Mayank Shekhar's review: My Friend Pinto

My Friend Pinto
Director: Raaghav Dar
Actors: Prateik Babbar, Arjun Mathur
Rating: ***
The human brain, it is said, can't handle more than 30 friends at one time. Or so says this Bombay boy Sameer (Arjun Mathur), his name obviously now shortened to Sam, who, like all of us, suddenly has hundreds of friends on his Facebook. One Michael Pinto isn’t one of them. Though for Pinto, Sam is his only friend.
While it doesn’t immediately seem so, young Mr Pinto’s quite a guy. His only dream's to be a good son. It appears he’s just lost his mother. He lives, I suppose, in Goa, and is on a week’s vacation, before he can finally become a priest. There was a film named after his uncle Albert, he reminds you, who used to get angry a lot (Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Ata Hai). Now that’s a 1980 Saeed Mirza movie that very few people have actually seen, but most will recognise from puns on its title that appear ad infinitum in the press even now. Things enter lexicon and pop-culture in mysterious ways.
Anyway, as you can tell, this film’s lead character has some sort of a movie pedigree. Of course, unlike his uncle Albert, he knows no anger, is remarkably credulous, clueless, some could mistake him for being mildly retarded even. He’s the proverbial village idiot. If you were to search for his other filmic roots, the tramp, immortalised by Charlie Chaplin in early Hollywood, adopted by Raj Kapoor in the ‘50s, might just come close.
Things happen to Michael Pinto. It’s New Year’s Eve. He’s in Mumbai. His only buddy Sam is his unwilling host. That buddy and his wife leave him behind at home, alone. By certain quirks or circumstances, Pinto’s now out on the city’s streets. He takes it all in. As do his audiences, who must remain seriously suspended in disbelief to be able to sit through this. Much like the fellow who hangs in mid-air with his t-shirt stuck to a building's scaffolding throughout this film. The tone remains entirely goofy. Or at least that's the attempt.
Prateik Babbar (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Dum Maaro Dum) plays Pinto. There is a visceral quality to his screen presence. You can sense it right away. It may not be enough to support an entire movie. But it’s endearing all right.
A bag-full of currency notes being passed around (Jackie Brown) is a common motif for any kind of comic or serious thriller. So is the mafia, of course. And one night that turns lives upside down (Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin). We experience these things only at the cinema. This one has all of them: a retired don (Makarand Deshpande), whose father forced him to take up the gun over the guitar (said, 'guy-ter'). Booty of ransom cash that’s gone missing. And a night, where various eccentric characters, and their short stories, merge around Pinto, who’s always at the wrong place at the right time. But it's not that the movie single-mindedly follows or focuses on any of these trails, unlike say, the much superior comic masterpiece Delhi Belly, earlier this year.
Besides the don; there's his deputy; his two Thompson and Thompson type lackeys; an old cabbie, his son; an abandoned pup; a failed female actor (Divya Dutta); the girl (Kalki Koechlin) that Pinto instantly falls for, who dreams of becoming a dancer…. It’s not easy to keep track.
Sometimes too much happens, there's never a dull moment, which also means you’re left with very few real moments. Several portions seem flat; the narrative goes all over the place. Guns don't go off. Thankfully.
It's still exciting when the film captures the relatively sanitised chaos of the south of Bombay, a real city. It becomes bland only when this is alternated with excessive indoor artistry of Mumbai noir, or a cardboard musical. The artfulness shows though.
These are interesting times. Different voices. Newer faces. Still Bollywood. The material here may be a lot better than the movie. But it doesn't quite disappoint you still. Which is great to know. And you should be good to go.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Love, Breakups, Zindagi

Director: Sahil Singha
Actors: Zayed Khan, Dia Mirza
Rating: **
He’s young, in his early thirties, yet already twice divorced. His father was in the ball bearing business, which as you may guess, must be a fact quite hard to grow up with. Kids at school would give him a hard time, his dad was after all the “ball bearing man.”
Now he’s single, funny, doing considerably better with a “Rs 84,000 post-tax salary.” He has his eyes on a woman (Tisca Chopra) who’s 38, teaches Urdu at a university. “In which language does she teach,” he asks! Given the prominence, you’d imagine this is probably the description of the film’s hero. It's not, though he should’ve been. He’s merely the funnyman, the lead’s buddy, with a part just a little bit shorter in length though.
The film, a romantic comedy as you can tell, surveys the rich, urban, over-dressed Indian young, where clothes are sponsored by designers Ritu Kumar and Manav Gangwani, and BMW is the sedan of choice. The setting slightly reminds you of Rajshree Ojha's Ayesha from a year ago. This one’s infinitely better. One Cyrus Sahukar cracks it at this one, as he did in that last. He plays the hilarious ball bearing man’s son.
His best buddy, the hero (Zayed Khan, ah well) has been seeing someone for a while. There’s more planning than pyar (love) in their relationship. He’s committed to the idea of being committed. Which is true for so many couples. The ones here at least profess to represent ‘people like us’, dining at the Tasting Room, hogging at China Garden. The customary Bollywood guided tour takes place over New Delhi’s Rail Museum and Mumbai’s Leopold Café, as against a fancy, foreign capital. Rules of the genre still apply; right up to an imminent climax sequence set in the airport.
Here’s how it helps to keep things relatively real still. You can tell a believable love story, beyond the tiring idea of perfect soul mates alone. “All our habits were once our choices. The choice should’ve been right,” says the mild mannered, pretty heroine (Dia Mirza), who seems excessively sensitive to touch. “What if the choices are correct, but a better option comes up,” asks the hero. Both, as it turns out, are seriously dating someone else at the point when they meet.
Which is at a wedding that lasts longer than many marriages do. This is where the funnyman and the Urdu teacher meet for the first time as well. It’s a laboriously unending weekend of playing 'pitthoo' (an outdoor game), the guitar, eating, drinking tea, wine, preparing for sangeet that should rival the Oscars for sit-down ceremonies, along with the usual “awws, woohoos” and toasts, and dancing to an ‘80s Neelam-Govinda song Apke Aa Jane Se… You’ve been to such weddings. You’d rather not go through them in real-time again. This is not even your best friend’s. There’s certainly thought in the writing. Some editing of that thought is always a good idea for a first film, or for that matter, a first anything creative.
We’re pretty much back to just the four main characters. You continue to see so much of them, knowing well, what'll happen next. The writers have little to fill the air up with; an ageing Shah Rukh Khan brought in for a cameo couldn't possibly help. “Relationships are confusing. They can be irritating. Can we expect ours to be different,” asks the hero, at some point. This is true for romantic films too. Don’t expect too much from this, and I think you’ll do just fine.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Soundtrack

