Kapoor and Sons... Perfectly imperfect.

"It's all about loving your parents" read the tag line from Karan Johar's super duper family blockbuster Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, now a decade and a half later a slightly more grown up, perhaps a slightly more cynical Johar has realized - as all grown ups eventually do - that life isn't perfect nor is it simplistic but that giving meaning to its many challenges, can still be rewarding and fulfilling.

Like this movie, the reality of life is that it is perfectly imperfect, anyone who says otherwise is lying which means a tick next to their name in the imperfect column.

We are defined by our imperfections, those imperfections determine perception, mould parts of our personalities, builds character, and as much as we would like to think we know everything about people we are closest to, how can we even begin to think that when we don't even know the dark secrets and hidden fears and hopes of those very people we live with day in and day out?

Kapoor and Sons established 1921 is a family that is as dysfunctional as most of our own, and no less lovable but what's it about?

Well... Granddaddy (Rishi) Kapoor feigns death so often that his family turn a blind eye every time he keels over and plays dead, until one heart attack too many forces his family to be summoned from different parts of the globe to be with him.

His two grandsons are furthest away. The eldest (Fawad Khan) is an award winning, best selling writer, while the youngster (Sidharth Malhotra) is struggling to make ends meet doubling up as a bartender while pursuing his own writing interests.

A mutual interest in writing is the only thing these two brothers share as the younger brother resents his sibling, and the older brother is just too perfect to even bother finding out why.

Still Grandfather Kapoor's pull is strong and both return to the family home, in evergreen Cunoor, to be greeted by their parents who are having their own issues.

Father (Rajat Kapoor) has fallen on hard times, and is forever bitching about the high cost of living, which has heaped pressure on his wife (Ratna Pathak Shah), who has a scheme that could help her hubby but a lack of encouragement and her own willful procrastination means nothing really comes of it.

On top of that she suspects her husband of having an affair, and displays behavior that borders on paranoia.

Crazy stuff!

Cunoor may be a pretty setting but this home is not a pretty picture, which in reality is all that Grandfather Kapoor wants, he wants just one happy family photo that will have pride of place above his mantle place.

Oh wait there's another spanner to add into the works - the romantic interest (Alia Bhatt), a carefree spirit who sparks something with both the brothers, she leads the elder one on by telling him that she thinks he is "hot", while flirting outrageously with the younger guy.
As if these two already didn't have enough to make them want to wring each other's necks.

Plus there's a body builder with rippling muscles. A likable if highly frustrated photographer awaiting the happy family shot, and the father's supposed mistress, and my sincere apologies in case if I've left anyone out, because the last thing this family needs is to be burdened with more issues. 
They have enough to deal with as it is.

It's actually a simple story, filled with complex situations which all come together to create a perfect storm; a kind of emotional tsunami that wreaks havoc with each and every character and it is skillfully executed in a style that is more akin to Finding Fanny director Homi Adajania than anything that the avoiding fanny Karan Johar has ever done!

I'll stop with the rude jokes, KJo produced it, but it's the director Shakun Batra who should get the kudos for doing a marvelous job in nailing it by giving his cast warm eccentric characters to work with, and the most chaotic situations in which to do so.

This is filmmaking with a wicked edge, and yet it comes with an emotional tug that is unrelenting. It's like a Hollywood film with a Bollywood soul except that's not as flattering as the way I would really like to describe it and that is as a French film with a Bollywood heart, because this film is deserving of flattery.

The cast are exceptional, Rishi Kapoor is made to look 75 with the heart and the libido of a 17 year old, Chintu Baba is now Chintu Dada but the masti hasn't disappeared, he is adorable.

Consumate actors that they are Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah deliver to their usually high standards, and are thoroughly convincing.

Real life lovers Siddharth and Alia have a great chemistry and both delight, while Fawad Khan is exceptional, under played and on the money, what an astute performance.

Kapoor and Son is the kind of movie that'll make you laugh and sniff and giggle and get angry and want to rage at someone and want to cuddle someone but it'll leave you with a reassuring glow that the art of story telling is alive and well, all it needs is to be in capable hands and when it comes to the art of family no one does it better than Karan Johar's Dharma Productions.


Go see it. It's imperfect but perfectly so and so well worth seeing!

#Jai Gangaajal - Arresting movie or just another cop show?

 Priyanka Chopra had a top release last week; Series 2 of #Quantico. 

It’s on DStv and it’s a winner. And from her weekly tweets, episode by episode, it’s obvious how dearly PC wants it to work.

