Tag Archives: Malaika Arora

Athidhi

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I liked this film the first time I saw it, but rewatching for this review it didn’t make quite the same impact.  However I still enjoyed the Mahesh/Amrita Rao combination and both actors do what they can in what’s essentially an over-blown and excessively dramatic story.  There isn’t too much comedy which makes it a little more appealing, and although it’s fairly dark and quite violent in parts, it’s all much too over the top to take seriously.  There is good chemistry between the lead pair and a suitably maniacal villain who refers to himself in the third person but be prepared for a lot of fake blood (even some that’s CGI), plenty of gunfights and a number of plots points that require major suspension of disbelief.

The film starts with some cute child actors who play the young Mahesh and Amrita.  Chhotu is an orphan who gets the fairly standard ‘Indian filmi orphan abuse’ from all and sundry while still managing to have ideals and a reasonable wardrobe.  One day while selling balloons, he gives one to a young girl leaving school even though she hasn’t got any money but promises to pay him the next day. Later, she gives him an umbrella which makes a big impression since it seems no-one has ever given Chhotu anything before.  After he stops their car and warns the young Amrita’s parents about a wash-out in the road ahead, they decide to take him home and begin to adopt him into their family.

They give the young boy the name Athidhi as he is their ‘guest’, but when the parents are gunned down by a psychotic thief one night, it’s Athidhi who gets the blame for the double murder.  Because of course that makes sense!

Athidhi is sentenced to 13 years in jail, and after his release devotes his time to finding the real killer. He’s also determined to find Amrita and make sure she’s happy but is hampered in both his endeavours by a major lack of information about both the identity of the murderer and the location of Amrita.  On the plus side he does have a picture of the killer since the thief left a wallet containing his photograph behind at the scene of the crime, but there are no other clues.  In between popping in and out of jail for his hooligan-like tendencies, beating up various thugs and trying to track down a killer, Athidhi manages to find time to run a coffee shop near the Red Fort, although he doesn’t seem to actually spend much time there.

Mahesh has a different look here with long floppy hair and seems to be permanently standing in the path of a wind machine dialled up to max.  Unless he’s in the rain that is, which does vastly improve the hair.  The overall effect is to make him even more baby-faced than usual and there are even a few dialogues which make reference to his innocent appearance.  But we know better.

And it doesn’t take long – the first fight scene comes after straight after Athidhi is released from jail again, and has Ganni (Subbaraju) and his gang as the recipients of some fairly typical Mahesh mayhem.  That leads straight into the first song, which seems to have been heavily inspired by Mad Max and features some fight style choreography which didn’t appeal at first but it’s grown on me.

Meanwhile the young Amrita has grown up to be Amrita Rao, studying art at college in Delhi and generally seems fairly content.  She’s polite and well-mannered on the outside, but inside her own mind is much feistier and has moments of fantasy where she imagines herself as a Matrix-style super-woman.  However her inner hero gets her into trouble when she takes on a gang of drug dealers who chase her into the path of an oncoming vehicle.  In the aftermath Athidhi performs some lifesaving mouth to mouth, although not quite in the approved St John’s Ambulance style, and as an afterthought he also beats up the drug dealers.  Amrita is pretty happy about the whole experience despite her near death and stalks Athidhi since after all we know that’s the way to show true love – right?

There’s a long and fairly pointless sequence with the dreadfully styled and characterised Danny Bhai (Ashish Vidyarthi) and eventually Athidhi finds out that Amrita is the girl he knew as a child.  But she’s already left for Hyderabad where she lives with the home minister (Nasser) and his family who are her aunt and uncle.  So the action moves to Hyderabad where Athidhi foils various plots to kill Amrita and her cousin Aishwarya (Baby Anni), including one by Danny Bhai that leads to Athidhi discovering the identity of the man who killed Amrita’s parents.  And as chance would have it, Hyderabad is being terrorised by this same killer, who now goes by the name of Khaizer and is running a child kidnapping ring.  To add more murk to the mix, Special Officer Ajit Shastri (Murli Sharma) has been brought in from Delhi to catch the gang and making sure he doesn’t succeed, Kota Srinivasa Rao does his usual corrupt politician thing.

So, will Amrita discover who Athdhi really is, will Athdhi discover who Khaizer really is, and will somebody finally cut Athidhi’s increasingly bouffy layered hair?!  It takes another couple of hours and quite a few twists and turns until we finally realise that no-one is ever going to successfully wield scissors anywhere near Mahesh. Oh, and there is finally resolution  to the rest of the plot too.

