FILM: Jai Ho
CAST: Salman Khan, Tabu, Danny Denzongpa and Mohnish Behl
DIRECTOR: Sohail Khan
We really can’t judge a Salman Khan-starrer by normal yardsticks. If this film starred another superstar, it would be evaluated from another perspective.
But Salman is…Salman! He doesn’t desire nor seek anyone’s approval. The characters he plays also display the same level of arrogant self-worth. When he roars against corruption, the Dolby sound quivers in approval.
Say welcome to the uncommon common man. He is tough, he is gutsy. And he doesn’t believe in common courtesy. He delivers a mean punch when required. But at home he’s just your regular guy snuggling up to his plump super-mom, confiding in his sister and fighting off the amorous advances of the over-friendly neighbour, who is fortunately female.
To the fanatics of Salman, Jai Ho is a power-packed and punch-drunk exclusion into Salman-land. The kinetic energy flows out uncorked in sequences that seem designed to show the main lead’s unconcealed distaste for corruption and humbug. In that sense, this film is Salman’s equivalent of his Being Human campaign in real life.
Very often the endeavour of being human is reduced to a t-shirt slogan in this film. But that’s the cool quotient Salman is aiming for. Take it, and leave the theatre.
Debutant Daisy Shah does a lot of stalking in the film.
If you’re an avid Salman gazer, you’d know that Salman chooses to reverse the rules of filmy courtship. Normally in our cinema, from the time when Raj Kapoor stalked Nargis in Andaz and Rajendra Kumar heckled Babita down the slopes of Gulmarg in Anjaana, it’s the hero who showers persistent attention on the seething simpering heroine.
Salman’s films, the heroine often takes the initiative in courtship. In Jai Ho Daisy is the pesky girl-next-door who keeps barging into Salman’s sprawling household comprising of any number of kins and their visitors, lovers, associates…
The hero’s hectic household here is a lot of Salman’s real-life open-house home.
Actually all of Salman’s films are basically extensions of the superstar’s own personality. “Jai Ho” is more so than any of his earlier films. He wants us to know he cares for the common man.
The script, a revamped ‘Salmanesque’ take on the Telugu Chiranjeevi starrer “Stalin”, is designed to exhibit the superstar’s philanthropic and humane side.
“Jai Ho” is all about loving your extended family. How extended, depends on how large the conscience and how broad an individual’s vision. Sohail Khan’s direction provides ample breadth for Salman’s superstardom to shine.
However, there is a perceptible absence of depth in the anti-corruption plot. The narrative is plotted with tokenism rather than any serious in-depth attempt to understand the decadent dynamics of present-day politics.
Seize the moment, and you’ll probably make a difference to society…This is the mantra Salman adopts in Jai Ho.
This formula of instant socio-political remedy and quite appealing, though the vigilante insinuations are also dangerous.
The film makes for an engaging but somewhat incomplete view of present-day corruption-ridden India. Sohail Khan keeps the proceedings moving briskly. When there is a danger of a sudden slackening, the director pumps up the adrenaline with rugged action sequences where Salman goes at his adversaries full-throttle.
It’s all a vehicle to enhance Salman’s image as the messiah of the downtrodden.
He is one helluva angry man who’s not just anti-establishment but anti-antipathy. He implores the public to rise and revolt against humbug.
Coming from a star with so much clout, that’s quite a hard-hitting message. Regrettably, the episodes to show the superstar-hero’s concern for humanity are text-bookish and illustrative.
Yet you cannot but take Salman’s clarion-call for social awakening seriously. He gives you no choice. The crusader’s role is played at an arrogantly absent-minded pitch as though the hero of the masses has too many things to worry about, the least of his concerns being how best to occupy that camera space.
The lack of concentration is glaring when the leading man occupies almost ever frame of the film.
There is no dearth of talented and not-so-talented actors in Jai Ho. There are more characters in Sohail’s extended family than in Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Saath Saath Hai and Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! combined.
