Laapataa Ladies finds its audience

Laapataa Ladies is beautiful cinema!.. A simple story told using simple lived-in characters, it weaves strong and important messages in off-the-cuff, humorous remarks.. Thereby delivering undiluted, bitter truths with a spoon of entertainment honey.

Written by Biplab Goswami, with dialogue and screenplay by Sneha Desai and Divyanidhi Sharma, the movie is directed by Kiran Rao.. She takes the same route taken by Vidhu Vinod Chopra in 12th Fail – unobtrusive direction with great flourishes and fewer flashes.. and letting the characters tell the story. The result is fabulous.. Takes me back to the good old days of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and basu Chatterjee.

The whole movie is extremely well cast by Romil Modi. All major characters are almost fresh faces, except Inspector Manohar (a chameleon-esque Ravi Kishan) and Dubeyji (by Durgesh ‘Panchayat ka Bankaras’ Kumar). I must definitely mention Phool (Nitanshi Goel), Deepak (Sparsh Srivastav), Jaya or Pushpa Rani or Sreya (Pratibha Ranta) and Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam) – Extremely well done!

Movies like Laapataa Ladies and 12th Fail rekindle my hope in cinema – of its powers and ability to make a difference. It is also very refreshing to see stories and characters stemming from rural India. After all, India still lives in its villages. More of these, please!

Samबहादुर

This is a late appreciation post for #SamBahadur and #VickyKaushal.

Vicky Kaushal is Field Marshall Manekshaw

Saw the movie on Saturday and here are some of my thoughts:

1. I stopped seeing Vicky Kaushal after the first few minutes. He becomes Field Marshall Manekshaw. I understand actors were always supposed to become their characters, but these days it has become such a rarity that seeing it happen is a pleasure in itself.
2. I can’t generalize but I felt that I was historically ill-equipped to grasp the movie. I realised that I know so little about the history of post-independent India that I frequently had to google things like “Who was the Defence minister of India in the 1950s?”
3. Parsing 40 illustrious years of a great soldier is too much for a movie with a runtime of less than 2.5 hrs. Perhaps it would have been better to just focus on a few character traits, how it developed and how it came to play at crucial times.
4. I hate saying this about an album that features SEL and Gulzar saab but I found it underwhelming. The anthem during the 1971 war brings together the war cries of multiple regiments beautifully.. but it’s not memorably executed. We have such a lovely canon of war movies with exquisite soundtracks – Haqeeqat and Border come to mind. But SamBahadur doesn’t even look like it’s trying. Sab ka banda hai yeh is the only exception as it was the only song i remembered after coming out of the auditorium. “Vardi pe vatan see gaya” is such a classic Gulzar line!.. needed more of these!..
5. Fatima Sana Shaikh as Indira Gandhi is a major casting debacle in an otherwise well-cast movie. Mrs. Gandhi was just 3 years younger than Field Marshall Manekshaw. In the movie, that gap looks a lot bigger. Gave me Queen Elizabeth meets Winston Churchill kinda vibes.

I understand that 4 out of the 5 points mentioned above read more like grouses rather than appreciation. But I have these complaints only because the movie comes so close to perfection and greatness. It just touches and harks back – a frustrating tease.

This is a story that needed to be told – about being a gentleman in the midst of war, staying true to one’s principles against all odds, and telling the truth to power when needed. And hence, it is a film that needs to be watched. I’m glad that Meghana Gulzar has made this movie, and that too in the age of Vicky Kaushal. “रब का बंदा है ये, सब का बंदा है ये!” Indeed!

Ponniyin Selvan – 1

Mani Ratnam builds a glorious world with #PonniyinSelvan !! It’s a magnificent effort at visualising a much loved Tamil novel.. Of course I knew nothing about PS or author Kalki before watching the movie… In fact, thanks to our education system that pretty much ignores the southern kings who aren’t Tipu Sultan, I knew very little about the Chola and Pandya dynasties. But I still loved the plot twists and the author-backed characters.. I was concerned that as PS-1 uses Classical Tamil I’ll be lost in subtitles but I soon got the hang of what was happening. While not knowing the novel wasn’t a detriment, knowing the actors playing the galaxy of characters surely helped. I can’t even pronounce some of the names, let alone remember them! 🙂

Speaking of actors and characters, Karthi pretty much steals the limelight. Second comes Jayam Ravi with some presence post interval.. amongst the actresses, Aishwarya Rai is stellar and looks ethereal! While Trisha has a strong role that will probably flourish more in part 2.

