Warning

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Tennyson

There are only two Hindi movies which I have watched on the first day, first show in a multiplex. The first one was Aurangzeb, and the second one is this movie. This is also the first Hindi movie and the second Indian movie which I am watching in 3D, and there are n prizes for guessing which was the first, for it was the first 3D movie from South India as well as from India. Did this movie deserve my attention? Well, I thought that this was going to be India’s answer to Jaws or Deep Blue Sea. But later, it was revealed that this one is more of an Open Water inspired flick. But while watching the movie, it clicked that this was mostly Open Water 2: Adrift. So, there was the need to watch India’s first underwater 3D thriller a.k.a the first of possible shark movies in the future. The reasons to go for the first show were many, but I have to be clear about something, which is the fact that this is surely more entertaining than Open Water 2: Adrift, but I wouldn’t use the word “better”, for that is highly debatable. I would recommend this with confidence for those who haven’t watched the original. Well, I watched this one for a ticket worth eighty rupees and this is more than just worth that money. Forget the critics who are going to bash this one, my dear friends, just know that we need this movie, and we need variety.

Yes, they are obviously not right about this one, or may be they have their own personal reasons for not liking it, but from a neutral point of view, this is a copy which has been well recreated. If we make a comparison to that original, that may have had other things for support including being more realistic and being the first one to come to light, this one has entertainment, and some surprisingly above average performance from the cast who are quite unknown for me. It looked like they had tried very well. From an unbiased viewpoint, what does one expect from a movie like this, and what is there that this movie doesn’t provide? There is no denying the fact that there might not have been this movie without the original, and there are no big surprises added to the same except for some typical Bollywood melodrama. The movie is thrilling, and engaging throughout. My dear cynics, please try to find the positives, and the name of the movie is not Open Sea 2, its Open Water 2, as I have noticed that mistake in some of the reviews, so if you are going to watch the original, please don’t remain misinformed and search for Open Water or Open Water 2: Adrift.

I have never been that much of a fan of Open Water franchise as I was the fan of Jaws and Deep Blue Sea. But Warning surely keeps the common man interested. There can be the typical argument that there is nothing that really happens except for them staying in water for most of the time, and the most probable theory that there is not much added to the original. Well, let me tell you a few things, Zinda was a fine little brother of Oldboy and the Malayalam movie Cocktail was a good twin brother to Butterfly on a Wheel, even as the Prithviraj starrer Anwar couldn’t be a good brother to Traitor even as there is an attempt to create a difference and be a worthy brother. In that case, Warning is a very good brother to Open Water 2: Adrift, and may be the bigger of the two twin brothers. So what should I do more? Should I go to 1579 and get the much needed blessings from Philip Sidney writing An Apology for Poetry and do the same for this movie if and only if this movie doesn’t get the attention as the harbinger of change into Indian movie industry? Or should I be Alexander Pope or John Dryden and cast a web of support poetry for this work which no spider has managed to weave even in its most gigantic form?

May be I shall go back to 1821 and meet Percy Bysshe Shelley instead. Well, lets not deny the fact that the Vampire Bat belongs to all ages, but that age of literature is far gone now, and he is just a nocturnal creature who doesn’t own a time machine. Now he stands before this movie called Warning, which deserved a better first day first show in the multiplexes than just a few people sitting on the corners of the small world of what they called Screen Nine. Did our movie lose out in marketing, I would wonder. No, this doesn’t have adult-rated comments or bed-room scenes which seems to be necessary these days, but it does have guys who remain shirtless, and women in bikinis. Well, the viewers need that, and no wonder Phata Poster Nikhla Hero is having a tough time compared to the movies like Grand Masti. Well, Warning has its own skin show, but none of them desperate enough and thus keeps the adult certificate away. It has a group of good looking people among its cast, and the best thing is that they can act too. I might have missed this one for Elysium which released here on the same day, and I guess I shall end up having watched both.

