PS: And in case you were wondering, I have seen The Tree of Life and Melancholia. That should put things into perspective.

But you would be wrong if you thought screenwriting is the highpoint of this film. If Puri shows moments of fascinating brilliance in one scene, the very next scene he drops us back into the rut of commercial cinema blending an outlandish plotline with an unconvincing romance. The idea of charting the meteoric rise of a gangster from simple beginnings is not a theme that hasn’t been dealt before in the cinematic medium. There is the ethereal Godfather Part I & II. Then there is Mani Ratnam’s stunning Nayagan that is also set in Mumbai like this film, where perhaps decades later, after people like Velu Naicker and Dawood Ibrahim have been neutralised or eliminated, Surya puts into motion his plan of creating a business of organised crime. It is a very striking concept although you would need a lot of ingenuity and insightful screenwriting to make the gangster’s growth look convincing. And this is precisely where Puri Jagannath fails first.

For a while Puri actually had me hooked with the eerily silent scenes that follow the hero’s arrival in Mumbai (in a second class train). It is Brahmaji’s character that does all the talking while an intense Surya just observes. I haven’t been to Mumbai but this is probably how you react when you land there; calmly take in all the hustle and bustle, experience the sheer cramped feeling that comes from being in dingy slums and claustrophobic local train compartments. It is a hero introduction scene that is, to put it lightly, completely counter-intuitive, anti-expectations and, above all, myth busting (It is a genre rule that very few directors dare to break). There is not a single line uttered that would have sent the, on-your-marks-get-set-go, expectant, first day crowd into raptures (I have noticed that with the first day crowd it is always like launching a rocket into the orbit. Once the first few good dialogues come and the laughter picks up it never abates). Just an uneasy calm before Surya makes his intentions clear – “Main Mumbai sheher ko pishab karwane aaya hoon” (This is precisely the dialogue I was not hoping for, because this I think – and this is what I felt when I saw the trailer also – is the most lackadaisical writing Puri has ever come up with ever. It is not only gross on so many levels but it just kills the mood. Incredibly enough the crowd seemed to share the same sentiment! What more Surya keeps repeating it like it is his “evadu kodthe dimma thirigi mind block” dialogue – which it surely isn’t.) This is followed by a scene where the hero cons a couple of youngsters by posing as a police officer. Believable, but stretching it. A couple of scenes later he walks into the criminal infested Dongri area and picks up a fight with some jobless gangsters. Umm..Well he is the hero, right? But, say what, this guy has too much dookudu in him. Then, after cleverly masterminding a murder in a jail he robs a bank with his newly recruited goondas. That, my friend, was the breaking point and that was when I stopped taking the movie seriously, till of course those pop philosophy interludes popped in.

While watching a movie I always engage in this internal tussle where I analyse the believability of certain sequences. This is of course all subjective but there comes a certain point in a movie when I start assuming unbelievable things to be a given just to enjoy whatever else is left. So I started showing interest in the Surya-Chitra romance angle – which is frequently intruded by this utterly crazy accented chick who is Chitra’s girlfriend. To be fair, the romance is accorded more respect than is usually and works not so much because of any realistic portrayal but because of the lazy humour that Puri injects into the lines. There are the usual misunderstandings, the usual fights etcetera but the banter kept my interest alive. For a movie that had only two tracks, one charting the rise and the other traversing the romance, this was the better one. How I wish the whole movie was made around this! But nevertheless this acts as a relief to the increasingly convoluted proceedings in the other half where Surya has befriended a local Mumbai politician, has outmuscled everyone else to put the guy in the Mayor’s post and is now planning to expand his *cough cough* crime business to other cities. I maybe studying law but it does not need any particular understanding of our statute books to see how many crimes Surya can be booked under. Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner, played by a Nasser who alternates between unintentional comedy and mock seriousness before being bumped off for good, plaintively watches, ruing the fact that Surya is so clever that he has everything covered and cannot be apprehended. This guy must be full of shit or the Mumbai Police Services’ training is a joke. Somebody give him the Indian Penal Code. On the other hand Surya, it is apparent, manages to survive because of the combined inefficiency of the Mumbai Police – the same one that at the beginning of the movie proudly proclaims to have eliminated all the crime syndicates in Mumbai but have now become surprisingly impotent – and the expert use of hostages (He keeps shuffling them to keep the police on their toes it seems. One moment it is the heroine and another moment it is some police officer’s mother. Interestingly enough, the villain is also not averse to this ploy and manages to wrangle the hero into a death-trap with the heroine hostage scenario towards the end.) Ok enough nit-picking!

