Dolly Ki Doli Review

Gone Girl

(Read only if you've seen the film, the review starts with spoiler)

Take this: A girl, who is dumped by the love of her life at the moment when they were planning to elope together to get married, is on a revenge spree- she is now dumping every guy who falls for her (well, she sets a trap for them to fall for her first); robbing- not only them but also their families- of all their jewelries, monies, clothes (even undies, if it's more dreadful revenge) on the night of wedding itself. The wedding night which she promised would give her "grooms" the license to "touch" her. But as the night comes, she deprives them of all the love and lust (One had to simply walk into the bathroom with a porn magazine and spend his whole night there). She pretended love. And she is depriving males of almost half of the country of it. Add more ruthless reality to it, or the kind of realism that seeps in more serious cinema (for this case, read: blood), this could have been a dark psychological thriller- the stuff David Fincher's films are made of. Well, he actually made one such film last year. But all this is treated with lite comic tone which robs the lead character of all the psychopathic behavior that she would possess in a more real world. (Even if the role had such darker side, Sonam Kapoor is not capable enough to bring that depth, heck, she can't play what's in her hand right now!).

But to say that this film is devoid of all the realism would be wrong. There are shades of it and the ulterior motif of the film too is "Screw you, patriarchy": her revenge is not against those grooms but the system that entitles them to be one. (She even says in one scene: asli jail me rehna, shaadi ke jail se toh achha hoga); she is even more hateful towards one "mother-in-law" who was of the view of girls should not be sent to college to pursue education; the guy (Pulkit Samrat), who had dumped her and is the reason behind all this, reasons he couldn't muster up courage that day as his father had pressed him, and he is now a moustachioed policeman (cartoonish though- like that from the franchise of this film's production house, and is also named Robin) who rejects to lead the case that involves females; one lead groom (Varun Sharma) is, again, pressed by her dominating mother while the other lead (brilliant Rajkummar Rao in that Haryanvi accent, and whoa! can even dance better than the production company's in-house "item girl"), in one of the film's finest scenes, tries to rival him over drinks with oneupmanship claiming that he got to have sex with Dolly on their first night.

Picking up one or two characters from the series of all the men whom the lady had conned does limit the scope of the film. You wonder how doesn't she fall in actual love with at least one of the men she plans to thug; how is she so rigid against her vulnerability. But, the director (debutant Abhishek Dogra), thankfully avoid such easy paths and tries out other possibilities in the film's short running duration (of only 100 minutes), like that one young guy (Mohd. Zeeshan Ayub) from the gang starts liking Dolly. Dogra's direction is quite refreshing-- I liked how the entire history of Robin and Dolly is told in one song- no long drabbed stretching of a revelation, just one romantic song in a flashback, that's it; how he introduces little characters to throw in dance numbers, especially that sleazy kind who would call his friend the other day to ask how did the suhagraat go? It is the writing that needed more flesh and more detailed strokes- who are these gang members? What is their story?  All we know, in just one line, that one of those members saved Dolly from prostitution and got her into other criminal business. This is where a realistic film got turned into a comic, heist film.

Dolly Ki Doli Music Review

“Predictably bad” 

Music: Sajid-Wajid

Lyrics: Kumaar/ Irfan Kamal/ Danish Sabri

Ratings: * 1/2

Before I even played this album, I glanced over the song names and their singers: first one is called “Phatte Tak Nachna”- the name itself tells you what kind of song it is, a Punjabi Dance Number, sung by Sunidhi; second one is “Fashion Khatam Mujhpe”- no points for guessing who would have sung titled like this in a Sajid-Wajid album, yes, you’re right, Mamta Sharma; third one is called Babaji Ka Thullu (I don’t even…); then the title track by Divya Kumar (ok, that could be interesting); final song is Sajid-Wajid’s 1398^th song on Naina- so I’ll start with that:

1. Mere Naina Kafir Hogaye

Sajid-Wajid’s yet another song on Naina for Arbaaz Khan’s film, sung yet again by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, has a laidback ambience but lacks a bit thehraav as the arrangement doesn’t let Rahat to take the centre-stage. However, the jazzy piano and harmonium’s entry into the arrangement are beautiful and the song has some good lyrics too by Kumaar.

2. Dolly Ki Doli

Divya Kumar’s earthy voice is known for delivering folksy songs in Bollywood, Sajid-Wajid puts him into grunge rock. Brownie points for that. But serious genre and structural issues remain with the song: it doesn’t feel completely realized- shehnai is a good bit for the theme of the song but those electronic sounds are too much for a grunge and make it noisy. 

