The Ministry Of Imagination Retrieval

Why Terry Gilliam's timeless Brazil beats both Aldous Huxley's and George Orwell's visions of a dystopian future

Among the reading circles, there is one passionate debate that has lasted for decades and generations. It is between those who found George Orwell's solemn 1984 to be prophetic and prescient in depicting a society beaten and subdued by a tyrannical, truth-manipulating dictatorship and those who found Aldous Huxley's subtly satirical Brave New World to be the most astute portrait of how mankind fell prey to cheap promiscuity, consumerism and apathetic triviality while our rulers divided us merely into classes and brainwashed us with loathing of culture and high art and ensured that everybody was happy.

There is, then, one cult of bibliophiles who hold up Orwell's book, mostly a sobering story of a future Britain ruled by the seemingly omnipresent Big Brother, a formidable mythical state leader, and where art and literature have been incinerated withal human decency and freedom, as the final word on just what could go wrong in future. There is another, one clearly to which I subscribe, which hails Huxley's book for predicting, so accurately, a future society in which mediocrity, snobbery and materialism were worshipped as virtues while the state simply sat back and watched in glee.

Yet, both groups of bookworms are a bit misguided into assuming that their favourite book is the definitive vision of dystopia. While 1984 does, indeed, probe incisively into the inherently corruptible nature of faux socialism, as it had flourished in the 1930s-40s (the reference point for Orwell was unmistakably Stalinist Russia), its relevance today is limited to its still-unnerving portrait of how can a government have complete and reckless control over the truth and how the latter can be manipulated, falsified and exaggerated for misleading the helplessly captive masses. 

Huxley's extremely cynical portrait strikes harder, admittedly; the writer and thinker was commenting sardonically on how American capitalism, spearheaded by Henry Ford (given the equivalent stature of God in the narrative), had started erasing tradition, comfortable convention and even culture. Today, we are being lied to and spied upon by our leaders but we are also sinking, at a greater rate, in a pool of comfortable nonsense, surrounded as we are with 3D movies, online streaming entertainment services and a burgeoning social network, all of which refuse to satiate our inner pathos and inadequacy. The passage of time has favoured, obviously, Huxley's vision while an Orwellian concept of a total collapse of democracy feels a bit dated even if possible. 

But there is, rather unexpectedly, a film that turns out to be more timely and timeless, on both a personal and political level, than these two indisputably great works of modern literature. And that is because Terry Gilliam's Brazil fuses, ingeniously, both these perspectives into a subversive whole that takes the ideas into a completely new level. 

The future world of Brazil feels nothing like the typical techno-noir world that we would see in subsequent films like Blade Runner or any other Phillip K.Dick adaptation. Those stories and films were distinctly American in milieu and perspective and focused on how even seamless efficiency of technology could not endow human society with progress. Gilliam's film, drawing its influences prominently from Orwell's bleaker vision and Franz Kafka's heightened surrealism, shows us a cityscape that is not only crippled on every level by bureaucracy and mechanical inefficiency but most crucially feels like a retro-noir steampunk London, with creaking machines, elephantine ducts, pipe-smoking moustachioed men and dolled-up dames. 

There are also stiff-lipped clerks and secretaries, nosy co-workers, sneering plumbers and grumbling old-timers. In short, this is like the London of Orwell and Huxley with the hilarious goofball touch of Monty Python, of which, unsurprisingly, the director and co-writer was one of the most pivotal members. 

Brazil is, at its crux, about the meek and mild-mannered Sam Lowry, a perennially non-plussed worker at Records with a cantankerous boss, an overbearing mother, a faulty cooling system and with only a vivid, elaborate fantasy of him as a dashing, soaring knight who chases a blonde damsel in distress. Ironically, it is this dream that plunges him further into a labyrinth of suicidal despair. As he becomes berserk and foolhardy, chasing the living counterpart of his dreams, a shifty woman named Jill Layton, he only paves the way, inevitably, for his own doom. 

At one level, Brazil is, as I said before, a dazzling fusion of the conflicting points of view put forth by the aforementioned writers, humorists and thinkers of that era. There is a similar totalitarianism at play in the film as the one that Orwell chose to attack, except that the state is the subject of biting satire rather than a full-fledged and scathing attack. There are random bomb blasts that are implicitly staged by the state itself to provide licence for abuse of power, there are equally senseless arrests made on the flimsy evidence of fudged-up paperwork and there are dotty typists who jot down transcripts of torture sessions for future records. On the other hand, in a touch of Huxley and even a faint whiff of Oscar Wilde, there are old dowagers choosing problematic transformative surgery, there are pompous buffoons of French waiters and there are sloppy meals which only have alluring names. All of this is served with a palette of junk decor and visual kitsch, shot brilliantly by Roger Pratt, that are the trademark elements of Gilliam's oeuvre. 

But more than just the humour or the film's quirky craft, it is in how the director tweaks on the template of his believably hapless protagonist. Unlike Winston Smith of 1984, Lowry is not necessarily a disillusioned, lonely worker who nurses secret hopes of revolution but rather a diminutive, easily embarrassed simpleton who leaps before he thinks in his bid to make his fondest dream come true. In that sense, he is more similar to the misunderstood Bernard Marx of Brave New World, in all his predicament and self-doubting. 

