Indian Cinema

Happy Bhag Jayegi – just a nice enjoyable comedy movie

moviemavengal1 Comment

happy-bhaag-jayegi-759

When I saw the trailer for Happy Bhag Jayegi [Happy Will Run], I was so excited.  It looked funny, and most importantly had Jimmy Shergill as the heavy, and Abhay Deol looking bemused.  The reviews have not been stellar, but I’m here to tell you it’s a fun little over two hour romantic farce.  And who doesn’t want to spend two hours with Abhay and Jimmy?

Jimmy-Shergil-Happy-Bhag-Jayegi

I really admire what Jimmy Shergill is doing with his career.  He’s taking the supporting villainish (but not too villainish) character roles now in this and in movies like Tanu Weds Manu 2, as well as supporting roles in action films.  Because he’s Jimmy Shergill, he’s the bad guy here, but he’s still so charming you almost feel sorry for him that his bride ran away.

Happy (Diana Penty) is a spitfire.  Her father has arranged her marriage to politician Jimmy Shergill, also the head of the local goon gang.  While Jimmy dances (badly!) at their engagement, Happy jumps out the bathroom window into a waiting truck.  Trouble is, it wasn’t the truck her boyfriend had arranged.

happystory_647_072916054210

She pops out of a box in the home of Abhay — son of the ex-Governor in Lahore, Pakistan.  Abhay’s father is played by the always great Pakistani actor Javed Sheikh.  Bollywood audiences know him  as SRK’s father in Om Shanti Om, but I loved him as Fawad Khan’s father in the Pakistani soap Zindagi Gulzar Hai.

engagement

Abhay just wants to play cricket, but his father has great political aspirations for him.  They’d been in Amritsar on a diplomatic mission, and the truck is full of diplomatic gifts!

Happy is stuck in Lahore, without the fiance she really wants to marry, and poses a problem because she has no passport or visa?  And Abhay is of course engaged as well, so how to explain a strange girl in his house?

53740352

The whole thing is a lighter than air farce.  Even when Happy gets kidnapped at one point, you know she’s really in no danger, as the goons are scared of our feisty heroine.  Happy’s intended Guddu (Ali Fazal) is a rather feckless musician.  It’s no wonder her father had doubts about him!  Abhay has to figure out a way to get Guddu into Lahore, get them married and then deport them!  All while keeping Jimmy Shergill at bay.

What I liked about this movie is that the Pakistanis are all nice people.  They are not the bad guys at all!  I can’t for the life of me understand how this movie could be banned in Pakistan, because it’s so positive about Pakistan!  The misunderstandings between the two countries are presented in a humorous way, and barriers between people broken down.  The director wrote an open letter to Pakistan, and the official who banned it, because he doesn’t get it either!

The women in the movie are strong, both Happy and Abhay’s fiance Zoya (Momal Sheikh).  They make the men in their lives rise to the occasion.

It was a very pleasant way to spend a little over two hours, and I laughed out loud at quite a few points.  Abhay, it’s great to have you back.  I’ve missed you.

Looking up Ali Fazal, I don’t remember him at all from 3 Idiots, but he’s set to play Abdul in Stephen Frears’ Victoria and Adbul opposite Judi Dench!  I wasn’t super impressed with you in this trifle, but go you!

Three and a half out of five stars.

Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood and I saw it together.  Read her spoiler free review here.

Rudhramadevi – Great story with horrible CGI

moviemavengal3 Comments

rudramadevi-759Rudhramadevi is currently on Netflix streaming in the US, unfortunately the original Telugu dubbed in Hindi.  Anushka Shetty of Bahubali fame, plays queen Rudhramadevi.  The coolest thing about this historical epic is that the main characters in this film are all based on real people.  Rudhramadevi ruled in what is now Telegana, dying in 1295, and was one of the first reigning queens in India.

allu_arjun_gona_ganna_reddy_rudramadevi-wide

Gona Gannareddy (Allu Arjun) truly was a Robin Hood like figure supporting Radhrumadevi’s rule.  [I read Mahesh Babu turned down the role.]

