Author Archives: cinemachaat

Theen Maar

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Theenmaar is a fairly faithful remake of the Hindi film Love Aaj Kal, with a few minor changes and thankfully a lot more Southern style action and drama.

We do think that Pawan Kalyan has the most enthusiastic fans we have ever encountered. There was a good turnout at India Talkies, especially considering this was the second night showing, and more ladies and families than we usually see. In many of the Cape Town location scenes, bikini clad extras strutted around to no audience reaction at all. But let PK appear in shot and the roof almost came off! And we must add – it was the guys making the most noise!

Pawan Kalyan is Michael, a chef working in Cape Town while he waits for an opportunity to be a stockbroker in New York. Trisha is Meera, a fine arts graduate who specialises in restoration work (or something). Michael is selfish, impulsive, charming but ultimately high on talk and low on commitment. His dialogues are hilarious and he actually used the vintage line ‘Coffee, tea …or me?’ which had us in fits of laughter. It was followed up by a kiss so clearly the old material hasn’t lost any of its magic…or maybe it’s all in the delivery? And he does speak Italian (not so well, but it was actual dialogue in actual Italian delivered with great gusto).

Trisha plays Meera as vain and princessy, accepting compliments on her beauty with a smile and an ‘I know!’ Their relationship is shown in a series of montages deteriorating from the happy honeymoon phase to him being bored and her being restless and the performances develop more subtlety as the characters situations change.  Meera loves Michael but goes back to India to pursue her career dreams. They both try to move on from this relationship, but really don’t, and the question of will they or won’t they get back together is the story.

Paresh Rawal introduces the flashback story of his friend Arjun (Pawan Kalyan) and his love, played by Kriti Karbandha. The Varanasi locations and slightly faded colour palette are simply stunning. Arjun is a student activist, albeit one who never seems to do any study, a man of few words and deep feelings. Arjun and his nerdy mates follow Kriti around Varanasi and these are some of the funniest scenes.

Pawan Kalyan’s expressions flicker from nervous to smouldering to determined and back again as he wordlessly conveys his feelings and confusion. There is a fabulous vintage style song with Arjun and his mates skipping around and dancing like madmen and it is just brilliantly done. Kriti didn’t have a lot to do except stand around and stare at Arjun and is a bit low energy in many of her scenes. She does come to life in her dances and those scenes are where she looks her most appealing. Her family don’t approve of Arjun and his determination and resilience are a total contrast to Michael’s floundering and apathy. His body language is completely different to Michael – Arjun stands up straight, shoulders back, head up and looks people in the eye where Michael’s gaze is always shifting or angled and he rarely stands still or takes a stand.

One of the side effects of Filmi True Love is that all other partners end up as Romance Roadkill. Australian Misha or maybe Michelle (played by someone maybe called Jahna) and Sonu Sood as Meera’s new man are adequate in their roles, but they aren’t given a lot to do. Sonu makes more of an impression, mostly because he gets more dialogue and also has a confronting scene with Trisha. We did find it interesting that although the relationship between Meera and Michael was clearly physical, it was only the white girlfriend who was overtly shown as having a sexual relationship. It is obvious she is a pale (pun intended) substitute for Meera, although she did spark a truly funny Dirty Harry impression by Michael.

The remaining support cast were their usual selves. Tanikella Bharani was Michael’s Skype savvy dad, Paresh Rawal was avuncular and natty in golf knits, Mukesh Rishi was imposing and mean as the olden days father. The actors who play Arjun’s friends are really expressive and fun, and have a fab collection of Seventies polyester body shirts and flares. The male backing dancers were great and looked the part – if they were random street dancing IT guys, they looked like IT guys. There were too many skinny white girls in the club dances. Considering we were supposed to be in Cape Town, there was little diversity in the ethnic makeup of the extras so it was a bit odd. Another very strange thing – no Brahmi. We really can’t recall the last Brahmi-less film we have seen. Ali however did turn up in a fairly restrained (for him anyway) cameo.

Mani Sharma’s music is well matched to its place in the story.  We particularly liked a gorgeous temple song dedicated to Shiva that used perfect retro Bollywood choreography. The club numbers were fun, and Pawan Kalyan went all out to entertain. The costumes were occasionally puzzling – we have no idea who was styling Meera’s return to India wardrobe but apparently going home means wearing lots of patchwork and garish harem pants. A big hurrah for whoever designed Arjun’s look. We loved Pawan Kalyan in the simple kurta and jeans.

Imtiaz Ali’s story is a great basis, and Trivikram did really well in translating it into the Southern film style.  We missed a lot of the dialogue based jokes, but judging by the audience reaction, they were very funny indeed. The action scenes are way more energetic than in the Hindi original. We aren’t sure about the climax fight that seemed to have been designed solely to allow a motorbike blow up but heroes must be heroes. Jayant Paranji kept the story ticking along for the most. There is a draggy section towards the end, but as usual the final scenes seem to happen at breakneck speed.

