REVIEW 626: GOLD

Release date:	August 15, 2018
Director:	Reema Kagti
Cast: Language:	Akshay Kumar, Kunal Kapoor, Amit Sadh, Sunny Kaushal, Vineet Kumar Singh, Mouni Roy Hindi

Chak De! India is arguably the gold standard for any contemporary Hindi film hoping to use sport as a showcase for this country’s complex multi-cultural landscape. Gender politics, a factious nation’s religious and regional tensions, and the inevitability of inter-personal rivalries in a team game all found a place in Shimit Amin’s fabulous 2007 film about the Indian women’s hockey team at the turn of the century finding its oxygen under a new coach, yet it appeared not to strain a nerve to sermonise. Chak De! is a hard act to follow.

Director Reema Kagti’s Gold sets itself on the same playing field – hockey, this time for men – but shifts its gaze to a period stretching from 1936 pre-Independence India to the first Olympics we played after the British left our shores. India, as we know from history texts, dominated world hockey for several decades back then. Cobbling a team together for the 1948 Olympics was a challenging task, however, for a fictional team manager called Tapan Das (Akshay Kumar), Partition having robbed us of many of our finest sporting talents. In this scenario, Tapanda battles his own alcoholism and a cynical hockey establishment, in addition to the parochial and class divisions within the team to get free India a gold, not so much for sporting glory and self-realisation but to take revenge on our former colonisers.

In the tradition of several Akshay Kumar films of the past 3-4 years, Kagti – who earlier made the neatly irreverent Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and the wonderfully mellow Talaash – goes full throttle into loud, chest-thumping nationalist territory for Gold. If a point has to be made, it is spelt out not once but repeatedly. If a personal experience has to be a source of inspiration for a brainwave on the hockey field, the dialogue from the earlier moment must be replayed, on the assumption perhaps that viewers are not bright enough to get the hint from the proceedings on screen. If two characters are going to be at war in the dressing room, then their potential clash is announced through a long song during which the visuals stress and re-stress and further stress their class differences, just in case the audience did not quite get it from the initial indicators of one chap’s evident aristocratic background and the other’s evident lack of it. And when the national anthem plays in a scene that is truly and unexpectedly moving, the emotional resonance of the turn of events that preceded it is not deemed enough, the film’s patriotic fervour has to be underlined with a fluorescent marker in the form of one man – you can guess who – shouting Vande Mataram.

It is hard to understand why a filmmaker as gifted as Kagti could not see that there is melodrama and great beauty intrinsic to the story of a newly Independent and poor nation winning a hockey Olympic gold for the first time under its own flag. The failure to recognise this is Gold’s Achilles heel. Kagti does manage to weave some moments of quiet into the larger tapestry of overstatement she is working on – such as that scene in which the team first realises they will be ripped apart by Partition, or the dynamics in the bar fight which almost destroys Team India, or the warmth between the former teammates turned rivals from India and Pakistan at Olympics 1948, and most of all the two hockey matches that dominate the closing half hour. These are the passages in which we get to see what Gold could have been if it had not underestimated its audience or been overly anxious to cash in on the raucous, aggressive patriotism dominating the current national discourse.

Kagti has saved her best for Gold’s last 30 minutes, during which, despite all the film’s follies, I found myself cheering for the Indian team and welling up with emotion for them.

Of the cast, Sunny Kaushal and Amit Sadh play the only hockey players who are well fleshed out in the writing. The excellent Vineet Kumar Singh takes on the role of Imtiaz Ali Shah, captain of the undivided Indian team, giving his character far more heft than the screenplay affords. Unfortunately for the film, these men are sidelined in favour of Akshay Kumar’s Tapanda – of course – who is foregrounded throughout. Kumar gets the most screen time as manager-cum-talent-scout-cum-coach-cum-everything to the team, but delivers an awkward, uninspired performance in which his effort to be Bengali overshadows all else.

The oddest part of Gold is the fictionalisation of the hockey players who in reality won India golds at the 1936 and 1948 Olympics. Dhyan Chand and his colleagues are all part of sporting legend in India, yet for some reason, instead of using the names of these men who did us proud and bringing their characters to life, we get made-up names and characters based on their experiences instead in Gold. Yelling out Vande Mataram on screen can hardly compensate for this disservice to these giants from our past.

