Review: Slumdog Millionaire

10^th January 2009, I was in an A/C chair car of a train that is heading towards my home town.

I settled in the seat, the one which I reserved. There is something peculiar about travelling in trains. It instantly gives you the sneak peek into the much talked about the rising affluence of Indian middle class. Now there is a catch with this, by rising affluence I mean there is richness in everything, I mean what is once accessible only to rich and powerful is now available to masses. So rising affluence means there are more people everywhere.

The A/C compartment in which I was travelling is no exception. There are people everywhere; I mean there are more people without reservation in the compartment than there are people with reservation. Chaos was the word!

A few minutes into the journey, things settled down. Now is the time for please-look-at-me-I have-a-mobile clad people to show off their pseudo affluence to others, so there are a few dudes who pulled out  a mobile and the whole atmosphere was filled out with a tweeting sound everywhere. There was one such person beside me.

Now, this guy is a real dude. He pulled out a laptop and much to his expectations the girl opposite dropped her jaw and bit the back of her palm. His eyes twinkled as the lappie made the standard windows login sound. After all the hush-hush about the machine settled, the media player beamed out a few noises, it’s a movie; a new one too.

                I was in no mood to watch a movie. Primarily there were questions about personal choices; I was not too happy to watch a movie and secondarily there were question of conscience- the movie seemed pirated. But I peeked into the screen and believe me my friends, I engulfed by the movie for next hundred twenty minutes.

                When I started watching, I saw a few kids playing cricket on the edge of a runway and police chasing them; an awesome score of music from behind. It went on O saya…. The song was great to say the least; it instilled in you the spirit of freedom.

                A few minutes into the movie, I realized that a teenage guy was being interrogated by policemen. Apparently, he was suspected of a fraud in a show and earned around 10 million rupees. As the police interrogate Jamal Malik looking at the video of the show so far, we see the movie through the eyes of Jamal. How he answered each of the question from his life experiences to become a millionaire.

                I laughed my heart out looking at how Jamal, as a kid, gets the autograph of Amitabh; the experience which helped him answers the very first question. The gripping screenplay completely engrossed me here as I enjoyed the childhood of Jamal and his elder brother Salim. The movie then changed the gear from subtle humor to thought provoking and sensitive mood as Jamal explained how communal riots took his mother’s life to teach him that lord Rama carries a bow and arrow in his right arm, the answer to the next question. Also, at this juncture Jamal sowed the seeds for his future love, he introduced Latika here.

                The train stopped, I looked out of the window for a moment only to see scores of beggars, most of them children, flocking the windows of the train. They were begging alms showing much younger people in their arms. I could instantly relate to Jamal’s narration of how he knew the answer to the question about the author of a song "darshan do ghanshaym". The movie gave intricate details about how a begging racket works.

                The sympathies and disgust that the communal riots instilled in me slowly metamorphosed to anger as Jamal told the inspector how he had to lose Latika and almost his eyes to know the answer for the next question. 

Just as I thought the movie got serious, Jamal and Salim grew up and Jamal took me through how he tasted the dollars as he and his brother Salim cheated foreigners as fake guides at the Taj Mahal. And Jamal answers the question on American Dollar to become a millionaire.

                I looked around, there was a young couple talking to each other with just eyes. I looked around only to see humans paired up with their loved ones; they are talking, smiling, conversing, worrying but all of them had one thing in common- love. Its love; love in its purest form devoid of all materialistic desire.

This is what you feel when teenage Jamal, along with his elder brother Salim, returns to Mumbai just in search of Latika. Here Jamal is exposed to another evil of the Indian society-flesh trade. Jamal comes to know that young Latika was forced into prostitution. Your blood boils.

                My anger amplified when someone from the corner of the seat made an angry gesture to reduce the volume, he had a logic in his demand. But it was not the time for logic, the movie engrosses you so much that instigates revenge in you.

                Your anger subsides when Salim pulls out a colt 45 revolver and kills the racketeer. Salim would later be befriended by a local don and becomes a small don himself. Jamal loses Latika again, this time to his own brother. He then leads the life of an assistant at a call center.

                The remaining movie thrives upon how Jamal gets on to the show just to make sure that Latika sees and comes to him. To know how this happens, you will have to see the movie.

 

Dev Patil, Tanay Chheda, Ayush Khedkar- the three characters who played Jamal at various stages were simply great. The director got the best out of them, I liked the kid Jamal (Ayush) the most; innocent, sweet and very expressive. The screen play was so gripping that your mood changes along with the movie for each scene, you feel what Jamal feels as he narrates his story. The music, though I could not figure out much, sounded great during a few songs like O saya and Ringa…Ringa.

Overall, Slumdog millionaire is the first great thing to happen to me this new year, I am really happy that I watched this movie and it is beyond any doubt that it is one of the best movies I’d ever seen. It is a must watch for everyone.

Ghajini review

The wait is finally over and I am just back from Ghajni. I booked for the preview show, that itself shows the expectations I had for the movie. Here I am, awake at 2:30am writing the review for the movie and this should explain the fact that I am far from being disappointed.

