From Robinhood Pandey to Kungfu Pandey - the Dabangg journey

One of the reasons I write film reviews is that it gives me an opportunity to mock the actors, the director, the story and the plot. It is almost impossible to do that with Dabangg2 not because it is a great piece of cinema with gripping plot, great direction or stupendous acting display, it is because the film mocks itself and its characters to no end, which does not leave me with much. 

Let me start with the confession that I am fan of bhaiyya speak. Whether it is Arjun Rampal in Rajneeti,  Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Gangs of Wasseypur, our apna Salman Khan in his Chulbul Pandey avatar, bhaiyya speak always wins it for me. May be it is my bhaiyya roots – I am from Karachi – or my bhaiyya pedigree – my grandparents were from the Ganga Jamuna land – but I always fall for characters from the Indian heartland and Chulbul Pandey is no exception. He is hilarious when he insults the goons in the respectful bhaiyya speak ‘kar deejiye, beth jaiyee, naha leejiye’ – it just makes everything all the more comical. 

There is no storyline or plot per se in Dabangg2, there are a lot of scenes – some funny, some over the top and some downright ridiculous – and the only common thread among them all is Chulbul Pandey and his histrionics. One never expected Dabangg2 to make much sense but the minute you find out that the trio of villains is named Baccha Bhaiyya, Gainda and Chunni (there was a whole sequence where Chulbul discusses it with his minions whether Chunni is a feminine name or a masculine one) you know that film is all about Salman Khan and it actually works for the film.

This film has taken product placement to the next level.Not only the characters were using a phone/cellular service brand, Chulbul Pandey tried to sell it with a spiel about its worthiness. Similarly, a money transfer service was not just in the background, the viewers were told that it works within 24 hours. The viewers wanted to tell Arbaz Khan the producer in the film's lingo "ke bhaiyya, zara shant ho jao."

Sonakshi Sinha is yawn inducing and it was evident from the number of ceetees that came in the wake of Kareena’s entry with her item song. In fact public was so enamored with the latest Mrs Khan that it was almost impossible to listen to the song amidst whistles, claps and shouts of appreciation. She did look quite stunning though but then she always looks pretty special.

The film belongs to Salman Khan the star with minimal contribution from anyone else. The rest of the actors were there to make him shine bright. The cameraman was there to make him look larger than life. The writer and director did not do much in the sequel and let him loose on the set. They replicated everything Abhinav Kashyap – creator of Chulbul Pandey and writer & director of the first installment – did in Dabangg. They did not bother to add anything fresh and copied the tried and tested formula. 

They were so lazy that they even lifted the narrative off the first one in almost the same sequence. A fight scene in a warehouse, check;  Salman Khan’s dance number with extras dressed in police khakis, check. Salman Khan’s romantic song in a bazaar with the heroine, check. Introductions of the villain/s following that, check. Salman Khan’s action sequences in the slo mo with the gravel/wood/dirt flying, check followed by some sentimental scenes with family (daddy and goof of a bro), check. Salman Khan’s second romantic song in the deserts of Arabian Peninsula, check. Salman Khan’s item number with a hottie, check. Salman Khan bashing up a villain, who is much younger, taller and more muscular than him in a shirtless fight scene, check. If anything, Chulbul Pandey seemed more brazen and in your face than the previous chapter and Salman Khan wore this character like a second skin. At times, it felt that he is just given situations and is acting out the scenes the way he wanted– with minimum guidance from the writer and director.  

Just when you think that Sallu is not gonna take his shirt off – he did not even take it off during a love making scene and before you run off thinking it’s a racy film, it is not, it is given U certification – it gets off, miraculously. Pandey ji only pulls his shirt out of his trousers and it gets removed by a touch from the villain’s hands. It appears that even villains want to have a dekho of Sallu’s body which I believe should now get a separate billing in the end credits. The applause for Sallu’s bare torso was even more thunderous than the ceetees and taalis for kareena's item song and no, they did not come from the ladies, a good 70 percent of the film goers in the packed hall were men. 

My sister who feared that Sallu Bhai might have lost his mojo and his physique due to old age was relieved at the disappearance of that shirt. She thought that the order in the universe was restored with a glimpse of that shirtless body.

