Tag Archives: SRK

Billu (2009)

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Billu-title

So. If you are considering a leap onto the “original is best” Malayalam bandwagon and insist that I must see Kadha Parayumbol, please take a moment, breathe, perhaps go make a cup of tea instead. I’m perfectly happy with this film! What makes Billu work so well for me is that I have a high degree of awareness and appreciation of Shah Rukh’s career so the references and sly jabs at and by SRK really resonate. I wouldn’t have that to the same extent with a different regional cast, even if it is Mammootty in the big star role.

Priyadarshan directs a deceptively simple slice of life drama. Billu (Irrfan, in no surname mode) is a barber in picturesque Budbuda. Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan in King Khan mode) is a massive movie star. Sahir suggests Budbuda as the location for the village scenes in his current project. Filming in the village was essential to the story as otherwise how would the Martian brother find his long lost sibling who was wearing a matching locket that beeped. I liked the interplay of real life and filmidom, in scenes when Sahir was enduring the plot narration, or when the villagers watched the shooting as though they were seeing life on Mars.

Mayhem erupts in Budbuda once the villagers find out that Billu and Sahir were childhood friends. Everyone wants to get an autograph, to get their brush with fame, and all the bigwigs demand that Billu introduce them to Sahir. But Billu repeatedly dodges the issue, even when his wife Bindiya (Lara Dutta) and annoying kids keep asking. Eventually the villagers start to believe he lied and accuse him of defrauding them of the gifts they had willingly pressed upon him.

Irrfan relies on his slightly oddball, rumpled, everyman persona for Billu and it works a treat. He comes across as good hearted but a little cynical, proud in himself but overwhelmed by the difference in status between himself and Sahir. Billu has told his family of a childhood friendship with Sahir, but is totally unprepared for how his village reacts when they find out. He is reluctant to contact Sahir, citing bygone time and the difference in their positions. But Billu’s inarticulate objections fall on fallow ground. It’s interesting that when Billu was negotiating with the school or others he could be quite glib, if apparently simple. Billu did go to the shooting and marvelled at the spectacle of Kareena’s duckface in Marjaani along with everyone else, but he flubbed all opportunities to speak to Sahir. I think he just wanted fate to intervene and take care of the logistics so he could see his mate without forcing himself upon Sahir.

Lara Dutta is beautiful but not too filmi glam as Bindiya. I could feel her frustration, not at being poor, but at having to be subservient and cop all the crap that comes with being seen as a beggar. Bindiya dreams of meeting Sahir and of the benefits that knowing a big star could give her family, but isn’t greedy. She just knows how things are when you’re the outsiders, and wants to take opportunities where they arise. Bindiya obviously thinks the world of Billu and it took a lot for her to actually ask him if his friendship was real. I thought it said a lot that there was no rancour in the conversation, and Billu still walked her to the school to hear Sahir speak. They had a solid relationship and as more of their backstory was revealed I had more appreciation for her.

Sahir is often absent from the action, but his presence permeates everything. I like SRK as a bad guy, and as a hero, but I especially like him as a hero who still has a healthy reservoir of cynicism alongside the cheesy entertainer reflexes (I also loved OSO). I enjoyed his character’s observations on controversy, and expectations audiences have, and his little encounters with Chaubey the guesthouse manager. Some dialogue sounded very similar to things Shah Rukh has said himself so I found the added element which may or may not be a reflection of his own views very appealing. Apart from That Speech he keeps Sahil quite sensible and vaguely amused by all the shenanigans unfolding around him, with occasional flashes of crankiness that may be caused by chafing from all the bedazzled outfits.

Sahir’s moment with Billu is quite beautiful, and so much better than the big build up that preceded it. It’s a performance I enjoy both for the overt manifestation of star power and the glimpse under the glossy veneer, and the expert manipulation by a master of crowd pleasing.

Shah Rukh’s own career is referenced extensively in posters on village walls, old movie stills and promo pictures, a montage celebrating Sahir’s stardom. The film within a film device also allowed some spectacularly silly and blinged out song concepts as they didn’t have to fit in with the plot as such, and could also use a parade of Shah Rukh’s recent-ish heroines. In every song there is a moment when he gets a goofy grin and he can’t help uncle dancing a bit despite the choreographers’ best efforts. I love it. Plus I think Evil Anthony makes an appearance.

