Jannat & Woodstock Villa

The Bhatt brothers have been carefully cultivating Emraan Hashmi’s screen persona in a style and mould reminiscent of ambitious underdog characters like Vijay (AB) and Rahul (SRK). They have been successful in this. On the other hand, we have a shoddy film like Woodstock Villa that may launch Sikandar Kher into obscurity if he does not have a strong re-launch vehicle parked nearby.

Emraan Hashmi’s Jannat has a central premise that works well with film audiences. It is the story of a lower middle class guy who pursues two cherished goals in life – making a lot of money, and winning over the girl he loves – with chutzpah, a gambler’s guts, and impulsive madness. He makes his money, whichever way he can, and even gets the girl by lying to her about the kind of work he does, without realizing the true depth of her love. She loves him so much that she gets him arrested and imprisoned to wean him away from the path of crime.  She even performs dances in bars to survive while he is in jail, waiting for him to return after completing his prison term. He gets out early with the help of his mafia friends, looks for the girl, finds her performing floor shows in a bar, confronts her to learn that her act of betrayal was an expression of her deep and true love for him. All she wanted was for him to lead a clean life. He tries to reform, but all goes in vain as he is lured back into the world of crime.  He thinks it will be his last gamble and he will be able to live his life king-size after that. Things go horribly wrong and he dies in a shoot-out.

It is a well-cast, characterized, and enacted story. It has songs that fit in well with the narrative. It could have been directed better though. Had this premise not been polluted by all kinds of stolen and badly adapted and contrived sub-plots from a Hollywood film, Jannat would have been an artistic success as well. After having read Raja Sen’s review at rediff.com that mentions ‘Two for the Money’, an Al Pacino movie, as the real inspiration behind Jannat, I read the original script at Scriptorama. The entire betting and match-fixing track of Jannat is obviously inspired by it. Thankfully, the love story remains the dominant theme and saves the film from turning into a huge disaster.

It is a typical Bollywood phenomenon, turning gold into gobar (bullshit). Our film fakers invariably miss the critical story-telling elements of good offshore films while lifting scenes and tracks from them. ‘Two for the Money’ is a good and relatable film about sports-betting and a valuable cinematic study of the working of a gambler’s mind. Had the scriptwriter of Jannat used and incorporated these ideas judiciously, it would have beautifully complimented the film’s script. However, he adapts these badly and turns the plausible into the implausible and improbable, and gold ka gobar kar deta hai. It happens all the time with almost all our copycat film writers, with a few exceptions. 

This is a kind of a bad addiction, developing instant scripts, by abusing and mutilating Hollywood material. And just the way an addict sells stolen precious gems cheaply to buy his highs, the Bhatt brothers land up selling a potential blockbuster to Percept Picture Company for almost nothing. Why? That is a thief’s mindset at work, maal-e-muft, dil-e-beraham. They were unsure, lacked the courage of conviction in their work, and thus decided to get out of the game with whatever little money they could make. And what is on their mind when they launch a new project? Is it making a great film? Nah. They just believe in instant scripts, instant films, and instant money.

Now, let us move over to Woodstock Villa, a definite box office dud. You cannot sit through the film howsoever inveterate a film buff you are. Who is the director of the film? Hansal Mehta or Sanjay Gupta? Or may be both the guys are the same with two names, going by the jerky editing, bizarre shot compositions, and color tones of the film - all hallmarks of Sanjay Gupta’s school of stylized film faking. Who are the dialogue writers? They must have a crash course in Hindi writing. Or did they assume that none would hear the dialogues amidst watching all those close-ups, and stylized frames of the film? And who wrote the screenplay? Must be a guy who came out of a long hibernation, unaware that the world has seen enough of triangular passion and crime yarns around degenerate characters. 

However, the biggest question is why did this son of illustrious parents like Anupam and Kiran Kher and a guy who has shared the same crib as Abhishek Bachhan chose to do this boring and bad film? Did Sikandar Kher read the script? If he did, what possibilities did he see in it from his role’s perspective? He would have asked his parents to read the script as well and taken their opinion before saying yes to the film. He is not a young struggler from a small town who has to take all the offers that come his way to survive in the tough business of cinema.

So, he did the film because Sanjay Dutt opted out of it. All right. Will he take some trouble now and analyze his work without being swayed by Nikhat’s and Raja Sen’s almost sycophantic reviews? He should also do some self-study. What does he want to become, a clone of Abhishek or Big B or a serious professional actor in his own right? Does he think his looks will be good enough to take him to the pinnacle of glory? He should be into modeling then.

Why are our actors averse to working on themselves, and honing their skills? Why are they so careless about their craft? They should read scripts and plays, watch films, and learn to define and develop their roles. They should work on their language and speech. They invariably pick up bad traits, mannerisms, and attitudes even before they become stars. Why don’t they realize that a producer is not interested in their talent development? It is not his concern. They have to work on it. And there is more to acting than building five-pack abs in a gym and blatant hamming.

RKS