'D' - movie review

D (2005)

It is never a surprise when an off-beat, artsy, real-to-life film is made and somewhere among the list of credits the name Ram Gopal Varma makes its appearance.

Ram Gopal Varma remains one of Bollywood’s most versatile and creative directors, someone with a real flair for the art and a unique sense of presentation. The hits he has been associated with, both as a director and a producer, are countless.

As to why Varma gave the directorial reins on this one to newcomer Vishram Sawant one can only speculate. Maybe perhaps since Varma himself had directed 1998’s Satya and 2002’s Company, and ‘D’ allegedly was the prequel to his Company and also the third in the gangster saga trilogy, he chose someone who might be able to bring a certain freshness to this flick.

‘D’ tells the story of Deshu, an average man who has just returned from Dubai upon hearing of his mother’s death. He becomes witness to a gang-style murder and suddenly becomes a sought after man, with both underworld and police hot on his trail. After being brutally abused by the police he decides to volunteer his service to a rival gang and thus willingly enters the underworld himself. His meteoric rise from newcomer to being cold, calculated and one of the most feared dons in the underworld forms the rest of the story till the end.

Newcomer Randeep Hooda takes on the role of Deshu and breezes through the role as if he was a veteran. Hooda’s nonchalant eyes and deep voice make him the perfect fit for the role of an average Joe-turned demon. Hooda has a great body, and Sawant does a great job in restraining the character from ever having to take his shirt off, allowing the viewer to only speculate at the possibilities that lie underneath.
Hooda perfects the art of incorporating personality into character. His Deshu is never too interested in anything, seems unfazed by all happening around him, but has shades of human within, and definitely more than shades of punisher and finisher. In American parlance Deshu represents the Mariano Rivera of the underworld.
This kid is going to go far, and once again Ram Gopal Varma has shown his flair for finding talent out of nowhere. Look out for Randeep Hooda in Varma’s next venture titled “James”.

The rest of the cast does what it has to. Support. Some better than others.

Chunky Pandey continues his attempted comeback as Deshu’s right-hand man Raghav, but once again Pandey’s nasal voice and annoying presence make it a forgettable role. Thankfully Pandey did have a reserved role.
Ram Gopal Varma regulars Isha Koppikar and Rukhsar add the female touch and they both have small, but vital roles, and both lovely ladies ease through the film like melted cheese off of pizza dough. The other regulars such as Yashpal Sharma, Goga Kapoor, and Jeeva all have small roles and all fulfill them aptly.
The one miscasting may have come in the form of Sushant Singh, an extremely talented and adaptable actor whose negative character seemed too cheap and demeaning for an actor of such worth.

‘D’ remains true to the story it attempts to tell. With a running time of 101 minutes the editing is crisp and the story never drags, lags, or sags. Never a dull moment in any Ram Gopal Varma ventures the dialogue delivery is slick and plots and subplots are all meshed in well with one another. The action is fast-paced and blunt, with no melodramatics and dreary sequences.

While ‘D’ may not appeal to everyone, it is a great peep into the underworld and worth the time. Those who have seen Satya and Company may not find ‘D’ to be a novelty but this does not take anything away from the individuality of the film.

If subtlety being devious intrigues you a tad bit then ‘D’ is right up your alley.

TEAM AMERICA (2004)

Matt Parker and Trey Stone are up to it again, and the famous South Park duo attempt another classic, crass, crude, comedy along the lines of their previous widely popular South Park-the movie.
Are they successful? Classic yes, crass very, crude extremely, comedy sure. But are they successful? Well sort of.

First of all Team America is probably the first movie that was rated R for strong sexual content involving puppets that is. And it’s all downhill from there!

The story is self-explanatory. A bunch of characters with special talents are assembled by a man with a vision and they together, with the help of a computer, called I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E fight terrorism. Terrorism is represented in this one in the form of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

Team America is clearly a spoof of many action movies, too many to name, and it doesn’t matter since there was none that was let off easily. The film also doesn’t spare many other personalities (especially anti-war actors Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, and Sean Penn) and careers (actors, clairvoyants, and movie directors).

Cutting a really long story short, this film is NOT for children. In fact it mightn’t even be for many adults, but it is still rather enjoyable. A great catharsis release and a laugh riot if watched with the proper company. Just be reminded to leave all logic, intellect, and morality by the baby-sitter before viewing it though.

Most of the voices are supplied by the directors, writers, creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and which is why most characters sound like they are lift-offs from South Park. The most laudable voice alteration was that of Kim Jong Il, clearly the hero of the film in terms of providing comic relief and witty one-liners!
It is hilarious the way Jong Il says “Herro Hans Brix, how can I herp you?”
Add that to “Arec Bardwin”- president F.A.G (Film Actors Guild) and you might get an idea of the kind of humor you will be exposed to.

