Review: ROUGH BOOK

MAKE FAIR COPY FIRST! FAIL!

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

A physics teacher shows up to teach ‘section D’ at a posh junior college and helps them ‘clear their fundas’. Beautifully shot, the writing makes for a frustrating viewing. It makes a weak and very obvious point about the education system but fails in delivering the message.

Main Review:

You’ve seen Hollywood’s Dangerous Minds and Stand And Deliver where teachers instil a love of learning and even help students written off to overcome their challenges and win. You’ve seen Robin Williams the teacher use not-so-usual methods to inspire students in Dead Poets Society. You’ve even seen Vinod Khanna’s Imtihan where he’s a professor who turns a group of rowdy students into model citizens. Not too long ago Shabana Azmi and Juhi Chawla played teachers in a not too memorable movie about the ‘commercialised education’ (Chalk ‘N’ Duster). So this movie offers no real surprise even though it a subject that needs to be talked about, and it aims well.

It is the story of a Physics teacher (Tannishtha Chatterjee) whose unusual teaching methods to a class of losers relegated to Section ‘D’ inspires them to take that ‘all important’ IIT-JEE exam after the 12th grade high school exams. And with a little help from her friends (Joy Sengupta and Jayati Bhatia) prepares them for taking the competitive exams and passing in flying colors.

So far so good. But if you are a parent, or indeed been through the system (as all have) as a student, you will realise that students who score poorly in the tenth grade are never ever offered a ‘science stream’ for their all important 12th grade exams. Even though you want to believe that students who fare poorly (a kid who wants to dance, a kid whose heart is really into music) really want to go to IIT, even if they are the photographer lad from 3 Idiots, even then you fail to appreciate what the movie is trying to say. It’s just that the writing is not sharp at all. It meanders everywhere and as audience that frustrates you. You want to hear something concrete, and the debate about education to go further. It’s a minor character (Ram Kapoor plays a dad to one of the ‘rowdy’ kids) who makes a clear, and sincere point. That actually shows how smart the writing could have been.

Thankfully the locations where the movie has been shot, the gorgeous weather that has been captured beautifully in the movie are such an awesome relief, you understand why the writing may have meandered off into the misty hills… Might make for a decent watch on tv at home where you can start a conversation. Until then you just wish for something sharper than this blunt pencil…

      

review: UDTA PUNJAB

What a take off into the storm!

3 stars

Mini Review:

Controversy’s child makes an appearance on the big screen and you will find yourself involved with the characters. The storytelling is so good, you will want the good guys to win. You will take sides. You will despair at the bad guys. You will love the characters, hate them, and just be plain horrified and disturbed by them, but you will not come away untouched.

Main Review:

Next time you see someone wearing reflective sunglasses, I’m going to imagine him to be like Balli.

Next time someone says they’re looking at MOOCs, I will remember ASI Sartaj Singh who passed his BA by correspondence course.

Next time someone says they’re jamming with friends, I’m going to wonder if Tommy is singing about a lost girl somewhere.

Next time someone says they wish they were going up to the hills with the gang, I would wish to have Dr. Preet’s number at hand

Next time someone says, our films cannot hold the audiences, I will drag them to watch this movie. It manages to tell the story of users, abusers, of people who want to milk the system and those who want to help drag people out of this vicious circle.

Dr. Preet is played convincingly by Kareena Kapoor (she makes you forget she was a caricature of a doctor in 3 Idiots, and even in Kambakkt Ishq). She is so gorgeous, she lights up every frame. And it’s a relief because she is running a drug rehabilitation clinic, which is gritty and not a pretty sight.

ASI Sartaj Singh is played convincingly by Diljit Dosanjh and the movie ought to receive a star simply because he looks at Dr. Preet like she’s immensely edible and is embarrassed by his thoughts. That he accomplishes without looking like some food deprived Ranjeet or Gulshan Grover…

Shahid Kapoor as the wild Tommy Singh is cool, and his character at once ghastly, at once kinky, at once ‘I’m never going to allow my daughter to any rock concert’ bad, and at once ‘is there any good in him?’ I loved his transformation and it is such a pleasure to watch him transform. Yes, for a habitual user this transformation seems to be too convenient, but hey, it’s Bollywood, and love is strangely miraculous.

