Ek Second...Jo Zindagi Badal De... (2010)

Cleverly nestled between an I Hate Luv Storys and Rajneeti trailer was a 30 second promo on local cable – ‘Fasale Bahara Hoon Mai’ was the name of the track, which saw former Femina Miss India Nikita Anand seducing a frigid [gasp!] Moammar Rana in Bollywood’s answer to Punjabi/Pashto pulp. The English lyrics of the track go something like this: “Gonna rule me up?/ Wanna take a ride?/ C’mon let’s do it! Take away!/ Ooh waah-ee-yeah! [x4]” I mean, she ripped his goddamn Rupa banyan off whilst he stoically stared into the distance à la war veteran. ‘Sangdil Sharara’ indeed. Ek Second…Jo Zindagi Badal De was the name of the movie, and a trip to the local DVD shop revealed the film had released. Feeling either a) like Indiana Jones, the movie connoisseur equivalent of, b) Sadomasochistic, c) in the mood for a quick laugh, d) all of the above, I decided to brave a screening of the rather unknown [B-movie?] flick.

The Plot, or Gwyneth Paltrow’s Sliding Doors meets – gaah, Brain has Dissolved: Raashi [Manisha Koirala, a shadow of her Dil Se, Bombay & Khamoshi self], fiancé of hot-shot novelist Shantanu Roy [Moammar Rana], is a perpetual procrastinator, but the producers would have us believe she is destiny’s child – ‘ek second’ late for Roy’s book launch, ‘ek second’ [well, actually she was an hour late, but oh well] late for important presentation at office – which gets her fired. Within the first ten minutes, we’re brainwashed into believing ‘ek second’ can really screw us over. On her way back, at a metro station, she is unable to board the train [sound familiar?], and this is where we’re taken on a journey of two parallel universes – the Raashi that managed to board the train, and catch Roy two-timing her with psychotic Tamanna [Nikita Anand], and her track thereafter with Yuvraaj [Jackie Shroff] and Rozza – versus the Raashi that didn’t. In one version, she’s extremely successful, in the other, she’s shown struggling with her life. And here’s the kicker: the moral of the story is supposed to be that whatever is written in one’s destiny happens in one way or the other. And don’t worry, if you feel confused, you have an annoying narrator practically spoon-feeding you the plot throughout.

Background check on director Partho Ghosh revealed masterpieces of Indian cinema such as Meri Life Mai Uski Wife, Mr. Hot Mr. Kool, Chetna – The Excitement [?!]‘, and – wait, Agnisakshi Ghulam-e-Mustafa? But – those were half-decent movies! The former, a remake of Sleeping With The Enemy, also featuring Manisha and Jackie Shroff, actually hit box office gold! Then – what went wrong here?

Actually, that’s a no-brainer. The screenplay = shoddy, with most of the dialogue lifted from Urdu SMS Shayeri/those stalker messages you get on Facebook. And practically no attention to detail.

First off: Moammar Rana, in the very first scene, is showcased launching his book ‘Destiny – a Journey’ at ‘Random’ Publish House – the invitation reads RPH Present’s ‘Destiny.’ Umm, you’re a publishing house. It’s called spell-check?! Then there’s the atrocious dialogue right at the onset, with Rana’s token ‘Pakistani’ friend Sam [a horrid, horrid Suniiel Singh] going: “Guzra hua waqt, nikli hui saansen kabhi wapis nahi aateen. Tujhe nahi lagta Raashi kuch zyaada hi late karrahi hai?” Yes, yes, we know the film’s about destiny and time and whatnot. Then there was Jackie Shroff’s introduction – Shroff’s role in the film is to act as Manisha’s knight in shining armor – “Qismat/Wismat kuch nahi madam. Fighter apni qismat banata hai. Fighter hamesha jeethta hai!” Manisha: “Hahaha, thank you, bye.” Oh, God. Sparks obviously fly, as Manisha later recounts to Moammar: “Really, a second can change life, Shaanu. Aaj mai marte marte bachi hoon. Agar ek second mai woh ajnabi farishta mujhe aa ke naa bachata..”