Each shot serves to express the focal character’s universe, from set design to lighting to the framing. It’s a pleasure just to look at this film. Pritam made Billu’s songs and background music more organic than the filmi stuff, and they were accompanied by lush “real world” visuals lovingly captured by V Manikandan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJQZ6ND1rCQ

“Jaaun Kahan” is a bewildered meditation, while “Khudaya Khair” is a sweetly romantic dream that could star either your husband or Sahir Khan, mood depending. The village setting was glorious and while I’m pretty sure it was in Tamil Nadu I chose not to overthink the geography/language mash up.

The standouts in the support cast were Asrani as Naubat Chacha, a rare voice of moderation and always seeing Billu’s side, and both Om Puri and Manoj Joshi throwing their weight around as self-important and self-proclaimed VIPs. I also liked Rasika Joshi as the long suffering principal who turned out to be not such a bad old stick.

Would this film make you a Shah Rukh fan if you weren’t one already? Maybe not. But it is a departure from his Rahul shtick and there is enough of a gleam in his eye and a quirk to those famous eyebrows to make me think he had a bit of fun playing with his own image. And I’m a sucker for both sublime and ridiculous visuals. 4 stars!

Don (2006)

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Don

Normally I’m not a fan of remakes since they are generally nowhere near as good as the original, but Farhan Akhtar’s Don is the exception that proves the rule – at least for me. As much as I love the original Don with Amitabh Bachchan, Iftekhar, Helen and co, the remake slickly updates the story and adds a few new twists that make the end at least just that little bit better. I love Shahrukh Khan when he’s in anti-hero mode, and this is an excellent example of how good SRK can be when he’s being bad. There are a few misses, but overall good casting, clever writing and an excellent soundtrack make Don one of my favourite SRK films.

The remake follows the original 1978 Don fairly closely in terms of the screenplay but sets most of the story in Malaysia where Don (Shahrukh Khan) is the ‘most dangerous and cunning criminal’ in an organisation than spans the globe smuggling drugs. Don heads up the Malaysian arm of the gang and works for Singhania ( Rajesh Khattar), the rival of fellow ultra-elusive gang member Vardhaan. DCP DiSilva (Boman Irani) is on the trail of the criminals along with his colleague Inspector Verma (Sidharth  Jyoti) and Interpol Officer Vishal Malik (Om Puri).

Shahrukh appears to enjoy playing the utterly ruthless and callous Don and he seems to slip effortlessly into evil mode when required. His Don is perhaps a little too flamboyant and his fashion sense is rather quirky (those terrible ties-inside-the shirt!), but his panache and flair in the opening scenes when he imitates some ballet dancers and then a few moments later causes carnage and mayhem during a drug deal gone wrong is superb. He’s cool, collected and practical when it comes to getting rid of police informers and in dealing with recalcitrant gang members, but does show his softer side to Anita (Isha Koppikar) and a little more uncertainty with fellow gang member Narang (Pawan Malhotra). This shading makes Don more interesting and generates some empathy for what is really quite an unpleasant character at the start of the film.

One of the misses is the remake of the classic Helen number Yeh Mera Dil. Kareena Kapoor takes on the role of Kamini, the revenge seeking fiancé of gang member Ramesh (Diwaker Pundir), killed by Don for his disloyalty. Kareena just doesn’t have the vibrancy or class of Helen, and her seduction routine is clinical and passionless as a result. There’s no rage, no thirst for revenge or abhorrence at getting close to the man who murdered her fiancé and it ends up as nothing more than a lot of shimmying in a gold lamé dress.  It’s not surprising Don looks somewhat disdainful and fairly unimpressed throughout.

Priyanka Chopra is much better as Roma and at least looks as if she is capable of murder. At least up until she actually tries to kill Don at which point she seems to lose her mojo. Still, it’s a good effort and she does well in the songs too, although I think Isha Koppikar takes the honours here – plus who doesn’t love a giant disco mirror ball. Both Priyanka and Isha  look stunning and are obviously included to up the glamour quotient, but both do a good job in their roles and appear as strong and confident characters throughout.

Don is seriously injured and captured by the police during a chase in India which gives DCP DiSilva the opportunity to replace Don with a local entertainer Vijay (also SRK) who is the spitting image of the gangster. SRK’s Vijay is a tad more sensible than in the original, and Shahrukh makes him a very different character to Don. He even looks quite different, using facial expressions and body movement to emphasize the difference between the two characters – at least up until the surgery to make them both the same.

However, since only DiSilva and the fake Don know about the impersonation, when DiSilva is killed during an operation to catch Singhania it all starts to go pear-shaped for Vijay. As well as dodging the police and fooling the gang into believing he is Don, Vijay has to deal with Roma’s attempts at revenge and somehow get a disc with information about the gang to Malik to prove his innocence.   Meanwhile Jasjit (Arjun Rampal) is also out for revenge after DiSilva caused the death of his wife, adding more layers to the plot and a means to bring it all to a satisfactory conclusion.

