Runtime: By the end I was feeling its 172 (!) minutes
Directed by: Vijay Krishna Acharya
Starring: Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Uday Chopra, Katrina Kaif, Tabrett Bethel
From: Yash Raj Films
In hindsight, not the best choice for the “forgetting about the chaos of January 6, 2021 blues”.
I won't get into the atrocious events of yesterday except to say that like many Americans, it really put a damper on my mood. Instead of a few things I had in mind for viewing, the decision was made to check out something that could elicit laughter. Through a series of factors-including having the almost 3 hours it would take for viewing-this was chosen. Indeed it did spark joy at times due to how stupid it was (I mean, it was about as dumb as Fate of the Furious, which is where I gave up on the Fast & Furious franchise) yet an ugly turn was taken and suddenly it did not seem so funny.
What an opening it had: most of this is set & filmed in Chicago-it begins in late 1990. A boy and his father are followed; of course both are South Asian and run a failing circus in Chi-town. After a magic show performed in front of the bankers who wish to foreclose fails to change their mind (gee, what a shock) something bad happens and as an adult, the son now wants revenge on that gosh-darn bank. If that isn't silly enough, the boy does some parkour to avoid bullies & despite the 1990 setting, some modern cars are in the background and a 20 dollar bill is shown which was not of its time as its design was issued in 1995.
If that isn't amazing enough, this was actually inspired by more than one CHRISTOPHER NOLAN motion picture. The Prestige and The Dark Knight seem to be the two most obvious; I've never actually seen The Prestige... because soon after it came out I heard on a messageboard what its plot was-honestly, it sounded so stupid there's never been any interest to give it a shot. That doesn't help my disdain for most Nolan, although even I can say he'd probably be insulted by how some of his ideas were used in Dhoom 3. Yes there are talented filmmakers in India but Bollywood-which this actually is as it's a Hindi language picture-trying to do that in a masala movie which has all those different genres plus several musical numbers... of course there were problems.
All that being said, our mismatched “heroes” come in from India to assist; after all, the villain leaves a Hindi message at each bank robbery he does (he also literally “makes it rain” on the public outside). Then again, I question both the heroes and the Chicago Police Department as perhaps they should have looked at the new Indian circus opening up in the same building that the villain's dad had in '90... I mean, it's an elaborate Cirque du Soleil sort of production.
More laughs are to be had... jet skis can still do impossible things; in addition, a motorcycle-which earlier successfully crossed over a busy street on a tightrope-can easily change to a jet ski while free-falling into the water or morph back into a motorcycle as it leaps out of the water. The attempted humor was worse than ever, which wasn't really a surprise. It's all amusing how dumb it was and funny that I got to see various sights from my childhood (I grew up about an hour and a half from Chicago, so I've been in and through there on a number of occasions. A few times I was at Six Flags Great America, which is a theme park that several scenes are set at) but it took a turn when a character was introduced...
This guy was autistic, or at least was supposed to be; even by motion picture standards it wasn't the most flattering portrayal of someone w/ that affliction. If that isn't questionable enough, our heroes refer to him as... what is commonly stated as “the R word” as to not offend anyone mentally disabled. Yeah, between that and the movie grinding to a halt for a long stretch for “storytelling”, that tanked this movie and not even the hilarity of the climax's location being the Contra Dam in Switzerland-the same place where the legendary bungee jump from GoldenEye occurred-yet the movie had the gall to act like this was some place right outside Chicago... not even that could save things.
At least the film looks pretty nice, had decent action scenes in & around Chicago and there's no complaints w/ the musical numbers. There should have been more Katrina Kaif-that is not a sexist comment. Sure, she is a pretty lady but her role was fun and she excelled at singing & dancing; she should have had more screen time, especially to do her thing. I'll just shrug my shoulders w/ the knowledge that the next thing I'll see shouldn't have such questionable moments.
No comments:
Post a Comment