Despite all this, I believe, this movie could have worked much better if it had a much better tone and consistency in writing. Pokiri stretched believability too but the writing was very organic there. Here it vacillates between good, bad and deplorable so much that the good gets lost somewhere leaving only a bad taste. There are lines which fall flat because they try too hard to be punchy and then there are lines that have nothing going for them except for Mahesh Babu’s searing intensity. Also the movie would have grown in stature had they not given the twist explanation to the way the hero behaves. The family angle kills the shades of brilliance that Puri manages to bring to the table through the philosophy of the hero, who is an intriguing island of amorality and hardened cynicism till then. It makes revenge the overbearing justification towards the end which would perhaps go down well with the “family” audiences but does make the movie glib. Further, the rise of Surya need not have been focussed upon so closely. Nayagan cleverly sidestepped the issue by showing a couple of acts that seem to propel Velu Naicker to gangsterdom before cutting to the part where he is an established gangster. This technique would have had a far better persuasive appeal than the micro growth that Puri shows by resorting to outlandish schemes. In the end even the philosophy and ideology that Puri infuses is an indication of confusion. Even though the integration is seamless when it comes to the scenes, it does not all add up in the larger scheme of the things. In this respect, he reminded me of Trivikram’s Jalsa where there is a sub plot involving Pawan’s character’s tryst with Naxalism and the reasons leading up to them. The writing is blooded with such anger and angst that I was completely moved  only to be stunned into disbelief when the same Naxal character coolly merges into the mainstream in comical fashion. It doesn’t “fit”.

The songs are good but have been choreographed and shot lazily. The cinematography is excellent for the most part with the title credits scenes being the pick. Very nicely shot montage of Mumbai. The action scenes are par for the course but nothing stands out.

Puri’s vision is a laudable one, with nearly full marks for the concept. The execution however suffers majorly.

PS: What’s with the blurring of cleavages and thighs in the song sequences? For an A rated movie, our CBFC really needs to grow up and not turn so prudish at the first hint of skin. It is also so selectively and arbitrarily done that there does not even appear to be any method to the madness. Cuss words have also been beeped out regularly. Again, when will the CBFC stop acting as the moral compass for grown up people?                

This is Rahman’s worst soundtrack in a while (probably his worst ever) and I can’t believe that he managed to achieve it with the same wondrous tunes he had composed for Vinnaithaandi Varuvaya. Whatever were the high points of VTV have been brutally stripped, strewn on the ground and trampled upon here. There is little redemption and solace to be found in the snatches of wizardry that Rahman’s creaky soundtrack delivers. Its like a Bentley has been ransacked and fitted with the parts of a Maruti 800.

The unkindest of cuts is dealt to the gorgeous Hosanna. Vijay Prakash who was the heart and soul of the song is mysteriously eschewed for a Leon D’ Souza. It is a pathetic decision not only because (a) Vijay Prakash can sing Hindi with command but because (b) Leon D’ Souza sings worse Hindi. It is a ruthless desecration of a memorable song. Leave alone the gravelly majestic voice of Vijay Prakash this guy sounds like a teenage Bieber singing about his wannabe love. There is absolutely no idhayam in this song. And this is not even the worst. You know what is the worst? What has been done to Aaromale and Dost Hai. The former completely loses its fragrant, enchanting quality because it is heartlessly shoved with Hindi lyrics that are not only insipid but border on funny. (Did Javed Akhtar really write them? Seriously?) Even though the wrapper for Aaromale is psychedelic, it is a song that is steeped in South Indian’ness right from the way the phrases break, the chant like interludes…everything. At the heart of the problem is the clash between the south Indian idiom and the north Indian idiom of music that Rahman can’t reconcile. Remember S.P. Balasubramaniam plaintively singing Roja Jaan-e-mann with his thick south Indian accent. It is like that all over again except that the roles have been inverted.

