Review: RAAT AKELI HAI

The Raat is Mildly Interesting, Terribly Long and is a Tiresome Watch

Rating: 3 cups of chai so you don't fall asleep

Mini Review:

'I will reach the truth, no matter what' promises Nawazuddin Siddiqui who is the policeman in charge of the investigation of a murder of a rich old man who has just married his 'rakhail'. Everyone at home looks suspicious and have a motive. The film makes us go through the elimination process and kills innocent bystanders (yawn!). If you are a fan of detective stories, then this is too tiresome, but there are many interesting things about this film. 

Main Review:

Mere Paas Maa Hai

Nawazuddin is a cop named Jatil Yadav. (After Hathiram Choudhary in Pataal Lok, an unusual name for a cop does not even ask for an eye roll, but they explain it because they think it's clever: mother made a spelling error Jatin ko Jatil bana diya). His relationship with his mother is the best thing in the movie.

Ila Arun plays his mother, who wants him to get married, misses conversation, gets ragged at him for not talking to her nicely and replaces his cream with fair and lovely...If you need one reason to see this film, this should be it.

Mere Paas Sidekick Hai

The second reason is his sidekick Nandu (played wonderfully by Shreedhar Dubey) who works with Nawazuddin, offers a counterpoint, and even begins dressing like Nawazuddin after Nawaz is out of the picture. I loved that change in Nandu (he wears a leather jacket, and sunglasses and walks with a swagger). 

Is Raat Mein Bahut Tropes Hain

Otherwise the story of a haveli with interesting dubious characters is a trope. The aunt who spies, the girl who doesn't care about the dead patriarch, the rakhail who is dames, the pregnant daughter with a loud, angry husband, the son who is the rakhail's secret lover, the maid servant who has seen everything but won't say anything. 

The cops and political leaders are straight out of a stereotype too: the hero cop (leather jacket, sunglasses, motorbike swag), the sidekick who is part of the system but will change his opinion, the corrupt chief of police, the politician who uses power to corrupt the situation, the politician's goons who do his dirty work...

I know we have now have access to shows from all around the world and see sexually deviant content, and I would be stupid to say fathers don't rape daughters in India because we are sanskari...but showing the old patriarch take pictures of the young woman is just not necessary.

Plus some red herrings are just needless (will not add spoilers). Also no one can tell us convincingly why the old man had to marry his rakhail.  

The only thing weird was the romance between Radhika Apte (who plays the 'rakhail') and Nawazuddin even though we are given broad hints by the conversation he has with his mom. 'You can put conditions on with who you are going to fall in love'. You know the more he says he wants a 'cultured woman' he's going to find one that is off kilter.

It's a better watch than Lootcase on Disney Plus Hotstar, that's for sure. Nawazuddin delivers. The problem with a who dun it is that it has too many whos who could've done it, and it painstakingly goes through each one, so... I yawned so many times. 

The biggest grouse: I love this song from Jewel Thief and it's really unfair to use it as title for the film.     

Review: BULBBUL

The Lore and the Lure of a Girl Called Chudail 


Rating: Can't Miss It

Mini Review:

A beautifully told period tale of a girl who likes scary stories and grows up to realize she's a part of one herself. A wonderful cast and even better performances that make you wish there was a 'chudail' out there in real life who was really out to avenge women who are hurting. 

Main Review:

Remember how women were told that their job was to do only one thing: 'gehne banwaao, gehne tudwaao'  way back in Sahab Biwi Aur Ghulam? 

Well, little Bulbbul gets married to a much older man (Rahul Bose is a fabulous Bade Thakur) who has a mad twin, and a very sweet little brother Satya (grows up to be Avinash Tiwary whom you last saw in the undervalued Laila Majnu). The mad twin is married to the beautiful, bitchy Choti bahu (played brilliantly by Paoli Dam, whom I saw last in the weird Kali 2 on Zee5).

The atmospherics in the film are just breathtaking. The thakuron ki haveli which is very Bangla, very British, the family temple for Kali, the eerie forests that connect the haveli to the outside world. Everything transports you to that time where you will begin to hear whispers about 'chudail'...

I fell in love with the four poster beds and the rest of the furniture in the haveli, the luxurious upholstry and the clothes and jewelry everyone was wearing. And yes, the Mubkhar shaped like a bird for Bulbbul's hair. I loved watching Badi bahu turn out to be sassy and mysterious and wondered where she could have found so much confidence. Bulbbul is played by the lovely Tripti Dimri who has outgrown the awful Laila she played in Laila Majnu (I remember wondering why Majnu actually fell for this silly vain chit). She has a better role in Bulbbul and credit goes to director Anvita Dutt for making Bulbbul what she is on screen.

Tripti and Satya are connected again in this story, but there's a catch. Dr Sudip (the gorgeous Parambrata Chatterjee) looks after Bulbbul. Satya is insanely jealous and begins seeing him as a villain. He even accuses Bulbbul of 'making a mistake'...

But the villain here is as Bulbbul says, 'Tum saare ek jaise ho.'

There are murders in the village, and everyone says it is the chudail. 

But I won't say more. 

I am one of those people who figure out things in a story (it's a curse, I tell you!) but the reveal in this film is quite gratifying.

And yes, this film makes me wish for a real life chudail to help women pushed to impossible corners. Anushka Sharma as producer is making wonderful choices.       

Review: GHOOMKETU

Aao sab quirky quirky khelein!

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Kyon?

