Holly&Bolly New

Watched Crazy, the latest movie by Sohum Shah, one of the decent voices in Hindi cinema today. This was presented as “a movie by the makers of Tumbbad” – a clever marketing tool, even when the world depicted here is entirely different. A swanky surgeon driving around in the famous and notorious, traffic-laden metropolis.

The film is an interesting experiment – and as long it had stuck to this experimental feel and played along with this “tag” till the end of the film, it could have worked well. It keeps the interest going with a bizarre single-character-on-screen-protagonist angle.

It relies on the situation a surgeon unexpectedly finds himself embroiled in. His plan is to deliver a bag full of cash as an out-of-court settlement for negligence that cost someone their life, but his directions, quite literally, keep changing per the demands of the callers and the extraordinary situations he keeps running in. The plot moves forward through phone calls of important characters (played by known, refined actors). What we only see on the screen are reactions by an in-form Sohum Shah driving around Gurgaon. Being a resident of NCR, though, I couldn’t help but wonder where exactly he needs to go. The locations keep jumping between Cyber Hub, Sona Road and some vacant highways leading to nowhere. Anyways, not much to complain because the story’s not too. It’s never exhilarating, but the interest never dips.

Some portions are genuinely good and tense, and you feel for the character when he keeps juggling between the kidnapper’s demand for money and guiding his subordinate in his first surgical operation. But the climax is a downer. Maybe the filmmakers thought an emotionally-charged “red herring” was the perfect end, but the sappy treatment comes across as dishonest after all the build up. The film manipulates you into believing it’s all leading to a revelation. The end doesn’t move you, and while the film could have scaled great heights after answering questions we had all along in our mind (Why did they do it? What was the motivation? Is one of the ladies involved?), it simply disregards and brushes them away with a convenient one.

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The last scene of Superboys of Malegaon, when a teary-eyed Shafique, played by the brilliant Shashank Arora, watches his on-screen character being propelled into space, is sheer movie magic. He is overwhelmed and grateful when he exchanges glances with the director, as the other cast and crew members focus their attention not on the screen but on Shafique’s expression. They’re as happy for him as he is.

The members of the audience, instead, have their eyes glued to the screen in wonderment, delighted and proud that such cinema birthed in a place plagued with poverty and everyday struggles.

But Superboys of Malegaon is not merely a tale of the realisation of dreams amidst hardships and limited resources. It is a striking commentary of one-upmanship between commerce and art, between originality and inspiration, and how one defines what is trashy and what is sophisticated. Above all, at its core, it’s a delightful and heartwarming story of friendship despite misunderstandings and at times selfish ambitions (the staple in Excel productions films).

Thank you for this, cinematic gift, Reema Kagti, and to the actors for making it so special. Above all, to the brilliant artists of the Malegaon films.

above all, SOM is an ode to the magic of cinema and its therapeutic power to alleviate pain, suffering, and the struggle called life.

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Adolescence (limited TV series) tells the shocking story of a 13-year-old who is arrested on charges of murder of his female classmate. While he vehemently denies the allegation, there is the irrefutable evidence of a tape where he is caught knifing the girl. How this event impacts the lives of everyone involved with the case (his classmates and teachers, the investigating officers, and most of all, his family) forms the rest of the story.