Mohenjo Daro Review

Mohenjo Daro

Director- Ashutosh Gowariker

Starring- A tanned Hrithik, Hansika Motwani lookalike in feathers (Pooja Hegde), Kabir Bedi with horns, Arunoday Singh in a skirt and left over star cast of Lagaan as extras.

Rating- Meh.

Mohenjo Daro presents the age old story of good versus bad in times so alien to all of us. Despite having a spectacular set deign, the film doesn’t give any great insights into history or the civilization. There is hard work for sure. Full points to the team for recreating that era. I felt transported to that era, bought into their stories as well, but I feel sorry that the film didn’t cut much ice with me. Watch it for the sheer magnificence, the scale of the movie.

I just thought to have some fun with the movie in a pictorial movie review, started by the hilarious Imaan Sheikh.

These are original slides, made my me.

Mohenjo Daro (Mojo) is a film about history, love, endurance and weird hairdos and head gears.

The movie begins with a daredevil act by our hero called Sermon…I mean Sarman who upsets Maneka Gandhi by killing a crocodile in a small village called Amri.

The daredevil act is soon followed by scenes singlehandedly dedicated to show what an amazing human being our Sarman is. He is brave. He is dedicated. He is always willing to help. He is obedient. He is Anna Hazare. He is Mahatma Gandhi. He is Mother Teresa. He is Arvind Kejriwal. Sad there were no fancy universities at that time, else, he would have stood avval in his college too.

Oh I forgot. He is curious as well. He wants to travel. He wants to see where the sun rises, where it sets. He wants to fly…run…fall…he is basically Ranbir Kapoor from Yeh Jawaani Hain Deewani in sacks.

So he travels from Amri to Mojo where his acts of kindness still continue. He meets an old man and gives him his carpet-shawl. Aww so kind. He stands up for the poor. Aww so upright. He reprimands his best friend Hojo for staring at girls. Aww so Sanskari. Cut to next scene. Sanskari turns Sleazy.

Errr…research ki aisi ki taisi.

Sleazy Sarman and Human Parrot then fall in love. Because they both are good looking and all good looking people should fall in love. With each other that is. They even sing a song.

Oops wrong song.

But there is a problem. The baddie in the film has a bad headgear, a bad skirt, bad temper and a bad, bad crush on Human Parrot.

So it’s decided that Sleazy Sarman will have to go through Bakar Zokaar Pariksha. Errr what? Wait till you watch. Bakar Zokaar are cannibal-cousins. Our hero fights with both of them. The fight scene is done well though.

Of course our hero wins. I think it’s the end of the story. It’s not. I forgot it was an Ashutosh Gowariker film.

I turned 58, the hero continued with his heroic acts.He finds out about his father, his past and all.

Wow, can I leave now?

No. He even catches the bad men red handed as they smuggle weapons into the pious land of Mojo.

Very nice. Can it please end here now?

NO! There are torrential rains. Sindhu maiyaa is getting angry. Mojo is drowning. Sleazy Sarman turns into a civil engineer.

Amazeballs. Is it over?

No!! He builds a bridge, minus the concrete that is. He makes a bridge with boats.

Oh lovely!!

Gives instructions. Scoops everyone out of their cottages. Swims in the river. Helps everyone. HE IS THE BEST THING EVAH THAT HAPPENED TO MANKIND!!

*I stand up and start sneaking out*

Wait…listen…where are you going…there is more…he turns into a God…he grows wings…he starts flying…Krish Returns….listen…don’t go.

Ok you don’t intend to end yaar. I am leaving. Yalla bye.

-Lokesh Dharmani

This is my weekly review on Masala! (http://www.masala.com/movie-review-mohenjo-daro-222155.html)

Rustom Review

Rustom

Rating- 2.5 stars

Neeraj Pandey’s films are tricky, because, they manipulate you to root for the criminal, cheer for the illegal. Despite slight guilt, I found myself cheering for Naseer’s character in A Wednesday because the director played on our anger, our vague sense of resilience. Naseer goes against the law and yet the writing, the direction of the film made him look like a hero. Even in Special 26, the robberies are so deliciously committed with a cocker of a climax at the end that you feel like the head cheer leader of the robbers’ team, minus the pompoms that is. I know it’s not fair to compare (but inevitable too), Rustom lacks the empathy of A Wednesday or the intrigue of Special 26.

The film has all the right ingredients to make a flavorful, masala crime thriller. A Naval commander kills his wife’s lover and surrenders. There is infidelity, high designation, power, national level secrecy and a murder. Alas the film loses zing in its telling.

The first half comes straight to the point but gets too filmy in the whole process. There are slow motions and jarring background score that jar the buildup instead of creating one. The heroine dramatically drops her back in shock and looked more like Roli from Sasural Simar Ka than Rustom’s Cythia. I half expected a mother in law to show up in garish makeup or someone to turn into a snake or a makkhi. It’s this Ekta Kapoor kind of characters that robs the film of all seriousness it deserves. Sample this. There is Esha Gupta with a resting bitch face.

She plays Red Lips who has borrowed her hair from Elvis Presley.

She is forever seductive in the movie. She gasps and pouts while lighting a cigarette. She gasps and pouts while driving. She even gasps and pouts as she stands in the witness box in the court. She is so pointlessly seductive that she looks like a cheap deodorant model than the part she plays. But we understand it. Red Lips is a vamp and like all good Bollywood vamps, she wears provocative clothes and smokes a cigarette.

Sadly, barring Pankaj Malhotra and Kumud Mishra, rest of the cast doesn’t work too.

Ileana Dcruz looks fragile and beautiful but fails to leave much impact. Akshay Kumar plays a Parsi officer with a strange –I-am-trying-my-best-not-to-sound-Punjabi-accent. He completely loses the character especially in English lines. The Punjabi gabru in him refuses to leave. The moment he would say, ‘that’s all, your honor’, I almost heard a silent burrrraaah at the end of it.

However there are some brilliant scenes in the movie.

A one shot interrogation scene at the police station (that they sadly broke into two cuts) is done so well. It not only gives insights into the case but also builds the required tension. Also in another scene Akshay Kumar and Pankaj Malhotra come face to face across a game of chess. Though the analogy is done to death, but parallels between the queen on the chess board and Rustom’s wife make for interesting word play.

The film has humor that sometimes works, sometimes fails. 400 people dead in a train accident that earns the newspaper some 13500 copies sale is an interesting ode to current generation’s obsession with YouTube hits, Facebook likes and shares, even at the cost of some insensitive pictures or posts. There is a brief scene where a street vendor starts selling Vikram towels who died in a towel that never came down. He says, ‘lijiye Vikram Towel,marne par bhi nahi girta.’ But humor attempted in the second half of the movie tends to get too repetitive and irritating. A newspaper publisher reprimanded by a judge for his provocative headlines, again, is a subtle hint at modern times’ intolerance but decibel levels hit their unbearable peak when the court room scenes turn into some sort of a scream fest. Sachin Khedekar and Usha Nadkarni scream so much that Arnab Goswami sounds like Manmohan Singh. Even the choice of characters in the jury panel that contains of a Punjabi and a South Indian is contrived and a forced attempt at silly humor.

I loved the detailing in the film. They have created an almost perfect world of 1960s. The naval ships, the furniture, the sets, even that Godrej fridge in the kitchen, everything in the film is detailed so well.

Rustom despite having an interestig plot tries to play safe, please everyone and resorts to Bollywood formulae of forced humor and even more forced insipid songs.

This is my weekly review on Masala! Click here-

http://www.masala.com/movie-review-rustom-222152.html