NH10 (Hindi) (2015)

We have seen many a movie that hovers around the topic of “road-trip gone wrong” – both from Hollywood as well as Bollywood.  NH10 comes from this genre.  But as I have always maintained in most of my writing, old wine in new bottle if perfectly acceptable, so long as the new bottle is really different.  NH10 is a perfect example of this point of view.

Ungli

Rensil D’Silva’s latest and much awaited movie has been in the press for all the right reasons.  The right promotional bursts followed by a tinge of controversy thanks to the use of the much maligned middle finger.  Cutting the use of the dreaded finger twice got it a U/A certificate and a Friday morning reception that was slightly better than some big banner movies.

10 ml Love

When you look up 10ml Love on the net, it shows you a year of release as 2010.  But to my knowledge, the movie wasn’t actually released till as late as December 2012.  I remember having missed it in one of my 7 movie weekends (where I have a weak track record) and actually looking for it quite hard.

Fatso

If one were to go by the posters of Fatso, one would probably imagine that you will be getting into a movie that’s probably a bit slapstick. But then you would look at the star cast which has in the past given us good comedy. The likes of Ranvir Shorey or Purab Kohli for example. Not that you could say the same about Gul Panag who has been going through a patch which can be described as desperate of late. And then there is the aspect of the movie being directed by Rajat Kapoor. The story rritten by Rajat Kapoor and Saurabh Shukla. One will not blame you for giving the movie a chance right?

Fatso comes a cropper in each one of these points (except that of Gul Panag). Firstly, it is heavily inspired from the Hollywood flick Down to Earth which features Chris Rock and was released in 2001. So much for the originality that Rajat Kapoor and Saurabh Shukla were to get to the table. So we have Navin (Purab Kohli) who has proposed marriage to Nandini (Gul Panag). In a freak accident that was supposed to claim his close friend Sudeep aka Fatso (Ranvir Shorey), he gets picked up by the minion instead.

He figures this out when the mistake comes to the fore at a government like office which is the transit point before you get complete freedom from life. The bureaucracy upstairs is not able to correct the mistake in time. So Navin now doesn’t have a body because it has been cremated already. In the interim, Navin finds out that his close friend Yash (Neil Bhoopalam) has the hots for Nandini and is going to gun for her now that Navin is – erm – out of the way. After much persuasion, the General Manager upstairs provides him the option of swapping places with Sudeep which Navin takes gleefully.

The one aspect about Fatso that sticks out like a sore thumb is that it adds to the complete and utter capitulation that Gul Panag has seen in her acting. Where is the person we saw in the likes of Dor and Manorama Six Feet Under? I am sure she has been taken away by some ghost. What remains is the palest of all pseudo shadows that you can think of. Purab Kohli is very good in the limited screen time that he gets and the rest of the cast is above average except one Gunjan Bakshi who desperately needs an class in acting.

The music by Sagar Desai cannot keep you glued onto the screen in any manner. The script / dialogues is not very inspiring again. It would suffice to say that whoever was responsible did a below average job. Rajat Kapoor seems to have made this movie in some kind of a hurry because he has not paid any attention to details at all. Just went ahead and closed the movie out before the required deadlines. 4 on 10 is the best I would give Fatso. Watch it at your own risk.

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otKcvjhj6B4

Not a Love Story

Ram Gopal Varma could not have picked up a better time for the trailers of his movie to be released and then the eventual movie release. It was bang at the time when the verdict on the Maria Susairaj case was about to be announced. A couple of weeks into the trailer and one of the most absurd verdicts (that’s what I believe – it is totally personal) ever by the Indian judiciary was announced. I guess it has been a little under a month since the verdict and unfortunately for RGV, Anna and the World Champions, for totally different reasons, have hogged the lime light. As of now, everyone in this country is interested only in the Jan Lokpal Bill. And maybe a few would be interested in knowing the build up of the Susairaj case and where it finished.