Gold has its occasional redeeming moments, but for the most part it just skims the surface of a landscape once examined with such depth by Chak De! India.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	2 hours 33 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/gold-movie-review-akshay-kumar-starrers-penchant-for-overstatement-overshadows-its-few-moments-of-moving-quiet-4965851.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_(2018_film)

REVIEW 514: RAAG DESH

Release date:	July 28, 2017
Director:	Tigmanshu Dhulia
Cast: Language:	Kunal Kapoor, Amit Sadh, Mohit Marwah, Kenny Desai, Kenny Basumatary, Mrudula Murali, Kanwaljit Singh, Zakir Hussain, Vijay Verma, Rajesh Khera Hindi

A string of Hindi films have been made in the past century about the life of Bhagat Singh and his hanging along with his associates Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar on March 23, 1931. Most recently, at least three productions on the subject were released within the same year in 2002, including Rajkumar Santoshi’s excellent but unfortunately underrated The Legend of Bhagat Singh starring Ajay Devgn as the charismatic Singh.

Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Raag Desh is about another conviction, far less spotlighted, that took place 14 years later in vastly different circumstances although the British still ruled India at the time.

What came to be known as the INA Trials or the Red Fort Trials of 1945 involved three soldiers of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA): Major General Shahnawaz Khan, Lieutenant Colonel Prem Kumar Sahgal and Lieutenant Colonel Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon. After being taken prisoners of war by the Japanese during World War II, they had joined INA and were involved in some of its more notable successes on the battlefield against the British in south-east Asia, but as their force gradually got depleted, were later compelled to surrender.

Khan, Sahgal and Dhillon were court martialled and their trial – held within Delhi’s historic Red Fort – attracted widespread attention. Defending them in court was an illustrious panel of lawyer-freedom fighters including Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhulabai Desai and Asaf Ali.

The trial became a rallying point for an Indian public that could see Independence within touching distance. Though the trio were found guilty of treason, the expected death sentence did not come, with the British sensing the possible disastrous consequences of such a move, keeping in mind the national mood and their own waning influence on the country.

Despite the many inherently melodramatic elements in this real-life tale of bravery, bloodshed, patriotism and sacrifice, writer-director Dhulia (who is credited with the film’s screenplay and dialogues) has taken a commercially risky route in Raag Desh with his clinical, documentary-like approach to the subject. There is no Sunny Deol-esque screaming in this film, no love songs wafting about although there is a romance, no chest-thumping nationalism, only facts, plain facts, about men and women who risked their lives that we might live in a free country.

In making this narrative choice, Dhulia reminds us that you do not need to raise your decibel levels to stir an audience when life itself is so packed with stirring moments. “Tum mujhe khoon do, main tumhe azaadi doonga (give me your blood and I will give you freedom),” was not a dialogue conjured up by a film writer – Bose actually uttered that line to inspire a people. “Lal Qile se aayee awaaz / Sahgal Dhillon Shahnawaz… (A voice comes from the Red Fort / Sahgal, Dhillon, Shahnawaz),” was not coined by a novelist to articulate an imagined secular ideal, it was a slogan from reality that rang outside the Fort while the trial was on inside.

The happenstance of this story’s protagonists being a Hindu, a Muslim and a Sikh is not a fiction created to propagate communal harmony, these were real people who fought side by side for a common cause without allowing their differing backgrounds to be a hurdle. In today’s divided India, where mob lynchings of Muslims have the covert and sometimes even overt support of the Central government (look no further than Union Minister Mahesh Sharma paying obeisance to the body of one of Mohammad Akhlaq’s alleged murderers, with the national flag wrapped around that body) and where a concerted effort is being made to keep minorities and liberal Hindus insecure, Raag Desh’s unspoken message speaks more than a thousand words.

In the noisy times we live in, where yelling matches have become standard fare on news TV, it is a relief to watch the story of Netaji’s men and women being told in such muted tones. Dhulia adopts a non-linear timeline, going back and forth between courtroom scenes on the one hand and the central trio’s journey with the INA. The result could have been confusing, but Geeta Singh’s even editing and the director’s smooth storytelling combine to ensure clarity instead.

Raag Desh feels like a history lesson delivered by a conscientious teacher. The detailing in the legal arguments presented in court makes for particularly exciting viewing. It is evident that the team has done painstaking research for their film.

Neither of the above – the understatement or the meticulousness – should come as a surprise, considering that Rajya Sabha TV (RSTV) is the producer of Raag Desh. Many of India’s private television channels now bow and scrape before the present government, indulging in raucous displays of patriotism to prove their credentials in keeping with the demands of the current establishment, and competing to out-shout each other in a bid to attract sensation-seeking audiences. RSTV – owned by the Upper House of Parliament and headed by the House’s ex-officio chairperson, the Vice President of India – has remained sane, sobre and non-partisan though under VP Hamid Ansari. The tenor of Raag Desh is but natural then.

