REVIEW 60: CHILLAR PARTY

Release date:	July 8, 2011
Director:	Nitesh Tiwari, Vikas Bahl
Cast:	Irrfan Khan, Sanath Menon, Rohan Grover, Naman Jain, Aarav Khanna, Vishesh Tiwari, Chinmai Chandranshuh, Vedant Desai, Shriya Sharma, Divij Handa

Just a week after a close-up of human excrement in Delhi Belly, here comes a lingering shot of doggy poo (or so you think) in Chillar Party. But fear not all you parents, the two films have little else in common beyond a powerful Khan each as producer.

So here’s what I truly love about Chillar Party … a bunch of utterly charming children, a director duo with that rare ability to extract natural performances from child actors, Amit Trivedi’s music plus a producer (Salman Khan) who is backing this unconventional film while at the peak of his career as a mainstream, muscle-baring star.

What I do not like about Chillar Party … A second half that defies logic in a film that’s clearly intended to be realistic, the exclusion of girls and women from most of the action and decision-making in a film that’s meant to be about inclusiveness and acceptance, plus a certain ambiguity in its feelings towards the bare human form.

And Ranbir Kapoor’s item song? Well before we get to that point, hear this: nothing I say in this critique should take away from the fact that those kids are talented and sweet and natural born actors. Directors Nitesh Tiwari and Vikas Bahl, please take a bow along with your casting director Mukesh Chhabra for discovering this motley crew to play your lead artistes in Chillar Party. They’re as gifted as that remarkable gang from director Amole Gupte’s Stanley ka Dabba, though my favourite children’s ensemble cast in a Hindi film still remains Sagar Ballary’s team in his completely unheralded film Kaccha Limboo.

Chillar Party takes us to Chandan Nagar Cooperative Housing Society in Mumbai where eight little boy buddies with cutesy nicknames like Encyclopedia and Jhangiya hang out together. They’re the Chillar Party. When the boy Fatka is employed to wash the cars in the colony, the Chillar Party decide to get rid of him because they’re afraid his dog Bheedu will soil their playground just like another dog that already lives there. But after their initial harsh behavior towards him, they become friends. So when a state minister targets Bheedu in his campaign to rid Mumbai of stray dogs, the kids put up a fight for their canine pal. 

The film is filled with endearing instances of humour that are as well written as they are well acted, except for a few scenes in which the children are made to try too hard to be adorable. The episode involving doggy do is fun. But my favourite scene is when the nerdy kid explains to his friends that NOC stands for No Objection Certificate, and the immediate response from one of his friends is a very mournful: “I’ve never won a certificate.”

But even more than the humour, the writers need to be lauded for not painting the children as saints. This is the one big issue I had with Stanley ka Dabba – the failure to recognise that children are not uniformly flawless creatures. It takes courage to acknowledge that children can sometimes be nasty. That’s what bullying in schools and peer pressure are all about. And in Chillar Party we see the mean streak in our otherwise loveable bunch when they play cruel pranks on Fatka to get him out of Chandan Nagar, not quite realising that working in their housing complex is a matter of life and death for this impoverished orphan.

This is the beautiful part of Chillar Party – the children’s journey from resentment to admiration for Fatka’s resilience, their penitence, the little boy asking his mother, “If someone has done nothing to harm me, but I make a concerted effort to harm him, does that mean I’m a bad human being?” Alas, this poignant portion is followed by an improbable, overly stretched Part 2 about a politician who risks his entire career over the Chillar Party and Bheedu.

And while the film is clearly well intentioned, I must say I’m concerned about the subliminal messages it is sending out about power equations in households. The children need to get signatures from the residents of Chandan Nagar to save Bheedu from eviction – barring one exception, they seem to approach only men for signatures. When a woman in a family is shown making the decision to sign or not to sign, her husband is portrayed as being hen-pecked.

