Review: Rashmi Rocket. Yeh toh phuski nikla re!

Rashmi Rocket on Zee5

The film stars: Tapsee Pannu as Rashmi Rocket and Priyanshu Painyuli as her husband Captain Gagan Thakur, Abhishek Banerjee as lawyer Eeshit Mehta, Manoj Joshi and Supriya Pathak as Rashmi's parents, and Varun Badola as Dilip Chopra the baddie Selector of the Indian Athletics League (or some such gormint sports association).

Watch it or skip it? 

It's a paint-by-numbers sports film with an athlete suing the sports body. Use the remote I say, fast forward to the court case because you like Supriya Pilgaonkar as 'Milady' erm... 'Your Honour!'

Ab Review karte hain, seriously: 

So little Rashmi beats all the boys in the village to capture a kite, People flying kites on the terrace are yelling 'Kai po che!'. People are wearing tie-die bandhani sarees and brightly coloured pugdis. Daddy Manoj Joshi encourages her to run like a rocket and never says no to her for anything. Mum Supriya Pathak runs a handicraft enterprise which looks like a lovely ad for an ideal village. 

Suddenly she has to defend a woman at the Panchayat whose husband beats her and won't apologise. Grown up Rashmi who now rides a motrobike is there beside her mum and as soon as the husband tries to drag the woman a minute after apologising, Rashmi hits him. 

But her job is to take tourists around the Rann. It's gorgeous to see miles of salty marshes, and I wish the story had taken advantage of Rashmi racing in our country's unique geographical feature. Remember the movie, The World's Fastest Indian' where Anthony Hopkins races the Indian bike in the Bonneville salt flats in Utah? The cinematography makes you go weak in the knees and dizzy in the head because you experience a kind of white out. What could have been her training ground, Rashmi Rocket just saves a chap from blowing up on a land mine. 

I'm like, they were just talking about snakes, yeh land mine kidhar se aaya?

Anyway, Rashmi runs faster than the nice looking hero who's brought two marathoners from the army to train in the salt flats. I guess they forgot about the training because she ran faster than them. But the hero is nice looking. 

The army camp (why is there a camp and not a proper cantonment? Have they been there ever since the earthquake and when Rashmi was a little girl? Who are they treating? But you like how Rashmi Rocket gets dressed and joins the celebrations where everyone is blindingly colourful. She flirts with the Captain and the nice guy dances the Dholi taaro dhol baaje type dance. 

I am super impressed already with Tapsee Pannu's super athletic body, so the dance number seems as out of place. But get on with the story! They didn't make Shah Rukh suddeny dance with the team in Chak De! Bring on the fast forward button, yo!

So then predictable stuff happens: Rashmi gets selected, runs so fast two of the girls are don't like her. Of course the one who hates her is the super urban, super jealous daughter of the main selector Dilip Chopra (bad dude Varun Badola, who looks like he hasn't slept for days). The jealous gal wonders if Rashmi takes performance enhancing drugs or if she's really a woman.

I'm like, 'Duuuuuude! You gave the plot away!'

After Rashmi wins lots of medals for India, the league whisks her away (knowing she's tired and exhausted) and makes her go through what is an alarming fifteen-twenty minutes of cinema. She's treated so horribly in the name of random testing that you realise that the film actually starts here. How many people are complicit in the testing and shaming conspiracy? Unbelievable!

The aftermath is predictable. News cameras and cops treating Rashmi horribly, villagers calling her 'Mardana', her mother and brothers protecting her...

Along comes lawyer Eeshit Mehta (it's Abhishek Banerjee in glasses, speaking Bangla even though he's Mehta) who tries to tell Rashmi that she should fight the ban. And why the ban is unfair to women athletes.

The court case when Rashmi decides to fight it is a great idea, but the execution seems too weak. Hearing the lawyer compare Rashmi's unfair advantage with naturally high testosterone with Michael Phelps who has an unfair advantage because of longer arms and legs or Usain Bolt's super muscle, is just so blah. 

