Dilwale

Directed by: Rohit Shetty

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan, Kriti Sanon, Johnny Lever, Boman Irani

Released: 2015

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

Bade Bade Deshon Mein Aise Bure Bure Filme Kyun Hote Rehte Hai? So very high on style and so so so so poor on everything else, including the most important bit: the entertainment. Dilwale is really no worse than many 90s films that I actually enjoyed. In fact most of it seems like written right on the sets without preparation or thinking about posterity – a common practice back in the day. The problem is that both cinema and me have moved forward since then and making a movie like this simply doesn´t seem like a good idea anymore. I have been patiently waiting for a great Shahrukh Khan film since 2007. His latest collaboration with the cars fetishizing Rohit Shetty prolongs this wait yet again. I liked Singham and enjoyed Chennai Express, however the more success Shetty gets the lazier he becomes when putting everything together.

The story stretches your brain into the dimension of complete confusion, the level of suspension of disbelief raises too damn high. Let´s just say I absolutely don´t buy that when two mafia gangs loose their bosses they simply disintegrate and move into the same town where they live for fifteen years without ever running into each other, especially since they maintain quite public profile as enterpreneurs.

Rarely do I find the whole cast of individuals, that I actually like in other things, so annoying at once. From Hyperun Dhawan with some pee and shadily lewd jokes he spurs in first ten minutes, to Boman Irani who is presented as a complete idiot without being funny at all (what propelled Shetty´s Singham forward was a sense of threat, there is nothing of it here), and of course Kajol being cute and bubbly at first, everyone grated on my nerves with their „acting“. Furthermore random comedy scenes with Johnny Lever used to be a filler, while in Dilwale it takes at least 70% of the whole length of the film. As for Shahrukh Khan, once upon a time my favourite Bollywood actor (he had vacated the number one spot to Dilip Kumar by now), he looks sexy as hell with the beard, but damn all those filters erasing every single line away from his face deserve a vanity van of their own. I liked Shah in this better than in Happy New Year, in which he was just awful, still a very lazy performance that challenged him in absolutely no way.

Kajol has probably never looked more beautiful, never has been so well styled before. But that is as much as Dilwale offers to her and her fans, for the role has no meat and her character is same old same old. No matter that she wields a gun (and when she is in BIG trouble she goes: „Kaaaaaaaliiiiiiiii!“) and is not 20. Her role is of that kind of spoilt college queens who learn their lesson when the guy they had previously treated badly doesn´t repay them with evil, and so they fall in loooove with him. Then there is a misunderstanding. That gets cleared up later by someone completely unrelated. And all is theek again. If you like the SRK/Kajol pairing, you can enjoy some of the scenes probably better than me. But you have to admit the whole romantic angle sucked, consisting of long stares that got awkward sooner or later only.

In the end Dilwale just seems like the team got together to have a good time and to excuse this big party they improvised some scenes without thinking, then sloppily pasted those together. Not even action scenes look good, though usually are Shetty´s strong suit, because of over-editing and annoying flashes and sound effects. Shahrukh Khan let me down. Varun Dhawan cooled my enthusiasm for himself. Kriti Sanon had better role in Heropanti. Kajol proves yet again she doesn´t really care for the quality of the script as long as big name is attached to a project. Rohit Shetty aspires to be the next Prabhudeva of the film direction. And he stole a scene from Love Actually that is so iconic even I know it though I´ve never seen that film.

So very average it deserves the bad rating, because films with so much money in them, starring such big names, and earning that much paise, should simply be better.

Badlapur

Directed by: Shriram Raghavan

Starring: Varun Dhawan, Nawazuddin Sidiqui, Huma Qureshi, Yami Gautam, Divya Dutta

Released: 2015

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

A bloody revenge movie is a tricky thing. You need a lot of strong points. Reason for revenge. Believable acting. Arevenge which leaves you with a feeling of gratification or at least understanding for the hero. And most importantly a sense of compassion for the avenger. Not all real-life situations, during which a man (or a woman) takes law and revenge into their own hands are like that, but in the film world should, at least in my view. Badlapur does have believable acting, it has a powerful trigger to start off, unfortunately the compassion is missing entirely.

Varun Dhawan shakes off the cute image he has had by embracing a character much darker than Aamir Khan from Ghajini or Shahid Kapoor from Haider. Starting off as a tragedy-stricken young man he turns into an avatar which is more repulsive and awful than the villains who took the life of his family in the first place. Acting-wise he nearly pulls it off. As a character Raghu is possibly the worst lead protagonist I can think of. Repeatedly raping a completely innocent woman, threatening another one with the same, only to murder her in cold blood and most horrifying manner cannot be excused or put down to any inner pain or turmoil. Not even the popular "eye for an eye" theory fits, since the lovely Yami Gautam and her child were killed pretty much by unwanted accident. One has to wonder what kind of person Raghu is, if he is capable of such things as rape and abuse of trust. No matter how loveable he seems to be in the flashbacks, Raghu remains terrifying and disgusting. Perhaps more character development could have done the trick and show his personality alternate, but instead the makers decided to simply jump ahead 15 years (during which nobody but Nawazuddin Sidiqui seems to have aged). Furthermore the movie ends on a very anti-climactic note, with no justice served to anyone at all, not even greedy bribe-mongering police officer.