I also find it hard to believe that boys in a co-ed school and ranging in age from 4-11 would have no female friends. And when the children of Mumbai join Chillar Party’s underwear campaign for Bheedu, there’s no explanation for why only boys participate. Director Nitesh Tiwari tells me: “Our conscience didn’t permit us to show topless girls in our film, however small they may be.” So they were uncomfortable with showing bare-bodied little girls on screen, but had no qualms about parading little boys in their chaddis before us? I find this conservatism confusing and unconvincing.

As for Ranbir Kapoor’s item number … it’s entertaining as a standalone video and I do appreciate the fact that he wiggles his cute tushy at the camera repeatedly. But it arrives inexplicably part way through the end credits, and might actually be missed by many members of the audience. If you do watch Chillar Party for those loveable kids, make sure you stay right till the end for Ranbir’s Tai tai phiss. And if you have an answer to an extremely pertinent question that one of the children asks about child labour, please do tell me what it is.

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

CBFC Rating:                       U without cuts

Running time:                        135 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/chillarparty    

  

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    

  

REVIEW 58: DELHI BELLY

Release date:	July 1, 2011
Director:	Abhinay Deo
Cast:	Imran Khan, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vir Das, Poorna Jagannathan, Vijay Raaz, Shenaz Treasury

There’s nothing particularly more “ashleel” about this film’s “bhaasha” than other Bollywood offerings we’ve seen before – methinks that phrase has been used as a publicity hook by the film makers. I mean, yes Delhi Belly does give us a close-up of human shit (no no, I don’t mean that figuratively, I mean literally a pile of human faeces belonging to a man suffering from diarrhoea). And yes, the characters do use foul language without inhibitions, but I can assure you that my limited vocabulary of English and Hindi abuses has not been dramatically enhanced by watching this film: I don’t recall hearing swear words in Delhi Belly that we hadn’t already heard in Shor In The City, Bhindi Baazaar Inc, Shaitan or Yeh Saali Zindagi released earlier this year.

Ah well, perhaps I don’t understand film marketing techniques as much as I think I do. And none of this should take away from the fact that Delhi Belly is an enjoyable, unconventional Bollywood film! For starters, it’s not in Hindi.* The language is primarily English with a smattering of Hindi, and flows smoothly, sounding just the way you can expect the various characters to sound if you bump into them in Delhi. So the first round of applause should go to the dialogue writing. The story revolves around three friends Tashi, Arup and Nitin, the sight of whose filthy flat could make you puke. Tashi is a journalist who is marrying his girlfriend under family pressure. Nitin is his photographer colleague with lax morals and worse eating habits. And Arup is a frustrated cartoonist in an ad agency whose girlfriend has just unceremoniously dumped him. Their lives go into a karma-spurred spiral when a pouch of diamonds enters the picture and gets mixed up with a stool sample.

The mix-up that leads to everything else is a trifle too convenient to be credible, but that doesn’t alter the fact that Delhi Belly is unrelentingly amusing and telling at the same time. In fact, the film is so well done that it’s hard to believe it’s been made by the same director behind that Abhishek Bachchan-starrer Game. Must say Aamir Khan as a producer seems to have a good influence on the directors he signs up.

The film’s title of course is a reference to a term used to describe what could happen to your stomach if you are not careful about your eating habits in the nation’s capital – both literally because of Nitin’s stomach upset that lasts throughout the film and figuratively because of the dirt the story digs up. Now a round of applause please for the film’s casting director who has handpicked each actor with affection and attention, giving us a cast that fits their parts to a T, a U and a V. Imran Khan as Tashi has been more effectively used here than in any of his films since Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. Here’s an actor with a likeable screen presence but a so-far limited range who clearly benefits greatly from associating with a good director. Khan needs to work on his Hindi diction for other roles, but as the primarily English-speaking Tashi in Delhi Belly he is just fine. Kunaal Roy Kapur (Nitin) is a natural. And Vir Das is so inherently funny, that I don’t feel like analysing his acting skills: he just made me smile … a lot.

