HAWAIZAADA: Get some air! [1.5/5]

As defined on the ‘know-it-all’ Wikipedia online page; coffee table books are an oversized art & literature piece, positioned best in the shelf to inspire conversation. Subject matter is predominantly non-fiction and pictorial. Nothing changes if you dare to compare the same with debutante writer-director Vibhu Puri’s highly ambitious HAWAIZAADA. Both can make you mesmerized with their picture-perfect, magnanimously shot visuals in its in-detailed presentation but that’s it. There is hardly any room for content there. So, keep flipping the pages till you find the levels of your enthusiasm fading down to minimum. And then, leave it for another. These days, they have plenty in stores for you.

Despite having great possibility of being a well-intentioned period drama-cum-thrilling biopic, HAWAIZAADA offers nothing but plain air sure more than what you buy in your favorite wafer pack at the shop around the corner. Before Wright Brothers could go beyond imagination and invent an airplane, there was an enthusiastic Indian named Shivkar Bapuji Talpade who deserved all the respects for being the real pioneer. A plot fascinating enough for a motion picture, no second thoughts on that! But then you have to see what Vibhu does with that further.

Take inspirations from Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s extravagant Victorian era-inspired hugely unbelievable sets; make your leading character as dynamic, animated and charming as if he’s not from a historic background but out of a fairytale and then put plenty of gloss in everything that comes in your way. It has been a confirmed Midas touch for Bhansali’s fictional outings. Vibhu, one of his worthy successors tries the same with a biopic and fails miserably. You are left in constant doubts as to appreciate the efforts of such gigantic talents of the industry or to mourn the opportunity getting wasted on such large scale.

Rajesh Khanna says in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s ANAND, “Yeh duniya ek ranmanch hai, jahaanpanaah…aur hum sab iski kathputliyaan” (The world is a big stage, my lord…and we all are nothing but the puppets). I have never seen a biopic so theatrical that you just want to remove the disclaimer and enjoy it as a fictional drama. This Bombay of 1895 never looked so decked up. Shastry [Played by Mithun Chakraborty] as a cranky scientist lives in a dumped ship on the shore and it is barely any lesser than a well-established museum.

On the performances, Ayushmann Khurrana charms with his trademark flirtatious looks and killing smile. I hoped to see the compliments like ‘Awww, how cute he is!’ getting up the next level with ‘Wow, how good he acts!’ but looks like I have to wait a little more. Pallavi Sharda of BESHARAM fame is better than her last. Mithun repeats himself but doesn’t fail at all. For the rests, it’s the child actor Naman Jain and Jameel Khan who show some kind of believability to their characters.

Having said that, HAWAIZAADA does have some of the most impressive efforts on the set-designing & writing front [dialogues & lyrics never fall short of expectations] but the completely off-track romance, bumpy screenplay, lack of much-needed realistic approach and the overtly dramatic Broadway like production-style make it a droning, dull and monotonous watch. [1.5/5]             

JAI HO: Prabhu Dheva-meets-Sooraj Barjatya! Being SUPER human-sans-common sense!! [2/5]

Do not dare to complain. You had seen it coming. Didn’t the character of Salman Khan warn you in the promos itself that “Aam Aadmi ek sota hua Sher hai, ungli mat kar…jag gaya toh cheer-phaad dega”? Only problem is that the film in question JAI HO decides to take the same salient statement in a very literal sense and not in what it actually intended to be.

So, this ‘Aam Aadmi’ stands nowhere near the classification of a common man, projected & presented well in recent Delhi state elections. But this common man played by the mass hysteria Salman Khan, largely called as ‘Bhai’ does have an overcrowded family with mother & sister ready to participate wholeheartedly in the proceedings as soft targets of evil forces…and whenever that happens, ‘Bhai’ takes a drastic transformation from ‘Being human’ to ‘Being SUPER human’ with the immense power of an incredible hulk like creature who roars loud to deafen your ears, nails his teeth deep in the veins of his enemies and even goes shirtless to make his fans go wild and frenzy over his gigantic stature.

An official remake of Chiranjeevi Starrer Telugu blockbuster ‘STALIN’, again a inspired version of Hollywood drama PAY IT FORWARD, Sohail Khan’s JAI HO [earlier titled as MENTAL] is a film good at heart because of the social message it carries to help out at least three people instead just saying a ‘thank you’ in return of anyone’s help but turns sore, cliché & tiresome with the route it takes to communicate the same. When it is good, it is as sugary as Sooraj Barjatya’s heavily traditional family entertainers. When it is bad, it is as unendurable as Prabhu Dheva’s mindless action-thrillers. Avid movie-watchers can vouch for the both being a non-entertainer.  

And then the regular dosage of absolutely inane & offensive jokes! Calling names like ‘Chhota Chooha’ when our leading lady sees a bathing kid without clothes and to make it equal, the kid calling her ‘Pinky’ as, in one of her odd days, she somehow authenticates wearing pink colour undergarments, if this is the height of efforts to make us laugh, I refuse and retaliate to be entertained. Trust me; soon you’ll hear these terms in your zone and Mr. Khan will not be there to protect you with his own fans.

JAI HO is one such film where actors on screen for lesser time look less exasperating than others, to earn comparatively less disapproval and more regards for their ‘short & sweet’ performances. You see so much of known faces in every character on screen that if I put their full names in written here, a 1-page review would need at least 20-odd pages of a coffee-table book to fit in and that in case when their performances don’t bring much to say.

Tabu makes a comeback sort and is good to see but definitely deserves better writing support to match her skills. Nadira Babbar is known for her excellence in theatre but as the mother, she only earns yawns here. Pathetic is the word. Daisy Shah doesn’t get much to appreciate than her dancing skills in the introduction scene. One powerhouse of talent is the Child Artist Naman Jain. See his confidence in comic timings to believe.

And now the man himself! Well, Salman is Salman. No one plays him better than he himself. He does things he believes in. His self-indulgence shows on screen and that is what his fans love to watch. Who am I to come between the God and his die-hard followers? All I can say to rest my case is that JAI HO is a confused platter of spicy southern curries with extra-mild Jain recipes. Better avoid ordering! [2/5]