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8X10 Tasveer
In the first ten minutes of <I>8X10 Tasveer</I>, director Nagesh Kukunoor establishes that his lead Jai, played by Akshay Kumar, a forest officer can stay underwater for four minutes, run like an Olympic athlete, jump off a 100-foot cliff and enter into photographs and divine past events.
In fact, Jai rarely has a dull day. Soon after, his father dies in an accident on a yacht, appropriately named Golmaal. Slowly Jai starts to suspect that the accident was a murder and he enters his father’s last photograph to figure out what happened.
Several other people, all of whom have good motives for murder were also on the boat. The catch is that Jai can’t stay in the memory for longer than a minute otherwise he’ll die.
I’m not sure who made up that rule but it means that Jai has to keep revisiting Golmaal to get <I>Rashomon</I>-like glimpses of the truth and piece together the entire picture.
The premise is promising, but Nagesh, who also wrote the script, moves at a somnambulistic pace in the first half. It’s the first time the director of films like <I>Hyderabad Blues</I> and <I>Iqbal</I>, is working with a major star and budget so he can’t resist giving us glimpses of beauteous Canada and Akshay in hero mode.
There are mountains, mansions, cycling and suspects giving suspicious looks. Nagesh also keeps Akshay on a tight leash. In places he is so restrained, he seems to be sleep walking.
Thankfully, things start to get peppier in the second half, when the narrative takes some unexpected twists and turns including a deliciously bad babe, swinging a lethal weapon.
<I>8 X 10 Tasveer</I> requires a serious suspension of disbelief — the characters themselves keep saying things like <I>ye kitna crazy sound karta hai</I>.
The back story is superbly silly and Nagesh doesn’t bother to tie together the threads. Characters appear and disappear randomly and the film’s internal logic is comically faulty. But if you’re willing to overlook these football size loopholes, there is some fun to be had.
Nagesh creates moments of genuine suspense and tension; Akshay and his love interest, played by Ayesha Takia, get feisty in the second half and the scenic Alberta is breathtaking.
<I>Tasveer</I> is, as we say in Mumbai, time-pass. Catch it if you have nothing else going on.
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Angels and Demons
<b>Special</b>: <a href=’http://movies.ndtv.com/NDTV-Show-Special.aspx?ID=135′; target="blank" style=’color:#003399′; target="blank"><b>Picture This</b></a>
<I>The Da Vinci Code</I>, directed by Ron Howard, based on a book by Dan Brown and starring Tom Hanks as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, was the 27th highest grosser in film history. Naturally then, there must be a sequel.
Howard, Brown and Hanks reunite for <I>Angels and Demons</I>, which has Langdon racing around Rome, attempting to save Vatican City from vaporizing into smoke. A highly explosive substance known as anti-matter has been stolen from a laboratory and placed somewhere in the Vatican. It will detonate in five hours.
Four cardinals have been kidnapped and are being brutally murdered-one per hour . Meanwhile, a globally televised papal election is underway. This dastardly plot might be the handiwork of an ancient secret society called the Illuminati.
Or someone within the Vatican might be plotting the downfall of the Catholic Church. Only Langdon, the agnostic interpreter of arcane symbols, clues and languages can save the day.<I>Angels and Demons</I> moves at a bristling pace. It is a vast improvement on the mind-numbingly plodding <I>Da Vinci Code</I>.
The action-murders, brandings, ticking bomb, hidden clues-is breathless. And in between the frantic twists and turns, there is lots of chatter.
Everyone talks a lot. Langdon and his side-kick, an attractive Italian scientist, are constantly explaning things. So much of the dialogue sounds like this: An obelisk! A kind of pyramid adopted by the Illuminati! Of course <I>Angels and Demons</I> wants to be more than just a thriller.
The film has pretensions to profundity. It wants to make lofty statements on science, religion, faith. The hitch is that the plot is nonsensical. Several twists and turns will have you asking: what just happened? If you look for logic, <i>Angels and Demons</i> will collapse like a pack of cards.
So, my advice is do what you do for most Bollywood films: suspend disbelief and don’t ask too many questions. Just sit back and take in the fabulous sights and sounds of Rome; the stellar star cast; the high-end production values.
For undemanding viewers who have been starved of big-screen entertainment for two months now, Angels and Demons can be a serviceable thriller. Check it out.
