Review: Dhobi Ghat

Posted on January 25, 2011January 25, 2011 by bach

An art film, to me, falls into either of two categories. One kind strikes audience with a brilliant sigh, making us wonder how a complex thought can be so simply put (E.g. Black Swan). The other kind is a folder of scribbles thrown at you, which does not make any sense even if you arrange in any order. Dhobi Ghat belongs to second category. It’s a high profile, big banner, “star” cast, much anticipated commercial-art movie which makes you feel you are reading few torn pages of someone else’s dairy. Probably, that’s the reason wise say you shouldn’t read someone else’s dairy. It’s so freaking boring!

Dhobi Ghat is not a traditional Bollywood commercial-art movie; hence my comments are also not regular ones. Movie is attributed with fine acting and brilliant direction. Bummer – it is pointless and boring. It neither does the justice to the time spent in cinema nor to the pop-corn bought. (Just a thought: Movie like this is the reason why Akshay Kumar in industry, to bring pointless but not boring movies). Dhobi Ghat revolves around a modern art painter Arun (Amir Khan) obsessed with video letters of Yasmin. At the same time NRI investment banker Shai (Monika Dogra) stalks him while successfully manage to get herself obsessed by Munna (Prateik) the Dhobi, whom she meets on her clichéd poverty trip. Arun changes houses! That’s all – I dint miss anything to explain on the plot!

All newcomers (all of them except Amir) have done nice job, justice to their roles, while Amir still struggles with “new age” acting – the natural one. Amir acting still stuck in mid 90s standard of great acting, I feel he was weakest link in acting department. Kiran Rao’s direction is great, even without considering this is her first presentation. Actually this is a relief! Since for a long time now Farah Khan was taking all the sympathy votes for being the only female Bollywood mainstream director. Now Farah can retire and Kiran can take her place with an understanding that her first movie is a mistake and she won’t be making a pointless movie again.

After Dhobi Ghat, I went into depression for a while and was actually looking for an Akshay Kumar kind of movie to undo this effect. We don’t run out of options do we? I chose Vijay’s Kaavalan over “Yamla Pagla Diwana”. As anticipated it was crapy one and boom! I am back to this world again, Thanks to Vadivelu!. Anyways, here are some options; if you would like undo the hangover after watching Dhobi Ghat (I used all three):

Kaavalan: Vijay is a kick boxer, student, body guard, dancer, comedian, singer, honest but innocent, most eligible bachelor as usual! Basically he is almost all the things I dreamed I would become when I was 12.

Black Swan: Amazingly brilliant movie. Watch it yourself, I am running out of words to explain it.

127 Hours: Another brilliant masterpiece by Danny Boyle. It surely will bring you goose bumps (as “The way back” did). Again, I am running out of words to explain the movie. One note on AR Rahman though! One more evidence to show he copies tunes, from his own work! Or, do we call it reuse? Some part of this movie has background tune of Raavan (Behene De to be specific.). Probably he thought the crowd that watched Raavan and watching 127 Hours are mutually exclusive. He is obviously wrong isn’t it?

Tees Maar Khan (aka Sheela Ki Jawani)

Posted on December 25, 2010 by bach

If Farah Khan thinks she can make a stupid movie with a fantastic item number and make it a biggest blockbuster, she probably is right. It works for Indian audience, and me. Tees Maar Khan was a houseful show in the middle of the week; probably it will remain so for rest of the holidays, unless a miracle happens. Her logic was simple, it’s feeling freezing out here and all we need is a racy raunchy number for this winter! 😉

Sheela Ki Jawani is totally fantastic! It has the same effect as some of the legendary items songs we had in this industry. I remember boys hostels going crazy over Babuji zara Dheere chalo, because there was a Bijli standing there, now it must be crazier since it is matter of Sheela’s Jawani! Whole movie can be tolerated to see this dance number. One more thing – the lyrics – semi-X rated “What’s my name…Ooh… Say my name”. 😉

The rest of the movie is plain simple stupid, it made little sense as any other Akshay Kumar movie and this can be easily counted as worst movie of 2010. It’s almost obvious that the movie was made for a bunch of 8 year olds, who giggle for anything jumping and running on the screen. They don’t need much explanation, do they? It’s like any cartoon network show; Tom loses his face for something Jerry does, and in the next scene Tom is alright and chasing Jerry again! There is little or no explanation why things are happening in the way they are happening. Those three stooges resemble penguins in the movie in Madagascar. I can go on, but in summary movie is a complete cartoon show – a bad one!

Plot was lifted from a disastrous Hollywood movie “After the Fox”. An international criminal plotting to rob a train filled with antiques, and does it by fooling an entire village. From an international thief, who apparently escaped every time he was caught; you would expect a lot of wit and skills. You would expect to see another Ocean’s eleven or Italian job, but no! There is nothing more than a Govinda from early 90s. Nothing in a Genius thief film leaves anything to your imagination – nothing smart.

Movie moves with a millions of technical mistakes, but there is no point complaining about it. It’s like any other holy book, filled with impossible stuff which cannot be questioned. If you need one example, the whole village scene was shot in a single camera – 200 actors in close up! And superstar Athish Kapoor does not find this odd!

