The invention of lying (2009)

The term ‘high concept’ film may be new to Indian audience, but it’s rather a famous one on the other side of the world. What a high concept is a ‘What if’ scenario, like what would happen if something unexpected or sheer impossible thing happens, like, what if a robot can come from future to kill someone (Terminator series), or what if different kinds of aliens come to earth and start fighting each other (Transformer series), or what if an Indian woman can’t recognize her husband if he shaves off his moustache (Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi)… alright, don’t panic, I was kidding about the last one.

The movie in question deals with another such scenario, what if lying was never invented? Or simply put what if everybody only speaks the truth? Intrigued, well so was I. The movie takes place in a hypothetical scenario where nobody knows about lying as nobody has lied, ever. You may start believing the situation to be too good to be true, but it is not what you imagine. As nobody lies, people bluntly say what they think, never caring about the feelings of other people, as nobody can see beyond the obvious, there is no imagination or creativity, and there is no fictional literature or movies, just plain documentaries.

Our hero is a fat looser, who works as a writer for a documentary production company, as he is assigned the 14^th century to make documentaries, a century where nothing exciting happened,  he ends up making very boring and depressing movies, and gets fired from the job. To make things worse he is also rejected by a very pretty girl as well, because she feels he won’t have a perfect genetic code for their children if they ever marry.  

Things take a turn when he goes to the bank to withdraw money, but as the system is down the cashier asks him how much money does he have in his account, and there in a flash he lies by telling the casher that he has $800 in his account instead of the actual amount of $300, initially he himself is not sure what he has done, but soon as he realize that he is the only man in the world with the power of lying, then he starts turning his miserable life into an extraordinary one.

What is beautiful about the movie is that after building the basic premise, the story goes further deep in the concept by analyzing the aftereffects of lying, the scene where our hero creates the concept of ‘Man in the Sky’ i.e. God, is outstanding, and so is the scene where he consoles his mother.

Although there are a few times when some characters just speak for the sake of being funny, which could have been easily avoided, however so, the movie altogether makes a compelling watch, not only for having a new idea but also executing it beautifully.

Rating ***1/2 

The Boondock Saints (2009)

Well sometime you don’t need a story to entertain people. The Boondock Saints is one such example. The movie starts with a premise where two God fearing Irish brothers have epiphany that bad people needs to be eliminated and they start doing just that, while there is a FBI agent is on their tail, and this is more or less the whole story for you, but what distinguishes the movie is the style and execution.

The movie keeps you engaged through its humor and action sequences, the way of presentation strongly resembles Guy Richie and Quentin Tarantino. The action sequences are highly violent and contain a lot of bloodshed.

The movie was a disaster when released; it generated just about 30 thousand dollars during its theatrical release, however when the movie was released on video it generated revenues in tune of about 50 million dollars, and developed a cult following as well, it also has a squeal released about 10 years later.

The movie on the whole is for specific audience, who don’t want to get into logic but prefer the gun rolling and ever increasing body count.

It’s a mad entertainer for mad people.

Rating ***.

  

Crash (2004)

Although from name it may look like a movie surrounding an accident but it is not, it is rather a story with deeper context, racism and stereotyping.  Although in India we may not witness discrimination based on skin colour, but we have our own sets of socio-cultural problems, which I won’t like to comment upon, as you must be aware about them yourself.

The beauty of the movie is the narration, the director holds each and every frame and knows what he wants to convey to the audience. The movie deals with not one but multiple storylines, all touching one or another at different times, like ‘Love Actually’ or its Indian version ‘Salam-e-Ishq’.

One story deals with a white district attorney, whose car is robbed by two black thugs, another about a Persian shop keeper whose shop is robbed by people who mistakenly thinks him to be an Arab, one involving a white policeman and his partner who has strong ill feelings about black people, another about a well to do black who is a television director and his wife, and one involving a Mexican lock smith.

There are more characters and lot of sub plots; it is the director who has done a beautiful job of weaving all the stories, stories which will make you realize that racism exist in high propensity everywhere, and more importantly even behind that racism good people exist.

Watch the movie on a slow Sunday afternoon to enjoy it fully, I wish such a movie is made in our county as well, because even in India a lot of racism exist and so does good people.

Rating ****. 

Ek Tha Tiger

Salman Khan today has become synonymous with 100 crore business, and in case of Ek Tha Tiger the expectation is a double century. Kabir Khan the director couldn’t have asked for more, Salman as Hero, Katrina as Heroine, Yashraj as producer and a good story with a budget of 75 crores.

So what can go wrong, well the screenplay of course, and I believe Yashraj didn’t had any money left to take services of an editor. So what could have been a beautiful movie became more of a caricature.

Ek tha Tiger starts like it is expected to be, a fully fledged action sequence in the roads of Iraq/Iran or some country, and Tiger returns India ready to go for the next mission, on the next mission he encounters the beautiful Katrina Kaif, and trouble starts as he has to choose between his country or his girl.

I won’t go further to reveal the story, but I felt disappointed after the show, what I expected to be a action movie was more of a romantic one, granted the movie was about the love story of a spy, but as the backdrop was of RAW and ISI, a certain amount of conflict between these two agencies was missing, even the way these agencies operate was never given much importance. But the saddest part is even the romantic portions of the movie are not impressive, as they say; there is no chemistry between the lead pair.

The first half is a drag, and you feel trapped in a time zone where story denies moving. In the second half the momentum improves but by that time you realize that the director had a wafer thin plot and minimum story to back it.

