Movie Review: The Dirty Picture (2011)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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2011 has been a great year for actresses in Bollywood. Relative newcomer Kalki Koechlin mesmerized in That Girl in Yellow Boots. Veteran stars Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif gave some of their best performances in 7 Khoon Maaf and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, respectively.

Now the immensely talented Vidya Balan claims the spotlight in The Dirty Picture, the story of a sexually liberated screen vamp who pays a heavy price for bucking social convention. The movie is based on the life of 1980s South Indian film star Silk Smitha, though it’s not strictly biographical.

Balan stars as Reshma, a village girl who comes to the city with dreams of movie stardom. Reshma’s voluptuous figure is regularly ogled by men, but she isn’t supermodel beautiful enough to attract the attention of casting directors.

When a movie choreographer bemoans his inability to find a proper actress to perform a raunchy dance number, Reshma seizes the opportunity. The scene — in which Reshma writhes seductively while wielding a whip — sends male audience members into a frenzy, making the movie a hit.

A filmmaker named SelvaGanesh (Rajesh Sharma) sees Reshma’s money-making potential and renames her “Silk.” SelvaGanesh casts Silk opposite the aging screen star Surya (Naseeruddin Shah), and their racy films strike box office gold. Silk’s seeming willingness to do anything is fodder for gossip columnists and irks Abraham (Emraan Hashmi), a director of serious, art house films.

Silk’s life is a fascinating study in the way mens’ attitudes shapes the lives of women. If Silk is going to be treated as a sex object when she’s doing something as mundane as washing dishes, why not get paid to be ogled? Why is her dignity diminished by dancing provocatively, while the men who leer at her suffer no consequences?

Of course, that’s not the way female honor is perceived in the real world. Silk is typecast as a vamp, never able to get serious roles. When she tries to expand her range, the industry shuns her. It seems that, in the eyes of audiences and the producers catering to them, Silk has only one thing they want.

Balan is great in The Dirty Picture. She plays Silk with swagger, charm and humor. She’s a canny opportunist who asserts herself before she can be victimized. Her only real weakness, besides falling for a user like Surya, is that her ego leads her to think she’s bigger than a system that favors men over women.

The story construction of The Dirty Picture betrays Silk in the same way the men in her life do. The movie is sporadically narrated by Abraham, a character who doesn’t play enough of a role in Silk’s life to merit being its narrator. He’s present at the beginning of the film, but then disappears until the final act. His box office showdown with Silk is awkwardly inserted into the story just to elevate his importance.

Surya — who’s sleazy and comical in Shah’s hands — is the most important person in Silk’s personal life, but his self-involvement precludes him from narrating her story. Likewise, Surya’s brother, Ramakanth (Tusshar Kapoor),  doesn’t understand Silk well enough to be narrator, mistakenly believing he can make an “honest woman” out of her.

If Silk’s story must be framed using a man’s voice, that honor should have gone to SelvaGanesh. He’s the only man who looks at Silk without desire. Her cooperation and ingenuity is required in order for both of them to profit financially, so he treats her as a peer. He’s the only person who sees all of her potential and is willing to take a chance on her.

But I’m not sure that Silk’s story needs a narrator. I understand that it provides a point of view on a life cut short, but I think it distracts attention from the main character. Silk is larger than life. She’s both a product of male fantasy and the architect of that fantasy. A narrator just seems like another confining frame put on a spirit too big to be contained.

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Movie Review: I Am Singh (2011)

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0.5 Stars (out of 4)

Hate crimes committed against Sikhs, Muslims and others deemed sufficiently “Arab-looking” in the wake of 9/11 are some of America’s greatest embarrassments. Yet I’m not sure I Am Singh is the movie the victims of those attacks would want to represent their side of the story.

I Am Singh is a boring, poorly acted sequence of lectures on Sikh history and American moral failings that insults the intelligence of those who watch it.

The movie is held together by a thin excuse for a plot, cobbled together from real-life examples of crimes committed against American Sikhs. The presumptive lead of the film is Ranvir (Gulzar Chahal), an Indian Sikh who flies to America after his family is attacked by a gang of skinheads in Los Angeles. One of his brothers is killed, the other falsely imprisoned, and their father seriously injured.

I say that Ranvir is the presumptive lead because he disappears entirely during the climax and is frequently benched in favor of subplots. Ranvir’s biggest competition for screentime comes from Fateh Singh (Puneet Issar, the film’s writer, director and producer), a member of the “U.S. Police Force” fired for wearing a turban.