Main Review: 

'Everyone is creating shows that are violent and every character has gaalis coming out of their pores, let's make people laugh instead, Kya kehte ho?'
'India is not the cities, we should focus on the village.'
'Yes! A village with unique characters...'
'Unique? As in quirky?'
'And bring the village to the city!'

'Explosive!'
'Of course! Open that rolodex and assemble the ensemble cast!'
'And we will make a super quirky comedy, sir!'

And the men gather around adding quirk after quirk to every character. No one cares if the audience will wonder why there's not one, not a single normal person in the village...

Dadda screams and screams and then plays the flute. Raghubir Yadav does yelling in every movie, so director ka kaam aasaan. Check!

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a Phantom rolodex staple, he can do any role. He will be Dhoomketu..
Sir, Ghoomketu, sir!
Haan, haan, same difference. Get him! 
Sir, his designer says he should wear strange clothes. But writer says people in villages don't wear such clothes...
Tell him to shut up and write. Everyone in villages wears clothes like Tik Tok stars. 
Ok sir. Done hai sir!

Let's make Anurag Kashyap a bumbling cop because he scared the heck out of people as Rudra the psycho in Imaikka Nodigal. 
Lekin he doesn't look like a 'Badlani'...
If people at Netflix have this same doubt, we will use words like 'universality of the character'
Sounds impressive sir! Lekin AK sir toh, yahan ke sir hain, unko...
No problem, he is very sporting. 
Ok sir! Very good sir!  

Editor ka role Bijendra Kala ko do.
He's very good sir. Will be very good as writer of film genre handbook
But that's too straightforward. Put him behind a big partition with a small window.
Yeh best rahega sir! 
And call the newspaper of the village 'Gudgudi'
Whaa?
Thoda quirky hona chaahiye naa?
Okay sir, best!

Thoda politics bhi daalo so Swanand Kirkire ke character ko Bheeshma pitamah ki tarah kuch role mile.
Hain?
Give him a quirky backstory. Could not get love, so became leader.
Whaa?

Aur kaun baaki hai?
The women, sir!
Put one in ghoonghat, make other one fat and in ghoonghat and make the third fart.
Ila Arun said yes, sir. For Santo bua! 
She did?
But she insists she won't fart on screen, sir. Because, dignity... 
We'll figure that one out.
She will be the best! Most quirky, most encouraging bua ever.

Writer? Be funny! Sab dialog mein quirky hona chaahiye. Script ka koi bhi page open karoon toh quirky hona chahiye. At least three!

So you have quirky things like 'Bloody Pool' followed by 'Sui Patak Sannata' and Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Tik Tok inspired shirts. So it doesn't matter if the cast forgets that they are supposed to be villagers and their English is supposed to be less than perfect.

By the time Ghoomketu comes back home from a failed stint in Bollywood, and you have a pain in the neck from watching Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha act out Dilwale Dulhaniya De Jaayenge and Amitabh Bachchan mouth Ghoomketu's lines off a bhelpuri paper you have gagged on your own vomit.

How can anyone say 'Content is King' after watching this? 

Review: ANGREZI MEDIUM

If Hindi Medium Was Fabulous,
Angrezi Medium Is Opposite.

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Call me stingy but when filmmakers do really stupid things like write the movie wearing blinders whilst under a rock and get carried away on fame earned by their earlier film, then it's tough to give them a pass (gradewise and otherwise). This film has a great cast, some 'dil ko touch kar gaye' scenes but the rest are like vomit emoji. Many times over. 

Main Review:

Half a star for the awesome motichoor laddu placed on our seats at the screening of the film. Despite my fears about the corona virus, I picked up the box from the seat and licked my fingers after eating. Delicious.

One Star For The Feel Good Moments. 

So we realise that Ghasitaram is a name many mithai shops use and they're all related to one another. They're fighting to use the name and they take one another to court. What's fun is that they go to court in a bus together. Because, family.

That itself is a great idea, and the court scene is funny where the court proceedings are derailed because they start discussing daru and chakhna instead. But that's one scene.

The other best part of the movie is this fabulous trio of Irrfan Khan who plays Champak Bansal, Deepak Dobriyal is Gopi Bansal and Kiku Sharda as Gajju Bansal. Three men who are not just related to one another but are friends who get drunk on the terrace at night. Their conversation is so good you are immediately endeared to the characters (that weird laugh Deepak Dobriyal indulges in is forgiven)

Everyone is going to tell you how heartwarming Irrfan Khan is with his daughter Radhika Madan. One scene where she comes home drunk and accuses her dad is wonderful. After that, her insane need to study in England is a 'bachpan mein maara hota toh yeh din na dekhne padte!' moment. 

There is also a moment where Irrfan Khan looks pensive at the window in London, worried about how he's going to get his daughter admitted to college, which is as good as the scene in Nil Bate Sannata where Chanda (Swara Bhaskar) wonders about how she's going to get her daughter to study...

Dimple Kapadia is still stunning. Still amazing. 

13 Reasons Why All Good Scenes Stand Cancelled.

1. The film releases on Friday the 13th. So bad writing gets blamed on the bad luck date.

2. Corona virus ke kaaran people didn't come to the theaters, warna hit thee boss.

3. Whoever wrote the English parts given to white people has never spoke to a white person. They don't 'maite', 'eh?!' and 'lad' in every sentence. Not even during cricket commentary.

4. Died laughing when London airport, immigration, police were all 'white'. Why sacrifice the movie for cheap comedy? Kaun hain yeh log? There are brown people everywhere, even the Mayor of London is Sadiq Khan. 

