Opening June 8: Shanghai

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Shanghai is the only new Hindi movie opening in the Chicago area the weekend beginning June 8, 2012, and it looks promising. The thriller stars two of my favorite actors — Kalki Koechlin and Abhay Deol — in a tale of politically motivated murder.

Shanghai opens 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 film’s website has a full national theater list. Shanghai‘s runtime is 1 hr. 54 min. Read my review here.

All three of the above theaters and the Regal Gardens Stadium 1-6 in Skokie carry over Rowdy Rathore for a second week. The action-comedy opened with earnings of $381,784 from 120 U.S. theaters.

Other Indian movies playing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend are the Telugu films Adhinayakudu and Endhukante Premanta.

Outside of the theaters, June 8 marks the Mela debut of the March, 2012, release Bumboo. It’s also the day Don 2 becomes available in DVD format at Netflix.

Movie Review: Rowdy Rathore (2012)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure that pouring water on your head won’t prevent a brain hemorrhage. This suspect piece of medical advice is one of the sillier aspects of the very silly movie Rowdy Rathore.

Billed as Akshay Kumar’s return to the action genre, Rowdy Rathore is more of a “masala” movie that blends together various genres. The first hour is a goofy comedy that primarily follows Kumar’s antics as Shiva, a petty thief in Mumbai. Shiva’s wooing of beautiful country gal Paro (Sonakshi Sinha) is interrupted when he unwittingly kidnaps a little girl who believes that Shiva is her father.

The girl, Chinki, is the daughter of super-cop Vikram Rathore (also Kumar), who looks exactly like Shiva, only with curls at the end of his mustache. Rathore is presumed dead after a failed attempt to free the small town of Devgarh from the grip of a crime lord named Baapji (Nassar). Chinki takes one look at Shiva and assumes he’s Rathore. Baapji’s goons do the same.

Here’s the twist: Rathore’s not actually dead. Rathore survived being shot in the head, but Rathore’s fellow police officers and a few dozen villagers allowed Baapji to believe Rathore deceased, giving the super-cop time to recuperate and finish the job he set out to do. After all, Rathore’s catchphrase is, “I always do what I say.”

The dubious medical advice I mentioned in the opening paragraph comes in to play when Rathore experiences double vision while chasing some of Baapji’s henchmen. The symptoms go away after he dowses his head with cool water, an act that his doctor says saved his life. Had he not, the doctor explains, Rathore’s brain would’ve overheated and hemorrhaged.

Uh, Doc? I don’t think that’s how the brain works.

The symptoms return during a massive fight scene in which Shiva sees his doppelgänger for the first time. Rathore is stabbed in the abdomen and collapses. Just as he’s about to finished off, it begins to rain. The cooling raindrops rejuvenate Rathore — and heal his stab wound, apparently! — and he’s able to kill all of the bad guys.

All of this absurdity would be fine were it not immediately followed by a flashback to Rathore’s first attempt to clean up Devgarh. Baapji and his men are revealed as rapists, kidnappers, murderers, and extortionists. It’s grim stuff that’s followed by an attempt to conjure tears from the plight of poor Chinki, whose mother is dead and who believes the wrong man is her father.

Things lighten up again when Shiva pretends to be Rathore, adding a swagger to the hard-nosed cop’s bravura. He even adds a delightfully absurd line to Rathore’s catchphrase: “And I definitely do what I don’t say.”

This is the strongest and funniest part of the story, and I would’ve liked to have seen more of Shiva impersonating Rathore. Perhaps the story would’ve felt more balanced had the villagers also believed Rathore to be dead, only to have him return to them wackier than before. It could’ve been more along the lines of a Bollywood version of Zorro, The Gay Blade.

Beyond the manipulative plucking of heartstrings at Chinki’s expense, Rowdy Rathore ignores the serious questions the story raises. How does a stickler for law and order like Rathore feel about placing his daughter and his reputation in the hands of a thief? And does anyone plan to tell Chinki the truth?

But Rowdy Rathore is not a serious movie, which is okay. The martial-arts-heavy action scenes are entertaining, even if the stuntmen flop about as though they’re auditioning to be pro wrestlers. Paresh Ganatra is funny as Shiva’s much-abused sidekick, 2G.

