URI - Technically brilliant, well-acted, but cliched in parts.

Dunkirk is the best war movie I have seen in the past couple of years. In recent times, The Ghazi Attack and Raazi were brilliant war movies coming out of India, especially the latter.

One aspect where Dunkirk and Raazi really scored was that its protagonists, soldiers and spies, were portrayed as real human beings. They are courageous and duty bound, but with their vulnerabilities and personal conflicts. Their opponents need to be killed if required, but are not necessarily evil. They are also doing their duty, as the Pakistani army character played Vicky Kaushal in Raazi said. The final underlying message is that eventually everyone loses in a war.

Uri- The Surgical Strike, does not aspire to unearth these myriad layers of human emotions or reach for such levels of nuance. It also indulges in jingoistic chest thumping in around three scenes(probably retrofitted to cater to certain audiences), that generally plagues Indian war movies. But generally the film is focused, to the point and holds on its own. For a debut, director Aditya Dhar can be proud of his first creation.

Major Vihaan Shergill(Vicky Kaushal) is a battle hardened army officer of the Indian special forces, with an expertise in neutralizing terrorists in insurgency areas. After a successful operation in Manipur he takes up a desk job in Delhi to take care of his ailing mother(Swaroop Sampath). The way Kaushal has beefed up his body for the role, worked on his overall personality and then backed it with excellent acting, both in action and emotional sequences, prove again that he is one of the best things to have happened to Hindi cinema in the past few years, along with the likes of Nawazuddin and Raj Kumar Rao. These are the actors I would pay to watch in a multiplex, even with exceptional content on Netflix, Prime et al, that keep me busy.

One wonders if Kaushal is the same actor who played the polite Pakistani army officer in Raazi, Sanjay Dutt's friend in Sanju,  or the dimwit lover in Manmarziyan. Of course we still remember his roles in Masaan and Raman Raghav. Exceptional choice and variety of roles within a short span of time.

Major Shergill’s brother-in-law Karan Kashyap(Mohit Raina) is also an officer of the special forces, who is martyred in the URI attack. Watching Raina as Lord Shiva on television, I had told my wife that he can do action roles in films. In the film he comes across as convincing as Kaushal as an army man and acts fine as well. Hindi films should see more of him. Paresh Rawal plays National Security Advisor Ajit Doval(name changed). Though he delivers as ever, I felt the writer/director should have designed the character a bit different. Doval from his interviews looks extremely cool and composed. The voice is not strong, but articulate and decisive. An NSA should be like that. A close character was played by Danny Denzongpa in Baby. Rawal here is generally tense, worried and hurried.

We have a Manohar Parrikar(uncanny lookalike) and a Modi(Rajit Kapoor) well to join all the dots. Swaroop Sampat expectedly nails the role of a patient with Alzheimer’s. The characters of Yami Gautam and Kirti Kulhari are not built enough. The latter was excellent in Pink, so such actors should be used to their full potential. There is the ubiquitous Sikh army friend, Muslim army men, an old veteran officer who knows the terrain well, a general and so on. A geeky intern at DRDO who apparently is better than the entire organization, to underline the entrepreneurial and intelligent youth of the nation. Indian spies in Pakistan, a buffoon-like ISI chief and so on. Maybe a couple of characters less and the stories of the others articulated better, would have done better justice to the script.

The strongest part of the movie is its technical brilliance, tight and slick. The war sequences do actually look like a war zone. The bullets, grenades, blasts, insurgency locations, army personnel and terrorists look the way they should. Realistic but not over the top. The cinematography, especially during the night war scenes is top notch. The VFX supports well. The film however suffers from clichés. The ailing mother, widowed sister, wife of martyred husband looking for redemption, we have seen those things many times before. Although the surgical strike was a revenge of the URI attacks from the Indian perspective, war films should refrain from being individual sagas of revenge. The reasons why URI would not be the best war film made in India, though it had the potential.

Coming to the political question, is the movie propagandist, made to support the BJP during the election year, as some folks are alleging? I do not think so.

