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Mohenjo Daro (2016)
Hrithik Roshan, Ashutosh Gowariker ditch old for seriously antique
If you had to recreate an ancient civilisation, what would you do? If you are Ashutosh Gowariker, and have had lots of experience in excavating the past (Lagaan, Jodhaa Akbar), you would scale it up. Instead of a few hundred years, you would go back a couple of thousands, ditching the merely old for the seriously antique.
Mohenjo Daro, set in Mohenjo-daro of the Indus Valley civilisation, is bigger but certainly not better than these two Gowariker's earlier outings. The sepia tone of the earth and the dwellings is balanced by an array of costumery: everyone looks like they have been handed out unstructured earth-toned garments, which follow the latest fashion du jour. And lest you thought they were not accessorised to the hilt in 2016 BC, perish it: the villainous chief wears a headgear of horns (the happily hamming Kabir Bedi, who carries it off with a raffish air) to an alarmingly tall crown of what looks like feathers, coins and shells sported by the leading lady (the debutant Pooja Hegde, who looks much better without, and may fare better in her next).In between is leading man Hrithik Roshan as poor indigo farmer Sarman, a resident of village Samri of the Sindh province, who has set his heart on going to neighbouring big town Mohenjo-daro. That is where, he is convinced, lie his fate and fortune, and an animal with one horn.Right from the build-up, featuring what is meant to be a thrilling boat ride and a fight with a fake-looking crocodile, all the better to show off Hrithik's rippling chest and ripping valour, Mohenjo Daro is a plod, and a heavily borrowed one to boot: the entry into a forbidden town (which strongly reminds us of Baahubali), the romance with a pretty stranger, the rivalry with a muscle-bound fellow, the unravelling of dark secrets, the saving of a town from a beastly ruler—we've seen so many versions of it before.It beats me how so much time and effort can be spent on creating something meant to be jaw-dropping, but which leaves you sighing at the sheer waste of it all. Just when you think the plot is shifting just a fraction, out pops yet another item number, complete with whirling dervishes (remember Jodhaa Akbar?) and belly dancers: how can you have a Hrithik film without getting him on the floor, even if it is daubed in mud?In Lagaan, there were the evil Brits who wanted more tax from the poor 'gaon-waalon'. In Mohenjo Daro too, along comes the demand for more 'kar-vasooli'. Gowariker also filches from the many Hollywood epics which dump their heroes into an arena and have them fight for their lives: Hrithik faces off with two iron-chested cannibals (Bedi terms them, helpfully, 'narbhakshi') who grunt and growl.
And just in case we were missing something, Sarman does a Noah, launches a massive rescue op, and saves scores of humans and animals, to swelling background music. By then, we're so exhausted that we let the waters of Sindhu Ma float over us, and wait for things to get over.
Pink (2016)
A blazing indictment of all that's wrong with us
All those associated with the making of 'Pink', please take a deep bow : finally, a powerful, brave Hindi mainstream film which focuses on real young women who live real lives and deal with thorny day-to-day issues, which young women the world over will identify and relate with.
I know where the young leads in 'Pink' are coming from. And I know too many women who have been in their place, or missed being there by a scary, scarring whisker.Bottomline, when a girl says no, she means no.It means go away, don't bother me. It can also be a prelude to stronger language if the aggressor in question refuses to back off. The young woman can wear short skirts or jeans or Tees. She can be present at rock concerts. She can laugh and reach out to a young man in a friendly fashion. She can have a drink or two in his company. She can even be, shudder, sexually experienced.
Hearing the phrase 'are you a virgin' in a Bollywood film in a meaningful, non-smirky manner? Fantastic. Underlining a woman's freedom to own her sexuality? Priceless.When she says no, it means only one thing. No grabbing. No forcing. Take that groping hand and mouth away. She isn't easy. She isn't a person of loose morals. She is not, never, ever, asking for it.
That it has taken Bollywood so long to make a movie which says it so clearly, without beating about the bush, without prevaricating or using obfuscatory language, tells us a great deal about the country we live in, and the social mores that its women have had to live by, buried under crippling patriarchy and misogyny and a sense of mistaken shame—if you are pawed or worse, you must have done something to provoke your molester. So cross your hands across your chest, put your head down, and keep shut.The three female protagonists of 'Pink' are your regular young women. Minal (Taapsee Pannu) is an events manager, whose work can extend into the late hours. Falak (Kirti Kulhari) works in a corporate set-up where image is all. Andrea (Tariang) is from the 'North-East' (Meghalaya, she says, but clearly no one is interested in the specifics : girls from the 'North East' are fair game, even if they are covered from top to toe). The girls share a flat in a 'posh' South Delhi locality, and we meet them first when they are heading back in a cab in the early hours of the morning, disturbed about something that has just happened.
As the plot (oh joy, a plot, verily), terse and on-point, unravels, we get to know that the trio was in the company of three young men, after a rock concert in Surajkund in Haryana. Things take an ugly turn after the dinner that follows. The women have to make a run for it, and one of the young men ends up needing stitches in a deep bloody gash above his eye.
It doesn't a genius to discover that the political might backing the injured Rajveer (Angad Bedi) and his friends, Dumpy (Raashul Tandon), Vishwa (Tushar Pandey) and another fellow (Vijay Varma) who wasn't there but is happy to engineer and participate in the humiliation of the women, will try and turn the tables: instead of being the victims, they will be painted as the aggressors. How do you silence a courageous young woman who has the temerity to ask questions? You label her cheap, slut, whore: the film mutes the word 'rxxx', but you can see it emblazoned on the face of the guy who says it out loud and the girls who have to hear it. You can see it in the body language of the female cop (Shankar, just so) who helps nail the wrong person for the crime.Pink reminded me of Jodi Foster's The Accused in which her character is gang-raped in a bar: because she wears a short skirt, and has been drinking, she is made out to be a woman on the make. Something similar happens here, but it is all three women who have to bear the brunt of the rage that such male entitlement comes with: 'aisi ladkiyon ke saath toh aisa hi hota hai'.
I am waiting for the return of the actor who, back in his day, used to routinely blow my socks off in a way no one has even come close to, in all these years.Meanwhile, Pink, perhaps called thus because the colour is girly,subverts it and turns it on its head. In its best bits, the film blazes, its call-to-arms radiating outwards and forcing us to acknowledge uncomfortable truths. It has something to say, and says it with courage and conviction. Gather everyone and go; and while you are at it, spread the word.
A Flying Jatt (2016)
Tiger Shroff film is electric blue-clad promo of Swachch Bharat
A Jatt superhero who bumbles and fumbles? Who behaves like a little boy around his formidable 'bebe', and is all shy and tongue-tied around a hot babe? Who has, haha, a fear of heights? Sounds like a barrel of fun, no? The first half of A Flying Jatt is not afraid to be silly and is very enjoyable. Tiger Shroff plays a martial arts teacher in a school where he strives lamely to catch his students' eye, as well as a pretty colleague whom we know is interested in the environment because she clutches a couple of books on the subject to her bosom. No one ever goes to class: it is that kind of film.The pollution, we soon learn, is Enemy No One, riding on the back of the greedy capitalist Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon, camping it up madly) and the evil monster-dipped-into-the-vat-of-chemicals Raka (Nathan Jones, boasting an old-fashioned Bollywood name for a modern-day 'gora' villain). When the Flying Jatt's mum sends him off with the classic 'jaa, duniya ko bacha', we laugh out loud. Because, you know, that's what superheroes do: once they are in costume-and-cape and armed with their super-powers, we know all will be well.
