Bluffmaster / Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana
2 entertaining non-Tamil films that I really enjoyed...
Bluffmaster
Bluffmaster is probably one of the remakes I’ve enjoyed the most. Its central concept is borrowed from a 2004 Hollywood flick and it even borrows lines of dialog verbatim from other films (Ocean’s 11, to name one). But with a likeable cast, well-developed characters and enough changes to the main story, it is able to stand on its own as an entertaining feature.
Abishek plays a classy conman while Priyanka, unaware of his activities, is his girlfriend. When she does come to know of his real job, she breaks up with him. Meanwhile, Abishek befriends Ritesh, a particularly inept conman. When he learns of Ritesh’s real target, the man (Nana Patekar) who cheated his father, he decides to become his mentor and help him divest Nana of his wealth.
At heart, Bluffmaster is a heist movie. Central to it is the elaborate plan that Abishek sets up to con Nana Patekar. We are drawn in as he and Ritesh trail their target, plan their moves, set their bait, etc. At the same time, the movie avoids being as complicated as movies in the genre usually are and doesn't bury itself in double-crosses and triple-crosses. It brings sentiments into the picture expertly as Abishek is forced to examine his choices in a rather unexpected fashion. And things are brought together beautifully in the end without any loose ends.
Abishek fits the role perfectly. He is cool without seeming to try too hard and puts his self-effacing smile to good use in a few places. Priyanka and Ritesh are adequate. Nana plays a role that he could sleepwalk through while Boman Irani plays it mostly straight. Song sequences are picturized very differently from the usual format and their style really caught my eye.
Bluffmaster is probably one of the remakes I’ve enjoyed the most. Its central concept is borrowed from a 2004 Hollywood flick and it even borrows lines of dialog verbatim from other films (Ocean’s 11, to name one). But with a likeable cast, well-developed characters and enough changes to the main story, it is able to stand on its own as an entertaining feature.
Abishek plays a classy conman while Priyanka, unaware of his activities, is his girlfriend. When she does come to know of his real job, she breaks up with him. Meanwhile, Abishek befriends Ritesh, a particularly inept conman. When he learns of Ritesh’s real target, the man (Nana Patekar) who cheated his father, he decides to become his mentor and help him divest Nana of his wealth.
At heart, Bluffmaster is a heist movie. Central to it is the elaborate plan that Abishek sets up to con Nana Patekar. We are drawn in as he and Ritesh trail their target, plan their moves, set their bait, etc. At the same time, the movie avoids being as complicated as movies in the genre usually are and doesn't bury itself in double-crosses and triple-crosses. It brings sentiments into the picture expertly as Abishek is forced to examine his choices in a rather unexpected fashion. And things are brought together beautifully in the end without any loose ends.
Abishek fits the role perfectly. He is cool without seeming to try too hard and puts his self-effacing smile to good use in a few places. Priyanka and Ritesh are adequate. Nana plays a role that he could sleepwalk through while Boman Irani plays it mostly straight. Song sequences are picturized very differently from the usual format and their style really caught my eye.
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Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana
As I mentioned in the post on my favorite screenplays, a good screenplay is capable of making even a familiar, cliched story seem fresh. There couldn't be better proof of that than Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, Prabhu Deva's directorial debut in Telugu. Inspite of a tired, old story and cliched situations, the film is fresh and delightful.
For Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, Prabhu Deva has simply blended together two halves from 2 different Hindi movies. While the first half sees the lovers falling in love and then being separated like in Maine Pyaar Kiya (this is according to my wife since I don't remember MPK all that well), the second half sees the hero worming his way into the heart of the heroine's brother using a scheme remiscent of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. But by fashioning likeable characters and never going over-the-top, whether in romance, comedy or sentiments, Prabhu Deva presents a film that keeps us smiling throughout.
The film is completely light-hearted and completely eschews violence and glamour. Though the film is populated with stock characters(the money-hungry mom, the girl in love with the hero, the heroine's suitor, etc.), small touches make most of them believable. So the relationships between them, whether the affection Srihari and Trisha share or the romance Sidharth and Trisha develop, are believable too. The romance is developed naturally with an undercurrent of humor(which peaks in the scene that perfectly uses the number "Who let the dogs out?"). Non-vulgar and very effective comedy takes the upper hand in the second half and there are a lot of laughs, mixed expertly with mild sentiments, as Sidharth tries to earn Srihari's love. Some sentiments creep in towards the end but they are mild and don't feel out-of-place.
