Review: Summer 2007 / Mere Baap Pehle Aap
CAUSE AND AFFECT
Five youngsters take up the good fight in an imperfect drama that strikes a chord nonetheless. Plus, Akshaye Khanna, yet again in a comedy that barely scrapes through.
JUNE 15, 2008 - WHETHER IN FICTION OR ON FILM, summer is the most popular of settings for coming-of-age tales, and while the over-privileged quintet of friends in Summer 2007 has already come of age – they’re in medical school – there’s a different sort of growing-up in store for them that titular season. That’s when they learn about people not as privileged as they are, and that’s when their collective apathy – to issues other than those of the heart (and body parts more southwards) – transforms to collective awakening and angst. Summer 2007 is, in other words, the latest in a line of be-the-change-you-didn’t-know-you-want-to-see films, and it channels both its predecessors, Rang De Basanti (the youngsters are roused into action in ways they wouldn’t have believed capable of them, in areas that the cocoon of college-life has hardly prepared them for) and Swades (it’s the driven-to-suicide plight of farmers in a remote village that results in this transformation).
First-time director Suhail Tatari, clearly a believer of not fixing things that ain’t broke, adheres faithfully to the Rang De Basanti template. He bisects his film neatly into the pre-interval, before-transformation stage and the subsequent, post-change section, so we get to know the characters as they are, and then move on to what they become and what they do. At first, we glimpse Rahul (Sikander Kher), Qateel (a nicely laid-back Arjan Bajwa) and Bagani (Alekh Sangal) sharing a joint, when Qateel sees a newspaper headline and wonders who Priyadarshini Mattoo is. Rahul says she’s the one who was raped, and Bagani – the virgin of the group, like Sharman Joshi in Rang De Basanti – pipes in that he may be desperate, but he’d never think of rape as a resort to scratch his itch. As you can see, Tatari is laying it on rather thickly – the only thing he doesn’t do is have this self-involved trio wear “We Don’t Care” T-shirts – but then, this isn’t intended as a subtle film.
Summer 2007 wants to bludgeon you on the head with its message, and in order to buy that message – that if these kids can try to make a difference, so can we – you need to buy the characters first, and that’s what Tatari works at early on. And slowly, from the generic blur of moneyed twentysomethings, distinct personalities begin to emerge. There’s Priyanka (Uvika Chaudhary), the fashion-plate bimbette who cannot accept that her relationship with Rahul is over. Bagani is, of course, looking to get laid, while Qateel is such a smooth operator with the ladies, he flirts even with his mother. (They’re having a phone conversation while she’s getting a pedicure, and he can’t help breaking into the famous line from Pakeezah, advising her to keep her feet away from the ground, lest they become soiled.)
But it’s Rahul and Vishakha (Gul Panag) who are in charge of the heavy lifting in the group, as the friends – looking to do “rural service” – land up in the kind of village where a loudspeaker blares out an announcement whenever someone gets a call. (There’s only one telephone in the area.) And what’s refreshing is that, instead of the lovable eccentrics that Ashutosh Gowariker, in Swades, populated his rural landscape with – an aspect that added a touch of romanticism to the protagonist’s journey, making it easier for him (and for us) to follow his newfound convictions – what we have here are locals as indifferent and unwelcoming as the overworked, underpaid doctor (Ashutosh Rana, sinking his teeth into a meaty part after ages), who doesn’t miss a beat when the new arrivals offer bribes in order to get their certificates of completion. He needs the money to continue his work; about their education, about impressing on them the value of working towards this result, he couldn’t care less.
No wonder Priyanka squeals, “This is hell” – especially after they get a sense of the numerous demons lurking in the shadows, in the form of a ruthless usurer (Vikram Gokhale), his no-good, womanising son (Prashant Narayanan, in a jolt-of-raw-energy performance that reminds us that we see far too less of him on screen these days), and the heavyset, lathi-wielding goons in their employ. It’s about here that Tatari begins to lose his way, torn between charting out the friends’ transformation with the requisite doses of idealism, and not wanting to come off as too idealistic while laying out various social realities for our consideration – and by the end, I wished he’d made a choice between uplifting fantasy and downbeat reality.
