Mausam - review

Hmm...where do I begin? Mausam moves back and forth across so many time periods that it has left one quite confused. Pankaj Kapur's directorial venture is an ambitious one.It spans across continents and across crucial points in India's modern history. It is supposed to be a grand love story that triumphs over the ravages of time. It even includes the Indian Air Force in an attempt to give its hero (and the director's son) that dash of gentlemanly machismo. In trying to be so much, it unfortunately ends up being too little.

Starting off in 1992 in the small village of Mallukot in Punjab, we are introduced to Punjabi munda Harry aka Harinder Singh (Shahid) who soon falls for the new belle in town, Kashmiri Muslim Aayat (Sonam). Before the two can quite finish accepting their love, Aayat is packed off to Mumbai due to the Babri Masjid incident. Don't ask me why. Aayat seems to do a whole lot of really unnecessary gallivanting all over the world so that the plot can move. Harry meanwhile becomes an IAF pilot. The lovers next meet after 7 years in, of all places, Edinburgh in Scotland. Here the shy, demure Aayat is learning ballet apparently and Harry is on some pilot exchange programme (!) Things go better this time and the love story progresses smoothly. But before harry can formally ask for Aayat's hand in marriage, the Kargil war begins and he has to fly out. Like, immediately. Without so much as a 'goodbye and here's my address/phone no'.

And so they pine away and try in various annoyingly vague ways to get in touch with each other. Some minor misunderstandings later, they encounter each other in Ahmedabad now just in time to get trapped in the communal riots. Thankfully for us, they get through this experience agreeing to wed and stay happily ever after. I really don't think I could have tolerated one more moronic separation.

Frankly, Mausam is a letdown. It's movie with the seed of a great idea (a love story set against the backdrop of recent history) and simply amazing cinematography. But it is far too contrived to strike a chord with the audience. The history seems forced, the lovers separation seems unnecessary, Aayat's travel seems inexplicable since they keep putting her out of Harry's reach. The direction itself feels uneven. The first part in Punjab in natural and sets a nice tone despite again, unnecessary setpieces. The visuals are consistently brilliant and there is poetry in the way the lovers interact. In the Scotland part of the tale, the poetry still remains but becomes caught up in the forced storyline. This also around the time that Shahid begins to get on your nerves. Just when I am thinking how cute he is and how competently he is acting, he goes into his OTT impersonation of how he thinks a fighter pilot should be. That's grim, unsmiling and bordering on rude.

After Scotland, in the second half, it was all mayhem, people went back and forth from India to Scotland. Switzerland and even America were there somewhere in the fray. Shahid flits between 1999 and 2001 (necessary so that the WTC disaster can be shown). The climax was the last straw. People laughed. Yes really. The hero saves the girl, a horse and a child as a riots rage around them! I mean, it was Such a 1980s potboiler finish that one could be pardoned for thinking that this was a separate movie than the one we began watching. Maybe Shahid felt he had to take this chance to show off all his acting chops. Sad.

Points mainly for beautiful visuals and some good music. Okay and also because Shahid was cute in parts. Sonam btw, was pretty and faintly ditzy - much better than one could have hoped for.

4/10

Bad Company

Everything works out so well in the movies. It’s like an alternate universe where custom, convention and even common sense can be flouted with impunity because one knows that there will always be a happy ending (else ‘picture abhi baki mere dost’). Such is also the case with ‘Badmaash Company’ which I saw yesterday. Movies like this make one wish that the IPL-induced Bollywood drought at the plexes had not ended.

‘Badmaash Company’ is in the same vein as other recent Yashraj releases – pretty faces and half baked plots. Its like the Chopras now believe they have too much moolah to worry about script or detailing. And so, they hand over the baton to first time writer-director, Parmeet Sethi - better known to loyal DDLJ fans as Kuljeet and to all others as Archana Puran Singh’s partner. He has said in interviews that he wrote the script for the movie in six days. I really don’t know why he would want to expose before the audience just how little thought has gone into this film. Either he thought the movie was so good that he should be lauded for coming up with it in such a short time or he knows how flawed it is and seeks mercy. Either ways, foolhardy.

The movie which begins in 1994, is about Karan (Shahid) who along with friends Chandu (standup comedian Vir Das) and Zing (Indian Idol contestant Meiyang Chang), indulges in small time smuggling, serving as a ‘carrier’ to Bangkok for some extra dough. On the way they team up with Bulbul (Anushka) and Karan’s con schemes get more ambitious and more WTF inducing. These include importing shoes from Bangkok with the right shoe sent to one city in India and the left to another therein rendering the value zero. The shoes are not claimed for this supposed reason by Karan & co but purchased discreetly later at a Customs auction for throwaway prices. The gang reassemble the shoes at their end and voila! Full value Reeboks plus evasion of 120% customs duty (hence the need to set it in an earlier time frame where import duty was high). The gang now moves to try their luck in the US pulling similar stunts with surprising ease. With more money comes more pride, which as we all know, goes before a fall. Karan’s arrogance becomes his hubris and the team falls apart. Karan finally sees the light of day and decides to live by honest means.

The first half of the movie is much more watchable than the second. The first half sketches in Karan's frustration with his middle class life and his determination to get rich quick. The second half carries on with the boring variations of the con game with loopholes so big as to suggest the Americans and the audience are complete idiots. The movie drags on moving from one ludicrous scheme to another till one loses any interest to know what’s coming next. Characterisations are also flawed leaving the viewer wondering why Karan, a good student helped along by a rich uncle, at all needs to walk on the wrong side. An exploration of the characters rather than of their repetitive fraudulent activities might have been more interesting.

Shahid is competent but still unable to carry a movie on his own steam. There is only so far he’ll be able to go on the basis of just chocolatey looks especially if he always looks likes he’s trying too hard. Anushka sheds as much clothing as she can but still looks like she would be better off doing ads for fairness creams. Vir Das and Chang are both good considering its their first big movie.
The songs are catchy esp. “Chaska”, “Jingle Jingle” and the title track but too similar in mood and picturisation to really stand out.

For promising a fun-filled adventure and giving us a damp squib instead, ‘Badmaash Company’ gets a 5/10.