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]             

GUNDAY: Drama drives a bumpy ride! Story thrown to back seat!! [2.5/5]

If 70’s hit box-office formula, exploited mercilessly later in 90’s, of macho-giri, hero-panthi & solid dialogue-baazi could still guarantee an out-sized rage in entertainment, YashRaj film’s GUNDAY would have easily been a winner all the way but what it misses out in translation is the unforeseen elements in the plot. So, GUNDAY- the saga of love, friendship & betrayal remains limited and disappoints for the most part.

In a GANGS OF WASSEYPUR-ish docudrama style of narration, Irrfan playing a confident cop takes us back in 1971’s Bangladesh where 2 young guns are forced to flee and find a shelter in Calcutta only to rise as the second most famous [infamous would do the justice] craze after the monumental Howrah Bridge. These so-called ‘local Robinhoods’ & the biggest goons of their times [Ranveer playing Bikram and Arjun being Bala] are into every illegal business in the list. So far so good, but then the next chain of events is not very tricky to track down when both fall in ‘sachche wala pyaar’ with the same girl [Priyanka Chopra sizzles as a cabaret dancer]. Film gets derailed from being a hardcore anti-hero film to bring down the dysfunctional system to a typical romantic triangle with an outdated pinch of betrayal and misunderstandings coming in the way of friendship and love.

Setting a story in 70’s-80’s brings plenty of interesting nuances in the plot to rejoice. Rajesh Khanna is mentioned as a superstar girls fall for, for more than once. Mithun da’s dance moves are hard to ignore in choreography. Bappi Lahiri’s voice is prominently used to catch the bong-connection. The colors and characters also smell rustic & next-door [One specific character can’t stop himself addressing his bloodthirsty rival as ‘dada’]. Obviously the direction is on the right track but obviousness in plot kills the grandness of GUNDAY. Why to borrow [Copy-paste] from storylines that are done-to-death? I don’t have any clue and I guess the thinking tanks behind this would also not have a justification.

Film if manages to hold your attention, despite being tad lengthy by at least 15-20 minutes, the credit goes to its production value which makes it a grandeur explosion of drama on screen, the performances mainly of Irrfan who is regular but delightfully charming with some of the cheesiest lines and an attitude that becomes skin to the character and last but not the least the high-voltage drama. Whatever happens here happens in a slow-motion technique. Everyone appears from a hazy-foggy-smoky background. Punches hit the chiseled body in high-speed. In the rest, Ranveer outshines with a good performance. Arjun impresses but not without showing limitations as an actor. Priyanka does it the way she’s known to.

Overall, Ali Abbas Jafar’s glorification of anti-heroes ends up in a lengthy bumpy ride that is enjoyable in parts, grand in looks but definitely not worthy enough to be a descendant of bygone era’s masala/mass entertainers. Watch it if your idea to celebrate Valentine’s Day is nothing else but to see two shirtless men fighting for one girl. [2.5/5]