Masala Chopsticks, Desi Ishtyle !

Where is the world heading to? And where am I? Well these days, mall-trotting, an extreme case of the rampant "hyper-metro-pia"... diseases these days, come in all shapes and sizes!

Since my six day duration of stay at this Utopia of sorts, my mornings are busy without any work, and keeping my blogger instincts alive, I was conscious enough to put my charades to a more yielding pretext. And whence an excursion was planned, with my cousin as accomplice, it was ingenious in its own right. Ingenious, well, it can be pardoned as one, when you manage to get a first day first show, 15 minutes before the show and especially when you thought about wadding your way to the theatre 30 minutes ago! The favorite, the most trustworthy and beguiling terms of Delhi-parlance, “jugaad” saved the atomic quirky enthusiasm we all were soused in and the chancy feeling of a thing that may go either way!

The entire nepotistic arsenal was spent for the new Abbas-Mustan Venture, 36 China Town. The movie which is perhaps the most advertised around all facetious forms of media, has a motley crew of wags, and to my surprise Kareena ‘Kaput’ was teensy bit less animated here, probably she did not have that much footage to wither! Anyways. Quilted in my relishable comportment, on a commodious seat at the PVR Spice cinemas played a fine proprietor to my overtly animadverted arse.




The celluloid houses Shahid Kapoor and Kareena 'Kaput' (:P) as two desperate part miserable in their own rights, who have left their homes in their amateur pursuit of their respective dreams, and as the directors cliché goes, they go bust. There's the regular pack of unaccounted facetiousness and badinage, Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever and a brave Tanaz Currim. Akhshaye Khanna, the no-nonsense, relentless, the-world-is-falling-but-I-am-cool attitude cop, who maintains a unique unforeseen acquaintance with his suspects, and you find him cavorting and belching along with agog, and his facile sidekick with his intricate, daedal cigarette lighter, with an amazing timing of functioning. The eye candy is temporally fended by Isha Kopikkar, and a prodding Priyanka Chopra, who seems to be acquiring a penchant for special appearances. However, she appears towards the end, coupled with one of the fore mentioned, for conforming to the paired state of each, makes it acquire an lilt to piece up a jigsaw together.

With a rundown on the casting, I had this befuddling urge to click some shots from the movie, which later materialized as manna for my blog review, hope I get to have some variance in this bland though vapidly elegant template.

And it began.

The celluloid is washed with a drenched, with females mind you, introductory Upen Patel who takes his nascent steps into filmdom through the canvas, with his jingle in the background. Upen plays an effervescent, philandering and chauvinistic Adonis, who considers his conscientious duty to accompany every sexy lass in the world and blandish her for a quintessential 'long drive', through his own effusive and haughty pick-up lines. Upen Patel, another crossover from modeling, damages the cliché ‘models can’t act’ to some extent, but does not do much to invent one of his own. Considering the plaudits he has gathered on the ramp, the transition looks promising, except his snub expression, of some combusted toast, like his forehead lines look like creases on crumpled cotton, appended by that ponderous countenance of sizeable amplitude, in toto a gobhi ka pakoda...!

The story begins with Sonia Chang’s, a rich and divorced owner of the plush Chinatown Casino, little kiddo being kidnapped suddenly one fine day. A bereaving Ms. Chang is on a heavy dose of sleeping pills, deeply anguished by her fruitless efforts. On the other end of the vicious maze of fate, in Mumbai, the defenestrated Shahid and Kareena, are roaming aimlessly at their wits’ end, and as an indispensable karma in Bollywood, the same fate allots them an opportunity to realize their dreams, when they find the wandering child in front of them. Needy and desperate, both of them join hands, which progresses into an ineluctable love affair, almost a staple move since the land and the stars were created! They inform Ms. Chang about the epochal procurement, and overwhelmed she announces an in-house party at her Chinatown pub. (pub- casino, casino-pub, its all about losing your money ;)

Paresh Rawal, a convalescent gambler who has undergone therapy against gambling, but develops convulsions on being recipient to any air flux coming out of a casino, and a fawning husband of a sultry wife, is the owner of 5 hotels, 4 out of which have been mortgaged due to his extravagant tastes, which encompasses gambling, feckless gambling and more gambling. That night, Paresh also gets to lay his hands on the counters, and goes berserk, betting the fifth hotel too. Johnny Lever is another upstart lay-bet, who is going to Goa, in the same casino; this time equipped with some incanted die, courtesy some baba, with his candid and frugal wife Tanaz Currim. What’s in the offing is anybody’s guess. Both of these master wisecracks form a hilarious coalition, and you get your share of laughs in the movie, towards the interval.