Oh and in case anyone failed to notice, I should point out that I quite like Salman Khan – not because he is a great actor – because he is called bhai and he always reminds me of Karachi – my hometown  – the city of the ultimate bhai, Altaf Bhai. 

بس ذرا گردن کی کمی ہے ورنہ اپنے الطاف بھائی بھی کسی چلبل پانڈے سے کم ہیں کیا ؟ 

Skyfall-en

Warning: There are too many spoilers.
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Despite 8.1 rating at IMDB and good reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, I found everything about this new Bond film quite tedious – except Javier Bardem and to a lesser degree Ralph Fiennes. 

Moneypenny wreaking havoc on the streets of Istanbul - there is a lady in traditional garb to lend authenticity although you wont find women in this kinda dress in downtown Istanbul, you will have to check out the countryside for it

Like all Bond fares, this one too opens with an action scene – complete with crazy ass crossfire, car chase, rooftop motorcycle chase, action on a moving train that includes Bond getting shot at by a Uranium infused bullet (or was that bullet made of uranium?) and some antics with a crane while aboard that train – the twists here is that M orders Moneypenney to take a risky aim which resulted in Bond getting shot by Moneypenney and presumed dead. He stayed dead somewhere in Turkey until he found out about an explosion in MI6 HQ in London and decided to return home. The explosion happened because M managed to lose important data and as a result, MI6 was attacked. Ralph Fiennes’ Mallroy tells M that not only has she screwed up rather gallactically, she is too old to continue running her department (Isn’t Judi Dench like 103 already and should have been retired a good forty years ago?) but M refused to go. They later learn that someone is after M and the film from thereon revolved around saving M (yes, Ms Boss is the damsel in distress in this one) and about Bond’s loyalty to M, rather than the Queen or country, and it was 'oh so significant' because she ordered a shot where Bond almost lost his life in the opening sequence – YAWN! From there on, things got a tad dreary, until Javier Bardem graced the screen in his blindingly blonde flamboyantly gay villainous persona of a former agent gone rogue, Raoul Silva. 

Bond in all his Saville Row suited glory - wreaking havoc in Grand Bazaar

 

Before Bardem made his entrance – which was after an hour – the film had a surly Bond, a morose M, a glum Mallroy, some fat Chinese hoodlums, a briefcase full of 500 Euro notes, a sullen former Child prostitute, and two very dour looking ginormous lizards. Bardem’s Silva was like a breath of fresh air, he infused energy in the scenes he was in and honestly, I was rooting for him, instead of Bond. 

The film opened in Istanbul, I mean WTF? Ever since I was looted in Istanbul,  every other film – be it Taken 2, Ek Tha Tiger or the latest Bond flick – is shot in the city which feels like somebody is kinda rubbing it in. Secondly, who the fuck puts the whole bloody list of undercover agents in one single drive – including all their aliases – and then conveniently loses it? BBC is in a shambles already and if this is how things are being run at MI6, then this Tory government is a lot less competent than most people think. In any case, the whole undercover agent list theme – or Noc list as they called it then – has already been done in the first installment of Mission Impossible and Agent Ethan Hunt did a much better job of it than Mr. Bond. Bond, who was shot by that Uranium bullet left the fragments of uranium bullet in his chest and then conveniently dug them out with a knife in his bathroom to get tested and trace the killer. Other lesser human beings would have died of toxicities but then, he is not your average Joe, he is Bond.

Silva getting intimate with Bond

The film doesn’t really come to life until Javier Bardem shows up but even then some of the sequences are unbelievable. For instance, Silva is a former agent well familiar with the gadgets and toys provided by Q, yet he never bothered to frisk Bond for a tracking device which lead to his arrest, but then we were told that he planned it so that he can get arrested and get transported to London. I mean seriously? Even if the guy was short of cash – which he obviously was not – Silva was an IT genius, if he wanted to get to London, I am sure hacking into an airline website and scoring a couple of first class tickets would not have been much of an ordeal for him. Just when you think Silva is evil incarnate who is out to destroy good folks with posh accents at MI5, we find out that Silva is just a misunderstood former agent with serious mommy issues. 

