Watching Chandni Chowk to China was like going back in time. It’s a movie straight out of the 70s. It’s got bichhadna, badla and babes (the 21st century additive to old time Hindi movies). It even has judwas and takes you back to sita aur gita and chalbaaz times. It’s a whole other thing that Chalbaaz is beyond comparison.
Another thing CC2C has is ball-busting. I, for one, have never heard so many synonyms for balls, nor have I seen so many men get their ‘ahems’ broken in the course of a two and a half hour movie. For those of you who know me it’ll be obvious I laughed my head off at these points. Despite the fact that my mother sat in the next seat.
Moving on, the movie is very Sholay/Kung Fu Panda. There’s this tyrant who’s got an entire village trembling at the very mention of his name – Gabbar/Tai Lung??? Poor villagers decide on finding their Jai-Veeru/Dragon Warrior. It’s all very other-worldly. Like nothing outside of that particular village exists.
Akshay Kumar is funny. Period. Never once through all those khiladi movies did I suspect that the man had a funny bone. He’s hilarious as the bumbling protagonist, Sidhu, or Po if you will. Deepika is okay. Ranvir’s character has a shade too many. Bad guy is painted too black, but not enough. Also bad guys’ blackness is too local. He is no Gabbar, Mogambo or Shakaal. He’s this minor tyrant who flies every now and then and his tyranny affects exactly 50 people. And one wonders why the spirits of warriors of old need to be disturbed to handle a character as insignificant as this.
Thakur has been morphed into a madman who turns out to be the father of Deepika (raised to the power of two). While Akshay is no Jai or Veeru, he is after all Akshay – the International Khiladi and a whole lot of other khiladis rolled into one. I’d say he’s the entire Indian cricket team merged into one entity but I am well aware of the fact that those blue men (Smurfs??? With smurfette Mandira Bedi???) are NOT khiladis. So we’ll leave it at that yeah?
Deepika’s characters are strange and bipolar. One is Sakhi. And as her name suggests, she’s the gharelu, friendly type who stands gripping a pillar when the BIG fight is happening. No surprises then that it is this one who is Akshay’s heroine. The other one is Suzie or Meow Meow (her alias – talk about stereotyping at its worst!) One is a knucklehead model and the other an ass kicking thing who flies just like her foster parent, the bad guy. The former has typical Hindi film heroine make-up; the latter has a very bad case of badmakeupitis. Deepika’s role, despite there being two of those, is very marginal. Madman and Ranvir Shorey have a greater role to play in the plot than poor leading lady. Even Mithun Da, those two Chinese villagers who go looking for Liu Sheng (aka Akshay Kumar) and even the Great Wall of China get more screen time than poor DP. It would’ve been far better if they had showed her as a double agent or something. At least that way her character will have had some… well, character. (And my theory about her bipolarity would have that much more solid ground to stand on.)
Anyway, one thing I have never understood about Hindi movies is why they can’t stick to one genre. Why must a Bollywood film have everything – from action to drama to comedy to what have you? The downside of having masala movies is that the films rarely, if ever, do justice to any one genre. CC2C for instance should have been a comedy. It had great potential as a comedy and yet they decided to throw in drama and revenge and suspense and what not. End result – big hotchpotch that had people laughing from sheer disbelief at parts that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. As much as I am used to the need for melodrama in Hindi movies I still expect a comedy to stay true to its basis, and remain funny at least.
Having said that, I must also add that it is an entertaining movie, albeit a politically incorrect one. It is a classic example of leave-your-brain-at-home movies that Bollywood is famous for making. And yet, it was far better than Rab Ne and a whole lot of other movies that the poor unsuspecting Indian masses have been subjected to in the recent past. One hopes, however, that CC2Africa stick to being funny... if it ever gets made, that is.
Another thing CC2C has is ball-busting. I, for one, have never heard so many synonyms for balls, nor have I seen so many men get their ‘ahems’ broken in the course of a two and a half hour movie. For those of you who know me it’ll be obvious I laughed my head off at these points. Despite the fact that my mother sat in the next seat.
Moving on, the movie is very Sholay/Kung Fu Panda. There’s this tyrant who’s got an entire village trembling at the very mention of his name – Gabbar/Tai Lung??? Poor villagers decide on finding their Jai-Veeru/Dragon Warrior. It’s all very other-worldly. Like nothing outside of that particular village exists.
Akshay Kumar is funny. Period. Never once through all those khiladi movies did I suspect that the man had a funny bone. He’s hilarious as the bumbling protagonist, Sidhu, or Po if you will. Deepika is okay. Ranvir’s character has a shade too many. Bad guy is painted too black, but not enough. Also bad guys’ blackness is too local. He is no Gabbar, Mogambo or Shakaal. He’s this minor tyrant who flies every now and then and his tyranny affects exactly 50 people. And one wonders why the spirits of warriors of old need to be disturbed to handle a character as insignificant as this.
Thakur has been morphed into a madman who turns out to be the father of Deepika (raised to the power of two). While Akshay is no Jai or Veeru, he is after all Akshay – the International Khiladi and a whole lot of other khiladis rolled into one. I’d say he’s the entire Indian cricket team merged into one entity but I am well aware of the fact that those blue men (Smurfs??? With smurfette Mandira Bedi???) are NOT khiladis. So we’ll leave it at that yeah?
Deepika’s characters are strange and bipolar. One is Sakhi. And as her name suggests, she’s the gharelu, friendly type who stands gripping a pillar when the BIG fight is happening. No surprises then that it is this one who is Akshay’s heroine. The other one is Suzie or Meow Meow (her alias – talk about stereotyping at its worst!) One is a knucklehead model and the other an ass kicking thing who flies just like her foster parent, the bad guy. The former has typical Hindi film heroine make-up; the latter has a very bad case of badmakeupitis. Deepika’s role, despite there being two of those, is very marginal. Madman and Ranvir Shorey have a greater role to play in the plot than poor leading lady. Even Mithun Da, those two Chinese villagers who go looking for Liu Sheng (aka Akshay Kumar) and even the Great Wall of China get more screen time than poor DP. It would’ve been far better if they had showed her as a double agent or something. At least that way her character will have had some… well, character. (And my theory about her bipolarity would have that much more solid ground to stand on.)
Anyway, one thing I have never understood about Hindi movies is why they can’t stick to one genre. Why must a Bollywood film have everything – from action to drama to comedy to what have you? The downside of having masala movies is that the films rarely, if ever, do justice to any one genre. CC2C for instance should have been a comedy. It had great potential as a comedy and yet they decided to throw in drama and revenge and suspense and what not. End result – big hotchpotch that had people laughing from sheer disbelief at parts that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. As much as I am used to the need for melodrama in Hindi movies I still expect a comedy to stay true to its basis, and remain funny at least.
Having said that, I must also add that it is an entertaining movie, albeit a politically incorrect one. It is a classic example of leave-your-brain-at-home movies that Bollywood is famous for making. And yet, it was far better than Rab Ne and a whole lot of other movies that the poor unsuspecting Indian masses have been subjected to in the recent past. One hopes, however, that CC2Africa stick to being funny... if it ever gets made, that is.
2 comments:
The Movie is in one word "Bad"......
And ur description is in one word
"Hilarious"
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