Hilfe, die Aliens greifen an!

Just watched 'Joker' (2012)

Agastya is a US based scientist working on extra terrestrial communication, who is called back home to fictitious village called 'Paglapur', a region in India that has been comically denied a place on the map. It has been ignored by the neighboring territories and has consequently fallen into hard times - no electricity, water supply, buildings in shambles. As Agastya tries to seek help from the Government, each of the three neighboring states wash their hands off the area.

One of the ministers call Paglapur as the joker of the pack - technically part of the country, but without actually belonging to one group/ place.

Agastya decides that the only way to get people to take Paglapur seriously would be to bring global attention to the town. He devices an elaborate scam involving crop circles and aliens. He uses the villagers to create crop circles and spread rumors about alien visitors. The resulting worldwide interest in Paglapur makes the ministers come clamoring for Paglapur to be included in their territory, which allows the hero to turn back the joker comment by saying that the Joker is the most powerful in the pack, as it can assume the power/ identity of any of the other cards.

When I said that I want to watch this movie, all my friends responded with a resounding chorus of "Eh??". They felt that it was just an immature, poorly hashed up, shallow film, not worth a second look beyond the trailer. But I said no, this can work.

In the real world, crop circles are hoaxes that survive in pop culture because people don't read enough. I can accept movies using crop circles as a central plot premise, cos hey - it's fiction. If I can enjoy a movie about talking fish, I can enjoy a movie about visiting aliens. But this plot had a promise of something better. It was using crop circles as a scam committed by people to gain attention - something that mirrored the real world of crop circles.

So after seeing the movie, I can now call my friends - the naysayers and paltry critics - and look them straight in the eye while sobbing the words "I should have listened to you". It's a stupid, ridiculous plot. Nonsensical and poorly thought out. There are a few laughs, but it's far and wide - not worth suffering the whole movie for the few laughs strewn here and there. I'm disappointed, and this time, it seems like I'm the only one disappointed here. Everyone else expected crap and got crap. I expected a mildly amusing lowbrow comedy and got crap.

Joker is a pathetic movie! Yeah believe me guys,I'm saying it myself!!

Wondering 'WHY' Akshay Kumar is doing these type of movies?? You are a lotus in a dirt pond, Akki!

Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba I mean rest of all are wasted!

Thank god Akshay Kumar backed out from the promotion of Joker as he was cheated by the director Shirish Kunder.

I just hate Shirish Kunder after watching Joker. How can a man just make this type of a ridiculous movie! It was because of his wife that he got two biggest stars of Bollywood in his two films, but he doesn't deserve biggies anymore!!

I'll rate it 3/10, no need to tell but if you're still thinking to watch then go ahead Joker is your flick! :P

Its indeed great and also an appreciable act to go for something different and fresh in the present routine structure of our Hindi Films. But on the other hand, it's equally or even more important to ensure that the plot which looks like a winner on the paper, also gets transformed and executed on the screen in the best possible manner, providing a good return to the viewer for both his money and time spent.

Unfortunately, Shirish Kunder's JOKER fulfils the first requirement reasonably but makes a complete mess in its second, involving the execution, presentation and overall impact of the movie which was rightly predicted by majority of people after watching its uninteresting & patchy promos. In fact JOKER is one of those big movies which clearly reveal their weak points in the first few reels itself and then you exactly know that its not going to work in its subsequent reels too.

The film starts from abroad in the SWADES mode, wherein Akshay is forced to make a decision to visit India along with his live-in girlfriend Sonakshi. Now the moment they enter the zone of Pagalpur, you get served with some hard humor which starts falling flat with its each new gag delivered boringly. There are people falling from the trees, a man who thinks he is a lamp (reminding you of a teeth whitener advert), a teacher with a pretty bad English who believes that the IInd World War is still going on, a person who speaks gibberish (like Tushar in the GOLMAAl series) which eventually becomes the language of real aliens too and 3 clown like politicians who daringly ask for their cut sitting in their government offices only.

In straight words, after just 30 minutes into the film and an item song served in that duration only, one starts thinking about all the resources, efforts and hard work gone into its making just for nothing. Further it is also quite shocking to see that the film which had its whole promotion planned around the so called Aliens, does not have even a single scene or mention of them before the intermission and they actually reveal themselves in its second hour. Frankly that tells you a lot about the illogical and errant planning behind the making of this serious mistake aptly called JOKER.

