Bollywood Calling : Kukunoor aced this one
After watching the ridiculous Baabul, we came home, switched on the telly to find Bollywood Calling being played on one of the channels. It was the fourth or perhaps the fifth time I ended up watching the movie. Yet, there isn’t an instance of repetitiveness causing boredom syndrome in this Nagesh Kukunoor creation.
To me, Bollywood Calling, is Nagesh Kukunoor at his wittiest best. An amazing tongue in cheek kind of humor, Bollywood calling is a spoof on Bollywood itself.
The story is short is about a Hollywood actor who has cancer (Pat Cusick) being brought to Hyderabad by a first time producer (Om Puri) to play the part of a white step brother to an Indian Dacoit played by superstar Manu Kapoor (Navin Nischol). The movie traverses the funny to hilariously knocking off your seats – instances Pat goes through while shooting the movie.
What I liked about the movie is the balance. Nagesh gives equal time to both sides. The people in the film industry who create headaches and the people in the film industry who get those headaches. Plus messages on why movies are the way they are in India.
This was again one of those movies that should be in the league of a “Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron” but tragically, as is usually the case, it isn’t and is hardly known or recognized by many, if not any.
To have fun with Bollywood Calling, it is important to take note of the sarcastic sense of humor.
The performances too, are A rate. Pat Cusick provides the right dash of a bewildered actor caught in an alien environment to which he tries his best to adjust to, while secretly trying to beat the cancer.
Navin Nischol as the so-full-of-himself super star Manu Kapoor is in a performance that needs to be seen to be believed. It is obvious he has taken a lot from what he has seen and observed in his 30+ career in his film industry… perhaps also taking in some of the behaviours or patterns that he himself may have been once guilty of. Watch his eyes go all starry eyed when in a buzzed with alcohol moment he confides to Pat how he would like to work in a Hollywood movie… or the amazing clarity in which he portrays hurt and anger in the same expression when Patrick busts on him towards the climax.
But the film belongs to Om Puri. To say that he was having a ball would not be enough. He plays the role of a Telugu Producer turned director right on the dot. His fantastic sense of humor and timing, and his use of holding his expression without stretching it at that right punch line shows us how amazingly well he understands the medium of cinema, inside out.
And in the end it’s Nagesh Kukunoor, who brings in so many of life’s minutest observations in the movie that it would take book to fill it up with… right from Puri touching Pat to convince him to come to Indian (which is gay to Pat but for Puri it is a simple gesture of urging) or the way Puri totally exasperated on the sets tells all actors on the sets to carry an expression infront of the camera which portrays “Bastard, I’ll kill you”… not forgetting his complete inability to explain to the villain how to give a “lusty” expression… and of course the intelligent way of using Perizaad Zorabian’s character to spit out on screen the muck that exists in the industry…
If you haven’t watched Bollywood Calling, then do pick it up on the first available opportunity. Maybe it won’t be your cup of tea… but it reaffirms the fact that there are still film makers in Bollywood, who still “think” and that is very reassuring.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I LOVE the “Bastard, I kill you” look! And Nagesh Kukunoor’s cameo!
- Anantha, Kukunoor should be playing those kinds of characters in his movies, instead of what he did in Dor. Actually the impression I get from watching both the movies is that, Kukunoor was much more comfortable playing the character in Bollywood Calling than in Dor…
More thoughts floating in… loved to see the smartness of Kukunoor is relaying comedy… for example the drinking scene in Manu Kapoor’s house… Pat asks Om Puri “What time is the shooting tomorrow”… Puri quickly replies “9 sharp”.Cut to. 9am the next morning where Pat is standing in an empty parking lot outside the studio.
i love watching spoof films, but unfortunately, i did not like this one as much as I thought I would. i thought it could have been a bit better. it was not a complete spoof film; there were a bit of sensitive/mushy moments in the film which i did not like.
but yeah, a good watch.
