Yearly Archives: 2015

Movie Review: Hunterrr (2015)

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Hunterrr2 Stars (out of 4)

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Compelling performances are the saving grace of Hunterrr, an otherwise unsatisfying tale of a playboy who won’t grow up.

Hunterrr isn’t as colorfully sexy as its poster suggests. Gulshan Devaiah plays Mandar, a thirty-something man on the good-looking side of average with all the style acumen of stereotypical IT guy. He’s a lech who sizes up every woman he sees, planning his next conquest.

Since he’s no supermodel himself, Mandar has a method for improving his odds: don’t pursue the most attractive woman in a group; go for second best. Second best is still good, but her self-esteem is likely lower than that of her lovelier counterpart, making her more susceptible to flattery.

Only when Mandar gets called “uncle” while hitting on a woman at a bar does he realize he’s getting too old to play Casanova. He reasons that an arranged marriage guarantees him a permanent sex partner, but he finds his promiscuous habits hard to break even after he meets his betrothed: fun, beautiful Tripti (Radhika Apte).

Hunterrr is told in non-linear fashion, flashing back to Mandar’s early days as a pervert. Scenes of young Mandar with his cousins — handsome Kshitij (Vaibbhav Tatwawdi) and chubby Yusuf (Sagar Deshmukh) — are primarily excuses for scatological jokes. Writer-director Harshavardhan Kulkarni punctuates the comic sex romp with awkwardly serious moments, making it hard to feel comfortable with the film’s tone.

This is a tough movie to enjoy largely because Mandar is so awful. He never faces any serious consequences for his behavior, and he assumes no responsibility for the consequences faced by the women he beds. When Yusuf points out that a housewife Mandar’s been shtupping is on her way to divorce court after her husband discovered the affair, Mandar just shrugs and leaves town.

Credit to Devaiah for playing such a believable sociopath. He makes Mandar seem so ordinary, non-threatening even, until we realize how little Mandar cares about other people. The film even ends with Mandar cheerfully explaining to Yusuf that he’ll get away with his latest transgression because most women are too embarrassed to admit to any kind of sexual contact, consensual or not.

Tripti is as charming as Mandar is loathsome. She’s frank about her own romantic history, with a slightly bawdy sense of humor. Like Devaiah, Apte’s performance is grounded and convincing. She’s the real star of the film.

Kulkarni is great at writing complex female characters, whether it’s Tripti in Hunterrr or Meeta in Hasee Toh Phasee. Here’s hoping his future films focus more on his sophisticated heroines than on the dopey guys he saddles them with.

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Bollywood Box Office: August 14-16

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Brothers got off to a good — but not great — start in North America. From August 14-16, 2015, Brothers earned $348,036 from 181 theaters ($1,923 average). Almost a quarter of its earnings came from the 17 Canadian theaters that carried the film.

The per-screen average is the key to appreciating how well Brothers fared compared to star Akshay Kumar’s two previous releases in 2015. January’s Baby remains Kumar’s best performer this year: $4,393 average in 99 theaters. Even May’s Gabbar Is Back fared better in that metric than Brothers: $2,251 average in 120 theaters. It’s as though distributors attributed Baby‘s success entirely to Kumar, prompting them to open his subsequent films in more and more theaters. More likely, Baby over-performed thanks to its patriotic theme and its release during winter’s cinematic dead zone. Kumar’s opening weekend sweet spot in North America is right around 100 theaters.

In its fifth weekend, Bajrangi Bhaijaan took in another $130,081 from 65 theaters ($2,001 average), bringing its North American total to $7,871,909. For some perspective, the year’s next best fifth weekend performance — belonging to Dil Dhadakne Do — is $48,788 from 27 theaters. Demand for Bajrangi Bhaijaan is still awfully high here.

Poor old Bangistan hung around for a second weekend in just two American theaters, whence it earned $164. Its total stands at $44,177, fifth worst for the year in the US and Canada.

Source: Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Movie Review: Brothers (2015)

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Brothers1 Star (out of 4)

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Among screenwriting jobs, Brothers: Blood Against Blood should be as easy as it gets. The movie is an official remake of Warrior, a great Hollywood film by Gavin O’Connor. Translate the dialogue, relocate the action, cast some Bollywood stars, and boom, you’re done. So why is Brothers so bad?

Warrior is superbly written. Every character has clear motivation and a goal in every scene. Background information is doled out efficiently. The plot is brisk.