Director: Neerav Ghosh
Actors: Rajeev Khandelwal, Mohan Kapoor
Rating: **
These are musicians world-famous, north of Mumbai’s Worli. The front man is the resident DJ at a nightclub called Tango Charlie. When not spinning on the console, his partner’s busy with a groupie going down on him in the greenroom.
The hero’s manager (Mohan Kapoor) decodes the gist of their trade: “What’s the best thing about music,” he asks. “Melodies, solo guitars…” says his protégé DJ. “The chicks bro; music is like honey, they're like bees,” enlightens the manager. Fair enough.
But this leading man of ours, swigging Johnny Black from the bottle, smoking pot from the bong, probably has a long way to go. He’s just about gotten noticed, as it were. Labouring all night on his Logic Pro, he records a track with an unknown, old, poor folk/Sufi type singer. The number’s original. People fall for it at the discotheque. He’s now scored a gig at Goa’s Sunburn. Done. Wohoo! Malishka, the popular radio jockey, says she'd only get requests for this DJ’s non-Bollywood independent track, ‘What the f’ to play on FM all day. Really?
The ultimate in aspiration for DJ Raunak is AR Rahman. Who is, as they say, the Mozart of Madras. The film informs us, the hero’s not even yet the “Bandra ka Beethoven”. Bandra, of course, being a tony suburb in north Mumbai, where the makers of this movie are probably from. It could be Soho, if Mumbai itself was New York City (which it isn’t). Though currently in serious decline, it’s still a neighbourhood known for its more alternative creative outputs: artists, filmmakers, designers, musicians, models….
Director Anurag Kashyap is possibly the Karan Johar of this lot. He rightly makes appearances in this film. Rajeev Khandelwal (Aamir, Shaitan) is likely to be appreciated more here than, say, Shah Rukh Khan. He plays the hero. Movies unite the young in these lively parts. Floating population love eating and drinking out. They enjoy as much ordering in, DVDs, as in this case.
This movie’s directly lifted from Michael Dowse’s It’s All Gone Pete Tong (2004). The filmmakers acknowledge the source in the closing credits, which I guess, just about makes it okay. The original was the kind of DVD that would have long queue at rentals like Bandra’s Sarvodaya or Movie Empire. It’s a mockumentary, concerned a hedonistic, drug-addict DJ, who becomes deaf in pursuit of his ambitions, forever surrounded by cocaine and loud music. Soha Ali Khan plays the girl who helps him heal in this film. An alter ego visits the hallucinating leading man. That’s a joker from Shweta Shetty’s ‘90s music video ‘Johnny Joker’ in this picture. Nostalgia is evident. Fakeness being passed off for local cool shows. Sadly.
Here’s the problem with adapting culture specific substances to an Indian context, at least with a deeply derivative movie like this. For starters, Alibagh is no Ibiza. The story defies a fundamental rule about rockstars in India: that there are none. Movie actors lip syncing and dancing to tracks at cinemas and TV alone make for all-purpose super-stars in Indian pop-culture. Unfortunately.
Independent Bandra musicians at best can look to fetch about Rs 25,000 for a gig at Blue Frog, haggling with the cabbie on their way to the venue. This is why the Boogie Nights’ pool parties, The Aviator style closed-door seclusion of the genius artiste, and The Doors’ greenroom groupies, seem so out of place. Mithunda's ‘80s Fast Forward copy Dance Dance appears a lot less pretentious in comparison! The soundtrack for a film by that name is also strictly whatever, besides a bunch of Bollywood remixes: Yeh Jevan Hai (Piya Ka Ghar), Rahi O Rahi (Himalay Se Ooncha), Khulam Khula Pyar Karenge (Khel Khel Mein)…
You can still tell a bunch of Bandroids trying hard. Something genuine, off-centre, Indian, original, and cutting image, will eventually emerge from efforts like these. Until then, I guess, we should just bear with these.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Chargesheet

Director: Dev Anand
Actors: Dev Anand, Naseeruddin Shah
Rating: Irrelevant
The first mistake to make if you do actually walk into this screening is to assume this is a picture. Just a picture? That’s like saying Dev Anand is an actor. He, like his movies, especially since the ‘90s, have been phenomena of our troubled times.
Of the trio that ruled Hindi cinema in the 1950s, Raj Kapoor is long gone, Dilip Kumar has been ailing for a while, Dev is still a competing star, director, writer, and if need be, the audience for his films. Dev's genius may defy description. But that’s because all imagination cannot be limited to words.
We see him in this movie, first hiding behind a tree, shooting at gangsters. It’s a flashback sequence. He was then commissioner of Delhi Police. He's retired from the force now. That’s not possible.
Look at him: head tilted sideways as he recites lines in that imitable drawl. The ageless young man favours the denim jacket, swigs brandy from a hip flask: "heart ke liye” (for the heart). Dev saab, in reality, doesn’t drink. Never has. Which is good. Someone so high on life would embarrass the silly intoxicant. He’s 88. I don’t know a better brand ambassador for the AA.
But in this film, he has a problem. He’s up against major Goliaths. One of them is KK, short for Kanna Kauwa. This fellow is a don’s trusted lieutenant, in half a pair of Aviator shades, fat cigarello on his lips, dozen piercing in his ears, gold chains around his neck. Heck, seriously give it to this guy. I wish to know more about him.
But the director digs deeper instead, in his effort to expose the underworld’s disturbing influence in Bollywood. There is a film shoot on. A fading heroine who wishes to be part of it is shot dead. One of the accused is Dev, the gold-medallist ex-police commissioner, staying in the same guesthouse as the movie’s cast. He once also used to head all investigating agencies in the country. Given his resume, the home minister allows him to investigate the murder case where he’s himself a suspect!
All other accused are in jail. Politician Amar Singh plays that home minister. Wasn’t he charge-sheeted recently? The casting is ironic. I suppose. But you should expect no less from an active mind on creative viagra such as the one making this movie. Things happen to him because it wills it.
The zeal is infectious. India’s top contemporary actors have adorably indulged Dev Anand in recent years: Aamir Khan acted in his Awwal No 1, Boman Irani got up from his seat when he got a call from this director to perform in Mr Prime Minister, Amitabh Bachchan was at this film's premiere. Warner Bros. has produced it!
Naseeruddin Shah plays the villain. He’s don Sultan: the anti-hero on extra hormones, willing to tap anything that moves, single after eight weddings, with 10 kids, but father to none. This Dubai Mafiosi plans to make the biggest Bollywood film ever: Love Story Iss Waqt Ki. But there’s a condition: the gangster's busty moll has to be the picture's heroine, because she wants to. He loves her with the same passion that Dev, the director, is passionate about life and the female breasts.
Besides the don’s tight-squeeze, and a dead heroine, there’s a nubile gypsy girl with a strong lisp and a pink guitar who dances in bras and micro-minis, so she can do the same on the screen some day. Chham Chham, that’s her name, charges Rs 100 to the public for touching her fingers, Rs 200 for shaking her hands! Like everyone else, she dreams of making it big in Bollywood. Who else will appreciate this undying obsession than the superstar-director of this film.
Suddenly the cinema slips into a surrealist state. Mobs take up guns and hit the streets. Running cleavage bounces into the camera lens. Characters start getting shot one by one. A li’l child, who's supposedly Dev's daughter, runs behind him. A white woman appears from nowhere. As do sculptures of god. This is the climax, Sir. The don is caught, charge-sheeted.
The song starts, “Charajsheet, charajsheet, charajsheet...” Which reminds me of how this had all started, a Riya Sen number with Russian backup dancers, “Bollywood, yeah yeah…. Gita, Ramayan. Tehzeebon ki khan (repository of etiquette)… Bollywood, yeah yeah.”

