Tag Archives: 3.5 Stars

Movie Review: Bewakoofiyaan (2014)

20 Replies

Bewakoofiyaan_Poster3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

Do not be fooled by the title of Bewakoofiyaan (“Stupidities“). There’s nothing stupid about this movie. Director Nupur Asthana and writer Habib Faisal use a familiar romantic comedy formula to tell an unexpectedly thoughtful story about how economics affect romantic relationships and one’s sense of self-worth.

Life is sweet for marketing executive Mohit (Ayushmann Khurrana). He’s got a new job, a new car, and a beautiful, successful banker girlfriend, Mayera (Sonam Kapoor). Mohit’s driving instructor/life coach warns that one never knows what problems lie down the road, but as long as Mohit has Mayera, everything will be okay.

Mohit’s plans to marry Mayera hit a roadblock when he meets her stubborn father, V.K. Sehgal (Rishi Kapoor). After struggling to raise his daughter on the modest salary of a government bureaucrat, Sehgal believes that Mayera must marry a man with a lot more money than Mohit.

Just when Sehgal decides to give Mohit a probationary run as a candidate for future son-in-law, the real disaster strikes: Mohit loses his job. His pride keeps him from taking jobs he considers beneath his MBA status, and the financial stress of keeping up with their free-spending social circle wears on both Mohit and Mayera. All this while they hide Mohit’s unemployment from Sehgal.

Asthana establishes the appropriate humorous tone for Bewakoofiyaan given the characters. These people are executives, so scenes are funny without devolving into clownish wackiness, reliant more upon sly facial expressions than slapstick.

The secret of Bewakoofiyaan‘s success is Faisal’s story construction. The story never drags, and scenes don’t outstay their welcome. Themes are stated early and recur throughout the story. Faisal really, really knows how to write a screenplay.

One of my favorite aspects of the screenplay is a B-story that puts Sehgal in a similar position to Mohit, even though he doesn’t know it. Forced to retire at age sixty, Sehgal feels — like Mohit — that his skills that aren’t being utilized. He secretly enlists Mohit to help him find a job, over Mayera’s objections. Seghal’s introduction to the wonders of email, Google, and video games is very amusing.

The two jobless men form a bond, but they don’t suddenly become best pals. That wouldn’t make sense. Seghal is still stubborn, and Mohit still hates the idea of begging Seghal for anything, even Mayera’s hand. Yet their bond pays dividends for both by movie’s end.

Khurrana and Rishi Kapoor both do a great job at making their flawed characters sympathetic from the beginning and showing slow but steady growth. Both characters — united in their love for Mayera — must come to terms with the fact that they can’t provide for Mayera as well as she can for herself and decide what that means for them as men.

During an argument with Mohit, Mayera complains that she’s had to curtail her shopping since he lost his job. It’s a testament to Sonam Kapoor’s talent that she’s able to make this complaint sound reasonable rather than whiny. Mayera’s no less affected by Mohit’s job loss than he is, just in different way.

All this exploration of male ego and the side effects of job loss aside, Bewakoofiyaan is still a Yash Raj Films romantic comedy. There are exotic locations, a pair of flashy dance numbers, and an easily accessible story. It just deserves extra credit for being smarter than it needed to be.

Links

Movie Review: The Lunchbox (2013)

64 Replies

TheLunchbox3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

Debutant director Ritesh Batra’s less-is-more style perfectly suits The Lunchbox: a seemingly simple story of an improperly delivered lunchbox that changes the lives of both the sender and the recipient.

Mumbai’s system of dabbawalas is one of the most fascinating systems engineered by humans, ripe for use as a movie plot device. Every day, thousands of dabbawalas (“lunchbox delivery men”, essentially) collect tens of thousands of lunchboxes filled with hot meals from residential and commercial kitchens, delivering them to offices across the city in time for lunch. Their rate of mistakes is estimated to be as low as 1-in-a-million.

Rather than let that one errant lunchbox go to waste, director Batra fashions a story in which a meal prepared by a neglected wife winds up in the hands of a curmudgeonly accountant.

When the wife, Ila (Nimrat Kaur), is returned an uncharacteristically empty lunchbox one afternoon, she thinks she’s found a way to get her distracted husband, Rajiv (Nakul Vaid), to pay attention to her. When Rajiv compliments Ila on her cauliflower — a dish she didn’t prepare that day — Ila realizes that there’s been a mix up, and someone else has started receiving her food.

