FILM: Main Tera Hero
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Ileana D’Cruz, Nargis Fakhri…
DIRECTOR: David Dhawan
It’s not easy being David Dhawan. Over the last 20 years he has constantly kept the laughter alive. Having generated barrels of mirth with Govinda and Salman Khan in the past, now it is time for David’s son to have a blast. Playing Seenu, the no-good wastrel who cons his way through a series of outrageous escapades, Varun Dhawan is to be seen monkeying around in every frame.
To his credit, the Dhawan scion carries off the incessant demand on his performing skills. Varun is a like a Govinda on steroids. He pumps up the energy level to the extent that even his two discernibly dheeli-dhaali heroines end up looking they are having fun. It could be just an act. We will never know. Every character is in the wink-wink mode.
Cleverly David Dhawan builds on Varun’s contagious gusto. Scene after scene gives the star-kid a chance to flex his muscles and demonstrate his skills at holding a frame up with gravity-defying laughter.
Main Tera Hero is the kind of loopy, askew-me plot that makes no claims to any intellectual gratification. Its naked, unassuming goofiness is its greatest USP. And who goofier than Varun Dhawan who starts off as a student in a college where the campus beauty Ileana d’Cruz is an untouchable. The neighbourhood goon-like cop, played by Arunoday Singh, has put a proprietorial seal on her. To be honest Arunoday has the most difficult part in this any-goes comedy of hell-raising errors. He is shown to be a goon in khaki with serious anger-management issues.
One of the film’s funniest sequences shows him bashing in his anger-management therapist, Ashwin Mushran’s face. I don’t think this sequence could have been part of the original Telugu film (Kandireega).
Writer Tushar Hiranandani updates the original material, giving the plot and the individual scenes a sense of renewed animation and vigour.
The film is adroitly shot and edited. Like the leading man’s six-pack abdomen, there is no flabbiness in the storytelling. The characters do the stupidest things with a brisk bravado.
Although the plot is skimpier than the two heroines’s costumes put together, it derives terrific energy and sustenance from its leading man’s zest for life. The writing vacillates vibrantly between the perky and the puerile. What saves the day is the narrative’s gumption. David Dhawan doesn’t fear falling over as he hurls through an abyss of absurdity.
The film is low on aspirations and high on hi-jinks. Moving from Mumbai to Bangkok, the plot is bolstered by a blizzard of low-brow episodes.
Even the song and dances are engaging knick-knacks, more memorable for being forgettable than anything else. As a showcase for Varun Dhawan’s skills, “Main Tera Hero” is a cleverly designed blues-chaser. Surprisingly there is room for other actors to make an impact. Besides Arunoday who is happily stupid in his mushy-bully’s role, Anupam Kher and Saurabh Shukla as a gangster and his right-hand man kick up a storm. But what’s with the Dhawan’s bimbette treatment for his leading ladies? If Karisma Kapoor and Pooja Batra had nothing better to do than run around Govinda and Sanjay Dutt in Dhawan’s “Haseena Maan Jayegi”, in “Main Tera Hero”, Ileana and Nargis pant after Varun and Varun and Varun, and then some some Varun.
You get the picture? One of the songs commands Palat! Tera dhyaan kidhar hai? Hamara dhyaan bilkul idhar hai, Dhawan Saab. Bright, bouncy and colourful, the mad mad world of David Dhawan’s 20-year old smile-a-while scheme gets a renewed laugh-line in Main Tera Hero. While Varun Dhawan goes about the task of filling up the screen with his confident zest, David Dhawan ensures there is enough fuel to furnish the funnies with a furious tempo. (IANS)
FILM: Noah
Cast: Russell Crowe, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins,
Ray Winstone and Jennifer Connelly
DIRECTOR: Darren Aronofsky
With interpretation of dreams, forecasting from teacups and intuitions – this is not a religious or a propaganda film, but director Darren Aronofsky’s interpretation of the biblical tale, Noah’s Ark.
Set on a vast canvas with appealing visuals, Noah is a fantasy laden, blinkers-on, one dimensional portrayal of the biblical character of the same name. And in no manner does it resemble any epic from the same genre, ever seen before. With computer generated images merging with ash-barren locales, this is a very modern take of a biblical film.
The prelude, taken from the bible, establishes that god here, continually called “The Creator”, is disappointed with mankind for various reasons and intends to destroy the world.
Whatever your belief or how much you believe or don’t believe in the story itself, the tale of Noah (Russell Crowe) is fundamentally a testing account of a man who has visions, of death and destructions by water. He also sees life emerging from barren land and realizes the Creator’s plans.
So, over a cup of tea, Noah tells his grandfather – the wise old Methuselah (Anthony Hopkins): “I saw death and I saw life. To which, Methuselah replies, “We are entrusted by tasks greater than our desires. So follow the Creator’s plans.”
Realizing his mission, Noah decides to build a massive Ark, which will hold animals and his own family, all of whom will be the key to restarting society all over again, once the Creator has wiped out the sinful incarnation. This forms the basic crux of the story.
In this endeavour, Noah is assisted by his wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly) and his sons Shem (Douglas Booth), Ham (Logan Lerman) and Japheth (Leo McHugh Carroll). There is also Ila (Emma Watson), who they had once saved from death and raised her as one of their own and the Watchers, the film’s version of the biblical Nephilim, fallen angels exiled to earth for their loyalty to mankind and imprisoned inside towering granite bodies. They never question Noah’s declaration of his absolute alleged insight into god’s will.
The Ark is built, the floods arrive and the dove flies in at the end with the olive branch in its beak. The basic elements of the story are all here. But it is what the director does in between and around the core story, that gives “Noah” its inimitable and intriguing identity.
In this version, “Noah” is portrayed by the writers Aronofsky and Ari Handel, as a complex character, almost an obsessive follower of god, a zealot who finds himself at the crossroads when to, “follow the temptation of darkness or the blessing of light”.
It is interesting to see Noah’s take on what he thinks is right. This dichotomy of Noah’s actions and beliefs, as well as the constant struggle between him and his family and society at large, makes the film interesting.
The film is an ensemble affair, where every member of the cast has an interesting character graph. And thanks to the script, they deliver. Crowe plays his complex, yet intricate role with sincerity. He is aptly supported by the rest of the cast. It’s only the debauched villain, played by Ray Winstone, and Anthony Hopkins who tend to be stock characters.
Visually, Matthew Libatique’s camera work fittingly captures Mark Friedberg Production’s designs. The Ark is unique and fascinating. The computer generated images of the roaring sea, the birds, animals and reptiles heading towards the Ark are enthralling.
It is only the recurring image of the snake and apple that Noah sees in his visions along with the dramatic silhouette scene with orange and blue skyline, which are amateurishly conjured. (IANS)
What takes away the punch off “Noah” is the straightforwardly structured five-act plot. Here, most of the inciting moments of the main story and its sub-plots are conveniently layered, logically leading to cliches, which strikes you only while reflecting. Overall, Noah is a stimulating piece of art in 3D. (IANS)