GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN: Where Pain replaces the Punch! [1.5/5]

Nothing hurts more than a second-rate sequel to a classic. I am not being unreasonable here with mediocre script, sloppy direction and forgettable performances; they come and go like seasons in Bollywood but how you can be so careless and recreational while even trying to replicate the magic of one of the most powerful ‘anti-system’ revenge dramas on Indian screens. If I would love to remember Rajkumar Santoshi’s GHAYAL for its sheer intensity in the hovering emotions that could turn a common man into a roaring, raging, rebellious bull, GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN for me is just a poor example of outdated, formulated and shamefully flawed filmmaking.

Ajay Mehra [Sunny Deol] has served his 16 years’ sentence for killing Balwant Rai [Amrish Puri] and now runs Satykaam- a news agency that dares to stand up against injustice of all kinds. Satykaam is more of an organized anti-crime movement with a technically sound work-base buried under ground and hundreds of activated members flaunting their ‘I am a Satykaam’ badges and stickers. Ajay is seen fighting with his reminiscences from the troubled past [in a set of weirdly conceived and poorly executed graphic visuals] until his friend-cum-admirer Joe D’Souza [Om Puri from the original cast] gets murdered. The war is inevitable between a powerful businessman [Narendra Jha] on one side and the man himself with Dhai kilo ka haath and four youngsters [They have captured the crime accidentally] on the other. And the whole city will stand still to watch the grand show.

Sunny Deol gets a deserving applaud for setting his story in a present day. The timeline of the events looks credible. Ajay Mehra has aged, but not in his anger management. The corrupt syndicate between the business world, politics and media is hinted well. One such easygoing news channel has office walls painted with famous Bollywood dialogues. I have no idea who’s on the receiving end. But that’s the only thing positive about the film. Once he decides to build a gripping story around all this, he gradually loses his sense of authenticity to the conveniently bad filmmaking.

Some films are a visual treat; GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN is a visual [graphics] disaster. Imagine Sunny Deol banging his head on the wall with exactly 5 visual windows playing old footage of GHAYAL around his head! The pain is so transmittable, I tell you. The editing jerks could be an additional chapter in any film school syllabus. At one, Sunny is trapped in a traffic jam only to appear in the very next scene controlling a hijacked helicopter. Don’t leave the theatre if it offences your intellect; wait until he rams into a skyscraper abode of the villain. Now, you can.

One of the very few watchable moments has Narendra Jha playing the influential businessman and a father in a catch-22 situation. He is no typical villain who loves to share every move with his family. He hides his drink when his little daughter shows up. He gets worried as a parent when his drug-addicted son commits murder. He is no Amrish Puri to Gulshan Grover or Dan Dhanoa. Jha proves his fitness for the part but the writing is so one-dimensional, you only have sympathies for him. Sunny Deol directs himself and makes sure he sets the screen on fire especially with the action sequences. Watching him entering into a frame running towards camera in slow-motion is the only part I can relate to the Sunny Deol of GHAYAL. For the rest, he doesn’t bring anything electrifying or amply satisfying. In fact, the scenes showing his emotional outbursts are amusingly testing.

Overall, GHAYAL ONCE AGAIN lacks the punch. The same punch that GHAYAL still manages to knock its viewers out even after 26 years in a row. The man had his own share of stardom with the film. The film deserved a better tribute from the man. [1.5/5]

MR JOE B. CARVALHO: ‘Errors in comedy’ & a case-history in the ‘worsts’ section of Bollywood [0.5/5]

Playing a detective, when Arshad Warsi comes to take the brief of a ‘runaway daughter’ case from Shakti Kapoor playing the father, Warsi investigates if he has any clue where his daughter could be. And you really can’t hold yourself bursting into giggles when Shakti Kapoor gives him an absolutely definite & detailed address in reply. This is a good example of black-humour and most importantly, it is one of those few gags that really come out well on screen. I wish other jokes would also have the same luck!

To be pronounced as ‘Mr jo bhi karwa lo’, debutante Samir Tewari’s ‘MR JOE B. CARVALHO’ is rather ‘errors in comedy’ than ‘comedy of errors’. The characters and I mean ‘each & everyone’ credited here acts and reacts like mad cows trying to eat as much grass from the field as they could.