Tiger Shroff is a thing of beauty when he flexes his splendid, impossibly toned muscles. He dances like a dream. And because he is still a work-in-progress actor to whom fumbling and bumbling and being awkward comes naturally, he is a good fit for his character, even if it's cobbled together from familiar caped crusaders: bits of Superman and Spiderman and our own home-grown Krrish.He gets able support from Singh as the proud Sikhni with superpowers of her own: no baddie ever invented can be a match for Bollywood moms. And from Gaurav Pandey as his brother-cum-best-pal. Fernandez has to jump up and down and squeal girlishly, when she is not dancing alongside the Jatt, or not being taken on an aerial survey, all of which she delivers on.The second half goes south. The film starts getting preachy and heavy. A bad guy who fattens on garbage and waste is a great stroke, but to keep belabouring the point is pointless. Except for a couple of effective scenes, the enormous Jones is a bore. And without the funny bits which kept the pre-interval parts afloat, the faults start glaring. The song-and-dances, bunged in just to show off Tiger's limber moves, are a drag: Bollywood superheroes can save the world only after the 'naach-gaana' is over.Our Jatt Singh-Is-King-of-Kings superhero needs nothing but his 'kada': kryptonite is so last century. Nice touch. But he also needs a plot to help him fly all the way.This could have been such a rollicking film, especially for kids —it had all the ingredients, and an engaging start, fronted by a hero who is light on his feet. Too bad it ends up being a promo for Swachch Bharat.
Veerappan (2016)
It has pace, but the classic RGV isn't back yet
A 360-degree camera spin follows this Voltaire quote, and you find yourself surrounded by a dense forest and trumpeting tuskers. This territory belongs to Veerappan, a killing machine who counts LTTE chief Prabhakaran as his inspiration. You wish to know more about this rugged man, and a child appears with a camera mounted over his shoulders.
The kid takes you on a time warp and loud background score ensures you remain stuck there for a while. And then you breathe, recognise and realise it is that Ram Gopal Varma touch. Welcome to the world of omnipresent cameras.Now, to the film's story: Different task forces couldn't kill or capture Veerappan (Sandeep Bhardwaj) in more than 15 years, so the project has been handed over to a no-nonsense cop (Sachin Joshi), who hasn't been given a name in the film. He involves Shriya (Lisa Ray), an untrained civilian, in a highly confidential plan to eliminate Veerappan for reasons best known to Varma.Though we know what happened on October 18, 2004, the day Veerappan was killed, we still sit in anticipation of RGV's trademark storytelling, if we can ignore bad acting and touches like a candle in an already well lit room. There is a straight lift from Sholay as well. Who said RGV is out of his Aag hangover! The disappointment grows when the script fails to produce any grip over the characters. Nobody other than Bhardwaj looks serious about the film. Thanks to his make-up artist, he reminds the viewer of the dreaded man from the beginning, but he has a gang that looks absolutely out of sync.
The cop, Joshi, takes this cluelessness many notches higher by inviting Lisa Ray to the interrogation room holding one of Veerappan's aides. She breathes heavily, almost orgasmically, and it all becomes so ridiculous that you wonder who will faint first -- Ray or the bandit?Other characters bring no relief despite Varma's flourishes of using camera from unexpected angles. The attempt to produce a taut thriller is hampered by the fact Veerappan states the obvious. Rather than how and why of the dreaded smuggler's rise in the border areas of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, it seeks refuge in dishing out the details of Operation Cocoon.
Instead of diving deep into Veerappan's past, there is an effort to create a positive halo around him. At a point, he candidly describes how he received only Rs 7 lakh out of the total Rs 9 crore ransom in the kidnapping of Kannada superstar, Dr Rajkumar. The basic idea is to present it as a morally ambiguous story where the good can also use evil means, but that isn't enough.
Having said that, this 126-minute film has pace and a narrative technique which may give you a glimpse of RGV's old charm. But, the mojo isn't completely back yet.
Raman Raghav 2.0 (2016)
A clear-cut, uncomplicated, thriller
An opening rider in Raman Raghav 2.0 establishes the film's connect (as well as the disconnect) with the infamous serial killer of the 60s Mumbai: Raman Raghav, who had left a trail of 41 odd murders behind him. "This film is not about him," the disclaimer states. Indeed the film is about a contemporary copycat killer. But then it is not just about the new age Ramanna either.
Whodunnit? Whydunnit? Howdunnit? Raman Raghav 2.0 is actually neither of the above. Yes there are many murders that keep you riveted but they are not an end in themselves. They are more a contrivance, as is the cat and mouse game between the killer Ramanna (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) and the cop Raghuvendra Singh Ubbi (Vicky Kaushal). The slayings and slaughters are mere pitstops in the journey of these two characters and their unfolding relationship with each other. The killings (right from the one at the start till those in the end) are devices through which Anurag Kashyap explores the crime vs law binary. He brings the two together, coalesces and fuses them. Is there much that separates the two? Aren't they reflections of each other? The film is a long chase in which each is actually running after his own shadow. It is as if Kashyap deliberately splits an immoral, unlawful mind into two and the film then becomes a voyage to a metaphoric completion. As if on cue Ramanna says of Raghav: "Apni mukti aurat mein dhoondh raha hai (He is looking for his own redemption in a woman)." Implying quite kinkily that it is he who is actually his salvation. The pivot of the film is the portrait of the serial killer. The creature of Mumbai mythology and folklore is brought alive with added shades of the dark and the menacing in this brand new avatar. Glowing cat eyes, a scar running down his forehead, at times wearing his own sister's earrings, humming "aadmi musafir hai" and moving around with an iron car-jack in hand, scouting furtively for victims, hiding in slush and rising up nonchalantly from it plastered with muck. Nawaz is brilliantly frantic and frenzied as the cold hearted, demented, voyeuristic pervert. Like the best of killers his depravity is built on his individual philosophy: that he has a wireless access to God, that he is the messenger of Yamraj who is telling him to pick people up and kill them. For him killing in the name of nation or religion is just not as evolved as killing purely for the heck of killing which is what he is himself practising. Nawaz packs in such a brute force in his lean frame and mean presence that everyone else gets automatically shoved to the periphery. Sitting on his knees, looking up at the cop in the balcony—with one unwavering look he sends a chill down the spine. But, despite Nawaz's overpowering presence Vicky stands in good stead as a reckless, trigger happy, drug-addled cop keeling dangerously close to Ramanna's side of darkness.
They share much in common. Both have emerged from squalid surroundings; belong to worlds that are rotten and foul. Be it the filthy slums or a decaying middle class family. So a passing reference to Vasantbalan's Angadi Theru seems quite appropriate in the scheme of the film.
Both Ramanna and Raghav are also creatures bred and brought up in patriarchy, are victims of it (Raghav's uneasy but submissive equation with his dad for instance) yet perpetuating its deep misogyny. No wonder women, however strong-willed, get the worst end of the stick, be it Ramanna's victims or Raghav's girls.
