REVIEW 222: JOHN DAY

Release date:	September 13, 2013
Director:	Ahishor Solomon
Cast: Language:	Naseeruddin Shah, Randeep Hooda, Shernaz Patel, Vipin Sharma, Elena Kazan, Sharat Saxena Hindi

John Day is a mirage. There’s no better way to describe a thriller in which, as a viewer you keep waiting to reach that oasis in the distance that will make the trek through the burning desert worth it, but it just doesn’t come.

In the first half hour of the film when a girl dies while on vacation with her boyfriend, and we are later introduced to her grieving parents John and Maria Day, there’s a promise being held out of great revelations to come. “Have faith in God,” says John to his wife. “Have faith in God and then he treats you like shit?” she shoots back. Shortly afterwards, Maria is attacked in her home and there’s a hold-up in the bank where John is a manager. Aha, the plot thickens! But then the film takes too long to reveal its hand, and worse, that hand turns out to be a damp squib.

The length of time John Day takes to arrive at its climactic twists and turns might have been acceptable if that climax was intriguing. After all, the beauty of Manoj Night Shyamalan’s Sixth Sense was that a lumbering ride ended in one of the most fascinating film endings in history. Unfortunately, the promised oasis in John Day turns out to be a little shrub. In the end then, it matters little that Naseeruddin Shah and Shernaz Patel are sweet together as Mr and Mrs Day; or that this is that rare Hindi film featuring an elderly man as its hero; or that this is that rare Hindi film in which an old man is shown kissing his wife, however briefly; or that the production designer, background score composer and cinematographer join hands to build up an atmosphere of foreboding from the word go; or that some of the locations are scenic. Up to the 1980s, Hindi cinema was dominated by stereotyped Christian characters – gangsters, gangsters’ molls, bartenders, bootleggers, cabaret dancers, quasi-foreigners who could barely speak Hindi, drunken men, dress-wearing women who slept around unlike the virginal heroines and so on. From the 1990s onwards, Christians virtually disappeared from Hindi films. John Day is that rare post-1990s Hindi film with a Christian as a leading man and – surprise, surprise! – no Bollywood-esque stereotypes. Like the other positives though, this too fades into insignificance after a while as the film peters out with each passing scene.

Randeep Hooda delivers a generic performance as Gautam, the brooding, corrupt cop with a miserable past; we know he’s capable of far better than this. The interesting discovery in John Day is Elena Kazan playing his alcoholic girlfriend Tabassum Habibi. Unlike most other recent international imports into Bollywood (media reports tell me she’s of German-Russian ancestry), this girl can act.

What exactly is John Day about? Well, that’s the thing: it tries to be about a lot of things but ends up being about not much. Unlike producer Anjum Rizvi’s earlier film A Wednesday, this one does not have pace or contextual relevance to make it gripping (A Wednesday was also an anarchist’s dream that tapped into a prevailing national bloodlust, but that’s a different discussion). Here in John Day, there’s a father out to get revenge for the death of his daughter, a mother who blames herself for the tragedy, a gangster devoted to his religion and crime, an underworld-media nexus, a boy tormented by memories of sexual abuse, a man afraid of commitment, a woman desperately in love, a murky international corporation and a beautiful, vast stretch of land called Casablanca Estates in which I’d lost interest by the time its secret was finally unveiled.

Director Ahishor Solomon is clearly well-intentioned and not without talent, but he fails to bring it all together into a compelling, convincing whole. In the end, what remains is a feeling that he was trying to make a grand, profound film … the key word being “trying”. The overriding memory though, is of a “cigarette smoking is injurious to health” warning that inexplicably remains on screen throughout the film from the very first frame, even when there’s not a ciggie in sight; and two scenes of violence more gruesome than anything you’ve ever seen in a mainstream Hindi film.

