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The swan song of the maestro YASH CHOPRA was widely expected to be much bigger, impressive and memorable than the one witnessed this week, quite sadly. But the veteran was surely visible in certain parts of the film strongly and would be missed forever in this industry fast moving towards pure commercialism.
Having said that Yash Raj banner’s latest big flick JAB TAK HAI JAAN also had too many elements inspired from many other sources mentioned below:
1. First of all, one of the posters of the film (posted here) was highly inspired from the trend started by James Bond films in GOLDFINGER (1964) which was later also adapted in GRIDIRON GANG (2006), SPECIAL FORCES or FORCES SPECIALES (French) (2011), GONE (2011), ANGELS (Thailand) (2012) and probably many more.
2. The basic premises of JTHJ storyline revolves around the one seen in Yash Raj banner’s first film titled DAAG released in 1973, wherein the key characters of Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore and Rakhee are replaced by Shahrukh Khan, Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma in JTHJ. But since DAAG had many outdated references in its script including the plot of an “Illegitimate Child”, therefore some new ideas were adapted to separate the loving couple and then unite them back in the end. Interestingly DAAG was also based on a British novel published in 1886 titled“The Mayor of Casterbridge”.
3. Now the major twist in the film, where Katrina Kaif keeps a condition in front of Jesus while praying to him for saving Shahrukh’s life, is straight away taken as it is from THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1999) featuring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore in the lead. The film also has a reference of a manuscript which is read to know the exact proceedings of the past similar to the Diary in JTHJ. THE END OF THE AFFAIR (1999) is based on a novel with the same title published in 1951 which was also adapted for another movie with the similar name in 1955.
And more recently the same plot of a conditional prayer or deal with the GOD was also there in one of the seasons of famous American TV Series GOSSIP GIRL.
4. The fearless bomb diffuser character and many of its scenes related with the bombs found are clearly inspired from the famous Oscar Winner THE HURT LOCKER (2008).
5. A rich girl taken for a ‘freak out’ date to re-discover her hidden inner self also reminded me of a similar sequence in ROCKSTAR (2011).
6. Several scenes in JTHJ remind you of Yash Raj banner’s own previous films like the river side scene of Katrina & Anushka together is quite similar to the one in SILSILA (1981) featuring Rekha and Jaya Bachchan sharing the same frame.
7. As a trademark insertion (and not inspiration) JTHJ has also got a not so impressive long dance sequence (on an instrumental track) as per Yash Chopra’s decades old tradition like earlier seen in CHANDNI (1989), LAMHE (1991), DARR (1993) & DIL TO PAGAL HAI (1997).
Hence looking at the above list, I would again like to go back to the good old YASH CHOPRA before the 80s who gave us some memorable and precious movies in that golden era worth watching again & again till our own finale.
(Thanks to Parveen Sethi for the info about The End of The Affair & Tabish Nadeem about Gossip Girl)
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JAB TAK HAI JAAN (2012) and its inspirations, Inspired Films, Bollywood Inspired Movies, Copied Movies List at bobbytalkscinema.com, JTHJ inspired from, Jab Tak Hai Jaan and The End of The Affair.
Its indeed great and also an appreciable act to go for something different and fresh in the present routine structure of our Hindi Films. But on the other hand, it’s equally or even more important to ensure that the plot which looks like a winner on the paper, also gets transformed and executed on the screen in the best possible manner, providing a good return to the viewer for both his money and time spent.
Unfortunately, Shirish Kunder’s JOKER fulfils the first requirement reasonably but makes a complete mess in its second, involving the execution, presentation and overall impact of the movie which was rightly predicted by majority of people after watching its uninteresting & patchy promos. In fact JOKER is one of those big movies which clearly reveal their weak points in the first few reels itself and then you exactly know that its not going to work in its subsequent reels too.
The film starts from abroad in the SWADES mode, wherein Akshay is forced to make a decision to visit India along with his live-in girlfriend Sonakshi. Now the moment they enter the zone of Pagalpur, you get served with some hard humor which starts falling flat with its each new gag delivered boringly. There are people falling from the trees, a man who thinks he is a lamp (reminding you of a teeth whitener advert), a teacher with a pretty bad English who believes that the IInd World War is still going on, a person who speaks gibberish (like Tushar in the GOLMAAl series) which eventually becomes the language of real aliens too and 3 clown like politicians who daringly ask for their cut sitting in their government offices only.
In straight words, after just 30 minutes into the film and an item song served in that duration only, one starts thinking about all the resources, efforts and hard work gone into its making just for nothing. Further it is also quite shocking to see that the film which had its whole promotion planned around the so called Aliens, does not have even a single scene or mention of them before the intermission and they actually reveal themselves in its second hour. Frankly that tells you a lot about the illogical and errant planning behind the making of this serious mistake aptly called JOKER.
