Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Kick (2014) is a fairly direct remake of an earlier Telugu film, and as far as I know the filmmakers didn't draw any inspiration at all from the Fumetti neri subgenre of Italian crime comics.  This story of a thrillseeking, apparently amoral super thief who is on an outrageous international crime spree and pursued by a humorless, relentless, and ultimately ineffectual police officer has no relation at all to 1968's Danger: Diabolik.  Rather than the usual Bollywood plagiarism, this is an accidental remake.

 

Beautiful but gloomy psychiatrist Shaina Mehra (Jacqueline Fernandez) has a successful practice in Poland, and she doesn't want to get married, but her father convinces her to meet Himanshu (Randeep Hooda), a potential groom and son of a family friend.  Himanshu is a police officer, and quickly realizes that Shaina is nursing a broken heart.  He asks her about the mystery man, and that means it's time for a flashback.

 

Flashback to Delhi: Shaina meets Devi Lal Singh (Salman Khan) while helping her friend elope.  Devi is the driver, but he's also secretly communicating with the bride's mother the entire time.  After the ceremony, Shaina asks him what the actual hell, and Devi explains that there's more of a "kick" that way, and the bride and groom will have a better story.  The groom is used to Devi's shenanigans, while the bride is actually thrilled that she was able to marry the man she loves with her mother present.  Shaina is not impressed.

 

She warms up to him after seeing a viral video of him beating up the goons who were harassing a woman in a restaurant, and even more so after meeting his parents (Mithun Chakraborty and Archana Puran Singh) and learning about his many advanced degrees and wide variety of skills.  They begin to date seriously, and she gets him a job working at a chemical plant, but he soon quits, because the job doesn't give him enough kick.  Devi and Shaina fight, and he leaves after vowing that earning money will be his new kick.

In the present, in Poland, Himanshu explains that he is also dealing with the one that got away, though in his case it's a bit more literal.  The only criminal he's failed to catch is a mysterious and daring thief known only as Devil.  (Could Devil actually be Devi Lal Singh?  Well, obviously.)  In their last encounter, Devil gave him a clue which, in a feat of logical contortion worthy of Burt Ward's Robin, Himanshu interpreted as the number of a flight to Poland.  So here he is!

 

And just as the flashbacks are wrapping up, Devi appears to ask for directions, and doesn't seem to recognize Shaina at all.  She investigates and learns that Devi has amnesia after suffering a fall, and she insists on taking over his treatment and bringing him to her family home to recover. Devi does not, in fact, have amnesia; it's all a cunning scheme to get close to Himanshu and win back his girl in the process.

 

Meanwhile Himanshu has made an actual deduction that makes sense; all of the rich men that Devil has targeted have been connected to businessman and philanthropist Shiv Gajra (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who happens to be in Warsaw to accept an award.  He knows who Devil's next target will be, so it's time to set the trap.

Like Danger: Diabolik, this is a game of Cops and Robbers in which we are supposed to root for the robbers.  It's all gloriously improbable, with ridiculous scheme followed by absurd action sequence followed by ridiculous scheme, all culminating in an explosive bus chase through the streets of Glasgow-pretending-to-be-Warsaw.  It's all style over substance, but it's a lot of style.

 

It's different style, though; rather than slick sixties Eurohedonism, Kick runs on goofy Bollywood earnestness.  While Diabolik steals because he is horny for crime, Devil steals because he's helping terminally ill children.  (That's a spoiler, but if you've ever seen a Salman Khan movie, it's not much of a spoiler.)  And Gajra, Devil's chief target, is blatantly, transparently, cartoonishly evil, so there's no question of who we're supposed to be rooting for.  If Kick were an actual remake of Diabolik, that's exactly the sort of change you'd expect.

Zindagi. Don't talk to me about Zindagi.

Despite the presence of Shah Rukh Khan, Dear Zindagi (2016) is clearly a product of post-Dil Chahta Hai Bollywood; there's singing but almost no dancing, it's suddenly okay to question traditional family values, and the male and female leads are not romantically involved.  The characters have the same big emotions as in old fashioned Bollywood, but without musical numbers, they're forced to find other outlets.

