Justice League: A Cinematic Injustice To Superheroes

Not all bands can fight and still be fabulous like The Beatles. 

It is a bit startling, for instance, to realise that beneath the dazzling and eclectic versatility of 'The White Album', the pitch-perfect melodic brilliance of 'Abbey Road' and the hard-slamming edge of 'Let it Be', there was not just a conflict of interest. Instead, the recording studio had assumed the air of a battlefield with almost all four of them (with the notable exception of Ringo) sparking off with their talents and egos. And yet, the result is some of the most daring and audaciously spectacular work that they pulled off together, sealed with a poignant climax in 'The End', in which all four created the most stunning rock and roll solo ever. 

That is what being a great team is all about, something that Zack Snyder does not understand. 

The idea of a superhero team is potentially fantastic, even as it has been done to death by none other than Marvel which continues to not only make similar movies about one ensemble or the other but also make new teams altogether out of the same old guys and girls and some new members in tow. Yet, while the formula does not always work successfully, at least even the weakest movies, say 'Avengers: Age Of Ultron' or the excessive 'Guardians Of The Galaxy: Vol 2', offer us heroes or costumed freaks worth rooting for and who share a fairly thrilling level of repartee that makes them preposterous fun while they last. 

'Justice League', Snyder's latest ham-fisted chunk of superhero bombast, has the diametrically opposite problem. 

It is a well-known fact among us comic book lovers that, with no offence to fans of Captain America or Tony Stark, the distinguished members of the Justice League are more intriguing because of the rich wealth of personal backstory and characteristically sparky interplay they share with each other. It has always been interesting to see how the slightly nihilistic and cynical Batman can end up working with the samaritan Superman or how the laconic Martian Manhunter can kick ass alongside the constantly wise-cracking Flash. The wonder, as with Marvel's Avengers, is always in the uncanny way in which these mismatched saviours get together and save the world in style. 

This film, to begin with, does not have heroes worth rooting for. 

Sure, they may have names penned by legends like Bob Kane and Jerry Siegel but the so-called 'heroes' of 'Justice League' are in no way worth being called heroes. Yes, that means you too, Diana Prince, no matter how conventionally solid a standalone movie you got yourself some months ago. 

Rather, this is a bunch of thick-headed and confused freaks who would do a lot better if they are left alone, without the need to fit into the plan of a man who was once a true delight on the silver screen but is now just a smug and self-obsessed snob. 

When asked by a speedy and snack-chomping Barry Allen (who also dubs himself, with true relish, a 'snack-hole') as to what exactly his superpowers are, the Bruce Wayne of this film replies, 'I am rich,' thus making a distasteful political allusion that would have won him the love of Donald Trump. Being the undeniable dark-edged hero of the comics, Batman could have said anything, even about having 'eight-pack abs' as in the lovely, lovely 'The Lego Batman Movie', but Snyder's version, played by a patently unlikable Ben Affleck, has to be so glib and selfish that even his reason for uniting a ragtag team of heroes is just to save his face over the fact that he came embarrassingly close to killing a fellow superhero for no real reason. 

And that is all to the threadbare script really, which makes me wonder just what did Joss Whedon, one of the brains behind 'Toy Story' and, to hit closer to the mark, the creator of the cinematic Avengers team itself, have to do with this piece of bilge, co-written most incoherently by Chris Terrio, who seems to have forgotten that he had written 'Argo' as well. The director himself feels awkward and hesitant this time around, which means that, in a flash of optimism, that 'Justice League' is at least less loud and hammy than all his previous films and it ends, at least, when it has to. That does not mean, though, that it is even remotely a good film. 

For one thing, it is a long excruciating wait for us all before we actually see all of them come together and start doing something. 'Justice League' starts typically with an all-too-literal eulogy for Superman, whom we saw buried beneath the ground at the end of 'Batman V Superman' and then, without the slightest hint of imagination or inspiration, starts tracking down each of the characters without ever bothering to flesh them with soul or even much of enthusiasm. 

That is not to say that the actors are any bad; it is just that they deserve a lot better than just being etched out as empty-headed idiots who simply choose a mission because they should choose a mission. 

Jason Momoa makes for a very fine Aquaman, if just for the overwhelming visual idea of strength and snobbish sarcasm that he embodies well; he is the only player in the team who has the gall to declare this Batman a nut. Ezra Miller is a lot of fun as Allen but the film carves his Flash to be only a goofball. Ray Fisher is agreeably a tormented Victor Stone but is not given much of an emotional resonance despite the intriguing developments in the beginning. 

