Sirf

Sirf (drama)
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Manisha Koirala, Sonali Kulkarni, Ranveer Shorey
Direction: Rajaatesh Nayar

PLEASE, don't we know what life in a metro is all about by now. Haven't we done the Mumbai salsa several times now. Just let big city blues be, unless, there's still an undiscovered Woody Allen out there to do a New York diary on amchi Mumbai, saddi Dilli, namma Chennai.

Sirf is again a city document, which encapsulates the unfulfilled longings of a bunch of characters who try to fulfil their dreams in the vast, abyss-like metro. There's Manisha and Kay Kay: a rich, successful couple who have everything but quality time for each. There's Sonali and Ranvir: a hard-pressed, middle-class couple with a love story that's losing out on the struggle to earn money. There's Pravin Dabbas and Rituparno Sengupta: a small town couple, struggling with the culture clash of permissive cosmosexuals. And there's a young couple dreaming of finding a roof in the unaffordable city in order to get married. Somewhere down the sleepy comings and goings, their lives get intertwined and salvation does lie round the corner. But for that, you'll have to sit up and shake the yawns, since the director fails to invest energy in his drama. What's more irritating is the sudden twist in the seemingly normal tale about a bunch of happiness seekers. Nah! Kay Kay couldn't get crooked, ekdum se, could he? And a Jabalpur girl (Rituparno) couldn't be such an old-fashioned nag, could she?

Watch out for Manisha Koirala. It's a comeback that calls for a bunch of better roles.

Tashan

Tashan (drama)
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Anil Kapoor
Direction: Vijay Krishan Acharya

DESPERATELY seeking some scriptwriters for Yashraj Inc. After the no-brainer Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, get ready for another plot-dead film that tries to score on presentation alone. Sadly, there isn't even a zany, new age tashan to boast about here. There is a pathetic attempt to exploit the Nostalgia Inc, but unlike Om Shanti Om which made an art of retro, Tashan fails to whip up old-is-gold sentiment, despite rendering Amitabh Bachchan's seminal Deewar soliloquy before Bhagwan in tootie-frootie Angrezi and milking good old Gabbar dry. More importantly, the film fails to capitalise the Saif-Kareena chemistry completely and almost relegates Saif as a sidekick, a role he has ably played against Akshay Kumar in the 1990's with films like Main Khiladi Tu Anadi, etc. But what saddens you the most is the gangster act by Anil Kapoor. As the English-loving Bhai, hailing from small-town Kanpur, Kapoor is absolutely unintelligible and ends up a pale copy of Jaaved Jaafrey's rib-tickling cameo in Salaam Namaste. Now that from an actor of his calibre is absolutely heartbreaking.

So what's worth a dekko? Akshay Kumar as a small-time thug who dreams of becoming a big-time ‘sooter' (shooter) and a zero-size Kareena Kapoor in a bikini, recreating the oomph of Ursula Andress in Dr No. Akshay has progressed into a natural scene-stealer by now and simply walks away with the applause, be it action, comedy or emotion. As Bachchan Pandey, the goonda who is pulled out of Kanpur to work as a ‘recovery agent' for Bhaiyya ji (Anil Kapoor), Akshay creates a tashan that actually works. His job is simple. He must find the two fugitives, Saif and Kareena, who have walked away with Bhaiyya ji's moolah. And he does it with a pizzazz that makes the film work, in bits and pieces. Watch him jump around like Hanuman (or is it Keanu Reeves in Matrix) in a death-defying fight sequence or ward off the slutty con-girl Kareena and then get goofy and giddy in love: you'll join the audience as it applauds his antics with taalis and seetis.

That's it. After that, it's khallas. All the conmen and their crooked acts fail to create a jagged edge, even though you have Saif and Kareena trying to dupe any and everyone, including each other, in the frame. Truly, it's the season of wickedness in Bollywood. Yet, unlike the bhai versus bhai treachery of Race, this roulette of deceit and upmanship lacks sophistication. Stylistically, it is loud and gaudy and peppered with strange lyrics that make a mockery of Hinglish. No, this one's not really a film that lives up to the repute of YRF productions and can be viewed merely for moments of pleasure, whipped up by a manic Akshay.

The Eye

The Eye (horror )
Cast: Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola
Direction: David Moreau, Xavier Palud


BASED on a Hong Kong horror film, The Eye comes a wee bit late. Because, Bollywood has already ripped it. Remember Naina , where Urmila Matondkar saw stuff - death, accidents, ghosts - after a cornea transplant. Replace Ms Matondkar with Jessica Alba and the soporific horror sequences of the B-grade Bollywood film with a handful of real chills and thrills and rest assured: this is an adequate time-pass film.

