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Jannat: In Search of Heaven... (2008)
Reel meets real
The desperate quest for jannat (paradise) compels small-time gambler Arjun Dixit (Emraan Hashmi) to try his luck at cricket betting. Discovering that he has a knack (which he calls his 'sixth sense') of understanding the game, the Mumbai chawl resident suddenly finds himself fixing matches in South Africa, till he becomes a master of the trade. Egged on by his success and the support of underworld don Abu (Javed Sheikh), Arjun does climb steadily to the top, till he is faced with the dilemma of having to choose between his new-found money and power and the promise of an honest life made to his pregnant girlfriend (debutante Sonal Chauhan).
Predictable, you say? Not really. For if Jannat has a no-frills script which remains largely unspectacular for the first hour, it is the refreshing manner in which the common theme is treated for the remainder of the film that makes it worth a watch.
Also, with Indian Premier League ensuring that interest in cricket is at an all-time high at the moment, references to the game helps Jannat score, judging from the claps from the audience every time there was even a split-second shot of cricket at the Friday morning show. So whether it was the now iconic image of Sourav Ganguly waving his jersey after the win against England at Lord's or the climactic point of the film where a coach is killed when he chances upon a betting syndicate (with no mention of Bob Woolmer), Jannat does a good job of marrying the real with the reel. There are even veiled references to a retired cricketer in a suicide attempt (Maninder Singh) and another who judges a stand-up comedy show (do we really need to tell you who this is?).
Jannat also gets as close as its can to the IPL anchors Samir Kochhar and Vishal Malhotra play significant roles in the film! Jannat marks the return of Emraan Hashmi to the screen after a long time. He has clearly done something right during the break because this is the best we have seen of him. The serial kisser in Emraan is also more or less subdued, with only a couple of intimate scenes.
The supporting cast, comprising Samir Kochhar, Vishal Malhotra and Javed Sheikh, essay their roles with ease, but Sonal Chauhan is further evidence of models flopping when it comes to film.
Pritam's music complements the film, although it is a little disappointing to see the short screen time and zero publicity given to Jannat jahaan, Fossils frontman Rupam's Bollywood playback debut.
Forget the Mandira Bedi-Mahesh Bhatt verbal pow wow, forget the million controversies that surrounds any Bhatt film. Get yourself a Jannat ticket.
Iron Man (2008)
The cool superhero is here
Is it Superman? Is it Spider-Man? No, it's Iron Man! Welcome the newest superhero in town, born out of iron scraps in a cave in Afghanistan. Welcome a comic-book saviour more fun than fantastic. Welcome a franchise which is all set for a long, long flight. Welcome back Robert Downey Jr.
Iron Man is a deceptive, a la kiev-style recipe that comes wrapped in a crumb-fried superhero coating but hides a lot more inside. It has all the trappings of an action summer blockbuster but at heart, it's a smartly-written coming-of-age story. It has the steam to blow you off with its hi-tech gadgetry but it also has the soul to make you smile.
In spirit, Jon Favreau's Iron Man is very much a prequel, coming closest to the best superhero film made in recent years, Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. It tells the story of how weapons manufacturing tycoon, playboy billionaire and mechanical magician Tony Stark (Downey Jr) becomes Iron Man. In very un-superhero style, the film closes with a close-up of Tony telling a packed media conference: "I'm Iron Man".
This is a superhero born out of necessity rather than a miracle at the lab or a childhood trauma or an extraterrestrial aberration. Captured and held in a lost mountain in Afghanistan by a Taliban-like outfit, Tony builds himself a monstrous bullets-and-bombs-popping iron suit and manages to escape. His heart may now be pumped by an electrical device but his brain realises the futility of manufacturing weapons of war.
As Tony wants to close down shop, his business partner Obadiah Stane (Bridges) takes rearguard action, prompting the resurrection of Iron Man. Only now, it's slicker, the suit's got a maroon-and-gold coating (now you know where Shaktiman got his colours) and it doesn't disintegrate on crashing to the ground. Tony's electrically-charged heart has more work to do as his girl Pepper Potts (Paltrow) is tugging at its receptors.
If the Iron Man script is meaty, it is the acting which takes proceedings to level next. Robert Downey Jr hasn't been in this impressive form for a long time. He was very good in Good Night, and Good Luck and Zodiac, but here he takes off. He even manages to make a superhero sound cool, though this was never going to be very difficult for an actor who can inject cool into just about anything. The scenes in which he is fine-tuning his suit, talking to his robots in his gadget studio, are testimony to the talent of the man who has unfortunately lost out in the star stakes due to a rocky personal life.
