At a show of Munna Bhai, there were these promos of a new mytho-thriller. The hook ? ?There?s a hidden meaning to the Ramayan? ? 4 of us decided to see ?Rudraaksh?. Read on.
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Rudraaksham -
?A lot of hair with a person in the midst of it? (or something to that effect) was how one MSian described Makarand Deshpande (I?m sorry, I don?t remember your name or ID. If you are reading this, please claim your credit). The description fits Suniel Shetty to a T. He plays Bhuria, a contract labourer on an archaeological dig somewhere in Sri Lanka.
Bhuria is a ?Pagal Saand? as the movie pithily puts it. The Saand obviously has a cow somewhere.
Enter Ms Koppikkar as Lali. They have a panting good time in the midst of the dirt and grime on the dig. Finally the pretend-foreigner archaeologist digs out an extremely gross-weird metal sculpture that looks like a cross between a cow with its nose lopped off and a deformed devil afflicted with stunted growth. Supposed to be an image of evil, the sculpture was allegedly buried after the Ramayana war waged against the Rakshasa king Ravana. But, lekin, kintu, parantu.
After the weird thing comes out, Bhuria takes to staring at it for unholy lengths of time at odd hours of the day and one night, in the midst of howling winds and pouring rain he hears an odd incantation. He now proceeds to dig up an ancient ?Rudraksh? reputed to have been worn by Ravana and through which the Rakshasa king derived his great powers. Says Bhuria in the movie towards the end ?In modern terms, this Rudraksh is a hologram that mutates its wearer into something more.?) The Rudraksh will allow only those pure of heart to hold it and will burn anyone else who tries.
So begins Bhuria?s hunt for his partner in evil. The ?hair with a person in the middle? description fits Sanjay Dutt too. Varun, a psychic healer, has achieved demi-god status among those he healed. He takes their pain onto himself. He is therefore the subject of an experiment headed by Dr Gayatri (from California, no less and sans a nasal accent!) played of course by the fearless Bips. Dr G has a bunch of girls who are perpetually in shorts (each had great legs! Sorry, women notice these things too if you are sitting upfront and staring at 2 metres of leg on a giant screen).
The rest of the movie is one caper after another where Bhuria and Varun play at the good-versus-evil bit and run around all over some hills somewhere in Sri Lanka that have a lot of faces all over them. Make sense? Don?t worry, didn?t to me too. The rest of the story I leave to your imagination, in the sad hope that like me, one of you will be foolish enough to go see this movie on a big screen.
- Moola Beejam
There was this synthetic pseudo-feminine voice that kept saying this again and again (Rudraaaksham, moola beejam). Its unbelievably tickling to hear a synthetic voice chanting in Sanskrit, at least in this movie it was. Mani Shankar and whoever had a superb concept, one that makes for a great thriller. I don?t know what went wrong but I do know this much. Of the 4 people who went to see it (me, Zu, Sushma and my sis Ani) 3 were laughing at the antics on screen while 1 was all ears. Like I said, I get the concept of evil being encased in a tiny seed, which can release untold powers on being the possession of one who knows how to control it. But the picturisation of this concept went awry somewhere between concept and release. Lets take it one by one:
- Bips as Dr G is a hoot and a scream. A hoot coz I don?t know of any experimenting doctors who get sensual massages from their experiments! The whole song is interspersed with loud pants which are more funny than sexy. After the 1st three pants, the 3 of us were in splits while Sushma was embarrassed.
Bips is a scream coz she actually conducts experiments with a tripod-mounted handy cam. Oh yeah, she has one of those whatchamacallit things ? virtual screens? The ones where figures and words appear in thin air and those that you touch-type with some thingies attached to your hands. Those were cool!
A special mention to a special input (Zubeda this is for you). Bips? character, Dr G is a cold, calculating, mean ?b-with-an-itch? coz she keeps pushing Varun to keep with the experiment even if he is writhing in pain (after taking on someone?s pain) or even if he is grieving (at the death of his father ? Kabir Bedi somewhere in yet another jungle of HAIR). The doc was more concerned about her Grants and the success of her experiments in paranormal phenomena than about Varun who she claimed to love.
The love angles of the lead pairs made me and Zu start laffing whenever they were on. More details below.
Some optical store somewhere made a bomb on the lenses used in this movie. Suniel Shetty had some cataracty-opaque blue ones while Sanjay had red lenses plus a catty yellow-black pair. Yech!
Bhuria and Varun fight in their ?Swapna Aakaash? (literal translation ? ?dream sky?. I think they mean the cosmos ? but that?s just my opinion). Both never fall off, though I got dizzy watching that height even though its virtual. And there was a long drawn out combat sequence in this Swapna Aakaash - khatam hone ka naam nahin le raha tha. So me and Zu and Ani ribbed Sushma.
The Hoots
Dr G is tired of all the tension and wants Varun to take away her problems. So they settle for a massage!! Everyone knows there are better ways of ?release?. lololololol She pants at the start of a song and all the way through it, right till the end. We panted too. With laughter. And so did the rest of the 100 something people who were in that theatre.
Sanjay Dutt whenever faced with Bips did the only thing that came naturally to him. He looked bored. She is hugging him, holding on for dear life and going ?mmmm? and he?s thinking ?5100 sets of dumbbells aren?t enough, maybe should increase to 6000??. LOLOLOL
Suniel Shetty in a clinch with Ishaa Koppikkar. Ms Koppikkar was ’Ow-you’re-on-my-foot-you-800lbs-gorilla!’ HOWL!! You have to see that one to believe it, which on second thoughts, you shouldn?t. Performance inhibitions, you see.
Kabir Bedi in RED robes and with another of those 3-for-the-price-of-one wigs and a horrible Sanskit enunciation. Mercifully, he was killed within 10 minutes of his entry.
The special effects made me specially laugh. Yes, we were warned not to expect Matrix but after seeing that dodge-a-bullet scene innumerable times, I am not in the mood to forgive and forget. Might impress the folks who didn?t yet see Keanu Reeves in his claim to fame.
What I liked
Locales If this was really shot in Sri Lanka, then I must say the country is beautiful without its beaches. The ruins remind you of the old forts in and around Mumbai, when you think about it. There?s even a waterfall to wet Ms Koppikkar.
Sanjay and Suniel sans the femmes Both did an okay job especially in the brawn-heavy Swapna Aakaash fight. The rest was a strictly okay performance.
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