Fanaa: Movie review
Considering the delay I should perhaps call it the DVD review.
Fanaa: death/destruction [in Arabic].
Well, here it’s basically ‘Tere ishq mein fanaa ho jaye’
and not any other sort of destruction.
Fanaa starts off as breezy love story between a looking-his-age Aamir and remarkably young-looking Kajol (She does pass off as this college student) She plays Zuni, a visually impaired (‘blind’ didn’t sound quite right) Kashmiri girl, in Delhi with a small group from her college to perform before the President on Republic Day and Aamir is Rihaan Khan a tapori tour guide. Aamir’s courtship of her forms most of the first half with some pretty good shairi popping up every alternate dialogue Kunal Kohli’s done a good job with the dialogue here and the songs too are the better ones of the movie. And it’s from here that the movie spins totally out of control taking off on flights of fancy which you can only expect the combination of Yashraj films and Bollywood masala.
There’s not too much to write about apart from the fact that Kajol’s sight is conveniently restored, I suppose it would have been too difficult for the director to continue the story with a blind female lead. And Aamir morphs into a terrorist and a hi-fi one at that using digicams and laptops, the image is heavily inspired by the new Hollywood action flicks a la MI: 2, Italian Job. Then of course the movie winds its filmi way to the climax.
Director Kunal Kohli has delivered a terrible dud after a mature movie like Hum Tum. It’s surprising how Kunal who even appears on TV in his own show showcasing independent and non-mainstream cinema, providing tips to aspiring independent filmmakers can churn out such a lacklustre film. Suffice to say that the film is replete with usual mainstream movie gaffes like plot holes, incorrect representations and contrived songs.
And since most mainstream, read hit, directors have their ho-hum whimsical style of story telling and expect audiences to like it, I thought I’d used it too and instead of a full structured review you’ll find below listed in points whatever caught my fancy. But I won’t go the whole hog and brashly think that you will like it too.
Trivia:
· Aamir looks really odd and even scary when wet in the rain song. Imagine, there’s even a song in the rain after which what else, in true Bollywood ishtlye they make out.
· Aamir looks haggard and old in the close ups. Crows feet, sagging skin. He should try Botox, that face worth preserving.
· Kajol’s wardrobe in the movie is a big ‘wow’.
· There’s a spate of short appearances. Lilette Dubey, Lara Dutta, Shiney Ahuja, Shruti Seth of Channel V and others. Maybe Kunal wanted to make friends and influence people. Unlike but still like, gay old Karan Johar who casts his “good friends” who incidentally are also Bollywood stars in bit roles in his movies.
· Rishi Kapoor is really cute as Kajol’s dad.
· And I never quite figured out the age-old Bollywood fascination with shooting songs with the stars wearing summer clothing amidst snow clad locales.
Rating: No rating in stars, that’s used almost everywhere
Most Hindi movies can fall into ‘Good’, ‘Bad,’, &’Ugly’ and this one is ‘Bad’.
If you really want to watch it, just watch the first half. The second half is
Bollywood masala heaven. And anyway the good songs too are in the first half.
Fanaa: death/destruction [in Arabic].
Well, here it’s basically ‘Tere ishq mein fanaa ho jaye’
and not any other sort of destruction.
Fanaa starts off as breezy love story between a looking-his-age Aamir and remarkably young-looking Kajol (She does pass off as this college student) She plays Zuni, a visually impaired (‘blind’ didn’t sound quite right) Kashmiri girl, in Delhi with a small group from her college to perform before the President on Republic Day and Aamir is Rihaan Khan a tapori tour guide. Aamir’s courtship of her forms most of the first half with some pretty good shairi popping up every alternate dialogue Kunal Kohli’s done a good job with the dialogue here and the songs too are the better ones of the movie. And it’s from here that the movie spins totally out of control taking off on flights of fancy which you can only expect the combination of Yashraj films and Bollywood masala.
There’s not too much to write about apart from the fact that Kajol’s sight is conveniently restored, I suppose it would have been too difficult for the director to continue the story with a blind female lead. And Aamir morphs into a terrorist and a hi-fi one at that using digicams and laptops, the image is heavily inspired by the new Hollywood action flicks a la MI: 2, Italian Job. Then of course the movie winds its filmi way to the climax.
Director Kunal Kohli has delivered a terrible dud after a mature movie like Hum Tum. It’s surprising how Kunal who even appears on TV in his own show showcasing independent and non-mainstream cinema, providing tips to aspiring independent filmmakers can churn out such a lacklustre film. Suffice to say that the film is replete with usual mainstream movie gaffes like plot holes, incorrect representations and contrived songs.
And since most mainstream, read hit, directors have their ho-hum whimsical style of story telling and expect audiences to like it, I thought I’d used it too and instead of a full structured review you’ll find below listed in points whatever caught my fancy. But I won’t go the whole hog and brashly think that you will like it too.
Trivia:
· Aamir looks really odd and even scary when wet in the rain song. Imagine, there’s even a song in the rain after which what else, in true Bollywood ishtlye they make out.
· Aamir looks haggard and old in the close ups. Crows feet, sagging skin. He should try Botox, that face worth preserving.
· Kajol’s wardrobe in the movie is a big ‘wow’.
· There’s a spate of short appearances. Lilette Dubey, Lara Dutta, Shiney Ahuja, Shruti Seth of Channel V and others. Maybe Kunal wanted to make friends and influence people. Unlike but still like, gay old Karan Johar who casts his “good friends” who incidentally are also Bollywood stars in bit roles in his movies.
· Rishi Kapoor is really cute as Kajol’s dad.
· And I never quite figured out the age-old Bollywood fascination with shooting songs with the stars wearing summer clothing amidst snow clad locales.
Rating: No rating in stars, that’s used almost everywhere
Most Hindi movies can fall into ‘Good’, ‘Bad,’, &’Ugly’ and this one is ‘Bad’.
If you really want to watch it, just watch the first half. The second half is
Bollywood masala heaven. And anyway the good songs too are in the first half.
posted by giri on 9/16/2006
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home