Review of ‘David’ (Hindi and Tamil)

The poster of 'David'

‘David’ (Hindi and Tamil)

Director: Bijoy Nambiar

Cast: Vikram, Neil Nithin Mukesh, Tabu and many others

Two lives, one name. One big practical joke on the audience.

Vikram surprises as an actor, for all the wrong reasons. His struggles in the film industry and the accident are the kind of stuff that legends are made of. After years of struggle, he got a brilliant break with ‘Sethu’. For a while, everything seemed fine and then the troubles began.

After playing mentally-challenged and blind characters, he is back with ‘David’. This time, all his physical faculties are fine. The problem is with the story.

The Hindi version has three Davids, I mean, three stories, with Neil Nithin Mukesh’s segment getting more prominence. This was shot in black and white. The story actually is very unclear, but the copulation scene was good.

I was told that the Tamil version has only two segments – Vikram’s David and Jeeva’s David.

Vikram is a drunkard in Goa. His bride abandons him at the church altar and runs away with his best friend. When his other best friend gets himself engaged to be married to a deaf and mute girl, Vikram ends up developing a huge crush on her for no reason at all. The director doesn’t bother to convincingly explain why. Vikram’s friend-philosopher-guide in this film is Tabu, who prods him to stop the wedding and propose to her.

Why can’t our Bollywood filmmakers think beyond drunkards and Remo Fernandez whenever they make a film about Goa? Surely there is more to the lovely state than those two! 

Back to the story. Fortunately, Vikram doesn’t stop the wedding and overdoes the ‘sacrificing lover’ bit. The audience fails to feel any sympathy for the character.

The third David is a guitarist and the son of a pastor. Dreadlocks are normally associated with reggae, but this guitarist sports them in as early as 1990s.

The list of music directors is longer than the script. 6 music directors had got together to compose the tunes and none fails to register in the minds. Bizarre!

Other than their names, the characters have got nothing at all in common.

This is probably how the film’s idea was born

·                Write three short stories.

·                Try real hard to make a full length feature film script with one of them.

·                Doesn’t work? No problem! Just film all the three short stories.

·                Pick the one scene from each story sequentially and arrange them in the same order – scene 1  from Story 1, scene 1 from Story 2, scene 1 from Story 3, scene 2 from story 1…

·                Don’t let “formalities” like continuity, narration and logic discourage you.

·                If the producers ask you to explain what on earth was similar in all these three stories, tell them that the lead characters of all these three completely unconnected stories have the same name.

·                If the producers are not convinced, tell them that you will have to reshoot the entire film. That would terrify them and shut them up. Forever.

Vikram was the first celebrity whom I had interviewed. He is very suave, friendly and charming in person. It is heartbreaking to see the way he is wasting his time and money over one dreadful film after the other.

'Vishwaroopam' Review

The poster of 'Vishwaroopam'

‘Vishwaroopam’ (Tamil, Hindi, English, Afghanistani language)

Director: Kamal Haasan

Cast: Kamal Haasan (the rest simply come and go)

Arnold Schwarzenegger is a CIA agent who maintains the cover of an insurance salesman. His wife, Jamie Lee Curtis, is so bored of their uneventful marriage that she ends up having an affair with a used-car salesman who pretends to be a CIA agent.

When all hell breaks loose, Arnie and his wife are kidnapped by the terrorists from the Middle East. During the ordeal, the wife discovers what a macho man her husband really is and they diffuse a bomb or two.

Replace the supersexy Curtis with Pooja and Arnie with Kamal Haasan, add lot of clips that look like Afghanistan news coverage and lot of confusions and a pressure cooker later, we are told that there is a sequel to it.

Of course, this one was not copied from ‘True Lies’. It just reminded me of the Hollywood blockbuster.

In ‘Vishwaroopam’, Kamal Haasan is a RAW agent who pretends to be a Muslim who pretends to be a Brahmin almost-effeminate Kathak dancer who pretends to be indifferent to the fact that his wife, a very confused doctor (played by an actress who isn’t sure until the very end if she is acting in a comedy or an action film), is having an affair with her boss.

