REVIEW 377: TERAA SURROOR

Release date:	March 11, 2016
Director:	Shawn Arranha
Cast: Language:	Himesh Reshammiya, Farah Karimi, Shernaz Patel, Kabir Bedi, Naseeruddin Shah, Monica Dogra, Shekhar Kapur Hindi

Himesh Reshammiya is a gutsy man. It takes courage to do what he has been doing since 2007, exposing himself to public ridicule by starring in film after film, only to be minced to bits by critics while even his fans gradually wander away.

His ‘acting’ debut in Aap Kaa Surroor – The Moviee – The Real Luv Story turned out to be a box-office hit on the strength of those very fans, people who have enjoyed his work as a music composer over the years, and were keen to see him before the camera in a full-fledged film role. Sadly, this initial success encouraged him to ‘act’ in more moviees (his spelling, not mine). Teraa Surroor is one such endurance test for viewers.

This is the story of an Indian chap called Raghuveer (Himesh) whose girlfriend Tara Wadia (Farah Karimi) is caught in Ireland with drugs in her possession. She is convicted, and to prove her innocence, Raghu must find Anirudh Brahman, the faceless stranger who befriended Tara on Facebook and invited her to that country. Also in the picture: Raghu’s Mummy (Shernaz Patel), Kabir Bedi playing a top gun in the Indian police, Naseeruddin Shah as the incarcerated crook Robin B. Santino who comes to Raghu’s aid, a lawyer called Elle (Monica Dogra) in Dublin who is clearly attracted to men old enough to be her Granddaddy since her husband Rajveer, the Indian ambassador to Ireland, is played by veteran director/actor Shekhar Kapur.

For the record, it is evident that a good deal of money has been spent on Teraa Surroor. Almost the entire film appears to have been shot abroad, no expense has been spared on the casting of the Indian supporting actors, and the production design, cinematography and sound design are top-notch. Inexplicably though, the foreigners in bit parts are – as has been the norm with Hindi cinema for decades now – uniformly laughably bad.

Actually, that is an understatement: they are so tacky that they lend moments of passing enjoyability to an otherwise dull film. Bollywood really really really needs to find a better agency for white extras.

That being said, money can buy you good character actors, foreign locales and talented technicians, but I’m willing to bet that even the combined bank balances of Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Amancio Ortega and Warren Buffet would fail to induce Himesh’s facial muscles to move.

In all fairness, the singer-composer-‘actor’ cannot be accused of maintaining the same expression on his face throughout the film. The truth is that he does not manage even one.

He is not Teraa Surroor’s only failing. This is the sort of film that feels the need to spell out every detail for the audience. When a character tells us that X befriended Y on Facebook, the next shot is of X typing a Facebook message. When Robin tells Raghu he must learn the map of Dublin well, we are promptly shown a map of Dublin the very next moment. You must be familiar with your getaway vehicles, Robin adds. Cut to shots of Raghu with cars. This happens so often in the film, that it almost becomes amusing.

In the midst of all the back and forth in the story, we get several in-your-face, occasionally even contextually irrelevant efforts to cash in on the hyper-nationalism plaguing our political discourse these days. In one randomly placed scene, a couple of shooting instructors in Dublin (more of those bottom-of-the-barrel extras) taunt an Indian man for being useless with a gun. They make snide remarks about how you just need to ask India’s neighbours about our incompetence in that department. When Raghu strolls over, these two mockingly assume he cannot understand English. Instead, he coolly fires several rounds from a gun and hits his mark each time – of course – then lectures those cheeky firangis about desi prowess in fluent English.

A desi hero in a foreign country admonishing a random racist firangi in public in impeccable English, a language that the random racist firangi assumed our hero does not know – this is such a Hindi film cliché now that you can see it coming from a mile.

Elsewhere, Raghu tells his girlfriend that he does no wrong and that his murderous, extra-legal activities should all be attributed to his love for India. Oh ok, if it is done in the name of desh prem, then I guess it is all right.

Still elsewhere, before exterminating an enemy of our desh, he gets the fellow to shout a slogan in favour of Bharat Mata.

Thump your chests, wave the flag furiously and sing a patriotic song or two, people. India has arrived, Bollywood style!

If mainstream Hollywood filmmakers diss the entire world to make America look good, then it is clearly the job of Bollywood filmmakers to make us look good by portraying all foreigners as brainless twits. The final climactic revelation in Teraa Surroor is not entirely uninteresting, but the embarrassing foolishness of the Irish authorities up to that point ensures that it is too late by then to salvage the film.

This is not MSG-grade poor quality with cheap production values. No no, Teraa Surroor’s abysmal quality is accompanied by a glossy package and music that is hummable even if unmemorable, generic Himesh material.

Even the star’s blank face is placed atop a well-sculpted, muscular body, achieved no doubt at a considerable cost. He poses around in ganjis throughout the film to show off the results.

Now if only gyms had machines to build up acting muscles, there would be hope for him.

Allow me to summon up my inner Arundhati Roy for an appropriate simile to describe Teraa Surroor: this film is as flat as Farah Karimi’s enviably slim waist, as bland as Maggi Noodles without the Tastemaker and as pointless in its existence as the human appendix. 

