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Release date:	July 7, 2016 (Kerala), July 15 (Delhi)
Director:	Nithin Renji Panicker
Cast: Language:	Mammooty, Varalaxmi Sarathkumar, Sampath Raj, Jagadish, Neha Saxena, Siddique, Maqbool Salmaan Malayalam

If ever you are plagued by doubts about whether India is culturally one nation, watch our soaps or commercial cinema across languages.

Debutant director Nithin Renji Panicker’s Mammootty-starrer Kasabaperfectly exemplifies theshared cinematic tastes of India’s masses, beyond state borders and regional boundaries. It was released in Kerala on Eid and this week has come to theatres in Delhi, having already reportedly smashed the Kerala box-office.

The megastar of God’s Own Country is the story’s Circle Inspector Rajan Zachariah, an elderly brattish policeman with a trademark swagger who does not play by the rules. That is a polite way of saying he commits atrocities against members of the public. When a policeman dies in a mysterious incident in a town called Kalipuram on the Kerala-Karnataka border, Zachariah asks for a transfer there since two of his acquaintances were also killed in the incident.

In Kalipuram, he encounters the attractive brothel keeper Kamala (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar), her middle-aged lover Parameshwaran Nambiar (Sampath Raj) who is a politician, Kamala’s sidekick Thankachan (Alancier Lay Lopez), the ‘good prostitute’ Susan (Neha Saxena) and Sub-Inspector Mukundan (Jagadish).

Most films in this genre – yes, this kind of cop drama is a genre unto itself – get around those tiny little thingies called ethics and human rights violations by portraying the protagonist as a golden-hearted, well-intentioned chap constrained by a corrupt system and compelled to go outside it to deliver justice to beleaguered common folk. Not so much here. Kasaba just cursorily refers to the systemic issues that hold back honest police officials. Besides, though Zachariah’s desire to solve those murders purportedly drives the film, what truly drives it is his sickening misogyny couched in ‘humour’ and smart-alec dialoguebaazi.

That misogyny irretrievably mars this otherwise effective – though loud and not extraordinary – suspense thriller, the kind that India calls timepass fare. Over-the-top, stylised action flicks can be enjoyable if they get their tone right. Unfortunately, Panicker’s work seems rooted in a conviction that you cannot entertain the janata without bottom-of-the barrel sexist one-liners.

It is all very cleverly handled though, with justifications pre-emptively built into the script. For instance, in one scene, a woman police officer – Zachariah’s junior in age, but senior in the profession – unbuttons her uniform shirt (because, y’know how it is, a woman’s body is her only weapon against a cheeky man) before she needlessly needles him. He strikes her down with his words, grabs her by the belt, and as he holds her crotch against his, makes a disgusting comment about how he could disrupt her bodily functions.

Note: A pointed effort is made here to mark her out as an outsider by having her speak in Hindi and mention her IPS cadre. This woman is clearly not a Malayali, her accent suggests she is a north Indian. Is that meant to be another point in Zachariah’s favour?

Four centuries after Petruchio “tamed” Katherina in Shakespeare’s England, men across Indian film industries are still taming those damned shrews. Y’know how it is.

This scene in Kasaba has been as carefully designed as those Malayalam teleserials in which husbands smack their wives after they have been built up over several episodes as scheming witches out to harm the docile women and hapless men of the family. This sort of scripting is calculated to give fans excuses such as, “She asked for it. She started it. C’mon, it’s her fault.”

Stupid feminists just do not get it. She asked for it. But of course.

Panicker has been quoted on NDTV responding to criticism from Kerala’s activists and some reviewers in these words: “What you have seen in the movie happens all around you. Even worse things than this. Like the Nirbhaya case. The dialogues are nothing new and I have not made them up. We’ve heard these things. This is a commercial film and that’s why the clichés.”

Err… Yes, Mr Panicker, “these things” do happen all around us, but please do note the difference between portraying “these things” and glorifying them. Kasaba presents Zachariah’s misogynistic dialogues and behaviour as the epitome of coolth. Since the young writer-director brings up the December 2012 Delhi gangrape in his nonchalant explanation, it is important to ask him whether he would make a biopic of those six rapist-murderers and project them as cool dudes, the good guys of that story who attacked a woman because she asked for it.

It does not help the situation that some of the criticism of Kasabahas not been well articulated. One reviewer, for instance, seems bothered by the fact that Parameshwaran Nambiar has two adoring wives. Another has issues with Zachariah’s use of profanities and double entendre per se. This is where Panicker’s misguided point about reality becomes relevant. Bigamy does exist in this country and many women do willingly play along with patriarchy. Nambiar is the villain of the piece and his two marriages are not shown in a positive light anywhere in the film. Likewise, a film may well revolve around a foul-mouthed negative character. The reason why Zachariah’s troublesome dialogues and actions are objectionable is because they are comedified and glorified, and because they come from a man who is projected as a nice guy.

Kasaba’s gender insensitivity is particularly problematic because jolly ol’ Zachariah is played by one of the most respected star actors in the history of Indian cinema.

As it happens, even within its genre, this is an opportunity lost for the actor in Mammootty who is equally capable of bringing gravitas to serious roles and being hysterically funny. He does not walk, he struts about as Zachariah and is a hoot while doing so to the accompaniment of a signature tune that is amusing despite the decibel level. It is also nice to see his trimness at the age of 64 and his agility in the action scenes.

All the pizzazz in the world though is not enough compensation for the star’s willingness to play a character whose positioning within Kasabanormalises a congenital contempt for women.

This choice he has made hurts even more because Kasabacomes to theatres just 10 months after Salim Ahamed’s Pathemarifor which Mammootty rightfully deserved the Best Actor National Award 2015 which went instead to Amitabh Bachchan forPiku. There was that stirring performance as the heart-wrenchingly dignified Pallickal Narayanan in an entertaining yet socially responsible film, and then there is this film that plumbs the depths of misogyny to play to the testosterone-laden gallery.

Mammootty’s co-stars in Kasaba are a talented bunch. Varalaxmi Sarathkumar merits a mention for making her mark as Kamala despite the veil of hair covering too much of her face almost throughout. Sampath Raj as Nambiar is excellent.

In a scene towards the end of Kasaba, Zachariah tries to enter Kamala’s brothel. “Where is your warrant?” she asks. “If you asked for a warrant from everyone coming here, your business would suffer,” he replies mockingly. Can there be a more undisguised metaphorical re-affirmation of the widely held social notion that a sex worker has no right to turn a man away, that if a man forces himself on a sex worker it does not amount to rape?

In yet another instance of the Censor Board’s confused ideology, Kasaba has been rated UA rather than A. UA stands for “Unrestricted Public Exhibition – but with a word of caution that parental discretion is required for children below 12 years”. I guess the point being made is that it is okay to feed coarse expressions of misogyny to kids so long as their parents do not mind.

Rating (out of five): *

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	137 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/kasaba-review-a-suspenseful-mammootty-starrer-marred-by-misogyny-2899532.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasaba_(2016_film)

Release date:	July 22, 2016
Director:	Nishikant Kamat
Cast: Language:	Irrfan Khan, Vishesh Bansal, Jimmy Sheirgill, Tushar Dalvi, Kedar Bagaria, Rajeev Gupta, Ayesha Raza, Nitesh Pandey Hindi

Playing a person with eccentricities may be tough, but way tougher – as most actors worth their salt will tell you – is to play a regular Jo.

That is what Irrfan Khan’s character Nirmal Kumar is, in director Nishikant Kamat’s Madaari: Sshhh Desh So Raha Hai. Khan (credited here, as in many of his films now, sans the surname) plays a techie who has the audacity to kidnap a top politician’s son as revenge for his own child’s death in a civic tragedy caused by corruption.

“I was the ideal voter, so caught up in running my household and my life that I bought into every dream you sold me, I believed every word the media told me.”

This line spoken by Nirmal Kumar is at the heart of Madaari, a thriller revolving around the plight of the common people exploited and deceived by India’s politicians. In a sense, the point being made is that we are all responsible, each in our own way, for the mess that we are in, from the country’s seniormost government functionaries, to political party workers who cheat the exchequer and public for personal and organisational gain, government employees, the private sector, a sensation-chasing news media and even gullible voters.

What happens though when one of those voters sees the light and rises up in protest? What if India’s aam insaan (ordinary people) were to take the law into their own hands?

In a sense, Madaari works along the same lines as Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday (2008), in which Naseeruddin Shah’s character – known throughout the film only as The Common Man – took it upon himself to punish terrorists that the system would not. Nirmal in Madaari chooses instead to punish the system itself. Jimmy Sheirgill, who was in that earlier film too, here plays CBI supercop Nachiket Verma whose actions in Madaari echo the words of Anupam Kher’s Mumbai police commissioner in A Wednesday, both of them representing the film’s own endorsement of the central antagonist’s behaviour.

The anarchic premise in both cases is problematic, and must be widely debated. The cinematic virtues of Madaari are less debatable.

Kamat, who just last year delivered the marvelousthriller Drishyam starring Ajay Devgn, falls short in his execution of the suspense in Madaari. His directorial hand is not the film’s Achilles heel though, its primary weakness is the written material he has to work with.

Madaari’s story by Shailja Kejriwal and screenplay by Ritesh Shah (who is also credited with the dialogues) struggle through their efforts to meld mystery and political commentary. Besides, although we are effectively drawn into Nirmal Kumar’s world, the other characters are not immersive in the way they needed to be for the film to be an all-round absorbing affair. Besides, it is unclear why, in his bid to cast the spotlight on corruption, Nirmal abducts the son of a minister who seems like a decent guy and a victim of the system himself.

Too many broad brush strokes and hurried asides stand in for detailing and nuance. When a character speaks of a political operative called Kumaraswamy who is responsible for managing the media in the present imbroglio, a dark-complexioned guy with a decorated forehead and a ‘south Indian’ accent passes by. The usually reliable Sheirgill lends a contrived air of hurriedness to Nachiket, and looks as if he is playing a game of cops and robbers rather than being involved in his role. And as with most Hindi films in which the news media plays an important role, here too a single journalist from a single media house (in this case a loud anchor from a news channel called Swatantra TV) breaks every tiny bit of news there is to be broken, so that you know he is being built up to play a crucial role at some later point in the plot.

Even Madaari’s pivotal what-you-see-is-not-always-what-you-get twist is not as impressive as the creators seem to think it is.

Avinash Arun’s cinematography, on the other hand, repeatedly lifts the film above the mundane, even occasionally giving us grandeur without seeking to overwhelm or overshadow the people in his frames. It is particularly worth mentioning the way the camera dwells on Khan/Nirmal’s beautiful face without seeming star-struck.

The songs are poorly fitted into the film though. The independent video of Dama dama dam– composed by Vishal Bhardwaj, sung by Vishal Dadlani and available on Youtube – is quite attractive, which suggests that it might have worked well as part of Madaari’s background music. Here though it is foregrounded to overbearing effect.

Masoom sa(voice: Sukhwinder Singh, lyrics: Irshad Kamil, music: Sunny Bawra-Inder Bawra) is blatantly emotionally manipulative. Singh is one of the Hindi film industry’s best singers, but his near-weeping tone here actually subtracts from the innate poignancy of the scenes playing out while this song plays in the film.

Yet – and that is a very big yet, to be underlined and then highlighted with a yellow marker – none of this should take away from the fact that Irrfan Khan delivers an affectingly tender performance in Madaari. As one of the film’s only two well-written characters (the other being the minister’s son), and aided by what appears to be good chemistry with his director, Khan invests himself so thoroughly in Nirmal Kumar that he compels us to invest in the man.

Neither of Madaari’s two child actors has the charisma to match up to him. Still, Khan persuades us to invest in them too. The subtleties he brings to his character make it impossible to look away even when too much else around him does not add up.

If the surname Khan has become synonymous with superstardom in the Bollywood lexicon, then the name Irrfan should be officially recognised as an adjective for quality acting. This Khan makes Madaari a film worth watching. And his presence in contemporary cinema, makes this world a better place to live in.

Censorship footnote: Can there be a more telling comment on the present ‘system’ than that a film on corruption has had to deal with the Censor Board’s touchiness about a specific reference to Delhi and India in the song Dama dama dam. Among other changes, the filmmaker had to drop the words: “Bina tel ke janta dho di / Dilli baittha bada virodhi re.” Rough translation (open to interpretation, of course): “The public has been taken for a ride / hostile forces have occupied Delhi.” This was replaced with: “Raja tuney izzat kho di / tu hi apna bada virodhi re.” (Oh king, you have lost our respect / you are our greatest enemy). And “…Inn sab ne hai milkar tthani / bechke Bharat Ma kha jaani re (They have jointly decided to sell off Mother India to serve their own interests)” had to be changed to “Inn sab ne hai milkar tthani / bechke yeh duniya kha jaani re (They have jointly decided to sell the world to serve their own interests).”

The geniuses in the Board did not, however, notice this snide one thrown in by the lyricist: “Anpadh baittha shiksha baate (The uneducated are handling education).” Smriti Irani may have lost the HRD Ministry recently, but the point is still relevant. Nice touch of impertinence, Irshad Kamil.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	133 minutes 42 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/madaari-review-irrfan-khans-gentle-presence-elevates-a-middling-film-2908328.html

Poster courtesy: Studio Talk PR

Release date:	July 7, 2016 (Kerala), July 22 (Delhi)
Director:	Khalid Rahman
Cast: Language:	Biju Menon, Asif Ali, Asha Sarath, Rajisha Vijayan, Sreenath Bhasi, Soubin Shahir, Naaji, Chinnu Nair,Nandhini, Sudheer Karamana,Irshad, Maniyanpilla Raju Malayalam

The lure of Anuraga Karikkin Vellam begins with its poetic name. “Anuraga” means “love” in Malayalam, “karikka” is the word for tender coconut and “vellam” is “water”. String them together and you get “a love that is like tender coconut water (sweet but immature)”.

The film is about a father and son, and a point in their journey when their love lives intersect. It was released in Kerala on Eid and has now travelled to Delhi.

Biju Menon plays Raghu, a conscientious policeman who sees red when men misbehave with women. He often gets violent with the culprits in such situations, even inviting disciplinary action for taking the law into his own hands (one assumes the punishment is because he does so in public, instead of within the four walls of a police station, away from cellphone cameras).

His concern is genuine, but he has not been able to build that up into a meaningful relationship with his wife Suma (Asha Sarath) who longs for an expression of affection from him but takes no initiative to romantically express herself. You know they care for each other, as do many couples in boring middle-class homes across the country, but there is no spark in their humdrum existence. He dutifully fulfills all his responsibilities towards the household, does not have a wandering eye, and is home on most evenings for dinner. She cooks, cleans, watches over their children and serves him. It is a routine that is mechanical and dull, until his first girlfriend unexpectedly returns to his world.

Asif Ali plays their son Abhilash/Abhi, an architect on the threshold of life. He is a bit of a layabout when we first meet him, choosing to hang out with his friends swigging alcohol rather than investing time in his profession. He has a girlfriend called Eli (Rajisha Vijayan) who he finds too clingy. It is hard to blame him since she seems to have nothing to do other than constantly phone him to find out what he is up to, where and when. The friction with Eli leads to a misunderstanding involving his father and the aforesaid ex.

And so it goes…

Will they or won’t they shake themselves out of their inertia? With Mom and Dad moving like automatons and Abhi not seeming to move at all, there is much to be yawned over in their story. Their ordinariness is the film’s driving force, and debutant director Khalid Rahman manages to extract humour, warmth and social insights from this unexceptional domestic set-up.

In a deeply patriarchal national cinematic scenario where barely a whimper is heard about 30-year-old Radhika Apte being cast as the wife of 65-year-old Rajinikanth’s character in Kabali, where the casting of 28-year-old Anushka Sharma as 50-year-old Salman Khan’s girlfriend in Sultan is deemed routine, it is interesting to see Biju Menon take on the role of Asif Ali’s father though just 15 years separate them in real life. As we all know, women routinely prematurely play mommies so it is not unusual at all though that Sarath is just 12 years older than Ali.

The point is, first, that Menon looks the part, therefore the casting works within the context of the film; second and more important, that the mere act of making such a choice is a statement within the context of the industry and society he operates in, so hats off to him.

With such an uncommon starting block, Anuraga Karikkin Vellam holds out a promise of being uncommon – and it is. It is not flawless, but it still has plenty of material for a discerning viewer.

The film is filled with acute observations of Kerala society, conservative middle-class life and man-woman relations. Such as that scene in which a busy mother tells her kid daughter to help with the dishes once she finishes eating, without for a moment considering making a similar request to her son or husband who are also both present. Or the physical awkwardness between a couple who have procreated together yet do not openly display fondness for each other. Or the fact that Eli is a qualified professional but her sole focus seems to be the goal of loving and being loved by a man. Or Abhi’s reaction to her, and the realisation that he appears to have lost interest in her for no other reason than that she became overt in her expressions of interest in him. Or the way he mindlessly flits from his primary field to a call centre, in a state that boasts of enviable education levels but little career counselling and a high unemployment rate, as a result of which professions are chosen too often based on potential job security or Gulf-worthiness rather than passion. Or the uncontrived Hindu-Muslim-Christian composition of that group of friends hanging out together, in a state where both minority communities form a far larger percentage of the overall population than they do in the country as a whole – the cosmopolitan nature of the group, quite understandably, does not merit comment and yet differences are unapologetically acknowledged.

