Review: INFERNO

Dante Ki Maa Behen

Not 3 stars but not 2.5 stars either

Mini Review:

Robert langdon is called upon again to save the world. And this is paint-by-numbers movie is made from a Dan Brown bestseller. As always there are literary clues, visits to museums and churches, ancient cities to explore, anagrams and women who betray. The only salvaging presence is that of Irrfan Khan, and he shows up too late. The endless walking towards clues has tired the audience out.

Main Review:

Robert Langdon is back. But this time he’s trying to figure out what is going on inside his head. The visions are horrific. But hold that thought. The nine circles of hell that Dante describes are fairly non-horrific. They are: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. The punishments are milder than what Ron Howard offers.

Dante offers Milder Heaven for sinners in Limbo. Lustful people are punished by strong winds that blow them back and forth that they have no rest. If guilty of Gluttony, you lie down in vile slush forced by icy winds. Greedy sinners get to push great weights with their chests, angry people fight each other on the surface of the gurgling river Styx. Mild, what?

But it gets better. Heretics get to live in burning tombs. Violent people (three levels of punishments) get to drown in a boiling river of blood and fire, eaten by harpies and dogs, and reside in burning sand deserts with fire raining down upon them.

Then it’s back to something seemingly mild. Fraudsters get to reside with monsters under bridges, and you’d think hell would be hot, but the ninth circle of hell for treachery is icy cold rivers.

And the filmmakers should have used Google to better use. Because those suffering with pestilence and the plague masks seem very out of place if you have read the Divine Comedy. But you do get a thrill to see Dante’s death mask. The fun would have been had Langdon mentioned that the authenticity of the Kirkup mask we see in the movie is questionable. Again, a little more interest in the life of the poet on the part of the filmmakers would have helped.

And instead of moving the action to Istanbul and some mind-blowingly powerful germ that would decimate half the population, it would be fun to actually go to take the film where Dante lived in exile and actually make the super germ that would be infect people with an incurable Malaria (Dante died of Malaria).

But Irrfan Khan shows up and saves the day by his zinger dialog. Makes sitting through another tiresome wannabe high culture art suspense movie worth the while. In Irrfan Khan's style I'm sayin, 'Dante Ki Maa Behen Kyon Ki? No, don't answer that. It was rhetorical.'

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

review: SAAT UCHAAKEY

A Heist Movie Drowned In Gaalis

½ star

Mini Review:

Fed of poverty and his inability to provide his girl with nice things, a small time crook plans a heist. And yes, it goes wrong. In fact, everything from the language that is used in the film is wrong. It’s a mystery how the Censor Board allows the word, ‘Kutiya’ (bitch) being used again and again to describe the girlfriend! This film should go wash it’s mouth with soap.

Main Review:

So suburban Delhi has people who use swear words as if they were going out of style. They also have names like Haggu (literally, Shitter). Of course they don’t have jobs. Their skills include picking locks, conning tourists and oe even claims to be a lawyer.

If you’re not balking and gasping at the air turned blue by the vituperative, you will certainly puke into the popcorn when you see the lovemaking between the small time crook (played by Manoj Bajpayee in a ghastly Beatle mop top) and his girl. Their kisses should be shown to curb population explosion. And to top it all, he calls her, ‘Kutiya’ again and again in such a misogynistic manner you wish to leave the theatre.

Isn’t it the responsibility of a respected actor to refuse to say dialog demeaning women? Even if they play a part of a lowbrow crook? To hear Manoj Bajpayee say these words is just horrifying. Vijay Raaz who is usually a great character actor plays the part of a shady lawyer and his vocabulary is plain stinky. Annu Kapur plays a bizarre madman with hypnotic abilities.

