Rhapsodies

This week I took a chance and tried something different. Bollywood rip… er remakes of Hollywood movies. This was very much a risk since I had heard horror stories about some of the bad ones but at the same time I’d had a few of them recommended as guilty pleasures most notably one of Mel Brooks’ The Producers.

I made a large list of possibilities since I had no idea what Scarecrow Video would have but I intended to stick to one genre depending on what I found. Regrettably they did not nave the Producers film but they had a number of the films on my list and I ended up choosing thrillers, specifically remakes of two very similar films, Reservoir Dogs and Usual Suspects

My First film Kaante is mostly an adaptation of Reservoir Dogs though the way it starts out with the main characters meeting in a police precinct when taken in for questioning on a trumped up charge it at first seems to be an adaptation of Usual Suspects until the second half of the film when the caper they plan together goes terribly wrong.

All in all this isn’t a bad film though I think it’ll be a long time before I ever get used to the pacing of these films both longer than what I’m used to. The other thing is the singing. Obviously I’ve known about the musical numbers in Bollywood films but I didn’t know they were in ALL of these films so seeing the cast break into a musical number in something as serious as this film came as a big surprise. .

The next film on my list Chocolate was a remake of Usual Suspects though an extremely loose version. It had the same framing device, and the same ending mostly as well as a mysterious master criminal (though in this case a terrorist) Everything else was completely different, the main characters are a group of friends and musicians who turn to crime and the two surving members are interviewed by their defense attorney and a reporter. All in all this gives the film a tone of a general romp, but all in all entertaining… as were the musical numbers.