dreams, Arjun, born in a Punjab village aspires to be "Mai ka lal Jaikishan" (Aaargh). Orphaned, he is taken to London by his uncle (Om Puri), but he runs away, begs for coins and actually walks into some big, sombre Music Academy. As a character in the film says a couple of time, we are just paying back the Brits for 200 years of ruling us.. maybe that's the hidden agenda of Vipul Shah's film. In that he succeeds-- the old imperialist would cringe at the sight of an Indian singer taking over Trafalgar Square!

Arjun is devoted to music, and along with two Pakistani dudes (Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor) and a back-up girl Priya (Asin) forms a band, manages a contract with a 'gora' music company and is on the road to success. Dull so far, Salman Khan has to come and rescue the film. He is Mannu, the buddy Arjun had left behind in the village, and he is not the 'bholabhala' villager of yore, but the rural stud and gadabout.

Mannu is taken to London by Arjun, and when the man's on stage, he walks away with the show. He is effortlessly talented; soon London Dreams and Priya have been snatched from under Arjun's morose nose. He then plots Mannu downfall, with the usual honey trap-- you wonder how a fairly smart chap can't tell the difference between salt and cocaine, but Mannu gets addicted, and there is a showdown at Wembley.

Think Amadeus, think lofty emotions, devious villainy, heart-rending tragedy and weep at Shah's wishy-washy attempt to recreate it. You hate to say this, but the awful Shakalaka Boom Boom, also based on the same idea, suddenly acquires merit in hindsight. When everything else fails (the dialogue is effective and the cinematography is fine, though), it is Ajay Devgan's on-tap intensity and Salman Khan's comic chatter that really keeps the audience going. Both are a little too old for the parts-- Salman definitely over the age of playing cute, wisecracking rake-- but without them, the film would have little else except London scenery-- and that has been seen in so many films already.

Aladin

The film has been produced by a banner called Bound Script, so presumably there was one, and presumably the actors read (or heard) it. Didn't they apply their minds at all?

The idea sounds interesting-- a reworking of the Aladin and the Magic Lamp tale, that every kid has heard or read with fascination. The film begins promisingly too, with the action set in a fictional town of Khwaish (wish), that looks deliberately fairytale-ish, with lovely mansions and cobbled streets. (That the interiors look stuffed with Chor Bazaar fake antiques is sympomatic of the film-- it gets just that much right, and so much wrong.)

Here, the unfortunately named Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh) spends his life running from bullies who keep forcing him to rub lamps. Aladin is in college, he has a bag on his back at all times and wears a red sweater with a 'a' on it. Such a nerd is asking to be ragged. Then Aladin falls in love with new college girl Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandez) and as if by magic, he gets The Lamp, from which Genius the Genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. His 'look' is something between his Jhoom Barabar and Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna get-ups -- in short too garish.

Still, so far it's bearable and Genius does the usual magic stuff like turning Aladin's guitar into a frog, that will amuse kids. All this is CGI and quite well done, but the the point of the whole exercise is the three wishes, and when it comes down to business the story (or bound script) fails. Aladin stutters some silly stuff, because all he has on his mind is Jasmine.

The villain has to enter at some point, and Sanjay Dutt as Ring Master rolls in with his menagerie of freaks, including a masked girl who spews fire (must be the most unfortunate debut in cinema, a girl gets to slink all over Sanjay Dutt, but her face remains hidden). There is some gibberish about a comet that can bestow great power. But by the time the climax comes around, the viewer has been subjected to a hell of a lot of boring song-and-dance (Aladin tera bheja hai khali types), with the genie doing most of it.

Surely Amitabh was not tempted to do this film just to wear ghastly costumes and dance? Riteish Deshmukh, usually so good with comedy, has to wear one prune-faced expression. And the newcomer Jaqueline Fernandez just comes up with her dazzling 'full battisi' smile whenever asked to face the camera. If this what a bound script delivers, maybe, a haphazard written-on-the-sets style of working is actually better-- Amitabh Bachchan has done a fair amount of this in his career, and nobody complained.

Fruit and Nut

2009-10-24T14:37:00.000+05:30

Fruit and Nut

If everybody who came up with one-liners while hanging around with drunken friends one evening thought of making a film, Bollywood would be in worse trouble than it already is in.

Kunal Vijaykar tries to create a Mr Bean out of Cyrus Broacha, his friend and frequent collaborator on comedy shows (stage and TV), but their kind of humour based on word play and literal translations from English to Hindi is okay in small doses, but if that's all there is in a full length feature film in lieu of plot, character development and some degree of technical finesse, then it quickly turns into a bore.

In Fruit and Nut Broacha plays Jolly Maker, a chronic bumbler who leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but also manages to be in the right place at the right time. In the end he has to foil the plans of a mad maharaja Harry Holkar (Boman Irani), a builder Khandhar Zaala and a pizza-chomping scientist (Rajit Kapoor), who have a crazy scheme to take over Mumbai, by blowing up Mantralaya, for which they need the plans of the sewage network below the building (Holkar believes his palace used to be under Mantralaya!)

Holkar who constantly asks everyone if the have had their breakfast (must be some in-joke), keeps kidnapping Khandhar's employee Monica (Dia Mirza), and when Jolly inadvertently rescues her, she falls in love with him. Then suddenly everyone gets into black leather and pretends to be RAW agents.

Not even the real Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) could make this mess watchable, so Cyrus Broacha with his limited acting abilities and screen presence hasn't a chance. Boman Irani seems to be enjoying himself (he even gets a dream sequence jig), can't say the same about the audience.

Blue+ 2

2009-10-17T14:43:00.002+05:30

Blue

There is a scene in Blue, in which a bunch of gunmen start shooting into the house of the character played by Sanjay Dutt, and the first thing he does is put on his sunglasses. It’s a just an indication of the fact that a lot of money (Rs 80-120 crores, depending on the source) has been spent on a film, but no thought has been put into it.

Anthony D’Souza’s film is about an underwater treasure hunt, but by the time it actually arrives, you have lost interest; and then that underwater action sequence is finished before any excitement has been generated. It’s like being promised a feast and being served potato chips... after the appetite has been whetted.

Blue is reportedly the most expensive Indian film ever made, the first shot in the Bahamas, the first with extensive under water shooting—it’s okay to have all that garnish, but doesn’t a film need the usual ingredients too… like a story to begin with? Without that, the stunning shots of marine life are just Nat Geo videos.

Aarav (Akshay Kumar) and Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) live in the Bahamas, and seem to have a good life. Aarav is a womanizer (he actually says ‘Can I ride you?’ to a woman he is asking for a lift and she lets him into her car!), Sagar is devoted to his wife Mona (Lara Dutta).

Sagar’s brother Samir (Zayed Khan) runs up a fifty million dollar debt with a gangster (Rahul Dev) in Bangkok, and comes running to “Bhaiya.” There is, it seems, a sunken treasure in a ship called Lady in Blue, that only Sagar knows about, and he reluctantly has to lead Samir and Aarav to it.

There is no great sympathy for the wimpy Samir, who blows up dozens of cars racing mobikes, causes many deaths and mixes up with thugs, then whines, “I am going to die.” There is no great mystery to Sagar’s brooding, and the twist when it comes in the end is laughable.

The actors got free scuba-diving lessons, a paid-for Caribbean holiday, no acting required – Akshay Kumar has a piece of grey rug stuck on his chin and Sanjay Dutt has a paunch that sticks out into the frame. They certainly seem to have more fun than the audience does.

The treasure chest under the sea has a some cheap tinsel jewelley…as for the house that the gunmen attack, when it blows up a few planks fly into the air—so much money drowned and cutting corners on props and FX. Tsk!

All The Best
A rarity for Bollywood—to credit the source, if only in a blink-and-miss flash; Rohit Shetty’s All The Best is based on Neil and Caroline Schaffner’s play Right Bed Wrong Husband, Indianised with some desi ‘tadka.’ It also pays tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s two ‘deception’ comedy classics – Golmaal and Chupke Chupke, but learns nothing from the master.

It is a simple idea of deception again, stretched to breaking point, but on the plus list—it is set in Goa (not in some foreign location with Hindi-speaking locals), it has some really funny in-jokes, a few laugh-aloud lines and Ajay Devgan in his element. In Shetty’s films (Golmaal, Golmaal Returns), the actor sheds his serious, intense persona and has a blast.

Veer (Fardeen Khan) lives off his rich brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt), who sends him pocket money from abroad. Veer’s buddy Prem Chopra (Ajay Devgan) is a racing driver, and in the process of trying to win a race, owes money to a mute gangster (Johnny Lever), who communicates by tapping a spoon on a glass.

Dharam thinks that Veer is married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse), so when he lands up unexpectedly and she can’t be found, Prem’s wife Jahnvi (Bipasha Basu) is presented as the wife. It is a small misunderstanding that could be cleared in a minute, but a whole film is built up on it. Naturally, when Vidya appears, she is passed off as Prem’s girlfriend.

The gags include a hysterical Malayalee maid (Ashwini Kalsekar), a potential tenant called RGV (Sanjay Mishra), who can’t move into Veer’s bungalow because Dharam is stranded in Goa, due to a coup in the country where he was headed. Everybody runs about in a state of agitation, thinking up increasingly outrageous lies to prevent Dharam from catching on.

Sanjay Dutt plays the beefy ‘Bade Bhaiya’ so his flabby appearance doesn’t matter as much as it does in Blue. While bashing up goons he says, “I have just started on comedy, but I have been doing action for 30 years.” Right!

Main Aur Mrs Khanna

The only purpose of making this film seems to be promoting Sohail Khan’s career. He produces it, gets his star brother (Salman Khan) to walk on. Kareena Kapoor must have been enticed with a designer wardrobe.

In Prem Soni’s Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, the marriage of Melbourne-based Sameer Khanna (Salman) and Raina (Kareena) goes through a rough patch, when he loses his job. It must be something important, since the local paper gives it front-page coverage. Odd that Mr Financial Hotshot’s wife works as a waitress, but let that pass.

Sameer, who has been sulking and growling all along, now practically dumps Mrs Khanna at the airport, telling her she must return to India, while he goes too to seek his fortune in Singapore. Luckily for Raina, Akash (Sohail Khan), a waiter at the airport café falls in love with her, and goes all out to help her. Her friends get her a job as a salesgirl in the airport store also run by an Indian (Bappi Lahiri) and a swanky apartment. She is, of course, always togged out in perfect outfits and accessories; emotional distress does no damage to her perfect make-up and perfect hair.

At some point her work permit runs out, and the solution she is given, is to apply for marriage with Akash. The Australian authorities are deemed too dumb to check on her previous marital status. Then Sameer returns, Akash makes some half-hearted attempts to break up the marriage… the film is neither serious, nor comic, and not even close to examining the problems of modern-day marriage or the nature of love.

Raina comes across as ditzy, Sameer grumpy, Akash buffoonish (but the producer of the film can at least get others to call him handsome a few times!) and the friends around then, are just noisy props. Preity Zinta appears for a really bad ‘item’ number. There is silly reason why Akash runs around Raina calling her Mrs Khanna, anyone who sits through the film will find out, and also get to see the ‘guest’ star in the end. But, watch at your own risk.

Acid Factory

2009-10-09T18:47:00.001+05:30

Acid Factory

It isn’t... but it should be the prime reason for making a film, that a filmmaker has a story he badly wants to tell cinematically. Obviously this doesn’t work for Sanjay Gupta and the directors of his factory. Their formula is to take some Hollywood or obscure Korean film, and pass off the idea and screenplay as their own.

The latest, Acid Factory, by Suparn Verma, is a particularly hopeless case, since the film it is copied from, called Unknown is hardly a masterpiece. Then, there is the criminal waste of money, carting a whole unit to South Africa to shoot in an isolated factory, when there are enough such derelict spots all over India; and if cars have to be needlessly blown up, it can be done just as well here.

Then, in its quest to be cool—which means everyone wears black and walks in slow motion at least once—the film goes back and forth in time. How are those who cannot read English, to know that the story has gone “five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier,” and so on…

In brief, the film is about a group of men (Fardeen Khan, Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea) who find themselves locked in an acid factory in the middle of nowhere; later a woman turns up (Dia Mirza) in a backless catsuit. Due to a gas leak, they all suffer from memory loss. A phone call from a man called Kaizer (Irrfan Khan), gives them a clue that two of them are to be killed. How is it that the factory got locked from the outside, and how come none of them has a scrap of identifying paper (wallet, credit card) on them or even a cell phone, is not explained. But they are all in black suits and leather, one of them (Dino) has a hat clamped on his curls.

In the outside world, Kaizer is organizing the ransom collection for a kidnapped man, as his wife (Neha Bajpai) and a cop (Gulshan Grover) try to nab him. Gradually, the memories of the men and woman return and they figure out who is doing what to whom… but the audience couldn’t care less. Even the mandatory night club pole dance, elicits bored yawns; and that sudden smooch between Irrfan and Dia, gets a giggle or two—because it is done with such a lack of passion.

Even though it’s slickly shot and only 95 minutes long, it’s a chore to sit through Acid Factory, watching a bunch of (mostly) dud actors.

WUP & DKD

2009-10-03T00:11:00.000+05:30

Wake Up Sid

Wake Up Sid is a privileged young man’s idea of the problems of another privileged young man. Which could be nothing more serious than having your credit card cancelled and starving for one day because you can’t even cook an egg.

In spirit, it is close to Dil Chahta Hai and Bachna Aye Haseenon, where you know, nothing bad or really traumatic will happen to the leading man Sid, who can best be described as “cute” and that is a compliment. Ayan Mukerji comes from the family tree that includes dozens of film luminaries, so filmmaking was a rather obvious option... and obviously, he would make a film about a character that he would know best, which is goofy, aimless Siddharth (Ranbir Kapoor), with no goal in life except spending his father’s money.

Which is not to take away from young Mukerji’s happy, sunny, romantic comedy. It is a sweet chick flick, only made by a lad… no issues there.

Sid is appalled by the thought of working in his father’s bathroom fittings empire, but no problems flashing the credit card paid for by dad. After he fails in college, and is questioned by his parents (Anupam Kher-Supriya Pathak), he leaves home in a huff. Strangely, for a good-looking rich kid, he seems to have just two equally spaced out friends. So when evicted from dad’s bungalow, he lands up at the home of aspiring writer Aisa (Konkana SenSharma) he has recently befriended, and she takes him in without batting an eyelid. It is already established that she is older, she won’t sleep with him, and the thought hasn’t even occurred to him.

Poor little rich kid suffers no real deprivation or heartache… but he gets a glamorous job, learns to cook, clean and hand wash clothes. The film starts moving slowly towards the inevitable climax, and if you hope it will even glance at (forget an in-depth look) at urban life, aspirations of young people, independence, love, sex, friendship, loneliness, generation gap…forget it.

The film coasts along on the very endearing personality of Ranbir Kapoor, who is so nice and squeaky clean, that his selfishness and immaturity seem like harmless quirks. He invests his whole self into the film, and Konkona SenSharma brings a freshness and enthusiasm into slightly sketchy role. Their chemistry works fine, and the film is a pleasant watch. A bit like instant noodles though – looks good, tastes good… no nutrition.

Do Knot Disturb

Do Knot Disturb is what one could call a typical David Dhawan film, which means it is plagiarized (French comedy The Valet, plus Ray Cooney farce Out of Order), has a few genuine laughs interspersed between acres of nonsensical goings on… and all the actors hamming away in full volume.

It’s a pity that a director, who seems to hit more than he misses, is not getting tired of his own fading formula filmmaking. Okay, so a few single screen cinemas get the taporis chuckling at some crude gags, but is that any kind of creative high to aim for after all these years?

A totally out of shape and as badly costumed as usual Govinda, plays Raj, married to Kiran, a rich woman (Sushmita Sen—huge) who controls the finances, while frolicking with Dolly (Lara Dutta) on the side. The soundtrack screams “Inamorata” every time she walks into the frame—whatever that is supposed to signify.

The wife sees a picture of Raj and Dolly and sends a detective (Ranvir Shorey) to keep an eye on them. But a waiter Govardhan (Riteish Deshmukh) had accidentally been included in the photo, so Raj hires him to pretend to be Dolly’s lover, to throw Kiran off the scent. Dolly’s rejected suitor Diesel (Sohail Khan) and Govardhan’s loony mother (Himani Shivpuri) provide the background noise.

Scene shifts to a hotel where Raj and Dolly have a rendezvous, the snooping detective has a window falling over his head and a lot of time is expended carting the corpse around, with a curious waiter (Rajpal Yadav) jumping in and out.

Needless to say the film tends to go on forever, and seems even more painful when Govinda and Ritiesh inexplicably start yelling in falsetto for no reason at all.

Even if you walk in with zero expectations, you might be disappointed. On the other hand, it is a David Dhawan film, what were you expecting anyway?

2009-09-27T11:11:00.002+05:30

What’s Your Raashee?

It is perfectly understandable if a director wants to make a romantic comedy in between two historical epics. It is also not Ashutosh Gowariker’s fault that audiences have come to expect meaningful cinema for him. Madhu Rye’s dated novel Kimball Ravenswood, already turned into a TV serial (Mr Yogi) and a couple of plays, was an odd choice for Gowariker. And then to make a long, patience sapping film, that is neither comedy nor social comment, is entirely baffling.

The Indian tradition of the arranged marriage has been satirized in books and films, but it is still taken seriously by a majority of Indians, even the Westernised ones, who are expected to be ‘modern.’ So a spoof has to keep that in mind. Also, those who may accept the bizarre idea of people marrying without even properly meeting their potential life partners, would find slightly distasteful the in-built sexism of an NRI groom descending from the skies like a god to bestow green card dreams on desperate to wed desi girls.

The only redeeming feature of the wimpy Chicago-based Yogesh Patel (Harman Baweja-- helpless) is that he does not want a dowry. Otherwise, he is quite willing to get married in 10 days’ time, because his horoscope says he will obtain wealth on his wedding day, and that money is needed to pay the debts of his wastrel brother Jitu (Dilip Joshi). He is also willing to let his uncle Debu (Darshan Jariwala) short list 12 out of the 176 ‘applicants’ –one from each zodiac sign.

Why do all the girls look like Priyanka Chopra? Yogesh’s grandfather has a theory that all the girls he meets will look the same to him, because he has an ideal in his mind. As Yogesh trips all over the place meeting the Gujarati ‘applicants’, you are subjected to a whole barrage of caricatures and some badly picturised songs. The girls don’t match even elementary Linda Goodman characteristics, they are just tedious stereotypes—the businesswoman is a cold dominatrix, the dancer is aggressive, the jilted girl looks tragic, and so on—and most see him as an escape route to a better life; nobody does a background check on him! In the end, you don’t care who he marries and why.

Priyanka Chopra , with some help from stylists, gives the 12 girls a distinct personality-- the most genuine and likeable being the small town girl with conservative parents, who is given overnight lessons in English, made to wear a hybrid costume and left loose to impress Yogesh. Once she pulls off the awkward walk and snort-y laugh, the rest of the roles seem like a breeze. Yoges-bhai wants to know the girl’s Raashee, you just want to know when Ashutosh Gowariker will return to normal form.

Fast Forward

There would perhaps be a little curiosity about Fast Forward, since it is by the producer of last year’s sleeper hit A Wednesday (Anjum Rizvi). But this one seems to be hastily put together error of judgment. First- time director Zaigham Ali Sayed picks forgotten Hollywood film You Got Served as his inspiration for Fast Forward, which, right away, shows a lack of imagination. Still, with a good cast, foot-tapping music and great dances, he might have got by.

The film about a group of dancers who take on another bunch of ‘dudes’ for a ten lakh bet, at a weird boxing ring like of spot called “Cave” has nothing going for it. Vinod Khanna is the ex-con who runs the place and solemnly calls it his “karmabhoomi”. Hordes of extras hang around the Cave, cheering and clapping, when they could have stayed home and watched better dancing on the many talent shows on TV.

The two leading men Rishi (Rehan Khan) and Sunny (Akshay Kapoor) have not just to beat Vicky (Siddhant Karnick) and gang at dancing, they have to get loan recovery mobsters off their back, and sort out issues that arise when Sunny falls for his pal’s sister (Bhavna Pani) and Rishi for the villain’s moll (Sabina Sheema). The boys exist in a vaccum, not much is known about their background, upbringing, ambitions or sources of income. And they don’t know what to do with their passion for dance (the hip hop, break dance kind), except start prancing around wherever there is an audience.

The love stories are flat, the dance competition has no drama, the back-up guys dance better than the ‘heroes’ and the villain is better looking. This one would be better endured in fast forward mode.

Hadippa+Wanted

2009-09-20T10:52:00.002+05:30

Dil Bole Hadippa

Anurag Singh, making his debut takes the idea of Dil Bole Hadippa from, She's The Man, but Indianises it-- more to appeal to the NRI, than to the real Indian, who knows the rural Punjab is not at all like the movies.

Cricket is the crowd-pleasing excuse, but a lot of issues are bunged in-- Indo-Pak amity, patriotism, and of course equality for women-- making it one big, colourful, quite enjoyablePamphlet.