The story does have some good points but each is strung out for so long that the whole film drags.  It could easily have been cut by at least half an hour which would have made it a tighter and more thrilling movie.  The plot twists are good, although derivative, but again take far too long to reveal, and the final climax is marred by some bad CGI effects.  Although there is plenty of action it’s mostly gun fights which are less satisfying to watch.  The fight scenes, while often well-choreographed by Stun Shiva, are interrupted by too much slo-mo which really just reveals that no-one actually ever does hit anyone.  The lighting is really variable as sometimes it was excellent, for example at a number of scenes at the Red Fort, and yet at other times everyone appeared to have lizard skin and jaundice.  I’m sure the effect was meant to be very stylish but instead it just looked like the levels were completely wrong.  Brahmi, Sunil and Venu Madhav appear for some short comedy scenes but otherwise it’s fairly relentless death and destruction.

The music by Mani Sharma is catchy and I really like the soundtrack, but the picturisations don’t work very well and the songs appear oddly inserted into the narrative.  Malaika Arora pops up in a typically sleazy item song and the choreography generally seems under par for a Mahesh film – especially with someone like Amrita Rao who can dance. This song features an even more multilayered than usual Mahesh (plus the hair – which by this stage even features in the choreography), while someone in the costume department obviously had a grudge against Amrita.  It’s a good song though, and I enjoy watching the reactions of people in the background as they stop and stare.

While I think there is more here than just a film for Mahesh fans it’s probably best to watch with the remote to FF past some of the interminably long expositions by the villain. Generally performances are good but the film is let down by the mish-mash of a story and lack of editing.  I still give it 3 stars though, mainly for Mahesh and Amrita and for the bonus presence of both Subbaraju and Ajay  which always boosts any film for me!

Gabbar Singh (2012)

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Pawan Kalyan fans in Melbourne seem to be the loudest, the most enthusiastic and to prefer shredding rather than recycling their newspapers. The air was full of strips of paper right from the opening moments of Gabbar Singh and the paper storm continued well into the second half. A packed cinema, cheerleaders up the front to lead us in our favourite Pawan Kalyan chants as everyone pushed and shoved their way in and plenty of whistles and cheers meant a great start to another adventure without subtitles.

It’s a novelty to watch a Southern remake of a Hindi film since so often the shoe is on the other foot and after Osthe in Tamil, Gabbar Singh is the Telugu version of Dabangg. The film follows the same basic plot, but many of the other roles have been limited to allow more focus on Pawan Kalyan’s character. It’s his film the whole way through and while he has the charisma and capability to carry it off, the story loses much of its focus by dropping the back stories of Gabbar Singh’s wastrel brother and the conflicts within their family.

We start with young Venkat Ratnam Naidu and his stormy relationship with his adopted father Naidu (Nagineedu) who had married Venkat’s mother Suhasini after she was widowed. Naidu prefers his own son and makes no secret of the fact which gives Venkat a huge chip on his shoulder and a somewhat argumentative personality. Venkat ends up running away from his family, but returns years later as a police officer with the assumed name of his childhood hero, Sholay’s Gabbar Singh. He returns in style, renaming the police station after himself and single-handedly annihilating a gang of bank robbers after chasing after them on horseback so it seems safe to say that he’s not mellowed in the intervening years.

It’s not long before Gabbar Singh clashes heads with local rowdy Sidappa Naidu (Abimanyu Singh) and the feud between the two forms the plot for the rest of the film. In between all the gunfights and general mayhem, Gabbar Singh falls in love with Bhagya Lakshmi (Shruti Hassan) but her role is even more reduced than that of Rajo in Dabangg and Bhagya only appears briefly in a few scenes and a couple of dance numbers. Her friend, ably played by Gayatri, has almost as much screen time and judging by the audience reaction, seems to get the better lines too. Kota Srinivasa Rao pops up as Bhagya’s father but again the role has very little scope and he barely has any input.

Sidappa has political aspirations and Gabbar Singh disrupts his attempts to fund his career through various robberies and corrupt deals. Sidappa’s response is to have his henchmen beat him with clubs which is rather extreme but doesn’t really have too much of an effect on his arch nemesis. Abhimanyu Singh’s Sidappa is a typical Telugu goon and doesn’t have any of the flamboyance or appeal of Sonu Sood’s Chhedi Singh so the villain of the story is rather disappointing. As too is the item song. Although Malaika and the backing dancers did their best, Kevvu Keka just isn’t as catchy as Munni Badnam. I was also very disappointed that Ajay as Gabbar Singh’s brother only made a very brief appearance since he’s one of my favourite actors and I was hoping for more from him.

However the film was made totally worthwhile by a scene where Gabbar Singh forces the usual crowd of rent-a-goons to participate in a session of antakshari. This has to be the funniest piece of cinema I have seen this year and it had the crowd on their feet cheering for more! Generally the dialogue seemed to be of high quality since many of the lines had the audience applauding and both Ali and Brahmi’s comedic roles got plenty of appreciative cheers. Since I didn’t understand the dialogue I focused on the myriad of excellent details instead, such as the gun hood ornaments on Gabbar Singh’s 4WD and the incredibly happy and enthusiastic backing dancers. There is a reason why men in flak jackets are not often seen dancing and it’s a point well illustrated in the first song. Generally though the songs are good and Devi Sri Prasad’s music suits the feel of the film.

