Do you really want a partner?

Not only did Eros and K Sera Sera produce a pathetic lift off, and an excuse for a movie called Partner but they now stand to face a $30 Million lawsuit . David Dhawan directed Partner was a direct rip-off of the Overbrook & Sony co-produced blockbuster Hitch. So its of little surprise that Sony Entertainment, who have already set shop in India, are ready to make waves or may I call it Tsunamis in Bollywood.

I could probably ruin my whole night if had to just put a list of copied movies here. Still here are few I can think of:

Aitraz
A megaflop rip off of Disclosure

Satte pe Satta
A BLOCKBUSTER copy of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. I think Satte pe Satta would have outdone SBSB on business.

Akele Hum Akele Tum – Kramer vs. Kramer.
Thankfully AHAT had some very good acting to do justice to the award winning Kramer vs. Kramer.

Khotte Sikke - For a Few Dollars More.
This was pretty hilarious spoof of the original. Oh Shit! My bad. It was not supposed to be a spoof.

Zalzala – McKenna’s Gold.
Useless copy of a great adventure movie, but hey! I am not complaining. I was a fan of Dharam Paaji and I thought its absolutely awesome how Dharam paaji finds the sone ki ghaati. For a long time I believed that such a valley did exist. I even watched Tehelka just because of Dharam Paaji.

Angrakshak – The Bodyguard
Heights of plagiarism. Even the name is not original.:)

Kaante
A movie whose plot was “only inspired” by Reservoir Dogs. “Only inspired” because Kaante’s director had to fill in the gaps left in unknowingly by Quentin Tarantino in The Dawgs. Apart from those gaps the storyline was copy. Oh! Also except the songs which were very entertaining. Chhod na chhod na chhod na re… chhod na bheja phod na re.
By the way, does Quentin Tarantino sleep while they edit his films? In Reservoir Dogs his editors just put in a black screen and put “Mr. Blonde”, “Mr. Orange” etc on it to fill in the gaps. In Pulp Fiction they were so damn doped that they didn’t even know which scene was to appear when. Quentin thought “What the hell, I will release is as it is and then call it Jagged storyline for art sakes.” I hate these low-budget, mindless directors.

Zinda
Not seen Oldboy but found Zinda wicked.

Awara Pagal Deewana
A direct lift off from The Whole Nine Yards. Amazingly funny character names (Guru Gulab Khatri, Yeda Anna) but a very serious comedy movie. The only comic relief in the whole movie was Johnny Lever as Chhotaa Chhatri.

Sarkar – The Godfather
Dharmatma – The Godfather
We have a fetish for Godfathers but don’t have a Marlon Brando to show how its done.

The Phight Kilab – The Fight Club
Note the first movie name has knowingly been misspelled, so that reader may know which one was Hindi. Urban fighting gangs in Navi Mumbai, believable!

And a special mention to the two most outstanding copies of all times:
Khalnaika
The hand that rock the cradles. Why it needs a special mention is for the simple fact that it was so blatantly copied that even the details were overlooked. In a scene Jeetender (Jumping Jack Flash of Indian Cinema) lies waiting for goons to come to his house, and when they appear, Jeetu promptly reaches under the bed and fishes out (Hold your breath) a BASEBALL BAT. And this was in 1993, an average Indian would not know what the round thing was supposed to be. He could have taken out a hockey stick or a cricket bat. No, but that would not satisfy the Director because that is going away from the plot. He has to take out a baseball bat because the original movie had a baseball bat.

Badshah
Next up Shahrukh Khan’s magnum opus Badshah. Truly an epic in only one sense and that is the number of movies it has been inspired from. The base story line is taken from Johnny Depp starrer Nick of Time. Climax has been lifted off from The Rush Hour. Fight scenes have been copied from Mr. Nice Guy. Getting Badshah mistaken for another person (and that too a police officer under cover) has been inspired from If Looks Could Kill. With a song choreographed very similar to The Mask. This has to be one of the most delicately and finely stitched movie of all times, even Scary Movie franchise have never fitted in so many movies in a single spoof movie. This also turned out to be an unmitigated disaster at the box office.

Now returning to the main topic. What does it mean for Indian Film Industry? Well this means that no more direct lift off of plots anymore. Not even lifting and then calling it inspiration as has been the norm. This may be the first time ever an Indian movie might be pulled up in the court for plagiarism but would this be the last one? Aage aage dekho hota hai kya…

**Updates September 10th, 2007**

In 2005, producers of “The Oldboy” – ShowEast were mulling over a court case against Producers Sanjay Gupta. As per ShowEast statement:

“We’re looking at the similarities between the two films, but since we don’t have a final product we can judge, we’ll just have to investigate a little more into what kind of relation the films will have. Since we never experienced something like this, we couldn’t really set up a concrete plan. But if we find out there’s indeed a strong similarity between the two, it looks like we’ll have to talk with our lawyers.” 

Nothing came of it though.

Whose KAAL is it anyway?

OK! I admit I have a fetish for Multi-starrer movies (Joshua – I remember you buddy). That might be the only reason I hauled my butt to watch a movie like Kaal. And I was pretty excited about it too, even though my friends advised against it.

