Welcome Or Get Lost!!...and a few thoughts about Hindi Film Comedy

Last Sunday I watched another much famed movie "Welcome" on star plus. It starred Akshay Kumar,Katrina Kaif, Paresh Rawal, Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor and Mallika Sherawat in main roles. The film was a huge hit when it released. I have read about the capabilities of Anees Baazmee as a comedy writer in some magazines too. So I had sat to watch the film with a bit of expectation. You may ask, expectation of what? Well, expectation of some sense. But as usual, I was disappointed to find the same old gags and farcical elements so much used in Hindi films nowadays and often proclaimed to be high comedy!!- [ so much that the subtle difference between wit and farce is all blurred].To begin with, Paresh Rawal plays a doctor who has a physical problem of swiveling head, which often gives wrong indications to young girls and he gets slapped randomly. His nephew is Akshay Kumar, who is most probably an art broker/dealer , falls in love with Katrina Kaif, the skimpy frock wearing sister of two idiosyncratic dons played by Nana Patekar and Anil Kapoor. The first dreams of becoming an actor while the second deems himself to be a painter. Both of them have one common wish- to get their sister married to a decent guy who has no connection with the murky underworld. Katrina has nothing much to do other than dancing around and either smiling wide or dropping a few tears as and where required.The storyline had the potential of becoming a good comedy. But the director and script writer took the shortcut way to fame. They infused some age old gags wherever they could. They brought in some more comedians, including the veteran Asrani to do some cliched actions. And then they brought in Firoze Khan with his famous bald head to play the great Don!! Prolonged chase scenes, which somehow reminds you of the gags of the silent era-but in the wrong context, was used with liberty to drag the story. Mallika Sherawat did her bit of skin showing and pouting. The last twenty minutes was boring to the utmost extent. I sincerely longed for the film to end and say ....well...that's what I have said in my title :)I often wonder what happened to comedy in Bollywood. There was another horrible film that I had watched one day, "Partner", starring Govinda and Salman Khan. What a wastage of time, money and talent, all in one go. When parallel films like Khosla Ka Ghosla and Bheja Fry are reviving back  comic sensibilities, why do people have to make such films like Welcome and Partner?? Even the title of Welcome has no connection with the events of the film. It seemed after completing the film, they had to give it a name , so they chose a random word. Here perhaps a mention of Priyadarshan's work would also not be out of place. I love watching Priyadarshan movies. They are fun, light-hearted and good to watch. But even such a celebrated director falls into the pitfall of repeated gags to end his stories. Hungama, Hulchul, Bhagam Bhag, Garam Masala- all end with the same kind of long drawn chase sequences, with things falling, tumbling, propelling, swinging, electric shocks and every such misadventures. I feel as a good director, if he has taken the responsibility of telling a story, especially a comedy, should be confident of completing the comedy properly without taking recourse to shortcuts and abrupt endings. Malamal Weekly by Priyadarshan too had a number of chase sequences, but the film ended more or less properly with all loose ends sorted out, hence it is a far better movie than Hungama.Whenever I watch Hungama, a thought often crosses my mind. It is perhaps general human nature that we love to watch people in trouble. We love to watch violence if that is displayed in a tasteful platter. That is also one reason why we all love to watch Tom and Jerry so much. The accidents and tortures that Tom goes through in each episode is not only unimaginable, but inhuman and against his very existence. Yet we love to watch Tom going through all the troubles each day. [These are not my theories; I had studied this topic a decade ago when at the University] Hungama had a hilarious plot and was going on perfectly until the end when the director decided to put all the characters under electric shock and end the film abruptly. In that particular sequence, one person gets into contact with an open electric wire and gets electrocuted, then the next person touches him and gets the contact too and so forth, until all the major characters except the two heroes and the heroine join the line.The whole sequence happens for more than five minutes I think, and while practically speaking those characters are supposed to be going through excruciating pain, we are required to laugh at their distress. Similar was the ending of Welcome. The super Don Firoze Khan asks all his captives to play "passing the ball". Whoever has the ball in his hand when the music stops, will have to jump straight out of the window down the cliff. In this process two of his men are made to jump down the window, literally forced to commit suicide. But the whole procedure does not seem to affect the further proceedings of the story as well as its "happy ending".I sincerely wish the "comedy" directors of Bollywood come out of this jinx and produce some wholesome comedies like Golmaal, Naram Garam and Chupke Chupke, or the very recent Khosla Ka Ghosla and Bheja Fry, or even a fully romantic comedy like Jab We Met.

Friday, September 12, 2008