Rocket Singh review: Mice mice baby

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Gauhar Khan, Shahzan Padamsee, Chopra Prem Chopra

Director: Shimit Amin (drowsy)

Rating: Two stars

Oho, here’s a quote room drama. Everyone, including micro-minor characters drop the kind of dialogue you could only hear in the movie-shovies. Some gems:

*“In business you shouldn’t be counting numbers, you should be counting people, strictly people.”

*“Out here you can either go up..or down” (whoa, what a thought)

*“What nice nice! Mice are nice also.” (oh?)

*“You taught me so many things in life but you forgot to teach me dishonesty.”

That’s story-screenplay-lyric-dialogue writer Jaideep Sahni working far too strenuously for director Shimit Amin’s Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year. The ouchcome is a laboured, old-fashioned harangue about why honesty is the best policy, which even revives that defunct moment of a corporation’s honcho chucking wads of Rs 500 for a bribe. Cursed be this tribe, say Shimin and Co, as if they had recently discovered that the world isn’t either pancake flat or yummily utopian.

Indeed the plot – which has shades of the Raj Kapoor movie Shriman Satyawadi (1960) and Hollywood’s The Boiler Room (2000) – is so naïve that you wonder if Sahni and Amin need to get out of the Yashraj Studio Fantasyland and understand that there are no free munchies in this town. Or any town.

Which is why their hero, Harpreet Singh Bedi (Ranbir Kapoor), appears to a cute but ultimately clueless clown. Frown. With lousy graduation marks, he still hopes to find immediate employment. And hallelujah, he does, as a computer salesboy who’s immediately assigned a desk near the loo, and hoo-hoo teased by all of his colleagues, behaving like hyenas out of hell. Oh well.

The hyena gang chucks paper rockets at him (you worry about the wastage of tree resources), his supervisor wears a weird Salvador Dali-like beard, and the oily top boss calls him a “zero” and “a bastard” till you want a messianic stunt director to arrive and bash up Boss Oily. Cluck, no such luck.

Logic would have enticed our Cutepreet to resign, snag a job at a call centre perhaps (a friend even suggests that), but no our self-pitying hero insists that he must suffer like a duffer. Otherwise there would be no film…which stretches on and on and on for 16 reels, uninterrupted even by entertainment relief points. No dance, no romance, no (real) song, no tension, you’re mostly locked up in that stifling office which ranges from the plush to the unbelievably grungy (please note the electricity dashboard). Odd.

Next: Cutepreet teams up with the more accommodating office log to initiate a parallel computer-selling trade. Soon they’re rocketing. Upset by his plummeting sales, Boss Oily is seething-snapping-scowling. Growling. Now get this. Cutepreet insists that he’s only borrowing the office facilities and intends to pay Oily some day, complete with interest. Commit a crime now, repent later.

Although the dramaturgy ends up blurring the line between scamming and honesty, a holier-than-thou attitude is maintained throughout. Sure do tell us that corruption and shortchanging the customer don’t finally pay… but please tell us that with clarity and conviction. As for the finale, centering around a phone call, it happens so much by coincidence that it doesn’t ring true at all. Without revealing the resolution, suffice it to say that it’s as deflating as a punctured tyre.

Any redeeming moments? Um, yes the banter between Cutepreet and his granddad (Prem Chopra), their morning prayers, and the no-nonsense attitude of the telephone receptionist (Gauhar Khan, impressive), as well as stray vignettes from the opening graduation party. On the techfront, Vikas Nowlakha’s cinematography and Manas Choudhary’s sound design are A-grade. The editor needed a sharper scissor though. Woe. Saleem-Suleiman’s music is eminently forgettable.

Debutante Shahzan Padamsee is wasted in a briefer than brief role. Frankly if Rocket Singh…is worth a glance it is essentially for three remarkable performances. Naveen Kaushik, as the weirdo beardo supervisor, is marvellously mercurial. As the garrulous top boss, Manish Chaudhary, is convincing. Above all, Ranbir Kapoor keeps you engaged despite the ill-written script. For instance, his backstory is missing. Whatever happened to his parents? Why was he brought up by his dadoo? Gentle, courteous and repressing his anger, Ranbir Kapoor is excellent. Alas, the rest of Rocket Singh…isn’t.

Akki: Action required

When comedies compel you to weep, you know that the ha-ha formula needs to be reinvented — and pronto.

And today, no other Bollywood actor needs a changeover more urgently than the comedy-friendly Akshay Kumar who has delivered five disappointments in a row this year: From Chandni Chowk to China, Kambakt Ishk, Tasveer 8 x 10, Blue and now De Dana Dan.

Director Priyadarshan, who has been hacking out more films than you can count on your toes and fingers, sought to revive his Hera Pheri team, bringing Kumar and Sunil Shetty back with the infallibly feisty Paresh Rawal. Yet, star value is certainly not enough. The inordinately lengthy De Dana Dan (two hours and 40 minutes, no less) bored most viewers to tears. Oddly enough, in the post-interval portion, Kumar was assigned scanty footage as the screenplay chose to keep him (literally) hidden in a hotel suite’s closet. Not only did Kumar’s loyalists feel let down, but supporting characters like Shakti Kapoor and Rajpal Yadav ended up dominating 
the show.

Also, the dialogue did not have the sparkle essential for a laugh-raiser. The finale, showing a flooded five-star hotel in Singapore, was extremely tacky in a bid to replicate the glug-glug aqua effects of say The Poseidon Adventure. Don’t even think of Titanic, please.

Clearly, Kumar — who can be overwhelmingly funny and adept at action stunts — needs an enterprise that can rescue him from the career doldrums. His saviours could well be directors Vipul Amrutlal Shah, who is completing Action Replay with him currently, and Farah Khan, who will film Tees Maar Khan with him in March next year. In fact, the alliance between Kumar and Farah has sent shock waves in showbiz circles since the choreographer turned director seemed to be working exclusively with Shah Rukh Khan (Main Hoon Na, Om Shanti Om).

It is no trade secret that Kumar has always longed to become as popular, if not more so, than Shah Rukh Khan. There is nothing wrong with wishful thinking.The actor needs smarter public relations, since there isn’t sufficient buzz about him in the 
market.

He is striving to project himself as a family man, and inevitably ends up doling out tedious interviews about his wife, Twinkle, and their son Araav, and how wonderfully happy they are.

His Casanova image which linked him with a range of actresses from Pooja Batra and Raveena Tandon (it was even rumoured that they were married for a while) to Sushmita Sen and Shilpa Shetty, has been exhumed. If a story is circulated that he has checked into a hotel after a quarrel with his wife, he denies it vehemently and cuts off ties with the journalist who reported the story.

Indeed, the 42-year-old Kumar (born Rajiv Bhatia) can be childish, constantly whining that he is being unfairly criticised.

Once he called up the owner of a newspaper and TV channel to complain that he should not be criticised. If that continued, he threatened, he would cut off relations with the channel instantly.

So, the critic resolved not to write about him at all—to blank him out — but Kumar did not like that either.

Like every actor in Bollywood, he suffers from the praise-me-praise-me syndrome. Unlike others, though, he is willing to see reason and does not turn vindictive. That much I can say about him.

As for the rumours about him editing out his colleagues’ scenes from the final print, they seem to be less vociferous than before. Perhaps, his co-stars have accepted the fact that if they are in a Kumar movie they must be prepared to give him centrestage. Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal, Sunil Shetty, and even Amitabh Bachchan, have found their roles abbreviated in their films with him. Indeed, Kumar even made a self-mocking reference about this ‘editing interference’ in one of his more successful films, Namaste London.

