Film Review - ABCD 2

Blood On The Dance Floor

Film: ABCD 2

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhudheva, Lauren Gottlieb
Directed by: Remo D’Souza
Duration: 2 hrs 34 mins
Rating:  * * 1 / 2

Riding on the success of ABCD which released just over two years ago, the sequel thrives on what made the first one click – a group of underdogs and non starters fulfilling their dream of making it big. Sure there is dance and more dance in ABCD 2 but just because it is a dance film, there is no excuse for the lame writing, silly dialogues and lack of a story.

The laziness in the writing just gets more and more obvious as the film progresses – usually in a dance film, you are waiting for the climax because that is often the grand piece, but here is no such yearning because you’ve already had enough by then. To be fair, the finale, though it takes a long time to come, is splendidly done. 

From purely the dance point of view, ABCD2 works and works well, but as a film that should have all the ingredients, especially a decent story, there is an axe to grind. 

Inspired by a real life story, the main protagonist this time is Varun Dhawan who plays Suresh - there is nothing like throwing in a bit of star power in our films, that works better at the box office.  His dance troupe is disgraced at a reality show because all their dance steps are copied from other dancers although they vehemently deny it. Suresh’s late mother, a classical dancer (we are told, not once but twice that ‘she died with her ghunguroos on’, those are the precise words) is also dragged into it. We never learn whether they actually did copy or not, but what we do know he is, he determined to redeem himself.

Along with his good friend Vinnie (Shraddha Kapoor) he tries to regroup after he sees Vishnu (Prabhudheva) in action. After the initial denial, which goes on and on (the editor perhaps dozed off on the editing table), Vishnu agrees to mentor them and the troupe has to look out for more members.

They have to overcome the difficulties to getting the funding for their trip but by interval time, their plane takes off for Vegas for the international hip-hop competition (Dubai was already taken in Happy New Year)

 

Once in the US, everything moves so very predictably – someone has to get injured before the major event and Olive (Lauren Gottlieb from ABCD and last seen in Welcome to Karachi as a Pakistani spy) makes an appearance. Vishnu’s background story and the reasons for his action makes you cringe, it is all like an 80’s film. Not to forget one of the dancers who is suffering from some mysterious illness and literally spouts blood when the final is in progress.  It is only then that the meaning of MJ’s Blood on the dance floor became obvious to me.  

The cardboard characters and the writing leaves a lot to be desired. There has to be an evil team in the competition and this time it is the Germans who get into a fist fight. Or take the scene for instance where Vinnie is jealous of the growing friendship between Suresh and Olive (this is a Bollywood film after all, there has to be romance and it has to be spelt to the last e). The jealousy starts, drags on a bit, then we have a song and even after that the same topic is dwelled upon.

What works in the film are the dances, they are impressively choreographed and everything is bigger and better when it comes to that. In fact, it would be fair to say that the choreography is as good as anything we have seen on the big screen. Except that there is too much of it here.

Of the cast, Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor have put on a good show and the supporting cast is also up to the mark.

On the whole, if dance is what you like, then it is almost perfect. But then, anybody can dance but not everyone can write and execute a good story.  

Published in The Navhind Times on 21st June 2015

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Film Review - Badlapur

Beyond Good and Evil

Film: Badlapur

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Nawzuddin Siddique, Huma Qureshi, Yami Gautam
Directed by: Sriram Raghavan
Duration: 2 hrs 7 mins
Rating: *  *  *  *

Revenge maybe a dish best served cold but as Friedrich Nietzsche rightly says in Beyond Good and Evil, “Anyone who fights with monsters should take care that he does not in the process become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”  

From the director who made Johnny Gaddar (2007) one of the greatest thrillers ever in the history of cinema, Badlapur is a return to form for Sriram Raghavan,  after the disappointing Agent Vinod. Raghvan’s forte is engaging the audience with the proceedings, the way he has crafted the characters and added twists and turns to the story, it could easily go on for another couple of hours and you would still be engrossed with his story telling. 

Based on the story by Italian writer Massimo Carlotto, essentially, Badlapur as the title suggests, is a story of revenge. With a Raghavan film, you have to pay attention to the details right from the opening credits. If Johnny Gaddar was a tribute to James Hadley Chase and Vijay Anand, there is a ‘thank you’ to Don Siegel, the director of Dirty Harry (1971) here. 

The tag line of Badlapur says ‘Don’t miss the beginning’ and rightly so. The first 15 minutes are as gripping as it can get. From the camera placed across a not particularly busy street in Pune we see some ordinary goings- on. A vendor selling fruits, cops’ trying to tow away a vehicle – the camera is static capturing the mundane proceedings but you know something is going to give in. A bank robbery goes wrong resulting in a tragedy, shots are fired, a woman and a kid end up dead. Only the audience and one of the two who is responsible for the death know who it is. One of them, Liak (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is taken into custody claiming he is innocent and it was the other man who was responsible. Raghu (Varun Dhawan), the grieving husband and father meanwhile can’t overcome the deaths and seeks revenge. He is ready to wait as long as it takes to settle scores with those who were responsible. 

