Monthly Archives: March 2013

Movie Review: Himmatwala (2013)

15 Replies

Himmatwala0.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Can someone check director Sajid Khan to make sure his brain is still functioning? Lack of neural activity is the only way I can explain why someone would be so unaware of current events as to make a film as out of touch as Himmatwala.

Himmatwala is a remake of a hit film from 1983, a period when cultural views of gender equality were less advanced than they are today. Khan sets the events of his remake in 1983, but that doesn’t mean that every detail of the remake must be exactly the same as the original. In fact, characters make numerous references to modern life — things like swine flu and YouTube — that were obviously not part of the original.

(Further evidence that this is not a strict remake is that Khan lifts an iconic scene directly from the 1987 comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I’ve included a video of the original scene at the end of the review.)

The problematic sequences have to do with the film’s depiction of women. The film shifts from a light-hearted, Looney Tunes-inspired comedy in the first half, to a more serious story in the second, though refusing to abandon its comedic elements entirely. As a result, women’s suffering is made light of, existing only as a prompt for jokes.

The story centers on Ravi’s (Ajay Devgn) return to his hometown, which he left as a boy. His father, a respected priest, had been framed by the evil town overlord, Sher Singh (Mahesh Manjrekar), and driven to suicide. When young Ravi attacks Sher Singh, Singh’s goons burn Ravi’s house, presumably with his mother, Savitri (Zarina Wahab), and his younger sister, Padma, still inside. Upon learning that his mother and now-adult sister (played by Leena Jumani) survived, forced to live in squalor on the outskirts of town, Ravi returns.

In the process of restoring the family home, Ravi inspires the impoverished villagers to hope for a life out from under the thumb of Sher Singh. Ravi’s divinely endowed heroism wins the love of Singh’s bratty daughter, Rekha (Tamannaah), and gets her to stop being mean to the poor townsfolk.

Up to this point, the tone is relatively light. There are a few impressive dance numbers, lots of cartoonish sound effects, and direct-to camera asides from Narayan Das (played by an incredibly annoying Paresh Rawal), Singh’s brother-in-law.

The tone changes when Padma reveals that she and Narayan’s son, Shakti (Adhyayan Suman), are in love. Ravi objects to his sister’s relationship with the nephew of his arch-rival, but relents and apologizes to Shakti when he sees how unhappy Padma is. This apology is an insufficient balm for Shakti’s wounded pride, and he conspires with his father and uncle to ruin Ravi by physically and emotionally torturing Shakti after going through with a sham marriage to her.

But first, Padma is almost raped by a gang of Singh’s goons. After trapping her in an abandoned train car, the lead goon declares, “I will molest you, and then your brother will kill himself.”

Of course, Ravi shows up in time to save Padma, but his pre-fight announcement is less than reassuring. He says, “If you lose your dignity and your life, you can never get them back. I will definitely protect my sister’s dignity, but who will protect you from me?” Then he announces that women need not fear when there’s a himmatwala (“brave heart”) around to protect them.

I feel comfortable speaking for all women when I say, I don’t want a man to protect me; I don’t want to be threatened in the first place! And why, as a woman, is my virtue at stake if I get molested against my will? I didn’t do anything wrong, the man who molested me did.

After escaping the rapists, Padma marries Shakti, who whips her when she complains about being psychologically tortured by him and Narayan. She reports her miserable living conditions to Ravi. Their mother restrains her son’s justifiable urge to beat up Shakti, saying, “When a girl moves to her husband’s house, she leaves only after she dies.”

Ravi and Rekha concoct a scheme to extort Singh the same way he’s extorting Ravi. They pretend that the worst possible thing has happened to Rekha: that Ravi has gotten her pregnant out of wedlock!

While Singh begs Ravi to marry Rekha and spare him public humiliation, Ravi sets about trying to right the wrongs committed against Padma. He does so by forcing Narayan and Shakti to sweep and wash dishes (how womanly!), and then he puts a crab in Singh’s pants, causing the overlord to dance around. Hilarious, right?