Plainly shocked at what characters in the movie can do to Aalia Bhat, it took me a while to watch the screen without upchucking my coffee. But I felt the same when ASI Sartaj says, ‘Now you will realise what it is to lie within the system and betray it…’

The violence in the words may not be what the big city coffee shop crowd tweets about, but then the big city coffee shop crowds are also dealing with uber urban recreational drugs. The story is the same. The vituperative language is so natural, you know the expletives belong there. They have not been added to make silly women giggle and go, ‘Haw!’

The movie is so claustrophobic at times, you begin to look at the Goa billboard with the same need for release. The events that hasten the end even I couldn’t have predicted. And when the credits roll, you begin to breathe.

Review: DHANAK

'OMG! HOW CAN YOU CALL A BLIND BOY AND HIS SISTER ANNOYING?!'
'Okay okay, I'll call them cute...'


1 star

Mini Review: 

You will read reviews like ‘heart-warming’, ‘cute’, ‘innocent’, ‘natural’, ‘endearing’, ‘brave journey’, ‘restores faith in humanity’ and wonder why no one is saying, ‘exotic India’, ‘made for the festival circuit’, ‘annoying kids’, ‘silly characters’, ‘far-fetched’...

Depending on how politically correct you are, you will either love it because ‘the kids are so cute’ or step out for coffee ever so often, come back and discover that the journey has gone nowhere.

Main Review:

The idea is cute. Blind boy and his sister believe that Shah Rukh Khan will cure the blindness and undertake a journey to meet the star who is at a film shoot in a city far, far away. Yeah, yeah we grew up watching Wizard of Oz, so we know you will meet a cowardly lion, the scarecrow and so on and so forth, and the merry band will then face the man behind the curtain. Unfortunately for this movie, there are no wicked witches or ruby slippers that help make the journey interesting. It is just 'quirky' characters that you might think you will meet when trampling across Rajasthan.

So needlessly quirky, you start noticing that the Silly Hippie who faints in the desert carries an Indian backpack. And that ‘Padharo Mhare Des’ is perhaps what comes to one’s head as the Rajasthan’s folk song for welcoming tourists rather than ‘Damadam Mast Qalandar’. But you let that go because ‘the children are so cute’.

You look up dead baby jokes on your phone as the blind boy asks for more food.

You groan as the list of characters they meet grows: from the wedding feast to the Godwoman conwoman to the child nappers to the divine oracle. They’re all such insincere. caricatures you want to go hug the chachi who hated the kids. Now you know why. Even if you allow the truck driver and the wedding feast to be real, and good people, you cannot but see how manipulative this movie gets in order to force you to say, ‘So cute these kids are! Even when they’re crapping in the night and the older sister is so cute because she is keeping a watch even though she is just a little girl.’

The writing will have you wring your hearts. Bad aunt, ineffective uncle, kids running away under the hot summer sun not realising what a dangerous place this big bad world is, but their innocence pulls them through. Then the little boy is blind. And before you can say, ‘How can anyone say bad things about a little blind kid and his little sister?’ the movie tells you again and again how cute they are because they love Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and like millions of ‘cute and innocent’ Indian villagers believe the stars can save them from their lives.

The kids are cute. Up until the little boy starts belting out songs as though he is a professional. And the lame reasoning is: This is the first time after our parents’ deaths that he’s singing. And you think, are people going to hate you for not liking a talented little blind boy?

The child nappers are so stupid, they travel without guns and get taken in by robbing gypsies. Now gypsies have been given a short shrift everywhere, and if all that cuteness of woman with antique gun hasn’t numbed your logic, you would know that the gypsies wouldn’t let one person rob travelers. They’d do it in groups.

The singing, oh the singing! Looks like Mharo Rajasthan is full of singers of folk songs and dancers and people who say, ‘Stay the night, leave in the morning.’ It’s not exotic India, people, it’s a journey of cute blind boy and his feisty sister to find a cure…

I know this film has been made for those with a surplus of the milk of human kindness, but it made me hanker for something more. Why don’t we make movies like Children of Heaven? Can watch that any time and it touches you deeply every single time. Cuteness can carve out only a part of the heart. I still remember Hyderabad Blues and Iqbal. And this movie is too shiny bright, too glossy and and tries too hard to be cute.

