Spy Month: Ek Tha Tiger

Tiger, the titular hero of Ek Tha Tiger (2012), is a spy in the James Bond mold, by which I mean that he's not very good at his job.  Everywhere he goes, people seem to know who he is, and he winds up solving most of his problems with violence.  (And, to be fair, a bit of parkour.)  he's not a straight up Bond clone, though, because Bond is suave and cynical, while Tiger is a good-hearted doofus with basically no idea of how to talk to women.  Fortunately, this is a shadowy world of espionage in which practically everyone is bad at their job.

After an action packed cold open set in Iraq, in which Tiger is forced to hunt down a former colleague at RAW who sold out his country for money, Tiger is in a reflective mood.  His boss Shenoy (Girish Karnad) offers him some time off, but Tiger doesn't really have a life outside of work, so he's eager to return to the field.  While waiting for Tiger's next assignment, Shenoy joins him for a bit of dinner and foreshadowing, with the older man opening up about the woman he loved and lost when he was younger, and the regret he feels every day about choosing duty over love.

Tiger's next assignment is to travel to Dublin and keep an eye on eccentric rocket scientist Kidwai (Roshan Seth), a man whose research forms a vital part of India's missile defense system.  Rumors have been flying about Pakistani agents getting close to the professor, so Tiger has been dispatched to observe only, with strict orders not to kill anyone.  This is not a mission that plays well to Tiger's strengths, and he has been given almost no support apart from fellow agent Gopi (Ranvir Shorey), there to watch his back.

Tiger poses as a writer, and completely fails to make friendly contact with Kidwai.  Fortunately, he does manage to make an impression on Zoya (Katrina Kaif), a dance student from London who is working part time as Kidwai's housekeeper.  Tiger needs to get closer to Zoya in order to get closer to Kidwai, but he finds himself developing feelings for her, and is somewhat hampered by the aforementioned "no idea of how to talk to women" thing.  Fortunately, she seems to like him, too.

And at this point, you've probably figured out what's going on.  Tiger hasn't, because he's bad at his job.  He continues acting like a romantic comedy protagonist, with occasional breaks to chase an ISI agent through the streets of Dublin and to prevent a tram crash.  (It was a busy day.)

Tiger learns of a break in at Kidwai's house and rushes to the scene, only to discover that Zoya has been an ISI agent all along.  He confronts her and . . . confesses his love, because Tiger is going to Tiger.  Zoya says that she was just doing her job, there's a gunshot, and we cut to Tiger back in Delhi being commended for eliminating the Pakistani agent.

But of course Zoya is fine, and it turns out she's been inserting secret messages for Tiger in ISI communications, messages which lead him to a diplomatic conference in Istanbul.  They meet, Tiger confesses his love again, Zoya admits that she loves him as well, and after some angst, they decide to run away together, donning terrible disguises and directing their respective intelligence agencies to Kazakhstan while the couple flees to Havana.

And everything is great and charming and romantic until a group of thugs try to mug the couple and they're caught on CCTV.  Suddenly they're wanted by the local police and Havana is swarming with ISI and RAW agents.  The only way out is through a series of increasingly frenetic action scenes.  Will Tiger and Zoya escape?  Well, there's a sequel, so my money's on yes.

There have been a lot of Bollywood Bond knockoffs over the years, including the inimitable Mithun Chakraborty as Gunmaster G-9, and Ek Tha Tiger follows the outlines of a Bond plot pretty closely, opening with an unrelated action sequence and then visiting three international cities in sequence to provide the backdrop for more action scenes.  However, there are some significant differences, even beyond Salman's earnest persona.  Most significantly, there's no villain.  Or perhaps the true villain is the ongoing tension between Pakistan and India.  Either way, the stake sin the movie are entirely personal, and Love Versus Duty is presented as an actual choice with consequences, rather than a foregone conclusion.  

The other big difference is Zoya.  Tiger's name is in the title, and everything through Dublin is locked to his perspective, but once Tiger and Zoya become an actual couple she steps up and becomes the co-protagonist rather than fading back into damsel in distress status.  And unlike a lot of Bond girls, at the end of the movie Zoya is very much alive, a fact which will be important later.

The spy who fooled me.

