Saturday, March 24, 2018
Hichki
Hiccups To Go
x
Siddharth P.Malhotra’s Hichki gives
Rani Mukerji a fine role in the adaptation of Front Of The Class, based on Brad
Cohen’s book about his struggles with Tourette’s syndrome, and then stuffs it
with every Bollywood cliché.
Naina Mathur suffers from the
neurological condition that causes strange physical and vocal ticks. She was ridiculed as a kid, her father
(Sachin Pilgaonkar) walked out because he could not deal with it. She is
supported by her mother (Supriya Pilgaonar), brother (Hussain Dalal) and a kind
teacher (Vikram Gokhale in a one-scene cameo). When she grows up, Naina
(Mukerji) wants to be teacher, and keep her hopes up even as eighteen schools
reject her, their question being how can a woman with a speech impediment
teach?
x
She is finally given a job at her alma mater St Notker’s, and assigned to a 9F a class with 14 children from a
slum. Apparently, the elite school is forced to admit them because of Right To
Education (RTE) rules, but they are all dumped in one class that no teacher can
survive. (Just one RTE class,what about other kids?) The unruly kids take bets on how long Naina will stick around. The principal (Shiv Subramaniam) is sympathetic, but
another teacher Mr Wadia (Neeraj Kabi) believes that the “municipality garbage”
should not be in their school.
The kids have no hopes from an
education, so do not care about studies; the teachers and fellow student look
down on them. From Naina’s problems, the film becomes a much overdone underdog
story. When faced with a class that
bullies and harasses her, Naina wears her self-righteous cloak and plays saint
to Wadia’s sneering demon. She uses platitudes like “There are no bad students,
only bad teachers,” and tries unconventional methods like open-air classes to
get the rebellious kids to understand the value of education.
The promo of Hichki is enough to give an indication of how the plot will
proceed, and it runs exactly on the To
Sir With Love track. The writers and
director have a touching faith in a formal education system, as if passing high
school with good marks is all it takes to break down the doors of class
privilege.
Anyway, this is a mainstream film,
and a vanity project for Rani Mukerji, so it okay for the script to be
superficial as long as the actress can give a wonderful performance, which she
does. If the film is worth watching,
it’s because of her I and the generic feel-goodishness that invariably pleases audiences. There’s one remarkably offbeat aspect of Hichki though, Naina does not lean on man to help her, so there is no romantic track—she is the hero of her own story.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Raid
Honest Joe
When asked to sign a report of an income tax raid, a witness comments that there is no use uncovering black money, if under the guise of welfare schemes, it is looted again by the very people it is confiscated from. Therein lies one of the problems of Raj Kumar Gupta’s well-meaning Raid.
Everyone hates paying income tax and very few know what happens to all that black money that is recovered in periodic raids, none of which must be half as exciting as the fictional one—“based on true stories”—shown in the film. An IT raid does not have the same impact, as say a cop catching a gangster or a soldier killing the enemy. Slitting open mattresses and peering into drains to look for unaccounted for wealth, does not exactly make for gripping cinema; so Gupta has tried to liven up proceedings with heavy duty dialogue between the new IT boss of Lucknow and the local politician-strongman.
Amay Patnaik (Ajay Devgn) is so honest that he is constantly transferred, and his long-suffering wife Malini (Ileana D’Cruz) is resigned to packing and setting up home every few months. The colleagues at his Lucknow posting say his enthusiasm about chasing tax evaders is like the noise a just-opened soda bottle makes.
When, on an anonymous tip-off, Amay plans a raid on Rameshwar Singh’s (Saurabh Shukla) White House, they are nervous—one of them refuses to join because he is beholden to “Tauji.”
Tauji is first amused, then irritated at the officer’s gumption; his large family stands around defiantly knowing that they cannot be touched. When money, gold, jewellery and incriminating papers start raining down, Tauji displays his gangster side. It’s no spoiler, because it is in the promo, Tauji challenging Amay, “You managed to come in, how will you get out?” as his loyal hordes surround the mansion. Obviously tax-evasion does not tarnish their leader!
The film is set in 1981, the markers being Ambassador cars and rotary phones--there is very little drama and practically no suspense in an income tax raid, so the film is mostly theatrical verbal bluster. Ajay Devgn can play this scowling, upright officer in his sleep, but unlike the many cops he has portrayed, this one offers no scope for action. Shukla is a good actor, but just not menacing enough.
Gupta has stinted on the character development—you are informed that Amay is honest and Rameshwar Singh is corrupt, but nothing more about how they arrived at that point. Instead of a romantic song, the film could have given a peek into the working of the IT department and the implications of a raid.