It's weird to see a lawyer using a white marker (so convenient!) on the glass walls in the library and make notations in his diary and believe that he's doing research for Rashmi's case? Does he not own a laptop? Whatevs! He questions Dilip Chopra's daughter who was the champ before Rashmi showed up but he doesn't ask the most logical question: was she ever tested because of her great performance? 

And the fact that they use a predictable way to prove Rashmi is indeed a woman made me groan. Estrogen and testosterone high at the same time in the body? Whaaaaat kind of science is that? They drew so much blood from her during the tests, nothing showed up? I didn't just groan, I wondered if Bill Nye the science guy would upchuck his morning chai latte watching that!  

Suddenly I find myself looking at how honest the story in Mary Kom was (despite all the other problems). They did not hesitate in calling out the Boxing Federation. This film on the other hand is too chicken to even mention that the story is inspired by Dutee Chand who was banned because of her high testosterone levels. Why make a movie if you think the audience is stupid?

Is Ted Lasso really a hero? Or just comic relief?

The name of the show is Ted Lasso, but yaaron, for me, the heroes of the show turned out to be Rebecca and Keeley. 

Think about it. If you've read pundits that teach screenwriting, you know all about 'a hero's journey'. Critics too will expound on the importance of a valid 'character arc'. After I finished bingewatching both seasons of Ted Lasso, I sat down to write how much of a fun watch it was. But...

Even though Ted Lasso throws zingers a mile a minute, but the best lines came from Keeley. 'Fuck me, you're wonderful. Let's invade France.' Keeley says this when Rebecca shares her secret of how to create self confidence before facing people for Nate. Keeley starts out as a 'social media influencer' famous for doing nothing at all. You want to shake her for the bizarre fuckboi relationship she has with a narcissistic personality like Jamie, and then love her more when she takes on the grim, grunting Roy Kent. Keeley loves the little girl (Roy's niece) enough to get dressed and knock doors to find a dentist on Christmas eve. How many gorgeous women (who can carry that sexy santa outfit!) will do that? 

Her ability to laugh at herself and her many gigs (the hotel video!) is brilliant. Plus, like a true hero, she is happy to put Rebecca in front and even loves Rebecca's best friend who calls her Stinky. No green monster at all! When she cannot take Roy's constant looming presence, she tries all kinds of things to let him know gently because she could break his heart. She's so nice even Nate wants to kiss her! And Jamie wants her back. How many women do we know who boast of their many conquests at the drop of a hat. But not Keeley. She's just perfect. Her character grows from a groupie to the owner of a PR firm. If that's not a hero's journey, what else is? 

Rebecca, starts out as a villain who wants to ruin her ex-husband's happiness by grinding his footie team into the ground, turns your heart into a mush puddle when you realise that she has immense inner strength. The ex is shitty, the people who enabled her ex are still working for her (Higgins), the male dominated owners groups treat her shabbily, and she has to find joy in the unexpected success of her team. She doesn't give up and includes Ted Lasso in her Christmas giveaway. When she eats those cookie fingers, she makes you hungry (more than Nigella does when she puts food in her mouth). Plus she looks gorgeous. Imagine walking in her shoes. That's a heroic figure in more ways than one.   

Many bows to Hannah Waddingham who plays Rebecca and Juno Temple who is Keeley. 

Everyone is amazed how Jason Sudekis manages to be so positive and despite having a shitty personal life, learns to manage a team (sort of) by pop psyching everyone and everything.

That should have been a hero's arc, but despite being such a positive person, he reminds me of the Sun that comes out at the beginning of Teletubbies. He just shines and the Teletubbies do the rest.

He doesn't know anything about futbol, and by the end of the second season he hasn't learnt anything either. Coach Beard learns about the game more. The only thing positive Ted Lasso does is give them homilies: Believe. And that sort of wears off after a while. The lads know how to play, Ted takes Nate's play strategies and uses them, trusting the passion Nate has for the game. 