Despite the focus of the film being INA’s formation, its work and the trial, it gives us enough information about its three protagonists to make them people we cannot help but emotionally invest ourselves in. The manner in which we are acquainted with their personal lives, however, is an almost amusing contrast to J.P. Dutta’s brand of filmmaking. Without LOC Kargil-style maudlin music, Raag Desh, for instance, brings home the tenderness of the relationship between Sahgal and Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan, head of INA’s all-women regiment, who met and fell in love during their time together in the Army.

What I missed in the film though was the debate that is so much a part of RSTV’s programming. Raag Desh, for instance, steers clear of taking a position on the great Bose’s deeply disturbing, questionable alliances with fascist forces during WWII that many people rationalise with an end-justifies-the-means argument. No, they do not – however much you may respect and admire an individual’s intentions. It is disappointing that a filmmaker as politically aware as Dhulia would take a blinkered (or safer?) view of Netaji.

The acting in the film is uniformly good. The sweet-faced Amit Sadh downplays his looks and physique here (quite the opposite of what he did when he first attracted national attention in Kai Po Che). He perfectly portrays Dhillon’s more rustic effervescence in comparison with the other two lead characters. Kunal Kapoor as Khan and Mohit Marwah as Sahgal are both distractingly handsome in uniform, but do not let their great beauty subtract from the gravitas and conviction they bring to their roles.

While all three are impactful, Marwah (who, by the way, is Anil Kapoor’s sister’s son) stands out for his matinee idol looks and innate sincerity. He was impressive even in his dismal debut film Fugly (2014), but should hopefully attract the attention of sensible producers with Raag Desh, where he gets more material to sink his teeth into.

The supporting cast features a bunch of familiar faces who are well styled to represent the historical personalities they portray, and deliver on-point performances relying on immersion in the character rather than bombast. Kenny Basumatary as Netaji, Kenny Desai as Bhulabai Desai and – in smaller roles – Mrudula Murali as Captain Lakshmi Sahgal nee Swaminathan and Rajesh Khera as Nehru are all memorable.

The film is on shaky ground though in certain tehnical areas. Some outdoor settings look like sets in a not-very-expensive stage production. And the no-fuss narration that works so well elsewhere in Raag Desh takes the edge out of some battle scenes. Compensation comes in the form of Rana Mazumder and Siddharth Pandit’s music, including a rousing rendition of the INA’s marching tune Kadam kadam badhaaye jaa.

Dhulia made his directorial debut in 2003 with Haasil, a gem of a film on campus politics in Allahabad starring Jimmy Sheirgill, Hrishitaa Bhatt and Irrfan Khan. It remains his best till date. Raag Desh, which he has written and directed, may not be up there, but it is special.

If you plan to watch it, do not go looking for Border or LOC Kargil. This one is more akin to Sankalp Reddy’s Telugu/Hindi The Ghazi Attack (2017), albeit even more under-played and also less swish on the production front. Raag Desh is a docu-drama, not a high-pitched weepie.

In an age of armchair nationalists fighting wars on the social media, the experience of watching these genuine heroes and heroines who put their lives on the line for us – and are not half as well-known as they ought to be – is both educational and poignant.

Rating (out of five stars): ***

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

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

REVIEW 448: DEAR ZINDAGI

Release date:	US: November 23, 2016. India: November 25, 2016.
Director:	Gauri Shinde
Cast: Language:	Alia Bhatt, Shah Rukh Khan, Kunal Kapoor, Ali Zafar, Ira Dubey, Yashaswini Dayama, Rohit Saraf, Aban Deohans, Atul Kale, Angad Bedi, Aditya Roy Kapur Hindi

Two points. Dear Zindagi is clearly straining at the formula-ridden Bollywood straitjacket to give us a refreshing take on love and family, and for the most part it sticks to its guns. In the end, it does succumb to the pressure to bow to perceived public demand with passing mentions of what we have come to consider inevitable in every Hindi film, but the ride up to that point is so rewarding so often that it is tempting to look past those needless moments.

Writer-director Gauri Shinde’s Dear Zindagi comes four years after her remarkable debut with English Vinglish. If that film brought the charismatic Sridevi back to the big screen as a leading lady after a 15-year hiatus, this one redefines the concept of hero and heroine in Hindi cinema.

Dear Zindagi revolves around Kaira (Alia Bhatt), a talented young cinematographer in Mumbai who despises her parents, appears confident in her romantic relationships yet is ridden with insecurities about the men she is drawn to. Those insecurities lead her to deliberately hurt her boyfriends before they get a chance to hurt her. It does not take a degree in psychology for a viewer to figure out her behaviour patterns, but Kaira is naturally confused by her fears. She ends up seeking professional help, and with some wise counsel, finds her answers herself.