 I'm declaring April to be Spy Month here at the Gorilla's Lament.  What does April have to do with spies?  No idea, but it's Spy Month nonetheless.  No foolin'.

Take a look. It's in a book.

 Chashme Bahaddar (2006) is not exactly a superhero movie.  It's certainly not a big budget Bollywood special effects extravaganza, it's a goody low budget Marathi comedy, and the biggest name in the cast is probably Johny Lever.  Still, it's a movie with a fantastic premise (in more ways than one) and it turns out you can get a lot of ridiculous out of a limited budget.

Rajaram Dhappne (Sanjay Narvekar) is an assistant librarian at a small Mumbai library.  That may sound glamorous, but he's actually kind of a nebbish, more interested in reading books than in engaging with the world around him.  His wife Neelima (Deepali Saiyyed) and son don't really respect him, his boss (Johny Lever) is constantly berating him, and the neighbors treat him as something of a joke.  Raja is the kind of man that winds up getting beaten on the street by an angry mob because they assumed that he was harassing his own wife.

It gets worse, though.  Raja's neighborhood has been targeted by Dholakia (Shrirang Godbhole), a corrupt developer who plans to level the area and build a fancy tower in its place.  (Well, that's what the subtitles say; I'm not sure if he's actually planning to build an apartment block or a fancy luxury hotel.)  Dholakia has recruited gangster Dolya (Deepak Shirke) and his incompetent but violent gang to clear the neighborhood.  

The only thing standing in Dolya's way is a complaint filed at the police department and signed by Raja.  Or signed by someone claiming to be Raja - Raja certainly didn't file any police report.  Dolya gives orders to kidnap Raja and "persuade" him to drop the report, so Raja tries to be careful, but all the hiding under the bed he's doing isn't impressing his family.

And then help comes in a box, inherited from Raja's deceased grandfather.  The box contains a statue of the grandfather, a fancy pair of glasses, and a friendly ghost, who explains how the glasses work.  Anyone wearing the glasses and reading the book will be possessed by the spirit of the main character, because apparently fictional characters explicitly have spirits in this universe, but that's not important right now.  There are limits, the most serious one being that the reader will be that character while the possession lasts, knowing only what the character knows and pursuing the character's agenda.  The possession lasts until the character notices two crossed lines, whether that be an actual cross, crossed arms, or the straps on a blouse.

Having been granted this amazing power, Raja sort of mucks about for a bit.  He becomes Arjun and interrupts a wedding of a woman who happens to be named Draupadi and is in the process of carrying away the enthusiastic bride when he reverts to Raja.  As Father De Silva, he convinces the men of the neighborhood to give up drinking and accidentally shakes down the local bar owner (Rajpal Yadav), then he transforms into a drunkard and takes them all out to the same bar.  

Along the way Raja manages to accidentally win the respect of his neighbors and especially his family, while putting the fear of God (or rather Arjun) into the gang members.  Which means that when the situation turns serious, everyone looks to Raja to save them.  The gangsters attack right after Holi, because this movie is deliberately riffing on Sholay at this point, and Raja is ready, with a fairly ridiculous plan that fails almost immediately, leaving Raja to face the villains as himself.

Chashme Bahaddar is definitely playing to its budget.  The special effects are . . . unambitious, the incidental music is largely lifted from Western movies (notably Jurassic Park), and the comedy is broad, because the filmmakers could not afford subtlety.  And that's fine.  This is a lightweight silly comedy, but it's a fun lightweight silly comedy.

If the movie has an actual flaw, it's the pacing.  Raja does a lot of meandering before the plot actually picks up; the Father De Silva sequence in particular goes on for a bit too long, and he subsequent "funny drunk" sequence that follows could be dropped entirely.  It's just an excuse for an item number, and there are other ways to justify pretty ladies dancing.  

 

Despite the sequel hunting ending, there's not going to be a Chashme Bahaddar Cinematic Universe-it's an insubstantial bit of fluff, and no better than it ought to be.  But it is as good as it ought to be.

I asked an AI to write a review of Anjaam. The results will shock you.

Write a blog post about the Bollywood movie Anjaam, starring Shah Rukh Khan



Anjaam, directed by Rahul Rawail, is a Bollywood movie that was released in 1994. The movie stars Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, and Deepak Tijori in lead roles. The film tells the story of a successful businessman, Vijay Agnihotri (played by Shah Rukh Khan), who is pursued by a vengeful woman, Shivani Chopra (played by Madhuri Dixit), after a chance encounter leads to a fatal accident.


