Krrish, oh Krrish!

Krrish 3 is disappointing. The so-called record box -office gross just doesn’t tell the true story, if there is a good story to tell at all.

Rakesh Roshan’s superhero sequel has come seven years after Krrish (2006). Times have changed but the mindset clearly hasn’t. There is superficial gloss, for sure. A truckload of visual wizardry has been dumped on the movie, and it doesn’t disappoint. The special effects are in the best Hollywood tradition but for anyone familiar with Hollywood’s superhero history, Krrish 3’s VFX are only an imitation.

Imitation can flatter but not if the flattery is insincere. If Rakesh and Hrithik Roshan were serious about paying tribute to the best of superhero Hollywood, then they would have also worked on a great story. All the best Hollywood creations of this genre have had a great story to tell: from Superman (1978), Batman (1989), Spider-man (2002), The Fantastic Four, The Mask, Hellboy, Iron Man, to their newer re-imaginings, they have all been compellingly and convincingly told. 

That’s where Krrish 3 fails. A vapid story of a paralysed scientific genius unleashing mutant viruses on the world and making a killing selling antidotes, and trying to eventually take over the world, is made worse by Krrish’s cardboard-cutoutness. 

Back in Krrish, he was an innocent village boy discovering his unusual qualities to his own amazement and then struggling to use them in the best way possible to save the world. It had struck a chord and created expectations that the sequel simply fails to live up to.

Krrish is India’s first screen superhero (if we discount Supremo, the comic book alter ego of Amitabh Bachchan from the 1980s, and the TV hero Shaktimaan) and its creators should have taken the trouble to write a backstory for him. What Krrish has been doing since his first outing in 2006 and where he is now in his life and how he has got there. That would have helped tell a good story.

Instead, we find Krishna (Krrish’s Clark Kent persona) getting fired from jobs for disappearing without explanation to carry out his superhero duties, but also living the good life, with birthday parties in a discotheque thrown by his TV journalist wife. This is mindless Bollywood at work.

Why not make Krrish a medical salesman or an author/blog-writer or a social activist, who will have the leisure to break into action whenever danger beckons. 

Priyanka’s character, too, is stunted, still stuck in 2006. She dresses sexily (no argument with that), dances in an oddly 1990s way, and acts as if she never grew beyond age 16. Come on, Krrish creators, this is Junglee Billi of ‘Don’ (2006) and Jhilmil of ‘Barfi’ we are talking about. Give some respect to the actor beneath Priya (now Krrish’s wife). Surely, you can create a mature woman character, someone like Mary Jane Watson of Spiderman.

Vivek Oberoi, as the villain Kaal, is shortchanged because for nine-tenths of the film, he is bound to a wheelchair (shades of Stephen Hawking, I dare presume, or maybe Shakaal from Shaan). And when he does walk, he gets into an abominable steel suit and flies. As for the twist (yes, there is one), the least said the better. This is a waste of an actor who has proved himself a great anti-hero.

The only actor who manages to grab eyeballs is Kangana Ranaut as the villainous mutant Kaya. She is sassy, sexy and seductively dangerous or dangerously seductive (take your pick). Even Krrish/Krishna comes alive opposite her in the only entertaining but decidedly 1990ish song, Dil tu hi bataa. Rajesh Roshan, please retire.

If inspiration was needed, Krrish creators could have turned to our two epics that abound in superheroes, gods, goddesses, scholars, saints and villains. That they did briefly think along those lines is evident in a climactic scene where Krrish’s father, scientist Rohit Verma, takes on a Vishnu-like aura.

So, why would you spend time and money to watch Krrish 3? For Kangana, maybe, or to see how close the FX are to Hollywood, or to drool over Adonis Hrithik. Whatever the reason, be warned that you will leave the theatre unmoved.

Krrish 3 scores a 6 on 10. Watch only if you must.

Beyond all Gravity

A film with two actors and then only one for almost half its running time should spell disaster. But Gravity defies movie-town logic for its choice of subject and its astonishing special effects.
 

This is not a sci-fi movie because this is not fiction, not in the sense of having an alien predator or an undersea-city or a future peopled by killer androids. Gravity is fiction to the extent of telling a non-real-life story but it is as real as real can get within the four borders of a sheet of white stretched taut in the black void between four walls.

If one must pigeonhole Gravity into a genre, then it’s at worst a ‘disaster’ movie, a popular Hollywood staple. What propels director-producer Alfonso Cuaron’s creation beyond clichés and into the cinematic exosphere is its SFX and atmospherics.

For you or I, who can’t afford a Virgin Galactic ride into space (still in the future), Gravity is the closest we will ever get to the deep, dark void. The cold, distant sunrise from way up above, the hulking canvas of Earth (don’t miss the reference to Ganges), and the black mystery beyond feel all too real. It’s strange, because how do we (the audience) know what it feels like in space. We don’t and yet, we do feel.

