Review: SULTAN

Bhai version of Brothers

2 stars

Mini Review:

Sultan was the most anticipated film of the year: Salman Khan’s Eid release, Yash Raj films and Aditya Chopra's blessings to the Director Ali Abbas Jafar. But what starts out to be a promising romance between sportspersons (both Salman Khan and Anushka Sharma are wrestlers) soon dives headlong into a horribly predictable tale badly told. How the audience will hanker for Chak De!

Main Review:

Remember the 'Tumhare paas sattar minute hain' speech? And how your heart burst through your eyes in tears and you crossed your fingers and you hoped Indian women won. Here you want Sultan to win because you do not wish to see any more bloody teeth protector shots.

A sports movie should make you feel inspired to be a part of a team, want to work hard at that dying spirit inside you, teach a lesson about family and friends and fans and about becoming a champion at anything you do.

A sports movie should not want to make you yawn because it is predictable (Most sports movies are about underdogs that win, anyway!). Sultan's 'sports' portions are boringly predictable even if you don't know the phrase 'Dhobi Pachchaad' (Anything that reminds you again and again that you have left a bunch of clothes to be put into the washing machine when you came for a first day first show of this movie, cannot be good!)

A sports movie should not make you hanker after movies the movie studio has made before. The music of Sultan reminds you again and again of Chak De!

In the very least, a sports movie should have enough nail-biting sports excitement and not need to make you deaf with its special sound effects or by repeating a refrain about mitti and khoon and paseena again and again until you switch off instead of being inspired. (As a person who lives in Bombay, the 'smearing mitti on body' scenes just made me wish for better airconditioning in the theatre).

So this is about a wrestler, once an Olympian, a world champion, now nobody because of grief. Sounds like Chak De! Where Shah Rukh is a disgraced Olympian too. And like Brothers (Akshay Kumar, Siddarth Malhotra) who are sons of a disgraced fighter. Just like Brothers, there is a personal tragedy related to a child: In Brothers, the kid is fighting a blood disease, and here, too a child is the center of the tragedy of the fighter. Both Brothers and Sultan fight in the MMA arena that have similar graphics and crazy crowds and you begin to believe the statement Bollywood directors make in the press: I do not see movies made by other directors.

Maybe they should. Yes, the production values are superior because the production house knows how to make stylish movies, but apart from the sports connect of the movie, everything else is really good.

The romance is awesome, the misunderstandings are real: Just because I go with you everywhere, does not make me your girlfriend!

The village looks too clean and even though you know it is mostly a gigantic set, you are happy to watch an overgrown lad run after a falling kite. Even though you know the mazaar is a fake one, you fall for the romance of him waiting to see his wife day after day, hoping she will forgive him.

Salman Khan still has that zing which makes people whistle and cat call, but he’s aged fast, and even though his fans know that the body is the work of a graphics computer (and you lose count of how many times his biceps and his chest look different), you enjoy the madness of ‘Baby ko base pasand hai’

Anushka Sharma’s lips still annoy you, but the actor who plays her dad is just stupendous. He is Kumud Mishra. A wonderful expressive actor who fits the part (and not even credited in their IMDB or their wiki pages). The other actor who actually made this film real was Sultan’s best friend, Govind, played by a brilliant actor Anant Sharma, who is loyal and fun and understands all of Sultan’s inner battles. In fact Govind does all the acting for the lead actor who is best at taking off his shirt.

The pehelwan Sultan is a good guy, such a loving guy, that his sudden arrogance is not believable at all. It seems to be too convenient as a plot turning point. That’s when the story starts shattering slowly. Then you notice that he sings ‘Jag Ghoomiya’ at a pub/club which has the most ridiculous quote about kindness on the walls. Erm… What club where women ask Sultan to marry him and a jazz band plays happy birthday to the rich will have a quote on kindness written in brass letters? Looks like it belongs more to a moral science class than at a pub…

Anyway, the MMA matches are horrendously long and predictable. Yes, there are some beautiful touches like Sultan wanting to call his wife but hesitates and so on, but there’s not a thing new in the entire second half. Even the most enthusiastic fans seemed to have lost their collective ability to whistle and clap. If you are a fan, you wouldn't be reading this review anyway, but if you are passionate about movies, then you'll save yourself the trouble and watch it on cable...

