Joker

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.

The producers, himself included, would love for you to believe otherwise. The signs are there reflecting a troubled production, with the making of the film stretching as far back as 2011, and deciding to abandon its plan of post-converting this to 3D, after the none too stellar outcomes of both RA.One and Don 2. But what's more criminal here, is how Shirish Kunder, in his second film outing as director, failed to capitalize on the fun premise that could have made it a more memorable film, rather than to now market this as for the kids market segment, hoping that the younger demographics would be more forgiving in what it had tried to achieve. Having started on a journey, but making no headway, then pinning it on a misunderstanding from the start, doesn't provide any confidence.

This marks the second time that Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha are paired together in leading roles in as many times, immediately after Rowdy Rathore. While the latter film was a lot of Masala fun, their outing here proved to be somewhat lacklustre. Akshay plays Agastya, a Non Resident Indian living with his stay at home girlfriend in the USA, working on a technology single-handedly that can communicate with the truth out there, but finds himself making no progress. I mean, it's an expensive project, and the dweeb of a trillion dollar company decided to put all its eggs in one basket, and one employee. Sure, he may be a genius, but even geniuses need help. So he's given one month notice to show results, or be shut down.

Some moping later, Sonakshi's Diva picks up a random call from someone from India telling her that Agastya's father is breathing his last breath. It's only 10 minutes into the story, but already the convenience with how things progressed, is showing signs of narrative trouble. Agastya had told Diva he's an orphan, and now some random call from a stranger comes in, claiming to be Agastya's brother (whom we find out only talks gibberish), citing some medical emergency back home, sees her packing up for the both of them, ready for the next flight out to India. Right. I guess Diva's only demonstrating that she's a real Joker alright, only that she's really serious about Agastya making that trip despite his work deadline, to attend to what could have, in any day, been a prank call.

But this is a film, so they do make their way to his village, in fairly comical fashion, and we see that things are still backward. The prologue had shown that lunatics have taken over the village just before Partition, and the maps having drawn such that this village was dropped out from paper existence, but it's still there, and amongst the madness comes Agastya's genius, who had decided to move out and overseas to make a name for himself. He returns, is moved by everyone's sincerity in seeing him back, and some Tarzan swinging antics later, is convinced to stay put, and make his village visible to the outside world again. The plan? To kill multiple birds with one stone, by crying wolf - that aliens have come, his device works, and having the world's attention focused on the village.

It all goes down from there however, as the ludicrous is piled upon by more ludicrous, and the jokes are just plain unfunny. Perhaps the item number Kafirana is just abut the best thing in the film with its energy, and provided for more livelier moments in the movie, but otherwise everything, moving like the expected clockwork of trouble finding its way to Agastya's plan like a spanner in the works, spelt boredom. It was fun to have the loonies dress up as would be aliens using very common household items and crops, but those cute moments dragged out for far too long. And as mentioned earlier that Agastya's brother speaks rubbish, well, actor Shreyas Talpade who plays him, speaks gibberish all through the film, that sounds rather familiar, like the chants heard over UTV's logo introduction, repeated ad nauseam.

Sure it's a kids movie, and one can point out that it shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I reckon kids should probably enrich their time by watching another alien film with more entertainment value, that of Steven Spielberg's ET. That's not to say there aren't some positives from the film though, but they belonged to the more technical aspects. The production sets here are incredibly beautiful and wonderfully designed, which is a pity given that it's adorning a story that finds itself losing steam from the get go, and not exploiting its art direction fully. The CG work used to recreate the aliens and their wares is adequate, not fantastic, but would still barely work to engage children who couldn't care more about the design, but only the presence of something out of this world.

There was bewilderment when the title of the film was announced, until Sonakshi Sinha tweeted that the Joker is found in a deck of cards not belonging to any suite. I guess that's true, that this film, in its current incarnation, doesn't find itself belonging anywhere nor fitting in, trying to be a lot that it isn't, and falling flat. The joke's clearly on us all, the audience, and you'd do yourself a favour by not falling for this joker. I hate to say this, but this goes into the shortlist as the duds the year has experienced so far. It's a real pity that Akshay Kumar had this to show for as his centurion body of work.

I can't understand how did it get 2 stars im rooting for none if there was an option

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!

Where is Zero star? 1 star is too much for this .