Obviously, after this year’s failures at the cash counters, Kumar needs to reassess his calibre and redesign his projects. He has not been seen in an emotional 
drama lately.

A film in this genre could perhaps just do the trick to refuel his stardom. After all, earlier he has been remarkably restrained and impressive in love stories like Dhadkan, Andaaz, and even in a brief appearance in Dil To Pagal Hai. Truly, we have had enough buffoonery and eve-teasing chauvinism in the name of comedy from the actor. He has a strong screen presence and he can be endearing when he wants to be. Honestly, how you wish you’d see a new improved Akshay Kumar very soon. Until then, you can only go oh-no-no over such pains in the neck as De Dana Dan. Ouch.

Kuch kuch terrorism hai?

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Om Puri

Direction: Rensil D’Silva 

Rating: One and a half stars 

I desisted from writing an instant-noodle review of Kurbaan. I said I wouldn’t, there’s no point etc. Because it raised my hackles to the extent that I wondered whether I was responding to this travesty of a film as a critic or as a Muslim.  

I saw the film again, reflected on its content as well as style, and so yes, though I had promised myself that I would ignore the film, here I am for whatever it’s worth giving my take on the widely publicised film (Some love stories have blood on them, went the poster catchline, whatever that means). Because silence at times from a critic should not mean approval or even acceptance. 

The most shallow film of 2009, Kurbaan directed by Rensil D’Silva and produced by Karan Johar,borrows its skeletal plot premise about urban terrorism from Hollywood’s Arlington Road(1999), a film which Johar wanted to adapt and direct some half a decade ago. Presumably he didn’t because he couldn’t put together a script to his personal satisfaction.  

The scripting task, in Johar’s mind, has been achieved by D’Silva who had co-written the  superior but flawed Rang de Basanti. In its very concept, Kurbaan plays on dangerous ground. With several inevitable subtractions and additions, it morphs the original’s story about American terrorists operating from the deceptively calm suburbia. Only in this case, the terrorists are Muslims, endowed with rough stubbles, red hot eyes and the biggest cliché of them all, Om Puri as chief exterminator. If this is not irresponsible cinema, what is? Karan Johar credits himself with the story. Wonderful! If he ever adapts Red Riding Hood, he’s likely to take credit for that too. 

Saif Ali Khan, as Ehsaan Khan, and all the terrorist baddies are Muslims. Still do note, Kareena Kapoor with those dead eyes and twitch-twitch mouth is Avantika -- meaning a non-Muslim is about to expose a sleeper terrorist cell. Applause for the Avantikas of the world! Perhaps a Salma or Shehnaz ,as the deceived wife of Ehsaan, would not have washed with the majority community audience. D’Silva-Johar mistakenly believe that they know the formula. So what if every twist and turn in the dramaturgy is replete with contrived coincidences and are laughably illogical as well. The easy-as-pie manner,in which Ehsaan Khan is okayed by an American Unversity to take classes on the Muslim identity, is a ribtickler.  

Now, cut back to the heroic heroine Avantika. She  is aided by a sidey-effect, Vivek Oberoi portraying a Muslim, but he’s more of an add-on than organic to the plot. As awkwardly Dia Mirza, as Reporter Rehana,goes up in smoke in an airplane blast. The sequence is so tackily picturised that you squirm in your seat. Indeed, you fret throughout the two-hour-40-minute film, a brazenly glossy, superficial and blinkered view of post-9/11 terrorism. 

No effort is made to investigate the root causes (except for some wonky allusion to global oil prices..and groan, personal vendetta). No effort is made to touch upon the complexities, or the after-effects of the beastly, misguided madness. No effort is made to do anything but be hopelessy irrational. Take the terrorists mudering one of their own jehadi’s wife. Did they wake up one morning to conclude that her kheer and biryani were not up to the mark? Or did they have issues with her smiling beatifically? And what about Big Bad Mamma Jehadi (Kirron Kher doing an Irene Papas-like number) looking more venomous than Cruella Da Vil? More: And what about that giggle-inducing close-up of cyanide capsules? In case of trouble, terrorists are instructed to swallow immediately. Some of them don’t and so have to be pumped with bullets in sleazoid bars. Or at a smashed car’s steering wheel.What a hoot!  

Strictly by comparison Jagmohan Mundra’s Shoot at Sight (with a near-similar plot) was good, Kabir Khan’s New York was much better, and with or without comparison, Shoaib Mansoor’s Khuda Kay Liye was outstanding. 

From the first frame to the last, Kurbaan is a lesson in how not to write a script and worse, how to direct it. The romance between the two dandily-garbed professors on a Delhi campus is embarrassing. By the way, a bookish professor sprouts up like a mushroom to display his terrorist fangs.So much bookwas really. 

Saif, as Ehsaan on the FBI’s most wanted radar, coolly zips in and out of U S airports (he’s trimmed his beard, and maybe even has a fake massa somewhere). And Avantika turns out to be one ditzy damsel, staying on with Ehsaan even after she dhan ta na, she has learnt of his secret identity. Hello hello! Pregnant with his child, our Avantikaji  beds him to show off that poster-sized bare back. He’s shown bare -backed too, but in terms of screen sex appeal, both need some elementary lessons pronto. Chill! 

The FBI agents come off as nerds, the terrorists strike you as puppets on the director’s loose strings, and the action like a car crash, are sloppy. Hemant Chaturvedi’s camerawork in a bid to be coolly stylish is much too obtrusive; as for the transition shots of homes and buildings, they become so excessive that for a moment you feel you’re watching a digest of architecture. 

Vis-à-vis  the Islamic elements, the kalima is much too randomly used (someone even stops saying it midway through) and precious words are bandied about, like Alhamdolillah, which must be used with care and pure faith. Did anyone care to re-re-authenticate the dialogue and lyrics?  Evidently not. 

The tortoise-paced editing makes Kurbaan heavy on both the mind and the heart. And like it or not, the performances are nothing to write home, or anywhere,  about. Saif Ali Khan either looks super-smug or goes smirk-smirk. Kareena Kapoor is irritatingly cosmetic, wearing lip gloss even when she’s zzzzupposed to be in bed, asleep. Vivek Oberoi should stop tearing his eyes to convey shock. And Om Puri should reject such terrorist boss roles, please, please, please – pretty please? 

In effect, then, Kurbaan is the sort of film that doesn’t have a clue about the complex subject it is dealing with. It set my teeth on edge. And ha ha , not only because it is revealed at the end that the real name of Saif Ali Khan’s terrorist happens to be Khalid. Thanks Karan, Rensil.. whoever he is referring to.. I’d just like to see how you guys would respond if your names were used for heinous criminals on screen. Or even in graffiti. Try it. 

Clearly the motive for such movies is sheer profit.  Who cares about responsible cinema? Certainly not Johar who plays with faith and terrorism as if they were toys, absolutely designer. 
 
