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

February 22, 2013

Cast: Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh, Rajkumar Yadav, Amrita Puri, Manav Kaul

Director: Abhishek Kapoor

Its title derived from that cry of victory yelled out when an opponent has been defeated in a kite flying challenge, Kai Po Che translates literally as “Gotcha!” An apt expression, perhaps, to describe the home run director Abhishek Kapoor delivers through this moving film about a friendship challenged by real-life tragedies.

Rooting a simple story in a realistic middle-class world far removed from the glossy surfaces of Rock On!, Kapoor can’t shake off his fascination for buddy pictures, but in Kai Po Che we’re treated to a more honest, assured portrait of friendship that never feels as conventional as his National Award-winning previous film.

Based on a novel by Chetan Bhagat, the film, set in the year 2000, focuses on three childhood pals who pool in their skills and resources to set up a sports shop-cum-cricket academy in their Ahmedabad neighborhood. A brilliant sportsman in his school days, hot-headed slacker Ishaan (Sushant Singh Rajput) commits himself to coaching young hopefuls. Omi (Amit Sadh) taps his local politician uncle for a loan to set up the enterprise, while business-minded Govind (Rajkumar Yadav) takes on the responsibility of maintaining accounts. But just as things are looking up for our earnest protagonists, a series of unforeseeable events threatens to destroy their business and their years-old friendship.

Weighed down by a loan he can’t repay, Omi is forced into taking on an active role in his uncle’s fundamentalist Hindu party. Govind, meanwhile, becomes romantically involved with Ishaan’s feisty sister (Amrita Puri), whom he’s been tutoring in math. And Ishaan becomes obsessed with grooming a young Muslim kid with immense batting potential. The earthquake of January 2001 that ripped through the city and claimed thousands of lives not only quashes Govind’s dreams of business expansion, but also drives a rift between Ishaan and Omi, who find themselves on the opposite sides of a communal divide.

Skillfully shifting gears from the light-hearted camaraderie of our heroes in the opening act, to the emotional abyss they’re thrust into in the film’s final half hour, Kapoor maintains an unhurried pace and an even tone. Despite the excessive cricket jargon likely to throw off non-sports enthusiasts, you’re drawn into the trio’s world, engaged by their simple joys, concerned for their dilemmas. How do you resist a smile as they plunge into the sea from the top of a fort? Or as each makes his way to the roof of a bus as they head out to celebrate their first earnings?

Kai Po Che is filled with such lovely moments, but the story doesn’t linger on this bonhomie. The earthquake, a thrilling India-Australia test-series, followed by the devastating Godhra massacre and the riots of 2002 colors our protagonists’ friendship. Brick by brick, the screenplay builds up the tempo, until the climax delivers its sucker punch. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by the film’s piercing finale.

Much of the film’s success lies in its spot-on casting, even of solid actors in supporting roles, like Manav Kaul playing Omi’s manipulative Bittu mama. Meanwhile, all three leads sink their teeth into nicely etched roles. The abundantly gifted Rajkumar Yadav brings an awkward charm to Govind, turning this penny-pinching, tight-fisted fellow into a living, breathing everyman. Amit Sadh oozes vulnerability in every scene that Omi appears in, and convincingly conveys the character’s inner conflict. But it’s Sushant Singh Rajput, making his film debut as Ishaan, who it’s hard to take your eyes off. The actor has an indescribable presence, and it’s clear from his confidence and distinct likeability that a star is born.

At a crisp two hours, Kai Po Che is enriched by its sweeping score and by Kapoor’s deft handling of the film’s varied moods. For evidence of his considerable growth as a director one needn’t look much further than the palpable dread he infuses into scenes of an angry Hindutva mob storming a Muslim ghetto, and the light-handed touch he brings to the portions of the three friends goofing around. Kapoor tackles sensitive issues like the Gujarat riots with equanimity and empathy, and Anay Goswamy’s terrific camerawork complements the director’s vision intuitively.

