Singham Returns (15 Aug 2014)

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar, Amol Gupte, Anupam Kher, Zakir Hussain, Dayanand Shetty, Sharat Saxena, Pankaj Tripathi, Ganesh Yadav, Ashwini Kalsekar

Director: Rohit Shetty   Writer: Farhad, Sajid, Yunus Sajawal, Rohit Shetty  

Music: Ankit Tewari, Jeet Gangulli, Meet Bros Anjjan, Yo Yo Honey Singh

Running Time: 145 minutes

This movie celebrates the successful actor-director partnership of Ajay Devgn-Rohit Shetty and the Mumbai Police. Of course, the movie has a good enough storyline and a popular heroine. But, in spite of being substantial, they haze out in the aforesaid celebration. Also, it is one of the very sequels, which is better (also read original) than it’s prequel i.e. ‘Singham’!

Instead of a core story, there is a core villain Satyaraj Baba (Amol Gupte), who is a religious preacher with enough power and clout, enabling him to have a substantial say in the functioning of the ruling political party! In contrast to him, there is Guruji (Anupam Kher), the party mentor, who is a man of principles and enjoys great respect of Mumbai DCP (Ajay Devgn), as well as the Maharashtra CM (Sanjay Manjrekar). Guruji’s strategy of introducing new and young candidates for the upcoming elections is not well received by Baba. While Guruji perceives their enthusiasm, professional training and capability as the door to better functioning of the new government, and thereby better living of the common man, Baba cares a damn about any of this and worries about loosing constituencies, in the absence of old and popular candidates. Soon Guruji gets assassinated by masked and heavily armed professionals. Alongside, a van is found in a river body, along with a dead driver and crores of rupees. The dead driver is a trusted subordinate of Bajirao. Both these events and their repercussions instigate the super cop in Bajirao and he goes into full fledged investigations, interrogations, arrests and secret follow-ups, so as to obtain enough proof to – a) arrest Baba, and b) clear his subordinate’s name.

The movie has good energy, cool stunts, weak villain, new but not in tandem storyline, and for a change, it only highlights the glory of the police force. It highlights - the demanding and risky nature of their job, unrealistic expectations from an aging cop, thankless attitude of media and public in general, mass attack protocol (‘lathi’ charge) followed only in times of sheer crisis and the perennial chance of nullifying of all their hard work by anyone in ‘power’.

As expected, Ajay Devgn is the ‘Singham’. If he throws a punch, then it is a real punch and not a make believe one. And he is particularly good in depicting pain and anger simultaneously through his eyes. Kareena Kapoor plays his friend cum girlfriend (Avni), runs a beauty parlour and is supposed to eat like a glutton. She has well experimented with a new style of comedy. But for the glutton part, you instantly miss the hogging of Aamir Khan in ‘Rang De Basanti’. You will find Kareena picking on many foods, making enough face and hand gestures, but her food bites are very small and very few actually go into her mouth! But she is adorable all the same. Sadly, Kareena seems to be making the sole attempt in establishing the hero-heroine chemistry! Amol Gupte has performed well. But you need a much bigger (impactful) villain for a movie of this caliber. Anupam Kher, Mahesh Manjrekar, Ashwini Kalsekar (reporter) have small roles and they have done justice to it. Earlier Dayanand Shetty (cop ‘Daya’) was breaking doors on TV (soap ‘CID’) and now he is doing the same in films! Like TV, herein too, he has well played the second-in-command. Zakir Hussain (Prakash Rao) and Pankaj Tripathi (Altaf Khan) have now become constant with important side roles. Ganesh Yadav (Mahesh Jhadav, the dead cop) and Sharat Saxena (Shiv Rathod, Mumbai CP) have also acted well.

Mardaani (22 Aug 2014)

Cast: Rani Mukerji, Jisshu Sengupta, Tahir Bhasin, Priyanka Sharma, Sanjay Taneja, Anil George, Mona Ambegaonkar

Director: Pradeep Sarkar   Writer: Gopi Puthran   Music: Salim-Sulaiman Background Music: Julius Packiam   Casting Director: Shanoo Sharma   Editor: Sanjib Datta

Running Time: 113 minutes

During our school years, most of us must have come across these famous lines from an inspiring patriotic poem “Khoob ladi mardaani, wo toh Jhaansi wali Rani thi”. Watching this movie would instantly remind you of the same. The simile is hard to miss. During British rule, Rani Laxmi Bai fought fearlessly with the Britishers in order to attain freedom of her motherland. And in this movie, Shivani Shivaji Roy (Rani Mukerji) fights with focus sans any fear, to attain freedom of young girls trapped in the human trafficking ring. Also, both are Marathi women.

