Cinemaah

Friends and Other Creatures


Abbas Tyrewala’s debut Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, had endearingly real characters, people like us, with lives pretty much like ours—and to make it filmi, a good over-the-top climax.

His second film, following the same ‘Hero and Friends’ formula, set in London is a bit of a let down.  It’s contrived, derivative and very deficient in the joie de vivre that should be the mark of a successful romcom.

One of the problems is Mishka, the character and Pakhi, the actress—a most unappealingly self-centred and whiny woman, played by an actress without screen presence. Typically, heroes fall for such damsels in distress, and confident career women are referred to as ‘bitches’ who deserve to be dumped.

Siddharth (John Abraham) and his Pakistani neighbour Omar (Raghu Ram) run an Indian bookshop called Kaagaz Ke Phool in London, along with a third Amit (Omar Khan), a gay man.  Cheekily their store has a sign declaring “We don’t do Deepak Chopra.”  The film needed more of this wit, and less of translated literally from English, over-cute, too-clever chatter.

The characters are also strange—Omar’s sharp-tongued and pregnant sister Aliya (Alishka Varde) refuses to marry her Japanese boyfriend, who keeps coming up with crazy ways to propose;  another gay pal who keeps bringing his boyfriends to Aliya for approval,  there’s Mishka’s sex-obsessed friend and the Sid’s unsuspecting girlfriend Krutika (Mansi Scott), who is hated by his friends for no apparent reason.

Sid’s number is mistakenly given out for a suicide helpline and among the desperate souls who call and wake him up is Mishka, who wants to die because her boyfriend left her.  Sid talks her out of it, but meets her in person and falls for her. So she confides in the anonymous voice on the phone, not knowing that she is being wooed by the same shy, stammering guy.

All the funny moments and good lines pop up when the wet blanket of a leading lady is not around.  The actors are peppy and eager to please, London is shot very beautifully (Manoj Lobo), but Jhootha Hi Sahi’s flaws far outweigh its charm—its dragging long after the story has ended being one of the major ones.

Violence For The Sake Of It


A director with the cinematic skills of  Ram Gopal Varma ought to be able to reinvent himself, but all he does is reinvent the wheel.

After every string of failures he keeps going back to violent sagas of gangsters, but, while his first Shiva and successful Satya,  had a sense of control, social comment and artistic merit, his subsequent returns to gangland have been needlessly violent and meaningless.

Why, for instance, would a viewer outside of Andhra Pradesh be interested in the fictionalized story of gangster-turned-political leader Paritala Ravi?  Set in an Andhra town with a history of caste-based violence, the families of the high caste Reddys –with the cruel psychopath Bukka (Abhimanyu Singh) as the leader-- start a war with the lower caste faction, of which Pratap Ravi (Vivek Oberoi) becomes undisputed head, steering himself and his loyalists from being jungle outlaws to political strongmen. Traces of Godfather reappear.

The undoubtedly interesting journey of Pratap is narrated by Varma in unmitigated bursts of sadistic violence, accompanied by a deafening background score of Sanskrit chants.  The visuals almost devoid of colour, unsightly close-ups and an ever-swaying camera make this gruesome movie even more unpalatable.

So many of Varma’s recent films have had a quirky style— random action in the foreground, for instance, weird lighting and camera angles and a claustrophobic feel, as if he were willfully battling against the cinema of romance and  rainbow aesthetics. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to come up with an edifying retort for the kind of cinema is purports to despise.  It looks like he is challenging the audience to either reject his films or accept them on his unacceptable terms.

Varma casts unusual faces, but doesn’t seem to care much about how they act; so Vivek Oberoi fumbles through the transitions of his character, while Shatrughan Sinha returning after a long time, in the role of film star-politician (obviously based on N.T. Rama Rao) gives a remarkably astute performance.