The film’s strong point is its collection of musical numbers. Set to very catchy songs, the four dance numbers are the type of large-scale productions which seem increasingly rare on the big screen. They alone are almost worth the price of admission. Just be sure to take Rowdy Rathore‘s medical advice with a grain of salt.

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Opening June 1: Rowdy Rathore

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The Akshay Kumar action flick Rowdy Rathore is the only new Hindi movie opening in Chicago area theaters the weekend beginning June 1, 2012.

Rowdy Rathore opens on Friday in four area theaters: Regal Gardens Stadium 1-6 in Skokie, Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It has a runtime of 2 hrs. 19 min. Read my review of Rowdy Rathore here.

Kumar’s star power clears all other Hindi films from local screens, including last week’s new releases Married 2 America and Arjun: The Warrior Prince. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as Arjun only managed to earn $5,527 total from ten U.S. theaters. I don’t have the box office numbers for Married 2 America, but I’d be surprised if it fared much better.

Other Indian movies playing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include the Telugu films Adhinayakudu, Daruvu, and Gabbar Singh, as well as The King and the Commissioner (Malayalam).

Movie Review: Married 2 America (2012)

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1 Star (out of 4)

Whether a matter of bad luck or poor planning, it’s unfortunate that Married 2 America debuted in India a month before Kahaani (and released two months after Kahaani in the U.S.). Both movies share a remarkably similar premise, and since Kahaani is probably the best Hindi movie of 2012 so far, Married 2 America looks terrible by comparison.

But even without the high bar set by Kahaani, Married 2 America would still be a snoozefest. It feels more like an extended episode of a soap opera than an event worthy of the big screen.

Married 2 America — an utterly meaningless title — opens with scenes of a tragic dam collapse in India. A torrent of water decimates a model village straight from the set of a 1950s Godzilla movie. Small kudos to the special effects department for using real miniatures and not bad CGI effects, at least not until another laughable flood scene later in the movie.

Fast forward two weeks to the New Jersey home of unhappily married couple Ravi (Chetan Pandit) and Anjali (Archana Joglekar). Ravi is consumed by his work, though he won’t tell Anjali what the problem is as he rebuffs her romantic overtures. He acts like a jerk to her, then leaves for India without so much as a hug good-bye.

After no contact from her husband for almost four months, Anjali finally seeks answers from the American architectural firm Ravi works for. His inexplicably British boss Mr. Jason tells Anjali that Ravi probably abandoned the marriage because, “As a wife, you were too perfect.”

Anjali goes to India herself where she learns that Ravi built the dam that collapsed in the opening scenes. The tragedy claimed the lives of hundreds of people and left thousands more homeless. There are plenty of people who might want Ravi dead, especially if the collapse wasn’t an accident.

Let me jump back to Anjali’s visit to the architectural firm. It’s revealed early on that Ravi goes missing after uncovering evidence of a conspiracy. He never tells his company about it, so it’s not as though Mr. Jason has any reason to cover up Ravi’s disappearance. Mr. Jason is just mean to Anjali for no reason and apparently unconcerned that one of his star employees has flown the coop.

The story drags on forever as Ravi and Anjali are separately kidnapped by two different mafia dons, only to both escape on the same night in attempts to free each other, only to then be captured by the don who formerly held his or her spouse. Married 2 America has a two-and-a-half hour runtime because of nonsense like this.

The acting is uniformly terrible. Many of the supporting cast sound as though they’re reading from cue cards. Pandit and Joglekar sleepwalk their way through the film with dead-behind-the-eyes performances. Ravi’s televised speech in which he belatedly admits to sort-of loving Anjali is particularly cringe-worthy.

Since none of the actors are up to emoting, the corny soundtrack goes overboard with emotional cues. It adds to the melodramatic and soapy feel of the movie. The song montages featuring Anjali looking forlorn are a joke.

Skip Married 2 America and watch Kahaani instead.

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Opening May 25: Arjun and Married 2 America

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Two films make their debuts in Chicago area theaters the weekend beginning May 25, 2012. First up is Arjun: The Warrior Prince, an animated film co-produced by UTV and Disney.