P.S. Yes, I saw the film even though I hated that Comment Salman Khan made to the press. I apologise for not having the spine to have skipped the film on principle.

Review: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN

This Legend Should Have Remained Just That

2 stars

Mini Review:

This retelling of the Tarzan story is so tedious, you can throw darts at the bad guys, because you know which one is going to die next. Jane is as important as what’s-her-name in Transformers. The CGI gorillas should have stayed in the mist…

Main Review:

We grew up having read Edgar Rice Burroughs who created the legend of Tarzan in our heads. We loved Mowgli too in The Jungle Book. We collected our passports and took Yellow Fever injections to visit Jane Goodall’s Gorillas and we marveled at the expanse of the Masai Mara. So it was not surprising that the audience comprised grown ups at the first day first show screening of The Legend Of Tarzan.

Alas, the movie is riddled with cliches: Bad White Guys, African Slaves, African women dancing, African chief who won’t kneel, more Bad White Mercenaries, CGI Gorillas who fight for supremacy in their troupe, Tarzan swings from tree to tree to tree with his Gorilla family, Tarzan saving Jane again and again, African warriors and animals uniting to fight off White slavers and bad guys.

What? Animals and African braves fighting the bad guys together? That’s not a cliche, that’s ridiculous. You saw the stampede in the trailer. It was weird for watch Wildebeests in that part of Africa. And they say ‘Congo’ so many times, the writers could have just googled, ‘Are there wildebeests in Congo’ and they would have got an answer. But who cares about facts when a stampede looks so good on film? Plus, a gorilla directing a stampede is so cute! Not.

Jane is as annoying as all women are in adventure films. You only remember the shapely derriere of Megan Fox as she climbs on the motorbike in Transformers. Everything else is grease and weird machine parts. She is ornamental, and so is Jane. Despite the effort they take to make her look like she has spunk: to look like she belongs to Tarzan, but it is obvious that she is trying too hard. I suppose Tarzan does look cute for a chap who doesn’t say much but has a good repertoire of animal mating calls.

Now mating calls are all good, but they stretch the joke too far. Christoph Waltz and Samuel L Jackson have played these parts in their sleep. The one bright spark in the movie is the young African warrior Wasimbu - Jane’s childhood friend (thank God they did not show them play hide and seek as kids!) - who does not say much but smiles that could win hearts!

You come away wishing they would return ticket money when they return the money they take for the 3D glasses.

Review: SHORGUL

BRAINS GUL

½ star

Mini Review:

Do you have nothing better to do than watch a story about a small town burning and killing and raping people over religion? Can you be so bored that you could watch cliches in character and dialog? Then this movie might satisfy you and give you the despair you are craving for.

Main Review:

Ashutosh Rana plays the Good Chowdhary with moochs that rival the best you have seen in cinema, fair to both Hindus and Muslims.

Jimmy Shergill as Bad Hindu Politician who does all things ‘bad’: landgrabbing, alcohol consumption, parties with nautch girls, thinks nothing of inciting Hindu-Muslim riots before elections.

One nasty creepy eyed Maulana who has a stable of young Muslim men who talk rashly about ‘Qaum’ and ‘Mazhab’. Of course he is cahoots with the Bad Hindu Politician, otherwise how can you incite people to violence?

Hiten Tejwani plays the Good Muslim Man in love with a Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl.

Eijaz Khan is the Hot Headed Muslim Man who has shown up at Hiten’s home from Gujarat to finish his studies. He sports a burn on his neck (which looks like pizza slapped on) and a very nasty attitude (‘We are different from them and we need to be armed against them’).