Gunjan Dutta (Madhurima Tulli), Anshul Chobey (Varun Sharma), Sabina Sanyal (Manjari Fadnis), Aman Puri (Sumit Suri), Taranjit Bakshi (Santosh Barmola), Deepak Sharma (Jitin Gulati) and Jeanine Getaux (Susana Rodrigues) are the seven friends who are having some great moments on a yacht in Fiji as part of a get-together. Deepak is Sabina’s husband and Jeanine is Taran’s girlfriend who remains the eye candy for the group much to the jealousy of Gunjan, and the only married couple has brought their baby daughter Sara with them. As the guys follow the girls into water in the middle of nowhere in the sea, Taran throws Sabina into the sea to get rid of her fear for being in water along with jumping himself, not before pushing the button to lower the stairs into the water. But is then known that his friend had already pushed the button for bringing the stairs down and himself pushing on it has brought it up instead. They are caught in the water with only a dog left on board which also jumps into water as a result of their attempt to catch its attention. Gunjan tries to stand on their shoulders and climb up, and they also try making a rope with their clothes and sending her up, but she falls down to cause injury, the blood bringing the attention of sharks, as the baby cries from the yacht.

The movie’s cast is basically about the seven people who are stranded in water, and even as they are not familiar faces, all of them has performed fine considering the situation which they are up against. Suzana Rodrigues is the undisputed eye candy, and even as Manjari Fadnis seems to be the typical character who gets all the attention, it is Madhurima Tuli who has the more significant roles to perform, along with staying pretty and gorgeous throughout. She looks particularly good with that short hair cut. She is the one who makes the first attempt to safety and she herself is chosen for the next, and it is her who takes that risk of being dead or saving them all just before the final moments of the movie. In many ways, her character is more dynamic than all the others out there, and one might have to say the same thing about beauty. The cinematography is incredibly beautiful and there is the lovely Fiji right before your eyes after what you saw in 3G and Table No. 21. The 3D is also fine even as the need for the same is questioned on some occasions, but there is no question about the beauty of the visual imagery that is generated, as well as on the music and the songs.

So what can we make of the title Warning? There is no real warnings given out in the movie, and so we can conclude that it is more about being warned about those people who shall intentionally give negative reviews about this movie. Warning is a tale of survival which was never tried in Bollywood, and it has to appreciated for the efforts so that some better and original ideas shall come up later. We have approved Go Goa Gone, and it is time we give scope for the other genres which are unknown to this part of the world. This is the time to get rid of the stupid masala action movies, adult comedy entertainers and ridiculous romantic retardness and grow up to variety which needs some imitation in the beginning which can later be developed into original ideas. It is shot in an amazing manner underwater and there is suspense built slowly and steadily, and it has done its duty to the original. Yes, we can blame its predictability, and most of us know the story already, but this movie is a welcome change as well as welcoming change, and if we deny it the right to be a success, we bombard ourselves with typical romantic bullshit, adult comedy and masala action, and in a few years, we will have only ourselves to blame for nonstop nonsense.

Release date: 27th September 2013
Running time: 109 minutes
Directed by: Gurmmeet Singh
Starring: Madhurima Tuli, Manjari Fadnis, Santosh Barmola, Suzana Rodrigues, Varun Sharma, Jitin Gulati, Sumit Suri

@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

Table No. 21

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Tennyson

There are times when one has break the narrative and the flow, and come up with something which he missed in his writing, something which deserved to be there, but faded into the void even before threatening to make an impact. This would need a flashback and some scratching of the memories, and here comes one movie which was left out thinking that it was released in 2012 while remembering the dates from February when this blog was started, but actually the date was 4th January 2013 – but considering how good a movie it is, there is the need for it to be present here, and here I add this one to the middle of the others, almost like inserting the past into the present even as 2013 as a whole could be considered the present. This can be more considered as a guest, or a former tenant who couldn’t stay in the house enough to make it known to the neighbours and the people of the town or village. Well, Table No. 21 is much more than a simple tenant – it is more of an owner of its own genre, something which would be revealed more as we progress. Welcome to the group, forgotten movie – for you are to be remembered in this post with a status as good as the others, as belonging to the present, for you deserve it; this is more of a honorary status.