I must have watched Bollywood Calling like a zillion times. I always bloody urge my friends to watch this movie for the spoof it provides. Well damn it its a spoof,its not a comedy…you will be thoroughly entrtained only if you are ready to read those subtle nuances in the movie. Eg the Freedom of speech thing which Pat says to Perizaad and his expression when she takes it a bit further by telling him he is very average in bed. Or the “I want Balls…More Balls”. Now here is a lil bit, itsy-bitsy information about the spoof of the scene. K.Raghavendra rao is a huge director in Telugu Industry, notorious for his Casting Couch thingies, Notorious for the elaborate use of Balls, Fruits, Flowers in his songs…he “has” to have one song in his movie with these props or the Mata Parvathi will not accept it…Nagesh very subtley uses that in the song picturization of his “MAUT”. Check for Om Puri’s expression of content…the scene where Pat asks him 1000 why’s…Om goes ” Sir…i did not understand…can you please repeat it….Slowly huh..please” Pat goes..Forget it..lets do it… Om Puri gives gold of an expresiion there of content happiness…damn it…Why Not a National award for such performance?
Perizad being as blunt as possible in telling pat..”Ohh did you think i went thru audition tests to get this role?”…Or when she says..i just wanted to sleep with an American..coz i had never done that…
Kukunoor another brilliant role was in Rockford…i also liked him in Teen Diwarien..mostly because the the language he speaks is “on dot” with what you would hear in the old-city of Hyderabad…Khali-peeli, Nakko..Mein Bolroon…Kaiko Tobeich..
the reason i still believe in kukunoor after dor, is bollywood calling and rockford. BC(bollywood calling, what did u think :-?) remains my favorite kukunoor- all the realistic shoot portrayals, a pick on the harsh realities of the industry, a take on the ‘extra’ culture, ‘phoren’ obsession, the list goes on.
i absolutely loved nischol in this one, it was almost at par with murray’s lost in translation(but the other way round), the movie has strange similarities with lost in translation.
nischol was in same electrifying self in khosla ka ghosla too.
good one, oz bhai
How I discovered Nageh Kukunoor?
I was in Bandra with my girl once & wanted to be alone with her in some dark place. Reach the Bandra Multplex (Gaity, Galaxy etc) & what is playing some unknown guys movie (Hyderabad Blues). So I buy two tickets & wait for the darkness to settle in. I start watching the movie for a bit but get so engrossed in that I completly forget her. By end of the movie I realised that she had already left. Fuck that was really somthing in Hinglish. After that I have every movie he has directed and never saw the girl with whom i had come to watch d movie.
U gain some u loose some.
Pray that Nagesh keep on making what he is best at & not follow the Bollywood her mentaliyt.
Yeah, Bollywood Calling is an amazing li’l gem alright. And Om Puri rocks – esp in the ‘Bastard, I love you’ sequence. Apparently, he took tips from Kamal Hasson on perfecting the accent. Naveen was damn good too.
On a related note, didn’t like ‘Dor’ much though. Had already seen the Mallu original ‘Perumazhakalam’ (roughly translated as ‘Season of Heavy Rainfall’), and except for Ayesha’s marvelous performance, Dor is not a patch on the original. Shreyas was awesome, though, I have to admit!
Yeah, a true gem that was. Still remember “I waant more baals in the frame” Cracked me up. =))
He had the accent down to the T. Kukunoor makes really nice movies. Dares to be different.
“BAALS !!! I WANT MORE BAALS IN THE SCREEN !!”
“IF MANU KAPOOR WANTS ANY DONKEY WILL DIRECT YOUR FILM…WAIT WHY DONT U DIRECT IT ??” =))
priceless … simply priceless
Although i kind of found perizad zorabian a little ‘pseudo’ .. if u know what i mean
I have three complaints with this movie.
1. Missed the first few minutes because we watched Baabul.
2. Missed the last few minutes because a storm came in and knocked out oz’ satelite tv.
3. I would love to buy this and add it to my library, but I don’t think many of my friends would find it funny as I did as they don’t watch Indian film. I wouldn’t have found this funny a year ago, but now I think it is brilliant.
I can’t wait to see the whole thing. My favourite quote, “Come meet a fresh batch of hypocrites.”
I liked the movie when I watched it. But I guess I have to watch it again now!
oz: I didn’t think Kukunoor was bad in Dor. In fact, I felt he played a role not expected of him and gave a bit of a surprise.
Muzzy: Interesting story!