3. Babaji Ka Thullu

The fact that a song named after this phrase got made into a Bollywood song is itself appalling, yet if I am to judge this as a song, it is downright filthy. Not being a music snob and dismissing it for its nonsensicalness, I am all for it, I love Ram Sampath’s Delhi Belly, this one is pedestrian cheap and even its musical structure- based on qawalli, mostly- is marred with heavy electronic done till your ears bleed.

4. Fashion Khatam Mujhpe

Based on lavnee (kind of), premise of the song is regular item song with loads of energy in it. Mamta Sharma, judging her by her caliber and genre, lives upto that energy and sings evocatively. It is the male vocals (Wajid, Shabab Sabri) who spoil it by being deliberately nasal to match up to Sharma.

5. Phatte Tak Nachna

Can Sajid-Wajid deliver a single dance number whose tune could stick into public memory, post Munni Badnaam? Certainly, even this will not. In fact, a part of the bhangra hoots are very reminiscent of Sukhbir’s popular Taare Gin Gin. Even Sunidhi sounds too laborious in this. 

What starts with being something listenable goes straight downhill. Dear Sajid-Wajid, can you give us one consistently good, listenable soundtrack? Is that too much to ask for?

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag Review

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's last two films (Delhi 6 and Rang De Basanti) dealt with similar subtext about collision of western and Indian cultures and their influences on each other. This time, he shifts away from fiction where he played with unrealistic possibilities that could take place in his realistically cultured setting of our country. He unravels history of our country, this time, along with its sports culture back then that brought one talented athlete to fame- Milkha Singh, a national icon.

Mehra discovers this as a canvas for biopic rather than for a sports film. (Shimit Amin did the other way by making an inspiring sports film, Chak De! India, from the biography of Mir Ranjan Negi.) But how much the makers have taken "cinematic liberties" in depicting it and how much is the film true to Milkha Singh's life, we can't be sure as the film ends saying "Inspired from a true life".

Mehra's style of filmmaking is very much inevitable here, especially in his treatment of liberating moments. And that's quite important as it helps audience to relate with the characters... if Rang De Basanti's Aslam and Laxman dies to meet Ashfaq and Bismil in them, then Milkha runs to visualise his childhood on the same race track. And it's not only Mehra's Milkha who is seeing his full arc of life at that moment. We realise it too. And it couldn't have been done better without making us invested in the life of central character for more than 3 hours. That's what Steven Spielberg did with the biopic Schindler's List. 

Given the similar cinematic scale and ambitions, this film would have faltered if it would have been of any length shorter than this. Though with lesser substance on paper, the film overpowers on the whole even if no particular scene has potential to leave a mark, thanks to the consistently thrown in wonderfully shot visuals. Sadly, those visuals are emotionally overcharged here accompanied with depressing background score, as if the director wants us to cry. That works for our home audience, but I'm not sure if it will move international viewers equally.

Not sure why, screenwriters take convenience in writing biopics in a narrative flashback (Paan Singh Tomar, The Legend Of Bhagat Singh). Prasoon Joshi takes the same path. Almost the entire film, before entering into its climax, is as narrated by Milkha's coach Gurudev Singh (outstanding Pawan Malhotra) to a govt. official as reason of why Milkha is reluctant to participate in  Indo-Pakistan Dual Meet, where later he wins the title of 'Flying Sikh'. And this part of the story comes in writer's favour to stage the climax with our beloved India v/s Pakistan tussle where Pakistani player has to be arrogant and demeaning, and that would please us Indians, right? This flashback narrative is interspersed with childhood memories of Milkha, shifting the timelines and adding layers to the character... his equation with his elder sister Isri (ever dependable Divya Dutta), his dark past led by gory partition of the border, his heart-crush with Biro (Sonam Kapoor).

 Joshi, also the lyricist for the very effective soundtrack by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, makes each song relatable to the  narrative... like when Major Veerapan (Prakash Raj with his character namesake moustache) calls their camp a "havan kund", the boys break into "Havan kund, Maston ka jhund"; when Milkha dances with Indian swimmer Perizaad (beautiful Meesha Shafi) in an elaborately detailed song sequence, it goes like "Tu jo dariya me utare, saara paani gulabi"; and "Sudarshan chakr banake gol" for Milkha's self made 400 metre round track on the sands of Ladakh.

Paan Singh Tomar was also a famous Indian athelete during the same time when Milkha Singh was. And biopics on both these athletes have come up in these  2 years. Their on screen versions were done with enough justice. Irrfan articulated him theatrically; Akhtar delves into more physical labour going against an actor's convenience. Both the films generously show the rise and fall of these sportsmen, their sheer strength and most importantly the sporting scene of our country. Both were boys coming from rural who couldn't fit themselves comfortably into spiked sport shoes. One ran for ice-cream, other ran for milk.

Aisha: The Music

Music: Amit Trivedi

Lyrics: Javed Akhtar