Despite the name of the movie, it creates no longing, no space in your heart to sing, ‘Somewhere over the rainbow!’

P.S. watch it on a sunday afternoon when they're playing it on Doordarshan... i mean cable...

Review: CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

Not Really Intelligent, But Lots of Laughter!

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

If you think getting shot in the butt is funny, and find physical comedy a lark, then you might just find the action-packed madness of Central Intelligence really funny. Fans of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson will be happy to see him in a role that is actually endearing. And his reluctant partner Kevin Hart makes for a funny hostage. The movie goes around in circles, and although you come away laughing you wish it had more.

Main Review:

‘Once a fat kid, always a fat kid.’ This dialog resonates so much across audience of all ages, it deserves a half star of its own.

The movie surprises you with the physical comedy and the sharp volleys of dialog that make you guffaw. That’s why you must watch the movie with a bunch of friends. Friends who understand why sometimes ‘expected to succeed’ from the high school yearbook, does not necessarily translate into real life. And the boy you laughed at for his size was really a good guy and hero.

Everyone loves an underdog, and this movie has two, not one. And they make a wonderful team dodging bullets and the CIA. Flashbacks from highschool serve to remind you that we don’t really grow up at all, and in the intermission, you do a quick search of person who got laughed at because they were too fat, or too skinny, were too tall to too short, had two left feet or were plain ugly in the hope that they turned out to be okay, and also look up beautiful people for whom high school was a breeze in the hope that they had somehow turned into gigantic losers and turned into the weasels they were…

You don’t have to refill your popcorn tub because there’s so much of it on the screen. Dwayne Johnson endears you immediately because he pretends that his size is nothing. That he is really a fanboy of the only boy in high school who showed him kindness. Kevin Hart on the other hand needs a boost to his self-confidence and reluctantly accepts The Rock into his life. Of course it is turned upside down. It is so much fun because you like that gags and the physical comedy. But had the script been stronger this duo would have had so much more fun. More fun than, ‘You just shot my butt!’

Review: FINDING DORY

Found Lots Of Tears But Lost Fun

2 stars

Mini Review:

‘Lost Nemo made us gazillions, let’s make a sequel!’

‘This time let us complicate things by losing Dory, and we’ll have the world working hard to find her.’

‘It will be wonderful because she’s already a sympathetic character. She has a disability.’

‘Will the kids think this to be too serious a subject?’

‘Naah! We’ll make her disability ‘cute’!’

Main Review:

‘Hi, my name is Dory. I suffer from Short Term Memory Loss...’ is repeated so often in the movie, you start to wonder if you should reach out with a pair of chopsticks into the screen and pick her out and say, ‘Sushi!’ after the twenty-thirdth time…

The memory loss is rather convenient. Because Dory begins to remember so many things and does so many things by saying, ‘What would Dory do?’ and the six year old inside you asks, ‘How does she remember that?’

Sometimes you wish they had thought up of the script first rather than say, ‘Let’s make a sequel!’

Plus, in the sequel, they forgot to add the fun elements that would make everyone laugh. Including the grownups. It’s hard to take this movie in a light spirit because you will worry for Dory, who suffers from short term memory loss and should not really be out there alone in the dark ocean, crying out for mommy. It was personally terrifying to imagine a child lost swimming around for years, not knowing where mommy and daddy are. The fish who swim by and don’t help are very scary and real. Children would probably chew their favorite toy to bits watching the horror unfold.

Pixar though, have not forgotten to create cute but grumpy character who becomes a reluctant hero. Hank the octopus. He brings a freshness to the script that was making me so miserable, I wanted to step out and call mom and dad. But then the script gets too complicated for its own good. You switch between Nemo and Dad looking for Dory and Dory looking for parents. And everyone is trying to get to some part of the sea sanatorium. The Sigourney Weaver joke is super fun, but then it remains just that one liner. No one stretches it to Alien fish or some other Avatar.

‘I cried buckets’ or ‘I was so-oh touched’ is what grown ups will say to each other while their kids would be holding on to the parents for dear life. Me, I asked, ‘How come Dory forgets everything else, practically but remembers that Hank is a Septopus and not an Octopus?’

Review: NOW YOU SEE ME 2

Why Did I See You?