The film begins with Vijay Agnihotri, a wealthy businessman who seems to have everything, including a beautiful wife, Priya (played by Tinnu Anand), and a loving mother. However, his life takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills a woman while driving under the influence of alcohol. The woman is Shivani Chopra's sister, and she vows to take revenge on Vijay for her sister's death.


Shivani's quest for revenge leads her to stalk and torment Vijay, and as the movie progresses, she becomes more and more unhinged. She resorts to kidnapping Vijay's mother, blackmailing him into marrying her, and even attempts to kill him.


Anjaam is a dark and intense movie that explores themes of obsession, revenge, and the consequences of one's actions. The film features some excellent performances from its lead actors, particularly Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit, who bring a level of intensity and complexity to their characters.


The movie also features some memorable songs, including the popular number "Channe Ke Khet Mein," which features Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit dancing in a colorful and vibrant setting.


Overall, Anjaam is a gripping and emotional movie that showcases the talent of its director and cast. It is a must-watch for anyone who enjoys intense dramas and powerful performances. If you are a fan of Shah Rukh Khan or Madhuri Dixit, this movie is a must-see.

I have only one question about this review:  did Vijay Agnihotri write this?  Because yes, he does run over and kill Shivani's sister (and daughter!), and yes, she does ultimately exact a brutal and almost Shakespearean revenge, but the AI kind of glosses over the fact that Vijay is an obsessive and violent stalker who has spent years ruining the life of the woman who dared reject him, a campaign which included murdering Shivani's husband before her eyes and sending her to prison for a crime which she did not commit and which did not in fact happen.

Anjaam is one of Shah Rukh's early, negative roles, forming a kind of Stalker Trilogy with Baazigar and Darr.  It's probably the least well regarded on the three, perhaps because the movie practically wallows in Shivani's misery, so that by the time she actually manages to take revenge, the viewer is just exhausted.

Vijay's pretty wife Priya seems to have been completely invented by the AI, and while Tinnu Anand is one of my favorite supporting actors, he would not have been my first choice to play a beautiful wife.

Chatbots lie, and they do so cheerfully and without remorse.  I am not surprised that the AI was this wrong about the movie, though I am a bit surprised and horrified that it was wrong in this particular way.  Anjaam is not an obscure movie, and the AI knew who the characters were, so I don't see why it reversed the victim and attacker so thoroughly. The clear lesson here is think carefully before allowing chatbots to write your movie reviews.

Also, think carefully before watching Anjaam.  It will not make you happy.

I'm not dead yet.

 The blog hasn't gone away, I just have relatives visiting at the moment.  New reviews will resume soonish.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

 I am perhaps America's only unironic Johny Lever fan.  I get why a lot of Bollywood fans don't like him; the man has built his career on incredibly broad comic relief and frenetic impressions, and his acting range goes from chewing the scenery to nibbling on the camera lens, but he's really good at incredibly broad comic relief.  In a movie like Cirkus (2022), in which everybody is overacting at the same level, you get a sense of just how good Lever is at being Johny Lever.

The movie starts with Doctor Roy Jamnadas (Murali Sharma) expounding on his theories of nature versus nurture.  Roy is strongly Team Nurture, perhaps influenced by his own upbringing in Jamnadas Orphanage, which he now runs with his adopted brother Joy (Uday Tikekar).  When two pairs of twins arrive at the orphanage, Roy sees a chance to demonstrate his theories, and so he swaps babies, placing one twin from each pair in a set.  Both sets of twins are adopted, one by a well-to-do couple in Bangalore, and one by a couple who run a circus in Ooty.  Both sets of grateful adoptive parents decide to name their children Roy and Joy, after the people who made this adoption possible.

Doctor Roy keeps close tabs on both sets of Roys and Joys as they are growing up.  His plan is to reveal the truth to them when they turn thirty, finally proving to the world at large that it is upbringing rather than blood which shapes personality, a fact which has been amply demonstrated by countless adoptive children throughout the history of the world.  This is, of course, enormously unethical and will cause a lot of damage over the years to these hapless kids, and the movie never really calls him out on it.