Maybe the director is a bit of a Modi fan and the current political disposition, hence certain characters and sequences got more screen time than required in a war movie. Maybe Rawal who is a Member of Parliament in real life, had some say and inputs. The film "may" build a positive perception of the current government. However no one can deny the role of someone like Ajit Doval in a strike like this. He has similar accomplishments under many governments. Narendra Modi or Manohar Parikkar as defense minister also deserve credit for their decision making. So if a film maker wants to credit them, it is fine.

It is true that contrary to general perception, surgical strikes have happened in the past as well. India did take the first-offensive route before, especially during 1971, unlike what was said in the movie, that this never happened and can happen only in "New India"! Movies should be made out of those incidents too, where say Indira Gandhi or other PMs, politicians and bureaucrats can be given due credit.

So though the movie shows the current government in positive light, it would be unfair to say that the film was made only for political propaganda. It has a good production value, top notch technical elements with a prime focus on the courage and sacrifice of the Indian armed forces, that qualify it as a fine piece of cinema, in spite of flaws.

3.5 out of 5 for Uri.

Bahubali 2: The conclusion – Lives up to the hype, almost…

While watching the second and final installment of Bahubali, the question that may come into the minds of film connoisseurs is can the movie stand on its own stead against the best of high fantasy we have seen in world cinema?

But let us park that question for now.

Bahubali 2 exceeds the first in terms of the size of the canvas and imagery. The vision of Rajamouli is clearly on display. A movie like this cannot happen unless there is team work from experts in various departments. The aerial shots at strategic points, deft cinematography, excellent graphic design and imagination, the fight sequences and VFX are world class.

As an Indian you feel proud and excited during most parts, to think that we have advanced light years since the days of Bacchan's  “Ajooba”, Jitendra's "Hatimtai" or the TV serial “Alif Laila” and such movies are now being made in India. It is not that we have not seen world class action in Indian cinema before, but where Rajamouli scores over the mindless action movies that Bollywood and regional movie industries regularly churn out, is that he is a good story teller as well. He knows that the importance of a good script, tight screenplay and acting cannot be discounted.  Of course movies with mindless action and extremely poor acting also succeed in India but they do not become classics. Rajamouli wants his name to be among the greats.

Bahubali 2 is a grand Prabhas show, though other characters also have meaty roles. While the actions sequences suit him exceedingly well, he is also competent in romantic, emotional and dramatic sequences. This is a rare combination in Indian cinema at this point. Another young actor suited for action, who is also a fine actor is Rana Daggubati. He has less to do in this installment, except play the menacing antagonist to perfection, but recently “The Ghazi Attack” where he matches someone like KayKay Menon in acting and then this, shows that he too is a complete package.

Ramya of course like the first part, gets into the role of Sivagami spot on, fiery and righteous, but ends up making blunders, blinded by conspiracy and ego. Anuskha Shetty as Devasena, who has a lot more to do in this part, matches Prabhas as a companion and warrior princess. She looks completely suited to take on Sivagami during their scenes of conflict. However the dialogues between them during these scenes are pedestrian. With some more depth in the dialogues, these scenes could have come out much better. Maybe the impact was lost in the Hindi translation, so I gave the benefit of doubt. Tamannah has nothing much to do, does not get even a dialogue, which I felt was a bit strange, she being one of main characters from the first part.

“Why Katappa killed Bahubali” has become a cult question which is an achievement for the Bahubali team. However the reason is predictable and happens exactly as many of us expected. The execution of this sequence leaves some open questions too.

Controversy or not, Satyaraj is again excellent as Katappa, but the sudden comic angle given to him in this part does give some comic relief at times, but compromises his character to some extent. This was not the character we saw in the first part.

Bahubali 2 has many sub plots we have seen in movies or read in stories. Rajamouli has said in interviews that he has been heavily inspired by Ramayana, Mahabharat and Amar Chitra Katha.

The prince and his accomplice roaming around within the common subjects, the prince wooing a woman without her knowing who he is. Intrigues galore in the kingdom, the child of the wronged king surviving and coming back with revenge. Rajamouli does have the talent of pumping up the adrenaline of the viewers and inducing a “wow” for the most clichéd scenes, with his treatment and presentation. However at times some change from predictability was expected.

A great movie should not only be about the protagonist. In Sholay you remember Gabbar Singh and even Surma Bhopali and “Angrezon ke zamane ke jailor” as much as we remember Jay, Veeru and Thakur. Bahubali is too much Prabhas, many of the characters are not used or developed completely. Though he does complete justice to both roles, the character should not become bigger than the movie.

