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Release date:	November 8, 2018
Director:	Vijay Krishna Acharya
Cast: Language:	Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Katrina Kaif, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Sharat Saxena, Ila Arun, Lloyd Owen, Gavin Marshall, Ronit Roy Hindi

Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif, Fatima Sana Shaikh – this is the order in which the lead cast’s names are placed in the credits of Thugs of Hindostan. The ranking is representative of their star stature combined with seniority in the industry. A more truthful list reflecting the substance in the roles they play would have read: Khan, Bachchan, Shaikh, Kaif. And if you want to know which of these stars scores in terms of quality of performance and conviction, this is my list: Aamir Khan, Aamir Khan, Aamir Khan, Aamir Khan.

Vijay Krishna Acharya’s third directorial venture (the others being Tashan and Dhoom 3) might have been a lifeless parade of spectacular visuals without Khan. Whenever he is on screen though, the film develops a pulse. Khan is Thugs of Hindostan’s heart and soul, breath and blood.

The story is set in an India overrun by the British, and revolves around an unscrupulous rascal called Firangi Malla who serves only one master, himself, until he encounters the freedom fighter Azad (Bachchan). Torn between self-interest and patriotism, Firangi keeps his associates guessing about where his loyalties lie, swinging back and forth between the British led by Clive and his own people. The road he will ultimately take maybe obvious to the audience, but how he takes it is unpredictable enough to keep the film going.

If the mention of a Clive suggests that Thugs of Hindostanis historically accurate, then let it be placed on the record: it is not. “What’s in a name?” as that most famous of Englishmen once wrote. A white man by any other name would have smelt just as rotten. So yeah, in all their confrontations here, the Brits are made to look like incompetent, gullible asses, forever suffering defeat at the hands of Indians. Since India is the wronged party in the imperialist equation, it could be argued that taking this sort of liberty with the past can hardly be treated as a crime especially since this is nothing compared to Western cinema’s casual portrayal of true thugs of the colonial era, most recently Winston Churchill, with affectionate indulgence. In any case, Thugs of Hindostan is unapologetically commercial, characteristically masala-filled Bollywood fare, that does not ask to be taken seriously. It is an action adventure in the mould of Hollywood’s Pirates of the Caribbean series, and does not pretend to be anything but that.

Acharya’s actual crime lies in the weak writing of every character other than Firangi Malla. Azad is a pallid creature, and Bachchan invests nothing beyond his towering personality and baritone in his uninspired performance.

The women are laughable asides in the screenplay. Kaif as the courtesan Suraiyya gets to look sexy and dance mechanically, displaying technique but little grace in two lavish song and dance sequences on elaborate, eye-catching sets. She has a third scene but disappears for the rest of the proceedings, which is just as well since she seems unable to move even those few facial muscles that she has exercised in her earlier films.

Shaikh, who made a mark as a skilled wrestler and rebellious daughter in Dangal, is not required to act at all. As Zafira who is part of Azad’s band of warriors, she barely has any lines, and most of her screen time is spent running across battlescapes, firing arrows and throwing punches. She is fair enough doing all this, but not outstanding, and since she lacks charisma it is hard not to wonder why she landed the job. She also has less chemistry with Khan than Lloyd Owen who plays Clive.

It is thus left to Khan and the technical departments to save this film, and they do. Thugs of Hindostan’s production designers (there are four) and DoP Manush Nandan ensure that the film is never short of pretty and grand. John Stewart Eduri serves up a throbbing background score and Ajay-Atul’s songs are all hummable.

Given the only well-written character in Thugs of Hindostan, with an abundance of mischievous dialogues and credible motivations, Khan throws himself into his role with gusto, summoning up Munna of Rangeela and Siddhu of Ghulam, imbuing Firangi with a relentless zest, and switching from good to bad to inexplicable to exasperating to lovable within a twinkling of those delightful kohl-lined eyes.

Thugs was promoted as the first film ever to pit him against the great Bachchan. The legendary superstar is a pale shadow here of the best he has been. Khan, on the other hand, crackles, pops and sparkles as a swashbuckling scoundrel. The writing of his character and his performance are the only reasons why Thugs of Hindostan does not turn out to be a stylishly produced but disastrously dreary repeat of Acharya’s first film, Tashan. Despite all its minuses, Thugs is light-hearted fun.

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	164 minutes 30 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/thugs-of-hindostan-movie-review-aamir-khan-is-fun-amitabh-bachchan-lifeless-in-bwoods-pirates-of-the-caribbean-5518671.html#comments-section-5518671

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/TOHTheFilm/

Release date:	November 16, 2018
Director:	Vinod Kapri
Cast: Language:	Myra (Pihu) Vishwakarma, Prerna Sharma Hindi

A two-year-old girl wakes up the morning after her birthday party to find the house in a mess, her father missing and her mother motionless in bed. The trailer describes the situation as “every parent’s nightmare”, but that is hardly apt when parents themselves are responsible for their child being stuck in these circumstances. What it is is pretty much every watching human being’s nightmare. Because as tiny Pihu’s struggles in her home unfold, the realisation dawns that there are few things in this world our species fears more than physical harm to babies and children.

Last year, director Vikramaditya Motwane gave us Trapped in which Rajkummar Rao’s character accidentally gets locked in a deserted high-rise building in a bustling metropolis. The turn of events in Pihu’s life is not accidental at all, nor is she an able-bodied young man – the helplessness of a child her age makes the circumstances all the more terrifying, the poignancy of her predicament exacerbated by a personal tragedy that we the viewers become aware of while she does not.

Writer-director Vinod Kapri’s Pihu is Home Alone without the pointed effort to be comical, Baby’s Day Out without the intentionally farcical tone. It is determinedly realistic cinema in a highly believable setting that, the makers acknowledge, is inspired by a true story reported in the press. It is not easy to watch as the film builds up a heightened sense of awareness of the dangers held out by everyday items in a modern household. A clothes iron that has been left on, an exposed wire, a running tap, a gas stove, a flight of steps, a balcony in a multi-storeyed complex – if adults tend to be careful around these, imagine the experience of watching for approximately 90minutes a toddler alone with them.

Kapri’s achievement is that he recognises the drama intrinsic to the state of affairs in which Pihu finds herself and does not try to exaggerate it artificially. Yogesh Jaini’s cinematography plays along with the director’s vision, observing and following the child protagonist quietly without trying to whip up a supernatural eeriness or stereotypical thriller scares. The camera does not feel exploitative in its gaze on the girl or her mother’s prone body, which is crucial to the film’s sensitivity. Vishal Khurana’s music does bear familiar ghostly strains we have heard before, but these are just small snatches in the overall restrained background score.

The film’s remaining audioscape is occasionally problematic though. The director should have found a way to convey monologues from people calling Pihu’s mother’s cellphone without putting the phone conveniently on speaker mode each time, such that Pihu seems able to hear everything they say and at one point even has a long conversation (to the extent that she is capable of having conversations) with one of them. This calls for a suspension of disbelief that the rest of the film does not demand of us as viewers, and marginally dents its otherwise authentic feel.

The voices we hear of neighbours and guards in Pihu’s building too sound by turns loud, mannered and/or caricaturish in what feels like an effort to establish a point about the impersonal nature of high-rises in urban concrete jungles. This effort ends up making the narrative in the second half somewhat less effective than the gripping pre-interval portion.

(Spoiler alert begins)We all know that padosis in such complexes are often apathetic, but it defies believability that such individuals would not budge even when they are themselves affected – in this case, they do nothing beyond grumble and complain to the building management for hours after water starts flowing out of Pihu’s flat and on to the common area outside. (Spoiler alert ends)

Films of this nature, ranging from Bollywood’s Trappedto Hollywood’s 127 Hours and Castaway, are odes to the human spirit via tales of survival against all odds. Kapri tries to expand Pihubeyond the conventions of the genre with a touch of social commentary, and stumbles on that front. Apart from the faulty treatment of the neighbours, there are the hints dropped about Pihu’s parents’ relationship.

(Some readers may feel this paragraph contains a spoiler – proceed at your own risk) The mother’s body bears injury marks which, when coupled with what the husband says on the phone, implies that there may have been domestic violence involved. If so, it was incumbent upon the filmmaker to take into consideration the impact of her trauma on her decisions. Did the husband strike her or was this just another case of a couple unable to get along? Were her injuries self-inflicted or caused by him? Was she then depressed? Who knows. Yet in the end, the film’s tone appears to suggest that both parents had been equally selfish towards their child when, in fact, if indeed theirs was an abusive relationship, then there can be no equivalence between the two persons involved. Alternatively, were her bruises the result of a medical condition or caused by some substance she had consumed? Pihu would have been a remarkable film even without this added element. The attempt to make it profound has ended up subtracting from its worth, because, having alluded to the possibility of DV, Kapri does not handle the issue with the requisite empathy. (Spoiler alert ends)

Kapri’s debut feature, Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho, was marked by the same tendency to bite off more sociological profundities than he could chew.

Pihu also suffers from some serious continuity issues. An indulgent viewer may argue that the child may have affectionately pulled a sheet on to the mother’s body at some point when the camera was not watching her or in shots that were edited out to keep the film short, but how indulgent must we be to excuse the child’s inexplicable transition from being messy – with the soles of her feet blackened and her face covered in food, makeup and more – to a clear face and far cleaner feet? Without giving anything away, I must say too that the child’s condition when she is finally found defies logic.

These are unfair distractions from an otherwise riveting tale.

While the film is firm on its feet and even through its missteps, Myra Vishwakarma as Pihu remains incredible – is this a performance or is she just being herself? Perhaps a bit of both is what we must conclude from the director’s interviews and considering that she has been credited for “additional screenplay” along with Abhishek Sharma.

Kapri deserves applause for the manner in which he has directed her without needlessly trying to underline her cuteness. At no point does she appear to be acting. And Ms Vishwakarma is such a darling that it is impossible not to be invested in Pihu from the moment the camera first zeroes in on her. I found myself occasionally smiling at her antics, in awe of her inventiveness, charmed by her apparently spontaneous reactions to her dilemmas and confusions, admiring Kapri’s ability to capture all this, and clenching my fists out of concern for her welfare, so paralysed with fear for her that I could not look away from the screen till the very last second of the film. Now excuse me while I get my blood pressure examined by my doc.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	93 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/pihu-movie-review-a-two-year-olds-incredible-solo-act-keeps-this-survival-saga-riveting-even-through-its-missteps-5557991.html

Poster courtesy: Tree-shul Media Solutions

Release date:	November 23, 2018
Director:	Neerraj Pathak
Cast: Language:	Sunny Deol, Preity Zinta, Ameesha Patel, Arshad Warsi, Shreyas Talpade, Jaideep Ahlawat, Pankaj Tripathi, Brijendra Kala, Mukul Dev, Ranjeet Hindi with a bit of Punjabi

If you thought Sunny Deol uprooting a hand pump and scaring the Pakistan army by hollering at them was a landmark moment in Indian diplomacy, then you must give his new film a shot. In a climactic battle in Bhaiaji Superhittt, Deol lifts up an entire SUV when he finds it pinning his wife down on a rail track while a speeding engine approaches. No Romeo has yet done that for his Juliet, no Majnu for his Laila, but then of course neither gentleman was blessed with this hero’s dhai kilo ke haath that have been known to achieve what hordes cannot manage.

Deol here plays the Benares-based gangster Deen Dayal Dubey a.k.a. 3D Bhaiaji a.k.a. Bhaiaji who decides to produce a romantic film about his love story to win back his suspicious spouse Sapna (Preity Zinta) when she leaves him accusing him of infidelity. His collaborators on this project are the avaricious Bollywood director Goldie Kapoor (Arshad Warsi), the struggling Bengali writer Porno Ghosh (Shreyas Talpade) and the manipulative movie star Mallika Kapoor (AmeeshaPatel).

The hoodlum with a heart of gold who melts into an emotional puddle in matters involving the woman he adores has been done to death by cinemas across the world, and this Bollywood version has nothing new to offer. Nothing. I repeat, N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

The colours of the costumes and sets are as loud as any you have seen in Akshay Kumar’s comedies of the past two decades. And the screenplay is packed with formulaic elements that dominated 1970s and ‘80s Hindi films. This includes a long-drawn-out closing passage in which all the players in the drama gather at one spot to engage in fisticuffs that take them from what looks like a deserted factory to a railway line to a cliff where the lead couple hang precariously, using the opportunity for a reconciliation. One small change from an earlier era: here the heroine does not stand whimpering and watching, she bashes up a bunch of bad guys herself.

Lord Shiva is a recurring motif that goes nowhere. Sometimes the writer introduces clichés just for the heck of it without knowing what to do with them. In the second half, for instance, Bhaiaji’s doppelganger appears on the scene, which might cause you to assume that a Shakespearean comedy of errors is about to unfold, but no, it does not. This chap, a squeaky-voiced aspiring actor, is also – obviously – played by Deol. His arrival makes no difference to the plot, and his erasure would have left the outcome unchanged.

If writer-director Neerraj Pathak and his co-writers thought they were spoofing Bollywood, then here too they hold out little novelty value. Deol, for one, has done enough self-referential parodies of his He-Man screen avatar since Gadar for this aspect too to feel stale.

Still, there are moments when the project’s comic potential peeps through, such as in that scene in which Bhaiaji yells at someone for dancing “like a woman” while filming a romantic number, and demands that his moves be more macho. The swiftness with which the fellow switches to aggression is amusing. Deol is not the world’s greatest actor (to put it kindly), and yes, he hollers and grimaces in Bhaiaji Superhittt as he always does, but what comes to his rescue here is what seems like a determination to not take himself seriously, which makes it hard to dislike him even while disliking the film.

Zinta, who is appearing on screen after a long gap, looks pretty and is fair enough as Sapna Dubey, but the role does not challenge her as it should a woman of her immense talent.

The supporting cast features some wonderful actors, though it is unclear why Pathak bothered to cast them since he fails to tap their abilities in anyway. Jaideep Ahlawat (Gangs of Wasseypur) and Pankaj Tripathi (Newton, Nil Battey Sannata, Gurgaon) are completely wasted here.

It is Arshad Warsi’s comic timing that saves Bhaiaji Superhittt from being an absolute cipher, and the reason why I am going with a 0.5 rating instead of zero. I found myself occasionally giggling in spite of myself around Warsi’s Goldie Kapoor, though I must say I laughed out loud only once, and that was when the aforementioned train engine was hurtling towards Bhaiaji and Sapna, and I thought Pathak & Co intended to get Deol/Bhaiaji to stop it with his bare hands. Maybe that is what they should have tried if they wanted to go all out in the direction of a Bollywood parody of Bollywood formulae, but the breadth of this film’s imagination is too limited for that.

Bhaiaji Superhittt has been in the making for almost a decade, but its mediocrity can hardly be blamed on the delay. The film is a regurgitation of numerous Hindi films made in the past 50 years. It feels so dated that the only originality I could spot are the three Ts in the second word of the title and the two Rs in the director’s first name – neither innovation is worth the price of my ticket.

Rating (out of five stars): 1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	133 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bhaiaji-superhittt-movie-review-sunny-deol-screams-preity-zinta-pouts-in-a-jurassic-era-relic-with-a-sliver-of-comic-potential-5605181.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhaiaji_Superhit

Release date:	Kerala: November 16, 2018 Delhi: November 23, 2018
Director:	M. Padmakumar
Cast: Language:	Joju George, Athmiya, Madhuri Braganza, Dileesh Pothan, Sudhi Koppa, Irshad, Malavika Menon Malayalam

Those empty eyes – the elderly man’s heartbreak is evident in their absolute blankness, beyond which lies a grief that blankets his entire being. They are eyes that once twinkled, back when he was young.