Sanjay Suri plays the good Chief Minister (and looks like he never got out of his Nil Battey Sannata role).

You also have Narendra Jha playing the Bad Muslim Politician who incites crowds. There’s also the Mamaji who is scheming and nasty and ambitious.

There are stock lathi-wielding henchmen behind every important character.

There is a Good Police Officer who attempts to uphold the law and play the role of the peacemaker.

If you are tired of reading about cliches, let me tell you more about the Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl played by a Turkish import. Poor girl. Her blue eyes and her sometimes Tisca Chopra, sometimes Sonakshi Sinha looks could have been enough for a print advertisement. But her acting skills are suspect, and the strange dubbed voice doesn’t help.  She has a ‘Bachpan Ka Friend’ Raghu (Good Chowdhary’s son) who’s in love with her but has never expressed his love because he knows she is engaged to be ‘Nikaah’ed to Good Muslim Man Hiten Tejwani. The Hot Headed Muslim Cousin disapproves of this friendship and in a moment of rage kills Bachpan Ka Friend.

There, you know the rest. The dialog is so terrible and cliched you can predict it. You know which characters are going to die. So horribly cliched are the sets, you know it’s a Muslim house because it has green walls. All the actors sleepwalk through their roles because you have seen them before in many movies doing the same thing.

And no matter how blue the Pretty Chirpy Muslim Girl’s eyes are, Ashutosh Rana’s mooches win the two hour sixteen minute battle for attention hands down.  

Review: KERRY ON KUTTON

This Balia Ain't Malgudi!

2 stars

Mini Review:

Remember the British Comedy Films in the ‘Carry On’ series? This film attempts just that with Balia bumpkins and serves a comedy that happily takes you into darker realms. The dialog and situations are very funny in parts, the characters are beautifully cast, but a better director would not allowed the film to meander all over the village. If you are 'Touchia gaye hain' types, then this movie isn't for you. Others can chuckle along.

Main Review:

Just like the Carry On films, the sexual content in this film has been treated with lots of humor. The situations are lewd, and yet so funny you cannot but laugh out loud.

The story has really low life characters but they are interesting. Three teenagers with raging hormones. Two boys who are stuck on the same village beauty. And the third who dreams of emulating a village rebel (the Baaghi from Balia) who became a legend for killing someone in cold blood and running away with a pedigree dog to Nepal and then becoming rich and famous in the pedigree dog sale business.

Seems dull, you’d think. But slowly you realise that the village belle Jyoti is not sweet and simple. She’s using the lads to buy her presents. ‘I’ll kiss you and even get a photo taken with you in the photo studio, but for a romp in the hay, buy me a touch phone. And when you do, I’ll make our photograph my wallpaper!’

While you watch this gobsmacked, your ideas of the idyllic village life are shattered. One hormonal lad, Suraj, is the village teacher’s son, on a short leash money wise and is unable to buy the phone. Rebuffed, he is so angry he wants to kill anyone who even looks at the object of his love. The girl in the meanwhile has moved her pretty avaricious eyes to the second hormonal lad Kerry, who has been kicked out of his home because the local men were complaining about him getting on with all the village women. He is unrepentant and grins throughout the movie, shameless about getting on with the women, age no bar. The village belle eggs this lad to buy her jewellery. And when he says that these things take time, pitts the masterji’s son, (the first boy) to have this hormonal lad beaten up. Things just escalate from there and you laugh because there is humor in ‘free desi handguns but you need money to buy bullets’ ...

The third lad (Kadambari) dreams of dogs and killing and is a friend to Kerry.

The girl has blithely moved on to someone else, and it is not shown how, but she now admires a gold necklace in the mirror. And thankfully this is done without being judgemental.

