Gangs of Wasseypur - I : Movie Review

Bawaaseer !!

Bahut Badi ho gayi ho !!

Maange Jo babuna, prem nishaniya !!

Man !! An action packed 3 hour trip to an evolution story of crime and life in a small village in south bihar through the meandering plot around witty events, rustic locales and contemporary culturual snapshots ....

Take this : Super music adaptation and presentation through songs -
1. Jiya ho Bihar ke Lala, Jiya ho hazar sala  .... tani nachi gaayi sabke man bahlaave e bhaiyaa !!

2. I am a hunter, she want to see my gun, when I pull out by, the woman start to run !! Hum Hain Shikaari, paakit mein lambi Gun ... !!

3. O Womaniya ... ahha womaniya ... Badle rupaiya ke dena chavaniyaa, Saiyyan ji jhaptte, to hona hiraniya !!

One hell of a movie but still can't ignore the flaws ... :-)

Plot: The story ranges in 3 generations starting in pre-independence era and extending to mid 1980's in Chhotanagpur's coal belt. The charachters in the story are involved in trade / loot of coal and scrap iron.
Shaihd Khan (Jaideep Ahlawat) a coal-dacoit-turned-mining-gunda gets murdered by his master, the coal mining mafia-turned-politician Ramadheer Singh (Tigmanshu Dhulia) with close support of the Qureshi/Butcher community who have a generation old feud with the Pathans (Khans). Shahid's son, Sardar Khan (Manoj) vows revenge in a halaal manner rather than jhatka and he keeps cutting his adversaries in that easy-easy-severing fashion all along the plot !!
He marries a spitfire "womaniya" Nagma (Chadda) who inspite of all philandering escapades of her husband stands by him through thick and thin. There's another "hiraniya" Durga (Reema Sen) who seduces Sardar in tempting as well as hilarious sequences. The movie goes onto throw ahead various charachters one after another making audience wonder why the heck so many actors ?? Imagine veteran actor like Yashpal Sharma coming in for a cameo as dual-voice singer for a marriage party.
On whole, the movie shows the intricate fabric of crime, law-lessness, venegeance, adultery and feud in the protagonist Sardar Khan's life. Dark in details, the movie would never inspire a soul, but would just spring open a dirty pandora's box of these once-upon-a-time-mafia-controlled-geographies. You would either love it , or hate it ..... but you wouldn't be able to ignore it.

Good Part: Songs (Sneha Khanwalkar rocks!!), Manoj Bajpai, Comic sequences, Richa Chadda,  Nawazuddin(Faizal). Infact acting performance of each person in movie was exemplary, And last but not least - apt dialogues (forget those expletives)

Bad Part: Confused plot, too many charachters, too fast at some points while too slow at others, too much of gore, cow abattoir scenes (yuck !!), charachter of Manoj was too complex with more shades of black than white, audience may forget as to what was the motive of protagonist to keep himself bald ? And yes, too lengthy a movie !!

Several times watchable. Must for you, if you have lived in North Indian belt ever.
Don't ever assume or pray it to be a family movie. It actually can't. One of the best from Manoj Bajpai's works till date. He looks real. But out of all these, one man who makes his presence felt through his skinny body, like-Amitabh-hair-style and piercing eyes, is the Sardar's younger son - Faizal (Nawazuddin). Last time we saw of him was in Kahaani. Super expressions indeed.

Girls can and should keep away if they dont want to see too much of gore and "touching" expletives. Mind you, The movie is rated -  "Adult".

The 2nd part would be out soon. Seems like Anurag Kashyap's going the Francis Coppola way !!

Revised Rating: 4*/5* ... Can't believe I did this :-)

Chalaa Taani
Neo.

Shanghai : Movie Review

Here is a quick review of the new release (relatively 7 days old, as of today) - Shanghai.

Plot:
''Sone ki chidiya, dengue malaria, gud bhi hai, gobar bhi, Bharat Mata ki jai."
It's a song from the flick. In fact the whole plot revolves around this central theme.

