Shortcut Romeo

Consider a husband who has a 13000 crore business believes in meditating in front of a wall size picture of a bearded swami baba. After that, he doesn't quite bother about his sex-starved wife - one that is described by our hero Suraj (Neil Nitin Mukesh) as Makkan jaisi jawaani (crudely translated as sizzling hot). Usually the result is infidelity of some kinds. No?

Bhool Bhulaiyaa

It took 14 years for Priyadarshan to probably gather to courage – because that’s what it would have taken a lot of – to remake a movie that he was a Second Unit Director.  To his credit, he is the only one out of the 3 in the movie who managed to make a move into Bollywood. 

 

But needless to say, he doesn’t emulate the magic that Fazil created on screen in 1993 with the national award winning Manichitratazhu (read as Mani Chitr tayu).  A movie that coincidentally has been fodder for remakes galore – Apthamitra in Kannada, Chandramukhi in Tamil and Telugu (dubbed), Rajmohol in Bengali, and of course the topic of this write up in Hindi.

 

The only reason I can think of as to why these movies fell short was the incapability to handle the topic with the seriousness that it required.  Of course the character played by Akshay Kumar – Aditya Srivastava – does have a humourous streak in him and enjoys playing the fool.  But I guess AK did a bit too much in his attempt to tell the audience that his comic timing is still alive.

 

Siddharth Chaturvedi (Shiney Ahuja) & Avni (Vidya Balan) are a newly married couple.  Sidhharth comes from a royal family and is actually the incumbent king of the village.  He has, however just returned from the states where he got married to Avni.  He had been there for his studies.  Upon Avni’s insistence and a little bit of his own desire, he decides to stay in his ancestral palace.

 

However, the resident spirit of the home doesn’t take too kindly to their stay.  A danseuse – Madhulika – who used to perform at the palace many moons ago is in love with Shashidhar (Vineeth) – the royal poet.  The fact doesn’t go too lightly with the Maharajah who in a fit of jealousy, executes the poet. 

 

Madhulika in turn commits suicide but before that puts a curse on the palace – no Maharajah will ever reside in the palace or else I will be the cause of his death.  To date, the curse stands.  And when Siddharth moves in, some funny events start occurring  that point a finger towards his cousin Radha (Ameesha Patel). Siddharth of course doesn’t believe in ghost stories and calls for his friend Aditya Srivastav – a psychiatrist to help.

 

This movie has a Priyadarshan touch to it – loud – REALLY LOUD.  Of course, several unnecessary attempts at comedy are also in order because it comes from his table.  But, to be fair, the movie is a frame to frame copy so there is very little value addition other than the above 2 points.

 

Most of the performances are also ordinary.  Shiney Ahuja in fact looks as constipated as he can possibly get.  I guess his moment of truth passed with Hazaaron Khwaishein – like with most of the people associated with that movie.  Even Vidya Balan is a tad above average but it was early days for her.  The support cast also – ordinary. 

 

It is only the story that makes the movie really worth watching.  I have seen it on a couple of occasions without too much of an effort.  So I guess a 6 on 10 is in order.  However, I encourage you to take a look at the original (unfortunately without subtitles) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdp4xudz958 and make your mind up on which one is better.

 

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adQ3aNpEFXg

Race 2

All of you would know what to expect when you walk into a movie that has the tag of the Burmawalas associated with it.  One can expect a lot of colour.  By colour I mean every perceivable shade of every perceivable colour would be splashed all across the screen in primarily in the form of the outfits that some gorgeous specimens of humanity would be seen wearing.  In Race 2, the colour extends itself to the houses, the parties, the aircrafts, the scenery, the ruins and of course – the parachutes.

Chatur Singh Two Star

The posters were quite obviously indicating a clear inspiration from Pink Panther and better sense should have prevailed over me before I picked up the tickets for Chatur Singh Two Star. But then I had to go ahead with a decision that on hindsight (a virtue that everyone has) is one that I really regretted for the next couple of hours. Now you may ask me why I spent 2 hours inside the theatre when I had a choice of walking out in the first 5 minutes – that’s all it takes to realize that CSTS is one of the worst movies ever made in the history of cinema? That can make it easily to Reader’s Digest’s “Mysteries of the Unexplained”.

I am a huge fan of Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther) and his hilarious side-kick Kato. And I was literally in tears and almost cried to see the entire concept torn to shreds by first time director (again) Ajay Chandhok. It is quite obvious as to why Chandhok took 16 movies as an Assistant Director before he was given this opportunity. Must have really done some big time favours to the producers for them to hand over their hard earned money to Chandhok. There is no point in speaking about script or cinematography or screenplay or dialogues or editing or consistency or narration or music or finishing or whatever it is that goes into making a movie watchable. Chandhok will need to consider himself really really lucky to have a chance at making any other movie after this.

Acting? What acting? Was there someone who did in this movie? Sanjay Dutt has all but put up a neon sign which says “My acting days are over”. Suresh Menon is expected to be slapstick and he sticks to what he knows best – slapstick. And Anupam Kher? Why? Why?? Why??? Ameesha Patel has also joined the neon sign club but this time it says – “I work in only C grade movies that expect me to show my ample cleavage”. There are a couple of item numbers showing Ameesha in various stages of cleavage – that she has quite a bit to show is not debatable. I guess this was the only aspect that caught the attention of the half a dozen couples who chose to walk into Sterling Cinema on a Saturday morning to make out.

I was extremely disappointed with the Steve Martin version itself which I thought did little justice to the extremely classy manner that Peter Sellers gets the concept of a bumbling bungling detective to life. Lets get that a few notches lower in the form of Chatur Singh who is rank insulting to the great man to say the least. The only reason I would give this any score is because it would be easier for my fans to search the 0 on 10 that I am about to give. Yes, this one even beats Milenge Milenge as the movie which would be screened most in most film institutes under the subject – How not to make a movie. The common factor – Satish Kaushik. Avoid like the plague.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH0Gorau_QU