There is no lecture here, no sermon on secularism, equality or the government, but nor is there a glorification or trivialisation of social negatives. What happens happens, as it might in real life.

Director Rahman and writer Naveen Bhaskar have infused the proceedings with an unaffected air and a natural flow so captivating that it is tempting to overlook the handful of disruptions: the chain of circumstances that puts Raghu in touch with the woman he believes to be his former girlfriend is confusing to say the least, the actions of Abhi and Eli’s friend in the end are unconvincing, and portions of the climax are borderline silly, not only because silly characters do silly things, but because the narrative itself becomes somewhat farcical.

Forgiveness comes easy though, since the film has so much to offer. Raghu and Suma are incredibly cute together in those moments when he tries his hand at romance. And the scenes featuring Abhi with his boy buddies are hilarious. Soubin Shahir’s Fakru/Fakruddin is an absolute killer – both the actor and the character leave a mark. It needs to be said though that there was an “inn logon mein aisa hi hota hai (that’s how it is with these people)” populist feel to that needless aside about his parents having another child, a happenstance that takes on so much meaning in the present global atmosphere of prejudice and hate.

While Ali and Vijayan acquit themselves well enough as the often juvenile young leads Abhi and Eli, it is Menon and Sarath as parallel leads who make this film what it is. The senior actors lend dignity and charm to their characters as only they can. Sarath needs to be especially lauded for this achievement since she is greatly hampered by the limited character development of Suma.

Therein lies Anuraga Karikkin Vellam’s flaw. It is an enjoyable, gentle, lyrical film that tells us much about Raghu and Abhi, but not enough about Suma and Eli. It is no doubt a pleasant experience, but the superficial treatment of Suma in particular robs it of considerable depth.

Still, the husband-wife interactions and the evolution of the father-son bond (very different from the standard Indian film treatment of this relationship) are well worth the trip to the theatre.

As Raghu and Abhi ruminate over the women they have loved and lost in one scene, Dad says: “Love comes and goes, but even when it goes, it leaves something good in its wake.” Always and forever. Raghu-cheta, you hit the bull’s eye with that one.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	130 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/anuraga-karikkin-vellam-review-lyrical-pleasant-but-flawed-2911336.html

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

All Hail The Violators of Women

What kind of men cheer with delight in theatres as women are insulted, irritated, hit, harassed, stalked and even raped, in films across Indian languages?

By Anna MM Vetticad

Over a week after the release of the Hindi film Sultan, in which Salman Khan’s titular character acts like an immature ass in his bid to woo Aarfa (Anushka Sharma), I sat in a Gurgaon movie hall watching the Malayalam film Kasabastarring Mammootty and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar.

Mammootty plays Kasaba’s Circle Inspector Rajan Zachariah, a misogynist who might make Sultan’s asinine misbehaviour seem, to some people, unworthy of comment. Zachariah brooks no nonsense from women. In an early scene, he encounters a young female IPS officer who is intrigued by his reputation for cockiness. Her way of expressing interest in him while simultaneously asserting her authority over him is to unbutton her shirt, then walk up to him and chide him for smoking at a police station and failing to salute her, his senior by rank. When Zachariah is called away by someone, he stubs the cigarette and hands it to this policewoman, instructing her to “throw it away somewhere”. “F*** you,” she replies as he takes off. He shoots back, “Nokaam (Let me see),” implying that he may indeed do the deed with her. He then walks back, grabs her by the belt, pulls her towards him and, as they stand groin to groin, says: “Madam, pardon me for not saluting you. I’ll make it up to you. And I bet, you will walk wrong for a week.” (Dialogue quotes confirmed with Kasaba’s writer-director Nithin Renji Panicker due to conflicting interpretations by various activists and critics.)

It does not take a high IQ to understand that Zachariah is, at best, contemptuously assuring her of a session of rough sex or, at worst, threatening rape. 

All around me in that hall, men erupted in whistles and claps as their Mammuka uttered that dialogue, thus putting a darned woman in her place.

Me? My stomach was churning in disgust. Their howls of joy reminded me of numerous other similar occasions in other theatres over the years.

There was Abhay Deol as the supposedly virtuous Leftist student neta in the Hindi film Raanjhanaa(2013), briefly roughing up Sonam Kapoor’s Zoya to punish her for her sharp tongue. Hurray!

There was Irrfan Khan’s Vikram treating his wife (Rimi Sen) as a house slave in Thank You(2011). Loud applause at every single instance of husbandly nastiness.

There was Shivudu (Prabhas) forcibly disrobing and dressing Avanthika (Tamannaah) in the Telugu Bahubali (2015), in a blatant symbolic representation of romanticised rape. Wheeeee!

What kind of men cheer with delight in theatres as women are insulted, irritated, hit, harassed, stalked and even raped, in films across Indian languages?

The easy answer: misogynists. But that would be simplistic. These are not mere women-haters. These would most likely be men who are getting increasingly uncomfortable with feminism, the strides women are making in all spheres of life and the resultant loss of male privilege that could, at one time, be taken for granted.

In that sense, feminism in India is sitting on many ticking time bombs of suppressed male rage, while many more others have been exploding across the country. The manifestations are manifold, from the relatively mild act of hailing violence against women in films to increased aggression towards women in personal, social and professional interactions, online abuse of female (and male) feminists, and physical — including sexual — violence.

India is not alone. In a 2014 article titled “War on Women”, Mark Potok, senior fellow at the US civil rights organisation The Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote of the “manosphere” — “an ugly subculture of websites run by men’s rights activists that is typified by its loathing for women in general and feminism in particular (...) Although these sites and some real-world men’s rights groups certainly have some legitimate complaints about family courts, sexual abuse of men and the like, the tone of many of them is remarkable for its woman-bashing, sex-starved flavor.”

The article was pegged on a killing spree just months earlier in California by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, whose subsequently discovered Internet postings included a rant quoted in Potok’s essay from a website called PUAHate.com where Rodger called on men to “overthrow this oppressive feminist system” and “Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.”

Men’s Rights Activists or MRAs in India have long been citing false rape charges and the misuse of the dowry law (both genuine problems, though not on the scale they suggest) to claim all-round male victimhood.

Films, they say, are a reflection of the societies they emerge from. Well, so are film audiences. It is proof of an audience brimming with antagonism towards women that three of the four aforementioned misogynistic films are hits. 

Still, there is a silver lining to this depressing cloud. When I interviewed him earlier this week, Kasaba’s debutant director Panicker informed me regretfully that although his film smashed several box-office records in its opening days, the charge of misogyny against it — raised by critics and the Kerala Commission for Women chief K.C. Rosakutty — could hamper its longevity in theatres by keeping women and families away. He also admitted: “Though 75 per cent of the feedback I have received has been positive, 25 per cent has come from men and women who did not like Rajan Zachariah’s behaviour with women.” No doubt that is bad news for him. It is good news, though, for those who do not see humour and coolth in animosity towards one half of humanity.

(This article was published in The Hindu Businessline on July 23, 2016)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/all-hail-the-violators-of-women/article8881949.ece

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: What Viewers Want

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/what-viewers-want/article8765048.ece

RELATED ARTICLES BY ANNA M.M. VETTICAD:

The Rape of Avanthika / Column published in The Hindu Businessline:

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2015/07/romanticising-rape-film-fatale-column.html

Sonam Kapoor on Neerja, sexism and success: ‘Dilli bahut door hai’/ Interview published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/sonam-kapoor-on-neerja-sexism-and-success-dilli-bahut-door-hai-2886070.html

Photo captions: Stills/posters from (1) Kasaba (2) Sultan (3) Bahubali (4) Raanjhanaa

Photographs courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasaba_(2016_film)

(2) Yash Raj Films

(3) https://www.facebook.com/bahubali.the.movie

(4) https://www.facebook.com/bahubali.the.movie

Release date:	July 29, 2016
Director:	Rohit Dhawan
Cast: Language:	John Abraham, Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Saqib Saleem, Akshaye Khanna, Rahul Dev Hindi

There is an assumption in most films of the buddy crime/cop genre, that every Jai needs a Veeru, every Munna needs a Circuit and every Detective Inspector Lee needs a wisecracking Detective James Carter who will come through for his partner when push comes to shove.

Director Rohit Dhawan adopts this prototype for the action comedy Dishoomstarring his brother Varun Dhawan and John Abraham. Mentioning the relationship between the film’s helmsman and the young actor in the very first paragraph is only fair because although Abraham is the bigger star, it becomes clear at some point that Dishoom is primarily a showcase for Master Dhawan.

Ah well, thankfully he is a charming chap, easy on the eye and always nice to watch ever since he entered our lives in 2012 with Karan Johar’s Student of the Year. In this film he plays the ever-smiling rookie cop Junaid Ansari – an Indian working with the Dubai Police – who finds a reluctant partner in the smouldering, intense, never-smiling Kabir Shergill (Abraham) from a Special Task Force in New Delhi. Kabir has been sent to assist the Dubai Police in saving the star Indian cricketer Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem) from his kidnapper/s. Sharma disappeared just days before a crucial India-Pakistan cricket match scheduled to take place in the desert state.

The mystery element in the story is not entirely uninteresting and the humour – when it does rear its head – is effective. Besides, Abraham and Varun have a neat little bromance budding in the film. If Dishoom is not wholly compelling at any point despite all this, it is because too much is left budding and nothing comprehensively explored.

So Varun elicits laughs with his natural comic timing – but there is not enough where that came from. There is some good action, including a helicopter chase of a boat down a large expanse of water, shot lavishly by Ayananka Bose – but there is not enough where that came from. Abraham has a sweetly patronising, fond look in his eyes when he gazes at Varun and the two even get their own mobike-with-a-sidecar in a bow to Sholay– but there is not enough where that male bonding came from either.

It is as if the film’s director and writers (story and screenplay: Rohit himself with Tushar Hiranandani, dialogues: Hussain Dalal) were really kicked about their concept at the start, but lost steam somewhere along the way. This can be the only explanation for why, for instance, they got so many talented supporting artistes in the cast yet no character leaves a lasting impression. Rahul Dev has a fascinating face, but does not get the space he deserves playing the villain’s menacing flunkey in Dishoom. Akshaye Khanna manages to lend notable touches to that villain, but remains a victim of an under-written role. Vijay Raaz makes an inexplicable, just-a-few-minutes-long appearance as an inexplicable person inexplicably called Khabri Chacha. Mona Ambegaonkar – who plays India’s Minister for External Affairs – and her stylist do a rather decent Sushma Swaraj impression, but the minister seems curiously staff-less and entourage-less. And in a film that seeks more from her than merely to cash in on that gorgeous face and stunning body, Jacqueline Fernandez shows us that “ladki mein kuchh toh hai (there’s something about that girl)” as filmwallahs tend to say, including a funny bone that Hindi cinema is yet to explore, but she too operates on the margins of Dishoom.

All of them get less out of this film than Akshay Kumar does in a guest appearance. Playing a character who could easily have been stereotypically camp, Kumar manages to hold back just enough to ensure that he is intentionally over-the-top yet not crude.

The film’s fatal flaw, then, is its failure to persist with any particular idea, concept, theme or thought. There is, for instance, a potentially sweet scene when a bad guy barges into a group of Muslim men at prayer and Junaid stops Kabir from chasing him through the group, saying: “Namaz ki izzat rakh le, khuda hamari rakh lega (Honour the namaz and God will take care of us).” The few seconds of silence that follow are poignant, especially in the context of the Islamophobia pervading the world right now. And then … boom! … something goes wrong, and the entire point is lost, though it is clear that it was not Rohit or his co-writers’ intention to suggest that khuda was not bothered. TeamDishoom, it appears, were unable to sustain their own involvement in the moment.

Even the film’s obvious flag-waving ambitions are erratically executed. It is silly yet amusing when a star Indian cricketer smashes the ball all over a stadium for sixes and fours in an international match, just minutes after he was soundly walloped on a shoulder he had previously dislocated during a game. Amusing because the Saare Jahan Se Achchha playing in the background as he walks on to the field is no doubt meant to emotionally wave aside our powers of reasoning, and so, rather than be irritated, it is possible to chuckle over that scene.

When the Minister utters this line in the film’s opening minutes, “Duniya ke kisi bhi koney mein koi bhi ek Hindustani ko haath nahin laga sakta hai(Let no one dare to harm a hair on the head of any Indian in any corner of the globe),” it holds out the promise of much wolf-whistle-worthy, chest-thumping patriotism, but it is downright ridiculous to witness her addressing the Dubai Police like a condescending Aunty and to see Kabir bulldozing them as though India – not the United States – is the world’s Big Brother.

Half-heartedness pervades every department of the film. And so while the camera delivers some imposing shots of a Morocco mountainside during a bike chase scene, most all interior settings of the film look glaringly fake, particularly that underground den of vice in the fictional country Abudin.

Pritam’s music too is a mixed bag. While Sau tarah ke is infectiously upbeat, Jaaneman aahaccompanying the closing credits is embarrassingly tuneless.

That closing track – shot with Varun and guest star Parineeti Chopra – epitomises the film’s problems. Abraham and Fernandez are curiously absent. Who is Dishoom’s protagonist? Is it meant to be a comedy? Is it meant to be an all-out action flick as you might assume from the title? What went wrong with this project is a mystery, but it is sad that the film is less than the sum of its many noteworthy parts.

Rohit Dhawan debuted with the unrelentingly funny Desi Boyzin which he managed to whip up bowlfuls of chemistry between his leading men Akshay Kumar and John Abraham. In Dishoom, Abraham looks as if he switched off halfway through the project as did most of the film’s team.

Result: Dishoom is a sporadically engaging, intermittently funny, yet always insubstantial film.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	124 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/dishoom-review-funny-but-flimsy-john-abraham-varun-dhawan-bromance-2922898.html

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

Release date:	July 29, 2016
Director:	Uday Ananthan
Cast: Language:	Mammootty, Huma Qureshi, Shankar Ramakrishnan, Sona Nair, Siddique, K.P.A.C. Lalitha, Sunil Sukhada Malayalam

“What’s a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?”

Bob Dylan wrote those words in a vastly different, more complex context, but somehow they come to mind each time a great actor or a charismatic star chooses to lend their name and presence to an abysmal film.

There is really no other way of putting it: White is abysmal. It is boring, dull, vacuous, vapid and worse, pretentious. Each frame, each word suggests that director Uday Ananthan felt he had a grand sweeping romance on his hands. If that is what you were thinking, Mr Ananthan, you got it wrong. White is not grand. It is pompous.

Which brings us to that question begging to be asked: What’s a talented, much-loved veteran like Mammootty doing in a dump like this? A multiple National Award-winning Malayalam actor and one of contemporary Indian cinema’s best, Mammukka – as he is fondly known in Kerala – has done a fair share of unapologetically commercial, loud, OTT films through his nearly 40 years on screen. Just recently, he played a deplorably misogynistic cop in the Eid release Kasaba. But even that spool of nonsense had entertaining elements, such as its suspense and the leading man’s amusing signature swagger. White does not have even that. It is inert and bland.

It all begins when Roshni Menon (Huma Qureshi) is posted in London on work. As she grapples with a mean boss in a foreign land, she finds herself saving an attractive elderly man who is about to fall (or was he jumping?) in front of a train at a London metro station one day. They part ways, but soon he starts forcing himself into her life in bizarre, aggressive ways. He turns out to be Prakash Roy (Mammootty), a billionaire with a sad past. Many wanderings and schmoozing sessions later, there comes a big reveal. You will catch it if you have not slept off by then.

Someone please tell Ananthan that all the low-angle shots in the world, all the polish in Pradeep Maralgattu’s art design, all those frames of pretty castles and picturesque London by DoP Amarjeet Singh cannot compensate for poor writing. The screenplay by Praveen Balakrishnan, Nandini Valsan and the director himself lacks flesh and maturity. It also falls flat on its face with its attempts at originality within clichés.

Formulaic filmmakers across Indian languages have long held that every romance must perforce be preceded by a clash between the hero and the heroine, often a silly imagined grievance. Possibly in a bid to contrive some such tension, or perhaps because the writers deemed it cute, or perhaps to build him up as a commanding figure, White has Roy being persistently obnoxious with Menon – turning up at her office and demanding that she leave with him “in two minutes” no less, being rude to her boss, and denigrating her in conversation.

