It's raining remakes in the Hindi film industry, which means it is time to smother yourself to near-death with your cushion every time some modern machismo mouths off corny lines when the villain insults his long-widowed mother or his morose spinster sister. No, I'm not against remakes per se but I do have a certain aversion to them. Because the whole shitty business is a way to earn a few bucks more and make the people who were credited with the original have a cardiac arrest in their tub of tomato popcorn right in the middle of the theater while watching the carnage revel in front of them.
What I do enjoy about the whole remake business is how those numbnuts justify their decision to coerce their baloney on us. The most exploited response is, "Oh, I just loved that movie as a child! And now when I watch it again, I still love it! I simply want to pay a befitting tribute to it." And that too accompanied by a vapid droll on how the whole movie influenced the five-year old mind of theirs years ago when the guy had no idea what the movie business was. And so began a trend in the industry. People dove into their memories to search for that one damned bond they have with their adolescence and we were the wretched casualties of the hokum that followed.
Now, allow me to list the recent remakes that got high on the ballyhoo - Agneepath, Chashme Baddoor, Himmatwala, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag and Zanjeer. I concede, I haven't seen any of these bogeys simply because I haven't dared to. To be fair, Agneepath isn't entirely bad, I'm told, as a matter of fact, it's pretty watchable. Hrithik Roshan reprised the cult character that gave Amitabh Bachchan his identity. The makers retained the names that glorified the middling original for their visionary remake but in terms of storytelling it wasn't exactly unassailable. Oooo! Smart move, getting the stars and the names. Too bad it didn't work for the movie as well as it did for the general public. Tsk Tsk.
Filmmaker David Dhawan has been in the industry for quite a long time. And, if my memory serves, at one point of time, he was releasing four movies a year. All comedies, all nonsensical. But yeah, I confess, I'm a fan of them. Dhawan's Haseena Maan Jayegi, my favorite film of his, entertained and biffed in equal measures. So, the question that pervaded my mind for a while was : why would he bother to remake a classic? I mean, doesn't he already have a sufficiently enviable list of comedies under his belt? But no, David didn't think so. He remade Sai Paranjpye's majestic Chashme Buddoor with a godawful cast that gave me goosebumps. I couldn't bear to even think about it. And when I saw the frenetic promo, I knew that the die had been cast. The makers were intent on creating - or killing - the spirit of the original. Nope, didn't work out either way. Now, can we please have a screening of Paranjpye's magical tour de force? If not, could we have the old David back?
The remaining movies are pure dreck that don't deserve a piece to be written on them. Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag or What Were You Thinking, Ramu? is often considered the worst Hindi film ever made along with a lot of other worsts. Think worst mistake, worst cast and, uh, worst torture technique. So painful, so strident was this Ram Gopal Varma movie that it destroyed a lot of careers. Not that they showed any promise anyway. And yeah, Ramu went down with it. He's still in the movie business though. Made some tripe called Department a while back and gave Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag a run for its money. No, don't worry, Mr. Varma, your movie didn't destroy your visionary debacle. Tsk, I still consider your Satya as one of the best Hindi films ever made, sir. Please don't kill it with Satya 2. The trailer's got me dead worried, sir.
It takes guts to remake a classic. But it takes more to remake it with an unbelievably trashy cast. I'm talking about Zanjeer, the new remake not making waves in tinsel town. The original Zanjeer made Amitabh Bachchan the man he is today. And Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar's terrifically scripted lines and characters made Prakash Mehra the man he was. So, Mehra's sons decided one day that they want to remake Father's old masterpiece. They did, with Telugu superstar Ramcharan playing the iconic role that Bachchan immortalized. Prakash Raj, who usually plays comical villains with a bloated ego, took up the role of Teja. Priyanka Chopra, who was incredible in the so-so Barfi! last year, must've been finagled for a signature on the contract, I think, because no actor in their right minds would agree to this. And did Sanjay Dutt know what he was getting into? The movie's bad, I hear. Worse than bad. I don't have anything to say against it. The casting did the talking for me.
Sajid Khan fancies himself as an entertainer. Not a filmmaker, mind you, but as an entertainer. His movie's aren't anything to yap about, you know. Because when an entertainer is made in the Hindi film industry, creativity usually goes down the drain tooth-first. That's the case with Khan's films. He remade his favorite film as a kid, Himmatwala, that is now used as an example in film-schools as how not to make a movie. I got the gist from the trailer in which the possessory credits read A Sajid Khan Entertainer. Groan! As if the trailer wasn't already bad and derisive, not to forget the remake of an already terrible film, we now have to get used to the misleading credits being misused for an actual entertainer. Because Himmatwala wasn't entertaining in any way. In fact, it wasn't even an honorary addition to those so-bad-that-it's-good kind of movies. Shivved everywhere in every which way, folks.