Issar doesn’t seem to have enough confidence in his story’s ability to convey his moral message. He has characters deliver all of their important dialog looking straight into the camera, just so there’s no confusion about who the message is really directed at. The effect is comical.

It’s almost as a comical as the sheer volume of closeup shots of actors faces. I didn’t count, but it’s probably close to one hundred. Frequently, the camera zooms into closeup, making the movie feel like a Mexican soap opera. I couldn’t help but think of this:

The acting is horrible across-the-board, but kudos to the non-Indian actors for being especially bad. The two blonde human rights lawyers deliver their lines woodenly, while the skinhead leader with the eye patch that won’t stay in place insists on shouting at subordinates standing a few feet away.

The audio dubbing is frequently out of sync. For some reason, many of the white American actors have Australian or British accents despite the action taking place in L.A.

Laughably poor execution aside, I Am Singh runs into its biggest problems when it veers into hypocrisy. America is alternately characterized as beacon of morality that simply lost its way and as an irredeemable nation of hateful morons. Such generalization is exactly what the movie is trying to condemn.

Overall, I Am Singh represents a huge missed opportunity to introduce a wider audience to Sikhism.

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Opening December 2: I Am Singh and The Dirty Picture

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The weekend beginning December 2, 2011, sees two new Hindi movies opening in the Chicago area. I Am Singh — a drama about one Sikh family’s experience in the U.S. after 9/11 — gets the wider release of the two new films.

I Am Singh 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. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 7 min.

This weekend’s other new release is The Dirty Picture, based on the life of South Indian ’80s bombshell Silk Smitha. The film reunites two of the stars of Ishqiya, Naseeruddin Shah and Vidya Balan, who plays Silk in the new film.

The Dirty Picture opens on Friday at the South Barrington 30, Cantera 17 and Golf Glen 5, which is also carrying the movie’s Telugu-dubbed version. The movie has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 33 min.

After earning $702,325 in the U.S. over the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, Desi Boyz gets a second week at the Golf Glen 5, South Barrington 30 and Cantera 17. The South Barrington 30 is also carrying over Rockstar.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Mayakkam Enna (Tamil) and the Telugu films Bezawada, Solo and Sri Rama Rajyam.

Movie Review: Desi Boyz (2011)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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Desi Boyz borrows liberally from the plots of movies like The Full Monty and Loverboy while failing to really understand either. Both of the Hollywood comedies are about ordinary men pressured into selling their bodies (in one way or another). In the process, they learn that romance is about more than looks, and that men and women both have insecurities about sex.

Debutant writer-director Rohit Dhawan misses the point of the movies he’s aping, and instead casts two of the hunkiest actors in India — John Abraham and Akshay Kumar — to play a pair of down-on-their-luck Londoners forced to dance at bachelorette parties for dozens of sexy, scantily clad women.

Abraham plays Nick, a financier, and Kumar plays Jerry, a mall security guard and (gasp!) college dropout. Jerry is  responsible for his young nephew, Veer, following the deaths of the boy’s parents. Nick is planning a dream wedding for his girlfriend, Radhika (Deepika Padukone).

Their plans fall apart when they are both laid off. In order to keep child services at bay, Jerry signs on with an escort service called Desi Boyz. Nick reluctantly agrees to help Jerry for Veer’s sake. While their new careers forestall financial ruin, child services take Veer when they learn the source of Jerry’s income. Radhika spots the guys performing at a bachelorette party and dumps Nick.

While film’s promos focus on Abraham and Kumar as strippers, that plotline is dropped after the first half of the movie, never to be resurrected. The second half falls into the doldrums as Jerry goes back to college and Nick tries to win Radhika back by living in a trailer on her front lawn and smoking pot with her dad, played by the always delightful Anupam Kher.

All of this is supposed to enforce the tidy moral messages that dignity shouldn’t be sacrificed for short-term gains and that one can only succeed with a college degree. So why does Jerry, immediately upon getting his degree, blackmail someone into giving him a job with false accusations of sexual assault? What kind of moral message does that send?

There’s similarly inconsistent character growth in the Nick and Radhika storyline. Nick, the supposed champion of hard work, ultimately wins Radhika back by being a slacker. Radhika is no peach herself, leading on a nerdy suitor played by Omi Vaidya solely to make Nick jealous.

