This is my first time with opining on a movie - ever. Am sure there’d be many things amiss and many more that I need to consider - so, brickbats & suggestions welcome.
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Here
goes - Sugar Orgasm (Cheeni Kum - or should I spell it ’Cum’)
Well, if you’re the kind of homo-sapiens that have no issues referring to a 10 yr old as ’Sexy’, having a 80+ yr old watching Wrestling on TV and telling her 64 yr old ’never-before’ married son to go ’gym, gym, gym’ - this could ’possibly’ be your cup of tea. Before proceeding further, let me get some notations in place,
Ghans Phus - AB Plays this role - will be referred as GP
Tandoori Kabab - Tabu - will be referred as TK
GP’s mother - GPM
TK’s father - TKB
Sexy - the 10 yr old who is terminally ill and awaiting her one-way ticket to H (ell or eaven?) - SX
Hyderbadi Zulfaerani Pulav - HZP (pardon me for the spelling, though)
SPOILER ALERT - There are specific reference to certain portions of the movie ’Cheeni Kum’ which might reveal the plot or story.
Opening
GP is the karela-type boss of Spice6 - Londons Finest Indian restaurant - and he is also the Head Chef of the place. He goes - ahem.. - bossing around (wonder if thats his JD). Next is the introduction of the most-famous cuisine in the whole of India south of the Vindhyas - ’the Hyderabadi Zulfaerani Pulav’ (HZP). TK’s on Spice6 with a friend and she dares return the HZP stating that its a little too ’sweet’. Karela Boss GP ’confronts’ his client/customer TK in a manner which I believe only Mr. Bachan could potray so well. TK & her friend leave Spice6 and we move on with the GP side of the story.
GP meets SX on his way back home and SX asks for adult-rated DVDs. She needs to watch them since her time on this planet is ’limited’ - hmmm.., aren’t there better things that adults do rather than just having sex or watching adult rated movies, makes me wonder if that is what the director/story-writer is trying to prove to his target audience (the ones which could ’possibly’ be classified as ’pseudo’-intellectual).
Return of the HZP
Next, HZP is returned by one Mr.Colgate tooth to GP who goes ahead to taste it - and thanks to a well-written script and an amazing memory power at 64 - goes around to put down a list of the ingredients verbally. Post-verbal-ingredient-listing, Mr. Colgate chips with the truth that TK had provided this HZP and it wasn’t made by a Spice6 employee. That sends GP to follow TK and try to find that one word which one uses to apologise - to mend his error - to say ’SORRY’. Phew, the dir/story-writer, now expects his target audience to believe that a 64 yr old hotel owner - chef at London had never before in his ’entire’ life uttered a ’SORRY’ - and I dare say ’do these pseudo-intellectual audience question this line of thought?’.
Romance - or is it?
With a little bit more of footage expended on GP & TK small-talk & how GP ’impresses’ TK we’ve got that 80’s tune of Ilaiyaraja with new ’Hindi’ words into it. Maestro never fails - even with his old notes - truly etched in the memories of millions of movie-goers who’d followed this under-dog rise from a nothing to his current status. Kudos to Raja sir.
Then, its the turn of a 64 yr old GP to meet with a 30-something TK’s ’baap’ who is 58 yrs of age. TKB has a good sense of timing his dialogs and the delivery clearly displays the ’bhajan, bhojan and bhaaji’ mindset. One more brilliant character-potrayal added to his already feathered hat. What follows are ’supposed to be funny’ scenes and supposed to evoke the comical sense of the target audience. This can not even match the dirt left by stand-up movies from Mehboob, Kamal, Crazy Mohan and the rest of their ilk. To say it best, is to not pen in a word more on this aspect.
Hurry to the ending
With some emotional black-mailing and brain-washing that GP does to TKB, we go back to Qutub Minar, where we were earlier taken as part of their ’romance’ (if I could dare call it that). The scene where GP ’re-’tries to get a grip on the minar and GPM helps her son out is picturized well. Though the plot is pretty obvious, it was potrayed well and yet again both GP & GPM have done justice their roles. However, what follows next is ’pathetic waste of footage’. SX’s dad calls up from UK and conveys that SX died a few minutes back and it leads to a flurry of stupid emotional scenes - that would most certainly fail to evoke anything but irritation (at least thats what it evoked in me).
Compared with this depiction of sorrow & loss, I was much moved when SX puts in a word to the effect that ’GP seems to have more time at his hands and whether he would be able to lend her a little of it’. Amidst a light-hearted script - that one line from SX stood fantastically apart from the others. Having used subtlelities all through the film, to potray GP as a person that would ’literally’ run from Pillar to Post to reclaim a dead child is ’childish’ to say the least. We could’ve done without those minutes of the film.
Conclusion
The words Cheeni Kum has multiple contexts in the movie - the most glaring one that appealed to me, being the fact that a Karela-type GP - The boss, gets turned to - hmmm... - a more humane version of that. The concluding scenes are probably the best potrayal of this transition.
My opinion
IF you think you are part of that ’elite-educated’ pseudo-intellectual types that raves about movies like ’Black’, etc this might still fall a little short of filling your appetite. If you are like me (the ones that like Deewar, Laawaris, Zanzeer etc) - Please do not waste your time, effort & money on this one.
Also, if you had the patience to read through the GP, TK, SX, etc you might actually like the movie, too :-).
To sum it up, the movie is more of a Sugar-based orgasm which the director tries his best to achieve - but misses certain ’peak’ moments & finally leaves the audience with a rock-hard/fully-wet feeling without being able to acheive what was required/expected.
Finally, a big Thank You for having the patience to read this ’not-so-good’ opinion of a ’different’ movie.
I am rating a ’NO’ to this movie - assuming that there is a majority that would be more ’down-to-earth’ rather than the elitest few that might end up liking this movie.