Some sequences stand out. Ramanna holding his sister's family hostage brings out his sick mind in the queasiest way possible. A massacre followed by a feast of some chicken curry and to top it all that dynamite of a song-- Behooda. Most satisfying! Or that unnervingly funny killing in slums even as an old lady is too busy collecting the potatoes fallen from her bag. The killings and bloodshed might be kept off screen but the gore and gruesomeness reach out. The black humour adds to the horror. How in the long scene at the very start Ramanna confesses to his crimes only to be let off by the police. Owning up becomes his ticket to freedom, and to more murders than the nine already committed.
More than the story itself, it is the quirky telling that is the key. Structured around eight chapters, vividly shot in the slums, pulsating with raucous music, Raman Raghav 2.0 is a taut thriller, full of energy and brimming over with tension. It doesn't flag even once and holds the viewer tightly in its grip. Such is the dizzying momentum and pace that you even stop caring about some missing pieces of the jigsaw that would have been niggling you. Clear-cut, uncomplicated Raman Raghav 2.0 takes you on an entertainment high.
Housefull 3 (2016)
just leave your Brain behind for a bit "Dont Mind"
As expected the trailer of Housefull 3 gives much of the film away. A rich Gujju businessman in London, Batuk Patel (Boman Irani), doesn't want to marry off his three daughters because of the curse of broken marriages running in his extended family. All hell breaks lose when he learns that all the three sanskari girls – Ganga, Jamuna and Saraswati (Jacqueline Feernandes, Nargis Fakhri and Lisa Haydon) – have a boyfriend each. A car racer called Teddy (Riteish Deshmukh), a rapper called Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) and a footballer called Sandy (Akshay Kumar).
The boys do manage to get an entry into the girls' mansion but by playing blind, mute and crippled. The confusion gets confounded when this role playing has to get interchanged. The blind has to turn mute, the mute has to become crippled and the one playing crippled has to turn blind. All for the sake of the Indian Don, Urja Nagare (Jackie Shroff) to whom Batuk owes a royal sum of Rs 5000 crores. Well there is more but that will be telling it all.
So with the story out of the way all that's left to follow in the film is whether the situations and gags are funny enough or not. Unfortunately they aren't and a morning show in Mumbai hardly had anyone in the audience smiling, leave ROFLing away. No one would go looking for logic in the Housefull franchisee but inspired madness and sublime silliness is definitely worth demanding. No such luck.
One can't quite go looking for political correctness in such a film. But Housefull3, doesn't know where it wants to stand on issues. No wonder after cracking many a joke at the physically challenged its attempt to redeem itself in the end seems half baked and forced. The film's stand on racism is also just as confused. Initially Indians and the blacks are seen at the same end of the racial slurs yet you have the Gujju empire of Batook Patel populated entirely by black maids and distasteful references made to their wombs. And not to forget the play with maa and behen in the lyrics. What are these songs trying to say? It's Askhay Kumar who gets the maximum play as the footballer suffering from dissociative identity disorder. The split personality has a patriotic reason. It's all an aggression resulting from the depression he feels as an Indian on being mistreated by the Westerners. Kumar hams with abandon in two long sequences where he has to swing between his two selves and gets to speak the funniest line of the film: "such huge (Rs5000 crore) loans are not taken by individuals but nations". His Paris-parrot-paragon-Paramount-pears routine is also funny.
Abhishek Bachchan has a natural flair for comedy but here he is toned down to the extent of becoming lacklustre. And can we please see him with an identity of his own rather than being burdened with his illustrious surname? He is certainly more than a "bade baap ka beta". Even on the silver screen.
It's left to Jackie Shroff then, gun in hand and blade hidden inside his mouth, who displays more charisma than the rest of the cast put together. Wish there was more of him.
Buddha in a Traffic Jam (2016)
All hype no substance
MBA student Vikram Pandit (Arunoday Singh) has a plan for the upliftment of India's oppressed tribals and the end of the 'Naxal problem': selling earthen pots they make to the world via a smartphone app. "Let's cut out the middleman
Christie's and eBay are ready to buy." He thinks it's genius. You know it sounds imbecilic. What Buddha
is instead, is propaganda disguised as cinema. The film is divided into a dozen odd chapters. The prologue opens, if you'll believe it, in 2000 BC. A tribal man in Bastar is chopping wood with an axe. The Iron Age dates back to around 1200 BC, but never mind that. Cut to 2014. A tribal man is still chopping wood. Historical veracity notwithstanding, the statement is a good one: little has changed for him. Except, he's now caught in the cross-fire of the government-Naxalite fight. gnihotri drops the charade quickly. Naxalites, he proposes, have infiltrated the government, the intelligentsia, schools, financial institutions, even "Bollywood", like the HYDRA invaded SHIELD (Avengers, anyone?). They're among us, greeting each other with hushed "Lal Salaam" instead of "Hail HYDRA", waiting to strike, to unleash the evil, to take over. "Rrreeevoluuution," screams a central character, less like a zealot, more like a rock musician on ecstasy. Unfortunately, or, fortunately (depends on how you see it), Agnihotri's skills as a director are so limited, he's thoroughly unconvincing.
Judged purely as cinema, without political bias or naiveté, the writing and execution are insipid. The narrative has the flow and progression of a BuzzFeed listicle. Chapter numbers stand in for serial numbers. '10 conspiracy theories that prove Naxals are evil'. Punctuations come in the form of repetitive catalogue-ish shots of the ISB (Indian School of Business, Hyderabad) campus, where most of the film is shot.
Pandit is the central character, the titular Buddha. The genius who will save the world, one earthen pot at a time. Singh, who plays him, is mostly tolerable. The intermittent hamming and non-acting of the extras makes him look better. But the weight of the film, and a lion's share of the lines, rests with Professor Batki (Anupam Kher). He's the charismatic teacher the students rally around. The shepherd, or the Pied Piper, if you will. Kher, without surprise, is also the strongest actor. His decisions move the film along. The other characters are drawn in sweeping generalisations: exhibit a) students who say "f**k" a lot; exhibit b) bored housewife running a potter's club; exhibit c) corrupt Naxal leader, who's also a chauvinist pig, and therefore must rip the front of a woman's dress without rhyme or reason.
Good cinema must be convincing. Good propaganda even more so. Buddha
doesn't manage to be either. At one point, Pandit is delivering a speech on corruption, and how students can change it all. But how?, someone asks. His solution? "Do it by thinking it." Pandit is Agnihotri on screen, naturally; the film is "autobiographical". They're both utterly self-convinced. We are not.
One Night Stand (2016)
The only person with any acting cred is Ninad Kamat in this Sunny Leone starrer
A hot-shot event manager has a one night stand with a beautiful stranger. No spoilers there, because the plot point is inherent in the film's title: can't get more explicatory than that, can it? It's when the roll in the hay is done and dusted, and both parties return to terra ferma, that this film starts getting a little interesting. Both Urvil (Tanuj Virwani) and the woman who calls herself Celina (Sunny Leone) realise that a little bit of unthinking lust can cause, um, complications.
That he, self-confessed Casanova who is always adding another notch on his well-shucked belt, can't get her out of his head, and she, mysterious lady of the night, can't be bothered, is the cool curve the film throws out. But it is unable to build on it, remaining yet another stab at a 'desi' 'Fatal Attraction, saddled with an inept plot and shallow acts.Why should boys have all the fun, why can't girls too? Why not indeed? Good question, and amply answered by all the heavings and writhings, but, and this is the thing, they are surprisingly tame. Ms Leone's vaunted past as an adult entertainer, the sole reason why you presume this film has been made, have been successfully and sadly tamped by Bollywood. Where's the heat?Sunny Leone is picture perfect, managing a couple of felt expressions in only a few scenes. Even her bump and grind is same old: this 'duniya' is still 'pittal di' ; where's the gold? She will need to seriously up her act overall, and delivering dialogue is part of it, to be able to call herself an actress. Right now, she is gorgeous to look at, but we know that already, and struggling to emote, which has been her bugbear in her last few outings as well. The only person with any acting cred here is Ninad Kamat, who lifts the film whenever he is on.