1.5 stars

Mini review:

Take everything you loved about the original (magic and wonder) out of the sequel, and fill it in with flashing lights and fireworks. Then add cockiness to all the characters. And then take a beloved child actor and turn him into a smug, silly villain. The result is an a overwrought, tiresome movie that has a flimsy story to tell.

Main Review:

When you watched the original, you fell in love with magic and the wonder of it all. You oohed and aahed as the horsemen performed magic in the film. You sighed at the reveals and you nodded when the bad guys got their comeuppance.

The sequel should have logically, therefore, offered all this and more.

That’s the basic audience expectation from a sequel. The trouble here is that they have a wonderful ensemble cast, and a few more added, but the story is wafer thin and they thought they would get away by showing lots of special effects. And when so much depends on special effects, why should the actors work hard?

That’s why Jesse Eisenberg looks like he’s going to ask us to join the Social Netrwork, Mark Ruffalo seems burdened with more revelations from the Spotlight team, and Morgan Freeman is still playing God… You get the picture!

An annoying addition to the team is a ‘girl’ horseman. Even if you’ve been living under a rock, you will guess that a ‘girl’ would have to be sharper, smarter than the lads ( she would be a regular Jane Bond in high heels) and to prove that she’s a ‘girl’, she would be yakkity yakking until she exhausts everyone. And yes, you would at some point see her underthings, even if only for shock value. If you guessed them all, you’d watch the movie play out even before they’d planned it. Thank god they did not show her screaming because she saw a mouse or some such thing ‘girls’ are supposed to be afraid of, in order to get the attention of the man she fancies. Small mercies!

But the flash and fireworks begin to grate on your nerves, the double crossing can be seen a mile away, and the movie becomes so predictable, you can even see the filmmakers will have the tiny Chinese lady speak clearly in English after having frustrating conversations before. The worst though is watching young Harry Potter pretend he’s some sort of Bond villain. You want to smack his silly smile and send him off to bed without dinner. Or better yet, you begin praying for Voldemort to win in the next sequel of Harry Potter films.

Review: CONJURING 2

They've conjured up real good scares!

3 and 1/2 stars

Mini Review:

Ed and Lorraine are cajoled into solving yet another case of haunting. This time it's in England. And the haunting starts creeping you out from the very first scene. You don't eat popcorn because you've dropped it already. You cannot drink the coffee because your hands are shaking so much. And you're barely breathing... It's behind you!

Main Review:

The best part of watching the movie with a theater-full of college kids who have come to be scared, to clutch at sleeves of boyfriends, and to laugh only to prove how unafraid they are, is that confidence one has  that one will not be scared at all. The original was advertised as the scariest movie ever. And one felt nothing. Am so glad I joined the seventy odd people in saying, 'No, no, no, no! Don't go there!' and make strangled sounds every once in a while, and swallow air hastily when... When... When the... When the thing appears...

Yes, I was terrified for the protagonists They're kids! You said in your head. Why them?

Initially you try and settle down in your seat. You've seen it before: toys that start working on their own, lights that go on and off, levitating people, upside down crucifixes, people speaking in voices... But then this movie takes them all and wraps you around it's cold bony fingers that appear from behind doors... Shudder!... And you are willing to scream.

You know the demons will appear from the shadows, but the amazing part of the film is that even someone like me who does not get scared easily did not guess when the demon would appear. I was delighted to be scared the way this film manages. You imagine the worst of horrors when you see them step into water and they show electrical wires dangling. But then the horror you imagined is less that what really happens. And you shudder even to remember that afterwards.

A good scary movie will stay with you long after it is over. And kudos to the kids who do such a good job being haunted, Ed and Lorrain and the parents and neighbors... Just about everyone acts their part so well you are drawn into their world easily. The skeptics and the police also do a great job. And you laugh nervously when the demon moves the chair back to its place when no one believes it exists.

Let me not tell you more. Go watch it. Before the demon garbles *nlezxi8 my words and 4k(d+les#2 It's...%^* behind you...

Review: DO LAFZON KI KAHANI

Do Lafz? Do Karod Meaningless Lafz!


