Scenes that don’t belong…
This ever happened to you? You are watching this amazing movie (maybe your third or fourth time) and suddenly you feel that the scene on the screen/TV/monitor shouldn’t be there at all. That the movie would have been even better without it? I am not talking about the usual suspects, the songs in our movies which pop up suddenly from nowhere but scenes with action and dialogue.
I am going to talk about a couple of them. Both of them have 2-3 things in common. Both scenes come right at the end. Both come immediately after a killer poignant scene. And both of them try to install a feel good factor in the movie. Of course this is a personal subjective opinion and many of you might think that I am a depressed spoilsport who hates Christmas but I think the below mentioned movies are just a teeny weensy bit worse off for including these.
‘Bend it Like Beckam’- There’s this wonderful scene near the end when ‘Jess’ rushes to meet her Irish coach/lover in a football field with the news that her family has agreed to let her go to the US on a scholarship to play football. He is thrilled but when he tries to kiss her she tells him that she doesn’t want to disappoint her family by having a relationship with him and there’s no point since she would be anyway be going away to the US. It’s a great scene. Jess has got what she always wanted but now she feels that she is losing something precious as well. You can’t have everything in life. You sigh.
Then immediately in the next scene at the airport with her family, the coach bounds in out of nowhere with some good news about his career choices and they inexplicably decide to keep their relationship alive after all. They will meet during Christmas and kiss passionately while the rest of the family is gaping at Posh and Beckam.
Whoa! Where did that come from and why? Their successful love angle feels forced and unnatural and I feel almost cheated after the previous scene.
‘Dil Chahta Hai’- A great scene right before the end when the three friends sit on a parapet wall and watch as Dimple’s stuff gets moved from her house. No words are exchanged and there’s a poignant silence in the knowledge that someone precious has left their lives forever. Finally all three leave the frame together. Beautiful. The movie should have ended there.
But we are subjected to the next scene- 6 months later when Akshaye’s character discovers his next crush in Goa. Eyes meet; smiles are exchanged followed by scenes of merriment over a sumptuous dinner as the credits roll. Nothing wrong with all that but I just so wish the scene didn’t exist.
Any more you guys can think of?
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
Tanuja Chandra’s DUSHMAN is not a great film by any yardstick but it was one of the few feminist films of bollywood. Throughout, it tries to define female empowerment in intellectual and psychological terms. And suddenly what do we see? Kajol doing military training under ex-soldier Sanjay Dutt – in a solitary meaningless scene that comes from nowhere and is never referred to again thereafter. If that 2-minute bit was edited out, it wouldn’t have taken anything from the film.
Remember that merciless torture called MOHABBAT, starring Madhuri Dixit and Akshaye Khanna? It was a complete dud. But one scene in the film jerked me out of my semi-slumber. Painter MF Hussain cropped up out of nowhere in an art gallery being visited by the characters in the film. I did get the Madhuri connection, but Mr Hussain ended up looking utterly ridiculous with absolutely no relevance to what was going on.
On second thoughts, it was the only amusing thing in a movie that gave the word ‘boredom’ a whole new meaning.
The scene in Life in a Metro where Nafisa Ali is dying in the ambulance and Dharmendra is trying to do a traffic police act.I felt that scene was not required.
Most recent examples –
If ‘Bhootnath’ had ended at interval, it would have been a better film.
‘Jannat’ had something about a cricket coach being shot dead one scene before the climax…. I don’t know why!!
I may be wrong, but was the romantic angle (including a kiss) between DJ and the filmmaker girl in Rang De Basanti really necessary?
Nothing beats the ‘black beast’ tamasha in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. It had nothing to do with the plot, and was not very funny either.
Prasad, couldn’t agree with you more. Has anyone seen Anwar? For me, not just a scene, but the middle 40 minutes totally ruined the film. There’s a huge political circus act that takes place, which doesn’t even seem to even be from the same film. Without it, I can undoubtedly say that I would consider Anwar a semi-decent film rather than overall rubbish.