When you figure out where the film is going without wincing over gaalis, it promises to be fun. Kay Kay Menon is a cop who is attracted to the same girl, and his reaction to her is so hilarious you think that you might just like the film. Alas, it doesn’t last. Because Anupam Kher shows up as a trigger happy owner of a haveli who has lost his marbles. It’s a torture to see him play the near blind guy with a gun again (and you don’t care enough to find out where he plays the role)

So they plan to steal the supposed gold in the safe in the haveli (an old woman screams and screams about it). And the sneaking into the haveli at night and getting to the hidden treasure takes so long, you want the film to be a part of training material for torture of prisoners.

You don’t really want to know what happens, except you know you will run a mile in the opposite direction to small budget film set in gallis in any city North of the Vindhyas about ‘quirky’ characters trying to make a quick buck.

review: BEIIMAN LOVE

Sunny Leone's Imperfectly Perfect Love Story

1 star

Mini Review:

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, they say. And when this woman turns out to be Sunny Leone, you wonder who in their right minds and eyes in their head would reject her romantic advances and why. The movie is horrendous but for the honest emoting by the heroine. Seriously!

Main Review:

You know she’s pretending lust for the camera, and you know it is better than the plastic lovemaking shown in mainstream Hindi movies. So while you are in awe of Sunny Leone’s body confidence and how well she wears all the clothes she does, you know when she stretches on the dining table and let’s the hero (Rajneesh Duggal) watch, it is just that, a show.

That said, you will see that Sunny Leone is the best actor of that entire star cast. And you have seen them all before. So Rajneesh Duggal plays Raj Malhotra, the playboy son of a jeweler father who gets slapped at a nightclub for making a pass at Sunny (she’s the good girl Sunaina). He discovers that the girl works for his father, and yes makes a bet with his brother in law that he will have her in bed within ten days.

Raj seduces her by playing the reformed man and manages to sell old unsold jewelery pieces to unsuspecting Chinese buyers. But Sunaina does not even think that it is unethical, and falls for the lad. Before you facepalm, he has put sindoor in her maang and has had her under gold sheets. The brother in law plays spoiler and shows up with the entire family at the ‘bungalow’ and the family agrees to get the two married ‘properly’. At the engagement ceremony Sunny’s mother is discovered as ‘bar dancer and sex worker’. Raj finds a reason now to reveal that he seduced her to win a bet.

Sunny storms out with her teared up mother after slapping Raj across the face. Again. You wish someone had slapped the author of this soap before it turned into a film. But they’re not as skilled as Harold Robbins, so you watch the mother commit suicide. This turns sweet Sunaina into a revenge machine and she destroys the Malhotras by starting a jewelry company and underbidding everything. Raj in the meanwhile gets engaged to Sanjana, the scantily dressed harpy, who he discovers does drugs and sleeps around. So he comes back to Sunaina and wants to be slaved… I mean saved. Over some non-descript song about how love is everything we see the two pose and make love in a topless car (parked in the home), in an outdoor tub, in bed, on the floor in a library (woah! Sunny reads too?!)... Then she kicks him out of the home for ultimate revenge.

Just when you wonder how Sunny is going to finish the Malhotras off by revealing that the son-in-law was betraying the business by sending her the tender quotes, you watch dirt streaked love-lorn lad on Marine Drive talking to himself. Love has finally driven him over the bend. Sunny spots him from his car, her eyes filled with tears, she wants to get off and help him. Then a series of insult flashback montage happens and we see her wipe tears, put sunglasses on and the frame freezes. ‘You should not insult a woman…’ type life lesson shows up on screen.

Why the whole story as review? So you won’t be curious about the bland lovemaking scenes. So you won’t waste your time trying to figure out why such movies are made. The song ‘Mere peeche, mere peeche, mere peeche Hindustaan hai’ is quintessentially Sunny, and she has a twinkle in her eye when she dances which is one star worthy. But you can watch that online. The rest of the movie, as you can see, is forgettable.