1/2 star


Mini Review:

This is a remake of a Korean film Always/ Only You. Also remade a year ago in Kannada as Boxer. And it successfully hammers the last nail in the coffin of groan-inducing schmaltzy romances. She’s blind and he’s burnt out and they fall in love. She talks so much, it’s a miracle they don’t announce half-way through the movie that he’s gruff and quiet because he’s deaf.

Main Review:

Kajal Agarwal’s Jenny shows up within ten minutes of us watching Randeep Hooda (Suraj) in a very bad haircut do manly jobs, run from one job to another without saying anything. Then Kajal Agarwal starts talking. At the end of two and half hours, she’s still talking. She’s a pretty girl, but the chirpy act begins grating on your nerves within the hour. You want to shut yourself out from the nonsense she's spouting. You want to know why Randeep Hooda is the way he is in the movie. How did he build that body after losing all that muscle mass in Sarabjit? Was this made before Sarabjit?

'You smell... Look at the TV not me... You are buddhu... Bindiya says...'

As you ponder the Sarabjit questions, you realise Kajal is still talking. No wonder Osmanbhai chose to retire without telling her! And then you notice that she has large eyes. Beautiful large eyes. And you choke over popcorn because she hasn’t blinked them ever since she walked into the frame an hour ago.

'You won't leave your girlfriend, no... I walk a mile to watch TV...This is going to be our house...'

‘Carry me!’ is what petulant attention-hungry kids say when they realise that their parent has discovered a particularly interesting book, or has made themselves a cuppa, or has finished the tiring groceries. You see a grown up (yes, and slightly injured) Kajal make Randeep walk and walk and walk and walk with her piggybacking him all the way. The girls sitting around you have already texted their boyfriends, ‘Will you carry me if my foot is hurt?’ and have received replies like ‘no’ instantly. It’s not enough that he carried her all the way home, but then she makes him clean up a clogged toilet too. While you are expecting him to be doing the dishes soon, you quickly nip out and get yourself a coffee.

When you come back, she’s still talking.

'We're Indian... Buddhu...Talk to my dead parents... Even tho' I'm blind I know exactly where they're buried...'

You conclude that it’s not love or deafness that makes him return to boxing. It’s her incessant chatter. The gym gives him time to stay away from her chatter. But at the gym too, there’s a song that wails something about ishq and some such thing.

There are absolutely no moments of silence in the film. No gazing into each other’s eyes, so soulful reminiscing. This movie is all chatter. And if there’s a smidgen of feminism inside which questions her blithe acceptance of him saying, ‘I’ll take care of you’, you would die several deaths.

'I love water slides... Why do you not take me out to dinner... Buddhu, my first love was my papa...'

But that would be easy. This film keeps you tortured. First you see Kajal teach visually impaired children sculpting. Then you discover she’s a masseuse. How and when did that happen? You want to now definitely want to run away, but Randeep has volunteered to die instead. He really wants her voice inside his head to stop? You had better see this.

'I can massage... I run a shop too... And I now have a car... I am so-oh friendly with customers...' 

She’s still talking. And crying. Randeep has vanished. You see some cage boxing that provides relief from her talk, but then he comes back. He really has a death wish! Then he does the most caring thing I have seen on screen: he steals her turtle lying in a Pet jar and releases it in a lake. Before you applaud him, he stands stunned. She’s found him! He sighs and accepts his fate.

You come out of the theater and text your loved ones to promise you will never claim to love them the way Jenny did Suraj. You run out when the credits roll and she's still talking...

'Why did you leave me... I am buddhu... Hospital is also buddhu... You were a Stabbing victim, and they let me massage your back...'  

Review: TE3N

Why Tell Who-Dun-It As Soon As They Done It? 
Audience Likes Discovery!

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

A cop turned priest is connected to an old man obsessed with his grand-daughter’s unsolved kidnap and murder as well as a new case of kidnapping which is practically mirrors the old man’s case. This could have been a good who-dun-it. The movie is well shot, and the actors are more than competent, but it remains average because the script insists on pointing fingers until you want to break its fingers and say, ‘Stop!’

Main Review:

The movie has been promoted as the story with ‘three’ stars: Amitabh Bachchan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vidya Balan. Hence the fancily written title: Teen or three. The story revolves around these three characters all right, but  the real star of this film has not been given credit. It steals the scene effectively from Amitabh Bachchan. It pushes the story forward, and its presence is unmistakable. The real star of the movie is the annoying, ancient scooter that Amitabh Bachchan drives.

