After having worked with some of the biggest of directors in Bollywood, superstar Akshay Kumar is now all set to go west. Apparently, Hollywood director David Ellis, who has directed films like The Final Destination, is very keen to work with Akshay Kumar after seeing portions of his latest film Blue.
David happened to get a chance to see some rushes of Blue when director Anthony D'Souza was doing the final mixing of the film in Los Angeles recently. David loved what he saw and was blown away by the sheer magnitude of the film. Confirms Anthony, director of Blue, "David was highly impressed when he saw some portions of Blue .He was of the opinion that such stunts could not be possible in movies outside Hollywood. He simply loved Akshay's work and truly that believes Akshay has huge potential to make it big in the West."
The buzz is that David has already chalked out the storyline of his film in which Akshay will be playing the main lead. The film will be a mainstream film catering to both the Indian as well as international audience.
"That's true," Siddharth Roy Kapur of UTV [that holds the rights of KURBAAN], confirmed to this writer, "Haven't we noticed time and again that such clashes don't benefit anyone? So instead of battling it out with each other, we decided to re-schedule our release and bring it one week before [20th November]. That way we won't be eating into each
Two days after the tepid response to the latest Salman starrer Main Aurr Mrs Khanna, its shell-shocked debutant director Prem Soni was bracing himself to be written off as one-film wannabe-wonder.
Salman Khan restored Prem's trust in his abilities when on Sunday night at a private family gathering, he embraced the shaken director and announced, "No matter what people say aboutKhanna, you are doing our next film."
Relieved beyond belief, Prem Soni is now a bigger Salman fan than ever before. "The way Main Aurr Mrs Khanna has been received, I thought no one would want to touch me with a bargepole. So many announcements go down the drain if the first film doesn't work."
Relieved, Soni is still bewildered by the savage response to his maiden effort. "It was almost as if we made the worst film on this earth. I could smell the resentment against the film. There was definitely an attempt to write it off on the day of release."
Salman who had just delivered a grand hit in Wanted showed his full faith in Main Aurr Mrs Khanna.
Says the director, "He completely believed in my film and his character. But since he was already so visible for Wanted, we decided to go easy on the publicity for Mrs Khanna. We were wrong. This was a different Salman and a different film. Not that aggressive promotion helps. But aggressive anti-publicity surely damaged my film."
Whatever the response to the film at home, Main Aurr Mrs Khanna has been warmly received in Australia where the film is set and where a number of prominent Hindi films have been lately shot.
Says Prem Soni, "Melbourne is not just a location in my film. It's one of the characters in the plot. Has anyone commented on how hard we worked on getting the locations right? Main Aurr Mrs Khanna is the first Indian film to be shot on an international airport. When I wrote my script a major part of drama was situated on an international airport."
Salman, Sohail and Soni were very clear on the fact that they wanted to shoot on an international airport. "We didn't want to erect a set depicting an airport. A set looks like a set no matter how authentic. I made contact with the authorities at several airports. We had the choice of shooting on the airport in three cities Geneva, New York and Melbourne. We chose Melbourne because after much discussion they offered us the best deal."
And shooting on the bustling international airport in Melbourne was allowed absolutely free of cost. "Can you imagine? All we were told was to shoot in the nights when the air traffic was less dense. We paid nothing and we got complete and free access to shoot in the most restricted areas on the airport. We shot in an area past the immigration, so any of us could take an unauthorized flight to any part of the world. But all of us Kareena, Salman, Sohail, Yash Tonk, Nauheed Cyrusi and Bappi Lahiri, were very careful of our responsibility. We had been given a huge privilege and a diplomatic immunity. It wasn't just us. It was India's reputation at stake."
Sighs Soni, "Has anyone noticed that Main Aurr Mrs Khanna is the only film to be shot on an airport since Steven Spielberg'sThe Terminal? It's so easy and so much fun to be clever at a film's expense."
By Taran Adarsh, October 16, 2009 - 11:22 IST
We love drama. That's the staple diet of Bollywood films. Even television shows, till a few months ago, relied too heavily on dramatic moments and twists-n-turns, especially the saas-bahu shows. Of late, the reality shows rely on drama to boost the TRPs.
MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA, directed by debutante Prem Soni, could've been an interesting story had the drama quotient been a bit stronger. What comes across is too simple and ordinary.
Actually, the problem lies in its writing. It wouldn't be erroneous to say that Prem Soni, the director is letdown by Prem Soni, the writer. The writing gyrates from interesting to ordinary to unconvincing and that bogs the film down. The inconsistency is evident all through.
Final words? This Mr. and Mrs. Khanna won't live happily ever after!
Raina [Kareena Kapoor], Samir [Salman Khan] and Akash [Sohail Khan] are three people whose lives get entwined at an international airport. Samir has to decide whether he wants to stay in the same city [Melbourne] that gave him so much and then took away everything or fly away to a new city [Singapore], to a new life.
Raina has to decide whether her love and loyalty for her husband Samir, who left her to pursue success, is more justified than her faith and trust in her new-found friend, while Akash has to decide whether what he feels for a married woman is lust or true love and whether he's justified in trying to win her at all costs, even at the cost of her marriage.
Now let's analyse…
MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA makes a promising start. The cracks in the relationship are evident when the husband starts facing problems on the professional front. He tries to re-locate to Singapore, but decides to send his wife to Delhi, to his parents' home. Convincing!