Budding cinematographer Kaira (Alia Bhatt) is frustrated.  She's able to work on the occasional commercial or music video, but she really wants to work in films, and so far all she's been able to find are short-term fill-in jobs.  Still, it's not all bad; she has a close and supportive circle of friends and a fabulous apartment, and new kinda-boyfriend Raghu (Kunal Kapoor) has made arrangements for them to work together on a film shoot in New York.

And then everything starts to unravel.  Raghu has to leave for New York a few weeks ahead of schedule, and he takes Kaira aside and explains that he will be working with his ex on the film, and it's nothing to worry about, but he felt she should know.  Kaira is too insecure to listen when he tries to talk about commitment, so he leaves in a huff. Almost immediately thereafter, she loses her fabulous apartment, and with the New York job up in the air, Kaira has no choice but to go home to Goa and stay with her estranged parents (Aban Deohans and Atul Kale) for a while.

It It It It  doesn't go well.  Kaira is bickering constantly with her family (it doesn't help when an uncle asks her if she's "Lebanese" and that's why she's avoiding marriage) and she can't sleep.  Even shifting over to stay with her friend Jackie (Yashaswini Dayama) doesn't help.  

 

And then Kaira meets Doctor Jehangir "Jug" Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), an eccentric and compassionate therapist/sculptor/bicycle mechanic.  She's impressed enough to make a first appointment, though and it helps, so she makes another, and another.  And that's the plot; Kaira and Jug talk about things.  They talk about her love life, and her relationship with her parents and younger brother Kiddo (Rohit Suresh Saraf) and hunky musician Rumi (Ali Zafar).  They talk about her career.  They spend a surprising amount of time talking about chairs.  Mostly, they talk about how to be a person, and specifically how to be Kaira.  

 

I don't like to label my entertainment, so if I come out and say that a given movie is good or bad, that's usually a sign that I've run out of things to talk about.  However, I am quite comfortable in saying that Dear Zindagi is a good movie, by which I mean it's very well made and features some strong performances; Bhatt is by turns fearless and vulnerable, and consistently sympathetic even when things are getting out of hand, while Shah Rukh is as relaxed and mellow as I've ever seen him, without losing any of his famous charisma.  And I am happy to say that Dear Zindagi is a good movie, by which I mean that it's an entertaining way to spend two and a half hours.

And I'm also happy to say that Dear Zindagi is a good movie, because it presents the idea of taking care of your own mental health as something that is normal and worthwhile, and in doing so the movie helps to make the world a better place.  Kaira isn't crazy or broken, she just needs a little help, and it's okay to admit that.

Superman versus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

 Krrish 3 (2013) is the sequel to Krrish, which is the sequel to Koi . . . Mil Gaya.  It's an odd way to build a superhero franchise, because Koi . . . Mil Gaya is not a superhero movie, it's a Bollywood spin on ET mixed with Flowers For Algernon; friendly alien Jadoo gives bullied and developmentally disabled Rohit Mehra (Hrithik Roshan) advanced physical and mental powers, enabling him to save the day, get the girl (Preity Zinta), and earn his happy ending.  Then, between movies, Rohit is kidnapped by Bollywood Lex Luthor Siddhant Arya (Naseeruddin Shah), and his wife dies of grief.  Fortunately, in the next movie Rohit's son Krishna (also Hrithik Roshan) becomes the superhero Krrish (which is still one of the lazier superhero names since Blackagar Boltagon started calling himself Black Bolt), rescues Rohit, and defeats Doctor Arya's future-predicting supercomputer.

Now, Rohit is a respected scientist working for the Indian Research Institute, and Krishna is married to plucky reporter Priya (Priyanka Chopra).  Krishna can't manage to hold a job, because he's always rushing off to save the day as Krrish.  However, Priya is expecting their first child, and the little family is absurdly happy and frankly adorable.

Meanwhile, quadriplegic and telekinetic scientist Kaal (Vivek Oberoi) has created a team of mutants enhanced with animal DNA.  There are a lot of them, including Ant Man, Rhino Man, and Scorpion Woman, but the important ones are Striker (Gowhar Khan), a dangerous brawler with a prehensile tongue, and Kaya (Kangana Renaut), whose chameleon DNA gives her the power to be Msytique.