Lowry, however, is a more rousingly believable hero than Marx, because his troubling confusion feels more real and emotionally wrenching while the latter is more of a slyly shifty person who simply seizes every available chance at social approval. With Jonathan Pryce' wonderfully whimsical performance, and Gilliam and co-writers Tom Stoppard and Charles McKeown sticking to Lowry's beguiled perspective of the everyday chaos that soon becomes increasingly nightmarish in both big and small ways, the film becomes more heartfelt than expected, even with the distinctly sardonic tone. 

Fantasy, of an idyllic alternate reality of happiness, love and freedom, is not just an important theme of Brazil alone. It is a theme that is also found in all major dystopian novels. Lowry's recurring dreams, of being a dashing knight, fighting off gigantic monsters and rescuing the woman of his dreams, are symbolic of his regular and routine struggle against inefficiency and bureaucracy that stand in his way to real happiness. The climax of that fantasy comes later, when the relentless helplessness has already escalated to new levels but I come to that later. It could be said safely that even in 1984, Smith and his lover Julia fantasise dearly and desperately about an alternate reality of a pastoral English bliss in stark contrast with the cold and claustrophobic reality. And in Brave New World, John The Savage imagines the modern world to be a dazzling utopia, compelling him to quote the eponymous line from Shakespeare's The Tempest in a burst of inspired fervour. 

Similarly, fervent imagination, and the undeniable power of flights of fancy to destroy tedium and harsh reality, are the frequent elements of Gilliam's work. But more than any other film before or after Brazil, it is here that his inner yearning for creative freedom for his wild, unbridled wealth of imagination feels most believably since it is mirrored in the nightmarishly hilarious shenanigans that his protagonist goes through. 

Lowry's constant attempts to make his most fervent reveries come true take him through a maze of which every level holds an uncomfortably dire convolution that piles on the frustration that one may feel when negotiating the endlessly tedious world of paperwork and permissions. Gilliam himself had been struggling against the film's producers, who were insisting on a happier ending, while he lobbied instead for the devastating climax that stayed eventually intact to our good fortune. 

That brings me to that climax and just what the title of the film alludes to. 

The final half hour of Brazil plunges headfirst into the realm of fantasy and terror with reckless, almost nihilistic glee. We see Lowry being arrested, then interrogated by stuffy bureaucrats and eventually facing inevitable lobotomy at the hands of none other than his only friend at work, the dapper and devilish Jack Lint, played with flawlessly suave menace by ex-Python Michael Palin. And then, all hell breaks loose, giving this hopelessly trapped soul a new chance at escaping this hellish present with the wacky-witted renegade plumber Archibald 'Harry' Tuttle, played with cocky charm by Robert De Niro. It is here that the film reaches its emotional apex, taking Lowry and us into a crazed whirlwind where nothing, not even freedom, does not last long. Except, maybe, for love. 

Or rather, except for imagination. The theme of Aquarela do Brasil plays frequently throughout the film but we realise it soon enough that it stems from Lowry's dreams itself. In the end, Lowry is left alone, broken and rendered incapable of a normal existence but his only reaction to the same is not submission but rather blissful ignorance. That ignorance comes from Lowry indulging his dearest fantasy till its wonderfully utopian climax, one of idyllic love and a permanent escape from the stifling world of the present. And the only sound that we can hear is him humming that song, lost forever in that reverie which is more enlightening than reality. 

Is it any coincidence that Brazil came around the same time when actual England, and particularly London, itself was being reigned by a subtler but spikier form of totalitarianism by the irascible Margaret Thatcher and her brutal crackdown on race and gender minorities that were thriving in the country? Simultaneously, Alan Moore and David Lloyd were writing and illustrating the powerfully allegorical vigilante series V For Vendetta and Salman Rushdie's controversial The Satanic Verses had also lamented, in its subplot concerning the woes of the Anglophile Saladin Chamcha, the similarly hostile realities for immigrants in London. 

But more than these iconoclast works, Brazil lasts forever, like Lowry's mesmerising dream of love conquering all odds. And this is because, much to our detriment, we are still suffocated and rendered as trivial as nonsensical numbers by a sophisticated system of paperwork and we still pray for respite, of being transported by the will of our imagination into freedom, frolic and sunshine.

Monty Python's Flying Circus: The Comedy Show That You Should Gobble Up

‘Alduce me to introlow myself’.

It is a parody of Agatha Christie’s drawing room murder mysteries and while any other comedian or comedy troupe would have either mocked at silly clues or unnecessarily convoluted intentions, trust an intrepid, irreverent gang of half a dozen British comedians to do the unexpected. Instead of all these expected tropes, we get Inspector Tiger (yes, that is his name) who fumbles with even basic English, as evidenced in that hilarious way he chooses to introduce himself to a roomful of suitable befuddled ladies and gents. 

As the sketch progresses, more lunacy piles up in the most audacious ways, the stuff of inanity that is too brilliant and subversive to be spoiled for effect. Indeed, do you really need a punchline or an obvious in-joke when you have a bumbling inspector and his equally ridiculous peers? 

