Table No 21: Not a great start to the Year

Table No 21 is neither as intelligent and imaginative as Slumdog Millionaire nor as cheesy and tacky as Soham Shah’s Luck, two of the recent films that centered themselves on reality shows. But it does not sit comfortably midway either.

The plot starts as a couple struggling with their relationship get a chance to spend a vacation in Fiji. Soon learn it is a part of an elaborate plan with things getting dark and grimy when they find themselves being a part of a game that can give them 21 Crores of Rupees. Paresh Rawal is at the helm of the game, controlling it and manipulating the couple. A grim looking young man with stubble who doesn’t have any purpose except showing himself at convenient moments aids him.  There are many references to the number 21 and not all of them are great except the last one at the ending credits.

Make no mistake, Table No 21 is a film with noble intentions but for a thriller the writing is a bit too lazy and the plot takes its time to get going.  The twist at the end which is closely guarded through out with red herrings planted does not come across as disturbing as it is desperate to. The dialogues are no great shakes either with “If you lie, you die” being repeated every time they want Rawal to sound menacing. Rajeev Khandelwal tries his bit but finds it difficult to make us empathize with him. The writers don’t do him any favors either with a poorly etched role. Paresh Rawal is a veteran but here he just goes through his motions and is never quite the delight he ought to be. Tena Desae wears a bikini, shaves her head but her she can't act or kiss good.

There are a couple of songs at the beginning and the end, which hamper the narrative but are forgettable otherwise. Background score is conspicuous by its lack of impact. The film is shot at Fiji but it could as well have been Ramoji Film City and Goa since the locales of the place are never explored.

The best use of Table No 21 could be to serve as a warning for all of us not to fill all those forms that are thrown at us in various shopping malls promising exotic trips. Now that is a worthy lesson. So it’s not so bad after all is it?

Dabangg 2: Fight, Dance, Repeat!!!

Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write stories. Clearly Dabangg2 is not a film for people who read or write reviews. Heck, Dabangg2 is clearly not a film for people who read or write at all.

For those of you who crib that Salman Khan no longer ‘acts’ in his films I recommend watching Dabang2. He doesn’t even do his steps here. His belt sways itself automatically to ‘Hud Hud Dabang’. Now if that doesn’t tell about the star I don’t know what does.

With Chulbul Pandey’s mother and bothersome father-in-law safely out of way in the original, we no longer have the need to be concerned about what happens to anyone. Sure, we know the baddies get killed, the wifey gets her share of kisses and songs, the father is content and happy listening to the heroics of his son and the brother is only too willing to be ignored. So what we are left with are the antics of the actor having so much fun himself and delivering some of them to us too.

The story is such a joke that had Arbaaz Khan heard it himself, he would have laughed to his heart’s content. Pandeyji has now transferred himself to Kanpur and is busy saving children from goons there. But as we all know the world does not let a man do his aviator tricks and pelvic thrusts in peace does it? So we have Bacha Bhayya (Prakash Raj) and his two brothers. Why three you may ask. It is simple. One to get killed in the first half and the other who has some political ambitions to be killed in the second half. You did not think Salman Khan needs to get his shirt off to fight Prakash Raj. So we have the third beefed up brother to facilitate the climax act. Gotcha?

This is a Salman Khan film and no one messes his party for him and this applies for decent artists too. Deepak Dobriyal learns it the hard way when his head gets twisted for putting in a competent act. People are equal in number whether he wants to kill them or shake a leg with them dressed impeccably in formals. Believe me, all of it is so entertaining that the first half breezes away even when it has no real story to connect these acts and you are not even guilty of enjoying it.

So folks, that’s about it. Go and Watch Dabang2 because “Chulbul Pandeyji aapka Manoranjan Karenge”

Aate Hai.

Talaash: Say No to Cheese

Talaash is a great film made out of an absurd story and it is not necessarily a good thing to happen. The much-hyped twist at the end might live up to it in terms of its shock value to find its presence in  an Aamir Khan film but it is certainly out of place. It is surprising to see how everyone decided to play along when the bluff was so easy to call and to think that they have made one flawless film out of this insanity is difficult to chew.

It is a tempting thought to call Talaash a film-noir since it evocatively checks most of the boxes of the genre. But the generous amount of cheese its script is peppered with and the leisurely pace with which the plot unfolds bring down what could have been a decent tribute to the genre.

The film is consistently watchable thanks to the ensemble both on and off the screen. Kareena and Nawazuddin Siddiqui are the standout performers and the later in particular adds an altogether different and interesting perspective to the plot. Aamir plays the role of the cop with his usual earnestness but Surjan Shekhawat is not one of his memorable roles since the character is neither likeable nor layered enough to follow. He asks all the questions in the movie but forgets or conveniently ignores the most important one. The logic of the script. Rani is a natural and seems to be at home playing Roshni who does not resort to theatrics to make her point. Mohanan’s cinematography gives the film the desired moody feel and Ram Sampath’s background score manages to hook you to the proceedings. As we noted earlier, this is indeed a brilliant ‘film’ if one has to go by the true definition of cinema.

