India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
Tezz: Slow and unsteady
Film-maker Ram Gopal Varma, in a recent chat, said films are like products which have to be manufactured and treated accordingly. I’m sure Priyadarshan agrees. He certainly seems to make his films like assembly line products — all style, no substance.
“Tezz“, similar to the Japanese movie “The Bullet Train”, is supposed to be a high-speed action thriller about a bomb on a long-distance train. Ajay Devgn plays Aakash Rana, an illegal immigrant in London who is deported to India, along with his co-workers after he is found working without a permit.
Anyone else would’ve found a better way to reclaim their life but Aakash hits upon the idea of planting a bomb on a train and asking for ransom, so that he can take revenge on a government which wants to deport “hardworking people” (notwithstanding minor details like whether they have a valid work visa or not).
He enlists the help of his co-workers and fellow illegal immigrants Megha (Sameera Reddy) and Adil (Zayed Khan). As the train races from London towards its destination and Aakash makes the ransom call, he realises he is up against two Indian officials (how all the top UK law enforcement officials are Indian is a mystery to me).
Anil Kapoor is in his “24” avatar as a police officer out to get the bomber while Boman Irani uses the same two-and-a-half expressions he has had since “Munnabhai MBBS” in his role as the railway security officer.
The one actor truly wasted in this movie is Malayalam superstar Mohanlal, saddled with a two-bit role and some atrocious dialogue, as a police officer on board the ill-fated train.
Director Priyadarshan isn’t bothered by plot holes the size of craters and dialogue and situations that are inane to say the least. But that wasn’t my problem with the film.
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.
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.
Khan is ” don ” A MOVIE SHOULD NEVER BE EXPECTED,,, BECAUSE ALL WON THINK THE SAME,,, REVIEW DEPANDS ON THE MIND ON WHICH YOU SEEING THE MOVIE. SO IF YOU HAVE DISLIKES YOU SHOULD MENTION THAT AS MINUS AND PLUS. ONE TIME WATCH, THAT PEOPLE CAN DECIDE.
Force: If only muscles could act
When a movie has at least three prominent product placements in the first ten minutes of a film, you are bound to cringe. Nishikant Kamat’s “Force” will make you wince, at least in the first half of the film, and not just because of the product placements. Thankfully, unlike most films, this one gets better — so there is hope yet.
Kamat, who earlier directed “Mumbai Meri Jaan” — on the Mumbai train blasts and its aftermath — now turns to the essential cop film. You know the drill — honest, upright police officer, out to finish the bad guys (the drug dealers in this case), falls in love with bubbly girl whose only actual function is two songs and being kidnapped by the bad guys, and lots of action scenes in deserted warehouses.
John Abraham plays Yashvardhan, the honest officer in question. Out to finish off all the drug lords in India, he comes across a man who claims he can provide him with information of drug lords all over the country. Without stopping to think, Yashvardhan goes out to finish them, never once questioning how one person knows so much about people the entire police force can’t seem to trace.
Of course, it turns out that the “informer” was just a henchman of another drug lord (played by newcomer Vidyut) who wanted to finish off his competition. When they finally realise their mistake, Yashvardhan and his team of three pursue the drug lord who is now on their trail.
This is not a new story but Kamat does bring a good amount of style to the film, which is its saving grace. There are holes in the script the size of craters, Genelia D’Souza grates on your nerves with her fake shrill laugh, and the less you talk about John Abraham’s expressions, the better it is.
This could have been another “Dabangg” or even a “Ghajini” for all the blood and gore and cosmetic bullet wounds that are showcased here, but the leading man lacks the personality that such a film requires. When he is required to produce expressions of any kind, all he can do is flex his muscles.
If only John Abraham’s muscles could act, “Force” would have been a good film. As it stands though, this is at best an average cop thriller. Watch at your own peril.