P.S. Years after Kidnap the movie where Sanjay Dutt stared at Minissha Lamba's ample assets and mouthed the words, 'She's grown so much' has any character made the audience double up in laughter. In this film the scantily dressed Sanjana, spilling out of her barely there clothes says a 'bye' to her father (who cannot stop touching her) and Raj's dad (who cannot stop drooling over her) says, 'Kids grow up so fast these days!' offered unintentional comic relief in the movie.

(this review appears sans post script on nowrunning dot com)

Review: FUDDU

Forgive My French, But Fuddu Is A Fully Fuckall Film!

½ star

Mini Review:

A young man comes to Bombay with dreams and even though he manages to find himself a job, and gets married, he is unhappy. Living in a room with his two brothers and their wives and kids, he is unable to make love to his wife, who ups and leaves him. Is he the ‘fuddu’ people label him o will his parrot fly out of the cage? You come away wanting to shower after watching this… This swamp thing.

Main Review:

      

Filmmakers should realise that the characters they create - no matter how small or large - need to evince empathy. So much so that the audience should feel along with the character. Laugh when he laughs, cry when he cries, and so on. But when your audience laughs at the character and not with him, when the audience doesn’t really care what happens to him, then you have a problem       

This film starts out with a young lad from Benaras coming to the city with big dreams in his eyes. The dreams crash instantly when he realises that his brothers live with their wives and kids in a one room home in a chawl. And he has to stand in a queue with residents to use the public restrooms. He is not exactly a good looking young lad, but so far so good. You smile weakly at his naivete when he calls up a cell phone number (written on a wall in the public restroom) thinking that the number belongs to a popular movie star. Turns out the number belongs to the local woman cop who screams at him.

You try and understand why the filmmakers give him a job as a lingerie salesman and then have no more humor to offer. Such a missed opportunity here! No awkward sales calls, no middle-class style embarrassment. And no slapstick scenes with piles of bras falling down on his head. The office just looks vague and the people are tie-clad and working at computers.

Then we see a rival at the office suddenly turn into a friend who takes the hero to prostitutes. What? How? Why? Of course the lad is a failure here too, because he is a virgin and does not understand the lingo ‘cap’ for ‘condom’, and wears a girly hat (literally!) and stands in his undies. The prostitute laughs at him. But you cannot bring yourself to laugh at his stupidity.

Everything goes downhill after that. He gets married and his young wife moves into the room. Their ‘suhaag raat’ is very well done because they put the mattress on the floor and it feels real when the lad just rambles on about some nonsense and the young bride waits to have her veil removed, and there’s a power cut. That scene earns this film the half star offered. And then we realise he just cannot make out with the new wife because his makeshift room is between his two brothers sleeping (the oldest one sleeping with wife and kids on one side, the other older brother making out noisily with his wife on the other side). His young wife does not understand why he does not touch her and goes back to her mother’s home, her father labeling the lad, ‘Namard’ (Not a man).

What follows is a horrendous misogynistic lesson: women need to either be persuaded to put out, or be dragged by their hair and shown ‘who’s the man’. Of course he needs to haul his wife back and prove to everyone in the vicinity that he’s a man. They even sing a song about it with lyrics like: his bird has flown the cage... etc. By this time you are so disgusted, you just hope there’s no traffic on the way home and take refuge in jokes shared by your family group on Whatsapp.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: MSG: THE LIONHEART

This is not a movie, it's a TV show.

(there's only one star in this show)

Mini Review:

The one and only Dr. Sant Gurmeet Ram Raheem Singh Ji Insan is back! This time to save the Earth from aliens. This time there's less preaching and extolling the work he is doing, but a telling us how he's a descendant of the Pandavas. This time he's a saviour to Dharti mata and all behne'. And this time he has alien-decimating weapons from Mahabharata. Okay then! It fits in well with current mythological TV shows...

Main Review:

MSG is more superhero Sherdil than Godman in this film. And it's a good thing, because the first two movies he has made put off a whole section of urban audiences unfamiliar with the phenomenon he is among the folk up North. 