The expectations that are set by the immaculate marketing campaign, the trade mark of Aamir would just rise when you look at the titles, which look like sneak peek into the human brain. The next ten minutes were spent in comparing the movie to the Telugu version. In fact I was a bit disappointed to realize that to an extent it was a screen to screen copy of the Telugu version. However, the director quickly pulls you in by some nerve tickling humor and from then, no looking back as the movie goes ahead with each scene promising that there is more to come.

Anyone who says that Ghajni is a standard revenge type movie where hero chases the villain to death, they surely have missed a lot of the movie. The movie has all the aspects that a good entertainer should have. It starts with humor that Kalpana(Asin) churns in while Sanjay (Aamir) falls for her is really good. Kalpana is a smart, innocent, talkative, independent, ambitious and socially responsible girl who is good enough to attract the Harvard graduate business man Sanjay.

The plot unfolds showing how Sanjay who was once a smart young business man who balances his life to heed to his innocent girl friend now becomes a brute force killing machine. Sanjay as the short term memory loss patient hardly has any dialogues. His eyes spoke everything; in fact the best part of the movie is to feel along with Sanjay the pain of losing a loved one and how that pain becomes uncontrollable and turns into revenge, all this happens as you look into eyes of Aamir and you cheer each time Sanjay kills one each from the villain’s gang.

The performances were all fabulous, the screen play was awesome, the fights were well designed, and last but not the least AR Rahman's music was great to say the least. One thing that came to me as a pleasant surprise was that the climax was different from the Telugu version. All in all Ghajni has come out well, the emotions of person who lost his love- the theme of the movie- came out sound and healthy. For all this, Ghajni is a definite paisa vasool and so a must watch.

rab did not have taste.

I finally conceded upon my celibacy. I gave in to- you know what- at one of those ubiquitous multiplexes which are more of vacuum cleaner for your wallets. After a long period of inactivity of not being screwed by hindi movies, I have had my share yesterday; I watched rab ne banadi Jodi. I am cursing myself as I am writing these lines. Not that I hated watching the movie, but because people who liked the movie suggested it for its romantic comedy.

The first half was spent in spasmodic slumber. While the ‘not so real’ emotions are grinded upon you in completely unreal sets which are a pain to see, it is just the occasional funny one liners that wake you up as the theatre explodes into an occasional burst of laughter. In fact things get so boring that people did not laugh at what I think as the best line of the whole movie-mera naam hain Raj, naam tho suna hoga? While audience start doubting their intelligence when the questions like why can’t Suri be as fluid as Raj pop up, I felt like a sheep for being taken granted so much that I was made to believe that Tanee could not make out the difference between Raj and Suri.

Most of you know that the screenplay sucked and the storyline was as boring as Russian romantic novels where nothing happens till page number 380 where the hero decides to commit suicide. So I will not talk about it, what irritated me the most is the spineless nature of both the characters Raj and Suri. Both are idiotic enough to dance to the tunes of an emotionally tortured woman whose ideal world is far from reality. Though there is logic behind the concept that Suri wanted to know if Tanee loves the extrovert Raj or introvert Suri, the concept makes sense only if both are different. The whole movie for sometime seemed like an extension of kabhi alvida na kehna, the story was lack logic, the screenplay sucked is an understatement, art direction was no better and the movie was so long that I contemplated walking out.

Coming to the performances, Sharukh was fabulous; his talent was for sure wasted here. I am not sure how much more did he charge for wearing those please-look-at-me-and-puke-instantly clothes. Neon yellow t shirt, blue track suit and red shoes! Anushka was awesome, each and every inch of reel of hers in the movie has come out with the correct emotion, and I seriously feel that she has got a great career ahead. Vinay as usual is good. Overall if you are a smart person and hate emotional manipulations you can instantly avoid this movie. However, if you are a mushy person or an introvert who feel extra uncomfortable talking your feelings to girls, then maybe you can give it a try.

A Wednesday.

".......in this world there comes a time when the most humble of men, if he keeps his eyes open, can take his revenge on the most powerful." said Mario Puzo in his block buster novel The God Father.

Well, the analogy between "the god father" and "A Wednesday" ends there. But these are powerful enough fewlines to describe the whole movie.

My friend who is a teetotaler came out and said, is this what getting high all about?

The movie has the wall paper of terrorism, an all the more common theme in India , but it comes out with a surprisingly gripping pliot line, which just rips your adrenaline glands off.

The movie basically acts like a voice to a common man and almost acts as crater to vent out your frustration on the anti social elements who play with normal people for no mistake of theirs. I do not intend to discuss any more on the plot of the movie becuase it falls under those categoury whose plot needs to be kept a secret for a person to enjoy the movie.

Coming to the performances, Naseeruddin Shah was stunning to say the least, his climax speech is a classic and takes the audience to a level higher. Anupam Kher, Jimmy Shergill and Abbas were as lucid in their roles as anyone could get.

The best part of the movie is that there are no songs. Phew! What a relief!! All in all the movie is a class apart though its roots can be traced to Die Hard 4. I rate the movie with three stars as this is a very good one timer. But do watch the movie, its worth it.