I’m going with four out of five for Kai Po Che. It’s only February, but one of the year’s best films has arrived.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

February 15, 2013

Cast: Randeep Hooda, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sara Loren, Rajesh Shringapure

Director: Vishesh Bhatt

Sex, crime, and supernatural thrills have been staple ingredients of the films produced by the Bhatts, otherwise known as Bollywood’s favorite B-movie merchants. In his directorial debut Murder 3, Vishesh Bhatt, son of longtime producer Mukesh Bhatt, relies on all three of those staples, but blends them with some bizarre ideas to create an unusual cocktail that doesn’t quite deliver the desired kick.

Just days after the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend Roshni (Aditi Rao Hydari), fashion photographer Vikram (Randeep Hooda) takes a shine to restaurant waitress Nisha (Sara Loren), whom he brings home to live with him. As the police investigates Roshni’s sudden vanishing and suspected murder, Nisha finds herself permanently on the edge in this creepy, isolated house with plumbing problems, creaky windows, and fluctuating power supply.

This house in fact, is the fourth protagonist of Murder 3, one that hides many secrets, we learn, during an unintentionally comical scene in which a middle-aged British woman sells the place to its new owner insisting she’s “too old” to maintain it, never mind that the skirt she’s wearing barely reaches her knees.

If you disregard the laughable romance between Vikram and Nisha, and Randeep Hooda’s comatose style of dialogue delivery, nothing particularly significant happens until the film’s second half when the mystery of Roshni’s disappearance and the source of Nisha’s anxities is finally divulged. Who’d have thought that (the title of) a David Fincher film would contain the hint to this big reveal?

Of the cast, Pakistani actress Sara Loren is easy on the eyes, but emotes with the ease of a battery-operated robot. Randeep Hooda’s distracting toupee, meanwhile, makes it hard to take him seriously, even in his supposedly intense scenes. It’s Aditi Rao Hydari who makes something of an impression playing the ignored girlfriend. Sacrificing her vanity for the film’s more challenging bits, she offers what is at best an occasionally moving performance.

Despite its curious premise and a nice twist in its final moments, Murder 3 is mostly clunky and never works as a satisfying edge-of-your seat thriller. The tense moments are all second-hand stuff that you’ve seen many times before, and the characters so superficially written that they’re hard to care for.

First-timer Vishesh Bhatt’s filmmaking skills are visibly raw, but he does herald one important new change at his family banner. Murder 3 is a more or less faithful copy of the Colombian thriller The Hidden Face, whose remake rights the Bhatts legally acquired. That, you see, is a big improvement from all those years of cheerfully ripping off Hollywood and Asian films without so much as a by your leave.

I’m going with two out of five for Murder 3. Even a preposterous plot needs skillful direction to pull off convincingly.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

February 08, 2013

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Anupam Kher, Rajesh Sharma, Kishore Kadam, Manoj Bajpayee, Jimmy Shergill, Divya Dutta

Director: Neeraj Pandey

That director Neeraj Pandey knows a thing or two about tension is evident from his previous film, A Wednesday, that crackling vigilante thriller from 2008. This time, he builds drama and a sense of urgency in Special Chabbis, about a group of conmen who posed as CBI officers in the eighties and did daring heists across the country through fake raids.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and so Special Chabbis is based on real events. The title itself is derived from a bold, daylight heist that took place in 1987 at a famous jewelry store in Opera House, Mumbai, that shocked the diamond trade. To pull it off, a team of 26 fake CBI officers were recruited by this group to assist them in making off with lakhs worth of jewelry.

In the film, Akshay Kumar is Ajay, the leader of this band of four conmen that includes Sharma, his right-hand man, played by Anupam Kher, and two nondescript cohorts, played by Rajesh Sharma and Kishore Kadam. The group targets rich businessmen and corrupt ministers, and their modus operandi is to pretend to be CBI officers on a raid. By intimidating their victims, they make off with black money hoarded away. Of course, the fear of a bad reputation ensures that these victims never file FIRs against the group. However, the law tends to catch up with the scamsters soon enough, when the real CBI is hot on their heels, led by upright and driven officer Wasim Khan, played by Manoj Bajpai. His plan is to nab Ajay and his gang right when they are executing their one last heist at that jewelry store in Mumbai.