Bharatnagar, a fictional town, is undergoing a revolutionary face lift SEZ exercise named as International Business Park. Mr. Krishnan (Abhay Deol) is the Vice Chairman for this government aided project (an IAS officer). A certain Indian-US-based college proffessor Mr. Ahmadi (Prosenjit) is against this project and is trying to create a mass revolution in residents of the Bharatnagar. The story starts getting interesting as soon as Ahmadi is assasinated through a via-pawn-executed political plan. The other protagonists/charachters get in the plot as they were linked to either the site of Ahmadi's assasination or the person himself. What comes ahead is a series of dirty yet realistic events which lead the audience to know as to who the real culprits of Ahmadi's murder were and how the charachters reacted / responded to various events in their lives.

Strengths:
Abhay Deol, Farrukh Shaikh, Kalki, Emraan Hashmi, Pitobash Tripathi, Script, Imported Kamariya :-)

Weaknesses:
Dibakar Bannerjee (Director) should have been bit more elaborative when the movie explains/lays out the stand of protagonists because almost all of them have chequered roles. This negligence leads to confusion in minds of layman masses in audience as to who has a postive role or who is negative. In fact a kid behind my seat was shouting at his mother "Mom, Abhay Deol is good guy or bad guy ??" Having an extreme slant towards mindsets of Shyam Benegal or Govind Nihalani, can sometimes cost you serious revelue losses in commercial cinema.

In fact, what I quote as the weakness above, is of great strength in front of a discerning audience.
The protagonists, with shades of gray, show you various colours of their roles. It makes the movie look convincing and real-life inspired.

Abahy Deol is the dark horse who yet again impresses in a well crafted and well executed role.  (Please ignore his not-so-perfect tamizh accent dialogues)
One person who unexpectedly surprised me is Kalki. The last time she impressed me was in Dev D (Yes, I could not watch her flick - "The Girl in Yellow Boots"). The scenes in which she reacts to police in hospital and the one, in which she finally meets the murderer Anant Jog, are par-excellence.

Yet another trivia: This brings Farukh Shaikh and Supriya Pathak together after long long years.
Last time they worked together was in the wonderful "Bazaar".

I would have loved the movie much more hadn't it been yet another fact-accepting, submissive and dark story.
Imaginative but thought provoking movie where the good man knocks out the bad man off the ring is always a mass as well as class entertainer. e.g Singham, Ghulam etc.

My Take: 3.5*
(Could have been a 4* movie, if some inspiring/motivating climax could have been thought of)

Chalaa Taani,
Neo.

The Nocturnal Recruit

Just for Fun !!

Narrator: An anonymous fictional cadet sailing on a product tanker ship in early years of 2000's.

The Excerpt:
It was a cold misty night in Black Sea (An almost landlocked sea in Europe) Cold as in 2 degree celsius below zero and significant wind blowing over deck. That makes a bad combo indeed.

Chief (Boss) called me in CCR (Cargo Control Room, from where all the remote operations of valves and pumps used for cargo/ballast/heating/transfer takes place) after the usual 4 to 8 watch on Bridge.

He seemed to be tense.
One of the two ballast pumps (ballast is sea water taken in ship to maintain its stability in absence of full load of cargo) was not functioning.

"Be ready to go to pumproom !!"
(Pumproom: a feature majorly present in tankers, a section between cargo area and ship's accomodation, having the cargo/cleaning/ballast/heating pumps ).
"OK Sir"
I was like (Not aloud)  - " For what? At this time ? It's cold outside, I don't wish to venture out at night ... Has to have some reason"

"The ballast pump number 1 is not online today. Engine room told me to manage the whole thing using only the 2nd one"

"OK? Night time Ballast ?? At sea ? " My mistake - I asked this one aloud.

Ignorance used to be a real bliss then.

