The Best Bollywood Action Films

Disclaimer- I admit to being inspired by the ‘Time Out List Of 100 Best Action Movies’ which was all about the cream of crop of action films from  Hollywood as well as the Japanese and Hong Kong film worlds. I have taken inspiration in terms of the format but everything else- the words and the opinion- are completely mine.

20- Tashan (2008)

Director- Vijay Krishna Acharya

The plot- Lots Of The Pharmoola, Served In The Ishtyle

Dishum-dishum moment- Akshay Kumar’s macho-cool yet meltingly warm Bachchan Pandey, transforming from Neo of ‘The Matrix’ to a raging chimp with machine guns in each hand, inside the battlements of an old Rajasthani fort.

It got virulent hatred at the time of its release- from both critics and the audiences- but somehow, all these years, this showy debut vehicle for Vijay Krishna Acharya, who had previously written the formula-happy ‘Dhoom’ movies, has enjoyed a sort of exclusive cult status among the moviegoers. The reason is pretty simple enough- despite its obvious flaws- the meandering storyline, the self-conscious seriousness and the self-indulgence- there is quite nothing like it when it comes to mainstream entertainment. 

The threadbare plot- of a femme fatale (Kareena Kapoor in sizzling, sensuous form) flying the coop with wads of cash and egging colorful and linguistically challenged gangster Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor, part fun part frustratingly incoherent) to hire two unlikely bounty hunters (Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan) on her trail- has all the profundity of a Robert Rodriguez formula film but Acharya also seems to have the same’s visual chutzpah and the result is an evocatively shot, if eccentrically written and enacted, yarn that spans across immersive landscapes, blends 90’s style Bollywood hokum and Tarantino-style cheek with obvious relish and the quirky, silly yet always enjoyably comic book-like action delights in its own deliciously trashy way. The end result is not exactly the cream of crop of entertainment- parts stretch too much, especially a sentimentalized latter hour- and the jokes take a time to tickle but Akshay has never been better and there is plenty of whimsical eye-candy in offer in terms of action- from a cycle rickshaw chase in Varanasi’s streets set to an infectious qawwali to a car crashing over the cliff due to a tiff over the right music to play right down to a blowout finale where Acharya and action-director Peter Hein make Subhash-Ghai cheesiness and Rodriguez’s Western-genre parody look like kitschy art.

19- Agent Vinod (2012)

Director- Sriram Raghavan

The plot- Saif Ali Khan as a slick Indian 007 trotting the world’s hotspots, in hunt for, as a character from the film puts it, ‘both Ruby and Rubaiyat’

Dishum-dishum moment- The RAW Agent With No Name suddenly recognizes a former Lankan militant amidst a grand auction and fists of fury, in both present and flashbacks, ensue, set to the killer-tune of a Tamil dance number.

Yet another misunderstood action classic. Sriram Raghavan is clearly a master of firecracker caper action punctuated by references to his favorite movies and a killer background score as well and all of them come together in delicious servings in this breezy, brilliantly paced spy outing that never ever feels the need to be serious. The plot- of our own Indian James Bond, here as a cool-as-ice Saif Ali Khan, trying to find a nuclear bomb trigger hidden in a poetry book (yikes!) (and finding enough time to look into fellow-spook Ruby’s (Kareena Kapoor) troubled, exquisite eyes)- has all the logic and rationale of that of an early Bond film- think ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ or ‘You Only Live Twice’ and thankfully, Raghavan makes the entire thing equally tongue-in-cheek, sexy, smart and self-assured never to digress into weightier complexities, as well as crammed with deliciously nasty baddies (Aadil Hussain, Prem Chopra and Ram Kapoor make a mark). 

Nearly every setpiece in every single location is awesome- a drop-dead gorgeous prelude in Afghanistan, a botched assassination in Tangiers, a furious car-chase in Riga and a beautifully scored single-take shootout inside a hotel. Curiously, it is only when the film returns to the subcontinent- an underfleshed escape in Karachi and an underwhelming climax in Delhi- that it falls a bit flat. But till then, turn off your mind and enjoy.

18- Shootout At Lokhandwala (2007)

Director- Apoorva Lakhia

Plot- The name says it all- a little-known piece of historical cops and criminals standoff recast as a typical Bollywood saga

Dishum-dishum moment- The grand climactic eponymous confrontation- an action sequence so gloriously, unashamedly unhinged that it is like an adolescent’s blood-splattered wet dream come true.

Yes, it is full of flaws- the style overtakes any complexity or substance, the actors are all well-chosen but often stuffed with one-dimensional characters, the historical detail is dodgy and often fudged, which is a shame, in face of such meticulous, factual realism in another movie the same year (check my number 4) and the clichés and stereotypes begin to crowd the frames, diminishing the film’s honest attempts at grittiness. 

But this is all the scene until the grilled finale- when the cops come home with an arsenal of guns and the more brazen of them (essayed here by the action heroes of the nineties themselves- Suniel Shetty, Arbaaz Khan and Sanjay Dutt) enter the eponymous building to take on a really wild bunch of ruffians and all hell breaks loose. Recreating the little-publicized shootout between gangster Maya Dolas (played here with chilling supremacy by a never-better Viveik Oberoi) and clean-cut, though controversial, cop Aftab Khan (Dutt’s aging, crusty yet shifty inspector) in the early 90s Bombay, Lakhia’s usually ham-handed style pays off in spades when it comes to the frenetic bursts of action along with the slick, sepia-tinted cinematography. The street chases and the gory gangster brutality are compelling, as much as they are unsubtle, but it is the finale, erupting into flames and fists of fury that lends the flawed film its emotional weight. Plus, there is an inanely catchy song about someone named ‘Ganpat’ as well. Call it the ‘Braveheart’ of the Bombay gangster genre.

17- Ghulam (1998)

Director- Vikram Bhatt

Plot- ‘On The Waterfront’……recut as a saga of boxing, Bombay mafia and teary-eyed bimbettes.

Dishum-dishum moment- Aamir Khan runs in the face of a Bombay fast local train and then, a splitsecond before collision, leaps away- a stunt that will shame the likes of Ajay Devgn and Akshay Kumar

Looking back at it now, Vikram Bhatt’s only good outing, a compellingly gritty remake of Elia Kazan’s stately ‘On The Waterfront’, has a lot more to it than just Aamir Khan’s lurid choice of jeans and his first-ever playback song in which he asks a girl if she will accompany him to, of all places, Khandala. The Bombay flavor is also captured pretty authentically in a mainstream film like this (which has Khan and Rani Mukerji getting hot and bothered in a muscular bike)- with the action relocated from the waterfront to the grimy ghettoes, while the boxing scenes and the brother-as-manager angle are transplanted rather slickly into the screen. Also, the casting is pretty solid and strategic- Sharat Saxena might not be the most effective actor around but he is a riot as the beefed-up and nasty Ronnie Singh, running a vicious racket of match-fixing and hammering the people around him, armed with a devilish smile. 

Most of all, the film is incredibly memorable for Khan himself- in a fiercely passionate performance, after the scene-stealing turn in RGV’s ‘Rangeela’. As the plucky and furious Siddhu, who bludgeons his way through the law as well as the domineering force of Ronnie, Khan’s free-wheeling drifter is a mix of Nicholson-style edginess with the masculine charm that Brando brought in the original and his fury in the frenetic ‘local train scene’ as well as the final bloody fistfight indicated that this actor was now game for bigger things in future.

16- Mission Kashmir (2000)

Director- Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Plot- The penultimate story of good versus evil- symbolized here by a young wannabe terrorist and the idealistic cop who once raised him- against the backdrop of Paradise on Earth.

