Monthly Archives: January 2012

Movie Review: Agneepath (2012)

2 Stars (out of 4)

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Revenge thrillers seem easy to make because of the assumption that everyone can relate to the desire to avenge a loved one’s wrongful death. But being able to relate is not the same as caring, and writer-director Karan Malhotra doesn’t give the audience a reason to care whether the protagonist gets his revenge.

The story in Agneepath (“Path of Fire,” a remake of a 1990 film by the same name) centers on Vijay (Hrithik Roshan), who, as a 12-year-old boy, witnessed the murder of his pacifist father at the hands of Kancha (Sanjay Dutt), a drug lord intent on turning their quiet island of Mandwa into a hub of cocaine production.

Fifteen years later, Vijay is the right-hand man of Mumbai drug lord Rauf Lala (Rishi Kapoor). The unusual career move is part of Vijay’s convoluted long-term plan to acquire enough power to challenge Kancha and kill him, though it estranges him from his mother and young sister.

Agneepath is wonderfully atmospheric and beautiful to look at. Kancha lives in a dilapidated, evil-looking mansion decorated in deep blues and greys. Vijay’s sweetheart, Kaali (Priyanka Chopra), is depicted surrounded by vivid reds and cheerful colors. But the stunning visuals can’t distract from a story and characters that feel underdeveloped.

I’m willing to accept that Vijay chooses a method of revenge more complicated than 1) return to Mandwa, 2) shoot Kancha, in order to relay a parable about not abandoning one’s principles. But, for the parable to be effective, Vijay has to be a good guy at his core. I’m not convinced that he is.

Sure, he donates money to the impoverished residents of his neighborhood, but so does Rauf Lala. It’s an easy way for mafia dons to ensure that folks ignore their nefarious activities, and Lala is worse than most.

In addition to peddling drugs, Lala runs a sex-trafficking operation, selling young girls to the highest bidder. Not until Lala is hospitalized — and after Vijay has made himself Lala’s heir-apparent — does Vijay set the captive girls free. So, for fifteen years, Vijay turned a blind eye, as girls younger than his own sister were sold into prostitution. Not exactly the actions of a hero.

A bigger problem than whether Vijay really is Robin Hood at heart is that there’s not much character development to speak of. We just don’t know much about him. What does a sweet girl like Kaali see in Vijay? Why does righteous police inspector Gaitonde (Om Puri) have a soft spot for him?

Despite the movie being nearly three hours long, it feels as though the characters — especially Kaali and Kancha — have little to do. It’s an unfortunate waste of a talented cast. All of the emotional scenes are reserved for the final hour of the movie, well after the window for character development has closed.

The movie on the whole is terribly violent, particularly a machete killing spree performed by transvestite prostitutes. There are a couple of vibrant and entertaining dance numbers, including a cameo by Katrina Kaif, but they aren’t worth enduring the rest of Agneepath‘s overly-long story.

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Opening January 26: Agneepath

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Bucking tradition, Agneepath (“Path of Fire”) storms into Chicago area theaters on Thursday, January 26, 2012. The Bollywood revenge thriller stars Hrithik Roshan and Priyanka Chopra opposite Sanjay Dutt as a villainous (and eyebrow-less) drug lord.

Agneepath opens on Thursday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. Given that most other new movies open on Friday, expect showtimes for Agneepath to change from Thursday to Friday. The film has a runtime of 2 hrs. 48 min.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 as of Friday, January 27, include Bodyguard (Telugu), Business Man (Telugu) and Nanban (Tamil).

Movie Review: Soundtrack (2011)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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During the closing credits for Soundtrack, a note onscreen reads: “Inspired by the movie It’s All Gone Pete Tong.” Reading the plot summary for It’s All Gone Pete Tong at Wikipedia reveals that Soundtrack is more of a beat-for-beat imitation.

When a book is turned into a film, the credits typically read “Based on a novel by…”, thereby acknowledging that someone else deserves credit for writing the original story.  I’m not suggesting that there’s anything nefarious in Soundtrack‘s appropriation of another movie’s plot, but there’s something unsavory about acknowledging it in such an offhand way.

The good thing about writer-director Neerav Ghosh basing Soundtrack on a previously successful movie is that he has a solid structure to work with. As a result, Soundtrack is watchable. It’s reasonably well-paced, and plot points occur when we instinctively want them to occur.

Where Soundtrack falls short is in the construction of the main character, Raunak Kaul (Rajeev Khandelwal). Raunak is a DJ who moves to Mumbai hoping to strike it rich. He quickly does, thanks to his uncle’s contacts at a popular nightclub. Soon, Raunak is up to his eyeballs in booze, drugs and women eager to sleep with him.