For a film which wants to strike a blow for feminism and sexual freedom, there are some troubling misogynistic touches about 'hot' secretaries, and 'stay-at-home' wives. Careful, your slip is showing.
Tutak Tutak Tutiya (2016)
Prabhudheva flaunts great comic timing amid misogyny
Deepika Padukone's iconic ghostly scene from Chennai Express – (Thangabali Kitavaradhe), reminded us that there is scope for decent horror-comedies in Bollywood. This film shares that sentiment and dedicates an entire story to the genre, which is refreshing.
Here, horror leads to comedy as Ruby's spirit randomly jumps in and out of Devi's body, keeping Krishna and the audience on its toes. It's all quite silly but the director's modest approach towards the story works. The repetition of funny scenes robs it of its glory though. As the story progresses, the horror comedy turns into a drama and like its female protagonist, struggles with its multiple-personalities a bit. The end result turns out to be a fairly watchable film that works for its honesty and harmlessness more than its entertainment value.
Boasting of a clean family humour, Vijay doesn't try too hard to please his audience and gets brownie points for keeping things sweet and simple. The movie does not pretend to be smarter than it is and that's a welcome relief. The special effects in a particular scene are impressive as well.
The gorgeous Tamannaah, slips in and out of her two diverse characters Ruby and Devi, effortlessly. She even manages to match her dance steps with the great Prabhu Deva. Though he displays a good comic timing, the latter doesn't have much to do except for acting surprised owing to his wife's situation. Sonu Sood makes an extended cameo and renders a restrained performance. He does justice to his superstar character that is not caricaturish or clichéd.
Despite being a tad underwhelming, Tutak Tutak Tutiya is a fairly enjoyable film that can be watched on a family outing.
Junooniyat (2016)
Pulkit and Yami's film is a sappy, clichéd love story
Between choice and destiny, which would you pick? Is it really a choice one makes if destined for something? And such is the subtext to this sappy, clichéd love story of an army officer who believes he's made a choice, falls in love but appears buffeted by destiny's changing winds.
Captain Jahan Bakshi (Pulkit Samrat) finds Suhaani (Yami Gautam) swimming in a restricted zone and brings her to his camp. Friendly banters turn into passionate letters and the couple decides to marry after singing four songs in 40 minutes. But, they have to match up to Bollywood standards, and thus arises a series of problems. Can the two ultimately write a love story that's not inspired by Hindi cinema?Junooniyat, which means obsession in Urdu, is mostly about the clichés: Army officers holding beer mugs, Punjabi bubbly girl, wedding songs, NRI cousins, cheesy dialogues, lassi and mustard fields, and so on. The onus is entirely on poetry-loving Bakshi to make it look convincing. However, Vivek Agnihotri's credit says 'direction and poetry', so you know who to applaud for the syrupy one-liners.The usual 'boy meets girl' story takes a long time to happen, and that gives the audience enough time to anticipate the next twist. Average writing fails to add depth to characters, making the actors seem more like fillings in an annoying tooth cavity.
A certain indecisiveness further undermines the story. There's conflict, but it's very fickle in nature. The tempo stalls and by the time momentum picks up, it's time for another song. The sense of urgency fizzles out when it's needed the most. And the comic breathers jump out of the narrative, making the whole plot appear patchy, incoherent and unromantic. Pulkit Samrat tries, but never gets a chance to break free from the clutches of Bollywood's stereotype of an army guy. Yami Gautam could've done better, but Junooniyat is more of a musical than a solid relationship drama. Confined to look good, dance well and act like typical Punjabi girls do in films, she fades.
Gulshan Devaiah and the cinematography by Attar Singh Saini are the two good things going for the movie, but do little to salvage the bad script. Some melodious tunes may entice you, but that's not enough to keep you hooked for the two-hours and odd saga.
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016)
India's poster boy is pitch perfect
More five-day Test than Twenty20 blast, Neeraj Pandey's hefty Hindi biopic seizes upon the Indian cricket captain as a long-haired, motorbike-riding poster boy for the country's modernisation. This MS Dhoni (Sushant Singh Rajput) strides out with logo-emblazoned bat on to a succession of pitches incrementally grander than the one his humble engineer father (Anupam Kher) struggled to water; even his erratic development – stuck checking train tickets after a promising student career – seems somehow tied to the state and fate of the nation.
Any Boycottian analysis would rule certain aspects a tad daft – there probably wouldn't be so many midwicket musical montages in The Andrew Strauss Story – and the tone is somewhere between understandably fond and fawning. Still, the on-field activity is convincing, and Rajput makes MSD a winning mix of eyes-on-the-prize focus, square-jawed stoicism and quiet humility.
Pandey holds this career up as cause for communal celebration, and his film has the big-match temperament to set us cheering – or, in this Englishman's case, politely applauding.
Mirzya (2016)
Harshavardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher come and go minus impact
Mirzya has everything that's required for a musical romance based on a popular Punjabi folktale: a pair of fresh faces (Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher) with great Bollywood genes, a strong supporting cast, and lilting music.
Outside Punjab, the story of Mirza-Sahiba may not be as well-known as the other folktales about star-crossed young love such as Heer Ranjha and Sohni Mahiwal, but it has an equally strong core of emotion. And there's no one better than Gulzar to be able to translate the story into a film, keeping the feelings and idiom intact. A touch of 'Romeo-Juliet' is stirred in to emphasise just how hard the lovers have to fight, and just how much our hearts have to go out to them.But right from the get-go, Mirzya tells us it's going to be more about setting the scene, as it cross-cuts in time — some sequences are as spectacular as anything we've seen recently — than giving us characters that will instantly grab us, and keep us with them. This problem plagues this lush, good-looking production right through, and makes it much less of a film than it could have been.
Transplanting the tale to Rajasthan allows for locations that can take your breath away, despite their overuse in Bollywood. Grand forts, picturesque hamlets, glittering deserts and undulating dunes, and 'rajwadaas' with all their grand costumes and liveried retainers: Mirzya is all eye candy.There's also something sweet and engaging about an initial segment which shows Suchi and Mohnish as childhood sweethearts very attached to each other, who part and meet again in very different circumstances.
The film starts to slide when we meet these two as young adults, Suchi (Saiyami Kher) as a curly-haired miss engaged to Prince Karan (Anuj Choudhry) who bumps into Adil-Mohnish (Harshvardhan Kapoor), and re-kindles old embers. But soon enough it gets stuck in silliness, and a line exchanged between the lovers becomes all too prescient: 'tum aa rahi ho ya ja rahi ho', asks he. The film, much too intent on creating prettiness, gives us no answers: Suchi and Adil-Mohnish come and go minus impact.And that's down to the fact that the lovers do not set the screen on fire. Except for a stray scene, and that too towards the end, when these two look at each other, really look into each other's eyes, and break out laughing, telling us that they are delighting in each other's presence to the exclusion of all else, they are merely spouting lines.Without that crucial element, where lovers create a tight world of their own and no one else is allowed, no romance works. In terms of acting potential, neither newcomer lifts off the screen, but Kapoor fares just a little better than his affectless leading lady: he appears to have a quiet spark which may surface after some more polishing. Flashback to his father Anil and his first film, you will instantly see the difference between an actor being groomed and an actor who is a complete natural, and who makes us look. Choudhry brings something to the table, as does the veteran Art Malik who is made to recite Shakespeare, but they get lost in the window-dressing. And neither K K Raina, hidden under designer glares, nor Om Puri in his muddy-grey garb, have much to do.
