BART of FARTS

2019 will be witnessed as land mark year for Indian Content writing for espionage,  from Tigers we moved towards Robert Akbar Walter, and then came, Family Man and Bard of Blood (BB).

This year we also had "Badla", and the emotion that explains BB is from the same movie, "In you story, based on the convenience, a character can either become invisible and disappear or a photographers becomes bank hacker".... In BB, writer-director takes us through the route of convenience and assumes everyone knows everything.

Intelligentsia of intelligence:
Nation usually has two set of agents, one who gathers intelligence and others who investigates, former is associated broadly with terrorist threats, and latter is with criminals.
In Indian context, we have RAW, IB, DIA, CBI, NIA, CID, ED..... Where RAW is for international activities, IB deals more with domestic threats and seldom we see them go hand in hand.
DIA, is Defense Intelligence, the one which Murgodose ripped apart in Thupaki and Holiday, and it mostly deals within Military and rest are mostly engaged in criminal investigation.

When it comes to Pakistan, there is only one unit, ISI, and that is core reason why both nation has two different political setup, also that is why ISI is considered more deadlier than CIA and MOSSAD, ideally this could be worth a plot but for now let us focus on other aspects.

Social Service of Jihad:
First rule of the game, any one who picks guns  and runs around and calls jihad doesn't becomes Bin-Ladin figure for Pentagon. Equating every man with black turban as next Laden is intellectual bankruptcy, its like equating, a RSS or Muslim League with JeM/LeT/LTTE.
LeT and JeM are not same as Daish (IsIs) and West does not treat them same unlike Sub-Continent, in-fact, LeT is alternate unit of Army which micro manages social messaging and presents the face to civilians.

Pakistan:
Like in India we have states, in Pak, they have province, biggest being Punjab, which has Military, ISI headquarter, followed by Sindh (Karachi), KPA &  Balochistan. In last 70 plus years, the threee provinces of Pakistan has felt that they are being forced to undergo Punjabisation of pakistan, and this has resulted in many form of protests in Sindh, insurgency like situation in KPA and three insurgencies in Balochisthan.
 
BLA vs TTP:
Since 47, Baloch had issue with Pakistan over management of their land resources, and this resulted in three insurgencies, which resulted in the creation of Balochistan Liberation Army. Allegedly, Post 26/11, PC started a fund in BLA, which was India's response to engage PAK in their own proxy game, sufficient enough to keep them busy but not enough to break them into four. Allegedly this was stopped post May-2014, and this made BLA angry and started trust issues.
Where as TTP was more of rebel group which was formed out of Pak Army based Military action against extremist group, and that resulted in the greatest idea of century, Good Taliban vs Bad Taliban, Haqqani Group became the Good Talibs and TTP was the Bad one.
Latest, Brahumdagh Bugti, the leader of Balochistan insurgency, recently seek political Asylum from India and GOI respectfully denied it.

US, China and Gwadhar
US always needed access from Pak. to provide supplies to its NATO Alliance, post US made it difficult to get the aid without much scrutiny, Pakistan decided to switch their masters, and make formal alliance with China.
China on the other hand had a 2 decade old plan to build silk route, which starts from Gwadhar, Baluchistan and passes through Afghanistan and finally ends in Europe. US exit created void and Chinese filled it with CPEC. This has always been bone of contention for US as OBR (One Belt Road) is second most significant event post United Nation, which is hosted by US in Washington, where worlds strongest leaders appear.
US seeks failure of Gwadar as failure of CPEC, which fails OBR.

***


In Film Making, director uses a core societal issue as a reference in their main narrative and call them Passing Reference. The way Anurag Kashyap uses Lynching as a passing reference in his writing, Dasgupta has used the entire political background of subcontinent as passing reference to the miserable life of ex Raw Agent who is simple bored of his life and packaged it as BART of BLOOD

So why i ended up writing five paragraphs ?

Because this is how i visualize this plot ....

