Film Review- Bangistan

 

Not Enough Bang For Your Bucks

Film: Bangistan

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Pulkit Samrat, Kumud Mishra, Jacqueline Fernandez

Directed by: Karan Anshuman

Duration: 2 hrs 15 mins

Rating: * * 

Like many countless other films, Bangistan also has a promising plot somewhere in there but it never realizes it potential. It has a tough time finding its footing as it oscillates between comedy and some serious sermonizing and the two have to be handled with great care like a chef mixing ingredients to make a dish. 

There are a few laughs and chuckles but for most parts it lacks fizz. Religion seems to be one of the latest buzzing topics in Bollywood, particularly Hindu Muslim unity. Bangistan also tries to make a point that religion is not something that particularly enhances lives but it doesn’t really push the envelope while dealing with the subject. 

In this country called Bangistan, Riteish Deshmukh and Pulkit Samrat play a hard lined Muslim and Hindu respectively. They land up in Krakow, Poland for the world religion conference and though they are on a similar mission, their identities are reversed.  

That gives some scope for a few gags and some satire but the film never really takes off.   Jacqueline Fernandez plays a bar girl who is presumed to be Christian but turns out to be an atheist, pity there isn’t much elaboration on that. 

To be fair the script is an equal opportunity offender but sadly the proceedings are drab. Anshuman, a film critic turned director has a tough time juggling between main stream Bollywood song and dance routines and making sense of the story on hand. But in what appears to be a tribute to Kubrick’s The Shining, there’s also a scene in the restroom with red colored walls.  

There is nothing much to harp about as far as the cast is concerned, Pulkit Samrat puts his best foot forward while the otherwise reliable Riteish Deshmukh fails to make much of an impression here. 

In sum, Bangistan doesn’t give enough bang for your bucks. 

Published in The Navhind Times on 9th Aug 2015

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Film Review - Lai Bhari

Heavy Duty

Film: Lai Bhari (Marathi with English subtitles)

Cast: Riteish Deshmukh, Sharad Kelkar, Radhika Apte, Tanvi Azmi

Directed by: Nishikant Kamat

Duration: 2 hrs 25 mins

Rating:  * *

 

When Marathi cinema, one of the most vibrant regional cinemas in the country today takes a plunge into hardcore commercial films, one tends to be a little skeptic. But when Lai Bhari (co-produced by Salman Khan) tries to ape Bollywood to the hilt, the disappointment hits a magnitude of 8 on the Richter scale.

Lai Bhari is what happens when Himmatwala meets Rowdy Rathore.

Director Nishikant Kamat made a couple of memorable films (Dombivili Fast and Mumbai Meri Jaan) before Bollywood sucked out his creativity with the John Abraham starred Force and now we have Lai Bhari and for those who understand the language, it is indeed quite bhari. 

Riteish Deshmukh plays Prince, who takes over his father’s business empire but has to deal with an evil relative (Sharad Kelkar) who eliminates him - there is also a chase scene between an Ashok Leyland truck and his car. The truck wins hands down.   

Tanvi Azmi plays his mother in a role that reminds us of Rakhee in Karan Arjun. In the holy city of Pandharpur, she bumps across his lookalike (Riteish again) who is a tapori.  If you think the days of twin brothers separated at birth are long gone in films, then you are sadly mistaken. Mama recruits him seeking revenge for the death of her other son and in an elongated climax she is even tied to a pole by villains, as it used to happen in films of yore.  All that was missing is the lair with those multicolored 10 watt bulbs.

The glamour quotient is fulfilled by Radhika Apte as the village damsel and Aaditi Pohankar as the city girl. The film is meant to appeal to a certain section of the audience, much like the Bollywood equivalents like Humshakals and Himmatwala.  There is even a song where the heroine tries to seduce the villain to get his signature on property documents.  

To spruce up the proceedings, Salman Khan also makes a cameo appearance and the joke about his real life ex-girlfriends is worth a chuckle. You feel sorry for Riteish Deshmukh who is saddled with such a terrible script.

The only thing bhari is your head after watching this film. 

Published in The Navhind Times on 13th July 2014

Film Review - Ek Villain

Where There Is a Villain,There Is a Way 

                  

Film: Ek Villain

Cast: Siddharth Malhotra, Riteish Deshmukh, Shraddha Kapoor

Directed by: Mohit Suri

Duration: 2 hrs 8 mins

Rating: * *

Directed by Mohit Suri, Ek Villain is a slightly frustrating and exasperating experience. A blatant rip-off of the Kim Jee-Woon’s Korean flick I Saw The Devil (2010), there is way too much Bollywoodization of the script. This is not exactly a carbon copy but a true copy all the same, albeit unattested.

Written by Tushar Hirandani with some very heavy duty dialogues by Milap Zaveri, had they stuck closer to the original film, it would have been more appealing but all the romance and not to mention the songs that pop up makes it look like you were watching an extended version of Aashiqui 2.

Just minutes into the film, we see a murder being committed. Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor) is thrown off a building by a man in a trench coat (Riteish Deshmukh) and his identity is revealed right away. Never mind that later, when couple of other characters fall from the same place, they have minor injuries, that can fixed with some Dettol and Band Aid strips.

