REVIEW 192: HUM HAI RAAHI CAR KE

Release date:	May 24, 2013
Director:	Jyotin Goel
Cast: Language:	Adah Sharma, Dev Goel, Rati Agnihotri, Chunkey Pandey, Sanjay Dutt, Juhi Chawla, Anupam Kher Hindi

How poorly thought out this film is should be clear to you from the fact that the poster has the words “introducing Dev Goel” planted right on the actor’s crotch. Sorry if that sounds mean but having sacrificed over two hours of my life on the nothingness that is Hum Hai Raahi Car Ke (HHRCK), I think I’m entitled to my anger.

The things people do for love! They kill, they kill themselves, they kill reputations. And this week a man risked destroying his father’s legacy by launching a son in Bollywood. The most saddening discovery I’ve made about HHRCK is that the talentless lead actor Dev Goel is the grandson of Devendra Goel who made the Sadhana-Balraj-Sahni-Sanjay-Khan-starrer Ek Phool Do Maali, the Meena Kumari-Rajendra-Kumar-Honey-Irani-starrer Chirag Kahan Roshni Kahan and other notable hits from the 1950s-70s. HHRCK is directed by Devendra Goel’s son Jyotin Goel who too has made a few films in the past couple of decades. This one is his launch vehicle for his son Dev.

That HHRCK is bad is an under-statement. That Dev can’t act is another. Fear not, Daddy still makes sure the beta is pretty much in every frame in the film, even giving him an opportunity to take off his shirt in one scene, dance elsewhere and emerge from a helicopter in full Shah Rukh Khan-K3G style in the finale! If you want to know how tough it is for an outsider without godparents to survive in Bollywood, watch pretty Adah Sharma – yes, she who we’ve already seen in Vikram Bhatt’s 1920 – inflict upon herself the role of this film’s heroine for which she has to actually kiss this boy!!!

Dev and Adah play childhood friends Shammi Suri and Priyanka Lalwani, he a computer genius, she a call centre employee. The two go on a road trip from Mumbai to Pune during the course of which they have a series of misadventures that begin with a man in gorilla costume urinating in a forest. Never mind how the film ends or how it gets there. Let me say it again: Dev Goel can’t act. He covers up his inadequacies with over-acting and a swagger. Even the appearance of big names like Sanjay Dutt (playing a cop called Karan Karate) and Juhi Chawla (as a doctor who speaks in sign language to facilitate her incessant paan chewing) can do nothing to redeem this irredeemable film. For the record, Juhi manages to look incredibly pretty in HHRCK despite the poor lighting.

If you are the sort who always wants to see your glass as half full, then here’s the only reason I could find for you in this boring film… Why on earth, you ask, would Sanju and Juhi associate themselves with this embarrassingly pathetic venture? Answer: As a friendly gesture because they’ve worked with Jyotin Goel in the past. Sniff sniff! There is still some goodness left in this world. Getting emotional over that nugget of information is the only way to survive Hum Hai Raahi Car Ke with its gemological offerings such as these… When Karan Karate sees an unconscious man in the backseat of a car, with both hands firmly cupping his testicles, he says, “Bird in hand is worth two in bush?” Apparently that’s funny. The villain of the film tells the lead pair that he bought a pair of Jimmy Choos for Rs 1 lakh a shoe, to which Shammi responds with all the confidence that comes from an actor who is convinced that he’s delivering a killer dialogue: “Ek lakh ek joote ka? Lagta hai Jimmy tujhe poora choo bana gaya.” Apparently that too is funny.

This isn’t even one of those films that’s so bad, it’s good. That honour must go to such treasures as Tum Hi To Ho, Chargesheet, Tension Doooor and Chitkabrey Shades of Grey that we’ve faithfully tracked on this blog. Hum Hai Raahi Car Ke is just plain, hellishly, sleep-inducingly dull.

Rating (out of five): -10 stars

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

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hum_Hai_Raahi_Car_Ke  

This trailer makes Hum Hai Raahi Car Ke look far more tolerable than it actually is: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYLSOn_7J4w

REVIEW 191: ISHKQ IN PARIS

Release date:	May 24, 2013
Director:	Prem Raj (earlier known as Prem Soni)
Cast: Language:	Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek (earlier known as Gaurav Chanana), Isabelle Adjani, Guest appearances by Shekhar Kapur and Chunky Pandey Hindi, English and a bit of French

At its core, shorn of all its insecurities, Ishkq in Paris is sweet. Actress Preity Zinta makes her debut as a producer with an unconventional Hindi film where the building blocks are conversations – and nothing else – between the lead pair. Ishkq (yes that’s Preity’s name in the film) and Aakash (Rhehan Malliek) meet on a train to Paris and decide to spend the night together doing whatever comes up at the roll of a dice…quite literally, since a cube they’ve picked up from an Indian knick-knacks seller has “coffee”, “dinner”, “sex” and other words written on each face.