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Speedy Singhs

Director: Robert Lieberman
Actors: Vinay Virmani, Rob Lowe
Rating: **
Akshay Kumar is going to be in town. Yipee. Indian families are excited. You’re not surprised. We’re in Toronto, possibly its suburb Brampton, to be more precise. It’s a uniquely frenzied outpost of Bollywood’s soft imperialism; this place. Those who may have watched this year’s IIFA awards, held in Toronto, would instantly understand.
For those viewers in Kanaada, the lead character does a Bollywood number in sherwani, on ice skates, before the Taj Mahal, by a frozen desert, in this film. Good for him. Good for them. But this is really not a Bollywood movie, in that sense. The makers have roped in a reasonably well-known western face, Rob Lowe (The West Wing, Family Guy, Austen Powers series, and, ah, Wayne’s World, my all-time favourite teenage movie ever!). Rob plays a sports coach.
They’ve also signed up Candian stand-up star Russel Peters. He does the same old, jaded gags that he’s doling out, I hear, for 22 years now! Between the two of them, the producers could have run out of money to spare. The movie’s execution remains slightly amateurish, fairly tacky, mostly "NRI movie" type.
Akshay Kumar, by the way, is also the credited presenter of this picture. Besides, he’s played the hero’s part in a similar BBCD (British-born Confused Desi) subject set in London recently (Nikhil Advani’s Patiala House).
Except, that was centred on cricket. This one refers to ice hockey. The debutant hero here (Vinay Virmani; also the screenwriter, and I presume the financier's son) is the captain of a rag-tag South Asian hockey team comprising die-hard local Sikhs. His old man (Anupam Kher; stock father, who always gives Diaspora daddies a bad name) won’t have his Indian kid participate in any such team sport. Even if the boy is excellent at it. We’re not exactly sure why. Let’s say, or as he says, “Work, future, in spare time, the gurudwara, no ice hockey for the boy.” Wokay. Besides, he reasons, who in India’s heard of ice hockey. They only know cricket. Sardar Sr also hates peanut butter, apple pie, and the necktie.
Son continues to play. Daddy doesn’t know. Few funny lines apart, you sense some script-guru’s spreadsheet (Syd Field’s?) being directly turned into a generic screenplay. There's at least promise of a speedy recovery. Stuff's still short enough. Under-dog team clears round after another of the top domestic hockey tournament. This is much to the surprise of everyone in the movie -- not those watching it, of course. The audience’s so far ahead of the film, they could be outside its theatre.
You do head home with a thought: What's with desi kids defying their parents, and racial or gender stereotype, to finally make it in sport? A whole lot. Of money and fame, that is. Remember Bend It Like Beckham? Back in 2002? It reportedly grossed $22 million in the US alone, and made Parminder Nagra, let alone Keira Knightley, an overnight star. Boy, no harm trying, I guess.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Mausam

Director: Pankaj Kapur
Actors: Shahid Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor
Rating: *1/2
There’s an old, popular Shailendra ditty in this movie that goes, of course, Ajeeb Dastan Hai Yeh. Kahaan Shuru, Kahan Khatam (It’s a weird legend. Not sure where it begins. Not sure where it ends).
The second time they play that Shankar Jaiskishen song on this screen, you’re convinced, this is some kind of an inside joke between the film’s director and his drooping audience. He’s ushered you into the theatre all right, seated you comfortably with popcorn, coke and other supplies for the day, it’s been over three hours (has felt like multiple mausams, seasons, of a television series), you’re still not certain when this epic tragedy will end, or if it will at all.
You do remember how it had roughly started. Sort of. The camera pans to reveal a sleepy, small pind or village in Punjab. Hero plays the fool with friends, getting cheap thrills out of challenging a train to knock his car over as he speeds across the rail tracks. That car looks like a topless Contessa, but is probably not. Homes have fat box TVs with poor reception. ‘Respected’ elder men lord over affairs of the young. Tutak Tutak Tutiya is the Bhangra number of the day. We’re in the early ‘90s. Detailing is perfect, down to the aloo puri, that looks delicious. The sweep is still wide.
It feels like a more realistic, warm, alternate route to Yash Chopra’s lush greens of Punjab. The picture, promising so far, appears comic in parts, romantic at moments, poetic in portions, and the all-genre Bollywood film otherwise. The director (Pankaj Kapur) appears to have made his debut with the same level of honesty and conviction with which he's scripted his own, rather under-rated acting career (Maqbool, Ek Doctor Ki Maut, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro). But hold on. It’s not even been an hour, bouyz -- mustn’t speak too soon.
The leading couple has barely met. They eye each other from a distance. Constantly. It’s a popular form of rural love. She disappears from the pind suddenly. He checks out from the village as well. The movie goes off on another tangent, on to another plain. So do your brains, from here on.
The gentleman before us, an officer now, is called Harry, for Harinder Singh (Shahid Kapoor). His girl’s Ayat (Sonam Kapoor). Lovely name. You’d imagine their religion is perhaps the conflict of this romance. It’s not. Don’t even ask what is. Yet.
He doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t womanise. In the real world, such a man would be dangerous! In the pictures, he makes for the ideal Rajshri Prem-type Bollywood hero. She, on the other hand, rarely talks, radiantly smiles, shyly whispers.
It’s been seven years since they caught each other’s eyes. He keeps her autograph and picture in his wallet. They randomly bump into each other in Scotland. Sitting in a café, they read minds, make unspoken conversations in their heads: “Are you married?” he asks her, in his head. “Why'd you think so?” she replies, in her head. “Thought you'd have had five to six kids already.” She laughs, for real. Both are single. Get me the Pringle. Because, there you go, they disappear again. He’s off to war. She’s, as usual, still placing a call from circular dials of her Bakelite phone, writing letters, tracing those eyes to somehow lock hers with.
This goes on for a decade, and more. Shahid Kapur gets to play the Bollywood superstar he shares the first four letters of his name with, as well as Tom Cruise from Top Gun. He ages well. Wish you could say that for his viewers. Between Swiss Alps, Scotland and Punjab, they witness a ball-room dance performance squeezed in somewhere, a Mozart concert elswhere, desi beats, and of course, the air force sorties.
Political events in the interim form the picture’s backdrop: from Babri Masjid, terrorism in Kashmir, through Kargil, to 9/11, and Gujarat riots. Each, in their own ways, affects the characters. You figure, this film, floating over a sea of nothingness, is undone by its aspirations alone. That ambition being? A Gone With The Wind, a Dr Zhivago, or a Cassablanca, you suppose. You can only suppose: an epic romance through passage of time and history. Crores have been pumped into the director’s convictions. Setting out with a script with better drama, leave aside a plot, could’ve helped its scale more.
Meanwhile, misunderstandings between missing couple multiply. Their cellphone numbers, addresses change. By now we’re in 2002. It’s about time, people. For God’s sake. Get yourself an email id. Seriously.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