That is Monty Python for you, a bunch of gifted goofballs, namely Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Michael Palin, with an undeniably sleazy name and hailed by many as the Beatles of comedy. Both things are true about them; they were never afraid to spice up their charades with cheeky, even malicious ribaldry and they were, indeed, worthy of that comparison. Like the Fab Four, this Stunning Six broke all the boundaries in landing punchlines with the simplest trick-never really using a punchline. Except, maybe, an armoured knight socking a chicken at one’s head or even one of the six breaking not just the fourth wall in the room but every fourth wall there ever was

My delirious love for Python began, inevitably, with two quintessential movies. Holy Grail is a gigantic lark of a film, a maddeningly silly medieval swashbuckler which never loses a chance to mock the serious pretensions of its genre, from cowardly knights to murderous rabbits to misadventures right down to opening credits with moose.  

Life Of Brian had me both laughing and grinning cynically at the same time; the humour, even when outrageous and deliciously anarchic, was just so rich with incisive, almost razor-sharp satire that the laughs felt not merely playful but also profound. The film deals with so much more than just a jab at bogus religion and foolishly conceived blind faith; it also pokes ruthlessly, magnificently at left-wing revolutionaries, ludicrous sensationalism of violence and even Latin lessons at school. 

Such is the breadth of their ideas and humour, such is the dazzling wealth of genuine quirk and hilarity that the characters, played by each of the Pythons in unforgettably indelible turns, that you will be awe-struck as much as amused to death. 

And yet the moment that really made me fall head over heels in love with Monty Python is just one conversation from the latter film, one about a Roman centurion named as ‘Naughtius Maximus’ and then about a ‘friend in Rome’ called ‘Biggus Dickus’ and how all hell breaks loose.

The Pythons were never really afraid to get their hands dirty, as evidenced throughout their iconoclast series Monty Python’s Flying Circus (to which I will come in a bit), the premise of the concerned film itself (dealing with a hapless Jew youngster mistaken to be the Messiah by confused Judeans) or even their darkest, nastiest film, The Meaning Of Life that knocked out gut-wrenching gags on organ theft, obesity and senseless war. But this simple bit about Roman soldiers sharing schoolboy joke names hit me hard on the funny bone. So much for the might of the Empire. 

The beauty of their humour lies somewhere in that deceptive subtlety, of how the brilliantly layered writing conceals satirical sophistication beneath the silliest, most outrageous of surfaces. The films are filled with such marvels of writing, performance and timing, from villagers debating whether a woman is a witch or not to a blasphemer being stoned for just saying ‘Jehovah’. But as the relentlessly addictive Flying Circus episodes prove,  these were also comedians who mastered the surreal form of the farce to perfection and that also includes breaking into surprisingly melodious numbers, performing the craziest gags or even garbling in foreign languages and raving and ranting until that armoured knight came along. 

The Pythons sure know how to pull the ground beneath our feet. So many sketches in the TV series and the films begin without warning and proceed in a direction that could never have been predicted first-hand. For instance, there is that beginning to the It’s The Arts episode in which men discuss a German composer with an unbelievably long name. The brilliant comedians play their ingenious trick without stretching it too far and know just when to pull the breaks. Talk about economy.

Then again, comes the Science-Fiction Sketch taking up almost the half of an episode and fashioned like a miniature alien invasion feature film. I leave the novice to unearth the utterly unpredictable marvels of comic writing that pop up at every turn of the plot but I can say that you might be distracted by that gorgeous bimbo who is nevertheless a cut smarter than the men around her. 

Their most famous sketches are not just great for the jokes and one-liners that they carry but also for the utterly unhinged, jaunty way in which they progress and end. Take a look at Dead Parrot for instance. The underlying concept here is itself of the sheer futility of any discussion when the irate customer has already been sold an ex-parrot by a slippery shopkeeper and futility is what the sketch comes to in the end. Compare that with the endlessly quotable Cheese Shop sketch, in which the fun comes not so much from the straight path that it takes than the sheer variety of cheeses discussed that make us feel, like that exasperated customer, a bit ‘peckish’ ourselves for fermented curd.

What further makes each of these delicious sketches, filled to the brim with the craziest quirks, are the routinely terrific actors themselves. Cleese, that Daddy-Long-Legs smooth-talking and bellowing cynic leads the pack along with classmate Chapman, who best portrays the stiff upper lip of Britain’s middle class milieu, alongside Terry Jones whose best parts are of the matronly English women, worried about the most trivial of things. Alongside them are Eric Idle with those sparklingly innocent eyes and also the writer and performer of some of the most sharpest sketches (and also the most musical of all the Pythons) and Michael Palin, the charismatic chameleon of the pack, the one able to play a dull chartered accountant wishing to be a lion tamer and even a shopkeeper who does not know what a ‘palindrome’ means. 

And then there is the legendary Terry Gilliam. The only Python to migrate from across the Atlantic, he lent not only a whacked-out wackier sense of disorienting chaos with those unforgettably raunchy and jaunty animations, fashioned out of old Victorian-era photographs and totems and crazed, even perverted imagination, but also an edge that was both boisterous and bleeding. He himself showed up in most episodes as the armoured knight and even in memorable bits in the films (for instance, the wizened Bridge Keeper in Holy Grail) but it is his bizarre designs and always recklessly inventive animated creations, from cannibalistic baby prams to moustachioed stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen decapitated and knocked into the ground, that connected the brilliant writing of the other five members into a cohesive and stunningly ethereal whole. 

