Mary Kom : It’s only Merry for Priyanka

Mumbai film industry is on a spree for biopic in recent few years. Paan Singh Tomar, Bhag Milkha Bhag and now Mary Kom. 

Surprisingly all these biopics are based on sports personalities. Though Pan Singh Tomar had a different angle and a very important twist in his life, the latter two were plain and simple unilateral ones. Bhag Milkha Bhag was a pretty average movie, surprised to see so much appreciation for it. Frankly after knowing the trend and the first look of the movie I didn’t expect anything around Mary Kom, that’s why no disappointment.

The director Omung Kumar never had any intention to create a great movie. Also, probably the most pretentious and fake artist of Bollywood Sanjay Leela Bhansali, being the producer what else do you expect.

There was no honest effort to portray Mary Kom. They only wanted to cash upon female sentiment, deprivation of North-East states and same old stories of deprivation by sports federations. The makeup artist Uday Shirale never tried to give Priyanka the Manipuri look and throw away her star image from the movie. 

Just for the sake creating the Manipuri sentiment they used it while fight against federation. No landscapes of such a beautiful state was shown in the movie.

Priyanka being an extremely gifted actress it was a pity to see how they could not use her properly. Only melodrama after melodrama. Her father throwing away the boxing gloves, telling her to choose between boxing or family, then while she was losing he shouted and sat in front of the television; when she wanted to make her comeback, her Shaolin Soccer or Karate Kid type coach (Sunil Thapa) 

suddenly stand up and picked her two babies. In the entire movie Priyanka never carried them outside home, even not to the local healthcare center. She only carried them to her coach’s home so that he can tie them on her back and gave his speech.

 Lastly, when she was about to go for her final fight in the movie, the news of her kid’s operation came. During the fight, her collapse synced with almost operation failure of her baby and then a sudden cut showing her husband holding 2 babies in an empty auditorium. Sanjay Leela Bhansali being one of the editors of this movie if he can approved the mood spoiler shot, then kudos to his cinematic sense. 

The fight with federation is also very funny. One hot conversation, immediately next day the rapist looking official started supporting her with muffler around his neck to portray how weak he is. 

In between branding of Sugar Free, Iodex were so commercial, I won’t be surprised if in future we see sudden stop and a commercial break in between the movies. 

Darshan Kumar made a decent effort as Onler Kom (Mary’s Husband). 

Priyanka tried her best.In some of the stunts she was really good.

This 15crores movie already earned 30crores. I personally wish they earn more and more so more people can get to know about Mary Kom. 

But a humble request to the director, please put an honest effort in future to this medium of art.Box office is not in your hand, but your art is.

Overall - obviously it’s a onetime watch. Otherwise how will you verify my points? 

"Queen" will rock you

A young 24 year old Punjabi girl from Rajouri Garden, Delhi; refused by her fiance (Rajkummar Rao) to get married just one day before her marriage; dejected family and friends tried console her, pep her up; marriage and honeymoon been her long time dream she decided to embark alone for her honeymoon. This decision changed her innerself, changed her life - This is Queen. Most probably this is the way Vikas Bahl shared his plot to his producers duo Anurag Kashyap and Vikramaditya Motwane. Or may be he just mentioned, it's a journey from "Rani" to "Queen".

"Rani" and "Queen" carries the same meaning. Well almost. Rani is sweet, rani soft, comes after or atleast along with Raja. Even on a carrom board she is surrounded. On the contrary "Queen" is confident. On a chess board she is the most powerful one; she is free to move around. "Confident" that's it. No complication, no deep thought, no difficult psychology. How someone can be a queen with the "sweet" touch of rani is all about this movie.  

Vikas has captured small and typical moments from our life. A little shot in CCD where Vijay cleared the mehendi dusts from the table, establishes his character that very moment. His snobbery came again and again through Rani's journey, which is absolutely very typical to our society. Protected, helpless, sweet in a showcase type character is brilliantly carried by Kangana. Such an unbelievable performer she is. Her face, her pronunciation, her eyes, her hair, her dresses was so so typical. The change in herself didn't change her tone, her eyes but it did changed her look. Straight hair, deep neck kurti tells it all. You should not be ashamed of anything and specially not with your body. Live life, the way you want it to be.