Both avatars of the titular hero of Joseph: Man With The Scarare played by actor Joju George. Joseph is a retired policeman whose Sherlock Holmes-like genius causes the force to still turn to him for assistance in difficult cases. We are introduced to him in a long prologue during which he methodically and quickly solves a double murder. That initial passage is enough to capture the essence of the man: brilliant, world weary, lonely and alone.

Through a series of well-placed flashbacks, expertly slipped into the narrative by editor Kiran Das, we later learn that Joseph’s empty nest was once home to a happy wife and daughter. This is a man who has known what it is to have loved and lost, loved again and lost again. A tragic turn of events in the present day compels him to summon up every ounce of the powers of observation and deduction he is known for. (For the record, he is genuinely impressive, unlike the lead cop in that silly, pretentious Mohanlal-starrer Villainlast year.) This is a thriller revolving around a police investigation, but it is not a police procedural.

M. Padmakumar’s film is high on atmospherics. The director is aided in conjuring up an air of mystery by Manesh Madhavan’s cinematography, which revels as much in tight close-ups of the lead players as in inventive shots of the magnificent Kerala landscape. Madhavan is at his best in large open spaces, where he manages to create the impression that his camera is a living entity not in the frame, stalking Joseph and his associates, watching them from a distance as they go about their business.

Occasionally, only occasionally, the camera dwells too long on the protagonist’s sorrowful, ageing face, making it seem like Joju George is overdoing his effort to be enigmatic, and thus reminding us that a great screen performance is not just the result of a gifted actor’s work but the combined effort of a talented artiste, a decisive director, a cameraperson who knows exactly when to turn away, and an editor who knows precisely how many seconds to retain and how many to scissor out, which shots to include and which to discard. George is particularly poorly served in that scene in which Joseph is watching his wife dress up, and appears marginally leery rather than admiring. Had the actor not given any better takes? These moments, fleeting though they are, end up slightly detracting from what is otherwise an astonishingly immersive performance, made all the more striking by the glaring difference between the playful young Joseph and his older, care-worn version, in addition to the stark change from George’s filmography so far ruled by supporting and comic parts (most recently, Udaharanam Sujatha, Poomaram and Njan Marykkutty).

Though George dominates the film, the flawless supporting cast gives it its finesse. Especially interesting is the chemistry between the leading man and Peter played by Dileesh Pothan, although theirs is an awkward relationship. One of the best conceptualised scenes in Joseph features them at a funeral where Peter is considerate towards Joseph though he need not have bothered.

Peter gets only a fraction of the screen time given to Joseph, but that time has been well used by writer Shahi Kabir. The same justice is not done to the women though. Athmiya, Madhuri Braganza and Malavika Menon have spark, and the characters they play – Stella, Anna and Diana – have potential, but they merely provide the motivations for Joseph’s actions, not one of the three is a fully expanded character in her own right.

Still, the little insights that the screenplay provides into life in this Malayali community, the focus on the psychological impact of brutal crimes on police investigators, the central character’s investigative skills, Joju George’s acting and impeccable, transformative ageing makeup, the sweetness of the understanding between two individuals in love with the same person, and the unrelenting sense of suspense that lasts till the denouement make Joseph: Man With The Scar thoroughly worthwhile. It could of course have done without the number of songs packed into the narrative that slacken the pace for no apparent purpose, the melodramatically mournful tone of some of the singing, the slow motion and other shots that linger longer than necessary. For instance, at a funeral, when a character scans the gathering to find Joseph, did his head have to gradually emerge from behind a shoulder hiding him? Most crucially, the final big reveal relies too much on the far-fetched, over-stretched coincidence of one man being personally affected twice by the same crime, but the lead up to the climax is captivating enough to make this film a rewarding experience.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	138 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/joseph-movie-review-joju-george-dominates-an-atmospheric-poignant-but-over-stretched-cop-saga-5612501.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/JosephMalayalamMovie/

Release date:	November 29, 2018
Director:	Shankar
Cast: Language:	Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Adil Hussain, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Sudhanshu Pandey, Kaizad Kotwal Tamil

Note: This is a review of the Hindi dubbed version of the Tamil film 2.0

There was a time when the cheep-cheep of sparrows and other birds would wake us up every morning even in the urban concrete jungles of India. Over time, as humans have persisted in playing havoc with the environment, those soothing sounds have gradually died out of our lives. This travesty of natural justice is, justifiably, a cause of frustration and rage among environmentalists and even laypersons with basic common sense and self-preservation instincts. Now imagine a film writer who understands the logic behind their anger, yet takes the bizarre decision to turn one such green activist into a murderous supervillain determined to destroy humankind for its callous carelessness.

Writer-director Shankar does precisely that in his new film 2.0, sequel to the 2010 blockbuster Enthiran(Robot) which starred Kollywood giant Rajinikanth as the well-meaning and brilliant Dr Vasigaran who built the robot Chitti (Rajini again) for the benefit of humankind. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan played his girlfriend Sana, and Danny Denzongpa was cast as Dr Bohra, who saw technology merely as a means to fulfill his dreams of great wealth. Despite the abundance of Tamil commercial cinema clichés, Enthiran had a fun comicbook quality, a substantial story and absolute clarity about its politics: it was a film on the transmutability of good and evil, and the risks posed by technology in the hands of immoral individuals.

2.0 is mixed up to the point of being downright stupid. As an unexplained force in the film snatches cellphones away from millions of residents of Chennai, the government turns to the scientist community for help. Allow me to revive Chitti, says Dr Vasigaran. But the Home Minister reminds him of the court ruling to dismantle the robot after it had caused death and untold destruction once Dr Bohra tampered with it for his own selfish ends.

When people start dying at the hands of a mysterious being though, there is no choice but to get Chitti back. So far, what we have is a reminder that it is not technology we must fear but humans who misuse it. Point taken.

The ridiculousness of 2.0’s politics surfaces only in the second half. A line uttered early on by Dr Vasigaran, “When people cannot understand something they either dismiss it as a terrorist attack or the work of God,” has potential but goes nowhere. Instead, the film becomes not about machines going out of control (which was afocal theme of Enthiran) but about the need to keep righteous human anger in check.

Bollywood star Akshay Kumar – making his Kollywood debut here – plays the respected ornithologist, Dr Pakshirajan, who gets tired of trying to convince the government, corporates and ordinary citizens to save our birds by cutting down on cellphone use. (Spoiler Alert) Following a series of events, he metamorphoses into a gorgeously ugly, giant supervillain whose aura combines with the aura of scores of dead birds and takes on a physical form constructed by using stolen cellphones as his building blocks. (Spoiler alert ends)

By this stage, Shankar comes across as being increasingly confused about what he wants to say through this film. Sadly, his confusion at the scripting stage playsinto the hands of political establishments that, in the real world, are indeed demonising activists, including environmentalists. This is inexcusable.

Though he struggles with his storyline, Shankar does show imagination in the conceptualisation of 2.0’s visual effects and action sequences. Clearly, no expense has been spared in creating them. That said, the glitz and grandeur become boring after a while in the pre-interval portion as the story takes forever to take off and the SFX are beset by repetitiveness, as though a teenaged boy is trying to impress his school buddies with his brilliance. Cellphones being snatched out of the hands of crowds, a magnificent river of glittering cellphones flooding the ground – the sight is awe-inspiring the first time, even the second time, but when the same trick is used again and again, and then again... Oh c’mon, why didn’t someone snatch the toy out of the boy’s hands?

The special effects and stunts pick up only in the final confrontation between Chitti and Dr Pakshirajan, but it is too late by then. Besides, there is no single person in the storyline in whom one can be emotionally invested. Dr Vasigaran operates in the background throughout, Chitti takes centre stage but has more swagger than soul, and it is impossible to dislike Dr Pakshirajan because his cause is actuallyone worth defending.

Besides, Rajinikanth’s performance is a mixed bag. Even the spotlight on Chitti in 2.0 is driven more by SFX than acting, and the manner in which the star is tapped is decidedly unsatisfying. 2.0gives him neither the unrelenting bombast of the standard big-bucks Rajini-starrer, nor the understatement he is still capable of as we saw so recently in Pa. Ranjith’s well-conceived, thought-provoking Kaala.

There are only two worthwhile, albeit small,roles among the supporting cast. Adil Hussain lends some dignity to the Minister he plays, and Kalabhavan Shajohn provides brief comic respite from the otherwise slow-moving proceedings as the corrupt, cold-hearted Minister Vairamoorthy.

2.0 is aprime example of the dispensability of women in Indian commercial film sequels. Sana is reduced to a voice on the phone here, Shankar does not even use Rai Bachchan’s voice for her, and the woman is still nagging her boyfriend every single time she calls him while he goes about the important business of saving the world. Since leading women in Rajinikanth films these days are anyway rarely anything but glamorous distractions, she has been replaced here by the lesser known Amy Jackson who plays a dull, impossibly curvy, Barbie-like robot assistant to Dr Vasigaran called Nila. As if she is not clichéd enough, she – the sole woman of any significance here– represents emotion and heart in the plot, while the men represent reason and scientific thought.

Though it is nice to see that a Bollywood hit machine like Akshay Kumar wants to expand his horizons and work in another Indian film industry, it is hard to understand why he chose this lukewarm role in a tepid film that gives him such limited screen time – we get to see him properly only after the interval. Kumar tackles Dr Pakshirajan with conviction, but in the end, the tons of heavy prosthetic make-up and costumes (if they can be called that) overshadow his personality, star persona and acting.

There is only one department in which Shankar’sthoughts seem to be crystal clear: the bow to Rajinikanth’s primacy in the constellation of male Indian commercial movie stars. As if as an inside joke, a song playing in the background during the closing battle between Chitti and Pakshirajan uses the words “anaadi khiladi” which, while it literally translates into “foolish player” with reference to the bad guy, is also a reminder of the buzzword long associated with Akshay Kumar’s stardom since it has appeared in so many of his film titles. It recurs in the closing song that contains this line: “Anaadi, khiladi, narak mein teri jagah hai khaali (Hey you fool, you player, there is a place waiting for you in hell).” Umm, is this just a coincidence, or was the lyric writer being intentionally subversive?

Be that as it may, after this song comes an epilogue featuring Dr Vasigaran and Chhota Chitti a.k.a. 3.0, which amounts to an announcement ofyet another sequel. Considering how steel cold and yawn-worthy 2.0 is despite its top-notch special effects, the thought of more Chittis is hardly worth celebrating.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	146 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/2-0-movie-review-3d-rajinikanth-and-akshay-kumar-barely-face-off-in-a-lukewarm-politically-bizarre-sequel-to-enthiran-5640841.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/2Point0movie/

Release date:	December 7, 2018
Director:	Abhishek Kapoor
Cast: Language:	Sara Ali Khan, Sushant Singh Rajput, Nitish Bharadwaj, Alka Amin, Nishant Dahiya, Pooja Gor, Sonali Sachdev Hindi

Thousands of feet above sea level, an all-male community gathering in Kedarnath is discussing a proposed construction plan that violates environmental norms. “When pilgrims come here to meet their God, it is our duty to ensure their convenience,” says a young Hindu Brahmin, as he waxes eloquent about the benefits of building more shops and a hotel in the area. Mansoor, another youngster in the group, asks how this fragile Himalayan abode of Lord Shiva could bear the additional burden, and suggests instead that the number of visiting devotees be restricted each year to match the already available facilities. A tense argument ensues. “Where did you land up in our midst?” he is asked at one point. Mansoor looks nonplussed. “But we were always here,” he replies.

It is the simplest of responses, yet carries a wealth of meaning in today’s India where the othering of minority communities has been mainstreamed and what is being said is deemed less important than who said it, their gender, their caste, their religious and regional identity. No faith is mentioned by name in this scene and much more is left unsaid than said in the conversation that exemplifies the essence of writer-director Abhishek Kapoor’s new film.

On the face of it, Kedarnath is a straightforward story of the love between Mandakini Mishra (Sara Ali Khan), the freedom-loving, rebellious daughter of a well-off Hindu Brahmin family, and the Muslim porter Mansoor Khan (Sushant Singh Rajput), set in one of Hinduism’s holiest sites in 2013, the year it was nearly destroyed by the flash floods that ravaged Uttarakhand state. However, like all Indian cinema’s most enduring inter-community romances, there is more to this one than what you see on the surface. The film is not just about eyes meeting, young hearts beating and pulses racing across religious divides. It is not even about emotional connects alone, though the bond that forms between Mansoor and his Mukku is sweet and touching. What it is about is true love, pure hearts, innocence and goodness in a time of bigotry, business interests and climate change.

Was the objection to Mukku and Mansoor’s relationship used as an excuse to silence his open challenge to a potentially money-spinning construction project? Would Mansoor’s warning have been heeded if the public’s vision had not been clouded by the distrust whipped up against him on account of his faith, or would self-destructive greed have trumped all else – à la Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People– even if he had been seen as one of them? The screenplay simmers with questions that go way beyond its seeming elementariness.

Mukku is a spunky girl, exasperating in her almost foolhardy wooing of Mansoor that makes one wonder if she is not aware from the word go that she is entering dangerous territory by pursuing him in this deeply conservative town. It is a foolhardiness stemming either from immaturity or the confidence that comes from belonging to a dominant community but not so far having realised what a privilege that is. Either way, unsurprisingly, the initial hesitation is all his.

Perhaps the lure of the forbidden fruit did play a role in Mukku’s interest in Mansoor at first – she is, after all, a firecracker on a rampage against her patriarchal family when we are introduced to her. But as time goes on, she mellows down and feels a genuine connection with this essentially kind soul. Mansoor is guileless and sincerely committed to the comfort of his clients who he transports up to the temple on his horse or in a basket suspended from his head. Mukku is gutsy, funny, bright and committed to a cause that soon becomes his too. That they are intellectually compatible and both devastatingly attractive just makes the flame between them inevitable.

Mukku is not the only brave one in this picture. At a time when Muslims in India are being marginalised and demonised like never before, sadly it takes courage to write a story about a Muslim youth who, quite literally, carries the weight of Hindu pilgrims on his back and lugs them up difficult terrain. Kapoor and the co-writer of Kedarnath’s story, Kanika Dhillon (who gets solo credit for the screenplay and dialogues), are no doubt aware of the messaging in their visual imagery.

It can be no coincidence either that they chose to name their heroine after the river running through Kedarnath. Mandakini means “the calm one” or “the slow-moving one” (our girl Mukku is neither) yet it was the raging fury of her waters that consumed the town during the natural disaster of 2013.

Hindi cinema has featured several inter-faith romances down the decades, but until recent years, the trend has long been to write the man as the Hindu and the woman as the minority community member of the couple. Whether this has arisen from the makers’ own closet regressiveness or a desire to avoid the wrath of Hindu fundamentalists (who, like most conservatives, take a proprietorial view of women) is hard to tell, but Rajkumar Hirani’s PK (2014) has been among the few mainstream Bollywood films to swim against that tide. Kedarnath joins their ranks this week. That it has been released at a time when Hindutva forces are at their strongest and have (along with mindless mediapersons) normalised the ugly term “love jihad” makes it particularly special.

For Kapoor, whose stellar direction gave us Rock On!!(2008) and Kai Po Che (2013), Kedarnath is a return to form after 2016’s lukewarm Fitoor. Dhillon, who delivered a terribly clichéd interpretation of a modern, free-spirited Indian woman in this year’s Manmarziyaan, comes into her own as a writer with this film.