As if that wasn’t crass enough, the real comedy of the film comes from its songs. Kim Jong Il’s classic “Ronery, I am so ronery” and the inspirational “America- f*** yeah” will have the non-vegetarians in the humor department salivating and going back for even more! Fear not, there is philosophy too, as we get the real breakdown regarding the three main types of people in this world. I better not mention the headings lest this review get a NC-17 rating.

Once again the South Park creators have showed how funny and desirable crassness can be, and that ironically might be Team America’s one downside. It definitely will not appeal to everyone and it probably won’t be making the DVD collection of many households.

All in all, from an art point of view, I think it is extremely talented of the creators to make an entire film on puppets and the miniscule level of detail shown in certain scenes involving the characters is credible.

Team America is NOT for the faint of heart, nor for those who don’t enjoy some quality adult humor, as blunt as it gets. Not for a long time will, assuming no sequels are made, another film that shows puppets doing everyday human things like vomiting, reproducing, and dancing be made.

Team America is a break from tradition; it’s something different and probably something worth a look. Check it out if one of your resolutions this year was to try something unique!

Kaal review

KAAL (2005)

With Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar producing, a chilling title, as well as a mini-galaxy of stars associated with a film, one would have to say this was 2005’s proverbial “one film that you don’t want to miss”. Whether this turned out to be such, or the one film that you WOULD want to miss you will know by the end of this review.

Kaal shares some similarities, namely tigers, to Hollywood’s 1996 release The Ghost and the Darkness, but to compare them would be unfair to both films.

Set in the Jim Corbett National Park (which for some strange reason was called the Orbit Park in the film), Kaal tells the story of some visitors to the park who all become entrapped in the mystery of random deaths of humans, and all claws, or shall I say fingers, point to the tigers who live on the reserve. Among the aforementioned lot are the husband and wife couple of Krish (John Abraham) and Riya Thapar (Esha Deol), who are apparently working for National Geographic, Dev Malhotra (Vivek Oberoi), a cocky and arrogant rich boy, Ishika (Lara Dutta), the surname-less girlfriend of Dev, and their two random friends who everyone can predict are in the movie as tiger-food. While at the park they are aided in battling the animals by a self-appointed ruler of the jungle, Kali Pratap Singh (Ajay Devgan).

Performance-wise, Ajay Devgan breezes through the role of Kali with ease. Devgan has done this a million times and it seemed as if he was working on 50% effort. The former National Award winner for Best Actor puts on a clinic for Abraham and Oberoi, and it was his sensational entry into the film near about the 40 minute mark that lifted the till then mundane and yawn-worthy film. Devgan’s dialogue delivery is crisp and his character is probably the only properly developed one in the film.

John Abraham as Krish Thapar gives a sincere performance. The females will love his bare-chested entry into the film running towards Esha Deol before some snake made her role into a guest appearance. Abraham is a wonderful actor but as always he suffers from a very shallow character sketch, an infection that would afflict the rest of the cast from herein after. For some reason Abraham is made to spend almost the entire film smoking a cigarette, and that didn’t help his cause too much either.

Esha Deol gives a good effort, but Riya Thapar had very little personality. She was allegedly supposedly to be an ace photographer in the film but after the first few frames Deol wasn’t seen near a camera. Her clothing or lack thereof, made one wonder whether she had previously ever visited any nature parks.

Vivek Oberoi is simply poor in the film. Dev Malhotra tries hard to come across as an arrogant, cocky and overconfident guy with a heart of gold. He succeeds in coming across as simply irritating. Oberoi looks amateur in this film and it’s hard to believe this was the same guy who gave far superior efforts in Company and Dum.

Lara Dutta suffers the most at having no depth in her character. Her character doesn’t even have a surname!!!! Ishika is purportedly Dev’s girlfriend but basically Ishika provides most of the sound-effects in terms of shrieking, screaming, desperate female who is mortified of animals.

As for the other extras in this film, most, if not all, did well in fulfilling their roles of becoming tiger food. Poor chaps seemed marked for their Kaal once word got around that tigers were killing humans.

First time director Soham Shah does have a few things going for him in his debut venture. Much to this reviewer’s relief there were no songs throughout the film. Both hit tracks from the movie were used at the peripheries, with Kaal Dhamaal at the beginning and Tauba Tauba at the end.
Soham also does well in making the viewer be somewhat terrified, though the viewer that he may land most success with will be the adolescent female. Finally Soham does well in ensuring that Kaal remains a somewhat action-thriller-mystery and he resists the temptation of packing in too much romance and drama and melodrama and comedy into it. Kaal stays true to being a horror film in terms of the caricature-like coincidences that everyone but the cast themselves see.