For some bizarre reason, the filmmakers frame the film by having Marco Polo narrate the story  — to show how women ruling is a good thing, I guess.  But the CGI of those opening scenes and the sailing ship, is just horrendous.  At other points they use very cool animation drawings and I wish they’d just used those throughout, or drawings of maps.

rudrama-devi-movie-new-stills-4-4

The film Rudhramadevi supposes that when she was born the King’s chief adviser (Prakash Raj) suggests the birth of a son be announced to the kingdom, so the unruly populous and the feuding relatives angling to take over the throne will be assured there is a male heir.  The young prince is raised in the forest and trained in warfare and sword fighting.  The young actress who played the young Rudhramedeva was really good.  She comes to court as a young teen for the first time, and meets two princes –  Gona Gannareddy and Chalukya Veerabhadra.  They escape the palace together, and she sees a statue of a woman, and realizes with shock that that’s what she looks like.  She runs home, and in a stunning scene for an Indian film, finds her pants soaked with blood down to her ankles.  She runs to her mother who tells her the truth.  She is given the choice to become the princess, but chooses to continue to live as the prince heir of the kingdom.

As a now young man, she’s expected to marry, and Nithya Menon plays the young princess she marries.  (Which totally made me think of Yentl, but she tells the princess she must remain celibate.)  Rudhramadevi has strong feelings for her best friend Chalukya Veerabhadra (Rana Daggubati).  He catches a glimpse of her outside the palace dressed as a woman, and becomes obsessed.  He’s derelict in his war duties he’s so smitten, and she appears again to him as a woman, which gives us this fantastic love duet, one of the highlights of the film for me:

What I loved about the story is that Anushka Shetty as Rudhramadevi is a kick ass warrior queen, and she’s not going to run off to marry her lover when she has duties as queen.   The whole story is so awesomely feminist and woman positive, and Anushka’s performance, especially in the fighting  and battle scenes makes me even more excited for Bahubali 2.

1425301109-1614

The story is great, but the CGI is so bad that it takes you out of the film at times.  I don’t understand why they had to use digital outdoor backdrops for several scenes.  It seemed completely unnecessary.  This film wanted to be what Bahubali achieved, but they didn’t have the same money to execute it.

rudramadevi-Posters-3

This is an example of some of the worst effects.  To show either Allu or Rana riding a horse, they were head on to the camera with their head horribly photoshopped on a repeating GIF of a body moving up and down on a fake horse head.  Over and over and over.  It looked SO bad.  And they made it a poster!  Ugh!

If I had a young daughter, this is a fantastic story of a warrior queen, but I’m not sure older more sophisticated kids could get past the bad special effects.

_dc099730-6cd6-11e5-9358-ce0f694bc37c

Still, a mostly enjoyable watch, with very cool characters, great action battles, and some nice song numbers.  Kudos to Rana Daggubati for playing the Chris Pine to Anushka Shetty’s Wonder Woman.

Three stars out of five.

Check out Margaret’s take on Rudhramadevi on her blog Don’t Call It Bollywood.  She delves much deeper into the gender politics the film.

 

Dil Aashna Hai – Lace remake only for the biggest SRK fans

moviemavengal3 Comments

072205-srk-dilaashnahai

Dil Aashna Hai (The Heart Knows the Truth) is my 50th Shahrukh Khan film.  This film is Camp with a capital “C”.  Dil Aashna Hai came out in 1992, and is one of SRK’s earliest films.  The DVD is hard to track down, and Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood let me borrow it.  I’m on a quest to watch every one of Shahrukh Khan’s films, from the sublime to the not-so-great.  Fully a quarter of all the Hindi films I’ve seen have been Shahrukh Khan movies.

lacehardcover

Dil Aashna Hai is a Hindi adaptation of Shirley Conran’s 1982 novel Lace, which was also a huge TV mini-series in 1984.   “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” TV Guide listed as one of the best lines in TV history.  I don’t remember much about the Phoebe Cates starring mini-series, but Lace the book was one of the first romance novels I ever read.  It was scandalous and racy, a book passed around from high school girl to high school girl, sex scenes marked and dog-eared.

The book was reissued on its 30th anniversary in 2012, and Sarah Hughes wrote in The Guardian that the book wasn’t just a bonkfest, it had a strong feminist message.   The flashbacks in the book as Lily tries to find which of three women is her real mother show the three women each pursuing their own career paths:

Along the way Conran tackles everything from teenage abortion and the iniquities of the porn industry to double standards around one-night stands. We remember the vividly described sex scenes, but in reality the book is filled with pages of argument about a woman’s right to work, the need for equal pay and the juggling of children and career.