Dost Hai is the Hindi version of Kanukkul Kannai. Now, pray tell me, what was the selling point of that song? Wasn’t it the constant strand of mesmerising and intrepid violin work that almost reached Broadway’esque proportions? Wasn’t it the infectious energy of Naresh Iyer’s singing that somehow attained a free floating quality? Please find me that in this watered down remix of a song that is filled with techno and plastered with the occasional burst of violin only to be later suffocated under the debris of offensive rapping. This is a song that a mediocre DJ would be proud of. Not Rahman.

Phoolon Jaisi is somewhat salvaged by a fabulous Clinton Cerejo but again the question stares in the face of the listener – Couldn’t they find better set of lyrics than this? The original phrase Omana Penne was so ingenious and layered that the lyricist for this song already had an impossible job on hand. In the movie the boy was a Tam; the girl Mal. The phrase, in Malayalam, referred to a girl (Omana Penne) while in Tamil the same referred to a bride (Oh Mana Penne) and this was brilliantly brought out in the chorus (when both the shades of it were touched upon). How beautifully wrought the meaning was, till this Phoolon Jaisi and Pari Jaisi strikes it a debilitating blow. Funnily enough, the maragadha thottilil interlude is retained in Malayalam and not subjected to a suicidal translation. Wonder why Aaromale wasn’t spared from the same fate though. Any answers?

Sharminda Hoon is one song that manages to escape unscathed from this merciless butchering spree. Madhushree’s honey coated voice attains the same seraphic lilt of Shreya while Rahman’s melancholic vocals gush forth with the same intensity and resonance.

Sunlo Zara is rendered well by Rashid Ali and Shreya Ghoshal who capture the boundless enthusiasm of Devan and Chinmayee even though the choice of singers could have been much better. They are after all not even close substitutes. For one, Rashid Ali’s baby footed anglicised voice lacks the assertiveness of Devan’s timbre. The biggest and cruellest blow, however, comes in the form of the first interlude which featured a lovely amalgam of Christian choir music and traditional Hindu shehnai music, with both playing wedding music, in the original. Rahman somehow does the unthinkable here and decides to change the shehnai part to something else. Goddamn it!

Zohra-Jabeen, the Hindi version of the title track, loses it icy cool quality because it no longer has Karthik’s vocals gliding over the lines serenely. Javed Ali sings with felicity but his voice does not meld into Rahman’s sparkly orchestration and form that silvery strand of magnificence that was seen in the original. Akhtar’s verses, for once, shrug off the indifference and shine through.

The wistful Kya Mohabbat Hai’s jazzy style is reminiscent of Rahman’s I’ve Been Waiting. Rahman’s singing is a good touch. The lyrics are passable.

The rest of the soundtrack is taken from the VTV collectors edition. Of these Shreya’s version of Aaromale, titled as Broken Promises, is excellent and a must listen.

In an interview Rahman (or Thamarai) had said that he composed the music for the Tamil soundtrack after the lyrics had been written and this was quite evident from the way he played around with the phrases – twisting & breaking them at will – and the scintillating free form rhythms that his songs took. It was unpredictable, edgy sometimes and thoroughly exhilarating. There is nothing of this sort in the Hindi songs because Rahman’s decision to go with the same tunes (I do not know who made the fatal decision) meant that the lyricist had to pigeonhole lines into the tune – something Akhtar has shambolically and spectacularly failed at. Will the real Akhtar stand up or bring back Gulzar please!

Rahman’s Ek Deewana Tha might delight first time listeners but it has only heartbreak for lovers of the Tamil soundtrack. The soundtrack is unimaginably mutilated with some horrible chances taken by the composer. The vocals are decidedly juvenile for the most part till Cerejo, Rahman and Javed Ali step in.  The lyrics are consistently sloppy. There are innumerable bad musical choices.This movie’s only redeeming factor seemed to be its music. But alas!             