I also wished he’d cast someone stronger in the lead. Sikander Kher is a mountain of a man with a face that’s equally immobile – looking back, his confident debut in Woodstock Villa seems more a function of the dark lighting and the quick cuts that didn’t need him to actually perform – and he comes off like an upscale version of Mahesh Anand, projecting very little of the inner conflict (or the unknown reserves of vulnerability) we need to sense in Rahul. But Gul Panag (playing the conscience of the group, a bleeding heart nicknamed Mother T) locates an impressive middle ground between being inspirational and insufferable, and thanks to her and Rana, if Summer 2007 isn’t all that it could have been – it’s far longer than necessary; the climax portion just goes on and on – it’s still a worthwhile addition to a genre I like to call simply “films that make us feel.”
Sachin Khedekar shows up as some sort of activist-messiah (with that big, benevolent moon of a face, the actor is just about tailor-made for these parts), educating the villagers about micro-credit schemes, and it isn’t what he says that’s important so much as how his listeners react to his story about a woman from a neighbouring village who took advantage of this facility and not only managed to clear her debts but also send her child to school. The men smile, the women have tears running down their cheeks, and I sat there with a little lump in my throat, knowing that, in a couple of days, I’d be back to the self-centred grind of my life, but at least, in those five minutes, I got a glimpse of what it must feel like to be them.
THERE’S A NICE, OLD-FASHIONED TEARJERKER to be made of a son (Akshaye Khanna, as Gaurav) trying to get his father, Janardhan (Paresh Rawal), married off to a childhood sweetheart (Shobhana, wasted as music teacher Anuradha) – hence the title, Mere Baap Pehle Aap – but then, Priyadarshan doesn’t do nice, old-fashioned tearjerkers. He makes “comedies.” So you have Om Puri trying to find a mate for himself, which makes you think the story is a Shaukeen-like take on the fantasies of men of a certain age. But after a while, Shikha (Genelia D’Souza) begins to insinuate herself into Gaurav’s life, by prank-calling him and pretending to be his stashed-away lover – so you feel that theirs may be the love story that’s going to unfold, what with Janardhan beginning to view her as a prospective daughter-in-law.
Somewhere in between, Manoj Joshi pops up as a henpecked husband – he plays Chirag, Gaurav’s elder brother – whose wife is just crying out for the one-tight-slap treatment. (You know, of course, about this time-tested method of taming sharp-tongued, home-wrecking shrews in the Bindu mould; the man whirs about dutifully like a toy wound up by his spouse, until, towards the end, he can take it no more and his right hand connects forcefully with her left cheek; this symbolic assertion of manhood rids her of pesky personality traits like, oh, a mind of her own, and reduces her to something that whirs about dutifully like a toy wound up by her spouse.) And Archana Puransingh contributes a cameo as a cop who orders Om Puri to “take it off,” as the great-actor-turned-great-sport – not realising she was merely referring to his sunglasses – strips down to his underwear.
With all these elements of a supposed mirth-manufacturing machine chugging along at different gears, no one seems to realise that the real story is the one about the inversion of roles between Janardhan and Gaurav. Here, the father is the one who constantly gets reprimanded by the son. The father is the one with the “bad friend” influencing him. The father is the one who dresses up in cool clothes to impress his girl, the one who calls her at her house and hangs up when someone else picks up the phone. By the time the film has finished dragging its feet around and begun to address these aspects – well into the second half – you’ve lost all interest (though these portions are at least bearable, thanks to Rawal), especially with everyone testing your patience by communicating through what appears to be free verse. “To pichhli baaton ki gubbaare hawa mein uda dete hain,” Shikha says to Gaurav, not just suggesting that they forget all that’s happened thus far, but that they release the balloons of the past into the air. By the time I got out of Mere Baap Pehle Aap, I was happy to release every single balloon of the past two-and-a-half hours into the air.
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Why is it that all these films, that work so well in the original Malayalam versions get so botched up when made into bigger budget hindi movies?? Am guessing the whole ‘bigger budget’ actually works against scripts that are beautiful mainly in their simplicity. Sounds like Mere baap… too is a far cry from the subtle humour and brilliant performance of the Malayalam version,’Ishtam’ (am not completely certain thats the title)
Bleh. They both sound the way I imagined they would. Oh well.
Any plans to review Dasavatharam? I really don’t like the sound of it but I’m half intrigued so I was hoping you’d… er, check it out first.