Arjun opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles. The family friendly film has English subtitles and a runtime of 96 minutes.

Also new in local theaters this weekend is Married 2 America, a thriller about an Indian-America woman whose husband goes missing while investigating a dam accident in India. The film released in Indian theaters on February 17. I suspect the success of Kahaani — which has a similar premise — prompted the eventual release of Married 2 America in the States.

Married 2 America opens on Friday at the Golf Glen 5 and AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington. It has a runtime of 2 hrs. 30 min.

Department carries over for a second week at both the Golf Glen 5 and South Barrington 30, which also holds over Vicky Donor for a sixth week. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel — a British comedy set in India — expands nationwide this weekend.

Other Indian movies playing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include the Telugu films Daruvu and Gabbar Singh and the Malayalam film Mallu Singh. The U.S. box office report for last weekend listed the total U.S. earnings for Grandmaster ($17,077) and Kalakalappu @ Masala Cafe ($30,949).

Hate Story — which released in Indian theaters on March 18 but never opened in Chicago — debuts on Mela on May 25 as well.

If you’d like to catch up on other films released earlier this year, the Bollywood rom-coms Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya and Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu are currently available for streaming on Netflix, as is the Tamil action film Vettai.

Movie Review: Department (2012)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Department is a comedy, right? It must be, because it made me laugh out loud.

Director Ram Gopal Varma’s latest political thriller focuses on a special branch of the police force designed to stop organized crime. The special department is cleverly named: “Department.” Whenever a character in the movie says the word “department,” it’s accompanied by a musical fanfare. It’s a lot like when someone said the “magic word” on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and all of the characters had to start screaming.

The Department is headed by Mahadev (Sanjay Dutt) and rising star Shiv (Rana Daggubati). Both prefer to shoot first and ask questions later, even if it means firing at a bad guy while standing in the middle of a group of children playing catch.

The main objective of the Department is ostensibly to stop a turf war between rival gangsters Gauri and Sawatya (Vijay Raaz). When gangster-turned-politician Sarjay (Amitabh Bachchan) gets involved, alliances become less clear and the Department falls apart.

Since the plot is just a disorganized excuse for innumerable bloody shootouts and embarrassing slow-mo chase scenes — look at Shiv leap over that small bag of rice! — I’ll ignore it for now. Department‘s biggest problems are visual.

Varma is clearly in love with camera technique. If there is a table with a glass top in his vicinity, you can be sure that he will position a camera under it to shoot a scene.

Department was shot using a number of cameras small enough to be mounted to almost any object, which Varma hoped would create “a completely new viewer experience.” It’s a technique Sam Raimi used back in the Evil Dead movies in the 1980s, to better effect. In order to get a first-person shot of the actors in Department, cameras are mounted on everything from a newspaper to a coffee cup. Ever wonder what driving a car is like from the perspective of the steering wheel? Watch Department and wonder no more.

Rapid cuts and awkward closeups make the action hard to follow, while some editorial choices are downright mystifying. Take, for example, the following sequence of shots.

  1. A man stands on the beach drinking from a coconut.
  2. Closeup on another man’s dreadlocks.
  3. Upside-down closeup on a messenger bag. The camera rights itself as a hand draws a gun from the bag and fires a shot at the man drinking from the coconut.

Why did the camera need to be upside down?! And why do we need a closeup of the dreadlocks? (It must be a theme, because there a number of strange closeups of body parts, including at least a dozen shots of dirty feet and toenails.)

About two hours into the screening that I attended, the picture flipped upside down. Only when the audio started running backwards — complete with upside down, backwards subtitles at the top of the screen — did I realize that this was a projection problem and not just another strange directorial choice.

Getting back to the plot, it contains a number of attempts at sexiness that nauseate rather than titillate. First, the item song “Dan Dan Cheeni” features an unintentionally hilarious performance by Nathalia Kaur, who gyrates as seductively as someone having a seizure.

