note: spoilers galore....
let me, as i often do when writing reviews, be brutally honest.....i went in to watch deewangee with no expectations....none, zippo, zilch, nada.....the sole reason i decided to waste 3 hrs. of my time on the film was coz of the actors......two of hindi cinema's most under-rated leading men who on any given day can act the pants off most of the so-called superstars and heartthrobs.....so imagine my complete and utter shock when i found out that deewangee was actually worth watching for reasons other than it's lead actors......i'm still picking my jaw off the floor as i write.......
the story of deewangee (and i'm being generous with the terminology) is a convoluted mix of primal fear (richard gere and the very yummy ed norton), darr (srkkkkkiran) and every other lop-sided love triangle you can think of with real-life references to the late music czar gulshan kumar who before he was brutally killed was the baby-faced genius who turned t-series into a big player in the music industry....
hotshot lawyer raj goyal stakes his name on the line when he successfully defends a young music teacher for a charge of murder...only to find that his naive client isn't what he thought he was.......and of course coz this is a hindi movie.....there's a pretty young lady involved......
but what deewangee lacks in originality it makes for in style and surprisingly even substance.....the director anees bazmee....is no genius but he does know that the key to a pulling off a film like this is to keep it moving...and try to surprise your audience while you're at it.......which is something he does manage to do consistently......i was also surprised at the look of the film.....it was not ground-breaking or even different....but it was smooth and polished and managed to walk the blurry line between tackiness (see humraaz sets for tackiness galore) and lavish displays of "elegance" (k3g)........not an easy thing to do in bollywood.......
bazmee also peoples his script with some tremendous actors who with their mere presence add a weight and a credibility that was missing from the similarly themed humraaz......seema biswas, farida jalal, suhasini mulay, suresh oberoi and to a lesser extent tanaz currim and tiku talsania....all belong to that rare category of bollywood supporting actors who can actually......dare i say it......act......and none of them disappoint in the film.....each takes their brief roles and makes them more meaningful and multi-dimensional than the script ever intended for them to be.....on a side note.....am i the only one who thought that seema biswas given half a chance can be one heck of a pretty lady?
but deewangee really gets it's gold star rating for it's lead performers and their performances......
urmila matondkar will never be mistaken for a shabana azmi or even a tabu......but she can do what bollywood has increasingly reduced it's female leads to in the 90s.....look really pretty, dance really well, generate chemistry with a telephone pole if she has to and occasionally flail her arms and play damsel in distress while waiting for hunky hero to save her.......all of which she does satisfactorily.......
akshaye khanna seems to be finally living upto all the promise he showed in border......the actor who took a self-imposed hiatus for almost three years coz of the sheer stupidity of the scripts being offered to him.......has now with deewangee, in the last year and a half three fairly intelligent films (one - dch - was downright brilliant) to his credit in all of which he has turned in an excellent even award-worthy performance.......he's an ideal pick for a multi-hero film like this coz he is one of the few actors in bollywood who is a giving actor.....by which i mean he has enough acting chops to both share the screen with another powerful actor or command the screen on his own.....khanna has the more conventional knight in shining armour role in the film.....but he gives it his all and is equally convincing while being empathetic to a naive client, testing his psychopathic foe's limits and romancing urmila in the alps......on another side note - i have half a mind to personally go and burn down those bloody mountains - the way indian filmmakers have embraced switzerland - it's like they all have dual citizenship or something - either that or they all have yash chopra alter egos...which is a very scary thought
this is my third review in succession of a film with ajay devgan as it's lead .....and i'm fast running out of words that aptly describe the level of his skill and subtlety as an actor......but he is shaping up to be one of those actors who are a genuine pleasure to watch regardless of the film they are in or the role they are portraying.....devgan gets the more showy role and as is his wont - embraces the role with a vengeance....he's excellent as the shrewd now i have a split personality-now i don't tarang.......his transformation from one personality to the other is genuinely chilling and yet he manages to be likable enough so much so that in his final scenes......i actually felt sorry for the brute......it's nowhere near the virtuosity of company or tlobs.......but it's miles ahead of the normal nonsense we get served up as acting on a regular basis.......
on every other level deewangee inhabits the kind of mediocrity i initially expected from the film......it's songs, choreography, dialogue, cinematograhpy even it's direction are all just about okay.....not bad but not great either.....but deewangee never aimed to be a masterpiece.....it was meant to be a commercial who-dunnit......the kind that bollywood can and does churn out on a regular basis but not the kind that will rewrite cinematic history......it does achieve it's modest goal and in devgan and khanna.......actually comes close to being something even better.......but not quite........