D&C, I understand the DCH comment, but I think the ending just flows along with the carefree feel of the film. Though it would’ve probably been more poignant to end earlier, I think the “six months later” bit just showed that even after all of the drama, life goes on. Though it’s been a while since I’ve rewatched DCH.
Hi All,
Thanks for your comments. Really fun reading them.
Laqshya – I admire this film but why did those unnecessary scenes with Amitabh Bachchan have to crop up – the club scene and the climax where is just on a phone..ranting away, taking away from all that action..these two scenes should have been on the cutting floor.
Aandhi – The story was about this relationship, its fragility and fragrance. The scene where she is going to attend a meeting and a song happens and a riot breaks out and Suchitra Sen is hurt yet she continues to hold fort. The song took away everything from that powerful sequence. A woman politician seeking power..the concept became thoroughly diluted.
Mangal Pandey – Rani’s scenes should have been chopped and Amisha’s character should have disappeared totally. Just for heck’s sake the movie introduced the lady characters and made it such a long and boring movie…I thought Ketan Mehta had better sense that!!
Remember those fairy tales which ended with the phrase ‘and they lived happily ever after’.
A lot of endings in movies are like this, the audience should know what happened after the climax was over. Some of these are unnecessary, like in DCH.
Sunday: The scene where Arshad Warsi starts giving gyaan to Ayesha Takia about his kidney problem and stuff.Looked absolutely weird in the middle of a comedy.
Actually to add DnC, Tht “after 6 months” scene itself wud have been classic if the gal tht Sid sees was in fact Deepa.
There ws huge debate whether she was Deepa or not; well she was not. but imagine if farhan thought of putting her there bcos sid n deepa had a beautiful “kuch baatien reth ki tarah” moment.
Chake De India –
>> SRK’s scenes with his on-screen mom – waste
TZP –
>> Aamir Khan’s interaction with the girl at the school – who what where – kaise bhaiyya???
Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic –
The whole danm movie.
Cudn’t agree more wid Bharadwaj Rangan
http://www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/
Apna Sapna Money money. A moderately enjoyable ribald comedy which has a same-old kinda subplot about a tiny tot with a hole in her heart that needs a million-dollar surgery. Just about 2 scenes in the entire film.
Spare me pleez!!
I rolled my eyes in despair when I found that the entire ear-splitting begining of ‘Race’ (Dilip Tahil competing with Saif on the race course) had no relevance to the main plot and Dilip Tahil wasn’t even a main character…
DARR should have ended when SRK died a stormy death on the ship. At least they should have chosen a more sombre ending. That last phone prank at the airport where everybody makes fun of SRK’s death was in bad taste.
DARR should have ended when SRK died on the storm-tossed ship. At leat YRF should have chosen a more sombre ending. The last scene where the family plays a prank on Juhi and makes fun of SRK’s death was in bad taste.
Sorry. Duplicate comment. Bad connectivity..
Johny Gaddar was such a marvelous movie. They should ve chopped off that scene where Govind Namdev chops a finger off the girl’s hand. It was EEEEKS and it didn’t belong in the film. Someone plz convey this to Sriram Raghavan.
In Big B-Akshay starrer ‘Waqt’, I initially enjoyed the funny scenes between Boman Irani and Rajpal Yadav. But after a couple of times, they just became too repetitive and painful. Fortunately, I was watching a dvd and so could fast forward the whole thing..
Just for fun…
“KUNAL KOHLI’S THODA PYAAR THODA MAGIC MADE ME WISH I was watching it in an outdoor theatre in the rural heartlands during an unseasonal downpour, for then I’d have been able to scoop up a handful of mud and hurl it at the screen…”
Bharadwaj Rangan on TPTM.
I going to die…can’t stop laughing.
All the NASA scenes in Swades was not important to the story and made the movie unnecessarily slow and long.
The Rising would have been a great film if it just concentrated on the 2 male protoganists(their friendship and clash), rather than going to the love angles.
the song Latoo latto in gajini… totally out of blue and changed the mood of the movie so stupidly