FILM REVIEW

That’s one of the funnier parts of this film, which mines its familiar territory for small laughs. Vinay Pathak plays an office-goer whose prime wish is to become a millionaire, by pushing a money-spinning scheme on unwilling individuals. Loving wife Divya Dutta is all for him, even when he fumbles.

Howdunnit
Movie Name: Maharathi
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Neha Dhupia
Directed by:Shivam Nair
Showing at:City Pride Kothrud, City Pride Satara Road, E-Square, Fame Akurdi, and INOX

Based on Paresh Rawal’s play of the same name,

Maharathi presents a howdunnit: there’s a body in the deep freeze, and we all know the manner in which it ended up there, but the cops don’t. Alcoholic film producer (Naseeruddin Shah) puts a gun to his head, much to the consternation of his gold-digger of a wife (Neha Dhupia). Driver-cum-general dogsbody (Paresh Rawal) is present when the bullet finds a head, and the plush Persian carpet turns into a pool of blood. The body is stashed in an old-fashioned large deep freeze, with the intention of claiming crores from a couple of sources— a will, or a huge insurance policy, depending on whether it is deemed a suicide or a murder.

Shivam Nair’s second directorial venture, after his romantic Ahista Ahista, is a completely different film, reminding you of the classic closed-door murder mysteries of yore. It’s a wonderful cast, and they all do their job well, but what’s missing from Maharathi is that crucial sense of danger. Crimes of passion need edge, and Maharathi doesn’t have any.

Sex talk
Movie Name:Dil Kabaddi
Directed by:Anil Senior
Cast:Rahul Bose, Irfaan Khan, Soha Ali Khan, Rahul Khanna
Showing at:City Pride Kothrud, City Pride Satara Road, E-Square, Fame Akurdi and INOX

Spanking. Whips. Masks. The only thing missing is handcuffs. Or maybe they got shoved under the jumble of sheets on the bed, during the strenuous activity thereon?

Dil Kabbadi tells you Everything You Wanted To Know About An Urban Marriage But Were Too Petrified To Ask: four years down the line, boredom sets in, and there are enough men (and women) out there who are itching to romp, regardless of marital vows. Fidelity, what’s that?

Meet Samit (Irrfan Khan) and Mita (Soha Ali Khan), who turn the constant sniping into separation. Their best friends Rishi (Rahul Bose) and Simi (Konkona Sensharma) are at a similar pass, but they don’t know it. Mita’s too intellectual, declares Samit, and clutches the willing bosom of yoga instructor Kaya (Payal Rohatgi). Rishi, who teaches nubile young ladies the art of writing, starts coming on to a kohl-eyed, sexy student (Saba Azad). Your script is so wonderful, he says.

Samit is too bored, Mita is too fond of art movies, Rishi is too pliant, and Simi is too passive-aggressive. Even the bit players are excessive: Kaya is too into soups and salads, and screaming, and Veer (Rahul Khanna) is too much of a wuss to do anything. In the beginning, it’s all quite amusing: we know people like this, and yeah, marriages can turn into dull swamps where the only excitement seems to come from the outside, and the only people who can spark it are sensualists in touch with their hot bods. The main leads look as if they could be couples in real life, and some of the lines are very, very funny.

Where it scores is in the way Dil Kabbadi talks, unselfconsciously and very naturally, of sex, and size, and inflatable dolls, and long-lashed whips, and other objects of that nature. By the end, when the bedsprings have stopped creaking, and the pairs have shuffled into new positions, you’re quite happy to let the quartet be. Or should that be a sextet?

High point of the film: Irrfan being made to wear, by his vegetarian paramour, a thong.

Eye candy
Movie Name: Burn After Reading
Directed by:Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand
Showing at:E-Square and INOX

This Coen Brothers film is a comedy that makes fun of almost everything, reminding you that almost none of it is laughing matter. A CIA expert in the Balkans, Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), is shunted out of the Agency as “he has a drinking problem”. He immediately decides to write a tell-all memoir, which lies thrown about the house, and then can’t rouse himself beyond the first few lines. His successful pediatrician wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton) has a lover, Harry (George Clooney), a federal marshal who carries a gun that he has never fired which helps him a long way with the ladies. Harry’s writer wife Sandy, is charming but not as gullible as we presume. One of Harry’s conquests is Linda (Frances McDormand), who has decided she won’t stop at anything for cosmetic surgery. There’s also Linda’s good friend Chad (Brad Pitt), he with the blond hair, flat abs and happy composition that comes with not exercising your mind too much.

Burn After Reading—the title taking off from one of the most basic instructions for a spy—is scary in what it implies for both intelligence and Intelligence. However, it’s strangely cold and distant, never going the whole hog on what it’s saying.

Clothes make the man
Movie Name: Transporter
Cast:Jason Statham, Francois Berleand
Directed by:Olivier Megaton
Showing at:City Pride Kothrud, E-Square and INOX

To chart the differences between Transporter 3 and its two predecessors is as pointless as trying to parse its flimsy plot. As in this B-movie franchise’s previous installments— the streamlined The Transporter and the somewhat bulked-up Transporter 2—that pretty bit of rough, Jason Statham, stars as Frank Martin, a taciturn hard-body for hire who, when not lolling around his swank Mediterranean bachelor pad or palling around with his police buddy (François Berléand), racks up kilometres ferrying valuables across borders.

This time there’s a new director (Olivier Megaton) and some different nubile flesh (Natalya Rudakova), but much remains the same, just with a longer running time.

MANOHLA DARGIS/NYT

Slow ball
Movie Name:Meerabai Not Out
Cast:Anupam Kher, Mandira Bedi, Vandana
Directed by: Chandrakant Kulkarni
Showing at: City Pride Kothrud and E-square

Meera chrekar, bespectacled Maths teacher, loves cricket. And Anil Kumble. More than numbers. More than even her boyfriend, who is resigned to be on the sidelines all his life. Chandrakant Kulkarni’s Meerabai Not Out was meant to release last year, during the World Cup, but was held back because of the Indian team’s lousy performance. Things have changed drastically in between, India is on top, but Mandira Bedi who plays Meera Achrekar is no longer the only noodle strap in business.

As cricket-crazy Meera, Mandira’s not half bad: her simpleton act is believable. So is TV actor Eijaz Khan, making his film debut, as the second fiddle. And the only time you see Mandira in her trademark noodle-straps is in the item song right towards the end, when the credits are rolling. If you stay that long.

SHUBHRA GUPTA