Sidharth, with his energetic performance, is the movie's life. He is hyperactive without making it seem like overacting. Srihari is restrained but is just as effective. Trisha is pretty much an onlooker between the two of them. There are some nice, eye-catching visuals, especially in the initial sequences. Prabhu Deva makes his mark in the song sequences. They are bright and picturized in a vibrant manner and the dances are choreographed very well to be perfectly in sync with the music.
For Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, Prabhu Deva has simply blended together two halves from 2 different Hindi movies. While the first half sees the lovers falling in love and then being separated like in Maine Pyaar Kiya (this is according to my wife since I don't remember MPK all that well), the second half sees the hero worming his way into the heart of the heroine's brother using a scheme remiscent of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. But by fashioning likeable characters and never going over-the-top, whether in romance, comedy or sentiments, Prabhu Deva presents a film that keeps us smiling throughout.
The film is completely light-hearted and completely eschews violence and glamour. Though the film is populated with stock characters(the money-hungry mom, the girl in love with the hero, the heroine's suitor, etc.), small touches make most of them believable. So the relationships between them, whether the affection Srihari and Trisha share or the romance Sidharth and Trisha develop, are believable too. The romance is developed naturally with an undercurrent of humor(which peaks in the scene that perfectly uses the number "Who let the dogs out?"). Non-vulgar and very effective comedy takes the upper hand in the second half and there are a lot of laughs, mixed expertly with mild sentiments, as Sidharth tries to earn Srihari's love. Some sentiments creep in towards the end but they are mild and don't feel out-of-place.
Sidharth, with his energetic performance, is the movie's life. He is hyperactive without making it seem like overacting. Srihari is restrained but is just as effective. Trisha is pretty much an onlooker between the two of them. There are some nice, eye-catching visuals, especially in the initial sequences. Prabhu Deva makes his mark in the song sequences. They are bright and picturized in a vibrant manner and the dances are choreographed very well to be perfectly in sync with the music.
Balaji's Thots... [Permalink]
Your Thots (29)
29 Comments:
balaji, i enjoyed these 2 movies too :)
BM - in addition to everything else, loved the retro look throughout the movie, this was evident even in the tint(not sure what the right word is) - hence the whole movie looks kind of classy & vintage. due to this and few other reasons, this movie reminded me of 'catch me if you can'. loved the songs & the picturization & was happy not being suddenly whisked away to some european / island location...
sorry for this looonggg comment...
another thing i liked(which i observed in RDB too) was that india was shown very flaterringly - no garbage etc etc, the places were shown so beautifully - i was happy :)
abt nvnv - very colorful & pleasing to the eye. sid was the life of the movie & his performance was really good & the romance cute.
the 2nd part of this movie, ppl say is based on 'pyar kiya to darna kya' - i might have watched it,but dint remember the details. so i thought it was a copy of 'maine pyar kiya' too.
another good telugu movie worth watching if u havent already is 'anand' which was released in the same yr as nvnv...
bhuvan's comment reminds me of S.Ve.Shekar's dialogue in Crazy Thieves - Ivardhaan Ekalayvan. Periyyya yezhuththaalar. Avarey sonnaar.
vc, naaesthi reference! kizhichittenge ponge...
bhuvan, the point I dont get is, you seem to hate Indian movies from the bottom of your heart, then why bother to check every one of them (at least a lot, coz you seem to trash every movie that we discuss here on bbthots) and trash them...are u doing a thesis on "Indian movies vis-a-vis International movies" that you feel compelled to watch all of these movies, be it Hindi, Thamizh or Telugu? enamo ponge, idhu seriye ille...!
Could Bhuvan list the movies (any language) that meet his standards of a "discriminating viewer"? Just curious to know what they are?!!
SK
Bhuvan - neenga "Critic"-a "Foreigner"-a??
I loved Bluffmaster. The ending was just plain great.
Bhuvan is being too harsh on all the movies irrespective of the langauage and he invariably says they are rip off of an English movie!
