FILM: Rush
DIRECTOR: Ron Howard
CAST: Daniel Bruhl, Chris Hemsworth, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara
“To be a champion, it’s more than just being quick. It is understanding and delivering the whole picture”. This is the key message conveyed in director Roh Howard’s Rush, which is based on a true story.
At the very beginning, a voiceover reveals – “Of the 25 racers that participate in the Formula One races every year, two die”. What a morbid way to start!
Set in the backdrop of Formula One racing, the film documents the personality conflict and rivalry of two famous racers Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) and James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth).
Both with diametrically opposite characteristics; James Hunt is the charismatic and reckless English playboy, whereas Niki Lauda is the studious introvert with German Austrian upbringing, who takes calculated risks. The only thing common between the two is their passion for motor racing. The film exposes their intense competitiveness and their mutual admiration for each other.
Spanning over seven years, from 1970 to 1977, the film captures their career and personal life, which includes; numerous F1 races across the globe, their marriages and a crash that has leaves Niki with a burnt face.
The screenplay by Morgan (though it starts and ends with Niki’s point of view) during its course, oscillates between the squeaky exaggerated dual narrations of both racers. Nevertheless, the dialogues between the two racers are crisp, curt and razor sharp sparkling with wit.
It is a treat to watch Lauda dismiss off Hunt saying: “I don’t mind being called a rat. And rats are intelligent with great survival instincts.”
On another instance, their repartee gets a chuckle when Hunt dismisses Lauda with, “You kill the sport with your calculated risk”. To which Lauda replies, “You English, participate with the attitude, ‘prepared to die’, is actually being a loser”.
As for the performances, Hemsworth with his blonde hair and dashing swagger portrays James Hunt as the flamboyant racer to the hilt. His retching before every race is needlessly dramatised. He gains the audience’s sympathy in the scene where, after the press conference, filled with remorse and guilt; he bashes a journalist, who puts forth an absurd question to Lauda.
He clinches this scene with his brilliant performance, immediately raising him several notches in the eyes of the audience.
On the other hand, Bruhl as the rough, hard-headed Lauda is initially repulsive, but over time with his complex and moving performance, he is likable. By the end, you begin to understand him.
Both the ladies have nothing much to do in the film. Olivia Wilde as Suzy Miller, the model wife of Hunt and Alexandra Maria Lara as Marlene Lauda, are wasted as the director has not explored the personal lives of the racers in detail.
The production quality of the film is sleek. The smooth edits and sound play an integral part in the film, especially the sound design of the screeching wheels adds to the adrenaline rush. The score by Hans Zimmer is perfectly suited with director Howard’s style.
Visually, the racing sequences are, for the most part, astonishing. Howard has brilliantly and seamlessly managed to integrate cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle’s frames with the highly saturated racing scenes of the famous Formula One courses. Overall, Rush is an engaging biopic with intense performances that will thrill you even if you are not an F1 buff. (IANS)
FILM: Phata Poster Nikla Hero
DIRECTOR: Rajkumar Santoshi
CAST: Shahid Kapoor, Ileana D’Cruz and Padmini Kolhapure
Let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t what you want to see a super-gifted filmmaker like Rajkumar Santoshi do when he gets together with a talented star-actor like Shahid Kapoor.
But what to do? Everyone wants a good laugh! It makes us forget about the troubles outside. Never mind the trouble that humour seems to encounter on screen each time someone makes a comedy.
To his credit, Santoshi deftly delivers the dynamics of drollery. No two ways about it. Unlike last week’s lewd laughter in Grand Masti, Phata Poster Nikla Hero (PPNH) avoids vulgarity like the plague.
Dirty word plague….sorry wordplay is firmly eschewed. What we get is an earthy robust over-accentuated tribute to Salman Khan’s Chulbul Pandey act from Dabangg, with Shahid Kapoor stepping into the khaki uniform with the same wonky elan as our dear Chulbul Khan.
Shahid has confessed it is easy to play a Salman Khan fan. The young actor who has so far not revealed his comic chops and has in fact shown dramatic synergy to be his forte, pulls out all stops to play an imposter cop, a role that makes him a Chulbul Pandey twice-over because Salman’s cop-act was underlined as a spoof in the first place.
So what we get in PPNH is a khaki-clad clown impersonating a cop who is actually impersonating Salman Khan in Dabangg.
Does that make sense? Even if it doesn’t, it’s just fine. Don’t sweat over it. This is not one of Santoshi’s seriously-intended films.
For that, please refer to this wonderful director’s Lajja or Halla Bol. And if you are looking for hardcore gut-spilling action, go to Santoshi’s Deol-driven juggernauts Ghayal and Ghatak. Come to think of it, PPNH is not even an all-out zany comedy of errors like Santoshi’s Andaz Apna Apna. So what is it? After painful pondering over the over-punctuated parodic material in PPNH, I’d say it’s a mongrelized mirth machine. A sort of Dabangg mated with Santoshi’s last very successful comedy Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani which evidently taught Santoshi a lesson: farcical frivolity and lengthy titles translate into big bucks.
Phata Poster… gives poster-boy Shahid Kapoor a custom-built opportunity to get seriously comic. He digs deep into the very slim plot, ferreting out meager meat from the skimpy material. I must think that Shahid has a ball doing the droll act for the doll Ileana d’Cruz who abandons her serious sari-clad audacious wife’s role in Barfi! to play the kind of “social worker” who brings a bad name to all charity work.
Didn’t Katrina play a similar busybee’s role in Santoshi’s Ajab Prem…”? Didn’t Ranbir do the goofy Chaplin-meets-Kondke act for the commodious camera in that film? Shahid seems comfortable doing the irrepressible comic impresario.
But he’s far more at home in the more sensible sober scenes he shares with his screen-mom Padmini Kolhapure, who looks too young to play Shahid’s mom. But then at least her talent is being aired.
Come to think of it – everyone in this over-the-top comedy seems to be in it for the sake of getting into a massy mode. The art direction is kitschy. The camera wallows in the carnival mood. In the endeavour to enroll enthusiasm into the rom-com, the film succeeds. But be warned: the writing is repetitive.
The scenes all end in exclamation marks and italics… like an essay by a schoolboy who is out to impress his favourite teacher. The humour jumps out of the screen like an eager 5-year old brat which must get your attention at any cost.
If you think Shahid is one of the more interesting star-actor’s of the current generation, then PPNH is a frenetically fashioned farce fest with excessive energy oozing out of every saturated pore. Shahid’s songs and dances, especially the zanily unpredictable Agal bagal number are the highlight of the humour-hamper. And that’s not such a good thing. Shahid gets to share camera space with some accomplished actors like Saurabh Shukla, Mukesh Tiwari, Darshan Jariwala and Sanjay Mishra. And that’s a good thing.
At least we are ensured that the slender pretext for laughter is bolstered by hefty actors. Oh yes, and the real Salman Khan shows up. (IANS)