FILM REVIEWS
FILMS OF THE WEEK: ANALYSED @ 24 FRAMES PER SECOND
KARAN ANSHUMAN
KAI PO CHE DIRECTOR Abhishek Kapoor ACTORS Amit Sadh, Sushant Singh Rajput, Raj Kumar Yadav, Amrita Puri CERTIFICATION U MAKES THE CUT
Kai Po Che has arrived with significant expectations. The trailers – images of friendship and camaraderie charmed to the tunes of Amit Trivedi's excellent score – created the sort of positive buzz that every producer dreams of. The film is helmed by Abhishek Kapoor, whose last outing was Rock On!, a well-made and well-received film. Another big, uncommon advantage is that many in the potential audience have already read the source material, Chetan Bhagat's The Three Mistakes of My Life. So does Kai Po Che live up to the hype? And is it the next-gen Dil Chahta Hai as is being positioned?
Set in Ahmedabad the story starts at the turn of the century and charts the turbulent kinship of three friends – Ishaan, Omi, and Govind – who've grown together with common interests but wildly different ambitions. Ishaan trains young Ali in cricket with an eye on a goal he could never himself achieve, Govind masterminds their investments into sports retail, and Omi simply goes with the flow until it is too late to turn back from a career as a politician. Three events of national significance – Bhuj, the improbable test victory over Australia, and Godhra – form the backdrop of critical plot points in the narrative: moments when their bond is tested, broken, fleetingly reforged.
Don't let the promos mislead you; the story is not so much about friendship as it is about its destruction. The relationship between the three boys ebbs and flows, but with every turn, they recede a little further from each other, never to recover fully. Sometimes it feels they're together in the present more out of habit than love.
There are myriad moments in the film that are honest, intelligent, and singular in the way they are written. Individual sequences, especially anything to do with the romantic track with Govind and Vidya, Ishaan's sister, is excellent. Take the aesthetically shot garba scene that leads to them making love: it all happens without a word exchanged and to the most clichd yet apt piece of music for the situation: "Pari hoon main". Then there is the dialogue: often ironic, occasionally profound, never squandered.
Roohafza is the drink of choice in a middle-class Muslim household, there are little bits of Gujarati at the end of sentences that the actors pull off with naturalness, and the authenticity of the cricket itself are but a few examples in testament to the phenomenal attention to detail.
The big victory for the film comes in the cinematography department. Each frame is richly detailed with superb play of light, silhouettes and shadows.
Those were the pluses. But Kai Po Che has its fair share of problems as well. Primarily, the camaraderie between the boys is just not strong enough. While there are several "moments" they've together, the entire first half is essentially one big montage of transient scenes comprising a set up that keeps the dynamics of the bonds in limbo and does not allow the audience to be emotionally invested in their lives. Individually these scenes make sense – take when Ishaan smashes up a car belonging to his sister's suitor: an effective manner to underline his volatility, but a sore thumb in the context of the picture because it comes too early for us to love him right after in the following scenes.
Kapoor seems in a tearing hurry – showing us one quick event after another – to build to his crescendo in the final act which – even though it comes as a surprise (with a little help with the play of structure) – doesn't quite tug at the heart strings like the way it is obviously designed to.
Another minor quibble I have is that despite setting the stage for a powerful political statement, the makers sweep the true horror of the government-assisted pogrom under the carpet, seeming almost apologetic for bringing it up and focusing only on the micro-picture, especially unfair considering you see the rest of the world affected by the other two events.
All three leads excel, especially Sushant Singh Rajput. Amit Sadh's confusion is palpable. Raj Kumar Yadav continues to grow as an actor, and a little more variety in characters he chooses would be interesting to see. Amrita Puri (as Vidya) and Manav Kaul (as Omi's extremist politician uncle) are excellent in their one-dimensional roles at opposite ends of the spectrum.
Kai Po Che is interesting at many levels, deftly executed, and a film born out of conviction. It could've ended up as a modern classic, a fitting film for Dil Chahta Hai to pass the mantle over to. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite deliver to potential and ends up merely 'good'.
ZILA GHAZIABAD
DIRECTOR Anand Kumar ACTORS Geeta Basra, Sanjay Dutt, Ravi Kishan, Arshad Warsi, Vivek Oberoi CERTIFICATION A
Good God, Zila Ghaziabad!
Zila Ghaziabad comes a year after Gangs of Wasseypur. There is no reason that it shouldn't have been of equal calibre, given its aspirations in the genre. It had a slew of stars, presumably a massive budget, and… and… well that's enough to start with. However, and there is no easy way to say this, Zila Ghaziabad is awful.
Rare is a film of this scale, one made with such seriousness yet so utterly nonsensical that it has you cringing from the first frame in which goons dance to the tune of Jila Ghajiabad while beating each other up.
Cut to next scene: Vivek Oberoi is a masterji teaching kids about the Gandhian principles of non-violence. Cut to the last scene: VO of the ahimsa line after Vivek Oberoi has murdered some fifteen thousand people and is still alluded as the nice guy. I think there is a lesson in there somewhere. And I believe it is 'don't listen to Gandhi'.
In between you have some plot politics (Ravi Kishan and Paresh Rawal playing kabja-kabja), special song and dance numbers (yes that's plural!), and Sanjay Dutt as an evil cop (who has a lot of in between as well, straining buttons that are on the verge of popping). In fact Dutt has only one scene pre-interval. In which he beats people up. I forget why. Anyway, when he's back after a re-buildup of what a menacing, threatening and big goonda he is, he's greeted with the Jila Ghajiabad song, this time with cops cutely singing and dancing. Everybody dies eventually. Oh the layers.
As is well established, in films featuring Salman Khan or Rohit Shetty, Earth's gravity is replaced by the kind you have on the moon. This is the case in Zila too, except that's it's just hilariously used. At one point, Dutt is simply hanging in the air for no reason. It's not like he's in the middle of dodging bullets, he just jumps and remains suspended on a horizontal plane. Ridiculous doesn't even begin to describe…
The only thing competing with the silly bits in Zila are other silly bits in Zila. Unscrupulous cop with 160 encounters comes to goon's den. Goons apparently have nothing to fear because cop has no 'saboot'. Cop thinks so too, so what does he do? Organize a 'chammiya' dance, special song and dance number 12. What the what?
How did so many actors readily sign up for this? You have Dutt, Oberoi, Paresh Rawal, Arshad Warsi, Ravi Kishan, Chandrachud Singh (in all of two scenes) and other known faces amongst the men (none of whom are really bothered to put in any effort save for Vivek's eyebrows). And you get no one but Charmy Kaur and Minnisha Lamba to play their lovers when clearly you have the moolah to do better?
In what sort of parallel universe do people want to watch a film like Zila Ghaziabad? I don't believe there can be a single person who sees this film and does not laugh out loud in an ironical sense, including the makers. This is 144 minutes of sheer lunacy. 
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