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TV Reviews

TV Review: Farzi

STORY

Sunny is an artist and Firoz, is a printer. Both of them work in a printing press that is run by Sunny’s grandfather. When the printing business hit a crisis and runs out of solutions, Sunny decides to generate money by making counterfeit money.

INTRODUCTION

Released on Amazon Prime Video, Farzi is an Indian black-comedy action series starring Shahid Kapoor. During its eight-episode run, we come to know that the show is set in the same universe as Manoj Bajpayee-starrer ‘The Family Man‘. Directed by the filmmaking duo Raj & DK, Farzi was first planned to be a film years ago but then they decided to make a series.

REVIEW

Looking at its story and the continuity, Farzi is a kind of project that is flexible to be shaped into a film as well as a tv series. The plus point for deciding to stretch Farzi is that the audience got the whole exposure of printing currency and running a business out of it. Officer Michael’s life was focused as well as Megha’s.

But when you stretch the details, the screenplay of the tv series notions development in the central story. I feel this is the area where Farzi is weak because Farzi easily could have been a four-episode show. The writing’s commitment to action and comedy drops the quality in the second half of the season.

I like the plot, it is fresh for the audience with a Narcos-tic narration by Shahid Kapoor. Some minor points raised were sharp like the minister and other attendees not listening to the presentation, Megha and her mother’s typical calls, Michael speaking with his wife and family in Tamil and English, etc. I wanted Michael’s scenes with his family completely without Hindi but it is okay.

Presenting the show in a non-linear way was also a good idea. The dialogues were natural but on several counts, I felt the dialogues went cheesy.

Farzi has plenty of errors in writing. Officer Michael’s disrespectful conduct in conversation with the minister was quite surprising. Just because you have his private pictures, doesn’t mean that you can try to annoy a minister that often and he will tolerate that much.

I have never understood the Bollywood logic. Why the friend of the leading character is always silly and ultra-loyalist to him? Why cannot the directors level the personalities of two or more friends? When the press is demanded to open, uncle Yasir goes cold as the dead body. How come the police and Megha do not suspect Yasir of lying or hiding something from them?

The action sequence in the season finale was quite stretched and boring. The cops repeatedly running towards the front and back was so stupid.

The worst character of the show is Mansoor Dalal played by such a quality actor like Kay Kay Menon. A very stereotypical villain who thinks he is funny but merciless. There was no originality in his antagonism. It was like just another clone of a psycho pretending to be a psycho.

CLOSING REMARKS

What propels me to watch ‘Farzi’ is the continuity of the story that is set toward the next season and Shahid Kapoor’s performance. With age, his mental strength in acting has gone better, and improved his skill in depicting anger and frustration.

I am not sure if Vijay Sethupati has worked on a Hindi project before but it was absolute fun to listen to him uttering thick curse words in his Tamilian Hindi. I am happy to see Amol Palekar but it looks visible that his acting has faded. What took him so long to return to acting?

Those who are willing to try a black-comedy action series with an interesting plot can try this.

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TV Reviews

TV Review: Modern Love Mumbai (2022)

Modern Love Mumbai is the Indian version of the Amazon Original anthology series, ‘Modern Love‘. MLM follows the same aesthetics as the original work. Set in Mumbai, each of the six episodes present different love stories expressing freedom and questioning the boundary to reach the human desire.

Modern Love was set in New York and all the stories were based on the essays published in The New York Times under the same title. So I am not sure if MLM also followed this route. But each of the stories has its significance and has the essence of the plot’s simplicity to sensualize. These stories are very close to life and most of the audience can relate.

Three of the six stories are about married women thoroughly divided in ages. One is as young as their twenties, the second is in her forties, and the third is in her late fifties or mid-sixties. One is about homosexuals, and another is about a young woman searching for the ideal man through a dating app. And there is one particular for the Northeast Indian mother-son story who is in the conflict of getting or not getting mixed in multiculturalism. So this indicates that MLM was written and developed with care.

I liked the panel of directors who worked on their part of the stories. Shonali Bose returned to the director’s seat for Raat Rani years after ‘The Sky Is Pink‘. Raat Rani is about A girl from Dal Lake, Lali, who marries a Mumbaikar, a security guard Lutfi and arrives in Mumbai but her life is dull until Lutfi is transferred to the other station leaving his bicycle behind for her.