But the stand-out performances in Delhi Belly come from a newcomer and a veteran. Poorna Jagannathan who plays Tashi’s colleague has a casual ease before the camera that matches her casual, un-self-conscious sex appeal. And Vijay Raaz as a gangster is so damn good that I hope he’s on every Best Supporting Actor nominations list when the awards ceremonies come around by end-2011.

Delhi Belly is as much a celebration of basic human goodness as it is an essay on how “shit happens” unexpectedly for no fault of ours. If you withdraw a blackmail threat because your intended victim turns out to be a nice guy, you couldn’t be all-bad, right? The USPs of the film are its wry sense of humour and refusal to mince words while saying what it has to say. On the downside, there is a certain repetitiveness that bothered me when it seemed like the director had discovered a device he found edgy and wanted to make sure we noticed it. In the opening scene, Arup and Nitin are in bed – separate beds – in their flat, heads enveloped in sheets, and the camera gives us a shot of Nitin’s (I think) butt crack. But just in case we didn’t spot it the first time, it’s shown to us again, and then again! Okay, I got it, you’re cool enough to show an Indian audience a man’s half-exposed bum! Now move on, please! Likewise, it was entertaining to see Nitin seated on a commode the first time, and perhaps even a second, because we’re not used to seeing such things in Hindi films – but then Tashi’s girlfriend is also shot on a pot, then Nitin is back in the loo, then his stomach gurgles, then he’s back on the toilet seat, then his belly grumbles again, then … and then it just felt childish.

The closing song-and-dance featuring Aamir also felt like an unnecessary and irrelevant add-on. Was he not confident enough of this film that he felt the need to make it more saleable with an item number? Oh no! Et tu Aamir?! Instead, I wish I wish that Ram Sampath’s delightfully raucous DK Bose song had been better used.

Koi nahi, as Delhi-ites would say. Never mind, because in the ultimate analysis, Delhi Belly is frank, funny, in-your-face, unapologetic and unafraid. I had such a good time watching it. My pick of the film’s hilarious moments involves Kathak, a ceiling fan and a very poorly constructed building. Now tell me, what’s yours?

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

CBFC Rating:                       A without cuts (yes, would you believe it?!)

Running time:                       96 Minutes

Language: *                          English with a few Hindi dialogues (the producers have also released a Hindi version of the film)

Photograph courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/delhibelly?sk=photos

  

REVIEW 57: BBUDDAH… HOGA TERRA BAAP

Release date:	July 1, 2011
Director:	Puri Jagannadh
Cast:	Amitabh Bachchan and others (the others being Sonu Sood, Prakash Raj, Hema Malini, Raveena Tandon, Sonal Chauhan, Charmme, Makrand Deshpande)

So let’s be very clear about this: Bbuddah… Hoga Terra Baap is an ode to Amitabh Bachchan. In purely artistic terms, there are plenty of holes I could pick in this film. But what’s endearing about it is that it’s not pretending to be anything but an out-and-out paean to The Bachchan’s Angry Young Man days, right from the name of the film’s official website http://www.bigbisback.com/ to the first scene in which AB enters the frame till the last shot which is followed by a note on screen by director Puri Jagannadh describing BHTBaap as his tribute to the megastar.

The story is simple: Karan is a dashing young ACP in the Mumbai police force who earns the wrath of the gangster Kabir when he takes a public oath to rid the city of crime and criminals. Kabir wants Karan dead. Enter Viju, an elderly sharpshooter who had once left Mumbai to run a bar in Paris. Viju is a flashy sort who hates being called a bbuddah which, he points out, is quite natural: do bachchas like being called bachchas, he asks? Indeed. What follows is a two hour fun ride involving action, humour, song ‘n’ dance, repeated references to Bachchan’s earlier films and some all-round masti.

Tribute #1: Viju, a cool curtailment I assume of Vijay, Bachchan’s name in several blockbusters. Tribute #2: Like Bachchan’s own personal life, this film is a recognition of the infinite possibilities that life offers you as an older person, which is something we in India tend not to see. Since we’re dousing ourselves in Bachchanalia here, of course there’s a Ma in the film: Karan’s mother played by the ever-beautiful Hema Malini. I tell you, AB and Hema can get sparks flying even today in a manner that would be the envy of many of their younger colleagues.