After a period of debauchery, a combination of lifestyle factors and genetics causes Raunak to go completely deaf. He breaks down, only to gain a new purpose in life, with the help of his lip-reading instructor, Gauri (Soha Ali Khan).

Soundtrack‘s effectiveness depends entirely upon the degree to which the audience sympathizes with Raunak, and there’s little reason to care about him. He’s an angry ingrate who’s already an alcoholic before he gets to Mumbai. He gets the life of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll that he wants and enjoys it while he’s able, even though his addictions make him unreliable.

It’s hard to feel bad for a character who is both unlikable and the cause of his own problems. Ghosh never gives Raunak his “save the cat” moment: an action that lets the audience know that the character is really a good guy, in spite of appearances.

Gauri’s character is also underdeveloped. She serves as a plot device to get Raunak back on the right moral track. Her character is supposed to have been born deaf, but she merely speaks with a lisp, not the way those born deaf actually talk. It’s a missed opportunity to add realism to her character.

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In Theaters January 20, 2012

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For a second weekend, there are no new Hindi films opening in Chicago area theaters. That should change next week with the release of Agneepath, which stars Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra and Sanjay Dutt.

The AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington is carrying over Players and the 2D-version of Don 2,which has earned $3,651,705 during four weeks in U.S. theaters.

This weekend, the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles is showing Arabeem Ottakom P. Madhavan Nayarum in Oru Marubhoomikkadha (Malayalam), Bodyguard (Telugu), Nanban (Tamil), Vettai (Tamil) and Business Man (Telugu), which also carries over at the Cinemark at Seven Bridges in Woodridge.

Movie Review: Luv Ka The End (2011)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Luv Ka The End (“The End of Love”) is the first movie released by Y-Films, a subsidiary of the venerable Yash Raj Films aimed at producing youth-oriented movies. In its style and content, Luv Ka The End appeals to a generation of kids more interested in films from Hollywood than from Bollywood. But the movie has such a dismissive view of sexual violence toward women that it can’t be recommended.

The teen sex comedy opens on the final day of junior college for Rhea (Shraddha Kapoor) and her best friends, Jugs (Pushtiie Shakti) and Sonia (Sreejita De). Rhea intends to consummate her relationship with her boyfriend, Luv (Taaha Shah), that night, which happens to be the eve of her eighteenth birthday.

By chance, Rhea and her friends discover that Luv is the leading scorer in an online points-for-sex game. Taking Rhea’s virginity and posting video proof would cement Luv’s victory. The girls set about taking revenge on Luv before the night’s big end-of-the-school-year bash.

The predictable revenge story — where does one buy itching powder anyway? — takes up the bulk of the film and drags on longer than necessary. It’s not bad, just not as cool as the whimsically-named director Bumpy thinks it is.

Things quickly fall apart after the girls finish their mischief-making, and the tone of the film changes from light-hearted to sinister. Fair warning, spoilers ahead.

At the party, Rhea lures Luv into a bedroom rigged with video cameras, intent on humiliating him as the partygoers downstairs watch on monitors. Luv turns the tables on Rhea and ties her to the bed, threatening to broadcast her rape over the Internet.

The revolting scenario is interrupted so that a few of the side characters can make jokes. It’s appalling that the screenplay trivializes sexual violence against women by trying to lighten the mood with humor. Meanwhile, no one at the party besides Jugs and Sonia try to rescue Rhea, as everyone watches the horrifying scene on the monitors. Not even the local news crews that are on-hand to cover the party make an effort to prevent the potential rape that is occurring just upstairs from them.

Compounding the insult to women everywhere is that, within minutes of escaping Luv (to the tone-deaf cheers of the unhelpful partygoers and news crews), Rhea dances at a concert by her favorite singer. When that singer — played in a cameo by Ali Zafar — asks Rhea on a date, she says yes. That’s simply not the way someone who just survived an attempted sexual assault would react.

It’s a disappointing end to what is, for the most part, a pleasant enough film. It distracts attention from the talented cast of young actors, all of whom do a nice job with their narrow characters, and who outshine the adults in the cast.

*Luv Ka The End is currently available on Netflix streaming.

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In Theaters January 13, 2012

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As independent films make their way into theaters in advance of Oscar season, there’s little screenspace available for Bollywood movies without all-star casts. Accordingly, there are no new Hindi movies opening in the Chicago area the weekend beginning Friday, January 13, 2012.

The Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles and AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington are both carrying over recent releases Players and Don 2, though only the South Barrington 30 has Don 2 in 3D.