PS: I am revisiting VTV’s music again just to relive the brilliance all over again.

* Don’t. Don’t expect a purist’s take on Sherlock Holmes. Guy Ritchie is too incorrigible to let go of his stylistic moorings. Here too you have Ritchie style blazing action with the camera zipping around madly. Ritchie makes great use of this technique to explain/recap events quickly for the viewer. There are slo-mo sequences that seem absolutely out of place but this is one director that just refuses to grow up!

* I don’t understand why they even have to call this movie Sherlock Holmes because it has nothing, zilch, nada to do with the iconic detective apart from the name, some characters and the famous address. Holmes is a predominantly Ritchie’esque action character. Nothing more. Nothing less. Hell, they could have called it Downey Jr. and the Game of Shadows and people would have queued up equal fervour.

* Having said that, this movie is great, great fun for the most part. Downey Jr. hits top gear and his one liners, witticisms and tantrums are a joy to behold. This movie is nothing without him. He is probably the only actor who can get away with anything (Even a drag). Such effortless timing. Such rapid fire dialogue that you think somebody will get hurt.

* The movie hurtles from the start with a colourful set of characters and a plot that capably puts Downey Jr. on screen for most of the time. Ritchie’s lines are funnier here as compared to the first one. There is also more enthusiasm and vibrancy to the movie as Holmes’ literally trots across Europe.

* Hans Zimmer’s score is functional for the most part with different bars of discombobulate featuring prominently. But what blew my head was the melange of some quaintly eastern European violin riffs for an action scene that takes place at a club (Noomi Rapace’s place). The action piece was very ordinary but Zimmer elevates it with his propulsive score so much so that it seems stunning. Earworm moment!

*The movie builds on Holmes’ terrific ability to premeditate action sequences. This is taken to ecstatic levels towards the end when Holmes and Moriarty, both consummate at the skill, plan out moves and counter moves without so much as moving a hand. Rollicking stuff.

* Jude Law is surprisingly in great touch. He is not usually an impressive actor but he shows great flair for comedy and shtick here. Noomi Rapace sounds like the exotic gypsy she is, while Stephen Fry is barely tolerable as Mycroft Holmes (The scene where both the brothers attack each other with deductions is imaginatively transformed from prose to screen). Jared Harris as Moriarty is not sinister and intelligent enough. This is not merely the actor’s fault as the rivalry between Holmes and Moriarty is not gestated enough like it is done in books. Irene Adler is cruelly bumped off. The screen won’t be lit anymore by the luminous smile of McAdams.  

* This series continues to have incredibly good set design and locations – giving the movie a magnificent period feel. The cinematography is first rate. Editing could have been tighter. There are scenes after the rambunctious first hour which seem to drag for a while.

Ritchie’s new movie is a swashbuckling adventure that is not as “deliciously complicated” as Downey Jr. puts it. But it is delicious and compelling nevertheless.

If one reconciles oneself to this much, as I did after strenuously trying to stay on the hunt as an active participant before being shunted out by Alfredson, there is a lot to savour and enjoy. Firstly, there is the all star British cast at the top of their game. Considering the number of characters, only a few manage to stay on for more than a couple of minutes. Gary Oldman’s (as George Smiley) pensive, measured performance is masterful. It is astonishing how he has managed to summon upon himself the curse of old age so quickly. There are at least a thousand wrinkles on his face, even more adding to them when he is worried, as he is thrown into this quagmire of a mission to uncover the mole at the top of the Circus (The British Spy Agency). We should also keep in mind that he has only ordinary dialogues to say here and is not aided by the crowd pleasing, rousing dialogues of the Batman series or the overtly sinister scenery chewing kind in Leon. He is an old, retired, stolid man for whom life has become a wheezing struggle and this is depicted nicely in the scenes where he chugs through his daily chores somewhat like how he wades through the placid waters in a  swimming pool. Mark Strong (as Jim Prideaux), Benedict Cumberbatch (as Guillam) and Tom Hardy (as Ricky Tarr) are the others who get some screen time and all of them play their characters with remarkable ease.

