Saturday, July 30, 2016

REVIEW 409: DISHOOM


Release date:
July 29, 2016
Director:
Rohit Dhawan
Cast:


Language:
John Abraham, Varun Dhawan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Saqib Saleem, Akshaye Khanna, Rahul Dev
Hindi


There is an  assumption in most films of the buddy crime/cop genre, that every Jai needs a Veeru, every Munna needs a Circuit and every Detective Inspector Lee needs a wisecracking Detective James Carter who will come through for his partner when push comes to shove.

Director Rohit Dhawan adopts this prototype for the action comedy Dishoom starring his brother Varun Dhawan and John Abraham. Mentioning the relationship between the film’s helmsman and the young actor in the very first paragraph is only fair because although Abraham is the bigger star, it becomes clear at some point that Dishoom is primarily a showcase for Master Dhawan.

Ah well, thankfully he is a charming chap, easy on the eye and always nice to watch ever since he entered our lives in 2012 with Karan Johar’s Student of the Year. In this film he plays the ever-smiling rookie cop Junaid Ansari – an Indian working with the Dubai Police – who finds a reluctant partner in the smouldering, intense, never-smiling Kabir Shergill (Abraham) from a Special Task Force in New Delhi. Kabir has been sent to assist the Dubai Police in saving the star Indian cricketer Viraj Sharma (Saqib Saleem) from his kidnapper/s. Sharma disappeared just days before a crucial India-Pakistan cricket match scheduled to take place in the desert state.

The mystery element in the story is not entirely uninteresting and the humour – when it does rear its head – is effective. Besides, Abraham and Varun have a neat little bromance budding in the film. If Dishoom is not wholly compelling at any point despite all this, it is because too much is left budding and nothing comprehensively explored.

So Varun elicits laughs with his natural comic timing – but there is not enough where that came from. There is some good action, including a helicopter chase of a boat down a large expanse of water, shot lavishly by Ayananka Bose – but there is not enough where that came from. Abraham has a sweetly patronising, fond look in his eyes when he gazes at Varun and the two even get their own mobike-with-a-sidecar in a bow to Sholay – but there is not enough where that male bonding came from either.

It is as if the film’s director and writers (story and screenplay: Rohit himself with Tushar Hiranandani, dialogues: Hussain Dalal) were really kicked about their concept at the start, but lost steam somewhere along the way. This can be the only explanation for why, for instance, they got so many talented supporting artistes in the cast yet no character leaves a lasting impression. Rahul Dev has a fascinating face, but does not get the space he deserves playing the villain’s menacing flunkey in Dishoom. Akshaye Khanna manages to lend notable touches to that villain, but remains a victim of an under-written role. Vijay Raaz makes an inexplicable, just-a-few-minutes-long appearance as an inexplicable person inexplicably called Khabri Chacha. Mona Ambegaonkar – who plays India’s Minister for External Affairs – and her stylist do a rather decent Sushma Swaraj impression, but the minister seems curiously staff-less and entourage-less. And in a film that seeks more from her than merely to cash in on that gorgeous face and stunning body, Jacqueline Fernandez shows us that “ladki mein kuchh toh hai (there’s something about that girl)” as filmwallahs tend to say, including a funny bone that Hindi cinema is yet to explore, but she too operates on the margins of Dishoom.

All of them get less out of this film than Akshay Kumar does in a guest appearance. Playing a character who could easily have been stereotypically camp, Kumar manages to hold back just enough to ensure that he is intentionally over-the-top yet not crude.

The film’s fatal flaw, then, is its failure to persist with any particular idea, concept, theme or thought. There is, for instance, a potentially sweet scene when a bad guy barges into a group of Muslim men at prayer and Junaid stops Kabir from chasing him through the group, saying: “Namaz ki izzat rakh le, khuda hamari rakh lega (Honour the namaz and God will take care of us).” The few seconds of silence that follow are poignant, especially in the context of the Islamophobia pervading the world right now. And then … boom! … something goes wrong, and the entire point is lost, though it is clear that it was not Rohit or his co-writers’ intention to suggest that khuda was not bothered. Team Dishoom, it appears, were unable to sustain their own involvement in the moment.

