Chandni Chowk to China

The first mega-budget movie of the year – starring Akshay Kumar & Deepika Padukone - promos everywhere. So what are you expecting from the movie ?

You are probably expecting an action-comedy movie, with Ranvir Shorey adding to the comedy department …. and a sizzling romance between Akshay & Deepika. But what you get is something very different – a love story ….. between Akshay & Mithun Chakraborty !!!

But before you get your hopes up, its nowhere as funny as Dostana! It’s instead a weepy, sad romance … doomed for separation.
Ok, so Mithun plays the father figure. But Akshay definitely gets loads of emotional screentime with Mithun and zero with his leading lady. With Deepika, this is what you get ....

[After working on his forearms for two weeks with something called Iron Forearm technique … which actually resembles the roti making action]
Akshay (standing with Deepika in his arms) : I have Iron Forearms now. Jaldi hi mere paas honge Iron Legs, Iron Chest, Iron Stomach, … (pauses and looks down towards you-know-what) … aur ek Iron …
Deepika (coyly covering her face) : Bas
Akshay : Ab mujhe mat roko. Mera poora body Lohe ka ho gaya hai ...
Deepika (fluttering her eyelids) : Oh, mere Iron man …

Want more ? He calls her lovingly as his ‘aloo paratha’ – infact CC2C had more than its share of potatoes !! There is a Ganesha shaped aloo in his hand almost throughout the movie. Deepika is his aloo paratha. And then in the climax, he begins to see aloos in his enemies …

Honestly, I cant decide what exactly to say about the story. It’s a combination of some four movies. Let me list them – Singh is Kinng, Kung Fu Panda, Chaalbaaz and a ‘Ajay Devgan’ movie called Jigar :) Add the 4 movies up cleverly and you have the entire story …. the resemblance to Singh is Kinng is especially striking, probably because it wasn’t released too far back. The same country bumpkin (Akshay Kumar) going international with his (comparatively) smarter sidekick, falling in love at first sight with extremely pretty ladies, songs at historical locations (Pyramids in Egypt/Great Wall in China) … you will feel déjà vu throughout the movie.

I am not going to say anything more on the story, except that its EXTREMELY BORING and humourless in the first half. Till intermission, it seems like its going to be the biggest flop of 2009. Thankfully, it picks up significantly in the second half of the movie. The sequences with the hindi-speaking-beggar and the kung-fu training are the best part of the movie. Akshay Kumar is right in his element here. Deepika looks ravishing throughout the movie – she looks especially cute in the Chinese silk dresses. And the make-up artists have done a commendable job in differentiating the twins – Meow Meow (the Chinese twin) actually looks almost Oriental ! Deepika doesn’t have much of role(s) to act, so she is ok as far as acting is concerned. But I thought she was looking the best so far in this movie – almost lighting up the screen with her smile.

Ranvir Shorey was a disappointment though – his acting was quite flat, even in the opening sequences. Mention must also be made of the soundtrack of the movie – Kailash Kher and partners manage to provide a most lament-filled soundtrack – the hindi word ‘rondu’ being apt. Except the title track, which is quite sprightly and appears early in the movie, the rest of the soundtrack REALLY makes you weep … in frustration. Quite disappointing. And didn’t wait around for the rap song at the end, so cant comment on that one.

Now the most important question – how does the movie fare on the whole ? Does it disappoint like Singh is Kinng? Well ….. not as much as Singh is Kinng, but disappointing nevertheless. As I have highlighted in the beginning, CC2C is expected to be an action-comedy. Instead, you will find a whole lot of sentimental melodrama (unhelpfully accompanied by Kailash Kher in the background) …. and it is a complete downer. Nikhil Advani has lost the plot midway into a movie yet again.

However, given that we are talking about Akshay Kumar and the droll and boring Singh is Kinng became a superhit, I wouldn’t be surprised if CC2C also did good business - especially since it’s a notch or two better than that sardar caper.


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Australia

After being delayed by more than a week, I thought I would chuck the ‘Australia’ review. But then I find that its still playing in most of the multiplexes in its second week, so here goes ...

If you are the type who get spellbound at magnificent footage on the huge cinema screen - in movies such as the Gladiator - you are going to like Australia. Attempted on a similar scale and scope, it features some breathtakingly beautiful scenes from the Land of Down Under. However, those of you who caught the word ‘attempted’ in the previous sentence would have guessed it right - there isn’t much to the movie other than beautiful camerawork.

