Tag Archives: 3 Stars

Movie Review: Crew (2024)

2 Replies

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Crew on Netflix

The writers of 2018’s terrific buddy comedy Veere Di Wedding reunite with their ace Kareena Kapoor Khan for a new flick about a trio of women in need of cash. The high-concept heist comedy Crew soars thanks to great performances.

Kapoor Khan plays Jasmine, a flight attendant with a taste for luxury goods she can’t afford. Her coworker Geeta (Tabu) pays her family’s bills while her husband Arun (Kapil Sharma) tries to start his own food company. And Divya (Kriti Sanon) graduated from flight school with a pilot’s license but limited job opportunities, and she’s too ashamed to tell her parents that she’s paying off her student loans by working as a flight attendant.

Their employer, Kohinoor Airlines, hasn’t paid their salaries in months, and the cash per diem the crew gets on trips to the fictitious Middle Eastern country of Al Burj is shrinking as well. Rumors of bankruptcy circulate, but crusty old head attendant Rajvanshi (Ramakant Dayma) isn’t concerned. The ladies learn why when Rajvanshi dies mid-flight and they find a dozen gold bars strapped to his chest under his uniform.

Thanks to Jasmine’s quick thinking, they use Rajvanshi’s phone to contact his co-conspirator: the company’s head of Human Resources, Mr. Mittal (Rajesh Sharma). The three women take over Rajvanshi’s role in the gold smuggling operation, and their money troubles vanish.

Soon enough, the ladies find themselves under investigation from the airport customs authorities, right as their smuggling scheme is brought to an abrupt halt. The trio can either wallow in poverty or take back what they feel they’ve earned.

The screenplay for Crew — written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri — hooks viewers immediately and quickly gets into the action. This is only director Rajesh A Krishnan’s second feature film after 2020’s crime comedy Lootcase, but he shows a real flair for the genre. That said, the pace slows a bit as the story enters its overly-complicated third act, and the resolution feels unintentionally morally ambiguous.

Yet the film is ultimately a success thanks to its leading trio. Kapoor Khan is outstanding and doesn’t waste a single second of screentime. Even when Jasmine isn’t the center of attention, Kapoor Khan reacts in a way that elevates every scene. Her off-the-ball game is perfect. Tabu is a stabilizing force as the most mature of the three women. Sanon gets to do some fun physical comedy, as her character was a former collegiate athlete.

The supporting cast is solid as well, including Diljit Dosanjh in an extended cameo as a customs officer with a crush on Divya.

Crew knows what kind of movie it is and what it needs to do, and it delivers on that promise. What a delightful film.

Links

Movie Review: Laapataa Ladies (2023)

4 Replies

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Laapataa Ladies on Netflix

Kiran Rao returns with her second feature, more than a decade after her directorial debut. Laapataa Ladies (“Lost Ladies“) is a sweet film about the unpredictable consequences of an innocent mistake.

In 2001, farmer Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastav) is returning to his village after his wedding to Phool (Nitanshi Goel). Many other newlyweds are aboard the crowded train, the grooms in their nicest brown suits and the brides wearing red saris with their faces covered by a veil. Deepak steps away for a minute, and seats get shuffled around to accommodate new arrivals. When they arrive at their stop in the middle of the night, Deepak grabs the hand of the bride who is sitting where Phool last was and escorts her off the train.

Only when he gets all the way to his house and his bride reveals her face does Deepak discover that he brought home the wrong woman.

The bride standing in his family’s yard says her name is Pushpa (Pratibha Ranta). She’s not sure where she was heading. The family agrees to let her stay until they can sort things out.

Then there’s poor Phool. She woke up at the last stop on the line with no money and without knowing the name of the town where Deepak lives. A kindly guy called Chhotu (Satendra Soni) introduces her to Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam), who runs a snack stall at the station. The older woman puts Phool to work, teaching the young woman a lesson in self-sufficiency — just in case Deepak isn’t the good guy Phool thinks he is.

The thing is, Deepak really is a good guy. In fact, most of the people in Laapataa Ladies are good. Rao and writers Biplap Goswami, Sneha Desai, and Divyanidhi Sharma are perfectly aware that the world is a dangerous place for women, so there’s no need to belabor the point. Instead, the story focuses on problem solving and community building as ways to persevere through challenges.

