New Releases

A few sixes
Film: 99
Director:Krishna DK,Raj Nidimoru
Cast: Kunal Khemu,Soha Ali Khan,Boman Irani,Simone Singh,MaheshManjrekar,Vinod Khanna,Cyrus Broacha,Shabbir Ahluwalia,Suchitra Pillai,Varun Badola
Showing at: BIG Cinemas Chinchwad,E-Square,INOX,Victory E-Square,Vishal E-Square,City Pride Kothrud,City Pride Satara Road,Fame Jaiganesh Pune (Akurdi),Mangala cinema,Rahul,Westend Cinema
A BUNCH of losers tracking their way to success,via a turn-of-the-millennium tale set in New Delhi and Mumbai,passing through a ‘bhai’ and his henchmen,a short fixer and his tall bodyguard,a gambling tycoon and match-fixing deals: 99 brings together this motley group,all on the verge of 99,just waiting for that elusive century,and delivers us from the prolonged
Bollywood famine at the multiplexes. But maybe it’s too early to rejoice. Because 99,directed by the duo,Raj Nidimoru,Krishna DK,who gave us the delightful NRI romcom Flavours (catch it on a movie channel if you missed the release in 2003),is not half as funny as it makes itself out to be. And that’s sad,because it had the potential to go over big. Two Mumbai-based good-hearted crooks (Kunal Khemu,Cyrus Broacha) who run a small but flourishing business in fake SIM cards, and who are forced into working for an oily loan shark (Mahesh Manjrekar) land in Delhi to recover a bad loan from an inveterate better and incorrigible liar (Boman Irani). The film opens in 1999,and slips over into 2000 (the match-fixing scandal was the biggest thing on broadsheets and news channels those days). It was also the beginning of India’s mobile revolution. Which gives the directors a perfect excuse to string together a series of macho cell-phone jokes (if you keep it on the ear,it gives you a tumour,if you it keep in your shirt pocket,your heart is in danger,and if you keep it in your pant pocket,then,well,ahem; the only female who’s shown using a cell holds it aloft gingerly). By its third usage,it’s no longer a joke. Except for a couple of hilarious sequences where the pace is just right,and a few sharp character strokes (the Bhojpuri actor who’s also in debt is a hoot),99 takes too long to get where it’s going.
Khemu comes off alright,though he’s been doing similar stuff. So does Boman. But the film wastes,criminally,the sharp comic talent of Cyrus,who’s made to wear a fat suit and appear fat in the head and rush in and out of the loo all through. And Vinod Khanna,as dishy as ever,vanishes too soon. Net net,99 stays content with a few fours and a couple of rollicking sixes,but doesn’t hit a ton.

Killer Epidemic
Film: Doomsday
Director:Neil Marshall
Cast: Caryn Peterson,Adeola Ariyo,Emma Cleasby,Christine Tomlinson,Vernon Willemse,Paul Hyett,Daniel Read,Karl Thaning,Stephen Hughes,Jason Cope,Ryan Kruger
Showing at: E-Square,INOX,City Pride Kothrud
IF you’re hungry,here’s a piece of your friend,” snarls a jailer in the post-apocalyptic action picture Doomsday,sliding a plateful of charbroiled man-flesh to a captive.
If that line fails to make the film’s midnight-movie ambitions clear,the British writer and director Neil Marshall offers many other clues: hands,legs and heads lopped off in bloody close-ups; a nonstop soundtrack of adrenaline-stoking rock ‘n’ roll; a shot of a cute little bunny blasted into rabbit stew by a remote-controlled sentry cannon.
Doomsday is set in the near future,years after the British government quarantined a plague-ravaged Scotland and let its inhabitants die out.
The decision is believed to have killed the disease along with the Scottish population,but when it surfaces in London,officials reveal that a hardy band of Glasgow inhabitants survived the epidemic and might hold clues to a cure.
Doomsday has an appealing punk-rock sneer,but aside from a few clever music cues-including a Fine Young Cannibals song that accompanies a deranged bacchanal given by fine young cannibals-swagger is,unfortunately,its only notable quality.
Marshall gained a cult following with his 2002 debut feature,Dog Soldiers,about British troops menaced by werewolves in the Scottish highlands,and acquired serious (and well-deserved) critical respect for his 2005 film,The Descent. In terms of story,The Descent and Doomsday are as different as two genre films can be,but the falloff in artistic quality is still quantifiable. Homage without innovation isn’t homage; it’s karaoke.

MATT ZOLLER SEITZ/NYT

Childish
Film: Suno Na,Ek Nanhi Awaaz
Director: Amy Thanawala
Cast: Tara Sharma
Showing at: Apollo,Ratan cinema
AN unwed mother facing all odds to bring her baby into the world : that,in a nutshell,is the story of Suno Na,Ek Nanhi Awaaz.
Anupama (Tara Sharma) moves in with spunky gal pal Raina (Rinku Patel) after the boyfriend dumps her,and the parents disown her. The men she meets covet her at first,and then,discovering that she’s pregnant,make nasty comments about girls and loose morals,and then,predictably,one of them falls for her.
Amy Thanawala’s debutant feature has very little going for it. Even it’s airy display of a gay couple (two young fellows who openly live together),and it’s bandying about hip phrases like ‘our pregnancy’ and Lamaze classes,is banal. Sharma’s pleasant persona is drowned by her one-track delivery and the baby-who-talks-from-the-womb,clearly inspired by the Look Who’s Talking movies,is a major irritant. There’s a bit of Nine Months,and Kya Kehna,which had a much more glamorous Preity Zinta essay a similar role,in here too. But go on,we’ll spare you.