Prem Ratan Dhan Payo

Directed by: Sooraj Barjatya

Starring: Salman Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Neil Nitin Mukesh

Released: 2015

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

I like certain level of predictable in life and Rajshri films, especially those directed by Sooraj Barjatya, have quite lots of it. You can always count on a film about a big family which upholds traditions, bursts into a song every five minutes and there is no shortage of earnestness so melodramatic it is hardly seen in normal life. The plot is paper thin, but who watches this director´s movie for plot and conflict? We watch for the unearthly sweetness, for parampara, for colourful songs and attractive people in them. Does Prem Ratan Dhan Payo live up to the standards set up (and never scaled) by Hum Aapke Hain Koun? Not quite, though it does try its best and even contains several things I never would have expected.

The unexpected thing no. 1: The raja who could not keep it in his pants. The family this time has fewer members than we are used to (only 4!) and they are not in loving unison at all. The reason? They are all children of a certain raja, but they do not have the same mother. They don´t even have two same mothers. They have three, one of whom was not even a legally wedded wife. When she is driven out of the palace with her two daughters, those daughters logically carry a strong grudge. Then there is Neil Nitin Mukesh in the most pathetic and ridiculous mode I´ve ever seen him in (and he is rarely great to begin with) as a younger brother, who hates his older brother because evil secretary has sabotaged everything he had ever asked for while posing as a faithful servant. Considering every request could be granted by simply asking personally, this seems like a very flimsy excuse for a raging hate, that leads to repeated attempts at murder. Then again I suppose a guy who thought that building a shiny mirror palace for his children will solve every problem was probably destined to fail at raising his kids from the start.

The unexpected thing no. 2: Actual murder! Not accidental death or passing because of old age. We get a murder and even a shot of a hanging body. Graphic? No, not by any filmi means. Unexpected in a movie like this? Hell yeah. Other than this, however, the evil plotline is completely ridiculous, simply because Sooraj Barjatya is great at presenting samdhis humming to a joyful melody, but sucks at creating tension and a more complex conflict. All the bad guys are also responsible for 90% of bad acting in the movie.

Neil himself represents 70% of that.

The unexpected thing no. 3: Sonam Kapoor. As Princess Maithili she is among the lot of more or less demure, obedient Barjatya heroines, fortunately the curse of “cabbage personality” has missed her. In fact she may be my favourite female Barjatya character after Nisha-ji from HAHK. From capably running a charity organization to openly longing some gentle physical love, she is a person with life clearly reaching beyond the palace walls and making rotis. Thus it seems even more unfair that the ultimate decision to follow her heart is snatched away from her, no matter how happy the ending. Sonam manages to be delightfully demure and without trying to be spunky and bubbly (death for a young actress). Her somehow theatrical acting has a grateful background in the all but realistic universe of Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. She is good.

The unexpected thing no. 4: Sonam and Salman are not an awful jodi. Be it because of filters on Salman´s face or whatever, the twenty years between them are still awkward, but on the screen they looked good. Salman himself, so bulky and muscly his neck looks just weird and you can´t dispute that, carries the movie forward, mostly devoid of stupid one liners and threatening poses, that had made him a caricature more than an actor in the past few years. His performance doesn´t shake the ground (except that one time in the mirror palace, literally), but counts among his better ones in this millenium.

The unexpected thing no. 5: I enjoyed it. More than I had thought I would, and in spite of everything cheezy and silly that occasionally made me face-palm. Even in spite of Anupam Kher, repetitive in his 1885^th role of paternal figure, that cannot be distinguished from others. Even despite the fact that we spent ten minutes on a really weird football song while more interesting things were apparently happening elsewhere. Prem Ratan Dhan Payo is an easy watch, and a pleasant one too if you are in the right state of mind. Most of the songs merely pass you by, but the title track is catchy enough to get stuck in your head. I know what I´m talking about. I´ve been singing and humming it since Friday....

Please get the song out of my head bhaiya!