He has the coolest gadget since Ironman's suit came out of a suitcase. He has a wheel appear out of what looks like a pocket square and it just morphs into a gigantic motorbike which he rides across to the police HQ where it morphs right back into a red bag perfect for a kindle. Then during the briefing about aliens attacking Earth, he taps the red bag open and it turns into a laptop! Even Ironman cannot compete with that!

The fact that the motorbike could have been a speed monster, but looks like it was put together in a prop shop does not faze the filmmakers at all. Because they introduce 'udan tashtari' riding aliens.

The fun begins here. The aliens are all wearing costumes that remind you of the bulb lit jacket of Amitabh Bachchan in Yarana 'Saara zamana...' 

The alien leader announces that they are going to rape all women so that humans can be wiped out from the Earth. The speech sounds fine until we see what they do to the people with their death rays: they turn everyone 'paagal'. You see a whole bunch of extras really letting themselves act all the 'paagalpan' out. Imagine nations turning crazy...

Now Sherdil leaps into the air to intercept the low-flying udan tashtaris but gets zapped by a death ray. Damn! You think all is lost, but he is saved by a white bearded sage (played by none other than Dr. Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan in a white wig and white beard). 

The old man tells an injured Sherdil, 'You are the descendant of the Pandavas who hid their divine weapons in a magic cave. Collect those and fight the aliens.'

The film just becomes awful after this, worse than perhaps the mythological Tv series we see. But Sherdil says, 'Hmmm!' and shakes his head to say, 'I know you are mayavi, but I will fight you.'

He fights with such bad computer designed monsters (one has a lizard head but turns out to be snake with T-rex type body and limbs, another has a half robotic, half stone body). You want to fast forward the movie, but then you'd miss fairies, yes, fairies, with wings, white dresses and all, who give Sherdil vardaans - the divine weapons - so he can kill the aliens.

Meanwhile, the population all the countries has gone nuts and the kings have been enslaved by the aliens. Wait! Weren't they going to rape all the women? What are they doing with the kings? Don't ask.

The aliens die, Sherdil forgives one, he leaves. People are cured and Sherdil becomes Dharti Rakshak. 

Oh yes, he has these two sisters Saugaat and Saugandh who add to his domestic charm where his wife and children miss his company... 

But the movie has taken so long to tell us the story and we still have aliens who have arrived in 2016 to deal with. Thankfully the modern day gadget guru sells a scooter (what?!) and a title card warns you that 'Hum Phir Yuddh Karenge!'

You make your escape while you can.


P.S. Why did Pandavas need alien-decimating weapons during the Mahabharata? 

Review: MIRZYA

Hooch In Single Malt Bottle

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

A high concept film is a welcome change from the usual loud Bollywood love stories. But when all you see is a Zhang Yimou hangover on screen without the vision or the depth, you realise that it’s just a pretentious film. And the world that the characters in Mirzya occupy are neither ancient nor in the now. It’s a sad debut film of two young people who just go through the motions because everything is pretending to be art.

Main Review:

Pretentious (Adj.): Attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture etc., than is actually possessed.

When will filmmakers learn that two people who know Shakespeare will not recite verses and say, ‘Shakespeare, right?’

The pretentiousness starts right there. But then we are already playing the game of Kings and Princesses (because everyone and their uncle is a king in Rajasthan!). And if someone told a modern woman that a true princess should know how to ride a horse, she would have said, ‘I fly planes’ or something, and never married the man who wanted her to learn this or that before she was worthy enough to be his wife.

But then this princess obeys, because she needs to later ask the lad she is running away with, ‘Petrol khatam ho gaya, now what do we do?’

When will we stop showing wilting violets and dare to give her a bow and arrow and fight like Gong Li?

The filmmaker has borrowed so extensively from Chinese epic period films (including the man bun), that you’d rather fast forward those parts and watch Jet Li in Hero instead. Not one spectacular memorable scene, we either get Punjabi songs sung on top of the octave, or South Indian background music. And the movie about a Punjabi folk tale is set in Rajasthan. But there are snow-clad mountains and Revenant like scenes of horses galloping through waters. Remember the beauty of Jet li’s sword touching the mirror like water before the fight? You get none of the beauty in the film and all the topographical confusion.