Shivani Shivaji Roy is a hands-on senior crime branch officer. She stays with her husband (Jisshu Sengupta) and orphaned niece. In the past, she had rescued Pyari (Priyanka Sharma) from being sold by her uncle and placed her in a shelter home. She considers her like her daughter and Pyari is an important part of Shivani’s life.

Unfortunately, Pyari gets abducted by human traffickers. Shivani gets a whiff of this and gradually realizes that a powerful and organized syndicate is behind it and the bosses will leave no stone unturned to keep their identities hidden. She resolves to bring back Pyari. An action-reaction series commences between her and Junior (the core brain of the trafficking operation). Since the bosses are nameless and faceless, the term ‘Junior’ is coined by Shivani herself. It’s based on the voice quality that makes intimidating, threatening and untraceable calls to her. While Shivani single mindedly focuses on reducing the gap between her and Junior, Junior focuses on discouraging her attempt by harming her dear ones and terminating the links that can lead Shivani to him!

But Shivani is a seasoned officer, who is well versed with intimidation techniques, laws of the land and psycho profiling. She uses her absolute determination, professional training and system support to free all the victims and bring the culprits to justice.

The movie has been very well casted, directed, acted and edited. In fact the pace and visual tone of the movie is that of a prime Hollywood flick! It voices the social cause of abduction and forced prostitution, but keeps safe distance from cheap thrills. It does not have any item number or even any lovey-dovey number (to depict the blessed marital life of the lady cop)! The idea is to acquaint the audience with the inhuman and shameful bearings enforced upon the girl victims by human trafficking goons. But while dealing with such issues, there is a thin line between being realistic and being repulsive. Hats off to the makers for maintaining this decorum and also keeping the content commercially viable! Achieving this sans any thunderous dialogue or eye popping stunt is no mean feat. A great deal of input has been given in the psychological research into the making of each character, something which is almost always amiss in most Bollywood (even prime) flicks.

Most of the movie centers round Rani Mukerji and she has done a commendable job. Her character is well researched and throughout the movie, she manages to stay within it. She has enough close-up frames and she well manages to portray nonchalance, smirk, knowing glance, deep pain and mental calculation. And all of these emotions are depicted without any OTT (over the top) acting. For a change, this lady ‘maseeha’ (savior) is not born out of exploitation and tears. She is a hard core cop, well trained by mind and body, practical and dedicated to her duty.

It is a pleasant surprise that Pradeep Sarkar, the man best known for his period drama flick ‘Parineeta’  can ably direct such a movie. Special mention needs to be made of a particular scene, wherein Shivani arrives with her team to save her husband from some chaos. Going by her fireball character, you expect her to pounce, abuse and even break a bone or two. Instead, she stands and stare in shunned silence! Then, upon coming across him, she goes oblivious of her surroundings, and simply connects with the pain and sheer disbelief of her husband. And, if such a scene enactment was achieved due to the director’s visualization and direction, then, this maestro is definitely a bearer of many hidden layers.

Jisshu Sengupta (Shivani’s husband) has a small and silent role. He is a Bengali movie star and this is his third Bollywood release. As for Tahir Bhasin, this is his second Bollywood release. He plays Junior, for whom the entire trafficking operation is just a big trade (read in hundreds of crores), no more, no less. And he will do anything to keep the tap running. He is young, urban, updated, sharp and well merges with the crowd. Even when he is constantly trying to ruthlessly harm/kill Shivani, somewhere he is appreciative of her courage and intelligence and can connect to her! Tahir Bhasin has impersonated this character very well. His acting is subtle but effective. Rest of the cast has also done well. Background music also well suits the mood of the movie.

Don’t miss the climax, wherein Rani Mukerji ably shows her martial art skills! Some real hard work this lass has done to get her teeth into the character.