Author Archives: cinemachaat

Ek Niranjan

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We did say it is silly season here and what could be sillier than Sonu Sood’s wardrobe in this film? Exactly.

Ek Niranjan is a typical good guys versus bad guys effort from Prabhas and Puri Jagannadh who teamed up previously in the almost equally silly Bujjigadu. Kangana Ranaut supports in a surprisingly conventional heroine role, and Sonu Sood makes a splash in his familiar quirky villainous avatar. The story is simple enough in a convoluted way. But really, the power behind this film was firmly in the hands of the departments of dress and dance.  We suspect they wrote the screenplay too.

Prabhas is Chotu, stolen from his parents as a baby by a local wild-haired Fagin like figure, Chidambaram (played by Makrand Deshpande who is familiar to us from Swades). Chotu spends his whole life trying to find his family, and keeps in touch with Chidambaram, who is now in jail.

Chidambaram, dodgy mentor and dubious father figure, often says God plays kabadi or chess with people’s lives but he seems to have a fair go at playing kabadi with Chotu’s life himself. Chotu makes a living as a bounty hunter. He is a thug on the side of the law, and probably more morally upright than many of those in uniform. His rowdy bashing brings him into contact with local thug Jani.

Kangana is the local guitar teacher, whose brother is in the gang headed by Jani Bhai. Her neighbours happen to be Prabhas’ long lost parents and also the parents of Kailash, a killer in Jani‘s gang (yes, that does make him Chotu’s brother so you can see where this might be heading).  She is a standard film heroine – not much to do but run after the hero and away from the bad guys once she sorts out who is who. We kept waiting for her more usual persona with the drugs and tortured psyche to turn up, but the most tortured thing about her were the hotpants.  Kangana’s character started off quite promisingly, if unbelievably, as a guitar teacher but was quickly relegated to the sidelines.

Budget conscious directors please note the sensible use of hotel bathrobes for backing dancers, and the minimal fabric required for the girls:

Sonu Sood is Jani Bhai, the local crimelord and fixer for crooked politicians. He seems to think he is a misunderstood hero, although it is clear he is a petulant psychopath with possible colour blindness.  Let’s just take a moment and appreciate Jani’s style. He seems to subscribe to the Shahid Kapoor school of shirt buttoning:

 

 

 

 

 

It’s obvious (to us) why Jani feels he doesn’t get the respect he is due.

 

 

 

 

 

Rather than come out and say ‘man, it’s about the scarves!’ his gang pretend they don’t notice. Sonu does struggle to keep a straight face in some scenes, which is understandable given the outfits and dialogue, but still detracts from his supposed villainy

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Brahmanandam and Ali take care of the separate comedy side plot, and it’s not their finest work. Brahmi is a guru married to a young and lovely woman and Ali is his Captain Jack Sparrow inspired rival. There is a small comedy track with Venu Madhav as the loser enamoured of Sameera who gets beaten up by a horde of angry ladies wielding snake beans . And another unnecessary comedy track involving Sunil and the ladies of Bangkok.  None of these scenes make any sense and don’t add anything to the story, having the opposite effect of distracting us instead.

There is all the usual confusion and heavy-handed signalling of things to come. Prabhas and his parents cross paths over and over. They talk, they share food, and they know each other as neighbours. This was probably supposed to be tantalising in the ‘will they or won’t they recognise each other’ arc, but really didn’t create any sense of urgency or tension. Veeraiah (Tanikella Bharani) and his wife (Sangeeta) are really just there as something for Chotu to miss and allow Prabhas more excuses to perfect his sad puppy look.

More could have been made of the contrast between the two brothers, one who grew up with loving parents but turned to a life of crime, and the other who grew up in a gang of beggars and thieves but ended up fighting crime. There is lots of predictable action: running, fighting and crying (Prabhas), running, crying and squealing (Kangana), and drinking, whinging and rampaging (Sonu). There are multiple double-crosses and switches of allegiance in the course of the story but throughout it all, Chotu is the hero and always does what is more or less right, a bit of slapping excepted. His enemies are all bad guys – they deserve what’s coming to them!

