Review: Rocket Singh – Mice are Nice

maxdavinci — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:24:35 +0000

Ranbir ‘Rocket’ Kapoor just cant seem to set foot in the wrong direction and is in the form of his life! Much like the purple patch of Rahul Dravid in Australia or Sachin’s desert storm in Sharjah. Well that might have been a little over the hilt, but then the guy is making awesome choices. From playing a cad in ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno‘, to a slacker in ‘Wake Up Sid‘ and now a street smart salesman in ‘Rocket Singh‘, the scion of the kapoor family has been filling up the cineplexes like no one else. The same guy whose flamboyant printed tees got more eye balls than the movie itself the last time he was on screen, makes a u-turn. Harpreet Singh(HP) is everything that Sid wasn’t, except the fact that he barely passed his exams while Sid failed. A frail built sikh boy with a turban and kara, isnt always hero material. Inmost cases they are friends of the hero or other side characters to fill up a story. The above rule doesn’t apply to the man who single handedly beat up half of Pakistan with an uprooted hand pump.

Every time HP is humiliated you just can’t wait for him to spring up and yell ‘Oye, no
if
no but
sirf JattOye, no if no but sirf Jatt‘! Sadly, that never happens and our boy Rocket just shrugs away the catcalls and gets on with his work. Louw stories are the yashraj forte and no story is complete without the ‘pind ka shera‘, ‘paraandey wali kudiya‘ and the basic ingredients you’ve seen ever since DDLJ hit the screens. Actually it is the single reason why a majority of punju kids are named Simran or assume the pet-name if else. The only thing that that connects the movie to the land of ‘sarson ka kheth‘ is the title character and his grandpa. How on earth can you have a yashraj movie that doesnt feature Rani Mukherjee? It’s not like she was busy auditioning for Jurrasic Park-4 and missed the casting call. Also how does a movie cover the whole boy-meets-girl and the courting stuff that follows all in just one song? It is so against the yashraj commandments where courtship is an elaborate process spanning 10 reels. Another howler was the lack of songs and gallivanting in foreign locales with the words ‘rab‘, ‘soniye‘, ‘sadde naal‘ and ‘hadippa‘ sprinkled generously on the lyrics. As a consolation however, the so-called love interest offers noodles to a complete stranger who stopped at her doorstep to sell computers.

So what do you do when you score 39% in commerce, consider yourself unfit to sit for the CAT and don’t want to go the call center route? Well the answer my friends is that you either take up farming(not farmville you idiots, but the real deal instead) or become a salesman. Afterall ‘customer ke naam main hi likha hai marcustomer ke naam main hi likha hai mar‘, yet the incorrigible Rocket Singh refuses to treat customers like the effluents from a local public sulabh complex. The movie pays a lot of attention to the finer details like wearing wind-cheaters to evade roadside soot, tucking ties into pockets while eating and slacking at work. The character is very well written and punctuated with some corny yet memorable lines. He isn’t afraid to pawn his two-wheeler to a supplier or sell it to pay up for failing to comply to an order. When asked to stop by a temple on way to his first client by a ravishingly tasty looking Gauhar Khan, ‘Emotion pe control hai, scooter main petrol hai‘ is all he needs! Shimit Amin yet again teams up with Jaideep Sahni to dish out a tight story that is fresh, new and totally works. The characters are very well etched and have some awesome lines, whereas the so-called female lead played by Shahzan Padamsee despite having some witty ones, fails to make an impression. D.Santosh as the hilarious Girish Reddy takes the cake as far as supporting roles go this year, and the gaudily made up Gauhar Khan never ceases to titillate the eyeballs. Watch it, in a theater if possible, for we give it 6 out of 10 on the DappanKoothu scale!

(Image Courtesy: glamsham.com)

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Review: Dil Bole Hadippa – Balle Balle Overdose

maxdavinci — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:01:44 +0000

This Friday I pinged a friend to inquire if he wanted to catch a movie in the evening. Even before I could tell him the name of the movie, pat came a reply from him. ‘Dil Bole Hadippa?, sure man I heard Rani looks ekdum great!‘. Yea I know what you are thinking, and that is the kind of friends I have. Someone once remarked that a man is known by the friends he keeps. If that is to be believed, then by now you must be having quite an idea of the type I am. The movie in questions was however ‘Unnaipol Oruvan/Eenadu‘ which we did eventually watch, but it kept bugging me all night of how someone could name Rani Mukherjee ahead of Kamal Haasan! It is actually sacrilege to even mention the two in the same sentence unless you are Bong, where in you will accuse the Bombaywallahs of hiring anorexic heroines these days. Jut like how picking Dravid back in the ODI squad was a ploy to keep Ganguly away and the Knight Riders lost the IPL on purpose to push the Prince of Kolkata further into darkness. The same people after a few drinks, will also tell you of how the madarasi ARR ka music is a conspiracy to drive the youth away from Rabindra sangeet.

