A Study in Black and White

 Byomkesh Bakshi is the best known detective hero from Bengali literature, and Satyajit Ray is a legendary director, considered by some to be one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.  So Chiriyakhana (1967), featuring Bakshi and directed by Ray, has to be good, right?

It starts with a song.  Wealthy businessman and retired judge Nishanath Sen (Sushil Majumber) overhears a melody that he remembers form a movie that he watched years ago.  He wants to know the name of the song, the movie it came from, and the actress and singer, and since Google hasn't been invented yet he turns to the famous detective Byomkesh Bakshi (Uttam Kumar).  Because the detective business has been slow, Bakshi and Ajit (Shailen Mukherjee) happily accept the job, and also accept Sen's invitation to visit his estate and meet the eccentrics and reformed criminals living there.

Bakshi visits a film expert and learns the details that Sen wanted.  Most importantly, he learns that the song was sung by the actress, Sunaina, who was accused of murdering the producer's son and vanished soon afterwards.  He visits Sen's estate disguised as a Japanese horticulturalist (for reasons) to report his findings, and learns Sen's true motive for contacting him: Sen suspects that Sunaina is living on his estate in disguise.  Byomkesh agrees to help.

That night, Sen calls Byomkesh to tell him that he;'s discovered something very important that he can't reveal over the phone, and Byomkesh should return to the estate as himself so he can tell him.  However, Sen is murdered by an unknown assailant before the end of the phone call.

The next day, the police call upon the famous detective Byomkesh Bakshi to help solve the murder of retired judge Nishanath Sen.  They don't know that Byomkesh knew Sen, let alone that he'd been to the estate before, so he has a little fun showing off his deductive skills by dramatically revealing things that he already knows, but soon he's hard at work trying to figure out which of the estate's residents is a killer, just in time for the second murder.

Some of the more recent Byomkesh Bakshi movies have embraced a mix of pulp and noir tropes, with Byomkesh engaging in daring chases and meeting sultry femmes fatale.  Not this time.  Byomkesh and Ajit drink coffee and discuss love and literature while sifting through clues.  It's as much Agatha Christie as it is Arthur Conan Doyle, though the movie does have some fun with the Holmes influences, as multiple characters point out that Byomkesh and his faithful biographer bear more than a passing resemblance to a certain famous detective duo.

The movie is smart, but maybe too slow and stylish; the opening scene, in which Byomkesh answers a wrong number while the camera pans around the room to showcase the objects he's picked up on his many adventures sets the pace, and it's not a terribly quick pace.  And I'm not sure the reveal of the killer's motives quite holds together.  While the movie might meander, though, it looks fantastic, and Uttam Kumar's performance was good enough to earn the first ever National Film Award for Best Actor.

Advanced Buntys and Bablis

 2005's Bunty Aur Babli is one of my favorite movies; it's a giddy romp about a pair of golden-hearted con artists, a movie beautifully painted in shades of pink, driven by a gorgeous soundtrack and a series of ferocious dance numbers, and given life through the chemistry shared by Abhishek Bachchan and rani Mukherjee.  Naturally, I was intrigued by the trailer for Bunty Aur Babli 2 (2021), which shows the original pair leaving their retirement in order to track down a new pair of scammers who have assumed the Bunty aur Babli identities.  It's a fantastic premise for a sequel, but of course everything depends on the execution.

Vimmi (Rani Mukherji, as she spells her name now) and Rakesh (Saif Ali Khan, replacing Abhishek Bachchan) are law-abiding citizens leading a comfortable, if boring, small town life.  Rakesh is a ticket collector for the railway, while Vimmi is a housewife and devoted mother to their spoiled son Pappu (Agrim Mittal).  Looking at them, nobody would suspect that they were once the infamous Bunty and Babli, a pair of con artists who trekked across India scamming the rich and giving to the poor.

And then Bunty and Babli are back in the news, scamming a group of sleazy businessmen and leaving behind their famous calling card.  Police inspector Jatayu Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) knows Rakesh and Vimmi's secret, so he arrests the pair, but while they are in jail Bunyu and Babli strike again.  Jatayu realizes that they are dealing with a new Bunty and Babli, so he blackmails Vimmi and Rakesh into helping him capture them, though he's secretly planning to arrest all four Buntys and Bablis when he gets the chance.