Shakespeare bhaiiya via Jaques in As You Like It says, 'And one man in his time plays many parts.' In this film, the director shows how in many lives you play the same part...

You do get slow motion dancing of what could only be the Greek Chorus of a dance troupe that is mostly in a collective orgasm (they appear many times through the film, to give you time to forget that story has not moved). Except when they’re play catch the hammers while dancing on the partially underground furnace. Then you wonder why they’re always working. Are they manufacturing guns for the army or are they making up for some huge backlog on bullock cart wheels?

The two young stars who make their debut as star-crossed lovers are saved from emoting by songs that interrupt and freeze their faces. Or the scene is cut to the past or the present or to Art Malik who plays the father of the heroine and really saves the film. Anjali Patil plays a more believable character than Saiyami Kher. Anuj Choudhry is good as the Prince Charming who turns out to be a beast. Why Om Puri was cast to read a couple of notes and spout three or four bit dialog, no one can guess. But it was fun watching the strange tree of 'Ishq Wala Love' from Student Of The Year shows up in the middle of nowhere for ancient Mirzya and his girl to rest under.

There are fifteen songs in the least, and stanzas broken up to make the 129 minute film feel ‘timeless’. But when you do get out of the warp, you paraphrase Shakespeare’s Scottish King: the film is ‘but a walking shadow, a poor player/ That struts and frets his hour upon the screen/And then is heard no more: it is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/Signifying nothing.’

P.S. Why is Mirzya in both lifetimes so greasy and dirty? Does he work in a coal mine?

Review: TUTAK TUTAK TUTIYA

Silly Fun, But Don't Admit You Laughed

1.75 stars

Mini Review:

A bachelor obsessed with marrying only a modern, English speaking city girl ends up marrying a village belle. Embarrassed by his predicament, he moves in an apartment occupied by a ghost of a starlet. The ghost happily occupies the wife’s body and blackmails the husband. The comedy is silly and physical, and you do laugh at some jokes. But you wouldn’t admit to anyone you watched the film.

Main Review:

Prabhudeva is a super dancer. No one can contradict that fact. But his style of comedy which is physical, seems rather dated, But he does have good timing. And that’s why the Sunday morning cartoon-type trick or simply Mad magazine’s Spy Vs Spy style of imagining one thing and doing something completely lame in reality gets repetitive.

Some of the lines are funny though and you do laugh when they hit you unexpectedly, but none are memorable. But yes, the ghost watching the movie star from the ceiling was really, really unexpected. And the special effects in this scene are perfectly executed.

Sonu Sood’s Shah Rukh hangover finally finds a super outlet, and he does have flashes of resemblances to the star through the film. It does get tiresome, and you wish they’d wrap up the film within a film soon. But the gags continue and we begin to feel the fatigue creep in. So much so that the end shows up quite conveniently.

Tamannah Bhatia does not have too much of a role except to wear ‘heroine’ outfits and dance, change costumes and dance. Oh yes, she needs to widen her eyes in anger and in her ghost role. The South Indian housewife scene with the puja aarti and a towel tied on her wet hair is so real, you can actually smell malli-poo (common flowers worn in their hair by women in South India ) in the theater. Murali Sharma is good as the stereotypical star secretary.

There are many songs in the film but none memorable despite Prabhu Deva’s dancing. Had the tale been told without wandering after every gag, the film would have been more enjoyable. Wait for it to show up on cable.

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: QUEEN OF KATWE

Mira Nair Adds Masala To Sports Prodigy Movie

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

Mira Nair takes us on a blindingly colorful yet bumpy ride to the slums in a small town called Katwe in Uganda and shows us how a young girl earns the title of the film by playing chess. An unlikely sports film, the movie captures lots of human emotions, but drags along, unable to keep our attention on the 64 squares.

