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Monday, October 11, 2010
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Khichdi - The Movie
There have been so many instances when Indian television has copied content from the big screen and used it, in the regular elongated and extended forms. But turning a movie out a show concept is surely new. There was news of Anand Mahendroo doing it with Dekh Bhai Dekh, but JD Majethia has clearly beaten him by miles... and in style!
Creating a film out of a show is in no way an easy task. But it definitely easy when you have characters which don't need to be build. Khichdi to its advantage had extremely popular characters - ones established in the audience's mind over the last few years. Hence when you go to watch the movie you already know that it's going to be madness and that's why you decided to watch it first place.
The question hence is - Does it live up to the expected madness? And the answer most certainly is -YES! On a flip side, some of gags seem used and repeats.
Getting into the story Himanshu desires to fall in love and so does his neighbor Parminder and then they fall in love with each other. But suddenly Himanshu has a change in heart and hopes to have conflicts and separation in love - in true filmy style - so that his love story too turns memorable. And that's exactly what his family decides to help him in.
This is one fun ride throughout keeping the audience in splits. The screenplay is kept simple in tune with the genre of the film. One criticism however would be that unlimited gags do stretch the film. Fans of the show are also likely to miss the original jayashree - Vandana Pathak. While Nimisha Vakharia who plays Jayashree in the film does her part well, it is quite huge task to live up to a character like this. The others are just as good as they are on small screen. Supriya Pathak, JD Majethia and Anand Desai are in top form. Satish Shah comes in as a pleasant surprise.
Overall, if you have wanted to laugh aloud since some time, this surely is a good chance to unleash yourself. Khichdi fans of course can't give this a miss. Kudos to director Aatish Kapadia and producer JD Majethia for making this film, the way they did it.
Anjaana Anjaani
Director: Siddharth Anand
Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Anupam Kher, Zayed Khan
Romantic comedy "Anjaana Anjaani" goes in to so many directions, you wonder what happened to those good old films where Boy Met Girl… and they lived happily ever laughter.
Laughter, there's plenty of it in "Anjaana Anjaani". Raucous laughter, bitter laughter, silly laughter, goofy laughter… The couple Akash and Kiara are portrayed more like two beer-swigging buddies on a road trip through the USA (shot with shimmering restlessness by Ravi Chandran) than lovers staring at the moon and dreaming of the ever-after.
This is that 1940s' Bette Davis-Clark Gable county where love emerges from the verbal skirmish between two people thrown together by fate. There isn't much plot on display here. Once we know that the two suicidal protagonists are together for the rest of the movie the only mystery that remains is why such vibrant lives would want out.
The drama of death as defined by the rituals of daily living are rather elaborately, sometimes engagingly other times tediously, mapped in the plotline which is slimmer than Priyanka Chopra's waistline. Regrettably for an interactive rom-com the dialogues are not always as savvy, sassy and seductive as they ought to be.
Many times you feel the dialogues are translated from the English rather than conceived in the spoken language. Then there are the songs. Sigh. Tediously carpeting the soundtrack of the second more-pointless half, Vishal-Shekhar's music just seems to be creating a dimension to divert our attention from the two belligerent characters played by two very engaging actors who quite often seem to be inventing pretexts for their characters beyond those provided by the plot, character and the lines they mouth.
Priyanka Chopra, incontestably the most complete and watchable actress of her generation, makes you forget the film's obvious blemishes, mainly lengthy self-indulgent passages of pedestrian passion-play written in a tone that attempts to be flip but fails to grip. With every film Priyanka grows in stature as an actor even when the space offered is meager as in "Kaminey".
Given a wall-to-wall character to perform in this film she has so much fun digging into the crevices of the person she is required to create, you end up watching only the character and the actress, in that order.
Perfect timing in the comic scenes, skilfully and subtly seductive in the bedroomy interludes and boisterous when in a drunken rage, Priyanka takes over the show from her first inebriated appearance on a bridge where she spots our hero while trying to jump to her death.