(Spoiler alert) It gets so ridiculous that at one point Roy fakes a situation where Menon thinks she is about to be mugged, raped or killed on a dark, deserted street before he drives in in slow motion to a ramped-up background score, pops open a champagne bottle and wishes her for her birthday. As if the film’s Malayalam dialogues are not clunky enough, White also features some terribly clumsy English dialogues. On that London street, as they stand beside his luxury car, he tells her in a grandiose tone: “I never wanted to be the first person to wish you, neither the last. But I wanted to be a person to wish you.” What the heck does that even mean?

Despite all this boorishness and verbosity, she falls in love with him.

Neither star comes off well in this film. Mammootty is weighed down by the effort to make laughable dialogues sound imposing. Qureshi – now in her fifth year in Bollywood, and making her Mollywood debut here – is pretty but expressionless, and weighed down by distracting false eyelashes. Both are weighed down by a three-decades-plus age difference and zero chemistry.

To be fair, the screenplay defies trends in one respect: it does not play down Mammootty’s 64 years (making him all the more attractive as a result). In one scene, a hooligan at a casino addresses Roy as “Uncle” and asks Menon if he is her teacher or boss. The director may well claim then that such a young female star was cast opposite Mammootty because White is meant to be an older-man-younger-woman romance, and not a continuation of commercial cinema’s conviction that women of Mammukka’s age are not worth loving. Hmm. That is no excuse though for the absolute lack of a spark between the leads, which culminates in one of the most awkward embraces ever exchanged by a man and woman on screen.

Everything in White– including its title – is geared towards a glaring effort to impress. The sound design by Rajesh P.M., for instance, is over-played to the point of being grating. The crunch of Menon’s shoes on the ground as she walks away from Roy’s mansion is particularly irksome in its exaggeration. However much sound and fury you may add to it, hot air is hot air.

The most interesting thing that happened to me through this film’s 149 minutes and five seconds running time is that a guy in the same row as mine at the theatre where I watched it began loudly humming Sau tarah ke from the Hindi film Dishoomat some point. I did not ask whether he was trying to assuage his boredom but I do know that I suffered two cancelled shows and 160 km (read: seven hours) of travel over three days through the Delhi rain before I got third-time ‘lucky’ with White. Travel and ticket money can be forgiven, but time is priceless, Mr Ananthan. You owe your viewers a big debt.

Footnote on the subtitles: It is great that more Indian films are being released with subtitles outside their home territories, and sometimes even within. Bad subs though are self-defeating and White’s are among the worst I’ve seen in recent times. The name “Charlotte” appears as “a lot” on screen” at one point, I spotted at least one mistranslation, and I am sure we can all agree that it is not okay to spell “heartbreak” as “heart brakes”.

Rating (out of five): ½ star

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	149 minutes and 5 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/white-malayalm-movie-review-mammootty-huma-qureshi-2927736.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_(2016_film)

Release date:	June 17, 2016 (Kerala), July 8, 2016 (Chennai), July 29 (Bengaluru)
Director:	Sanal Kumar Sashidharan
Cast: Language:	Nisthar Ahamed, Pradeep Kumar P.M., Girish Nair, Baiju Netto, Arun Nayar, R. Reju Pillai, Abhija Sivakala Malayalam

Writer-director Sanal Kumar Sashidharan’s Ozhivudivasathe Kali(An Off-Day Game) is a deceptively calm film. Like the water in that brook bubbling softly beside the primary location, it appears serene from a distance. Plunge below the tranquil surface though, and what you get is a chilling saga of caste, class, colour and misogyny in our society.

The hypocrisy in that outward calm and in the simmering tension beneath that veneer of peaceful co-existence are rendered all the more poignant because the story takes place in Kerala, a state that is romanticised and mythified in the north Indian imagination due to its high literacy rate and other positive social development indicators. That said, though the film is rooted in Kerala, it mirrors social realities across India. The language may be Malayalam, but it would hold meaning in any Indian language. Its cultural specificity is complemented by the universality of its themes.

This is a seemingly simple yet intimidatingly complex film. And it is stunning.

Ozhivudivasathe Kaliis about five friends gathered at a remote country house. They have an off day from work due to elections in the state, hence the title. A local woman is roped in to cook them a meal, while they drink several rounds of alcohol.

From the moment we first spot these five middle-aged men together, the film delivers a running commentary on Kerala society. Liquor is a pre-occupation. Women are trivialised. Dark skin is mocked. One of them is addressed by the group as Thirumeni (holy one); we later discover that his surname is Namboothiri (read: a member of the priestly caste). Dasan’s complexion is the subject of much discussion. His caste ranking gradually becomes evident from the unspoken assumptions made about tasks he will handle and the later repeated taunts about “his party”.

Three things flow in plenty on this off day, as on all days in Kerala: conversation, alcohol and prejudice. The friends discuss the Emergency, caste, dignity of labour and sexual violence. In one of the film’s most telling passages, they sing a cheery song about beating up their wives. That women are their playthings is evident from that drunken number, and from their attitude to the cook Geetha.

Based on a story by Unni R., Ozhivudivasathe Kali rambles along as if nothing in particular is happening, yet it is an assemblage of potential explosions. Everyone except Geetha appears to be in a light-hearted mood, yet each one harbours resentments that run deep. It is those resentments – vicious and volcanic – that culminate in the film’s unexpected, horrifying climax.

If that climax has the ability to knock the breath out of a viewer, it is primarily because Ozhivudivasathe Kali feels not like a film but like an extract from real life. DoP Indrajith S. keeps his camera invisible, the acting is natural and the speech unscripted. That last part is unsurprising: there were, in fact, no written dialogues before the shooting began.

Rather than a loud background score to needlessly heighten the drama, the film ropes in sound designer T. Krishnanunni to weave nature seamlessly into, around, through and past the men’s endless chatter. The breeze, the brook, the birds and the rain are Ozhivudivasathe Kali’s music except in the beginning and end when composer Basil Joseph unobtrusively steps in.

Interestingly, the film does not seek to canonise victims of marginalisation, as lazily written commercial cinema often does. Dasan (played by Baiju Netto) may be bristling with anger at Dalit oppression, yet he too is a purveyor of misogyny. There also emerges during their talk, a hierarchy in hate: Vinayan (Pradeep Kumar P.M.) deems it acceptable to leer at Geetha (Abhija Sivakala) but believes that an actual physical relationship requires a woman’s consent, Asokan (Arun Nayar) says there is an element of rape in all sexual intercourse between a man and woman, we can guess without being told that Dharman (Nisthar Ahamed) agrees. (Aside: Girish Nair plays Namboothiri/Thirumeni.)

Revulsion for these men is partnered by fascination. It is impossible to look away. The camera understands that and remains unrelenting in its pursuit of them. The denouement is filmed in a single shot that lasts almost 48 minutes. It is exhausting, but enthralling.

Ozhivudivasathe Kali deservedly won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Malayalam Film at the International Film Festival of Kerala 2015 and Best Film at the Kerala State Film Awards in the same year. It got a theatrical release in its home state in June, hit Chennai early last month and is now in Bangalore theatres. This is a film that needs to be seen not just by Malayalis, but by everyone, not just by adults, but by children too.

As it happens, the usually queasy, politically conservative Central Board of Film Certification has given Ozhivudivasathe Kali a UA certificate. The director lets on that the Board asked for two voice mutes but no cuts. In an ideal world, even that should not have happened, but considering that the country’s Dalit agitation has reached a flashpoint in Gujarat – a state very dear to the present Central Government – it is a miracle that the film has been released at all.

Opening shots of the election mayhem in the film shows swarms of flags bearing political party symbols: the Congress’ hand, the hammer and sickle, the BJP’s lotus. A flock of BJP supporters drive by on motorcycles shouting “Bharat Mata ki jai (Hail Mother India)”. What follows is a story about the games played by the aforesaid Mata’s favoured children: upper caste, upper class, Hindu and male.

Ozhivudivasathe Kali is a socio-politically and culturally precious cinematic gem. Kerala, Chennai and Bangalore are fortunate. If it is not released in your city, the loss is entirely yours.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	106 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/ozhivudivasathe-kali-review-stunning-saga-of-women-and-dalits-as-playthings-2929938.html

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

Release date:	August 5, 2016
Director:	Manish Jha
Cast: Language:	Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani, Aditi Rao Hydari, Kayoze Irani Hindi

The word “quirky” was perhaps floating about in director Manish Jha’s head while he conceived and created this film. Two words, actually: “quirky” and “kitsch”.

Everything about this Bollywood film screams out the team’s effort to be both. It is neither.

The Legend of Michael Mishra (LOMM) starring Arshad Warsi and Boman Irani is about a hooligan/gangster whose ambitions and career are entirely shaped by his life-long quest for the girl he fell in love with – and lost – as a child. Their paths cross again as adults through a hare-brained set of circumstances that make Sajid Khan’s films seem well thought out.

He decides to become a better man for her, while she takes off to Mumbai to become an actress. Through another hare-brained set of circumstances, they meet again. There is a not-so-bad twist in the end, but by then LOMMis a lost cause. Watching this 124-minutes-and-5-seconds-long effort to be adorable, edgy and funny is a tiring, energy-sapping experience.

You can accuse many contemporary Bollywood comedies of being illogical and over the top, but there is something far far worse than that. LOMMis under the top – so under that it appears to be mining the earth for a new low in tedium.

The film opens with a build-up to Michael Mishra’s supposedly legendary status. Road signs mark the route to a dhaba that bears his name. A bus stops, and we finally see this rather large, brightly coloured eatery. A pretty white tourist is anxious to hear Michael’s story despite the cynicism of an academic in their group. The dhaba manager (Boman Irani) obliges and we are introduced to a petty crook who encounters a little girl dancing under a tree and falls in love.

Drum rolls, please. You have just met young Michael Mishra and little Varsha Shukla.

You know you have a problem on your hands when the director seems not to have spotted the icky touch that the casting lends to that scene. The boy is played by actor Mohit Balchandani who has a relatively very mature face in comparison with actress Gracevera Kaur, who plays Varsha, and looks 10-12 years old. Shudder. Still, we are informed that they are bothchildren, so we must believe it. (See postscript) They are separated, and a grown-up Michael (Warsi) spends many years searching for her. He finally spots a grown-up Varsha (Aditi Rao Hydari) at a contest called Bihar Is Full of Talent, singing a song in horribly wrong English. There is some potential there, but someone involved seems to have decided that the mere mention of Bihar and the use of poor grammar in that scene is enough to get laughs through the rest of the film. It is not.

Michael then sets out to court Varsha with the cooperation of his gang (played by a bunch of really bad, uninvolved, unenthusiastic actors) and his sidekick named Half Pant (Kayoze Irani). Much blah later, they are – spoiler alert – united in love.

Even the presence of Warsi in the film makes no difference to its pace or appeal. The Legend of Michael Mishra is flat from start to finish, and one of Bollywood’s most charming actors can do nothing to save it. The script is daft, to say the very least. It boggles the mind that it took five writers to come up with this nothingness (credits: story – Jha himself, Radhakrishnan and Sneha Nihalani, dialogues – Anshuman Chaturvedi, additional screenplay – Vijay Kapoor).

Besides, Warsi and Hydari are terribly mismatched, not just because of the obvious age gap, but because there is no spark between them. None. Zero. Zilch. Shunya. It is sad to see Hydari – she who played Rama Bua in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Delhi-6 (2009), a gangsta’s dynamite of a wife in Sudhir Mishra’s Yeh Saali Zindagi(2011) and the heroine in Anu Menon’s sweetly likeable London, Paris, New York (2012)– reduced to this.

Sadder still is the memory of Manish Jha’s early promise. The spotlight first fell on Jha over a decade back when his short, A Very Very Silent Film, won a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. This was followed by critical acclaim for the feature film Matrubhoomi – A Nation Without Women which, ideologically debatable though it may be, displayed commitment to his chosen genre and his concerns aboutfemale infanticide.

As the great philosopher Barney Stinson once said…

Okay, I tried to keep a straight face for that sentence but could not. Revise that: as Barney Stinson from the hit American sitcom How I Met Your Mother might have said, you cannot use the word “legend” lightly. There is a big distance between trying to be clever and being clever. If you fail to bridge that distance, you have a disaster on your hands. If you fail to bridge that distance but do not even realise it, and instead present the end product for public viewing, the result is cringe-worthy. Such as that scene in this film in which Michael saves his jailor from almost certain death, and they are later shown seated on a rocky hillock in the twilight with the said jailor playing what sounds like Elvis Presley’s Can’t help falling in lovewith you on his harmonica. Was that scene intentionally referencing Sholay? Was that a Jai-Veeru moment with a homosexual overtone? Was it meant to be humorous, moving or deep? Clearly Jha was trying to make some sort of a cool, smart-alec point there, but who knows what it is.

The Legend of Michael Mishra, just like the non-existent chemistry between its lead couple, is a big naught.

Postscript: After writing this review, I checked with the team of the film and learnt that Gracevera Kaur is 13 while Mohit Balchandani is 20. What was the director thinking while casting a minor with a child-like face as the romantic interest of an evidently adult male, in a film that is not about paedophilia? Or was he not thinking at all?

Rating (out of five): 0 stars

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	124 minutes and 5 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/the-legend-of-michael-mishra-review-this-legendary-bore-does-not-deserve-arshad-warsi-2936606.html

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

Release date:	August 5, 2016
Director:	Chandra Sekhar Yeleti
Cast: Language:	Mohanlal, Gautami, Raina Rao, Viswant Duddumpudi, Anisha Ambrose, Urvashi Malayalam

A debt-ridden senior supermarket employee gets involved with a street ruffian, with unforeseen consequences.

A little girl befriends a slumkid and is surprised by how those around her respond to him.

A doting housewife on a tight budget is offered a way out of her financial troubles and dull life, but is disappointed by her family’s reaction to the opportunity.

A brilliant, level-headed college student starts living beyond his means when he falls for a beautiful, rich young woman, but is taken aback by her take on their relationship.

Multi-strand films work best when they are bound by a solid common theme, irrespective of whether the threads run parallely or eventually tie up, and irrespective of whether that tie is strong or tenuous. Ask Paul Haggis, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu or right here at home, Anand Gandhi. There is no such theme in writer-director Chandra Sekhar Yeleti’s Vismayam, unless you count a laboured point about discovering ourselves and humanity through unexpected learning experiences and miraculous occurrences, as implied by the title, which means awe/wonderment or bewilderment among other things in Malayalam.

That thematic link is so unconvincing that it feels like a contrivance. Even Yeleti does not seem committed to it. The entire film seems driven instead by the goal of revealing what connects the four individuals pivotal to the four stories, as if this were a thriller. The revelation comes through an inexorably long, melodramatised climactic scene in which you can guess the connection from a mile away, but the director stretches and stretches that mile beyond endurance.

The climax is not the film’s only problem though. Vismayam’s grand ambitions are backed by poor execution. Despite the heft in the story of the supermarket manager played by Mohanlal, the remaining segments are insubstantial, silly and further pulled down by mediocre acting.

Mohanlal is M. Sairam, a middle-class man in Hyderabad constantly struggling to make both ends meet. When the prospect of a promotion looms on the horizon, his desperation drives him to indulge in uncharacteristic behaviour. Here is the thing though: the results of our actions have a life of their own, the world is unpredictable, human beings are volatile, and we should never assume we can steer anyone but ourselves especially when we adopt a path of evil. Question is: When matters go out of hand, and Sairam finds himself pulled deeper and deeper into a quagmire, will the situation bring out the best or the worst in him?

As Sairam, Lalettan reminds us why he is considered one of contemporary Indian cinema’s best actors. His performance embodies the inner conflicts of an inherently good person torn between idealistic philosophies and practical constraints. It is always a joy to watch him in a film where he is unfettered by overtly commercial considerations.

The story of Sairam in Vismayam might have worked wonderfully as a standalone film. The manner in which events spiral out of control is believable, even the supporting cast is well chosen and the director has complete command over his written material here.

The same cannot be said of the remaining three. Veteran Gautami as the housewife Gayathri is hampered by inadequate writing. There are some laughs to be derived from the shenanigans of her shopaholic, freebie-aholic friend Lakshmi (played by Urvashi – why oh why don’t we see her more often and in more significant roles?) but the comedic touch unintentionally lends a somewhat frivolous note to Gayathri. Besides, Yeleti is obviously disinterested in an important concern raised by Gayathri’s former teacher, about a brilliant female student losing herself in an identityless existence as a housewife.

The strand about the little girl Mahitha and her poverty-ridden friend has great potential, but suffers because Raina Rao is a limited actress, the proceedings lack logic and the unrelenting effort to drive home the extent of Mahitha’s kindness is tiresome. Okay, we get it – she has a golden heart and a sweet face. What next? Move on, for Chrissake!

The worst of the quartet though is the one involving Abhi (Viswant Duddumpudi) who is smitten at sight by pretty Aira (Anisha Ambrose). Duddumpudi lacks a screen presence. The far more charismatic Ambrose is the victim of a poorly fleshed out character whose motivations are never revealed to us. Their story is senseless and puerile.