Although she tweeted about this movie, it’s not really received the kind of attention that some of her other work going on at the moment has, but then there’s plenty of exciting happenings in her life right now; The Oscars, Baywatch and a burgeoning Hollywood career.

Thankfully PC is still dabbling in some Bollywood and long may that continue, because with every Hollywood move she makes - we’ll be watching her, and with every move westwards a little more focus will be directed eastwards towards Indian cinema, and that's good for Bollywood's place on the global cinema map.

So to Jai Gangaajal a follow up (not a sequel) to the 2003 movie Gangaajal which had Ajay Devgn in it, and there are similarities. Ajay played a police officer posted to Texpur district in Bihar to restore law and order, Priyanka is posted to the Bihar town of Bankipur, where law and order has been compromised.

The similarities pretty much end there but I've seen this plot somewhere before..

A wannabe chief minister is corrupted by two brothers, who use him to drive their own evil agenda. The brothers have the local police force on their payroll, and their main man BN Singh (Prakash Jha who is also the director) has thrived to such an extent that he literally enables them to get away with murder, in return he lives way above his pay grade, the kind of life that only the mega rich or the mega crooked can afford.

Police chief after police chief is dispatched until a young graduate Abha Mathur arrives to sort things out. Her arrival is a catalyst that sparks a revival of morality in her own department but it also coincides with the public finding its voice, however reconciling the two is not so straight forward. 
The public want to take law into their own hands, while the police who the public has lost all faith in want to hold onto law and order. 
But can they re-establish the faith?

The plot in the beginning is as predictable as the EFF causing a ruckus in parliament but then comes the twist as Mathur challenges Singh to right his wrongs, and to turn honest cop. 
From this point onward the plot focuses more on him battling his inner demons, and although it drags on for way too long it is the more interesting part of the movie. 
Prakash Jha's performance stands out.

As for Priyanka well she is just too honest an actor not to give her all for any role and while her investment into it is noticeable, her character is completely one dimensional, and on top of that way too smooth, too sophisticated to make it career defining.  There are more nuances to her part in Quantico and thats down to just one thing, writing.  

This role could have been and should have been career defining as I can't remember too many female cop roles that stand out, and here’s the strange thing it is so one dimensional that it could easily have been played by Ajay Devgn. I know I’m entering a dangerous territory here as I may be accused of being sexist on the one hand or anti-Ajay Devgn on the other so let me explain myself…

Strong female roles are the flavour of the month in Bollywood right now, which is fantastic in this period of the film industry’s evolution, but a strong woman’s role doesn’t need her to do what a man does, it requires the essence of her womanhood to be the basis of the strength that is required to portray overcoming whatever situation confronts her.

Take the example of Deepika Padukone’s character Piku, she is single minded, a bully, back chats her old man, abuses the taxi company for what she considers as their being tardy. She’s a strong character with a great amount of determination but the essence of her womanhood never disappears, the depth of emotions are always apparent, her empathy, her concern, her stress, her grief, everything about the way she reacts to situations differs from how a man would react. 

Deepika’s role is so well written and performed that it dispenses any stupid notion of the so called ”weaker sex”, in fact it speaks of an incredible depth of character, the kind that effortlessly evokes respect.

Now what if the role in Piku had been written for Ajay Devgn? He would have beaten up the taxi driver, ordered his father to pass his motions or else… and carried him all the way from Delhi to Calcutta. 
And the knife scene would have been a fight scene.

That’s the difference and that is why I am suggesting Ajay Devgn could just as well have played Priyanka’s role because seeing her beat up multiple goons single-handedly pushes the whole plot towards the realms of the improbable if not the impossible. 
The show of anything resembling emotion is limited. 

And yet Priyanka is an actor I am full of admiration for, and you can see why - she struts through the part brimming with confidence, and although it’s a one costume, light make up, hair tied back into a pony tail kind of role there’s hardly ever a hair out of place even though such perfection amidst the dust and blood and gore looks contrived. 
She's good in the role but I can only imagine how good if it was better written.  

I recently heard Nouman Ali Khan say to one of his classes, “If you want to survive in the world you must understand the genius of evil politicians, the corruption of regimes, their tyranny, their deeds, the best of them and the worst of them.” Jai Gangaajal demonstrates that, what it fails to do is to afford Priyanka Chopra a chance to show why the strength of a woman and all the unique skills that she possesses are enough to make a difference in carving out a better world, and that’s either a real pity or me just having too high expectations of an arresting movie rather then just another cop show.