Despite the intense circumstances in Kedarnath, the film largely steers clear of loud melodrama. The scene in which Mukku watches without protest as Mansoor is beaten up in her home is one of the few that had no place in this otherwise believable narrative.

DoP Tushar Kanti Ray’s sweeping frames of the pre-floods Kedarnath are breathtaking, never more so than with the camera’s dramatic forward movement in an early long shot of the temple town against the backdrop of majestic mountains. The cinematography and SFX are good for the most part during the floods too, though the occasional obvious fakeness of the SFX-driven turmoil is a letdown.

In keeping with the spirit of Kedarnath, Amit Trivedi’s music is different here from his trademark sprightly tunes. Namo namo is a moving devotional number in Trivedi’s own clear voice. Even the comparatively bouncy Sweetheart is muted by the standards of songs like Gal mitthi mitthi bol from Aisha and Let’s break up from Dear Zindagi.

What gives Kedarnath a further edge is the solid cast, toplined by the aching chemistry between the lead pair. Sara Ali Khan – daughter of Bollywood stars Amrita Singh and Saif Ali Khan, granddaughter of the legendary Sharmila Tagore – makes a confident debut as Mandakini a.k.a. Mukku. She is so convincing and endearing on screen, that it is as if she was born to live before a camera. Hers is the showier role, but Sushant Singh Rajput is no less impressive as the gentle yet fierce Mansoor. In that scene in which Mansoor sings Lag jaa gale to Mandakini, I found myself tearing up and willing the damned cosmos to unite the two hapless lovers.

This is the natural order of things, the way the world was meant to be: men and women falling in love without social interference, humankind co-existing with the rest of the planet without interfering with the environment in the name of development and human welfare, so that no one gets to ask, “where did you land up in our midst?” because you see, we were all “always here”. Point well made, Abhishek Kapoor.

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	120 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/kedarnath-movie-review-sara-ali-khan-sushant-singh-rajputs-aching-chemistry-anchors-a-heartbreaking-love-story-5688541.html#comments-section-5688541

Poster courtesy: Spice PR

Release date:	December 14, 2018
Director:	V.A. Shrikumar Menon
Cast: Language:	Mohanlal, Manju Warrier, Prakash Raj, Sana Althaf, Innocent, Siddique, Manoj Joshi, Nandhu, Naraina, Kailash, Santhosh Keezhattoor Malayalam

Is he a congenital shape shifter or a master of disguise with the agility of a fleet-footed beast? Does he fight only in self-defence or is he a criminal messiah of evil? The answers take a while in coming in the new Mohanlal-Manju Warrier-starrer Odiyan, the tale of the last man from a tribe of the pre-electricity era in rural Kerala, said to transform into various animals and attack humans under the cover of night-time darkness.

When the film begins, an elderly Odiyan Manikyan (Mohanlal) returns to his village of Thenkkurussi after 15 years. Through a series of flashbacks that dominate the narrative, we learn of the reason for his departure under a cloud of suspicion following the deaths of two locals. We learn too of the triangular relationship between the poor hero, the mistress of the house he serves (Prabha played by Warrier) and the lustful Ravunni (Prakash Raj). Prabha has a sister (Sana Althaf) who is blind.

A considerable part of the first hour is spent in building up Manikyan’s animalistic avatar in viewers’ minds, and the initial sighting of him in this form is reasonably exciting as a result. He/it is not exactly a magnificent creature, but curiosity around precisely what he/it is and what he/it becomes, especially after we realise that Manikyan does not know the entire truth himself, is enough to sustain the film until that final well-executed clash with multiple opponents.

Audiences across the globe, including India, have bought into the tale of a nerdy kid bitten by a radioactive spider and metamorphosing into a webslinging superhero. We have embraced an interplanetary immigrant from Krypton with superhuman strength, the ability to fly and a penchant for wearing his underwear over a skin-tight jumpsuit. We have turned a bespectacled “boy who lived” and an evil wizard who split his soul to attain immortality into international literary and cinematic bestsellers. What Odiyanlacks is depth and detailing in contrast with these contemporary Western myths transposed on screen and with richly allegorical ancient religious mythology worldwide, including India’s own.

At its heart, Odiyan is perhaps intended as a metaphor for the beast within who could be unleashed for good or evil, depending on the human being it inhabits. Through the medium of the antagonist’s actions, it very obviously also is a comment on how myth and superstition can be exploited by ill-intentioned people. Via Manikyan, it is certainly a reminder of the power and reserves of strength that marginalised communities possess but rarely tap and are usually not even aware of. Harikrishnan’s screenplay does not have the imagination required to further flesh out these angles which have the potential for immense emotional heft when set, as Odiyan is, against the backdrop of a romance across class divides. Besides, the manner in which black (specifically, Ravunni’s complexion) is consistently interpreted as being symbolic of evil, is quite reprehensible. Contempt for dark skin is no doubt a real-world prejudice that could and should be portrayed in films – I am not objecting here to the prejudices of Odiyan’s characters, but to the director’s and writer’s own problematic gaze on Ravunni.

It could be argued of course that all this is a needless intellectualisation of a film that is meant to be just a fun fantasy flick. Well, Odiyancomes across as wanting to be something beyond that. Besides, contrary to expectations raised by its basic concept, there is more story than stunts in the narrative, and that story needed to offer more than it does.

What sustains Odiyan through its nearly three hours running time is the folksy air it manages to build up from the start, the special effects during the few (too few) action scenes, Mohanlal’s physical transformation to play the younger Manikyan – his styling, makeup and visible weight loss – and the pleasure, as always, of seeing Manju Warrier in a substantial role.

Lalettan himself occasionally, though not often enough, wades past the outward trappings of Odiyan Manikyan, past the stylised slow motion shots and close-ups designed for diehard, wolf-whistling fans, and looks inward for this performance, thus reminding us of the fine actor he is still capable of being. Prakash Raj has an imposing presence but overacts throughout.

Warrier, on the other hand, is uniformly good as the lonesome, long-suffering Prabha who has always known that her fate was written the moment she was born into a particular social class and often summons up the spirit to defy that written word.

Although Warrier is 18 years Mohanlal’s junior, and the age difference is a glaring reminder of how commercial Indian cinema continues to believe that women of his age are not worthy of being romanced on screen, it comes as a relief that Prabha is not a passing aside in the storyline like the ‘heroines’ of his films usually are these days (cases in point: Velipadinte Pusthakam and Oppam).

Their on-screen chemistry may not be electric, but there is a comfortable equation there that is mined well in a song sequence featuring both their characters in the open countryside at night. Here in this picturesque, atmospheric scene, the lines between dreams and reality, what is and what might be, blur, such that it simultaneously conveys the joyfulness of a couple being all that they want to be to each other and the melancholic awareness of the hurdles in their path.

This passage, and that excellently choreographed fight to the finish between Manikyan and his enemies exemplify Odiyan’s potential – a potential it has not lived up to. As things stand, it is neither extraordinary nor memorable, but it is engaging enough while it lasts.

Rating (out of five stars): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	167 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/odiyan-movie-review-mohanlals-transformed-physique-manju-warrier-are-usps-of-a-reasonably-watchable-mytho-fantasy-5730951.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/odiyanofficial/

Release date:	December 21, 2018
Director:	Aanand L. Rai
Cast: Language:	Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma, Katrina Kaif, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Sheeba Chaddha, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Brijendra Kala, Mallika Dua, R. Madhavan, Abhay Deol Hindi

Aanand L. Rai’s Zero is divided into two distinct compartments: one where the screenplay allows leading man Shah Rukh Khan’s naturally energetic personality, comic timing and charm to take flight, and the second in which the film appears to be trying to say something very grave and very deep but fails to lift off. Thank the cosmos for Bollywood’s dimpled wonder, his charisma and enthusiasm undiminished by his 53 years, because without him, Zero has little going for it.

The story takes off in Meerut where a 38-year-old (ahem!) scamp called Bauua Singh has forever been taunted for his physical disability. Bauua (SRK) is of very short stature, but does not allow social opprobrium to dampen his zest for life, his self-esteem or his over-sized ego. He is keen on marriage and obsessed with the movie star Babita Kumari (Katrina Kaif). In pursuit of a potential spouse, he avails of the services of a marriage broker (Brijendra Kala). In pursuit of his screen idol – “bhabhi(sister in law),” as his friend Guddu refers to Babita – he enters a contest, the prize for which is a chance to attend a party with her.

Somewhere between long-distance trysts with the Bollywood beauty in movie theatres and at fan gatherings, meetings with his broker and fights with his father (Tigmanshu Dhulia), Bauua encounters the genius space scientist Aafia Yusufzai Bhinder (Anushka Sharma). Cerebral palsy is not mentioned by name in the film but her constrained facial expressions, speech and physical movements tell their own tale. The wheelchair is to the brilliant Aafia what height is to Bauua – she has not let it clip her wings.

Zero is the latest collaboration between director Aanand L. Rai and writer Himanshu Sharma who have caused box-office storms so far with Tanu Weds Manu (2011), Raanjhanaa (2013) and Tanu Weds Manu Returns (2015). Two things have characterised these hits: their misogyny and their connect with small-town India. Unlike Kanpur or Varanasi in those previous projects, Zero’s screenplay does not quite capture the specific fragrance and feel of Meerut. On the plus side, Zero does not hate women – the downer is that it simply does not know what to do with them.

One thing this film does get right is its hero’s frenetic energy and acerbic humour for which Khan proves to be an excellent fit. Sharma, wisely, does not scrub insensitive language out of the film in the interests of superficial – and unreal – political correctness. Life is not a movie review where a critic spends hours trying to figure out whether “dwarf”, “midget” or “vertically challenged person” would be the most appropriate usage, and Sharma understands that. Characters around Bauua in his hometown hurl the Hindi word “bauna” (dwarf) at him and define him almost entirely by his height without a care for his feelings, as most people in the real world sadly would. Crucially though, the writer and director themselves do not view him through a condescending or contemptuous lens. Bauua gives as good as he gets, piercing through the barbs with a tongue that is sharper than a butcher's knife and a skin that is thicker than rhinoceros hide.

Beyond this though, Zero has nothing to offer. Part of the reason seems to be Sharma’s inability to write relatable women who are neither ridiculously eccentric, brusque and self-centred like Tanu nor selfish and manipulative like Zoya in Raanjhanaa. Remove from the picture the animosity towards womankind that oozed out of Raanjhanaa and the othering in the Tanu Weds Manu films, and what you have are the dead bores Aafia and Babita.

Babita gets one interesting scene in which she tells Bauua about her parents. Aafia does not even get that. No doubt Bauua is funny and feisty, but he is also a big jerk with her every step of the way, making it impossible to understand why she falls for him because the mere fact that he is the only man she has met who is at eye level with her is hardly an explanation, although that is what their conversations imply.

Their separate journeys with Bauua are so terribly contrived and intellectually pretentious that I found myself longing for them to exit the frame each time they were there, and to leave him alone with Guddu so that we might enjoy the crackling banter between the two men.

Zero is, no doubt, attempting to make a profoundly philosophical point at the intersection of the protagonists’ physical disabilities and their joint exploration of the universe, but whatever it is is lost in the swirling mists of the writer’s mind.

Onepoint that does come across is the unspoken intermingling of communities evident in Aafia’s name and her parents’ relationship. Subtlety so relevant in these politically divisive times rears its head elsewhere too – this time with clever comicality – in the matter of marginalised communities within dominant groups (Bauua is male and visibly upper caste, but that does not save him from incessant denigration due to his appearance).

Thankfully, Bollywood has progressed beyond the days when Anupam Kher had to go down on his knees to play a dwarf in Shirish Kunder’s Jaan-E-Mann(2006). Bauua’s small size has been achieved reportedly with the same technology as has been used in the Lord of the Rings films and The Hobbit. Some day soon, hopefully the industry will get to a place where it does not need such tech because it has place for actors like the great Peter Dinklage who plays Tyrion Lannister in the Game of Thronesseries. For the moment though, it is worth celebrating that a mainstream actor, writer and director in this dismally conservative, ableist industry came up with a film that revolves entirely around a vertically challenged man.

That, of course, is not enough. Zero’s storyline is convoluted, confused and dull. Of the female leads, Kaif’s primary job is to look stunning, a duty she fulfills to perfection, while the heavy lifting in terms of acting is left, quite sensibly, to the more talented artiste of the two. Though Sharma totally immerses herself in Aafia’s physicality, there is little she can do to elevate the woman above the dreary writing.

Khan delivers an endearing performance as Bauua, but has more chemistry with Guddu (played by the unfailingly remarkable Mohammmed Zeeshan Ayyub) than with either lady. The superstar has been in experimental mode for the past three years with films like Fan, Raeesand Dear Zindagithat have offered him a chance to explore the actor in him. Those films, flawed though they were, were far far far better written than Zero.

Even Ajay-Atul’s music for Zero is limited. The wistful melody and rousing orchestration of Mere Naam Tu comes in one of its most visually appealing scenes. Issaqbaazi – featuring Salman Khan in a neatly conceptualised cameo – is lively but lacks depth. And Husn Parcham is a big yawn.

Perhaps the most refreshing aspect of Zero is Khan’s willingness to laugh at himself along with Messrs Sharma and Rai. In one scene when asked how old he is, Bauua slips up and gives a figure other than 38. The fact that the character is lying about his age serves as an amusing swipe at a superstar who by and large persists in playing characters much younger than he is and/or starring opposite much younger women. Of course the point would have been more effective and would have come across as more sincere if the leading ladies of Zero weren’t 20 years junior to Khan.

In a sense, Aanand L. Rai’s career path in 2018 serves as a metaphor for Bollywood in a year in which this male-star-struck industry has repeatedly struck gold – qualitatively and financially – largely with films it conventionally considers “small” such as Stree, Raazi,Badhaai Ho and Veere Di Wedding, while hyped-up ventures headlined by major gentleman superstars have too oftenturned out to be damp squibs. As a producer, Rai threw his weight behind the starless fantasy/thriller Tumbbad which released a few months back and has proved to be a pathbreaker with its solid and adventurous writing that earned it glowing reviews and a welcoming audience. Whether or not Zero rakes in big bucks at the box office, it is a spluttering, tottering affair.

If and when you do your next Zero, Mr Rai, do put the screenplay through the same arduous pressure test to which you would subject Tumbbad. Better still, give us more Tumbbads please.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	164 minutes 15 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/zero-movie-review-shah-rukh-khans-comic-timing-is-the-only-thing-going-for-this-spluttering-tottering-affair-5769221.html

Visuals courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/Zero21Dec/

https://www.facebook.com/RedChilliesEnt/

Release date:	December 28, 2018
Director:	Rohit Shetty
Cast: Language:	Ranveer Singh, Sonu Sood, Ashutosh Rana, Sara Ali Khan, Ajay Devgn, Vipin Sharma, Sree Swara Dubey, Sulbha Arya, Guest appearances by Karan Johar, Kunal Khemu, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade and Akshay Kumar Hindi with Marathi

If you are a serious, intellectual sort, chances are you will judge me for admitting this, but the truth is, I enjoyed Singham. Simmba has been positioned as a spin-off of that 2011 Ajay Devgn-starrer, but Rohit Shetty – who directed the earlier film too – forgot to include in this one the panache that made Singham’s melodrama and OTTness watchable and fun despite its formulaic nature.

In Simmba, Shetty replaces Devgn with Ranveer Singh, and exchanges a trigger-happy but financially clean policeman with a corrupt-as-hell cop who turns over a new leaf when a tragedy befalls him.If the earlier film took its story from Kollywood’s Singham, this one turns to Tollywood’s Temper for inspiration, and therein lies the problem.