When I watched 'Wonder Woman' some months ago, I felt that, despite the film's many narrative limitations, it worked because Gal Gadot played the titular character with the same winsome believability as with which Christopher Reeve played the Man Of Steel. This time around, I still believe in the lovely actress' increasing confidence as the iconic lasso-wielding lass of charm but could not help feeling that she is playing it a bit too safely, sticking to the uninteresting plot tropes that Snyder and his team hand out to her. She and the others are all performed earnestly but they are given precious little significant to do. There are bits and pieces when they get their share of the limelight, like Prince holding her own against in a team of men mostly leering at her legs or Aquaman delivering a fine little monologue announcing his intentions. But mostly, they are paper-thin cutouts who are there only to defeat a villain without even the slightest shred of menace. 

Maybe it is because 'Justice League' has such a frustratingly imbecile supervillain that the film feels so deprived of real stakes or even the merest hint of danger. Ciaran Hinds' Steppenwolf is a wasted caricature armed with the most ridiculous lines like 'Mother is calling' or 'You will love me,' directed at people trying to stop him. The rest of the fine actors are marginally lucky, with JK Simmons playing a not-so-bad Jim Gordon and the always reliable Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, the real unsung hero among a crowd of people who think they are heroes. 'I cannot recognise this world,' he laments brilliantly in the film's most resonant line. 

He is not wrong, of course. It is increasingly difficult to relate the bleak, grimy world of Snyder's films to whatever the brilliant comics and the films by Richard Donner, Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan had offered to us in the past. Batman's gadgets look like grey, ugly toys and yes, they can be destroyed pretty easily too. The man himself looks more of a fat-necked and furiously inflexible idiot in a suit with Affleck's mediocre performance bordering on being unforgivably vicious and sexist at the same time. Beyond that, the film's desperate attempts to link all that stupid, blatant subtext about people fearing aliens of all types with a half-baked commentary on the necessity of heroes are just laughably bad. I found myself laughing unexpectedly on a throwaway scene in which a foul-mouthed woman complains about her husband being kidnapped by extraterrestrials. For the rest, I was trying not to nod off. 

Then, there is the writing, the godawful and risible writing and those senseless plot developments. What is SteppenwoIf's agenda, really? What, in God's name, are those Mother Boxes and why is it so easy to hold them? Why do all the Amazonians run like the unforgettable John Cleese' Sir Lancelot in 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail'? And yes, I was rolling my eyes in some of the dialogue. Amy Adams' Lois Lane nuzzles up to Henry Cavill's newly resurrected Clark Kent in the midst of a Kansas field and says, thoughtfully, 'You smell good'. And a couple of lines, even when said by the naturally effervescent Gadot, don't make any sense at all. Even the occasional punchlines are extremely lame. Did Whedon really co-write this stuff?

Predictably, as if to offer some faint sense of superheroic wonder in the typically overblown climax, Superman shows up, played by Cavill in a refreshingly light and low-key fashion, allowing himself the welcome luxury of a hearty laugh at the end of it all. But it is too late to save the party. 

'Justice League' is not just a stinking piece of entertainment. It is also a film that stinks even as a superhero film. It does not even know what to do with the elements even if they are in place. This is a film which plays John Williams' 'Superman' theme in the background when the said hero is instead beating up his own comrades to a pulp. 

Let's pray that this band breaks up without any further delay. 

My Rating: 1 and a half stars out of 5

Amazing Adaptations: Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange'

When I was in college, I watched 'A Clockwork Orange' one afternoon, expecting, being the lascivious young lad at that impressionable age, it to be a racy skin flick. What it turned out to be, other than a few scenes of (it must be said) gratuitous nudity, including a particularly titillating scene of rape, was something that dashed all my hopes. I was even nauseated, eventually, by just how sick it all felt in aftermath and I resolved never to watch that film again, neither for sinful entertainment or for insightful enlightenment. I had enough satisfying options for both. 

It was only in ripe adulthood that I did watch Stanley Kubrick's 'A Clockwork Orange' with the now-mature perspective to discover a real, seminal classic of cinema. I have gushed about my experience in my review here and while I admired all the trademark Kubrick elements to be found in his other films, namely the deceptive emotional coldness and the stunning use of technique in audio-visual storytelling, what amazed me the most was its central argument: a cure for crime and depravity can be more criminal and depraved if it deprives a person of his soul and self-respect. More than being just an anarchic film, it was an experience that made me think.

I document these seemingly redundant and separate experiences of watching and understanding this radical film not just for nostalgia's sake. Rather, the point that I wish to make is that there is more to 'A Clockwork Orange' than just its strident cry of rebellion against the hollow concept of correctional therapy. 