Review: Mere Brother Ki Dulhan
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar
Actors: Imran Khan, Katrina Kaif
Rating: *1/2
“Bahut confused hoon, complicate ho raha hai (I’m confused, things are getting complicated),” says Imran Khan, who looks forever confused in this movie anyway. He’s talking to the girl who’ll soon become his brother’s bride. He could as well be talking to his audience that’s probably just as dumbstruck at the unnecessarily complicated, tiring, lame mess the hero finds himself in, merely to serve the purpose of an over-imagined plot.
Contrary to its title, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan isn’t really about a brother’s bride. At least not in the same way the Cher movie Moonstruck (1987; masterpiece, compared to this), or closer home, Onir’s Sorry Bhai (2008), were. The brother here (Ali Zafar; casual, charming) has met his girl once, for a few seconds, over Skype, or a computer window that suspiciously looks like an ad for a matrimonial website. She asked him a few “Koffee With Karan rapid fire round questions,” the final one of which was if he preferred underwear or no-underwear. London boy got bowled over, match was made, mandap’s ready.
The hero himself had hooked the two up, because the brother had asked to find him an Indian bride. He toured homes across Bhopal, Lucknow, Panipat etc, before placing a front-page jacket ad in a newspaper, with a poster of the prospective groom that left a suave diplomat impressed enough to pass on his beautiful daughter. That girl’s the bidi-smokin’ hot, former lead guitarist of a rock band. Okay. Seriously? I know we shouldn’t always test movies on bounds of reality, but then again, films like these can’t be about aliens either. That’s the basis of this Yashraj films’ big-ticket rom-com event picture of the year.
The two lead characters – the bride, and the groom’s matchmaking brother – it turns out, already knew each other from some camping trip or rock concert across the Taj Mahal in Agra, where the UK-born heroine was surrounded by weird blokes, doing the general fake-cool stuff, “Hey guys, woohooo… Woohoo, hey guys!” The girl was from Lady Shri Rao, the boy went to Keval Maro college (both puns on Delhi’s Lady Sri Ram and Kirori Mal).
“You think I’m a tart, bitch, slut?” she’d asked the boy after being attacked by a random rapist type in her tent. The hero had reasoned, “This is India, not London. Har desh ki ek soch hoti hai (Every nation has its own thought process).” The average Indian girl had “sharm, lihaaz,” was shy, meek; very different from her. So deal with it.
Hmmm. Don’t know what to make of this explanation, besides ignore it completely. For the sake of this film, suffice it to know this hero, and the heroine, are in love. They run away from the wedding venue once, shift the party to another city after, intoxicate the wedding baraat along the way, bring the brother’s girlfriend into the picture… The movie is so stretched from both ends, you could see it tearing apart from the centre. The couple’s clueless fathers look on like notable ‘sideys’ in suits. All good things come to an end. Thankfully, that’s true for things not so good as well.
You still have to give it to a few casting gems in this movie (hero’s buddies etc), some inspired dialogue-writing that captures the patois of India’s rustic North (one of them, “Bhabi badi frank hain,” rightly makes it to posters!). But what can you give it? Your sympathies, of course.
Katrina Kaif plays the said "rock chick". It’s hard to tell if her character’s restlessly rebellious, or plainly retarded. There's a thin line between the two, something that relaively similar, far more enjoyable, recent romantic comedies have managed to balance out incredibly well (Anand Rai's Tanu Weds Manu; Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met).
This is Kaif’s third outing at the theatres this year, the last being a quick ‘item number’ opposite Salman Khan in Bodyguard, before that, a fine role beside Farhan Akhtar in Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara (both commercial successes being as diametrically opposite to each other as the ‘70s screenwriter duo Salim and Javed’s sons!). This picture is almost entirely centred on her.
Though enough credit is never given to leading ladies in Hindi films, Hong Kong born, half Caucasian, half Kashmiri, Kaif possibly has the most impressive track record in Bollywood at present: 16 out of her 24 films have reportedly been hits! For all you know, this could well be another one. “Maybe I do have a knack for selecting the right scripts,” she says, in an interview to the Press Trust of India. That’s not true. If you’ve the patience, sit through this movie. You’ll know.

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'Mummy Punjabi' - a condensed soap opera (Movie Review)

Film: "Mummy Punjabi"; Director: Pammi Somal; Cast: Kirron Kher, Jackie Shroff, Divya Dutta and Kanwaljeet Singh; Rating: * 1/2
Today there are more soaps on television then the real soaps in people's homes. Hence, when going to watch films, audiences expect more than a melodramatic, disappointing and condensed soap opera, which is exactly what "Mummy Punjabi" is.
A Punjabi woman living in Chandigarh - Mummy (Kirron Kher) to most and Baby to a few - tries to raise her two sons and a daughter on her traditional, yet quirky values. She lets her girl loose, but puts a leash on her sons. Her children, obedient as they are, comply. Most of the times things don't go according to plan, leading to much heartburn for Mummy.
"Mummy?" has its heart in the right place - it shows a clash of value systems and how a traditional woman copes with them. The problem is that its execution is not in sync with its intention. What you have thus is a long-winded, simple and caricaturised soap opera that you see on TV which has been condensed to two hours. The result is that in the relentless action in the film, there's not a second's breathing space.
This would have been all right, had it not been for a terrible script that tries to do too much. That suits director and writer Pammi Somal, who has written many soaps for serials. It, however, does not work for big screen audiences.
The only saving grace in the film is Kirron Kher, who despite very little scope in terms of the story and direction, does her best to keep the film together. It is however sad, that one of the best actress on Indian screen, a woman whose full range of talents have been exploited in masterpieces like "Khamosh Pani", is given such caricatured roles in badly directed films. Bollywood can, and should, do better for her.
Kanwaljeet Singh, as a chilled out father, and Divya Dutta as a gossipy maid do a good job too. But the rest of the cast seem straight out of a TV serial with big-screen aspirations in their eyes.
Even bit roles done by the likes of Jackie Shroff, Satish Kushik, Gurdas Mann and Rohit Roy cannot save the film that plays to the gallery in a very predictable script and execution.
This is a case of a film that perhaps should not have been made. And if it had to be made, it should have been made as a TV soap. It would have turned out to be a blockbuster then.

