REVIEW 298: SONALI CABLE

Release date:	October 17, 2014
Director:	Charudatt Acharya
Cast: Language:	Rhea Chakraborty, Ali Fazal, Smita Jaykar, Anupam Kher, Swanand Kirkire Hindi

If David doesn’t look like David in a David-vs-Goliath film, you know you have a problem.

The film shares its title with a small-time cable Internet agency in Mumbai, the owner of which refuses to sell her shop when a large corporate entity called Shining decides it wants to monopolise the broadband business in the city. Sonali Dattaram Tandel (Rhea Chakraborty) is a feisty, fiery creature who won’t brook nonsense from anyone. Abandoned by her mother in her childhood, now as an adult she mothers her alcoholic father (Swanand Kirkire). If you want to buy out her tiny enterprise, Sonali Cable, you don’t phone her and tell her to visit you in your humungous office building with the intimidatingly massive lobby; you don’t tell her, you make a polite request. Goes without saying that there’s nothing polite about the bullies in suits from Shining.

And thence commences the enmity that almost destroys this gutsy gali ki chhokri, her friendships and especially her relationship with her boyfriend Raghu (Ali Fazal), son of Mumbai politician Meenatai Pawar (Smita Jaykar).

Disappointingly for a film co-produced by veteran Ramesh Sippy and his son Rohan, the lady neta’s name is its only cheeky touch. The late Balasaheb Thackeray’s wife was Meenatai, and Pawar is, well, you know the Pawars. Looks like writer-director Charudatt Acharya was having fun there.

No idea what happened thereafter. The introduction to the disparate cast of characters working with Sonali and the basic plotline are successful in getting viewer interest piqued. Unfortunately, too much unravels too soon in this film.

There are many elements that appear promising – the father-daughter relationship minus the presence of a mother figure (not common in Bollywood films), the personal touch offered by small business operators, the potential collusion between politics and big business, the bleak future of small businesses when that collusion takes place, and more. All this is particularly relevant in the context of the continuing FDI-in-retail-vs-the-future-of-kirana-stores debate. Sadly, Acharya fails to flesh out these elements and take them forward, which is odd considering that his earlier co-writing credits include films vastly superior to this one: the unusual horror flick Vaastu Shastra, the interesting though inconsistent Dum Maaro Dum and the delightfully quirky, layered Ayushmann Khurrana-starrer Nautanki Saala (the last two directed by Rohan Sippy). Sonali Cable merely skims the surface of everything it deals with, while our little Ms David and the people at Shining end up looking like clichés.

Besides, though the actors in Sonali’s office and home settings are believable, and Smita Jaykar feels very real as a politician of questionable morals, Rhea Chakraborty sticks out like a sore thumb. She is just too glammed-up to fit the part of a young woman sweating it out in a narrow bylane in lower middle-class quarters in a congested city. She has an expressive face but her makeup is too flawless, her jewellery too well-matched to her stylish, figure-emphasising clothes. In a country where working women are extremely careful about the way they are turned out for fear of being misunderstood, I’m not saying a real-life Sonali Tandel shouldn’t dress like this woman, but that she wouldn’t dress like her on the job in the kind of job she does.

Sonali’s posture too is more like that of a professional model at a studio shoot than a woman running a corner shop. Notice how she stands, her dainty hands planted just above her hips to underline her tiny waist that is already highlighted by her impeccably cut tops. Let’s get real!

Ali Fazal is the cute-looking guy who played Vidya Balan’s boyfriend in Bobby Jasoos earlier this year. Fazal has a likeable screen presence and delivers a neat performance here, despite the half-baked screenplay. The redeeming factor for Chakraborty is that she has good chemistry with him. In fact, they’re hot together when they cuddle up.

