REVIEW: Krantiveer - The Revolution

SCREECH QUEEN

'Haan main neta hoon, aur mujhe raajneeti ka ganda khel khelna bahut achchee tarah se aata hai! Aur ab wakt aa gaya hai ki hum ab yeh raajneeti ka ganda khel khelna shuru kar dein!'

'Main bhi builder hoon, aur mujhe in gareeb aur middle class logon kee jhopadpatti par aalishaan towers aur malls banane hain.'

Did someone say sequels mean you repeat the same plotline and add a twist to it? Mehul Kumar took a thing that worked in 1994 (it had Nana Patekar being Nana Patekar, mouthing off incendiary dialog that made you throw 25p coins at the screen) and re-created it into something so screechy, you want to close your ears and wince, wince, wince through the show. 

So the writer director has tried to include new ideas in the new Krantiveer. So it's Nana Patekar and Dimple's daughter called Roshni who is the Krantiveer this time. She is shown to be someone who gets into an argument with anything that moves, and we would not minded the Rajni-like tendency to jump into every social issue and attempt to solve it (Rajni was a TV show starring Priya Tendulkar), if only the voice wasn't so grating one every nerve that you have, and the arguments so archaic and laughable. To a woman getting beaten by her husband, this Krantiveer suggests, 'Aurat devi ka roop hoti hai, aur kabhi kabhi use Chandi ban-na padta hai. Kabhi Durga, kabhi Kaali'. 

When you stop guffawing, the director suddenly transports her from being a citizen of a middle class Bharat Nagar who dresses in jeans and a shirt to a black dress straight out of TV show discards, simply because she went out and got herself a job as a 'TV Media reporter' (their phrase, repeated so often as 'yeh TV Media wale', yeh TV Media bahut powerful hai', 'aap TV Media kyon nahee use karte, sir' and so on).

And not just the young girl, the director pulls three young men into the Krantiveer mode, giving them dialogue like, 'Ab maine bhi faisla kar liya hai, army ki training chhod kar, main TV Media mein tumhare saath reporter ban jaata hoon.'.

Whaaaaaaat?

There is no pretense whatsoever of any research being done about how Tv stations work, how news is gathered and how programs are aired. Just a blanket of stupidity draped on everyone and everything.

The girl and the new ex-army trainee recruit her two best friends: the chief minister's son and the builder's son (convenient!) who actually help bring the bad guys to book. the narrator announces: the bad police officers, the neta and the builder were beaten up by the junta, tied to trees and 'unhe zinda jala diya!' The sons did that to their dads? We understand the janata need to be awakened, but this was a bit much to swallow. Worse was the scene where an actor with a serious Amitabh Bachchan hangover plays the police inspector who stands between a maulana led Muslim bunch and a pandit led Hindu bunch and tries to remind them of the glory days when Raam-Raheem nagar was a misaal for the whole country. Misaal or not, the scene evokes so much laughter because you know the Masjid and the Mandir are cardboard cutouts and that the terrorist who opens fire on the two groups is shot right in the middle of his chest, but ducks and runs away.

To add to the ridiculousness of it all, there is extensive use of the 26/11 footage and politicians accusing each other with, 'Maine toh sirf ek cycle bomb lagane bola tha, yeh tumne kya kiya!'.

Stupified? We were too. I don't even want to get into the three songs called 'burdday', the other a horrid item number with firang girls and the ugly politicians (someone stop Govind Namdeo from doing any more roles as this one) and the third some unimaginative love song where the only image you come away with is the heroine streching her arms as if she just woke up from deep slumber on a rock!

Lastly, I feel for the three young men who want a break in the movies and end up with horrid roles such as these. Shame on a seasoned director who should have known better.

Comments

[Deepa Gahlot]

Haha! Was dying to see this one, such baaaaad films are fun.

[Pritam]

Great review Manisha. :-) Deepa, we missed you at the press show.

[Deepa Gahlot]

Pritam, tough to get away at 3... but will catch this one for sure :)