Golmaal 3 Movie Review : Thodi Masti, Thodi Dhoom

For those who have seen Golmaal 1 & Golmaal 2 ( Golmaal Returns ) it is not difficult to understand what to expect from the 3rd part of the franchise. Whether one likes it or not Golmaal 3 (G -3 from here on) is certainly a film that has been made with a lot of care; care to ensure that it caters to its target segment among the audience. Going by the way G- 1 & G-2 performed at the box office it is also clear that the target segment constitutes the majority of the audience. And when you have a festive period (Diwali) as the time for release, things look all the more promising. Especially so when history has already shown what a potent combination this franchise can be during the festive reason (remember G-2 released during Diwali in 2008?).

Before I go on about G-3 its time for a confession. I had found G-1 to be reasonably funny (though it was partially inspired by Priyadarshan’s Malayalam movie- Kakkakuyil). So much so that I expected G-2 to be good as well but then all the hype had got onto me as I felt that the movie was nothing but cashing in on the success of G-1 and having nothing concrete in terms of a plot apart from just having a series of gags. So when G-3 was being promoted I had a strange feeling of deja-vu and kept telling myself – “Oh! No not again for Heaven’s sake”. But having decided for myself that it’s gonna be a filmy diwali as usual, I still decided to go ahead and watch it.

So what is G-3 all about? For starters its on one hand got similarities to Basu Chatterjee’s Khatta Meetha ( 1978 ) but thankfully Rohit Shetty the director of G-3 ( and the entire trilogy ) has molded the premise in his own style and made it look like a fresh approach in itself. G-3 is all about 2 families living somewhere in Goa. Pritam ( Mithunda ) has 3 good for nothing sons- Madhav ( Arshad Warsi ), Lucky ( Tushar Kapoor ) and Laxman ( Kunal Khemu ) who keep getting into trouble for their various ways of trying to make easy money. Geeta ( Ratna Pathak Shah ) has 2 sons, Gopal ( Ajay Devgn ) & Laxman ( Shreyas Talpade ). Daboo (Kareena Kapoor) is the neighbor and good friend of Geeta’s family.

Circumstances make the two sets of brother’s rivals as they keep bumping into each other by opening the same kind of business ventures in the same place as well. That’s when Pritam meets Geeta and both of them are shocked as long back both of them were in love but couldn’t unite as fate intervened . Daboo is the only when who realizes the truth and thus sets about trying to get both of them married now. While both Pritam and Geeta are reluctant since they know that their sons can’t stand each other, Daboo’s persisntence pays off and ultimately the middle aged couple do end up getting married. But then bedlam sets in as each set of brother’s end up doing whatever they can to make life miserable for the other set. What happens from thereon is what the rest of the film is all about.

Oh! And by the way there are also a whole of host of other characters who make their presence in the film and lend their services to the ensuing confusion in the proceedings. Some of the characters repeat their act or presence from the earlier films in the trilogy and some of them are new. But most of them have been sketched well. While watching the film one of the first things I realized was that in terms of a plot and the ability to keep the audience engrossed, G-3 scores way above G-2 comfortably. Yes some of the gags sound silly and make you even feel surprised at times as to whether you are really watching all this. But to be honest you can be assured of one thing- you’ll certainly be laughing aloud at a lot of places while watching G-3. And one of the other differences visible in this film is that Rohit Shetty has steered clear of the mundane requirements like a routine romantic track (except a hint of romance between Kareena & Ajay there’s nothing specifically shown), unnecessary songs, a regular villain etc.

What’s also interesting is that it’s not the actual Golmaal gang which contributes to the fun, but it’s a host of others who really deserve the credit for making the movie watchable. In fact the Golmaal gang of men are just there to show a continuation of the franchise and try to sound funny thanks to their quirks like for example- Ajay Devgn is shown as an extremely hot headed guy, Shreyas stammers, Kunal keeps using idiotic phrases while talking, Tushar of course continues doing what he did in G-1 & G-2 while Arshad keeps playing the prankster. So who are the scene stealers then if it’s not the boys? Well to start with Johnny Lever as Puppy Bhai is simply outstanding as he plays a gang leader with a Ghajini like short term memory loss problem. Also rocking is Mithunda as Pritam and the romance shown between Mithun and Ratna is simply fabulous. Mithunda’s ‘I am a Disco Dancer’ jig & Prem Chopra’s cameo make us feel nostalgic.

Also deserving applause is Sanjay Mishra as Daga one of the 2 main henchmen of Johnny Lever. As a guy who misspells English words, he truly comes into his elements towards the end of the film. Just when you think that the movie is about to end at around the 2 hr stage the movie just side tracks and heads on towards a slightly lengthier ending. While you do wonder if this was indeed necessary it is certainly creditable of Rohit Shetty that he manages to keep us engaged till the very end. So in all as a festival film that is meant to reasonably entertain with a few good jokes, G-3 does its job. Now if you are looking for anything other than this then I guess you’ve stumbled on to a wrong film .

