The sound of silence

Pushpaka Vimana (1987) isn't exactly a silent movie; there's sound, and sometimes that sound is important, but there isn't any dialogue.  Kamal Haasan plays an unemployed (and unnamed) educated young man who goes through life in the big city without much money.  Really, it's a series of incidents; he looks for a job, meets a pretty girl (Amala Akkineni) while window shopping, and struggles to get a turn in the communal bathroom.  It feels like a socially conscious episode of Mr. Bean, at least until the assassin shows up.

I should back up.  One night the young man (and I'm just going to call him Kamal from now on) stumbles across an unconscious drunken millionaire (Sameer Khakhar) who happens to have a key for room 3039 of the ultra fancy Hotel Pushpak.  And in a moment of madness, Kamal kidnaps him, ties him up and leaves him in his own dingy flat, then takes the key and goes to stay at the fancy hotel for a few days.

Suddenly Kamal has (somebody else's) money, a nice place to live, and a chance to see the girl from the shop again, since she's also staying at the hotel with her magician father (K. S. Ramesh) and doting and overprotective mother (Farida Jalal).  And he has a new problem, since someone has hired an assassin (Tinnu Anand) to kill the man in room 3039.

I know I joked about Mr. Bean earlier, but if Mr. Bean were to be menaced by a hired assassin, this would be the guy.  He's fussy, clumsy, and absolutely determined to make "killed with a knife made of ice" happen.  He's so determined, in fact, that he keeps an insulated thermos with an ice dagger with him at all times, even though he'd be better off just hitting Kamal with the thermos.

And once the assassin shows up, Kamal . . . continues to stumble from incident to incident, subjected to some combination of slapstick, pathos, and/or cringe comedy.  Valuable life lessons are occasionally learned, and the end result is interesting, sometimes compelling, but blooming hard to review.

Phir Bhi Dil Hai Bangistani

While most of the action in Bangistan (2015) takes place in Poland, the film begins in the fictional island nation of Bangistan, a land torn apart by violent conflict between the chilly and Muslim north and the warm and Hindu south and oh my goodness, you guys, I think there may be a hidden meaning here.  The two foremost religious leaders of Bangistan, the Shankaracharya (Shivkumar Subramanium) and the Imam (veteran Bollywood white guy Tom Alter) want to end the fighting, so they plan to make a joint statement at the International Peace Conference in Krakow.

This does not suit ambitious terrorist leader Abbaji (Kimud Mishra), who recruits hapless telemarketer Hafeez (Riteish Deshmukh) to disguise himself as a Hindu extremist and bomb the conference. Corrupt politician Guruji (also Kimud Mishra) is also not pleased, so he recruits struggling actor Praveen (Pulkit Samrat) to disguise himself as a Muslim and, well, bomb the conference.  Both young men are devout and devoted to their respective leaders, so after a pair of religious instruction training montages, they don their respective disguises and make their respective ways to Poland.

Once in Poland, the two coincidentally find themselves staying in the same boarding house, and they slowly become friends while immersing themselves in their assumed expatriate communities.  Of course, they're also preparing the bombs for their respective terror attacks, and both falling for apparently-Christian-but-actually-agnostic-which-is-a-minor-plot-point barmaid Rosie (Jaqueline Fernandez).  So as the appointed hour draws near, both would-be terrorists are feeling very conflicted.

This is not a subtle movie; there is a very definite message, and various characters clearly articulate that message over and over just in case there's someone in the audience who hasn't quite grasped it yet.  However, it's also a good message, and looking at the world today, I think it bears a little repetition.

This is also a really weird movie.  From the fictional island nation to Abbaji's men meeting at a chain restaurant called FcDonalds to the Russian arms dealer/potato farmer to Darth Vader being one of the religious leaders attending the conference, everything is . . . odd.  Bangistan is billed as a black comedy, but it's more surreal than funny.  The movie feels like a fairy tale, or better yet a fable, a feeling which is enhanced by a rich color palette which makes careful use of orange and green.

Bangistan was a box office disaster, making just over eight hundred thousand dollars worldwide, so I am fairly confident that this is one of the many movies that nobody likes but me.  But I do genuinely like it - it's got a timely message and an extra helping of weird.

Blarg.

I have been blessed with a jolly Christmas cold.  Reviews will resume when I'm good and ready.

And then, for no good reason, an item number.