Manju Maai’s support for Phool does the best job at conveying that message. The older woman gently teaches the younger some hard-earned lessons that Phool’s own mother kept from her. Since Phool’s husband would eventually take care of her, why teach the girl more than basic skills like cooking, cleaning, and dancing? Manju Maai explains that sometimes life forces you to make your own way.

Similar lessons are taught back at Deepak’s house, as “Pushpa” — whose real name is Jaya — encourages the women of the house to do things that make them happy and not just prioritize the happiness of the men in the family. These lessons aren’t as organically integrated into the story and feel more like lectures. Still, the sentiment is nice and the film’s ending is made more touching as a result.

The whole cast is really strong. Casting the now-16-year-old Goel as Phool was a masterstroke, as her youth makes the abandoned bride extra vulnerable and innocent. Shrivastav and Ranta also suit their roles to a tee, and the supporting cast is great, too.

The story occasionally loses steam when it tries to incorporate too many facets of small-town life. There’s too much of the greedy police chief (played by Ravi Kishan), and a sequence involving a local politician doesn’t move the story forward at all. Still, it’s hard to knock a movie with such good intentions and so many enjoyable performances.

[Note: Laapataa Ladies debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2023. It released theatrically March 1, 2024.]

Links

Movie Review: Shaitaan (2024)

4 Replies

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Shaitaan on Netflix

Parental anxiety takes demonic form in the psychological thriller Shaitaan.

Kabir (Ajay Devgn) and Jyoti Rishi (Jyothika) are the parents of two good kids: teenager Janvi (Janki Bodiwala) and elementary schooler Dhruv (Anngad Raaj). Kabir and Jyoti raised their children with a healthy degree of independence, and their reward is a pair of responsible kids and a happy family.

While driving to their luxurious vacation home for a weekend getaway, the family stops at a roadside diner. There they meet Vanraj (R. Madhavan), a friendly guy who tells Kabir that he has a teenage daughter of his own. Vanraj offers Janvi a sweet, and as soon as she eats it, she knows something is wrong. When Vanraj tells her to finish the food on her plate, she must obey him, even though she doesn’t want to.

After the Rishis drive to their house, Jyoti notices Vanraj standing outside their gate. He tells Janvi to let him in, and she does. Kabir warns Jyoti to lock up the valuables, meaning cash and jewelry. But that’s not the valuable that the demonic Vanraj is there for.

Vanraj warns that, before this night of torment ends, Kabir and Jyoti will give Janvi over to him for all eternity. They swear they won’t, but Vanraj knows how to get what he wants. He’ll turn Janvi into someone they don’t recognize — someone who is a danger to them and to Dhruv.

The family’s predicament invites exploration of a number of themes. Janvi’s bodily autonomy is  a central issue. Her transformation can be a metaphor for everything from addiction to certain mental health conditions to involvement with a controlling or abusive partner.

Bodiwala does a really nice job as Janvi. Her eyes burn with a resistance that her body can’t muster. Bodiwala played the same part in the Gujarati film Vash on which Shaitaan is based, and her experience shows.

The performances by Devgn and Jyothika evoke sympathy for the parents faced with a devastating choice. They’re powerless to help Janvi, so should they sacrifice her to protect Dhruv? Given the psychological nature of the terror in Shaitaan, it’s not a fast-paced movie. The parents spend plenty of time staring in hollow-eyed defeat, but it works within context.

Shaitaan‘s climax tries tries to force action sequences into the story that veer into camp, especially when combined with the supernatural elements. And a needless epilogue is preachy and redundant, given how well the screenplay develops the movie’s themes.

Links

Movie Review: Crakk (2024)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

This is a review of the version of Crakk streaming on Hulu, which has a runtime of 2 hours 12 minutes — 22 minutes shorter than the theatrical version’s 2 hours 34 minutes.

“Two hundred hungry dogs, and the contestants on rollerblades.” If this sounds like a good time — and it does to me — Crakk: Jeetegaa Toh Jiyegaa! is for you.

Vidyut Jammwal plays extreme sports enthusiast Siddhu. He films himself doing parkour stunts like jumping over an empty elevator shaft in an unfinished high-rise, hoping to catch the attention of recruiters at Maidaan — a competition that’s part Squid Game and part Fast & Furious. It’s also where Siddhu’s older brother Nihal (Ankit Mohan) died in an accident during the final round four years earlier.