I am being lenient on this one considering my ignorance which was inflicted upon this so brutally, even as the brutality affects not even Mickey Mouse. The question would be more like how much brutal this movie can be – and how cruel the game master can be. Well, this is about a game, and that much should be certain for everyone who has read something about the movie. The unemployed couple Vivaan (Rajeev Khandelwal) and Siya (Tena Desae) gets a chance to visit Fiji. To add to the glory of visiting the beautiful islands, it is their wedding anniversary. But all the beauty tends to take a wrong turn as they encounter Mr. Khan (Paresh Rawal), the owner of the resort who invites the couple to take part in a live game show named Table No. 21 which offers a breath-taking amount of 10 million Fijian Dollars as the prize money – something which would convert to crores of rupees. The rules are simple – a total of eight questions will be asked regarding their personal life for which they have to answer truthfully with an yes or no, and have to do the task assigned to each question. They are not allowed to quit in the middle of the game, and neither can they skip a question or its related task. Their mobiles are taken away and are surrounded by cameras and henchmen.

The questions first seem very easy to answer and the confidence level reaches new heights for the couple, as if they were made for this game and all their financial needs are soon to be met. Their doubts about this is an idea to make fun of them, slowly vanishes. The first question about their love and the task to kiss in public was of no trouble. The question concerning them knowing each other and the task of Siya eating non-vegetarian is also of not too much difficulty. The question concerning manipulating others and the task of instant manipulation creates no tension even if it leads to slight suspicions which they leave behind thinking about the huge amount of money which awaited them. Then comes the difficult parts, the need for blood which is the first dangerous and life threatening situation of the game, as Vivaan answers he would go to any extent to save his love – the point is that here he has to fight his tendency to faint at seeing blood to save her by filling a bottle full of his blood and use it as a key to unlock a glass cage short of oxygen. Even in an unfamiliar territory, as the need had arisen, the task is completed right in time.

The question of love continues, and the task involves shaving Siya’s head to which they protest, but is brought back into the game by threatening, with the lady ending up with a shaved head. The next question is about domestic violence, and Siya is asked to return a slap she recieved from him with full force, a point when they realize that the master of the game knows more about them than they thought, even the most personal details. The task involving Vivaan vandalizing a random car puts him in trouble as he gets beaten up as well as getting almost caught by police, and what it does worse is when he asks help and thus breaks the rules landing his wife in trouble. He arrives in time to save his wife, but that is not the last of the troubles, as the game goes on, the situation becomes even more strange and horrible, and they realize that their past is being reminded in a horrid manner. But the true realization comes only the end, and it is where the game master is justified and the hidden truth of the past is revealed to the audience. But this revelation never overpowers the thrills and the social message, as the balance is successfully maintained. An another message could be said to be against the greed and never-ending avarice, the desire for easy money and also about the meaninglessness of reality shows.

Parwesh Rawal seems to have the movie working like a flawless machine with his performance as the game master. He is the most hospitable resort owner, the sadistic manipulator and a loving father, three in one. Even as he has the second personality during most of the movie and may be before the horrid twist happens to the game, there is no loss of the power of trio in himself. Rajeev Khandelwal does his character in a rightly truthful manner. There is no exaggeration of the personality and there is nothing unnecessary added to it; the simplicity in complexity attributed to the character is lesser only to that of the game master – he traverses from the inflictor or pain to the vulnerable one at the recieving end. Tena Desae as Siya – has blended in well from the beach, bikinis and love to fear, anxiety and absolute horror. From having a shaved head to being in one of the worst situations for a damsel in distress at a strip club, from the passionate and loyal lover to losing her character and trust, from the photogenic lady in bikini to the oppressor who became the oppressed, it is quite a powerful performance adding to the strength of the film. There is no flat, static character among these, for they have all gone through the much needed changes.