Main Review:

This movie falls into the same gigantic pit that most sports movies crash into: repetitiveness and predictability. Yes it’s yet another story of a prodigy that comes out of the hopelessness of slums bogged down by humiliating poverty and then shines at an unlikely sport. Yes, yes, you have seen the formula before: there are sports tournaments where the prodigy wins, the winning streak ends because of pride or sudden wealth and either the prodigy fades away, or overcomes all odds and wins again, this time with real heart.

We’ve seen it in the neverending Rocky franchise, in the numerous baseball movies (and cricket too), golf and horseracing movies, even the unlikely game of carrom has similar plot structure. Queen of Katwe is not different. Girl from slums discovers chess and becomes a champion!

‘It makes my brain sharp!’ young Phiona tells her sister Night. Her sister has chosen the easy way out of the slums: she has found a man who takes her on rides on his motorbike, gives her food and dresses her up. But Phiona believes chess can rescue her from her life.

The young Phiona, Benjamin and the other little kids who play chess and are part of the Pioneers club will make you laugh with their innocent antics.

‘Ketchup is the best thing in the world!’ they say, and you want to agree.

‘Spice for the fish, spice for the rice!’ they kids sing and dance at the market and you are there to do that little jig with them.

Lupita Nyong’o is simply fantastic as Phiona and Night’s feisty single mother who has two other kids to provide for. She is haughty and will not ‘put out’ for anyone even if she has to lose her home. She brings so much to that role you unconsciously imitate her disapproving, ‘eh!’ long after the film is over.

And the coach played brilliantly by David Oyelowo makes you believe in the good that is left in the world.

That said, it still becomes a, ‘How much chess are we going to watch?’



(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

Review: MISS PEREGRINE’S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN

Thoda New, Thoda Deja Vu

2 stars

Mini Review:

Tim Burton’s fans have always enjoyed the spectacle of his vision and this movie is a visual feast. Trouble is, you cannot get rid of a niggling feeling that you’ve seen this somewhere before…It’s a time travel thing, I suppose.

Main Review:

Eva Green is gorgeous as Miss Peregrine who is in charge of taking care of peculiar children. A bit like Professor Xavier, but these children are stuck inside a time loop. We discover this with the help of Jake (Asa Butterfield), a young boy whose disinterested dad (Chris O’Dowd) brings him to the island…

You’ve seen the talented mutants in X- Men and you come to know and like them. Rogue and Iceman’s little skating piece in the moonlight is just as fascinating as the Kurt Wagner’s abilities to teleport himself. You remember their nicknames as well as their given names. That’s because their backstories are well established in the movie as well as in the comic books. Here, we only know someone’s lighter than a feather and some other person is invisible and so on, but it does not generate interest, and you don’t know whether the nakedness of the invisible boy is meant to be funny or alarming.

The special effects are a visual treat. The seeds that grow instantly into a vine was fun to watch. And so are the antics of the little girl who has exceptional strength. But what is her name? How did her parents discover her ‘peculiar-ness’? It would have been great to know. But it was all bogged down by the fact that the story is set in 1943 and they needed to take care of creating a whole set as well as clothing and so on and these backstories would get in the way.

We know also why Eric became Magneto. And even though his life goals are evil, you have a certain empathy for the evil characters. Then why don’t we have any for Samuel L Jackson’s character? He comes across as just someone bad. And yes, if you’ve seen Terminator, the arm turning into weapon effect is so much like Robert Patrick’s T1000 in Judgement Day, you are not alarmed. Even the Hollow Monsters seem to be familiar.

The film fails to engage simply because it wants to say too many things about Jake, his grandfather, his relationship with his dad, the peculiars, Miss Peregrine, war, loneliness, the science fiction part about time in a loop, Jake’s sudden attraction for the floating girl, Judy Dench in a sudden appearance and callous disappearance, period costumes, the creepy boy who reminds you of Sid from Toy Story… And nothing satisfies.