Meanwhile, you have enjoyed meeting really creepy bunch in the village: Thakur thugs (Naam mein thaakur toh bach gaya hai!), the local wedding band and their transgender dancer, the ‘Bade babu’, the dads of the lads (the village teacher and the pig farmer), the old man who owns pedigree labradors…

Had this script been handled by someone who had more finesse, the film would have been really ‘badass’. The beauty of the local language and its casual vileness is retained and stuff that does go down well with urban sensibilities (your mum ran away with someone hornier than I) might raise eyebrows. But even when the story is told rather roughly, the darkness of the script is worth the meandering.

And I’m still laughing at the scene where the tranquil sleepy village is rudely awakened by the hut imploding when the two teenagers trying to get it on dislodge the central bamboo holding the hut up! And I’m still grinning at Jackie Shroff’s ‘Teri Meherbaaniyan’ inspiring a lad’s life ambition of dog-napping…

Watch it if you can stomach very casual murder and avarice and love in a village that is not Malgudi.

Review: GANVESH

'Ganvesh zhala ka mahal?'

(Buying Uniform Or A Bungalow?)

3 stars

Mini Review:

The sooty eyelashes of the little boy are unable to hide a hopelessness brought on by poverty and realisation that opportunity to make a speech before the entire village and the minister will slip out of his hands... Unless he gets a new school uniform.

Main Review:

'He has never asked us for anything, and this speech at the flag hoisting ceremony is really important,' The mother of the little boy implores in front of her employer, 'Could you give an advance on my weekly pay?'

'Will you sell your broken down bicycle?' The local politician asks the little boy's dad.

'Raise this placard and shout the slogans we tell you!' Another local thug tells the little boy's dad, 'Then we will give you some money.'

'Buy me the uniform first, then I will learn the speech!' 

If you thought that it was going to be easy for a poor couple who work in a brick factory to buy their nine year old a new school uniform, then think again. The father promises to buy him a new uniform and this whole movie helps us realise that making promises is one things, and being able to fulfill them is another. It seems like a doable task for most of us, isn't it? There are so many things we take for granted in our lives. As the story unfolds, this errand to 'buy a new uniform' becomes insurmountable. 

The setting of the story - the first half - takes just too long to establish how dirt poor the family really is. What is charming is the relationship between the mother, the father and the kid. Kishore Kadam is phenomenal as the gruff dad slightly pissed off at his inability to buy even that little uniform for his son. He has pride and will not cower down in front of bullies even when they bring down the argument to his penury. His wife, played beautifully by Smita Tambe is a perfect foil. She works hard, she teases her son, she scolds him about wanting more and at the same time worries about not being able to fulfill her child's little wish. 

And what can you say about the sad yet hopeful little boy?   

Tanmay Mande steals your heart right from when the camera sees him in the class room. Perfectly cast, he makes you want to jump into the movie and buy him a uniform.

In this world, Kishore Kadam crosses paths several times with Mukta Barve who plays the upright cop on duty. She looks the part and plays it convincingly. Her love for her uniform and her values make her a sympathetic figure in a world full of hooligan thugs with connections to people in power. 

Although the movie is in Marathi, there are subtitles to help you get through the language barrier. Watch it for amazing performances and little hidden gems in storytelling: when the husband tells his wife to sit on the bicycle with him and she is embarrassed...

Dilip Prabhavalkar plays a good politician who also takes pride in wearing khadi is present for the Independence day flag hoisting ceremony and the story of the three uniforms comes spectacularly together. You come away smiling, and a craving for jalebis.

   

Review: INDEPENDENCE DAY RESURGENCE

Dead Upon Resurrection

1 STAR

Mini Review:

‘Today we celebrate our Independence Day!’ Bill Pullman had announced, many many years ago, and cinema audiences loved him and loved Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith. This time too the same aliens are back, and the same old tactic is employed with the same old special effects. You wonder, why re-make the story and call it ‘Resurgence’?

Main Review:

So man has managed to build a base on the moon, with a defense system that will protect the Earth. But within twenty minutes, we realise that it’s not capable of defending anything because they did not even sense the presence of a gigantic alien ship more than 3000 miles across right above them. No matter how cute the new recruits look and how capable, they cannot do much when their base is just trampled upon, isn’t it?