Since Abhi hides his financial circumstances from Aira and since Aira is open with him about her feelings and her goals right from the start, it is unfair that an effort is made to subtly paint her either as a classist snob or a tease or at best a superficial creature. Without putting it in words, by drawing us into Abhi’s life while skimming over Aira, Vismayam builds her up as a certain ‘type’ of woman who is derided by our society and cinema, the ‘type’ who enslaves a hapless, innocent man with her beauty, then abandons the bechara fellow for a better deal or for her ambitions – OMGoodness, how dare a woman have any! The film also appears to view the mere fact of being wealthy with suspicion. None of this is stated clearly. Yeleti reveals himself though with the juxtaposition of Aira against Gayathri: the spirited, well-off youngster with a professional dream for herself versus the middle-class, sacrificing Mommy who turned her back on her impressive academic track record and now has dreams only for her husband and children.

Yeleti has made Vismayam simultaneously in Malayalam and Telugu. The Telugu version is calledManamantha. Both have been released across India this week. There is also a dubbed Tamil version titled Namadhu. This review is based on a viewing of the Malayalam film.

Vismayam is yawn inducing and flimsy, patriarchal, populist and contrived. For a film that views the moneyed classes with suspicion, it seems hypocritical that it repeatedly bows to Mammon through numerous product placements. The bow to Narendra Modi too is unmistakable. That elongated finale is the low point in an already dreary narrative. Sairam (an MCP though he is) and Mohanlal make it tolerable. Without them it would have been insufferable. It is almost as if the writer-director wrapped up the portions involving his male superstar, then handed over the reins – of the casting, writing and direction for the rest – to someone else. Yawn.

Rating (out of five): **

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

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/vismayam-review-mohanlal-is-a-saving-grace-in-this-highly-contrived-film-2939144.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vismayam_(2016_film)

Release date:	July 29, 2016 (Kerala), August 5 (Delhi)
Director:	Shanavas K. Bavakutty
Cast: Language:	Shane Nigam, Shruthy Menon, Vinay Forrt, Alencier Ley Lopez Malayalam

Kismath has a self-deprecating air of being a small film. Do not be misled by its modesty. It is large in ways that the arts are meant to be: large-hearted, open-minded, intelligent, aware and enriching, with a worldview that encompasses the nuances of Kerala society yet mirrors realities across India. This is, in fact, a very big film.

Debutant Shanavas K. Bavakutty’s Kismath is a remarkably understated account of a couple driven apart by social barriers. Irfan is Muslim. Anitha is Hindu. He is from a well-off family. She is financially less privileged and a Scheduled Caste. In a social milieu that deems it essential for a man to be older, wiser and wealthier than his woman partner, she is 28, he is 23. They are residents of the small town of Ponnani. They are in love. And though nobody in the entire damned vicinity of their lives seems to notice or care, they are good friends.

Anitha and Irfan are conscious of the hurdles in the path of their relationship. As an audience we too have read reports of the ugly ongoing ‘love jihad’ campaign exemplified by the pressure and threats against a couple from Meerut– he a Muslim, she a Hindu – in the run-up to the Uttar Pradesh by-elections of 2014. This awareness on both sides of the screen builds up a sense of foreboding from the moment we first meet the pair at the centre of Kismath.

The youngsters have already faced some aggression from their respective families and so, to pre-empt any eventualities, they head off to a police station in Ponnani to seek protection. There they discover what they ought to have known already: that the police do not emerge from a vacuum but are drawn from the same prejudiced society they are trying to escape. What follows is their battle on multiple fronts – against his relatives, her relatives, extra-familial busybodies and the people in uniform – over perhaps 24 hours in educated, seemingly progressive Kerala.

Even before their saga unfolds, a minor episode at the police station gives us an idea of the insights and detailing to expect from Kismath. It should have given Anitha and Irfan an idea of what they were in for too. An Assamese man is accused of causing a road mishap involving two locals. The chap does not speak Malayalam, but when SI Ajay C. Menon enters the picture, he communicates with him via Hindi and physical aggression, and manages to extract some of the truth of what happened. Unlike Tamil Nadu, which has vehemently resisted and prevented the effort to impose Hindi as a national language on non-Hindi-speaking India, Kerala tends to look up to Hindi bhaashis and view the ability to speak the language as something of a virtue of a superior race. Meanie Menon has a swagger, his fluency in Hindi adds to it.

This adjunct to the main plot throws up other asides: all the cops know that the guy involved in the accident is Assamese, but they casually persist with calling him a Bengali (a moment of introspection for south Indians who get irritated when north Indians club all “south ke log” together as “Madrasis”); and when Menon learns where he is from, he immediately asks if he is a terrorist. The police station, you see, is a microcosm of the world outside.

The rest of Kismath is just as acutely observed. Interestingly, Anitha and Irfan speak of living together, not marriage. Equally interesting – and disturbing – are the unsavoury insinuations made about both of them by various parties. It is fashionable to romanticise small-town and village life but the film, at one point, gently reminds us that the impersonal nature of big cities can spell freedom from some shackles for marginalised and oppressed groups.

It is a relief too that Anitha and Irfan are not presented as an immature couple who were floored by each other at first sight. In that little town that is home, past gender segregation and communal biases, they meet by sheer chance, they hang out together for believable reasons, he does not stalk her (whew!), they become friends and gradually begin to see each other as potential life companions. Miracles do happen, after all.

Writer-director Bavakutty has been quoted in The Times of Indiasaying Kismath is “inspired by an incident that happened in the lives of a 28-year-old scheduled caste girl and her 23-year-old boyfriend, a B.Tech student, at Ponnani in 2011” when he was the Municipal Councillor of Ponnani. Some reactions to Kismath have compared it to Ennu Ninde Moideen, last year’s critically acclaimed hit starring Prithviraj Sukumaran and Parvathy, because it too was based on a true story of an inter-community romance in the state. With due respect to Moideen fans, I felt that film started out with immense promise but ended up being emotionally manipulative, high-pitched and exasperating. Kismath is none of the above: it is realistic, matter-of-fact and concise.

Shane Nigam and Shruthy Menon have likeable personalities, and deliver low-key, convincing performances as Irfan and Anitha. The pick of the talented cast though is Vinay Forrt as the corrupt, creepy cop who allies with their relatives.

It could have been called Love In The Time of ‘Love Jihad’, Dalit Suppression, Sexism, Casteism, Parochialism, and A Pretence of Liberalism. Frankly, the film should have been called anything but Kismath (meaning: destiny). Because it is not about what fate does to its helpless victims, it is about misery by human design and the manner in which we go about destroying lives with our ignorance and bigotry.

The misplaced title is one of my very few problems with this film. The other would be its failure to address one important aspect of Anitha and Irfan’s relationship. Before the couple fall in love, we learn that Irfan dropped out of an engineering course, is whiling away his time at home, is unemployed, living off his family’s money and already at loggerheads with his father as a result. Considering that he is mature beyond his years and sensible enough to know the potential dangers they both face if they persist with their relationship, considering that they both come across as having their heads on their shoulders, it seems odd that they thought they could openly continue their romance – even with police protection – while he is financially dependent on his influential father. Keep in mind that Anitha herself is a research scholar with an old mother to take care of. Irfan’s purposefulness towards her does not gel with his aimlessness elsewhere.

That said, Kismath is brave and well worth a visit to a theatre. It was released in Kerala on July 29, and has travelled to Delhi a week later. I watched a subtitled version in the Capital – considering how whimsical producers, distributors and exhibitors are in this matter, do inquire about subtitles at your local hall. The subs had some spelling errors, which are annoying for an (ex-)editor, you may perhaps be more forgiving. Still, to the extent that I could judge when I occasionally glanced at the words flashing at the bottom of the screen, they conveyed the essence of what was being said. Non-Malayali film enthusiasts, do note.

It would be easy to take Kismath for granted because it does not make a song and dance about anything it says or does. Let us not do that. There are Irfans and Anithas in many corners of India and their chilling experiences need to be visited again and again until these horrible human-made societal walls are brought down. That is what Kismath does in a non-preachy, even tone. With this film, Indian cinema gets a courageous new voice. Here’s looking at you, Mr Bavakutty.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	103 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/kismath-review-a-moving-real-life-tale-of-love-jihad-and-blatant-bias-2940266.html

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

Release date:	August 5, 2016
Director:	Soumendra Padhi
Cast: Language:	Manoj Bajpayee, Mayur Mahendra Patole, Tillotama Shome, Shruti Marathe, Gajraj Rao, Chhaya Kadam Hindi

CAUTION: VERY LONG REVIEW AHEAD

Budhia Singh – Born To Run is notable for many reasons. It puts the national spotlight back on wonderkid Budhia Singh who gained global attention in 2005-06 for running marathons at a very young age, culminating in a 65 km non-stop run from Bhubaneshwar to Puri in seven hours and two minutes when he was just four years old. It features an engaging performance by Manoj Bajpayee as Budhia’s coach, the late Biranchi Das, just months after Bajpayee’s riveting turn as a gay man victimised for his sexual orientation in Hansal Mehta’sAligarh. And it stars an incredibly cute child called Mayur Mahendra Patole as Budhia.

Sadly, the film is notable for troubling reasons too.

Born To Run unwittingly highlights our national penchant for propaganda over facts, noise over news and our rampant, casual disregard for rules. It does so by circumventing uncomfortable questions about the ethics of training a little child so rigorously for marathons, even while making a show of addressing those questions. And it does this in an evident bid to project its protagonist as a positive figure, even while seeming to paint him in shades of grey. That protagonist, by the way, is Biranchi not Budhia, despite what the title indicates.

The fact is the film did not need to do any of this to build up Biranchi as a worthy hero. Media accounts of the coach (who was murdered in 2008) suggest that there was much to admire in him, just as there was much to question. More on that later in this review.

Writer-director Soumendra Padhi’s Budhia Singh – Born To Run, earlier titled Duronto, is based on the story of Bhubaneshwar boy Budhia who was sold by his poverty-stricken mother for Rs 800. His ‘owner’ ill-treats him. Biranchi – a local judo coach and philanthropist – rescues Budhia, and brings the boy to an orphanage that he (Biranchi) runs with his wife Gita.

One day, as punishment for some mischief, Biranchi orders Budhia to run around the orphanage compound until he is told to stop. The coach goes off on work, forgetting about the stricture. Much to his chagrin when he returns many hours later, Budhia is still running. Amazed at such physical strength and endurance in one so young, Biranchi sees in the child a future Olympian marathoner, and begins training him. When Budhia’s ability to run great lengths gets media coverage, Odisha’s child welfare officials intervene, pointing out that running marathons at that age is harmful. Biranchi is undeterred. Budhia is ultimately taken away from him, banned from running marathons and kept in a government hostel where he still lives.

Born To Run is an account of Biranchi’s association with Budhia. The skeletal plotline of the film provided in the above two paragraphs is supported by archival news coverage.

The film has a lot going in its favour in addition to its fascinating subject and endearing central cast. Odisha is a scenic state rarely visited by Bollywood. While exploring these relatively fresh pastures for his audience, DoP Manoj Kumar Khatoi delivers enough picturesque frames to give us an idea of what the Hindi film industry is missing, taking us past pretty country roads, bridges and brooks in areas where Biranchi trains Budhia, perhaps on the outskirts of their home city.

Born To Run jogs along at a pleasant pace, a result of Padhi’s easy directorial style, his writing (the screenplay and dialogues are both credited to him) and editor Shivkumar Panicker’s firm hand. The film’s various running events are well put together, and effectively draw the viewer in with smart editing, Subash Sahoo’s sound design and the never-intrusive background score.

It is a relief that the cast has not been asked to ‘do’ Oriya accents. Considering that stars trying accents usually end up faltering (case in point: Salman Khan in Sultan, rare exception: Konkona Sen Sharma in Mr & Mrs Iyer) or caricaturing the community to which their character belongs, this really is the best way to go.

The interactions between the children at the orphanage – all such spontaneous actors – play out smoothly. Bajpayee and Patole share a warm chemistry. And Marathi-Tamil actress Shruti Marathe is immensely watchable in the role of Biranchi’s wife Gita (although her issues with her husband are, like too much else in the film, left hanging in mid-air and not fully examined).

It would be wrong to allow Born To Run’s pluses to lull us into an acceptance of its evasiveness on crucial ethical issues. It is one thing to be a non-judgmental filmmaker leaving the audience to decide whose side they are on, but quite another to avoid laying out all the facts before the public to let them arrive at an informed conclusion. It is also not very honourable to employ subtle means throughout the film to, in effect, lobby for Biranchi. After all, in a case such as this one, the well-being of the child in question is what is of paramount importance.

Note how Odisha’s Child Welfare Minister Mahashweta Malik (a thinly veiled allusion to the state’s then Minister for Women and Child Welfare, Pramila Mullick) has been styled and performed by Chhaya Kadam as a churlish, emotionless, stereotypical schoolmarm. Note too Gajraj Rao’s sliminess as the Chairman of the state’s Child Welfare Committee and Malik’s ally in the clash with Biranchi. The film here taps into the average Indian’s visceral dislike and distrust of politicians and bureaucrats. What choice do these two have in a battle for viewers’ hearts when the full force of Bajpayee and Patole’s charms are simultaneously unleashed on us?

The film shows these unlikeable characters raising questions about Biranchi’s methods and the inappropriateness of training a three/four-year-old for marathons; it delivers passing expressions of concern from others whose questions are addressed firmly by Biranchi and not countered; it implies that Budhia and Biranchi were victims of political games rather than legitimate concerns (the reality was perhaps a combination of both); andit does not mention globally accepted norms or rules on this front. A foreign journalist in the film asks the Minister if the law is on her side, but the question is just left dangling there. Why?

Here is what Budhia Singh – Born To Run should have told us:

According to media articles from a decade back, in 2005 – that is, even before he had turned four – Budhia’s training regimen included seven hours of non-stop running each morning, followed by a break and then more running. Assuming that he was being given a weekly off from training, and that he just did one hour after his break, that would still be eight hours a day and 48 hours a week. Budhia had reportedly run 48 marathons by the time he turned four.

The internationally accepted distance for marathons has been 42.195 km since 1920, as per the Olympic Studies Centre of The International Olympic Committee.This means Budhia’s highly publicised 65 km run from Bhubaneshwar to Puri was about 23km above the standard.

No doubt then, he was naturally gifted. Question is: was it in his best interests to explore that gift as a virtual toddler, and how acceptable were the training techniques used?

A medical manualpublished by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in 2012 recommends 3 km as the maximum competition distance for children below nine years, and further recommends that marathons be run only after the age of 18. The document advocates not more than 6 km as the weekly training distance in the case of an under-nine-year-old – 6 km in an entire week, not the 48 or more that Budhia was doing while he trained under Biranchi.

The Athletics Federation of India is affiliated to IAAF. Even if IAAF norms were more relaxed in 2005-06 than they were in 2012 when this manual was published, it can be safely assumed that they were nowhere close to what Budhia’s body was being subjected to by a possibly well-meaning but misguided, misinformed coach. A good indicator of this comes from a 1987 policy statement of the Australian Sports  Medicine Federation’s Children in Sport Committee published on the IAAF website, which recommends marathons only for above-18-year-olds, a maximum competition distance of 5 miles (approximately 8 km) for children below 12, and a weekly maximum training distance of 24 km. Budhia was running double this distance per week almost 20 years later at the age of three-four, at a time when sports federations worldwide were becoming more – not less – stringent than they were in 1987.

In an ideal world, a film critic should not require a calculator and medical documents while writing reviews. This is knowledge we should have gleaned from Born To Run.And here is a response to the predictable counter: it is true that this is not a documentary, but it is just as true that feature films are capable of conveying facts without charts and Powerpoint presentations.

If a coach was ignoring international norms for a three-four year old, it should not have mattered to the filmmaker that the man had plucked that child out of obscurity and penury, it should not have mattered that he gave the child a comfortable home. If you help someone to escape poverty, you do not automatically buy the right to exploit them. As viewers we cannot allow ourselves to be blinded to the truth by Manoj Bajpayee’s charisma, Mayur Mahendra Patole’s sweetness, our contempt for netas and babus or our bitter experiences with government red tape.

Two things matter: first, Budhia’s physique and psyche may well have been damaged due to Biranchi’s training; second, this film glosses over that possibility, instead making a diligent effort to earn public sympathy for Biranchi all these years later by drawing on our collective disillusionment with government. The film is designed to get us to believe Biranchi and doubt his sarkaridetractors. And no, it is not enough that an opening disclaimer describes Born To Run as a fictionalised version of true events.

It is not as of Biranchi’s work with Budhia was intended as a protest against what he considered unreasonable Indian or international ethical norms. He was no Gandhi on the way to Dandi. It is evident from his interviews to reporters and even from this film that he either did not know what those norms were or did not care. The film reminds us that Biranchi wanted the child to win India a medal in the 2016 Olympics. Fact: Budhia is still not eligible to run an Olympic marathon and even if the Odisha government had nurtured his talent, he could not have run at Rio 2016.