Dishum-dishum moment- The dashing entry of Altaf (Hrithik Roshan) landing like a wild angel through the roof- the official arrival of hi-tech action choreography in Bollywood

It is actually a pity how little do we see of Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the angry young director of the 80s in today’s times. His directorial outings are too distanced from each other; his latest- a rerun of a past masterpiece (see number 3)- was a Hollywood project that bombed and his last Hindi outing- the elaborate but emotionally unengaging ‘Eklavya’ boasted only technical prowess (and even almost made the list). But this 2000 slick Bollywood drama sits somewhere between the greatness of the heyday and the slackness of the present. 

It is unashamedly mainstream and unsubtle in its values- it often nails its head villain (played by Jackie Shroff with typical ham-handed recklessness) and his cronies as stereotypes, Roshan’s torn rookie terrorist Altaf merely screams when asked to essay pain and agony and the elaborately-staged song and melodrama scenes often undermine the pace. But ‘Mission Kashmir’ also does what it has to do- absolutely rock as an action film, clear and simple. It is superbly shot (by Chopra regular Binod Pradhan), makes the spectacular explosions and gun-fights of the hell-fire climax look particularly sobering and thrilling and it also brought the whole art of slow-motion takes, thundering background score and expertly executed wire-stunts into Bollywood, which would then be abused a lot.

15- Nayak- The Real Hero (2001)

Director- Shankar

The plot- A simple, honest and lovelorn (!) reporter becomes the CM of Maharashtra for one day and all hell breaks loose- for good.

Dishum-dishum moment- The normally meek Anil Kapoor jumps into a pool of muck and transforms, within moments, into an avenging creature of the night.

Granted, there is much to bash about in Shankar’s Hindi version of his Tamil hit ‘Gentleman’. The entire premise- of dedicated reporter Shivaji (Kapoor, self-assured and subtle) challenged by the alleged corrupt Chief Minister of Maharashtra (a devilish Amrish Puri in top, campy villain form) to wear his sandals and homespun for 24 hours, who goes on changing the status quo by a shockingly simple solution (‘Sabko suspend karne ke liye!’)- is one that is ripe for political satire and not full-blown Bollywood masala but the film starts taking itself too seriously- further stretching the gag into a total plot- and suddenly, all pretensions of satire are chucked out. 

But, hey, this was one of those gloriously silly and inexhaustibly entertaining films- a celebration of daftness of the highest order and there is no better evidence of it than in its super-charged and overblown action scenes- including the above-mentioned knockout scene with a pair of chains and derelict cars- and the fact that it all looks and sounds (firecracker dialogue by Anurag Kashyap, no less) too tongue-in-cheek to resist. AIB even made a spoof of Arvind Kejriwal, using this film as the source for its barbed mockery.

14- Ghajini (2008)

Director- A R Murugadoss

Plot- Christopher Nolan’s ‘Memento’….recycled into a typical Bollywood action film.

Dishum-dishum moment- Aamir Khan’s perennially angry avenging lover stabs a goon with….a bathroom tap….and forgets everything about it….

Suppose that Christopher Nolan had made ‘Memento’ not as a spare and spine-chilling psycho-thriller but as a hardcore action film like his work on the ‘Batman’ series. Suppose Leonard Shelby was not Guy Pierce playing a lean, shifty and enigmatic man but rather Arnold Schwarzenegger’s beefcake given an insane bald haircut (that became so popular!) as well as a pair of excited, flappy and distinct ears. And suppose that the film proceeded on the straightforward track instead of going back and fro as it originally did. You might still not be able to get right the amount of Bollywood schmaltz that Murugadoss packed in his Bollywood remake of his Tamil remake of Nolan’s greatest film. Also thrown in are Asin’s screechy and self-sympathetic heroine, a bunch of great but misplaced songs by the great A.R Rahman and an overlong running time (cue needless supporting characters and overlong, nonsensical flashbacks). 

But despite it all, there is no denying the film’s thrust of action- furious, a tad gritty, a touch of emotionally wrenching and delivered with panache. For once more, action director Peter Hein orchestrates incredible fists of fury soaked in both adrenalin and blood-thirsty anger while Resul Pookutty’s edgy sound and Ravi K Chandran’s visuals lend both immediacy and emotional wallop. And Aamir Khan, lending both demented brawn and a delicious subtlety to his character, proved that here was a mainstream action hero with brains as well.

13- Mr. India (1987)

Director- Shekhar Kapur

Plot- ‘The Invisible Man’ versus the supervillain who always needs to be ‘satisfied’. End of story.

Dishum-dishum moment- The final standoff between Mr. India and Mogambo- a pulse-pounding climax bathed in red light, lots of smoke and missiles poised to destroy dear India. Whoa!

There are some cast-iron reasons as to why Amrish Puri was so, so terrific when given both black and grey shades to sport. To begin with, those famous devilish eyes with their majestically curled brows and that booming voice was enough to send shivers down the spine, even when he was not completely evil. And more crucially, he always embodied a sort of twisted father figure to the very heroes he fought and to someone or the other in the film. So, from the maniacal Mola Ram in Spielberg’s ‘Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom’ to the warm yet strict patriarch in the classic ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge’ , his presence was always overwhelmingly large and awesome- it was never just villainy- it also elicited awe and respect. And he never really killed it better than as Mogambo- the gold-wig sporting, Sgt. Peppers jacket clad kingpin whose ethnic origins could either be British or Nordic Aryan (his henchmen even salute him by raising their right hands) and who should always be made ‘happy’. 

Pitted against him is the very definition of an everyguy in the movies- Anil Kapoor’s effortlessly charming Arun, who is given both a clutch of cute orphans and a wonderful armband to handle and it is the latter that turns him visible and a sort of vigilante against Mogambo’s minions who do all sorts of rough stuff. It’s classic hero vs villain stuff, a touch unspectacular by today’s standards but its grand finale- of the two men confronting each other, of the everyguy standing up to his father-like nemesis who demands total obeisance- was best summed up by Salman Rushdie in his compelling ‘The Moor’s Last Sigh’ as the ‘life-and-death oppositions of many movie fathers and sons’. Kapur nailed the scene with suitably grand fireworks and imaginative effects that would still shame the likes of Rakesh Roshan.

12- Aks (2001)

Director- Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Plot- Cop kills terrorist….the latter’s spirit enters the former and the stage is set for a maniacal Amitabh Bachchan enjoying the spoils.

Dishum-dishum moment- The explosive jungle fever chase ending with a perfectly executed waterfall jump

If one was to point the most obvious weakness in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s directorial style, it would be the obvious way in which he resorts to facile metaphors and personifications to make his arguments- it is all strewn over his disastrous ‘Delhi 6’- a film which soaks its political and social commentary in all sorts of illogical and far-fetched metaphors- including, of all things, a fabled black monkey and even a pigeon (!) and it is also present a bit in his superior urban patriot yarn ‘Rang De Basanti’- notably in the scene where a flaming Raavan effigy falls over a team of English cops rounding on Aamir Khan’s Chandrashekhar Azad. But it is only in his little-seen yet highly effective and well-crafted debut that the metaphors actually add the zing- with Manoj Bajpai’s slithery, psychotic terrorist quoting a line from the Bhagwad Gita as he commits a spree of spine-chilling murders- imagine ‘The Joker’ quoting The Holy Bible. 

The metaphor part aside- ‘Aks’ is nevertheless a great example of Bollywood formula given a very unconventional touch. It is also the finest example of psycho-thriller action in Bollywood and its thundering, bizarre set-pieces do pack a punch- the frenetic chase in the jungle ending with a stunner of a free-fall in a waterfall gushing from a cave as well as the gripping interlude in Budapest deliver both thrills and spills. And yes, Bajpai’s wavy locks and Bachchan’s furious French-beard still look slick today.

