Arnab, Milan, Soldier, Spy

Gripping, Edge of the seat, Nail biting, White knuckle thriller are just a few phrases that seem to have been invented to describe movies like Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani. The best Hindi thriller post Sarfarosh is a puzzle within a puzzle with a solid whack-on-the-head conclusion. It stands tall with the best of international genre cinema. Hollywood are you looking?

Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath, Mukul Anand would have been proud, Martin Scorcese would appreciate

I am a pretty solid fan of Mukul Anand’s Agneepath, so much so that I still keep trawling online and offline stores for VHS tapes that contain the original vision of Mukul Anand with the gravel voiced Amitabh Bachchan. I also welcome the idea of remakes, coloring of movies and so on, because these...gimmicks, for the lack of a politer word, bring old movies to a new generation, and when done well perhaps provide one with a fresh perspective on an old favorite. However, remakes are, as everybody knows, an extremely tricky business, respected filmmakers like David Cronenberg (The Fly) and Martin Scorcese (Departed) have done it successfully, or failed spectacularly like Gus Van Sant (Psycho). Scorcese has been derided for Cape Fear, but his version is now more or less acknowledged at par with if not better than the original. Hitchcock remade his own “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and Cecil B. Demille “The Ten Commandments”. Our legendary filmmakers Mehboob Khan and B.R. Chopra revisited their own works Afsana & Aurat to create Dastaan and Mother India respectively.

There would always be people who would say the earlier “The Man Who Knew Too Much” was better than the later bigger, flashier and longer remake by the same master. Similarly there would be people who would permanently view Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas and Farhan Akhtar’s Don with the blackest of contempt. For most such critics, I have observed, the primary issues are with the obscenely successful and cocky ‘kal ka chokda’ SRK taking over from statesmanly greats like Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan, somewhat like many from my father’s generation cannot imagine anyone else but Connery as James Bond - Moore (wimp!), Lazenby/Dalton (who?), Brosnan/Craig (Baaaah!)

And how can we forget RGV ki Aag, poor fellow, the whole Hindustan was gunning for him from the day he announced the megalomaniacally titled Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, it did not help matters that the film was...well it had NISHA KOTHARI filling in for Hema Malini...we’ll pass on the rest. But you would really appreciate our self-styled showman of the 80s, a certain Mr. Subhash Ghai for not shouting from the rooftops when he was working on ‘Karma’ in the early 80s. Clever man and talented filmmaker, he was doing what he should have been doing, making a full blown masala entertainer. If you are a fan of Sholay, do try to watch it and Karma on the same day and you will see how the village of Ramgarh becomes Hindustan, Thakur becomes Col. Vishwapratap Singh (Dilip Kumar), Gabbar Singh is Dr. Dan (Anupam Kher) , Khairuddin Chishti (Naseeruddin Shah) is Jai, Veeru is divided into two - Baiju Thakur (Jackie Shroff) & Johnny/Gyaneshwar Prasad (Anil Kapoor) (it takes two to replace garam Dharam!), we also have a rebooted Sambha in a longer role as Jolly Jagga (Shakti Kapoor) and even Ramlal, as Dharma (Dara Singh). He, he, he, my obsession with Sholay, has led me to watch anything that reeks of that movie, from Seven Samurai & The Magnificent Seven to Mera Gaon Mera Desh/Ramgarh Ke Sholay/Army/RGV ki Aag (the last 3 in theatres) and even ‘Duplicate Sholay’.

So where is Agneepath among all this blabbering? Don’t tell me you didn’t check this blog’s title...you were suitably forewarned...Back to Agneepath, I certainly am not going to commit the blasphemy of placing the Karans - Malhotra & Johar with the illustrious company mentioned in first paragraph, maybe somebody 5 decades down the line would find reason and openings to do so. But to put it straight, Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath had me floored. I did not miss Krishnan Aiyyar Yum Yae! or Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay or Danny Denzongpa’s Kancha China (big fan of this one too, sad he does not do more movies) or Rohini Hattangady, and of course not the screechy Neelam.

Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath goes beyond being a mere copy-paste job like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (who needs one when the original grows in reputation with every passing year), its a glorious homage, a true fanboy’s tribute. It is a reinvigorated, respectful, reimagining of a cult classic, the way Navdeep Singh’s Manorama - Six Feet Under was to Polanski’s Chinatown or Cronenberg’s The Fly which took the source material to much higher planes. Yeah you read it right ‘much higher planes’ because I think Agneepath 2.0 is superior to the first one which had problems typical of Mukul Anand’s films. We have entered dangerous territory here - Mukul S. Anand is widely referred to as a director ahead of his times who did not get his due. Having watched every Mukul Anand film, I do not completely subscribe to that view, Mukul Anand was a technical wizard (he was trained in FTII I believe) and he knew his Hollywood, his inspirations include the aforementioned Cape Fear (Kanoon Kya Karega), Dial M for Murder (Aetbaar), Scarface (Agneepath in parts). He made several very bad movies (Main Balwaan, Maa Ki Saugandh, Khoon Ka Karz) the blame for which could be thrust on the producers’ as these movies simply did not reflect the sensibilities of the man who also made Insaaf, Khuda Gawah, Hum and Agneepath. But were these movies really great - my opinion - Mukul Anand was stuck within a perpetual tug-of-war between Hollywood and Bollywood. A common cloud of problems hovers on his better known movies (Khuda Gawah, Hum, Insaaf, Agneepath & Trimurti!!!). All of them have brilliant first acts, the likes of which have never been seen before or after. They have great villains and setpieces. But they all steadily go downhill from the second act, except for Agneepath which sored high in the final act. For me Hum and Trimurti are among the saddest lost opportunities in Bollywood, the former has a solid initial 40 minutes after which enters the holier-than-thou Kadar Khan with his painfully outdated long-winded dialogues, the not-funny-at-all joker/villain Captain Zatak and ‘Bum Chiki Bum Bum’. In the most ridiculous hindi film climaxes ever mother and daughter tied to a ticking time bomb sing ‘bum chik bum bum’ to call the Bro-in-law/Chacha Govinda. Hum has patches of brilliance, from the main villain Danny, who is not totally black, to the real evil people masquerading as buffoons - Anupam Kher and Annu Kapoor. As for Trimurti - it had Kooka (up there with Gabbar & Mogambo) and Satya Devi, a brilliant opening 20 minutes and a very delicately presented relationship between 3 brothers, all of which were scrambled, probably God, Subhash Ghai and Mukul Anand would know why. Similarly, Khuda Gawah had a climax reminiscent of Agneepath and problems similar to Hum and Trimurti. The movie opens with Badshah Khan and Buzkashi and loses its way when the second generation which includes Sridevi, Nagarjuna and Shilpa Shirodkar enters the story - this reminds me of Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhi ;-).

Mukul Anand made his best/closest-to-perfect movie with Agneepath. It was different for it’s times...well okay, we’d had the much superior and original Parinda, a couple of years back, which flopped like Agneepath and has similarly gone on to earn respect over the years. Mukul Anand’s Agneepath is basically hinged on Amitabh Bachchan, the dialogues, the personality, the context everything came together to create a certain alchemy which can never be planned. But apart from that and the awesome setpieces at the beginning, middle and end, it’s not strung together well enough, the patches show. In comparison Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath is a long but tightly woven and singularly focused tale of vengeance. Yes Priyanka Chopra’s character could have been done away with completely but so could have been the Mithun-Neelam love story in the original. The characters are well developed, the three buffoonish villains in the original led by Sharat Saxena cannot hold a candle to Rishi Kapoor’s Rauf Lala (a masterstroke of casting) and even the relationship shared between Lala and Vijay has been developed with great care. The mother played by Zarina Wahab is more believably complex than the one played by Rohini Hattangady, unfortunately she does not get to say awesome stuff like ‘tumhare haath saaf nahi hone wale Vijay” or something like that. The new Vijay, is not a punchline spewing larger than life figure with pain in his eyes. He appears like a regular, unusually quite Joe with deepset trauma, who is also cunning like a fox and has a single mission - revenge, and man does he convey all of that well! When he says “Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, pura naam” I didn’t miss the “hain!” of the original, I didn’t feel like whistling, you don’t, when your bones are chilled. Hrithik makes the character his own, as I see it, where the original Vijay was really Amitabh Bachchan, here Hrithik Roshan is Vijay. Sanjay Dutt as the evil Kancha does his job, there’s not much to discuss about what is basically a one-dimensional character out to scare the bejesus of anyone who crosses his path, his Gita obsession is jarring as it seems to have been thrust upon the character, yeah there was room for improvement there. Apart from that Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath is not a great film,  but it’s a very good film, very well made, and the sincerity shows in every department, from writing to production, to acting to direction. It would be unfair to say that the makers have resorted to remaking movies with established reputations because their creative juices have stopped flowing. It takes a high degree of creativity and even more courage to create a meticulously  reimagined version of a film with such a passionate following and doing it well. Would I watch Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath again, yes, would I watch it again like I make it a point to watch the original Agneepath every few years, no. Mukul Anand’s Agneepath has a lot of history/memories attached to it that adds to its gravitas and that would make me pick up it’s DVD over Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath.

