Raanjhanaa (Jun 2013)

Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Dhanush, Abhay Deol, Swara Bhaskar, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Kumud Mishra, Shilpi Marwaha

Director: Anand L. Rai

You are all set to watch a ramp walk. The model walks in well dressed in ethnic, colorful  and vibrant finery well laced with gota, embroidery, sequins and the likes. Upon reaching the front of the stage she turns around to commence her exit. But the back of the apparel is a combination of leather black and whites in different geometrical shapes, very Gen-X like, simply strewn together within the outline of the apparel. You are left in an utter confused state because how much ever you try, you cannot derive to any logical or creative or even any experimental link between the front and the back of the apparel. Neither can you find clear logical link between the elements of the back of the apparel themselves! You really enjoy the model’s entry on the stage, make up a mindset which makes her exit somewhat predictable and somewhat mysterious, and you are all set to enjoy her exit. But the whole experience simply leaves you fumbling to understand what the designer actually intended. This is Raanjhanaa. Rustic, well scripted and soothingly paced first half, but absolutely differently scripted and cumbersome second half.

It seems that the director intended to recreate the magic of the classic 1942 – A Love Story in modern day setting i.e. pure, innocent love amidst the backdrop of political turmoil. Instead he created pure innocent love and political turmoil. Reasons – a) because he could not handle both the sensibilities together, and b) Sonam is not Manisha, who when well directed, can throw in myriad expressions together to depict the internal turmoil of the character.

First half of the movie is fresh in its approach and keeps you entertained. Sonam looks beautiful in every frame. But she direly needs to get out of her ‘Saawariya’ mindset. Yesteryears’ actresses mould does not work for the modern day complex characters. Her acting ranges from being good to confused to ordinary. Abhay has a magnetic screen presence. You expect him to do a lot more than he is given the chance to do in the movie. But the surprise package is Dhanush. You would never expect this lanky man from south to act and emote so well in every scene that he has been given to act. Best thing about him is that he neither tries to steal away other actor’s scenes nor he tries to display the star in him over the character that he is playing. Swara Bhaskar and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, his two friends in the movie have also acted very well. Except for the voice, you simply cannot realize that Swara is the same lady who played Kangana’s robust elder sister in ‘Tanu Weds Manu’. Kumud and Shilpi have also done justice to their roles. Some of the dialogues mouthed by Dhanush and his friends do make the required impact. They have their own vernacular charm. Music is composed by the legendary A. R. Rahman, so it is undoubtedly good.

Fukrey (Jun 2013)

Cast: Pulkit Samrat, Navjot Singh, Ali Fazal, Varun Sharma, Richa Chadda, Priya Anand, Vishakha Singh, Pankaj Tripathy

Director: Mrigdeep Singh Lamba

‘Fukrey’ is Delhi slang for people with boastful mouth but falling short in action when required. It can also mean idle and/or street smart people who waste time doing nothing. ‘Vella’ and ‘Lukha’ are another nearby slangs used for such people (courtesy: Mumbaikars).

The movie is a well made comedy with apt name and casting and is pleasant to watch. Direction and acting are also good. It deals with the money requirement of idle duds (read ultra weak students) to gain shortcut into college by buying question paper(s). Their sole motivation for college admission is proximity to girl(s)). To facilitate this, they go to the extreme length of borrowing money from a local mistress of vices and in the process suffer heavily.

In the movie, the kind of euphoria the protagonists attach to the simple act of getting admission or entry into college is something new and worth watching. As mentioned earlier, all characters fit the bill and have performed well. But the icing on the cake is the debutant  Varun Sharma who has played the role of gawky, child like and puberty-excited ‘Chucha’ to the T. His acting is fresh, original and consistent. With him on the screen, you are well assured of some laughter. This is a great achievement for a debutant. Pulkit seems to be acting ‘the hero’ of the movie, wherein in reality no such character exists. Only if that misconception was erased from his performance, the bar of the movie would have raised a few notches higher. Nevertheless his performance is very controlled as compared to his first and preceding movie ‘Bittoo Boss’. Ali has done justice to his melancholic and introvert character and has refrained from using unnecessary nuances in his acting. Richa’s ease of use of expletives is something new on Indian screen. Hats off to her to mumble such dialogues with such natural ease. But unlike other characters, somewhere her character is not well defined. It ranges from being a local (read street) mistress to that of an anti social boss! Navjot is good in poker faced comedy.

It is surprising to witness such well woven comedy from Mrigdeep whose last directorial venture was ‘Teen Thay Bhai’ which was a depressing comedy in spite of the presence of good actors (Om Puri, Shreyas Talpade) in the movie! 