Then there are Sawatya’s amorous underlings, DK (Abhimanyu Singh) and Nasir (Madhu Shalini), who exist entirely to try to heat things up on screen. They fail miserably. While soaking in a bathtub, Nasir strokes DK’s thick mat of wet chest hair with her un-pedicured feet as he blows cigarette smoke into her mouth. Gross!

If you’re in the mood for a laugh — punctuated by occasional dry heaves –see Department. It’s ridiculous.

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Opening May 18: Department

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New in Chicago area theaters the weekend beginning May 18, 2012, is the Hindi film Department. The political thriller from director Ram Gopal Varma stars Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt.

Department opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles and AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington. It has a runtime 2 hrs. 21 min. Read my review of Department here.

The South Barrington 30 is carrying over Vicky Donor for a fifth week, while the Golf Glen 5 gives Dangerous Ishhq a second week. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel opens in India this weekend while also expanding into more U.S. theaters.

Other movies playing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Chhota Bheem, Gabbar Singh (Telugu), Kalakalappu @ Masala Cafe (Tamil), and Love, Lies and Seeta (English).

Movie Review: The Forest (2009)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

My favorite sub-genre of film is the killer animal movie. While a movie like Jaws rises to levels of brilliance, most are the formulaic gross-out fodder typically found on the Syfy channel on a Saturday night: stuff like Dinoshark or Mega Piranha. I enjoy them all.

The Forest falls somewhere in between brilliant and formulaic in terms of quality. The story is entertaining, the plot well-organized, and the scenery is gorgeous. But uneven acting and a bizarre end sequence keep The Forest from reaching its full potential.

Writer-director Ashvin Kumar creates a story born from concern about the health of Indian forests. Humans seeking land encroach upon forested areas, creating avenues by which poachers can more easily murder vulnerable animals. A result of the clash of two worlds is that 150 people are killed by tigers and leopards in India annually, according to a note at the start of the film.

The human interlopers in The Forest are a married couple: Radha (Nandana Sen) and Pritam (Ankur Vikal). Their relationship is troubled because of both his infidelity and their inability to have children. Pritam takes his wife to a wildlife reserve in the hopes that they’ll be able to work things out in a more peaceful setting.

City dwellers Pritam and Radha are clearly out of their element in the forest, emphasized by the fact that they speak English and the locals do not (at least not to each other). Most of the film’s dialog is in English, because either Pritam or Radha is in almost every scene.

In the preserve, veteran game warden Bhola Ram (Tarun Shukla) explains to Pritam that the overnight lodge is closed because of a man-eating leopard in the area. Abhishek (Javed Jaffrey) — a local cop who happens to be Radha’s ex-boyfriend — agrees to escort the couple to the lodge, along with his preteen son, Arjun (Salim Ali Zaidi). So much for the privacy Pritam was hoping for.

As the truth of the couple’s problems and Abhishek’s desire to reunite with Radha are revealed, the man-eating leopard makes its presence known.

In a scenario made for tension, the acting feels subdued. Abhishek isn’t quite menacing enough to seem like a mortal threat to Pritam, his rival. And Sen and Vikal deliver their dialog flatly until a scene in which Radha and Pritam explode in anger. There needs to be more buildup to the dynamic scenes when characters are in danger.

As I mentioned earlier, the scenery is breathtaking. The ruins of an old temple show us that man has no place here. Camera shots of wildlife are beautiful, and even the man-eating leopard is well-handled, apart from a couple of awkward CGI shots.

The results of the leopard’s attacks are pretty gnarly, but in a good way. There’s the right amount of gore to indicate that the creature is a killer, even if it’s not the biggest animal in the forest.

In fact, it is a leopard-inflicted injury that sets up a bizarre series of events that taint the movie’s conclusion. One character is wounded and bleeding profusely, yet none of the other characters attempt even the most rudimentary first aid. He bleeds out over the course of a half hour, and everyone seems to forget about him entirely whenever they leave his room. Ultimately, a voiceover attempts to explain the wounded man’s fate.

With a runtime of less than ninety minutes, there is enough time for Kumar to have provided a more satisfying conclusion and answer a few other nagging questions (big and small) the movie raises. For one: if the lodge was closed, why was some man giving Pritam a massage after he and Radha arrived there?