Vimmi in particular is eager to protect the brand, so she and Rakesh get to work.  And while the movie wants us to think that they're out of shape has-beens, they actually catch Kunal (Siddhant Chaturvedi) and Sonia (Sharvari Wagh), the new Bunty and Babli, in short order.  However, there isn't a lot of evidence and so Sonia and Kunal browbeat Jatayu into letting them go.  Rakesh and Vimmi figure out the next target and craft a plan to catch the new pair in the act, but Jatayu sidelines them at the last minute, and Sonia and Kunal get away with billions of rupees.  

Jatayu throws them off the case, despite the fact that he's the one who failed.  But now it's personal, and Rakesh and Vimmi decide to stop trying to act like the police, and instead tackle the problem as Bunty and Babli.  Cue training montage.

 

As good as the premise is, the actual movie is . . . flawed.  Part of the problem is that while the new Bunty and Babli are reasonably attractive and charming, we're not really given much reason to care about them.  In the original movie, Rakesh and Vimmi sang a whole song about their frustrated hopes and dreams before they even met.  We saw them try to do things the right way before drifting into scamming people, and we saw their relationship slowly develop.  Kunal and Sonia, on the other hand, arrive as a couple, already con artists, and we don't get much insight into their motivations until the every end of the movie, apart from the fact that Sonia is trying to raise money in order to launch an app she developed.

On the other hand, in the first movie, Vimmi and Rakesh were fun.  They spend much of the sequel as bickering, frustrated sad-sacks, even when they are doing much better police work than the actual police, and it takes far too long for them to get their groove back.  Some big dance numbers would help with the energy level, but there aren't any, at least until the closing credits.  We get jokes, but a lot of them fall flat.

Which is not to say that the movie is completely terrible.  The scams are fun. Rani Mukherji always has charm to spare, and I appreciate that Saif Ali Khan has embraced playing a middle aged guy lately.  But it's missing the drive and the heart of the original.  Bunty Aur Babli managed to capture lightning in a bottle, but the sequel is just trying to sell us the bottle.  Don't get me wrong, it's an okay bottle, but the lightning is missing.

No, really. It was in the preface to "Anna Karenina and the Terror of the Shooting Tsar."

 Leo Tolstoy once said that all superhero origins are alike, but every villain falls in his own way.  However, Tolstoy knows nothing about superheroes.  It's true that many superhero origin stories hit the same beats, but that's because they work.  A good story will take those familiar beats and make something that feels new, as Minnal Murali (2021) does.

Jaison (Tovino Thomas) seems like an unlikely candidate for superherodom.  He's a tailor in Kurukkanmoola, a village in small town Kerala, but he dreams of moving to the United States in order to earn enough money to win the hand of Bincy (Sneha Babu), daughter of the village's corrupt police Sub-Inspector Sajan (Baiju).  Bincy isn't willing to wait around, though, and becomes engaged to successful doofus Aneesh (Jude Anthany Joseph).  Jaison goes to her house to confront her while drunk and dressed as Santa Claus, and he's struck by lightning before Sajan can shoot him.

Meanwhile, tea shop employee Shibu (Guru Somasundaram) has spent most of his life pining after his childhood crush Usha (Shelley Kishore).  he's ecstatic when he learns that her marriage has collapsed and she and her young daughter are moving in with her brother Dasan (Harisree Asokan).  On a rainy Christmas Eve he paddles a boat out to catch a glimpse of Usha, and he's struck by lightning.

After a rough night, both men are fine.  Better than fine, really, because this is a superhero origin story.  Jaison learns that he's much faster and stronger, with superhuman hearing and perfect aim.  His nephew Josemon (Vasisht Umesh) explains the concept of superheroes to him, and they experiment with his powers.  Meanwhile he starts to get over Bincy, especially as he spends more time with "Bruce Lee" Biji (Femina George) a multiclassed travel agent/karate instructor who happens to be Aneesh's ex-girlfriend.

Shibu, meanwhile, gleefully experiments with his new telekinetic powers, and pointedly does not get over Usha.  He's as devoted as ever, despite her complete lack of interest, and uses his new abilities to terrify his boss after the man makes a crude pass at her.  

(Usha is an interesting character, because as written, she has very little agency, but that's the point; she has very little agency due to her situation.  She just wants to take care of her sick daughter, but she's practically besieged by unwanted suitors, all varying degrees of creepy, and she does not have any way to get them to leave her alone.  Of course, when Usha finally does get the chance to make a choice, it is a catastrophically bad one.)