His positivity is very disarming, and funny, but I felt more for his wife who wanted to leave him but cried. It's like seeing someone's newborn baby. You are taken aback by the red crying mass, but coo over it. You cannot say, 'Oh my gawd it's ugly!' So you cannot say you are a tad put off by so much of Ted Lasso's happy positivity. It's great, but is it enough to make him the one and only hero? 

The Christmas party at the Higginses was just such a reminder of friends and family getting together before the Pandemic, that I was touched. He wonders how everyone was going to fit in his tiny home, and when everyone shows up, does, he's happy to sit and share his home! Bringing food when you go for a party is such a natural thing to do, and no one tries to outbid one another on who brought what and how much.

Everyone knows that Nate flips because he's being ignored, and that sounds like like they wrote this role for a ten year old. He literally says, 'You ignored me, so I'm going to take my strategies and go (to the other team).' 

Coach Beard, especially the extra episode that was written in because Apple wanted two more episodes, seems to be so needless. I like him as a sounding board for Ted, and how he just nods instead of speaking. But he's only propping Ted, and that feels hollow after a while. But I love his chess dates...

Sorry if I sound like someone who wants to find fault with niggly little things, and I cannot try to make you believe I'm not. But when everyone and their uncle make a show sound like the best thing since sliced bread, I watch the show with a certain defense mechanism kicking in. 

That confession done, perhaps it's time to look at how show after show has men who who are not exactly qualified to do the job given to them, get away because they're 'nice'. Ted Lasso is like Harry Potter, a wizard who gets saved first by his mum, then by his friends Hermione and Ron, Hagrid, Sirius Black and Dumbledore but the hero of the books? Harry Potter. I always wondered why he's so great if Hermione has to fix his broken glasses! 

Anyway. Much has been written about Ted Lasso being the best example of what and how men should be today. Sure, if I had to deal with Ted Lasso brand of chirpyness every day in real life, I would want something much, much stronger than tea. And if you still believe he's super funny, I am sure you believe JC was a white man with blue eyes.      

 

Review: Putham Pudhu Kaalai

On Amazon Prime Video

Five very melodramatic, very loud short films that could have worked even without the COVID theme.

Mini Review:

Why are we Indians so over the top in the drama department? Why do we need so much loud background score and music in every film we make? For a supposed 'films made during the pandemic', how and why were a camera crew inside the stories? Why are all these films so staged? Except for one film that touched me most - and that too did not have a direct connection to the pandemic - others seemed to be fake. Such a waste! 

Main Review:

I watched Social Distance which has 8 short films during the lockdown in America, and wrote about it on MoneyControl. Here is the link: 

Social Distance on Netflix 

When I was reviewing this, I realised that there were to be five Tamil short films on the Lockdown on Amazon Prime Video. Excited to watch our version, I watched the films as soon as they were released on saturday october 17.

It's already monday night (19th) and I'm struggling to understand why watching Social Distance was so much easier to watch and this was such a task. Social Distance had me feel for the characters, my cup of empathy overflowed. This made me feel too, but despair.

Pardon the comparison, but if they can use simple devices like cell phones and laptops to create eight wonderful films, why do we have an extensive editing of stories shot like they were shot like regular movies, with a camera crew et al? 

Why is it that Social Distance is able to use music gently and make films that offer emotions on a roller coaster, then we make films with choreographed dancing and singing and loud background music to tell stories?

The first story: 

An older man shoos off the household help because he has planned a naughty weekend with a lady friend. I have never wanted to slap anyone so hard as I did this very obviously grown up man literally going tee hee hee like a naughty child (i'm not even trying to say young man. 

