Jai Ho

Directed by: Sohail Khan

Starring: Salman Khan, Tabu, Daisy Shah, Genelia D´Souza, Mohnish Behl, Suniel Shetty, Danny Denzongpa

Released: 2014

My rating: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - shitastic - good – great – amazing

What is the point of films like this? That´s right. There is none. For whatever reason Indian masses cannot imagine anything more awesome than a middle-aged guy being himself on screen year after year after year. Jai Ho (which immediately makes the famous A.R.Rehman track go off in my mind) tries hard to convince you it has a plot and a message, but it is really just random scenes plastered together to fill in the time between overstretched and, by now, boring scenes of Salman Khan beating everybody around him senseless. Sohail Khan probably wanted to pay homage to brother who feeds the whole khandaan and the rest.... like script and story... are yet again viewed as inferior. That said Jai Ho is still somehow one of better attempts at Salman Khan-ish cinema, definitely more watchable than atrocious Ready and not as boring as Bodyguard.

Let´s face it: this screenshot could be from any of Salman´s previous films and you wouldn´t notice.

The thought which is dragged through more than two hours is a genuinely nice one: if someone helps you, don´t say thank you, rather help another three people. I don´t know why you shouldn´t help AND thank, but OK. The flaw of this concept is naturally people are selfish bastards who rarely even say thanks, forget helping. But in Salman Khan´s bharat, where all social issues can be addressed in a single (awful) song, are people of pure hearts and indeed live by this rule. This „help other three“ stuff however soon gets on your nerves, because it is repeated about 50 times in the film, often within mere minutes from each other, and gets as annoying as the stop smoking ads in front of every film we all suffer through.

No, daddy, I will not stay home!

Other than that Jai Ho is a mix of bizarre and questionable, often brought to us by known and semi-known faces. I still cannot get my head around the character played by my lovely and cute Genelia D´Souza. She is obviously an extremely clever college student, unfortunately handicapped in a way, that prevents her from writing her tests herself. When her nikamma brother, who should be helping her, gets stuck in the traffic (and not for the first time), she fails the test and commits suicide. WTF. Are you seriously telling me such a bright, intelligent young woman would kill herself over ONE test? Are you telling me university will not give organize a retake for her, given her condition? Are you telling me in the whole building with thousands of students, teachers and staff they couldn´t find ONE person who would write for her instead of her brother? That is just an example of how idiotic situations make Jai Ho.

Tears.

Tears.

Between Salman Khan, Tabu, Mohnish Behl and Mahesh Thakur I has strange visions of Hum Saath Saath Hai going all wrong. They are all competent. Daisy Shah, a girl looking like a porcelain doll with baby face (bickering with a kid whom she calls with a nickname derived from his little „equipment“ while he know what colour her underwear is) , had a tiny role of no consequence and did Salman no favours by making everybody see he is another Khan too old for girls in their 20s. She dances beautiful, but I don´t see much of a future for her in Bollywood. A wild Suniel Shetty with a tank appears out of bloody nowhere too, just because. Danny Denzongpa is an iconic villain, and I don´t think Salman had such a strong opponent since the time of Sonu Sood.

How the hell did you know how to get here?

I followed the sound of tears.

In the end the movie can be really summed up as follows:

Note: I made the gifs from THIS amazing video :)

Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya

Directed by: Mandeep Kumar

Starring: Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia D´Souza, Om Puri, Tinnu Anand

Released: 2012

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

My first thought after finishing the movie was simple: I loved this! No expectations or over-thinking do pure wonders for this film, which I found genuinely sweet and entertaining. Sue me, but I liked it even more than more prolific and praised Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, starring more prolific and praised Kareena Kapoor and Imran Khan. I have grown up from romcoms a long time ago but this one was just too cute.

Viren is a honest rickshaw driver, who saves every rupee possible to buy a taxi one day. He, very unwisely, tells this to his employer and soon enough his dreams suffer a serious blow when the latter sells all his rickshaws overnight and buys several taxi cars. And Viren gets a nasty shock, since his earnings were hidden in the rickshaw! After he fails to recover the money, and the employers refuses to get even with him, sacking him to top it all, Viren, hopeless and truly desperate, decides to do a desperate thing: with a gun he attacks his house, demanding his money, earned with such difficulty, back. Unfortunately for him he runs into the engagement of the employer´s daughter Mini, and he cannot even start to comprehend what troubles would the girl give him.

Because Mini really does not want to get married, and desperate as much as Viren, but with more gusto for life and a lot more constructive mind, she improvizes her own kidnapping by Viren, scaring the heck out of him, but ultimately pulling it off. The duo later decides to demand ransom for Mini, that would cover Viren´s loss and ensure Mini´s comfortable flight from an unwanted marriage. Of course they fall in love after a while, their journey to a relationship however is without much clichéd pathos. The second part of the film is just as entertaining as the first, if not more, as we shift from their plight to Viren´s ancestral home, where we learn that his family has made business by kidnapping people. And while Viren despises this family trade, Mini is absolutely delighted with his home and relatives, and is absolutely against leaving – ever!

