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Tag: Remo Fernandes

  • ‘ABCD2’ in 3D will bring out the best in Indian dancing: Shraddha Kapoor

    ‘ABCD2’ in 3D will bring out the best in Indian dancing: Shraddha Kapoor

    NEW DELHI: For Shraddha Kapoor, who had made a mark with Aashiqui 2, dancing in a film like ABCD2 did not come easy but she surprised her fellow cast members including Varun Dhawan when she attempted to match their energy.

     

    Kapoor is particularly grateful to Remo Fernandes for training her for this sequel to the earlier ABCD, which came in 2013. The film also stars Lauren Gottlieb, Raghav Juyal and Dharmesh Yelande in supporting roles. The movie is directed by Remo D’Souza and produced by Siddharth Roy Kapoor under the banner of UTV-Disney Pictures.  

     

    The story explores the real life struggle of of four boys Rohit, Pavan, Suresh and Vernon who are part of a dance institute named Fictitious Dance Academy and take up the challenge to win the World Hip-Hop dance championship.

     

    Belonging to a non-dancer background, Kapoor, who has earlier also acted in Ek Villain, said at a press meet here that she sweated it out really hard and proved that actually ‘Any Body Can Dance’.

     

    Kapoor proved her dancing mettle in the song ‘Sun Sathiya,’ which was also there in the original film where Lauren Gottlieb danced to the tunes of this catchy number.

     

    Asked about the challenges she faced, she said, “It was really hard for me to match the energy of other dancers as all of them had taken training somewhere. I did learn a bit of dancing at my school days but had never taken any proper training for the same. The film has changed my life and my body completely. Before this I use to dance in bathroom, in front of mirror, in my room or at birthday parties. I always wanted to dance openly on stage but somewhere I was under-confident or shy to dance in front of so many people. This is all because of Remo sir that he made me confident enough to give my best and whatever positive comments I am getting for my work will made Remo sir proud.”

     

    The film also features the song ‘Bezubaan’ from the original film, which was a hit among the masses and is now titled as ‘Bezubaan Phirse,’ where the stars show the best of their dance moves.

     

    Dhawan plays the character of Suresh in the film and features in the recently released song ‘Chunar.’ Asked why he agreed to star in the film, he said, “As an actor, you always listen to the script first, but Remo sir did a very unique thing. He showed me the documentary of ‘Fictitious Group’ who also participated in India’s Got Talent. He showed us footage of dancers from America, China and different countries. When it was announced that India was participating in the global talent series and made it to the finals, I felt so proud and patriotic. I got really emotional and that is why I said yes to it.”

     

    Raghav Juyal who gave birth to the slow motion dance shared his knowledge of dance with the audience. He is often called as Crockroax, which is an amalgamation of being powerful like a crocodile and creepy like a cockroach. “Earlier people used to mock at the dancers and call them as ‘Nachaniya’ but now value is being attached with dancing as an art. This kind of revolution is shown in the film and I would just say that parents should support their children and as I always say Fame is a devil and art is an angel. Fame will come and go but art will always be within.”

     

    Asked why is Disney was attached with ABCD2 as the story did not give any fairy tale kind of feeling, Disney India vice president and head, marketing & distribution – studios Amrita Pandey said, “It is a very inspiring story about an underdog dance troupe and has strong emotion of heart. When you’ll watch the film, you’ll see that it is not only about fun and dance. ABCD2 inspires you and Disney always promotes stories, which inspires you in a way or the other.”

  • ‘Bombay Velvet’: A disaster

    ‘Bombay Velvet’: A disaster

    MUMBAI: A film’s first test is in its title. Teasers, promos and the rest come much later. A bad or irrelevant title displays utter lack of imagination besides having no connect with the film. Bombay Velvet is based on a historian, Gyan Parakash’s book, Mumbai Fables.

    Bombay/Mumbai is comparatively a new city turned metro during mid-20th century and Karachi enjoyed the status Mumbai grabbed later. It started after the seven islands were linked as one land mass. 

    In this case, Mumbai has a history and its passing heroes, villains and other legends but no fables to speak of. The book’s title being a misnomer, the film makes its story a fantasy a la Dick Tracy sans Tracy, the cop, of the comic strip, who is missing here while his main villain, Flattop Jones, a hired gun is made the hero. Otherwise, you may call it a prohibition era American film transplanted as a 1960s Hindi film with Mumbai background. 