Baradwaj you have outdone yourself,Now which other reviewer out there would ever reference….Mahesh Anand
Actually, Sachin Khedekar’s face lends itself equally well to slimy, nice-outside-cruel-within characters.
Talking of faces, do you also see a likeness between Sikander Kher and Shamita Shetty?
Mickie, you are right…it is Ishtam. That was a simple tale told with great sincerity and some terrific acting by Nedumudi Venu and Dilip. Of course, a Priyadarshan film in Hindi has to be a re-make of either his own or his contemporary’s malayalam film!! He can now officially be known as “The Butcher” (of Mallu cinema re-makes) just like P(ee) Vasu who has sole rights to that title in Tamil!!
All these reviews are nice. When are your thoughts on Dasavatharam coming out. Is it a green, red or amber. I have written my thoughts, but will save it for another day!
Dharu
Mickie: I dobt that Priyadarshan is capable of doing “subtle” any more.
Amrita/Dharu: Not doing a review, as I’m writing a piece for a magazine. But if you want a one-line summation, I thought it was simply terrible — and I say this as someone who’s a fan of both Aalavandhan and Mumbai Xpress.
Sujith: What? But *everyone* knows MA, the one-time BF of Barkha Roy, no? You mean, no one else reads Stardust?
Shuchi: “Sikander Kher and Shamita Shetty?” That’s cracking me up so bad…
Shankar: Ah, you’ve finally exited the woodwork
Does PV remake that many Mallu films in Tamil?
“one-time BF of Barkha Roy”
RESPECK with a K sirji
(yes,I remember illuminating myself with that knowledge from Stardust)
Baddy, ever seen a movie called “Seenu” ? It wins hands down for the worst butchering job of a classic (”Bharatan”…for which Mohanlal won a national award, no less!!)…So, Seenu, Chandramukhi, Kuselan…the track record is there!!
Shankar: Ah, Seenu. Never saw that. For that matter, I don’t think many did
And by the way, how could I have missed making the connection between the recent Vijay movie and your nick? 
Don’t rule out Priyadarsan. he may surprise us with his Kanchipuram ( though I doubt sincerely he would)
And thanks for not reviewing Dasa here. I sincerely hoped you wouldn’t. (And yes, i don’t want to know the name of the magazine that’ll carry your piece). It would’ve been painful to read an honest opinion, probly more painful than watching the film itself turned out to be.
As someone who too liked Aalavanthan and MX, I’ve been wondering as to how such a terribly awful film can come from Kamal. The quantum of effort that was put in makes me desist from using some really harsh words. But in the end it is the product that matters, right? And the hype that preceded it!!
I do sincerely hope that Kamal soon gets out of this fix for prosthetic makeups (that’s the term, right? It makes me think if he is ashamed of his own looks nowadays!!) and gets back to sensible film making.
I’d be happy if one of Kamal’s films really turns out to be a blockbuster, (as the initial reports suggest now) … but then of all his recent films, should this pathetic attempt turn out to be that one?!!
Shankar: Ah, revelations time! So it was you who made that “Kuruvi” confession at Ramsu’s blog the other day. I thought it was a different “Shankar” as I didn’t see a trackback link.
Reminds me of my first crush in college (I was at this engg college in CBE briefly, before the drudgery of a hellish daily routine got to me, sending me fleeing to the heaven that was our alma mater) — a cutish mallu guy named Kuruvilla aka kuruvi (last-name intentionally withheld!). I wrote a poem called “Sparrow” which possibly pecked its way into the college newsletter and got me teased into oblivion (well, if I’d stuck around long enough in CBE, I may have wound up a Syrian-Christian housewife today, given the “crush=love” mindset I was in back then. I desperately needed the no-crush-lasts-longer-than-the-semester straightening-out that our alma mater practically handed us on a platter, phew! “It’s love only if it makes it past the 6-month mark” is the biggest lesson I learned in college. Pretty profound, huh? Oh the vetti vela life that we led.
Shankar, to correct the typo, its ‘Bharatham’. Did see a couple of songs of Seenu on SunTV, horrendous. What’s more, I think he even has the audacity to cast himself in the elder brother’s role, that Nedumudi Venu (again) simply excelled in.
