BROTHERS IN CHARMS
Posted: February 25, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Abhishek Kapoor, Chetan Bhagat, Kai Po Che, Review, Rock On, Sushant Singh Rajput Leave a comment
The story of three friends over decade. Yes, you have heard that one before, but Kai Po Che has a charm all its own.
RATING: 7.5/10
QUICK TAKE: Abhishek Kapoor elicits some great performances from an unheralded cast and packages it slickly into an enthralling and endearing two hours
When I first read ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’ I had this nagging feeling that this was a story written with a film in mind. While to be fair to Chetan Bhagat he may not have consciously done so, there was that subconsciously Bollywoodish template to this story of three friends from Ahmedabad and their world of dreams and ambitions tied together by a common thread – the national obsession of cricket.
Bhagat would have been delighted that the job of adapting it to the big screen in the form of ‘Kai Po Che’ fell to Abhishek Kapoor, he who already has showcased the idea of male bonding over a shared obsession very convincingly and classily in ‘Rock On!!’. While thematically similar, the stories differ a lot in their setting and tone – Rock On was an urbane tale; Kai Po Che is kept firmly rooted to the bylanes of Ahmedabad. The adaption of Bhagat’s book (Bhagat himself was part of the team that wrote the script along with Kapoor, Pubali Chaudhuri and Supratik Sen) does away with the more elaborate settings in the book and anchors the story in Ahmedabad and while superbly using the narrative drive and tension that both cricket and the two seismic events in Gujarat (one, rather literally seismic – the quake of 2001 and the other being the Godhra train burning incident and the subsequent riots) provide in Bhagat’s story actually goes ahead and enhances it like only the visual grammar of a film can.
The film pays a lot of attention to subtlety and there are scenes that quietly move the narrative arc forward with things that are happening in the background almost unnoticed – a scene within a scene, if you will – yet having a big impact on the story later. Take for example, when Omi (Amit Sadh), Ishaan (Suahant Singh Rajput) and Govind (Raj Kumar Yadav) go to visit the house of 10 year old Ali, a cricket talent Ishaan spotted on the playground and wants to coach, Omi is clearly uncomfortable having the Roohafza he is offered. But you’d have to look closely because this is happening as Ishaan tries to convince Ali’s dad to send his son under his tutelage.
The story opens with a now familiar style (if you have seen 3 Idiots and Rock On) of showing the friends in the present day and then quickly cutting off to a flashback to tell the tale of how they got here. Govind is an ambitious young business minded man who wants to open a sporting goods store and also use it to facilitate a cricket coaching academy that his childhood friend Ishaan (who has been a champion district level cricketer but gets constantly bickered at by his father who wants him to do something worthwhile) wants to open. They approach Ishaan’s dad for some seed money, but being rejected finally secure some funding and a location for the shop and academy from Omi’s uncle who is the part of a political party. But their dreams are soon thrust into disarray as first the quake strikes and then the riots. To make matters worse, Govind falls in love with Ishaan’s sister Vidya (Amrita Puri).
Of the three friends, who seem to share some genuine moments on screen (every little gesture and non verbal cue makes a difference and that makes Kai Po Che such a refreshing watch), Sushant’s performance is the standout and the breakthrough – embodying every inch the all heart character that Ishaan is. For those of you who have seen him in the Television soap operas, there’s no way you’ve never wondered that this boy deserves a bigger screen. You will find yourself rooting for him in no time as you are warmly engulfed by the lovely music and carefully constructed scenes.
But the greatest triumph of Kai Po Che is how it masterfully yet understatedly uses cricket as a narrative weapon. The epic India-Australia test at Eden Gardens in 2001 (yes THAT test where VVS got 281) features at a crucial juncture not as an aside to the narrative but thoroughly enmeshed in it. Even the club and the street games are beautifully rendered highlighting how rarely filmmakers in India have ignored the life the game brings to every story an Indian has to tell, too often they fall into the trap of using it just as an accessory.
The earnestness of the cast and the honesty of the film in not trying to be too ambitious or complex makes Kai Po Che work superbly even though broadly speaking it is a story you have kind of seen earlier. You can largely thank Abhishek Kapoor’s deft direction and the chemistry among the cast for that.
