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Spending a Saturday evening gaping at a 210-minute long film in an unknown language with a packed multiplex audience, who knows the language, cheering every action and applauding every dialogue is more fun than watching it 10 months later in a known language in an empty auditorium with just four others for company.
If one expected Dashavtar, the long-awaited Hindi version of the Tamil Dasavathaaram to pack in 10 times the punch, then let it be known that southern superstar Kamal Haasan’s 10-roles-in-one-film magnum opus in Hindi fails to arrest the attention, unlike its blockbuster original.
There are similarities. The plot is equally riveting for a first-time watcher, the high-voltage action sequences are top notch and the special effects are just as spectacular. Not to mention the man at the centre who dons all his 10 roles with characteristic ease and versatility.
The rest of Dashavtar is simply shoddy. Director K.S. Ravikumar doesn’t seem to have paid as much attention to Dashavtar as he did to Dasavathaaram. The result is a film with appalling dialogue (Mallika Sherawat’s Jasmine asks: “How’s my body?” The answer: “Hot and sexy”) and scant attention to detail (when English is spoken, the screen throws up Hindi subtitles but when it is Japanese, there are no subtitles — English or Hindi!). There is even a scene where the makers forgot to remove the Tamil subtitle!
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And that’s not all. Widely publicised as a new film and not simply a dubbed version, most scenes in Dashavtar have the actors lip-syncing in Tamil to Hindi dialogues. Mallika Sherawat and Jaya Prada seem to have given dubbing in Hindi a miss. Himesh Reshammiya’s music here is as pedestrian as it was in Dasavathaaram.
But Kamal Haasan is at the top of his game. Dashavtar scores when it comes to his roles — especially Pranab Kundu, the bumbling Bengali RAW agent who takes the place of the character Balram Naidu in Dasavathaaram. Kundu is a cliche all right, but draws genuine laughter from the audience with his favourite expression “kelenkari”. Watch the scene where he addresses the Pashto-speaking 8-feet tall avatar of Kamal Haasan as “bin-ladder”. The nine other Kamal Haasans (George Bush, Indian-born American scientist Govind, a 100-year-old woman, a devout Christian, a corrupt ex-CIA agent, a Sardar popstar, a Japanese martial arts teacher and the Pathan) help Dashavtar too.
But it is Michael Westmore’s make-up brush and the striking visual effects by Brian Jennings (the priest’s killing in the first scene and the tsunami at the end are spectacular) that make Dashavtar worth a watch.
If you haven’t watched the Tamil version, try Dashavtar. The three hour-plus running time may seem a drag but with the plexes without any Bollywood release, it doesn’t really seem like a bad option.
Also releasing this week...
Film: Far North
Director: Asif Kapadia
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Krusiec, Sean Bean
Plot: Set in the late-20th century, it tells the story of a woman (Michelle Yeoh) and her adopted daughter (Michelle Krusiec), living in the Arctic Tundra. A shaman had said the girl was cursed at birth and would bring harm to anyone she cared for. And indeed there have been such occurrences. One day the mother and daughter find an injured, starving soldier (Sean Bean). They save him from dying but what follows is no less deadly.
USP: Asif Kapadia is the same man who directed Irrfan in his breakthrough role in The Warrior.
Playing at: INOX (City Centre), 8pm
Film: Honeydripper
Director: John Sayles
Cast: Danny Glover, Keb Mo, Mable John, Kel Mitchell, Gary Clark Jr.
Plot: It’s a make-or-break weekend for the Honeydripper Lounge and its owner, piano player Tyrone “Pine Top” Purvis (Danny Glover). Deep in debt to the liquor man, the chicken man, and the landlord, Tyrone is desperate to lure the young cotton pickers and local army base recruits into his juke pad. After laying off his regular talent, blues singer Bertha Mae, Tyrone hires a young electric guitarist Sonny (Gary Clark, Jr.) who turns things around and how.
USP: The music — a mix of blues and seminal rock — and newcomer Gary Clark Jr.’s performance.
Playing at: INOX (Forum), 8.15pm