It sounds like you’ve confused the character with the actor. John Abraham’s character was supposed to be that of an unemotional, focused police officer. A strong, but silent type. I thought he carried that off with aplomb. I also found it believable that the only type of girl who might reach his heart was someone like Maya – a lively girl who spoke her mind. I didn’t think the film was flawless, but I did think the leads (John Abraham, Genelia d’Souza and Vidyut Jamwal) all acted well. They were believable, as opposed to over the top.
Bodyguard: Protect yourself
Watching a Salman Khan film ‘first day first show’ is an experience in itself. I watched it in a multiplex, where there were snaking queues full of excited fans, hoping they’d get tickets for the first show of “Bodyguard”. They were hooting, cheering and screaming in the aisles even before the movie started.
When Khan made his appearance on screen a few minutes into the film, grown men were dancing and cheering him on. This is clearly a star with ample charisma and a fanatical fan following who don’t care for technicalities like good cinema. “Bodyguard”, written and directed by Siddique, is in the same mould as Salman’s earlier Eid hits “Wanted” and “Dabangg”, showcasing the star’s romancing, fighting and comedy skills, thus rendering things like the story and screenplay useless.
Khan plays Lovely Singh, a security officer with an agency, who is assigned the task of protecting the daughter of a rich man from imminent danger. The girl in question (Kareena Kapoor) resents him tailing her all the time, and in the hope of distracting him, makes calls to Lovely Singh, pretending to be a girl who has a crush on him.
Lovely falls for it, and for someone who is supposed to be alert, remains entirely clueless that his phone girlfriend actually lives in the same house as him. There are also some bad guys waiting in the wings to orchestrate fight sequences from time to time, and a twist to the romance angle in the end.
However, this twist is executed so badly, it makes you laugh. The director here is merely incidental and that shows. The gags are not funny at all, some are offensive and the dialogue is lacklustre. Unlike “Dabangg” and “Wanted”, this film doesn’t have a lot of action or pace, which drags for most of the first half.
Salman Khan is unusually subdued in this film, but Kareena makes up for it with her exuberance. The dance moves and songs seem like a rehash of “Dabangg” and “Ready”, making you wonder how many variations of the same film we will have to go through before they finally stop.
The screaming crowd might have been wondering too, because by the end of two hours, they had gone silent, and I even heard some booing towards the end. Unless you are a die-hard Salman Khan fan, please protect yourself from this film.
Singham: Ham, beef and not much else
Rohit Shetty’s “Singham”, a remake of a Tamil film, is a cop movie that is perhaps meant as a tribute to the 80s “angry young man” and the theme of the lone, honest police officer taking on the rotting system.
Ajay Devgn plays that honest cop — Bajirao Singham, a police inspector in a remote village in Goa who maintains peace and calm in the village by using his goodwill with the villagers. When he is transferred to “Goa city” (I always thought it was a state) after crossing paths with a don-turned-politician, Singham is confronted with a corrupt system, cynical co-workers and threats from the politician.
Singham decides that brute force is the only way he can counter those threats. He delivers a long, impassioned and utterly hilarious (unintentionally) speech to his fellow police officers. Singham convinces them the only way to confront the problem is to kill the politician and make it look like an accident. So much for ethics and transparency.
Director Shetty thinks it is OK for police officers to take turns kicking the backside of a minister (this is an actual scene) or coerce people into changing their statements, so long as the end seems to justify the means.
In one scene, a character even imitates Amitabh Bachchan’s character in “Zanjeer”, but given the amount of hamming, over-the-top acting and pedestrian dialogues this film is brimming over with, the scene seems almost farcical.
I almost felt Shetty thought to himself, “hey, if I can make over-the-top, nonsensical comedies like ‘Golmaal’ work, maybe I should try the same formula in a cop film”. Perhaps that is why in the climax scene, he has the entire police force of “Goa city” standing in the politician’s living room, discussing how to kill him, and even making jokes about it, while the politician himself cowers in fear.
It would be funny if it were not so cringeworthy.
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The Wall
