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

April 09, 2010

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Ruslaan Mumtaz, Vishal Malhotra

Director: Milap Zaveri

When an attractive female alien in hot pants and silver boots literally falls from the skies and into the arms of an ordinary Earthling, you know romance is on the cards. What you can’t predict, however, is just how uninspired their love story is going to be.

In this week’s Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai, Ritesh Deshmukh who’s made a career playing the lovable loser, stars once again as boy-next-door Rajesh who must sacrifice his own affection, and play cupid between this Vixen from Venus (played by Jacqueline Fernandes) and the country’s heartthrob movie-star (played by Ruslaan Mumtaz).

Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai is a throwback to those old-school films that mishmashes all the Bollywoodstaples – thoda romance, thoda comedy, and some tears before the two leads walk away happily into the sunset. The comic bits work in parts; Ritesh plays an assistant director to filmmaker Farah Khan, making way for a string of star cameos. You’ll laugh until your sides hurt at the one performed by Akshay Kumar, who sportingly appears as an exaggerated version of himself, obsessed with a rival actor’s paycheck. I was even amused by the track involving an X-rated DVD and Rajesh’s excitable father, played by Satish Shah. Also, Vishal Malhotra as Rajesh’s horny best friend Kaushal makes you chuckle more than once at his naughty antics.

The problem with Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai is that this stray fratboy humour is the most enjoyable part of this stale story. Director Milap Zaveri could have done so much more with a tale about a girl who shows up from outer space, but he chooses to go down the predictable path.

There’s so much mushy dialogue that even the guys who write those Hallmark cards would feel uncontrollably sick; and just the basic plotting of the romantic track is too corny and juvenile to inspire any real sympathy for the characters involved. It doesn’t help that Ritesh and Jacqueline lack the spark to keep you hooked to their romance.

I’m going with two out of five for debutant director Milap Zaveri’s Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai. It’s got moments that will make you smile, but it’s hardly out of this world.

April 09, 2009

Cast: Rahul Bose, Chigasu Takuku, Moushmi Chatterjee, Raima Sen

Director: Aparna Sen

Despite its leisurely pace and its wildly implausible premise, The Japanese Wife, directed by Aparna Sen, is a film that stays with you.

It’s the charming love story of Snehamoy, a mild-mannered schoolteacher in the Sunderbans (played by Rahul Bose), and Miyage, a chatty girl in a faraway Japanese village (played by Chigasu Takuku), who start out as pen-pals, fall in love, then get married and stay committed for 17 years without ever meeting face-to-face. Their romance unfolds through a series of letters and occasional phone calls.

Adapted from Kunal Basu’s short story, Sen’s film reaches out and touches your heart because it’s populated with believable, flesh-and-blood characters who have real fears and anxieties that you can connect with. Moushmi Chatterjee puts in an inspired performance as Snehamoy’s garrulous aunt who wants him to marry her best friend’s daughter Sandhya (played hauntingly by Raima Sen), but must accept with a heavy heart that he is already married in spirit to Miyage. Years later, Sandhya returns as a widow with a young son to live in the aunt’s house. A bittersweet love triangle is born, even as Snehamoy remains committed to his Japanese wife.

Aparna Sen’s assured touches come through in scenes like the lively kite competition between Snehamoy and the villagers, which escalates into something of an Indo-Jap tussle. Or the scene in which Snehamoy accompanies Sandhya to the market where the ease between them reminds you of a long-married couple.

There is no denying the fact that The Japanese Wife gets bogged down by its indulgent pace. But stay with it and you will be rewarded. I’m going with three out of five for director Aparna Sen’s The JapaneseWife. It’s an unusual piece of cinema that lingers in your memory for its luscious visuals and heartbreaking emotions.

April 02, 2010

Cast: Nana Patekar, Dimple Kapadia, Sunil Shetty, Vidya Malavade, Rehaan Khan, Anjana Sukhani

Director: Kabir Sadanand

Anyone who’s spent a lazy afternoon tucking into the delicious sali boti at Britannia or the cherry cream custard at Kyani can appreciate the climatic conflict of Tum Milo Toh Sahi, in which an old-fashioned Irani cafe must be saved from a greedy corporate giant that wants to turn it into one of those homogenized coffee shop franchises.

Had this been the basic premise of director Kabir Sadanand’s film instead of its predictable take on contemporary relationships, Tum Milo Toh Sahi might not have turned out the mangled mess that it has.

Dimple Kapadia hams it up as Dilshad, the garrulous Parsi owner of the café, who develops an easy friendship with Nana Patekar’s cranky Subramanium who has an almost Norman Bates-like obsession with his dead mother. Sunil Shetty and Vidya Malvade play a constantly bickering married couple Amit and Anita, who clash over his long working hours and their inability to agree on how to raise their son. Finally, Rehan Khan and Anjana Sukhani play young collegians Bikramjit and Shalini, faced with your typical Bollywood cliché — they must traverse the film’s skull-boring song-and-dance routine till they realize they are in love.

