Complete Screenplay of Good Night Good Morning: Download

Please pass this on to your friends in Hyderabad.

Genre: Comedy

Director: Abbas-Mustan

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Bobby Deol, Sikander Kher, Omi Vaidya

Storyline: A heist goes wrong and the team leader must rob the betrayer.

Bottomline: A spoof is one way to remake The Italian Job.

Critics seem to underestimate the genius of Abbas-Mustan or even Farhan Akhtar who came out with a similar film a fortnight ago. Decades from now, they will be hailed as the founding fathers of the Bollywood New Wave and be spoken in the same breath as Orson Welles or Godard. *Ahem Ahem* *Chokes*

Don 2 and Players mark the birth and perfection of a form that has been in the making over the past decade with unpolished gems like Race, Prince or Mission Istaanbul getting most of these elements right.

Bollywood’s New Wave is not just modern or postmodern cinema, it is a meta-psychological gratification of the inner subconscious of today’s generation of viewers. A generation for whom the most important aspect of pop-culture is entertainment that is reactive and borne out of an existential need to let out steam by one driving desire: to make fun of people.

To put it simply, the viewer gets maximum entertainment when he is able to participate in manufacturing it. So if he can make snide remarks or tweet about how bad it was, he feels happy and entertained. Director duo Abbas-Mustan and Farhan Akhar have broken the wall that has separated the creators and the consumers of cinema by letting the audience in on the joke they are telling us.

Here’s how Abbas-Mustan pulled it off.

1. The Usual Suspects: Who are the guys the audience makes fun of the most? Star kids. Line them up. Abhishek Bachchan is made fun of for his rapstar image, for having a Bluetooth set stuck up his ear and showing up in his Dhoom costume no matter what film he is in. Make him do all of that. Sign up Sikander Kher for the acting powerhouse that he is, Sonam Kapoor for her fashion sense (you can always make her wear leopard print leggings), Bobby Deol… Just put him in, we will figure out the joke later. And one more actor who needs to be a mole but with a huge mole on his face so that the audience can identify him right from the start… Maybe that Johnny Gaddar boy. Gee, what’s he going to do in this movie?

2. The Originality Debate: Every time we make a movie, the audience and the critics make a big deal about plagiarism. Abeyaar, what it is to you? Ok, fine, we bought the rights, happy? But for the money we paid, we will remake both Italian Jobs in the same movie even if we just paid for one and set it everywhere but Italy. We will do unmentionable things to it right in front of your eyes and you can’t complain we stole a film. Players becomes that rare film with near identical first and second halves because you are watching the exact same film twice.

3. The Predictablity Predicament: The idea is to turn everything meta. The actors are part of the joke (they are not going to complain even if you call one of them Spider) and then make him stay in a Bat, no… Spider-Cave. To mess with the audience’s perception of the predictable, you make the characters so inconsistent – one minute they are in the good team and the other they are bad. Every time you make them change teams, you bring about a twist. Since this is a meta-movie, make the hero spell it out before unraveling it: “The final twist always belongs to the hero”.

4. Sex and Sexuality: A good meta-movie raises the right questions through the right players. Like a Russian military officer tells Bipasha when she wants to break into a song instead of getting straight to the action, “Why do Indians always sing when you feel horny?”

5. Movies as heist: The structure of storytelling of this post-postmodern form is simply this: We, the creators, will come up with the first line and you, the audience, will complete the joke. You are happy because you get to make a joke and we are happy because you paid for the ticket. You laugh your way by trending on Twitter and we laugh our way to the bank. A perfect robbery.

Okay, before they print this on their DVD to con more people, here’s the disclaimer: The movie entertains a lot but not the way it wants to. Go only if you want to make fun of it. Else, go for Gold or at least cash. But make sure you get one of the two.

(This review originally appeared here.)

1. Ra.One:

2. Singham:

3. Don 2:

4. Force:

5. Yeh Saali Zindagi

6. Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge:

7. Yamla Pagla Deewana:

8. Shaitan:

9. Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap:

10. Dum Maro Dum:

One of the most underrated suspense films of the year, Dum Maro Dum may not have had the best casting (Read: Rana Dagubatti in a role that required a much more solid actor) and was rather inconsistent with its mood. Moments within you feel sorry for a man who has lost his wife, he turns into this rapstar dude singing to the camera, we never take the film seriously after that but it has some really cheeky pop culture references to make Sergio Leone smile.

Five that almost made it:

Speedy Singhs, Chillar Party, Chalo Dilli, Bodyguard, Not a Love Story

Five Films that were so bad that were good:

Chitkabrey: Laugh riot. Boobies plus bad acting guarantees it a cult status among lovers of grindhouse cinema.

Haunted: One word: Mimoh. Ok, Mahaakshay. Additional bonus, the epic ghost-raping-ghost scene.

Loot: Mimoh plus more bad acting from Suniel Shetty & some laughs from Govinda and Javed Jaffrey.

Thank You: Presence of Booby Deol in any film is an indication for a wickedly bad film and the fact that it’s directed by Bazmee absolutely guarantees it.

Rascals: To watch Devgan and Sanjay Dutt make excuses to grope fake Kangana boobies for real.

2011 was the year when films stepped out of the safe zone. Here’s how.

10: Aarakshan | Rating: 6.5/10

Aarakshan was a political landmine that addressed the issue of reservation by advocating inclusion and insisting that the issue thrived on discrimination. After setting up the points of debate in the first half, the film soon assumes the drama and syntax of street-theatre (simplification of good and evil with archetypes) to get its point across to the grassroots, much to the disappointment of the urban elite. Rarely do filmmakers set out to make big political films and despite the sensibility disconnect, director Prakash Jha had his heart in the right place. Read the full review here.

