India Masala

Agneepath: Revenge re-packaged

While watching Katrina Kaif gyrating to “Chikni Chameli”, more than halfway through Karan Malhotra’s “Agneepath”, I couldn’t help but wonder about the similarities between the song and the film. Both are adaptations of an original product (“Chikni Chameli” has been adapted from a popular Marathi song), both have ample production value and some great moves, but they are also ample proof that remaking an original may not always work.

Malhotra’s version of “Agneepath”, to be fair, is not a direct copy and is quite different from Mukul Anand’s 1990 version. A lot of the plot points of the original film have been swapped for newer stories, but the gist of the story remains.

Hrithik Roshan plays Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, a gangster from the Mumbai slums, who is obsessed with killing Kancha (Sanjay Dutt), the man who killed his father over a dispute more than 15 years ago.

Vijay feeds his revenge, joining a rival gang and rising to the top quickly, but in the process alienates his mother (Zarina Wahab), who cuts off all ties with him. To his credit Roshan portrays that angst and that loneliness beautifully and in one particular scene, where he eats at his mother’s house after fifteen years, you do feel for him.

There are some moments, like the scene where Vijay meets his sister for the first time, which are well done, as is most of the action. The palette of Mandwa, dreary and dark, lends very well to the personality of villain Kancha, and the fight scene at the end will keep you hooked, even though you know how it’s going to end.

What brings this film down is its unnecessary length. There are too many songs, and too many inane dialogues at crucial points that will make you laugh out loud. Om Puri, playing a police officer who looks out for Vijay, has the bulk of these lines. Malhotra’s script isn’t as tight as it should have been and the central theme of the film — revenge — gets diluted.

On the plus side, there are some good performances — Hrithik Roshan, Rishi Kapoor (playing Kancha’s rival and Vijay’s mentor Rauf Lala) and Sanjay Dutt (who looks creepy enough to scare most people except when he’s speaking lines in Sanskrit) are all exceptional in the film. Roshan uses his eyes to express the turmoil his character goes through in the film, delivering a powerful performance.

from India Insight:

Indians furious at Jay Leno joke on Sikhism’s holiest shrine

By Ariana Wardak

American host Jay Leno has sparked anger among Sikhs with a joke about their holiest shrine and the Indian government is making its displeasure known.

In his 'Tonight Show' last week, the comedian poked fun at the wealth of U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney, suggesting that Sikhism’s holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, was his vacation home.

A complaint against Leno will be officially filed by India's ambassador to the United States, Nirupama Rao, after 2,000 people signed an online petition.

"The Right to Speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution excludes defamation and spreading hate, incitement and false advertising," the petition urged.

Leno's Golden Temple jibe comes just as India is juggling with another clash between religious sensitivities and freedom of speech.

On Tuesday, the Jaipur Literature Festival cancelled a video-link speech by author Salman Rushdie just minutes before it was scheduled to begin, after death threats to the organisers and fears of violent riots at the event by Muslim groups. Rushdie, whose 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses" is banned in India, last week cancelled plans to travel to Jaipur to address the festival in person after reported assassination threats against him.

Good Night Good Morning: Talk isn’t cheap

It’s not easy to sustain interest in a film that is about two people talking on the phone all night long. The characters have to be interesting enough, the dialogue has to sparkle and the length has to be just right.

In “Good Night, Good Morning”, director Sudhish Kamath manages to tick off most boxes, producing a film that will mostly keep you engaged and entertained, thanks to the two leads and some fresh writing.

Seema Rahmani and Manu Narayan play two lonely souls who meet each other at a bar in New York on New Year’s Eve. She goes back to her hotel room and he’s driving back with his friends when, on a whim, he calls her room. They get talking and the conversation doesn’t stop.

There isn’t a story beyond that except that the two talk about everything from movies, men and life, and in the process exorcise a lot of demons in their life. Both leads, Rahmani and Narayan, are very very good in their roles and if you didn’t know you were watching this movie in the theatre, you’d almost be forgiven for thinking you were looking in on two people talking.

On the other hand, Kamath does lose hold over the latter part of the film, when the conversation meanders and gets too heavy all of a sudden. The black-and-white look of the film also adds to the casual feel of the film.

This isn’t your everyday film — it doesn’t have a story or a villain or any tangible plot line — but if you want to try something different from the regular fare, I suggest you try this one.

Chaalis Chauraasi: Stellar cast, not-so-stellar film

The one thing director Hriday Shetty’s film “Chaalis Chauraasi” can boast of is a stellar cast. With actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni and Kay Kay Menon as his leads, and a story idea with lots of great possibilities, it’s safe to say this film sounds great on paper.

Of course, most films must sound good on paper or else no one would make them, but that’s another story (or a blog). “Chaalis Chauraasi” is fashioned as a caper film, in which four small-time crooks plan on getting their hands on a huge sum of money that is lying in a deserted house in the middle of nowhere.

