Rockstar: Movie Review

Director: Imtiaz Ali

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri

In the film, Ranbir Kapoor is advised that to be a true-blue artist and a real rockstar he has to experience pain, which will come through heartbreak. If we go by this theory, most audiences of this film will walk out of the hall as rockstars, since the movie will largely leave them heartbroken. But for heartbreak, it is imperative to fall in love first and that's exactly what director Imtiaz Ali does. He starts off the film on a promising note and just when you fall in love with the amazing first half, the narrative nosedives with a stagnant second half.

So you have the naive Janardhan Jakhar (Ranbir Kapoor) who aspires to be a rockstar like Jim Morrison. His yearning for heartbreak gets him close to Heer (Nargis Fakhri), as they bond over soft-porn cinema and country liquor. Soon after, the girl is married off to some NRI, the boy is thrown out of his house, he seeks solace in a dargah and next you know he's a singing sensation rechristened as Jordan.

A foreign tour reunites him with Heer and their passive passion rekindles until Jordan is obsessed with her. What follows is another tribute to Devdas or rather Dev.D with the neurotic, lovelorn protagonist unable to get over his mixed emotions and confused definition of love. But that's not all as the plot meanders to culminate into an undesired arena of Erich Segal's Love Story.

Imtiaz Ali is known for his old-wine-in-new-bottle brand of cinema. Rockstar is very much engaging as far as it is in that familiar territory, where the director adds a refreshing touch to the regular romance drama. The casual chemistry that he induces between the lead pair through their wacky and eventful escapades has its moments of charm. The passion-play between them when they reunite after years is spontaneous, smoldering and yet tastefully achieved. Their reunion is also faintly reminiscent of the Jab We Met reunion, where the character-conduct is reversed with the burbling boy now trying to make the gloomy girl's life more exciting. And like Love Aaj Kal, Imtiaz Ali kick-starts the film with a montage song highlighting select significant sequences from the entire film.

But beyond that when the director ventures into uncharted zone, the narrative loses track. While one can still overlook the Dev.D influenced intoxicating attitude of the proceedings (which you can somehow attribute to the convoluted rockstar protagonist), the subsequent terminal illness conflict takes the film towards an unwelcome and undefined end. After an interesting graph to the narrative in the first half, the story almost turns stationary in the second half. The screenplay seems stretched and gets monotonous with repetitive media-bashing scenes and flashback shots of what has been already served to you.

Another problem with the plot is that it is neither a standalone story about the rise-of-an-underdog who becomes the biggest rockstar nor is it merely a love story with a rockstar backdrop. The director somewhere attempts to correlate the rockstar's rise with his romance but isn't able to achieve that impeccably. In fact the original one-liner plot with which the movie starts (a painful heartbreak gets out the real artist inside you) goes for a complete toss by the end. One can never clearly perceive when Jordan's heart is broken in the assorted scheme of events and that's where the film loses objectivity.

The storytelling pattern of the film is needlessly intricate for a simple romance-drama genre. While it is very much linear, the frequent use of multiple montages can have you confused. Initially the montages aid brisk storytelling but subsequently there are so much of them that it gets puzzling. Editing the film would surely have been a difficult task. Anil Mehta's cinematography is brilliant as he captures the beauty of Kashmir, Italy and Delhi with panache. AR Rahman's wide range of music has numbers which are instantly infectious (Sadda Haq) and others that take time to grow on you.

If Rockstar keeps you engaged even after you have given up on the story by the end, it is only because of Ranbir Kapoor. From his innocence in the opening reels to his arrogance in the climax, Ranbir breathes life into Jordan and keeps you riveted. Whether he adlibs his songs, gives a dance-tribute to Shammi Kapoor or dictates the concert crowd, Ranbir gives cent percent to his character. How much ever you try to ignore, but Nargis Fakhri fervently reminds of Katrina Kaif through her looks, acting, lip movements (and seemingly also has the same voice dubbing artist). Nevertheless she is likeable and shares good chemistry with Ranbir. Kumud Mishra as Jordan's advisor-turned-manager is impressive. Aditi Rao Hydari is confident but marred by a short-lived character. Piyush Mishra makes for an animated-yet-interesting negative lead. And it's pleasing to see Shammi Kapoor is his last decent cameo.

Rockstar rocks you but only partially thanks to the star called Ranbir Kapoor.