Director Farah Khan is up against all those Indian or western movies with Indians those wanting to earn an Oscar (references to Amir Khan and Anil Kapoor). This movie looks like a campaign against them, like someone attending a social cause, in facebook. Every part of the movie tries to humiliate Oscar wannabes, or those who already got them. One more thing is, Bollywood’s idea of Oscar is to show poor villagers story (slumdog, Peepli) plus historical story (Lagaan). At end of the movie some European girls (new obsession of Bollywood) distribute fake Oscars to all camera-shy crew of this movie, including spot boys and light boys. Finally Farah arrives on stage and gets a real one and rubs it on buttock! BTW, have you heard the story about Fox and sour grapes?

Akshay Kumar is at his usual worst. I beg these directors to give him action role which he hasn’t done in decades. He is over used as henpecked coward, wetting his pants and running away from a headless ghost (Yes, you guessed it right – Sleepy Hollow.) Akshay Khanna with his usual irritating over acting, natural choice I would say. Only tolerable actor was Katrina Kaif, but her role itself was to overact! She is a wannabe-actor and a foxy bimbette, also Tees Mar Khan’s (aka Tabrez Mirza Khan) love interest. There is nothing much to discuss on acting department.

Good

Sheela ki Jawani
Just two hours of non-sense, not three.

Bad

All departments.
All the technical mistakes (a million of them)

And Ugly

Director’s of Idea of Oscars.
Cheep humour. Taking crap behind the bushes (literally) etc.

Talking about references, there is a guest appearance by Chunky Pandey who is presented as irresponsible narcissist, which I heard about him in real life as well. There is one more scene where Anil Kapoor dances on stage like a child, which also seems to be true. Come to Salman Khan, who gives a guest appearance in Tees Mar Khan’s (international criminal) Mohalla for a dance on a casual invite over a phone call, Now does this have any relevance in real life ? Just looking for some significance, symbolism etc. that’s all.

My advice – Please avoid. Watch Sheela ki Jawani on YouTube.

My take on Guzarish

Posted on November 23, 2010November 23, 2010 by bach

Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s movies are like epic poems. “Khamoshi” was a poem, “Hum dil de chuke sanam” was a masterpiece, “Devdas” was an epic and “Black” was all of them. Then, he got tired of presenting poems. Now he presents only drafts – unfinished ones. Guzarish is one among them; it seems that he dint put too many thoughts into it to make it perfect. Started well though!

Quick question, does “major milestone” translate to “bada meel ka paththar” in Hindi? I dint keep myself updated with Hindi, then! Anyways, back to review.

Guzarish falls short of telling a convincing story, tries to give a wrong message in between, then turns weird and finally ends like a Karan Johar movie – making everyone in the hall cry. Fortunately there are several clues in the movie shows it had a great idea behind it before while it was written and Bhansali lost it later point.

Plot is very simple. Flashback is picked from (Oh, sorry… inspired by) a Hollywood flick – “The Prestige”. A jealous illusionist (in Bollywood a magician) gets the apparatuses bugged and boom! Mr. Ethan Mascarenhas (Hrithik Roshan) is crippled for rest of his life. Ethan takes this as a challenge and starts a radio show from his bedroom, and he becomes popular once again. After a decade of doing this, he decides give up his life and files a petition against Union of India for an approval on mercy killing, which gets rejected as it is unconstitutional.

This is how Goan maids look like., any questions ?

Guzarish

The movie ends with an indication that his maid (Aishwarya Rai) will assist him to do when court rejected. Now, this story went wrong for two major reasons

Movie does not attend the reason why Ethan wants a mercy killing. Nowhere in three hours Bhansali shows Ethan is suffering or it is getting worse. Finally it looks like Ethan is asking for mercy killing Euthanasia (Referred as Ethanasia) because he got bored!!
Court does not attend the argument “Why grant Euthanasia only to him?”. They start to discuss it, but later they forget! I really don’t think “Because he chooses for himself” is a justifiable reason. This shakes the foundation of the movie.

All other areas (direction, acting etc) were comparatively good; they are in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s standards. I acknowledge that he is one of very few directors who don’t believe in overacting to bring drama, nor Masala. While I am thankful for that, it is frustrating to see some of the details are missed out.

Hrithik was good; BTW, did I mention that I brought him out of my “No watch list” after Kites? This movie could look good in his resume. Sofia (Aishwarya Rai) simply exists in this movie which any actor could have filled in. If you read the plot again, you see Sofia the maid (Aishwarya) does not have anything significant to contribute to the story. In-fact, she is one of the week points of the movie. If I were Bhansali I would have filled someone not so famous, like he did for that doctor or lawyer.