11- Ab Tak Chappan (2004)

Director- Shimit Amin

Plot- A world-weary encounter specialist has to figure out who is hell-bent on bumping him off.

Dishum-dishum moment- Nana Patekar’s worn-out yet combustible Sadhu Agashe hides a shard of broken glass up his sleeve and uses it to get his revenge.

It is rather incredible how, like Michael Mann, Shimit Amin can squeeze crackling, sudorific tension out of the most unlikely situations. So, be it a finale in which everything rests completely on how quick your reflexes are in defending a hockey goal (‘Chak De! India’) or in a particularly uncomfortable moment when you stand up to the boss who always thought you to be a loser (‘Rocket Singh- Salesman Of The Year), the mood for Amin will always be terse, brisk and it is only when it ends that you actually feel the relief of release. This kind of taut style fits a textbook cop and criminal thriller like ‘Ab Tak Chappan’ by default but there is also something emotionally sobering about how the film handles its cold, clinical brutality. 

As Agashe (a fiery and charismatic Patekar in top form) and his crack-team of fellow encounter killers take down targets in the gullies and chawls of a messy, blood-splattered Bombay in the first half, the mood never lets up but it is in the second half- with a grittily executed surprise cold-blooded murder and the subsequent dark-edged blood-spurts- where the film finds its true sober rhythm and strikes darkly at the vein. It is in every sense a compelling action thriller- the kind of gritty potboiler that would later, possibly, inspire the likes of Anurag Kashyap and Rajkumar Gupta.

10- Mughal-E-Azam (1960- Original and 2004- Colored re-release)

Director- K. Asif

Dishum-dishum moment- The just emperor yet autocratic father faces his belligerent son in the midst of the raging battlefield.

You can name almost any amount of reasons as to why Bollywood’s only perfect effort at the historical epic genre is considered so much in high praise even as it might look dated to some. To begin with, like some of the films to pop up in the list ahead, it influenced a whole culture of moviegoers and it would be forever that rivalry of father and son would be identified as the clash between Salim and Akbar and forbidden love would always be fondly, candidly described as one involving an ‘Anarkali’ who would be inevitably chained behind a layer of masonry. 

Regardless of the gimmickry (even today entire dialogues are lampooned), Asif’s (and arguably Bollywood’s)only magnum opus has plenty of narrative weight (by blending mythical romance with a cast of real-life characters from textbooks), towering acting (Dilip Kumar as a self-assured, determined Salim and Prithiviraj Kapoor as the mercurial yet surprisingly affectionate Akbar are historical portrayals that still need to be bettered), truly monumental sequences (love set to the tune of Tansen’s insistent melodies, the court sculptor cheering Salim’s courage moments before the latter’s execution, the final coup de grace and the still-stunning ‘Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya’ ballad set inside an eye-scorching palace made of mirrors) and truly impressive battle sequences with sand and dust  literally flung at the viewers. With its Technicolor glory rightfully restored in its colored re-release in 2004, this will always be the epic to beat (take that, Ashutosh Gowariker)

9- Aamir (2008)

Director- Rajkumar Gupta

Plot- A man lands at an airport, is handed a phone and told to do terrible things, lest his family faces the same fate.

Dishum-dishum moment- A cop looks suspiciously at Aamir (Rajeev Khandelwal) after the latter finishes a not-too-innocent call and a chase of nerve-racking paranoia follows through the gullies of a hot and hostile Dongri.

After the initial fanfare for this low-budget and supremely effective debut outing from Gupta, some viewers and critics pointed out how the film, beneath all its authentically gritty street flavor, is little else than a vigilante formula given a typically slick presentation. And then, there were the similarities with the Filipino thriller ‘Cavite’. 

But on its own, ‘Aamir’ is pretty solid as a thriller- its thrillingly-captured Muslim ghettoes of Maximum City serve as a stirring, spectacular backdrop to a simple plot that deals with a fine day gone wrong and then tackles themes of communalism in the simplest way possible. Aamir, an otherwise cultivated doctor, is robbed of his luggage and handed a phone and called up periodically by a menacing operator, seen only in shadows, and told to shuttle from here and there and carry a red bag to a destination. In the way, the city’s traffic is a hindrance and pretty much everyone is spying on the unlikely puppet trying to figure out the strings. Even as it turns obvious by the end, you will be more than hooked by the frenetic street chases and unrelenting paranoia (shot terrifically by Alfonse Roy and set to Amit Trivedi’s breakout score) and Khandelwal’s searingly honest debut.

8- Deewar (1975)

Director- Yash Chopra

Plot- Do you really need to know about it? Of course, you are not confusing it with a film of the same name starring the same famous man.

Dishum-dishum moment- The ‘Daddy-Long-Legs’ of an action hero gives a nasty little surprise to the goons who are looking out exclusively for him inside a grimy warehouse.

Can there be a more genre-defining film like ‘Deewar’(excepting the top three of the list, that is)? Even today, we find faint echoes of Chopra’s well-entrenched soap-operatic tropes and the blazing quotability and power of Salim-Javed’s writing in every single attempt at the retro-masala potboiler. And can there be a more efficient and overwhelmingly heroic action hero than Amitabh Bachchan himself? The answer to the question will always remain a firm and resolute ‘No’. 

Like ‘Shree 420’, the lovers of ‘Deewar’ would go beyond the formula on the top and perceive it as a prophetic picture of capitalism in India’s sole big-minded metropolis but that is in many ways detracting from the basic pleasures of the film- this is Chopra at his sensational- crafting entire sequences of raw emotional power and melodrama without a hiccup, letting the famous one-liners explode between the warring brothers- the determined and ruthless yet torn Vijay (Bachchan) and the righteous cop Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) who may not have anything but has a mother in the suitably teary-eyed Nirupa Roy and letting up a storm of truly iconic action scenes- including of course the scene in the warehouse and a bloody climax at the temple. To quote Vijay, ‘Khush toh bahut hoge tum’ after watching it all over again.

7- Johnny Gaddar (2007)

Director- Sriram Raghavan

Plot- A rookie member of a crooked gang decides to fly the coop with some cash and earns a nickname inspired by a famous Bollywood caper.

Dishum-dishum moment- A near-botched murder attempt on a train in the night- with a napkin of chloroform and lust for money.

It is pleasantly surprising that a caper that boldly and cockily doffs its hat to almost every classic caper in the past should emerge itself as such a rollicking ride, driven as a sleek vehicle geared up by a cool, cool retro soundtrack (Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy having a blast) and sly performances and saucy murders to match the overall seventies feel to a modern story. 

Once the film gets rolling and wheeling, with five crooks (played by the likes of veteran action hero Dharmendra and character actors Vinay Pathak and Zakir Hussain) deciding to raise some illegal cash to buy some contraband, the film turns into a crackling whodunit- even as the traitor, an effete Vikram (Neil Nitin Mukesh), is revealed pretty early on. As he goes around, pocketing the cash in a split-second, stealthy standoff in the train and then bumping everyone else who does not even suspect him, the film emerges as a deliciously morbid picture of part-funny, part-mercurial men driven not by loyalty but by self-centered interest. It is Raghavan’s deliberate streak of pitch-black comedy and frequent Bollywood and James Hadley Chase referencing that makes the sudden, shocking and suspenseful scenes of murder and treachery so much terrific fun.

6- Sarfarosh (1999)

Director- John Matthew Matthan

Plot- Bollywood’s first decent attempt at a serious spy thriller- about cross-border gun smuggling, pulpy patriotism and a cop who can even quote poetry and fall in love.

Dishum-dishum moment- A slow-burn stakeout at a roadside dhaba in the middle of the night and a white-knuckle foot-chase in crowded Colaba.