Simmba is loud, steeped in clichés and has nothing going for it apart from the leading man’s comic flair and willingness to lose himself in a role, however silly it may be. Those qualities make the first half somewhat enjoyable despite its dated feel on many fronts. All is lost though by the second half when the screenplay shelves comedy in favour of grim speeches by a newly minted messiah of India’s beleaguered women.

Singh plays Inspector Sangram Bhalerao a.k.a. Simmba who has no qualms about admitting that he became a cop to make money. You see, as he explains in a weepy speech late into the plot, he had no loving Mummy nor a strict Daddy to give him thappads that would have set him right as a child. And so he took his cues from a bribe-taking local policeman.

The adult Simmba’s avarice takes a backseat though when the hand that feeds him turns on a person he loves. Because this is post-2012 Bollywood where ‘women’s empowerment’ is being seen as a saleable formula like any other, Simmba’s battle for justice for a rape victim is embellished by a courtroom monologue on the December 2012 Delhi bus gangrape and National Crime Records Bureau statistics for rape.

Just as the Indian public and press have felt driven to lionise a dead woman as The Fearless One(i.e. Nirbhaya) to make her worth fighting for, so also Simmba’s crusade is not for a mere woman who has been wronged, but for a woman he called his sister and for all the sisters and daughters of this country.

Hindi cinema has given us various live variants of Nirbhaya down the decades, from Dimple Kapadia’s rape-victim-turned-avenging-Durga in Zakhmi Aurat to Sridevi’s vengeful Mommy in Mom– because regular women are so darned pointless, I guess. The difference between these films and Simmba is that the Nirbhaya here is a man. Because as a junior cop tells Simmba: “Jab tak yeh rapist log ko apan policewala tthok nahin dega tab tak kucch nahin badlega.” (Nothing will change until we policemen kill off these rapists.)

Don’t be deceived by the apparent good intentions – women’s safety is just another excuse for Shetty’s macho hero to deliver speeches, take the law into his own hands, display his impressive biceps and single-handedly bash up groups of bad men.

Nothing underlines Simmba’s insincerity better than the sidelining of women in a film purportedly about women’s rights. Every female human in sight is a sidelight. Even Sara Ali Khan, who was so captivating in a substantial role on debut in Kedarnath, is reduced to being a pretty prop in the hero’s life. You can count the number of scenes she gets on the fingers of one hand.

Not that Singham was not patriarchal in a similar fashion – it was. But at least it had memorable male supporting characters, including the lead villain played by Prakash Raj. The usually dependable Sonu Sood is wasted in Simmba as the poorly written central antagonist.

More thought is given to the cameo by Devgn, an array of guest appearances (by Karan Johar, Kunal Khemu, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade and Akshay Kumar) and self-referential tributes to Shetty’s filmography than to the entire lukewarm screenplay of Simmba.

Even Ranveer Singh’s pre-interval swag deserves to be forgotten by the end of the insufferable second half. As if to add insult to injury, after pontificating about women’s concerns throughout that portion, Simmba ends with the hero dancing surrounded mostly by large groups of nameless women in little skirts, with Sara Ali Khan occasionally chucked in – for variety, I suppose.

Never mind the rest of Team Simmba, Ms Khan, but you deserve better than this hypocritical nonsense.

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	159 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/simmba-movie-review-ranveer-singhs-pizzazz-is-lost-to-a-cliched-womens-rights-saga-that-sidelines-women-5804601.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/SimmbaTheFilm/

Release date:	Kerala: December 21, 2018. Delhi: December 21, 2018.
Director:	Sathyan Anthikad
Cast: Language:	Fahadh Faasil, Nikhila Vimal, Devika Sanjay, Anju Kurien, Sreenivasan, K.P.A.C. Lalitha Malayalam with some Bengali and German

Sometimes I want to wrap Malayalam cinema in a big, warm bear hug and plant affectionate, grateful kisses on its cheeks. I felt this way for the nth time in my life this weekend as I sat in a packed hall in Gurgaon watching Sathyan Anthikad’s Njan Prakashan, a life-affirming film with a life-as-it-happens tone that ends a largely disappointing 2018 on a high for the Malayalam industry a.k.a. Mollywood.

In a Facebook post earlier this year, Anthikad had described Prakashan as “a typical Malayali youth of the sort we see all around us”. Quite appropriately, at that point the film was even titled Malayali. Contemporary commercial Malayalam cinema tends to normalise the ways of young men in Kerala who hang about doing nothing but blame their fate on the state, who perennially view women with suspicion yet long for girlfriends and wives, who want marriage although they do not financially support themselves, who claim victimhood if women choose not to be with them (“avalu chadichallo da,” she betrayed me, being a constant refrain about women who merely said no), who prefer unemployment to work they consider menial or unmacho, and are obsessed with going abroad even if it means doing jobs in other countries that they would refuse to do in theirs.

Njan Prakashan’s hero possesses several of these characteristics, but is not shown assuming – in typical Mollywood style – that all women are potential traitors. He simply dehumanises them, as he dehumanises pretty much everyone around him, seeing them all as nothing but passports to a vaguely envisioned, financially secure future. The difference between this film and regular mainstream cinema is that the writing does not romanticise the leading man’s misbehaviour in any way. The fellow’s dishonesty often leads to laugh-out-loud circumstances but the dishonesty per se is not treated as funny.

The Kerala media is full of the news that Njan Prakashan reunites the legendary hit combination of Anthikad and actor-writer Sreenivasan after a gap of 16 years. It also reunites the director and actor Fahadh Faasil for the first time since their box-office success with 2013’s Oru Indian Pranayakatha. In a sense, that film’s roguish Aymanam Sidharthan spills over into Njan Prakashan’s protagonist who also bears marginal shades of the thief played by Faasil in Dileesh Pothan’s Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum (2017) and the scamp he was in Venu’s Carbon this year.

But he is more than that because Anthikad and Sreenivasan make sure he is more. He is not the benign crook he appears to be courtesy Faasil’s deceptive look of wide-eyed innocence, and in fact, he is much more than that “typical Malayali youth” Anthikad spoke of. That he is untruthful and untrustworthy is clear early on, but the way he treats his ex-girlfriend Salomi (Nikhila Vimal) proves that he is callous and calculating too.

Prakashan is a laggard who changes his name on a whim to P.R. Akash to be his idea of cool, a qualified nurse who refuses to practise his profession under various pretexts, a fellow with his head in the clouds who reflexively stretches his arm around his head to reach for his nose instead of simply lifting his hand to his face.

At some point in his interactions with Salomi it becomes evident that this frustrating man is so used to his twisted, over-smart thinking that he does not take the straight path not only because he does not want to, but because he genuinely no longer sees it.

Njan Prakashan inhabits familiar Anthikad territory yet within the familiar, the director manages to unearth the refreshing and the new. It is hard to explain what the film is about because it is not about anything in particular, yet it is about anything that matters – life, death and the relationships that come in between.

Everything about Njan Prakashan is understated, from the lessons it offers the central character, to the throwaway line in a fleeting scene that takes a swipe at Kerala’s political parties, Shaan Rahman’s sweet melodies, and S. Kumar’s camerawork that zooms in and out of picture postcard settings with a casualness underlining the everydayness of Kerala’s beauty that locals are likely to take for granted just as human beings take for granted the beauty that the cosmos routinely sends our way.

The other striking aspect of Njan Prakashan is the manner in which it looks at “the other”. The fervent Christian family, for instance, is amusing but not caricatured. And the Bengali migrant labourers Prakashan’s mentorGopalji coordinates, though not fleshed out as definable characters in the storyline, are spared the casual parochialism that sometimes rears its ugly head in commercial Mollywood – instead, they are treated with affection and respect, a mark of which is the fact that Anthikad goes so far as to include an entire Bengali song in the soundtrack with Faasil visible among these impoverished, hard-working men.

The star is in top form as Prakashan. His personality lends itself well to the Common Person he has played in so many films. His skill is what enables him to distinguish each of his Everyman performances from the other. Here he portrays the busyness of Prakashan’s mind without underlining it unnecessarily, is hilarious and poignant by turns, and journeys chameleon-like from unthinkingly cruel to humane in an utterly convincing fashion.

The writing of the women characters is even more interesting. The conceptualisation of Salomi, in particular, is outstanding. (Alert: some people may consider these questions spoilers, I do not) Was she reduced to tears of joy on discovering that her feelings were reciprocated by a man she loved or was she shocked at the extent of his opportunism and his apparent conviction that she would not detect it? Was she really unable to understand his overtures and jokes, or was the joke on him? Was she mocking him or genuinely dense? Had he really managed to double-cross her or had she seen through him and allowed herself to be taken for a ride? I am being intentionally obtuse in this paragraph to avoid spoilers. Come back and read these questions after watching Njan Prakashan, and you might see that the screenplay leaves Salomi completely and entirely open to viewer interpretation. Nikhila Vimal is excellent in capturing the intentional ambiguity of the writing.

Devika Sanjay and Anju Kurien are just as good playing Teena and Shruthi respectively, the other two women who have a crucial impact on Prakashan.

Through his interactions with these three, his eyes gradually open up to a world beyond his earlier selfish, narrow gaze, with some help from Gopalji played by Sreenivasan himself. This is a world in which Prakashan a.k.a.P.R. Akash cannot assume he has the upper hand with his deceptions since others may well have a trick or two up their sleeves too, and where the greatest trickster of all is life itself.

At different points in Anthikad’s controlled narrative I found myself bewildered by Prakashan, exasperated, giggling, smiling and sobbing my heart out. What a wonderful end to 2018 this is.

Rating (out of five stars): ****

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	131 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/njan-prakashan-movie-review-fahadh-faasil-and-sathyan-anthikad-end-2018-on-a-life-affirming-high-5811581.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/FahadhFaasil/

Release date:	Kerala: December 21, 2018. Delhi: December 28, 2018.
Director:	Jose Sebastian
Cast: Language:	Urvashi, Tovino Thomas, Mammukoya, Hareesh Kanaran, Dileesh Pothan, Siddique Malayalam with some Hindi

Tovino Thomas as the leading man, Urvashi playing a woman who may be his mother, pretty shots of the Kerala countryside, and glimpses of parts of Lucknow that even Hindi cinema rarely visits – what’s not to like? Answer: the lack of substance.

Jose Sebastian’s Ente Ummante Peru is interesting only to the extent that here, unlike in most Indian films where kids go in search of a parent, this kid is not looking for his Dad from whose existence he hopes to gain respectability or from whom he intends to demand to know why the man abandoned his wife/girlfriend and child, nor is he longing for maternal love (like, say, Vineeth Sreenivasan’s character in Aravindante Athidhikal). Here, instead, he hopes to re-acquire respectability by adding a mother figure to his life. That’s a change for the better...I guess?

But wait, let me not get ahead of myself. This is the story of Hameed who discovers, upon his father’s death, that Papa was married to two women, one of whom, he assumes, is his Mum. He sets off to find her, because his worth as a potential groom has fallen, it seems, since he is now an orphan. It feels odd to have that word applied persistently to a full-grown adult played by the strapping, muscular Tovino Thomas, but the writers (Sebastian himself and Sarath R. Nath) must have had something in mind when they sent Hameed off on his Mommy quest.

Whatever that something was, it is still within the confines of their minds. There is an atom of an idea somewhere in there that could perhaps be expanded into a good screenplay someday, but that day has not yet arrived.

Senior women film artistes struggle to find substantial roles and strong scripts, so I can kinda understand why an actor of Urvashi’s superstar stature signed up for this project, but men of all ages, especially of Thomas’ age, face no such drought, so I wonder what this sought-after youngster – with films like Oru Mexican Aparatha and Mayaanadhiunder his belt – saw in this directionless writing.

Ente Ummante Peru does have some things going for it though. There is, for instance, some humour in the banter between Hameed and his close buddy played by Hareesh Kanaran a.k.a. Hareesh Perumanna. And Mammukoya as Hameed’s other arch ally is a dear because, well, he is Mammukoya.

I also enjoyed the sights and sounds of Lucknow, especially the imposing mansion and the decaying old-style haveli Hameed visits. For a part of this stretch, Sebastian also manages to conjure up an air of mystery around Urvashi’s character Aishu, another woman who is introduced late into the plot and an intriguing youth we see only from a distance.

Somewhere around this time Hameed asks Aishu, “Who are you?” The answer never comes, and we never quite get to figure out why Hameed or Aishu do any of what they do, or why Hameed becomes so desperate to find his mother (even his desperation to be married not being a believable explanation). The screenplay also offers little reason to feel invested in their relationship, or the story of Hameed’s late father, the son’s relationship with the old man, or even his equation with the young woman who is the reason why he goes off looking for his mother in the first place.

The narrative is lifted up by several notches with the entry of Urvashi who has more charisma per fingernail than most people can summon up with their entire personality. It is particularly commendable that she makes Aishu so striking considering that the woman is curt and unappealing.

Thomas is always easy on the eye and a pleasant presence, but the lack of chemistry between him and Urvashi is a reminder of how dependent good acting is on good writing.

There is, after all, only so much that even the great Urvashi and sweet Tovino Thomas can achieve with a clueless script.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	131 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ente-ummante-peru-movie-review-urvashi-is-irrepressible-tovino-is-nice-enough-but-the-script-lacks-substance-5813151.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ente_Ummante_Peru

When “small” got big and viewers snubbed conventional industry ‘wisdom’

Conventional Hindi film industry ‘wisdom’ dictates that women-led storylines do not lend themselves to box-office blockbusters, that audiences expect female-centric films to be issue-based and grave, and that male-centric films strike gold only when they are flashy, formulaic at least to some extent, larger-than-life and/or headlined by men stars with larger-than-life images.

Conventional Hindi film industry ‘wisdom’ can go take a hike. In 2018, viewers rejected the Bollywood seers’ unadventurous interpretation of what constitutes “small” and “big” cinema by often rejecting hyped-up mega-ventures, routinely embracing quality content without a care for scale, and proving that “small” or “big” lies in the eyes of the beholder.

That’s the difference between this year and last. Most films on my list of Bollywood’s best in 2017 were barely-promoted indies that got limited time and space in movie halls. In 2018, production majors backed a bunch of delightful, non-formulaic middle-of-the-road ventures, marketed them well, and ensured that they got pride of place in theatre schedules. Guess what? Many were hits. (Aside: I use the term Bollywood to denote the Mumbai-based industry that makes films primarily in the Hindi language.)

Here is my pick of the best Bollywood films released in theatres in 2018.

BEST BOLLYWOOD FILMS:

1: Raazi

A brilliant screenplay, Alia Bhatt’s flawless performance and Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s best songs since Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara(2011) underpinned Meghna Gulzar’s emotionally charged yet restrained India-Pak espionage thriller. Raazi’s sensitive writing brought home the inevitable human cost of all war better than any Hindi film in recent years.

Although the screenplay foregrounded a Kashmiri Muslim teenager’s excruciating sacrifice for the country, it did not tackily tomtom the heroine’s identity nor was it patronising towards the community. In the midst of the high-decibel jingoism pervading her industry, Ms Gulzar opted for minimalist storytelling and achingly beautiful humanity instead.

(For the full review of Raazi, click here)

2: Andhadhun

One of the most compelling games of join the dots ever played on the big screen, Andhadhun was a howdunnit-cum-howtoendit to beat all murder mysteries. Ayushmann Khurrana was fantastic as the artiste who believes a physical challenge enhances an individual’s creativity. As if watching Tabu being deliciously evil was not exciting enough, Andhadhun put the Bollywood spotlight on the piano after a long time.