The movie rests on the three, and if we add the next two important characters, the whole suspense would be lost. As the clues, there is the college were these two met and fell in love and there is the case of ragging. There is no loss of intensity in that flashback story too. The bottomline of the movie is its message that ragging is not a joke, but a crime. The title of the movie comes from the article 21, on the protection of life and liberty. The message is as powerful as the movie, and the use of flashbacks has worked perfectly to suit the overall mood of the movie, and the whole game is more or less a recreation of their cruel deeds at the college as the seniors. Even the uneasy silence and the absence of descriptions in the movie makes an impact and the whole setup which leads to one powerful social message is the ultimate triumph of the movie. But, the message is not used as a propaganda. A joke is no joke that causes harm to others and having fun at the expense of others is both a sin and a crime – this is the best way it can be summarized. The injection of reality into unreality in a sincere manner as to create the feeling of truth – it is surely not something many horror movies desire to achieve and not something any popular horror movie has come up with so far.

The greatest advantage of this movie is that it surprises you – right from the beginning to end; almost every moment has a certain amount of unpredictability associated with it, sometimes with the twists of plot and sometimes with the performance of the cast. There are lesser moments when it would seem that this one has lost its gasoline, but then it comes up with an alternative fuel which takes over and makes this one run better. The biggest of the twist comes up with the social message which is the most striking element of the movie and how it is unveiled is a method of slow, step by step ignition leading to the big catastrophe of ultimate success. There was rarely a moment when the movie was not ahead of the audience, creating that element of spooky suspense, and by the end, one comes to know how much ahead it really is, in a world where the suspense horror movies never really got its due – suffering from a typical horror movie rights violation due to some too-natural or never-natural romantic love stories which never really deserved to be called movies; therefore this is your welcome break and not to be missed even for a chance to go to Mars and be imprisoned by the Martians virtually created by the lies of science which people adore and would never cease to believe.

Release date: 4th January 2013
Running time: 108 minutes
Directed by: Aditya Datt
Starring: Paresh Rawal, Tena Desae, Rajeev Khandelwal, Dhruv Ganesh

@ Cemetery Watch
✠The Vampire Bat.

3G

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Tennyson

The Vampire Bat’s desire for horror has been getting stronger and stronger every day. The procedure of watching Murder 3 actually accelerated it to the maximum and therefore 3G was not to be missed. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, The Cabin in the Woods, House at the End of the Street or The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia never came to the theatres here. There was no question of The Woman in Black. For Paranormal Activity 4, they might have had an early heart attack. But unfortunately, Piranha 3DD did arrive as pseudo-horror. The only hope was to adjust with the Resident Evil and the Underworld series as horror even as they could no longer fit into that category. This ridiculous attitude towards horror might be the worst thing about the theatres and malls around here, as they don’t really mind the local language horror movies, not checking if they are any good. At least 3G made it to most of the theatres around here, even if it is no material of Silent Hill quality. The silence of depression which every horror fan faces around here needs to be treated, and therefore, this review is going to be quite lenient – there will be no hard measures taken on this movie and it will be given a free pass in many departments.

“Wherever you go i am there: Gadha Jam” said Mohanlal in the 1989 Malayalam movie Vandanam. Here, it is a mobile phone which says the same. It is an advanced phone for a spirit to try and infect, with touch screen and 3G facility. The movie begins with a guy murdering his girlfriend stabbing her through the right eye right after proposing to her in an abandoned area. Then the screen shifts to a stylish opening credits shown in a very innovative way in the beginning. There is the mention of the billions of phone users in the world. It also talks about the large number of phantom calls which are received worldwide which cannot be traced. Here, these calls are related to spirits of the other world trying to connect to this world. That did sound a little overreaching for me, but that also gave a push both to the expectations and the skepticism. This is the beginning of an ambitious plot and we might be talking more about its ambiguity later, but for now lets get on with it.

The 3rd generation of mobile telecommunications technology makes way for Sheena (Sonal Chauhan) who comes out of the saline water of Fiji in a red bikini; and that much talked-about scene ends with a not-so-happy conversation with her lover Sam (Neil Nitin Mukesh). But all the minute problems are solved as he comes to Fiji to be with her, losing his mobile in the process and initiating the “Kaise Bataaoon” song. There are surely in love, but are always interrupted, first by Sam’s own hallucinations which makes him see demonic faces not only on others, but also as a ghost – something which interferes with their relationship. The second stage makes him near-possessed and almost makes him strangle Sheena in her bath tub and also to take his own life by hanging. Then the spirit seems to take over him completely. To add to it, there is a video of a girl getting murdered inside the phone while strange sights and voices happen on the outside. The attempt to get rid of the phone has already failed, as it came back from being deposited in the sea as well as being broken into pieces. That should have been expected when there are dead people involved.

