Every Story tells about Pictures
I watched two movies last weekend, both of which happened to be thrillers dealing with pictures. More precisely Photographs taken by a camera. This post is a twin review.
1. Tasveer 8 x 10
Director: Nagesh Kukunoor
Genre: Whodunnit Thriller
My Rating : 1/5
Plot
Jai Puri (Akshay Kumar) founder member of an organization called EPS (Environmental Protection Services or Society) whose job includes catching illegal poachers. He lives together with voluptuously innocent (or innocently voluptuous) girlfriend Sheela (Ayesha Takia Azmi), who still looks like a Complan girl, enlarged.
Jai has an unnatural talent to concentrate into any picture, quickly pass out and then witness the events that occurred immediately after the picture is shot, through the eyes of the picture taker. He can ‘enter’ the picture and reach that exact particular time in past and start witnessing the event. However, this time travel takes a toll on his health subjecting him to near-death experience. Somehow (?) he has found that his optimal stay in past can’t exceed 60 seconds, for him to return safely. Except for his mom (Sharmila Tagore) and Dad (Bengamin Gillani) no one knows about this rare gift of his.
During a yacht party rich dad falls on the cold water and dies of heart attack. A perfectionist detective named Habibullah Pasha aka Happi with an ‘i’(Javed Jafferey) arrives and tells Jai that it’s a murder and not an accident.
As the movie is a whodunit, then efforts are put to make all the characters look like a suspect. Eventually most of the people get killed. The leftover people alive (only three of them) start living happily ever after.
My impression
Mentally prepared by reading the published reviews, I was expecting a treatment different from the Director’s other movies alright. After watching it, judging by the typical Kukunoor treatment in movies like Teen Deewaryein, Iqbal, Dor or even recent Bombay to Bangkok, it is difficult to grasp that this is a work by the same Director.
It was more like an Abbas-Mastan movie. Where when you almost guessed the whodunit, the plot takes an unbelievably radical twist and then events and flashbacks are shown to justify the impossibility. There were clues are given, but I could not guess the killer.
Some of the Abbas Mastan symptoms in the movie noticed are as follows-
• Absence of a logical script. Everything happens should be believed as it is shown.
• Because Akshay Kumar is the hero he has to jump from 100 ft high cliff, shot by 4 different cameras, slow motion et al.
• Rich dad and independent son maintain a difference with each other for some unknown reasons (probably environment pollution).
• Wealth is never quantified.
• Dad decided to celebrate his will with family and shareholders (serious dudes like Girish Karnad, Anant Mahadevan) on his yacht.
• Jai Puri and big Complan girl goes out cycling through dirt tracks meandering amidst lush green meadows during normal working hours.
• Everyone lives in grand postcard look bungalows and drives Volkswagens, Chevrolets, SUVs. The weather is always brilliant and bright.
• When desi people are angry or emotional, they speak angrezi.
• A sibling is the greatest enemy.
• Good friends always backstab.
• Girlfriend lives together and ditches.
• An Indian lady soothsayer lands in Canada for no apparent reason and gets killed.
• White skinned people are just morons and they understand Hindi very well.
• Mother has an old flame who is also the lawyer of the ex-husband.
• Amazing landscape, panoramic view and exotic locales.
• There’s Bohemia rap at the end singing ‘I got the picture’, in case you don’t get the picture.
Some other serious concerns observed
• Javed Jaffrey does his best, but his character, victim of perfectionism, an obsessive compulsive disorder, is not funny if it was supposed to be. Anyway it’s not funny to kill the funny guy.
• Veterans like Sharmila Tagore and Girish Karnad doing arbitrary and insignificant roles.
• Music which used to be one of the key elements in Kukunoor’s films is a complete letdown. Other than Mohit Chauhan’s voice, Salim Suleiman’s music couldn’t create any interest.
• How will Ayesha takia end bloating?
• The only part of the movie worth mentioning is the James Bond like title sequence at the beginning.
