Shootout at Wadala(2013), Genre:Crime/Thriller/Drama, run time: 137 minutes, 1.5/5

Imagine you are a contract killer and you have just bumped off a newspaper owner whom the Haskar brothers, the dreaded gangsters of Mumbai, considered their Godfather. Would you be sucking off on a lolly on a roadside stall the very next day? More importantly, why would you be surprised if they turned up behind you to tear you apart?

The second half of the movie is full of such absurd scenes. However, the start is kind of promising.

Manya Surve has been shot in an encounter and is being taken to the nearest hospital by Inspector Baagwan. Before croaking, Surve tells the inspector the story of his transition from a law abiding youngster to a dreaded gangster.

 

John Abraham surprisingly acts pretty well during the first seventy odd minutes. As a student who gets framed along with his brother, as a helpless prisoner and as a lover who sees his inamorata getting hitched to another man, he lets his eyes talk. 

The first irritant which I encountered was Tusshar(I hope I spelt the fucker’s name correctly). He is supposed to be this Morgan Freeman type prisoner who keeps on dispensing obscene lines which would leave you disgusted. One sample of the junk he spouts out of his mouth “ I am Bruce who hasn’t fucked someone in eight years- Main Aisa Bruce hoon jisne aath saal se kisi kee lee nahin hai”. 

What struck me as really funny bit was every time someone lit up a cigarette on the screen, a message would pop up telling that smoking causes cancer. However, no such warning appears when the characters trade deeply offending insults and disparage women.

Kangana plays Abraham’s love interest. She is literally manhandled by him in their supposedly love making scenes which come off more as rape attempts.

Anil Kapoor plays the cop. He looks awesome for a guy who is approaching sixty. His fitness is even more accentuated in scenes wherein he acts along with Jackie Shroff who was once his contemporary and now looks at least ten years older than Mr. Kapoor due to his booze afflicted eye lids and protruding tummy.

 

There are enough twists and turns in the plot to keep the viewer sufficiently interested till the half way mark. After that it seemed as if the director wanted to screw away to glory. There are clichés piled upon more banalities, sufficient enough to give you long lasting migraine.

For reasons unclear to me, the Kaskar siblings (Dawood and his elder bro) are named Haskar. Manoj Vajpayee is becoming expert in dying the Sonny Corleone way. After the epic scene in Gangs of Wasseypur, here he again is bumped off in the same manner. 

Sonu Sood as Dawood is fucking hilarious. He is supposed to convey dead seriousness by his quite manner. In most of the scenes he looks like an amnesia afflicted patient, one who has forgotten his lines.

However, the absolute worst part of the movie was to see Sunny Leone speak Hindi and act as the love interest of Vajpayee. It lasted for around one minute only but nearly drove me batty, ape shit crazy.

I had the pleasure of reading Dongri to Dubai some time back. It is a fantastic book, one which would make you proud of an Indian author. Six pages of it were dedicated to the Wadala encounter. Those six pages were bloated with enough nonsense to give birth to this two hours long shit fest.  

Watch only if you have a masochistic streak.

Second Son(2011) by Lee Child, Genre: Action/Mystery, Pages:62, 4/5

The year is 1974. Reacher is thirteen. His father Stan, a navy officer, has been posted to Okinawa, Japan. His mother, Josephine, is a French national. Joe, his elder brother, a teenage prodigy is 15. His maternal grandfather is dying in Paris but is unable to contact the family because of national security issues. 

The brothers face the heat on the streets of Japan as well as due to the schooling system of the country. Their father might also be in trouble and may just end up losing the job. 

60 pages long, Second Son was earlier published exclusively for Kindle. Fortunately, its print edition came bundled with my copy of The Affair. 

Stan, Josephine and Joe have been only names for the readers of this fantastic series. Their names are mentioned dutifully on Reacher’s CV which is featured rather dramatically in the beginning of every Reacher book. However, this is the first glimpse into Reacher’s formative years. 

Child’s writing skills suck in the reader. There are minor observations which thrill the heart. Like Reacher has always been addressed by his surname and that nobody calls him Jack. Like he has always been a fighting machine who refuses to let insults just slide. 

Reacher is one of the more fascinating fictional characters and this series is very addictive. I was left craving for more after reading this gripping and fast paced short story.

My son, my son , What have ye done? (2009), Genre: Drama/Thriller, Runtime: 88 minutes, 2/5

Supposedly based on real events, this is the story of a son who does something abominable to his mother (The last words of the mother have been taken as the title of the movie). 

Shot on a budget which seems to have been lesser than the cost of a shoe string, this begins with two cops (William Defoe, playing a veteran on the force and Michael Pena,a novice) getting a call informing that a crime has been committed in their vicinity. They rush out to the area, find neighbors surrounding a house and meet a mysterious man (Michael Shannon) who chants some mambo jumbo and then walks off to the neighboring house. He is soon recognized as the prime suspect and the rest of the duration of the movie deals with police’s attempts to bring him out of the hiding place and Citizen Kane like reconstruction of Michael Shannon’s life by his fiance and friend.

