Dabangg (2010)

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s official. Salman Khan is the new Rajnikanth. Move over, aged Robot, and take that flimsy toupee with you. If 2009’s superhero action-hero flick Wanted wasn’t enough, Salman Khan’s biceps returned to gravity-defying action avatar in Dabangg. Legions of Salman Khan fans must be sighing in relief as to the rustic Zandu Balm the film was [let’s face it, this is no Guzaarish], but those still reeling from a bad Wanted hangover must have avoided this film like the plague.

Well, here’s a thought: don’t. Proudly presenting: the top five reasons you should watch Dabangg.

1. The Plot, or every drama you’ve seen on Star Plus, the ‘70s edition:

Set in Uttar Pradesh, Dabangg tells the [tired?] tale of Chulbul Pandey aka ‘Bad-Ass Robin Hood’ [Salman Khan], a fearless but corrupt police officer with unorthodox working methods. [Crime, masala, dishum-dishum quota filled right there. Front-benchers, rejoice!] Chulbul has had a bitter childhood. [Oh, duh. I mean, oh, no.] His father passed away when he was very young, after which his mother [Dimple Kapadia] married Prajapati Pandey [Vinod Khanna]. Together, they had a son Makhanchan [Arbaaz Khan] whom pita parmeshwar seems to favour – [hello, step-brother, forever-anguished maa, evil stepfather, it’s the Mumbai noir version of Cinderella! And who doesn’t love Disney?]

Chulbul decides to take control of his destiny and detaches himself from his step-father and half-brother. His sole attachment is his mother. However, after his mother’s demise and an unsuccessful attempt to mend wounds, Chulbul breaks all ties with his step-father and half-brother. Enter Rajo [Sonakshi Sinha], with her unique perspective of life, who turns his life upside down. Chulbul starts to see life more positively and also gets sensitized to the value of a family. But his detractors, especially the dubious Cheddi Singh [Sonu Sood], have their own vested interests and emerge as spokes in the wheels, putting one brother against the other. Makhanchan ends up carrying out an act oblivious to the consequences.

When Makhanchan realizes he has been used, he turns to Chulbul. Will Chulbul take his extended hand? Will the brothers be able to thwart their detractors?’

Will you be able to count the many clichés in that synopsis? Barring the sheer ludicrousness of the plot, which makes 2010’s Vivek Oberoi starrer Prince – It’s Showtime feel like Schindler’s List, the action sequences are kind of brilliant in all their kitsch glory, the dialoguebaazi and dramaybaazi are flat out phenomenal [and unintentionally hilarious, but still], the pace is frenetic – and most importantly, the film never takes itself seriously [like the unfortunate Veer did].

2. Chuck Norris, whoops, I mean, Salman Khan:

Having watched this film, I can now safely make the following claims:
When Salman Khan looks in a mirror the mirror shatters, because not even glass is stupid enough to get in between Salman Khan and Salman Khan.

There is no such thing as Global Warming. It’s all Salman, baby.

The square root of Salman Khan is broken bones.

Salman Khan eats pain for breakfast.

Salman Khan has more testosterone than Lady Gaga.

When Salman Khan goes to sleep, he doesn’t count sheep. He eats them.

The Matrix Trilogy would’ve ended with the first one if only Keanu Reeves had said: ‘I know Salman Khan.’

Salman Khan registered his name as a deadly weapon.

Yoda’s mentor Salman Khan was.

Milk never expires for Salman Khan.

Salman Khan can kill two birds with no stone.

The show Survivor had the original premise of putting people on an island with Salman Khan. There were no survivors, and nobody is brave enough to go to the island to retrieve the footage.

Salman Khan doesn’t wear a watch; he decides what time it is.

Salman can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.

The grass is always greener on the other side, unless Salman Khan has been there. In that case the grass is most likely soaked in blood and tears.

Salman Khan frequently donates blood to the Red Cross. Just never his own.

Seriously, though. Not since the Amitabh Bachchan [of the ‘70s] has an actor been able to epitomize the angry-yet-stoic-young-man; Salman breathes fire into every dialogue the scriptwriter throws his way with gleeful abandon. This is Salman at his most unrestrained; shirt-ripping a la Hulk included in the package. He plays the masses like Mozart. Poor debutant Sonakshi [Shatrughan Sinha’s daughter]. She never really stood a chance in this film. Come to think of it, neither did the rest of the actors.