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'Bodyguard' - delivers the goods (Movie Review)

Film: "Bodyguard"; Cast: Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Raj Babbar; Director: Siddiqu; Rating: ***
For three years now, every Eid, a Salman Khan movie has become one of the rewards of the festival. Whereas last year we had "Dabangg", which despite its simplicity had layers into it, this year we are treated to "The Bodyguard" which isn't a patch on "Dabangg". Despite this, it has enough to hold the attention of festive audiences.
Bodyguard Lovely Singh (Salman Khan) is a nice, honest man of steel who is faithful to Sartaj (Raj Babbar). Sartaj, asks Lovely to guard his daughter Divya (Kareena Kapoor) day and night.
Lovely does his job diligently, but is unawares that Divya serenades him under a pseudonym Chhaya over the phone, and has fallen in love with him. Things get out of control when Sartaj's enemies try to kill Divya while Sartaj thinks Lovely is trying to kidnap his daughter.
"Bodyguard", conceptually, is based on the type of stories that have made Imtiaz Ali popular - sweet, gentle love stories, where the underlying theme being sacrifice for the sake of love. Yet whereas Imtiaz Ali reveals in a certain quaint subtlety despite the melodramatic nature of his films, "Bodyguard" director Siddique does not have that much of skills to pull that off.
The result is a film that has its few funny, slapstick moments but the problem area is the surprise twist in the end. It is an end that does not gel with the pace of the rest of the film and seems cooked up. That is especially true because director Siddique gives no foreshadowing or inclination before of a possibility of a character doing what she does in the end.
However, that would be a problem with urban audiences. As far as rural viewers go, the ending, fantastic as it may be, might actually work for the film. After all isn't there enough elements of fantasy in the rest of the film like when Salman going in the opposite direction in a train, simply jumps on to a running train in another direction. If one can digest that, one can do the same for the ending.
A little more effort on the editing table would have eased a lot of things.
Salman fans, however, have much to cheer. They not only get to see their favourite star beating enemies to pulp, but also get to see his well toned torso, that in the end is revealed after jets of water blow away his shirt, much like the subway wind blew away Marilyn Monroe's skirt.
Debutante Rajat Rawail provides comic relief to the film not just with his antics but also the funny messages on his t-shirts like '6 Pack Coming Soon' pasted over his fat belly.
Salman is his well-chiseled self, and Kareena is as good as the script demands of her, which isn't much. The music is catchy, especially Himmesh Reshamiya composed song "I Love You".
Overall, "Bodyguard" may not have the chutzpah of a "Dabangg", but it pulls itself through to entertain viewers during the festive season.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Standby

Standby Director: Sanjay Surkar
Actors: Adinath Kothare, Siddharth Kher
Rating: *1/2
“You were a footballer. How could you embezzle Rs 20 lakh from a bank?” asks the TV reporter. Seriously. How? The fellow being questioned is rightly flummoxed. So should the viewer.
Footballers, especially former footballers (as in this case), you see, cannot be associated with frauds. Swami Vivekanand rightly put it, “You will be nearer to heaven playing football than studying the *Bhagavad-Gita.”* The old man before us has been wrongly accused. You know.
Here’s why. His son is the designated captain of the Indian football team. That boy must choose not to play, so that the player on “standby” gets a chance to be part of the team. This captain refuses to budge. He’s beaten up. His father is driven to suicide. And I survive to inform you: This is truly the plot of this film.
Now a bit on the said “Standby” this picture is named after. He's in fact the captain's best friend. As one of his female fans puts it, he is "dashing, haendsome, and reech.” Very rich. His dad, the villain, bankrolls Indian football, sacks TV commentators who criticise him, is presently negotiating with the “European League” to get him on board. Daddy can of course find his son a place in the Indian team. Everything’s on sale. Politicians swim in his pocket. They own football too. The movie explains this best when it breaks into occasional bouts of magic realism. Tribal men dance around a chessboard. A ball rises up in the air.
Okay. Don't squint your eyes, think too hard. The conflict is much simpler. The Indian team’s coach is the problem. He won’t allow the rich “standby” to take over from the “captain” and get into the team. He wants to take Indian football ahead of cricket. But politicians don’t care. He looks at the federation chief, a neta, and reasons why: “Because cricket is a gentlemen's game. Football is a man's game. You've to be a man to understand this.” True.
He further reveals the tragedy of Indian football, why this country is apparently ranked 147 by FIFA. Best Indian players are made to stay at home, he tells us. Because “armchair selectors”, or politicians, decide who must play. This is a mess. There’s a Messi in Mangalore, and we don’t even know it. I want to sit in on a dharna over this issue. Oh, and yeah. You try sitting through this movie. Priceless.

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'Sahi Dhande Ghalat Bande', an honest effort by Parvin Dabas

Film: "Sahi Dhande Ghalat Bande"; Starring: Parvin Dabas, Vansh Bhardwaj, Ashish Nair, Kudeep Ruhil; Directed by: Parveen Dabas; Rating: ***
Ekdum sahi hai, boss! As Anna Hazare shifts from Tihar to Ramlila Maidan, our cinema has made a far more gradual movement from the 'arty-unintelligible' grammar of Mani Kaul to the 'arty-accessible' language of Parvin Dabas' film.
This is the land of Shyam Benegal's social inequalities where politicians pitch their self-interest higher than the good of the country.
Not every do-gooder is a Hazare. Sometime you just have to make do with a benign goon like Rajbir (Parvin Dabas) who breaks legs (shot on mobile phone) and extorts money for his surrogate-father (Sharat Saxena, in his usual excellent form). When Rajbir and his three socially-questionable friends set their hearts on saving their village farmers' land from urban land-sharks you know this is the land of Sholay brought into the political consciousness of the cinema of Mrinal Sen and Benegal.
"Sahi Dhande…" is an immensely ambitious film. Debutant director Parvin Dabas sets out to create a cinema that prods the audiences' conscience awake without lengthy speeches on corruption and reformation. Dabas keeps the pace uniform and even.
But portions of the narration suffer from a sense of slackened tension. Where a more taut editing pattern would have added considerably to the film's viewable quotient, Dabas opts to just let the plot flow in the way he deems it right. The absence of overt intervention in making the narration slicker, is both a virtue and a vice in the overall design. While you applaud the film's objective attitude to the theme you also miss the absence of a deft storytelling.
The quibble is shortlived. You cannot stop yourself from admiring the screenplay (Dabas, Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla) for not succumbing to the temptation of creating an enforced charm in the proceedings. Yes, the plot does take off at a rather incongruous tangent in search of a formal climax where we see Dabas and his compatriots put up a fight with the film's arch villain in slow-motion splendour, a la "Dabangg".
Also some of the writing smacks of amateurishness. When at the start the Dabas character comes out of jail his friends arrange a girl in a bikini in a bathtub as an antidote to his year-long celibacy. Jail bin machli, kya??
And Dabas' girlfriend's character, a pretentious arty piece with a nose ring to go with her sham attitude, should have been barred from entering the script.
These concessions to audience-wooing apart, "Sahi Dhande Galat Bande" moves at its own arrogant but endearing pace. Some characters such as the village Taai (Neena Kulkarni) and the corrupt chief minister (Kiron Juneja)'s conscientious son (Udit Khurana) are interesting to the point of being liberating for the screenplay.
The lucid camerawork (Anshul Chobey) and the performances add to the film's energy level. Parvin Dabas, an actor who has consistently been true to his characters, here gets a huge helping hand from his co-stars.
"Sahi Dhande Galat Bande" is a kind of unique effort. It teases the conscience awake. It's a warm and honest film that looks with unblinking directness at issues which are more relevant now than ever.

