Salman all the way

Salman all the way

By Subhash K Jha

FILM: Dabangg 2

CAST: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Vinod Khanna

DIRECTION: Arbaaz Khan

For those who thought Chulbul Pandey in Abinav Kashyap’s Dabangg was wacky and fun only because Salman Khan played him, here is more spoof-proof in the sequel of how Salman adopts, embraces and assimilates the characters he plays until one can’t tell the star apart from the character.

This is not to say Salman is a method actor. Certainly not! He’s just the opposite. Chulbul Pandey, if ever such a khaki-clad law-enforcer ever, would want to be as chirpy and obnoxious as Chulbul Pandey.

So what does Chulbul do in Dabangg 2 that he didn’t do in Dabangg? Nothing, and everything. There’s more of everything in the sequel and hence a sense of deja vu.

The fights which begin, end and bolster the plot, are done with that irrepressible mix of guffaws and grunts that Salman patented in Prabhu Deva’s Wanted. Indeed it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Prabhu Deva was the father of Chulbul Pandey, in a manner of speaking.

Here of course in Dabangg 2, Vinod Khanna is back as Chulbul’s father. The scenes between Salman and his screen-dad are written with a delicious mix of irreverence and affection. There is a hilarious encounter on the rooftop of their Kanpur home where son asks his sleepy, annoyed father about the deceased mother (Dimple Kapadia, a mere photo on the wall in the sequel).

Salman’s Chulbul gives us no time get bothered with niceties. Chulbul simply sweeps us along into a tidal wave of wackily written and executed action sequences undercut by a sharp sense of self-deprecating humour.

The storytelling is breathless. The characters can’t really keep pace with the breakneck storytelling. They are underveloped and largely kept in the shadows to accentuate the hero’s larger-than-life (though blessedly never larger-than-laughs) persona.

Sonakshi Sinha, of course, enjoys playing the seductress in the shadows. In film after film, she plays the dutiful beloved soul-mate to the macho-hero. And really, her sartorial styling and the designer sarees and backless blouses in a film that pays a lot of attention to mofussil modes is way-way-way over the top. It’s hard to see her expressions beyond the eyeshadows.

That reminds me...Sonakshi shares the shadows with Arbaaz Khan who as Chulbul Pandey’s brother is delightful daft and goofy.

The villains have a coherent voice (never mind their livid screaming) and more space to develop as characters. The plot goes into spasms of explanation as to why one of the villains Niktin Dheer needed to take off his shirt in the climax . Really, Salman’s shirtless act needs no accompaniment.

Prakash Raj does his usual snarling sneering arch-villain act, no surprises here. Deepak Dobriyal who gets to die in a rather gruesome way in the irate Chulbul’s hands, is sharp and cutting in his brief role. Some of Salman’s subordinates in the police station are also engaging.

But make no mistake. This film belongs to Chulbul alias Salman from the first frame to the last. Salman goes through the motions without any punctuation except a string of exclamations. While the other characters remain dutifully tenuous, Chulbul’s comic-book valour is highlighted unapologetically.

Dabangg 2 takes off effortlessly from the first frame creating a wackier, wilder, wittier saga than Dabangg woven around Chulbul Pandey’s agile, anarchic antics.

Though the plot is written in half-hearted measures leaving many episodes including the climax looking incomplete, the film is loads of lowbrow fun with some peppy songs by Sajid-Wajid which are filmed with an earthy gusto. Aseem Mishra’s camera looks at life in “Kanpur” through wide-eyed lenses that stare unabashedly at the characters’s quirks.

And now for the ek crore ka sawaal. Does Kareena Kapoor’s item song Fevicol match up to Malaika Arora’s Munni badnaam in the first Dabangg?

Redundant question. It’s like asking, does Dabangg 2 measure up to Dabangg?- IANS

Overbearing eccentricity

By Colin Covert

FILM: This Must Be the Place

CAST: Sean Penn, Judd Hirsch, Eve Hewson

DIRECTION: Paolo Sorrentino

Trying to catalogue the bad choices in This Must Be the Place is like trying to trace the slime trails at a slug orgy.