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Opening May 11: Dangerous Ishhq

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The romantic thriller Dangerous Ishhq — starring Karisma Kapoor — is the only new Hindi movie opening in Chicago area theaters on May 11, 2012.

Dangerous Ishhq opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles and AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington. It has a runtime of 2 hrs. 30 min.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel — a British movie I reviewed last week — expands the number of theaters showing it on Friday as well, after earning $737,051 from just 27 theaters during its first week in the U.S.

Last weekend’s new Hindi release, Jannat 2, gets a second week at the South Barrington 30, while Vicky Donor gets a fourth week at the South Barrington 30 and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. Its U.S. earnings total $466,467, driven by good word of mouth. Compare that to Tezz, which leaves area theaters after two weeks, having earned just $218,622 despite showing in twice as many U.S. theaters as Vicky Donor.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Gabbar Singh (Telugu), Kalakalappu (Tamil), Masters (Malayalam), and Taur Mitran Di (Punjabi).

Though it’s only releasing theatrically in India on Friday, U.S. fans will be able to watch the new Hindi film The Forest on the subscription video-streaming service Mela the same day. The film about a married couple terrorized by a man-eating leopard is made by Oscar-nominated director Ashvin Kumar.

Movie Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Note: I’m deviating from Bollywood fare in order to review a British film set in India that features Hindi-film actors Lillete Dubey, Rajendra Gupta, and Sid Makkar.

Early in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, married couple Jean (Penelope Wilton) and Douglas (Bill Nighy) tour a retirement home. The apartment they tour features a wall-mounted emergency call button to be used in case one should fall and need assistance. Jean caustically notes that the button is handy if she should happen to accidentally fall right next to it, but not so much if she falls anywhere else in the room.

My parents recently moved into a retirement community with a similar setup. To access their emergency call button, one of them would have to fall and land wedged between the TV set and the wall. I’m as skeptical of their button’s usefulness as Jean is of hers.

That sense of pragmatism pervades a movie with a somewhat a fantastical premise: starting a new life of luxury in exotic India. A brochure promises opulent retirement living for British pensioners at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful.

But it’s not a sense of adventure that leads the characters to move from England to India. For Jean,  Douglas, Evelyn (Judi Dench), and Muriel (Maggie Smith), it’s financial worries. For Graham (Tom Wilkinson), it’s a desire to right a youthful mistake. And Madge (Celia Imrie) and Norman (Ronald Pickup) want to improve their romantic prospects.

When the group arrives in India, they discover that the hotel is not as luxurious as promised. The brochure depicts the vision young owner Sonny (Dev Patel) has for his family’s property, not its current derelict state. The manner in which the retirees deal with their situation makes up the meat of the story.

As my parents, in-laws, and their friends approach (and, in some cases, surpass) age 70, they’ve all repeated the same refrain: “Getting old sucks.” The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is so effective because it acknowledges that reality. No matter how well you think you’ve prepared for your later years, there always seems to be something — money, health, or family troubles — that makes a difficult stage of life even more so.

Acknowledging this reality allows the funny parts of the film to be that much more humorous. And The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a very funny movie.

Given the caliber of the cast, the performances are universally terrific, as each character adapts to the surroundings while addressing the issues that got him or her there in the first place. Penelope Wilton (Mrs. Crawley on Downton Abbey) is effective to an uncomfortable degree as Jean resists settling down in her unfamiliar new home.

Maggie Smith steals the show with her ludicrously inappropriate jabs, which are funny only because of how powerless she is. Awaiting her hip transplant in an Indian hospital, she reacts in shock to discover that her doctor is Indian. Predictably and appropriately, she takes strides to shed her prejudices over the course of the film.

Sonny’s storyline is the only aspect of the movie that doesn’t really work. Rather than intersecting his storyline with those of his tenants, his runs parallel to theirs. When new characters (e.g., his girlfriend and his disapproving mother) are introduced solely to augment Sonny’s story, it just highlights how separate that story is from the rest of the action.

That said, Dev Patel is very funny, and his storyline doesn’t detract much from what is overall a really enjoyable picture.

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