Then there was the first song, the aneurysm inducing ‘Hota Hai Har Faisala Ek Second Mai,’ featuring Suniiel [dubbed Fat Mithun from now on] gyrating with a bevy of Malaysian beauties. It’s an assault to the senses, a new low for singer Adnan Sami, and a great Truth or Dare challenge. I mean, publisher Fat Mithun moonlighting as cabaret lothario/Jiminy Cricket ['let your conscience be your guide' and all that]?! Epic fail! Nikita Anand, clearly with great potential [details later] is wasted in an insipid introduction as Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction wannabe. “Waisay tumhare saath ye nahi fuljari kaun hai? [Pointing to Manisha] Koi nayi fan ya koi nahi murghi?” Moammar: “Nahi ham jald shaadi karne wale hain.” “Oo lucky girl! Blah blah greatest novelist ne kissi ko apna life-partner banaya, blah blah waisay to sab bed-partners theen!” *Both giggle like schoolgirls.* And her Kajol-from-Gupt moment? “Ye Shaanu tumhara itni asaani se nahi hoga, Jaanu!” I’d shudder if I wasn’t, you know, laughing out so loud.

Poor, poor Moammar Rana. He pitches in earnest expressions throughout the film, but is once again let down by bizarre dialogue. Sample this, frustrated by the average response to his novel, he retorts: “duniya mai kayi log aye jinhon ne apni qismat ko challenge kiya. Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte aur Sikandar jese log!”

Then comes the entire sequence where Manisha catches him doing the nasty with Nikita. Forget gut-wrenching, it was practically farcical. Moammar screams thrice, introduces other woman to fiancé, and Nikita goes: “oh forget it! C’mon Shaanu!”, later calling him a ‘delicious dish jo ham donon [Nikita and Manisha] mil ke half half khayen gay.’ It’d all be very poignant, if this were a Rob Schneider comedy – Osman Khalid Butt

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Thriller, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Rachna Sunil Singh, Director – Partho Ghosh, Music Director – Arvinder Singh, Sawan Kumar, Cast - Jackie Shroff, Manisha Koirala, Nikita Anand, Muammar Rana, Roza Catalano, Hanbir Malik, Suneil Singh

Kaun Bane Ga Crorepati is based on Dabir ul Hasan’s (Shamim Ara’s husband) shamelessly plagiarized script that has two young men trying to woo a rich girl who exchanges personal status with a girlfriend to test the sincerity of people professing love and find out if they were attracted to her person or her wealth.

Once that issue is settled, distrust is introduced by out of context photographs of Moammar and Noor to accuse them of treachery. The medicine is repeated by catching Reema and Babar in a similar hug to clear the misunderstanding and bring culprits Deeba and Shafqat Cheema to book. They are a couple of sly gold diggers out to deprive Reema of her inheritance.

Deeba is rich Reema’s deceptive governess and Cheema is lover boy Babar’s scheming father.

Performances

Reema seems to have worked hard to attain a pleasant degree of consummation with the demands of the art in every respect; others have put their heart in performances and make for limitations either in talent or in some other respect. This is not to distract from their contribution, particularly from Noor’s numbers. One of them is excitingly rapid fire and the other charmingly slow paced.

The boys, Moammar Rana and Babar Ali could not have been previously suspected of being capable of distinguishing hop-step and jump from rock or even the current swinging body-beat and physical abandon. In Kaun Bane Ga Crorepati, they show a welcome capacity for responding to professional guidance and handling. As for Reema, she is near superb. A reportable aspect of dances in Kaun Bane Ga Crorepati is that they are free of the prevailing vulgarity currently presented by local films as entertainment.

The cast also includes Rambo and Veena Malik. Mystery man Rambo reveals his identity at the end; Veena is his infrequent female companion who is given entries, exits and a dance to perform but is forgotten by the time it is curtainfall. Teaming her with Rambo makes her irrelevant fiddle. No slight intended for Rambo except that it is time filmmakers decided as to how to use him.

Review

Actress Shamim Ara emerged as a director of outstanding talent with her very first lifting fo the megaphone. Playboy (1978) heralded the arrival of a creative director whose idea of a film script was contemporary, issue based and imaginative yet commercially viable.

She quickly adjusted directorial sails with the slide down in Pakistani cinema with a series of movies woven around Singapore, Hong Kong and Colombo ‘girls’. The films were entertaining, successful on the circuit and represented competent direction but contained nothing more for a dispatch.

Then Shamim Ara went out of circulation, returning to production some years later with a movie in 1999 titled Pal do Pal. Her own work was woefully slipshod but a script of extraordinary atrociousness by husband Dabir ul Hasan was the main cause of her fall from professional grace.

That, besides bad health was the reason why no producer commissioned her for a fairly long period. Producer Jamshed Zafar revived Shamim Ara with Kaun Bane Ga Crorepati, but he failed to realize that whatever were the qualities endearing Dabir ul Hasan to Shamim Ara as husband, writing good scripts for films was not one of them. He is present in Crorepati with the kind of script that can sink the greatest director.

