FILM: Sholay 3D
CAST: Sanjeev Kumar, Dharmendra, Hema Malini,
Amitabh Bachchan and Amjad Khan
DIRECTOR: Ramesh Sippy
If as William Shakespeare told us, a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, then Sholay in any format -3D, 4D or whatever, would remain just the same.
An inviolable classic, timeless, as it is timely. The new version, spruced up with flying bullets and thundering hoofs, comes to us at a time when Dhoom is trending. So it’s Sholay 3D weighed against Dhoom: 3.
Undoubtedly, the current films that seem to make so much money seem to pale into flamboyant insignificance when weighed against the hefty impact of Sholay.
As many as 38 years have passed since “Sholay” and its astonishing lines (Salim-Javed at their pithiest) created immediate and enduring history. Yes, the film opened badly. But then Rome and Amitabh Bachchan’s career weren’t built in a day.
With each viewing of Sholay, I come away wiser and richer. Yes, this is what ‘Bollywood’ entertainment should always be but seldom is. Rich in drama, vivacious and vibrant in its characterisations, “Sholay” about one armless man’s two-men army and their battle against a sadistic dacoit (Amjad Khan) spawns innumerable eras of cinematic experience.
It is the most well assembled screenplay ever.
With the passage of time, we can view the film in episodes – the stunning train robbery sequence at the start, the massacre of ‘Thakur’ Sanjeev Kumar’s family by Gabbar and his ragged henchmen, Dharmendra’s ‘suicide’ drama from atop a water tower, ‘Jai’ Amitabh Bachchan’s marriage proposal on behalf of his buddy ‘Veeru’ Dharmendra, ‘Gabbar’ Amjad Khan’s Russian roulette in the ravines with his trio of petrified henchmen, ‘Rahim Chacha’ A.K. Hangal’s son’s poignant death scene, the widow ‘Radha’ Jaya Bhaduri’s flashback into a colourful Holi when she accosts her future father-in-law with incessant chatter (Radha could have been Basanti), Jagdeep’s Soorma Bhopali and Asrani’s angrezon ke zamaanein ka jailor episodes…. each of these and many others, have a throbbing autonomous life of their own.
And yet, here lies the magic of a monumental classic – all the accentuated episodes come together in a compelling cohesive screenplay which blows your mind.
This is a revenge story with a supremely sustained momentum. The characters show no sign of aging with time. Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan’s Veeru and Jai are to this day roguish mercenaries who seem to convey an endearing amorality in their conduct even as they emerge as unlikely heroes in the Thakur’s fight against an oppressively cartoonish outlaw.
There are two romantic tracks navigated by two very contrasting female characters. While Basanti (Hema Malini) never stops chattering, Radha (Jaya Bhaduri) seldom speaks.
They are portraits in contrasts done up in colours that have acquired deeper shades and relevance with the passage of time.
Dissertations, thesis, textbooks and essays have been written on the impact of “Sholay” on commercial Indian cinema. Does the narrative show any signs of wear and tear? Never! Except when monetary amounts meant to be astronomical in 1975 are mentioned.
Thakur Baldev Singh hires the services of Jai and Veeru for a princely sum of Rs.50,000. That in today’s economic context would amount to close to Rs.10 crore. And if you have actors as exceptionally charismatic as Amitabh and Dharmendra playing Jai and Veeru, then the characters seem priceless.
Has there ever been a better celluloid illustration of male bonding than the Jai-Veeru jodi in “Sholay”? Amitabh and Dharmendra came together once again as Ram and Balram in Vijay Anand’s film. But the same chemistry was missing.
No one can encore the magic of Ramesh Sippy in “Sholay”. Not even Sippy himself. And what a team of technicians Sippy had! Dwarka Divecha’s cinematography, M.S. Shinde’s editing and R.D. Burman’s background music will never cease to take our breath away.
I always found R.D. Burman’s songs in “Sholay” to be relatively weak. I still do. But that’s a very small quibble in a film that defies all analyses.
So does the 3D format affect Sholay? I’d say Sholay in any format is…Sholay! Incomparably gripping, flawlessly cast and impeccably mounted, this is the mother of all Bollywood classics.
Take a bow, Mr. Ramesh Sippy. (IANS)
FILM: The Wolf of Wall Street
CAST: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie,
Mathew McConaughey, Rob Reiner and Joanna Lumley
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
After selling, garbage to garbage-men Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) decides to make it big. “Everyone wants to get rich,” he announces to his neighbour Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) and his cronies, Brad (Jon Bernthal), Nicky (P.J. Byrne), Robbie (Brian Sacca) and Chester Ming (Kenneth Choi) when they decide to recruit a team of stock brokers to widen their horizon by hustling rich men with blue chip stocks. “I want the young, hungry and stupid. In no time, I’ll make them rich,” he assures them.
This is neither the prologue of the film nor the introduction of its characters.
Instead, it is a scene that captures Jordan as the brain behind the brokerage firm Statton Oakmont that trades in “unregulated penny stocks”.
Twenty six-year-old Jordan, worth $49 million earns the title of The Wolf of Wall Street after the leading business magazine Forbes interviews him for surviving the stock market crash of 1987. On further investigations by the FBI, it is revealed that Jordan made his millions by cheating his clients.
Martin Scorsese’s latest film, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, is a three-hour saga, which is funny and wildly energetic. It chronicles the rise and fall of street-smart broker Jordan Belfort from an out of work stock-broker to a multimillionaire.
The screenplay, by Terence Winter, is loosely based on the 2007 released memoir of Jordan Belfort. It encapsulates the dramatic eight years in the life of Jordan Belfort, as a smooth talker, shrewd and pragmatic financial manipulator who had a large appetite for drugs, sex and money.
The film after the initial inciting moment, rambles with an overdose of pointless drug humour and excessive, unwarranted debauchery. The only provoking scenes, that involve obscenity and cuss words, are oft repeated for shock value, which, over a period of time get accepted as the norm and cease to shock you further. The narrative is quickly reduced to watching interchangeable scenes of exaggerated vile and virile people partying.
The intricate details of the white collar crime or its causality are not dwelt upon. The entire crux of the financial scam is dismissed off with Jordan telling his wife, “You don’t understand what I am saying. Well, in a nutshell, everything we do is illegal.”
The only thing that keeps you hooked to the film is the realistic performances by the cast. Each and every member has obviously invested their heart and soul into the characters they play.
DiCaprio as Jordan excels with a blatant display of insatiable greed and arrogance that is quite enthralling and engrossing at times. His dramatic motivational speeches to his employees as well as his apt performance of crawling to his car in drugged stupor are outstanding.
Similarly, Jonah Hill as the equally greedy and idiotic Donnie Azoff leaves an impact. So does; Matther McConaughey as Jordan’s mentor, Rob Reiner as Belfort’s dad, the Australian actress Margot Robbie as Belfort’s quickly disillusioned wife Naomi and Joanna Lumley, as her aunt.
The only actor who fails to make much of an impression is Jean Dujardin who, as the drab Swiss bank manager, is wasted in the film, considering that he had won the Best Actor Oscar for “The Artist”. Technically, director Martin Scorsese does not disappoint his viewers. (IANS)