She includes a note in the meal she sends the next day, thanking the unknown diner for his enthusiastic appetite. The accountant, Mr. Fernandez (Irrfan Khan), sends back another empty lunchbox — and a note commenting that the food was a bit too salty.

Ila’s relationship with Fernandez develops sweetly as they gradually include more personal details in their notes. Ila’s interactions with her mystery diner are aided by her upstairs neighbor, Auntie (Bharati Achrekar): a disembodied voice whose only evidence of physical being is the basket of ingredients she lowers out of the window to Ila.

The lightness of the early relationship between the lead duo turns more serious as reality sets in. Ila is a young, married woman with a daughter, and Fernandez is just weeks away from retirement. The story ends in a more believable way than a traditional love-conquers-all romantic comedy.

(That said, I’d love to see Batra direct a traditional romcom. He’s very good with the elements of that genre present in the first half of The Lunchbox.)

Batra perfectly emphasizes the theme of urban isolation in the story:

  • Rajiv won’t make eye contact with his wife.
  • Ila never sees her neighbor face-to-face.
  • Ila and Fernandez communicate only via written notes.
  • Fernandez watches through the window as his neighbors enjoy a family meal to which he’s not invited.
  • Even Ila’s parents live across town, their physical distance mirroring their emotional distance.

This sense of isolation is heightened by a soundtrack that prioritizes urban clamor over music. The sounds of trains and buses provide most of the background noise. The movie’s infrequent music is provided by the dabbawalas singing on their train ride home or by old film tunes piping down from Auntie’s window.

Still, Batra takes this notion of isolation further than he needs to by implicating marriage as one of those isolating forces. Obviously it can be, since in Ila’s case it keeps her tethered to a man who’s not interested in her. But the movie’s most prominent female characters all seem to consider marriage an institution of diminishing returns for wives, as love quickly fades into resentful caretaking. Perhaps it’s more realistic than in a typical film, but it’s overkill.

The performances in The Lunchbox are wonderful. Ila and Fernandez spend a lot of time reading notes or silently deciding what to do next, yet Kaur and Khan make every moment riveting.

The supporting cast is equally terrific. Auntie is a wonderful creation, and Achrekar does so much to enliven the character without ever appearing on screen.

Though Ila provides the impetus for Fernandez to reconnect with people, his best opportunity comes through Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the eager young man hired to replace him. Shaikh needs a lot of help in order to fill Fernandez’s shoes, and Fernandez takes a long time to warm to the idea of mentoring him. Siddiqui’s great performance again proves that he’s as reliable an actor as there is.

The Lunchbox is something special, and hopefully the first of many great movies to come from a promising new director.

Links

Movie Review: Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013)

18 Replies

Goliyon_Ki_Rasleela_Ram-Leela_poster3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Writer-director Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (henceforth referred to by the shorter, original title used by most American theaters: Ram-Leela) is a fresh update on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The story may be familiar, but Bhansali’s film offers plenty of surprises.

In this rendition, Romeo and Juliet are rechristened Ram Rajadi (Ranveer Singh) and Leela Sanera (Deepika Padukone). The youngest children in their respective warring clans, they want nothing to do with the centuries-long family feud. Ram serves as village peacemaker, defusing situations by distributing pornographic DVDs.

It’s love at first sight when Ram and Leela meet at a party. They are reckless in their courtship, until deaths in both families force them to realize that they will find no peace in town. Even their elopement is foiled by friends intent on perpetuating the feud.

In Bhansali’s version of Romeo and Juliet, the two leads are much older than the original characters, meaning they have more prominent positions in their family. Both Ram and Leela eventually assume leadership roles in their clans, proving the naiveté of their assumption that they could run off and leave their families behind. It makes for an interesting examination of the public aspect of romantic relationships.

Singh and Padukone are an extremely sexy pair. Had Ram-Leela been rated by the MPAA, it would’ve been rated PG-13 or R. Keep that in mind if you’re considering bringing your kids to the theater. Adults in the audience will appreciate the chemistry between the lead couple.

Singh’s Ram is initially more fun than a traditional Romeo, but he loses his spirit as the obstacles to his romance with Leela mount. By the end of the film, he’s mostly glum and passive.