Theenmaar is a really entertaining film that has something to say but doesn’t beat you over the head with a message. We can’t wait for the DVD!

Shakti

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Here is a list of things we know the film makers didn’t spend the reputedly huge budget on:

  • A hairdresser for Ileana
  • Good quality CGI
  • Historical research
  • Decent wigs
  • A good story

Here is a list of things they did invest in:

  • Scarves
  • Stars
  • Helicopters
  • Excessive editing
  • Guns and rocket launchers
  • Cars (to be blown up)
  • Locations
  • Oversized glowing props
  • A slide announcing that no matter when or where people lived, for the purposes of this film everyone speaks Telugu.

The story opens at the pyramids with lots of Ancient Egyptian-ish folk speaking Hindi. We also catch our first glimpse of topless Sonu Sood, although not topless in our preferred sense. He first appears as a severed head in a bag. So of course, his grieving lover’s first reaction is to gouge his eyeballs out and preserve them in a jar of something orange and smoking.

Skip forward to rich girl Aishwarya (Ileana) slipping away from her father’s security detail to go touring with her gang of friends which includes Ali as Tommy, a character at least 20 years too young for him. While in Jaipur they cross paths with Shakti (Tarak) and he appoints himself their groups’ highly paid guide and protector. How to resist a man who arrives on elephant back, kicks assorted bad guy arse and can get tickets to first day first show of Wanted?

To summarise: Aishwarya accidentally took a very large mystical jewel from her family safe and doesn’t notice she is carrying it in her bag. The Faux-gyptians want it to destroy the world or something. And there are the good guys seeking to protect the jewel and ensure it is used in the ritual required to keep several holy cities in India, or maybe the world, safe.  And Shakti is the son of the man killed performing the last saving the world ritual (either several hundred or maybe thirty years ago).

The first half of the film is a blend of road trip, romance and action in some lovely Indian locations as Shakti has to constantly rescue Aishwarya from her own stupidity as well as from the villains who are tracking her. The second half of the film is a less successful blend of exploding cars and storms of bullets with the mythology underpinning the story of the jewel and the elaborate ritual. We were slightly surprised to learn that the Ancient Egyptians, or a cult, who lived outside the pyramids at Giza had tried to invade Andhra Pradesh on horseback either a couple of thousand or twenty years ago. But compared to all the other nonsensical stuff going on (not a tourist in sight at the pyramids, roads in Hyderabad with no traffic at all), we were only very slightly surprised.

The special effects were cheap looking considering the budget. A sacred sword was made of red plastic, and the significant trishul was yellow plastic with little light bulbs inside it. There was clearly a vision, but it was translated in a very clumsy way. Even in the fight and dance sequences, where we expect Tarak to absolutely shine, the overly jumpy editing and poor effects were a distraction and really diminished his impact. We are well accustomed to seeing action footage sped up or slowed down for impact, but in Shakti the slow bits were often so slow they highlighted the CGI and wires, and the fast bits were jerky and cartoonish. A couple of the songs had huge sets and lots of costume changes but lacked the ‘Wow factor’ we expect from this style of film. The opening Rajasthani song was a great example of what didn’t work – the dancing and choreography were great, the costumes and sets were stunning, and the editing made it look bland and disjointed. We were very hopeful once the rocket launchers appeared, but sadly once the director had blown up umpteen cars and people, it was time for more ‘creativity’ and the film deteriorated. The climax set in an underground temple full of more glowing props was too repetitive as it mimicked a long preceding flashback and the visual effects were not great.

Every film comedian except Sunil made an appearance and it was just too much. We have no idea at all why Jackie Shroff was in this film. His role could have been played by anyone in a brocade jacket and every time we saw him poolside we just prayed he would keep his clothes on. From the look on their faces, so did the gori extras paid to cavort around him! Sonu Sood did his usual villain thing and made an appearance (head attached) in a flashback in the second half. The angrier he got the less he wore, so as you can imagine we were very interested in his scenes. The whole subplot with his lover and her supernatural vengeance was a confused mess, and not helped by the wig department. But there was lots of eye stuff happening, mostly anatomically correct too, which pleased Heather! The orc-like baddie sent to destroy Shakti was blind at first, but after years of punching and headbutting Egyptian columns into shards (think Juggernaut from X-Men), he was apparently given Sonu’s eyes although disappointingly we never saw the actual installation procedure.

Tarak and Ileana were good considering what they had been given by writer/director Meher Ramesh. They had no chemistry as a couple but Ileana did what she could with an under developed character and the nonsensical behaviour required of her. Tarak delivered his usual robust physical performance and rousing speeches. Shakti (the character) had only two facial expressions for most of the film – surly and surlier. We would be peeved too if we got landed with The Wig. The flashback exposition was inexplicable in style and chronology. If this was 20 odd years ago, why was Shakti in a pageboy wig? We were a little bemused by the decision to try to create flowing warrior locks with the use of a wind machine. Sadly, the breeze lacked sufficient oomph to stir the clumpy and hideous wig so it was all for naught. And that inability to make a concept work sums up the whole film.