So, according to Himmatwala, equivalent punishment for physically abusing a woman (not to mention the near gang rape, ostensibly sanctioned by Singh) is light housework and mild embarrassment.

With new stories of some horrific gang rape emerging from all over India seemingly every month, it’s time for moviemakers to stop treating the abuse of women as a joke. Remakes are fine, but they need to be updated to fit the times. Sajid Khan is should be ashamed of himself.

*Here’s the scene Khan stole from Planes, Trains and Automobiles, recast with Singh and Narayan. The English subtitles in Himmatwala are exactly the same as the spoken dialog in the original:

Links

Opening March 29: Himmatwala

4 Replies

At long last, a likely Bollywood blockbuster is set to open in Chicago area theaters. Himmatwala stars Ajay Devgn in a remake of the 1983 action flick of the same name. In Singham, Devgn’s open-handed slap attacks were accompanied by a lion’s roar, and now he wrestles a tiger in Himmatwala. Is this big cat theme deliberate?

Himmatwala opens on Friday, March 29, 2013, at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 30 min.

Last weekend’s new release, Rangrezz, does not get a second week after earning an absolutely pathetic $4,318 from 11 theaters in the United States. Other notable earnings figures from last weekend include $16,951 for Kai Po Che! from 18 theaters and just $1,006 (yikes!) for The Attacks of 26/11 from 51 theaters.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Chennaiyil Oru Naal (Tamil), Jaffa (Telugu), Kedi Billa Killadi Ranga (Tamil), and Swamy Ra Ra (Telugu).

Movie Review: A Wednesday (2008)

5 Replies

A_Wednesday_Poster2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the movie at Amazon

A Wednesday has been recommended to me many times since its release in 2008. After enjoying writer-director Neeraj Pandey’s sophomore effort, Special 26, this seemed like the right time to finally check out his debut film.

I can see why A Wednesday — a story about a common man trying to correct the inadequacies of India’s sprawling bureaucracy — still resonates with people. It has great populist appeal. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more had I seen it before Special 26, which is more polished than A Wednesday. Nevertheless, A Wednesday is enjoyable and full of the dramatic tension that Pandey is so good at creating.

The film begins with Police Commissioner Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher) reflecting on the most challenging case of his career, on the day before his retirement. I’m not sure why Pandey has Rathod specify that this is his last day on the job. It’s not important to the plot, and it draws an unwelcome parallel to Robert Duvall’s character in the 1993 common-man’s-revenge film Falling Down.

The case Rathod is referring to involves the harrowing events of a Wednesday afternoon at some point in the not-to-distant past. An anonymous caller claims to have placed bombs throughout Mumbai that will explode in about four hours unless Rathod releases four terrorists from prison. Rathod assumes that the caller — an unnamed man played brilliantly by Naseeruddin Shah — is another terrorist, but the truth is more complicated than that.

While trying to find the man behind the calls, Rathod dispatches two officers to carry out the bomber’s orders: straight-laced Jai (Aamir Bashir) and loose cannon Arif (Jimmy Shergill). Shah’s character enlists an ambitious news reporter, Naina (Deepal Shaw), to serve as his eyes on the ground. Naina feels conflicted about aiding a possible terrorist, but breaking this story will get her off the dreary local news beat.

The story is tense, as Rathod tries to connect the dots while helplessly giving in to the caller’s demands. There’s great dynamism in Pandey’s shots. Though many of the scenes take place inside the police control room, there’s a lot of movement. Rathod stalks the hallways; officers spring to life when the latest call comes in; Arif chases down a suspect who might have the final clue to the caller’s identity.

