REVIEW: Chase

CHASE THE LAUGHS

They say that we get the cinema we deserve. And when you watch movies like Chase, you know you are paying for your past sins. However, this movie has so many comic possibilities that I would like to share just those.

DIG THE D.I.G

The bad bad bad D.I.G police wears a very funky suit with purple and black 70s checks in his office and at a media Q&A session, but wears his uniform when traveling all the way to the Panchgani head trauma hospital, and speaks as though his jaw was wired shut. His sidekick and main man is an inspector with very bad aim and even worse wardrobe. And you almost doze off because the conversation between them is as banal as this:

'He's in a vegetative state'

'Yes, sir.'

'Keep an eye on him.'

'Yes, I will.'

'Good'

'Okay.'

'Okay.'

Like I said, you almost doze off. But the best part is: both are wearing these fake aviator sunglasses and the intercuts are the funniest ever.

BRAIN TRAUMA

Crooked cops chase motorbike man everywhere. They overdo everything - zig zagging through streets, shooting, jumping off terraces, running, climbing stairs, falling until we kneel by our chairs and say together, 'We promise we will not, praise Akshay Kumar's parkour skills ever again!'

So the motorbike man hits his head against the windshield of a car and passes out. We sit back in our chairs, thankful that the chase is over. But what's this? The ambulance goes all over the place to reach a strange doc tells the DIG and his sidekick,'He's in a vegetative state. Nothing in his body works.'

See, if the vegetative man is the only one who knows about the tape, and he cannot move, the story is over, right? But then this is Chase, so the DIG says,'Can you cure him?'

The doc says, 'He's in a vegetative state you see, and the only chance he has is if he goes to my clinic.'

And Anuj Saxena who plays the wooden man in a vegetative state to perfection, is taken to the doc's clinic.

NURSE NUPUR

In a delightful take on Carry On In The Hospital, Udita Goswami plays Nurse Nupur, in charge of the man in vegetative state. The USP of this role? Nurse Nupur's clothes are so tight, that in every frame she tries to get out of them.

And when she's acting, she gets to pretend she's acting in Phoonk! She keeps dropping things and looks surprised at the vegetative man to check if he's reacting. Sometimes she's startled by nothing at all. She's just suspicious that he's not really a vegetable. And then the audience cackles in glee when she rips off her blouse to show him her bodice. Even gyrates all over him singing some song (we are too busy laughing about his wooden state to care about the lyrics!). Apparently he's really in a vegetative state because he does not rip her bodice! So in the very next scene she pushes him off into the waters. After this, you stop looking for anything plausible and wipe all tears of mirth!

EXPLOIT POINT

In any other movie, you would be outraged to see women treated like her. But here, you cannot stop guffawing at the ridiculous revelation of the rack. She's the original boobquake, the woman who is so desperate to be on celluloid that she doesn't mind being exploited this way. What she says does not register at all. We only see her skin, lots of it. And in not one single frame is there any reason for her to be dressed that way. She even shows up a-la Mona Darling in a towel! The gudgudi song is in such bad taste that it ceases to be romantic. It ends up being a testimony to a collagen job gone horribly wrong.

FINAL WORD

Had this movie been made down in Tollywood, it would have been more than half decent. Had they offered the whole movie to the chap who directed the end credits video, the result would have been definitely different. But it is not. The refrain of the title song is its only redeeming feature.

Just remember, we see movies so you can make better use of your hard earned money. If you are desperate for air-conditioned comfort and unintended comedy, then this is the movie for you.

Comments

[Deepa Deosthalee]

Hilarious! Am rolling on the floor.

[Jane]

I think the movie is good! But the review is very well written nonetheless! You're a good writer Manisha!