Australia is Baz Luhrmann’s attempt at an epic movie ... combining love, adventure, travel, World War II, family values, racial equality and everything else you can think of. In reality it seems like a movie in two parts where the first part is a complete movie by itself and the second half is a mix of a little of everything else.

The story starts off pretty simply. Nicole Kidman plays Sarah Ashley, an English aristocrat who comes to Australia to dispose off her deceased husband’s cattle ranch, only to land in the middle of rivalry with local rancher King Carney. She then decides to undertake her husband’s last wish and herd 1,500 head of cattle to Darwin to fulfill an Army contract. She hires for help The Drover (Hugh Jackman), a freewheeling Australian cowboy sort of. Along with them comes the narrator of the movie, a half Aborginal child Nullah.

However this accounts for only the first half of the movie. The story then meanders into love, ruthless business rivalry, racism, family ties, blood ties, Japanese invasion of Australia ...

The chemistry between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman is good in the first half, when Lady Sarah Ashley is trying to come to terms with the Australian outback. However, Nicole Kidman is quite ordinary in the second half, especially in the emotional scenes. Hugh Jackman is cool as ever, acting the macho guy throughout the movie. And Nullah does exceedingly well too.

However the movie is completely let down by its unending storyline. I could hear groans of people all around me waiting for it to end. And the predictable nature of the story meant that the outcome of the movie was very obvious an hour before it actually ends – and the screenplay did nothing to make the intervening hour any interesting. The Japanese bombing of Darwin town looked quite CGIed and honestly, after ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and ‘Pearl Harbour’ the ability of explosions to ‘wow’ us is quite limited now.

Interestingly, after you watch the movie, the strongest impression left on you isn’t Nicole Kidman’s bad acting, but the rampant racism prevalent in Australia at that time. We know about the oppression on blacks in the United States - partly because of reformists like Martin Luther King – but it was an eye opener for me as far as oppression on Aborigines is concerned.

Since I am a sucker for the visual grandeur of cinema, I am giving it an extra 0.5 star solely for the camerawork. If you too enjoy the big screen cinema experience, you can watch Australia. Otherwise you are ok without it.


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The President is Coming

There are a lot of people who are ready to do ‘anything’ for 2 minutes of fame ... and I get a feeling that in our over-populated country, this sentiment is growing stronger day by day. So if the grand prize is spending two minutes with the most powerful man in the free world as the face of ‘the young India’, what would YOU do ?

‘The President is Coming’ is about a reality TV competition to choose one young Indian to shake George W. Bush’s hand on his India visit (The opening screen of the movie tells you in bold letters that is a fictitious account, lest you take it seriously :). The Mumbai consulate entrusts this onerous job on a two-woman-PR-agency – admirably played by Shivani Tanksale and Shernaz Patel. They proceed to shortlist 6 wacko individuals (each convinced of his/her superiority) and lock them up in a room for an 18 hour-long competition ... and what you get is a perfect comedy – or well ... almost !!

Let me read out the contenders

• Maya Roy is a young author (played by Konkona Sen Sharma) who dreams of winning the Booker Prize one day ...
• Ajay Karlekar is a MBA-turned-social-worker who is also in the fascist Shiv Sena mold ...
• Kapil Dev Dholakia is your Gujarati stock broker who just dreams of the stock markets ...
• Archana Kapoor is a super-rich Delhite bimbo who runs a lipstick business and whose ‘daddy’ is among the five richest Indians ...
• Rohit Seth is a accent-trainer for Gurgaon BPOs ...
• Ramesh S is the geek working in Microsoft, who dreams about his H-1B visa ...

They sound very caricaturish, don’t they ? Well they are that and much more. I cant remember having laughed so hard in a movie since ... Dostana I guess. The characters, while staying true to their caricature roots, indulge in such ridiculous sequences that you just cant help bursting out with laughter. And no, its not the ‘Welcome’ kind of stupid jokes - just the characters making incessant fun of the stereotypes they each represent. The fascist social worker ranting about divorced women, the geek about sexual fantasies etc … And the less said about the sanity of the actual competition, the better.