Every time the scooter stops, something happens to push the story forward. Every time it sputters to a stop, it behaves like Sherlock Holmes, it has led us to a clue. And this movie is laden with clues. So many you want to yank the pen off the screenwriter’s hand and run it through the clues given away freely within the first twenty minutes.

If you read a lot of crime fiction, or even watch TV shows like Crime Patrol or CSI and their ilk, then you’ll watch the movie stumble through to the end.

Amitabh Bachchan acts the part of the old man rather well except when they think no one is looking. And then you see his shoulders straighten and he stands tall. Nawazuddin Siddique looks like he enjoyed wandering about in a cassock. But if you watch him closely, you’ll find him smirking at the comic lines he is supposed to deliver - lines about the scooter - are delivered not with sarcasm, but with knowledge that he’s acting in a good script, and that the audience is going to laugh. Vidya Balan is competent as a police officer investigating the case. But you wonder why she has been given a ‘guest role’ in the title credits.

They keep saying eight years ago this was like that, and that was such and such. But none of the characters age. Plus the mistakes! Oh the mistakes...That’s when you want to watch Sujoy Ghosh’s Calcutta. Thankfully the movie has been shot beautifully even though the only ‘Calcutta’ thing you will experience are the yellow Ambassador cabs. Watch it, if only for the very last image of Amitabh Bachchan wiping away his tears.

Review: WARCRAFT

It's not Pillowfight Craft, it's Warcraft!

2 stars

Mini Review:

Not too many video-games-turned-movies turn out to be any good. This movie, although based on the flimsiest of plotlines, makes a decent, rather watchable version of the game. It takes a bit of swallowing, there are too many legends, but they’re not too difficult to follow. The game is so popular, they have world championships, but the movie may not be.

Main Review:

I understand why so many people just dislike game-turned-movies. It takes a huge leap of faith to understand the magic and the legends that are easier to swallow as a game. In the game you learn about magic trinkets and spells, you learn more about the worlds in books (there are more than 30 books in the series), but the movie has to be complete. It takes a little patience to learn about magical worlds of elves and dwarfs and humans and orcs. For the sake of gamers, this movie stays true to plan.

The Orcs have arrived in Azeroth (the human world) through a magical portal and are taking them prisoners and killing them because they want to bring everyone over from their dying world. The humans fight back with their own magic. That’s everything what the movie is all about.

The magic lies in how beautifully the game has been translated to a movie. In the game multiple players fight an unseen enemy. Here, you sit back and awed by the buffed up orcs fight the puny humans. As the makers promised, ‘This is not Pillowfight Craft, it’s war!’

Critics will tell you how you’ve seen it all in Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars even: Dementor like evil powers; demons turn host eyes all black; demon magic is green, good magic is blue; there are good gigantic flying beasts; good guys can turn to the dark side; magical ink that appears and disappears; apprentices can be better than the master… so on and so forth. But if you can watch it for popcorn and soda, why not?

The CGI is really, really good. The buffed up Orcs have tusks that could make the careers of many an orthodontist. But there are lots of questions that the movie does not answer. Like what was the Guardian’s motive to do what he does? Why do the humans ride horses when they have those awesome birds? If they have guns, why were they still fighting with swords… The critics have a field day when presented with such fodder. But if you have enjoyed playing the game, or have no clue what made the game so humongously popular, you will enjoy this film.

Review: HOUSEFULL 3

HOUSE FULL OF IDIOTS 

1/2 star


Mini Review: 

Went in expecting lame jokes from WhatsApp. Realised even those are funnier. The half star is shared between Jackie Shroff's voice and one scene where the maids and Boman Irani stick their heads in a shelf of mannequin heads when hiding and when Abhishek Bachchan saves the wax statue of Aishwarya Rai.


Main Review:

'Why do we love these losers?' one of the three heroines in the movie asks. Fellow critic sitting next to me says, 'Because our IQ's are low!' 

But the other two heroines answer, 'Because we love them! Awwww!'

Some movies are so bad, you want to vent your ire at their stupidity. The trouble with this movie is that it is so brutally banal, so vacuous it is pointless to even wake up a smidgen of anger supine somewhere in the insides of your brain.

