Dasavathaaram - Movie Review

We watched Kamal Haasan's latest movie, Dasavathaaram (also spelled as Dasavatharam) yesterday. As most people know, Dasavathaaram literally means ten avataras or forms. The movie is so named because Kamal Haasan dons 10 different roles in the movie.

Dasavathaaram's main story-line is about an extremely dangerous biological weapon synthesized in the US by a microbiologist of Indian origin, Govindarajan Ramaswamy. This weapon, contained in a small capsule-sized vial, is coveted by terrorists who send their henchman, an ex-CIA officer named Christian Fletcher to get it. Govindarajan and Fletcher chase each other and the dangerous vial, in a violent and also comic game of cat-and-mouse, across two continents, ending in a dramatic climax. Now, how does this story get mixed up with a sprig-and-stylish US president George Bush, a sharp-witted and bureaucratic Indian intelligence officer Balram Naidu, a Punjabi pop-singer Avtaar Singh, a 95-year-old mentally retarded brahmin widow Krisnaveni, an honest and upright Dalit activist Vincent Poovaraagan, a gigantic simpleton Kalifulla Khan, a martial arts teacher from Japan Shinghen Narahasi, a 12th century staunch Vaishnavite Rangaraja Nambi, the deity of the god Perumal from Chidambaram, a small temple town in Tamilnadu, and also the devastating tsunami which hit South East Asia on Dec 26th, 2004? It wouldn't be much fun if I explained that here. You will have to see the movie to find out the intricate connections between all of these.

Here in the US, the movie ticket price was a whopping $15 plus $1 service charge for online orders. $16 being the highest amount I have ever paid to watch a movie, I was worried about being stuck with another one of those insufferable Indian movies. Fortunately, the movie running for almost 3 hours, turned out to be a non-stop entertainer in the same genre as Michael-Madana-Kama-Rajan, another Kamal movie in which he plays four roles. The story-line involves a series of comic occurences, peppered with witty dialogs and puns galore, several sub-plots that interweave with amazing serendipity, all culminating in an all's-well-that-ends-well climax.

The Dasavathaaram movie page on IMDB.com lists Sujatha as the story-writer and Crazy Mohan as the dialog-writer. The story and the dialogs definitely have the unique stamp of those two gentlemen. Yet, the titles in the movie itself listed Kamal Haasan under "Story-Screenplay-Dialog". Wonder what's up with that! I don't believe that Kamal would cheat Sujatha or Crazy Mohan of credit if it belongs to them. But the story of Dasavathaaram has not been free of controversy.

There are liberal computer effects through-out the movie. Some of them looked very tacky. Wish director K. S. Ravikumar had ensured a better job with computer graphics. Many of the roles played by Kamal are heavily made-up. So heavily that in some scenes the latex-covered faces look more like mannequins than humans. They could have cut down on the heavy make-up without sacrificing the validity of the roles. But then, they could have entirely left out some of the roles, without sacrificing the validity of the movie.

Nevertheless, two of Kamal's roles stand out in the movie. One is that of the fair-and-blond-all-American Christian Fletcher, an ex-CIA bad guy who pervades the movie with Terminator-like single-minded resilience. Unfortunately, this is one of the characters whose face looks like a mannequin in some scenes. Kamal had a great opportunity to show his real acting talent by playing an American with much less make-up. He blew it by opting for a doll-face instead. The other role which really stands out as my favorite role in the movie is that of Balram Naidu, an officer of the Indian intelligence agency, Research & Analysis Wing (RAW). Without too much make up (compared to the other mannequin faces), Kamal has done a great job in this role of the quintessential Indian government officer - bureaucratic, sharp-tongued and cunning, complete with a slight paunch and heavily accented English.

Despite the flaws and the coincidences in the story-line, many of which appear contrived, the movie works as a great entertainer. The story keeps moving along at a steady trot, the dialogs keep you laughing regularly and I thought I got my money's worth. That last part is something I rarely say about a movie.

What did you think of the movie? Do share your thoughts in the comments.

Google Me, the movie

Google Me is a documentary by a guy named Jim Killeen from Los Angeles. The movie is about Jim doing a Google search of his full name, and then setting out to meet other people who have that exact same first name and last name. During the course of the movie, he travels to three continents and meets a cop, a swinger, a priest, an engineer, a VP of sales and an Aussie, who all share his first name and last name. You can watch the entire movie on Youtube (also embedded below).

The premise of the movie sounds very simple. In fact, all the Jim Killeens we meet in the movie are the average guys, with nothing very special or great about them. Yet, the movie caught my complete attention and through the entire course of the movie, I kept looking forward to knowing about the life of yet another average guy named Jim Killeen.