Hansal Mehta directed a controversial episode ‘Baai‘ about homosexuality. Hansal previously directed ‘Aligarh‘ with the same subject. This is about Manzar Ali who belongs to a conservative Muslim household but is interested in men but is not able to tell his ailing grandmother Baai.

Another veteran director Vishal Bhardwaj did the Northeastern family drama ‘Mumbai Dragon‘ where the mother faces difficulty in accepting her son with his girlfriend who doesn’t belong to her ethnicity.

Alankrita Srivastava did ‘My Beautiful Wrinkles‘ about an old widow Dilbar who takes interest in a young athlete Kunal, a plot that is similar to one of the four stories in her ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha‘. Alankritas direction is like a wave for the liberalism of womanhood where she develops bold intentions in the plot and addresses them in a peculiar way. Alankrita shows the loneliness of Dilbar that absorbs and the passion and hunger in women in general for more adequate lust melts young men to daydream and draw their nudity in their honest illustration. Sticking with the old memories may lessen your optimism. Confessing private intentions is courageous but healthy for releasing the negative energy she had in life.

Super excited to see Little Things-famed Dhruv Sehgal who directed one of the episodes ‘I Love Thane‘ about Saiba who is seeking her ideal through a dating app but gives a shot at Parth to whom she finds out through work this time.

Nupur Asthana did the last episode ‘Cutting Chai‘ about a married woman Latika in her forties thinking about her life decisions, about becoming a wife, and a mother but not a novelist, something that was her ambition.

It is the beauty of small portions in the screenplay that gives you the feel about how these things matter in life, the human connection is strong in the drama. Like in Cutting Chai, Latika begins to regret her life decisions and imagine people around her agreeing and disagreeing with her. That is indicating how careful a young man or woman was when he/she was young and had to listen to society about what he/she should have decided and what not. In Raat Rani, Lali is about to throw her husband’s old bicycle from the flyover until she thinks about utilizing it by learning to ride it and earn bread through it.

Modern Love Mumbai is the positive energy that addresses optimism and encourages us to move on or give it a chance. Although, any tv or film product can have similar elements, but the beauty of MLM stories is that the plot inclines towards a push that is needed to make the audience think. The continuity of each episode never looks pressing too hard at all.

I enjoyed when Dilbar gives a try to fantasize about young athlete Kunal in the fourth story or Manzar meets Rajveer after his fondness for the previous boy matters into heartbreak in the second episode. Same case with Saiba who gives a shot at Parth by breaking her norm to find men from the dating app. That explained a lot. Therefore, the audience gets to learn or realize a few things in life if not all by watching Modern Love Mumbai.

I don’t remember if I ever happened to see Naseeruddin Shah playing a Sikh character, that is another accomplishment in his celebrated career I reckon. Good to see Sarika after a long time, she deserves to get more recognition. Pratik Gandhi is quite an actor who has the ability to play different roles. From a rich Gujarati stockbroker to a Muslim homosexual from a conservative household, Pratik really has made a distinction in his choices. For me, from all the stories, the one actor amongst all who is the winner is Fatima Sana Shaikh in the first episode. The accent, the body language, the emotional breakdown, everything was there. She nailed her character. It was a delight to see such a quality performance.

MLM has impressive writing and direction as well as quality performances due to good choices about casting in the stories. Ram Sampath‘s music score is very touching and full of life. Modern Love’s creator John Carney was involved in financing MLM so that is also why the tone was maintained and none of the makers Bollyfied with curry aesthetics.

There is every capacity to go for more than one season. Because MLM is all about some quality essays to write about and stories to speak about. Stories will never die, and love won’t compromise. There is much human connection still to work on through different mediums. So MLM must go on.

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Film Reviews

Film Review: Being The Ricardos (2021)

Before I begin writing my points about Aaron Sorkin‘s latest, let me tell you about the sitcom ‘I Love Lucy‘ on which this film is based. I Love Lucy was an American sitcom of the 1950s that starred real-life couples Desi Arnaz and one of the biggest television stars Lucille Ball. They were the first interracial couple to be depicted in the American sitcom. During the run, the couples were expecting a baby and after convincing the show’s big bosses, Ball appeared pregnant and gave the audience real-feel as she became the first-ever woman to appear pregnant on television. I Love Lucy was also the first to be shot on 35mm. The show was also the trendsetter of holiday specials when it released the Christmas episode. All I am trying to inform the readers is that I Love Lucy was way ahead of its time and set many records. By records, it makes me realize that I Love Lucy was also the first sitcom to top the Nielsen ratings.

