Rajeev Masand – movies that matter : from bollywood, hollywood and everywhere else

May 25, 2012

Cast: Voices of Yuddvir Bakolia, Anjan Srivastav, Sachin Khedekar, Ila Arun, Vishnu Sharma

Director: Arnab Chaudhuri

Director Arnab Chaudhuri has mentioned in interviews that his animation film Arjun: The Warrior Prince is not a children’s movie, and I’m inclined to agree with him. The Mahabharata may be a story you heard from your grandmother at bedtime, or grew up reading in Amar Chitra Katha. In that sense, the character of Arjun, the brave warrior amongst the virtuous Pandavas, is one you’re familiar with. And yet, the film has an unusual approach – it’s a coming-of-age story, a boy-becomes-man yarn that has emotions like uncertainty, fear, frustration, will-power and courage running through it.

Arjun gets the treatment of an action-movie hero, and as he slays his way through a chakravyuh of soldiers from the Kaurava army you find yourself rooting for him. In fact, I was strongly reminded of the high-voltage drama that contributed to the Sunday ritual of watching BR Chopra’s long-running Mahabharata TV series in the 1990s.

The film unfolds from Arjun’s point of view – showing him first as a boy learning his skills from his guru Dronacharya. Even though he and his brothers suffer many injustices at the hands of their Kaurava cousins, Arjun is unable to summon up the courage to retaliate on the battlefield. The film’s director builds up the narrative by showing what goes into the making of a committed warrior.

The heroic exploits and inner struggles of Arjun are woven into the film’s narrative so convincingly that you tend to forget this is animation. The characters’ features are drawn sharply, giving the film the look of Japanese manga. The action has a martial arts-movie feel to it, and thus the violence — also the sight of severed torsos — may be too graphic for younger audiences. In portions, the animation is stiff and the characters seem stilted in their movements, but there are also beautifully stylized sequences, like the one in which Arjun dives into a pond to shoot an arrow into the fish and win Draupadi’s hand at the swayamvar.

However the film is not without its weaknesses – some characters, like that of the scheming Shakuni mama, are too caricaturish and could have done with a more subtle touch, while the Pandavas’ exile portion feels overly stretched and dull. For the most part, the movie works when it concentrates on its protagonist and his evil cousin Duryodhan.

I’m going to with three out of five for Arjun: The Warrior Prince. Like its hero, the film too is a valiant effort, and an interesting interpretation of a much-loved mythological story. Worth a watch.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

May 18, 2012

Cast: Rana Dagubatti, Sanjay Dutt, Amitabh Bachchan, Vijay Raaz, Abhimanyu Singh, Anjana Sukhani, Madhu Shalini

Director: Ramgopal Varma

If there’s a point to Ramgopal Varma’s Department, I’m afraid I missed it. There’s a good chance I might have been distracted by his relentlessly dizzy camera… Carrying on his fascination with the mafia, Varma looks at the dynamics and the inner workings of a special unit within the Mumbai police force created in the wake of increasing crimes by two factions of the underworld.

Sanjay Dutt plays Inspector Mahadev Bhosle, head of this team of sharpshooters that must work under the radar to weed out mafia elements from the city. Rana Dagubatti is Shiv Narayan, an upright cop and Bhosle’s right-hand man, who wins the favor of eccentric minister Sarjerao Gaekwad (Amitabh Bachchan) when he takes down a shooter who fires at the politico during a rally.

Varma’s gallery of rogues includes Vijay Raaz as shrieking don Savatiya, Abhimanyu Singh as DK, a hot-headed henchman in his team, and my personal favorite, a female gangster and DK’s squeeze (Madhu Shalini) who’s constantly licking her lips suggestively or sucking on kulfis when she isn’t advising DK to rebel against his boss.

Predictably, cops mix up with gangsters, cops betray cops, and politicians are discovered to be in cahoots with the underworld. It’s the same old story. Not known for subtlety, Varma gives us a blaring background score, an endless stream of high-decibel shootout scenes, and the now mandatory item song featuring a scantily-clad dancer gyrating amidst dozens of sweaty admirers.

The filmmaker, who famously employed a bunch of film school students to shoot the movie using small cameras positioned at odd places, indulges his quirk for gravity-defying angles. It works occasionally in the action scenes that appear more visceral now, but for the most part the bizarre camera movements give you a headache.

Just shy of two hours and thirty minutes, Department is tedious and boring and doesn’t have any of the originality of Satya and Company, or even the occasional tension of Sarkar. Dutt delivers his lines like he’s reading out the phone book, and Bachchan hams it up no end as the gangster-turned-minister. It’s only Rana Dagubatti who approaches the film with any earnestness whatsoever.

