Film Impressions

REVIEW: Utt Pataang

INTO THE MAZE
 
Another ‘disciple’ of Quentin Tarantino jumps out of the hedge, so to say, with a film that runs around in circles, and ends up nowhere. Srikanth V. Velagaleti co-writer and director writes a convoluted thriller, about gangsters,  femmes fatales, stolen money, thwarted love, and a loser at the centre of the cyclone.
 
The device of capturing a moment from various points of view to complete a jigsaw of events that take place in one night would have been exciting to watch, if the characters and what they were going through was interesting or novel.  Every low-budget filmmaker believes that a gangster caper is the way to go. Not everyone can make it tick.

REVIEW: Yeh Saali Zindagi

THIS LIFE SUCKS

It doesn't matter how many times 'newcomer' Arunoday Singh (this just happens to be his third release) kisses his screen wife (Aditi Rao Hydari) or the innumerable cuss words various gangsters and lowly scum use in Sudhir Mishra's Yeh Saali Zindagi. There's nothing provocative, spicy or spirited about the film. It's a limp attempt at an edgy comic caper of the Tarantino-Ritchie variety which evokes hardly any laughs and definitely not enough twists to keep you tangled up. The busy camera work and editing is irritating rather than engaging and the narrative, which tries to cram in too many characters and plots, simply ends up losing its way into blunder-land.

REVIEW: Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji (2)

YOU MUST BE KIDDIN'

It was, perhaps a mistake to push Madhur Bhandarkar’s Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji as a comedy. Because then you go to the cinema expecting laughs and get a poor man’s version of Dil Chahta Hai, without the wit.

Madhur Bhandarkar has made a reputation for himself, making films exposing various strata of society, maybe he could have slotted this one as Mumbai-based Sex And The City for men, but then the characters would have to be more identifiable and definitely better fleshed out.

REVIEW: Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji

TRULY CHILDISH

I've never been a fan of Madhur Bhandarkar's cinema. While he's displayed some narrative skills in Chandni Bar, Satta and Page 3 (unlike most Hindi filmmakers), his productions have always been sub-par and the casting (barring the lead actors), often inappropriate. Also, his formula of telling industry-based stories -- politics, big business, fashion etc -- is now wearing thin. Which perhaps explains his foray into mindless comedy with Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji.

It's a lazily put together film and this shows in just about every department. 

REVIEW: Dhobi Ghat (2)

BIG CITY BLUES

Kiran Rao's directorial debut Dhobi Ghat is full of plot contrivances that fit very uneasily in an arty film of lofty aspirations. In any case, the premise of diverse lives colliding in a big city is itself too stale to make a ready impact. Add to that the weak characterisation and often cliche visual motifs and the overall effect is that of a dull and shallow ode to Mumbai with only the occasional spark.

It's the technical departments and the performances that actually hold the film together. Much credit to cinematographer Tushar Kanti Ray and sound designer Ayush Ahuja for capturing the city in all its hues -- the use of Super 16 and Digital photography lends an immediacy to the locations and several nuances of the metro's bustle and grind are authentically mirrored; particularly evocative is the voyeuristic act of looking into other people's box-grilled windows. Although Rao's decision to cram the film with every possible tourist highlight -- from the Elephanta Caves and Ganpati visarjan to Eid festivities on Mohammed Ali Road and of course, the Gateway of India  -- doesn't seem to have been taken in the interest of the narrative.

REVIEW: Dhobi Ghat

OH MUMBAI!

Kiran Rao’s debut film Dhobi Ghat is like a guide to Mumbai, the way an outsider would see and romanticise the city.  It’s as if she has gone around with a checklist—and everything is ticked--  from the sea, the monsoon, trains, Elephanta Caves and Ganpati to Ramzan feasts in the by-lanes of old Mumbai.

In between looking at the city with wide-eyed adoration, she follows four people who are connected by the kind of coincidences, that happen in cinema more often than they do in life.  A triangle is formed  between a “loner” artist Arun (Aamir Khan), a rich banker Shai (Monica Dogra) on a sabbatical from New York, and a young dhobi-cum-rat-killer-cum-aspiring actor Munna (Prateik). The fourth character Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra) is a Muslim woman, the former resident of the house Arun rents, who left behind a bunch of video tapes, meant as letters to her brother.