That additional dimension is what is evident, not in the film, but rather the source that inspired it in the first place. Written and published in 1962, Anthony Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange' was, like the cinematic adaptation, a shocker and sensation in equal terms. It was banned from many an American high school syllabus and yet it also elicited some of the finest praise for being a truly ground-breaking work of postmodern literature, at a time when that genre still needed to be defined in the real sense by the upcoming spree of American and English authors. Burgess himself dismissed as too preachy to be effective and was particularly critical of Kubrick's version of the story (something that I will come to later). 

But both the book and the film continued to be legendary, albeit not only for the uncompromising portrayal of nihilism, violence and political manipulation rooted into a near-future urban society. A large part of its popularity and quotability is also attributed to the nearly suicidal yet ultimately spectacular linguistic trick that Burgess employed and that Kubrick (to give him further credit) followed slavishly. I am talking, of course, about Nadsat. 

At one point, we, who have all been part of gangs at school and college, can relate to the idea that our choice of language and vocabulary in those days of latency period would have been our own to use and merely a trifle or amusement for the grown-ups around us. Burgess understood that perfectly when etching out his protagonist and narrator, the unforgettably flawed yet wonderfully endearing and ernest Alex, as a fifteen-year old teenager who, with his 'droogs' (Nadsat for 'friends'), sets out every night on a spree of 'ultra-violence', including mugging, physical assault, breaking-in and rape. The language that they banter in, called as Nadsat, is a fascinating, maddeningly heady blend of slightly tweaked Russian words, Cockney slang, schoolboy lingo, Biblical phrases and even an occasional dash of old English and even Arabic. And yet while the words themselves can be quite confounding to say the least (I would urge every novice to keep the dictionary of Nadsat handy), such is Burgess' mastery of a highly absorbing, atmospheric storytelling, especially his vivid sense of detail, both morbid and mesmerising, that you are going to read it all in a trice even if you do not quite get some words or the way they are used. 

Naturally, it would have been a tall order to be so faithful to the source so as to even use Nadsat as the primary language in the film. But Kubrick, being Kubrick, did it nevertheless and the result is an unexpected success (I found myself saying frequently 'Appy polly logies', 'devotchka' and 'eggiwegs') both as an experiment and a path-breaking narrative device that sucks the viewer, as it did to the reader, into the morally twisted universe of Alex' world. It is also worthwhile to observe that Kubrick nails the dislocation of Alex from the rest of the world through the combined medium of language and music. None of the characters around him speak Nadsat as trenchantly as he does and at the same time, none of them even share his passion for music, especially the work of the maestro Ludwig Van Beethoven, which also puts him in a different league than the others, thus adding to his eventual predicament. 

Much more than the fairly faithful loyalty to the book's major narrative and its central argument (though I do wish that Kubrick had given even a brief mention of the allegorical meaning of the title), it is always intriguing to see how Kubrick breathes life into the material. The film's visual palette, with low-angle spaced-out photography and flashes of orange and milk white to punctuate the bursts of violence and depravity, is almost stunning aesthetically while the use of slow-motion and orchestral swells to punctuate certain pivotal scenes is still unrivalled in sensory impact. And the writer-director also adds a new dimension to the penultimate climax of Alex' troubles- that of revenge, which is just implicit in the original novel. 

It is at this point that the differences between the novel and the film should be mentioned for it is these detours that illustrate just why the source should be more or at least equally essential than the adaptation. 

To begin with, even as 'A Clockwork Orange' does not refrain from depicting almost all of the sexual violence and brutality portrayed in the book, there is a difference in how the author and the director approach the same. Burgess' portrayal of the anarchy is gritty, incisive and grim, with little room for cynical laughter; Kubrick, on the other hand, delivers it as a form of amusement and even, and this is troubling, thrilling entertainment. And this is not just about how the film posits Alex almost as a twisted image of the archetype action hero, especially in his brawl with rival Billyboy, but about how it amplifies the sleaze to an almost gratuitous level. 

The evidence of this is not just the rape scenes that exaggerate the nudity involved to guiltily exciting levels (the film has more scenes of bare breasts and bodies than the book) but also the often-overlooked scene in which Alex seduces two young girls from a record store into engaging into a threesome with him. Kubrick's version is purely an experiment of technique, the scene shot in frenetic sped-up rate so as to bluff the demanding censors and blur the details of the actual activity; in any case, the situation in the film feels positively consensual and even sexually normal. In the novel, however, the same scene is much more macabre, with Alex drugging these girls and forcing them to submit to his own wild sexual impulses, clearly then a case of indirect rape. There is nothing even remotely pleasurable about it in the book while, in the film, the same thing becomes merely a fanciful joke. 