They decide to disguise themselves as policemen, get hold of a police car and make their way to their destination, but as you’d guess, nothing is quite so simple and the plan doesn’t quite work as they expected.

Naseeruddin Shah plays Mohit Suri, the leader of the gang, and somewhat of a mentor to the other three. Kay Kay Menon plays Pinto (a car thief), Atul Kulkarni plays Bobby (a small-time pimp whose dream is to one day own a “world-class escort service”) and Ravi Kishan is Shakti (a drug trader).

Together, the four have a good chemistry on screen and their camaraderie is evident, but Shetty’s direction plays spoilsport. Like an errant driver who is never sure of where he’s going or when he should accelerate, Shetty keeps veering off track, introducing bad comedy tracks or meaningless item songs at crucial moments.

The item songs (three of them) are especially jarring, almost as if Shetty is trying to make up for the lack of a female lead. The film doesn’t have the tight pace a caper film should have, and some of the scenes are pretty amateurish.

For example, in one tense hotel room scene, where Kulkarni and Menon’s characters enter a room tentatively, looking for a gangster, the entire camera set-up and the cameraperson are reflected in a TV set in the room. That’s something you’d think a director would notice.

Players: Good action, bad acting

You cannot help but compare the last film of 2011 with the first film of 2012. Both have a lot in common — “Don 2″ and “Players” are both heist films, both borrow heavily from Hollywood movies and have their share of over-the-top cheesy moments. There is just one thing that sets “Players” apart — there’s a lot more action in this one.

Director duo Abbas-Mustan make sure there’s plenty to keep you on the edge of your seat, and even though the film drags on longer than it should, you are still not looking to bolt from the hall.

Borrowing from the premise of “The Italian Job”, “Players” tells the story of Charlie Fernandes (Abhishek Bachchan), who plans to rob gold bars worth billions of dollars while it is being transferred from one country to another by train.

He enlists the help of hardened criminal Victor Braganza (Vinod Khanna), who helps him put together a team of a hacker, illusionist, make-up artist and Riya (Bipasha Basu), Charlie’s trusted partner in earlier crimes.

They pull off the heist after an edge-of-the-seat sequence but that’s not quite the end of the story. I won’t reveal anymore because not everyone’s watched “The Italian Job”, but suffice it to say the directors add enough songs, comic tracks and corny dialogues to ensure they’ve “tailored” it to Indian tastes.

There are several plotholes, the acting is plain vanilla and you can see the myriad twists coming a mile away. What saves this film is that it’s styled well, shot well and has enough chases and high-octane sequences to keep you interested.

One of the biggest problem areas is the acting — not a single person from the ensemble cast stands out. It’s all one-note, except for Neil Nitin Mukesh who is marginally better than the others. Special mention for Sonam Kapoor, who needs to start thinking about her laboured acting and stop thinking about her styling.

Wishlist 2012: What would you like to see at the movies?

It’s the time for new beginnings and new resolutions, and for someone who covers the entertainment industry, it’s time for yet another year at the movies. Here’s a list of wishes I have for 2012. They may not all be possible, but hey, that’s why they’re called wishes right?

NO “LEAVE YOUR BRAIN BEHIND” FILMS: Let us get the seemingly impossible one out of the way. Can Bollywood please leave mindless comedies and crass humour involving genitalia, toilet humour and sundry other staples behind? There were too many “Rascals” and “Thank You” movies this year for my comfort. My number one wish is that Bollywood gets a real sense of humour.

SMART PUBLICITY CAMPAIGNS: Ekta Kapoor showed us that if you ensure your film is talked about from day one, even a non-hero film can take in a huge opening. “Ra.One” had a similar extensive campaign, but the poor reviews the film got meant the publicity got a negative tint. There’s a thin line between overdoing it and getting it right. Let’s hope more films get it right.

NO MORE FAMILY COLLABORATIONS: We know it’s all about loving your family, but can our industry do that off-screen. Tusshar Kapoor in his sister’s films, Shahid Kapur in his father’s film and so many others come to mind. How about picking an artist because they’re good and not because they’re related to you? Again, this seems impossible, given that several Bollywood production houses function like individual family businesses, but no harm in wishing, huh?

Don 2: Don’t expect too much

It’s been a while since Bollywood dished out a slick, fast-paced action film. Wait, who am I kidding? Bollywood doesn’t do fast-paced action films any more, we just turn to Hollywood to get our share of those. So kudos to Farhan Akhtar that he thought of attempting it — not once but twice.

While the first was a remake of the 70s hit “Don”, the sequel is an entirely new story, and doesn’t have too many connections with the previous film, except for some of the characters who make a comeback.

We are introduced to Don (Shah Rukh Khan), five years after he escaped from the clutches of police — with longer hair and the entire Asian drug trade at his command. When he decides to move his trade to Europe, drug lords there decide that Don is better off dead. To escape from their clutches, and hoping to stay safe in prison, Don surrenders to Interpol officer Roma (Priyanka Chopra), who till 5 years ago, was part of his gang. How she makes that switch, we are never told.