So this show has its significance but more than that, there were issues, controversies, and incidents that occurred during the progress of this show. There were personal and professional relations that were jeopardized during the production. The wave of McCarthyism reached their shores and found a communist in Lucille Ball. So Aaron Sorkin’s Being The Ricardos highlights those moments during the shooting of the sitcom. The film highlights behind-the-scenes and excessive heated and verbal confrontations behind writing a sitcom America was ever super crazy about.

Being historically accurate on most of the occasions, the film’s unusual lie throughout the screentime is that all those events occurred in one week. Sorkin did admit but I am not sure why he decided to present the story this way and that too by mentioning the days. Lucille Ball’s children, Desi Arnaz Jr. and Lucie Arnaz, who are the executive producers, admitted that there were a few fabricated scenes but overall the director did justice with their mother.

NICOLE KIDMAN and JAVIER BARDEM star in BEING THE RICARDOS Photo: GLEN WILSON © AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC

I think Being The Ricardos is more character-driven than excellent screenwriting. Due to very limited writing on a run for more than two hours, Aaron Sorkin made use of the talented actors to play their quality part. And there are many scenes that buy the attention of the audience and help us understand how difficult it is to go through the process of writing and making the scenes funny. Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz doesn’t really look like a match but is a little older. But in any capacity, can Javier Bardem play a role that will not make us praise? JK Simmons is such a terrific actor and those who have observed him can clearly get my point that he executes his roles quite differently. His physical and facial performance in this supporting role distinguishes him from the past performances and maybe there is a chance he can get nominated for the Best Supporting Actor. And I wonder what took Aaron Sorkin so long to consider sitting on the director’s chair? Why was he never directing for so many decades?

Being The Ricardos is majorly about Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball and my oh my, what a powerful performance she has displayed. I feel she is in hot contention for winning the Best Actress award in the Oscar. There are so many scenes where the audience will contemplate her acting. An absolute blend of physical, facial, and verbal performance to remember. Notice when she runs 500 yards to Desi and gives her the breaking news in her raspy voice. Or when she breaks down in the producer’s office when he suggests voicing for the radio, you can feel a lump in your neck. Those were close to perfection. A few minutes later, she has an argument over a scene with the executive producer, the scene intensifies when they are in disagreement about the flower scene and you can observe the spark of physical and facial brilliance in Nicole the way she begins to convince him. Nicole Kidman in this film is stupendously incredible. She was a terrific choice and the outstanding makeup made her resemble her.

Being The Ricardos is a magnificent remembrance about the making of one of the greatest American television shows that have compelling screenwriting and imposing performances.

Ratings: 8.7/10

Film Reviews

Film Review: The Tender Bar (2021)

The Tender Bar is a kind of film that has thoughtful elements of good and bad choices, regrets and lucks, learning and yearning, and goes deep to understand why life always entreats you to move on. This film is a subtle approach for a coming-of-age film to fix the equation of a generational attitude towards learning. With a credible narration, remarkable scenes, powerful dialogues, and an astonishing screenplay by William Monahan, The Tender Bar beautifully reflects on our own life and somewhere do we see ourselves there and agreeing with most of the points most of the major characters speak.

The Tender Bar also reflects on a disturbing childhood and we all audience can relate to the incidents happening in the film. The detailing of this film is done with meticulous care, even the shorter portions have your memories boxed somewhere like the elders smoking or using curse words in front of a child, grandpa farting, parents threatening, mama persuading to join the ranks of a certain institution, a conversation with a fellow passenger on the train, etc.

The Tender Bar bites to harsh realities and also hints you to some people who will always be truly yours, your guide, a parental figure under whose guidance you learn a lot of deal. The film is about accomplishing your targets, fulfilling your dreams, falling in love for the first time. The film is about keeping your mom happy after what she has been through.

The technicalities of this film are just excellent. Brilliant direction by George Clooney and he must get the deserving nomination for the Best Director in the Oscar, really fitting soundtracks, and magnificent performances by Lily Rabe, Tye Sheridan, and Ben Affleck. The latter definitely deserves a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Good to see Ben Affleck back in shape.

The Tender Bar is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning writer J. R. Moehringer‘s memoir of the same name easily the best coming-of-age film I have watched since Call Me By Your Name.