IMG_0276

Major details of the original plot have been changed for the Bollywood remake, but at its core it’s still the tale of four women, and that alone is something to be celebrated.  That’s I’m sure what attracted director Hema Malini to the story.  Shahrukh Khan, no matter the size of his picture on the poster, is not the star of this film.  He’s a helpmate and support to Laila (Divya Bharti), a courtesan singer he falls in love with, who works at his father’s hotel.

CINVLN4WIAAgCm7

Kabir Bedi plays SRK’s evil father, who is not thrilled that SRK wants to marry a girl who grew up in a brothel!  (Side note, Kabir was pretty hot back in the day!)

When the woman Laila has known as her mother on her death bed confesses that she was not her biological mother, Laila and Shahrukh go on a quest to find her true mother.  In the book, Lily is a famous film star, and has the money and power to go on her revenge quest on her own.  Here, Shahrukh proves his love for Laila by finding the orphanage she was stolen from by the brothel pimp.

Capt-12115417

Through flashbacks we see three young college girls played by Dimple Kapadia, Amrita Singh  and Sonu Walia fall in love and one of them becomes pregnant.  That is the same as Lace, but the blackmail of the headmaster of the college is cut from the Hindi movie.   The great thing about this movie is seeing these three actresses act together as young girls, and then mature women.   They rent a house together and enjoy all being mothers together of the young baby, but plan that the first to marry will adopt the little girl.

unnamed

The movie just doesn’t have the same bite as the original, and it’s all saccharin sweet.  The romance between Laila and Shahrukh only gets one nice love song, but not so much screen time.  While it’s great that for once the women are center stage in a Bollywood film, if you’re looking for a great SRK romantic film, this is not the movie for you.  He’s adorable, and great playing the supportive boyfriend, but there’s not much here for him.

 

dil aashna hai necklace

Divya Bharti overacts her way through the melodrama, brandishing the locket left with her at the orphanage in her confrontation with the three women.  It’s  all very campy, but not “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” deliciously campy.  It’s been watered down.

072305-srk-dilaashnahai

Now I can say I saw one of SRK’s earliest films, but it’s certainly not going down as one of my favorites.  Margaret loves it, but I’m not as fond.  She discusses and compares it to the original mini-series in her review.

Two stars out of five.  Only for the biggest SRK fans who need to see every one of his films.

Mohenjo Daro – a somewhat enjoyable hot mess

moviemavengal1 Comment

hrithik-mohenjo-daro-trailer-759

Nearly two years is a long time to wait between Hrithik Roshan movies.  My neighbor and I didn’t care what the reviews said, or the mocking of her husband.  We were bound and determined to spend two and half hours with Hrithik.

My neighbor had no idea who the director was, but expectations naturally run high when Ashutosh Gowariker, whose works include Lagaan, Jodhaa Akbar and Swades returns to the helm after a six year absence.

And therein lies the rub.  The reviews have been harsh, because we expect so much, both from Gowariker and Hrithik.  This film was a swing for the rafters and a big miss.  The trepidation started with the trailer.  That fight with the crocodile looked fake, and the story didn’t seem very compelling.

Annnd, my fears were born out.  I think it was good that I had read a few reviews, and watched Anupama Chopra’s disappointed savaging.  I went last night knowing it would be a hot mess, and just went along for the ride.

pooja-hegde-mohenjo-daro-look-759

Hrithik’s costumes I liked, but the headresses of Pooja Hegde were absolutely ridiculous and distracting.  It’s classic poor farmer comes to the city and falls in love with the beautiful girl from the rich side of town – with a bit of Aladdin thrown in (I kept humming “Riff Raff, Street rat“)

Pooja as the high priest’s daughter is pretty enough but she doesn’t have much sparkle to her.  I kept thinking how much personality a Deepika or a Priyanka would have brought to this role.  Pooja is fine, but she’s not enough to carry this film, when there’s so many other issues with it.

320px-Dancing_Girl_of_Mohenjo-daro

At the very end they show this famous dancing girl artifact from Mohenjo Daro tumbling in the water, and just look at the attitude of that young girl.  This is the girl I wish the movie had been about.  I want to know about her story – she has so much personality and moxie frozen in metal.

Hrithik gives over 100% in any role he takes on.  His dancing is graceful in Mohenjo Daro even if it’s absolutely ridiculous that he would be disguised by a bit of red eye makeup and a horn on his head.  His dance with Pooja in Tu Hai was my favorite of the film.  The rest of A. R. Rahman’s soundtrack didn’t send me, but I love this song.

