Maudlin and muck

kalyug

Director: Mohit Suri Cast: Kunal Khemu, Deepal Shaw, Smily Suri, Emraan Hashmi, Amrita Singh

2/10

Kalyug has an evocative tagline ? ‘To hell and back’ ? and believe us, you’re groping blindly for the exit way before the lights turn on for interval. But there’s no way out of this cinematic hell director Mohit Suri conjures up, not even for those who troop in to whistle at the right moments. After all, it’s not every day that a film on pornography gets made in Bollywood.

But Bollywood is as Bollywood does, and there’s no dearth of make-believe. Baby-faced Kunal Khemu (remember that smart kid from Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke?) becomes a crusader against an international mafia ring, after his first night on honeymoon is shot on a hidden camera and becomes the hottest item in the porn black market. Let’s just say he’s a bad choice for the role.

Emraan Hashmi’s Ali ? a short and sweet cameo ? is the only breath of life in this bad mix of maudlin and muck.

Satadru Ojha

TV this ’’ that

Neal ’N’ Nikki

Director: Arjun Sablok Cast: Uday Chopra, Tanisha, Richa Pallod, Gaurav Gera, Priya Sachdev, Alexander Montez, Serinda Swan, Kristy Mcquade, Samantha McLeod

4.5/10

You wanna see Neal ‘N’ Nikki ? for reasons other than outing of popcorn, coke and window shopping? Do yourself a favour. Sit at home, switch on your television set and surf channels as usual. You’ll hit the right combo that replicates inane non-experience of N ‘N’ N. Director Arjun Sablok’s film hasn’t much to vocalise about.

The reed-thin storyline leans embarrassingly on Aditya Chopra’s (producer here) DDLJ, where NRI brat goes cross-country-ing across Europe before settling down to settled marriage, but meets true match in soulmate en route. Except here there’s no dramatic conflict of desi vs pardesi values. No symbolically contrasting landscapes of desh and videsh. No bridge over generation-gap troubled water or clash of traditional and modern. And no Kajol-Shah Rukh chemistry.

Canadian-Indian Neal (Uday) goes on premarital sojourn for some bachelor fun. In big city Vancouver he bumps into inebriated, over-the-top, underdressed (skimpy bustiers) freaky Nikki (Tanisha). Neal and Nikki can’t stand each other but inexplicably keep meeting and kissing! Then incident (they sleep together) and coincident (his bride-to-be’s her sister) occur and they part. But happy ending happens and they reunite.

Plot, humour, acting, everything’s puerile and forced. Tanisha tries desperately to do sis Kajol’s chirpy girl-next-door and mom Tanuja’s 1960s cuteness, but ends up just irritating with her over-expressing and over-stretched facial muscles that can put Jim Carrey’s Mask to shame. And speak of mask, Uday’s face seems strangely (cosmetic-surgically?) made-up. The two actually make an odd lead pair. And you realise this when you’re relieved as other characters enter frame and you don’t have to watch Neal ’N’ Nikki the whole time!

Mandira Mitra