And so there is so much to enjoy here, so much to relish, from the most delicious absurdities, like a self-defence teacher paranoid about fruits to a murderous barber who wishes to be a lumberjack to Vikings singing about tinned Spam (and giving birth to a new name for unwanted trash in our email inboxes) to argument clinics to men with tape recorders up their noses. And yet, even with all these nutty wonders and the flawless writing, almost comparable to Wilde or Saki in its wry and brilliantly judged turns of phrase, the thing that makes Monty Python as special as the Beatles is their inherent pride of being English. 

When I visited London recently, one of the things that struck me were the spree of posters and stickers at the immigration counter at Heathrow, which prided on the success of the British customs and police officials in combating narcotics smuggling. Instantly, I was reminded of that unforgettable sketch when Graham Chapman barges in a house as an archetype London bobby and sniffs officiously for 'certain substances of an illicit nature'. I started chuckling to myself, remembering that fine punchline in the end, 'Blimey, whatever did I give the wife?'. 

From dotty old ladies munching English masterpieces at the National Gallery to bumbling cops, from the Pepperpot ladies to the stiff military bigwigs, from the suburban old-timers to the sleazy youngsters, the whole of Flying Circus is so distinctly about London in its assortment of crackling characters and comedic fireworks that you are bound to feel that earthy, English flavour that you feel in the music of the Beatles. Sure, they do snigger, from time to time, at both frosty Europeans and feckless Americans but for most part, the joke is on the English, especially at the older lot, who come across as hilariously insane when complaining about sketches in those nutty letters. 

To the uninitiated, I recommend to sink into the colourful, even almost kitschy and beguilingly brilliant world of the world's most legendary comedy group with that most irresistible of all names. Do whatever you have to do but always look at this light side of life. 

Sanju: A Superstar Performance In A Superstar Masala Entertainer

Let's be honest: nobody expects biographies of celebrities to be revealing character studies. 

There is a reason behind this fallacy of any biopic about a much celebrated and controversial public figure: it has to do with just how we, as the spectators, resort to extreme viewpoints in our appraisal of the said celebrity. A celebrity, by default, is someone who is both loved and lambasted, hailed and hated, sympathised with and reviled. It is only a rare and discerning biopic that can balance both these extremes and even then, the perspective leans heavily towards any one of them. Just watch Richard Attenborough's Chaplin for instance. 

There is then, uncannily, much common between that fundamentally flawed portrait yet often ambitious and stirring film and Rajkumar Hirani's sprawling yet quite seamlessly entertaining film and the biggest similarity may be just how both the films don't skimp on showing us the seams of the real-life silver screen legends they portray but they do it with a touch of sympathy and on a truly larger-than-life and even formulaic fashion too. It is also here that the similarities end as Sanju has, fortunately, a lot more to it than what its unassuming, even naive simplicity would suggest. 

Sanjay Dutt was always the trouble-maker, the never-to-grow-up bad boy of Bollywood, who also happened to be, accidentally, a gritty and macho leading man best cut for the angry, sneering antihero of many a Mahesh Bhatt potboiler in the 80s and 90s. His life, on the other hand, was punctuated with fiery, audacious scandal; his career, save for those gems that surfaced only now and then, was punctuated mostly by failure and ridicule and given that his prowess and public image remain debatable to the day, it is natural that this should be such promising, rollicking premise. 

Trust Hirani and co-writer Abhijat Joshi, two foxy collaborators who can play on the most obvious setups and subvert them not so subtly, to turn that premise into something unexpected: an emotional, even pulpy, yet intimate tale of fatherhood and friendship that works smoothly and self-assuredly in its own pace, propelled as it is with a barnstorming performance holding this film together with truly awe-inspiring ferocity. 

Little doubt has been left of Ranbir Kapoor's infallible strengths at portraying young bravado, man-child predicament and rousing emotional conviction with a spontaneity and persuasiveness that never falters. But the actor is given here a particularly tall order, to capture the sensational and notorious actor not just in his jaunty physicality but also in his befuddled, boorish and bullheaded spirit. It is not even the slightest attempt at mimicry; it is mesmerising, maddening and quite magnificently entertaining. 

The actor never ever misses his step or plays a false note; it is a showy, swaggering role from start to finish but Kapoor also lends him vulnerability, sly wit, winsome affability and even dashing, if foolhardy, heroics to spellbinding effect. There is so much here to love and treasure, from him bubbling with sleazy, smarmy enthusiasm to winning over all skeptics with much generous sincerity. This is a performance as pitch-perfect as it can get, ratcheting up the fireworks splendidly. 

As does Hirani, who stirs up drama truly on a larger and even darker scale than he has done before, painting Sanju with the broadest strokes and yet the confidence of his approach drives the film forward with a swift thrust and steady pace that makes all the stakes so believable. 

We see a doe-eyed Sanjay snort his first line of cocaine and then pounce impulsively at the challenge of lip-syncing, we are thrilled and delighted to see him hoodwink tough gangsters and we are equally roused and enthralled at him crusading his own cause through radio inside the walls of his prison. The filmmaker lets us glide through each of these pivotal incidents of his life, at times also pushing for unmistakably poetic and even poignant; in one particularly tender and crushing moment, the desperately addicted Sanjay hallucinates his mother breathing her last when in the real world, he was not even there to witness the same moment.