Post intermission, the disaster continues in a much bigger magnitude when the fake aliens are made with some vegetables, fruits and LEDs considering that there are fools sitting in the theater ready to accept anything. The whole screenplay post interval is simply pathetic making a mockery of almost everything around ranging from news channels, their reporters, government and military forces to the foreign officials investigating the aliens and the crop circles inspired from Manoj Shyamalan's SIGNS (2002). Moreover various scenes in the movie make you recall so many films together like SWADES, KOI MIL GAYA, LAGAAN, PEEPLI LIVE and even Spielberg's ET. Plus, the whole setting around some innocent (yet eccentric) villagers also reminds you of Akshay Kumar's earlier flop, TEES MAAR KHAN directed by Shirin's better half Farah Khan.

In the performance department only one person is able to make you laugh at times and he is Shreyas Talpade as Babban. But otherwise JOKER has its entire cast (with many known names in stupid minuscule roles), performing half-heartedly including the lead couple Akshay & Sonakshi, as if they all perfectly knew that its not going to work in any case. And probably that was the reason Akshay was literally absent from its entire promotional campaign before its release.

Musically it gives you nothing to write about as the soundtrack neither has any melody nor any good lyrics to win over the audience. Personally I even didn't like the heavily promoted item song 'Kafirana' since it didn't fit on Chitrangda's persona at all. The songs honestly work as several loo-breaks which had to be included in the film because without them, it would be a 100 minutes venture only in totality. Background score fails to register in all those weird comic sequences and Cinematography remains helpless with such lackluster characters emoting on the screen. Also it was a pity to see that in such a big banner film, talking about aliens (the real ones too), the Computer Graphics were really below the mark like a low budget venture in its last sequence which even had the alien dancing along with Shreyas. Now did the makers really expect the viewers to laugh out loud on that silly alien dance without any sense?

Anyway, in all JOKER can easily be termed as a poor or bizarre film made on an interestingly fresh plot which had enough space for a good comedy and many innovative enjoyable sequences in its storyline. The film majorly is a disappointment due to its mediocre and awful treatment (including the script, execution or direction) which takes the plot too lightly in an over-confident manner and fails to deliver in the end. As a matter of fact, JOKER can be perfectly used to prove these Cinematic Truths that 'The Director is always the real captain of the ship undeniably' and 'What seems to be good on the paper might not be equally good or entertaining on the screen'.

Remember 'Tees Mar Khan' ? where we got our balls crushed by the amount of dumbness it had , well this one's no less. I thought if a person can make a good movie like 'Jaan-E-Man' he knows how to make cinema . But alas i was wrong. Shrish Kunder proves that he can over-do himself. Though this one's not as boring as Tees Maar Khan But its senseless and has NO HUMOR (read : NONE) i don't remember smiling more than 2wice. Laughing is another story. I wonder why Akshay Kumar does movies like this. I am insured that he now does movies for money only. Sonakshi Sinha on the other hand has no role at all. She has like 30 Min's of the screen space, and she is disappointing. Shreyas Talpade with the 'Kalaa Guss Ghuss' is damn irritating and so are the other villagers. Except for the Hotness of Chitrangada Singh in the item song 'Kaafiraana - I want just you' there is nothing in the film that will entertain. Give it a skip. Doesn't even deserve a DVD watch.

If you really want to laugh without any laughing moment, JOKER is just for you! I am damn sure, you will do anything, but laugh! Producer Farah Khan while promoting the film, confidently said that 'Joker' would make for a great family viewing at the theaters as elders wouldn't have to worry about raunchy kisses and scintillating skin show popping every now and then in front of the kids. It is fine for the director to think of making a 'clean' movie, but at least there has to be a story to make people sit in the theater. And I doubt that the kids of today, after being fed with Hollywood flicks like 'Ice Age' and 'Spy Kids' would buy this Kunder's fantasy. The story is very run-of the-mill. Akshay (Augustya), a NASA scientist returns to India to improve the condition of his village named 'Paglapur', apparently which has lost its identity from the face of the earth. Now since the administrators have no clue as to under whose jurisdiction Paglapur exist, Augustya's village is devoid of any basic amenities like bijli and paani leading to the inhabitants going eccentric who incidentally happen to be former fugitives of a mental asylum. To improve the situation, Augustya with the help of the villagers hatches an absurd plan to attract media and the administration's attention, but somehow the scheme doesn't work out eventually leading to utter chaos.

Finally, the 'unimaginable' (which was very predictable) happens and Paglapur gets the due it long deserved.

In the acting department, besides Akshay, Shreyas Talpade manages to tickle the funny bone with his gibberish talk. Sonakshi, as usual is just there for the ornamental purpose, but what is really unfortunate is the editing of the film which I expected to be top class considering that it is coming from Shirish Kunder, the master editor himself.

My ratings 1/5 and must say not to spend money on this. Wait for the DVD which will come sooner than expected!