The likes of ‘Baazi’, ‘Rangeela’ and ‘Ghulaam’ might have rescued Aamir Khan from the ridiculous roles handed out to a talent like him (though there was still the occasional disaster- ‘Mann’ and ‘Mela’). But it is mainly Matthan’s slick and fast entertainer that really put him up in the crew of great actors who would then go on to chew up the frames with every subsequent outing. 

Our big-eared chocolate boy hero plays Ajay, a hot-shot cop who landed the job thanks to a bunch of over-sympathetic superiors who felt bad for little sonny when his righteous dad (Akash Khurana) is left paralyzed by a nasty gang of terrorists. Somewhere between commanding a crack team of diligent enforcers and leading them to a gun-smuggling racket spanning India and Pakistan, he also finds time to think of waterfall kisses with a simpering Sonali Bendre and vociferously laud the poetry of the mysterious yet charming Gulfam (Naseeruddin Shah, in top form). 

The obvious mainstream clichés not withstanding, this is a little triumph of entertainment- devoting arduous plot time to the clean-cut thrust of Ajay and his men investigating clues, nabbing suspects in a series of deftly executed combat scenes and it all culminates edgily inside an embattled stronghold with terrific panache. It is then a pity how little we saw of Matthan in the subsequent times- don’t even ask about his 2005 dampener ‘Shikhar’- which was ‘Wall Street’ given a formulaic treatment.

5- Kaminey (2009)

Director- Vishal Bhardwaj

Plot- Two twins- one lisps, the other slips-totally crazy goons, a guitar with powder and a conch with diamonds and literal chaos.

Dishum-dishum moment- The messy, dirty mayhem of the climax with guns raging in the ghettoes and the blood diamonds earning their name well.

Composer-cum-filmmaker-extraordinaire Vishal Bhardwaj has always lifted mere violence to new levels of sophisticated artistry- be it Langda Tyagi’s rusty carabine or the Kalashnikov-toting grave diggers taking down an army in a snow-buried cemetery. But with his 2009 blistering Bollywood drama fitted like a ‘City Of God’-meets-‘Pulp Fiction’ gangster thriller, he got a full-fledged chance to experiment with the very pulpy ingredient of action and the results are nothing less of breathtakingly breakneck and dazzlingly bold. Armed with Tassaduq Hussain (the man who shot ‘Omkara’), the wily director decided to leave the leisurely, Sergio-Leone-style idyll behind and went all fast and furious for the film’s visual canvas- the end result is a rain-soaked, bloody, muddy and grimy backdrop against which the fast and relentless violence is played out ruthlessly and expertly. 

So, when the determined ruffian Charlie (Shahid Kapoor in one of his twin turbulent performances) chases a traitor down the slippery and glistening nooks and crannies of Bombay’s Cotton Green station or when a simple drug-deal turns from funnily bloody to frenetic within moments inside a hotel and all the while the background score races along with the staccato images, you can’t help but feel that you are riding a fast Bombay local without brakes and headed for obvious collision. The terrifically twisted storyline- uniting enstranged twins Charlie and Guddu against a seemingly whole army of delicious baddies (Amole Gupte as the cocky nativist politician Bhope Bhau steals the show as does Chandan Roy Sanyal as the demented Mikhail)- the totally unpredictable verbal fireworks and the emotional undertow and graphic deaths add to the menace. Now that is what one would call darn dangerous. And a hell of a time, too. ‘Dhan Te Nan’!

4- Black Friday (2007)

Director- Anurag Kashyap

Plot- The true story of the Bombay 1993 bomb blasts and a lot, lot more than just that….

Dishum-dishum moment- A sweaty, exhausting, exhilarating foot chase down the filthy alleys of Bombay’s sordid slums, with the somber background music giving way to a classic Bollywood one-liner from the yesteryears.

Most of Bollywood’s attempts to shine a light into the dark crevices of recent history are fraught with faked names, changed identities, glorified parts and a timid sort of hesitation to make a scandalous statement. None of that is the case with Kashyap’s loaded bomb of a film- an early triumph that made viewers and critics sit up and take view of the man who would then release a whole assortment of incendiary devices, all lit to go boom. Not only does ‘Black Friday’ stick admirably well to its equally provocative source- S. Hussain Zaidi’s page-turning, compelling non-fiction book- by depicting, in stark honesty, first the senseless destruction by the blasts and then the shocking inquest and the political and criminal background to the tumultuous events. 

It also goes a stretch further, amping up the horror of the blasts, the grim brutality of the arrests and the tortures, the sweaty dread of the interrogations and the ultimate gut-wrenching impact of the distorted, sprawling truth that is eventually wriggled out. Armed with cinematographer N. Natraja Subramanium’s gritty, neon, blood and mud soaked visuals of a Bombay reeling under a maelstrom of communal riots, devastating terrorism and police brutality, this is nothing less than a conspiracy thriller of the highest order- as Kashyap beautifully and brashly mixes sound and image to stun, to shock, to force into submission and mostly to show the messy, bloody truth at the heart of it all. 

The acting, too, is fantastic- Kay Kay Menon as an upright yet tough Rakesh Maria is matched and surpassed only by Pavan Malhotra as the vicious Tiger Memon and the clean-cut, urgent and crackling action- the afore-mentioned street-chase which would beat even the opening pursuit of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ for sheer, blistering energy and the truly horrific and tense blast scenes themselves- tug you into the heart of the chaos but it is when Kashyap navigates the intimately personal strands in the expertly paced latter half that the film achieves utmost perfection.

3- Parinda (1989)

Director- Vidhu Vinod Chopra

Plot- To avenge the loss of innocence, Anil Kapoor’s Karan joins his brother’s gang to take them down all.

Dishum-dishum moment- A peaceful, friendly rendezvous near Gateway of India turns, gruesomely, into a spurt of blood and a furious flight of pigeons, setting the unforgettably brutal tenor of the film to follow.

In many cases in this list (‘Ghulam’, ‘Ghajini’, ‘Mission Kashmir’, ‘Sarfarosh’), the brutal thrust of action has been seriously, and distractingly, undermined by the more formulaic proceedings in the plots. This is clearly not the case with Chopra’s greatest, grittiest film- ‘Parinda’ is that rare example of a grown-up, intelligent and well-crafted Bollywood drama in which the mainstream elements- the lovely, lovely ‘Tumse Milke Aisa Laga’ ballad or the oh-so-sweet bromance in the beginning- come as the perfect foil to the blistering darkness elsewhere in the film. Storywise, this is too Bollywood revenge- pure and simple- as Karan (Anil Kapoor) decides to avenge the cold-blooded (and undoubtedly iconic) murder of cop-friend Prakash (Anupam Kher) by joining alongside his henchman brother Kishen (Jackie Shroff) in the gang of the seemingly invincible kingpin Anna ( a stunning Nana Patekar) and them bumping everyone off. 

But Chopra also proved that smaller and more minute detailing mattered as much as the dramatic thrust of the main storyline- so this is also about Anna’s secret, hideous fear- of fire- which erupts at the most unexpected places in the film and lends the already growingly dark film its spine-chilling aspect. Let’s not forget of course the stellar supporting cast- Suresh Oberoi’s flute-playing suavely dressed killer Abdul, screenwriter Shiv Subramanium as the oily and sinister Francis and some other great turns- and the continuous streak of vengeful anger and brutality that marks every single stunning frame shot by Binod Pradhan and edited by Renu Saluja with razor-sharp precision. 