But mutant making is only one of Kaal's interests.  He also creates viruses, releases them on unsuspecting cities, and then, as the head of Kaal Pharmaceuticals, he sells the cure for an absurd amount of money.  (And I have to say, this particular plotline hits differently in 2021 than it did in 2013.)

During the first part of the movie, the forces of good and evil don't really interact.  Kaal stays in his evil lair, making mutants, unleashing plagues, and gnawing on the scenery.  Rohit tinkers unsuccessfully with a device to replicate Jadoo's power to channel sunlight into lifegiving energy (and what are the odds of something like that paying off before the end of the movie?), and Krishna divides his time between hanging out with his family and saving people from various disasters, along the way inspiring a movement by telling a boy he's rescued that "Anyone who takes away tears and spreads happiness is Krrish."  It's a lot like the Shatktimaan Friends Club, only with more foreshadowing.

And then Kaal unleashes his latest virus on Mumbai.  Krrish does what he can, but this is a problem that he can't solve, even with superpowers.  But Rohit can; he notices that Krrish is seemingly immune to the virus, so he uses Krishna's blood to create a cure rather than wait for Kaal Pharmaceuticals.  Kaal is both furious and confused; both the virus and the cure are based on his own DNA, so how could anyone else make a cure?  He decides that it is, finally, time to unleash the mutants.

This is not the most original movie ever made.  Kaal's mutants are blatantly lifted from the X-Men movies, and while Kaal is no Magneto, he does seem to use his telekinesis to movie metal objects almost exclusively.  Meanwhile, Krrish is faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, though he combines the Superman power set with Peter Parker's career aptitude, and during one fight scene he duplicates Shaktimaan's trademark spin.

Original or not, though, Krrish 3 is a remarkably efficient distillation of my favorite superhero tropes.  Yes, there are amazing action scenes, but Krrish doesn't just fight bad guys and brood on rooftops.  He save people.  He inspires people.  (I am an absolute sucker for a good "I am Spartacus"/ordinary citizens standing up to the supervillain scene, and this movie has a great one.)  And he does it without ever losing sight of the people who love him.  This is "Stuff That I Love About Superheroes: The Motion Picture."

Bhooty Call: Jadu Tona

 Horror movies, both Bollywood and otherwise, will frequently involve a conflict between rational, scientific thought and traditional spirituality. Science is always at a bit of a disadvantage, of course, since if there are ghosts or vampires or werewolves running around then clearly there are things Science Does Not Know, but the conflict has never been quite so one sided as it is in Jadu Tona (1977).

Wealthy and thoroughly modernized businessman Aamir (Prem Chopra) brings his two daughters back to the ancestral village to visit with their grandparents. Along the way, they meet a servant who urges them to pay their respects to the banyan tree at the edge of the village, but Aamir, educated man that he is, scoffs and drives on.

Oldest daughter Varsha (Reena Roy) spends her time in the village reading a book, rolling her eyes, and waiting until it’s time to go back to Mumbai. Little sister Harsha (Baby Pinky), on the other hand, is pious, respects her elders, and has a warm word for everyone she meets, so she sings a song about how wonderful the village is, then follows an unconvincing (and secretly evil) butterfly into a haunted house.

In the house, Harsha meets a solitary old man with a supernaturally deep voice, who asks her to fetch his medicine. Harsha, being the horribly wonderful and helpful and cheerful and friendly child that she is, is happy to help, but when she opens the bottle, something escapes. After a few minutes of thrashing and eye rolling and spectral laughter and stock footage of a scary cat, Harsha is possessed.

Aamir sends for a doctor, who diagnoses epilepsy, then flees after Harsha breaks his arm. (With one hand.) The grandparents send for a tantrik (Premnath), but before he can even look at the girl, Varsha insults him and sends him away. Before leaving, though, the tantrik gives the family a sacred amulet; once the amulet is tied onto Harsha’s arm, she immediately returns to normal.

And with that, the problem is solved, so the family returns to Mumbai. Every time the amulet comes off, though, Harsha reverts to scary possessed girl, so they consult with Mumbai’s finest bare chested macho psychologist/pilot, Kailash (Feroz Khan).

