Category Archives: Bollywood

Tashan

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Tashan is not really a good film. I am at best indifferent to the cast. And yet I have a fondness for the movie that surprises me. Maybe it’s nostalgia for the total masala style, maybe the excellent work by the costume department, or the spectacular locations. But if you need to see a colourful movie that makes you throw popcorn at the screen and at your friends, this could be quite rewarding.

Vijay Krishna Acharya opens his film with Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan) in a car, underwater, and at gunpoint. How he got there takes up the first half. Most of the fun seeing this was the “surely they’re not…oh yes, they did!” moments and laughing at the shenanigans as the cast justify the next big set piece. There is a heavy use of flashbacks and characters speaking directly to the viewer so it heightens the unrealistic and fantastical mood, as do the songs. Jimmy and Pooja (Kareena Kapoor Khan) meet when Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor) hires Jimmy as his English tutor. As Bhaiyyaji mangles every language he knows, Jimmy and Pooja fall in love. There is the matter of Pooja’s debt to Bhaiyajji, but there are also cases full of cash coming to the office every month. Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar), is an unhinged hitman hired by Bhaiyyaji. He is told to get Jimmy and Pooja and all manner of double crosses and shenanigans ensue. Who is what they seem, and who can you trust, especially when large sums of money are at stake? Things get complicated. And then everything blows up.

Saif Ali Khan used to be quite appealing when he was the second lead. As a leading man, he is inexplicable. It’s not that he doesn’t try to act, and it’s not just the porno moustache, it seems that his charisma has the depth of a teaspoon. And what is with the red belt he wears for the whole film? He is almost completely superfluous to the second half, yet he clearly refused to go home and just hung around whining until they promised him a big heroic Dhoom style action scene. Jimmy is not heroic though. He is self-serving most of the time, and a sleaze. He didn’t so much evolve as have a character transplant for a few minutes. I think one of the biggest issues is that the only person Saif seemed to have chemistry with was himself. He had a gleam in his eye when talking to himself or direct to camera, which was lacking in ensemble scenes.

Kareena has total commitment to the trout pout but Pooja is an interesting character who does more than pose. She does seem to have a polarising effect on the wardrobe team, or maybe it’s just their special way of showing love. Pooja is manipulative, and she has a clear goal in mind. Her romantic scenes with Jimmy have no spark to speak of, where her crackling chemistry with Bachchan is evident as is their knockabout friendship. Unlike Jimmy, Pooja has lots of layers to her character to reveal. Her contribution to the final fight scene is quite something, and I may have cheered out loud. Nice to see a lady causing the distress and staying ahead of the game.

I feel I ought to like Akshay Kumar more. But I have flashbacks to Tees Maar Khan (one of only two films I have walked out on) and I retrospectively dislike his films I may once have been more tolerant towards. And there is the established Youtube Poker rule that Akshay and a body of water will result in something hideously disturbing. But his Bachchan Pande is the saving grace of this film in so many ways. He is overwhelmingly self-confident, handy in a fight, and not overly complex intellectually or emotionally. And he has an excellent intro scene. Bachchan is also the one character with real principles, so I found myself caring more about what happened to him. Akshay gets lots of action scenes (by Peter Hein so you know, it’s pretty cool) as well as some discombobulated hick comedy, and it suits him down to the ground. And the shoe department agreed his grounding is important – he gets some excellent and flamboyant footwear.

God, I feel for the team that had to remove Anil Kapoor’s pelt. You know there would have been hedge trimmers first, then electric clippers, then waxing. I reckon we’re talking at least a full day of hard labour. My friend interviewed Anil a few years ago and told me ” One of my opening remarks was: “Anil, you have a lot of hair for your age. Is it hair weaving?” He pulled up his jacket like this and I quickly told him I got the drift…” I’m haunted by that anecdote. Anyway, his performance is fun and so over the top it all kind of makes sense. Unlike his outfits. Bhaiyyaji is determined to make it to the big league of dons and never averse to a bit of killing and mayhem along the way. His mangled Hinglish is hilarious and a bit sad as he worships Jimmy’s ability to speak like George Bush or Prince Charlie. Starting out as an urbane businessman he deteriorates into a snarling (shaved) beast, and Anil Kapoor goes all out.

