Review: Ishkq in Paris

Direction: Prem Soni
Cast: Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek, Isabelle Adjani
Rating: **

Consider the scenario. Boy sees girl on train, checks her out, comments on her clothes and then introduces himself with a smartass line: “A-cash; cash with an A” (Akash, really; Rhehan Malliek). Under normal circumstances, that would earn a rebuff. But the girl smiles and introduces herself with an equally ridiculous “I-s-h-k-q” (Preity Zinta).  Dear lord, they must be made for each other.  

Of course, had that realisation dawned on them so quickly, there would be no movie. There would also be no need for the screenplay to blatantly borrow the basic plot idea from Before Sunrise (1995) for its entire first half.

Instead, they agree to “spend the night” together in Paris and never meet each other again. It would sound absurd, but original, if you hadn’t seen the Ethan Hawke-Julie Delpy starrer where they too meet on a train and agree to spend one night in Vienna.

Of course, the borrowed plot is cooked with a generous dosage of Bollywood spices. So you must suffer clichés like a Paris full of French people who speak Hindi; and a heroine whose jackets are heavy but hemlines ridiculously short. This is the sort of Bollywood romance that used to set the box office on fire back in the 2000s. Producer-actor Zinta is on familiar territory, for she herself has starred in some of them. But alas, the formula is old, and this one has no Shah Rukh Khan to spread his arms out wide and save the day.

To be fair, Malliek isn’t a bad actor. But a film like this requires a star. And though another Khan – Salman – pitches in with an ‘item number’, that may not be enough. Meanwhile, Oscar-nominated French actress Isabelle Adjani is wasted as Ishkq’s mother, and speaks a dubbed Hindi that’s thoroughly unconvincing.

However, the film deserves points for production value. Paris is a cinematographer’s dream, and one never really gets tired of time-lapse shots of the evening sky around the Eiffel Tower, or the cobbled streets.

The film might get you to do two things – plan a French holiday; or pull out a particular old DVD. Somehow, one doubts that Ishkq in Paris is trying to achieve either.

-Sarit Ray 

Review originally published in hindustantimes.com (Click here to see) 

Review: Aurangzeb

Direction: Atul Sabharwal
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Sasheh Agha, Prithviraj
Rating: **

Back in the ’60s – when classics like Hum Dono (1961) and Ram Aur Shyam (1967) were made – it must have been a thrilling experience for moviegoers to see an actor face his other self on screen. But that technological trick provides no spectacle in an age where 3D is as familiar as a tub of popcorn. To then make the double role the focal point of a film requires either a reversal of clichés, or a mind-blowing story. Unfortunately, Aurangzeb provides neither. Instead, debutant director Atul Sabharwal invests too much time and too many characters to build intrigue through the first half. In the second, the overburdened story meanders and comes apart even as bullet-riddled characters sputter, cough and die after showing remarkable lack of survival instinct.

The setting is the real estate jungle of Gurgaon. A family of corrupt police officers wants to bring down a family of gangsters who are in collusion with politicians and builders. Nothing you wouldn’t believe. Until a hushed-up past comes to the fore and brings an unlikely coincidence – the gangster Yashwardhan’s (Jackie Shroff) son, Ajay, and the lookalike Vishal (both Arjun Kapoor). It does not take much convincing, or much prep apparently, for the small-town boy from Nainital to replace the gun-toting, coke-snorting (so we’re told) wild child.

The film’s title might have led you to expect a deliciously etched Machiavellian protagonist. Instead, the central character suffers from clichés – of character and circumstances – rendering him predictable. Arjun, however, holds his own. Never-been-styled hair notwithstanding (the script excuses only one lookalike from a salon visit), the one-film-old boy can emote. That, in the end, his two characters aren’t distinct enough is more the script’s limitation, less his.

The character that rises beyond expectations is that of DCP Ravikant (Rishi Kapoor). Kapoor is the pick of the performers, playing the unflinchingly self-serving top cop who is, not surprisingly, a man of power in lawless Gurgaon.  

In a typical, unfortunate nod to old-school Bollywood, the women have little or no voice. They swim in bikinis and gyrate to seduce the hero and the audience, or play scheming home wreckers.  

Meanwhile, characters die foolishly, not before mouthing tiresome one-liners. At one point, a Mexican standoff in a room full of real-estate investors tries to be earnest but looks caricature-ish. The film has that in common with the set piece it ruins. It lasts till the bullets are over.  And we’re not hoping for a reload.  

-Sarit Ray

Review originally published in hindustantimes.com (Click here to see)