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Much Halla About Balls
In what is otherwise perhaps the very definition of a thankless role, Vidya Balan in Halla Bol gets the unique distinction of being the first Hindi film heroine to refer to a man’s genitals. As nasty reporters an journalists aggresively swarm around with their super-sleazy questions, the traditional-yet-modern and empowered pativrata naari defends her spouse with equal force- “I am proud of my husband- because…he’s got balls!”
It’s only such part-startlingly crude, part-positively howlarious scenes- also like the one in which Ajay Devgan unzips and pees on the corrupt Chief Minister’s prized carpet (”From Persia!”- he proclaims with uncontrollable glee) right in front of him (as if to provide conclusive evidence that he DOES, in fact have…well, never mind)- that remain with you after you walk out of the theatre.
That’s just about as er, ballsy that this Halla Bore gets, as Rajkumar Santoshi dishes out this surprisingly shoddy film after giving us Ghayal, Damini and more recently Khakee, where he admirably merged traditional Bollywood storytelling with cutting edge style and narration.
Ajay Devgan plays devious and corrupt superstar Sameer Khan- he dances to item numbers at weddings, cuts his co-stars roles, and merrily beds eager starlets- you get the picture (Up yours, Shahrukh, Akshay and…Shakti Kapoor(?)!”). Santoshi’s satirical look at the superficial and sordid world of stardom (yawn) is funny only because it is so archaic. Then, a murder takes place and Khan, who has witnessed the incident first hand, is immersed in guilt and his long forgotten idealistic past, which is then shown to us through an exhausting flashback which shows us the man hidden behind the star trappings- Ashfaque, once a naive theatre artiste nursing big dreams and doing street plays with reformed bandit Sidhu (Pankaj Kapur).
Okay, back to present- now maybe we will have some real action, the technical glitches- awful background score and inconsistencies in color and camerawork among them- notwithstanding. No such hope. Devgan shouts in vain- “Aawaz uthaani hogi!” while Darshan Zariwala has a field day hamming and repeatedly rattling off “Hamare paas paisa hai, power hai, public hai and the like. Halla Bol moves along in such a hopeless and cliched manner that after a point you are literally screaming for Pankaj Kapur to return on screen to rescue the hapless audience.
And when Kapur does arrive again, his glaring eyes literally seem to say- “I’m back” as bullets get miraculously deflected from the truck he rides, almost as if by the sheer force of his screen presence. He is the film’s real hero- chewing up the scenery and infusing life into the audience and the film- making the most embarassingly heavy dialogue and banal scenes credible, and showing us again what true class is all about.
Devgan (in a performance that is decent, but hardly affecting) and Santoshi are both talented people evidently going through bad times in their careers, and that is the only reason you can possibly pardon Halla Bol. Here’s hoping they rise above this mess soon, after all- what can be a worse paradox than a tired film trying to rouse us.
13 Responses to “Much Halla About Balls”
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this site is becoming more boring than halla bol.
I agree….. Same articles by everyone… I guess they do ctrl C ctrl V for most of the part….
arnav and holden.. this is an open forum, and the authors write about what they want to write about when it comes to cinema. if you have a problem with it, which apparently you do, send in your unique and amazing and not-so-boring articles via iView:
http://passionforcinema.com/about/#iview
holden, are you accusing jahan of taking his review from another source without actually “knowing” if he did? if you are, back it up. let’s see where he ctrl C’d-ctrl V’d from.
No hard feelings man. Not accusing anyone…. and as you said… open forum… my view point that this site is getting boring… now u will say then dont read it…. but i liked this website a lot…. so i still hope everyday that there might be a good article out there… and get disappointed….
As of ctrl C
holden, 2 things.. highs and lows are a part of everything in life. don’t expect a blockbuster article everyday. stay a committed reader and you’ll see what’s amazing about this site, and why it continues to keep the passion alive for all of us.
secondly, some of the other articles that *you* might not like necessarily might be a treasure chest for others. just take subrat’s wheel of time article for instance, or mithun’s films about films post or hari varma’s account of the state of animation in india..
..or just try revisiting some of PFC’s older posts by clicking on an author’s name by scrolling down further. check out some of the movie blogs on PFC. read up on sudhir’s knowledge about films, or about how anurag wrote satya, or how he did pre-production for no smoking, or suparn’s storyboards and actual ad for rediff messenger, or onir’s or hansal’s or pavan’s journeys. the excitement isn’t always on the front page. you have to look for it. PFC’s archives are almost a year and a half old, so don’t think the “good stuff” is just going to come to you.
and good luck with that hangover.
striker the old is over and done with. we read all tat and now looking forward to more. i agree with holden and arnav that we see so many artciles about one topic we are bored to death. before i read daily here now i drop in once in a while.
My apologies, Narasimha, Holden, Arnav. You see, I review for a website too, however- sometimes due to the rush of submitting the review on the same day (Friday) itself, I am not able to articulate my views as well as I would have liked to. Hence this new review that comes perhaps a little late, and at a time that the topic has already been discussed to death. My only suggestion is, if you feel that you aren’t interested in reading anymore on any film/topic, just skip the article.
Also, Holden- I know you did not mean it but comments like these- “I guess they do ctrl C ctrl V for most of the part
Jahan bakshi i meant the whole site not just your article. we have now articles that talk about some dialogue where heroine says balls is it so big issue to write about it?
otherwise ur article is good but the site is boring without much choice of topics.
i found the movie entertaing at least better than senseless comidies lik oso welcm partner santoshi didnt want 2 make a classic just an entertaing movie with humour action powerful dialouges and a message in it its worth watching i think u people at PFC are stricly baised 2 santoshi and particularly ajay the movie was abt the super star sameer khan it tackles his ups and downs but i think u people at PFC were looking more of tht jesica lall lik incident.Fine PK did a nice job but i cant find a word of praise for AD for wat he did in halla bol even though he didnt had those powerful dialouges tht PK had and 2 remind Ms bakshi bullets did not get miraculously deflected when PK was in the truck the 2 henchmen did not hit bullents to kill him but 2 scare him
just one point-
It’s factually incorrect that Vidya Balan is the first Hindi film heroine to refer to a man’s genitals. In Dil Dosti Etc, Nikita Anand retorts “Balls Behenchod” when teased by a fellow student.
Shivesh, Arnav, Sanam….point(s) taken. And Shivesh, it is Mr. Bakshi, if you please.
Jahan, I am surprised to know you even understood any of that comment, it doesn’t seem too punctuation-friendly :)
Jahan,
My apologies. what i said was not for your article either, just in general for the site like arnav said. To prove my point i have done “cntrl C” “cntrl V” below :) these comments were posted on Jan 22 on yet another review on halla bol by thani. pls read 2nd and third comments by shailesh and girish nothing to do with the article nothing t all too do with the previous comments…. I fear they might get inspired and write another bhajan for no smoking. this is all i was talking about.
Inca on January 22nd, 2008 5:24 am Good ones all, Manisha.
And the scene where a two-penny nurse is reading a magazine nonchalantly in a hospital room, giving two hoots to a reigning superstar sitting in front of her.
Just what kind of writing is this?
shailesh on January 22nd, 2008 5:38 am when i watch no smoking first time i think its ok.but in second time its good but now its gr8..wht you think guys