5. British cops who mistake achaar for drugs? Seriously?! In 2020, their drug sniffing dogs might ask for mathri when they sniff out achaar. 

6. Irrfan Khan speaks English with a tourist in Udaipur. Broken English, but English. All of a sudden upon landing in London he is unable to speak a word of the language. But he knows how to use Google Translate which helpfully translates 'Dawa' into 'Drugs'. Try it. It clearly says 'Medicine'. So they sacrifice everything for a cheap joke. Of course when he says he's going to make drugs, the all white, all brainless policemen arrest him after overacting their alarm. 

7. We see NO Indian person in London except the boy who picks up Radhika Madan at the airport. And she's so stupid, she doesn't make any effort to find where her uncle and dad are. If you ever go to London, there are helpful signs everywhere. And the boy who picks her up also just whisks her away. 

8. So Radhika Madan has managed to contact a frat house Indian, without actually having a provisional admission... And they're all very happy to share their alcohol. Uh-uh! If you have studied at any college in London, then NO ONE shares alcohol so freely. They all bring their own booze. The frat house hilarity is very American. Thoda konfujiyaa gaye hain... If you google 'what do students in Britain drink?', the answer will be beer followed by wine. 

9. So the principal in an Udaipur school tears up the admission letter. Erm... It's 2020, those acceptance letters are all online now. So the whole nonsense they go through to get admission is a waste. There could have been comedy in trying to forge a letter from the university, where Irfan and Deepak try to reach hackers in some biddy's basement... Sigh. 

10. The boy who rescues Radhika Madan has a dad who is a politician, but he works so he's not a burden on his dad. Doting daughter doesn't try to locate her dad via her friend's politician dad? That would have been comedy too... But the country where no one figured out that the two gents did not speak English and deported them has an Indian person who is a politician? 

11. Please Pankaj Tripathi, I used to be a fan. Have said that he cannot do a thing wrong. But after seeing him ham away at his role, trying hard to be funny was like someone stabbing me with the butter knife. Pankaj Tripathi starts speaking like, 'Main batatee hoon' (as if he were confusing gender) but then he forgets that in trying to be funny. I thought he's be extending his hand and painting his nails too... They just didn't think of it, no?

12. Why is Ranvir Shorey made to dress as if he had flown down from the West Indies instead of cold England. And his family is dressed like Goan Aunties straw hats and all... No wonder Meghan Markle chose to leave England and move to Canada.

13. The auction is as sham as it can get. But that Bappi Lahiri crack? Fizzzzzzled out. Who's your audience? Busta Rhymes is what most young people understand. And the hawala money exchanging hands is not even original...

Friday The Thirteenth or no, this movie just bombed. Even though the father-daughter equation could have been 'aww' inducing, these ghastly mistakes would have made Citizen Khan cringe too. Watch Hindi Medium on one of the streaming services. It had a heart. This one just makes you wince.  





P.S. If you are a fan of Irrfan Khan then go to Netflix and watch him in Tokyo Trial.







              

Review: BAAGHI 3

Bollywood throwback story that's as senseless as the action!


1 star

Mini Review:

Bollywood brothers have always been like Ram Aur Shyam. One weak and the other strong. Bollywood police dad dies making strong brother promise he'll take care of weak brother. They're not twins though. And only in Bollywood do weak brothers show up in Inspector ka uniform and strong brother shadow boxes for him. What follows is so deafening, you cannot fall asleep, and if you follow the story, your brain dies. Slowly. Over 143 minutes.

Main Review:

Yeh Heera Hai, Heera!

Jackie Shroff is Bollywood dad who is rough on younger son because he knows 'yeh ladka heera hai heera' (but they did not pay the dialogue guy enough to write the obvious stuff because they spent money on gaalis for heroine that make no sense, and some forgettable supposedly funny lines and names for cops: whatever happened to hum angrez ke zamane ke jailor hain? But I get ahead of myself) 

So heera beta is younger Tiger Shroff who beats up anyone who beats his older softer brother who is a crybaby. It's Riteish Deshmukh! Before you say what the what happened to Mauli? He had a double role there? What happened to Ram Aur Shyam? Even there Dilip Kumar had a double role... Oh! Tiger Shroff can never play weaker brother! He will have to wear clothes for that...And what normal clothes can fit around those muscles?!

So Riteish bhai is made to cry at the movies in this movie, and when he bumps into baddies with creative forgettable name and get hit, he yells for RONNNNNNNIE!

Tiger who goes by the name Ronnie shows up, beats up the bad guys (I can imagine movie theater sending bills for all that stuff destroyed...) and saves his bhai. 

When the ex policeman (served with their dad) chachaji asks Tiger to become cop in place of dead daddy (died saving innocents during a riot), Tiger gets a great idea, 'Let crybaby bade bhaiyya become cop, I will shadow him and beat up baddies for him.' 

India Me Baddies Kam Hai, Foreign Jaao!

For some reason baddies are kidnapping families from India, flying them to Syria, separating them by having men wear bomb vests and blowing themselves up. No one tells us what the big bad baddy called Abu Jalal (the guy from Fauda, Jameel Khoury) does with leftover families.

The moment the henchman for the big bad baddy says, 'Boss knows 44 languages!', I imagined him at the United Nations instead of some fake 'kingdom within Syria'.