LIFE, AFFIRMED
Posted: February 21, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Review, Silver Linings PLaybook Leave a comment
Seldom will you see the lead characters so vulnerable yet so confident. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence put in two top notch performances in Silver Linings Playbook.
RATING 7.5/10
QUICK TAKE A rom com that is not afraid to show its warts, because that’s what makes it beautiful
Every year in the Oscars line up, there is a little film that could. This year’s has to be ‘Silver Linings Playbook’. While it isn’t exactly an indie production with unfamiliar faces abound – it boasts of a formidable cast, incidentally – it has the spirit of one in the way it deals with the complications and complexities of mental illnesses of the major kind and the minor kind, of the noticeable kind and the unnoticeable kind and meshes it all together into a sweet romantic comedy/drama without having to sell its soul out to trite tidbits that otherwise invariably take over mainstream Hollywood.
‘Silver Linings Playbook’ is the story of Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper), an ex school teacher who has just returned to his family after a stint at a mental institution after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Pat desperately wants to get back with his ex wife Nikki (Brea Bee) whose infidelity he discovered once when he came back home unannounced. He found her with the school’s history teacher and in a fit of rage injured him badly. The consequence was the collapse of his marriage and his being checked into a mental hospital.
As Pat tries to get back into normal life after his return, he happens to run into Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) herself trying to recover from a bout of depression after the death of her husband. The two share an awkwardness towards standard social situations that eventually binds them, but more importantly for Pat, he sees Tiffany (who knows Nikki) as a way to get his message across to his ex wife (she still has a restraining order against him). Tiffany seeks something in return, too – Pat will participate with her in a dance competition.
Mathew Quick’s novel is well adapted by screenwriter and director David O Russell, who takes extra care in making sure he doesn’t portray his protagonists as ‘victims’. Bradley Cooper does an exceptional job of shedding his good looking suave image and handling a role that requires difficult mood swings but in terms of raw emotion, Jennifer Lawrence pretty easily outdoes him (I’d cast an early vote for her in the Best Actress category at the Academy Awards). Robert DeNiro as Pat’s dad is the other superbly etched character and as with DeNIro always, meticulously played role. A compulsive gambler who follows and obsessively bets on the Philadelphia Eagles American Football team, Pat’s father tries to reconnect with his semi estranged son with the only thing he knows – bonding over football. Some of the dad-son scenes are the best of the film.
Anupam Kher, as Dr. Cliff Patel, Pat’s therapist puts in a great show too; he remains mostly in the background but has a pivotal role that in true Anupam Kher’s understated style he very elegantly handles. And the rest of the cast including a surprisingly even handed Chris Tucker pitch in superbly too.
Silver Lining Playbook’s biggest strength is its ability to transfer that feeling of rediscovery about the sunny side of life that the lead characters go through but without trying to get preachy. You see Tiffany and Pat tumble, make bad judgments, lose their cool and fight between themselves as well as with others but there is always a deep set conviction within them – Pat’s assertion that he will get Nikki back and Tiffany’s yearning to show that she is indeed strong and capable of recovering – which is the backbone of the film. It reflects in the way the film has been made; with a distinct can do attitude. Yes, it does dissolve into a bit of the schmaltz that comes from the usual boiler plate Hollywood Rom Com, but that happens only once or twice.
Full of heart, and full of conviction otherwise, Silver Linings Playbook is a delight for those who believe that it is never too late to start all over again.
THE HUNTED AND THE HAUNTED
Posted: February 16, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Jessica Chastain, Katherin Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty Leave a comment
RATING 7/10
QUICK TAKE Shoots pretty sharp for the most part, but sprays some unnecessary stray bullets too
Katherin Bigelow directs a much rawer and more intense film in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ than she did in ‘The Hurt Locker’. Ironically, she will win the Oscar for Best Director for only one of them. While it would admittedly have been difficult to beat the filed this year, a lot of people weren’t thrilled that Bigelow didn’t have a nomination for putting together the complex parts of ‘the greatest manhunt in history’ into a rush inducing tight thriller.