Luv U Alia (2015)
Alia bhatt should sue its makers
Released originally in Kannada in 2015 -- and you just have to see how original this concoction of gaudy construction is -- Luv U Alia now comes in a Hindi version to prove what film lovers already know. Bad commercial films in any language are equally bad.
There are no redeeming qualities in this banal, cheerless, sloppy, clumsy and distinctly dumb rom-com about a shifty marriage counsellor Kiran (Chandan Kumar) who gets the hots for a girl named Alia (Sangeetha Chauhan) only to realise that her father Ravi (V Ravichandran) whom Kiran suspects of being a slimeball with a stethoscope, is actually an angel in a doctor's coat.Whoever thought this spindly rom-com would actually work needs to be honoured for optimism.
The second half of the abominably sickening, over-sweetened and corny confection has Kiran winning over his future father-in-law by pretending to be a nurse, a female nurse, let me hasten to clarify. Ha ha. What follows is clunky comments on broken marriages conducted by a director who has serious problems escaping the multi-coloured toys of his childhood that seem to have chased his filmmaking aspirations into adulthood.
The film looks like a cross between a 8-year old child's drawing-book image of a lavish lifestyle and a 20-something year old's most outlandish porn fantasy.One of the film's highpoints is the hero in drag pretending to seduce his girlfriend's father. If this strikes you as distastefully incestuous, then be warned. Good taste is not a strong quality in this colourful romp.
The sets and locations are as garish as Lego buildings constructed by a child who favours red green and purples.
If Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge fell on its head and suffered serious injuries, this film could be the end-result. The performances are beyond atrocious. Everyone has the licence to act goofily without fear of repercussions.
In the second-half, the long-missing Bhumika Chawla who once tolerated Salman Khan's weird hairstyle in Tere Naam, shows up to tolerate the hero's weird.everything! This is no country for the discerning. Stay away.
Udta Punjab (2016)
Shahid, Alia starrer has flaws, but makes a strong point
First off, is Udta Punjab worth all the fuss? I'd say, absolutely.
Not because it is a perfect film. It has flaws. But this is the kind of film that has something to say, and it says it with both flair and conviction.
Flying is both a metaphor and reality of drugs. Anyone who's done a line, or snorted some stuff, or shot up, knows what it feels like — you are untethered, you are afloat. It's another matter that you come down with a thud, and it feels so awful that you are shooting up again, and that's your vicious cycle.Udta Punjab is a cracker of a title, and the way it opens tells us that it will go on the way it means to: with rolled-up sleeves ready for action, with characters who look as if they belong to Punjab, and speak the lingo right (mostly). Most importantly, it reveals a willingness to go over to the dark side and show what drugs can do. They can ruin. They can kill. They can wish you were not alive.Tommy Singh (Shahid Kapoor) is an accidental rock star and a full-time user. He rhymes coke and cock, making a song out of it, and the high-on-the-white-stuff youngsters at his raves love it. He loves it too, till the one day all the jollies — the money, the endless supply of the 'chitta' powder, the adulation — curdle. And his eyes light upon a battered-yet-not-beaten Bihari labourer (Alia Bhatt), who has become an unwitting victim in this vicious game, and he stutters, stops and starts to see.
Sartaj Singh (Diljit Dosanjh) is a corrupt cop, who is quite happy to turn a blind eye to the drug traffic, till one day it comes too close home. The feisty Dr Preet Sahni (Kareena Kapoor Khan), who runs a rehab clinic, becomes the other strong salutary influence on Sartaj, and the film takes an about-turn.
Anyone with half an eye open can see that this is not a film that glorifies drugs. The degradation of Alia's character, both physical and mental, is horrifying. An addicted teenager's spiralling down the primrose path is another of the plot's see-see-this-is-what-drugs-can-do-to-you thread. It gets to the point where you want to say right, we get it, move on.The problem is the plot contrivances. In order to put Kareena's star power to some use, she is turned into a sleuth, and the scenes in which she and her cop companion career around in dark godown, tracking down the bad guys, are the film's weakest. It's also clear that despite the dirt on display, the film has its Don't Do Drugs approach emblazoned right across. What was the CBFC objecting to, really?A bit of laxness comes from Shahid's Tommy, who looks just perfect for his part — the strutting and the thrusting on stage, the tangled hair, the constant flashing of the V sign, the self-absorption are done just right. It's what goes on inside of him that we don't really see enough of, and what there is, is more tell than show — he should have been written better. He does have a few terrific scenes, though, and proves that he has a great line in swearing.
But the two actors who make this thing sing are Diljit and Alia. The former, a huge star in Punjab making his Bollywood debut here, is very good. He adds enormously to the authenticity and heft of the film. The latter falters a little with her Bihari accent, but the way she channels the pain and the incredible strength of a young woman stuck in a terrible place, is searing. She soars.
Te3n (2016)
The plot of this Big B, Nawazuddin starrer has too much fuzz
Remember that reasonably engrossing Hollywood thriller Se7en, in which two sleuths go looking for a serial killer with a thing for the seven deadly sins?E3N gimmicks its name similarly and gives us three characters in search of a criminal, but it doesn't borrow any of the smarts from the Hollywood film. This official remake of a Korean mystery with a kidnapping and a death at its heart is a sluggish drag for the most part, brightened only occasionally by a scene or a line.Bachchan plays John, an elderly man still stunned by grief, eight years after the death of a little girl. He will continue to search for the person who caused it, despite being dissuaded by people all around him : wheelchair-bound wife ( Padmavati Rao), sympathetic policewoman Sarita ( Balan), and cop-turned-priest Father Martin ( Nawaz). He will persist with his dogged pursuit for justice and truth whatever happens. A fresh kidnapping turns on the spotlight on the old case again, and as new clues come to light, John's search acquires an intensity and purpose, and we sense, as he does, the coming of an end which will lead to some answers and a sort of peace.This kind of dark story with vicious undertones ( whenever a little girl goes missing, a shiver goes down your spine) could have become a terrific morality play. How does a shocking death, especially of a young life, impact the living? Is it living or a counting out the days till your own passing? Is grief something you can ever get past? And how does guilt play out in all this? TE3N is a case of sadly missed opportunities. Because there are rousing actors in here, and there's a real city to play it all out in. Kolkata is a perfect location for a film like this with its atmospheric patches and the iconic Howrah-Hoogly vistas, reminding you of producer Sujoy Ghosh's far more engaging 'Kahaani', but how a man clad in a dark hoody ( in sultry Kolkata) manages to move around those streets so freely remains an unsolvable mystery.