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Mayank Shekhar's Review: Aarakshan

Aarakshan
Director: Prakash Jha
Actors: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan
Rating: **
Young Sushant Seth (Prateik Babbar, looking perpetually dumbfounded) is a rich kid who’s just graduated from a college that his father is a trustee of. The boy wants to get into Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia’s popular mass communications programme. He’s opted for a career in the media. It’s a tough course to get into. You could question his choice of college (I had run away from that dingy school within a month of taking admission. Shah Rukh Khan, their most famous student, is also a dropout!). But never mind that.
The boy is sure of securing admission. That doesn’t happen. Over 50 per cent of seats in Jamia, it turns out, are reserved. He’s dejected, shocked. This moment completely changes his attitude towards Dalits in particular. Which is, kind of, strange. Those Jamia seats he lost out to, were in fact reserved for another minority, the Muslims; not the backward castes. But that’s another matter again.
His is the only main character in the film that’s genuinely against reservations for minorities in state-funded colleges. The others support the government’s move for reasons of their own. One, social: Amitabh Bachchan’s Prabhakar Anand sees merit in righting the wrongs of history. Two, economic: Manoj Bajpayee’s character, doing the bidding for private entrepreneurs, smells money when upper-caste rich can’t find a place in government colleges. Three, personal: Saif Ali Khan’s Deepak Kumar is a Dalit himself.
Yeah, I know what you’ve been thinking. Suave, slick, urbane Saif for a downtrodden, poor Dalit man, who roughed it out studying in a slum while his mother ironed clothes for a living? He doesn’t look odd at all. No surprises there. Because, this is the movies. That’s how it works. You're looking for a guy-next-door? Go next door!
Saif’s character is scoffed at for being from a backward caste. He gives it back. Suitably. This unsubtle, loud, severely talkie drama, as you can tell, is in every way, more pro-reservation then. Had it not been, would it have been ‘casteist’ for it? Are we banned in this country from debating merits or demerits of reservation on caste lines altogether? Only cheap, opportunist netas would think so. They rule. The public be damned. They can't even decide what movie they can watch.
One of those netas (Saurabh Shukla) is in this film too. He's starting a vast private, profiteering education empire. As so many of these blokes do. He’s also interested in planting one of his own men to control a reputed private university, which is run by an upright principal (Amitabh Bachchan).
Hatthi (annoyingly stubborn) is a good Hindi word to describe this sincere old man that politicians and their chamchas or cronies are up against. He won’t budge from his principles, believes in remedial education for the needy, holds free classes in his own backyard, takes pride in producing fine talents. There is a certain honour to this character, perhaps too filmic, one could argue. It’s still inspiring to watch an uncompromising honest man stick his neck out, go to any extent possible to preserve what he stands for. This doesn’t seem to happen in the world around us. That’s why we go to the films. I guess. Bachchan lends immense dignity to this role. It’s the only one that’s neatly defined.
The pawn that politicians plant to dislodge this principal, on the other hand, is a cardboard, caricatured Bollywood villain (Manoj Bajpayee: oily, wily, ‘Prem Chopra’). He neglects his job, owns seven coaching centres, intends to expand further, represents the worst of the commercialisation of Indian education. Which is really what this movie is about.
Why does this corrupt goon hate the honest college principal enough to take over his house (after his job), swear to drive him to the streets: "make him beg"? I don’t know. Why should the whole world instantly hate a college principal, merely because, in his personal capacity, he’s spoken in favour of affirmative action? I’m not sure.
Besides the writing, this appears to be ‘filmmaking in a hurry’ as well: the art director didn’t have time to design a half believable hotel room, music directors reworked their old, familiar tunes (Achhi Lagti Ho from Kuch Na Kaho for Accha Lagta Hai)…
The result is the least satisfying of Jha’s recent films: Gangaajal (2003; a debate on police atrocities), Apaharan (2005; on the kidnapping and ransom industry), Rajneeti (2010; where political party is seen as India’s new monarch). Hip Hip Hurray (1984), by far, is still his best film on the youth. That was minimalist, sensible. This one tries so hard to be equally “massy, mainstream”. It ends up being neither. A fine opportunity is lost.
The filmmakers do have important points to make though. The state of education truly sucks. It’s a serious matter. I just can't see if they have as convincing a story to tell. Conflicts are lost in simplicities, motivations seem unclear, songs stick out, corny situations take over.
Heavy commercialisation of education, the film critiques, perhaps affects the film industry in the same way. Humble advice to makers of movies, which holds equally true for readers of their reviews: Please, don't just go by the stars!