So the premise is 'you make me feel young again' and the director turns the old man young again and the older woman into a young person. I mean how embarrassed are we to actually show an older man romancing an older woman? And why oh why do they have to dance to a song that says, 'Baby, baby!' And why are they drinking what looks like pomegranate juice gone cloudy?  

So lockdown is announced and they inadvertently get 21 days of privacy. But here we see them fighting about wet towels on the bed! Erm...

The film has one real moment when the woman admits: no one in my home has ever asked me if I wanted tea...

But the young couple needed a few tight slaps. How much overacting can you do in a short film?

The Second Story:

I loved this film, but it has nothing to do with being forced to stay indoors during the lockdown. A granddaughter comes to stay with grandpa. Why is she staying when she said they would come only to give him diwali sweets, no one knows. But she's on zoom calls (assuming people did not work on zoom calls before the lockdown!) and the grandpa interruots. From I hate grandpa to I love you and mom loves you too is a sweet jouney even though predictable. 

Trouble is, this story works even if it weren't shot during the pandemic. Sigh.

The Third Story:

Father and sister come to pick up Akka at the airport. The airport's bustling. And Akka has shown up because mother is in the ICU. Aha, I think! Finally a movie about COVID. But nopes. The mother has been in a coma. Dammit!

Then we realise amma has been home all this while. Dad is doing the dressing up of amma and taking care of her at home. If she's in a coma, does she not need help with the breathing? Is she dead already and appa is Norman Bates? That would have been a fun film, actually. But no. Alas, the old lady seems to be responding to her daughters and predictably when the youngest daughter - who is supposedly rebellious - calls, the old lady...

Ugh! this ending you can see from the International Space Station. It's that obvious. The only saving grace, is realising Suhasini Mani Ratnam wears the same powder blue kurta that I once had...

Is this film going to encourage more people to get their loved ones in coma back home from ICU care and think they're going to be cured by talking to them? Irresponsible... 

Don't worry, the sisters here are prone to a song and dance too. Thank god for the move ten seconds forward button on Prime Video.

The Fourth Story:

This is such a bizarre story about an old lady and her son (doc in quarantine) cold curing a girl's Cocaine addiction, who stops by for a lift just when lockdown is announced. 

It is not just the nightclub singer who dresses in 'nightclub goer type clothes' who overacts her addiction, but the old lady overdoes it too! The poor doc has to scream, 'Amma, that white powder is drugs-aa!'

She cured enough to say she's going to rehab. And the doc trusts her...This film does great disservice to those working tirelessly to help people get over their drug habit.

Who are these people who write such stories?

The Fifth Story:

By the time we get to this one you just want to fast forward the whole story. The film starts with someone watching a religious channel where the obviously fake guru is promising a miracle. The man looks like a gangster, smokes like a chimney and seems to be plagued by demons. Who is he, and why he's behaving like that, no clue. Then there are two gangsters (one of them watching the same channel) who are hungry, literally. They case a car supposed to be filled with money and there's a botched robbery attempt, and a dead guy revived and... 

The former dead guy is supposed to be a movie director and he takes to laughing like a maniac. I want to laugh exactly like that at executives at Amazon who have been duped into believing that this set of films is 'trendy because they've shot during the pandemic' and will bring in audiences! 

I realise that the films are so loud, I have turned the volume to minimum. I had to forward the song and dance routines (too many!), and that these five short films felt like never ending. 

What is sad that these are renowned directors (and actors) who will get away with this shoddy representation of our times. These films are so far from reality, you'd think everyone lives in perfectly art-directed bungalows and are shot bydirectors who don't know how to think of technology that is keeping the rest of of us sane during these awful times.

    

 

Venting about Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare

 

A movie about women my arse! This movie should have been called:

Another OTT Movie about women empowered by smoking, drinking and taking off their inhibitions at the delivery of food.

Pretentious shit about small town again. 

I am rather benign when it comes to 'hating'. I have started looking at bad stories like how people look at dog poo on the street when they're out for an errand. You see it, you step away from it and then think thoughts like, 'What idiots! When will they learn to pick up after their dog? I wish there were police drones who could spot them ask them to be responsible!'