It features a woefully miscast Sean Penn in the most monotonous performance of his career as Cheyenne, an ageing former rock star turned recluse who is detached to the point of autism. His pallid Goth makeup, painfully shy demeanour and wild ink-black mane - his hair isn’t teased, it’s tormented - suggest a cross between The Cure’s Robert Smith and Edward Scissorhands.

Hiding from taxes, and life, in his Dublin mansion, he spends his time checking his stocks and playing matchmaker for his teenaged best friend, Mary (Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson). Adrift, he’s ripe for a zany road-movie adventure. But that is not kooky enough for Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, who piles on whimsy with a trowel.

After arriving in New York City too late to comfort his dying father, Cheyenne sets out to locate the elusive German officer who humiliated the old man during World War II. Yes, it’s another Goth Nazi-hunter comedy.

The trail takes him to Michigan, New Mexico and Utah, where he encounters a knick-knack hoarding schoolteacher (Joyce Van Patten), a harried but kindly single mom (Kerry Condon), gun nuts, a bison on a porch, an adult who dresses like Batman and the world’s largest pistachio. You know, all those things that to a visiting European filmmaker say “America”. These quirky encounters, odd without being interesting, don’t lend the picture momentum. It just lurches or skips ahead, as if making a movie was a matter of collecting so many Viewmaster slides.

With its overbearing eccentricity, rib-nudging irony and confusion of tones, everything in the film is either underdeveloped or overstated. T              here are small eruptions of interest. David Byrne pops up as himself to deliver a blazing concert rendition of the title song, and to introduce his pneumatic/acoustic Play The Building keyboard, currently installed at Aria in the Minneapolis warehouse district. But too many other promising opportunities, such as Harry Dean Stanton’s inconsequential cameo, are wasted.

Whenever he’s anxious, Cheyenne recites his mantra in a sing-song monotone: “Something’s not quite right here. I don’t know exactly what it is, but something ...” Actually, it’s pretty much everything. — Star Tribune/MCT  

Spectacular shows

By Philip French

FILM: Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

CAST: Erica Linz, Igor Zaripov, John Clarke

DIRECTION: Andrew Adamson

his is an anthology of numbers from seven spectacular shows put on by the Canadian-based Cirque du Soleil, a glossy combination of circus (without animals) and street theatre, staged in various Las Vegas casinos.

It’s a kitschy enterprise in which the various acts are linked by Mia, a wide-eyed gamine much like Leslie Caron in Gigi, meeting a handsome aerialist.

There’s some remarkable work on trapezes, much splashing and synchronised swimming, lots of bouncing around to the music of Elvis, Tchaikovsky and the Beatles (inevitably culminating with the company performing All You Need is Love).

It’s solemn, tasteless, overdressed, a circus smelling of Chanel No 5 rather than sweat and sawdust.- Guardian News and Media

Meticulous rendering

By Peter Bradshaw

FILM: Wreck-It Ralph (animation)

CAST: Voices of Alan Tudyk, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, John C Reilly

DIRECTION: Rich Moore

Wreck-It Ralph is a meticulously rendered but bafflingly praised oddity with an Oscar nomination for best animated feature. For me, it never came to life.

The subject is an imaginary 80s video game called Fix It Felix Jr, which has somehow survived, bleeping away in the corner of a 21st-century arcade, and naturally the faux-retro graphic is lovingly created.

Players get points for joysticking a cheerfully upbeat repairman called Felix around to fix broken windows caused by a massive-forearmed brute called Wreck-It Ralph.

But poor Ralph (voiced by John C Reilly) is tired of being the bad guy. So he “goes turbo”, sneaks out of his game and into other game universes where he can realise his heroic destiny.

It’s a pale version of the Pixar gem Monsters Inc, and more like the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer. I found the idea of teens laying down their coins to play arcade games in this present day a strange, semi-intentional archaism — nostalgic wish-fulfilment on the part of the middle-aged people creating the movie.- Guardian and news Media

(DVDs courtesy:

Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha)