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And this is how we make “wholesome entertainers”!

Have you watched a good Tamil “mass” movie in the last 15 years? If not, here’s your chance. Go and watch “Wanted”.

Directed by Prabhudeva, it has everything that we have come to expect as de rigueur in Tamil movies (and which hitherto hasn’t quite come together for Hindi movie makers): Slick direction, breathtaking cinematography, flawless editing, toe-tapping music, complex dance choreography, stunt choreography that looks almost like dance choreography in its detailing and nuances, and delightful performances all around -- in short, technical perfection.

Story? Oh well, it’s like the Mahabharatha - you know where it is going, you know whose side the hero is on, you know that the villains may pull the heroine’s vastra, but her savior will always arrive in the nick of time, sometimes running faster than a speeding train, and you know the bad men are going to die. This comfortable familiarity means that you don’t have any anxiety or fear while watching the movie. You need not deal with equivocal ethical dilemmas - you know, as the Navrathri festival shows us every year, that good will triumph over evil. Dharma will be established.

So you sit back, eat your popcorn, sip your soda, and get thoroughly entertained. And if you are the kind of movie goer who doesn’t want to grapple with “the greater creative question” and “artistic integrity beyond commercialization” and “Indian cinema - quo vadis?”, or doesn’t get queasy with a body count that exceeds Rambo and Terminator put together, here’s a full paisa vasool experience for you.

Why am I being so effusive? Well, I’ve always considered Prabhudeva a dancing genius (you-tube “thirupathi ezhumalai venkatesa”, “kasimettula kathadikkuthu”, and “vennilave vennilave” to understand what I mean), but he was an eminently forgettable actor. And he has made some horrors in his time. So I really didn’t expect much from him as a director.

How wrong I was!

“Wanted” is nothing if not the director’s touches through out the movie. Sample this:

Salman and Ayesha are trapped in a stuck elevator. One thing leads to another, and the two come very close to each other.
She says, “Oh it is very hot in here!”
He gently blows on her face. She gets excited and her eyes widen.
“Vicco Vajradanti?” she asks. He nods.
“Me too!” she simpers.
“Show?” Salman invites. She grins and her teeth twinkle - just as it did in the ad.

Or that fight scene in the climax. The hero is fighting with the villain and his never-ending supply of henchmen (yeah, that old chestnut) and you almost doze off in ennui when suddenly the villain takes a big fall -- and goes deaf. For a full minute, all you hear is the strident, piercing ring of tinnitus while this very violent stunt is being played out. I don’t know about you, but I felt every bit of the disorientation the villain felt.

Wait for the moment when he takes another fall and his tinnitus clears and all the noise comes through, like an explosion. You’ve got to love the modern theater sound system for that kind of experience.

Or, oh, the Salman disrobing moment: You knew it was destiny. You had even apportioned 20% of the movie ticket value for that revelation.

But five songs and 90% of the almost three-hour movie later, it still hasn’t happened. What? Salman has turned over a new leaf? you wonder. And then in the very end, when you have given up all hope, he takes his shirt off. Why? Not because he is dancing or exercising or I don’t know, those million pointless reasons he takes it off for. He does it because the villain throws a burning bottle of chemical on him and his shirt catches fire.

Oh Lordy Lordy!

I am a true daughter of movie-mad, hot headed, reverential-to-movie-rituals Madurai -- I clapped vigorously. (The boys sitting next to me were shocked, but that is the subject of another post.)

As far as performances go, Prakashraj and Aayesha Takia compete for top honors.

Prakashraj as the villain just hits the ball out of the park every time he comes on screen - which he does quite late, in the second half. He plays the archetypal underworld don as a delightful mix of menace, charm, and comedy. His Ganni Bhai is essentially a spoilt brat - a fast-talking, cocaine-snorting, wheeling-dealing, joke-cracking, pouting spoilt brat. His incarceration by the police commissioner where he is kept on a sleepless vigil is a hoot. And you should listen to him reprimanding Salman for killing all his henchmen at the very end. “They were top quality criminals!” he bemoans. “I had hand picked them from the streets and trained them. Now where will I go for people like that?” Heh heh!

And I haven’t seen Aayesha’s Jhanvi in Hindi films in a long time. In the age of body-painted, designer-clothes clad, sassy, overtly sexual female leads, the clueless Jhanvi reminds one of simpler times.

She is a middle class girl whose world’s perimeter is defined by her small family, her job at the call center, and her aerobics class. She has no skills to deal with anything bigger or more dangerous than a missed train. She can’t even tell off her mildly obnoxious landlord who makes unsuccessful passes at her, leave alone the police officer who seriously harasses her. She is naive and gentle. She is tortured by her lover’s criminal activities. She loves him, she hates him. She harbors secret hopes of reforming him.

Aayesha builds all these layers into her character mostly with her large expressive eyes. And thank God for simple skirts and jeans and capris! She is adorable in the movie, although feminists might have an issue with a heroine who needs rescuing all the time.

And Salman. How much that man has worked in the movie! He dances (Raju Sundaram has made him do some very intricate steps), he fights (a lot), he romances, and emotes when asked upon. But I liked his Radhe most as the lover. In a radical departure from his suave, cute, mushy Aman and Prem, he plays this totally unemotional lover who is unswayed by his lady-love’s tears and uses petty bickering to woo her. The pasta gag that runs through the movie is refreshingly funny.

It was good to see Vinod Khanna after a long time, although he dies before he could do anything much. Mahesh Manjrekar does a bang up job too.

My only crib about the movie is that it could have very easily been two songs and 30 minutes shorter. And it had someone younger than Salman doing the lead role. And that Salman didn’t wear those jeans with them unfortunate patchwork in the crotch. But nobody’s perfect.

All in all, good show Prabhu!

Comments

Yep, I really want to watch this movie now.
Rahela said…
I can't believe how much i agree with you on this as well as on Wake Up Sid. However, because the rest of the film had so much perfection, I wondered why some completely NG shots were left in!Example, people looking into the camera while doing a really sorry cheer for the women wrestlers. There were some other things that bugged me then; but in hindsight I enjoyed the filminess of this film so much that everything is maaf!

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