We ( I mean people who watch movies for entertainment) dotn care.
deepa, i wasn't sure how to explain the look of the film but i think u hit it just right when u said 'vintage'. and i felt exactly the same way about the song sequences :)
btw, long comments r really welcome. no need to apologize for them or for going off-track. that's what makes blogging fun :)
bhuvan, actually i didn't see any flaws or pacing for me to overlook them. i thot both(NN more than BM though) were perfectly paced and had good character development. as i said, they were cliched but worked since they were well-developed.
i felt BM was a rip-off of another movie and not the ones u mention (i havent seen 9 queens though). but did a good job. i will agree that NN was shallow and silly but i'm pretty sure that was the point. prabhu deva didn't set out to make a deep, realistic film. he wanted to make a fun, lighthearted entertainer and in that he succeeded completely IMO.
skanda, agree with all ur points on NN :)
ram, i know u concentrate on tamil movies and so probably havent seen NN. but give it a shot. pretty sure u'll love it :)
SK, if i remember correctly, the movies bhuvan always holds up as examples of good pacing and character development r 'muthu', 'chinna thambi' and 'dhaavani kanavugal' :)
anon, yep. definitely the best part of the movie. awesome how it explained a lot of things and didn't leave any loose ends :)
enjoyed the first and the second is in my Q.
BM did remind me of Game, for the way it ended.
Anand (dir by an ex-NRI) is on my list too.
To each his/her own, for most of us movies are a fantasy/escapism and we learn to enjoy the illogical/absurd. Nothing wrong with that. A lot of us are optimists ;-)
bhuvan, you wrote, "Is it asking too much of a film to be consistently interesting, having actual characters and a story that's told in the time it requires and not beefed up with needless sequences?!?"
here's my reply- "Is it asking too much of a commenter to be consistently interesting, having a good thing to say once in awhile about movies (reviewed by BB) and the bbthotians who like those movies and writing a post that takes the space it requires and not beefed up with needless lengthy paragraphs?!?"
but regarding you having a dissenting opinion, i totally, totally agree...sandai irundha thaan sabai kalakattum...
bhuvan, "nee aadu...idhu un veedu!" (a line from indian, in case u didnt know)
i can see where bhuvan is coming from - i used to trash movies too when i found even one thing that imo was not good, but slowly came around to viewing them differently & appreciating the +ve aspects instead. even the best movies have something or the other not so perfect abt them. and i enjoy non-indian movies too, just that i enjoy indian ones more :)
also flaws are interesting in themselves cuz they give us - the reviewers/critics(ok, by a long shot, atleast for me :-p) & wannabe-filmmakers(dont a few of us atleast at some point or other think we'd like to be one though we may not do anything abt it?) something to discuss/analyze/argue abt.
opinions are subjective by nature - as for me, i can live with a few flaws & imo these 2 movies had more good things going for them than bad & i enjoyed them :)
okay, bhuvan out of the red (evlo naall thaan blue color-a disturb panradhu), give me a 1-para write-up on Rhythm. Will pass on your message verbatim to it's Director! summa sollunge...
bhuvan, I have been accused of being contrarian (partly true), and a bit of a film snob too (true). So I can understand somebody finding flaws in Nayagan, Kannathil M etc. But as Balaji has wondered many times before, I don't get how the same person can love Chinna Thambi and Muthu. I haven't seen 'Chinna Thambi' fully yet. A scene or two is usually enough to have me throw up :)
Tamil film makers seem very risk averse. In contrast, there have been some different and interesting Hindi/Hinglish movies in the last few years. A few years back, I used to think Tamil movies were much superior to Hindi ones, but the situation's reversed now.
ram, I know you asked Bhuvan, but here's my 2 cents on 'Rhythm'. A bit slow, but great songs, good acting, and much, much better than the average fare. Overall, I liked the movie. I can excuse the unnecessary fight as a compromise, but there was one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb--Meena's adopted son. Why was that necessary? Why couldn't it have been her son w/ Ramesh Arvind?! Kinda like the old days, where the heroine is a prostitute, but has cleverly avoided sleeping w/ anyone :) Aanalum andha director paavam. Nalla padam eduthalum oda mattenkudhu, sodhappal padam eduthalum oda mattenkudhu :)
Bhuvan, Initially, your dissenting voice was refreshing, then it became amusing, then predictable and now borders on annoying (sorry!). It seems as though you make up your mind not to like a movie and nit-pick even before watching it. No movie is perfect and flaws can be easily found in any movie, especially in the ones you have listed.
As PKS might say, "Padam paartha anubavikkanum, aaraiya koodadhu".
Peace
SK
SK, dont think Bhuvan "makes up his mind not to like a movie." from his looooooooong essays, i feel that he does have a strong voice and has the reasons...just that they're soo out there, totally out of whack with the majority, that it sounds almost ridiculous at times.
i am fine with that...
