India Masala

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu: A rom-com that “gets” it

Through the first half, Shakun Batra’s romantic comedy “Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu” follows an entirely predictable path — boy and girl meet, get drunk, get married and realise they don’t want to stay married. Circumstances dictate they must spend time together while waiting for their marriage to get annulled. At the interval, one of them even has the “I’m in love” epiphany.

Of course, you don’t mind the predictable storyline because there is zippy dialogue, some great writing and the performances are in tune with all of the above. So far, so good. But we all know the second half is where it gets tricky, and not too many film-makers know how to end well. Well, clear all doubts now.  Batra is not one of  them.

The second half of the film is even better than the first, because it adds an element of unpredictability to the mix of great dialogue, writing and acting — and what you have is a Bollywood rom-com that is funny, romantic and mature enough for today’s audiences.

Imran Khan plays Rahul, a poor little rich boy in Las Vegas, cowering from his overbearing parents and too “uptight” for his age, as a family friend tells him. He bumps into Riana Braganza, a scatter-brained, effervescent hair stylist, and on a drunken night out, the two get married. Of course, they wake up the next day with a massive hangover and the realisation they have made a huge mistake.

They apply for an annulment and since Riana is broke and doesn’t have  a place to stay, she camps at Rahul’s house. They hit it off, and he realises he’s in love.

From this point on, Batra takes the path less travelled — there’s some good writing (by Ayesha Devitre and Batra himself) and the performances really pick up. Kareena Kapoor is the star of the film — you cannot take your eyes off her. Imran Khan is the perfect foil to her energy, and together the two of them add that much needed ingredient to a romantic film — chemistry.

If you are a sucker for romance, don’t miss this one. Even if you aren’t, I’d give this one a chance, “Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu” will be worth your while.

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.

Golmaal 3: Thrice as painful

If you’ve seen the earlier two “Golmaal” films, you have a fair inkling of what the third one is about. These are custom-made films, tailored to the “festive mood” when filmmakers think audiences will laugh at anything and pay any amount of money if you promise them a fun-filled entertaining film.

If that means you have the customary toilet humour, so be it. If that means you have to fit in a criminal, a bumbling police officer and five songs in a two-hour film, so be it. And if it means replacing good writing with slapstick, crass humour, who cares? As long as you can disguise swear words ingeniously, get a dog to bite a man’s backside and bring in some emotion towards the end. The laughs will come because people are in a festive mood – at least that’s the formula.

Director Rohit Shetty doesn’t waver from this formula. As a result, there really isn’t much of a story to tell. Basically, five unemployed men live with their parents and do nothing constructive all day except play pranks on each other.

There are all kind of gags to support this “laugh all you can” package that the film offers viewers. Most of them involve some form of slapstick or toilet humour. I cannot think of a single scene that has clever writing or a genuine comic moment.

I don’t understand the logic of leave-your-brain-behind movies. I take my brain everywhere I go, including to Rohit Shetty’s films. And let me tell you, my brain didn’t like this one. In fact, thanks to this film, even the festive feeling is gone. Stay away from “Golmaal 3”.

We are Family: Pretty shallow

Before I get to talking about the film, I have one question about “We are Family” and films like it — why is it that they are invariably based in foreign countries and feature designer clothes, homes and even designer deaths?

To me, this film could well have been based in Mumbai, have had the same characters and it wouldn’t have made any difference to the story or screenplay. Even a person in the last stages of terminal illness has full make-up on.

Which is one of the biggest problems of the film — everything about it is so cosmetic, even the emotions, that it’s hard to be touched by anything. Based on the 1998 Hollywood film “Stepmom”, the only Indian-ness the script has is to insert clichés about what an ideal Indian woman should be.

Kajol plays Maya, the “ideal Indian mother” who, besides a passing reference to her job in publishing, does nothing besides fuss around her three kids. Her ex-husband Aman (Arjun Rampal) is in love with fashion designer Shreya (Kareena Kapoor) but all attempts to get his kids to like her are in vain.

When Maya discovers she has terminal cancer, Aman decides to go back to help her. Maya decides that isn’t enough and wants Shreya to help out with the kids, telling her that every Indian woman comes with a motherhood gene.

If this motherhood gene means you take your pre-teen kids to a karaoke pub, where there are people drinking alchohol and the parents are on stage dancing to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ while the kids watch, who are we to question it?

Director Sidharth Malhotra plays too safe and doesn’t explore any of the dynamics of a household that has two women fighting for a man and his children. Also, Rampal and the kids put in such a watered-down performance compared to the two women, you wonder why they are fighting for them in the first place.

Milenge Milenge: Outdated and unwatchable

Watching “Milenge Milenge” is like finishing an entire bottle of tomato ketchup. Ketchup that was manufactured a decade or two earlier. So eating it/watching this movie will ensure that a) you won’t enjoy it and b) it will be harmful to your health because the product is long past its expiry date.

This is one of those films that didn’t get released at a time when it should have — that is when Kareena Kapoor’s peroxide hair was in vogue, landlines were more in use than mobiles and sequined dresses were considered fashionable.

Unfortunately, like all of the above, this film is way past its “best before” date and hence almost entirely unwatchable. Kareena Kapoor plays Priya Malhotra, an incredibly gullible girl who decides she wants to spend the rest of her life with a boy based on the three days she spends with him.

Shahid Kapur plays Immy, an incredibly arrogant young man, who thinks he can get a girl to fall in love with him by lying to her and pretending to be holier-than-thou.

Somehow, the two fall in love but when it becomes clear that Immy is a drinking, cigarette-smoking liar (all qualities Priya hates), she dumps him.

