With the horrendously horrible aag still burning in my memory , my thoughts went on to whether RGV was over, i mean he has created a niche for himself , quite a reputation & well some artists do have a burnout, and this was actually more evident with the 2006 movie directed by him title shiva. For all those of us who have grown up on the original shiva , this movie was a brutal murder of it. The movie lacked the ramu touch , it seemed like it was made by one of his assistants someone like vishram sawant who seems to mimic ramu’s style but failing in the technique all together.
Ramu has been good with two genres - crime & horror , this has been his forte. Although he has majorly concentrated on crime , he is pretty good at horror. Infact he is the one who brought horror into the mainstream & brought in the whole eerie horror movie scene rather than just the ramsay horror movies which were nothing short of laughable ..although much enjoyable i must add. Ramu’s earliest horror movie was raat starring south indian actress revathi & it was scary in parts & i thoroughly enjoyed the movie. It maintained a very eerie feel throughout the movie.
Urmila starrer kaun wasnt exactly a horror movie but it did give a few chills every now & then. Bhoot again starring Urmila this time as a poltergeist was a good horror movie & in here ramu used all his technical expertise from camera angles to sound - it was eerie & scary.
Darling is his return to the genre. The plot is simple - a womaniser (fardeen khan) accidentally kills his mistress & she comes back from the dead to make his life a living hell. The movie could’ve swinged two ways - the regular dark horror route or the slighly comic horror route.
I must confess ive been on a overdose of dark horror movies specially from korea / japan & if this took that route i would’ve gladly skipped it as it is a ramu movie doesnt excite me anymore.
But, darling took the other route & thats where it works. The movie isnt without its flaws though, in particular i disliked the background song routine shown a couple of time to exemplify fardeen khan’s breakdown. The movie is a horror flick though & an enjoyable one. Those walking in to watch this one would be those who would like this genre & would like to watch a good movie , but there is nothing cerebral going on here, nothing to take back home for those looking that way. The movie is well paced from start to finish & has a little dose of everything from chilling horror to comedy.
Everyone in the cast has done an good job & ramu has always been the one to chose horses for courses. Fardeen Khan fits the role of a womaniser playboy to the T, although he does seem to have put up some weight recently. Isha koppikar as his wife doesnt really have much to do here, but the ultra glam khallas girl fits in well in this domesticated avatar as well. Esha Deol is mindblowing here , completely steals the show from everyone else. She looks gorgeous when required & scary when necessary. I think she is one of the most underrated young actresses around & also the most underused as well. If anyone , i think ramu can really turn around things for her, specially since urmila is ageing, antarta , nisha never quite had it. Jiah is young & her accent & look does seem to be a barrier for all types of roles , but esha has got it all. Hopefully she will become ramu’s next muse. Special mention for Upendra Limaye who plays the role of the slightly odd mannered cop & Zakir Hussain who is sort of a ramu regular. He is another fine actor who is improving everytime i see him. He was the serious looking ‘dubai ka shooter’ in sarkar , i also saw him in a segment in darna zaroori hai where the ghost of a woman enters his body & his character alternates between the woman & his own personality, he was absolutely hilarious in it. In Darling he plays the role of fardeen’s co-worker / friend & is shown as a similar womanizer & here too he is hilarious in what he has done.
Overall , its a good watch. You can watch it in the theaters if you want , but for me its a definite dvd rental movie.
Dark, Stark, Atmospheric, Eerie are words that we usually cannot use for hindi movies. But if there is a movie which would have everything of that and a whole lot more to offer, it has to be Aditya Bhattacharya’s Cult movie “Raakh”. Might i add few hindi movies reach the status of a cult movie.
Its amazing to know that raakh is a 17 year old movie & still feel so very contemporary.
Probably underappreciated when it released a good 17 years ago , it starred a young aamir khan. It was aamir’s second movie as a lead & it is by far it’s best performance till date. The role of aamir hussein played by aamir was a free sprited average 21 year old required someone with a certain rawness & innocence with came naturally with Aamir.
This late 80’s movie is basically a narrative by the protagonist, its the story of how his life became raakh (ash). The plot line is thin, basically a vendetta story about how aamir’s friend / lover neeta (played exceptionally by Supriya Pathak) is raped by a bunch of hoodlums & aamir hussein takes his revenge with the help of a police officer P L Kapoor (another powerhouse performance by pankaj kapoor)
This movie is as realistic it can get , if you are looking for a regular bollywood song dance routine look somewhere else. There are absolutely no songs in this , this movie can best be classified as an art movie back then & thats just what it is a ‘piece of art’. Everything from the places to the people looks real. The depiction of the anti social elements is chillingly real.
Neeta’s rape scene is brutal & violent without the usual torn blouse broken bangles bollywood rape routine which is usually made to tiltilate the masses rather than anything else. Supriya Pathak’s cry is enough for the viewer to get the necessary goosebumps.