Lisa Haydon is the surprise package in this movie. She is simply brilliant and definitely amazingly charming and glamorous. It's a pity that no one explored her before this movie. In some scenes she overshadowed Kangana. All the time she appears on the screen you are bound get charmed by her.

 Kangna's Amsterdam friends were cute. Her crush was also dealt with the spirit of this movie.During Shaitan's promo as a producer Anurag Kashyap told there are many young directors waiting with their own stories. He is trying his best to provide them his support. Don't how the directors are taking him as producer but definitely he is getting into it. After working as a co-scriptwriter for Hasee Toh Phasee he worked as a co-editor in Queen. May be this is one of the rarest movie which is edited by 2 editors (Anurag Kashyap & Abhijit Kokate). 


Bobby Singh and Siddharth Diwan's did a wonderful job with the camera to capture the true spirit of three different cities.Amit Trivedi is good. London Thumakda and O Gujariya are already hitting the charts.

To end with thanks to the board exams that small budget movies are making ways to the theater. With 18 crores in hand Vikas covered 450 locations in 40 days with only 25 crew member. According to the director they didn’t have the budget to shoot elaborate sequences or stay put at one location for long. “We would book a place for a couple of hours, then rush to another location. We would eat at the nearest hotel where we were shooting, and at times Kangana would change her clothes in public toilets!” Kudos to Vikas, kudos to Kangana and definitely to "Phantom Films" for bringing good films one after another. All the very best for success of Queen. 

    

Hasee Toh Phasee : Tangled me completely

In her first film Ladies vs Ricky Bahl she was a typical punjabi blabbering girl. After that in her 3 films Parineeti surprised again and again with her confidence and definitely with her "hasee". Not sure whether she has reached a level where she can choose her scripts or "fresh" directors are coming up with their "fresh" ideas and casting her. But no doubt she has become the icon of this genre of bollywood movies which can be tagged as "fresh". 

Hasee Toh Phasee like "Shudh Desi Romance" is a very repulsive title. The way the producers (Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap & Vikramaditya Motwane) promoted the film I felt zero interest to watch the movie. I won't believe they banked so much on her broad smile that they choose this title. All sorts of KJO style "Hasee" & "Phasee" between Sidharth & Adah got over in initial 15minutes of the movie.  In between Vinil Mathur placed his heroine in a very interesting way. 

The first interaction between Parineeti & Sidharth. After 7years they meet again, just 7 days before Adah & Sidharth's marraige.Adah doesn't want her sister (Parineeti) to meet her father and not even her family. Sidharth found it a bit weird and kept on trying his best to arrange a meet with her family.  

One marraige to another one. This girl appears only during marraiges and run away with money from her father's account. A super intelligent girl, struggling to complete her dream project. The only person in her life is her father. She does believe her father's money is her money, if she needs to fraud she uses her father's name and account. Belong to an orthodox Gujarati family her father (Manoj Joshi) refused to spend the money for her PhD but ready to pay for marriages of his daughters, even for their worthless husbands. But may be he also realizes later and ready to pay a hefty amount to his daughter for her research completion. But still he couldn't stop her. Manoj did a wonderful job as her father.

When you know already who are the leads the main focus shifted towards how the story unfolds. That's exactly where Vinil wins it. The story is a very simple one with no continuous twist and turns, though it'll hold you till it's ending. Though I would have preferred if they don't got married. But couldn't thought off a different ending also. Full credit to Harshavardhan Kulkarni for this wonderful story and some brilliant dialogues by him, Anurag Kashyap, Purva Naresh and the director hiself. The scenes between Parineeti and Sidharth will make you feel for them. You'll also start loving this pair. 

The most impressive part is the balance of this film. Parineeti's struggle in China during her PhD days been shown very very subtly. 2 half butter chicken would have more chicken than 1 full butter chicken; if you put wet towel on your tummy it'll make you feel better when you are hungry; drink more and more water to wash away your hunger; finally when there is no one to feel for you, you even stop crying to yourself. The tear supply stopped and you start having medicines to hold yourself. Her struggle, her despair will hit you hard. It won't make you cry because Parineeti's brilliant acting would make you feel for her and you will feel tears would be an insult to her character. Sidharth was extremely natural and he was neck to neck with Parineeti in depicting their character.

