Did something which I have never
done since my college days. Saw 3 movies within two weeks.
Bajrangi Bhaijan was mainly for
the kids. You have to give one credit to that movie; it is spotlessly clean.
Where BB works is in taking a conventional theme and turning it upside down. So
Salman is strong and over powering as usual but also naïve, unintelligent and
stubbornly honest to the point of stupidity. It is an idealistic simplicity.
And there is the Pakistan angle, but it is not about terrorism and revenge but a
country of normal people who are willing to support a noble cause even if it is
for an Indian. In what is perhaps its best scene Chand Nawab, the small time
Pakistani TV correspondent who has just helped Bajrangi escape a police search
in Pakistan asks him on the top of the bus where they are hiding “Ab tumhari madad kaun karega?”. A
deadpan Bajrangi replies “Bajrang Bali,” as if it is a stupid question. “Yahan Pakistan me bhi?” replies Nawab
instantly, and then rolls over with laughter. In one simple sequence the writer
and director raise and demolish questions that agonize us for lives. BB works
because it appeals to the universal humanity in all of us irrespective of
geographical or religious borders.
Drishyam was mainly for marital
bliss. My wife is a fan of Ajay and I am Tabu’s so it was a must watch. It is a
well-made movie with great performances by the lead pair no doubt. But what was more interesting was the
reaction of the predominantly middle-class house-full family audience at one of
the few surviving single-screen theatre of Mumbai – Maratha Mandir. Ajay’s
family has committed a crime, albeit inadvertently and with a justifiable
reason, and he is determined to protect them. Tabu is leading the investigation
not just because she is the IG but also because the victim is her son. Each
time the family wiggles away from a tight situation the audience claps and
cheers, the kind you heard for Salman in BB. And it brings forth an age old
dilemma – is a wrong right if done for the right reasons? The audience has
obviously made their choice and therein probably lies a perspective of the
society we are living in. Drishyam is an interesting premise but it deals with
the plot primarily as a family thriller letting go of the potential to ask such
probing questions or delve deeper into the anguish of a mother’s loss.
Masaan was for my friend, who is
an activist at heart and a filmmaker by aspiration. It begins with a brilliant
set-up – is there no easy redemption for a person who makes a common mistake and
happens unfortunately to get caught for it? However it then suffers from its
own high octane beginning as the story moves into a normal-day romance and
retribution affair. Yes, the backdrop is different
– the funeral ghats of Benares – and the characters are earthy. But the plot is
predictable for most part and even takes a convenient commercial-cinemasque turn
towards the end – the good loser losing it all and then suddenly winning it all
back by a stroke of luck. Masaan is a good movie with great acting, but it
fails to live up to its promise of a genuine, life-like cinematic experience
that touches you.
The question in the end is which
of these movies makes the cut? All the three movies are well-made and doing
good business. However at the end of each of them you walk out with an
unfinished feeling, like after a great Sachin innings which suddenly got snuffed-out
in the sixties. You walk away wondering about the great possibilities.