Rating (out of five): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	2 hours 17 minutes

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

REVIEW 119: SAHI DHANDHE GALAT BANDE

Release date:	August 19, 2011
Director:	Parvin Dabas
Cast:	Parvin Dabas, Kuldip Ruhil, Vansh Bhardwaj, Ashish Nayyar, Sharat Saxena, Neena Kulkarni, Anupam Kher, Kiron Juneja Sippy, Yashpal Sharma, Tena Desae, Udit Khurana, Preeti Jhangiani

Opening scene ... A voiceover tells us that when gangsters want to finish off a member of a rival gang, there’s no better time to choose than the day of his incarceration or release from jail. You can’t be sure of the person’s location at any other time. The camera takes us to Rajbir (Parvin Dabas) who is leaving jail. While Narendra Pehelwan’s people wait for him at the front gate, he exits from the back where his friends are waiting for him. “Rajbirbhai, pichhwaade ke raaste se nikalne ke liye kitna diya?” one of them asks. “Bas, pichhwaada hi nahin diya,” he replies.

The tone is set. Actor Parvin Dabas makes a remarkably assured debut as the writer-director of Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande produced by Preeti Jhangiani. This is the story of four small-time gangsters operating in the village of Kanjhawla on the outskirts of Delhi – Rajbir and his friends who are nicknamed Doctor (Kuldip Ruhil), Ambani (Ashish Nayyar) and Sexy (Vansh Bhardwaj). Rajbir’s release from jail coincides with an agitation taking place in Kanjhawla in protest against the acquisition of farmers’ land by the Delhi government under Chief Minister Jaya Gulati (Kiron Juneja Sippy) for a factory being built by industrialist Aggarwal (Anupam Kher).

I’d recommend that you pick up a DVD of Sahi Dhandhe to find out how the bad guys try to do the right thing for their people. What’s most appealing about this film is its simplicity and Dabas’ no-frills approach to his story that lends it a quality of realism despite being entertaining. Every episode in this film had the potential to go over-the-top, but at no point does Dabas cross that invisible line. And though the issue at hand is grave, Sahi Dhandhe has an understated and appropriate sense of humour, clever dialogues that don’t sound like dialoguebaazi or the kind of clichéd crudity that we’ve come to expect in all gangster flicks, and just enough elements to keep it both enjoyable and meaningful, emotional yet light.

My favourite scene involves Rajbir trying to make a speech to the farmers, which had me chuckling at the start but left me with a lump in my throat. Later, in one of the film’s most telling moments, a TV journalist from the city sticks her mike into a villager’s face and asks, “Aapke hisaab se Land Acquisition Act mein kya tabdeeli honi chahiye?” to which she gets silence and a blank stare in response. And one night during a boisterous drinking session, when the gang is trying to figure out ways of helping the villagers who don’t want their help, Ambani laments farmer leader Malik’s insistence that he will keep the movement non-violent and apolitical. “Na politics na thod-phod. Yeh toh saale sharaafat mein hi mar jayenge,” he says. Nice.

The unusually long actors’ list (above) that I’ve given in this review is my way of saluting casting director Honey Trehan. The gang of four are remarkable though I’m torn between Ashish Nayyar and Kuldip Ruhil as my pick of the quartet. Among the talented supporting cast, a special word needs to be said for Neena Kulkarni who looks, talks and feels the part of Rajbir’s foster mother who does not want him anywhere near her agitation; Kher who metamorphoses from the faintly oily fellow chatting with the CM on the phone to the dignified businessman imperceptibly making a pass at a troublesome female journalist; Sippy as the politician whose son is her weakness; Sharat Saxena as Rajbir’s boss Fauji in a role that is a departure from the slimy villain he’s played a zillion times; and Yashpal Sharma (Malik) thankfully playing something other than a bad cop or goon here.

Cinematographer Anshul Choubey matches the tone of subtlety that Dabas evidently wanted to achieve with this film. His camera moves from a suburban village to the CM’s upmarket residence to Delhi University and back without giving us any grand sweeping shots of the city, yet managing to capture its feel. I wish the lyrics of the film’s songs were a little clearer, but I enjoyed the unobtrusive use of the background score by Siddhartth-Suhas. And the sound design by Subash Sahoo is so clean that we actually hear Malik’s nails scratching his stubble in one scene.