Unlike Ready – another ode-to-a-superstar type of film that’s also in theatres right now – BHTBaap is almost never tacky with its Bachchan referencing, nor does it at any point get irritatingly repetitive. The credit for that goes to some clever writing by Jagannadh and his team whose citations of earlier AB films are not always literal. The film also cheekily turns typical 1970s-style dialoguebaazi on its head on occasion. Karan tells Viju on the phone: Saamne aa, tumhe itni goli maaroonga ki tum yaad rakhoge, or something to that effect. To which Viju replies: “Toh phir saamne kyun aaoonga, stupid?” Touche. The other reason why this film works is that though Bachchan’s Viju is the focal point of the story, other important characters too (namely the good cop and the bad guy) are given their due.

Some of it doesn’t even make sense but it works all the same because of the self-deprecating tone. And when the film laughs at itself, it’s hard not to laugh along. So when Bachchan and a bevy of gori mems suddenly and inexplicably start dancing to Go Meera Go – a medley of songs from some of the actor’s biggest hits – a character asks the question: yeh Meera kaun hai? He doesn’t know. I don’t know either. But did we enjoy ourselves? That’s the entire point.

Of the cast, Bachchan seems to be having a rollicking time. Sonu Sood as Karan is his usual reliable self (why doesn’t Bollywood give this guy bigger roles?) and god bless Jagannadh for that one scene in which the actor gets to display his finely sculpted torso! Hema Malini is elegance personified. Sonal Chauhan as Karan’s pretty girlfriend acquits herself well in the little time she has. Makrand Deshpande playing the lead villain’s flunkey is brilliant in a small role. But my pick of the cast is Prakash Raj who is hilarious and menacing by turns as Kabir. The final confrontation between Viju and Kabir is so well acted and well directed that I was beside myself with both tension and laughter.

What I didn’t like … Well, there’s an extremely annoying sub-plot involving Raveena Tandon who seems to have been in love with Viju from her younger days. The deliberately over-the-top performance just doesn’t work. And since the actress doesn’t look a day above her 36 years, it’s weird to see her presented to us as the mother of a 20-plus-year-old daughter: someone sure as hell broke the law if she was married when that kid was born! It’s weirder still to hear Viju explain that there’s a 20 year age difference between them. Give us a break! The Bachchan’s a fit and fine hottie at almost 70, but what kind of mathematics is that?! It’s appropriate that Banda yeh bindass hai from the decade-old film Aks plays in one of their scenes together. That was the film which broke the dam of my tolerance for seeing Amitabh Bachchan acting with much-much-much-younger heroines when he played the husband of the amazingly smooth-skinned, then-20-something Nandita Das.

Back to BHTBaap … Charmme as Raveena’s daughter plays the role in too fussy a fashion. And at several places, the scenes don’t flow smoothly from one to the next.  But honestly, all the film’s flaws are redeemed by its unpretentious celebration of a remarkable career. Bachchan is enviably agile for a near-septuagenarian. And his voice works well for the songs he sings in this film, my favourite of the three being Haal-e-dil.

Would Bbuddah… Hoga Terra Baap rank anywhere on a list of my 10 favourite Bachchan films? I’m afraid not. Because Sholay, Deewar and their ilk are way too slick to be compared to BHTBaap. But it’s certainly one of the better Bachchan films of the past half decade, a period that has done little justice to the man’s track record. And did I have fun watching it? I sure did!