Nasser comes and goes.

Andrea comes and goes.

Shekhar Kapoor comes and goes.

Rahul Bose comes, pulls a face to the camera, keeps it throughout the film, keeps balling his eye socket, and is likely to get killed in the sequel’s climax.

Oh, and there is that phone call from a voice that sounds suspiciously like that of the Prime Minister of India congratulating Kamal Haasan on his fabulous job...

The baffling question is – what difference would it have made to the story if the entire Afghanistan segment was removed? In fact, it would have saved costs and avoided lots of controversies. The story would have been much easier to follow and many wouldn’t have slept through the segment. My colleague did, during the 6.30 PM show.

People who should also have sued the film:

·                Tamil Brahmin community for the ridiculous way they have been portrayed in the film.

·                Indian American doctors for the silly way they have been portrayed in the film.

·                FBI and CIA for the dumb way that they have been portrayed in the film.

·                Pooja, the heroine, for being kept under the misconception that she was starring in a comedy film.

‘Boys’ Siddharth falls in love yet again?

Sam and Sid in 'Jabardasth'.

Long, long time ago, when films first made their appearance in India, there was a popular trend among producers and directors who desperately wanted to ensure that their films made money at the box office. They would start circulating rumours that the lead actor and actress were madly in love with each other and are very likely to get married within days of the film’s release. In addition to getting lot of media attention, it also used to bring in curious crowds to the theatres. As mentioned at the very beginning of this article, this used to happen a long time ago.

Then, when the readers and audience noticed that just about every other actor was comfortably falling in love with his female co-star just before the film’s release and the “torrid romance” died soon after the film flopped, they stopped taking the rumours seriously.

Keep this in mind while you read the following.

‘Jabardasth’ is the new film in Telugu that quite a few people are talking about. Samantha and Siddharth are playing the lead roles. Towards the end of last year, Samantha began dropping elaborate hints in her interviews that she was romantically involved with someone. Now, everybody is loudly guessing that it could be Siddharth.

Siddharth seems to have a jinxed record when it comes to “romancing” actresses whose names start with S. Soha Ali and Shruti Haasan were the ones who were romantically linked to him in the past. Now, it is Samantha’s turn.

Frankly, if I have to choose between believing either that Sid and Sam are in love with each other or that it is a very outdated publicity stunt, my vote is always for the latter. Now, not everybody is like Nayantara when it comes to surviving link-up rumours. Hope Samantha is aware of the career risk she is taking with these rumours.

And seriously, what's the matter with her (or her costume designer) when it comes to picking up blouses for half saris? The ones she wears in her song sequences are yikes!!!

Trisha and her alcohol sentiments

Trisha Krishnan (Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

Fresh from the decent performance of ‘Samar’ at the box office, Trisha Krishnan is enjoying a near new leash of life as far as her career is concerned. The actress now has two new films with Jayam Ravi and Jeeva each.

It seems the directors now make it a point to include a scene of Trisha having an alcoholic drink in their films. They are convinced that it ensures the film’s success at the box office. Strangely, rumours say that the actress too believes that it works and has started to insist that such scenes be added in her films!!! She clarifies, however, that the liquid in the cup during the shooting is usually soft drink.

Let's look beyond 'Vishwaroopam' now, shall we?

Aravindaswamy in 'Kadal'.

About time the Indian entertainment industry moved away from all the fuss that was and is being made about ‘Vishwaroopam’.

Mani Rathnam’s ‘Kadal’ is hitting the theatres today. Karthik’s son and yesteryears actress Radha’s second daughter (not the one who has eyebrows that merge into her hairline) make their debuts in this film.

This was one of the films whose release was postponed due to the ‘Vishwaroopam’ drama. Arvindaswamy returns to films after a long gap with this one. Rumours say that he is playing a negative role this time. The man has piled up lot of weight since we last saw him on the screen, but he still looks charming enough.