Monday, October 08, 2007

Films this week


Its so different when you enter a cinema hall with no expectations and laugh at every silly move. Dhamaal was one belonging to that category, so i will speak of nothing about film-making (cause i honestly dont even remember noticing any of it. says a lot...!) This movie made me laugh. Several times. Plus at no point did i feel it over-the-top or like 'how much longer?'. Achievement for all the comic timing that went well and for the not-so-perfect Ashish Chowdhury moments that got hidden away. Nothing more to the film than being basically entertaining with a special mention to the Air-Traffic controller (i forget his name, apologies!) and 'adi you are so smaaart, you are so clever', quite proud of you Javed Jaffery. Exceptional stuff there after real long. Also special thanks for a almost songless 2 hours, added to the fun! Ritesh is ofcourse now a seasoned laugh riot, doesnt even have to try....

Then you enter the theater with a 'I've heard so much about this, what is the deal here??' and there you get hit by not just something surprising, but so gripping that you have to classify that as the fastest 2 and a half bollywood hours of your life. What a surprise package this one. After long a promising new face. Great blend of intensity and innocence (though that i think was default). Minus dialogue delivery, Neil Mukesh does a splendid job as far as screen presence goes in latest suspense (?) thriller, Johnny Gaddar. Matching upto quite decent acting skills and stunning ones' expectations quite a few times as the character journies from confidence to submittance to achievement. A certain amount of versatality could have been achieved though, as i dont think the script denied any comic or romantic interventions. But all in all, i could not have expected any new comer to behave with such ease and 'handle' almost such stalworths, with so much confidence. Kudos to the latest Mukesh camp entrant.
About the rest concerning this film, enticing script, very apt camerawork, crisp edit, simple yet intelligent plots(quite a few of them), no flamboyant script movements but a good helping of 360 degree twists. Somewhere mid-way through the movie, I would have accepted that a little too many plots were being thrown and new ones were being born almost every 15 minutes. But as we cornered the end, and just as we slowly begin wondering that the otherwise so obvious conclusions, must be telling a story more real, simply because there was a decent intelligence in the coming together of the film, surely enough the end catches you off-guard and you are left smiling t yourself... NIIIICE.!!
On the flip side, there could have been an idea of sub-plots. But I still respect the layering, and especially the way so much characterization was handled. I dont know what exactly makes me fond of this watch, but a mature and serious attempt at film-making after quite long. And I'm anyways a sucker for small-time productions, I think they need a lot of will and a hell lot of guts. So hats-off to this team!