The Dirty Picture

I must start this review with an anecdote from a few of days back. I was on my way back from the village (read Bangalore) and was taking the Indian Airlines flight. My song of the day was “Oooh La La”. Just kept humming it through the day. En route to the airport we were having this conversation that The Dirty Picture will be one of the top 5 movies of the year and that Vidya Balan will clearly get 2 nominations for the year – The first movie of the year No One Killed Jessica and The Dirty Picture. In fact, now that I think of it, she could win both awards – Best Supporting Actress for NOKJ and Best Actress for TDP.

Anyways, as I was humming the song and boarding the flight, I was also chatting up with my colleague. We did not say anything about Naseer Bhai – how can we say anything about one of the best actors of our time. We were just intrigued about his role in the movie and how he would essay it. We both agreed that Emraan Hashmi would have, by the end of the movie ticked off from his list another actress – only this time, it would be a genuine actress and not a random aspiring starlet. And the unanimous agreement – actually question was – What the hell is Tusshar (now without the Kapoor) doing in the movie? And as I was saying this out aloud, I entered the flight only to be greeted with a vision that I will not forget for the rest of my life!!! There on Seat1D, and smiling right back at me (surely she heard my comment about Tusshar) was Vidya Balan in all her simplicity. And did she look gorgeous? Hell Yes!!!!

I must say, that most of our discussion was bang on. Vidya Balan gives her 110% as always and generates an aura around Reshma aka Silk that will generate emotions starting from the rank depraved to the completely sympathetic thanks to the pitiful end that we know Silk Smitha had. Some really good dialogues dot the otherwise slapstick ones. But then it is The Dirty Picture. So slapstick was to be expected and I give Milan Luthria full credit for the same. Probably the best movie from the Luthria stable but it would not have been possible without the stunning performances of the cast.

I terms of other aspects, The Dirty Picture was probably below par. Editing was quite below par and the movie was way too long – probably 2.5 hours which turned out to be nearly 3 thanks to the breaks and trailers. While the songs were good, they were quite ill placed especially Ishq Sufiyana which kind of hits you out of the blue about 10 minutes from the end. And Honeymoon Ki Raat was also kind of wasted. I thought the movie could have easily finished in about 2 hours. Kind of moved away from the basic concept so aptly captured by Reshma that the movie business is about 3 things – Entertainment, Entertainment & Entertainment. 7 on 10 and definitely makes it to the top 5 movies of the year for me.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM8m4_DLZtY

Mummy Punjabi

The first thing that struck me when this movie started was that the lyrics were by Sameer. And I was taken back 20 years to the Aashiqui days where the dreaded trio of Nadeem Shravan and Sameer used to belt out tracks which started off as brilliantly as they turned inane to the likes of “Doodh Ban Jaoongi Malai Ban Jaoongi” from Sarhad. And that is pretty much what “Mummy Punjabi” turned into. Although I do believe that if the version that is saw wasn’t the dubbed one, it would have turned out to be a much more tolerable flick that what I landed up watching. I was of course as confident as ever that this one would turn out to be a not so great movie and was had braced myself for what was in store. But it helped little. Maybe I should take advise from people who care about me and insist on lesser reviews of higher quality and not just go for every single movie in town. That is a discussion we will continue with some other day however.
Mummy Punjabi, as I said, would have turned out to be better in Ingliss than it turned out in the Hindi dubbed version that I saw. It was extremely distracting to say the least to watch the awry lip sync and it took me a bit of time to figure out that this was actually supposed to be an Punglish movie (Punjabi + English). It revolves around a semi psychopathic (harsh words I must say) mother – Baby Arora (Kirron Kher) aka Mummyji – of 3 who treats the world the other way around. She believes that her 2 sons should be really looked out for since it is a “woman’s world” these days. Her sons of course are quite familiar with the ways of the world and are having a whale of a time. One of them runs a discotheque in the city which is called out as a family restaurant for the benefit of Babyji. The sons are aptly named Karan (Viraf Patel) and Arjun (Sachin Sharma). And hold on to your horses ladies and gentlemen. The daughter of 22 is called….. Simran (Simran Vaid)!!!! Completeing the happy wali family is Rajendra Arora (Kanwaljeet Singh) who is the husband who apparently has tolerated Baby ji for 30 years now. Baby ji’s only aim in life is to get her elder son married to a domesticated wife, the younger son to an American or Canadian doctor and the daughter is free to make her own choice of husband.

What appears to be an interesting story-line and one that could have immense potential degenerates almost at the beginning itself into a superb case of broad daylight slaughter. And I am talking about aspects of movie making and not human slaughter. There is not much of a script to write home about. The dialogues are quite creepy (and crappy too). The senior members of the cast i.e. Kirron Kher, Kanwaljit, Divya Dutta and Anju Mahendroo manage to hold their own and ensure that they give their respective roles what was expected of them. The junior members of the cast (and unfortunately there are too many of them) are absolutely pathetic to say the least. There is not much direction to write home about and the music is also pretty bad. The makers could have at least retained the regular Hindi songs which were used for a couple of attempted dance sequences by the 2 bahus (daughters-in-law). Not a good movie by a country mile but I am sure the English one would have been reasonably watchable. The Hindi dubbed version sucks!!! 2 on 10.

The trailer can be viewed on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OerjSloIfKk