Kailash insists on removing the amulet while he takes an x-ray (?), and it conveniently bursts into flame and is never mentioned again. After his examination, Kailash declares that the girl is suffering from “paranoid” (I’m guessing that the producers were trying for paranoid schizophrenia here; it’s also not the correct term for a split personality, but it’s a much more common mistake.) and begins treatment.

We don’t see much of the actual treatment, of course. Kailash spends most of his screen time canoodling with Varsha, while every time she gets a cut Harsha reverts to spooky possessed girl and takes revenge on the circle of corrupt businessmen who murdered the ghost in the first place.

To be fair, I had a lot of fun watching Jadu Tona. The film has a relentless sense of energy, and Baby Pinky is clearly having the time of her life. The stupid comic relief is kept to a minimum, the plot is remarkably free of holes, and the special effects, while universally awful, tend to be visually interesting; the guy in a skeleton costume is particularly cool, despite looking nothing like a skeleton.

Fun or not, though, the movie is still enormously flawed. It’s clear that the producers were aiming for a message about respecting tradition because science can’t explain everything, but as presented in Jadu Tona, science can’t explain anything; it’s basically gibberish with a few medical terms thrown in. And the citified characters don’t fail because they’re unwilling to look beyond their narrow scientific paradigm, they fail because they’re all cripplingly stupid. (I don’t mean that they’re not genre savvy, I mean that they’re idiots who do things like get on a plane, alone, with a girl who has frequent violent fits during which she displays supernatural strength without taking any precautions at all.) In this world, faith trumps science, but only because science is dumb.

The other "The Others"

Like Hum Kaun Hai?, Anjaane (2006) lifts its plot from the Hollywood movie The Others. In my review of HKH, I was very careful to avoid spoiling the movie. That is not the case here; if I didn’t know Anjaane’s big twist before watching I never would have figured out what was going on.

Shivani (Manisha Koirala) lives in a big creepy house with her annoying children, Tanwi (Tanvi Gauri Mehta) and Mannu (Akshay Bhatiya). It’s clear that Shivani parted from her husband Aditya (Sanjay Kapoor) on bad terms; we first see him standing at the gate to the house, spattered in blood, shouting that he’s come to take the kids, while she threatens to kill the children and herself before they let that happen.

While the family seems to be getting on well without any servants, Shivani hires a trio of strangers who show up at the door looking for work. “Auntie” (Helen), the new housekeeper, is nice enough, and Baba (Mushtaq Khan) is gruff but essentially harmless. Nandu (Atul Parchure), on the other hand, is consistently described as “pagal”. Crazy. In this case, crazy seems to mean “We didn’t have enough money to hire Johny Lever”; Nandu spends most of his time doing the typical annoying Bollywood comic relief schtick, though occasionally he’ll put on a wedding dress and frighten Shivani and the kids.

And it’s at about this point that confusion sets in. Unlike many Bollywood horror movies, Anjaane includes songs. I am normally a big fan of gratuitous dance numbers, but Anjaane’s songs are inserted into the narrative with no relation to what’s going on in the movie at the time. For example, while giving Auntie a tour of the house Shivani explains that the kids must stay inside at all times, and that they are deathly afraid of sunlight. This would be fine except that we just saw the children singing and dancing in the bright sunlight at McDonald’s.

Nandu isn’t the only Nandu in the house. Tanwi delights in scaring her brother by telling him about the other Nandu, a boy who lives in the house with his parents, and whom only she can see. The film makes many jokes about confusion between the two Nandus. None of the jokes are funny.

In between spooky happenings, lame jokes, and random songs, we’re given bits and pieces of backstory. It turns out that Aditya was having an affair with Sonia (Tejaswini Kolhapure). Shivani is the kind of Bollywood housewife who doesn’t take that kind of crap from anyone, so she smashes the windshield of the car they’re making out in, confronts Aditya, and when Sonia tries to butt in, she slaps her.

Aditya has to make a choice, and because he is an idiot (and has never seen Biwi Number One) he chooses the floozie, and stays with her even when it becomes clear that Sonia is an evil controlling cow. She’s also infertile, so Aditya dutifully goes to court to seek custody of the children. Shivani misses a court date, so the judge promptly awards custody to Aditya and Sonia.

