2013 Mini-Reviews: The Great

These are most of the movies that I was eagerly waiting for last year, and for everything on this list I had to run out and get the dvd as soon as I could. I’d say 2013 was a pretty good year, Bollywood-wise.

Phata Poster Nikhla Hero

I just loved this movie to bits. It’s like Rajkumar Santoshi got a list of all the things I like best about Bollywood (goofy Shahid Kapoor, melodramatic mothers, ridiculous schemes going out of control on three different levels, loving filmi in-jokes, and all the warm and fuzzy songs) and wrapped it up in a package with my name on it. I can get why it wasn’t that popular, but I really can’t imagine enjoying a lot of the more successful movies (for a timely example, say, The Lunchbox…) as much as I enjoy this one.

Lootera

This was probably my most anticipated movie of the year. I was hooked as soon as saw the first trailer, with its melancholy voice over and beautiful shots of Sonakshi and Ranveer. And it completely lived up to my expectations. It was romantic, beautiful, and melodramatic in a very quiet way that really took the actors seriously. Not that I don’t also love Ranveer and Sona in their commercial films, with their flashy dance moves, but this gave them the scope to do some acting and it really paid off.

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani

I know I gave this a bit of a “meh” in my original review, but the fact is that I’ve watched it more times than any other movie from last year, I listen to the whole soundtrack every couple weeks, and most of the song picturizations have made it to my youtube favorites. Now that I know what I’m getting into, I can appreciate the story for what it is and I think Ayan Mukherji did a good job capturing that sense of friends reuniting and feeling like everything has changed around you.

Raanjhaana

This odd genre of stories about love that aren’t love stories is something that I took a while to warm up to, but it was worth it. I avoided Raanjhaana in the theaters because of all the talk of glorifying stalkery romance, but the promos finally sucked me in and I really enjoyed it. There’s even a review languishing in my drafts folder about how I was able to pry a semi-feminist reading out of the story’s presentation. Dhanush was fantastic, and to my surprise, so was Sonam Kapoor.

Dhoom 3

This is a worthy sequel. There are so many motorcycle stunts (including magical transforming motorcycles which fly and become speedboats when necessary) and Aamir Khan has the best scowl, even if he doesn’t have the same bromance with Abhishek that Hrithik did in Dhoom 2. I liked the circus glamour and the way they played with the camera angles to get Katrina and Aamir in the same shot, plus the emotional narrative really worked for me.

2013 Mini-Reviews: The Good

Chashme Baddoor
Sid (an extremely charming Ali Zafar), Jai (Siddharth), and Omi (Divyendu Sharma) are best friends living together in Goa. They scheme and swoon over women and don’t pay their rent or bar tab. Their solution to their debts is to fix their landlady (Lilette Dubey) up with the cafe owner (Rishi Kapoor) who are completely delightful and, it is worth mentioning, behave like adults (albeit adorably infatuated ones) when Jai and Omi try to break them up when their schemes start going south. Unfortunately, Sid doesn't behave with the same maturity when his charming romance with Seema (Taapsee Pannu) is in jeopardy, so Jai and Omi have to come up with an even more ridiculous scheme to undo the damage they caused. Siddharth was kind of wasted as a sidekick, and Divyendu Sharma got on my nerves, but it's still a really fun, enjoyable movie.

See how charming Ali Zafar is?

Really freaking charming, that is the take-away from this movie. Taapsee is also pretty cute, and the whole movie is fun. I have to admit that I haven’t seen the 1981 version, but I think David Dhawan did a good job with this. It is stuffed to the brim with filmi references to Dhawan’s previous movies and many others (My favorite is Siddharth and Taapsee Pannu doing “What is mobile number?”) and it’s surprisingly family-friendly. That doesn’t usually top my list of criteria for a good movie, but it’s refreshing to have the David Dhawan fun without the gross-out humor, the random racism, and weird homophobia (I’m looking at you, Partner).

