BOLLYWOOD ROUND-UP
Set in Mauritius Ajay Chandok’s Nehlle Pe Dehlla (12A) 125min O is a reworking of the 1989 US comedy hit Weekend at Bemie’s. Saif Ali Khan and Sanjay Dutt mark time amongst the slow motion shots of lycra clad Bollywood babes, practising aerobics or running down the beach, which is infuriating given that both actors excelled in last month’s Eklavya: The Royal Guard.
Namastey London (PG) 127min 0000 (pictured) is an atypical Bollywood romcom, with the usual emotional and moralistic messages. Modern British girl about town Jazz (Akshay Kumar) has a ‘very arranged’ marriage to a ‘Fun/Punjabi’ village boy, flitting from London’s metropolis, to the rural landscapes of the Punjab. Director Vipul Shah (Waqt, Ankhen), draws on the Diaspora experience, satisfies the generational gap and pulls on Indian heartstrings. The movie is a ‘post modern’ 21 st Century successor to the fabulous Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Entertaining, funny and energetic, the film still begs the question - why do English characters in Bollywood films live in enormous country estates?
Milan Luthria’s Hattrick (PG) 120min 0 uses the tenuous link of World Cup Cricket fever to connect three separate narratives, all of them tedious, all of them asinine.
Just Married (PG) 135min 000 debuts the directing talents of Meghna Gulzar (daughter of lyricist Gulzar and actress Rakhee). The film explores the discomfort of two strangers on honeymoon after an arranged marriage. Gulzar’s previous writing credits (Filhaal) show a mature and sensitive approach to middle class Indian sensibilities. Just Married is overlong and is stylistically very safe, but the themes of enforced physical and emotional intimacy are well scripted, with satisfactory roles for the main players and incidental characters.
Lovely Singh’s Kya Love Story Hai (12A) 120min 00 is a formulaic romcom focussing on ‘young love’ and marketed as a contemporary approach to the love triangle scenario. Offering nothing extraordinary or spectacular, the only highlight here is a windswept cameo dance number from Kareena Kapoor and some exotic location shots. Aeysha Takia is wasted (after her excellent turn in Bar) and Tusshar Kapoor is dull and creepy in his school uniform as he secretly watches and stalks the lady he loves, but Bollywood has always been awash with such absurdities. (Ghazala Butt)
I All films on selected release from Fri 73 Apr.
Reviews
ADVENTURE PATHFINDER (15) 100min CO
A remake of the excellent 1987 Norwegian outdoors adventure about a lone boy's efforts to save his tribe from a band of marauding killers in frozen Lapland 1000 years ago. Pathfinder relocates the action to America centuries before Columbus discovered the continent. and there along the snowy wastes of the north- eastern seaboard pits peace-loVing natives against an invading army of monstrous Viking warriors. It's an eXCiting if ridiculous concept (although there is some historical evidence suggesting Norse warriors once roamed the lands and waterways of what would become New York city). but confusingly executed fight sequences. lapses in pacing and an uneven tone that shifts back and forth between horror movie and action adventure ensure the film fails to live up to its potential.
Marcus Nispel (director of the not at all bad remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) mounts some impressive set—pieces (such as the discovery of wrecked long—ship complete with entombed Norsemen). and the film. shot in British Columbia. certainly feels authentic. ln Karl Urban (the Rohan cavalryiiian from The Lord of the Rings) the film boasts a fine-looking action hero. as it does a fearful villain in Clancy Brown's hulking Viking lord. Nevertheless. the promise of this bungled enterprise remains
DRAMA TEARJERKER REIGN OVER ME (15) 124mm coco
Film
squandered (due. rumour has it. to the studio's indecision over certification. resulting in cuts and re-shoots). and the final result is as frustrating as the similarly disappointing pseudo-fantasy romp The 73th Warrior. (Miles Fielder) I General release from Fri 20 Apr.
HORROR THE REAPING (15) 96min 0
What the hell is Hilary Swank playing at? This glossy. but in all other ways substandard supernatural chiller is the kind of by-the-numbers chick horror flick that Sandra Bullock churns out periodically, not what you'd expect a two-time Oscar winning actress to put her name to.
Swank plays Katherine Winter. an emotionally traumatised ex-missionary who has turned her back on god and embraced a career in academia. debunking paranormal phenomena. But when a small—town schoolteacher (David Morrissey) from the Deep South Bible belt asks Winter to look into what appears to be a blight of Biblical plagues being visited upon his community. she finds both her new secular outlook and her old religious beliefs challenged.
What follows is a lot of hokum involVing rivers of blood and rainstorms of frogs. a possibly demonic child and a god-tearing local lynch mob. At no time do the proceedings make much in the way of sense. nor are the characters well rendered enOugh to elicit sympathy. But then director Stephen Hopkins cuts so swiftly to the action there's little time — or motivation — to work out what's gomg on. (Miles Fielder)
I General release from Fri 20 Apr.
It's interesting to note that the more serious the role Adam Sandler plays the more he looks like Bob Dylan. Last time he wiped the smile off his own face was in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love but that was only an aperitif for this turn as a Widower suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Five years after the
event. Sandler's protagonist hasn't got over the death of his wife and three
-~ , daughters in one of the planes involved in 9, 1 1. His hair disheveled. his shirts
w ‘ “ crumpled. Charlie is a rolling stone; he plays computer games and bangs drums hoping to forget his troubles and his former life as a successful dentist. That is until he bumps into his old college pal Alan (Don Cheadle. excellent). who is trying I to say goodbye to his ladykiller ways. and somehow these two men find a
s connection.
Director and former stand—up comedian Mike Binder (The Sex Monster and The Upside of Anger) likes to fatten up his movies with side stories. Here the comic interludes are provided by the beautiful Saffron Burrows who propositions Alan in the dentist's chair. Binder also throws into the ring a young psychiatrist (LIV Tyler) residing (é .. ,, . in Alan's apartment block and the concerned par(->iits-in~law of Charlie. These asides Y w I are distracting and enjoyable if a little flabby in places. This detracts from what is mostly a thoughtful. even stupefying study comedy of human frailty/.(Kaleein Aftabi
I General release from Fri 20 Apr.
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