And Baradwaj, I completely agree with your statement on Priytan and subtlety. Btw, did you happen to see his ‘Kanchipuram’, which is supposed to be his attemtp at redemption or something? I did catch a few trailors…
Aw shucks so you are not doing a review on Dasavatharam?? Was so certain it would be worth staying back a day just to read up all the comments on it:-) Somehow I pretty much assumed that one line was what you would be elaborating on, had you done a review.
Leave alone ’subtle’. Does he seem capable of doing ’sensible’ movies anymore?
Going anonymous was unintentional..
That nick followed me from school days…apparently my hair was an unruly mop…like a Koodu!! Funny how nicks manage to have their own lives and supplant your real names!!
Pity, the movie didn’t work!! 
dasa, blockbuster??? i think it’s far from it. in fact, it has been sinking at A centres from day one. should serve right for “aascar” and the ulaganayakan for this muckload. seriously hope we have a version of the razzies here. this one takes the statuette and the freaking stage.
on MBPA, i personally didn’t find “ishtam” any great shakes. wondering how far priyan can screw up an already so-so original.
hmm.. So no Dasa review eh.. Wrote one myself out of the angst I had watching it.
Kamal’s last sincere effort was Virumandi First half. That second half onwards he has just been on an ego trip and has never returned (includes MX but not Vettaiyadu.. ). Only if this 2.5 yrs and the 100 crores had been used for a better and more sincere output .. All said and done, Dasa is still once worth a watch.
When will be the review from my Fav reviewer for my Fav actor’s most hyped film ?:))
Ok- have to make a trip to Tirupathi now to atone for my sins. Both 10A and Indy4 have turned out to be unmitigated disasters for me. Hoping that Nolan and co won’t disappoint w/ B2.
Sagarika, my “revelations” seem pretty minor compared to what you have to say!!
Well, every day is a new day and we learn something new…
So, what is the final verdict on DASA ? Should I make my trip to the cinema hall or not ?
saw Dasa today. there’s something special about watching a tamil movie, outside Tamil Nadu…
that was all there was to the experience. unfortunately.
oh yes. had a hearty laugh.
And And And…director K Vishwanath was there in the audience! in the last row…I wonder what he must have thought of Kamal’s latest self-indulgent exercise.
br, on dasavatharam, you mean terrible considering it is from Kamal or terrible without any qualifiers. If so, can you write a 500 word essay on why sivaji is tolerable but this one is terrible
I can understand people dismissing this as crap - but I cant understand people dismissing this as crap but celebrating Sivaji - or finding points to appreciate in Aap ka suroor or some random bollywood movie - is it stockholm syndrome - you review bollywood movies every week and you get used to theur crappiness but cant stand crap otherwise?
All this is an attempt to read your mind as you can guess not a JAP Frock type comment on why you dont agree with me ;-). For that matter, I havent watched Dasavatharam either - but I have watched Sivaji and I know that one is a crap festival - and if someone can accept that, I cant imagine any Kamal movie being terrible in comparison for them.It is just not possible - is it just that you have decided not to give any quarters to tamil movies while i do know that you give many to hindi movies on a regular basis? I mean, you spend so much time trying to list out things you think worked in Hindi movies as if somehow trying to make it work for you - like I observed before even finding things that the makers never even dreamed about - I am sure of that because you did find meaning even in my typos so I am sure that atleast some of the positives that you imagine in your weekly reviews are products of your imagination
Rangan: Seems like there might be some issues to disucuss on Dasavatharam, but I’ll hold onto my thoughts until I read your piece. Suffice to say, even though there were some SIGNIFICANT flaws,it wasnt all bad.
Regarding Priyadarshan, subtlety was never his forte even during his extremely successful innings in Malayalam. His movies usually had interesting story cruxes, above par acting from even the smallest characters and memorable climaxes. Pocchakoru mookkuthi, Vandanam, Chithram had, in my opinion, some of the best cinematic climaxes in South Indian cinema. I havent seen “Mere Baap Pehle Aap” but “Ishtam” was a comedy riot. Dilip with Nedumudi and Innocent (along with Jagadi Sreekumar one of the finest comedic actors of this generation who will never get any respect due to the fact that Malayalam commercial cinema as a whole is underrepresented) provide a laugh a minute first half. And Priyan has done his share of remaking even in Malayalam - Vettam (French Kiss), Thalavattam (One flew over the cuckoo’s nest) and Tamil - Gopura Vasalile (Paavam Paavam Rajakumaran), Laysa Laysa (Summer in Bethlehem). So I contest Shankar’s contention that Vasu has a monopoly on destroying Malayalam movies. But Priyan earns a reprieve for Gopura Vasalile just because he provided IR an opportunity to compose an incredible album replete with lovable idiots (Kaadhal Kavidhaigal) and sublime Sriranjini (Nadham Ezhundhadi).
