The Lunchbox (20 Sep 2013)

Cast: Irrfan Khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Nimrat Kaur, Denzil Smith, Nakul Vaid, Yashvi Puneet Nagar, Lillete Dubey, Bharati Achrekar

Director: Ritesh Batra

From which point of view, do you review this movie?

A) From the point of view of a team of leading and influential producers and co-producers who apparently joined hands to create an Indian movie straight for the Oscars!, Or, B) From the point of view of a team of very talented crew (director and actors) who created a simple but touching movie based on a simple mistake!

A) Over the years, Bollywood has churned out one after the other blockbusters. Quite a few of them have been sensible enough to be viewed and judged by the international audience (not just NRIs). But for one reason or the other, they never made to the Oscars. Either, the makers fell short of marketing, or the script somewhere fell into the category of ‘inspired’ and not original, or the movie did not match with the sensibilities of jury, especially how they perceive the Indian society and what they expect from an Indian movie! Till date only three Indian movies – Mother India, Lagaan and  Salaam Bombay have been nominated for the Oscars!

‘The Lunchbox’ has been wisely created nullifying all the aforesaid shortcomings. It is based on Indian middle class with no sense and/or need of daily grooming, cinematography totally focuses on dusty and cluttered habitats, Indian camaraderie, emotions and ethics have been highlighted. Also, there is no song and dance in the movie. Last but not the least, Mumbai ‘dabbawallas’ play an important part in the movie. This service is well recognized internationally, all thanks to their meeting with Prince Charles and a Harvard University team. The former met them during one of his Indian visits and the latter did a research on their impeccable service, so as to incorporate it as a case study in their study material.

Just to let you know, seventeen producers and co-producers are attached with this movie!

B) Ritesh Batra has created a beautiful movie wherein, throughout the camera is focused on only three main characters and a voice! It is no mean feat to achieve. You can also call this movie a ‘Song of the Unsung Heroes’, the heroes being – hands on housewives who spend major part of their day doing the household chores and also battle with their loneliness, hordes of 9 to 5 job holders who keep up with the same mundane routine years upon years without any complain and any expectation or longing of change, and gallons of home cooked fresh food which keeps the nation going and plays an important part in keeping family and friends together.

Irrfan Khan is simply superb. No words can explain his amazing range of acting and timing. The movie requires him to transform from a lonely and aloof person who barely converses and never smiles to a hopeful and semi attached person who randomly smiles and takes mild interest in other people’s lives. And you can see this gradual transformation frame by frame and not for a single moment you feel bored of seeing him and his myriad expressions. Nawazuddin Siddiqui has come across well as an eager and happy-to-please employee who speaks more than he actually works. His exuberant acting has very well complimented the detached one of Irrfan Khan. Nimrat Kaur is a revelation. You cannot believe that she is the same girl who appears in the Cadbury Dairy Milk – Silk commercial.

It is an interesting observation, that how a simple wrong delivery of a Lunch Box can spark joy and hope in the lives of the sender as well as the recipient. At the end of the day, we all just seek to be ‘wanted’, even if it is for the food we make or the appreciation that we show towards a well made food by happily cleaning off the plate.

Random relationships are differently judged by different people belonging to different cultures and state of advancement. Maybe for this reason, this movie has an abrupt ending. Or, you can say that the ending is left on the viewer’s imagination. Perhaps, this is to keep peace with both the home as well as the international audience.

It needs to be mentioned that, as per recent news, for the 86th Academy Awards i.e. Oscar entry for 2014, a Gujarati Film ‘The Good Road’ has been submitted by India, making it the first film in the language.

Shuddh Desi Romance (6 Sep 2013)

Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Parineeti Chopra, Vaani Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor

Director: Maneesh Sharma

Boy is on his way for arranged marriage with Girl1. En route he gets highly attracted to one of his rented ‘baraati’ Girl2. He leaves Girl1 at the marriage altar and runs away. He bumps again with Girl2. There is  instant chemistry and live-in relationship (at Girl2’s home) between Boy and Girl2. Love marriage to take place between them. Girl2 leaves him at the altar and runs away. Boy now bumps with Girl1 on his way to a marriage where he is one of the rented ‘baraati’ and she is one of the relatives. Soon after this meeting, they enter into a happy relationship. They are sure to get married and set the tracks right. In another marriage, where Boy is a rented ‘baraati’ and Girl1 accompanies him as his partner, they both bump into Girl2. Here, Girl2 is one of the relatives in the wedding. There is instant hot chemistry between Boy and Girl2. Assessing the situation, Girl1 disappears from the venue without any heartbreak. Again, Boy and Girl2 decide to marry. This time, both of them run away from the wedding only to bump again in their wedding fineries at the door of Girl2. They decide to continue with the live-in mode of the relationship.