Predictably, it’s the relationship between the senior characters that is most engaging, thanks to a consistent performance by Nana Patekar, who plays to the gallery with his quirky characterization. Suniel Shetty delivers the film’s most embarrassing performance with his accented dialogue delivery and awkward body language. His garbled words are hard to figure out most of the time, and his over-acting in this film consolidates his position in the hall of shame alongside fellow doorknobs Zayed Khan, Fardeen Khan and Bobby Deol.

To be honest, except for Nana Patekar and to some extent Rehan Khan who pitches in an earnest turn, the entire cast of this film grates with annoying performances and bad accents. Even a child actor who plays Dilshad’s Australia-returned grandson deserves some serious neck-wrangling for his mutilation of the English language in the name of an Aussie twang.

If there’s anything more infuriating than the acting in this film, it’s the distracting background score that qualifies as sheer noise. Raghav Sachar, who famously holds the distinction of playing some 30-odd musical instruments, is credited with composing the background score which sounds like plates and glasses being smashed against walls.

This film is intended as a warm drama about love in a big city, but the script never quite gets around to achieving that. I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Kabir Sadanand’s Tum Milo Toh Sahi. Since coffee is used as a metaphor to bring people together in this movie, I suggest you spike yours with a large shot of whiskey to make the pain of watching this a little easier.

April 02, 2010

Director: Jaideep Varma

In Leaving Home: The Life and Music of Indian Ocean, performances by the country’s biggest band unspool before you both as concert live acts, and as the four comrades jam at their crumbling old Delhi bungalow. At one point, the members laughingly recall an instance when their tabla player and vocalist Asheem Chakravarty told an audience during a concert: “We are playing so well because you are sitting in front of us. Just think: if there were dogs instead, we never would have played so well.”

Asheem Chakravarty provides much of the music, the laughter and the poignant moments in Leaving Home, so it is painful when you think that he died in December last year before seeing this film in the cinemas. Yet Leaving Home is as much the story of Indian Ocean’s other members — guitarist and founder Susmit Sen, bassist and vocalist Rahul Ram, and drummer and vocalist Amit Kilam. The film listens to their voices and speaks of their lives.

Leaving Home is India’s first band documentary, and it reaches out of the screen and touches you because it is about four guys and the remarkable music they created, in spite of the fact that recording companies didn’t back them in their early struggling days.

The film interestingly tells each member’s back story and how they gravitated towards each other in chapters titled with their music albums. Director Jaideep Varma records the band’s harmonious jamming like a devoted fan, and gives us a picture of their inspirations. After all, this is the band that sang for the environment in ‘Ma Rewa’ or of peace in that wonderful anthem from Black Friday, ‘Bandeh’.

Leaving Home does feel too long for those unacquainted with Indian Ocean’s music, mainly because of the unedited, lengthy performances. Yet this is the story of an extraordinary band and I recommend you watch it because it’s a story that makes us proud. I’m going with three-and-a-half out of five and a thumbs-up for director Jaideep Varma’s Leaving Home: The Life and Music of Indian Ocean. For fans of the band this is nothing short of a real treat.

April 02, 2010

Cast: Maradona Rebello, Bipasha Basu, Lilette Dubey

Director: Sudipto Chattopadhyay

Pankh starring newcomer Maradona Rebello, is the disturbing story of a young man grappling with the psychological side-effects of being passed off as a girl in his childhood years.

The film picks up the important and delicate issue of gender confusion and sexual identity, but treats the story in such a pretentious and heavy-handed manner that it’s sometimes hard to empathize with the protagonist’s pain.

Set within the Mumbai film industry, director Sudipto Chattopadhyay’s tale involves a failed actress (played by Lillete Dubey) who masquerades her son as a girl so he can land roles in Bollywood films. This successful child actress grows into the confused youngster whose mother is now pushing him towards a career as a leading man in Hindi films.

Over the years our protagonist has created the illusion of a friend in a highly successful film actress (played by Bipasha Basu), with whom he has imaginary conversations. On a visit to an audition one day, his head is filled with memories of old friends and lecherous filmmakers from his childhood years, and as it turns out things aren’t very different today.

Pankh is provocative and unsettling, but in an exploitative way. There is much bad language used by practically all the characters, and there are gratuitous scenes of molestation which seem voyeuristic and sensational.

The film, which comes off just as confused as its protagonist, cannot decide if it wants to focus on the sleazy side of the Hindi film industry, or on the psychological impact of forced cross-dressing.

Astonishingly bad acting from all principal players and the loose structure of the screenplay make Pankh difficult to endure. Despite a running time of only 90 minutes, it’s a film that requires much patience on your part.

I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for director Sudipto Chattopadhyay’s Pankh. An important story gets shortchanged by indulgent direction. Such a shame!