Category: Reviews

Mary Kom:..for…. awards.Kom

MUMBAI: Sports films are not the best bets on the Indian screen, least of all biopics. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag worked thanks to its climax where Milkha outruns a Pakistani champ in Pakistan. Indians may lose to all of world but winning against Pakistan matters the most. Mary Kom offers no such satisfaction. It remains a sports biopic drama.

Mary Kom was in news in 2012 when she won an Olympic bronze, which was not much when one thinks about her six world amateur wins; five gold and one silver medals. She would, hence, be expected to win a Gold at the Olympics.

However, it is a story of grit and determination of a young woman from Manipur, who finds a boxing glove one curfew-imposed night in the trouble-torn Manipur state, far removed from rest of India and the comforts and facilities the rest of India enjoys. Mary’s and other Manipuri’s valid grouse is that they are proud of India but most of the Indians don’t even consider ‘us’ as Indians.

Priyanka Chopra plays Chungneijang, as she was christened at birth and rechristened M C Mary Kom by M Narjit Singh (played by Sunil Thapa), the state boxing coach. Mary Kom has been fascinated by the sport of boxing since finding that glove in her childhood. Since then, boxing becomes her aim and ambition in life. She is a rebel, the eldest of three children in her family, and she always does what she wants to do for herself.

Producers: Viacom 18, Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Director: Omung Kumar.

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Darshan Kumaar, Sunil Thapa.

One day, Chopra discovers a boxing academy where the coach is a stickler and reluctant to accept her. She has to pass a one month test sitting on bench and watching others training before she is accepted. Eventually, her determination gets her through and the coach accepts her as his ward. This is where the legend of Mary Kom begins. Soon, she is on the national boxing scene, followed by the Asian and later international scene.

The rest of the film is about Mary Kom’s travails through family resistance, her marriage and children that follow; balancing between her boxing life and bringing up her twin children, one of whom is seriously afflicted with a heart problem. Yet, her husband, Onler (played by Darshan Kumaar), is her mainstay, who realises that boxing is her life and goes all out to support her to continue her boxing even after marriage with a promise to look after the children.

After her marriage and children, Mary Kom returned to boxing due to coaxing by her husband with eight years gone by. What follows is well-known and is not covered in the film except her return.

The film also points to the poor conditions and diet of tea and bananas that the Boxing Federation provides, the high-handedness of politicians controlling the Federation and their manipulations in team selections. The film dwells deeply on the rigorous training and endurance tests that Mary Kom goes through, which one was not aware a boxer needed to do.

Like with other recent heroine-oriented films, here too all except Chopra are new faces. This is supposed to not only balance the budget but also land a touch of reality as the co-performers have no set image. Thus, Thapa, Kumaar and others make a perfect foil to the protagonist, Chopra, trying to get under the skin of a living character, Mary Kom. Chopra, on her part, gives her best to this film and excels. Her performance is sure to be lauded by critics and rewarded with awards.

Direction is praiseworthy this being Omung Kumar’s first film and a tough one at that being a biography. The film does sag at times but that is inevitable. The last fight, as she fights in China while her little child is undergoing a heart surgery is cliche like a 70s film where the protagonist ONLY takes punches and a miracle happens as the operation in Gurgaon is successful, fuelling Mary Kom with a newfound determination to win the fight in the third round. Dialogue is earthy and laced with humour at times. The film has too many songs for the kind of film it is; some relate the state of mind of Mary Kom while the lullaby is meant to show her balancing her career and family ties. Cinematography by Keiko Nakahara is excellent.

Mary Kom is being released on a big scale at multiple screens wanting to cash in on the huge hype created in the media. The film will find patronage mainly at elite multiplexes while it has no appeal for the typical single screen patrons. The film has been exempted from paying entertainment tax while some other states are expected to follow but that won’t be much help.

September 5, 2014
No big win at the BO

MUMBAI: The law of averages catches up with Emraan Hashmi as he delivers another mediocre film. Kissing scenes cannot salvage a bad film. Despite being a stolen idea from a 1973 Hollywood classic, The Sting, the film lacked in scripting and content.

Paresh Rawal made it a bit tolerable but not enough to salvage it commercially. Raja Natwarlal had a below average opening on Friday and dropped by about 20 per cent on Saturday which indicates total rejection. Its release with the onset of Ganesh festival was a bad idea. The film has ended its opening weekend with Rs 14.4 crore.

Other films released, Identity Card, Last Benchers and Trip To Bhangarh met with ‘No audience no show’ status at most centres.

Mardaani, the first ‘A’ only certified film from the Yash Raj banner, fails to generate audience enthusiasm. The film fared average at the box office, but seeing that it is an economically produced film and coming from Yash Raj, which has controlled releasing overheads, it should make the recovery stage. The film collected Rs 22.97 crore for its first week. It added another Rs 5.24 crore for its second weekend taking its ten day total to Rs 28.21 crore.

Singham Returns manages to collect Rs 21.8 crore in its second week to take its two week total to Rs 131.8 crore. Entertainment has collected Rs 1.55 crore in its third week to take its three week tally to Rs 63.1 crore.