But here we are! Netflix's original Indian content, (and most OTT platforms want only content from 'famous' or 'known names') touted on many media sites as how amazing these stories are going to be... 

this is the tralier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as3YLG5DmL0

the sister who says, 'kuch bhi ho, hum hain tumhare liye,' is the one who drags the other by the arm and calls her 'Kulta' and 'kulakshini'! 

It could have been two sisters competing, it's not even that! it's just a hotch potch. 'Drink hai kya?' and idle, 'Women need a lonely hearts club too.'

It's a woman director so she must be right, right?

Wrong. 

Dolly is a woman is so class conscious, she pretends she is moving to a better home, a home with AC, jaguar fittings, she has even lied about her need to work at office that 'she's only working as a hobby'.  HOW do i reconcile with the fact that she is going to make out with a delivery guy? 

Most people do not have more than necessary conversation with delivery/service people. They say thank you if they are well brought up, but beyond that no one gets talking to the delivery guys. I can get that she asks the delivery guy to come inside because he's late and he helps with the food, but I doubt she will flirt with him readily. the delivery guy may even call her 'mataji' since she's in the greater delhi area, and she could take objection to that, but no matter what these so-called writers from small town insist, women do not want to have sex with sweaty plumbers, electricians, drivers and delivery boys  Or do they? 

Kitty has enough spunk to stand up for herself in the chappal factory, but begins to cry buckets in the romance app job. Did anyone force her to choose that job? Could she not have stitched petticoats and blouses like Bollywood film heroines of yesteryear or sold her body like in Pradeep Sarkar's laaga Chunari Mein Daag...

The only honest moment in their relationship is when Kitty tells her Dollydi that Jiju was trying to feel me up, Dolly does not believe it. Or pretends it didn't happen.

Aamir Bashir the husband, the two sons, Konkona's delivery boy lover, Konkona's boss, Kitty's lover Pradeep, Kitty's friend's DJ lover, DJ's brother and his entire Hindu gang are all the important male characters in the film. ALL are flawed and bad. 

Konkona's kids: the older boy is ready to tell tales about how mother ordered food and is passing it off as her own cooking, will tell tales on his mom after he overhears her with the delivery boy. The second son wants to play with dolls, hence is a problem and is gay. So he is beaten up...

The boss expects Konkona to make them tea.

The builder's man is out to cheat Konkona out of a dream home.

Konkona's delivery boy is a virgin, happy to bend rules to make her happy. 

Kitty's lover Pradeep has cheated on his wife, but needs a 'virgin' Kitty to ask him if he has a condom. If Kitty is that innocent, then she should just have been some ingenue who has been taken advantage of by a creep, no?

Even the DJ who when making out with his gal, is looking at Kitty...

Is there any reason to want to see these stupid characters?

I wish the director had created a story of the two sisters - and you might say that it is their story obliquely - but there are too many distractions for us to want either of them to be redeemed. 

And when you don't care what happens to the characters, that's cinema sin. 

I am sure there are small town stories that don't need women to swear, drink or have sex to prove that they have been empowered.

For god's sake, we had Nargis shoot her wayward son years and years ago and we call her Mother India. Netflix Africa has made Queen Sono a story about a female spy. We are still crying over cheating boyfriends and husbands who call in to have phone sex. Netflix Latin America is making Control Z, a program about high school teens affected by rumor mill on their whatsapp...We pair a frigid housewife with a virgin delivery boy! 

Sigh.

I know I am looking forward to watching Laxmmi Bomb on DisneyPlusHotstar but I had better treat all Indian content like dog poop until someone else tells me that it's not shiite. 

Someone please tell the men and women taking these decisions on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that it's not necessary that Bollywood stars can deliver good OTT content. Sitare chamak nahi rahe, fuse ho gaye hain.