Still, the film has to be lauded for focusing on everyday heroes, because of whom, the country is probably saved from descending into total chaos.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, March 10, 2018
Hate Story 4
Revenge On The Rocks
Hate Story 4 has
Urvashi Rautela as Tasha, whose butt is seen before her face, as she dances in
a nightclub to seduce rich dude Rajveer (Karan Wahi). So hot is she that Rajveer’s older brother
Aryan (Vivan Bhathena) also lusts after her. Their father Vikram Khurana
(Gulshan Grover), also gives her a once over, but has to be hands off, because
he is standing for the mayoral elections in London. Aryan already has a
girlfriend Rishma (Ihana Dhillon), so his scheme to get Tasha into bed causes
some major complications that involve murder, blackmail and revenge.
If
there is a Hate Story 4, there must have been three before it, but it would
require a lot of effort to recall any of them—they are that watch-and-forget.
All seem to have one thing in common, a woman’s use of her body and sex appeal
for revenge. Which means that they star
women with ‘strippable’ figures and a camera that lasciviously zooms on their
body parts. So it has its audience cut out to, the kind that needs Hindi
subtitles for elementary English dialogue,
like “Hey Baby” (Aye suno). And then, the makers have the gall to quote
crimes against women statistics at the end, with an anti eve-teasing message.
Hate Story 4 has
Urvashi Rautela as Tasha, whose butt is seen before her face, as she dances in
a nightclub to seduce rich dude Rajveer (Karan Wahi). So hot is she that Rajveer’s older brother
Aryan (Vivan Bhathena) also lusts after her. Their father Vikram Khurana
(Gulshan Grover), also gives her a once over, but has to be hands off, because
he is standing for the mayoral elections in London. Aryan already has a
girlfriend Rishma (Ihana Dhillon), so his scheme to get Tasha into bed causes
some major complications that involve murder, blackmail and revenge.
The
brothers are unmitigated creeps with women, but somehow lose whatever little sense
they have over Tasha, who wanders around in tight/short cleavage-revealing
clothes. So one brother gifts her a mansion, another gives her a swanky car,
while the father frets over elections. In
the one song she has, Rishma shows skin too, but Aryan keeps her around because
she is good in the bedroom and boardroom (his words). Still, he is not above
spiking a woman’s drink to “take advantage” of her.
The
film is so hilariously bad, with such convoluted dialogue that merrily throws
in references to the Ramayan and Mahabharat.
Even though it is set in London, the film cannot help looking tacky, and
between the dozen actors with speaking parts, there’s not one half-way decent
performance. Still, for all you know, there will be a fifth film in the
franchise!
Labels: Cinemaah
3 Storeys
Chawl Tales
The famous chawls of Mumbai are
slowly vanishing from the city’s landscape. So Arjun Mukherjee’s portmanteau
film, 3 Storeys, evokes a touch of
nostalgia for a way of life that involved whole communities living in close
proximity, and becoming like family to one another.
The three stories, narrated by a
female voice revealed at the end, are woven around the chawl called Maya Nagar.
They are unconnected, even though various characters living there saunter
through all of them. The first—most interesting and most unconvincing
too—involves a well-dressed Vishal Naik (Pulkit Samrat) willing to pay four
times the price for a room in the chawl to the crabby Flory Mendonca (Renuka
Shahane—artificially aged and padded).
As they make small talk over coffee after the deal is signed, the
mystery of the overpriced room is revealed, and there is a just desserts kind
of twist in the tale.
The other two stories are prosaic by
comparison. One has unhappy, battered wife Varsha (Masumeh Makhija) and her
broken heart; Shankar, the man she loved (Sharman Joshi), asked her to wait for
a year and never showed up. In the age
of mobile phones, this contrived yarn about a tragic misunderstanding does not
quite work.
In the third, a Muslim boy Sohail
(Ankit Rathi) elopes with a Hindu girl, Malini (Aisha Ahmed), only to discover the shocking reason why their
parents oppose their romance. In the background, is brightly-clad, siren (Richa
Chadda) and her silent admirer, a burly cop, Ganpat (Himanshu Malik).
The
cast is efficient, the film has a bearable running time, but it is not
consistently engaging. It’s set in a
chawl just so that the narrator can look into the lives of the characters,
since the somewhat open style of architecture encourages snooping; but the
quaint Mumbai institution ought to have played a greater part in the narrative. Think Jaagte
Raho, Piya Ka Ghar and Katha among others.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, February 24, 2018
Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety
Fear Of Women
Luv Ranjan made two Pyar Ka Punchnama films, that were
anti-women rants, so one would expect he got his inexplicable misogyny out of
his system. But no, there’s a third, Sonu
Ke Titu Ki Sweety, in which a man tries to save is best buddy from women,
who are, without exception nasty and manipulative. If they are not, then there are too good to
be true, and to be dumped anyway.
