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

November 08, 2013

Cast: Punit Singh Ratn, Anaika Soti, Mahesh Thakur

Director: Ram Gopal Varma

Cinema has the power to shock you, but Ram Gopal Varma takes that quite literally in Satya 2. In one particularly gruesome scene, a burkha-clad woman wielding an electric drill directs the weapon towards a rapist’s crotch, and blood splatters everywhere. This is Varma’s idea of the new underworld, where citizens play vigilantes, forming an anonymous ‘company’ that strikes fear in the hearts of the rich and the powerful. The mastermind behind this nameless crime enterprise is Satya (newcomer Punit Singh Ratn), a man who deliberately keeps his background a secret so he cannot be caught.

The film traces the journey of this bespectacled everyman who comes to Mumbai with a chilling plan to redefine the underworld. “My company will have no name, but the product it’ll deal in is fear,” he tells construction magnates who bankroll his daring plan to assassinate a top industrialist, a police commissioner, and a media baron all in one day. Satya recruits those who are disillusioned with the system, including a former encounter cop, but keeps a low profile so even his wife and his closest friends have no idea what he’s up to. One of these friends is a skimpily clad starlet named ‘Special’, who is so unremarkable that you wonder how she acquired that name.

To be fair, somewhere buried in this muddled film there is an interesting idea of why citizens are forced to stand up for themselves. Through sweeping top shots, we see a metropolis bursting at the seams and rotting with neglect. But the film goes downhill as Satya turns into a messiah, rectifying the system’s injustice and giving us mind-numbing speeches in an expressionless monotone. Leading man Puneet in fact is one of the chief reasons the film doesn’t work. He delivers a labored performance and appears to have the emotional range of a plank of plywood. As is a staple in Varma’s films, there is a motley crew of singularly unattractive characters, including a disfigured, bald henchman whose chief purpose is to stare straight into the camera.

Comparisons are odious, but when you title a film after your best work yet, who is to blame? Varma’s seminal 1998 film Satya redefined the underworld genre, and while Satya 2 may not be his worst film, it has no resemblance to that exciting, clutter-breaking gem.

Many, many times during this overlong film, we hear that the underworld company formed by the protagonist is just a thought, and not an actual entity that can be snuffed out by the cops. Much in the same vein, Satya 2 is not so much an engaging film as it is an interesting idea that Varma squanders away with a hackneyed script, and an ensemble of over-actors.

I’m going with one-and-a-half out of five for Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya 2. We’ve been waiting for a film that gives us a fresh take on crime in the city. Sadly, this is not that film.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

November 01, 2013

Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Vivek Oberoi, Kangana Ranaut

Director: Rakesh Roshan

From the moment we’re first re-introduced to our masked superhero in Krrish 3, saving a airplane from an imminent crash in a scene reminiscent of Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns, it becomes clear that filmmaker Rakesh Roshan is challenging us to a game of ‘Name The Original’. Indeed Krrish 3 is a potpourri of set-pieces and characters plucked out of every superhero film to come out of Hollywood in the last ten years or so.

Reunited at the end of 2006’s Krrish, father-and-son Rohit and Krishna Mehra (both played by Hrithik Roshan) are now happily saving lives in their own way: Rohit by developing cures to deadly global viruses, and Krishna by secretly taking on the identity of Krrish when robbers barge into a jewelry store, or when a kid is dangling off cables between the roofs of tall buildings. Their world is complete, and their secret safe with Krishna’s wife Priya (Priyanka Chopra), who whispers into his ear at a party that she’s expecting their child, just so they can make a big song and dance about it.

But (in a scene ripped straight out of last year’s The Amazing Spider-Man) when Krrish releases an antidote to a virus that poses danger to an entire city, he evokes the anger of Kaal (Vivek Oberoi). A cross between Magneto and Professor Xavier from the X-Men movies, Kaal is a paralyzed super-villain stuck in a wheelchair, who can move objects with his mind, and commands a troop of mutants. Amongst his most loyal ‘maanwars’ is the catsuit-clad Kaya (Kangana Ranaut), a shape-shifting temptress modeled after Mystique, who delivers clunky dialogues like: “Alag, anokhi, adbud hoon main, kyunki mera koi ateet nahin.” Before you can blink, Kaya has fallen in love with Krishna, while taking on the identity of Priya.

Unlike Hollywood superheroes, each of whom come with their own comic book mythology and back-stories, Krrish’s roots are planted firmly in Rakesh Roshan’s fertile imagination. Which means there’s plenty 80s melodrama about daddy issues and brotherly bonds, and a lot of hullaballoo over the safety of Krishna’s unborn child. Yet it’s the film’s action scenes that keep you engaged. The special effects are nicely done in a confrontation between Krrish and three of Kaal’s mutants that ends with our hero ripping out the protruding tongue of the frog-like creature. You can’t help but cheer when Krrish lifts an entire portion of a skyscraper with his bare hands. And to be fair, the climatic duel between Kaal and Krrish alone is bang for your buck. Inspired no doubt from every recent Hollywood blockbuster in which an entire city is reduced to rubble, this sequence is nevertheless thrillingly shot and edited.

What there’s no getting away from, unfortunately, is the un-slickness of the entire affair. From junior artistes staring directly into camera, and dialogues that take you back decades, Krrish 3 is an unlikely cocktail of cool, shiny technology and outdated treatment. As the pasty-faced Kaal, Oberoi gets the cheesiest lines. Pointing to his maanwars, he declares in one scene: “Fusion is the future”. On another occasion, referring to the virus he intends to unleash, he says: “Logon ko thoda marne do; aur zyaada darne do.” But the film’s biggest letdown is Rajesh Roshan’s uninspired score – a string of stale tracks that fail to strike the right note.

It’s Hrithik Roshan who compensates for many of the film’s hiccups with an earnest, committed performance. He brings consistency in his portrayal of the lovable man-child Rohit, a part he first slipped into ten years ago in the far superior Koi Mil Gaya. As Krishna/Krrish, he’s impossibly buff with gleaming chest and abs, but there’s a depth of emotion that’s unmistakable. Watch how he quivers with anger, his entire being visibly shaken, when Kaya reveals an important secret to him. Hrithik fills out the superhero suit convincingly, and makes you care for the character even when everything around him is laughable. The other impressive performance is from Kangana Ranaut, in the scene-stealing part of Kaya, who hits just the right balance between vulnerability and voluptuousness.

I’m going with two-and-a-half stars for the film, and an additional half star just for Hrithik Roshan, which makes it three out of five for Krrish 3. The film is ambitious but flawed. It is, however, consistently watchable for its terrific lead star who you can’t take your eyes off, even for a moment.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)