Film Review: Jaane Jaan (2023)

STORY

In Kalimpong, Maya kills her husband Ajit in self-defense in her apartment. Her next-door neighbor Naru offers help and gets rid of the body. But Karan, the investigative officer, arrives from Mumbai in quest of Ajit because he is also a policeman.

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INTRODUCTION

Jaane Jaan is an official adaptation of the Japanese novel “The Devotion of Suspect X” by Keigo Higashino. And with the involvement of Hyunwoo Thomas Kim‘s South Korean film production company “Kross Pictures“, the official remake is more distinctive because the same company also financed a Chinese film based on the same novel.

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REVIEW

Jaane Jaan has a compelling tone of frankly addressing the elephant in the room. The film has a quality start and nicely introduces Maya and Naru. The first twenty minutes easily settles the viewers and grows their characters on us. Then the real game begins when Maya’s psycho husband predictably gets dusted. It is Naru whose character gets more interesting and surely we all viewers, at this moment, begin to take more interest.

The whole proceeding of the screenplay is fitting. There is no wastage of silliness as Bollywood does often. The film in its entirety is servant to dedication and novelty. Thanks to the adaptation that gifts us freshness in to the story. And this is why, Bollywood needs to refine their cringe content and prefer making films based on novels.

Yes some scenes looked pretty artificial to realism like Maya hugging Naru, Maya performing after karaoke, Maya changing her shirt (could have made sense if Karan had noticed some serious injury marks on her back), etc. These were avoidable and there were alternatives to proceed ahead.

Although this novel-based so the story cannot be curved but I was thinking, what if there could have been another angle of watching the entire story from the angle of Karan and then we might have enjoyed further more because then, the element of suspense would have thrilled us. But then the adaptation would have compromised.

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TECHNICALITIES

The technicalities of the film deserves the praise. Besides the screenplay, what impressed me the most was fabulous editing. Much of the film’s credibility goes sound if the editing of a mystery thriller aids the screenplay.

Sujoy Ghosh has written the script and directed this film. And this is why Jaane Jaan is so good. He has a habit of bluntly moving a serious story. And he has done that before in Kahaani and Badla.

Shooting in Kalimpong may make the viewers wonder, why Kalimpong? Only the director knows a better answer but I felt such a plot heavily suited a small town or a district where mysterious Maya and her daughter wants to start a new life. And being a Japanese novel, I felt Kalimpong served the right aesthetics. The shots of that smoky place were beautiful.

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PERFORMANCES

Jaane Jaan stars Kareena Kapoor Khan, Jaideep Ahlawat, and Vijay Varma, who are quite different actors from each other. I felt Kareena’s Maya needed more aggression after what she has been through. Vijay’s body language of a detective was skilled. Notice his interrogation scene with Maya in the police station. Jaideep is the winner between them, he impressively built growth of the character. There was sanity as well as insanity. I just felt that his character had such a strong reputation in the district, the director must have dramatized his teaching scene for a minute or two to justify why people of Kalimpong regard him highly.

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CLOSING REMARKS

Jaane Jaan is a terrific mystery thriller that grabs a lot of attention due to a strong grip of the script.

RATING 8.5/10

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Film Review: Laal Singh Chaddha (2022)

STORY

Laal Singh Chaddha narrates his incredible story on the train to the nearby passengers as he travels to meet the love of his life.

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INTRODUCTION

Laal Singh Chaddha is the official adaptation of the Oscar-winning film ‘Forrest Gump‘ with Aamir Khan returning to the silver screen after a gap of four years to play the Indian version of Tom Hanks‘ most memorable and one of Hollywood’s iconic roles ever.

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REVIEW

So obviously, considering what ‘Forrest Gump’ means to the audience and the reputation it has built for decades being the darling of the global audience, there was immense pressure on Aamir Khan and the crew to put on a show that gives at least half-decent remake of the original classic. Most regrettably, Laal Singh Chaddha stands nowhere close to an average crafted film, forget about being a remake.