Siddhu gets the call-up and soon finds himself in an abandoned castle in Poland with thirty-one other competitors from around the world. There’s a blond “American” guy with an Eastern European accent and a guy named Alphonso representing all of Africa. Fans of Maidaan watch the competition online and place bets on the winner. Half the field advances through three rounds before a champion gets the chance to face off against Maidaan’s emcee, Dev (Arjun Rampal).

The contestants either don’t realize or don’t care that when you lose in Maidaan, you die. Sure, one guy gets run over by a remote-controlled go-kart, but the other losers of Round 1 wind up dead, too. The Netflix series Squid Game highlights the economic desperation that would drive people to risk their lives. If the contestants who turn up at Maidaan are desperate for anything other than thrills, we don’t hear about it.

Even more inexplicable is the Round 2 dog/rollerblade challenge, in which each contestant is paired with someone who is not a part of the contest but is good on skates. Why would any of the rollerbladers agree to be mauled by hungry dogs?

It makes as much sense as Dev dealing plutonium as a side hustle. The bad guys in these Fast & Furious-type movies always use racing or competition as a cover for more nefarious crimes, so I guess it’s to be expected in Crakk. The plutonium puts Dev on the radar of Officer Patricia Novak (Amy Jackson) of a vague international police agency. (One would think a televised sporting event with a 97% fatality rate would be enough to warrant an investigation, but apparently not.)

Patricia teams with Siddhu to get the dirt on Dev’s dirty deals in exchange for information on what really happened to Siddhu’s brother, Nihal. Other characters of note include Maidaan’s beautiful social media coordinator Alia (Nora Fatehi) and Maidaan’s tech support person Junaida (Jamie Lever). Both of them seem okay working for an organization that kills a lot of people. Maybe Maidaan offers really good health insurance.

Crakk has many logical flaws, but none of them matter. This is a dumb action movie that aspires to be a dumb action movie and meets its goals, sans themes or social commentary. The early elevator-jumping scenes are shot really well, and the games are ridiculous but fun. Rampal seems to enjoy himself as the king of a bloody kingdom, and Jammwal’s acting is actually quite good. Siddhu regularly hallucinates conversations with Nihal, only for Siddhu and the audience to eventually see that he’s alone. Jammwal pulls off a challenging scene in which he’s essentially arguing with empty air on a dreary Polish street late one night.

The aesthetics of the world writer-director Aditya Datt created for Crakk are amusingly bonkers. Large crowds show up in the middle of the desert (yes, Poland has a desert) to watch the games, dressed in embarrassing costumes that look sourced from a Halloween store’s clearance bin. CGI fills in areas where the filmmaker didn’t want to pay for extras, complete with cheering fans and random sports cars a la Fast & Furious (but no tents or bathrooms or other facilities). All of Dev’s pasty henchmen are shirtless under their bulletproof vests.

Of course, Siddhu and Dev have a fight scene in which both of their shirts are ripped off. The movie would feel incomplete without it.

Links

Movie Review: Ae Watan Mere Watan (2024)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Ae Watan Mere Watan on Amazon Prime

Ae Watan Mere Watan (“Oh Country My Country“) gives a glimpse into an important chapter in Indian’s freedom struggle, highlighting the role of one inspiring young revolutionary.

Though not strictly biographical, the film is based on the life of social activist Usha Mehta. Sara Ali Khan plays Usha as a college student in Bombay in 1942, where she protests against British tyranny with her boyfriend Kaushik (Abhay Verma) and fellow student Fahad (Sparsh Srivastav).

Their involvement deepens after Gandhi’s “Quit India” speech leads to his imprisonment, along with the detention of other leading figures in the freedom movement. It falls to those on the outside to continue the struggle covertly.

Usha gets the idea to start a pirate radio station, broadcasting recordings of speeches by Gandhi and others to reach people directly in their homes. Operating a private radio station is illegal, so this is a dangerous proposition, especially considering the willingness of the Brits and their Indian police force to use violence against suspected insurgents.

The station — dubbed Congress Radio — is a success, and Usha, Kaushik, and Fahad are invited closer to the movement’s de facto leader, Ram Manohar Lohia (Emraan Hashmi). Lohia wants to expand the station’s reach beyond Bombay to the rest of the country. But doing so invites greater attention from the Brits, who will do anything squash Congress Radio. They put sadistic officer John Lyre (Alexx O’Nell) in charge of finding the station and those who run it.

