Saw Ravanan yesterday. Not Ravan, but Ravanan , the tamil version. Me and Mani have a love hate relationship. I fell in love with him in my teens after Mouna Ragam and the love blossomed with Nayagan and Agni Natchathiram. And it peaked in Geetanjali. But as I came out of my teens, and as Mani’s staple one liners failed to spring the surprises that it evoked initially, my teenie adoration for Mani got lost somewhere in Manisha’s Pardah and since Bombay, I’ve maintained my distance with this director as he started cashing in on seasonal sensations. In Alai Payudhey, I had some fond memories of yester year Mani but by then I had begun to learn to expect less from him. In Iruvar and Guru ,he came out as a matured director but that apart he hasn’t done anything good in the past decade. So as I walked in to watch Ravanan, I did not carry the Dickens famed novel “Great expectations” with me.
Ravanan is a take on Ramayan. Good. It is not an exact replica and has its own twists. Still better. But what does it have for us? Le’ts see… Vikram is the modern day Ravan. He is categorised as a Ravan just because he abducts prithviraj’s wife. And Prithviraj is categorised as Ram just because his wife is abducted. ( Guys, Wanna become a modern day Ram? Well, u know what to do! Let your wives get abducted. Two plusses. You become Ram; and you are free from your wife). And Aishwarya is the modern day Sita and again its just because she gets abducted. Other than the abduction, there is no other thing in the characters which resemble the ethical ones. The producers of the movie can run a contest for the audiences and ask them to correctly identify Vikram’s role. Who is he ? A naxalaite, terrorist, a forest smuggler, a robin hood or a plain tribal Rowdy. Because nowhere in the story you get to find out why Vikram has to be chased with so much force by a Superindent of Police. (Cinema has got tired of Inspectors and ACPs even DSPs have lost glamour! Now it is SP , my dear! But I pity the tamil audience; in the previous Prithviraj movie they had to watch him as a chocolate college boy and in this he is an SP and no get-up change whatsoever! ) So all prizes for guessing what is Vikram’s job! Anyway in the two hours of the movie all he does is say some buck buck to Aishwarya, dance , give some strange facial twists ( trying to make up for the lack of twists in screenplay, I guess!) and hurl bombs at police jeeps. And you never know whether he is good or bad. He chops the hand of his sister’s groom just because he ran away from police and he saves Prithviraj who murdered his brother. Atleast in Velu Nayakan’s case only he did not know whether he was good or bad. In this case, no one including Mani knows! Vikram abducts Aishwarya. He harnesses feelings for her but never does anything much except a few ogles. Aish manages well not to cross the lines of an honourable wife and at the same time keep us guessing with her half-eyed looks at Vikram. And Prithviraj and Vikram clash . Karthik plays the Hanuman and the old magic is still there. He appears in just a few scenes but definitely over shadows Prithviraj when he shares screen space with him. His introduction scene is good and it raises a lot of expectations but then, what can Hanuman do when Ram himself is confused to the core! Till Vikram and Prithviraj clash, its Ramayan. From then on its Maniratnamyan ( yarn?!) . Vikram saves Prithviraj. And Aish gets back to Prithviraj. And Prithviraj doubts her. ( I liked that lie detector simile for Agnipravesham; Good one, Mani!) And Aish gets back to Vikram to find out why her husband doubted her and in the process leads Prithviraj to Vikram’s hideout. And Ravan is demolished by Ram. That’s the story!
Vikram has come up with yet another great performance. Whenever a maverick role is offered to him as in pitamahan or Anniyan, he sizzles and Ravanan is no exception. Aish plays her role well and maintains poise in a cheeky role . She looks too hot with her low cut blouses . A real hot Seetha J. And about Prithviraj, the less said, the better. And listen, all ye folks, whenever a female character has to be raped by many, call Priya mani ( You too , Mani!) . There used to be a time when Satyaraj was called rape Raj. I only hope Priyamani doesn’t get any such prefix. The only humour that I had while watching the movie was that whenever Ranjitha appeared on screen, a section of the audience were calling out Nitayanada’s name. AR Rahman has come out with some great background score . His songs are good but Mani plays them behind his dialogues (Why hire an Oscar winner to play music and then play that song with inaudible volume while your characters rant dialogues? Only Mani can explain). Like all other mani’s movies, the dialogues are sharp. The real hero of the movie is Santosh Sivan and his brilliant camera work. And all shot in India… The way the locales have been selected and the way those have been shot, you’ve got to applaud the technical brilliance.
The final say… like Mani doesn’t know whether ravanan is good or bad , I do not know if the movie is good or bad. Well, if you are after technical brilliance or you are the type who would be floored by Aish’ s eyelashes or cleavages, or if you are the type who would tap your foot for ARR or get excited at Vikram’s bak bak, then, it’s a good movie. If you look for a free flowing screenplay or some original confusion less content, then it’s a bad movie. But I guess, its worth watching once. And the last word… Vikram is Ravan, Prithviraj is Ram, Aish is Sita, Priyamani is Surpanaga, Karthik is Hanuman… well, one great character of Ramayan missing…? Ya , where is Kumbakarn? It is you my dear! As you wait and wait for Ravan to do something extraordinary, Beware of dozing off while watching Ravan!