A known terrorist "Mulla", of the likes of Al Bakr baghdadi, is supposedly hiding in Pakistan. He has formed the alliance of Daish (IsIs), Taliban, Al Qaeda and declared war against US in Afghanistan. This Alliance has derailed the peace process for US, and jeopardize their Exit plan from Afghanistan, which POTUS had promised in his last election manifesto.
Elections are around the corner, and POTUS is feeling the heat, he puts bounty on Mulla and insists Pakistan to help eliminate Mulla and gave them face saving exit from Afghanistan.

Where CIA fails, RAW comes into picture, their agents infiltrate and get their hands on the sensitive information that "Mulla is hiding in Pak and ISI is helping him", if this information is leaked, "World will change" (as per director), US will declare Pak as terrorist state and it is India's win, as juvenile as it may sound, this is what Indian Diplomacy has been doing for last 30 years.

Cut to India:
RAW operations head, receives intelligence and dies in mysterious circumstance, and this triggers emotional connect of estranged Desi-Bond whose male Madam M, Sadiq Sahab, has been eliminated. Although Indian Bond looks cool, relaxed and composed, may be he was doing yoga-vipasana or meditation, and game of avenging of Madam M begins.

Being ex-Agent, he has limited access, so he gets an accomplice, which his Madam M has given as a hint in crossword, Rani Lakhmi Bhai, and thank fully the Indian Bond does not get confused with Kangana as Manikarnika, after all its about getting "Gangsters"

Cut to Balochisthan:

Desi Bond starts his mission of saving agents but as soon he lands into Balochisthan, he realizes its bigger than that. He uncovers the truth behind the intelligence and reason of Indian Agents hostage situation. Now he knows that Mulla is hiding in Pakistan and Agents are his hostages.

Desi Bond comes up with a Grand Plan- restarting the ""insurgency"" , but its difficult even theoretically its hard to write, with no money, no motivation, riling up people who spend most of their days playing cricket or smoking weed, its a very difficult. Bond comes up with a mega plan, he decides to blast the Oil Pipe at Gwadhar, a blast that will create panic in Bejing and they will question Islamabad on security lapse, this will create blockage for CPEC, and India will WIN once again. But the question, who should be held responsible? .... BLA

So to convince BLA, that this is their best interest to sabotage 100 Billion Dollar Project, Bond decides to rekindles his old love, heir of BLA leader and incite nationalism with-in Baluchis, since they do not trust India (Passing Reference) he has to prove his worth by doing it all alone.

Desi-Bond, who is well versed with MO of ISI, understands that ISI is playing against its own Army and Govts interests, as ISI is only Intelligence agency and acts like eyes and nose for them.  Bond decides to expose Mullas presence and build differences between ISI and Army, a well thought plan which can turn Armys heart for India the way it happened when RAW shared details of Mussharaffs' assassination.

Overall, Bond re-starts insurgency in Balochisthan by sabotaging Gwadhar, he breaks China's plan of OBR , show them power of an Indian Spy,  captures Mulla for US without taking credit, helps india build US-India ties. Helps POTUS to win election, and avenges his Madam M, he also helps Paksitan to save its image by exposing its ISI rougue agent and finally get India Pakistan talking .....

You guys would have noticed all these invisible plots had Emran Hashmi shown slight interest, or writers had paid iota of attention to the subject in first place and Director would have not assumed that Everyone knows Everything

or they could have replaced EH with Akki, then surely this would been tagged as Hyper Nationalism on Steroids.

Neither Super Nor Deluxe

Amid of my headache i decided for some distraction, and then i opened the Netflix, there was recommendation for Super Deluxe, good word of mouth and suggested by many as path breaking cinema, i decided to indulge.

SD is indeed path breaking, it has many paths which breaks it into pieces. Taken from Tarantinos'  cinema book, this is at best average attempt to pay homage to multiple stories linked with thin line genre, with almost the last best came back around in  2004, Sin City, which itself lives in the pale shadow of 1994's Pulp Fiction. [He did not directed Sin City]

Anyways, to cut long story short, multiple stories with non linear narrative is almost 10 years old even from Indian standard.... top of my head i think there were some movies, Nikhil Advanis, Salam-e-Ishq or may be Yun hota to kya hota ....  both being disappointment in their own ways .. ., i am sure Kashyap would have done some work , just that cannot remember now.

