A month in India, part 6: Biriyani.

It's quite rare that a film that takes inspiration from another film actually references the film it was inspired by, so I was surprised to see Biriyani actually have its characters watch a few scenes of The Hangover, while at a party. Best friends Sugan (Karthi) and Parasuram (Premgi Amaren) wake up one morning, with a hangover, and only flashes of memories about the events that took place after they ran into a beautiful lady while getting late night biriyani. Turns out, during the course of the evening, they've become inadvertently involved in something big, and now they have to run from the authorities, all while trying to figure out precisely what happened during the evening, and who's at fault.

Of course, before any of this unfolds, we have to sit through scenes of their friendship and dynamic, in which Sugan is in incorrigible womanizing asshole, despite having a beautiful, sweet girlfriend in Priyanka (Hansika Motwani), who Parasuram also likes quite a bit. Parasuram is, in a word, a total loser, and Sugan is the go-getter, aided by his good looks and easy nature at every turn. They're not the most lovable bunch, and even though there is some comedy in their antics together, these are not characters you necessarily root for in such a way that when the plot turns serious and full of conspiracy theories, you actually care about what happens to them. Character development is slim.

The saving grace of the film is probably the catchy soundtrack - Ilayaraja's 200th, in fact. But otherwise, the list of flaws is a mile long, despite the fact that when I was watching, I wasn't too bothered by them. In retrospect, though, the film starts out merely okay and gets messier and messier towards the end. The final frame of the film makes absolutely no goddamn sense, even when I poked my movie companion and Twitter friend Bala, a native Tamizhan, to explain things to me.

Later on, during my brief time in Chennai, I enjoyed both an intense hangover and a meal of biriyani, and enjoyed the latter almost as much as I did not enjoy the former. All's well ends well, I suppose.

Remake-mania or manic remakes? Rowdy Rathore and Siruthai.

Both based on the Telugu hit Vikramarkudu, I watched Rowdy Rathore and Siruthai in conjunction with one another, and not by accident. It just so happened that I didn't have the luxury of working subtitles for the Tamil version (Siruthai). After watching Rowdy, I figured I could follow the gist of the story and compare the performances, and began watching. Even without having seen the Telugu original, it was interesting to see both of the remakes that followed it. 

I'm not one to discourage Indian film industries from remaking each other's films, as its a tried-and-tested formula, and gives interesting, new stories different audiences, and bigger audiences. I do wonder though, are some of these remakes perhaps even too fateful to the originals? It seemed as if these movies shared absolutely everything - the highlights as well as the low points. 

The plot kicks off with our hero, Shiva in the Hindi version (played by Akshay Kumar), a thief, stealing things and falling in love with our heroine Paro (Sonakshi Sinha). Eventually a young girl emerges, who insists that Shiva is her father, and from there the story snowballs into an action masala one, filled with horrifying villains, dance numbers, gory violence and duplicates. 

The comedic sidekick in the Hindi version isn't very funny and thus the beginning feels like it's lagging desperately. The romantic comedy portion of Shiva and Paro falling in love isn't quite as amusing as I would've liked, either, and so I was just waiting for the film to get going. Eventually it does, in quite a spectacular manner, and the backstory gives good pay-off as well, but I just never felt like I was too in love with the film. And trust me, I really wanted to be. I mean, Akshay doing an action role with Prabhudeva in the director's seat? Yes, please, more.

Yet something just didn't click with me. It's certainly a passable entertainer, down to great fight choreography (though be warned for gory violence) and fantastic song numbers, in which the music, for whatever reason, reminded me of 90's Bollywood. And in my books, that's only a good thing. There were also a number of delicious cameos in the songs, which I enjoyed a ton. Still, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. Maybe there's some room for improvement in Sonakshi's acting? I like her, but Akshay definitely outperformed her here, and while the heroine role in the story is a pretty thankless one, she just didn't impress me, so I never felt their chemistry as much as I'd have liked.

Rowdy Rathore is a film I'd recommend for a viewing (if you're into Southie remake action masalas), but wouldn't list among my favourites of last year. It's a shame, because I really wanted to like it more. 

Siruthai had a lot of things going for it (the Paiyaa coupling Karthi-Tamanna as the leads, and everybody's favourite new Tamil comedian, Santhanam as the comedic sidekick) but in the end my thoughts on this film are largely similar to that about Rowdy Rathore. The plot points are replicated so loyally that in Siruthai, the beginning moves slowly as well, and it feels as if the film only really gets going about an hour in.