The second thing I liked about the movie was its elegiac quality. There is a nation’s national security at stake, as it usually is in spy dramas, but more than that there is also personal pride and honour at stake. For Smiley, there is redemption at stake after having to quit unceremoniously. Also these are not young, virile men engaging in a battle of wits but a solitary old man (pardon the pun, if any!) who is past his prime fighting it out.

The use of real world locations instead of sets gives the movie a sense of history and is very appealing. It also kills the little lurking feeling that this might play out like a Hollywood spy drama from the outset. Alfredson captures the lived in decadence of the espionage establishment, the Circus, to show us compellingly as to why the top brass may have been foolish enough to have fallen for Karla’s astute skulduggery. It is not just the mole but the naiveté of the entire establishment that is desperate for success and breakthrough of some kind.    

Alfredson and his team of writers manage to invoke an over bearing sense of intrigue and drama without depicting any overtly. The team of writers do not gloat over the bigger revelations, as and when they arrive, and keep pressing with a sense of efficiency that perhaps diminishes the impact of the movie at certain key moments but also elevates it beyond the realms of melodrama. It is a choice that they consciously make as is evident from how the final act unravels and the mole is revealed – not to any reverberating Zimmer like score but a low key trill. What the movie lacks is a sense of urgency but this is more than compensated for by the various engaging strands of investigation. Such cinema and such understated denouements I have only seen in the likes of Coppola’s The Conversation and Fincher’s Zodiac.        

As it is, TTSS is a movie that you can easily give up on, for it has everything going against it – too much information to process for a movie, too many characters to keep track of, intricate details that lead to further intricate details so much so I still do not have the complete web of connections in my head. In this respect it is somewhat like Altman’s Gosford Park with all the information overload. All I have remaining is a feeling of having had a sumptuous meal whose delicious aftertaste still lingers. It is a movie that cannot be grasped in one viewing for the above reasons, at least for me, and whose appeal lies far beyond the simple click with which the pieces of a puzzle fall into place.

For the second time this year, a Nordic filmmaker shows the way. I would not mind if they take over. 

Don 2 has loud, brassy, colourful screenwriting that is at times so reckless and inconsistent as to be fatal. But somewhere down the line Farhan manages to strike a balance, I would not say fine, between this pure unabashedness and proficient plotting. It is still all over the place in a likeable way. It is not overwrought with a clinicality that becomes a defining feature of most thrillers. It does not even aspire to be the perfect thriller. Its aspirations are lower and it meets them in sublime fashion.

In the original Don itself, SRK managed to bring in his own mannerisms and quirks to make the character his own. It was a major departure from Sr. Bacchan’s smouldering, dignified performance in the original. Don 2 only ramps up the brashness and quirkiness of Don. It is an extension of SRK’s and Farhan’s personas. So if you can’t tolerate them in real life this movie can become extremely annoying to watch. The plot is centred around a heist that Don, Vardhaan and a man boob possessor called Jabbar, who is like a cross between Parmeet Sethi and Javier Bardem, fashion in order to steal currency printing plates from Deutsche Zentral Bank. There are a couple of plot twists as usual, a comically apocalyptic romance between Don and Roma (Priyanka Chopra in an assuredly dramatic role), his jangli billi who he admits has become a buri aadat, a few double crosses etc.

But what you really take away from this movie is SRK’s cheeky bastard swagger and charm that he, in the true tradition of camp and kitsch, overdoes. There are lines like “mujhe apne aap ko zinda rakhna suit karta hai” or “aaj meri maa yeh sunkar kitni khush hoti” that are outrageously funny. With this movie I lost the ability to discern the difference between so-bad-its-funny and actually-funny because it ferociously vacillates between the two although it is mostly of the former variety. Either way it is funny. This is the campiness and excess of the Tim Burton kind and go for broke filmmaking because I am quite sure Farhan could have made a studied thriller with functional dialogue and walked away with so called critical acclaim. He could have put the focus on the story but staunchly refuses to do so. Instead he puts the focus firmly on his lead and tells it in the massiest way possible. He makes the audience laugh at the film and not with it. He gives atrociously clunky dialogues to Om Puri (Who reprises Malik) and basically everyone apart from Don to make them look like moronic characters straight out of the iconic C.I.D. show. All of this is ridiculously joyous to watch.