There is very little of Chubul Pandey in Pawan Kalyan’s Gabbar Singh. None of the mannerisms are there, although Gabbar Singh has plenty of the same chutzpah. The sunglass tricks are reserved for Brahmi apart from an opening scene where Gabbar Singh tosses his sunnies onto a colleagues face with impressive accuracy.  There are a few moments in one song in Switzerland where the normally smooth and co-ordinated Pawan Kalyan does seem to be channelling Salman Khan’s dance style, but thankfully not for long. I did feel sorry for Shruti Hassan dancing in the snow in sandals though.

The reason that Dabangg was such a hit was that it was a Southern style film incorporating plenty of the masala elements which have sadly been missing in Bollywood for some time with a hero who suited the part. Once that novelty element is removed and the film changed to a Southern locale and hero, the story is similar to most other Telugu films. The impact is further lessened by the South’s familiarity with the use of machetes, 4WD’s that roam in packs and acrobatic fight scenes and so Gabbar Singh doesn’t stand out in the same way as Dabangg, although it is more successful than Osthe. Harish Shankar has changed the screenplay to make the film suit his leading man and Pawan Kalyan is excellent as the unorthodox police officer in a rather more orthodox story. Gabbar Singh is still well worth a watch for his performance and I’ll definitely be looking out for the DVD to finally understand the dialogues and for that brilliant antakshari scene!

Dabangg

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Masala is back in Bollywood! Oh yes!

After what seems to be far too long, here is a Hindi film with all the elements we fell for in the first place – songs, melodrama, romance, over the top fight scenes,  good guys, bad guys and lots and lots of explosions.

Salman plays Chulbul Pandey, a somewhat corrupt cop, but one who loves his mother – so we know at heart he must be a good person.  Chulbul’s widowed mother Naina, in an small but significant role by Dimple Kapadia, married Prajapati Pandey (Vinnod Khanna).  Together they have a son who Prajapati favours over his step-son Chulbul. Our hero grows up feeling like an outsider and determines that when he is older, he will be the one with all the power and influence.

Fast forward 20 years where Chulbul is now a police officer with enough money to buy and sell his step-father many times over (that moderate corruption we mentioned), and a rather thin moustache.

Chulbul has a strained relationship with his step-father and spineless, self-centered step-brother Makkhi; Arbaaz Khan with a more robust and unruly moustache and an appalling selection of shirts. Makkhi is desperate to wed Nirmala, but her schoolmaster father cannot afford the dowry Prajapati insists on. Meanwhile Chulbul falls for the enigmatic Rajo, the daughter of a drunk.  This is the debut film for Sonakshi Sinha and although she was very lovely there really wasn’t very much in her role for her to work with.  But the relationships with her father and brother seemed genuine which added a fuller dimension to her storyline. She did have some very beautiful costumes too!

Along the way, Robin Hood Pandey, as he renamed himself, makes an enemy of the chest baring Chhedi Singh. Sonu Sood seems to be making a career out of playing the manically evil antihero – something he does so well – and we do not mind the shirtlessness one bit.  Singh is the youth representative for Anupam Kher’s political party, and Chulbul’s policing  is cutting into his supply of money from running various shady deals.

There is a wonderful item song featuring Malaika Arora Khan choreographed by Farah Khan.  This let Salman ruin Sonu Sood’s night while indulging in some excellent uncle dancing and Malaika did what she does best, so this was great fun to see.  We applaud a film that condenses political confrontations into a dance.

Various plots are hatched and foiled, loved ones die, marriages are arranged and un-arranged, peoples’ values are put to the test.  Finally it culminates in a chance to blow absolutely everything up, bare some more chests and let Salman save the day.

This is Salman’s film. Perhaps it is the presence of Arbaaz as producer, but Abinav Kashyap really seems to have drawn every last bit of charisma from Salman and used him to best advantage.  The action sequences choreographed by S. Vijayan are brilliantly filmed, and manage to give a nod to many great action sequences from recent Hollywood and South Indian blockbusters.  Despite having Helen in the family, Salman has never been the greatest dancer.  The choreography by Raju Khan and Shabina Khan has cleverly allowed Salman to showcase what he does do well, and the colour and movement of the backing dancers disguises the fact that he really isn’t the most nimble person on the floor.

The film does lose momentum after the interval, but soon picks up the pace and the finale has enough action to appease our South Indian accustomed filmi taste.

This is a great entertainer of a film. We give it 4 and 1/2 stars! It gets extra points just because we have been suffering Bollywood Masala Deprivation Syndrome and this may be the cure!