final rating - 5/10 - a smart reworking of a been-there done that plot with some fine acting.....that's about it
let me, as i often do when writing reviews, be brutally honest.....i went in to watch deewangee with no expectations....none, zippo, zilch, nada.....the sole reason i decided to waste 3 hrs. of my time on the film was coz of the actors......two of hindi cinema's most under-rated leading men who on any given day can act the pants off most of the so-called superstars and heartthrobs.....so imagine my complete and utter shock when i found out that deewangee was actually worth watching for reasons other than it's lead actors......i'm still picking my jaw off the floor as i write.......
the story of deewangee (and i'm being generous with the terminology) is a convoluted mix of primal fear (richard gere and the very yummy ed norton), darr (srkkkkkiran) and every other lop-sided love triangle you can think of with real-life references to the late music czar gulshan kumar who before he was brutally killed was the baby-faced genius who turned t-series into a big player in the music industry....
hotshot lawyer raj goyal stakes his name on the line when he successfully defends a young music teacher for a charge of murder...only to find that his naive client isn't what he thought he was.......and of course coz this is a hindi movie.....there's a pretty young lady involved......
but what deewangee lacks in originality it makes for in style and surprisingly even substance.....the director anees bazmee....is no genius but he does know that the key to a pulling off a film like this is to keep it moving...and try to surprise your audience while you're at it.......which is something he does manage to do consistently......i was also surprised at the look of the film.....it was not ground-breaking or even different....but it was smooth and polished and managed to walk the blurry line between tackiness (see humraaz sets for tackiness galore) and lavish displays of "elegance" (k3g)........not an easy thing to do in bollywood.......
bazmee also peoples his script with some tremendous actors who with their mere presence add a weight and a credibility that was missing from the similarly themed humraaz......seema biswas, farida jalal, suhasini mulay, suresh oberoi and to a lesser extent tanaz currim and tiku talsania....all belong to that rare category of bollywood supporting actors who can actually......dare i say it......act......and none of them disappoint in the film.....each takes their brief roles and makes them more meaningful and multi-dimensional than the script ever intended for them to be.....on a side note.....am i the only one who thought that seema biswas given half a chance can be one heck of a pretty lady?
but deewangee really gets it's gold star rating for it's lead performers and their performances......
urmila matondkar will never be mistaken for a shabana azmi or even a tabu......but she can do what bollywood has increasingly reduced it's female leads to in the 90s.....look really pretty, dance really well, generate chemistry with a telephone pole if she has to and occasionally flail her arms and play damsel in distress while waiting for hunky hero to save her.......all of which she does satisfactorily.......
akshaye khanna seems to be finally living upto all the promise he showed in border......the actor who took a self-imposed hiatus for almost three years coz of the sheer stupidity of the scripts being offered to him.......has now with deewangee, in the last year and a half three fairly intelligent films (one - dch - was downright brilliant) to his credit in all of which he has turned in an excellent even award-worthy performance.......he's an ideal pick for a multi-hero film like this coz he is one of the few actors in bollywood who is a giving actor.....by which i mean he has enough acting chops to both share the screen with another powerful actor or command the screen on his own.....khanna has the more conventional knight in shining armour role in the film.....but he gives it his all and is equally convincing while being empathetic to a naive client, testing his psychopathic foe's limits and romancing urmila in the alps......on another side note - i have half a mind to personally go and burn down those bloody mountains - the way indian filmmakers have embraced switzerland - it's like they all have dual citizenship or something - either that or they all have yash chopra alter egos...which is a very scary thought
this is my third review in succession of a film with ajay devgan as it's lead .....and i'm fast running out of words that aptly describe the level of his skill and subtlety as an actor......but he is shaping up to be one of those actors who are a genuine pleasure to watch regardless of the film they are in or the role they are portraying.....devgan gets the more showy role and as is his wont - embraces the role with a vengeance....he's excellent as the shrewd now i have a split personality-now i don't tarang.......his transformation from one personality to the other is genuinely chilling and yet he manages to be likable enough so much so that in his final scenes......i actually felt sorry for the brute......it's nowhere near the virtuosity of company or tlobs.......but it's miles ahead of the normal nonsense we get served up as acting on a regular basis.......
on every other level deewangee inhabits the kind of mediocrity i initially expected from the film......it's songs, choreography, dialogue, cinematograhpy even it's direction are all just about okay.....not bad but not great either.....but deewangee never aimed to be a masterpiece.....it was meant to be a commercial who-dunnit......the kind that bollywood can and does churn out on a regular basis but not the kind that will rewrite cinematic history......it does achieve it's modest goal and in devgan and khanna.......actually comes close to being something even better.......but not quite........
final rating - 5/10 - a smart reworking of a been-there done that plot with some fine acting.....that's about it