Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara - A Review

Director: Zoya Akhtar
Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Cinematography: Carlos Catalan

Actor-director Farhan Akhtar made his directorial debut with “Dil Chahta Hai” (The Heart’s Desire), a film about male bonding and friendship. The movie was a runaway hit. A decade later, his younger sister Zoya Akhtar, who is also a director, is out with her male bonding movie, “Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara” (You Only Live Once), but this one is set against the backdrop of a road-trip. Zoya may have given Bollywood its first full-blown contemporary road trip movie! Coming of age cinema ... a fantastic 'bromance' made beautifully by a woman!

Rating: 4.5/5

Zoya Akhtar's Spain odyssey demands just one thing from you: that you slip into adventure mode and then go with the flow ... Rest assured, you're in for a merry ride, with loads of thrills, emotional banter, romance and camaraderie between a host of characters who seem to be having as much fun as you.

Kabir's (Abhay Deol) just proposed to his girlfriend Natasha (Kalki Koechlin), but before he gets married, he wants to celebrate his bachelor's party. Now he wants a special bachelor's party which involves an extended road trip in picturesque Spain with best buddies, writer Imraan (Farhan Akhtar) and stock broker Arjun (Hrithik Roshan). It is a journey they were meant to take after college but it never happened -- a road trip where each one gets to do the ultimate sport of his choice and the other two just have to do it with him, whether they want to or not! Kabir, Imraan and Arjun meet up in Barcelona ... the trio meet a host of interesting people which includes Laila (Katrina Kaif), the delightful diving instructor, and set off on an adventure that will not only make them iron out their differences but also face their fears, alter their perception, unravel their fabric, force them to break out of the box and teach them to seize the day. In other words, a holiday that will change their lives forever!

Howard Winchester Hawks, who received an Honorary Academy Award in 1975 for being a master American filmmaker whose creative efforts hold a distinguished place in world cinema, once said, "I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another." The characters and their relationships is what ZNMD brings up magnificiently! Jokes about teachers. Fights over girlfriends. Silly word games. Playing pranks on commoners. Sigh. At times breath taking and beautifully written. There would not have been any guy who wouldn't have gone down the memory lane to his school/college and the times he spent with his group of friends! I can certainly say, I did ... BIG TIME!

A meditative take on growing up, becoming a man, taking responsibility for one's actions, it has the courage to go for long periods with no dialogue. A scene where Hrithik Roshan does a Finding Nemo and another where the boys discover the joys of sky diving is all about just being. Seizing the moment. Living for the day. This one's a long sequence, starting with Imran's trepidation before jumping off, to the point all three friends touch down. Along the way you share the fear, then thrill, then ecstasy the three friends are shown to be experiencing. Emerging stronger from the experience, they are prepared to live their lives moment by moment, taking pleasure in what they have than bother over what they don't.

Kabir's issues are not on the surface either. He's the most affable of the three, with the least baggage probably, and extremely friendly. But he won't discuss his love life even with two of his oldest buddies. Grown men don't talk about personal things. Kabir's no different. Imran's search for his biological father and crying when he meets him just to realize that he doesn't think he did anything wrong!

The issues the three men deal with in ZNMD are slightly more complex than those faced by Akash, Sid and Sameer in DCH. The latter was about clueless youth fresh-out-college and trying to find their feet in the real world, while ZNMD is about men on the cusp of a mid-life crisis ... but the film pulls you in, partly because of the frank, unvarnished performances by this trio. Hrithik is lovely as Arjun, shorn of the pretence that his recent performances have shown. Farhan is sensitive, soulful and perfectly capable of reading out his father's poetry. And Abhay for a change is playing the rich brat who is virtually press ganged into marrying his family friend Kalki Koechlin. To some, the first hour could come across as being a little drag, but the awesomeness of the remaining part of the movie makes up for any such drawbacks! The catchiest moment of the movie is when the three boys are sitting together on their last day, drinking and singing the Doordarshan theme song!!!! Marvellous!

Music is great - the Senorita number has everyone foot tapping to it! Cinematography is brilliant ... the Spanish government should thank Zoya for doing a massive tourism promotion of the country, be it the deep sea diving at Costa Brava or the Tomatina festival at Buñol or the sky diving at Seville or the life-altering San Fermin Bull Run in Pamplona - an all-out Spanish odyssey!!! Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music is hummable, while Javed Akhtar's lyrics deserve special mention. 'Khwabon ke parindey' is an absolute joy to listen to for Akhtar's magical words and Alyssa Mendonsa's soulful rendition.

Final word: Wonderful direction, great dialogues, brilliant cinematography, outstanding performances and a mindblowing Farhan Akhtar! All in all ... A+!!!

