India Masala

Rascals: Too much torture

David Dhawan must really hate us. Or maybe he wants to exact revenge on his audience. That must be why he subjected us to this three-hour monstrosity that is called “Rascals”.

At their best, David Dhawan comedies can be a little raunchy, but fun. This one is very raunchy, packed to the brim with provocative shots of women in bikinis and heaving bosoms, but there is no sign of fun. This is the kind of film that makes you wish it wasn’t your job to review movies week after week.

Dhawan hasn’t even bothered with a coherent script –- it’s almost as if everyone connected with the film landed up on sets and asked themselves, “now what juvenile gag can we come up with today?”

Starring in these gags are Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn, playing conmen who are called Chetan and Bhagat respectively. They spend most of the film trying to outdo each other in wooing rich heiress Khushi (Kangna Ranaut) while in Bangkok, where they’ve arrived hoping to avoid the wrath of a man they have duped.

That is all there is to the story. There are incredibly offensive jokes involving the visually impaired, refugees in Somalia and a scene where Sanjay Dutt pretends to be an “Art of Giving” teacher, exhorting people to donate to the poor, showcasing pictures of destitute people, all in an attempt to get Khushi’s attention. It’s wrong on so many levels that I lost count mid-way.

Of course, as if this wasn’t enough, there are lines like “choli saja ke rakhna” and “tum kab tak lachaari ka lollipop chuste rahoge” thrown at the already suffering audience. Performances are not worth mentioning –- everyone hams it to the nth degree. Dhawan packs in gags after gags and just when you think it’s over and you can finally leave, there comes another one.

This is the cinematic equivalent of torture. Avoid at all costs.

Double Dhamaal: Twice the agony

Indra Kumar’s “Double Dhamaal” is a sequel to the 2007 comedy “Dhamaal” and tells the story of four men whose plans to make a quick buck are foiled by their arch nemesis.

The story takes off from where the four, after having donated all the money they won to charity, are back to being jobless and penniless. But when they come across their arch nemesis Kabir Nayak (Sanjay Dutt) and see that he’s rich and successful, they decide to feed off his wealth. Riteish Deshmukh, Ashish Chowdhry, Arshad Warsi and Jaaved Jaafery play the roles of the four friends.

What they don’t know is Kabir is out to double-cross them. He convinces them he has found crude oil in Mumbai, asks them to get investors and then runs away with the money to Macau.

The four friends follow him there and decide to exact revenge.

This is, needless to say, a brainless comedy — one that has plenty of toilet humour, raunchy songs and gags that the filmmakers definitely thought were hilarious — like a kissing scene between two gorillas and people using real blood as ketchup with their fries.

If you liked the first film, you will be disappointed by the second. There are some funny moments but they are so fleeting, you are likely to miss them if you don’t pay attention, which is more than likely, because the film doesn’t manage to hold it for too long.

Movies like this make me wonder whatever happened to real humour. Do we need to have balls flying at private parts to make people laugh? Of course, given that everyone around me (at a 9 a.m. show) was laughing like crazy, means the answer is yes. I don’t know whether this is a telling comment on the audience or the people who make these movies. Or both.

All the Best: Adding that Diwali sparkle

Watching three films in the space of 18 hours isn’t easy, especially when the first two are films like “Blue” and “Main Aur Mrs Khanna“.

When I settled into my seat to watch Rohit Shetty’s “All the Best”, I was really hoping for some laughs. Thankfully, I got my share of them.

This film starring Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan and Bipasha Basu doesn’t pretend to be anything but a madcap entertainer and because of that, delivers on most counts.

The jokes aren’t too highbrow, there are plenty of them and all the actors seem to be having fun doing the film, which comes across on screen.

I was especially struck by the difference in Sanjay Dutt, who puts in such a lacklustre performance in “Blue”, but seems to be enjoying himself in this film.

The story itself isn’t much. Prem (Ajay Devgn) and Veer (Fardeen) are friends who live in Goa and benefit from Veer’s elder brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt), a millionaire in Africa who sends him “pocket money” every month.

Dharam thinks Veer is married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse), when in fact he isn’t.

Blue: No colour this Diwali

When a film is pitched as a big-budget, big-ticket film and is a Diwali release to boot, expectations do shoot up.

Anthony D’Souza’s “Blue”, starring Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta and Zayed Khan is supposed to be India’s first “underwater” film, has music by A.R. Rahman and is said to have a budget of 800 million rupees.