The story is a classic wish-fulfillment fantasy—a village nautanki girl Veera (Rani Mukherji), is crazy about cricket, and after a few gully matches with kids, believes she is a world class batsman. It can only happen in a film—she really is one. Rohan (Shahid Kapoor), a cricketer from England, is summoned by his estranged father (Anupem Kher) to help with the annual cricket tournament with his friend’s (Dalip Tahil) team in Pakistan.

Veera disguises herself as a Sikh boy, Veer Pratap Singh, sneaks into the team and becomes the star batsman. As Veera she teaches the stuffy Rohan, what being Indian is all about. Neither the comic potential of the story is fully realized, nor the excitement of the game. It is first a tribute to Punjab and then to Yashraj’s other films (Chak De India, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi); must every film from the studio bow to Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaenge?

That said, the film has amazingly good performances by Rani Mukherji and Shahid Kapoor. For Rani it is a career-saving role, when she was being written off—and no actress would have done it as well as her. But Shahid deserves commendation for letting co-star shine. In almost every film in which the actress plays a important role, the ‘hero’ is always called upon to save the day in the climax; here it is the girl winning against all odds and getting to make the speech in the end, and almost no A-list male star would have allowed it. It’s sad then, that after proving that women can be equal to men, the film feels the need to put Rani into bikini tops and dance to ‘sexy moves’ in the end-credits song, as if to say, what went before is a lie, actresses are just fit for this!

Wanted

A man assigning a hit job to the 'hero' asks if he will be able to do it. His henchman says he is “Rambo ka baap, Bruce Lee ka nana... he is the Last Action Hero."

And Salman Khan, swaggering through Wanted, is a one-man killing machine. Pokkiri was a big hit in Tamil (and Telugu), so it's not surprising that it makes its way to Mumbai in a couple of years. Directed by choreographer-actor Prabhu Deva, Wanted is an old-fashioned action film-- retaining its Southern flavour, not even updated to appeal to a pan Indian audience. Still it aims to reach a multiplex as well as single screen audience, something very few films attempt these days, or even achieve. (The first day, second show of the film at a suburban multiplex was not even half full). It is over ambitious in that sense.

It's also easy to see why the remake attracted Salman Khan (the same reason Ghajini attracted Aamir Khan). He gets to fight, do a lot of those pelvis-shaking dances-- and when he is doing this, he does grabs attention. The problem is the in-between portions. He looks bored, the romance (with Ayesha Takia) is without fizz; the humour is tasteless (too many lines derogatory to women that make one cringe). The virtually plotless film keeps chugging on the hero's 'items' (fights and dances) hoping his stardom will cover up for the lack of real content.

The film is about rival gangs, corrupt cops (Mahesh Manjrekar redefining creepy) and a twist that one can see coming a mile away. It's just an excuse to unleash a lot of action sequences-- some stylishly done, most just gruesome. Salman Khan plays Radhe, a hitman, who treats the gangsters he regularly bashes with the same wry contempt with which he talks to the girl he proclaims he loves (he sees visions of himself as Salim and her as Anarkali). That must be Prabhu Dev's idea of cool, but younger stars today achieve it with far less effort.

Whatever the fate of the film at the box-office (doesn't look too encouraging on day one), it's hardly a film Salman Khan would be proud to have on his resume, considering that other stars who are his contemporaries have moved to much more sophisticated – and occasionally relevant-- cinema. A little symapathy can also be reserved for Prakash Raj, this year's National Award for best acting, playing a batty bug-eyed villain.

Aamras+Baabarr+Ruslaan

2009-09-13T12:33:00.002+05:30

Aamras

There are so few realistic films about young people and hardly any from the point of view of girls. Rupali Guha’s commendable debut film Aamras looks at a group of girls on the threshold of adulthood. It is a vulnerable, happy and confusing time- when they are about to step out of school into a more independent environment.

Jiya, Pari, Rakhi and Sanya are best friends – all from very different backgrounds, but that has not come in the way of their friendship. Pari (Ntasha Bhardwaj) is the richest of the lot, happily subsidizing the poorest, Jiya (Vega Tamotia). Rakhi (Maanvi Gagroo—best of the lot), the chirpy daughter of a restaurateur and the quiet Sanya (Aanchal Sabharwal) are the ones that keep the peace when things flare up—as they do on a school picnic to Mahabaleshwar.

During the course of the two-day trip, Jiya falls in love with a tour guide Johnny (Ajay Singh Choudhary), Pari’s heart is broken by a classmate, who makes an MMS of her, and it looks like the bitterness will carry over. Other crises hit, and at the end the girls are wiser and their friendship stronger than ever.

A lot of coming of age films like this regularly come out of Hollywood, but it is a relatively under-utilised genre in India, or it is from the male perspective (Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On). So Aamras is a brave attempt—in fact, it has potential for a sequel of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants kind.

Still, it is all a bit superficial--too many tracks are thrown up, without reason (the invisible builder threatening Jiya’s mother, the Jiya trying to sacrifice her art scholarship); a few issues are not even touched upon (having a serious romance with a stranger at 17). Some things like Pari trying to control Jiya’s life are baffling. But the four young actresses are so spirited, their joie de vivre so infectious, that you don’t mind the flaws (ordinary music, tacky styling). Rupali Guha is Basu Chatterjee’s daughter—a chip of the old block.

Baabarr

Somebody coined a term ‘Violence Porn’ – which describes Baabarr aptly. Graphic violence, a psychopath turned into a ‘hero’—no real attempt to understand the characters, the milieu or the implications of making these cynical, cruel high body count films, that serve no purpose.

Baabarr cannot be called entertaining; it’s pretentious-sounding voice-over stating that certain parts of the country live by the gun, says nothing new. For social relevance, there is the usual blame vote bank politics kind of explanation, but seeing this film, you’d think, people in UP just run around the streets shooting each other, and nobody gives a damn. If it is true, then the film should be an indictment of this, not an endorsement. Baabarr (Sohum), one of six brothers from a butcher family in a UP mohalla, picks up a gun and shoots a man when he is just a dead-eyed 12-year-old and grows up to be a heartless killer.

It is not in any way enjoyable to watch a succession of men—some good, some not—being killed by Baabarr and his brother (Mukesh Tiwari), just because they felt like it. The cops, honest Dwivedi (Mithun Chakraborthy) and corrupt Chaturvedi (Om Puri), are unable to curtail Baabarr’s bestiality or his appalling warfare with rival gangster Tabrez (Sushant Singh).

Almost everything about gangsters has already been revealed by the films of Ram Gopal Varma and his imitators; crime-infested UP has been seen in just as gritty and realistic a format as this, in films like Haasil, Seher and Omkara. Ashu Trikha, maker of unremarkable films like Deewanapan, Sheesha and Alag, seems to have made a desperate attempt to make film that will at least get him noticed—if only for its gruesome violence. No reason to recommend this one, really!

Ruslaan

In the wake of investigations showing that Ishrat was shot dead in a fake encounter, the issue of innocent Muslims being victimised as terrorists takes on a frightening significance. But Mohan C Sharma’s Ruslaan is so badly written and directed, that it leaves no impact at all.

Ruslaan (Rajveer) spending carefree days with loving parents, friends, garrulous fiancée (Megha Chatterjee) and precocious sister, is suddenly arrested as a suspect after the Mumbai train blasts. The cops, in a hurry to pin blame, neglect proper investigations that would have proved Ruslaan’s innocence and put him through third degree torture to extract a confession (done in a more harrowingly effective way in Khuda Ke Liye and New York). The first half of the film has many pointless scenes, and by the time the actual drama gets under way, the inept actors have already made the viewer lose interest. Earnest, but shoddy, this one has zero box-office prospects.

Chintuji

2009-09-13T12:28:00.002+05:30

Chintuji

In the rush of releases, an enjoyable Chintuji slipped through the cracks. By the time audiences (and Rishi Kapoor fans) were aware of the films, it had vanished from the multiplexes.

It was very sporting of him, not just to play himself, but as a pompous, badly behaved star, when the real Chintuji is known for his charm. Directed by Ranjit Kapoor, this cleverly Indianised The Man Who Came To Dinner, is set in an Utopian town, which is distupted and corrupted by the arrival of the star, followed by a film crew. The satirical story has a lovely cameo by Mera Naam Joker's 'Marina' (Kseniya Ryabinkina), who comes in as catalyst. It also has the weirdest 'item' song in a long time, with lyrics made up of directors' names : "Akira Kurosawa, Vittorio De Sica... Coppola Coppola."

After a while, it does go off the rails, only to return with a nicely melodramatic Bollywood climax. The film is as much a satire on Bollywood's hold over the country as it is a tribute to the resilience of back-of-beyond India. Pity it did not get the reception it deserved.

Aagey+3

2009-09-09T20:34:00.002+05:30

Aagey Se Right

A stand-up comic faces an audience, he does his practiced routine, ad libs, practically turns cartwheels to get a laugh, but all his efforts fall flat. The audience just looks on with bored expressions on their faces. Indrajit Nattoji’s comedy Aage Se Right gives off the same sad vibes, of a well-oiled comic act that fails to take off.

Nothing wrong with the idea: a reluctant cop called Waghmare (Shreyas Talpade), who loses his gun on his first day of duty; a terrorist called Jaanu (Kay Kay Menon) who comes to bomb a police show, but falls in love with a bar girl and turns into a moonstruck poet. Ragavbhai, a Malayali gangster (Vijay Maurya, just not getting the accent right) who trains the Urdu-spouting terrorist into intricacies of flirting in Mumbai tapori lingo. The romantic interests—a TV reporter (Mahie Gill) for the cop, a bar girl (Shenaz Treasurywala) for Jaanu. Squeezed in between, the police commissioner, his ditzy daughter and her idiotic suitor. All their combined exertions barely raise a titter or two.

Aagey Se Right had all the makings of a demented Jim Carrey style comedy, but unimaginative gags, lines without punch or fizz and hammy performances ruin the effort. The promos have the best bits. It’s better than Shreyas Talpade’s last dud Bombay to Bangkok, which is not saying much.

Fox

A book called Fix The Fox, even with a cheesy cover with a fix in lawyer’s garb, become an international best-seller. But the man who signs fan autographs didn’t write it; he stole the work of an old man (who is kept in the shadows because he is so obviously wearing a disguise) who obligingly passed away.

A cop arrests him, alleging that the detailed descriptions of murders in the book means he is a killer. The plagiarist shouts that he is being framed—if he were a writer he could have cited research and imagination. But a hot shot lawyer can’t think of any line of defense. Anyway, Deepak Tijori’s Fox doesn’t claim to know much about law, publishing or police procedure, but even the most nonsensical thriller (this one lifted from Murder of Crows) must be able to keep the audience somewhat interested.

This one about a plagiarist lawyer (Arjun Rampal), who gives up defending criminals to become a beach bum in Goa and runs headlong into an overeager cop (Sunny Deol), is convoluted and slow-paced. Sagarika Ghatge and Udita Goswami try to lend some glamour to the dull proceedings; can't say they succeed. In a Sunny Deol film, you expect action and maybe some grandiloquent dialogue, and don't get even that basic requirement. Arjun Rampal is reported to have called Fox an “intelligent thriller.” If this is the level of intelligence, we shudder to think what a dumb thriller would be like. By chance, at least this week we get an answer—Aagey Se Right!

Mohandas

Like in any other endeavour, if you start out with a disadvantage, you have to try doubly hard to catch up. Mohandas gives up without even putting up an adequate fight, so what could have been a powerful indictment of a system that callously exploits the weak, becomes a bafflingly anachronistic, though well-intentioned piece of work.

Directed by Mazhar Kamran from a novel by Uday Prakash (turned into a fine play by Waman Kendre) the story has been shifted to present times, without adequate alterations in the details, thus rendering a potential biting satire totally toothless. Mohandas (Nakul Vaid, miscast), a poor village boy, completes his graduation against great odds and tops the class. He applies for a job at a coal mine and expects to get it.

When he does not hear from the company, he falls into despair, despite the support of his wife (Shrabani Mukherjee). Later, he comes to know that someone else has stolen his identity and taken his job. That man (Sushant Singh) now lives in comfort with his family, while Mohandas struggles for survival. A TV reporter, Meghna (Sonali Kulkarni) gets wind of the story and goes to the distant village to follow up, but finds corruption and apathy at all levels; in spite of the presence of a helpful judge (Govind Namdeo) and a brave lawyer (Aditya Shrivastav), Mohandas does not get justice.

Today, it seems odd that a man submits his original papers to the company with his application, but the story belongs to the pre-copier age. You also cannot understand why he cannot prove his identity, cannot get copies of his certificates, or not be able to apply for another job—especially with reservation for backward tribes. In telling the story, in bland, straightforward fashion, Kamran simply ignores glaring incongruities. The fact that he chose to go against the mainstream and make a film on this story, means that he cares about the issue and about the character, it just doesn’t come across convincingly.

Identity theft can happen even today (there were reports of living people being declared dead in Uttar Pradesh, and their land grabbed), but the levels of corruption and legal foot-dragging that allow this to happen have to be exposed either in realistically in depth fashion, or with stylised black humour. Instead of a helpless victim of an all-pervasive corruption that he is too weak to stand against, Mohandas looks a bit of a fool, not quite so deserving of sympathy. Except for a very earnest Sonali Kulkarni, the actors also fail to rise to the deliver. A pity, because Bollywood could do with some more cinema of conscience.

Three Love Lies Betrayal

It is enough to puncture the ego of any star actress—that the males in the film are not lusting after her, but her chalet. The fairy tale house in beautiful Scotland, where most of Vishal Pandya’s Three Love Lies Betrayal is set, is drool-worthy. Not so much the rest of the plodding, paint-by-numbers thriller.

When you think of tenants from hell, you think Pacific Heights or The Tenant. Sanjay (Ashish Chowdhry) seems rather tame in comparison. The performer, who sings Hindi songs in Scottish pubs, rents a room in the home of Anjini and Rajeev Dutt (Nausheen Ali Sardar, Akshay Kapoor). Their marriage is going through a strain; he is unemployed, she is a violin teacher, struggling to make ends meet. She has given up everything but the house for her husband’s failed business and won’t agree to his demand to sell it, and he retaliates with drunken bouts.

The situation is ripe for adultery – but no steamy scenes here—and Anjini succumbs to Sanjay’s dubious charms in no time. Turns out Sanjay wants the house too. The script goes leisurely through its twists and turns, not one of which is sprung as a surprise. Nausheen Ali Sardar whose make-up looks like it was applied with a trowel, is shot in scary close-ups. The two guys who make up the love (rather, greed) triangle manage to keep the snarls going. The only thing that keeps the eye on the screen is the landscape.

QGM+5

2009-08-29T17:53:00.002+05:30

Quick Gun Murugan

Shashanka Ghosh has made a full-length feature film out of a character created for a music channel promo over a decade ago-- a Tamil Cowboy.

The film is part tribute-part spoof on the loud, garish style of filmmaking of a certain period in Tamil cinema, which is sharply observed, well-designed and witty, but perhaps too much to take in such a large dose.

Murugun (Dr Rajendraprasad) is a vegetarian cowboy, whose arch enemy is Rice Plate Reddy (Nasser), who aims to turn every vegetarian restaurant into a non-veg one, and then take over the world with his own brand of McDosa. Murugun has to stop him and rescue the 'Matunga Mamis' that Reddy's henchman Rowdy MBA (Raju Sundaram) kidnaps to get the formula for a perfect dosa.

It's all deliberately nonsensical, madly over the top and delightful in parts. But that kind of cinema is too easy a target for lampooning of the Mad Magazine variety, and a large chunk of today's young audience is probably not even aware of its existence.

Dr Rajendraprasad and Rambha (as a blonde moll) perform with the mindless zest that was required for these films, and are fun to watch. Ultimately the film may be more of academic interest to the film buff than a piece of entertainment for the regular viewer. It may even turn out to be a festival and campus cult film. But at one viewing, it just seems like a skit that didn't know when to stop.

Yeh Mera India

After making a couple of forgettable campus capers, N.Chandra returns to the kind of serious cinema with which he began his career. Yeh Mera India is very inspired by Crash and deals with many issues that afflict Mumbai today.

He starts with a large ensemble cast and throws many strands into the air, that he follows assiduously to the end—and it is all packed in the span of a day. Within that short time, people undergo personal and ideological crises, are shaken, stirred or reformed. It’s over ambitious and as a result too sketchy—so many issues could not possibly have packed into a single film without the risk of being diluted or caricaturized.

There is the Hindu-Muslim imbroglio, the Maharashtrian-Bihari problem, casteism, politics, greed, capitalism, loss of idealism, traffic jams, road rage— but everything remains at the level of a casual coffee table debate. A cop (Sayaji Shinde) hates Biharis, a sleazy builder (Rajit Kapoor) won’t sell a flat to a Muslim (Parvin Dabas), his TV (Sarika) mistreats her maid (Seema Biswas). A Brahmin politician’s son (Purab Kohli) is in love with a Dalit girl (Smilie Suri). There’s a Muslim hitman (Vijay Raaz) and his Hindu cohort (Atul Kulkarni), a judge (Anupam Kher) forced to convict a good doctor (Virendra Saxena), a shrill TV executive (Perizaad Zorabian) who wants to leave India, a Bihari migrant (Rajpal Yadav) looking for work… and dozens of other small characters fill up the intricate mosaic of the film.

Difficult though it may seem, Chandra actually manages to bring all the stories together to a close, some convincing (the story of the judge and doctor is very moving), some a bit ridiculous (the TV exec getting instant spiritual upliftment). Everybody with a mental block has it cleared—the bitter cop is saved by the Bihari; the hitman is reformed by the a secular Muslim, the upper class woman is given a lesson in kindness by the poor maid.

The actors are all competent and well cast, how you wish Chandra had not crammed the film so, made it more contemplative and less simplistic. Still, as films about a city in a flux go, this one may not be in the league of Crash or even Mumbai Meri Jaan, but it is not to be easily dismissed either. Give it a try.

Kisaan

In commercial cinema today, stars in designer costumes are prancing about in foreign locales, as if the only thing that mattered was the NRI; the rest of India could be ignored. So watching a mainstream film set in rural India, about a relevant issue, is a welcome change. The problem is that Puneet Sira, inspired by Manoj Kumar’s Upkaar obviously doesn’t know much about problems of villages today, and gives it the full ‘Bollywood’ treatment—all melodrama, macho bluster and old film stereotypes.

In a Punjab village, where men drive around in fancy cars, there is no school. So farmer Dayal Singh (Jackie Shroff) sends his older kid to the city to study, while the younger stays with him. Aman (Arbaaz Khan) grows up to be a lawyer and Jigar (Sohail Khan) a farmer. An industrialist from the city, Seth, (Dalip Tahil) wants to buy up the land in the village, and whoever resists is bumped off by Seth’s evil henchman (Romeo).

In this world, a ‘real man’ avenges an attack on his honour not by going to the cops and filing a case, but by chopping off the hand of the man who hit his father. Jigar goes to jail and in his absence, the bad guys run riot. The end is so predictable, because that’s how it used to be in the old films—brothers reunite and fight the villains. But the old filmmakers did it all with so much conviction that even the most clichéd scenes could draw applause or tears. Here it seems too much like city boys playing ‘farmer-farmer’ and flexing their gym-built biceps.

To be fair, Sira drops one stock character- that of the evil daughter-in-law, the city girl (Dia Mirza) is good and sympathetic; but retains that of the giggly village belle (Nauheed Cyrusi). The actors do a fairly competent job, considering they are playing characters in situations they don’t really understand. And it is unforgivable that the mandatory music video song with the end credits has the actors dancing in a disco to ‘Mere desh ki dharti’, but then the Khan brothers (who produced the film) and Puneet Sira are not exactly a voice of rural India. At least they pretended for a while… which is to be appreciated; though credit still goes to ‘Mr Bharat’ Manoj Kumar.

Daddy Cool

Had it not been for some vigilance on the part of the producers of Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral, the makers of Daddy Cool would have gotten away with plagiarism. They still do; the rights may have been bought, but the credit is given to Tushar Hiranandani, who has lifted the English film scene by scene, and just shifted the action to Goa.

Improbably, the characters in the film directed by K. Muralimohana Rao, have Catholic names, but speak Hindi, with only Jaaved Jaaferi putting on a faux “wot men” Goan accent. Which goes to show that the plagiarists don’t even have the sense to Indianise the story suitably. It’s the funeral of Douglas Lazarus (Sharat Saxena), which starts with a problem as the undertakers (called Coffins with Karan—haha!) deliver the wrong body.

The wife (Suhasini Mulay) and daughter-in-law Nancy (Aarti Chhabria) are at loggerheads. The sons, long suffering Steve (Suniel Shetty) and successful novelist Brian (Asish Chowdhry) are squabbling too. And around them, there’s a whole lot of drama going on among the other relatives. The drugs hidden by a nephew (Chunkey Pandey) in a bottle of medicine are mistakenly administered to his sister Maria’s (Tulip Joshi) boyfriend (Aftab Shivdasani), who gets stupidly high.