These are examples of things the filmmakers and actors found funny:

'Tum nimbu ki roshni se door hee raho!' when they mean: stay away from the limelight.

 'Kaamwali gayi to kaamwali gayi' when they mean: let bygones be bygones.

'Lambi Ghadi ke peeche' when they mean: Long time back.

'Paal pos ke oopar ja' when they mean to say, 'Grow up!'

and just when you think why they speak that way, one of the dizzy heroines says, 'Naukri neeche'.

They mean to say, 'Calm down.'

One part of me was recovering from the assault of such stupidity when I realised that they had forgotten who they made the film for. These are English phrases, which are beyond the comprehension of most of India, the aam aadmi the filmmakers claim 'love these movies'

How do you expect the common man to understand, 'saare kunye jo aakhir mein acche kunye hain'. It's the last slingshot for the audience who walk out like zombies from the theater: All's well that ends well.

The fact that the three heroes are made to pretend they are blind, mute and unable to walk ought to have brought out much outrage, but they fail even here. There are many more politically incorrect jokes on people with disabilities on the internet today. And Tom and Jerry are funnier when they break chairs over each other's heads, or pushing each other to sit on a thorny cactus. 

And the last time one laughed out loud when a cactus plant was involved was in Golmal 3 in the scene where the freshly married parents of warring grown up kids watch TV and the grown up kids mime the damage they will inflict on each other. the scene is here 

There is an almost funny scene when the three African British maids and Boman Irani are hiding from Jackie Shroff's anger (and shotgun) behind a shelf full of human heads (they are in a waxworks factory) by sticking their own heads there. And when Jackie Shroff throws a row of heads in anger, they replace the empty shelf with their own. Now that was unexpectedly funny. And in the same waxworks scene, Aishwarya Rai's statue is being toppled over and Abhishek Bachchan dives to save it from a fall, steadies it and announces, 'This is personal!' That was funny too.

Not enough funny for a two and a half hour worth of boredom-inducing pathetic attempts at humor that is so unconvincing you wonder if they even laughed at their own jokes. Thankfully Jackie Shroff still has his voice. Him clarifying, 'WTF' simply means 'Wednesday, Thursday Friday' may not be funny but it sounds sexy as hell!

This movie is a sad waste of time. You shake your head not as if you are watching a cockroach's last struggle after it has been sprayed with 'Hit' but just because you pity them all.





     

Review: THE NICE GUYS

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! 

3 stars

Mini Review:

A bumbling buddy detective movie where people get shot at, maimed, their bones broken, run over by cars, chased by baddies, and generally bashed up, with the buddies escaping by the skin of their teeth, by inches, by sheer will-power, by mistakes… It’s witty, sarcastic, and wholly funny. A wild ride for two hours that will keep you guffawing at the sheer audacity of events panning out!

Main Review:

‘Does detective work pay?’ ‘No, but it gets you a cool ad.’

‘You didn’t discover the dead body, you fell on it!’

‘Dad! There are whores and stuff here!’

Before you are disgusted at me giving away all the funny lines of the film, let me tell you that these were just some of the witty writing that you will experience without falling off your seats. There’s more. So much more. It is a wild roller-coaster of a ride set in the extravagant seventies where the cars were long and the women long-legged and the men flirted with danger and drugs and drinks…

The movie is daring. It flouts common sense and convention. The two detectives team up to find a client and the two hour trip takes you through sleaze, silliness and situations that are jaw-droppingly unbelievable. What raises the cool quotient of the film is the number of times you say, ‘Oh mah gawd!’, ‘What just happened?!’ or plain, ‘What the…!’ simply because you don’t expect to see what you saw. You have seen Tarantino kill people violently in his film. But here when people die, it is random and with guffaw-inducing surprise.

The nudity is so incidental and hilarious, you don’t think too much of it. So when Russell Crowe covers up an exposed leg you smile broadly in the darkness of the theater and remember how Ryan Gosling strips to chase the mermaids…

Have I gone barmy? Perhaps. Perhaps not. One thing’s for sure, you have never seen Ryan Gosling in a role such as this one and Russell Crowe too. They’re funny. Very. And they rule the scene in the middle of a ‘die-in’ protest group.

(This review appears on nowrunning dot com)