 
 

Wet untill dark

Tum Mile
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Soha Ali Khan, Water Kumar
Director: Kunal Deshmukh
Rating: Three stars

Squawk. The wannapaint Picasso is facing an artist’s block. How he rumbles, bumbles, grumbles. Then flash! He sees his live-in girlfriend sitting sadly on the bed, our faces turn red, and heil M F Husain, the artist is ready with a canvas overnight. Right.
That’s a rather juvenile situation imagined for Tum Mile, or Love Story July 25 2005. Hang on though. To the immense credit of director Kunal Deshmukh, he shoots it with such sensitivity and grace, that you’re convinced that he’s an underrated director. Both Deshmukh and Mohit Suri (Woh Lamhe) from the Mahesh-Mukesh Bhatt factory are excellent technicians, and deserve to be in the A-list of mainstream directors. They know mise en scene, where to manoeuvre the camera at which point, when to cut, and why the lighting shouldn’t look as if life was a permanent wedding reception. Deshmukh made an auspicious beginning with Jannat which even clicked commercially. Cool?
Don’t know about cool but wet for sure. For his second foray into Emraan Hashmidom (including a couple of dainty mouth-to-mouth you-know-whats), Deshmukh opts for a subject that’s strangely reminiscent of plight of Jeff Goldblum-Margaret Colin -- an estranged couple who reunite on the brink of disaster -- in Independence Day.
In this case, the disaster is the monsoon fury evidenced by Mumbai over four years ago. So what?..you might ask. So plenty.
The outcome is two separate movies. One is about Hashmiji and Soha Ali Khan going gaga sa re gaga in Cape Town. He’s a waiter with a talent for repairing dilapidated chocolate cakes, and she’s wealthy enough to be on the Forbes richest list. Her dad’s Sachin Khedekar, who does not look like the Forbes type at all, but you let that pass. And anyway he fetches up only for a minute to admonish his daughter, “What is this live-in relationship all about? My generation was not like your generation..blah blooh bleeeeh.” Oh puh-lease.
More: Cake Man wants to bake paintings instead and Forbes girl who campaigns for a greener world. In that pursuit, they go through quite a few montage Pritam songs about love, heartache and break-up. They split only to meet up, then, in the first class cabin of an airplane.Very intelligently, Cake quizzes, “What are you doing on this plane?” Even more intelligently, she smiles, “Same as you are doing, going to Mumbai.” Rattled Cake asks the airhostess to shift him to the economy class (no way, she says, spoilsport!). Grrrr, he goes, downing a mini-Vat 69. And hey you thought that Scotch had vanished with the daze of Jeetendraji (trivia info: Jeetendraji danced among cut-outs of Vat 69 in Gunahon ka Devta…oh boy!).
Soon we’re on to the second film (two for the price of one, see) which is shot in a studio and also uses archival footage to recreate the monsoon devastation in Mumbai. While the first film or the heartistic section is scripted, shot and performed marvellously, the second one, is for want of a better word, sorry. Er..soggy.
Painstakingly crafted certainly but the special effects are pure cheddar (particularly a telegraph pole hitting a flooded road), and the ending is as predictable as X’mas in December. The nail-biting tension required for an aqualung caper, which even strives to be a micro-Titanic (check out a wall giving way to a whoosh of water), is conspicuous by its absence.
Technically, this effort arrives ironically in the same week as the gazillion-dollar-fuelled 2012. It’s evident that if popular cinema is to match FX with Hollywood, infinitely far more resources are needed and also a screenplay which doesn’t keep cutting between the past (Cape Town) and the present (Mumbai) as if it was desperately imitating Alain Resnais’ time jugglery.
That apart, there’s still decent value for money here , particularly for the manner in which cinematographer Prakash Kutty and director Deshmukh achieve a mellow, subdued look throughout. The dialogue is teasingly pepperminty. Pritam’s music score is one of his more dulcet ones, melodious and even elegiac as in Dil ibadat and Tu hi haqeeqat.
Of the cast, Soha Ali Khan tends to get overwrought occasionally but overall, she is likeable and watchable. Emraan Hashmi’s convincing despite the difficult role; he’s confident and in control. Supporting players are quite okey-dokey just like the rest of this Tum Gilay.
PS: (Synopses and notes located on websites for Tum Mile indicate that the character of Emraan Hashmi was called Ali Taha…in the movie the character is called Akshay..what happened?..why the change?..anyway..could be someone thought ‘Akshay’ is more amenable to the box-office..well?)

Laugh’s like that

Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan (for a minute!)
Director: Raj Kumar Santoshi
Rating: Two and a half stars
The kid’s brilliant. So watch it Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor and all the big and small Khans. At the rate he’s going – by sheer evidence of his screen charisma, technical felicity and youth power – Ranbir Kapoor is more than likely to be the Next Best Thing, if he isn’t one already. He’s RK Jr and he’s more than super A-Ok.
One BIG movie that can accommodate his talent, and he’ll be unstoppable. Alas, Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani (tongue-twister of a title that) is not that Biggie. Yet the actor does make the old-wine-in-newish-bottle watchable and remarkable for it wow moments -- like RK Jr’s soliloquy in church and that scene of self-reflection on losing out on love, picturised against a hillscape in the declining evening. Applause please.
There is a bubbling chemistry, too, between goofball Prem (Ranbir Kapoor) and the Cinderella-like Jenny (Katrina Kaif). It’s heartening to see them together, never mind that corny in-joke about her fan mania for Salman Khan, who by the way, pops up in an uncredited guest appearance. Indeed, that’s the problem with director and co-writer Santoshi: he lays on the romcom much too thick like an entire tub of butter expended on a single muffin. Too much huffin’ and puffin’, including Santoshi fetching up in a Hitchcokian appearance to shrug grandpa-like at the lead pair. Cute? Just a little.
In fact in sum, Ajab..Ghazab is just that. Quite zany and ticklish occasionally but far too pancake-flat for most of the way. No Andaz Apna Apna this, which incidentally, is recalled very quietly in the background score. Or was it sound engineer Rakesh Ranjan fiddling around with the AAA soundtrack cleverly?
Aah, Santoshi was far more peppy and punchy then. This time around, there is an element of the woodenly retro, what with Prem and his pals running a ‘happy club’, besides dashing off for skirmishes with eunuchs (two even tumble and kiss!) and bellicose police officers. Balloons fly, a nasty stepma hisses, the only Nasir Husain touch that’s missing is the good old, late Rajindernath in a woman’s frilly nightie. Oh oh, no that’s there,too. Only Prem opts for the heroine’s pink sleeveless top instead. How gulabi is that!
Technically Santoshi frequently opts for a gaudy look, even outmoded back-projection shots and Steven Bernard’s awkward editing with antiquated wipes when a jump-cut could have made the pace snappier. Moreover, characters keep multiplying like rats as if Santoshi believes that entertainment means the more the madder. It doesn’t. He just has to re-see the classics of Charlie Chaplin or the breezy romances of Shammi Kapoor – both of whom are invoked here – to understand that less can be more in the movies. For instance, a nutzoid don and his henchguys in black become irritating as hell, particularly in the climax which makes the Priyadarshan finales seem far less anarchical by comparison.
The plot, if one can call it that, is simply this: hazy lazy Prem-sees-girl-falls-in-love-but-doesn’t-tell-her-so-till-she-drags-out Upen Patel (!) from semi-retirement. Patel’s a politician’s son, gifts Jenny a diamond necklace and irrevocably behaves like a sun-tanned Big Moose. Before this, Jenny has also been saved from a wedding to a beefy bozo rekindling Zabisko from Amar Akbar Anthony. In effect, it takes two weddings and no-funeral for true love to go chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep.
Throughout the gags could have been infinitely more inventive. Stillsitting on cream cakes, knocking on wooden heads and personality mix-ups are always good for a few guffaws and giggles. Pritam’s music score in serviceable, not quite in the class of his Dhoom and Jab We Met, which you hope will not turn out to be the Sholays of his career. Nothing vaguely comparable after those.
Of the lead players, Katrina Kaif’s looks bankably gorgeous (but pray, she should take care of those worry lines already creasing her forehead), and does reveal an incipient flair for comedy. Without Ranbir Kapoor, of course, this one would have been a mere ajab movie. He brings the much-needed underlining of ghazab to it. Sid has woken up and how.Way to shine!

