TheGautamMathur

Indian TV is generally synonymous with regressive story lines, shoddy direction, bad writing, one-dimensional performances... lets face it, for anyone with any kind of sensibility, Serialized television in India is frankly unwatchable, with the exception of maybe one or two shows.

In the midst of all this, comes Bring On The Night, with a high powered adrenalin injection straight into the jugular of the Indian television scene.

Shot in Hindi and English with some Marathi thrown in, it is the story of 4 friends, christened 'The Wolfpack' and led by sensitive entrepreneur KD, they start a party hangout joint for like- minded people. The philosophy being, 'When the party ends, where do people go to party?'

What follows is ten episodes of intelligent writing, brilliant acting, fantastic music, and excellent direction. Every episode is crammed with interesting characters, and genuine laugh out loud moments.

But its not all fun and games, there is a lot of depth to the story and characters.

Each actor brings something to the table. Devang, played played extremely sincerely by Husain Dalal is funny, especially when he is playing confused and out of his depth. Patrick, played by Patrick Graham completely succeeds in bringing the feeling of being the stranger in a strange land, but completely at home. Maakad, played by Sarang Sathiye brings a kind of sensitivity to the character not often seen. His conflict is felt by the viewers, and its the easiest thing to get behind him and root for him. The three Parsee characters, Xerxes, Hoshang, and Darius, played by Afshad Kelawala, Kashyap Kapoor and Danesh Irani respectively provide the comic relief, some of it gratuitous, but all of it brilliant.

With so many characters, each one written and performed on point, it is very difficult to stand out when you are playing the straight man, but Arjun Mathur, who plays KD, doesn't seem to struggle, and manages to more than hold his own. A role that needs to be fun, intelligent, and sensitive is brought to life with his performance, and by the time the series is at midway point, manages to become the most engaging of the lot.

I could go on, but I won't. Instead, I urge anyone who reads this to get on the MTV India website and check the show out on their own accord. You will not be disappointed.

Whenever I read a book, in my mind, I try to picture it as a screenplay and how it would translate on screen. It was an exercise I had tried with Watchmen as well, but couldn't see it through... there is so much going on in the novel, that it always seemed an impossible task to get it done. On the other hand, if there was one piece of literature begging for a movie adaptation, it was this. Its good news then that the team did that so wonderfully!

The movie was as layered as a movie can be without it getting too boring. It gave us an insight into every major character by exploring their back-stories/motivations/arcs enough to give it enough substance, so that it all makes sense, even to the uninitiated, without getting too slow or boring.

Even though I see the book more as a philosophical treatise more than an action piece, Snyder does enough to raise the bar on the action front to make it enjoyable in that sense as well, by inserting engaging action sequences where there is scope.

Also the camera work is absolutely stunning, and for the most part hits it spot on. There has been some criticism of the music though, but I think the soundtrack sums up the movie very very well.

Of the performances, Patrick Wilson is the pick of the litter with a nuanced and sensitive portrayal of the character and his emotional depth. Jackie Earle Hailey as the super-cool Rorschach is awesome as well... I found Billy Crudup's Dr. Manhattan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Comedian extremely engaging. I don't think Matthew Goode can act as well as he thinks he can, and Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre is absolutely horrible, Its like she's in a school play!

Overall, I was very happy, right from the phenomenal opening title sequence, right down to the ending, with a few hiccoughs and gripes in between, they're too insignificant to complain about...

Watch it, its for anyone who likes their movies deep, layered, and more than just about men in masks running about, trying to make the world a better place.

I have been watching Abbas-Mustan movies ever since their first, Khiladi. While I have never claimed to be a fan of their work, During that period of Indian films, they were probably the only people who made their movies 'different' to what else was being made on that budget and scale, so I watched and got entertained to a certain degree.

The brothers follow a tried and tested plan - 1) Take a Hollywood mystery/thriller, preferably B-Grade Hollywood, movies that have not got theatrical releases in India.

2) Add 6-7 foot-tapping songs, inserted at regular intervals.

3) Give the main lead (who is always a character with 'shades of grey') a strong motive for doing the dastardly deeds that he does.

4) Follow up with a fantastic climax.

So that was what I was expecting when I went to see 'RACE' in the cinema, and I couldn't help but leave the cinema thinking - "Well, that was money ill-spent." Race starts with a car-stunt and a voice-over delivered by Anil Kapoor, that is meant to be an introduction to our four main lead characters (Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Katrina Kaif and Bipasha Basu), but land up as being nothing more than an advertisement to the viewing public for how good designers can make our film stars look. And even though the picture tries to take a path down the 'Clever Thriller' mode, all it displays is 'Clever Dress Design'.

Granted, the story had the potential to be interesting, It was just presented in a really jaded, 90's kind of way where there are songs that interrupt the flow of the story regular as clockwork.

I mean - of course I like nothing more than Bipasha or Katrina Dancing the night away in skimpy outfits, but in a story like this, they achieve nothing but hamper the narrative. In fact so much so, that by the time the climax came around, the whole cinema was itching for it to get over! That can never be a good sign. So, a movie, that could have been a taut thriller becomes nothing but a parody of what its trying to achieve, and a too long one at that.

In short, its a picture too long by about an hour. With a little bit of editing, and not as many songs, It could have been a good thriller.

Of the performances, it doesn't even need to be said, that Anil Kapoor has found a way of breathing life into the most mundane movies, just by being in them, and even here, he gives a masterclass on how to carry off an over-the-top performance without coming across as a ham actor. Sameera Reddy, as Anil Kapoor's thick-headed secretary is also fun to watch, not to mention, hot in her own, dusky, South-Indian way. Akshaye Khanna is always good to watch, clearly more than competent to carry of the role he's given, He is absolutely devious. Saif Ali Khan is going through the motions here, all he needs to do in the movie is look good, ride lots of horses and look good... Katrina Kaif and Bipasha Basu, besides being the prettiest and fittest women respectively in the Indian Film Industry today (IMO) are clearly capable of what's required of them, and they do it well.

After an interesting first 45 minutes, the film gets too slow and boring to enjoy, and towards the last half hour, there is one scene of special mention, that brings some sort of fun back into it, and that is Johnny Lever's solitary scene. He's done an intelligently funny scene after a LONG time and special mention goes out to him.

All in all, I gave it 5 points out of 10, simply because Johnny Lever's single appearance is worth 2 points, the other three are for the attempt.