Even the film’s obvious flag-waving ambitions are erratically executed. It is silly yet amusing when a star Indian cricketer smashes the ball all over a stadium for sixes and fours in an international match, just minutes after he was soundly walloped on a shoulder he had previously dislocated during a game. Amusing because the Saare Jahan Se Achchha playing in the background as he walks on to the field is no doubt meant to emotionally wave aside our powers of reasoning, and so, rather than be irritated, it is possible to chuckle over that scene.

When the Minister utters this line in the film’s opening minutes, “Duniya ke kisi bhi koney mein koi bhi ek Hindustani ko haath nahin laga sakta hai (Let no one dare to harm a hair on the head of any Indian in any corner of the globe),” it holds out the promise of much wolf-whistle-worthy, chest-thumping patriotism, but it is downright ridiculous to witness her addressing the Dubai Police like a condescending Aunty and to see Kabir bulldozing them as though India – not the United States – is the world’s Big Brother.

Half-heartedness pervades every department of the film. And so while the camera delivers some imposing shots of a Morocco mountainside during a bike chase scene, most all interior settings of the film look glaringly fake, particularly that underground den of vice in the fictional country Abudin.

Pritam’s music too is a mixed bag. While Sau tarah ke is infectiously upbeat, Jaaneman aah accompanying the closing credits is embarrassingly tuneless.

That closing track – shot with Varun and guest star Parineeti Chopra – epitomises the film’s problems. Abraham and Fernandez are curiously absent. Who is Dishoom’s protagonist? Is it meant to be a comedy? Is it meant to be an all-out action flick as you might assume from the title? What went wrong with this project is a mystery, but it is sad that the film is less than the sum of its many noteworthy parts.

Rohit Dhawan debuted with the unrelentingly funny Desi Boyz in which he managed to whip up bowlfuls of chemistry between his leading men Akshay Kumar and John Abraham. In Dishoom, Abraham looks as if he switched off halfway through the project as did most of the film’s team.

Result: Dishoom is a sporadically engaging, intermittently funny, yet always insubstantial film.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):
UA 
Running time:
124 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:




Sunday, July 24, 2016

AUDIENCE RESPONSE TO MISOGYNY IN INDIAN FILMS / PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

All Hail The Violators of Women

What kind of men cheer with delight in theatres as women are insulted, irritated, hit, harassed, stalked and even raped, in films across Indian languages?

By Anna MM Vetticad

Over a week after the release of the Hindi film Sultan, in which Salman Khan’s titular character acts like an immature ass in his bid to woo Aarfa (Anushka Sharma), I sat in a Gurgaon movie hall watching the Malayalam film Kasaba starring Mammootty and Varalaxmi Sarathkumar.

Mammootty plays Kasaba’s Circle Inspector Rajan Zachariah, a misogynist who might make Sultan’s asinine misbehaviour seem, to some people, unworthy of comment. Zachariah brooks no nonsense from women. In an early scene, he encounters a young female IPS officer who is intrigued by his reputation for cockiness. Her way of expressing interest in him while simultaneously asserting her authority over him is to unbutton her shirt, then walk up to him and chide him for smoking at a police station and failing to salute her, his senior by rank. When Zachariah is called away by someone, he stubs the cigarette and hands it to this policewoman, instructing her to “throw it away somewhere”. “F*** you,” she replies as he takes off. He shoots back, “Nokaam (Let me see),” implying that he may indeed do the deed with her. He then walks back, grabs her by the belt, pulls her towards him and, as they stand groin to groin, says: “Madam, pardon me for not saluting you. I’ll make it up to you. And I bet, you will walk wrong for a week.” (Dialogue quotes confirmed with Kasaba’s writer-director Nithin Renji Panicker due to conflicting interpretations by various activists and critics.)