The Roy and Joy in Ooty grow up as brothers in the circus.  As a child, Roy demonstrates a strange power - he can grab electric wires without being shocked.  After the death of their parents, the brothers grow up and run the circus, with Roy (Ranveer Singh) billing himself as the Electric man, while Joy (Varun Sharma) has a high wire act.  Despite the show business career, Roy is a confident and mature man, married to Mala (Pooja Hegde), who writes mystery novels under the name of "Colonel Vikrant."  The couple's one point of conflict is that Mala wants to adopt a child, but Roy is reluctant; he doesn't know that he's adopted, and believes that only a child of his own blood will be dedicated enough to take over the circus.

The other Roy and Joy, meanwhile, grew up to lead a life of privilege, watched over by their adoptive mother Shakuntala Devi (Ashwini Kalsekar).  Roy suffers from a mysterious ailment that causes him to receive electric shocks at seemingly random times, leading to him shocking the people around him in inconvenient and comic ways.  He's also naturally a bit suspicious, largely because he spends much of his time reading the mystery novels written by Colonel Vikrant.  Roy wants to marry the beautiful Bindu (Jaqueline Fernandez), but her father (Sanjay Mishra) is certain that he's seen Roy with another woman in Ooty.

When the Roy and Joy from Bangalore travel to Ooty to close a deal for a tea plantation, it leads to a comedy of errors.  Actually, it leads to The Comedy of Errors, since the plot is lifted almost directly from Shakespeare's play.  While Roy and Joy and Joy and Roy are getting their Shakespeare on, Doctor Roy follows from a distance and doesn't do anything to help, and both sets of brothers are bothered by a trio of incompetent gangsters led by Momo (Siddhartha Jadhav), who has magnificent hair and is doing his best Johny Lever impression.  Momo is working for the crimelord Poison Dada, who also has magnificent hair and is played by actual Johny Lever.

Cirkus is set in the sixties, largely because it's secretly a prequel to director Rohit Shetty's Golmaal Again, which is doubly weird because the Golmaal series has no continuity between films beyond character names and supporting cast, and now suddenly we've got a Jamhadar Orphanage Cinematic Universe.   

In any case, Cirkus takes full advantage of its time period.  The movie is a deliberate throwback to the comedies of the era, and lifts a lot of the incidental music from those movies.  The costumes are wonderful, and while it's not really a period thing, the scenery in Ooty is spectacular.  This may be a broadly comic bit of fluff, but it's a gorgeous broadly comic bit of fluff.

It's still a bit of fluff, though.  Johny Lever is the best at being Johny Lever, but everybody does their best, and Pooja Hegde manages to sneak in a bit of genuine acting when nobody is paying attention.  I would say that it's hardly Shakespeare, but it is absolutely Shakespeare.  Very much so.

Jaanemonth - Veer-Zaara

 It's common in Indian cinema for the titles of historical romances to be the names of the lead characters, without any pesky ampersands.  Examples include Bajirao Mastani, Jodhaa Akbar, and of course Veer-Zaara (2004), a movie set in the glamorous and distant past of 1982.

Prisoner 786 (Shah Rukh Khan) is an Indian man who has been confined to a prison in Pakistan for the last twenty two years.  Officially, his name is Rajesh Rathore, and shortly after being arrested, he signed a full confession and hasn't spoken a single word since.  Getting Prisoner 786 his freedom is the first case for newly minted lawyer Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukherjee), and it already looks hopeless.  However, Saamiya does have one advantage: she knows that Prisoner 786 is really named Veer Pratap Singh.

After hearing his own name spoken after so long, Veer starts to speak.  First he talks about planes, and  his days as a rescue pilot for the Indian Air Force.  But Saamiya wants to hear the story of how Veer wound up in prison, and to tell that story, he has to start with Zaara.

Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta) is the daughter of the wealthy and respected Jehangir Haayat Khan (Boman Irani.)  She is young and carefree and convinced that nothing will ever change her, and she sings a song to that effect.  And then things start to change.  Her beloved governess Zahida (Zohra Sehgal) dies, and her last request is that Zaara take her ashes to Punjab and immerse them in the Sutlej River.  Zaara can't refuse, and she sneaks off to India, leaving her maid/sidekick Shabbo (Divya Dutta) to cover for her.