Gravity could have been even more real if it would have made us listen to the stultifying silence of space. An oversight, perhaps. But happily it doesn’t lessen the impact of the story, told entirely through the eyes of two space-walking astronauts, Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) and Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). Equally at ease in comedy and drama, Bullock appears to always leave a lasting impression in dramatic roles. Clooney is the comic relief here.

The script, by Alfonso and son Jonas Cuaron, however, does deploy a number of clichés – especially that of the self-sacrificing hero and the all-conquering, all-American hero.

Why does the hero have to overcome all adversities all the time? Why can’t he (male as opposed to female) be shown to be scared stiff? Can’t he/she be shown fighting a losing battle, and perhaps leaving it to another – a Chinese, may be – to save their day?

But none of these disturbing questions pop up when Gravity is playing out in stark 3D, spreading its unique brand of cold horror around your heart, making you clench your fists and hold your breath, much the same way, I guess, Stone and Kowalski would have in the terrifying, endless void of outer space.

Gravity is a must-watch. Your time and money both will be well-spent contemplating the place of man in the vastness that is the universe, and the technological marvel that is Gravity.

Score: 9/10

A Not So Satisfying Lunch

It is difficult to review a film that has already been much written about and talked about, more so after it lost out in the race for the Indian Oscars entry to The Good Road.

So why would The Lunchbox have made a better bet for the Oscars than Good Road? Tough to say unless I watch Good Road, which is yet to release commercially. But a comparison is not the point of this review; the point is why is Lunchbox getting all the attention.

For the first time, in a long time, perhaps, has come a movie that is mounted simply, shot simply, and most important, told simply. This is not a film that will shake you up; you won’t go home emotionally wrought, or abusive at the waste of your time. But you won’t leave indifferent either.

It works almost like that breed of movies that Indian filmmakers no longer seem to make; like a Sari Paranjape film peopled with somewhat quirky but very identifiable middle-class characters. Who makes movies about the middle class nowadays?

Like Paranjape’s films, the humour is a constant and uplifting presence in Ritesh Batra’s debut feature film. Lunchbox wouldn’t have been half the movie it is without the wit.

Lunchbox is a simple tale of simple people, simply told, without any camera flourish, arresting music or even any dramatic (as in vivid) moments. These are its very strengths, and yet somewhere in there lie the film’s shortfall. I wish the young wife Ila (played by Nimrat Kaur) had confronted or tried to confront her indifferent husband Rajiv (Nakul Vaid). I wish Ila had exchanged some angry notes with her elderly well-wisher Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan). A little outburst wouldn’t have been out of place.

Another presupposed premise of Lunchbox is its use of the old fashioned letter in the age of cellphone/emails (mentioned by the character Shaikh, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqi). One can’t help but wonder why Saajan and Ila couldn’t exchange mobile numbers. And the film’s very pivot is a blunder by the very efficient Dabbawallahs of Mumbai – a sacrilege when it comes to the time-tested and well-oiled machinery that the food deliverers operate.

None of this, however, takes away from the delightful spread the Lunchbox is. Foremost is Nimrat, the acting discovery of the decade. For an actor we knew better as the Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk model who does the sweet and sexy lick-lick, Nimrat is the star (don’t read the Bollywood meaning) around which planet Irrfan and satellite Nawazuddin rotate. Any actor who can emote the way she does in the numerous full-face close-ups (with the camera inches away from the face) can’t but be extraordinary. I hope to see Nimrat a lot more in the coming days.

Irrfan is just right as the widowed and lonely accountant Mr Fernandes. As his putative successor Shaikh, Nawazuddin is a delight to watch. His role recalls his performance in Dibakar Banerjee’s film from Bombay Talkies.

More striking perhaps is the soundtrack (music by Max Richter). The Mumbai suburban train’s clattering rhythm has been used almost like background music. The humorous use of the song, Mera dil bhi kitna pagal hai, from the hit movie Saajan (note the parallel?) is another delight. And the constant refrain of the Dabbawallahs’ song is a master touch.

 
If typical Bollywood fare is not your idea of satisfying entertainment, then The Lunchbox is a movie worth your time. It deserves an 8 on 10. Do watch it.
 

A Final Work That Lacks Finality

Rituparno Ghosh’s last film Satyanweshi will forever leave many questions unanswered.  Foremost is the question: Is this what Rituparno imagined as his director’s cut? Would he have re-shot some scenes or changed some others as the film took shape? We will never know. We will have to live with the film as it is.

The most striking feature of Satyanweshi is its impossibly slow pace, at least for the first 60 to 75 minutes. It does pick up but by then, it’s too late. Even Shubho Mahurat, Rituparno’s earlier detective thriller, was largely slow. But it was never slow enough to make the audience uneasy.

Was the pacing a deliberate ploy, like the static camerawork, perhaps to match the tempo of 1950s Bengali detective films? Like those movies of a bygone era, Satyanweshi is largely studio-bound, with very little scope for tracking shots or pan shots. Why?

