Nautanki Saala

Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Pooja Salvi, Evelyn Sharma, Gaelyn Mendonca

Director: Rohan Sippy

It seems that this movie was intended to depict much more depth than it has managed to convey. Rohan, the director is experimental and kudos to him for that. He has tried to present a ‘neither very generic nor very different’ storyline with a different concept i.e. by using the element of theatre aka ‘nautanki’. Genre of the movie is comedy and this comedy is different from others as it is not primarily dialogue based but situation and expression based. Also somewhere, the director has tried to use the theatre ‘nautanki’ as the metaphor for the mother of all ‘nautankis’ i.e. life itself! The movie constantly shifts between these two parallels. Backdrop of the former is modern day ‘Ramayana’ (most esteemed Hindu epic) and that of the latter is the protagonist trying to heal a suicidal ‘stranger turned dependent turned friend’ by finding his former love and giving him work so that he attaches some worth to himself. The essence of the story is basically situational misunderstanding. In spite of all his noble intentions and sacrifices, the protagonist is misunderstood by his partner, love and also friend! Reason for the same are age old human errors of - mixing task and emotion, undertaking an activity without giving a thought to its obvious result, trespassing territories etc.

Ayushmann, and Kunaal have acted well. Evelyn has some screen presence. The power of modern day theatre could have been presented in a more powerful and enhanced format. Also, the heroines could have been better. Some comedy scenes are really funny and some are original as well. Last but not the least, herein again you miss the element of complete showmanship. Are there no successors of Mr. Subhash Ghai and Late Mr. Yash Chopra?

Commando – A One Man Army

Cast: Vidyut Jamwal, Pooja Chopra, Jaideep Ahlawat

Director: Dilip Ghosh

In general, how do you define ‘good’ Bollywood action? Over the top, comical, prefixed and/or suffixed by  the superstar’s dialogues. Have you ever come across one as a ‘pure form of art’? Well, Vidyut Jamwal has entered the Bollywood arena to provide you the same. He proved his mettle in his hindi debut movie ‘Force’ (as villain) and has done it again in his first hindi movie as the hero. He is well trained, in absolute control of his body, amazingly nimble and light footed. At last we have an Indian, trained in Indian martial art form ‘Kalaripayattu’, who can hold his own against the international action heroes!

The movie as such is average. Apart from the hero, only the villain, Jaideep Ahlawat is impactful, or rather ‘original’. You do miss the element of showmanship. If given a big production house and international backdrop, Vidyut looks promising enough to deliver a cool blockbuster. He is rightly aged and thus does not look jaded like most of our so called ‘100 crore club’ heroes.

It’s a known fact that, to learn and excel in higher form of martial art, one needs to be highly disciplined and in absolute control of his mind, because while practicing the same, mind also works in tandem with the body i.e. very fast, observing all minute details and making strategies (both offence and defense) in quick succession. So, while practicing their art, the martial arts practitioners look either calm or very focused, unlike most of our heroes who use myriad facial expressions before punching, kicking etc. Thankfully, Vidyut refrains from using such unnecessary facial expressions, which many may wrongly consider as lack of ‘hero type’ attitude.

Chashme Baddoor

Cast: Ali Zafar, Divyendu Sharma, Siddharth Narayan, Tapasee Pannu, Rishi Kapoor, Lillete Dubey, Anupam Kher, Bharti Achrekar, Ayaz Khan

Director: David Dhawan

This movie is a simple ‘boy meets girl – detects certain chemistry – they become a pair – get separated for a little while – they get back’ love story. Herein, backdrop happens to be Goa and causes of separation as well as union happen to be two immature friends of the boy. There is nothing more or less to the movie.

Divyendu’s dialogues created better punches in his debut film ‘Pyaar Ka Punchnama’. Siddharth is a seasoned actor and his spunk does invoke some cetees among the audience. If Ali Zafar is aiming the slot of the leading man in Bollywood, then he needs to tune up his acting as well as screen presence. Tapasee has a fresh presence. It is also refreshing to see a heroine with her ‘natural’ looks, i.e. the look sans cosmetic surgery, sculpting etc. Rishi and Lillete are veterans and they deliver as expected. So does Anupam, but his same style of acting and reactive acting do appear little mundane now.

Contrary to what the name suggests and what they claim in the movie promotion, this movie is not the remake of Deepti Naval and Farooq Shaikh starrer ‘Chashme Buddoor’ (1981).