Another nephew (Jaaved Jafferi) is having problems with a suspicious wife (Kim Sharma), when a hot model (Sophie Choudhry) lands up mistaking him for her ‘casting couch’ employer. Add to this a nasty old uncle (Prem Chopra), and a blackmailer (Rajpal Yadav) and it’s a free for all.

Despite all the right indredients, the film doesn't work, because a lampoon of stiff upper lip English country lifestyle is dumped into Goa and performed by out-of-control actors who think comedy calls for overacting and making faces. The lines do not sound right in Hindi, and all in all, it’s a recipe for disaster. Think of the comic potential of a film set at an Indian funeral, and wonder why our filmmakers can’t think up their own stories set in their own milieu.

Toss

A little after the film begins, you know exactly how it is going to end. Ramesh Khatkar puts together a fast paced thriller, with a young cast; unfortunately it is so predicable that it is a wonder anyone even wanted to produce and release it.

A group of friends find a fortune in stolen money; it belongs to a trio of demented brothers, so you can guess that one by one the friends will be killed—in order of importance. Goa is the location again, with a bunch of Hindi speaking Catholic characters. A cop (Zakir Hussain) who insists on the D’Cunha being pronounced correctly, speaks with a Hyderabadi accent.

Sammy (Prashant Raj), Josh (Ashmit Patel), Ryan (Rannvijay Singh) and their girls (Aarti Chhabria, Madhurima Banerjee, Shruti Gera) get into trouble with their hidden cache. One murder leads to another, one lie to another; friends and lovers are betrayed while greed takes over.

The gangster brothers (Mahesh Manjrekar, Sushant Singh and an oversmart kid) happily kill and cut up people, but they are not as bad as the supposedly good guys and gals without scruples. There’s also a scary looking garden gnome that gets so many close-ups you think it might just come alive and start chopping people too. Maybe it should have, at least the audience would have been surprised.

Love Khichdi

Notice how today’s six-pack film hero is such a wimp that his creators dare not have him suffer heartbreak. So unworthy though he may be, he always lands up at the wedding of the girl he rejected, and succeeds in winning her over. (Why, in Love Aaj Kal, he got her after she was married to another.)

In Srinivas Bhashyam’s bachelor world, Haryana migrant to Mumbai, sous chef Vir (Randeep Hooda), ogles every woman in sight, beds a few, and gets manipulated by almost every woman too. Nobody is straightforward and honest in this Love Khichdi; if it was meant to be a humorous look at sexual politics in urban India today, it fails quite miserably. The film has a ‘sach ki ghanti’ ringing whenever a true observation is uttered, but no bells ring in the viewer’s ears when suffering Vir’s travails along with him.

Hooda is not too bad at playing the shallow, selfish stud, but look at the women he encounters—a predatory career woman (Kalpana Pandit), a hypocritical housewife (Divya Dutta), a precocious schoolgirl (Riya Sen), an older, “intelligent” but insecure woman (Rituparna Sengupta), a chatty maid (Sonali Kulkarni), and the ‘just friend’ (Sada) who turns out to be the slyest of the lot. Boys will be boys, the film says, and women will be sneaky shrews. Try this tasteless glop if you can.

S & S

2009-08-22T12:43:00.002+05:30

Sikandar

It’s not to compare, but you can’t help note that films about children growing up in disturbed (by war or terrorism) zones, from countries like Iran and Afghanistan, really have the power to shake up the viewer. Recent example of films released in India—Baran and Turtles Can Fly.

Piyush Jha’s film Sikandar is politically naïve as well as short on logic and emotions. Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan tread more or less the same ground, with far more depth and assurance. The 14-year-old Sikandar (Parzan Dastur), whose parents were killed by terrorists, lives with his aunt and uncle, and dreams of being a football player. For a kid brought up in the shadow of violence, it seems odd that when he finds a pistol lying in the street, he should pick it up and swagger around with it, threatening school bullies and a shopkeeper. Sikandar’s only friend, confident and helper is Nasreen (Ayesha Kapoor), and not an eyebrow raised when the two spend all their time together.

The army led by Major Rao (R Madhavan) are on the lookout for a militant Zahgir (Arunoday Singh), but the man not just walks around freely, he also trains Sikandar in shooting, and gives him task of shooting a political leader Mukhtar (Sanjay Suri) in return for a washing machine for his aunt. In Tahaan, the child similarly used, was too small to know any better, but Sikandar is old enough to understand the consequences of a political assassination. The role of the army, the motivations of the two separatist factions, the stand of the politician and the position of the local religious leaders are not properly explored, leaving too many questions unanswered; and at the same time over-simplifying a very complex and ever-changing scenario in the troubled state.

Jha has got the two young actors to perform adequately, the locations are pristine and pretty. But what could have been a tragedy or at least a cautionary tale about the perils of corrupting young minds, just ends up as a convoluted and ultimately meaningless exercise, which just draws the hardly novel conclusion that politicians are the root of all evil.

Shadow

A lot of very undeserving industry brats have films produced for them by doting daddies. When Nasser Khan wanted to be a star, he put in his own money and made a film—all the more admirable since he is visually challenged. But since he was spending a biggish sum on producing this vanity vehicle, the least he could have done was taken some acting and voice lessons and, yes, ensured a half way decent script.

All that director Rohit Nayyar has ensured is several lavish song-n-dance sequences with skimpily-dressed foreign extras and one item number each for the two leading ladies, dotting the largely incoherent and totally laughable script. For reasons too corny to go into, a mysterious man called Arjun Sherawat (Nasser Khan) carries out a series of audacious ‘supari’ killings, ordered by the state’s home minister (Sachin Khedekar) right under the noses of the cops.
Inspector Sanjana (Sonali Kulkarni) is under fire from her boss (and father), as well as reporters Rahul (Milind Soman) and Sheetal (Hrishita Bhatt) for failing to nab the killer.

For a front, Arjun has a garage and is known as Raju mechanic to the cops. Everyone seems to know the real identity of Arjun, and at some point even Sanjana does, but for some reason, they keep looking for ‘saboot’ before arresting him. The tough cop also falls in love with him—for no reason but that it is Nasser Khan’s film and he can make it go any which way he pleases. Arjun gets to perform a lot of stunts, and even if some of them were done by a double, it is still an achievement for the blind producer-actor. Still, the film’s curiosity value is not enough for audiences to spend money to see it.

If Nasser Khan (modeling an array of eye wear and speaking in a monotonous drone) wanted to be an actor, maybe he should have put some more thought into a producing a film that would suit his personality and skills better. You can only feel sorry for the other actors who are just pawns in this self-promotion exercise.

Kaminey + 2

2009-08-15T10:39:00.002+05:30

Kaminey

Most big budget films are hyped to the skies these days and Kaminey is no exception. So by the time the film actually releases, potential audiences know just how much weight the leading man lost, how he learnt to stutter, how a writer-filmmaker was signed to play villain, how the big hit number Dhan te nan was choregraphed; whether the leading man and lady are together or not, and so on. If you aren’t curious to see the film, you must belong to another planet. Then come the preview hosannas, so after all this it seems almost churlish to say that you didn’t care all that much for the film.

You’d expect a filmmaker like Vishal Bharadwaj to gave gotten over his own and Bollywood’s obsession with Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie, Robert Rodriquez, and other Hollywood gurus of violence, indeed gotten over the whole ‘gangsta’ genre (Tarantino has left it behind, so has Ram Gopal Varma) and made something fresh and new. That he has talent and the cinematic language to express it goes without saying. As Bharadwaj goes into the third of his gangster trilogy—without the help of Shakespeare this time-- you admire the work that has gone into it, the detailing, the camerawork, the editing, some of the performances; at the same time you are also constantly alienated by the clichéd images of Mumbai’s underworld, the loud, laughing, greasy gangsters (look what Satya’s Bhiku Mhatre started), the casual violence. Then you laugh at some of the kinkiness—like the villain being Maharashtrian chauvinist with a blood sugar problem, and then groan because the protagonist’s stutter and lisp are used just as a gimmick and not a useful plot device. It goes on like that, one good thing, two bad…

To recount the plot, such as it is, Shahid Kapoor plays twins, nice guy Guddu who works with an NGO and stutters; Charlie the petty crook, who lisps and dreams of being a big bookie. Guddu is in love with Sweety (Priyanka Chopra), who turns out to be the sister of gangster Bhope (Amole Gupte). Charlie is mixed up in the betting racket with three Bengali hoods.

In between there are a whole bunch of gangsters of multiple nationalities, bad cops, a fortune in stolen cocaine and Sweety’s pregnancy problem. So? You might well ask, is there really a plot or just all this chor-police tomfoolery. Mostly, it’s just that, shot in rapid, dizzying style, and restless pace. And a big, old style Bolly blowout of a climax of the kind where the whole cast—or at least those still alive-- gathers together to slug it out.

Bharadwaj’s outstanding directorial (and musical) skills are wasted on such pointless filmmaking, really—he could use them to tell better stories, and not just aspire to be fanboy idol. This whole Mumbai underbelly thing has been done much too often to be of any interest to those looking for truly offbeat cinema from mainstream Bollywood.

The film a may do well, after all that promotion, it would be a shame if it didn’t. Shahid Kapoor does comes into his own here, the sweet youthfulness of his films so far now being tempered with maturity and intelligence. The muscles may get the eyeballs, but the grown-up face is where it’s at. Priyanka Chopra springs a pleasant surprise as the rough girl with a sore-throat voice—who could have guessed she had it in her. As for the rest of the bad guys, they could have walked out of Varma’s or Kashyap’s films, so generic are they all.

Life Partner

A girl from a modern Indian family marries an NRI groom and finds herself trapped in an ultra conservative family. A spoilt, rich girl gets married to a regular guy and realizes that she doesn’t know what it takes to be ‘wife.’

These are age old problems that refuse to go away as India and the Diaspora sway between traditional and progressive values. And Rumy Jaffrey tackles the issue in a comic manner. However, even as you are watching the smartly dressed NRIs prancing around in scenic South Africa, the loud, TV kind of filmmaking seems to be going out of style. Jaffrey may get his stars to wear trendy costumes (except Govinda who is beyond repair), but they are not at all cool by today’s Love Aaj Kal standards. Karan (Fardeen Khan) has been dating the ditzy Sanjana (Genelia D’Souza), while his buddy Bhavesh (Tusshar Kapoor), from a conservative Gujarati family, waits for an arranged marriage. Their third friend Jeet (Govinda) is a divorce lawyer (inspired by Danny DeVito in The War of the Roses?) who is against marriage.

Bhavesh is taken to Gujarat to meet prospective brides and falls in love with Prachi (Prachi Desai) the daughter of their host (Vikram Gokhale) and his father’s (Darshan Jariwala) friend. When they get married, Karan and Sanjana are tempted to follow suit. On their return, the honeymoon ends quite abruptly when problems hit like typhoons and they end up in the divorce court. It’s a commercial Hindi film, it can’t have a bitter end, but at least the dreaded ‘D’ word is spoken, neither bride clutches at her mangalsutra (do they even wear it?) and weeps. At least mainstream films of the social-comedy genre have managed this much evolution, perhaps because of TV soaps. Prachi’s in-laws certainly seem to have come out of a Balaji serial.

The actors are okay as long as they are not made to shout at the top of their lungs, and the David Dhawan kind of crudity (Jaffrey used to work with Dhawan) is kept to a minimum. Surprisingly Tusshar Kapoor turns out to be a very convincing simpleton caught between his authoritarian father and reasonable wife. May not be a must-see, but is a can-see.

Before the Rains

There could be two reasons for Santosh Sivan to attempt filming this dated Raj era story—it has been produced by the internationally renowned Merchant Ivory banner, and it is set in his home state of Kerala The cinematographer gets an opportunity to portray the beauty of Kerala in perfect God’s Own Country brochure splendour. Pity the story he tells is so lifeless.

A British man, Henry Moores (Linus Roache) planning to build a road through thick Kerala forests, had an affair with his domestic helper Sajani (Nandita Das, while his wife (Jennifer Ehle) is away. His aide and friend TK Neelan (Rahul Bose) knows and keeps quiet. The time is 1937, the freedom movement is gathering force around them, it is the back of beyond and a clandestine affair can only end in disaster.

Nandita Das has a brief role, in which she is expected to look beautiful and sexy enough to entrance the stiff British planter, but the character she plays is a little too old to be so naïve as to expect that her romance with a white man could work out in the long term—especially since both were married. Henry is typically a coward, but not evil enough to hate, or tragic enough to like. The film is then about Neelan’s dilemma, as the nice guy caught between two opposing forces. Which is why the scene where he is put through a horrible test by the village council is the most effective.

A story like this, about forbidden passion, should have ended in operatic tragedy, but the climax is wishy-washy too. However beautiful it may be to look at, it is doubtful if Before the Rains did anything for Kerala tourism; or even worked wonders for the careers of any of its actors. It just underlines the fact that Sivan is a great cinematographer, but we already knew that.

Agyaat+2

2009-08-08T20:17:00.002+05:30

Agyaat

With recent Ram Gopal Varma films, one is not sure when he means business, when he is having a private laugh and when he is having a laugh at the expense of the audience. Agyaat is one such film from factory that simply cannot be taken seriously.

It is supposed to be a horror movie about a film crew shooting in a dense forest, being hunted down one by one, by a malevolent unseen—perhaps extra-terrestrial—force. But this is no Predator, just a low budget con, that expects you to spend more money on Agyaat 2, to be told who killed the film unit weirdos.

There a producer Moorthy (Ishrat Ali) who keeps saying “Ayyoda” with his mouth open, a bald director (Howard Rosemeyer) with a pencil parked in his mouth, the obnoxious leading man (Gautum Rode), his cowering spot boy (Ishteyak Khan), the leading lady (Priyanka Kothari), the stunt director (Ravi Kale), the cameraman (Kaliprasad), the first and second assistants (Nitin, Rasika Duggal) and the jungle guide (Joy Fernandes). God knows what they are shooting at this out-of-the way place, where even cars can’t reach, but stuntmen and back-up dancers appear when needed and then vanish. When the camera breaks down, they all decide to go deeper into the forest and camp, and that’s when the alien menace strikes.

It could have been scary if it weren’t so funny. The camera captures Priyanka Kothari’s midriff more than the beauty of the forest, and well, we can only wait with terror for the next installment “Coming Soon.”

Teree Sang

A 15-year-old girl gets pregnant, her parents are understandably furious. She runs away with the father of the child, and they set up home in a cute hill cottage gifted rent-free by a friend. He does manual labour, she cooks noodles and they might have lived happily ever after, but for her pesky parents who want to bring her back home. Her argument is that if Nature does not object, why should the law interfere?

What kind of message is Satish Kaushik sending out to youngsters through a film like Teree Sang? The plot is not new, the unwed pregnancy has been done in Kya Kehna and Suno Na, the idyllic life has been done in Love Story and other films. If the film had taken a good honest look at the way today’s teens take sex so casually, and at least tried to caution them (like old Malayalam film Chitram), this film would have served some purpose.

However, the characters in the film are superficial, a class angle needless added, the events are most implausible, the film very irresponsible. The girl Maahi (Sheena Shahabadi) is neglected by her parents (Rajat Kapoor-Neena Gupta). She is not the shy sort—she chases the boy Kabir (Ruslaan Mumtaz)—but she has no friends. She hangs out with the spoilt son of an auto-rickshaw driver (Satish Kaushik) and his noisy wife (Sushmita Mukherjee), along with his working class buddies.

When she gets pregnant, she doesn’t want to terminate it, instead she is willing to wreck her own life and Kabir’s. Very conveniently, they set up home in this fairy-tale cottage and have not a care in the world. The parents who try to knock sense into them are seen as evil, making their kids fight against “kudrat.” The two youngsters are appealing enough, but one can imagine most of today’s urban teens—wise, cautious and ambitious beyond their years --- sniggering at the film, and getting on with their MBAs, or whatever the ‘in’ career aspiration may be, while the very out-of-it filmmaker dishes out his pro-life humbug.

Chal Chalein

Students suffering from excessive pressure in an education system that stifles all individuality was a subject waiting to be tackled in a film, but just good intentions do not a film make, and Ujjwal Singh’s Chal Chalein is a prime example of a great idea leading to a dull, preachy film.

Many students in an Allahabad junior college are forced by their parents to study subjects for which they have no aptitude and punished if they don’t top the class. One such student, Navneet (Priyesh Sagar), son of an authoritarian father (Kanwaljeet) buckles under and commits suicide. His friends, also suffering the same fate, decide to take action. They approach an activist lawyer Sanjay (Mithun Chakraborthy) and file cases against Navneet’s father, their own parents and the Government of India. Their action provokes more such cases from all over the country and becomes a movement.

The film makes parents out to be complete monsters – one mother makes a little girl do 150 sit-ups and starves her if she doesn’t stand first in class. But the way the eight leading kids go around singing and dancing all over the city, attend parties and hang out in the canteen, it hardly looks as if they were over burdened or tortured by their parents. After the suicide of the boy, the film become one long indignant harangue, as the entire cast is carted to the Supreme Court for the case, with Anup Soni playing the Defence lawyer, but vague grumbles about the ‘System’ don’ really amount to anything. If a parent is worried about a child’s future, it hardly seems fair to accuse him of being an underachiever.

The actors playing students are fresh-faced and earnest, but that’s no incentive to see this film. Might as well read newspaper clippings on the subject.

LAK

2009-07-31T17:37:00.001+05:30

Love Aaj Kal

Imtiaz Ali’s Love Aaj Kal takes a look at the Me generation—self-centred, career-oriented, emotionally retarded. They have break-up parties, flirt long-distance; the guys are proud to be called “khula saand”, girls pretend to be coy only to provoke the guy into action.

Well, this could, without meaning to, be the first definitive 21st century love story, with, as an older character in the film says, about a generation that is all mind, no heart. But then maybe box-office considerations come in, what use is a love story that doesn’t end with the lovers in a clinch? Never mind that they have dithered, whined, hurt themselves and other people—and proved to be very unappealing as film characters.

The city is London (what’s wrong with India by the way? No cool people here?): so there’s the cool-as-as-Eskimo engineer Jai (Saif Ali Khan), who is commitment-phobic (like the dude in Salaam Namaste)/ He is not too deeply affected when Meera (Deepika Padukone), the girl he is not sure is his girlfriend, decides to break-up because she wants to concentrate on her career as an art restorer. He gives her the spiel about breaking up only to discover that she had the idea before him. They decide to part ways amicably, throw a break-up party, promise to stay in touch and go their own way.

He woos Swiss girl Jo (Florence Brudenell Bruce) in London, she dates her boss Vikram (Rahul Khanna) in Delhi. But this is not how love stories are supposed to go, according to Veer Singh (Rishi Kapoor), a middle-aged Sikh restauranteur and Jai’s confidant. So running parallel to the ‘Aaj’ love story is the ‘Kal’ romance, which is like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, with the brave young man (Khan as the younger Kapoor) storming his girl Harleen’s (Giselle) wedding and eloping with her.

The problem is that after setting up the so-cool and contemporary scenario (with the right trendy outfits to match so young people see the film for the clothes if nothing else), the film goes into territory as old and soggy as Devdas. All that pining, weeping, breaking of relationships is so self-indulgent as to amount to conduct most unbecoming.

The film looks good, Imtiaz Ali is an expert enough director to make so many of the scenes crackle with energy, the song picturisations are zingy; For Saif Ali Khan this part is now like second skin, Deepika Padukone makes up with glamour what she lacks in acting skills; Rishi Kapoor is wonderful. So why does the film still give the feeling that something is sorely lacking? If a guess has to be hazarded, may be what it lacks is heart? Not that a silly little heart will prevent this calculated, all-mind film from being a hit.

Luck+1

2009-07-27T20:35:00.001+05:30

Luck

This dude, dressed in shiny Pathan suits teamed with Western jackets, trades in luck, “Pure business,” he smirks. So sure is this Musabhai (Sanjay Dutt) of his own invincibility, that he runs across train tracks blind-folded and stays alive. So he sets up an international betting operation, in which other lucky people like him are made to go through reality show type of stunts, only these are designed to kill most of them.

If Soham Shah had come up with the idea all by himself, you could have said at least it is novel, though horribly perverse. But this game of extreme cruelty has been done before in one way or another, in films like Condemned, Intacto, 13 Tszameti and Batoru Rowairu . The problem also is, that no matter how stylish the film may look, and how thrilling the stunts (though they are not all that exciting), it is not a very pleasant experience seeing a film about a bunch of mostly nasty people playing Fear Factor on screen.