But the ultimate hero of it all is Chopra- crafting a Bombay gangster drama like a livewire Hitchcock thriller- blending menacing visuals with an assortment of thumping sounds and effects to create an atmosphere of unrelenting dread. Like all great films, the smaller stunning bits- the aforementioned shootout in broad daylight, a dinner rendezvous turning unbearably tense and then bloody (in a nice twist on the scene from ‘The Godfather’) and more- are all used along with the remarkable tension for the film’s final upsurge of violence and insanity- an epilogue that needs to be seen to be believed.

2- Sholay (1975)

Director- Ramesh Sippy

Plot- ‘The Magnificent Seven’ meets ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ meets Salim-Javed and instant history is created.

Dishum-dishum moment- Many iconic moments to choose from, but the opening howler of a setpiece- with a coal train and horsemen on the horizon- beats nearly everything that Bollywood has manufactured in full-blown action.

Its 40 years since it first wowed the audiences and accordingly set a whole new fervor among the cinegoers and went on to be an indispensable part of Hindi movie culture but Ramesh Sippy’s sole, rugged magnum opus (and not surprisingly India’s only true Western yarn) is still the action-packed blockbuster that it was back in the seventies. In many ways, it is representative of the ubiquitous clash between the growing arthouse scene of Gulzar, Benegal and Sathyu and the mainstream masala of Chopra, Sippy and Prakash Mehra. 

But ‘Sholay’ is more than just Bollywood masala superbly executed- it is more than just a retread of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ in its story of bandits raiding a village and defeated by mercenary heroes, it also borrows a crucial massacre scene from ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ and rips pretty much the entire style of the Western genre. In its own way, it is still a film of towering, fiery achievement- delivering solidly on unforgettable characterizations- a winning combination of heroic (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra striking up a fine rapport), dramatic (Sanjeev Kumar’s amputated cop-turned-vengeful Thakur may be gimmicky but also raw and powerful), hilarious (Asrani doing a fabulous charade on Charlie Chaplin in ‘The Great Dictator’ as jailer from British times) and most memorably villainous (do we even need to talk of the most famous dacoit in Bollywood history?). 

It also talks quite a bit about the plight of the forlorn villagers, it gave us a whole horde of narrative treasure which could be both quoted verbatim and even joked about and it also gave us a series of finest action scenes ever filmed- those gun-shots, explosions and marvelous rugged images (by Dwarka Diwecha) still pack a punch.

1    

 1                    

1        1- Gangs Of Wasseypur- Parts 1 and 2 (2012)

          Director- Anurag Kashyap

Plot- Revenge begets revenge begets revenge, all served with style, substance and (tortured) soul in a hinterland that would become the coolest destination in rural India.

Dishum-dishum moment- A stealthy, slinky stabbing in the gullies and a fiery, guns blazing raid on a citadel-like house.

So, finally, we arrive at Numero Uno- the finest action film that Bollywood has produced- the film that really made bloodshed, bullets, brawn and brains a form of art and carried with it to new levels of sophistication. But then Anurag Kashyap’s double-bill film did not have any high-stakes stunts, fancy locations, or even brawny heroes. Nor does it have bimbettes and nor does it have gadgets or vehicles or even luxury.

It doesn’t matter. For Kashyap’s film- wrap the two together and you get a solid chunk of cinema- did not just pack in guns, gore and glory but it also rooted it wonderfully into its dirty, filthy, coarse, profane yet vivid world- so much that the punches are authentically primitive and crude and cruel, the punchlines cruder, crueler and even more deadly than them are the thuggish men who wield them.

Also, this is a cinematic triumph that embraced action and violence in all its different forms, as captured so effectively by Bollywood and Hollywood alike- it could be grotesque and gruesome (people are chopped up, diced, sliced, beheaded, stabbed, exploded and blood splashes across the frames like it is an element of this world itself, along with dusty earth and muddy water), it could also be lethally, infectiously hilarious (both daring gunslingers and cocky wannabes could find themselves in a soup with misfiring guns and petty squabbles), emotionally draining (a mother collapses at the sight of her son’s decapitated head, while an angry man, soiled with coal and clay, stones a fellow mine worker to death as to exact revenge ), supremely epic (improvised bombs rained during the chaotic and bloody Moharram rites and a blood-spurting finale that matches Brian De Palma’s shootout in his ‘Scarface’) and much, much more.

Kashyap seems to be born to make a film like this. It reflects so much of his taste in movies- it is relentlessly nihilistic like Peckinpah, unashamedly indulgent like Prakash Mehra, it borrows a gruesome murder from ‘The Godfather’ and gives its own snazzy twist and like Scorsese, it makes violence and violent people stylish and glorifies them without a shred of guilt. And there is also his voice- strident, ambitious and aggressive, yet mesmeric, elegiac and yet never dull- blending both reference and his own cocky, fast and frenetic and visually spectacular and spicy directorial style into full-flow, while not compromising admirably on emotion and substance. And even the actors pack their parts with the right amount of dynamite- Manoj Bajpai, Nawazzudin Siddiqui, Huma Qureshi, Tigmanshu Dhulia and, most importantly, the brilliant, brilliant Richa Chadha as the biggest bomb in the crew. It is done then- this is the action movie and even the Bollywood movie to beat. ‘Bata dijiyega sab ko’.

The Grand Budapest Hotel- Grand Style, Little Else

Watching a Wes Anderson film is like finding yourself at a confectioner’s store doling out both dark chocolate and mass-manufactured and colorful candy.

As long as it is the former, we get cinema that is admittedly indulgent and a tad too polished but also authentically bittersweet and sophisticated with a certain edge- consider his early films like ‘Rushmore’ and ‘The Royal Tenembaums’- beautifully constructed bittersweet takes at life and its incongruities in the most natural and unhurried ways possible- like good chocolate, the kind of cinema that is best savored with patience and the rewards are extremely delectable.

But of late, the filmmaker- whom once the great, great Martin Scorsese considered as his only successor- is more interested in shelling out the latter- cinema often made lively solely by the quaint detail lavished on it, packed to the brim with stellar actors in eye-grabbing yet ultimately fruitless parts and often set in unreal worlds that promise to be charming but feel too fairy-tale like, too contrived and yet we take it in simply because this mass-manufactured confectionery is too sweet to resist.

Alas, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ is exactly the second category of Anderson’s stuff- it feels artificial, looks too gaudy and quaint for its own good and while an argument can be made for imagination and fantasy, of delusional denial for the cinemagoers, it never really stays too long in the memory- even as it features so much that could be cherished- from a cast of actors doing their best to amuse and thrill to the writer-director himself trying too hard to keep things crackling.

It starts with heady promise- with Anderson blurring the lines between timelines effectively- a young girl in a fictional snowy European republic called Zubrowka finds a book and a bust of a famous writer and soon, we are tugged away to the latter all alive in the past in the form of the very versatile Tom Wilkinson who further narrates his adventures of youth (now as Jude Law) in a decadent hotel with a glorious past where he meets the enigmatic Mr. Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) who takes him for dinner and narrates the story of his former master Gustave H.

It is these early moments that hold so much promise in a film like this- the film cutting away expertly from the present into the past with much Anderson-style pluck and wit and his trusted cinematographer Robert Yeoman making sure to capture each of the timeline in a different aspect ratio so as to grab the eyes and eventually settling back sometime in the 30s where Moustafa’s tale- as a bellboy at the Grand Budapest Hotel-actually kick-starts.

The initial premise looks irresistibly ripe for humor and misadventure- with the focus terrifically shifted to Gustave himself. Played terrifically by Ralph Fiennes, this concierge is a man of extraordinary charisma and unexpected poignancy and warmth- his primary job being entertaining his guests in the most lavish ways possible- with all kinds of endearments- from extravagant decorations to even covert sexual affairs- and running his hotel in the most professional ways- he even delivers a sermon to his minions before their dinner. Things go for a wonderful toss early on- when one of Gustave’s most treasured guests- and possible beau- Madame D (Tilda Swinton) kicks the bucket shortly after expressing fears of her own death to him and shockingly bequeathing her prized possession- the Macguffin of a painting- to him as well.

