Rang Rasiya

I began watching Rang Rasiya in the frame of mind of an amateur critic like I always do. The single minded objective was to find every mistake that Ketan Mehta made and believe me that I could find lots of them. There were errors galore to say the least and some of them made you cringe.

Lalbaug Parel

Not too many movies have been made on a topic that should have actually been very near and dear to a certain segment of Mumbaikars. In fact, you could count the number of movies on one hand. Rather surprising considering that the subject is something that many a person from this city owes their current existence to.

One that would not have seen the light of the day had a certain Dr. Datta Samant succeeded in getting what he wanted for the textile mill workers around 30 years back. A time when most mills in the city started shutting shop in favour of getting into the real estate business.

One such mill forms the backdrop of Lalbaug Parel. Khaitan Mills is owned by the namesake and run by his son-in-law, Mahendra (Sameer Dharmadhikari) who can put most slime balls to shame. While the logic behind the closure could not be questioned, methods and the treatment meted out to most of the mill workers was far from being in line with Human Rights to say the least.

One such family is the Dhuri family where the father (Shashank Shende) is your atypical mill worker who works in the day and has a peg or 2 in the night. A bulk of the work at home, in fact all of it, is done by the wife (Seema Biswas). 4 grown up children @ home – Anand (Ankush Choudhary), Mohan (Vineet Kumar), Naru (Karan Patel) and Manju (Veena Jamkar) are also struggling.

The story tracks the lives of each of the characters as the mill workers go on strike. Manju’s relationship with the local shop owner’s son; Anand’s struggle to write a play in the loud circumstances of the Laxmi Chawl; Naru’s rise from being a local thug to a contract killer for the underworld; Mohan’s relationship with Mrs. Sawardekar (Kashmera Shah).

In the attempt to show truth behind Mumbai’s most unfair story, Mahesh Manjrekar has given us a very depressing story. In addition, I firmly believe he has gone over the top in many sequences. There are also unnecessary aspects to the movie like Kashmera Shah’s wardrobe which seems most out of place.

The use of Bollywood actors over probably more talented Maharashtrian actors is also a gap that I saw. Add to this the excess number of characters. Nearly 15 of them. Just too many to do justice to each one. Very few directors could have

While the story is sensitive and touches upon a topic that I would like to see more of, I personally felt it was a tad overdone. With the right cuts and fine tuning on the unnecessary aspect, we could have had a winner on our hands. Instead we have a movie that is watchable. Good. Not great. 7 on 10.

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TrJU9SJ6hM

Arjun The Warrior Prince

I hate to start with negatives but in the case of Arjun – The Warrior Prince, what strikes you as most disappointing is the quality of animation. I have been browsing some reviews and comments on line and have been shocked at people calling this attempt as high quality animation. People – reality check due. If this is good animation then you guys haven’t been cued into where the world has actually progressed in the past decade. The last time, Hollywood or any international studio released a movie with this tacky animation was like – not in my life time.

And the shocker is that this is coming from Walt Disney Studios. Agreed there is a need to move into India quickly but Disney has way too many good movies to dent their reputation – and seriously at that – with a below par animation attempt on one of India’s greatest heroes. I say all of this because the animation quality seems just too artificial. Where there has been some attention paid to say shadows, there has been no attention paid to say the way people walk. Disastrous!!!

I have always been a huge huge fan of the Mahabharata and believe that it is time that either Peter Jackson or Spielberg (would be my choice) picks this up as their next 3 part magnum opus. There is just so much that can be done with the Mahabharata. The number of story lines that exist amazes me to no end. And one struggles to make a choice – which one do I like more. And therefore, Arnab Chaudhuri was perfect in his choice per se. Nothing could have sold better than the story of Arjun. It is evergreen and will always make money at the BO. Full points there.

But then Arnab, why did you have to change the story line so much? Why do you have to portray Dhritharashtra as a dwarf and Shakuni Mama as an asthmatic obese dwarf. Both these characters actually land up looking too funny to be taken seriously. Why do you portray Karna in a fashion that is most insulting to one who even in the Mahabharata has been portrayed as one of the humblest of warriors. And pray why would you portray Arjun as an absolute pansy. Agreed, he needed to be Brihanalla (a woman during the 13th year of exile) but the effort to make him look feminine was something I could not fathom. Not to mention the absolutely artificial hour glass forms of every single female character and the absolute free will with which you have changed the story line.