Among the crowd of vague ‘imported’ extras hired by Musa’s shark Tamag (Danny Denzongpa), is good guy Ram (Imran Khan), who needs to pay back his father’s humungous debt; he is thrown into the gambling pit with a revenge seeking hottie Ayesha (Shruti Haasan), a winning camel racer Shortcut (Chitrashi Rawat), a Major (Mithun Chakraborty) who has to pay for the treatment of his terminally ill wife and a serial killer (Ravi Kissen), who escaped the noose. This utterly charmless bunch is taken to South Africa and made to shoot at one another, jump out of planes with faulty parachutes and battle sharks. It’s not much fun watching them, more so since no sympathetic connection is built with any of them. Also, you know just who the winners will be—how often do highly paid lead stars get beaten by ‘firang’ junior artistes.

The lines are hilariously over the top and have the word luck in every other sentence… sample this: “Laxmi tujhe tika laga rahi hai, aur tu Id ka chand ban raha hai.” Sanjay Dutt, who is introduced with a title song cavorting with bikini-clad dancers, and then always seen loping towards the camera in slow motion with a signature music track, could to this don role without any effort. For Imran Khan and Shruti Haasan, it may be an unfortunate choice of film, since it gives them nothing to do by way of performance. She has the requisite amount of glamour, but he needs to prove that his first hit, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, was not just beginner's luck.

Perfect Mismatch

In NRI land, where they celebrate “Holly”, “Diwolly”, eat parathas, do the bhangra on all occasions and treat wives like unpaid servants, Punjabi boy falls in love with Gujarati girl. Neha (Nandana Sen) Daddy Patel (Boman Irani) objects because he thinks they are classy and Punjabis are crude.

Aman’s (Anubhav Anand) uncle Bhalla (Anupam Kher) is annoyed because he has to take off his shoes at the door before entering the Gujju home, doesn’t get a drink and has to eat sweet vegetarian good. And the entire Punju-Gujju clan behave like ignorant fresh-off-the-boat types when faced with a local talking of playing softball. The Punjabi jokes about “Potels”—what Patel-owned motels are commonly known as -- and Mr Patel takes offence. God knows what sorry world of stereotypes director Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad lives in.

The two grown-up ‘kids’ fret and sob (each has an American confidante) because there is such a big regional clash happening between their families over such trivial matters. And someone thought to make whole film about it! How do the two think of solving the problem? Not by having an adult conversation across the table, but taking the two families and friends for a picnic and organizing a tacky Bollywood-style naach gaana show.

There’s also some subplot about Aman’s family problems and his career ups and downs, and the film is actually 97-minutes of flat storytelling, with no drama, no comedy and absolutely no insights into NRI lives, beyond what dozens of NRI-made ‘ABCD’ films have already touched upon ad nauseum. Not even Anupam Kher and Boman Irani have any new tricks up their sleeves; the best that can be said about Nandana Sen and Anubhav Anand, is that their accents sound right.

Jashnn+Dekh Re Dekh

2009-07-18T11:48:00.003+05:30

Jashnn

Jashnn is the kind of film Mahesh Bhatt used to make… intense, with characters fighting their demons, and so on. After two Hollywood-inspired thrillers (The Killer, The Train) Raksha Mistry and Hasnain S. Hyderabadwala have, to their credit, dared to made a film on a story that is not in vogue right now, when fluff is in.

The story (Shagufta Rafique) is vaguely reminiscent of Mere Mehboob, in which a young man falls in love with the sister of the man who is the married lover of his own sister. Akash (Adhyayan Suman), an aspiring singer with a band of boys, lives with his sister Nisha (Shahana Goswani), who has a fractious relationship with the married Aman (Humayun Saeed). The man treats her life dirt, but also keeps her in style, so she and Akash suffer humiliation and put up with his nastiness.

Then Akash falls in love with Sara (Anjana Sukhani), who, in one of those far-fetched film coincidences, turns out to be Aman’s sister. In films, people don’t even seem to ask each other’s surnames, when they fall in love! Also it’s a bit hard to sympathise with the “penniless” brother-sister duo when they live in a large bungalow with a pool; or feel for the struggling band, when they function out of a spiffy sea-front cottage. Detailing is not a strong point here, obviously.

Not at all pleased with this turn of events, Aman goes all out to crush Nisha and Akash when Sara leaves home to move in with her boyfriend. He makes sure Akash gets no breaks, despite his talent, and finally gives up in frustration. “Don’t kill him, kill his dream,” as Akash’s sidekick advises.

In the exaggerated downfall that can be expected in films, Akash doesn’t get a normal job, but works as a janitor in a hotel, while Nisha struggles to survive.

It is finally about Akash’s coming to terms with his own strength, and winning against all odds. There is an strange charm to this underdog story, even though it is so predictable. The climax is a real tear-jerker, redeemed by the amazing performance by newbie Humayun Saeed, who has talent as well as tremendous screen presence.

Adhyayan Suman is a surprise—he does remarkably well in a soppy role that is so clearly out of his range of experience – which young actor is required to weep and moan so much these days and still make his character likeable. The two leading ladies, unfortunately, are not up to the mark.

Jashnn may not be the kind of film you would be tempted to rush for, but it’s not unwatchable… in fact, the music (Toshi-Sharib Sabri) lifts it up by several notches.

Dekh Re Dekh

TV serials generally have little recall value, but Dekh Bhai Dekh was one of the popular ones that is still remembered by regular viewers. This little film by Rahat Kazmi tried to ride on the success of the serial (which is reportedly going to be turned into a film) and ended up with having to change the title to Dekh Re Dekh.

Not sure whether it wants to be a comedy or a thriller, the film ends up being neither—though it had an idea about losers trying to win hidden away somewhere; with better actors and maybe a better writer, it might just have turned out to be a decent home viewing type of movie.

Village girl Babli (Gracy Singh) is thrown out of her in-laws’ home after a misunderstanding. She needs to make a new life for herself for which she has no money. She makes a supposedly foolproof plan to steal at her husband’s house, and ropes in other like her in need of cash-- the unemployed Shyam (Siddharth Koirala) aspiring politician Yadavji (Raguveer Yadav) and a thief Charan (Vijay Raaz).

They manage, after much song and dance, to steal a small idol, and escape. They are given shelter in a large, eerie haveli by a ghostly old woman (uncredited) and when they realize that the idol isn’t worth much, decide to kill the old woman and rob her too.

In spirit it’s like Barah Aana, which also seemed to say, necessity is the parent of crime, but this one’s just silly, amateurish, badly acted and interrupted with too many songs. There’s not much to ‘dekho’ here, except, maybe, the really beautiful village location.

Short Kut+Sankat City

2009-07-12T11:37:00.003+05:30

Short Kut - The Con Is On

If Neeraj Vora’s Short Kut - The Con Is On looks like a poor copy of Priyadarshan’s films, it’s probably because it is taken from the Malayalam Udayananu Tharam.

There is a menagerie of ‘chawl-walas’ and an actor who could have been Paresh Rawal if he had dates to spare as the landlord (Siddharth Randeria in Rawal’s Hera Pheri get-up). The original was a hit, but Short Kut - The Con stops just short of unbearable, which goes to show that all copies don't work.

Produced by Anil Kapoor—who should have known better— starring Akshaye Khanna, who is reported to be very ‘choosy’ this film is a ‘kon’ in every department--starting with Anees Bazmee taking credit for the script.

Shekhar (Akshaye Khanna) is an assistant director (to Neeraj Vora, if you please—such vanity!) who wants to make his own film. He lives in a chawl in which every resident is some kind of freak—maybe that was Vora’s idea of humour. A flop actor buddy of his, Raju (Arshad Warsi) comes as an unwelcome guest, and steals Shekhar’s ‘superhit’ script.

He becomes a star overnight, while Shekhar, unable to recover from the betrayal, goes rapidly downhill. To make things worse, his actress girlfriend Mansi (Amrita Rao) runs away from home and insists on marrying him, and Shekhar is can’t bear taunts about living off his wife.

Film people making films about the industry usually get it so wrong. Are films made the way as shown in the film? There seems to be just one white-clad director around—if you don’t count Abbas-Mustan doing an embarrassed cameo to say “cut.”

You expect that a man as wounded as Shekhar would want to take revenge, but when he is forced to make a film (produced by the demented chawl gang!) with the now arrogant Raju, he meekly agrees and puts up with his misbehaviour. You wait for the worm to turn, and that doesn’t happen, even after a Bowfinger-inspired climax.

The drama is non-existent, in the name of comedy, everybody wears weird costumes and shouts. Akshaye Khanna in an unflattering wig, mostly wears one peevish expression, Arshad Warsi hams away; Amrita Rao is in her much-publicised ‘sexy’ makeover, which means she wears very skimpy clothing and acts as badly as she does anyway, squeaky voice and all. A song from the film says it all – Patli gali se nikal bhi ja.

Sankat City

A bunch of people playing passing the parcel with bags of cash, suitcases getting exchanged, landing up in a garbage dump and so on… doesn’t seem like something that could happen only in Mumbai.

Just because there is a crazy gangster in the long list of unsavory characters, you are expected to believe this is Sankat City. This sort of caper has been done often enough to count a tiresome (most recently 99), to give director Pankaj Advani credit, he does lend it a kind of spoofy quality, but spoils the effect by many obvious gags like the lost twins with matching lockets, amnesia and co-incidences galore. If it’s Mumbai, there has to be a film producer, his South Indian assistant, a builder, a chatty cabbie and an anorexic bar dancer doing an item number.

Almost all the actors have put-on accents (South Indian, Punjabi, Marathi, Pahadi and so on) and a loud acting style that announces, “Look at meeee, I’m so funeeee.”

Guru (Kay Kay Menon) is a car thief whose troubles start when he steals a Merc with a bag of cash in the boot. The driver who was to deliver it had gone off to meet his girlfriend, leaving the key in the ignition. Guru’s partner Ganpat (Dilip Prabhawalkar) hides the money and then loses his memory, so Guru has to find another way to return the cash that belongs to a gangster Faujdar (Anupam Kher).

A builder (Yashpal Sharma) who owes money to Faujdar and a producer (Manoj Pahwa), who borrows get caught in the merry-go-round too. Guru teams up with a conwoman (Rimmi Sen) to steal from the builder, and lose the money when the bag gets switched in a bus. They manage to trace it to a garbage tip only to see it crushed by a dumper.

It’s a small world there, where everything connects to the gangster, the same cabbie turns up whenever a taxi is needed, and just one supari killer is conveniently at hand whenever a job is to be done.

This sort of thing is hard to pull off over a full-length feature, when you don’t get the audience to really care for any of the characters and the humour sometimes falls into into gross category – like the Don’s guru’s in a bath tub being scrubbed by acolytes, or the builder’s towel dropping.

It is to Advani’s credit that he mostly keeps things going at a brisk pace and has a few really funny lines punctuating the woozy plot. Of this week’s lot of soggy releases, this one’s most spirited… but that is not saying much. Compared to Short Kut, anything is a masterpiece.

K I

2009-07-04T11:39:00.001+05:30

Kambakkht Ishq

They have the money to sign on Hollywood stars and shoot in the US and Italy; they have the money to blow up on spectacular action sequences and designer wardrobes for the cast; they have the resources to splurge on marketing and promotion. But they don’ have the brains to get a fresh script or to use that money to create a memorable viewing experience.

All the extravagance is just a cover for totally stupid and regressive content, right out of the fifties—like a five-star hotel garnishing leftovers with caviar. It may look good, but it still stinks!

Sabbir Khan’s Kambakkht Ishq is supposed to be about the battle of the sexes—but it is a tirade against women, all of whom in this film are sorely lacking in brains or self-respect. The ‘hero’ Viraj (Akshay Kumar), a Hollywood stuntman, is such a stud, that he is constantly being chased by women, as he beds them and then flings them out of his house, his car, drives over one who has been running after him, and abandons a Hollywood siren (Denise Richards as herself) who wants to make “golden babies” with him, at the alter, without a backward glance. And then, he claims to hate women and marriage!

The man-hating ‘heroine’ Simrita (Kareena Kapoor) models to pay for medical school, and is such a bimbette that she performs surgery with a dangling watch on her wrist and leaves a part of it inside the patient, who happens to be Viraj. The musical ringing of the watch from Viraj’s stomach provides a running gag. Then, to get him back to the hospital and extract the watch, Simrita tries to drug him, dope him, and in desperation, seduce him with a dizzy (she takes the spiked glass meant for him) strip tease, but he—the Punjab ka puttar—doesn’t touch the Indian girl, because she is the kind who can be taken home to mother. Worse, she is a surgeon, but doesn’t realize that the act hasn’t really taken place.

While this moronic and tasteless tale (borrowed from the Kamal Haasan film Pammal K Sammandam by four scriptwriters!) is unfolding, Viraj and Simrita curse and swear at each other, he has a whole ‘eve-teasing’ number in Italy, as she runs about, dressed in increasingly skimpy clothing. She tries to break up the marriage of her equally scatty friend Kamini (Amrita Arora) to Viraj’s buddy Lucky (Aftab Shivdasani), just because she does not believe in marriage. Poor Kamini, constantly referred to as “Kameeni” suffers the indignity of having a man fart in her face as her wedding degenerates into pie-throwing, bottle-breaking mayhem.

Is this funny? No. Thrilling? No. Entertaining? Hardly. Meaningful? Not by a very long shot. In short, a total waste of time and money. Akshay Kumar should stop playing such creepy guys, and Kareena Kapoor deserves better than to be a skinny clotheshorse. And both of them seem to be inordinately proud of this piece of junk. This is the kind of cinema with which ‘Bollywood’ wants to woo the world? This is the kind of film that gets a huge opening? Depressing thought!

NY + 1

2009-06-28T14:19:00.003+05:30

New York

The terrorist attack on World Trade Centre ob September 11, 2001 destroyed peace in the world forever, and divided people in the US into ‘patriots’ and ‘outsiders’. It also put innocent Muslims on the defensive, and that continues years after the cataclysmic event.

A Muslim character in Kabir Khan’s earnest New York tells another that they should now put it behind and get on with life. But Khan doesn’t take his own advice. The film comes a little too late, portraying as it does, the mass arrest and torture of randomly arrested Muslims post 9/11 (done with great power in Khuda Ke Liye) and the revenge planned by a few.

Omar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is trapped by a FBI officer Roshan (Irrfan) into re-establishing contact with college friends Samir (John Abraham) and Maya (Katrina Kaif). In love with Maya, Omar had been heartbroken when she chose Samir.

Roshan believes Samir heads a terrorist cell, and wants Omar to infiltrate and report on their activities. Omar discovers that Samir had been arrested and tortured after 9/11 and he wants to regain his dignity.

The debate about the right and wrong of such revenge is rather watery and the implications of the act never really explored. What the film does (like Shoot on Sight) recently is point the finger of suspicion at Muslims—they are all potential terrorists, it says, if the provocation is severe enough. It certainly does not serve the cause of peace… its politics are fuzzy, and instead of avoiding jingoism, it inadvertently promotes it.

Khan keeps a tight grip on the narrative, however, and the film is also wonderfully shot. He also gets an unexpected sincere performance from John Abraham. Irrfan provides the meat, Neil Nitin Mukesh the muscle and Katrina Kaif the garnish. It’s a watchable film, but does not either provoke debate or quell it, which seems like an opportunity for raising the issue of understanding and empathy between communities wasted.

Runway

The title Runway, so you expect something to do with airports; then you realize it was probably meant to be ‘runaway,’ as in fugitive.

Anyway, whatever it is called, the film goes nowhere. It is obviously meant to be a showreel for Amarjeet (whose family seems to have produced the film), so within a few minutes, he has strutted about bare-chested, had a song, a fight scene, a shower scene and so on..

The plot, such as it is, is about Allan (Amarjeet), who takes in a contract killing job to save his girlfriend (Deepal Shaw) dying (in full bridal regalia) of a drug-induced illness. He does the job of shooting a “Mister Victor,” and then finds that a killer (Lucky Ali) keeps shooting at him.

There he is, on the run from cops and killer, with just a night-club dancer Shaina (Tulip Joshi) to help him. It doesn’t make much sense, this running all around over Mauritius (where the club dancer sings some Chhapra ka paani kind of number!), and never figuring quite who is doing what and why.

Amarjeet looks like a cross between Emran Hashmi and Harman Baweja and displays no exceptional acting skills. No help from the rest of cast either.

PG and Let's Dance

2009-06-24T20:48:00.001+05:30

Paying Guest

Move 1966 Mumbai to 2009 Bangkok, and you have a remake of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Biwi Aur Makaan. That film was reportedly a remake of Bengali Jaya Che Kali Boarding and was later made into a Marathi film called Ashi Hi Banwa Banwi by Sachin.

Maybe the men in drag as a comic device needed a fresh plot to make it work. Paritosh Painter’s Paying Guest, may have been based on a successful play, but as a film, it starts off at a disadvantage. The plot is old and totally predictable. The audience’s willingness to see the film, then depends on their curiosity—do they really want to see Jaaved Jaffery and Shreyas Talpade parade around as over-dressed women?

Four friends (Ashish Chauhary and Vatsal Sheth are the other two) live together in Pattaya, and happen to be thrown out of their jobs and rented home on the same day. At the only other paying guest joint (a swanky villa, actually) they can find, the landlords Ballu (Johnny Lever) and his wife (Delnaz Paul) insist that they will rent out rooms only to married men, In desperation, two of them get into drag (hideous) and pretend to be the wives.

It is really lazy scripting then, to include such tired gags as the landlord being the former boss of one of the ‘drag’ guys, and the girlfriend of one of the ‘husbands’ landing up as a friend of the family. If it is still marginally funny, it’s because the actors seem to enjoy the tomfoolery, and some of the lines are witty—one suspects a lot of them ad libbed.

There are the mandatory song-and-dance breaks, for which four leading ladies are duly provided (Neha Dhupia, Celina Jaitly, Riya Sen, Sayali Bhagat)—and not one of them leaves any impression. What do you make of a Gujarati character (Paul), who mangles her English, and a villain (Chunky Pandey) who lisps? Just that the writers and director couldn’t even be bothered with thinking up some fresh material…do they have so much contempt for the audience?

Let’s Dance

A young woman, who loves dancing aspires to be in a music video; and her appearance in one, makes her a ‘star’? Aarif Sheikh’s Let’s Dance may have got a few dance steps right, but everything else is off kilter.

Even if you didn’t know it was a straight lift of Jessica Alba starrer Honey, you’d suspect it’s origins were not entirely local…though it has echoes of Naach, Rangeela and Aaja Nachle.

Suhani (Gayatri Patel) teaches dance to a bunch of street kids (they don’t all look like urchins), fighting to keep her rehearsal space, which the landlord wants to sell. For someone with no regular income and no family (at least none mentioned), she shares a large apartment with a TV reporter friend (Sugandha Garg), who has a profession that is convenient to the script.

Her only desire is to be in a video by RJ (Aquib Afzal), and she miraculously gets the opportunity. While she becomes a ‘star’, she also gets to romance a dhabawala (Ajay Chaudhary) across the street. She tries to get a rude teenager (Aabhaas Yadav) who dances beautifully, to join her class, but the slum boy would rather peddle drugs. And when she does make a breakthrough by springing him out of jail, she is blacklisted for resisting RJ’s advances.

Much too easily (in a city with real estate problems), she is gifted a large hall, where she decides to stage her own dance show, to give the street kids a chance to display their talent. The TV reporter roommate comes in handy to whip up support. And for added melodrama, the rude bloke’s kid brother ends up in hospital in a coma.

Surprisingly, for a film based on dance, the music is not peppy—except for the Taare tod ke la number—and the choreography consists of mostly hip-hop and breakdance moves, with a lot of energy very little grace.

Newcomer Gayatri is earnest and confident, but as she says in the film, she is not Madhuri Dixit—and not even she could do much with a soggy Aaja Nachle kind of script. Aquib Afzal (blinding wardrobe) can’t act, Ajay Chaudhary hasn’t enough to do, the only other bright spot is Aabhas Yadav as the slumdog with attitude.

KKD+2

2009-06-24T20:45:00.000+05:30

Kal Kisne Dekha

Nihal Singh from Chandigarh (that’s how he is referred to all the time), played by newcomer Jackky Bhagnani in Kal Kisne Dekha, comes to Mumbai to study science, in a college with an enormous campus and a building with gigantic Doric columns—which couldn’t possibly be in Mumbai, but that is the least of the film’s problems.

In the only time NS from C, enters a classroom, he asks his physics professor (Rishi Kapoor—why this?), who is teaching post-grads about Newton and the apple, “Why do we dream?”

The rest of the time, he sings, dances, races bikes, chases spoilt rich miss (Misha Vaishali Desai), gets into scraps with college bullies, and generally poses around in various foreign locales, where his father (Vashu Bhagnani), the producer of the film, could afford to splurge on shoots.

When it’s almost interval time, the director Vivek Sharma (or someone else) must have asked, “But where’s the story?” And so, Nihal’s ability to ‘see’ the future is dusted and trotted out, as he tries to prevent some vague terrorists (Rahul Dev and moll) without a cause from blowing up Mumbai. Even as he runs about, with Mumbai’s police force behind him (since when do they go entirely by some college student’s intuition and not their own intelligence?), he pauses to sing, dance etc., at various pretty places, flinging his arms out a la Shah Rukh Khan and trying to look soulful. Meanwhile, the professor grins evilly and a loony don (Riteish Deshmukh) with gay sidekicks does nothing in particular. And there’s Archana Puran Singh, shrieking around too, unrecognizable and not at all a rustic “bebe” type.

