Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Apna Sapna Money Money

This is a movie created to cash in on current trends, to purely make money ie ensure revenues are greater than costs, without having much to do with the art form of making movies. I’m going to go through a hypothetical checklist that I’m sure the producers / directors / scriptwriters of such brainless comedies go through

Plot : Half Done : keep it loose, don’t worry about logic, coherence or other such minor details. A girl fetching diamonds worth 50cr for a broke gangster is inexplicably asked to travel by train from Goa to Mumbai. Enter a cop, who has been trying to nab them for four years (but failing spectacularly), another small time con-man who is running away from Goa and then literally anything is possible
Sub-Plots : Over Done : Include several, trying to cover all possible movie segments and target audiences. So we have a Christian mechanic trying to marry a Hindu neighbour but is stalled by angry father, a young girl who has a hole in her heart and needs lots of money for operation, a milkman wannabe don who worships Amitabh’s ‘Sarkar’ etc etc
Item Girls : Done : use 3, just in case someone doesn’t like the personality of one…quite innovatively, give the item girls some bit-parts as well, not just a song, to ensure that there is plenty to see throughout the movie for the average testosterone fuelled red-blooded Indian male viewer.
Make fun of some disability : Done : here the nominated disabililty is near blindness
Make fun of some community : Done : instead of the regular Sardarji’s, this movie has gone for Nepali Gurkha’s
Dress up a Man in drag : Done : always works – raises a few laughs and also gives opportunity for the man to watch a girl undress…
Vulgar jokes : Done : just enough to avoid alienating the crucial family audience
Other Jokes : OverDone : the scriptwriter here has diligently saved all the forward email jokes and sms jokes that he got for a year. Everyone will find at least five funny…
Arshad Warsi / Boman Irani / Paresh Rawal / Anupam Kher : Done : All successful hindi comedies over last five years have had at least one of the above. Here its Anupam Kher and if it was me, they couldn’t have paid me enough.
No major stars but side-actors who cant act : Done : Neccessary to keep overall costs low, here Ritesh Deshmukh heads this list. Also include a couple of have-beens, who logically should have retired, to add to star appeal. Here Chunky Pandey (honestly though, he wasn’t that bad) and Jackie Shroff are prime members of this list.
Rap song : Done : Mandatory after Bluff Master. Again, in true value for money mode there are at least two or three (I lost count).
Its the very definition of a time-pass movie and if you go with an open mind (pun intended), there will be a few laughs and precious little else. Watch (only if free) and forget !

2 comments:

Karan said...

I beg to differ on the views expressed on this movie, i think it as worth spending money onthis movie. It was a great time pass and i think ritesh deshmukh is the most underrated actor in india today. Celina jaitely looked fabulously gorgeous and making fun of a disability is and has been a norm i the film industry so as far as i am concerned it is acceptable.

Apurv Nagpal said...

hi ! Karan
thanks for your comments.
On Ritesh, if you think he's a good actor, thats fine....beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder (this statement also applies to your comment on Celina).
Making fun of a disabillity - its ok as a one off. however, i'm precisely against what according to you makes it acceptable - its become the norm. Great comedy's / classics never had to resort to it - Khoobsoorat, Chupke Chupke, GolMaal (the original)...its a cheap / disgusting / easy way to get laughs and betrays laziness and lack of creativity / effort and originality on the part of the scriptwriter. Think if someone in your family was disabled - would you still find it acceptable ?