The climax of the film is set in Bangkok, as all the characters are beset by coincidence and end up there for no apparent reason. It includes a really peculiar tribute to Michael Jackson, starring Erina (that item girl from Arya 2). It’s refreshing to see people missing MJ for the great artist he was rather than focussing on all the weirdness, despite the somewhat odd placement of the song and its lack of connection to anything else in the film. Finally, Jani gets his comeuppance, thanks partly to long suffering Brahmaji (Brahmaji) and everyone goes home to continue the great divine kabadi match.

The supporting performers, and there are possibly too many of them, do what they have done so many times over. Tanikella Bharani is wasted in his role as he is at best a background presence. Posani Krishna Murali is an uninhibited and unhinged politician with a murderous intent and an equally strong fear of being caught, and outdoes Sonu Sood in scenery chewing. Makrand Deshpande manages to make Chidambaram memorable and imbues the drunken conman with a level of pathos and complexity this film didn’t really deserve.

Prabhas wasn’t granted any immunity from crimes of fashion, switching from jeans & solid colour shirts to the more exotic in the blink of an eye.

The Mani Sharma soundtrack isn’t particularly memorable, and does borrow heavily from western songs. Choreography by Pradeep Anthony seems to be designed to show Prahbas in the best possible light, so is rather hilarious on occasion, possibly intentionally. Maybe not. We are particularly delighted by how lame this one looks – is there any cliché from the 80s that they missed?

A suitably silly offering for the festive season.

Temple says: This is just daft from beginning to end. Entertaining, but really daft. The story is improbable, which is not unusual, and the costumes are ridiculous which is also par for the course, but they go all out in their chosen direction which I find pleasing. What does set it apart from a mediocre pot-boiler are the performances which are pretty good. Prabhas is gawky and always seems slightly startled to find himself dancing away like a mad thing. I really like Kangana in this and I thought she handled the light heroine role with ease. It was nice to see her not play a character with overwhelming problems (apart from the overwhelmingly silly plot). Sonu Sood pretty much reprised this role in Dabangg and I think he enjoys being a villain, although I would like a bit more serious darkness from his performances from time to time. The support cast were good but there were too many of them cluttering up the story and not really going anywhere. The plethora of comedy sidekicks was just annoying and for the most, lacking in comedy.

The soundtrack is average and really, without the spectacular visuals the songs don’t hold up so well. The movie is dominated by Prabhas and Sonu Sood – I think they have a long and promising hero-bad guy future ahead of them. They’re on the same eye-level so it must make those dramatic glaring scenes a lot easier to film too as they both fit in the same frame!  And please give a round of applause to the wardrobe team who made it possible for me to watch this film again and still be thoroughly entertained. I didn’t even use ALL the scarfy screencaps in the post. Imagine what you’ll discover when you watch it for yourself! This gets 3 stars from me.

Heather says:  This really is a very silly film! Just when you think they can’t possibly get anything more ridiculous for Jani Bhai to wear – they do! And every song just has more and more amazing moments and totally over the top choreography – I love it! There is something very endearing about Prabhas, maybe because he is just that little bit tall and looks slightly awkward. He is always entertaining to watch as he throws absolutely everything into his role, and Ek Niranjan is no exception. While Sonu Sood does go a little overboard in his villainy, Prabhas manages to keep the story in sight and delivers a credible performance. The interplay between the various gang members, the various twists and double crosses and the posturing and menace between Jani Bhai and Chotu really lifts this a bit above the usual good guys bad guys movie.  I would have liked a little more focus on the hunt by Chotu for his parents and there could have been a nice contrast between the two brothers.  But the performance by Makrand Deshpande as Chidambaram made up for that lack as he really is excellent in his role.