Jim Killeen from Los Angeles is a good story tell. His documentary is well-made and entertaining. It is peppered with good humor through out. There were also a few poignant moments in the movie when he asks each Jim Killeen he meets one common question: What is the purpose of human life? It was interesting to see people with different backgrounds give different answers.

Another interesting part of the movie is that they do a DNA test of all the Jim Killeens to see if any of them are related. I won't spoil it for you by giving out the result of the test here. Go ahead and watch the movie when you have a free hour-and-a-half. The entire movie is available on Youtube, and it is worth a watch.

Garden State - Movie Review

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching the excellent movie, Garden State.

Zach Braff has written and directed, as well as starred in the lead role. Zach is more popularly known as the funny lead character in one of my favorite television comedies, Scrubs. Garden State is a much appreciated movie, causing lot of people to eagerly anticipate Zach's next movie, which is not out yet.

Garden State is the story of a depressed, struggling 26-year-old actor from Los Angeles, going back home and finding his real home. It is a representation of the popular saying, "Home is where the heart is." Zach Braff plays the role of Andrew, a struggling and depressed actor in Los Angeles (his regular job seems to be that of a not-so-good waiter at a restaurant), who goes back home to a small town in New Jersey, to attend his mother's funeral. He has not been home for 9 years, and we learn that he has been in medication prescribed by his psychologist father since the age of 9 or so, when he accidentally caused his mother to be paralyzed from the waist-down. Back in his hometown, he goes off the medication and catches up with his highschool buddies, each of whom is quirky and funny. Along the way, he runs into sweet, cheerful and lying Samantha, played wonderfully by Natalie Portman. It is with her that Andrew discovers the precious feeling of truly coming home, finding peace, contentment, acceptance and love.

I have always liked movies which handle depressing plots/characters in comic ways. Garden State has become my favorite movie in that genre. It strikes a great balance between depression and comedy, without overdoing either one. Through most of the movie, you feel the lead character Andrew's quiet, desperate, depression, even as you laugh at all the other quirky characters (mostly his highschool friends), their silly lines and the funny scenes. Natalie Portman's portrayal of Samantha, who brings Andrew out of his depression and helps him discover love, by doing nothing more than being her naive, silly, cheerful self was utterly convincing.

There were some weird-interesting-funny scenes in the movie like the one where Andrew's shirt perfectly matches the bathroom walls, a family dog masturbates and there is a hall-way in a hotel from which perverts peep on hotel guests. Two of my favorite scenes from the movie:

• There is the opening scene which shows the inside of a crashing plane, with everybody close to panic, but Andrew is totally calm while a mellifluous voice chants a Sanskrit prayer in the background.
• Then there is the scene where Andrew, his highschool buddy Mark and Samantha stand at the edge of cliff which falls into a deep dark canyon and shout their hearts out. That scene is symbolic if Andrew's life at that point of time - his future is dark, deep and unknown, which could hold horrors or treasures, but the shout that comes of his heart while he stands at its edge is one of venting, relief and elation, all mixed together.

But its the final scene which ties it all together: having come to his old home, having discovered a new home for his heart, and standing at the edge of the unknown, will Andrew succumb to his doubts and fears and run away, or will he choose to stay, and nurture his new-found home and love? You will have to watch the movie to find out for yourself.


Official movie site: http://www.gardenstatemovie.com.

Shilpa Shetty & Richard Gere kissing controversy!

In February this year, when I was in India, Shilpa Shetty was constantly in the news. I was pretty surprised. I had been under the impression that she had already faded off into Bollywood history. Apparently not.

Soon after the racial controversy surrounding her participation in a UK reality TV show named Celebrity Big Brother, she seemed to have gained popularity and support from everybody on all sides of the world. All of a sudden, she was appearing everywhere - in the news, on Page 3 items, and at public functions, as well as being considered for a whole new set of roles in both Indian and Western movies! And then I read somewhere that she was in contention with none other than Aishwarya Rai for a movie named Unveiled, whose story revolved around a muslim women who has two husbands and a lover. It seemed like this was definitely the second coming of Shilpa Shetty. (BTW, Mallika Sherawat eventually landed that juicy role in Unveiled).