Ae Watan Mere Watan excels at showing the tremendous cost of being an activist, beyond the obvious risks. Usha’s father (played by Sachin Khedekar) is a judge within the British-run court system. He sees Usha’s activism as more than a just political disagreement, but as a repudiation of his life’s work. Though he’s not portrayed sympathetically, his hurt is understandable. Usha likewise feels hamstrung by her love for him — she can’t live according to her beliefs and be a dutiful daughter at the same time.

Her father isn’t the only man frustrated by the depth of Usha’s devotion to the cause. It’s sad to watch Kaushik as he realizes that whatever future he imagined with Usha — marriage, kids, etc. — is not what she envisions. Romance and revolution aren’t always compatible.

Khan is a more-than-capable lead, but Verma and Srivastav are the breakout stars. Verma is delightful as lovestruck Kaushik. Srivastav plays Fahad with nuance as he evolves from being Usha’s rival to closest ally.

The movie also makes it clear that not everyone needs to be willing to lay down their life like Usha is in order to be helpful. One of her colleagues is a literature student who offers to handle any writing for the group. Another character gives money. Revolutions aren’t cheap.

It’s easy to get invested in the characters and subject matter of Ae Watan Mere Watan — so much so that the overly melodramatic music and slow-motion shots in the first half feel like overkill. Director Kannan Iyer — who co-wrote the screenplay with Darab Farooqui — tells a good story, so such obvious flourishes are unnecessary.

Links

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Movie Review: Bhakshak (2024)

3 Replies

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Bhakshak on Netflix

A reporter gets a lead on a scandal involving child abuse at a state-funded orphanage, only to be met with government officials unwilling to take action. Fans of movies about investigative journalism will enjoy Bhakshak.

Bhumi Pednekar plays Vaishali, a reporter who runs an independent news channel in Bihar with her cameraman sidekick Bhaskar (Sanjay Mishra). The channel has struggled for a couple of years to find an audience, and Vaishali’s husband Arvind (Surya Sharma) wonders if it’s time for her to try a new job or start a family.

Vaishali gets a break when her informer Guptaji (Durgesh Kumar) hands her a government-commissioned report on abuse at state-run orphanages for girls. An institution in Munawwarpur is flagged for further investigation, with girls reporting physical and sexual abuse and forced prostitution.

What’s perplexing is that the report is already two-months old, yet the government has made no public comment about it, nor has it started an investigation.

Vaishali and Bhaskar can’t get inside the Munawwarpur home for girls, which is run by newspaper magnate and aspiring politician Bansi Sahu (Aditya Srivastava). The bureaucrat who runs the state’s department for child welfare assures Vaishali that the system is working properly.

Bhakshak does a good job laying out how easily protocols and procedures meant to safeguard institutions and taxpayer funds can be exploited by nefarious actors. Since Vaishali doesn’t have the platform of a major news channel to exert public pressure, she must learn how to use those same rules and procedures against those who are stonewalling her.

This may sound dry, but Vaishali’s frustrations are relatable. The stakes are high, so the story is never boring even when the subject matter is mostly bureaucratic. However, the film is probably fifteen minutes longer than it needs to be.

Bhakshak opens with an on-screen warning that the film contains depictions of violence against women, and that warning should be taken seriously. The first scene shows the results of a disturbing act of violence against one of the girls at the Munawwarpur home. Later scenes elaborate on what goes on within the walls of the orphanage, and they are also tough to watch.

All of the actors treat the material with the gravity it deserves. Tanisha Mehta deserves particular praise for the way she plays Sudha, a young woman who briefly worked at the Munawwarpur home and was emotionally scarred by the experience. Pednekar and Mishra have a nice rapport.

The biggest complaint about Bhakshak is that it ends with Vaishali giving a speech that belabors the thematic point the movie is built around. I just spent two hours having that message reinforced. I don’t need the CliffsNotes version after the fact.

Nevertheless, Bhakshak has its heart in the right place. It does all the things a movie about investigative journalism is supposed to do. As long as the violent content isn’t a deterrent, it’s a worthwhile watch.