Some not so good points. The comedy with Brahmi and Ali is irritating at best, and Sunil is also wasted in his weak comedy role.  Venu Madhav’s comedy track at least has some relevance even if it isn’t particularly funny.  The other disappointment is Kangana, who looks out of place and uncomfortable for much of the film. She really doesn’t seem to fit the guitar teacher role at all, and has very little rapport with the kids.  However as the film progresses and there is more interaction with Prabhas, she did loosens up and is a little more convincing.  An unsatisfactory performance when I know she is capable of much better than this.  However these are small quibbles when looked at against the truly amazing endeavours of the wardrobe department. Overall an amusing film and although I won’t watch the entire film often, the songs are definitely worth a number of viewings. 4 stars

Om Shanti Om

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Farah Khan is one of the very few directors currently working in Bollywood who is making our kind of masala movie.  We loved Main Hoon Na and since her next project, Tees Maar Khan, is about to release it seems fitting to start our Christmas silly season with one of the last great masala films we saw in the cinema – Om Shanti Om (OSO).

SRK plays Om Prakash Makhija, a junior artiste who, along with his friend Pappu (Shreyas Talpade), is struggling for work in Hindi films in the seventies. The film opens with a wonderful take on Rishi Kapoor’s Om Shanti Om from Karz which foreshadows the reincarnation romance drama musical about to unfold.  There is some clever use of the original footage and we felt right from the beginning that we were going to love this! The retro setting also lets Farah Khan and Red Chillies show off some fab CGI work in their tribute to past filmi legends.

Om falls in love with one of the big stars of the time, Shantipriya or Shanti, played by Deepika Padukone.  Naturally, since this is after all Bollywood, such a romance is destined to face obstacles, as Shantipriya is a big star and Om is a nobody.

There are some wonderful scenes where Om woos Shanti, both heart-wrenchingly romantic and hilarious, particularly the scenes when he pretends to be a Southern Indian film star breaking into Bollywood. This was fun at the time, but even better now that we have had the opportunity to see where Farah took her inspiration from! Shanti is secretly married to sleazy Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal) and this of course presents both a barrier to Om’s happiness, and a great opportunity for some excellent SRK emoting.

Inevitably, Om discovers Shantipriya’s secret and his heart is broken.  Again Farah Khan manages to take some poignant moments and intersperse them with some classic filmi devices to make the resulting song both sad and funny.

Since Om is the hero, he still fights to save Shanti when Mukesh determines she must die to protect his own career.  Om is badly injured in the confrontation and dies (eventually) in a nearby hospital, at the exact same time as big star Rajesh Kapoor’s wife is delivered of a son. A son who has a mysterious birthmark that looks a lot like a significant tattoo. Yes!

This baby grows into Om Kapoor; a spoilt self-indulgent actor resting on his father’s laurels and a trial to all who know him. Adored by his fans, he feels that he can do no wrong until he remembers his past life, grows up a little and resolves to bring about justice for his lost love, Shantipriya.

There is plenty of comedy, particularly for anyone who knows something about the films, actors and different factions in Bollywood.  There are many sly digs at the industry’s predilection for nepotism, all tongue in cheek and very funny! SRK is not exempt from Farah’s sharp wit: as he arrives for a film shoot, one of the bystanders comments “I thought he’d be taller”. Kirron Kher is in fine form as Om’s ‘filmi’ mother, and she has some fabulous scenery chewing moments. Shreyas Talpade and SRK have some fun scenes together and really seemed to enjoy hamming it up as junior artistes.

Although a lot of the humour is contained in the dialogues, there are plenty of physical gags, and even the sad scenes have an element of comedy.  While Farah Khan is poking fun at the very typical filmi devices, she is also acknowledging these older films that she clearly loves.  OSO is a paean to these masala greats and we were inspired to track down many of the scenes she referenced.

There is also plenty of drama.  While most of the scenes are deliberately over-acted to get as many laughs as possible, there were some genuinely moving moments.  The scenes between Om and his ‘filmi ma’ and his friendship with Pappu were given as much care and emotion as the romantic scenes with Shanti and the confrontations with Mukesh.  The film loses momentum a little towards the end, but only for a moment and it soon picks up the pace with the final Andrew Lloyd-Webber inspired showdown.

The entire film seems to have been written to display SRK at his best.  He brings every nuance of the role to life and manages seemingly effortlessly to turn scenes from happy to sad to totally ridiculous and have us following along accepting every ridiculous turn of the plot.

