Review: Woodstock Villa / Hastey Hastey
JO CHEATER, WOHI SIKANDAR
The Kher boy makes his debut as a scamster with an eye on the easy buck. Plus, something that sounds like a bad comedy and plays like a bad romance.
JUNE 1, 2008 - IMAGINE AN ITCHY-FINGERED TONY SCOTT TYPE helming an urban-nightmare variation on Vertigo, with a nod or two to Palmetto along the way. Imagine the basic premise of a man watching someone else’s wife die (partly due to his own involvement), then discovering she may not quite have passed into the afterlife. Imagine, even, a scene where Sameer (Sikandar Kher) observes Zara (Neha Uberoi) – the woman, the lookalike of the presumed-dead wife – at the dressing table, where he snatches her lipstick as she begins to layer it on and applies it with his own hands, as if he were the obsessed architect of her reconstruction. And imagine that – that single moment apart, that one instance where the film seemed to be taking a turn towards someplace really interesting – all the psychology, the grand tragedy of it all, had been stripped away, that all that’s left is the empty clickety-clack of pulpy plot machinations, trashily dressed up with jittery camerawork and split-screen editing tricks, and seeped in bleached, rotting colours that make it appear that the shooting took place in Baba Bengali’s adda from No Smoking. That’s about what makes up Hanslal Mehta’s Woodstock Villa.
Years from now, the only thing this film will be remembered for is that it marked the confident debut of Sikandar Kher as – in the words of Gulshan Grover – a “baaad man, a very, very baaad man.” After Neil Nitin Mukesh in the gleefully amoral noir-thriller Johnny Gaddaar and now Kher, I think it’s officially the end of an era, of the days of Kumar Gaurav and Aamir Khan and even Hrithik Roshan being launched as the on-screen equivalent of a soft toy that schoolgirls could cuddle up with in bed. Sameer has no girlfriends to speak of, but plenty of women to sleep with. He has no job – he can’t seem to find one that’ll match his exacting standards – and yet, he drives a Pajero and lives in an apartment that all but sports an I-have-arrived sign on the doorway. And how is he able to afford this lifestyle? Well, he’s kept afloat by the money he borrowed from the baaad man himself (Gulshan Grover, playing a bhai). If nothing else, it’s refreshing to see young actors making a bid for stardom not as heroes but in characters that would have earlier been dismissed as villains.
Sameer sees an opportunity for easy money – the only kind, according to him – when he’s approached to fake a kidnapping. (This is the Palmetto part.) The wife of a rich businessman (Arbaaz Khan) wants to find out if her husband truly loves her, and she feels she’ll have proof of the fact if he hears she’s been kidnapped and coughs up the ransom instantly. Had Sameer paid heed to the hilariously overripe lines mouthed by his benefactor a scene ago – “Yeh ladkiyan shamshaan aa nahin sakti, lekin pahuncha zaroor sakti hain,” warns the bhai, that dames can be dangerous – he’d not have accepted this flaky assignment. But the subsequent twists and turns aren’t half bad – though I kept asking myself if it wasn’t any inherent goodness about Woodstock Villa so much as its not being yet another bargain-basement comedy – and there’s a satisfying snap to the conclusion. I just wish they’d gotten rid of the speed-breaker songs – there’s one featuring Sanjay Dutt for no apparent reason other than this being a Sanjay Gupta production – but let’s not get too greedy about changes in our cinema. It’ll be a while before we see the end of that era.
IT’S A KNOWN FACT THAT GOOD ACTORS can sit you down by the sheer force of their charisma (or looks, or star power, or whatever) and lead you through a bad movie. Take Serendipity, for instance. It’s a romance about boy and girl who leave it to the fates whether they end up with each other or with the fiancé and the fiancée waiting for them in the sidelines. It’s a wildly improbable series of coincidences and missed connections and what-have-yous, and if – by the end – you’re still watching (and, more importantly, waiting) to see if boy clinches the deal with girl, it’s because they’re played by a moony-eyed John Cusack and a luminous Kate Beckinsale. Cusack manages to add a dash of smarts even to material as silly as this, and Beckinsale, she’s well, Beckinsale, so you want good things to happen to them (even if you already know that, this being mainstream Hollywood, the screenwriter isn’t exactly going to have his heroine carved up by an on-the-loose psycho killer two minutes before the hero knocks on her door).