What a jail bin machhli

Jail
Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Manoj Bajpai and Ram Gopal Varma movie-type of clowns-`n’-clones
Director: Madhur Bhandarkar out of form
Rating: Two stars (there’s nothing here that you don’t know or have seen already)

Egg tu Bhandarkar! His angry young prisoner is thrown right into the dark-as-a-burnt-omelette baida cell. During solitary confinement, the prisoner claws the walls, gnashes his teeth, exudes glycerine and generally looks as unhappy as a kid denied a cookie. Sad is life, dearies.
Okay, okay, for heaven’s sake this is a Bhandarkar, Madhur Bhandarkar movie. Get real, appreciate Jail for being as rough, real and dammit, outspoken. Sorry guys, want to..however it’s anything but. It’s just not in the league of the eye-opening Fashion, Traffic Signal, Page 3 and Chandni Bar, which have their loyal admirers including the National Film Award juries. Yeah.
The director is best when he hurtles you into areas where the gloss-and-glamour-junkie filmwalas fail to tread. Dread. Here he doesn’t beyond a point. For sure, he locks you up in the depressing confines of a large prison, shot in Thane and Yervada jails. The visuals are unvarnished, no unnecessary top shots, no pretty daffodils blooming in the garden either.
So as the dialogue often asks..what’s the lafda chirkut?
Simply this: you’ve seen, heard and squirmed through prison atrocity flicks as many times as you’ve wolfed down popcorn. Crunchhhh. Like it or not it’s pouring cliches out here, from the hero finding the prison food ugh-ugh (did he expect sushi?) to the initial undressing parade. Mercifully the much- publicised nude parts – bodily parts that is -- are covered up by pixillated effects. Thanks.
Also, Bhandarkar whose stories-screenplays usually have an element of originality and knuckle-hard strength, in this case can’t prevent the viewer from flashbacking to similar situations from several prison movies: The Shawshank Redemption (the bond between two prisoners from disparate generations), Ek Hasina Thi (an innocent person forced to pay for another’s crimes), Midnight Express (sadism galore) and Teen Deewarein (the harebrained twists and turns in the plot).
And you can bet your last hundred bucks that there will be some gay-bashing: a couple of prison inmates go goo-goo on sighting the hero. Not to forget a shock tactic: an unmentionable tryst between two men in the loo. Woo hooo.
Well, ummm, old habits die hard and all that jazz bazz. Anyway, the focus is on this `chikna’ executive (Neil Nitin Mukesh), whose shifty flatmate happens to be a drug dealer. You knowthat can lead to an a la Bangkok Hilton. It does. Chikna is accused of complicity, dragged to jail and imprisoned. Moanwhile his mother (silent as a tomb) and girlfriend (Mugdha Godse, in a thousand make-up tints) wring their hands, hire a lawyer who’s plain walnuts and sit through court sessions where bail is refused again and again, and again. Pain. Scriptwriter-editor were dozing or what? The pace is slower than peak hour traffic.
In jail, our Innocent Chiknaji meets various stereotypes: a self-styled Mirza Ghalib (insufferable) , a drugged-out creepo responsible for a road accident and a politician holding court. Penty more: a finger flicking underworld don, a recent father who wants his kid to say “abba” (not the music group), and hello there’s Arya Babbar portaying a desperado with so much surma that he resembles a racoon.
Not to forget, not to forget in the crowded scenario there’s the emotionally contained jailbird-turned-prison-butler (Manoj Bajpai). Garbed oddly in buttercup harem pants, Butler sees a surrogate kid brother in Chikna and wants him to retain his ‘umeedein’ despite the odds. The parting scene between them, in fact, is the most sensitively executed moment in this Chandniless Bar.
On the plus side, there are some stray insights like street-dwellers committing petty crimes to find a shelter in prisons during the monsoon. The wind-up statistic about the possible number of ‘innocent’ persons languishing behind bars also hits home. Aah, how you wish the rest of this effort was in the same researched vein.
On the tech side, the cinematography is remarkably fluid. Anil Mohile’s background music tends to be obtrusive, frequently sounding very Godfatherish. The songs are nothing to hum about, no alas not even the devotional track by Lata Mangeshkar.
Of the cast, Neil Nitin Mukesh is as earnest as a Boy Scout, he’s methodical and controlled; there are flashes of an actor of tremendous potential here. Manoj Bajpai by holding his gaze – his eyes are like arrows about to leave a bow – is extraordinary. Jail isn’t. No way.

Rock Yawn!

London Dreams (limited) 

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Salman Khan, Asin, Om Puri, Kababs

Direction: Vipul Amrutlal Shah 

Rating: Two stars (okay so it has a huge budget, technical varnish, A-list stars..so what?) 

Whip whip hurray. To keep himself away from carnal pleasures – read Miss Asin – the wannasing, wannarock star snaps his belt off, and flagellates himself. Ouch, grimace, ouch, scowl, angry-ooh-so-angry. Moral of the scene: next time you’re violently attracted to a woman,  keep a dany leather belt handy. Or better still, order yourself a sado-masochist whip, or a chabook, whatever blows your socks oof. Off. Whatever. 

Uncannily those whiplashes are the most potent image that stay beneath your eyelashes. Imaginatively photographed, darkly lit, terrific backdrop, all organised by director Vipul Amrutlal Shah for London Dreams, his best technical accomplishment yet. Sorry but as a film it is a head-clangier, lengthier than your lengthiest yawn, and totally destroyed by a story-script which is about as convincing as a technicolour zebra. Honest! 

In fact, Laka Shaka Waka Boom Woom (or some such) by Suneil Darshan – the first ‘inspired’ version of Amadeus – at least had a snappy music score. Here Ehsaan-Shankar-Loy strive to rock on once again only with rockaus effect. Why European concert audiences go berserk over the ding dong ditties blared here is as baffling as those blondes weeping in the front rows of the concert. Could they be doing out of sheer shock and dismay? Perhaps. 

Plus there is something so past historic about Vipul bhai using the by-now-done-to-Chopra gambit of alternating between footage  in the Punjab and  London.  Mustard fields meet Thames by the night, oh boy. This is not cinema, it’s a by-now-obsolete formula which you thought the director had wringed dry, and just about in Namaste London. Could we now get a Salaam Hong Kong or even a Namaste Nepal please?Pretty please with a chicken tikka over it? Enough is enough. STOP. 

Also the juvenile script -- whenever it doesn’t have stamina to pursue a plot point –just  hops-skips-leapfrogs from Punjab to London, as if was just going around the corner to buy a lollipop. Hilariously, then, an orphaned kid sprints away from Uncle Om Puri to play a wooden flute (Subhash Ghai’s Hero ki yaadein) in the Queen’s City. Uncle no like music because an ancestor, into classical ragas, had developed a songster’s block at the Wembley. Hyuk nuyk.So? Odd, just forget it. 