(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)

review: M.S.Dhoni: The Untold Story

The Awesome Supporting Cast Behind Captain Cool

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

Neeraj Pandey proves that he is a Dhoni fanboy. The movie starts out awesomely well, telling us details about Mahi’s early life we eagerly lap up. But we want to know about his growth from getting selected in the team to becoming a captain. We get Bollywood style romance instead and then we begin to look at the time: 190 minutes. Cricket wins, but the supporting cast steals the show.

Main Review:

Let’s get one thing clear: we’re cricket crazy. And the kids in the audience (who bunked school) and college lads (who skipped classes) were all there to watch anything and everything about Dhoni. We don't care who plays Dhoni, as long as we get to watch cricket. And poor Sushant Singh Rajput. He means well, but his arms are never going to be as sexy as those on Mahiman. And his back (when he strips to wear his #7 shirt does not look anything like what the girls would imagine makes great helicopter shots.

But the excitement stays with you for the whole first half of the film. The little boy Mahi who wants to play instead of studying earns a lot of laughter and shared emotion in the theater. Every frustrated sports person who has parents who believe that a good job is everything nodded their head in the movie. Anupam Kher rightly says, ‘Everyone cannot be Sachin Tendulkar!’. But for every father like Anupam Kher, there is a Coach (played brilliantly by Rajesh Sharma), a mentor - the head of Railways (Mr. Ganguly), his friends (each one has acted better than the main cast), his mother (uncredited on the film’s wiki page), his railway homies, heck even his girlfriend’s roommate Ritu.

It’s actually for the supporting cast that you should go watch this film. How else would you know how this star was made?

The first half just sails past you like a catch you have missed in the field. Then the movie begins to stump you. However does he become captain? The movie will not tell you. How does lad from Ranchi become Captain Cool? Where is Sapna Bhavnani who gave him freaky hair? How did he become such a motorbike fan? The movies does not tell you. Were there machinations involved in team selection? The movie does not tell you. Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni have crossed paths as kids, do they become friends as they both become teammates? This movie does not tell you.

The movie goes full frontal Bollywood with his first girlfriend whose story seems straight out of afternoon soaps. Each time she says (and she says this so many times), ‘We do have lots of time together, don’t we?’, you know that horrible things will happen. Each time Bollywood shows anyone driving with a vapid smile on their face thinking happy thoughts, you know they’re heading towards a disaster. And here’s where you want to ask Neeraj Pandey, ‘Who needs to fiddle with the steering wheel so much while driving straight ahead?’

Anyway! This fanboy tale drags on through several, no more than several terribly morphed shots of Dhoni into Sushant at different matches. But the film won’t tell you how Dhoni learnt to be the master strategist of the game? Did he sit down to watch his opponents play with someone? Did the team party together? Did they hate each other?

Azhar the movie failed because they whitewashed all his misdeeds and portrayed him as 'good'. This one comes very close to sugarcoating everything about Dhoni as well. You know BCCI is not exactly untainted. You know careers were made and broken when he became captain. You want to know this and you are shown more Bollywood. He meets the girl who he is to marry in the same fashion he met the girl before. Now that’s so Bollywood, you forget to laugh along with the hero worshipping roommate Ritu. What a lovely little cameo.

And songs! Who needs pointless songs? Why can't they just make a sports movie? But you know they're going to take you through the final world cup win, which makes the bad morphing (sometimes you know that is Dhoni and not Sushant Singh Rajput) tolerable. But how did Yuvi take the change of batting order? The film does not tell you. It needs to get back to cricket.

And cricket fans just love watching the world cup win again and again. The theater erupts in wild clapping when the real Dhoni is shown at last. And you realise that had this film been a documentary of Dhoni’s achievements, it would be a full house. But then you would not have seen so many lovely uncredited characters (the film PR has done them injustice!). You come back home 190 minutes later wishing there was someone like Coach’s wife (marvelous bargainer of fish!) at home who understood the game and made you chai.