The villains in the story never make the transition from cardboard cutouts to real human beings: there’s the sleazy corporation owner (Anupam Kher), his obsequious second-in-command who is out of his depth in the job throughout but is not fired anyway, and a third man who seems far wiser than the second-in-command but does not take over the job. At least Kher’s character boasts of an innovative quirk that is effectively icky: he has a earbud permanently stuck in his ear, thus constantly conjuring up visions of ear wax and – don’t ask me why – people who pick their noses or men who don’t wash their hands after peeing. This, his obsession with khakra and the ridiculous tasks he gives his ever-on-call gori firangi Woman Friday are amusing to begin with, but after a while they become yawn-worthy and you want to see evidence of action in his bustling mega-company beyond those three men mostly cooped up in a room.

The last thing you would expect from Ramesh and Rohan Sippy is a film that looks like it ran out of both money and imagination early on. In addition to better writing and casting, this one needed more extras in more frames and sets that weren’t trying hard to look like natural settings.

Sweetness of intent can’t make up for superficial content. Too much of Sonali Cable feels as if a section of the team lost interest in this project long before it was wrapped up.

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	128 minutes

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

REVIEW 180: NAUTANKI SAALA

Release date:	April 12, 2013
Director:	Rohan Sippy
Cast: Language:	Ayushmann Khurrana, Kunaal Roy Kapoor, Pooja Salvi, Evelyn Sharma, Gaelyn Mendonca, Sulbha Arya, Sanjeev Bhatt, Cameo: Abhishek Bachchan Hindi

This is an unusual Bollywood film. It’s quirky, funny, charming, unexpectedly experimental coming as it does from two mainstream production houses (T-Series Super Cassettes Industries and Ramesh Sippy Entertainment), brave in its interpretation of the Ramayan considering the penchant for violence of our Indian religious conservatives and – let me say it again – funny… Not in a Sajid Khan-Rohit Shetty kind of way. No no, this one’s a low-key, understated, soft and gentle version of humour.

Nautanki Saala is based on the French film Apres vous, neatly adapted to the Indian scenario by writers Nipun Dharmadhikari, Rohan Sippy and Charudutt Acharya. Ram Parmar a.k.a. RP (Ayushmann Khurrana) is the director of a play called Raavanleela running successfully in Mumbai. Ram plays Raavan in the play. We discover early on that the man has a habit of melodramatising everything in his life (hence the film’s title) while also making other people’s problems his own, which is how it comes about that he prevents the suicide of one Mandar Lele (Kunaal Roy Kapur) and casts him as Ram in his on-stage drama while developing a twisted sense of obligation towards the pathetic fellow off stage. Also in the picture are RP’s girlfriend Chitra (Gaelyn Mendonca), Mandar’s lady love Nandini (Pooja Salvi), the play’s Seeta (Evelyn Sharma), the play’s harassed producer Chandra Sir (Sanjeev Bhatt) and Nandini’s beefy boyfriend Lokesh Limaye (Rufy Khan). 

The film’s production values are excellent and there’s particular pleasure to be derived from visuals of Raavanleela’s lavish stage, glitzy green rooms and costumes. The casting is a big plus point. That Ayushmann Khurrana is talented was evident in his first film Vicky Donor; how talented becomes clear in Nautanki Saala as he switches from Raavan on stage to a much-in-love Ram off it, struggling to hide his feelings from everyone. Kunaal Roy Kapoor (the fartbag from Delhi Belly) is equally wonderful as miserable Mandar. The two play off each other really well. The pick of the supporting cast is the delightful Sanjeev Bhatt as Chandra Sir. His perennially theatrical demeanour and heavily accented south Indian Hindi are a hoot. Full marks to Bhatt and director Rohan Sippy for making the character so hilarious without once turning him into the nauseously caricaturish “Madrasi” of an earlier Bollywood era. In fact, despite the deliberately stage-like feel of the film, there are many points at which a lesser director may have gone overboard but Sippy does not, stopping in his tracks at precisely the right point, thus giving us real human beings instead of cartoons. Like the Malayali receptionist at a Mumbai hospital who speaks such heavily accented Hindi at such high speed that she needs a translator, and Mandar’s Maharashtrian Ajji (Sulbha Arya) who could have been an OTT representation of the community or old ladies, yet is not. It’s clear that trouble has been taken even in the casting of Raavanleela’s audience. That’s what you call finesse.