 

mohenjo-daro-08

Hrithik’s very good in the action sequences, especially in this athletic battle against two cannibals.  (What is it with Indian movies and the dreaded cannibal warriors?)  Hrithik’s intensity is often expressed in just shaking with rage.  Literally shaking.  It gets to be a bit much, to be honest.

The main flaw in the film is not Hrithik over doing it, or Pooja under doing her performance.  It’s the story.  It’s just not enough somehow.  The script needed more work.

Kabir Bedi is a reliable villain, even if he’s getting a bit long in the tooth to be thrown around.  Arunoday Singh plays his son, Moonja, who’s betrothed to the young priestess.  Poor Arunoday just has that kind of face that looks like a slightly stupid villain, like he did in Main Tera Hero.

The very last part of the film is a big pretty unbelievable action sequence rescuing the city inhabitants from a dam breaking.  My neighbor informed me that excavations have shown that Mohenjo Daro was destroyed by water.  Maybe the film would have had more excitement to it if it had been more of a disaster movie than a pseudo political drama of an ancient city.

Mohenjo Daro is a bit of a hot mess, but it had some enjoyable moments.  It’s just not very good, and with Ashutosh Gowariker‘s pedigree, that’s really very disappointing.  And after Baahubali, the special effects in this Indian epic don’t measure up.

Two and a half stars out of five.

Student of the Year – A look back ahead of the Dream Team concert

moviemavengal1 Comment

tiger-story+fb_647_041816015009

I woke up to this @KaranJohar tweet this morning:

https://twitter.com/karanjohar/status/765023947863777280

And my reaction was just like this one I saw on Tumblr:

“student of the year 2!!!”

“…starring tiger shroff”

I have yet to see a Tiger Shroff movie (and I hear I’m not missing much).  But he is a good dancer:

Student-of-the-Year-Movie-2012

I looked back at my original Student of the Year review, and it’s quite the time capsule.  I wasn’t into Indian cinema when it came out in 2012.  I saw it in November of 2014, and it was my first introduction to Alia Bhatt, Siddarth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan.  (Whatever happened to that Fault In Our Stars remake?)

student-of-the-year-star-cast-rishi-kapoor1

It was curiosity about Varun Dhawan, who has been cast as a lead in the Bollywood remake of Fault in Our Stars (with Deepika), that led me to check out this Karan Johar film. SOTY is set at a junior college where the gay dean (Rishi Kapoor) has an annual contest for, you guessed it, the Student of the Year to win a scholarship to an international college. And this contest is not just academic, there is a triathlon, a scavenger hunt AND a dance contest. The film begins with the group of former students gathering at the hospital bedside of the dying dean, and then flashes back 10 years in the past.

Evidently, it was quite notable that Karan Johar debuted several young actors and actresses in this film, rather than matching one unknown with an established actor/actress. Of the students, only the college vamp is played by a familiar face, Sana Saeed albeit when she was a child actress in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai as little Anjuli.

student-of-the-year-17v

This film reminds me of John Hughes films of the 80’s with the rich kids pitted against the scholarship kids from the Indian equivalent to the wrong side of the tracks. Or Gossip Girl or The O.C., etc. Karan Johar is just SO good at setting up melodramatic love triangles. Varun is the rich kid and Sidharth Molhotra the scholarship kid, and Alia Bhatt plays the rich girl that they both love. I had not seen any films with these three young new actors, and while all are good, Sidharth Molhotra’s performance is the standout. (Seems like all the Indian awards agreed, nominating him for best male debut.) Very Ben MacKenzie (a la O.C.) silently pining over the rich girl while trying to act all tough.

 

Also notable was a supporting role by Kayoze Irani who gets a big “Go to Hell Dean” speech near the end, who it turns out is Boman Irani’s son. Huh, fancy that, a child of a Bollywood star getting a role in a KJo film. 😉 Boman, Kajol and Farah Khan all have cameo appearances.

tumblr_m9zfxtcLtN1rflt3mo4_1280

Fairly predicable plot with the Bollywood emphasis more on the bromance of the two male leads than on the romance of Sidharth and Alia’s characters.  Karan Johar is masterful at taking you on that emotional journey, and I tip my hat to him.  Very entertaining and enjoyable.

I gave the film three and a half stars back then, out of five.