As well-paced as the story is, there are a lot of rookie directorial mistakes that detract from the film’s overall effectiveness. Fight scenes seem shoehorned into the script, and the sound effects that accompany them are cheesy. Unable to trace the phone calls, one of the police officers makes the corny declaration: “We need a hacker!” When Shah’s character finally reveals his motives, he does so in a well-delivered but long speech that stops the film’s momentum. The ending was a bit of a cop-out.

Perhaps the most distracting mistakes Pandey makes are in the inclusion of a number of ineffective red herrings that remain loose threads at the end of the film. It’s implied that Jai and Arif have a preexisting beef, but this is never explored. Jai gets several phone calls from his wife, who’s traveling with their son on a train. Though she could be in danger, Jai never warns her to stay off the train, though he does worry that she’ll be concerned for his own safety if she sees him on the news coverage of the crisis.

During his confessional speech, Shah’s character reveals a personal motivation for his actions. It seemed as though this disclosure would explain why he chose Naina to cover the story, but there’s ultimately no connection. Her selection is completely arbitrary.

While I enjoyed A Wednesday overall, these mistakes stood out because of their absence in Special 26. That’s actually a compliment, as it means that Pandey has honed his storytelling to augment his flair for narrative tension. Seeing Pandey’s professional growth between his first and second films leaves me very excited to see his third film, whenever that day comes.

Links

Opening March 22: Rangrezz

Leave a reply

Pickings remain slim in Chicago area theaters. Only one new Hindi movie opens locally on March 22, 2013, and it’s not the one I wanted. Instead of the creepy-looking Bipasha Basu/Nawazuddin Siddiqui horror flick Aatma, we get Rangrezz, producer Vashu Bhagnani’s latest attempt to turn his son, Jackky, into a Bollywood star, against the wishes of audiences everywhere.

Rangrezz opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 20 min.

The Golf Glen 5 is the only theater in the Chicago area carrying any Indian movies this weekend, including the Hindi films The Attacks of 26/11 and Kai Po Che! (which has earned $1,080,384 from four weeks in U.S. theaters), as well as Paradesi (Tamil) and Romans (Malayalam).

Just four weeks after its theatrical release, The Attacks of 26/11 joins the catalog of films of available on Eros Now on Friday. Like 3G, it’s considered a premium title that’s free to subscribers or available for a 48-hour rental for $1.99.

Streaming Bollywood Movies: Eros Now

8 Replies

I originally wrote this article back in 2013. Please click this link to view my updated writeup on Eros Now, written in late 2016.

Since posting my article on streaming Bollywood movies on the iPad last year, a new service has emerged to challenge Netflix as the best app for viewing Hindi films. How does the massive catalog of Eros Now stack up?

Eros International got its start in the 1970s acquiring the distribution rights to a host of films before entering the production business in the 2000s. As such, Eros Now features wide array of movies — new and old — that aren’t available for streaming elsewhere. There’s very little crossover between the Hindi-language catalogs of Eros Now and Netflix.

Like Netflix, Eros Now is available on desktop computers as well as Apple and Android tablets. Also like Netflix, Eros Now has a monthly subscription fee of $7.99. Both services require payment through their websites and not via the App Store, which is a disappointment.

Being both a production house and a distributor, Eros Now has the option of making home productions available for streaming sooner than Netflix can acquire rights. Table No. 21 opened in theaters on January 4, 2013, and was available for streaming on Eros Now just weeks after its release.

Eros Now went a step further on March 15, when it made the horror film 3G available for streaming in select countries (including the US and the UK) on the same day that it released in theaters in India. The film is available to Eros Now subscribers at no additional cost, but it is also available to non-subscribers for a 48-hour rental that costs just $1.99. This rental format has great growth potential, as it satisfies international fans’ demand for new content, while saving Eros the cost of shipping prints overseas and undercutting piracy.

The app itself is easy to use, with better, narrower search parameters than the Netflix app. Movies can be browsed and sorted by genre, language, and decade, with the ability to separate out trailers from full-length films. One quirk of the search feature is that it demands the input of three characters, making it impossible to search for 3G by title.