Of course, the sad thing about not having subtitles for this film was that it made me miss out on the comedy of Santhanam, who I've really grown to like as of late. While some comedians are pretty physical, or very expressive in their faces, making the comedy translate even when there's no subtitled translation or if the subtitles are very unclear. Santhanam's comedy tends to lean towards the more verbal side, however, and having no familiarity with the Tamil language, I was forced to miss out. It's a shame, because in every role I've seen him in thus far, I've really enjoyed him in.

Now, this was my first taste of Karthi in full on masala mode. Paiyaa was masala, too, but his character in it was a rather stern, serious type, whereas Siruthai features some broad comedy besides the action and the romance. I'm not yet sold on the guy - he seems to have the bright-eyed charm of his brother Surya, but he's not quite there yet for me in terms of really selling it. He was merely okay in here, and while I won't mind watching him in the future, I doubt I'll be rushing to get more of his films.

Tamanna was once again a charming presence in a rather flimsy role. She continues to be one of my favourite actresses making a career in the Southern industries (ironic, since much like my former Southie favourite, Jothika, Tamanna is also a Northern girl - she hails from Mumbai). As sadly often in Southie films, it feels like she was there for a bit of romcom and then for the songs, which is a shame, since it's clear she's capable of more substantial roles as well. Regardless, the songs are fun, if fairly forgettable.

In some ways, the near-carbon copy-like remakes the different industries churn out are a commendable effort. Why change a winning formula? I certainly didn't want the Tamil remake of 3 Idiots to alter the plot, because the plot and writing was so good as it was. Of course, you run the risk of replicating the problems, too, as I feel like happened with these two remakes - I've read reviews where people complained the original had a slow beginning as well. But maybe rather that than trying to fix issues and failing to do so, just do the best job you can, replicating the original - it seems that's what both the Hindi and Tamil remakes did here.

A solid list of solidly okay films: Paiyaa, Bodyguard.

Paiyaa (2010) is your standard Tamil action entertainer with a bit of a twist: the story begins with Shiva (Karthi ie Surya's brother) pretending to be a driver to the girl of his dreams (Tamanna). Pretty soon it turns out she's in in a spot of trouble, and he offers to drive her wherever she needs to go. During the road trip, they learn things about one another, fall in love, and she discovers that - surprise surprise! - he's also got some goons coming after her.

It's a fun little film, but it's nothing amazing. I like Tamanna, and didn't dislike Karthi (this film introduced me to him) and the songs were quite sweet, but after the recommendation by the DVD store clerk, I think I expected something a bit more than an okay film. Regardless, it's a fine effort and probably one I'd have liked more, had my expectations been more reasonable. I think the interesting premise made me want the film to be better than it was, or maybe it was just that this one didn't quite click with me the right way.


The expression "made more money than God" always struck me as peculiar, as surely God's not that big into human capitalist pursuits? Isn't the whole point of religion to rise above materialist desires? Regardless of these logical flaws it's safe to say that Bodyguard made more money than God (if God was to make money .. yeah, I'll just drop this here). I watched it last December and of course completely forgot to review it.

True to Salman's new renaissance as the Southie hero who just happens to be making films in Hindi, this one is actually a remake of a 2010 Malayalam film of the same name. The plot is fairly simple - Lovely B. Singh (Salman) gets hired as bodyguard to protect Divya (Kareena Kapoor). Divya is annoyed by Lovely constantly tailing her, so she starts calling him to distract him from his duties, and pretends to be a girl called Chhaya. Through this little riff, the two fall in love - the film is essentially a romantic comedy wrapped in an action film shell, because there's no way Salman can *not* release a can of whoopass on some bad guys in his films these days.

But what really makes the film worth watching are the last twenty-thirty minutes or so..

I think it's curious that Bodyguard became such an unbelievably huge hit in all accounts. It's a solid film, no doubt, but to me it's not really as good as other similar recent Salman films, like Dabangg or Wanted, both of which I loved, and have rewatched many times. Maybe it's more that the success of the aforementioned films (alongside stuff like Ready which I wasn't a fan of) lead to this super-heightened moment of absolute Salman paagalpan across India. Regardless, it's certainly good enough for one viewing occasion - if only to try and see what made it such an absolute phenomenon.