Halla Bol aka Hollow Bol
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VINEET CHUGH
(New Delhi, India)
Email:
vineet23 [at] gmail [dot] com
Halla Bol aka Hollow Bol
If Rang De Basanti triggered the awakening of public concern about Jessica Lal Murder Case, then Halla Bol carries the hang over even further and ended up being a Rang De Basanti residual. It seems corporate groups (read a leading tea company & a telecom group) and Hindi filmmakers have finally realized their accountability towards the society. Halla Bol is all about Jaago India combined with other socially relevant topics like freedom of speech, right to information etc. And knowing Mr. Santoshi, he is a master, when it comes to making his lead protagonist fight with the entire system; be it Ghayal, Damini or more recently Khakee. He repeats this trend with Halla Bol, but something is missing. What? Read further.
Halla Bol is the story of a struggling actor Ashfaque aka Sameer Khan (Ajay Devgan, as effective as always), a bollywood superstar who leads a Page 3 lifestyle, wins popular awards and sleeps with aspiring female actors (read casting couch). He shares a cold relationship with his wife (Vidya Balan. In one of the parties Sameer witnessed a murder of a girl, by two rich men’s sons. On being interrogated he denied being there at the party during the time of murder. Sameer gets a clean chit from the police but the entire episode disturbed him. He recalled his old days when he was a struggling actor. His guru Sidhu (Pankaj Kapur, I will come to him later) was the owner of a theatre group and together they used to do plays on public awakening. On becoming a film star, Sameer parted his ways from his parents and even Sidhu and becomes a self centered mercenary.
One fine day (actually night), Sameer realized his responsibility and took a call to raise his voice against the murderers. He took them to court, only to loose the case because the two men boasts power, paisa and politics, as repeatedly told by Darshan Zariwala who plays the role of a corrupt politician and is father to one of the murderers. After loosing the case, his goodwill went southwards and his acting career hits the rock bottom. He takes it personally to put the culprits behind the bar. Predictably, Sidhu comes to his rescue and together they go public (not an IPO, but a street play called Halla Bol) to make people aware of the truth. In the climax, hamari janta finally awakens; conducted morchas, attracted media attentions and the culprits are behind the bars.
So what went wrong if it tries to educate and enlighten the society? Well nothing, but there is no novelty in the script. A major fraction of the movie gives a feeling of déjà vu and seen it before syndromes. It’s not that Mr. Santoshi got inspired from any movie or Jessica Lal Murder Case or something more external; certain frames have an uncanny resemblance to his own works like Damini and Legend of Bhagat Singh. Moreover, Sameer Khan and Sidhu characters have subtle shades of Sunny Deol in Ghayal and Damini respectively.
Even if we discount the resemblances, the movie also suffers from the “second hour curse” (I read this term somewhere and loved it as I am usually left unsatisfied with the second hour of most of the movies). It looks like Mr. Santoshi ran out of his quota of patience and gave us a slow and I know it climax. And thank God there are just two songs in the movie. Please don’t think that I am allergic to songs but the music score is so abysmal that more songs in the plot would have given an incentive to the audiences to take a nap, go to the loo or go for another round of popcorn
Performance wise, the pivot characters have all performed very well. I will applaud Santoshi for this ability of always deriving strong performances from his crew. Remember Khakhi, he even made Tushar Kapoor act. Oops.. that was some nostalgia. I return to Halla Bol. Ajay has once again given a good performance, but I don’t think that this one will add to his repertoire of best performances. Vidya Balan as Sameer Khan’s wife leaves an impact, especially in a scene where she slammed media and confirms that she loves her husband and admires him because he has balls (nothing equivocal, watch the movie to fathom it)
Can’t wait anymore, so finally few words to felicitate Mr. Pankaj Kapur. We want more of you Mr. Kapur. Although Sameer Khan is the main protagonist in Halla Bol, but it’s Kapur as Sidhu who walks away with all the spectacular scenes and dialogues. His rift with Sameer Khan, his reply to one of the middle men who offered him bribe and his outburst at media; all these scenes shows his expertise as an actor. In fact if Halla Bol is watchable, the credit goes to him.
Would like to wind up with just two points:
1. A good recipe combined with exotic ingredients doesn’t always promise a great taste.
2. Why don’t we see more of Pankaj Kapur? (Any one listening or reading)
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
watched the movie today. I agree that Pankaj Kapoor takes away all the cake in the movie and Ajay is not what he could have been , somehow i was left with a feeling that something was missing in the movie . maybe it was the director or the storyline ? Ajay was no where close to being utilized as the actor he is but if anyone in the industry could have done it, it had to be Ajay.
