Knight and Day Review

James Mangold’s Knight And Day is an action flick with a dash of comedy and bearing a tincture of romance. A Cameron Diaz, Tom Cruise film, this is the second movie after Vanilla Sky where the couple shared the screen together. A thrilling, hilarious and engaging piece, audiences are sure to stay glued to the seat for the whole1 and ½ hour as Cruise takes them on a deadly adventurous ride down a globe trotting adventure with Diaz at his heels. The speedy plot does not allow the viewers to afford to miss a glance of the fast paced series of events that occurs throughout the course of event. Atypical of Cruise’s onscreen secret agent avatar, watch Roy Miller, as the knight performs daring spine chilling action moves ensuring the security of the damsel in distress.

The synopsis of the movie commences as the camera pans on an observing gentleman at the airport, idling away his time as he collides with a clumsy fellow boarder, June Haven on a chance encounter. The camera then shifts to a team of FBI agents who were monitoring the activities of the gentleman at the airport. The next few minutes were one of great excitement as the intriguing gentleman at the airport turns out to be a secret agent who is currently a fugitive allegedly, in pursuit of an unstoppable power source, a battery that he intends to pass on to demolishing hands in exchange of an exorbitant sum. However, as June is drawn into the fatal web, the duo is seen involved in a trans-continental chase, as they cheat the close shaves with death. Completely smitten by Roy’s charisma, June keeps on getting entangled in emotional attachment with Roy as she rides the quagmire of love, completely unaware of the real motif of the mission. After a series of tiff and unexpected betrayals, June had to come to terms with the fact that the only man he can seek sanctuary from is Roy. The movie ends with the stereotypical execution of the villains, with all misgiving clarified with Roy’s employer and the creator of the battery handed over to the rightful authority. The climax shows a beautiful beachfront wherefrom Roy and June sets out on a holiday trip away from the acrimonious man hunt.

The only character in the movie that is meant to and has successful stole all the limelight, keeping the audience gaping at the screen with the rising adrenalin rush in their nerves is, Tom Cruise. Despite reaching the late forties, the actor has by far surpassed the feats of younger heroes in action movies. A perfect popcorn movie serving a dose of mind boggling excitement, Cruise has once again cast his enigma on the silver screen through his sharp, natty look, witty humor, appealing features and confident moves. Performing all the life threatening stunts by his own, the movie looks extremely convincing and realistic and been another challenge to the fellow action heroes who hesitate to take such a quantum leap. As Cruise ducks on his motorcycle between fast approaching trams, races the bulls, dodges bullets, hoodwinks the federal agents and romances the lady while teaching her tricky Houdini moves, the audiences watch enthralled and spellbound. Cruise has definitely done an appreciable job in what appears to be his last action movie. Though his fans will want him to keep coming back for more, rumor has it that the actor will engage himself in only character roles post this movie. Cruise’s screen presence has levitated the movie to a new height that would have been otherwise impossible to attain with such a superficial script.

Diaz as June has been quite appropriate for the role, as she plays a messy simpleton desperately trying to mop up the clutter in her life as she finds herself drawn dangerously close to an enigmatic mysterious spy and an ensuing racquet of assailants. The blonde beauty has aptly impersonated Haven’s confused self, torn between the maze of double-crosses and her undeniable attraction towards Roy.

In a nutshell, Knight And Day is a complete entertainment with titillating action stunts, great music, picturesque locales, swift pace, breakneck adventure with drama at a superficial level, another splendid flick to mark Cruise’s return to the action genre.

Band Baaja Baraat Review

Yash Raj Film’s Band Baaja Baraat is a complete family entertainment that takes the audiences behind the scenes of big, fat, Indian weddings. Debutant director Maneesh Sharma has done a good job in whipping out a fresh romantic comedy that restores the sugariness, otherwise missing in YRF flicks lately. Shooting in the typical posh by lanes of Delhi, the director has strictly bequeathed the artificial scenic setting to bring in a fresh, pragmatic feel. With the two central characters of Bitto and Shruti, the director has simply mirrored the simplistic living and high dreaming of the Delhites. Exploring the celebrations and hard works veering the lavish Indian weddings, the storyline is a simple love story with the final moments of revelation of love in the climax.