Neil’s territory is divided into two, one of a passionate lover and the other of the possessed. His performance as the former is never under doubt and the as the latter is incredible at times and okay on the other occasions. One of those moments is when he is seen possessed over the bath tub of his lover and the other when he asks a priest, “Have you forgiven yourself?”. The moments are strange, but effective enough. There is also a scene of bloody murder which is strange, but still powered by his thrilling performance. Sonal has the supporting role, looking gorgeous and playing the character who hesitates to leave her lover despite of the haunting that happens around him and inside his mind. She never looks less than stunning throughout the movie. Her presence here only does the movie good, even though it is surely not for giving a big performance that she is there. I wouldn’t guess that people were expecting something else around here.

This movie is less of a thriller and more of a horror flick, and in that case, this one is far ahead of any of the movies in Bollywood. I would not deny that Murder 2 and Murder 3 were better in wholeness, but the fact remains that 3G better in parts. But, the problem is that this lack of wholeness makes this one inferior to the other two I mentioned. Still, the advantages of 3G includes its ability and its use of that ability to successfully generate the visual and audible fear supported by good use of sound effects & camera, in a much spookier way compared to its predecessors. The creepy environment is successfully created even in the presence of two of the best looking people on the screen, and the attention successfully shifts more to the horror elements than them. The fact that things get kind of absurd and fails to make much sense as a movie with its weaker logic still makes it good in parts. 3G certainly has its moments of horror glory, but there also those of extreme stupidity creating moments of unintentional comedy. This is more of a minor oasis in the desert of romantic comedies and mindless action for the starving horror fans in India.

There was a lot of scope for this movie, but the ghost who tries to be Miss India and a grown-up version of The Ring girl at the same time, along with the fluctuations in the story has left the audience with more to ask for. There is a certain absence of intellect as well as the presence of ambiguity throughout the movie, even as the first half rarely explains anything. The best not-so-hot, not-so-intimate scene in the movie still came in the first half, when our hero is playing a game of car race in a taxi in the mobile and with a crash in the game comes a car crash in real life, as they land in the hospital with the spirit mobile which is left unscratched. Well, watch it for Neil Nitin Mukesh’s depiction of two personalities, the possessed and the unpossessed, the dazzling beauty that is Sonal Chauhan and the interesting concept of horror which hasn’t been tried this effectively in Indian movies. There is also a message against porn in the movie, and the presence of a hidden message against the effect of technology in our lives, especially that of the mobile phones. I hope you can recollect that much remembered scene from The Ring when Samara crawls from the tv and kills Noah with fear. Nobody crawls out of the mobile though, as the ghost is both inside and outside; but keep that in mind.

The need for horror has reached its highest point right now. Unless, the multiplexes and regular theatres do not hesitate to show the bloody movies of International horror standards, there will be no satisfaction for the common horror fan. The movies like 3G, Murder 3 and Table No.21 might serve as satisfactory thrillers or sources of horror which might give a small, but certain amount of relief. If one thinks about Dracula 2012 3D in Malayalam, no lets just leave the literary works alone; for they are to be more classics than just horror and the vampire life would just be like a random Twilight unless the soul of the work makes it way to the screen. Well, how can you reach the heart even when you cut incredibly deep if there is none? How can you influence the brain if it is already frozen and unavailable? 3G doesn’t really appeal to the brain, but for the heart, it is another story. It won’t really matter how this one would turn out to be, but there will be no stopping the horror genre. If the best horror movies are brought to the theatres, that would be incredibly satisfying, or otherwise there is 3G.

Release date: 15th March 2013
Running time: 120 minutes (estimate)
Directed by: Sheershak Anand-Shantanu Ray Chibber
Starring: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Sonal Chauhan, Mrinalini Sharma, Asheesh Kapur