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| CULTURE & SOCIETY |
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FILM REVIEW |
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A high ride that slips along the way
Arkadev Ghoshal
New Delhi
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A poster of the movie Ferrari Ki Sawaari |
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YOU HAVE Boman Irani, you have Sharman Joshi, and you have Rajkumar Hirani somewhere behind the scenes. It would have been criminal not to have expected a few laughs here and there, if not an overall laugh riot. Unfortunately, Ferrari Ki Sawaari (FSK) turns out to be quite tepid, and is just about a halfway decent film instead of the sleeper hit that every family was waiting for.
Sure, the film had potential, and not just because of the names but the premise of cricket and hardships! Nagesh Kukunoor had used that advantage to the hilt in Iqbal, and there has been no looking back for Shreyas Talpade ever since. Rajesh Mapuskar, the director, could have emulated that success, but thanks to a forced and somewhat contrived plot, the film falls flat.
Rusy (Joshi) lives with his father Deboo (Irani) and son Kayo (Ritvik Sahore) in a Parsi colony in Mumbai. As a clerk at the local Road Transport Office, he struggles to make ends meet. Nevertheless, he wants the best for his son, and tries to somehow meet the boy’s every demand, even if it means breaking his dead wife’s piggy bank for some extra cash.
Kayo isn’t a brat, though. He exhibits emotions way beyond his years, and that is where Sahore excels. Kayo is also a prodigious cricketer, and suddenly comes across a chance to attend a cricket camp at Lords, England. However, the camp fee is Rs 1.5 lakh, and Rusy, though initially reluctant, decides to arrange for that money by any means necessary.
Through a series of events that could have been more plausible and compelling, Rusy finds that the only way he can get that money is by arranging a Ferrari for a wedding planner. However, the only such Ferrari of that kind in India resides in the garage of the ‘god’ who has a century of centuries. Does Rusy get the Ferrari? Does Kayo get to go to Lords? That’s for the audience to find out.
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Just about a halfway decent film instead of the sleeper hit we were waiting for |
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Unfortunately, it may not be the best way to find out. True, that Boman Irani looks very believable as the Parsi bawaji, and even Sharman Joshi does his best to breathe life into a character that’s a total wimp, not to mention an idiot, in probably the truest sense of the word. After all, what person has not been annoyed by telecallers offering loans? Strangely enough, Rusy does not seem to even know of any such nuisance, but actually buys a phone so that he can get a call for a loan to finance his son’s Lords sojourn! Had the ‘survival of the fittest’ law held true on silver screen, Mumbai would have annihilated Rusy within a matter of weks!
Little Ritvik, as Kayo, gives a few lump-in-the-throat moments too, but he’s not the breath of fresh air that the entire cast of precocious kids in Chillar Party was. Maybe someone can find a better platform for this talented young spark before he fizzles out.
Pritam’s music is just above mediocre, and that too only in parts. And one is bound to harbour a nagging suspicion that Rajkumar Hirani had probably written a much more concise story, which was then stretched — unbearably so — beyond two hours. As for Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the producer as well as the screenplay writer who recently had recently fumed that rubbish films are doing business of over Rs 100 crore, here’s some news: His latest venture, though not entirely rubbish, won’t reach half that mark. Sure, that’s unfortunate, but that’s the cold, hard truth!
A guilty cruise through 1980s rock’n’roll
Nandita Mehta
New Delhi
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A poster of the movie Rock Of Ages
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A RUN-OF-THE-MILL boy meets girl in the starry lanes of Hollywood only to be ripped apart by the lure of superstardom is old. But when you add to this a little bit of Foreigner’s I want to know what love is and a lot of Journey’s Don’t stop believin’, you remember the corny adage that after all, ‘old is gold’. It indeed is.
It couldn’t have been easy for director Adam Shankman. Everything in Rock Of Ages — from the costumes to the make-up to the sets to the script — is over-the-top, and if the director hadn’t backed it up with a stellar cast that throw themselves so earnestly into the silliness. Well, then, it would have been just plain silly.
The year is 1987 and squeaky-clean as can be. Sherrie (Julianne Hough) hops on a bus from Oklahoma to chase her singing dreams in Hollywood. Big, bad Hollywood? Possibly, but then Sherri almost instantly after landing there meets fellow aspiring singer/barman Drew (Diego Boneta). They romance, sing and work at the King of Clubs bourbon room on Sunset Strip, that’s facing the threat of closure from the city’s mayor and his wife with a seemingly hidden agenda (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
Only one person can save club owners Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand from financial disarray. And that man is Stacee Jaxx.
You may want to give it up for Tom Cruise who, after a long hibernation (from good roles, not films), walks away with this film, that too in backless and crotchless leather pants! Cruise plays Stacee Jaxx, rockstar extraordinaire of the big, bad 1980s. Jaxx goes through life and concerts intoxicated and disillusioned. Whether Cruise is belting out Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me or Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive one doesn’t know how much the producers have adjusted Cruise’s singing prowess wavelengths but it all sounds fingerlickin’ good.
As for other members of the cast: Hough and Boneta as the young couple in love sound and look appropriate (very Bieber-Gomez); Russel Brand is carrying on his deadpan act from It’s Greek To Me, still enjoyable. But sadly, Catherine Zeta-Jones sounds and looks like a shadow of her former glorious self.
Rock Of Ages has been given an A certificate. One wishes some minor cuts had been made and the sheer fun of grooving along to rock’n’roll had been given to all. It won’t win an Oscar like some of the other musicals (Chicago, Evita). No, Rock Of Ages is just all pleasure, a guilty pleasure. Well, we’re rolling along with it. Even as we’re writing this, we’ve replugged into those classic hits from the 1980s all the while doing a little jiggy to the left and then to the right. Now repeat, just one more time.
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