It takes a himmatwala to say this about Himmatwala (2013), but I liked it!

Synopsis: Ravi (Ajay Devgn) returns to his family's village once he finds out his mother and sister were not dead as he had long thought. There he finds a village cowering at the grip of Sher Singh (Mahesh Manjrekar), his daughter Rekha (Tamannaah) and his brother-in-law Narayandas (Paresh Rawal). Of course the himmatwala (braveheart) is tasked with setting the village free.

Firstly, I DIDN’T THINK IT WAS TERRIBLE. (AND THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE.)

That bears being in all caps at the beginning of any discussion because no one I know in the blogosphere was willing to go see Himmatwala. The bad word of mouth even had me dreading the fact that I was hooked into it via the Bollywood group.

But… I didn’t hate Himmatwala!

In fact, I had a good laugh… or maybe a hundred!

They are the same and not.

If you didn’t like the original Himmatwala, don’t worry — I didn’t either. I gave up on it less than halfway in. Kitna boring hai!

But this version is definitely not boring. If you don’t like silly movies and heroic antics — aka Paresh Rawal and Ajay Devgn — or you are in fact one of the snobbish tight-asses I recently complained about, then you won’t like the bulk of it. But there are some plot tweaks and twists thrown in that even this queen of spotting the twists wasn’t expecting in such a film! (Hint hint: Ritesh Deshmukh’s appearance is short-lived but very important!)

But I think the crux of what makes this Himmatwala different from the first is that this Himmatwala is a slapstick comedy (hullo, Sajid Khan), and if you try to pretend it’s the original or take it seriously, you’re gonna have a bad time.

So, simple advice: Don’t take it too seriously.

There were some lagging moments, but for the most part, Himmatwala made me laugh from start to finish. There’s some mincing words, some putting crabs (ACTUAL CRABS) in people’s pajamas, asides directed right at the audience, a couple of visits from a tiger, the chicken dance (at a wedding!), some literal butt-kicking/bum pe laat (also at a wedding!), spoofing the infamous shower scene from Psycho…

Does Paresh Rawal’s squeaking voice get old? Yes. Are some of his lines flat? Yes. Does that negate the fact that he is hilarious and the master of comic timing and that he rocks that Dali-style mustache? Absolutely not.

Even the hero himself cracks some rib-tickling good lines when, of course, he’s not being overly serious and macho. If you’ve seen Singham or any of his movies since, you know Ajay Devgn is all about the ultra-dramatized hero role — and playing the titular himmatwala seems tailor-made for him. I’d say that this role is a lot more geared toward Ajay than the original was toward Jeetendra, though I can’t profess to be any great fan of Jeetendra anyway.

Have some fun, ji!

Less perfectly fit for the role is the heroine. Sure, she generates her own share of laughs, but I wish Tamannaah’s thighs hadn’t been on glaring display the whole time. C’mon, guys. They’re not that great. Really. And she’s fine enough that she didn’t bother me, but she’s certainly not the next Sridevi.

Sadly could have done without
Sonakshi, though I liked TGIF.

If you are expecting something groundbreaking and new, that Himmatwala is certainly not. If you are expecting something archetypal that will generate laughs with its ridiculousness, that it certainly is.

Oh, and wait, this movie is set in the 80s? Not just remaking the 80s? Could’ve fooled me, minus a few not

so special references to the year.

Though its tagline of “the 80’s will be back” seems to ring true since a Chashme Baddoor remake comes out next week.

In defense of masala and “mindless” cinema

“Sometimes with Indian films, you have to take out your brain, park it at the door, watch the film and collect your brain on the way out.”

That’s how a friend — an Indian friend — recently described typical masala. It is, in a way, right. (Of course, I’d argue that it doesn’t only apply to Hindi cinema and the stereotypical Bollywood masala; it applies to many “mass-entertainment” films in any language.)

But I have recently experienced a great deal of backlash among desis, especially those in the U.S., who consider such cheap entertainment like popular masala as worthless and even despicable, a black mark on Hindi cinema.

When I mention that I’m more than okay with the singing and dancing and wild, logic-defying antics (all hail the supernatural powers of Salman Khan’s muscles!), there are inevitably frowns from these high-brow consumers of cinema.

But why, I ask, must films always be serious to have merit?

What is the problem with cinema that is, in fact, cinema? Not overly serious, instead accepting of the fact that cinema is not real life?

Isn’t that what fiction is meant for? It is, after all, not reality. There is a reason we turn to fiction as escapism. Books, movies, television — the medium makes little difference. We all want to escape to another place, time, story. We all do it in different ways.

I know it would behoove the nose-in-the-air serious-cinema elite to admit that, but that makes it no less true. They would prefer to believe that they never try to escape reality through fiction, but I contend that everyone does in some form or another, whether they admit it to themselves or not.

Why is using literature as a means of escape more acceptable, more high-brow, than using cinema as a means of escape?

To a degree, the sentiment has its roots in film history. Commercial film began as entertainment for the masses, with motion pictures at fairs and nickelodeons. Early commercial film also evolved out of vaudeville traditions, and vaudeville got its name from voix de ville, literally “voice of the city.”

Literature, on the other hand, has always been the game of the upper crust since it requires literacy and often a knowledge of prior classics. The novel was a distinctly middle class phenomenon, but even then, it was often aimed more at an upper-middle class than what we would consider “the masses.”

Oh, yes, have I mentioned that this defender of mindless cinema has a degree in English literature with forays into early film studies? Indeed, I am a schooled and trained critical thinker. I have been taught theory upon theory, formalism, postmodernism, structuralism. I can throw around “mise-en-scène” and other fancy terms.