The Dirty Picture

The Dirty Picture

Producer : Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor

Director : Milan Luthria

Singers : Bappi Lahiri

Music Director : Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani

Star Cast : Vidya Balan, Naseruddin Shah, Emraan Hashmi, Tusshar Kapoor, Imran Hasnee, Anju Mahendroo

The Dirty Picture is an upcoming Hindi language biopic on the life of Southern siren Silk Smitha, directed by Milan Luthria and produced by Shobha Kapoor and Ekta Kapoor. They had earlier collaborated, along with scriptwriter Rajat Aroraa, on the hit Once Upon A Time In Mumbai (2010). Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Tusshar Kapoor and Emraan Hashmi will be seen playing lead roles in The Dirty Picture. The film will be released nationwide on December 2, 2011 on the birth anniversary of Smitha.

Ekta Kapoor launched the film with director Milan Luthria soon after their collaboration Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai became a super-hit. She said that The Dirty Picture would be India's answer to the Academy Award nominated film Boogie Nights. Later in a press conference, Kapoor clarified that neither of Balaji's forthcoming film, Ragini MMS nor The Dirty Picture were "porn films", as they were made out to be.

She has gone on record to add, "I would be surprised if I don't get unbelievable critical acclaim for The Dirty Picture and a national award for my actress, Vidya Balan. The movie has one of the most well-written scripts I have come across and a lot of youngsters in my office have looked at it with great admiration." She also pointed out that the purpose of the film was neither to justify not criticize Smitha's life, but for the audience to live her life. Additionally, all actors, including Balan and Shah attended workshops for almost two months before filming could begin.

When screenwriter Rajat Arora initially started working and took cues from producer Ekta Kapoor, it was seen as much smaller film in scope, primarily looking into the soft-pornography phenomenon of the 1980s, but gradually as the work progressed, it grew to also trace the controversial romances of Smitha, through a fictionalized biopic. Further while researching for the film director Milan Luthria and screenwriter Rajat Arora, found little material in the film magazines of the period, as "women like Silk Smitha were often ignored by film magazines, except for gossip column mentions", thus they derived much of the details of her life, from anecdotes, met-at-a-party stories, quick tea-break chats, and fictionalized them. The Dirty Picture .

Apart from depicting the pomp of the Tamil film industry, it also takes up issues like, money management by actors, how they got cheated, "their string of broken relationships, led lonely lives and met with tragic ends". The Dirty Picture. However, for inspiration instead of looking at South Indian films of the period, the team turned to work of mainstream Bollywood directors like Manmohan Desai, Vijay Anand, Raj Kapoor, Feroz Khan? and G.P. Sippy, and to put the global soft-porn industry in context, the team look into Boogie Nights? (1997) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). The end script, became a "fictionalized, women-oriented, generalized perspective on the 1980s film industry".

SAHIB BIWI AUR GANGSTER

SAHIB BIWI AUR GANGSTER

 

StarCast : Randeep Hooda (Gangster), Jimmy Shergill (Sahib), Mahie Gill (Biwi), Vipin Sharma (Gainda Singh) and Deepal Shah (Bijli).

Directed by Tigmanshu Dhulia 

Written by Mr. Dhulia and Sanjay Chouhan

Director of photography, Aseem Mishra

Edited by Rahul Srivastava

Produced by Rahul Mittra

Released by UTV Motion Pictures.

For all its flashy sunglasses and gunplay, there’s a folk-tale essence in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s “Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster,” a riff on “Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam,” a 1962 Hindi classic. That film concerned the chaste bond between a married noblewoman and a servant; Mr. Dhulia’s take offers Sahib (Jimmy Shergill), a rural mob godfather of declining fortunes, and Biwi (Mahie Gill), his neglected, hot-tempered wife. The gangster (Randeep Hooda), hired as a chauffeur, is secretly on a mission to set up Sahib for a hit. There’s nothing chaste about his designs: He covets Biwi and Sahib’s status as well.

Mr. Shergill, with a curled mustache and crumbling empire, displays sufficient hauteur. The voluptuous Ms. Gill, however, dominates the film with her alternately haughty, ardent and enraged moments. It is not a one-note performance. As a bodyguard’s tart-tongued daughter, Deepal Shah is also vivid. Mr. Hooda, whose character’s hotheadedness matches Biwi’s, has the requisite virility but few layers.

Political machinations, bloodlettings and (of course) musical sequences are tossed in. But for all its high emotion the film feels enervated, like an excuse to shoot attractive people in amorous rapture amid lavish but decaying real estate. On that level it delivers; there is more suggested nudity and lovemaking here than in many Hindi productions. If there is a metaphor about corruption within India’s ruling classes, it is hopelessly lost in erotic gauze.

New Movie : Straw Dogs

New Movie : Straw Dogs

Star : James Marsden, Alexander Skarsgard, Kate Bosworth

Directed by Rod Lurie


Audiences for this incendiary button-pusher will mostly divide along two lines: those who think writer-director Rod Lurie (The Contender, Nothing but the Truth) has a hubris overload remaking Sam Peckinpah's 1971 landmark, and those who never heard of Bloody Sam's controversial take on macho violence and what defines rape. Let the games begin.

