Friday, August 05, 2016

Review: THE LEGEND OF MICHAEL MISHRA

THE ASININE CHRONICLES

1/2 star

Mini Review:

A chap called FP (Full Pant) tells us the love story of Michael Mishra, a gangster who fell in love and changed his ways. It’s so badly written, there is one guffaw in the whole movie (unintentional), lazily acted, the regional accents are horrible (sometimes absent) and you have seen better choreography and lyrics at the neighborhood bollywood dances classes.

Main Review:

Arshad Warsi has a great comic timing and style that we know. You just wonder why he would even bother to sign such a badly scripted movie. He plays Michael Mishra, a Bihari gangster who kidnaps people and lives off the ransom. He also has a good heart, and he saves a largish person who is called Half Pant. Because he wears shorts, du-uh!

This kidnapper spots a beautiful Aditi Rao Hydari at a ‘Bihar Has Talent’ dancing and singing, ‘C-O-W ij a domestic animal, with two legs forward and two backward.’

That is supposed to be funny, by the way, and it gets her an audition in the movies and ghastlier song called ‘love letter’ which makes her world famous in India.

The gangster falls in love with her and moves home to across from her home. The throw letters at each other written in supposed ‘Bihari’ which translates into badly written Hindi with English words added incorrectly. Now for a state that produces IAS and IFS officers by the tonne, and is a primarily Hindi speaking state, this kind of film is insulting to say the least. Their Hindi is pure, and even though their accents may vary, they are not dumb. This stereotyping is sloppy and needless, because none of the actors make an attempt to carry the accent from one scene to another. Arshad Warsi’s accent is swings wildly from city bred to attempted uncouth and you wish they’d stuck to plain Hindi.

And I don’t see the humor in a really large male person wearing women’s clothes. Aditi Rao Hydari is meek mostly and then talks back to her aunt as if she is someone else. And the costumes she is made to wear are so atrocious you stop seeing her as a beautiful girl, but a cartoon.

The story meanwhile takes us to some ‘Kala Pani’ a jail where Arshad Warsi is brought in by the cops in a bullock cart. You don’t want to know why and how he gets there, but her does. And you see the only guffaw inducing moment in the entire film when the jailor and he share a Jai and Veeru moment (from Sholay!) when the cruel jailor begins to play the harmonica and plays Elvis’s ‘I can’t help falling in love with you!’ Of all the songs to choose!

The ending is so terrible, you facepalm when you realise FP is really Half Pant grown up. This legend is so asinine, it's best forgotten.




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