Its treatment does both place and characters in, turning everything lackadaisical. In its attempt to be less 'dark', loud background music is added in at each step. The plot has too much fuzz, and the characters are all surface : Bachchan's droopy facial lines, Balan's stolid-cop-stomping—these painstakingly drawn outlines call attention to themselves, but do not afford us inner details. Why is her full-fledged act termed a guest appearance? That mystery too stays unsolved. Only Nawaz's guilt-ridden priest breaks free once in a way, and a few red herrings infuse some intrigue, especially towards the end.
Sarbjit (2016)
Randeep Hooda is the only thing worth watching in this Aishwarya Rai Bachchan starrer
When posters of the film carry not the face of the actor playing the titular character but the star backing the project, you know exactly what you will get.
'Sarbjit' , based on the story of a man incarcerated in a Pakistani jail for over two decades, while his sister fought a dogged battle for his release, opts for high-pitched saccharine-laden melodrama : the star is equally high-pitched, leaving the actor to bring up the rear.
Sarbjit's story has been well-documented. He lived with his family—old father, wife Sukh ( Chaddha), and fiercely loyal sister Dalbir ( Rai) in a Punjab village close to the Indo-Pak border. He strayed over the line one night, and was nabbed by the Pakistani patrol. That's when his ordeal started—thrown in a box for months, limbs contorted, hung upside down and flayed till bloody, till he was forced into a false confession, and jailed.The devastated Dalbir , ever protective about her 'bhai', takes up cudgels on his behalf. And she keeps going through the long and hard grind : her appeals to officials on either side of the border fall mostly on deaf ears, with only a few light-in-the-tunnel moments.There is heft in the story. The horror of a human forced to suffer physical and mental torture, and used as a political pawn between India and Pakistan and their see-sawing relations, is wrenching. The family is caught in a terrible cleft, neither able to forget, nor properly mourn. But the treatment is cloying and sentimental, and manipulates you into weeping without actually feeling.
A real-life tale which is inherently so full of drama and heart-break has no need to be artificially revved up. But mainstream Bollywood doesn't know any other way to do things. 'Sarabjit' should have been called 'Dalbir', because it is Aishwarya doing all the heavy-lifting, but to distressing little impact.First off, she is all wrong for the part, her attempts at the rural Punjabi accent slipping up every so often. And then she goes full tilt at her lines, ratcheting up the volume, to such an extent that you want to tell her to hush. When she does go silent, even if precisely for two and a half scenes, she is able to convey her pain and anguish so much better. If she had modulated her act, 'Sarbjit' would have been a better film.
And of course there is the superfluous 'giddha-shiddha' : when will Bollywood make a film on Punjabi characters minus this cliché ? Richa Chaddha hovers mostly in the background, with only one or two scenes which she owns. One noble Pakistani shows up, in the shape of a lawyer ( Darshan), who believes that Sarbjit is innocent. The rest is taken over by Ms Rai, straining every sinew, delivering loud lectures to both Indians and Pakistanis, and, heaven help us, Talibanis.
I did tear up a couple of times, but only for Sarbjit. Randeep Hooda is mostly shown inside his dark, fetid cell, his hair filthy, his hands gnarled. He nails the look and the accent, letting neither overpower him, and is the only reason to sit through this sagging saga.
Azhar (2016)
A fascinating character but a dispassionate film
Azhar lacks spine. It is evident in the long disclaimer preceding the film in which the team seems to be making a claim on cricketer Mohammad Azharuddin's colourful and controversial life as a source material yet maintaining that it is a fictional account. All to escape the legal battles the film could land them in.
Azharuddin (Emraan) is a fascinating character to have built a dispassionate film on. A man, who rose meteorically because of his game, the way he let his bat do all the talking on the field. He fell from favour just as fast because of his covetousness and his alleged involvement in the match-fixing scandal that rocked cricket. He is a man of frailties and shortcomings both on the field of cricket and in the arena of love. But instead of exploring the many shades of grey in him, Tony D'Souza attempts to defend and validate him. Such is the bias that the other players — Manoj, Ravi, Navjot (only first names, no surnames mind you) — get the wrong end of the stick.
Manoj is made to come across not just as jealous and vengeful but selfish, playing for himself than the country and crude and unrefined to boot. Ravi is nothing but a rake. As though that wasn't enough you have Kapil tell Azhar It's the good-for-nothing kids who trouble the class monitor the most. Poor Azhar! Such is the eagerness to justify him that D'Souza makes it seem as though the whole bad world is out to get him. From his haughty fan-turned-prosecutor Mira (Lara Dutta) to the condescending owner of the gym that he inaugurates. Why he took the Rs. 2 crore from bookie M.K. Sharma and what he did with the money is portrayed in such a way as to earn him some desperate brownie points. Even his walking away from an ostensibly fine marriage into the arms of actress Sangeeta Bijlani (Nargis) is turned into a soppy inevitability with him righteously mouthing lines like A broken relationships doesn't actually mean an end of it. But what of Naureen (Prachi), the one who was wronged? When it comes to the craft, the film looks too outmoded in the way it has been mounted — the loud background score soaring over everything else and dialoguebaazi in the name of conversations.
The lines, some of them utterly inane and vacuous, reminded me of heavy duty dialogues of Once Upon A Time In Mumbai. In that masala flick they seemed entertaining, here desperately out of place.
Azharuddin's love for his grandfather becomes a way to draw out melodrama; he gets selected in the national team just as granddad breathed his last. And then there is Azhar's father's obsession with his underwear: the mandatory crass comedy track.
In the name of acting you have Emraan being stiff, staring deep into the camera, looking far from his comfortable self. Prachi and Nargis weep buckets when they are not being coy. Nargis does it most inelegantly. If that wasn't all there is also Kunaal Roy Kapur as Azhar's lawyer. As yet another stereotype of the South Indian in Bollywood, he irritates to the hilt. So does the film.
1920 London (2016)
This shrman joshi- starrer is poor attempt at horror
Directed by Tinu Suresh Desai, 1920 London is the third supernatural drama produced by Vikram Bhatt set in that year. The fascination began in 2008 with 1920, which was centred around a ghostly stately manor and an exorcism.
In 2012's 1920: The Evil Returns, the director, cast and locations were new, but the story revisited the themes of possession and evil spirits idea. Desai's 2016 film is set between in 1920s London and Rajasthan.However period correctness is clearly not a priority with the filmmaker as we see Shivangi, a royal married woman with her head uncovered in a Rajput court, and gliding around her manor in the UK with her knees and arms exposed.
This is a fashion forward Victorian era! If one were to dwell on authenticity, it would be hard to get past the changing length of Sharman Joshi's beard and hair.
So let's cut to the plot instead. The life of a happily married young couple in London changes horrifyingly after the arrival of a surprise gift from India. A spirit seeps out and possesses the husband. Shivangi (Meera Chopra) returns to India to seek help as she sees her husband Veer Singh's (Vishal Karwal) health decline dramatically.
Fearing that a dangerous spirit has possessed him, she approaches a renowned exorcist. He turns out to be none other than her former lover, Jai (Sharman Joshi). In spite of having been dumped and served jail term because of Shivangi's betrayal, Jai travels to London to save Veer.
The story relies on pulling off one major twist, but it's a rather obvious one and once you figure it out the sporadic and half-hearted attempts at grisly, jumpy scares ebb away. A jilted lover with black magic expertise is hardly likely to be a saint.
Sharman Joshi tries hard to play menacing, mysterious and repentant but he's just out of step in the part of an exorcist. Meera Chopra is unimpressive as the helpless wife while Karwal spends most of the film lying in a bed being eaten away by the evil spirit.