The “needs”, says Sonu (Kartik
Aaryan) to Titu (Sunny Singh) can be fulfilled by any of the hundreds of girls
looking for no-string affairs. Titu is
the softie who needs to be protected from controlling vixens, according to the childhood
friend, who lives in the vast home of the Sharmas who made their fortune from mithai. Sonu has no family of his own,
and the two young men seem to have no other friends either, apart from each
other. So Sonu and Titu can hook and
chuck girls, but girls with a past are “chalu.”
All this, perhaps to explain, that they are not gay. Just like Titu’s granddad Ghaseetaram (Alok
Nath) and is best buddy Lalu (Virendra Saxena) are not. Lalu is the rakhi
brother of Ghaseeta’s wife, and has been quietly absorbed into the family and
made a partner in the business. They spend their time drinking on the terrace,
Ghaseeta has done his duty by producing a son, who has produced son, and that’s all what women are good for. That, and as sex objects, who are seen
shaking their bottoms in the song Bom
Diggy Diggy.
Sonu has just extricated the bawling
Titu from a doomed romance with Pihu (Ishta Raj), when Titu’s family arranges
his marriage to Sweety (Nushrat Bharucha), a butter-won’t-melt-in-her-mouth
kind of girl, who gets Sonu’s hackles up. He can’t find any flaws in her, which
to him means she is fake. You are expected to believe that Sweety is a bitch,
because she stymies all attempts by Sonu to get Titu to break up with her.. But
Sonu is not seen as a monster, when he plays dirty, for no reason but that he
is afraid of losing a friend and becoming a Lalu sort of bachelor uncle
everyone makes fun of and pities.
It is a shallow film about moronic
characters, so it is happy to coast along on easy laughs, when Sonu and Sweety go
to war. Actually, they are a perfect match. The film has some gags as funny as
cliched mother-in-law jokes, but Ranjan’s only agenda is to diss women, and they
will probably laugh the loudest just to show their Titu-like boyfriends that they
are such good sports. The next film should be about Sonu (and other characters played by Kartik Aaryan in Ranjan’s films), being sent to the shrink. Kuchh to gadbad hai.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, February 17, 2018
Aiyaari
Men At Arms
There are many such glitches scattered through the film, but the biggest flaws are its sluggish pace and incoherence.
In the Hindi fantasy novels of Chandrakanta vintage, aiyaars were shape-shifting spies who were exerts with disguises, chemicals and medicinal herbs. Which is why the title of Neeraj Pandey’s new film, Aiyaari, made it sound exciting. That it turns out such a dud is disappointing because Pandey has been behind thrillers like A Wednesday, Baby, Special 26 and Naam Shabana.
The idea of a covert intelligence unit that will be thrown under a bus if anything goes wrong, has been used in many films, including his own Baby. So is Aiyaari cobbled together from scenes left out of earlier scripts? It lacks the cohesion and tautness expected from a film by Pandey.
Right off, it displays it sloppiness, when the head of the covert unit, Colonel Abhay Singh (Manoj Bajpayee), goes to Egypt to kill a villain – who? why? not explained—and intends to kill him from the window of his hotel room, not with a sniper’s rifle, but a revolver. And then, incredibly, the bullets are in the hotel safe! So, no matter how well the chase and killing is shot in a busy Cairo market, the sequence is dead on arrival.
There are many such glitches scattered through the film, but the biggest flaws are its sluggish pace and incoherence.
Abhay’s acolyte Major Jai Bakshi (Sidharth Malhotra), overhears, literally via an electronic fly on the wall (a General’s room is not routinely checked for listening devices!) an arms broker Gurinder (Kumud Mishra) offering the General (Vikram Gokhale) a bribe to pass bogus arms bills. He must have also heard the refusal, but, concluding that the system is corrupt (which is no big secret), he goes rogue.
What exactly he means to do with the data he steals from his unit is not clear either, but a fuming Abhay chases him and his hacker girlfriend (Rakul Preet Singh, decorative) to London, from where a mysterious arms dealer Mukesh Kapoor (Adil Hussain) supposedly pulls strings in Delhi. There are needless flashbacks in Kashmir, which add to the film’s 160-minute run time, but nothing to the narrative.
Then, apropos of nothing, the whole mess is dumped in Mumbai and the Adarsh scam—which is no spoiler, because it has been revealed in the film’s publicity pieces—and the audience is left wondering about the connection.
Bajpayee (always dependable) and Malhotra (always bland) do get to don a couple of disguises each, but that hardly matters. The film just goes all over the place and though some individual scenes are interesting, the whole thing just never adds up.