While it is far-fetched to call the director emotionally indifferent, his sympathies in 'A Clockwork Orange' are so single-mindedly with the brash exploits of Alex that the overall emotional heft feels distinctly one-dimensional. Burgess took care to make Alex a more believably world-weary youngster from the start, a slightly skeptical prankster who only comes in his element when listening to his favourite music; he is also more sympathetic towards his parents and even willing, in a genuine way, to improve his wicked ways. The film, on the other hand, revels comfortably in the unabashed nihilism of Alex. Sure, Malcolm McDowell's spectacular, utterly slimy yet searingly honest performance is impossible to fault but Kubrick lets us sympathise with him only after his fate has been dealt out. That, too, is an incredible trope of masterful emotional manipulation. 

But let's not forget the most pivotal difference. 

Most fans of the film, who would have read the novel either before or after watching it, opine that Kubrick did the right thing by excising the controversial 21st chapter from the original British edition of the novel. For novices, I would like to explain that this chapter serves as an epilogue to the happy conclusion of Alex' struggles for sanity and self-respect. In this, Alex is back on the streets as a freewheeling creature of the night as before but he is getting, inevitably, disillusioned and even disgusted by the futility of his activities even after he has been 'cured' of all the side effects of the Ludovico Technique. He even goes to the extent of leaving his new group alone and, on meeting his old mate Pete, who is now married and totally reformed for good, even contemplates marriage and rearing children as an inevitable outcome of growing up. 

For Burgess, this final chapter makes complete sense. And one has to agree because it enriches its cry of protest against behavioural conditioning with a conclusion in which Alex is not forced anymore to be good or responsible but rather he himself makes a conscious choice to leave behind his adolescence. This itself establishes firmly the gist of the story, that goodness and virtue cannot be imposed by force on even the most flawed human soul. 

It also extends on the original meaning of the title superbly. 

'A clockwork orange', as explained by Burgess, is just an old phrase for a person originally full of juice or personality transformed into a soulless clockwork machine and expected to live according to an imposing routine. From what happens to Alex, all that is evident. But in this epilogue, the author tosses his biggest surprise. Alex muses, in one of the most evocative paragraphs of the book, that the wildness and impulse of youth itself makes a human being a clockwork toy without a sense of direction and purpose and that youth serves no purpose if it is spent without being devoted to some artistic or practical initiative. 

Kubrick's justification for the omission of this chapter is a bit of a miscalculation in two ways. Firstly, the director claimed that he had based his script from the American edition, the one that excised totally the final chapter with the publishers complaining to Burgess that it did not just fit into the overall narrative. In his foreword, the author mused that the American reading public wanted a Nixon-style perspective of morality and evil rather than the Kennedy-like opinion that every human being is capable of goodness and initiative if they are not enforced upon him or her. 

Secondly, Kubrick justified the omission by agreeing to the general American opinion that it did not just fit into the narrative. For all his brave insistence of amping up the anarchy and ensuring that Alex remained as wicked as always in the end, he missed up a grand chance to bring in an unexpected dimension of perspective into the narrative. Both the book and film are about the vitality of freedom to choose either good or evil, regardless of the pre-conceived notions of the same laid down by some authority or a society. But for all the marvels of Kubrick's adaptation, it is Burgess' novel that really reveals the infallible truth that a person can be productive, responsible and virtuous and still be happy as long as he or she is not compelled to be a 'clockwork orange' by extremes of both youthful, infantile impulses or by a domineering state. 

Classic Comedies: Ten Most Hilarious Films

10- North By Northwest (1959)

Dir- Alfred Hitchcock

Almost every Alfred Hitchcock film deserves some spot or the other in a definitive list of the greatest, wittiest comedies (yes even serious thrillers like 'Psycho' and 'Vertigo' for their unexpected levels of cynicism). But while even his early homemade British thrillers have the trademark doses of cheeky mirth enlivening the proceedings, nothing beats 'North By Northwest', possibly the cream of his 'wrong man' trope cinema, for pure quotability and effortless comic spontaneity. Sure, it is a helluva thriller to begin with, with corporate charmer Roger Thornhill pursued by spies and even a crop-duster plane across the country. But thanks to Ernest Lehman's endlessly wise-cracking script, that jaunty Bernard Hermann score and yes, Cary Grant's ineffable charisma and convincing despair as the harried Thornhill, the result is something unexpected hilarious and even self-deprecatory, puncturing Hitchcock's meticulous tension and breakneck pace with flashes of genuine hilarity. Just watch that faux pas at the auction to see just how despair can drive you to extreme ends. 