The frequently formulaic treatment, even as the film is well-shot and crisply edited, is undermined effectively by just how willing Hirani and Joshi are on occasion to probe into the darker gist of Sanjay's tale with brisk efficiency. Sanju does not shy away from the shattering severity of the actor's 'cold turkey' phase and bravely pumps up his ultimate redemption and it portrays the troubling facts of the allegations of his complicity in the 1993 serial bomb blasts with a reasonably grown-up seriousness. 

The signature wisecracking humour is there, however, in spades but while some of it is perversely and even ruthlessly uproarious, it is nevertheless spiky and pointed given just how actually bamboozled was the actor in real life in his younger days. It also becomes Marx Brothers-like in its acidic punch; at one point, a drowsy and all-too-recognisable politician's apathy to Dutt's woes hits closer home than it seems. 

This is, however, far from a perfect film. At heart, the script feels trapped between exploring the bigger picture of Dutt's successes and failures and looking inwards at his relationships and while it does a fair job of balancing both these facets, it falls short of being a bit more incisive. 

The supporting cast is mostly well-picked but some of them are given surprisingly little heft. Anushka Sharma's pink-bobbed and blue-eyed non-fiction writer Winnie Diaz is essentially a retread of her earlier roles and while Manisha Koirala looks quite authentically weary yet striking as an ailing Nargis Dutt, the actress never quite gets the leg room to prove more of her mettle, though her smiling and bright-eyed presence does make us smile too. 

A more serious-minded director would made it a full-fledged analysis of the harsher realities while a more irresponsible director would have been content to just sympathise. I am secretly glad that this did not happen. Instead, Hirani settles rather delightfully for the two key relationships of Dutt's life, one with his father, the domineering yet warm veteran actor Sunil Dutt and the trusty yet objective friend (I will come to him in a while). 

Paresh Rawal is a bit of a misfire as Sunil Dutt and I am not referring to the absence of physical similarity but rather to how the otherwise talented actor plays it safe, bringing welcome warmth and wisdom to his patriarch but little individuality of his own. And while Hirani hands him and Sanjay several moving moments of genuine rapport, including the father reminiscing fondly about his memories and the son lapping them up absent-mindedly, the overall effect lacks a bit of the expected punch.

On the other hand, Vicky Kaushal plays Dutt's best friend Kamlesh with such gloriously reckless spontaneity that next to the impulsive, cocky leading man, he becomes Sanju's most endearing character. He bravely embraces the Gujarati stereotypes of his character arc and fleshes them with much effervescence and ernest charm and, also, becomes the moral compass of the film as we witness even the most pivotal proceedings through his perspective. And it was quite delightful to find the criminally under-utilised Sayaji Shinde after a long time.

In the end, even with the flaws and snags, Sanju is a Hirani film, warts and all, and it does make one smile more widely than ever as it hurtles towards its cheery yet refreshingly intimate climax that feels a more worthy celebration for Sanjay Dutt rather than his public acquittal from being defamed as a terrorist. As for the latter, even as the film does its share of whitewashing, it also makes uses it to make pointed stabs at the current miasma of fake headlines and tabloid reportage that lets cynicism prevail over hope. 'Don't you know it's gonna be all right?' this film seems to be crooning to the frenzied journalists so hungry on devouring up a public figure for his flaws without reporting the facts.

It is up to the incredible Kapoor to bring to life an equally incredible cinematic myth. He outdoes himself and delivers a portrayal that, like the film, is both larger-than-life yet intimate and ultimately heartfelt and, even like the best and most well-crafted propaganda cinema, surprisingly effective in end result. If Sanju appears too filmy to be real or believable, well then that was the case with the man himself.

My Rating: 4 Stars Out Of 5

Every Ranbir Kapoor Role Ranked: From Saawariya to Jagga Jasoos

Charming, almost chameleonic in his versatility and perhaps the only actor who can make a solid case for nepotism in Bollywood, Ranbir Kapoor is undoubtedly one of this generation's most compelling performers, a leading man whose effortless charisma and spontaneity have ensured that even the most mediocre films and scripts could be made bearable and intriguing on the silver screen. 

As he takes on his most challenging role, playing the alternately famous and notorious Sanjay Dutt in Sanju, let's cast a backward glance at each of his performance ranked. To be honest, it is quite a uniformly impressive career with only one or two occasions when he has come off as only passable (and I am not counting Roy in which his role was merely a stand-in cameo).

15- Babli in Besharam (2013)

Despite his almost flawless oeuvre, there has to be even a nadir for the frequently reliable Kapoor and this, basically a cut-rate counterpart to his other, more effective goofball roles, fits the description. Dabangg helmer Abhinav Kashyap must have thought that his leading man's ham-fisted swagger could again overshadow the general mediocrity all around. 

It might have worked out for an already overblown superstar like Salman Khan but Kapoor, a naturally cocky youngster, tries too hard and in vain to make the abysmal plot and low-grade laughs work. Still, it is to his credit that his car thief and prankster Babli is at least ludicrously enjoyable, provided you can forget his incredible work otherwise.

14- Akash in Anjaana Anjaani (2010)

I am not saying that Ranbir Kapoor was any offensively bad as a disillusioned suicidal worker who falls for the most frustratingly incoherent leading lady who is seemingly obsessed with a death wish. It is just that the film around him is, quite honestly, offensively bad, with nothing except spiffy visuals and equally spiffy and melodious chartbusters to hold our attention. 