The crucial question the film raises and answers vaguely, is why Indian ex-armymen become weapons dealers! There is a film there, but Aiyaari is not it.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Padman
Cellulose Love
It is perhaps because Akshay Kumar is in social reformer mode that a film like Padman even got made. If he could make film about toilets watchable, surely he can sell the idea of low cost sanitary pads. It helps that his wife Twinkle Khanna wrote a story based on the Coimbatore-based menstrual hygiene activist Arunachalam Muruganantham, and also produced the film, directed by R. Balki. (Phullu, an earlier film made on the same subject and the documentary Menstrual Man went unnoticed).
The Southern setting of the story is moved to Madhya Pradesh, the character of a table-playing MBA Pari (Sonam Kapoor) added to it for glamour and romance, and Pad Mangets off the ground with the marriage of Laxmikant Chauhan (Kumar) to Gayatri (Radhika Apte). The gully boys know, but Laxmi is surprised to learn that menstruating women have to spend five days outside the house and nobody can touch them. He is even more astonished to learn that his wife used a dirty rag. She refuses his gift of expensive sanitary pads (what will mother-in-law say!), so he gets obsessed with the idea of making low cost pads.
His family breaks up, his wife leaves him out of shame, and he is banished from the village as a pervert. Step by boring (for the audience) step he makes a machine to manufacture low cost cellulose pads. He wins an award for innovation (Amitabh Bachchan drops by to make an inspiring speech), the smitten Pari helps him market the pads door to door and the two also teach other women to make and sell them so that they can be financially independent. Laxmi even gets to make a long speech in broken English at a UN meet in New York. After getting a Padma Shri, he returns to the village in triumph.
As a story of a man’s journey Padman is fine; you even overlook the constant mansplaining and chest thumping (“a man is a man only if he can protect women”). The first half has its moments of comedy mixed with melodrama. But there is difference between manufacturing a two-rupee pad (which would be out of reach of most poor women anyway), and tacking social taboos surrounding menstruation. For instance, many educated urban women won’t go to a temple when they are menstruating; in many households women do not cook for five days. Not to even mention problem of disposal of these pads in villages, and the environmental cost of non-biodegradable material being flushed into sewer lines.
Maybe it is too much for a single film to tackle. It is enough that Akshay Kumar brought his star power and considerable charm to the film and at least started an open conversation about menstruation.
Labels: Cinemaah
Thursday, January 25, 2018
Padmaavat
Beautiful And Regressive
First of all, the Rajputs have
nothing to object about in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat. The filmmaker has
glorified their valour and even their foolishness couched as ‘usool’ (principles). If at all anyone has the right to protest
somewhat, it would be the descendants (if any) of the Khilji clan, portrayed as
greedy, lustful, unscrupulous savages without a trace of human decency.
The film throws a challenge at all
those who decry the Karni Sena violence and the political filibustering that
followed, if freedom of expression and creative liberty are to be safeguarded,
then Bhansali’s film with its discomfiting currents of sexism, racism and
obscurantism has to be defended too. Maybe the last is slightly acceptable
because it is a period film, but then the question arises, why made film that
glorifies mass female ritual suicide (jauhar).
At the time when the story is set (14th century), with constant
warfare going on and repeated invasions by foreign (read Muslim) rulers, the
only way to save women from dishonor was to kill them. The onus of honour was
on the shoulders of women then, as now; unlike Japanese harakiri, under which men killed themselves by the sword if they
were dishonoured. But watching a film
today, in which a queen exhorts a horde of women dressed in bridal red
(including a pregnant woman and a child) to jump into the fire, is distressing.
That along with the Rani of Jhansi, Rani Padmavati is practically the only
woman from Indian history held up as an example of courageous womanhood, is even
more disturbing.
That said, the film will be seen by
audiences in large numbers, because Bhansali lays out spectacle like no
other. Everything is opulent,
larger-than-life (kudos to the production design and costume team) and
aesthetically lit and shot (Sudeep Chatterjee), even the dark, unsightly living
quarters of the Khilji barbarians.
Ranveer Singh plays Alauddin Khilji
with energetic glee and the many close-ups show him with an avaricious or
depraved expression. In contrast, Rawal Ratan Singh of Chittor is upright and
dignified. When he falls in love with Sinhala princess Padmavati (Deepika
Padukone), he marries her; the first wife Nagmati Anupriya Goenka) summarily discarded.
Khilji treats his wife Mehrunnisa (Aditi Rao Hydari) disrespectfully, kills her
father and brother; on the day of his wedding to her, he is with another woman,
and then dances with wild abandon.
