LATEST MOVIES

Film: ‘Zila Ghaziabad’
Starring: Sanjay Dutt, Vivek Oberoi, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Chandrachur Singh, Ravi Kishan, Divya Dutta
Director: Anand Kumar
Rating: 

Wasseypur’s gangs never had it so good. Seeing the glorious guttural outflow of blood, bullets and profanities in “Zila Ghaziabad” one could safely assume, Wasseypur is safe. So is the other release this week.

Abhishek Kapoor’s “Kai Po Che!” is as far removed from its Friday competition as flying kites is from a hail of bullets.

To be fair one can’t compare two films as disparate in intent, purpose, tone and treatment as “Kai Po Che!” and “Zila Ghaziabad” … except for the fact that somewhere down the line as we approach the crux and the core, both films say the same thing.

If you want to survive in this cut-throat world, you have to recognise your own weaknesses and strengths — not that one sees the hurried restless unanchored strangely identity-less and vapidly violent characters of “Zila Ghaziabad” ever doing any introspection.

Where is the time to sit and think when everyone is out for a kill? The biggest casualty in all this gore-mongering is a logical pattern of storytelling. The material is edited more to accommodate optimum punches and punchlines than to tell an anchored story. The narration leaves no room for any kind of emotion to take root.

We meet the characters as blood-thirsty creatures of the underground. And we are most happy to leave them to their internecine intentions. This is the kind of staged drama where lawmakers and lawbreakers behave with equal impunity. Both sides are wedded to anarchy. Screw the emotions. This is an orgy of elemental escapades.

And that’s where the fun side of the film unleashes with fatuous fury. The action director is the real conductor of this disorderly orchestra. One violent outburst follows another as two clans of Zila Ghaziabad battle it out to a bloodied end.

Admittedly, the action is staged with a whole lot of gusto. Tragically, the underlining humour of Salman Khan’s “Dabangg” is missing here. These scowling, growling, barking and biting characters take themselves and their anarchic hinterland too seriously.

They speak in a self-confident drawl in words about bodily functions that Vishal Bhardwaj or Anurag Kashyap’s characters might use on very lazy Sunday to shock their neighbours. But make no mistake. The people who inhabit Zila Ghaziabad mean business.

The business of being mean is perpetrated in a torrent of rapidly-staged drama where aggression is King. The film has a sprawling banquet of actors, and some very competent ones at that.

Sanjay Dutt delivers a punch-filled performance as a cop inured to ambivalence. He strikes swaggering postures that suggest John Wayne never really hung up his hat and boots. Vivek Oberoi, who was gloriously goofy as a bumbling gangster in last week’s underrated “Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story”, here displays a mean streak quite convincingly.

So does Arshad Warsi, better known for his comic acts, here slipping into a rugged roguery with relish. If you look around, Chandrachur Singh and Paresh Rawal also show up to add muscle to the mayhem.

Every character seems to have fun with his part in this Khichdi Western, a distant doomed dastardly spiced-up teekha cousin of the celebrated ‘Spaghetti Western’, though whether we as the audience share the characters’ sense of enjoyment or not depends entirely on the frame of mind we are in.

If judgemental, one could be deeply offended by the unstopped flow of aggression and profanity. However, if in a lenient mind-space, the bloody battle for indeterminate causes could provide some amount of lowbrow fun.

As expected, in this ode to mayhem and machismo, the ladies have little to do besides shake a leg and shed a tear. Minissha Lamba shows up somewhere along the way trying hard not to look lost in the stag party.

It’s hard not to laugh out loud at these heroes of a subverted hinterland who live and die by the gun. They deserve the death they get.

Film: Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story
Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Neha Sharma
Director: Vinnil Markan
Rating: 

“Jayantabhai Ki Luv Story” is a light, frothy Mumbaiya rom-com. It is romance in the era of the 2G Spectrum Scam. Unlike the scam, this story is totally uncomplicated and entertaining.

His is the love story of a ‘bhadotri’ (tenant) and her ‘padosi’ (neighbour). The ‘padosi’ is a gangster and she is the jobless and helpless damsel. Just after the 2G Spectrum expose, Simran Desai (Neha Sharma) loses her job and her accommodation. And to prove a point of, “Mumbai mein pass, ya fail’, to all and sundry, she shifts into a rented apartment, and has Jayantabhai (Vivek Oberoi) as her neighbour.

Jayantabhai works for Altafbhai (Zakir Husain) and aspires to be Altafbhai’s “respected” right hand man.

She, on the other hand, is penniless and job hunting.

Love brews in a very unconventional way in the backdrop of a gang rivalry between Altafbhai and an ex-cop turned gangster Alex Pandiyan.

Initially, the plot and its dramatisation seem to be a bit idiotic, fluffy and weird. What aggravates this weirdness is the use of the fish-eye lenses. But by the end, you get hooked to the characters and if you are a die-hard romantic, then this story would surely touch your heart.

Vivek as the cool, confident tapori gangster and at the same time, nervous as a wreck before Simran’s father, is very convincing. He carries his swagger with elan, but his accent is a wee bit unconvincing. He is portrayed as a Maharashtrian with a Hyderabadi accent, which too is inconsistent. On the other hand, apart from the glamour quotient inclusive of spunk and style, Neha Sharma does not offer much on the acting front. Her ability to perform is pretty limited. She is not at all realistic.

The character Kunal, who Jayantabhai refers as ‘kacha nimbu’ is cute and laudable. The other character actors are wasted as they don’t have much to do.

Vinnil Markan, in his directorial debut, seems to have concentrated more on the writing and has whipped up some good lines from writer Kiran Kotrial. The dialogues are dramatic and loaded with puns using gangster lingo. In one scene, which is quite hilarious, Vivek heads into a bar and addresses the bar singer as ace ‘Fata Mangeshkar’ before ordering her to stop singing.

Also, after most of his offending jabber with Simran, Jayantabhai blurts, “Joking re sense of humourous” in an attempt to crack stale jokes. Though not funny, the line is laughable and contagious. The icing on the cake is when Jayantabhai says, “You need to know, – Bhai-logy” to understand the gangsters.

The songs in the film are simply juxtaposed to appeal to the audience. They do not add to the narrative in any way.

Technically, the production value of the film is average. The frames and setting give it the feel of a TV production, but of better quality. Nevertheless, the production department has taken ample pains to capture the essence of Mumbai, especially the Irani restaurant, where the lead pair have anda-bhurji with pav (scrambled eggs with bread) for breakfast