The thing that really, really annoys me is when he dismisses classics like Nayagan and also adds that the majority of commenters here are "non-discriminating." having been a fan of class fare like Nayagan, Mahanadhi, Anbe Sivam, Raja Paarvai, Avargall, Vedham Pudhidhu, Mullum Malarum and Sigaram (to name a few) I find it ridiculous to be accused of being "N-D"...these are movies which could stack up to any international fare that could be offered...
bhuvan, what is your sun sign?
btw, elitist and chinna thambi? :-)
bhuvan, you wrote, "avoid talking about a film's shortcomings." It's not a q. of avoiding a film's flaws...it's more along the lines of, "okay, these are the -ves...but do the +s overweigh them?" if u read bb's thoughts on movies like gajini, rhythm n all, you'll see that he addresses the -ves too...i think for you, a pristine movie-going experience means veryyyyyy few flaws (in your opinion)...i think that's where u r totally out of the maj. group, which btw, is perfectly fine...there's space for everyone!
nee aadu! idhu un veedu!
Peace.
i meant, outweigh!
For Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana the screenplay is done by producer him self.
bhuvan, also, see if u can get ur hands on a DVD of Rhythm.
If I were to list my top-ten Tamil movies, it would be rite up there...made me a huge fan of Vasanth, so much so that it's more of a friendship than a Director-Fan thing...I would even say that Rhythm has meant as much to me as any other film, esp. when it comes to my relationship with my parents (Arjun's with his parents in the movie has to be seen to be believed).
BB, where the heck are you, thalaivaa?
'NN' reminds me of 'Main hoon na' in the sense, both are finely 'aracha maavu'!!
bhuvan, i think prakash said exactly what i was gonna write. contrarian views r always welcome and 2 people having diametrically opposite views on a film is quite common. but i guess i'm exasperated and confused when u say BM and NN r trash but rave about 'chinna thambi'. does it mean u think that film has no needless sequences? and that it got to u on some level? but i think ur response about the sentimental value of CT finally explains atleast a little.
and if u liked 'chinna thambi' and 'muthu kulikka vaarigala' and hated 'ghajini' and 'pattiyal', then i guess we just have to chalk it down to "completely different tastes" :) as i mentioned in my post on reviews, there r just so many variables that affect a person's opinion about a film.
ram, prakash also voiced my biggest complaint about 'rhythm' - the fact that the boy was meena's sister's and the convenient end of ramesh arvind before their 'first night'. vasanth refused to break the tamil cinema tradition that the heroine has to be a virgin to get together with the hero.
but the movie has little competition in the arena of showcasing the relationship between parents and their son. very genuine, emotional and touching...
BB, it wasnt meena's sister's...meena actually adopts the kid to make a wish of ramesh aravind (who would say in a scene that he'd adopt a kid on marriage) come true...but i was so "into" the movie by that point that the adoption angle seemed to fit in one of the movie's recurring themes-- selflessness. but then again, i guess it would've been a lot bolder had vasanth made master aditya the biological son of meena and ramesh.
Bhuvan, i think this is an overstatement--". 15 years after CHINNA THAMBI we're still talking about the film." Dont think anybody points to Chinna Thambi as a touchstone for cinematic excellence, except you!
and, "we're still talking" about the movie coz you are still talking about it and all of us listen with sheer disbelief and amazement that you call yourself a elitist!
i meant, an elitist.
I think this was inspired (not copied) from Michael Douglas/Sean Penn starrer The Game and not Ocean's Eleven.
bhuvan, as i said, we just have to agree to disagree wrt our tastes! i wouldn't call either of these 2 movies classics. u'll see that i wrote a whole paragraph on NN being unoriginal. but the fact is i enjoyed them and i was entertained by them. and that is on an absolute scale and not compared to other movies i've seen lately.
zeya, i mentioned O11 as one of the films from which BM ripped off pieces of dialog("But he doesn't make me cry") and not the story. Yes, it did rip off from 'The Game' but i think the concept was from another english film(i didnt want to reveal the name since it would be a big spoiler)
"the concept was from another english film"
bb....are you "confident" about this?
anon, i'm guessing thats a pun question regarding the movie 'confidence'. but no, 'confidence' wasnt the movie i was referring to as the inspiration :)
Ignore my earlier comment, I see you've already reviews BLUFFMASTER-glad you enjoyed it...this to my mind is one of the best homages and con films to come out of Bollywood!!!!
http://aakshayshah.blogspot.com/2007/04/akshay-shah-rewatch-bluffmaster-2005.html
A.Shah
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