In India, Zaara's bus crashes, and she's rescued by handsome Indian Air Force rescue pilot Veer Pratap Singh.  She drops her bag during the rescue and insists on retrieving it; after they've made it to safety, Veer scolds her and stomps off.  That's not the end of the story, though; she bumps into him later, apologizes and explains that her bag contains Zahida's ashes, and Veer decides to help her on her journey so that he won't have to spend his life wondering what happened to that Pakistani girl.

After further delay and misadventure, Zaara succeeds in performing last rites for Zahida.  She asks Veer how she can ever repay him for his help, and he asks her for another day.  He takes her to his home village, introduces her to his aunt Saraswati (Hema Malini) and uncle Choudhary (Amitabh Bachchan), they celebrate Lohri, and everybody has a wonderful time and grows much closer.  It is really obvious to Choudhary that Veer loves Zaara, and he urges the younger man to confess his feelings before it's too late.

The next day, it's time for Zaara to return home to Pakistan.  Veer takes her to the train station, but before he can confess his love, they are met by Zaara's fiance, Raza (manoj Bajpal) and she quickly explains that her marriage has already been arranged.  Veer confesses his love anyway, but makes it absolutely clear that he doesn't intend to interfere with her wedding, and he goes away.

Of course Zaara loves Veer as well, and after she returns home she starts feeling his presence everywhere she looks; once again, there's a whole song about it. Shabbo can't stand to see her falling apart like this,. so she quietly contacts Veer.  He promptly leaves the Air Force (since an active officer can't visit Pakistan), crosses the border, and appears at one of the pre-wedding ceremonies.  Zaara runs to embrace him, while her husband collapses from shock.  Normally, that would be the end of the movie, but Veer-Zaara is three hours long, and there's a lot of crying still to come.

Zaara's mother Mariyam (Kirron Kher) approaches Veer and asks him to leave in order to save her husband's life (and political career, but she doesn't dwell on that.)  Veer is a noble soul, and agrees.  He talks to Zaara, and they decide to go their separate ways, live the best lives possible, and just keep loving one another hopelessly forever.  

They part, but when Veer boards the bus to take him back to India, he's arrested as a spy and dragged off to jail.  There Raza shows up to gloat, and tells Veeer that if Veer signs the confession, he'll ensure that Zaara has a blissfully happy life, but if Veer doesn't sign, he'll do everything possible to make her life hell.

Veer signs without hesitation, and becomes Prisoner 786.  The bus he was supposed to be on drives off a cliff, leaving no survivors, so as far as the world knows, Veer Pratap Singh no longer exists.  In the present Saamiya tries to convince Veer to let her get Zaara to testify, but he is a man of his word and won't do anything to risk her happiness.  Saamiya knows the case is probably lost without Zaara, but Veer is stubborn, so instead she travels to India, hoping to find someone from his village who can identify him.  She is not prepared for what she finds there.

Raza is terrible, but the real villain of Veer-Zaara is . . . okay, the real villain is still Raza.  He's the absolute worst, and he stands out even more because nearly all the other characters are so nice.  But the other real villain of Veer-Zaara is the border itself; one of the key themes of the film is that the only thing that really separates Pakistan's Punjab from India's Punjab is the border itself.  The land looks the same on both sides of the border, and the people share a culture and values, but that line on the map is enough to let Raza destroy a man's life out of spite.

One of the advertising taglines for Veer-Zaara was "A New Love Legend," and the film is definitely pitched as "grand, sweeping romantic drama."  It mostly succeeds, do ion large part to the cast; Shah Rukh is in his element here, showcasing goofy charm and teary nobility.  Preity made her name as the bubbly carefree love interest, and Zaara gives her the chance to transition form that to very much not that.  And Rani Mukherji is here to show sincerity and marvel at the noble spirits of the star-crossed lovers, and she sells sincere marveling completely.

That's not to say the movie is perfect. The script is suitably epic, but some of the plotting gets a bit muddled; the biggest unexplained plot hole is just how Saamiya knew Veer's name in the first place.  Also, the old age makeup used for present day Veer and Zaara is a bit distracting, especially since both characters are in their mid-forties at most.  But these are tiny issues.  Veer-Zaara promises grand romance, and it keeps its promises.