Things seemed to simmer down a little bit for Shilpa, but barely for a few weeks. Come April, as temperatures start to rise, she is hot in the news again. This time because of the Richard Gere kissing controversy! You can read the low-down on the controversy at that Wikipedia link. However, in this age of online videos, we don't want to just read about controversial events, we want to watch them. I have not been able to find a video of the "obscene kisses". If readers come across any such videos, please leave a comment and let us know. (Update on 3-May-2007: The video is available on YouTube; scroll down to the bottom of this post to watch it). Meanwhile, I did the next best thing I could - I looked for photos of the incident and gathered them together into a sequence which might give us a clue as to what might have happened. Before I say anything more, just take a look at the sequence of photos for yourself. Please excuse the low quality and uneven sizes of the photos. I had to cull them from diverse sources.






















Now, to the untrained Western eyes, these might look like the dashing white gentleman dipping and kissing the pretty oriental lady in the exotic saree. But even a child in India knows the truth... having grown up watching attempted rape scenes in numerous "wholesome, family" Indian movies, where the villain goes at the heroine as if kissing her is his one and only objective, like his very life depends on it, like kissing her is the raison d'etre for his very birth!

Don't the photos above seem to depict a man forcing himself on a woman? It is quite obvious that Shilpa Shetty was trying to keep up a sportive and brave appearance, despite her discomfort. She is even reported to have said that Richard Gere's stunt was a 'too much'. I don't understand why people have been protesting against her, burning her effigies, threatening to boycott her movies and serving a warrant on her. It is not always possible for a woman (or even a man) to defend herself when unexpectedly pounced upon. Another example of this is when Adrien Brody won the Best Actor Oscar award in 2003, and he celebrated by pouncing on his award presenter Halle Berry for a long kiss right there on the stage. There was not much Halle Berry could do to resist or escape that kiss.

I don't think that people should be harassed or arrested or punished for kissing in public. I don't think that kissing in public is obscene. But I also don't think that Richard Gere can pass off his actions as something 'fun' or 'no big deal'. What most probably happened is this: Richard Gere found himself on stage with this pretty actress looking all dolled up and exotic. She might have looked slightly retarded with that big-mouthed grin, but her tall, lithe sleeveless-blouse-and-saree-clad-body sure looked squeeze-worthy. And he seized the opportunity, using the excuse of demonstrating Aids-safe kisses on hands and cheeks, to get exactly that - a solid tight squeeze!

Richard must consider himself lucky that he is only being accused of obscenity. If Shilpa had not turned her face away and if he had ended up kissing her lips, he might have been facing charges of attempted rape in the land of Indian movies! Heh-heh!

Update on 4-May-2007: Of course, it wasn't gonna take too much time before the video would become available on YouTube. See below. Doesn't look so bad actually. And she does say soon after the kiss, "This was too much"!

Bollywood Dance goes 'Underground' in America?

Today, Yahoo! announced their latest initiative: Underground.

I checked out the website and was surprised to see a link at the bottom which read, "Bollywood". Getting very curious, I clicked on the link to discover that Bollywood dance competition for college students in America is considered to be part of the 'underground' scene here!

The Decade of Aishwarya Rai

This month, January 2007, marks 10 years of Aishwarya Rai's career in the Indian film industry. Her debut movie, Iruvar, was released on January 14th, 1997. It was directed by one of the most popular Indian directors of modern times, Mani Ratnam. Interestingly, Guru, also a Mani Ratnam movie, was released on January 14th, 2007, exactly 10 years after her debut movie.

Artificiality of Aishwarya
By the time Aishwarya entered the world of Indian movies, she was already an internationally famous super model. By then, many people already had an overdose of Aishwarya and they had begun to dislike her 'plastic' or 'artificial' looks, smile, expressions, on-screen personality. Her critics have always maintained that she is not a good actress and that she is no better than a decorative lifeless plastic model in her movie roles. Her performances in 10 years' worth of movies have only served to increase the volume - both in numbers and decibels - of the allegations of "artificiality".

When a person is trained to be a model from the time she is little more than a girl, when her day job and evening job and all public appearances require her to flash false smiles, and when the whole world is familiar with little more than the false-smile public persona, it is inevitable that she would seem artificial in everything she does. This is especially true when she has the super model looks and gets crowned as the Miss World. I wonder how a person can keep a firm grip on her own true inner self after going through a career which requires them to maintain superficial looks and smiles during the most important formative years - teens and early adulthood. It would be so easy to lose the sense of who she truly is...

But hey, this post is not an analysis of Aishwarya's personality nor an apology for her on-screen performance. Aishwarya Rai might not be the best Indian actress there ever was, but looking at 10 years of her filmography (here and here - you have to check both links as neither one of them is complete in itself), I must say that she is the luckiest Indian actress to date.

