Raees

Raees is Shah Rukh Khan time traveling to the eighties in aviator style frames (his character has a vision problem), shirts with shoulder epaulets and several colorful rotary phones at his disposal. Director Rahul Dholakia’s DeLorean-esque powers place Shah Rukh in a coastal town in Gujarat, which is looking for a savior, although the town does not know that yet.

Before we jump into the movie, some trivia action first. Skip on to the next paragraph, if you are not into such 'trivial' stuff. Gujarat, the home state of the current Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi is a realm of contradictions. It has the longest coastline (990 miles) of any Indian state but not many people are into seafood. They prefer thin flat-breads of varying thinness ending with 'la' or 'li' to dead fish any day. It is a state known for its tough Hindu identity politics but also has a sizeable Muslim population; both communities are known for their entrepreneurial spirit. It is also a ‘dry’ state, the sale and consumption of alcohol is banned 24/365, but it remains one of the biggest markets for illicit liquor in India, with special features including home delivery.

Raees Aslam, the main character played by Shah Rukh is a Muslim bootlegger/ multi-talented entrepreneur(all Gujaratis are entrepreneurs of some sort, but not all entrepreneurs are Gujaratis) who insists that he would not mix religion with business and holds true to his word for most of the story. The film is all about Raees-the man aka Shah Rukh Khan. So if you are not into Shah Rukh, beat it. Or better still, hang around, Shah Rukh does give many opportunities in this film for you to trash him with his signature mannerisms  peek-booing into his performance not very infrequently.

Then there is the inimitable Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the honest cop Majmudar who has a weakness for all things in writing. The beautiful Pakistani actress Mahira Khan stars as Shah Rukh's lady love.  Maybe it's make up, maybe it's Mahira (I suspect it is make-up on both sides), while Shah Rukh manages to look younger, Mahira succeeds in looking older thereby bridging their couple of decades worth of age gap in real life rather skillfully. 

The ubiquitous Indian drink - chai (tea), in shot-glass sized cups makes numerous appearances not only as a drink, but as strategic props and pointers to help the chai-drinking bootleggers and co. keep one step ahead in the game of whoever is chasing them at the moment - be it the cops or other really wicked bootleggers. When liquor flows like water, it is chai you crave for - is the moral of the story.

Raees is pure Bollywood masala in a realistic setting. The streets of Bhuj where the movie is shot adds an indisputable made-in-Gujarat seal. Music and songs which can make or  break a Bollywood blockbuster is just the right mix tape, with different music directors or bands composing each song, that DJ ordered, for making Raees a success. All in all I'd consider Raees a well-aged Bollywood moonshine.

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Inspirational Songs : Tamil, Malayalam & Hindi

Almost a year ago, I compiled a list of inspirational /motivational songs in this blog. Though all of these were in English that post shows up as one of the top results in Google if you search for Tamil inspirational songs and a lot of people seem to be searching for inspiration in Tamil.

If you are seeking uplifting Tamil songs I am not the best person to provide an answer. But one Tamil song has been making rounds in our house(and probably every South Indian household with an internet connection) for the past week. It is one of the most viewed songs in YouTube this past month, with 15 million views and counting, you know what I am talking about – Why this Kolaveri Kolaveri Di. Way to go Dhanush, Aishwarya and Anirudh Ravichander. It is from the movie 3 starring Dhanush and Shruti Hassan.

From Tamil onto Malayalam - one of the most difficult languages to write rock songs and my native language. When I saw Vineet Sreenivasan’s Malarvadi Arts Club, the closing scenes of the movie feature ‘supposedly’ a rock song. At that time I had wonderedand wished out loud that Vineet should’ve let Avial – the first real rock band to come out of Mallu land to compose and perform that song instead of the insipid piece that was in the movie. It looks like some film maker had the same idea as me (and a million others, I am sure.) Salt N Pepper one of the really watchable movies of 2011 hands the screen over to Avial and their musical extravaganza to provide a rocking end to the film. Performed by Avial for Salt n Pepper, here’s Aanakallan. Rock on, Malayalis!

With Tamil and Malayalam covered, how can I ignore Bollywood? Everyone might have an opinion about Ra-One and I have an opinion about his Chammak Challo. With music by Vishal Shekhar and sung by Akon, aimed to rope in a global audience, Chammak Challo is guarenteed to sizzle you. For added entertainment watch the video instead of just the audio, Bollywood as you know is all about color, emotions and music, it has to be enjoyed as a combo package and Chammak Challo will not disappoint.