I blame Netflix for these Arabic baddies are spouting these days. How can you read when your brain cells have died with this mind numbing story? Why are they ruining Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Verma by turning them into good guys so quickly? Had I been Jaideep Ahlawat, starving alone on the street, I would still refuse to play a bad guy called IPL. Perhaps that's why he chooses to step on a land mine and die! 

Tiger is made to fight with randomly parked train engines in a factory, stacked cars at a dump, SUVs in fake Syria, and dude fights atop helicopters, bringing Black Hawks down. Body count? Syria aise hee khaali hua hai kya? Lots of action sequences later (like Salman Khan his shirt catches fire and Tiger Shroff rips off the shreds to show us his shredded body). Shraddha Kapoor ne diya rag remains intact though.

Why Shraddha Kapoor gives him a rag as a keepsake, no one knows. Perhaps no one even know what she's doing in the movie. There is no place for women in such films. Even Disha Patani who is made to dance looks bored as an item girl...

In the big fight with the big bad guy, Tiger gets stabbed and dies. 

Phew! No Baaghi 4 then! 

Spoke too soon! Darpoke brother is suddenly enraged and kills remaining bad guys - with a perfectly handy brick - including the big bad guy. But hero kabhi marta hai kya?  

Dammit! Riteish will be his older brother in the next film called 'Do Baaghi 4' or something equally ghastly.

Marna Chaahiye... That dialog is boring now...

Tiger delivers his standard Heropanti lines 'meri jaati nahi', 'bhai bulata hai toh phod deta hoon' as if he were disinterested. Thankfully his action sequences (you get the feeling you have seen them before) are rather cool. 

 I was quite uncomfortable stepping into a public place that could give free rein to the deadly virus. But after surviving this film, I am sure India will survive the Corona Virus too. 

Truly, Baaghi 3 is a cure for the Corona Virus


P.S. Ground clearance on tanks is 19 inches. how thin is this lad?


  

Review: THAPPAD

A Slap Is A Big Deal! 


2 stars

Mini Review:

The movie should come with trigger warning for women who are suffering all kinds of abuse, physical as well as emotional abuse. Even though it tapers down to a tame end, this film raises many important question: how much abuse is too much abuse? Tapsee Pannu makes another great choice, supported brilliantly by the rest of the cast. If only a woman had written the ending...

Main Review:

This is the story of a housewife who leads a very comfortable life, is looking to move to London, loves her husband and mother in law, loved by parents as well. Her life comes undone when at a party her husband slaps her in a fit of anger. It is uncharacteristic for him as well as it is for her. How he reacts and how everyone else around this happy household reacts is stunning to her because she realises with that one slap, that she's no better than the maid who gets slapped by her husband every day.

She chooses to step out of her comfort zone and everything comes unraveled. Only her father offers her unflinching support. Everyone else tells her, 'It's just a slap.'

I will let you watch the film because you will find yourself taking sides with so many people in the film:
'What's the big deal?'
'People slap only because they love so much.'
'He bought her a diamond bracelet afterwards na to say sorry! Phir bhi problem hai!'
'I was angry! But you should have not tried to pull me away.'
'Women need to learn to compromise.'
'You be the big person, you learn to forgive.'

Superb performances by Kumud Mishra who is fabulous as the thoughtful and kind father, Ratna Pathak Shah as the conflicted mother, but the best performance (even better than Tapsee Pannu, in my humble opinion) is the performance by Geetika Vaidya who plays the maid. 

The maid is a brilliant foil to her memsaab. She's sassy, but gets slapped around all the time. She is kind and sensitive (her, 'Can I oil your head' made me weep in the darkness of the theater), and as she watches the memsaab go through a tough choice in her life, is transformed to a person who can stand up for herself. The character has been written brilliantly.

The lawyer's character (played by Maya Sarao) seems rather good. A woman who has a man friend on the side because she's in a crappy marriage where she gets no credit as a professional also tapers off tamely when she says goodbye to her young friend.  

The only thing that made me grit my teeth is the really easy way out of a problem called Taapsee is to get her pregnant. 

The last melodramatic scene of the puja for the child and her gently telling her mother in law that she was mad at everyone for not 'taking her side' in that long give-me-an-award speech is just written because they did not find any real conclusion for the 'problem' ... This is where I would suggest the filmmakers ASK a women, several women for that matter as to what they would do. 

So after taking me on a high with this slap on patriarchy, they reduce the woman who makes that dent into the system into becoming a 'mother'.

It was as lame a conclusion as the fake 'woke' opening credits where everyone put their mother's names as their middle names. Bah!



P.S: No point writing about the men's roles played competently because those are ordinary everyday men in real life. Anyone can play them. 



  

Review: SHUBH MANGAL JYADA SAVDHAN

Hyper, Overactive, Dramatic Gay Bois Meet Even More Melodramatic 'Bollywood' Small Town Family. A Very Gaudy Fare.

0.5 stars

Mini Review:

Two lads in love go to a small town for a sister's wedding and end up telling the family they are gay. The family hyperventilates and hyperventilates until your head hurts and in the end the 'over my dead body' dad who never really says over my dead body, comes around. Bollywood small town is loud and everyone tries hard to be funny all the time and you come away with a headache, and eyes burned by all the garishness.

Main Review:

Kartik and Aman Tripathi. What a Horrible Pair.

Ayushmann Khurana plays Kartik, a nose ring wearing gay lad who is partners with Aman Tripathi played by Jitendra Kumar and the film opens with both of them wearing toothpaste superman outfits, selling toothpaste at a mall. 