Performances on the whole are all good, but none outstanding. I cannot help but to compare Badlapur with last year´s Ek Villain, which starred Varun´s debut co-star Siddhart the Visually-perfect. While Siddhart has shown less ease in his acting, Shraddha Kapoor was not as half as natural as Yami and the film lacked logic, it still managed to make me cry and feel for the characters. Badlapur made me sick. No wonder, when the rape-victim announces to the her rapist and a murderer that of all the people involved in this messy story he is the one who has been given the second chance.

In conclusion from technical point of view there is nothing too wrong with the film, except perhaps the way the script looses pace and becomes boring as soon as, ironically, Raghu finally confronts his wife´s killer outside the jail walls. Some ends feel loose. Perhaps more soulful and more strategically used music (again like in Ek Villain) could have done make things better. For all its worth though I cannot recommend watching Badlapur to anyone. Not to people like me for all the reasons stated above. Not to lovers of thrillers because there is not enough thrill to justify other things. Not to fans of psychological movies because no development is shown in anyone.

Student of the Year

Directed by: Karan Johar

Starring: Varun Dhawan, Siddhart Malhotra, Alia Bhatt, Rishi Kapoor, Sana Saeed

Released: 2012

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

It is unashamedly obvious that in his latest venture Karan Johar tried to woo the younger generations of viewers more than anyone. Those who were just babies or maybe not even born at that point of time when his Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was creating waves, and thus escaped his „clutches“. Student of the Year pretty much abandons more mature audience and tries to capture the sympathies of the teens much like KKHH did about 15 years ago. However unlike his original audience Karan Johar did not mature as a filmmaker, and delivered yet another deeply average watch.

Interestingly enough told the same way as Barfi, SOTY mostly happens as a one huge flashback of several people coming together after years. And so from a hospital where an old dean is lying in a critical condition, we are thrown into a bursting-with-awesomeness colourful memory of school years spent studying at a super-elite and super-modern college where the most popular boy is the son of a local MP (Varun) and most popular girl (Alia) only wears Prada and Gucci etc. They are boyfriend/girlfriend of course, but she is rather upset with him because he seems not to be able to keep his hands off other scantily clad girls, calling it „being with friends“. The extremely boring plot then follows with „original“ twist – Shanaya (Alia) starts flirting with a new friend (and new most popular guy at school), the even cooler and more awesome and more perfect and accomplished Abhi (Siddhart), to make her boyfriend feel jealous. It works, but oh my, Abhi falls in love with her in the process as well. And if that is not enough for two friends to have problems, they find themselves thrown into a competition for the title of „Student of the Year“...

The story is such that it could have worked - if the three leads had a connection on screen, chemistry if you will, and sadly the three perfectly perfect best friends do not have that. I did not feel any connection in between them, which made it all rather pointless. Not only I did not buy the boys being in love with the girl, but at no point was I ever convinced about their friendship either. That no development of these essential relationships is shown does´t help. To give the movie some credit, it eventually does get some grip in the last hour – it´s just a pity that things that lead to it are so chaotic and yawn-worthy. The ending is not really predictable, and the outburst of one of the students near the end was a good one – it addressed some things even I myself questioned about the Student of the Year competition as a whole.

The debutants do reasonably well, although only Varun Dhawan really impresses in a several scenes (especially his confrontation with father is brilliant). All three somehow lack an on-screen presence, which becomes all too apparent the moment Kajol appears for a few seconds, making her already traditional blink and miss cameo for her Johar friend. Alia (looking 14, and that even in the „10 years later“ segment) is somehow lost in between her lovers and often has nothing to do but to look pretty in designer clothes and showing off more of her legs than may be necessary (though curiously there are more of half-nude males than females in this). The characters of Shanaya and Abhi seem shallow because their background is not well explored. We are given few hints, and that´s it. Unfair towards them and us. 

Rishi Kapoor charms and entertains – as long as you´re willing to accept yet another highly stereotypical presentation of gay men. Stereotypical are also many other characters: that pretty girl who thinks too much about herself and has nothing in her head really, the main heroine´s best friend who is not allowed to be girly and pretty but needs to be treated like a tomboy, Rohan´s „chamcha“, who does everything he wants but then turns against him the moment he has a chance, even a fat nerd boy makes an appearance. There is hardly any thought put into the side characters, and considering how many are there, it´s rather sad, as opportunities not taken always are.

There were some things that made me go slightly (and more) WTF, the biggest one being Rohan´s father taking his younger son´s classmates and God knows who else to Thailand to attend a wedding of his other son. Not at all smooth an excuse for shooting at foreign location. Few more of many problems I had: I have to admit I kept confusing Varun and Siddhart in other than close up shots. Still do, but yeah, this is not anyone´s fault. However, considering none of the students had any relationship with the dean whatsoever.... why did they even care about him that much to leave everything and come to his deathbed – especially some of them? Also – why does Shanaya end up with Abhi? Last thing we are shown is that she „is done“ with both the guys. Ten years later she is Abhi´s wife. Well... how about showing how that happened, since she was the main female lead? I must give Karan a credit for shaking off at least one of the prejudices of mine by not leaning on a big bankable star and taking the newcomers instead. SOTY though is a silly walla film that probably wouldn´t get half as noticed had it been made by a less prolific director.