ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES: Awe my Goddesses! [3/5]

As a cinema-lover largely all ears for the Hindi film Industry’s progressive inclinations for a change, there is always a sense of pride, surprise and triumph floating in my mind while watching celebrated filmmaker Pan Nalin’s bracing, pulsating and unforeseen new film ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES. Films on male-bonding look so archaic, parched and superfluous now. ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES marks the amazing arrival of Glocal [An amalgamated term for the new gene with Global & Local both the aspirations and establishments] Indian women in Bollywood. We all have been scrutinizing this cautious and careful movement for quite some time now, through the convinced characterizations and the confident and carefree performances by Deepika, Priyanka and Kangana in their deliberate choice of films but in only bits and pieces.

Here, in ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES, it all looks like an out in the open protest against the pigeonhole portrayal of Indian female in films. Watching as many as seven sensibly scintillating leading ladies of ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES smash every formula-fitting approach, erect a brand new attitude and establish a much-needed representation of the new, contemporary and modern breed of the other ‘equally-deserving’ half of the human race, is definitely one of the most satisfying moments Bollywood has seen this year, and in recent times. Had the writer-director been more alert, firm and uncompromising with the plot especially towards the invented end and more in-synced with the convincingly real performances of the ladies; the film would have gone beyond just being a trying path-breaker to a confirmed pacesetter.

The story brings women hailing from varied fields of life, stuck in their own crisis and now finding solace, support and strength in each other’s comradeship under one roof in Goa. Freida (Sarah Jane-Dias) is getting married. She has just left her latest photography assignment for a phony fairness brand. Mad (Anushka Manchanda) is trying her hard to impress the world with her kind of music. Suranjana (Sandhya Mridul) is strict and a street smart business-woman trapped in a land-dispute with an NGO runner, on same lines as the Singur land acquisition controversy. Pammi (Pavleen Gujral) is your typical rich housewife who has sold all her dreams to please the standard well-off family of her husband. Joanna (Amrit Maghera) is an aspiring actress forced to just wear cleavage-showing Cholis and call for help to ensure a tensed situation for Hero’s clap-generating entry in the name of acting. Then there are Lakshmi (Rajshree Deshpande) - the overtly fashionable maid and the simply-dressed yet strong-headed Nargis (Tannishtha Chatterjee)- an unexpected entry with lots of new revelations to take place.

The best from ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES comes in form of lightening moments where the girls share their experiences with the world outside those walls, where they recall their young-age aspirations to rock and shock the world now resting somewhere beneath the new responsibilities tossed upon them. The natural-‘no camera around’-freely flowing performances make ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES an amazing journey to watch. In one of the scenes, the girls are shown falling for a bare-chest handsome hunk unknowingly being watched and whistled at as the object of desire. This is not a regular sight in a Bollywood film. In another, the Sanskari housewife friend asks [spoiler alert] her lesbian friends, “woh toh theek hai, par tum log karte kaise ho?” ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES is packed with such rare pleasures, but only till it doesn’t get up to hold the flag in opposition to all the possible discriminations, crimes and intolerances against women in one film. The film drastically gets derailed from being naturally good to melodramatically substandard. Rape, murder, gender discrimination; you name it you’ll have it tackled here in the most hurried and comfortable manner. Till the time you reach the crowd-pleasing climax, you only wish Pan Nalin had stopped it exactly where he decided to start it. You can’t settle for what you are fighting against.

On the whole, ANGRY INDIAN GODDESSES is amazingly real, relatable and something you don’t see very often on Indian screens. Out of these seven fiery, fearless and ferociously real leading ladies, each one will have her own share of approval and admiration in your heart. The film is not the reason to watch them; they are the reason to watch the film. [3/5]         

RAGINI MMS 2: ‘Sunny’ side up! Horror gets low! [2/5]

So, how many more times exactly you want to see a possessed body [quite inviting in this case] tied in wooden chair-hanged in air, making screechy deafening sounds and one good Samaritan soul helping the needy with his/her own set of sacred chants tries to persuade the evil with, “Isse chhod do! Tum chali jao” (Leave her alone! Go away!!)? That too when we already have impactful exorcism scenes in numerous horror classics! With such plenty of ripped-off references from the past formulaic horror flicks; defined deliciously as ‘horrex’, RAGINI MMS 2 fails big time to chill your bones and ends up tickling your funny bones unintentionally with stupidity scattered allover and boredom that comes from the lack of originality in plot.

Taking clues from its previous part, RAGINI MMS 2 takes you back at the same haunted house where Uday [the Rajkumar Rao of now] has lost his life while implementing his sleazy idea to shoot his personal moments with his girlfriend Ragini [Kainaz]. Ragini is now in a mental asylum and an irritatingly over-excited filmmaker [Parvin Dabas hams like anything] wants to make a film on the same. In his explanation, this would be a well-balanced mishmash of horror and sex that will leave you in your best of confusion to either go to your mother in holy-scare or to your girlfriend to satisfy your urge for dirty pleasures. This is probably the most honest announcement for all the viewers as what to expect from it. Get confused and return unfulfilled with neither being a solid punch in the name of entertainment!

Film also has been written, as to rationalize and defend its main lead Sunny Leone’s past line of work and her way in to Bollywood. She interestingly plays herself in the film. And where everyone else in the cast & crew make comments on her real life (In one scene, the director of the film in the film reacts on her instinct to have some research before playing the character, “Research? Yeh Porno se Rituporno kabse bann gayi?”), she takes on everyone with an enactment of a fake-orgasm scene to make her point of it being all a part of one’s profession. For the rest, either she’s roaming around in her skimpy pieces of silken lingerie or being extremely physical with most (She was even made to kiss Sandhya Mridul for literally no reason to have enough justification). At best, it is a 2-hour long Sunny Leone showreel!

Talking about performances in such mediocre film would be wasting one’s time and effort but if anyone could really manage to pull it till the status of ‘likeability’, it is Sandhya Mridul. Cast as an animated starlet who adds an extra ‘s’ in each word she bound to speak, Mridul responsibly slips into the character and provides a couple of genuine laughs with her contagious flare of immense energy. Sunny looks astoundingly hot and does precisely what most would love to see her doing!

Overall, it is a bad follow-up to an impressively performed & directed first part which was again a rip-off from ‘THE BLAIR WITCH REPORT’ and ‘PARANORMAL ACTIVITY’. This one pays its tribute to ‘EXORCIST’ & ‘THE SHINING’ and many others in the most forgettable manner. Only for people with weak hearts and even weaker sense of entertainment! [2/5]