Padukone is sensational as Leela, and the character is especially well-written. Leela evolves from a bratty princess into a force within her family. She’s sexually aggressive, initiating the couple’s first kiss and telling Ram, “I want you.”

In another refreshing update, the female characters are the power players in Ram-Leela. Both Leela’s and Ram’s sisters-in-law (played by Richa Chadda and Barkha Bisht, respectively) influence the destiny of the central romance and the town as a whole. The Sanera clan is led by Leela’s mother, Dhankor (Supriya Patak Kapur), who is ruthless and terrifying.

Like all of Bhansali’s films, Ram-Leela is great looking. Major plot points occur against the backdrops of colorful festivals. The garden at the Sanera palace — the setting for the famous balcony scene — is stunning.

Bhansali also composed the music for the film, and as a result, Ram-Leela features a lot of well-integrated dance numbers. The music and dancing (especially Padukone’s) is very good, and only the movie’s lone item number — starring Priyanka Chopra — feels out-of-place.

I appreciate Bhansali’s decision to re-imagine Romeo and Juliet as an all-out Bollywood spectacle, with sequences ranging from frequent dance breaks to a slow-mo fight scene in which body-slammed victims send up volcanic plumes of dust.

Ram-Leela is great for newcomers to Hindi films. It offers the full Bollywood experience, while presenting a familiar story. The crew responsible for the English subtitles made a smart decision to subtitle the first verse and chorus of each song, but not subsequent verses. It allows those who don’t understand Hindi to get the gist of the song’s subject matter, but then be able to focus on the dancing. This should become an industry standard.

Links

  • Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela at Wikipedia
  • Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela at IMDb

Movie Review: Phata Poster Nikla Hero (2013)

15 Replies

Phata_Poster_Nikhla_Hero3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

The trailer for Phata Poster Nikla Hero (“Through the Poster Emerges the Hero“) promises an overly wacky, seemingly disjointed screwball comedy. Fortunately, the movie succeeds by subverting the promises of the trailer. Instead, Phata Poster Nikla Hero exploits Bollywood conventions to produce a hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable movie.

As a child, young Vishwas is obsessed with movies, but his mother makes him swear before God that he’ll grow up to be an honest police officer. She further warns him that, should he ever do anything wrong, she and God will know about it. Nevertheless, the boy’s Bollywood dreams persist into adulthood. When his mother (Padmini Kolhapure) arranges an interview with the Mumbai police department, Vishwas (Shahid Kapoor) heads to the city, intent on pursuing his movie career behind his mother’s back.

When Vishwas accidentally thwarts a kidnapping while still wearing the police uniform he had donned for a photo shoot, it brings him fame and the unwanted attention of the local crime bosses. Worse, his mother finds out, and she comes to Mumbai to visit. Things get out of control as Vishwas tries to hide the truth from his mother, avoid the police and gangsters, and still make it big as an actor.

There are dozens of moving parts in Phata Poster Nikla Hero, but writer-director Rajkumar Santoshi keeps everything under control. As opposed to another recent comedy of errors, Chennai Express, Santoshi pays careful attention to continuity. He doesn’t introduce side characters for temporary plot convenience; all of the friends and enemies Vishwas makes along the way are with him ’til the end.

This is great, because there are some very funny supporting characters in Phata Poster Nikla Hero. Upon arriving in Mumbai, Vishwas rents a room in a guest house run by Yogi (Sanjay Mishra), a screenplay guru who “almost” wrote a number of hit films. Yogi and the other aspiring actors who rent rooms from him help Vishwas keep the truth from his mom. The only downside is that all of the other renters are terrible actors.

Kajal (Ileana D’Cruz) is another character who creates headaches for Vishwas in her attempts to help him. She mistakes Vishwas for a real police officer, setting up the accidental heroics that bring him unwanted notoriety. D’Cruz’s plucky earnestness makes dynamic Kajal a perfect foil and love interest for poor Vishwas, who’s just trying to keep his ruse from falling apart.

The cops and robbers generate some good laughs, too: Saurabh Shukla as a local don enamored of Vishwas’s fighting skills; Darshan Jariwala as flustered Police Commissioner Khare; and Zakir Hussain as Officer Ghorpade, a man whose loyalty is divided because he’s getting paid by both the police and the gangsters.