Unfortunately, the app and website lack a queue feature, and movie viewing doesn’t carry over from one device to another. In fact, the app forces the user to sign in at the start of virtually every session. Close the app in the middle of a movie to run an errand, and you’ll likely be forced to restart the film from the beginning when you return to it.

The video quality is less crisp than that of Netflix, regardless of the age of the film or the strength of the Wi-Fi network. Images never come into perfect focus, and scenes with a lot of movement, such as dance numbers, can look like a messy, pixelated jumble.

English subtitles do not appear automatically in the video but can be added by clicking on the “CC” button at the top right of the screen. This is a nice bonus for viewers who don’t need them and find them distracting.

For many fans, the biggest selling point of Eros Now is likely its impressive music catalog. The service features music videos and soundtrack albums for most of the films in the streaming catalog, as well as for films yet to be released, such as Nautanki Saala and Chashme Badoor.

Though it lacks a film queue, the app allows users to generate a music playlist. Another bonus is that the music continues to play even after closing out of the app. It’s nice to be able to create a playlist to listen to in the background while catching up on Twitter.

So how does one decide between Netflix and Eros Now? If the choice is based on video quality alone, Netflix is the clear winner. Netflix also has the advantage of having a massive library of movies and TV shows in dozens of other languages. But Eros Now’s music library may be enough to sway some customers. The choice may ultimately come down to the contents of each of catalog.

The battle between the catalogs is pretty much a draw, as both offer a lot of good options. Eros Now lays claim to movies like Omkara, Pinjar, Om Shanti Om, English Vinglish, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, and Dabanng. Netflix offers Kahaani, 7 Khoon Maaf, Jodhaa Akbar, Delhi Belly, Chak De India, and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

Eros Now gets new movies sooner than Netflix, but for every Table No. 21 and 3G, there’s a Mai — Love Your Mother or Rajdhani Express: 2013 releases that failed to generate any buzz whatsoever.

Because I can rent new movies for $1.99 on a one-off basis through Eros Now, I don’t see any reason to continue my monthly subscription. I’d have to watch at least four movies a month via the service to make it cost-effective. Since my reviews focus on new releases, I wouldn’t break even most months. Instead, I’ll track possible future rental opportunities via Eros International’s Wikipedia page (which lists the names of notable films in the Eros catalog and upcoming releases) and use the app on an ad hoc basis.

Movie Review: 3G (2013)

11 Replies

3G0 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon

There’s been much discussion recently about the role the Hindi film industry plays in perpetuating negative stereotypes of women and encouraging male violence against women. Those who hold Bollywood responsible need look no further than 3G for supporting evidence. The movie is a masterpiece of misogyny and an inept horror movie to boot.

The film starts with a laughable premise. Onscreen text informs us: “4.3 billion mobile users in the world. Every minute 60 thousand calls of unknown sources of origin received worldwide… People believe these calls are spirits trying to connect to our world.” No one believes that! Those calls from “Unknown Number” aren’t from ghosts. They’re from telemarketers.

The text disappears to make way for scenes of a happy couple at a secluded lake. Then the guy stabs the woman in the eye with a lit road flare. Roll opening credits!

We don’t see the guy again until later, as the story shifts to a couple vacationing in Fiji. Sam (Neil Nitin Mukesh) makes an absurd entrance via speedboat, only to have his girlfriend, Sheena (Sonal Chauhan), accidentally knock his cell phone into the ocean. The used 3G phone he buys as a replacement is haunted.

Sheena is apparently terrible at reading people, and she laughs at the increasingly haggard-looking Sam when he confesses that he gets calls in the middle of the night from a strange woman. At first, the woman confesses her love. Then a video shows her being murdered. Then Sam starts seeing her in person, culminating in Sheena turning into the dead lady while Sam makes out with her.