Speciality of Aishwarya
She had a dream debut in the Tamil movie, Iruvar, directed by Mani Ratnam, starring opposite the great Mohan Lal. The movie was not a big commercial success, and is little known outside of Tamil circles. But, Mani Ratnam and Mohan Lal are considered great masters in their chosen fields, and her role - rather roles - in the movie was something special and different (more about this later). From the kind of debut that very few actresses can boast of, Aishwarya went on to act with almost every major director in contemporary India. She has also starred opposite most of the popular actors of her times. Interestingly, two of the best and most popular actors, Kamal Haasan and Aamir Khan, are conspicuously absent from her filmography (although she has a guest appearance in Aamir's Mela).

However, the speciality of Aishwarya's movie career is neither her directors nor her co-stars. It is the fact that she has had the widest variety of roles compared to any other actress in the history of Indian cinema! This is an industry which is notorious for type-casting, where even such great and popular actresses as Nargis, Madhubala, Smitha Patil, Madhuri Dixit and Kajol could not truly escape being type-cast into certain kinds of roles. Even actors such as Kamal Haasan and Aamir Khan have to work really hard not to end up in meaningless, type-cast roles, and they do not always succeed. So, it is no small matter that Aishwarya has had such varied roles.

Aishwarya's career is a true example of the old adage - luck is when preparation meets opportunity. She waited until she had completed the best years of her modelling career, before switching over to the movie industry. The switch happened at a time when the previous No. 1 actress of Hindi movies, Madhuri Dixit, had most definitely gone off the limelight. Kajol shone briefly after Madhuri, but then she ended an excellent acting career after she got married. After Kajol, the field was pretty much open for Aishwarya Rai to rule. Neither Rani Mukherjee nor Kareena Kapoor nor any other new actress could match the sheer popularity of Aishwarya. Fortunately for Aishwarya, this was also the time when movie makers in India were eager to fudge the mythical and mystical line between 'art movies' and 'commercial movies'. In addition to all this, Aishwarya was already very popular and established as a celebrity. Her modelling career had ensured that she did not lack for money or fame. So, she could afford to pick and choose the kind of roles she wanted, without being compelled into anything she did not truly want.

Roles of Aishwarya
The wide variety of roles Aishwarya has played have made her movie career the stuff that actresses across the world can only dream of. She has donned every role from single 'item' numbers to bimbo eye-candy in dumbo masala movies to strong central protagonist roles around whom the whole storyline revolves to substantial female-oriented roles. As a sampler, just look at the kind of movie roles she has lined up in 2007:

• Guru - as the wife, main champion and supporter of Guru, the character based on the prominent industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani.
• Rani Laxmibai - as the historical warrior queen, who played a pivotal role in the First War of Indian Independence.
• Provoked - the role of a docile immigrant wife, who is a victim of domestic violence, falsely accused of murder and jailed, before she fights back for justice.
• Jodhaa Akbar - the role of a Hindu princess who is forced to be part of a political marriage with the great Mughal Emperor Akbar.
• The Last Legion - the role of a female warrior in a saga set in ancient Rome.

In addition to these, she is also acting in a few masala movies. Which Indian (or foreign actress) could boast of such a wide variety of roles in one year, in both national and international productions?

I have watched very few of Aishwarya Rai's movies. I have not even heard of the titles of many of her movies. But from the few movies I have watched, I can say that the allegations of lifelessness in her on-screen personality is not entirely true. She is certainly better than the majority of actresses to appear on the Indian screen, including such popular people as Hema Malini and Rakhi, who were not much more than bad hams.

The following are noteworthy roles played by Aishwarya Rai in movies I have watched. Be warned that all of what follows contains spoilers for the respective movies.

• Iruvar - This is her debut movie. She plays dual roles in this movie, as a demure housewife in a village and as a fiesty actress who has an affair with the chief minister of the state. Both the characters are doomed in the storyline. It is in this movie that I first got a glimpse of the sexy dark mole on her upper arm. The mole is usually hidden in most of her movies and modelling assignments.


• Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam - This role of Aishwarya is my most favorite. Through the course of the movie, she transforms from a lively, innocent girl to a girl caught in the thrills of first love to a person who loses the love and is driven to attempt suicide to an unhappily married woman who desperately tries to find her lover to a woman who has a change of heart and embraces her status as a married woman. I think she did a great job in every aspect of the role. After watching this movie, the title song was stuck in my head for almost two whole years!


• Kandukonden Kandukonden - Another movie in which Aishwarya plays the role of the fiesty, independent, opinionated girl. I like her in such roles. The movie is an excellent adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense & Sensibility. Among all her movies that I have watched, this is the one in which she looks her best.