When he pleads with Priya to get her back, she decides to let destiny decide their fate. This somehow involves a 50-rupee note and a 30-rupee book on numerology. Don’t ask me to explain further.

Immy doesn’t agree initially, pointing out their meeting is destined because they meet at a mall which is called ‘Destiny’. It gets better but don’t let me spoil the fun.

3 Idiots: Lacks punch, but feels really good

I must admit I had apprehensions going in to watch Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘3 Idiots’, inspite of the immense buzz that has surrounded the film.

One of my biggest qualms was how the director could hope to get away with casting middle aged men as college going boys.

That apprehension disappeared within the first 15 minutes of the film, because R Madhavan, Sharman Joshi and Aamir Khan play their roles so convincingly and with so much heart, that the age factor goes out of the window.

The film starts extremely well. Hirani infuses the first half of this film with his trademark sense of everyday humour and shapes up his characters with so much affection, that you are sucked into the story. Aamir Khan plays Ranchoddas Shaymaldas Chajaad, an engineering student who has so much optimism and good will to share that some times it seems too good to be true (which it is, but we shall come back to that later.)

His two roommates Farhan and Raju don’t share his bubbling enthusiasm, but willingly go along with him on the many rides he takes them on.

They include fudging up a speech, fooling professors and playing tricks on all and sundry, as they go through their life in engineering college.

Rancho develops a strained relationship with the college dean played by Boman Irani, who believes in the old fashioned methods of teaching.

Kurbaan: Old wine, better packaged

If you watched Kabir Khan’s “New York” this summer, you won’t find much novelty in Rensil D’Silva’s “Kurbaan”. The storyline is pretty much the same, except for a few cosmetic differences.

There is an educated, suave man living a double life as a terrorist, his beautiful wife who doesn’t know about his identity and the “third man” who tries to help the family.

However, D’Silva still manages to draw you into his story, thanks to some taut moments, a fast-paced first half, and some slick packaging.

Kareena Kapoor plays Avantika, a New York professor who falls in love and gets married to colleague Ehsaan Khan (Saif Ali Khan).

They buy a house in an Indian neighbourhood and on their first night there, are introduced to their neighbours, a group of conservative Muslims — who seem to be hiding something.

Avantika soon realises she has to make a choice between her marriage and what is right.

She meets Riyaz Masood (Viveik Oberoi), a reporter with a local channel who helps her expose the truth, but they both find they are pawns in a larger game. The film maintains a tight pace in the first half but slackens in the second, when all the surprises in the story seem to die out.

Main Aur Mrs Khanna: A mindless romance

The other day a colleague asked me why I never seemed to like any film these days. I thought about it and wondered the same myself. Don’t they make good films any more?

Two hours after watching Prem Soni’s “Main Aur Mrs Khanna”, you realise the answer to that question is a resounding NO.

I don’t know whether this is a particularly bad year for Bollywood or whether the industry is just going through a phase but this is certainly not the kind of film you expect as a big Diwali release.

Kareena Kapoor plays Raina Khanna, a troubled wife whose husband Sameer (Salman Khan) is in the middle of a bad spell in his career.

This leads to trouble in the marriage because as he puts it, “financial stability is at the heart of every happy marriage.” Really? Whatever happened to respect, trust and love?

Sameer decides to move cities, from Melbourne to Singapore, and Raina reluctantly agrees. At the airport, Sameer tells her she isn’t coming with him to Singapore. The reasons for this move aren’t elaborated — he merely tells her he wants to save their marriage.

Raina decides to stay on in Melbourne and gets a job at the airport duty-free shop. Bappi Lahiri puts in an appearance as the shop owner and the less said about his role, the better.

Saif Ali Khan: A true professional in Bollywood?

When I think of a Bollywood media interview, what pops into my mind are — long waits, filthy sets, stars with a lot more attitude than they should have and clichéd answers I could have predicted long before I met them…

But Saif Ali Khan proved me wrong on all counts. He turned out to be a thorough professional.

Khan was very ‘corporate’ in his demeanour, taking us in for the interview as soon as we got there, giving us candid answers about his experiences as a first-time producer with “Love Aaj Kal”, being open about his relationship with Kareena Kapoor and making no bones about us appearing unannounced with a camera.

Perhaps Khan’s most interesting response was when we asked him about working with other production houses after he has worked on his own.

Khan compared it to a ‘dinner party’.

Working in your own production is like hosting a dinner, he said, while working in other films is like being a guest at somebody else’s party where you pick up tips (or not) for your next do…

Kambakkht Ishq: You have to see it to believe it

A feeling of numbness and disbelief is not uncommon after a movie-watching experience. Sometimes you are awed by the sheer vision of the director or the depth of a particular performance. Sometimes, it is a thought expressed, or an expression that stays with you.

But after watching “Kambakkht Ishq”, I was left numb at the thought someone could make such a bad film.

Yes, there is no other word for it. This extremely expensive film, with cameos by Hollywood stars and flashy fight sequences, isn’t quite the entertainer it promised to be.

Akshay Kumar is Viraj Shergill, a stuntman in Hollywood who likes to play the field. Aftab Shivdasani plays his younger brother, Lucky, who falls in love and gets married to Kamini (Amrita Arora).

Kareena Kapoor plays Simrita Rai, Kamini’s best friend and a part-time model and medical student who has a militant hatred of men, believing that they want “only one thing.”

Of course, in the tradition of Bollywood love stories, Viraj and Simrita hate each other at first sight and indulge in some mindless bickering in the first half.