This would seem to be the classic horror plot device of a ghost contacting the living to obtain posthumous justice. Typically, Sam could rid himself of the specter by finding the woman’s body and the identity of her killer. Instead, Sam becomes periodically possessed by the spirit of the man who killed the woman, during which times he tries to kill Sheena. Or himself.

Just who exactly is haunting this phone?

The identity of the woman, Chaima (Mrinalini Sharma), and her killer, Mong (Asheesh Kapoor), are revealed late in the film. I’m not spoiling anything as there are no clues to their identities earlier in the story. They are brand new characters introduced at the last minute with no connection to other side characters, despite some nonsensical retroactive continuity.

There’s no way to explain the nature of the haunting, because the filmmakers threw a bunch of horror clichés at the wall to see what would stick. The phone is haunted because of an ancient Greek cult! Fijian witchcraft! Science!

The scientific explanations are hilarious. Apparently, Mong was a programmer trying to find a way to contact the dead by getting cell phone signals to interact with the “God particle,” or Higgs boson. Here’s the thing: THE GOD PARTICLE IS NOT GOD! It is not supernatural!

Catholic symbolism is tossed about as well, though the rosary Sam wears has no effect on him when he’s possessed, nor does the priest they consult offer any useful information.

3G could be forgiven were it just an inexpertly made horror movie, but the way it depicts women is reprehensible. According to 3G, women are objects of male lust who deserve punishment (by men) for having been objectified (by men).

Take the way that directors Sheershak Anand and Shantanu Ray Chhibber portray their lead actors. There’s one shot of Mukesh emerging from the pool shirtless, but dozens of voyeuristic shots of Chauhan. Her character is introduced emerging from the ocean in slow motion wearing a bikini. She writhes around in the sand, on a bed, and on a kitchen island, arching her back and contorting her face in simulated orgasm. The camera pans across her legs, lingering on her breasts and her buttocks.

The saddest part of the film comes when, via flashback, Chaima admits to being a porn star, the “crime” for which Mong ultimately kills her. She pleads with him for mercy, saying, “You have no idea what I escaped from.” So, Chaima left a situation so bad that working in porn is a step up, yet Mong has no sympathy for her.

The film ends with another bit of text almost as dumb as that which started the film: “13000 adult clips are downloaded every minute on mobile networks worldwide… Resulting in 27% of personal relationships breaking up.”

I’m skeptical of the stats supplied by Shantanu & Sheershak, let alone the conclusions drawn from them. Their solution to the scourge of porn is typical victim-blaming. According to them, the problem isn’t due to the millions of men who download the clips, it’s caused by the women who make the movies. Kill all the porn stars, and there will be no porn!

This is exactly the kind of sexist bullshit that Bollywood is rightly criticized for. Crimes against women aren’t committed because of movies (just like video games don’t cause mass shootings), but there are thousands of men who will watch 3G and take it as confirmation of their twisted opinions: “Women are greedy, lying sluts who will do anything for money.” This kind of misogyny is toxic and needs to stop.

Links

In Theaters March 15, 2013

Leave a reply

Update: The new release 3G is currently available on Eros Now not only to subscribers but on a 48-hour rental basis for $1.99. However, due to rights restrictions, the film isn’t available online in India, Pakistan, Burma, Fiji, UAE, Mauritius, Kenya, or South Africa.

Uh-oh. This is the second weekend in a row with no new Hindi movies opening in Chicago area theaters. The absence of Jolly LLB isn’t a surprise, but I expected Y-Films’ Mere Dad Ki Maruti to release here. I’m still hopeful that we’ll get the Bipasha Basu horror flick Aatma next week, but there’s a chance Chicago area Bollywood fans will have to go without until Himmatwala debuts on March 29.

The good news is that Eros Now subscribers can watch 3G on the streaming service starting this Friday, March 15, the same day that it opens in India. That bad news for Neil Nitin Mukesh fans is that the failure of 3G to get a large roll out on the heels of a very small U.S. release of David last month seems to definitively rule him out as a bankable international leading man. I expect we won’t see much of him in The States in the future outside of roles in ensemble pictures like 7 Khoon Maaf.