• Choker Bali - The movie is based on Rabindranath Tagore's novel 'Binodini', and Aishwarya has the title role. She plays the role of a widow in early 1900s India, being tormented by her personal needs and desires, and her attraction to a married man. Although the screenplay of the movie lacked and did not do full justice to the novel, the title role was pretty challenging and important. It is a role that any actress would be flattered to be chosen for.


• Khakee - This is a very entertaining movie, and Aishwarya plays the role of a stylish and trickster vamp. It was an interesting move on her part to accept the role of a villain in a movie.


• Rain Coat - A touching movie based on an O Henry story. Aishwarya plays the role of a poor housewife who has to keep up an appearance of being rich and comfortable in front of her old flame. Another movie in which she has given an commendable performance.


• Bunty Aur Babli - Ooh, she sizzles in this movie! She has nothing more than an 'item number' in the movie - the Kajra Re song (that's a link to the video!). 'Item number' in the context of Indian movies refers to a song sequence, which has little or nothing to do with the actual story line of the movie, is often sleazy and put in the movie for the sole purpose of drawing in the crowds. Aishwarya plays a bar singer/dancer in the song, and she looks really hot. It was over a decade before this movie, when she was just a new model, that I had noticed that she was hot. However, the more popular she became, the less hot she seemed to me. This movie made me sit up and notice her hotness factor all over again! And, it did so for the rest of the world too. No bar-dancer or prostitute or kothewali looked so hot in the history of Indian cinema!

No. 1 Position of Aishwarya
Now, the much-asked (and answered!) question is: does Aishwarya do proper justice to all these great roles? There are some people who are convinced - and are quite vocal about it - that she does not. They think that her acting skills are not worthy of all the popularity and success she enjoys. Then there are a few who think that she is a good actress. But the vast majority simply don't care as long as they can see her beautiful form onscreen. After all, if not Aishwarya, who can take on all these roles? Perhaps, different people might suit the different roles. But as things stand today, I cannot think of a single celebrity actress who can handle all these roles. So perhaps, it is only right and proper that Aishwarya should be enjoying so much success and be the undoubted No. 1 Indian actress at this point of time.

Guru - Movie Review (Paisa Waste!)

In art, more than in anything else, if something can't be done well, it's not worth doing it at all. This includes the art of movies. In all other aspects of life, a mediocre product might be tolerable. But to witness bad art is demoralizing, dispiriting, disappointing.

Mani Ratnam's latest movie Guru is such a disappointment. It is hard to believe that the dull and mediocre Guru, is made by the same director who made the tour de force masterpiece, Nayagan. Where are the clear storyline, tight script, crisp dialogs, which are the key elements of a good Mani Ratnam movie?

Guru is supposed to have been inspired by the rags-to-spectacular-riches story of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, who founded and headed what was/is probably the richest, most powerful and influential corporate house in India, Reliance Industries Limited. There is certainly a great story to be told about his life. Unfortunately, Guru fails to tell that story effectively.

The movie's narrative just limps along, without touching our heads or our hearts. We don't see the main character Guru do anything extraordinarily smart or ingenious or innovative... In fact, forget extraordinary, we don't see him doing anything even ordinarily smart or ingenious or innovative. Yet, we are supposed to believe that he built this big business empire just like that. Since when did Mani Ratnam's movies get dumbed down so much?

Nor do we emotionally care about what happens to Guru in the movie. He suffers a stroke, he is harassed by a judicial inquiry. Do we care too much about that? Do we feel sorry for him? Do we root and cheer him onto recovery and success? Not really. Not being touched emotionally is a very big failure in a Mani Ratnam movie. I am used to his movies having us empathize with the main characters and their struggles, almost effortlessly. Guru fails miserably in that.

The story lacks head or heart. The script meanders loosely. All the dialogs sound phoney and lack soul. We could expect at least the dialogs to be crisp and hard-hitting in Mani Ratnam's Tamil movies (mostly written by Mani Ratnam himself or his wife, Suhasini). This movie lacks even that.

This is probably Abhishek Bacchan's best performance in a movie. Unfortunately, his best performance is not much to write home about. Aishwarya Rai's performance lends ample fuel to all her critics - especially the ones who have been claiming for a decade that she is no more than a plastic doll in movies. Yes, Aishwarya Rai has been acting in movies for 10 years now. Her first movie was also directed by Mani Ratnam, and it is called Iruvar, release on Jan 14th, 1997. Exactly, 10 years later, we see her another Mani Ratnam movie, and it is unfortunate that this movie and her performance in it is such a dud. There are a couple of scenes in which she is alright - sobbing in the train, her face in the foreground and Abhishek's in the background, after being abandoned by the guy she intended to run away with; and, one or two scenes as a domestic housewife. Otherwise, it's a dud. Madhavan and Vidya Balan have given good performances in supporting roles. Mithun in the role of an old newspaper owner is also good.