Herzog, for me, is one of the very few directors whose very name on a DVD’s spine makes my heart race. My love affair with his work started after watching Bad Lieutenant wherein he nearly single handedly resurrected Nicholas Cage’s career. My respect for him grew leaps and bounds after watching his other masterpiece Aguirre: the wrath of God, Rescue Dawn and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser. Hence, I had high hopes from this.

These hopes were further raised by the fact that David Lynch, the God of surrealistic cinema was the producer. This was supposed to be a fusion of two great minds and hence my expectations became sky high. 

Alas, soon they came crashing down with a thud.

This is a combination of police procedural with the cops trying to get Shannon to surrender and mystical scenes which show how Shannon’s thought process began to change after a visit to Peru. However, at times it seems too pretentious for its own good and alienates the viewer with its un-involving narrative. 

The one front wherein this doesn’t disappoint is the acting with Shannon again doing his “intense” stuff brilliantly. He is one of the best actors around and whenever he is on the screen, the watcher cannot look anywhere else, glued as he is to the magnetic charisma which Shannon exudes. The others have two bit roles and are generally wasted.

This is the fourth consecutive misfire on the movie front for me this month and is very nearly on top of “The movies which I would love missing even if I am paid a million dollars to watch” list. Watch it at your own risk.

Moth Smoke(2000) by Mohsin Hamid, Genre: Drama, Pages: 247, 4/5

“Moth Smoke” is Mohsin Hamid’s first book.  It is set in Lahore during the summer of 1998, when both India and Pakistan had officially declared their nuclear prowess to the world.

The book starts with a court scene. The protagonist, the historically named, Darashikoh, is on trial. It then goes into a flashback mode and shifts to Dara’s P.O.V.  for the major chunk. It has other characters who narrate some lengthy chapters which help us get a well formed character sketch of Dara.

Darashikoh Shehzad is a banker who snubs a rich customer and ends up losing his job. He has a boyhood friend, Aurangzeb aka Ozi, who has returned from the States along with his wife Mumtaz and son Muazzam. Manucci, with his Italian sounding name, is Dara’s man servant. 

The disparity between Dara and his rich friends keeps on growing because of his job loss. This leads to scathing social commentary. However, Dara’s hypocritical nature is also shown by the writer when he describes the callous way in which he treats Manucci. Dara slowly becomes a drug dealer and his life goes totally out of control.

The anxiety on the streets of Lahore after India’s tests and the jubilation after their own tests are described vividly. There are strongly worded passages which talk about the sufferings of the common man due to different scarcities because of the sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the tests which hit the nail on its head without sounding pedantic.

This is a beautifully written book which captures the mood of the people of the subcontinent during those heady days of 1998 perfectly. There was a sense of euphoria and one-upmanship in the people of the two countries. However, this was tempered by a sense of impending doom and it is in a pitch perfect tone that Mr. Hamid writes about this

.

Mr. Hamid also wrote the much better known Reluctant Fundamentalist which I had the pleasure of reading a few years ago. Comparison being inevitable in life, I feel this is a better book with a more mature narrative.

Detachment(2011) Genre: Drama, Run time: 93 minutes, 4/5

Have you ever wondered about the private lives of your teachers, about their hopes, dreams, fears, frustrations? This is a glimpse into their existence. 

Adrian Brody essays the role of a substitute English teacher, Mr. Barthes (the ‘s’ is silent). He has come to teach for a month in a school whose students are not exactly crème de la crème. He practices the principle of keeping an emotional distance from the happenings and this gives the movie its title.

Barthes’ character is very well developed. As he says, he has got used to the emotional turmoil and hence is stolid. He has a grandfather who is practically one heartbeat away from death. The memories of his mother’s demise haunt him. He befriends a teenage prostitute and tries to guide her. One of his students develops a crush on him. 

Like every great drama, this too has its share of memorable personalities. Marcia Gay Harden is perfect in her small role of the school principal who is being booted out of the job. James Caan is a faculty with trenchant wit. There is a scene wherein he verbatim repeats the threat of one of his students in different tones, obviously enjoying himself which perfectly sums him up. 

Lucy Liu as the counselor gets a real meaty scene wherein she loses her composure and takes out her frustrations on a foul mouthed girl. Then there is a teacher who somehow loves standing under the sun, clenching the chains. The reason behind the same is revealed in a funny yet poignant moment. 

Brody finally finds a role worth his mettle. He has been doing shitty roles for the better part of a decade. He has tried his hands at mystery (The Jacket), action/adventure (Predators/King Kong) and thrillers (Wrecked). It was clear after the iconic The Pianist that drama was his forte. He really sinks his teeth into the character and gives a memorable performance. His eyes drip with unsaid pain. He spews venom at the care taker of the old age home and his anger thrills the viewer because it is righteous. This is his second best role after his Oscar winning portrayal of the pianist Szpilman and he carries the film ably.

Not that this needs being carried. The screenplay by Carl Lund is the actual hero. It is intelligent, deep and thought provoking. However, he disappoints slightly in the final act when no feasible solution is offered.

I only wish I had seen this an year back. I would have loved to screen it for the teachers of my institute on the Teachers’ Day.