9: The Dirty Picture | Rating: 7/10

Very rarely does the Bollywood heroine get a role with enough meat. Even if she did, very rarely did she flaunt all that meat. Vidya Balan was brave enough to get herself out of shape to play a siren from the South and faced the cameras with make-up designed to make her look ugly in the second half. We only wish the Milan Luthria’s film went deeper into her soul without shying away from darkness and tragedy as the film cuts to song and dance afraid to show us pain and suffering. Read full review here.

Number 8: Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara | Rating: 7/10

Zoya Akhtar’s confidently slow paced holiday film with the boys was let down by the blatant in-your-face promotion of Spain as a tourist destination and Hollywood hero issues (Daddy, girl, space issues respectively). ZNMD made up by creating some genuinely warm moments of fun and will be remembered as the day the mainstream Bollywood heroine took the initiative and rode a cruiser to seize the moment and kiss her man.  A delightful role reversal. Read full review here.

Number 7: I am Kalam | Rating: 7/10

We complain that we don’t make films for children and that cinema is becoming too adult but when those rare little gems come out, what were the parents doing? Nila Madhab Panda’s I am Kalam is the film the man it is dedicated to will approve of. It’s a sweet little inspiring film about children and spirit that shows a young India at the cusp of change. After setting it up so credibly, it settles to be a regular entertainer with a happy ending. Read the full review here.

Number 6: Stanley Ka Dabba | Rating: 7/10

The freshness of Amole Gupte’s Stanley Ka Dabba is to be seen to be believed. It’s realistic, choking and a tad manipulative with that social message slapped on it towards the end, but an effective, engaging film that completely charms you with its ensemble and heartwarming moments of spirit. With no Aamir Khan, or any familiar name in the credits, Stanley Ka Dabba works magic with its innocence. Read the full review here.

Number 5: Delhi Belly | Rating: 7/10

Delhi Belly was like that street food that causes the condition. Unhealthy yet inviting. Bollywood finally became brave enough to swear and casually show oral sex on screen. With its laugh a minute irreverence and attitude, this patchy but funny film directed by Abhinay Deo and written by Akshat Verma was the night Bollywood got old enough to be allowed into the frat house and let out everything that’s been repressed. Read the full review here.

Number 4: I Am Afia Megha Abhimanyu Omar | Rating: 7/10

This one deserves to be up here among the best simply because it dared to tell stories no one ever told you before. Onir’s anthology film with a superb ensemble handled complex issues of identity, child abuse, incest and homosexuality with great sensitivity and understanding, without ever resorting to shock and awe to sensationalise the issues explored. Read the review here.

Number 3: Shor In The City | Rating: 7/10

An explosive film that captures the inter-connectedness of chaos and karma in Mumbai as a microcosm of India, Shor In The City and makes you fall in love with the noise. Raj & DK’s influences may be Western but the heart of this film beats for India with its non-judgmental take on morality, supremacy of karma and the overbearing force of the universe. Read the full review here.

Number 2: Pyaar Ka Punchnama | Rating: 9/10

This was a story on the bittersweet pangs of love told from an unabashedly male point of view. A rare perspective that showed men as the weaker sex. This has a bunch of stereotypical women just like how chick flicks paint men in monotones but what makes it all real is how it explores men and their vulnerability when it comes to relationships, yet keeping the mood light. No Hindi film has captured relationship angst better than that five-minute monologue in Luv Ranjan’s Pyaar Ka Punchnama. Funny and intense. Read the full review here.

Number 1: Rockstar, directed by Imtiaz Ali | Rating: 9/10

This sufi rock opera was the almost-perfect musical narrative in ages, fronted by a solid Ranbir Kapoor with Nargis Fakhri being the only jarring note. Indian cinema found another outlet for all that has been repressed. Romance, sex but most of all, choice and freedom. The angst of an alienated artiste who hates to conform has never felt more real. Hats off to Ranbir Kapoor, Imtiaz Ali and A.R. Rahman, the men who rocked 2011 by giving us most things that went right with our Hindi cinema. The film that gave the system the finger. Read the full review here.

(The ones that almost made the list: Bol, That Girl in Yellow Boots, Shaitan (didn’t get a chance to review it but was let down by the second half), Tanu Weds Manu, Dhobi Ghat, Yeh Saali Zindagi, No One Killed Jessica, Mujhse Fraandship Karoge (didn’t review, loved the acting but too many co-incidences to take seriously), Ra.One & Ladies Versus Ricky Bahl… in that order)

This list originally appeared in The Hindu.

Genre: Action

Director: Farhan Akhtar

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta, Boman Irani, Kunal Kapoor

Storyline: Don is a smartass. Don is a smartass. Don is a smartass. Repeat statement scene after scene.

Bottomline: Ra.One was the smarter SRK film this year.

Imagine this. You’re in prison. You haven’t eaten all day. And someone tells you: You have fifteen minutes to come up with a script for the Don sequel. And you can walk free.

No time to think. You start with the punchlines first. Obviously, you begin with the epic one that the 1978 film made popular. “Don Ko Pakadna Mushkil Hi Nahin, Na Mumkin Hai”. You come up with a couple of good ones. But since you’re running out of time, you just fill in Punchline Nos. 13, 26 and 49 with the same “Don Ko Pakadna” line.

Too much pressure. But you are in prison and need to get out.

Fine, put that in the first act. Don is in prison. But wait, he can’t get caught according to the best punchline you have. Ok, so he got himself in.

But why? You don’t know. Ok, so you write “Don smiles mysteriously.”

Ten minutes left.

You continue scribbling… Don is in prison. But Don has many a dushman (arch-enemy in Don-speak) there. Ok, let’s say Don has come to break one of his enemies out of prison. Say Vardhan (Boman Irani). Why? You don’t know. So you write “Don smiles mysteriously.”  You can think of the why later.

Now you are really stuck.