Desi Boyz would’ve been more interesting had Vaidya and Kher played the guys forced to become strippers. Or Nick’s character could’ve been marginalized, shifting the focus onto Jerry as he supports Veer and pays his way through college working as a male escort. (How did broke, jobless Jerry find the money for college anyway? The movie doesn’t explain).

Rohit Dhawan has some potential as a filmmaker if he can keep his stories focused and his characters consistent. I like his debut better than most of the movies I’ve seen by his father, filmmaker David Dhawan.

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Opening November 23: Desi Boyz

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Desi Boyz — a Hindi remake of The Full Monty — hits Chicago area theaters November 23, 2011. Though its official release date is the 25th, American theaters are getting it a couple of days early to take advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday. The movie stars John Abraham, Akshay Kumar and Deepika Padukone.

Desi Boyz opens on Wednesday 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 runtime of 2 hrs. 2 min.

Rockstar carries over at the Golf Glen 5 and South Barrington 30, having earned $911,064 in its first two weeks in U.S. theaters.

The Golf Glen 5 is also carrying Hero Hitler in Love (Punjabi) and the Telugu films Oh My Friend and Sri Rama Rajyam.

Movie Review: Chillar Party (2011)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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There are two contradictory messages at work in the family movie Chillar Party. The explicit message directed at kids is that friendship, loyalty and compassion are values worth fighting for. The implicit message conveyed by the grown-up characters is that those values are meaningless in adulthood.

The movie focuses on a group of eight elementary school boys who call themselves Chillar Party. A homeless orphan named Fatka (Irfan Khan) takes up residence in an abandoned car on the grounds of their apartment complex, where he makes money washing the cars of the middle-class apartment-dwellers. Chillar Party sets about terrorizing Fatka, fearing that his canine best friend, Buddy, will defecate on their cricket pitch.

The cruel acts culminate in the boys locking Buddy in a car with the windows rolled up, reducing Fatka to panicky tears. It’s such a tense scene that it’s hard to watch. The boys realize they’ve gone to far and let Fatka and Buddy join Chillar Party.

Their friendship is put to the test when Buddy defends Fatka against rough treatment at the hands of a politician’s aide. This prompts the politician to call for a city-wide eradication of stray dogs, starting with Buddy. Chillar Party bands together to fight for Buddy’s life on behalf of Fatka.

Through a narrow lens, Chillar Party is a pretty good movie for kids. The young actors are competent, and all are cute (as is Buddy the dog). There are some laugh-out-loud funny moments when the kids spout dialog wiser than their years, and the moral themes of self-sufficiency and loyalty are well-presented.

However, the cast is too big to allow any of the kids to develop distinct personalities beyond their nicknames. Throw in the kids’ parents and other apartment residents, and there are a few dozen characters to keep track of. On top of that, the film has a runtime of 135 minutes, way longer than the youthful target audience can be expected to pay attention.

But Chillar Party‘s biggest problem concerns the behavior of the adults in the apartment complex. First is their troubling acceptance of child labor, a practice which the politician eventually points out is illegal. No one bats an eye when the president of the apartment board hires a kid who’s at most ten years old to wash their cars. For the sake of the plot, I’ll let it slide.

Yet none of the parents is willing to make even the slightest compassionate gesture toward Fatka, beyond paying him for services rendered. All of the families have enough money to afford cars and remote-controlled toys for their own kids, yet none of the mothers ever sends her child out with a plate of leftovers for Fatka. No father offers to let the boy sleep on the couch when rain pours into the car he calls home through windows that won’t close.

In fact, when one family notices Fatka shivering feverishly, the father’s response is to turn his own son’s face from Fatka’s suffering and usher the family into their apartment. Fatka spends the night in the car, hungry, sick and alone.

By this point in Chillar Party, Fatka is a friend to all of the boys in the apartment complex. The kids make an effort to help him in the best ways they can think of, given their nascent senses of morality. The fact that the parents are willing to risk the potential, preventable death of their children’s friend — just because he’s not their own kid and, therefore, not their problem — is appalling.

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In Theaters November 18, 2011

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While no new Hindi movies will open in the Chicago area the weekend beginning Friday, November 18, there are still a couple of entertaining Bollywood flicks in theaters worth checking out.

Last weekend’s new release, Rockstar, carries over at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It earned $612,235 in its opening weekend in U.S. theaters.

Ra.One, which has earned $2,443,659 in three weeks in U.S. theaters, carries over in 3D and 2D at the South Barrington 30.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Bezawada (Telugu), Hero Hitler in Love (Punjabi), Oh My Friend (Telugu), Sri Rama Rajyam (Telugu) and Vithagan (Tamil).