REVIEW: Yamla Pagla Deewana

A DEOL TOO MANY

Sample these lyrics from two item songs in Samir Karnik's Yamla Pagla Deewana and you should get a general drift of the film's aesthetic quotient -- "Pal pal na maane tinku jiya / Ishq ka manjan ghise hai piya" in which Dharmendra grabs and kisses the skimpily clad dancer every now and then. The other song has words such as, "Pehle thi main shakkar jaisi / Namak ki bori ban gayi". The film's first half is shot at the same Benaras ghats where Satyajit Ray filmed his masterpiece Aparajito. That's about all the two films have in common.

REVIEW: Turning 30

BRIDGET JONES IN MUMBAI

Coming exactly 10 years after the film that's clearly its inspiration, Alankrita Shrivastava's Turning 30 lacks the breezy wit and charm of the original (Bridget Jones Diary, based on a bestselling book by Helen Fielding), but is still relevant particularly in the Indian context. Sure, Naina Singh (Gul Panag) advertising copy writer (lazy choice of profession by the filmmaker) spends too much time crying over her own fate and seems curiously lacking in depth. But she's also a 30-year-old singleton living alone in a ruthless city with a support system comprising nothing more than a kind-hearted maid and two girl friends (mandatory ingredients for such a film).

Running along a fairly predictable course, the film traces Naina's life from the eve of her 30th birthday, to her 31st. Her boyfriend Rishabh (Sid Makkar) breaks up with her to get engaged to a girl from a rich family who's likely to bail out his father's sinking business. Naina's boss steals her campaigns and passes them off to his slimy lover.

'Jobless and manless' she doesn't know what to do about her life. Somewhere in the background is a mildly nagging mother reminding her of her biological clock and the need to get married and have babies. In walks ex-flame Jai (Purab Kohli in colourful scarfs and a stilted expression on face) a successful London-returned photographer who once dumped Naina because he was 'confused'.

Don't expect anything sensational to be reveled through the proceedings. Except a window to a world that Bollywood generally shies short of fully exploring -- English-speaking urban yuppies and their travails which may seem superficial to those who must struggle to just get from day to day, but are real to those who inhabit that world.

Here are young men and women who live on their own terms and seem largely untouched by the tradition and morality that mainstream Hindi cinema still strives to uphold. Naina has sex with whoever she feels like (unapologetically and almost casually), her best friend is a lesbian, her other friend has a philandering husband who she's decided to accept matter-of-factly (why, isn't a question the film cares to address). 

The fear of being alone, unloved and growing old are universal, and in the modern chaos of city life they only get magnified. Turning 30 tries to give them the light-hearted treatment, but it needed to be much sharper to make the trials of a modern single woman evocative. Having said that, the broad strokes don't take away the fact that such women do exist and that their stories are just as relevant.

REVIEW: No One Killed Jessica (2)

AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

To make a film about an event that most people in the audience would be familiar with and still evoke shock, outrage, empathy and helplessness is commendable. But then choosing a sensational case such as the Jessica Lall murder made Rajkumar Gupta's job that much easier. Having said that, the blatant subversion of justice abetted by tampering of evidence, buying/coercing witnesses into giving false testimonies and the sheer callousness of a political family to believe their son could get away with murder, is sickening enough to make your stomach churn any day of the year. Only, it happens all the time in this country -- and hence, the rare instance of a fair judgment and conviction, belated as it may have been, becomes a cause celebre.

REVIEW: No One Killed Jessica

CAUSE CÉLÈBRE

Rajkumar Gupta’s well-made debut Aamir was somewhat tarnished by the exposure of its foreign source (Cavite). His second is as Indian—rather as Dilli—as India Gate.

That a film like No One Killed Jessica (taken from a newspaper headline) was made at all is a wonder. The sensational case has all but slipped from public memory, though the incident itself—of a politician’s son shooting a girl in cold blood and almost getting away with it—has been used in other films (Satta, Halla Bol) for its shock value. Then, it has two female protagonists, and Bollywood is notoriously wary of woman in the lead.