Kick has added Rs 25 lakh in its fourth week to take its four week tally to Rs 226.35 crore.

September 1, 2014
Mardaani…If you say so!

MUMBAI: There have been some women cop stories. But not many have succeeded. Vijayashanti’s Tejashwini was one that worked while Dimple Kapadia’s Zakhmi Aurat did not work. Women oriented action films are rare and far in-between because usually they don’t work at the box office.

Rani Mukerji is an angry woman cop with the Mumbai Police Crime Branch. She can take on anyone. She is efficient, well-versed with the law and can throw punches like an action-film hero. Hence she is described as Mardaani. To this end, the customary fight scene in the beginning establishes that: she keeps slapping a goon as she lists the penal codes under which he can be arrested. She does not arrest him because that would have added extra length to the film unnecessarily; the idea was only to demonstrate her powers and bravery.

Rani has rescued a young girl, Priyanka Sharma, who was on verge of being sold.Rani sort of adopts her even though the girl lives at a shelter for such children. In the day time, the girl sells flowers at traffic signals where she is spotted by a woman who adds her to her list of girls to be kidnapped. There is a very organised and clever bunch of people behind the kidnapping of young girls and running a child sex trafficking ring. Rani keeps in touch with Priyanka on regular basis but when she does not see her for few days, Rani suspects she is kidnapped.

Rani keeps getting lucky with clues through the film and soon picks up the man who sold Priyanka. However, the criminals are a step ahead and shoot the man. He is killed while in the police van with an inspector by his side. Oddly, there is no glass shattered even though the man has been shot in the back of his head. For Rani, Priyanka’s kidnapping has become personal and she chases up after the leads as her mission. All she knows about the villain is his voice as he keeps in touch with her on her cell. He loves this kind of game.

Producer: Aditya Chopra.

Director: Pradeep Sarkar.

Cast: Rani Mukerji, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Priyanka Sharma.

The girls kidnapped are then decked up and paraded before interested clients who prefer sex with small girls. Among them is also a VIP politician. Of course, since such a business needs patronage from high and mighty. The villain, Tahir Raj Bhasin, operates with the help of his father who is the mastermind and also deals in drugs. This is convenient for Rani and she sends two Nigerians as decoys offering to sell 5kg of drugs, something only a big buyer would be interested in. The father-son duo fall for this trap. Bhasin is about to reach where his father is concluding the deal when Rani and her men raid the place. The father is trapped but kills himself while locked in a bathroom rather than be caught as they would make him talk and Bhasin would be caught too. But this father had one bad habit, getting his pants and shirts stitched from a tailor whose labels he never thought of removing.

Rani traces the villains’ house through the tailor and recces it for a couple of days before she enters it all ready to be caught expecting to be taken where the girls are kept. She succeeds. It is time for some action for taaliyaan.

Mardaani depends heavily on Rani and this film, having been made for her, avoids any other known face. The villain is new and hardly menacing enough. Without a strong villain, mard or mardaani don’t amount to much. Rani is okay trying to be a real cop mouthing Bambaiya bad words. Bhasin is passable despite having a weak character. Priyanka does well. The film has no songs except a theme song. Direction is average and the making is generally economical. Background score tries to create thrills that don’t exist. Dialogue is routine with no claptrap one-liners.

Katiyabaaz….. Of another world

The title does not quite convey what this docu-feature is all about. That’s not surprising, since it is a colloquial word used in Uttar Pradesh to refer to power thieves, the guys who are experts in cutting through heavy duty electric cables to attach illegal connections. This is an all-India phenomena but happens mostly in states with severe power shortages and UP leads on this count. Hence, the events depicted are based in Kanpur, once industrial thriving city now fallen on bad days.

Producers: Deepti Kakkar, Fahad Mustafa

Directors: Farhad Mustafa, Deepti Kakkar.

Cast: Ritu Maheshwari, Loha Singh and local and national politicians.

Katiyabaaz juxtaposes two versions of the story: that of a renowned power thief and of the chairperson of the Kanpur Electricity supply board, a lady by the name of Ritu Maheshwari. The politicians playing up the public against the power supply board is inevitable. Politicians fail to build infrastructure and then incite the masses against the board.

Ritu is the new chief at the Kanpur KESCO, who has sworn to put an end to power stealing to bring some stability to the company. Loha Singh, the celebrated power thief, is not scared of either the KESCO or the police; he is not even scared of shocks having survived many. While Ritu strives to plug all the gaps, Loha thrives in his business of giving people illegal connections for a fee. Ritu has a huge problem on her hands. To make matters worse, some of her own staffers are involved in encouraging thefts, either for money or out of fear. They are no support to her. To top it all the theft causes transformers to catch fire and causes power outages lasting from hours to days. And trying to make the most of the situation is the local SP MLA, Irfan Solanki, who leads a revolt against the power company since the 2012 assembly elections are round the corner. It is BSP rule in the state and SP wants to come back to power. It is typical politics, UP style. It is not just UP politicians: the feature also depicts Dr Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi criticising the functioning of the Kanpur Electric company. Poor Ritu!