The updated film has plenty of high powered car chases and some cool fight scenes which all work pretty well. There are a couple of escapes too – the first is rather unnecessarily convoluted, but the second is fun as it involves Don wrestling one of his gang members for a parachute while plunging to the ground after jumping out of a plane. Now if this had been a Southern Indian film, Don would have had a handy gun and some explosive to deal with the problem, but here he just has to fight it out while the ground spins giddily below and rushes every closer.

The film has a great soundtrack from Shankar-Ehsan-Loy which uses two songs and the general theme from the original film. The second remix is Khaike Paan Banaraswala which fares much better than the Helen remake number, and is a lot of fun – I suspect most of the direction here was asking SRK to act goofy and he manages to do so repeatedly!

https://youtu.be/SiUkZhz06aA?t=232s

Overall the casting is excellent and the support actors all seem to fit their parts well. Boman Irani is in sensible mode as DiSilva and he makes a good world-weary cop. I find he can be erratic, depending on the director and is often better in comedic rather than straight roles, but he does an excellent job here and suits the role. Om Puri is a little under used in a role that doesn’t give him much scope, but has a couple of good scenes with DiSilva where he is suspicious of absolutely everyone and he fits that character style perfectly. Perhaps most surprising is Arjun Rampal who I remember thinking was much better here than in any of his films I’d seen previously, and puts in an emotionally mature performance as a devastated man out for blood.

I went to the cinema prepared to be disappointed in Don and was instead surprised by how much I enjoyed the film, and still love watching the DVD. Expensive production makes the stunts work well and lifts the thrill factor, but none of that would matter without good performances and a well thought out rewrite of the story. The film works for me because of SRK and Boman Irani, but everyone has their part to play in making Don such an entertaining film. The Malaysian backdrop looks amazing, the soundtrack is great and the dialogue and stunts are brilliant. It may be a remake but it’s a great film in its own right and I love this version just as much as the original. 5 stars!

Chennai Express

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chennai-express-poster

I had very low expectations of Chennai Express, mostly due to Rohit Shetty’s idea of humour. I expected something along the lines of “a typical filmi Rahul type wanders into a Tamil film. Hijinks ensue.” And that is what I got. Not entirely successful, but amusing enough with loads of colour and movement, Chennai Express is a good timepass.

Chennai-Express-it starts

Shah Rukh plays this Rahul as an anti-Rahul. Where the KKKG model Rahul would have made his grandfather’s last wish a priority, this one tries to skive off. Rahul has lived in comfort all of his 40 years and yet feels no obligation to family. He is an unappealing manchild clearly in need of a wakeup call. A series of misadventures see him trapped on the Chennai Express, headed straight for a showdown with a Tamil don and his family. Shah Rukh has no qualms about making Rahul a shallow idiot to start with and there is an air of self-parody about some of his preening and posing. I particularly liked the sly humour when Meenamma (Deepika Padukone) guesses he must be 50, or maybe even older. Shah Rukh does all his familiar shtick from hair ruffling, décolletage sniffing (you know the move), arm flinging, to the eyes welling with tears. Of course it wouldn’t be an SRK film without a far too long speech about some social issue. While I appreciated the content (women should be able to make choices for themselves) it was rather undermined by the context (blokes beating each other to a pulp so Rahul might win the right to give Meena her choice). Shah Rukh isn’t perfect, and he does ham wildly at times but he also has the courage to show off those spindly legs in a lungi.

chennai-express-Deepika and SRK danceChennai-Express_Deepika as Meenamma

Deepika gives one of her better performances as Meenamma (leaving aside her much criticised accent which didn’t bother me that much). From her DDLJ style entry (and one of the funnier scenes that ensued) and her cheerful explanation that her father (the excellent Sathyaraj) is a renowned don, Meenamma made an impression. Deepika always looks pretty but often fails to convey chemistry with her co-stars. She seems to have overcome that as her scenes with Shah Rukh are lively, often fun and even moving. She has worked on her dancing too and appeared to good effect in the big production numbers. And her wardrobe was just lovely although I’m not sure where all the sarees kept coming from. Generous village ladies I guess.