His blood thirst and lust are
Khilji’s only defining features—he even has a male lover, his chief aide Malik
Kafoor (Jim Sarbh), used for mild comic relief and referred to contemptuously
as Khilji’s begum.
Ratan Singh banishes his Rajguru
(Aayam Mehta) on his new bride’s insistence; he promptly joins the Khilji camp
and tells him that he could rule the world with the beautiful Padmavati by his
side. Khilji carries out a long siege of Chittor that ends with the capture of
Ratan Singh. Padmavati, crosses the palace threshold, that was forbidden to
women, and actually rescues her husband without ever showing her face to any
enemy male. An enraged Khilji attacks viciously this time, and the end of the
story is known, so it’s no spoiler.
Bhansali uses bits of his own
films—the swirling ghaghra
dance, Khilji doing a macho
foot-stomping number Khali Bali, just
like Malhari from Bajirao Mastani; in the earlier film the
romance grew when the woman was wounded, in this when Ratan Singh is
accidentally shot by Padmavati’s arrow. (There is even a nod to the last scene from Ketan Mehta's Mirch Masala).
To his credit, Bhansali portrays Padmavati
as intelligent and brave, he also gives Mehrunnisa a redeeming sequence and a
spine—both women were restricted by social rules of their time, or they might
have lived better.
Khilji had more to him than his
insane desire for an unseen queen—he was known for reforms and pro-poor
measures-- but Bhansali’s film has no room for nuance. All characters are uni-dimensional,
still, Ranveer Singh’s fascinatingly vile warrior king overshadows both
kohl-eyed and stiff upper-lip Shahid Kapoor, as well as the gorgeous Deepika
Padukone using her expressive eyes. Unfortunately, the prominent image of Padmavati
in the film is her marching resolutely to her death, of course, not before
taking permission from her husband to die. By the time the inevitable climax arrives,
viewer are probably exhausted, if they weren’t already with the needless
controversy surrounding the film.
Labels: Cinemaah
Monday, January 22, 2018
My Birthday Song
Confusion Confounded
There’s unseasonal rain in Delhi, a successful adman is celebrating his fortieth birthday. His wife is away, a pretty woman keeps eyeing him, and makes an excuse to stay on when other guests have left. The man has no qualms about a roll in bed with a consensual partner. The evening ends in a shock for him, but things are not what they seem.
Actor Samir Soni has written, co-produced and directed My Birthday Song,attempting a ‘psychological thriller’ that is beyond his capabilities as a newbie director, and beyond the acting skills of his cast; since Suri is in every frame, that is a problem. A plot like this has to be convincing even in its realm of illogicality or alternate reality – Groundhog Day is a fine example.
Anyway, when Rajiv Kaul (Sanjay Suri) wakes up the next day, everybody is wishing him a happy birthday and there is no sign of the party or the incident of the previous evening, but things that were said then, seem to be coming true. It would spook anyone, and Rajiv is baffled when the shocking event seems to recur.
The script bungs in many inexplicable happenings, but doesn’t go anywhere. When the ‘aha’ moment comes, it is too late, and too implausible. If the director is tying himself up in knots, at least the pace should be so brisk that the audience doesn’t get a chance to think; but a lot of the film’s run time has Kaul run around with a bewildered expression or drive around maniacally; every scene goes on for much too long and is accompanied by an obtrusive soundtrack.
The best thing that could be said about My Birthday Song is that at least the first-time director did not pander to commercial demands and made the kind of film he wanted to.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, January 14, 2018
Kaalakaandi
It Happened One Night
A man (Saif Ali Khan) is told in scene one that he is dying of cancer. The clean-living fellow is obviously gobsmacked. This is one of the tracks Akshat Verma’s Kaalakaandifollows in the romp through a night in Mumbai.
It is the story with most potential, and unfortunately, other pointless, clichéd and dull subplots intervene. The man, whose name is discovered only at the end, barely has time to register the trauma because his cousin Angad (Akshay Oberoi) is getting married, and suffering pre-wedding jitters.
The guy with just a few months to live, goes what-the-hell, downs a drink and pops a pill, and then drives the groom for a haircut, but Angad has an assignation with an old flame, which goes predictably wrong.
In between the drugged man’s hallucinations, two tough-talking gangsters (Vijay Raaz, Deepak Dobriyal) drive around trying to figure out a foolproof way of gypping their boss of his extortion money. (When will filmmakers drop their Quentin Tarantino obsession?)
In an upper class apartment, a young woman (Sobhita Dhulipala) is getting ready to go the US for further studies, with her insecure boyfriend (Kunaal Roy Kapur) hovering around with a panty on his face for some reason! These two decide to drop by at a friend’s (Shenaz Treasurywala, catching the right dopey tone) party which is raided by the cops.