For some reason, director Karan Malhotra and his screenplay adapter/wife, Ekta Pathak Malhotra, abandoned the original film’s efficiency in favor of overly long melodrama. The characters in Brothers are left adrift. We know too much about their history, but nothing about what they want right now.

Former alcoholic Gary Fernandez (Jackie Shroff) emerges from prison sober but unhinged. His son, Monty (Sidharth Malhotra, no relation to the director), brings his father home, watching as the broken old man sees the ghost of his dead wife Maria (Shefali Shah) in every corner. Gary wants to know why his other son, David (Akshay Kumar), hasn’t come to meet him.

David is a high school physics teacher, burdened by the cost of his daughter’s dialysis. He earns some cash in an illegal street fight, but his bruises cost him his job. David’s wife, Jenny (Jacqueline Fernandez), worries about the danger of his return to the ring, but he can’t resist the allure of fighting in India’s first televised mixed martial arts tournament, Right 2 Fight (R2F). Neither can Monty.

Most of the copious flashbacks in Brothers are time-wasters (really, we need to see David and Jenny falling in love?). The only useful one explains why the brothers are estranged. Monty is Gary’s son from an affair, and David blames his younger half-brother for destroying his family. Maria makes is clear that she loves Monty as much as her biological son, but David doesn’t care.

The single biggest problem in Brothers is that the Malhotras think that David is a hero. Having a sick kid may make him sympathetic, but it doesn’t automatically mean he’s a good person. During a match at R2F, David is so enraged that he continues to pummel an unconscious opponent, even as his physics students watch on television. (Gary is proud of him for this. What a guy.) David is the one who turned his back on his little brother, and he apparently never tried to reach out to Monty in the years since.

It’s not clear how Monty spent the decades that his father was incarcerated. When he starts his fighting career, he’s terrible, and he doesn’t decide to pursue it seriously until halfway through the movie. There’s a hint that, because Gary is a former fighter, Monty fights to gain his father’s approval, but that storyline goes nowhere.

Sidharth provides no help in elucidating his character’s motivation because he has only two emotions: sad and bewildered. When Monty isn’t moping, he’s flinching from the bright lights of the arena, as though he’s a defrosted caveman fearfully trying to comprehend the modern world.

spideyPictured Above: Sidharth’s acting coach for Brothers?

Akshay is a trained martial artist, but his salt-and-pepper beard makes him look too old to play a competitive fighter. It looks like Sidharth is fighting his dad while his grandpa, Jackie Shroff, watches. David’s a bad enough guy as is, and Akshay doesn’t do anything to make him more likable.

The two women in the cast — Jacqueline and Shefali — give the strongest performances, but they cry in every one of their scenes. The excess of melodrama peaks when David looks at his battered brother in the ring and hallucinates Monty as a smiling little boy. It’s laugh-out-loud funny.

Another bit of unintentional — but totally predictable — comedy in Brothers: David’s daughter is called “Poopoo.” The ladies in the theater with me hooted every time someone said her name.

Nothing happens quickly in Brothers. Something as simple as a character walking into the arena takes several minutes. An inordinate amount of time is devoted to the R2F promoter, who has nothing to do with the main story. There’s a lengthy item number featuring Kareena Kapoor Khan dancing in a Benihana, intercut with scenes of David training, for who knows what reason.

Brothers isn’t bad in comparison to Warrior, it’s just bad. Why would anyone watch this when they could just rent Warrior?

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Streaming Video News: August 14, 2015

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with one new addition to the catalog. The 2012 multi-lingual, international co-production Ship of Theseus is now available for streaming. The movie is full of interesting ideas, but it’s really slow.

For everything else new on Netflix — and for new additions to the Amazon Prime streaming catalog — check out Instant Watcher.

Opening August 14: Brothers

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One new Hindi movie opens in the Chicago area on August 14, 2015. Brothers: Blood Against Blood — starring Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra — is the official remake of the 2011 Hollywood film Warrior, which stars Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy. I really, really liked Warrior, and this remake fills me with trepidation.

Brothers opens on Friday at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago, Regal Gardens Stadium 1-6 in Skokie, MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, Muvico Rosemont 18 in Rosemont, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, Marcus Addison Cinema in Addison, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 36 min.

Bangistan gets a second week at the South Barrington 30, which also holds over the Pakistani film Bin Roye.

