India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

That charm quotient

Blue Umbrella
Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Shreya Sharma
Direction: Vishal Bharadwaj
Rating: VERY GOOD

 Adapted from a story by Bond, Ruskin Bond, Vishal Bharadwaj’s second confection for children after Makdee, has its passages of charm, visual aplomb and performances that are as lively as an amusement park.

If Blue Umbrella is occasionally bogged down, it’s because of the tempo which is like watching clouds pass by in slow motion. You do tend to pack off into Siestaland….but then you perk up to go with the bagatelle. The centre of attraction is the eponymous chhatri acquired from a Japanese tourist by a shepherd girl (Shreya Sharma) in a Himachal hill town.

A shrewish school marm covets it as if it were the Kohinoor. And a meanie-beanie shopkeeper (Pankaj Kapur) - addicted to conning children - must possess it or perish.

Frankly; the muslin-thin plot would have been perfect for a short feature (say 30 minutes) but then, it wouldn’t have found a theatrical outlet. Undoubtedly; it has a warm sensibility that keeps you engaged - in the tradition of Iranian cinema which takes on micro issues (like a child losing a pair of shoes), elevating them into mega-social comments.

Bharadwaj’s Umbrella comes pretty close to the spirit of that tradition and is limned by bravura performances by Pankaj Kapur and Shreya Sharma, surely meriting a matinee out with the family.

HeyyBabyy

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Riteish Kumar, Fardeen Khan, Vidya Balan
Direction: Sajid Khan
Rating: GOOD

Don’t nappy, be-happy. Legs-lips-’n'-limbs of bimbos are the obsessions of three blokes, one of whom even croaks, "I carry more condoms than money in my pockets," rolling his merry-go-round eyes out of their sockets. Hee Hee?

Just about. But you also go chhee chee as Heyy Babyy, directed by Sajid Khan, indulges in execrable humour, striving to set off mirth ripples with dirty talk about underpants (not washed for a week, it seems), toilet humour and nipples. Enough to make you want to run out for a tipple.

So okay, Mr. Khan may have shouted himself hoarse that he hasn’t ripped off Hollywood’s Three Men And A Baby (technically he may be correct, because he could have just ransacked the original French version).
Hello, but till the intermission point it’s nothing but that - milking laughs out of emergency baby feeds, poop and what the dialogue innovatively calls "bummies." Hang on to your groaning tummies.

Aaah but gangs of geeks, going on about their sex drive, have been whooping it up of late, from the masti ki pathshalas of David Dhawan, Indra Kumar and Priyardarshan.
Comedies, making women out to be sex objects, sell. They’re to be taken deliriously, not seriously - just a brunch of joke- ‘n’ -junk food. Dig in, digest the watchamacallit, never mind the acidity and burps. Sab chalta hai.

Or should that be daudta hai? The three sex machines (Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Fardeen Khan), are bedding blondes, red-heads and brunettes in Sydney. Holy kidney? And a baby girl is left at their doorstep.
Either of the trio could be the dad, and so there they go - in ancient Keystone Cops-style fast motion - feeding the darling but never taking her out a rather uncomfy cot.
Yikes.

Trouble ahead: abruptly the script goes ‘original’. Enter the mom (Vidya Balan looking sterner than a prison warden), flashbacks ensue, and there’s much huffing-’n'-puffing. In any case, it isn’t quite comprehensible how she could have even risked leaving her child to the care of three bumblers. Incidentally, the eight month-old is left out in the rain, rushed to an Indian doctor (so, no subtitles are needed) and survives. "It’s a miracle!" beams the doc.
Squawk.

Instead of tittering nervously, you now feel like a coolie carrying a heavy-duty load.
The three men, reformed by their nanha farishta,(little angel) want her back. Mom signs up a weird contract, Boman Irani fetches up to ham, and the baby shebang become a sham. Stern mom, in a hideous wardrobe (ensembles printed with circles and op-art) hisses, softens and hisses. And then she zooms off with her babyy, seated at long last in a cool pram.

No free lollipops for guessing the rest. Yes, yes, it’s time-pass and all that but not of the variety that separates the intelligent from the trite.
Sajid Khan’s direction is more dependent on lavish resources and star value than a distinctive style of storytelling (story?). Those reaction shots of the child are clumsy, often suggesting that they were filmed randomly.

And pray why Sydney? Never mind. How come the mom also stays in the same city in what looks like a hotel or a health spa? Why does her dad go dotty over a potential son-in-law, trilling "I like him, I like him." Logic - a must even in knock about slapstick - is conspicuous by its absence.

The music score by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is nothing to hum about; the cinematography is patchy and the screenplay’s latter-half is particularly laboured.

Of the cast, Akshay Kumar has an appealing flair for the light-hearted. Riteish Deshmukh is reliably likeable but could he please quit blinking like a neon sign out of order? Fardeen Khan needs to be kept far away from potato salad buffets. Vidya Balan is wasted.
So heyy, this one’s far from okayy. Aap Ka Surroor was funnier.

Hello hockey, hello hope

Chak De India
Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Chitrashi Rawat
Direction: Shimit Amin
Rating: VERY GOOD & 1/2

Milk shake, rattle and roll. Sporty girls are bashing up a bunch of eve-teasers in a fast-food restaurant. The hockey coach, doesn’t intervene, whips on his dark glasses and smiles lightly. His girls have scored a hit.

Cheers for Chak De! India which may be predictable but compels you to root for a team of losers whom only an earth-angel can save from disastrous defeat. Written by Jaideep Saini and directed by Shimit Amin, this inspirational effort echoes Hollywood’s Hardball, The Replacements, and Escape to Victory whose influence has already been evidenced in Lagaan.

But what the hell? If a story is retold with varying riffs, a sliver of imagination and sufficient skill, just chill.

Over to Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), the disgraced captain of the Indian hockey team, who’s out to redeem himself after seven years of vanvas. He lands the assignment, just by a whisker, of coaching the raggedy Indian women’s hockey team. So far, so hopeful.
The 16 girls from various states are a mess either too raw or too cocksure. Begins the training which does get far too protracted, what with the girls snarling, whining and ready to tear one’s eyes out. Slowly but surely, Khan makes them understand their strengths and above all, their Indianness which alone can get them to the winning goal.

Obstinately perhaps, the focus remains on Kabir as the coach. There’s no backstory, no glimpses into his heart and mind. Only his mother pops up at the outset and at the end, full stop. In addition, the introduction of the girls - through hideously antiquated wipes doesn’t make you connect to them, except with the ones who’re either too nice or too much spice. And pray, why linger unduly over the kabhi-bedroom-kabhi-ignore routine of one of the girls with a creepy cricketer?

Chalo Australia, then. Now, you’re hooked as the team takes on the Goliaths, thanks to the coach’s psychological jugglery. The sequences showing Kabir Khan losing his cool, his request to two competitive players to see the larger picture and the finale’s clarion call, are marvellously done, often making your eyes moist. And then, you’re at the edge of the seat for the decisive showdown intricately crafted by sports action director Rob Miller.
Auspiciously, the director fits in strong comments on national unity, gender equality, secularism and team spirit.

Shah Rukh Khan is outstanding - it’s a performance that is comparable and at points even more internalized than the one in Swades. He carries the proverbial burden of the project on his shoulders. Intense and steel like, he stays in character throughout, shunning any traces of glamour.

Of the girls, the little stick of dynamite Chitrashi Rawat, the independent-minded Sagarika Ghatge, the team’s zip-unzip vamp Shilpa Shukla and the anger-spewing Tania Abrol are marvellous discoveries.

Yup, so go for it!