‘KAMBAKKHT HOPE’
In the Zoological gardens of Nairobi, within the jungles of Kavilan in the remotest part of Africa, exists a species of flora/fauna called Pelaan. It is akin to the carnivorous flower called the Venus Trap. It’s beautiful, flashy, big, mindless, and brainless with a function to eat and exist. It survives by being beautiful, flashy, big, mindless and brainless. That’s the simplicity of it. Its purpose. And the denizens of the zoo are attracted to it knowing it’s beautiful, flashy, big, mindless and brainless. In fact that is its raison d’etre. And possibly even its inbuilt failsafe mechanism. The sheer beauty and enormity of the Pelaan renders everyone senseless. You go to see it, drawn by its magnificence. You pay to see it and when you walk away from it in a completely disappointed stupor, it doesn’t matter. You have already paid for viewing it. You might try and stop others in a fit of evangelical zeal, to save them from the crushing disappointment and for justice, but it’s like stopping the tsunami with the wave of your little finger. You will go under, finger and all.
There in lies the story of my tryst with Kambakht Ishq!
Before I suck you into my morass, even as we deviate from the Pelaan for a bit, let me say at the outset that I love and appreciate masala stupid. I love being entertained by masala stupid and enjoy leaving my brains behind at those times. Those are thought out moments. For a certain kind of film, with a certain kind of actor and banner.
KI was to be that kind of film, coming as it was in the wake of a drought that parched our souls and eyes for want of films. But now, it was over. Mega entertainment was back. Like the night watchmen of yore, New York came, tested the pitch and won, titillating in the process, our need for more cinema. It re-acquainted us with the act of watching a film, the semantics of booking a ticket, getting popcorn and coke, nachos and salsa, samosas and tea, the works.
The ticket sellers were happy, more polite than ever before. The ushers were happy, joyful in their activity of directing patrons and the people were happy, happy at being entertained again!! Ah!! Back to the Movies!! And to top it all, the King was coming. The crème de la crème of entertainment. Akshay Kumar, presented by Sajid Nadiadwala. Even the law of averages was on my side, given the debacle called Chandni Chowk to China. What could possibly go wrong? The promos looked good, Kareena and Akshay dreamy, and the film a promising crisp comic entertainer, with a present day idiom of the battle of the sexes.
But hello?!! The music sucked!! Anu Malik was brilliantly below average! Even the title track was just about passable. How many films had worked whose music sucked?? Don’t know, don’t care. I believed music was over emphasized in our industry, and the back ground score meant much more as it worked harder to hold the mood. So there! The little speck of worry was flicked off my windscreen of hope!
The evening of 2nd, a Thursday, was wet, windy and woeful. I booked 8 tickets for KI, a paid preview, and garnered the support of my friends and family, all die hard Akshay-ans, for that fateful tryst. I was 10 minutes late in arriving. Missed the national anthem. And the beginning of the film. And the popcorn, coke, samosa, tea, et al. And I was wet. And all the 8 seats were separate. So? Nothing. Just that, that was the best part of the whole evening thereon!!
I believe there is lowbrow laughathons and then there is crass!! Farting on a woman’s face is crass, not funny. A black woman caricatured as the customs officer, whose contorted face, exaggerated expressions and massive girth suggests her genealogy to be a mix of Yeti and James Bonds arch villain, Jaws, diving into Akshay Kumar’s rectum is not funny. Not a titter in the packed hall is ample proof of what’s working and what’s not. Pounding cakes into each others face was borderline funny as slapstick goes, but Yawn, just about!!
It slowly sunk deeper. I believe and stupidly still believe, that the battle of the sexes is fun and acid and tongue in cheek. Abusive, derogatory, overt and downright nasty is an insult to both sides, states laziness of application and bad taste (Here I do wish to state that I could in the minority when I see shows like Roadies and Splits villa working wonders for the erstwhile MTV).
Still, as things go, the whole first half had endearing moments. There were many ‘laugh out aloud’ moments, Akshay on the operating table was one such as was the clichéd but still working ‘HI Jack’ on the plane. The first half ended with promise of possibility and hope to come. The second half didn’t just fail to disappoint, it went further and murdered all hope!! The thing with Welcome, Singh is King etc is that the film makers were honest in their descent and kept it exactly there throughout the film. There was honesty in the film till the end. It didn’t aspire to be a hybrid. That’s where this film fails.
In the second half, there must have been a total of one or maximum, two laugh moments. The director actually tried to make a meaningful love story out of this brainless film. Out went the madness, and in came the melodrama, over acting, contrived tear moments and the death of all comedies, seriousness!! Even the watch that Kareena leaves in Akshay’s stomach didn’t get milked for what it was worth. The proposal under the sea, the re operating scene and then the ghastly kick in the pants for Akshay, defied every conceivable logic and thought. It was also obvious to see that the conceivers of this film sat and saw the film, realized that it was too long, had issues and decided to cut many scenes. The unfortunate problem is that it makes the film jumpy and looks as if something is missing in the narrative. But who cares.
Brandon, Superman, Routh was cut down to an extra in a party. Sylvester, Rocky First Blood, Stallone moved about in a geriatric daze and Denise Richards, check out wild things to truly know Denise Richards, was shown and shot most unflatteringly as she went around trying to convince Akshay to give her golden babies. Yeah right! If that isn’t the most far fetched thought, Denise convincing Akshay, here is another. In a moment of a two minute chastising from Kirron Kher (like Dara Singh and Vindhoo have first right of refusal when it comes to playing Hanumanji, she has digs on playing single mother) Kareena does a volte face, realizes how wrong she was and spends the remaining part of the film in getting Akshay back. Yup, with full seriousness of purpose. And she gets him back from old Denise in a heartbeat (yeah!) and off they go to their honeymoon.