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Office Office

Director: Rajiv Mehra
Actors: Pankaj Kapur, Gaurav Kapoor
Rating: *1/2 "Naam (name)?" asks the policeman at his station desk. "Mussaddi Lal," says the accused, Mussaddi Lal (of course). "Pesha (profession)?" "Retired school master, Mahatma Gandhi School, Lal Ganj, Ghaziabad, India." "Jurm (crime?)" "Common man!"
Being common in Third World is some sort of a crime all right. Especially, in a congenitally corrupt nation that daydreams of becoming developed some day. First World, by definition, is determined by how the last man standing gets treated in his own country. Shining India is furthest from it. You can tell. This film is valid commentary of that state.
Mussaddi is an idealist old man, left with little else, besides his honesty, income from his pension, a small apartment, and a 28-year-old son (Gaurav Kapur) who's seriously good for nothing. The strange chemistry between this father and his son Bunty does offer fair amount of laughs though.
Mussadi's wife's just died. She was admitted to a state hospital that was more interested in diagnostic tests he could cough up cash for. He's off on a pilgrimage on a train to distribute ashes of the deceased one. Each episode above is a tiring drill for old Mussaddi. He has to triumph over red-tapist worms, scavenging officials, to barely survive, get on with life.
At every stage, he comes across proverbial characters, played by the same actors, in different settings - Bhatia Saab (Manoj Pahwa), Shuklaji (Sanjay Mishra), Pandeyji (Hemant Pandey), Patel (Devan Bhojani). They play multiple roles of doctor, ticket collector, hospital wardboy, low-level hawaldar, pesky pandit, bank-teller… And eventually, clerks in a pension office. Because, Mussaddi Lal has just returned from his pilgrimage to learn, from government records, that he's dead. He must now prove himself to be alive, to be able to claim his own monthly pension!
Silly as it may sound, this is not entirely a work of fiction, of course. Several similar, true cases have been reported in the past in this country, some even turned into compelling films (Mazhar Kamran's Mohandas is a recent one that comes to mind). The general attack on corruption itself can take the form of a movie that's angry (Dombivli Fast), frustrated (Saraansh), or plain funny (Lage Raho Munnabhai). This one attempts to be all three, succeeds at none.
Office Office, I hear, was a much-loved series on television. I haven't watched a single, complete episode, but it's not that hard to tell why. It starred one of the nation's most under-rated acting talents, Pankaj Kapur. As does this film. The story bears resonance, empathy. The difference is in the medium alone.
Television, free chewing gum for the brain, rarely demands half as much as a fully consuming film on the big screen in a dark theatre does. Distracted audiences are far more forgiving on TV. Anybody who's watched and loved a bad movie on a tiny tube, especially on a flight, will agree.
In here, there is just no visible escape. The writing is entirely episodic, like a TV show. Scenarios recur. Actors ham it up. Loud background score informs every scene. You care for our man Mussaddi. Or at least wish to. He takes rounds of various 'daftars' (offices), literally living a farce. Democracy is probably both the problem, and its only plausible solution. You get the point. How about a better picture?

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'I Am Kalam' gives message without preaching (Movie Review)

Film: "I Am Kalam"; Cast: Harsh Mayar, Hussan Saad, Pitobash, Gulshan Grover and Beatrice Ordeix; Director: Nila Madab Panda; Rating: ****
The boy is a dreamer. One look at the former President of India A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on television and Chotu decides to call himself Kalam. Kalam believes every child has the right to education.
Without the least display of pity or preachiness, debutant director Nila Madab Panda creates a world of infinite hope and minuscule joys for his precocious unlettered but smart protagonist Chotu.
The wispy but firm-handed narration weaves through Chotu's relationships with various characters in his life… his uncle, the dhaba owner Bhatti, which is played with endearing warmth by Gulshan Grover, the jealous Bachchan-crazy recruit at the dhaba Laptan (Pitobash, natural in his unsophisticated meanness), the free-spirited French tourist Lucy (Betarice ordeix), and above all, Chotu's rapport with the Rajasthani royalty Ranvijay Singh (Husaan Saad), a kind lonely aristocrat boy who eagerly befriends Chotu to share his luxurious but solitary life with.
The shared moments between Chotu and his motley crew of compelling characters are tender and genuine. The characters are never slotted or allowed to become stereotypical. They convey a kind of free-flowing casualness that makes them real and yet dramatic in a subtle way.
The film's social message of education-for-all is underlined but never italicized. It's left to the boy protagonist Harsh Mayar to bring out the theme's inherent message without making the plot heavy or didactic.
Mayar with his unassuming swagger and artless smile brings to the film a rare intelligence and humour. National award, did they say? The boy deserves much more.
The first-time director tends to over-simplify the complexities of the plot towards the end when in a quest for a flashy climax he collects all the characters at an extremely manufactured crisis point.
But the clumsiness of some episodes doesn't take away from the film's intrinsic warmth and gentleness. The narration glides through Chotu-Kalam's adventures with ease and fluency creating the fantasy-driven hopeless world of an underprivileged child without pity of sentimentality.
The last shot shows the 'prince' and the 'pauper' traveling happily together in the same school bus. Socialism has arrived. Abdul Kalam must be smiling at this Utopian dream of finale. But then isn't that what cinema does? Offer hope, create a dream world and exchange the harsh reality of the outside world with a magical alternative.
"I Am Kalam" does all of this. Must be watched for its sincere effort to carry forward the world of the child with the same mellow maturity of vision as the recent "Stanley Ka Dabba" and "Chillar Party"

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Bubble Gum

Bubble Gum
Direction: Sanjeevan Lal
Actors: Sohail Lakhani, Apurva Arora
Rating: ***
Boys eye girls their age, mark one of them as their own (in their head: “book karke rakha hai”), hope to eventually score
someone for real, to legally announce her as their “GF” (girlfriend): the decisive 'neighbour’s envy'. Girls, demure, yet aware of all the male attention, juggle several boys at once. They play hard to get. Yet keep all hopes alive.
“Joint study”, after school hours, is good meeting point for such extra-curricular activities: basically inane, awkward conversations between the boy, the girl, and her best friend. Things get better from there on. The film’s narrator tells us, “Aajkal haath pakadna aam baat hai (These days, it’s not a big deal to hold hands).” Back then, there was only one legit excuse to steal a feminine touch: “hamara rashtriya khel” (our national sport), kabaddi! This is what the boys get together with girls for in the evenings, sucking on Phantom, the peppermint cigarette, which immediately stands out for the ultimate in cool. They cycle around otherwise. The festival Holi is what everyone’s gearing up for now. There’s plenty of space for everything.
Roads are wide, clean, rarely congested. These children, of roughly the same economic classes, studying in the same school, growing up among assorted uncles and aunties, aren’t neighbours in a crummy housing society. The town itself is their vast playground. A local ‘club’ is their affordable restaurant.
India’s industrial townships, namely Bhilai, Bokaro etc, are this nation’s closest approximations to the American suburban life. This film recognises that. The kids here belong to Jamshedpur. It’s a Tata town, which also makes steel (and recently made for smart setting for the indie hit, Vikramaditya Motwane’s Udaan). The people on screen also belong to an era of middle class India, which looks unrecognisable, only about 30 years after. It’s roughly the late ‘70s. It seems. Girls devour Linda Goodman. Guys hide the Debonair.
The father (Sachin Khedekar) is an engineer (of course). The mother (Tanvi Azmi) is a schoolteacher. They make for the typically soft, strict Indian parents, who place premium on studies and good conduct. The family drives a white Fiat (Premier Padmini). A fat black porcelain box with circular dials is the prized telephone they can’t afford. Yet. Neighbours help.
Of the two boys in this family, one’s a deaf-mute, visiting home for the holidays. He’s older, and as you’d expect, the mature, responsible one. The second (Sohail Lakhani, relatively untrained for a lead actor) is a borderline juvenile delinquent. As most 14-year-old boys are. This one’s also slightly selfish, or self-centred, which seems a more common trait among younger siblings. He has a thing for a girl down the street. He also has a serious competitor, a rival suitor in a friend, from his own group, who’ll do anything to block his chances.
The pic is a sweet, rare, candid personal piece; the kind of filmmaking the market has least patience for. The title’s third-rate. The teenybopper advertising is misleading. There is no effort whatsoever to lend finesse to the film, a certain polish to the final product.
Narrative meanders in portions. Screenplay is streteched out in parts. The amateurish, rough touches remain real still. So does the movie. Throughout. It’s the nearest we’ve got to an honest Indian take on the Wonder Years, set in early '70s American suburbia. Now that was one fine television show (favourite for a lot of my generation). This would make for just as fine a four-part mini series. Pick up its DVD, when you get a chance. Else, negotiate through sickeningly extortionist multiplexes that will charge you the same heavy buck for a Rs 50 crore giant Singham, as they would for a low-budget, earnest, gentle Bubble Gum. Chew on that. Sad.