The only thing I can reveal about this part of the movie is that its shot completely in a documentary-cum-reality-show kind of way and the movie is much better because of it. And the fact that after the intermission, the movie sorta loses its humour as it begins eliminating the contenders one by one. But its not so bad as the movie itself is just 1 hour 45 min long. And the only thing you are going to come out of the movie with is chuckling about one of the gags. My favorite one was the one about the Kotak broker ... :)

So my recommendation - definitely dont miss it!


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Outsourced

If you haven’t heard about this movie, don’t be surprised – it had almost zero publicity. (Australia atleast had a few big hoardings around Mumbai). These few weeks are lean times as far as movie releases are concerned – there is nothing substantial hitting the screens between 25th Dec (Ghajini) and 23rd Jan (Chandni Chowk to China). So be ready for some small-budget-movie fun – some of them are quite good.

This one almost gets there, but trips at the last 100 m.

The name of the movie is a giveaway as far as the story is concerned. It begins with call centre manager Todd Anderson being told by his boss that his entire department has been outsourced – and worse, he has to goto India to train the team there! As expected, Todd struggles against the culture shocks, including his name - and spicy food - when he lands in India. For some inexplicable reason, he is called Mr. Toad by all and sundry in the movie. And his work is based in an imaginary Mumbai suburb called Gharapuri (Wikipedia tells me that Gharapuri is actually another name for Elephanta Island).

But inspite of pandering to quite a few clichés - including a ridiculous cow that keeps wandering into the callcenter - Outsourced is very wittily written and doesn’t allow these clichés to put you off from this movie. And it uses the clichés rather well – eliciting frequent guffaws from the audience. Considering that this was intended for American audiences, I consider it quite an achievement for the makers that it appeals to us Indians equally well.

The going is pretty good – till the love angle kicks in. Ayesha Dharker plays Asha, one of the call center employees – who Todd falls in love with in the most cheesiest of sequences. In Hotel Kamasutra, no less !! I personally don’t like Ayesha Dharker’s looks at all and it doesn’t help that her role in the second half is written quite stupidly – you can make out that this portion was written completely with an American viewpoint.

After this fall, the movie loses its way a little and stumbles around, before the final showdown in front of Todd’s boss. That part of the movie feels like a sports movie, where a coach starts off with a really bad team, but improves them drastically and they make it to the finals – and they are just one game away from glory !!

So should you watch this movie or not? I would say yes - even though I am awarding it only a 2.5 star. Because its a warm-hearted movie, with plenty of funny sequences that linger in your head. And because it includes a negative 0.5 star for the Hotel Kamasutra sequence !!


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Ghajini

For all those who are curious about similarities with Memento (debut movie of Christopher Nolan), let me tell you straight - Ghajini is not a copy of that awesome flick. And unfortunately, Ghajini is nowhere as good as Memento either....

The common thing between the two movies is the 'short term memory loss' syndrome - a condition where the person is unable to form new memories because of damage to the brain. In both movies, it happens because the villain clobbers the hero on his head with an iron rod - while killing his wife/fiance. And the hero swears vengeance ...

Aamir Khan plays Sanjay Singhania, a rich tycoon, who is smitten by the charms of a do-gooder, upcoming model Kalpana (Asin). He befriends her without revealing his identity and theirs is a sweet little romance (no kissing scenes and no cleavage show :) ) Then the unfortunate incident occurs and Aamir transforms into an animal - powerful and full of rage. His only motive in life is to hunt down Ghajini .... and he tries to find a trail to him with the help of tattoos, polaroid photos and notes.
Aamir's acting is superb as usual - one wonders how much time and effort he must have put in to make that beefcake body. His expressions, especially in the final sequences are frighteningly animal-like - and the action pulse pounding. He just literally smashes all the tamil-baddies with brute power. Its been sometime since we have seen such raw violence in mainstream hindi movies.

However unlike the previous few Aamir movies, this one disappoints big time. His acting notwithstanding, the plot is so full of holes, that even the simple linear storyline doesnt make sense. Lets start with his exact mental condition. Its not clear exactly what all can he remember - the professor at the start of the movie indicates that he doesnt remember anything personal apart from his love life. Yet later when Aamir loses his notes and photos, he doesnt remember anything about Kalpana as well !

Then more controversial is his short term memory - he is supposed to be able to remember things only for 15 min - yet this 15 min apparently can be stretched as long or squeezed short, as per the director's wishes. Neither is there any hint about how Aamir was able to trace Ghajini - there are maps and photos galore but no actual investigation shown.