The wife decides to stay back in Melbourne and suddenly meets an 'angel' [Sohail Khan] and a friend's friend [Mahek Chahal], who gets her a job at the airport [within hours of meeting her] and a few scenes later, Mrs. Khanna shifts into a palatial mansion. Wowwwww! How can she afford a palace-like home in Melbourne from the salary that she gets, while working in a shop at the airport? Not convincing!
The wife and angel become friends. The angel is well aware of her marital status, yet loves her dearly. The woman trusts him as a friend. Convincing!
The husband re-surfaces [very quickly]. He's now settled in Singapore, has even bought a house there, he returns to Melbourne to fetch his wife back. Complications arise when the marriage registration letter surfaces. Not convincing!
The question is, why didn't the wife confide in her husband about it? That she had to do it for the work permit? Of course, she states subsequently that she didn't want to complicate things further, but didn't she ever realise that the truth would be out sooner or later?
Also, when the husband is in Singapore, there's scant or zilch communication between the couple, which looks so unreal. There's just one sequence of the wife calling her husband, but the husband isn't responding to the call. Again, not convincing!
The ending is interesting, but the surprise appearance of Deepika Padukone looks forced in the script. Perhaps, it was incorporated so that Sohail doesn't come across as a loser. Strangely, Deepika's name is also Raina [also Kareena's name in the film] and she too was in a relationship with a Samir [also Salman's name], which looks fake.
Prem Soni has handled a few scenes well, but the writing is ineffectual. Dialogue, also by Prem, are wonderful at places. Sajid-Wajid's music is tuneful. 'Don't Say Alvida' and 'Rabba' are melodious compositions. The cinematography is striking. The locales of Melbourne give the film a perfect romantic setting.
Salman handles his part with maturity, but it's a Kareena show all the way. She is remarkable and delivers a winning performance yet again. Sohail contributes to some light moments. Yash Tonk is alright. Mahek Chahal is perfect. Nauheed Cyrusi doesn't get any scope.
The film has several star appearances: Deepika Padukone, Preity Zinta [okay], Dino Morea [hardly there for a few minutes] and Bappil Lahiri [yes, the veteran music composer has a proper role in the film].
On the whole, MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA is weak in merits. At the box-office, the BLUE wave, followed by another strong opposition in ALL THE BEST will sideline MAIN AURR MRS. KHANNA completely. It's a non-starter!
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sanjay Dutt, Lara Dutta, Zayed Khan
Rating:
Blue is the perfect example of a good 100 crores going down the drain ( sau karod paani mein daal diya ). Sure the film promises some brilliant visuals and underwater images never seen before in Indian films thanks to one of the finest underwater cinematographers in the world (Pete Zuccarini). But sadly the credit list literally lacks the mention of a screenplay writer.
The scene opens in post-independence era of 1949 when a ship from Britain to India is bringing back its long looted riches. Strangely as per goofed-up geography, the shipwreck happens in Bahamas (that figures nowhere on the course of voyage). The treasure lies deep inside oceans untouched for more than half a century.
The scene opens in present-day Bahamas with good-friends Aarav (Akshay Kumar) and Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) fishing and fighting together. The latter addresses the former as Sarkar for being filthy-rich. But the former more aptly addresses the latter as Sethji (not for his possessions but perhaps his paunch). The fatigued seth with a potbelly pet romances a bikini babe (Lara Dutta) half his age.
Sagar’s brother Sam (Zayed Khan) is estranged from him for strange reasons. He races bikes rapidly and romances babes vapidly. Fleeing from mafia men, he returns to Big Brother house. By interval point you only relish the sight of fish but sadly get to see no meat in the plot.
In absence of a sane screenplay, the viewer is subjected to burnout action sequences and bike chases. By the time the oceanic treasure-hunt initiates in the climax, you see blue since the film is ‘in deep water’. Sadly the authentic aquatic life is put to no active use as even the sharks seem to be harmlessly herbivorous. Rather the regular hero-villain combats are replicated in the oceans to no groundbreaking effect with the marine life playing passive spectators to the proceedings.
Mayur Puri’s casual conversational dialogues sans any cinematic significance and the minimal background score fail to induce depth to the drama. The supposed suspense in the narrative is almost obvious from the start. A R Rahman’s musical score is plain passable this time. The art design by Narendra Rahurikar is decent. Laxman Utekar’s cinematography is fascinating as he captures the Bahamas beaches beautifully in his lens and uses effective close up frames on the cast. Designer Rina Dhaka deserves special mention for styling Lara Dutta at her sexiest best in those white, red, pink and bejeweled bikinis.
The introductory action sequence of a shark attack has been credibly choreographed by James Bomalick. But after a perfect startup for an underwater adventure, the action takes the regular ‘road’ until the climax while the adventure isn’t scripted thrillingly. Blue has munificent footage of marine world which has been stunningly shot by underwater expert Pete Zuccarini ( Pirates of Caribbean ). But the conventional storytelling doesn’t elevate its outcome beyond the visual brilliance of a National Geographical documentary.
Akshay Kumar is decent. Zayed Khan isn’t bad but doesn’t go beyond his regular self. Sanjay Dutt looks dreary and uninterested. With a perfect toned body, Lara Dutta looks desirable and adds grace to her liberal beachwear, not looking one bit vulgar. Katrina Kaif gets no scope. Rahul Dev is regular. Kylie Minogue’s item number comes out of the blue.
Director Anthony D’Souza deserves applause for testing water with entering an entirely new territory, not attempted before this side of Pacific. The logistics of such filmmaking are extremely demanding and he hasn’t compromised on the standards. But his storytelling certainly lacks the finesse which could have made this project a more entertaining fare.
Blue doesn’t glue you to the seat. Rather its corniness can make you see red