Of the three women in RP’s life, Gaelyn Mendonca playing Chitra stands out for her screen presence and acting. Do look out for a restaurant scene in which she’s feeling particularly affectionate towards her boyfriend. Evelyn Sharma has the smallest role of the three but makes it work, especially in that moment when she decides to woo her very own real-life Ram. Where the film falters is in the writing and casting of Nandini. Model-turned-debutant-actress Pooja Salvi is great looking, but does not have the charisma to convince us that not one, not two, but three men (I won’t tell you who) would be madly in love with her. Her acting can’t be faulted but there’s a missing X factor … perhaps she’ll acquire it by the by. Despite this, there’s nice chemistry on display in that first lingering kiss involving her and one of those three men.

The film’s music is a lovely blend of old Bollywood tracks and original numbers. Ayushmann seems to have particular good luck with Punjabi songs. After Paani da rang in Vicky Donor, here he composes (again with Rochak Kohli) and sings the lilting Saadi galli aaja. All the songs are woven well into the plot, though none more so than So gaya yeh jahaan reprised from Tezaab. Do stay back till the end of the closing credits or you’ll miss the three girls doing a Dil dhak dhak karne laga.

The first half of Nautanki Saala is the lighter half, filled with laughter drawn primarily from RP and Mandar’s interactions. The scene in which Mandar auditions for the role of Lord Ram is a killer. In the second half, just when it seems that the film is slowing down and may not have anything new to offer, the Ram-Sita-Hanuman-Raavan quartet on stage is juxtaposed with the real-life goings-on in RP’s life and there’s no looking back from there.

I’m no expert on other people’s opinions, but I suspect Nautanki Saala is a film that many people might consider “too slow” and others might deem “too arty”. A friend I met outside the preview theatre told me he couldn’t bring himself to sit through it. In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I watched it twice before writing this review. The first time I was stuck at a meeting and ended up missing 19 minutes of the press preview, so of course I had to watch it a second time for a fair critique. That I sat through it till the very end even while re-watching the film (until the theatre abruptly cut off the end credits) should tell you just how much it worked for me. If “arty” can be this funny and this thought-provoking, bring it on!

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

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A (can’t figure out why this is not a U film)
Running time:	130 minutes

REVIEW 32: DUM MAARO DUM

Release date:	April 22, 2011
Director:	Rohan Sippy
Cast:	Abhishek Bachchan, Rana Daggubati, Bipasha Basu, Aditya Pancholi, Prateik Babbar

Yeh Michael Barbosa kaun hai? 

It’s a question that occupies the mind and life of ACP Vishnu Kamath who has been hand-picked by the Union Home Minister to clean up drug-ravaged Goa. The state has been enslaved by dealers. But the kingpin is an ephemeral creature who no one seems to have ever met. Is he young or old, Indian or foreign, is he in fact a she? But the real question is, does Dum Maaro Dum have what it takes to keep us glued to our seats till we get the answer to that first question?

The story of DMD is told through three parallel tracks: Lorry (Prateik Babbar) aspires to study in the US with his girlfriend but doesn’t have the money to make it there without a scholarship; Kamath (Abhishek Bachchan) is a man battling the ghosts of his past along with the spectre of Michael Barbosa; musician/DJ Joki (Rana Daggubati) is desperate to redeem himself for his earlier failure to stand up for his girlfriend Zoe (Bipasha Basu). Tying them all together is the evil drug lord Lorsa Biscuta (Aditya Pancholi).

The film establishes each character firmly and succinctly. The actors are good; the background score by Midival Punditz is evocative of the sadness underlying the loveliness all around; and Amit Roy’s camera thankfully goes beyond the clichéd images of Goa’s beaches and churches, beyond even those traditional Portuguese homes and the roadways flanked by fields, and travels all the way up to atmospheric graveyards and the lonely patches of green in the countryside where anything could happen when no one’s watching. Till the interval comes around, director Rohan Sippy takes us along on the ride with his hands very firmly on the wheel. But his grip slackens post-interval, so does the pace, and the run-up to the climax followed by an overly elongated epilogue left me with a vague sense of dissatisfaction.