Chennai-Express-Rahul and MeenammaChennai-Express-Love starts

Initially dismissive of each other, there is no insta-love. Their relationship develops through forced proximity and dealing with external threats.  A series of events open each character’s eyes to their feelings and the triggers for these changes make sense within the story. Meena is the first to fall but she has reservations about Rahul and isn’t overcome by silliness just because her heart flutters. The romance works for me as it isn’t the primary motivation from the start, despite Rahul’s pathetic flirting.

As I expected, the comedy is often too broad and overplayed for my tastes. But there were some wittier scenes that I really liked. Rahul and Meenamma communicate in front of their abductors by singing in Hindi to Bollywood songs, many from SRK films. When Meena finds out Rahul is a mithaiwala or tries to guess his age, Deepika’s reactions seemed spontaneous and very funny. But it is hit and miss. Heather found several things funny that I would edit out (e.g. Meenamma’s ‘nightmare’) and other audience members were just about wetting themselves in scenes that had me checking my watch. I liked the product placements that were often done in tongue-in-cheek style.

CHENNAI EXPRESS - Rowdieschennai-express-village scenes

There is a lot of chatter about the South Indian stereotypes portrayed. Well, there is just about every stereotype present and the North Indians were less than perfect. Rahul was arrogant, ignorant and not really interested in Tamil culture, assuming people were quaint caricatures or savages. The Tamil rowdies were played by the guys who play Tamil rowdies in almost every film; swarthy, stocky and spiral permed as always. The ‘other’ South stereotypes also appeared – salt of the earth villagers with hearts of gold. There was even a comedy Punjabi policeman. No one was safe. Maybe it is just that years of watching Indian film portrayals of fat people, coloured people, white people, disabled people, what was the other one … oh yes, women, has eroded my sensibilities. Rohit Shetty gave some standards his own fun twist too – like trading a convoy of white Sumos for a fleet of colourful 4WDs.

chennai-express_Sathyaraj

The supporting cast are largely playing the same roles they play in their own film industry so that was fun to see. Nikitin Dheer was perfectly fine as Meenamma’s unwanted prospective groom but I couldn’t help wishing they cast favourite “That Guy” Subbaraju. Maybe he refused on the grounds that singing Chamak Challo would be bad for his image.

Hooray for item numbers! Priyamani and her back up dudes were fantastic. I especially liked the enthusiasm of the guy in the yellow scarf who appears between SRK and Priyamani and the guy in the stripey mesh singlet. Who cares if the song lyrics are stupid? Vishal-Shekhar had me wanting to hit replay and dance! SRK struggling to keep up with the chunky backing dancers and looking like a fish out of water may not have been intentional but it suited Rahul. He looks happy and absolutely knackered in the behind the scenes bits in that clip.

chennai-express-extravaganza

The other songs were visually extravagant and included all the other SI film staples that couldn’t fit in the narrative. The much vaunted tribute to Rajinikanth is a dud. While Rajini is not much of a dancer, there was little of his style in the number. The fight scenes and car stunts are what I’d expect from a Hindi director with a big budget and a couple of Tamil DVDs on the coffee table; spectacular but a bit slower and more laboured than if this was a real South film. And like many South Indian films, this is visually gorgeous.

I liked more than I disliked about Chennai Express, but apart from the songs I don’t think I would watch it again. Despite all the Tamil references, this reminds me more of a Telugu film as – spoiler – no one is raped and there are lots of survivors at the end. Worth a watch, more so if you’re a Shah Rukh fan.

Heather says: I also had really low expectations for this film which is possibly why I enjoyed Chennai Express as much as I did.  For a change I even liked Deepika and I thought she did particularly well in the comedy scenes.  Perhaps it’s only when she appears opposite Shah Rukh that she actually manages to act.  I also laughed much more than I was expecting – after all I don’t think I’ve been amused by a Rohit Shetty film before either.  Chennai Express is really very funny, despite the humour mostly being very broad and largely based on various caricatures.    However as Temple mentions, there was some more subtle humour and the references to many older films were witty and often poked fun at SRK more than at any particular stereotype.

I enjoyed the music and dancing more on screen too, since I hadn’t been terribly impressed with the soundtrack on first listening.  The highlight was definitely Priyamani and watching Shah Rukh trying to keep up, but most of the songs were well pictured and enjoyable.  Any song is always much better with the addition of elephants in my opinion!  Overall the film looks beautiful, although it really could have been almost anywhere in the south and only the language placed the film in Tamil Nadu.

Chennai Express is not one of my favourite Shah Rukh Khan films, but definitely not his worst, and there are a few scenes I would like to watch again. Not the lungi dance tribute to Rajni over the end credits though – I’d recommend leaving when the credits start to roll!