From the mall they go off to help a girl run away from home. She gives them a lakh rupees, but because they bungle she runs away with their motorbike.

Is this their job? Bhumi Pednekar in that small cameo seems quite capable of running away on her own, no? Especially because she knows exactly how long her dad is going to sit glued to the TV, watching KBC. 

Why are they trying to be clever, you wonder. And you are not enamored of protagonists who say they want to help lovers unite but take money for it, and also bungle the whole operation. 

Hmm. But Ayushmann Khurana leaning on Jitendra Kumar on the motorbike is cute. 

Woah! Kartik throws a tantrum wanting to attend Aman's sister's wedding. Aman gives in because they sleep on a train then run (still in the toothpaste superman suits) to the train to Allahabad. Do they not have a home? What happened to the mobike bhumi pednekar appropriated?

Such a horrible pair, they are shown bickering all through the movie. There are angry glares, but no looking longingly at the person you love, nothing redeeming about their love. They even discuss how Aman is 'not wholly in' the kiss or whatever... 

Why should the audience care what happens to these two?

Sonam Kapoor - whom everyone disses for being unable to act because she's a pretty face - did a hundred per cent better job in her 'coming out' film Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga... You liked both the girls in the film, their relationship and hated Rajkummar Rao for outing them in public the way he does in the film...

Bollywood Small Town Is Nuts

There will be Mother and Father and chacha and chachi and neighbours and one annoying relative (possibly old grandma who coughs, or a dead grandpa, and in this film, a lad with an ipad).

The gas in the kitchen will always have tea boiling away and people will drink tea.

If they eat, god forbid they should have manners. Everyone will eat as if food was meant to be eaten noisily. And there will be Jalebi.

And to annoy the intelligent audience and to get laughter from the cheap seats, there will be the ghastly burp after eating.

Bodily functions like pooping and peeing will be shown generously. And the bathing with buckets. I try to not puke into my neighbor's popcorn when i see toothbrushes in mouths. 

Such a horrid surprise to see Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao play full on Nautanki parents. Manu Rishi and Sunita Rajwar who play Chacha and Chachi are less OTT. (The half star for this film is shared by the two.) 

Maanvi Gagroo is a relief because she really looks like she's having fun. But they should have given her gold lines goggles for the wedding, no?

And the scene where Gajraj Rao pretends to kill himself: Neena Gupta should have given any one of the sarees in the cupboard in the room instead of taking off the 'new shaadi ki saree' no?

When men write these supposedly funny scenes, they forget to put themselves in a woman's place! Neena Gupta would have given him the sheet on the bed to make a noose instead, no?

Ghanta Promoting A Gay Narrative

Maaf karo! If this is how you want to help the gay cause, I am sure the community might not want it. 

First Bollywood need to get over the fact that gay men DO NOT LOOK LIKE BOLLYWOOD'S IDEA of gay men. They don't always have floppy wrists, neither do they wear nose rings.

And members of the LGBTQ+ community DO NOT WANDER ABOUT WITH A RAINBOW FLAG EVERYWHERE THEY TRAVEL. 

I am sure gay men do not feel the need to be overly demonstrative (read 'act despo') all the time. If nothing, Netflix has a teenage show that deals with gay kids in a smarter way than this film does. The show is called Sex Education' and it deals with teens with hormones. 

It's a lame excuse to say this movie is pathbreaking because it is challenging/breaking the patriarchal system. Patriarchy is like Sairat. It uses guns. 

Even the lame Sooryavamsham got patriarchy right. Here Gajraj Rao just comes across as sham, not once talking about his vansh...

The film promotions said that the writer-director wrote the script for over a year. The audience could have waited longer for him to get this script right. 




P.S. When people start selling you the film as if it was going to do 'uddhar' of a community that didn't have a voice so far, I'm sure the people from the LGBTQ+ community would rather wait for real tales than this gaudy, loud movie.

   







     

Review: Love Aaj Kal

Love Be Akal

0 stars

Mini Review:

The owner of a bar cum co-working space guides a young couple who have mixed feelings about love by narrating his own story of lost love. He tries hard to say that young people in love in the 90s had the same trouble of choosing between career or marriage that young people have today. Today? Thousands of people balance both rather well and with much less than the protagonists. The original film made by the same director had some heart. This film is so oxygen deprived the narrative is as tiresome as it is brainless. 

Main Review:

Poor Randeep Hooda is given the role of the bar owner who once chose career over love and hand holds Sara Ali Khan and Kartik Aryan who play two young lovers. The two Zoey and Veer can't seem to keep their hands off one another but stop right before they make love. Why? Not because 'Sanskaar' but because Veer wants 'andar wali Zoey, bahar wali Zoey, career wali Zoey, roti banane wali Zoey...' 

My brain froze there. These kids have not heard of Zomato? Young men still want their wives to make rotis? Young people today are more likely to order in, watch Netflix and never worry about career or love. Young men today are happy to move cities if their girl has a better job and then worry about finding one themselves, esp because Kartik Aryan is supposed to be a software programmer, something that does not need him to stay in a particular city. 

It's just shoddy writing and poorly thought out story. Which generation is the filmmaker talking about? It's worse because the original film had defined their career options better.

The story goes back and forth in the past as Randeep Hooda tells his story. It's a time where QSQT plays in the theater, but Udaipur seems to be in the 30s or 70s or something because it is sepia toned. Why? Style? Seems needless. Then Kartik Aryan keeps spreading his arms like Shah Rukh, but the director forgot that Shah Rukh in the 90s was all about body suits/scuba gear type Polo jerseys. Why is Kartik Aryan made to wear strange coat collar bush shirts, only the designer knows. Even Raj Kapoor was better dressed in the movies of his time. It was certainly not the 90s. (Why they don't refer to the gentleman's guide to 100 years of fashion, no one knows.)