Although the action sequences are amazing, especially the opening one and one later in Cuba, a few laughs come here and there, but the movie lacks the depth that was required for this story, and the intensity that was required for the love story, Tiger who is should to be a seasoned spy, suddenly becomes a soft hearted trusting human being, ditto to the characterization of heroine, no background, no character development, just get her into pretty dresses and audience will forgo logic, maybe that’s what the director thought.   

Girish Karnad and Ranbir Shorry provide good support, even performance wise lead pair is also ok, but the director had wasted a beautiful opportunity, as even though the overall movie is alright, the expectations are not matched.

At best it is a onetime watch.

Rating **.

Gangs of Wasseypur - Part II

While watching Gangs of Wasseypur-II, my friend said that this movie belongs to a genre unseen before in India, it is a violence comedy, and I to a certain extent agreed with him, the movie in question is an intense drama with liberal doses of profanity and unassuming humor, and to be honest that keeps this movie on the lighter side for most of the time which otherwise is a story filled with blood and gore.

What impressed me most about both the parts is the excellent background music; the sudden occurrence of music during certain scenes elevates the mood of the movie to a higher level. Camerawork is excellent and so are the action sequences. The beautiful conceptualization of these action scenes reminds me of Kill-Bill series, although both the movies are far apart from each other, but maybe the common threads between them are revenge and using action in form of a language, although technique wise Kill Bill action sequences were highly stylish, and action sequences here are very raw.

The story picks from where the last ended, death of Manoj Bajpayees character, and revenge sworn in by his sons. Although I feel more than the story, what separates this movie from others is the formation of individual scenes, sometimes related to story and sometimes unrelated. But remain sure, entertainment is never compromised during the whole movie, new characters keep on emerging and old once keep on getting killed, and the story keeps on moving.

Some scenes are exceptional, like when Ramadhir Singh talks with his son about his incompetence and other one where assassination of Sultan is being executed while he is purchasing vegetables.

Performance wise you can’t complain about a single actor/actress, Nawazuddin Siddiqui takes off where Manoj Bajpayee left, the guy performing the role of “Definite” leves a mark, dialogues are well written and scenes are executed very well. Director has made his best film so far.

Only down side for the movie is its excessive length for which it had to be broken into two parts, and if you haven’t watched the first one, you will miss a lot of context. As well as the violence and use of open abuse makes this movie a strict no for family audience. Otherwise it is a cult movie in all respects, watch this treat.

Rating ****

Road, Movie (2009)

Abhay Deol is the hero of the new age crowd who loves intelligent and experimental cinema. I myself seldom miss any of his movies. I even watched a chick flick like ‘Aisha’ for him, and that same excitement for his movie made me watch, Road, Movie.

The movie starts slowly, progresses slowly and ends slowly. At times it feels like the director was paid to torture the audience. Although the movie can easily become part of the exclusive club of “Artistic Cinema”, even I like artistic movies, but sometimes a director’s misplaces sense of creativity conflicts with viewer’s expectations. But to tell the truth, who puts Rs. 8 crores to produce an art movie.

Although performance wise the movie is good, supporting actors have done good work; especially Satish Kaushik is first grade, the movie comes up with certain good dialogues once in a while, even white sand dessert shots are beautiful.

But story is lame and purposeless, the movie was supposed to be about journey of a man while discovering himself, but director makes it a point to frustrate the audience by reveling nothing about the mentality of the same man, only thing that you know throughout the movie is that the man doesn’t want to work for his father’s oil business and even in the end how is life is impacted is not revealed. I would like to mention the sequence where all the characters are searching for the ‘mela’ in desert, the endless scene constantly showing barren land makes you feel dizzy and thirsty as the movie characters themselves. 

Overall negatives of the movie simply makes you feel, was the movie worth 2 hours of your life?

Rating *1/2

Maximum (2012)

Movies based upon Politicians interfering and manipulating Police Department is a common theme in Indian film industry, but a movie based upon internal power game where all the major players belong to department only, promises to be a fresh concept. Maximum deals with the power struggle between two cops in Mumbai police, one played by Sonu Sood other by Naseerudin Shah. The movie starts with backdrop of 2003 and ends somewhere on the later part of 2008.

Sonu Sood is the blue eyed boy of Mumbai Police, an encounter specialist, having good backing in the form of a supportive higher police official, and a politician from the political party in power. Competition arrives in form of Naseerudin Shah, who starts shaking the boat. The power struggle results in forming of groups and both the groups wants to acquire more power by weakening the other party, and even killing other party’s underworld informer becomes trend. And there is a journalist who is a neutrally watching both the sides. Interesting! You bet, but then the director commits major mistakes.

The premise, where power struggle of two cops, neither of whom could be called as positive character, being witnessed by a bystander contains a lot of promise, but suddenly the director starts taking sides, he focuses on Sonu’s character, comfortably ignoring the back story or no character development of Naseeruddin Shah (which is a sin, not a mistake), even the neutral bystander stars supporting Sonu’s side.

Now we are left with the hero of the movie who doesn’t have a morale standing against the other group, because their side is no different from the other. An additional problem the movie faces is the treatment of the movie very highly resembles ‘Sahar’ another movie by the same director. Which makes the pace of the movie slower then it should have been.

The end of the movie may remind you of any Quentin Tarantino movie, where every character has drawn gun towards the other actor, and this portion diluted any effect the movie may have so far generated, the director should have gone for a more sensible climax.

Overall the movie is ok; one time watch for anyone who likes the genre, but for me the most remembered part of the movie would be the screw up that the director did with ‘Aa Ante Annapuram’.

Rating **