The rest of the time, Akash has to either agree dourly to Kiara's (Priyanka Chopra wasting her own talents at spontaneity) shoddy plans of self-destruction, look positively edible in stubble and glares in the Mojave Desert or even play a couple of masked superheroes when wooing his lady. Not bad at all, as I said. 

13- Ranbir Raj in Saawariya (2007)

Considering what he made out of his choices in the years to follow, it feels ironically fitting that Kapoor's debut film Saawariya should be such a damp squib. Oh no, it is none of his fault; rather, he alone makes this cardboard-flaky, garish adaptation of Dostoevsky's White Nights soar on a couple of occasions with his relentless energy and almost poignant yearning (and mind you, it is not that scene with the towel). 

Blame it on art director Omung Kumar who pours blue phenyl all over Ravi K. Chandran's frames and also melodrama master Sanjay Leela Bhansali for choosing the blandest heroine of all time and the most boringly superficial approach to a classic story of unrequited love. 

12- Prem in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009)

Okay, we know just how good can this young actor be with goofy comedy. But while his titular Prem, as entertainingly ribald and unabashed as a once-funny Salman Khan, is every bit the Kishore Kumar-meets-Raj Kapoor loveable loon we want, Rajkumar Santoshi' well-intentioned attempt to replicate the magical hilarity of his true classic never quite sustains his charm. 

The gags and pratfalls never quite come as generously as they should, as the film tacks on a rather unnecessary romance and then all the inevitable predictability instead of the comic fireworks that made Andaaz Apna Apna so memorable. Still, there is something to be said for the way he stares when heartbroken and besotted in love. 

11- Raj in Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008)

As with some films in this list, you can trust Ranbir Kapoor to save even the most potentially problematic films into something breezily entertaining. But at least, compared to the more regrettable films in his career, Siddharth Anand's film had the benefit of gorgeous love ballads, some genuinely spunky repartee between the nicely etched characters and enough slick style to make your jaw drop. 

And the boy himself looked supremely confident, glossing gleefully over his commitment-phobic loverboy's rough edges with a genuine dose of superb timing and pure clean-shaven charm. The rather contrived narrative twist in the middle also allows him to show his chops at sincerity and believability. And all this in only his second film.

10- Karan in Rajneeti (2010)

Like Al Pacino in the 1970s, Kapoor was showing no signs of slowing down or even limiting himself to genres and comfort zones; after a spate of playing terrifically relatable youngsters or delicious chocolate boys, here he was sporting shades greyer than anyone else in Prakash Jha's political masala mess. 

With the sleek, self-assured smoothness of Michael Corleone and a newfound intensity that made even the most over-plotted moments throb with purpose, here was, unexpectedly, a young dynamic talent coming of age, proving that he could smolder just as well as he could seduce. The film itself might be something of a ponderous yarn but Kapoor's Karan was as taut and terrific as he could be.

9- Siddharth in Wake Up Sid (2009)

Abandoning the shelter of Bhansali and Aditya Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor dove into his first sensible role with genuine sincerity and gave us an aimless slacker with whom we could relate in all our confusion. Siddharth does pretty much next to nothing, comfortable for a while with his father's affluence until reality comes knocking on his door, propelling him to discover himself and then his capacity for initiative. 

It's a simple, lingeringly sweet and even somewhat predictable journey of coming of age but Siddharth's moment of wake-up feels affectionate and heartfelt as we see a young, sweet-faced boy invest himself with such conviction to prove that there is a lot more to him than just that easy charm.

8- Murphy in Barfi (2012)

This was the film that proved to many of us that Ranbir Kapoor can do no wrong. Of course, he made the occasional mistakes with Besharam and Roy but the solid infallibility that he achieved for being both entertaining and endearing was first found in this mesmerizing, if a bit too uncannily similar to countless other films, fairytale set in misty and musical Darjeeling. 

Playing deaf and mute can be quite an uphill task but never for once does the brilliant performer give us predictability. Instead, we root for Murphy, pronounced by him as Barfi, simply for the sheer infectious bravado that punctuates his actions and his decisions, his leap into bittersweet love and loss and his escape from every misadventure that comes along. 

7- Kabir aka Bunny in Yeh Jawaani Hai Dewaani (2013)

There is something sinfully addictive about Kabir Thapar aka Bunny whenever he pounces on the screen to steal hearts or make the girls swoon. This is a relentless prankster, a literally restless swashbuckler who never ever wants to stop, as he declares his own intentions to the beautiful spectacled girl who drinks in all his enthusiasm. 

A few reels later, Kapoor digs out solitude and disillusionment as Kabir finally confronts his own wrangle between blossoming love and his yearning for adventure. Even with the lovely songs and cheeky fun, the film never quite explains his predicament satisfyingly but the actor himself is in full throttle, alternating between split-second wisecracks and a raffish affability that makes him still sweet as sugar. And man, what a left leg he has!

6- Ved in Tamasha (2015)

Unfairly overlooked even by hard-core fans, Kapoor’s Ved is actually the most convincingly complex characters that Imtiaz Ali has ever created in his films. He starts off as full of mischief and vigor (yes, he actually talks to the hills of Corsica when driving with a vivacious girl by his side) but when we see him next, he is an oddly mannered corporate slave stifling back his lunacy with a veneer of stoic indifference. 