If there is any bit of this hodge-podge that is moving and funny, it is the encounter of the dying man with a transgender hooker Sheela (Nary Singh). She shows the man, by now uninhibited enough to needle a cop, how to enjoy an evening with abandon and lack of shame. Sheela gives him that funny hairstyle, make-up and feathered shrug that Saif Ali Khan is seen wearing in the creatives of the film. The look probably meant to prove that an actor can consent to look ridiculous to get into the spirit of the role, succeeds to some extent; it is as if the man in this weird garb is cocking a snook at death.
Trying very hard to go for black humour and cool, profanity-laden dialogue in Hindi and English, the film does not quite work either as a comedy or as a thriller and certainly not as a rumination on mortality. Saif Ali Khan is going for unconventional roles and delivering the goods with his performances—this is one of his better ones—but consistently being let down by the writers and directors.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Tiger Zinda Hai
All Guns Blazing
If a Salman
Khan movie has many extravagant action set pieces around which a feeble-- and
mostly silly—plot is built, at least one shirtless scene, plenty of patriotism
and a little bit of romance, his audience wants nothing else. They will whistle
and whoop through the film, every time the star looks at the camera, walks in
slo-mo or cracks a punchline. Of course he is a superhero without a cape; he
can quite literally decimate an army, and not have a bullet even graze him. The
only sign of his being human is that he needs reading glasses.
Tiger Zinda Hai, sequel to Kabir Khan’s Ek Tha Tiger, has been directed by Ali
Abbas Zafar (Sultan); in the last
film RAW agent Avinash Rathod aka Tiger had disappeared, because he fell in
love with ISI agent Zoya (Katrina Kaif), and that wouldn’t do at all in the
world of espionage. However, when a crisis looms, his former boss Shenoy
(Girish Karnad) knows where to find him—in snow clad Austria, where he and his
bratty kid have been fighting wolves, while poor Zoya has been relegated to the
kitchen. But, to prove that she is not rusty, she is given a scene in which she
batters three muggers in a store.
The crisis
involves Indian and Pakistani nurses held hostage in an Iraqi hospital by Abu
Usman (Sajjaad Delafrooz) leader of militant
organization, ISC. The Americans want to launch an air strike, but Shenoy
requests seven days for his team to get the Indian nurses out. If this were a
Hollywood film, or a Daniel Silva novel, a team of rescuers would have quietly
parachuted into Iraq and done the job in less than 24 hours, not hatched an
idiotic and far-fetched plot to enter the hospital.
Tiger and his three hand-picked
men go to Iraq and get help from the asset there—Paresh Rawal placed there for
comic relief, which he delivers. The ISI sends in Zoya and her cohorts to help the Pakistani
nurses. So after some talk of ‘us’ and ‘them’ it is decided that RAW Bhai and ISI Bhabhi would launch a joint mission—something that is unheard of.
The all-powerful ISC leader is, of course, a cretin, who frowns “Kuchh gadbad hai” where guns and bombs are exploding all over; the Americans are
all cartoonish, trigger-happy characters.
The leader
of the nurses is Poorna (Anupriya Goenka), who bravely deals with Abu Usman and
provides assistance to Tiger’s team when they arrive to save them. (A recent
Malayalam film Take Off was a more
realistic rendition of the real 2014 incident of the capturing of nurses in
Iraq).
For a
thriller, the film has a leisurely pace, with needless diversions, like the
rescue of a human bomb child, and some other women being used as sex slaves by
Usman’s men. Zoya gets another solid
action scene here and Katrina really kicks butt like a trained soldier.
The film is
well made and has enough masala to
make it a blockbuster; after Salman Khan’s lukewarm Tubelight, this one is meant for the star to please his fans. A
part three is undoubtedly on the way.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Monsoon Shootout
The Way To Go
The wide-eyed rookie cop quoting provisions of the law, is paired with a trigger-happy encounter cop, and the result is an interestingly structured film,Monsoon Shootout, directed by Amit Kumar. Having done the festival rounds since 2013, the film gets a release now, probably because of the reshuffle caused by the Padmavati postponement. Also, now Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a multiplex star, though the lead actor Vijay Verma’s career has not quite taken off.
The format the film follows is reminiscent of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blind Chance and Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run—in which a small change in perspective alters the narrative. In Monsoon Shootout, on his first day at work, Adi (Verma) is reminded of his father’s belief that in every situation there is a right way, a wrong way and a middle path. And he has to pick one in his line of work.