Post intermission, the disaster continues in a much bigger magnitude when the fake aliens are made with some vegetables, fruits and LEDs considering that there are fools sitting in the theater ready to accept anything. The whole screenplay post interval is simply pathetic making a mockery of almost everything around ranging from news channels, their reporters, government and military forces to the foreign officials investigating the aliens and the crop circles inspired from Manoj Shyamalan’s SIGNS (2002). Moreover various scenes in the movie make you recall so many films together like SWADES, KOI MIL GAYA, LAGAAN, PEEPLI LIVE and even Spielberg’s ET. Plus, the whole setting around some innocent (yet eccentric) villagers also reminds you of Akshay Kumar’s earlier flop, TEES MAAR KHAN directed by Shirin’s better half Farah Khan.
In the performance department only one person is able to make you laugh at times and he is Shreyas Talpade as Babban. But otherwise JOKER has its entire cast (with many known names in stupid minuscule roles), performing half-heartedly including the lead couple Akshay & Sonakshi, as if they all perfectly knew that its not going to work in any case. And probably that was the reason Akshay was literally absent from its entire promotional campaign before its release.
Musically it gives you nothing to write about as the soundtrack neither has any melody nor any good lyrics to win over the audience. Personally I even didn’t like the heavily promoted item song ‘Kafirana’ since it didn’t fit on Chitrangda’s persona at all. The songs honestly work as several loo-breaks which had to be included in the film because without them, it would be a 100 minutes venture only in totality. Background score fails to register in all those weird comic sequences and Cinematography remains helpless with such lackluster characters emoting on the screen. Also it was a pity to see that in such a big banner film, talking about aliens (the real ones too), the Computer Graphics were really below the mark like a low budget venture in its last sequence which even had the alien dancing along with Shreyas. Now did the makers really expect the viewers to laugh out loud on that silly alien dance without any sense?
Anyway, in all JOKER can easily be termed as a poor or bizarre film made on an interestingly fresh plot which had enough space for a good comedy and many innovative enjoyable sequences in its storyline. The film majorly is a disappointment due to its mediocre and awful treatment (including the script, execution or direction) which takes the plot too lightly in an over-confident manner and fails to deliver in the end. As a matter of fact, JOKER can be perfectly used to prove these Cinematic Truths that ‘The Director is always the real captain of the ship undeniably’ and ‘What seems to be good on the paper might not be equally good or entertaining on the screen’.
Rating : 1 / 5 (Including 0.5 only for at least trying something new)
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Continuing with his decades old passion of making inspired movies borrowing heavily from the famous western classics, the veteran Mahesh Bhatt writes JISM 2 for her daughter’s (Pooja Bhatt’s) directorial venture taking it all from a Hitchcock classic this time.
So besides having a similar publicity poster reportedly inspired from Goa based designer Felix Bandesh’s 2008 fashion photo-shoot, its title song sounding very close to a Turkish song by Kayahan & an Iranian song sung by Pouya Bayati, another song’s lyrics directly taken from a famous Pakistani song sung by Noor Jehan & Reshma, JISM 2 also has an all inspired script straight away reminding you of Alfred Hitchcock’s NOTORIOUS released in 1964.
The plot of hiring a beautiful girl to spy on a suspected criminal who already knows the girl from the past, the spy asking her for marriage in just a few days, the cop falling in love with the girl on the other side leading to further complications is all there in Hitchcock’s classic based on the short story “The Song of the Dragon” by American writer John Taintor Foote.
However to make JISM 2 quickly in order to cash in the Sunny Leone craze, Mahesh Bhatt deletes all the supporting characters of the original script, like the spy’s mother and his other crime associates to complete it within a short time with only 4 main characters. But what he does with the storyline in its climax is hugely unconvincing since the original actually ends in a great romantic manner where no one dies.
Moreover, as I watched NOTORIOUS again after the unpleasant experience of JISM 2, I realized that Ingrid Bergman as the spy girl in that black & white classic in fact looked more gorgeous & graceful in all her decent body covering dresses than the bright Sunny Leone in all her colourful revealing outfits in this current version. So if you really want to see what the maestro Alfred Hitchcock did with the same story along with the elegant Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman as the loving couple then do watch NOTORIOUS at the earliest as a must.