SD relies on three emotional dialogues, which in a way defines the related characters, first , son calls his mother whore after seeing her in a porn movie at his friends place, second, husband agrees to police to have sex with his wife in exchange of freedom, third, transgender father who is now a mother, or may be she is no-one.

Problem is, none of them are new, or path breaking, in fact if my memory serves well, it is kind of decade old.

Scene 1:
"you are a whore"

mother son conflict being a whore is a genre than made career out of Vastaav and Hathyaar, in fact in hathyaar it was core base of  late Raghu Bhais' son again becomes gangster irrespective of being "educated boxer" ..... and people that Mukaa-baaz was about reality of life ... be it Tabus conflict in chandni-bar or veerghati, where Salman being illegitimate child of hawaldar finds hard to deal with kamatipura, this conflict is old.


Scene 2:
"I think you should compromise, just think, you are using a toilet at highway"

This is how husband convinces his wife to have sex with police guy in exchange of freedom, again, this does not rattles you, reason, this genre is overdone with Mahesh Bhat's Second inning with Madhur Bhandarkar's whole career, and last i saw this was in 2013 in Ugly

Scene 3:
"Transgender Father"

Now this is what i was expecting magic, and it became a self guilt saga, for reference Tammana delt with Hijra father concept and later Sanjay Gupta had dedicated movie Pankh, which addressed this....


So does this mean, if a movie is made earlier should not be made ?
Well that is plain stupid, but the problem of Super Deluxe (SD) is that it is highly pretentious, It apes heavily to be A Tarantino movie, for reference, Husband and Wife engages in a day to day banter of traffic lights and govt problems , though in a lighthearted humor, when there is dead body practically sitting in the rear seat .... for that matter, RGV made a love making scene in from dead body, but the problem is director dumb down, "I a making a cool film", when Samantha says this out loud, but apparently its the audience who should feel it.

Second big problem is, it does not push the envelope where its predecessor has left ... the first scene brings a massive disappointment, what kind of passionate sex happens with girl wearing tank top ? at-least a bare back or body double was least expected. There is a word that Bhat Sahab uses for his product, "I titillate my audience" , unfortunately this does not.

Next is the kids story, people have gone by far worst deals of things to make money, it starts with City of Gold and ends up being Delhi Belly. With opening up of making money within a day, it could have pushed the envelope and tried City of God, but unfortunately it ends being Boothnath Returns without Amitabh

But SD has its moments, the entire scene of buying out "Mallu Cut" is thrilling, the description of identifying his mother from her mole was well pulled off, and the best was when father says, i felt doing the same when realized wife was a porn star. The entire take on evangelist and Jesus is refreshing and new, i wish there were much more such scenes

Take away from Husband-Wife conflict is the police guy, he is simply superb.

The entry of Manickam where she turns out to shilpa was outstanding, the old Gran Pa assumes Shilpa as Manichkam's second wife and calls it is fine to be little masculine in nature was witty.

Movie would have been much better had it been natural rather than pretentious, it begins with being casual, then  suddenly attempts to be find conflict management and ends up being message oriented,  "we all have conflicts, and best way to handle conflict is to embrace and accept" becomes little over dramatic from a casual movie.

All in All, watch this movie if you have not seen any of the above movies...

P.S -  Ikka Seth from Veerghati (Manager of the Pleasure-house) , Maharani (Transgender) from Sadak , and City of Gold (Wife sleeps for Money) remains three of such characters that gets itched in your memory lane.

P.S.S while finishing my post, realized, even Faizu in Wassyepur ends to watching his mother opening her legs for Piyush Mishra..... and when in the end Faizu dies, Hema Quereshi, along with her kids, walks down with Piyush Mishra always gave me the goose bumps, knowing what Faizu will think...