Take a bow all you awesome actors: Rajesh Sharma the school coach, his bargaining-brilliantly-for-fish wife, Dhoni's mum, Dhoni's best friends, local cricket commentators, the BAS bat maker, Bihar selector who is in a meeting and forgets that Dhoni might not have money to reach Kolkata, Mr Ganguly of the Railways, all ticket collector friends Dhoni shares his 'quarters' with, young lad who plays Dhoni at school, the young man who plays Yuvraj Singh, the Pakistani shopkeeper who is a cricket fan, and even Sakshi's dizzy over Dhoni roommate Ritu. Without you people, the movie would have been just plain awful.

Review: BANJO

Fun, Frothy, Musical Romance As Long As Nargis Fakhri Does Not Speak

3 stars

Mini Review:

We make good musicals, that everyone knows. This film is about a street music band, hugely popular at religious festivals, community celebratory gatherings like dandiyas, but get no respect because they’re not posh ‘rock’ bands. This film brings their music and their lives on to cinema and tell us an engaging love story.

Main Review:

Local hoodlum Tarrat (played quite convincingly by Riteish Deshmukh) is an extortionist by day, and a Banjo player by night. His band is a bunch of misfits: Grease, Paper and Baaja. Grease (Dharmesh Yelande) obviously works in an auto garage; Paper distributes newspapers, Baaja plays little drums in a wedding band that plays melancholy music to get the bride to cry…

They make awesome party music. And the drums play through your chest as the Dolby Surround sound in the theater adds more magic. Then comes Nargis Fakhri out of New York, bearing her bizarre accent to Bombay in search of the sound and the frenzy that Banjo generates. The surprise connect is Luke Kenny who looks like a ‘firang’ but speaks like a local (the audience loves it when he speaks perfectly good Hindi!).

The accent is the one thing that annoys you so much you stuff popcorn in your ear to simply watch her generous lips (trying hard to not say ‘duckface’) mouth those words and wonder: How does she pout so much?

Her fisherwoman fantasy act in the song ‘Udanchhoo’ will make you forgive her everything. She looks gorgeous then. And there’s a club song ‘Rada’ is fun too.

Now Ms. Bizarre Accent wants to record two songs with the Banjo group to enter some contest (of course she seems to forget all that until the very end) so she gets some gig...But she ends up working for this awful research agency who sends her off to take pictures of unhappy people in slums. Who? Whaaaat? Whyyy? This brings Tarrat (she calls him Tarot in her bizarre accent!) to her. Every time she wants to tell him why she really is wandering about in the slums, something happens.

You cringe because you’re going to her her speak some more, alas.

The band is fabulous, and they share a brilliant chemistry. The film has been shot in narrow alleyways and the local thug Patil saab makes for a fun character to watch too. More than his gold, it was fun watching him near a plate of the mava cupcakes, every single time (even when he’s on the phone on the terrace, there’s a goon holding a plate of those cupcakes behind him!). Well done Ravi Jadhav! It is these little details that make up the movie.

While the second half sags a bit, it picks up pace rather quickly and you have fun. Loved the four of them at the funeral and loved the awful cops that beat up and talk at the same time. There’s a little boy called ‘Cutting’ who was a delight to watch. I loved Luke Kenny’s quiet support role, as much as I did the old man in a band uniform in the scene where Tarrat comes home drunk both on love and alcohol, and he quietly places his hand over the lad…

The fly in the ointment? The horrible stereotypical club owner played by Mohan Kapoor. Come on! We’re not in the 70s any more we could have done with a less lecherous person.

The climax is good fun. The movie ends rather well. Great song, and ending of rivalries. Yes, yes, there’s a rival band there too. Go watch them, and dance in the aisles. And hope Riteish stops acting in the awful sex comedies and gives us such happy frothy romances.     

(this review appears on nowrunning dot com)