BOBBY JASOOS: Vidya overpowers this less-Jasoosi thriller! [3/5]

Hyderabad has not been the backdrop of many Bollywood films but a few very relevant ones like Sagar Sarhadi’s BAZAAR; so when promos of BOBBY JASOOS made a suggestion of it being positioned completely in the same city of its own flavors, an apprehension got fixed in my head. Will the typical Hyderabadi lingo and the lehza work or else it would be just another laughing stock stuck in its stereotype treatment? Now that I have seen it, I can say my doubts didn’t get proper ground to prosper. Debutante director Samar Shaikh’s BOBBY JASOOS belongs to two, one being Hyderabad itself and the second is Vidya Balan, often pronounced as the HERO of her films. BOBBY JASOOS in fact, is a complete shocker mostly not because it is a thriller but as an emotional Indian drama that asks important questions about our male-ruled society. Why can a profession like private investigation not picked up by a girl? Why Kitty always has to a dumb assistant and not a smart challenger to Karamchand in her own way?

Coming from a middle class Hyderabadi Muslim family where father [Rajendra Gupta] arrogantly announces that he doesn’t need his daughter’s money to run the house, Bilquis aka Bobby [Vidya] dares to chase her dream of being a popular private detective. Flooded with petty cases of gathering information about people’s personal affairs, Bobby is waiting to hit the jackpot with something big and it comes to her as Anees Khan [Veteran Kiran Kumar] - a rich man in search of a missing girl with least information to follow. Stunned in the flashes of money involved, little she remembers the basics of the profession. Get your hands clean on the client first!

BOBBY JASOOS beautifully and in its most authentic manner captures the core of middle class houses. The extended families with father’s sister [Tanve Azmi in one such] and her daughters live and breathe with ease, ‘Sehri’ and ‘Iftaar’ being performed together since it is a Ramadan month, father being the dominating force and kids hardly can put their view-points! The best part is you are never bombarded with forced Hyderabadi dialect but it is well-crafted in the story and subtly performed. Even in their shortest of time on screen, actors like Rajendra Gupta as the controlling father, Supriya Pathak Kapoor as Bobby’s Mother, Tanve Azmi as the Kausar Khaala who’s kind of a marriage counselor to everybody and anybody comes across, Arjan Bajwa, Zarina Wahab, Akash Dahiya and Kiran Kumar in his comeback sort leave the demanded and deserving impact. Ali Fazal is a revelation. He has done well in a couple of movies after 3 IDIOTS but this one establishes him as a charming performer. Spare me for saying it but his dialogue delivery at places reminds me of Naseer saab’s.

And now, the Vidya Balan! Vidya has always been targeting scripts and roles that ascertains full just to her acting potential. The writing here sure can’t be judged at par her earlier selections but still, she manages to pull it out brilliantly. There is no way you complain a scene Vidya is in. Don’t fool yourself by expecting a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ thriller out of it, but this first Bollywood woman detective sure shows flare of emotions you’ll feel connected to. Watch it for Vidya! [3/5]    

MASTRAM: A satisfying session, far from being an orgasmic delight! [3/5]

The fact that I belong to Uttar Pradesh, the dregs of North India and the very same time zone; there can’t be any possible chance of denial that I might not know about these hugely popular & highly erotic writing materials, openly available at all book stores at crowded state bus-stations and local newspaper vendors under a fictional handle-name of Mastram. I never really bothered much about who’s the man behind and what force could drive him to enter this very exploitable yet offensive sector till Akhilesh Jaiswal’s fictional biography MASTRAM came into limelight.

A small town writer from Himachal Pradesh dreams to make it big as a novel-writer in big cities like Delhi. He definitely is aware of the consequences of being a writer so doesn’t want to get into married life but soon he’s told about the girl being a typical housewife material who can cook lip-smacking mutton, he agrees. Now, this is the era where most publishers are only interested in printing study materials and not some boring ‘shuddh Hindi’ literature. Rajaram- our protagonist is forced to look out for some ‘masaaledar’ addition to his stories, often explained by people around as sex. And, thus Rajaram turns into Mastram- an unknown iconic writer of soft-porn novels!

Many would look at it with expectations to be a pornographic movie that would tickle mostly the lower part of human body but the writer-director Jaiswal boldly decides to focus on the writer’s catch-22 situation while changing gears from one kind to a completely different, the pain of losing opportunity to be known and famous and also the categorical expansion that creates competition in his self-claimed province. Film also talks; if not in volumes, in suggestions for sure, about the hypocrisy of the two-faced society. People, who read him the most, start disgusting him in the same measure after his identity comes out in light.

The real hero of MASTRAM besides the fascinating concept is Mukesh Chhabra- the casting director of the film. This man does magic with his strong sense in reading the characters and finding out talents that can carry it more than what is written, briefed or expected. Though Rahul Bagga as Rajaram is very recluse, reserved and restricted for the most part, it’s the supporting cast that outshines everyone else in the crew. Debutante Tara-alisha Berry as his charming wife, Akash Dhaiya with his publisher partner and Istiyak Khan as his best friend are outstanding.

With aesthetically shot intimate sequences, hilariously erotic dialogues on the likes of the original Mastram bestsellers, nicely built plot and believable performances, if MASTRAM couldn’t take a deserving leap from being just watchable, it is only because it lacks more layers to the story with time and again getting repetitive especially with the episodic visualizations of erotic stories he pens down.

Overall, it is an entertaining effort to bring the legend of Indian soft-porn back on screen. Watch it to relive the era or to get a brief intro to this yesteryear’s guilty pleasure if you haven’t been fortunate enough to enjoy till date. Do not expect orgasmic pleasure but a satisfying experience is guaranteed! [3/5]