Bitto, a lazy, uncouth small town slacker finishes college and starts looking for prospects that will keep him from returning to his tawdry homeland into his family occupation of farming. A good-hearted young man with a slight stupidity about him, Bitto had a chance encounter with Shruti at a wedding ceremony while gate crashing the event for food. Shruti a small time wedding planner and a final year college student is from a middle class background with the dazzling dream of becoming the best wedding planner in India. As, bitto falls hard on Shruti at their first meeting, he eventually pursues him on her way back home from college. Shruti divulges her future plan with 'Shaadi Mubarak', the possible name for her yet-to-develop concern. As luck shines on Bitto, they ventured into a 50-50 partnership for 5 years with the strict rule of “No Romance” between them. As they worked together with honesty, planning customized marriages of mediocre families of Delhi, Shruti got lovelorn by Bitto that petered out all her rule book literature from her mind. Evidently, their contrasting characters came to a clash and Shruti had to breach the agreement with the painful realization that Bitto harbors no real feeling for her. The second half of the movie stalls all the romantic air, clouding it with failed business dealings, recurrent fighting motif and stretched out marriage sequences. The climax was a little jerky with Bitto suddenly stumbling upon the realization of his adoration for her after suffering stabs of jealousy from the anonymous love interest in Shruti’s life. The hasty acceptance from Shruti was even queerer as the audiences’ expectation of even the slightest resistance from her side was miserably failed. However, the film finally showed the wedding of Bitto and Shruti in a typical tackily flashy “Dilli shaadhi” (Delhi marriage).

Bitto, played by Ranbir Singh in his debut role is pitch perfect as he impersonates the crude, unpolished Punjabi guy who eats like a glutton and talks with his mouthful. Singh was very convincing in the character that cannot pronounce the term ‘business’ properly, but runs it street-smart neatly and diplomatically under the patronage of Shruti Kakkar. Though not a stereotypically handsome actor, Ranbir Singh as Bitto has earned huge applauses from the audiences with his sincere feat and natural acting. Performing spontaneously, Ranbir has proved his efficiency as one of most deserving newbie of Bollywood. Though, in some romantic scenes, his expressions have fall short of depth, his overall screen presence was impressive for a newcomer.

Anushka sharma, on the other hand has come a long way from Rab Ne Bana di Jodi with king Khan and showed her talent aptly in playing a middle class young lady with high ambitions and a fowl temper. She has portrayed her character well, as she fell head over heels in love with Bitto, shunned her business rule book, finally got deluded from her love struck status and completed the circle by accepting Bitto back in life again. She has played the scenes of anger, anguish, frustration, trounce, pain and back to love again, realistically, while maintaining her lean, graceful appearance all throughout.

However, the item number in which Bitto and Anushka replaced Shah Rukh Khan in the up scale wedding ceremony was a little unrealistic, though the duo bedazzled the audiences with their enticing performance. The picturization of the song “Andha Ishq” was not very befitting with the quixotic feel of the song as the audience missed the scenic locations in the love struck daydreams of the character.

The music of the movie has earned huge popularity with peppy numbers like “Aivayi Aivayi”, sad numbers like “Mitra” and romatic tracks like “Andha Ishq”. Salim-Sulaiman have done a commendable job in composing the tracks, keeping in mind the razzle dazzle of the grand Indian shaadis and the refreshing rose, lily and confetti aura of the film. Even the unpracticed dance moves in the song “Aivayi Aivayi” looked lifelike.

Dhobi Ghat Review

Dhobi Ghat, alias Mumbai Dairies is a tale of the City of Dreams, Mumbai and its inhabitants. Veering around four dysfunctional characters at the wake of city Mumbai, the movie enigmatically depicts the vacant quest of human soul and the ubiquitous city bearing witness to their futile pursuits. A film solely dedicated to the exponentially dilapidating state of Mumbai, the characters have played the catalyst to depict the strange vibe of the city that relates and alienates the characters in the process.

The story talks about four individuals, each of whom is an immigrant whom the city binds and breaks up at strategic points. Shai, an investment banker from the New York City is on a sabbatical doing research on marginal businesses and occupations of Mumbai. A chance encounter with the moody and exceptionally talented artist Arun at his painting exhibition led to a commonplace wine spilling occurrence that succeeded a one night stand. Eventually, Arun comes across some tapes shot by the early tenant of his newly shifted apartment in the cramming narrow gully of the city. The tapes are some unpracticed home videos shot by Yasmin Noor, a newly married Muslim girl, a migrant from UP as video dairies addressing her dearest brother Imran. Arun’s dhobi guy Munna starts developing an inclination for Shai and pines for her feelings despite knowing her to be an uptown girl he can never hope to woo. As Shai gets dismissed by Arun, she becomes almost obsessed by him and hooks up with this new dhobi guy in a bid to reach Arun. As their worlds collide with each other, they desperately start seeking an anchor vainly in the incessantly unstable sand grains of the thronged city. The dysfunctional foursome lingers on to accomplish their unfinished business entwined into compelling relationships, only to be struck by the city’s mercurial mood swings and caught into its alienation index.