If Jackky Bhagnani and the over-made up, badly dressed Vaishali Desai have any talent or star quality, it’s not visible in Kal Kisne Dekha. In fact, if a producer dad wanted to deliberately sabotage his son’s acting career, he couldn’t have done a better job that this.

Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation

The film’s title is a dead give away, and in scene two, if a character sees a ‘ghost’ wandering in the woods, any regular Hindi moviegoer can figure out the rest. Not to mention that the plot of Karma - Crime, Passion, Reincarnation is that of Chetan Anand’s Kudrat with cosmetic changes.

New York based Vikram (Carlucci Veyant), visits his father Ranvir (Vijayendra Ghatge) in Ooty after many years, accompanied by his wife Anna (Alma Saraci). Vikram is angry with his father and wants to go back as soon as possible.

But Anna starts getting visions, and seems to know Ooty well, though she has never been there before. It doesn’t take to figure out that there is reincarnation involved, and that the ‘ghost’ (Claudia Ciesla) is Linda, who was murdered thirty years ago, and has been reborn as Anna.

Vikram does not believe his wife at first, but an internet search (would papers even archive a snippet about the disappearance of a tourist so many years ago?) he also sets about trying to unravel the mystery.

The plot, old though it is, has enough interest to keep the viewer interested, director M.R. Shahjahan has worked in a competent paint-by-number mode, without a touch of freshness or any surprises. If at all there are a few convenient coincidences, like Linda’s friend and compatriot still around in Ooty, after what happened, and not aged a bit in thirty years.

Alma Saraci has an innocent charm that is appealing; the rest of the cast do their parts adequately. Hindi cinema has had so many excellent films on the theme of reincarnation (most of them studded with exquisite songs) that for an Indian viewer, there is absolutely no novelty here, though the film has been making the round of foreign film festivals and even winning awards.

Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya

The heart and mind are in the right place—a film that sends out a ‘Save the Trees’ message—but the script is not.

Zor Lagaa Ke Haiya is just the kind of film the Children’s Film Society used to (and presumably still does) churn out regularly, hoping to uplift kids with moral sermons. Girish Girija Joshi has got together a cast of energetic kids, some well known grown up actors in tiny parts and Amitabh Bachchan to do a voiceover, but his film is long, mostly dreary and, in the end, not even all that moving or inspiring.

Four kids living in a suburban high rise, fight with a homeless beggar (Mithun Chakraborthy—effective get-up) for some flimsy reason, and build a ‘house’ in the only tree in their building, to keep an eye on him; they do so at all hours of the day and night, with no parental intervention. In fact, parents are hardly seen, and the building doesn’t even seem to have a watchman. Helping these kids is Ram (Ashwin Chitale ) the son of a labourer working on a construction site nearby—the unselfconscious friendship between kids from diverse backgrounds is a really nice touch.

Predictably, the villains are a builder (Gulshan Grover) and his henchman (Mahesh Manjrekar), who want to cut down the tree. By now the beggar and the kids have become friends, and they unite to thwart the builder’s axe-wielding underlings.

It’s all very well to get all huffy about one tree, but the idea conveyed is that any random bunch can actually stop any project for eccentric reasons. The kids want to save the tree not for aesthetic or environmental motives, but just because their little wooden look-out is on it. And they manage to save it, not by convincing others that it is important not to cut trees, but by using the ‘religious’ excuse that is so often pulled out to prevent perfectly legit developmental projects. As film meant for children, it just sends out confusing signals.

The film may win awards for its simplistic environment conservation lesson, but is hardly likely to win a kiddie fan following. Which is a pity, because rarely do so many actors (Seema Biswas, Mahesh Manjrekar, Riya Sen, Raj Zutshi) come together just for a cause, and the purpose is not even served.

Anubhav

2009-06-24T20:41:00.000+05:30

Anubhav: An Actor’s Tale

The title of the film makes it sound as if it is about an actor’s experiences in the film industry, but what the eponymous protagonist goes through, can happen to anyone.

Rajeevnath’s Anubhav: An Actor’s Tale is about an actor (Sanjay Suri), who struggles along with his friend Adi (Anoop Menon—also the writer of the film) to get a break, whiling away the time doing inane TV serials.

Because she saw him in a rather tacky production of Macbeth, rich girl Meera (Gul Panag) pursues him relentlessly, till they get married. Adi manages to get a producer for his version of Hamlet, with an item-number, but the moneybags dies before the film can be completed.

Meera gives birth to a child who needs an operation that would cost Rs 20 lakh. The doctor (Mita Vashisht), who admits to being a “bad woman” sends Anubhav to a pimp (Ran Zutshi) who turns him into a highly paid gigolo. Anubhav hides from his wife the fact that their daughter survived and is undergoing treatment, and pretends he has a job when the money starts coming in.

The director makes no attempt to understand the social conditions of a gigolo’s profession, assuming that everyone who sells their body must have a ‘majboori’ behind it, and instead of a look at today’s sexually open lifestyle turns the film into a Laga Chunari Mein Daag kind of melodrama with the genders reversed. At one point Anubhav expresses disgust at the kind of women he has to bed, and even there the director is bit off the mark—women who can afford to pay for a gigolo will hardly have body odour and “dirty necks”. And the women he is seen with look pretty glamorous—including the one (Sudha Chandran) who plays his mother in a serial.

You hardly sympathise with Anubhav’s plight, when helpless husbands thank him for doing a socially important job and then, miraculously, a satisfied client conveniently dies and leaved him a fortune. He becomes a star and starts over with a clean slate. It swings from implausible to simplistic, with just an unsavoury mess in between.

Rajeevnath is a fairly well known director from Kerala, so manages to get stars like Nedumudi Venu, Bharat Gopi and even Jackie Shroff for meaningless cameos, but the most giggle-worthy performances are by Mita Vashisht (who ought to have known better) and Raj Zutshi. Sanjay Suri must have thought he was being very brave doing this role, but it won’t take his career anywhere.

And as strike goes on...

2009-05-25T11:16:00.002+05:30

Detective Naani

The ‘old lady’ detective is a popular genre in fiction—Agatha Christie’s immortal Miss Marple comes immediately to mind – so Romilla Mukherjee can be commended for making a senior citizen the lead in her film Detective Naani, but that’s where the praise ends.

The film is painfully long, mostly boring, has too many needless characters, badly picturised song and a harebrained plot.

Ava Mukhejee plays the 71-year-old Mrs Dutt, known by all as Naani, a chatty, inquisitive woman living in a housing complex full of strange people. One day she happens to notice a little girl’s face in the window of the apartment above hers. More mysterious goings-on follow—a body that falls out of the window and then vanishes, strange phone calls and the sinister couple upstairs (Sanjeev Vatsa, Mahru Sheikh) up to no good.

The cops, lead by Inspector Bhatia (Ankur Nayyar) treat her with polite contempt, but her daughter (Amrita Raichand), grandkids (Zain Khan, Simran Singh) and an assortment of neighbours help her to solve the case.

But while the Naani is trying to figure out what is going on, the film wanders over into unconnected tracks like the romance between two teens (no parents?) next door (Shwata Gulati-Amit Varma), the cops interest in the divorced daughter, and the antics of two detectives given the job of watching the building.

When the case is solved, it turns out to be far-fetched, and the actual villain behind the exposed racket is never even seen. The man in the building who is supposed to be a key baddie, just grumbles about his car being hit by a football. There is no real sense of menace, and the climax has the old device of the Naani being kidnapped and the grandson hiding in the boot of the goons’ car to save her. All the while the smart old lady has a phone in her bag (she calls her daughter), but does not summon the cops.

Detective Naani aims to appeal to all age-groups, but kids will find it very slow, and grow-ups won’t find anything at all to hook them. It’s just a debut gone waste.

Ocean of an Old Man

Rajesh Shera’s first feature Ocean of an Old Man has clearly been made for the festival circuit, where audiences have more patience for slow and abstruse films. But for the multiplex problem, it may never even have found a commercial release in India.

In the tradition of a school ‘art’ films of yore, that believes in a flat, bland, mode of story-telling this one looks like it didn’t even have a script to begin with—just an idea and a location. So the cast and crews must have enjoyed shooting on the pristine, peaceful beaches of the Andamans, and communicated to the viewer just seemingly random collection of images—some of them lyrical, some oddly detached.

An old schoolteacher (Tom Alter) loses his wife, child and many of his students in the terrible tsunami of 2004. The film is about his attempts to cope with the devastation. You care for the old man, because of what he has suffered, but after endless shots of his rowing up and down in a boat, cycling to his forlorn hut, and looking at the empty desks in his rudimentary classroom, you find it hard to stay awake.

There is undoubtedly an audience for this film (like for the equally obscure Frozen, last week), but it is not for everyone. Tom Alter, who has seldom been given film roles worthy of his talent, brings the right amount of pathos and dignity to his performance. For his sake, you wish audiences looking for an offbeat movie experience sample this film, but you also know it is a lost cause.

Suno Na.. Ek Nanhi Aawaz

There is a very annoying kid in Suno Na.. Ek Nanhi Aawaz, and it isn’t even born yet. It keeps whining from its mother’s womb, driving not just her, but the audience nuts.

Amy Thanawala makes her debut as a filmmaker and chooses a mix of Kya Kehna and Look Who’s Talking as a subject—a film dead on arrival. Who’d want to see a wan Miss Anupama Iyer (Tara Sharma) be stupid enough to get pregnant and try to jump off cliff, only to be saved by this irritating voice inside her.

So Anu leaves her family and relocates to Mumbai, where she gets a welcome fit for winning cricketer by her friend Raina (Rinku Patel), as if deciding to be an unwed mother is such a major achievement. She also gets a job easily, and every man she meets seems to fancy her. So the kid inside, gets to choose his Appa (that’s because Miss Nair is South Indian).

The next door neighbour (Avinash Tiwary) turns out to be gay (though they primly never use the word), so he’s out. The boss is a lech, so he is cancelled. That leaves Anupama’s prissy South Indian colleague (Makrand Shukla) and a wimpy professor Dhruv (Dharmendra Gohil), first seen being molested by his students!

The kid picks Dhruv, and he is only to willing to go with Anupama to pre-natal classes and medical check-ups and buy her endless water melons. Thanawala makes it seem as if it’s perfectly normal and socially acceptable for a girl to get pregnant and then pick a partner out of the many suitors, whose family is happy to have a daughter-in-law with someone else’s baby, and get on with life with no hassles.

At least, if the director had been honest enough to see the flip side and mention the problems of unsafe sex and unplanned pregnancies, the film would have served some purpose. As it is now-- long, melodramatic, pedantic, boring and badly acted—it’s enough to put anyone off babies for life!

99

Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK’s caper comedy 99 has been given that title, because it takes just one more run to make a century in cricket, and the several protagonists of the film are just short of winning.

There is no law against a bunch of friends getting together and creating a script that is a collection of characters and gags that they must have seen and liked in the many such ‘con’ films and making an ‘original’ film. So, in the end, a few of the stand-up comic ‘items’ work, but not the film as a whole.

Like, the name of a Mumbai don – AGM—(Mahesh Manjrekar) is supposed to generate guffaws; there’s a giant of a hitman called Dimple (okay, funny), and a fat sidekick called Zaramud (Cyrus Broacha, not at all funny!)

Sachin (Kunal Khemu) and Zaramud owe money to AGM, so they are sent to Delhi to recover from a defaulter – the luckless but passionate betting man Rahul (Boman Irani). They stay at a grand hotel, where Sachin befriends Pooja (Saif Ali Khan). The two hoods manage to get the money and it is all stolen. So Rahul and the two come up with a fool proof plan to win it all back, and it involves cricket match fixer JC (Vinod Khanna, wandering in the wrong film).

Also in the mess, are a small time crook Kuber (Amit Mistry) and his buddy Dimple, a Bhojpuri film star and Rahul’s disgruntled wife (Simone Singh).

There’s always some kind of activity going on, lots of hits-and-misses, plenty of yelling over phones with bad connections, but none of it hangs together – it’s like a kid trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with mismatched pieces. For a caper, it has no thrills, and very few genuinely comic moments; but on the plus side are some of the actors who really look like what they are doing made sense to them—Mahesh Manjrekar, Boman Irani, Amit Mistry and Kunal Khemu get the right tone and attitude.

Maybe worth the price of a singleplex ticket and a chai, any more than that spent and it’s a waste of money. And if your friends ask what it is about, you won’t be able to tell them.

Frozen

Shivajee Chandrabhushan, the director of Frozen is a mountaineer, and the film is a heartfelt tribute to the rugged beauty of Ladakh—in gorgeous black and white, shot by Shanker Raman (who also wrote the script).

It must have been made under very difficult circumstances—the terrain is not easy to live in, forget conduct a film shoot—and you must appreciate the passion of the cast and crew. However, for viewers, who couldn’t care less what went into the making if they don’t get their money’s worth, and, moreover, are unused to snail-paced ‘festival films’, it could be very tough to sit through.

Karma (Danny Denzongpa) lives in a remote mountain outpost with his not-all-there daughter Lasya (Gauri) and son Chomo (Skalzang Angchuk Gultuk). It’s a hard life, Karma in debt and there are no takers for the apricot jam he laboriously makes by hand. Modern life is at the doorstep, whether it is in the form of the moneylender’s greed or the lust of a strange man called Romeo who chases after Lasya.

To make it worse, the army arrives and sets up a noisy camp nearby, so the peace and pristine beauty of the place is ruined. The film is not really plot or character driven, but documentary-like in its capture of the stunning landscape, and a bit detached in its narrative style.

Danny’s performance the brave yet battered Karma, and of course the dazzling location makes Frozen worth attempting, but even with sympathy for the people living such bleak lives in place, it could be as laborious as climbing a mountain.

Dash+2

2009-04-22T12:07:00.001+05:30

Dashavtar

Without the gimmick of Kamal Haasan slapping on prosthetic make-up and playing every major role in the film, Dashavtar (the Hindi dubbed version of Tamil Dasavatharam) has quite a standard issue thriller plot.

Govindrajan (Kamal Haasan) a scientist in the US wants to prevent a vial containing a deadly virus from falling into the wrong hands, and escapes with it, with an ex-CIA assassin Fletcher (Kamal again) and his slinky moll (Mallika Sherawat) hot on his heels.

He lands up in India, has the Intelligence team led by a Balaram Naidu (Kamal, yet again) chasing him. At some point, a senile old woman (Kamal too), puts the vial into an idol and her hysterical granddaughter Andal (Asin—not Kamal for a change!) joins Govind on the run.

The film could have been wrapped up in a cool, snappy, 100 minutes, and the ‘ Don’t mess with Nature’ message delivered equally effectively, but because Kamal Haasan wants to play more roles, it extends to a sleep-inducing three hours. He keeps adding needless characters like a Sardar singer, an Afghan giant, a Japanese man, an environmental activist and, quite memorably, George Bush.
The director KS Ravikumar —and script writer Kamal-- keep the film moving, however, from one action/chase sequence to another, with just a few pauses for breath—a comic gag here, a song there.

The most stunning part of the film is the prologue, set in 12 Century Tamil Nadu, where a Vishnu devotee Rangaraja (Kamal, who else?) is tortured by the Shiavite king, strapped to the huge idol of Vishnu and thrown into the sea. How this connects with the present, and the ‘thunderous’ climax takes some frantic connecting of dots—but there is Chaos Theory involved.

Dashavtar is an expensive film, it has some spectacular effects and action scenes, but ultimately, there is the discomfiting thought that it was made to indulge an actor’s vanity. Stunts like Kamal as an American battling Kamal as a Japanese martial arts expert. At the end, you see Kamal Haasan in a make-up chair, getting all that rubber goonk slapped on his face… and not all if it is well done. The assassin, the old woman and the Afghan, in particular, look like hastily stuck on Halloween masks. The best—and the one the actor seems to enjoy most --is the regional chauvinist Naidu.

It could have been a fun ride, but the way is lumbers on, it is like reading a good book for a school assignment—punishing.

Chowrasta: Crossroads of Love

Darjeeling is clearly the star of Anjan Dutta’s Chowrasta: Crossroads of Love, a beautiful hill station that time seems to have left untouched—or at least not severely altered.

It is at Chowrasta in Darjeeling, that a few stories interconnect, with a former tea planter and now writer Jimmy (Victor Bannerjee) with suicide on his mind, meets with some of the most uninteresting characters imaginable (all speaking with weird English accents).

There is an actress Nandana (Rupa Ganguly) with a problem kid Rick(Neil Bose), a whiny ex-husband (Saswata Chatterjee) and a new lover (Arijit Dutta). There’s a couple that has eloped and the screechy, nagging wife (Aparajita) gives her laidback husband Sunny (Naved Aslam) and the audience a really tough time.

There’s a terrorist (Atul Kulkarni), who is in need of money, and happens to kidnap Rick—who is quite happy to be away from his parents and keeps demanding a particular brand of biscuits (paid product placement?), so that you actually start feeling sorry for the inept criminal.

Everybody just talks and talks (typical of Anjan Dutta’s films like Bong Connection and Bow Barracks Forever), and utter some unintentionally hilarious lines. Like Jimmy advising Sunny to serenade his wife, which will get her “panting like an Alsatian.” There is also some faintly obscene car analogy and a particularly gross one about a rhino horn in the backside (this is for the terrorist’s ears). You wonder what kind of writer Jimmy will make, when he also spouts “dancing in the daffodils” kind of words.

At 90 minutes, this one seems too long, and but for the lovely scenery and a stray interesting scene-- like Sunny’s serenade, or Jimmy’s attempt at “flying”-- it would be quite difficult to sit through.

Meri Padosan

Carrying on from the string of duds last week, coming out because of the multiplex-producers fight, is Prakash Saini’s Meri Padosan, that would find it impossible to get a release in normal times; it will still have to struggle for an audience.

It is set mostly in a studio basti, where little bungalows are cheek by jowl, and windows are left tantalizingly devoid of grills or curtains. In this voyeur’s haven lives a grumpy accountant Viju (Sanjay Mishra) and his pretty, dolled up, wife Kavita (Sadhika Randhawa).

Three bachelors move in next door (Sarwar Ahuja, Khayali, Snehal Dabhi) and ogle at the wife. The one of them, an aspiring filmmaker called Shyam Gopal Varma (!), enters a filmmaking contest with a reality-show kind of movie, in which he creates misunderstandings between the couple, so that he can shoot the ensuing fireworks.

It’s expectedly tacky, sexist, and quite unbearable, despite the potential of the plot (borrowed from a foreign film). A couple of the lead actors are just about passable, but some of the others seem to have been picked up from the bottom a particularly muddy talent pool.

2 When the Multiplexes shut down!

2009-04-13T12:11:00.000+05:30

Ek Se Bure Do

This is another one of those long-delayed films that has come out because no major film is releasing due to the multiplex strike.

When Ek Se Bure Do was started, the producers must have thought they had a foolproof comedy—Arshad ‘Circuit’ Warsi and Rajpal Yadav in the lead with TV star Natasha (better known as Anita Hassanandani) and newcomer Tusha, a strong supporting cast of Govind Namdeo, Yashpal Sharma, Virendra Saxena.

By the time, it is released, the film directed by Tarique, has no plusses at all, except for one or two throwaway lines that the actors must have ad-libbed on the shoot.

The complicated crime caper has two petty crooks as the protagonists, two warring dons (Govind Namdeo, Yashpal Sharma), a dacoit, a lookalike of a don, and a hidden treasure, they are all after. The girls live in the house where the treasure is supposedly buried, and find themselves surrounded by imposters. Typical of an indifferently made film then that after all the hullabaloo over it, there is not even a glimpse of this ‘khazana’.

Every once in a while, there is a song-and-dance number with so many semi-clad girls, that the bill for dancers must have exceeded the fee charged by all the ‘stars’.

Not so long ago Warsi had a release like Kisse Pyar Karoon, which made a dent in his star value, and now this. Probably time for him to pray that no other skeletons fall out of long-forgotten cans.

Pal Pal Dil Ke Saath

If released a few years ago, Pal Pal Dil Ke Saath may have earned some audience interest, since it stars two cricketers—Ajay Jadeja and Vinod Kambli.

If it were not for the face-off between producers and multiplexes that prevents any big films from releasing, this one would probably have remained in the cans, and saved the cricketers and now actress-on-the-rise Mahi Gill considerable embarrassment. Why just them, if Sushma Seth and Shah were to see themselves in this film, they wouldn’t be mortified too.

The film looks like it was abandoned by all the actors—which explains the odd dubbing, which sounds like a couple of mimicry artistes did the voices for all of them.