There were some positives. The audience were laughing a lot at some of the comedic dialogues and they appreciated Tarak’s big speeches. Some things were really fun – Shakti’s dramatic reveal as super agent A1 of the NSA, the rocket launchers, CGI snakes (especially when carried as a concealed weapon), Brahmi and Tarak’s scenes together and the backing dancers who really did give it their all. The Ladakh and Haridwar scenes were beautiful even with all the gimmicky camera work.

This is a film solely for the hardcore fans.

Aaranya Kaandam

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Aaranya Kaandam should come with a warning – an excess of fake violence, actual real life violence against chickens and naked Jackie Shroff. Yes really! Jackie Shroff takes his clothes off in this film.  We have no idea why the organisers of the Indian Film Festival decided to choose this film over many other excellent Tamil releases this year. Perhaps they wanted to see Jackie with his kit off, but why we all had to suffer is a mystery!

The film is a long (too long) tale of double crosses by Pasupathy (Sampath Raj) when he is caught between two rival factions of gangsters. One gang is led by the aging Ayya (Jackie Shroff) and Pasupathy starts out as his more adventurous and able lieutenant. Ayya resents his younger henchman and when Pasupathy organises a drug deal through a corrupt cop to steal cocaine from a rival gang we know it’s all going to turn out badly. Adding to the mix are Ayya’s mistress Subbu who wants to escape, Kaalayan who manages to stumble across the drugs, his competent little son Kodukkapuli, and the other gang leaders Gajapathy (who has an impressive pair of ears) and his brother Gajendran.

Although the overall story is interesting there is too much time spent setting the scene and explaining exactly who is who.  First time writer and director Thiagarajan Kumararaja seems to have been heavily influenced by films such as Traffic and Pulp Fiction where there are a number of apparently unrelated threads which come together to form the climax of the film. But while he manages to  bring the various storylines to a more or less satisfactory conclusion, they don’t all work as well as each other. In addition to the pacing problems, there is a heavy reliance on gimmicky edits and lighting effects that lose their impact through over use. The actual cinematography was excellent, and the street and interior scenes were saturated with colour. Again, we suspect some of the highly stylised angles and use of colour filters was influenced by films like Traffic but it lacked structure so it looked a bit too try-hard.

The soundtrack is a mish mash of musical styles and sounds. We think this might have been meant to create an art house feel, but really it sounds more like someone bought a world music CD and used that instead of going to the trouble of composing anything special. Like the gimmicky editing the music became intrusive and sometimes detracted from the scenes, often simply because it was too loud.

The story of Kaalayan and his son is rather laboured and the inclusion of some rather nasty cock-fighting scenes with lots of lingering slow motion shots and buckets of gore was quite unnecessary. A lot of this could have been cut without losing any of the backstory in our opinion.  The child actor was fairly effective, and the audience certainly responded to his performance.

Sampath Raj puts in an impressive performance as the man trying to work his way out of a difficult situation. He has a good hero run, and puts it to use frequently throughout the film.

We know that traditionally anyone who is Jackie’s friend in a film seems to be marked for a horrible death or at least significant misfortune so we were expecting the wheels to fall off for Pasupathy. Jackie Shroff grunts his way through a series of inexplicable grimaces and as we mentioned decides to bare all. Thankfully there is pixilation but just not enough of it. Jackie Shroff himself may have preferred a larger area of pixilation as frankly it appears there was not all that much to be covered up! It’s not surprising that Subbu wants to escape from his early morning coughs and gurgles as well as the obvious horror of naked Jackie. Ravi Krishna is the gullible Loser who gets caught up in her plans for flight. Both he and Yasmin Ponnappa in her debut role turn in good performances despite a hackneyed plotline.

What does work is the dialogue, which seems snappy and funny despite the overuse of swearing in the subtitles. According to our Tamil language expert the characters weren’t actually swearing most of the time, so it seems strange that the subtitles decided to include as much profanity as they did. Especially when it seemed that every second word out of the kid’s mouth was something that our parents would still disapprove of. Maybe they knew there wasn’t enough plot to last the distance?

Temple says: This was a bore and a disappointment. The entertaining moments were few and far between, and the direction wasn’t focussed enough to make the incident heavy plot stay on track. I quite like Sampath Raj and if the story had been better balanced, this might have been a good gangland thriller. As it is, it’s a mess. I give it 2 stars – for Sampath Raj and so the torture of the poor roosters wasn’t in vain.

Heather says: While I didn’t find this film boring, it really wasn’t pleasant to sit through. There was a lot of really unnecessary violence of the gruesome and graphic kind, and the rooster fight scenes were totally unwarranted. Jackie Shroff was a real disappointment, although I didn’t have high expectations from him anyway. I can think of many actors who would have played this role much more convincingly – although all preferably without the nude scene! There were some good moments hidden amongst the carnage, some reasonable performances from a number of the actors, and even some good comedy. But not enough to save this film from collapsing under the weight of all the various plot threads. 2 stars from me.