But, as someone said after the screening, maybe they spent so much money on shooting the underwater scenes they forgot to pay someone to write a good enough story.

“Blue” falls in the same trap as most Bollywood big-budget films have in recent times (‘Kambakkht Ishq’ being a prime example) — it can’t see the wood for the trees and pays too much attention to superficial stuff while neglecting basics like story and screenplay.

Akshay Kumar plays Aarav Malhotra, the owner of a shipping company who wants to get hold of a “treasure” lying deep in the sea in a sunken ship named ‘Lady in Blue’.

He wants his friend and employee Sagar (Sanjay Dutt, looking supremely unfit and out of place) to help him in his quest, because he “knows the sea like the back of his hand”.

After initially refusing, Sagar and his brother join Aarav on an underwater adventure.

Luck: Don’t stretch your luck with this one

Sometime in April, I wrote an entry on this blog, lamenting the dearth of movies at the theatres during the producer-multiplex row. Fridays for me were just not the same without films.

But three months later, I want to eat those words.

Following duds like “Kambakkht Ishq”, “Short Kut”, “Kal Kissne Dekha” and now “Luck”, the movie going experience for me is becoming less enjoyable than ever.

Soham Shah’s “Luck” — starring Imran Khan, Mithun Chakraborty and debutante Shruti Hassan – has the germ of a good idea but is made so tackily it is difficult to find anything you might like.

Sanjay Dutt plays Moosa, a don who runs a global betting syndicate and believes in “betting on people’s luck” (whatever that means).

His assistant, Tawang (Danny Denzongpa) does the field work for him, searching for ‘lucky’ people to participate in a 20-day ‘game’ where they perform death-defying stunts to test their luck. 

Imran Khan plays one of these “lucky” and desperate people as does Shruti Hassan, Ravi Kissen and Mithun Chakraborty all of whom fly to South Africa to play.

EMI : A relevant message in a not-so-good film

I am about to take the first loan of my life next month. What with the

credit crisis and uncertainty all around, I am having second thoughts.

On the other hand, a newly married acquaintance celebrated Diwali by buying her a pair of diamond earrings — bought on credit she tells me, proudly showing off the studs.

I felt a bit old-fashioned. Here I was fretting about taking a loan and this young girl is so much at ease buying a luxury item on credit.

That is why while watching “EMI”, I could ignore the bad script, even worse acting and rudderless direction to reach the crucial message the film is trying to project — the dangers of living life on credit.

Director Saurabh Kabra makes his debut with the stories of four characters — a housewife (Urmila Matondkar) seeking insurance, a father (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) taking a loan for his son’s education, a DJ (Arjun Rampal) who lives off credit cards and a young couple (Ashish Choudhary and Neha Uberoi) starting  married life under the burden of several loans, even taking one for their honeymoon.

Getting real in Bollywood

I am a bit wary when filmmakers announce Bollywood projects based on real life people. After all, the word Bollywood evokes images of glitzy song-and-dance routines in exotic locales. And that’s largely true even though the Mumbai film industry is showing signs of opening up to bolder, more realistic themes.

Take “Rave Party” for example. The story of Scarlett Keeling, the British teenager murdered at a Goan beach, is being made into a film.

But it remains to be seen if director Prabhakar Shukla’s project can stick to the truth. A lawyer for Keeling’s family has said they might object if it didn’t.

Actor Sanjay Dutt is to portray Charles Sobhraj in a new film about the infamous killer and master of disguise. And “Jannat,” releasing in cinemas this month, depicts a cricket coach found dead under mysterious circumstances during a tournament — mirroring the death of Bob Woolmer at the cricket World Cup in 2007.

It’s as if the Bollywood well for ideas has dried up and filmmakers have to turn to real life for inspiration. I am not sure if such films actually strike a chord with audiences. Documentaries sans dance sequences may be too boring but a film that has too many may not seem realistic enough. Getting the dosage right would be tough.

But I guess a ‘real life’ inspiration is one way of ensuring the film stays in the limelight. And that’s true not just in Bollywood. A U.S.-based Bangladeshi news agency reported that actor Amitabh Bachchan is to play Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a film about the founding leader of Bangladesh.

The film’s producer told the agency that Bachchan’s son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya will also act in “The Poet of Politics”.