Jeff Bridges as the bad guy is a lovely bit of oddball casting. His Stane is played with an old-school wickedness evil enough to demand his elimination. Terrence Howard has played the good friend many a time and he does his bit here too. Paltrow shows what can be done in just three scenes. Her moments with Downey Jr are the most endearing few minutes in the film, demonstrating that a superhero flick can be so much more.
The suit's not made of iron. It's made of a gold-titanium alloy. But that shouldn't stop you from catching Iron Man.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The buccaneer is back-Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is pure nostalgia
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing it can forge a connection as easily as it alienates, depending on who is speaking and how, and more importantly perhaps, who is listening.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is pure nostalgia. It is a loving revival by the team that created Indiana Jones 27 years ago Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford for an audience who grew up with him. Indy was their first date with a real adventurer, an action hero who was flesh and bones, who wasn't born in the pages of a comic book, who had no superpowers and was not backed by technology or a team of agents out to save the world. Indiana Jones was a buccaneer, and that is what he remains.
But does the world need a buccaneer anymore? If the unusually long gap in the Indy franchise it's been 19 years since The Last Crusade was released has caused problems, it is not the expected ones. Harrison Ford, at 64, brings the same magic to the screen as he did two decades ago. Indy wears his age exceedingly well. Ford can look out from underneath his fedora and crack one-liners (as corny and as delightful as ever) and, by virtue of the lines on his face and the color of his hair the mileage as Henry Jones Jr would call it it suddenly sounds like wisdom.
Are the near-death experiences improbable for a senior citizen? Of course, but they were just as ludicrous when performed by a 45-year-old, or by the 22-year-old Shia LaBeouf, who is very much the surprise package of Crystal Skull.
The problem with the film may turn out to be nothing as superficial as looks. It is that Indy was born into a very different world. In that world, a boulder hot on the heels of a man running through a dark cave was a heart-stopping thrill. It was a world where hi-tech gizmo's didn't make men fly, except in an always-unreliable prop plane.
His was an old-fashioned swagger. The crooked smile didn't need to be straightened then, and now the wrinkles don't need to be Botoxed beyond all recognition because Indy was, is, human.
There is only one modern-day equivalent that comes to mind: Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, who belongs to the same scruff-of-the-neck, spur-of-the-moment, in-the-nick-of-time school of lunacy as Indy. Who is better? The heart says Indy; the mind says Captain Jack even for a viewer for whom Indiana Jones represents one of the first unforgettable trips to the movie hall, for whom the first bars of the classic theme song bring back a rush of a different time, a different place, a different magic.
So where does that leave a young viewer, the one whose first brush with action was The Matrix? Will she be able to understand the delicious irony when Indy tells Mutt that he has brought a knife to a gunfight? Will she understand how special it is to see Spielberg return to the screen not only with Indy, but with some silly-looking old-school aliens? Chances are, she won't. Even if you switch off the cellphone, forget the Xbox and erase all memory of 2 Fast 2 Furious, she won't understand why this film was made. It is like comparing a Pierce Brosnan Bond flick to a Sean Connery one. She might even think to herself that Crystal Skull was fun, but wasn't it a little like National Treasure 2? And that would be a tragedy indeed.
Is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which seems destined to be followed by a long-planned Part V a brilliant movie? Far from it. But then, were any of the Indy films? Spielberg is far too shrewd to change the nature of Indy, to make it cinema with more than half a brain. Just like he would never alter his script to suit his star. So if Cate Blanchett's death-eyed Irina Spalko seems flat, it is because she is supposed to be. An Indy villain was never too interesting, and definitely not believable (remember Amrish Puri's appalling Mola Ram?). And a Russian in 1950s America that is seeing the Reds everywhere could only be the comical, heavily-accented caricature that Blanchett plays to perfection. She knew she wasn't signing up for another Oscar nomination. If anything, the political incorrectness of a cardboard cutout baddie is an Indy tradition she would willingly participate in.
The film does have character tonnes of it but don't go looking for it anywhere else but under that familiar, worn, brown fedora. Yes, Karen Allen's Marion lights up the screen with her warmth once again; Mutt's bristling machismo begs to be loved; but to give them too much more to work with would be to distract from what the film is really about Indy getting back together with Ford, Spielberg and Lucas for another glorious, impossible romp.
The film looks the same as it did 19 years ago, a minor miracle given how far technology has taken us, and it sounds the same too. Forget Elvis, whose Hound Dog turns the clock forward to 1957 in the opening scene. As the unmistakable bars of Indy's music play, it all comes back with a rush of affection.
And that is what an old fan would leave with not admiration, not awe, not respect, but a fond remembrance of past adventures and a smile on the face to see that Indiana Jones has done it again.