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The week of the good and the bad Cinema
THE GOOD, THE BAD: Ajay Devgan’s U, Me aur Hum (left) is a sensitive film portraying an Alzheimer’s patient while Jaideep Sen’s handling of schizophrenia in Rakesh Roshan’s Krazzy-4 (right) is both crude and ugly.
THE GOOD, THE BAD: Ajay Devgan’s U, Me aur Hum (left) is a sensitive film portraying an Alzheimer’s patient while Jaideep Sen’s handling of schizophrenia in Rakesh Roshan’s Krazzy-4 (right) is both crude and ugly.
An actor worthy of emulation, Ajay Devgan takes early steps in his directorial career here now with a film that looks good, feels good. He brings an actor’s experience to a director’s enthusiasm as he pieces together a show that packs in some lovely moments, some aesthetically beautiful ones, and some which allow your mind to wander. In short, a film that is good even as it leaves you with a feeling that it could have been better. Maybe some day Devgan will be more assured as a director. Maybe some day he will place his thinking actor’s hat on the director, and maybe another day he will get better returns from his editor, his music director, his lyricist.
Yes, U, Me aur H um could have been more tightly edited, it could have done with a more pulsating music score and a little less obsession with the camera by the director, still very much an actor.
But then it never pays to look at the half empty glass. The film could have been worse too! After all, how many Bollywood directors have shown the requisite restraint when talking of any dreaded disease like Alzheimer’s? The tendency always is to go overboard, pack in stuff for the tear ducts to run overtime. Bollywood has often been guilty of melodrama when talking of serious ailments. Or, worse, mocking the condition.
Not so Devgan, who mostly uses subtleties to carry the story forward. And only towards the end does he state the obvious. In fact, as some would say, he is too slow, too subtle for the large part.
The film takes more than a while to evolve as Devgan the actor woos Kajol the actress over a cup of coffee -- or is it tea? Immaterial, really. Now a shade past their prime, they look soulfully into each other’s eyes. Then look some more. And for so long that there is a danger of termites growing!
He narrates a simple story of three couples — one is unhappily married, the second happily unmarried, and the third has the heroine with the Alzheimer’s problem. What does the husband of the ailing wife do? Does he keep her at home, risking everything, including a little baby she delivered and has now forgotten all about? Does he send her away to a rehabilitation centre, often that euphemism for dereliction of responsibility?
Nice, intriguing questions with a soul that no one can challenge. Despite the absence of depth and an occasionally loose grip on narration, they help Devgan in putting together U, Me aur Hum as a film that is worthy of attention. It is a film with some poignant moments, as in the wonderful take-off on the Pakeezah song, “Yun hi koi mil gaya thha s ar-e-rah chalte chalte….” Also a film that has some absolutely wonderful one-liners and perfect chemistry among the three guys.
Sumit Raghavan as a woefully married man is simply superb, and the rest of the cast adequate, never threatening to bring the film down a notch with mediocrity. The flashback and fast forward technique works without too many jerks. The camerawork is fine, the frame composition eye-catching.
Kajol looks good when she is young. She is better when she is old, sipping her coffee, her luminous eyes exuding rare brilliance. Ajay Devgan as hero is effective without being excellent.
Watch U, Me aur Hum as a piece of mainstream cinema that tackles a serious subject without slipping into hyperbole. The director operates within the given commercial parameters but dishes out a film that will find takers among the multiplex audiences.
KRAZZY-4 (At Delite and other theatres)Fun hurts, surely the kind pedalled here with such unapologetic relish by debutant director Jaideep Sen. If Bollywood takes half a step towards maturity this week with U, Me aur Hum, Rakesh Roshan’s Krazzy-4 proves that madness — no pun intended — is never far away.
Ostensibly talking of four patients of schizophrenia, the film does such wilful injustice to the theme that you wonder if commercial filmmakers have a licence to lampoon, in utter disregard of the feelings of those affected or their families.
Never high on detail, Sen here gives the go-by even to the bare minimum as he spins together a masala entertainer with all the ingredients to make the cash registers jingle. And the sensitive souls in the theatre squirm their seats.
He starts off with the story of four guys in varying stages of mental illnesses: one of them, Rajpal Yadav, lives in the past; another cannot get a word through. The third one is a doctor who has lost the prescription of life. And the fourth loses control over his temper in the face of simple provocation.
Knowing beforehand that it is a commercial venture with three item numbers and a music score that’s in the news for plagiarism, one does not expect a Dard ka Rishta or even Tera Mera Saath Rahe. Even being prepared to make concessions to over-the-top handling and addition of songs for entertainment does not help. This film is so completely bereft of sensitivity that it could as well have been the story of anybody suffering from forgetfulness or even somebody with a speech impairment. Either way, Sen would have used the condition only to raise cheap laughs. That he succeeds in doing, as the masses often clap with glee every time the lead characters falter.
Which, given their illness, is often. Here the four patients go out to watch a game of cricket with their doctor, played with the usual aplomb by Juhi Chawla. Along the way, the doctor goes missing and the four mentally ill people are out on their own on the road with predictable consequences. They don’t have a penny in their pocket, not an address in sight, but have to save the doctor who has been kidnapped. Throw in a conspiracy angle with a couple of halts at dance floors, and you have a film where the director leaves nothing to chance. There is plenty of below-the-belt humour along the way as a sad story becomes a comedy; before giving way to a thriller; and ultimately devolving into nothingness.
Saving grace? No, not Shah Rukh’s much talked about item number boy jig. He is flat and listless, not helped much by the music score.
The redeeming feature comes from quarters least expected, Rakhi Sawant. In her mandatory song-and-dance grind she is a delight, with all the right pauses and pouts, the lower-than-the navel skirt, a single string, bare-backed blouse and lots of tattoos. Makrand Deshpande as her co-dancer is suitably lecherous, obviously enjoying himself in a different role.
That is a little footnote in a film that is crude, even hurtful. That it might just get better response at the box office only adds to the agony. If you have got scruples and are not ready to ignore them for a few cheap laughs, you can skip this one. Krazzy-4 leaves you yearning for a work of sanity.
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