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ALIEN KHAN

It is a classic disaster thanks to Aamir Khan that the mighty collapses right from the beginning when he opens his mouth to speak to the passenger on the train. It is no surprise that the center of satisfaction from the film rests on Aamir Khan’s shoulders. What surprises me is the actor, Mr. Perfectionist, who is well-known for his original takes on some interesting characters he has played throughout his career, is attempting to imitate Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump instead of bringing his own method. And in this process, Aamir Khan is neither convincing the audience nor appealing. And this is one of the major reasons for the film’s box-office failure.

When you listen to his Punjabi accent, it clearly sounds that something is not right. Aamir is certainly not the right choice for a Punjabi character and that was visible in Rang de Basanti. And then the younger version of Laal that he acted, it was like watching Aamir in ‘3 Idiots‘ and ‘PK‘. Same facial expressions and performance. And it is disappointing that an actor known for perfectly adjusting himself to the character has given identical performances in not one but three different films. In the younger version, he looked more mentally unstable than he was as a child. Extreme overacting.

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WRITING NEXT TO NONSENSE!

The entire continuity questions the credibility of the screenwriting which is second to nonsense. Spreading humor in a drama for average entertainment is acceptable if executed well. But here, I feel as if the director was confused about how to justify the remake and connect the dots. First, he ridiculed India’s historic timeline to settle Laal’s stupendous journey to legacy. Second, he overstretched the plot and suffocated the audience in an awful second half. And third, the entire film looks like a Google translation.

Laal’s childhood highlights India’s state of Emergency under former PM Indira Gandhi, India’s World Cup winning moment occurs minutes later, and then the Anti-Sikh riots in Amritsar. If you have watched the film with active brains, you will realize that these three incidents occurred in different years. The emergency event happened in the mid-70s, India won the World Cup in 1983 and the riots occurred the next year. So how is the young boy Laal Singh Chaddha not growing for approximately eight to nine years? Or if the director is depicting that all three events happened one after the other which is more silly. In both cases, there is a big hole in the writing.

I must mention the supporting character of Bala played by Naga Chaitanya in his Hindi debut. It must have to be the most annoying character of 2022 or maybe of recent years. Playing the original role of Bubba from Forrest Gump, it was sickening to watch him repeat his passion for undergarments and remake scene-to-scene from the original source.

When you remake an original source, the writing demands a re-introduction on a whole new level of presentation expecting that the writer will come up with a thoughtful story adapting from the original idea. But here, Laal Singh Chaddha shows no intention to play a different beat. Besides adjusting Laal’s life story with the Indian side of historical moments, almost every plot development, almost every scene is straight from ‘Forrest Gump’. And this is one of the reasons why the audience disliked the film. The writer made absolutely no effort in coming up with their own idea to revise the whole plot.

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WHAT A MISS!

In order to settle Laal’s life story with some historic moments, the film shows how the local boy of Delhi become a megastar in Bollywood with Shah Rukh Khan playing his own role. It was funny that his iconic arms-stretched-out pose was joked to be inspired by Laal. But what I want to complain about is a big miss. Amongst the three major Khans, the two who have never shared the screen as the lead or starred in the same film are Shah Rukh and Aamir. Salman Khan has starred with both of them in the past. And Shah Rukh and Aamir shared the screen for a few seconds in a cameo in Ashutosh Gowariker‘s “Pehla Nasha“. Despite the fact that Aamir Khan is the producer of this film and roped in Shah Rukh to play a cameo, they still didn’t share the same screen. How idiotic! What a miss!

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PLUSES

 

Yes, ironically there are a few pluses like Satyajit Pande‘s cinematography and Tanuj Tiku‘s background score. A couple of tracks were good too. The makers raised the issue of domestic abuse well. But the biggest plus of the film that impressed me was Mona Singh who played Laal Singh Chaddha’s mother. She was impressive throughout the film. Watch her, particularly in the scene of the riots.

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CLOSING REMARKS

So Laal Singh Chaddha has all the reasons to terribly fail at the box office and disappoint the audience. This has to be Aamir Khan’s worst performance in ages. He needs to become choosy again about the selection of his films because his recent run has been awful. Those who have never watched Forrest Gump can enjoy this translated version.