What’s fascinating to me is how I wasn’t that impressed with Varun and Alia, and they have gone on to mature so much more over the subsequent years in film.  Alia blew me away in Highway and in Udta Punjab.  Varun just was off the chain in Badlapur and fantastic in Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania and Main Tera Hero.  We got a hint of Varun’s great dancing in SOTY, but he was so good in ABCD2, and worth watching even if the plot wasn’t.  Siddarth tried to do more dramatic work, in Brothers, and Kapoor and Sons, but he just doesn’t seem to have the chops of the other two.  But that’s okay – he’s carved out a niche as the strong silent type in romantic movies like Hasee Toh Phasee and the upcoming Baar Baar Dekho.

Thank you Karan, for giving us all three young new stars.  And for this.  Always for this:

from Baawri’s Tumblr

AND for SOTY’s fantastic soundtrack!  Can’t wait to see these three stars and the rest of the Dream Team this Friday perform live in Chicago!

Wake Up Sid – Slacker Ranbir Coming of Age

moviemavengal1 Comment

wake-up-sid-12hI liked Wake Up Sid more than I thought I would.  To be honest, the story is a bit too close to home, as my son has graduated college and is trying to find his way in the world.

Ranbir Kapoor is Sid.  He’s a rich Bombay kid who flunks his college finals.  Anupam Kher is his father (who else!) and tells him he has to go to work in the family plumbing fixture business.  When he walks out, Sid and his father have a huge fight and he is kicked out of his family home, his credit cards canceled.

wakeupsid2

Sid can’t think of anywhere to go than to the apartment of his new friend Aisha ((Konkona Sen Sharma).  I think Aisha was supposed to be 27 and Ranbir much younger as he was supposed to be a college graduate (maybe 23?).  Anyway, it’s unusual to have the woman be older in any Bollywood relationship so brownie points for that.  Aisha is new to Bombay and starting a new job and an independent life.

vlcsnap-00004

Sid learns all the real life skills that he has had no clue about in his sheltered life, like laundry, fixing up an apartment and cooking an egg.  Sid has a passion for photography and ends up getting a job at the magazine where Aisha works.

It sounds trite, but the script is actually pretty clever.  This is the debut feature film of director Ayan Mukerji who also wrote the story of the film.  He won the Filmfare best debut director deservedly.  Wake Up Sid was quite the success, and his second feature is the mega-hit Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani.  His films both have characters and situations that while filmi, still feel grounded in reality, aa specific young urban reality.   (I’m a little leery that his next project is reported to be a superhero film, also starring his muse Ranbir Kapoor, Dragon.)

8665361f-8195-4dc9-b1e6-32050fc7f734

The romance evolves organically.  They’re just friends at first and sleep on separate pallets in the same room.  Aisha tries not to fall in love, because Sid is at first such a mess and so purposeless.  But this is charming Ranbir after all, she has no chance.  Once he reconciles with his parents upon getting his first magazine job paycheck, he moves out, and that’s what makes both of them realize how their feelings have changed.

mostdateablefemalebollywoodcharacters13_1440068252

Fortunately, the film doesn’t just focus on Sid and his travails.  Aisha gets her own storyline with an almost romance with her sophisticated jazz-loving boss.  It was nice, frankly, to see Konkona Sen Sharma get a juicy big part like this in a romantic film.

My feelings about this film are just tinged by the fact that I’m living this right now with my own son.  So it’s not exactly escapist fare for this mom.  Sid only took about a month to wake up.  Sometimes the process is longer.

Still, I think the director is fantastic, and I look forward to all his future projects, even if he makes Ranbir a superhero (gulp!)

Four stars out of five.

 

 

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna – 10 Year anniversary appreciation

moviemavengal3 Comments

article-0-18660AA6000005DC-258_634x357

I actually like Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, although I know it is not most people’s favorite Karan Johar movie.  It’s certainly not my favorite Shahrukh Khan film, but it does have some great moments for me.  Today is the 10 year anniversary of KANK’s release date.

While it is about mature adults, and not young lovers,  the subject of adultery is not one that everyone wants to watch in a film.  I do love the music, too.  I really like seeing how Karan played homage to Silsila especially in this song sequence.  He copies the exact poses of Rekha and Amitabh.

But what I really take from KANK, is the gay subtext.  It may have also been about Rani Mukherjee’s real life relationship with Aditya Chopra.  But I think when Karan explores the sexual incompatibility of Rani and Abishek’s character’s marriage, and how Rani feels things with Shahrukh that she has never felt before — ding, ding, ding — we’re supposed to read into that a gay subtext.

