India Masala

Kahaani: Vidya’s latest is a taut thriller

If you go by the Bollywood formula, Sujoy Ghosh’s “Kahaani” doesn’t tick any of the boxes. It’s a thriller — a genre Bollywood usually stays away from; it’s got a female lead, hardly any songs and no distractions in the form of a comedy/romance track.

It does tick one crucial box though — it’s a well-made film, with some great characters and powerful acting, and if you are willing to ignore some plot holes and go with the flow, this is a very satisfying watch.

Vidya Balan plays Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant software engineer from London who comes to Kolkata in search of her missing husband. She discovers very quickly that no one seems to know where he is, and there are no records to show he even came to the city. Determined not to give up, she enlists the help of a young police officer, Rana (Parambrata Chattopadhyay), scouring the narrow lanes and crowded markets of Kolkata in the hope she can find some trace of the elusive Arnab Bagchi.

The deeper she digs, the more things get complicated, and it’s obvious that writers Ghosh and Advaita Kala couldn’t quite keep up. While the first half is gripping (the point when the film breaks for interval is nerve-wracking), “Kahaani” loses some steam in the second half.

There are some glaring plot holes, and the reasons for many of the protagonist’s actions seem blurred. This is not one of those movies you try to make sense of later, because it’ll just get more muddled in your head.

That aside, there is much to enjoy in “Kahaani”. The city of  Kolkata is frenzied, colourful and chaotic and Setu’s camera captures that quality perfectly. Ghosh obviously knows and loves this city, and opts to capture it during the Durga Puja celebrations — a time which is both festive and frenzied — lending to the tone of the film very well.

Ghosh also makes some great casting choices — much of the cast, except for Vidya Balan and Nawazuddin Shaikh (who plays an Intelligence Bureau agent) are from Kolkata. Parambrata Chattopadhyay, who plays Rana, is endearing and the perfect foil for Balan. Shaikh, as a hard-nosed IB agent is perfectly cast, as is Saswat Chatterjee, a contract killer whose day job is that of a bumbling insurance agent.

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.

What it doesn’t have is a hero worthy of that villain and a script that loses its way just when things start to get interesting. Director Suri is like a wayward driver who slams the brakes when there is no need and drives in second gear when fourth would have been ideal.

There are reports that the movie is “inspired” by Korean film “The Chasers” and certainly, the storylines sound similar. Emraan Hashmi plays Arjun Bhagwat, a cynical former Goan cop who now works for the drug trade and pimps. When a pimp tells him some girls have gone missing, Arjun sets out to look for them. His clues lead him to a deserted house in a Goan village. Initially, he thinks it’s a matter of human trafficking, but what he doesn’t know is that it is a serial killer a work.

To say anything more would be unfair to the film. Suffice to say that Prashant Narayanan, who plays the murderer, is brilliant. He brings to life the madness that has to be inherent for someone to commit such heinous crimes.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t do justice to his character and the pace wavers. While you are gripped by the story at times when Narayanan is on screen, Hashmi is a completely watered down version of a hero. His past is hastily dealt with and evokes no sympathy. Even when he is fighting with the villain, it is Narayanan who has your attention.

Suri dilutes the pace by interspersing the narrative with songs and steamy scenes between Hashmi and leading lady Jaccqueline Fernandes. This could have been a truly gripping thriller if the director had better control over the film.

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 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.

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 somewhat weak performance from his lead actor. Sridhar Raghavan’s dialogue is sparkling for the most part and you can almost forgive him lines like “aajkal criminals bhi Facebook aur Twitter pe hai” (These days, even criminals are on Facebook and Twitter), uttered by Kamat after going through a suspect’s phone.

Sippy tries to pack in too much and ends up doing no justice to any of the tracks in the film. Also, the pace in the second half falters. 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.

7 Khoon Maaf: Enticing premise, lacklustre execution

The basic premise of Vishal Bhardwaj’s enticingly titled “7 Khoon Maaf” is enough to generate excitement about the film. A woman marrying several times and killing off each of her husbands is the kind of story you don’t get to see too often in Bollywood, and if anyone can do justice to that kind of a dark theme, it has to be Bhardwaj. There wasn’t much that could go wrong with this one.

That’s exactly what I thought when I entered the theatre, more than seven months ago, to watch a movie called “Raavan“. And we all know what happened with that one. I might be accused of being a little harsh here but this film might be Vishal Bhardwaj’s “Raavan”.

In what is his weakest film yet, Bhardwaj takes the tantalising prospect of a “black widow”, and turns it into a haphazard story of a woman who seems to have a fetish for murdering her husbands, even when just leaving them would have been enough.

Priyanka Chopra plays Susanna Marie Johannes, going from a coy-20 something to a crazy-50 something during the film. As she tells one of her husbands, there’s no worse accident than marriage in a woman’s life. But she herself suffers that accident several times and when her husbands don’t turn out to be what she thought they would, she kills them off without batting an eyelid, and flits to the next one within the blink of an eye.

Bhardwaj skims the surface of each of the characters, and we never get a sense of the desperation, and later the madness that Susanna’s character should have displayed to be capable of multiple murders. In the end, you don’t feel for her character or any of the men she killed.

There is not much action and the murders get repetitive, especially because you know they are all going to die in the end. In fact, the last one seems hurriedly inserted just to make up the right number. Of the performances, Priyanka Chopra tries her best to be Susanna, but is hampered by a lacklustre script and even worse make-up. Her face in the last few scenes looks like a wall with peeling paint. That is not how women look in ther 50s. Vivaan Shah, as her admirer is restrained and does his part well.

What is it with some of our best directors making such duds these days? There was Mani Ratnam, Ashutosh Gowariker and now Vishal Bhardwaj — the latter being someone who has always delivered brilliance in almost all aspects of storytelling. We should perhaps overlook this one as a weak link in an otherwise great career and move on. ‘Ek film maaf’.

Yeh Saali Zindagi: Too many twists

Watching Sudhir Mishra’s “Yeh Saali Zindagi”, you get the distinct feeling that somewhere there’s the germ of a great movie in here. The problem is that Mishra burdens the film with so many subplots and assorted characters that it’s difficult to rummage among them and come up with the main plot of the film.

The film, which revolves around three characters and the events leading up to one day of action, stars Irrfan Khan as Arun, a fixer who works for a money-lender, and must save Priti (Chitrangada Singh), the woman he loves, from the clutches of a kidnapping gang. But things are not as simple as they seem at first glance.

Priti is involved with another man, who is engaged to a minister’s daughter and is kidnapped in the hope of ransom by Kuldeep, who wants to quit his criminal ways after this one last kidnapping, because his feisty wife won’t take him back otherwise.

How the three of them and their lives intersect is what most of the film chronicles. Mishra manages to keep the pace taut and the dialogue, co-written by him and Manu Rishi, has plenty of swear words and is racy enough to keep you interested.

The two big flaws in the film are the presence of too many characters and subplots. Somewhere in the middle, you might find yourself wondering “who’s that guy, what’s this relation to this other guy, and how is it essential to the story?”

The other problem is with the watered-down performances. Except for Irrfan Khan and Saurabh Shukla who plays his boss, both the other main actors, Chitrangada Singh and Arunoday Singh are inhibited and awkward, unable to invest enough in their characters for you to be invested in them.

In the end, “Ye Saali Zindagi” isn’t the kind of film that makes for easy watching. If you are willing to pay enough attention, and forgive the somewhat indulgent pace, you might find yourself enjoying it.