Of course none of this works if Vishwas is a dud, but Shahid Kapoor gives a funny and charming performance. All of his hammy bits in the trailer make sense in context, and Kapoor fashions Vishwas as a good guy torn between doing the right thing and following his heart. This is easily my favorite performance by Kapoor.

In addition to busting out some of the exciting dance moves for which Kapoor is renowned, he gets to show off his physicality in several funny fight scenes. Given that Vishwas is a boy raised on movies, all of the fights have a deliberately over-the-top, cinematic style. It’s so obvious when Kapoor is wearing a harness, it’s as though Santoshi is winking at the audience. The film’s title comes from an early scene in which Vishwas leaps through a movie poster to rescue a woman, as though he’s a celluloid hero made flesh.

Santoshi deserves the most credit for the success of Phata Poster Nikla Hero. He gives the audience exactly what they’ve come to expect over the years — Parental conflict! Gangsters! An abrupt tone change in the second half! A dance number featuring a woman in a ball gown on a beach! — but he does it on his own terms. There’s a great moment at the end where Vishwas lists all of the filmy plot points he’s hit during his journey. Such self-awareness is refreshing.

Links

Movie Review: Commando — A One Man Army (2013)

15 Replies

Commando_(2013_film)3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon

With Commando — A One Man Army, Producer Vipul Shah and director Dilip Ghosh set out to make a realistic action film in the vein of Jackie Chan films, heavily reliant on martial arts and without lots of special effects, cable harnesses, or technological assistance. They achieved their goal in spades. Commando is an exciting action film with a strong Indian identity.

Commando‘s lead character, Karan (Vidyut Jamwal), is an elite Indian soldier captured when his helicopter crashes in China. Federal politicians force Karan’s superior officer, Colonel Sinha (Darshan Jariwala), to disavow all knowledge of Karan to avoid a war with the Chinese, who assume Karan is a spy. Karan escapes after a year of torture.

Following this introduction, the action shifts abruptly to a small north Indian town not far from the Chinese border. The town is besieged by a drug lord named AK (Jaideep Ahlawat) whose scariness is enhanced by eyeballs that appear to be entirely white, devoid of irises or pupils. AK wants to marry Simrit (Pooja Chopra) — the daughter of a local leader — to ease his foray into politics, but Simrit runs away, rather than marry such a monster.

Her escape attempt is nearly foiled, until she literally runs into Karan at the bus station. Karan beats up a dozen bad guys in spectacular fashion, and the two flee AK together.

Despite the sudden shift from a Chinese torture chamber to an Indian small town, the narrative is really straightforward: two young, good-looking people fall in love while running for their lives. The action is the main attraction, but in the “Making of” extra on the DVD, Shah and Ghosh specify that this is first and foremost a love story.

That’s part of the reason why Commando is so successful: it’s very, very Indian. This is not The Raid: Redemption, another realistic action movie (which I loved) whose main character is a somber, seemingly invincible he-man. Commando is a fairly traditional, Bollywood-style romance, complete with an item number and a love song set on a beach. Only this romance results in lots and lots of dead people.

Commando is brutal but not overly gory, involving lots of blood but no guts. The South African action team that choreographed the fight sequences did a wonderful job showcasing Jamwal’s athleticism, honed from years of training in the south Indian martial art kalaripayattu.

Jamwal is spectacular in Commando. He plays his character as gruff, but not humorless. His grace and ferocity in fight sequences is thrilling to watch. I’m hopeful that Jamwal’s brand of full-throttle fighting will shift the standards for future Bollywood action fare away from the ubiquitous slap-fests reliant upon heroes in harnesses dodging bullets in Matrix-style slow motion.

Chopra does a nice job making Simrit more than just a damsel in distress. Simrit is brave and ready to fight, even if she does scream when she sees a snake, early on. She’s able to keep up with Karan as they run through the forest, having wisely packed a pair of sensible shoes in her getaway bag.

Ahlawat’s AK is one of my favorite Hindi-film villains in a long time. AK is truly scary, and not just because of his eyes. Not content to play the aloof don and let his underlings do his dirty work for him, he directly kills a lot of people himself, even those who’ve helped in his pursuit of Karan and Simrit. The fact that he follows up a bunch of murders with a dance number featuring Natalia Kaur just makes AK all the more sinister.

