Hindi Medium Review

Hindi Medium

Director- Saket Choudhary

Starring- Irrfan Khan, Saba Qamar and Deepak Dobrial

Rating- 2

Hi I am Pia Batra, that little girl you saw in the trailer of Hindi Medium, whose school admission story forms the plot of the film. My mother Mita Batra is an always blaming, spelling shaming, and drug scaring mom. She is a bit…err…weird. Like she paints me, first with Odomos and then smears me with sunscreen. And mind you it’s winters. Sunblock in winters is like logic in Hindifilms, pointless. But all of it is imperative. These are the quirks that delude filmmakers into creating a character. My father has special traits too. He has a sari-lehnga shop that he calls a fashion studio; you know the typical middle class syndrome that we all have. And that’s the reason my mom goes from Mita/Mithu to Honey, an endearing term meant exclusively for the elite.

So before I get admitted into a school, I get admitted to different strata of the society; from a humble middle class house in Chandani Chowk to a villa in Vasant Vihar and then to a slum in Bharat Nagar. I felt like Dev Patel, Slumdog millionaire in reverse!

My parents even get in touch with an expensive consultant, who conducts classes in various subjects, including English. She is pretty and pretty anglicized. And then I heard her say ‘revert back’ that made the grammar Nazi in me commit suicide.

Our shift to the slums is just a way to get admission in our choice of school through Gareebi quota, but hey that can wait! When you are in the slums, what do you do? Tada!!! Manipulate!!Gareebi Dikhao, audience rulao!!

I sit in corner of my dilapidated house. My mother fights some serious fights over ration andpaani. There are rats and mosquitoes and dengue and chicken guinea and all kinds of poor things that are thrown in, in perfect measure till you reach out for a box of tissues. Aur toh aur, my father even starts working in a factory. I had reached a funny- kuchBhiDotCom turn of my life. So did the audiences. At this point I can’t decide if my parents are sweet or stupid. All this drama so that I can mouth a few lines in English? I wanted to devour the Oxford Dictionary or get my parents introduced to Kangana Ranaut and Kapil Sharma.

Slums are fun because we have Shyam uncle better known as Pappi ji from Tanu Weds Manu. He plays his character with such earnestness that it will win your heart. I secretly wished if he was my father, instead of Irrfan-now-with-a-double-R-Khan. He seemed more sorted and integral and tots won my heart when he hugged his son telling him he was the luckiest person ever. Sniff sniff. Actually he reminds me of my father from a decade ago. Deepak Dobrial is the new humble, poor Irrfan Khan, after all papa can’t play Billo Barber kind of roles any longer. He has done Hollywood films bhai…and even dated Deepika Padukone in a film.

But my father earns applause for putting some sense, some credibility in the climatic speech onHindi/English medium.

So between a poorly directed Hindi Medium and Arjun Kapoor’s broken English in Half Girlfriend, you really don’t have much of a choice. I feel you buddy.

Raees Review

Raees

Director-Rahul-did-he-really-direct-Parzania-Dholakia?

Starring- Shah Rukh Khan and Mahira Khan

Rating- Please read 🙂

A kid helps bootleggers in their deals and his mother doesn’t even know about it. Because she is busy mouthing Mother India kind of dialogues to an ophthalmologist, “Main ise udhar ka nazariya nahi dena chahti…” as she refuses to buy her son a pair of glasses with borrowed money.

And why glasses? Arey hero ka look hain bhai. So what if we can’t create depths in the character, we sure can create depths in his look. Kohl eyes, swag in his walk, an extended goatee are a few things we focus on, in name of characterization.

And oh by the way, Mamma India continues with her gyan… “Koi bhi dhanda chota ya bada nahi hota” as long you don’t hurt anyone. But our Raees has selective hearing and conveniently forgets about the latter half. In his first attempt at his dhanda he steals a swanky car, trades it for some goats and singlehandedly whacks a bunch of hot headed men, all of which you see, shouldn’t be much of a problem, because these are side characters. They are meant to be hurt in a Hindi film anyway.

With mom’s weirdly misinterpreted approval (Ammi jaan kaha karti thi) and Raees’s even more weird sense of narcissism (Baniye ka dimaag aur Miya Bhai ki daring), writers justify everything illegal in his world.

And if that is not enough, we still need to humanize him and bring in a bit of Rahul in Raees. Hence our hero stands up for mill workers, empowers local ladies, cooks for his wife, breaks into a Garba, becomes a politician, a builder, a Ted Talk speaker where he hopes for a world, devoid of bhook ka darr and garibi ki maar. Oh ho such pain in these lines that I badly wanted to pop in a Panadol.

Wait there is even a Hindu Muslim bhai bhai episode. See apna Raees is so secular.

Even the climax is so melodramatic; violins start playing abruptly on montages of Raees’s wife, mother and kid, trying hard to cajole manipulatively the last bit of sympathy out of me that I never felt!!

Sadly there is nothing heroic, tragic or even comic about our protagonist that could get me invested in his story. The hunter and hunted chase sequences between Raees and his cop are so lazily written that they hardly establish the much required edge-on-the-seat tension or drama. When the cops block the roads, Raees smuggles liquor through the waters. Wow. Amaze balls, Captain Obvious. It is this simplistic writing that robs our hero of quick thinking, ruthlessness and a larger than life appeal.

Even the dialogues seem forced and juvenile. Raees holds a microphone and says ‘mai ka laal’ (geddit? As in ‘Mic’ ka laal) and then repeats the joke fearing if we missed it.

Nawazuddin plays the menacing cop rather well.

Mahira Khan, as most supporting cast, is sadly wasted in the movie. In a scene Raees tells her not to ‘use her brains’ and that pretty much sums up the sad roles of our female parts in most Hindi films. But she is amazing. She is the first pregnant lady ever who doesn’t show any pregnancy bulge and suddenly delivers a baby one fine day.

And then there is a Sunny Leone too without much purpose. It could be anyone else: a Sunny Deol for all you care and it wouldn’t matter much. Or wait, maybe it would. I mean a Sunny Deol dancing to Laila oh Laila would be at least entertaining.

Watch Raees only if you are a big Shah Rukh Khan fan.