Alba is Sydney Wells, the young, blind musician, who goes in for a cornea transplant, only to discover she was better off without sight. For her blurry vision shows her dead and dying people along with the shadowy, skeletal angels of death. More scary is the image she sees in the mirror in place of her face. It's a sad, doleful girl who seems to be telling her something. All that Alba has to do is to ferret that girl out and find out the disasters that lie in wait. And the only person who can help her is the reluctant doctor who drives her all the way to Mexico to meet her donor.

Not the best for Alba fans, nevertheless there's ample fun for horror buffs here.

Hope and a Little Sugar

Hope and a Little Sugar (drama)
Cast: Mahima Chaudhary, Anupam Kher, Amit Sial
Direction: Tanuja Chandra

A jelly bean of a film, this one looks at 9/ll - and the acrimonious aftermath - through sugar-coated glasses. Nevertheless, you are willing to forgive the childlike simplicity of the director's attempts to dissect complicated conundrums like racial prejudice, communal bias, only because it states its message so very simply. The pithy film celebrates the spirit of tolerance, humaneness and empathy without going into heavy-handed dissertations on terror, Islam, jehad, backlash....

The spirit of the film belongs to Anupam Kher who essays the role of a Sikh Colonel who heads a happy Hindustani family in Manhattan. Come 9/11 it isn't only the WTC Towers that end up as debris. The Colonel loses his son (Vikram Chatwal) in the terrorist attack and has no one to vent his anger on, other than Ali (Amit Sial), a young photographer who has befriended the family. Spending lonely hours in police stations and pubs, trying to find a rationale behind the gnawing sense of loss, he finds a soft target in the young Muslim and blames him for the violence that has scarred his life. Sense prevails when the turbaned Sikh himself becomes a victim of racial violence and it's time for building bridges once again; time for hope and a little sugar to sweeten up the soured affairs.

Watch out for a touching performance by Anupam Kher, an actor who still carries the sparks of Saaransh within.

Salakhain

Salakhain (drama)
Cast: Zara, Ahmed, Meera
Direction: Shahzad Rafique


AFTER Khuda Kay Liye , this is the second Pakistani film to find a theatrical release in India. Yet, unlike Khuda Kay Liye , this one is pure mainstream, providing a dekko at the Pakistani film formula, which is so very desi. The guys have their guns and their glares, the girls have their rain-drenched chiffons and their item numbers, the moms have their moments coupled with emotional hysteria and the gangsters have their molls to spray acid on. All in all, it's familiar terrain.

Thematically, the film is like your average revenge masala, where a college boy falls prey to the political mafia and emerges from the salakhain (read jail) as a one man army against the goons. All he wanted to do, when he was not dancing in the rain with his pretty padosan , was to fulfil his abba's dream and become an afsar with a kursi . But all he ends up doing, when he is not crying on his moll's shoulders, is roaming the streets and spraying bullets at his tormenters. In between, he is caught in a gang war and ends up losing his family too. Not much left for our crusader, other than his bloody crusade. And yes, his comely comrade-in-arms (Meera), the gun-toting club dancer who seems to be wedded to sorrow.

Ostensibly, the film which was released in 2004 was declared a blockbuster in Pakistan and reportedly ran for 75 weeks. It does have enough masala to keep you in your seats, but stylistically, there is a dated feel which reminds you of Bollywood in the 1980s. Today, when Indian cinema is resplendent with a techno-sheen that compares well with the west, it would take meaning or mega-glitz in film imports to lure the fastidious film buff, not masala alone.

Krazzy 4

Director: Jaideep Sen
Cast: Arshad Warsi, Irrfan Khan, Rajpal Yadav, Suresh Menon
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Not again! Another over-the-top comedy and this time with a senti-‘mental’ shade to the story which only ends up being detri-‘mental’ to your mental health. When will the mentality of moviemakers change?

The fundamental idea of Krazzy 4 is clearly inspired from an English film The Dream Team and is sketched into a screenplay which is as much manipulated as the title of the film. Alas the makers seek numerological aid for the title but are at lack of logic when it comes to treatment.

The four title characters are supposedly mental patients but surprisingly seem to be fit and fine to physical and psychological perfection. Raja (Arshad Warsi) is temperamental. Daboo (Suresh Menon) can’t speak. Mukherjee (Irrfan Khan) is a cleanliness freak with an obsessive compulsive disorder for neatness. Gangadhar (Rajpal Yadav) still lives in a bygone era as outdated as the flavour of this film. There is no backing to the background accounts of these loosely drafted characters or any explanation on how they landed in the mental hospital.

Dr. Sonali (Juhi Chawla) feels the quartet needs some time away from the hospital and takes them to the city to watch a cricket match. Unfortunately in the city Sonali is kidnapped and the foursome is stranded. Conveniently Raj stumbles upon his ex-girlfriend (Dia Mirza) while Mukherjee meets his daughter on some random road. The script is crammed with many more of such cinematic coincidences until it comes to a clichéd climax where the four give long lectures on how its better off being dim-witted than being bad in the mad world outside.