Granted that it is a high fantasy genre and the characters have super human abilities. However at some points especially the climax, the sequence of sending in soldiers into the palace, imagination seems to run unbridled. Some fight sequences of Bahubali and Bhallaldeva seem like people with abilities of Iron Man, Hulk or Thor are fighting. In the VFX department a scene with the bulls with flaming horns does not look perfect. Strangely Bhallaldeva’s fight with the bull was the weak point of VFX in the first part.

Now let us go back to the question asked in the beginning, just to put things into perspective. Is Bahubali as good as say the “The Lord of the Rings”?

The honest answer is No. 

The movie sometimes strays into too much imagination at the cost of the plot, the building up tension or physics, suffers from dilution of excellent sequences and hyper masculinity. 

However it stands tall and looks at the best movies in this genre in the eye, with many ingredients of being world class. More directors would get inspired and I am hopeful that we would produce movies that would beat the best in world cinema in all respects. In due time directors and more importantly the Indian audience would realize, that even a high fantasy movie need not only be about super human machismo; the primary ‘hero’ can also be like a powerless Frodo, in front of whose goodness and spirit, finally even the greatest warriors bow.

Having said that, Rajamouli and his team have given us enough reason to be proud of and are hands down the pioneers of making a world class movie in this genre. No one can take this away from them.

4 stars for Bahubali 2. 

"MS Dhoni - The Untold Story" - Great batting during power play, consolidation in the middle overs, caught behind in the slog overs!!

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s rise in world cricket is probably the steepest and most incredible in recent times.

Imagine, when Saurav Ganguly’s team lost to Australia in the 2003 World Cup Finals, Dhoni was still languishing in the dingy railway quarters of Kharagpur while his contemporaries Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan Singh had already wore the Indian colours many times over. 

Dhoni’s elevation to legendary status was mercurial and unexpected.

“MS Dhoni – The untold story” aptly captures this fact and the real life story behind the man. The humble beginnings in Ranchi, the sleepy small town nature of people, the Bihari diction of Hindi, the middle class family values and conflicts that exceedingly talented kids need to face throughout adolescence and how people who are destined for greatness, ultimately get over these conflicts and challenges and redeem themselves.

By getting inside the skin of Dhoni, Sushant Singh Rajput delivered the finest performance of his career until now. The walk, mannerisms, the unlocking of shoulders, carrying the bat under the left armpit, the helicopter shots, have been exceedingly well executed. The effort that has gone into the same was clearly visible on screen. 

Rajesh Sharma as Dhoni’s first coach who spotted his talent, comes up with a brilliant performance. Remember your physical fitness teacher from school or the selfless, but unpolished, football coach in the colony and you would see this character. Anupam Kher as Pan Singh Dhoni, as usual did complete justice to the role of a simple father who just wanted his son to study well and get a good job. Bhoomika Chawla as a caring sister, his friends and others who supported him in the journey are all competent. They also help throw some humour in between scenes. The quality of the cricket shown is excellent in the first half.

Meeting Yuvraj Singh(played by Yuvi lookalike Herry Tangri) in an under 19 tournament and understanding the gaps in his preparation; learning the hard way, how one must not be overawed by anyone in life, is one of the high points of the film. Another well executed sequence is Dhoni sitting in the Kharagpur railway station thinking about what he is doing with his life with a train approaching. He then just boards the train, symbolically showing him leaving his job to take a risk that ultimately saw him become one of the greatest cricket captains of India. 

The movie loses momentum in the second half, which is average at best.

A sports biopic should have some personal and romantic sides, but unimportant songs and dialogues dilute the essence of an essentially sports movie. Dhoni’s love affairs take up a big chunk and the movie prolongs 20-25 minutes extra. His wicket keeping and legendary captaincy and man management skills on field are not captured at all. 

Other players are mentioned here and there, some scenes added from live shots, others morphed with Rajput’s face, but generally on tours Dhoni is shown within the confines of his hotel room talking to his family, girlfriend or the selectors. Nothing about relationships with other players, dressing room tactics and politics among other things.