Arshad Warsi plays a detective who’s hired to solve the mystery [???] behind a daughter running away with the cook of the house. In other plot, there is a cold-blooded killer [the less-wasted Javed Jaffery] out on loose to kill another couple responsible for a self-proclaimed don-cum-lover’s heartbreak. Vijayraj plays a green-eyed, envious goon who’s looking for chances to kill his rival Carlos-the killer. Soha Ali Khan is in role of a ‘Lady Dabangg’ cop who misunderstands his ex-boyfriend Warsi as the same contract killer, God knows why often addressed as a terrorist. Himani Shivpuri as the blind mother to Warsi gets trembling around everywhere without much reason. Rest is the series of happenings, mis-happenings and not-happenings.

With a completely immature, faulty and terrible work of writing, neither the film takes itself serious nor the actors. Everyone races against each other to win ‘who’s worst’ title in the performance. Javed Jaffery shows some relief as the master of disguise Carlos. Arshad Warsi was the biggest bet in this and though he never really disappoints you, he should take accountability for choosing such bad film. For the rest, you will find lots of improvisation from actors taking place in many scenes but even that also don’t help any better. Watching actors mumbling just anything before leaving the frame or camera getting zoomed in to a face to get some reaction and after realizing that it’s not gonna happen, ending it with a late-cut is hilarious but only if you are into the tricks & trades of filmmaking.

Dialogues are pathetically pedestrian. So if there is a talk about bad stomach, be ready to hear Soha starting her sentence with ‘I gas’ only to rectifying it soon after with ‘I guess’. The songs are penned down to tickle funny bones but fall flat only for a well-needed break to visit loo or the cafeteria in the theatre premise.

At the end; if you laugh ever in the film, it is not because of the gags but the situations that are not funny at all. Filmmaking is a serious business and people who think they can have fun with it in trying to make it funnier, should need to learn-unlearn few basics. Cinema lovers can consider it a strictly ‘No-No’ and a case-history in the ‘worsts’ section of Bollywood. Come on 2014, don’t dishearten us! Give us something really good soon! [0.5/5] 

WAR…CHHOD NA YAAR: Leave it! Go for your favorite comedy TV shows instead. [2/5]

No one wants war. No one likes to participate in something that harms common people’s peace, prosperity and harmony. We all believe that. At least, we tend to believe that. So when it comes to our ‘not so sweet’ political relationship with our neighboring country, we all at some level have tried to imagine what if the circumstances at the border were not as tensed as it may look sitting in our drawing rooms. The very same is the premise on which first-time writer-director Faraz Haider tries to build nation’s first war-comedy WAR…CHHOD NA YAAR!

On the very first scene, we see our Indian army commander Rana [played by Sharman Joshi] and the chief of Pakistani army outpost [played by Javed Jaffrey] secretly leaving their bases in the darkest hour of the midnight, only to meet at the ‘no man’s land’ not for some revenge seeking war but a card game [Later, they have been shown playing Antakshari also with their respective teams]. The intention is very clear. Make every situation funnier that you think it could be but the problem is the writing lacks originality and innovation. The gags and wits are as if taken from either common man’s raw understandings and presumptions about issues and the mechanism or from an old book of anti-Pakistan jokes. You really can’t be biased with showing most of the good-hearted smart people at your side and the dumbest ones on the other [exclude politicians; they are all the same everywhere]…especially when at the end, you are heading towards a solid meaning message to all the humankind.

Film sure shows a humorous take on the political intervention of other countries [China providing innovative weapons and artilleries to Pakistan, Uncle Sam giving a generous financial aid to India to launch the war] and the caricature-ish low-IQed politicians from both the sides. There is also the TRP-hungry media that masters in how to fabricate regular News feeds to make it large enough for grabbing more eye-balls.  

Performances are strictly average and very conventional & unsurprising. Sharman Joshi and Soha Ali Khan Pataudi are just as you expect them to be. Javed Jaffrey is confident and looks the most promising of them all. Sanjay Mishra repeats himself roles after roles and offers nothing new. Dalip Tahil plays multiple roles of politicians from all sides but if anyone can really make you laugh whole-heartedly is out of the question. Mukul Dev plays an intruder terrorist from Afghanistan who always gets caught by an Indian intelligence officer in disguise patrolling over border-line.     

At the end, WAR…CHHOD NA YAAR is comical but only in its concept & the aspiration it dreams to achieve. I wish the gags would have been fresh and a little matured in nature. Being loyal to your country is one thing but demeaning others by attacking continuously on their state of financial crisis is completely other. Wait for the satellite release and you may like it on a lazy Sunday but as of now, it is not better than a 1-hour episode of comedy shows on your popular TV channel. [2/5]