A R Rahman's music does not sound like Rahman's music at all. It is jarring. Gulzar's lyrics did not seem to have anything special in them either.

There are some very successful writers. When they reach a certain stage of extreme commercial success, they stop doing all the hardwork. They have teams of disciples who do the work for them, all the research and the writing, and these successful writers lend their names to the covers of such books. Watching Guru made me wonder if this whole movie was made by such mediocre disciples of Mani Ratnam and A R Rahman, while putting up the more popular names in the credits.

You may safely give this movie a miss. It's paisa waste!

The Butterfly Effect

Warning: This blog contains spoilers for the movie The Butterfly Effect. If you have not seen the movie and don't want your enjoyment of the movie to be spoilt, you might not want to read further.

It has been said something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.
- Chaos Theory

I started watching the movie The Butterfly Effect last night and finished it today. It is Ashton Kutcher's serious movie. It is the story of a guy called Evan (Ashton's character). It is about his sad group of friends. It is about how certain key incidents in their shared lives, tragically determines the course of the rest of their lives. It is about how Evan discovers a method to go back into the past. Having discovered how to travel into the past, he travels back to each of the key incidents in his life. His intention is to slightly alter his own actions in those incidents and there by avoid the tragedy that follows.

The idea is good enough. Unfortunately for Evan, everytime he manages to avert one tragedy, something else happens that seems to be even worse. No matter what he does, he only seems to manage to harm his friends, family and himself.

Finally, towards the end of the movie... well, this is when the real spoiler comes. So, you still have time to stop reading further.
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Still wanna read on? Alright. Towards the end of the movie, Evan finds out the only way to stop all the multiple tragedies he and his loves ones have experienced in the multiple versions of his life. He goes back to the very beginning, to the time before he was born, and kills himself in his mother's womb! The movie continues for a few more minutes to show how each of his friends and his family, manage to finally live a happy life instead of tragic ones.

Sad. To think that the existence of one person who really means well, who only wants to do good, screws up the lives of all the people he loves. And that his disappearance would make it all good for everyone.

Sad. But I understand how that can be. I have screwed up lives too, with what I thought were good intentions. I continue to screw up lives by my mere existence. By the very way in which I live. Almost every day, I do small things which metamorphose through the Butterfly Effect into big pain for others.

I wish I could go back to the very beginning too. And snuff it all out.

Rang De Basanti - Movie Review

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder". That was the message on my fortune cookie after the Chinese lunch Friday afternoon. Friday night, I saw the movie Rang De Basanti and experienced the truth in that statement.

The first half of the movie is full of the kind of fun you can have with your buddies in India, some spectacular shots of Indian locations - historical, urban, country, colleges, dhabas, roads, neighborhoods, interspersed with sepia-toned footage of a "movie" about Shaheed Bhagath Singh and his posse of freedom fighters. What can I say? We Indians are an emotional people. That heady mix of visuals, dialogs, nationalism, masti and music, all set in India, played my heartstrings every which way, making me very nostalgic, yearning for my country and my people, who are on the other side of the world

Ironically, during the second half, when the movie actually becomes serious, dramatically weaves in a real issue (not made-up for the movie) of national importance and actually talks about doing something to make the country better, my reactions were more sedate and subdued. May be it's just me. May be I respond to unstated, subtle stimulus better than in-your-face dialogs. I do have friends who told me that their conscience was affected by the second half of the movie. Whatever it is, I am glad that the the movie did not portray the overtly filmi, jingoistic, parochial version of nationalism, like most other movies do. Regardless of my paradoxical reactions to the first and second half of the movie, I did enjoy the movie in its entirety.

Wow! What a movie it is! This will probably turn out to be one of the best Indian movies of 2006. A clean, wholesome package of entertainment and drama, along with a patriotic social message. Sounds like a marketing message, doesn't it? But the movie delivers on it. The fact that it is an Aamir Khan movie is just the icing on top!