"You better learn something, else one day you would turn out to be a loser officer"

"Sorry Sir"

"Ok, we have to exchange the whole ballast of the ship keeping the ship stable all the time and before reaching our next port"

"Your royal colleauge is not fit for handling this at night on deck. I have asked Pumpy (Pumpman) to help us. See here, this paper. This is the whole plan for the operation. The intermediate loadicator printouts are given along with. You take care that she remains within this blue line all the time. Pumpy doesn't know a shit about these stress reports. You better start taking lead or else I'll have to think something else for you. And this paper is to be kept safe. It's not for wiping your shit off your ass, got it ??"

In next 5 minutes, he explained the whole thing to Pumpy too. At that point in time, it was all hebrew to me.

What's this crap ?
Why does he need me to do this ?
Why isn't my royal colleauge being asked to help??
Night is same for both of us, right ?

Pumpy was good. He informed me that it was being done so that we comply to the ballast water management rules present in country of our next port. The water was supposed to be pumped out in phases, and then taken inside tanks in phases, alternating the whole tanks' set using dump valves and pumps as and when required. All during this the whole ship should remain in complete upright condition and it should not shake a lot. The programs were designed in a fashion that would tell us whether she (The Ship is always female .. :P) will behave well or not.

So it started - At Mignight.

Control of whole pumproom was shifted to CCR.
My first steps - Report to duty officer before going to deck, line up valves, check the soundings, If needed take ullages from corresponding hatches, check the loading program at every stage changeover, go to pumproom every hour and record each and every thing in chief's CCR Log.
Pumpy would be in cabin, standby on walkie talkie. All from 0000 hours till 0600 hours. Deck lights to be asked for only if you really need it.
And all alone on deck.
Alone part was bit scary, and I could say only one thing - "Let's see".

I didn't even know what was I walking into. Just plain ignorance made me say yes to everything till it finally came to me. "It" was a big thing for me that night.


At 0020 hours, after reporting to bridge, I opened the accomodation gate.
Brrr.... It was freaking cold. I ran for my parka kept in changing locker which was accesible only from deck.

Wore it tightly around me, donned the helmet and gloves and started for the Pumproom. Steel stairs led me down by 18 meters near the bottom plate and there were the valves I needed to operate before I started the pump. Next 5-7 minutes, I was done and up near pumproom entrance again.

I just turned to go back inside the accomodation when just due to curiosity I glanced the deck through corner of my eyes in peripheral view. It looked scary. The same beautiful deck we all knew in daylight, looked like haunting loom at night with light mist adding to the magnitude of darkness. It was my first night at sea when I was all alone on deck, with no deck light, I told to myself - WTF !! How would I go there near ballast tank domes ??  Forget it !!


I started telling myself - "Ok, lets see ... There's first time to every thing in life."

Back in CCR, I felt warm and waited till I could get back some air in lungs. After 10 minutes I was done with the whole "starting" thing.
Pumps were roaring so much so that vibrations were audible even in CCR. I waited for 30 minutes till I donned my parka again to go to deck.

Afetr calling bridge on walkie-talkie, I moved out of the accomodation. No deck lights !! One flashlight and that too was freaking almost discharged. I had my ullage tape with me.

While walking towards forward most ballast tank, I never tried to look over my shoulders. I just kept on moving towards 1 port ballast tank. After I reached, religiously, I placed the flashlight on deck to keep my ullage tape in vision and opened the butterfly nuts of tank hatch cover. I hated pulling the hatch cover up since it always gave a weird sound. That sound was always accompanied by a horrific sound of gushing sea water in ballast tanks beneath. I quickly lowered my tape's sinker and soon I got the water surface.

*#cking 4 meters only.

Another 14 meters to go before I could changeover the valves to ballasting mode from de-ballasting. It's going to take jolly good amount of time.

No problemo ... Lets see.... I swear to whatever shit god exists today, I had no intention to look anything above my waist level. But just due to curiosity, I raised my eyes to eye level and then automatically they wandererd up and up and up .... and then round round and round .... I could not see anything around me !!!

Wait ... Am I awake ?

I looked around once again ... I could not see anything indeed ...

Had I gone blind ?