As the film and Kapoor’s constantly hypnotic performance begin to unravel, we discover just what inner demons really make him so frustratingly undecipherable. Most viewers wrote it off wrongly as familiar ground for the actor. Rather, this was a maddening, almost alienating intensity without ever sacrificing his inherent warmth.

5- Ayan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016)

It doesn’t take long for Ayan Sanger to fall head over heels in love. When he meets and befriends a spunky, sassy lass who won’t take anything lying down, you can see that he is already smitten. As they share their love for pulpy Bollywood trash and shove their respective lovers aside, you feel that this hapless lover is already headed towards slaughter. 

And slaughter it is, for Kapoor’s Sanger, a foolish, even foolhardy victim of unrequited love as the actor, in peak form, breaks all our hearts with little more than hennaed hands and eyes that burn with wistful longing and betrayed passion. As he stumbles further on the path of love and lust, the rest of Karan Johar’s film goes spectacularly downhill but Kapoor alone proves painfully just how difficult it can be for the heart to move on.

4- Jagga in Jagga Jasoos (2017)

It was high time since we had a boy hero who was less stoic than Tintin and less tormented than Harry Potter and also had the probing curiosity and boyish innocence of both. And yet Ranbir Kapoor's Jagga, propelled by the comic-book quirky imagination of Anurag Basu, gave us more than that: a devilishly clever and irresistibly sweet hero with a plucky adventurous spirit that itself makes the wild and wacky film roar. 

It is also bloody refreshing to see a performer embracing gleefully the topsy-turvy nuttiness of the material. Sure we see Jagga hurtle through many a bracing action set-piece but Kapoor also throws himself gamely at deliciously unhinged musical interludes with true relish. The way he jerks his hips when singing about a 'magic knot'. The way he improvises his beatboxing to form sentences in song. The way he sings and dances his way out of certain death. Or even the way he stutters while sobbing when finally meeting his estranged father. And to think that he was a man in his 30s.

3- Johnny Balraj in Bombay Velvet (2015)

'He used to be big shot' mutters Johnny Balraj staring at his mirror, a Bombay crook grown not on revenge but on cinematic myth. After a James Cagney starrer blew his mind with its almost perversely tragic climax, Balraj had only one ambition that he shared with every other denizen of this brutal yet beautiful city: to be a big shot. By then, Kapoor's gloriously hot-headed and unhinged antihero has already won half the game by making us root for his relentless thirst to make it big, to paint his white-hot romance with jazz singer Rosie Noronha in golden jubilee glory.

Of course, the city has other plans for this impulsive, cocky and even borderline nihilistic dreamer as he falls in his desperate bid for success, respect and the Bombay Dream itself. Yet, as with every other unforgettable and doomed rebel in Anurag Kashyap's searing cinema, we are seduced totally by how this flawed yet fabulously believable anarchist sets out to defeat the status quo with a suicidal determination that feels even heroic. Kapoor's inflammable performance, armed with Tommy Gun temper and slithery, slinky charisma lends a bigger stick of dynamite to Kashyap's existing bundle of explosive storytelling.

2- Janardhan aka Jordan in Rockstar (2011)

It is not easy being Janardhan Jakhar. When filled with the sincere ambition to be a as badass as Jim Morrison, he is told that he simply does not have that elusive thing that defines a truly awesome rock god. When his heart falls and then breaks in his love for a smashingly beautiful lass with whom romance can only be a minefield, he is suddenly the angry, anguished raging bull who rallies and rouses the crowds without quite understanding why. 

Imtiaz Ali's majestic, if a tad too messed-up in the final act, musical romance sets out to find the answer to his predicament but Kapoor's passionate, pitch-perfect and devastatingly poignant performance is so full of beautifully portrayed pain that the answer might be merely heartbreak, itself reason alone for not only confusion but also catharsis. Rockstar showcases the actor's flawless mastery of every facet of his performance, from his effortless chops at physical comedy to the heart-pounding intensity to his anger and desire. With both the tenderness of a shattered lover and the unbridled fury of a rock legend, he ensures that we always believe in his yearning and pray desperately for his heart to be mended again.

1- Harpreet in Rocket Singh: Salesman Of The Year (2009)

In his entire body of work, Ranbir Kapoor has played some of the most enigmatic and intriguing characters who have made otherwise humdrum or even inconsistent films much more intriguing than expected. They include anti-heroes, lovably goofy loverboys, rockstars and detectives and grown-up men who need to come of age and discover the meaning of love. His sheer boyish, believable appeal has made even the most fundamentally flawed characters so likeable and appealing. But it was on one extraordinary occasion when he played a real hero, a youngster endowed with diligent determination and incorruptible honesty, an initially naive doe-eyed kid who stumbles on his own moral integrity but chooses to fight back and build a better world for himself and for all. 

Kapoor's Harpreet, a lean and lanky Sikh college boy who has just scraped through his exams for graduation, is that unlikely hero and right from the beginning, as we see him declare his intentions, we know that this is a sincerely enthusiastic lad who won't take it lying down. Even he is blinded by his own idealism and collides with the inevitable reality of how things actually work in the world of sales, he refuses to oblige and we egg him on; we want his genuine, utterly endearing goodness to win as we would always want good to trump evil. 