The irony with our comedies is that when characters are expected to act sane they go blaringly berserk, and when they are expected to act mad like in this one, they end up appearing rational. While the four characters here are expected to be stupid, they exhibit more intelligence than the rest of the commonsensical cast put together. They stand for the National Anthem, sing expressive songs and also carry off a sting operation successfully.

From an unscrupulous politician who gets his own wife kidnapped to corrupt cops, Ashwini Dheer employs every possible formula in his wangled screenplay. Almost every gone-off gag is stretched beyond its expiry date until it backfires in reflex action. Just for instance there is an entire track dedicated on how earning just one rupee in this materialistic world is so difficult. How redundantly ridiculous!

Jaideep Sen’s directorial touch is equally slapdash, reminiscent of a substandard 80s potboiler. Resorting to a crude Rakhi Sawant item number to wheeling rickshaws in climax chases, the director clearly caters to the front-benchers. Unfortunately these days cinema halls do not fill up till front row capacity.

Even the performances of the much capable cast aren’t inspiring, to say the least. Arshad Warsi’s repeated anger bouts do not amuse. Irrfan Khan looks uninterested. The immensely talented Suresh Menon is criminally wasted in a mute role. Rajpal Yadav is bearable this time around.

Crazy has different connotations from passionate to mad. While the director doesn’t seem to be passionate about his craft, he surely makes you go mad by the end of the show.

U Me aur Hum

Some films just want your heart to take over your mind. U Me aur Hum crafted with heartfelt passion over cerebral challenges is an ideal example. The sheer sincerity and intensity of the attempt involves you so influentially as an audience that the cynic critic takes a backseat and the unstrained spectator comes forth.

Right from the imaginatively designed opening credits inscribed with love definitions from across the globe, the movie sets in a surreal ambience for an endearing experience. Love is in the air as Ajay Devgan takes over as the captain of the ship (director) literally initiating his love story on a cruise-liner. And director Devgan unveils his narrative through actor Ajay who literally takes over as a story-teller in the film to narrate a mesmerizing story in the flashback mode.

Its love at first sight as always for Ajay, who doesn’t take too long to propose to a cruise stewardess Piya (Kajol). To impress his ladylove Ajay manipulates all that Piya likes. Conveniently the girl is awed and the two are soon a couple. So far so fair! But one wonders if director Devgan forgot to add a story to love. But your inhibitions come to rest as the real story begins post-interval where Piya’s amnesiac bouts come into picture imparting a much-needed twist in the linear tale. Bollywood romance flicks love to put love to test. Fortunately this time the novel setting to the love-test gives an entirely fresh outlook to the film.

From the outset one notices how Ajay Devgan chooses a unique story-telling pattern that despite venturing into frequent flashbacks, connects with the audience every time it comes back. Soon one observes how the director allows each scene to mature at its own pace and doesn’t rush with the screenplay. Devgan’s opulent vision is brought to life by Aseem Bajaj’s superlative cinematography that adds soul to every frame. The extreme close-up shots appear a bit disturbing at the start but one soon acclimatizes with the confining camera frames and relishes the result, as the film progresses.

While one might complain of practically no plot in the first half, Devgan still manages to keep the proceedings lively through his charming chemistry with Kajol on the cruise and a delightful demeanour brought in by the friendly supporting cast. His distinctive directorial prowess surfaces in the second half when the story progresses diligently. The meticulously sketched out screenplay comes in as a pleasant surprise from writers Robin Bhatt, Akash Khurana and Sutanu Gupta who are usually associated with formulaic films or blatant rip-offs. Ashwini Dheer adds in a lot of consideration in his thoughtfully penned dialogues. Apart from the requisite wit, his lines impart a lot of insight and depth to the scenes. The team comes up with an impeccably engaging script which is complimented by Ajay Devgan’s confident and matured direction.

Scene after scene the second half simply bowls you over with the fascinating freshness that is brought in the treatment. I might go on mentioning more than a dozen sequences but the ones that boast of exceptional execution are the one where an infant is almost saved from drowning or when Kajol speaks of how freaky the Alzheimer's disease is, not remembering she herself is suffering from it. The romance never gets mushy nor do the emotions get melodramatic with a subtle stroke maintained throughout. The simmering pace and Kajol’s recurring amnesiac spells, rather than getting repetitive, add compelling credibility to the story.

Ajay Devgan also succeeds in extracting authentic performances from the entire cast. Sumeet Raghavan is exceptionally expressive as Ajay’s close buddy. Divya Dutta and Karan Khanna are pretty good. Needless to say, Kajol and Ajay Devgan play to perfection.

U Me aur Hum raises much above the candyfloss or campus romance regularly churned out in Bollywood. Watch this one for its matchless maturity!