MUMBAI: Ever so keen to try something new and define a new genre that the Hindi film audience is not familiar with, the filmmakers at times come up with a new idea that works. While Hollywood has been dishing out zombie movies for over 70 years now and has a repertoire of 100s of them in its archives, the Hindi film industry seems to have awakened to this genre only now. So we have the second zombie movie of the year in Go Goa Gone. Indian (more specifically Hindi movie) audience generally does not like ‘yuck‘ stuff so the two wise things that the makers have made sure while making Go Goa Gone is that, the title nor promotion material hint at zombies. The other is that, it has been made into a comedy.
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Producers: Saif Ali Khan, Dinesh Vijan, Sunil Lulla. |
Kunal Khemu, Vir Das and Anand Tiwari are buddies sharing accommodation and employed at the same work place. All three have different philosophies of life. While Khemu is happy go lucky and believes in living life on day to day basis, Das is a romantic who lives like Khemu but wants to live normal life while Tiwari is a serious kind who has no vices and is sincere about his work. Tiwari is due to go to Goa on office work and the other two decide to tag along. No sooner are they in Goa, Khemu and Das are out hunting for female company when Das meets Puja Gupta who tells him about a rave party, organised by the Russian mafia, taking place that night on an island off Goa. The boys decide to gatecrash.
At the party, alcohol, drugs and women are in free flow. Soon, a new drug specially acquired from Siberia is introduced for those who can afford it. The boys, obviously, can‘t. Next morning, the rave party is over but it has left a strange sort of after effect, all those who took the new drug have turned into zombies who, when hungry, seek human beings for food. The trio has now turned into a foursome as Gupta has joined the group. They are being chased by zombies, first by a few and later by scores of them. That is when the Mafioso, Saif Ali Khan emerges as their saviour; because he organised the rave and also introduced the drug, automatically he has become an expert on zombies overnight. According to him, there are 1399 zombies on the island since that is the number of guests he had invited and the only way to finish them was to shoot them in the head. To this end, he has already come prepared with all kinds of guns including a bazooka!
The first half of the film is racy with many witty one-liners coming from Khemu and the film so far rests on the three boys and the girl. Khan comes on the scene much later. The second half is all about continuous race to outrun zombies and some yucky scenes of zombies feasting on human bodies which may not be to everyone‘s liking.
With an acceptably limited duration of 110 minutes, the film has been well scripted with some enjoyable moments. Khemu‘s being the author backed role, he emerges the best with able support from Das and Tiwari. Gupta makes her presence felt. Khan‘s role is more like a cameo where he plays a superman like gun wielding Delhi born Russian Mafioso. Musically, Babaji ki booty is catchy. Photography is good with zombie scenes well executed. Direction is handled deftly.
Go Goa Gone is a fair entertainer but not everyone‘s cup of tea with its odd combine of wit vs gore and may end up just being an experiment.
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Gippi: Modern day Ugly Duckling |
Gippi bases its theme in the age old story of The Ugly Duckling written by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1843. This is story of an ugly duckling born in a barnyard who is subjected to much abuse and insults from others around him till he grows up into a beautiful swan. The story has since been adapted in various formats like opera, film, drama and animation formats.
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Producers: Hiroo Yash Johar, Karan Johar. |
Gippi- Riya Vij is a 14 year girl in the ninth standard who is fat, poor at sports and struggles through her studies. In fact, she has nothing going for her. However, there is one thing she is good at and that is to dance to the tunes of Shammi Kapoor‘s songs. Not that it is much use to her when she vies for attention; let alone boys not even many girls want to be her friend. Her total friends list includes Doorva Tripathi and a boy who has a crush on her. Vij is always made fun of and made to look small in front of other classmates by the top ranker, slim and well turned out class prefect, Jayati Modi. Modi excels in sport, always gets 90 per cent plus grades and is presentable; in fact everything that Vij is not, but aspires to be.
Things are not so great for Vij at home either. Though her mother, Divya Dutta, gives her and her brother, Arbaz Kadwani, the best possible upbringing while managing her beauty parlour, her father, Pankaj Dheer, is about to marry a gori ma‘am; a fact, which while making her mother always sad, deprives her of a male support at her crucial growing up years.
It is at Dheer‘s engagement ceremony that she meets a senior from her school, Taaha Shah with whom she bonds well but makes the mistake of taking his casual friendship as a budding romance. The realisation comes with humiliation in front of all her classmates at a party that romance was the last thing on Shah‘s mind.
Finally, the cause to face up to her small world and be accepted for what she is comes when she is challenged by Modi to contest school head girl elections against her and win. Shaky at first, Vij takes up the challenge. She succeeds in conveying to other students that she is not perfect, nor are they and hence she is one of them. The underdog wins.
Is there an audience for Gippi kind of a film? Who does it cater to? An acceptable teenage story is generally about 16 to 19 and usually romance. Not many would identify with a 14 year school girl‘s problems however good the intentions. Story and direction by Sonam Nair are routine. Performances are generally average except those of Dutta and Kadwani. Old Shammi Kapoor songs provide some relief.
