The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Living a PAKISTANI DREAM.

Yes, Mira nair is exactly doing that. Not living an American dream and rather living a Pakistani Dream.  What a movie and what a performance!!! A movie to showcase life of innocent pakistanies to be considered and falsely convicted as terrorist or criminals. The movie uncovers the true emotions of such a man who goes through all the brutalities of victimization by totally stupid intelligence personals. The same is shown in one of the scene in the movie where an officer repeatedly asks the protagonist same question about him being a terrorist. As if he will change his answer. The nerdy and procedural stupidity of americans is also shown in many other scenes where the protagonist is held under surveillance and troubled every now and again without any particular reason.  Since the Americans have a habit of following specific procedures so they also want everyone to follow the same. That is how the theme of the movie is built up.

Changez khan (Riz Ahmed) is a bright Pakistani lad who has cracked into the financial industry of America and started following the FUNDAMENTALs of the system. He started following what he is told. Being the brightest pays him with the fastest promotion. He gets a gal of relations to his boss. He is away from his family but he is LIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM. When he is on a trip to Phillipines, a devastating attack on twin towers occurred. On his return, everything is changed for him. At the airport itself he goes through a thump on his self esteem and then the receiving American girlfriend asks him “why do they do it”.  He starts realizing slowly that he is not living his life and it’s a borrowed life and a borrowed dream. Mira nair has captured the emotions very nicely. She has showcased the emotion through various incidences he goes through with his colleagues, friends, girlfriend and of course the stupid system. His self respect is completely shattered and self believe also shambles which is why he misinterpret the efforts of his girlfriend to celebrate their love. Totally out of self confidence, full of disgust and embarrassment he decides to come back to where he belongs, to his own country, Pakistan. Though shattered by American system he is still proud enough to be Pakistani and being honest. And does not want to prove hard himself right, honest or innocent by removing his beard or doing whatever they ask for. This attitude and the feeling of revenge make him join a college to teach students – FIND PAKISTANI DREAM AND LIVING IT.

Mira Nair has presented a well crafted movie here. She has captured exactly what she wants to tell –which is absolutely NOT THE REASON WHY PEOPLE BECOME TERROIST, like most of such movies show. The movie is really moving and touching. I tried my best to watch it with a view of filmmaker but could not do it and got so indulged in the emotions that I started to relate the situation to the real life. Kudos to Mira Nair to capture the little little things very nicely. And of course a big big kudos to the Guy  - Riz Ahmed. Man, he has acted. Deserves an award for this one. His act through the transition from a bright ambitious AMERICAN financial entrant to a PKISTANI activist professor is smooth and non dramatic. It is as natural as it can be. Fantabulous job by Riz. 

Mira Nair has used very raw cinematography for the film. She has not shown even a single glossy frame which gels well with the theme of the movie. The make up is very subtle and gives the original and natural look to the characters. Both of these aspects gives a feeling of watching a documentary on the real event. Art direction is also very good. The locations of Lahore looks very real and skyscrappers of Newyork captures the wall street looks. Some of the frames where the images on lift doors  or burning twin towers of background on the mirror are really awesome. Essence of Lahore is captured very nicely by camera which actually goes in the back ground but gives it a original look. A particular frame where a small girl is walking towards a office to drop a parcel shows the peculiarity of Lahorian neighborhood. And you can see one person using 4 filters to filter tea. The background score or music goes with the theme of the movie. Especially the lyrics of the songs in the background are actually depicting the situation going on the screen. All in all, the efforts of Mira Nair to tell a touching, not a routine terrorist story are commendable.

But Alas,! Hollywood does not like such movies. Hollywood or America promotes the movie only which go ga ga over the efforts of Americans to fight the terrorism no matter how big the collateral damage is. Argo or zero dark thirty are the best examples. Though the movies were really good. but all the pro American military or pro American government movies only get appreciated not only by the Hollywood but by the public, the Americans also. From Indian and Pakistan they just want to see how we fight our poverty – Slumdog Millionare. So finally this movie will not feature anywhere in any of the award ceremony of Hollywood. I hope it changes this time!!!