All you can think of is prison and prison food. Stale fish served last week had inmates down with food poisoning. Brainwave. Engineer food-poisoning and break jail.

All that thought of food is getting you hungry. What you would not give for a plate of leftovers. A brainwave again. Don wants to steal plates. Plates? Five minutes left.

Focus. YOU want a plate of food. Don probably just wants to steal plates used to make money. How? Write “Don smiles mysteriously.”

Think harder. Don’s a chase film. You can’t just change genre and make it a heist film. That would be blasphemy. But you need to get out before prison changes the genre of your life to gay porn.

Fourteen minutes are up. Don steals the plates. How? Action scenes. Let action director figure that out. Also add, “Don smiles mysteriously.” Lame big shocking twist. Obvious one but time up. The End.

So you smile mysteriously and hand over your script. You’re free.

It turns out that Farhan Akhtar who has ambitions of making a slick looking film like Ocean’s Eleven with stunts from Mission Impossible has already started shoot before he’s read your script.

Since it’s the sequel, the actors already know what they are doing. Shah Rukh Khan walks in suits, reels of slow motion shots are canned and bottles of hair gel are sacrificed, take after take.

Lara Dutta shakes it to the tune of the title track of the previous film since she’s been told the song will be just like the old one.

Priyanka knows she has to say all her lines exactly the same way when she speaks to Don. In a tone that says: “I want to do you. I want to do you now.”

SRK loves the punchlines. They glorify him. Wait till Sallu hears them.

“Let me do it again,” says Shah Rukh after every line. “A punchline needs to be delivered in style.” But Mr. Khan, there are some 50 punchlines in here, says the assistant director. “It’s ok. They love me,” he opens his arms wide, smirks and delivers it like Punchline No. 51 looking at us.

They are at the scene where Don can just trigger off an explosion and escape but that would mean SRK doesn’t get a chance to say a good line. “Well, we have to shoot Roma then,” says the action director. Bang. Roma is shot. And timing presents itself. “Little does Don’s Dushman know that before he can make a move, Don has already made his next,” says Don. Boom.

The editor wishes his studio exploded and didn’t have to put this together. But he’s getting a fat cheque. He does his job to the best of his ability and is almost done when he hears that line “Don Ko Pakadna Mushkil hi nahin…”

Screw it, says the editor, stops it right before SRK could finish the line and walks out.

End credits slapped together with a song recorded even before the script was written. The film releases. And a critic scratches his head wondering if he should take this cheesy action entertainer seriously enough to dissect or analyse it.

“Ok, whatever I can type in 15 minutes,” he says.

This review originally appeared here.

Genre: Drama

Director: Milan Luthria

Cast: Vidya Balan, Emraan Hashmi, Tusshar Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah

Storyline: Small town girl runs away from home to become a star of dirty pictures

Bottomline: A fantastic Vidya Balan fronts this entertaining, titillating romp that delivers one tight slap on the face of hypocrisy of showbiz… but does little else.

Picture this: A sexy Scarlett Johansson (or Zuleikha Robinson if you want some Indian blood) in a Kimi Katkar biopic directed by Danny Boyle. There’s meticulous attention paid to recreate the feel of Mumbai with Hindi film posters, Bollywood dance choreography, low cut cholis etc. but… all the speaking parts and even some of the songs are in English. Except for one. Say Chamma Chamma! Think that would make for a credible biopic set in the eighties?

Yes, Milan Luthria may not be our Danny Boyle. But The Dirty Picture is just as out of place in Madras as that Scarlett film in Mumbai. All the posters and a lot of the production design is in Tamil but the songs and speaking parts are in Hindi. The only Tamil song used is the jingle-savvy Nakku Mukka, which is anything but representative of the eighties. And this fish out of water feel of this biopic considerably waters down the impact. We are never able to take this film seriously beyond what the title promises. A dirty picture. That too, almost.

Vidya Balan performs with an attitude that Scarlett may never be capable of. This is the single-most boldest performance by a woman in the history of Indian cinema not because of the reels of cleavage, in almost every frame in fact, but because of the large frame she flaunts and carries off on screen in an age where heroines are called fat if they cannot maintain a size zero figure. Vidya apparently put on 12 kilos for this film and they all show. It needs some amount of guts and sass to pull it off and she sizzles in this role tailor-made to show off her acting chops.

Like she says, “Films run only because of one reason: Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. And I am entertainment,” this is a film that will truly run because Vidya Balan is entertainment. She wears slutty clothes, makes dirty noises, pouts out horny faces, dances with thunder thighs and delivers some great old fashioned dialoguebaazi, speaking mostly in punch-lines.  She makes it impossible for you to take your eyes off the screen even when things get predictable in the later part of the film.

The makers (Milan Luthria and writer Rajat Arora) seem a little too afraid to get into the darker aspects of the tragic life of a star like Silk and most of the sadness is limited to showing the dark circles under her eyes. Even when her life is spiraling down, the film wants to go away from the tragedy and show you a love song. Clearly, they don’t want to depress you because depressing films don’t do well at the box office.

However, The Dirty Picture makes up for lack of depth with spirit and attitude. It is commendable that there’s no attempt to make a dirty picture look too clean or classy. Milan stays loyal to the genre and makes sure the frontbenchers get all the titillation. This is about bringing the subaltern into the mainstream and giving that genre and the women fronting that cinema their due. And that grand statement of the film comes a tad too early – at the halfway point. When Silk goes to pick up her award and calls the film industry’s bluff. “I am your dirty little secret,” she says.

She truly believes that what she does is ahead of her time and would one day be seen as a revolution against the male-driven film business.

For all that talk of feminism, the film regresses a little towards the later part when it strays into Madhur Bhandarkar territory when a broke heroine of dirty films has to resort to porn to save her house. And with that one scene, by depicting pornography as an evil compromise she must do, The Dirty Picture draws its moral line between the mainstream and the subaltern. All the good work is undone because we are told dirty pictures are OK for a woman of spirit but soft-porn… No, too low? Talk about hypocrisy.