That's inspiration X 3, in three Indian languages - Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi, take your pick.

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Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

Hindi movies are learning to laugh at their own heroes or like the trends in fashion, old styles are becoming vogue again. No longer is the hero invincible even when wounded like so many of Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man roles in the seventies and the eighties. It is more like Raj Kapoor's bashful yet funny tramp of the fifties is making a comeback

Shahrukh Khan's Surinder Sahni in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a simpleton who harbors no high hopes or lofty ambitions for himself. He is the quintessential middle-class urban Indian who is found in large numbers in state and central govt. offices and a very self-effacing one at that. He undersells himself, but being a character in a successful Hindi movie he ends up winning (I am willing to excuse that, considering Shahrukh Khan trying to undersell himself even though it is just for a movie role, might have been a huge task for King Khan.)
But don't worry ShahRukh gets do his histrionics in Surinder Sahni's Mr.Hyde avatar - Raj. Raj is the over the top Punjabi munda, who is what the simpleton Sahni morphs into under the cover of night, to woo his wife -Tani played by Anushka Sharma. One jarring thing I found in Shahrukh-Anushka coupling is that the fresh faced youthful Ms.Sharma accentuates Shahrukh's wrinkles. She holds her ground even in the presence of the mighty Khan, but IMHO ShahRukh should probably go for more mature heroines now.

It is definitely a crowd-puller as the box office counters have attested by now. Its plus point (or minus point for you) is, it is a lot bearable that older ShahRukh Khan commercial successes like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai or Yash Raj Film's earlier block-busters like Dil To Paagal Hai.

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Chak De India

I went through a barrage of movies last month and do not have an ounce of motivation to write reviews except for one - probably the best Bollywood movie I've seen in a while after Aamir - the film that made me hit the computer key board again is Chak De India. This Shah Rukh Khan starrer, with a predictable story line about the rise of an under-dog sports team is one of the well-made, perfectly balanced movies in the recent years.

Like the story, the movie is also the triumph of team effort. You have the Bollywood superstar King Khan, his signature 'King' mannerisms toned down to the bare minimum or practically naught. The film-makers have put together a believable team of girls as the national Women's hockey team picked from various parts of India. I do not know how they went about casting this team, it is so diverse and perfectly cast that it is hard to believe this is not a real team! I reserve my best of the best awards to the script-writer Jaideep Sahni and the director Shimit Amin - they are the ones who had the power to make or break this movie and they did what they wanted to do!

It is a run-of-the-mill story about an under-dog team coming from behind and beating the odds and giving a fitting reply to its detractors. Hindi movies have successfully tried to showcase the underdog sports-person, like in Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander(which was a well-adapted copy of Breaking Away) but Jo Jeeta... was not a true sports film. It had ample Bollywood romance and villainy, buxom girls prancing around trees and dreamy-eyed boys chasing them, sports just added an additional flavor like the desi-favorite Cassata icecream. Then there was Lagaan(India's Oscar entry in 2002) where I'd say Aamir Khan directed his role himself instead of the director, Ashutosh Gowariker. Lagaan because of its sweet 'syrupiness' didn't make as much an impact on me as it did on the rest of the Indian populace, but it was a well-made film that made use of our nation's cricket fever and penchant for breaking off into songs at the drop of a err..ball.

On the contrary Chak De India has nothing but sports and for a change, it is not cricket! India's national game - field hockey finally gets its due and a Bollywood movie starring Shah Rukh Khan! It is the game which won India it's first Olympic gold (Men's hockey,1928 Amsterdam) but is often forgotten under the shadow of the other more popular game in India - cricket.

Chak De India is a loaded movie, the messages it tries to pass on are subtly conveyed, quite opposite to what the conventional Bollywood wisdom would advise. The movie is one of the few which has taken up the cause of the dark horse without explicitly coming on to your face with its messages. In fact there is more than one dark horse. Field hockey is one, women as a gender is another, being the representative of a misunderstood minority(Kabir Khan - the role of the coach played by Shah Rukh Khan) is another.

None of these issues are thrust on to the viewer. If you belong to 'time-pass' denomination you might never see the issues the film tries to bring to light and would be able view it as a pure entertainment package tinged with excitement of a sports event. If you are the serious kind, it has material for intellectual rumination as well. The success (it was the third highest grossing movie of 2007) of the movie is that it was able to tap into both kind of audience,which is a very rare event in Hindi film-dom.