Neeraj Pandey plays safe and finally ends up showing that everyone is nice and all is hunky dory in Indian cricket. Instead of showing balanced inspirational stories of achievers, Indian biopics are guilty of elevating protagonists to the status of Gods that can do no wrong . Dhoni here has no grey areas, always does right, played no politics, had no conflict of interest in the IPL and so on.

The film starts and ends with the 2011 World Cup finals. Some sequences looked like a highlights package. When scenes from the actual game are merged with close up shots of Rajput for the film, the difference in the background, even the jersey colour is clearly visible. For the maker of “A Wednesday”, “Special 26” and “Baby” such things are not acceptable.

However for a cricket crazy nation, the movie makes sense commercially. Though some of the sequences in the second half were average, they gave goosebumps and reminded of the happiness the entire nation was flooded with on the 2^nd of April 2011, after Dhoni hit that winning six and kept staring at it till it sailed over the long leg boundary. The shot that Gavaskar said he would like to watch on his deathbed. 

3 stars for this one. Watch it for the excellent performances from Rajput and other supporting actors, if you love cricket, are a Dhoni fan, love his helicopter shots and so on…

"MS Dhoni - The Untold Story" - Great batting during power play, consolidation in the middle overs, caught behind in the slog overs!!

Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s rise in world cricket is probably the steepest and most incredible in recent times.

Imagine, when Saurav Ganguly’s team lost to Australia in the 2003 World Cup Finals, Dhoni was still languishing in the dingy railway quarters of Kharagpur while his contemporaries Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan Singh had already wore the Indian colours many times over. 

Dhoni’s elevation to legendary status was mercurial and unexpected.

“MS Dhoni – The untold story” aptly captures this fact and the real life story behind the man. The humble beginnings in Ranchi, the sleepy small town nature of people, the Bihari diction of Hindi, the middle class family values and conflicts that exceedingly talented kids need to face throughout adolescence and how people who are destined for greatness, ultimately get over these conflicts and challenges and redeem themselves.

By getting inside the skin of Dhoni, Sushant Singh Rajput delivered the finest performance of his career until now. The walk, mannerisms, the unlocking of shoulders, carrying the bat under the left armpit, the helicopter shots, have been exceedingly well executed. The effort that has gone into the same was clearly visible on screen. 

Rajesh Sharma as Dhoni’s first coach who spotted his talent, comes up with a brilliant performance. Remember your physical fitness teacher from school or the selfless, but unpolished, football coach in the colony and you would see this character. Anupam Kher as Pan Singh Dhoni, as usual did complete justice to the role of a simple father who just wanted his son to study well and get a good job. Bhoomika Chawla as a caring sister, his friends and others who supported him in the journey are all competent. They also help throw some humour in between scenes. The quality of the cricket shown is excellent in the first half.

Meeting Yuvraj Singh(played by Yuvi lookalike Herry Tangri) in an under 19 tournament and understanding the gaps in his preparation; learning the hard way, how one must not be overawed by anyone in life, is one of the high points of the film. Another well executed sequence is Dhoni sitting in the Kharagpur railway station thinking about what he is doing with his life with a train approaching. He then just boards the train, symbolically showing him leaving his job to take a risk that ultimately saw him become one of the greatest cricket captains of India. 

The movie loses momentum in the second half, which is average at best.

A sports biopic should have some personal and romantic sides, but unimportant songs and dialogues dilute the essence of an essentially sports movie. Dhoni’s love affairs take up a big chunk and the movie prolongs 20-25 minutes extra. His wicket keeping and legendary captaincy and man management skills on field are not captured at all. 

Other players are mentioned here and there, some scenes added from live shots, others morphed with Rajput’s face, but generally on tours Dhoni is shown within the confines of his hotel room talking to his family, girlfriend or the selectors. Nothing about relationships with other players, dressing room tactics and politics among other things.

Neeraj Pandey plays safe and finally ends up showing that everyone is nice and all is hunky dory in Indian cricket. Instead of showing balanced inspirational stories of achievers, Indian biopics are guilty of elevating protagonists to the status of Gods that can do no wrong . Dhoni here has no grey areas, always does right, played no politics, had no conflict of interest in the IPL and so on.

