Just Brutal

Rating: 1/10 (25 December 2007)

I bought this movie in Little India in Penang, Malaysia for about 2 dollars. This was money poorly spent (that could have bought me several delicious fish curries). I tried to watch it with some friends; I'm actually pretty surprised that we made it to the end. For some reason, Indian cinema seems to always fail at the strong characterization and evocative dialogue that render Iranian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and other Asian films such good alternatives to Hollywood. Every single character in this film is incredibly annoying... from the idealistic, brainless, self-hating British wannabe filmmaker (whom we're apparently supposed to admire) right down to the painfully clichéd, and indistinguishable, 'handsome party dude who only needs to be inspired to fight for freedom' types. Bogart in Casablanca these guys ain't. The constant and unnecessary 'cool' montages of partying, motorcycle riding, dances and so on are actually much more annoying than your standard Bollywood musical set-piece. Finally--and most importantly--what exactly is it that these morons are fighting for? Capitalist modern India, which the wealthy leftist filmmakers naturally s**t all over, is massively superior to the socialist basket case that came before, as demonstrated by the untold millions lining these actors' and directors' pockets. So there's corruption, obviously, but this isn't quite a reason for a bunch of indolent college students to attempt to take over the country through murdering ministers (as well as one guy's evil capitalist caricature father? why?). Anyway, at this point I'm rambling. This award-winning film (very perplexing) is right up there with "You Got Served.. Again" and "The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift" in my book. Cheers, big ears.