The Slower Than Sloth Film.
Ek Ghante Ki Story, Kheench Ke Dhai Ghante Ki Banai.
Stars?
Iss Baar Bore Kar Diya Chulbul!
Mini Review:
Remember Raymond S. Persi, the sloth from the DMV in Zootopia? How exasperation inducing his slow motion is, no? Now imagine it in the film. Every other minute. Chulbul is slow, the bad guy Balli Singh is slow, action is slow, the romance is slow, deaths are slow, explosions are slow, even the dancing is slow. The story is as old as the hills, and not even this fan girl of Chulbul Pandey can justify liking this painful boring film.
Main Review:
Prabhudeva Ab Thakela Hai
Once upon a time , when you said 'Prabhudeva', you expected super dance moves, and mad action. And when he makes an appearance on the screen, you cheered his dance moves... Alas, those days are gone.
He's directed other action films from Wanted to Rowdy Rajkumar and even Pokkiri. Remember the basketball court scene in Pokkiri? Where Vijay says, 'Both the gun and the girl are mine!' Pure action even when the bad cop and the hero are simply threatening one another. But that was good Prabhudeva. In this film, we got the thakela version...
In this film the villain threatens hero, but the writing is tired and the only trick Prabhudeva uses is slow motion. No surprises, just slow threats,'ek taraf maa hai, doosri taraf ladki. Kisko pehle bachayega?' Blah! Batman had to make this choice years ago...
You get so bored of the slow motion, you don't feel like cheering when Prabhudeva shows up in a dance scene. And yes, he's still Micheal Jacksoning. Meh!
And he uses the same sound as Ramesh Sippy did in 1975 for Gabbar. Come on! Kichha Sudeep is good, but he's not Gabbar!
Salman Khan, Needs Better Dialog, Better Action
Computer generated muscles on Salman Khan are a sad thing to see but I'm a fan and I still think he looks terrific in formal shirts that he wears in the movies.
I think he's sweet when he giggles as his girl hugs him, or offers him chocolate, or when he ogles his own wife in the shaving mirror. He's funny when he realises it was his mum not the mean aunt he sent off on the train. And yes, he can still dance! But there's no song that's memorable. Not even, 'Munna Badnam Hua!' And I don't remember the words to the song which happily talks of 'set wet hair gel' in a product placement way.
He is great in the action scenes and even though I know they are unreal, they are enjoyable. But why has suddenly action turned into Gore?
Oh yes, instead of the pecs twitching this time he's made to twitch his butt. I love Salman Khan, but even I don't want to see him twitch buttcheeks to music.
Kiccha Sudeep Whyy Are You The Bad Guy?
From Veer Madakari to this? From fighting the spook in Phoonk to burying girls in this film? I mean Sudeep's Kannada films like Huchcha and even Swati Muthu show his acting chops, but here? It's a good casting but he doesn't come across as someone who would be raping girls and burying them in the rose garden. It's just a terrible trope added in because it will make him look scary.
He makes for a pathetic villain even though he gets the sneers and the cruelty right. He's too well dressed to be in the open pit mine. He just looks out of place in small town politics.
The story is confusing. The bad guy lives in a Rajasthani palace, and is rich because he supplies girls to the rich guys. He keeps smelling cigarettes as though they're something special, and chews on toothpicks (he gave up tobacco or something?). Why he runs someone down we don't know but he meets Salman's first girlfriend by staging a knockdown... Totally stupid, couldn't he just have rushed to save the guy and made friends with the nosepin girl?
Single Expression Nosepin Girl Saiee Manjrekar
The tepidest debut ever as a girl who wants to be a doctor and is never shown to study or take an entrance exam to become one... But wait, this is a Salman film. Who cares about details like that? Isn't it enough that she does innocent things like give him a chocolate as 'Shagun', shakes her head when Salman pretends to smoke and gives him a rudraksh beads 'mala' as a gift. Plus she talks like she's searching for words in her empty head. In fact she's so slow, I got up, left the theater, got coffee and came back in and sat down, and she was still saying, 'Thank you for paying for my admission and four year ka medical college fees, Chulbul.'
I was so happy she dies. Tsk. They show it in the trailer naaaa! And that's why the gorgeous Sonakshi Sinha becomes the wife...
Thankfully Chulbul married the fiesty Rajjo and not the silly nosepin girl.
Sonakshi Sinha. How Cool is she?!
'Pyaar se dar lagta hai sahab' has now turned into this cooking diva who looks simply awesome. Some sarees she's made to wear are so loud, you begin to understand why Chulbul wears sunglasses at all times.
She used to be fiery, and if you've seen Akira, you know she can be feisty. But she's suddenly the bharatiya nari and perfect heroine who cooks and screams for help and snivels 'kasam hai' type of stuff even though there is one scene where she beats up some chap and lectures him about wasting water...
But then you realise that this film is so stuck in a time warp where the heroines have to damsels in distress... I wish wholeheartedly that this gorgeous woman would choose better films.
Other People In The Movie
Chulbul is Dabanngg and Rajjo is his sexy and sassy wife, how do they produce such a stupid kid? He's old enough to wash his own butt but won't. What is that? Makkhi is there, and his role is so transparent, you don't buy the 'sautela bhai' shtick at all.
There are some big bad South Indian baddies (don't ask why they're in Rajasthan!) who get beat up, there are men in cop uniform who get beaten up because they're bad... and so on... Poor Dimple Kapadia has to be mom and agree with soon to die masi who says, 'Jaisa Naam, waisa hee chehra'...Or is it, 'Jaisa chehra, waisa hee nature' something...
The songs are blah. The dances even more dull. And as a fan of Salman Khan, I feel cheated.
As I said, all this is mish-mashed together and is presented in slow motion again and again and again...
Such an exhausting morning. But there was a young man sitting in front of me who laughed whenever Chulbul Pandey put his glasses on or giggled or was backlit for 'hero entry'... Perhaps there is an audience for this...
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