Besides one extended exorcism scene, and the painstaking make-up that shows Veer's gradual degradation by the spirit, this is a drab effort with hardly a shock sandwiched between all the frills, frocks and Rajput finery.
Perhaps all the horror there was, has been sucked out of 1920.
Sultan (2016)
Salman Khan cracks and bleeds in his most real performance
There's a moment somewhere in the beginning of the film when Salman Khan's character comes to a halt at a rail crossing, and waits, just like the rest of us do, for the train to pass.
In that instant we know that Sultan is about to push twin boundaries. Of a star's scope, and of mainstream Bollywood. That this will not be the super-human, super-hero Bhai who has been shown crossing the tracks just a whisker ahead of a rushing locomotive from one of his several forgettable flicks. That this will be a Khan who has to, literally, do a lot of heavy-lifting to win the crown.And win it he does. 'Sultan' has him breaking free from Bhai-giri bondage by getting his character to crack and bleed. His down-and-out wrestler has foibles, is fallible, is human. Sultan Ali Khan has faults, and is punished for it. Because of which Sultan scores, and delivers a solid entertainer with heft.
It isn't as if Sultan doesn't struggle with its profusion of familiar tropes. There's your underdog-to-champion, in which child-like Jat Sultan is shown starting from nothing, becoming a world champion in no time at all (yes, there is some sweat and tears involved in the training, but not too much, because hey, this is Bollywood ). There's a romance which involves risible songs and dialogue ( 'Baby ko bass pasand hai', with a shift-and-lift-of-male-and-female derriers). But the girl in question, played by Anushka Sharma with sparkle, is a wrestler herself. She is a woman with ambition, and she's made to talk of uplifting 'mothers' and 'sisters' in patriarchal Jatland.There's the meteoric rise and fall-by-arrogance, but enough time is taken for us to register the downswing of our hero, even as we know that the upswing is just a few frames away. There's the cynical trainer (Randeep Hooda) who keeps chomping on food items, and who will, we know, help slap our out-of-shape, overweight wrestler into shape. This one is the most Hollywood of them all, reminding us of all similar trainers. Remember Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby?But director Ali Abbas Zafar surprises us by keeping the slack moments mostly at bay in this 170-minutes enterprise. Some lines are distinctly populist, but spry enough to make you crack up: Hooda has a lovely one about 'asli Jats'. The supporting cast injects freshness, with the reliable Mishra as the 'akhara-owner' and father of Anushka, who wants his daughter to go places. Amit Sadh plays it nicely as the owner of an Indian pro-Mixed Martial Arts team, even if he owns a trope of his own: never say die. And the hero's best friend, one of the oldest tropes in the book, is a new face (Anant Sharma) who does the Haryanvi accent to a T.
Fan (2016)
SRK is played to all his strength in the film
I went into 'Fan' with a great deal of trepidation, wondering how Maneesh Sharma's new film would play out: a Bollywood superstar playing a Bollywood superstar AND his biggest fan could either be a multi-layered meta delight, or just plain icky.
I am happy to report that 'Fan' is a triumph. Shah Rukh Khan is played to all his strengths, and he plays it just right, gliding in and out of the star and the fan, creating distinct identities and outlines in one scene, and blurring the lines just so in the next. It is a wonderful, grasping, knowing performance, the actor and the star all rolled in one, all at our service, even as they service Shah Rukh Khan's stratospheric stardom.But, and this is the thing, the film does not simper or slobber. It is not in thrall to its star, even when it recognizes his stardom. It goes at itself with with a raised devil's eyebrow (just like SRK's) and a nod and a wink, and brings us in on the joke. And Shah Rukh Khan keeps pace with us, all the way.A 1987 Stephen King novel called 'Misery' has a bestseller author locked into a deadly duel with a woman who calls herself his 'biggest fan', and who will do anything—even kill– to preserve the image that she has of him. In some ways, 'Fan' reminded me of that King novel, which is part horror, part thriller, and part a rumination on how obsessive fandom and the object of the all the worshipping is connected, and how when things go wrong, they can go horribly, inexorably south.Gaurav Chandna (Shah Rukh Khanna) is a Dilli boy who grows up worshipping Aryan Khanna ( Shah Rukh), another Dilli boy who conquered Bombay and Bollywood. The Aryan Khanna who went from an ordinary middle class home to an ocean-front mansion surrounded by screaming mobs, who says, as if means every word, that he, Aryan, exists only because of his fans.Gaurav's journey to Mumbai to meet Aryan—who grants a 'darshan' to hysterical swarms waiting outside his bungalow, just the way the real-life superstar does, in just one of the many meta references littering the film– is both familiar and not-familiar. The in-between spaces are filled with the unexpected, and that's where the film scores. Stars are also human and fallible, and a victim of both hubris and frailty, and Aryan channels all those emotions.
Oh wait, it is Shah Rukh doing the channeling, via Aryan, also Bollywood superstar. So if Aryan has feet of clay, does SRK too? This is one of the several clever inferences the film leaves us to draw from a film which is fashioned directly out of the star's persona and power and pull, and how it impacts other lives. The dilemma of a star who wants everything–can you ever have enough fans, and can they be mixed blessings—is laid out in full techni-coloured messy glory.
The astonishingly-Aryan-lookalike Gaurav is not all sugar and spice either, and much of what he is impelled into doing is the result of what blind hero-worshipping can do. The star opens his arms wide; so does the copycat fan and wins a trophy. The star travels the world ; the fan stalks him. And when the star draws the line – "main yahaan, aur tum wahaan"—the fan reacts in anger, disbelief and rage. There's just one thing this fan wants, and that's the one thing the star will not give him. He can, but he won't.
Rocky Handsome (2016)
Why are we watching this John Abraham film?
A drug-mafia infested Goa plus menacing mobsters plus a little girl who goes missing plus a muscled man on a mission is equal to 'Rocky Handsome'. What all of it basically comes down to is this: a sculpted John Abraham donning a black singlet–pajamas–combat cap, walking slo-mo down corridors, beating the c—p out of sundry bad guys. Or slashing holes into 'em. Same difference. That is the sole purpose of this film.
The baddies are a colourful lot. One is called Mantoo, or Muntu. Another has a ponytail and leaps about like a terrible carbon copy of a bad carbon copy. Another is bald-pated and twinkly eyed. These two have a bodyguard who comes from one of those lands in the East where kinetic martial arts are used commonly. I think I heard someone say Thailand, so okay, he's Thai.But really who cares about such specifics in a film which is determined to plumb all depths when it comes to grisly violence : from a man with an axe, to goons with knives and guns, and some kind of a vacuum drill, which is used in a most shiver inducing manner right at the start, every conceivable weapon is brought to bear. But before you can shout axe murderer, you ought to know that Abraham's character is the most violent of them all. Particularly in a climactic scene, in which he makes like a veritable whirlwind, using everything he has, to carve through his opponents.
Of course he has a justification, because he is a Hindi film hero. Which is meant to make up for the absence of a coherent story-line, dreary set pieces, and long stretches of people shooting at each other. The film is based on a well-known Korean flick, and in Korean flicks which topline gore, the leading men are not saddled with back stories to make them look noble. Shruti Haasan shows up for a miniscule walk- on just to shed some good light on the hero, before he walks off into the shadows.