9- City Lights (1931)

Dir- Charles Chaplin

The verdict on this loveable nugget of quaint old silent cinema, albeit made in the age of increasingly popular talkies, is a bit debatable. While everyone gushes with love over that superbly performed climax (I leave you to discover it), one also feels that this was the simplest of Charlie Chaplin's memorable creations. The plot's numerous detours, while genuinely amusing and endearing in equal measure, don't quite lead anywhere and after a while, the film begins to feel a bit creaky. But all that is niggling given the winsome sincerity and slippery charm of the Little Tramp, played to perfection by Chaplin himself. As we follow him on his whimsical trail through the city streets, helping a suicidal millionaire once, losing a prizefighting match the next moment, we are also tugged into an enduringly simple and heartfelt tale of how love can trump all misadventures, especially the ones that involve swallowed whistles. No wonder that even 'WALL-E' took a cue from it. 

8- The King Of Comedy (1982)

Dir- Martin Scorsese

Scorsese and comedy? Oh, it is possible. 'The Wolf Of Wall Street' was a contender and so were 'Goodfellas' and 'The Departed' for the darkly comic ways in which he visualised crime and violence. But 'The King Of Comedy' was something else entirely, a dastardly jab at the hollow culture of celebrity-worship by frenzied fans told through the perspective of a true sociopath. Following his already celebrated act in 'Taxi Driver', regular collaborator Robert De Niro sunk himself further, ensuring that his neighbourhood weirdo Rupert Pupkin had an even greater disturbing element of social inadequacy. Pupkin is an aspiring stand-up comic, who spends whole afternoons and nights chattering and laughing with cardboard cutouts of his idol, the talkshow legend Jerry Langford (played appropriately by Jerry Lewis). The star himself is beleaguered at this hopeless fanatic and rejects his advances. That is when Pupkin swears revenge and what follows is both outrageous in its comic audacity and shocking in how the director, after 'Raging Bull', delivers brutal blow after blow.

7- A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Dir- Richard Lester

Remember that laughing version of 'And Your Bird Can Sing'? Richard Lester's seminal comedy multiplies the spectacular silliness of that moment of classic rock and roll by packing together John, Paul, George and Ringo into a high-toned and sleekly choreographed musical misadventure that has as much energy and excitement as any of their albums. The Liverpudlian legends find themselves running, rocking and rolling through a couple of frenetic days in the newly swinging London, with hordes of screaming fans and Paul's crafty grandfather in tow. In between their jaunty jam sessions and the big, epic concert in the climax, there are John's wicked sense of humour, George's scathing lament of consumerism, Paul's delicious good looks and even Ringo's self-doubting alienation to give all that sparkling wit (thanks to Alun Owen's cheeky-tongued script) an added layer of sophistication and even satirical depth. As a comedy of friends and fellow rock legends, it is wonderful; as a celebration of Beatlemania, it is quite unforgettable. 

6- The Big Lebowski (1998)

Dir- Joel & Ethan Coen

The Coen Brothers are known for infusing unexpected, even slapstick humour in even the darkest of their thrillers; watch 'Fargo' for evidence. But there is something beautifully berserk about the way they embrace the pure, unhinged lunacy of their heyday psychedelic masterpiece, especially by its titular character. Jeffrey 'The Dude' Lebowski (Jeff Bridges in an iconoclast role) is a White-Russian swilling bum who does little else than bowl and whine about his life. This hapless fool is soon embroiled into a kidnapping mystery, packed to the brim with weirdos weirder than most trademark Coen creations and such an overwhelming surfeit of trippy chaos that it is hard not to laugh at the unabashed silliness on display. Shot with spaced-out beauty by Roger Deakins, 'The Big Lebowski' also boasts of some of the most gloriously nutty humour ever found in cinema, from the crackling repartee (that Lennon/Lenin slip-up) to the crazy temper of John Goodman's thick-headed Walter Sobchak, who never forgets he is a veteran of Vietnam.

5- Zelig (1983)

Dir- Woody Allen

And you thought that Woody Allen was only about movies that celebrated love and longing in New York City. The endlessly dynamic writer-director unleashes, from time to time, a gift for blazing, barnstorming satire and the result is something both unconventional and amusing with its intelligence and wit. Fashioned like a serious-minded documentary, with cinematographer Gordon Willis cutting from frenetic black-and-white 1930s sped-up footage to sombre present-day interviews, 'Zelig' is the razor-sharp narrative of the titular human chameleon, essayed with smarmy, almost slithery ease by Allen himself. As we follow his life, made up of an uncanny despair to adjust to the fashions of fads of a constantly capitalist and consumerist American society, we also gaze at the world through his eyes and Allen lands his punches on our fallacy to celebrate amusing mediocrity over genuine virtue. But that is only worth thinking after you are done with chuckling heartily at the exploits of this strange, bemused protagonist stumbling between being a philanderer to a lover.

4- Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Dir- Stanley Kubrick

It is to the credit of Stanley Kubrick, co-writer Terry Southern and the excellent cast and crew that 'Dr. Strangelove' is, even after nearly five decades, as eerily resonant as disturbingly, almost unsettlingly hilarious in its brash mockery of man-made perfection leading humanity to its doom. Just think, also, of how well the demanding director uses Peter Sellers. Cast as three laughably hapless characters trying to grapple with a mad general and his intractable decision to nuke Russia, the English comedian is a hoot, particularly as the initially stern-faced President Merkin Muffley who soon lapses into something of a helpless fool (just watch him bantering with the Russian Premier on the hot-line). The other actors and characters are equally ridiculous amidst the sweltering pathos but this is more than just a comedy of manners ('You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!'). It is also an essential slice of satire that refuses to grow stale. Today, it is impossible to laugh at it without feeling a shudder.

3- Duck Soup (1933)

Dir- Leo McCarey

The world was still a far cry from seeing terrible sadistic fools become political leaders when the inimitable Marx Brothers starred in what would be one of the most spiky and scabrous comedies ever made. 'Duck Soup' was a relative failure in its day but watch it today and you will find the wisecracking and roaring buffoonery of Rufus T. Firefly mirrored in Donald Trump. Firefly, played with firecracker spontaneity by Groucho, is the unlikely ruler of Freedonia, 'the land of the free', as the songs say it. But barely has he started annoying exasperated cabinet ministers that a plot is underway to defame him. The legendary comic siblings (of whom Harpo's scissor-wielding silent prankster steals the thunder) let it rip with devilish repartee ('ethyl' rhymes with 'Ethel' and 'taxes' is actually 'Texas'), from driving a lemonade vendor nuts to that effortlessly entertaining mirror scene that still needs to be rivalled. Sure, Leo McCarey's film starts feeling a tad patchy and the plot does not have much to it eventually. But it would be impossible to find today a comedy that shuttles from scalpel-sharp satire to full-blown hearty laughs so thrillingly. 

2- Modern Times (1936)

Dir- Charles Chaplin

The Great Depression was almost over when Charlie Chaplin did the unexpected: shove a mirror of the disillusionment in the faces of people and yet daring them to laugh over the foibles and follies of those hard times. 'Modern Times' is not only a stirring, even poignant story of humanity crippled by the worst excesses of capitalism; it is also a hilarious and heartfelt of real pathos. This is one of the ambling comic's most resonant portrayals as the Little Tramp, here a sincerely determined yet ultimately slippery working class fellow who finds himself again a vagrant after the factories close shop. Like in 'City Lights, a budding romance with a fellow tramp (Paulette Goddard) drives this usually luckless struggler on a series of short-lived jobs, from a night watchman on roller-skates to a mechanic's assistant puzzled by unpredictable equipment. There are spectacular, almost surreal scenes of comedy here, from employee-feeding machines to Communist paranoia  to smuggled nose powder to dilapidated houses. But the simple sight of our hero, singing gibberish just to land a job as a waiter, is both side-splitting and searing in its portrayal of sheer human despair.

1- Life Of Brian (1979)

Dir- Terry Jones

If The Beatles and The Rolling Stones taught us how to rock and roll, Monty Python, the intrepid group of dynamic British comic talents, proved that Englishmen could also have a sense of humour that could be more spiky and brutally hilarious than any American stand-up comic roasting everyone at a show. And while their brilliant BBC series and the equally pitch-perfect swashbuckler genre mockery of 'Holy Grail' proved them to be the best in the business, it is their second, more satirical outing that is something truly special. 

One wonders what was all that fuss about religious leaders being offended. 'Life Of Brian' is not even remotely about mocking religion, let alone about Christianity, even as it is mainly about a hapless common man mistaken as the Messiah even when the real one is going around spreading the word of God. No, rather, the transcendental comic beauty of 'Life Of Brian' lies in its audacious mockery of the very concept of fanaticism and bogus religion. For this is the fake Biblical epic world in which there are self-proclaimed evangelists preaching nonsense, petty squabbling crowds who cannot understand real spiritual teachings and, most notably, a crazy, silly land in which a man trying to save his skin is hailed as a prophet by crowds obsessed even with the most trivial of things. 

But even as it elicits our heartiest and most bitter laughs at our propensity for senseless fanaticism (has there been any farce more resonant than that 'stoning' scene?), 'Life Of Brian', with all its splendid silliness ('Biggus Dickus') and the unforgettable verbal repartee ('What have the Romans ever given us'?), is also a lasting and lambasting critique of many other disturbing truths, of grand empires stuffed with ludicrous mediocrity and of revolutionary groups seeking futile, laughable ends. A host of brilliant performances from the group bolsters the whole film together with its lethally hilarious wit and cheek, from Michael Palin playing both an 'ex-leper' and a ridiculous Pontius Pilate to Graham Chapman's believably beleaguered eponymous Brian whose growing pathos has even a shade of Kafka. 