Although the title is Chak De "India", thanks to the story and the script there is no over-the-top nationalistic jingoism. That is what amazes me the most about this movie, its restraint on a subject which could've easily been over-done, like a perfectly cooked shrimp(:-P) in this aspect Review: Chak de!

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Om Shanti Om

Today is so not an Om-Shanti-Om day. It is overcast,cloudy and even the rain has forgotten how to unburden itself, typical of the summer this year. In contrast, Om Shanti Om(here after called OSO) is all summery, colorful, cheery, loud, bombastic, groovy, best served by Bollywood and only Bollywood.

OSO has everything Bollywood is famous for - a double dose of a superstar (Shah Rukh Khan in a double role), a beautiful leading lady (debutante Deepika Padukone). The hero is accessorized by a filmy Mom(Kirron Kher), an entertaining side-kick(played by Shreyas Talpade) who has no aspirations for himself, the centuries old hangover of the obedient Lakshman serving the King Ram(ref:Ramayana).The sweet innocence and overwhelming charm of the hero is held in check by a villian who as usual is more sophisticated and westernized(thereby really really evil) than the hero himself. This time that mantle falls on Arjun Rampal.

Like the hero and the heroine, plot is also BOGO(Buy One Get One Free.) Well, that's how the hero and the heroine got double roles in the first place. Multiple choice question: Reincarnation or Twins? The director-story writer Farah Khan chose reincarnation, it gives better mileage across decades. Made in the 'Karz' template(is there a more successful reincarnation movie than Karz ever?), we start in the seventies where Shah Rukh Khan is Om Prakash Makhija, a junior artist who wants to make it big in Bollywood one day. He is in love with his screen idol - Shantipriya(most of Bollywoods #1 heroines except Madhuri Dixit were from South India, thus a South-Indian name, I guess.) Deepika Padukone is fresh, beautiful and an Indian a face you could ask for in a Bollywood heroine. I failed to mention talented, especially for a new-comer. His 'dashingness' Mr.Arjun Rampal is her object of affection in the film. Not going to reveal the story much further, as if there is anyone left in the Indian subcontinent and the NRI continent who has not seen this already.

It's fun to see the Bollywood of the yester-years in color, 'Shantipriya' digitally inserted into old movie clips(Forrest Gump style) cavorting with leading men long gone. There are jabs at all the famous actors, careless hints about famous movies placed at careful spots through out the script, a song that brings in the old and the new faces of Bollywood - lots of color and music in a fast groovy tempo. Vishal-Shekar's music is catchy and blends in(and adds) to the hungama of the movie.

Shahrukh reincarnates as Om Kapoor - a Bollywood heart-throb and Deepika(aka Shantipriya) comes back as Sandy,a wannabe actress. With the reversal of roles and fortunes, King Khan has more power - which means more songs, more masti and a sure defeat of the villian in the cards, who unfortunately ages 30 years, no reincarnation for him, but luckily looks just as handsome. I loved the way movie ended where everyone from the hero to the spot-boy walks down the red-carpet.

Whatever the reviews, Om Shanti Om ruled the domestic and international box-office at the fag end of 2007, continues the same with DVD sales. A winner for Farah, ShahRukh and the team. Leave your brain at the door, enter the world of Bollywood masala, don't wear seat-belts(you might feel an involuntary urge to get up and dance), forget Kurosawa, Ray, Bergman, Scorsese(if you can't, get out, this movie is not for you anyway) and enjoy the ride. Review: Well done, Farah.

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Swades: Movie Review

After long Bollywood makes a commercial movie that is up to the current standards of world cinema - thank you Ashutosh Gawarikar! A Hindi movie cannot do without its quintessential songs and melodrama - that is what makes it a Bollywood movie. It is an artform by itself, but how can you make it a competitive film appealing to world audience, Swades is the answer. 

 Even ShahRukh Khan, the immutable stammering, stuttering, lover boy of Indian cinema has broken free of his stereotypical role and played the role of a confused young scientist with passion. A.R.Rahman's songs are mind blowing - hats off to the maestro. After almost sixty years of independence Indians finally realize that they should have something else to show off other than the oft repeated 'great heritage and history'. 

Swades asks the much unsavory question to the current Indian junta - "what do you have to boast about your present?" Inspired by the true story of two young engineers who brought electricity to a village in Maharashtra, Swades is a tightly knit film which gets as close as it can to the real life in Bollywood terms.

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