If this film proves anything at all, it is this. We haven’t lost our appetite for dirty pictures. We are a country of voyeurs.

And poor Silk Smitha continues to be exploited even after her death.

For barring her screen name, this picture has nothing to do with her story.

“I’ve been sitting here for about five hours, up to myself. I haven’t made any calls at all. I haven’t spoken to anyone. But I was celebrating those moments. Now, even as I am talking to you, I’m celebrating life,” Dev Anand, who people around affectionately call Dev Saab, talks to Sudhish Kamath on his approach to life and films.

VERY FEW know that Lagaan was not the first film to have a cricket match climax. Aamir Khan was belting boundaries almost a decade ago in Awwal Number which the director says was a different subject when he took it up. On sports and terrorism.

“I make no conscious effort. Maybe I am different. But I deliberately don’t want to toe anybody’s line. So I’m always on the offbeat line. If the film fails, it just remains an experiment. If the film clicks, it sets a trend. So why should I play safe all the time,” asks Dev Saab.

We remind him that ‘Censor’ didn’t do very well. “I knew that it might not work. Because censorship is not what a common man can relate to. It just addressed a problem faced by a film-maker,” he reasons.

“I am courageous. I look forward to win and I have the courage to lose and be in the race again. And keep watching, I’ll win with this one,” he winks, adding he’s casting Lucky Ali as music director for the first time.

‘Love at Times Square’

Is it a sheer co-incidence that most of his films have English titles? “Yes, it is a co- incidence. Love is almost a Hindi word… Hume Tumse Love Ho Gaya…Times Square is a place…Just like Mount Road. So like Love at Mount Road, this one’s about Love at Times Square,” Dev Saab smiles.

We are tempted to ask where does he get his radical ideas and stories from?  “From life. Every day, we see a million things. Something from that strikes you. Then you sleep with it, become obsessed with it, build a script and then make the film,” he explains.

“Love at Times Square is a contemporary Indian love story set in America. Times Square is a character in the film. It all started when I went to receive an award from Hillary Clinton last year. It was a Saturday evening when I saw Times Square. That plays defines joy. Two weeks later, I was returning from San Francisco, when I stopped by at New York. It was a Saturday evening yet again. And I remembered something that happened to me 35 years ago,” Dev Saab recollects with a twinkle in his eyes.

“It is a very personal incident which I will reveal before the release of the film. Anyway, so I got very excited… I work very fast, got the script done. And I shot 7-8 hours of footage on New Year’s Eve at Times Square. When the whole world waits to welcome the new year, the place is wonderful. We have done some great shots.”

But didn’t he say he hadn’t finalised the cast? “Special effects. We would incorporate this with the cast later because it is impossible to shoot on New Year’s Eve with the cast in any case,” he says.

Why has Hindi cinema been obsessed with American brands and locations, especially over the last half of the decade? “TV has brought it. Globalisaton has brought it. Nothing wrong with it. Why not,” asks Dev Saab.

“When I open your heart, you are an Indian. But when you talk, when you write, it’s a different language you are talking. You are wearing a trouser, but you are still Indian. And there are so many Asians in America,” he says.

“It’s a budget of Rs.10-12 crores. If it clicks, it’s big money. If it doesn’t, there’s no money. But this movie is made for an international audience. I’m looking forward to it. I’m in a state of excitement. I’m always in a state of excitement. That’s why I make films,” Dev Saab adds.

“It’s a fantastic profession. Because you are dealing with people, they are discussing you. They say it’s bad… They say it’s good, but they are still discussing you. You are giving them a choice. If they like it, they see it, or they see the next film. You can’t have hits all the time. But you are leaving something for the world for posterity. That’s why I love this great medium.”

(This is an interview I did with him a decade ago for The Hindu.)

You must have heard the story of a man who finds a near-dead snake in the snow. He tends to it, nurses it with warmth and soon enough, the snake springs back to life only to bite the guy who rescued it.

Director Selvaraghavan is that kind of guy who nursed an audience that comprised of misogynists, male chauvinists, stalkers, voyeurs, roadside romeos and assorted slackers pining for love that always went unrequited.

His films gave them warmth, stoked the fire to pursue the girl to the point of invading her space or gratifying their fantasies. Be it peeping into her room when she’s changing in 7G Rainbow Colony or making them sing ‘Variya?’ (Pudhupettai) to girls around the city. Be it fulfilling their fantasy of urban women fighting for/snuggling up to one of their kind (Aayirathil Oruvan) or making them cheer ‘Adra Avala’ (Mayakkam Enna).

Selvaraghavan has always had strong women in his films but the way they were treated has always been a little problematic. Men harassed and/or abused women in his films and hardly apologized for it. On the contrary, the crowd seemed to be rooting for these glorified anti-heroes.

There has always been the lower-middle-class single-guy unrequited love angst associated with his kind of cinema that instantly connected with an audience that formed the major chunk of movie-goers. Friends called him the poor man’s Mani Ratnam not because he lacked technique but because his heroes were always from the lower middle class.

From sex to voyeurism to abuse, he never shied away from showing what Mani Ratnam would be more discreet about. And that raw, edgy, bold crassness has always been his signature because people hailing from that lower middle class economic background were like that. Crude, rough and not the kinds who would look for euphemisms.

So when Selvaraghavan makes a film that works as an apology to womankind for all that misogynist, chauvinistic behaviour his films have been accused of promoting, his loyal but rabid lower middle class fan base that loved his old films seems to be unable to come to terms with the coming of age of Selvaraghavan’s cinema and its changing sensibility.