Here’s an example when Shahrukh and Rani play act how he should greet his  wife while they are in a department store.  The first few times I watched this scene, I was focused on Shahrukh’s reaction, but look at Rani’s face at about the 1:17 minute mark.  She realizes she’s feeling desire for Shahrukh that her character has never felt with Abishek.  She wasn’t expecting to feel it, and she stops immediately, but she can’t stop thinking about it from this moment on.

I don’t believe that adultery is right, but I also don’t think people should stay in marriages where they are miserable.  And that’s the real message that Karan is trying to tell us, whether the couples are gay or straight.

The whole soundtrack of this movie is fantastic.  Margaret at Don’t Call It Bollywood posted today about how the song Mitwa  deconstructs the typical fantasy song.

Mumbai Police – Prithviraj’s stunning performance in this film gobsmacked me

moviemavengal14 Comments

Prithviraj Mumbai Police Movie Photo

I was absolutely gobsmacked by the amazing performance of Prithviraj in the Malayalam crime mystery drama Mumbai Police.  I had seen Prithviraj in a stellar if unflashy supporting role in the Hindi film Aurangzeb, also as a cop.  Then I saw Classmates as I was told how influential it is in modern Malayalam cinema.  He was very solid also in the romantic drama Ennu Ninte Moideen.  I had been impressed by his body of work, but nothing prepared me for his incredible performance in Mumbai Police.  Essentially, he’s almost playing a double role.

mumbai-police-malayalam-movie-teaser-2

In the opening scene, Tony (Prithviraj) is driving down an empty street at night in his police jeep.  He is speaking into a phone saying, “I have found the culprit.” in Malayalam and then repeats it in English.  Suddenly a refrigerator falls off a truck in front of him, and he swerves and the jeep rolls over.  The next scene has a bewildered scarred Tony in a car with Farhan who tells Tony he is his best friend.  Tony has lost all his memory, and this fellow cop friend and the doctor are the only people who know that.  Tony was in the middle of the investigation of the murder of a fellow policeman and the political and press pressure is intense for the case to be solved.

Tony doesn’t know who is friend and who is foe.  After Farhan drops him off at his apartment, Tony is attacked by several men, and is stunned that he can quickly dispatch all of them.  He asks his doctor if he can really return to work, and she has him solve a sudoku puzzle.  She explains that before the accident he was “Person A”, and after he lost his memory he is “Person B”.  He may have different likes and preferences as Person B, but all the skills he learned as Person A, any languages he learned, he will still know.  She brings up that Steve Wozniak lost his memory the same way for five weeks after a plane accident.  (All the computers in the film are Macs).

MOVIE-3-6-5-13

So, Tony returns to work, bluffing his way through his interactions with subordinates and poring over the investigation notes.  He learns the murder victim was his good friend Aryan, and Tony, Farhan and Aryan were known as the “Mumbai Police” since they had served there together before returning to Kerala.

tumblr_nimcqiE8UZ1qzheh0o1_1280

The films Memento and Ghajini deal with short term memory loss, but Mumbai Police reminded me more of the old Harrison Ford movie Regarding Henry.  In Regarding Henry, Harrison Ford plays a hard charging lawyer who loses his memory and has almost a complete personality change after being shot.  He’s two different people and his family has to adjust to the “new” Henry.

Tony at first wants to get back to what he was before, but in the course of reinvestigating the murder, he discovers that he was quite the asshole. He was confident and arrogant, with a certain swagger, but his staff walked on eggshells around him waiting for him to explode.  There is a scene where Tony is questioning a possible witness, and grabs the guy’s wife and manhandles her, molesting her in front of everyone.  His female subordinate looks on in complete disgust at his abuse of power.  And we in the audience had been falling for this super competent cop, and then his darkness slaps us in the face.

Gradually, Tony finds that the murder happened from a specific kind of sniper gun from a nearby building to the murder parade ground.  Aryan was about to be decorated with a medal for bravery and his speech is cut short by the bullet to the heart.  Tony was the one who actually deserved the medal, but was letting Aryan take the credit.  Tony’s team lose confidence in him because they can see that he had steered the investigation to protect someone.  And you sense, that maybe it was Tony himself.  But WHY??  It makes no sense!

mumbai_police_ver2_xlg (1)

The last 20 minutes of the film are shocking.  Yes, the film has been out for three years, but I’m not going to spoil it, in case you, dear reader, have not seen it yet.  I was sitting there with my mouth hanging open.  It’s Six Sense or Crying Game level shocking and I wouldn’t spoil the reveal in those films either.  Prithviraj in those final scenes had a level of acting that was just so beyond anything I had ever seen him do.   He is raw, completely vulnerable and just devastating.

