The Hindu : New Delhi News : Tales of nature’s fury and a crumbling planet ….

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Sunday, Nov 15, 2009
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Tales of nature’s fury and a crumbling planet ….

Anuj Kumar

SHOW TIME: While director Kunal Deshmukh’s ‘Tum Mile’ (above) holds some promise, ‘Aao Wish Karein’ (top right) starring Aftab Shivadasani turns out to be a damp squib among the Bollywood offerings this week. English film ‘2012’ (right) directed by Roland Emmerich (of Independence Day fame) is a bit of exaggerated stuff.

TUM MILE

(BIG Odeon and other theatres in Delhi and elsewhere)

Turning natural calamity into a character is known to be a Hollywood speciality and trimming every exotic speciality to suit the Indian palette is a forte of Bollywood’s good old Bhatt Brothers. This time round it is the much talked about Mumbai rain and floods of July 2005 that provide this love story its bargaining power at the box office.

Director Kunal Deshmukh, who surprised us not long ago with Jannat, once again shows that the usual could be made arresting with a smart narrative technique and deft camera work. Humungous budgets are not always necessary to create the impact of a monumental tragedy. Add to it competent performances here by Emraan Hashmi and Soha Ali Khan and you have a film which touches you where it matters. And when it drags, Pritam fills in with some pulsating tunes.

Emraan plays Akshay, a struggling artiste who paints truth and to eke out a living part-times as a delivery boy. He falls in love with well-heeled writer Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan) whose heart beats for environmental issues before Akshay brushes everything aside. All is well till Sanjana moves to live in with Akshay. As usual after the initial mush, the economic divide starts to make its presence felt but refreshingly Kunal has kept the tone in check.

Despite ample scope, neither of the characters resorts to loud histrionics. It is all subtle, sensitive and, most importantly, mature. So are his biting comments on the elitist world of art, which suggest that Mahesh Bhatt’s ghoul is round the corner.

It is another matter that Kunal takes the liberty to set the subject in South Africa without any valid reason apart from its exquisite scenery. After the sparring in South Africa, the two meet again in Mumbai on what turns out to be the eve of the natural catastrophe and the rest is predictable.

Filmed in a studio, flood scenes, which constitute only a small part of the film, are carried out in a realistic manner but they never make you wonder what’s next? The fear of the worst never surfaces as the divide between the characters gets filled on expected lines.

Yes, the metaphor that relationships like environment should be handled with care does ring a bell.

Soha was deft as the control freak in Dil Kabaddi and here again she is at ease portraying similar shades. She is shedding inhibitions in more ways than one but by all indications she hardly seems likely to become the darling of the masses. She is simply a class apart! In fact, here she helps Emraan get away from his core constituency.

Kunal has accentuated her strengths. You believe her when she says she doesn’t laugh at Akshay’s lowbrow jokes but Akshay himself.

Emraan loves to play within his range and here as the uncompromising artiste he plays out his characteristic raw emotions in a refined environment.

Don’t expect a deluge, and you won’t be disappointed!

AAO WISH KAREIN

(PVR Saket and other theatres)

Critics kept on announcing his inability to grow from a child actor. Aftab Shivadasani has finally acquiesced. He has produced a film where he gets to play the wishful version of a 12-year-old boy who desires to grow up and his wish is granted. Of course he continues to feel like a kid and hence Aftab’s cute looks and antics come in handy.

He gives it all, but the script doesn’t have enough gas to last the mile. Director Barretto is not sure whether he wants to target kids or their parents. For a large part he treats it as a fairy tale for tiny tots interspersed with fake snow and saccharine-filled jokes.

But then in all seriousness he wants to tell a love story as well. After all, all that the boy wanted after getting big is to get his love, a 22-year-old beauty (Amna Sharif). And he almost succeeds till a complex riddle robs him of his size.

In the name of realistic situations, Barretto introduces plots like when the kid fears loneliness in his huge mansion he finds only a hooker to give him company. But how come he sings songs with such mature feelings! The growth from crush to marriage is never explained. Barretto offers only quick-fix solutions but consumes plenty of raw stock.

If Amna keeps walking up and down The Mall we don’t mind but the moment she pretends to act we wish to press the non-existent mute button.

Johnny Lever has got a role of a lifetime as a garrulous angel. Nobody has taken him so seriously before.

Let’s skip this soppy fluff!

2012

(Spice, Noida, and other theatres)

You can question his intentions but not his effort. Doomsday expert Roland Emmerich, who once arrested our senses with Independence Day, has fuelled his CGI-filled ambitions. The world is in peril all over again. He says we were warned, courtesy a Mayan prophecy.

He involves people from different parts of the world. There is an Indian scientist (Jimi Mistry) who gets an inkling of what’s in store much before his US counterparts wake up from their “we are the best” slumber. Then there is a Chinese/Tibetan angle because if the world is drowning, the roof of the world has to sink. Cynics might say it’s a ploy for a spectacle of this magnitude won’t be economically viable if the franchise doesn’t get returns from different markets. But the bottom-line is Emmerich succeeds in what he has set out to do.

It might sound dumb at the core to a scientist but for an average viewer who wants his share of thrills in darkness it is blockbuster entertainment literally – a plane taking off on a runway that’s crumbling beneath it or a car racing through a street that’s splitting at its centre or for that matter a cruise liner toppling over on being hit by a massive wave. Or a speeding van dodging giant volcanic bursts. It’s louder and more exhilarating than anything you’ve ever experienced.

In between, he fills us with food for thought as class difference surfaces even when humanity is danger. It is the elite which wants to have the wings first. Of course, the US President remains politically correct and doesn’t leave the sinking ship.

There is an obligatory storyline as well, where a failed novelist (John Cusack), who doubles up as a limo driver, tries to save his estranged wife (Amanda Peet) and children. After a point we begin to feel

Emmerich is only interested in saving one family for almost all the happy coincidences happen with it but he makes amends in the climax. Despite a competent Cusack, in the end it is Chiwetel Ejiofor as a geologist who comes out best.

Ejiofor manages to make even the most predictable lines credible -- his point that we can save this world only when we begin to fight for each other stay with you.

The year 2012 might be too close, it might be a tool to create panic-ridden footfalls, but we all know we are no longer friends with nature.

It’s big and bombastic, and if you are in a mood to digest exaggeration you can do without popcorns here.

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