Anyway, in flashback we are told that the girl’s hubby Guru (Siddharth Malhotra) was a hit man in Goa who has a change of heart after he meets her. A traumatic childhood was responsible for his explosive nature and he was rescued by a don (Remo). The murderer meanwhile is a telephone linesman who can’t speak up for himself when others yell at him, including his wife who keeps taunting him.

He gets even with them with a screw driver, no, not the drink.

If you think the second half will turn into a taut thriller, then you are as wrong as the man from the MET office. 

  

Another disappointment is the way the film is structured. It gives you the impression that there is a pay off at some point but that never happens. Take the Narkasur scene for instance, it is made to look as if it is an important plot point and shot stylishly but has precious little relevant connection with the story.

Flashbacks are overused and the audience is fed with all possible information instead of letting them work it out themselves. As for the dialogues, the young man holds his girlfriends hand while the train is pulling out of the station at considerable speed and delivers lines like “Mera haath thaam lo aur mujhe andhere se ujaale mein le chalo” (Take my hand and lead me from darkness into light), Oh please!

You feel sorry for Mohit Suri, he seems to have given his best shot to a muddled screenplay.

Siddharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor are competent on the acting front but it is Riteish Deshmukh who pulls up a surprise. We know that he has a knack for comedy but he pulls off this role as well with admiration.

Like most plagiarized films, Ek Villain also misses bull’s eye.

Published in The Navhind Times on 29th June 2014

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Film Review - Humshakals

Triple Trouble

Film: Humshakals

Cast: Saif Ali Khan,Riteish Deshmukh,Ram Kapoor, Bipasha Basu

Directed by: Sajid Khan

Duration: 2 hrs 39 mins

Rating:  ½ star

Dear Sajid Khan,

Hope this letter finds you in the torrid pink of health and spirits. I was worried sick about you after watching Humshakals. It has been a tumultuous time since I came out of the theatre, while trying to regain my own sanity,  my heart also went out to all those who actually paid money to watch this farce in the name of cinema. I am dreading that you might have suffered the same fate as some of the victims who went to see this film.

Some people had the choice of leaving in the middle of it and I am glad they exercised it, but some of them actually left even before the interval. In all the years that I have been watching films, I don’t recollect such a sight.

Having endured Himmatwala, it appeared that your creative juices had dried up and it couldn’t have got any worse. But sadly, we were wrong.

Make no mistake,  I was well prepared for all eventualities. I practiced sitting on a cactus for two and a half hours every day to get myself ready for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was being water boarded at the same time. 

When I saw that the film is dedicated to Kishore Kumar, Jim Carrey and Peter Sellers my hopes were raised. But later I was glad that two of the three gentlemen are not around and I sincerely hope Jim Carrey never gets to hear about this film.

So what were you thinking when you came up with this story where a hopelessly miscast Saif Ali Khan plays Ashok who appears to be competing with the Mittals when it comes to wealth. His best friend is called Kumar (Riteish) and they don’t have an occupation in particular, except attend board meetings where the scheming uncle (Ram Kapoor) wants to take over the business empire.

I wanted to bury my head in my neighbors pop corn tub and wake up hoping that it was a bad dream when Ashok and Kumar start, growling, barking and behave like dogs.  The reason? A scientist gives them a mind altering drug called MAD.

I hope I am not speaking out of turn when I say that considering the kind of films you are making, a little bit of alteration to your mind won’t be such a bad idea at this point.

Now if the existing loony characters weren’t enough, you put in another set of the same guys with same names and faces. Logic has never been your forte but the lack of it  film plummets to new depths in this film.  And if that wasn’t enough, you introduced another set of the same guys so we had all these doppelgangers.

And pray, what were the actresses doing in the film? Apart from participating in songs and wearing short dresses I mean. Plus, the way the British have been portrayed I just hope a diplomatic row doesn’t break out between our two countries.  We can kiss the Kohinoor goodbye for another century now. 

The only funny bit I liked was when the hospital warden decided to torture his patients by showing them Himmatwala. I have an unsolicited idea for your next film – a character wants to commit suicide but he can’t decide if he should jump off the bridge or blow his brains off.  In the end, he decides to watch Humshakals to achieve his goal.

You were a genuinely funny guy on television Sajid bhai but what happened to your mojo on the big screen? Politically incorrect jokes can be fun if they are in the right vein but your gags directed at gays, differently abled people, dwarfs are anything but entertaining. And the lesser I say about the men in drag the better, I don’t want to remind myself of how Ram Kapoor the man fell for Ram Kapoor the ‘woman’.

It remains a mystery how you managed to rope in the actors. I presume they were paid a fat cheque. Saif Ali Khan made some terrible choices at the beginning of his career but none were as bad as this, he doesn’t have that knack for comedy, so please convey this to him. Riteish Deshmukh on the other hand managed to salvage some of the situation.

I will end by beseeching you to get well soon and earnestly request you by quoting a line from the film - “Hume torture mat kijiye sir, hum aapke pair padte hain”

Cheers,

Sachin

Published in The Navhind Times, Goa on 22nd June 2014
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