The script of this film is put together like clockwork, written by the team Bobby-Sanjay who also wrote Traffic.  A lot of Indian films can feel like they have slap dash scripts, or maybe had no written script upon filming (ahem), but this was almost like a Hitchcock film in how it was so carefully crafted.  Solid directing by  Rosshan Andrrew, and a nice moody soundtrack.  The supporting players are all good, but none really stood out to me as exceptional.  What is extraordinary is Prithviraj’s performance and he gave his all for this film.  Everyone needs to see this superb tour de force movie.

Four and a half stars out of five, and now one of my all-time favorite Malayalam films.

Only if you’ve already seen the film and know the surprise ending, read the Don’t Call It Bollywood analysis of the film which has tons of spoilers.

Pokiri – Fantastic Mahesh Babu flick by Puri Jagannadh

moviemavengal7 Comments

pokiri

Pokiri (Rogue) is simply a fantastic Mahesh Babu action romance flick directed and written by Puri Jagannadh.  I enjoyed it so much.  Pokiri is from 2006 and was filmed with a very modest budget of 12 crore.  The director wrote a great script and was really inventive in his shots.  The editing really enhances and propels the pace of the action.

I had rented the DVD through Netflix, but the DVD crapped out on me half way through.  I kept trying to make it work again because the movie is so delicious, but then realized I was watching a Telugu movie.  Of course, the whole thing is on Youtube with subtitles.  (Yay Chromecast!)

Among rival gangs in Hyderabad, Mahesh is the newcomer, Pandu.  He’s a rogue, a free agent and his intro in the film has him running down a street with a cart of red mirchi peppers fly into the air.  Loved that touch.

The action scenes are very visually inventive.  There’s a cool action sequence when the lights get shot out in a dark room and then it’s all flashing flickering light with sparks waterfalling down.  Mahesh kills off pretty much a whole opposing gang one by one in flashes.  So many film directors rely on a few big fireball explosions and slow mo to make an action scene look cool.

Pokiri-images-bc9a2fc0-78f2-4d9b-ba91-ac773ccec2e

The love interest is Ileana D’Cruz.  She’s an aerobics instructor living with her widowed mother and her younger brother.  Mahesh tries to stay away from her, but he can’t overcome his attraction to her.  And his friends delight in throwing them together.

hqdefault (1)

Quite literally thrown together, as in this fantastic little scene where they’re stuck in an elevator together and his friends make the elevator jerk up and down.
cinemachaat_pokiri_si-pasupathi

Ileana’s in dire need of a protector.  Unfortunately she’s drawn the attention of a corrupt cop.  Ashish Vidyarthi is just so eeeeevil.  He’s not only involved in corrupt deals shaking down land developers with a local gang.  He has no compunction in viewing his cop underlings as expedient kills.  And then he approaches Ileana’s mother to propose she make her daughter his concubine.  “And you’re not that bad looking either.”

Ileana as Shruti approaches Mahesh to ask that he be her protector.  I really liked that she addressed it head on.  She had no one else in her life that she could ask.  But while he is drawn to protect her, he doesn’t think a rogue like him is right or deserving of her love.

My favorite scene was just right before the interval.  The editing and directing in this flick were really a step above, even if it doesn’t have the production money of something like Srimanthudu.  Shruti’s (Ileana’s) fallen in love with Mahesh, a rogue, and he’s trying to say don’t fall in love with me, I’m no good for you.  Then they’re attacked by a gang.  Mahesh is so intense, and torn.  He tells her he loves her, but can she live with a criminal like him after seeing him like this?