She’s a half-Indian-half-French photographer based in Paris. He’s a Punjabi working in London as an actor’s agent, with a flight out of Paris to catch the following morning. He’s got sex on his mind, but is stumped by this pretty girl who refuses to let him buy her dinner, pointing out bluntly that she knows there are no free meals in this world. He cuts to the chase: All right then, spend the night with me. Don’t try so hard to be European, she shoots back, having already told him earlier that he’s the typical Indian male. Sigh. Okay, no hanky panky, just show me this city, he says. And so she does. You can see from that moment on that he’s smitten though he won’t quite let on. You can see too that she is that intriguing combination of friendly yet distant though not by design. They’re both commitment-phobic for various reasons. And so they talk through the night…and talk and talk…and reveal more about themselves to each other than they might have if they’d known they’d ever meet again. Where will this unusual Hindi film take us?

Plenty of places, would have been the answer if Ishkq in Paris had not succumbed to the insecurities (that word again) that makes Bollywood insert star-driven item numbers into films that don’t need them, songs where words and silences may have served a greater purpose, a cameo by a major star where a non-star actor may have done a better job and a cliched climax where the initial storyline held out a promise of non-conformism all the way through. What makes matters worse for IIP is that neither the item boy in question (Salman Khan) nor the music directors (Sajid-Wajid) nor the guest star (French acting legend Isabelle Adjani playing Ishkq’s mother) seem to have bothered to make much of an effort for this film. Salman’s dance moves here have none of the energy and mischief we’ve come to associate with him. Sajid-Wajid have churned out a string of generic songs for Ishkq’s love story. And Adjani seems frozen-faced, even detached from the proceedings throughout her screen time.

Who on earth decided to give her Hindi lines but get them dubbed by an actress whose voice doesn’t suit her? Did Adjani specify that she will not make the effort to speak Hindi? If she did, why oh why didn’t they opt for a smaller star who may have been more involved? Yeah yeah, we know getting her was a casting coup but do consider the pros and cons! And if she did actually say her own lines then why did they dub over her voice? Heightening the problem is the fact that the mom is the narrator of the film but it’s hard to connect to her because the voice used for the narration is the dubbing artiste’s not Adjani’s. All this makes you cry in anguish for Preity who’s been inexplicably dropped like a hot brick by Bollywood in recent years; and who’s clearly invested a lot of herself in this film. Well, she is not just the producer, she shares the writing credits with director Prem Raj, so she must take much of the blame.

This is quite tragic because so much of Ishkq in Paris is charming and mellow and in the first half matches the mood and tone of two very nice Hindi films from 2012: Ek Main aur Ekk Tu and London Paris New York. IIP is clearly inspired by Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, but all the films we’ve just mentioned were confident about how they wanted to say what they wanted to say; Ishkq in Paris is not, and so it brings on the unnecessary frills. More’s the pity because Preity clearly has some acting left in her; and when she dimples up here, she does so without that awareness of her own cuteness that was in evidence in earlier films… Clearly then she has a comfortable equation with Prem Raj (who, by the way, earlier made the Salman-Khan-Kareena-Kapoor-starrer Main aurr Mrs Khanna). Rhehan is no mean actor himself. Both look good and look good together in this film. It jars when he briefly goes out of character and metamorphoses into an MCP-aspiring-to-be-a-knight-in-shining-armour who tells the girl, “Main tumhe tumhare akelepan se bachana chahta hoon”, but it’s also true that here for a change we actually get a Bollywood hero who apologises to the heroine for his MCP-ism. Besides, Manush Nandan’s camera captures Paris beyond the Eiffel Tower in an intimate, non-touristy way that’s uncharacteristic of Bollywood.

So here’s what it comes down to: if you’re a die-hard romantic like me, then you might be in a mood to close your eyes to this film’s many flaws. I suspect that's the only way Ishkq in Paris would be your cup of tea. As always, it’s your call.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	102 minutes

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishkq_in_Paris

REVIEW 190: THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST

Release date:	May 17, 2013
Director:	Mira Nair
Cast: Language:	Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Keifer Sutherland, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri English

If you are among those who’ve loved The Reluctant Fundamentalist by celebrated Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid, you may be tempted to slaughter me, but this is the honest-to-god truth: I found the book superficial, sometimes simplistic, often playing to the gallery in a way some people do while discussing a wronged minority, and it didn’t move me.