Overall, an extremely disappointing attempt. I was actually looking forward to it. But I guess, Spielberg and Jackson still have an opportunity to cash into India – and cash in really big time. On 2nd thoughts maybe Baz Luhrmann would be awesome. 4 on 10.

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K-R-Q0YRtQ&ob=av3e

Ekk Deewana Tha

There is something too arty farty about most Gautham Menon movies or is it just my imagination playing tricks on me. Something that tells me that the man is one of those eccentric, unpredictable directors who makes movies really slow under the pretext of calling them good art. Something to the extent of saying that each frame should tell a story and therefore the audience should be given time to absorb it and so on and so forth.

Arre bhai – agreed but that doesn’t mean that words should have space bars between them even when you are speaking… or does it? Gautham could save at least 30% of screen time if he just stops asking his actors to put an emphasis on a pregnant pause after each word that they speak. Ekk Deewana Tha is no different from his other attempts to date. In fairness, the pauses are required in some of his movies but EDT does not fall into that category at all.

Ekk Deewana Tha is a remake of the Tamil movie Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (Will you cross the skies for me?) which Gautham himself made a couple of years back. It tracks the story of Sachin (Pratiek – who prefers not to use his father’s family name anymore – not that it is getting him to act any better) who falls head over heels for Jessie Joseph (Amy “look how gorgeous I look in a saree” Jackson) at first sight.

But there are several problems on the way. 1. She is a Christian and Sachin’s family are Maharashtrian Brahmins. 2. She is a year older. 3. She has a brother who looks and behaves like a goon. 4. She has a father who is 6’ 3” tall and thinks going to the movies is a sin. 5. She has seen only 5 movies in her life and Sachin wants to make a career in the movies. 6. Sachin himself is the biggest problem of all with all of 22 years under his belt and little or no experience in matters of the heart.

EDT should have released on the Friday before Valentine’s Day and not after. It would have guaranteed full houses. I wonder why there was a delay. Gautham Sir could have been laughing his way to the bank by now. From what I understand, the younger generation had a lot of expectations from the movie. And that Pratiek has a big following. This author however believes that Pratiek is as constipated as ever. No signs of genes there. If Amy Jackson has dubbed herself, then it is a fantastic first time effort. The rest of the cast doesn’t really have much of a role to play.

On one hand, Gautham Menon uses great camera angles and has done justice to the Malayalam aspect by retaining the Mallu dialogues. On the other hand there are gross consistency errors with no attention to detail – like soft spoken dialogues on a bike or absolutely no cuts and bruises after a fight scene. And then there is the aspect of the movie being terribly slow. Rahman’s music also seems to be one of his lesser works. But despite all of that, probably the best Bollywood movie released over 2 weekends. Worth a dekko I say 5.5 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6b462zkgJA&feature=fvst

Bubble Gum

It is very rarely that one comes across a weekend where there is absolutely no movie that was really great. My weekend started with Smurfs which was OK followed by Khap and Gandhi to Hitler which were both quite bad. @ noon on Sunday, a casual look at the PVR listings and I was glad that I woke up on time to see Bubble Gum – glad because I would have missed it and that would have meant one review lesser on the blog *sigh*. So it had to be the 1410 hrs show of Bubble Gum to kick start Sunday for me followed by the creepy Cowboys & Aliens which I wasn’t too optimistic about. The trailer of Bubble Gum and its posters scream out, “Its hard to be 14”. Seemed interesting. And I was hoping to get 4th time lucky as well considering that there were 1 average movie and 2 bad movies done and other than Bubble Gum there was 1 expectedly average movie to come up. I wasn’t about to be disappointed – thankfully.