(Thanks to Niraj Mancchanda for reminding me of this connection)
Tags :
Pooja Bhatt's Jism 2 (2012) and Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), Inspired Movies, Inspired Hindi Films, Hindi Movies inspired from Western Classics, Copied Movies, Hitchcock inspired Hindi Films
To start with this is not at all a sequel from any angle. It neither has the characters nor the storyline in any way related to the first Jannat. In more exact terms, this is not even J of the Jannat released in 2008 which was a fair entertainer with some good music. Apparently some fine songs are here too but as far as content is concerned, it ranges from all repeated & predictable to mostly uninteresting and even boring. In fact this is a perfect example of how production houses have now started making fool of the viewers with these so called sequels which have nothing to do with their part one.
JANNAT 2 is strictly made on the fixed format of film-making followed by Vishesh Films in few of their recent projects which you might recall reading the next lines. In this set format, the movie begins with the leading man and a sequence showing him involved in a certain (novel) kind of crime. Then they introduce the charming heroine and the love plot starts between the lead pair making way for few good songs. The first half mostly deals with the love angle along with showing the crime working in the background. Around the intermission the lead couple marries and enters their new phase of life. Post interval certain twists are introduced with some fresh characters and the girl comes to know about her husband’s connection with the crime world. This leads to few emotional confrontation scenes resulting in the hero’s heart transformation who then fights back to get away from the underworld. And then it all ends on a tragic note with a shocking kind of climax.
Now if you can remember then the above mentioned format is exactly followed in Vishesh films 3 ventures namely, Jannat (2008), Blood Money (2012), Jannat 2 (2012) and to some extent in also Crook (2009). The only difference between these films are the kinds of Crime world, the hero is caught in, which changes the whole look of the film giving it a different feel. Like in Jannat – the hero is a Cricket betting bookie, in Blood Money – he is involved in International Diamond smuggling, in Crook - he is a lawbreaker who gets related with the racial attacks abroad and in the present Jannat 2 - he is dealing in Arms Selling also known as Gunrunning in the underworld.
Continuing with their passion of making inspired films, this time the crime-plot is taken from Nicholas Cage’s Lord of War (2005) and one of its posters takes its inspiration from The Mechanic (2011). No doubt the plot was a novel and interesting one for the Indian audience but sadly it never gets exploited on the screen in the much required manner. The film stars off pretty well with the sequences of Emraan selling the guns and making fool of another crook. But then just after a few minutes, it falls back on the usual track, giving you a severe shock of some heavy abuses repeatedly used in the dialogues, which can easily be rated as disgusting coming from this reputed banner.
As I see it, the Bhatts from their experience in the film-trade, very well knew that they didn’t have anything great in the storyline of their over-publicized sequel. So to add an extra attraction, they decided to use this heavy foul language in the dialogues of almost all the lead actors, in the name of “demand of the script talking about north-Indian characters”. But while watching the film one can easily judge that these were all included deliberately to gain the applause and seeties from a particular section of viewers, especially in the smaller centers. In straight words, the director and the makers have tried this desperate kind step just to make sure its reasonable success at the box office in its opening weekend. But in my opinion, it remains the weakest point of the J2 as it never looks like ‘natural’, coming from almost everyone in the film in a forcible manner.
Music, being the strongest part of all Bhatt films works here too with few good, hummable songs from Pritam. In fact the Soundtrack can easily be called the only good thing in this so called sequel. Background score is ok but Cinematography adds a lot in the criminal backdrop of the film, including a well shot chase scene at The Dargah. As an actor Emraan Hashmi, takes away the applauses just for his cuss words spoken loudly and not for his acting. Randeep Hooda looks like the same in his all types of scenes but still leaves a mark in few. Regarding the debutant heroine Esha Gupta I would only like to say that Bhatts can easily make any gorgeous girl the heroine of their film as she only has to look pretty in her steamy scenes or kisses and has to do very less of acting on the screen in these kinds of scripts. So that should easily give you a hint that what she has done in the film.
In the supporting cast both Brijendra Kala and Mohd. Zeeshan Ayyub are great but Arif Zakaria gives you nothing new. Another point which needs to be written here is about the writers and their weird kind of sequences related with the heroine’s hospital. She is strangely running a Big Free Hospital single handedly without any staff, doesn’t has the money to pay all the Hospital bills and also has some amount to payback to few criminal looking people who keep barging into the hospital for their recovery. Now how on earth Mahesh Bhatt, didn’t point out such silly writing in the script remains questionable? Also J2 is yet another film which once again reveals the faulty working style of our Censor Boards who have no problem with all the cuss words spoken in a big banner's film, but force to use a beep in place of them in a low budget project "Life Ki Toh Lag Gayi" released just last week.
In all, this is one of those desperate movies of Vishesh films which is too eager to become a HIT through an easy way of few good songs, steamy kisses and all un-required abusive words spoken loudly by their Hero. So if you are really interested in these three ingredients then you may opt for it at your own risk.
Rating : 1.5 / 5 (Including 0.5 more only for its few good songs)
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