The film starts and ends with the 2011 World Cup finals. Some sequences looked like a highlights package. When scenes from the actual game are merged with close up shots of Rajput for the film, the difference in the background, even the jersey colour is clearly visible. For the maker of “A Wednesday”, “Special 26” and “Baby” such things are not acceptable.

However for a cricket crazy nation, the movie makes sense commercially. Though some of the sequences in the second half were average, they gave goosebumps and reminded of the happiness the entire nation was flooded with on the 2^nd of April 2011, after Dhoni hit that winning six and kept staring at it till it sailed over the long leg boundary. The shot that Gavaskar said he would like to watch on his deathbed. 

3 stars for this one. Watch it for the excellent performances from Rajput and other supporting actors, if you love cricket, are a Dhoni fan, love his helicopter shots and so on…

The best Bollywood movies of 2015

Bollywood had a decent 2015 for cine lovers.

In the midst of intolerable mediocrity masquerading as cinema, though some from this group went into the multi hundred crore clubs, there were movies made for the connoisseurs of quality cinema as well. And then there were some high quality wholesome entertainers.

It is very difficult to decide lists of best movies. All good movies require excellent team effort and passion. Then these are cross genre with different styles of direction and acting. The way I decide primarily is how entertained, engrossed and excited I felt during the course of the movie and how many layers of emotion the movie could unfold inside me; and I try to hold on to these thoughts. How I felt overall while coming out of the cinema hall, in terms of the overall technicalities of cinema. Then, if the movie plays again on television how excited would I be to watch it again.

So here is my list of the top dozen movies of 2015.

1) Baby
2) Tanu weds Manu Returns
3) Masaan
4) Tamasha
5) Detective Byomkesh Bakshy
6) Majhi the mountain man
7) Margarita with a straw
8) Drishyam
9) Talvar
10) Dum Lagake Haisha
11) Piku
12) Bajirao Mastani

Badlapur, Dil Dhadakne Do, NH10, Hunterr and Angry Indian Goddesses are the other good movies of 2015 that addressed different issues. I could not watch Main aur Charles, Titli and Shaandaar. Understand these are also well made movies, would catch them as soon as possible. I did not consider Bahubali in this list since it is a Telugu movie. But kudos to director Rajamouli for being able to execute a movie in high-fantasy genre with minimal flaws. Eagerly waiting for the second installment in 2016. Bahubali would spawn many movies in this genre in the near future and Prabhas and Rana Daggubati might be seen often in Bollywood movies.

Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Ranbir Kapoor, Sushant Singh Rajput, Ranveer Singh and Nawazuddin would be nominated for the "best actor" awards. The way things work, Nawaz would get the critics awards and the others would be shared by Amitabh, Akshay, Ranveer and Ranbir. I read that Ranvir(Sheorey) in Tilti was also a par performance, so this category would be interesting.

Among the leading ladies, Deepika Padukone would sweep the awards and may find two of three nominations in the best acrtress category. However Richa Chaddha, Kalki and Kangana would give her very tough competition. Anuskha and Konkona may also be nominated. Ideally for me, Kalki should have equal chances of winning, but again the way our awards work, Kalki or Richa may get the "critics" awards, most would be taken by Deepika and some by Kangana. Neeraj Pandey, Anand Rai, Neeraj Ghaywan, Imtiaz Ali and Dibakar Banerjee would share the director awards. My personal favourites would be Pandey or Ghaywan.

Coming back to the movies,"Baby" is at the top because of Akshay Kumar and Neeraj Pandey's direction on how exactly one should make a gripping movie in this genre. The camerawork, the screenplay and the characterization. No you do not need over the top action sequences, spies are not supermen. You do not need that unnecessary item number as well. I would like to see Pandey making a lot more movies and would like Akki to stick to such quality roles.And I really liked the girl Tapsee, would love to see her more often as well. :)

I must confess that "Tanu Weds Manu Returns" is right at the top for me simply because of Deepak Dobriyal, though Madhavan and especially Kangana were very competent as well. When you take one particular art to an entirely different level, comedy in Dobriyal's case, you carry a lot of the movie on your shoulders and take it to a different level as well. Off late I do not remember better comic timing than "Pappi".

For a debut, "Masaan" is an exceptional effort by Neeraj Ghaywan. One really needs to watch this one to understand the conflicts, the rebel and the ethical conflicts of the characters and the situations created in the movie. Excellent parallel movie with underrated but brilliant actors, especially Richa Chaddha.