Well, the novelty wears off here. After that the aliens land on Earth and those predator type aliens start doing what they did earlier - destroying cities and drilling for molten Earth. As requested by the film certification board, the aliens do not destroy the Taj Mahal or any Indian monuments. London Bridge as the kiddie rhyme says, falls. But the aliens don’t touch the Eiffel Tower (It’s clearly visible). Alas, the non destruction keeps you untouched. We are not moved by the aliens at all. Nor are we afraid of them. We know they have not watched Star Wars and will leave openings in their ships just like the Death Star, which will help our brave pilots to take a bomb load inside the craft and then destroy them.

The idea of a Queen Alien insect controlling a hive is even older than the Borgs of Star Trek. And the Borgs could choose to take on a beautiful form if they wanted to... The joy of watching a science fiction movie is not knowing the enemy and using science to destroy bad aliens. So when you're watching sequels, it gives the audience something to look forward to.

That's why Star Trek and Star Wars or any other sci-fi franchise move either forward or backward in time so there new stories can be told. This story should have buried upon narration, not resurrected.

 

Review: RAMAN RAGHAV 2.0

What A Ride To Your Seamier Side!

3 STARS

Mini Review:

Anurag Kashyap delivers a gritty, grimy, gut-wrenching story of opposites in order to tell you that they’re not really so. Takes a while to come to the point, but you understand why it is so difficult to edit out stuff that is so deliciously dark. The opposites played by Vicky Kaushal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are so equally ugly, you know the director has made his point when you cannot swallow popcorn.

Main Review:

It’s the seamy side of the city and no one but Anurag Kashyap knows the alleyways better. But this time he manages to get inside the convoluted corridors inside your head and you stare at the creepy Indian slasher come alive on the screen, cornered and plastered to the theater seat.

Remember Al Pacino in Cruising?

The moment you are introduced to Vicky Kaushal the cop dancing to Qatl-e-aam, you know this movie is going to be khaas! I tried and tried to keep the comparisons to Cruising and the image of Al Pacino dancing in a gay nightclub out of my head but couldn’t. The two subversive films kept overlapping, along with slasher films one has loved watching for the violence we feel and suppress.

What? Did I say there is violence buried deep inside us checked only by a thin veneer of politically correctness of our daily existence? Anurag Kashyap’s story-telling has tackled this before in Ugly and you had everyone running for cover with gems like: ‘How can everyone in the movie be so bad? How can every character lack any redeeming feature?’ and so on and so forth...

The violence here is again, like in Cruising. It is graphic but necessary. I did think the extended sequence with the sister was too long, but then it is meant to terrorise people in the audience who are happy to watch good cop -bad criminal movies where they rob banks and take ‘Sona door kaheen Switzerland mein in helicopters and take their Mona darling with them’. Somehow the image of villains who steal gold bricks (‘Sona kahan hai’) and threaten to blow up cities (‘Yeh Missile dekh rahe ho?’) is easier to accept than a chap who can eat Chicken Bhuna over people he has killed.

Cruising showed us the seamier side of gay life and you had to look away from the sexual violence in the film. You do that when you watch the cop in this film. His misogyny is underlined and bold and unrepentant and the submissive yet fiery girlfriend adds to that violence by verbal assault when she stands up to him. You are looking into someone’s dark bedroom and you don’t like what you see. It does not mean it doesn’t exist. These are things which make you want to fling your popcorn at the screen. But you’re rooted to the seat and realise you haven’t bought any popcorn because you too have a dad (or a mom) that treats you the way his dad treats him, and you too have cowered down in front of the habits you are addicted to. Maybe it’s something as mild as drinking tea, but you know you are enslaved by the habit when you experience rage when someone puts a cup of over boiled, over sweet milky tea in front of you instead of the sophisticated, light Darjeeling you are used to.