Ok, so no Dasa for me. My thanks to all those who underwent the pain!
Shankar: “Well, every day is a new day and we learn something new…” Oh Yeah!
Now, thanks to my (mental) kuppai your “kuruvi” has kalarified, here is what I learned today — that I’m still as much in love with the songs of May Maadham as I was when I first watched the movie back in ‘94 (nandri, PTM!).
Rewind back to my “kuruvi” crush for a second, willya?…Turns out his classmate from Don Bosco was in Ram Bhavan and…well.. you know how when you land in BITS, somehow your history unpacks its bags just a day prior? (And often lurks to loom its head a whole year later?) So when we saw May Maadham right before the semester ended that winter (right, fantastic timing!), Pazhakaattu Machaanukku became the go-to song for anyone in the mood to get me all riled up on the train-ride back home (there’s this line that goes “sittu kuruvi, sittu kuruvi,” remember?)!
Anyway, nostalgia had me pining for May Maadham songs yesterday. Triggered by kuruvi, I agree, but it was really nostalgia for the part of Madras I’d left behind exactly 10 years ago — when Elliots beach wasn’t as crowded as it is today; when I walked there with my whole family practically every evening (from our third-floor quarters overlooking Kalakshetra colony) during semester breaks; when life was as idyllic as idyllic can be — to which I have no reason to return now. (Family-as-I-knew-it has since changed, moved…). And another May (4 years from the May of May Maadham) saw me vacating my cozy nest and flying off into the great unknown.
Ah, that nip of nostalgia did feel good, like the breezy B.Ngr beach-air on a hot summer evening! For a second, that had me feeling guilty too (yes, for self-servingly hijacking brangan’s blog); but when I realized my ruminations weren’t all that off-topic (hey, I was only talking about a movie that came out(lucky-number alert) 13 years before the summer of 2007), all was well with the world again.
Kiruba: “The quantum of effort that was put in makes me desist from using some really harsh words.” Truly, man, truly. But I think we can cut him some slack, considering that this is his first huge folly in a really long time, in the sense that even so-called misfires like Aalavandhan were infinitely more fascinating than the average Tamil film (though I’m not counting gun-for-hire crap like Vasoolraja in this mix; how someone can transform Munnabhai so cluelessly is something I still can’t understand).
Ranjit: No, haven’t seen Kancheepuram, though I’ve seen a poster and it looked very classy.
Mickie: Regarding subtle/sensible, are you talking about Kamal or priyadarshan? If the former, there’s still a lot of subtlety in the way, for instance, certain issues are explored in his films.
Dylan: Wow… and from what I heard, I got the idea Ishtam was one of those instant-classic Malayalam comedies.
bart: “Kamal’s last sincere effort was Virumandi First half.” You know, there’s a thesis waiting to be written on this
MumbaiRamki: As I said earlier, no review in the pipleine, boss.
anon: I hope not. Ledger looks astonishingly ragged and psychotic as Joker. This is one film I’m really looking forward to, especially as the first one was (almost) on par with Tim Burton’s nightmarish vision of Gotham city.
enRenRum anbudan BALA: What? My one-liner didn’t give you an idea about my feelings about the film?
Anonymous: K Vishwanath? Where was this?
raj: “can you write a 500 word essay on why sivaji is tolerable” Maybe you should ask those who said Sivaji (or Aap ka suroor, for that matter) was tolerable. I never said either of them was.
Deepauk M: “I’ll hold onto my thoughts” Actually, why not tell us now? I’m not writing a review, in any case. That piece is more of an overview of Kamal-of-late.
Baradwaj, none more than you is qualified to write that thesis though the thesis statement is mine. Sometimes, your one paragraph conveys more than what one thesis can… Your piece on olaga nayagan might probably cast some light on his efforts offlate.. Shall wait.
