Compare and contrast the movies Queen and Highway with a view to the directions they portray for the society

Over the last 2 days, I have seen 2 movies, Queen and Highway. Both of them have almost similar plots to narrate.

In Queen the girl has been refused a marriage alliance 2 days before the wedding. The reasons are that the guy has changed a lot and will not be able to handle this relationship any more. She goes her way to a solo honeymoon, later refuses the boy, and leads a life of her own.

Highway has a more pathetic plot to narrate. The girl is kidnapped during a long drive with her fiance 4 days before the marriage. She is tortured initially, but later finds herself comfortable in the captivity, and leads a life of her own. When her parents force her back to her home for marriage, she walks out of her house back to where she wanted to be.

While Queen is an absolute personalised account of the girl and her ways of handling herself, Highway has a brush with the law as police chases the girl and her kidnapper and finally shoots down the kidnapper.

As I watched Highway, my thoughts meandered to as to what these two films were trying to portray. Are they saying that the girls can lead her own life outside marriage and do what they feel best. It is indeed right, no harm, rather than get caught in a meaningless relationship and then wail the whole life.

Times have changed, the society has gone more individualistic than a social unit. There are people who are doing things differently.

There are recorded cases in India where the female goes out to work and male stays back home tending to the kids and the house. There are cases where the parents have taken off their kids from the education by rote and training them on a specialised skill of a sport. The education continues as a private candidate in home environs. This is within marriage.

The couples not getting married but living in together is an old story even in India. Now there are laws too that tend to cases of harassment for live-in couples. They marry when they feel like, or split, move in with new partners.

I have gone through article in newspapers, which says that women folk doing well in corporate sector lead the life of a spinster. They have their own homes, live a free life with their friends both males and females on their own account.

Life has taught us that nothing is wrong if done within limits in a balanced way. People complain of losing their identities in a married life and lead a tapered life all through. What is the harm if they lead their own life their way, without disturbing the society. The increasing rate of divorces in India also makes it a point to look at this aspect.

All this has ramifications to the society, and one would require a more broad minded view of things rather than the traditional one.

This is not only for females, it applies to the males too …. every one has a claim to lead a life of his own choice. If within marriage, you could co-exist, it is fine. Or walk your own free ways …..

I would like people to share their opinion specially ladies, some of my good friends with liberated views, Lata, Shobha, Aparajita, Rma, Snehji , Rashmi, Ekta, and anyone who wants to share the views.

You could disagree to with it completely …..and let me know what you feel about it …..

Review of the movie Queen

What do you do when 2 days before your marriage, the boy/girl turns away from marriage saying that he/she has changed over ……

Cry despair over your fortune etc. But when the person in question is Rani Mehra from a conservative family in Rajouri, Delhi, in the movie Queen, it is different ….

Indeed she cries, her parents are also very upset, her granny tries to cheer her up. But then she picks herself up, talks and convinces her parents ….. then she does the unusual ….

She goes for the pre-planned honeymoon alone to her favourite location, Paris. Initially she finds herself alone but then meets up with people, through various chance meetings. She is questioned by police too, a person attempts robbery, but she is not one to step back …..

She meets Vijaylaxmi (Lisa Haydon) in the hotel, who has a mixed parentage but an Indian father. She helps her through initial days, and then sends her to Amsterdam. This was Vijay, the dropping out fiancee, favourite location. Vijay is played by Rajkummar Rao, who continues to excel with each performance.

She gets into various adjustments, even upto staying with boys in a shared dormitory. But they all become very good friends, as she is very quick to adjust. The boys in question from various countries are very good natured and realise her problems. There are other episodes too, but would be best to watch, rather than read the description here ….

Vijay is now guilty of his action and tries to patch up with her. He reaches Amsterdam, but she keeps avoiding his calls. Finally they meet, where he is very apologetic. But Rani does not seem to soften up …..

She returns back to India, heads directly to Vijay’s residence.. The mother is all happy making plans post-marriage. Vijay is also very happy. But she returns the engagement ring and walks out of the relationship a free bird. She has realised her true self and does not want to go back to a troubled past …..