The Vishal-Sekhar songs are what they need to be for a film, and the picturisations range from WTF to delicately lovely, making the most of their spectacular locations. Nothing can really explain “Dil Dance Maare” though. Kareena is more of a gyrate on the spot kind of dancer, and Saif does uncle stomping with a bit of flailing so I didn’t see much value added by Vaibhavi Merchant there, although the backing dancers earn their money.

Tashan is the kind of film that takes off and doesn’t stop until it stops. It’s high on visual impact and the pace never drags. See it if you need a rattling masala timepass, and don’t mind characters breaking laws of the land, laws of logic, and laws of physics. 3 ½ stars!

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil

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You know what you’re going to get with a Karan Johar film and his latest film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil doesn’t contain any surprises. As usual the film is all about unbelievably wealthy characters who look fabulous, live in amazing houses and agonise over simple human relationships the way only the truly idle rich can afford to do. It’s fluff, but beautifully filmed fluff that makes for a reasonable time-pass if you can ignore the few serious flaws that prevent the film from being a total success.

The film follows the antics of Ayan Sanger (Ranbir Kapoor) as he wastes his father’s money while studying an MBA in London and secretly dreaming of becoming a singer. One night he meets Alizeh Khan (Anushka Sharma) another rich kid who doesn’t even get a back story to explain her family wealth or her presence in London. Despite already having a girlfriend (Lisa Haydon), Ayan falls head over heels in love with Alizeh but unfortunately for Ayan, Alizeh is also already in a relationship (although unlike him she has no qualms about a quick one-night stand) and has no interest in anything other than friendship. Alizeh still has feeling for her ex – a DJ with a roving eye (Fawad Khan) and there is no room in her heart for anyone else.

It’s a wafer thin story and the theme of unrequited love is one that’s been told many times before, but that’s not the problem with the film. The biggest flaw here is Ranbir’s character Ayan who seems to be the worst possible reprise of almost every role Ranbir has played to date. Ayan is an overly emotional man-child with anger management issues who depends on his partner’s maturity and tolerance to solve all his problems for him. Like JJ in Rockstar, Ayan blames the object of his unrequited love for his issues and totally fails to see that only he can take responsibility for his own emotions. It’s hard to feel any empathy for such a self-centred character, particularly when he behaves like a five-year-old, bawling his eyes out when his girlfriend leaves him and pushing Alizeh around when she doesn’t fall into line. At least Alizeh pushes back, but this kind of violence without repercussions is just not acceptable and has no place in any film that purports to be a ‘romance’. Ranbir puts in a good performance, possibly no-one can pull off bratty man-child as well as he can, but his character here is too obnoxious for me and I seriously questioned Alizeh’s judgement when she decided that Ayan was her BFF.

My other big issue is the dreadful cliché used to resolve Ayan’s emotional immaturity at the end of the film. It’s such a let-down and a weak finale, especially when Ayan’s behaviour becomes even more appallingly self-centred and he is quite brutal in his treatment of Alizeh.  It’s disappointing as there are plenty of good points to the film too, but with the end such a let-down the overall feeling on leaving the cinema is one of dissatisfaction.

It’s not all bad though and the first half in particular has plenty to enjoy. Thankfully, apart from her poor friend choice, Anushka Sharma’s Alizeh is a more sympathetic character and appears charming and likeable, even in her loyalty to her philandering boyfriend. Her decision to marry DJ Ali despite her awareness of his indiscretions rings true to real life relationships, and the mistaken but frequent belief in marriage as a cure for infidelity. As if! Alas, Alizeh’s love for Ali seems much greater than Ali’s love for Alizeh and both Anushka Sharma and Fawad Khan are excellent in their portrayals of this mismatched couple in a seemingly doomed relationship.

