CAST: Mark Wahlberg, Zoey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Betty Buckley
DIRECTOR: M Night Shyamalan

Maybe Shyamalan let the criticism get to him, or the expectations. For, The Happening — at a budget of $57 million, the most high-profile Asian film co-production with a US studio — feels nothing like a Shyamalan film.

Often criticised for repeating the same tricks, including using a child, an action star in a non-action part, a supernatural occurrence and a twist ending, he more or less sticks to the script but plays it disappointingly straight and safe. So much so that the horror never gets to you and the “twist” seems contrived.

The worst part is the dialogus. Everything is spelt and talked out here, from the swaying of trees conveying the coming of death to people repeatedly saying how scared they are. Talking about The Happening, Shyamalan had said: “The emotional centre of the movie is if you knew you were going to die... what would your conversation be like?” However, the couple in question here — Elliot (Wahlberg) and Alma (Deschanel) — never have that conversation. What they exchange are memories lifted off a Hallmark card, or a cheesy Hollywood romance.

The film starts off beautifully, with a pleasant morning in Central Park, New York City, quickly turning into a nightmare. A woman kills herself with a hairpin and, next, people are walking to their deaths off a building under construction. The horror in the face of a worker as he looks up to see that sight is never replicated.

The scene shifts to Philadelphia where Elliot is a popular science teacher at school. Hearing about the New York events, the school is shut down for fear of a terror attack. Elliot decides to leave with his wife to a friend’s mother’s place in the countryside, which is expected to be safe.

However, even while they are on the train making their way out of Philadelphia, the horror is spreading out of New York to the entire North-East Coast.

Perhaps that’s the problem here. Though The Happening’s cinematography unfailingly sets the mood, Shyamalan flops in establishing mass hysteria; his crowds just stopping short of real fear. Only when he keeps it small, like a woman talking to her daughter who is just about to kill herself, or when a man looks up to see a tear in his jeep’s top and realises that all is lost, does the horror come across.

Or when Elliot and Alma, along with a small girl, take refuge in a lonely house of a strange old woman, Mrs Jones. You know that the source of the horror is something else, but Buckley as Jones gives you the shivers.

In hinting at the reason for what’s happening quite early on — which is a slightly twisted interpretation of nature hitting back at mankind — Shyamalan takes away a large part of the thrill of anticipation.

It doesn’t help that Wahlberg looks neither vulnerable, nor very involved — rather too confident of getting through the crisis, in the mould of a real action hero. As for Deschanel, what can one say? Except that the director perhaps was bowled over by her translucent blue eyes which, spread wide in fear, are an arresting sight in themselves. Otherwise, though she insists she is scared, she seems to be mightily pleased. Perhaps as surprised as us at finding herself in this film.

The cheapest trick is to have Elliot tell his class about honeybees dying mysteriously, followed by a shot of what he has written on the blackboard: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live” — Albert Einstein. The trouble is that there is no proof Einstein ever said that. And Shyamalan perhaps knows it.

The writer-director has described The Happening as his scariest movie. The Shyamalan we know would know that, sometimes, it is better to leave things unsaid.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com

MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP

CAST: Paresh Rawal, Akshaye Khanna, Genelia d’Souza, Om Puri, Shobhana, Archana Puran Singh, Rajpal Yadav

DIRECTOR : Priyadarshan

Papa don’t preach, because sonny’s not in trouble deep. Priyadarshan , back in form after a series of duds, delivers his favourite actors in a tale which generates laughter and tears : more of the former ; less, thankfully, of the latter. And that’s the way we like it.

Gaurav Rane (Akshaye) is ‘maal-a-maal’ : he owns a fancy mall, a snazzy bike, and an ever-loving dad (Paresh). ‘Baap’ and ‘beta’ lead a happy life, whose only irritant is pa’s best friend (Om), a fifty-plus bachelor itching to get hitched. Along comes groovy babe Shikha (Genelia), complicating matters further.

In his previous few releases, Priyan has let his Hindi flicks (remakes of his super-hit Malyalam films) run away with themselves. The humour has been relentlessly loud and crude, and the balance between audiences wanting to laugh out loud and break into tears has been skewed. ‘Mere Baap Pehle Aap’ has one coarse strand —Archana Puran Singh’s Haryanvi cop uses language which makes everyone in earshot blanch, and poor Om is made to not only wear a hideous wig, and do a hip-wiggle with scantily-clad extras, but also get a kick in the goolies. The rest is kept restrained. Or as much as it can be in a Priyan film.