When Jaison discovers that his adoptive father Varkey (P. Balachandran) was beaten by Sajan, he dons a disguise and crashes a school function in order to beat up basically the entire police force.  He signs his work, writing the name "Minnal Murali" on the wall before he vanishes.  On the same night, Shibu dons a much creepier disguise and robs the bank in order to pay for an operation for Usha's daughter.  The police and press believe that the bank robbery was also committed by Minnal Murali, and Shibu is happy to take advantage.  While Jaison is performing good deeds as Minnal Murali, Shibu is committing crimes while using the same identity.  

And then Usha makes her choice, and everything goes wrong.  Kerala gets an actual supervillain, and a true superhero must rise in order to stop him.

This is a superhero origin story, and it hits all of the expected beats.  The rural setting makes a difference, though, and that's not the only twist.  I don't think I've ever seen the hero and villain using the same identity before, for one thing.  And while Usha is very much trapped by circumstance, Biji has plenty of agency, never really winds up in the "hero's girlfriend" role, and is at least as important to saving the day in the final confrontation as Jaison is.  Ultimately, though, Minnal Murali is a good superhero story well told.

Hiatus.

 I am going on vacation, so no new reviews until January.  See you then!

Vikram and Ajju's Excellent Adventure, Expanded Edition

 This is an old review, but I am older and wiser and have more Bollywood experience than the first time I watched Fun2ssh . . . Dudes In the 10th Century; at the very least, I am better at taking screenshots.  Let's see what Me From the Past had to say.

I'd like to be under the sea.

As I write this, Sooryavanshi, the latest installment of Rohit Shetty's "Police Universe", is breaking all sorts of box office records in India.  It's not available anywhere near me yet, so instead I'm going to take a look at an earlier installment of the "Police Universe."  Little Singham: Samundar Ka Sikandar (2021) recounts the time when Singham, the unstoppable supercop played by Ajay Devgn, traveled to an undersea kingdom, rescued a mermaid princess, and fought a giant squid.  It's weird that he never mentions this stuff in the movies.

Of course, this isn't exactly Singham as played by Devgn; it's Little Singham, because apparently when he was a child Singham was already a police officer who fought demons and mutant animal hybrids.  (Frankly, the gangsters and terrorists he deals with as an adult are a bit of a step down.)  Why is Little Singham already a cop?  He just is, okay?  Apparently he maintains a secret identity, though it doesn't come up in this movie at all.  We do get to meet young Singham's annoying sidekicks, though: Chikki, who is a monkey, and Lattu, who is not a monkey.

Singham and a good portion of his supporting cast are on a cruise ship near Hawaii when the ship strikes a rock and begins to sink.  Little Singham springs into action and saves all of the passengers and crew, but the ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean and bounces off of a mysterious domed undersea city.

Meanwhile, under the sea, the monstrous Jalgohra, nephew of King Sagadeer, and Haivaan, aquatic villain with a magic staff that can create undersea storms, decide to join forces and conquer both the undersea world and the world above.  The shipwreck gives them a chance to try and capture Princess Laharika, who is sometimes a mermaid and sometimes a whale.  The whales of the ocean send out a distress call which Singham can understand for some reason, so he and Chikki and Lattu put on their advanced wetsuits and dive to the rescue.

Our heroes save the princess and she takes them into the undersea city, where outsiders are strictly forbidden.  She casts a quick spell transforming them into hybrid sea creatures, but it only lasts about five minutes or so and then they are discovered, captured, and brought before the king.  And that's when Jalgohra and Haaiwan strike and reveal their evil plan: they're going to release the monstrous octopus Vikraal, which will devastate the underseas kingdom and allow the villains to conquer under and above the waves.  After a quick fight in which Singham nearly defeats them despite his hands being tied, the villains kidnap the king, and Singham and friends set out on an epic quest to find the magic pearl and trident they must use to save the day.  

Well, I say epic; the movie is less than an hour long, so there's only so much adventuring they can fit in.  The plot moves at an incredible pace, and there's no time for inconsequential things like "character development" or "explaining why these people are in Hawaii in the first place." 

To be fair, I am very far from the target audience for this movie, and the children it is intended for have probably seen some of the many, many episodes of the Little Singham TV show rather than relying on what they know from the Ajay Devgn movies.  And not always knowing what is going on doesn't prevent me from appreciating the sensational character find of 2021, "Guard Who Looks and Sounds Like Kermit."