Sonia doesn’t really care about the kids; she hopes to gain her revenge on Shivanui by taking her children away and giving them a life of misery. (Her revenge on Shivani for slapping her. Once. After being caught with her husband . . . I don’t like Sonia.) She announces her nefarious plans while meeting with her mother, Shivani’s new housekeeper. Though I have yet to figure out exactly why, Auntie has infiltrated Shivani’s house on Sonia’s orders, and that’s where the movie gets really confusing. (And I will be spoiling the film pretty heavily from here on in, so if you really want to be surprised, stop reading now and I’ll see you next week.)

The problem is that Shivani and her children are dead. She gave them poisoned milk after losing custody. Auntie and the other servants are also dead; Shivani stumbles across a newspaper article about the three of them, along with Aditya and Sonia, dying in a car crash. Auntie drops a few hints that, unlike Shivani and the kids, she knows she’s a ghost. So why is she there? The children are dead, so how is she going to take them away? Did Sonia come up with this plan before or after dying, and before or after Shivani died? Why is Nandu wearing a wedding dress?

My head hurts.

Anjaane tries to mix supernatural suspense and family drama. Bollywood movies pull off this kind of balancing act all the time, but in Anjaane the two genres never quite mesh. Unless you’re a really dedicated Manisha fan, you’re better off watching Hum Kaun Hai?.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Cyrus

 Being Cyrus (2005) is not a typical Bollywood film. Being Cyrus isn’t a typical anything, really; it’s a film that defies easy classification. Is it a family drama? Is it a black comedy? Is it film noir? I don’t know. It’s a pretty good movie, though.

Cyrus (Saif Ali Khan) is a drifter and self-confessed sociopath (”distant from the emotions of human life”, as he puts it.) After a miserable childhood with only his sister for company, Cyrus is searching for a place to belong. His search lands him at the front door of retired, drug-addled sculptor Dinshaw Sethna (Naseeruddin Shah) and his wife Katy (Dimple Kapadia.) Cyrus claims to be a potential student for Dinshaw’s pottery school (total student body after Cyrus joins: 1) and soon he is living in the house, enduring Dinshaw’s marijuana-fueled ramblings about life, and Katy’s desperate come ons.

Cyrus narrates the film, and he is the archetypal unreliable narrator; it’s very clear that he’s up to something, and he admits (to the viewer) that the thing he likes about Katy is that he knows he can manipulate her.

Katy seems to have her own agenda as well; she receives mysterious daily phone calls which she says are from her brother, and she seems very keen to move to Mumbai and reconcile with Dinshaw’s estranged brother Farokh (Boman Irani), their senile but extremely rich father Fardounjee (Honey Chhaya), and Farokh’s much younger “mail order” bride. Soon, at Katy’s insistence, Cyrus is acting as the ambassador between the two branches of the family. Through his eyes, we get a good look at just how deeply messed up these people are. And then it all goes horribly, gloriously wrong.

And I’m brought back to the difficulty of classifying the film. This is a dark movie about very flawed people who do some very bad things, but it has a curiously light touch. On the other hand, while there are funny moments, it’s not really a black comedy; the film doesn’t really laugh at its characters. Even Farokh’s tirade after having been bitten by a dog goes on just long enough to make it sad rather than funny.

Regardless of genre, though, Being Cyrus is a good movie. All of the leads put in very strong performances, including and especially Saif Ali Khan. It’s an achievement when the emotional heart of a film is a self-professed sociopath.

Indian Proposal

 The apparent moral of Judaai (1997) is “If someone offers to buy your spouse for twenty million rupees, say no.” I’m enough of a crazy optimist to believe that most people already know that. If they don’t, I doubt even Sridevi can convince them. No, the real moral of Judaai is “Before marriage, it’s best to do a little research.”

The film opens with the wedding of Raj (Anil Kapoor) and Kaajal (Sridevi). Kaajal’s father (Kader Khan) is thrilled with the match; Raj in an engineer, and should make good money, with plenty of extra income from bribes. He’s a little taken aback when he sees Raj refusing a very expensive wedding gift from a contractor because he does not intend to do business with the man, and Kaajal herself is disappointed when she arrives at her new marital home only to discover that there is no air conditioning, and not even a refrigerator.