The plot—such as it is— is narrated by Vinod Kambli, to a bunch of kids, who will get him funding for his script if they like it. The story involves a bunch of people trying to get their hands on the fortunes of an elderly lady, Mrs Kapoor (Sushma Seth). These include her grandson Ajay (Jadeja), his girlfriend Dolly (Mahi Gill), a conman called John Abraham (Satish Shah), a lawyer, his girlfriend and a gangster— all non-actors picked up from god-knows-where.

The kids actually listen to the script without booing; all they demand is an item number and Kambli obliges with a dance number by two fat, garishly-dressed people, in the middle of a forest.

It’s not the kind of film that deserves attentive viewing; it doesn’t even offer some unintentional laughs, like a ‘respectable’ bad film is supposed to do. Kambli’s script won’t get the ghost writer very far, and both cricketers ought to drop any acting ambitions that they may have… if they haven’t already

Tasveer

2009-04-04T11:11:00.001+05:30

8x10 Tasveer

You had just about forgiven and forgotten Bombay to Bangkok, when Nagesh Kukunoor springs yet another turkey in the form of 8x10 Tasveer.

Reports said that the director was attempting a Manoj Night Shyamalan kind of supernatural thriller, and to be fair, the idea is interesting, but Kukunoor did not manage to pull it off.

He was also worried about the end leaking out, but he underestimates the moviegoer— a few minutes into the film and anyone who has seen enough Hindi films can easily unravel the plot before the scenes come on.

This was not an Akshay Kumar kind of movie, but then he must have thought if Bruce Willis can do Sixth Sense why can’t he? But then Bruce Willis can manage a bigger range of expressions than blank face and frown.

He plays Jai Puri (who thought up the name?) who has the secret ability of going into a photograph and ‘seeing’ what happened when it was taken. The excursion involves CGI trips through hills, dales and snowscapes that are repeated ad nauseum, and after that Jai is left gasping for air and in severe need of a blood transfusion! Don’t ask why.

He also runs an environment protection agency, and wears a uniform, though it isn’t quite clear what they do, and why a fortune willed to his EPA becomes such a bone of contention.

Jai’s father (Benjamin Gilani), from whom he has been estranged for ‘environmental’ differences, has just died in an accident, and if an obsessive compulsive detective (Jaaved Jaaferi) who called himself “Happi with an I” didn’t turn up to tell him it was murder, he wouldn’t have suspected it.

His investigation means peering into the last photograph which lines up suspects- his mother (Sharmila Tagore), uncles (Girish Karnad-Ananth Mahadevan) and cousin (Rushad Rana)—and trying to figure out who did it. There’s also a girlfriend (Ayesha Takia) floating around.

It’s odd but Jai’s mother and girlfriend do not know of his powers, though neighbourhood folks know and approach him to hunt down missing people.

Even by the suspend-disbelief standards of such movies, this one is quite laughable, loosely scripted and quite weird. Imagine this scene, Jai and the girlfriend break into an uncle’s house. He instructs her to start looking around. For what, she asks. For proof, he replies! As is ‘proof’ is something to be found on the mantelpiece. Later they are chased and almost run down by a black van, but think nothing of it.

The over-long denouement is so chuckle-worthy, because you know that’s what is going to happen and can’t believe that someone can actually use such a hoary plot device.

And for a crime thriller, the film is also slow, repetitive and the mystery, when it unfolds, quite unbelievable.

Thankfully, there aren’t too many song breaks, and no great performances are required from the actors. All one can pray for is that Nagesh Kukunoor regains his form soon. Let lesser directors make half-baked thrillers.

Videsh+2

2009-03-27T19:42:00.000+05:30

Videsh -- Heaven on Earth

Maybe it sounds cruel, but today if a woman (or even a man), puts up with abuse, she (or he) doesn’t get much sympathy. Because—at least in the West—there are ways out.

If made a decade or two ago, Deepa Mehta’s Videsh-- Heaven on Earth may have rung true and had some impact, because there wasn’t so much awareness about domestic violence. Which is not to say that the problem does not exist—but the audience expects more than just a delineation of the issue.

Chand (Preity Zinta), strangely enough, is sent all alone to Canada, to marry a man she has never met. The family she goes into comes across as a greedy, grasping type – they even rent out their beds in the day time, presumably to night shift workers. Chand’s husband Rocky (Vansh Bharadwaj) is under pressure to bring his other brothers to Canada as well, but is a passive Mamma’s boy, who has no sexual interest his wife—or rather no human feelings at all, except anger, which erupts in physical violence. The nasty mother-in-law (Baljinder Johal) gloats, and the family sits and watches, like it were a TV serial.

You expect some expression of anger or shock from Chand (who is an educated, city girl), but she is totally passive too. She recites poetry after every assault, and, despite offers of help and sympathy from a fellow worker at a laundry where she is forced to labour, does nothing at all. At least, in Provoked, also about domestic violence, the woman was not such a robot, and the man not such a one-dimensional, spineless creep.

Mehta then goes into fantasy (or magic realism)—inspired by Girish Karnad’s play Nagamandala, which was based on a folk tale. Needless to say, this blend of harsh reality and colourful legend (where a cobra takes on the form of her husband in loving mode) makes for an uneasy, and quite unwatchable mix. In today’s age, would a woman even agree to go through an ‘agniparikha’ or ‘nagpariskha’ to prove her chastity? Would it even be demanded of her?

To top it all, the film is slow, has inexplicable black and white portions, and is deliberately shot in the ugly suburban dystopia in a manner that induces claustrophobia.

It is up to Preity Zinta to create a believable, sympathetic character, and she gives it all she’s got—especially in the scenes where she is to look weak and stricken. Maybe the film is meant to show the Western viewer a version of Indian middle-class hell—arranged marriages, a phony sense of community and honour, an ugly patriarchy that oppresses women, but also creates heartless men – like Chand’s husband, her weirdly indifferent father-in-law, and a chronically unemployed brother-in-law. For the Indian viewer, it’s saas-bahu déjà vu.

Aa Dekhen Zara

An unemployed photographer inherits a camera from his grandfather. It has the ability to click the future. Cheesy, but workable sc-fi concept, on the lines of Eyes of Laura Mars. What Jehangir Surti makes of it, is another matter.

In Aa Dekhen Zara, Ray (Neil Nitin Mukesh), uses the above-mentioned camera to make a fortune from gambling. However, instead of the income tax people clamping down, he is chased by a mysterious gangster called Captain (Rahul Dev), and a couple of evil Intelligence Bureau types (including a bikini-clad Sophie Choudhry—the cops hire off the ramp, or what?), who claim they want the camera for national security.

Since the film is turned into a rather predictable thriller, there has to be a sidekick, preferably sexy female, and DJ Simi (Bipasha Basu) fills in, so that at a later point in the story when some Oriental goondas order her to dance, she can willingly oblige.

Running from the murderous Captain, and always one step ahead of him, because of the camera, Ray and Simi land up in Bangkok and Vishesh Film territory, where stray cabbies lay down their lives for the hero, and the villain has moles all over the place. The only slightly interesting element is that Ray believes that he is going to die, so all the running around seems a bit futile.

The script is unimaginative, the direction stodgy and the acting… let’s just say Bipasha Basu has done better before, and Neil Nitin Mukesh had better work harder.

Ek The Power of One

He has floppy hair, kohl-ed eyes, and blank face; he could have walked off (or into) one of the many fashion weeks. But he is a hired killer about to be reformed by a large, loving Punjabi family in Hoshiarpur. Not again, you groan? Exactly. Dushman meets Badal meets Jab We Met is not exactly exciting now.

In Sangeeth Sivan’s Ek The Power of One, Bobby Deol plays the kajaled killer Nandu, who, after a hit got wrong meets a garrulous sort in a train, who tells him his whole life story. The chatterbox is killed by a bullet meant for Nandu, and the fugitive ends up impersonating Puran, the long-lost beloved grandson of a village patriarch (Kulbhushan Kharbanda not quite filling Amrish Puri’s shoes).

Back home, a loutish CBI inspector Rane (Nana Patekar), with weird caps, worse accent and offensive lines, is on the trail of the missing killer, who, believe it or not, is traced by his bank account! Do hitmen deposit their ill-gotten gains in nationalized banks?

Nandu is pampered by the family, there’s a childhood sweetheart (Shriya Saran) waiting, plenty of singing and fighting to be done. More painful than watching yet another Punjabi clan with women standing around like over-stuffed sofas, is enduring Nana Patekar trying so hard to be cool.

Apparently, Athadu, the Telugu film on which this is based was a big hit. Sangeeth Sivan just got it all wrong, or maybe, took so long over it, that it lost its flavour, like food left in the fridge for too many days.

Firaaq+3

2009-03-24T12:11:00.001+05:30

Firaaq

Nandita Das makes an excellent debut with Firaaq – it is assured and heart-felt filmmaking. Considering the volatile subject matter, it is also remarkably subtle.

The film is set a little after the Gujarat genocide—and there are her characters going through those horrible times, coping in their own way. A submissive housewife (Deepti Naval) appalled at the complicity of her husband (Paresh Rawal) and his brother in the crimes, punishes herself.

There is a Muslim musician (Naseeruddin Shah), who is shielded from the trauma by his servant (Raghuvir Yadav). A young couple (Shahana Goswani-Nowaz) return to their home and find it burnt down; she suspects her best friend (Amruta Subhash) of having done it.

A couple that had an inter-religious marriage (Sanjay Suri-Tisca Chopra) plan to move out of Gujarat. A group of Muslim boys plan revenge and a child (Mohammad Samad) with terror on his face wanders around like a voice of conscience.

However, since the film comes so many years after the horror, these points have been made, the debates of the kind that take place in the film’s upper class drawing room have been exhausted, and what remains, perhaps is a shell of clichés and confused responses that strive to be secular and politically correct.

The way Gujarat is now is more interesting and complex – how the law enforcers, politicians and common people can put it all behind and become, much to everyone’s skepticism a rapidly developing state—and in such a circumstance, what residual emotions spring up. There is no debate about what happened then— words can’t describe the atrocity— so what one sees in the film seems like the anger and shame Das, as a civilized person, has carried with her over the years. And as an audience, one can say, that instead of stating the obvious, one is more interested in a mature filmmakers going below the surface, bringing out hidden or forgotten aspects.

Firaaq is still a brave film, a cry of anguish, and a cautionary note for the future. She has got superb performances from her ensemble cast – there’s Deepti Naval and her tormented eyes, and some whose names one doesn’t know (like the food cart man, who casually says what a lot of people probably only thought); even South star Nasser in a two scene cameo sears the screen.

Straight

It seems a bit odd—a guy in his thirties, who lives in London, owns a restaurant and drives Mercedes, is a total innocent when it comes to matters sexual.

Parvati Balagopalan’s Straight, takes a brave shot at a comedy about a guy who is so unlucky with women that he begins to worry that he is gay. Just that it is hardly funny, and not very edifying when some of scenes involve Vinay Pathak taking his shirt off.

It has been said before and it can be said again, Pathak is a fine actor, but when he is miscast and also shoved into every frame of the film, he isn’t all that watchable. And here his buffoonery tends to get out of hand, so instead of feeling sorry for poor virginal Pinu Patel, you feel exasperated.

His well-meaning aunt (Ketki Dave), uncle (Rasik Dave) and cousin (Sid Makkar) try to get him married, but Pinu is invariably left high and dry at the mandap. So he goes back to running his restaurant called Gaylord, and is seriously alarmed when the ‘Lord’ is dimmed, because he has started fantasizing about his new cook Kamlesh (Anuj Chaudhary), instead of his new rather over-eager cashier Renu (Gul Panag).

In London, where nobody would give a damn if he experimented any which way, Pinu looks goggle eyed or peers, anxiously at himself under his blanket, and generally behaves as if he had cancer in its third stage.

The good thing about the film is that it is not politically incorrect, does not portray gays as ‘pansy’ stereotypes (though there a moment when Pinu literally imagines himself as a pansy, as in the flower).

Anuj Chaudhary as a chef and aspiring stand up comedian, and Sid Makkar as the agony uncle cousin are the only two who don’t overact, and Gul Panag doesn’t act at all, merely looks excited at the sight of Pinu Patel.

Baraah Aana

Raja Menon’s film comes from the same school of thought as Aravind Adiga’s Booker-winning book The White Tiger, and maybe, to some extent, Slumdog Millionaire.

What they all say is that poverty in India is so dehumanizing, that any means are okay to get out of it—even crime.

Shukla (Naseeruddin Shah), a driver, Yadav (Vijay Raaz), a watchman and Aman (Anuj Mathur), a waiter live in the slums, and are, expectedly, always short of money. To top their misery, the silent Shukla’s employer is nasty and accuses him of everything from theft to body odour. Yadav can’t get anyone to lend him money when his son falls ill in the village. Aman’s problem is relatively trivial, he wants to impress a foreigner (Violante Placido) in the hope that she will marry him. He also has a slum woman (Tannishtha Chatterji) making eyes at him, and demanding to be taken to a movie in a multiplex.

Yadav inadvertently commits a crime that leaves him with a windfall, so he cajoles the other two to join in and make a ‘business’ of it. Menon wants the audience to sympathise with these characters, as if there could be any justification for targeting innocent people. The film goes by the simplistic calculation that all rich people are mean-spirited creeps anyway, so the poor should rob them.

That apart, the film is slow, repetitive and maybe has just some interesting bits in the general air of tedium it generates—plus the wildly disparate acting skills of the actors, so that Naseeruddin Shah’s silence is eloquent and Vijay Raaz’s garrulousness grates. Maybe not worth the exorbitant rates of a multiplex ticket. The film’s ads describe it as a comedy… with Amir Khan’s endorsement. Maybe some people are amused when their pockets are picked!

Aloo Chaat

What kind of wimp would not have the courage to own up to his parents that he loves a girl from another community, and then go on to deceive them?

The precedent, as a character in Robby Grewal’s loud sit-com style film says, has been set by Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge.

Nikhil (Aftab Shivdasani), coming back from the US, is pushed into marriage mode by his demented Delhi family—father (Kulbhusban Kharbanda), mother, grandmother and uncle making enough of a racket to wake up the next planet.

He confides in another uncle, a Hakim Tarachand (Manoj Pahwa), who suggests that if he brings a white girl as his intended and gets her to misbehave, his parents will actually be happy to accept a Muslim daughter-in-law.

They hunt out an American living in India (Linda Arsenio), who for some unexplained reason (large sum of money?) agrees to debase herself and her country, so that Aamna (Sharif) can be brought in by the back door.

Americans have no morals, they marry and divorce at whim, they smoke, drink, wear skimpy clothes and sunbathe on terraces in bikinis (the girl is shown a video or Purab Aur Paschim to get the idea— the stereotypes remain decades later); while ‘good’ girls wear voluminous dupattas, take permission to go out and cook instant meals. This is racism in reverse also sexist and old fashioned—it’s just not funny. And between the whole noisy bunch, not one decent performance.

Gulaal+Zizou+1

2009-03-14T11:13:00.000+05:30

Gulaal

The death of a young boy in a ragging incident is all over the news right now—and this dark world of uncontrolled machismo is what Anurag Kashyap enters once again in his Gulaal.

It’s an ugly, irredeemable world, and the first hour or so of the film is stunning—visually too-- Kashyap hold on the cinematic medium cannot be faulted. He is confident enough to be quirky— the lead character lives in an abandoned bar in the middle of nowhere, complete with neon signs. A loony character is a John Lennon fan, and has for a companion a mute with body paint conveying ‘ardhnarishwar’ -- half man-half woman.

Here, a bespectacled nerd Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), first brutally ragged, is then thrown into the pit of college politics by the authoritative Dukkey Bana (Kay Kay Menon), who wants to create an army of Rajputs to redress the wrongs done to the community by the post-Independent democratic governments. His foes are a cynical princeling Ransa (Abhimanyu Singh—a revelation), and the former Raja’s illegitimate kids – Karan (Aditya Shrivastav) and Kiran (Ayesha Mohan)

Kashyap convincingly establishes this lawless milieu, where people are casually killed (a cop, too) and nobody bats an eyelid; a college professor (Jesse Randhawa) is stripped and humiliated and does even report it; when Dilip is found severely battered, his father says, it could have been worse. After this the film goes all over the place, with characters floating around without apparent purpose (the professor, or Dukkey’s wife, for instance), and after the tantalizing premise of a Rajput revolt, there isn’t even a payoff for the audience. Unless, of course Kashyap thought of a sequel.

Dukkey Bana’s motives are a bit hazy—it’s not like Bihar’s Ranvir Sena that came up to fight the gains of the lower castes from reservations. All the college level politics is to skim off money coming in for a ‘festival’, which seems like an anti-climax. Even more of a letdown is the typical ‘all fall down’ kind of ending that comes from the writer-director not knowing what to do with the complicated web he has woven, so random violence is the easy way out.

The male actors are marvellous— Abhimanyu Singh, Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastav, Deepak Dobriyal (as Bana’s henchman) and Piyush Mishra, as the loony – he has also written and composed the excellent songs; the parody of Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye to kya hai (which Kashyap credits as his inspiration for this film) is award-worthy. The same can’t be said of the female characters – including the supposedly courageous Kiran, who in one ridiculous scene berates Dilip, whom she has seduced, of making her pregnant! There is Mahi Gill as a nautch girl and Jesse Randhawa, who just hovers around in a daze.

In its attempt to probe a provincial dark hole that parts of North Indian have become, Gulaal is a braver film than Kashyap’s recent Dev D. But at best, is remain vaguely disturbing when it could have been powerfully provocative.

Little Zizou

Sooni Taraporevala may just have made the definitive film on the Parsis—and any Mumbai-ite who knows a Parsi family will appreciate the affection and care with which she has captured her beloved and rapidly dwindling community.

The film, part real, part whimsy and beautifully observed is mainly about two families; on one side is the patriarchal Cyrus II Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir), who is hated by his sons, football fan Xerxes (Jahan Bativala) and graphic artist Artaxerxes (Imaad Shah). On the other side is the Presswala family, the father (Boman Irani) runs a community newspaper, his wife Roxanne (Zenobia Shroff) keeps an eye on her two daughters Liana (Iyana Bativala) and Zenobia (Dilshad Patel) and mothers little Xerxes too.

As a war breaks out between the conservative Khodaiji shouting for racial purity, and the liberal Presswala, Artaxerxes and his buddies are trying to create the cockpit of a jet for a flight simulator, in an old abandoned building. Painted in delicate strokes around them are other Parsi characters like Roxanne’s mother (Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal) keeping her crumbing hotel going in Udwada, Khodaiji’s subservient assistant (Shernaz Patel), the half Italian Tito (Thnow Francorsi) or the confused militant (Kurush Deboo)

Such is Taraporevala’s labour of love, that Parsis like Shiamak Davar, Gary Lawyer, Cyrus Broacha, Farid Currim and the half-Parsi John Abraham make friendly appearances and she gets to capture the old world beauty of Parsi homes.

Little Zizou is charming with its delicate humour, compassion for the community and concern for its future. The performances are wonderful and little Jahan Bativala is an absolute natural. The film may not be commercial, but it is a must-watch for lovers of good cinema.

Jai Veeru

Just how dated in content and look Jai Veeru is, can be seen even more clearly when compared to the week’s other releases – the far superior Little Zizou and Gulaal.

Punit Sira’s film, a sorry remake of a bad Hollywood film Bulletproof (1996) just has nothing going for it, when everybody else is trying to break the formula. Jai Veeru is just so 80s and totally without any surprises.

Veeru (Kunal Khemu), petty crook and car thief befriends Jai (Fardeen Khan), and eventually introduces him to his boss, gangster Tejpal (Arbaaz Khan). Turns out Jai is an undercover cop, and in trying to apprehend Tejpal, he gets shot and Veeru escapes to Bangkok, with Tejpal’s “black book.” In this day and age, a gangster keeps all his contacts in a diary placed for all to see in the backseat of his car, and watches with a puzzled expression as Veeru drives off with it. After Jai recovers from the bullet in his head, he goes after Veeru, chased in turn by Tejpal’s men.

There are two leading ladies too, who turn up when a song-and-dance break is needed, though the heroes get better costumes and more hairstyle changes than the girls.

The combined acting talent of Khan and Khemu is not enough even to keep such a dumb film going, and a villain who speaks chaste Hindi and has a haircut when he is supposed to be kidnapping a girl simply can’t be taken seriously!

13B+2

2009-03-09T11:28:00.000+05:30

13 B

What would happen if a TV serial makes an appearance in just one household, and mirrors what is happening there?

Vikram Kumar uses this ghost-in-the-machine premise to tell a fairly chilling horror tale, the biggest fault of which is its patience-sapping running time. When strange things start happening to Manohar (R Madhavan) after he moves with his joint family to flat 13B in a highrise, he is unable to explain it – why does the lift refuse to work only when he wants to use it, why can't a nail be hammered into a wall, why does the blind neighbour's dog refuse to enter the house?

By and by Manohar figures out that the TV serial Sab Khairiyat Hai, that the women of his household are hooked to, is mirroring exactly what is happening in their own home, and some events that the serial predicts are scary. (How comes the women don't make the connection too? Does TV sap women's brains?)