Take a bow, Monty Python. Blessed are these cheesemakers, if they are so good at it, really. 

Johnny Gaddar: Too Cool To Resist

'Good artists copy. Great artists steal'.

Like many great things in this world, that quote has a notorious reputation when it comes to the person who actually said it. Steve Jobs, when talking about the need to see the best things around and bring them in your own work, quoted it as one from Pablo Picasso. But that is not the end of it. T.S Eliot used a similar one about 'immature' and 'mature' poets and Igor Stravinsky even made a point of calling copycats as 'lesser artists' and master thieves as 'great' ones. And so the debate rages. These were all great artists in their own unforgettable ways and nobody knows for sure just who stole this aphorism from the other. That is what you call pure art.

Vikram, the protagonist of Sriram Raghavan's 'Johnny Gaddar', might not be in the league as any of these legends but he is something of an artist himself. He does not just copy a trick that a Bollywood anti-hero, played by his favourite (and our favourite as well) leading man, uses in a film that only seasoned movie-watchers will know about. He steals it to pull off a heist and he does that, not with obvious panache, but rather with the cocky, albeit clumsy, zeal of a pure impostor. He is no great thief to begin with but by just the way he pretends to be a suspect-hunting cop when he is merely scooting his lady love off a bus,  he is already a great traitor in the history of cinema, worthy of his name (or at least the name that he steals from cinema) to be that one of a true classic. 

It has been nearly a decade since 'Johnny Gaddar' was first released to swooning and spell-bound audiences in the autumn of 2007 and today, I regret for being so wet behind the ears that I missed it while my fellow classmates and cousins watched it and even ended up buying DVD sets. Today, I feel compelled to hail it as a film worthy of essential watching by every film lover in this nation or the other. If we can go bonkers over 'The Godfather' turning 45 years old, why not over 'Johnny Gaddar'?

I promise this to the virgins: there will be no spoilers on the plot. So, apologies for that bit of revelation about just what Vikram does in the film. For a moment, you can consider the whole thing about Vikram's plans as secondary to the other incredible pleasures of 'Johnny Gaddar'. Criminals and corrupt cops with hearts of both gold and steel. Bags of cash that hide unexpected surprises. A valuable shipment of contraband code-named as 'French furniture'. Kohl-eyed femme fatales with more than just broken hearts. The city of Bombay, with its cramped-up card clubs and glitzy discotheques. And, of course, cinema. 

I would hate to reveal any of them in detail except for the fact that Raghavan brews such a dazzling and delicious cocktail of these ingredients, including the MacGuffins, that it is impossible to stop yourself from downing it in one shot. 'Johnny Gaddar' is more than just a highly original thriller (yes, even with that grand larceny of the main heist); it is also an utterly gorgeous and intoxicating film. Instead of being just a sizzling cocktail, this one is something closer to vintage wine, something to be gulped down with heady appreciation that just adds to the great first taste of it. 

The detailing and writing are simply exquisite. And this is not just about the main strokes of the plot, the whole thing set in motion by clandestine adultery (in which the woman must assume a mundane name to be anonymous) and a sum figure written in smudged red lipstick on a mirror or the grimly hilarious consequences that follow. It is also about the things that you did not expect to matter, the tiniest details and nuances that flesh out the story and its characters so well. 

For instance, just find yourself laughing and grinning with bemused wonder at that snappy dialogue. A rookie card player is called 'Diesel', not because it sounds cool but simply because he wears a T-shirt bearing that name. A wizened and convalescing woman asks a visitor if he wants sweet limes before asking the same casually to peel them for her. A cop declares, with indulgent pride, that he is 'pure non-vegetarian' and a colourfully smarmy club-owner lays down the rule for his wife: either share a drink with him or be the quintessential dutiful wife as in any Rajshri Productions film. Wow. 

And such effortless, nearly split-second repartee is to be found also in the way these cinema-guzzling crooks make their references. There is something endearingly wonderful about a husband who tries to coax his wife for a deal by referencing how the same Bollywood legend did the right thing at the right time. The leader of a gang punctures an important thing by reminding himself and others of a similar scene in his favourite gangster film. And Vikram's choice of identity is just perfect, as proven not just by a memorable Vijay Anand classic that Raghavan worships here but also by a Christopher Nolan classic. It is like Tarantino re-writing the whole of 'The Killing' and yet it is more than just cheek or cinephile fantasy.

