Ya Rab

There is so much that has been spoken about Islam being a horrid religion over the years.  There are so many instances of injustice meted out of Muslims across the world that it was only a matter of time before someone stood up and made a movie that would try to communicate the other side.  That is a side that speaks about the exact interpretation of the writings in the Koran.

Ready

Before you go to watch Ready, please follow the steps as under
1. Open Skull
2. Carefully pull out brain – make sure you don’t damage anything else the purpose of saving the brain from trauma would be defeated.
3. Now, place brain in a bowl of ice cold water and leave it in freezer for the next few hours
Now that you have no sense of pain or pleasure or excitement or humour, you are in the perfect situation to watch one of the most brainless pieces of work that Bollywood could have given to you. This one takes the cake and makes David Dhawan look like an Oscar winning director. This freak of nature has taken slapstick and cheap comedy to a completely different level. And what is shocking is that the audiences are loving it and lapping it up. Every single piece of crap that is dished out from his table seems to be going so well with the audiences that his sense of false self belief is getting bloated beyond recognition and repair. And no we aren’t talking about Salman Khan who was probably the only saving grace in Ready other than Paresh Rawal. We are talking about this phenomenon (what else can you call him) called Anees Bazmee!!!! Its truly ridiculous that someone like Bazmee can get away with all the bull shit that he dishes out. But as I said – the audiences are loving it to say the least :’(:’(:’(:’( Other than the 4 of us who had braved the Saturday rains in Mumbai to watch the 2250 show (and I was doing this after watching 5 decent movies before), everyone else seemed to be having a stupendous time. Maybe they followed my instructions to the T and were informed earlier by someone else.

Prem (Salman Khan – for the nth time being called Prem) is a Chartered Accountant (can you believe that!!!!). But wait… there has to be a twist right. He is based in Bangkok – wonder whose accounts he was balancing there??? He is the sole heir to millions (of Bahts I am assuming) owned by his father Ram (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his uncles Laxman (Manoj Pahwa) and Bharat (Manoj Joshi). But the families have given up on him per se thanks to his mischevious ways. His favourite pastime is to get single girls hitched with the guys of their dreams – especially if the single girls are hot and happen to be the neighbour’s daughter – AAAARGH!!!!! But the folks finally manage to get him to consider a girl recommended by the family Baba. A chick coming in from the US. And heres is where the 2nd and ultimate twist happens of a girl exchange. Instead of a certain Pooja who no one in the family but the Baba has seen, Sanjana (Asin) lands up taking her place. Chaos and of course love happens soon enough. And yes… a tuk tuck chase is thrown in as garnish

None of my closing comments will save you from the torture that you will go through. Although I don’t owe any apologies to Sheena, Hersh and Vivek because they willingly accepted the proposition of going through this mindless piece of crap, I believe I still will apologize to them because I came up with the idea. What prevented me from watching Hangover 2 I will never know – wait of course I know – the 3 of them had already seen it :’(:’(:’(. The positives however include some foot tapping music and some extremely cocky dialogue delivery from Salman. For e.g. “Is duniya mein 3 cheezon ko kabhi underestimate mat karna – I, Me and Myself” (For the non educated in Hindi – Never underestimate 3 things in life – I, Me and Myself!!!) AAARGH ^ infinity. 2 on 10 for the above 2 points and some decent comic timing in patches from Paresh Rawal (more out of respect).

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

Antardwand

Raghubir Sahi (Raj Singh Choudhary) is a twenty something Bihari boy who is studying in Delhi. He has been in a serious relationship with a girl of his age, Siya. As many a young couple, Rags and Siya find themselves pregnant. The two of them decide to get married since they are deeply in love. Siya is Punjabi, a fact which Raghu’s father, Madhukar Sahi (Vinay Pathak) is not going to be too pleased about. However, Raghu is sure that he wants to take this forward and is willing to take on his Dad for this.


Parallely in Raghu’s village, Kanti, somewhere in Bihar, Mahendra Singh (Akhilendra Mishra) has approached Madhukar Sahi with an alliance for his daughter, Janki (Swati Sen) but is rudely rejected by Madhukar. Mahendra is willing to pay any amount of dowry to get Raghu married to his daughter But Madhukar is not one to budge. He has already given his word to a close friend, Jagdish Babu. However, he is not prepared for the shock that is awaiting him in the form of Raghu informing them about Siya. He does not tell his father about the pregnancy though. Madhukar obviously asks him to take the abortion route out and close the chapter. But Raghu is hell bent on getting married only to Siya. He leaves home that very day.

But Mahendra Singh has other plans. He is not willing to take this rejection. More importantly, he considers it as a personal insult and has Raghu kidnapped and taken to the village to get him forcibly married to Janki. They use all sorts of methods to force him to accept the wedding proposal but when he does not budge, they get him drunk and married off forcibly. Janki is obviously not pleased with this but has no say in the matter. Nevertheless, Raghu refuses to consummate the marriage. The best efforts of Janki prove futile and eventually the family has to resort to getting our man drunk once again and insinuating his virility to get the desired reaction from Raghu.

Antardwand forces one to think and wonder about all perspectives. How is Janki to blame for any of this. Is Raghu correct in releasing his anger onto her? If not, who else does he look to since he is locked up in one room as a “Mehmaanji” who is refusing to accept what the host is asking him to do? What does a mother do in a case like this where she knows that her husband is grossly wrong but is helpless because of societal norms of not going against her husband no matter what. How does a brother react to this situation? Is he supposed to “protect” his sister OR protect his father’s “self respect”?

The movie got the award for the best film on social issues at the 55th National Awards. I would say rightfully so. The movie is filled with messages primarily against bride groom kidnapping, a practice that we in the metros are largely unaware of but is supposedly rampant. There are other issues also covered such as education for the girl child, dowry and marriages in rural India. The movie is filled with powerful performances from Vinay Pathak and especially Swati Sen who puts on a fabulous performance as Janki. There is a sequence between Janki and Mahendra when she decides she has had enough and decides to leave the house. The expressions between the 2 are actually fabulous to say the least. Raj Singh Choudhary continues to play a part of the timid, spineless young man that he kind of played in Gulaal. He fails to impress me but that’s probably due to the kind of role that he plays.

Sushil Rajpal’s direction is also pretty much up there. But a lot of the credit goes to the fact that the cast is a strong bunch of people who would otherwise be associated with Theatre. There are distinct chinks also. At least the print that was playing @ PVR Mulund had bad sound editing and bad overall editing as well. The item number I thought was quite unnecessary. But Kailash Kher is fabulous in his rendition of “Tanha Tanha Tanha”. A very hard hitting movie for sure. Extremely serious and definitely arty. Watch it only if you are fine with a movie that is quite in your face. I give it 7 on 10.