As a first feature thumbs up for Vinil. When a story engross you, you are bound to ignore the technical side of it. Also, if it went unnoticed then definitely it's a win for technical department. Vishal - Shekhar's music is average. My sincere apologies to Amitabh Bhattacharya, I didn't noticed the lyrics of a single song. Liked Amar Mangrulkar's background score. Sanu John Varughese did justice to the story with his lenses. Shweta Venkat's editing is brilliant.

This film is not an average film. It'll raise some important but very very personal non-typical questions which might change your thinking towards some aspects of life. Atleast for me it did. Lastly, thanks to Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap for collaborating with each other. It'll help them to blend each others genre. We and Indian cinema will enjoy the benefit out of it.
 

Highway : A soulful journey

The first movie which took me through a journey was not exactly a road trip, half of it was on train, half of it was on road. It was Satyajit Ray's thriller way back in 1974 - "Sonar Kella". Most of the Indian movies which takes you through a journey would invariably in northern India, due to it's wonderful roads. Imtiaz himself had a hugely successful journey in his 2nd venture (Jab We Met) majorly in a train, traveled through Punjab and Himachal. So it was expected that he would take us through another wonderful journey.

This film has 1 narrative through Veera (Alia Bhatt), a simple girl from not so simple family, accidentally abducted by Mahavir Bhati (Randeep Hooda), a contract killer. Beauty and Beast started their journey from Delhi, went through 5 more states (Mangar Village - Gurgaon-Faridabad Road) Haryana, (Ajmer, Bikaner, Sambhar Salt Lake) Rajasthan, (Firozpur) Punjab, (Tabo & Kinnaur) Himachal Pradesh & Aru Valley, Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir). 

Imtiaz by nature is a romantic, sufiana, very very soulful storyteller. Like his every movie here also he throws the question to us

Aahein, Dar, Khushi, Raaste
Kachchi Baatein, Sachche Raaste
Kahin Pe In Sab Mein
Kahaan Hoon..Main

This visual poetry brought me back to my favorite lines by Abbas Tyrewala 

Manzilon se raahein dhoondti chalin
Kho gayi hai manzil kahin rahon mein

Veera was never scared, anxious, under any sort of trauma on the face. She was surprisingly amazed, talking to herself, cried and laughed, explored herself in every fold.

Mahabir the beast, was never sure what to do with her. He never had a plan as such. The abduction was an accident, the affection was an accident, his self-exploration was an accident. Only thing he was sure about that, he is going to die. Randeep at his best, being the killer and being the lover. It really amazed me how Imtiaz subtly dealt with his love for himself through his lady love.  

Imtiaz is great in characterization, but I'm not excited about his films yet. Being privileged by the story, Anil Mehta as his eyes and 2 oscar winners ARR & Resul Pookutty as his ears, this film appeared to be a pretty ordinary to me. Aarti Bajaj's editing was a bit abrupt. Imtiaz followed the same treatment as Rockstar starting with handycam shots. The way it worked for Rockstar, it didn't worked here. The bracketed expression required the treatment in Rockstar, which appeared pretty much imposed for Highway. The initial credits starts with random highway shots with apparently no chronological connection with the story. It has a brilliant score "Implosive Silence". But repetitive use of this music somewhat lost it's charm. The typical "maa" angle of bollywood movies took away the charm of this journey from highway to melodrama. Don't know why Veera started dancing all of a sudden.Is it because "Wanna Mash Up" already being scored and they didn't find a suitable place to fit it? I simply couldn't understood why Mahabir's gang-mate traveled all the way to Kolkata to make a phone call and buy Anandabazar, to click a photograph, which they never used. 

Except the scene where Veera ran away and came back and the montage of Pahalgam the camera work is very ordinary. 

A R Rahman has made a very soulful music. Irshad Kamil did a complete justice to his music, or should I say it's otherwise. Overall the album is a good mix of sufi songs to lori to dance number.    

Resul has done his best wherever he could. I loved the way he played with the song "Tu Khuja" during their Ajmer stay.

The ending was very cheesy. Don't know why forcibly Imtiaz has to make it a "boy meets girl" movie. 

Alia is brilliant. She has done whatever she could. She has long future with her singing. Her portion in "Sooha Saaha" says it all. Randeep Hooda did an impressive performance. 

Overal it's a pleasant one time watch with some decent performances and some beautiful glimpse of Himalayas.