Sure, the gratuitous war sequences have pretty shoddy VFX, but the sets designed by Thota Tharani more than make up for it! Every scene is beautifully framed by Ravi Varman and set to tune by maestro AR Rahman. I just wish that the songs had some more screen time in the movie.. would have loved to experience Devaralam Aatam and Chola Chola with Dolby 7.1.

All in all, Ponniyin Selvan is a worthy addition to the canon of Mani Ratnam.

Vickida No Varghodo

It has been a while since a Gujarati film generated as much buzz as Vickida No Varghodo. Be it social media, radio or print, the film has been the talk of the town in the last couple of months. Naturally it piqued my interest and when the opportunity came to see it on the big screen, I grabbed it!

Vickida No Varghodo (loosely translated, Vicky’s wedding procession) is based on a simple enough but very interesting premise – three days before his ‘arranged marriage’, Vicky (Malhar Thakar – Chhelo Divas, Love ni Bhavai, Shu Thayu) is revisited by, not just one but two loves of his life… Both professing their love for him!.. This could well be a fantasy-come-true for so many guys out there struck by unrequited love.. for their love to be not just acknowledged but accepted!.. The movie is about whether Vicky opts for his high school love Radhika (Jhinal Belani), his college romance Vidhya (Manasi Rachh) or the girl he’s set to marry but never loved, Anushree (Monal Gajjar). 

Without much further ado, here is a list of what worked for me and what didn’t:

What Worked: 

• Dialogues, cultural reference and overall production value: Vickida No Varghoda is one of those rare Gujarati films that get one thing bang on: pop culture references. Be it referencing the Lathha Gang of school (as a not-so-proud former Bajrang Dal Lite member, this made me nostalgic) or the Tere Naam era of late 90s-early 2000s, or the Three Idiots references during the college days – each era is rooted quite accurately through these little references and nuances. The dialogues are fresh and witty – some of the off-the-cuff remarks are downright funny. The pace – especially the first half, is quite breezy. Breaking the narrative into three chapters: Bhavnagri Ganthiya, Amdavadi Maska Bun and Surati Locho was a nice touch as well. The producers SP Cinecorp have worked on national level films in the past and that experience brings a great deal of finesse, scale and production quality to the film. The film has been shot extensively across multiple cities of Gujarat instead of just sticking to Ahmedabad as most Gujarati films do.

• Most of the main cast: I have never been a big fan of the way Malhar Thakar just lets the dialogues roll out in a drawl. As if he’s just throwing it instead of speaking it. But as Vicky, he works quite well! He’s not Dhanush to transform into a Ranjhana-esque school boy but it still works in parts. I must also appreciate the fact that although this movie banks quite literally on his and his character’s name, there is still enough space for all three actresses to make their presence felt. Jhinal too didn’t look like a school girl to me but retained that nice ‘girl-next-door’ charm. Manasi is quite nice as long as she doesn’t get too excited and gets into the “shit-shit-shit” or “love you yaar” tirade. That tends to get loud. Monal, for me, got a bit less screen time but she has done a decent job. All three female characters have a bit of heft and feel real instead of just two-dimensional. They have their own mind and agency, and they take decisions. Which is a small victory in this day and age but welcome nonetheless.

• Some of the side characters: All three of Malhar’s lattha gang members are very nicely cast. The special song appearances by Manan ‘The Comedy Factory’ Desai are brilliant. But Chirayu Mistry as Malhar’s roommate takes the cake and the bakery. He’s effortlessly brilliant and almost does an old-school Mehmood on Malhar. The actor playing Anushree’s father is also quite nice and had good screen presence. I must commend the makers for not reducing the Professor Iyengar character to an “Ayyo Rama” caricature.

What Didn’t Work:

• Some of the side characters: Vicky’s side of the family just didn’t work for me. Everyone from the father, mother, uncles, to that obnoxious ‘welcome drink kyaan chhe’ aunty –I found all of them quite loud and hammy.