Both of the above theaters will also feature the Tamil film Vettai as of Friday. Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Bodyguard (Telugu), Business Man (Telugu) and Nanban (Tamil). Business Man is also showing at the Cinemark at Seven Bridges in Woodridge.

Best Bollywood Movies of 2011

2011 was a standout year for Bollywood in terms both experiments with storytelling style and elevating the status of women in the film industry. Here are my picks for the best movies of the year. (Click on the title of each movie to read my original review.)

There were some good examples of familiar narratives — including the family drama Patiala House and the romantic comedy Mere Brother Ki Dulhan — but plenty of films pushed the envelope. Ra.One lead the Hindi film industry’s foray into 3D technology. Rockstar experimented with making a movie feel like an extended music video.

The most successful experiments of the year were created by Aamir Khan Productions. The company released two intriguing films — Dhobi Ghat and Delhi Belly  — with runtimes that clocked in at under two hours long, uncharacteristically brief for Indian movies. Further, the company insisted that the films show in theaters without the standard intermission break, paving the way for future success in international markets.

2011 was a tremendous year for women working in the Hindi film industry. Director Zoya Akhtar struck box office gold with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. Actresses Vidya Balan and Kalki Koechlin played gritty, compelling main characters in The Dirty Picture and That Girl in Yellow Boots, respectively.

My favorite movie of the year also features a strong, complex woman as the lead character, in a story surprisingly macabre for Bollywood.

The Best Bollywood Movie of 2011 is 7 Khoon Maaf.

Talented director Vishal Bhardwaj puts his unique stamp on this dark comedy about a black widow and her seven husbands. In the lead role, Bhardwaj cast Priyanka Chopra, an actress who’s made a point of choosing a diverse array of characters throughout her career. Chopra manages to make the serial killer Susanna calculating yet sympathetic. Better still, the movie is often quite funny as the grim tale unfolds.

7 Khoon Maaf isn’t quite like any other Hindi movie released in recent years. Look past the dance numbers and cast of Indian A-listers, and it could easily transcend the “Bollywood” label — and instead be considered a “Foreign Film” (a genre with more critical cachet here in the US).

The movie is available for streaming on Netflix, making it accessible to an audience who may have missed it in theaters early last year. If you haven’t seen 7 Khoon Maaf, I encourage you to check it out.

Previous Best Movies Lists

Worst Bollywood Movies of 2011

In 2011, Bollywood produced a number of movies that advanced the role of women in film and pushed the boundaries of traditional storytelling style. This post is not about those movies. This post is about the worst films of the year. (Click on the title of each movie to read my original review.)

Video services like YouTube and Netflix have allowed smaller studios to bypass the theater distribution system and reach an international audience via the Internet. While the development is a welcome one, it doesn’t mean that every film available online merits viewing. Inept, low-budget stinkers like Cycle Kick, Love Express and Impatient Vivek aren’t worth it, even for free.

Neither is a showing on the big screen a guarantee of quality. Indie film I Am Singh made it into Chicago area theaters but left after just one week. Aarakshan, Thank You, Dum Maaro Dum and Mausam all had large budgets and star casts but failed to impress.

While a number of this year’s movies featured empowered female characters, Turning 30 did its best to undermine feminism. The movie — written and directed by a woman — features a lead character who spends most of the movie wallowing in self-pity after she’s dumped. Turning 30 ends with the appalling suggestion that self-respect and a happy marriage shouldn’t be as important to women as having babies.

This year’s worst Bollywood movie manages to combine all of the above offenses into one unwatchable mess. It’s sloppily made, despite having a budget large enough to pay an A-list cast. It’s sexist. As a bonus, it’s also full of racist stereotypes.

The Worst Bollywood Movie of 2011 is Rascals.

Director David Dhawan is a repeat offender, being the man responsible for my worst movie of 2009, Do Knot Disturb. Rascals — a farce about two crooks fighting for one woman’s affections — seems tailor-made for comic action set pieces. Dhawan even cast action stars Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn as the leads, but gave them little to do besides talk.

The movie’s female lead, played by Kangana Ranaut, spends the bulk of her screentime strutting around in a bikini while whining in a shrill voice: not exactly the postergirl for women’s lib.

Dhawan set Rascals in Thailand, then cast scores of blonde women to serve as gyrating backup dancers and dark-skinned African actors to play armed criminals. Were there no local Thai actors to fill those roles? Why make those casting decisions except to appeal to racist stereotypes?