I do hate how Anurag Kashyap still pays homage to Tarantino when he separates the story into ‘chapters’, but then what are idols without clay feet?

Now moviegoers who don’t cringe at everything will find the story rather meandering, but it satisfies the need to see both sides of the coin. It’s not out of the goodness of your heart that you say, ‘Bhaiyya, rehne do (keep the change)!’ but because you are saving yourself from touching the coins that materialised from his armpit pocket along with bidi bits and lint of unknown origin.

Just as Al Pacino discovers a seamier side to himself and his police department (watch for the floating balls test the cops subject a suspect and you will realise the similarity in this film as well. The unethical locking up, the ‘don’t give anything to eat, beat him up’ procedures they employ have several parallels to what you saw in Cruising. You know that Vicky Kaushal the cop is not undercover here, but his persona is. You know you want to know why Raman the killer - played brilliantly by Nawazuddin - is the way he is. You want to understand what joy he feels when he has made a kill because you see the triumph in his face after. You steal a glance at the people sitting next to you (who may not have seen slasher films) to see if they are affected by the sound of the iron jack being dragged on the road…

I just wished they had not used him humming the song he hums because you find that in most slasher films and indeed the killer in Cruising hums as well. And the weird poster of the film which tells you the story in hindsight is also from Cruising: ‘there’s a lot about me you don’t know’, with a switch in this film which says: ‘I know more about you than you think’...

Go watch this film because you learn to confront devil within you, and no one makes you want to side with the devil better than Anurag Kashyap.     

p.s. Here is the trailer to Cruising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpJ5K8Vt5V8

Review: EK ALBELA

SHOLA JO SULGE...

2 stars

Mini Review:

A mix of Hindi and Marathi (with English subtitles) Ek Albela chronicles the life of Bhagwan Dada who gave Bollywood’s megastars like Amitabh Bachchan their dancing style, and many, many hit songs like ‘Shyam dhale kidki tale’ and ‘Shola jo bhadke’... It’s made with not too much finesse, but the likeness of actors of yesteryears is uncanny, and gives cinephiles lots of information.

Main Review:

Cinephiles will love to find out really cool stuff about cinema of Bhagwan Dada who most of us know only as a dancing dude who gave us the ever-so-memorable songs like ‘Shola jo bhadke’.

I was glad to learn that Bhagwan Dada was a star of B-grade action flicks!

There are many more nuggets on the workings of the film industry at that time. You watch the young man struggle with his family and career when a good break he literally falls into helps create a career. But still, the movie feels just uni-dimensional. You see him fall for a nautch girl’s niece who inspires him to work hard. But then she conveniently moves away and it does not seem to break his heart. He seems to imply get married to someone his family finds for him.

Even his struggles with the distributors and financiers seems to be very forced because his ‘never say die’ and belief in himself seems to be too good to be true. We like heroes to fight the good fight. No one believes the hero was always so confidant. We need to see a more human side of him.

Even though all the principal characters look like the originals, the film looks like it has no fine feelings, no class. Everything is just gigantic colorful set. Only a die-hard fan of cinema will be able to sit through this effort. Others will enjoy the song and dance.

Review: EK SCANDALL

SCANDAL Nahi FARCE hai!

No stars

Mini Review:

What starts out as a horror mystery story of a dad who talks to his dead child turns into a hilarious sexual escapade for not one or two characters, but all of them. Hilarious because they are not feeling it, but looking into the camera and acting out orgasms with lots of help from attempted orgasmic sounds.

Main Review:

Manav Kaul, whatever inspired him to ‘act’ in this movie, no one will know. But if he had as much fun as we did watching him open his jaws really wide and bite into the heroine’s shoulder, then I suppose everything is forgivable.

