Blog | Amodini's Movie Reviews

Movie Preview : Raid (releases 16th March, 2018)

Posted on March 10, 2018 by amodini

The honest Indian cop/bureacrat story has long since been a favorite of film-makers, right from Manoj Bajpayi’s remarkable Shool, to Arshad Warsi’s Sehar and many more. Here’s another movie of the same genre with Ajay Devgan playing an imaandar tax collector, and the magnificent Saurabh Shukla his corrupt nemesis.

Posted in 2018, bollywood, drama, Previews | Comments Off

Movie Review : Padman

Posted on March 3, 2018 by amodini

Rating : Excellent (4.3/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 20 minutes
Director : R. Balki
Cast : Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, Sonam Kapoor
Kid rating : PG

Akshay Kumar is Lakshmikant Chauhan, a semi-literate machinist living in his village in Madhya Pradesh. At the beginning of the film, we see him get married to Gayatri (Radhika Apte). When, perchance, one day he spies her hiding a dirty scrap of cloth, he realizes that this is what she uses during her menstruation cycle, a time she is relegated to a little room outside the house. Appalled he tries to get her to use sanitary napkins, but his concern is rebuffed because of the expense, and his “perverted” nosing around in women’s affairs. He does not give up however, and the film takes us through his efforts to produce a low-cost sanitary napkin.

It doesn’t have to be said that Padman is an important film. To think that Bollywood can take head-on the issues of menstrual taboo, and the resultant infections and ignorance that are widespread because of this taboo! Akshay Kumar has a dialog in the film where he tells his wife that women would rather die of diseases because of their “sharm” rather than speak-up and do something about an uncomfortable or dangerous situation. And true it is; menstruation is never spoken of openly, in India the buying of sanitary napkins is a furtive process, the product wrapped in opaque newspaper. While a natural biological process, it is associated with shame, and menstruating women are considered “impure”. Where the sanitary napkin hasn’t made its way – like in rural areas, because of cost or custom, things get even worse.

You probably have heard of the real “Padman” Arunachalam Muruganantham of Coimbatore, who has received many awards and much acclaim for his altruistic work. The film is a little different than actuality because it has been “adapted” for a commercial venture, and by that I mean that director R. Balki has infused the film with emotion and an (unnecessary) romance angle. Still it keeps the spirit of the man’s work. Let’s face it – the subject matter isn’t the most glamorous, so I love that the film keeps close to the central theme and explains the thought process/design of Arunachalam’s machine. Balki has done well.

Padman started low-key and kept that way, almost documentary-ish, until the second half. It got it’s second wind when Pari Walia (Sonam Kapoor) showed up as MBA student, who joins Chauhan in his efforts. Sonam is lovely as the fiercely independent Sardarni, although her character is a concoction; in reality there was no Pari. Radhika Apte as Gayatri is a good fit, while Akshay Kumar brings the earnestly comical Lakshmi to life. The high point of the film is Akshay’s UN talk where Chauhan, in his broken English, still manages to convey the importance of his invention, and the empowerment it brings into women’s lives.

Kidwise: I’m recommending this film for teens and above.

Posted in 2018, bio-pic, bollywood, drama, rating-PG, real-life-based, recommended, social issues, women | Comments Off

Movie Review : Newton

Posted on February 24, 2018 by amodini

Rating : Excellent (4.3/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2017
Running time : 1 hour 46 minutes
Director : Amit Masurkar
Cast : Rajkummar Rao, Anjali Patil, Pankaj Tripathi, Raghubir Yadav, Sanjay Misra
Kid rating : PG-13

Rajkummar Rao (is he on a roll or what?) is Nutan Kumar, a young, idealistic man, a little cog in the big, corrupt Indian bureaucratic machinery. By chance he is a part of the arm of government that is responsible for conducting free and fair elections in every part of India. Also perchance, he comes into contact with a pragmatic idealist, a grey-haired officer (Misra) who inspires him with some straight-talk, on doing the best one can in uncertain, difficult circumstances. Therefore when he is called upon to perform said duty (another colleague quails on traveling to a remote, Naxal-infested area) Nutan marches on headlong.

The film is a detailed treatise on the events that transpire when Nutan, or Newton, as he calls himself, actually reaches the remote Indian village. Everyone around him has imbibed of the “chalta-hai” attitude except for our Newton. He believes that his duty must be done, come hell or high-water. Ergo, there is opposition. Conflicts arise.

A film like Newton makes you think, stays with you days later. I must admit that a character like Newton, full of the clear-hearted goodness of altruism and patriotic duty, incorruptible and steadfast, brings a lump to the throat. A principled man is a rare creature, and the sight of one, even in fiction, leaves one dumbstruck in awe. There is much talk of equality, but in reality the poor, the weak, the easily-trodden-upon get the short end of the stick. Newton actually believes in equality, not because it is enshrined in the constitution or written into law, or decreed by the powers that be, but because that is what he truly believes. How can you not be on his side?