    Ranbir Kapoor arrives in Mumbai with a woman he thinks is his mother but is not so sure. All heroes need a sidekick, soon he cultivates one too. By scene two, both are grownups and
    have graduated to petty crimes. As has been seen in many such films, while the hero is impulsive and violent, the sidekick is more balanced and logical. 

    Ranbir has no scruples and he can clobber a man to death as easily as he can pick a pocket. His only ambition is to become a big shot; when he grows big, he wants to be bigger. If you have not found anything novel or interesting so far, there is no hope of it coming your way hereafter.

    The film is about all the wrong people coming on one screen (though Mumbai was never that way nor it is now). Mumbai was a city where even its dons were respected till
    the early 1990s. 

     

    There are big players in the city and they realize the talent of Ranbir, the most impressed being Karan Johar. Karan is a fixer, who turns deals and is in cahoots with Siddharth Basu though you never learn what Basu is: a lawyer, a politician or another fixer? He is impressed just because Ranbir tries to enter a bank and tries to steal his money by barely poking his two fingers pretending he has a gun! Karan is a big shot, wielding great power and one wonders why he’s at a bank to withdraw money when his personal staff can do it for him.

    Karan, however, is mighty impressed and offers Ranbir contracts to kill people. You don’t know where this film is going until the reality hits that it is going nowhere! Ranbir is a pawn in the hands of Karan but not for long. He wants his share of the pie to be well-defined now that he is in the inner circle of the clique. 

    Ranbir has to frame an honest politician who can’t be bought with money. He is a hurdle in Karan and his clique’s plans. It is unclear why they don’t shoot him dead like they do all others. On such occasions, Karan uses his wife as a bait to lure the person. The politician is so honest, he accepts only Scotch and women in his bed. This film has some legendary character sketches. 

    Meanwhile, there is also a chapter on Portuguese Goa. Anushka Sharma, a choir singer child impresses Remo Fernandes. You are not told who he is or what he amounts to but he convinces her mother to send her with him. Next you know, he is torturing and sexually abusing her. Again, by scene two, she is a grown up. This time when Remo enters her room to deliver her daily lashes, she beats the hell out of him and escapes to land in Mumbai to come acros who else but Ranbir. 

    These absurdities go on and on for over 150 minutes until the film comes to a predictable yet welcome end. Phew! 

    As for a script, none exists. The film proceeds on whims. Everybody is double-crossing or backstabbing the other for no apparent reason. No character is etched out in detail. They come and it is left to you to figure out but soon you don’t care. 

    The script is poor and has no consistency. It was such an amateur idea to start the film in sepia and duo tone when you are going to show rest of the film in colour. (Manoj Kumar did that to great effect in Purab Aur Paschim when he shot his film in black and white until a flight from London enters Indian airspace and then turns in to colour film). In those days, gang wars were fought with Rampuri knives, swords and soda water bottles, nobody used guns, let alone Tommy guns. 

    Direction? There is none in this film. The director is obsessed with his period film idea so much so that he carries his vintage cars into 1960 when Fiat and Ambassador ran the roads. The edifices created for the era were non-existent (this reviewer having grown through that era). 1960s belonged to Beatles and other popular pop groups but the film sticks to jazz.
     
    Mumbai night clubs were famous for their late night cabarets, not Goan jazz singers, which found its patrons mainly in five star ball rooms not in a seedy night joint like Bombay Velvet. The director is totally at sea when it comes to knowing Mumbai of those days. Editing is poor. Music is out of sync. 

    And, what is it with getups? Ranbir Kapoor, a fairly decent looking guy has been made to wear an MGR kind of wig and, resultantly, he looks like a comic character. Anushka Sharma is made to look like 1950s and 60s Hollywood B grader. Karan can’t act; the only time he evokes a reaction is when he wants to know what Ranbir saw in Anushka that he did not in Karan! But then, that was the era of closet gay. 

     

    Kay Kay Menon, the only decent actor in the supporting cast, plays a Crime Branch cop in the era when Mumbai Crime Branch was compared to Scotland Yard. But, he is nowhere around when Ranbir litters the South Mumbai streets with corpses. And, CID in felt hats and ties and blazers? This man, Kashyap, is joking. There are a few other side players who hardly matter since the director does not even bother to introduce them.
     
    Bombay Velvet is a disaster. 

    Producers: Vikas Bahl, Vikramaditya Motwane, Fox Star Studios.