The carrousel of light fun never ends, and Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya leaves one with a warm fuzzy feelings aroused by all the cuteness, bright colours and beautiful melodies. „Piya O Re Piya“ is one of the best songs of the years for sure, and the chemistry between the leads makes it even more beautiful.

Genelia is my new girl crush. Such a gorgeous girl! I loved her facial expressions and exuberance, the positive energy she displayed on screen with such an ease it is hard to imagine she may not be like that at all time even off screen. She is definitely a much better actress than all the new girls in town from Asin to Anushka and she needs to make movies with more profitable stars. I have a feeling she would absolutely sizzle with Ranbir!! Ritesh as Viren was fine, I don´t think he is the hero-material (though he remains an able actor), and I prefer him in side roles. In the end it actually seemed Genelia was the only lead and he just let her shine. Om Puri and Tinnu Anand are just pure gold, and you can always rely on them for good performances.

True, there were shortcomings to the movie (mainly the character of Viren, who really lacks any intensity and his dislike toward family occupation is not well explored, the climax too could have been a lot more exciting), but overall I truly enjoyed the film so much I´m ready to forgive.

 

 

Force

Directed by: Nishikanth Kamath

Starring: John Abraham, Genelia D'Souza, Mohnish Behl, Raj Babbar

Released: 2011

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

In spite of uninteresting angrez title and downright sleazy and hideous poster (that is definitely not the safest way of wearing a gun) „Force“ is a fairly well made action film, that at times felt like John´s attempt to turn super-salman-ish (the chest-baring anyone?), but unlike in most of Salman films the action is really hardcore and real. So real that at times a sensitive person will have to look away from the screen and will only look at it again once the noise stops. I am not over-familiar with John´s body of work, I´ve only seen him in Baabul, Jhootha Hi Sahi and Salaa-E-Ishq so far and in all three he played a mellowed lover-boy, so I cannot really tell how unusual (if even) is Force for him as a performer. All I can say is he definitely fits my idea of a rough police officer with sharp mind and effective muscles more than for example Abhishek Bachchan, who has tried to make the genius police walla his signature role by doing films like Dhoom or Game, but failed in my eyes rather badly.

John was quite upset to know he was being compared to Abhishek.

Yash Chopra is a a tough guy working as an ACP of anti-narcotic squad, and despite being the sexiest, handsomest and awesomest guy for miles around he is a bachelor by choice. This brave officer is not ready to endanger anyone by being linked to them, and also protects himself from being vulnerable in this way. Throwing himself into the most complicated tasks he keeps himself busy fighting the drug lords – and one by one Yash Chopra and his team of loyal buddies manage to catch them all based on information received from a source, which a bit later turns out to be somehow unreliable. Apparently all the information were given out for police to clear the field and make space for a new, more powerful drug lord....

Meanwhile Yash Chopra´s bachelorship is endangered after several encounters with a vivacious, pretty Maya, who finally manages to get some feelings out of him by getting herself run over by a car (pretty stupid move to get a guy if you ask me), and Yash, after some more convincing from his friends and their wives decides that maybe he was over-reacting and perhaps he could get married. In time before the wedding, however, he and his friends are forced to kill a dangerous drug smuggler, and without being aware of it at first, there is going to be a real hell to pay, because his brother Vishnu, the new drug lord of India, is planning a bloody and unmerciful revenge aimed at all of them and their loved ones.

You would not jump under a car to make me cry.

Wanna bet?

The filmmakers succeeded in creating a thrilling film, but somehow they did not manage to underline all that awesome (and gruelsome) action with emotional depth. At the base of everything there is supposed to be Yash and his fear of loosing his loved one, but not enough attention is paid to this aspect. It could have been portraited better. I also think more insight into the life of all four heroes would be in place, like this one didn´t really even feel for them – or for Maya, which is a bit of paradox, but channeling the heroines of the 80s she dances into the film as an obligatory love interest and draws back into shadows of oblivion as the story progressed beyond the romance bit. In the end you are shocked, but not really moved, which would definitely ad to the film´s appeal and it would earn it more points in my book.

Alrigh.... now this song was just awkward...

Performances are just fine, nothing really stands out and nothing really disappoints in this department. If somebody really captures your attention, it is the evil Vishnu – a model-turned-actor Vidyut Jamwal, who looks slick, stylish – and actually dangerous. For once I was excited (though in this context it will sound weird) to see a villains who does not have a need to explain everything to his victims and actually kills them. It made him so freaking scary!

I also had very mixed feelings about the approach of John and his partners during the drug cases investigation and later also while trying to find Vishnu. Sure, one feels that law is not always right and at time is causes more damage then good, but as somebody wise once said "eye for an eye make the whole world blind".

Alright... now this moment was just beautiful.