India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
Gali Gali Chor Hai: Well intentioned, badly made
Given that director Rumy Jaffry’s film “Gali Gali Chor Hai” deals with the burning issue of corruption, one would assume there would be no lack of material. Jaffry concentrates on corruption at the lower level and the everyday struggle of the common man who has to deal with this malaise as he tries to get on with life.
Akshaye Khanna plays Bharat, a meek bank cashier who lives in a dilapidated house with his wife, father and a pretty paying guest. When he rubs off a local politician the wrong way, trouble starts.
On the pretext of returning stolen goods, a local constable (Annu Kapoor) traps Bharat in an unending maze of red tape and corruption — all for a decrepit fan which doesn’t even belong to him in the first place.
Like I said in the beginning, Jaffry has a good idea — to portray the struggle of a common man against a corrupt and inefficient system, and to use satire as a medium to depict that struggle — and it does sound good on paper.
In reality though, there isn’t much holding the script together. Jaffry packs in unnecessary plot points — like that of a pretty paying guest (Mughda Godse) and Bharat’s wife’s (Shriya Saran) jealousy and a last minute terrorist angle.
There are few moments of humour and they come from the Ramlila scenes. Bharat plays Hanuman in the local play while the local politician plays Ram. Here, Jaffry manages to inject some genuine humour and satire; reminiscent of, but definitely not matching up to, Kundan Shah’s “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro”.
Of the cast, Akshaye Khanna, Satish Kaushik and Annu Kapoor give it their best but are pulled down by a bad script. Also, the climax of the film feels cobbled up together, as if the director couldn’t decide which direction the story should go.
Aakrosh: Not really about honour killing
Use a ruler to draw a straight line. Then try to draw another straight line freehand. Sometimes you get it right, sometimes you get it all wrong.
“Aakrosh” which has been ‘filmed’ by Priyadarshan gets it absolutely right, Bollywood style.
The straight line is the Hollywood movie “Mississippi Burning” which has been around for two decades.
The characters and some of the plot devices are the same.
If you have seen the Gene Hackman (Ajay Devgan) and Willem Dafoe (Akshaye Khanna) starrer you would know what happens next and who’s who.
My only issue is that the movie begins with some references to the spate of honour killings reported in the media.
To anyone who can stop this honor killing please act now. (2nd Feb, 2011)
My cook’s(Lalit Kamti) younger brother Rupak Kamti(16 years), and his friend, Kaushal Dhobi(18-or 19 years old) study at Samastipur zilla College, and go for tuitions at Darbhanga in Bihar, IN. They are from a village Vishnupur Diha in Samastipur zilla, Bihar, IN.
Two girls (sisters, not twins, one older and one younger (16 and 17 years) from the village, young teenagers decided to get to Darbhnaga which is like a big city for them. The girls are called Preeti and Chanda Rai. Since they’re all from the same village, once the girls reached Darbhanga, they called the two boys and within a span of a few hours the village started a hue and cry about how the girls have run away. Now, the girls were scared, so they refused to come back to the village. The boys come back in the weekend anyways since they have no tuition.
The village immediately sort of zeroed in on them when they visited this weekend cause Chanda used to hang around near Kaushal at times. The villagers kept harassing them so they ran back to Darbhnaga. Now the problem is, the village has ascertained that the boys have run away with the girls, and there’s a honor killing order on them from the sarpanch. They’re looking for the teenagers to kill them.
In fear, they even married. Both are obviously underage weddings and can’t be legalized but that’s what they did in fear and to deal with immediate consequences.
If anyone can save them please call/email, I’ll give you my cook’s number, and he has his brothers number. All 4 kids are hiding in Darbhanga.
‘Short Kut’ takes the long, boring route
Somewhere in Bollywood, there has to be a movie-making machine.
All you do is insert a reel, change a few specifications (perhaps the hero’s name and occupation or the reason for a romantic obstacle with his leading lady) and wait for a “masala” movie to pop up, fresh and ready to hit unsuspecting audiences.
How else do you explain a movie like “Short Kut: The Con is On“?
This one is supposed to be a sometimes funny, sometimes emotional comedy about a struggling filmmaker and his double-crosser friend. It turns out to be neither.
Akshaye Khanna plays Shekhar, an aspiring filmmaker who believes in taking no shortcuts to success and is in love with actress Mansi (Amrita Rao).
Arshad Warsi plays Raju, a down-and-out actor desperately looking for a break. A producer promises to make a movie for him if he brings him a brilliant script. Raju steals the script written by Shekhar and the resulting film is a hit at the box-office.
Shekhar’s life pretty much collapses around him but he is determined to get back to cinema, which remains his passion. How he does so and gets his own against Raju forms the rest of the plot.
Wow – bull’s eye! Thanks for this post. I bookmarked it.
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The Wall