Shuddh Desi Romance

Honestly the promos for this didn’t interest me much, but I love Parineeti Chopra and I ended up liking the movie. As an American movie watcher, I'm pretty sure I've seen this plot before so I didn't get the novelty of the casual live-in relationships but it's a good example of the genre. With well-realized female characters, even. We get more backstory on Gayatri (Parineeti) and Tara (Vaani Kapoor) than we do for Sushant's character, but it's still Raghu's story, which is a little unfortunate because he's not nearly as interesting as Gayatri. They kind of try to remedy this by having little at-the-camera monologues where the women explain their feelings. Apparently nobody at Yash Raj has heard of "show, not tell", but there was this line from Gayatri that just killed me.

Sushant and Parineeti are adorable together, even when their messed-up ideas about love make you kind of want to strangle them (Raghu particularly, it should be noted). Jaipur is beautiful, we get lots of scenic landscapes and colorful streets and there's also Rishi Kapoor. He's Raghu and Gayatri's friend and employer (they moonlight as hired wedding guests) and acts as a steadying force between the two that's mature, but not quite parental.

Ram-Leela

It felt like this movie took forever to come out on dvd! Despite not liking a single Sanjay Leela Bhansali movie since Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (though I ended up watching Black the day before I watched this, and I liked it a lot, so go figure.) I was really looking forward to it, but missed it in the theater. I’m not sure it quite lived up to my expectations, but I also think I should give it another chance when I’m not all befuddled by cold medicine, because I kept mixing up which widowed bhabhi was which and who was trying to take down who. Either way, it was sexy and colorful and beautiful and melodramatic and Deepika was fantastic. Ranveer Singh was more than the abs and dancing of Tattad Tattad (not that I didn't enjoy that tremendously) and he and Deepika had great chemistry. Just look at the beginning of Lahu Munh Lag Gaya. Also, that mooche!

Obviously, I loved the songs. I think Laal Ishq is my favorite, but what was with all the horrible item songs last year? I liked the music to Ram Chaahe Leela but Priyanka looks like she’s teaching a yoga class instead of sexy dancing.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola

Most of the reviews agree: this movie is basically just Vishal Bhardwaj being weird for two and a half hours. I thought it was hilarious. Pankaj Kapoor completely steals the show as Mandola (please keep acting! Especially if it keeps you away from directing!), Imran Khan (Matru) looks really good all tan and bearded and Anushka Sharma (Bijlee) really nails some of the physical comedy, especially in the final scene. Also, I want her skirt SO MUCH.

Of course, if I think about it too much, I’m left with a lot of questions. Is this supposed to be a happy ending for the farmers? They’ll keep their land, but all the bourgeois scheming destroyed their crops. Has Mandola really changed? What will happen to the African dancers? Why did the subtitlers translate “bhenchod” as “bloody buffoon”?

As a satire, it's kind of inconsistent. There are some brilliant scenes, and then it all promptly turns into poop jokes or a pink buffalo. Which, honestly, is exactly how I like my movies but I can understand why it got panned by more serious folks who like more coherence and less flying buffalo poop.

2013 Mini-Reviews: The Timepass

I only saw 16 of last year's Bollywood releases, but most of them were pretty much what I expected. The terrible ones were as terrible as I figured from the promos, the good ones were great, and the so-so ones were nice background noise. Excepting R... Rajkumar, which I ran out to see in the theater because I'm such a Shahid Kapoor fan, these ones I watched because I was vaguely interested and there was nothing else on Netflix or Erosnow.

R… Rajkumar

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Shahid as a masala hero delivering snappy lines and dancing with Sonakshi is a wonderful thing, but this movie needed more plot and fewer rape threats. I’m glad it did reasonably good business, but I’m not going to watch anything but the songs again.

Chennai Express

This was just an idle Netflix watch, but it was fun. It’s not anything it doesn't promise to be, but if you go in expecting some ridiculous Rohit Shetty adventure, lots of self-referential Shahrukh Khan-ing, and flipping cars over with machetes so they explode, then you will be rewarded with exactly that. Deepika acting as "Ms Subtitle" got a little irritating, considering I already had subtitles, but she was much less annoying than I expected from the trailer. I don't think it deserved all those Filmfare nominations, but I do think it deserved all the cash it raked in.

Kai Po Che

Technically, this is a good movie. The story of three young men and how their friendship lasts through business, family obligations, sectarian violence and finally, tragedy. And there’s cricket. It didn’t do a lot for me, though. I’m kind of done with male bonding and bildungsroman-ing and like 3 Idiots (this is another Chetan Bhagat adaptation) there is practically no female presence in the film. It’s nice that Sushant Singh Rajput got some recognition for this, though, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of him.