• The ending: I felt that the end was a bit problematic. What could have been talked over and confirmed in a heart-to-heart conversation between the bride and the groom ends up becoming an unnecessary episode of The Bachelor where two out of three heroines are destined to fail. But I’m just nit-picking here. Most people will probably not even notice what I did. But yeah, it is what it is.

Overall, the writer-director-editor duo Rahul Bhole & Vinit Kanojia (Reva & Chor Bani Thanghat Kare) have done a very good job of making a light-hearted, well written and mostly well-acted movie that family audiences and former Lattha Gang members like myself can safely enjoy.

Vickida No Varghodo releases in cinemas on July 08, 2022

Note: In the interest of transparency, I must disclose that the producers of the movie – Sharad Patel and Shreyanshi Patel from SP Cinecorp are very dear friends and that I was invited for the premiere show. I am thankful that the film is genuinely worthy of the good word that I’ve put in and I didn’t have to try too hard to be objective. 🙂

Wrong Side Raju

Ten minutes into Mikhil Musale’s Wrong Side Raju, everyone in the auditorium who knew rudimentary Gujarati (including this South Indian reviewer, born and raised in Gujarat), forgot that they were watching a Gujarati movie. This is a good thing as well as a bad thing. Good, because the look, feel, vibe and overall production quality of this movie is at par with most mainstream ‘bollywood’ movies. Bad, because this movie is so reminiscent of a small budget ‘bollywood’ thriller that I won’t be able to cut this movie the slack I usually reserve for regional films. For me, Wrong Side Raju is almost a Hindi movie dubbed in Gujarati. And when I look at it like that, the movie leaves me satisfied, but not delighted.

The film is ‘inspired’ by an actual hit-and-run case that transpired in Ahmedabad couple of years back, involving an influential doctor’s son. The Raju of the title is played by Pratik Gandhi who channels his inner Dhanush quite well and hits the right notes almost till the end (more on the end later). Raju is a driver by day for advocate Amitabh Shah (Asif Basra, an inspired and spot-on casting choice by Mr. Chhabra), and a teetotaler bootlegger by night. He gets smitten by the French ‘friend’ of his boss’ son Tanmay and gets embroiled in a cover-up when a midnight accident happens. The rest of the plot details will require a ticket.

The first half is breezy, albeit a little slow. The songs by Sachin-Jigar are top notch (specially the ode to Amdavad in the beginning). The love story between Raju and his ‘Saily Medam’ is too convenient, inconsistent and contrived. I can only hope that young Gujaratis don’t start finding parallels every time a foreign tourist warms up to them. Post interval, the plot gains a lot of momentum. So much that it becomes difficult for the writers to bring it safely to a stop. So they crash it into a wall instead. The audience around me went gaga over the twist in the end, but I personally found it ‘meh’ at best. It was a deus ex machina. Nothing that the characters say or do throughout the movie will prepare you for what the characters say that they did in the end. I really wish that the film had a more bitter-sweet, little won-little lost Phantom-esque end.

Wrong Side Raju marks Phantom Films’ foray into Gujarati cinema; and the Phantom stamp (especially that of Anurag Kashyap) is visible in most of the scenes involving the police. The main investigating officer, played by the brilliant Jayesh More, is ruthless and funny in equal measures. There is the usual banter between officers and hawaldars reminiscent of Ugly. The police are still enamoured by the powers of the mobile phone including its ability to take ‘pothyu’ (selfies in Phantom Gujarati). But on the plus side, the Phantom marks are also visible in the taut and almost accurate police procedural and judicial sequences. I really enjoyed watching an on-screen lawyer manoeuvre against bail by having the charge sheet filed in record time.

But while the special touches of Phantom are a welcome change, I must warn the new-age Gujarati film-makers to be a little careful while dealing with an all-wish-fulfilling devil. Gujarati films in the last 4-5 years have no doubt rebounded with a vengeance, but are on the verge of trading their souls and becoming Hindi films dubbed in Gujarati. There is a fine line between making a slice-of-life urban film and typecasting that life. There is more to an urban Gujarati than just yearning for alcohol, dealing with bootleggers, dreaming of ‘bijness’ or ‘amerika’ and doing the garba. At least I would like to believe so.

All in all, Wrong Side Raju is a decent thriller that has many moments that are well done and an end that is medium rare at best. Watch it once, because there are less chances of a just-released Gujarati film coming to a television channel near you.