Glossy exteriors & hollow interiors!

Grade: C+

Lafangey Parindey

Indian Release Date: 20/08/10
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 10 Minutes

Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Deepika Padukone, Piyush Mishra, Manish Choudhary, Namit Das, Kay Kay Menon
Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Screenplay: Gopi Puthran
Cinematography: N Natrajan Subramanium
Music: R. Anandh

‘Lafangey Parindey’ is quite an oddball title for a movie and when taken in context to this movie I’m still wondering what exactly does it signify or associate it self with the movie or the characters? I mean none of the characters are true-blue ‘lafangaas’, nor were any parallels drawn with any sorts of birds or their metaphorical “flights of freedom”, so where does the title fit in other than sounding attention grabbing? Nowhere really and that is pretty much like how this movie turns out, it has all the gloss and sheen but it’s all show and no tell.

Nandan Kamthekar (Neil Nitin Mukesh) usually goes by the moniker of ‘One-Shot-Nandu’ for his talent in the boxing ring where he can floor an opponent with a single punch. He loyally fights for a local don, Suleiman Bhai (Piyush Mishra), in illegal underground matches, where for some strange reason Nandu always fights blindfolded. He reveres Suleiman Bhai’s right hand man, Anna (Kay Kay Menon) & when he’s offered a dangerous errand by Suleiman he grabs the opportunity with both hands despite Anna’s protests. The job goes horribly wrong resulting in Anna’s demise and Nandu running over an innocent bystander. Quite incidentally the person he runs over happens to be Pinky (Deepika Padukone), a girl from the same locality as Nandu. Pinky’s a feisty girl with dreams of making it big in life and her ticket to it being the top spot in the reality show, ‘India’s Got Talent’ by showcasing her talent in . Pinky survives the accident but looses her eyesight in the process but being fiercely ambitious and independent she doesn’t give up on her dreams. The rest of the movie deals with a guilt-ridden Nandu trying to help Pinky realize her dreams by training her to “see with her heart”, while himself turning over a new leaf as they fall in love. Another sub-plot involves an idealistic inspector (Manish Choudhary) who doggedly pursues the case of Pinky’s accident trying to find the real culprit, Nandu, whose identity is unknown to Pinky herself.

The movie’s biggest problem is that of believability & conviction; be it the intentions and actions of the characters or the elements of the plot. Starting with the characters and especially Neil Nitin Mukesh, both just do not seem like two people who are from the lower echelons of Mumbai’s socio-economic strata. They are far too polished in their language and appearance to appear otherwise. They do try to quote from the “tapori” dictionary every now and then but it sounds utterly unconvincing and especially considering that both the actors have a major problem with their diction & dialogue delivery it doesn’t help matters either. Nandu’s fights get tiring after the first two since the element of surprise is never utilized & you know exactly how the innumerable fights are going to end. Plus the pseudo-gritty choreography and camera-work (not to forget tons of fake blood being spit out like paan) which looks polished the first time gets redundant pretty soon.

My other beef with the movie is, why does Pinky loose her eyes in the accident and not her legs? She gets hit by a speeding S.U.V. and yet her legs seem to heal within no time but her eyesight is gone forever; funny manner in which logic works. Cinematic liberty I guess is the answer here. The makers have also butchered the geography of Mumbai and anyone from the city will instantly recognize this fact. But this is a Bollywood flick and a ‘YashRaj’ movie to the boot, so who cares.

The plot kicks off well & the initial setup would make you believe that the tale has teeth but post forty five minutes the pace starts to slacken and over the next hour and half, only intermittently do things interesting. The central romance of the movie is more of gloss than substance. It seems to work mostly because of a few smaller scenes like the one between the two leads when they sit in an abandoned train-yard and discuss the moon, but such scenes are few and far in between. The immensely hummable music certainly helps in creating a light-hearted mood though you wish the songs had been shot better than in the usual clichéd manner. Of particular note is the song ‘Mann Lafangaa’, a breezy melody sung by Mohit Chauhan. One thing I have realized from director Pradeep Sarkar’s previous efforts ‘Parineeta’ (2005) & ‘Laaga Chunari Mein Daag’ (2007); he doesn’t know ever how to end the movie, remember ‘Parineeta’s’ over-the-top break-the-wall climax? The same goes here with an ineffectual climax that seems to pick from ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’ (2008) and makes that seem like a masterpiece in comparison.  

Technically the movie’s well shot and there is an attempt to make the darker scenes gritty but being a love-story primarily the soft focus and brighter color tones otherwise are well employed to create a certain mood. The special effects used in the scene of Pinky’s accident are laughably bad, so bad that it gets positively worse when the scene is repeated for narrative effect. I’m sure there are companies doing better special effects out there, its 2010 for god’s sake! Else shoot the scene in another manner but by putting in bad effects you are doing a huge disservice to your own narrative impact.

Deepika Padukone tries pretty hard to infuse some liveliness into her supposedly spunky character but falls a little short of being convincing. Her portrayal of a blind person on the other hand is pretty much out of her range and she fails more often than succeeding; though I have to say she is improving with every movie and slowly shedding her plastic image. Neil Nitin Mukesh too shows improvement over previous performances but has a long way to go before sounding convincing as a tapori. The two share a passable chemistry which makes me wonder if the movie would have worked better with a more competent pair of leads.

Piyush Mishra is easily the best actor of the lot with a suitably double-faced performance as Suleiman Bhai, who’ll shower you with love when you walk on his terms but rip your heart out just as quickly if you deviate from the path.  Manish Choudhary who was pretty good in ‘Rocket Singh’ does a competent job here too. Kay Kay Menon is as always reliably good in a cameo early on.

‘Lafangey Parindey’ is nowhere close to a bad movie, but it’s not a very good one either. It has all the requisite gloss and glitter in near sanitized versions of what could have been more compelling & believable real-life characters, environments and situations but it’s more than content to throw it all away in favor of a buoyant & feel-good love-story coupled with some breezy music.

Final Verdict: Wait for it to arrive on DVD, maybe it might be worth a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Grade: C+

- Movie Reviewed by Danish Bagdadi

 

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