It’s not that Selvaraghavan has crossed over to cater to a more elite audience. He hasn’t entirely but this film surely seems like a transition into a more refined sensibility of restraint and understatement. Which is why the only jarring bits in Mayakkam Enna are the dramatic crying scenes that feel a little overdone ONLY because the rest of the film is so classy, subtle and understated.

So when the best scene of the film played out (one that is both disturbing and sentimental as Richa tries to scrub the blood off the floor – a better actress may have played this with greater restraint), the unruly college crowd, the snake Selvaraghavan provided warmth to, now bared its fangs. The crowd was laughing at the crying hero who is apologizing to the woman for what he has done.

And Dhanush cries quite a bit in the film. That’s a far cry from what heroes do. He also gets slapped by pretty much everyone he looks up to – first the girl, then the guy who steals his credit (slapped not literally but emotionally) and finally by his best friend.

They soon, as we, realise that the angry tough young man who sings ‘Adra Avala’ is actually a cluelessly lost, soft-hearted, sentimental fool who is weak in resolve. Whether it is getting the girl he is attracted to or claiming credit that is rightfully his.

Contrastingly, the girl here is the hero of the film. She wears the pants. She takes the initiative for the kiss (which we don’t see in a Selvaraghavan film – another indication of the director’s changing sensibility). She fights for him when he’s too scared to confront his best friend.  She fights for him even when he has given up (by sending his pics to magazines). She fights for him even when he is consumed by self-pity and dejection. She does not give up on him ever. She is the breadwinner, the mother and the wife.

Again, not because she’s a doormat but because she believes that he’s just mentally ill with all that angst eating him up. She knows that the only cure for that mental illness is to make him get his confidence back. She has the choice to leave him but she doesn’t. On the other hand, she is not quick to forgive him. She takes her time.

If Gran Torino was Clint Eastwood’s way of saying sorry for having led a generation astray with his brand of cowboy justice, Mayakkam Enna serves as Selvaraghavan’s apology (even if unintended) to women for all the harassment portrayed (and unintentionally glorified) in his past films.

It’s a solid tribute to the strength and resilience of the Indian wife, who for years now, has stood by her husband no matter what an asshole he has been. Yes, the Indian woman has changed and she no longer puts up with shit. But it’s never too late to acknowledge the woman behind every successful man.

Hats off to Dhanush to sink his teeth into a role that required him to completely submit to the character of a despicably weak man who deserves our sympathy but not our respect (it’s not a role any mainstream Tamil film hero would have taken up) and still infuse it with a boyish charm of someone real we know. No character in the film, barring the photographer who steals the credit is entirely evil but even there, when the man asks his assistants to throw him off the set, there is no stereotypical portrayal of goons pushing him to the floor to dramatic music. (Here, as perfect it may be, I really don’t want to comment on GV Prakash’s score. I am afraid to credit this young composer with any good work because he has constantly proved to be a thief. That is the thing when you steal and do it more than once, nobody believes you when it is really yours. Once you are in the business of stealing, you are a thief no matter what else you do.)

It’s the shades of grey within relationships that Selvaraghavan revels in and he works magic in this area. Friends fight, some scars remain, some cracks stay open but everything heals with time. It’s that strong, credible human fabric binding the relationships in the film that makes Mayakkam Enna rise above all its logical oversights (be it the geographical accuracy of the kind of animals/birds shot by the photographer, the places it is featured in or the cosmetic detail of Dhanush’s wig in the final act) and overdone histrionics (the crying scenes and that humiliation scene where he has to act as a dog probably put in to cater to an audience that was missing director Vikraman and SA Rajkumar’s score). Elaborate points on what works and what doesn’t are in Baradwaj Rangan’s review here. I agree with Baddy on most points.

Like most of Selvaraghavan’s films, the first and the second half feels like two different films. Here, the first is about a guy falling in love with his best friend’s girlfriend and the second is about a frustrated man turning abusive unable to cope with failure. There’s no point asking him to do a screenwriting course or telling him that he lacks what is needed to make it big because some people are just happy doing what comes naturally to them.

And this is an intensely personal film about an artist who can put the camera in front of an old woman and make her look beautiful with all her wrinkles.

So it seems autobiographical when he calls his biggest critic and tells her in his moment of truth: “I don’t want to do a course to know how to shoot light and shadow in a studio. I know I can capture life as it is. With all its beauty. I rather be happy doing something I like doing than stay unhappy doing something I don’t because it pays. I may never become big but I will remain happy.” And ironically, that is what he thought back then. He does not stay happy. Such is the nature of man.

Selvaraghavan knows he can see the beauty of the wild side of nature. His films are an exposition on the nature of man. He’s high on that passion to capture that beast. He’s a man in love with what he does. There’s nothing that makes him happier than recognition for his work.

Well done, Selva in bringing us this unique love story about a man in love with his craft. And a heroine who brought them together.

Rating: 8/10

Right from spelling the title intentionally wrong, Tarantino makes it clear that he’s in no mood for minor insignificant things like how others spell or perceive things, especially history.

He wants you to see the world through his manic eyes and suspend your disbelief at the prospect of what history could’ve been, if he had his way with the Time Machine.

Be it Americans beating Nazis dead with baseball bats, skinning Nazi scalps and wearing them around the belt as trophies or reducing Hitler to a terrified caricature, Tarantino provides a cathartic release and gratifies the world’s need for revenge and the unanimous animosity towards Hitler. Violence has never been more cathartic and this film is living proof that history is often re-written by winners.

There’s a childish innocence to this irreverence. Remember when you were a kid and played with toys? You always made your favourite toy beat the crap out of the ugly toy. We showed our hatred for the bad guys by painting them stupid, making it a blatantly one-sided battle.

So how do you make an intentionally one-sided film gripping while portraying villains, in this case – the Nazi top management – as a bunch of silly, stupid idiots.

Tarantino does this by creating a proxy villain Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz), also known as the Jew Hunter, who right in the first scene, claims that he does not think like a Nazi. In other words, he’s smarter than his race.