The makers have used all real life characters who were part of these events and covered the versions of Loha Singh, the almost revered power thief aka Katiyabaaz because of whom many small scale industries survive in Kanpur as against the views of Ritu.

In the end, Ritu is sacked from her post and Irfan Solanki is re-elected as MLA, this time as his party, SP, wins a majority. Loha continues with his business as usual. Loha is a natural facing the camera; he is not scared of power company or the police but he is also not scared of owning up to everything on a camera!

Katiyabaaz is being released in about 40 screens since it is not a regular entertainer. Yet, it is informative and an eye-opener.

August 22, 2014
Singham Returns…Half a Singham!

MUMBAI: Sequels are usually a means of using the brand equity of the title of a successful film. Singham Returns is one more such example. Ajay Devgn is still a cop who can fell half a dozen goons with one blow. Well, he has to, since the goons come in droves of fifty or more. But while that remains the same, the rest has changed because most Hindi filmmakers take the audience for granted while making a sequel.

Devgn, a defiant and honest cop, who has been transferred to Mumbai from his Goa post in Singham (while in reality, such cops are transferred out of Mumbai!). Since he is Singham, he remains constant, while all including the villains as well as his wife to be too (!) have changed. Actually, the film has no space for a female lead but that would be a great risk according to Indian films’ unwritten regulations.

Devgn is in comfortable company. His school teacher, Anupam Kher, leads a ruling political party, albeit in keeping with the recent trend of a coalition with another party. Kher’s party has Mahesh Manjrekar as the CM while his coalition partner is Zakir Hussain, whose strings are pulled by a swami, Aloke Gupte. Being Guru Kher’s disciple, Manjrekar and Devgn are both on the right side of the law while Hussain, under the auspice of the swami, is corruption personified and, obviously, possesses a criminal mind-set. It is a formula that has been working for decades; a swami and a seedy politician have always made a great combination for villainy.

As things go, Devgn has the backing of all concerned: his school senior, the CM Manjrekar; their common school guru Kher; the police commissioner, Sharat Saxena; as well as the all of 40,000 odd cops of Mumbai!

Everybody knows that the villains are Gupte and Hussain but the law needs proof. That is what the whole film is about. 142 minutes of finding proof against two not-so-sinister or convincing villains, Hussain and Gupte. So, finally, the film amounts to one-upmanship between the villains and Devgn. It goes on and on as the judiciary needs proof and police being what it is supposed to be, can’t protect its only witness. The villains win all the way until, finally, the law keepers become outlaws to liquidate the villains. They march in their sponsored banians to the villains den in just about the most clap trap scene in the film.

The problem with Singham Returns is that it is an oft repeated story about a swami and a corrupt politician pitted against an honest establishment represented by a cop. What is more, it is poorly scripted. The film starts with the super cop, Devgn and a youth brigade riding fast bikes. That is rather tame. The script is so predictable, it could be any honest cop vs corrupt politician. Rohit Shetty’s direction without his blowing up cars does not amount to much really. The film has four music directors and eight lyricists on it credits but no song worth a mention! Dialogue is okay at times. While the film needs some more trimming, the positive factor is its photography, especially aerial shots of Mumbai.

As for performances, nobody really needs to act in this film. Devgn with his puffed up cheeks does what he does on regular basis: throw punches. Kareena Kapoor has no role really and just pouts her way through. Kher is his usual self. While Gupte overacts as the swami, Hussain is the only one who is convincing. Dayanand Shetty, the Daya of the TV serial CID does what he does in the serial; act as a mighty cop and breaks down doors; he is effective. Rest in the cast are incidental.

On the whole, Singham Returns is a high priced routine film with only salvation being its four day weekend starting with the Independence Day holiday on Friday and ending with the Janmashtami holiday on Monday. Much appreciated earlier version, Singham, had barely managed to make it to 100 crore mark. While this film needs to do twice as much, it will fall much short of that mark.

August 15, 2014

‘Entertainment’…This one is for kids and likeminded!

MUMBAI: A dog rates as the most accepted and loved pet anywhere and everywhere. They are easily adaptable to training and loyal as companions. The pet and the owner have a tendency to get emotionally attached to each other, so much so that fortunes are sometimes willed to a pet on the owner’s death.

Dogs are often used in films too, usually with the aim to entertain children or, otherwise, to solve mysteries. Entertainment seems to have been inspired from an American film, Bailey’s Billion$, a children’s film about a pet dog inheriting a billion dollar and the deceased’s nephew and spouse wanting to eliminate him for the billion to pass on to them.

Akshay Kumar is a devoted son who has no regular job. To tend to his ailing father lying in hospital, he keeps doing various odd jobs every day. Every time he does an odd job, he is shortchanged but he avoids getting into a fight as his priority is to run to hospital to check on his father, Darshan Jariwal.

On one such visit to the hospital with his friend to check on his father, he learns that Jariwala is not sick at all and just exploiting Akshay to enjoy the luxury of the five-star hospital and is romancing a nurse. When confronted, Jariwala reveals that Akshay is not his son but he adopted him after a train accident in which his mother had died and the compensation to her close relatives was Rs one lakh which he wanted to claim. Akshay is actually the son of a wealthy jeweller (played by Dalip Tahil as a photo frame) from Bangkok who sired him and later betrayed his mother.