3. ‘Munni Badnaam’ – the Malaika Factor

Can you say item-number-of-the-year? Though Salman Khan going ghetto on the streets of UP with his real-life sister-in-law Malaika Arora: awkward much? This just in: Munni being threatened by ‘Sheila Ki Shakira-esque Jawani’ [Katrina Kaif in Tees Maar Khan], so watch Malaika strut it out in all her backless choli glory, preferably in HD – before Munni goes from badnaam to benaam.

Oh, and the rest of the score is visually enticing [not to mention, easy on the ears - which is more than I can say about the We Are Family - or The Elvis Presley Massacre soundtrack] as well. Picks: ‘Tere Mast Mast Do Nain’, ‘Hud Hud Dabangg’ and ‘Humka Peeni Hai’. But Munni = 2 kewl.

4. “Hum Yahan Ke Robin Hood Hain. Robin Hood Pandey”: The Dialogues

Sonakshi ne Salman se kaha: “Thapad se darr nahi lagta sahab – par pyaar se lagtaa hai” – the frontbencher throwback to “Kaanton ko murjhaane ka khauf nahi hota” [Mughal-e-Azam]?

“Kamini se yaad aaya….Pandey ji..apki biwi kaisi hai?” – Major LOL moment.

Salman [really, who else?]: “Hum tumri jaan mein itna ched karenge, itna ched karenge ke confuse ho jao gay – ke saans kahan se ley aur paade kahan se” – okay, gross, but classic.

“Police waale ko thokne ka anjaam pata hai kya? Ikkis [21] saal jail aur thukkai alag se… Aur ussi police waale ne agar tumhe thokka, toh promotion alag se aur bahaduri ka medal bhi.” – really sums up the scope and feel of the modern police force, doesn’t it?

Practice your seeti-bajaana-skills, folks. Every scene has a college-campus-quotable.

5. Umm, I’m sorry, do you need a fifth reason?

Action, masala, romanchuk scenes, comedy, isshstunts, melodrama: Dabangg has it all. You want a Bollywood fill for 2010, this movie will suffice. Be warned, though: Dabangg isn’t groundbreaking by any standards, nor will it change your life. Unless it does. In a nutshell: Go. Watch. Dabangg. Now. Who knows, you might be able to prevent the 2012 apocalypse, as predicted by the Mayan calendar – Osman Khalid Butt

Rating – 3.5 out of 5

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Action/Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer –Arbaaz Khan, Malaika Arora, Dhilin Mehta, Director –Abhinav Kashyap, Music Director – Sajid-Wajid, Cast - Salman Khan, Sonu Sood, Arbaaz Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Mahie Gill, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Om Puri, Anupam Kher, Tinu Anand, Mahesh Manjrekar, Amitosh Nagpal, Murli Sharma

Raavan (2010)

Bollywood’s giving us quite the fill of Sanskrit literature: first, it was modern-day Mahabharata with Rajneeti, and this Friday saw the Hindu version of Darth Vader/Joker from Dark Knight/Hannibal Lector/you get the drift, Raavan [from Ramayana] being immortalized in a celluloid saga. The result? Raavan emerges as a flawed piece of storytelling; but then, there’s always beauty to be found in imperfection.

The Plot, or Ramayana meets RGV’s Jungle meets Khalnayak: If you watch this film expecting a play-by-play of the original Sanskrit epic, or even the Ramanand Sagar television saga, you’re in for a rude awakening. Raavan turns [wait for it] Robin Hood in this modern-day interpretation, which sees the antihero Beera [Abhishek Bachchan] kidnap Ragini [Aishwarya Rai], classical dancer and wife of police-officer Dev Pratap Sharma [South sensation Vikram], seeking revenge for the dishonoring of his half-sister Surpanakha. Echoing the great Khalnayak, defiant Ragini develops Stockholm Syndrome after several cat-and-mouse chase sequences, much traipsing through cinematographer Santosh Sivan [remember Asoka?] approved lush jungle landscapes, and a tribal war-dance to boot. The lines between good and evil blur as Ragini sees the more humane side of Beera and his henchmen [his two brothers, countless admirers, and the token transvestite], and ‘virtuous’ Dev, in the concluding reels [after the obligatory ten-minute action sequence] stands exposed as heartless, calculating douchebag.

Wait. What? Hah – told you this wasn’t your ordinary virtue-versus-vice tale.