"Tamasha" again is not really mainstream but with highly commercial actors doing different stuff and carrying it off in style. The movie is indulgent in parts, but the way it critiques "growing up" in the Indian society, especially for a non conformist, like a lyrical poem, is simply out of the world. Hats of the Imtiaz Ali and more like these please!

With "Detective Byomkesh Bakshy", Dibakar Banerjee has successfully been able to pull of a Noir. Yes this is not the drawing room detective we all know and have read about. The character has transformed much like Sherlock Holmes in the series we have currently seen, but nonetheless Sushant Singh Rajput did complete justice to the character and we can expect a fine detective series of our own. Neeraj Kabi is one of the most underrated actors in Indian cinema today and we should be able to see a lot more of him.

Nawazuddin is one of the best actors in Bollywood, probably the best in his generation, if we leave out the stalwarts. By the time he ends, he would be right up there with the likes of Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri and Anupam Kher. He proves it yet again in "Majhi the mountain man". Kalki in turn showed her acting prowess in Margarita with a straw. Very few movies have been made in India that sensibly and sensitively tackle the lives and struggles of people with special needs. I would rate it alongside the legendary Sanjeev Kumar's "Koshish". "Drishyam" makes it to the list because of its excellent plot and incredible ending. Of course Devgan's acting supported ably by the others was also above par.

Without making any judgements, "Talvar" skilfully shows all the possibilities of one of the most disturbing and infamous double murders in India. Neeraj Kabi and Konkona come up with brilliant performances and Meghna Gulzar deserves kudos for the presentation and making us think what if the parents are innocent indeed and the investigation was really botched up.Dum Laga Ke Haisha was different and cute. The director breaks convention and shows that the world has all kinds of people and lead actresses need not always be size zero and actors must not sport six packs. You are the hero and heroine of your own lives and can do things to make your little world happy and exciting. Good performance again by the lead actors. Piku did not get into the preaching space, but had a nice funny story about father-daughter bonding, constipation and their lives around it, executed cannily by Shoojit Sircar.

I could not review "Bajirao Mastani" yet, so I will write a bit about the movie. For the first 30 minutes one would feel that if may go down as one of the classics of all time! It was so refreshing to see Ranveer Singh not hamming and actually playing the role instead of himself, and sincerely trying to get into the skin of Bajirao. Deepika took off from she left in Tamasha and is steadily moving towards becoming the actress of the era with her choice and roles and delivery. As Bajirao’s love interest the passion, the sacrifice, the rebel, all facets of the character came out pretty well. Priyanka Chopra is also very good as Bajirao’s wife. However Tanvi Azmi as Bajirao’s widowed mother would take the cake for the best performance among the actresses. The quality of acting is actually top notch by the support cast as well.

The culprit however is the director Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Yes cinema is a piece of art and yes you have a liberty to make the movie as you like. But there is a thin line between cinematic liberty and over indulgence. Braveheart and Gladiator are two of the best period movies that has come out from Hollywood about great warriors. Imagine, William Wallace and Maximus Decimus Meridius jumping around and dancing after winning a war with his soldiers

Fine, Mastani can dance, but does she need to sing and dance everywhere? Then what is wrong if she was being called a “baijee”? Priyanka and Mastani also dance on "Pinga Gapori" even after  a highly strained relationship for obvious reasons. Bhansali has to understand that if he destroys the flow of what could have been a great movie, by repeatedly putting in unnecessary songs and dance sequences and over indulging himself he would be remembered as a good director but not a great one and his movies would be good movies but not classics. The movie should be watched however for the performances of all the actors, the huge canvas and the cinematography.

Hope 2016 would be a an exciting year for movie lovers. Would love to discuss movies, music, acting and direction with you all in real life and cyberspace. :)

Tamasha: Lyrical, exquisite, different

One fine day, we all kill the child within us, “grow up”, leave the world of fantasy and become practical, domesticated and professional. For most it is a normal routine process, probably the way they envisioned themselves to be anyway, or they condition themselves better for the world.

But what about the ones that are different and remain fantasied? Those who could never come to terms with the banal realities of life, whose passion, creativity and effervescence constantly fight the mundane expectations of the world? They fight, but ultimately give up, start lying to themselves and try becoming something they are not. However they become lonely in a world where others do a better job of lying to themselves.