One of the biggest glitches of the film was that during his psychological evaluation – conducted by a Freud look alike – Bond said that he thought of England as his home but later his family home was shown to be in Scotland. If he was an Englishman, then why was his ancestral estate in Scotland and if he was a Scotsman, then I will be damned if he called England his home. 

Bond, M, Bond's Aston Marton at Skyfall

There were too many references about people being too old for the job. Everyone barring Bond wanted M to retire because she was too old, quite a few including Mallroy though Bond is too old to be out in the field, by the time the film ended, I too was convinced that I am too old to go on and should take up something gentle and age appropriate - like knitting. 

Things you I learned in this bond film; 

• They can make a film about a failed Bond mission and still rake in millions. 
• They can make a film which has shades of both The Dark Knight Rises and Home Alone (The improvised bombs made out of light bulbs at Skyfall were reminiscent of a time when we all liked Macaulay Culkin) and it still works.  
• A villain with mommy issues – no matter how entertaining he is throughout the film– can be sort of anti climatic.
• MI6 issued standard cyanide is bogus, ek dum kachra, it won’t kill you; the worst it will do is melt part of your facial structure and turn your hair blonde.  
• Bond can pull in everyone, men women, vampires and dragons with his steely blue eyes –okay not vampires but that is only because none were around.  Eve Moneypenny lovingly shaved a towel clad Bond, Silva rubbed his thighs gleefully in anticipation, a Turkish woman kept him company when he was presumed dead, a Chinese feme fatale was willing to take him to Silva – and her bed, and last but not the least a dragon/lizard in Shanghai was also charmed by Agent 007 and that is just this particular installment. I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to test him for STDs. 

The mandatory sexy babe

Romance of a Ballerina and Tiger Balm

Contrary to my earlier plan of watching Ek Tha Tiger in Cinepax during Eid holidays with the boys and girls of Rawalpindi, I ended up watching Ek Tha Tiger on my computer with a copy downloaded via torrent because the film was not officially released in Pakistan. It was no HD, but was still good enough to see that Katrina Kaif has increased the amount of collagen she injects in her lips to an alarming proportion and now lives with a permanent pout. It was actually quite painful to see her delivering longer dialogues, her lips must be hurting like crazy. 

The film opens in Iraq where Salman Khan was busy jumping off buildings and killing people with guns, sharp objects, blunt objects,  with hands and a scarf (Yes, a man jumped after him from one building to another, while the hero landed perfectly on his feet, he rolled a scarf and threw it on the face of the goon following him, the scarf conveniently opened when it landed on the goon’s face, blinded him for a moment, he couldn’t jump neatly and fell to the ground and died, so yes, that was death by a scarf). Oh and he is also a nameless agent who goes by the name Tiger (I wondered through half of the film why a self respecting adult man would respond to a name like Tiger, Salman Khan also realized that in the latter half of the film and said, “yeh tau kuttay ka naam hota hai”.)

Tiger Bhaijan beating up an ISI agent

To cut a long and totally unnecessary story short, Tiger goes to Dublin, meets Katrina Kaif, a Dancer/Ballerina/choreographer/stage manager/ lighting director who also moonlights as a maid and dances with a vacuum cleaner. Before you can say something like ‘meteor shower’ our Tiger Balm and Katrina Ballerina are in love and before you can say ‘Abay kya bakwas hai yaar’ Tiger Balm aka deadly RAW agent finds out that Katrina Ballerina is not the sweet simple girl he thought she was (what’s with the desi dudes wanting simple girls, they do know that in English language simple also passes for a simpleton, right?) but an ISI agent! Hai Allah Mian Ji!

They part ways, Tiger Balm is back in the mother ship (that is Delhi and his sarkari daftar) and is kinda miserable. He finds out that there is some foreign ministers’ conference happening in Istanbul and Katrina Ballerina would be there. Tiger Balm suits up and goes as a member of the Indian delegation. Katrina Ballerina too is removed from active duty to become part of the Pakistani diplomatic entourage and though some sherwani wearing dude played the role of the Pakistani foreign minister, the film director paid a fitting tribute to our fashionista Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar by making Katrina Ballerina wearing clothes that look straight out of Ms. Khar’s closet, complete with blow dried hair, duppata pinned to her hair and small studs in her ear lobes, the only item missing was a Berkin Bag in her hand.