I looked down at the opened hatch cover of ballast tank, the place where I was engaged all the while till now.

Yes, the ballast hatch, it was there, but little hazy.

I got it. Our ship had entered in a deep fog. Since this was the first time with me, I was terrified to the dna's inside my blood cells. I called up 2nd on walkie-talkie, "Sir, Is it foggy around the deck ? Can you see me ? I am near No. 1 starboard ballast tank dome with my flashlight on"

2nd Officer replied, "Yes Tweety Bird, I can see your flashlight. It's hazy down there. You come back to accomodation fast. And don't bump into any of those vents and pipes!!"

I could not see anything even through my flashlight, it was just a long loom of it which lighted the fog around me. How could 2nd think that I would come back to accomodation "fast" ?

I was thinking to first find out the safety walkway lines and then follow them back to accomodation when suddenly I felt ...... as if ........ someone is standing behind me.

My heart skipped a beat ... may be two.

I don't know how I could garner that courage, but I turned around to see ...

Nothing ... again.
It was all gray (thick fog).

Not in a mood to waste any more time there, frantically, I reached to the nearest offset of safety walkway and I found it exactly where I expected it to be. I started moving towards the accomodation finally. By the time I crossed the midship locker, I was almost running. It was like a feeling that you experience when you are struggling for air under 12 feet of water column inside swimming pool and you start rising to surface. It seemed like finally I'll be out of this dreadful dungeon.

And .... Then "it" happened.

I saw a human figure.
He just crossed my path ahead perpendicularly in lightning speed.
From left side to right. I was petrified.
I could not follow this figure because my eyeballs got jammed due to sheer shock. I must have went blank when I tripped on my own leg and crashed into a vent pipe ahead.

Luckily, I didn't hit it that hard. It could not stop me from regaining my speed towards accomodation, though, sans the flashlight now.

---------- To be contd.

Rowdy Rathore: Movie Review

Didn't want to, but on "public" demand had to watch "Rowdy Rathore".

One time watchable, if you can.

It's like Ravi Teja in garb of Akki :-)

Good part:
Akshay, Sonakshi's oomph factor, action and some comic scenes which keep coming and going.

Bad part:

1. Weak script, badly utilised strengths in script e.g. how can you tell audience repeatedly that there's a double role and try to get excitement at each appearance;

2. Weird dialogues of Sonakshi and Nasseer and whoever that villain "Titla" was (Please , but non-bhojpuri accented people should not speak bhojpuri, it sounds pathetic)

Made for mass and certainly not for class. One good thing is that the movie has nothing inhibited. Movie's posters showed - "naya saal naya maal", "faulaad ki aulaad", "Don't Angry me", "Bheegi Choli, Happy Holi" and "Ek ticket mein double dhamaka". These "taglines" clearly tell of its intentions and the genre.

It's not going to massage your logic neurons. Don't dare try that !!

The movie would just vellicate and that's what you are going to pay for, if you do ... :-)
Rating: 2.5/5.0

Chalaa Taani !!
Neo.

Save the Gasping Elephant !! It's our mother after all ...

GDP at 5.3%: India now a gasping elephant, says HSBC today. Found this in ET today. I am not an authority on this but my common sense about macro numbers go like this : Here we walk into the vicious circle of "greedy or dumb power centers => policy paralysis => inaction => corruption in supply side => inflation=>bank rate hike=> low liquidity=>less demand => slow down => loop closes at bank rate" only thing you can control to come out of this circle seems is to remove the torching leg from greedy ...... to inflation ... apply some growth stimulus by pushing in the blocked infra projects ... and you have a recovery on the plate ... seems simple ... but it's certainly not that simple ... but is it actually even that tough ?? Pranab da is blaming it on Euro crisis ?? And NDA is calling a bandh ... again causing additional policy blockages and billions of money lost due to inactivity ?? No worries ... there are too many professionals to take care of this ... will wait ... dekhenge .... agli kisht mein ... humlog :-) Chalaa Taani !!