The finest films about goons, like 'Goodfellas', 'Reservoir Dogs' or even Edgar Wright's ravishing 'Baby Driver, are ones that show us their unmistakable seams of brutality and nihilism but also their tender, throbbing hearts of unexpected emotions and Raghavan understands that perfectly. 'Johnny Gaddar' is not just about Vikram or his fundamentally flawed plans driven by greed and young lust. It is also about the charmingly crooked players who fill up the ragtag crew he is a part of. And the director etches them out credibly and completely, his intimacy to them complimented by the splendidly distinctive touches and the stunning performances. 

There is Vinay Pathak's Prakash, a lovably goofy gambler whose grit is all on the surface and who finds himself frequently on the losing side. There is Zakir Hussain's Shardul, a floridly rich scoundrel with half a mind on Prakash' club and other on having a good laugh. There is Daya Shetty's brawny Shiva, whose idea of relieving some stress is to watch 'Eyes Wide Shut'. There is Govind Namdev's lethally quick-witted Kalyan, a policeman with both an amazing sense of humour and hidden secrets. And finally, there is good old Dharmendra, playing the effortlessly charismatic Sheshadri, an ageing stud still capable of being both physically and psychologically fierce yet also one who loves to listen to his late wife's taped conversations and grins winsomely at every other soul in love around him. Simply wonderful. 

Pitted against them is the rookie Vikram, played by Neil Nitin Mukesh with a sexy, slithery charm that is impossible to resist. His character is far from a man with a plan with every step orchestrated with flawless precision but his amateur bravado is crucial in how it serves as a foil to the ruthless decisions that he has to take to stay alive. We side with him inevitably in the effortlessly dashing way he saunters around (especially the way he lets loose and grooves to a song), wholly assured of his suave style and yet we also glare at his missteps and mistakes because, in a film which celebrates the artistry of its traitor, we would end up siding with him naturally. 

But 'Johnny Gaddar' is more than just a ride of guilty pleasures and fantasies; never for once does Raghavan glorify his hero or portray his people as merely caricatures. And in case anybody thinks that this is just a film about men and for men, watch out Ashwini Kalsekar's gaudy and harried Varsha, a wife who loves the way her husband slobbers at her every word. Even Rimi Sen seems to be concentrating hard on her damsel in distress act. 

As said before, I have made up for having missed it in my boyhood by watching it time and again whenever I felt like revisiting it on sheer impulse. The first time I was bowled over by the genius of the climax; in the second watch, I was seduced by those performances. Later on, I and my fellow cinephile cousin brother would rave about the film references and then, I was stunned by just how well-shot a film it is, with cinematographer C.K Muraleedharan splashing blue and blood red into the frames and zooming to dentures bobbing in water, Scotch whisky being poured into glasses, club dancers lip-syncing to numbers performed by Helen in the 70s and even a cat borrowed from 'To Catch A Thief'. This time, I have to talk about the music. 

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy deserve a hearty round of applause for crafting not only one of the most thrilling soundtracks amidst a melee of mostly conventional easy listening stuff but also what should be called a perfect retro-soundtrack. Most composers end up remixing lazily vintage classics but the trio bring to life, with cocksure relish, the swirling psychedelic colour of those brassy horns and guitar riffs and the music fills up the frames only when needed and then it makes you on the edge of your seats and even whistling to the score along. I love the way Raghavan lets their fabulous instrumental piece 'The Caper Begins' to be the only distinct sound to be heard when Vikram is making his moves. And oh boy, will we ever have a title song as sinfully thrilling as the one that this film has?

Yet, all that is ultimately just the surface. The best part about 'Johnny Gaddar' is how organic, how intuitive its surprises are. Most films of its genre will depend on some contrivance or grand concept to succeed. But in this film, everything is unexpected and when those startlingly tragi-comic twists start unravelling, you are astounded by just how simple yet ingenious they feel. A lot of them are based purely on coincidence but even then, you cannot help but feel just how well done they are. This is a film that you should watch with your friend so that both of you can just high-five each other from time to time, as I did to my brother-in-law this time. 

Sriram Raghavan is one of our most gifted cinematic stylists and most probing storytellers as well and his subsequent films have evidence for both. 'Agent Vinod' was an extremely underrated yet exceptionally tongue-in-cheek and thrilling spy film while 'Badlapur' was a brilliant and barnstorming meditation on the nature of crime and guilt and the toll of vengeance on morality. But 'Johnny Gaddar' endures with both its sleazy pulp and searing characterisation to be a film that is a genuine classic in every sense. It is the finest thriller that has come from Bollywood since Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 'Khamosh' which itself was as much about the workings of the heart as about the wonderful surprises of cinema itself. 

As Sheshadri would like to say, 'Go get a drink'.