But the most obvious plot hole is the final sequence. Doesnt it sound more than a little stupid, that not ONE among the 20-odd bodyguards of Ghajini would have a gun, when Aamir already warned them he was coming ?

There are other silly mistakes in the plot as well - but I think these are enough to give you an idea about whats wrong in the movie. And if the plot holes are not enough, there are the songs. Atrociously placed, each song is a drag on the storyline and has absolutely no requirement in the movie. Its almost as if Asin signed a contract that said she will have 3 songs picturized and Jiah Khan's contract said one song - so there ....

Among performances, Asin does a competent job, doing a few scenes well enough - but her role was quite dumbly written. Jiah Khan's role had nothing difficult and she is again competent. The villain Ghajini (I dont know his name but he used to appear in hindi movies before) does well too - especially the disdain with which he labels Aamir as 'short term memory loss'.

The movie is too long and the romantic track takes up too much time - especially at the end, with another needless song and closeups. The revenge track, which is supposed to be the main theme, unfortunately doesnt impress. The action can get you on the edge of your seat a few times, but with so many convenient shortcuts in the script, you stop believing the story. I personally found the final vengeance scene quite underwhelming too. Do yourself a favor and miss this movie - multiplex tickets are way too costly nowadays :)


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Madagascar 2 : Escape 2 Africa

Apologies for posting so late - laptop went bust again.

Madagascar 2 continues from where it left off in part 1 - in the island of Madagascar. The New York foursome - Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe - have gotten bored with the island and are restless to reach home. So under the able command of the military penguins, and accompanied by King Julien and his trusted Maurice, they take off in an old crashed-in-the-jungle-plane, but only to soon run out of fuel and crash-land in mainland Africa.

Here they find creatures of their own kind and discover their roots. For Alex its more special because he happens to get reunited with his family. The others take to their new surroundings quite well too. However, soon their wildlife preserve is faced with trouble and our foursome has to team up and tackle the challenge – in the process, discovering new bonds between them.

The characters are memorable as ever – especially the two lemurs King Julien and Maurice. The penguins are adorable, but I think the two lemurs steal the thunder from everyone else. There are more characters introduced, like Alex’s family and Gloria’s date – the hilariously named MotoMoto !!

However, while there are funny lines interspersed throughout the movie, Madagascar 2 is not as entertaining or memorable as part one. The first one had the advantage of the freshness - in this one, the characters have lost their novelty – and the new characters are simply not in the same mold. But more importantly, I think the introduction of the Lion King subplot was the weakest point of the movie – couldn’t the creative heads come up with a better subplot for Alex ? Something a little bit funnier ?

The granny from NY also makes an appearance, and would appear to have been given more screentime than necessary. The monkeys also do not come good till the end. But all the same, there are some absolute gems in the movie – the seafood one is a howler.

So definitely do not give this movie a miss. A very good entertainer like every animation – but not quite a great one …


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Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

I think my view of 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi' was greatly influenced by the trailer of ‘New York’, that was shown before Rab Ne. I hadnt heard of it before - it’s a Yash Raj movie and stars John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh. The trailer starts off very Dostana-ish (minus the gayness, ofcourse) - two cool guys and one girl having a gala time in New York City. Then suddenly everything changes and we see 9-11 and torture scenes and then Neil Nitin Mukesh talks about 'our qam'. It was then that it struck me .... that maybe the Chopras were in a sort of deep slumber and one day, woke up to a movie market that had changed from DDLJ to Khosla Ka Ghosla. So they try to make a movie with the times (think Khuda Ke Liye), but cant help adding their magic secret success formula – candyfloss looks !!!

Which leads me to today’s movie – Rab Ne – and you can see the same theory at work. The honchos at Yash Raj studios read a market report – which says that the common man (‘Bheja Fry’) look is in, so lets put that angle in and set up the movie in a small town, but we will make Shahrukh Khan dance, add our special secret ingredient and ta-dah !!! Superhit !!

Unfortunately for the Chopras, movie audiences now have better taste and can separate actually good cinema from a wannabe. Yash Raj’s competency is stylish, glossy, escapist fare - and there is a good market for it, as Dostana proved. They should probably just concentrate on that.