He does not even believe in their ideology as he makes amply clear that Nazis may not agree with the comparison. The Jew Hunter calls himself a detective later in the film and we realise that he’s a man smart enough to know when to switch loyalties. Surely, a man as smart as him will not pick the team that’s losing.

But to appreciate the larger story, let’s begin from the structure of Tarantino’s screenplay. Despite being two and a half hours long, Tarantino employs only five chapters.

So simple that Inglourious Basterds is a textbook deployment of the classic five-act structure: Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action and Resolution.

But what’s interesting is that all five chapters do exactly the same thing. They put the hunter and the hunted with a confined space, lets the audience in on where the cat and the rat/s are positioned, builds up tension, cooks up the pressure till we can’t take it anymore and lets it explode with a sudden release – usually a quick intense burst of violent action.

It’s also the story of the rat that burns down an empire of cats.

Exposition: Chapter One – Once Upon a Time In Nazi Occupied France

“What a tremendously hostile world that a rat must endure. Yet not only does he survive, he thrives. Because our little foe has an instinct for survival and preservation second to none… And that Monsieur is what a Jew shares with a rat.” – Col Hans Landa

The superimposed text tells us everything we want to know. The year is 1941 and a young woman turns pale looking at the SS officers heading towards their house on the hill.

Beethoven’s Fur Elise fuses in quite smoothly with Morricone’s guitar as she goes in to tell her father, who in turn asks them not to panic and get inside the house. The man tries to stay calm as he waits with bated breath.

Tarantino who usually uses pop music that people are familiar with, this time around employs Beethoven.

Now, Tarantino hasn’t just used Beethoven’s Fur Elise (Not Moonlight Sonata as previously mentioned – corrected by Krishnan Subramanian) as it is. It is an interpretation, an instrumental piece called ‘The Verdict,’ by Ennio Morricone, the veteran composer of many spaghetti Western films, to hint at the potential of gunfire around the corner. A perfect, smooth mix of epic classiness of Beethoven with the rugged sonic bizarreness of Morricone – music that can give you goose bumps given the tense situation.

A father with three daughters has a notorious officer of the SS visit him and we get the notion that the man knows more than his face gives away.

Tarantino sets it up as an ordinary routine enquiry in French before he stumps us by making the investigator switch to English, a language the auteur writer-filmmaker is most comfortable in, to get us to the juiciest part of the conversation – the reason the Nazi officer has come to his house: To make sure that the Frenchman isn’t harbouring a Jewish family.

Soon enough, Tarantino lets us in on a secret when he pans the camera down the table they are seated at, and even below the ground surface as we find a Jewish family hiding in fright. Now, we know there’s just a wooden floor that separates the hunter and the hunted and the Jew Hunter is classy, confident and almost dead sure about what his instinct.

The conversation that plays out is paced slow, punctuated with sinister all-knowing smiles by the Nazi and we have our heart in our mouth wondering if he would successfully intimidate a well-built calm looking man smoking a pipe into submission and surrender.

So imagine our horror when he does and how coldly, Hans Landa switches back to French while signaling his men to open fire and spray bullets into that wooden floor instantly killing some of the family members, except one.

Now, Hans Landa is an evil man and supremely confident of getting his kill that he lets the sole survivor of the massacre get away with a menacing smile and a scream of “Au Revoir, Shosanna”.

So ends Chapter 1 with the perfect exposition of the two characters who are significant to the story. The Hunter simply called The Jew Hunter and the hunted is a Jewish girl called Shosanna. Will the Hunter get his prey? The cat and the rat chase begins.

Rising Action: Chapter 2 – Inglourious Basterds

 “Nazi ain’t got no humanity. They’re the foot soldiers of a Jew-hatin’, mass murderin’ maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That’s why any and every every son of a bitch we find wearin’ a Nazi uniform, they’re gonna die.” – Lt. Aldo Raine

Chapter 2 introduces us to rising action in the form of the titular bunch of the “Inglourious Basterds” who are gaining notoriety for the bloody trail of dead Nazis they leave behind. We are introduced to Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt), the suave American Lieutenant, who tells his men that he hasn’t come all the way to teach the Nazis lessons in humanity because the Nazi knows no humanity and that they have to be destroyed.

Moments after Raine tells his men that they owe him 100 Nazi scalps each, we get an idea of their savagery through Hitler’s annoyed over-the-top reaction that makes him look like a caricature. The motive is extremely clear at this point. Tarantino wants you to laugh at the idiot. Hitler is a cartoonish buffoon.

Soon, we get a first-hand account of the barbaric ritual of the Basterds skinning Nazi scalps when Raine and his men question a senior Nazi officer about the squad of Germans, their exact location and ammunition to facilitate another ambush.

When the Nazi respectfully refuses, we are introduced to the key heroes of the Basterds.

Stiglitz is introduced with a newspaper headline and quick montage of assorted visuals of him killing Gestapo officers. And Sgt Donny Donnowitz, also known as the Bear Jew (Eli Roth) is an emotional killer who clubs his victims to death with his baseball bat.

We are witness to the intensity of the raw violence delivered personally by his bare hands, in contrast to the covert gun-fire from the last Chapter – the acts themselves making it amply clear who the heroes are and who the bad guys are.

No better line to sum up the rising action than:

“You probably heard we ain’t in the prisoner-takin’ business; we in the killin’ Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.” – Aldo Raine

Climax: Chapter 3 – A German Night in Paris

Shosanna is living in Paris three years after the massacre, running a cinema under a fake identity. The chapter begins with her packing up for the day when a young German officer tries to make conversation with her, the lines indicating that he’s interested in her romantically (and he doesn’t really suspect her).

He’s a charming young soldier and if he wasn’t the enemy, maybe she would’ve considered going out with him.