All in all its definately watchable..
what a fuckall movie…….bad direction, cleched story line…dis honest to the core and why the hell no1 in the crew once asked santoshi tht how cum a guy pees in the bunglow nd a politician who is besharam breaks his bunglow? ok not logical at lots of places….now dont wanna talk abt it…gandi pictures ko discuss karke kya faida?
ya only good in the film is pankaj kapoor….he is toooooo good in comparison with the over all film…nd yea plz ppl listen 2 teh plea…why dont we see him more often….hats of 2 him
I never understood one thing…… In most review the people say that the movie is not that good but this actor is has done a very good job…. How can the actor be effective when the movie overall is bad. Did the director reserve the best things for the actor and nothing else is done good. Or we have a strong bias for the actor
note the scene where tiwari asks sidhu,
aur kaise ho
sidhu replies,
bas theek hoon, neend badi achi aati hai..
Santoshi got this knack of puttin some dialogues like these which makes the movie watchable,
also when sameer khan gives 10 lakhs to ritu and tells tht is may hee tumhari bhen ki aatma ko shanti milegi, she returns the money and says,
tum apni aatma ki shanti k baare may socho.
when sameer khan loses his cool and tells his wife as to how he did this, he did tht… she replies
aaj kal tum main shabd bahut use kar rahe ho..
and anthony kisi ne dekhi kya???
I dont think movie is bad its watchable affair within parameter of making its commercially viable director has tried his level best to make us sit and think.I found few secnes worth mansion-sameer peeing on the carpet,His wife replies to the media-he has got balls,Siddhu responds after business man giving him bribe.
The first half was promising but the second half was surely below average. Especially the end was really disappointing, movies like this are supposed to have a very strong finish, but here the public awakening and the nukkad natak were really disappointing. Everybody’s talking about Devgan and Pankaj Kupur’s good performance, nobody speaking about Darshan Zariwala’s overacting!!!!
Hey! I quite liked it! I dunno why are we always looking for faults.. In a multiplex, people were whistling and clapping on so many occasions!
My cousin told me that she liked it better than RDB – don’t pop your eyes out yet! But her point was – the action of Aamir and gang in RDB of killing the politician was questionable and unbelievable.. Also, the end radio bit was too OTT. She also said that the entire documentary on Bhagat Singh and all made the narrative unnecassrily complicated. I need not agree with her, but got to accept, good points!
Halla Bol is an honest film – at least in my opinion. That is the most important thing for me in a film – honesty in intention of making the film. And I agree on having the opportunity to see more of Mr. Kapur. This man is a genius! What a performer!!
I feel first half of the movie which killed it ……
There is nothing wrong in the story, we have seen successful movies without good story…
Wht he should have avoided
1. funny scenes where Ajay devgan is endorsing Brands and delivering funny dialogs… though u laugh at it…. but this should have been in bit serious mode rather then the way it is right now..
coz name of the movie & trailor suggests its very serious movie… and though in 2nd half it is quite watchable but till then audience has already lost it…
(when that leader says “ki paise ke liye actor log kuch bhi bolne ko taiyaar ho jayenge” is more acceptable then the way Samir Khan tries selling the brand in funny way… ) coz mr santoshi u were not making a funny movie… but it was very serious… n if u had to create some scenes.. then it had to be very subtle… which makes audience laugh n think through…
2. background score… few places which needed good background music to keep the audience alive was killed…
:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((
1st half was soooooooooooo bore. after wtching ajay devgun in the 1st half. how cm such a DARPOK hero turns into a SUNNY DEOL ISHTYLE! he has really lost tooo much weight.
MOVIES BELONGS TO PANKAJ KAPOOR!
Undoubtedly the dialouges in Halla Bol were topnotch,especially the one delivered by Pankaj Kapur.
Sunny lalany has summarised the best dialouges and I’d like to add another one:
“Apne sharir pe chot lagne se to jaanwar bhi cheekh uthta hai, asli insaan to woh hai jise dusre ke dard ka ahsas ho”
Nothing unique about this dialouge but what keeps it aprt is the way it was said by Pankaj Kapur and the way he gave repeated pats on his chest while delivering this dialouge.
As far as finding faults in the movie concerned (as said by Arati and others), the problem is not the movie, but the benchmarks which a good director raises when he has a bunch of good movies under his belt.
Tell me frankly, did the movie give you any goosebumps, which many must have felt while watching Santoshi’s Ghayal, Ghatak, Damini and even Khakhi.
The movie appears smaller in front of it’s own title.
Just
“Halla Bol is the story of a struggling actor Ashfaque aka Sameer Khan ”
how is he an struggling actor ??! the movie shows him as a established super star …a struggling human being maybe :-?
Halla boll is watchable movie…I agree there were more to be done.. but finally film leaves an impact..forget the dialoge of Jariwala..it is said “Mass is a follower”. if people try to copy of Superstar’s hairstyle, his dress etc. what is wrong if they start to listen their conscious like Sameer..what’s wrong if they start to raise their voice against crime..
don’t say nobody will do..dosto mat bhulo DUSHYANT ki line ko…”ho kahi bhi aag..magar aag jalani chahiye..Hangama khada karna mera maksad nahi..meri koshish hai ki.. ye surat badalani chahiye..” hamari mostly filme entertainment ki afeem parosati hai..jahan audience two hours ka dose leti hai phir so jaati hai..we should welcome this kind of films..Cheer up Santishi jee..
Good stuff Vineet!!