Drishyam carries over for a third week at the South Barrington 30 and Cantera 17.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan gets a fifth week at the Gardens 1-6, South Barrington 30, Cantera 17, and AMC Loews Woodridge 18 in Woodridge.

Other Indian films showing in the Chicago area this weekend include:

Streaming Video News: August 13, 2015

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I updated my list of Bollywood movies on Netflix with one new addition to the catalog. 1999’s Taal — starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Anil Kapoor, and Akshaye Khanna — is now available for streaming. Another of Aishwarya’s movies — 2004’s Bride and Prejudice — was added to the catalog last week. These new additions almost balance out the recent departures of Besharam, Boss, and Jab We Met. For everything else new on Netflix, check out Instant Watcher.

Eros Now recently added several 2015 releases to its streaming lineup, some of which are available for free. (If you need English subtitles, however, you have to upgrade to the $7.99 monthly premium subscription.) Here’s the fare from the current year available on Eros Now:

Bollywood Box Office: August 7-9

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Bangistan fizzled in its first weekend in North American theaters. From August 7-9, 2015, the terrorism comedy earned just $33,131 from 49 theaters in the US and Canada. Its per-screen average of $676 is barely above that of Welcome 2 Karachi ($667 average), whereas the median per-screen average for Hindi films 2015 is $1,573. Bangistan‘s comparatively limited theatrical release indicates that Excel Entertainment didn’t have high hopes from the North American market anyway, but they surely didn’t expect an opening this bad.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan was the highest earning Hindi film in North America for a fourth weekend in a row. It earned $298,766 from 277 theaters ($1,079 average) to bring its total to $7,592,273.

Drishyam held up well in its second weekend, adding another $135,028 from 57 theaters ($2,369 average) to bring its North American total to $554,345.

The Hindi-dubbed version of Baahubali carried over on 20 screens, earning another $56,861 ($2,843 average). The total North American earnings for the Hindi version alone stand at $496,014.

Another South Indian film got off to a flying start in the US this past weekend. The Telugu movie Srimanthudu opened in 157 theaters and earned $2,062,768 ($13,139 average). Wow!

Source: Rentrak, via Bollywood Hungama

Movie Review: Bangistan (2015)

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Bangistan1.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Bangistan’s simplistic take on religious tolerance and racial profiling is shallow and boring, and the movie is unwilling to commit to an identity. Is it a comedy? A satire? A serious commentary on social issues? Even the lead actors seem to be performing in two different films.

Satire would seem to be the obvious choice given Bangistan‘s plot, but it’s not presented with enough cleverness to count as such. With an international forum on religious tolerance on the horizon, radical Hindu and Muslim sects who profit from the enmity between the religions are in panic mode. Separately, each sect chooses a devotee to pose as the member of the rival religion and set off a suicide bomb at the conference, derailing peace plans.

The Muslim man chosen to pose as a Hindu is Hafeez (Riteish Deshmukh), a disgruntled call center employee who’s sick of the people he calls assuming he’s a terrorist as soon as they hear his name. His unknowing Hindu counterpart is Praveen (Pulkit Samrat), a struggling actor and true believer in his guru’s cause.

Both men train to impersonate someone of the other religion. Hafeez learns yoga, and vegetarian Praveen eats chicken. They both note passages urging non-violence in the religious texts they study, but it doesn’t make them question their assignments.

Hafeez and Praveen end up renting rooms in the same boarding house in Poland, where the conference is to be held. They become friends, there are misunderstandings, blah, blah, blah. The story is stale, and it unfolds at a tedious pace.

It’s hard to develop affection for the bumbling duo because it Deshmukh and Samrat seem like they are acting in different films. Deshmukh — by far the superior actor — plays Hafeez as cerebral and conflicted. Samrat’s Praveen is alternatively glib and fervent. He’s either completely unaware of his impending death, or martyrdom is the only the he wants in the whole world. Regardless, Samrat does everything at full volume.

International audiences may not get a whole lot out of the mistakes Hafeez and Praveen make in their impersonations. A bit in which Hafeez nearly ruins a funeral by suggesting a widow immolate herself along with her deceased husband only works if you’re aware of the ancient tradition (and the bit isn’t as funny as it could have been anyway).

The reductive approach the film takes to racial profiling is disappointing. In his disguise as the Muslim, Allahrakha Khan, Praveen is regularly asked if he’s a terrorist or if he has a bomb. Most bigotry is rarely so overt.