At this point, it looks thrillingly that this is another moment ripe enough for Anderson to take us on a comedy of manners of all sorts but what suddenly wrecks things is how he starts cramming the characters in- from Madame D’s scheming heirs (Adrien Brody and Willem Dafoe) to a suspicious valet (Mathieu Almaric) to a shifty executor (Jeff Goldblum) and many more- all brought in for what promises to be a hell of a comic ride but only emerges as half-baked and half-hilarious.

The problem as it seems is the fact that Anderson never really sticks to his milieu- the fantasy world that he creates with some much aplomb never really feels alive. There are a few noticeable hints at the real world outside at the time- for one thing, there is even an ongoing dictatorship somewhere in this version of 1930’s Europe and yes, there is even a secret police with its own tough rules and internment camps but somehow all this all-too-convenient dash of credibility feels all too obvious.

The plot itself is extremely pulpy- never really a problem for Anderson who can make predictable fly the coop with his own thrilling take on the same tale- but even with so much going on, from meticulously planned prison escapes replete with comic pratfalls to sinister murders to even a lost painting, curiously none of it really involves. This is a shame- after all, Anderson was the man who made us feel enthralled even by the simple pursuit of a young schoolboy for his teacher in the great ‘Rushmore’- but this has to do with the fact that he is more obsessed with the quirk rather than the soul of his characters and milieu.

While some of the film’s ardent lovers may claim that the film is seeped in bittersweet melancholy of a forgotten era, I would say it rather bluntly that the film rarely feels emotionally relevant or accessible. For most part, it stretches on like a genre parody- trying the same old tropes over and over again like a bad Tarantino film (if there was ever one) and trying to airbrush it with some snatches of wit and plenty of visual cheek to get us really concerned.

It works only in bits and parts. A terrific scene in a train halted by the secret police of this lalaland- named as ZZ in a too-obvious gag at the well-known SS- is a moment which starts off well- with an appropriately sinister looking interrogator questioning Gustave about Moustafa’s immigrant origins and the moment could have been terrifically tense and darkly comic by merely being talky and terse (just like the opening scene of Tarantino’s ‘Inglourious Basterds’) but Anderson spoils it by throwing in a moment of frenzied squabbling and struggling and suddenly, the scene turns ashamedly slapstick in tone.

Most crucially, this is a film that feels extremely unreal, as if the people, their actions and the events are taking place on a completely alternate planet. There is little depth to the backdrop as well as to the characters- for most part, they simply essay their comic parts and get along with it. It never feels long but Anderson’s approach is so single-mindedly on the plot and the conspiracy- getting his actors to do things according to the straightforward routine that at a point, you eventually stop caring and merely watch on uninterested as an observer.

Even if the film was really a rejoicing of the past in all its pomp and splendor, the past itself seldom feels fleshed out well enough. This might be a film set in the 30s but even with the light references to the era, it could have been set in the modern time too. Anderson’s fantasy Europe rarely feels like a world that is actually lived in- by that measure, Paul Thomas Anderson’s smoky, sexy and solitary version of California, sticking loyally to Thomas Pynchon’s twisted prose, in ‘Inherent Vice’ is a far more credible world even with the chaos in it.

And yet, it feels sad to lambast ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ as a lost cause  because it is also, at times, so irresistibly sweet. Consider Gustave H for example- the way he runs his hotel with iron fist and velvet glove and his choice of older paramours. Consider Moustafa’s sprightly yet sneaky-eyed bellboy version of youth who draws a moustache with a pencil to look older and grumbles when Gustave flirts with his girl. It’s a lovingly crafted film to look at- just like some great piece of ultra-sweet candy loaded on the exterior with colors not to be found anywhere in the world- the elevators are as red as jam, the snow on the streets is as white as milk ice cream and the hotel itself feels like decorated wedding cake, all shot terrifically by Yeoman and all captured faithfully by Anderson with typical mouth-watering relentlessness. Even the costumes and makeup effectively mask the actors as the weirdos and decadents they are supposed to play- Tilda Swinton’s weather-beaten face looks authentically on the brink of ultimate death while Willem Dafoe carries off broken teeth and snarling eyes with terrific menace. And is that really Jeff Goldblum as the old, runty sized lawyer Deputy Kovacs?

The actors, as said before, all do their best. Fiennes, in a surprisingly warm and poignant performance, is indeed reliably excellent- layering his performance with the right amount of assured indulgence but crucially, it is when his edges show- most notably when dictating a stern plea to his erstwhile minions whilst in prison to run the hotel with care- that he really becomes unforgettable. 18-year old Tony Revolori does a fabulous job as Zero Moustafa, bringing the right amount of innocence and shiftiness to his character, while Saoirse Ronan as the lovely Agatha further cements her solid acting chops as the wild card in between chaos. 

What really rocks the film however is the ensemble of smaller roles all played superbly- of which Dafoe’s malicious, cat-murdering crook, Brody’s snobbish bad-boy, Harvey Keitel’s aging and tattooed fellow-inmate and escape artist and Edward Norton as Henckels, the hard-nosed yet affable ZZ chief, really steal the show.

As I said, there is so much going for this film. It is marvelously shot and crafted like the best of high-grade confectionery- with Anderson and Yeoman toiling hard to create the old, authentically decaying 30s feel with both quirk and detail and while most of it looks like too post-card to be real, it is nevertheless beautiful and jaw-droppingly larger-than-life. Anderson might not have Scorsese’ storytelling powers but he sure does have the auteur’s eye for swooshes and long-takes and the film revels in them all- often to thrilling effect. But all of it largely fizzles out with how much the film wastes the potential to be a crackling satire on the very themes it deals with- nostalgia, loss of freedom and more- and ends up more like a lame Pink Panther comic romp- there is even a ridiculous ski chase somewhere in the film.

To sum up my feelings, I would sign off by describing possibly the wittiest scene in the film. A prison guard routinely checks all the food being smuggled into the cells by slicing them into chunks. Between stabbing at baguette and slicing up sausage, he pauses at a box of pastry made at a popular bakery. He stares for a moment at the irresistible sugar coating on it and simply passes it on, not realizing that beneath the layer, there is no pastry but tools for escape. It is exactly what one feels about the film as well. As much as one marvels at the splendid sugar coating, one can’t help but feel the emptiness beneath it.

My Rating- 2 and a half Stars

The Best Of Bollywood- 2014

Ah, 2014!

A year when, even as atrociously bad films (‘Happy New Year’ and the like) notched up box office collections by hundreds of crores, the truly sparkling films shone like everlasting gems, like stars studded in an opaque and obscure galaxy of stardom and the truly smashing thing was every one of the great ones was not about stardom or big bucks but just brilliant, knockout filmmaking.

Often, in the past, I have included films, which might have not been perfect, but still deserved mention because they had some potential. But with five films this year proving how subversive, intelligent, profound and path-breaking Hindi cinema can really be, given in the right hands, I think the fight for the top prizes is done and dusted.

To sum it up, let me hint at the greats of the year in a few lines.

‘English tragedy in Indian chaos, a caper in which the ladies wield the guns, a whodunit that turns into a what-the-f*** character drama without warning, a stranger preaching us about the futility of religion and finally, a Delhi girl who grows up in twisted Europe’.

Try to figure out this while I list down the films that almost made to the Famous Five.