Acclaimed cinematographer Santosh Sivan has done the cinematography for this movie & its shows. It has helped give the eerie feel to the film , be it the dim yellow lights used throughout the movie while indoors & the outdoor shots usually in dusk or at night help keep the dark look to the film. The background music by ranjit barot gets a little loud at times & adds up to the eerie factor even more. I love the raakh tune as well. The graffiti on the walls , even the signs inside the police station all add to the surreal eerie effect that we so love about this movie.
Both Supriya Pathak & Naina Balsaver look extremely beautiful here inspite of being in minimal of makeup & do an admirable job in the acting department. Pankaj Kapur is as always flawless in his performance. It’s amazing to see aamir & pankaj sharing screen space, really wish we could see them on screen again.
And for the love of god what is Aditya Bhattacharya doing ? The last i saw of him was in imdb credits listed under actor as sheikh aziz in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday. A couple of years he did a movie title “Dubai Returned” with Irrfan Khan in the lead , ive never actually come across the dvd of the movie nor seen it on satellite tv (nor seen raakh on satellite tv either) After seeing Raakh i firmly belive aditya must be a powerhouse of talent & he should have atleast done something in 17 years.
Raakh is one of the few movies from bollywood that does have cult status, im pretty sure there are a lot many more like me who have loved this movie.
There are some movies which never get dated, never seem to be out of current scheme of things, Silver Streak is one of them. I gotta admit i find a lot of comedies of the older generation terribly unfunny, i wont belittle them by saying they aren’t funny , but i find hard to relate to the humor.
In the case of this Arthur Hiller classic its definitely not the case. I had as much fun as watching it today as i had 15 years back. I remember renting this as a VHS from a local shop and i had even then seen it for one reason & one reason alone - Richard Pryor. This guy is seriously funny, although he comes much later in the movie , almost after the interval.
The real star of the movie is Gene Wilder & he is funny as hell. Although the movie does have a mystery angle to it although not of hitchcockian proportions does keep one engaged in the storyline as well & not just the antics part of it.
This movie is perfect for those lazy sunday afternoons , there isnt a moment when you will find this movie dull or boring. It truly delivers its promise & even after a good 30 years this classic will entertain you more than your average comedies that hit the cinemas every now & then.
Dhokha is Pooja Bhatt’s latest directorial venture. After two box office failures - Paap & Holiday which i think were decent enough directorial efforts & did tread territories that bollywood doesnt usually do , but they did’nt leave a significant impact mainly because the subject failed although pooja as a director wasnt too bad.
Dhokha again goes where only the bhatt camp can go, no other production house is trying this genre of film making & credit goes to them. Zakhm was a milestone movie on many counts. Pooja Bhatt’s Dhoka does try to tread on similar grounds but in the end it turns out as a halfbaked effort. The basic premise of the movie is fantastic & very relevant to today ..something which most movies made in bollywood seriously lack.
Dhoka failed for me on two counts one being a section of the society being portrayed completely in a negative manner as a race of inhuman depraved beings. Without letting much of the plot out there isnt any insight into the justification for violence other than just a personal vendetta under the shadow of religion. Another reason why dhokha failed for me is the lack of detail. Considering the movie is aimed at a particularly adult urban educated crowd the lack of detail is astounding. We are never quite explained how the police got to the depth that sarah was the bomber, and thats something the protagonist too asks a million times without any answer. There mustve been some forensic evidence or anything else which mightve led them to sarah as the bomber. Also Zaid Ahmed Khan is supposed to be an ACP , a role which muazammil does look too soft & too young for it. Its a role which required someone with a lot of maturity reflecting from the face.
Dhokha also blames the system completely for terrorism, which is again far from the truth. It passes judgements while showing half truths and thats where the film goes down majorly for me. A word about the movie’s marketing promotion. There wasn’t any !! Even the movie’s official website still has a comming soon on it even after the movie has been released & crashed out of the BO. Whatever the promos on the tube were, werent enough & couldnt really get the people moving into the cinema halls & that’s what happened.
On the Cast.
Muzammil Ibrahim - He has surprisingly done a fairly decent job inspite of being miscast, he does have a large female following already & does seem likely we will see more of him in bollywood.
Tulip Joshi - I must admit tulip was a strange choice for this movie, although there isnt any doubt whatsoever about her acting skills post matrubhoomi. She played her character as well as anyone could have but nothing there stands out.
Aushima Sawhney - Oh i tell you thats a little gem we have there. She was a finalist at Miss India 2005 , also feautured in Atif Aslam’s Doorie music video. Needs to brush up on acting skills , but Aushima looks nothing short of gorgeous in every frame throughout the movie.
Rest of the cast including gulshan grover, anupam kher, ashutosh rana etc are stalwarts & good actors who have always done justice to whatever roles they’ve done.