Kangana has enacted the role of Rani so well. Rajkummar, as I said, continues to excel from Kaipo Chhe onwards ….. The father mother brother of Rani are all very lovely watch …..

I call such film a very matter of fact film. It looks as if you are watching a family around your neighbourhood. It requires exceptional level of direction that Vikas Bahl has very done it very well ….

This is indeed a great watch in the multiplex, the entire audience laughs with the joke ….

If you have watched Tanu Weds Manu, made by the same production house, Viacomm18, you would realise it …..

You will definitely not be disappointed, if you go to watch this. I was a little circumspect but seeing a lot of opinions, I went with my Queen to watch it …. both have not been disappointed, infact she was laughing so much through out ……

As I understood the tone of the movie, I was sending some messages around through the phone, and my friend coaxed me to leave it all and keep watching …..It was fun …..

Review of the movie Highway

Yesterday I asked a question, that what would one do when his/her fiance refused to marry 2 days before the marriage.

The question for the day is what will one do if she is kidnapped 4 days before the marriage …..

Cry, try running away, get beaten up and then cry again ….. a few may fight it out too ….

But when the person in question is Veera Tripathi, she adapts herself to that life ….. and end up finally leaving her family. Amazing, right. Thats what Imtiaz Ali tries to show in the movie Highway …..

Veera (Alia Bhatt) is getting married 4 days later. She is fed up with all the rasm-o-rivaz of an Indian marriage, calls up her fiance, and wants to go out on a long drive to get some time out in the open. The fiance aware of the ills of high profile children moving freely on the road in the middle of the night, he wants to rush back home early. But the girl ‘keeps wanting more ……’. Finally the guy had enough and he turns back. On the way back stops at a petrol bunk for some petrol. Alia is out in the open. The fiance wants her back in the car soon. Just during this, there are gun shots around, and Alia is picked up and lifted into the fiance’ car by some men. The fiance is captured and thrown out of the car and beaten up. The car is driven out of the petrol pump to an unknown destination through the night. The kidnappers seem to be somewhere in Haryana, as apparent from their language. They take her also to some unknown place in Haryana too. She tries to run away the next night, and is beaten up by the kidnapper is Mahaveer Bhati played by Randeep Hooda. She runs out but has nowhere to go and returns back. Next morning she tries to come out in the open on request, which is duly allowed. She breathes free in the open air and feels very relaxed. She is then driven to some other location too, where during food breaks etc, mingles with Mahaveer. She even shares a terrible episode of her exploitation by her own uncle in return of foreign chocolates. Mahaveer is hard hearted, but still feels sad for the girl.

While all this is happening, you wonder what is the parent’s reaction as there is no activity from the other side. Somewhere down the line, we are shown the other side of it. The father being a highly connected business man does not want the news to be out in the open. Hence it is a secret operation. So there is nothing out in the open. They have been able to capture some of those men around Mahaveer and give out his details to the police.

Meanwhile Mahaveer and Veera are driving through various locations up north of India. There is finally a police search at one of the checkposts. The police gets into the vehicle but cannot spot out Veera, as she has somehow managed to hide herself. Mahaveer is also surprised as why she hid from the police. But by now Veera has made herself very comfortable with Mahaveer and his other accomplice. She even wants to sit in the front of the truck. Mahaveer is reluctant at first but finally obliges. Mahaveer is also getting soft to her, narrates his story to her. She realises that his mother is still alive somewhere in the village and takes a promise from him that he would go to see her.

She talks very freely. At one point, Mahaveer goes wild on her, that is she looking to marry him, beget him children. Finally he decides to leave her at a place from where she can reach the nearest police station and go back to her parents. But she is adamant and joins him in a bus to Himachal Pradesh. By now they are good friends and enjoy a trip on the bus top. She tells Mahaveer that she wants ‘some more time’ with Mahaveer. If you remember, her insistence to spend ‘some more time’ in the open resulted in her kidnapping. 

They end up in the mountains in HP, where she gets a home for herself and tends to Mahaveer as a wife. It is too much for him and he breaks down sobbing. But they spend some good time together.

