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Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Obituary | New Delhi
Time for some love, some fun in Priyadarshan's "Hulchul", now showing at cinema halls across Delhi.
<56,2p,0.5p>By ZIYA US SALAM <56> HULCHUL (At Odeon and other Delhi theatres) HE IS a prisoner of his proclivities. Often the goldsmith in him shows feet of clay, and we end up applauding a half-baked "Hungama". But once in a while when the mood overtakes him, his craft is worth going out miles to watch. That is when he comes up with something like "Hera Pheri", a film so joyful that one forgets what is it like to feel sad. Then in between come times when his mind is at work, his soul elsewhere; when he has one eye on the box office, the other closed to the eccentric artist in him. That is when Priyadarshan comes up with "Hulchul", a film so hilarious in parts that you would want to throw the banana peel into the dustbin. We need it not for being able to laugh, to smile, to talk. But then it is also a film so loud that you wonder just when did Priyadarshan sell out his soul in pursuit of success at the turnstiles! Surely a few years down the line some of the dialogue and over-the-top performance will have even Priyadarshan cringing: "Hey, was that I wielding the baton?" That is for later, when the sun will be down and Priyadarshan will be ruminating about a career likely to have many bright moments. For the moment, let's talk of "Hulchul". To be sure, it has a story, a single-line idea of feuding families living in times where Chevrolets and bullocks carts commute in perfect communion. Of course, they are sworn enemies. Of course, the latest additions to the flock take time off, first to pretend love, then love. Of course, it gets slightly confusing with a patriarch who seems to have in his walking stick a new weapon, and a matriarch who feels screaming is a fine art. But why lament the glitches? Priyadarshan will take care some day, and deliver a masterpiece that we can sit back and applaud in our times, and posterity learn in its. But for now, he is a man in a hurry. He has other films to wrap up, other songs to can. So he comes up with a quick assembly line fare here. The laughs are aplenty with many doubling up in the halls, holding the tummy. The situations are humorous too, and in old faithful Paresh Rawal and fast emerging Arshad `Circuit' Warsi he gets wacky performances that are lapped up by the audiences instantly. For a good part the pace is right, the jokes flow, everything is fine; it is only in the second half that tedium threatens to set in. Just then, Priyadashan remembers he has a film to save, and comes up with nice camaraderie, nice jibes that save a show that initially could have been "Hera Pheri", and later almost sucked itself below the "Hungama" zone. Hence here is a film that tickles, that delights. Momentarily. No artistic pretensions, no lofty ideas, just the sort of street fare the masses like and lap up. RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (At PVR Saket and other Delhi theatres) HERE COMES another sequel just proving you cannot improve the original. By itself, this scoot-and-shoot drama has everything that a lover of spine-chilling fare will ask for: fast and furious pace, furious guys, sexy girl to complement an array of deserted churches, eerie cemeteries and zombies. Yes, there are gory dogs and a scary, one-line plot too. But the sum of it all does not add up to what the first film offered. Alexander Witt's film here takes off where the first ended: same action, same horror, and the same bio-engineered weapons. It is all right for watching if you want a Hollywood version of a B-grade Bollywood film. Here too we have a cop jumping from a helicopter with all guns blazing, and Milla Jovovich as the heroine clad in a manner to reveal, not conceal. AB... BAS (At Regal and other Delhi theatres) HER EYES tell you the tavern is never too far away. Her smile has the morning bloom, her cheeks the evening calm. But hold on... . Diana Hayden here, in only her second appearance after "Tehzeeb", is no actress. Great body, good face -- but that's all. And here she is expected by director Rajesh Singh to carry this nth take on "Agnisakshi", with a love triangle thrown in, on her shoulders! Pity. She gets little help from Shahwar Ali, handsome chin downwards, logwood upwards. Amid all this we lose a film that has scope in storyline, and some punch in dramatic moments. Otherwise it is a tepid affair that engages you for a while for some novel thought on gender politics. But then it is too little too late to save this film.
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