Forty years ago, Dustin Hoffman starred as David Sumner, the wussy American mathematician who takes his young English wife, Amy (Susan George), back to her native Cornwall farmhouse where an old flame, Charlie Venner (Del Henney), comes sniffing around. Lurie ditches England for the Deep South. James Marsden plays David, a wussy L.A. screenwriter who takes his TV-actress wife, Amy (Kate Bosworth), back to her native farm where an old flame, Charlie (True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård), comes sniffing around.

On the surface, the two films are startlingly similar. Amy is raped, and David (unaware of the assault) is otherwise so humiliated as a man by Charlie and his buddies that he takes a brutal stand against their invasion. Peckinpah rubbed our noses in the bloodlust. Lurie invites objectivity. He gets strong, complex performances from actors who won't be painted into corners. (Is the teasingly sexy Amy asking for trouble? Is Charlie capable of regret? Does David need to kill to be a man?) Lurie has David writing a script about Stalingrad, the World War II battle in which the Soviets held on against Hitler, but at crippling costs in suffering. Lurie wants us to see the moral wounds that come from losing control, a solid reason for a remake. Both takes on Straw Dogs hold up a dark mirror to humanity. Choose your own bad medicine.

New Movie - Drive

Movie : Drive

Star : Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Buckle up for the existential bloodbath of Drive, a brilliant piece of nasty business that races on a B-movie track until it switches to the dizzying fuel of undiluted creativity. Damn, it's good. You can get buzzed just from the fumes coming off this wild thing.

That's Ryan Gosling at the wheel. He plays Driver (I told you it was existential), a Hollywood stunt racer who moonlights as a getaway wheel man.  Gosling is dynamite in the role, silent, stoic, radiating mystery. Driver isn't into planning robberies. He doesn't carry a gun. "I drive," he says. And he proves it in an opening chase scene so thrillingly intense and cleanly edited it will give you whiplash.

Sharing Drive's metaphorical wheel is Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, a sensation on the Euro art-house circuit with the bruising Pusher trilogy, Valhalla Rising and Bronson. Refn makes his Hollywood debut with Drive without putting his soul or his balls on the auction block. Refn is a virtuoso, blending tough and tender with such uncanny skill that he deservedly won the Best Director prize at Cannes.

Drive was once intended as a fast-and-furious blockbuster for Hugh Jackman. Then Gosling stepped in and met Refn. As the actor drove the director home, the radio blasted REO Speedwagon, and Refn began rocking out. That was it. Their movie would evoke what it is to drive around listening to music and trying to feel something.

Drive is a genre movie. So watch for comparisons, especially to films of the Seventies and Eighties that pulsate with a synth score. Think early Michael Mann (Thief) and William Friedkin's To Live and Die in L.A. Driver is a loner, suggesting Alain Delon in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï. Like Alan Ladd in George Stevens' classic Western Shane, the loner meets a woman, Irene (Carey Mulligan), with a young son (Kaden Leos). She also has an ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac), so Driver must hold in his urges until, well, he can't.

Chances are you could play the name-that-influence game for days, and I'd happily join you. But that'd be a disservice to Drive, since Refn, like Quentin Tarantino, has the gift of assimilating film history into a fresh take carrying his DNA. Take his fetishistic eye for detail, from Driver's toothpick to the satin bomber jacket with a gold scorpion on its back.

Refn is wicked good with actors, paring down the dialogue in the script by Hossein Amini (deftly adapted from James Sallis' novel) so that the backstory must play out on their faces. Challenge met. Gosling mesmerizes in a role a lesser actor could tip into absurdity. Bryan Cranston, on fire with Breaking Bad, brings wit and compassion to Driver's fatherly mentor. And Mulligan is glorious, inhabiting a role that is barely there and making it resonant and whole. Prepare to be blown away by Albert Brooks, cast way against type as crime boss Bernie Rose. Brooks, an iconically sharp comic voice, has toyed with villainy before (see Out of Sight), but never like this. Brooks' performance, veined with dark humor and chilling menace (watch him with a blade), deserves to have Oscar calling.

Violence drives Drive. A heist gone bad involving a femme fatale (an incendiary cameo from Mad Men's Christina Hendricks) puts blood on the walls. Ditto a pounding Driver delivers at a strip club. An elevator scene with Driver, Irene and an assassin is time-capsule sexy and scary. In league with camera whiz Newton Thomas Sigel and composer Cliff Martinez, Refn creates a fever dream that sucks you in. Or maybe you'll hate it. Drive is a polarizer. It's also pure cinema, a grenade of image and sound ready to blow.