The film makes sharp commentary about the democratic process, the conceptual vs the way it actually plays out in real-life, in fetid Naxal-infested jungles, where the locals neither understand the National language (Hindi) nor the importance of their vote. They only know that the government mostly ignores them, and when it doesn’t, it is only to their detriment. It is a satire where on one hand we see the unwavering Newton bent on educating the handful of tribals who do turn up (or are rounded up perforce by the security task-force) to do their civic duty, and on the other the stolid, apathetic, corrupt government which will probably discount all his efforts. We hold the knowledge of both these opposing forces in our hearts, watch Newton negotiate and barter, threaten and cajole in an effort to do his duty, knowing full well the end result. We weep. A little. A lot.

Kidwise: There is some violence, but nothing too child-scarring. However the film’s import will be lost on the younger set.

Posted in 2017, bollywood, drama, Hindi movies on Amazon Prime, humor, rating-PG13, recommended, satire, social issues | 1 Comment

Large Short Films

Posted on February 17, 2018 by amodini

Ever think we need well-made Hindi films with great story-lines and less of the frivolous dramebaazi and naach-gaana? And yes, wish they were shorter? Well, your prayers have been answered. Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films gives a platform for aspiring film-makers to make and showcase their short films (generally 20 minutes or less), and also have them be featured in film festivals like the Mumbai MAMI.

I’m not sure why whisky-makers would get into the film-space, but am very glad nonetheless. Can other corporations take a hint from these guys, please? These films are superb in quality and easy to access. I know because I’ve been sick recently and spent my time at home very wisely 🙂 watching a ton of these. Here are three of my favorites:

1. Chutney:

This stars Tisca Chopra, Adil Hussain (also seen in English-Vinglish) and Rasika Duggal. Chopra is a fine, fine actress and she has also produced and co-written Chutney. Her character here is a de-glammed, UP-ite housewife Anita who knows more than she lets on.

2. That Day After Everyday:

Directed by Anurag Kashyap, this short featuring Radhika Aapte (also seen in “Shor In The City”), Geetanjali Thapa, Sandhya Mridul and Arannya Kaur is about street sexual molestation, or how we term it prettily “eve-teasing”. It is an uncomfortable film to watch, but brings home the daily, ever-present persistent onslaught of “eve-teasing” and the daily, ever-present persistent onslaught of the social message that women somehow ask for it by not being careful or subservient or simply by walking on a public street.

3. Juice

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Juice stars Shefali Chaya (remember her in “Dil Dhadakne Do” or “Monsoon Wedding”?) as a middle-class housewife cooking in a hot kitchen with other housewives while their husbands eat and drink in the living room, and exhort the women to get the noisy children out of the way, so they can dawdle in peace. Everyday “traditionalized” misogyny, if you please.

As I said there are a ton of these featured under the “Royal Stag” banner, and many more featured under “Pocket Films”, “Shining Films” etc. (Youtube helpfully suggested these), so I ended up watching quite a few.

Here are a few other shorts that were pretty good:

– Churi (stars Tisca Chopra, Anurag Kashyap)
– MAD (Mother and Daughter)
– Ahalya (stars Radhika Apte)
– Anukul (stars Saurabh Shukla)
– The Thought of You (stars Kalki Koechlin, Gulshan Devaiah)
– Nayantara’s Necklace (stars Konkona Sen Sharma)
– White Shirt (stars Kunal Kapoor)
– Ouch (stars Manoj Bajpai – yes, he of “Gangs of Wasseypur” fame)

Posted in 2017, 2018, directors, drama, film festival, lists, mini-reviews, outstanding, recommended, shorts, Top 10 | Comments Off

Movie Review : Mukkabaaz (2018)

Posted on January 27, 2018 by amodini

Rating : Excellent (5/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2018
Running time : 2 hours 35 minutes
Director : Anurag Kashyap
Cast : Vineet Kumar Singh, Jimmy Shergill, Zoya Hussain, Ravi Kishan, Sadhana Singh
Kid rating : PG-15

Shravan Singh (Singh) is an up and coming young boxer from Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh. Things take a turn for the worse, when he picks a fight with Bhagwan Das Mishra (Shergill), local goon and state boxing federation head honcho. Further complications arise when Shravan falls in love with Sunaina (Hussain), Mishra’s mute niece, and Sunaina reciprocates, much to her uncle’s chagrin. Besides the professional enmity, there is also the caste divide; Sunaina is Brahmin, while Shravan Rajput, and Mishra, the fervent casteist, will never abide the match.