Go Goa Gone

Zombies. And Saif Ali Khan as a Russian mafia drug dealer turned zombie hunter. Puja Gupta as an astonishingly reasonable female character. Kunal Khemu being ridiculous, and getting chased around a tree by his party hookup-turned-zombie in true slow-motion Bollywood style. Yeah, most of the jokes were in the trailer, but it’s a fun watch.

2013 Mini-Reviews: The Ugly

I didn’t watch too many of these, luckily. I turned Himmatwala off 5 or 10 minutes in, and Mere Dad Ki Maruti, while awful, was just on for background noise.

Deewana Main Deewana

Good god this was terrible. Apparently, Priyanka Chopra signed this movie with Govinda circa 2003 or so, but from the script and the styling, it looks very 90s. The project got shelved, probably because it was terrible, but the director resurrected it, reshot some scenes, and released it in 2013. I really don’t know why. Certainly I didn’t pay money to watch it.

Even as a 2003 film, it’s still really bad. Is Govinda a murderer or just a cowardly brat caught up in a bad situation of his own making? Do we care? There’s an obligatory Johnny Lever comedy subplot which never at any point intersects the primary narrative. I complain about comedy tracks that add nothing to the plot, but they usually involve the main characters, even tangentially!

When you add in the recently shot footage, it becomes even more bizarre. Instead of keeping continuity and just setting the movie in 2003 (or whatever), they throw in references to movies like Dabangg and Enthiran, presumably in an attempt to update the script. This doesn’t work when it’s mixed in with scenes with posters of the Spice Girls on the walls. There are also some hilarious giant cell phones that interchange with normal-sized cell phones throughout the movie. The only redeeming entertainment factor is watching Priyanka’s nose change from scene to scene.

Gori Tere Pyaar Mein

Really Bebo? Did you really turn down Ram-Leela for this? Not that the fault isn’t also mine. It’s not like I enjoyed Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, but I watched this anyway. It’s the story of the relationship between Dia, (Kareena Kapoor Khan) a vegetarian social worker whose passion is trying to improve the lives of the less fortunate, and Sriram, (Imran Khan) who is a bit of a douchecanoe.

The first half of their story is told in flashback, as Sriram narrates the story to his fiance (Shraddha Kapoor). She’d begged him to reject the proposal when the marriage was being arranged so she could marry her Sikh boyfriend, but he accepts anyways because he doesn’t want to piss off his parents any more than she wants to piss off hers. So her Plan B is to get Sriram to recognize how much he misses Dia and get him to run off, thus leaving her both in the right as the jilted bride and conveniently available to marry someone else. This works! Imran Khan really lacks the panache to tie up his lungi and race boldly away from his wedding, but that is what he does, determined to patch things up with Dia.

You can hardly blame him, though, she has an awfully nice butt.

Despite having nothing in common with her, and in fact spending their entire relationship rolling his eyes at her values, he has decided that Dia is in fact his true love and follows her to the remote village in Gujarat where she is now working. She’s still not over the incident that ended their relationship (hint for potential douchecanoes: Perhaps it is true that someone is certain to crush your girlfriend’s dream, but take note, that someone should really not be you.) and isn’t happy to see him. He decides that to win her back, he will build the bridge that her village desperately needs, which becomes the extremely explicit metaphor for their relationship.

The second half has Sriram bumbling around causing problems in local politics, some very 2-dimensional villagers, and there are lots of references to Lagaan, because, I don’t even know. Again, I don’t feel the chemistry between Imran and Kareena, nor could I really get behind the love story. The bridge construction moving in fits and starts to mimic their relationship got really grating, because it wasn’t about them at all. The bridge situation had serious implications for the people of Jhumli, and having it play out the rom-com of a well-off urban couple who won’t be sticking around anyway is just, well, bleh. Sriram’s shenanigans with the local politicians could have had really unpleasant consequences that he’d be completely insulated from and I wasn’t convinced he really matured enough to understand that.

Bottom line: Kareena is far too good for this movie (also, what was with all the jokes about her character being old? We should all wish to be that stunning at 33.) and Imran Khan is really miscast as the immature bad boy learning lessons about love and life (again, bleh).