Bombay Talkies (2013)

Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Randeep Hooda, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Saqib Saleem, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Ranvir Shorey, Naman Jain, Vineet Kumar Singh, Sudhir Pandey

Director: Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap

The movie is a collection of four short films, respectively directed by relatively young but established directors. Karan Johar is the most experienced of the lot. The movie is an attempt to commemorate completion of 100 years of Indian Cinema and it has been wisely named ‘Bombay Talkies’ as the sensibility throughout the movie is that of a Mumbaikar aka Bombayite. The ratio of class vs. mass responsible in ringing the theatres/talkies cash boxes in the aforesaid 100 years is 1:3. Similarly, in the movie, the ratio of short films intended for class vs. mass is also 1:3. All the four short films are sans any caption. They just start with the display of their director’s name.

Noteworthy things about each of the director’s short film are as follows –

Karan’s story takes a fresh call on gay culture. It’s the first Indian depiction, wherein a gay character is shown in his natural being without making him comical or distinctively feminine or unnaturally physical. Hats off to Karan for taking this first forward step. Also, this must be the boldest movie of Randeep Hooda’s career.

Dibakar’s story is totally a one man show i.e. Nawazuddin from first frame to the last. He is simply amazing as an actor. Don’t miss the facial twitching that he emotes to convey nervousness.

Zoya has managed to extract very good acting as well as dancing from child actor Naman Jain. The storyline is also very new i.e. of a male child aspiring to become an item girl upon growing up!

Anurag has tried to depict the God like status that some Bollywood superstars enjoy in the heart and families of so many Indians, especially amongst the non-urban population. He has also highlighted how fans like to brag about simple chance meetings with their idols.

In short the directors have tried to establish certain facts via their stories, that is, all said and done, the movies do form an integral part of an average Indian’s life – our fantasies are associated with them, we aspire from them, we connect through them, there is a filmy song for each and every mood that we undergo, and last but not the least our movies do play an important part in creating the much required social awareness on various taboo topics and with time the filmmakers are actually experimenting with an assorted platter of new and revolutionary subjects.

In this movie, all the directors and actors have done a good job. Critics quotient of the movie is fine but the entertainment quotient could have been better.

Shootout At Wadala (2013)

Cast: John Abraham, Anil Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Tusshar Kapoor, Manoj Bajpai. Sonu Sood, Ronit Roy, Mahesh Manjrekar, Soni Razdan

Director: Sanjay Gupta

Being a sequence of ‘Shootout At Lokhandwala’, the movie expectantly caters to the tug-o-war between the police and Mumbai underworld and the elements of the underworld themselves. However, the prequel caters to the time period when Dawood was an already established underworld power figure, whereas the sequel depicts the era before the emergence of Dawood aka Dilawar as the power figure. It caters to the time period, when the Mumbai police actually started bending the rulebook (read encounters). It seems that not many facts or incidents are recorded of that time period, or maybe there was less drama in the lifestyle of a single person/gang, so the storyline comprises of the activities of different gangs and the whole movie is a flashback as a story exchange between the protagonist/criminal Manya Surve (John Abraham) and the ACP (Anil Kapoor) on their way to the hospital after the criminal had been mercilessly trapped and encountered but still could live enough to tell his tale.

One interesting study you find is the contrast in the lifestyle of different ganglords. This is meaning to say that, they enjoyed almost the same kind of money, power and clout, but chose to live differently as per their lineage and/or preference. Mastans inspite of their age old clout preferred to stay and dress in their old ways, while the Haskars used to dress fashionably and drive swank cars. Common factor amongst them was respect for their religion and flashy gold accessories.

Actingwise, all have done good job. But Manoj Bajpai, in his small role still stands out. So does Sonu Sood in his passive acting. John has given it all for this role – be it body building, appearing ferocious, being uninhibited with the heroine as well as the item girl, depicting silent emotional pain etc. Coming from John, being uninhibited is a big step, as usually he appears very cautious around his heroines. Anil Kapoor appears as an honest and driven cop, but due to his age and/or physique you find it rather unconvincing that in a dual he can overpower someone like John or even someone less muscular than John. Out of other two cops, you feel as doubtful for Mahesh Manjrekar but not Ronit Roy. Kangana has beautifully dressed as ladies of that era. In fact in the second half of the movie, she resembles a lot of Rekha and carries the diva look with aplomb. She has managed to act natural and this should be applauded. Like Sachin of yesteryears, Tusshar simply cannot look anything other than a ‘decent and nice young boy’. Thus in spite of his hard work, considering him for a gangster role (Munir) seems rather questionable. Soni Razdan and Akbar Khan in their comeback roles appear just ok. It’s refreshing to see Jackie Shroff in a powerful and short guest appearance. Looking at Anil and him in the same frame, for a second you are instantly reminded of ‘Parinda’.

There are three absolutely unnecessary item songs. Each of them must have costed the producers a bomb. So, maybe they have their purpose and a section of the audience may go to the theatres to justify that purpose.

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).