This was Deepika Padukone’s debut film and Farah Khan seems to have gotten much more out of her than any directors since.  Although she is wooden in her earlier scenes as Shantipriya, she suits her modern day character of Sandy better and she comes to life in the songs.

The support actors, in particular Shreyas Talpade and Arjun Rampal are well cast in their roles. Being a Farah Khan film, of course the songs are exceptionally well choreographed and filmed.  One of the things we appreciate Farah for is her determination that her leading men should be objectified as much as, if not a little more than, the glamorous heroines. She outdoes herself with Dard-e-Disco which has hilariously bad lyrics (apparently she kept telling Javed Akhtar to make his lyrics worse) and is full of gratuitous shots of SRK in, emerging from, and being doused with, water.

Any good masala film must also have great costumes, and OSO delivers in this regard.  The outfits from the 70’s are thoroughly of their period and stunning in their garishness and we loved them.  Shantipriya wears some beautiful clothes and the depiction of Om as an actor means we get to see him in an array of costumes.  There are plenty of fight scenes too, with the best reserved for the Southern Indian film episode.

Much of the film industry seems to have got behind Farah with her multi-starrer song Deewangi Deewangi.  It was a fantastic feat to get so many actors to take part, and we had great fun spotting some of the stars of yesteryear and their signature moves.  The satire on the Filmfare awards was partly filmed during the actual ceremony and it is very good humoured of both Filmfare and the array of famous actors to take part. We weren’t quite so enamoured of Bappi Lahiri’s singing on the red carpet but he is a legend in his own blinged up disco way.

The story of OSO is perhaps predictable, but the great performances and the exceptional production values more than make up for that.  We are quite sure that there are a lot more jokes in there that we just didn’t get, despite repeated viewings.  At the end of this film, we both looked at each other immediately said  ‘What the fish? Again – we want to watch it again!’

Heather says: I think I saw this film at least 5 times in the cinema. Farah is excellent at showcasing her obvious love of cinema, and while she pokes fun at the entire industry it’s not with any malice. As a director she seems to know exactly what her audience wants and then delivers. Although her story doesn’t make much sense that’s not what I remember from the film. Its much more about the humour, the costumes and the excellent performances on screen. Being a huge SRK fan I can (and have) watched him in really dreadful bad films, but it is so refreshing to watch him where the director knows how to get the very best out of every scene. I totally loved the songs by Vishal-Shekkar, and they still make me smile and dance when I play them to-day. The continual references back to older films were a huge plus, and the clever re-working of old clips in Dhoom Tana was fantastic! Everything works well together; the casting is right, fantastic songs and costumes, great choreography and all tied together by a great script. Om Shanti Om is exactly what masala means for me, including the lack of logic in the plot! Please Farah, can we have some more? 5 stars

Temple says: This film is like the very best kind of Easter Egg hunt. Everywhere you look there are sparkly little treats and jokes, and beautiful tributes to other much-loved films. I really enjoyed the nod to every filmi cliche that could possibly be used, and the cheerful ransacking of seminal images from Hindi films of the past. I also loved seeing Pyarelal back up in the credits and on the red carpet! The performances really were very good, from the headline stars to the smallest special appearance and I felt that all the performers shared a love of the 70s film industry and it’s products, so they seemed to give it their best. For all the cheesy fluff, the film-making team also did a very intelligent thing with the Om Shanti equation in the modern era by not making it a romance. Om had no intention of, um, completing his earlier relationship with the newer model, just of seeing justice done for his past life’s true love. It made me a lot more willing to sit through repeated viewings of the slightly draggy second half as there wasn’t that squick factor. I also enjoyed seeing SRK revel in his ability to portray unpleasant characters – he was cold, calculating and quite repellent as OK in some scenes, and got to use more than his lauded five expressions.