Sriram Raghavan’s tale of a pianist, blindness and a young wife who wants her elderly husband to launch her as an actor was a hilarious yet thoughtful commentary on fate, amorality and the things guilt drives human beings to do.

(For the full review of Andhadhun, click here)

3: October

Was Shiuli romantically interested in Dan or was she just intrigued by his eccentricity? We will never know, but the what-if kept Dan going through director Shoojit Sircar’s newest collaboration with writer Juhi Chaturvedi that brought out the best in actor Varun Dhawan.

The film’s legacy has been somewhat marred by the team’s disappointing reaction to a charge of plagiarism by an unknown Marathi filmmaker called Sarika Mene (for details, click here.) An analysis of the facts suggests that Chaturvedi and Sircar drew some inspiration from the true story of Mene’s brother reported in the Mumbai media – nothing wrong with that, but a gracious acknowledgement, even if post-release, would have meant something. Truth be told, I struggled with whether I should include October on this list for this very reason.

Be that as it may, it is hard to forget this poignant saga of undefined and indefinable relationships. October was poetry in a motion picture filled with the most lyrical of frames seen in a Hindi film in 2018.

(For the full review of October, click here)

4: Gali Guleiyan

The pall of melancholy enveloping debutant director Dipesh Jain’s Gali Guleiyan a.k.a. In The Shadows is a lasting memory from 2018, and a reminder of how mesmerising sadness can be. Manoj Bajpayee’s performance as a middle-aged man desperate to save a child being abused in his neighbourhood was a highlight of the film as were the strong supporting performances and the smoothness of the narrative stringing together the stories of this troubled adult and that disturbed child in ever-changing, never-changing Old Delhi.

(For the full review of Gali Guleiyan, click here)

5: Mukkabaaz

His dismal Manmarziyaan was heavily marketed, but the Anurag Kashyap film that truly deserved to get eyeballs was not. Mukkabaaz featured dazzling performances by Vineet Kumar Singh as a talented boxer bogged down by an apathetic, corrupt establishment, and debutant Zoya Hussain as the spirited woman he falls in love with. Only Kashyap could pack observations about politics in sport, communalism, misogyny, physical disabilities, patriarchy and caste into one film without trivialising anything yet, simultaneously, without seeming overly conscious of each as an ‘issue’ to be dissected. The energy in this bright, well-crafted film about “Uttar Pradesh kaMike Tyson” is so electric, it could light up a village for a month.

(For the full review of Mukkabaaz, click here)

6: Veere Di Wedding

Cyndi Lauper captivated Indian listeners in the 1980s singing Girls just wanna have fun, but it has taken decades for her voice to reach Bollywood. Shashanka Ghosh’s inexorably funny yet ruminative Veere Di Wedding FINALLY drove home the point that a woman-centric film can be as light-hearted as a man-centric venture, adding (unlike most masala flicks toplined by major male stars) that light does not mean assinine. It was the story of four regular women from wealthy and middle-class backgrounds with regular joys, sorrows, insecurities and fears, conformist relatives and nosy neighbours.

A hysterical masturbation scene featuring Swara Bhasker shocked conservatives, no doubt because a woman deriving pleasure from sex remains taboo among such folk as does a public discussion on self-service. It was just one element though in a supremely enjoyable buddy flick that thrived on the chemistry between the female leads Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Shikha Talsania and Bhasker, the unprecedented humour and frankness in conversations between their characters, and the no-holds-barred celebration of womanhood and of life.

(For the full review of Veere Di Wedding, click here)

7: Tumbbad

Supernatural drama? Folktale? Horror flick? Psychological thriller? There is no telling whether Tumbbad is all the above or none of the above. In a year in which he made big news with Zero, his directorial venture starring Shah Rukh Khan, Aanand L. Rai also co-produced and doggedly promoted this formula-averse adventure helmed by Rahi Anil Barve. The budget was vastly lower than Zero’s, yet Tumbbad was as visually grand as it can get. The film’s strong cast was led by the good-looking but not-seen-on-screen-enough Sohum Shah, who was also its producer.

Atmospheric and chilling, it was one of the most original and rewarding cinematic experiences of the year gone by.

(For the full review of Tumbbad, click here)

8: Mulk

Courage does not always translate into good cinema. In this case, thankfully, it did. Director Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk grabbed Islamophobia by the horns and wrestled the challenging subject with sensitivity and grace. The Rishi Kapoor-Taapsee Pannu-starrer was effective because Sinha chose to make it an entertainer, not a sermon that would have reached only the already converted.

Kapoor can add Mulk to a list of films he can be proud of in this remarkable post-2003 second innings of his career. Solutions are far tougher to arrive at in real life than they were in Sinha’s story, but those harrowing yet ultimately uplifting 140-plus minutes spent with old Murad Ali and his supportive daughter-in-law Aarti were a healing assurance that our fractured world might some day be a better place than it is right now.

9: Badhaai Ho

“Kasht tera hai, final decision bhi tera hi hoga” (You are the one who will go through the trouble that this pregnancy entails, therefore the final decision too will be yours). Who would have guessed that a Bollywood afraid to even mention the word “abortion” in 2016’s Sultanwould, in just two years, get to a place where an elderly male character would say these words to his pregnant, elderly wife? Yet that is precisely what Manoj Kaushik told Priyamvada Kaushik in Badhaai Ho this year. Director Amit Ravindernath Sharma cast Neena Gupta and Gajraj Rao as the older couple unexpectedly expecting a baby and facing the anger of their grown-up offspring (Ayushmann Khurrana among them) along with the intrusiveness, gossip and contempt of neighbours, relatives and strangers.

Twilight romance, marital happiness, sibling bonds, young love, well-considered redefinitions of conservatism and liberalism can all be found in this heartwarming, rib-tickling, realistic and thoroughly gratifying family drama.

(For the full review of Badhaai Ho, click here)

10: Stree

If Tumbbad was eerie and haunting, Stree explored another dimension of horror with its uncommon combination of comedy, social insights and dread. A female ghost attacks men in a town in Madhya Pradesh, leading residents to keep their sons and husbands confined to their houses and driving some men to adopt women’s clothing on their rare outings. A big salaam on behalf of self-respecting, rights-conscious, freedom-loving womankind to writers Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK for turning on its head the accusatory “What was she wearing? Why was she out of the house / out there / out late?” interrogation that women victims of violence are constantly subjected to. Kudos too to them and director Amar Kaushik for doing this in a film brimming inoffensively with laughter.

With Stree, it is also now officially confirmed that there is nothing Rajkummar Rao cannot do: yes, in addition to everything else, he is an A-grade comedian too.

(For the full review of Stree, click here)

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

Bhavesh Joshi Superhero

Manto

Raid

Omerta

Pataakha

ALSO READ:

Bollywood Awards 2018: Alia or Tabu? Amit Trivedi or SEL? Manoj Bajpayee or Ranbir? A pick of the year’s best work

Best Mollywood Films 2018: The gems that redeemed a largely terrible year for Malayalam cinema

Director’s Cut: Meghna Gulzar on Alia, Raazi, Muslim bashing and insecurities that lead to majoritarianism

A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED ON FIRSTPOST:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/best-bollywood-films-2018-when-small-cinema-got-big-and-viewers-snubbed-conventional-industry-wisdom-5808831.html

Photographs courtesy:

Raazi poster: https://www.facebook.com/RaaziHoon/

Andhadhun poster: https://www.facebook.com/AndhadhunFilm/

October poster: https://www.facebook.com/OctoberFilm2018/

Veere Di Wedding poster: https://www.facebook.com/VDWTheFilm/

Badhaai Ho poster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badhaai_Ho

Streeposter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stree_(2018_film)

ALIA OR TABU? AMIT TRIVEDI OR SEL? MANOJ BAJPAYEE OR RANBIR? A PICK OF 2018’S BEST WORK

As a follow-up to my list of best Bollywood films released in theatres in 2018, here is my pick of nominees and winners in categories recognised at most film awards functions worldwide. I have given a minimum of four and a maximum of seven nominations per slot, except in the case of the Best Film for which I have listed 10 nominees, because my list of 10 best films of 2018 has already been published.

For practical reasons, I have confined myself to films that were released in mainstream theatres. However, in coming years, as the number of films being directly released on online platforms increases, the criteria for this list will perhaps change. That is a consideration for a later date. For the moment, here are my picks of the best that 2018 had to offer in all departments of cinema emerging from what we call Bollywood (i.e. the Mumbai-based industry that produces films largely in the Hindi language), from acting to direction, music and other technical streams:

BEST FILM

I have ranked these from 1-10 in my Best Bollywood Films of 2018 article:

Nominees (all nominee lists are in alphabetical order):

Andhadhun

Badhaai Ho

Gali Guleiyan – In The Shadows

Mukkabaaz

Mulk

October

Raazi

Stree

Tumbbad

Veere Di Wedding

And the award goes to…

Raazi

BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees:

Anurag Kashyap (Mukkabaaz)

Dipesh Jain (Gali Guleiyan)

Meghna Gulzar (Raazi)

Shoojit Sircar (October)

Sriram Raghavan (Andhadhun)

And the award goes to…

Meghna Gulzar (Raazi)

BEST WRITING

Nominees:

Anudeep Singh, Anurag Kashyap, Vineet Kumar Singh, Mukti Singh Srinet, K.D. Satyam, Ranjan Chandel, Prasoon Mishra (Mukkabaaz)

Bhavani Iyer, Meghna Gulzar (Raazi)

Dipesh Jain (Gali Guleiyan)

Juhi Chaturvedi (October)

Sriram Raghavan, Hemanth Rao, Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti, Yogesh Chandekar (Andhadhun)

And the award goes to…

Bhavani Iyer, Meghna Gulzar (Raazi)

BEST ACTOR (FEMALE)

Nominees:

Alia Bhatt (Raazi)

Anushka Sharma (Pari)

Anushka Sharma (Sui Dhaaga)

Neena Gupta (Badhaai Ho)

Rani Mukerji (Hichki)

Tabu (Andhadhun)

Zoya Hussain (Mukkabaaz)

And the award goes to…

Alia Bhatt (Raazi)

BEST ACTOR (MALE)

Nominees:

Ayushmann Khurrana (Andhadhun)

Gajraj Rao (Badhaai Ho)

Manoj Bajpayee (Gali Guleiyan)

Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Manto)

Rajkummar Rao (Omerta)

Ranbir Kapoor (Sanju)

Vineet Kumar Singh (Mukkabaaz)

And the award goes to…

Ranbir Kapoor (Sanju)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (FEMALE)

Nominees:

Anuja Sathe (Blackmail)

Gitanjali Rao (October)

Rasika Dugal (Manto)

Shahana Goswami (Gali Guleiyan)

Swara Bhasker (Veere Di Wedding)

And the award goes to…

Shahana Goswami (Gali Guleiyan)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (MALE)

Nominees:

Abhishek Banerjee (Stree)

Angad Bedi (Soorma)

Aparshakti Khurana (Stree)

Jimmy Sheirgill (Mukkabaaz)

Prateek Kapoor (October)

Priyanshu Painyuli (Bhavesh Joshi Superhero)

Vicky Kaushal (Raazi)

And the award goes to…

Vicky Kaushal (Raazi)

BEST CAST

Nominees:

Andhadhun:

Tabu, Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Chhaya Kadam, Ashwini Kalsekar, Zakir Hussain, Pawan Singh, Kabir Sajid

Gali Guleiyan:

Manoj Bajpayee, Om Singh, Shahana Goswami, Arbaaz Khan, Neeraj Kabi, Ranvir Shorey

Mukkabaaz:

Vineet Kumar Singh, Zoya Hussain, Jimmy Sheirgill, Ravi Kishan

Pataakha:

Radhika Madan, Sanya Malhotra, Vijay Raaz, Sunil Grover, Namit Das, Abhishek Duhan, Saanand Verma

Raazi:

Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal, Jaideep Ahlawat, Rajit Kapur, Shishir Sharma, Soni Razdan, Amruta Khanvilkar, Arif Zakaria, Ashwath Bhatt, Aman Vashisht

Stree:

Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee, Pankaj Tripathi, Atul Srivastava

Tumbbad:

Sohum Shah, Jyoti Malshe, Dhundhiraj Prabhakar Jogalekar, Anita Date, Deepak Damle, Ronjini Chakraborty, Mohd Samad

And the award goes to…

Andhadhun

Tabu, Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Chhaya Kadam, Ashwini Kalsekar, Zakir Hussain, Pawan Singh, Kabir Sajid

BEST MUSIC

Nominees:

Andhadhun:

Songs: Amit Trivedi

Background score: Daniel B. George

Angrezi Mein Kehte Hain:

Songs: Pravin Kunwar, Oni-Adil, Ranjan Sharma

Background score: Ranjan Sharma

Kedarnath:

Songs: Amit Trivedi

Background score: Hitesh Sonik

Laila Majnu:

Songs: Niladri Kumar and Joi Barua

Background score: Hitesh Sonik

October:

Shantanu Moitra, Anupam Roy, Abhishek Arora

Raazi:

Songs: Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Background score: Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Tubby

And the award goes to…

Raazi:

Songs: Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Background score: Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Tubby

Note: Fabulous though it is, I have not included the music of Dhadak here (songs: Ajay-Atul, background score: John Stewart Eduri) only and only because a bulk of it has been transposed here from Ajay-Atul’s soundtrack for the 2016 Marathi blockbuster Sairat of which Dhadak was a Hindi remake.

BEST SONG

Nominees:

Ae Watan (from Raazi):

Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Lyrics: Gulzar (incorporating lines from Allama Iqbal’s Lab pe aati hai dua)

Singing: Sunidhi Chauhan and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy children’s chorus

Dilbaro (from Raazi):

Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Lyrics: Gulzar

Singing: Harshdeep Kaur, Vibha Saraf and Shankar Mahadevan

Meri Ankhein (fromAngrezi Mein Kehte Hain):

Music: Pravin Kunwar

Lyrics: Yogesh

Singing: Shaan, Vaishali Mhade and Pravin Kunwar

Naina Da Kya Kasoor (from Andhadhun):

Music: Amit Trivedi

Lyrics: Jaideep Sahni

Singing: Amit Trivedi

Namo Namo (from Kedarnath):

Music: Amit Trivedi

Lyrics: Amitabh Bhattacharya

Singing: Amit Trivedi

O’ Meri Laila (from Laila Majnu):

Music: Joi Barua

Lyrics: Irshad Kamil

Singing: Atif Aslam and Jyotica Tangri

And the award goes to…

Ae Watan (from Raazi):

Music: Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Lyrics: Gulzar (incorporating lines from Allama Iqbal’s Lab pe aati hai dua)

Singing: Sunidhi Chauhan and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy children’s chorus (Soham Vavekar, Advait Raman Shankar, Tanirika Chakraborty, Vasudha Tiwari, Ananya Halarnkar, Tejas Tambe, Ghazal Javed, Archana Hegdekar & Satyajeet Jena)

BEST EDITING

Nominees:

Aarti Bajaj, Ankit Bidyadhar (Mukkabaaz)

Aditya Warrior (Omerta)

A. Sreekar Prasad (Manto)

Chris Witt (Gali Guleiyan)

Nitin Baid (Raazi)

Pooja Ladha Surti (Andhadhun)

Sanyukta Kaza (Tumbbad)

And the award goes to…

Chris Witt (Gali Guleiyan)

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Nominees:

Avik Mukhopadhayay (October)

Avinash Arun (Karwaan)

Kai Miedendorp (Gali Guleiyan)

K.U. Mohanan (Andhadhun)

Pankaj Kumar (Tumbbad)

Ranjan Palit (Pataakha)

Sachin K. Krishn (Daas Dev)

And the award goes to…

Avik Mukhopadhayay (October)

BEST SOUND DESIGN

Nominees:

Anish John (Pari)

Dipankar Jojo Chaki (October)

Kunal Sharma (Raazi)

Kunal Sharma (Tumbbad)

Madhu Apsara (Andhadhun)

Mandar Kulkarni (Omerta)

Shajith Koyeri & Savitha Nambrath(Stree)

And the award goes to…

Kunal Sharma (Tumbbad)

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Nominees:

Aditya Kanwar (Bhavesh Joshi Superhero)

Meenal Agarwal (Pari)

Nitin Zihani Choudhury, Rakesh Yadav (Tumbbad)

Rita Ghosh (Manto)

Shazia Zahid Iqbal (Mukkabaaz)

Snigdha Karmahe, Pankaj Poal, Anita Lata Rajagopalan, Donald Reagen Gracy(Andhadhun)

Sujata Sharma Virk (Gali Guleiyan)

And the award goes to…

Nitin Zihani Choudhury, Rakesh Yadav (Tumbbad)

MOST INTERESTING DEBUTANT IN A LEAD OR SUPPORTING ROLE

Nominees:

Gitanjali Rao (October)

Om Singh (Gali Guleiyan)

Radhika Madan (Pataakha)

Sara Ali Khan (Kedarnath)

Zoya Hussain (Mukkabaaz)

And the award goes to…

Zoya Hussain (Mukkabaaz)

Note: I am not nominating Dulquer Salmaan in this category, although Karwaan was his first Bollywood film, because he is already an established actor (a superstar, to be precise) of Mollywood with hits also in Kollywood and Tollywood. Nominating him in a debutant category for Bollywood films makes about as much sense as Hollywood nominating Priyanka Chopra as a debutant.

