Review

• 

  Manisha Lakhe

  -May 11, 2012

  FilmOrbit

  ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’ Her blue eyes tortured and wide, her long hair whipped by an...

  ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’, ‘Diffuse the bomb!’, ‘Do something!’ Her blue eyes tortured and wide, her long hair whipped by an invisible fan, she’s on the hero’s left side and then right, shaking him by the shoulder, made frantic by love for the hero. Tick off boxes and mark her for awards, you’d say, except that the hero is tied to a chair and the bomb with a couple of minutes on the timer is strapped to him, and a cop is kneeling by the chair attempting to diffuse the bomb while madame frenetic acts.
  
  Imagine Mel Gibson attempting to diffuse the bomb strapped on to Danny Glover as in Lethal Weapon. Now imagine Danny Glover’s wife as frenetic as our heroine here. What would Mel Gibson do? He’d probably put the bomb timer on pause (this is a Hindi movie. Anything is possible!), gag her with the same pristine white hanky that was used to shut the hero up and then diffuse the bomb.
  
  
  
  But this is only one example of how much fun this movie is. Alas, it is not a spoof. It is a comeback vehicle for an actor who has portrayed strong women characters (says Wiki, right here )
  
  Is this a good time to say what happened to other strong portrayals by women actors as comeback movies like Aaja Nachle and Lajja? Maybe not. Seeta by any other name would be tortured by Ravan. That’s why we have Sanjana, Geeta, Salma and Paro! All of them portrayed by our heroine who is shown wearing jewellery and wearing dupattas over her head in her each of her past lives. Past Lives? Yes! Regression. You know she’s in another avatar simply because they address her by a different name. Rest is the same. People around her get bumped off (did someone say, ‘Panauti’?)
  
  No, she’s not Bad Luck Babe. She’s working out a TV soap heroine fantasy. To be loved so much by a man who is willing to kill all men and go through lifetimes of plotting and planning to own her, body, mind and soul. The woman keeps beautiful figure, her blue eyes, her face... The man who wants her beyond all reason has been given a ‘vardaan’ (a boon) of shape shifting. Harry Potter squeezes a lemon and looks in the pensieve ... I mean Manthara the magician who is a potter can look into the future.
  
  Then there’s Meerabai and Krishna who also give ‘vardaan’. And Meerabai does the Lagaan dance. And she looks rather like someone who has inhaled illegal substances in her fifteen minutes of screen time.
  
  
  
  No. Yours truly is unfortunately quite sober as I fill you in with events in the movie so bizarre you’ll roll over popcorn spilt in the aisles from the sheer hilarity. I wish it were intentional. Because the heroine tries so hard to prove she is fantastic at her job. I am sure deep beneath her make-up she was expressing her emotions beautifully.
  
  And had they let the movie be regular instead of 3D, maybe they could have stretched the budget to take us to other parts of the world. Why should past lives tales be geographically restricted to Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan? Why couldn’t a Mumbai Sanjana be a sheep shearer in Oz or a geisha in Japan or even a peasant woman with twelve children in Mesopotamia? And if belief in past lives is the thing, why couldn’t she be the sheep in Oz, or a singing cricket in Japan..
  
  The ridiculousness of the film starts with the audience attempting to change the 3D glasses because it is all wrong. If people move, the 3D vision simply gets blurred. Or if they attempt to talk in a normal manner rather than like ventriloquists, the 3D gets blurred. I simply pretended that I had visited the opthalmologist and that my pupils had been dilated for tests. That’s exactly how the 3D is.
  
  
  
  You ought to be angry at the hysterics you see on screen. But you end up ticking off boxes of the things the heroine does while everyone else in the scene is simply frozen, to stand and watch. No one helps.Not even when the hero is finally untied from his chair. She’s the one who unties the big fat ropes binding him (she unravels the rope in like Shekhar Suman unhooks the clasp a la Utsav). She is shown dragging the injured hero into the hospital room (why didn’t he walk?), she draws water from the well, she even identifies and runs to the hero’s best friend who is marching back in a parade of injured soldiers! She is fearless, runs to the action where explosions are being set off and the policemen are being felled by flying bricks and cement blocks. She even mows down the baddie who has dodged bullets from three policemen with her driving. All this action while she’s wearing precarious high heels! At some points you’re just want the camera strapped on her shoulders to help us see 3D in giraffe-vision and at others you just are afraid she’s going to topple over and break her chin.
  
  But the best scene is when she has a breakdown not because the hero has been kidnapped, but because there’s no coffee in the house. She’s distressed because she’ll have to do the groceries again! A sentiment echoed by many women in the audience who’d rather be killed again and again than do grocery shopping.
  
  
  
  This review contains no spoilers. The 3D and the tacky sets and even worse clothes have already hurt your eyes, the ridiculous plot has killed more than a couple of brain cells, your jaw has probably dislocated from laughing at the frenzied acting, and your legs will be wobbly when you leave the theater because you have giggled so much.
  
  But seriously, for someone who did everything from Papi Gudiya to Dil Toh Paagal Hai, Karishma Kapoor deserved better, you’ll say. I’d ask,‘ Why did she not read the script?’ Looks like no one really read the script. The only Dangerous thing about the movie is the triteness of the past lives. Ravi Kissen as the cause of the the love chase through many lives is the best ten minutes of the movie. Rest is as stale as yesterday’s news.
  
  

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