Hello Review

Hello

Powered by: Chakpak.com	Hello

Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films

Chetan Bhagat is a conjurer of pulp fiction. His books are unapologetically low-brow, simplistic and contrived but they are also pacey and entertaining.

Bhagat hooks you with interesting characters and keeps you turning the pages, even as you roll your eyes and groan at the silliness of it all.

I thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to dumb down a Chetan Bhagat book. But director Atul Agnihotri and Bhagat himself, who co-wrote the screenplay and dialogue, manage it in Hello.

The film is based on Bhagat's second bestseller One Night at the Call Center.

The book has a beautiful and mysterious woman narrating the story to the author on a train. But it's Bollywood.

So, instead we have helicopters and Salman Khan who essentially plays himself - an actor/rock star. Before he listens to the story he performs an item number, which of course includes him taking his shirt off.

The story involves six characters who work at a call centers and how their lives change one night. Each one is grappling with serious personal issues but at the end of the night, all of them have taken charge of their problems and decided to follow their bliss.

In more expert hands, this could have been a fun, popcorn movie but Agnihotri plays it at the level of a cartoon.

The characters aren't given any time to develop and there is absolutely no sense of atmosphere.

The narrative is laced with lame attempts at comedy and one very strange song, which features dancers doing a weird airborne ballet.

The dialogue occasionally shows some spark - at one point, a character describes an NRI as the perfect groom because he is both a Bondhu and ameer but mostly we have to suffer lines like: Aam taur pe gore bewkoof hote hain.

If Hello was more sophisticated, the America bashing would have been offensive but this is too low IQ to matter.

Sharman Joshi plays his part of the loser Shyam with conviction and I enjoyed watching Sohail Khan do another dumb jock type.

But they can't infuse air into this limp film. Hello is tiresome. Read Chetan's book instead.

Drona Review

Drona Review

Powered by: Chakpak.com	Drona

Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films

In Drona, director-writer Goldie Behl has attempted to create a modern mythology. He has reworked elements of Amar Chitra Katha comics, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones into an exotic fantasy about an orphan, Aditya, played by Abhishek Bachchan, who grows up not knowing who he really is.

Only beautiful blue rose petals that arrive at regular intervals mark him as special. One day, a petal leads him to an intriguingly glowing bracelet, which is then seen on his wrist by a wicked magician who has enormous powers but apparently no hair stylist. And then all hell breaks loose.

There are things to be admired in Drona. It is a labour of love and the sweat can be seen onscreen. There are several nicely done sequences. I especially enjoyed Priyanka Chopra's entry. She plays Sonia, Drona's bodyguard who kicks butt with the same finesse as she carries off unwieldy brocade coats and boots.

The special effects here aren't organic but they aren't embarrassingly cheesy either and there is some high-octane action, including one sequence in a vast desert that concludes with Drona and Sonia on top of a horse, on top of a train. But, and this is the film's fatal flaw, Drona never lifts off from passable into spectacular.

Goldie Bhel has the ambition but he doesn't have the visual audacity. So the moments of shock and awe are too few and far between. Worse, the writing is painfully inconsistent. The are too many shifts in tone and Bhel is unable to create a fully-realised alternate universe.

There is a standard-issue suffering mother angle, which becomes unwittingly comical when the mother, played by Jaya Bachchan, turns to stone and poor Drona weeps hugging her statue. Abhishek plays the part convincingly but he doesn't look it.

Even when Aditya becomes Drona, he doesn't transform physically into a man of stature. He seems out-of-shape and weighed down by his costume, which looks like a left-over from Amitabh Bachchan's Toofan days.

But the weakest link in the tale is Kay Kay Menon, playing the evil asur descendent Riz Raizada.

The need of the hour was a memorable Machiavellian psychopath. What we have instead is tiresome hamming and not enough clever lines.

Disappointingly then, Drona remains a below average film. Given the scale, scope and effort, this is clearly not enough. But on a holiday weekend, with such slim pickings at the theaters, it will have to do.