Ranbir Kapoor in comparison is surprisingly subdued. It's partly to do with the nature of his character (an arrogant misguided soul with little control over his ego). But you suspect Ranbir just decided to sportingly play the backseat boy this time because on Priyanka he had finally met his match on screen.
Zayed Khan as Priyanka's heart breaker gets little space. But he makes sensitive use of the meager playing-time.
With more support from the dialogues and an elaborate supporting cast (the people who get a voice are largely stereotypes, the preachy lady doctor, the hero's supportive friend and his chirpy wife, etc), the very fine lead pair would have been better able to express their exceptional skills as actors.
"Anjaana Anjaani" is a film that sets off a tender saucy engaging trip. It somewhere loses its way. But still gets to its targeted destination because of the lead players who appear to know all the signposts and U-turns. By heart.
“All the greatest love stories (sic) are between strangers,” promises this picture’s tagline. In real life, this ‘love between strangers’ business, I suppose, would mean a one-night stand.
It makes for the customary premise for any formulaic, frothy film like this. The lead couple starts out hating each other, or as platonic friends, and eventually slips into eternal love. The picture takes about the same time to finish as the popcorn in your tub. Female audiences suitably develop crush on the male star. Tears are shed; laughs had; paisa vasool, as they say. Fair play.
Anjaana AnjaaniThe climax scene usually takes place at an airport (bus-stop or railway station). This is where you find the hero (or the heroine) rushing, in a moment of epiphany, having found their destiny -- their partner for life -- waiting for them somewhere at the other end.
Between this airport sequence and what’s called the ‘meet-cute’ (first time the couple meets on screen), there is supposed to be a plot, possibly sub-plots, strong conflict and a set of characters. This one unfortunately has none.
The director (Siddharth Anand, fine for the genre) has figured out the songs (a dozen of them) and the scenic sweep all right. You travel across the deserts of Nevada on road, into the neon lights of Las Vegas, peer over San Francisco from a perfectly chosen spot, and look down from New York’s George Washington Bridge.
The latter is where the hero and the heroine, strangers, meet, attempting at once to commit suicide. The boy’s (Ranbir) lost all he had to the Wall Street crash. The girl’s (Priyanka) apparently lost her childhood sweetheart to a casual affair. Neither sees any point in carrying on. They try to kill themselves together: wrap their face up with cellophane; light up gas in the kitchen stove…. By the fifth failed effort, you’re not sure either is really hell-bent on hara-kiri. Suicide demands strong resolve, not sociable company. There’s no such thing as a 'couple exit'.
They set New Year’s Eve for their final date with death, again, jumping off the same George Washington. The handsome twosome has time now to check off wishes from a bucket-list: it’s adventure sport for the penniless girl; a woman he loves so he can bed, for the virgin guy. Whatever.
You know both will fall for each other. You wait around hopelessly. Ranbir Kapoor, the star, remains the only big idea behind this film then. He bares his torso; walks around in a white ‘baniyan’ (what Americans call the “wife-beater” vest), eager to bring back a forgotten wear; charms women with his look; swigs the tequila shots; almost gets buggered by a hulk; drives under the desert sun… All for a story that doesn’t exist.
You know why this film does. Or why rom-coms such as these get repeated ad infinitum on screen. When they work, oh, they take in serious crores. It’s business as usual. There has been much talk about Anjaana Anjaani being a copy of 'The Girl On The Bridge'. However after watching the film I can vouch that it's not true. Anjaana Anjaana is not a copy of any particular film. Rather it is a mish-mash of ideas that may have been borrowed from various movies. Hence though the story is not something we have seen in Hindi cinema before, neither does it seem completely fresh. At various moments through the film you will feel you have seen it before.
The film is about a boy and a girl who meet for the first time on a bridge - where they had reached to commit suicide. Both fail repeatedly at ending their lives and come to a conclusion that probably these are signs that they are yet to complete something in life. A deadline is set - 20 days from then, on the New Years eve they will commit suicide and till then they will live together and help each other fulfill their wishes.
No it is not a Bucket List or a Dasvidaniya where they go about tick-marking their to-do list. Rather it's a journey to understand life and love and also each other better. Anjaana Anjaani makes an out and out love story. And it has a fair dose of comedy to keep it going. The wish however is for the going to have been faster than what it was. The film on the whole has loads of winning moments but the first half does not see the story moving anywhere. It only gets moving later in the second half. The screenplay is not consistent.
Among the good parts include some super song, great cinematography and visuals, cool dialogues and effective background score. But the real highlights of the film are the Anjaana and Anjaani - Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. It probably is a dream for any actor to get so much of screen time. And this film is almost entirely meant of them. And they excel. Ranbir Kapoor proves yet again why he is being termed as the next superstar. It is really hard to look at anyone else when Ranbir is on screen. But this time he will have to accept that Priyanka took away the eyeballs - mine at least! Priyanka Chopra, who has come up with memorable performances in the past, reminds again that she is indeed in contention for one of Indian cinema's best actresses. The only problem I had - she comes out of the sick bed in complete make up. But then again is a directorial blunder!
Siddharth Anand has given us 'Salaam Namaste' and there is no doubt that he is capable in telling a story telling. But there are certain liberties taken in the film which deducts from his ability as a storyteller. Anjaana Anjaani works for the die-hard romantics and fans of the lead stars. For the rest it is an average storyline with good amount of repetitiveness embedded with superlative performances. Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala and directed by Siddharth Anand, "Anjaana Anjaani" is different from other romantic sagas. Generally couples in love commit to die for each other, but in this film romance blossoms after the two meet when they are about to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge.
Shot in New York City, Las Vegas and San Francisco, the film is made at a budget of around Rs.25 crore. Priyanka says the topic of "Anjaana Anjaani" coincides with the current problem in society.
According to a report, India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world and recent studies suggest about 40 percent are adolescents. At least 125 people aged 29 years or below are committing suicide every day and 51 percent of the total suicide victims are graduates or college students or youngsters.
"With so many suicides happening it is a topic of discussion in India now. The greatest thing about this film is that it is the window which shows you shouldn't do that (commit suicide), you never know when life will turn around," Priyanka, 28, had told IANS. "Give yourself an opportunity. This message is conveyed in a beautiful way through the film," said the actress. Paired together for the first time, this is Priyanka's first and Ranbir's second film with the director after "Bachna Ae Haseeno" (2008).
Set in the US, the story revolves around San Francisco-based Kiara (Priyanka) and New York boy Akash (Ranbir), who are tired of making it big in life and striking gold. After several failed attempts to be successful in their careers and love, both decide to end their lives. And as luck would have it, they land up on the same bridge at the same time!
Akash stops Kiara from ending her life. He tells her to travel with him to Las Vegas to give life another chance, and thus begins a hilarious misadventure that brings them closer. However, destiny interrupts again and the duo are forced to part with the understanding that their days together were a brief interlude of insanity, which had to succumb to real life. With a contemporary appeal and foot-tapping numbers, the movie's music, composed by duo Vishal Dadlani-Shekhar Ravjiani, has been dominating the charts.
Ranbir, 27, was keen to postpone the release date as it is coinciding with the day when the verdict in the 51-year-old Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid legal dispute will be pronounced.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Robot
Director: Shankar
Actors: Rajinikanth, Aishwarya Rai, Danny Denzongpa, Karunas, Santhanam, Kalabhavan Mani
Rajnikanth is back. And what a bang he makes! At 61, the much worshipped Indian star does the unthinkable. If you thought only Sylvester Stallone could do an action film at 60 plus, you got to watch Robot. The film is yet another show-reel for the star who so effectively went on to become one of the biggest India stars internationally. But more importantly it is a show-reel for director Shankar and an example for other Indian directors to emulate.
Robot (Enthiran) does not essentially have the most interesting story. Nor is it believable. It's about a robot, which is developed by ace scientist Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth). Vaseegaran invests 10 years of his life on the robot with a dream of gifting it to the Indian army. But when he is done the robot is branded as dangerous as it does not have emotions. Vaseegaran works on it and tried programming emotion into it. While his experiment works, it creates clashes in his personal life as the Robot falls in love with his girlfriend (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). There is also Vaseegaran's guru Professor Bohra (Danny Danzongpa) who has his evil motives and wants Vaseegaran's creation for himself.
