Feeling the lockdown blues? Once again we all are under house arrest thanks to Coronavirus. While it is the need of the hour, here are a few feel good movies that you can watch to stay entertained amidst the lockdown.
Jhankar Beats (2003): As cool as Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai, with an added sizzle that won’t fizzle even when the film’s room -temperature gets so tepid, it smells like life’s ennui. That’s the best one-line description for debutant writer-director Sujoy Ghosh’s film about love, life, condoms and, yes fellatio. But let’s not jump the gun. The fun begins at the beginning when we meet Rishi (Rahul Bose) and Deep (Sanjay Suri), two regular 10-5 copywriters who dream of winning a music contest. In their dream lies a joke. Ghosh shares his characters’ jokey karma with us. Deep is deeply in love with his second-time blissfully pregnant wife Shanti (Juhi) while the cynical Rishi is on the verge of a divorce with his sullen wife Nikki (Rinke Khanna), and what else????!!! Ghosh's zany look at the world's wacky truth about cracks and doubts, builds its case-history on the flimsiest chuckles and smiles of suburban existence. At times the humour goes amok, most of the time, Ghosh knows where to draw the line. From the blueprint of metropolitan life he draws a deliciously aromatic take-home pizza with toppings that are more filling than the base. With the help of his editor Suresh Pai and cinematographer Mazhar Kamran, the eager-eyed and fairly-idealistic (even when his narrative is in the throes of cynicism Ghosh remains miraculously unsullied by ugliness and negativity) the director deconstructs the secret codes of formalist filmmaking and fills the frames with a delightful nonconformism. Jhankar Beats is an urban fable with wings. It soars beyond any of the ‘Hinglish’ flicks about devil-may-care dudes and chicks which have emerged from the Great Bollywood Dream Factory. The end-result is sincerely funny and funnily sincere. The characters sing and dance to intangible and discernible tunes without seeming like anything but people whom we‘ve somewhere on the road of life Ghosh’s grasp over the grammar of music and songs is astonishing.
2. Koi Mil Gaya(2003): Rakesh Roshan’s film is partly a sci-fi flick. The second-half where Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) and his friends rescue and befriend a bereft extra-terrestrial are profoundly influenced by Steven Spielberg’s ET . The robot that the Australian designers James Colmer and Lara Denman have built for Rakesh Roshan isn’t the last word in whiz –kick. But what the ‘hick’! We’re emotional Indians. We love our cinema to project larger-than-life emotions in palatable portions. That’s where Koi…Mil Gaya really scores. It’s a truly ingenious indigenous film with universal human feelings that control the plot’s destiny with fine-tuned delicacy. The anguish of the mentally challenged protagonist is brought out in brilliantly written scenes, sometimes funny sometimes sad but always moving .The narrative pacing specially in the first- half is so unhurried and yet so absorbing that we’re one with Rohit’s adventures from the word go. As a director Rakesh Roshan has never been more sure-handed in his vision of quality entertainment. He marries massy elements in the plot with an astute aesthetic integrity that penetrates from the smooth surface to the heart of this tale of frail bondings . The hill-station setting is wonderfully apt for the tale. The director merges stunningly scenic foreign landscapes into his small-town tale without creating any jerks in the continuity. Rakesh Roshan bends the rules of mass entertainment without breaking any. The film is young, vibrant and appealing without looking flamboyant and overly hip. Alas, the compassion that Hrithik’s eyes exude cannot be matched by those in the eyes of the robotic alien. But that’s okay. Koi …Mil Gaya is about re-discovering the artless charms of mainstream Hindi cinema.
3. Mujhse Shaadi Karogi(2004): Wah, kya baat hai! In a key action sequence, Salman Khan fights 5-6 Akshay Kumars simultaneously and that's fun. That, in a naughty-shell, is the coolly comic crux of the Akshay-Salman combination. Though Salman as Samir gives a controlled and often inspired performance as the beefy nerd who seems to get his foot in his mouth, it’s Akshay Kumar who is all over the p(l)ace. As Sunny, the Jerry in ‘Tom’ Salman’s life he brings a bracing cartoon-strip quality to the joyous jugalbandi between the two leading men. As they battle for the hand of Priyanka Chopra, the damsel in dis-dress(distress is old hat now) we get to witness one of the wackiest comic triangles in recent times. The USPs of this pleasing-and-teasing comedy are the crisp Mise-en-scène topped with some sumptuous songs and dances and prankish dialogues which make you chuckle at the sheer silliness of the scenario. A triangle with 3 absolutely unintellectual protagonists who don’t brood as much as bleat and bray about love, isn’t easy to carry off. Throughout David Dhawan retains the rippling raga of ripostes. Rumi Jaffrey’s dialogues are sharp and clever .They convey a certain street wisdom which goes well with the Tom & Jerry mould of the mirth.
Image source: IMDB