Players

Directed by: Abbas-Mustan

Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Omi Vaidya, Bobby Deol, Sikander Kher, Vinod Khanna

Released: 2012

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

How can you take seriously somebody named Charlie Mascarenhas as a mastermind high-class, next-to-supernatural-hero thief? Even more so when he is played by Abhishek Bachchan (who just never learns)? Players (or by a more precise title „Thiefs“) was supposed to be a rocking action packed multi-starrer, but maybe it would have been better if the film was called off once people like Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor decided to say no to it, because frankly, though the cast is full of known names, none of them really sells on their own.

The „player“ Charlie with his awesome and genius mind, finds his way to super secret information about a transport of a huge amount of gold from Russia to Romania, which immediately becomes his next goal. However he´s not naive enough to think he can pull such a robbery off by himself, and so after a consultation with the best of the best players (read „thieves“), the aging and jailed Victor Dada (Vinod Khanna) he puts together a team of the best thieves with different abilities. His romantic interest Rhea (sexy but somehow boring and unpleasant Bipasha Basu) is to be useful in getting information out of certain men, then there are a master-disguiser Sunny (Omi Vaidya), explosives expert Bilal (Sikander Kher), a magician (Bobby Deol) and a hacker Spider (Neil Nitin Mukesh). And of course the super cool Charlie. However soon after actually pulling off the robbery Charlie finds out someone may have outsmarted him.... and there will be a hell to pay.

"Wait. Somebody stole my wallet. Call the police!"

What kills Players are weak and unimpressive performances, artificial dialogues and in spite of some good twist and turns a considerable level of predictability (though the last may be just my problem, I always happen to know the bad guys from the start, don´t ask me how). I actually really liked the first half, as most of the bad acting and questionable script was compensated by a well made action sequence and nice speed that did not give one too much time to analyze. However after the interval it all slowed down and somehow lost purpose and whatever thrill there was left.

We are sitting in the middle of Siberia and whole Russia is looking for us...

...so let´s drink champagne from fancy glasses we did not forget to pack.

Abhishek is someone I never minded, but I still maintain what I´ve been saying for the past year - he needs to STOP acting cool guys with brilliant minds, because he just doesn´t deliver. Perhaps now after Player, Game and Dum Maro Dum flopped he will get the message? Unfortunatelly for him I think it is too late for him to reinvent himself (hoping to be proved wrong). Sonam has definitely improved, she does not make me cringe everytime she opens her mouth anymore, however she disappoints when it comes to anything emotional. There was NO difference in her expression whether she was flirting with Abhishek, casually serving food or wathching her father being shot. Bipasha is someone whom I fail to like, she just doesn´t pick good roles and just like with Abhishek it seems she is only good for one type of roles AKA we´ve seen it all before. Neil is by far the best, however still far from being impressive. All the actors (ironically with the exception of Johny Lever) give you the impression they totally do not care about anything, least of all about acting. 

Let´s lay down the wreaths and bury this film in some dark corner of our minds.

7 Khoon Maaf

Directed by: Vishal Bhardwaj

Starring: Priyanka Chopra, Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irrfan Khan, Aleksandr Dyachenko, Annu Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah, Vivaan Shah

Released: 2011

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

I had NO expectation whatsoever, because even though I like Priyanka, I wouldn´t call myself a fan, and even though I liked the little bits of the story I´ve heard, I wasn´t sure if it would be good enough - and to be frank I did not like the trailer at all. If anything, I found the movie interesting. From psychological point of view it is an excellent piece of work. Presented in flashbacks, a story of Susanna slowly unfolds in front of us. A young woman, who never loved anyone more then her father (as her mother died too early), just lost her support in life. And with her father´s death she is beginning to look for that one man, who will give her the same amount of love, caring and security. But it is obviously way too much to ask for and Susanna, with every new step she takes on her journey looses her original naivity, innocence and illusions.

Beautiful, young and innocent

This is what marriage does to you!