In addition to the great stunts and performances, Commando is a beautiful movie to look at. Sejal Shah’s cinematography captures the wonder of the forests around Manali, where the bulk of the chase footage was shot. The film’s score is varied, with everything from surf rock to metal to mariachi music.

I hope Commando inspires Indian filmmakers to take more risks with the type of action films they make. Jamwal’s impressive performance should make him a hot commodity in Bollywood. This is one of my favorite Hindi films of the year.

Links

Movie Review: Shuddh Desi Romance (2013)

18 Replies

ShuddhDesiRomance3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

Whether we want to admit it or not, romantic relationships are both public and private. Society demands to know how its members fit together. Shuddh Desi Romance (released internationally as “Random Desi Romance“) explores how the social nature of romantic partnerships is changing in India, as arranged marriages fall out of fashion.

This exploration takes place via a love triangle involving Raghu (Sushant Singh Rajput), Gayatri (Parineeti Chopra), and Tara (Vaani Kapoor). The story begins on the way to Raghu’s arranged marriage to Tara, an arrangement he agrees to because he figures he’ll never meet anyone else as pretty. On the overnight bus ride to the wedding, Raghu does meet another pretty woman: Gayatri, who, like Raghu, makes a living as a paid guest hired to fill out anemic wedding parties.

On the bus, Raghu realizes that he’s made a mistake in agreeing to marry the first pretty woman he meets. Failing to learn his lesson, he immediately falls in love with Gayatri. Raghu flees in the middle of the wedding ceremony under the pretext of going to the bathroom (setting up a running gag throughout the rest of the film).

Poor Raghu is semi-permanently flummoxed. He follows his heart blindly, only to emerge from his romantic haze to find that something has gone wrong, and he has no idea why. During his more lucid moments, Raghu is earnest and charming, which is the only reason self-assured women like Gayatri and Tara have anything to do with him.

What Gayatri and Tara understand is that one’s actions in romance have both private and public meaning. The consequences of running out on your own wedding are obvious to everyone, but even sharing dinner in a restaurant is a public display of togetherness, even if only for the duration of the meal. Nosy parents, friends, neighbors, and relatives all over the world ask the same questions of every young couple: “Is this relationship serious? When are you getting married? When are you having kids?”

Writer Jaideep Sahni uses a clever trick to allow his young adult characters to explore the meaning of love for themselves: he writes their parents out of the narrative. The only interfering elders are Tara’s overprotective uncle (played by Rajesh Sharma) and the caterer who employs Gayatri and Raghu as wedding extras (played by Rishi Kapoor in a very funny supporting role).

The lead actors are outstanding, particularly Rajput, who anchors the story. He manages to make Raghu confused, but not a total dimwit. He’s just way out of his depth with the two women in his life.

Parineeti Chopra is something special. Like her character in Ishaqzaade, she again plays an independent woman who falls for a man against her better judgement. As cautious as Gayatri is, she’s just as susceptible to getting lost in the moment as Raghu.

Vaani Kapoor is terrific in her film debut. Her finest moment is during her jilting at the altar. When it becomes apparent that Raghu has fled, Tara — clad in her wedding finery — calmly sits in the chair and asks someone to bring her a Coke. It’s such a boss move.

In trying to depict a realistic modern romance, director Maneesh Sharma eschews the use of a lot of background music, favoring street noise instead. He also allows conversations and scenes to play out at a slow pace. At times, it feels the audience is given too much time to think about what’s happening, an irony given Raghu’s penchant for acting without thinking. Fortunately, a moderately short runtime keeps the film from feeling too bogged down in exposition.

Shuddh Desi Romance is smart, funny, and full of great performances. It’s worth seeing ASAP.

Links

Movie Review: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag (2013)

18 Replies

BhaagMilkhaBhaag3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

American audiences are used to seeing biographies of famous people whose histories we already know: Abraham Lincoln, Jackie Robinson, etc. It’s delightful to come across a personal story that is totally fresh, at least to audiences outside of India. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is a fine tribute to a man whose life deserves to be made into a movie.

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag begins at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. Milkha Singh (Farhan Akhtar) leads the field in the 400 meters until he turns to look behind him, a move inexplicable to those watching the race. He finishes the race in fourth place. Milkha subsequently turns down an opportunity to lead an Indian delegation to Pakistan to compete in a friendly race, despite being India’s most famous athlete.