If only someone had done to the film makers, what Kareena does to Akshay to stop him from talking in the end, we might have had a better film and more love to show for it. The film got over, and the audience walked out in a numb daze. Honestly, we couldn’t look each other in the eyes, strangers that we all were, embarrassment acutely being the foe!
The beauty is that the film makers knew that they had, at best, a half baked product in hand. And here is where we separate the men from the boys!! They decided to kill with Massive!! They decided on the largest opening possible, coming as the film was on the heels of a filmy drought!! 8 crores worth of prints were dispatched (my back of the envelop calculation). It was Mega, huge, vast, immense, gargantuan, mammoth, monumental, elephantine, mountainous, titanic, epic, brobdingnagian, whopping, humungous, astronomical, ginormous. Anyway you write it, it was a Colossal opening. And like moths drawn to destruction, everyone went for a look. Before it could actually be brought to notice, how plain and disappointing this film was, in less than a week since, it was declared a hit!! Who says size does not matter??
Now remember how this article started? With the Pelaan. Re-deviating to my Pelaan then, and where it fits into this mockery of an article.
That brainless plant mesmerizes you by the size and the promise of grandeur. So did this film. You pay good money to see it, in hope. Ditto for this film. When you walk away from the Pelaan, numb and shocked, you realize that you have already spent money to watch nothing. Likewise for KI!! The plant flourishes. As does this film. People still go to watch KI, in hope of entertainment!! As does yours truly, an aspiring successful, rich and hopeful film maker, in hope of gathering knowledge from this film, for creating mega hits!!
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You tell Anu Malik that his music was below average and woh tumhara woh haal karega ke tumhari saat pushte ganji-nangi paida hogi aur tumhe kosegi..
http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/Web/HTMumbai/Article/2009/07/08/548/08_07_2009_548_002.jpg
Eat his shorts you punk!!
KI is like an insectivorous plant … hmm…nice
log pair par kulhaadi marte hain, tumne kulhadi pe pair maara
inspite of knowing that its insectivorous, u went for it
hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! He doesn’t fail to entertain. Thank you for the article. He’s given really good music in mannnny films. This time, not so. and ummmm Tejas, if I ate his shorts, we’d see all his shortcomings!!
@crazyrals, not onc, twice till today
Here is what Taran Adarsh has to say:
“But what upsets me is the slanderous campaign, targeting this film in particular. ”
So if you call a kachra film, a kachra film, TA saab ko gussa aata hai!
@abhishek, Calling a blind man blind is bad etiquette. TA is a gentleman. Don’t be surprised if he makes his debut under the Nadiadwala banner!! :-) thats if he ever has an idea for a film.
hahaha..
Brilliant brilliant review this..!! :D
I haven’t watched the film, but can guess how deceptively hyped it was !!
And the way you wrote it, it was downright funny..
I had read Sethu’s review on the same, and wen i started reading urs i thought that you were going to praise KI.. hehe..
great stuff..great read..It destressed me..
A big thanks to you… one as big as ur name !! :P :D
@RRJV: dude…i like ur spirit. do put some +ve omments for the movie in other posts where its getting bashed big-time and face the wrath
by the way, i shall keep-away from the movie. hate to get sucked-in, will do a dvd-watch of it
“So if you call a kachra film, a kachra film, TA saab ko gussa aata hai!”
LOL, that is nothing, watch Rediff, where Akki fans, are on a crusade against those who hate this movie, classifying them as “SRK’s XXXXXXXX”.
..
BTW the fight on Rediff between fans of SRK and Akki, over who the real King is much more entertaining and funny than this movie.
@Rahul Surendran: Thank you sir. The perks of writing a ‘crass’ epitaph is to get supporters of it :-)
@Crazyrals: cut and paste at your peril. Unlike you I shall go for the 3rd time, till I discover the Secret!! ;-)
“cut and paste at your peril. Unlike you I shall go for the 3rd time, till I discover the Secret!! ”
Well thats the spirit, carry on RRJV.;)
gr8 post…
http://www.screenindia.com/news/kambakkht-ishq-hindi/486200/
one more TA’s friend has reviewed KI.
@ratnakar…
these days producers (politicians) are hiring people to write positive reviews to promote the movie. That is the reason you see people flooding the comments section with positive reviews. Expect that to happen in Rediff and Bollywood hungama too.
Read somewhere that BJP hired close to 2000 people to do that for the parliamentary elections!!!
Thats the reason you don’t see sane discussion happening there…
Really nice write up.
RRJV – what’s happening with Mahayoddha Rama?
Wish you wrote on something else…
“Brainless” plant?????
@ Ratnakar: BJP’s hype unfortunately for them didnt work. In KI’s case, dude, look at the Domestic Box Office collections basis hype only. 51 Crores and counting! Sigh!!
@ Tushar: Is that just a sigh of disappointment or a suggestion to apply myself more creatively? :-)
@ Tejas: Thank you for asking. Its on. Some complexities are being handled.
@Sourav: Thank you bro.
@KI: Its a hybrid. Part flora, part fauna. hence the infinitesimal brain. :-)
Who will doubt your creativity man. Just expecting more of your quirky articles, and certainly not on KI!. But yeah, whatever works. :-)
It was good to pass time. That’s what masala films are for. It was nowhere as bad as Chandni Chowk… or not as unimaginative and unfunny as Welcome. I would tell the readers to not skip films because critics criticize them. You got to decide for yourself.
Hey I suddenly realized Im Pelaan. IM flashy, big, mindless, and brainless with a function to eat and exist. How come no one pays to watch me! Even my wife doesnt want to see me most of the time! I have a tendency to render my listeners senseless, you must have realized by now. I think I shall go to Sajid Nadiadwala. Maybe he’ll open a botanical garden for me!