Bang Bang! (2014)

When the movie title was first announced, I thought it was a silly name – even if it rightly gave the impression of several gunshots. I knew that it was a remake of Knight and Day, and the original movie hadn’t been a great watch, even though it starred Tom Cruise.

Then I saw this song, and got excited. I wanted to watch the song on the large screen.




The movie was released on October 2, 2014 – just at the start of the long weekend. I watched Hrithik Roshan, the lead actor, tweet about the #bangbangdare and I experienced a surreal moment when he was online past 2 a.m., at the same time as me. I am waiting for the day when one of these huge celebrities notice my tweet.

The movie was released and the reviews weren’t flattering, especially with reference to the storyline and the heroine Katrina Kaif. It left me disappointed. Nevertheless, I was happy that the movie started off strongly at the box office - it has now crossed over Rs. 300 crores overall.

This weekend, I wanted to take my parents out to watch a movie. I had already watched Haider (highly recommended) and Bang Bang! was the only other Hindi movie playing at the Chennai theatre we wanted to go to. Chennai has a ceiling on theatre ticket prices since 2007, and I knew that even if the movie was terrible, it would still not be a prohibitive watch.

As it turns out, the movie has not too much in common with Knight and Day. As for the flaws in the storyline, if I get into talking about them, the points that I wish to highlight would get lost.

Hrithik Roshan has the ability to play superhero, much like stars from Hollywood, and that’s no easy feat. His stylist Anaita Shroff Adajania has done wonders with his look for this movie too – she had earlier styled him in Dhoom 2. He carries off aviators extremely well (a silent nod to Tom Cruise and Top Gun?), his body is to die for and I welcome the sex appeal. If I go by his waist, he must be a lean man in real life, despite his muscles.

The scenes involving the flyboard have been shot extremely well. I was mesmerized when I watched them, and I later got to know that it is for the first time that scenes with a flyboard have been shot in a Hollywood or Bollywood movie. Hrithik injured himself while shooting these scenes, and had to undergo a brain surgery.

Siddharth Anand, the director, seems to like cars. Stock car racing found its way into Ta Ra Rum Pum (yes, I have watched this too) and here F1 makes an appearance. The F1 car scenes were shot in Abu Dhabi, and Hrithik has driven the car himself! Perhaps it was a car from Marussia. I’d like to check with Army officers if they are indeed given unlimited expense accounts, and taught all these skills.

Danny Denzongpa, Kanwaljit Singh and Deepti Naval are nice to watch in their limited roles. I wish Katrina Kaif had picked up something from them. As for Jaaved Jaffrey, he is cast in a role different from his role in Salaam Namaste made by the same director.

Online / internet dating is made fun of, and the way the lead pair gets together involves a case of mistaken identity. What’s not funny is the way the heroine asks the hero why he is with her when she (in her words) is clearly so boring, and he clearly so exciting. The hero, being a superhero, gently reassures her and reminds her of how great she really is. In reality, these 'scenes' would look quite different and self esteem issues might get discussed.

Finally, watch this song. Is there anything Hrithik Roshan cannot do?

Here!! Some more bangbang before Thursday! title track http://t.co/Dc4BjuU8Ji poora gaana!
— Hrithik Roshan (@iHrithik) September 29, 2014

Bombay (1995)

The movie is highly acclaimed and I was watching it in Hindi for a while recently. When I was growing up, I had heard the songs in Tamil and Hindi so many times that it didn’t take me time to recollect the lyrics.

What struck me was the picturisation of this song.



Arvind Swamy’s suit-wearing character is literally hounding his wife played by Manisha Koirala to bear him a daughter. It doesn’t help that she is politely refusing, and yet dancing to his tunes. They already have two sons (twins) who join the fun.

I don’t have much idea on movies made in other South-Indian languages, and I can say that Tamil movies employ vulgarity more easily when compared to their Hindi counterparts. If you have watched the sequences from “Enthiran” when the robot rescues the naked woman who is bathing when the fire breaks out (she subsequently commits suicide when lots of people see her naked) or when the robot successfully prevents Aishwarya Rai’s character Sana from getting raped in the train, you perhaps might know what I am referring to. Was there no other way to portray the robot’s prowess and his inability to understand emotions?

Before you take offence like a relative once did, it is not to say that Hindi movies aren’t vulgar – there are enough examples like I mentioned in this post. However, Hindi movies understand customer segmentation in a way Tamil movies don’t. Read an opinion given here. Or consider that teenagers (or worse, adultescents) were the chief targets for the makers of “Grand Masti”.

I have been an observer to this conversation between two women more than once – one of whom refused to even utter the word sex, and the other brought up Kamasutra and sex positions at the drop of a hat. Both are movie-watchers, and have different tastes. Given that movies seem to be the staple form of sex education in the country (apart from having “well-informed” friends who develop “non-vegetarian” habits early on), one of the changes I’d like to see in Indian movies is a more informed and evolved depiction of sex. For that, a start has to be made with revamping the education system, and the reality shows in which children now participate – either mouthing adult lyrics or dancing to adult moves.