The world is not fuelled by our misplaced patriotic support for Budhia’s right to run in the Olympics and officially recognised marathons in India or our frustration with Indian officialdom. The ongoing Rio Olympics 2016 has an age limit for the marathon event, as did the 2012 Olympics: under-20s are not allowed. Budhia is still just 14.

So yes, the Odisha government should have got experts to assess his talent, they should have planned his future accordingly and it is unforgivable if they have not done so. Budhia has been quoted in DNA newspaper this week saying he has spent the past 10 years “in a sports hostel training for marathons”, but Padhi has said elsewhere that Budhia is being trained for sprints.Either way, our anger against trademark sarkari callousness cannot translate into a disinterest in facts.

It would be inexcusable enough if it turns out that Soumendra Padhi made an entire film on Biranchi’s dream for Budhia without knowing global norms for marathons and medical guidelines for children in athletics. What would be worse though is if we discover that he knew, but chose to keep his viewers in the dark.

Has Padhi used our ignorance to manipulate us into rooting for a debatable hero, in a bid to draw us to his film? Or are broad brushstrokes just easier to write than nuanced arguments?

The film fails to mention that Odisha’s Department of Women and Child Welfare was not the only statutory body worried about Budhia’s well-being, and that the National Human Rights Commission had asked them to intervene after Budhia collapsed at the end of his (in)famous Bhubaneshwar-Puri run. The text flashing on screen at the end of this film claims that many in Odisha feel there was a larger conspiracy behind Biranchi’s murder than was ever revealed, thus gently nudging us to consider that anti-Budhia interests were at play. It fails to add what media reports from back then reveal: that Biranchi was killed by a gangster allegedly for helping a model who was being stalked by that gangster.

It goes without saying that such a man is worthy of a biopic and Padhi need not have worked so hard to elevate Budhia’s mentor in our eyes. Even in the matter of Budhia, even among cynics, there were those who had kind words for Biranchi. Here is a helpful extract from a 2011 article on cnn.com about Gemma Atwal, whose multiple-award-winning documentary Marathon Boyfollows Budhia from 2005-2010:

Atwal said she doesn’t question Das’ benevolence. The children he rescued, she said, were the love of his life. But his love of children “was eclipsed by his dream of finding a sport champion among them,” she said.

Given all its positives, Budhia Singh – Born To Run could have been a great film if only Padhi had not been chary of highlighting his chosen protagonist’s warts along with his virtues. The fate of the evidently talented Budhia is a tale crying out to be told in a country shamefully short on sporting excellence. But it is unacceptable that the film does not state in black and white that Biranchi was wrong to tax a three-four year old child’s body in the way he did. This is not debatable, as Born To Run suggests. This is a fact.

The fact is too that the truth about Biranchi, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is a story worth telling.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	111 minutes 22 seconds

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/BudhiaBornToRun/home

Release date:	August 12, 2016
Director:	Tinu Suresh Desai
Cast: Language:	Akshay Kumar, Ileana D’Cruz, Arjan Bajwa, Esha Gupta, Pavan Raj Malhotra Hindi

Remember those films from the Sohrab Modi era and before, when flaring nostrils, eyeballs popping out and an actor’s torso stiffening up to express shock, were the norm? When celluloid crowds were packed with really, really lousy extras who would nod their heads in an exaggerated fashion as a reaction to whatever the central performers said or did? Rustom is not quite as bad, but there is enough poor quality, farcical acting going on here to remind viewers of an era gone by.

Since when did making a period film involve harking back to the unevolved acting of an earlier time?

I suppose it could be argued that this is a deliberate bid to remind audiences of the world of 1950s Mumbai in its entirety. Sorry, does not work. The strange performances surrounding the main actors dilute the film’s gravitas, thus giving our thoughts enough time to wander about and notice the glaring loopholes in the unfolding events.

The execution of Tinu Suresh Desai’s Rustom is inexplicable. The director has a talented primary cast in place, the costume, make-up, hair and production design departments appear to have worked hard, and it is loosely based on a real-life drama that is truly fascinating. Yet Desai fritters away all these advantages. His weak direction coupled with a screenplay that urgently required more thought, results in a silly, tacky, confusing film.

The pre-release promotions of Rustom have cleverly steered us to believe that the film is based on the infamous K.M. Nanavati case of 1959, but the text preceding the credits simply states that it is “inspired by true incidents”. While the producers stay in a safe zone on that front, it is clear from the film itself that the idea is to tease the viewer’s imagination with the Nanavati case, yet draw on that to build a brand-new fiction. That is okay, I guess, since Rustom’scharacters bear different names from those who peopled this well-chronicled episode in contemporary history.

The facts of the original case: In April 1959, Naval Commander K.M. Nanavati confessed to shooting his wife Sylvia’s lover Prem Ahuja at point-blank range. He was initially acquitted in a jury trial and later convicted by the higher judiciary (for details, click here). News archives show that the story captured the imagination of both the public and press at the time, and was the last jury trial in the country. The media coverage of the case was a great example of abysmal tabloid journalism, and the support Nanavati received from his fellow Parsis is an unfortunate example of blatant parochialism by a tiny minority community that has given Mumbai and India so much else to be proud of. All this is rich fodder for any creative mind. Understandably, Nanavati has inspired several books and films, most memorably the Vinod Khanna-starrer Achanak.

The fiction: Rustom draws on Nanavati’s love triangle, but turns it into a saga of a patriot who deserved to be acquitted for a murder he did indeed commit because … well … he was a patriot. In the times that we live in, when the word “nationalist” is being worn as a badge of honour by dangerous, violence-prone elements in our society and polity, this is a very disturbing stance to take.

The film is set in Mumbai when it was officially called Bombay, and the handsome Commander Rustom K. Pavri (Akshay Kumar) comes home after a long assignment away, to discover that his wife Cynthia (Ileana D’Cruz) is having an affair with their friend, the businessman Vikram Makhija (Arjan Bajwa). Pavri coolly collects a gun from the naval stores, goes off in search of Vikram, shoots him with that gun and then turns himself in to the police. A powerful tabloid editor (a nod to Russi Karanjia of Blitz newspaper) openly supports Pavri because he is a fellow Parsi and the city’s powerful Parsi community closes ranks to back him. But Rustom has his own plans. At the trial, he refuses a lawyer and pleads his own case. While women swoon outside, we discover from the courtroom proceedings and what remains unsaid there that he is, in fact, not a wronged husband but a conscientious Navyman who became a victim of circumstances.

Rustom’s messaging should perhaps not be surprising considering that it is produced by Neeraj Pandey’s Plan C Studios. Pandey directed that populist Hindi film offering A Wednesday, which glorified the notion of common people taking up arms to kill off those they consider enemies of the state. However ideologically debatable that film might have been, it has to be said that it was a polished production. Rustom is not.

Akshay Kumar’s performance is more trying-to-be-intense than intense, which is disappointing coming in the same year as his quietly dignified turn in Airlift. As it happens, he is about 14 years older than Nanavati reportedly was when the murder took place. It is becoming exhausting to point out the sexism intrinsic to the casting of Indian films in which actors – especially male superstars – routinely play the romantic interests of actresses 10-20 years their junior, so I will not repeat myself, but do read my earlier articles on this subject here, here and here. In this particular case, D’Cruz is 20 years younger than Kumar.

The delicate-boned D’Cruz looks stunning in the film and does a decent job as the heartbroken, unfaithful wife, but her characterisation is troubling. She is painted as a helpless creature who cannot be blamed for cheating on her husband because, after all, what is a bechari innocent woman to do when preyed on by a sexy, amoral, non-middle-class hot bod like Vikram who has the audacity to not be committed to her?

This is a curious new Hindi film version of the ‘good’ middle-class Indian woman: she sleeps with another man but cannot be held accountable for her actions because she ultimately backs her husband in his wrongdoing. The film also juxtaposes her against Vikram’s heavy-smoking, cleavage-baring, snobbish sister Preeti Makhija (Esha Gupta) to remind us of Bollywood’s conventional notion of the evil woman.

Never mind the subtle moralising for a moment: the fact is that there is zero chemistry between Cynthia-Rustom and Vikram-Cynthia. The lovely Pavan Raj Malhotra plays the case’s investigating officer, Senior Inspector Vincent Lobo, who provides the film’s most suspenseful portion, but that twist is spoilt by a number of plot faux pas and a general lack of flair.

For instance, the morning after having suffered a sprained ankle that required medical attention, Cynthia does not have even a hint of a hobble in her walk. A waiter who recalls an act of violence involving Vikram, tells the lawyer in court that no one but Rustom, Cynthia and Preeti would be able to vouch for his version of the truth, when in fact we are shown other people on screen in that flashback. Besides, it turns out that the club conducted a detailed inquiry into the scuffle. Are we to believe that the waiter was not aware of that inquiry?

I am not even looking into whether the portrayal of the Navy or judicial processes in the 1950s is accurate or whether the look of the time is authentic. Just reacting as an ordinary member of the audience, it has to be said that the treatment of the film is lackadaisical.

This is genuinely sad because if you sift out the frills, the faff and the chaff in Rustom, the pivotal plot is actually interesting and could have made for a solid thriller. The sensation-seeking public, the sensationalist media and the bizarre functioning of the Indian judiciary could certainly be a source of humour. It takes finely balanced writing and direction though to derive laughter from grim situations, and the team of Rustom lacks that finesse.

This is an opportunity lost.

Rating (out of five): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	151 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/rustom-review-farcical-execution-in-this-akshay-kumar-starrer-results-in-a-silly-film-2951588.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustom_(film)

Release date:	August 12, 2016
Director:	Ranjith Sankar
Cast: Language:	Jayasurya, Govind Padmasoorya, Sharafudheen, Aju Varghese, Pearl Maaney Malayalam

In a scene from Pretham, a mentalist called John Don Bosco guesses a man’s cellphone password simply by holding his hand. The cynical chap’s friend says excitedly: “Please do something similar with me.” Bosco replies without batting an eyelid: “What should I do? Rape you?” To which the said friend responds: “But I’m not a woman, no?” Sick!

Writer-director Ranjith Sankar positions this episode as light-hearted banter. Many scenes later, we witness Bosco fighting a moving battle on behalf of a woman targeted by voyeurism. Yes, the same Bosco who casually makes rape quips apparently feels strongly about the invasion of a woman’s privacy.

Does he have a split personality? No, Pretham does.

This is what happens when someone makes a “look at me, see how socially committed I am” kind of film without any genuine commitment.

Pretham is a supernatural thriller packaged in comedy. It is set in a gorgeous seaside resort in Kerala owned by three young men who have been friends since college. Shibu (played by Govind Padmasoorya) is a good-looking guy who takes Zumba classes at the resort and is having a Skype affair with his now-married ex-girlfriend. Denny Kokan (Aju Varghese) is a lecherous creep who leers at Shibu’s female Zumba students and tries to have a fling with one of them, a girl called Suhanissa played by the strikingly attractive Pearl Maaney. Priya Lal (Sharafudheen) is the simpleton of the group, smitten by Suhanissa.

Strange things start happening at the resort one day when Denny tries to shoot Suhanissa with his cellphone.

Is the place haunted? Or is a woman one of them misbehaved with trying to spook them? The answer comes in a surprising second half that is completely – and deliberately – at odds with the carefree tone of the first.

Pretham operates at two levels. The comedic elements actually work for the most part. The film scores with its delicious irreverence towards religion represented by the character Yesu (Dharmajan Bolgatty) who asks uncomfortable questions to a Christian priest and others.

The world needs more people who can let their hair down about faith, gods and goddesses. Pretham’s intelligent courage in that area is what makes its intermittently icky, if not thoroughly disgusting, attitude towards women so disappointing. Even before that horrendous rape remark, we are supposed to be entertained by Denny’s plan to secretly mix an aphrodisiac in Suhanissa’s drink. What next? Must we also laugh at boys slipping a roofie to a date?

The rape joke is especially obnoxious because it comes from Bosco, a man who is positioned as someone to be taken seriously within the universe of the film. Like him, Pretham’s attitude to women is confused and confusing. On the one hand it displays sensitivity in the denouement, on the other hand it treats Suhanissa in particular very trivially as a creature to be toyed with. Bosco, for instance, does not ask her to have a coffee with him, he ogles her to her face and asks if she will have “coffee, very hot coffee” (note the emphasis please). I almost expected him to lick his lips as he stared at her in that scene. Yuck!

Suhanissa is positioned as the kind of girl who would be described by conservative north Indians as “uss type ki ladki (that kind of girl)” and across most parts of India as the kind of girl you take to bed but not home to your mother. Read: an easy lay because, you know, her hair is permed, she is Westernised, she does Zumba, holds hands with men, goes into rooms alone with them, embraces men she is fond of without considering it a big deal and is sexually assertive when she meets a guy she likes… hawww, chhee, must definitely be “that type”, no?

All four men are very different in the film’s thriller strand, more mature, sobre and decent. These strangely inconsistent stances dilute the apparent intent of the film: to amuse, to scare and to make a point.

The change in tenor from comedy to whodunit as the story progresses is well handled and the big reveal in the end is unexpected. It succeeds despite the red herrings thrown in our direction. One of them involving a woman at the resort is rather intelligently dealt out, while others – suspended lamps moving in the dark, a resort employee appearing to be possessed – are stupid since no explanation is provided for them in the end.

Pretham makes multiple references to earlier Malayalam films in the horror genre, though the most telling mention of the lot is the 1978 classic Lisa. Keep in mind though that although this film has a supernatural element it is not, strictly speaking, a horror flick – it is at no point meant to be as frightening as it is meant to be suspenseful.

Pretham’s casting is spot on. Jayasurya brings gravitas to his role as Bosco and is a perfect foil to the three goofy friends at the centre of the drama. Padmasoorya, Varghese and Sharafudheen are natural actors. They share an easy chemistry and come across as real-life friends rather than actors playing roles.

The film is a mixed bag on the technical front. Most spaces in Prethamare inexplicably deserted. I recall spotting guests at the resort just once, and a college complex seems devoid of humans when Bosco first visits it. In another tech department though, Prethamcomes up trumps: the film’s waterfront setting is stunning, and cinematographer Jithu Damodar exploits it to the hilt without appearing obsessive. The opening shot of the sea made me long for my next visit to God’s Own Country.

Pretham is a partly effective paranormal thriller-cum-comedy, diluted by its mixed-up attitude to women and an ugly rape quip.

Footnote on the subtitles: At one point one of the lead trio addresses an elderly neighbour sarcastically as “Ammachi”. This is a respectful Malayalam form of address for an older woman that, in this instance, is being used like some people might mockingly use “Aunty”. That’s all very well, but the subtitling team translated “Ammachi” to “you old hag”. Errr, even when Ammachi and Aunty are used as ageist taunts, neither word is ever as crude as “hag”.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	127 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/pretham-review-jayasurya-stars-in-an-inconsistent-comedy-thriller-with-an-ugly-rape-quip-2954086.html

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

Release date:	August 12, 2016
Director:	Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Language:	Hrithik Roshan, Kabir Bedi, Pooja Hegde, Arunoday Singh, Manish Choudhary, Umang Vyas, Narendra Jha, Suhasini Mulay, Nitish Bharadwaj, Kishori Shahane, Sharad Kelkar, Diganta Hazarika, Casey Frank, Michael Homik Hindi

“The film does not support or promote any specific interpretations of the Origin, Character or Decline of the Ancient Indus Civilization. It does not claim to be an actual portrayal. Archaeologists and Historians have many different opinions and interpretations that remain to be confirmed through further studies. The Sindhu script is still undeciphered and no one knows the names of the cities at that time. So we have used the popular name – Mohenjo Daro!”

– Disclaimer carried at the start of the film Mohenjo Daro

If you wish to avoid heartburn and stand any chance of enjoying Mohenjo Daro, take the words of this caveat very seriously. Far from being a faithful portrayal of the Indus Valley Civilisation, writer-director Ashutosh Gowariker’s film uses the name of a city with high recall value as a mere hook – along with other markers from antiquity such as Harappa and Sumer – not to revisit history but as a vehicle for a true-blue Bollywood romance and an eternal story of good vs evil.

Gowariker, who earlier made Lagaan and Jodhaa Akbar, seems well intentioned even if he plays around with facts here. The film is genuinely concerned about environmental degradation. It is clearly intended too as a slap in the face of autocracy, an indictment of politicians and citizens who stay silent when confronted with despots, and a salaam to democracy. All this would have been far more effective if the quality of the storytelling had been consistent. As I watched Mohenjo Daro, I spent my time being partly amused (by the liberties taken with history), partly irritated, and partly entertained.