Writer-director Karan Anshuman botches instances of more subtle profiling, too. When the customs official at the airport in Poland flags every Muslim in line for extra inspection, she recognizes Hafeez’s fake name — Ishwarchand Sharma — as Hindu and lets him through. I can’t speak for Poland, but I doubt that most Americans would be able to make such a distinction. To most Americans, “Khan” is a bad guy from Star Trek, not a terrorist moniker.

At times, Bangistan is downright stupid. At one point, Hafeez and Praveen are caught in an explosion, and the movie cuts to various international news broadcasts reporting that two men died. This is supposed to prime the audience for an emotional reaction when Hafeez and Praveen stand up amidst the rubble, very much alive.

How did the news channels get their information before people at the scene? Did no one bother to check if the men were actually dead? Why would they report a story they didn’t verify? It’s stupid, cheap, and lazy, just like the rest of Bangistan.

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Opening August 7: Bangistan

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One new Bollywood movie opens in the Chicago area on August 7, 2015. Bangistan stars Riteish Deshmukh and Pulkit Samrat as a pair of inept wannabe terrorists.

Bangistan opens Friday at MovieMax Cinemas in Niles and AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 15 min.

Drishyam gets a second week at MovieMax and South Barrington, plus the Marcus Addison in Addison and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan gets a fourth week at MovieMax, South Barrington 30, and Cantera 17, plus the Regal Gardens Stadium 1-6 in Skokie and AMC Loews Woodridge 18 in Woodridge.

The Pakistani film Bin Roye carries over at the South Barrington 30.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend:

Movie Review: Ek Paheli Leela (2015)

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EkPaheliLeela1 Star (out of 4)

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Ek Paheli Leela aspires to a level of storytelling that simply isn’t possible given the constraints under which the movie was made. This is a film built to sell a soundtrack, not the other way around.

The need to prominently feature nine songs creates problems with the narrative flow right from the start. The story opens with a mean guy named Vikram (Jas Arora) searching for a valuable statue. Then opening credits roll and the first song montage starts, set to footage of a musician named Karan (Jay Bhanushali) and his buddies decorating his new apartment.

Karan has a vivid nightmare of one man whipping another sometime in the distant past. But that thread is dropped in favor of another musical number, a sexy dance scene featuring Meera (Sunny Leone), a model working in London.

There’s little connective tissue holding the plot lines together. Karan continues to have bad dreams, and Meera gets tricked into traveling to India for a photo shoot where she falls in love with a Rajasthani prince (played by Mohit Ahlawat). Vikram is absent for a full seventy-five minutes of the film.

In fact, it’s not until nearly an hour has passed that it becomes clear what the plot actually is. A holy man explains Karan’s dreams: “You are part of a 300-year-old incomplete story. You have been bestowed this life to complete it.” It takes another forty-five minutes for Karan and Meera to meet, leaving less than thirty minutes to wrap up the reincarnation story line.

Leone is the biggest star in the cast playing the title character — Meera’s ancient doppelgänger, Leela — but she’s just window dressing. The narrative positions Karan as the lead character, even though he undergoes no character growth and isn’t in most of the movie.

Ek Paheli Leela is marketed as a Sunny Leone film, so why isn’t Meera the one to uncover her link to the past? Leone is the only actor to appear in both the present and past storylines, yet her character doesn’t actively participate in solving the mystery. She’s there to writhe around in song numbers and love scenes, but she doesn’t get to be the hero.

Despite Leone being relatively new to Bollywood and the Hindi language, her acting isn’t the problem (at least not entirely). Many of the performers are guilty of awkward dialogue cadences and stilted mannerisms. The comic relief characters — gay stereotype Andy (played by Andy) and weird servant Maan Singh (Ehsaan Qureshi) — are unbearable.

Writer-director Bobby Khan also runs into trouble when altering facts about mental illness to suit his narrative. Meera suffers from claustrophobia and panic attacks, both of which are described as potentially fatal, even though they are absolutely not. It spreads an inaccurate message about anxiety disorders, which are already widely misunderstood.

The ending unfolds in an unexpected and mildly interesting way, but it doesn’t feel earned. The plot threads simply take too long to weave together around the plethora of soundtrack singles, and the metaphysical rules at play don’t make a whole lot of sense. Having the characters remark how weird it is that only Meera looks the same as her past avatar is a wink at the audience, not a real explanation.

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