Anyway, I should have know better because producer was Karan Johar, whose claim to fame is producing mushy-mushy, sissy Shahrukh Khan movies. Should have known best because Shahrukh Khan was the co-producer and did an ITEM number in it.

The Plaat:
For those who have not seen it yet Kaal is a movie which has John Abraham as National Geographic (NG) researcher( and if you believe that you can believe anything) whose love interest is Esha Deol (Yuck!) who also helps John in his research. It also has Vivek Oberoi, who after Company gave such mega flops as Dum, Road, and a movie with Aish. Vivek’s love interest is Lara Dutta in the movie.

So John is sent Orbit Park – only director know why its called Orbit, they might as well have stuck to reality and called it Jim Corbet Park. Where was I? Ya John is sent to Orbit park to investigate killings of tourist and NG researchers by maneaters Tigers/Lions of Orbit Park. And it was an obvious choice to send in the specialist since Police thought it was man eater who was doing the killing. Vivek on the other hand lands up in Orbit park as a punsihment for showing off his latest Lexus SUV.

On the way to the guest house Vivek’s gangs driver Bagga, who has a habbit of driving off the road more than on the road, bangs into stalled jeep of John Abraham. So meet Caesar and Brutus and begins the conquering of the worlds. Well you wish anyway! John takes an instant dislike/suspicion of Vivek, anyway, if Vivek keeps acting like that I wont blame John for hating him. Based on the same logic the director should have let Vivek also nurse ill feeling about John. However, thats only my observation.

Anyway, they reach the guest house and live happily ever after! If director Soham would have ended the movie there it would have been a decent enough movie but Soham would not be satisfied by making a decent movie. No Sir, he wouldn’t rest in peace till he pulls the plot down, forces the cast to stutter lousy dialogs and dances on the grave of a script that could have been made into a good movie.

So the killings start first a driver, then a Guide, then a friend, then another friend and so on. In between all this killing the Caesar-Brutus gang, i mean Vivek-John gang befriends a new guide who saves them from tigers. The movie then keeps meandering along on a paper thin plot which was so thin that if it would have been any thinner there couldn’t have been a movie. The grand finale, the climax of the movie is who will find the Caesar-Brutus gang first? End of the Jungle or their death or director Soham for signing the cast up for Bikram aur Betaal – the sequel of Kaal. As you might have guessed it by now ladies in the movie have no role except giving vocal support in shrieking and lagging behind when running like a rocket with its ass on fire was worth a million $ every minute.

Recommendations: Personally if you ask me the dialog writer should be hanged in public for writing dialogs like “Takdeer hamko yahaan tak le aayee hai, ab hamein takdeer ka saath dena hoga, aur dekhtein hain ki takdeer hamaara saath deti hai ya nahi.” I mean c’mon even my grand dad wouldn’t have used that kind of lingo in 19th century. Dude its 21st. Wake up!

If you still care for my two pence – the director should be given life sentence for killing the Guide who was the only good character in the whole movie. Also in my far from humble opinion, Vivek and John should be given an option of VRS to save the Indian public from such scum acting.Esha can’t be wronged for not looking good because she couldn’t inherit good looks from Hema Malini, magar agar Dharam paaji ke dole shole mile hote to she would have had a sizzling career in WWE. Lara Dutta? Well its high time she should start getting worried about getting uglier by the day and that ever receding hairline, or wait probably it was always like that. Whatever!

Final Word:
Go for Kaal only if you like Multi-starrer movie and if you have a blog to bitch about it.

Movie: Kaal
Director: Soham
Cast: John Abraham, Esha Deol, Vivek Oberoi, Lara Dutta, Ajay Devgan, Lots of Side Actors and Gladiator ke bhooke (boodhe) sher.
Producer: Karan Johar and Shahrukh Corn.

Million Dollar Blog

Finally, I got time to watch Million Dollar Baby. Before getting into a truly high profile movie, I was in my usual dillema, to see it or not to see it. I am really terified of high profile movies, specially the ones highly recommended by ones around me. Don’t kill me for that!

Anyhow, the movie turned out to be out of the world. Excellent acting, well mazed plot, nice subtle humour, lovely direction. Morgan Freeman steals the show hands down. Looking at Mr. Freeman in this movie was a revelation. I never thought he could act for his life if he was not in his stereotyped three-piece suits. Hillary Swank is good and gives the role credibility but don’t know if she deserved Oscars for it. Clint Eastwood did what he does best, be gruffy and grouchy, but his timing was mucho good. Somehow I feel Mr. Eastwood is now at a point of his life where he can deliver much more from the receiving end of the camera.

Difficult to find fault with this movie, except that you almost everytime expected things before they happened, like the fight where Danger is beaten up. You always expected it! And you always knew Freeman would do something about it as he was like Dirt Harry reaching late for action and anyway Eastwood (the Original Dirty Harry) didn’t look like he could throw a punch.

The final word – if you dont see this movie, you’ll regret when you grow up. And dont worry about the faults, they are few and far in between.

The other movie I saw (again) was Beauty and the Beast. I think, I have a crush on Belle (again).