<b>Special</b>: <a href=’http://movies.ndtv.com/NDTV-Show-Special.aspx?ID=135′; target="blank" style=’color:#003399′; target="blank"><b>Picture This</b></a>
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Aa Dekhen Zara
At one point in <I>Aa Dekhen Zara</I>, someone declares “camera plus photo equals future plus daulat.” That might be true of the characters in the film, especially of Ray, a wildlife photographer who inherits a camera that can photograph the future. But for us viewers, camera plus photo equals only staggering boredom.
The film, directed and written by debutant Jehangir Surti, begins on a promising note. Ray, played by Neil Nitin Mukesh, is struggling to make ends meet when his grandfather dies, leaving him a non-descript looking camera. But Ray soon discovers that the camera has mysterious powers. It predicts the future, including Ray’s impending death.
It’s a snazzy concept and for the first twenty minutes or so, Surti builds up the suspense nicely. But then inexplicably, the script written by Shirshak Anand and Shantanu Ray, goes south with a ferocious speed.
Sophie Chaudhary shows up with very few clothes and bee-stung lips that seem to have a life of their own; Rahul Dev starts shooting at anything that moves; and the glorious Bipasha Basu, usually a fitting femme fatale, wears inexplicably unattractive clothes and a glum expression that only lets up when she does a bewildering item number in a Bangkok Bar called, believe it or not, The Cheap Charlie Club.
<I>Aa Dekhen Zara</I> is painfully inconsistent and doesn’t stay true to even its own warped logic. At one point, a photograph shows Ray that he will be pursued on a flight by sharp shooter Rahul Dev and yet when Ray spots him, he seems totally surprised.
Neil Mukesh has a strangely inert presence. Even though people are dropping like flies around him, he seems largely unmoved. The lack of chemistry between him and Basu doesn’t help the film either.
Surti tries to impart a sense of urgency by giving us a count down to the climax but by then you are beyond caring. What could have been a fun popcorn movie is a thriller without thrills. See it if you must.
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Detective Naani
As the title suggests, <I>Detective Naani</I> is a simple story about a granny (Ava Mukherjee) who has those intrinsic detective traits to her. She may not be trained like the CID officers she comes in contact with as the story progresses, and nor is she expected to be physically agile like youngsters.
Still, this 75-year-old lady has decades of experience behind her and a ’strong instinct’ factor that makes her see things that others may ignore.
This is where the film’s basic plot comes into the picture as ‘naani’ suspects something fishy going on in her neighbourhood. She has a strong reason to believe that children in her locality are going missing. But no one wants to believe her. Her approaching the cops too proves to be futile and it is left entirely to her to get her own team - a bunch of youngsters, her grandchildren and a few other friendly neighbourhood folks - together and solve the mystery.
But this journey to the bottom takes its own time and it does become a little tiring intermittently. All you want to know is the ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ behind the mysterious happenings but filmmaker Romilla Mukherjee brings in other Bollywood masala elements to overtly dramatise the affair.
However, as is a mandatory requirement of any suspense flick, the end should keep you interested in the proceedings and this is what happens in case of <I>Detective Naani</I> as well. After a good beginning and an average middle portion, the last few reels manage to pull back the movie, saving it from being an entirely lame exercise.
What impresses most about the movie are the tricks that ‘naani’ applies to find the culprits. The clues that she detects to move a step ahead may not be the kind that one finds in the theory book, but they have a practical touch to them.
From the performance standpoint, the film was meant to be the ‘naani’ affair all the way and Ava Mukherjee doesn’t disappoint. Though a known face on the commercial circuit, she has been doing films only sparsely - she was earlier seen in <I>Darna Zaroori Hai</I> and <I>Devdas</I>. <I>Detective Naani</I> is the first time that she has been seen as a protagonist in a Bollywood flick.
Ankur Nayyar as the CID officer does quite well too though he comes with the disadvantage of appearing in a film where he primarily has a supporting role.
The film’s music is boring, though the background score is reasonably good.
It’s easy to dismiss a film based on just the title, genre and the star cast. The same applies to <I>Detective Naani</I>, which arrives sans any promotion, has unknown faces and isn’t quite forthcoming of its genre - is it comedy, a family film or a thriller?