Is strength of character absolutely missing in the current youth? Surely, it’s not possible. So, is this movie just a funny comedy? But, how can you take it as a mindless comedy of indecisiveness, when it is unabashedly and ruthlessly targeting the age old and universal institution of marriage? Agreed, that the blissful and perfect marriage is a myth and every marriage has its share of ups and downs, ranging from being mild to simply unbearable. But a society sans marriage will be outright savage.

However, the movie does ably show the incumbent fear of marriage within the current youth. Deep down they are lonely and seek a loyal and forever loving partner. But the current life style  and absence of active role of parents and/or guardians in their life, makes them ever paranoid to enter into a marriage. The fear of failure of marriage stops them from entering into one! Resultantly, they enter into relationships one after the other, only to become more fearful with each failed relationship.

If you leave aside the concept of this movie, you have to admit that both the direction and acting are pretty good. The actors have played their part with as much conviction and innocence as they could conjure in playing such complex characters. At any point of time, you don’t feel sad or hateful towards any of them! And in such a storyline, this is commendable. After Shah Rukh, Sushant seems to be the one who would make the giant successful leap from small screen to the big screen. Parineeti is a natural actor, very much like Kajol but a lot less boisterous. Given that this is her debut movie, Vani appears surprisingly effortless and confidant. In fact the screen chemistry that she shares with Sushant is more natural and believable. Rishi Kapoor has acted as per expectation. It is amusing to see him don the hat of a Rajasthani baniya running a wedding business. Cinematography is also good. The city of Jaipur and nearby locations have been covered well.

Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbai Dobaara (15 Aug 2013)

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Imraan Khan, Sarfaraz Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar, Pitobash Tripathy, Sonali Bendre, Abhimanyu Singh, Sophie Choudry, Kurush Deboo

Director: Milan Luthria

As evident by its name, the movie is a sequel to ‘Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai’ that was released in 2010.

The prequel established the onset of  the great upcoming underworld don Shoaib Khan’s (Emraan Hashmi) reign by making him the undisputed leader once he assassinated his mentor and senior Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn). It was made pretty clear then and there that unlike his mentor, the new don was in no mood to follow any code of principle or sharing. The sequel starts with Shoaib (Akshay Kumar) being shown as the ruthless, mirthless, powerful don, who is well settled in the middle east and controls his Indian and other overseas operations with his loyal aid Javed (Sarfaraz Khan). Also, he unabashedly indulges in womanizing activities.

Honestly speaking, while watching such Dawood influenced movies (Company, D-Day, Shootout At Wadala, OUATIM, OUATIMD), you don’t find any exclusive difference amongst them. In one or the other manner, they end up showing you the making and toughening of the anti social, his power and action, his softer side with a particular love interest, some hard core cop action and last but not the least, the culture, lingo and lifestyle of the 80’s and early 90’s.

What has actually stood out in this movie is the presence of Akshay Kumar. Actually, there are two heroes in the film – Akshay and his Dialogues. He mouths them unabashedly throughout the movie and almost all of them throw the required punch. He has also very well adopted the lean, mean and suave physicality and attitude of a great don. In fact you can say, it’s very Italian. Also, he has very well played the role of an emotionless womanizer and a love torn angry young man. It is a fresh change to see him do method acting. Otherwise, normally you associate him with punjabi fashion wear and loud movies with long legged lasses.

Sonakhshi’s character demanded someone who is beautiful, innocent, conscious and also forthcoming and robust. Needless to say, that she has suited the role very well. Also, she has looked beautiful and acted well. Imraan has this natural look and body language of someone who is very simple and honest. So, in spite of his cool presence, you do think that an Emraan Hashmi or a Ranveer Singh would have fitted the bill better. Mahesh Manjrekar has derived his own style of acting and his performance can be well speculated in advance. Sonali Bendre is a revelation in her very small but intense role. Sophie Choudry has managed to look glamorous without looking voluptuous or over the top. Sarfaraz Khan and Pitobash Tripathy have also acted well.

Madras Cafe (23 Aug 2013)

Cast: John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Rashi Khanna, Siddhartha Basu, Ajay Rathnam, Prakash Belawadi

Director: Shoojit Sircar

Ever since the onset of hindi cinema, the onus of being the movie backdrop exclusively lies with north and west India. Recent times has witnessed diversification to east India (Devdas, Yuva, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Lootera) as well. Now South India seems to have caught the fancy of Bollywood filmmakers. Be it autobiography (The Dirty Picture), comedy (Chennai Express) or issue awareness (Madras Cafe), the backdrop and supporting cast is intermittently South Indian!

Madras Cafe primarily deals with LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) during the mid 1980s, followed by the assassination of our late Prime Minister, Shri Rajiv Gandhi at the onset of 1990s. However, the movie does not claim to be a celluloid presentation of the same. Throughout the movie, the rebel group is referred to as LTF.

