India Masala
Bollywood and culture in an emerging India
Ek Thi Daayan: It’s the witching hour
(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily of Reuters)
At the end of the first half of Kannan Iyer’s “Ek Thi Daayan”, you may be forgiven for harbouring an unnatural dread of elevators or old abandoned buildings. Except for a few scenes, director Iyer keeps you on the edge of your seat with the spectre of a witch seen through the eyes of a child.
Emraan Hashmi plays Bobo, a magician who is so haunted by his past that it hampers his future with girlfriend Tamara (Huma Qureshi) and comes in the way of his profession. He seeks help from his shrink, who hypnotises him so that he can go back to his childhood and put those demons to rest. The flashback, where we see the 11-year-old Bobo dealing with a woman he’s convinced is a witch, is the most effective part of “Ek Thi Daayan”.
Konkona Sen Sharma is deliciously good as Diana – the mysterious neighbour who terrifies Bobo and his younger sister Misha but enthrals their father (Pavan Malhotra). Bobo is convinced Diana isn’t what she seems to be, and his quest to find the truth leads to some of the film’s scariest moments. There are the usual creaking doors and abandoned buildings, staples of the horror genre, but Iyer does make you jump out of your seat a couple of times.
Raaz 3: Horror gone bad
An ageing actress, her almost obsessive desire to stay at the top and destroy her rivals – all of this sounds like fodder for a good drama, and it is a theme that has been explored several times. Trust Vikram Bhatt to add ghosts, flying cockroaches and strange graveyard rituals to that concoction to give you the horror that is “Raaz 3“.
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Bipasha Basu plays Shanaya Shekhar, a top actress who is so obsessed with her success she will do whatever it takes to hold on to it. When a younger actress begins to upstage her, she gets desperate. And by desperate, I mean really desperate. So much so, that she agrees to enlist the help of a spirit, who promises to torture Sanjana (Esha Gupta).
Shanghai: The story of India
There are some films that you watch, not because you want (as Vidya Balan claims in ‘The Dirty Picture’) “entertainment, entertainment, entertainment”, but because they are a reflection of the times we live in, and if these movies didn’t get made, these chaotic times wouldn’t be chronicled for eternity.
Dibakar Banerjee certainly seems determined to be that chronicler for India. In his fourth film “Shanghai”, Banerjee keeps the grittiness of “Love, Sex Aur Dhokha” or “Khosla Ka Ghosla“, but gets more ambitious, with his canvas, dealing with murkier issues like urbanisation, development and the politics of today’s India.
Jannat 2: This sequel is not paradise regained
In the first ten minutes of Kunal Deshmukh’s second instalment of the “Jannat” series, the director sets up his principal characters, establishes a romance angle and even adds a song for good measure. He also manages to inject no originality or freshness in any of these facets of the film, with the result that “Jannat 2” never really takes off, maintaining a staid pace throughout its two-and-half-hour duration.
Deshmukh borrows nothing from the original “Jannat”, except for his lead hero and the vague notion of a protagonist who seeks heaven on earth — mostly in the arms of a coy lady.
Murder 2: The bad guy makes it good
Mohit Suri’s “Murder 2” may sound like a sequel to the Mallika Sherawat starrer “Murder” but believe me, it is nothing like the earlier film.
While that one had what was at best a wishy-washy murder, this one goes all out — there is blood, sadism, a twisted mind and one of the most sinister villains you have seen in Bollywood in a long time.
Tum Mile: Be prepared to drown in boredom
Cyclone Phyan may have scared the wits out of Mumbaikars but it certainly provided a good enough platform to director Kunal Deshmukh for his film “Tum Mile”.
The rain scenes in the film and its reference to a similar tragedy could have hit home if it had been made compellingly. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.
A House for Mr Hashmi
When you are a Bollywood actor in Mumbai, doors open automatically — or at least so you would think. But as Shabana Azmi, Aamir Ali and now Emraan Hashmi have discovered, there are some doors which remain shut.
Hashmi has complained to the Minorities Commission of Maharashtra that he and members of his family were not allowed to buy a flat in the posh locality of Bandra — because of his religion.
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