Aamir Khan as the eccentric up-market painter Arun is a commendable attempt made to portray the character of a successful artist in search of the unknown. A self-proclaimed loner, the character of Arun is of an intriguing painter who exhibits unpredictable mood swings which makes him all the more enigmatic. With furrowed eye brows and disturbed temperament, Arun extends an overt exhibition of his agonizing parting with his son and an utter disgust to persevere. After an intense involvement with Shai, the next morning Arun does not hesitate to display his discomfort as Shai tries to get comfy on his daybed cushion, symbolically attempting to get comfortably close and connected to Arun. Arun’s eccentricity get delineated with his growing involvement with Yasmin as watching her video letters started making him relatively exultant, a stark change unmistakably noticed by Shai on a later encounter. As he gets increasingly absorbed in Yasmin, the final revelation of her suicide took a heavy emotional toll on him. Obsessed and shell shocked, he shifted to a new apartment, but this time the visible skyline from his new lair was no longer the packed, congested one, but a wider one devoid of presences that will impede the line of visibility. The masterpiece that he sketched at the climax in the massive blank canvas pictured his muse at the side with an illustrated visual of the city and its never-ending saga.

The dhobi guy Munna in his ‘wannabe actor’ attitude represents the subaltern section of the society who subsist a ramshackle survival. He washes soiled clothes collected from the neighborhood apartments and goes out on a mouse hunt in the dark of the night. Though, his means of livelihood, one that of washing the dirt and other that of ravaging the garbage are starkly diverse, but play the same scavenger role of cleaning-up, clearly depicting the purgatory state he is trapped in, between big dreams and base living. With a decaying shack as his abode, Munna is shown to be weaving thoughts of a better life, pepped by his tormented passion for the upscale lady. Prateek Babbar’s innocent facial appearance, strong physical built, gullible nature, unrefined verbal communication and unkempt body language made his role completely believable and befitting. His naïve thoughts get expressed as he shies and blushes at the occasional teasing of his cousin brother and his absent minded euphoric smiles in the rain and the breeze as he lives the fleeting moments of elation that mirrors his magnifying nascent adoration for Shai.

Yasmin, a newly married girl from a minority community, an immigrant from UP and new to Mumbai, is an innocent housewife with a girly charm about her. In an effort to correspond and demonstrate the city to her dearest brother, she goes on shooting random city scenes and communicates to the camera in a hope that they will reach her brother someday.  From the first clip to the final, a subtle and sublime change takes place in her as she metamorphosed from a cheery, jovial spirited girl to a lonesome, troubled soul. She pours out her existential trauma through precise hints and revelations in the video letters as she involuntarily scrawls the anecdote of the pained souls of the city. The striking note in her character surfaces as she chooses death over existence being stampeded by the unbearable burden of the stiff social decorum and the blighted state of the city life. Her videos left behind marks out the ignorance, denial and pain inflicted on her, that she suffered silently all through. Being unable to revert back to her parents to seek sanctuary, she becomes a scapegoat of the compelling social norms of marriage. As she gradually turns away from the camera into the blinding lights of the Elephanta cave, her symbolical obliteration into the radiance of enlightment becomes vivid.  

Shai’s character as a foreign entity, expertly juxtaposes both vulnerability and strength as she puts up a brave show on the face of the emotional crisis she experiences. Interlinked by luck and destiny, she connects with Munna as he aids her in her penchant for camera work. Her playful smiles, petite support and adherence to Munna on occasions acknowledge her fondness for him, but her blinding passion for Arun overshadows the line as she jumps headlong into a quest for nothingness. She follows Arun silently, feeding herself with know how about him and develops a queer psychological addiction towards him. Her detachment with both Arun and Munna exposes her dependability on both as she strolls around the congested slum gullies lost. Munnas final act of his submission to her as he surrenders Arun’s address brought her to a realization that finally unwinds her from all the mortal bindings into a state wherefrom she can behold everything clearly.

The docile lady next door is a living replication of the city as she stays stone cold to all happenings, yet registering everything to the core. Her presence in both Yasmin’s videos and during Arun’s stay in the apartment cements the fact of the city’s timeless existence. Like Yasmin stated, she, like the sea devours every secret inside her without divulging anything but a cold stoic stare. The city captured in all possible moods of grey, blue, rainy, shadowy, sunlit, bleak, clamor and buzz is ever-present throughout the course of action and finally finds place in the artist’s masterpiece painting.

The background score of Dhobi Ghat is terrific as the mostly classic instrumental tracks did a commendable job in amplifying the typical desi aura of the movie on the context of a universal theme. As Shai descends the stairs chasing Munna, the backdrop discourse of the worldly “Maya” and “Moh” aptly suggested the earthy vulnerability of humans.

In closing, Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat is a short artistic film that has multiple layers of depth that have to felt to appreciate the kaleidoscope of emotions understated. On face value, it is an extremely slow-paced film without a concrete storyline which evidently leads to blind ends.