Movie Review: Rockstar (2011)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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The trailer for Rockstar presented the movie as a typical rom-com in which a dork melts an ice queen’s heart before the interval, only to have obstacles to their love thrown in their path for the second half of the movie. Rockstar is less conventional than that. At times, it’s an extended music video, at others a hypnotic tale of passion. It’s not always successful, but director Imtiaz Ali deserves credit for trying something different.

As in Ali’s two previous hits — Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal — Rockstar features a hero unable to articulate his feelings for his beloved, even if it means losing her to another man. This time the tongue-tied protagonist is Janardhan (Ranbir Kapoor), a dorky college kid with superstar ambitions.

Cafeteria-owner Khatana (Kumud Mishra) tells Janardhan that his life has been too easy, and that all musicians must suffer for their art. Janardhan’s real problem is a lack of charisma and a fondness for unflattering sweater vests, but that’s not much of a movie set-up.

Janardhan humiliates himself in a clumsy effort to woo the most popular girl in school, Heer (Nargis Fakhri), who’s already engaged to a rich guy from Prague. The two become pals, and she gives him the stage name “Jordan.” She also gives him an opportunity to express his feelings for her and perhaps forestall her marriage. He doesn’t take it, and Heer heads to Prague.

To this point — about the first hour of a 2-hour 40-minute movie — the story is laid out rather predictably: the kids have fun in seedy back alleys and amidst beautiful scenery in Kashmir, the setting for Heer’s wedding. The snowy mountain passes and gorgeous costumes are a real highlight.

Things veer from the expected during the film’s second hour. It begins not chronologically, but rather with a reporter investigating Jordan’s early career. It’s two years after Heer’s wedding, and Khatana recounts the emotion collapse that preceded Jordan’s rise to Indian rock stardom. An international music competition brings Jordan to Prague where he and Heer rekindle their interrupted romance, despite her now-married status.

Much of this storyline unfolds through A.R. Rahman’s incredible soundtrack. The second hour of Rockstar is primarily a string of music videos, the lyrics of Jordan’s music (voiced by Mohit Chauhan) providing insight into his emotional growth in way he can’t express in conversation. Thankfully, the lyrics are translated really well, allowing the story to unfold in an intriguing way.

Kapoor and Fakhri are terrific together. Their love scenes are sexy and passionate. Fakhri’s big screen debut is a promising one, as she plays Heer with the right mix of vulnerability and strength.

It’s unfortunate, then, that the movie ends the way that it does. While the movie’s main character is clearly Jordan, the second hour of the film gives equal weight to the choices both he and Heer must make. As the movie shifts into its third and final timeframe, Heer’s choices are taken from her, reducing her from a lead character to a mere catalyst for Jordan’s emotional growth.

That disservice to Heer’s character — along with an awkward bridge between the final shot of the movie and the closing credits, made up of scenes of Jordan and Heer in happier times — left me with mixed feelings about the movie. It’s uneven (and too long, of course), but the solid performances, beautiful scenery and intriguing story-telling mechanism make it worth a trip to the theater.

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Opening November 11: Rockstar

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The new Hindi release hitting Chicago area theaters this weekend is Rockstar, starring Ranbir Kapoor as an aspiring musician who courts heartbreak in an effort to further his art.

Rockstar opens on Friday, November 11, 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. 40 min.

All three theaters are also carrying over the 3D superhero flick Ra.One, which earned $2,229,372 in its first two weekends in U.S. theaters.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include the Telugu films Dookudu, It’s My Love Story, Mogudu and Oh My Friend.

In Theaters November 4, 2011

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After posting worldwide collections of $35 million in its first week, it’s no surprise that Ra.One continues to dominate screenspace the weekend beginning Friday, November 4, 2011. The next new Bollywood movie likely to open in Chicago area theaters is Rockstar on November 11.

Ra.One carries over in 3D and 2D at the AMC Loews 600 North Michigan 9 and AMC Ford City 14 in Chicago, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. The Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles is carrying the film in 2D only. The 2D version of Ra.One showing at the Cantera isn’t subtitled, so check with your local theater before buying tickets.

The Tamil sci-fi thriller 7aum Arivu expands its reach this week, opening at the South Barrington 30 on Friday. The Golf Glen 5 carries over the original Tamil version as well as the Telugu-dubbed version, 7th Sense, for a second week.

Other Indian films showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Snehaveedu (Malayalam) and Velayudham (Tamil).