That being said, though Mani Ratnam tries his best to weave in elements of a modern rustic India, with its gangfare, violence and criminal-breeding, in this classic tale, he trades in myth for the mundane, stripping Ram of his pious deity status, demoting Raavan from Rakshasa to rabid criminal desperately in need of lozenges [Abhishek's raspy voice quickly became a deterrent], and giving a theatrical, schmaltzy flavor to almost every sequence in the film.

What Clicks: The nonlinear filmmaking style is used to great effect, with Beera’s motive revealed only in the second half. I could write a thesis about the cinematography; each frame was a pièce de résistance, lifting the rather thin storyline to operatic, epic heights. Filmfare should just hand out the award to Santosh Sivan right now. The Bachchans share incredible chemistry [their very first sequence by the waterfalls was riveting - a defiant war-of-words between the psychopath and the suicidal]. Abhishek Bachchan does his best Jack Nicholson-from-The Shining impression, marred only by some incoherent soliloquies. The pace of the film never falters, and the musical interludes are used to great effect. Particularly poignant is the relationship between Dev and Ragini shown through Kathak dance in ‘Khilli Re’ [in a flashback sequence. Oh, and moustache-twiddling is new Bollywood bedroom kink.] Priyamani, playing Beera’s sister, pitches in an exceptional performance; her entire storyline [featuring a craven fiancé, and the worst wedding crashers in the world], involving a startling revelation that kick-starts Beera’s war against Dev, is perhaps the strongest point of the film, and the most emotionally resonating. Aishwarya Rai is at her expressive best when asked by her husband to perform a modern-day version of agni pariksha [read: Burn, Sita, Burn!], a polygraph test, to prove her fidelity. Ravi Kishan as Beera’s equally-psychotic-but-with-heart-of-gold brother, and Nikhil Dwivedi as good cop/bad cop/who can tell, are strong supporting characters.

What Doesn’t: The capture-sequence right at the onset defies logic: If only Ragini’s boatman had changed course instead of blindly stating the obvious, Beera’s boat would never have crashed into theirs. Ragini would never have been kidnapped. There wouldn’t have been a movie. Oh. Rai wails like a Banshee-reject; no wonder Beera has a permanent twitch. Govinda’s character was introduced as Ziyi Zhang from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Seriously, what was with the gravity-defying stunts? Some of the dialogues are cringe-worthy: early on in the film, Rai waxes poetic on Beera, stating: ‘Ye aadmi Raavan hai ya Robin Hood?’ in Kangna Ranaut/Meera-or-similar dialect. Speaking of which, guess the filmmakers couldn’t figure that out either. I mean, I just spent two hours rooting for the villain and shouting ‘Go, Dev, Go!’ in manner of enraged political activist/Pakistani lawyer. Parts of the penultimate sequence seemed a direct copy-paste of Khalnayak [Madhuri - whoops, I meant Aishwarya - stands infront of Abhishek in furious attempt to ward off, say, ten thousand police-officers? Alright, I'm exaggerating just a little.] Oh, and one finds it implausible [Bollywood's favorite catchword] that Beera would have delivered a touching ode to the virtues of Ragini to a belligerent Dev, whilst playing Cliffhanger on a burning bridge. Speaking of: Dev, who? Vikram was reduced to grunting caveman; a one-dimensional character that serves only to ridicule the Indian police-force. And how the hell did Aishwariya Rai manage to find her way back to Beera in the last half; wasn’t she blindfolded when brought to his nest? The climax seemed rushed. That’s because I wanted to see douchebag Dev [our modern-day Ram] get his comeuppance by hell-hath-no-fury-like-Sita-scorned Ragini. Wait, is that blasphemous?

An angry viewer raged post-screening that Raavan is the cinematic equivalent of a dumb blonde: body beautiful, but lacking soul. Though there is no doubt that Mani Ratnam is let down by his own screenplay, I found the film engaging, spirited and fast-paced, backed by wonderful if sporadic performances by both leads, and featuring some exceptional sequences. It might not add up to the likes of predecessors Guru or Yuva, might not be the emotional epics Roja or Bombay were, but it offers viewers an unsettling, if larger-than-life, psychological drama, which is well worth the price of ticket admission. Hell, watch it for the cinematography, if nothing else. Can you say jaw-dropper? – Osman Khalid Butt

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama/Action, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Mani Ratnam, Director – Mani Ratnam, Music Director – A. R. Rahman, Cast - Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Chiyaan Vikram, Govinda, Manisha Koirala, Nikhil Dwivedi, Ravi Kishan, Priyamani

Rajneeti (2010)

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Bollywood fans have been craving for good cinema since quite a while and Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti seems to quench their thirst well. There is no doubt that the movie lacks Bollywood masala, glamorous clothes, dances numbers and romance, which Indian cinema thrives on but there’s something in this film which sets it apart from the rest!