Producers: Ramesh S Taurani, Jayantilal Gada.

Directors: Sajid-Farhad.

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Tamannaah ,MIthun Chakraborty, Johny Liver, Prakash Raj, Sonu Sood, Krishna Abhishek, Darshan Jariwala and, in cameo, Riteish Deshmukh.

Just when Akshay learns of this history about his family, he happens to watch a TV news bulletin and learns that his biological father has passed away. Akshay is thrilled and decides to go to Bangkok along with his sidekick, Krishna, to claim his father’s fortune. On his arrival at his late father’s palatial mansion, he meets Johny Lever, the family lawyer and executor of the will. Lever does not take much convincing to accept Akshay as the jeweller’s son. However, Akshay can’t inherit the Rs 3000 crore fortune since his dead father has bestowed all of it to his pet dog named Entertainment!

Akshay thinks nothing of it and decides that all he has to do is to get rid of the pet and, as the son of the deceased Tahil, he will be the next heir. Meanwhile, two jailbirds, Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood, also claimants to Tahil’s fortune, are just out and proceed to claim it. But they realise that there are two other heirs before them, a dog and Akshay. They realise that Akshy plans to kill the dog so all they have to do is wait till that happens after which they can kill Akshay.

This is one smart dog who has saved Tahil from Prakash and Sood and outsmarts Akshay every time he tries to kill him. On one such attempt to kill the pet, it is Akshay whose life is in danger; the pet saves him. Akshay has a change of heart. Now he accepts the pet as the true inheritor of Tahil’s fortune and decides to leave Bangkok. But, not for long since he knows that the pet’s life is in danger.

Now the battle of wits is between Akshay, Krishna and the pet on one side and Sood and Prakash on the other.

Since this is supposed to be a light entertainer, aiming more towards kids, wittingly or unwittingly, the treatment is of the sort one would find in the Hollywood hit Home Alone. Not only the theme but also a lot of things are borrowed from earlier films: the pet’s tricks for instance are sourced from the movie Kung Fu Hustle and Akshay describing ghosts to Prakash and Sood is from Mahmood’s famous scene from classic hit, Pyar Kiye Jaa. Little is original—except for the best part of the film, which is Krishna’s linking and rhyming various film titles to convey whatever he wants; that is funny. Songs are pleasant and peppy but used randomly whatever the situation. While their direction is okay with ample help from other sources, dialogue on which Sajid and Farhad have built their career is a notch below their standard except for Krishna’s lines. The second half needed some trimming.

While the dog Junior is expectedly the mainstay of the film, Krishna and Johny Lever’s parts add to the fun quotient. Akshay is his normal self: funny at times, almost so at others. Prakash and Sood as blundering villains are apt for a film aimed at children. Tamannaah is kept away for most of the first half while she does get due exposure in the latter part.

Entertainment is a fairly amusing film which the children will enjoy. However, with cinema chains blocked for the next week’s release, Singham Returns, this film has limited time to recover whatever it can.

August 8, 2014

‘Lateef: The King Of Crime’…Lateef who?

MUMBAI: Gangster movies are an easy genre to handle. It does not matter that the gang you want to portray on screen is relevant to any sort of audience in India or elsewhere. And, how does one gangster movie differ from another where one man from nowhere who fails in all other endeavours turns a successful gangster and builds a gang around him? This is irrelevant for those who want to make gangster movies.

Initially, filmmakers inspired by the American all-time classic Godfather saga tried to make versions of it for Hindi screen; most failed miserably. India was not a national gang country until a Mumbai gangster came to be known as don and to pull strings all over country. Then came a slew of films on UP dons and Bihar dons, local police-file legends that found no takers anywhere.

Now we have this film about a Gujarat don, ‘Lateef: The King of Crime’, which is not quite right. Gujarat never had a culture of breeding dons; he was just a local bootlegger whom politicians began using giving him muscle power.

Lateef, a petty bootlegger from the walled city of Ahmedabad, on whose life the film is based (but is way off the mark) thrived mainly because he was a bootlegger in a dry state whose services were need by everybody from industrialists to bureaucrats. Politicians are known to breed Lateef kinds and soon a proximity grew between the two. The two occasions when the city was tense and prone to communal violence, Rath Yatra and Makar Sankranti (the kite flying festival in January) were the communal riot seasons when he thrived.

Producer: Kewal Krishna

Director: Sharique Minhaj

Cast: Hameed Khan, Bharti Sharma, Aryan Vaid, Raju Mavani, Aditya Lakhiya, Mustaq Khan

As the film depicts and as it happened, Lateef came into his own when he reportedly linked up with Dawood. This was also the time he was going beyond the control of his political masters. His reported link to the 1993 Mumbai multiple bomb blasts was too hot to handle for all concerned, especially the people of Gujarat not used to don culture. Lateef was put behind bars and later liquidated while ‘attempting to flee through a jail toilet’ in 1997. A political puppet created and dumped by the same clan.