Links

Movie Review: Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani on Amazon Prime

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is an overwhelming sensory experience. Every frame is full of vibrant colors, dynamic visuals, and stirring music. A packed movie theater provides the ideal immersive experience for this kind of film. However, watching at home — as I did on a TV screen with an audience of two — it’s harder to ignore the things about Rocky Aur Rani that don’t work.

The performances by the all-star cast are firmly in the category of Things That Work. Ranveer Singh plays the titular Rocky, heir to a sweets company established by his stern grandmother Dhanalaxmi Randhawa (Jaya Bachchan) and run by his equally stern father Tijori (Aamir Bashir). Rocky is nothing like his buttoned-up progenitors, as in he prefers to wear his garishly patterned shirts mostly unbuttoned. He speaks mangled English as he drives around in his expensive sports cars.

Rocky dotes on his grandfather Kanwal (Dharmendra), who suffers from mobility and memory issues. When grandpa utters the name “Jamini” and points to a torn old photo of a woman, Rocky sets out to find her.

Jamini (Shabana Azmi) turns out to be a former flame Kanwal met at a poetry conference, after he was already married to Dhanalaxmi. Rocky meets Jamini’s granddaughter Rani (Alia Bhatt) — a quick-witted TV news anchor — who helps reunite the former lovers on the sly. Coordinating secret meetings between the older couple sparks romance between the younger couple, despite some big differences between them. Rani is as educated and driven as Rocky is not, but ultimately hotness trumps all.

As with every Karan Johar-directed picture, it’s all about loving your family, so Rocky and Rani agree to spend three months (!!!) living with their respective future-in-laws to see if the two clans can co-exist. (Apparently, the love affair between Rocky’s grandpa and Rani’s grandma is not a deal breaker.) Rocky moves in with Rani’s cultured, liberal Bengali family and is immediately clowned upon, and granny Dhanalaxmi freezes out Rani. Things look bleak for our sexy heroes.

The drama, laughs, and heartache in Rocky Aur Rani are punctuated with some grand and truly memorable musical numbers, like the catchy “What Jhumka?” and the visually stunning celebration “Dhindhora Baje Re.” In a funny twist, the only time Rocky ever dresses in a sophisticated manner is during the song “Tum Kya Mile,” when he’s a figment of Rani’s imagination while she’s on a work trip in Kashmir.

The performances overall are charming, with Bhatt again showing that she’s at the top of her game as Rani. Singh is careful to make Rocky a goofball but not an irritant, and it’s always clear that there’s a real person inside the flashy attire. Bachchan also makes the most of her role as mean grandma.

That leads to one of the things that didn’t work for me about Rocky Aur Rani. I’m not sure how an unsophisticated guy like Rocky comes from the family he does. Knowing that he will one day take over the family business, wouldn’t his dad and grandma have sent him overseas to get an MBA and made sure he behaved with perfect decorum? Other than shaming him for his love of dancing, they don’t seem to care what he does. Rocky and his family feel like they belong in two different movies.

I also struggled to nail down the movie’s moral point of view. Rocky Aur Rani makes no secret of when it’s moralizing, with poignant music cueing the audience to pay attention to the meaningful bits. But some of the messages come from strange angles, such as when Rani’s mom Anjali (Churni Ganguly) makes Rocky wear a bra in public in order to teach him gender equality. I have doubts about the lingerie store’s employees participating in an act deliberately meant to humiliate a patron.

Then there’s Rocky’s speech about making socially regressive missteps because he wasn’t taught not to. Singh’s delivery is heartfelt, but it’s strange to hear Rocky ask for leniency because he didn’t know it was rude to make fun of people for their skin color or weight. The whole thing feels like a aging white male standup comic in America lamenting that “you can’t say anything anymore” before ranting about “snowflakes.”

To reiterate what I stated at the start of this review, I think these plot issues may be less glaring when one is watching Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani in a theater on a giant screen with surround sound. Unfortunately, now that its theatrical run is over, the inconsistencies are more apparent.

Links

[Disclaimer: my Amazon links include an affiliate tag, and I may earn a commission on purchases made via those links. Thanks for helping to support this website!]

Movie Review: Afwaah (2023)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

A bystander’s good deed puts him in danger in the smart political thriller Afwaah (“Rumor“).