Poor but honest is still honest, though, and Kaajal and Raj (and eventually their two children) settle into a reasonably happy life. Kaajal still longs for more material things, but it’s a Lucy Ricardo or Hyacinth Bucket sort of longing; she’s a bit pretentious, and sometimes she spends too much money or lies to the neighbors, but she loves Raj and he loves her and in the end they always make up.

Meanwhile, Kaajal’s Bollywood-obsessed brother Harilal (Johny Lever) provides another example of “look before you buy.” He hears a mysterious voice singing, and assumes that the singer is Vani (Upasna Singh), daughter of Raj and Kaajal’s landlord Hasmukhlal (Paresh Rawal). Hari has seen Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, so he assumes the role of the heroic suitor trying to win over his beloved’s stern father. While he’s no Amrish Puri, Hasmukhlal is in fact sort of intimidating; he dominates every conversation with a never ending stream of questions, and even has a question mark on his forehead like a low-rent Indian version of the Riddler. Hari brings home the bride, but it isn’t until the wedding night that he realizes that Vani has a severe case of Bollywood Mystery Disease, and the only thing she’s able to say is “Abba dabba jabbha.” (The entire subplot basically goes nowhere, but it’s worth mentioning because while the basic premise is stupid, Johny Lever is actually really funny in this movie.)

Raj works for Mr. Sinha (Saeed Jaffry). Sinha has a niece, Janhvi (Urmila Matondkar) returning from America. Since all of his drivers are out on other jobs, he sends Raj to the airport to collect her, and the pair immediately start arguing. Janhvi is intrigued, however, and soon decides that Raj is the man for her. Finding that he’s married really doesn’t deter her. As she sees it, Raj would hardly be the first man in India to take a second wife.

(A slight digression - Janhvi is terribly impressed upon seeing Raj refuse a lucrative job offer because, unlike the prospective employer, Sinha gave him a chance when he was just starting out, and he refuses to betray him. This is portrayed as a wonderful demonstration of loyalty, but it strikes me as arrogance more than anything. Raj has a family, money is definitely tight (they’re saving up to buy a small cassette player) and financial issues are a constant source of strain in his marriage. While ethics are important, there’s nothing wrong with finding a better job for the sake of your family, or at least asking your obviously very rich employer for a raise. Working exactly the job you want without caring about the money is a luxury best reserved for the single.)

Raj has no interest whatsoever in marrying another woman; despite the occasional arguments, he loves Kaajal. Janhvi refuses to give up, and so she approaches Kaajal at the temple and makes an indecent proposal. Kaajal will receive twenty million rupees if she convinces her husband to take Janhvi on as a co-wife. Kaajal is shocked and horrified, but then she keeps thinking about all she could do with the money. She had always wanted to put the children into a good, English, school, and they could move to a better house, buy a nice car instead of taking the bus everywhere . . . Her father thinks it’s a great idea, while her mother (Farida Jalal) tries to explain how insane the very notion is.

Kaajal makes her decision. When Raj refuses to even consider the idea, she goes on a hunger strike until he agrees. Finally he breaks down, she and Raj get a divorce, he is married to Janhvi, and they all teleport to Las Vegas for some very bad dancing before moving in together. What could possibly go wrong?

While he’s agreed to the marriage, Raj is sullen and wants nothing to do with Janhvi. Kaajal is so consumed by her new life as a wealthy woman that she has no time for anything else, though, while Janhvi transforms herself into the perfect submissive Indian wife. She wins over the children with what may well be the lamest joke ever written, and patiently sets out to woo Raj. He’s reluctant, but he finds himself more and more drawn to the woman who’s actually paying attention to him. Kaajal and Raj keep drifting farther apart, Janhvi and Raj keep drifting closer together, and then, finally, Kaajal realizes what she’s given up and decides she wants it back.

Judaai has a great cast. It is always nice to see Farida Jalal in action, and Johny Lever was (as previously mentioned) genuinely funny. Sridevi, meanwhile, is fantastic. The early portions of the film showcase her comic talents (when Janhvi approaches her at the temple, she hides behind a pillar with a strange little hop that was so funny I had to rewind and watch it again) and in the second half of the film she displays considerable dramatic depth.