As for the film, it fails to be either an interesting adaption of his story or a docudrama. There is no sense in making this film in the first place. He was an ‘Accidental Don’ thanks to the Dawood era and died the way he was destined to. The film is a poor narrative sans details, nonperformers as actors and has poor sense of direction. The protagonist looks rather comic with his ill-fitting wig.

The film is slated for release at few cinemas but finding audience will be nigh impossible.

August 1, 2014

‘Kick’ …Get a kick out of it!

MUMBAI: Other films may have done more business at the box office but 2009’sWanted created a new slot for Salman Khan; that of a walking talking killing machine, a Superman (but without his sartorial taste of wearing his underwear over his pants). Being a Hindi film hero, he also has to simultaneously carry out the tougher job of maintaining and placating a girlfriend, and sing and dance with her in garish club sets. Ever since Wanted, films are made for Salman to fit in that same mold which assures success. The planned Eid release, something which now seems like a fixed slot for Salman starrer, adding hugely to the film’s prospects.

Salman is on a mission; he needs to find a person who, he thinks, is responsible for a certain crime despite being in high position in politics. Meanwhile, he notices Jacqueline Fernandez, a psychiatrist, when she is wearing horn-rimmed glasses and looks like a nerd—though she changes to tiny dresses when she is ready to romance and dance the jig with the hero.

Impressed with Salman and very much in love with him, Jacqueline ‘s love story with Salman is not quite convincing and uses up most of the first half offering nothing except a few songs on the viewer. Then, Salman is taunted by Jacqueline about his monetary status. He vows to spend his time on making money and turns into a contemporary Robin Hood. It is another matter that a little later his cause for raising money is a small kid suffering from cancer. He makes raising monies for children needing medical attention his life’s mission.

There is a little girl who is dying of cancer and, unable to meet the expenses of her operation, her parents commit suicide. Salman takes up the cause of that child and approaches the big shots of the town for help. One of the big shots (and a minister), Nawazuddin Siddiqi, along with a bunch of his sycophants, makes the mistake of insulting him by donating Rs 100 while he needs Rs 11 lakh for the child’s survival. That is a reason enough for Salman to eliminate the gang of Nawazuddin one after the other.

Producer: Sajid Nadiadwala.

Director: Sajid Nadiadwala.

Cast: Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Randeep Hooda, Nawazuddin Siddiqi, Mithun Chakraborty, Saurabh Shukla, Vipin Sharma, Sanjay Mishra, Archana Puran Singh, Kavin Dave, Sumona Chakravarti and an item number by Nargis Fakhri.

Meanwhile, the action has shifted to Poland and an Indian cop, Randeep Hooda, is following Salman’s tracks. He is willing and ready to shoot Salman but never does so when Salman is around him because he comes in the guise of a friend, Devi Lal while the thief Hooda is chasing is called Devil (al)!. While Salman and Hooda play cops and robbers, a lot of Nawazuddin henchman millionaires back in India are being robbed. Nawazuddin is exasperated and desperate to find the culprit and add his death to his reputation.

The film turns into a caper as Salman carries out a number of heists in varied ways maintaining his humour all the while. These missions are serious business for Salman and his romance with Jacqueline has been called off, while Hooda, who has come to Warsaw chasing Salman, happens to be her family friend and it is left to her to look after him. A sort of triangle is formed. Though predictable and seen earlier, now the sequence is such that Salman is hunting for Nawazuddin and Hooda is hunting for Salman the Devil. These are the parts that make Kick interesting as would be expected from a Salman action thriller.

The script, as should be apparent, is a bit messy .There is nothing solid happening in the first half except a romance without chemistry. All the action is in the second half where there are some sudden jumps and locations unexplained. You don’t know whether you are in Delhi or Europe, whether one is in past or in present as the things unwind. Sajid Nadiadwala’s foray into direction considering these glitches in the script is satisfactory. What matters is that it will go down in the record books as ‘A super hit on debut’ for him. The film has competent cinematography by Ayananka Bose. The film’s music is not up to the mark and adds to the tedium of the first part. The one song which has popular appeal is ‘Jumme ki raat…’ Dialogue has the usual Salman one liners laced with humour.

The film belongs to Salman Khan all the way and he is in full form. Randeep Hooda comes in a different role and justifies it. Nawazuddin as a maniacal villain, the kind you see in a Bond film or a super hero film, may not come across as strong enough against Salman but looks sinister enough to be slayed. Jacqueline is okay. Mithun Chakraborty as Salman’s father complements him well. Kavin Dave and Sumona Chakravarti lead the supporting cast of able actors like Saurabh Shukla, Vipin Sharma, Sanjay Mishra and Archana Puran Singh.

Kick has taken a thundering opening despite coming on the last Friday of Ramzan and Kavad processions in the North as a Maha Shivratri ritual. The film is expected to break first day records and enjoy a ‘10 day weekend’ at the box office and creating more records.