This is where Abbas-Mustan piece together an eclectic ferfuffle, with the concurrence of all characters on this night, when Ms. Chang is murdered. It’s not until dark, when our to-be lovebirds reach 36, China Town. Finding the place all dark and desolate, they start searching for Ms. Chang, and happen to discover her dead body. With their faces drained they escape the mansion and inform the Police. Here is where our super cop Akshaye Khanna comes in. After this there is no looking back. Post interval sees a paced concoction of comedy and suspense, where everybody gets ridiculous defending themselves from our super cop’s ingenuous volley of questions. Shahid gets caught, and becomes the prime suspect of the murder, subsequent with Johnny’s hilarious conviction to escape. Paresh Rawal has a connubial quandary when that night, his wife ends up sharing her bedroom with Upen Patel, and the rest as they say is comedy.
The most incredulous character, 'lively' in its own right, is the corpse of Ms. Chang. So nimble in its (well its a corpse right) movement, that it goes on mission to comute through all modes of transport. The expeditious entity goes through the whole mansion, eluding all the 10-odd ill fated crew, giving them their prerogative of shreiks and freaks, and then whisks away through a suitcase and what not! Watch out for it.

Such is the plot weaved, that all characters happen to visit the foreboding bungalow at that inopportune time. Ashcake Khanna, with his scripturally rendered acumen and intelligence starts catching everyone who happened to relate with the murder that fateful night, and each has their own laugh-rioted contribution to make. Check out, what happens to Johnny and his wife and how they try to get rid of the predicament. Shahid Kareena just had to come close after the oh-so-selfless Shahid helps her in trying situations and gets caught in the process. The movie boils down into a trademark fare, a fast pace whodunit, with a sharp cop with a difference, and a motley crew of idiocies, there is loads of humor strewn throughout. The movie proved to be worth a family entertainer, with Ham-fisted Reshammiya’s A-a-ashiqui (: D) catching the pulse of the crowd, providing extra chutzpah to the package. The touted humor is worthwhile and both the master craftsmen (Rawal & Johnny) manage to gather an applause or two from at least the packed hall in which I was sitting, and the audience wasn’t that enthusiastic! The movie ends on a unconventional, yet remotely expected climax, referring to the killer.

36, China Town is a slick and the colloquial masala potboiler, targeted at the family segment, as well as for people eyeing heartening entertainment and engrosses you till its duration. The movie is interspersed with enthralling but identifiable situations, though to the restraint of being sodden boring, the acuity of the script and sarcastic dialogues make for worth a watch. The movie picks up its comic horses before the interval where Paresh Rawal and Johnny Lever are in full swing. The imperative comedy is satisfactory, and all the characters with their grotesque peccadilloes and idiosyncrasies make 36, China Town, a movie to commence your summer break with. The astute dexterity of the plot emboldens each character enough to be at least watermarked into the audience’s memory. The underlying moral admonition of the story, it constructed around the avarice and conceit of the degraded and conscientiously abstemious human mind, where each character brandishes his or her own personal acquisitive motive besieged to this highly object-referential world.

Akshaye Khanna carries his part of the deal with finesse, with his usual caricaturesque expression, if you have cared to observe, one eye frowned smaller than the other, like a pseudo-thinker! Otherwise, he plays the cop with vibrancy and that crafty commitment, which is a regular from his caliber of acting.

Shahid and Kareena, well I take their names together, because for the first time, the movie is not based on their spoony romances, and the director duo is liberal enough to give the audience a much needed breather. It is this disparancy which emerges a rather saving grace for the venture. Otherwise, Shahid is spunky in his performance and Kareena has overacted a little less. On the whole, they are a salutary part of the film.

Paresh Rawal, Johnny Lever, and a fervid Tanaz Currim, do a commendable job according to me and keep you interested through the reel’s duration. With their waggish fustian, their humor is practical and crunchy, replete with innuendos.

Upen ‘pakoda’ Patel, has some verbal acting skills to acquire. As it is he was dubbed, but overall, for a new comer he was content in his confines. And the dude’s got some dancing talents to show. For once, I saw some heedful lip service done, where the lips and the voice were not in China and Japan simultaneously. And in this frame, Upen is orchestrating his antics, with that flourishing move of the blade of his hand, pops the abated question, "Long Drive pe chalen?"




Rest, the killer is…
Mail me for the answer!

Hint: The killer has not been mentioned by me anywhere in this article.