Adi has to pass his field trial under the watchful eye of Inspector Khan (Neeraj Kabi), who is the kind who shoots first and asks questions later. If Adi has to fit into this cynical and amoral system, he has to prove his ‘manhood’ or be confined to a desk job forever.
The man they are stalking is an axe-wielding psycho Shiva (Siddiqui), who is suspected of having killed a builder on the orders of a slum lord. On a rainy night, after a stakeout, Adi has Shiva cornered in a dead end street. The film then sees this incident from three points of view, depending on what decision Adi takes in that split second—to shoot or not to shoot.
Around this dilemma is the usual noir film cast of gangsters, hookers, corrupt cops and politicians, a wife, a kid and innocent girlfriend, who may or may not be impacted by Adi’s choice.
On paper this must have sounded like an interesting script to work with, on screen it is a rushed, choppy hodge-podge; you can’t figure or who is who and what is what, but are taken through the grungy streets, chawls and docks of Mumbai on a ultimately meaningless journey.
Labels: Cinemaah
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Fukrey Returns
Boys Still Boys
The 2013 film Fukrey was mildly amusing and certainly not deserving of a sequel. Anyway, whether we want it or not Fukrey Returns, and it is Mrigdeep Singh Lamba who brings the four Dilli duffers back.
The review of the earlier film stated, “Over a period of time Hollywood has perfected the formula and identified its target audience of young men, who are most likely to flock to a film with slangy risque lines, a hint or promise of sex, a dash of bravado, stupid risks that pay off, and all turning out well in the end. The Hangover got it right--not dark enough to be disturbing, vulgar enough to make men snigger but not put off accompanying females. The same producers made Delhi Belly, an upmarket version of Fukrey. Good-for-nothing young buddies, brush with crime, controlled mayhem, and, throwaway funny lines that sound way better with a Delhi accent. However, keeping in mind Indian censors, not too much vulgarity.” This applies to Part 2 as well.
Five years later, the four – Choocha (Varum Sharma), Hunny (Pulkit Samrat), Lali (Manjot Singh) and Zafar (Ali Fazal) seem to be in college still, and as good-for-nothing as before. But Bholi Punjaban (Richa Chadda) wrangles her way out of jail by bribing a minister Babulal (Rajv Gupta), collects her two black sidekicks and starts a business in organ trading. Panditji (Pankaj Tripathi) is around like a loose thread, perhaps because the actor now has a fan following; his comic timing is unbeatable.
The premonitions that Choocha used to get in the last film are contrived here, and lead to some very convoluted going-on to do with gambling and treasures in caves. Men get bitten on their bottoms by snakes and Choocha dreams of Bholi Punjaban as a nagin. There are the many cringe-worthy gags and a dash of homophobia. Two of the guys have girlfriends, who have roles smaller than a tiger cub that has a starring part. Don’t ask how or why!
Off screen, it is interesting to note that of the four ‘fukras’ only Ali Fazal has made something of his career, which is perhaps the reason why he looks so uninterested in this film. And who can blame him?
Labels: Cinemaah
Friday, December 08, 2017
Firangi
Brown Man’s Burden
There is downside to having a set image, audiences expect their hero to live up to it. You’d think a film starring Kapil Sharma (also produced by him) would be cheeky and funny. Firangi, somnolently directed by Rajiev Dhingra is a clanger any way you look at it.
There is very little interest in Raj era films now, unless they are entertaining or ultra patriotic or both, eg. Lagaan. Firangi seems to be inspired by that film, but then Sharma is no Aamir Khan. Worse, he is a bit overage to be playing a gullible young chap who believes the British are not all bad (“they built the railways”) or making gooey eyes at a village belle.
Manga (Sharma) is a happy—go-lucky Punjabi villager who is berated by his father for being jobless. Which is why is cannot find a girl to marry him. Then he finds work as an orderly to a Brit, Mark Daniel (Edward Sonnenblick), but the grandfather of the belle named Sargi (Ishita Dutta) won’t accept the proposal because he is a Gandhi-influenced freedom fighter.
Daniel is smart enough to figure out that the British won’t rule forever, so coaxes a nutty Raja (Kumud Mishra) to invest in a booze factory with him. The only problem is that the ideal site is Sargi’s village, and the Raja orders the people to be evicted. How can the loyal servant of the British allow his beloved to be ousted from her home?
So he comes up with a hare-brained scheme to save the village. The film plods at snail’s pace, and lacks even a smidgen of humour. Had it been snappy and funny—which it could well have been—Firangi might have been rescued. But its fine supporting cast is wasted on a lethargic movie. At a run time of two hours and forty minutes, it’s akin to torture. Kapil Sharma does have screen presence and could act if he were given a role worth his while. Better luck next time!