Mukkabaaz is Kashyap’s film-making at its finest, a rough, grubby, of-the-heartland story told with modern sensibilities and finesse. Kashyap’s world view is raw and searing, the violence graphic and detailed, the emotions strong. No sugar-coating here. The film thus is fast-moving and pretty intense, right from the beginning, as we become privy to Shravan’s first altercation with Mishra. Shravan is soundly beaten up by Mishra’s chelas, as Sunaina looks on from the rooftop of her uncle’s home.

The movie develops into a classic underdog-vs-the-world story, as Shravan, a lowly newbie boxer, fights against Mishra, the systemic corruption, and the bureaucracy. Kashyap takes broad aim at a number of societal ills like casteism, corruption, crime, political meddling in state-funded sports, and the subjugation of women. The wonderful thing here is that all this is beautifully blended into the story, and allows for a realistic look at it all. Mishra can not only make it impossible for Shraven to compete as a boxer, he can also use his political clout and the dysfunctional Indian bureacracy to cut off water and electricity to his home. Thus, Shravan has not one enemy, but many, and battles on multiple fronts.

Mukkabaaz is the film it is also because of its wonderful actors. You might have seen Vineet Kumar Singh in films like Shorts and Bombay Talkies. This is his big break as hero, and does he make it work! He also trained really hard for the role, and it shows in his fighting fitness and 6-pack abs. The female lead, Zoya Hussain, who debuts here, is also very good. She has not a single line of dialog, but more than makes up for it with her acting prowess. Jimmy Shergill plays villain Mishra, and does surprisingly well, considering he’s got a suave-nice-guy-face which doesn’t quite lend itself to the portrayal of the rustic crudeness of Mishra’s character. Yesteryear actress Sadhana Singh (Nadiya Ke Paar) plays Sunaina’s mother with great aplomb. Ravi Kisshen, as always (Welcome to Sajjanpur, Tanu Weds Manu), is marvelous.

A large part of the film is shot in the boxing ring, but tight editing and a masterful screenplay ensure that we remain engrossed. Mukkabaaz also features vernacular-sounds songs, which add to the rustic charm of the film. Ultimately though, it is Kashyap’s ability to create realistic characters who exude drama, emotion and outrage, unabashed, and whom we can root for, that make Mukkabaaz one of the best films of the year.

If you see one Hindi film this year, let it be this one.

Kidwise: Several adult situations, graphic violence and some hairy language make Mukkabaaz unsuitable for a younger audience.

Posted in 2018, action, based on true events, bollywood, crime, directors, drama, outstanding, rating-PG15, recommended, romance, social issues, women | 1 Comment

Movie Review : Toilet – Ek Prem Katha (2017)

Posted on January 13, 2018 by amodini

Rating : Good (3.7/5)
Genre : Drama
Year : 2017
Running time : 2 hours 35 minutes
Director : Shree Narayan Singh
Cast : Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar, Anupam Kher, Divyendu Sharma, Sudhir Pandey, Rajesh Sharma
Kid rating : PG

Toilet – Ek Prem Katha is a film about social values, and changing traditional mores and customs, however deep-rooted in “sanskriti” they might be. I quite liked it for the very novel effort it is, even though it had some rough edges.

Keshav is a not-very-well-read businessman, who at 36 is unmarried, because of his “Manglik” dosh, and because his religious, overly conservative “Pandit” father will only allow as his “bahu” a girl with 2 left thumbs (an extra thumb to negate said “Manglik” dosh). Keshav has almost all hope when he meets the lovely and well-read Jaya. Alas, she only has 1 left thumb! Not to be deterred, Keshav and Jaya soon “arrange” for a fake thumb and the nuptials take place.

Marital bliss is short-lived because Jaya soon discovers that her new husband’s home is sans toilet facilities. The people of the home (and most of the village) defecate in the open, and she as the new “bahuriya” is required to join the crack-of-dawn “lota-party” (“lota” is the Hindi word for the traditional steel vessel used to hold water).

Jaya sulks and fumes by turns, but her desire for an in-house lavatory are countered by her orthodox father-in-law’s strong objections, objections which consider it against culture to have the holy Tulsi plant and a lavatory in the same home. Things come to a head when Jaya leaves to go to her parent’s home, and once there, demands a divorce.

The rest of the film is about resolving this impasse. There is Jaya and her family on one hand, who are educated and supportive of the need for a hygenic toilet. On the other is Keshav’s dad, his family and almost the entire village, which pooh-poohs away Jaya’s demand as frivolous and the new-fangled “needs” of educated and (therefore) spoiled bratty young girls. The role of the village women is underscored here, as Jaya exhorts them to demand the same sanitation facilities, telling them that it is always the women who have to “adjust”, while the men twist and interpret “culture” to suit them (the men) and their needs.