One fine morning, the police finally catches up with them, and shoots Mahaveer down. She is very insistent that he gets medical care, but it is all over by then. Her parents reach there and take her home after getting her injected with sedatives.

She reaches home, and the families are happy again that the marriage will take place. But she is undeterred. She blurts out the entire childhood episode of exploitation by her uncle to her parents and the boy’s parents and her uncle. She leaves her home and goes back to the hills to work and stay there, on her free will, all by herself …..

The film is well made, but there are some open areas where they are just driving and we are waiting for things to happen. A story has been woven around their depressed childhoods and a wave of sympathy has been created. In the name of secret operations, they are given a far too free hand to move in large parts of northern India. Looks a little odd at times. The film could have been more intense if the police had been chasing them around. But even then it would have been too one-sided, if they would have still managed to keep running away and slipping from the police all the time.

Still a good effort by Imtiaz Ali. A thought provoking film indeed ….. I am happy for Alia Bhatt taking up such courageous roles so early in her career. She has acted very well and her feel to be completely free in captivity is amazing. Randeep Hooda has acted well in the suppressed role of a hardened criminal, but with a soft heart. His troubled childhood makes him fight the rich in his own unique way.

As I sat watching the movie, a thought emerged in my mind of what these two films Queen and Highway are trying to project for the women folk.

I would be writing another article to compare and contrast these two films and a new direction that this film proposes for the female folks in the time to come …..

Review of Dedh Ishqiya

This is an era of sequels. A lot of films these days are made with tags 2 and 3. Same plots continuing through time with minor changes here and there.

But once in a while when a 1.5 – er comes in, you start wondering what is a sequel 1.5. Same is the case with our Dedh Ishqiya ….

The chore characters and situation remains same, but the central plot changes.

The film starts with a slight difference as we see only Babban (Arshad Warsi) trying to escape Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah)’s brother in law. Khalujaan has already made good with his escape landing his nephew in trouble. This after both looting a shop of a valuable piece of jewellery.

Babban narrates a story and again takes off from there in search of his uncle. He manages to find him in a big palace in Mahmudabad. The Begum is looking for a suitable suitor for herself. A person has to impress her with his shayaris et all. The Begum is none other than our ravishing Madhuri Dixit and her accompanying care taker is Muniya played by Huma Qureshi

Competitions do happen, but they pass out in a while. Khalujaan is out to impress her with her Ghalib-brand shayari and gets close to the Begum. The Begum also seems quite impressed with him. But he has his guilt and tries to convey to the Begum that he is nothing else but a small time thief and running away from police.

There is another Jaan Mohammad played by Vijay Raaz. This is a funny part where he has kept an actual shayar captive and wants him to write shayaris for him. He flaunts the same to Begum and earns accolades.

While I will not narrate the entire plot of the second half, this captive poet Italvi has a funny story to say. He says he is from Italy, since his mother is from Italy. When he is in trouble and wants to run away from Jan Mohammad, there is even a dialogue, that his mother is a very good friend of our Indian Numero Uno also from Italy….. You guessed it right ….

All in all it is a good watch. Bad words are rendered at the drop of a hat, and people lap it up. There was a lot of laughter in the auditorium.

Just that our damsel Madhuri looks a touch wooden. Huma as Muniya is very good. Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi are good as usual.

Vijay Raaz is a brilliant actor anyways ….

You may have a go at it, if you can stand brazen use of bad words, sudden high voltage shooting et all.

Have a read and do let me know your thoughts ….

Review of Sholay 3D with reminisces to the earlier version and the times around it

Let me take you for a small walk through our childhood days. Anyways I am a complete childhood memories man ….

It must have been April 1976, when father returned home one day from office and told us that he would take us to watch the film Sholay. Its been a while and now tickets were available at the counter without advance booking. The summer vacations were approaching and we were to go for our regular granny trip each summer. It was about the time that India in cricket had scored 406/4 against WI at Port of Spain to set a world record for the highest 4th innings chase ever. They had beaten Bradman’s team record. It was emergency days in India politically. I was in 4th then and heard many stories and dialogues from our neighbours. They used to all exhort that we should see the movie….

