I recently heard a song of this movie on repeat-play (Dar Mastam) at a store,
without knowing where it was from. It bothers you how the music of Rahman (and
of many others before him) is infinitely superior to their movie-material.
By Mayank Shekhar
Posted On Saturday, November 22, 2008
FILM :Yuvvraaj
DIRECTOR: Subhash Ghai
ACTORS: Anil Kapoor, Salman Khan, Zayed Khan and Katrina Kaif
RATING : * 1/2
Anil Kapoor’s character is autistic in this film. Like all old Bollywood
flicks, a doctor steps into a scene to describe his condition as ‘genius
disorder’. Old Gyanesh is gifted with a sense of music. Otherwise his mind
stopped developing after a certain age. He is a picture of innocence; unknowing
of the cunning ways of the world.
Kapoor has played somewhat similar roles before; the sorts of Eeshwar or Kishen
Kanhaiya. Still, in this performance, he rarely misses a beat, and certainly
doesn’t imitate himself. It’s the sort of character that audiences instantly
fall for. The final sequence relates to his poisoned death. Yet, what goes
through your mind is if the film will get over sooner than he would. Or will he
fight back in rebirth!
You can sense that the problem with this picture is that it takes an autistic
Gyanesh a lot less seriously than Kapoor does. The character has two other
brothers: one plays Salman Khan, the other, a hammy nut-case. Both are after
the wealth their father left behind.
It’s all willed to the abnormal sibling, who seems the most normal of the
three. The issue isn’t that these are estranged brothers. It’s in fact they
aren’t brothers (or regular human-beings) at all. You’re unlikely to relate to
anyone.
The younger one (Zayed) squanders away all his money and loses his club and
casino memberships. He immediately bumps into his long, faithful girlfriend,
hung by the arm of an old tycoon.
She says, “Mujhe wahi aadmi pasand hai jiske paas money (long pause), power aur
style hai.” (I only like a man who has money…). This is the point he decides to
more aggressively cultivate his mentally challenged sibling.
The elder one (Salman) abducts Gyanesh. We know little about this not-so-gentle
a man beyond that he would beat a violin into pieces, if a sweet old fogey
harmlessly winked at his girlfriend (Katrina Kaif): “You’re so good,” she tells
him later. He’d bought that violin-man a new instrument (you get the personal
drift).
He merely needs money to marry his girlfriend, which her rich father (Boman
Irani) wouldn’t otherwise allow: “chhote-log, bade-log,” that ‘80s thing.
How two cartoons for brothers develop a bond with their supposedly abnormal
sibling is never known. It didn’t seem important. I felt that would’ve been the
story.
One of the reasons mainstream Mumbai filmmakers, for long, have rarely invested
their talent on logic, complete characters, subtle turning points or a credible
story-line, I think, is because they have always had the luxury of great music
composers to pull their non-sense off. If not, someone somewhere in Sholapur
should be stunned by the sceneries of Salzburg.
I recently heard a song of this movie on repeat-play (Dar Mastam) at a store,
without knowing where it was from. It bothers you how the music of Rahman (and
of many others before him) is infinitely superior to their movie-material.
As a premise, this film is Barry Levinson’s Rain Man, made recently into a West
End play. Imagine that incredibly emotional, intimate film being turned into a
loud soap-opera, set around a wily villain in a wheelchair (Mamajee), a hot
vamp in a low-cut blouse, another bald man by the side, chomping into his
wafers packet.
All of them speak in turns to the camera from a living room, with gaudy
sofa-sets all over, and a spiral stair-case at the corner.
By now that genre has been comfortably passed on to self-serious parodies on
Himesh and Mithun’s son. I feel sorry for that poor Gyanesh. He wanted to do
his own take on a Dustin Hoffman Oscar-role. No one’s going to feel for him.
Most may be too busy laughing at the others.
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/30/20081122200811220345525134c6eec11/Really-man-Rain-Man