And why in the blazes would RGV start the movie with a disclaimer that this is a work of fiction. Surely all of us know that the movie is about the Susairaj case and it would only mean that Maria Madam and Jerome Sir refused to co-operate with the RGV Factory in terms on the money that was offered. Maybe they will cash in on it over time at a much higher level – crime is after all a very lucrative profession as has been proved in the past in more developed economies.

That being said, RGV also ends the movie with 4 dramatic statements – please don’t hold me to this because it may not be verbatim but I am quite certain it was something to this extent.
“The Prosecution wanted both of them to be killed
Their lawyers wanted them to kill each other
The two of them wanted to die together
Finally the verdict is still awaited”
RGV Sir – Gross!!!! How much cornier do you want to get?

The movie starts off with great promise and intensity thanks to Deepak Dobriyal who has put up another stellar performance and kind of keeps the movie alive. I was quite intrigued though with the choice of Dobriyal for this role but he comes out on tops. RGV uses his signature camera angles which are a bit off beat and it does make you think that RGV is back. But then one starts feeling a tad giddy in a bit. But for a couple of specific shots which gave the output that was desired, the other angles only made the movie look more like a horror story and not one that was based on a crime of passion. Mahie Gill has never been able to get back to the near perfect performance she gave in Dev D. I guess it will continue to be her nemesis in a manner of speaking. Needs to stop trying too hard to get there. The same syndrome as Jr. B after Yuva. Not much of a support cast with the exception of Zakir Hussain (remember Rashid in Sarakar) who is the only person who comes close to Dobriyal’s performance.

Overall disappointing. I was so hoping that RGV was back. I really like RGV and find it quite sad that he seems to have gone onto a different planet. Either we need to join him there or he needs to get back to Mother Earth. 5 on 10 is what I would give NALS. Watchable but don’t expect too much.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrbcn2k-FMI

Shaitan

One of the reasons I did not put up the review of Shaitan up earlier was because I was quite certain that people would watch it – review or no review – and not be disappointed with it. The other reason – the more important one – was that I was and still am running the movie back in my head to piece a few things together to figure out if they were really required in the movie. I probably have missed a few points when I saw the movie for the first time and may manage to latch onto the finer nuances when I watch it again (which will probably be this week). Its worth it when you are debating whether to give a movie a score of over 8 or was it really that good.

What makes Shaitan a magical experience is not just the direction. In fact that’s a small part of the entire mix is what you would feel at the end of it all. I have not seen a movie in a long time where the performances of every single person in the cast was near outstanding. If there was a blemish in the performances it would have been Nikhil Chinappa who appeared the weakest. Even the dialogue deprived (actually no dialogues at all) Sheetal Menon was inch perfect in her essaying of the peeved wife of a cop who decides to leave him albeit for a couple of days. Kashyap and Nambiar have taken very true to life actors and led them to probably their best performance possible not only to date but maybe for good. How else can you explain the likes of a Kirti Kulhari coming up with what she has. Her last performance was as Pammi in that slapstick movie – Khichdi. What a transition I say!!!! I tip my hat to you M/s Kashyap & Nambiar – like several others in this country are doing as we speak.

There are 3 reasons why I will not give Shaitan a score of more than 8 – Firstly I did not find the reason to introduce Shomu (Rajat Barmecha) into the story at all. Yes, it was a nice way to call out a kidnapping plot but I personally felt it was too stretched out. Secondly – I did not find any reason to introduce a chase scene with a Dahi Handi in the background. It could have been a regular chase. Difficult cut to make for any director but I guess that’s what differentiates the tough directors from the not so tough. Lastly, I felt the movie lost tempo somewhere in between. Cannot really point a finger on the exact spot where it started dropping and it picked up again but I did feel a sense of the movie drifting a little bit for about 15 minutes. In atypical Anurag Kashyap style, Bejoy Nambiar gets the movie from an absolute high down to the very low abysses and then shoots it again through the roof. I am quite certain that the movie was ghost directed by Anurag Kashyap – every frame reeks of Kashyap. Unless Kashyap is not only a great director but also a fabulous teacher and has trickled his learnings down to his protégé better than anyone else can.