So, yes, I can apply theory, criticism and intellect to what I watch. (You might notice that in some of my reviews here on certain films and the themes of postcolonialism.) I can enjoy a good mental workout through film.

But I am also a journalist. I deal with the horrible dark side of reality every day. Poverty. Crime. Death. Destruction. I love journalism, but it is definitely a morbid business, inescapably depressing in large doses.

So I don’t go into a theater to relive the things I face every day in reality. I go in to enjoy watching a piece of fiction and yes, even to stop thinking about reality for a while. It’s not a leap to say that I am using fictional film as a means of escape, and it’s entirely possible that you will look down on me for doing it.

But then my question is — why not? Why shouldn’t I enjoy cinema that is not reality? Why must art imitate life to be of value?

Why must I always use my brain to enjoy something? Must everything I consume be in the interest of bettering myself? (I will point out to you that if you answer “yes,” you should never eat dessert again.)

Why can’t a person just enjoy something without stopping to think about all things serious and weighty? Why is a good laugh something to be discarded as cheap rather than embraced as a piece of simple enjoyment?

It is true that I love to laugh maybe a little more than most. It has a lot to do with growing up in a house with a father who could be Jim Carrey and George Lopez’s comedy lovechild and in an extended family where reunion shirts with the slogan “It may be crude, but we’re O’Conners” were proposed. This somewhat out-there sense of humor means I love desi comedies in which nothing is too ridiculous as long as it gets someone to laugh.

And, really, the ridiculous antics of masala are very much the same: nothing is too ridiculous as long as it brings someone joy. The antics are both meant to make you smile — shaking your head, thinking, “Only in the movies” — and also to laugh. Dismissing them with a sneer or an upturned nose as grotesquely ridiculous is so closed-minded to something that occupies a quizzically odd place where the appropriate reaction is somewhere between “laughing at” and “laughing with.”

And, really, their goal is to bring you joy.

What is so wrong with that?

NEW: Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola: Drinking and power politics and pink buffaloes -- oh, my!

Synopsis: Somewhere in Haryana, Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapur) is a wealthy industrialist who wants to take all the farmers’ land and build some kind of car plant — only Harry also loves getting drunk, and when he does, he gets into mischief and thwarts his own plans. His servant Matru (Imran Khan) — supposedly working off a loan from attending law school? — is supposed to keep him from getting drunk and acting crazy, but he’s secretly Mao, champion of the farmers, so he likes drunk!Harry. Then there’s Harry’s free-spirited daughter Bijlee (Anushka Sharma). To secure Harry’s factory and power, Bijlee is set to marry bumbling idiot Baadal (Arya Babbar), the son of Minister Chaudhari Devi (Shabana Azmi), who enjoys playing footsie with Harry during important meetings.

Oh, yes, and there are lots of pink buffaloes. (Harry’s mind supplies them when he stops drinking beer — with pink buffaloes on the labels — too fast.)

So, maybe we should start with the fact that I have something of a mixed history with Vishal Bhardwaj. I loved Omkara, couldn’t finish Kaminey (too confused, though I want to try again) and have absolutely no desire to see 7 Khoon Maaf.

Well, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola left me no clearer on my opinions of Bhardwaj. I thought parts of the movie were great — some of it is hilarious, the cinematography is great, the songs are catchy — but overall, the thing left me thinking, “WTF am I watching?” And not because of the pink buffaloes — those were more understandable.

I got to a point where I couldn’t tell what was supposed to be funny and what was supposed to be serious. I don’t think that’s a good thing.

Oh, and don’t get me wrong. I’m totally down with the dung-throwing drunk-stumbling pink-buffalo type of humor.

Hullo, gulabi bhain!

And the plot had some great darker twists — like poor Bijlee contemplating suicide and then getting drunk in order to bear her wedding to Baadal — but I think you can tell from the moment that Shabana Azmi steps on screen that the big bad politician will lose and Harry will choose his daughter’s happiness and the plight of the villagers (and retire from his wild drinking). 

Go home, Harry. You're drunk.

So overall, I think perhaps I was bored because I knew where it was going, and the slow, drawn-out pace didn’t help. It was so slow and dragging at some points that I wondered if the film crew was drunk-slurring its way through the entire movie. (By the way, drunk!Mandola is nearly impossible to understand. I think subtitles would be necessary even for the Hindi fluent.)

Even Anushka Sharma and Imran Khan — both of whom I love — didn’t help this one.

Sorry, guys. Not feeling it.

The rich man’s rebel daughter is a such a great character of possibilities, but I don’t know if Bijlee’s presence is really ever earned in this movie (except for the getting drunk in order to go through her marriage). And Matru’s presence in the Mandolas’ household is kind of underexplained and even undeserved; Imran has his moments, but I found Matru a mostly lackluster accessory to scenes where he just played Harry's shepherd or told angry villagers what to do.

Basically, for a film named for the three main characters, I was underwhelmed by the development of Matru and Bijlee.

This tattoo of Bijlee's, though. Want. "Dekho magar pyaar se." (Look, but with love.)

Hey, at least the music was good and I got a few laughs, right? Err, right.

One of the people I went with — part of the new Bollywood Movie Club of Tampa Bay! — said, “Well, since everyone spends half the movie drunk, maybe you have to be drunk to fully appreciate it!” That sounds like a good idea to me. Next time, I’ll bring a bottle of rum.

SRK, bed intruder

A little bit of humor to brighten your day. :) Because I was watching Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (♥!!!) again last night, and during this scene a certain "song" was playing in my head. ;)

Mr. Malhotra (Anupam Kher) should have remembered to hide his kids, hide his wife, hide his husband too.