Mohenjo Daro is set in 2016 BC where we meet Sarman (Hrithik Roshan) living with his uncle Durjan (Nitish Bharadwaj), an indigo farmer, and aunt Bima (Kishori Shahane). Sarman is popular with the locals for his daredevilry that includes killing human-eating crocodiles. He is restless though, haunted by dreams of a one-horned beast and has for long longed to visit nearby Mohenjo-daro, much to Durjan’s dismay. One day, Durjan relents and Sarman travels to the city with his friend Hojo (Umang Vyas) and sackfuls of their produce. Once there, he discovers a people manipulated and oppressed by their cruel ruler Maham (Kabir Bedi), he falls for the high priest’s daughter Chaani (debutante Pooja Hegde) and discovers his own connection to the place.

Even to an inexpert eye, it is obvious that authenticity is not Mohenjo Daro’s strength – or goal. Chaani’s blue gown, for example, is so glaringly the handiwork of a 21^st century couturier rather than something from 4,000 years back as evidenced by statuettes of women of the Indus Civilisation unearthed by archaeologists. She takes a ritual dip in what appears to be a perfectly tiled five-star hotel swimming pool. Whirling dervishes pop up in a dance. And… I can go on.

To be fair, Mohenjo Daro is inconsistent in its inauthenticity. The unicorn is well chosen as a recurring motif since the beast appears on seals excavated from sites of the civilisation. The use of language in the film too is intriguing at first: the inhabitants of Sarman’s village are initially shown using a dialect that is just about decipherable to the average Hindi bhaashi, the camera then zooms in on the lips of a character as he speaks and when it zooms out they are all conversing in regular Hindi, which is really the only sensible route to take in a Hindi film since the Indus language is yet to be cracked. That clever cinematic device gives way to irregularities though, with “prateek” popping up as “parteek” (as Punjabis would say it) in the middle of the Sanskritised tongue spoken in the rest of the film. Never mind for a moment the historical appropriateness of Sanskrit in that setting. All that formal, old-world “kadaachit” and “sangini” and “anivaarya” sounds incongruous when the heroine wears dresses that in some scenes look like they were bought off a contemporary New Delhi catwalk and elsewhere seem sourced from the costumiers of The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur.

The film’s special effects too have ups and downs. The river in the opening scene is not bad at all, but the unicorn and the aerial shots of Mohenjo-daro are flat. It is sad that Indian SFX studios do top-notch work for Hollywood, but our own cinema so often comes off looking shoddy.

Still, if you keep in mind the warning in Paragraphs 1 & 2, Mohenjo Daro is not a washout. The first 90 minutes or so are well paced, the action scenes are well executed, and Roshan shines. It is not just that he is one of the greatest-looking men in the history of great-looking men; the fact is that in the hands of a director who can check his tendency to ham, he is also a fine actor.

So even when all else around him fails in Mohenjo Daro, you want to believe what his character believes, because he believes it so much with those eyes. His love for Chaani is senseless since he knows nothing about her – nor do we – apart from the fact that she is a statuesque beauty, but you almost will yourself to buy into it. (Spoiler alert) When he rushes a mass of humanity across a makeshift bridge made of boats in the climax, though my mind was filled with questions about physics and crowd control, I could not help but notice how immersed he seemed in the moment.

Every step of the way, whether Sarman is fighting injustice himself or urging Chaani to do so, it is hard not to be drawn in by Roshan’s sincerity. Except for fleeting moments when he goes overboard with his cutesy mirth on first encountering the young woman and a couple of lines when he sounds borderline-Rohit-from-Koi-Mil-Gaya, Gowariker directs him with a firm hand.

They earlier teamed up in what turned out to be a highlight of both their filmographies. Jodhaa Akbar, however, featured a plus that is sorely missing in Mohenjo Daro: chemistry between the lead pair. Regardless of her acting flaws, when Aishwarya Rai Bachchan appears on screen with Roshan, the result is electric. Poor Pooja Hegde cannot be faulted here. Both Roshan and Rai have 42 years each of life behind them, and the gravitas and charisma that comes with it. Hegde is a child in comparison with her hero. She is further hampered by Gowariker’s treatment of her, not as a key player in the story but as a mannequin. She seems like she deserves better than that.

She is not the only one thus spurned. For a man who painted a fiery portrait of feminine strength in Jodhaa Akbar, Gowariker is disappointingly disinterested in the female half of Mohenjo-daro’s population. Women are missing from all the central action in the film. Literally. Not only do they have nothing to do, hardly any women are even seen on screen, even in crowd scenes.

Chaani’s only role is to look sweet and fall for Sarman as he goes about the business of being a born leader and an amazing human being fighting selflessly for an entire community. As Maham’s long-suffering wife Laashi, Suhasini Mulay has just one scene in which to do and say something worthwhile. While she is at it, she reminds us of what a commanding talent she is in comparison with the King of Over-Acting, Kabir Bedi, who gets to dominate much of the film as Sarman’s primary foe.

Bollywood’s obsession with female youth has unintended comic consequences in Mohenjo Daro. Kishori Shahane, who plays Durjan’s wife Bima, is just five years Roshan’s senior. I swear I did not know this when I watched the film, but when Sarman addresses her as Kaaki (Aunty) I laughed, because they look the same age and there are palpable lover-like sparks between them.

Among the supporting cast, Assamese film actor Diganta Hazarika– making his Bollywood debut here – leaves a lasting impression.

A.R. Rahman’s music is lovely and slotted perfectly in the narrative. Tu hai’s melody and the use of percussion in the title track are particularly haunting, as is the background score. The choreography is too basic though for Roshan who is, without question, one of the best dancers this industry has ever had.

The standout jarring note in Mohenjo Daro is in its finale. (Spoiler ahead) When a dam in the film is breached and the city is washed away, a new river is formed. What will it be called, Sarman is asked. Ganga, he replies. It is ludicrous to suggest that the Ganga – which was already in existence– was born at the death of the Indus Civilisation. If the implication instead is that the entire populace travelled to her banks, then the massive geographical distance that separates Mohenjo-daro and the Ganga tells us that would have been impossible in a short period in that era. For the record, Mohenjo-daro was on the north-western edge of the subcontinent, in Sindh (modern Pakistan), whereas the Ganga flows through north India and eastwards into Bangladesh.

Fictionalising history is certainly not a crime. It is bizarre though to make factually inexplicable claims around it, or worse, to take a rich history and water it down to suit contemporary Bollywood conventions. Today, the most iconic reminder of the Indus Valley Civilisation is the bronze figurine known as The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo Daro excavated from this ancient city. She briefly appears in the film. There she stands with her legs slightly apart, one hand on her hips, a woman child so confident that it is sad to witness her descendants so many thousand years later still fighting for gender equality. That Gowariker has marginalised her contemporaries in his story, reducing them to bystanders while his hero saves their world, is inexcusable.

It is the film’s good fortune that that hero is played by an actor whose chemistry with his director is unmistakable. Hrithik Roshan’s conviction and verve carry itthrough even when Gowariker’s perennial Achilles heel – the inability to compress his thoughts – sets in along with the silly season and laxity. Mohenjo Daro is well-meaning, even entertaining up to a point. Sadly, it is also a patchy, historically dubious affair.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	155 minutes

Footnote on the film’s Censor rating: Mohenjo Daro includes some Game of Thrones-grade violence, yet has managed to get away with a UA rating from the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). In the same week has come the Malayalam film Pretham which was granted an even lighter rating – the most coveted U – despite featuring a vile rape joke. A depiction of sex between consenting adults in either film, as we know, would have automatically invited an A. Loud claps for the CBFC, please.

Trivia: (Spoiler alert) The film’s bloodiest scenes involve hand-to-hand combat in a stadium between Sarman and two mountain-sized savages who we are told are from “Tajik ke parvat”. Did you know that Casey Frank and Michael Homikwho play the giants are in fact professional basketball players from New Zealand? Now you do.

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo_Daro_(film)

(A shorter version of this article was published in The Hindu Businessline’s BLink on August 13, 2016. It was written before the release of Rustom and Mohenjo Daro.)

BOLLYWOOD AND THE ART OF AVOIDING FACTS

In the week of Rustom and Mohenjo Daro’s release, let us ask why so many Hindi films in 2016 – from Airlift to Budhia Singh– have shown a bizarre apathy towards authenticity and accuracy

By Anna MM Vetticad

By the time you read this, Ashutosh Gowariker’sMohenjo Daroand Tinu Suresh Desai’s Rustomwill be in theatres. This column goes to press before their release. It has, however, been hard to miss the chorus of online irritation all summer over perceived historical inexactitudes in the promotional material of Gowariker’s film, which is set in the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation. Since Rustom is said to be based on the true story of the murder committed by Commander K.M. Nanavati in 1959, some experts have also pointed out that the styling of the hero (Akshay Kumar) in the film’s posters and trailers is an incorrect representation of Indian Navy men in the 1950s.

My mantra as a critic: watch the film, then decide. Sadly though, the janta is justified in being cynical about Bollywood’s rare flirtations with ancient or recent history and biopics. This year has been particularly badon this front. From the superhit Airlift, to Mohammed Azharuddin’s biography that the opening disclaimer said was not a biography, to last week’s Budhia Singh: Born To Run, Hindi cinema has shown a bizarre apathy towards authenticity and accuracy in too many films based on true stories in 2016.

To be fair, research takes time, time costs money, and the biggest budgets of even India’s biggest three industries – Telugu, Hindi and Tamil – are still a fraction of what Hollywood spends per film. Historicals and period dramas are uncommon in India largely because costumes and sets for quality films in these genres are forbiddingly expensive. Beyond these constraints lies a disturbing truth though, that many Hindi filmmakers are just casual about facts, and the masses give them a long rope. (Note: this column is not a clean chit to other Indian industries, Hindi cinema just happens to be today’s focus.)

Take for instance Budhia Singh which was released in early August. Soumendra Padhi’s film is about the slumchild who was widely covered by the national and international media when he ran 48 marathons in 2005-06, culminating in a 65 km Bhubaneshwar-Puri run in 2006 at the age of four. Singh was subsequently taken away from his coach/adoptive father Biranchi Das by Odisha’s child welfare officials on the grounds that marathons are harmful for one so young.

Budhia Singh makes an appearance of raising questions about the late Das’ ethics, but covertly bats for him by caricaturing officialdom and portraying government representatives as a nasty, ill-intentioned, politicking bunch who did not have the boy’s interests at heart. It also fails to specify global norms from then and now. The International Association of Athletics Federations’ 2012 medical manual recommends 3 km as the maximum competition distance and 6 km as the weekly training distance for children below nine, whereas Das had Budhia reportedly running at least eight times that distance each week.

The grievousness of Das’ actions – however fond he may have been of the child – are mind boggling, but hey, what are a few data here and there or even a child’s health when you are trying to build up a man as a hero and hoping to cash in on viewer disillusionment with the country’s corrupt sports establishment?

Padhi merely excluded details that were inconvenient to the point he was trying to make through his film. Director Raja Krishna Menon went a step further than cherry-picking information: he fabricated facts.

Menon’s Airlift is about the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait after the 1990 invasion by Iraq.The particulars of the true story on which the film is based are laid out in a 2014 Scroll report:after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, the Government of India evacuated “more than 110,000 citizens from Iraq and Kuwait via an airlift that included nearly 500 flights. The operation is the largest civilian evacuation in history… Eventually, Air India would fly 488 flights over 59 days, carrying 111,711 passengers”.

In the film, 1.7 lakh Indians (not 1.1 lakh) are rescued through the single-handed efforts of a fictional businessman called Ranjit Katiyal (played by Akshay Kumar), after he persuaded a reluctant Indian MEA official to helpdespite overall government indifference. In actuality, this unprecedented achievement was the result of coordination between Indian bureaucrats, diplomats and some private individuals in Kuwait, following a diplomatic eggshell walk by then Foreign Minister I.K. Gujral.

At the time, Gujral was highly criticised for a very public, widely photographed embrace with Hussein, although that meeting while Iraq was under fire from much of the rest of the world is why Hussein allowed our citizens to leave. Considering the flak the V.P. Singh sarkarswallowed to make the evacuation happen, it seems beyond callous that Airlift portrays the government and bureaucracy as completely disinterested in the fate of its stranded citizens back then. It is evident that all this was done in a bid to build up the imaginary Katiyal as a gutsy solo player in the tradition of conventional Bollywood heroes.

A text plate at the end of the film acknowledges a “Mathunny Matthews” and a “Vedi” without explaining who they were or what role they had in this mammoth exercise. Apparently, giving the full names and details of real-life stars is unnecessary. Apparently too, their names were an inconvenience since a non-existent Katiyal would better fit the persona and physique of the film’s chosen leading man. (For the record, Mathunny/Sunny Matthews and Harbhajan Singh Vedi were among the handful of private individuals who reportedly spearheaded the operation on the ground in Kuwait.)

This is not to say other film industries do not toy with facts. For instance, Hollywood’s 2015 offering Steve Jobs– a biopic of the Apple founder – and its writer Aaron Sorkin were slammed by journalist Joe Nocera in The New York Timesfor “how little it had to do with the flesh and blood Steve Jobs” for various reasons. Nocera writes:

There are moments in the film, like the big “reconciliation” scene with his out-of-wedlock daughter, Lisa, that are almost offensively in opposition to the truth. (Although Jobs’s relationship with Lisa could be volatile at times, she had in fact lived with him and his family all through high school.)

…As it turns out, Sorkin is quite proud of his disregard for facts. “What is the big deal about accuracy purely for accuracy’s sake?” he told New York magazine around the time “The Social Network” came out. The way he sees it, he is no mere screenwriter; rather, he’s an artist who can’t be bound by the events of a person’s life — even when he’s writing a movie about that person.

Ben Affleck’s Oscar-winning 2012 film Argo, gripping though it was, was conscienceless in this matter. Argo  was about the rescue of six US  embassy officials in the 1979-81 Tehran hostage situation. It gave credit for the evacuation entirely to the CIA and its operative Tony Mendez, while diminishing the role of the Canadian embassy, a role that Jimmy Carter – who was the US President during the crisis – vouches for.

Carter told CNN after watching the film, “Ninety per cent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian. And the movie gives almost full credit to the American CIA.” He added: “Ben Affleck’s character in the film was only… in Tehran a day and a half… The main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process.”

Argoshowed the British and New Zealand embassies in Tehran turning away the American diplomats before they take refuge in the Canadian embassy. This too was contrary to recorded accounts, and in 2013 New Zealand’s Parliament even passed a resolution censuring the film for this falsehood.

What Hollywood does wrong, Bollywood can do worse. Argo fibbed and juggled reality to play up the CIA’s role in a true story of valour and play down the role of its allies, in keeping with the US film industry's perennial policy of lionising America in all contexts. Airlift, on the other hand, created a whole new human being tailor-made for Bollywood melodrama and a particular superstar.

Whether such decisions are motivated by convenience, personal ideology or artistic sloth, filmmakers usually cite “cinematic/dramatic/creative licence” as their excuse when confronted with facts. Affleck is quoted in Britain’s The Telegraphexplaining his choices thus: “I struggled with this long and hard, because it casts Britain and New Zealand in a way that is not totally fair. But I was setting up a situation where you needed to get a sense that these six people had nowhere else to go. It does not mean to diminish anyone.” What a wonderfully worded, sincere-sounding string of euphemisms to explain away creative laziness.

No doubt feature filmmakers do need some leeway to heighten the entertainment quotient in their works for a mass audience. However, “cinematic licence” cannot become a shield for negligence, indolence, prejudice, opportunism, defamation and lies.

Hey filmmakers, creative licence need not be irresponsibly used. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, for instance, shows Milkha Singh haunted by memories of the Partition during the 1960 Rome Olympics 400m final and looking back as he nears the finish, thus losing the race; Singh, however, says he lost because he made a poor judgement call and consciously changed his rhythm mid-race. Mehra’s dramatisation is harmless, even if needless. Available images of Emperor Akbar suggest he was not a Hrithik Roshan-grade hottie, but no one holds that against Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar. It is unlikely that a historical text has recorded Peshwa Bajirao sharing a romantic bath with his wife, but it would make no sense to cite that scene as a grouse against Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani.

On a serious note, it goes without saying that Sonam Kapoor in this year’s wonderful Neerja had to guess the expressions on Pan Am flight purser Neerja Bhanot’s face in the hours before her death on a hijacked flight in 1986.

See, we do understand “cinematic licence”. Just do us a favour and do not hide behind it when you are being immoral, amoral, unjust, unfair, biased, miserly or plain lazy, especially not when you fool around with reputations and lives.