OK. You asked for it so here it is:
ODDS and EVENS
To borrow from the bard, I come to not to bury Dasavatharam but not to praise it either. The movie is rife with crests and troughs much like the vicissitudes of life itself but unfortunately however large (or poorly generated by graphics) the crests are they can’t seem to fill the Mariana’s trenches. Subtlety has been eschewed in favor of pandering to the more enthusiastic of the fanbase, especially the opening and end credit sequences – hence I discarded them as not part of the movie I paid to see. The disconcerting makeup, the caricatured characters (especially the American ones), the scatological humor and in places the juvenile, bordering on insensitive, dialogs do just enough to take you out of the moment in a screenplay that ought to leave you on the edge of your seat. The dialogs in specific seem to have written by a schizophrenic, ranging from absolutely laugh out loud funny in places, most of these belong to Mr.Naidu (in specific the “Azhagiya Singar” line had me guffawing - hope the Ahobilam Mutt doesn’t sue now ☺ ) to completely abysmal in others( The Hiroshima and Pearl Harbor lines). The editing was patchy, especially in the long tracking shots and the background score (except for a couple of minutes before the Sand Mafia sequences) was functional at best. The single largest flaw of the movie happens right before its biggest payoff, the climax, thus ruining one of the better plants in the screenplay.
All that said, a Hollywood studio would have immediately lapped up this screenplay (and promptly proceeded to retool it of course). It has all the requisite features of a big budget, suspension of disbelief dependent, summer action flick. The exposition is cheeky, it quotes popular culture (during the movie I caught myself wondering how long Kamal has waited for an opportunity to channel Travis Bickle – something you really shouldn’t be wondering during a movie) and by basing the credibility of the story on something that the average viewer has only a superficial understanding of, the screenplay makes it easy to pooh-pooh any issues that detractors who intend to use logic as their weapon of choice might have. Even the most blatant liberties that commercial cinema takes can be explained away satisfactorily and personally I found it cheeky but acceptable. The self-referential symbology is there for those who wish to see it, in the naming conventions and the props. All the loose ends are tied together a little too perfectly but that is usually the case when you work on a screenplay, payoff first. Much contemplation reveals why the package doesn’t sit so well together - I really didn’t need the closure on a lot of the characters. Kamal somehow seems to feel that we need closure on Kalifullah Khan and Boovaragan well after they have done their part in moving the vial (I lay in wait for nearly an entire hour anticipating the vial-varappu joke, knowing the punch line takes the sting out of the zing) along, simply because he plays them. They just didn’t have enough screentime for us to be emotionally invested in all of them.
The biggest positive from this movie is how effective Kamal is in some of his Avatar’s namely the Clouseau-esque Naidu and the preachy yet wonderfully enacted Boovaragan. Shingen’s japanese pronunciation while measured seemed good, to my untrained ears. I wish he would continue some of those characters in other installments were less would definitely be more. I think that really is the lesson from Dasavatharam, sometimes less is more.
P.S: Its funny how the smallest things stick with you from the movie sometimes. If in Aalavandhan it was the already existing Ski tracks, before Kamal the squadron leader goes down the slope in the oh-so-staged skiing sequence, in Dasa it is the dried blood stain below Mallika Sherawat’s nose during the Chidambaram Agraharam sequences. Whoever was in charge of continuity during those scenes should be in a whole lot of trouble.
Please note Summer 2007 is a copy of the English movie “Final Cut” - For your information
Deepauk M: Nice. Very nice. Yeah, that “vial-varappu” zinger was a long time in the coming, and by the time it came, it was a bit of an anticlimax
But didn’t you feel even the wordplay was terribly contrived and geared towards making Big Points? As in, who calls a toilet “shauchaalayam” anymore, and that’s there only because Kamal can parse the “aalayam” out of it and make a flaky bit of commentary… in the middle of a chase! while running for his life!
Francis . D’Cunha: Oh, didn’t know that. Will check it out.
Rangan: If you haven’t seen Final Cut, its a nice sci-fi flick. Robin Williams in one of his rare understated performances.
Regarding the dialogs in Dasa:
- Yes, a lot of unnecessary world in general observations for a person who should be concentrating on running forh is life.