10- Main Tera Hero- David Dhawan’s unashamedly nonsensical yet amazingly hilarious comedy proved that Varun Dhawan has loads of solid, spontaneous comic timing up his colorful sleeves, which unfolds in generous doses with a crew of stellar comic artists- from Anupam Kher to Saurabh Shukla- giving ample support.

9- Gunday- A harmless, if pretty amateurish, action drama in the style of 80s, ‘Gunday’ did raise some unnecessary hackles over its slight suggestion of a historical fact. But history be damned anyway, this is outrageously, unashamedly masala fun- with its colorful, exaggerated Calcutta setting- more of a retro-fitted lalaland than Lapierre’s City Of Joy-, Irrfan Khan as a tough and yet tricky cop and of course Ranveer Singh’s dashingly courageous hero making up for Arjun Kapoor.

8- Daawat-E-Ishq- A surprisingly warm and witty film in which Habib Faisal directs an unusual yet cleverly cliché-free romance brimming with clever and subtle insights on a nationwide affliction of dowry and, in Parineeti Chopra and a charmingly cocky Aditya Roy Kapoor, a sparky couple who question the status quo with their effortless chemistry. It’s also about delicious platters and a lot of cultural clashes captured with effortless ease.

7- Finding Fanny- Homi Adajania’s stunningly sheepish road movie, set in a sun-baked, idyllic and languid Goan village, had a loopy plot taking unnecessary detours but at 90 minutes, it’s also crisp and chaotic, brimming with authentic flavor and a crew of fascinating performances- with Deepika Padukone as the shimmering Angie and Pankaj Kapur as the lascivious painter scoring top marks.

6- Highway- Imtiaz Ali’s lavishly mounted and heartbreakingly intimate take on a Delhi girl who falls prey to a Stockholm Syndrome as falling for her kidnapper and then experiences a new lease of life takes a bit of time to get cracking but aided by Anil Mehta’s mesmerizing visuals, A.R Rahman’s elegiac yet symphonic score and above all, Alia Bhatt (she had me stunned with her naturalistic, passionate act) in the lead role, it emerges as a sustained work of extraordinary philosophical brilliance.

And now, we kick off the Fab Five films in the list.

5- Dedh Ishqiya

Director- Abhishek Chaubey

Abhishek Chaubey’s lavish, crafted and extraordinarily written sequel to his 2010 smash-hit caper ‘Ishqiya’ does the near impossible- root the exciting caper premise in a small town dominated by poetry-gushing mushairas in honor of a decadent Begum with superficial rule and replacing the cocky guns and hair-trigger humor of the original with the kind of smart, meticulous writing in which the players wield punchlines as well as pistols.

And yet, despite the stately elegance and the lavish indulgence of the film’s authentically old-world milieu, this is also a film that delights in gushing amounts of cheek, of cinematic intrigue and true, true cinematic fun.

We follow Khalu and Babban (Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi, brilliant in their endless repartee) in the garb of the twinkle-eyed Nawab and his lascivious Khadim as they saunter into an old world, seduced by the leisurely drawl of Urdu poetry and two women who might be not what they are.

Nothing is indeed what it seems- for Chaubey crams the film with a lively cast of terrific performances- Madhuri Dixit as the Begum, shackled to solitude, Huma Qureshi as her Girl Friday, plotting something on her own and Vijay Raaz- a regretfully underutilized actor- steals the show with a showboating performance as a grand villain of the piece, vying for the grand dowager’s hand by stealing many a great piece of poetry.

More than the fun-filled original, this is a film that feels crafted and rooted in an authentic world full of lies and intrigue and deception and decay and even as it might feel lavishly created, what lies beneath is skeletons in the cupboard and ‘Dedh Ishqiya’ brings them all out to make for one of the finest, most thrilling films of the year as well as of all time.

And in between it all, Chaubey, armed with fellow writer Vishal Bhardwaj and lyricist Gulzar, with Basharat Peer’s poems narrated by fantastic actors, wraps up it all into a languid caper that blends hilarity with tension in the most subtle, intuitive ways while bringing into the foray a superb, startlingly effective twist towards the end that just tells us of the true, intoxicating power of giddy filmmaking.

It evokes the old world of poetry and languid ways, it never shies away from the old gangster tropes, it blends music in the most impeccable and impactful ways (a ‘qawwali’ is tightly, almost thrillingly blended into the narrative ‘s big twist), it has some of the finest humor ever written for a film (punchlines of IPhones, foreign cities, of cheekily incorrect political references are masterfully written and enacted) and yes, for many of us comic book fans, it gave us the ultimate truth of the Batman and Joker myth in the film’s finest line:

‘Agar Joker Mar Gaya to Batman Kya Karega? Ghar Mein Baithke Atta Gundhega’.

4- Queen

Director- Vikas Bahl

Indeed, who knew that it would happen?

Who really knew that Rani Mehra, who is so visibly happy with her marriage proceedings (albeit also anxious over her first night), would get a reality check when her suitor- a fascinatingly nasty Rajkummar Rao- would reject her for the frustratingly simple reason that she does not match up to him?

Who knew that, a few reels later, the same Rani, initially a weeping mess of a Delhi girl, goes out on her solo honeymoon in Paris and learns to rough it out- tackling wayside thieves, the incessant traffic, endless views of the Eiffel Tower and shaking a leg in a French discotheque playing a Bollywood number?

And who knew that by the end of the fascinatingly flippant, fervently entertaining film, we all root for this unlikely heroine who has by now earned the eponymous title that her name suggests?

Vikas Bahl’s fantastically directed, written and effectively cast self-searching ride hinges on the sheer unpredictability of its seemingly plain premise- this is about a girl who comes of age, okay, but it evolves into something deeper, something far more resonant, thanks largely to Bahl’s sheer mastery over the details, both big and small.

So, we instantly connect to the film- from its modest beginnings as a sneaky Delhi tour ala Dibakar Banerjee and his peers to the whirlwind culture shock of Paris and the hilariously hedonistic adventure in Amsterdam and on the way, Bahl’s assured direction turns every cliché on its head, as he crams the film with unforgettably real characters and rich, scathing and lightning sharp mirth.

Detail and nuance overflows at the seams, distractingly so but always entertaining in the most unexpected ways- (watch out how a whole troupe of Delhi housewives can’t really figure out what does ‘hing’ mean in English while a NRI aunt fusses over the euros for a gift and a Frenchman denies that ‘French toast’ is not French toast) and at the same time, it fearlessly brings on the raunchy and burlesque comedy in cheekiest ways possible- all adding a frolic of off-color yet colorful fun.

And most of all, it is ruled by the true Queen of the film- Kangana Ranaut playing Rani in a performance that would really rank as this year’s best- it is a sneaky, indulgent surprise- a tad overplayed for hilarious effect but the wonder also lies in the smaller nuances of it- the look of confusion on her face with a foamy toothbrush in her mouth, the way she smells a sandwich before chomping on it, her gobbling up a laddoo out of sheer hunger of not having eaten anything in grief- and it soon evolves into something self-assured, confident and strident towards the film’s rousing climax when this girl finally grows up.

It’s a class act and Ranaut nails it, firmly, determinedly, making the most of the juicy material in her hands and establishes ‘Queen’ as a movie for ages.

3- PK

Director- Rajkumar Hirani

Calm down a bit. While ‘PK’- a loaded, full-throated satire, punctuated in jittery Bhojpuri and enacted in one of the year’s most guileless romps, on religion and communalism- might draw its own share of laughs and howls of scandal, of its bravos and brickbats, what people should really admire that it could not have come at a better time.

In a moment when India muddles between religious chaos and free speech, Rajkumar Hirani, along with reliable co-writer Abhijat Joshi, unfold a rousing comedy of all sorts- of a stranger questioning the status quo of religion and faith in an overcrowded India and translates the hearty, hilarious routine into a completely credible and totally relevant satire that delivers big laughs without sounding acidic or ironic.