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is not exactly the torture propaganda machine it has been made out to be, but it has no qualms about gory-fying the torture scenes to heighten dramatic tension, even if it doesn’t glorify the ‘advance interrogation’ methods of the CIA outright. There is emotional manipulation abound throughout, whether it is the blank screen opening scene that plays actual recordings of 911 calls during the September 11 terror attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001 or in trying to get us to feel the angst of the lead investigator – Maya, modeled on the unnamed CIA operative who dug up the intel that finally led SEAL Team 6 to Bin Laden – by putting her in the middle of two rather contrived threats (one, a fictional assassination attempt on her in front of the US embassy in Pakistan and the other, the very real Marriott hotel bomb blast).
But having said that, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ still has a lot of pulse pounding moments, not least the climactic raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in May 2011. The final raid is stunningly well visualized and the confusion and the chaos superbly captured in what has to be the directorial high point in the film. The scenes where a lead is being tracked in Pakistan are another highlighting the attention to detail that ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ scores very well on.
Unfortunately, there are a few missteps as Mark Boal’s script tells us how we got here. A the start, we find Dan (Jason Clarke does a fine job of being the hard as nails CIA interrogator who then leaves the station to navigate the maze called Washington) trying to pry out information from a terror financier in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Meanwhile Maya (Jessica Chastain channels both emotion and grit – she swears in front of the CIA director just to let him know she exists, over the rest of the males in the room – very well), a newly arrived CIA operative from Washington joins in the chase to get to Bin Laden.
The rest of the story while tracking Maya’s ‘pursuit by data’ does well to bring out strands of important issues raised by the manhunt of Bin Laden and the War On Terror – there is a fantastic scene of a standoff between Maya and the CIA station chief Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler) where they heatedly debate whether the priority is stopping attacks on the ‘homeland’ or decapitating the global network of terror. But for the most part we are stuck with Maya and her dogged pursuit of any scrap of a lead she can land on Osama.
As a chronicler of the complicated decade that it took to finally get to Bin Laden, ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ hardly treads any neutral territory, and while there perhaps is a small redemption in its ambiguous final scene, if you are looking for an in depth 360 degree look at the consequences of the events of that decade and the manhunt, you’ll have to wait for that film to release. ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ is a solid rush no doubt – any good terror thriller should be – but its canvas had allowed it the possibilities of being much more.
DANCE DANCE EVOLUTION
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Prabhudeva and gang have Strictly Come Dancing and make no bones about it in ABCD where Remo’s choreographs…er…directs them with a deft touch.
STARS: 7/10
QUICK TAKE: A dance movie that hits the choreo groove spot on
Any Body Can Dance (ABCD) is every inch a choreographer’s film – after all, the director is ace choreographer Remo D’Souza – and it stays true to its raison d’être channeling the elaborate choreography sequences to tell you more of the story than the linear storyline that follows a dance master, Vishnu (Prabhudeva, complete with the trademark dance moves and tamil accented hindi and yes -5% body fat!), who is replaced as the head choreographer at Jahangir Dance Company, owned by Jahangir Khan (Kay Kay Menon like always is effortlessly solid even in a role where it is hard to imagine him playing it!).
Unwilling to take up the administrative responsibility he’s being offered by Jahangir, Vishnu has a fallout with him and leaves intending to return back to Chennai. In the interim he is offered shelter at his friend Gopi’s (Ganesh Acharya) house in a chawl in Dongri where he meets a gang of young kids who he decides to mentor and take on Jahangir Dance Company (the winner of the previous seasons) in the ‘Dance Dil Se’ reality show.
Staying true to most reality show scripts, ABCD’s story builds up predictably along the underdog vs uberdog lines held up decently by some sincere performances from Prabhudeva (restrained; except the dance scenes!), Ganesh Acharya (the comic relief) and the young dancers like Dharmesh and Salman picked up from the popular television show, Dance India Dance, that Remo judges.
Naturally, there are no breakout acting performances but to be fair to the young and untested cast, they do a competent job. And what lends the movie its heart are the dance sequences where they revel and dance their hearts out. Excepting a couple of places where the stylization of the dance sequences go a tad overboard, the grit and effort is well captured.
The customary creativity vs commercialization debate is thrown in there as well and, not unexpectedly, everyone ultimately finds redemption. But to Remo’s credit, he has a couple of story twists up his sleeve that keep the narrative tension taut enough to lend larger context to what would otherwise have qualified as large canvas dance sequences independent of each other. Remo uses every ounce of the language of dance to compensate for the lack of cinematic grammar and to a large extent it works, whether you are a huge dance fan or not.