John Abraham's Rocky Handsome is a double: the screen splits into two, with both Rocky and Handsome come striding towards us, just in case we were confused. He only appears bad, see, he's actually a good guy with a terrible past. The rest of the space is filled with an eight year old (Diya Chalwad) who's made to talk like she's double that, and given a relationship with our hero which is meant to tear you up, but feels faintly creepy. There's a young woman with a drug habit. Just when you think it couldn't get any worse, you come upon the gracious Suhasini Mulay trucked out as a sleazy peddler of kids. Everything is all over the place in this Goa over-run by 'Roosis', and dark night clubs, and organ traders, and scenes of extreme, hard-core violence.
Ki & Ka (2016)
Kareena's character is spot on, Arjun is victim of confusion
I count amongst some of my best friends, house husbands. Or let's put it in a slightly more nuanced way, men who like to stay home, take charge of the household, be the primary caregiver for parents and children. They know that they come in for more than their share of good- humoured ribbing as well as nasty jibes, and they have learnt to take it in their stride because they are supremely comfortable doing what they do. Oh, and before I forget, their wives go to work, excel at their demanding jobs, and get in the lolly.
With 'Ki and Ka', Bollywood has got to the point of being able to place a man willing to be home, knuckle down to dull domestic chores, and wave the flag for ambitious women and progressive men. So hurrah for Ka and Ki and Balki? Yes, but only up to point. The film is fun when it is setting up the roles. But the execution, as it goes along, gets rocky. Much of it stays episodic, and starts reinforcing the very stereotypes it set out to negate. And so much of the writing is so explicatory that you begin wondering if the filmmakers really take their viewers for People Who Do Not Understand Anything Unless It Is Underlined Thrice Over.
Kia (Kareena Kapoor) and Kabir (Arjun Kapoor) get past their meet-cute in a tearing hurry, and jump into an exchange of garlands and glands. All is hunky-dory to begin with : Ka rolls out of bed, picks up after his office-going wife and mum-in-law (Swaroop Sampat ; good to see her back on screen), lays out steaming hot 'khana' ; Ki cracks open her Mac, and delivers smart campaign ideas to her advertising agency colleagues (great excuse for lots of product placements, yo), and goes up the corporate ladder.
She is into marketing; he is busy home-making, and they are happy playing footsie. And then jealousy rears its ugly head, and the lines Ka and Ki had set up for themselves start to blur. Who will go out? Who will have a public face and high profile? Who will stay in and cook fresh? Will a Ka be happy to be called 'nikamma'? The film evades that problematic one neatly by a too-convenient plot twist, involving Ka's disapproving papa (a permanently sneering Rajit, who is never given the chance to smile through the film) who thunders on about ' 'mards' and, haha, cautionary 'chhaddi checks'.
Kapoor & Sons (2016)
Sidharth brings an attractive vulnerability, Fawad doesn't lift off the screen
'Kapoor & Sons' seems to have taken to heart that famous Tolstoy line: "all happy families are alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way", in the way it chooses a specific kind of unhappiness for each member of the Kapoor family.
The fact that Bollywood is now confident enough to give us a family which is not bursting with joy is a thing to be lauded. Meet the Kapoors : grandpa (Rishi Kapoor), middle-aged son (Rajat Kapoor) and his wife (Ratna Pathak Shah), and two grandsons Rahul (Fawad Khan) and Arjun (Sidharth Malhotra), all gathered together after many years for a reunion at their Coonoor homestead.At first it is a huge relief that the Kapoors don't go about slobbering over each other. They are not gratingly saccharine. They squabble, shout and yell. Simmering resentments between the two young men, kept at bay all this time, come out. There's tension between the older couple as well, which keeps spilling out all the time. You see these people stepping around each other, ducking and weaving, lying to each other, and you are thinking, hey now, great, here are finally, actually people you can recognize.
And then you stop. Because much too soon you recognize them too well. Because they are all playing to a type, and we've seen so many of them so often in Hollywood flicks. Rishi Kapoor, almost unrecognizable underneath all that make-up, is meant to be the jolly ol' roguish gramps. Fawad's Rahul is the London-based 'perfect' older son, so often called 'hot' by pretty women that you know exactly what that portends. Sidharth's Arjun is the 'loser' who is constantly having to prove himself. And Tia (Alia Bhatt) is yet another version of the manic pixie girl dealing with past tragedy. The result is a cook-out which pleases only in patches.
This turns the characters into stock, and the film into a constructed thing, and you know what's coming much before it actually does. Which is a pity because a film like this one, with a nice sense of place (the house has a lived-in feel ; the hill town used as home, not a series of picturesque spots) and more-than-competent performers, could have been that rare Bollywood thing : a grown-up drama featuring grown-ups.
Teraa Surroor (2016)
This Himesh Reshammiya starrer is a mess
Can anyone go through an entire film with a fixed expression? Himesh Reshammiya does a hence proved in 'Teraa Surroor' in which he is busily engaged on a twin project: trying to prise his lady love from a Dublin prison, and to uncover a mystery man who has evil designs on him and her.
The proceedings take an hour and half and give us a guy called Raghu , played by a very buff Reshammiya, mop-with-a-side-part, black singlet and black leather jacket and dark glasses, hefting a gun sideways, and shooting many bullets into many bodies. Nary a turned-around baseball cap in sight, I might add, as an for-your-information for his fans.
He has, for company, a girl-friend called Tara (Tara Karimaee, a Nargis Fakhri lookalike, whose voice has been clearly dubbed to Bollywood squeaky) who is very hurt when he tells her, silly boy, what he's been up to with a very hot woman. Off she goes, leaving behind teary-eyed mom (Patel) behind, to Ireland, and finds herself jugged. A hooded fellow called Aniruddha Brahman (we remember the name because it is repeated a zillion times) seems to be behind it all, so of course Raghu has to play find-outer. Who is he? Why does he want to ruin their life?
Global Baba (2016)
A film that may be loud but does talk sense
In India, faith trade is the most lucrative of the lot. Global Baba has the smarts but never shows us anything we haven't seen before. The promising Abhimanyu Singh (of Gulaal fame) is a politico's top henchman who survives a police encounter. The safest bet for him is to turn into a Godman. He wipes out his past and hides his misdeeds behind the garb of his saintly cloak. This is such a dependable plot that never loses context. Religion in India has always been a sensitive subject. Despite being a religiously diverse country, we never want to seek logic in our faith. In a wonderful scene, director Manoj Tewari explains how the masses are conditioned to buy into blind faith over logic. When Sanjay Mishra, who pays a local hero in the film, suggests yoga to an obese man, he doesn't take it kindly. Global Baba manages to 'cure' him by suggesting that he walks to a hill-top while chanting some magical words. The humour in that scene pinches you back to reality.
But the director's sharp thinking is limited to the film's plotting. It eventually becomes an overwrought tale that hardly has anything novel to offer. The characters are all uni-dimensional and clichéd - The Godman is sheer evil, the politicians are all scheming and corrupt, the cop is just rendered helpless, the journalist ends up being a victim and the masses, gullible.
The issues addressed are equally run-of-the-mill. Global Baba's ashram is on a land he has snatched away illegally from the advises. Every character is predictable and so is the film's story. Only in parts, the movie manages to hold your attention.
Global Baba is subversive but doesn't have an inventive streak. It points out problems without delving deeper or providing a solution. This one is just old wine in an old bottle!