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Entertainment / City
HINDI Silsila Hai Pyar Ka
Hall: Sapna, Galaxy
Cast: Karisma Kapoar, Chandrachur Singh
Direction: Shrabani Deodhar
Rating: **
The girl’s in a twirl. She wears specs, carries a parasol, lights agarbattis and plaits her hair. Despair. Because the boy she adores prefers to bebop through discotheque doors with bimbette bores. Trouble pours.
That’s Silsila Hai PyarKa, directed by Shrabani Deodhar, for your viewing displeasure. No treasure of a movie this Sad, very sad. In principle, the effort is well-meaning, attempting to convey the simple home-truth that opposites can distract and attract. But what you get, alas and alack, is as taxing as the summer heat, leaving you dehydrated, delirious and half-dead.
Truly, at the end of this love-hate story about a mad-at-eachother coo-coosome twosome, you look for an oxygen tank to breathe normally again. Recovering your composure, you wonder whatever happened to good ole Ms Deodhar who earlier gave you the far more absorbing Marathi political film Sarkarnama. In a bid to mix genres, her first Hindi feature plonks you into a puddle of feverish romance, international crime for no rhyme or reason, and highho treason.
So there you are, trying to hold on to your sanity, as plain Jane Vanshika Mathur (Kansma Kapoor) finally snags a secretarial job in some place called Yes Pea Industries. As upright and firm as an eucalyptus tree, she isn’t amused by the wicked ways of her immediate boss, Abhay Sinha (Chandrachur Singh). Oh oh. She merely plugs her ears and masks her eyes when the richie Romeo gets physical with one of those bimbolas. Aloha.
Vanshika, you’re informed, has nursed a massive crush on the wicked-keeper ever since her campus days. At office, she now renovates his cabin with indigo-bluewalls and prays that he’ll turn over a brand-new leaf, and more. Sure he does.
How how? Answer: In the tradition of Sadhana in Love in Simla (1960), Vanshika magically metamorphoses into a gee-whiz glamqueen. Wow, she’s even described as Miss India the moment she changes into designer threads. And, whaddya know? Instantaneously, the mouse-turned-maharani discovers a torrid talent for breaking into cabarets at Swiss shopping malls, delivering thunderous lectures on no-marriage-no-sex and wildest of all, a flair for converting a ceramic bath-tub into a comfy bed.
So far, so ho-hum. But believe it or boo, the screenplague credited to Robin Bhatt-Akash Khurana takes a turn for the worse. Out of a Swiss Alp emerges a bent gent with a wig implanted on his scalp. Shiver shudder. Named Jabbar Kharghoshi (Suited-booted Danny Denzongpa), this satanic sort has the hideous habit of embalming his shapely secretaries and displaying them like frozen mummies in his private pyramid. Yoiks.
Next target: Vanshika. How she and the reformed Abhay escape from the rabbity Khargoshi’s Sweatzerland (or is it Madh island, Film City and Jogeshwari?), tumbling through tough terrain like Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas of Romancing the Stone, comprises the rest of the story, if
you call it that. What a mish-mash.
If you can keep your eyes open throughout, you might have to fathom how or why Johnny Lever materialises out of nowhere to yell his lungs out. And pray why encourage Shakti Kapoor to kill you loudly with his sing-song sleazy chatter? Also, was it necessary to festoon Tiku Tulsania with a tomato-red bow-tie and make him grin till your cheeks hurt with the strain? Pain.
The technical values vary from the tacky to the ordinary. Jatin-Lalit’s music is remarkable mainly for the title song and Dil Deewana. Otherwise, they seem to have dipped into Dr Jones and other MTV hop-pop chart busters.
K.K. Singh’s dialogue comes up with the corniest classic of the millennium — after calling Vanshika a lizard constantly, Abhay finally relents, saying, “Turn chipkali nahin ho..tum chhupi kali ho. Whazzat.
Of the cast, Aruna Irani seems to be quite embarrassed, playing a spinster aunt who imagines herself as Nutan being serenaded by Dev Anand. Mercifully, Chandrachur Singh is decent as he always is.
And Karisma Kapoor strives sportingly to lend conviction and credibility to her role. She’s confident and cool even in this Sardard Hai Pyar Ka.
Khalid Mohamed
MALAYALAM
MANNADIYAR PENNINU
CHENKOTTA CHEKKAN: comedy
Hall: Lido
Cast: Mukesh, Kanaka, Innocent, Kalabhavan Mani
Director: Anil-Babu
Rating: *
Anil-Babu, the director duo, as a rule, follows the prevailing trend. They try to ape the content of the previous hit of a credible director, and attempt to cash in. But they have never laughed their way to the bank, thanks to the shoddy job they do every time they say ‘Lights, camera, action’.
Take this movie for instance. There’s no doubt about the fact that there’s been no planning done. The comedy track, which is supposed to be the backbone of the film, is all hogwash.
Kanaka is extremely irritating as usual, in her role as a protected sister (Archa) of the powerful threesome — the Mannadiyars — who rule a village by the name Mannadipuram. Her dialogue delivery is monotonous and her emoting mundane.
Mukesh, who has the uncanny knack of lifting sub-standard movies with his unimitable brand of comedy, fails this time around due to the absence of good oneliners, which he is very adept at. He plays the role of an advocate, out to teach Archa a lesson or two. At the fag end of the movie he mouths a dialogue, “Women should not be stubborn. They should learn to cry.” Chauvinism at its worst. Sick. You are well advised to keep away from this one.
Darlington Jose Hector
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