2. Aa Dekhen Zara
Director: Jehangir Surti (debut)
Genre: Thriller/ Sci Fi
My Rating : 2/5
Here the protagonist clicks picture on an old box camera to see the future. The movie started well with Raj (Neil Nitin Mukesh), the struggling photographer gradually discovering the power of his camera gifted by his scientist grandfather. He makes quick bucks by seeing the future lottery results and gains confidence. He then steps up winning into bigger fields like Race, Cricket betting and finally the Stock Market. Cash overflows his apartment. Meantime he impresses his bong neighbor, item-bomb DJ Simi (Bipasha Basu). He clicks a picture of his own and sees his death within 6 days. Just when things seemed to get interesting, the movie falls flat on its face once the baddies (Rahul Dev, Bobby Vatsa) are introduced. The audience is then force fed the Hindi film formulae. The story moves to Bangkok and few car chases happens, a leggy babe (Sophie Choudhury) comes in, random shootouts kill the baddies before a typical filmy end.
ADZ still had potential to become interesting but the debutant Director decides to focus more on visual gimmicks than the story itself. It’s one of those shallow good looking cinema, which doesn’t give any satisfaction to the intelligent mind. Also the stereotypical treatment to Neil’s character after his Johny Gaddar portrayal is remarkably conspicuous. He is single, stays in an apartment with a pet (a pigeon this time) and doesn’t know how to smile. Neil should join some chin exercise class and learn to show some expression other than the ‘stern look’, ‘cold look’ and ‘ stern cold look’. This is a red alert for him. One more role like this and he would definitely become the Woody Alone of Hindi film industry.
The title song is a remake from Rocky (Sanjay Dutt’s debut) is sung by Neil himself and there’s no apparent connection otherwise. The song ‘paisa hai power’ is also a remake of I got the Power by the Snap!
The end of the movie can literally be translated as ‘All’s well when it ends in a well”.
If every picture tells a story and a picture is worth million words I am jaded after digesting so many words in one weekend.
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
Hmm so be it looking into the past(8×10) or future(ADZ), we seem to have got it all screwed up.
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Maybe both Kukunoor and Surti could have a dekho at Partho Ghosh’s 100 Days, an 90’s thriller based on a similar premise, to see how a thriller could be effectively directed.
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Dont think Kukunoor is suited for the thriller genre, he works best with personal touch stories like Iqbal or Dor.
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BTW there is one more supernatural classic, Kal Kisne Dekha comming up.
uh- yes both the movies sucked overall.and as Ratnakar says we now have Kal Kissne Dekha coming up & I dont have any expectations from it too.
Looking into the past/present is not a bad concept – but its all about execution & thats where these movies ( atleast 8*10 & ADZ ) have gone wrong.
tasveer8×10 was the sequel of aa dekhe zara
click a snap, see the future, jump right into it and prevent the mishap
@Ratnakar : yeah… 100 days was rally good. although it was a remake of ‘eyes of laura mars’
not directly related to this post, but i hv a very interesting anecdote to share re: 100 days.
i heard the word ‘premonition’ for the firt time on the posters of 100 days… and guess what, being intrigued, with all my enthu overflowing, i went to Madhuban (in kolkata) to watch a 2-5 show on a rainy afternoon.
all the prosepctive audience were huddled together near the posters, and suddenly, one enlightened soul declared without any care in the world… ei, jaanish, jackie badmaash aache…
i thought i shud just kill tht guy, or at least cut my losses by selling the tkt even at a discount and get away. after all, whts the fun in watching a suspense thriller if u know the suspense before hand?
anywys, mayb coz it was raining & i didnt get anyone to buy my tkt, or mayb i was destined to watch it, i did, n i was more than happy n surprised to know that what i had come to know was NOT THE COMPLETE TRUTH.
since then, one, i never hang around too long near the theatres in case of a suspense / mystery movie, and two,i never entirely believe any rumour abt the movie unless i hv watched it.
BTW, didnt watch either of the two mentioned in this post. write-up was very good, though…
@uh: r u the same one? our kolkata GPite?
@ Ratna: Yes. Though 8×10 locations were superior but the script was probably recovered from some amateur writer’s dustbin. ADZ, you know how it fails.