Rajneeti is a complicated story about politics, democracy and elections in India. It’s a story that shows how some people have control on the lives and destinies of millions. It’s a story about how political ambitions make a person extremely bitter and violent. It’s a story about how the young generation becomes wildly involved in politics after the death of the family’s head. It’s a story about how an ultimate outsider to politics, Samar Pratap (Ranbir Kapoor) comes from abroad for his uncle’s birthday and gets involved into the battle-ravaged ground of family rivalry and becomes the mastermind behind the entire political warfare. It’s a story about how his life changes from a peaceful one to one that contains a lot of aggression! It’s a story of the woman who loves him and lost him and the one he loved and lost! It’s a story of a simple man’s fall into the moral hell, politics. To cut it short, it’s a story of the ugly side of Indian democracy, politics and beyond.

Rajneeti is a great attempt by Prakash Jha to shed light on the many social problems that prevail in the Indian society and he tries his best to expose them through this film. It also shows how politics is driven by corruption, greed and most of all revenge. Nothing more can be said about the plot because that would confuse you even further.

Ranbir Kapoor can easily be called the lead of Rajneeti even though there are many other actors with equally important roles. I never doubted Ranbir’s potential but this role was just performed to excellence. The way he has acted his role with such intensity shows that these young actors are not just eye candy and they can actually do serious parts. His acting in Rajneeti could easily give the best actors of Bollywood a run for their money. Throughout the film, his emotions were intense, his dialogues strong, his actions just perfect and can I also please add his looks were absolutely killing?

Surprisingly, Katrina too fit in the role perfectly, even though I never thought she would be able to do justice to such a serious performance. Considering Rajneeti is her first mature role, she has done a great job and the way she portrays her emotions leaves you in tears and shows that she has matured as an actress. Arjun Rampal has also shown great acting skills and portrayed the role of a violent politician perfectly while Ajay Devgan is just another actor in the film and it’s clearly not even near one of his best performances. The supporting cast has done an excellent job too.

The songs were beautiful especially ‘More Piya’, ‘Bheegi Si’ and ‘Ishq Barse’ and anyone can get addicted to them easily. Direction was beautifully done, the script was very well written and the dialogues were extremely strong, which breathed life into different roles. Coming to the technical side of Rajneeti, the camera work was brilliant, the art direction was superb and the background score was just ideal.

However, Rajneeti does come with a few flaws. To begin with, it takes a bit too much time to settle down the plot and narration and you need to watch it with a lot of concentration otherwise it will only make your head spin! 40 minutes into the movie and all that has been shown is politics. Those who want to see Ranbir and Katrina spark on the screen will be extremely disappointed as there are hardly five scenes of them together. I also believe that there were a few (read: very few) parts where the movie seemed stretched and a little more editing would have made it is flawless but this does not mean that one could get bored during the movie!

All in all, it’s one of those movies that make you enjoy every part of the film and the popcorn as your eye balls pop out at literally every scene and at times you even jump in your chair out of shock with what just happened. It makes you feel the money and time was well spent as you walk out of the cinema.

Whether Rajneeti makes millions on the box office or not is still a question considering a hefty budget of 20.91 million was spent on it and recovering such huge amounts is not that easy, but it’s one movie you shouldn’t miss this summer. It shows how Indian cinema is much more than sugar coated stories and happy endings – Hafsah Sarfraz

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama/Action, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Prakash Jha, Director – Prakash Jha, Music Director – Wayne Sharpe, Pritam Chakraborty, Aadesh Shrivastava, Shantanu Moitra, Cast - Ajay Devgn, Nana Patekar, Ranbir Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Arjun Rampal, Katrina Kaif, Manoj Bajpai, Sarah Thompson, Darshan Jariwala, Shruti Seth, Nikhila Tirkha, Chetan Pandit, Vinay Apte, Kiran Karmarkar, Daya Shankar Pandey, Jahangir Khan, Ravi Khemu