On the other hand, the message of the film is a bit muddled. The idea is that Kaajal has done wrong and needs to purify herself through suffering. The characters in the film go to great lengths to point out that yes, Kaajal did ruin her own life, but it’s not until the very end of the movie that someone points out the simple fact that there were other people involved. The whole thing was Janhvi’s idea, after all, and if Raj had been more concerned about the welfare of his family than with his personal code of honor, the whole mess could have been avoided. Most importantly, Raj and Kaajal could have saved themselves a lot of grief by sitting down and talking for half an hour before marriage.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Writer/director Karan Johar is either becoming more of a cynic or more of a romantic, and I’m really not sure which. Either way, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) continues Johar’s examination of the boundaries of love. In Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the boundaries are self imposed; Rahul is a widower who believes one can only love (and marry) once, while Anjali is engaged to someone else. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the lovers have to cross boundaries of class and religion, and face familial opposition. In Kal Ho Naa Ho, Naina loves one man, and is forced by circumstances to marry another. KANK continues the theme of transgressive love by presenting star crossed lovers who are married to other people. In a Hollywood movie, this would be no big deal, but within the moral universe of Bollywood, it’s a daring move.

For rising soccer star Dev Saran (Shahrukh Khan), love is certainly not friendship. (This movie takes place in New York City, in that strange alternate dimension where Oxford University is in London, men’s soccer is a major US sport, and everybody is played by Shahrukh Khan.) He’s married to Rhea (Priety Zinta), an old friend from college, and the cracks in the relationship are already beginning to show; both are growing increasingly focused on their respective careers. Still, when he meets Maya (Rani Mukherjee), a reluctant bride wondering whether to go through with her own marriage to childhood friend Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan), he advises her to go ahead with it. He tells her that while she doesn’t really love Rishi, it’s better to marry now then wait for a love that she may not find, and that love won’t find her after marriage unless she goes looking for it. She’s convinced and goes inside to get married, while Dev is promptly hit by a car.

Four years later, Dev is a children’s soccer coach with a bad leg and a worse attitude. He’s the kind of coach who motivates his charges by shouting at them. He’s particularly nasty to his son Arjun (who plays soccer badly and really only wants to play the violin) but Dev is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone he meets. Rhea now runs a fashion magazine called Diva, and while she’s able to provide a very comfortable life for Dev, Arjun, and Dev’s mother Kamaljit (Kiron Kher), the disparity in incomes adds another layer of conflict to an already strained marriage.

The relationship between Maya and Rishi is also strained. He’s a bit of a slob, while she’s a neat freak bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder. More seriously, she doesn’t like him to touch her; naturally, Rishi is a bit frustrated.

Dev and Maya meet again by chance. I won’t get into details; the entire “Black Beast” subplot is goofy, and not in a good way. What’s important is that they meet, and make a bad impression. They cross paths again at a party Rishi’s publicity company is throwing for his father Sam (Amitabh Bachchan), and this time they realize that if nothing else, they share a dislike of big musical numbers. Fate keeps throwing them together, and they finally decide that they may as well become friends.

Thew evolving relationship between the two is handled very well. They really have a lot in common. (Maya is just as serious about keeping the world at arms length as Dev is, she’s just more polite about it.) Initially, the pair give each other advice with their respective marriages. None of their plans work out, and after a particularly unfortunate evening the pair meet up at a train station, and finally realize that they love each other. It’s a nice scene, featuring the most romantic line in the film: “I like blue.”

Dev and Maya drift into an emotional affair. Rhea and Rishi, meanwhile, rededicate themselves to making their marriages work. Unlike Dev and Maya their plans involve communicating with their spouses, so they meet with considerably more success. Both marriages suddenly have a fighting chance, but Dev and Maya start getting jealous, and so it is then and only then that they decide to sleep together. 

I like Karan Johar.He’s a very good writer, and has a fantastic ear for dialogue. KANK is no exception; the dialogue positively sparkles at times. (”I like blue,” indeed.) Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is an interesting examination of his usual films; I was particularly struck by the fact that in all his movies, the lovers need an outside push before they can be united. Production values are high. The cast does quite well with some very heavy material. Dev, in particular, is a far cry from Shahrukh’s usual persona.