Imtiaz Ali captures this process through his protagonist Ved(Ranbir Kapoor) like a craftsman and like an artist he weaves the movie around him. Ved wanted to be nothing but a story teller, but forced by conventional wisdom, he takes up engineering, management, then the job of a brand manager and starts believing that this was actually meant for him. He meets a girl from a past encounter in Corsica, France, with whom he had gelled immediately and had had a short passionate relationship. They fall in love again, but the girl realizes that he is not the same man and  helps him get back to what he actually is.

However the treatment and presentation of this simple storyline is unique and lyrical. Lovely cinematography, deft camerawork, shifting timeframes of storytelling and a deep understanding of human emotions and vulnerabilities. Irshad Kamil’s lyrics add excellent value to the plot points and non sequiturs.

The way a kid’s interest towards a part of life is formed, his fervent visits to the storyteller, how different stories impact his mind with characters and their myriad facets, all this has been brought out very well. The way a creative person’s mind works, Sanyukta marrying Prithiviraj Chauhan in a Church and many other sequences where boundaries blur and classics we have heard since childhood merge together.

Some of the scenes just penetrate through the heart. The simple discussion with the auto driver who wanted to be a singer, who says, “Koi mai ka laal nahi bata sakhta main kaun hoon, par main andar se kuch koi aur hee hoon aur bahar se majboor!” The protagonist probably realizes that the problem is across classes, but maybe the auto guy is more enlightened than him on the issue. 

The symbolism of keeping the flowers at the backseat, that get wizened after sometime, to show that in the grind of life we leave the beautiful things in the backseat. The parties we go with people we do not have a connection with, the show off that we are having fun, while actually we are stuck in a tedious routine. The movie does not say, it shows. In many ways the movie projects a mirror on our faces, that many of us choose to ignore.

Ranbir Kapoor as Ved, brilliantly brings out the confusion, the latent anger, the synthetic cool attitude of a man following a mirage. As the storyteller, who landed up in the corporate world, there are a few close shots where he has to deliver confused and emotionally intense expressions together and he does not falter. After Piku, Deepika Padukone again resoundingly silences her critics(including me) with a vivacious portrayal of Tara, the girl who was made for the original Ved.  She is choosing her roles very well and in terms of acting she is right up there among the top  two or three leading ladies. The multi-talented Piyush Mishra as the story teller is peerless as ever, especially during the last scene. Vivek Mushran and Javed Sheikh as Ved’s boss and father respectively are competent. 

Rahman’s music is good, Mohit Chauhan, Arijit Singh and others bring out the best of their styles that go very well with the theme of the movie. However uncharacteristically my favourite happens to be “Heer to badi sad hai” by Mika Singh, whom I do not like particularly, but must say he has done a great job with the subtle variations of the song.

The good things notwithstanding, the movie has its flaws. Sometimes Imtiaz Ali sets himself too free at the cost of a tight screenplay and the film wanders. Though the music is good, the timing of some of the songs did not seem right and the ideas got repetitive. The first half drags a bit probably in order to drive home the point the director is trying to make. Common Imtiaz, we are intelligent enough, at times think of the producers and commercial viability too! ;)

Please note that Tamasha is not for everyone.

I believe at some point we all ask ourselves, “What am I, why am I doing this? Was it meant to be like this?” Basically hanging between esteem and self-actualization on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. If one is already asking such questions, is fighting internal battles with the self or otherwise has an excellent understanding of the multi layered emotional fabric of human beings, then this movie is for them. 

If you appreciate the different aspects of movie making, a different style of storytelling, with exaggeration as a catalyst, because the protagonist himself is a story teller that involves exaggeration, and if metaphors, symbolism, poetry and painting appeal to you, then this movie is for you. 

Please do not watch this is you do not want to think much and specifically want to see a “paisa vasool mass entertainer”. In that case wait for Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale, that will surely make 300 crores or more!

4 out of 5 for this one!

Aamir Khan and the intolerance debate

Somehow, we seem to have lost a sense of proportion and perspective over issues. 