     

    Direcor: Anurag Kashyap.

     

    Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Kay Kay Menon, Karan Johar, Manish Choudhary, Siddharth Basu, Remo Fernandes, Satyadeep Mishra, Vivaan Shah, Ravina Tandon (cameo).

     

  • ‘Ek Villain’…Box Office Hero

    ‘Ek Villain’…Box Office Hero

    MUMBAI: In the old days, they would say that there are only seven story themes in this world and we keep making films around them. Then came television, and the serials took away more than half of them to beam into people’s drawing rooms on a daily basis. Of these, romance and comedy as feel-good themes work on both mediums, films as well as television.

    The situation led to some trying out different storylines. So we have makers who work on finding new blends and we get a Vicky Donor or a Dirty Picture or a Kahaani once in a while. Ek Villain, for a change, combines many varied genres. It is a love story, it has that tried-and-tested Love Story (Erich Segal) angle of one of the leads having an expiry date, and it is a psycho killer thriller, with cops and criminal and also a dash of underworld. It takes all that to make the 209-minute saga that is Ek Villain. Film titles are at premium and, at times, (like this one) look forced.

    Sidharth Malhotra had a bad childhood watching his parents being killed by goons while he hid under the bed. Next thing you know, he is all brawn punching people into oblivion. He represents the local Goa don played by Remo Fernandes. He plays the kind of character Dharmendra played in all time classic Phool Aur Paththar (1966); a heartless inhuman kind who melts due to circumstances.

    Sidharth knows only one thing well, how to liquidate a person. And he does not use a gun to do that. Shraddha Kapoor, a journalist, spots him at a police station going through third degree. Sidharth catches her fancy and she chases him in her typical choolbooli ways, again done earlier by just about every heroine since the inception of cinema. But, Shraddha plays what Rajesh Khanna played in Anand or what Ranjeeta Kaur played in Ankhiyon Ke Jharokhon Se. Sidharth is now in love with her. His softer side takes over and has a purpose to live. 

    Producers: Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor.

    Director: Mohit Suri.

    Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Shradha Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh, Aamna Sharif, Shaad Randhawa, Remo Fernandes, Kamaal Rashid Khan and cameo by Prachi Desai.

    He has changed, he has just managed to land a job when Shraddha is killed by a psycho even as he listens to her shrieks on his cell phone. There is no secret about who the psycho is as he is revealed to public soon enough though Sidharth has still to find out who he is and get after him. There is a cop who likes to play two sides against each other and he directs Sidharth to Remo as the killer of Shraddha which he has not but this opens an opportunity to add an action sequence to the film. Remo assures Sidharth that he looks upon him as a son and had no cause to kill his love.

    Sidharth is back to square one but soon gets lucky as he comes across a young boy who leads him to the killer, Riteish Deshmukh. Sidharth decides to punish Riteish on regular basis instead of killing him in one go. Beaten badly, Riteish is delivered to a hospital doorstep by Sidharth and there he tries to kill a nurse. What sets off the murderer in him? It seems Riteish has always been ridiculed and humiliated mostly by women including his wife. But he loves his wife too much to kill her and takes his revenge on other women who provoke him in any way; whatever jewelry he finds on his victim, he gifts it to his wife to try to win her back.

    The wrap of the story is on expected lines but convincing which works in the favour of the film. That it does not threaten the viewer with a sequel is a relief.

    The script is generally well-etched; a few glitches and liberties here and there are accepted. Direction is able with Mohit Suri maintaining a generous dose of emotions throughout. The film drops momentum at times but catches up again soon. Suri has been able to eke out good performances from his cast when not through histrionics then through expressions. Sidharth does a lot just by his expressions and also doing well in brute action. Shraddha as a cute do-gooder waiting for her inevitable death impresses. Riteish gets a killer look with the help of grey contact lenses which are exploited mainly during his killer moods which also helps juxtapose his docile, henpecked husband at home. Aamna Sharif does a decent job of being his nagging wife. Shaad Randhwa as a sly cop is okay. But, what is Kamaal Rashid Khan doing here? He is supposedly the comic relief. Maybe the makers thought his very presence provides that.

    One of the positives of the film is its music as it has already become popular. Item numbers are a norm nowadays but, here, Prachi Desai does an item on a sad number which is well thought of. Photography is good.

    Ek Villain has had a bumper opening with positive word of mouth and looks set to be a hit.