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Kadvi Hawa
Village Woes
In a scene from Nila Madhab Panda’s Kadvi Hawa, a village teacher is giving the kids a lesson on the seasons. According to the books, there are four, but a kid answers that there are two, summer and winter. “What about the monsoon?” the teacher snaps. The boy says, "It does rain two or three days a year, sometimes in winter, sometimes in summer."
Panda’s film is supposed to be about the devastation of climate change, but he approaches the subject in a roundabout way. Most of story is about farmers committing suicide because they are unable to repay bank loans. The audience has to make the connection that the land is arid because of a lack of rain caused by climate change.
Kadvi Hawa focuses on one family—a blind old man Hedu (Sanjay Mishra), his son Mukund (Bhupesh Singh), daughter-in-law Parvati (Tillotama Shome) and two granddaughters. When the film opens, Hedu makes a trip to the bank in town to inquire about his son’s debt and is rudely driven away because he does not have money to pay.
Back in the village, a farmer has hanged himself, and then news comes that a strict recovery agent, Gunu (Ranvir Shorey) has arrived; wherever he goes he causes a couple of suicides, earning him the nickname of Yamdoot.
Gunu is from Orissa, where floods have destroyed him home and killed his father. He takes an assignment in this hot and dry area because he gets double the commission for recovery.
Hedu makes a kind of Faustian bargain with Gunu—if his son is left alone, he will give the recovery man information about which villager has money. (This gives the impression that some villagers do not want to repay loans.)
The film is more tell than show, a card at the end gives statistics of how many people died in “super cyclones,” and how many suicides have been caused by climate change and how many more people will be pushed into poverty by 2030, but the film itself leaves a lot unsaid.
It’s not as if the viewer is looking for suffering and tragedy, but Hedu’s family seems well fed. They live in a decent house and are not dressed in rags. The granddaughter goes to school, and the family has a cow. There is dialogue about Mukund having to go to the city to work at a construction site, presumably because there is not enough water for farming, but there is no indication of famine or a devastating water crisis.
Kadvi Hawa may have its heart in the right place, but think of films like Dharti Ke Lal, Do Bigha Zameen, Godaan, Do Boond Paani about the tragedies of rural India, and one can see how the new film—made for a festival audience—falls short, despite excellent performances by Mishra and Shorey. Gulzar’s poem, Mausam beghar hone lage hain, recited by him, at the end of the film, is a lot more impactful and thought-provoking.
Films about social issues must be made, and urban audiences must know how the other half lives, but if they do not reach an audience or appeal to them, the effort is wasted.
Labels: Cinemaah
Saturday, November 18, 2017
Tumhari Sulu
Radio Daze
It’s is very disconcerting to note that in a 2017 film, a woman is guilt-tripped for wanting to have a career. If she has to shine at her job, she must fit in the husband’s wishes and adjust to his ego.
That out of the way, Suresh Triveni’s Tumhari Sulu is refreshingly different, because it has an overweight, 12th fail, middle-class, Virar (only a Mumbai-ite will get the significance of that) resident homemaker as its heroine. Sulochana (Vidya Balan) gets through most of life’s minor travails with patience and a sense of humour; problems like her twin sisters and father constantly berating her for her lack of education and ambition.
But her husband Ashok (Manav Kaul) overworked and underpaid manager in a garment factory, and schoolgoing son Pranav (Abhishek Sharma) love her; there is laughter and comfort in their lives, even if money is tight. Sulochana or Sulu has a competitive streak, whether it’s striving to win a lemon-and-spoon races at Pranav’s school or acing colony contests like fastest vegetable-cutter.
When she wins a pressure cooker in a radio contest, she aspires to be a radio-jockey, and after some too contrived scenes, the head of the station, Maria (Neha Dhupia) gives the “sari wali bhabhi” a night slot, where she jabbers away with horny or lonely men (no women?) in her practiced sexy voice, as she shells peas for the next day’s meal (why? a nine pm show could not go on all night!)
There is a lot of warmth and humour till this point, and one hopes Indian cinema has got a character to match the iconic Lucille ‘Here’s Lucy’ Ball, with her exuberance and courage. But then Triveni drops the plot into cauldron of melodramatic clichés, as the husband, who is having job-related issues, starts sniping at her; the kid, for an inexplicable reason does something to give her grief, and the family’s wrath descends on her with full force.
If the film remains bearable it’s because Vidya Balan never takes her hands off the wheel, while Manav Kaul and Neha Dhupia offer solid support through their performances. But count the number of women in films, getting ahead on her own terms, without guilt, without having to face negative repercussions for their ambition? The list will fit on the fingers of one hand and Sulu won’t be on it.
Labels: Cinemaah