ALSO READ:

Best Bollywood Films 2018: When “small” cinema got big and viewers snubbed conventional industry ‘wisdom’

Best Mollywood Films 2018: The gems that redeemed a largely terrible year for Malayalam cinema

Director’s Cut: Meghna Gulzar on Alia, Raazi, Muslim bashing and insecurities that lead to majoritarianism

Director’s Cut: Shoojit Sircar on Varun Dhawan, the inspiration for October, and Mom

A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED ON FIRSTPOST:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood-awards-2018-alia-or-tabu-amit-trivedi-or-sel-manoj-bajpayee-or-ranbir-a-pick-of-the-years-best-work-5820881.html

Photographs courtesy:

Raazi poster: https://www.facebook.com/RaaziHoon/

Andhadhun poster: https://www.facebook.com/AndhadhunFilm/

October poster: https://www.facebook.com/OctoberFilm2018/

Sanjuposter: https://www.facebook.com/SanjuFilm/

Gali Guleiyan poster:https://www.facebook.com/GaliGuleiyan/

Tumbbad poster:https://www.facebook.com/TumbbadFilm/

THE GEMS THAT REDEEMED A LARGELY TERRIBLE YEAR FOR MALAYALAM CINEMA

2018 was awful for Malayalam cinema. It is a measure of how great this film industry a.k.a. Mollywood is though, that even in what is arguably its worst year of the past decade, it has given us some of India’s best cinematic works. Since I reviewed Sathyan Anthikad’s Njan Prakashan just recently, I can’t find a way to better express my feelings than in these words from that write-up: Sometimes I want to wrap Malayalam cinema in a big, warm bear hug and plant affectionate, grateful kisses on its cheeks.

This list of my favourite Malayalam films of 2018 covers theatrical releases from the last calendar year. But increasingly, there are good films not going down that road at all. Rahul Riji Nair’s Ottamuri Velicham (The Light in the Room), for one, is an unnerving account of marital rape in the remote Kerala countryside that was released directly on online platforms. Sanal Kumar Sashidharan has decided not to waste his time submitting his Unmadiyude Maranam(Death of Insane) to the Censor Board due to its politically explosive content, although that rules out a mainstream release for the film.

Nair and Sashidharan are not alone in opting for unconventional routes to the public. As technology, exhibition media and audiences change, their numbers are bound to increase, and as that happens, critics’ lists such as this one too will adapt. For the moment though, this is my pick of the best Mollywood films that came to theatres in 2018:

BEST MOLLYWOOD FILMS

1: Ee.Ma.Yau

The games people play around death have fascinated filmmakers for decades. In Ee.Ma.Yau, Malayalam auteur Lijo Jose Pellissery zeroed in on a son who promises his father a grand funeral despite his financial constraints, a widow publicly – and vociferously – mourning the passing of a spouse whose infidelity she privately suspected, and a daughter who cares more than even she knows.

If 2017 belonged to Chemban Vinod Jose and Pellissery as a writer-director combination (Pellissery’s smash hit Angamaly Diaries marked Jose’s debut as a writer), then 2018 belonged again to the duo, though this time it was Jose the actor we got to see in Ee.Ma.Yau. His deadpan take on a son for whom time comes to a standstill with the loss of a parent was one of the best performances of the year. Ee.Ma.Yauwas a beautifully shot film packed with hilarious situations and believable characters, with a wealth of insights on mortality and social pretences in a tiny fishing village by the sea.

(For the full review of Ee.Ma.Yau, click here)

2: Eeda

Love across class, caste, regional and religious divides has been repeatedly explored by Indian cinema, but Eeda chose to focus instead on another barrier that in this divisive age has been ending marriages and friendships across the globe: the political disagreement. The film was promoted as a Romeo and Juliet set against the backdrop of inter-party violence in Kerala. Frankly, the Shakespearean reference was redundant unless every romantic relationship opposed by rival clans is to be credited to the Bard.

Both in this context, and as a standalone story, Eeda is a well-acted, well-told account of what happens when two young people are drawn to each other despite their families being deeply entrenched in the establishments of opposing political parties. Shane Nigam was endearing as a young man from a Hindu right wing background, but the stand-out performance came from Nimisha Sajayan as a strong-willed student who discovers the hypocrisy of her supposedly progressive Communist people when she asserts herself against their tyranny. A smashing directorial debut for National Award winning editor B. Ajithkumar, and a very brave film.

3: S. Durga a.k.a. Sexy Durga

The din over the I&B Ministry’s repeated efforts to stall this film on India’s festival circuit almost drowned out director Sanal Kumar Sashidharan’s richly layered, no-holds-barred condemnation of the patriarchal status quo and its upholders in Sexy Durga that was renamed S. Durga by the geniuses at the Censor Board. Durga of the title is an ordinary womanunder siege on the streets of India and at home while the goddess of the same name is worshipped in temples and in a religious festival that runs parallel to the story of the lead couple.

The predators posing as protectors of women in the film mirror the manner in which patriarchy seeks to curb and violate women in the name of keeping us/them safe. The Sangh Parivar’s campaign against inter-faith marriages in which the woman is Hindu, parochial biases, gender prejudice and violence all find a place in this deceptively simple, chilling tale of a young couple in flight, trying desperately to get a lift on a deserted road late one night.

(For the full review of Sexy Durga, click here)

4: Njan Prakashan

The blockbuster team of director Sathyan Anthikad and writer Sreenivasan back together again after a gap of 16 years would be reason to celebrate on any given day. That they lived up to their reputation with this Fahadh Faasil-starrer was the cake and the icing on it. Njan Prakashan follows the life of a somewhat amoral wacko called Prakashan who renames himself P.R. Akash just to be cool, refuses to practise nursing despite being professionally qualified because he thinks it’s not cool enough, manipulates his loved ones and takes it for granted that those around him will never be as conscienceless as he is. Life teaches him better through the vehicle of three tough-as-nails women in this slice-of-life saga narrated with Anthikad’s signature natural ease.

Emerging new talents are always a joy to discover, but there is nothing quite as enjoyable and reassuring as finding that a stalwart retains his touch.

(For the full review of Njan Prakashan, click here)

5: Koode

Of the present generation of Malayalam directors, not many can handle sibling bonds like Anjali Menon can. Bangalore Days’helmswoman outdid herself in Koode, her film about the ghosts of a childhood lost to sacrifices that no one should ever be asked to make. Returning to the big screen after a four-year post-marriage hiatus, Nazriya Nazim Fahadh provided a sparkly foil to the brooding leading man (Prithviraj Sukumaran), while Parvathy in a smaller role rounded off one of the best casts of the year.

The film belonged though to Prithviraj whose outstanding performance had the power to rip the beating heart out of an iceberg. Koode was as much about silences as the spoken word, and the power of the unsaid. It was nothing short of poetry on screen.

(For the full review of Koode, click here)

6: Njan Marykkutty

This one was pathbreaking. On paper I can imagine that Njan Marykkuttywas described as “a transsexual man undergoes gender reassignment surgery to become a woman”, but in translation it was so much more. Ranjith Sankar’s film was about the government apathy, community opprobrium and even violence that Marykkutty faces from a society that sees gender only in terms of male or female by birth.

In a more evolved India, film industries will have space for trans actors to play trans persons, but considering the constant stereotyping and caricaturing by our cinemas of characters who do not fit patriarchal norms, it counts as a crucial turning point that a male star as mainstream as Jayasurya would opt to play a trans woman sans mockery or comical jibes in Njan Marykkutty and without bothering about the potential risk to his macho image among traditionalist audiences. (For the record, a parallel evolution too is happening – in the Malayalam film Aabhaasamalso released last year, a trans woman was played by the trans actor Sheetal Shyam and we will hopefully see more such inclusiveness in coming years.)

Jayasurya was stupendous as Mathukkutty who becomes Marykkutty. His remarkably unselfconscious performance embodied the spirit of the film, which seemed determined to see Marykkutty as a person not just a trans person. Great cinema is not born of good intentions and humanity alone. The reason why Njan Marykkutty works is because it has a story to tell and it tells it well, imbuing it with both sensitivity and entertainment value.

(For the full review of Njan Marykkutty, click here)

7: Bhayanakam

A postman in World War II Kerala transitions from being welcomed as a harbinger of good news to being shunned as an ill omen, as the war progresses and the money orders he once bore give way to telegrams bringing tidings of the deaths of locals on faraway battlefields. Renji Panicker as Bhayanakam’s troubled protagonist was an inspired casting choice. Asha Sarath played a woman whose free thinking and unfettered lifestyle bely contemporary assumptions about the curbs on women in non-urban settings or from earlier times.

Jayaraj’s Bhayanakam– a part of the director’s Navarasa series – deservedly won the National Award for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Cinematography last year. Like all his recent works, this one too is visually magnificent, its frames underlining the constancy of nature when left to her own devices versus the inconstancy of humankind. Set in the backwaters of Kuttanad, oneof the most stunning locations on the planet, Bhayanakam is also a timely reminder of the magic of the big screen for generations increasingly consuming cinema on cellphones, laptops and televisions at home. God’s Own Country will always be worth a visit to a movie hall.

8: Kayamkulam Kochunni

The folklore surrounding a poor Muslim boy in Kerala who grew up to be a Robin Hood, stealing from wealthy Brahmins to provide for impoverished Dalits and who is now immortalised at a shrine attached to a temple in the state is worth recounting in every era. It is of course particularly relevant and resonant in the times we live in where Islamophobia is sweeping across the globe and where India’s Dalit community has become more politically assertive than ever before.

Kayamkulam Kochunni was an extravagant production, far removed from the more small-scale cinema Nivin Pauly is usually associated with. Its effectiveness lay in the fact that the grandeur of its vision matched its visual scale. This was a fun, energetic film, intelligent, inspiring and refreshingly optimistic.

(For the full review of Kayamkulam Kochunni, click here)

9: Aadhi

Mollywood megastar Mohanlal’s son, Pranav Mohanlal, made his debut as an adult leading man in one of the best action flicks to emerge from Indian cinema in recent years. Mohanlal Junior is trained in parkour, a skill that was put to ample use in this hormonally charged action adventure packed with more quality chases and other thrilling stunts than we are used to seeing in Malayalam cinema.

Aadhi had a worthwhile story too, so we know that young Pranav can not just fight like a lion and run like a deer, he can also act. That he is cute to boot is a bonus. Suspense galore, a likeable newcomer, unrelenting action and an unexpected emotional pull are a promising mix anyway. After Drishyam’s nationwide success, director Jeethu Joseph showed us once again with Aadhi that few people can pull off crime dramas quite like he does.

(For the full review of Aadhi, click here)

10: Carbon – Ashes and Diamonds

Four years after Munnariyippu gave Mammootty one of his few memorable roles of the past decade, veteran cinematographer Venu returned to direction with the fantastical Carbon: Ashes and Diamonds. Fahadh Faasil here played a nutty chap whose head churns with outlandish get-rich-quick schemes while Mamta Mohandas was an adventurous, enigmatic late entrant in the plot who may or may not have been a creature of his imagination.

Mollywood routinely delivers some of the finest camerawork in the country, but K.U. Mohanan outdid himself and set new benchmarks for cinematography nationwide in the second half of Carbon during which the storyline drifts about in a seeming daze across mystical landscapes mirroring the wanderings of the hero’s mind. As much as Venu’s narrative is a tribute to the potential limitlessness of the human vision, Mohanan’s work on this film feels like a prayer to the cosmos and to the beauty of God’s Own Country.

(For the full review of Carbon – Ashes and Diamonds, click here)

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

Sudani from Nigeria

Poomaram

ALSO READ:

Best Bollywood Films 2018: when ‘small’cinema got big and viewers snubbed conventional industry ‘wisdom’

Bollywood Awards 2018: Alia or Tabu? Amit Trivedi or SEL? Manoj Bajpayee or Ranbir? A pick of the year’s best work

A VERSION OF THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN PUBLISHED ON FIRSTPOST:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/best-mollywood-films-2018-the-gems-that-redeemed-a-largely-terrible-year-for-malayalam-cinema-5913241.html

Photographs courtesy:

Ee.Ma.Yauposter: https://www.facebook.com/lijojosepellissery

Eeda poster: https://www.facebook.com/eedathemovie/

Sexy Durga poster: https://www.facebook.com/sexydurgamovie/

Njan Prakashanposter: https://www.facebook.com/FahadhFaasil/

Koodeposter: https://www.facebook.com/koodethemovie/

Njan Marykkuttyposter: https://www.facebook.com/NjanMaryKutty/

Release date:	January 18, 2019
Director:	Sourabh Shrivastava
Cast: Language:	Arshad Warsi, Saurabh Shukla, Sara Loren, Fllora Saini, Elli Avrram Hindi

Some people work for a living. Bhola marries gullible women.

Fraud Saiyaan is centred around this man who operates on the assumption that the quickest way to a woman’s heart is to ask her to marry him. Since he is the hero of a Hindi film, obviously his theory works. So effective is it that women seem to be waiting at every corner simply to be hitched to him.

When he finally comes up against a problem, he sets out to solve it by – what else? – marrying again.

Bhola’s accomplice in his serial fraudulence is a fellow called Murari who seems to be a double agent of some sort since, on the one hand, he abets the protagonist in his crimes while on the other hand he appears to be plotting the fellow’s downfall.