Special Chabbis works on account of its meaty, realistic plot and nicely fleshed out characters. This is solid, assured filmmaking, evident in the meticulous detailing of its 80s production design. The film charms you with its subtle humor, through characters played by Jimmy Shergill and Divya Dutta – two cops conned into helping our fake CBI officers during a sham raid. These sequences in particular liven up the story, as does the portion where the gang interviews unsuspecting job-seekers to form their team for the big heist.

If the film falters occasionally, blame it on the pacing; the first half feels particularly stretched out because of the needless songs that act as speed-bumps in the way of a smooth narrative. Thankfully the reliable performances keep you consistently engaged. Manoj Bajpayee is a worthy adversary for the gang, and he gives the character gravitas, even though his face seems frozen into a scowl. Anupam Kher, playing Sharma, a nervous wreck when he isn’t pretending to be a CBI officer, gets the tone just right. Kajal Agarwal keeps it real as the girl next door who falls for Ajay, and their romance is sweet. But it’s Akshay Kumar who sets the tone for this adventure – he’s wonderfully understated as the leader of this gang who’s constantly thinking on his feet, and it’s fun to see him brazenly conduct the raids with an as-yet-unseen panache.

I’m going with three and a half out of five for director Neeraj Pandey’s Special Chabbis. Infusing humor into tense scenes, he gives us a delicious thriller that you don’t want to miss.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

February 08, 2013

Cast: Prabhu Deva, Kay Kay Menon, Ganesh Acharya, Salman Yusuf Khan, Lauren Gottlieb, Prince Gupta

Director: Remo D’Souza

ABCD, an acronym for Any Body Can Dance, should have been more fun than it is, given that it’s a true-blue 3D dance movie packed with energetic musical set-pieces. But the film suffers from the same malady that plagues this genre everywhere. Like the Step Up movies from which it’s evidently inspired, ABCD has a threadbare, predictable plot, and a cast of professional dancers who can break into gravity-defying moves but can’t deliver a line of dialogue convincingly.

Prabhu Deva stars as Vishnu, the chief instructor at a big-league dance company, who finds himself out in the cold when his shallow business partner (Kay Kay Menon) gives his job to a fancy American choreographer. Encouraged by a friend, Vishnu decides to start his own studio in a rundown garage, offering to train young dance enthusiasts from a lower middle class neighborhood for free.

The wafer-thin screenplay reads like a laundry list of clichés, as the narrative moves clunkily from one tired plot-point to another. There’s a love triangle going on in the troupe, a follow-your-heart message delivered through another subplot, and there’s no escape from such overarching themes as the merits of hard work and honest competition.

To be fair, you don’t go into a dance movie expecting a layered script and character depth, but it’s unfortunate that even the dance numbers in ABCD seem interchangeable. There’s one set-piece filmed skillfully in the rain that stands out, as does the climatic performance at a dance competition. Yet, if none of it is particularly memorable, blame it equally on the disappointing soundtrack by Sachin-Jigar that doesn’t offer one unforgettable track.

The ensemble cast of dancers has an infectious enthusiasm when it comes to their moves, but they’re woefully inept in the acting department. It doesn’t help that director Remo D’Souza (a well known Bollywood choreographer himself) demands full-on melodrama from his amateur actors in the film’s final act, and stays too long on their awkward close-ups in the emotional bits.

Prabhu Deva plays it straight as their committed instructor, occasionally giving you reason to smile as he breaks into a dance himself. Kay Kay Menon, meanwhile, sportingly sinks his teeth into the caricature that is the character of the cut-throat businessman who gets to deliver such bumper-sticker lines as: “Medicority is king” and “Packaging is everything”.

At 2 hours and 20 minutes, ABCD is too long. There’s some genuinely original choreography up there, but it’s lost in a plodding film with characters you couldn’t care less about.

I’m going with a generous two out of five for ABCD. Even if it’s true what this film claims – that any body can dance – it also provides evidence that the same is not true of acting!

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)