Ratings: 8.7/10

Film Reviews

Film Review: Sardar Udham (2021)

The name Sardar Udham is significant for all reasons that shaped the movement for independence from the British Raj. A tragic event that ignited millions of Indians and encouraged them to oppose British Imperialism. Shoojit Sircar‘s latest is a tribute to the national hero who stood for his people and avenged by assassinating Michael O’Dwyer in London, the man who appointed Reginald Dyer to supervise the ever-haunting Jallianwala Massacre.

I refuse to believe that this is an Indian film. I do not claim that Indian or Hindi-language films are that bad but the production of films like this still does not exist. The technical aspects of this film are extremely rich and carefully detailed. Excellent direction and stunning cinematography on many occasions.

Direction and camera work play a vital role if the screenwriting is to be justified, and this film is an example of an absolute masterpiece. Being lengthy is a problem that I will reason later but some portions need time investment and that demand is accomplished in the film. You may say that the time spent on Udham eating at her cousin’s place, his quest for O’Dwyer’s whereabouts, or speaking about freedom alone in the park were needless but I think Shoojit gave such minutes to build a thought about his character that meant a lot on all these occasions.

Vicky Kaushal‘s leading role will neither be criticized nor be pointed for objection because this, for me, will be remembered as one of the best performances in Hindi cinema for this new decade. You feel pain when his portrayal agonizes. There is much discomfort to watch his rage and hatred for British Imperialism and he has perfected that genuity you want to watch in the films about Indian freedom against the British. His tense courtroom scene of justification and in a lengthy struggle of saving many lives after the massacre are the best examples of Vicky’s notable performance.

Another factor that tops Sardar Udham is toning down the stereotypical elements of jingoism and giving rich feelings of sacrifices and excruciating pains of the British cruelty. No larger-than-life action sequences, no cosmetic dialogues. British portrayal and periodic productional set-up are so apt. The chosen actors for the British portrayal have done a fine job. Also, a superb background score by Shantanu Moitra made the mood to the audience.

Being a supporter of global diversity, I have a cordial affection for the name he used during his time in jail, Ram Mohammad Singh Azad. This name has been valued in the film that indicates the unification of the nation for freedom.

I have confusion about historical accuracy because the life of the freedom fighters was either a mystery or detailed with exaggeration. In some places, the readers won’t find strong pieces of evidence or authentic lead in their lives. Take the case of the Jallianwala Massacre; the film shows Udham to arrive late at the scene whereas one book ‘The Trial of Udham Singh’ claims that he was present during the firing. Whereas in other internet sources, there is no agreement on what official stats are about the casualties and survivors from that incident.

Also, there is no evidence of his love interest as shown in the film portrayed by Banita Sandhu. Was it necessary? Of course not. His involvement with Ghadar Party is also missing.

Minus? I’ll say the length of the film. It may be slow-burn to some extent but I am okay with the way the story moved with Udham’s character. The flow was acceptable. But I think the aftermath of the massacre was way too long. I understand the significance of the horror that still haunts millions of Sikhs worldwide but picturizing Udham and other fellows taking the severely injured victims from one place to the other for 20 minutes is overstretched. I actually thought maybe Shoojit stretched that scene so that Udham may eventually locate the body of his love interest but even that was not the case. The obvious ending could have been better.

I must mention the portrayal of the Jallianwala Massacre that was kept on wait after two hours well spent on developing the story and Udham’s character in entirety. Praising a massacre scene would make me foolish or call it great. So choosing my words carefully, I should write this way that the intensity and provocation of that bloodshed were extremely detailed. This scene was deliberately shot violent. The graphic detailing of this three-minute scene full of gunshots and painful cries was more savage than what Lord Attenborough showed in Gandhi. It was a scene that boiled the emotions and broke the hearts. Udham’s commentary about his fury for this incident all this time made his case.

Sardar Udham is an accomplishment in the Indian cinema that distinguishes the filmmaking of freedom-themed nationalist films from most of the others. Sardar Udham may not need to check the historical accuracy whether Udham was there or not. Maybe it is the directional artistry or some kind of representational theory that has been applied to demand an apology from the British government that India is yet to officially receive even after 100 years.

Sardar Udham is the ‘other’ side of a freedom fighter story that hardly any director wishes to direct. This film is about the crime for which the innocents had to pay that was demanding to the British to leave their country once and for all. Sardar Udham is not a film but a reminder to the present generation about what and how their great-great-grandparents suffered in the name of imperialism. Thank you, Shoojit Sircar.

Ratings: 9.2/10