Film: Bombay Velvet
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Karan Johar, Satyadeep Mishra, Kay Kay Menon…
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Presented in a dark, moody and stylish manner, Bombay Velvet is a complex tale of city politics, ambition, greed and love. But on the face of it, it is a period story of a gangster — in sin-city Bombay — who wants to be “a big shot” someday.
The narration rolls off sometime in 1949, two years after India became independent, when little orphan Balraj lands up at the docks of Bombay. Soon he befriends Chiman, a petty thief and is sucked into the underbelly of the city.
Over a period of time, Balraj becomes street-smart. He soon graduates to being a street boxer who also indulges in petty crime. Starved of love and a sense of belonging, his only aim in life is to make it big.
Balraj’s chance encounter with the dubious media baron and entrepreneur Kaizad Khambatta has him baptised as “Johnny”.
Seeing Johnny as an enthusiastic opportunist, Khambatta offers him an opening of a lifetime — to manage his restaurant-cum-pub, Bombay Velvet, in exchange of nefarious favours. An ever-obliging Johnny Balraj accepts the offer.
The plot gets complicated when Rosie, once a choir singer and now a wannabe crooner, is planted in Bombay Velvet by an influential editor, Jimmy Mistry, to thwart Khambatta’s business interests.
Romance brews. Egos clash. Greed and aspirations take centre stage in the backdrop of city politics.
With fine characteristics borrowed from the Theatre of the Absurd, Anurag Kashyap blends two genres to create an unexpected noir film.
For the uninitiated, the Absurd genre, typically represents human existence as nonsensical and often chaotic. Absurdist works rarely follow a clear plot, and what actions occur, serve only to heighten the sense that characters are mere victims of arbitrary forces beyond their control. Dialogues are often redundant.
The setting and passage of time within the tale is unclear and characters struggle to understand their world.
Here too the screenplay is complex and convoluted. With nothing much happening in terms of the story, the pace torturously drags in the first half, but picks up momentum in the latter part of the film. The only thing that keeps you hooked is the brilliant production quality and the performances of the cast.
Ranbir Kapoor with his snazzy hairstyle and charming persona effortlessly gets into the skin of Johnny Balraj.
Similarly, Anushka Sharma essays the part of Rosie Noronha with natural ease.
Together, they make a wonderful pair. Unfortunately, the script only skims through their romance and hence you don’t feel strongly about them.
Karan Johar, making his acting debut in this film as the shady Kaizad Khambatta, is good. He gives a fairly composed and restrained performance but, in the overall scheme of things, he is never intimidating.
The few characters who shine are Satyadeep Mishra as Chiman, who plays Johnny Balraj’s friend and accomplice; Manish Chaudhary as Jimmy Mistry, the Editor, and Siddhartha Basu as Romi Patel, a shrewd politician.
Kay Kay Menon, as the ambiguous, investigating police officer, and Vivaan Shah, as Johnny’s driver, are wasted.
What peps these characters in this period saga are the costumes and their hairstyles.
These are so reminiscent of the time and help in transporting the audience to that era.
Visually, with sepia tone frames and minute detailing of the sets, the era is well-captured.
The streets, the tram lines, the over-crowded chawls, the telephone instruments and the dock yard transports you to Bombay, which is now lost to modernisation.
The background score along with the music matches the tempo of the narration, but with most of the songs having the same style and beat, the overall effect is monotonous and boring. By and large, “Bombay Velvet” excels in its genre, but fails to leave an impact. (IANS)
Film: Mad Max Road Fury
Cast: Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley…
Director: George Miller
Crammed with numerous characters and projected on an epic scale Mad Max: Fury Road is an action packed, escapist road film. It is the fourth film by George Miller in the Mad Max series that comes exactly thirty years after the last one, Beyond Thunderdome.
Fury Road takes off from where its last franchise left. Set in the distant future in an imaginatively, dystopian civilization Max (Tom Hardy), a survivor from the apocalypse in “Beyond Thunderdome”, is captured by the Kamakrazee War Boys, the army of the tyrannical cult leader Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne).
He is designated as a universal blood donor and is used as a blood bag for the sick War Boy, Nux (Nicholas Hoult).
Meanwhile, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) drives her heavily armoured War Rig to collect gasoline. Mid-way, all of a sudden, she takes a detour, alerting Joe who realizes that his five wives who were specially selected for breeding have escaped his clutches.
Joe leads his entire War Boy army in pursuit of Furiosa, calling on the aid of nearby Gas Town and Bullet Farm.
Nux wanting to die a historic death, joins the army with Max strapped to the hood of his car, to continue supplying blood.
A battle ensues between Joe’s forces and Furiosa’s team. During the combat, Furiosa drives into an approaching sand storm to evade her pursuers.
Nux wanting to sacrifice himself follows her. In the sandstorm his car crashes and gets damaged, Max escapes.
At a distance Max sees Furiosa repairing her Rig and she is accompanied by Joe’s wives. He steals the Rig, but is unable to operate it. So he is forced to join hands with Furiosa and Joe’s wives, who are on the run in the “hope of reaching the Green Landa and “redemption.”
They are chased not only by Joe but by the Gas Boys and Bullet Farmers across a sandy desert, a barren ravine and swamps. Their journey, that stretches nearly three fourths of the film is laden with ballistic adventures.
Keeping with the times and the pace of the film, Director Millers has replaced Mel Gibson for the younger, dynamic Tom Hardy, who plays Max with sincerity. Mel had featured in the previous three editions.
Charlize Theron as Furiosa emits raw emotions. She is agile and brilliant, as the one hand amputee on the run. Similarly, Nicholas Hoult as Nux is appealing.
The action sequences are well choreographed. With a blend of wide angle shots and close ups, cinematographer John Seale’s camera captures the film in minute detail.
And his anamorphic frames seamlessly merge with computer generated images.
The 3D effects combined with the adrenaline boosting sound effects amp the viewing experience.
Compared to its previous editions, “Mad Max: Fury Road” is the director’s most ambitious project which is mounted on a grand production scale which consists of a massive crowd, humungous sets and exhilarating tempo. Certain scenes bear the look and feel of a Biblical film, but overall it can be best described as “a Western on Wheels.” (IANS)