The Xpose

Words fail me when I try to express my sentiments on 2 supremely contrasting examples of cinema that will make their mark on the nation today. 16th May 2014 will definitely go down in the annals of Indian History as a red letter day - and I'm not referring to the more than obvious result in the General Elections 2014. It will be remembered forever as the day a man from Gujarat took on a monster from across the seven seas.

Kaanchi

A Subhash Ghai movie has to be a minimum of 2.5 hours.  Nothing lesser.  On that count Kaanchi qualifies by just a bit.  It has an excruciatingly long run time of 151 minutes.  Half way into the 2^nd half you catch yourself nodding off at least once.  If your tolerance levels are not as high as mine, this could happen about 20 minutes into the first half itself.

Lootera

O Henry’s stories have been an inspiration for many a story on screen.  Closer to home, Raincoat (Aishwarya Rai, Ajay Devgn) was an adaptation of “Gift of the Magi”.  Only a matter of time before another one was used as inspiration.  This time around it is the turn of “The Last Leaf”.  Vikramaditya Motwane pays homage to O Henry with his adaptation of this classic short – with a little bit of Indian spice thrown in for taste.

Life of Pi

Always a good idea to read the book before you see a movie. Especially if it is a well known adaptation. I read very little of Life of Pi (honestly due to my own sloth) since the night before. So I have no clue to if David Magee (Finding Neverland) has cut a few important parts from the final rendition of Yann Martel’s best seller. But from what I hear, the ones that were required were retained. And retained well at that.

Ang Lee has always been one to pick movies that are painstakingly painted. At the expense of being horribly slow. Life of Pi is actually fast as compared to most of his previous ventures – almost like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (both in terms of pace as well as special effects).

Life of Pi has its stunning moments which can come to life only on the big screen. The flying fish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the bright Jelly Fish in the middle of the night with the Blue Whale deciding to rocket through, the carnivorous island that turns neon green at night or the scenes of Richard Parker roaring to define his territory like a Royal Bengal Tiger would. While I saw it in 2D in a random theatre in Goa, I am quite certain, the 3D version would be brilliant.

But all of this comes at the expense of a lot of factors. To begin with, there is very little acting on display. The entire cast except Suraj Sharma has very little time on screen. Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Tabu, Adil Hussain and Gerard Depardieu are all fantastic actors to say the least but all of them put together have lesser screen time than Suraj Sharma. But Suraj Sharma has done brilliantly well to say the least.

There are also startling consistency errors that one would not expect from Ang Lee. Starting from how in the blazes does Richard Parker, manage to get the goat through the bars of its cage? Or how is there absolutely still water in the middle of the Pacific? Or how Pi (Suraj Sharma) can speak English without an accent and Pi (Irrfan Khan) suddenly develops one.

I would have also liked it if Ang Lee had stuck to Tamil with the entire Indian cast instead of pushing the screenplay in English. It would have turned out to be far more believable and distracted the audience from some of the obvious errors. I personally liked Life of Pi because of its stunning effects and so am giving it 7 on 10. Definitely watch over the weekend and decide for yourself.

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2646320921/

English Vinglish

There is a soft feeling in your heart when you see someone who you have been, are and will always be completely in love with whether the world says anything else or not. It is a feeling of weakness and utter submission that totally disappears when the person is not in front of you or you are not thinking about him/her. With Sridevi, I can associate those feelings and much more :-p.

And for those who grew up with me in the period between the 1980s-90s, one would understand the passion with which we would follow a Sridevi and Madhuri Dixit. One could not be a fan of both these stars even if someone had a gun to their head. Their loyalties have to be aligned towards only one and no one else but that one. I chose the former – and coincidentally, have stuck to her all this while.

So my review may be biased towards her, but I will try and be as neutral as I can in the overall scheme of things. It is going to be really tough but I will do my damdest best. Sashi Godbole (Sridevi) is married to a successful executive (Adil Hussain) and has 2 kids – a girl in class 7 (Navika Kota) and a boy of 4 years (Shivansh Kotia) who hasn’t started school yet. She is an expert in making laddoos.

She doesn’t know English and is the butt of embarrassment for her husband and family on many an occasion. All this while, she hasn’t done much about it. When Sashi’s niece’s wedding is announced in New York, she makes her way there earlier than the family to help out with the wedding preparations. An ad on a bus to learn English in 4 weeks catches her fancy and she begins the journey to regain her lost self respect.