I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for Ramgopal Varma’s Department. It’s a lazy, indulgent film that tests your threshold for pain.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

May 11, 2012

Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra, Gauhar Khan

Director: Habib Faisal

In a fictional small town in North India, battle lines are drawn between political families, the Chauhans and the Qureshis, sworn enemies, each seeking victory against the other in the forthcoming elections. Against this tense terrain, director Habib Faisal sets his Romeo & Juliet story, Ishaqzaade.

Arjun Kapoor is Parma, the loutish grandson of the Chauhan patriarch who gleefully loots local vendors and sets fire to their shops when they beg for a little compassion. Parineeti Chopra is Zoya, feisty daughter of the senior most Qureshi, who’d much rather have a gun over brand new gold earrings. Like most love stories in Hindi films, this one too starts off on the wrong foot, when Parma storms into the Qureshi estate to take off with the local nautch girl who is performing there. In the fight that breaks out, Parma pulls out his gun at an infuriated Zoya, who is determined to get revenge. She gets that opportunity on campus soon after, and predictably a romance between the two is on the cards.

The film’s first half coasts along nicely, culminating in a delicious, unpredictable twist. But as the film’s second half kicks in, it becomes clear the writers had no idea where to go with the story. Which is possibly why the love-struck couple spends the entire post-intermission portion just running.

Like in Do Dooni Chaar, director Habib Faisal’s last film, and in Band Baaja Baaraat, his breakout script, the real pleasure in Ishaqzaade lies in its colloquial language, believable characters, and lived-in locations. Faisal gives us a leading lady worth rooting for in Zoya, a firebrand who knows how to take charge. Parineeti Chopra breathes life into the part, emerging the biggest strength of this film. As Parma, meanwhile, that unlikely leading man with no moral compass, Arjun Kapoor is confident but at times awkward, and his rawness shows.

Much of the film’s strengths come undone by the use of such tired clichés as the religious differences that stand in the way of true love, and the sacrificial hooker with a heart of gold. Also Faisal resorts to an unforgivably unoriginal climax – for both the resolution of the lovers, and their families – that sticks out in a film with such promise.

Ishaqzaade benefits considerably from Amit Trivedi’s excellent soundtrack and Hemant Chaturvedi’s sharp cinematography. Faisal creates a believable world with charming characters, and his leads have crackling chemistry. I’m going with two-and-a-half out of five for director Habib Faisal’s Ishaqzaade. It’s far from perfect, but you won’t be bored.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

May 11, 2012

Cast: Karisma Kapoor, Rajneesh Duggal, Jimmy Shergill, Divya Dutta, Ravi Kissen, Arya Babbar

Director: Vikram Bhatt

From matching Govinda’s razor-sharp comic timing in so many David Dhawan entertainers, to delivering sincere, heartfelt performances in films like Fizaa and Zubeidaa, Karisma Kapoor has had no shortage of opportunities to show off her acting chops. But returning after a hiatus in director Vikram Bhatt’s laughably silly Dangerous Ishq, the actress is limited to gritting her teeth and mouthing inane lines.

Karisma stars as Sanjana, a supermodel and committed girlfriend who searches for clues in her past, when her industrialist boyfriend (Rajneesh Duggal sporting a single expression throughout) is kidnapped. Relying on ‘visions’ that offer her glimpses into her previous lives, Sanjana discovers she’s had a doomed romantic connection with the same man over the ages. To solve the mystery of his kidnapping in the present day, she must first figure out who has been keeping them apart in their every birth.

From struggling through communal feuds in Partition-era Punjab, to facing betrayal from a trusted friend in Daulatabad during the Mughal rule, to spurning the advances of a sleazy senapati in 16th century Rajasthan…it’s hard to keep a straight face as Sanjana rewinds to previous lifetimes, and the film in turn becomes increasingly preposterous. Despite its curious premise, the plot of Dangerous Ishq feels overstuffed and far too convenient, and as a result the film’s central idea, of past life regression, is never convincingly conveyed.

If anything, the film is unintentionally comical, thanks in no small part to its clunky dialogue, bizarre characters, and ham-fisted direction. Save for some tacky special effects and a few badly done explosions, Bhatt mostly resists the temptation to throw things at you in order to exploit the 3D, but the imagery here is so bland that the technology feels wasted.

Ambitious but seriously flawed, the film smacks of laziness in virtually all departments, and even Karisma Kapoor’s earnest performance can’t save the day. I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Vikram Bhatt’s Dangerous Ishq. Plodding on for close to two hours and thirty minutes, this film will make you wish you’d knocked back a stiff one before taking your seat.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)