Was Laal Singh Chaddha that bad to be rejected in India? I don’t think so. We have watched worse Indian films than Laal Singh Chaddha. Then what happened?

I feel there was a particular hate campaign by the Hindu nationalists of the ruling party on a large scale that played its part. Back in 2015, Aamir Khan expressed his insecurity about living in India in one interview. That circulated before the film’s release.

The ruling party pushed its supporters to share more than 200,000 tweets demanding to boycott film with the hashtag ‘Boycott Laal Singh Chaddha’. That flamed severe hatred and due to this reason, Laal Singh Chaddha earned only ₹58.73 crore in India against a production budget of ₹180 crore.

But, if you observe the collections from abroad, those were far better than in India. You will be surprised to know that Laal Singh Chaddha became 2022’s highest-grossing Hindi film at the international box office and earned more than Gangubai Kathiawadi, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2, and ruling party’s all-time favorite ‘The Kashmir Files‘.

So yes, more than all the reasons I stated above, the hate campaign was a bigger reason that flopped the film.

RATINGS: 3/10

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Movie Review: Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)

A spiritual man Bajrangi (Salman Khan) finds a small mute girl Munni (Harshaali Malhotra) lost in Kurukshetra. Somehow Bajrangi realizes that she is not only a Muslim but a Pakistani. With all the struggles of legally sending the girl back in his country, he decides to..
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he decides to go to Pakistan himself and drop munni home lmfaooooo. Let me complete the sentence wait, Bajrangi will drop munni to her parents all over from India to Pakistan without passport, without visa lmfaoooo.
The movie begins with a Muslim family including a pregnant lady in Sultanpur watching cricket match. That cricket match (if anyone noted) was last year’s India vs Pakistan game of Asia Cup 2014, when Shahid Afridi hit 2 winning sixes on Ashwin. That lady gives birth to a girl and story moves six years later. Oh wait wait wait!!! Six years later??? The match was Asia Cup 2014, so the next 155 minutes of movie are all in the year 2020?? :S
If anyone ever noticed, that same match is repeated again at Rasika (Kareena Kapoor)’s home!!! :S This is the scene where Bajrangi comes to know she is Pakistani. What an epic mistake!!! how come the same game is watched in two different periods??

While watching the unprecedented journey, I begin wondering if all the lost souls of both the countries meet/reach each other by crossing from the hidden tunnels beneath the borderline and getting permission from army officer to go officer’s country after knowing he/she crossed the border illegally?? Oh the brutal death of logic!!!!!! lol
Later on, Bajrangi tells Pakistani policemen the whole story how he crossed the border and guess what! when Bajrangi gets arrest, there is no protocol/security all way towards local police station and only 1 cameraman and 1 reporter for such sensational event!!!!! I am not finished here, Bajrangi fights with policemen in station and easily escapes with zero protocol outside station!!! OMGGGG hahahaha

During all this melodrama, Bajrangi travels with munni in minibus and informs the bus conductor how and why he crossed the border. Instead of realizing possible threat from Bajrangi, the bus conductor is impressed and cooperates with Bajrangi!!!! Kabir Khan seriously dude???

We all know the movie will end happily and Bajrangi will drop her home but the way the movie end in last 10 minutes was super-ridiculous to digest. Despite the order from the top that imprisoned Bajrangi will not be allowed to cross the Narowal Border Checkpost, Pakistani border security dramatically leaves their positions for protesters hahahaha and protesters run all the way and illegally break the border gates with army sensing no possible National threat???? oh God kill me!!!! Even that is not the end, mute Munni cries out to Bajrangi and breaks her silence!!!! vowww Bollywood vowww only you guyz can produce such miracles!!! hahahahha

The only plus from this stupid movie is Munni. Six year old cute little doll produced powerful display of emotions on acting debut.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan has a day-dreaming utopian plot with an ordinary movie making and lacking intensity of any sensation. With such a garbage of unrealistic environment existing towards Bajrangi till the end, this movie destroys luxury of watching journey movies. Imagine if Chuck Noland would cross his journey the same way from Pacific to Tennessee in Cast Away and that too with Wilson??? This is utter pathetic and very disappointing comedy movie.

Rating: Munni/10