In the meantime, Kai Po Che! — which has earned $1,013,738 from three weeks in U.S. theaters — carries over for a fourth week at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville.

The Golf Glen 5 is also holding over The Attacks of 26/11 for a third week, as well as Back Bench Student (Telugu), Paradesi (Tamil), and Romans (Malayalam).

In Theaters March 8, 2013

3 Replies

For the first time in months, there are no new Hindi movies opening in Chicago area theaters this weekend. The sequel Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster Returns didn’t make the cut locally, which isn’t a surprise given that the original Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster earned a pathetic $13,634 in the two weeks it spent in U.S. theaters in 2011.

As of Friday, March 8, 2013, Kai Po Che! remains the most widely available Hindi movie showing in Chicagoland. After earning $876,568 from its first two weeks in the U.S., it carries over at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago, Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. Many theaters have cut back on the number of showings per day of Kai Po Che! and other niche films to free up screenspace for Oz The Great and Powerful, so make sure to check the schedule before heading to the theater.

With first weekend U.S. earnings of $159,619, The Attacks of 26/11 gets a second weekend at the Golf Glen 5, South Barrington 30, and Cantera 17. The Golf Glen 5 is the only area theater holding over last week’s other new release, I, Me aur Main, which presumably fared even worse at the box office.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include the Telugu film Gundello Godari and the Malayalam film Manjadikuru (“Lucky Red Seeds“).

Movie Review: The Attacks of 26/11 (2013)

18 Replies

TheAttacksof_26111.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

A case can be made that it’s too soon to make a feature film about the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 26, 2008. The problem with The Attacks of 26/11 isn’t one of timing, but of tone. Director Ram Gopal Varma’s thriller-meets-dramatic-reenactment is exploitative and lacks a compelling narrative.

Obviously, the circumstances of the brazen nighttime attack on landmarks throughout Mumbai are compelling in themselves, but we already know the details from news reports. Ten terrorists from Pakistan came ashore in Mumbai and proceeded to detonate explosives and shoot people at sites around the city, including the train station, a popular cafe, and a luxury hotel. Over a hundred people were killed and hundreds more injured. The only terrorist to survive was himself executed on November 21, 2012.

The first half of The Attacks of 26/11 focuses on the early hours of the days-long massacre. Terrorists are shown navigating the city to their target locations before murdering civilians en masse. Deaths are shown in gory, revolting detail. A girl with a bullet wound to the arm waits for rescue in the train station. A hotel manager’s brain explodes out the side of his head when shot.

As if the gory scenes weren’t off-putting enough, Varma employs typical thriller and horror techniques to add dramatic tension. Violins trill as a receptionist creeps toward a crying infant in a hotel lobby. The visuals shift into slow motion as the receptionist is shot repeatedly in the chest. Offscreen, a gun fires and the baby stops crying.

In a horror movie, it’s fun when the violins trill as the co-ed cautiously walks to the door we know she shouldn’t open. Here, the effect is sickening because the deaths of real people are being treated for cheap thrills. These are people who died just five years ago, not in some war that took place long before the advent of social media and cable news.

The attacks shouldn’t be off-limits for filmmakers, but any film made about them needs to inform, enlighten, or otherwise add to the conversation about them. Varma had the opportunity to do so, had he properly utilized Nana Patekar’s character, the Joint Police Commissioner. This film should’ve been told from his perspective with him as the main character, providing the audience with a guide through such emotionally overwhelming material.

More often than not, Varma shows the Commissioner (his character only has a title, not a name) sitting before a government panel telling them what happened rather than showing the events from his perspective as they happened. When the character participates actively, he does so in redundant flashbacks. For example, the Commissioner tells the panel that he was in the shower when he got the first call from the police control room. Then the camera shows him in the shower, and his wife tells him that the control room just called.