So, remaking movies is apparently now a business in the industry. And that's a bad enough sign if anything else isn't. Creativity is usually farted upon - can't anyone see that, too? - in the remakes but, you know, I talk to the wall in such cases. I hear some other classics have been racked up to be remade. As if the trendsetters above haven't argued on the case already. If the guys who are thinking of remaking a few other classics into piffle, make sure you watch these movies before the go-ahead. They are valid reasons to kick the whole idea.
What I do enjoy about the whole remake business is how those numbnuts justify their decision to coerce their baloney on us. The most exploited response is, "Oh, I just loved that movie as a child! And now when I watch it again, I still love it! I simply want to pay a befitting tribute to it." And that too accompanied by a vapid droll on how the whole movie influenced the five-year old mind of theirs years ago when the guy had no idea what the movie business was. And so began a trend in the industry. People dove into their memories to search for that one damned bond they have with their adolescence and we were the wretched casualties of the hokum that followed.
Now, allow me to list the recent remakes that got high on the ballyhoo - Agneepath, Chashme Baddoor, Himmatwala, Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag and Zanjeer. I concede, I haven't seen any of these bogeys simply because I haven't dared to. To be fair, Agneepath isn't entirely bad, I'm told, as a matter of fact, it's pretty watchable. Hrithik Roshan reprised the cult character that gave Amitabh Bachchan his identity. The makers retained the names that glorified the middling original for their visionary remake but in terms of storytelling it wasn't exactly unassailable. Oooo! Smart move, getting the stars and the names. Too bad it didn't work for the movie as well as it did for the general public. Tsk Tsk.
Filmmaker David Dhawan has been in the industry for quite a long time. And, if my memory serves, at one point of time, he was releasing four movies a year. All comedies, all nonsensical. But yeah, I confess, I'm a fan of them. Dhawan's Haseena Maan Jayegi, my favorite film of his, entertained and biffed in equal measures. So, the question that pervaded my mind for a while was : why would he bother to remake a classic? I mean, doesn't he already have a sufficiently enviable list of comedies under his belt? But no, David didn't think so. He remade Sai Paranjpye's majestic Chashme Buddoor with a godawful cast that gave me goosebumps. I couldn't bear to even think about it. And when I saw the frenetic promo, I knew that the die had been cast. The makers were intent on creating - or killing - the spirit of the original. Nope, didn't work out either way. Now, can we please have a screening of Paranjpye's magical tour de force? If not, could we have the old David back?
The remaining movies are pure dreck that don't deserve a piece to be written on them. Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag or What Were You Thinking, Ramu? is often considered the worst Hindi film ever made along with a lot of other worsts. Think worst mistake, worst cast and, uh, worst torture technique. So painful, so strident was this Ram Gopal Varma movie that it destroyed a lot of careers. Not that they showed any promise anyway. And yeah, Ramu went down with it. He's still in the movie business though. Made some tripe called Department a while back and gave Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag a run for its money. No, don't worry, Mr. Varma, your movie didn't destroy your visionary debacle. Tsk, I still consider your Satya as one of the best Hindi films ever made, sir. Please don't kill it with Satya 2. The trailer's got me dead worried, sir.
It takes guts to remake a classic. But it takes more to remake it with an unbelievably trashy cast. I'm talking about Zanjeer, the new remake not making waves in tinsel town. The original Zanjeer made Amitabh Bachchan the man he is today. And Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar's terrifically scripted lines and characters made Prakash Mehra the man he was. So, Mehra's sons decided one day that they want to remake Father's old masterpiece. They did, with Telugu superstar Ramcharan playing the iconic role that Bachchan immortalized. Prakash Raj, who usually plays comical villains with a bloated ego, took up the role of Teja. Priyanka Chopra, who was incredible in the so-so Barfi! last year, must've been finagled for a signature on the contract, I think, because no actor in their right minds would agree to this. And did Sanjay Dutt know what he was getting into? The movie's bad, I hear. Worse than bad. I don't have anything to say against it. The casting did the talking for me.
Sajid Khan fancies himself as an entertainer. Not a filmmaker, mind you, but as an entertainer. His movie's aren't anything to yap about, you know. Because when an entertainer is made in the Hindi film industry, creativity usually goes down the drain tooth-first. That's the case with Khan's films. He remade his favorite film as a kid, Himmatwala, that is now used as an example in film-schools as how not to make a movie. I got the gist from the trailer in which the possessory credits read A Sajid Khan Entertainer. Groan! As if the trailer wasn't already bad and derisive, not to forget the remake of an already terrible film, we now have to get used to the misleading credits being misused for an actual entertainer. Because Himmatwala wasn't entertaining in any way. In fact, it wasn't even an honorary addition to those so-bad-that-it's-good kind of movies. Shivved everywhere in every which way, folks.
So, remaking movies is apparently now a business in the industry. And that's a bad enough sign if anything else isn't. Creativity is usually farted upon - can't anyone see that, too? - in the remakes but, you know, I talk to the wall in such cases. I hear some other classics have been racked up to be remade. As if the trendsetters above haven't argued on the case already. If the guys who are thinking of remaking a few other classics into piffle, make sure you watch these movies before the go-ahead. They are valid reasons to kick the whole idea.
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