Repetitive though it is, till the point that Manohar and his cop buddy (Murli Sharma) are tightly wound up with tension and terror, the story is intriguing. Unfortunately the explanation and denouement are convoluted and long-winded.

The director uses all the standard audio and visual (shot by master cinematographer PC Sreeram) tricks of the genre-- creaking doors, rain, power outages – but to his credit, does not overdo them. The scares are real and not cheated at with sudden noises and tawdry special effects.

The film rests almost entirely on Madhavan's (he tends to tip into overacting often) shoulders, with some help from Sharma, Dhritiman Chatterjee as the blind neighbour, and Sachin Khedekar as the family doctor. The other members of the family (Neetu Chandra, Poonam Dhillon, etc) are there just to make cheerful background noises. The film could have done without songs and tighter editing would have made a world of difference. Still, fans of the horror genre will probably enjoy it.

Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge

You don't know whether to commend Umesh Shukla for his taste or berate him for his audacity in stealing the plot from one of the best-loved comedy classics-- The Producers, in which a down on his luck film producer and a creative accountant plan a scam that involves making such a bad film that it flops, so that they can escape with the investors' money.

In the original, a part of the ingenuity lay in making a film so designed to fail that ends up becoming a hit-- the film-within-film called Springtime for Hitler, was a mini comic masterpiece in itself, while in his Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge, Shukla has put together, a juvenile extended skit, knitting together plots from several Hindi films and calling it Solay se L'gaan Tak.

A lot of our directors and actors don't seem to realise that comedy works best if it isn't played out like an exaggerated farce, if actors didn't look as if they were trying too hard to make the audience laugh. In DHR, only Paresh Rawal gets it right. He plays flop producer Raj Chopra, who has creditors at his door and no financier or actor willing to touch him.

Anand Pawar (Kunal Khemu) is a chartered accountant, who gets fed-up of being poor and jobless, so comes up with the scheme of making the ultimate flop. They get a broke hero (Sonu Sood), Anand's homely girlfriend Neha (Soha Ali Khan) to act, an obviously nutty writer (Johny Lever) to script it and Neha's moronic uncle (Dilip Joshi) to direct. Despite their best efforts, the film succeeds.

A few scenes are funny, but most gags are stretched till they sag (like the one involving the hero's broken affair and his duplicates). Can be watched on a really idle day, but certainly not a must-see. Catch the original Mel Brooks' classic instead, not the 2005 musical (from the stage version) remake.

Karma Aur Holi

Karma Aur Holi would do well to market itself as a comedy-- going by the raucous laughter at a preview, it was certainly funnier than this week's 'official' comedy Dhoondte Reh Jaaoge.

What makes the experience of watching it infinitely worse, is that it had been dubbed very badly into Hindi, so even American characters speak stilted Hindi and say stuff like, “Main item se saath jacuzzi mein masti kar raha tha.”

The least the producers and director Manish Gupta could have done, is had some respect for the audience and let the Americans speak English. In any case the target audience for the film is the urban multiplex cinegoer, who understands English.

Cliché ridden though the idea may be, on paper it doesn't sound so bad. A group of disgruntled NRIs with a variety of secrets and problems land up at the mansion of a yuppie couple Meera and Dev (Sushmita Sen-Randeep Hooda) a day before Holi, to celebrate the festival.

There's Meera's hyper older sister (Rati Agnihotri) with her husband (Suresh Oberoi), and troubled teenage son (Chandan Sethi); there's an MCP doctor (Shauvik Kundagami), his subservient wife (Suchita Krishnamoorthy), and her sexy sister (Deepal Shaw); an aspiring Muslim filmmaker (Armin Amiri) with a black girlfriend (Naomi Campbell), a tarot reader, a business partner and so on.

The hosts have financial problems and a marriage straining at the leash, the others have it much worse. So to defuse a potentially explosive situation, the assembled guests get drunk and decide to play Truth or Dare. Out come the hidden traumas, and you know, come Holi, there will be a threatened divorce, a pregnancy or two, one character liberated and another sexually awakened... thankfully no funeral.

Gupta must have aimed at a Monsoon Wedding, but just ends up in a lot of slush. Even with a decent cast, the film is unforgivably trite and amateurish; it tries and fails to bring up several NRI issues (racism, for one), and actually manages to make Sushmita Sen and supermodel Naomi Campbell look dowdy.

Delhi 6

2009-02-21T11:54:00.001+05:30

Delhi 6

Delhi’s Chandni Chowk is waking up to tourism-via-Bollywood potential—Black and White, Chandni Chowk to China and now Delhi 6 in quick succession, take viewers to this fascinating part of old Delhi.

The houses have joint terraces, neighbours become extended families, life is as leisurely as a ride on a cycle rickshaw, kabootarbazi, jalebi breaks and nine-day Ramleelas — charming, more so for foreigners, NRIs and other ‘outsiders’. So when Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s hero Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) brings his dying grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) to her old house in Delhi, and you see this crazy cornucopia through his eyes, it draws you in. You are even amused at the scene in which a cow giving birth in the street stops traffic for miles and makes the collapsed granny get up in a jiffy.

After a while, you begin to realize that it’s all atmosphere and a clutter of characters, but, is there a plot? Among the many people Roshan encounters are an aristocratic Ali Uncle (Rishi Kapoor), two warring brothers (Om Puri-Pawan Malhotra), their families, a retarded odd job man (Atul Kulkarni), a mad fakir, a rude cop (Vijay Raaz), a Muslim Hanuman-devotee (Deepak Dobriyal), an untouchable cleaner (Divya Dutta) and of course the girl next door, Bittu (Sonam Kapoor), who aspires to be on Indian idol.

Punctuating life in Chandni Chowk, and the nightly Ramleela, is the threat of a mysterious Kala Bandar, that is supposedly terrorizing the neighbourhood and driving residents and TV channels hysterical. There is also a cursory romance between Roshan and Bittu, and then a communal conflagration which throws the peaceful lanes and havelis of Chandni Chowk into a tumult. All of which leads to a very obvious ‘brotherhood’ sermon and the NRI conclusion : “India Works.” Indeed?

Roshan (who is he? What does he do?) has a back story that includes his parents' inter-religious marriage, which prevents them from returning, and eventually affects him when he is caught between the Kala Bandar madness and religious fervour on both sides. Some of the characters are wonderfully etched and well enacted (Rishi Kapoor for one), but what are you to make of a heroine who flounces around, preens, giggles and gives up her ambition when the hero confesses his love? Sonam Kapoor just needs to drum up enough cuteness, when she could have been given some more substance. Abhishek Bachchan (accent and all), looks comfortable in his skin, and performs with the ease seen in his recent films like Dostana, but the vague script lets the actors down. However, Binod Pradhan’s cinematography, AR Rahman’s music and Mehra’s feel for the place cannot be faulted.

Still, imagine a director today, showing a scene of his hero having a chat with his deceased grandfather (Amitabh Bachchan) in a white ‘afterlife’ over jalebis. The Village Voice critic wrote something delightfully apt about Delhi 6, that is has “each of Bollywood's four food groups-- corn, cheese, treacle, and nuts-- present and accounted for.” You couldn’t agree more.

Billu+2

2009-02-14T14:16:00.000+05:30

Billu

Judging from the Tamil Kuselan and now Billu, it’s not quite clear what it was about the Malayalam original (Katha Parayumpol) that prompted two big remakes. It has to be the vanity of stars—Rajnikant and Shah Rukh Khan-- who get to play even more exaggerated versions of themselves, pay tribute to their own stardom, so to say.

The story (by Sreenivasan) is a modern-day retelling of the Krishna-Sudama tale, and it is perhaps not so surprising, in Kaliyuga, to see a film star stand in for a God. If there’s a comment there about our celeb crazy times, it’s not at all tongue-in-cheek. The persona of movie star Sahir Khan is larger than larger-than-life (You can see SRK enjoying the space alien bit). Next step must be divinity!

Set in a village that does not exist outside of Priyadarshan’s films— coconut palms in a North Indian setting, people speaking with Marathi accents and wearing South Indian handloom saris, Asrani, Rajpal Yadav, Om Puri, Manoj Joshi in the cast-- it is about Billu (Irrfan Khan) the healthy-looking but desperately poor owner of a hair cutting saloon. His wife (Lara Dutta in tight almost backless cholis) and kids are on the verge of hopelessness when news comes that Sahir Khan is coming to shoot in their village.

It is not very likely that a big ticket adventure movie with huge musical set-pieces and Matrix-like fights would be shot in an Uttar Pradesh village with no infrastructure and not even a vanity van on show, but you just have to believe it; because if Sahir Khan does not descend on the village in a helicopter (a nice shot of people scurrying below), the story would not happen.

Word goes round that Sahir was a childhood buddy of Billu’s and suddenly everyone who mistreated him is now begging for the favour of a meeting with the star. Billu is strangely reluctant, so even his wife and kids sulk.

And it is a one-idea film, the climax hinging on the question of whether Billu really know Sahir or was it a bit of wishful thinking. Without revealing the end (which is not so difficult to guess), it must be said that the film comes together in the last 20 minutes, when stoic Billu shows some emotion and Sahir delivers a teary speech at a school function… and you know why he is a demi-god to the people and why Shah Rukh Khan is a megastar. Takes too long to tell an obvious story and in such a flat manner; this meeting of Glamorous Bollywood (and its star item girls) with middle-of-the-road cinema does not quite ignite any sparks… maybe just a small match flare.

The Stoneman Murders

People from Mumbai, with a good memory would probably recall the gruesome serial killings in the early eighties, by a mysterious person who bashed in the heads of pavement dwellers with a large stone.

It was an unsolved case, and not big enough to be remembered or elicit any curiosity so many years later, but Manish Gupta was intrigued enough to go back to it and recreate a fictional account, and also a probable explanation for what must have happened.

A cop, Sanjay Shelar (Kay Kay Menon) is suspended for a custodial death, but his superior Satam (Vikram Gokhale) tells him to unofficially carry on the investigations of the Stoneman murders. His won’t tell his wife (a miscast Rukhsar) what’s going on, and stalks the streets at night for informer tips and clues.

For a sub-inspector in the eighties, Sanjay seems to have unlimited resources (two flats, a car, a secret work place), and he is smarter that the average cops on the beat—who even at a time of crisis, are completely lackadaisical, either sleeping on the job, cadging free meals or picking up hookers.

By a series of rather improbable (would a cop be stupid enough to pull out a knife from a stabbed man’s body and leave his prints on it?) coincidences, Sanjay leaves a trail that makes his colleagues, led by an already hostile Kedar (Arbaaz Khan) to believe that Sanjay might be the serial killer. (It was rumored that the killer was a cop).

It is an interesting recreation, but despite a ‘item number’ in a bar, and an unnecessary bare-back scene of the wife, the film rather slow and dry—crime serial episodes on TV drum up more pace and thrill. It is, however, nostalgia-inducing— the days of black, coin-operated rotary phones, Fiat cars and jingles of the period—well shot with some good performances (if it looks like a Ram Gopal Varma film, it’s because Gupta is a former protégé and uses many of RGV actors) and a very earnest Kay Kay Menon leading the pack.

Jugaad

Jugaad is a word often heard in Delhi, like “adjust” is in Mumbai. It implies a can-do-if-the-price-is-right approach, pretty much like the hybrid vehicle that bears the name too.

Unfortunately for Anand Kumar’s film, in recent times, there have been genuine ‘Dilli’ films hitting the cinemas regularly (Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, Dev D) so Jugaad seems fake and overdone.

Some time back, there was some media coverage of some high end boutiques in Delhi being demolished, because of some illegal extensions, which reportedly inspired this film. Sandeep Kapoor (Manoj Bajpai) finds his ad agency office sealed because he set up an office in a residential area.

His business is ruined (business is hardly dependent on the location of the office!), his staff quit because the new office is a ‘jugaad’ affair in a distant location, with no water or electricity.

His friend Murli (Vijay Raaz) tries to get the seal removed, by bribing the Commissioner (Govind Namdeo), but for some reason he is one of those who takes bribes, and does not get the job done. Quite improbably, he has a twin who is paid just to take the rap for him in case he is caught. Sandeep claims he is against corruption, but thinks it’s okay to have his file stolen by the twin. Neither the problem, nor the ways to the solution are clear or convincing. If Sandeep has bent the law, then why should he not be punished; if he hasn’t then why can’t his lawyer find a way to end his trauma?

There was a human interest story here, of a man beating his head against an apathetic system (like an earlier film called Chai Pani), but Jugaad is neither a funny, not satirical, nor does it manage to get the audience to sympathise with the character or get angry with the way the bureaucracy functions.

It’s just filled with strange characters, hammy actors and Manoj Bajpai looking like he just woke up with a bad hangover.

Dev D + 2

2009-02-08T17:26:00.001+05:30

Dev D

Saratchandra Chattopadhyay, who created Devdas the classic ‘loser’ hero gets no thanks, but there are several nods to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film, and Abhay Deol gets credit for ‘concept.’

Anurag Kasyap’s Dev D, a contemporary version of Devdas, departs from the original story on many points, but mainly, his Dev is not a victim of class and strict social norms of the time; he is just a destructive (to himself and to others), a thoughtless, emotionless, spoilt brat, who, far from deserving sympathy, is beneath contempt.

Kashyap’s film owes more to films like Requiem for a Dream and Leaving Las Vegas, than any Indian literary or cinematic tradition. To some extent, he has understood and portrayed well, the rootless nouveau riche life in North India, and its great sexual repression, that ironically gives rise to casual sex… with often disastrous consequences.

However, after establishing life in a Punjab village (during a wedding-- something of a cliché now) with cruel accuracy, Kashyap drifts off into a long, self-indulgent, oddly dispassionate odyssey with his hero, though the booze and drug joints and brothels of Delhi, where he meets hooker Chanda (Kalki Koechlin), whose life was torn apart by an MMS clip.

Earlier on, Kashyap’s Paro (Mahi Gill), is seen as a disheveled, sex-starved Juliet, pining for her Romeo, who discards her when he believes loose local gossip about her sexual adventures. Paro marries another man, adjusts to her life, yet turns up to try and redeem Dev, and ends up washing his clothes. Even in the original Devdas, it was difficult to fathom the love two women bestow on a weak and worthless man, here it is even worse, because this Dev has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Chunni (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) here is a drug dealer and pimp. (The censors have been quite liberal with the language!) There are recognizable real life incidents like the MMS scandal involving a Delhi schoolgirl, and the case of a drunk celeb mowing down pavement dwellers with his car.

Abhay Deol plays Dev with an arrogance that comes with money and entitlement, but without any nuances. The Mahi Gill (resembles Tabu) may turn out to be a find. The casting is well done and there are some good performances by hitherto unknown actors on view.

Kashyap’s film owes more, in spirit, to Slumdog Millionaire (is that why Danny Boyle is thanked?) than to Saratchandra. It is possible to appreciate the craft of the filmmaker, the simple yet luminous beauty that Kalki Koechlin brings to her role, the winning music (too much of it) by Amit Trivedi, yet dislike the film. Dev D may be brutally real, but it revels in darkness, is relentlessly sordid, and sitting through it like a punishing ride through a sewer.

Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye

Even accounting for the fact that fantasies can be totally bizarre, it’s tough to imagine anyone conjuring up a bronzed Randeep Hooda in a white feather boa.

Madureeta Anand’s Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye at least acknowledges that women can have fantasies about other men, when their own husbands are nasty and uncaring, but that’s it. Randeep Hooda in fancy dress camp mode, keeps turning up in Maya’s (Raima Sen) chaste day dreams.

Her life is a suburban nightmare of power failures, cooking, packing dabbas, cleaning, helping with kid’s homework, dowdy nighties, noisy neighbours and a husband (Arbaaz Khan), who doesn’t care for her because he has a carrot-chomping girlfriend hidden away somewhere.

The empty house across the street starts fuelling Maya’s dreams, and she now hopes to do something with her life. But a plump, salwar-kameez clad “Aunty” with no skills except bathroom singing hasn’t much of a chance in this competitive world.

But the fantasy man keeps turning up to encourage, advise and scold. Maya musters the nerve to enter a music contest with her noisy jamming neighbours and finally stands up to her husband.

What the film says is just fine—that women must make the best of their talents and strive to fulfill their aspirations, but the way she goes about it is boring and laughable. Poor Hooda must have thought he is playing a sexy genie, but every time he enters putting on what he could manage of a smouldering look, the audience erupts into sneering laughter… surely not the effect Anand intended.

Mere Khwabon Mein Jo Aaye could have been be a sweet little fairy tale about a woman bravely rising above her problems, but the characters are so colourless, the storytelling so uninspiring, that the film turns out to be unwatchable, in spite of Raima Sen’s sincerity. For film about a band and an aspiring singer, the music is insipid too. A Film’s Division documentary about self-help might serve the purpose better.

Chal Chala Chal

TK Rajeev Kumar’s Chal Chala Chal, remake of some long-forgotten Malayalam film, looks like it has been on the shelf too long.

This poor man’s Priyadarshan film, has Govinda and Rajpal Yadav trying to run a transport business with one decrepit bus, and making a hash of it.

The story, set in some vague Malamaal Weekly-style village seems outdated; maybe in his heyday Govinda could have made it work. But now he looks bored with it all, everybody else shouts at the top of their lungs, and a full length film about a bus and union problems, with a subplot about a rat, seems like a big waste of time and raw stock.

There is an indifferent romantic track (with Reema Sen), but thankfully no dream sequences and item numbers.

Still, at the end of it, there is some point there about honesty and decency and standing up to bullies, which is more than what can be said about so many films being made these days. Not that it is any incentive to see Chal Chala Chal… better run the other way.

LBC & Victory

2009-02-08T17:22:00.002+05:30

Luck By Chance

The ways of showbiz hold those outside in utmost fascination-- fuelled by a star struck media and enough gossip to keep several media buzzing endlessly.

The film industry brings hundreds of hopefuls to Mumbai everyday, most of whom drift into oblivion. There is exploitation, frustration and heartbreak...and then, there are the fairy tale happy endings.

Zoya Akhtar's Luck By Chance tells the story of some people in the industry with humour and compassion. Perhaps to appeal to the audience, many of whom are familiar to Bollywood from what they read and hear, she gives them exactly what they expect to see. There are no secrets, no great insider views, but what there is, seems watchable enough.

Vikram (Farhan Akhtar) is the rich Delhi kid, who comes the acting school route (Saurabh Shukla plays a hilarious acting coach called Nandkishore) to struggle in relative comfort. Sona (Konkana Sen Sharma) is a Kanpur girl, who dreams of the big break, promised by a sleazy producer (Aly Khan). They meet and fall in love during the process of encouraging each other.

Around them, are an old style 'star maker' producer Romy Rolly (Rishi Kapoor), who is aware that the corporate culture coming in might change the way films are made, and the film he is producing, is a make-or-break thing for him. The film is to be made by his brother, a failed actor (Sanjay Kapoor), starring the precocious Niki (Isha Sharvani), daughter of a yesteryear's actress Nina Walia (Dimple Kapadia).

Their hero, Zafar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) slithers out of the film because he gets an offer from Karan Johar. Every other actor (many real stars in cameo) turns him down, which necessitates the search for a new star, and Vikram turns out to be the lucky one--who gets the break by chance, because he happens to be in the right place at the right time, and has that dash of smartness and subterfuge to press his advantage when he gets a toe in the door. His success alienates him from Sona who stood by him when he was struggling.

Luck by Chance is by no means a definitive look at the world of films, but it has enough moments to make it charming, and sudden fine strokes in the midst of the broad ones-- like a quick look at a struggler's worn shoe, or the clothes pegs attached to the backs of the stars' costumes holding them in place. The film is sumptuous to look at, though the struggler's pads look too classy and there isn't a hint of squalor anywhere. That circus dance numbers is better than anything the kind of film she portrays in the film has accomplished so far.

Zoya covers other 'types' like the producer wife (Juhi Chawla), several strugglers, star hangers on, a gossip journalist, a choreographer, a theatre actor who disdains film, a star secretary and more star cameos than one can count.

Her touch is light, she really cares for her characters (even the selfish Zafar and the manipulative Neena), and gets perfect performances from Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia, and a fine piece of casting in Farhan Akhtar and Konkana Sen Sharma, who give their roles a great deal of sincerity.

It is a somewhat sanitized version of the film industry-- just touching on the grime, but not so deep as to make the viewer uncomfortable; it also portrays the glamour, but not so much as to have to leave the viewer disoriented. The director wants the audience to get a peek behind the scenes, but also leave the cinema with their illusions intact.

Victory

Formulaic elements tend to creep into any sports film, and it takes either great imagination (Lagaan) or really unusual characters (Chak De India) to circumvent the predictability problem.

Ajitpal Mangat may have tried to make a 'different' cricket film, but intention is about where it stops. Unless one is a cricket buff, and is out star spotting, there's not much to appeal-- not the way, say, Lagaan or Iqbal did, at an emotional level too, not just at a game-playing level. In any real match, there is more drama than a regular run-of-the-mill film.

