Girl unplugged

Rani Mukerji in Mardaani

If Ajay Devgn’s Singham Returns impressed with his tough cop act on the Independence day weekend, the follow up act —Mardaani —made for a riveting watch too. With Rani Mukerji playing the lead, a stellar performance was somewhat expected, but the high octane action scenes with Mukerji in the combat mode were a thrilling surprise.
Let’s face it, action films usually fall outside the comfort zone of most female actors and even when they do sign up for it, more often than not, they seem rather unconvincing. Before Mukerji, Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra were among the few leading ladies to have pulled off action scenes with elan. Mukerji has just joined the gang, but with distinction. The box-office collections although tepid on Friday, are reported to have jumped up significantly and from the signs, the positive word-of- mouth is likely to shore up its profits over the next week. That’s seriously good news for Mukerji in particular and actresses in general. For the longest while, the industry has believed that only films with top drawer male stars have the mass appeal, necessary for a hit.
With a bunch of heroine dominated films finding their way to theaters in quick succession, slowly but surely, change has been set in motion. Let’s face it, in hundred years of cinema, the number of films top-lined by heroines were too few and far between to create a critical mass (of films) in their favour. In the movie business, majority of the films that are made do not work but the handful that do, compensate for the the rest. Factually there are more films with male actors playing the lead. By that count, a majority of the films that did not work starred male actors, but equally almost all of them that did, were big hits also starred male actors. Successful films with female protagonists were rare, giving rise to the notion that in some way it was the presence of woman as the main star that was responsible for low collections! The misconception, over the years, gained ground and began to be passed off as a business truth till the likes of Ekta Kapoor put it to test and came away with remarkably different results. Even today, it’s not as though all heroine centric films are successful, box-office wise, but with more such films being made, the tide is likely to turn in favour of female actors sooner than later. Mardaani’s well being at the box- office would be one more crucial link in that evolution.

Genius act

And when speaking of female actors, that most abhorred yet widely believed matter of actresses being as ditzy as blondes, is finally out of the closet! Among the most refreshing things that virtual world has thrown up recently is young director Shakun Batra’s video titled Genius of the Year starring none other than Alia Bhatt, with her replies on Koffee With Karan, that has proved to be an instant hit on the internet.
Bhatt, the butt of several jokes given her limited knowledge on certain subjects outside the filmi domain had been at the receiving end of jibes from Twitter trolls for sometime now. Quite evidently Bhatt is a fast rising actress with a genuine sense of humour as is evident in this sketch that also stars mentor Karan Johar, co-stars Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra and the Bhatt family. A priceless shot shows the actress stepping into a brain gym. A signboard somewhere reads “No pain, no brains” and what follows is delightfully humorous, with papa Bhatt joining in. Does it actually end with Alia becoming genius of the year?
Well, I would say that this one is a Must-watch.