Om Puriji serves kababs at Piccadilly. Orphan becomes a 30-,40-something determined to become a huge rock star who’ll play at the Wembley. Why uncle never finds him, why the police doesn’t track the kid, what the kid survives on…are factors which don’t worry anyone except you-hoo. Grief. Anyway so runaway Arjun (Ajay Dvgan) stalwartly believes in his name, wants to be focussed, and so performs at Trafalgar square, and is instantly joined by a couple of Pakistanis who remain his lifelong sidies. He also draws Chennai Express (Asin) into his group London ke Sapnay. Asin’s made-in-Woodland dad wants her to excel in Bharata Natyam but she’d rather chiggy wiggy. Diggy? 

The plot appears to have been scribbled on tattered pages. Aha, now Wannarock star’s mustard pal (Salman Khan) pops up as the ultimate cretin, sleeping around with Punjab belles, running up debts that would make you feel quite comfortable about your own, but, yo, he’s super-gifted. He can handle a raga, talk eruditely about a song’s metre, make it sound like either Jagjit Singh or Rapchik Rapinem. Man, he’s cuuuuuute. Wannabe brings him over to London. Hell’s bells, this village hick is so much superior.  

Oi, is this Amadeus or Abhimaan? Or both. How you just want to run away to Hrishikesh Valley. 

Boyz will be boyz, natch. Wannabe gets Mustard Field hooked on to drugs, in a matter of two or three days. Ma’am  Asin looks sad, almost as if she were stoned herself. The sidies do their damage, and whoa, Om Puri saab makes a comeback to dispense some Confucian advice. Cringe cringe. 

Truly, whatever is going on? This poppish band hasn’t even cut a disc and their concert is packed with a crowd that would make Madonna go  walnuts with envy. By the way, the enormous crowds are so digitally enhanced that you wish Vipul bhai had stuck to the Rock On-style of intimacy. Compared to London Dreams, that  one is classic Woodstock. 

The editing is hopelessly repetitive. Shots of Ajay Dvgan brooding in a red room make you go purple. Sejal Shah’s cinematography is top class except when it goes for sky tints and unnecessary top shots. The dialogue is on the amateurish side. And you can’t figure out several elements, like why Asin was carrying a blue broom when you first see her.Symbolic? Can’t say. 

Of the performances, Rannvijay Singh already seen in Namaste London is ‘introduced’ here. Seriously suggest that he remains on television. Asin is passable. Ajay Devgn is miscast, he’s far too senior to convince you that he’s on the eve of a music career. Salman Khan, dammit, is lovable. He goes over the top, imitates Dharmendra (not successfully always) but he does rescueLondon Dreams from turning into a nightmare. 

With all its mad flaws and inadequacies, Shah’s enterprise still sees him going beyond the klutzy rishtas and pishtas. If you think that’s sufficient reason to buy a ticket , check out this London Whippy Whippy Shake. 

PHONETOOSH

Some are born with silver cell phones in their mouth, others aren't.  

Still friends, sleek cells or not, we're all insaan log. Surprise surprise, so is the star set. They have their blacker than coal moods and use language ranging from the Emily Post-like politesse to the unadulterated mc-bc.  

So, I'm just dialling into the subject: about how to organise meetings with heroes, heroines, directors. It's all done through the phone to the interviewee, straight, direct, since most secretaries are more occupied in turning into film producers themselves. In vain. 

Interviews of the PR kind are, of course, organised by a battery of spicy and buzzy agencies, five minutes are doled out to each journalist. Aamir Khan and Salman Khan are unequivocally contemptuous of the press but on the eve of a film’s release are all honey-and-cream with anyone with a pad and paper in hand. 

To return to the anytime-interviews (if that is still possible in these marketing maska days) there is a pattern of sorts. 

First, you must possess a phone – there was a time when MTNL was very MEANTNL about allocating lines. And then you must possess the star's phone number.  

Mobile numbers are far preferable to landlines which are only answered by yells, “Khaaaali peeeli, idhar phone nahin karne ka. Bola na madame..saheb..nahaa rayela hai..kya?..alag ya saath mein?..tere ko kya, saala halqat.” Receiver banged.  

It’s infinitely better to go to cell and back. Never mind if  the stars are unreachable, mostly. As for the sms route, you may be stranded in the Antarctica snows or you may be just about to be roasted for a meal by cannibals, but your msgs for emergency help will almost always draw a blank.  

The only response may be from the amiable Bhojpuri superstar Ravi Kissen whose sms’es always incorporate a word or two of his new film like “Ham dulhania ke lage jaibo jaibo.” Huh? 

No use crying over unanswered connections, no? Just for the record, I will tell you of my most horrifying and delightful phone experiences, starting with the positive ones of course. Aakhir, hello hello, life mein kuch positive honach mangta.

Great connections

Undoubtedly, the Bachchans have the best phone manners in the show world. Leave a message with the operator, and your call will be returned. Or it could be answered to in his blog..if there any slur or slight involved. 

Source of constant amusement, a domestic help at Asha Bhosle's Peddar Road apartment sounds as angry as the Mangeshkars do about the flyover. When I call, she renames me, “Kaali Mohabbat.” Of late, she hasn't been picking up the phone. That’s why I haven't been calling up Ashaji either. 

Shah Rukh Khan is pretty okay on sms. He’ll respond if he thinks your demand/request merits attention. 

 Rishi Kapoor, after a couple of sunset Patialas, will always tell me what a good person I am, how he liked something I wrote, and that I deserve the entire crate of Emilion wine which will turn to vinegar, if I don't drop by soon. Whenever I'm low, Chints boosts the shred of my ego. And he never ever calls his wine ‘expensive and exclusive.’ Terrific manners. 

Kareena Kapoor, hot on the sms front, will respond “my dr khld hw u whr u luvz ksses, bk in a wk frm Kl Lmpr v mst mt sn”, but is  not a genuine person at all. I distrust her, not that I have to, and not that it makes a difference to her, but just for the record. 

Tabu, not regular, but when she does sms it's with no agenda, no nothing, just keeping in touch. Urmila Matondkar, Shabana Azmi and Arjun Rampal, my Tehzeeb team. In phone manners they live up to my movie’s title. Dia Mirza, forget it. 

Rekha. Leave a message on the landline. If she cares for

you, she'll dial back, could be after a year or two though. 

Ram Gopal Varma. Suddenly rings up before he goes off to the gym, at 10 am, to say, “Gaaru, nothing..nothing..was just missing your voice. So I called..bye..drop by when you're in the suburbs.” I just hope he doesn't say this to 10,000 other journalists. And anyway at least he’s predictable, he never disappoints.

Frustrating connections

Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai are the uncrowned queens of Miss No Phone Universe.Anyone who can touch base with them, on the first try, deserves to be feted with marigold garlands at a public function. Instead of Ms Sen and Ms Rai,  their secretaries will attend. Neha Dhupia has to be told by the airhostessed to quit yakking into her mobile before airflight take-oofs, offs. 

Vivek Oberoi, accessible only a week before a film's release, to talk about nothing but the film's release. Yawn. Govinda. Tere mobile ki battery mari to main kya karoon? Circa 8 pm, a man inDilip Kumar's bungalow, will say, “Just hold on.” The longest pause since Dilip Kumar in Devdas follows, you hear some shuffles, clashes of pots and pans in the kitchen, hours pass, it's nearly dawn before the man says, “Saab toh so rahe hain." At 4 am, I should think so. 

Sanjay Leela Bhansali will talk only a day after his film's release, only to those who have gone bananas and papayas over his masterpiece. And that, in very brief, is yeh Call Yug ki kahani. 