Rating (out of five): ***

CBFC Rating:                       U/A without cuts

Running time:                        122 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.bigbisback.com/    

  

REVIEW 56: DOUBLE DHAMAAL

Release date:	June 24, 2011
Director:	Indra Kumar
Cast:	Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Jaaved Jaafery, Ashish Chowdhry, Mallika Sherawat, Kangna Ranaut, Satish Kaushik

Apes are gaining popularity among Bollywood’s creators of comedy these days. In Anees Bazmee’s No Problem in late 2010, one such hairy creature let out a bellowing fart. In Indra Kumar’s Double Dhamaal this week, Boman (played by Ashish Chowdhry) gets gigantic, swollen lips from being over-kissed by an amorous furry fellow. Yeah yeah, I can visualise some of you rolling your eyes at that one. But I confess I giggled helplessly when Boman’s red mouth was revealed to us following that man-animal encounter. After all, it makes sense to go for a film like Double Dhamaal with the expectation of nothing more than a mega-dose of low-IQ humour. Sadly, DD does not offer enough of such entertainingly witless wit and frankly, its predecessor Dhamaal was much more fun.

The biggest problem with Double Dhamaal is that if you’ve seen the trailer you’ve seen every single one of the film’s funniest moments. Yes, every single one! Damn! I was so looking forward to guffawing uncontrollably at more jokes like the one where our four leading men cover themselves in overcoats and hang themselves from coat hooks to hide from their pursuers! And why wouldn’t I? The film’s promo was a killer! The cast includes an array of actors with a brilliant track record in this genre. And it’s directed by Indra Kumar who gave us Raja – with the electrifyingly funny Ms Madhuri Dixit – among other well-made films. What I got instead was a film that’s amusing only in parts which, I’m afraid, is just not good enough coming from this team.

Double Dhamaal returns to the loveable idiots of Dhamaal – Adi (Arshad Warsi), Manav (Jaaved Jaafery), Roy (Riteish Deshmukh) and Boman. The four spend the first half of the film trying to deceive and cajole Kabir (Sanjay Dutt) into making them his business partners. When he dupes them, they try to get their revenge by double crossing him in the post-interval period. How do they go about this? Who succeeds in making a fool of whom? Sorry folks, I won’t throw spoilers into this review.

So guess who's who?

The film is intermittently funny. The cast is engaging and likeable. Ashish Chowdhry in drag is both ultra-glamorous and comical, though perhaps not as pretty as the cross-dressing Riteish Deshmukh from Apna Sapna Money Money. In a film involving several disguises, the make-up is commendable. One particular deception regarding an oil field is a hoot. It’s also enjoyable to watch the leading men imitating legendary actors such as Sanjeev Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan at the start of Double Dhamaal (Manav’s take on SRK is particularly rib-tickling and unique!). But mimicry as a device is over-done by the end of the film. And the intervals between the genuinely comic scenes are way too long.

Anand Raj Anand’s music too is quite forgettable. Not one of the tunes is worth taking home to your parents, certainly not Jalebi Bai featuring Mallika Sherawat who takes crudeness to a different level altogether as she points her fingers towards her near-bare breasts in the song, just in case they’d escaped our attention.

With so much that’s wrong with Double Dhamaal, I don’t suppose there’s any point in pointing out the film’s lack of attention to detail. In one scene, Roy swims across a creek in Macau. In another scene, he fights with Adi for pushing him into a water body. Why? Because he can’t swim! Huh? Did the screenplay writer and director just forget the earlier scene? Or was the team just too lazy to plug this loophole once they detected it?

I don’t suppose there’s any point either in pointing out that the wisecracks involving black people get offensive beyond a point, and the scenes with Roy’s supposedly mentally challenged brothers are distasteful from start to finish. For those who may accuse me of being painfully politically correct, I have a request: please rewind to Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey which featured Shahid Kapoor in a double role as brothers Guddu and Charlie who both suffer from speech disabilities; other characters in the film laughed at the siblings, but at no point was the film itself mocking them. See the difference?   

So is Double Dhamaal a total wash-out? Well, no. As I said, it’s sporadically funny. In the last scene of the film, we’re given a clear indicator that there will be another sequel which will be called Total Dhamaal. I do hope before they shoot that one they take a good hard look at their script, and realise that a comedy of this variety needs to deliver non-stop nonsense instead of episodes of stormy laughter punctuated by long long lulls.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating:                       U / A

Running time:                       137 Minutes

Language:                             Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.doubledhamaalmovie.com/