Politician Gyaan Singh runs the town of Sawalpur in Rajasthan. Singh’s daughter Nivi (Bhumi Pednekar) is engaged to her dad’s presumed successor, Vicky Bana (Sumeet Vyas), who has national political ambitions. Sawalpur has avoided inter-religious conflict thus far, but Vicky uses a scuffle at a rally in the Muslim part of town as an excuse for a show of force. His goons beat residents, and Vicky himself is captured on camera giving instructions to his lackey Chandan (Sharib Hashmi), who drags a Muslim butcher into a shuttered shop. The butcher is later found dead.

The melee is more than just a headache for the party. Nivi wants no part of Vicky’s violence, and she runs off while her father is in the hospital. Vicky sends his goons to track her down.

They catch Nivi in the town square right as advertising executive Rahab Ahmed (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is passing through in his Range Rover. He’s on his way from his dad’s house in a village nearby to his wife’s book launch at an historic fort a couple of hours away. Rahab stops when he sees Vicky’s men grab Nivi, and soon the two are fleeing in his car with Vicky’s henchmen in pursuit.

Afwaah takes a comprehensive view of the way political power is exercised through violence and misinformation. When Vicky employs violence at the rally as a display of authority, he unleashes a force into the world that will grow and soon be out of his control. He doesn’t understand that, but Nivi and her dad do. With an army of eager thugs at his disposal and a police inspector Tomar (Sumit Kaul) on the payroll, Vicky thinks he’s untouchable.

That also makes him hypersensitive to being perceived as weak. Nivi’s flight looks bad for Vicky, as does video of him and his cronies harassing her and Rahab. That’s where misinformation comes in. Vicky’s communications guy proposes flipping the video’s narrative to make it appear as though Vicky was trying to save Nivi from being kidnapped by Rahab in an act of “#lovejihad.” Just like violence, Vicky sees bigotry as an expedient tool but doesn’t understand the danger it poses, even to him.

With such loaded themes to explore, Afwaah is very plot-dense. Add to that subplots about a botched assassination attempt on Chandan and Inspector Tomar’s romantic affair with a subordinate officer, and character development takes a backseat. Siddiqui and Pednekar give workmanlike performances, but the movie is more about getting Rahab and Nivi from Point A to Point B. The cast does the job that’s asked, even when that means letting the message command most of the spotlight.

Links

Movie Review: Faraaz (2022)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

Director Hansal Mehta’s engaging film Faraaz presents a straightforward depiction of the horrific terrorist attack on Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2016, with a special focus on one young man who exhibited moral courage in the face of grave danger.

Though it is inspired by a true event and based more specifically on the book Holey Artisan: A Journalistic Investigation by Nuruzzaman Labu, Mehta and his screenwriters acknowledge taking liberties with some of the details in crafting their narrative. This doesn’t discredit the story in any way, just clarifies why some of the details in the attack’s Wikipedia page don’t line up with the events in the film.

The film’s early scenes bounce between six young men as they prepare to head to Holey Artisan Bakery on a fateful July day. In one crowded apartment, five guys in their late teens and early twenties bicker over breakfast. Rajeev (Godaan Kumar) — an older man who is ostensibly in charge — chides the five for their immaturity before loading them into a school transport van and dropping them off near the bakery. It’s impossible to miss Mehta’s point that these guys are barely adults. Only when they slit the throat of a security guard does it confirm that they are terrorists.

In a mansion across town, Faraaz Hossein (Zahan Kapoor) and his mother Simeen (Juhi Babbar) argue over her insistence that he head to Stanford University for graduate school instead of starting his career in Dhaka. A filmmaker with less faith in his audience would have Faraaz storm out of the house after the argument, manufacturing emotions later when mother and son realize that their last conversation was a fight. In this version, mother and son makeup in the hallway on his way to join friends at the bakery. She tells him she wants him to be happy, and he says he’ll make her proud.

The siege of the bakery is terrifying and gory, with the five men from the apartment shooting patrons and employees who are obviously foreign first, then testing those who remain to identify and spare those who are Bangladeshi Muslims. Nibras (Aditya Rawal) leads the terrorists inside the bakery. (Their handler Rajeev is safely off-site, letting the young guys do his dirty work for him.)

Faraaz and Nibras recognize one another, having played football together while in university. This connection proves a useful distraction, as one of the women Faraaz is with is Hindu. She’s allowed to sit with him and their other friend without having to pass the religious test.