Here Shamim Ara has managed to survive a story that is doubly stolen: two Indian films are joined together to produce Kaun Bane Ga Crorepati. Dabir ul Hasan has reduced the originals to distorted versions and added to them some pathetically tasteless, indeed stinking humour of his own plus mirthless, stale jokes. How does the director cross this tottering bridge?

Pappu Samrat and Ashraf Shirazi, both top names of Pakistani cinema in their field, have choreographed the dances. Cinematography is the responsibility of Akif Chaudhry and Sajjad Rizvi. I am familiar with Chaudhry’s work. Rizvi, I am told, is good. This quartet gets together to produce a series of dazzling dances, their picturization giving a new and brilliant dimension to the filming of dances in Pakistani films. A demonstration of craft of comparable quality by editor Z.A.Zulfi turns them in to a memorable feast.

This is Shamim Ara at her most commanding as a director. Popular numbers by singers Abrar ul Haq (one regrets his controversial lyric of uncultured taste) and Jawad are used for two of the dances. Scores of dancers add grandeur to the footage; in one case, it is an all male cast. Based on compositions by Wajid Ali Nashad and lyrics by Aqeel Rubi, the remaining dances are equally slick, charming and artistic.

It however takes more than choreographer, cameramen, editor, composer, singers and even a director to produce brilliant musical sequences. Unless dancers perform with comparable class and possess rhythmic facility of movement with figures to match and they are professionally qualified for a high level rendering of the art, impactful totality would escape production. They are infact the starting point for a song-dance sequence. All these requirements are admittedly not fully met but distance between ideal inputs and available talent is fortunately not too wide.

Filmgoer’s unfamiliar with the writer’s source of inspiration may have enjoyed the movie but irritating stupid clowning and offensive and silly humour are enlisted to put them off. Shamim Ara apparently could not curb the plagiaristic and low taste ambitions and inclinations of her hubby. One wishes her happy conjugal life but Jamshed Zafar should have exercised the producer’s prerogative and judged the script strictly. One hopes he does that when he is presented another such yarn, regardless of the relationship between the writer and the director.

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2002, Genre – Drama, Country – Pakistan, Language – Urdu, Producer – Jamshed Zafar, Director – Shamim Ara, Music Director – N/A, Cast – Reema, Moammar Rana, Babar Ali, Noor, John Rambo, Veena Malik, Deeba, Shafqat Cheema

     But one cannot understand why the Red Light subject continues to influence Lollywood writer/directors. It is the age of science and technology and new psychological developments. The world and cinema’s demands have changed radically but nothing can change the way Lollywood thinks. Frankly speaking all Lollywood needs to retire, and new talent has to be allowed in if we are to have a film industry.

     The director Altaf Hussain has more than 50 films on his credit, but what can a director do when his hands are tied in several ways e.g. three sifarshi actors and the tight budget of the film. Some flaws can be noticed in direction but overall he did better than Pervaiz Rana or Masood Butt. A production in a limited budget is a tough task from the start. Every department for example costumes, sets, developing of film, advertisement needs a fair budget and due attention. That’s the reason the poor photography of this film leaves bad impression. In those days Meera was fully engrossed in working in Indian movies and even when she was on the set her entire concentration was on getting away to Bombay for the filming of Nazar. Once when hard working choreographer Pappu Samrat was rehearsing and drawing her attention to the required dance movements Meera paid such scant interest to the proceedings that the director was offended enough to snub her and say, "Madam jee. batein choro aur apney kaam ki tarf tawajo karo" . (Madam, stop talking big and concentrate on the work in hand). Saud was hardly any better putting in a mechanical performance with a perennial flat facial expression.

     However, viewers will applaud Veena Malik’s role that outclassed Meera in every way. In the picture she met with several fluctuating situations but successfully managed to deliver all the required expressions. In future one can expect her to take on the role of the solo heroine. By banking on the theory that sex will sell both Meera and Veena are dressed scantily and perform in many explicit scenes but such overt display has a dual effect as women then boycott the film and naturally any film that cannot bring women to the cinema halls shall meet with failure.

     The best part of the film is its music by M. Arshad. The songs are pleasantly melodious, not a single song is an Indian copy. Sun merey sajna, tu hi mera jeevan hey is heart catching and picturized rather well. Overall the picture can be rated C but it paves the way for forthcoming Urdu flicks, Naag aur Nagin, Terey bin Jiya na Jaye and Koi Tujh Sa Kahan - M. Saeed Awan

Cast and Production Credits

Year - 2005, Genre – Drama, Country - Pakistan, Language - Urdu, Producer - N/A, Director - Altaf Hussain, Music Director – M. Arshad, Cast – Meera, Moammar Rana, Veena Malik, Saud