While English Vinglish has its high points namely the lead performance from Sridevi – and I am not kidding you on this point. Once a star – always a star. If anything, her acting capabilities have dramatically improved over the past few years. There are also instances of some fantastic camera work in bits and pieces.

But the rest of the cast falls really flat. Whether it is the younger of 2 nieces – Priya Anand – whose American accent and forced attempt @ speaking Hindi falls really flat OR the daughter – Navika Kota – who is extremely over the top in most scenes. Ditto for the screenplay and music which is average at best. The scenes between Sridevi and Mehdi Nebbou where she speaks in Hindi and he in French and apparently understand each other just don’t seem to be real enough to be believed.

However, the bottom line – is it worth watching? Definitely once. Worth watching on the big screen? Not really unless you are a fan of Sridevi. Reasonably entertaining but not meant for the seasoned movie goer. Can wait for the DVD. 6 o 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dWir9Q_Vek

Agent Vinod (2012)

In a recent quiz, I had asked this question - The kidnapping of a prominent scientist, Ajay Saxena (Nazir Hussain) prompts the Chief of Secret Services (K.N. Singh) to assign flamboyant X (Mahendra Sandhu) to this case. While on this assignment, X meets with Ajay's daughter, Anju (Asha Sachdev), who insists on assisting him. The duo is further assisted by Chandu aka James Bond (Jagdeep) and his gypsy girlfriend (Jayshree T). The two couples will soon have numerous challenges thrust on them, and will realize that their task is not only very difficult but also life threatening. Which 1977 movie am I talking about? The answer was the 1977 movie Agent Vinod – In service of the nation. I was surprised that a team actually cracked the answer.

The biggest controversy of course leading upto the movie was that involving our very own inspired music director Pritam. The Pyar Ki Pungi Song which was apparently lifted from the Iranian Song “Soosan Khanoom” bears little resemblance to the so called original. I think the Iranian Band Barobax should listen to some of Pritam’s other inspirational numbers to understand where the person can go down to. In fact they should thank Pritam because thanks to him, the hits on their you tube video have crossed a million. Judge for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SE63JoBA6iI. And they should also feel better because almost all songs have been copied. Including inspiration from that great ode to Russia’s Public Enemy #1 from BoneyM – Rasputin (in case you were wondering).

Now that we have got the useless pieces of trivia out of the way, lets get down to the review of the movie. Do not let the detractors tell you that Agent Vinod is a waste of time or torture (as someone said while exiting the theatre). It is in most parts a smartly made espionage movie – with loads of inspiration from our friend from MI5. It is great to see one from our part of the world. If you keep aside the corny one liners that Vinod makes – attempting to be slick like bond, you will breeze through the movie. And hope that you don’t get into a PVR which takes 30 minutes to start the movie and has a 20 minute interval!!! The cinematography is good. The titling is very well done and gives you feeling of a well made movie in the first few minutes only. The disappointing part was the lack of good finishing towards the end but one could overlook that I guess.

Sriram Raghavan (Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddar), claimed all the way through the build up that the 2012 movie which released today was in no way inspired by the 1977 hit (if I may call it that). I am quite certain there was an inspiration hidden somewhere. While I liked Raghavan’s previous 2 movies – and I wasn’t alone there, Agent Vinod I would guess falls short significantly. The last time Saifeena paired on screen in that famous size zero movie, audiences reportedly left the hall tearing their hair apart – or so I am told. I guess Raghavan had more confidence on them but the chemistry fails miserably. Mostly from Kareena’s side – and it has nothing to do with the absolute bias I have against her. Guess they are one of those couples who have chemistry where it matters to them as a couple.

I must confess that I found myself really enjoying the movie in parts and then Raghavan kind of stretches a point too far and lets the movie wander all over the place before getting it back on track. The good scenes like the fight between AV and Prince of the LTTE have been edited exceptionally by Pooja Ladha Surti (Ragini MMS, Johnny Gaddar). I thought it AV was enjoyable. I leave it to you to decide. 6 on 10. Definitely the movie to watch out for this weekend.

And watch out for the hotties - Maryam Zakaria, Vasilisa Petina, Leeann Roberts, and Malika Haydon

Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi929669401/