India Masala

Ready or not, here comes mindless cinema

I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned this before, but there really should be a template created just for the kind of cinema Anees Bazmee’s “Ready” represents, because having to find something to say about a film that seems like the exact replica of ten other films you have seen recently, is a very tough job.

There is always a rich hero, an airhead of a heroine, long-haired, weird looking villains who make sporadic appearances and brandish guns, bumbling aunts and uncles and loads of toilet humour. You can also call it mass cinema, formula films or the oft-used “leave-your-brains-behind-cinema.”

The rich hero in this case is Salman Khan, of course, who plays Prem, the scion of a rich family full of goofy uncles and aunts, all of whom want him to get married. They arrange to get him married to a girl of their choice, but thanks to a misunderstanding, he ends up falling in love with Sanjana, an orphan who has run away from her tyrannical uncles.

Sanjana’s uncles, we are told, want to get her married to a groom of their choice, so that they can lay their hands on her massive wealth. Prem, we are also told can buy them off “like that”, but “unless there are obstacles in the path of love, there is no fun.”

Kucch Luv Jaisaa: Not a fun ride

A bored, under-appreciated housewife, who decides to break out of her monotony, meets a stranger and spends a day with him — not knowing who he is, or what his motives are and discovers a different side to her personality.

To her credit, director Barnali Ray Shukla does have an interesting premise at the heart of “Kucch Luv Jaisaa” but a good idea doesn’t always translate into a good film and this is the perfect example.

Ragini MMS: Scary stuff

If you’ve watched Hollywood horror flicks like “Paranormal Activity”and “The Blair Witch Project”, you will find the narrative style in Pavan Kirpalani’s “Ragini MMS” very familiar.

The camera is the narrator; you see the film through its eyes and that adds to the fear factor. Even the most innocuous of objects looks scary in pitch dark, with just the camera’s lens providing illumination.

Luv Ka The End: Bumpy ride

“Luv Ka The End” is Yashraj Film’s first foray into a genre they call “youth films”, or films they think are tailor-made for the under-25 audience. But as all teenagers will know, there’s a thin line between being cool and trying too hard. This film is trying too hard, and there’s no two ways about it.

Unfunny gags, over-smart dialogues and one-dimensional characters do not a cool film make. Nor do obvious product placements, for that matter.

Shor in the City: Smart writing makes a smart movie

It’s OK not to have too many expectations from “Shor in the City” — I know I didn’t. After all, it doesn’t have a great star cast, there hasn’t been too much buzz around it and except for the music (the lilting ‘Saibo’ number especially), the promos didn’t really stick in your mind.

The movie, however, is a whole other story. This is a smart film — one that hooks you from the get-go and doesn’t let up. Co-directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D K are sure of their craft and confident in their script and it shows.

I Am: Intentions good, not execution

The one thing you must appreciate about Onir’s “I Am” is the attempt to do something away from the trodden path — India’s first crowdfunded film. Director Onir and his team invited ordinary citizens and film lovers from all parts of the world to contribute to the film by donating as little as 1,000 rupees in return for a mention in the film’s credits as a co-producer.

Onir’s intentions are also obviously in the right place when it comes to this film, but if intentions were the criteria by which we could judge films, there wouldn’t be a bad film in the world. Through four intertwined stories, he raises issues like child abuse, displacement of Kashmiri pandits and discrimination against homosexuals. Where he does go wrong is in the treatment of those issues and their execution.

Dum Maaro Dum: Wayward, but worth a watch

Rohan Sippy’s “Dum Maaro Dum” attempts to take a hard look at the drug mafia in the tourist heaven of Goa through the eyes of a ruthless police officer. Abhishek Bachchan plays the protagonist Vishnu Kamat, a once-corrupt officer who mends his ways and is called on to “clean Goa of drugs” by an ailing minister. Sippy uses a non-linear mode of narration, zigzagging from one character to another, lending a zippy pace to the first half of the film. Part of the film’s landscape is Lorry (Prateik) a young student who is lured into the drug trade in exchange for the dream of a life in the United States. Also criss-crossing his paths are Joki, (Rana Daggubati), a laidback musician and his one-time girlfriend turned gangster’s moll, Zoe (Bipasha Basu). Thanks to some good writing and zany dialogues, Sippy manages to keep you engrossed in the first half of the film, even though he is let down by a some-what weak performance from his lead actor. Sridhar Raghavan’s dialogue is sparkling for the most part and you can almost forgive him some school boyish lines, like “aajkal criminals bhi Facebook aur Twitter pe hai” (These days, even criminals are on Facebook and Twitter), uttered by Kamath after going through a suspect’s phone. Sippy tries to pack in too much and ends up doing no justice any of the tracks in the film. His villain is named Biscuitta and there is a sequence in which Bachchan raps his way through a couple of police encounters, which looks ridiculous and far from cool. Abhishek Bachchan doesn’t bring anything new to his character, nor does Southern actor Rana Daggubati, making his Bollywood debut in the film. Nevertheless, this one is worth a watch for the great cinematography (Amit Roy) and some good writing. “Dum Maaro Dum” could have been much better had the director seemed more in control of the film, but it is better than most of what Bollywood has dished out this year. I suggest you give this one a chance.