Inexplicably, the minute he gets inside prison, Don makes a plan to escape. If all he wanted to do was escape immediately, why surrender in the first place? And that’s the first of the plot holes. Unfortunately, Akhtar makes no attempt to plug any of these holes — they only grow larger as the film progresses.

Don escapes with Vardhan (Boman Irani) and plans for a daring heist in Berlin with Roma hot on his trail.

Akhtar channels his inner Steven Soderbergh and a lot of the plot sounds similar to “Ocean’s Eleven”. However, what’s missing from this action film is some pace. If an action film begins to drag and you lose interest in the plot halfway, you know something’s wrong. By the time the climax rolls around and shows no sign of ending, you are squirming in your seat. In the last ten minutes, I had no idea why the characters were doing what they were doing.

There are plot holes the size of craters. The Interpol is shown to be as clueless as the audience, which I refuse to believe. On the plus side, the film is packaged very well and there are some sequences which make sure you are on the edge of your seat, especially the car chase sequence through the streets of Berlin.

Happy Birthday Rajnikanth

Blame it on “Robot“. Last year, when Rajnikanth’s film opened in cinemas, not only did it become a huge hit, it also unleashed another pop culture phenomenon on the rest of India — Rajnikanth jokes.

Soon, it was all you would hear — in local trains, on your Facebook feed, over lunch in the office cafeteria and in your SMS inbox — each instance starting with: this is the best Rajnikanth joke ever.

You have to hand it to them though, most of them were pretty funny, even though they were copied from the Chuck Norris brand of jokes. And what they did is reinforce to a whole lot of people who don’t live in south India — what a phenomenon Rajnikanth is, if you didn’t know it already.

My favourite one is: Rajnikanth wanted to play cricket, so the rain was delayed due to start of play (or something to that effect).

And of course, today, on Rajnikanth’s birthday, the one doing the rounds is “Happy Rajnikanth, Birthday”.

Which is your favourite Rajnikanth joke?

Ladies vs Ricky Bahl: One-time fun

You cannot help but feel that Maneesh Sharma’s “Ladies vs Ricky Bahl” is a mash-up of past Yash Raj films like “Badmaash Company”, “Bunty Aur Babli” and even “Bachna Ae Haseeno”.

The story is one you’ve seen before — a smart-talking con man takes off with suitcases of money after tricking three very gullible women.

When the women decide to exact revenge, they hire the equally smart-talking Ishika (played by Anushka Sharma), to trap Ricky, whose name they don’t even know. The trio find him in Goa and unleash Ishika on him — posing as a rich heiress out to open a restaurant.

Ishika lures Ricky with the promise of a 5 million dollar investment and he agrees to make an initial investment in her venture — not knowing the money is actually going to the three girls he had conned.

The film has a nice, breezy pace and the first half, which chronicles how Ricky cons the three girls, is snappy and interesting. Parineeti Chopra, who plays the spoilt, outspoken Delhi girl Dimple sparkles throughout the film and has some of the best lines. Dipannita Sharma as the no-nonsense Reva and Aditi Sharma as the demure Lucknow girl are memorable and it is the scenes between these three, as they banter while planning revenge, which are the high points of the film.

Sharma manages to keep the tone light and the length isn’t too draining on your nerves but the film never rises beyond these two points. Ranveer’s character is just shown as a con man, with no back story and no reasoning about why he is the way he is. The ending of “Ladies vs Ricky Bahl”, without giving too much away, is too neatly tied up and very predictable.

I wish Sharma had been a bit more adventurous with this film, given he was riding on the success of his last film “Band Baaja Baaraat”.

Waiting for Mr Cruise

Spending Sunday evening standing in a dusty, arid place, waiting more than three hours for one person to show up, is certainly not my idea of fun. However, when the person in question is Tom Cruise, the equation changes.

Mr Cruise was to turn up at a red carpet event in Mumbai, organised before a fan screening of his latest film — “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”

But in comparison to the many red carpet events I have seen, this was in complete contrast. There were no crowds outside the theatre, and hardly any inside the arena. In fact, organisers were seen herding people into the fan arena and handing them paper, so that they could write slogans on it and hold them up for Cruise to see.

In spite of all that effort, though, when Cruise did land up, the red carpet had none of the buzz you see abroad. A few fans shouted ‘Tom, we love you” half-heartedly and waved some posters, but that didn’t help much.

Cruise had his usual dazzling smile in place and stopped to sign autographs at the fan enclosure, but minutes before he walked the red carpet, organisers were urging fans to fill up the fan enclosure, assuring them that it was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

That’s surprising, considering Cruise was the first A-list Hollywood star to land in India for a promotional tour and has legions of fans worldwide. You’d think some of them would be in India – a market that is growing in terms of Hollywood releases.