The screenplay never lets you guess which way the story is heading and just when you think it has reached a dead-end, a new path opens up. The finale takes off on a different tangent altogether and though it may not be a very traditional climax in a sense it makes some points about morality by turning the story on its head. After all, there is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

The characters are fascinating – primarily it revolves around Raghu a sober ad executive who runs amok and Liak, the shrewd villain of the piece. In fact, Liak reminded me a lot the Joker, as far as a large part of his characterization is concerned - he is menacing, calculative and couldn’t care less. The others are also equally absorbing, Huma Qureshi as prostitute, Divya Dutta as a social worker, Vinay Pathak as the partner in crime and Radhika Apte as his wife all add to the conundrum.

Anil Mehta’s cinematography is from the top draw and on the acting front, Varun Dhawan makes an impression in a serious role and Nawazuddin Siddiqui steals the show again with his savior faire.

Badlapur is streets ahead of the rest and hence deserves a look.

Published in The Navhind Times, Goa on 22nd February 2015
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Film Review - Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania

Partly Well Groomed 

Film Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Ashutosh Rana

Directed by: Shashank Khaitan

Duration: 2 hrs 15 mins

Rating:  * * 1 / 2

Almost two decades ago, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge became the trendsetter and over the years we have had a host of films inspired by that Aditya Chopra film. Topping that list as of today will be Shashank Khaitan’s Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania, an unabashed tribute to DDLJ.  In one scene, the hero is also seen shedding tears while watching a re-re-run of that film. 

The triumph, if one can call it that, of Humpty Sharma lies in the fact that though it uses an oft repeated 20 year old formula & completely throws logic and sense out of the window from the top floor in the latter half, it delivers decent entertainment primarily because the characters are well etched. The chemistry between the lead pair also contributes immensely in pushing the film to the ‘not so bad’ category. 

Rakesh aka Humpty Sharma (Varun Dhawan) is a happy go lucky college boy in Delhi who doesn’t particularly excel in anything.  Enter Kavya Pratap Singh (Alia Bhatt) the girl from Ambala who has come to Delhi to shop for her wedding which is on the anvil and she wants to buy a designer lehenga that costs a bomb and Humpty Sharma comes to her rescue. They become good friends and even if you have landed from Mars you would know which way the story is heading. 

Back home, Ashutosh Rana plays Amrish Puri’s character. He turns grumpy when the word love is mentioned, his elder daughter was a victim of a love story that went awry. The first half of the film is a breeze and somewhat predictably, it goes downhill after that. 

Humpty, with a little help from his friends (Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pandey),  tries his best to convince the Amrish Puri avatar that he is truly madly and deeply in love with the girl. For the strangest reason in the universe, papa gives him a chance – if he can find a single fault in the prospective NRI groom (Sidharth Shukla), then he will accede to Humpty’s wishes.

Thanks to the sloppy writing in the second half, the film seems much longer than 135 

minutes.  A tribute to DDLJ is fine but it doesn’t have to be an unimaginative one. Ultimately, it is the characters that drive the film and a fair amount of laughs are generated by Humpty’s two friends. As a trend in recent times we have seen that the  women character's are not stereotypes and it applies to this film as well- as a larger reflection of the societal issues, the three generations of ladies are seen discussing male issues, in one of the best scenes.

Both Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pandey fit the bill in those roles and it is also good to see Ashutosh Rana back in action. Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhat are both hitting the right notes since they made their debut and they carry on in the same vein. Of the two, Varun’s performance is marginally better than hers. In sum, Humpty’s bumpy ride is fun in parts.

Published in The Navhind Times on 13th July 2014

 

Film Review - Main Tera Hero

 

Three’s Company                           

Film: Main Tera Hero

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Ileana D’Cruz, Nargus Fakhri

Directed by: David Dhawan

Duration: 2 hrs 15 mins

Rating: * *

There was a brief period in the 90’s when David Dhawan gave us some wholesome entertainment with films that didn’t have the most convincing premise yet he managed to pull it off. But since then his graph has been like a sine wave curve with far-far more lows than highs. Main Tera Hero will not exactly enhance his reputation which he lost considerably with films like Do Knot Disturb, Chashme Baddoor and Rascals.

It’s a pity because you can see some shades of vintage Dhawan but the story is a dud that and there is no salvaging it. Varun Dhawan plays a college bloke who falls for Sunaina (Ileana D’Cruz) but his love story encounters some serious problems when his girlfriend is kidnapped and taken to Bangkok by the gangster father (Anupam Kher) of a girl (Nargis Fakhri) who is in love with him.

Once the scene shifts to Thailand the plot goes cuckoo. A cop (Arunoday Singh) who has a soft corner for Sunaina also lands there and more characters lead to more confusion but not necessarily a good film. Saurabh Shukla and Rajpal Yadav try hard to provide some laughs but they are few and far between – most of it is just exasperating.

The girls are there just to fulfill the glamour quotient but Varun Dhawan shows that along with those 6 packs, he has some acting talent as well.   He has the potential to be a hero but this is not the right film. 

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