The problem is that I like Shahrukh’s usual persona. I don’t like Dev. Most of the main characters in this movie are varying degrees of unpleasant; Kamaljit is a virtuous Bollywood mother, and while Sam is a bit of a lad he gives good advice and his heart is clearly in the right place, but the rest? I often end reviews by essentially saying, “This is a terrible movie, but I enjoyed it.” Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is the flipside of this; it’s a very good movie, probably, but I didn’t like it.

Live and let Don.

I can't really talk about Don 2 (2011) without spoiling the events of Don; even the title is sort of a spoiler.  So let's get the spoilers out of the way now.  In the last movie, Don (Shah Rukh Khan), the gangster who is too cool to bother with having a name, dies in police custody, but DCP De Silva (Boman Irani) recruits Vijay (also Khan), a kindly and sort of goofy street performer, to infiltrate Don's gang and discover the identity of Don's superiors, especially the mysterious Vardhaan.  When De Silva is killed, Vijay is left without support, and he teams up with fellow revenge-seeker-in-disguise Roma (Priyanka Chopra) to unmask Vardhaan, who was really De Silva all along and is not dead.

But De Silva is not the only character with a secret.  Vijay is really dead, and we've actually been following Don pretending to be Vijay pretending to be Don in order to infiltrate his own gang, which gives him the chance to rule the Tri-State Area!take over the Asian drug trade.  Don stays just long enough to flirttaunt with Roma one last time, and then he makes his escape.

 

Five years (and one movie) later, Don has mostly consolidated his control over the Asian drug trade, and more importantly, he has stopped wearing his ties on the inside of his shirt.  Don wants to move into the European market; the European market does not want Don to move in, so they arrange for an ambush.  Don shoots absolutely everybody and makes his escape again.

Meanwhile, Roma has gone to work for Interpol.  (That's movie Interpol, the one with the armed agents and law enforcement powers, not real Interpol.)  Her superior, Malik (Om Puri, also reprising his role from the first movie) has announced his retirement, and Roma is just trying to talk him out of it when they are interrupted by . . . Don?

Don wants to make a deal.  He offers to give up his entire syndicate and basically every criminal he's ever met, in exchange for every country in the world dropping all charges against him.  It's an intriguing offer, and there's no chance of anyone taking him up on it.  

 

Instead, Don is sent to prison.  The same prison which holds Vardhaan.  And that's just what Don wanted; he's there to break Vardhaan out of prison, because he needs his help to break into the Deutsche Zentral Bank in Berlin, because this was secretly a heist film all along!  Don and Vardhaan, along with Don's girl Friday Ayesha (Lara Dutta) and starstruck but basically good guy hacker Sameer (Kunal Kapoor) plan to steal the printing plates form the bank.  Roma and Malik are in hot pursuit, but she's mainly in Germany to give Don somebody to flirttaunt with. 

Don 2 is a movie that knows exactly what it is.  It's pure style over substance, but we are talking about an awful lot of style here.  There are cool spy gadgets (at one point Don uses a Mission Impossible-style mask to disguise himself as Hrithik Roshan), crazy car chases, visceral fight scenes, and slick song numbers, but the movie's greatest source of style is one Shah Rukh Khan.

 

And this is where Vijay being dead helps the movie, because you don't have the Good Shah Rukh character to root for.  There is only Don.  And Don isn't the villain protagonist because he's a better person than the people he's fighting.  Don is an awful person, but he's the villain protagonist because he's played by Shah Rukh Freaking Khan, making full use of his reserves of preternatural charisma.  He's like James Bond, but evil.  (Well, more evil.)

 

And like Bond, Don is still vulnerable, even without a sympathetic backstory.  At heart Don is an arrested adolescent, an eternal thirteen year old with access to money and guns and fast cars and beautiful women.  And that's why you cast Shah Rukh Khan for this sort of thing; mixing cool and goofy is what Shah Rukh does.  He gives the character of Don an extra dimension.  Granted, that's still only two dimensions, but it's one more dimension than I was expecting.