July 25, 2014

‘Amit Sahni Ki List’…Listless watch

MUMBAI: With shortage of original titles coupled with dearth of imagination, the new trend is to pick up a telephone list or some social media list, and you have a name for your film. This week we have this film called Amit Sahni Ki List. Your protagonist need not be a folk hero or a war hero, he could be just another dude you see stuck in traffic in the car next to you. Now, do you really care if he has a story to tell? He knows you don’t and, hence, most of the time he talks to himself, telling his story to himself!

Virr Das (notice the added R to the name? There seems to be a misgiving about numerology making up for poor content) is an IIM Ahmedabad alumni. He shares accommodation with a friend, Kavi Shastri, away from his parents. His mother converses only in net lingo while his father is always immersed in newspapers.

Virr has a steady job, a car and just about everything a young man could want, but his mother thinks it is time he got married and settled down. While Virr thinks that the girls suggested by his mother are far too traditional he has already prepared a list of merits he seeks in a girl to before he agrees to marry her.

It all starts with a girlfriend not letting him pass her door and then dumping him for another man already inside her flat. Looking at that girl, one does not see anything in her that is revealed in Virr’s list as the film unwinds. He probably made the list after him being unceremoniously dumped.

Virr has to meet a girl called Vega Tamotia, which his mother has suggested. The meeting point is Leopold Cafe in South Mumbai .The side of Vega he is exposed to is that of a geek, bespectacled reading a book, her legs folded up on the restaurant chair. But soon Virr sees another side of Vega—a violin playing performer at a pub—and then another: a bungee-jumping sports girl. Drawn towards her he convinces himself that opposites attract.

The duo then gets engaged with both families joining in the celebrations. But, as things would have it, soon after the engagement, Virr meets another IIM graduate, Aniita Nair, who is a page 3-type girl and a business heir in a corporate house. Point by point, she conforms to all things on Virr’s list. Love blooms again, on both sides. But one has to wait and watch whether this love story will triumph.

The film has a limited star cast with nil following, and the director’s flashback to present narration, usually in first person, makes watching it a tedious affair. While the music is passable, the film has an interesting piece of violin recital which has been beautifully choreographed. Dialogues fail to convey a sense of humour. Virr Das is a consistent actor and does not change expressions whatever the situation. Anindita is fair. Tamotia is natural while Kavi as Virr’s roommate makes his presence felt.

Amit Sahni Ki List will remain limited to programme listings on pages of tabloids.

Producers: Tina Nagpaul, Kavita Kulkarni, Sujata Vemuri.

Director: Ajay Bhuyan.

Cast: Virr Das, Vega Tamotia, Kavi Shastri, Anindita Naya.

‘Pizza 3-D’… Puts you off Pizza!

Pizza 3D was made originally in Tamil, dubbed in Telugu and then remade in Bengali and Kannada before it was adapted in Hindi. Not having seen the other versions, you wonder why there were so many remakes after watching the Hindi version. It just does not add up. Pizza pretends to be a horror film all along but turns out to be a suspense thriller. Either way, the question still remains: Why so many remakes, especially, the Hindi one?

Akshay Oberoi is a pizza delivery boy married to an aspiring horror story writer, Parvathy Omanakuttan. The latter is pregnant which leads to a small but totally irrelevant dramatic scene between the couple which has nothing to do with the rest of the film. The maker is whiling away the first 20 minutes or so just to add some unnecessary length!

Akshay’s wife is an orphan. Her parents have died in an accident years back. The only relevance is that they are broke, managing to survive out of her parents’ accident insurance. In short, they need money: and lots of it.

Akshay works for a Pizza joint named Slices. It is never shown to have any in-house clients (except towards the end), has one pizza chef and just two waiters who double up as delivery men!! And, to add to that, the boss, Rakesh Sharma, is a crooked man indulging in shady deals for one ‘Anna’. Bhai is passé, Anna is the new identity for the underworld!

Sharma treats his staff well but has his own problems at home. His wife is pregnant but possessed by a ghost; probably in the very womb she is carrying her child. Akshay, on an errand to deliver a box of chocolates to Sharma’s house bears the brunt of the boss’s wife and the ghost possessing her. Still, all that is happening on the screen is irrelevant and as Parvathy once says ‘Sama Bandhana’ as in creating an atmosphere! Creating an atmosphere of what is the question because nothing interesting ever follows.

Finally, the real story begins. Akshay gets an order to deliver a pizza. But, the place he has come to deliver the pizza to is a bungalow which has a history. Four years back the owner of the bungalow had axed his pregnant wife to death because he suspected her of committing adultery. The family may have died but the bungalow is now haunted by their hurt and harassed ghosts who lock Akshay in the bungalow and start tormenting him. They don’t plan to kill him so what is the whole exercise about? Turns out that camouflaged under the guise of a horror story, this is actually a suspense film about a perfect heist. Just to add to the message that crime does not pay, the makers go and spoil things by giving it a horror touch again before wrapping up.

Akshay Oberoi is a comparatively new face in films and Pizza is mainly his film with little participation from others. Akshay is satisfactory playing the victim of haunted house. Parvathy is okay. Rajesh Sharma is good as usual. Direction is average with an overdrive with the 3-D medium.