A moment of silence please, to honour the bravery of those who made Teraa Surroor.

Rating (out of 5 stars): ½ (half a star)

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	106 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/teraa-surroor-review-himesh-deserves-an-award-for-exposing-himself-so-skilfully-to-public-ridicule-2669712.html

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

REVIEW 317: ROY

Release date (India):	February 13, 2015
Director:	Vikramjit Singh
Cast: Language:	Arjun Rampal, Jacqueline Fernandez, Ranbir Kapoor, Shernaz Patel, Rajit Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Kaizaad Kotwal, Asif Basra Hindi

Fifteen minutes into Roy, the chap sitting next to me gave up on it. I was more patient. After all, what was there not to like about those expansive frames, that minimalist look, the uncluttered visuals, the mood lighting, Ranbir Kapoor’s beautifully sensitive eyes and the utter gorgeousness of both Arjun Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez? The film is shot at stunning locations in Malaysia and cinematographer Himman Dhamija takes in the country’s roads, buildings, forests and beaches with a painterly eye, dwelling with care too on the faces of his three lovely leads.

I remember one shot of film maker Ayesha Aamir (one of two roles played by Jacqueline in Roy) where the camera is gazing up at her face in a close-up against the backdrop of a stark, nearly blank sky. Ayesha is not looking at us or the heavens. Her eyes are on fellow film maker Kabir Grewal (Arjun) who is not in the frame at first, and so we wait in anticipation for the handsome fellow before he enters the picture.

My gentleman neighbour in the theatre was not in the least bit interested in any of this. I bet he’d consider me an arty-farty type. Fifteen minutes into the film he was already irritated and busy treating his female companion to a running commentary on the proceedings on screen.

“Please, bhaisaab,” I said, about half an hour later. “You are talking too much.” He looked at me with a slightly startled expression on his face. A couple of moments of silence. Then he turned to me and said in a confiding tone we usually reserve for friends: “Actually na, yeh film buraa hai, isliye hum baat kar rahein hai.” I replied with an apologetic smile: “Par mujhe buraa nahin lag raha hai.” More silence. But a few minutes later, I heard him whisper slyly to his lady friend: “Sab log baat karne lagey toh phir kya hoga?”

Point is, I’m a patient, undemanding viewer who is easily pleased. I loved the look of this film, the soundtrack, the styling of Jacqueline’s two characters, the detailing in the sound design, that faint crackling fizz I heard when Roy (Ranbir Kapoor) lit a cigarette.

Ranbir is always always easy on the eye. Kill me if you will for saying this but ever since Don, I’ve begun enjoying watching the much-derided Arjun’s evolution on screen. Say what you will you cynics, I think Jacqueline has more potential as an actress than her films so far have cared to explore. And the chemistry between Ayesha and Kabir was enough to make me want to drag them to a bed, fling them on each other and say: “C’mon then, go ahead! What the hell are you waiting for?” When they did ultimately do it, I wanted to cheer.

Even at the concept level, Roy is interesting enough. Mumbai-based writer-director Kabir Grewal is a notorious Casanova. When he meets London-based film maker Ayesha Aamir he falls genuinely in love for the first time. She is drawn to him, but feels his selfishness is reflected in his uncaring treatment of the heroine in a script he is writing about an art thief called Roy and the wealthy art collector Tia (Jacqueline again). When Ayesha leaves Kabir, he is dealt the double whammy of heartbreak and writer’s block. On a parallel track runs Roy and Tia’s love story.       

Three things writer-director Vikramjit Singh forgot, after thinking up that basic concept though: (a) if your story has two parallel strands, you cannot over-write one and under-write the other (b) when you get an actor as fine as Ranbir playing one of your protagonists, you cannot fail to flesh out his character and unwittingly reduce him to a marginal player (c) you do not give characters glib lines that are really not as profound as they’re pretending to be and sound instead like nothing real human beings would say.

When you neglect your writing and focus on the surface gloss instead, beyond a point the result is pretentiousness, tedium and characters who deliver philosophies to each other rather than conversing naturally. The songs become one too many. And even the visual appeal gets cloying after a while, especially when Malaysia’s scenery and the actors’ lovely faces are replaced by self-indulgent lingering shots of a character on an escalator or other such images that add nothing, not even spectacle, to the film.

As the story labours on, Ayesha and Kabir’s romance becomes the dominant thread of the film. Roy, who should have taken over the post-interval portion, ends up as a distant figure spending most of his time staring into the distance waiting for something to happen while we contemplate Ranbir’s attractive profile and – you guessed right – wait for something to happen. The film is called Roy yet Roy is the character we get to know the least in the story.

Unlike my gentleman neighbour in the movie hall, I lost my patience with the film only in the second half. Even undemanding viewers cannot be taken so much for granted.

Perhaps Ranbir too felt he had been taken for granted. I can think of no other reason why the opening credits over-compensated for the neglect of his character by saying: “Ranbir Kapoor In A Very Dynamic Role.” Huh?

Rating (out of five): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	147 minutes

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

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)