That’s the thing.  This movie is not just a great action gangster flick.  There is a real conflict and threat to the love interest.  The romance gets equal weight, and the dance sequences are fantastic.  I really liked the music in this one.  This is yet another reason I love Indian cinema.  All that love he cannot express, the music lets you see what he’s feeling in his heart.

wp-30pokiri1024

I think Mahesh really is what makes the romance work, too.  He just looks tortured, but you can sense an innate goodness in him even while he’s acting like a gangster.  He projects “heart of gold” better than just about anybody.  He wants to leave her alone because he knows she shouldn’t be attracted to a gangster, but she really, really needs a protector.  And I loved that she out and out asked for one!  She didn’t just sit there and whimper, she took some action to protect her family.

pr pokkiri 27

Prakash Raj is the ultimate villain gang don in the film, but for once, though, I think the always fantastic Prakash Raj is upstaged by that creepy evil cop Ashish Vidyarthi. Nasser plays a key role in the denouement at the end.  There’s a great twist to the end of the film.  Pokiri was so successful that it was remade in several languages, including the Salman Khan Hindi film Wanted (which Margaret told me is not nearly as good as Pokiri).  The comedy uncles are even almost funny with a running gag about a beggars union.

I highly recommend this all ’round Telugu entertainer.  It’s going to be one I’ll love going back to rewatch.  The director Puri Jagannadh really impressed me, and he also directed one of my favorite Prabhas flicks, Bujjigadu.  He reteamed with Mahesh Babu for Businessman which is moving right on up on my watchlist.  Four stars out of five.

I’m convincing Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood to watch some Mahesh Babu movies.  Check out her rapturous review of Pokiri!

You can watch all of Pokiri FREE on Youtube with English Subtitles:

>

Ennu Ninte Moideen – Just as special a Malayalam film as I’d been told it would be

moviemavengal6 Comments

01SM_MOIDEEN_2603093g

Over and over, I’ve had the 2015 Malayalam film Ennu Ninte Moideen (Yours Truly Moideen) recommended to me.  It’s an incredible love story starring PrithViraj and Parvarthy.  And it is so incredible because it is a real life story of Moideen and Kanchanamala.

In 2006, director R.S. Vimal interviewed the real Kanchanamala and people who knew Moideen in the half hour long documentary Jalam Kond Murivetaval (or) One Who Was Wounded By Water

Kanchanamal wanted Prithviraj to play Moideen because she thought looked very much like him.

ennu-ninte-moideen_144344328040

Ennu Ninte Moideen is the tragic love story of an interfaith couple who were kept separate  by their families for years.  Moideen and Kanchanamala’s fathers were friends and each were land owners in Mukkam, Kerala.  Moideen’s father was a renowned Muslim leader, and Kanchanamala’s family were Hindu.  Kanchanamala and Moideen went to school together as children, but later Kanchanamala went away from her home to attend college.

As she was returning to college from a school vacation, the family car broke down and she was allowed to take the bus back to the college town (something she was normally not allowed to do).  On that bus, Moideen and Kanchanamala’s eyes met, and they fell in love.  It’s an adorable scene in the film.  Moideen sends a book of poetry to Kanchanamala and then they exchange secret letters.

She steals away from the college, and there is a beautiful love song in the rain.

 

In their courtship, Moideen and  Kanchanamala never even touch once.  When their families learn of their romance Moideen’s father throws him out of the house when he won’t go along with an arranged marriage.  Kanchanamala’s brothers and uncles react even more cruelly, and lock her up in the house.  She’s barely allowed to even leave her bedroom.

19-1442670699-ennu-ninte-moideen-review-5

They sneak letters to each other, and even come up with their own private language to communicate with each other.

1412161587_prithviraj

Moideen becomes a political activist, in opposition to his father’s politics.  He uses the campaign speaker car to speak his love to Kanchanamala.  Moideen’s father attacks him with a sword in the heat of an argument over Kanchanamala, and Kanchanamala’s relatives beat her to try to break her bond with Moideen.

The decades long devotion of Moideen and Kanchanamala would seem impossible to believe and like a fairy tale if it were not based on a real life story.

Finally, they decide to emigrate to America, but then a tragic accident happens.  I thought the director had hyped up what happened for dramatic effect, but the documentary showed the newspaper clippings!

Moideen’s mother has left Moideen’s rigid father in disgust after the sword attack, and she takes Kanchanamala into her home as Moideen’s widow.

Ennu Ninte Moideen is an extraordinary love story.  Tragic and very sad in the end, but still inspiring.  The acting is wondrous both from Prithviraj and Parvarthy.  Luminous soundtrack as well.

The real Kanchanamala criticized the director for changing parts of the story, but for a biopic, I think he was maybe almost too slavish to the true events and could have tightened up the narrative a bit.  Still, a magical romantic film about love that transcends religious and  cultural barriers.

Four stars out of five.

1412925463_ennu-ninte-moideen