The reason why director Mira Nair’s film works is that it manages to be moving despite the protagonist’s seemingly flimsy motivations. Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (screen story by Hamid & Ami Bhogani, screenplay by William Wheeler) takes the skeletal conversation in the book between the Pakistani protagonist and an American man in a Lahore marketplace, and breathes life and feeling into it. From the distant figure in the cold-as-steel book, Changez Khan in the film becomes a living, breathing man whose post-9/11 journey draws you in.

A decade has passed since that apocalyptic day. Changez (Riz Ahmed) who once chased the American Dream on Wall Street in dapper suits is now back in Pakistan, bearded and in traditional attire, teaching at a local university. At a restaurant in Lahore, he recounts his life in the US to an American journalist (Liev Schreiber) while a cloud of suspicion hangs over his head regarding the kidnapping of a US citizen in the city. Using the flashback-through-an-interview-(or-is-it-an-interrogation?) format, the film takes us back in time with him to New York where he worked as a financial analyst. We meet his professional mentor Jim (Keifer Sutherland), we watch him fall in love with the emotionally conflicted Erica (Kate Hudson), and gradually, we also see that idyllic life unravel after the WTC attacks: we see him humiliated by a strip search at a US airport simply because he looks different, we see colleagues suddenly view him with suspicion, we witness another humiliating episode with the police, and we see the strain tell on his relationship with Erica.

The interesting difference between Changez’s story on page and on celluloid is the treatment of Erica which provides a lovely showcase for the misunderstandings that arise when a couple are dealing with external stresses. Was Changez over-reacting to Jessica’s art show or was a Pakistani boyfriend really a badge of honour for a bohemian artist to raise her “street cred”? His cruel words to her at that point, in a deliberate attempt to wound her, allows the story to depart from the book’s black-and-white interpretation of race relations in which the brown-skinned hero is not critiqued. There is also a moment of utter frankness when Changez describes his reflex reaction to 9/11 when he watched on television as the twin towers collapsed: Before conscience kicks in, have you never felt a split second of pleasure at arrogance brought low? … It's a flash of a feeling that may have been felt by many worldwide that political correctness would prevent most from articulating.

Pulsating through the story is some wonderful music that includes the ethereal sounds of Pakistani qawwals singing as the opening credits roll out. Nair’s well-chosen cast is headlined by the remarkable (and remarkably attractive) British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed who plays Changez with a stoicism that never fails to convey the depths of his emotions. Kate Hudson with her flirty charm is a pleasant foil to his more guarded exterior. Schreiber, Sutherland and (in much briefer roles playing Changez’s parents) Shabana Azmi and Om Puri are spot-on. Even that Lahore marketplace is peopled with actors who deliver the occasional throwaway dialogue without being clichés of Pakistan.

Where the film does chuck a stereotype at us is with Changez’s workplace contemporaries. The only one who is supportive among them is the black guy while the white girl and boy eye him warily. Oh c’mon!!! So much more believable is the white boss Jim who hits the nail on the head when he urges Changez to snap out of his disillusionment with these words: If you throw a stone out of that window it will fall on a person who feels victimised. Maybe this – Changez’s relatively minor grievances – are the reason why it’s not easy to be convinced of his motivations for throwing away everything he’d worked so hard to achieve in the US. Wherever in the world you are, if you are a minority you will face prejudice of some sort. Do Changez’s actions suggest that instead of fighting this prejudice, we must run away from it?

 

Well, a difference of opinion with the protagonist is no reason to dislike a film. That we are provided a counterpoint via Jim is good enough. People have been embittered by far less than what Changez went through. Those who justify racial profiling by America’s security apparatus should realise the harm it causes. Changez’s experiences are a far cry from the tragedies that befell the heroes of that gorgeous Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye and Bollywood’s poignant New York…but Changez too is a reality. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is not in the league of Nair’s best films, Salaam Bombay and Monsoon Wedding, but it’s thoughtful and thought-provoking all the same. For that and for Riz Ahmed, it’s definitely worth a watch.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time: MPAA Rating (US):	137 minutes R (for language, some violence and brief sexuality)
Release date in the US:	April 26, 2013

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Reluctant_Fundamentalist_(film)

Official trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SQs2Y8drP8