100 Days ! It was absolutely enjoyable. But I understand it was not original- Remake of Tamil film Nooravathu Naal(1984). It had good performances from Moonmoon Sen and Javed Jaffery in supporting roles. One of the well made thriller in Hindi. Another good thriller from Partho Ghosh is Teesra Kaun which was probably Rituparna Sebgupta’s Hindi debut with Mithunda. I don’t remember much but it was a murder mystery on a train. Chunky Pande was there too.
I would say Khiladi was one of the successful whodunit ( though inspired from Khel Khel Me) with good performances.
I partially disagree that Kukunoor can’t do thriller. If you have seen Teen Deewaryein, which was a good thriller, well told by Kukunoor. I think, here was overshadowed with the Abbas Mastan ghost which spoiled the broth.
Kal Kissne dekha ? Except for Vivek Sharma (Bhootnaath) there’s nothing promising as such. But Kal kissne dekha? lol
Cheers!
~uh~
Yep and Nooravathu Nal, itself inspired from “Eyes of Laura Mars”, but this is one of the few “inspirations” i liked. The Tam version was good, but i liked the Hindi one more, maybe due to a certain Ms.Dixit now Ms.Nene.
Ah how much i miss Vijay Anand, a master of the thriller genre,IMO.
@ Sethu: It is quite painful to accept for me, that our guys could not even handle a linear narrative of to & fro time travels. Whereas, internationally nonlinear narratives like Run Lola Run, Butterfly Effect, Memento allows the protagonist hop, skip and jump between past, present & future within a complicated script and yet glues the viewer to their seat. 8×10 did not have an intelligent script to start with, it was just a force fed formula. But ADZ really had good potential. I also fail to understand why Indian Director’s can’t find good location in India and they have to have stories based on Canada or Bangkok? There was no reason for 8×10 to be based on Canada. ADZ instead of running around in Bangkok could have easily be executed in Kerala or Goa. Abbas Mastan & Yashraj films makes it for NRI audience. Whom are these films targeted at ?
That way Tashan atleast explored India well- Kerala to Ladakh via Mumbai
What we need more <b<Desi Directors who will respect and showcase what we have within.
Cheers!
~uh~
@crazyrals: ROFL idea. We can also have two girls for past and future. We can rename that movie as ‘ Aa Dekhe Zara Future ka Tasveer 8×10’. Idiotproof and self explanatory !!
:D
Cheers!
~uh~
Well we can make good thrillers as shown by Navdeep( MSFU), Sriram Raghavan( Johnny G) in recent times, provided we dont try to do a Ctr C+Ctrl V with some Hollywood or Korean/Chinese/European DVD.
@Satyendra: Even I saw 100 days on a Rainy Afternoon but on Roopbani in North kolkata ! I think it must have released on monsoon at Kolkata. I think some people earns a sadistic pleasure by spoiling other’s charm by telling the end.
Some years later, when Gupt released some wicked student pasted a poster in college canteen “ In Gupt *a*** is the murderer”…..lol
100 days was good experience, elements like video cassette and the magazine cover were used in a nice way and the suspense factor was quite high in the movie. As I said to Ratna Khiladi had a good suspense factor too. Abbas Mastan did a wonderful job there.
The best thing is to watch a whodunit or mystery movie by the first weekend, because after that rumours start floating. I got an sms saying ‘ In Ghajini Aamir is the murderer’, which though bakwaas creates confusion.
I am the same ~uh~ indeed :D
Am posting another review shortly which may bring the Ray Kolkata lovers in PFC together ……
Cheers!
~uh~
BTW we already had a desi version of Run Lola Run, it was called Ek Din 24 Ghante or something like that. After 10 minutes though, i just felt like Running away from it.
@ Ratna: Agree Ms Dixit was absolute delight.
Btw, now that you made me thinking there was another “inpired”thriller bu Ketan Mehta Aar ya Paar (1997) starred by Jackie Shroff and Deepa Sahi. It was inspired from a James Hadley Chase novel. Paresh rawal did an interesting cop character and Jackie’s huge mansion was memorable.
Did you notice Jackie Shroff is a common name in Khiladi, 100 days and Aar ya Paar?