By the way, on my way back from the movie at night around 1 o clock I was stopped by the cops twice in the offence of wearing the helmet and not racing the bike. They unnecessarily harassed me by asking all the papers and asking all the absurd question at night one o clock but mind it, they never checked whether I was drunk!! So no matter it is America or India, innocent people are always harassed for no reason at all!!! LIVING AN INDIAN DREAM.

Go Goa Gone

Well I don’t have any punch line for this one n I don’t know the reason for that. I usually do. But today somehow I was just enjoying the movie and dint think of anything. May be it was not too good or too bad to have a punch line.

Well today, I went to watch this movie without any expectation. Actually I have heard the review of this movie in couple of TV programs and they all have said its just a average movie just introducing ZOMBIES to Indian cinema and its comic. And of course I watched the promos of the movie. They did not look very promising. They just looked average. The sense of humor was also not very new. The treatment was looking a little stylish but not something out of the world which I have not seen. So I thought to give this a pass. But today my friends called me and dragged me to the movie saying it will be fun if I watch it in a group. Since it was Sunday afternoon and I did not have anything else better to do so I thought of tagging along.

But I was in for a surprise I think. The treatment of the movie in the beginning just gripped me. The single meaning jokes were really cool and looked awesome onscreen. The reason was simple they were not double meaning they were just single meaning and the meaning was exactly which our dirty mind usually thinks. So the jokes were just on the face with the practical reality. The drugs were treated really well in the movie. The first half was really very fast paced and totally humorous telling the characters of  two drug addict friends who takes shelter to drug every time they fail in life. But they have a third friend who does not want to get defeated and struggles to find happiness in that shittingly boring corporate life. After a hilarious characterization the story is being built up by taking them to Goa for some stupid reasons and finally they end up in Rave party which takes them to the Zombies world. Then up to first half that chase and run sequences with zombies is fun. The entry of Saif ali is also cool.

Second half is mostly their trial to come out of that island of zombies. It mostly looks like a cheap copy of any scifi or dianosours movie except for those comic punches here n there very often which actually makes the movie very different. The USP of the movie is its genre which is very uinique. Its not typical action thriller nor a pure comedy. It’s a comic action or action comedy which works real well for the movie. The second half looks little stretched. It could be edited well and movie could have been much better than what it is now. But still the movie does justice and a good watch to experience a new genre.

The acting of almost all the cast is awesome. Special kudos to Veer Sanghvi and Kunal Khemu. Veer sangvi is really awesome in comic timings and his subtle comic expressions are outstanding. Kunal khemu’s comedy is loud but awesome. The third guy has also played very nice goody goody guy which is usual respite from the comedy and gives the balance to the movie, not to let it become out n out double meaning comedy. Saif can be counted in the movie as a cameo. There is not much for him there.

The direction is really awesome. Camerawork is also outstanding. Costume and makeup is done very nice to match up the genre and not to make movie a typical horror movie. Music score also adds to the soul of the movie. All in all it’s a good watch.

Bombay Talkies – 1. Karan johar 2. Joya akhtar 3. Anurag kashiyap 4. Dibakar benerjee

Bombay Talkies – 1. Karan johar 2. Joya akhtar 3. Anurag kashiyap 4. Dibakar benerjee

