Movie review- Bodyguard

Saturday night I had only reluctantly agreed to watch Bodyguard, and since I couldn’t bring myself to anticipate anything better than how Sallu movies have been in the past, I took pains to convince some friends to accompany us so that there could be some respite for me in the event of the movie turning intolerable- I could then at least discuss cricket in hushed voices. Off hand I can remember only a couple of Salman Khan Movies that were good: Hum aapke hain kaun, and Hum dil de chuke sanam, and I dare say both of the aforesaid movies were good in spite of Salman Khan. I know I’m not going to go down well with die-hard Sallu fans, specially the female brigade. My wife blatantly claims that I’m simply jealous of him. Why would I be jealous of an extremely good looking hunk who would rip-off of his shirt just to scratch his tummy? Why would I be jealous of a caring lover who would also bare-handedly knock out fifty-odd gun-totting enemies in a way that would put Rajnikanth to shame?  Yes, why would I be jealous of him? He isn’t a better orthopedic surgeon than I am!

Save for the last half an hour or so of the movie, Bodyguard was going the way Salman Khan movies usually do. Utterly humbug, with an apparently unpalatable story-line and just about ok songs. The last half hour the movie brings about such pleasantly dramatic turn to the story that I had to sit up and actually watch the rest of the film. Very innovative, I must say, the twist brought on in the end. One can go and watch this flick only for this much.

Salman khan is a familial bodyguard (this is the first instance where a bodyguard father passes on his job to his son as if it were a family business) working for a security agency, and he is entrusted with the job of being a bodyguard to Kareena Kapoor, who happens to be the daughter of an influential landlord (played by Raj Babbar) of an imaginary province of Jesinghpur. Now, Raj Babbar has done a big favor to Sallu in the past by saving the life of his mother when she was pregnant with him. So Sallu miyan naturally feels indebted to him and thus his daughter Kareena becomes untouchable for him in romantic sense. Sallu addresses Raj Babbar as ‘Maalik’, so one can imagine. Now Sallu is supposed to protect Kareena from some goons, and it is never made clear in the movie as to why there is such profound animosity between Raj Babbar’s family, and the group of goons, and why should they just be targeting the daughter and not the landlord father himself. Anyway, if one were to apply so much of mind in Sallu movies, one would want a refund each time. Now Sallu has to shadow Kareena everywhere she goes, and thus there are some funny scenes in the college where Kareena and her friend study. Now these girls apparently don’t like to be shadowed like this (I can’t fathom why any girl would refuse to be shadowed by Sallu miyan). So they hatch out a plan to divert his attention: Kareena starts making cozy phone calls from a cell phone that has a sim that does not display its number to the recipient, posing as an imaginary girl called Chhaya. Salman Khan falls in love with Chhaya, much to Kareena’s bewilderment, who herself falls in love with him apparently when she sees how he bravely fights bare-handedly with group of heavily armed toughies. So clichéd, na?  Now Kareena has this dilemma: She can’t reveal her love for Sallu fearing that both, his father and Sallu himself would reject her because of their respective positions: Sallu an indebted servant, and Kareena a daughter of a proud landlord. If I describe the rest of the story, it would give off hints to what happens in the last half hour. So, can’t help it, if you must have the thrill of the ending of this movie, you’ll have to tolerate the first three-quarters as well. And if you’re a Sallu fan, you’ll like the whole movie. So go and watch it, and remember me when you sit up to a jaw-dropping end.

Regarding performances, Sallu is as usual. Kareena is ok as well, and she doesn’t look her usual stunning self either. There is an obese comic added in the movie who brings on some laughs with his antics and funny one-liners on his T-shirts like ‘Coming soon: Six packs’. Raj Babbar looks painfully aged now with funnily tinted hair and moustache.

Some actors I saw for the first time in this movie, including the fat comedian, but then I was later informed that this movie is a remake of a south-Indian hit, and perhaps they picked up those actors verbatim from the original flick. 
My Rating: 2 on 5
Pic credit: Planetradio.com, cinebasti.com

Movie Review- Aarakshan

I have seen Prakash Jha grow as a director from Gangajal to Aparhan to Rajneeti. And since Jha raised the bar himself, Aarakshan disappoints a bit. I must say that only two kinds of movies thrill me: the ones that make me laugh heartily; and the ones that make me cry. Aarakshan started on a very promising note, and could have burgeoned into an intelligent and intense debate on the matter of reservation. But alas, as soon as one felt that the film was going to be differently entertaining, it lost its grip on the primary subject, and by the time the movie was in the final stages, it had become a fight between expensive private coaching classes, where education is as much a business as oil is for Arab sheikhs, and selfless and dedicated teachers like the protagonist Dr. Prabhakar Anand, played by the unequalled veteran of Hindi cinema- Amitabh Bachchan.  

The film has tried to incorporate two subjects within its fold- One, the subject of highly debatable reservation in educational institutes, and two, the subject of commercialization of education, by the way of over-priced coaching classes, and by the way of ‘self-financed’ professional colleges. While the primary theme of the film seems to be the former (going by the title), somewhere in the course of the movie, this slowly but interestingly maturing subject suddenly loses its hold and gives into trivialities. This is where the movie disappoints. I won’t write the story of the film here because the gist is what matters. I’ll simply narrate the reasons why one can watch this one:

One can watch this one for the intense character of Dr Prabhakar Anand, played extremely well by Amitabh Bachchan;  for Prakash Jha’s near-perfect direction.; for the poignant love story between Saif and Deepika, depicted  to be extremely romantic without as much as a single truly romantic scene; for Manoj Bajpai’s justice to the villainous role he played; and finally for the cute Tanvi Azmi, who despite having aged over the years appeared so charming and fresh in her role as Amitabh’s wife. Deepika Padukone looks stunningly beautiful; Saif looks strange in his studious look, with ‘chappat’ hair and orthodox glasses. There are just two songs in the movie- the first one, ‘accha lagta hai’, is a sweet, melodious number appearing early on in the movie, perhaps to emphasize the relationship between Deepika and Saif, and the other one, ‘kaun si dor kheenchein, kaun si kaatein’, a superbly sung classical by Channulal Mishra and my favorite Shreya Ghoshal. Channulal belongs to the same family as the legendary siblings- Rajan and Sajan Mishra, and has a similar bass voice. Go and watch this one, and yes, there’s nothing in it that should have provoked some of the Indian states to ban its screening. Publicity stunt, I suppose.     My rating: 2-1/2 on 5
Pic credit: Indicine.com