Bubble Gum traces the story of a bunch of kids who are predictably – around 14 years old. Jamshedpur seems to be the flavor of the decade with quite a few movies in the recent past based out of the steel city – the more popular one being the Rajat Barmecha starrer Udaan. Nevertheless, Vidur (Sohail Lakhani) and Vedant Rawat (Delzad Sanjay Hiwale) are the sons of Sudha (Tanvi Azmi) and Mukund Rawat (Sachin Khedekar). Vidur, the elder one @ 16 I would guess, is a deaf mute and stays in a hostel. Vedant is the pesky and irritable 14 year old who believes that his parents are partial to his elder brother and hates the situation that he is in. There is a continuous comparison on how everything is oriented only around Vidur and no attention is paid to him. The frustrations of an average 14 year old actually. And to make matters worse Vedant falls in love – puppy love – the worst of its kind. The kind that leaves indelible scars on anyone who has been through it. The kind that at times haunts you for the rest of your life and leaves you incapable of falling in love again :D:D:D:D. And the girl is Jenny aka Cookie (Apoorva Arora), the daughter of the local commissioner of police. In between all of this is our 14 year old villain – Ratan (Suraj Singh) who also has a big thing for Jenny.

Bubble Gum tracks the emotions that go through a 14 year old in all of the situations described above. It talks about how parents should learn to let go and not be too protective about their children, about how people who we consider to be disabled may actually be far superior to us in many a way and about how at the end of the day the people who stand by us are invariably family amongst other messages. The movie is well made and reminds you of both Udaan and Do Dooni Chaar. However, it does have a strong star cast missing. Tanvi Azmi and Sachin Khedekar are as always solid and continue to be under-rated. The kids turn in a decent performance but turn out robotic many a time and therefore give the movie a feel that is not quite natural. But full marks to the overall story and treatment. Full justice given to the subject matter. Could have done with a few cuts and better music. Definitely watchable and entertaining. 6 on 10.

Watch the trailer at http://www.top10bollywood.com/2011/07/bubble-gum-trailer.html

Singham

Now here is a case of a movie being as good (or should I say as bad) as a trailer. Such a welcome relief for the avid movie watcher like me which cuts the crap and the red tape and shows what the entire movie is about in just the trailer. I wish there were more such movies which are made. The viewer would know exactly what is in store for her / him. A brilliant way to ensure that expectations match the final result and therefore the viewer doesn’t really leave the hall feeling cheated in anyways. Come on guys – what more can a movie maker do? He can put his heart and soul into making the movie and then ensure that the movie is marketed enough with the right trailer being shown in the right place. Now if you expect the makers of the movie to say, “Pretty much what you want to see in the movie is in the trailer” as a scroller on the trailer then I think you are expecting a bit too much folks. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot? Use what the person up above as give you that is between your ears sometimes and make up your mind. If u still believe that you aren’t satisfied and your curiosity gets the better of you then go right ahead and spend your hard earned money in whichever way you want.

Singham is anything but an original movie. It was supposed to be a remake of the Tamil Version starring Surya. Now here again I think it was my fault that I expected Rohit Shetty to actually give us something that was at least a bit different. Now why should someone go through the effort when you have someone else’s experience to learn from. And Rohit does exactly that. Smart work in a way. Just some confusion between whether he wanted to make the movie in Hindi or Marathi or Tullu (People in Goa speak Konkani right?). But if the audiences are loving it then why not I say. Rohit sticks to what he knows best – dramatization and cheap humour.

Singham is peppered with corny one liners – quite a few of them are in really bad taste. Stuff like “India mein sirf 1400 sher bachein hain (only 1400 tigers left in India)” OR “Cockroach ko marne ke liye Baygon nahin milta hai to Paragon bhi chalega” or snide references to the Brrrrrr commercial of Coca Cola – all of this come together to give something that the audiences seem to like. A lot at that. People could not stop laughing. One of these days, I am going to slide down the abyss of understanding and appreciating cheap humour. God save me from that day!!!!

Acting is not something you could expect from a Rohit Shetty movie but one person who stands out would be Ashok Samarth (remember Inspector Malvankar from ek Chaalis Ki Last Local) who in his role of Shiva Naik does a solid job. The rest of the cast is quite insipid. Kajal Agarwal debuts as the heroine whose primary role seems to be carrying Bajirao Singham’s belt, gun and uniform. Ajay Devgn tries very hard to do a Rajnikanth but Rajni Saar is Rajni Saar. Ajay doesn’t come even close to Surya who did the Tamil version so Rajni Saar is currently on a different planet as far as Ajay is concerned. Sachin Khedekar does his image no good and neither does Anant Jog or for that matter Govind Namdeo. All good actors in their own right who have taken themselves down to really low levels. Rohit must have paid them a lot.