We got ready for the last show and went to see it. It was so wonderful and unforgettable ….

Lets come back to present days, Circa 2014 when I took my family to see Sholay-3D at a multiplex close to our house for another night show. Very close to 38 years now … My elder son could not join us as he has his exams every Saturday. But I had to see it first day, as he remains busy through the week ends too with his studies and cricket coaching ….

Two things were changing here. An old film of the 70s in a multiplex environment. Add to it the third dimension of height.

I will not narrate the story here, all scenes and dialogues crammed by heart. Even the people who turned up day 1, none I believe had to see the film.. They just wanted to relive the old memories and watch it in a new setup of multiplex and 3D.

As we all know, there is an additional dimension of depth around in 3D. You can see things far and near compared to 2D.

The movie started in a routine manner, a man waiting at the station, an approaching train and a police inspector alighting from a train. But as the man stood, we could see the dimensions of distance around and the complete set up around the person waiting deep and wide.

The star cast was read almost on our face as the two men rode behind a safe distance from us …. Amazing na, all known but still the third dimension was making the experience different.

One thing that did not change was the hooting and whistling of the 70s and people cheered the entry of each of the known star cast onto the screen.

I felt for those great men, some of them who are not in our midst now, sadly. Sanjeev Kumar, Amjad Khan and AK Hangal have left for the heavenly abode. The cinematographer, Dwarka Divecha is also no more, a regular in Sippy films. It was reported in TOI some time back. My heart felt tributes to them. Our young guns then Amitabh, Jaya, Hema and Dharmendra should have definitely watched the premiere et all and enjoyed their younger days on screen in a multiplex environment ….

The movie rolled on, and some impact scenes continued to amuse people. All of them knew the dialogue by heart, and some of them spoke up even as the scene approached. There was quite a lot of laughter and amusement in the auditorium.

The train fight, where Sanjeev Kumar shoots down their hand cuff, you have to duck down as it rams into your face ….

The basket in the ‘Hamare Jail mein Surang’ scene stuck out on our faces. As I settled to watch the movie, I started building this script for FB, and how I would present it to our dear friends. I do this each time I see a movie…

The most important part was that everyone was glued to the movie, even after knowing everything. It still felt great watching the movie all over again. It keeps coming on TVs and some watch and some dont. Most of them watch with channel surfing.

I remembered Sachin for his comment on harrasment to Hema in the mango shooting down scene.

Gabbar Singh’s entry in 3D continued to be a spectacle as he heckles his 3 failed men with laughter and shoots them down was also a thing to watch and enjoy all over again. The marvel that was Sholay still does’nt die down. I have seen some wonderful films in multiplex but this was head and high over ….

The Holi song, seeing the old AK Hangal all over again, his blind look and walk et all were spell binding. The scene where Gabbar Singh kills the Thakur’s family, the typical sound of the swing was maddening all over again. When I saw Gita Siddhartha, I remembered Janani’s post on the same character some days back. I carry my FB friends mentally to these places ….

The action scenes, the last fight scenes where Amitabh is killed, after his shooting the bomb on the bridge is awesome in 3D.

My second son, who joined us also enjoyed watching the movie with us. He had seen it any number of times on videos at home. They enjoy all of these Waqt, Trishul, Sholay, Kala Patthar et all. After all my kids ….

All in all it is a great film to watch all over again. Please share your experiences when you watch it …

Do let me know how you felt about this …

Gunday movie review

Calcutta, as Kolkata was known then, was the capital of India till 1911. In the current context, it has become the film shooting capital of India. So many movies have been shot there off late. Parineeta, Love Aaj Kal, to the current days, Bullet Raja, Vicky Donor, Barfi, Kahani have all been shot here. Gunday is the latest release in that series.

There has been some controversy regarding this movie. I would like to lay it at rest so that we proceed with the movie without reflecting on this controversy.