Ever after she snubs him, the soldier persists, stalks her and we find out that he’s some sort of a German war-hero Frederick Zoller who killed scores of soldiers sitting on top of a 300-feet high watch-tower called the Bird’s Nest (the term used to describe the tower more than clarifying how safe the sniper was sheltered).

We realise she now hates him more. So we are once again disturbed when German soldiers show up at her cinema and ask her to just come along with them.

We are temporarily relieved that this was Zoller’s way of wooing the girl. The war-hero turned actor and hero of the film ‘Nation’s Pride’, a film based on his act of “bravery” wants the premiere of his film at her cinema. His director Goebbels, the man second in command to Hitler and the Minister for Information and Propaganda, has his reservations but Zoller successfully convinces him.

And before we know it, Shosanna hears a familiar voice and freezes. The Jew Hunter. Only that he does not recognise her. Or so we hope. Once again, Tarantino milks the scene with the explosive chemistry of placing the Hunter and the Hunted in the same frame as Hans Landa has a few questions about her cinema, her family history and the black man who works at the cinema.

Tarantino cooks it powerfully with the visuals and his intimidating body language (Watch how he extinguishes his cigarette in his strudgel with cream, something he seemed to be fond of). He also drops a bombshell by telling Shosanna he meant to ask her something but can’t remember what it was. The tension here is released not through literal violence but as relief when she pees her pants.

The very next scene, Tarantino reveals the girl’s agenda – she wants her revenge. And she will have it. The hunted will turn into the hunter and kill the people responsible for the death of her family.

“Marcel: [in French; subtitled] What are we talking about?

Shosanna Dreyfus: [in French] Filling the cinema with Nazis and burning it to the ground.”

Things have reached a climax, there’s no going back and hiding anymore. She must have her revenge.

Falling Action: Chapter 4 – Operation Kino

What were the Basterds doing meanwhile? They were planning to blow up the venue on the day of the premiere too with the help of a spy – a German actress called Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger).

Bridget had called for a meeting with two of the Basterds at an inconspicuous tavern.

“Yeah, in a basement. You know, fightin’ in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you’re fightin’ in a basement!” – Lt. Aldo Raine

Lt. Raine expresses his concern about the choice of a basement as a meeting place and once again, we know there could be trouble given the nature of the hunted meeting out in the open in the presence of hunters when we see the tavern infested with German soldiers playing a game with their favourite star Bridget.

Bridget seems to be a smart actress, playing along with the drunk soldiers, hoping not to arouse any suspicion on what she could be doing there. When one of them refuses to let the lady alone, one of the Basterds tells the German curtly not to disturb the officers, his accent making the soldier smell something fishy.

Soon, tension mounts and we realise that there was a senior Nazi officer who was listening to everything going on. He joins the party to investigate and before we know it, another long random conversation that has our heartbeats racing with the explosive nature of the discussion.

And soon, the violent explosive release of tension: A Mexican standoff involving testicles follows is resolved with a shooting spree that leaves most of those at the bar dead.

Bridget is shot in the process and though Raine manages to get her out of there to a veterinarian, they leave her shoe behind, enough for Landa to know that Bridget had a role to play in the shootout.

Resolution: Chapter 5 – Revenge of the Giant Face

“My name is Shosanna Dreyfus and THIS is the face… of Jewish vengeance!” – Shosanna Dreyfus

Shosanna’s decision to have her revenge through film is only a metaphor for Tarantino’s desire to avenge the death of thousands of Jews at the hands of the Nazis through his weapon – film, if not literally, at least artistically.

Film is the medium where he can legally unleash a fictional genocide and go on a Nazi-killing-spree.

He can pump bullets and drill holes in Hitler’s face with no questions asked and provide a cathartic release to decades of anti-Nazi angst.

He can make it look like the easiest thing on the planet given how many people wanted to see Hitler dead, including his own men. Or at least the smart among his men, like Hans Landa.

Like the rest of the film, the Hunted and the Hunters share a confined space in a movie hall as the roles reverse in the course of the chapter and Tarantino triggers bloody mayhem, rewriting history through this beautifully shot segment that also resolves the tragic unrequited love story of the guilt-ridden German war-hero smitten by the charming Shosanna without really knowing that she was a Jew.

Landa bargains his way with a whole list of demands including a home in Nantucket Island with the OSS but will the Basterds let him live?

Of course, as long as Landa can be spotted in a crowd with a Swastika screaming from his forehead that he’s a Nazi.

As Aldo Raine tells his fellow Basterd soon after carving out a nice little bloody Swastika on Landa’s forehead with his knife, we can almost hear Tarantino say that line from behind the camera.

“You know what, Utivich. This may just be my masterpiece.” 

Nobody could’ve rewritten history with such panache and wicked joy.

We’ve heard it so often that Rajni, like MGR, does not need to act or try so hard as Sivaji or Kamal who have pushed themselves to play nine and ten roles respectively in the same film.

These actors stood the test of time for generations.

If MGR and Sivaji ruled the box office from the fifties to the mid seventies, Rajni and Kamal, who took stepped into their shoes around the seventies, still continue to hold fort with so many stars waiting to command that cult status.

Let’s talk about the wannabes later but first, what led to these twin-associations? Why has history never considered one greater than the other and why has any such debate always lead to a war of words?

Maybe because, for long, heroes in the Tamil cinema have either been played by a star or an actor.

A star, like MGR or Rajni, a matinee idol, is often celebrated as the messiah of the masses. Someone who through sheer presence and charisma, can liberate the poor from the bad guys.  To put it simply, we pay to watch his image play out. And he plays the same guy in every film.

An actor, like Sivaji or Kamal, a true artiste, is often cherished for the variety of roles he has essayed. Someone who constantly experiments and can make you laugh and cry with the power of performance. Again, simply put, we pay to watch him break his image. And he plays a different guy in every film.

