REVIEW: HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU DPAD
There are these Hollywood action movie franchises that you hear of but you never bother to even read their full names. Like the Transformers series, the Fast and Furious films, Resident Evil movies, so on and so forth. xXx is one of those.
Thanks to Google I just got to know that the ‘X’ in the middle is in capital looking down on the two small ‘x’s on the side. That sure makes it look less raunchy on paper!
You don’t need to be Sherlock to figure out why I have this sudden interest in xXx. No, I don’t care that the Vin Diesel franchise is being revived after 12 years. Come on, Return of Xander Cage is DPad’s big-ticket Hollywood entry.
The same lady whose Bollywood debut in Om Shanti Om was whispered into my ear over breakfast at ITC Sonar many winters ago by Farah Khan. The same lady who in these last 10 years has become one of the standout Hindi film heroines not only of her time but of all time.
To see the name “Deepika Padukone” pop up at number three in the long list of names in the opening credits — and again in the end credits — is such a proud feeling. You always worry with these big Bolly stars debuting in big Holly films turning out to be a don’t-blink-and-you’ll-still-miss role. But then in the seventh minute of the film, you see a familiar figure in all black running with her back to the camera and sliding on the ground just in time for her left foot to stop the doors from closing. Smack comes the close-up. A wry grin. That’s her alright.
Deepika’s character Serena is part of what is described as a “lethal group”, basically four people trying to steal a small box, unimaginatively called Pandora’s Box, from the Americans. That box can send some abracadabra codes to the satellites and blow up any place in the world. Or something like that.
Now, after those couple of shots in those opening minutes of the film, there’s no sign of Deepika for a long time as the world tries to trace Vin Diesel’s Xander Cage, the only man who can get the box back. And I again start doing the math: She is one of four villains, who carried out the crime at the start of the film and will most probably turn up at the end for an action sequence and if she’s very lucky, they’ll give her one more scene in the middle. Damn!
But who’s that sashaying, in black again but in something lighter, on the sunny beaches of Philippines? It’s Deepika’s first dialogue scene and... ouch! Her lines sound so out of place. What’s wrong? There’s no fake accent, the kind Piggychops activates, it’s just her usual diction sticking out. “Lag raha hai kisi book se reading par rahi hai,” says someone in the audience. He isn’t wrong; it does seem like someone’s stolen all the emotion out of her lines. They sound flat and badly hurt the cool quotient.
That’s a little setback of sorts. But maybe, just maybe, with more scenes, we’ll get used to that dialogue delivery. Like we get used to Kangana’s voice in every film.
I don’t believe in good guys
The next Deepika scene arrives. Her first with Vin Diesel. She is looking smoking hot. Black yet again but just hot pants and a tank top and those red lips. But it’s the chatter that is hotter: “I don’t believe in good guys,” she growls. Diesel’s Xander Cage later describes their banter as “foreplay”. They were not the only two turned on, for sure.
Quickly after that heated exchange, which also saw knives and guns being poked at each other, comes Deepika’s first action sequence in the film. Any guesses what is her choice of weapon in those hot pants? High kicks, of course. Now, that is the height of a sight! As long as she is not saying her lines, this is turning out to be quite the Holly kickstarter for our Bolly queen.
And then comes the big moment. Spoiler alert if you really care about the non-existent plot of the film. Serena loses faith in her little rebel group and joins Team Xander Cage, which in a flash makes her the leading lady of the movie.
A lion like me doesn’t belong in any cage
Diesel and Deepika soon have the best scene of the movie where they discuss how and why they got the many tattoos on their bodies. “A lion like me doesn’t belong in any cage,” she flashes that bewitching Mastani smile as she flaunts the lion tattoo.
There’s a lot of action in the climax and it’s fun watching Deepika go all guns blazing in slo-mo in a full-on Holly action flick looking quite the deadly femme fatale.
And it doesn’t quite end there. When all the dishoom dishoom is well and truly over, our lady and her man steal a kiss. I use the word “steal” here because it ends before it begins. Now whether it’s actually that limited edition a liplock or Team Nihalani had something to do with it, we don’t know yet.
Samuel L. Jackson as Gibbons, the mentor of Xander Cage, tells him at one point in the film: “All you have to do is kick some ass, get the girl and look dope while doing it.” Now that all-important girl turns out to be our very own Piku in her first Hollywood vehicle. Bad boys taken care of, the good guys are next. And if there’s one thing guaranteed about DPad, she only gets better.
Pratim D. Gupta
7/10
9/10
8/10
HER xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE JOURNEY