This redundancy and the formality of the government panel setting keep the audience at arm’s length. The panel would’ve been fine as a framing device, but not as the source of the running narrative. Patekar’s best scenes are those when he’s active, fielding calls in the control room or interrogating the only terrorist captured alive, Kasab (Sanjeev Jaiswal).

We see some of the Commissioner’s panic as he tries to orchestrate a response to the attacks, but we are spared the emotional torment he surely experienced afterward. The Commissioner tells the panel that some of the police officers who died were his friends. Since a note at the beginning of the movie explains that some details were altered for the sake of the narrative, why not include a scene in which the Commissioner wishes his friends good luck on what would be their final mission?

Had the audience been encouraged to make a personal connection with the characters, The Attacks of 26/11 could have been emotionally effective beyond the natural human empathy one feels for the victims. Varma’s focus on the spectacle makes the film feel tawdry.

Links

Movie Review: I, Me aur Main (2013)

19 Replies

IMeAurMain1 Star (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

I, Me aur Main (“I, Me and Myself”) is the uplifting tale about a selfish bastard who gets everything he wants without any real conflict or consequences. Congratulations to director Kapil Sharma and writer Devika Bhagat for creating a singularly unrelatable movie.

The selfish bastard in question is Ishaan (John Abraham). An introductory scene features young Ishaan taking credit for a paper airplane made by his older sister, Shivani. When Shivani grabs the plane from Ishaan, their mother punishes Shivani for picking on precious Ishaan. Mom repeatedly calls Ishaan “the best,” thus creating the unbearable egomaniac at the center of the film.

Emblematic of the film’s poor construction, the flashback starts with the subtitle, “Pune: many years ago.” The next scene, set in the present day, has the subtitle, “Mumbai: 25 years later.” Why not just say, “Pune: 25 years ago” in the first place? Is it some kind of short-term mystery?

Ishaan grows up to be a completely self-centered prick. His girlfriend, Anushka (Chitrangada Singh), is a successful lawyer who cooks for Ishaan and cleans up after him. Even though he’s a wealthy record producer, he expects Anushka to pay for all of the groceries she uses to feed him. He also cheats on her with other women.

Having endured three years of Ishaan’s fecklessness with no hope of a commitment in sight, Anushka finally kicks Ishaan out. Ishaan’s sister — the only member of his family to have met Anushka — takes Anushka’s side in the breakup. Shivani (Mini Mathur) knows her brother better than anyone, after all.

Ishaan lives on his own for all of a day before his mother abandons her husband in Pune to move in with her helpless adult son. He responds by nagging his mother.

Ishaan’s new neighbor is Gauri (Prachi Desai), a Manic Pixie Dream Girl sent from screenplay heaven to turn Ishaan into a likable person. It doesn’t work. Ishaan continues to be a dick until even his mother has had enough. When it comes time to make the morally correct choice in a climactic scene with Anushka, even she lets him off the hook. Writer Bhagat is determined that everything go right for Ishaan.

Why? What is so great about him? He’s utterly meritless. One of the great things about movies is the chance to experience a kind of justice that doesn’t usually exist in the real world. I, Me aur Main is about a rich, handsome guy getting everything he wants without any comeuppance. There’s no escapism in that. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life.

Case in point is John Abraham. Here’s an actor who seems to get all of his roles based on his muscular physique and not on his acting abilities. He’s never been forced to work on his craft or play any characters that aren’t charming louts. Casting him in this role was a mistake. A toned torso doesn’t make Ishaan worthy of a happy ending.

The women in the film perform well under the strain of Ishaan’s sexism, another of his fine qualities. Singh is strong and resolute as Anushka, the real hero of the film for being the first person in Ishaan’s life to ever reject him. Desai is cute as Gauri, but her character is undermined when she, too, turns selfish in the end.

Consider I, Me aur Main a cautionary tale for parents: Make your children self-confident. Don’t make them self-absorbed.

Links