When one of the biggest stars in the history of Bollywood appears on screen about 40 minutes after the opening credits, it goes without saying that this is an extremely unconventional film. Bhatt’s Kaira is the focal point of the story from start to finish whereas Shah Rukh Khan – playing her therapist Dr Jehangir Khan – surfaces towards the latter part of the first half and is nowhere to be seen in the concluding scene.

In a male-obsessed industry still tending to subordinate women in most mainstream projects, this is a decision that shows guts on Shinde’s part and Khan’s evident willingness to experiment. That other MegaKhan, Aamir, took a similar gamble with rewarding results in Taare Zameen Par (2007), and this is a winning aspect of Dear Zindagi too.

SRK gets less screen time but owns every scene he is a part of. In fact, Doc Jehangir enters the picture just as the film is sagging and appears to be repeating itself. His arrival immediately lifts Dear Zindagi. It sags again occasionally thereafter, but never when he is around. Besides, there is such warmth in Kaira’s interactions with the Doc that it envelops the rest of the narrative too.

It is worth mentioning that Khan in this new phase of his career when he is acknowledging his age gracefully, showing us a dash of gray and a whiff of wrinkles, is looking hot.

Kaira explodes in anger at one point when someone describes her as a pataka (firecracker). Well, that’s precisely what Bhatt is – a pataka with pizzazz and verve. What makes her so impactful is that she has had an internal journey with each of her roles so far, and not so far allowed that journey to be overshadowed by her attractive personality. Kaira is simultaneously exasperating and endearing, and Bhatt remains in control of that difficult blend throughout.

Still, the film needed more matter to wrap around these two lovely stars, and Dear Zindagi too often does not. Some of that comes from the failure to build up the satellite characters who are Kaira’s go-to people in times of need. We get that she is pre-occupied with her own emotional struggles to the point of not noticing their problems, but that is no excuse for the writing to neglect them too.

Who is Fatima (Ira Dubey) beyond being a mature, married friend? Who is Jackie (Yashaswini Dayama) beyond being a sweet, supportive, possibly younger friend? Who and what is that chubby male colleague beyond being chubby and funny? Who is her brother Kiddo (Rohit Saraf) whom she loves, beyond being her brother Kiddo whom she loves? Who and what are her boyfriends Sid (Angad Bedi), Raghuvendra (Kunal Kapoor) and Rumi (Ali Zafar) beyond being a good-looking restaurateur, a good-looking producer and a good-looking musician?

(Spoiler alert begins) And then there are those two oh-no moments towards the end – you know the kind that make you say, “Oh no, you too Dear Zindagi”? One of them seems to go along with the traditional view that characters played by a major male star and a major female star must inevitably be attracted to each other if they interact long enough in a story; the other underlines the essentiality of a man in a woman’s life to make her feel complete. Both are fleeting suggestions, but they pull down the film’s assuredness about what it is trying to say until then. Oh no, you too Dear Zindagi? (Spoiler alert ends)

For this and other reasons the film is inconsistent and intermittently lightweight. Yet, there is much else to recommend in Dear Zindagi.

The use of music, Amit Trivedi’s breezy tunes and Kausar Munir’s conversational lyrics are lots of fun, as are Kaira’s many amusing interactions with her friends. DoP Laxman Utekar fills the film with pretty frames of Goa beyond what we are used to seeing of that picturesque state, and is just as imaginative in his focus on Khan and Bhatt’s faces. Watch out for the closing shots of Bhatt on a beach.

From an industry that usually treats parents as deities deserving to be worshipped, it is also unusual to get a story that does not ignore these gods’ feet of clay, especially considering that Dear Zindagi is co-produced by Karan “It’s All About Loving Your Parents” Johar.

Above all, it is nice to see a film making an effort to destigmatise patient-therapist interactions, in a portrayal far removed from the “paagalkhanas (lunatic asylums)” of an earlier Bollywood era. 

Dear Zindagi then is a mixed bag. I loved SRK in the film, Bhatt is always a pleasure to watch, the story visits many themes that are uncommon in Bollywood, and several of the discussions are either witty or insightful or both. Overall though, the film comes across as being not enough because the writing needed more substance.

Dear Gauri Shinde,

You broke the mould with the delightful English Vinglish. Since you have defied convention in so many ways this time round too, you may as well have gone the entire distance without worrying about the consequences. We believe in you. Please do have faith in our faith in you.

Regards,

A genuine well-wisher.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	149 minutes 53 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/dear-zindagi-movie-review-incredibly-cute-alia-shah-rukh-khan-need-a-more-consistent-script-3123586.html

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