We fight . . . with Jazz!

99 Songs (2019) does not actually contain ninety-nine songs.  It has fourteen songs, which is still a lot for a contemporary movie, and since the songs are all written by legendary composer A. R. Rahman, I am happy to round up.  And that's good, because the songs are really the main attraction here.

 

When we meet Jai (Ehan Bhat) he's about to graduate from college with a degree in music and technology.  Jai is good looking, talented, and haunted by the memory of his father (Diwakar Pundir), an angry man who blamed music for everything that's gone wrong in his life, and forbade Jai from having anything to do with it.  (You can see how well that worked.)  

 

Jai is in love with Sophie (Edilsy Vargas), a gifted artist, fashion designer, and dancer who cannot speak.  (Yes, Jai has a mute muse named Sophia, which is a bit on the nose, but it's that sort of movie.)  Her father Sanjay (Ranjit Barot) is rich, powerful, and incredibly smug.  Sanjay is initially impressed by Jai and offers him a job managing a new digital music platform, but Jai wants to make music rather than distribute it.  Sanjay doesn't want his daughter to depend on a struggling artist.  Jai insists that one song can change the world, leading Sanjay to ask, "Where's the song?"  The discussion ends with an old fashioned ordeal for Jai; he can't see Sophie again, let alone marry her, until he's written one hundred songs.

 

Jai agrees to Sanjay's terms, but when he tries to write he's immediately hit with writer's block.  His best friend Polo (Tenzing Dalha) takes him to Shillong, which helps, but eventually the writer's block returns.  Polo takes him to meet Sheela (Lisa Ray), the Jazz Queen of Shillong, and that really helps, but eventually things go horribly wrong, leaving Jai in an asylum run by a dedicated psychologist who doesn't seem to have a character name (Manisha Koirala).  

 

It is really hard to convey artistic brilliance in a movie, because somebody has got to create the painting or poem or song that all the characters are marveling at. Jai is supposed to be an incredibly gifted composer and he needs to produce one amazing song by the movie's end.  Fortunately, A. R. Rahman really is that good, and the music is fantastic.

 

That's just as well, because the actual plot is a bit thin.  This is a movie which has specific things to say about music and love and all that (literal) Jazz, and it does so by relentlessly following a set pattern of plot beats.  (Though I am happy that Sophie does get her own character arc, rather than merely serving as Jai's eventual reward.)  Everything is wrapped in a layer of metaphor and allegory but the end result is still almost too straightforward.  It's a gorgeous movie, though; the beautiful music is paired with beautiful cinematography.  It's an okay love story with amazing music.

The H stands for Hanuman

A western movie can be adapted for Indian audiences in several different ways.  Sometimes you get a relatively faithful remake, though the shift in cultural perspective always changes things.  Sometimes Indian filmmakers will take parts of one or more movies and remix them in different ways.  And sometimes you get a movie like Superman (1980), where the filmmakers start with a very obvious point of inspiration and then run screaming in a completely different direction.

Superman has had plenty of cinematic origin stories over the years, but this movie skips the usual doomed planet and desperate scientists, and instead rips off Batman.  Young Raja watches helplessly as his parents are murdered by a trio of bandits in cowboy hats.  The bandits murder the kindly temple priest on the way out, so Raja goes to live with the priest's widow and daughter, but he is determined to have justice, and after proving his devotion Hanuman appears and grants him superpowers. 

Years pass.  Raja (now played by NTR) is not a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, he's a part owner of a mica mine. He's devoted to his adopted mother (Pamndari Bai) and sister Lakshmi (Geeta), and divides his time between mine stuff, spending time with his family, wooing Jaya (Jaya Prada), the daughter of his business partner (Allu Ramalingaiah), and performing the occasional daring rescue; he is secretly Superman, after all.

Meanwhile, the three bandits who murdered Raja's parents have become successful crimelords.  When gold is discovered at the mica mine, they hatch a cunning plan to seize control, a plan which involves ordering their goons to dress up like ghosts and kill random villagers because that will help in some way?  Though to be fair they are also kidnapping people and forcing them to mine gold, which at least means that the bad guys get some gold.

Still, Superman is on the case, and he quickly realizes that he's dealing with his parents' killers.  he quickly eliminates Jai Singh (Tyagaraju) and his herd of brainwashed murder-elephants.  Sardar (Srilanka Manohar) and his death ray don't fare any better.  But the third bandit remains elusive, and Raja soon has other things to worry about.