The movie is kind of well made. Scenes are beautifully derived out of approximately thirty years old photographs of evacuation and massacre that took place in the Sri Lankan regions that were infested with the rebel groups – both Tamil and Sri Lankan. This able derivation does remind you of the international movie Frida (Salma Hayak, Alfred Molina). Therein too scenes are beautifully derived out of paintings done by Frida Khalo.

Most of the cine goers of today were either not born or were very young during the mid 1980s. And thus, the movie does create the required awareness. The producer-director duo, John Abraham and Shoojit Sircar did a fantastic job with their debut film ‘Vicky Donor’ and they continue to create the same magic with ‘Madras Café’, in spite of the two movies being as contrasting as chalk and cheese. Shoojit has intelligently played upon the strengths of John and the result is good. Also, hats off to the makers for refraining from showing unnecessary gore, death and item numbers. Please note that, the Sri Lankan Civil War killed an estimated 80,000-100,000 people between 1982 and 2009.

However, the problem lies in the style of movie narration. Most of the hindi speaking audience is not well informed about the ongoings of the southern region, nor do they understand an iota of any of the southern languages, or the local culture that prevails there. Madras Cafe deals with a complex subject as it entails – the Indian PM and his Cabinet, Indian Military and Intelligence, Rebel Forces in Sri Lanka – both the Tamil and the Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan Army, Media and Armament Suppliers from abroad. And then, there are possibilities of leaks in all the organizations. Each leading character is prone to have a personal motive along with the political motive. Now, such a complex tale requires a lot of precision and clarity in its method of story telling. In the absence of which, you are very likely to get confused, unless you are an avid reader and movie enthusiast of international political thrillers. The aforementioned confusion very much prevails in the first half of ‘Madras Cafe’.

During the climax of the movie, you make an interesting observation. The climax deals with the assassination of the ex Indian PM by a human bomb (South Indian lady). Normally, during such scenes, you pray till the last second, to call off the fast approaching calamity as you simply don’t want it to happen. Till the last second, you pray for the hero to come and save the day for everyone. But, here, you actually want to see it all happen! You want the black day in the history of Indian politics to be re-created right in front of your eyes, as you were very young and confused when this event actually took place!

Actingwise, all are OK. Within his range, John is wisely experimenting with his roles, and he is doing a good job out of it. It is a pleasant surprise to see the popular Indian television producer-director and quiz show host, Siddhartha Basu perform well. Ajay Rathnam as ‘Prabhakaran’ looks effective. Special accolades for Prakash Belawadi for playing the drunken and shrewd south Indian official in Jaffna, Sri Lanka. His facial structure resembles that of the legendary musician A.R. Rahman. Nargis Fakhri plays the role of a hard core British journalist. Her naturally accentuated English has suited the role perfectly. Also, she has well adopted the cold demeanor required for such a role.

Chennai Express (9 Aug 2013)

Cast: Shah Rukh khan, Deepika Padukone, Sathyaraj, Nikitin Dheer

Director: Rohit Shetty
 

How can you enjoy a movie - which has most of its dialogues narrated in a south Indian language and that too without any subtitles? How can you enjoy a movie where the hero’s dialogue delivery is pure hamming? How can you enjoy a movie which has hordes of extra artists without serving any purpose? How can you enjoy a movie where there is no romantic chemistry between the leading pair, but only pure camaraderie? Last but not the least, how can you enjoy a movie where Shah Rukh is not the super uber charming metro guy but a very unconvincing common man?
 

The director-actor duo – Rohit Shetty and Ajay Devgn created box office wonders when they worked together (Golmaal, Golmaal Returns, Golmaal 3, Singham). But without each other, they seem to be falling flat. Ajay delivered a dud with ‘Himmatwala’ and Rohit Shetty has done the same with ‘Chennai Express’. You don’t expect all movies to be logical and perfect, but each kind of movie is supposed to have its pure flavour which at least makes it entertaining and spellbinding enough to make you sit through it. This one neither fits into the Rohit Shetty’s ‘wham bam’ mould, nor does it manages to showcase the superstardom and intensity of Shah Rukh Khan!
 

Deepika, however is a revelation in the movie. Watching her dress and adapt the south Indian traditional attire and body language is a pleasant surprise. Otherwise, you normally watch her doing bold roles in ultra modern dressing (Race 2, Love Aaj Kal, Cocktail). She looks and acts good throughout the movie. In fact, there is a consistency in her character which is otherwise absent with other characters in the movie. She deserves special accolade for a scene wherein she speaks out in a very weird manner in her dream and ends up kicking Shah Rukh out of the bed. Therein her acting is very natural, fresh and funny, without any iota of inhibition. Nikitin Dheer has a mountain like body presence.