Why am I talking about Serendipity when the film under consideration is Hastey Hastey? For one thing, there’s a bit about an inscription on a book and something about an item of clothing, along with a finale about an almost-wedding, that transported me to that earlier romance. And it’s also the fact that boy (Neel) and girl (Maya) spend a goodish portion of the story looking for one another – in other words, cue wildly improbable series of coincidences and missed connections and what-have-yous. But since Neel is played by a tired Jimmy Sheirgill (that spark he showed in Maachis and Haasil has now dulled beyond recognition) and Maya is played by a generic clotheshorse named Nisha Rawal – you could swap her with half-a-dozen other Bollywood-come-latelys and you wouldn’t know the difference – there’s absolutely nothing to hold on to, nothing to root for, nothing to lead you through this bad movie.
Fans of Rajpal Yadav, however, will find three reasons to flock to the theatres, for the actor essays a triple role, each one more painful than the next – as Neel’s best buddy Sunny, as Sunny’s uncle who thinks Sunny may have a thing for Neel, as Sunny’s father who witnesses Sunny making out with an American girlfriend. Yadav hogs entire stretches of screen time, so it appears, at times, that Neel’s story is almost an afterthought. That story, in case you’re interested, has to do with Neel falling for Maya, and leaving her behind – they’re in the US – when he pursues a business opportunity in India. He returns to find that Maya has moved on – or has she? After all, as the motivational speaker – yes, this is a film with a motivational speaker dispensing chicken soup-isms about life and love and such – points out at the beach, as he picks up a starfish that’s been stranded by high tide, Neel and Maya need one another just like the starfish needs the sea. Now you see why the likes of John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale come in handy?
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Hey.. I unfortunately watched “Woodstock Villa” on this saturday..yes, unfortunately as am still having a headache. Mr. Brangan, I love your reviews…but got confused when I was reading this one about Woodstock villa..did u like it? As for me, I didn’t like it at all. If you think the ending was slightly better than the rest, watch this Spanish movie “Swindled”.. I guess the ending is somewhat inspired from that movie.
satya: I though this kinda said that I didn’t exactly mind the film: “But the subsequent twists and turns aren’t half bad – though I kept asking myself if it wasn’t any inherent goodness about Woodstock Villa so much as its not being yet another bargain-basement comedy – and there’s a satisfying snap to the conclusion.” Will look out for Swindled. Thanks.
Since you brought up Serendipity, Cusack has a new movie out called War Inc. which is suposed to be “Wag the Dog” for Iraq. He has been out doing promos for the movie and I get the feeling he is exactly like the character he plays in High Fidelity (One of GRCA’s favorites by the way). Slightly Paranoid, lives in Chicago and really into his rock music. I have a sneaking suspicion he just plays himself in a lot of his succesful movies and gets away with it simply because he just exudes affability.
Deepauk M: Try to believe this, but I’ve only seen 3 John Cusack movies thus far: Con Air, Runaway Jury and Must Love Dogs (He and Diane Lane were absolutely awesone in this one, no?). Never heard of Serendipity. Must check it out, even though it sounds like brangan’s definitely not coming at it from a “recommendation” angle, what with “..even to material as silly as this” and all. (Hey, one less in the much-too-crowded sentimental-fool camp, what can I say?)
And those memories of Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai — raked up by the mention of Hrithik Roshan in the Woodstock piece — formed a potent mulch out of which grew my renewed love for its songs (especially that one Lucky Ali number) once I read the Aditi piece. KNPH is a special one coz it marked my transition (finally!) from tapes to CD. Listening to it after what feels like ages now, and it’s unbelieveable how evergreen that album is, all things considered.
Sagarika: you haven’t seen Being John Malkovich or The Thin Red Line? Please rent the DVDs, quickly. Another Cusack film which I thought was very interesting (though it’s one of those films you feel embarrassed about liking) was the serial-killer psycho-drama Identity. He also had a very funny early role in Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog.
Jai: Yup, Being John Malkovich has been on my list of must-see movies forever now. I’ve even been “yelled at” by co-workers for not having seen it. The stars haven’t aligned yet, is all I have to say in my defense! But thanks, and I’ll add the other movies (except Identity. I’m assuming this is the movie brangan alludes to in closing his first para above. I’ve progressively lost the stomach for serial-killer type movies. I’m the person who rented American Psycho last year, saw the photo on the DVD sleeve, read the synopsis and took it right back in!) to my list.