Mehta is not exactly sympathetic to the local police who try to mount a response to the hostage situation. They’re portrayed as overly aggressive despite their lack of protective gear and information about things as simple as the layout of the bakery.The SWAT team that eventually arrives is similarly ineffective.

As the police fumble their response on the outside, tension builds in the bakery because no one understands what the terrorists want. They don’t make any demands or offer any conditions for the hostages’ release. Everyone is forced to sit and wait, with no end in sight. Faraaz’s mother discovers that her political connections can’t help when her son is trapped by people for whom violence is the only point.

The choice to make Faraaz the title character is interesting. He’s not superhero material, and Kapoor spends most of his performance looking like he’s on the verge of tears. But Faraaz is loyal, brave, and protective of his friends. He demonstrates a kind of low-key heroism that all of us can hope to emulate.

While effective at recreating the events of the attack, Faraaz is almost too subtle in its execution. It lacks a strong narrative point of view, relying on the circumstances to keep the audience invested in the characters. The performances and cinematography are competent. Mehta’s trust in his audience to understand why the story is important is commendable, but his approach makes the film feel overly educational.

Links

Movie Review: Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar (2023)

1 Reply

3 Stars (out of 4)

I’m skeptical about any Luv Ranjan project. The filmmaker owes his career to the unfortunate box office success of sexist comedies like 2015’s deplorable Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2. So I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Tu Jhoothi Main Makkaar.

Ranjan’s objective with Tu Jhoothi Main Makkar (TJMM, henceforth) is simple: show sexy people having a good time in exotic locations accompanied by a catchy soundtrack with some big dance numbers. To that end, it’s mission accomplished.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Mickey Arora, son of a wealthy, tight-knit family. In addition to helping run one of the family’s businesses — how his periodic strolling through an auto showroom helps is anyone’s guess — Mickey runs a secret side operation orchestrating breakups. He and his buddy Manu (Anubhav Singh Bassi) stage elaborate schemes on behalf of lovers who want to ditch their partners with minimal hard feelings or reputational damage.

While accompanying Manu on a trip to Spain to celebrate his engagement to Kinchi (Monica Chaudhary), Mickey falls for Kinchi’s gorgeous best friend Tinni (Shraddha Kapoor). Despite her reservations about dating a guy who’s never had to work for a boss who isn’t also his dad, Tinni and Mickey grow closer while frolicking in swimwear and cavorting about town. Both Kapoors look incredibly fit in this film, and their dance numbers are a lot of fun.

Mickey and Tinni return to Delhi and make things official, first by introducing Tinni to Mickey’s family. The Arora’s have no chill and quickly monopolize all of the couple’s time. This isn’t a problem for Mickey, but it is for Tinni. She places a call to the breakup expert — who uses a modulator to disguise his voice — and asks for help ending her relationship with Mickey.

Only in the movies would Mickey not immediately recognize his own girlfriend’s voice. More movie cliches follow once Mickey figures things out, including his professional instructions for Tinni to make Mickey jealous with a fake ex-boyfriend and to try to make Mickey cheat with her fake beautiful friend. (The fake ex and the fake friend are played by Kartik Aaryan and Nushrratt Bharuccha, respectively, who both starred in Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2).

Much of the conflict in TJMM could have been avoided had the characters simply talked to one another, but at least they are motivated by doing what they believe the other one wants. That fits with Mickey’s business ethos of trying to minimize the emotional fallout from breakups, but the couple is slow to realize that they are really only punishing themselves by not addressing their issues directly. The film is thoughtful about the way the borders of a romantic relationship extend out to encompass the families of the two people involved.

That said, TJMM is inherently conservative and too centered on Mickey. We see details of Tinni’s life only as they relate to Mickey. His family gets ample screentime, but we only get brief glimpses of Tinni’s family. While the two male friends regularly talk about their romantic relationships with one another, Tinni and Kinchi never do.

In the course of running his breakup business, Mickey spouts off a bunch of simplistic maxims about the behavior patterns of men and women that sound old-fashioned and a bit sexist. There’s also a moment where Mickey vows to get revenge on Tinni for lying to him — an unfortunate callback to the cruel revenge plots that make up the second half of Pyaar Ka Punchnama 2.

Yet despite it faults, TJMM mostly has its heart in the right place. The characters really do try to do right by one another, even when their efforts are misguided. And the film hits all the right notes for the kind of upbeat, escapist fantasy it aspires to be.

Links