ROCKY HANDSOME: The Rock that doesn’t Roll! [2/5]

I hate this when critics label an actor as a piece of ‘furniture’ in his said professional work. This is really demeaning and an act of character-assassination of serious intensity, I believe. But then, what adjectives could you use for someone who has precisely and only a couple of expressions to showcase? A rock, if not some furniture? Well, it goes well with the title of the film and also describes the neatly oiled and chiseled body of John Abraham playing the main protagonist in the film. Trust me; he is so unshakeable, unflinching and immovable (for all the wrong reasons) that at some point, you might outburst your patience with ‘bhai, kuch toh acting kar!’ Nishikant Kamat directed ROCKY HANDSOME too, has exactly the same kind of after-effect on its viewers. You are left unshaken, unmoved and cold as a rock, again for all the wrong reasons.  

Copied frame to frame from Korean blood-porn THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (2010), ROCKY HANDSOME revolves around a mysterious pawnshop owner [JOHN ABRAHAM] and his unusual bonding with his 7-year old neighbor Nayomi [DIYA CHALWAD]. The tryst of Nayomi’s drug-addict mother [NATHALIA KAUR] with the deadly sharks in the game lands them in an unwanted situation only our mysterious man can get them off from. And then starts a hysterical action adventure having some amazingly choreographed hand-to-hand martial arts combats, knife fights, blood & gore action-sequences and a couple of peppy, foot-tapping, well-shot item numbers! Sounds good? Well, some of it but not entirely. There is always a sense of disbelief floating around throughout the film. It’s like visiting those arty-farty exhibitions where everything looks neat & clean and presentable but you could never make any connections with them as most of it was just an imitation.

I am not sure if the film is an official remake of its Korean original but even then, Kamat known for remaking DRISHYAM in Hindi last year, never actually bothers to use his right side of brain while recreating it. Most of the props used in the film are shamelessly and leisurely gets modeled on the original ones e.g. the noticeable pouch to carry drugs. Kamat’s unimaginative approach is largely overshadowed by stylized action-pieces and a typical cinematography relying always on slow-motion tiger walks in the rain, red-tinted lighting and continuous shots during fights (An impressive one has John running towards a window, jumping on to it, breaking it and making a safe landing on the ground through it…all in one continuous shot). The ear-defying background score is another run-of-the mill tactic Kamat never shows any problem with but I truly wish if the control would have been in viewer’s hands.

ROCKY HANDSOME has a cute looking kid in its major star-cast. Diya is sure a talent to watch out for but the dialogues are so grave and methodical, it doesn’t sync in well with the innocence Diya brings on screen. Kamat himself plays the main villain but could never create any impression with that. Teddy Maurya, despite being a good actor, settles with a regular portrayal of the done-to-death character of a drug-sniffing maniac. Sharad Kelkar owns most of his performance with the right kind of attitude and confidence in him. For John Abraham, read the first para of this article again. There is nothing more to add.

At the end, ROCKY HANDSOME strengthens your believe in ‘the other side of the coin’ theory. For every KAPOOR & SONS and NEERJA, there is always a ROCKY HANDSOME or a JAZBAA. You can call it the balancing-act of Bollywood. Love it, hate it but you can’t ignore its existence. It’s a copy & paste (Ctrl C + Ctrl V) job better left to find a place in your trash bin, soon after watching it if you had already managed to watch! [2/5]   

WELCOME BACK: Partly funny-largely frustrating! [2/5]

Anees Bazmee’s WELCOME BACK is a time-machine that takes you in the times of its successful predecessor WELCOME (2007). The moment it takes off, you come to realize that nothing have moved an inch in all these 7-8 years; neither the silliness in the plot nor the sensibility of the director. A girl, despite having strong and extreme dislike for ‘goondas’ gets kissed by one belonging to the same genus and ends up singing and dancing a romantic number with him, without showing any apprehension. This is a crass world where everyone makes a joke on everyone’s looks, features and physical stances irrespective of their gender, age and class. All in the name of entertainment! All for the sake of cheap laughs! Some really work but in the tiring 2 hour and 33 minutes of its total duration, most fall on the face. WELCOME BACK remains a terrible try to reproduce and recreate the box-office magic WELCOME (2007) created long back; which by now, looks like a classic in comparison with this partly funny-largely frustrating flick.

The furious Uday Shetty [Nana Patekar] and the fanatic Majnu Bhai [Anil Kapoor] are looking for a simple, sober and sophisticated groom again for their brand new sister Ranjana [Shruti Haasan]. The search takes them back to Dr. Ghoongroo [Paresh Rawal] whose newly-find son Ajay [John Abraham] loves Ranjana. Now if you are scratching your head to know where these new additions have come from, let me give you a hint. ‘The dark secrets of a happy married life’. Anyways, the trouble in the proposed marriage happens to be the groom himself. Ajay is actually Ajju Bhai- a local don in Mumbai. Things go messy when an international mafia Wanted Bhai [Naseeruddin Shah] makes an entry with his drug-addict son [Shiney Ahuja] wanting to marry Ajay’s love interest and Uday-Majnu’s sister. Meanwhile, there is a con mother-daughter duo [Dimple Kapadia & Ankita Shrivastava] to make it more muddled and mixed-up.