- Some of the better lines came from M.S.Baskar, Ramesh Kanna and the salt “thooving” sanitation workers.
Kamal:”Neenga oru genius”
Sanitation Worker 1: “Naan appavae sollale” . Absolutely brilliant!!
K Vishwanath spotted in Hyderabad.
Haven’t seen dasa yet.But one of your response to comments was interesting, the one where you said vasoolraja was a clueless transformation of munnabhai. To me there was nothing much to choose between the two, though i felt sanjay dutt was more suitable for the role than kamal.It was a fairly faithful remake except for the dialogues maybe.I loved both movies.I always felt that movies in the mother tongue tend to grate more since we feel an innate familiarity. I don’t know if you understand what i mean, but maybe that is why you liked munnabhai and didn’t like vasoolraja.
sivaramakrishnan: Dude, they’re not the same film at all (in tone). I think I talked about why in my review. I’ll dig it out from the older site… And it’s not just the mother tongue bit. Tere Naam was an atrocious remake of Sethu. I mean, Salman Khan… come on
“Yes, a lot of unnecessary world in general observations for a person who should be concentrating on running forh is life”
Do you really mean this ? I mean, how many countless english ‘Search for gold’ films have these situations and these kind of dialogues ! We don’t complain them. Fair enough - we never went to the Dasa, expecting this.
For me it was a roller coaster ride, except for a few make-up bumps ..Otherwise full time pass for me .
//Deepauk M //
on the charge on the one in charge of continuity, the prev scene on the highway mallika is latched to a lorry and then fletcher manages to shoot her out of that and she tumbles….could that be the bruise…
Mumbai Ramki: I do credit the screenplay with being a nice ride but its hard to not notice the speed breakers - I was entertained but in portions. I have few ideological differences with Kamal, so it was definitely not the content that put me off.
In all the English searching for gold films I have seen: Mackenna’s gold, City Slickers even that recent atrocity Fool’s Gold, the treasure or gold is always a euphemism for something that is missing in the focal character’s life (along with being a Macguffin). To some extent even in National Treasure, we buy into Benjamin Gates search because if the treasure isn’t real, the void in his life would unimaginable. That is why making general life related observations (if subtly done) I find acceptable in those movies (not Fools Gold mind you - that was just tripe).
This is not the case with Govind. His primary concern should always have been getting away or destroying the vial. In that situation some dialogs seemed to stand independent of the urgency that the story dictated. I think that is what BRangan was pointing to with his example, and I agree. Also I take exception to “We dont complain about them”. I definitely have complained when I saw this in english /german /french /cantonese movies just not on this commentspace maybe.
Naren: Yes, the presence of the bruise is acceptable. What is not is, how it disappears for a few shots in between and suddenly reappears later. Somebody call Baker Street
! (I’m almost positive this happens, I’ll issue an apology if I’m wrong). I hate being nitpicky about these things but it stayed with me. I would never state that this was egregious by any standards though.
Dasavatharam review at http://rainspotter.blogspot.com/
“In that situation some dialogs seemed to stand independent of the urgency that the story dictated”.
Somehow , i prepared myself for this and i didn’t get disappointed
Waiting for you to dig out your review of vasoolraja.It probably was before i became a regular visitor of your blog.And well as for tere naam and salman khan, couldn’t agree more though that probably is the worst example of a remake, so it is basically an exception.
To me, what was basically wrong with Vasoolraja was that Kamal looked too intelligent to play the goofy idiot with limited intelligence - something that suits sanjay’s reel image and real-life personality very well.
Well, let me put it this way - if you made an autobiography of sanjay dutt, who else can play that role better?
Mumbai Xpress on the other hand did have Kamal playing an idiot succesfully.
And how about “Akshay Kumar made Welcome tolerable, Akshay kumar carries Tashan on his shoulders…”
(Who made these statements?;-)
Really???
Whats so great about those performances that it can help tolerate a terrible film?
Growing up on Star Dust makes you immune to bollywood crap but allergic to kollywood crap?
I quite find the comment about deserving a tight slap very very true. It is such a stereo type in Hindi films. The wife is disabused of all her notions - fanciful and otherwise - with just one tight slap. and I actually remember thinking many times as a kid (watching such films) - why did he not do this in the first reel.
Ravi
medobe.blogspot.com
The ultimate on Hindi film dialogues