Why Bollywood, Why?

Why do men/women who have lost in love go to the Himalayas?

Why does Kartik Aryan pout so much? Why does he not have a hair person combing his hair? (bed head is fine, but...)

Why does Kartik Aryan work at a dam when he says he's a software programmer hired by a water sustainability project?

Why do people always clutch their glass of tea with both hands in the mountains? 

Why does Kartik Aryan have to take his girl to meet parents when he does not live with them? Why do we never know why? Just like the two live separate lives in one home, couldn't Kartik Aryan live with them? This just doesn't compute...

This Love Doesn't Compute. Actually.

Why make a bad version of a film people have already seen? Lack of new stories? Let's say I have not seen the earlier version. Even then the story goes all over the place and you cringe when you hear: Oho! You can 'feeeel' (good, he means) even when the girl is not there?

Ugh. I just hope Kartik Aryan did not mean what the words said. I hope Imtiaz Ali does not now remake Jab We Met or something. Someone tell him: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.



P.S. A young couple attempting to romance one another (the movie releases on Valentine's Day, after all) sitting next to me at the FDFS fell asleep during the movie, holding hands. 

    

Review: SHIKARA

A Beautiful Mess That Walks On The Edge Of The Deep But Never Dives

2.5 stars

Mini Review:

It's a beautifully told love story where you fall in love with the leads instantly, but the timing of the film borders on propaganda which makes you want to question motives of the film. Why this? Why now? The film doesn't take a stand like Harud or JoJo Rabbit even, but offers a very tame Life Is Beautiful version. 

Main Review:

First, The Problem

It's been six months since the Indian government led by the saffron heads Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have scrapped the special status given to J&K since our independence and appropriated it as a state without a plebiscite. We have been told life is normal but political leaders have been under house arrest, there is no internet or phone services and there are reports of infiltration from a neighboring country. Kashmir is still a time bomb, now covered in saffron. Yes, life for Kashmiri pandits has been awful. They've been refugees in our own country, driven out by guns and a helpless government that made many mistakes.   

There is a dialog in the film where a dying 'extremist' says, 'You killed and we killed and the killing will go on in Kashmir' which gives you goosebumps, but every other time it tries a political dialog, you hear Nirmala Sitharaman struggle with Myon Watan in your head and you wonder why did they make this propaganda film now?

The war is brewing and I am afraid, this film is not going to help.

There Is A Bigger Film Buried In This Film

No matter how beautifully this film has been shot, Harud it is not. I was more touched - shook really - by the montage of forlorn, shattered, abused, empty homes (presumably Pandit homes) than the entire political propaganda the film tries to make. You wonder how many more refugee stories are there, you wonder what horrors are buried in the rubble, you wonder if those apple trees bear any fruit today or is that fruit poisoned too?

There is a shot in the film where the lead pair return to their former home and look at the corner which was their 'Puja Room'. It has now been replaced by the kitchen sink. The poignancy of the moment hits you really hard. And somewhere you want revenge from people who for very obvious political reasons painted the whole house green. But it is just one moment which could have been a part of a very different narrative. 

Another moment is when the children stare at 'masterji' and he asks, 'Why are you staring at me?' One child answers, 'He has never seen a 'pandit' before...'

Could have been Jojo Rabbit, this film, but isn't. Of course it instantly reminds me of the social media post where the kids in Kashmir are playing a game called 'Frisk'. A game where some children play 'Kashmiris' and others 'Police'. The police frisk the Kashmiris. A horrific childhood, no? But this film does not go there.

But let's make a love story instead.

A beautiful love story of Shiv and Shanti who fall in love over poetry (of course about shikaras) and then get married in the traditional Kashmiri way (insert folksy wedding songs/traditional wedding rituals here) and they have a wonderful family and a brother who is a doctor and they have friends who are Muslim and everyone lives wonderfully and they eat fat, juicy luscious apples, and Rogan Josh. Shiv Dhar's best friend who is a cricketer and Muslim and they love one another and Kashmir is truly a paradise until buses begin to go to Rawalpindi right from the main bus stand and there are cops with guns and terrorists with Amriki guns leftover from the Afghanistan war and his best friend's dad is shot and of course he runs away to Pakistan and becomes a terrorist. Months later Shiv is picked up and he meets former best friend who is now terrorist and is told to leave for India with family because of the said friendship... 

Eventually everyone who is a Hindu is made to leave and live in horrendous conditions in Jammu and later Delhi and yet there is something incredible about their love which is enduring and fragile and beautiful. They make a life in the tents and Shiv keeps writing letters to the American president for justice and teaches camp children, and Shanti keeps making Rogan Josh. 

You wonder why she isn't playing Florence Nightingale since she's been shown to attend nursing college when they were romancing... But everything has been shot so beautifully that you care about their despair and the Rogan Josh.

I feel awful for not feeling the pain of the thousands that were forcibly evacuated simply because this is not a partition film where trains full of refugees from both sides of the India-Pakistan border were hacked to death. This is not a story by Manto which tears you apart inside because he lives there even though his heart belongs to Bombay. No Toba Tek Singh, no Leon Uris's Exodus which chronicles the pain of homelessness and the hollowness of the promise of a promised land of Israel like nothing before or nothing after... But this love story is tender. Too tender to survive the harshness of the realities, and hence seem unbelievable in parts. 