It is a masterful, superbly nuanced performance full of the smallest strokes that add up to a magnificent whole of heroism. The astutely directed and written film is also enlivened with a terrific ensemble cast of little-known but highly proficient performers who flesh out their roles with such scene-stealing effect but even with them in the frame, Kapoor's warmth and wit endure as he holds his staunch moral ground firmly and makes us cheer at each of his triumphs and believe in the stakes that he is up against. Sure, there are a lot of unpredictable wonders that the actor has churned out in his mostly excellent career but sometimes, what works best is a true hero, a hero worth believing in and a hero that we really need in our times of dishonesty and disillusionment. Rocket Singh, we salute you. 

Bollywood's Beatles: Finding Our Very Own Fab Four

Five days ago, it was the 76th birthday of Sir James Paul McCartney. While he spent it touring the city of his birth and the beginnings of the greatest band ever, I chose to spend it watching A Hard Day's Night, an eternal classic of rock and roll and repartee and, arguably, the most thrilling celebration of the days of Beatlemania. And it was then, on watching my four favourite pop and rock icons have a boisterous ball of a time in jamming, jeering, jesting and then jiving together on the stage, that an idea, albeit one that can never really happen, struck my mind. 

What if Bollywood had its own Beatles? 

And by Bollywood's Beatles, I did not mean four stellar artists who could produce marvel after marvel of musical revolution (because that would be well nigh impossible). But rather, I meant four Bollywood leading men, who could come together on the screen to play four more-or-less brilliant lads who also happen to share an infectiously hilarious and heartwarming dynamic. 

It could be helmed, in an alternate universe, by a filmmaker who really gets comic camaraderie right without playing out the usual cliches (I choose either Raj & DK or Vikramaditya Motwane over Farhan Akhtar and Abhishek Kapoor) and it should also have a cast of not just good-looking lads but rather men who can embrace their own goofy charm and still look like dashing rockers in Beatle-cuts and even those legendary suits and ties. Not to mention, also embody everything that made each of them unique.

So, let's find out who really makes the cut. 

Being Richard Starkey aka Ringo Starr is not that easy as it sounds. Unfairly overlooked by some, who are too busy swooning at the other three, Starr was nevertheless not at all the underdog of the band. Called by Lennon as 'a star in his own right..even before we met', Starr's drumming talents and funnyman charm are what lends much bouncy mirth as a foil to McCartney's prodigious skills, Lennon's wry wit and Harrison's laconic introspection. 

My first choice was Harshvardhan Kapoor, partly because of his fine tooter of a nose (a signature Starr feature) and partly because the actor likably low-key charm that feels goofy without looking gimmicky. And that toothy grin makes him look like a quiet guy who also wants to have a bit of harmless fun. But on second thoughts, I can see only Rajkummar Rao, with that disarming Cheshire grin and his infallible comic spontaneity making him perfect to play the Beatle who can look both befuddled and cool when making both the sharpest wisecracks and drum smacks. 

Being the quiet Beatle and the cosmic-cool thinker of the band, George Harrison is altogether a trickier choice. Instinct demands that we should settle with Ranveer Singh, given that we need some serious edge when carving out the most level-headed member of the group and I almost imagined the naturally fiery Singh nailing that enigmatic stare to perfection. 

But being Harrison also demands a cooler, more subtler charm and while there is no doubt of the actor pulling it off, I find the ever-versatile Vicky Kaushal to be more of a fitting decision. Harrison was the dexterous guitarist, the radical and introspective songwriter and the laconic charmer of the gang all wrapped into one and it is only the chameleonic Kaushal who can do justice to all these dazzling facets at the same time. 

Every Beatles fan will reckon that there is a lot more to Paul McCartney than just those delicious, molten chocolate boy looks. The man has not been knighted for just making all those screaming girls drop to their stockinged knees more than 50 years ago. Right from winning over the others with his left-handed guitar skills to doubling up as the drummer right down to his unrivalled flair at both melody and orchestration, this man was chock full of daredevilry. Not to forget his vocal range or those memorable bass-lines.

We need a lad to whom there is more than what his sugary looks suggest and the obvious choice has to be Varun Dhawan. Since McCartney was also about boyish mischief and tender affability, we can expect Dhawan to bring those in spades. But he will also bring in the bravado and the unexpected depths of conviction that the star brought in his work to prove the fans of his undeniably more charismatic counterpart wrong. 

That brings me to the most crucial bit of casting. I am talking about John Winston Ono Lennon. 

Prankster. Poet. Philosopher. Romantic. Raunchy. Rebellious. Lennon was the most outrageous, audacious and awesome Beatle, arguably the most unforgettably sensational Beatle of them all even with the tough competition. He was the guy who could do the most annoying gags and write In My Life, the guy who reads Lewis Carroll and would be cavorting in orgies, who would make the most revolutionary music and sing gibberish like a chipmunk, the guy with a lot of personality but also a hell lot of controversy. 

And there is only one man who can essay it all. A man who can be both a bushy-tailed mischief maker and a melancholic dreamer. A man of ladies and yet one who always sings about being lonely and needing help. A man who can crack the most scandalous jokes and spout the most revealing truths of life. 

Yes, I am talking about you, Ranbir Kapoor. 

So there, we have it. And shoot me but imagining a fantasy list of the most fabulous musical icons having an equally fabulous time on the silver screen is any day better than imagining Bollywood's superheroes and secret agents. Give it a try and find out for yourself.