Male infidelity – not female infidelity – has been a subject of Bollywood comedies for decades now because, well, you know how it is: men who cheat on their wives and girlfriends are funny, while women who cheat on their spouses are social issues, I suppose. If you don’t mind a revisitation of an age-old formula, and your tastes lie in the direction of women being treated lightly, then on the face of it, Fraud Saiyaan is a project with promise. Arshad Warsi is, after all, one of the finest – even if unfortunately undervalued – actors in the Hindi film industry, and if you loved his team-up with Saurabh Shukla in 2013’s sleeper hit Jolly LLB, then of course their new film together is worth looking out for. (Warsi plays Bhola and Shukla is Murari.)

The thing about Fraud Saiyaan though is that it gives these two talented artistes little to do. Bhola’s deception is detected by one wife, and then another, and then another, and then ... yawn ... who needs sleeping pills? Warsi’s charm is hard to resist and his comic timing sometimes lifts lines that do not deserve him, but there is only so much even a gifted actor can do with a script that is running on empty.

Worse, how much misogyny is one expected to close one’s eyes to in the name of comedy? Sure, I get that a man who marries women at the drop of a hat and drops each wife like a hot brick as soon as he has stolen her money will perforce be a man who has little respect for women. The point here though is that director Sourabh Shrivastava, writers Amal Donwaar and Sharad Tripathi themselves seem to see these women as trivial objects. And so we are served an array of pretty human females with tiny waistlines and bulky bosoms heaving inside tight little low-cut sari blouses, their pallusstrategically placed just so, Bhola gets to grab them and fling them down on beds at will, but not one of them has an interesting enough character graph to make them memorable.

So poorly written are the women that at one point I began to wonder whether the female actors in Fraud Saiyaan were picked by the casting director or the props department.

Never mind the hero’s attitude to women. The film’s own attitude to women is exemplified by the shooting of the Chamma Chamma remix featuring Elli Avrram in microscopic clothing, executing a series of crude dance moves. The issue here is not the choreography or her outfit – the issue is, the human being in the outfit matters so little to the director that he has chosen graceless, awkward attire for a graceless, awkward dancer who seems to have been deemed irrelevant beyond her willingness to be semi-nude in the scene. Avrram’s limitations as a dancer are underlined when Warsi joins her briefly on stage – his relatively fluid movements show her up for the poor dancer that she is. In comparison, Rajkumar Santoshi may claim to have delivered high art via Urmila Matondkar in China Gate where this song was originally featured.

The climax of Fraud Saiyaan reminds us of another dictum on which many Bollywood comedies rest: men who cheat on their wives are funny and worthy of redemption, while women who cheat are irredeemable, despicable, contemptible jerks. Warsi’s continuing career struggles may explain why he agreed to be a part of this formulaic, dull, misogynistic rubbish, butwhat is worse is that Fraud Saiyaan is a Prakash Jha Productions presentation, with the senior producer-director’s daughter Disha Prakash Jha as one of its producers. Seriously Jha-saab, why?

Rating (out of five stars): 1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	110 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/fraud-saiyaan-movie-review-arshad-warsi-is-the-only-somewhat-tolerable-part-of-this-yawn-inducing-film-on-a-serial-marryer-5920151.html

Poster courtesy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud_Saiyaan

Release date:	January 18, 2019
Director:	Haneef Adeni
Cast: Language:	Nivin Pauly, Unni Mukundan, J.D.Chakravarthy, Manjima Mohan, Siddique, Suraj Venjaramoodu, Kalabhavan Shajon, Shanthi Krishna, Sudev Nair Malayalam

It is not particularly a compliment to describe a film as better than The Great Father. Yet that is the nicest, most reassuring thing I can say about this new Malayalam film by the man who gave us that horrendous Mammootty starrer about child rape in 2017. Haneef Adeni, who made his directorial debut with The Great Father and followed that up with writing the comparatively tolerable Abrahaminte Santhathikal (2018), is the writer-director of Mikhael: Guardian Angel, which stars Nivin Pauly as a doctor estranged from his mother but fond of his little sister. When the girl encounters a pest in school and stands up for herself, events take a tragic turn.

There is bound to be a tale worth telling in the journey of an individual who at first lives by Jesus Christ’s dictum “when a man strikes you on one cheek turn the other cheek” but later mines the Jesus who lost his temper in a temple over the commercialisation of religion. And if you sift the grain from the chaff, the core plot from the pretentions to grandeur, there really is a halfway decent story somewhere in the maze that is Mikhael. But Adeni being Adeni, he wraps it in an over-ambitious, pompous package with hollow references to Christian mythology (in particular, Archangel Michael) combined with an overbearing, wannabe-cool soundtrack.

The irritating music and pseudo-philosophical mumbo jumbo overshadow both the storyline and the usuallyreliable Nivin Pauly’s natural charm. To make matters worse, Pauly’s expanding girth is distracting in the fight scenes. The actor had somehowmanaged to be convincing while playing a rustic bandit recently in Kayamkulam Kochunni, but here in Mikhael it is hard to digest passages in which his character wallops and overpowers various men, including the trim, evidently fit Unni Mukundan especially since the latter’s well-muscled frame is put on display throughout the film.

Mukundan, who is more a muscular mannequin than an actor here, offers one of the few pleasures of watching Mikhael, when he bares his body at different points in the film. In case that sounds like a criticism, let me be clear: it is not. (Cue: laughter track playing in the background.) Glamour industries across the world tend to objectify women incessantly and in a degrading fashion (unlike the manner in which they objectify men), so it always comes as a relief and a pleasant change when a film puts the shoe on the other foot and focuses its gaze entirely on the male physique (it goes without saying that men are rarely demeaned in such visuals).

In this over-stylised, self-conscious crime thriller, I am certainly not complaining about Mukundan’s character Marco aiming, for instance, to intimidate an adversary by randomly deciding to bathe in the man’s bathroom in boxers and exiting the house while still in those boxers, offering us a full view of his nearly nude body. Giggle, giggle. I swear I am not kidding, this is an accurate description of the scene, and far from objecting, I insist instead that it had a profound meaning, as profound as Marco’s constant talk about potty – and I say this with the same conviction with which a very dear gentleman friend from my teenage years once told me that Baywatch“has a great plot”.

Mukundan’s posing about is one with the rest of the goings-on in Mikhael including all those slow motion fisticuffs, and wise-sounding conversations conducted between men in a low, wise-sounding tone. The pace of the film greatly hampers it since even the occasional interesting reveal is vastly diluted by the time it takes in coming. The final twist is not bad at all, but accompanied as it is by more posing and musical hollering, its impact is lost.

While much of what goes on must be blamed on Adeni’s “see what a clever dude I am, c’mon applaud me” style of writing and direction, Pauly too cannot but be faulted for not pulling off the intended twisted facet of his character. To be fair to him though, he is not insufferable and offensive in the way Mammootty was as he preened like a peacock through the story of a serial child rapist in The Great Father. And to be fair to Adeni, although he carries forward his man-as-ultimate-protector-of-the-family theme here too, unlike the women of The Great Father who were almost irrelevant to the action, the hero’s sister in Mikhael is not only essential to the proceedings, she actually has some agency.

That said, as mentioned at the start of this review, to say that a film is better than The Great Father is hardly a compliment. I wonder why Pauly could not foresee how Mikhaelwould turn out after watching Adeni’s earlier works and reading this script? Did even the puns and philosophising around faeces spouted by Marco not give him pause? The instincts that led the star to sign up for the likes of Action Hero Biju and Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela have clearly betrayed him here.

Rating (out of five stars): 3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	150 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/mikhael-movie-review-nivin-pauly-struggles-through-a-pretentious-pompous-affair-5926961.html

Poster courtesy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhael_(film)

Release date:	January 25, 2019
Director:	Kangana Ranaut and Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi
Cast: Language:	Kangana Ranaut, Danny Denzongpa, Suresh Oberoi, Jisshu Sengupta, Zeeshan Ayub, Ankita Lokhande, Atul Kulkarni, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mishti Chakraborty, Richard Keep, Edward Sonnenblick Hindi

If you have ever visited the Jhansi Fort, you will have seen the prominent sign at one point onthe outer wall that reads: “Rani Jhansi jumped from this place on the horseback with her adopted son” (sic). The poor grammar notwithstanding, it is a spot that gives me goosebumps, as did large parts of the first half of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi in which we are introduced to the brave, young Manikarnika Tambe (rechristened Lakshmi after marriage to the king of Jhansi) whose unconventional upbringing included learning horse riding, sword fighting and other skills usually seen as a male preserve, and who went on to become the woman every Indian knows from our history texts as Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, one of the most prominent figures of the 1857 revolt against British imperialist rule in India.

The goosebumps continued in scenes showing the queen in battle, leading her people – men and women – from the front, her sari pallusecured around her waist, her flowing hair tied in a tight plait as she fired guns, swivelled her sword and felled enemy soldiers in large numbers. It is hard not to be moved by these passages because we know them to be true – Rani Lakshmibai actually existed and did all these things that 21st century women are still being held back from doing in a persistently patriarchal world.

Cinemas across the globe are dominated by male protagonists taking centrestagewhile women support them from the sidelines of life. India’s film industries, Bollywood included, are guilty of this crime as much as anyone else, rarely telling the stories of women or telling them from a female point of view. Whatever the follies of Manikarnikamaybe, this is why it is important to record right at the start how inspiring and heartening it is to see Rani Lakshmibai played by Kangana Ranaut on her throne and in the thick of action on the battlefield. It is just as important to state upfront though that Lakshmibai in this biopic is fighting not British colonisers alone, but also the film’s own confused feminism that vies for space with its covert, almost laughable political agenda.

Manikarnika is directed by Ranaut and Radha Krishna Jagarlamudi (note: unlike in the trailer and other promotional material, Ranaut’s name precedes Jagarlamudi’s in the credits of the film). It is based on a screenplay by V. Vijeyandra Prasad who is best known across India as the writer of the Tollywood blockbusters Baahubali1&2. In terms of ambition, Manikarnikamirrors the Baahubali films. However, the quality of the visual effects is vastly inferior to those two. While the palace and fort of Jhansi are imposing and attractive, too many of the battle scenes look plastic. Even Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s soundtrack is lacklustre, which is particularly disappointing coming as it does so soon after the brilliant work they did for Raazijust last year.

The truly impressive part of the spectacle in Manikarnikaare the physical stunts executed by the actors, especially Ranaut’s comfortwith swords. Even that moment when she leaps over three swordsmen to jump on to an elephant and stand imperiously on its back is fun to watch although it resembles a shot from Baahubali– fun because we so rarely see India’s women stars in this avatar.

Ranaut is lithe and lovely, the perfect choice to play this fiery queen whose feats were chronicled with admiration not just by her associates but also by her British opponents. She is so good through most of Manikarnikathat it is possible to forgive her for her over acting in the climax. But the depiction of Lakshmibai’s free spirit and feminist father are at odds with the rest of the film’s gender politics, which includes portraying her husband, the king, wearing bangles to signify his frustration with his own servility to the British. The women’s jewellery on his wrists, he tells his wife in one of Manikarnika’s most cringeworthy conversations, is a reminder of his emasculation. Considering that this is a biography of a brave woman, it is bizarre that Vijeyandra Prasad and dialogue writer Prasoon Joshi chose to dip into that horribly regressive “chudiya pehno” (wear bangles) taunt thrown at men even today, which assumes that courage is a naturally male quality.

Equally bizarre and disappointing is the decision to end Manikarnikawith a quote from Sir Hugh Rose, the commander of the British troops that the queen faced, describing Lakshmibai as the “only man” among the Indian rebels of 1857. Like those who thought it was high praise to call Indira Gandhi “the only man in her Cabinet”, clearly Team Manikarnika saw Rose’s words as the ultimate compliment one can pay a woman. I guess your patriarchal values are bound to reveal themselves when you are using a woman’s valour as a mere hook, a ploy and a gimmick to further your political agenda.

Manikarnika’s agenda is amply clear early on when Lakshmibai is shown standing up to the British right from the start. A reading of history texts will tell you that she was in fact not opposed to British imperialism and even through most of the 1857 revolt, was only interested in ensuring that they allowed her to retain control of Jhansi. In an essay published in Mint earlier this month, Manu S. Pillai cites a letter she wrote in 1854 imploring Governor General Dalhousie to permit her to rule until the ascent to the throne of her adopted son, with this assurance: “How loyal the Rajas of Jhansi have ever been (to the British); how loyal are their representatives; how strong are the inducements that they should continue to be loyal in the future.” Pillai adds:“It was only early in 1858, when many of her old friends... became confirmed leaders of the rebellion and she herself was being viewed with suspicion (by the British), that she made her final choice: a choice that saw her ride out bravely on horseback towards tragedy, and enshrined her in India’s national history.” (The words in brackets are mine.)

The truth is no less dramatic than Manikarnika’s highly fictionalised take on her story, but the truth would have required a more efficient writer with the ability to bring out the heroism of a flawed individual without camouflaging her flaws (or to bring out the evils of imperialism without casting terrible actors to play the British charactersand giving them even worse dialogues).

Honesty is too much to expect though from this tacky, sermonisingscreenplay which completely dispenses with polish while pushing its covert pro-BJP, Hindu nationalist agenda, resulting in some unwittingly comical scenes. Prasad and Joshi are not the first people to further the myth that the 1857 revolt was inspired by a love of Bharat rather than by sepoys and monarchs furthering their own personalinterests.They must get credit though for the laughable scene in which Lakshmibai sends the Scindia king of Gwalior scurrying off in fear simply by standing before him and hissing the words “Scindia, rajdrohi”. It is no coincidence that the most successful male Scindia of the moment is a member of the Congress party (and I guess we must pretend that several of his female relatives are not/have not been in the BJP). The actor who plays the king caricatures him, of course.

The film descends further from there, ending with Lakshmibai walking into flames that turn into the Om sign as she stands burning with pride.

Kangana Ranaut is born to be an action star, but she needs to evolve as a director.

Rani Lakshmibai was a great woman. She deserves better than a poorly written film that chooses to use her for its own self-serving ends.

Rating (out of five stars): *3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	148 minutes

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/manikarnika-movie-review-kangana-ranauts-inspiring-rani-battles-the-films-confused-tacky-politics-5958461.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/ManikarnikaFilm/

Release date:	January 25, 2018
Director:	Arun Gopy
Cast: Language:	Pranav Mohanlal, Zaya David, Abhirav Janan, Manoj K. Jayan, Siddique, Innocent, Kalabhavan Shajohn, Dharmajan Bolgatty Malayalam

Having spent most of the second half of Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu(Twenty First Century) warning us of the possibility of violence by Malayali Christians because of an unusual Christian-Hindu romance (I cannot explain why it is unusual without giving spoilers), writer-director Arun Gopy appears to have gotten worried that he might be offending Kerala’s Christians. So, he gives a character a throwaway line about how Hindus too are angry about the relationship for a vague reason. The transparent, half-hearted and awkwardly written effort to compensate for what he fears may be seen as a lack of balance might have been excusable, if it weren’t for a later scene – also designed to pacify the Christian community, I guess – in which a bishop (played by Innocent) is shown admonishing a paedophile rapist Christian fellow with these words: it is after people like you started coming to confession that our priests went astray. Whaaaaaat? That is like blaming prison inmates if the prison superintendent takes to crime.

This aspect of Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu is only one demonstration of Gopy’s strained writing, poor understanding of the social realities he is trying to cover, the resultant insensitivity and cluelessness of his screenplay. Sadly, the basic concept of the film has potential, but it required greater imagination and talent to expand it into a full-length feature.

Gopy – who earlier made the entertaining but politically questionable Ramaleelastarring Dileep – has been credited for the story, screenplay, dialogues and direction, so there is no possibility of apportioning blame to anyone else. The mish-mash in Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu is entirely his.