On the surface this film seems to be about a basic need: the need for toilets. The film though goes deeper and questions the double standards that allow such a basic hygenic need to be ignored, and that brings in the question of women’s right and empowerment, as well as the questioning of the hypocritical “culture”. Our “sanskriti” or culture, as Keshav puts it ever so elegantly via filmi dialog, “requires that women’s faces remain covered (in ghoongat) but their backsides exposed“.

Toilet – Ek Prem Katha thus has a feminist message too, and it is all intertwined with the overall theme: cleanliness or swacchata in mind and body. Kudos to the filmmaker for taking this on (this also aligns nicely with Indian Prime Minister Modi’s swachchata campaign). The film pre-interval is a run-of-the-mill romance, and really gains steam in the second half. There is enough drama and humor here to keep things entertaining. Kumar and Pednekar have great chemistry, and the film is nicely paced everywhere but at the end, where, I imagine, the director ran out of ideas, and resorted to clichéd personality changes, with everyone seeing the light and turning up in their best behavior for a happy ending.

Despite the missteps, Toilet – Ek Prem Katha is a very nice film and well worth your time.

Kidwise: No overt vulgarity; some grown-up themes; fairly kid-safe.

Posted in 2017, bollywood, directors, drama, humor, rating-PG, romance, social issues, watchable, women | Comments Off

Movie Review : Tiger Zinda Hai (2017)

Posted on December 30, 2017 by amodini

Rating : 2/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2012
Running time : 2 hours 12 minutes
Director : Ali Abbas Zafar
Cast : Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Girish Karnad, Paresh Rawal, Kumud Mishra, Angad Bedi, Sajjad Delafrooz
Kid ratingfollow : PG-13

This film turned out pretty much as expected. Mindless violence, check. Blustery action, check. Inane dialogbaazi, check. Salman Khan at his chunkiest best (there is a shirtless scene, to our detriment), check. Tiger Zinda Hai is truly a movie for Salman fans.

Lest you have forgotten, like I did (and then I was forced to jog my memory – ah! The pain, the mind-numbing pain of it all), let me remind you that this is a sequel and there was a “Ek Tha Tiger”, in which we were introduced to intrepid RAW Agent Avinash Singh Rathod, aka Tiger. In that not-so-lovely film (you can read the review here), brave Tiger falls in love with arch enemy Pakistani Agent Zoya (Kaif). In Tiger Zinda Hai, Tiger has set up house with Zoya in scenic, snow-covered Innsbruck, Austria. While Tiger goes camping, snow-sledding and chasing wolves, and even takes smug, Bollywood dialog spouting son Junior to accompany him, Zoya has domesticated herself, but retains the ability to kick and body-slam the unwary shop-thief that dares to be stealing while she does her produce-shopping.

An emergency situation requiring the services of Tiger himself arises. When he is located (apparently being the smart guy that he says he is, he was sending coded location messages all the time, and all RAW had to do was to read them – duh!) the RAW head honcho (Girish Karnad) and his right-hand man land up to taste Tiger ki haath ki lajawaab kaali dal. Repast all done, the subject is broached but Tiger begs of the mission, citing lovely family etc. When Zoya exhorts him to stand up for what he believes, he goes off to help those in need.

Mayhem ensues. Just when we think Tiger has met his match, the Missus lands up to help (Junior has been conveniently shipped to the motherland with touristy Austrian friends). More mayhem, car chases, incessant action, well-choreographed hand-to-hand battle scenes. If you like that sort of stuff, you are in for a good time. Also, Tiger goes one step ahead of films like “Bajrangi Bhaijaan” in preaching the hum-sab-bhai-bhai message and having RAW agents team up with ISI agents in defeating the common enemy. True bravura that!

Long story short (and don’t tell me you didn’t know this already), Tiger and the Missus return to sublime anonymity once job has finished successfully. Rest assured that there will be part Trois; old adage about milking a cash cow comes to mind here.

To summarize: TZH is exactly what it seems – a fantastical tale about a one-of-a kind Indian Agent. It makes no attempt at realism; the screenplay is redolent with drama, and the scenes are just setups to show the machismo of the lead character. The movie makes no attempt at eliciting emotions. The characters are flat and card-board-ish; I do not imagine them anything more than the fiction they purport to be. The film is a sequence of scenes placed after one another – very methodical, very mechanical, very perfunctory; there are no appeals to our finer sensibilities. I imagine that the makers of this film succeeded fantastically in what they attempted to do; they will laugh all the way to the bank.

Kidwise: This film is almost 100% violence – lots of flying bullets, guns etc. There isn’t much else, so am not quite recommending it for younger audiences.