And just to prove that I have nothing against Yash Raj movies, I confess that I am a sucker for feel-good, happy movies. I really liked Aaja Nachle and thought Tara Rum Pum was quite ok (and didn’t watch Laaga Chunari). But Rab Ne, even with its happy ending, has just too many things working against it. First being the ethereal love concept – ‘aap jisse pyar karte ho, usmein rab dikhta hai’. The notion that love is so pure and god-like is SOOOOO nonsense !!! Have these people ever actually been in love? In this age, love is about connecting with each other, clicking, or being on the same wavelength – whatever you call it. And its not just a big town phenomena – the days of falling in love, just by seeing a pretty face is long gone and everyone knows it. Everyone, except the Chopras, ofcourse.

The second is plot holes – the idea is to entertain, I get it – but can we have a little more sensible story please? Something which credits the viewers as having more intelligence than dumb goats - or sheep ? Its not like we do not like fantastical or outrageous storylines – we do. Om Shanti Om was an example of one. But the way the makers of Rab Ne try to convince you that its a non-fantasy, everyday love story just doesn’t hold. It feels complete like a complete eyewash.

The feeling of the me-too returns when you watch the retro “chalte chalte” song. “We can do what Farah Khan can do, and we can do it with better heroines” – but sorry Aditya, Farah does the stuff better. The self-referencing jokes work for the first couple of times, but they are far too many and there is only so many times a Dhoom gag will work. And arent there any other movies worth referencing ?

However there are some gems in the movie as well. The scene after the office party when Shahrukh thanks Anushka is very heartfelt and a scene Shahrukh should be proud of. And half a star is just for the ending credits with the commentary :) Anushka Sharma is a superb find I think – she is very confident and acts really well. Vinay Pathak is great as usual, but he doesn’t have much to do apart from act Shahrukh’s buddy.

But I cant help but wonder – how would the movie have been if it had Vinay Pathak in Shahrukh’s role ?


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Burn After Reading

I think the movie can be pretty well summed up in a line from the movie itself – “Christ, what a cluster-fuck !!”

Burn After Reading has a bevy of stars – George Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton & Frances McDormand – and one goofy storyline. The movie begins in the CIA office in Washington, where an analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), explodes in rage on being demoted by his boss. He prefers to quit rather than accept a demotion and storms out ranting that he will write a tell-all memoirs. We come to know he might have an drinking problem ….

His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is a pediatrician who’s not so impressed by her husband’s activities, especially his latest one. She is having a fling with a married US Marshal Henry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who is a compulsive womanizer. Unrelated to them (atleast in the beginning) are two Hardbodies gym trainers Linda (Frances McDormand) and Chad (Brad Pitt) – and their boss Ted (Richard Jenkins). Linda thinks she desperately needs cosmetic surgery as she is getting old and Chad (who is the male equivalent of a blonde) is good friend of hers. The gym boss Ted has a major crush on Linda, but she never gives him any consideration.

The story begins when Chad discovers a CD full of Osborne’s memoirs in the gym’s ladies locker room floor. Linda and Chad are convinced they have a goldmine of classified information on their hands and hatch a plan to demand $50,000 for returning the CD. When Osborne gets the extortion call, he is enraged and flatly refuses to pay – threatening them with Official Secrets Act and Federal crimes etc. And from here the script just takes off …

This movie is less about the story and more about the characters. All the characters are complete oddballs – the paranoid Pfarrer, the enraged Osborne, the stupid but optimistic Linda, the harebrained Chad - and they make the movie rather quirky. Pfarrer is the most interesting character by far – his philandering, his paranoia about being followed – and especially his pastime of making mechanical devices in his basement (you gotta see it to believe it). But I think Brad Pitt steals the acting honors in this movie with his bimbo-brained act.

I would classify this as a goofy spy movie – but a very smart one - far removed from the Austin Powers’ kind. The comedy is much more mature and black, there is nothing at stake (like WMDs or billions of dollars in other spy movie spoofs) – just people convinced about their own superiority in some quirky situations. Ofcourse, coming from Coen Brothers*, violence is not far away and it suddenly explodes in the narrative, when you least expect it. The running time is just 95 minutes and final scene in the movie is by far the best I have seen in sometime – even though it doesn’t cleanly tie all ends up.



* The Coen Brothers – Joel and Ethan Coen – are a celebrated director duo and their last release ‘No Country For Old Men’ won the best picture Oscar.
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