Katrina Ballerina in her HRK avatar

At this point, things got intense; kinda sad and very emotional, but I could not get invested. As I recently came back from Istanbul, afterbeing royally robbed, I was busy figuring out the exact spot where my bag got stolen. While Katrina Ballerina confessed her love for Tiger Balm and saying poignant words about tragic love between hostile spies and how they can never get together, I was busy telling my cousin that it was probably shot on one of the bridges in Eminönü and it was Süleymaniye Mosque in the background with our jasoos Romeo and Juliet. 

Süleymaniye Mosque , Tiger Bhaijan and Baji ISI - Love in Istanbul 

Tiger Balm and Katrina Ballerina duped everyone in their respective organizations, ran away from Istanbul and ended up in Havana where they lived like ordinary folks, or as ordinary as a balm and ballerina can get. Tiger Balm painted at night and sold his art on the streets of Havana during the day and Katrina Ballerina became a Ballet teacher, until one fine day someone tried to snatch Katrina Ballerina’s purse and being the agents that our love birds were, they ended up killing a bunch of low level criminals in front of an ATM machine with a camera. That image got transported back to Islamabad and Delhi and by defying all travel related logic; the agents from both the agencies reached Havana in just few hours. 

No matter how modern Bollywood gets, there is always a lecture about the values and morality of Bhartiye  naari, this time because the naari in question was a Pakistani, there was a lecture about the izzat and abroo of a Pakistani dosheeza. What makes this lecture most distinctive is that it was not delivered by some Ammi, Baji type but by the guy who played Katrina Ballerina’s ISI boss! Katrina’s ISI boss, Capt. Abrar, was a very shareef pappu type boi who respected her so much that he used to call her Bibi. I have spent enough time in Islamabad to know that no one calls anyone bibi in any of the sarkari offices and they would never call a girl bibi who look anything even remotely like Katrina Kaif.

Among other things, there was a car chase in Havana where both ISI and RAW dudes were chasing the spies who loved each other and one of the cars was a brand new Range Rover! A shiny black range rover! Now I have not been to Cuba but I know that Fidel Castro is still alive and they would not start importing shiny new Range Rovers while Fidel still breathes and his brother heads the government. 

Tiger Bhaijan romancing an ISI agent in a bed sheet

Btw, if Katrina Ballerina is an example of how ISI trains its agents, they are certainly top notch. If ISI puts it out in their recruitment brochures that their training includes ballet, Spanish language, jumping off the buildings, flying small planes, killing random men and pataofying the likes of Salman Khan, a lot more women would join the organization instead of all the shalwar qameez wearing uncles with handlebar mustaches and pot bellies.

Both RAW and ISI failed in catching the love birds, they are still on the run and my young cousin who was watching the film with me thought that it was sweet that they defied such odds for love but it would have been great if they were not living in sin. I am still trying to tell her that finding a maulvi who would agree to a nikah between a Zoya and an Avinash – the names that Tiger Balm and Katrina Ballerina were given in the film, would be a tad difficult, especially when they are on the run but she still insists on legal matrimony. Ah these children, they want this, that and the other! 


PS: That checkered black and white gamcha that Tiger Balm sported in the opening sequence may be all the rage in India now, but we in Pakistan have been wearing it for quite some time. :) 

Bharti naari, a party girl and an aging Lothario do not make a good Cocktail

After my latest sojourn to the local cinema, I have come to the conclusion that I seriously need to move to a country where they show things besides ‘Abraham Lincoln: the Vampire Killer’, ‘Rowdy Rathore’ and something called ‘Cocktail’. 

For starters, why was the film called ‘Cocktail’? All indiscretions happened after shots, all conversation happened over a glass of red, Saif Ali Khan even competed to finish a beer bottle in one go, but NO cocktails, so why name it cocktail? It’s not like anyone was either serving or drinking them but I digress.