Milkha’s coach from his Army days explains that his pupil turned down the offer not out of embarrassment for having lost the race. Rather, he blames Pakistan for the deaths of his parents thirteen years earlier, during the riots that followed partition. The last words young Milkha heard his father say were, “Bhaag Milkha Bhaag!” (“Run Milkha Run!”). Those were the same words his national team coach yelled during the Olympics that caused Milkha to turn, expecting to see the swordsman on horseback that he ran from as a boy.

The Army coach, Gurudev (Pawan Malhotra, who gives a touching performance), narrates Milkha’s history to his national team coach, Ranveer (Yograj Singh), and a government representative while on a train ride to Milkha’s home, where they hope to convince Milkha to change his mind and lead the Indian delegation to Pakistan. The significant events of Milkha’s life are told out of sequence, but flashbacks flow seamlessly from one time period to the next.

Though the film is primarily populated with male characters — Milkha’s friends, competitors, fellow soldiers, and coaches — women play a significant role in directing Milkha’s destiny. His decision to join the army is spurred by a desire to impress a young woman, Biro (Sonam Kapoor). At the time, the army supplied the athletes for the Indian Olympic team, so Biro’s part in getting Milkha into the military is critical. Kapoor and Akhtar share a sweet chemistry together.

It’s just as important to Milkha to make his older sister, Isri (Divya Dutta) proud, since she raised him following the deaths of their parents. Dutta is powerful in the film, particularly during a scene in which Isri and Milkha are reunited in a refuge camp.

A third female influence in Milkha’s life is Stella (Rebecca Breeds), an Australian woman he meets at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. The consequences of their brief fling lead Milkha to rededicate himself to his training, setting up an impressive time-lapse jump rope sequence that highlights the amazing physical transformation Akhtar underwent for his role. Breeds does a super job, and her scenes with Akhtar are incredibly sexy.

The trip to Australia is one of the few speed bumps in the film. The abrupt transition into the new setting is perhaps meant to emphasize how out of place Milkha feels in a foreign country, but it just feels clunky. A country-western style dance number in an Aussie bar is awkward, and the song isn’t very good either. It could’ve been cut from the film without being missed.

Other scenes that could’ve been cut feature a beautiful Indian Olympic swimmer named Perizaad (Meesha Shafi). While her role in Milkha’s real life may have been important, scenes of her flirting with Milkha don’t move the story forward.

Apart from a few unnecessary scenes, the film earns its 188 minute runtime. Director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra paces the story well and includes some clever shots to pack in as much information as possible. For example, a closeup of a hand holding a stopwatch occupies the right half of the screen, while Milkha breaks through the finish line again and again. Each time, the stopwatch shows Milkha’s time improving.

Of course, the Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is nothing without Akhtar, and he is spectacular. His physical transformation is impressive, but more so is the way he adapts Milkha depending on the situation. He gives a complete picture of Milkha in his various roles: little brother, lover, soldier, champion. It’s a joy to watch.

By following some of the typical structure of sports movies, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is easily accessible to any audience, regardless of whether one has previously heard of Milkha Singh before or not. Here’s hoping international audiences give this film a chance. Milkha Singh is someone worth knowing.

Links

Movie Review: Aurangzeb (2013)

20 Replies

Aurangzeb3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

Aurangzeb should not work. The premise is silly: a long-lost twin impersonates his brother to take down their father’s criminal empire. Yet writer-director Atul Sabharwal executes his vision with such sincerity that the movie succeeds. I unapologetically love this action soap opera.

Sabharwal worked in television before this, his feature film debut, and it shows. There are so many twists and turns in the plot that it feels like a full season of a TV series condensed into one 140-minute movie. Aurangzeb: The Series would fit right in alongside The Vampire Diaries on The CW.

Arya (Pritviraj Sukumaran) — the film’s narrator — has a troubled relationship with his father, a disgraced police officer played by Anupam Kher in a moving cameo. Because of his father’s emotional distance, Arya was primarily raised by his uncle, Ravi (Rishi Kapoor), a crooked cop.

On his deathbed, Arya’s father confesses that he has a secret wife and son that Arya is now obligated to take care of. Arya resentfully breaks the news to the woman, Veera (Tanvi Azmi), only to realize that her son looks exactly like the son of the criminal mastermind, Yashwardhan (Jackie Shroff).