Pizza 3-D has no box office prospects.

Producers: Siddharth Roy Kapur, Bijoy Nambiar.

Director: Akshay Akkineni.

Cast: Akshay Oberoi, Parvathy Omanakuttan, Dipannita Sharma, Rajesh Sharma, Arunoday Singh.

July 18, 2014

‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania’…Join the party

MUMBAI: The title may sound confusing. Who is this Humpty Sharma? He is no legendary lover on whom tomes may have been written. It does not give away much except that the story/ scenario would obviously be set against the background of a Delhi Punjabi family. And perhaps that is something about the Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to it? Why not. After all, Dil Wale Dulhania… was an all-time hit, so what’s wrong with borrowing a bit from there?

Varun Dhawan shyly confesses that he was a very fat child and that is how he was nicknamed Humpty. Not bad considering he could have been nicknamed Sweety or Dimppy, which could be gender defying. Varun heads a gang of three including himself in a Delhi college. The other two are Gaurav Pandey and Sahil Vaid. As in all filmy colleges, you only have a campus with a loosely hung signboard declaring that the premises is a college. He is popular with girls around for no apparent reason except that he is the hero of the story. Despite being in Delhi, for a change, he is not the son of a halwai but, as he says, the only ‘waris of the famous Vidhya Book Store’ which caters to college students’ requirements.

For a change, Varun does not find his lady love from a college coed. She is an Ambala girl, Alia Bhatt, who is in Delhi to attend her friend’s wedding. Actually, no Punjabi love story can be told without involving a wedding. There she meets Varun who wants to date her, which she does not mind until she gets married to an NRI a few week hence. A little net practice never hurt anybody.

This is the first man Alia has ever been exposed to. All her life she has been brought up to believe in following the family tradition: marry the guy dad chooses. Dad, Ashutosh Rana, himself has had a love marriage but since then, he has had a reason not to trust such a liaison. But apart from that, Rana is okay with giving his daughter all the freedom she wants. So she takes off for Delhi to spend time with her friend, Guncha Narula, who is due to marry soon as well as to buy a Rs 5 lakh wedding dress for herself—because Guncha has bought one worth Rs 2.5 lakh!

Producers: Hiroo Johar, Karan Johar.

Director: Shashank Khaitan.

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Ashutosh Rana, Siddharth Shukla, Kenneth Desai, Gaurav Pandey, Sahil Vaid, Mahnaz Damania, Deepika Amin, Guncha Narula, Jaswant Daman.

Varun, quite popular in college, sees this new girl in town and as is wont of any Delhi boy, piles on. Alia is the kind who can take a Delhi boy in her stride but quite enjoys Varun’s company. Varun, on his part, has fallen head over heels. The happy days are over and Alia has to return to Ambala as her NRI fiancé is due to arrive. That is when Alia also owns up to her deep love for Varun.

Back in Ambala, Alia has only one option and that is to forget Varun and get ready for her marriage with this NRI doctor, Siddharth Shukla. Varun chases Alia to Ambala only to be beaten black and blue by her brother and his goons. Varun is unrelenting. Shukla is arriving and Rana decides to offer Varun a chance so as to avoid any tamasha during the wedding. It is five days till wedding, Varun’s job is to hang around Shukla and find some fault in him for Rana to call off Alia’s wedding with him. But, one look at the fiancé and Varun loses all hope. He is a perfect stud with no blemish at all. Since Gaurav and Sahil are also with Varun, the fun and repartees continue.

Despite the latter half of the film revisiting Yashraj Films’ all-time hit, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, it is all well done. The film’s writer/director deserve all the credit for coming up with a very plausible take on Dilwale…., with a taut script peppered with witty exchanges between characters. There are some loose ends like disappearance of Shukla from the scene suddenly! The film also has the advantage of some peppy numbers in ‘Saturday Saturday’…., ‘Lucky tu lucky me’…. and a melody in ‘Samjhawan’…albeit all with heavy Punjabi flavour.

Varun along with Gaurav and Sahil make sure one stays entertained. Alia does well, not going overboard in dramatic scenes. Rana is good while Shukla makes an impact despite a brief role. The supporting cast is adequate.

Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania is a joyride for youth and an entertainer that also caters to other age groups. While its business may be affected to a degree due to Ramzan month, it is generally a moneymaker.

July 11, 2014

‘Bobby Jasoos’…open and shut case

MUMBAI: Bobby Jasoos is a curious mix of a light film, a romantic film, and a Muslim family social drama while also packing in a bit of suspense.

Vidya Balan belongs to a traditional Muslim family from Hyderabad but her interests are not very traditional. She wants to become a private detective. When she seeks a job at an established detective agency, she is turned down. She then decides to start her own agency right opposite this agency. Her assignments are from fellow Muslim men and women from her neighbourhood, a dense Muslim locality.

One of her clients is Ali Fazal; every time his family wants him to get married and choose a girl for him, he asks Vidya, Bobby Jasoos, to find some negative thing about the girl and to convey that to his parents so the marriage is put off. However, these are petty assignments earning her in the low thousands. What is more, she has to use the tea stall of a friend, Akash Dahiya, for her meetings with clients and has to order tea so that he gets some business for letting her use his joint. Her other sidekick is Prasad Barve, who runs a cyber cafe in the area.