What also works well is the friendship between Ayan and Alizeh, which sparkles off the screen in the first half. I love that they have a shared love of old cheesy Bollywood songs (after all, who doesn’t!) and that they re-enact them on the snowy slopes of Europe. As someone who has run around Golkonda in Hyderabad trailing a scarf and singing the songs from Magadheera, I have immediate rapport with anyone attempting the same thing, especially when they take the time to dress appropriately for the occasion! There are a few glimpses as flashbacks in the song below but this scene is definitely worth catching in the cinema and for me was totally worth the price of admission alone.

Anushka Sharma is the best thing about the film and her portrayal of Alizeh’s down to earth pragmatism and sheer common sense ensure she is the most relatable character on-screen. She looks great and gives Alizeh plenty of pep and personality to counteract frequently Ranbir’s snivelling Ayan. It’s not that Ranbir doesn’t put in a good performance – he does – but his character is nothing he hasn’t done before and in this instance his immaturity is particularly annoying when compared to the other characters in the film.

Also excellent is Aishwarya Rai Bachchan who appears in the second half as a divorced poet Saba Khan. Saba begins a love affair with Ayan just as his heart is broken by Alizeh’s marriage and the two have an interesting relationship.  Ayan is as callous and immature as ever, but hs a genuine affection for Saba, while she is mature enough to revel in a love affair that has no expectations. Aishwarya is stunningly beautiful and gracefully elegant as she swans around her amazing apartment in Vienna, again with no indication of how a supposedly struggling poet could afford to live somewhere quite so spectacular and expensively furnished. Of course there is her ex-husband (Shah Rukh Khan in a brief cameo) who is supposedly a successful artist, and is still in love with his ex-wife so perhaps he is happy to fund her wealthy lifestyle. The relationship between Ayan and Saba is much better realised than that of Ayan and Alizeh, and here the contrast between Saba’s maturity and Ayan’s self-centred youth makes for a more plausible relationship. Even the way it ends is well written and perfectly acted by Ranbir and Aishwarya, something that makes the final scenes even more disappointing in comparison. After all if K-Jo could write this part of the story so well, why not have such a satisfying conclusion to the main relationship too?

I wanted to like As Dil Hai Mushkil more as there are some very funny moments and clever situations in the first half that work really well. The songs are good, the sets spectacular and all the actors perform well. But no matter how much I enjoyed the friendship between Ayan and Alizeh, or the relationship between Ayan and Saba, it’s all overshadowed by the clichéd ending and the general unpleasantness of Ayan’s character. Worth watching for Aishwarya and Anushka and the wonderful re-enactment in the snow but be prepared for the banality of the ending and seen-it-all-before sameness of  Ranbir’s character.

Yaadein (1964)

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There is something almost hilariously over the top about the set up for Yaadein, as the title credits declare this a “one actor only film”. But it is Sunil Dutt at the helm and in front of the camera, and he made some very interesting films and film choices over the years. Yaadein is neither as bombastic nor simple as it seems at first glance, and doesn’t come across as a vanity project.

The camera tracks through an empty house with a lovely romantic melody accompanying the fluttering draperies and stylish interiors. A man comes home on this dark stormy night and finds the house empty, his wife and children gone. Being a Hindi film hero, Anil (Sunil Dutt) assumes the worst.

He wanders around calling for his wife Priya but the place is deserted. He looked quite terrified when he wandered into the kitchen and there was no dinner left for him. What on earth!

He gets a phone call and spends a few minutes chatting with someone and seems to be cheered up after the call. But his game of manic hide and seek around the house soon turns to melancholy as he flirts and declares his love for…a statue. And then through phone calls, a note, and a lot of talking to himself we learn that he and Priya had a huge row recently, that she is good as gold and he is not so much and there seems to be another woman in his life.

