Karzzz 2008 Review

Karzzz

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Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films

A cartoon in a recent New Yorker magazine showed a director pitching a movie to a studio head. The director suggests: Let's remake an old classic with worse everything.

The pitch meeting for the new Karz must have been similar. Director Satish Kaushik's Karzzz is Subhash Ghai's 1980 cult film with worse everything.

Let's begin with the hero, Himmesh Reshmmiya. In the publicity interviews for the film, Himmesh has repeatedly declared that he should not be compared to Rishi Kapoor, the original film's hero because while Rishi was a handsome star, he, Himmesh is not at all good looking. The humility is appreciated but stating the truth doesn't change it.

Himmesh, despite intensive styling and waves of hair on his head, remains, an acquired taste.

He continues to sing with his trademark nasal twang but the unkindest cut is that here he tries hard to act. The scenes in which he attempts to emote by narrowing his eyes and furiously moving his lips are pure comedy.

His new heroine, Shweta Kumar redefines vapid. So Urmila Matondkar, who plays the murderous wife Kamini, must carry the burden of acting for all three of them. She delivers admirably, pursing her lips, widening her eyes and giving us five expressions when only one would have sufficed.

This Olympics of bad acting is constantly interrupted by brain dead Himmesh songs. A sample of the lyrics: If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right, Tandoori Nights, Tandoori Nights.

Giving the songs stiff competition are the dialogues. At one point, Himmesh playing the rock star Monty is trying to convince Kamini that he is the reincarnation of her long dead husband. He says he will give her intimate details that only a husband can know and proceeds to say: Jab tum kiss karti ho tumhari aankhen band ho jaati hain. Monty presumably knows many people who kiss with their eyes open.

The original Karz was a superbly orchestrated melodrama. Ghai created moments that still have the power to make your hair stand on end.

Watch the climax when Kamini, played by a wonderfully elegant and icy Simi Garewal, becomes unhinged and admits that she killed her husband.

The new Karzzz is a clossal joke. At six or eight reels, it would have been a wonderful unintentional comedy ? a so bad that it's good film to add to classics like Manoj Kumar's Clerk and Sheetal's Honey. But at 18 reels, Karzzz is prolonged torture. Steer clear.

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.