Dreaming in Patiala House

There was a time when Hindi movies began with titles coming up in English, Hindi and Urdu, nowadays they are mostly meant to be read by people familiar with the English alphabet. But Patiala House goes back to the good old days, and that's not the only pleasant surprise it had in store for me. Nikhil Advani strikes back, and how! He makes a movie which while easy to dismiss as just another big budget mainstream Hindi film with songs and dances is a lot more than that. A movie has 'something' if it brings lumps in your throat, and controls your heartbeat and breathing easily. Among other things Patiala House reminds us that even life saving medicines come with expiry dates, after which they turn into poison, and this is especially true about various long-past-expiry-date "this is the propah way to live" systems that at best poison humanity at the grassroots level. Finally, when formula works, nothing can beat it, great dialogues, amazing Akshay, wow Anushka Sharma and awesome Rishi Kapoor backed by a uniformly excellent supporting cast. Patiala House made my Sunday.

The life and husbands of Susanna

It takes a lot to shake up my cinema jaded senses... Vishal Bhardawaj has been able to do that with every movie of his including Saat Khoon Maaf, few filmmakers, whether its Ashutosh Gowariker, Farhan Akthar or Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who initially showed brilliance have continued to push the envelope like Mr. Bhardawaj. Though I felt '7 Khoon' got a little tired in the last 15 minutes or so but, what a movie! what a deliciously detailed, wonderfully bizarre movie!

Chitti Chitti Bang Bang

Ideally Robot should have been made in the 80s (at probably 1/100th of its present budget), with less songs and many more punchy dialogues and thumpier scenes. Then it would have been ideal stuff for some pleasantly nostalgic viewings on lazy Sunday afternoons in Set Max/Star Gold/Zee Cinema. Coming as it is, in 2010, it's fun (the first half sprightlier than the second which is frequently shot down by unwelcome songs) but could have used some quality creative imagination on the script level to produce several 'aha' moments, rather than bludgeon the viewers with the combined might of lucre and technology (abundance of resources at disposal tends to blunt creativity, read that somewhere and have over the years found many reasons to believe it) I have a feeling that director Shankar is the kumbh-ke-mele-mein-khoya-hua-bhai of Michael Bay. Yeah, yeah I did not enter the theater expecting subtle and classy cinema. But hey I did not even come across a satisfying number of hoot-worthy scenes like I did in Hindustani or Pokkiri (the frame-by-frame remake 'Wanted' had a wickeder atmosphere and hence methinks it was a definite improvement but that's another story).

Maybe its a cultural remove at work but the intentionally comic scenes in films from South usually turn me off, Robot is no exception (for that that matter the humor present in the Japanese films of Akira Kurosawa also make me cringe; call me racist if you will, which was what a reader called Mayank Shekhar after reading his less-than-enthusiastic review of this film in Hindustan Times). Coming back to those idle Sunday afternoons, if I have a choice between Nagarjuna's Meri Jung 'The One Man Army' and Robot, I would go for the former for my 'paisa vasool' entertainment.

Kites - The twain should ne'er had met...

Old Guard (Rakesh "Krrish" Roshan) meets new New Guard (Anurag "Metro" Basu) and we get a neither here, nor anywhere, "Kites". It seems they were writing the screenplay as they spotted various "beautifully framable locations".