In a nutshell, save yourself the pains of going to the movie halls. Singham is playing on you tube. The link for trailer is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp-XqCrCi6I. And while you are at it, watch the Tamil Trailer as well and judge for yourself if there are any similarities http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9pMoHK8XZg&feature=fvsr. I thought it was a superb cut / copy paste job. If you still gather the courage to go to the screen, please don’t miss the beginning and Ajay Devgn’s Singham Claw dance and his effort to speak Marathi *yawn*. 3 on 10 for this one purely for some good action.

Tees Maar Khan

I have always been a Farah Khan fan.  I loved Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om.  The latter in fact is still one of my all time favourites – strictly from a perspective of providing wholesome entertainment. What I like about Farah is that she doesn’t make any bones about each one of her movies being “different”. She is quite cut and dry. So, when Tees Maar Khan was announced a while back, I was quite excited despite the controversy that surrounded it.  Most pundits challenged the mother of triplets when she decided to go ahead with Akshay instead of Shah Rukh as the lead for her latest venture.  In hind sight, which is a virtue all of us have, Shah Rukh probably could not have pulled of the role.  It demanded someone with a better sense of comic timing and therefore clearly cut out for someone like Akshay Kumar.  However, Mrs. Kunder would now have realized the importance of a good luck charm. TMK flatters to deceive.  A disappointment spread over a little more than 2 hours.

Tabrez Mirza a.k.a. Tees Maar Khan (Akshay Kumar) started very early in his life as a con artiste.  His mother (Apara Mehta) would watch age old Chor Police (Cops and Robbers) movies that would invariably have the Chor (Robber) in the lead role.  In a manner of speaking, Tabrez was – Well Inducted.  And he starts off by pinching the docs watch and nurse’s chain as soon as he pops out. And no points for guessing that he eventually grows up to reach the “Most Wanted” list not only @ home but also by large organizations such as the Interpol. He has been caught 11 times to date and has escaped 24 times – don’t ask me how the math works here – and before the end of the movie also manages to escape two more times. As he proudly proclaims, “Tawaif ki Lut ti hui izzat ko bachana aur TMK ko Qaid karna – dono hi bekaar hai” (It’s a waste of time to save a harlot’s honour or to imprison TMK).

The world famous Johri Brothers (Raghu Ram) are a pair of identical conjoint twins who are leaders in their own field of work – Smuggling of Antiques.  They have just been relieved of 10000 kgs of Antiques worth Rs.500 crores (Rs.5 billion / $110 million).  The cops have not been able to capture them and are therefore convinced that they would attempt to get back what they believe is rightfully theirs. However, there are only 3 people in the world who can pull of a stunt of stealing that amount of valuables from a moving train.  2 of them are safely behind bars.  The third is obviously our hero.

Farah Khan tries to stick to what she is good at.  A movie that is primarily a comedy peppered with action sequences that are sufficient to keep people excited.  However, this time she kind of comes a cropper post the declaration of, “Is mission mein hum kamyaab honge ya nahin dekhenge after Intermission” (We will see if we are going to succeed in our mission after the Intermission).  Kind of corny and seems forced.  Things build up quite well in the first half and then somewhere the movie loses steam and becomes kind of repetitive.  Maybe it was time for her to actually do something “different”. Just when one thinks that Akshay Kumar is making a comeback he peters of like a deflated balloon back to where he has been over the past 2 years. Forced effort and complete lack of comic timing.  Much better in parts but overall no improvement whatsoever.  TMKs sidekicks are played by Vijay Maurya, Dharampal and Ashish Asgar who seem to have better comic timing that AK. 

And they definitely have much more screen presence than Katrina Kaif who is totally stunning furniture with barely any role to write home about. The only saving grace for her is the absolutely amazing, “Sheela Ki Jawani” (Sheila’s Killer Youth as the subtitles in the Aussie version proclaimed – I definitely have an opportunity to be a subtitler coz they were absolutely atrocious in parts and extremely funny).  The music is very good – a combination of songs by Vishal Shekhar and background by the husband Kunder.  The choreography is also extremely well done.  Full points for Farah Khan there for making Kats dance like the way she has.  Someone finally taught her some serious jhatkas!!! Overall, a decent entertainer for the family on Christmas weekend.  But don’t go with too much of hope.  I give it 4 on 10 in the festive spirit and my liking for Farah Khan as a director.  Watch at own risk.