I am famously* okay with formulaic movies, as long as the formula is well executed, and Arjun Patiala (2019) does not just execute the formula well, it embraces the formula, celebrates the formula, and helpfully points out the bits of formula you might have missed.  Instead of footnotes, we have a framing story/occasional Greek chorus, in which an ambitious writer narrates the plot of his script to his potential producer (Pankaj Tripathi.)  He promises that the script is a "hero centered" movie for men, featuring violence, action, male bonding, romance, and space for a gratuitous Sunny Leone cameo.  The full package, in other words.

The script is about Arjun Patalia (Diljit Dolsanjh) an honest cop who won his posting in a judo competition.  he quickly assembles a supporting cast, most notably including Onida Singh (Varun Sharma) the station's loyal and gleefully corrupt Chief Constable.  And after a brief flirtation with beauty parlor owner baby (Sunny Leone in a gratuitous cameo) he falls hard for spunky reporter Ritu Randhawa (Kirti Sanon.)  And, as an Indian protagonist, Arjun also has parents; a dotty father (Ritesh Shah) and doting mother (Nirmal Rishi, who doesn't get to wave a shotgun around this time.)

But what about the action?  Arjun's superior (and childhood idol) Amarjeet Singh Gill (Ronit Roy) has a dream: a crime-free district.  And Arjun has a crazy and ethically dubious plan: convince Ritu to give him a briefing  on the local criminals, then use that information to manipulate them into killing each other.  (The crime wave is presented like a tournament in a fighting game, with brackets and onscreen scores and quite a bit of cartoonish violence.)  Everything would be great, except that Ritu is beginning to suspect something, and someone is clearly pulling the strings.

Everything proceeds pretty much according to the formula, with the framing story used to provide commentary and some of the better jokes.  Some of the later plot twists are explained in "deleted scenes," and there's a literal checklist of songs.  But while the metacommentary is fun, in the end Arjun Patalia is a pretty formulaic action-comedy.  And I'm really okay with that.

(*I am not actually famous for anything.)

No, the other Himmatwala.

When you are watching a Bollywood movie from the eighties, you have a pretty good idea of what to expect.  The fight scenes will be big and ridiculous.  Any character played by Shakti Kapoor is not to be trusted.  Somebody's wicked father will be offered forgiveness that he hasn't really earned.  And the hero's sister is going to have a very bad time.  Himmatwala (1983) is a perfect example; it's not just a product of its era, it really helped to define it.

Ravi (Jeetendra) returns to his home village after qualifying as an engineer, only to discover that things have gone wrong in his absence.  His mother Savitri (Waheeda Rehman) and sister Padma (Swaroop Sampat) are both living in poverty on the edge of the village, and the wicked Sher Singh (Amjad Khan), his spoiled and sadistic daughter Rekha (Sridevi), and his equally wicked accountant Narayandas (Kader Khan) are ruling the village like feudal monarchs.  After Ravi's mother explains the history of the situation, much of which he was actually there for, Ravi decides to take action, and the first thing he does is convince Rekha to abandon her evil ways by showing her the consequences of her actions.  Soon, she's given up the leather catsuits in favor of demure saris, and is singing romantic songs with Ravi.

But it's not all righteous vengeance all the time; Ravi is actually there to work.  The government is building a dam in the area, and Ravi is the man in charge, which means among other things, he's the one in charge of deciding where the dam will be built.  That could mean opportunity for Sher Singh and Narayandas, but Ravi won't be intimidated, refuses to be bought, and is easily capable of beating up a dozen armed me, so have no leverage.  And then they discover that Padma is in love with Nrayandas's son Shakti (Shakti Kapoor.)

Like a lot of Bollywood movies of the era, Himmatwala keeps changing genre.  Sometimes it's a revenge melodrama, sometimes it's a romantic comedy, sometimes it's a hard-hitting social commentary on poverty in the villages, and for one brief moment it's a disaster movie.  That's fine; the rapid genre changes are in fact a thing that I like about Indian cinema, but it does make our villains seem incompetent, since by the time they get an evil scheme rolling it's suddenly a completely different movie.

Still, you don't watch an eighties movie for competently and consistently implemented evil schemes.  This movie has ludicrous fight scenes, bright and entertaining songs, a few moments of genuine drama, and Sridevi.  I got exactly what I paid for.

The lack of diamonds should have been my first clue.