(Will do a second installment of this feature..and do tell me of the wildest phone situations you have been caught in..)

The lounge and the short of it

Adventures at Mumbai’s  spiffy  (?) Santacruz airport 
 

Nervous travellers may feel less nervous at the  Santacruz domestic airport..but I haven’t cracked all of its codes. There are none of those mandatory signboards (or at least strongly visible ones) which tells an itinerant which terminal to head for.  

In the annexe wing, every time, I have to get to the Kingfisher check-in, I’m not sure what to head  for – must look out for those helpful boys in postal box red..maybe I’ll even get them to carry my pyramid luggage. After check-in, its lounge was just a leap away, now it’s underground, giving me a case of the subterannean blues. 

For sure, 100 per cent and all that, the domestic terminal is a quantum leap from the ones in the pre-Praful Patel era. But what to do? Being a sucker for perfection,I still feel a bit lost out there, an Alice in jetland.  

Okay, when I’m travelling Indian Airlines (only because of a more conveniently timed flight, to be honest), I get into this ochre-lit area where if I take a nano second to gather my bags from the taxi hold, I’m in the danger of being run over.. or in the peril of being surrounded by goons and touts straight out of a Ram Gopal Varma classic. 

Oxygen tanks

Once inside, if it’s peak traffic time, the X-ray machine takes loooong. If it’s a lazy hour, then, the loaders will work in slo-mo..fine by me because I tend to be early, hoping to people-watch. Not that I’ve discovered much, everyone looks either very tired, restless and if you’re not Indian, carries mineral water bottles as if they were oxygen tanks. 

Checked in by an amiable IA lady, I get into that lounge (on extravagant biz-class occasions) and find the scene no different from a railway platform’s. Crowded and bored unless there’s a kid whose demands need immediate attention, and become so much, that a family quarrel is in the offing. Flight announced, frisking done by friskers who would rather be drinking tea, and then I cut to an escalator paradise, up, down, mercifully here the signs are well positioned..though the callgiraphy could be cooler. Not jaggedy. 

That’s the IA scene..and Kingfisher too.  

At the Jet etc terminal, it’s quite futuristic. A James Bond gun showdown would look quite thrilling here..but there are corridors and lanes which still belong to another John Wayne-type of age..the elevator to the lounge (oh those lounges are another story) is straight out of a retro exhibition and the retiring rooms are hilarious..hospital-like. Very Lage Raho Munnabhai inspired. 

Some part is always being repaired of this terminal..rubble trouble..but hello there are many snack stalls to allure the kids..chocolates, ice-creams which would be nixed by any messianic dentist. 

Books nooks

Crosswords had an outlet here for a while, then poof it vanished. Actually, the old bookshop there had an awesome collection....it didn’t matter that the piles of book leant like the Pisa tower, the cramped moving space was an issue and the salesmen look at you suspiciously (his thought bubble read,“Chheee, saala aisech idhar firta hai..”). For unusual literary discoveries, this old airport shop topped. 

A little bit about the Jet Lounge. I walk in confidently..I am asked by a waiter whether I’ll have a thanda or garam. I hope for beer, the waiter’s jaw drops almost as if I’ve indicated that  I’m a man of easy virtue. Be it a man or a woman, any gender tanking alone is not acceptable..that’s why often I wish I could carry the mug inside the loo and drink it aaram se..indeed, if I still smoked, I might have also wanted to do that in the innards of the loo. Hey no video cams there.  

Noise level

Anyway now, the Jet business lounge is situated in the main terminal itself. Noisy as Diwali evenings. I missed a flight to Chennai as a result. The stewardess promised she would announce the flight, she didn’t. It was her word against mine. So guess who ended up wasting six hours of his life at that mela? Also I haven’t quite figured out what is Jet and what is Jet Lite. Will I be considered a cheapo if I travelled by the latter? Questions, questions. 

Sigh, I’m sounding terribly critical, aren’t I? Never mind, this is an honest man’s honest account of scenes from the Santacruz hawai adda. I love it..it’s home and all that, but a l’il bit of more finesse, and I’d send Mr Praful Patel a congratulatory…probably his first..or second..oof never mind.

Once ‘pun a time

ALL THE BEST 

The good, the bad and the gaudy 

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Bsu, Mughda Godse

Director: Rohit Shetty

Rating: Two and half stars 

Once ‘pun a time. Referring to the household ayah, a guy trills Baharon phool barsao mera mehboob ayah hai.  Quips are made about Slumdog Millionaire, and there’s this madcap moment involving Ajay Devgn (he’s dropped the `a’) sprinting after two Lady Lottas when actually he’s being chased by a bulldog. Bow wow. 

To be sure there are sight-`n’-sound gags which do pay off in Rohit Shetty’s All the Best, adapted from Paritosh Painter’s stageplay Uncle Samjha Karo, which itself was cadged from the 1960s farce Right Bed, Wrong Husband. Add to that a touch of Come September (1961) and you’re likely to gobble down one helluva fusion cuisine mishmash. Hang on though. In fact, the yay-yay news is that the result is digestible, perfect for a couple of laughs, a few titters and a haw-haw bellylaugh. Hyuk nyuk. 

Gratifyingly, Shetty in his bid to go the Hrishikesh Mukherjee  route avoids the rude, crude and lewd.  Note the excerpt from Chupke Chupke just in case you didn’t detect his noble intentions. For once, women aren’t made the butt of scabrous jokes, and wah-wah there are no homophobic cracks either. Frequently, David Dhawan has doffed his hat to Hrishida, too, but has always incurably lapsed into vulgarity of the wink-wink-snigger-kind. Shetty goes clean, as if he wanted to disinfect Mumbaiya comedy. Indeed, big brownie points to him for that. 

Still the pasteurised package is, at best, fun in parts. Otherwise the pace drags (especially  before Sanjay Dutt makes his entry), the editing is inexpert and the set designs belong top a Raspberry Falooda Factory. The flowers are plastic, the home décor is a salute to the Padmalaya potty-pourris, and the living room curtains, omigawd, the curtains!  Gaudyness gracious me really. 

The costumes are a riot. The wild variety of T-shirts convinces you  to never dare to wear one in public, what with Popeye and op-art motifs. Moreover as scripted, the plot premise is as implausible as a three-rupee coin. Oink. Throuhgout you feel the two down-at-heel men (Devgn-Fardeen Khan), who are trying to hang on to a kesar-pista-tinted villa  in Goa, could talk their problems over with Uncle Kool (Sanjay Dutt). He’s not Anaconda, is he?  

Why make him believe that his prospective niece-in-law is Bipasha Basu instead of Mughda Godse? Unless Uncle prefers more established heroines, the switcheroo between the two mini-skirts, could have been sorted faster than buying a Diwali firecracker. Kabaaam! 

Anyway now you’re into manic malarkey. Uncle Dutt likes Bipashaji, is indifferent to Mughdaji, conducts this at cross-purposes conversation with the Phool Barsao Aayah (Ashwini Kalsekar), deal with don Johnny Lever whose hijinks give you fever, plus a wacko in polka dots who keeps snarling, “Just cheeeeeel.” A Himesh Reshammiya fan he? 

For a rib-tickler the finale is a bit tame, what with goons with faces covered in boot polish fetching up to  talk in Labutto (Lishotto?..can’t figure out) lingo. What Labutto is you’ll never find out, but it seems Uncle was carrying a potful of nimboo achaar for the country’s President. By this point, you’re looking at your wrist watch repeatedly. Guys brevity is the soul of wit. Remember? 

