Thoughts on some movies recently seen

They say disappointment is directly proportional to expectations. Which is why I am very disappointed by Jodhaa Akbar. I expected much more from Ashutosh Gowariker. It is not the length of the movie that turned me against it. In fact, Swades is one of the few Hindi movies I hold in high regard, even though it could have used some chopping up. Heck, you put Shahrukh Khan in jeans and shirt instead of Polo and DKNY attire, and chances are I would like the movie. But Swades had something else going for it; the story seemed to have some purpose, however cheesy or corny it might have been. Jodhaa Akbar, supposedly more of a romance than a history lesson, traces the love between the Mughal emperor and the Rajput princess as a function of time, it being zero at the time of marriage and rising to the level of immortal love by the end of the movie. The movie consists of a series of challenges – at regular intervals – to this ever increasing function, in the form of conspiring mullahs and foster mothers. The problem I have with the movie is that these obstacles seem trivial and cliched and are resolved within short time spans. In other words, rather than have them snowball into one grand climax, they becomes a series of anecdotes. Since I am feeling especially mathematical today, let me put it this way – the domains in which the local maxima of the function become global maxima are too short.

Some scenes of the movie were especially torturous. Like the gratuitous display of Hrithik Roshan’s torso as he perfects his sword play, with Jodhaa aka Sunheri “like, checking him out.” The scene where Akbar praises Jodha’s culinary skills endlessly actually made me shout out “tareef pe tareef, tareef pe tareef.” The war scenes were amateurishly shot – I have seen Mallu movies with better special effects. The only redeeming feature of the movie was A R Rahman’s songs.

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I have been spending an awful lot of time with Kaptaan these days. Maybe with his permission I can recount some of his interview experiences on this blog sometime later – mine are very sedate compared to his. Under his influence I have started watching Haddu movies a lot. There have been the occasional rotten ones, like Happy. But overall they are much more enjoyable than most Bollywood flicks. A few Haddus have been surprised by my sudden interest in Telugu movies. The reasons are very simple. Click here and here to find out. Kaptaan and I have agreed in principle to produce, sometime in the future, a movie starring both Ileana and Genelia. Of course, all of this hinges critically on the both of us becoming wealthy, ass bankers and making enough money before these two become too old. (I suspect that this is Kaptaan’s answer to the ever-elusive “Why MBA?” question.) To cut costs we have even decided to shoot the obligatory Ileana beach song in Kovalam. I fear I may have revealed too much of our business plan already. Let me end this post with a request to all Haddus to help me find subtitles for the following movies – Dhee, Devadasu, Khatarnak and Aata.

PS. Also currently watching Battlestar Galactica. Never thought I would be a fan of science fiction.