Directors of crime thrillers are all manipulating us; the trick is to keep us unaware of those manipulations so that they don’t get irritating. In DMD a couple of annoying red herrings are thrown our way while we try to figure out who Michael Barbosa is. There’s a voice threatening Lorry in whispers. It was just not disembodied enough and if I could spot the actor behind that voice, so could anyone. Then there’s the pointed look that sultry item girl Deepika Padukone throws at ACP Kamath before she disappears into a crowd. What was that about, huh Missy?

Making matters worse is Pritam’s insipid music. And I’m not just talking about one of the best-remembered songs in Hindi film history that he’s reworked into a pale shadow of itself. To be fair to Jaideep Sahni, his cheeky lyrics “Oonche se ooncha banda, potty pe baithe nanga …,” may actually have been fine IF they weren’t being imposed on a dull remix of RD’s classic.

But there’s also much to like in DMD. The characters are all well-rounded, especially ACP Kamath and Zoe. Kamath’s transformation from bribe-taker to upright policeman comes through a painful journey so well described by Lorsa Biscuta at one point. There’s one particularly deftly handled scene in which Kamath’s dead wife seems to speak to him. It’s touching, yet not maudlin. Abhishek pitches in a neat performance as the broodingly intense drug-buster, though a lot of the impact is diluted by repeated visitations by that same dead spouse which become tacky and silly after a point. There’s a scene in which Lorry angrily asks Kamath, “What would you know about family?!” We know by then that Kamath does know. But I guess because it’s assumed that we are dense, the sound of the car crash that killed his wife plays out in the background at that point.

While those irritants should be attributed to the director along with the pointless references to Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic films, Abhishek must share the blame for an entire interrogation scene he does which is woven around dad’s Khaike paan Banaraswala. Why was it necessary? Why why why?!

The character that worked best for me in this film is Zoe who, in a sense, personifies a physically beautiful yet internally scarred Goa. It’s not a large role, but it’s one that goes beyond the sexy body and endless legs that Bipasha has come to signify in the public eye. The actress shines as Zoe who makes the journey from youthful zest to bitterness and ultimate despair.

The rest of the characters too are well played. They fit well into the Goan milieu without caricaturing Goans in the stereotypical “Hum God se church mein jaake prayer karenga” Bollywood manner. But there is a strange and inexplicable disconnect between Rana Daggubati’s personality in the film and his voice/dialogue delivery. Rana is the grandson of legendary producer D. Rama Naidu and hero of the Telugu hit Leader. The handsome star makes his Hindi film debut playing Joki in DMD. At first I assumed that someone else had dubbed for him. Then I read news reports that he has dubbed for himself. Perhaps then he was too pre-occupied with camouflaging his borderline Telugu accent (which, by the way, I find quite alluring Mr Daggubati). Either way, something’s not quite right here. If anyone felt that Rana didn’t sound Goan enough for DMD, surely an explanation for the uncommon style of speaking could have been gently worked into the script! I mean c’mon, this is a Bollywood where a Katrina Kaif has made a career for herself while playing an NRI or a phoren-returned heroine in film after film just to justify that twang! More’s the pity considering that Rana is a tall, strapping hottie and he certainly looks this part!

So Dum Maaro Dum is a stark tale of what lies beneath a picture postcard setting. It’s violent without being self-indulgently gruesome. I liked the film very much as it unspooled in the first hour. But the inconsistent treatment has ensured that it ends up as a nice film in which the second half doesn’t live up to the promise of the first.

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

CBFC Rating:                       A (The producer’s rep explains that while the Censor Board didn’t ask for cuts, the I&B Ministry asked for the deletion of the dialogue: “Yahan sharaab sasti, ladkiyan usse bhi sasti aur zindagi toh muft mein hi bik jaati hai.” It has been removed.)

Running time:                        135 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/DumMaaroDum