The film starts with Saif Ali Khan playing an Indian Lothario and wooing a flight attendant with lines so cheesy you would think you are not in a cinema but damp cheese ripening rooms. As if that was not cringe worthy enough, he continued to act like a stupid 22 year old and tried pick up lines – in Hindi – that were once used by Dev Anand in his jawani, on random gori women on the streets of London and his workplace. He tried to do the same to a certain Bharti Naari at Heathrow airport, who came all the way from India in gulabi jora, bangles and bindi to meet her husband. The husband turned out to be a scumbag who only married her for her money and wanted her to go back to India. She was a loser miskeen behen ji type with no parents and an aunt who couldn't care less about her and one wonders why anyone would marry her for money.

Somehow the Bharti naari ended up in a club’s (or was it a restaurant, I can’t recall as I must have dozed off in the super thanda air conditioned cinema hall) restroom where a party girl played by Deepika Padukone came to her rescue. To cut a long story short, Bharti naari became a free loader at the party girl’s house and in another scene the Lothario and Party girl decided to become lovers (they said they are just having fun) and he too moved in to party girl's house. 

A few other inanities, a crazy Punjabi mother and bumbling mama scenes later, party girl decided that she is done having fun and wants the whole works: Shadi, ghar aur bachay. While party girl has had a change of heart, the Bharti naari went on a vacation with these two, wore a short dress, had a few shots, danced a bit and wham, the Lothario falls in love with her. Even though the party girl had been doing pretty much all of it all along, the Lothario remained unaffected. But the minutes Bharti naari showed her long limbs, the dude was a goner. Even though the girl was a Bharti naari who was still married to the money hungry scumbag, she had no qualms about kissing her BFF’s boy friend – the same BFF who sheltered her, was also sponsoring her lifestyle (and perhaps her vacations). What about the bharti naari code that a wife must stick to her husband after saat pheray even if he happens to be an arse and a greedy one at that? What happened to the girl code that says that 'thou shalt not look at your bestie's boy friend with lovey dovey eyes?'

When the party girl finds out, she flips and the Bharti naari goes out. The minute the bharti naari is out of this aging lothario’s life, she goes back to her old dowdy self and behenji clothes. I mean who wears floral printed corduroy cropped jackets FFS!

The scenes where the party girl begs the Lothario to marry her border on torture. Here is a friendly, free spirited, well off party girl begging a guy with too much Botox, to take her and is willing to morph into his mother’s clone for him to accept her. To make it even more puke inducing, she mouths dialogues like “Party girl (forgot what the party girl was called in the film) bhi ek normal larki hai, usko bhi pati aur ghar ka sukh chahiye.”  With lines like this, feminism goes back to the century before last.

Lothario did not have one endearing quality apart from bouts of grocery shopping and still two seemingly intelligent, beautiful women who are both taller than the Lothario fall for him. The behen ji who called him pig for being a man whore fell for him just because he said she is beautiful! I mean how easy do the Bollywood walahs think girls are, esp those who are like ten feel tall and weigh 120 pounds?  

The premise of the film was that men fall for behen ji types even when they are man whores and have slept with half the women in two metros (Delhi and London). Lothario was a slut because he had not found true love, party girl was a slut because she has abandonment issues and Bhati naari was NOT a slut because she was insecure about her looks.

I ask Bollywood one simple question: Why can't sluts be sluts because they feel like it? Why do they have to have something deep going on? Why can’t the NOT sluts be Not sluts because they do not feel like sleeping around? Why do they have to be insecure about their looks and what not. Why can’t life be simpler and why does Saif Ali Khan use this much Botox? 

The party girl, the Lothario & Bharti naari in a not so Bharti naari-ish dress!

Total 'eclipse' of the mind

Earlier this year, I was teaching an undergrad class a course on Gender. While discussing femininity and feminism, I asked my class to name one male and female they think of as the epitomy of masculine and feminine beauty. The idea was to determine how the concept of masculinity and femininity is socially constructed and male and female desirability is strongly attached to it and that  it evolves with the passage of time. As I teach generally hip kids, their idols were mostly western and their tastes represented that trend. Salma Hayek, Shakira and Beyonce were considered most feminine women by both the boys and girls, clearly indicating that concept of femininity has undergone a transition and blue-eyed blonde is no longer the pinnacle for beauty.