From everything – the trailers, promo pictures and even the title itself you can be pretty sure what is the film about. Susanna, in her search for love, kills all her husbands, in one way or another. But still, even though you know that she´ll kill them all, you are always eager to know why? They are all very different guys. They have qualities others admire. But they also have some major flaws. And every time Susanna marries, you already wonder just what is wrong with the new guy because there just HAS TO be something....). Equally interesting it is to watch her getting rid of them one by one. Priyanka may be the only performer after Shahrukh Khan that you will feel sorry for even though she´s a mass killer. The scenes were not exactly graphic, but just knowing what is going on in the frame could make you sick (I sure did feel sick several times).

I was somehow confused at first since it is supposed to be 7 murders, but I could only count 6 of them. There are two options, which in my opinion might explain the seventh murder. One theory is that Susanna symbolically killed herself with entering into the order in the end, or that she just as symbolically killed the Christ with her previous sins. If you are familiar with Christianity, I´m sure you´ll understand what I mean. The second theory is much more simple: Susanna felt responsible for the death of her maid and counted that one as one more murder. Or am I really missing something and all this thinking is wrong?

Husband no.1 : Violent, possesive, jealous.

Husband no. 2: Drug addict. (something tells me this is what John wears at home)

Husband no. 3: Poetic and sadistic.

Husband no. 4: Spy and already married.

Husband no.5: Way too horny.

Husband no. 6 : Trying to kill you. Duh.

The story unfolds very naturally, and all the flashbacks are very seamlessly thrown in. As I have mentioned the plot is predictable, but there is still no shortage of surprises, and the ending is brilliant. Only the scene with Susanna having a "vision" was a bit awkward, I would have preferred for her to actually be alone in the room, maybe with some light effects or something...... This was way too much in-your-face and it somehow didn´t have any magic or excitement to it. Still there are not many negatives I can think of right now. What made it were especially the performances.

It is more then safe to claim the film wouldn´t be half as good if it wasn´t for Priyanka. This is her film through and through. In fact she made it so much hers I cannot really picture any other actress in the role. She was perfect. She managed to portray a very complex and atypical character, who – in addition – leads you through her whole life. From naive and innocent Suzie she effortlessly becomes Sultana or Anna, always willing to sacrifice her identity in the name of love. She gets tougher and tougher with each wrong step she takes, and it costs her dearly. Energy and vivaciousness are vaining, until she becomes a wreck. And from there she again manages to rise – and do the most sensible decision of her life. She is not somebody you would hate, and puts you into a strange position with her ability to make you sympathize with her despite all those things you know are just wrong. But in the end of the day you cannot help but feel her insecurity, which results into trusting easily and not minding changing the religion. With Susanna, who is a bit Christian, bit Hindu, bit Muslim and bit who knows what else, you get a clear message: God is Love, no matter how you call Him. I was also glad that even though Priyanka was presented beautifully and sexy, there wasn´t anything vulgar about her portrayal.

Love doesn´t care....

...for nationality...

...or religion.

Though they all had a limited screen space, the husbands manage to hold their own. The weakest is John Abraham, but that doesn´t come exactly as a surprise. Mr. Shah was my favourite, but I might be a little biased in his favour (cause I simply love him!). Irrfan Khan too does a brilliant job, and Russian actor Aleksander Dyachenko too makes a strong impact. The supporting cast too does a good job. I must admit that Susanna´s three faithful servants could scare the heck out of the Addams family any day. The newcomer Vivaan Shah looks very promising and it was very pleasant to see Konkona Sen Sharma in her cameo, even if for several minutes.

Technically the film isn´t the best. Music doesn´t leave any mark with the sole exception of „Darling“, which is a note by note rip off of a popular Russian folk song Kalinka (at least the makers did not try to act as if it was theirs, as it is pretty common in Bollywood).

7 Khoon Maaf doesn´t exactly deliver when it comes to emotions and connecting with the audience, there is no message either. For me it was a fascinating psychological trip into a soul of a woman desperately searching for love. It is a dark film, not fit for you if you get easily depressed.