Uncle Ravi realizes that Veera and her son, Vishal (Arjun Kapoor), are Yashwardhan’s wife and son, presumed dead for the last 25 years after a “botched” police shootout that cost Arya’s father his job. In order to clear his father’s name, Arya and Ravi conspire to kidnap Yashwardhan’s son Ajay (also played by Arjun Kapoor) so that Vishal can impersonate his identical twin brother while acting as a police informant. Ravi explains that Vishal must act like Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor who gained his throne by defeating the brothers ahead of him in the line of succession.

The soapiness of the story is enhanced by an amazing soundtrack. Heartrending musical themes accompany Veera’s confessions to her sons. Bombastic rock blares when Ajay (or Vishal) strides into a room, ready to bust some heads. Thankfully, the soundtrack album includes several of the great instrumental songs by Amartya Rahut and Vipin Mishra.

As with any good soap opera, the film is really about family conflicts: brothers turned against one another, children resentful of their parents’ favoritism, and parents who feel they can’t express their feelings to their hot-headed sons. Arya hates Vishal because of the love his own father showed the gangster’s son. Vishal hates his mother for robbing him of a relationship with his biological father. Ajay hates everybody.

As in his debut, Ishaqzaade, Arjun Kapoor plays a scumbag, and he’s great at it. Ajay is loathsome almost beyond the point of sympathy, yet the hurt behind his lashing out is always obvious. Vishal undergoes some real character growth as he, too, as his timidity gives way to aggression.

Pritviraj puts Arya in a similarly precarious position to Ajay’s. One of Arya’s early scenes has him belittling his dying father, so it’s hard to love him. However, it does give him room to grow when he’s forced to choose between his father’s “family first” approach to morality or his uncle’s belief in success at any cost.

Rishi Kapoor is compelling as the head of a family of corrupt cops. Ravi’s son, Dev (Sikander Kher), is involved in the family business, too, and gets to do some sleazy stuff.

Jackie Shroff plays the most sympathetic of the movie’s flawed father figures. Yashwardhan is old enough that he’s not the fearsome thug he once was, making it hard for Vishal to reconcile the man before him with the villainous image he was sold.

The movie isn’t all emotional turmoil. There are plenty of cool fight scenes to keep things entertaining, and it’s impressive how well they integrate with the melodrama. This kind of action-soap opera can’t succeed if it’s done halfway, and Sabharwal goes all out. Aurangzeb is exciting, touching, and totally engrossing.

Links

Movie Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)

9 Replies

TheReluctantFundamentalist3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy Mira Nair’s book on the making of the film at Amazon

The Reluctant Fundamentalist reminds us that the traumas of our personal lives don’t stop for global catastrophes. The movie’s title alone doesn’t tell the whole story. Radical Islam is just one facet of a compelling narrative about some of the major issues of the last twelve years.

The tale of modern times is told through the experiences of Changez Khan (Riz Ahmed). Now a professor in his native Pakistan, Changez is questioned by a journalist — Bobby (Liev Schreiber) — about the kidnapping of an American professor at the same university. Changez stalls in revealing details of the kidnapping to Bobby by explaining how his experiences shaped his conflicted view of America.

Eager to improve the declining fortunes of his artist parents — played by Om Puri and Shabana Azmi — Changez moves to America in the late 1990s to study business. He gets a job at a Bain Capital-type firm that specializes in making companies more profitable, usually by laying off employees. He falls in love with Erica (Kate Hudson), the artsy niece of the head of his firm.

The attacks of 9/11 happen while Changez is on assignment in the Philippines, and he returns to the U.S to find that the rules of society have changed for him. In the film’s most disturbing scene, the rest of his team members waltz through airport security while Changez is subjected to an invasive strip search solely because of his ethnicity. His relationship with Erica deteriorates, and Changez wonders if America is really where he belongs.

After playing a villain in Trishna, Ahmed shows his versatility in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Ahmed makes Changez sympathetic and relatable as he navigates a society that isn’t the pure meritocracy he expected it to be. His best friend, Wainwright (Nelsen Ellis), is the only other member of a racial minority employed at their firm. Among whites — including his boss, played by Kiefer Sutherland, and even his girlfriend — Changez feels treated like a token and not a real person.

