Review: Limited Run
Happy New Year (Farah Khan, India, 2014, 179 min)
Now Playing through November 6 at AMC Star 18 Fitchburg»
Soapbox Preamble
I know we’ve been a little Bollywood-centric this past month with posts on Bang Bang!, Hrithik Roshan and Katrina Kaif, and a heck of a lot of posts about Shah Rukh Khan on our Facebook and Twitter feeds. But as Rob Thomas rightly pointed out a few weeks ago on madisonmovie.org, it is very hard to keep track of independent and international films that are not part of a pre-programmed schedule (like at UW Cinematheque, WUD Film, or MMoCA Spotlight Cinema). We’re slowly preparing a longer piece on how Madison’s film venues and local film resources could work together to combat this, but for now it is worth repeating that we do have a problem with local film exhibition and publicity.
Very few people believed me when I told them that Bang Bang! opened on not one but two screens in Madison. It took a message from Rob Thomas (and an email from my own mother, who gets Marcus e-mail announcements) for me to realize that the Tamil language film, Kaththi, had opened at Marcus Point on a Tuesday (and is also breaking some box office records, despite flying under the radar here). And even when you dig for information, in the hopes that you can help spread the word about a film, it’s not always easy to find out what is coming up. Last Monday I called AMC Star 18 Fitchburg to ask if Happy New Year would indeed open locally on the global opening date on Thursday, October 23. Despite having the HNY cardboard standee in their lobby for a few weeks (see photo from October 4), at that point they were not sure if it would arrive—three days before its opening. About 24 hours later, I saw a Happy New Year listing for Thursday night on Flixter, but neither Flixter nor amctheaters.com had listings for the weekend until Wednesday. How could any local print publication possibly attempt to print a review of any kind with less than three day’s lead time? None of this is anyone’s fault, locally speaking, but it seems obvious to me that we need to go the extra mile to promote some of the most entertaining films currently playing in Madison despite the fact that their distribution model makes it almost impossible to do so in advance of an opening.
This is not just an issue with Bollywood films. As Rob Thomas points out, films like The Guest can easily fall through the cracks after a brief, under-publicized one-week engagement. In other words: Madison, we have a problem. But we believe that we have some possible solutions, and we’ll elaborate on those proposals and suggestions in an upcoming entry.
After Diwali, “India Waale”
Okay, you know perfectly well by now that I’m going to tell you to go see Happy New Year. Fortunately, even though that you’ve missed its Diwali holiday opening weekend, you have at least one additional week to see it, through November 6. Only two questions remain. Is the film for everybody, including those new to Bollywood? And does the film live up to expectations for Shah Rukh Khan fans?
The answer to the first question is that Happy New Year possibly has the broadest appeal of the Bollywood films to play Madison recently, in fact some people might find it to be too broad (as it includes some admittedly juvenile humor). But even when I was wincing at some of the lowbrow (and politically incorrect in an American context) humor, I still had a smile on my face because everything is done with a supreme sense of showmanship and spectacle. To put it simply, Happy New Year is a heck of a lot of fun.
Shah Rukh Khan fans might yearn for something with a bit more head and heart along the lines of Veer Zaara or Chak De! India (read, for example, “The Only Way Shah Rukh Khan Can Redeem Himself Now”). But Happy New Year should please fans of SRK’s previous collaboration with director Farah Khan, Om Shanti Om (which played at the UW Cinematheque a few years ago). Like Om Shanti Om‘s SRK six-pack abs showcase, “Dard-e-Disco,” Happy New Year introduces SRK’s character, Charlie, in a muddy mixed martial arts fight club that conveniently provides the opportunity to wash mud off of his abs for a few slow-motion minutes. That alone will be worth the price of admission for many SRK fans. (SRK only does these six-pack showcases for Farah Khan; there is a joke about this during the closing credits).
The plot is a fusion of The Full Monty (with dancing instead of stripping) and Ocean’s Eleven (conveniently cut down to five here). Charlie organizes a team to pull off the ultimate jewel heist, but to make that heist possible the team also has to make the finals of a “World Dance Championship” in Dubai. Based on genre conventions, you can probably guess with a degree of accuracy how both the dance competition and the heist end up. But you don’t go to Bollywood films for original plots, you go for entertaining and flamboyant execution of the plot. In the case of Happy New Year, Farah Khan draws upon the live-action-cartoon style of Frank Tashlin, and bets heavily on the use of running gags to keep the action moving along.
Most of the running gags are amusing, and get better as they develop. They are particularly successful with younger audiences, I observed. Without spoiling it, one of the better gags involves spontaneous combustion, which gets more elaborate with visually interesting variations. Many gags are just silly, as each team member has a comic weakness or vulnerability. As the sole female of the team, dancer Mohini (Deepeka Padukone) can’t control herself when any male speaks English, even though she does not speak English. Charlie repeatedly gets himself in trouble when talking about someone he doesn’t realize is behind him. Not the most sophisticated brand of humor, but good silly fun that provokes more giggles than full laughs.
Some Madison viewers might find a few of the running gags not quite politically correct. Former soldier Jag (Sonu Sood) fights anyone who insults his mother (okay) but also has lost his hearing in one ear (played for laughs, not so okay). Safecracker Tammy (Boman Irani) has an overbearing mother (okay) but he also has seizures (when played for laughs, not okay). One immediately expects Tammy’s seizures to come into play in the heist plot, but unfortunately it also is played for laughs in dance sequences. And finally, homosexuality is always presented as a butt of a joke, as it would be in a 1980s American teen sex comedy. While acknowledging these cinematic sins, one must also observe that none of these examples contain overt hostility, they just reflect a lack of sophistication (and some of the jokes might be found in a gay-friendly sitcom).
In terms of music sequences, Happy New Year almost paints itself into a corner due to its own plot. The first major music sequence introduces the team member who can dance, Mohini, and it is great. But rather than effectively spacing the music out, the plot requires three music sequences to be relatively close together, and the training of the group means that the dancing cannot be particularly sophisticated. This leads to the weakest of the three sequences, when the group finally performs to qualify as Team India at the WDC. But luckily Farah Khan throws narrative logic aside once the team arrives at Dubai, and we have a fantastic, colorful sequence for the already popular song “India Waale.” The team dances far better that they should within the world of the narrative, but that is fine in terms of the spectacle. (The clip below cuts from the introduction of “India Waale” to its later reprisal; my point here has mostly to do with the first half.)
“India Waale” is a rousing anthem that resonates well with the plot, unlike many songs in Bollywood films. It is that good kind of nationalism, “Jai Hind” and Mother India style, where the underdogs work together to build a better future, rather than any kind of dogmatic religious nationalism. Subsequent music sequences at the World Dance Championship are fully entertaining spectacles. In fact, Happy New Year goes out of its way to introduce spectacle, even where it barely makes narrative sense, like a skyscraper rooftop fight with the North Korean dance team leader. So despite some obvious plot developments and not so obvious irrational tangents, you leave Happy New Year feeling much better than you did going in (even if you see it on a nice day).
I know I’m repeating the word “fun” a bit too often in this review, but one gets the sense that Happy New Year was a lot of fun to make. This is confirmed even in the closing credits, where Farah Khan judges a “Worst Dance Championship” for the crew of the film, who dance as their credits appear below them. I completely understand those critics who want Shah Rukh Khan to return to more significant roles in the near future, but on its own terms Happy New Year is a great experience.
super movie and concept also