The first half of the story is set wholly in Goa, the second half in Kerala. Appu (Pranav Mohanlal) and Zaya (Rachel David a.k.a. Zaya David) meet in Goa, bond and are separated by personal compulsions. Before that happens though, right at the start there is a confrontation between Appu’s father Baba played by Manoj K. Jayan and the gangster Abusikka (Kalabhavan Shajohn), which reveals that Baba was once a dreaded chap of great disrepute who is now a financially constrained, toned-down version of his former self. This opening passage is stretched long enough and later referenced often enough to suggest that it has some relevance to the film’s larger plot, but it does not.

The proceedings then shift to a beach that is Appu’s habitat, where he surfs waves like a champ and is gazed at with admiration by white women. The latter happens more than once, so you know that Gopy belongs to the school of thought that there is no greater compliment to an Indian man than the interest of a white woman.

Cut to the build-up of Zaya as an oddly wild, bubbly creature, the kind of young woman that exists more in the imagination of film writers than in reality. There is little chemistry between Mohanlal Junior and Ms David, but since they have been assigned the posts of hero and heroine here, Appu and Zaya fall in love.

Cut to post-interval, where the action moves to Kerala and the genre shifts completely to action thriller. The switch in tone is so complete, that it feels like a different film.

Somewhere in between, Gokul Suresh turns up to deliver a brief sermon on Communist ideals.

If I haven’t made myself clear, let me state it in black and white: Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu meanders to such an extent that it feels like a hotch-potch of themes and situations rather than a single, smoothly flowing narrative.

To be fair to Gopy, his film is not bereft of positives. For one, Appu’s best friend Michael Rony (nicknamed Macroni and Maakri, the latter being the Malayalam word for frog) is often funny when he is not being creepy about and towards women. I particularly keeled over with laughter at his wisecrack about bishops who climb convent walls. While he is good, actor Abhirav Janan’s comic timing is commendable.

Dharmajan Bolgatty in a brief appearance is also quite hilarious.

Besides, cinematographer Abinandhan Ramanujam gives us many generous shots of the scenery in Goa and Kerala (though I suspect most of his day-time shots of Goa have been inexorably colour corrected, which is what robs them of their natural feel).

And the twist at the interval has promise. The impact of sexual abuse on the human psyche and the self-harm a person might do as a result of such trauma is certainly worth exploring. It just needs to be explored by a more introspective and socially aware writer. Without that, what you get is a film that is pretending to care but inadvertently reveals its apathy and ignorance intermittently.

Such as with that inexplicable line uttered by the bishop.

Such as when a character towards whom the screenplay is well disposed holds off on helping a woman who is being assaulted and calmly watches as she is slapped, explaining to his friend that “she deserved one slap”. Why? Because on an earlier occasion, in a temper she had told him she can take care of herself.

Such as when Zaya, on being denied a drink by Appu because she is already drunk, says, “Chummathalla feministakal undagunna,” (no wonder people become feminists), thus betraying the writer’s interpretation of feminism – an interpretation widely held by mindless folk and misogynists – as some sort of worldwide movement to give women the right to drink and smoke.

Such as when a major character taunts a rape survivor for what he considers her lack of courage to take a stand and her inability to trust people.

Such as... Well, never mind. You get the picture.

It is no wonder, that apart from Janan and Bolgatty, the rest of the cast delivers uninspired performances. Kalabhavan Shajohn is almost unrecognisable behind those massive sunglasses, and far from being the intimidating, imposing gangsta he is meant to be. Manoj K. Jayan tries but fails to inject energy into the narrative. Innocent is almost amusing as the bishop.

Rachel David is pretty and does a tolerable job of Zaya, but she is also somewhat generic.

Pranav Mohanlal is lucky he made his debut with last year’s Aadhi, which brought out his innate sweetness and gave him a ton of thrilling action scenes in which he shone. In Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu, he comes across as uncharismatic, which makes the writer’s effort to build him up as a hunk almost ironic. Besides, the fight scenes in the climax are marred by abysmal special effects – the worst I have seen in a Mollywood film in a very long time.

If he wishes to be known as anything more than the son of megastar Mohanlal, Pranav needs to choose better scripts and to avoid the repeated allusions to his father in them. It was bad enough that the vastly superior Aadhichose to rub his lineage in our faces, but when it happens again in his second film, a bad film at that, it is decidedly irritating. There is that Ray-Ban sunglasses and mundu scene, in a bow to a style popularly associated with Mohanlal. There is the title, which has absolutely no connection with the storyline and seems to have been picked only for the recall value of Mohanlal’s blockbuster Irupatham Noottandu (Twentieth Century). There is... Uff! Give it a break, please.

Irupathiyonnaam Noottaandu is more dangerous than overtly misogynistic films, because it fakes concern. It is also ordinary, mixed-up and completely lacks spark.

Footnote: Subtitlers of Malayalam films really must stop using the word “hag” as they do. During a highly sexist chat involving Macroni, in which a character refers to an elderly lady as “thalla”, the subtitles translate that to “hag”. This reminded me of a scene in Prethamin which “Ammachi”, when used as a pejorative, was also translated as “hag”. While both “thalla” and “Ammachi” used in this context are intended as sexist-ageist insults, “old woman” would be a more accurate translation than “hag” which is, to my mind,far more demeaning in terms of degree.

Rating (out of five stars): 3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	163 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/irupathiyonnaam-noottaandu-movie-review-pranav-mohanlal-lacks-spark-as-does-this-meandering-insensitive-hotch-potch-5969281.html

Posters courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/IrupathiyonnaamNoottaandu/

Release date:	February 1, 2019
Director:	Shelly Chopra Dhar
Cast: Language:	Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Sara Arjun, Brijendra Kala, Seema Pahwa, Madhumalti Kapoor, Alka Kaushik, Kanwaljit Singh, Regina Cassandra, Akshay Oberoi Hindi

(If you have seen the trailer and followed the promotions of this film, this review contains no spoilers for you)

What might a conservative Hindu consider even more objectionable than the daughter of the family marrying a Muslim man? Answer: how about the girl being in love with another girl?

The spotlight on this ridiculous, tragi-comic heirarchy of biases is one of the many winning aspects of writer-director Shelly Chopra Dhar’s Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. To bracket it as simply an LGBT-themed film or an inter-community romance would be what the protagonist herself might call an “upar upar waali” (superficial) reading of it though. Sure it is centred around young Sweety Chaudhary from Moga in Punjab who has spent her life hiding her truth from those dearest to her, but the film is not about same-gender love alone. It is about living and loving as we choose, not allowing societal norms around age, gender, religion or anything else to suffocate us and hamper our personal or professional choices.

Written by Gazal Dhaliwal and Chopra Dhar, Ek Ladki stars Sonam Kapoor Ahuja as Sweety, Anil Kapoor as Sweety’s Dad Balbir Chaudhary, Rajkummar Rao as the struggling playwright Sahil Mirza and Juhi Chawla as his friend Chattro. In some ways, half the writers’ battle is won even before their narrative kicks off. A sweetness pervades the screen as soon as Anil enters the picture in the opening moments. After all, nostalgia is one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of any filmmaker, and we have been primed for this sentiment from the moment we heard of the cast and the title. How can emotions not surge at the memory of the blockbuster song of the same name from the legendary R.D. Burman’s very last film soundtrack, or the memory of that film starring Anil as a young man, that same Anil who stands before us now with a gray beard and lined face, a living breathing testament to how gracefully we could hope to age if we treat our bodies well? And we see him now sharing space with his real-life daughter who was a child when 1942: A Love Story was released. Bring out those handkerchiefs already, I say.

Thankfully, Ek Ladki does not rest on these laurels. It has a story to tell and a point – many points – to make, and it does both without seeming crowded or preachy. This is not to say that it is without imperfections. Far from it. The soundtrack, for one, is decidedly average, even when it reprises Burman’s melody for its title track. And I felt exceedingly uncomfortable with a conversation between Sweety and Sahil in which she asks him to find other Sweetys in other towns and “usey bhi bachana” (save her/them too). This is a condescending line for the film to take, irrespective of who is uttering the dialogue. The marginalised do not need saviours from dominant communities, what is needed are allies.

Besides, I could not figure out why the trailer tried to build great mystery around the object of Sweety’s affection, but the producers let the secret out to the press during the promotional period, while the film itself again tries to needlessly build up suspense just as the trailer did, although anyone watching both closely could have seen what was coming from a mile.

Still, there is much else to recommend Ek Ladki in an industry where sensitivity around LGBT+ persons remains rare, a focus on lesbian women in particular is virtually non-existent (no please, Fire is hardly a Bollywood film), and Onir’s fabulous My Brother Nikhil and I Am remain isolated instances of depth on this front from Bollywood. Leading the positives in Ek Ladki is the use of the comedy genre for such grave social commentary, and the skill the writers and director display while pulling it off without mocking the LGBT+ community.

This becomes possible because the strong screenplay is backed by an endearing cast. Sonam is suitably fragile, and Kollywood/Tollywood star Regina Cassandra has an arresting screen presence. Their equation though is overshadowed by the warm chemistry between Sonam and Anil on the one hand, Sonam and Rao on the other. Some of this has to do with the fact that Cassandra gets little screen time and the screenplay is more focused on those around the central couple than the couple themselves. You may see this as a play-it-safe approach or interpret this, as I do, as Dhaliwal and Chopra Dhar’s way of gently breaking it to the audience that same-gender love does not necessarily involve two cis men, contrary to what the current dominant public discourse tells us.

At different points in the narrative, different actors in this cracking ensemble invite the label “scene stealers”. Rao, for one, is in top form, and the ever-loveable, ever-hilarious Chawla’s performance begs the question why more and larger roles are not written for her. Brijendra Kala as Chaubey Uncle and Seema Pahwa as Billo Aunty are a hoot. Young Sweety is played with confidence and empathy by the award-winning child star Sara Arjun, whose pan-India filmography includes her role as Vikram’s daughter in Deiva Thirumagal(Tamil) and the titular heroine in Ann Maria Kalippilaanu (Malayalam).

The underrated Abhishek Duhan is impeccable as Sweety’s brother. But the lasting memory from Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga is of Anil taking a scene that could have been maudlin, insufferable and loud, and turning it into a heart-wrenching passage of acceptance, self-realisation and personal growth. Ek Veteran Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga...

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	121 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ek-ladki-ko-dekha-toh-aisa-laga-movie-review-a-warm-ode-to-loving-and-living-as-we-choose-6007961.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/foxstarhindi/

Release date:	February 1, 2019
Director:	Bilahari
Cast: Language:	Kunchacko Boban, Krishna Shankar, Aparna Balamurali, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Sreenath Bhasi, Salim Kumar, Hareesh Perumana, Assim Jamal, Kochu Preman, Chandni Sreedharan Malayalam

A split-second, blinkered decision by one man wreaks havoc in another’s life.

The victim sets out to take revenge.

His unusual vendetta has a ripple effect that could, though he does not realise it, destroy multiple lives including his own.

His primary target avenges the harm done.

Gentleman No. 2 strikes back.

And so it threatens to go on, and on and on and on.

At a macro level, director Bilahari’s Allu Ramendran is a reminder that even our most seemingly minor actions have consequences that could be far graver and more far-reaching than we realise. At a micro level it is about Ramendran (played by Kunchacko Boban), a policeman and designated driver at his police station, who finds the tyres of his official and personal vehicles repeatedly getting punctured. This obviously leads to chaos in his life and messes up the schedules of the colleagues he transports around. Much to his chagrin, he also earns the nickname Allu (Spikes/Nails) Ramendran in his town.

With humongous nails showing up on road after road down which Ramendran drives, it becomes evident that these are not accidental occurrences. Who done it then? And why?

Bilahari, who drew attention for making a feature film called Porattamon a budget of just Rs 25,000 in 2017, has his hands firmly on the reins through most of this unconventional storyline. Allu Ramendran takes time to get into the groove, but once it does, it is an unexpectedly interesting and thought-provoking experience.

A flat tyre in ordinary circumstances does not count as a tragedy, but it certainly always is a terrible inconvenience. Now imagine how you would be impacted if you got 35 flat tyres within a short stretch of time. Imagine the harm to your career from work associates considering you, at the very least, an ill omen. Imagine the psychological stress of consequently constantly being aware that someone out there is out to get you yet has, for reasons known to them alone, chosen not to cross a self-laid line. Would you be reduced to a mental wreck wondering what they will do next or how far they will go? Ramendran, for his part, becomes fixated on finding out who is doing this to him.

This is not the stuff that suspense sagas are usually made of, and it takes a special kind of person to envision a full-length feature in this concept. It is worth noting, anyway, that though what is happening to Ramendran is puzzling, the writers and Bilahari do not treat the narrative purely as a thriller but combine the mystery with a slice-of-reality tone and insights into everyday life in Ramendran’s community.

My favourite part of Allu Ramendran is when two men fight over the sister of one of them that the other is in love with. “I will not give you my sister,” says the brother with a proprietorial attitude that is so typical of how women are viewed by their families in a patriarchal society. Cut to the next scene, and the lady in question has made her choice, in defiance of her male sibling’s wishes. It is hard not to chuckle at the point being made here by the writers.

Although Allu Ramendran flows naturally for the most part, the film shooting scene featuring actor Neeraj Madhav and director Nadirshah feels superfluous, and comes across as an excuse to stuff a song and dance interlude into the proceedings. This is not the kind of film that needs that kind of break. Allu Ramendran is more in the league of the likes of Maheshinte Prathikaram in terms of tenor, and should have stayed true to itself all the way.

The writing of Ramendran is convincing, as is the second lead Jithu (played by Krishna Shankar), an unemployed youth who hangs about with friends, plays football for a local club, and pursues a feisty college goer called Swathy (Aparna Balamurali) when he falls for her.

The screenplay is dotted with quirky supporting characters, the quirkiest of the lot being Jithu’s slightly wacko older female relative who is the exact opposite of being the voice of his conscience. They are a believable lot. The only exception is Swathy. She is a spirited creature who knows her mind but it comes across as a stretch when she lashes out at a dear relative and continues to hold a grudge against him for punishing Jithu for certain truly unconscionable behaviour. It is not as though these two have shared a deep, long-standing friendship – this is one of those boy-girl relationships popular among Malayalam film writers where the only thing a couple have going for them is that they saw each other, and he told her he likes her. For an intelligent, bright young woman to risk her everything for this tenuous and fledgling bond, be willing to turn her back on that beloved relative and even leave her family if required, as she assures Jithu she will for him, seems improbable. Yet she does.

The saving grace is that Swathy is played by Aparna Balamurali who is impossible to look away from even when she is cast in an inadequately written part.

The other under-written character is Ramendran’s wife. The only one of the supporting players whose acting is problematic is Salim Kumar, who overacts here, as he often does elsewhere.

Krishna Shankar is effective as the second lead, managing to bring out both the comicality and seriousness of Jithu’s circumstances.

Kunchacko Boban in Allu Ramendran plays a man who is a far cry from his real-life nice-guy image. The titular character is not particularly likeable, and becomes increasingly less so as his obsession with tracing his harasser rises. Boban’s look and styling in themselves are interesting, the receding hairline setting him apart from his seniors in the industry who are struggling to come to terms with their age. Boban embraces the role with both hands, giving Ramendran a menacing edge at places, and suggesting, without overstating the point, that he is on the verge of falling apart.

It is a pleasure to see this fine actor in a role that is deserving of him.

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	135 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/allu-ramendran-movie-review-kunchacko-boban-is-in-fine-fettle-in-an-unusual-slice-of-life-suspense-saga-6014841.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/AlluRamendran/

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