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Raavan - A Review

Director: Mani Ratnam
Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Vikram
Music: AR Rahman
Cinematography: Santosh Sivan

A movie that boasted an epic as its foundation, a movie directed by one of the best directors in India, a movie that managed to get the junior Bachchan couple on-screen together again, a movie that had expectations soaring high in the weeks running to its release; and finally, when it does release... oh boy, what a sheer disappointment!

Rating: 1.5/5

Mani Ratnam brings one of the cornerstone epics of the Hindu mythology "Ramayan" to the silver screen in a contemporary and visually stunning, yet mindless rubbish format. More so, since the audience doesn't expect Mani Ratnam to make any mistakes...period! A Mani Ratnam film is not just cinema...its a phenomena! Every character was carefully scripted to fit the screenplay of Ramayan - Vikram [Dev] is the righteous Lord Ram, Aishwarya [Ragini] as his loving wife Sita, Nikhil [Hemant] as his confidante Lakshman, Govinda [Sanjeevani] jumping on trees as Hanuman, Priyamani [Serena] who triggers the war as Surpanakha and of course, the antagonist Abhishek [Beera] as Raavan!

The moviegoer does find the mood strikingly similar to RGV's Jungle but this one takes it to an altogether new level. Mani Ratnam continues to deliver breathtaking stills in all his films, courtesy Sivan who delivers a masterpiece in terms of locales and picturization. But the movie disappoints incredibly on the narrative portion...the sequence of events is predictable and remains too safe to provide any surprises. From a story perspective, the only thing that I can term as a "brave" deviation from the original plot, is Ragini's change-of-heart towards Beera...she begins to melt once she hears his story and provocation for revenge and it does complete full-circle in the climax, when she inexplicably displays emotions of appreciation-cum-sympathy-cum-fascination at Beera's rendition of his conversation with Dev on the bridge! Ratnam does remain sensitive to the perpetually unaccommodating Indian audience and does not turn it into a Stockholm syndrome, which might have created a far different outcome with the masses, even if it made past the cutting board. Further, Ratnam even includes the "agni-pareeksha" in the form of a polygraph test to decide whether Ragini was lying or not!!!! Overall, from a film-maker who has to his credit some of the finest pieces of cinema in India such as Nayagan, Anjali, Roja, Bombay, Dil Se, Yuva, Guru...Raavan falls well short of the finish line.

The story line begins with Beera kidnapping Ragini (aka Raavan kidnapping Sita) and Dev launching a massive search mission to hunt down Beera and rescue his wife. Ordinary screenplay....at best! The paper-thin first half plot gets everyone restless...Why does Beera kidnap Ragini when he knows Dev was not a party to the assault on Serena? Why does Beera rename Ragini as Mahua?...all questions that are left for the viewer to imagine and conclude. Abhishek's persistent hamming was nowhere a symbol of the menace that Raavan was - with Beera coming across as borderline psycho! His character seems to be a carelessly woven mix of Raavan (the antagonist), Robin hood (helping the poor), Veerappan (forest king), a Naxalite (lower caste with strong base of followers) or even Tarzan (reminding us of our animal roots!!!). All that he does is bak bak bak bak bak bak. Sivan's landscapes were a visual treat, but even then for a large part of the first half, the camera moves around with so much ambiguity that you're left wondering why you came to watch the movie! The second half does shine over the first in terms of bringing about a coherent story. AR Rahman's music is average...from the master, this too comes as a disappointment. With the exception of the Beera number, which is already over with the opening credits before you're plunged into this darkness, the other numbers don't quite catch your attention. Whether it is Beera jumping with a not-so-flexible body in Thok De Killi or the horribly picturized Ranjha Ranjha, the music fails to deliver the punch. Action is good - the sequence at the climax is A class.

As far as the actors are concerned, Aishwarya looks lovely with no make up and as the wife who is torn between her feelings for someone else, and her duties towards her husband, she delivers a decent performance, although her own Nandini in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and Konkona's Meenakshi in Mr & Mrs Iyer were far more superlative portrayals of this genre! Vikram is pot-bellied and one only wonders why was he even chosen for this role. Govinda fails to create any impact, Ravi Kishen is average and Priyamani has a few good scenes. For Abhishek, he cannot be proud of this after what he's given us in Yuva and Guru... perhaps he was too engrossed with applying multani mitti and haldi on his face and all those out there who are even trying to draw similarities between Beera and The Joker [Heath Ledger], just don't...you'll be doing nothing but making a fool out of yourselves.

Final word: Watch it just to appreciate that even geniuses make mistakes...albeit I admit, only sometimes!

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Next post: In ourselves, are triumph and defeat on June 27, 2010