Originally published in PFC- http://passionforcinema.com/golmaal-3-movie-review-thodi-masti-thodi-dhoom/

Stereotyping in Indian Films- How long will it continue?

By now its common knowledge that RGV and Vivek Oberoi are re-uniting for Rakta Charitra, a biopic on Paritala Ravi, the dreaded factionalist leader of A.P who was shot down a few years ago. But what is making me look forward to the project is to see if RGV is able to carry off the transition of factional A.P politics and associated violence conveniently into a mainstream Hindi movie. After all it’s not easy to make a transition of this sort without avoiding the typical stereotypes seen in Indian cinema. And no the stereotyping is not a prerogative of Bollywood or any particular regional language cinema; it can be seen usually across Indian cinema. India is growing, developing, changing for the better as a country so why should we still allow the kind of stereotyping that has existed in Indian cinema for ages?
To drive across my point I would definitely look at some of the more common stereotypes seen in Indian cinema with some relevant examples wherever possible.

1.Most South Indian characters are just ‘Madrasis’ who keep saying ‘ayyayyo ayyayyo’- Well right from Mehmood in Padosan to Satish Kaushik in Saajan Chale Sasural or Shreyas Talpade in Golmaal Returns, South Indian characters are mainly shown as caricatures who speak pathetic Hindi and there is very poor detailing done by the director/writer. When Rohit Shetty, a South Indian himself cannot differentiate between a Tamilian & a Telugu personality, what more should I say? In case you do not understand what I say- just watch Golmaal Returns. Shreyas Talpade and Celina Jaitley play Tamilian characters in the movie, but whenever Shreyas is excited- he starts singing- ‘Aa Ante Amalapuram’ a popular song from the Telugu hit movie-Arya, now why would you show it this way, unless you don’t have an eye for detailing?
2.Most North Indian characters have to be a ‘sethji’ in a typical South Indian movie and the character is supposed to directly/indirectly elicit laughter from the audience. You can check out countless Tamil movies in particular for the same. Why can’t a North Indian be shown in a regular capacity instead of being shown as a caricature.
3.It’s ok to show the female lead as a North Indian but not the male lead in South Indian movies. Sure it’s fine to show a typical hero falling sometimes in love with the heroine who happens to be from the North, but the reverse hardly happens. I was very happy to see a recent Tamil movie- Abhiyum Naanum (Akasamantha-Telugu) where Trisha the heroine falls in love with a sardar (Ganesh Venkatraman), at least someone is trying to change things being depicted on screen.
4.Regionalism taking precedence over authenticity- In a recent Tamil movie- Arasangam, the protagonist, Vijaykanth speaks in Tamil to all & sundry in places like Assam & even Canada. Since when did everyone start speaking Tamil all over? Or take a recent Telugu movie- Shouryam- a major part of the movie is shot in Kolkata but no body is seen speaking in Bengali or even Hindi for that matter. It looks like everybody speaks in Telugu in Kolkata. Now can’t this be avoided?
5.Shooting abroad- is it necessary every time for every movie? What started off as an attempt to offer something new to the Indian audiences by shooting mainly songs abroad in exotic locations, later gave way to even the whole movie being shot abroad. But now I think the phenomenon has become a joke & in a lot of cases you actually wonder as to why was the movie shot abroad. Some recent examples of the same include- Yuvvraj and Tasveer 8*10.Did the story in these movies actually have anything compelling for the makers to shoot it overseas instead of basing it in India & shooting it here?

The above given stereotypes are just some of the more commonly seen ones. But the list is definitely not exhaustive. I feel that the issue of stereotyping is avoided as far as possible by people who believe in detailing to the best extent possible. Here I’m referring to people like a Manirathnam,Vishal Bharadwaj,Cheran,Anurag Kashyap etc.These are the people who can by way of getting into detailing take care and avoid stereotypes to the best extent possible.On a parting note let me remind you all about one of one of my favorite scenes from Indian cinema which shows how detailing can really heighten a scene and virtually avoid any type of stereotyping.

The scene is from Roja (Tamil) after Arvind Swamy has been captured by the militants and he finds himself face to face with their leader, Pankaj Kapur. When Pankaj Kapur questions Arvind in Tamil, he is very much intrigued and wants to know how Pankaj knows Tamil. To this Pankaj Kapur calmly replies that he studied (B.SC) Agriculture from Tamilnadu Agricultural University,Coimbatore and learnt Tamil during those days in college. A great scene conceived and developed by a master story teller/director.
So when do we get to see more and more of the stereotypes being given a farewell in Indian cinema?

Note- My attempt here has been to generally look at stereotyping in Indian films & comment on why we cannot bid goodbye to them. It’s not an attempt to talk about any particular movie or personality over here. Feel free to write on some of the other stereotypes that you feel exist in Indian cinema, after all the list is rather long.

Originally published in PFC- check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/stereotyping-in-indian-films-how-long-will-it-continue/