The film starts with file shots of 16-12-1971 the culmination of war between India and Pakistan. The formation of a new country, Bangladesh. It talks of surrender by Pakistan army, a signed declaration by their Army Chief, with a strong force of 90K soldiers, the biggest ever post the World Wars. The army is passing by and the focus comes on to the two boys, Bala and Bikram. This is the back ground of the movie.

The setting moves to the Geneva refugee camps, where Bala and Bikram have come down with the other refugees. It is the usual fight for survival there. It becomes even more difficult for the young boys. This usually results in the boys moving to crime and the same happens here too. We just saw this in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag too that the young Milkha becomes a petty thief on the train.

Since there is no documented history of any two such boys emerging out of refugee camps to become criminals, this is now a fiction for all practical purposes.

These two boys here, take to gun smuggling. They are being used by a gun dealer, Lateef, to carry out this nefarious act of selling guns to local citizens. In one of the deals, the Lateef is forced to leave back Bikram as a favour to the Army officer. Bala gets the real reason and kills the person, who wanted to take some sexual favours out of Bikram. The police is in hot pursuit of the two boys. Lateef trying to save them is killed. Bala and Bikram jump into a train to Calcutta. They hide themselves in the coal, and emerge safely to India. However the real travails begin for them now.

They are hounded as ‘refugees’, slapped and kicked where they work in small road side restaurants. They make coal their source of income, once which had saved them enroute to India. They loot the trains laden with coal in a unique manner. They jump onto the coal wagon and open up the lower decks, with one of them hanging upside down and the other holding him tight. A very risky venture but it earns them dividends. Coals in huge quantity slithers out of the train, which they collect it later and sell. The train crosses a river where they jump out, and swim to safety. This becomes a routine and their source of income.

They grow up and are faced with their first challenge from a coal looting mafia, Dibakar. They win the tussle, but they have made one of his surviving brother as their enemy. They soon become the numero uno of the trade and many other such trades. One way these days to become rich and famous is control all the mafias. The only trouble they feel here is they do not have an Indian identity and always referred as refugees. Their Kali kaka resolves this issue too by getting them a ration card.

Even while these two have been involved in many nefarious activities, they are dear to the masses as they involve themselves in philanthropic activities. So no one speaks against them.

The film till here is a bit captivating, as you see things you have never known. Something very similar to Badmash Company.

I will involve a bit of cricket from here to let some interest flow. The first power play ends well, but the middle overs soon start becoming a pain.

The rival captain aka the police steps in, and also the heroine, a cabaret dancer, Priyanka Chopra. The police inspector is Satyajeet Sarkar, played by Irrfan Khan. He has a huge task to catch these two men who have many cases against them but no proofs to catch them. There is a small interlude where Irrfan visits the two and shows them old files of cases. They have a sort of truce that Irrfan will burn the old cases and wait for a new single proof to catch them.

The two guys get smitten over the heroine Nandita played by Priyanka Chopra. They both decide to try chasing her, and the one who does not win over her, leaves the race.

The director calls for an power play here which results into a beautiful song Tumne Mari Entriyan. A nice dance number which is topping the charts currently.

A new character who had walked in earlier as a Bengali who does not like football. He turns into a police informer and his job is to get Bala get into wrong deeds so that he can get into the trap lead by police. Later it transpires that he is the brother of Dibakar who had seen him dying at the hands of Bala and Bikram.

At this point I realised, that this is one over the top extravagance and the director is slowly losing the plot. Then you have the typical indifference created between the friends and battle lines are drawn. In all this confusion, Bala shoots at Bikram but it hits Nandita, as she intervenes. This intensifies the battle lines as the film moves into intermission.

Post interval, it drags a bit. But just when you have lost hope, there is a bit of swivel. Nandita emerges as a police who is working hand in glove with Satyajeet to get Bikram.

The police turns weak as Nandita, who had to act as falling in love with Bikram actually falls in love with him. She sees their point of being wronged all the time. It is at this point that everyone watching the movie also realises the same. The film falls short of complete disaster at this point.

A lot of confusions are resolved and both the friends are together. It is still not over as they fight the police, and emerge out safely.

You emerge out of the theatre wondering what the director could have done to keep the film from falling off in the middle.