But Vidya has a problem at home. While her mother, Supriya Pathak Kapur, loves her like any mother would love her ward, her father is upset about her way of life and refuses even to talk to her. That is the family drama part of the film.

Producers: Dia MIrza, Sahil Sangha, Reliance Entertainment.

Director: Samar Shaikh.

Cast: Vidya Balan, Ali Fazal, Arjan Bajwa, Zarina Wahab, Supriya Pathak, Tanve Azmi, KIran Kumar, Rajendra Gupta, Prasad Barve, Aakash Dahiya, Anupriya Goenka

While working on her petty cases, Vidya suddenly gets her big break. Kiran Kumar, a very stern and suspicious looking person, walks into her life and offers her an assignment with wad of currency as well as an expense account. All she is given is a name and age of a girl and a birthmark on her palm to trace her. With funny trial and error methods, Vidya manages to find her.

With this success follows another assignment at double the fees. She has to find another girl, again with only a name, age and a birthmark. Vidya is elated and wants to share her success with her father, but he will have nothing of it. For him, this is not how a traditional Muslim girl of 30 behaves.

Somehow, Vidya succeeds in tracking this girl too through the pretext of carrying out a screen-test for a TV serial. And, now, Kiran Kumar is ready to give her a third and last case. She has to find a young man and is given his name but this time there is no birth mark. Only hint is that the boy has a toe missing in his right leg. But, by this time, Vidya is convinced Kiran Kumar is not a good man and lays a trap to find out his background. This is also the time to end the cat and mouse game and open the cards.

Bobby Jasoos is basically a Vidya Balan show in toto. Her various getups are well done but the real Vidya pops out of each of them. But what is good about the casting is that, in the supporting cast, the film has a host of veterans in Kiran Kumar, Rajendra Gupta, Zarina Wahab, Supriya Pathak, Tanve Azmi and an effective Arjan Bajwa. The veterans live up to their reputation while the rest of the supporting star cast also does well. Ali lives up to the confidence of casting him.

But as Vidya’s two lives are juxtaposed: that of family and her love to play detective, the film wavers, loses grip. The suspense created around Kiran Kumar and Bajwa shadowing Vidya turn out to be damp squibs. Gupta and Vidya’s equation, which remained ice cold throughout, changes in a few minutes’ worth of melodrama, which is cliché. Thankfully, there is little of music to slow the pace further.

With Hyderabad as backdrop and a Muslim background, the release of Bobby Jasoos bang in the middle of the month of Ramzan shows utter lack of wisdom.

‘Lekar Hum Deewana Dil’… going nowhere

Lekar Hum Deewana Dil is a campus love story. There is a usual group of a bunch of friends, which includes the lead pair. The bunch generally has a good time because they are never in a class room but hang around the campus all day. The hero sports a guitar around his neck on daily basis. So what’s new?

Armaan Jain and Deeksha Seth are college friends and they are in love but not quite aware of the fact, while to rest of their friends it is obvious that there is more than mere friendship. These two realise they are in love only when they have guzzled a few bottles of beer. Every love story needs a villain so in their case, the villain is the north-south divide. Deeksha is a south Indian and her father believes in maintaining traditions.

Producers: Dinesh Vijan, Saif Ali Khan.

Director: Arif Ali.

Cast: Armaan Jain, Deeksha Seth.

Besides his guitar, Armaan also owns a bike, mandatory for any college going young man in films! When Deeksha’s father is determined to marry her off to a suitor from his own community, she and Armaan decide to elope. Their first stop is Goa where they take shelter at Armaan’s uncle’s place. Soon the uncle betrays them and informs his family. The couple has to flee in hurry. And, of all the places, they land up in Maoist territory! Meanwhile, they have found the time to go through a temple wedding.

Their stay at the Maoist camp is used to force in an item song and put on test the romance of the two immature people. Their love snaps under pressure and the bad circumstances they have landed in. The couple now hate each other as much as they loved earlier. Back in Mumbai, the divorce procedure starts at a family court. Sessions with a marriage counselor don’t work as both start fighting at the very sight of the other.

As the divorce process is in progress, both embark on a great nostalgia montage of their good times together. Such montages have saved many broken romances in so many films so far so why should it not work here too? After all, love stories are all about happy endings. This is no Romeo and Juliet.

Despite launching a new pair, with the hero much touted as the grandson of late Raj Kapoor, the film seems to be more about saving money rather than spending on it. With two new faces, there is nobody in the supporting cast whom one may have seen before. To add to that, even the promotion leaves much to be desired.

The story is woven around a very flimsy plot. Screenplay is poor and so is the direction. With a song being forced in at every excuse, just a single number, Khalifa….. seems to have worked with youth. Rest of the aspects are below average. As for performances, Armaan is certainly not an actor; he is too raw and chocolaty. Deeksha, because of her south experience, does better.

July 4, 2014