REVIEW 242: ONE BY TWO

Release date:	January 31, 2014
Director:	Devika Bhagat
Cast: Language:	Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Tahir Bhasin, Rati Agnihotri, Jayant Kriplani, Lilette Dubey, Anish Trivedi, Yudishtir Urs, Darshan Jariwala Hindi

I’ve no doubt there are many great existential profundities that writer-director Devika Bhagat believes she’s addressing with this film. As the teenagers I know would say: it’s deep. Very deep, indeed. So deep that I drowned in a sea of boredom and just managed to escape.

One By Two tells us the parallel stories of the love-lorn techie Amit (Abhay Deol) and aspiring dancer-choreographer Samara (Preeti Desai), both living in the city of Mumbai. That they will meet at some point in the film is an inevitability intrinsic to this format. Keeping us hooked until they get there is Bhagat & Co’s job. Sadly, they – and by that I mean the entire team, not just Bhagat – fail miserably in the attempt.

The worst of this film’s many failings is the long-winded screenplay with its inert storytelling style and tons of loopholes, Why, for instance, would a seemingly self-respecting woman assume that her long-estranged ex-lover’s dinner invitation to their daughter was in fact a joint invitation for her too? Why would that daughter lead her mother to believe so? Why would the woman set herself up for an insult, by getting ready for that dinner? Why would the daughter, who loves her mother dearly, seem completely unmoved when the father ticks off the lady for being presumptuous? And these are questions emerging from just one scene where careless writing and poor acting converge. Come to think of it, I have plenty of existential queries with which I could fill this page. Leading the pack is this: Why did Viacom 18 and Abhay Deol invest in a script that is as lifeless as the nondescript title bestowed on it?

This is not to say that Bhagat does not have a track record that would inspire hope in potential producers. She is, among other films, the writer/co-writer of Manorama Six Feet Under, Bachna Ae Haseeno, Aisha and Ladies vs Ricky Bahl. Whatever you may have thought about those films, you have to admit they came armed with enthusiasm and energy. One By Two completely lacks spark. And while much of that could be blamed on the director, the lead cast must share a large part of the blame.

Let’s talk about Abhay Deol, for instance. Sunny and Bobby’s cousin, who was so charming on debut in Imtiaz Ali’s Socha Na Tha, needs to step back and re-assess his work, his choice of roles in the last nine years and how much of himself he invests in the characters he plays. He has a likeable screen presence and a natural ease before the camera, but it’s time he upped his game. In One By Two he plays Amit with an unvarying tone from start to finish and fails to explode on screen even when the screenplay clearly requires him to do so, in that one scene in which the chap deliberately sets out to embarrass his family by appearing before a room full of guests dressed in his underwear and guitar, to sing I’m just pakaoed. Playback singer Siddharth Mahadevan brings on the fireworks with that song, but his zest is unsuited to Deol whose facial expression barely changes to match the words and tune emerging from his character’s lips. Highlighting the actor’s uninspired performance here is the repeated presence in the same frame of cute, talented and impactful young Tahir Bhasin playing Amit’s loyal friend.

And what were they thinking casting model-turned-actress and Deol's real-life girlfriend Preeti Desai as the female lead in this film? She’s an extremely good-looking former beauty queen and a graceful dancer, but on the acting front the best thing that can be said about her is that she has improved vastly since she stood out like a sore thumb in a small role in the midst of an otherwise-brilliant cast in Krishna DK and Raj Nidimoru’s wonderful Shor In The City in 2011. Comparing her to herself, she’s better here, which is saying little. 

As for Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s music over which Deol fought a battle with T-Series that’s been well chronicled by the news media, well, it’s the high point of the film but certainly nowhere close to the high points of their career. The production design is eye-catching, as is Samara’s wardrobe. The dances are attractive, but there’s not a single move that took my breath away as you might expect in a film which features a heroine who is a professional dancer. Since there’s little else worth discussing in One By Two, I’d like to make a special mention of a commode-shaped ice bucket that has a starring role in a drinking session on the terrace with Amit and his friends.

In the end, One By Two is like the farts that Amit dispenses after over-eating his mother’s paneer dish: it’s just so much gas and thin air, but dissipates into the surrounding atmosphere as the memory of this film already has.

Rating (out of five): 1/2 (half star out of 5)

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	139 minutes

Poster courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_By_Two_(2013_film)

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 59: BIN BULAYE BARAATI

Release date:	June 17, 2011
Director:	Chandrakant Singh
Cast:	Om Puri, Aftab Shivdasani, Priyanka Kothari, Sanjay Mishra, Johnny Lever, Rati Agnihotri, Vijay Raaz

This is the kind of film Om Puri has been stuck doing for years and years in Bollywood, when there’s so much more this man can offer Indian cinema. Bin Bulaye Baraati is an over-the-top farce featuring multiple actors and a noisily told story. Puri plays a naïve policeman called Pralay Pratap Singh who gets himself and the police commissioner into endless trouble. A substantial portion at the start of BBB is devoted to Pralay, his boss and the boss’ wife (Rati Agnihotri) who speaks to Pralay in an inexplicably fussy, baby-like tone, thus leading her husband to believe that there’s an affair brewing. At this point, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Pralay is the leading man. But no sir, he pretty much disappears from the scene when the film shifts to the love story of his niece Shreya, played by Ram Gopal Varma’s one-time protégé Nisha a.k.a Priyanka Kothari. Shreya elopes with her boyfriend AD (Aftab Shivdasani). Along the way they chance upon a cache of jewels belonging to a dreaded dacoit (Gulshan Grover).

Now this dacoit is a nasty type who rolls his eyes and terrorises the people of Madhavgarh even as he manages the curtain of hair falling across his face. AD and Shreya land up in this village along with three con men (Sanjay Mishra, Rajpal Yadav, Vijay Raaz), who’ve joined them along the way, never mind how. The villagers mistake them for policemen, and suddenly the film becomes a remake of Sholay.

The real tragedy of BBB is that it probably did sound good at the concept level. A humorous modern-day take-off on one of the great classics of Hindi cinema holds out such promise. But the entire cast should have guessed they were headed for trouble from the moment they discovered that Jai and Veeru were being replaced by four men accompanied by Priyanka Kothari, an ‘actress’ who can’t act enough to even stand around effectively and watch others emote. Perhaps this was director Chandrakant Singh’s idea of a joke considering the audience and media outrage that erupted when Priyanka played a Basanti equivalent in Ramu’s Sholay interpretation, the insufferable RGV ki Aag.

For me, the clue that there’s something wrong with this film came very early on when several characters were shown chasing an obviously computer-generated rat through the commissioner’s house. Still, with less noise, less clichés, a sense of direction and some clearing up of the clutter, this film could have actually been a worthwhile slapstick comedy. In spite of myself, I did crack up during several scenes involving Sanjay Mishra and Vijay Raaz. Aftab Shivdasani tries hard to look dignified and hero-like in the midst of the mayhem, even when he becomes the object of alternate sexual lust courtesy Johnny Lever. Since it’s Lever we’re talking about, it goes without saying that there are various low-brow facial contortions involved here. Television soapdom’s Shweta Tiwari makes a late appearance as a village temptress and far far outshines Mallika Sherawat’s item song in BBB. By the way, Mallika’s number goes, “Munni bhi maani aur Sheela bhi maani, Shalu ke tthumke ki duniya deewani.” What lies!

Rating (out of five): *1/2

CBFC Rating:                       U/A with one word beeped out

Running time:                        135 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.binbulayebaraati.com/index.htm