Ah, here I am with yet another film review…”Kites”. Got caught in New Delhi with nothing to do, I went to the Ambience Mall and there as I was flooded with brands and brands and just as I took the elevator to escape from emptying my purse, I landed on the top floor….PVR cinemas. Yet another dilemma started. Kites or “Shrek Forever and After”. But Hrithik Roshan had already stolen my heart with Dhoom II and so, “Kites” it was…With the likes of Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori in the cast and when Anurag Basu dons the direction, you walk in with an expectation that the kite would be really colourful and it would fly up and up but…For those of you who’d like to know the plot… Hrithik is a dance teacher and he also has a noble part time job… marrying immigrants to get them green cards. (If I were he, I would switch the part time to full time :-)). And then he strikes gold…a Las Vegas gambling club owner’s daughter Kangana Raut falls for him. And she flashes her thighs at him and Hrithik is more impressed by her car than her thighs (while it is the opposite for yours truly :-)) And here’s our man, trying to become the son in law of the billionaire , Kiran Bedi ( Now ageing has nothing to do with appearing smart …. Ask Kiran Bedi !) . And then there’s a brother of Kangana Raut who is about to marry a Mexican girl ( Barbara Mori). On seeing Barbara , Hrithik does two things ….A . He falls for her. B . He recalls that Barabara Mori was the latest immigrant that he had married. (ever heard of getting married and falling in love..This is it :-)) Barbara Mori agrees to spend the night before her wedding with Hrithik in a chaste and romantic way but Hrithik’s brother in law traces them. And then a mega escape starts spanning countries with the villain hunting for Barbara as if she were his gambling club license and he could not exist without her. And what follows is a series of car races (whichever model car he steals, Hrithik manages to drive them faster than the chasing sports cars …who says India hasn’t produced any F1 champion?). Then there’s a bank robbery, which is thrown in as an adventure, but I seriously suspect that it compensates for the lack of comedy track. And when they really attempt at comedy using the age old trick of fooling each other with false translation like “ Ullu Ki patti” standing for “ I love you” , you just laugh cos you don’t have anything else to laugh for. They reach Mexico and marry and try to have conjugal bliss but villain’s bullets hit at the right (???) time and the lovers get separated. ( Moral of the story : Never wait til you get married !!!). The film has too many flash backs that you have to take a diary along to keep track of which flash back you are in at that time. Anyway, the whole story is a flash back with Hrithik trying to find Barbara after the separation. He discovers she has killed herself by falling from a high cliff and he goes to the same cliff and falls from there. Now, for symbolism lovers, the Kites have come down. And as the kites come down, the screen comes down. And then we ask ourselves “Did these kites ever take off in the first place?”. And I have a big grievance against all these fellas from Bollywood to Kollywood…when you decide to get a foreign heroine, why is it that you always have to find such dumb looking girls ( right from Nadodi Thendral to Lagaan…) . Barbara Mori is a big disappointment as far as looks are concerned. . Hrithik is wasted in a stupid slow moving movie. And so is my money…..
Well, when Karan Johar , King Khan and Queen Kajol come together, where else can you be but inside the theatre? And there I was , my memories filled with flashes of Kuch Kuch Hota Hain, Kabhi Alvidha na kehna and the likes. A royal treat its gonna be , I kept telling myself. And " My name is Khan" started. ( Be careful not to miss the "h" in the Khan, lest Riyaz Khan, the hero, might get angry). And talking about Riyaz, well , if you wanted a glimpse of the naughty Khan of Kuch Kuch or the effortless Khan of Main hoon na, , simply forget it. This Khan is autistic. If you had been mesmerized by the romantic looks that Khan gave Kajol in Dilwale or the feelings which those eyes conveyed at Kajol in Kuch Kuch, then I pity you. This autistic Khan can't even look at Kajol. But then, as fate would have it, here we are, with an autistic Khan and a divorced mother of a son, Kajol, indulging in romance. A romance of a different kind. OK, you forget kuch kuch, you forget Karan Johar and try to reconcile into a serious movie ( quite reluctantly....). And what do we have?
We have this autistic Khan being brought up by an adoring mother who teaches him about good men and bad men. There’s a master who teaches him physics. And there’s an younger brother who gets into a sibling fight and flies to America. And mother dies. And Khan informs us that mother got a promise from him that he would go to US and lead a happy life. And we have Riyaz flying to US. And then he sells women’s cosmetics in San Francisco. No , dont laugh. This really happens. An autistic Khan suddenly flies to US and sells women’s cosmetics. So much for realism.
And he meets Kajol. Loves her. But then , one thing you will have to give it to Kajol. She hasn’t lost her magical touch one bit. And she tries desperately to fill life into a role, which defies logic. She is a mother of a boy. She is divorced. And then comes the autistic Khan who keeps asking her to marry her. And she does when Khan shows her a place in San Francisco that she has never seen. Again, believe me, that was the condition Kajol lays down for the marriage. Thank God, Karan Johar isn’t God, otherwise, only tourist guides can marry. And then Khan and Mandira (Kajol) marry and Mandira , a Hindu becomes Mandira Khan and her son takes the surname Khan. And 9 / 11 happens and hatred for Muslims starts. And soon we find that the little boy is murdered in a fight at school as he is a Khan.
And then comes the shocker. Kajol cries for her son and says, Khan is responsible for his death and asks him to leave her. And then as Khan leaves, he asks her, when do I come back. She says you come back after meeting the President and telling him you are not a terrorist and Khan sets out to do it. Hey, where are you running? This is the plot and I am not lying. The extra ordinary journey that they advertise is this journey that Khan takes to meet the US President. And after stifled yawns at Khan wandering places and blatant irritation at Khan fighting a storm , we finally have Riyaz Khan meeting the President and telling him he is not a terrorist. We feel like screaming, you are not a terrorist and we are not fools either! Finally, it all gets over and you walk out in silence trying to comprehend whatever happened to the magic of the three Ks , Kajol, Karan and King Khan of yester years. But then, those were yester years………. And before I forget, the music is good. Camera is excellent. But the movie is bad, my dear!