We will never reach a consensus on whether a star is greater or an actor is greater because of the inherent dichotomy in their roles.

To be a star, you need to strengthen your image and deliver the same style, mannerisms and larger than life persona. But to be an actor, you need to constantly break the image, reinvent it every time and discover newer ways to portray characters, even if it means changing your look and appearance with every film.

MGR-Rajni with the superstar status accorded to them, have never felt the pressure to prove themselves artistically just like Sivaji-Kamal with the accolades and awards won, have never felt that they were wrong to experiment with the box office.

Interestingly, Rajni and Kamal started off as products of independent cinema in the hands of the auteur K.Balachander, who made films the way he wanted to make them, without any interference from stars on box office diktats. They even did similar roles for a bit on attaining star status and as Kamal Haasan has often revealed in interviews, they mutually decided not to eat into each other’s markets early on in their careers. It turned out to be the smartest thing they ever did.

Because they proved that cinema has a twin purpose – to entertain and to provoke. There’s a bit of the whore and the mother in our cinema and it’s always a clever mix of selling out and raising it with love and care that results in good cinema.

What better filmmaker to illustrate this than Mani Ratnam who got to work with the Rajni and Kamal at the prime of their careers in Thalapathy and Nayakan. While Thalapathy piggy-backed on Rajnikant’s charisma and delivered a gangster film about the good guy in the wrong camp, Nayakan rode on Kamal Haasan’s chameleon-esque abilities to play different roles as the same guy – the young brash gangster, the middle-aged wise Godfather and the all-grey Grandfather who couldn’t answer the question if he’s good or bad. Both these films had a mix of the popular elements and the artistic elements but it’s very clear which side of art and commerce they favoured more.

These were two of those rare films that the twain met.

It’s the burden of a star that he cannot play grey and it’s a curse of an actor that his films don’t always click at the box office because of constant experimentation.

Stars and actors over the last decade have tussled with this dilemma and choice presented to them. To be the next MGR-Rajni as promised by the Perarasus. Or, to be the next Sivaji-Kamal and work on the merit of the script and the role, irrespective of what the market says.

With the advent of satellite television in the nineties, the idiot box weaned away a huge chunk of family audiences. Cinema halls became the refuge of a largely single male population as our cinema descended into full-blown brawl-celebrating beerfests.

Films that celebrated the male ego. Films where it was totally ok for the hero to wash his face with beer in the morning and have the audience cheer to that. Films where the woman became the object of desire, the fantasy girl – the “Bombay girl” as industry insiders call the type.

What happens in a street fight or a brawl? You mess with someone and there’s a score you have to settle. Like the Western, the Southern genre became based on the challenge. Who can beat who. After a decade of THOSE settling-score-challenge films, we are today left with the following street fighters: Ajith, Vijay, Vikram and Suriya with Dhanush, Simbu and Jeeva among the younger generation of heroes.

While Ajith, Vijay and Simbu have continued to do roles that celebrate their image (the Thala/Thalapathy type), Vikram, Suriya, Dhanush and Jeeva have at least tried to experiment with the odd offbeat role every once in a while. We find that it will be a really uphill task for any of these guys to take the mantle from MGR-Sivaji and Rajni-Kamal simply because of the consistency with which they delivered good cinema, not just hits.

Apart from Suriya and Dhanush now and Vikram a few years ago, none of the other guys have been able to score good films. Most of them are still obsess over their title-tag baggage.

It is an encouraging sign that Ajith has dismantled his fan clubs and went all out to play a bad guy with Mankatha. But given the star baggage he brought to the role, it is still early to call him the next Kamal Haasan. And, he hasn’t provided the hits to make him the next Rajnikant.

Vijay continues doing what he does best with a hit or miss success-rate that skews towards failure more often than success.

Suriya has chanced upon this solution of mixing it up – do different films for different audiences. A “mass-film” with Hari, a “class-film” with Gautham and “a mass-film” with Murugadoss and a “class-film” with K.V.Anand and has made sure that even his mass-based roles are devoid of any baggage or self-referencing.

And Vikram would do well to choose his scripts more wisely, and do more Raavanans than self-glorifying fiascos like Kanthaswamy.

The younger guys, Dhanush, Simbu and Jeeva have a long way to go to even be compared with the big four – Ajith,Vijay, Suriya and Vikram – but the need of the hour is to bring back the balance between art and commerce that over the last two decades has titled towards commerce. Star-vehicles have constantly crashed after initial success.

In film business, the only real formula to success is understanding that there is no formula for success. We have long list of flops from the big four to illustrate that.

We need a focus shift towards directors once again. We need producers to understand that good cinema stems from storytelling rather than just one or two individuals.

We need more stars to do what Rajnikant did with his last film – he broke his mould and embraced a grey character like he did in the seventies with Enthiran.

We need more actors to do what Kamal Haasan did with his last film – he let another actor walk away with the best lines in Man Madan Ambu.

It takes grace and confidence for an actor to step away from the limelight and share the stage with the other players. Cinema becomes richer only when all characters are fleshed out.

We need our filmmakers to be able to tell their stories with flourish rather than blow up all the money to hero-worship one person’s ego.

We need producers and actors to back the vision of a creator. We need more auteurs. We need to encourage original thought.

We need women back in our cinema, not just as glam dolls, but as real women with real issues.

We need the balance between man and woman restored in our films.

We need the balance between art and commerce back.

We need the next MGR-Sivaji or Rajni-Kamal to be the same person.

We need the twain to meet.

We need our actors to be stars and our stars to be actors.

We need to let our filmmakers call the shots again, without the pressure of hero-worship or box office diktats. Let’s not forget that Rajni and Kamal are children of that film culture.

We need to put that culture back into business.

We need to put the cinema back into film.

(This article originally appeared on Frappe.)