Link to the shorter version of this column published in The Hindu Businessline:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/bollywood-and-the-art-of-avoiding-facts/article8978943.ece

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: All Hail The Violators of Women

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/all-hail-the-violators-of-women/article8881949.ece

RELATED LINKS:

Anna M.M. Vetticad’s review of Rustom:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/rustom-review-farcical-execution-in-this-akshay-kumar-starrer-results-in-a-silly-film-2951588.html

Anna M.M. Vetticad’s review of Mohenjo Daro:

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2016/08/review-418-mohenjo-daro.html

Anna M.M. Vetticad’s review of Airlift:

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2016/01/review-365-airlift.html

Anna MM Vetticad’s review of Budhia Singh – Born To Run:

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2016/08/review-415-budhia-singh-born-to-run.html

Journalist Sandeep Unnithan’s break-down of Akshay Kumar’s look in Rustom:

https://twitter.com/SandeepUnnithan/status/765190813592715264

Photo captions: Stills/posters from (1) Rustom (2) Mohenjo Daro (3) Airlift (4) Budhia Singh Born to Run

Photographs courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rustom_(film)

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo_Daro_(film)

(3) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airlift_(film)

(4) https://www.facebook.com/BudhiaBornToRun/

Release date:	August 19, 2016
Director:	Mudassar Aziz
Cast: Language:	Diana Penty, Abhay Deol, Momal Sheikh, Jimmy Sheirgill, Ali Fazal, Piyush Mishra Hindi

Urdu is like French and Bengali – the sort of language in which a person might spew abuse yet sound like they are telling you they love you. This lyrical tongue with all its eccentricities and beauty is one of the pegs on which hangs the week’s big Bollywood release Happy Bhag Jayegi. The other peg is a Punjabi woman called Happy.

Written and directed by Mudassar Aziz, Happy Bhag Jayegi is the story of Amritsari bride Happy (Diana Penty) who runs away on the day of her marriage ceremony. Even as the groom is readying himself for their mandap, Happy boards the wrong escape vehicle and ends up in Pakistan. While her husband-in-waiting Daman Singh Bagga (Jimmy Sheirgill) and her boyfriend Guddu (Ali Fazal) desperately search for her, she creates havoc in the lives of a budding politician in Lahore, Bilal Ahmed (Abhay Deol), and his fiancé Zoya played by the Pakistani actress Momal Sheikh making her Bollywood debut here.

Most of this you might already have gathered from the trailer. What the trailer does not reveal is that the film’s best moments have been packed into it, and there is nothing much else it has to say. Happy Bhag Jayegi is hilarious at a superficial level and Penty is brimming with potential – as she was in her first film Cocktailin 2012 – but her Happy, despite being the titular protagonist, is the most under-written character in the entire story. So ultimately what we are left with is a film filled with laughter up to a point but completely lacking depth.

Co-produced by Aanand L. Rai, the supremely successful director of Tanu Weds Manuand Tanu Weds Manu Returns, Happy Bhag Jayegi starts off very well. A runaway bride landing up in the home of a prominent politician in Lahore without her passport or visa is a situation teeming with possibilities. The first half moves at an accelerated pace, the humour is unrelenting and every single member of the cast is rock solid. Deol, in particular, gets a role worth his charisma after a long time and Piyush Mishra playing his ally, the hapless senior policeman ASP Usman Afridi, nudges the funny bone each time he walks on to the screen. Besides, how can you not giggle over a film featuring a grown Punjabi man called Winkle?

And then something goes wrong. What happened in the pre-interval portion is repeated post interval, and it gradually becomes evident that Mudassar Aziz – who earlier made the disastrous Dulha Mil Gaya (2010) with Sushmita Sen – does not know how to take his concept forward. The film’s limited writing is its failing.

Worst of all is the treatment of Happy. She seems like an interesting creature, a free spirit who will not be constrained by a despotic father, a violence-prone fiancé or misadventures in enemy territory. Yet beyond that one-line description, the film fails to acquaint us with this woman. She remains nothing more than the introductory note about her that was probably sent to the producer at the start of this project. Guddu tells Bilal that it is impossible not to love Happy once you get to know her, but we never get to know her so we do not find that out for ourselves.

Imagine having your name in the name of the film, and yet being given only one calm conversation with another character throughout that film’s 126 minutes. Happy is constantly described with admiration and gazed at with adoring eyes by the two young men in her life, but we do not have a chance to fall in love with her ourselves because she remains such a distant figure. She is forever running in Happy Bhag Jayegi, but after a while the running too remains a gimmick that worked well in the promotional teaser but means little in a full-length story.

Oddly enough, Bilal’s character is far better explored in the screenplay. In fact, at some point this becomes more a film about Bilal and Zoya than about Happy and Guddu. Perhaps a more appropriate title could have been Kya Bilal Happy Ke Saath Bhag Jayega? However, Aziz’s inadequacies show up here too. He is clearly keen to surprise us with Bilal’s actions and decisions towards the end of the second half, but since the man’s motivations are poorly fleshed out, they remain completely unconvincing.

Bagga, on the other hand, is described as a vicious fellow by Happy. You can see that he ain’t no saint by the behaviour of the goons who form his coterie. However, his character never rises above Jimmy Sheirgill’s naturally likeable personality.

For the record, though most of the story is set in Pakistan, the film is shot entirely in India – in Amritsar, Chandigarh and Mumbai. Aziz throws in some crowd-pleasing lines about Pakistan, but they are inoffensive and balanced out by the bond that forms between the four youngsters at the centre of the story.

These are among the few moments of maturity in the screenplay. The others come in the atypical portrayal of the film’s Punjabis (they do not call out “Balle Balle” or dance the Bhangra at the drop of a hat) and in the writing of Zoya. She could have easily been pigeonholed as the evil doosri aurat (other woman) in the hero’s life, but somewhere along the way, a spot of nuance enters the picture and she becomes more than that lazy stereotype. One of the film’s nicest scenes is the one in which she urges Bilal to make his own life decisions rather than bowing to his father’s wishes at all times.

Happy Bhag Jayegiincludes the song Ashiq tera with the following lyrics (music – Sohail Sen, words – Aziz himself): “Dil ke aage yeh aafat badi hai / Khwahishein phir bhi zidd pe adi hain / Humse maayus hoga zamana / Par zamane ki kisko padi hai.” Roughly translated, that means: “There is a huge hurdle standing in the way of my desires / but I am determined to follow my heart / The world may be disappointed in me / But who cares about this world?” THIS is what the film should have been and could have been about. Happy Bhag Jayegi could have been about finding happiness in pursuing your dreams. You can see that that is what it wants to be, but does not know how to be.

Aziz obviously has a flair for comedy but he needs to work on it. What he desperately needed here was either more time and thought, or a co-writer to help him build on the starting blocks he set up. Happy Bhag Jayegi is fun and funny in large parts, but the second half is also bogged down by how insubstantial and consequently forgettable it is.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	126 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/happy-bhag-jayegi-review-diana-penty-brims-with-potential-film-is-funny-but-forgettable-2964790.html

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

Film still courtesy: Raindrop Media

Release date:	August 19, 2016
Director:	Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Cast: Language:	Kavya Madhavan, Dileep, Nedumudi Venu, Indrans, Akshara Kishor, Srinda Arhaan, K. P. A. C. Lalitha Malayalam (The film was subtitled in the hall where I watched it. And the subs were, for a change, good.)

A Kollam man struggles to find employment and regain his standing within the family and community. K. Purushothaman Nair has been a jobless graduate for eight years, a husband for about seven and a father for six. His wife Devi’s teaching position and father-in-law’s pension keep the kitchen fires going. The couple, their daughter, Devi’s father and her sickly brother stay together in a house Devi inherited from her mother.

This is the setting in which Adoor Gopalakrishnan places Pinneyum (Once Again), his first film in eight years. Like most of the legendary writer-director’s works, this one too is distinguished by its apparent stillness that belies the turmoil within. Everything about it is minimalist – from the dialogues to the lovely background score that effectively partners the sounds of nature. As always, the film’s deceptive calm blankets a multitude of complex, crucial issues.

There is much then in Pinneyum to remind us why Gopalakrishnan’s first feature became a milestone that changed the course of Malayalam cinema. Unfortunately, that pathbreaking 1972 film – Swayamvaram starring Sharada and Madhu – and its mature, credible handling of a couple in far worse financial and social circumstances, is also why the confused characterisation and gender politics in Pinneyum ends up being particularly disappointing.

In a way, Pinneyum comes across as two films. The first one is before the interval, bearing the director’s masterful signature: quietly observant, deeply saddening, exemplifying the strain that money-related stress can place on even the most loving relationship, and illustrative of how patriarchy weighs down not just women, but also men who reap the benefits of their social privilege not realising that it could be accompanied by back-breaking burdens for the less well-off among them. The second is post-interval when Pinneyum shifts its tone, wandering off into a more mysterious realm reportedly inspired by a real-life crime.

Both might have come together as a cohesive whole if it had not been for the unconvincing characterisation. Purushothaman is portrayed as desperate but not greedy, devious or over-smart in the opening half of Pinneyum. Once life looks up, he appears relieved, especially since his relationship with his beloved Devi seems to have repaired itself. Their bond had weakened through his years of unemployment, but they seem to have made their peace with each other.

It is hard to believe that at this point, the Purushothaman we met initially would have thought of such a drastic step to further secure their future unless something pushed him over the edge or he was haunted by memories of his earlier misery – neither case is made evident to us. What was the tipping point then? The natural progression of thoughts and events in the first half takes leave of the film here. One day he and Devi are chatting about how people’s attitudes have changed ever since their lives improved, shortly afterwards he is sharing a dramatic plan with her. Why?

This is not to say other men and women have never acted in this fashion in similar situations when life is trotting along comfortably, but that this particular man did not come across as being that kind of person. In retrospect, Purushothaman’s literary interests mentioned early in the film can be seen as a hint of what is to come. That hint, as it happens, is very contrived.

Similarly, Devi’s father Pappu Pillai and uncle’s decision to cooperate with Purushothaman is inexplicable. He seems not to have needed to persuade them much. Devi’s dad was always fond of his son-in-law and never unkind to him, but he also comes across as a level-headed, good man. Why then did he go along with such a foolhardy and needless plan? And having gone along with it, how come he and the others were so stupid in their execution, so cruel and so untouched by their conscience?

Devi’s evolution is more believable. However, a few moments in the treatment suggest that perhaps the director is not as liberal as he seems. Through the first half, Devi is shown being irritable with her husband. This is perfectly realistic – after all, financial tension can affect the best of us, many of us are guilty of letting off steam on our loved ones and such a portrayal is certainly not judgmental towards her or women at large. However, when she asks her husband to get their daughter ready for school, it seems as if that too is being offered as evidence of her impatience with him. It is as if Gopalakrishnan does not automatically see an overworked woman wanting her husband to share the domestic workload; as if the mere act of seeking his cooperation in housework is a slight.

If this was not his intention, then it amounts to unacceptable thoughtlessness, since this fleeting scene perpetuates a misogynistic notion that home management is a woman’s sole responsibility, that economic independence makes women arrogant, and that an expectation of teamwork in the house is a mark of that arrogance. This is a let-down, coming as it does from the King of Nuance.

That said, Pinneyum is not insignificant on the gender front. Commercial cinema tends to romanticise marriage without taking into consideration the practicalities of running a house. Song and dance, violins in the wind, hormones and true love cannot put a roof over your head and food on the table. This was Swayamvaram’spre-occupation44 years back. DittoPinneyum today. In that sense, this new film could well have been titled Swayamvaram Pinneyum (Swayamvaram Once Again). The point it makes is still relevant. In keeping with the timelessness of his theme, Gopalakrishnan does not specify the year in which his story is set. We are left to figure out the date from the absence of cellphones and other small clues.

The most believable – and appealing – of all Pinneyum’s characters is Devi’s brotherKuttan, a sharply etched example of how innocents often suffer for the sins of those they love.

It needs to be said though that Gopalakrishnan inexplicably papers over the absolute callousness and immorality of Purushothaman’s actions in the latter part of Pinneyum. When Devi reminds him of the consequences of his deeds, she forgets to mention those outside her family who were destroyed by him. At least she is not mindless of them. Purushothaman, on the other hand, is acutely aware of the pain caused to her and himself, but seems not to spare a thought for what he has done to others. Yet, the film works hard to make us like this man.

Despite its flaws though, Pinneyum remains intermittently moving. This is partly because of the atmosphere Gopalakrishnan builds up from the opening scenes, shot through with a sense of foreboding and a pall of gloom; partly because of the editing (B. Ajith Kumar) and camerawork (M.J. Radhakrishnan) that give the narrative a natural air and pace; but most of all because of the principal cast.

Kavya Madhavan and Dileep share an easy on-screen chemistry playing Devi and Purushothaman, even if it is amusing to see the 47-year-old actor announce his character’s age as 31 years and 10 months old. What is it about major commercial male stars in India that makes them so reluctant to play men of their own age?

Dileep effectively conveys Purushothaman’s initial desperation, his later sense of relief and his searing heartbreak in the end with remarkable restraint. Madhavan is faultless in presenting to us Devi’s fatigue, her bitterness and her sense of utter hopelessness.

Although this is not the kind of film that concerns itself greatly with physical beauty, it is still hard not to note, for the nth time, that she is one of the most gorgeous women in India.

Despite the sketchy characterisation, the ever-wonderful Nedumudi Venu too tugs at the heart strings with his portrayal of Pappu Pillai. Akshara Kishor as the younger version of Devi and Purushothaman’s daughter is cute as a button, just as she is on TV’s Karuthamuthu.

The shining star of the lot though is Indrans playing Devi’s brother. The writing of his character and his sensitive performance could bring a lump to the throat of the worst cynic.

Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Pinneyum then is a mixed bag. It is weighed down by its confused characterisation and shift in tone, yet manages in the overall analysis to remain a poignant film.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	122 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/pinneyum-review-adoors-new-film-is-poignant-despite-some-confused-characterisation-2967834.html

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

Release date:	August 19, 2016
Director:	Midhun Manuel Thomas
Cast: Language:	Sara Arjun, Sunny Wayne, Aju Varghese, Siddique, John Kaippallil, Shine Tom Chacko, Dharmajan Bolgatty, Leona Lishoy, Saiju Kurup Malayalam

On the face of it, Ann Maria Kalippilaanuis a light-hearted romp through an episode in a pre-teen’s life. Ann Maria(played by Sara Arjun) lives in Kerala with her doctor mother (Leona Lishoy) while her father – also a medico, played by Saiju Kurup– has taken off to a Red Cross camp in Syria. Clearly he is a nice guy, which is why he voluntarily works in a war-torn country – he just forgot to make his own daughter his priority.

Ann is a lively girl with a sunny disposition, dearly loved by both Mum and Dad. He, however, constantly disappoints her by reneging on his promises to be there for the next big day in her life then the next and the next. Her troubled mind combined with her acute powers of observation and fertile imagination set off a chain of events as a result of which she ends up crossing swords with the school’s villainous physical training instructor David (John Kaippallil) and becoming buddies with a small-time crook called Poombatta i.e. Butterfly Gireesh (Sunny Wayne), a nickname earned from the lore that he strikes so hard, his victims see butterflies and not stars.

It is all sweetly child-like until this point. Kids tend to say and do the darnedest things. We know too that they are quick to imitate and imbibe the worst of what adults say and do, often the very things we hope they did not see or hear us do or say, so it is both amusing and believable that Ann goes off in search of a “vaadaka goonda” (hired hooligan) when she overhears her mother telling another adult that that is the only way to set some people right. What is strange though is a Mum who is portrayed as an otherwise sensible parent, allowing a minor daughter to constantly hang out with this particular vaadaka goonda because someone happened to tell her he is a harmless fraud. Err… he is a petty criminal and a drunken lout.

Would a responsible parent not conduct some sort of investigation on discovering the unlikely friendship? Would she, should she assume that such a person is “harmless” to an under-age girl? Not only is this parental behaviour improbable considering what we otherwise see of Ann’s mother, but it is also risky, foolish and certainly not something a children’s film should endorse. This is hardly the best way to teach young viewers an anti-classist lesson.

Midhun Manuel Thomas– who earlier directed Aadu Oru Bheegara Jeevi Aanu – clearly means well. The old dictum about the road to hell being paved with good intentions is worth remembering here though. Because over and above the charms of the principal cast and the film’s frothy veneer, lies a bizarre – perhaps unwittingly made – point: that since every child needs a father figure to look up to, if the father is not available then any man will do. Seriously, anybody! Daddy illengil, vaadaka goonda engilum. Pita nahin toh acchhe dil waala goonda hi sahi – koi toh mard hona chahiye har bachche ki zindagi mein. This is as silly and dangerous as the wicked-stepmother stereotype perpetuated by children’s literature down the ages.

When faced with demands for accountability, many film folk respond with: this is just a film … c’mon chill … it’s only entertainment. Actually, no film is ever “just a film” and there is no genre in the world that requires closer attention than films directed at the very young. At a time when Hollywood appears to have turned over a new leaf, and is turning stereotypes on their head in films so beautifully relatable to children such as Maleficent, Frozen and Inside Out, it is disappointing that Malayalam cinema would churn out such tosh.

More’s the pity because Ann MariaK has so much potential and several endearing elements. Such as the blossoming bond between Gireesh and his new employer played by Siddique – now thereis a lesson about ignoring class boundaries that is well worth offering children. Likewise, it is lovely to see Gireesh’s transformation in the face of Ann’s innocence and innate goodness.