It is like that game Dance Dance Revolution where you dance for the fun of it, and while there are degrees of seriousness, the ultimate objective is to leave you with a smile on your face. Remo, and his merry gang of choreographer/actors have managed to do that well. It is easy to dismiss ABCD as a ‘Step Up’ clone, but the nuances of the Indian-ness that it ultimately incorporates lends it its funk and makes it worthy of the applause. Only one gripe – they could have lost the cumbersome 3D gimmick.
CON, BABY, CON!
Posted: February 8, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Akshay Kumar, Kajal Aggarwal, Neeraj Pandey, Special 26 Leave a comment
The 80s feel is almost impeccably done, but ‘Special 26’ could have done without the extra seasoning.
STARS: 7/10
QUICK TAKE: Slick, fun and sexy period con movie that crackles but a tad less than it could.
There is something about the series of cons Johnnie Walker and Bindiya Singh, later joined by Amitabh Bachchan and Vinod Khanna, pull off in ‘Shaan’ that I have a soft corner for. A good con is always good fun and so is ‘Special 26’, a quintessential con movie that follows the ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ type ‘one-last-big-job’ template. Neeraj Pandey’s ‘A Wednesday’ may have been a thriller that wanted to make a social point but the story he writes and directs here drops any pretense of that, instead focusing on the cat-and-mouse game between a gang of conmen posing as CBI officers and pulling off fake raids at homes of the rich and famous and the real CBI trying to nab them. He pulls out the nuggets of an underreported, yet interesting story but then frames it into a story that squarely aims at serving the mainstream.
Ajay (Akshay Kumar) leads the team as the chief strategist aided by Khurana (Anupam Kher) and two others. We find them pulling off a faux raid at the house of a minister in Delhi on Republic Day with the help of Sub Inspector Ranbir Singh (Jimmy Shergill), who is promptly suspended. He vows to track them down and lands at the CBI office and enlists the help of Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) and the chase begins. Pandey does a good job of the writing and while there are enough references made of this being based on ‘true incidents’, he takes obvious cinematic liberty to turn this into an entertaining mainstream flick, including inserting a love interest for Ajay. Kajal Aggarwal does a half decent job as Priya in the limited scenes she has, but beyond being a fancy ornament that makes the script a bit heavy, there isn’t a world of value her character adds.
Akshay Kumar is serviceable and revels in being the Alpha Male of the pack but Anupam Kher puts in a measured performance cleverly navigating the ups and downs of his character like only a veteran of his caliber can. He seamlessly transforms from conniving conman into the doting Punjabi dad and family man in no time. Jimmy Shergill isn’t require to fire all the guns his acting arsenal but he looks effortless enough and is well supported by Divya Dutta in an interesting (if small) role. Bajpayee predictably gets the best lines – ‘Sir, about that promotion. Is it happening or not?’ he tells his superior, ‘It’s becoming difficult to sustain my family. If it’s not happening, should I start accepting bribes?’ Or maybe he delivers the punches much better than the others and owns the character like he always does, portraying an effortless intensity that grips the viewer but doesn’t strain you.
Like any good con movie, ‘Special 26’ has its share of nifty twists and turns and will keep you guessing at times but it doesn’t crackle with quite the same wit and satire that ‘A Wednesday’ did. Having said that, the last three quarters of an hour do light up (the runtime could easily have been 20 minutes shorter; at 2 hours 23 minutes it’s a bit stretched) both in terms of the fun, the suspense and the storytelling.
Great credit, though, should go to the art direction and production for making the 1980s setting look so brilliantly authentic. There are subtle references galore for the viewer looking for the clues to nostalgia – a Lijjat Papad jingle in the background here, a Vimal hoarding during a chase scene, the live telecast of the Republic Day parade on Doordarshan on a black and white TV set. Sensibly cast, ‘Special 26’ will leave you well entertained for sure, especially if you enjoy con movies in general but do not go hunting for the thrilling originality of ‘A Wednesday’.
P.S. : About the dialogues with profanities being edited out in the film, I have only one question: Why the cuss did you have to do that?
The 25th Frame - Movie Reviews, Rambles and Rants 