'We will always have Paris,' Rick says in Casablanca. This film has love, but does not kick you in the gut like Casablanca does. This is Exodus lite. Casablanca Skimmed.

The lead pair make their debut and are beautiful together. Aadil Khan and Sadia are so perfect in their love, we love watching them meet, fall in love, get married and get old with a smile on our faces. 

The cinematography in Bajrangi Bhaijaan showed us how fabulous Kashmir is. The Chinars in Haider have left a permanent mark on my brain. In this film their wedding night on the Shikara is beautiful but the shot of fat, juicy apples on their tree made me hungry.

This film has crappy timing, and knows it. The claims of displaced people all over the world are real, but when accompanied with tales that become romanticised collective memories that communication students will understand... 

The problem is that the film dog whistles so much you are left in a quandary whether to like it (and hence aiding the propaganda) or to hate it (and then everyone looks at you as if you are a traitor).

So I came away feeling as stranded as the calf on Patnitop. Unkindly wondering if it became part of some Wazwan...   

Review: MALANG

Heroine: Tumhe Maza Chaahiye Ki Sukoon?
Hero: Lemme Take Off My Shirt As Answer 

1 star

Mini Review: 

Cops are being murdered one after the other in a stylish way. The lead investigator is murderous but sings karaoke in a stylish way. The cop killer wears a stylish leather hoodie and hoodwinks everyone through stylish Goa carnival at night, Oooh! Cop killer has stylish lust and drugs and bucket list angle...All of this knit together with howlarious (yet stylish) lifestyle dialog that makes cola come out of your nostrils. And that's okay because the film is stylish, audience is not.

Main Review:

There's a hot girl in 'abroad' who smiles a lot tosses her hair and gives her computer and phone to a busker and boards a plane to Goa. That's a Sara by Disha Patani.

There's a dude who lives in some soft focus apartment with pictures of parents on walls. He packs his backpack, hands the picture frames to garbage truck guy and heads to Goa. How do we know he's hot? They show him taking off his tank top ever so often. That's Advait by Aditya Roy Kapoor. 

Of course the two meet and fall in lust while fireworks are going on. But it's so stylishly done, they show no hot and heavy anything, no bodice ripping, no acrobatic kiss like in the poster. Only a 'forward' dialog from Sara: I wanted to do this wild you-know-what with a stranger.

Before you choke on this so stylishly sanskari desire of her bucket list, I must tell you about the stylish bead band she wears. It has knots, each representing a fear she must overcome. If she does it, then she unravels one knot. That's what happens when you give away your phone...

My fear was: That bracelet had many many knots!

That brings us to how the movie begins. 

Hot dude is in prison, having a fight with a whole lot of burly men. Why? No one knows, but the prison fight is stylishly done (like the Punisher, Arrow... Take your pick!)... After he has hit many baddies and broken many tables, we realise a big guy had snatched Hot Dude's bracelet.

Awwww! He fought for her bracelet! So much love! Obviously, since he's wearing the bracelet and fighting other prisoners she must be dead...

Logic and learning from prison movies says Hot Dude should be put in solitary for fighting so many other jailbirds. But he's out. He's then calling demented cop who rubs what looks like cocaine on his hand (like salt for your tequila shots) sniffing it and gumming it too. Whaaat? But it looks stylish and the demented cop sings karaoke so it's okay.That's Anil Kapoor giving it his all to sing-and-then-kill routine.

So Hot Dude calls Demented Cop and says, 'I'm going to kill someone.' 
'Why?'
'Because, Happy Solstice.'

Both laugh maniacally. One because he knows why, other because he's hamming it up and we laugh helplessly.

There are more cops, each outdoing the other in stylish ways. Kunal Khemu looks like the educated cop but turns out that he's got Edward Norton from American History buried inside. That part appears suddenly and the audience is like, 'Whaa...' But very stylish violence against women (almost like the curb stomping) so I suppose you want Hot Dude to kill him too.

Hot Dude in the meanwhile has killed another cop at a New Orleans type night carnival during Christmas (?!) in Goa. Whaaa? And then another at a giant CGI football stadium with basement parking. As a footy fan and someone who has visited Fatorda, Tilak, Pandit Nehru, Duler and Bambolim stadia in Goa where football is played, this part felt more fake than stylish.

And which basement parking has TV screens? But Hot Dude (on foot) and Demented Dude (in cop car) play chicken which was very nice. After which Hot Dude gets caught. 

In the middle of it all are endless stylish scenes of Hot Girl and Hot Dude in various skimpy attire super fancy bucket list things with endless love songs that sound good initially but then become the antidote to inane pop philosophy both hot leads are spouting at each other.

'I am used to running away from relationships'
'Let us create a world for ourselves and live in the moment.'
'Sure, I'm Instagramming this moment. What's your handle?'
'I don't Insta.'
'Whaa?!"

I head out for another flat white trying to understand why Hot Dude needs to post videos on Insta when he's given up everything?

And on screen they're scoring 'drugs' stylishly, dancing with lots of 'foreign' hippes, never running out of money. And helping them is the only amazing character in the film: a hippie with dreds: Elli AvrRam. She is Jessie who does her bit spouting Swedish life mantras and carries a magic pouch with an antidote for all 'drug overdoses'. The cops have killed Hot Girl and now Hot Dude wants revenge. But we got this from the trailer and the details are painful to watch. 