We have seen emotions in a robot in Bicentennial Man (1999) and we have also seen machines going bad in movies like I, Robot (2004). But Robot is not similar to any and has its own storyline.
The screenplay moves to a definite end. The dialogues (Hindi) have been done well and they manage to keep the comic element alive, wherever necessary. The film is shot extremely well - money spent on it showing on each shot that is taken. It is edited stylishly. Sound designing - a key area in a science fiction like this - is top notch. And so is the background music. The only glitches probably are the songs. They lyrics are not exactly poetic and neither is it AR Rahman's best work. But then, you would hardly listen to lyrics considering the visuals are as arresting and choreography as grand.
Rajnikanth scores in his performances. He carries two roles really well. While on one hand he needs to play an absorbed scientist he plays the mechanical robot with equal ease. Aishwarya looks ravishing and does her bit very effectively. It's remarkable that both leads don't look anything close to their actual age. Ditto with Danny, who looks dapper and puts up class act.
But then the real star of the film, while giving due respect to Rajnikanth, is the special effects in the last half an hour. The final action sequence is equivalent to top-grade VFX shown by a top grosser internationally. Director Shankar truly deserves a pat on his back for his vision and managing to pull this up. This is easily the best in Indian films ever.
Overall, Robot is going to be a trendsetter. Shankar shows that he could very well keep the Indian sensibilities intact while making a top of the line science fiction in line with Hollywood films. Of course at almost 3 hours long Robot is a very long exercise and that takes away some marks. But watching Rajnikanth - the boss perform is priceless!
At the start of this film, after the presenter's name (Sun TV's Kalanidhi Maran), and before the film's title (Robot; Endhiran in Tamil), the screen screams out letters in a font twice the size of both. The silver alphabets spell out 'Superstar Rajnikanth', the hero's name. I was at a theatre sparsely populated, low-key, given a press show. I could hear crowds going berserk at that moment. Audiences in Tamil Nadu, I am told, would have lit up fire crackers indoors by now, thrown coins at the stage, cracked open coconuts, begun their biennial prayers like religious rituals inside the movie theatre. They're probably doing so, as we speak. Stuff like this makes films for films' sake redundant. And opinion of any kind, quite pointless.
Rajnikanth is the closest human approximation to god from an organised faith. Both are ageless in their airbrushed figures. Both demand believers, and complete devotion to unquestioned legends. You can't explain God. You can't explain Rajnikanth. Being critical of either can invite extreme public wrath. Blasphemy is best avoided. I tread on thin ice, you can tell! No sweat still.
This is India's most expensive blockbuster. Each crore spent over every minute of this movie shows, if you watch it for the spectacle alone. The sheer scale and special effect of this film remains hitherto unsurpassed in Indian cinema. The film smartly borrows from the genre's Hollywood tradition, right from Terminator to Transformers. Which is to say, there is yet an emotional connect.
While I haven't been on Rajnikanth's previous pilgrimages called Baba (2002) or Sivaji (2007) to figure their universal appeal, it's easy to judge, Robot takes Superstar (that being his first name) beyond the mythology of his home state. For one, Rajni Sir, in this movie, isn't a folk hero testing the bounds of human antics. He is himself an "andro-humanoid". There is external logic to the madness on the movie screen.
Most of India that calls a restaurant a hotel, calls robot, Robert. The pretentiously suave pronounce it with a silent 't' ('ro-bo'), and those on a diet of American films call it robot (as in 'ro-bought'). This one's called Chitti. He has a memory of "1 zeta-byte", speed of "1 terra-hertz" and combined creative intelligence of 100 humans. His inventor (Superstar, again) is a top scientist at an artificial intelligence lab in Chennai, who bears Carnegie Mellon and Stanford as legit stamps on his CV.
Chitti needs accreditation from the government to be recruited in the army as proxy for mortal soldiers. He can be of practical use to his country. There's one issue. The guarantors demand he be fed with human emotions to respond subjectively to instructions. You see the point. He could go wild otherwise.
