Cinema: Review; Fan No 1

Movie: MAST
Director: Ramgopal Varma
Cast: Urmila Matondkar, Aftaab Shivdasani, Govind Namdeo

In a cinema-obsessed country, Mast is the ultimate everyman fantasy. A young, small-town boy is fanatical about a film heroine. After a fight with his parents, he goes to Mumbai to get a glimpse of her. Not only does he manage a glimpse, he becomes her real-life hero, rescuing her from the clutches of her exploitative relatives. She falls in love with her Fan No. 1. They marry and naturally, live happily ever after.

Matondkar with Shivdasani who makes an impressive debut in Mast

Mast is a gossamer confection and Ramgopal Varma weaves some of it exceedingly well. A throwback to the old Hollywood musicals, it has some superb dance sequences crafted by choreo-graphers Farah Khan and new-find Howard Rosemeyer, oodles of glamour created by stylist Manish Malhotra, impossibly exotic locations (if you're tired of Switzerland, how's Namibia?), exuberant music from Sandeep Chowta and non-stop energy.

Varma's triumph is his leading man. Aftaab Shivdasani, with his dimpled, lopsided smile and puppy-dog eyes, has mega-watt charm. He's the ultimate boy-next-door. And Urmila Matondkar, sheathed in a new outfit every other second, all pouting lips and in-your-face bod, is the ultimate star. Yes, the derriere-worshipping shots, a requisite of any Varma film (Daud was a paean to the Matondkar backside), are very much in place.

NEW CHIPS ON THE BLOCK

In Bollywood, laptop no longer means a starlet in need of a role. Some among the industry's techno-savvy generation are:
Shah Rukh Khan
He totes his machine to shoots and claims that "when a director refuses a good suggestion, I put it on my machine to be used when I direct my own film".
Kajol
In between working for husband Ajay Devgan's home productions, Kajol spends hours on the Net and hopes to educate Ajay on the ways of the cyberworld.
Aamir Khan
Owns a state-of-the-art Toshiba machine but no one's actually seen him use it.
Vikram Bhatt
A Net junkie director who spends four hours on the Internet everyday and uses his machine for scripting as well.
Abhishek Bachchan
Bachchan Jr, it is rumoured, carts his laptop to outdoor shoots and watches DVDs on it.
Robin Bhatt
This much-in-demand writer scripts his films on his machine.

But Varma's failure is the writing. The storyline, flimsier than Matondkar's bustiers, needs sparkling wit and well-etched characters. Rangeela, Varma's earlier take on the film industry, was centred on memorable characters -- remember the street bum Munna (Aamir Khan) in a canary-yellow outfit telling a waiter in a five-star restaurant to turn the air-conditioner on him. Mast has some howlingly funny moments but they are not enough. Matondkar, part real-life Sridevi (instead of "ask mummy" it's "ask mamaji") and part Seeta of Seeta Aur Geeta, mostly slithers and simpers. In fact Varma seems to have spent more time on the peripheral characters -- there's a wonderful Sridevi-worshipping rickshaw driver (Varma's homage to Sri, whom he was infatuated with in his student days) and Namdeo, playing the Kans mama, is the perfect Bollywood slimeball, down to his gaudy synthetic shirts and white shoes. Varma takes a few digs at the film industry but none match the sheer genius of Rangeela's Hollywood-obsessed director Steven Kapoor, who asked in anguish, "Steven Spielberg se kabhi Julia Roberts ki maa kuch poochti hai (Does Julia Roberts' mother ever question Steven Spielberg?)"

The script meanders and sags under the weight of endless gorgeous song numbers. Even eye-candy can fatigue. Mast, finally, is too much of a good thing.

Movie: VAASTAV
Director: Mahesh Manjrekar
Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Namrata Shirodhkar, Paresh Rawal

Dutt proves he can act: with Shirodkar Vaastav

Most Bollywood gangster movies tell the same story -- a lower middle-class youth inadvertently beco-mes embroiled in the underworld. Brutal and skilful, he rises to the top and for a brief, buoyant time is Mumbai ka king. Sometimes he marries a prostitute. But eventually his crimes catch up with him and he dies, like a dog, at the hands of the police or rivals.

Vaastav, a Satya meets Mother India saga, treads the same ground. It's familiar territory. The chawl background, a group of unemployed friends, rival gangsters with distinct names -- here Vitthal Kaniya and the Fracture gang -- Mumbai gang lingo ("petis" and "ghodas"), a gritty quasi-realistic atmosphere and, of course, lots of bullets and blood. But despite the deja vu, Mahesh Manjrekar, an acclaimed Marathi film director, manages to hold your interest because he gives Sanjay Dutt an opportunity to act and elicits a wrenching performance from him. Vaastav rides on Dutt's shoulders.

For once, Dutt isn't doing the rippling muscles-three and a half expressions Rambo act. Manjrekar exploits not his imposing physique but his jaded eyes. Dutt, who has battled drugs and done time in jail himself, brings a pathos and sincerity to the drug-addled, misguided gangster that he rarely exhibits in his usual one-note performances. Manjrekar also surrounds Dutt with fine actors, including Rima Lagoo, Shivaji Satam and Marathi theatre actor Sanjay Narveykar, who makes the terrific side-kick Dedh-Footiya (Shorty). And -- will miracles never cease -- he even manages to make Namrata Shirodhkar act.

Vaastav can't match the best of the genre. It has neither the finesse of a Nayakan nor the brilliance of a Satya. The music is middling -- the mandatory Switzerland song is especially annoying and the violence, wearisome. The end isn't wholly convincing either. But Vaastav has some powerful moments and good performances -- both rare things in these dumb and dumber times.

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