All those problems aside, Dhawan’s biggest sin in Rascals is laziness. There are numerous continuity errors and bloopers that would’ve been easy to rectify, but Dhawan didn’t bother. Perhaps he thinks his target audience members — misogynists who find two men slapping each other hilarious — don’t care about stuff like a plot that makes sense. Maybe he thinks they’ll pay their money to see heroes like Dutt and Devgn on screen no matter how stupid the story.

I’d like to believe that we moviegoers are smarter than that.

Previous Worst Movies Lists

Movie Review: Players (2012)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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With source material as rich as not one, but two, versions of The Italian Job to draw from, Players should be a slam dunk. Wisely, filmmaking duo Abbas-Mustan take the best aspects from their inspiration and add enough new touches to make it an enjoyable Indian action flick.

My biggest fear before seeing Players was that it wouldn’t be able to hold interest for 2 hours and 47 minutes. But Players is about as well-paced as a nearly three-hour-long movie can be, hitting plot points at the right times so as not to let the action drag.

Abhishek Bachchan anchors the film as Charlie Masceranas, a career thief. He learns from a dying friend about the Russian government’s plans to transfer a large amount of gold bars to Romania. With the help of his imprisoned mentor, Victor (Vinod Khanna), Charlie assembles a team of experts to execute a daring heist.

The team includes Charlie’s sometimes girlfriend, Riya (Bipasha Basu), master of disguise Sunny (Omi Vaidya), explosives expert Bilal (Sikander Kher), illusionist Ronnie (Bobby Deol) and a hacker named Spider (Neil Nitin Mukesh).

So as not to appear to condone thievery, the filmmakers give the crew corny motivations for stealing the gold. Charlie wants to fulfill Victor’s dream of opening India’s largest orphanage. Ronnie, a former magician, wants to build a fully automated house for his daughter, who was accidentally paralyzed during one of his tricks.

Ronnie gets some unintentionally hilarious lines when he explains the end of his stage career: “Magic doesn’t do anything. It only ruins lives.”

Thankfully, Sunny, Bilal, Spider and Riya are just in it for the money. When the plan goes awry, Victor’s daughter, Naina (Sonam Kapoor), comes to Charlie’s aid.

There are some nice interactions between the team members. Sunny and Bilal are funny sparring partners, and Naina’s crush on Charlie creates tension between her and Riya. Charlie is the anchor, but this really is an ensemble film.

Besides the star cast, the movie’s main attractions are its action sequences. The gold-theft scene is tense, and the car chases are pretty good. Strange editing and artificially sped-up shots keep the fight scenes from looking their best, but interesting locales like Russia and New Zealand elevate the whole experience.

A tendency toward corniness pervades Players, to its detriment. It keeps the film from achieving the snappy sophistication of the films that inspired it. In addition to Charlie’s and Ronnie’s Robin Hood motivations, the score heavy-handedly tries to provoke emotions.

The most pandering element in Players is the needless inclusion of comic actor Johnny Lever, a regular feature in Abbas-Mustan films. I don’t find Lever funny, or more accurately, I don’t find the outrageous characters he always plays funny. That directors feel the need to pair his appearances with wacky sound effects just makes things worse. Any spell the movie could hope to cast is broken when Lever appears onscreen.

Another element that can’t be overlooked is how pointedly the movie targets a male audience. Basu and Kapoor both have a couple of forgettable dance numbers requiring to them to gyrate in skimpy dresses. Another female character is viewed through frosted glass as she showers. Almost every Anglo woman in the movie is kitted out in hot pants.

Yet the male stars aren’t required to doff their clothes, apart from a brief scene featuring Mukesh in a bubble bath. Bachchan and Deol are regular romantic leads, and Kher is clearly fit. Why not work in a shirtless shot of one of them, in the name of gender equality?

The thread of sexism isn’t limited to who’s asked to expose the most skin. Naina and Riya are both asked to play the role of seductress to aid the team, which features five men (six, including Victor) and only two women. Language denigrating women goes largely unchallenged by the male heroes.

That said, Players works as an action film. It hits the right notes often enough to sustain excitement for almost three hours, which is the primary objective of any action movie.

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Opening January 6: Players

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2012 kicks off in star-studded style when the Bollywood action film Players hits theaters on January 6. The remake of The Italian Job (complete with Mini Coopers) stars Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol and Neil Nitin Mukesh.

Players opens in the Chicago area on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. The movie has a lengthy runtime of 2 hrs. 47 min.

Given how well Don 2 has performed during its first two weeks in theaters, it’s no surprise that the 3D heist film carries over for a third week at all of the above theaters. Its total U.S. haul stands at $3,288,692.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Beautiful (Malayalam), Rajanna (Telugu) and Rajapattai (Tamil).