There is a scene in the film where Surjan Shekhawat contemplates what might have been his son’s fate had he chose to act differently on that fateful day. Perhaps the film’s current ending is one of those choices (the wrong one, even in the film) made by the writing team. Perhaps there was a better ending to the tale that was not shown to us which would have been more fitting. With a couple of smooches and tackier visuals, this one would well have been Raaz 4 or Jism 3.

To sum it up Talaash is Travis Bickle trapped in a film-noir only to be bailed out by the Bhatts.

Chittagong: Wrapped Up in Haste

Chittagong is that rare film which makes you feel that it needed a longer duration than what it contents itself with. For uninformed people like me, this film is a lesson on history and an important one at that about the uprising in Chittagong in 1929-1931 mastered by Suraiya Sen. Everyone calls him Master-da but nothing was made known about what he did or does in the film except calling shots and making plans in the revolt. Which should suit the narrative fine but there always will be some questions that need answers and we just cannot digest someone revolting against the British with a group of underage youngsters with no strong motive. True, there doesn’t have to be a reason to fight for freedom but we could have used a back-story.

The cast consists mostly of GOW (it was an AKPFL film alright) ensemble with Dibyendu Bhattacharya joining them in a delightful comeback and none of them can be accused of putting in a wrong note anywhere. However dialogues credited to Piyush Mishra weren’t as sharp as they were with AK films. Nothing stings a viewer like the film that does not realize its true potential and Chittagong has immense potential and ample scope for drama to make it a longer film but one cannot understand the haste with which everything was wrapped up. It was as if Bedabrata Pain was instructed strictly to make a 90-minute film while the events that enfolded during the period demanded more screen time and a grander canvas.  Shankar Ehsaan Loy also make a comeback as music directors and it felt good to listen Shankar Mahadevan lending depth in his inimitable voice to the situations the lead characters have to go through in their journey.

Pain’s screenplay was so economic that there was no possibility for a non-event but ironically it was not racy either. Things happen and we shift between timelines so quickly that it makes it so difficult to empathize or relate to any particular character. Bajpayee gets more screen time than others but his role was not written to arouse and the subtlety he lends to the character does not help either. The Queen’s men were the regular stereotypes we usually find in patriotic films of yore and have nothing much to offer apart from menacing looks.  

Despite it’s obvious flaws Chittagong is worth a watch for its credible performance s and the story it has to tell about the first farmer uprising in Bengal in 1945, which it claims to be the final nail in the coffin for the British Rule in India. It is not the rousing patriotic film that you have expected especially after tagging it to Anurag Kashyap but it is still a story well told with whatever the director has got to deal with.

Barfi: Brilliant. In Parts

The problem with Barfi is that despite all its brilliant subtlety and poignant humor, this is a film that is too good and sweet to be true and can leave you with a feeling that this can only happen in a cinema. As a cinema, however this is a superior effort from everyone involved.  Anurag Basu shares some of the bitterness towards arranged marriage with Imtiaz Ali and drives home the point that husbands after all are poor suckers. We find the scenario where a daughter asks her mother whether she loved her husband at all on more than one occasion. Now that was a uncomfortable question for any mother to face that can only be answered by a tight slap and that again is only because it is neither a yes or a no.

Barfi boasts of superlative performances from its entire cast with Ranbir Kapoor walking away with huge accolades and Illeana following close by. The Chaplinesque humour works well with his infectious smile and his work was as earnest as it was confident. Priyanka’s act as an autistic girl can put you off if you do not have the kind of sensibility for it but to her credit she does not ham much. Illeana plays the normal girl in the triangle and her role was shot and etched so beautifully that no one can blame the poor guy falling for her, marriages and engagements be damned. She largely has to work with silences with big eyes and a bigger sticker on her forehead, and she puts in a confident debut. The romance between Illeana and Ranbir was dangerously close to what we saw earlier in Rock Star but Barfi was nowhere as passionate as Jordan was.  Saurabh Shulka gets a meaty role as the cat and mouse game between him and Barfi runs on for the entire length of the film and he is competent and good to have around.

For someone looking for quirks and nuances this is a brilliant film made with a lot of conviction and the scenic beauty of Darjeeling largely helps in garnering a laidback attitude. Basu’s script refrains from being highhanded despite dealing with specially abled protagonists and comes up with a winner till in the first half of the film, but could not continue the good work in the later half and the ending was predictable. The moment where Jhilmil calls after Ranbir who was a deaf-mute guy, after he choses to leave disappointed with not finding her and the dilemma in Shruthi whether she wants both of them to be together or if she wants Barfi for herself speaks a lot about the thought and skill that went into writing and making this film. 

Barfi is a film with a lot of heart and is easy on all your senses. It has enough endearing moments for two films and for a while it can even make you believe that love can be special and worth living for. At Times.