In addition to the presence of Bollywood veterans Puri and Azmi, fans of Hindi films will find a lot of thematically familiar material in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Changez’s troubled romantic relationship with Erica suffers as much from an undercurrent of prejudice as it does from problems in Erica’s past. He likewise struggles with disappointing his parents, who aren’t impressed by his material ambitions, even when they benefit from them. With a runtime of 130 minutes and a leisurely approach to storytelling, the pace of the film will feel familiar to Bollywood fans as well.

Early in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez tells Bobby that understanding only comes with patience. It’s a criticism of American mistakes in the country’s rush to deal with Islamic terrorism, but it is also good advice for how to watch the movie. Those willing to embrace the personal drama within the movie’s larger story about American interference in Pakistan will be rewarded.

Links

Movie Review: ABCD: Any Body Can Dance (2013)

30 Replies

Anybody-can-dance3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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

Indian production houses have recently been fumbling with attempts to make movies targeted at urban teens with disposable income. ABCD: Any Body Can Dance is the first film to really hit its target audience. It’s vibrant and fresh without feeling condescending.

ABCD follows a familiar formula. An adult with something to prove whips a scruffy bunch of kids into shape, helping them grow as individuals and as a group of friends. It’s Chak De India, but with dancing instead of field hockey. This isn’t a knock on ABCD. The formula works, so why not use it? A good formula executed poorly results in a bad movie. Thankfully, ABCD is well-executed.

Prabhu Deva anchors the film as Vishnu. Booted as the lead choreographer at Mumbai’s most popular dance studio to make way for a flashy new choreographer from New York, Vishnu contemplates returning to his native Chennai. His friend and fellow dance teacher, Gopi (Ganesh Acharyaas), talks Vishnu into staying in town for a few more days, during which time Vishnu spots some talented young people dancing at a religious festival.

The dancers are divided into two rival factions headed by Rocky (Salman Yusuff Khan) and D (Dharmesh Yelande). Rocky’s crew immediately accepts Vishnu’s offer to mentor them, but D’s crew needs more convincing. Vishnu must get Rocky and D to set their egos aside for the group to have any chance of beating Vishnu’s former studio, JDC, in the national televised dance competition, “Dance Dil Se” (“Dance From the Heart”).

Vishnu’s new school gets a boost when a former student, Rhea (Lauren Gottlieb), defects from JDC after the head of the school, Jahangir (Kay Kay Menon), makes a pass at her. Menon is great as the slimy director of the studio. Gottlieb, a former competitor on So You Think You Can Dance in the U.S., does a nice job in her debut role in a Hindi film. Obviously, she’s an incredible dancer.

The dancing is ABCD‘s selling point, and it does not disappoint. All of the routines — from flashy stage numbers to solo performances in the rehearsal space — are really entertaining. The 3D effects added to the big routines don’t add much, but they aren’t distracting either.

For the most part, the acting is solid. All of the younger cast members — many of whom made their names on dance competition shows in India — do a great job, as does Prabhu Deva. Ganesh Acharyaas overacts as Gopi, turning what could’ve been a warm character into a source of distraction. Also distracting is Pankaj Tripathi in a minor role as a politician in a neck brace who speaks in an inexplicably bizarre voice.

Another problem in ABCD is the lack of development of all but a few characters. There are about a dozen additional dancers in the Vishnu’s group, and only a few of their names are spoken in the movie. Director Remo D’Souza could’ve dispensed with a needless anti-drug subplot to at least give the supporting characters names.

Something about the ethnic makeup of the dancers at JDC struck me as funny. The Mumbai school, which performs a style that is mostly Western contemporary, is made up of Indian boys and white girls. There isn’t a single Indian girl in the company. There’s no explanation for why this is, nor does it keep JDC from being the most popular dance group in India. It’s weird.

What I especially enjoyed about the dancing in ABCD is the way the numbers refrain from objectifying the women in the cast, treating them as equal members of the company. There are no item girls in ABCD. It’s refreshing.

If anything, the men in the cast are the ones being objectified. The dance crew is mostly made up of young, fit dudes who spend a lot of time with their shirts off. As a woman who sees a lot of Hindi movies, it was nice to be the target audience for a sexy dance number for a change.

Links