The film’s original story, Chorabali (by Saradindu Bandopadhyay), has range enough for a well-mounted shikar scene and some spine-chilling scare in the form of an unseen tiger on the prowl (remember the hound in The Hound of the Baskervilles). But these promising devices are never exploited, reducing Satyanweshi to a theatrical production more appropriate for the stage.

The characters are mostly seated, not even once pacing up and down the room or even walking across corridors or passageways in the Raja’s mansion where most of the action takes place. Inexplicable!

If anything, it is the performances that take the film a few notches up. Sujoy Ghosh, the hit director of Kahaani, in his first acting role as detective Byomkesh Bakshi, is not half as bad as I had expected. But some of his nods and stares look out of place, as if he missed the cue. In appearance, he does capture the essence of a thinking Bangali bhadralok. He also shows some spunk, as an actor, soon after being confronted by the Raja.

But going by his predecessors in the role, Sujoy falls well short in not having an arresting personality. Rajit Kapoor, though not a Bengali, is still the best Byomkesh on screen (although on TV). Anjan Dutt’s Byomkesh, Abir Chatterjee, has the personality but not so much the ‘sharp sleuth’ feel.

The most convincing of all actors in Satyanweshi is Byomkesh’s Boswell, Ajit, played by Chandrabindoo band leader Anindya Chatterjee. He pulls off the subdued, affable character remarkably well, reminding us of one of his predecessors in the role, Sailen Mukherjee, in Satyajit Ray’s Chiriyakhana.

Indraneil Sengupta, as Raja Himangshu, looks right but emotes sparingly as if afraid to cross unseen boundaries. Arpita Chatterjee’s character, Aloka, could have been better etched. Kaligati, the film’s central character played by Sibaji Bandopadhyay, never fully comes alive to grab the audience’s attention.

Satyanweshi feels like an incomplete work, one that is bereft of the touches that its master director would perhaps have lent it had he lived to see the film released. It is unfortunate that Rituparno Ghosh’s oeuvre should have ended this way.

Satyanweshi still makes for a very different watch on a weekend. But go only if you can sit through the leisurely pace. Rituparno Ghosh’s last film scores a 7.5 on 10 on my movie meter.

Take this Express to Chennai

I went in with dreadful thoughts of having to rush out midway or toss and turn in my chair till the excruciating end, but strangely Chennai Express left me surprised and fairly entertained.

Unlike Rohit Shetty’s Golmal (the first in the series), which was a rollicking comedy, CE is not ROFL (as somebody described it). But it has its moments, when you do laugh out loud but briefly. Mostly, it has chuckle and smile moments, which is more than you can say for other so-called comedies.

I think I have a fair inkling why CE has managed to rake in crores by the truckloads. It has a feel-good feel to it (despite the flying-car stunts and axe-wielding goons) and highlights, perhaps after a long time, the glories of family. Its crux is relationships – between a man and his grandfather, between a man and woman (husband-wife), between a father and daughter, and between brothers and sisters.

Shah Rukh Khan, who I feared would ham his way through, actually takes pains to keep it simple, and it works. He (or the script) relentlessly takes digs at all his successful films and the popular characters he has played. He even makes fun of his advancing age (and perhaps the related insecurity regarding continued success) and manages to charm as he always has. Of course, I wish I could turn the clock back to the SRK of Doosra Kewal or Circus or Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. But this SRK is entertaining too (so much better than Ra.One’s).

Deepika, I was scared, would get the accent all wrong or overdo it in trying to get it right. She surprisingly does neither. The accent, though not very natural, is fairly compelling and being a south Indian (Kannadiga), she does speak her own Tamil. And unlike most of her films, Deepika shows not a shred of skin and still looks persuasively traditionally sexy (That was a mouthful, I agree). And she is good at comedy, too. She is certainly going places.

The music is a let-down. There is not one song that you take home with you, except perhaps the item song ‘1, 2, 3, 4’, which makes a mark if only for its rambunctiousness. If only the soundtrack had been memorable enough?

I don’t think the story deserves a mention because it is clearly not the point of the film. CE’s plot is only a device to put the varied characters in place and let them play out their roles. It doesn’t matter who fights who, who sings what, who does what; the only thing that matters is whether the man gets his woman in true hero-style. Rahul, the dilwala, does get his dulhaniya, only this time she’s Meenamma from the far south.

In the process, Rohit Shetty has managed to perhaps make the first language-crossover film of Bollywood. A Hindi film that liberally uses Tamil (not fake and without subtitles, and often without any Hindi interpretation by the characters). That’s actually a very brave thing to do in a land where despite the glut of languages and dialects, people are often very parochial and make fun of another’s tongue.

But, all is well that ends well and earns even better (Rs 202.67 crore at the end of 14 days).  

I say, go and watch it – not for pure cinema, not even for pure entertainment, but only for good time-pass. Chennai Express scores a 7.5 on 10.