In the behind-the-camera scenario, the script is remarkable essentially for its witty dialogue. Someone wants to start a Coffee series music label to compete with T Series!!The camerawork and Pritam’s music score are not up to scratch. 

Of the performances, Fardeen Khanwho’s assigned a juicy role leaves it dull and dry. Bipasha Basu and Mughda Godse flutter around in roles as skimpy as their outfits. Compared to them, Ashwini Kalsekar has a sharper sense of comic timing. Ajay Devgan is correctly restrained. By the way, several allusions are made to the Munnabhai series. Here Sanjay Dutt is okey-dokey but that’s it, just like the rest of this ha-ha-ho-hum-ha-ha enterprise..that leaves you with mixed feelings.  

Good, bad, good, bad, you get the drift.

In such shallow waters

BLUE

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Zayed Khan, Sharks, Bahama butts
Direction: (not much of it) Anthony D’Souza
Rating: One star..and that’s being generous

Sharks, there go those shucks!Ulp, excuzee, pardon, sowie. Shucks there go those sharks!
And hey, they’re smooth-as-slate grey. Their teeth aren’t visible (must be senior seatizens).
Plus every guy who owns a scuba-diving suit swims past them, happily, as also past National Geographic-like anemones, crayfish and fish life with silver fins. Fin and games?

Forget it. As soon as the credit titles of Blue,directed by former adman Anthony D’Souza, are over,  you’re already seasick.  A couple of reels later,  you even want to cry out loud, “What on earth are you guys doing? Do you take us for ninnies?” Absolutely contemptuous of the audience’s intelligence, this one has more ‘action’ of sorts on terra firma, than down there 20 leagues under the sea. Strangely, ceaseless footage is expended on Zayed Khan  riding a designer bike zippily through the expressways of Bangkok. Squawk.

Next: Vroom, this Dhoom-addicted dude strikes up a multi-million dollar debt, all because he took a fancy to this Smiley (Katrina Kaif, vapid)  wearing a diamond lipling. Meanwhile, you’ve been subjected to a heap of weird information. That Kabir Bedi stepped out of the sea in 1949, wearing a freshly laundered naval officer suit. Then poof, he vanished like Aladin’s genie. Meanie.

Many many many many many  years later, lobster fisherman Sethji (Sanjay Dutt, paunched out) and his buddy, Aarav (Akshay Kumar, in a Sam Tytlerish goatee) are upto some fearsome faltugiri. They box in  a ring. Ping. And Sethji’s wife—or live-in gal (Lara D)  – mumbles something about oceansful of cash  to research  marine life. Expensive, expensive.

Got the drift? It’s difficult to since the screenplay (if there was one),and the shot takings are conceptually as shallow as the powder-blue sea. A hurricane is announced but never shows up disappointingly. Every thing is all too childishly easy. When crisis calls, Sethji just takes off for an interlude of treasure hunting.Yippee do. 

For sure, the hunteroos organised at college annual functions are much more demanding. Out here a ship that holds costume jewellery  is quicky detected in a ruined hull (a nude mermaid statue looks freshly sculpted though). After a frown or two,  roguish Rahul Dev and his oriental dakus are banged-banged to extinction. And if you think this is a spoler, it isn’t. Much more pop con is to follow. Hellow Akshay Kumar, predictably, hogs the end credits. Surely, Kylie Minogue who does a Chiggy Wiggy at the outset could have been brought back for a Tickly Wickly?

Essentially, this Blue movie (!) is awfully directed – disjointed, senseless shot taking and tiresomely lit  like the time Sethji and Aarav converse at a dark oceanfront near-replicating  a  scene in Omkara.  Shots through champagne and wine glasses are hilariously retro. Ditto those sudden pans to women’s butts which you thought had ended with Ram Gopal Varma’s posterior past. The editing is either too senseless (a gunfight through walls is insanely amateurish) or tempo-killing like the song sequence over a listless montage and flashbacks.

Unfortunately, Akshay Kumar engages in anti-women dialogue once again after Kambakt Ishk, asking smarmily, “Can I ride you?” He’s also racist, comparing a session with a black and a white woman to plonking piano keys.Besides, couldn’t he have been prevented from saying “blew” instead of “blue”?  

Zayed Khan is not worth remarking upon. Lara Dutta is purely decorative, her sex appeal outdone by all the beach blondes and brunettes the camera keeps salivating over. As for Sanjay Dutt, arguably this is his career-worst. 

Bottomwhine: Blue is one bloomer of a movie. Don’t even think of all the crores spent on this kiddish enterprise. That’ll just leave you with one helluva sinking feeling.

Wake up Gupta!

ACID FACTORY

Cast: Fardeen Khan pursing his lips, many gents in shades of black, olive and brown, Dia Mirza wearing karela-juice colour contact lenses, cars, cars, cars

Director: Suparn Verma

Rating: One and a half stars

No, no. This couldn’t possibly be producer Sanjay Gupta ki Aag!..but what to do? Bar bar cars jump in the Cape Town air like circus acrobats, halt, then achieve a somersault and then break into great balls of fire. Yikes, you can smell the burning tyre.

Choke, so dozens of cars go up in smoke. So what if you have witnessed these a gazillion times, like in those Abbas-Mustan race lulus race? Like it or not, producer Sanjay Gupta, director Suparn Verma and stunt master Tinu Varma appear to believe that there’s nothing more exciting than a four-wheeler in flames. Ummm, that’s Acid Factory for you, then, filched without so much as half an acknowledgement from Unknown (2006), an indie B-grader that had lived up to its name.

So might this Tehzab Karkhana you suspect. Because through its running time of 95 minutes (seems loooooooonger though), you can’t fathom who the hell is doing what to whom and whatever for. How on earth to distinguish the baddies from the absolute maddies? You’re merely locked up in this enormous warehouse where Fardeen Khan wakes up to discover that he has temporary memory loss. Five more Ghajini Hero Types rise, shine and get as bristly as porcupines. Ouch grouch.

Indeed, you don’t know why the factorywallas are on strike, why this huge industrial paradise is abandoned and why a toxic gas should affect only the memory glands. No wonder, Fardeen ramping it out there in out-of-vogue leather jackets,is befuddled. Aftab Shivadasani wakes up slowly while Dino Morea (wearing a hat indoors..was there a draft?) does so surely. Dear Manoj Bajpayee is chained to something or the other, plus he has tomato ketchup on his face. And the ace, of course is Danny Denzongpa strapped to a chair, but SMILING like a dentist’s delight. Cheeeeeese!

Meanwhile, there are these flashbak-baks saying five weeks earlier, three weeks earlier, mmm, one week earlier, which scramble your mental arithmetic. Do dooni chaalis anyone? And outside that padlocked warehouse, waiting to pop up on the scene, are Irrfan Khan (looking as pleased as Punch travelling in a limousine) and his aide, a Backless Catsuit Lady (Dia Mirza, ha ha ha ha ha ha).Dhan te na, Limousine and Backless even kiss, like two goldfish in a bowl. So bowlarious this.