The boys in my class came up with the usual suspects as models of masculinity such as Brad Pitt and George Clooney with a mention of Ali Zafar and Salman Khan to add the local flavor. However, most girls swooned when they mentioned their heart’s desire and it was a guy named Edward Cullen. Now, I may not be a teenager well versed with the latest trends but I don’t exactly live in a cave and do managed to keep a track of things but I seriously did not know who Edward Cullen was. So I asked and was regaled in no uncertain terms how wonderful a character he is and how I have missed on the greatest thing since the sliced bread. Equipped with the background info, I asked my female students whether they liked the character of Edward Cullen or the actor, Robert Pattison, who plays the role. One of them gushed that she couldn’t distinguish between the two of them; she loved them both and everything about them.

Quite obviously I bought the “Twilight” and “New Moon” DVDs on my way back to witness the ultimate specimen of a gentleman. Needless to say, I was galactically gutted when I found out that he is, you know, kind of neither alive, nor dead. I mean back in the day when I was a teenager, we used to swoon over sun-kissed men with big shoulders who were alive and kicking. A pasty-looking, slightly effeminate, undead vampire is definitely not my idea of swoon worthiness, but heck, what do I know? I am not a twenty-first century teenager!

In the first installment “Twilight,” we have a sulky teenager Bella who likes this boy – the personification of undead romance Edward Cullen – in her class whose eye color keeps changing which basically lead her to believe that he is a vampire; how perfectly logical. Then we have a family of vampires (Edward’s family) who think they are vegetarian vampires because they do not drink human blood. In what parallel world, sucking the blood of cute furry animals makes you vegetarian? I am quite surprised that PETA stayed quiet over it.

In the second installment “New Moon,” the romance between the whiney (Bella) and mopey (Edward Cullen) runs into snag when one of his siblings wants to suck her blood so he breaks off with her and goes away. Bella’s friend Jacob, who is actually a werewolf – is there ever a woman who attracts more inappropriate men than our tragic heroine? – falls for her and now Bella is torn between two highly unsuitable men.

Because I am the type who would want to finish the things, I decided to watch the third installment “Eclipse,” against my better judgment. I am still not too sure whom Bella chooses at the end of the 123-minute saga where newbie vampires were wreaking havoc, trying to kill the heroine. The werewolves and the vegetarian vampires band together to save her – amidst the general lovesick atmosphere of the film.

Apart from the regular teenage romantic anguish, an army of well-groomed vampires, Bella’s whines, Edward Cullen’s cherry red lips and Jacob’s buff bare torso (Jacob was shirtless for most of the 123 minutes that even the character of Edward had to ask him whether he owned a shirt), there were a couple of things that need to be highlighted. I was in for a surprise when I saw a scene with a hint of “Brokeback Mountain” where the undead and werewolf get curiously intimate during a long night in a tent. Frankly, there was more honesty and chemistry in that one scene than the whole angst-ridden trilogy where Bella keeps panting after the total dreaminess of Edward.

Another thing we learn is that vampires are as big on hierarchy as European royal families are. There are some blue-blooded vampires called Volturi who prefer the Goth look and rule the vampire world with a rocker wardrobe. And of course, they decide which vampire stays in the state of undead and who gets to die the true death.

After I told my students that I had seen the films (the first two installments), the eager ones wanted to know how I liked the movies. One of them even asked me if I was rooting for Team Jacob or Team Edward (yes, the crazy fans are divided between who gets the heroine). Honestly, despite being a werewolf and an underage werewolf (Taylor Lautner who pays Jacob in the movie was 17 when my students asked me), Jacob gets my vote for being, err you know, not dead.

Should people go and watch this film? I don’t know but I have to say, it’s unique. After all, you don’t get movies like this very often where a werewolf and a vampire battle it out for the affections of a human and not to make a meal out of her.

Originally written for Dawn.com 

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