Vijay Shekhawat (Hurman S. Baweja), Jaisalmer boy who wants to be a cricketer, but it isn't easy for him. Still, like many real life cricketers from small towns, he does make it against all odds. Again, like some we know, he loses his head, almost destroys his career and has to fight to regain his glory.

Even if Vijay's rise-fall-and rise is somewhat interesting, the supporting characters are on the dull side-- like the principled father (Anupam Kher), the ever-supportive girlfriend (Amrita Rao), a duplicitous well wisher (Gulshan Grover).

Victory also has a full phalanx of national and international cricket stars like Harbhajan Singh and Brett Lee, but they really don't add anything to the film. One might as well see them on the field, doing what they do best—play.

Despite a reasonably earnest performance from Hurman S Baweja, this film remains an also-ran.

SM and Raaz2

2009-01-23T20:19:00.001+05:30

Slumdog Millionaire

India has a way of accepting second hand from the West, what was our own to begin with. Like yoga, herbal medicine or curry.

Slumdog Millionaire, with its multiple wins and Oscar nominations, just re-packages Ram Gopal Verma and Mahesh Bhatt.. Raj Kapoor and KA Abbas too if we were to go back further, and gives the waiting world a Bollywood film done Angrez style.. the film equivalent of power yoga or pizza with tandoori toppings.

One is not arguing for or against the portrayal of India as a brutal, squalid country— it’s the director’s prerogative what he wants to see and show—and if he sees only filth and evil, it’s his vision.

As a story, there is nothing in it that the Indian audience has not seen before, but it is to Boyle’s credit, that he t ells the same old story with great flair, a breathtaking pace and impeccable production values, set to AR Rahman’s exhilarating score.

Just taking the idea from Vikas Swarup’s modern-day fairy tale of a novel Q & A and bleaching all the colour and goodness out of it, Boyle tells the relentlessly dark tale of a tea boy in a call centre, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) whose traumatic experience as a child gives him the answers to all the questions asked in a quiz show. The condescending host (Anil Kapoor) is annoyed enough to get Jamal tortured by the cops (Irrfan Khan-Saurabh Shukla).

In the book, the boy was an orphan, here he gets a mother, a brother and a religion—adding a needless communal angle, as his mother is killed in a riot, so he knows that Lord Ram carries a bow and arrow in his right hand!

Jamal, his street smart brother Salim and Latika, a girl they befriend, go through all kinds of awful adventures—like almost being blinded (another child is in a scene that makes the flesh crawl) by a Fagin like beggar mafia leader (Ankur Vikal), and Latika ending up in a brothel.

As Salim (Madhur Mittal) becomes a gangster, Jamal spends his life looking for Latika (Freida Pinto), finally finding her captive in the home of a gangster (Mahesh Manjrekar), where his own brother has sent her.

He participates in the quiz show to reach out to Latika, and the climax is pure Bollywood— emotion, action, sacrifice, redemption and true love dancing at the railway station (to the Oscar nominated Jai Ho).

Boyle does treat the unsavoury material (at one point little Jamal jumps into a puddle of poo to be able to get Amitabh Bachchan’s autograph—a scene that would make anyone nauseous) with humour and unflinching affection, and never lets the narrative pause long enough for his characters or the audience to catch their breath. The performances, particularly by the kids are wonderful, there is an exuberance and vitality to the film that is admirable, but the West’s over-enthusiastic response to Slumdog Millionaire is baffling. Maybe as others (notably Mr Bachchan and the person who sued because of the insulting title) have pointed out, this is perhaps the picture of India the world wants to see, and hence the honours for this very well made but hardly extraordinary film.

Raaz: The Mystery Continues

Like most recent horror films like Phoonk and 1920, Mohit Suri’s Raaz: The Mystery Continues faithfully follows set horror film conventions, but gives some more thought to the plot — maybe inspired by Stigmata, making an uneasy combination with Ganashatru (based on Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People) and of course, elements of The Exorcist.

Nandita (Kangana Ranaut), a model starts showing signs of mysterious attacks by spirits, which irritates her boyfriend Yash (Adhyayan Suman), who hosts a TV show called Andhvishwas, exposing supernatural phenomena as hoaxes and superstition. Nandita is also stalked by a haunted-looking painter Prithvi (Emraan Hashmi), who paints the unpleasant incidents before they occur to her, and can’t figure out the connection.

Two other people have died with the same kind of wounds that show up on Nandita’s body, and the same message written on the wall by their corpses. The secret lies in a hill town called Kalindi where a big religious festival takes place, so Nandita and Prithvi go there to investigate.

The setting up of the suspense fine-- there are some truly spooky scenes, and Suri resists using horror stock in trades like loud, jarring music or black cats and crows; once it’s time for the unraveling of the mystery, that he gets into a inextricable maze of overwritten scenes.. not to give away anything, but Jackie Shroff appears at some point in Heath Ledger like clown make-up.

The reason for why Nandita was being attacked is as odd as the wild bull attack in the middle of nowhere; and the film goes on for far too long than is good for a horror film and there are boring bits in between.

Kangana Ranaut – not looking her best—has to look terrified and emit piercing screams once in a while, which she does adequately. Emraan Hashmi is fine as the freaky painter, but Adhyayan Suman needs a lot of improvement. The songs are already on top of the charts, so no shortfall in that department.

The problem is that films like this tend to-- unfairly -- mock people who don’t believe in the paranormal. The better attitude would perhaps be, to each his own, just tell your story without coming down so hard on rationalism.

CC2C

2009-01-23T20:17:00.000+05:30

Chandni Chowk to China

The intention was right—get Hollywood (Warner) clout to back an Indian masala-meets-Chinese-kung fu spectacle and conquer the world. Maybe because they aimed too high, the fall was equally hard.

A film like Chandni Chowk to China, inspired by the illogical seventies’ style commercial cinema (the kind Manmohan Desai patented), needs a sense of childish abandon, total conviction in its silliness and a don’t-let-them-think pace, which Nikhil Advani simply cannot accomplish. As a result of which the Chinese martial arts portions of the film (like a live-action Kung Fu Panda) work much better that the Bollywood melodrama.

Sidhu (Akshay Kumar), a simple-minded Chandni Chowk cook’s assistant, keeps making the rounds of astrologers and quacks to get rich quick, and getting kicked around (so hard that he flies across the city) by his foster father (Mithun Chakraborty).

Thanks to the deliberate misinterpretation by his Chinese friend Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), Sidhu is taken to be the reincarnation of legendary warrior Liu Shen and taken to China by two desperate men, who need him to fight the villain Hojo (Gordon Liu), who is oppressing their village.

The villain is a bald, grinning monster, who decapitates people with his bowler hat and goes around with an albino sidekick. Years ago he had tossed a cop Chiang (Roger Yuan) from the Great Wall, as a result of which he lost his memory and was separated from his wife and twin daughters. One of them, Sakhi (Deepika Padukone—bright and beautiful) now lands up in China too, and keeps narrowly missing her twin Meow Meow, who works for Hojo.

All that is well, and very old-style Bollywood, but what is one to make of a film in which the hero worships a potato, just shed tears most of the time, is beaten, spat and pissed upon by the villain, and wails over the death of his Dada, dispatched with the bowler hat.

Too late in the film, he runs into Chiang, the old cop regains his memory and teaches Sidhu kung fu, so that he can finally fight Hojo and his army. Through all this mayhem on and around the Great Wall (the first time a film was allowed to shoot there), the Chinese authorities are blissfully asleep. The film sputters to life when Sidhu trains, but the long-awaited climax is a let down.

There is a lot of weeping and sermonizing, not enough light-hearted fun in CC2C, and even when you are willing to put up with non-stop nonsense—since the promos promised that-- you are hardly ever amused. The script puts in needless complications and many plodding sequences (like one at the opera); instead of pace and humour, you get Akshay Kumar’s tomfoolery of the kind that he overdid in Singh In Kinng plus some cringe-worthy gags and lines.

Maybe the Chinese know something Mumbai filmmakers don’t…so they have a better hit rate in crossover cinema. Advani tries so hard that the strain shows, like the veins standing out on his hero’s forehead. And then there’s the added embarrassment of the film giving the impression abroad (going by the many reviews) that this is what Indian cinema has to offer the world.

Prez & Bad Luck

2009-01-23T20:14:00.000+05:30

The President is Coming

Kunaal Roy Kapoor’s The President is Coming has several pluses—it is based on a contemporary Indian English play by Anuvab Pal, a major Bollywood production company (the Sippys) have put their money (not a lot, but still..) on it and some of Mumbai's best stage actors get to show their talent on screen. George Bush was always a subject ripe for satire, even though this film comes a little too late for throwing a figurative shoe at him.

Since it is in English, the audience is automatically limited, but its wacky humour, and furious one-liners will go down well with young urban multiplex-going crowds, who get to see a film that speaks their tongue and probably expresses some of their thoughts.

Like the sniggers raised at the expense of the ‘vernie’ communal angry man (Satchit Puranik) who has a chip on his shoulder and says “phuck.” Or the Gujju stockbroker (Anand Tiwari), who thinks everything can be bought. The upper crust comes for some battering too, when the airhead heiress (Ira Dubey) is mocked.

These three are part of a group—the others are a snobbish novelist (Konkona Sen Sharma), an accent trainer (Vivek Gomber) and closet-gay IT geek (Namit Das)—who have been chosen to take part in a contest that will pick one, who will get the shake hands with the visiting President Bush, as a representative of the New Indian.

The whole circus is handled by the bossy Samantha Patel (Shernaz Patel) and her ditzy assistant Ritu Johnson (Shivaki Tanksale). The group has to participate in a series of tests—mostly humiliating—but they are all, for reasons of their own, willing to do anything to meet Prez Bush. The quarrel, make fools of themselves and let their worst sides emerge. The film is lampoon of our own insecurity and corruption, using regional stereotypes.

There have been a few alterations made in the play in the attempt to open it out, but it remains a one-location affair, and can’t shake off its staginess and occasional meandering off the point —the humour remains in the lines (by Anuvab Pal) and the actors collectively-- without any attempts at scene-stealing— being their characters alive, clichés and all. For those who haven’t seen the play, worth a look – go see what the fuss was about, and laugh a bit while you are at it.

Bad Luck Govind

In the credits (and the brochure), the characters have names likes Angelic Anu, Hungree Hussain, Krazee Kripalani, Troubled Talpade, and so on… and the wit in Varun Khanna’s Bad Luck Govind ends right there.

The thought of watching yet another Mumbai gangster film is not in the least encouraging, but the title suggested a comedy, so hopes were raised a bit… and dashed soon enough.

A skinny and sad-looking, jug-eared Govind (Gaurav Kapur) believes he brings bad luck wherever he goes… a very unlikely series of errors, leads to his leaving Delhi for Mumbai, and having his luggage stolen on the train.

At a hospital (where he goes to try make some money as a sperm donor), he meets aspiring actor Vishal (Amit Mistry--earnest), who gives the hapless fellow shelter in his chawl room.

The chawl has two sets of warring gangsters – Kapoor (Parmeet Sethi) and gang on one side, and Talpade (Ganesh Yadav) on the other. Mostly they just yell insults across the yard, but there is some complicated betting involving the imprisonment of a don Mahalkar’s (Govind Namdeo) nephew, causing ego clashes between the two sides.

By the time the entire cast of characters is introduced, speaking Bambaiya slang (or what filmmakers imagine they do), you are already yawning out of boredom. Govind (called names like Sukha Bombil by his raucous neighbours) tries to tell Vishal of his bad luck, Kapoor’s henchman Hussain (Vrajesh Hirjee) overhears, and they get the idea of having Govind hovering on the other side, so his misfortune rubs off on the enemy. For a while it does, then Govind starts feeling guilty and lands up in hospital (with some bones broken by Hussain), where he falls for the Doctor Anu Fernandes (Hrishitaa Bhatt). Anu, it is established earlier, has Buddhist inclinations and believes in a positive thinking chant.

The plot goes nowhere, Govind must be the most irritatingly passive and ineffectual ‘hero’ of all time, and the pace—for a comedy—is fatally slow. If there is a small hint of humour it is in the exaggerated reaction of a man (Zakir Hussain), whose muscle-building pills are substituted by female hormones by the enemy camp.

It’s unfortunate that the film turned out to be such a dud, there was a cool idea there, and films about innocents in big bad Bombay (okay, Mumbai) have always appealed to audiences. Director Varun Khanna has made the hard-hitting Beyond Honour earlier (and also the unremarkable American Blend) , but what can say to this no-brainer, but better luck next time.

Ghajini

2008-12-29T12:29:00.002+05:30

With Aamir Khan putting all the weight of his star power behind Ghajini, he will draw the crowds. But it is precisely because Khan is in the film, that it is disappointing. With all that talk of perfectionism and quality cinema, one expected the star to do a superior film – in content that is, not just style. Why a remake of a successful but not particularly outstanding Tamil film?

But for the idea of the hero's memory loss (taken from Christopher Nolan's Memento) , Ghajini is just another revenge-action drama that so many stars have done through the eighties and nineties. In fact, it is the lack of sophisticated action that is most alarming about the film. Let's not even talk about lapses in logic—some extra cinematic license is always granted to mainstream cinema. When Sanjay (Aamir Khan) is first seen he is beating up a man and finally plunges a tap through his stomach (one can imagine the censors cutting what followed—blood coming out it) —and all the while, he has a gun.

Sanjay is the owner of a major mobile phone company, and now he suffers from a form of memory loss that leaves him unable to remember anything for more than 15 minutes. So he lives in a dark den with notes stuck or written all over, carries a Polaroid camera to take snapshots that he instantly labels and the most important info he has tattooed on his body – and what is of significance is that a man called Ghajini (Pradeep Rawat) has to be killed.

Through the medium of an outsider reading his diaries—first a cop and then an over-eager medical student Sunita (Jiah Khan), the story of his tragedy is reconstructed. A small time model Kalpana (Asin) pretends that the phone tycoon Sanjay is her boyfriend, in order to get better work from her agency. She does not know what he looks like, so Sanjay pretends to be an aspiring model Sachin. He falls in love with her innocence and constant willingness to help others. (She must be also particularly dumb—today a simple Google search would show up details about any famous person!)

Kalpana stumbles on a major human organ fresh trading racket, which could expose an important man. Typically in films, people rush off into imminent danger without bothering to call the cops. Sanjay comes to Kalpana's rescue too – and a cell phone honcho doesn't think of back-up—and while she is killed, he is battered on the head and left to die.

The enemy, this Ghajini is supposedly the owner of a pharmaceuticals company, but runs around with his thugs, bashing people's heads in with rods—guns are not that hard to come by. Sanjay is celebrity but there seems to be no media interest or follow up of his case. After the incident he lives in the suburban flat he bought for Kalpana, travels around in buses and autos… and uses physical force to beat Ghajini's men.

But for the actor's hard work-- not to mention vanity and publicity potential of the Body Building and Head Shaving, there was no need for that WWF rough stuff. The real trauma of the man lies in coping with memory loss and trying to go ahead with his mission despite the handicap. The only time you feel the enormity of the loss is when Ghajini and his men come and wreck his house with its painstaking collection of reminders and cover his tattoos. The problem is solved in no time, since the medical student has wandered into his house stealing his diaries and photos, so that she can conveniently give them to him.

The romance is sunny and sweet– though Asin's chirpiness grates after a point-- but the violence is crude, distasteful and completely gratuitous. Aamir Khan (wearing odd shirts with puff sleeves as the tycoon!) is actually far more effective in the role of a bemused suitor than he is as the muscleman. Asin also excels in the dramatic portions. But the weakest link here is the villain who simply cannot carry the cumbersome burden of having a film named after him!

Wafaa

2008-12-29T12:27:00.002+05:30

Watching this pathetic movie, who'd guess that Rajesh Khanna was once a huge star—for whom the term 'superstar' was coined? Today, you see him in Wafaa, in awful clothes, straw hair, idiotic glasses, stripping to show his flabby body, and wonder what made him subject himself to this indignity.

Director Rakesh Sawant has not brought the forgotten superstar to this era, he has gone back to his age, but sadly for Khanna, times have changed and cinema is no longer what it used to be in his time. However bad some of his films were, because of his loyal fan-following he could get away with clumsy wardrobe, gawky dance steps and hammy acting. Now the minute he appears on screen in tacky monogrammed role, white plastic sunglasses and wooden air rifle, trying to look all slick and macho, you smother a giggle.

He plays Amrit (a nostalgic name, the title of one of his hit films) a rich Bangkok-based businessman, married to a young woman Beena (Laila Khan). They live in a furniture-packed house that looks like a godown in Chor Bazaar; there are enormous carved sofas, plastic fruit bowls, fake flowers everywhere, antique brass rotary phone, ancient chandeliers and garish upholstery, plus a grand piano and a 'gold' cage in which a parrot stands for Beena's helpless state. She has riches and "naukar chaakar" as the husband points out, though none is visible except a driver, but the desi Madame Bovary is lonely. So talk to the parrot and play with Tommy the pet dog, says the husband as he goes off to make "1000 million crore deals that will get him into Fortune 500."

But Beena's problem is not her garish make-up and 1970 wardrobe, it's the sad fact of her husband getting an asthma attack every time she tries to get intimate. Meanwhile the driver Raj (unknown hunk) bathes in the mansion's pool in John Abraham trunks, so Beena throws herself at him, and then in The Postman Always Rings Twice fashion, they plan to kill the husband. After the funeral is done, and Beena and Raj finish their dancing with joy, Amrit turns up very much alive in the same white plastic sunglasses that he is so fond of sporting. Cops Tinu Anand and a Sudesh Berry as Inspector Hairy (sic) try and try to prove that the man's an imposter but can't find a chink in his armour.

Those who have seen Hollywood's Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958) and Bollywood's Dhuan (1981) would know what's coming. Everything about the film is dated and shoddy from the sets, to the song picturisations, to the hilarious sight of the hero swigging Black Label from the bottle. Most actors in the film – apart from the over-painted leading lady and the driver, there is a sister from "Umrika" and her boyfriend—all look like they were picked up from some struggler's camp in suburban Mumbai.

Some Rajesh Khanna fans, out of some misplaced nostalgia, might go in to see the film… and wipe out their memories of the superstar.

Rab Ne Bana D Jodi

2008-12-13T11:04:00.001+05:30

There was a time when audiences were as innocent as cinema technique was primitive. Filmmakers relied on the audience's total suspension of disbelief as they drew them into an emotional web and kept them hooked till the end. When they came out they were all teary-eyed or goofy-grinned—slightly embarrassed at being so easily manipulated.

Aditya Chopra's Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is that kind of film. Look for a new plot, fresh idea or zingy style and it's not there. But there is romance, emotion, simplicity and a performance from Shah Rukh Khan that would make any actor dizzy with envy.

As the geeky, introverted minor bureaucrat Surinder Sahni, Khan gives an amazingly astute and well-observed performance (the right accent, even the right nerdy shoes), plus a lack of vanity, so that looking at him, nobody could tell that he is a major star. Tragic circumstance end up in his marriage to young Taani (Ansukha Sharma), who says right at the start that she will try to be a good wife, but won't be able to love him. The already besotted Surinder humbly accepts crumbs, because he feels he doesn't deserve any better. A dabba packed by her for his lunch is enough to send him into paroxysms of joy.

Taani wants to participate in a dance competition, and with the help of a flamboyant friend Bobby (Vinay Pathak), Surinder gets a makeover and turns himself into the crude, flirty Raj Kapoor, Taani's dance partner. Now comes the suspension of disbelief— with those eyes, that nose, those lips and that Adam's apple, she does not see that Surinder and Raj are the same man.

Surinder gets into the Golmaal-like schizophrenic situation—boring Surinder by day and funky Raj by night. Even with her resistance Taani falls in love with Raj—there is a cute dream sequence that pays tribute to the old stars and their songs. Without really underlining it, Aditya Chopra (in the tradition of films like Love in Simla and Chhotisi Baat), makes a comment on the superficiality of judging people by their looks. But the film—with some excellent lines—keeps it simple, the story is just about these two very ordinary people and it takes some doing to convince an audience that Shah Rukh Khan is ordinary.

The casting of a non-glamorous, pudgy-faced Anushka Sharma as Taani helps emphasize Chopra's point that even homely and plain people are deserving of great love—if God wills it. Love turns the frog into a Prince or the ugly duckling into a swan. Movies and fairy tales have been saying this for ages… mostly it's the women who have been transforming themselves to bag the prince, here, for a change the man does.

Then, after saying this, and wringing some tears, Chopra has funny end-credits about Mr and Mrs Sahni's honeymoon. If Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi with its cliché-ridden plot is still so watchable it's because of Shah Rukh Khan's near-magical performance, showing that he is always capable of throwing a surprise even when he is playing yet another Romantic Raj--naam to suna hoga, he says, one of the many nods to the director's own DDLJ, a bit too much patting of his own back. Or admitting that DDLJ will forever be a benchmark for his career, and then lowering his own sights.