I’ll stop with the Bong slander, for we can’t afford to drive away the lovely Bongs from an already dwindling readership. As part of ‘mere paapon
ka prayashchitmere paapon ka prayashchit‘ so that the Bong forgive me, I did watch the latest in balle-balle-porn from the YashRaj stables. It’s not that I have anything against the nations biggest production house, and I have thoroughly enjoyed some of their movies. It is however very hard to think of the last YRF film that was devoid the words ‘soniyo, mar jawa,kudi dil le gayi, pind da shera, paji tussi great ho‘ you get the drift. The punjabis are the most colorful people of all, have huge hearts, known for their hospitality and loud culture. Nothing but respect, but things go awry when it goes overboard. I may be able to speak many languages and thanks to YRF, I can add punjabi to the list. I guess a lost of us in the past 10yrs have been exposed to heavy doses of punjabiness that we could never get lost in Amritsar even without ever setting foot before. It’s not like we had no idea of it before we made the conscious decision to watch the movie, especially give the title and posters. Our motivation being the fact that the last sports-based film from the YRF house was a winner. This will be the second cricket-based film of the year, and we sure do remember how the first fared. Also the fact that such stories are generally inspirational and have rank outsiders face their demons to snatch victory. The much hyped woman-in-a-mans role was also a major factor, born out of the sheer curiosity to see how this formula is executed.

When you want the audience to empathize with your sports persons, you have to back it up with a strong character back story to show the against-all-odds journey to victory. Dilip Tahil and Anupam Kher are cricket-crazy friends on either side of the border who gather teams to play an annual friendly game of cricket. I know it already sounds cheesy, but then this is only the beginning because the Pakistan team reigns supreme for nine years continuously. Unable to bear the taste of defeat, Kher sends for his estranged son in England to form a team and win back the cup. The interesting part however is Rani as an ambidextrous swashbuckling batswoman who places bets on herself to clear the ropes six times in a row. Unable to make it to the Amritsar team, she joins the team as a bhajji-impersonator. Not before swearing by the grace of Sachin-paaji and cavorting in a song with a scantily clad Rakhi Sawant. There is also the ravishing barely clothed Sherlyn Chopra prancing around, in case you felt the Rakhi skin-show wasn’t enough. Shahid however only falls for the sarson-ke-khetwali pind-ki-kudi Rani not before walking into her in a shower and mouthing a few lines about bharatiya naari etc. If you managed to miss the flesh-display third time in a row, then you are better off asking your guard-dog to escort you out of the cinema hall.

For those still reading, we have a case of multiple identities with Ranisaurus-Rex managing dual rolesRanisaurus-Rex managing dual roles while belting the ball out of the park during the practice sessions and dating her captain later in the day. Our sources tell us that she even auditioned for a role in Jurrasic Park 3, but was turned down and instead acted in Ghulam. It is rumored that while Bhajji was wrecking havoc in Sri Lanka, people were how good a Rani impersonator he was and whether it was viral advertising by the makers of the film instead. What are the chances that bhajji takes a 5-wkt haul and a film revolving around a strikingly similar sardar cricketer, both make the news in the same week? We aren’t against sports-based movies for we feel they have tremendous scope in a cricket crazy nation like ours. However when you tell us that the last batting pair scores 165 runs in under 10 overs, it get a bit too hard to believe. This includes even the front benchers in single screen cinemas who are still reeling under the effects of our triple skin-show. You are reminded of Peter Pan when you see Rani-sardar with a broken right hand hobble to take strike for the last two balls. Even the denizens of Neverland nor Kevin Pietersen can fathom what happens next as Dhoni suddenly becomes a Yuvraj Singh! Who am I kidding, you’ve lost hope long ago and by now are just counting the number of people wearing blue in the theatre. For those awake, the skulduggery doesn’t end as it is revealed who Rani really is and the player cry foul. What follows is something you have to watch the movie for only then can you believe it, no really!

Images Courtesy: Indiaglitz)

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Review: Rocket Singh – Mice are Nice

Review: Dil Bole Hadippa – Balle Balle Overdose