I don’t think Baradwaj was alluding to Identity in that sentence, it was just a general reference to teen slasher movies. Ref. American Psycho - read the book, it’s superb, and has the added advantage that you’re not likely to jump out of your chair screaming while reading it.
Where is the Indy 4 review, Brangan? Are you, like many of us in denial that this crap-o-rama did not happen?
Deepauk M: Oh High Fidelity - lovely book, lovely movie. One of my all-time-favourite movie moments is Jack Black jiving to I’m Walkin’ on Sunshine. Just thinking of it makes me smile
Sagarika/Jai: Yeah, that line was just a general reference, not to Identity. And speaking of Cusack and Allen, Bullets over Broadway is a riot too. Oh, and American Psycho is a great movie — though not exactly a “serial killer movie” in the traditional Halloween/Nightmare on Elm Street sense.
anon: I just don’t get this animosity towards Indy 4. I had a great time watching the film. Oh, by the way, no review, but I talk about it in this weekend’s column.
All this talk of John Cusack and not a single mention of “Say Anything”? What’s wrong with you people?:-)
“The world is full of guys. Be a man. Don’t be a guy.” How can one not love a movie with a line like that?:-)
Shalini: If you’re talking great lines from Say Anything, here’s what I’d vote for: “I gave her my heart. She gave me a pen.”
Say Anything is replete with quotes that will help you with the ladies. All the movies that jabberwock mentioned with the addition of maybe Runaway Jury are the most atypical Cusack movies. Of course the only thing that was running through my mind as I watched was “How does Kaufman think of this stuff?”.
Rangan: I was about to mention Black’s incredible suporting role but didnt want to ramble on unrelatedly. If you liked Black you should watch him in “Bongwater” . It was a disappointing movie ( probably because I thought it was a documentary on the Bay of Bengal ) but Jack Black almost single handedly saves the movie with his brilliant cameo.
You can see young John Cusack in “The Grifters”. A nicely done noir, according to me. It also has great one-liners. And a surprisingly different Annette Benning.
brangan (and Ravi K, if you are reading): I have little doubt that my find of the day is the very definition of serendipity! Check it out. (It was with much separation anxiety that I took The Conversations back to the library on its due date, so to now find some of its best exchanges archived online is to me a God-send.)
Hi Baradwaj,
Glad that you liked Indy 4. It was perfect time pass and I too found some review a bit harsh. Looking forward to your column on that. But, why no review? It’s unfair…
hari ohm: yeah, a “different” bening all right. In all her later movies, she wore clothes
Suganth: Actually, it was more than time-pass for me, and I’ve been wondering what exactly were people expecting from this film (for it to have gotten these reactions?)
brangan - you got that right
Oh and indy 4 was just the usual masala. The action scenes were fantastic. But the whole mumbo jumbo regarding the skull went over my head. Will look forward to your write-up.
I wish they’d got rid of Amar Mohile and DOP…didnt work for me
pls watch 1408, a slick horror film starring john cusack…. just another film where he displays his acting skills effortlessly….
vinita: I just got done reading these two stories from Stephen King’s collection, Everything’s Eventual that I chanced upon at the library this week (a month and a half from the date on this review): “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French” followed by, yes, “1408.”
While the former is a story of a woman’s personal hell, the latter (which is the Cusack movie adaptation you refer to, and hence obviously know) is all about how the writer of haunted-house tour guides finally encounters the real thing. For once, I’d love to watch the movie AFTER I’ve read the book/story (it’s almost always been the other way around) - will keep an eye out for the 1408 DVD, thanks.
To close off all that High Fidelity talk up here at #3 & #9, here are some fav quotes from a recent viewing…
“We have one of those conversations where everything clicks, meshes, corresponds, locks, where even our pauses, even our punctation marks, seem to be nodding in agreement.”
“Should I bolt every time I get that feeling in my gut when I meet someone new? Well, I’ve been listening to my gut since I was 14 years old, and frankly speaking, I’ve come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.”
“If you *really* wanted to screw me up, you should’ve gotten to me earlier.”
“Now, the making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do’s and don’ts. First of all, you ‘re using someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing.”