It does not take a high IQ to understand that Zachariah is, at best, contemptuously assuring her of a session of rough sex or, at worst, threatening rape.


All around me in that hall, men erupted in whistles and claps as their Mammuka uttered that dialogue, thus putting a darned woman in her place.

Me? My stomach was churning in disgust. Their howls of joy reminded me of numerous other similar occasions in other theatres over the years.

There was Abhay Deol as the supposedly virtuous Leftist student neta in the Hindi film Raanjhanaa (2013), briefly roughing up Sonam Kapoor’s Zoya to punish her for her sharp tongue. Hurray!

There was Irrfan Khan’s Vikram treating his wife (Rimi Sen) as a house slave in Thank You (2011). Loud applause at every single instance of husbandly nastiness.

There was Shivudu (Prabhas) forcibly disrobing and dressing Avanthika (Tamannaah) in the Telugu Bahubali (2015), in a blatant symbolic representation of romanticised rape. Wheeeee!

What kind of men cheer with delight in theatres as women are insulted, irritated, hit, harassed, stalked and even raped, in films across Indian languages?

The easy answer: misogynists. But that would be simplistic. These are not mere women-haters. These would most likely be men who are getting increasingly uncomfortable with feminism, the strides women are making in all spheres of life and the resultant loss of male privilege that could, at one time, be taken for granted.

In that sense, feminism in India is sitting on many ticking time bombs of suppressed male rage, while many more others have been exploding across the country. The manifestations are manifold, from the relatively mild act of hailing violence against women in films to increased aggression towards women in personal, social and professional interactions, online abuse of female (and male) feminists, and physical — including sexual — violence.

India is not alone. In a 2014 article titled “War on Women”, Mark Potok, senior fellow at the US civil rights organisation The Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote of the “manosphere” — “an ugly subculture of websites run by men’s rights activists that is typified by its loathing for women in general and feminism in particular (...) Although these sites and some real-world men’s rights groups certainly have some legitimate complaints about family courts, sexual abuse of men and the like, the tone of many of them is remarkable for its woman-bashing, sex-starved flavor.”

The article was pegged on a killing spree just months earlier in California by 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, whose subsequently discovered Internet postings included a rant quoted in Potok’s essay from a website called PUAHate.com where Rodger called on men to “overthrow this oppressive feminist system” and “Start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU.”

Men’s Rights Activists or MRAs in India have long been citing false rape charges and the misuse of the dowry law (both genuine problems, though not on the scale they suggest) to claim all-round male victimhood.


Films, they say, are a reflection of the societies they emerge from. Well, so are film audiences. It is proof of an audience brimming with antagonism towards women that three of the four aforementioned misogynistic films are hits.


Still, there is a silver lining to this depressing cloud. When I interviewed him earlier this week, Kasaba’s debutant director Panicker informed me regretfully that although his film smashed several box-office records in its opening days, the charge of misogyny against it — raised by critics and the Kerala Commission for Women chief K.C. Rosakutty — could hamper its longevity in theatres by keeping women and families away. He also admitted: “Though 75 per cent of the feedback I have received has been positive, 25 per cent has come from men and women who did not like Rajan Zachariah’s behaviour with women.” No doubt that is bad news for him. It is good news, though, for those who do not see humour and coolth in animosity towards one half of humanity.

(This article was published in The Hindu Businessline on July 23, 2016)

Original link:


Previous instalment of Film Fatale: What Viewers Want


RELATED ARTICLES BY ANNA M.M. VETTICAD:

The Rape of Avanthika / Column published in The Hindu Businessline:


Sonam Kapoor on Neerja, sexism and success: ‘Dilli bahut door hai / Interview published on Firstpost:


Photo captions: Stills/posters from (1) Kasaba (2) Sultan (3) Bahubali (4) Raanjhanaa

Photographs courtesy:


(2) Yash Raj Films