Akshaye and Paresh work in such perfect tandem (they’ve been in loads of the director’s films) that the two leading ladies seem almost an intrusion. But it is a pleasure to see the graceful Shobhana, and even better to see how good Paresh can be when he’s shot through a soft, romantic lens. And Genelia d’Souza makes a spirited return to Mumbai masala (after her first couple of tepid Bollywood outings, she had headed south, and now she comes back with a bang, even if her Hindi is heavily accented).

Good for a single serve on a summer afternoon.

Summer of 2007

CAST: Sikander Kher, Gul Panag, Arjan Bajwa, Alekh Sangal, Yuvika Chowdhary, Ashutosh Rana
DIRECTOR:Suhail Tatari

Five wealthy medical students run away from their college, and find meaning in their lives. ‘Summer of 2007’, coming in the summer of 2008, is an interesting coming-of-age story by a debutant director. It’s also a brave choice of subject: farmer suicides and avaricious landlords (taken from the real-life incidents in Vidarbha) are the plot points Suhail Tatari raises, with some success.

The first half is set in a suburban medical college where our gang hangs out in OPDs and wards and white coats and stethoscopes draped gracefully round their necks. Student politics rears its ugly head, and the five rich kids (Sikander, Gul, Arjan, Yuvika, Aalekh) get stopped in their tracks, filled till then only by fancy clothes, gadgets, gals, and rolled joints, interrupted by classes. They head out ostensibly to do ‘rural service’, but with full intentions of getting back to the good life.

It’s the reality checks which the film shifts to, post interval, which make it a worthwhile enterprise. A cynical doc (Ashutosh) shows the students a life they’ve only been dimly aware till now : the lives of farmers who find death a better alternative than life, the vicious, powerful landlord and his son who rapes and pilfers (Vikram Gokale, Prashant Narayanan), and the helplessness of those around.

Tatari traverses classic Benegal territory, with this return to the rural, but not quite with as much impact, because he is forced to swing between the harsh textures of real life, and lit-up drama . Given that villages have practically disappeared from films, he has to put in a whole bunch of yo’s and bro’s, and ‘shehari’ slobs and yobs, because that’s the only way he can get to the ‘gaon’, which is carefully made to look pretty : if you have a nice lake in the background, and an item number, it makes a hanging more palatable. And looks like his apprehensions were right : the first show in my neighbourhood multiplex was cancelled because there were no tickets sold.

Which is a huge pity, because ‘Summer of 2007’ is a relevant, well-acted, well-intentioned film. It needed much better publicity.

Dasavatharam
(Tamil with English subtitles)

Cast: Kamal Haasan, Asin, Mallika Sherawat, Jayaprada;
Director : K S Ravikumar

Okay, so Kamal has done three before. But this time it’s a ten. Ten Whole Different Roles (yes, count them). This time around, there’s Kamal the scientist, Kamal the Dalit Christian activist, Kamal the Japanese ninja, Kamal the ultra-tall Musalmaan, Kamal the shrivelled granny, Kamal the sardar pop singer, Kamal the rogue CIA agent, Kamal as the —Lord help and preserve us— President Bush. Did I get all 10?Oh wait, you have to go all the way back to the 12th century to get one more (the first to appear in the movie)—a Brahmin priest who gives up his life because he refuses to renege on his lord. That still leaves one : maybe I will remember by the end of the review; maybe not.

Because this three hour-and-some more extravaganza, blitzed by some mind-blowing special effects, starts feeling stretched much too soon. What is it with superheroes and unending sagas? You can do what you want—rush around in American basements, run through the kovils of Chidambaram, ride mile long limos, or dance with a ‘pugree’ —but underneath all those characters, there is The One and Only Kamal Haasan.

Sure, there are the ladies : Mallika gets to play bad, and is given a lousy exit, Asin screeches and squeals in the best Tamilian leading ladies tradition, and Jayaprada looks sadly worn. Basically, it’s all down to The One and Only Kamal, playing the noble eco-warrior intent upon saving the world, in terrible prosthetics, and thick latex layers. Why is the make-up so ghastly?

Only for die-hard Kamal fans. And you know what, I really don’t remember the ‘dasva avatar’ : this is clearly not ‘dus ka dum’.