P.S.S.S What the fuck was Alien Angle ?

Loser of the Year !!

SOTY 2 -

With SOTY, we have really come to age. There was time when movie will be finished and GuruDutt will keep hanging his "One Sided Love" (Khakez Ke phool) to the era where Sikkender (Mukadar Ka Sikkender) reveals his Madamjee, then came romance of Raj/Rahuls , " Naam to Suna he hoga" where Hero took First half to establish his true love and then has to realize that it was his true love, with an optimistic sad song, he travels from london to punjab in-order to sing happy songs; And finally  evolution reached till Dev-D, where true love was no more an issue but along with love,
"us nazar se nahi dekha" ....[i dont feel the same way] ...  was key element. I thought with Love Aaj Kal & Ek Mein aur Ek Tu, we had hit the Terminator age of love stories, where sky net
will rule the world and lovers will be replaced with machine (unlike Neela from 2.0) and no more love trash will happen to mankind.

Guess what .... I was wrong!!!

SOTY is unintended spoof on Bollywood template of Love Stories.

It could because my age/generation, or may be Indian parents have improvised tremendously over the years [3 Idiots] where it took Farhan almost his graduation to convince his father, hitler querashi,  to become wildlife photographer.... but today, Moorad from Gully Boy, Convinces his Dad that he wants to do hip hop, and he does convinces in 2 min............. , forget about how he convinces, its amazing what exactly a Dharavi kid should explain Hip Hop to his father whose only understanding for secure life is being a chauffeur.

SOTY raises the bar to new height, they don't even spend those '2 min' ... Guess parents have evolved so much and are so Chill-out that one look from Tiger is enough to make conservative go liberal ..... .

But was audience was on the same page with these chill-out parents ?, i don't think so!!

SOTY is strictly for people below 21 (Assuming you have yet to clear your last year) .....

Yes, I do not like college movies ... Because i grew up watching some Dhanraajgir or Singhania friend, whose estranged father will send briefcase full of money every month, and we the poor firends of a rich kid, will party on his dads fortune, till he will meet a girl and our group will end!! .... .... unfortunatly, we could not pass Vada Pav, Dabelie with old monk and Navy cut cigarettes and Jonny Walker and Cigar remained a distant dream.

so yes, this rich friend concept kind of hurts...

In SOTY , Tiger Shroff fights like Radhe Bhaiya, motivates like Coach Kabir Khan and Plays like Aamir not from JJWS but from awal number.
But thats not enough, he Dances like Hrithik and his gymnastic prowess is a reminder of Khiladi Kumar's Entry Sequence from Saughand ...

SOTY-1 was Love Story with pinch of Sports elements, but SOTY 2 is a unique product where sports plays guest appearance for Dance show Nach Baliye, that too without Madhuri Dixit as judge.

For most of the time, SOTY looked like a  platform for Remo to Screen Test Tiger for ABCD-3 and for rest of time, it looked a homage to half baked college drama manufactured from Dharama Production.

Annaya Pandeys is best thing that SOTY has, in most of the scenes she acts like a inner voice of the distressed audience, "Guys are you for Real!!"  ... but mostly there is nothing which she could have done to change the fate, to be fair, one should give the credit where its due,  she acted well, and she was in Sports Bra in most of her scene, so Well Deserved Dharma Debut, better version of Ishika from Mohabbetein.


Other girl .... i don't even know her name, something Tara.... it appeared her character was written like David Dhawan use to brief Shakti Kapooor in Dhulhe Raja , ..."Sorry we forgot to write charater for you, do what you think is right" ... but unlike Shakti Kapoor could "Think" and "Act" at the same time, this Tara (Star) was more like doobta Tara (falling star)....  might not even get Fair n Lovely ad.

Another due credit is that SOTY promotes Kabbadi Pro, only if Bachchan Jr could have come as guest along with Dino moria and Aftab shivdasani ... This would have been great loser engagement.

Overall, SOTY-2 is a must watch for all Tiger Shroff fans and even for those who are in any way related to those fans.