The trouble with so many young women wanting to prove that they have powers of seduction (not only for the hero on screen, but for the hormonal males in the audience as well), is that they end up looking comical. Their gyrations are learnt from Bollywood Item Number classes in the neighborhood dance studios, their hip thrusts are faked and the director does not realise that when heroine jumps into the arms of the hero in slow motion, and she’s wearing an ill fitting bikini, the extra flesh keeps bouncing out of sync with the mood they’re desperately trying to create.

The mood is of course hardly elevated by enunciating simple words like ‘devil’ and ‘smell’ as ‘Day-will’ and ‘Ismayell’ without the ‘I’. Titilation is the expected effect on the audience when the lusty man inhales the perfume of the woman after ripping off her clothes. It dissolves into laughter instead when he says, ‘Aaaah! Your ismayell. I love it!’

They even have Manav Kaul attempt his worst ever acting scene when they dress him up in eye mask, suspenders (tight pants) and a bow tie (no shirt), make him sit in front of a computer and kiss the screen as an attempt to have cyber sex with a silly looking lass who thrusts her derriere at the computer and slaps herself.

You want to slap the art director real hard because they have the poor heroine painted in Gold in an item number where she’s panting so hard (presumably in orgasmic delight) and mouthing words like ‘Labo-h se laga-h le-h, main pants ban jaaoon teri-h’.

Wait a minute, did she say, ‘Pants’? It takes several giggles to realise she’s saying, ‘Pyaas’. If you’re thirsty for a story beyond the ugly clothes that are ripped off every three minutes, and the orgasmic sound track, then you will wonder what happened to the dead child giving darshan to the dad. Never mind. This scandal is not even worth a whimper.    

Review: 7 HOURS TO GO

Audience Held Hostage To What Feels Like 7 Hours

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

An angry young man takes seven hostages and asks the police for the head of a super rich man who has wronged him. The result is loud, chaotic and mostly pointless runaround. You want to empathise, take sides - the cops or the hostage taker - but the story is too convoluted for us to care.

Main Review:

It’s a mockery of the system when an outstation cop walks into the Bombay High Court and holds people hostage because his girlfriend, who is a witness in a case is shot just after the bad guy gets away scot free. He gives the Mumbai cops seven hours to get the said bad guy back in custody or he will shoot every hostage one by one.

Now that sounds like a plot that works fine for an action flick. But then they try to get clever with it. They begin with ‘wow, I’m so clever’ introductions: Varun Badola plays police officer Dhadke: The Quirky Cop; Shiv Pandit plays Arjun Ranawat: The Hostage Taker and the villain Khemka is called ‘The Evil Villain’, and if that is not enough, there is a trickster called Amol Palekar. You want to wash your hands off this gimmicky flick, but you cannot. You are impaled to your seat by sharp, incessant background score that is accompanied by criminal strobe/flashes of blinding lights that are supposedly ‘high-tech’ laser and computer security system ‘sounds’.

Oh there’s a lady cop who changes her decent white shirt in front of all the other male cops just to prove that she’s badass. And if that white shirt was changed because it was not pristine any more, then why does she wear the blue tee shirt the chaiwallah lad was wearing? If you wonder who writes such trash, then be amazed at the reveal: everyone and their uncle is involved in the plot. You don’t care what motivated each one of them to be a part of the plan. You don’t care why the ‘Hostage Taker’ tied the pillars in the corridor with string as if they were lasers. You don’t care if the heroine Police Officer chases the baddie as though she has never run ever. You don’t care if the supposed hard disc full of incriminating information on the baddie is finally downloaded on a pen drive! You don’t care about asking why did they go through an elaborate heist plan when they could have just shot the baddie and vanished...

And you realise you have been held hostage for what feels like 7 hours, and you are so bored by the movie you have decorated the curly head of hair of the person sitting in the seat in front of you with popcorn.

Review: ROUGH BOOK

MAKE FAIR COPY FIRST! FAIL!

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

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

Main Review:

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

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

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

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

      

review: UDTA PUNJAB

What a take off into the storm!

3 stars

Mini Review:

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

Main Review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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