Kaal falls flat on many angles.
First of all none of the characters are really developed, and there is little background on them. The viewer just doesn’t feel any link to them and the disconnect is obvious. Even the so-called real protagonists of the film, the tigers, have not been given enough screen time.
This leads to the second point of contention. Somewhere along the film the tigers go from being murderers and beasts to almost being non-existent. The fact that they are heard more than seen in the second half of the film almost reveals and resigns Kaal to being just another whodunit. Editing may have killed off the tigers and the novelty of the film being a humans versus animals thriller is lost in the second half.
Kaal has a wafer-thin plot with enough holes to make any golf fanatic happy. What is incomprehensible is why our cast was “lost” in a National Park? I would assume there would be lots of guides and signs and trails. Why was Devgan the self-appointed King of the Jungle, when in fact they were supposed to be in a nature reserve and NOT a jungle? How could Lara Dutta be so injured one minute that she was being carried in a stretcher and then the next minute she was seen running out an exploding building? And the list goes on and on.

Somewhere just after the intermission it becomes predictable and Kaal’s Kaal beckons it to a hasty end, not before the usual action and screaming sequences though.
One would have thought with Karan Johar’s guiding presence near at hand and Shah Rukh Khan’s name associated with the flick, there would be some memorable moments coming out of Kaal, but sadly this 2 hour venture leaves you wondering whether performers read the scripts to their work or only sign keeping in mind the banner associated with the project.

Watch it if you must, but on DVD, and have your remote handy. If you forward the non-dialogue parts you can probably finish it up in an hour. I would still recommend some exercise or sleep in that time though.

Paheli can have dual meanings as a word in Hindi, and the film"Paheli" lived up to both of them.

Based on a Marathi play, Paheli was the first of its type offilm, but it also leaves the audience more inclined to itslatter meaning (though the more common usage of the word isthis).

Paheli (riddle) is set in Rajasthan in God knows what year, andis basically the story of Lachi (Rani Mukherji) who gets marriedto Krishan (Shah Rukh Khan), a money-minded businessman, wholeaves the day after his marriage to pursue a business venturefor his father's sake for 5 years. A ghost then takes his placesince this ghost had apparently fallen in love with Lachi at oneof the water breaks her wedding convoy had made.Lachi too falls in love with the ghost since he is more what shehad dreamed her husband to be like.Upon the real Krishan's return is when the real crisis arises,and what then happens forms the crux of Paheli.The story sounds pretty straightforward, and actually verynon-cerebral. Well it is.

I think Paheli probably fared better as a stage play (which itwas originally) because the identity of the ghost could havebeen concealed more easily and somehow the folk tale nature ofthe story makes it sound like an enjoyable play but a disastrousfilm.

Yesteryear funny man Amol Palekar directs and he has done acredible job. He has paid great attention to detail, and heleaves his mark in the first half using colors, costumes, andnarration as part of his arsenal.But alas Paheli falls flat on his face in the extremely boring,predictable and formality of a second half.The end could not have come sooner. When it did it will leaveyou with an incomplete feeling. There will be questions on yourlips and yet the answers wouldn't be easily available nor willthey make sense. Maybe that's why its called Paheli.

Cutting a long story short, Shah Rukh breezes through his doublerole. Even though his wife is producing it, he looks boredthroughout most of the film. One can tell from his effort (orlack thereof) that he wasn't getting paid much, if anything.
Rani Mukherji is brilliant as the woman torn between herhusband, family, and ammmmm a ghost. Her acting has improvedleaps and bounds and I think she is clearly in the top 3actresses if not THE best actress in Bollywood.
Juhi Chawla makes no impression and one wonders why she was inthe film to start with. Even better in that department is SunilShetty's 84 second cameo. What a waste of dialogues, time, andcharacters!!
Amitabh Bachan (him again??) makes a sensational guestappearance, and definitely injected much needed life in thesecond half.

MM Kreem's music is really nice, understandably folkish.The famous puppet dance came during the end credits and that wasa disservice to the choreography which I think was very, verynice.

Naseerudhin Shah's voice was well used as one of the puppet'sobserving the movie from, shall we say, a closer seat.

Palekar succeeds in showing a colorful, light-hearted movie setin the wondrous state of Rajasthan, but parallel to his acting,the film turns bland in the second-half, and will have many apatron checking the time to see how much more of the "Paheli"needs to solved.Palekar did somewhat try to show what a woman really is yearningfor and hoping for in a marriage, but that topic is only touched in bits and pieces and very superficially at that.

The lack ofdepth and substance of anything from story, plot, characters,and eventually ending make this film something you just mightn'trelate to.
My recommendation is to wait for it on DVD, and even then it canbe easily passed, you wouldn't miss anything. This is one"Paheli" best left unsolved!