Sahi Dhandhe is not without its flaws. The end struck me as too simplistic and not entirely credible considering what we’ve witnessed in Singur, Bhatta Parsaul and other long-drawn-out farmers’ struggles. And once the lead four had arrived at a decision about their exact strategy, I felt the film should have approached its climax more rapidly, for a greater impact. Also, while most of the primary characters have shades of gray, the farmers are all painted as uniformly good folk which to me was a jarring reminder of the regular Hindi film stereotype about big bad city folk and bechare kisaan. Still, Sahi Dhandhe Galat Bande is a gently engaging film, and I hope Parvin Dabas gets to write and direct many more films in the future.

Rating (out of five): ***

 CBFC Rating:                      U/A with three audio cuts (The Censor Board really needs to stop reading casteism into the inoffensive use of words describing professions. They actually got the film maker to remove the word “dhobi” from a song!)

Running time:                        120 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

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

REVIEW 116: NA JAANE KABSE

Release date:	November 18, 2011
Director:	Pammi Somal
Cast:	Garry Gill, Amrita Prakash, Sharat Saxena, Lillette Dubey, Ayub Khan, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Himani Shivpuri, Anju Mahendroo

In her second film Na Jaane Kabse, producer-director-writer Pammi Somal carries forward the style she established in her debut release Mummy Punjabi this year. So yes, the film has a certain polish that comes from lovely outdoor locations well shot. But the production issues on other fronts, the poorly developed script, the abundance of cliches about plain Janes and Punjabis, the leading man, the sub-standard dialogues and the veterans in the supporting cast who unabashedly over-act all add up to a film that is really tough to endure.

The story is of Karan whose bride leaves him on his wedding day. He runs off to escape her furious family who are under the impression that he is the one who ditched her, and not vice versa. On the road, he takes a lift from Anjali In Thick Glasses And An Unstylish Outfit. Since the hero repeatedly taunts her for her oily hair, I have to believe him though I couldn’t see any grease. Anyway, it turns out that Karan’s business partner is expecting him to return with a bride since the plan is to promote their new holiday resort as a place so romantic that the owner himself decided to spend his honeymoon there. The international press is waiting! Now what is a man to do?! Well of course he asks Anjali to play his pretend wife. And that’s how their relationship begins.

There’s so much about Na Jaane Kabse that made me cringe, I don’t know where to start. Okay, let’s begin at the very beginning:

• Pammi Somal really needs to rid herself of this penchant to use cue cards to introduce her characters while flashing text and thought bubbles on screen that are meant to be cute. They are decidedly not. Karan’s introductory shot is accompanied by the words “bechara complexed (sic) Karan”. For Anjali the words are, “confused but confident Anjali”. And the interval is announced with the words “Hai Rabba, problem shuru.”
• Lillette Dubey (who plays Karan’s professional associate in this film) is superbly fit and trim for her age, but I wish she would stop accepting roles where she’s projected as this older hottie. It’s become trite and it’s beginning to feel rather ageist now. Likewise, why oh why did Himani Shivpuri debase herself by playing a cheesy middle-aged seductress?
• Since a large number of Hindi film makers are Punjabis, we’ve been well acquainted with Punjabi culture over the years via Bollywood. But that doesn’t mean the stereotype of the loud, brash, crude Punjabi can’t be grating when over-done and over-used. A boisterous character introducing himself to strangers as “Balwant Singh from Punjab” made me squirm in my seat.
• Seriously, there’s nothing more uncool than a person trying to be cool. At one point a character uses the acronym BKBBG to signify “bartender ki biwi bhaag gayee”. Uff!
• And could we please rise above schoolboy humour and toilet jokes? I mean, there’s nothing funny about Anjali’s dad getting loosies!!! Grow up!

I could go on and on. Characters randomly walk in and out of this film. I think I even detected a guest appearance by Ayesha Jhulka, though I don’t know if it can be called that since the actress suddenly appears, vigorously dances to a song, and then just as suddenly disappears from the scene. Most of all I’m keen to share with you a very serious worry. When Na Jaane Kabse ends, the screen screams these words at us: This is just the beginning. Does this mean there will be a Na Jaane Kabse 2? Hai Rabba, problem shuru!

Rating (out of five): 1/4 (a quarter star for the camerawork at beautiful locations in Ladakh & Punjab)

CBFC Rating:                       U

Language:                             Hindi

Photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/NaJaaneKabse