My final verdict - 8 on 10. Undeniably the best movie of the year so far. MUST WATCH. And yes – Don’t miss the chase sequence with the evergreen Khoya Khoya Chand Remix playing in the background. Completely blows your mind!!!! And this is my official protest against the makers for not carrying such a brilliant track on the Audio CD.  Please release the uncut version with a couple of more tracks and i will still be standing in line to spend another 150 bucks for it.  Hope u have it on the DVD when u release it.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1kk_5OohaM

No One Killed Jessica

No one needs to be told what happened in the Jessica Lall case. Enough and more has been said about the case and written about it and there would be hardly a soul in this country who is not familiar with what happened in the case. Plus with the advent of the net, there are going to be enough and more hits on the likes of Wikipedia to try and understand the gorier details of the case. There will be a little more talk about it over drinks at the local bar or over a cup of coffee. Unfortunately this is exactly what would work against the makers of No One Killed Jessica (NOKJ) and more so for director Raj Kumar Gupta.

The challenge in taking up a controversial topic like the Jessica Lall murder is primarily the extent to which you can actually show the truth on screen. More importantly, if there is an attempt being made to portray as close to reality as possible then how does a director ensure that the freedom of expression at no point of time is superceded by the attempt to be politically correct. NOKJ finds itself caught in exactly this labyrinth and and the end of the day you find a product that is a mish mash of sticking to the disclaimer and trying to get the whole truth and nothing but the truth out. If you walk into NOKJ with the expectation of something similar to a Black Friday, you would be making the same mistake that I did and land up being quite disappointed. Why could the makers not have stuck to the facts of case? Isn’t it contradictory to the very purpose of making the movie in the first place. The least that could have been done is stick the names. If it is OK to call out Jessica Lall and Sabrina Lall then why is not OK to call out Manu Sharma, Venod Sharma or for that matter Sayan Munshi, Bina Ramani and Malini Ramani.

Adding to the above, there is one inconsistency too many for it to be called a decent attempt. Surprising considering that Raj Kumar Gupta has given us a very good movie like Aamir, a little over 2 years back which was made quite well to say the least. I mean, how can you have the same TV programme in one shot that shows 3 different times – 6:24, 9:33 and 10:30 (don’t hold me to the exact times here). And all of this is within a couple of seconds of each other. And not just that. The sequences of June Lall screaming “Where is my baby” or Rani Mukerji saying “Gaand Phat Ke Haath Mein Aa Jaati” are anything but convincing. The over acting defeats the basic essence of a scene which could have been so much more poignant. And then there is shit loads of stuff which were totally unnecessary. What is being conveyed through a scene of a pick pocket taking off with a cameraman’s wallet or some random pedestrians mobile phone? What is the purpose of showing the Victoria memorial or the Kolkata trams? Or for that matter Vidya Balan taking a shower with her spectacles on? And I have pretty much scratched only the tip of the iceberg here.

But not all is bad. Rajesh Sharma’s (Munjal from Khosla Ka Ghosla) performance as the lead inspector in charge of the case and the frustrations that he faces is impressive. And so is the performance from Yogendra Tikku in the role of Sanjit Lall, Jessica’s father. Amit Trivedi’s music is fabulous as always. The titling and the starting line, “”Everybody is a “somebody” in Delhi. Nobody is a Nobody” give the movie a good start. There is also a beautiful shot of the mobile ringing in the middle of the night intermittently lighting up Vidya Balan’s face. Not Vidya Balan’s best performance to date. Last year she started with a bang with Ishqiya. Not to be the same this year unfortunately. I do believe however that she is a fabulous actress. Wonder why she could not come up with the best this time. Rani Mukerji is disappointing with her excessive attempts to play the bitchy news caster, Meera Gaity. Someone please teach her how to smoke on screen. A below par result from a movie that I personally expected a lot from. 5 on 10 at best is my verdict.