rishiinpune

Spoiler alert. The Hindi movie, Tumbbad, is an engaging, offbeat, horror movie. It's a delight to see Hindi cinema evolving and experimenting with new concepts. The story of Tumbbad is about a demon, Hastar, who lives underground and carries gold coin in his loincloth. One can collect the gold coins if they can distract the demon with an offering of food. However, its easier said than done. There is a SOP for doing this, which only the protagonist of the movie, Vinayak, knows. Whatever gold Vinayak gets, he sells it to a merchant, both become partners. Despite making more money than he ever had, the merchant still has his own troubles, he needs more gold. In a depiction of greed, he follows Vinayak and without learning the SOPs he enters the den of Hastar, the gold carrying, ever hungry demon.

This is where one gets to see one of the best depictions of FEAR. The fear we see in this scene is the fear of being in a life and death situation. Anyone who has been in a life and death situation knows that in such situations our Reptilian brain takes over, it's the classic choice of fight or flight. In such situations our logical thinking shuts down, we are in panic, the breathing becomes laboured, the chest focuses on pumping oxygenated blood to the muscles, pupils dilate, one may start shivering, the hand-eye coordination gets affected, its complete chaos. The merchant, portrayed by actor Deepak Damle, has just got the scene right. You can see fear personified in Deepak's acting. If you enjoy watching great content you will enjoy Tumbbad.

This movies starts as a good sci-fi entertainer, then quickly turns into a romantic, save me mummy, remorse story. What happened!

Let's look at the story – Yr. 20xx, disposing anyone's body in future is almost impossible. But Mafia will do what they need to do so they send the trouble makers back in the past e.g. John is a naughty man in 2075 so mob sends him back to 2045 to be executed, simple!

Considering from the present, future is just a possibility, so even if you get rid of someone from the future that man (only men do dirty things, the movie didn't show any mischievous ladies getting killed) may grow up from the past to have the exact same life. Hmm…this will get you thinking.

Also how come a guy who kills for a living suddenly has a cry baby heart and goes out to protect people? He suddenly notices the innocence of life…what was he blind B4!

In short it's a movie fit for Bollywood, senseless & random.

I shall attempt to write a review about the movie. But I must confess that vocabulary needs to be reinvented for writing a review about such a movie. The word Brilliant, Cult will be an understatement.

The story rips apart the callousness of our mediocre society and bares the ugly trust of being a sportsman in India.

Paan Singh Tomar was a national record breaking sprinter who became a rebel. He had an illustrious career as a sportsman in the Army but the chores of his village life forced him to retire early to tend to his fields. The serene life of village proved to be more challenging than the task of defending his motherland. His own cousin brother who had now become a local muscle-man with the help of police took over Paan Singh's field without any remorse. Paan Singh tried every possible way to make our legal system attend to his woes but to no avail. Finally he resorted to his own personal strength to bring justice to the wrong doers.

The story begins with a writer (Brijendra Kala) going for an interview with the Subedar (Irrfan Khan). Brijendra Kala has acted to perfection; it cannot get better than this! Most of the story is in flashback but it keeps you clutched to your seat. Story telling had never been better than this. Paan Singh aka Subedar, a rank which he got in the Army narrates his illustrious career as an athlete in the Army. However the career of a national sports hero does not translate into a successful place in the society as he struggles to keep his farm safe from his own cousin. Tomar who has been taught that Army men are guardians of the country believes that laws and system would protect his farm & family. His belief is shattered when the cops refuse to acknowledge his complaint even after his son is beaten to a pulp by the hands of his cousin. Later when his cousin attacks Tomar's house and kills his beloved mother Tomar sets on another race only this one will be in real life with guns, goons and cops.

A quote from the movie, Paan Singh Tomar says – 'In a race there are rules, rules which state that once you have started the race it doesn't matter if you are ahead of behind or how much time it takes you have to reach the finish line'.

A must watch for all the sports lovers.

This afternoon I saw Woman in Black which turned out to be quite disappointing. Since when did ghost have shadows? And the name of the movie Woman in Black was just coz the ghost was dressed in black how unimaginative! The name could have been Pied Piper since she was denied something and she took to stealing other's child, My children since the villagers would raise their kids only to be taken by this lady, the screaming lady coz she won't talk no matter what or in my case I would have done something like Woman with no clothes for once phasmophobics would have been excited to see the ghost. Also the Woman in Black is completely illogical coz even after being united with her child she won't give up killing kids. It makes one think that all she wanted to do was kill kids rather than be united with her child. Plus why will she wait for people to see her and then plan a killing when she could just pop up anywhere, doesn't make any sense.

Our beloved Harry Potter aka Arthur did not look like a dad. Toward the end of the movie he announces – She (ghost) has gone only to contradict himself in the next scene where he wants to leave the city at once. In normal circumstance one would enjoy the glory that follows but not Mr. Potter.

Overall a well directed movie in the first half, the buildup is nice but the second half lets it down.