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Mayank Shekhar's review: Gandhi To Hitler

Gandhi To Hitler
Director: Rakesh Ranjan Kumar
Actors: Raghuveer Yadav, Neha Dhupia
Rating: *
“Dr Goebbels ko bulao,” Adolf Hitler yells from his study. “Bulao” (bring ‘em on), you say (in your head). Given ‘Mungeri Lal’ Raghuveer Yadav is the Hitler in blue contact lenses, you wonder if ‘Dr Dang’ or ‘Gabbar’ will land up for Dr Goebbels. He’s an Andheri actor all right, lieutenant to the Fuehrer of the Third Reich in his final days at the bunker.
It’s roughly the film’s first scene. The stage’s set. You know. This is a fancy dress show. Naseer (pedophile from the movie Page 3) plays architect Albert Speer. He shakes his head when Hitler commands, “Yeh saare pull uda do (blow up all the bridges).” Uda do. Seriously.
The bunker bears a dull, grey tone. It seems cold in here. Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds) seems to have that effect on all filmmakers worldwide, B-grade, A-grade, who cares. The ones here are original.
The Fuehrer, as you’d know, was a shamed failure to his nation. Just as Gandhi was father to his. We watch Mahatma’s pravachans (preachings) on non-violence, while Hitler, the maniac, faces his death. Gandhiji is also in the process of posting a letter to Hitler.
But this is not the only letter being read out through the movie. There are quite a few actually, which a Punjabi soldier (Aman Verma) reads out in his head to his wife back in the village. Punjabi soldiers? Yup. They belong to Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army. With the fall of Berlin, they’ve decided to walk it back to India!
What do these characters – Gandhi, Hitler, Aman Verma -- have to do with each other, or the film itself? Doesn’t matter. It’s sheer genius that the filmmakers find enough in this time-space continuum to break into an upbeat Holi song here, a couple of good quality ghazals there....
Hitler’s nervous. You can tell. Towards the end of the movie, his body shakes like he’s getting epileptic fits. His partner, Eva Braun, that’s Neha Dhupia, of course, can’t see him like this anymore: “Some music, my Fuehrer? Main aapko aisa nahin dekh sakti.”
“Theek hai, says Hitler. “Kuch acchha sa laga do! (Put on something interesting).” This stuff’s hilarious. If only one didn’t have to watch a whole frikin’ film for it.

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Mayank Shekhar Review: Mod

Direction: Nagesh Kukunoor
Actors: Rannvijay Singh, Ayesha Takia
Rating: * 1/2
Women hesitate when they talk (“hitchkichate hain”), only if they’re confused about someone. Or very confused,” says the aunt (the warm Tanvi Azmi), nabbing on to the fact that her niece might be in love. The girl Aranya (Ayesha Takia, charming, refreshingly different, no doubt) is 25, I guess. Why she’s remained single forever, never met anyone of the opposite gender is something the aunt wonders aloud. So may the audience. That she has, for the first time, fallen for someone, she reasons, is because he “made me feel special, as if I am the only one in his life. No one’s done this before.”
This fellow Andy, a man of very few words (Rannvijay Singh) is special for sure. You’ll soon learn why. What has he done to get her all gooey with puppy love? Well. He stands outside her door every day, with a watch that he wants her to repair, sleeps on the steps of her house, brings her flowers, follows her around, observes her from street corners. In most cultures, he’d be the kind of stalker who’d creep women out. In this case, it’s hard to tell which one’s the bigger psycho: the girl, or the boy. Theirs is a mysterious world of its own.
We’re at a place called Khushpur, with Tamil Nadu number plates on scooters and buses, Ganga being the nearest rail junction to this quiet town. It seems quaintly European, or at least an Indian hill station set up by the imperial Brits. “Sound bell for service,” says the board outside the chic shop that the heroine owns, runs. She repairs watches for a living.
What draws her lover to him on the other hand? Okay, she was the girl who sat on the second row in his tenth standard at school. This Andy man’s been gawking at her ever since. He wants to know why she used to play the harmonica only when the train passed by. That’s because she didn’t want anyone to hear her. After that many years, he finally feels reassured: “Main tumhara boyfriend hoon? Jab chahe tumhara haath pakad sakta hoon? (Am I your boyfriend, I can hold your hand whenever I want?)” How sweet.
Except, as it turns, this ‘Andy man’ before us is mentally challenged, suffers from some sort of age regression, and dissociative identity disorder. He’s basically an underdeveloped man-child. This is pivotal to the plot, and may be the reason, you will, or you won’t, go out to watch this movie. I’ve but only revealed bare essentials, hardly given the movie away; don’t you worry, there’s a whole lot more to come. The ‘psychoness’ has merely begun.
Nagesh Kukunoor’s last film was a John Abraham bore set in a sanitarium among the terminally ill (Aashayein). That was also a romance of morbid sorts, which may have left many terribly under-whelmed. As has the direction the filmmaker’s career has taken since the wonderful Dor (2006). Most still recall Kukunoor for Hyderabad Blues (1998), a game-changer in low-budget Indian films, which could instruct and delight at the same time.
He has since become a pure genre filmmaker. Which is truly what separates the so-called “indie” from the supposed hard-core mainstream. Traditional Bollywood directors pack in every genre into one movie, alternating action with romance, comedy, drama etc. “Cutting edge”, “independent”, “Hindie”, potentially global “crossovers” would be too flatulent an epithet for those who don’t do that. But they don’t produce anything extraordinarily personal, astonishingly moving, or real either.
This one’s a strange romance, admittedly based on a Taiwanese film Keeping Watch. You’d ideally imagine a film like this to be dark and dramatic. It seem light and breezy instead, with songs to break the monotony. One ‘Tu Hi Tu’, half-picturised on the wasted talent Raghuveer Yadav stands out.
An extreme engagement, empathy with the characters may be essential. Unintended moments are the ultimate audience barometer to gauge such slippage. You just know it when that happens. Two sets of bumbling parents land up: “Yeh hi woh Aranya hai? (Is this the same Aranya?),” they ask. I hear folks at my preview theatre laugh out loud. The doctor prescribes mental shocks on the heroic patient. The side effect of this is a short-term memory loss, he suggests. Fellows at my theatre go: “Ghajini, Ghajini!” Funny! Sad.

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