Now, list of flaws:

Why the movie gives old feeling? I initially thought the story itself is picturised in old age, at least 40 years. But no, they talk about SMS etc. Confusing! Is there a place in Goa where people live just like they did in colonial era?
The maid seems to be a financially poor girl with drunken husband, but appearance makes her look like a princess – couple of centuries of old. She has an heir style of German village girl and wears veils like a secret cult. Total confusion.
You can observe the difference between how Hollywood and Bollywood takes on exact same things differently. In Prestige he is an illusionist and here Ethan is Magician! In 90 minutes movie Hollywood does not forget to show a glimpse of magic apparatuses – they ensure whatever audience see is a result of smart equipment and quick movement. But Bollywood does not care – It just happens like any paranormal activity! They had 180 minute, just to remind you.
Konkani was dubious. In Hum dil de chuke sanam, there was some Guajarati and in Devdas, Bengali. In Guzarish Bhansali forgot about Konkani. There were couple of words here and there; they sounded more like Marathi than Konkani.
Songs weren’t great! There was one dance – A Goan would have been nice. Instead it was a Spanish..ish dance! Aishwarya treats it as metal rock! My point is Sofia does not look like a person who does mock rock in a pub, she is a serious character – If you observe she talks less than Man Mohan Singh.
Ash wears longest skirts in the world (already in Guinness records!) and she rides bicycle back home! It’s long since I’ve been to Goa, but it is hard to believe skirts keep getting longer there as days go. Nothing wrong with the concept, just that it is funny to imagine a 15^th century European skirt driving early 20^th century Hero bicycle.
What’s about Karan Johar ending please? For 15 minutes Ethan says thank you note. “Last but not least” and “Thank you one and all”.

Looks like Bollywood is rearranging its resources. Best chocolate hero Vivek Oberoy (remember Sathiya?) does action super hero roles (Remember Prince?), Martial art specialist Akshay Kumar does henpecked roles and now Best dancer in Bollywood plays handicapped! Salman and Shah Rukh..err what are they good at again ?

Khatta Meetha, the movie and the formula

Posted on July 29, 2010September 19, 2010 by bach

What do you call that person who does the same mistake again and again? Idiot? Well I am that. I was wrong, again. I was a little hopeful that I will get to see a good Akshay Kumar movie, but no, it turned out to be my mistake again. Movie was too silly and pointless. They kept up Akshay Kumar movie genre.

What a waste of talent. When I saw Khiladi some fifteen years back I was happy that they found a real action hero who actually does fit for action roles, unlike most of pregnant macho-men in that era. He is handsome, tall and he has all the things to make him Bollywood Tom Cruise or Keanu Reaves. But no, he wanted to become Jim carry, which now after 15 years, he is nowhere near Jim. What a waste!

Whole of this movie he acts like a mad, along with other mad men hired to do this job. Too many comedians and too many jokes but not a single one of them had quality in them. Hardly half way near Hera Pheri.

Trisha’s introduction to this is a disaster for two reasons. First, there is nothing for her, it’s a male dominant movie, women don’t get to speak much, I don’t think she was well-informed about her role. The second being, she dint do her homework well. She can’t talk Hindi at all. It was easy to observe that her role was either dubbed or lip-synched. Why do we do this? Why do we make them talk in Hindi when they can’t? Remember Vikram talking Hindi in Raavan? He looked silly. Let him talk Tamil alone, we love him like that.

Rest all departments are not worth talking about. They were hopeless. It looked like they made a 60s movie. Only good thing in the movie was Rajpal Yadav.

On a lighter side, to come out of the movie review mood, let me explain you how this kind of movie is made. Previously I explained how to write pseudo code for the movie, then how to write lyrics, now, how requirement analysis is done.

In general Bollywood director fills a form which is a template of the movie. Bollywood did not revise this template since 80s. Story writer or director generally fills this form. Script will be ready on the click of a button, automatically.

For your ease I will pre-populate the form with Khatta Meetha values so that Continue reading “Khatta Meetha, the movie and the formula” →

Movie review : Housefull

Posted on May 5, 2010May 5, 2010 by bach

Last weekend I had option of choosing one among two Indian movies, one starring Akshay the other Vijay. It was very difficult decision considering both of them have given loads of silly movies, I chose Akshay movie, “Housefull”. Akshay had an advantage having given a good movie in mid 90’s and Vijay none!!! Housefull was a stupid movie, but my decision wasn’t wrong! Heard Sura was stupider!!

Back to Akshay, there is a pattern you can expect from Akshay Kumar movies.., being pointless and crappy. “Houseful” is exactly it, pointless. To start with the name “Housefull” , whole three hours you will be wondering what word “housefull” relates to the context and plot.

Summary

Direction& Acting by whole crew is terrible. I am running out of words to abuse the director who did not update himself since David Dhavan Templates started going flop. I wish they leave this profession and give chance to someone else.
There is nothing consistent in this movie. Akshay is supposed to be very unlucky person, only for first half an hour. Not for rest of the movie, he does not have those signs at all. He acts stupid in first part, smart in next half.
Legs: there are lot of legs in whole movie from all three female actors. And looks like this is whole and sole purpose of this movie.
Songs: unnecessary and irritating and again.. pointless.
Who on earth sells a full grown tiger as a pet? In LONDON!! Apparently Akshay buys one.
Akshay fights with a monkey!! How silly a movie can get?