A story cannot rely only on hot bodies of the lead actors.Nothing they did on screen made them endearing to us. Neither could we root for the cops. They were all just caricatures of bad cops in movies.Even though this film is made rather stylishly, Woohoo to the reveal moment of angel wings tattoo on Hot Dude's back with the rest of the screen burning as he takes off his tank top yet again (which is why the lone star). But the writing was cringe worthy. 

Kunal Khemu's reasoning for becoming a psychopath is one of those moments: My parents used to fight, mum was in pain. Pain travels through your head and ends up dangling between your legs...

The person next to me demonstrated Nosecola and I sputtered coffee all over the person sitting in front at that confession. 

But the worst is the dialog between the two hot leads:
'In life there are two choices: maza or sukoon...Which one will you choose?' 

Alas, this film offered the audience neither. 


P.S. If you are a girl in the movie and want to extract revenge, you must cut your long hair. Then wear hoodie.
This could be a trope.  

Review: BAD BOYS FOR LIFE

Unkle, Ab Bas!

1 star

Mini Review:

Mike and Marcus who gave us mad buddy cop movies are suddenly old. Not in the movie, but really. No amount of Miami flash is going to help them. In fact, they look like they're part of a Florida retirement home than South Beach hot rods. And the film even more so. It's predictable, and the formula is tired. It's like watching a bad Hindi action film in wearying slow motion.

Main Review:

The movie starts like 100% action movies do, with a car chase. With Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the car doing the 'one is speeding and the other is frightened of speed' routine'. We're not told who they're chasing. But then cops are chasing them. That's old as the hills. Then you see that they're driving around the same area again and again. 

Aaaaah! Cho Chweet! They drove like that because Martin Lawrence was going to become grandpa. We like our heroes to break rules, but when the cops chasing our heroes don't show up behind them grinning or taking them away in handcuffs as it happens in other movies, we are shown a prison break

The prison break is really well done. I sit up! This is wow!

But what follows is just a paint by numbers buddy cop action movie.

1. Buddy cops are estranged because one wants to retire and the other thinks he's invincible.

2. Invincible cop gets shot. Buddy is retired.

3. Team chips in, invincible cop takes time to become team player.

4. More people get shot.

5. Team has to track one bad guy who makes those 'special bullets'.

6. Invincible cop botches operation. More people die. Buddy is still retired.

7. Bosses disband team. 

8. Invincible cop stares at sunset decides to go at it alone.

9. Buddy cop comes out of retirement.

10. The team shows up too, for final fight. Good guys win. Bad guys die.

It's Abbas Mastan so gaye thay type action, but then there is this awful  'Luke, I am your father!' moment.

Mexican people again are shown to be witches and mumbo jumbo black magic followers. Seriously, Hollywood? Live and Let Die is older than the hills!

One last thing, is there any Will Smith movie where his face doesn't get swollen up? Ab bas karo unkle.

Review: JAWAANI JAANEMAN

Stale Fare Not Even Saif Can Save.

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Saif Ali Khan is Jassi and he lives it up in London, then learns he's dad. Not only that, he's going to be grandpa too. The movie tries hard to make us feel, make us laugh, but we have seen too many older men pretending to be young irl, and too many movies where hero discovers he's a dad, to be impressed... 

Main Review:

Unkle In Disco Alert!

What is more pathetic than an older single man in a club? Bollywood believes he's going to get a PYT to come home with him. I mean seriously? Which world? Even Will Smith in Bad Boys cannot get into a niteclub, but this is Bollywood, where 'Unkles in club' score.

I puked into my popcorn, but it's Saif Ali Khan, so I watched.

He pumps iron, rides a bicycle, gets his hair styled all the time (who colors their hair so much?), wears mid-life crisis clothes and burns his candle on both ends...

Hero Has Daughter Trope

'You're my daddy,'  says the young gal from the disco just as Saif is readying his bachelor pad to seduce her. 

Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back goes through the same, and Colin Firth has to face his unknown estranged daughter in What A Girl Wants.

But this is Bollywood. But Saif does this well, and recovers rather well. But that's it. The story just seems to stop here. No more twists, no more turns.

The young girl (decent debut Alaya F) moves in and does what freshly pregnant kids do, puke and create odd situations for her newly discovered dad.

The trouble with these events is that we don't really get emotionally connected to either one of them. Even Mamma Mia, where there are three dads and the young girl doesn't know which one is really the dad, even in that musical, we begin to care about the two young people who are going to get married.

Slow, Stale Train Wreck

Then Tabu shows up. Jangling with jewelry and a ridiculous lad in tow.

If I were Saif, I would have been less kind to a silly lad like that.  

Now Tabu is a fine actor and of course she tries to do the hippie mom thing. But Colin Firth's hippe marriage in Morocco in What A Girl Wants is far funnier. 

Yes, there are Saif's parents who vanish conveniently, a crooked real estate deal, and a perhaps love story between Saif and his hair dresser... Terribly tedious all this... Except that Saif really tries to hold it together. Then there's Chunky Pandey who I want to kill because he pretends to have paralysis on getting a heart attack in the most overacted scene in the film. And that overacting gets Saif to make up his mind that he needs family? Ugh!

Baby Saves The Movie

Saif Ali Khan changing baby diaper and then cooing to the baby is the best thing about the film. 

It brought tears to my eyes to see him hold the baby. 

FDFS ka paisaa vasool.

I loved his bathrobe too. Everything else is just eminently forgettable.