Yesteryear’s Baaaaad Man, Gulshan Grover, is an Expressionless Cop for a change. Honestly, don’t expect any kind of screenplay sustenance here. Since it’s a Gupta production, though, you can expect to sight a row of dudes walking towards the camera, looking as if they wanted to rough up the director. You can also expect a pole dance with white women, cuts to a scalding hot Lamborgini-plus-hot bikes, and you can certainly anticipate the dialogue to include in a limitless number of hey brother and yaaars. Compared to this Gupta Gyaan, Kaante was Ben-Hur. How you long to rent its DVD immediately. Its music still plays in your ears. Factory’s be-bops vanish instantly.

Needless to lament, Gupta and his directors have to wake up and smell the cappuccino fast. Those berserk camera angle and chip-chop editing cuts are passe now. A story of some purpose and emotional content is a must if the producer and his team are to evolve. Occasionally, there is something unconventional about his work, yes, but it’s limited to technique.

Of the cast, Fardeen Khan, Dino Morea and Dia Mirza are extremely tiresome to watch. Ms Mirza, again, seems to be more interested in cosmetics than emoting. Danny sir and Irrfan saab look as if they’ve wandered into a children’s tea party. Surprisingly, Aftab Shivdasani is pretty convincing and confident. Not suprisingly, Manoj Bajpayee with his ability to take the script to another level, is consistently credible.

At some point, someone asks, “What are we doing here?” If you make the mistake of visiting the factory, so will you. For sure.

Muslims and the movies

Just consider these two little-known or practically unknown facts.

One, there would have been no Diwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, if its director Aditya Chopra had stuck to his earlier resolve -- of making his debut with a story about a young couple who meet in the midst of communal riots.

The couple is unaware of each other’s faith.Later, their families prove to be more incendiary and unreasonable than the mob of rioters they escaped from during the 1993-’94 riots of Mumbai.

Second, there would have been no Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, in the way it finally emerged on the screen, if Karan Johar had stuck to his earlier resolve of making the character of Kajol a Muslim girl from the Chandni Chowk mohalla of purani Dilli.

It’s a downmarket Muslim girl that the character essayed by Amitabh Bachchan was scheduled to disapprove of and turn away from the folds of his Brahminical family.

Evidently, both Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar lost nerve before the films commenced shooting. Chopra discarded his original script completely presumably because he didn’t want to gamble at the box office, while Johar merely incorporated some severely pancaked cosmetic changes, converting Kajol from a Salma into yet another have-not stereotype.

The Chandni Chowk girl stayed on in the plot but she became the daughter of a pundit halwai, while for that secular element, a neighbourhood friend enacted by TV actress Simone Singh was foisted into the screenplay.

Now the question is: Can the Mumbai-ishtyle film makers really be blamed for staying away from the Muslims. It would seem if the main characters – be it the hero or the heroine are Muslim – then contentious issues have to be grappled with. And how many of the now generation’s film makers even know about the catclysmic details of the country’s Partition or are interested in doing something constructive through the medium of cinema? Entertainment, it is presumed, just dpesn’t gel with purposeful stories. Certainly don’t expect a Garm Hawa today, which lingers in the heart and mind, as one of the very few films that actually did justice to representing Muslims in a realistic light.

Okay, it may be argued that commercial…oops mainstream cinema…isn’t meant to be realisitic, serious or relevant to the conditions around us. Still, even through the genre of fantasy romances and action capers in the past, several issues have been tackled in a gloriously palatable way by the so-called commercial producers of Mumbai…or should that be Bombay? Like it or not the ghosts of Raj Kapoor, V.Shantaram, Bimal Roy and Guru Dutt will continue to haunt generations of cinema aficionados to come.

These and other random thoughts, in fact, arise ironically enough on the tenth “anniversary” of the Babri Masjid demolition. Has any film maker had the nerve to talk about that in some detail and more to the point, would such frankspeak be permitted by the ever-watchful censor board eager to muzzle any kind of strong political comment?

In such a scenario, the very concept of a Muslim hero or heroine, is as absurdly as asking for the movies to give up on songs and prances. Custom has made it a must for the hero to be a Rahul or a Rohit and the heroine to be a Sapna or Suman. Indeed, it only the rare issue-oriented film that has in recent years featured central Muslim protagonists like the beleaguered couple, Manisha Koirala and Arvind Swamy, in Mani Ratnam’s Bombay. Although Ratnam’s film was vital in at least foraying into an area where cameras fear to tread, the film was marked by too many balancing acts, almost as if Ratnam was scared on alienating either section of his audience.

Interestingly, the Muslim audience is considered to be the most fervent and passionate filmgoers. Lose them and you lost out a major slice of the ticket vote bank. It’s only because of this anxiety to please this section of the audience that once films insisted on adding a sympathetic Chacha Rahim sort of character or a supporting actor who sacrifices his life for his Hindu friend at the end.

In addition, there was the rich genre of Muslim socials – Mere Mehboob and Mere Huzoor – featuring chocolate heroes in sherwanis and marzipan heroines in ghararas and burqas. For social commentary of a kind, Kamal Amrohi opened up the life of a reluctant courtesan in Pakeezah which admittedly was effectively poignant, with its evocation of an era of poetic romance and gilded cages.

They don’t make them like Pakeezah anymore. But then that’s stating the obvious, isn’t it? Especially when every filmgoer is aware that in the last ten years, cinema has deteriorated drastically. Although much is made of our technical advancement, any comparison of the average Hindi film with other Asian cinema – like that of Hong Kong or Taiwan – would show us up in a shoddy light.

There is something downright crude and patchy in the representation of Muslims in the movies today. For instance, there was neither head nor tale to the Salman Khan caper “Tumko Na Bhool Payenge”, in which the hero, a Muslim goes amnesiac, is adopted by a Hindu family, retrieves his memory and fetches up at the Haji Ali Masjid. If any point was being conveyed it was entirely lost on the audience which nixed the film at the turnstiles. Sohail Khan’s “Maine Dil Tujhko Diya” showcased Sanjay Dutt as a villainous Muslim don with a heart of gold; Dutt repeated the act as “Iqbal Danger” in the recently released “Annarth.”

Underworld has become the hang-out of Muslims.Witness “Sarfarosh”, an otherwise sensible film. The bad guy, Naseeruddin Shah, was a ghazal singer from Pakistan. As if to redress the balance, a cop played by Mukesh Rishi, was shown as a nationalist Muslim being victimised by his superiors and the world at large. It almost seemed as if Aamir Khan was playing an earnest good guy Hindu cop (like say Nick Nolte) while Mukesh Rishi was the black underdog cop (a la Eddie Murphy or Danny Glover).

Curiously or maybe understandably Ram Gopal Varma didn’t want to alienate the Muslim ticket vote back. Although his main protagonists in Company were clearly modelled on Dawood Ibrahim and Chhota Rajan, the characters played by Ajay Devgan and Vivek Oberoi weren’t given Islamic trappings or names. Clever, very clever.

One doesn’t wish to bring up one’s own effort in the representation of Muslims in cinema. All one can say is that one tried to reach authentic portrayals of Muslim women in “Mammo’, “Sardari Begum”, “Zubeidaa” and “Fiza”. One was warned time and again not to try a Muslim theme in “Fiza” or to cast Hrithik Roshan as a Muslim, but on looking back one is thrilled that one didn’t pay heed to advice and made the film as one had scripted it.


The bottom line is that characters must emerge from the plot, cast, creed and religion no bar. It doesn’t matter if you’e black or white, Hindu, Muslim or Christian. As long as you believe in a story, as long as you’re convinced that the story must be told, then you’re on the right track. Otherwise, you might as well play the stock market, the roulette, the horse races. Whatever, as long as it’s not cinema.