But if one keeps all these aside and focuses just on the story and its execution, it’s not a bad watch at all. <I>Detective Naani</I>, which has first-timer Romilla Mukherjee taking up the multiple responsibilities of a producer, director, lyricist, composer and screenplay writer, isn’t the summer kiddie flick that you were waiting for.
Still, if you have absolutely nothing else to watch and are through with your daily dose of IPL, <I>Detective Naani</I> is all right for lazy weekend viewing.
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Frozen
<I>Frozen</I> is a difficult film. First, it was staggeringly difficult to make. <I>Frozen</I> was entirely shot 12,000 feet above sea level, in Ladakh. Debutant director Shivajee Chandrabhushan and his crew braved temperatures of -5 to -30 degrees to bring alive this story of a villager Karma, played by Danny Dengzongpa and his daughter Lasya, played by Gauri.
Karma, Lasya and her younger brother Chomo struggle against the unforgiving landscape. Their harsh but peaceful way of life is slowly pulverized by progress. The army sets base close to their home. Karma’s hand-made jams can no longer compete with factory-produced goods.
And the family slowly sinks under a mountainous debt with rapacious money-lenders closing in for the kill. Lasya negotiates the landscape and her aggressors with a fierce unrelenting will. Despite the circumstances, she endures.
<I>Frozen</I> isn’t an easy watch either. The film is a testament to Shivajee’s two passions–mountaineering and photography–and to his immense talent. Shot in black and white, <I>Frozen</I> is visually stunning. Each frame is exquisitely composed. But <I>Frozen</I> is also staggeringly still.
In long stretches, the narrative itself seems frozen. Shivajee isn’t so much telling a story as creating textures and moods of a landscape that is hostile but it’s also home. The voice-over device is only intermittently successful. The film is deliberately arty but not always engaging. Danny Dengzongpa brings a quiet grace to his role as the stoically struggling villager. But <I>Frozen</I> belongs to Gauri. Her agile, expressive face is as haunting as the mountains around her.
How much you enjoy <I>Frozen</I> depends on what you look for in the movies. There are no push-button emotions or instant gratification here. It’s slow, at times excruciatingly so, and curiously inert. But it’s also overwhelmingly beautiful. Frozen is an acquired taste. You will either savor its stillness or be left, forgive the pun, absolutely cold.
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Ek: the Power of One
Can you handle the idea of a sexually frisky Nana Patekar? Can you bear to see the National Award-winning actor play Rane, a CBI officer who hops into bed with prostitutes, flirts sleazily with buxom maids and comments on cleavage whenever he gets the opportunity.
If not, then don’t go near <i>Ek: The power of one</i>.
If Nana in heat isn’t enough to put you off, then director Sangeeth Sivan offers you plenty that will. There’s Bobby Deol, wearing his singular grim professional killer expression - one that you might recognise from other films in which he played an assassin - <i>Bichoo</i> and <i>Chamku</i>. Unfortunately, the actor also seems to be having the worst hair day seen on screen since Mimoh Chakraborty showed off his bonded locks in <i>Jimmy</i>.
Bobby plays Nandu, the killer who reforms after he is adopted by a large, loving Punjabi family who mistake him for their long-lost son. Of course in this kind of film, being Punjabi means constantly doing the <i>bhangra</i> or drinking <i>lassi</i> or driving tractors in swaying mustard fields.
Eventually however, Nandu’s past and Rane catch up with him and he is forced to return to his killer ways and settle some unfinished business.
<i>Ek</i>, a remake of Telegu blockbuster <i>Athadu</i>, is the kind of high decibel, low IQ film that makes you feel like you’ve been bludgeoned in a dark alley. It’s ugly, gratuitously violent and morally specious. And just when you think it can’t get worse, it does.
Kulbhushan Kharbanda playing the Punjabi patriarch gives a lengthy, totally mystifying speech about watching the sun set and the birds fly home. Shriya Saran, playing the coy love interest, delivers seven expression when just one would suffice perhaps to make up for Bobby’s lack of variety.
And perhaps the unkindest cut of all, the shrill and consistently intolerable Upasana Singh, shows up as a shrieky <i>bua</i>.
In an interview Sivan had said that <i>Ek</i> is <i>Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jeyenge</i> meets <i>Die Hard</i>. I struggled to find even a flash of those films here but it proved impossible.
I recommend that you steer clear of <i>Ek</i> and re-discover the power of those blockbusters instead.