Rang De Basanti has the foundation of a great story (as any good movie should). A young female English filmmaker comes to India with the intention of making a movie on Bhagath Singh and his group of freedom fighters. The filmmaker has a very personal interest in the movie because her grandfather happened to be the jailer of Bhagat Singh's coterie, and he kept a very detailed and personal journal about their last days. She gathers a group of young Indians to play the roles of the freedom fighters in her movie. The youngsters seem to live only for the sake of having fun in life. They have a jaded, pessimistic attitude towards the country, its state and its current issues. They feel no tie to the country's past, and no concern for the future. They only want to ensure that today is great. (There is a line by Aamir's character in the movie which which sums up their attitude: If we have one foot on the past and one foot on the future, we will piss on the present in the middle!"). Nevertheless, playing the roles of Bhagath Singh and his friends in the movie-with-in-the-movie, seems to awaken a tiny seed in the conscience and hearts of the youngsters. And then, quite unexpectedly, the group of friends are faced with a very personal crisis which is tied to a matter of national importance. What will they do next? Will they let their original jaded-faded attitude dictate their actions, or will the tiny seed sprouting in their hearts grow into something big enough to rock the country? That is the rest of the movie.

In the interest of not spoiling the movie for those who have not watched it, I will not divulge anything more about the story. Just suffice it to say that it is good story, nicely presented, with excellent character portrayals. The movie could have been shorter and tighter, but we may overlook that minor detail considering that it is entertaining through its entire 3-hour length. The way elements of Bhagath Singh's story - including the characters and even some dialogs - are juxtaposed into the contemporary story of the movie's protagonists is very impressive and innovative. There were times when I got so involved in watching the interspersed footage of Bhagath Singh's movie, the movie-with-in-the-movie, set in pre-independence India, I forgot about the original movie set in contemporary India.

Aamir Khan shows once again why he is the greatest Khan of Bollywood movies. He plays the role of the youthful character DJ with style, aplomb and convincing sincerity. One cannot imagine any other Khan being able to play that role. But more delightful is the fact that the lesser-known actors who play the other roles in the movie put on a more convincing act than Aamir himself. Perhaps because I already know Aamir Khan as a star actor or perhaps because his character DJ is by nature prone to dramatics, I thought that the performance of the other actors was more realistic than that of Aamir himself. Siddharth in the role of the quiet, brooding Karan, and Atul Kulkarni as the chauvinistic, fire-brand Laxman Pandy, are both very impressive.

Apart from the length of the movie, there are a few other minor issues here and there, but I won't nitpick! It's a good movie. Worth watching again. Full paisa vasool!

City of God - Movie Review

I just have to write about this authentic, gripping movie I saw recently, called City of God. It is one of those works which can be most appropriately described as a tour de force. It was an intense experience which left me drained and exhilarated by the time I finished watching it. The authentic realism of the movie was draining, the artistic cinematic quality of the movie was exhilarating.

The movie is apparently based on a true story, set in a true place, a slum in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, a slum called "City of God". The tagline of the movie says, "Fight and you'll never survive... Run and you'll never escape". That pretty much sums up life in the slum. The story is about a couple of boys, who grow up to be barely men. One of them fights, and the other longs to run to a better life. Will the former survive? Will the latter escape? You'll have to watch the movie to find out.

The main focus of the movie is not about showing the struggles, the ugliness of the life in the slums. The main focus is to simply tell a great story. The struggles and the ugliness, the violence and the desperation are revealed in the context of the story. It is a gangster movie unlike any gangster movie you've seen before and will probably see again. The story is highly interesting and entertaining. It effortlessly captures our attention from beginning to end, keeping us wondering about what happens next.

When the movie starts, the protagonist of the story is one the verge of witnessing a street shootout between a drug-dealing gang and the police. Both sides have their guns drawn ready to fire (bottom half of the DVD cover picture shown above), and our guy finds himself planted right between them with nothing but his camera. Before we know what happens next, the story is narrated in a flashback, from the time when the main characters are boys, barely 7 years old, watching/participating in the life of petty crimes their brothers lead. The story follows them as they grow up (never seeming to cross 20 years of age), one of them becoming the most violent and feared drug dealer in the city, while the other struggles to keep himself out of trouble and follow his dream to be a photographer. The lives of the two boys are interwoven with each other, and with the lives of several others (most of them also boys) who come in, and go out or die, mostly die. The story is narrated with great skill, never losing or floundering the different narrative threads which are interwoven, always keeping them taut and just right. There are half a dozen or so separate narrative threads, each with it's own title. There are times when the same events are shown from different angles, as different threads come together and culminate at one point of time and space. The whole saga finally comes to a dramatic climax in a street shootout in broad daylight.