Aamir Khan’s titular hero, a scruffy, wide-eyed, big-eared extraterrestrial, spouting paan-stained Bhojpuri and armed with a telepathic sense of touch (ala Michael Duncan Clark in ‘The Green Mile’) is an outcast who feels genuinely baffled at the chaos of obsessive worship of hundreds of deities and gods in India. He stumbles his way in the most endearingly comic ways and soon is logging his head with a powerful godman, filling the minds of the blindly faithful with sanctified snake oil. 

Even with the predictability of the premise, the film hinges completely on Hirani and Joshi’s unflappable, totally ingenious sense of mirth that delights in slapstick and chaos without losing verbal repartee.

The magic of the film is not merely in its red-hot topicality and resonance but rather how ‘PK’ deftly employs the more predictable tropes of storytelling and gives them a solid, superb twist in perspective. The film’s message rarely feels preachy and yet it nails the inherent quest for singularity with startling ease, even as it juggles both melodrama and mirth in equal measure.

The dialogue crackles with split-second wit, the smaller, more incisive jabs at materialism and communal tensions feel exceptionally, admirably astute and Hirani also excels at making it all feel-good without ever resorting to contrivances- this is a film bursting with cheesy but crunchy goodness and heart and has many a delightful surprise up its gaily colored sleeves.

The actors all fascinate- in particular Saurabh Shukla playing the gaudy God-aper in the most believable way possible but this film belongs to its lovably goofy leading man- Aamir Khan, in perhaps one of his finest, most unrestrained performances, sending up the viewers with his wide-eyed comical perspective and at the same time breaking hearts with his sincerity.

Hirani might have stumbled a bit in between but with ‘PK’, he has proved that he is still the master of uproarious comedy. Forget ‘3 Idiots’. This is the real threequel to the Munnabhai series.

2- Ugly

Director- Anurag Kashyap

It begins with one of the most shocking scenes of Hindi film industry- heavy metal music blares in the background while a decaying housewife, washing a plate full of crumbs with leftover alcohol, shoves a gun’s nozzle into her mouth and the audience holds its breath, expecting anytime brains to explode but what follows after that is enough to make your head explode.

Such is the scorching, visceral, ugly power of ‘Ugly’.

It also marks a new career high for Anurag Kashyap, the dynamic prodigious filmmaker who has transformed the way we think about modern, unconventional entertainment with the blood-splattered gangland myth of ‘Gangs Of Wasseypur’, the snazzy, suave Devdas interpretation in ‘Dev D’ and the modern conspiracy thriller in the brilliant ‘Black Friday’. ‘Ugly’ sees him coming of age- helming and writing a crackling thriller for ages, one that starkly rejects the regular twists and turns of a police procedural and progresses into something far more unsettling- a character study of many a messed up soul.

Somewhere in the bright sunlight of the Bombay afternoon, a girl is kidnapped, instantly sparking off a fierce rivalry of sorts between her alternate fathers- a washed up actor (Rahul Bhat) and a tough, mercurial cop (Ronit Roy) but everyone is a part of the vicious game that unfolds and what emerges is a commandingly visceral film- a film lurching from past to present, from one intriguing character to another, swinging from the relentless cops to the desperate fugitive souls- that portrays baldly the ugliness of humanity.

Kashyap directs the twisted tale of lies, backstabbing and illicit relations with breathless pace, reveling in gritty visual nuance, captured by ace lensman Nikos Andritsakis all throughout the gullies and seedy lanes of Bombay (from secret torture chambers with doors insulated by foam grids to seedy bars where guns are hidden) but what really fascinates this time around is the film’s unflinching, angry gaze on the more disarmingly brutal detail- a woman talking on a phone with yellow bleach above her lips, the same wearing a gaudy red dress to seduce a slightly unknown man, a malicious mask seller posing with an unnervingly horrid mask and more- all of which underscores the film’s haunting, deathly atmosphere with terrific tension.

And there is a great cast of actors as well- Tejaswini Kolhapure as the said wife, her eyes full of suicidal despair, Ronit Roy as the tough cop with a sliver of genuine fatherly concern, Rahul Bhat as the actor who is constantly living in his own self-made delusions, Vineet Singh as the genuinely slimy and sly casting director and above all, Girish Kulkarni as the alternately tough and slippery cop who does not yet know how to set a Caller ID on a phone.

It’s a film that makes ugliness look truly spectacular.

1      1-    Haider

Director- Vishal Bhardwaj

At the top of the pile lies a monster achievement, a film that goes far out on a limb ambitiously, determinedly, at the risk of alienating its audiences and yet, by the end, grabs the viewer, extricates his heart and tosses it brutally around, all the while it pounds and throbs to its seething tension, its brooding gloom and its incendiary brilliance. Yes, sir, Vishal Bhardwaj does it again- nailing Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ in intelligent, ingenious ways that deviate from the source material while sticking loyally to its iconic structure and depth and it is both the deviations and the arduous loyalty that make the film such a towering accomplishment.

He does not speak much, our Hamlet. Translated into Haider, a prodigal son returning to militancy-mauled Kashmir, the grand play’s Denmark, suitably besieged on both sides, he once used to study poetry but as of now, he only gazes helplessly, desperately at everyone else, searching for his incarcerated father. Bhardwaj and co-writer begin the doomed tale in thriller mode- the prelude, which I would hate to reveal, lingers and paces over the senseless militancy of the region before swinging into the real centrifugal force of the film- Haider, seething with anger and yearning for what has been irretrievably lost and questioning whether his uncle- the deliciously dastardly Khurram (Kay Kay Menon) is the man behind it all.

Through it all, the film rests his heavy, brooding burden on young Shahid Kapoor’s shoulders and the man, so long lost in many-a-silly film, recovers his mojo in a silently throbbing performance that emerges into fascinatingly wacky and sure-footed by turns but this is also a film about a stunning crew of performers aiding him superbly- Kay Kay Menon, most notably as the terrifyingly inscrutable yet warm and likable villain of the piece, Tabu as the stunning and simpering Ghazala who translates Gertrude’s outrage at her son’s actions and thoughts into motherly concern and gradual conviction and a slew of lesser known actors all making a mark (not to forget Irrfan Khan’s blistering cameo)

All the while, as the drama unfolds, Bhardwaj outdoes himself. The director-cum-composer had already revealed his knack for adapting Shakespeare in the past but more than ever, it is ‘Haider’s unflinching focus on the milieu that really counts- his Kashmir a state torn apart by both internal and external chaos, his villains both the gun-toting militants and the hard-nosed authorities and his tragedy ultimately the harsh fate of a region being grabbed at by both sides leaving only corpses behind. All of it translates in exceedingly clever, incisive ways into the film and it would be a crime to reveal it verbatim. It has to be seen to be believed.

Rarely also has a film devoted staggering style, post-modern quirk and pyrotechnics into its grim material and ‘Haider’ achieves it all with tremendous force- Pankaj Kumar’s gritty yet mesmerizing visuals lingers from frenetic violence to the more hard-hitting visual cues- the steely gaze of a soldier on guard, the immeasurable sadness in Haider’s eyes, the first gaze of a mother through a wispy curtain and a bearded prisoner singing a ghazal remembered from better times- all of it that hits on your face. The music, as usual by Bhardwaj and aided by master poet Gulzar, is beautifully interwoven but also elegiac while the language- while spare and pointed- is rich and extravagant (Bhardwaj even outclasses his other great work this year) and all of it comes together to craft a film that holds you with its fiery force and leaves you gasping for a breath of relief.