Writer-director Thomas displays some panache in the narration of two versions of Gireesh’s back story. The use of animation in one is both adventurous and apt. The later trip to a fantastical realm with Ann’s ‘angel’ (and a neat overturning of gender assumptions in that sub-plot) is also evidence that Thomas is not as casual a filmmaker as one might assume from the less-well-thought-out aspects of this film.

The cast is a roll call of fine talents. Arjun – who earlier starred inDeiva Thirumagal with acting stalwart Vikram and in a small role as Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s daughter in Jazbaa just last year – is a sturdy performer, self-assured beyond her years. She is just 11.

Gireesh is played by the unassumingly attractive Sunny Wayne who manages to give his character both a brooding intensity and a comic appeal. Wayne’s Gireesh finds a perfect foil in his partner-in-criminal-laziness, Ambrose played by Aju Varghese. Varghese and Dharmajan Bolgatty in small roles are fun to watch.

The pick of the supporting cast though is Siddique who enters the picture late into the story, yet owns Ann Maria K as much as Arjun and Wayne. This is the sort of film in which care has been taken in the casting of even the tiniest roles (including one of the most handsome men in this country in a cameo) and it shows.

Similar finesse was required in the subtitles though. While occasionally glancing at the subs for this review, I did not see any grammatical or spelling errors (what a relief!) but I noticed a couple of places where the words on screen were different from what was being said. I distinctly remember one point at which a child refers to someone called “Alex C Chacko” whereas the line flashing on screen mentions a “Jose C Kurian”. Wonder what that was about.

Nice music, nice visuals, pretty art design – the packaging is all in place. If Thomas and his co-writer John Manthrickal had not been so nonchalant about certain aspects of their screenplay, this could have been a significant film. Their good intentions and the allure of the cast, however, are not reason enough to ignore Ann Maria Kalippilaanu’s mindless, oddball messaging.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	128 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/ann-maria-kalippilaanu-review-sara-arjuns-charm-is-eclipsed-by-bizarre-messaging-2968734.html

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

Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM6OXH4J18g

Release date:	August 25, 2016
Director:	Remo D’souza
Cast: Language:	Tiger Shroff, Amrita Singh, Jacqueline Fernandez, Kay Kay Menon, Nathan Jones Hindi

In a scene exemplifying the worst and best of the deliciously named A Flying Jatt, our costumed Punjabi superhero lands up at an airport to thwart a terror attack. We already know that he can move at the speed of lightning. Here in the midst of scared passengers and gun-toting villains, he is so fast that the rest of the world appears to freeze in that moment as he snatches weapons away from the bad guys, adjusts people around and fixes the situation so that those goons literally fall at the feet of the police when he is done.

It is all very funny and well-choreographed. Sadly, it is also terribly familiar. All that is missing is the Eurythmics song Sweet dreams are made of thisin the background. But for that musical accompaniment, writer-director Remo D’souza has shamelessly copied the entire concept of the scene from the one that so recently made Quicksilver an iconic player in the X-Men film series.

D’souza gives us no indicator that this was intended as a tribute. Besides, “tribute” would be too convenient an umbrella to hide beneath, considering that so much of his film is borrowed from American superhero flicks.

As it happens, in the superhero aspects of his story, he falters wherever he is not lifting ideas: and so Flying Jatt temporarily loses his powers and self-healing ability, but we never find out why; we are not told either how the supervillain Raka gained his powers – he simply lay in toxic waste for several days and developed his invincibility. You and I would die in similar circumstances, how did he not? Not even a semblance of semi-convincing scientific or mythological mumbo-jumbo is offered as explanation.

There is a well-thought-out twist though in the matter of how Raka retains his strength: he feeds on pollutants, wilting when the air is clean but revving up when he takes in toxins – neat way of talking to kids about environmental issues.

A Flying Jatt’s plagiarism, not-so-hot SFX and patchy production design give it an air of tackiness, yet it cannot be written off. The film is delightful early on when it is laughing at itself and the superhero genre. The scenes in which the protagonist and his family first discover his powers are hysterical, especially his confusion about what the hell is now expected of him. There are plenty of other comedic interludes that make this an interesting experiment in a genre rarely visited by Bollywood that has earned Hollywood billions worldwide.

The story revolves around Mrs Dhillon (Amrita Singh) and her son Aman (Tiger Shroff), a martial arts instructor who is afraid of heights and dogs, and is often the butt of pranks in the school where he teaches. The industrialist Malhotra (Kay Kay Menon) runs factories that are ruining the air and water in the vicinity. Mrs D stands up to him when he demands to buy land belonging to her and her neighbours, including a patch on which stands a sacred tree.

Publicity shot of Nathan Jones with
Tiger Shroff and Remo D'souza

Not long afterwards, we meet Malhotra’s hired goon Raka, a mountainous fellow played by WWA and WWE wrestler Nathan Jones. When Aman and Raka clash one stormy night, an episode combining lightning and an ode to the Sikh religion end up giving Aman his Superman-like strength, his Spidey sense, the gift of flight plus the ability to absorb knowledge and skills at an incredible pace. Since he must remain incognito, Aman takes on the moniker Flying Jatt for his superhero avatar.

Also in the picture is Aman’s colleague, the schoolteacher Kirti (Jacqueline Fernandez), who is the film’s designated female-person-for-the-hero-to-fall-in-love-with.

Woven into the film’s overt messaging about environmental pollution is a running tribute to the Sikh community. That element is a mixed bag. I mean, I love that Mrs D skewers idiots who mindlessly mouth the cliché “Sardarji ke baarah baj gaye”. Seriously, community-directed humour is fine, but not when used unrelentingly in personal interactions. Imagine being Sikh, Irish or Polish. How do you admit that you are bored to death with Sardar, Irishman or Pole jokes or even hurt by the non-stop lampooning, without being accused of over-sensitivity, that too by people who would not take even half a wisecrack about themselves or their communities?

That said, A Flying Jatt misses the opportunity here to graduate from being a comedy with lessons thrown in for very very little kids, to a children’s film with the sort of adult depth that is a hallmark of some of the most significant works in this genre. The bow to Sikhs turns treacly and in-your-face populist beyond a point, and there is no discussion apart from the obvious about the beautiful symbolism of the turban. At a time when the entire world is blithely discussing Islamic dress, we are still fearful of raising questions regarding public displays of religion by other major faiths. Why?

D’souza might well argue that India, with its many violence-prone religious representatives, is hardly the place for such a discourse. Every place ought to be the right place for intelligent, prejudice-free debate and we cannot all be waiting for someone else to bell the cat. As a children’s film then, A Flying Jatt is impactful. As entertainment for grown-ups, it is limited.

That said, just a week after Happy Bhag Jayegi, it is good to see Bollywood once again giving us a film about Punjab-based Punjabis shorn of the usual stereotypes about the community.

Tiger Shroff’s performance and screen persona in this film are no different from Heropantiand Baaghi. It is hard to dislike him. He has the sweetest of smiles, there is a dancerly grace to all his movements and he even fights with elegance. However, his Caucasian features make him a misfit in the worlds he has visited in his three films so far and he is too camera conscious when not dancing or throwing punches. It is his good fortune that he comes across as a really nice guy, so that you almost want to forgive him his strained acting here in A Flying Jatt.

Amrita Singh, who was so good playing a baddie in Aurangzeb, overacts in a couple of scenes in this film, but for the most part is relaxed and convincing. She is really pleasant to watch when she lets her hair down in the comic scenes.

The often superb Kay Kay Menon though, lays it on too thick to convey his evil intentions. The thing about artistes like him is that you have to console yourself by imagining that they are well aware of their hamming, because they are so darned good when they are not.

In Dishoom Jacqueline Fernandez gave us glimpses of what she might be when she is treated as more than a showpiece. She is back to the dolly routine in A Flying Jatt, playing a bespectacled Barbie with constantly widened eyes, who does not speak, but squeaks. She comes into her own only while dancing to Beat pe booty. But c’mon Ms, you are more than just your booty.

The production design is inconsistent. Most of the settings look fake while trying to convince us they are not. The fantasy sequence featuring the song Toota jo kabhi tara works because it is deliberately faux and looks prettily fairytale-like as a result, straight out of a Disney animation film. I also enjoyed the ballet-like choreography in that scene.

Large parts of A Flying Jatt are unoriginal and tacky, right down to that well-intentioned yet poorly composed sentence flashing on screen right in the end and credited to Remo: “Everything has an alternative except Mother Earth.” The film’s comedy, occasional inventiveness and aura of innocence are what make it effective in its own way, despite the lack of depth.

D’souza had displayed his natural wit even in his first film F.A.L.T.U.in 2011. A Flying Jatt could have been so much better than what it is, if he had not kept one eye fixed Westward for inspiration. This one is perhaps best suited to the very very young.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	151 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/a-flying-jatt-review-tiger-shroff-is-a-sikh-superhero-in-this-tacky-yet-funny-film-2976430.html

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

Film still courtesy: Hype PR

Publicity photograph of Nathan Jones with Tiger Shroff and Remo D’souza courtesy: Raindrop Media

Release date:	Kerala: August 12, 2016. Delhi: August 26
Director:	Sajid Yahiya
Cast: Language:	Jayasurya, Sshivada, Sunil Sukhada, Molly Kannamaly, Saiju Kurup, Joju George, Yog Japee Malayalam

Imagine a little kid born in Kerala being named Dawood Ibrahim by his parents. Life for him would perhaps be even more challenging than it was for an African-American with the middle name Hussein and a surname that rhymes with Osama in post-9/11 America.

Little Dawood Ibrahim of our story grows up to be a policeman and is sent off to Kollanahalli village on the Kerala-Karnataka border. It is the kind of posting assigned to no-gooders, not to a promising new entrant. The police station in Kollanahalli is dilapidated, the facilities there so unused that when a phone rings for the first time in years, the lizard that had made the instrument its home is startled. Nothing but petty crime – goat and chicken thefts – take place in this outbackof God’s Own Country, and all scores are settled by and within the community. That is, until Inspector Dawood Ibrahim takes matters into his own hands.

Whatever it is you think happens next, you are wrong. The opening scenes of debutant writer-director Sajid Yahiya’s Inspector Dawood Ibrahimimply that we are in for a hardcore masala film with an invincible cop at the helm, Jayasurya doing a Suriya in Singhamstyle, complete with slow-mo, swagger and a signature song. Wrong again.

Inspector Dawood Ibrahim (abbreviated in the title to IDI, which is also the Malayalam word for a blow/punch) is a clever spoof on regular commercial cop dramas – clever, because it is designed to please consumers of unabashedly massy fare as much as those who are cynical about such content. And so, it features plenty of biff, boom, bang, loud music and dialoguebaazi, but each time you think it is about to fall into a formulaic rut, each time you wonder if it has begun to take itself seriously, it turns around and laughs at itself in the face.

It takes a while for the film to reveal its intentions, but once it does IDI is a fun ride right down to the sidesplitting ending. Note of caution: you had better stay glued to the screen in the climactic fight, because if you miss that split-second flash of a throne turning to something else and then back, you may miss the realisation that at this point too, nothing may be what it seems.

Jayasurya, who is currently also in theatres with the comparatively insipid Pretham, is a joy to watch as a policeman whose circumstances are scoffing at him. It is always nice to see such a major star in self-deprecating mode. In this particular instance, the star is taking the mickey out of not just his own role or his own film, but all commercial police films across Indian industries. He embodies the film’s Dawood: striking, good-looking, perfectly suited to those low-angle shots that build him up as an imposing figure, filled with hopes of vanquishing villains to a resounding background score, only to realise that real life is not a mainstream Indian movie.

The rest of the cast do precisely what they are required to do: Yog Japee as the international don Akbar Ali and Saiju Kurup as the crook operating in Mangalore overact appropriately. Joju George as the local petty criminal Vasu is by turns fearsome and fearful. Sunil Sukhada and Molly Kannamaly cracked me up in their roles as Dawood’s sidekicks Kuttanpilla and Angel Mary. Thanks to them, never again will I be able to see an incoming call from an “unknown caller” on my phone without doubling up with laughter. Yes it is true that their looks are used here as metaphors for the decrepit Kollanahalli police station, but to be fair, IDI does not pick on anyone in particular, it picks on everyone. If you must be non-PC, this is how you do it.

IDI’s dialogue writing by Arouz Irfan (who co-wrote the screenplay with Yahiya) is smart and cocks a snook at so many clichés. Even the smattering of potty jokes are bearable because the film never lets up on its self-effacing tone. I am not sure the English lines dished out by Akbar Ali were intentionally awkward, but wittingly or unwittingly they have ended up matching his wannabe-grandiose character.

There are plenty of plot points that can be viewed as weak links in IDI, including the ludicrous implausibility of a gangster sought after by Interpol deciding to personally respond to a summons of sorts by an unknown cop in a deserted outpost, yet it works. Because every apparent weak link could also be explained away as an attempt to underline the inherent stupidity in most commercial films about police and undercover spies that we are willing to buy into when the film effectively compels us to suspend disbelief. I mean, c’mon, we’ve bought into the efficacy of Tom Cruise/Ethan Hunt’s many disguises in the Mission Impossible series, we have willingly swallowed Bruce Willis/John McClane’s physical indestructibility in the Die Hard series, so why would we not accept the probability of a wanted criminal being an idiot or the possibility that a policeman may indeed only always blink in slow motion? And why would we not believe that there is no weapon more lethal in this world than a Malayali man’s mundu?

The film’s major failing is its extreme male-centricity, extreme even by the low gender-related standards of commercial Indian cinema. Ninety per cent of the scenes in IDI do not feature even a female extra? Sshivada plays a spunky IIM-Ahmedabad graduate called Nithya Niranjan who bases herself in Kollanahalli because she wants to make a difference. That one scene in which she bashes up two cowering crooks is enough proof of the actress’ and the character’s potential to elevate IDI, yet Yahiya uses her as the only thing heroines are meant to be when seen through a blinkered male gaze: the hero’s ‘love interest’. Even that angle gets short shrift.

Crime and cop flicks tend to be male-centric, but some of the best of the lot – the ones that have risen above the formulae this film is parodying – have given women substantial, even if not primary, roles. What would the Suriya-starrer Kaakha Kaakha have been without Jyothika and the character she played? Would Ghajini (the original Tamil version with Suriya or the Hindi remake with Aamir Khan) have been the same without the depth and space given to Asin’s character? Women are not mere asides to be loved or lamented you know, Mr Yahiya. Obviously this is a potential element lost to IDI.

The film’s production design by Rajeev Kovilakam and cinematography by Sujith Sarang are effective. Sarang, for one, manages to successfully convey the desolation of Kollanahalli within picturesque surroundings. Dawood’s booming theme music by Rahul Raj is in keeping with the mood of the film, but none of the songs is memorable.

For the most part though, Inspector Dawood Ibrahim is an interesting police flick, a hysterical spoof of the genre and of itself. Even its over-the-top-ness is a mockery of over-the-topness. The pride and flourish with which the protagonist refers to the Kerala Police is a reminder of the parochialism, regionalism and nationalism often summoned up to earn wolf whistles in films of this genre. Remember the repeated referencing of Marathi pride in the Hindi version of Singham starring Ajay Devgn? Know this from IDI: you can bash up a Kerala policeman, bring him to his knees, abduct the father he loves and terrorise the old man, but God forbid that you should insult his uniform. Hell hath no fury like a Malayali cop whose khaki topi you are about to step on.

Of course it is all very silly and OTT. It is thoroughly entertaining though because it does not pretend to be anything but that, because it manages to not be condescending at any point, and most of all because within the realm of silliness it does not insult our intelligence.

Rating (out of five): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	128 minutes

Censorship footnote:Although there are plenty of fisticuffs in Inspector Dawood Ibrahim, the camera does not show us much blood. The only disturbing shot in the film is of a man running a pencil through a person’s head, in through one ear and out of the other. This is the sort of scene for which the US ratings agency CARA would have perhaps rated a film PG, which signifies that parents may possibly want to check out a film before taking their children to see it. PG is a relatively mild rating, yet not the most lenient of them all, which is G indicating suitability for general viewing across age groups. India’s Central Board of Film Certification is known to be open to children viewing violence but not even an allusion to sex. The makers of IDI know this, which is why they have voluntarily beeped out the word “motherfucker” in a conversation without being asked to do so. The result: this film has been rated U (suited for universal viewing, the Indian equivalent of G) despite the pencil-through-the-head-of-a-human-being scene which should have earned it a UA, the Indian equivalent of PG. The only change the Board demanded was the removal of a shot of a man licking blood, which has been replaced in the film with a shot of some hooligans.

A version of this review has been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/inspector-dawood-ibrahim-review-jayasurya-is-fun-to-watch-in-this-spoof-on-cop-films-2979726.html

Posters courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Dawood_Ibrahim

Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zWxR-EXvwM

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