Farah Khan has great attention to detail and everything from the costumes (where on earth did they find all those fabulous fabrics?)  to the music suited her vision perfectly. And the now trademark exuberant closing credits were a perfect finish to a great journey and sent the cinema audience out on a high. I loved being swept up in this, and feeling that little bit clever for recognising some of the references. Would you appreciate this film if you knew nothing about its source materials? Yes, I think so. It has so much colour, energy, heart and humour that there is something for everyone. Well, no machetes but I can’t really begrudge that tiny lack. And I was certainly inspired to go find or re-watch some of the classic scenes pilfered for use in OSO. Farah Khan as brand ambassador for Masala Pradesh? She’s got my vote! 5 stars!

Aayutha Ezhuthu

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A little bit of research informs us that Aayutha Ezhuthu was supposed to be a call to the youth of the nation to take up politics and generally to encourage political awareness. We really don’t know if this was true, since this film seems to show that life in politics is apt to be short, violent and fraught with danger. In addition, the wily politician who sets up the main characters seems to be thriving through his various corrupt dealings, so perhaps the film serves more to show what the problems are within the system. Aayutha Ezhuthu uses the converging storylines of three characters to set the scene and their subsequent interactions form the rest of the story. As the story unfolds the film becomes more of a straight ‘good guys’ vs. ‘bad guys’ although it’s not totally clear who exactly are the ‘good guys’ here.

The film opens with three main characters following their own storylines in traffic on a bridge. The same scene is shown from the viewpoint of each of these three and, after each vignette, we are shown that same character’s life in the few months prior.

First we meet Inba, played by Madhavan in an uncharacteristically brutal role for him.  He is a thug, who works for his brother mainly ensuring a local politicians campaign runs smoothly. Inba beats his wife and almost casually chooses violence over any other form of social interaction. Inba’s current employer, Selvanayagam the local politician played by Bharathiraja, is the spider in the centre of the web.  He employs Inba to police his rallies, and is in direct conflict with the second character in the drama, Michael.  Through their involvement with each other, the third, Arjun is drawn into the fray.

Suriya plays Michael Vasanth, a student, apparently a mathematical genius and also a political activist.  Not for him the more normal student methods of agitation such as demonstrations or debates, he prefers to be more direct in his approach and encourages retaliatory action.  This brings him into direct conflict with Selvanayagam and thus ultimately with Inba.  Suriya also seems out of place in his role.  He is muscular and obviously powerful, which doesn’t fit the image of a serious scholarship winning student.  His solution to problems faced by local villagers seems to be almost as confrontational as Inba’s violent tactics.  He appears belligerent and selfish as we see him brush off his mother’s concerns and treat his girlfriend badly. Although it is quite conceivable that students will use such extreme tactics, as has frequently been seen in many countries of the world, this approach just felt wrong with these characters. Perhaps this was partly an issue with the subtitles which may not have conveyed the dialogues accurately, but Michael came across as a very unpleasant character and his political aspirations felt more self-serving and less for the public good than perhaps was intended.

The final character in the drama is Arjun, played by Siddharth.  A playboy who has just finished his studies and plans to head to the US, Sid at least seems to fit the role he has been given.  His approach to life seems much more in keeping with his character and his pursuit of Meera, while typically filmi does feel much more genuine than Michael’s relationship.  By a series of coincidences all three are on the same bridge at the same time.  Inba uses this opportunity to get rid of Michael by shooting him, which sends him falling into the river past Arjun’s shocked gaze.

The storylines all converge at this point, and the aftermath of the confrontation is played out to its bloody and somewhat inevitable conclusion given the arrogance and brutality of the main characters.

What are much more interesting about this film are the female characters.  Although she is regularly abused by Inba, his wife Sasi is a very strong personality who is determined to wean him away from his brother’s influence and stop his forays into crime. Their relationship is very realistically portrayed by Meera Jasmine who is fantastic as the battered wife. Despite her family’s objections to her husband, Sasi enlists them to help get Inba a job, so she obviously has great powers of persuasion.  Madhavan’s scenes with her are the best in the film and she was very compelling in her performance. Trisha in her role as Meera is less of a driving character, but she is part of the reason why Arjun changes his playboy ways as he slowly falls in love with her.  She is convincing and effective in the initial scenes, but towards the end of the film she appears to be sidelined. Esha Deol plays Geetha, who is involved with Michael.  There is a lot of potential in their relationship as he doesn’t want to get married and asks Geetha to move in with him instead.  This opportunity to look at the issues surrounding marriage and commitment is squandered as the theme is never really developed further.  Geetha lies to her parents and to Michael’s mother and never really becomes anything other than the woman in Michael’s life.