For example our PM is either a dangerous monster or the greatest statesman to have walked the earth. There is nothing in between and no one can discuss anything with the pro and anti Modi groups without taking one of these extreme positions. There is a growing culture of taking up half-truths and parading them as universal facts written on stone, on almost all issues. 

Aamir Khan went overboard with his view on intolerance in India. He may have an opinion on the issue like others, but I do not see any way in which someone’s wife in his social class, Hindu or Muslim, someone who has access to Z level security, can be insecure enough to think of leaving the country. His view indeed contradicted many stands he has taken in the past and the fact that he is superstar in this nation. Probably he should have articulated better.  

Just as I find his statement immature and not really well thought out, I am equally surprised by the reaction to his comment. TV channels are only showing this news, I would like to know how my friends in Chennai are doing now. Or for that matter would Russia take any action against the fighter jet that was downed by Turkey today, but no! 

People on FB and Twitter are angry. He made a statement that has hurt people and others have the right to contradict him, many have rightly done so, probably because many like him a lot. But protesting in front of his house and throwing stones, uninstalling Snapdeal Apps, are these things not going overboard again? Is this issue so big that warrants this kind of action? If so, should we not have similar protests when Sakshi Maharaj for example, repeatedly spouted nonsense? Are those comments not worse for a nation like ours? We talk of “selective” anger, is this not selective “patriotism”? 

I heard people say that all this is tarnishing our image in the world. Let us think of some headlines in foreign newspapers tomorrow. “Indian movie superstar picketed and his posters burnt by protesters because of comment on intolerance” or “Indian ecommerce App ratings go down, as protests against actor who made a comment on intolerance”. Would this be good for the image for India? Are these actions now not justifying what Aamir Khan said? 

Coming back to being selective, Kamal Hassan had also threatened to leave India when Muslim fanatics wanted his movie banned. I did not hear anyone call him anti national? I did not like the movie PK, not because I thought it insulted religion, but because it had a poor script and at times, poor direction. The movie made 300+ crores and that shows we Indians do not mind criticism of our religion and are overall tolerant. But fringe elements protested a lot, I can see some posts on FB today. However “Oh My God” took on religion equally strongly, if not more, but protests were not raised against Paresh Rawal.

We need to think why?

In any case these are actors and not script writers or directors so why target them? Why nothing was said against Raju Hirani, Vidhu Vinod Chopra or Abhijat Joshi? Do we fall for ideological propaganda based upon our own subconscious prejudices, without thinking in a fair manner?

 On the larger debate of intolerance, I think there has been an overreaction and in some cases there were vested political and/or ideological interests. But then, if Nayantara Sehgal is Nehru’s niece, although she does not seem to have enjoyed good relations with the Gandhi family, Anupam Kher’s wife is also a BJP MP. However for many, that seems to have nothing to do with the great actor supporting the current government.

 To dismiss everything as a Congress ploy, saying that everyone has been paid to return awards or speak against real or perceived intolerance is very simplistic and is making the current government lose the battle of perception, because there are genuine people in this lot. The President of India, the Vice President, Gulzar, Raghuram Rajan, Kiran Mazumdar, Narayanmurthy, eminent scientists, writers, directors, retired army men among others have spoken up. Challenging the credibility of some of these people may really backfire as it probably did in Bihar.  Just to set the record straight, even after the Bihar elections, 3 writers have returned awards and we have had the issue with Girish Karnad and now Aamir Khan, so it is not entirely due to politics.

 It is not easy being a PM and being Modi is tougher. However if I were the PM, I would have invited some of these people, maybe Gulzar, Kiran Majumdar, Dibakar Banerjee and an eminent writer, maybe Anupam Kher and Shyam Benegal too for a 30 minute “chai par charcha”. Would have listened to their concerns and views, reassured them and would have posted the discussion on Facebook and Twitter. But that may antagonize the hardcore Hindu vote bank, so Modi has his compulsions and barriers.

 All I am saying is, as citizens, let us try to be a bit more balanced in our views, read and consider all kinds of opinions, know the full truth and not many half-truths and then form our views. Over the years we seem to be becoming too opinionated, harbouring extreme ideas, one way or the other. It need not be either this group or that group and always hating one party or person or the other.

 Nothing is black and white in this world, it is high time we appreciate shades of grey, to off white, light black and so on.