But these feelings the robot is forced to learn causes problems of its own. Chitti falls for his creator's girl (Aishwarya). He becomes prone to human manipulations, especially the villain's (Danny Denzongpa), who eventually reassembles him into a callous weapon of mass destruction. Chitti goes bang bang. This is sweet premise for any sci-fi pic. And yet there you go: there is Superstar Rajni as the hero (the loved robot), the villain (the bad robot), and the geek (the scientist lover). In that din of his devotees, one rarely credits this 61-year-old leading man for his acting prowess. This is super stuff by any performance standards.
Very soon as bad Chitti begins to mutate himself, design his own clones, there are so many Superstars on screen, you literally lose count. A planet full of humanoid Rajnikanths, on serious rampage, or as slate.com subtly describes him, "If a tiger had sex with a tornado and then their tiger-nado baby got married to an earthquake, their offspring would be" this!
Leave aside jokes running on the Internet. This film, just a few feet too long, is fine entertainment by itself. I'm evidently an atheist to this religion, so I guess, you can trust this note.
Those in the know are aware that 'superstar' Rajnikanth is perceived to be in the image of god. Rajni makes fewer mistakes during the course of a film, than god. In "Robot" this perception is taken a step further as Rajni creates a robot - in his own image.
Robotics scientist Vashikaran (Rajni) creates a humanoid robot Chitthi (Rajni). After Chitthi's inability to feel causes him to be rejected from inclusion in the Indian Army, Vashikaran tries to create feelings in him, and thanks to a freak of nature, succeeds. Only it causes problems, as Chitthi falls in love with Vashikaran's fiancee Sana (Aishwarya Rai). As the creator and creation are locked in a jealous battle against each other, the jealous robotics scientist Dr. Bohra plans to misuse Chitthi for wrong objectives.
Anyone who has seen a Rajnikanth film understands that often it is not the story that makes the film a success, but Rajni's antics. There are plenty of them in the film. And, for once, his conception as a robot gives Rajni the logic, to lack logic.
There are gravity defying stunts, shooting with a finger, running horizontally at high speed on the side of a train, flying cars and bikes, corny but hilarious dialogues -- e.g. after grabbing and pointing scores of guns at the police, he says 'Happy Diwali' before firing a salvo of bullets; or when the robot is asked his address and gives his IP address. It's not just god, the universe and its logic itself is recreated in the film.
Director Shankar who has a penchant for double image, multiple images and split images of his heroes returns this time with hundreds of images of Rajnikanth. The inspiration of Hollywood, most predominantly the "Matrix" trilogy (stunts choreographed by Yuen Woo-ping of "Matrix" fame), "The Mask", "I, Robot", and many Frankenstein movies are evident, but not overbearing.
Where Shankar scores is the ingenious conception of stunts. The allegedly 'poorer' cousin of Bollywood, the south Indian film industry, has been growing leaps and bounds in the special effects department. And with a little help from Hollywood, like in "Robot", it soars.
"Robot", however, cannot boast of good music, so crucial for an Indian film. A.R. Rahman's decision to rely on robotic sounds, which we have heard close to three decades back in films like "Robocop", fails to inspire. He could have at least conceptualised them more intelligently.
The Hindi dubbed version is saved by Swanand Kirkire's translation that prevents the dialogues from becoming jarring like previous dubbings of South Indian films. Yet, he could not salvage the songs, whose gibberish lyrics are seemingly out of a time warp from films in the 1990s (remember the Prabhu Deva starrer "Kadhalan" again directed by Shankar with music composed by Rahman).
Aishwarya's character is as conventional as expected. She's the chaste love interest, the damsel in distress who has time and again to be saved from being raped, and who is nothing more than eye candy.
Two words begin with the letter 'R' and are synonymous: Religion and Rajnikanth. A third has now been added to cinema folklore, 'Robot'. And with the largest number of prints ever for an Indian film and a global release, this sexagenarian actor might still enter world cinema folklore. After all, Rajnikanth can make no mistakes.
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