WELCOME BACK is majorly backed by the Nana Patekar-Anil Kapoor combination. Together, they live every moment in the film with total conviction and wholesome energy. Although Bazmee relies more on the third-rate giggles out of unapologetic comments on everyone’s appearances like Anil Kapoor is called ‘Tedhe Kandhe’ because of his leaning body posture, Supriya Karnik’s character is cursed for her hairstyle with ‘boy-cut halkat’ comment etc. The list includes blinds, deafs and dumbs, overweights and what not. The background music constantly hammers on your hearing senses with a completely unbearable chorus-intro for every major character. Sub-plots are added just to complicate the storyline and to make it overcrowded to create a chaotic climax where you can easily fall for the trick and get ready to accept anything that comes on the way to finally end it all. The logics get its high when a blind don gains his eyesight after his head gets banged in a fight. Similarly, the hero manages to run on the humps of running camels to save a life.

In a very few mentionable sequences, Nana and Anil supposedly play Antakshari with ghosts in a graveyard. In other, Rajpal Yadav impresses in a scene where he’s beaten by goons but forced to dance while being in the middle of it. Paresh Rawal is watchable but Dimple, Ankita & Shruti are not even that. John carries off it well. The addition of Naseeruddin Shah to the cast was supposed to recreate the magical presence of Late Feroz Khan but ends up being in an uncomfortable zone. Shiney Ahuja seems out of the place all the time.   

Overall, WELCOME BACK is an old and predictable, long and tiring joke. Some of the performances do make it watchable but the lack of smart writing-clever punches-logical explanations, and idiocy in the storyline kills the fun and the pun both. If WELCOME had amused you, this will annoy you. [2/5]                        

GABBAR IS BACK: Gabbar returns ‘khali haath’ with no ‘shabashi’ at all! [1/5]

Gabbar returns. With all the charisma, likeability and power to hold your attention leaving way behind in transition, Gabbar returns but only in some futile dialogues, a badly done rap-mix and in the title of the film. 'Why' is the only reaction you would relate to such arrogant effort to encash the echoing sound of once terror, and now horror! The most iconic villain in the history of Bollywood gets the worst tribute ever done. Sadly, Sanjay Leela Bhansali produced GABBAR IS BACK is your typical star-driven south Indian remake that tries to tick every box falling under the formula of a box-office hit but returns ‘khali haath’ with no ‘shabashi’ at all.

   
To start with, this Gabbar is more of a ‘Shahenshah’. When not hanging corrupts till death at the nearest ‘chauraha’, he can be seen teaching physics in a college where supposedly students are taught and trained to be honest that too at a degree where a son could sign on the death penalty of his own father drenched deep in corruption without giving it a second thought. Professor Aditya [Akshay Kumar] is the man in charge here and on mission. It takes no special powers to know that the guy has a tragic past before deciding to clean the system at his own with his own special task force and a harsh sense of judgment. The film is also about personal rivalry and angst against the injustice. It is also a fight between two brands as the hero and the anti-hero in the film like to describe themselves. In one sequence, Gabbar- the good man as forcibly put by the lady [Shruti Haasan] meant only for some kind of breathing space in all those butt-kicking action and ear-kicking verbal exchange shuts the villain's mouth up using his ever-growing popularity. I wish if they could call themselves ‘SnapDeal’ & ‘Flipkart’. The audience would sure find it a lot interesting.   

GABBAR IS BACK- an official remake of a Tamil superhit strives to aim at people’s angst against corruption. The mood gets set when Gabbar kidnaps corrupt government officials and punishes them in the most violent yet less-innovative manner but soon decides to dive into the dreary pool of dead romance. Dealing with the same issue, Rensil D’silva’s UNGLI had definitely more inventive ways of punishing corrupts. Film also fails to hold you emotionally and doesn’t excite you at all with its cheap thrills in the plot. The tragic backstory is too convenient and badly twisted on screen. Even the sensible Chitrangada Singh in her sex siren avatar doesn’t show any spark in her titillating item song. Shruti Haasan is such a waste. Kareena Kapoor Khan looks ravishing in her cameo-cum-song and that’s it. Akshay too is repetitive. Though his remarkable energy on screen and ease at such roles keep him in the race at any given point of time, the over-simplistic and predictable plot hardly gives him much space to show off the charm he has. Sunil Grover reinvents himself as an actor in serious role but with a dubious dubbed voice, he couldn’t maximize the chance well. Jaydeep Ahlawat is average.

Overall, GABBAR IS BACK is a dull and boring action-entertainer where you can sense and predict almost every curve on the road ahead. Watching and re-watching the real and original Gabbar mouthing those timeless dialogues will always be a treat for any cinema-lover or an entertainment-seeker. This latest Gabbar is just a falsifier with fake identity. If the real one could curse this one, he would have sure gone ahead with, “Gabbar ka naam poora mitthi mein milaye diyo” [You have spoiled the name of Gabbar, all of it]! Stay back! [1/5]