Obese Anil Kapoor redeems film on Hindu-Christian amity By Subhash K. Jha, Indo-Asian News Service (byline mandatory)
"Badhaai Ho Badhaai". Starring Anil Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty, Keerthi Reddy, Amrish Puri, K. Vishwanath, Farida Jalal and Kader Khan. Directed by Satish Kaushik. There's a thin Anil Kapoor and a fat Anil Kapoor, and the twain do meet in Satish Kaushik's comedy about love sunshine and music, though not necessarily the melodious kind. Most of Kaushik's directorial ventures have been faithful adaptations of Tamil-Telugu blockbusters. "Badhaai Ho Badhaai" is no exception. It adheres to the original in most details and emerges with a frothy fun fare that tries to make a statement on two critical issues: communalism and obesity. But Kaushik's views on Hindu-Christian amity suffer from flabbiness. Fortunately the episode about an overweight Raja losing his girth for love is bracing and absorbing. In the first-half, Raja arrives in a crowded middle-class neighbourhood, which is recreated with a superb eye for detail by cinematographer Rajeev Jain and art director Sharmisha Roy, to stop the hatred between two neighbouring families. The Chaddas and the d'Souzas, we are told in swift flashbacks, began to detest one another when their progenies eloped and got married. The idea of an incorrigible do-gooder bringing peace is as familiar to mainstream Hindi cinema as Rajesh Khanna, Anil and Hrithik Roshan. All three stars have played the domestic saviour in one or more films. But in "Badhaai Ho Badhaai", Anil overdoes the sweetness. Fat or thin, Raja is determined to spread the full-cream milk of human kindness. For a long while Kaushik's narrative functions as a relay race. To make sure nobody feels left out, Raja does everything in twos. If the matriarch from the Chaddha family, played by Farida Jalal, gets a smile, so does the one in the d'Souza family, enacted by Rohini Rattangadi. After a while we begin to feel we're watching a well-orchestrated propaganda film on communal harmony. The second half where we go into a flashback with a fat Anil has some wonderful moments. The growing bond between the obese Raja and the screechy feather-brained unfocussed Florence, played by Keerthi Reddy, makes us wonder if the director's own battle with the bulge inspired this section of the narrative. Anil plays the fat man with padded compassion. In scenes of romantic dejection the actor returns to his two old favourites, Raj Kapoor and Kamal Haasan, to play the Chaplinesque loser with podgy poignancy, a highlight of the film. The director also extracts chuckles at the two warring clans' expense. But like all of Kaushik's remakes, this one too suffers from congenital crowdedness. Characters spill out of every nook and cranny. The neighbourhood, though well conceived, is infested with overdone oddballs. Only Kader Khan shines as a screechy classical singer who has everybody running for cover. Some songs, especially "Raag banke", done in the neo-classical style of Girish Karnad's Utsav, have been imaginatively filmed against picturesque backdrops. The biggest draw is the wonderful visual aesthetics. Kaushik avoids studio sets to take us into an outdoor freedom denied to most mainstream Hindi films. But he messes up an otherwise cute entertainer with an over-the-top climax where the two warring families run with guns to a lonely spots for a desi equivalent of a duel under the sun. Tact and subtlety aren't the highlights of this film. Though the story is about a Hindu and Christian family at war, Anil's climactic speech seems to be targeted more at Hindu-Muslim tension in India. The vastly gifted supporting cast plays its clichéd parts with stereotypical proficiency. Among the two leading ladies, after two consecutive flops in Hindi, Keerthi as the self-seeking Christian girl proves third-time lucky. She has been dressed and projected very well. Shilpa Shetty as a loud aggressive Punjabi woman masquerading as Anil's wife is a nightmarish synthesis of Kajol in "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham" and Sridevi in her best films. --Indo-Asian News Service =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-W-E-B---S-I-T-E-=-=- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet | http://www.goacom.com/goanet ================================================================== For (un)subscribing or for help, Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dont want so many e=mails? Join GoaNet-Digest instead ! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Help support non-commercial projects in Goa by advertizing!! * * * * Your ad here !!