It is a movie about crime and violence among drug dealers. The story seems to happen in a different planet, a different reality because of how far removed the life depicted in the movie is from the kind of life most urban people in today's world know. I have seen science fiction movies which are more believable, which seem to be more in the realm of possibilities than some of the scenes in this movie. The violence is relentless and realistic from beginning to end. Some of the scenes are very disturbing and heart-rending. The movie shows kids who are not even into their teens doing drugs, dealing drugs, looting and shooting. The whole movie is indeed about kids, young and old. All the main characters never grow up to look (nor behave) like adults. That renders a sickly, tragic air to the whole drama. And despite the realism, it also makes the story hard to believe.

Yet, when I watched the special feature that came on the movie DVD, I realized that everything shown in the movie was all too real. The special feature is a 56-minute documentary made in the late 1990's, called "News from a Personal War", about the drug scene in the slums of Rio. The documentary starts by mentioning that a person dies in Rio every half an hour, and 90% of those deaths are due to violence! And then it goes on to show interviews with real people, involved in exactly the kind of life as shown in the movie. The documentary had interviews with kids who dealt drugs and killed people, families, policemen. It showed real police shootouts with the dealers and arrests. It went beyond what is impersonally reported in the news. It showed the personal face of the drug war, the personal perspective of every party involved. 56 minutes of crazy stuff!

City of God is a masterpiece of a movie, made mostly with amateur actors and the dialogs are supposedly in the authentic slum slang of Rio. The movie has received top reviews from all corners. This is not a movie to be missed.

City of God page on RottenTomatoes.com has links to all the reviews and movie info.

Layer Cake - Movie Review

Yesterday, I watched a nice little gangster movie called Layer Cake. It is a movie really worth watching. The movie plays out in a British setting and is a welcome change to the American gangster movies we are used to. The language of the British underworld is just one of many things which makes the movie interesting. There are plenty of twists and turns in the movie to keep us rivetted to the screen, wondering what would happen next. I don't even remember the last time I watched a crime movie in which I could not guess what would happen next.

The movie is based on a book by JJ Connolly called Layer Cake. The story is about an unnamed cocaine dealer (played by Daniel Craig), who is more of a savvy business man, than an ordinary criminal. The movie starts off with a spiel by the guy about how he ran a quiet, efficient business, how he made a neat bundle and how he plans to leave the life of crime to retire into a safe, quiet life. However, before he can retire, he has to complete two final tasks for his boss, Jimmy Price: a) find the missing drug-addict daughter of a close friend of the boss; b) facilitate the sale of a huge shipment of ecstasy from an unsafe, maverick criminal called The Duke.

Sounds simple enough, but there starts the labyrinthine twists and turns of the plot which gets more complex and tighter each passing minute. It is filled with secret dealings and double-crossings and unexpected happenings. The hero navigates different layers of the British crime world from the bottom-most to the very top (which gives the movie it's name), including petty crooks, terrorists, assassins and rich powerful crime bosses. With each passing sequence, he is pushed into ever deeper and dangerous pits of the underworld and the situation seems to get more and more hopeless, until the plot unravels into a beautiful finish. The movie is full of characters with names such as Clarkie, Duke, Slasher, Gazzar, Morty, Slavo, Kinky and so on.

This stylishly shot and tightly narrated movie is an excellent directorial debut by Producer Matthew Vaughn. I am surprised that this movie is not more popular. I am glad I rented this dvd after watching a trailer on another dvd.

Alai Payuthey

Posted on February 1, 2004 21:11 PM EST

After literally years of anticipation, I finally watched the movie Alai Payuthey, last night on DVD. I thought it must be real tough to find South Indians (especially a Tamizhian) who have not seen a few-years-old Mani Ratnam movie. Yet to my surprise, I had with me two friends here who had also not seen the movie and one of them is a Tamizhian!

We all liked the movie. Narrated well in classic Mani Ratnam style, it managed to keep our attention through-out. I liked the absence of filmi over-dramatization of the wooing process. I had expected more in the second half of the movie though. I had been told that the second half is about marital problems of the lead pair. Their fights seemed nothing more than childish squabbles - no deeper differences that lead to serious discord in couples. And then, the way the female lead character suspects her husband of being involved with her sister was also pretty lame. Only a director of the calibre of Mani Ratnam could get away with such drawbacks without making the movie look lame.

And of course, Rehman's songs in Alai Payuthey are as good as they most often are. The movie turned out to be a highy successful introduction to the lead artists Madhavan and the grown up Shalini, who was introduced in movies as a child artist, barely able to talk properly. Shalini is very radiant and has an incredibly subtle and deep screen presence. I could have a crush on her!

A very watchable movie. Now let me go and listen to its songs like I have been doing all day today.

Khakhee Movie

Posted on January 24, 2004 3:44 AM EST

Paisa Vasool