Breaking the cycle.

The reincarnation melodrama is one of the subgenres of Indian cinema that keeps coming back, over and over again.  They tend to bring back the same tropes and plot beats over and over again as well, so it's always interesting when a movie like Raabta (2017) tries to do something different, looking to the present rather than continually focusing on the past.

Shiv Kakkar (Sushant Singh Rajput) is a young banker who has just taken a job in Budapest.  He may have a sensible and boring job, but Shiv is handsome and charming, and he knows it, so he makes quite the impression on the local ladies.  One night, Shiv and his date stumble into a chocolate shop run by driven, somber and intense Saira (Kriti Sanon) and he quickly forgets all about his date.  Shiv and Saira feel an immediate and mutual attraction, and after a minimal amount of will they-won't they, they do.

Saira lost her parents in a car accident when she was very young, and she suffers from a fear of water and recurring nightmares of blood and chains and someone drowning.  When Shiv starts appearing in these nightmares, she's moderately freaked out.  But the relationship is going so well!  Maybe too well, since the relationship seems to be moving awfully quickly.

As  a test of their relationship, Shiv and Saira attend a party and each try to pick up other people, to see if they feel the same powerful attraction to anyone else.  (this is a terrible idea, but nobody in this movie thinks anything through.)  Shiv is quickly surrounded by a half dozen ladies, while Saira strikes up a flirtation with liquor mogul Zak (Jim Sarbh.)  Zak is rich, handsome, mysterious, and charming, everything Saira used to think she wanted, but she still goes home with Shiv.

Soon after, Shiv has to leave town for a  week and the pair decide that a week's separation is another chance to test their relationship.  While Shiv is gone, Zak pops up again and strikes up a conversation with Saira.  They take a walk in the rain, they have a nice dinner, they talk about life and Saira's dreams and how she feels really ready to make a commitment to Shiv . . . and then Zak drugs her and takes her to his secluded island lair, where he explains that they were lovers in a previous life and he's been searching for her in this one, shows her his wall of creepy Saira portraits, and tells her that dinner is at eight and he's already picked out her dress.

When she's alone, Saira tries to escape.  She's caught by Zak and his men, but falls into the ocean and slips in to a flashback to eight hundred years ago, when she was the warrior princess Saiba and Zak was her deeply smitten childhood friend and bodyguard Kaabir.  Saiba's people lived on a secluded island plateau, but were threatened by the ferocious Muraakis, led by the ancient, wise, and possibly wizardly Muwaqqit (an unrecognizable Rajkumar Rao under heavy makeup) and the deadly warrior Jilaan, Shiv's previous life.  In a surprise attack, Jilaan severely wounds Kaabir and devastates Saiba's armies, so she travels to the enemy camp in disguise hoping to eliminate Jilaan personally.  Instead, they wind up falling in love, and he agrees to spare her land in exchange for her hand.

A recovered Kaabir attempts to rescue Saiba, but she refuses to leave.  Kaabir won't take no for an answer, so he murders Jilaan and throws the body in the ocean.  Saiba drowns herself, and Kaabir slits his own throat, while Muwaqqit predicts that this will all happen again.

In the present, Saira drags herself onto the beach.  She approaches Zak and tells him that she remembers everything and does not want it all to happen again, so she'll agree to marry him if he promises to spare Shiv.  Zak agrees, but he's lying because he's deranged and obsessed, making it all the more likely that it will all happen again.  Meanwhile, Shiv returns from his trip and discovers that Saira is gone and the newspapers are reporting Zak's engagement, so it's time to crash a party.  (Action banker!)

There are a lot of reincarnation movies in Indian cinema, and many of them are not very good.  part of the problem is that they spend a lot of effort on making the past lives exciting, while the characters' present incarnations are dull cardboard cutouts.  Raabta tries to get around this problem by committing to both its genres, diving wholeheartedly into romantic comedy tropes during the present scenes and embracing fantasy-historical epic tropes for the scenes set in the past.  It succeeds as well as it does largely through the strength of Rajput's two distinct performances; Jilaan is an interesting, quirky warlord with two swords and a heart of gold, but Shiv is an interesting and engaging protagonist in his own right.

Perhaps most importantly, Shiv doesn't think he's less interesting than Jilaan; he's determined to save the woman he loves, but it's specifically because he loves her now, not because his past life used to love her.