Dutt uses lots of tricky camera angles, shifting perspectives, lots of sound effects, and uses objects to trigger more of Anil’s introspection and reactions. It’s appropriately noir-ish when Anil’s thoughts turn dark. Akhtar ul-Iman wrote the script and I wish that I’d had subtitles as I missed a lot of detail, but think I got the gist of it. Anil is demanding, pleading, bargaining and eventually depressed as he works through something akin to the Kübler-Ross model.

He is full of bravado when he yells at the empty house that he can cook with his own hands and straps on an apron. Then he moves on to trying to boil a kettle. Well. He is going to need building maintenance to sort out the flood in the kitchen. He is useless, especially when distracted by memories of Priya.

He relives their early relationship when he was first bowled over by Priya, wandering around extolling her virtues and mumbling “Kya Ladki Hai!”. Anil is a sensual man who appreciates the heady days of new love and physical passion. He was overjoyed at the birth of his son but hadn’t stopped to think about actually raising a child and what that might mean to his lifestyle. Especially the no late nights rule, which he breaks almost immediately, and the separate beds. At one stage Anil does a very cheesy striptease, and although there is no Priya in the scene I could feel her total lack of interest.

Despite this being a One Actor Film, there are other actors involved. There are phone calls, party guests and other characters heard but not seen in flashbacks. I couldn’t recognise all the voices and caricatures though. We see Shyama, the probable other woman as one of many airy gas filled guests at a party. I love the stylised caricatures and balloon people that stand in for other characters. A party scene is filmed in front of a very 60s cartoon panel depicting a jazzy party. Vasant Desai’s music is lush and melancholy, a perfect match. And Sunil Dutt really doesn’t miss a beat no matter what he is acting at.

His longing for Priya is palpable but when she refuses to have sex he pokes her with a hairpin and has a childish tantrum. He was a spoilt manchild himself and while he loved his kids he resented the way they forced new priorities and demands that aren’t all about him into his blissful life.

The emotional waves seem to flood in a bit suddenly. I mean, he could have just called her parents and asked if they knew where she was, or gone out to have a look. He seems so utterly sure they are gone forever despite all the things she has left in the house – her hairbrush, clothes, jewellery, her lipstick that he tastes as though he is kissing her again. But the emotions do ring true even if I think the person having them might be overdoing it. He does go a bit over the top but we are not seeing Anil’s physical reality, more his remembered events and emotions with all the distortions of time and memory, and with himself firmly at the centre.

He passes out after a particularly energetic flashback to his kids tormenting him. Finally he is attacked by toys. The snarling mechanical lion is not all that terrifying but Dutt emotes fiercely enough for both of them. His disturbance turns into a full blown breakdown, and he becomes suicidal partly because he has been abandoned and partly because he knows he doesn’t deserve another chance.

Sidenote: There is a very silly game based on the actor William Shatner. The rules are simple. If someone shouts “SHATNER” at you, you have to overact whatever you are doing at that moment. And at times I wondered if there was a prototype of that game called “DUTT”.

Despite her absence, it is the woman who shapes the movie. The gap she leaves in Anil’s life, the way he has taken her for granted, the infidelities and inconsiderate behaviour he regrets. He realises he was incredibly lucky to have her and it is devastating to him, who has always been so suave and devil may care, that losing her may be all his own doing. Everything that is good and real in his life is represented by his unseen but ever present wife. But will she return? And what will she do if she sees the mess he has made of their home? I’d have turned around and walked back out if it was me!

Despite the heavy subject and the intense focus on Anil, Yaadein is not a chore to watch and it doesn’t feel claustrophobic. There is suspense, humour, some facepalm moments, and some beautifully sensual and romantic scenes. I’m not sure I’d watch it over and over, but I certainly recommend it as an engaging artistic project made by an interesting director who had a clear and individual vision. 4 stars! (a little upgrade from my original thought of 3 ½ for the sheer vision and commitment)