Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Aagey+3
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.
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.
Labels: Cinemaah