Surprisingly karan johar gave the best. The guy has talent, don’t understand why he is wasting it in making crappy love – family – over the top – mega dramatic movies. His story is the best. Its crisp and very nicely explained and sends out the message very clearly with entertainment.  Though all the other directors have also tried the same but they lacked some how. I would say karan wins by a wide margin here. The second one is Joya Akhtar, she manages to send out the message clearly. The story is very sensitive but no entertainment factor unlike karan.  Anurag tries to do both and wants to repeat the GOW charm but could not live upto that. The bihari accent dialogues looks repetitive. Though couple of new punches but not very entertaining. Dibakar actually got one of the best story, atleast much better than anurag kashyap but somehow he could not come up with a good one. He lackes in explaining his story properly. He tried to make it a cinematic abstract and symbolism. The theme was not very clear!! This is very clear from the comment I heard in theatre from a “intellectual” lady  - poor guy, he could have waited atleast for 2 more minutes and taken that money. This sums up that dibakar benerjee failed to put the emotions on celluloid properly. Too much of abtract or symbolism also does not work sometime.  I agree that Cinema is a very intelligent medium but still some clarity is required. But mind it, its not at all fault of the actor. Siddiqui did the justice but somewhere direction failed.

But in the end I would say I observed one very important thing. Do these stories actually reflect the life or personality of respective directors.?? And Man, Randeep hooda has some guts…!!!

ASHIQUI 2

It’s the decades old conditioning of Indian storytelling that made us react that the climax is not gud or the end should be different….why cant we just accept a story in its original form…….!!! We never said the climax of Titanic was soooooo sad or the end should not be tragic……..!!! I love the way Indian cinema has grown…..n some nice stories shud be welcome even if they have little tragic climax…..!!!

Saheb Biwi aur Gangster

Saheb biwi aur Gangster looks more like gossip girl where everyone is sleeping with everyone else.

The direction looks week. Tigmanshu dhulia did not develop the story properly. There are many loopholes in the story itself. For example why did biwi needed the money. She was provided for everything, she had her drinks also then why suddenly money. Tigmnashu mistook power  / love / lust / sex for money. The plot is also not full proof.  At one more place Saheb presents soha a phone as a gift when her phone gets broken just the day before, it was no where shown that he somehow knew that her phone got broken. It more looks like “Race” with some crisp dialogues. For ex – “tumhe pata hai mard gali kyun jyada dete hain, kyunki vo rote nahi.”

The story becomes repetitive in the movie itself. You will feel many déjà vus. Tigmanshu has tried to portray the typical traits of women and men and from them he had tried to weave up a story but this was an unsuccessful attempt.

He has tried to create suspense, but that becomes more like RACE type suspense which can be easly predicted if you know this type of movies.

Acting section is also average. The biggest disappointment was Irfan khan. He seems to be repetitive in his acting. The same style of slow and stammered dialogue delivery and nothing new specific to a character is proving to be image crasher for irfan. He needs to start developing himself as per the character not develop character as per himself. His acting was just average. Randeep hooda was much better in the last one. Another disappointment was Mahi gill. Her character was supposed to be the fire brand. She was supposed to be seductive, very powerful but vulnerable at the same time. She could not perfectly do it. She was just average. The only place where she left some spark was the song – idhar gire udhar gire. Jimi shergil was good for his part. He portrayed the character very correctly. But the surprise were Sohal ali khan and the guy who played the younger brother of Irfan and the minister ji. They really dispayed their good acting skills by portraying the character very nicely.

Dialogues of the movie were very real. They only were the saving grace for the movie. Somehow looked like something major was missing in the direction. The comedy also looked boring at some places.

Production design was also average but that could be easily put on the heads of producer for making it under budget. But some more money could have been spent to give it real royal look.

The movie just portrays the typical emotions and traits of men and women and again proves that women are really short sighted.

All in all, the movie is between below average to average. But would definitely suggest Dhuliya not to make it a TV sexual drama series and stop the nonsense right away. I will as usual not give any recommendation simply because I believe that we are living in a post modernization era and everyone has his /her own motive, perspective and opinion. So its up to you. The article is shear my opinion. I see any movie  with two perspective- one as a film maker, two as viewer. Some movies are very satisfying as film maker while some are very satisfying as viewer and some are just awesome. This did not satisfy me in either way.