However these three women, as well as the various female characters that stand for election in the story, seem to be at least an attempt to show women as other than just the pretty wife, girlfriend or daughter.  There is more meat to their roles here, although it’s not sustained and ultimately only Sasi makes a lasting impact.

Because of the belligerence behind Michael’s actions it’s hard to see him as one of the good guys.  The virtual worship of him by the other students contributes to the impression of arrogance and he imposes his will on everyone around him without any seeming thought to the consequence.  Despite his thuggish ways, Inba appears as the more sympathetic character as he is genuinely trying to change his ways, but cannot get out of the cycle of violence he has lived with all his life.  The supporting characters all seem to have their own agendas as well, keeping the whole feel of the film as one of corruption and deceit.  The only genuine people seem to be the villagers caught up in the struggle for their village. While the film tries to be a statement on youth and politics, the end result seems to disregard Michael’s supposed motivation and political ambition and highlight the futility of anything other than corruption and violence as a means to achieve and hold on to power.  The secondary plot line of Inba’s attempts to escape his violent lifestyle is much better handled. While Meera Jasmine is the standout performance, both Trisha and Esha Deol ultimately aren’t given enough screen time to be effective.  A special mention for Sriman who played the character of Dilli, and was excellent in his role as Inba’s conscience.

Heather says: I really didn’t like this film.  For me it may have worked better if the casting of Madhavan and Suriya had been the other way round.  I found that Suriya didn’t fit the image of a student at all. He is too old and not convincing, while Madhavan in his role switches between mayhem and maniacally happy.  This didn’t seem to fit either the characters lifestyle or generally bleak prospects.  As a man recently released from prison, with a pregnant wife and no real job aspirations other than working for his brother, the ‘crazy happy’ was difficult to swallow.  Some of this was to show the reason why his wife stayed with him, and indeed some of these scenes were much less overdone.  This may have been a directorial decision as Abhishek Bachchan appears very similar in his characterisation of Beera in Raavan. I stuck with the film mainly because of the relationship between Inba and Sasi which was very well portrayed. Siddarth’s character was also quite watchable, and overall the story was interesting, but I was very tempted to fast forward every time Suriya was on screen. I have liked him in the other films I have seen him in and was horrified by him in this.  I really wanted his character to die as quickly as possible, just so that I did have to suffer through his flexing and belligerence.  I wish I had liked this film more but thought it was a potentially good story that for me was ruined by bad choices in the cast and poor directorial decisions. 2 1/2 stars from me.

Temple says:  This is another film that, like Leader, is well made but not likeable. I have issues with the character of Michael and his immunity from consequences. Everyone around him is made to pay for his activism but he escapes with a few flesh wounds. Surya was unappealing as he seemed to show only the arrogance of Michael and gave me nothing to respect in that character. Unlike Heather, I really liked Madhavan’s performance in this. I thought he really made sense of Inba and Sasi’s relationship, and showed the complexity of his character. He was boyishly impulsive, and casually brutal in turns. He showed the pressure Inba felt to be a man’s man and ignore his wife unless they were behind closed doors. Their relationship was compelling as Meera Jasmine showed the gamut of attraction and repulsion depending on which side of her husband’s nature was dominating.  I didn’t get the impression he was ‘crazy happy’, he was just a thoughtless guy who wanted what he wanted, and was happy so long as things ran his way. I thought the whole cast, with the exception of Surya, did a good job and made the most of their roles. I did have to laugh (a lot) at the idea of Esha Deol teaching French though! So, while I don’t like the inherent message that corruption is OK as long as you say you mean well, I do think this film was compelling and well made. The only disappointment was the lack of follow through on what seemed to be interesting roles for women. 4 stars from me.