The entire galaxy of characters in Jai Ho has a purpose: to extol the unending virtues of our-one-man army.
To his credit, Sohail has spun a credible and often compelling anti-corruption yarn that succeeds in justifying the need for Salman’s stardom to monopolise the entire length and breadth of the footage. His rhetorical rowdyism brings the house down.
Santosh Thundiyil’s cinematography and Sandeep Shirodkar’s background score are almost affable extensions of Salman’s messianic hero-giri. The visuals and the sound nail his crusade down to a cohesive if not comprehensive cinematic statement.
Besides Danny Denzongpa who has some meaty interactive episodes with Salman the rest of the cast including the very talented Nadira Babbar, is wasted. Correct me if I am wrong. But I did catch a glimpse or two of the once-incandescent Tabu in the new eagerly-awaited Salman-starrer. (IANS)
FILM: Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom
CAST: Idris Elba, Deon Lotz, Naomie Harris and Terry Pheto
DIRECTOR: Justin Chadwick
Based on Nelson Mandela’s 1995 eponymous autobiography, the film showcases snatches of Mandela’s life in an episodic-cum-documentary manner – as a lawyer, anti-apartheid revolutionary, politician-cum-activist who was elected the president of South Africa in 1994.
What the film misses out is his third marriage to Graca Machel and his last days.
Laden with dramatically cliched and generic rousing scenes, director Justin Chadwick’s Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, set against the backdrop of long-established institutional racism, is a far cry from an awe-inspiring and stimulating biopic.
It gives an insight into Mandela’s persona not as a hero, but as an ordinary man who is capable of succumbing to lust. The film also showcases the history of South African freedom struggle against apartheid.
“I dream the same dream, night after night. I am coming back home to Orlando… they seem fine getting along with their lives, but they do not see me…” a recurring voiceover bookmarks the film that begins with a montage of kids playing in the wilderness of the golden hued South Africa summer. A little while later, again in a voiceover, Mandela explains why his father named him, Rolihlahla. “My father called me a trouble maker… but I wanted to make my family proud,” he says defending himself.
Then the narration skips to Johannesburg 1942 to give a glimpse of him as a shrewd and ambitious lawyer.
The scene starts off dramatically showing him as a sought after lawyer. And to support his claim, the following scene shows him brazenly defending his client, accused of stealing her mistress’s undergarments. This jocular scene definitely boosts the spirit of the narration but unfortunately immediately after this, the film just plateaus.
Usually the best biopics tend to be those which use unremarkable moments to showcase why that person was remarkable. Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom has these elements, but unfortunately the passion in portraying it is missing.
For instance, Mandela’s entry into politics, one of the earliest milestones in his life, is justified by a single scene where a drunken black is killed in police custody, after which Mandela lands up burning his identity papers and making revolutionary speeches at public places.
What it fails to reflect is Mandela’s angst, considering he is not strong morally towards his wife and kids.
But once he is in prison, it is Winnie’s story that keeps the audience glued.
Idris Elba does a sterling job as Mandela.
His transition from a young man to an octogenarian is let down only once or twice by prosthetics but otherwise he is pretty convincing. He impersonates Mandela’s walk and speech to perfection.
Naomie Harris as Winnie is intense and dazzling. It is a delight to watch her as the complicated and controversial Mrs. Mandela, who was thrown into politics by circumstances, doing the unfinished work of her husband while he was in prison. The tone of her character does get tilted in favour of Nelson Mandela, thereby not giving a true picture of their interpersonal relationship.
The film, shot in real location, is symbolic of director Chadwick’s overall approach.
He portrays the unrest in predictable fashion with montages of newsreel material showing fighting on the streets to music from Bob Marley and Public Enemy.
There is also BBC’s footage of the Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday tribute concert, staged at Wembley in 1988 and broadcast around the world. (IANS)