Rohan Sippy’s “Dum Maaro Dum” attempts to take a hard look at the drug mafia in the tourist haven of Goa through the eyes of a ruthless police officer.

Abhishek Bachchan plays the protagonist Vishnu Kamat, a once corrupt officer who mends his ways and is called on to “clean Goa of drugs” by an ailing minister. Sippy uses a non-linear mode of narration, zigzagging from one character to another, lending a zippy pace to the first half of the film.

Teen Thay Bhai: No brotherly love

At one point in director Mrighdeep Singh Lamba’s movie, “Teen Thay Bhai”, one of the protagonists wakes up in a police van, looks around blearily and asks his brothers, “Where are these police constipators taking us?”. Of course, he means constables. At that point, you will know, or at least I did, that this film was beyond redemption. Shreyas Talpade plays the offender, Fancy Gill, a small-time Punjabi actor who, along with his two elder brothers is forced to spend a couple of days in a deserted mountain home every year, as part of a condition in their grandfather’s will. Of course, the trio cannot stand each other and fight and claw their way through those two days, even tying up each other with rope and stuffing their faces down chimney’s. Om Puri and Deepak Dobriyal play the other two brothers – Chixi and Happy – and the film is essentially nothing but a long-drawn out, unfunny and ridiculous film that gets more and more ridiculous as the script wears out and the director resorts to gags and toilet humour to save the day. Eventually, the brothers end up getting arrested for possession of narcotics, beating up a police officer, escaping from jail, getting entangled with a group of foreigners who feed them paranthas and chasing random men around snowy slopes. By this time I had lost track. There really isn’t much more to say about this excuse of a film – except that Deepak Dobriyal is the only one who seems to be trying to make something out of his role as a meek dentist. Avoid.

At one point in director Mrighdeep Singh Lamba’s movie “Teen Thay Bhai”, one of the protagonists wakes up in a police van, looks around blearily and asks his brothers, “Where are these police constipators taking us?”

Of course, he meant constables. At that point, you will know or at least I did, that this film is beyond redemption.

No, Thank You

I’m going to keep this one short because there’s really not much I can say about Anees Bazmee’s “Thank You” that I haven’t already said about films of this genre – in other words, the “leave your brains at home” films that we seem to churn out with alarming regularity. This one seems to be a re-hash of Bazmee’s earlier “No Entry”, which at least had a couple of nice songs and some funny moments. This one has nothing but offensive dialogue, bad jokes and even worse acting. Akshay Kumar plays Kishen, a modern day love doctor who spies on philandering husbands and helps their wives take “revenge” on them. The film runs on the premise that men are sure to stray, but, like the men in the movie, if they catch their wives even pretending to have an affair, they can take the high moral ground and lecture them on the sanctity of marriage. Bobby Deol plays one of those men, Raj, while Irrfan Khan and Suneil Shetty play his friends. All three are having affairs with various women and get away with it by throwing flimsy excuses at their wives, which the women gladly gobble up. That is, until Kishen comes into the picture, ensures that their wives exact revenge on them and leave the men pining. Of course, the fact that he’s been caught cheating several times and doesn’t even seem to regret it doesn’t stop Bobby Deol’s character from delivering a five minute monologue to his wife Sanjana (Sonam Kapoor) on how she’s hasn’t respected their marriage by flirting with Kishen. “At least I did it on the sly, but you are doing it openly”, he tells her. Who can argue with such sound logic? Of the cast, only Irrfan Khan looks remotely comfortable in his role, while everyone else is rank bad. Special mention to Sonam Kapoor who looks lovely but cannot emote genuinely in a single scene – especially for a woman who is supposed to be going through the heartbreak of infidelity. If you liked “No Problem” “Housefull” and “Kambakkhth Ishq”, then this might be the film for you. Everyone else, run far away from any theatre showing this film.

I’m going to keep this one short because there’s really not much I can say about Anees Bazmee’s “Thank You” that I haven’t already said about films of this genre – in other words, the “leave your brains at home” films that we seem to churn out with alarming regularity.

This one seems to be a re-hash of Bazmee’s earlier “No Entry”, which at least had a couple of nice songs and some funny moments. This one has nothing but offensive dialogue, bad jokes and even worse acting.

Game: This one’s a washout

Everybody loves a good murder – and unfortunately, Bollywood doesn’t do too many of them. Abhinay Deo’s “Game” tries to fill that void, with a murder mystery about a tycoon who is shot dead on his private island.

Anupam Kher plays the dead man, Kabir Malhotra, one of the world’s richest men who mysteriously invites four strangers to his private island in Greece, because he believes they have something to do with the death of his abandoned daughter Maya (Sarah Jane Dias).