The second aspect that hits you is the fabulous cinematography that faithfully and evocatively recreates the lushness  of Thailand, the polish of Kuala Lumpur and the icy cool blue tint of Berlin. Jason West, take a bow man! The action set pieces are not extraordinary but definitely Hollywood worthy. Shankar Ehsaan Loy’s soundtrack, as I had guessed earlier, improves dramatically in the context of the film. Their groovy cadences in the background score, derived largely from the first instalment, propel the movie well.

All in all, Don 2 takes hold of the action-heist genre and reconfigures its boundaries to suit its lead’s persona. It feeds and thrives on the energy and glamour of SRK and along the way throws in a modicum of a plot that I didn’t even bother about. Because in the end all the tackiness, cheesiness, ludicrousness and over the top-ness is the real deal, and to quote my friend (who quotes from the movie!), is all part of the plan. Its all part of the plan.                        

The plotting is irrelevant frankly. The devil isn’t in the plot; it is in the treatment. Bird plays it perfectly – The tautness of a chase movie  spiked with delightful self deprecatory and deadpan humour. The punches keep rolling till the end with Simon Pegg hogging the bulk of them. Bird ensures that there is no single dull moment in the movie. His storytelling is frenetic and he keeps whisking away Hunt & Co to a new location after every half an hour. The globe trotting Hunt has his hands full with one task after the other so much so this movie should have been called Missions Impossible. Here too there is a delicate balance to be struck between too many missions tiring the viewers down with deja vu and keeping them invested in the movie. This is where the humour comes in. After every mission – even  during every mission – there is a constant playful banter between the leads that keeps you hooked.

The stunts are refreshing and thankfully kept to a minimum. I think Hunt gets two major stunt sequences – one in Dubai and one in Mumbai – of which his heroics on the Burj Khalifa are jaw dropping. It is breathtakingly shot and it is good to see Cruise up to it at the age of 50. The desert storm sequence is also picturised well. Tom Cruise kicks ass as Ethan Hunt and roars back to form after some lukewarm releases. Simon Pegg is an amusing, likeable presence while Paula Patton is equal parts gutsiness and sexiness. Renner plays it in a cool, detached manner that is apt for the role. Michael Nyquist is hardly there and looks suitably mad and menacing. The real winner though is Brad Bird and his team of writers who insult our intelligence – take outrageous liberties with it – but still deliver bucket loads of fun. Bird stays true to the grammar of De Palma’s MI be it the self destructing mission messages or Cruise’s lip reading ability but adds his own original touch. It would be interesting to see where the franchise goes from here considering this mighty impressive effort.

PS: I tried to follow the plot as diligently as possible but soon realised that it was not the main deal anyway. I don’t know who the weird guy is who he meets in a port towards the end. I don’t even know why they go to Mumbai.(Ok they have to stop Hendricks (Nyquist) from using the satellite to launch the missile or something but then Paula was looking so ravishing in that green dress, Cruise so charming in his suit, Pegg so amiable with his humour, Renner so sophisticated and Anil Kapoor so jejune that I gave a damn about the details.)

PPS: With regard to Kapoor though the writing could have been better and not so clichéd. I mean,come on!            

Businessman has competent, engaging music that has enough for the masses and the connoisseur.It also marks an important evolutionary stage in Thaman’s music. 

Despite the tame title tracks, Bodyguard’s music is quite enjoyable what with Thaman discarding his penchant for excessive percussion for a more ambient sound.     

Ajay-Atul are a compelling addition to the talent explosion in the Hindi music industry and consolidate well after the delightful start in Singham.More power to them!