Laxmi has been secretly canoodling with Mohan (Chakarapani), a boy from her college, and she has become pregnant.  Raja goes to meet the boy, and Mohan promises to speak to his millionaire father Dharma Rao (Kaikala Satyanarayana).  Rao agrees to the match, if Raja will give him his share of the mine as a dowry, and since it's a matter of his sister's prestige, Raja agrees.  However, when the papers are handed over minutes before the wedding ceremony, Rao takes his son and flees to Hong Kong, leaving Laxmi to face total social ruin.  (CLASSIC SUPERMAN ACTION!)

Raja has no choice but to follow him to Hong Kong, which is also sometimes Singapore, at least if the subtitles can be trusted.  What he doesn't know is that Rao is secretly Maharaj, the third bandit, and that Maharaj is plotting to kill him with he help of hotel manager Miss Lee (Jayamalini), who is also an evil witch.  (She's not secretly an evil witch; she's pretty open about using her spooky powers, and she wanders around in broad daylight in an evil sorceress outfit, complete with golden bat headdress.) And what they don't realize is that Raja is secretly Superman; it's easy to forget because he hasn't done any Superman stuff for a while.

This isn't the Superman I'm used to; he's bulletproof, moderately strong, and able to fly at a reasonable pace, but he won't be juggling planets any time soon.  And Raja is nothing like Clark Kent; they're both good guys, but Raja is a business owner and family man and anything but mild mannered, and his concerns are the concerns of a Tollywood hero from 1980.  He is, in other words, an appropriate Superman for his place and time.  The movie's ambitions have outstripped its effects budget, its rather baroque plot has outstripped the rather scanty concept, and the end result is a little silly, but Superman should be a little silly.

At last, the Imran Khantent you've been waiting for.

As Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (2011) opens, London-based businessman Luv Agnihorti (Ali Zafar) is breaking up with his long-time girlfriend Piali Patel (Tara D'Souza).  It's a mistake and they both know it, but as the fight drags on they can't stop saying terrible things to one another.  When Piali leaves, Luv decides that he's done with romance.  He just wants to get married, and so he calls his younger brother Kush (Imran Khan) in Mumbai and asks him to arrange a match.  

 

Kush is a photographer and an assistant director for Bollywood movies.  (This will be important later.)  He's also a spectacularly decent guy and is devoted to his brother, so after a quick musical number he subjects himself to a montage of comically unsuitable potential brides.  Frustrated, Kush changes his tactic, using his photography skills to put together a slick and filmi matrimonial ad, which leads to . . . more unsuitable potential brides.

And then Kush gets a call from retired bureaucrat Dilip Dixit (Kanwaljit Singh).  Dixit has a daughter, Dimple, who is of marriageable age, is educated, and grew up in London.  The families meet, and Kush is shocked to discover that Dimple is "D" (Katrina Kaif),  a woman he met in college when she staged an illegal concert in front of the Taj Mahal.  Dimple is just as blunt and strong-willed and free-spirited as Kush remembers, but she's ready for marriage.  Kush likes her, the families like each other, and (perhaps most importantly) Dimple's beloved autistic brother Ajju (Arfeen Khan) approves of the match, so after a quick video chat with Luv, the wedding is officially on.

 

This is a romantic comedy, not an "Arranged Marriage is Great" comedy, so there's trouble ahead.  Dimple and Kush spend a lot of time together while preparing for the wedding, and kuch kuch hota hai - they develop feelings for each other.  Dimple tries to talk to Kush about it, but he can't admit the truth to himself, let alone to Dimple, until after the engagement ceremony, at which point they are stuck.  Dimple wants to elope, but Kush isn't willing to hurt their families.  She tries kidnapping him, but it doesn't go well.

 

  However, when all you have is a Bollywood assistant director, every problem starts to look like a Bollywood plot.  Kush and Dimple and Ajju (because, as he explains, Dimple doesn't keep secrets from him) come up with a complicated scheme to make everybody happy, starting with a phone cal to Luv's ex, Piali.

 

A good romantic comedy is like an episode of Columbo; everybody knows the lovers are going to wind up together, but you watch because you want to see how it happens.  Complicated schemes are not unusual, but what makes Mere Brother Ki Dulhan so much fun is Kush's dogged determination to make sure absolutely everybody gets what they really want.  Just this once, everybody lives happily ever after.

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.