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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD CHALO DILLI
EDITOR'S PICK
`Chalo Dilli` a refreshing film with a lot of heart (IANS Hindi Film Review)
Rating: *** 1/2
Once in a while you come away from a film with a lot more than you expected.
Except for a somewhat flabby 15 minutes post-interval, Chalo Dilli
sparkles with the pleasurable punchy emotions that we seem to have forefeited in
our journey from the cinema of Basu Chatterjee to the present day films of the
Kashyaps and Bazmis of the show-world that are all form and virtually no
content… with very little contentment to take home.
Challo Dilli is a film with a lot of heart, and some soul. There are
practically just two characters in the skillfully-conceived plot about two
mismatched travelers on the road from Mumbai to Delhi via Jaipur and places in
Rajasthan you had never known about until now.
That the two seemingly-incompatible traveling companions are played by Lara
Dutta and Vinay Pathak is a stroke of good fortune that takes the story much
further than it would have gone in the hands of two other actors. Before any
more comment on the captivating product, let`s speak right away about Vinay
Pathak, whose unorthodox personality and talent have been on the look-out for
suitable resting places since the unforeseen success of Bheja Fry
four years ago.
In Chalo Dilli, Pathak as the Dilliwala with a heart many sizes
larger than his luck and bank balance sheds so much solar energy into the plot
you feel grateful that someone out there in the mediocrity-infested
entertainment industry looks out for talent like Pathak`s.
And Lara Dutta? Quite easily one of the most beautiful and underrated actresses
of our times. She`s smart, sexy, savvy and supremely confident. What has stopped
her from cracking the top rungs of stardom? You think about this quite
frequently while watching her make all the correct moves as the hoity-toity
investment banker who misses her flight but gains so much in terms of human
experience that you wish we would all miss our flight if we don`t want to miss
the bus as complete human beings.
Apart from the wrong use of the word `forcefully` in place of `forcibly` for
Lara`s character the people in director Shashant Shah`s film remain true to
their words.
Really, you can`t catch the people in Shashant Shah`s films making false moves.
Whether it is the cabbie who falls asleep on the deserted highway, or the
bashful truckdriver who gives Vinay and Lara a ride, or the rashogolla-sweet
Bengali couple on the train, you can`t miss the heartwarming sincerity of this
little film with a big heart.
Ironically Akshay Kumar strikes the only false note. When towards the end he
appears to laugh out loud at Lara`s adventures he sounds as though he`s just
being polite. Not quite the emotion that we expect in a film that is all heart.
No two ways about it.
Challo Dilli follows that refreshing trend of capturing India`s
heartland in all its sleepy supine splendour. It was Imtiaz Ali who in Jab
We Met started the trend of making his protagonists travel across places
in India that had gone out of favour in recent times. The recent Tanu Weds
Manu carried forward the trend of traveling into the small towns.
Chalo Dilli is an absolutely enchanting and heartwarming journey
into the heart and the heartland. Skilfully scripted and with credible dialogues
(Arshad Syed) and situations that you immediately recognize it revives the joy
of the road movie back.
Nope, you can`t imagine any other two actors but Lara and Vinay in the two main
parts.
Chalo Dilli is a far more accomplished work than many of the
big-budget monstrously unfunny comedies that infest the silver screen. Very
often you find your face breaking into a smile as you watch the sophisticated
female entrepreneur opening up her emotional vaults to the experiences that the
Jaipur-Delhi route offer.
At one point in a roadside dhaba she stares pleasurably at the sunrise. `Iss
mein kaun si nayi baat hai?` guffaws the street-smart Pathak.
Chalo Dilli connects us to the basic element of the cinematic
experience. It is all about the heart and the heartland.
The Delhi High Court Tuesday declined the plea of prominent music composer Anandji Virji Shah for staying the release of tennis star Mahesh Bhupathi's debut Bollywood movie "Chalo Dilli", Read More
“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from journey, not the destination.”
Dynamic Go-Getter Mihika Banerjea thinks she has her life totally under control. On her way to delhi for a ‘brief halt’ at her home and husband, before heading off to an international conference, Mihika misses her flight and much to her chagrin, ends up travelling on a budget airline which gets stranded at Jaipur airport due to a technical glitch.
Here Mihika’s life collides with the boisterous and over enthusiastic Manu Gupta. Manu is everything that Mihika isn’y. Loud, Light hearted and extremely street smart and at times, oversmart. Which is what eventually lands them up in trouble. Big Trouble.
Now begins a bizarre journey full of adventure, madness and crazy comic moments with the most oddest travelling couple ever!. A hilarious roller coaster journey through air, road and rail from Mumbai, via Jaipur to delhi.
A journey where through Manu, Mihika finally gets to see the real India. Its colorful and quirky people and their oddball eccentricities.
But what begins as a nightmarish journey for Mihika, eventually turns out to be an internal journey for her, as Manu and other characters around her show her life for what is truly is. And the true measure of success and happiness.
So finally when Mihika gets home. She has traveled a much bigger distance than on a road map.
Chalo Dilli – A journey to the heart of India….via your own.
