Man From Matunga

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February 08, 2009

Baby Face and Pink Lips Laugh as KM Leaves HT

On Saturday, My wife smsed me, "KM is leaving HT". My instinctive reaction was "Good for HT...and for all of us".

Why? Here's a review that we’ve had to suffer, week after week...

"In the brightly colored, college canteen, over two cups of cutting, “speshal” chai, Baby Face (smile, smile) looks at Pink Lips (blush, lush) and immediately falls in love. Together the Ra-Ra couple heads out to the plush hills of Cheese-Land or is it Mahabaleshwar in disguise? Pink Lips' father, Raised Eyebrows (blink, blink) is dead against Baby Face. His sidekick Mr. One-Finger (poke, joke) is asked to separate them, but falls between the cracks (crack, smack, get it?)."

"After two songs and some Bhojpuri-like dialogues that do no disrespect to Mr. Kader Khan, we realize that the main villain is actually Mogambo II, who has a feverish tick and keeps snapping his neck sideways and front-back and keeps winking each time he sees Ms. Pink Lips. Eventually, he winks too much and his eyes pop-out (zing, zing), into Baby Face's hands, who promptly throws them into the Arabian Sea (or Dead Sea? Ha, Ha)."

"Suddenly a twin-brother, Plucked Chicken, crops up. He falls in love with Pink Lips' sister, Blue Nails. Mogambo II returns after the interval, having had eye transplants and hair-weaving; he looks 25-years younger and resembles the twins' father, whose only memory is a 25-years old, crumbling, black and white photograph. After an emotional reunion (cry, cry), the twins find that their mother, Mrs. Teardrops, has been imprisoned for many years by Raised Eyebrows and One-Finger. Our two heroes and their father get ready for the final rescue mission, which ends in a bitter-sweet, fireworks-laden climax (bam, slam and zing, ding), until all is right, except for one unfortunate surprise at the end."

"Is this the same team that gave us DDLJ? It's sad that the weakest link turns out to be the screenplay, which seems to have been written with a shaking hand, while on a swaying train-ride, following by a tonga-ride to Jhumri Talaiya."

"However, even with all these problems, the films rides on the broad shoulders of Mr. Shahrukh Khan as Baby Face, Ms. Sridevi as Pink Lips and Mr. Bachchan as Raised Eyebrows, who's one, just one raised eyebrow is equal to a hundred words. These three, along with Mr. Karan Johar's ersatz direction, lift the film up from its peanut-butter colored morass."

"Rating: 4 ½ stars (would have been 5, but for the screenplay)."

It wasn't always like this, but that was in another life. Eventually the contextual reviews and the intelligent dissections gave way to the use of just clever words, with no real content, which in turn compromised the value of the stars and rating. We would still read the reviews, but that was for the lack of anything better. Whether it was the TOI initially and then the DNA briefly and until now the HT...it just kept going from bad to worse with each week's review.

A good film critic cannot also be part of the industry; also being a film director obviously leads to serious conflict-of-interest issues and lack of dispassion while critiquing. This has been obvious even to ordinary human beings like us, ever since his first film. I thought I was the only one, but while Googling, I found others who agree even more virulently, for e.g. here - http://passionforcinema.com/khalid-mohmmd-wtf-are-you-writing/.

Goodbye, KM and hope Mr. Iqbal Masood's real successor comes along as soon as possible.

Posted by bhavinj at February 8, 2009 11:05 PM

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