Friday flicks: Masand's verdict

FAMILY

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Aryeman and Bhoomika Chawla

Director: Rajkumar Santoshi

If you're a true-blue movie buff, you'll agree with me when I say that betrayal by your spouse is probably easier to take than betrayal by your favourite filmmaker, whom you have worshipped, idolised and whose movies you have faithfully followed for years.

When I watched Rajkumar Santoshi's Family - Ties of Blood, I felt like I'd been dumped by the woman I'd been courting all my life.

Santoshi's Andaaz Apna Apna, The Legend of Bhagat Singh and Ghayal remain three of my all time favourite films.

Believe me, even in his duds like Barsaat, China Gate and Lajja, there were moments where I could spot the signs of a genius. And that's why Family comes like such a hard blow to me.

Some three or four writers have collaborated on the story, screenplay and dialogue of the film and in all honesty, I don't see why it took so many people.

What they have done is delivered a mangled mess of a movie that is just so painful to watch that I can't find words suitable enough to explain the ordeal.

Family is the story of an underworld don played by Amitabh Bachchan, and the fractured relationship he shares with his folks. It's also the story of how another family is completely shattered because of Bachchan and how one member of that family seeks to avenge this punishment that was meted out to them for no fault of theirs.

If you're a fan of Rajkumar Santoshi like me, you're in for a rude shock from the very opening scene of the film. Crude humour was never Santoshi's style, and one cannot understand why he resorted to it this time.

The real problem with Family is that it seems more like it's meant to be a launch-pad for the producer's son Aryeman, than an effort on the part of its makers to tell an engaging story.

Where Santoshi really goofs up is on his screenplay. The film is painfully long and if it's meant to be a taut thriller, then why was the first 40 minutes of the film full of comedy and naach-gaana?

And speaking of naach-gaana, there are some four songs in the film's first half which only slacken the film's pace and take away from the real story.

Amitabh Bachchan playing what can be best described as a comic-book villain in neatly tailored suits, sneers and jeers and pours water on another don's head. Bachchan has never looked more ill at ease.

It's really Akshay Kumar who's the best in this film but perhaps you feel that way only because they bump him off so early in the story. As for first-timer Aryeman, to put it politely - he's a no-show.

Painfully long and going nowhere really, Family is a test of one’s patience. It's reduced to a regular vendetta story, and before long, you're just waiting for the end credits to roll.

Rajkumar Santoshi needs to come back with something spectacular next if he really wants us to delete all memories of this film from our minds.

Rating: (Poor)

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ZINDA

Starring: Sanjay Dutt, John Abraham, Celina Jaitley and Lara Dutta

Director: Sanjay Gupta

Watching this week's new release Zinda is like watching a two-hour-long movie trailor. This Sanjay Gupta directed film is cut together like its own highlights.

Just pick any thirty seconds from anywhere in the film, and you have a TV spot. Now if you've tracked Sanjay Gupta's career, then you know exactly what I'm talking about, because obviously this isn't the first time that the director has overlooked content for form.

Like every single one of Gupta's previous films, this one too cannot boast of an original plot. This time, Gupta plunders from the stylish Korean action film Old Boy, which won the Grand Prix, that is the second place at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004.

So, Zinda is the story of a man who's suddenly picked up and sent into solitary confinement for 14 long years. He has no idea what his crime is, and he has no clue who is doing this to him.

When he's released eventually, his nemesis himself helps him unfold this web of deceit and vengeance.

There's a difference between being inspired by a film, and plagiarising a film. Zinda is not inspired from Old Boy, it's a shameless rip-off of the original film.

Gupta steals not only the plot and characters but entire sequences, and pretty much the whole treatment of the original film. A departure from Gupta's previous films, Zinda is not so much flashy and showy as it is stark and morbid.

Modelled entirely after Old Boy, Gupta fashions an exquisitely stylish canvas which should gel with viewers accustomed to the visual sophistication of computer games and music videos.

Now let's talk about the violence in the film, for which the director adopts a very in-your-face and matter-of-fact approach. But it's too gory and too much to stomach.

Clamping a man's teeth out, stitching up a wound, and hammering people to death — Gupta gives you all of this in loving close-up. I'm guessing his logic here is that he's moving away from filmi action and showing you the real stuff.

But if the real stuff's so gruesome, do we have to see it? I think it's fair to question the Censor Board here, who seem too preoccupied with safeguarding the image of the Indian Air Force these days to even notice that Zinda is replete with profanities and gratuitous violence.

The thing about this film is that it's engaging no doubt, but hardly the kind of film that evokes any real feeling. So much so that you're impressed neither by Sanjay Dutt who plays the seemingly innocent protagonist, or John Abraham, who plays Dutt's vengeance-seeking nemesis. The film is nothing but one more attempt on Gupta's part to show off his toys.

Rating: (Average)