Conclusions:
1. The twain should ne'er had met.
2. If you are in love with creating/seeing beautiful frames, become a painter/go to art exhibitions dammit!
3. Anurag Basu should stick to making his kind of movies.
4. Rakesh Roshan, an earlier favorite seems to have gone the Subhash Ghai way! Retirement time?
5. Hrithik Roshan should do something about himself because with his stock dancing style and limited vocal/facial expressions, he neither has the ammo to see through as an actor in the long run, or even as a choreographer. What a waste of an otherwise awesome personality!

LOL dialogue - You have a dream, I have a dream, now both of us have a bigger dream.

Recommended watch for the 88% western critics who gave it a thumbs-up - Bunty aur Babli.

The Amazing World Of Comics

Last week when I was going home after my fortnightly (weekly, when I am lucky) jaunts to college street, I was asked by a man sitting beside me in an auto-rickshaw,”You still read that stuff?” He had a smug, sneering look painted on his face, and pointed towards the bunch of superman and batman comics in my hand… somehow he missed Ray Bradbury’s “Golden Apples of the Sun”.

“Yes I do”. I shot back, countering his smugness with my best deadpan expression. We didn’t speak through the rest of the 15 minutes journey. But that encounter has visited my thoughts a few times over the last week. It amuses me. So many people associate comics with dumbed down entertainment meant for kiddos. The same people watch the mostly inane entertainment offered by the multiplexes and scores of television channels with relish. The more serious ones prefer to watch the distasteful black comedy presented by the news channels 24/7. Many of these people did read comic books as kids. Maybe they did not stay long enough. Because that’s the beauty of comics, the pleasure a regular issue of Batman can offer to a 10 year old would be quite different from that which is felt by a 30 year old.

Comics, like movies and television series are simply a tool for telling stories. They can be as intelligent or as dumb as the other two. The problem is that most people associate them with superheroes who wear their underwear outside. That’s true. But that’s just a part of the whole truth. One needs to read comics in order to pass a judgment. Though I am far from an expert on the topic, I have my reasons for respecting comics. I was hooked on to them before I knew how to read. My father’s collections of Tintin and Phantom comics were something I treasured, and initially tried to decipher by studying the frames, and making my own stories. Sometimes my uncle used to help me out by reading them out to me. Then I learnt to read them myself and there has been no looking back. I have covered a wide range of Indian and foreign comics from my initial heroes Superman, Phantom and Tintin to Chacha Chaudhary, Nagraj, Super Commando Dhruv to my current favorites, Batman, Wolverine, Captain Haddock and Phantom, again.

Comics have given me more than hundreds of hours of pleasure. They have given me the tag of a bibliophile; they instilled in me a reasonably good taste for the visual arts. And they initiated me into the world of books. They have given me my career. If not for them, I probably wouldn’t have been a writer.

And for those who believe that comics are dumb. Let them know that X-Men is actually about xenophobia and racism that has plagued the world since the dawn of mankind and it tackles the issue much more effectively than any moral science lesson. Spiderman is about standing by your ethics in a world which is increasingly ungrateful and insane, and Batman is about the futility and tragedy of aimless destruction. In other words, it is about terrorism. Check out “The Dark Knight”, which came out this year. It is one of the most explicit films about terrorism made till date. It centered on an enemy for whom destruction was an an end unto itself. Today terrorists are mauling the world, apparently for some cause, which does not convince us. But once they did have a cause. Bhagat Singh had a cause when he hurled that bomb. He was a terrorist for our erstwhile rulers. But he was driven by a cause worthy of great respect. However, over the years spectacular destruction has overshadowed any “cause”. When we think about the twin towers crashing to the earth, no cause comes to our mind. “The Dark Knight” Is a movie that has foreseen the times we are headed towards. The terror attacks at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai were quite like the Joker’s onslaughts on Gotham City. It had no purpose, other than creating death, destruction and chaos.

All comics are not necessarily dark and grim like the above. There are Tintin’s delightful adventures and of course good old Asterix. I never tire of rereading them. A good comic is as good as any other piece of artistic entertainment; it entertains and educates, and leaves the reader a little bit wiser.