All said and done, ‘Chennai Express’ actually manages to have the biggest opening of all times i.e. Rs. 33.12 Crore collection on the very first day itself and goes on to enter the 100 Crore Club within 3 days of its theatrical release! This is due to ferocious promotion activities taken up by Shah Rukh and team prior to the movie release or a clean field during Eid season when the movie has no other rival movie  to compete against for an entire week, is pretty hard to guess. Sometimes, the box office results can be really shocking. And of late, this is happening very often!

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (12 Jul 2013)

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Sonam Kapoor, Pawan Malhotra, Divya Dutta, Rebecca Breeds, Meesha Shafi, Yograj Singh, K.K. Raina, Prakash Raj, Art Malik

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

A very well made movie by an ace director and a wonderful actor featuring the life of an ace Indian runner and Olympian Milkha Singh, ‘The Flying Sikh’. Rakeysh has managed to show the athlete’s childhood, upbringing, stints with love, struggle, training, losses and victories (both in sports and conquering the dark corner in the heart) beautifully without making it cumbersome and boring. The movie constantly shuffles between past, further past and present, but due to smart editing and direction, the final impact is not confusing but good. In fact, ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ is one of the best edited Indian film in spite of its duration of 3 hours and 9 minutes!

Any movie that covers the partition era is bound to have scenes entailing – mass massacre, bloodshed, loss of loved ones, children turning orphan, fear and trauma amongst civilians, violation of women etc. And for this very reason, many of us like to distance ourselves from such movies as it is very disturbing to watch such depictions again and again. All brownie points should be awarded to the makers of the movie to show it all, but in bits and pieces and with such adaptations that as an audience you tend to get the right message without cringing in your seat!

Dark corners created in our hearts during childhood are the most difficult ones to bear and cure and they haunt us throughout our lives effecting our participation and success in one or the other way. Curing such a devious dark corner is the focal point of this movie and it has been executed very effectively.

Hats off to Farhan Akhtar for pulling off such a difficult role i.e. a role that demanded the physicality of an ace athlete and expressions of a rustic north westerner who is not well educated, has seen the trauma and pain of partition of India and Pakistan and still has managed to transform himself into a gold medalist in spite of various barriers thrown in his way. It is difficult to imagine that Farhan is the same man who started his film career by directing the quintessential metro guy flick ‘Dil Chahta Hai’. It goes without saying that this lad has grown miles and bounds as an actor as well as a person.

Actingwise, apart from Farhan, Divya Dutta and Pawan Malhotra have done very good job. Divya has simply stood out as the selfless motherly sister who simply adores her kid brother ‘Milkha’ and silently bears the struggles and exploitations of life suffered by the women of that era who had to bear the losses of partition as well as boisterous (read domestic violence) nature of their husbands. Pawan has also stood out as the loving and inspiring army officer who had a great hand in the making of ‘Milkha’. He is very natural in emoting the expressions of judgement, pain, pride, kindness, victory etc.

Ghanchakkar (28 Jun 2013)

Cast: Vidya Balan, Emraan Hashmi, Rajesh Sharma, Namit Das

Director: Rajkumar Gupta

It is a common practice amongst the filmmakers to add an unnecessary but high impact item song in an upcoming dud movie and market that entire movie around that song, so that at least the movie receives a decent opening and considerably recovers the making cost within the first week of its release. But, to do this whole marketing drama around a ‘character in the movie’ is unheard of. ‘Ghanchakkar’ breaks all conventional norms by doing so, and sadly only therein lies the innovative effort of this movie! The entire movie hype is created around Vidya’s character i.e. of that of a boisterous and voluptuous Punjabi woman who is highly into so called (read weird) fashion wear and who cannot cook well. But this character is of no pivotal consequence to the movie. It neither defines the pace nor serves the climax of the movie! In fact the movie’s climax and ending make no sense at all.

In recent history, both Vidya and Emraan are known to give sure shot hits and their last venture together ‘The Dirty Picture’ received both commercial and critical acclaim. Announcement of their next venture with an experimental and hit director like Rajkumar Gupta (‘Aamir’ and ‘No One Killed Jessica’) created a lot of expectation as both the actors are known to do wonders with a little offbeat commercial movies. But it seems that even during their golden phase, actors cannot create a hit out of a half hearted script and direction. In spite of Vidya’s trademark acting, you do feel that a Huma Qureshi or a Parineeti Chopra would have done a better justice to the role. Reasons – a) because Vidya’s Punjabi accent doesn’t appear effortless or consistent, and b) her recent marriage to the movie’s producer (Siddharth Roy Kapur of UTV Motion Pictures) and over exposure due to her impeccable Sabyasachi clad presence in award shows and Cannes Film Festival, kind of weighs heavily over her make believe character in the movie. Rajesh Sharma’s acting and characterization are both consistent throughout the movie. Namit has acted well but characterization is not so clear.