Golden days of Jackie…..sigh
~uh~
@ Ratna: Even if any good thriller is copies, the essense is killed by customizing the story to Indian sentiments.
Example
Reservoir Dogs- Kaante: excellent starcast, but loose delivery.
Oldboy (Korean)- Zinda: ending changed to suit Indian sentiment. Incest, though practised rampantly and is regular feature in newspapers, can’t be accepted on silver screen. What hypocrisy man.
MSFU & Johny G is both of my favs, you know that.
Jackie Shroff in Khiladi??? Dont think so, AFAIK, dont rememver seeing Jackie in that movie, even in a guest role.
Aar ya Paar was fine, but Kamal Siddhu, totally ruined it, with her atrocious dialogue delivery, and her non existent acting skills.
Yeah also reminds me of VVC’s Khamosh, one of the best whodunits i have seen. During the good ole days, when VVC still did not have this “I am Spielberg” feeling.
@Ratna: My mistake, I confused with Shakti Kapoor (God help me!).
I have not seen Khamosh though looking for it for quite some time now :(
I understand it was co written by Sudhir Mishra and Kundan Shah as well.
@ uh, ratnakar: there is another thriller directed by VVC, sazaa-e-maut. it is probably even earlier than khamosh. the DVDs of both are available in the market.
khamosh had a terrific cast, naseer, amol palekar, shabana, pankaj kapoor and host of other stage actors. it was done mostly with FTII & NSD guys. yeah, sudhir mishra & kundan shah were an integral part of khamosh, almost like returning favour to VVC for his role in JBDY.
sazaa-e-maut is a taut thriller with naseer and dilip dhawan and some not-so-famous actress playing the main protagonist. watch it, u wont b disappointed.
@ Uh; 100 days certainly released during monsoon season, and it was fun watching madhuri. i still remember that song – sun beliya, shukriaya meherbani being a sleeper hit.
You can add Saeed Mirza to that list too. Actually they were a team, VVC, Sudhir, KS, Saeed all of them passed out from FTII around same time. So you had Sudhir and KS writing for Khamosh, and likewise VVC, Sudhir doing it for JBDY( the funda of why the characters were called Vinod and Sudhir).
VVC can come up with great scripts(Munnabhai), but post 1942, he has got this “epic obsession” in most of his movies. BTW if u notice in Rangeela, Gulshan Grover’s character was a straight parody of VVC, especially that “Hamare comparison yahan ke log se nahin, Hollywood se hote hain”.
@Satyendra: Unfortunately no one writes on such underrated movies. I saw the cast in wiki page, but nothing else is written on Khamosh. I have not seen Sazaye-e-maut also. Why don’t you write on them ? I will look out for the DVDs.
Yeah- Sun beliya……what a catchy song of that time !
@Ratna- never knew the Sudhir Vinod funda of JBDY, now that we have discussed it’s very clear. The 4 guys you named changed the face of Hindi Film and television serials in the 80s.
Khamosh ka DVD is a must buy & at Rs.45 its a killer deal ( T.Series)
uh- yes even I liked Aar Ya Paar- it had lovely songs too.BTW I’m happy that finally I hear somebody who echoe’s my views.Even I’ve been thinking WTF are people shooting movies abroad in such large numbers?Though 8*10 has great visuals, is it really required to shoot it abroad?Ditto goes for ADZ as you mentioned.The most silliest of all in recent times must be Yuvvraj WTF was it shot in Europe?
@~uh~
Nothing else written on Khamosh? Look on PFC brother
sir has written in detail on Khamosh.
http://passionforcinema.com/khamosh-once-upon-a-time-vvchopra-had-made-this-thriller/
@Sethu: I am feeling useless now. My wife too has seen Khamosh and was all praises. I am buying the DVD this weekend, and Sazaye-Maut too.
I am yet to understand the reason for shooting munndane stories on foreign locales, unless someone convinces me that it is easier, cheaper and faster to shoot abroad than India.
@Jahanpanah:My bad. As IMDB is behind firewall at work, first thing I look into is wiki. Thanks for the link, man. Some threadbare discussion on VVC there !
Cheers!
~uh~