Flighless Bird

An entertaining love story with some engaging moments that doesn’t reach the heights it sets out to achieve.

There is a scene where two people are discussing one’s future in the car and the song playing on the radio is “Aagey bhi Jaane na tu” For that is exactly the situation we find ourselves in. Lafangey Parindey directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

In the very first scene as you see a shot of blood slowly dripping from a bare-knuckle boxer’s nose, you get the feeling that the movie is serious about showcasing the rise of the protagonists from the squalor they live in. However the movie takes a different turn and takes the plot of the Rajesh Khanna hit Dushman and comes up with a romantic tale set amidst a middle class Mumbai chawl.

One shot Nandu(Neil Nitin Mukesh) as his name suggests is a boxer and in short is a vagabond. In the course of events, he wrongs a fellow chawl dweller Pinki(Padukone) who has aspirations to become India’s dance icon. How he performs penitence forms the gist of the movie.

The exchanges between Nandu, Pinki and friends are amusing. Music which is rarely used in a good way in Hindi films helps this movie in a big way and well done to the director and composer R.Anandh for providing the right sort of harmony that bumbles with nervous energy. The song Nain Parindey is superbly rendered by Shilpa Rao and nicely picturized. Those are the good elements.

The bad elements are a predictable storyline and a so-so art design. For people living in a relatively bad economic health, Nandu’s and Pinki’s wardrobe is immaculate. They just look too trendy to be involved with anything middle-class. But they do a fair job. The supporting cast is a lot more convincing than the leads. Everyone sports the Mumbaiyya lingo very well notwithstanding that their language looks way too polished.

As I said, for the way the movie starts, it is a tad disappointing that the film turns into a gentle flowing love story. Lafangey Parindey like Wake up Sid is a highly watchable film in the generic sense, however it is lightweight and how you wish, our filmmakers would abandon the gaiety and dig into the filth for a harder hitting film. This parindey doesn’t take flight.

Rating : 3/5

C-ON the money, not..

A comeuppance story that refreshingly stays away from the sermon but still gets tiresome.

There is strictly something very 90s about Badmaash Company and its ethos penned by first time director Parmeet Sethi. And the movie too, does start in the 90s when India was just out from the clutches of License Raj. And the man who wants to ride this new wave of freedom is Karan(Shahid Kapoor) who harangues his father (a superb Anupam Kher) for being a slave to his company for twenty five years. He represents the new India, an individualistic young man.

The first half has bouncy moments between the friends Chandu(Vir Das) Tenzing(Meiyang Chang) and Bulbul(Anushka Sharma) as they involve themselves in a number of con games in a get rich quick scheme in the name of a fraud company. Sethi however invests less in the characters and is more interested to show us the panache behind the hustle.

And then you always knew that the law was around the corner. The graph of the film goes downhill thereafter as the hero is punished for his greed and like the 90s movies and before that the company breaks apart, due to predictable reasons of coveting more money than needed. The movie moves on at such a pace that the director leaves no time to flesh out the other characters. Also, the transformation arc of Karan from simple youth to arrogant uncouth prick is not very convincing.

Songs are stylishly shot and show good verve. A Yashraj film is never short of that, it helps them disguise the shortcomings of the script. Shahid who rarely looks like a grown up, makes a good effort as the brain behind the con games. Anushka gives a good account of herself and both Vir Das and Meiyang Chang are lively.

But Badmaash Company is strictly average fare and times so silly that a bunch of kids in the local neighbourhood would be more deserving of the titular adjective.

Rating : 2/5

The oppressed is history

A stupor-inducing drama that lacks insight

You can't help but appreciate Gowariker's approach to film-making. Earnest, honest and his constant homage to the Motherland. However, like an overbearing parent, there is this constant tendency to overdo the businesslike demeanor, that is like to only look and be smug about the overall percentage scored by a severely welted boy but ignore the gaping hole of a D grade in History.

Because as a history lesson, this movie gets an A but on the character front it scores an unremarkable F. The movie talks about a lesser known revolution that is based on a book - Manini Chatterjee’s Do & Die: The Chittagong Uprising 1930-34. The opening scenes show a group of boys playing football on a dusty field before the British usurp it in their typical manner. So they contact Surjya Sen, a local schoolmaster who they think because of his connections with freedom fighters might help the boys get their tract back. However Surjya has bigger plans and enlists them for a bloody revolution of stealing arms and money from the English.

The story-telling here is so simplistic that during the course of the training of the young ones, a scene is played where they are explained what chloroform is and what a musket of a gun is. Lots of time is wasted on showing the enlistment of the greenhorns.

We know what the filmmaker wants us to feel - that how can one man be so heartless as to lead such youthful baby fat pouting boys like lambs to the slaughter. But for that he doesn't give us one opening into boys'families. What do they feel like? What are they leaving behind to undertake such a huge sacrifice. In a similar scene, when Kolpona donates her jewellery for the cause, we dont care. We never saw her in a fashionable attire before to actually feel her loss. Most frustrating is the lack explanation about who is Surjya Sen. Is he just a school teacher or does he have more flesh to himself. He is the leader of this war, what about his perspective? The entire first half is dotted with such brain-dead sequences.

It is the second half that springs to life mainly because, the movie has metamorphosed into an action flick. The daring robbery, the escape from certain death and persecution and the inevitable manhunt and martyrdom is because of jingoistic reasons always stimulating to watch. After a while though that too loses its sheen as Gowariker in his usual style does away with all subtleties and goes for bombastic drama.

Deepika cannot act period!. There is something so unnatural about her. And it might not be even her fault. Even when clad in the dullest of dullest khaki sarees, she looks like she might have landed from a Manish Malhotra Mahatma's austerity themed show. She is just too upscale to fit the part. Abhishek does what Abhishek does. Hams, shows the occasional glimpse of an acting gene and then settles for the average to mediocre slot on the acting scale. The best of the lot is definitely Sikander Kher with his brooding looks looking apt for the role. The teenagers who play the young revolutionaries are infact very sprightly and bring about a sense of earthiness to the proceedings.

KHJJS is a highly soporific drama that drives one to grogginess with its mundane dialogues and uninspired acting. The Chittagong Uprising is better served by remaining in our books alone.

Rating : 1.5/5