Bank Chor (2017) is, as the title implies, a movie about a bank robber, Champak (Riteish Deshmukh), an ordinary man forced into a life of crime, and his two Delhi-born accomplices, Gulab (Bhuvan Arora) and Genda (Vikram Thapa).  They have a plan, a gun, and cunning disguises.  Unfortunately, they are also idiots, and things immediately spiral out of control, leaving them with twenty eight hostages (with varying degrees of wackiness), a media circus outside the bank lfeaturing beautiful rookie reporter Gayatri Ganguli (Rhea Chakraborty), and a police operation which has been taken over by CBI officer Amjad Khan (Vivek Oberoi), a man who likes to shoot first and ask questions later, questions which mostly involve more shooting.

And at this point I was left wondering what on Earth I could say about the movie; if you've seen one wacky crime farce, you've pretty much seen them all, so you may as well sit back and wait for the climactic chase scene.  But it turns out that Bank Chor is not a wacky crime farce, it's a gritty neo-noir crime drama involving a corrupt politician (Upendra Limaye) and an actual bank robber (Sahil Vaid) who is happy to kill everybody if it gets him what he wants.  Our heroes just happen to be in the wrong movie, still cracking jokes and bumbling around while the universe around them plays it completely straight.

And even after the big twist, I still don't have a whole lot to say about Bank Chor.  It plays fair; all the movie's twists, including the big one and the other big one, make sense based on what has come before.  It's a rare example of a successful cinematic bait and switch.

Just a hunk, a hunk of burning love.

Padmaavat (2018) opens with a disclaimer, and I shall do the same.  The movie's release met with a great deal of controversy, and I am not really going to touch on any of it; I am just an American guy who likes Indian movies, and I am not remotely qualified to comment on whether legendary and historical characters are being portrayed accurately and with respect or whether this is a suitable adaptation of an epic poem I have never read.  Instead, I'm just going to focus on the movie as a self-contained story.

The story begins with Alauddin (Ranveer Singh) and his rise to power.  To say Alauddin is ambitious would be an understatement; he claims that every beautiful thing in the world belongs to him, which is an attitude that will get him into trouble someday.  Still, he rises.  He captures an ostrich in order to marry Mehrunissa (Aditi Rao Hydari), the daughter of Jalaludin (Raza Murad.)  He helps Jalaludin win the throne of Delhi, gains great renown by successfully fighting off a Mongol invasion, then, with the help of loyal and cheerfully murderous slave Malik Kufar (Jim Sarbh), he murders his father-in-law and seizes the throne for himself. 

Meanwhile, Sinhalese princess Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) is doing princess stuff, which in her case mostly means living in the woods and being young and carefree and sure that nothing will ever change.  She's one cute animal sidekick short of being a Disney princess.  One day while hunting she accidentally shoots Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor), king of Mewar.  She nurses him back to health, then accompanies him home as his bride.  Everything is wonderful - until the happy couple catch Ratan's guru Raghav Chetan (who isn't credited in the IMDB) spying on them.  Padmavati insists that Raghav should be exiled, and so he is.  he swears revenge, but goes away.

In short order, Raghav makes his way to Delhi, where he arranges to be discovered by Alauddin.  He tells Alauddin of Padmavati's legendary beauty, convincing him that he is destined to rule the world, but only with her at his side.  Since Alauddin's philosophy is that every beautiful thing belongs to him anyway, he promptly takes his army to Mewar to claim his prize. 

Padmaavat sounds like a historical epic, and I suppose it is, but it plays out more like a fairy tale.  The princess is beautiful and noble and spirited and kind, the villain is consumed by greed and wickedness and dresses like heavy metal Dracula, and the handsome prince and his people are Movie Rajputs, pure of heart but completely dedicated to a rigid code of honor.  The movie even looks like a fairy tale, with the scenery ranging from pretty to stunning and otherworldly, while still remaining more grounded than the giant statues and impossible cliffs of Baahubali.

It also plays out as a tragedy, and I have mixed feelings about that.  I can follow the characters' reasoning and motivation, even though I don't agree with them.  I understand that there is cultural significance behind the final act of literal self-sacrifice, and the scene was shot and performed beautifully.  It was also a really jarring moment of culture shock for me.

Ultimately this is Ranveer Singh's movie.  The other leads are perfectly good and convincing as they stride toward their various noble fates that probably could have been avoided with a little forethought, but from his humble beginnings onward Alauddin is a terrible person, and Singh still manages to make him compelling and believable as he schemes and murders and fights and sneers and swoons and dances.  And when he dances, he really, really dances.