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Debutant director Zohn Yonzon’s “12 Sattais” tries to replicate the success of low-budget Bollywood comedies with both critical acclaim and box office success. In fact, if you dismiss a few Hollywood inspirations, you’ll find in 12 Sattais, written by Yonzon himself, a loose cross between “Delhi Belly” (2011) and “Fukrey” (2013). As in those movies, 12 Sattais has a cast of young actors, sets a premise for slapstick comedy with a bit of dark humor, and opens an opportunity to create a cult following for its characters and the film itself. Unfortunately, the film fails in all these efforts. With a feeble script backed up by equally weak actors, 12 Sattais is a complete waste of time for everyone involved in the project—and the handful of audience watching it.

A trio of luckless friends decide to name themselves after planets—Mars (Samir Shrestha), Mercury (Kaji Rana Magar), and Pluto (Abishek Nepal)—because, they believe in astrology!? Weird enough. Then one night of drunken madness lands them on a riverbank in the morning where they find a bag of money. Out of luck and unwise as they are, they do not know what to do with the dough and as events unfold, they land themselves in thick soup, stuck between two goons Helmet Devi (Aasmita Lamichhane) and Pandit Don (Samrat Thapa), and a corrupt cop. The film builds on their struggle to save their newfound treasure as well as themselves from the adversaries.

Absurdity in comedy is only natural and widely used. From comedy-pioneer Charlie Chaplin to our very own Dhurmus (Sitaram Kattel), all visual comedians put their characters into bizarre situations to ignite laughter in the audience. We wouldn’t laugh at what we consider normal, would we? Absurdity is what 12 Sattais, marketed as a ‘visual comedy’, tries to capitalize on, but it fails in execution. The cast lacks basic acting skills and one can see through their acting. The comic timing is so out of whack that even scenes which could have been funny with a better cast, are performed without conviction. Also, the script is flawed and many characters are left unexplained. We do not understand nor can relate to even one of them.

None of the actors stands out. With most of them debuting, this is a project they could have done without at the start of their career. The three lead characters—Mars, Mercury and Pluto—do nothing but run around in lethargically long chase scenes. We don’t know why “Helmet Devi” has that the name besides watching her and her henchwomen wearing helmets everywhere. Lamichhane does much to emulate Richa Chaddha’s “Bholi Punjaban” (Fukrey), but fails miserably with her under-par acting skills. We don’t know the story behind the half-naked, dhoti-clad Pandit Don. (Why is he a don? What does he do as a don?) We don’t know why his henchman “Bhyantey” wears a wooden mask depicting a radio on his head for the entire movie. We don’t know the story behind Pandit’s other two henchmen (who wear oxygen masks and carry oxygen cylinders on their backs, and sport green t-shirts with the print, “Kathmandu’s pollution causes more cancers thank smoking.”)

If fickle acting and plenty of ‘plotholes’ make the film unbearable, a few problematic liberties taken in the name of comedy makes it unwatchable. First, there is a joke about rape which goes along the lines of, “If we [men] touch women, it is rape and if women touch us, its miracle.” In these times when rape is becoming an epidemic, desensitizing rape by joking about it is devious. Also, Pluto once makes a sexual joke, hidden in guise of a public service announcement statement, in front of a minor. We’re left to wonder how crass a filmmaker can get!

Who should watch it?

We have reasons to believe this film won’t be in the theaters by the time this review is published. So if you haven’t fallen prey to its heavy social media promotions, you’d not have watched it. We’re happy for you.

Rating: 1 star

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Run time: 1hrs 56min

Director: Zohn Yonzon

Cast: Samir Shrestha, Abhishek Nepal, Kaji Rana Magar

Some stories stay with you no matter how long ago you read them. For me, “Not Without My Daughter” by Betty Mahmoody is that story. I read it when I was in high school and have never revisited it as it’s just too painful. But I can recall everything about it as if I only recently read it. This is the book that instantly comes to mind when someone asks me for a recommendation or to list my favorites.
The book narrates how a two-week family holiday in Tehran, Iran became a two-year battle for freedom. Though it ultimately ends in a daring escape, Betty’s account of how her Iranian-born husband duped her into visiting his homeland and then kept her and their daughter, Mahtob, prisoners within his family home is harrowing and, quite frankly, makes you weep.
Betty married Dr Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody in 1977 and the couple lived in Alpena, Michigan. Everything is perfect in their marriage up until her husband convinces her to go to Iran with him for a ‘short trip’. Once the promised two weeks are over, Sayyed refuses to return to the US and takes away his wife’s passport so that she too can’t go back home.

From 1984 to 1986, Betty and Mahtob, who was four when she left the US to visit her father’s home country, were held in Iran against their will. During this time, Sayyed becomes increasingly abusive and his family too make life difficult for Betty, insisting she stay inside at all times, and wear the chador if she absolutely has to go out. Her husband threatens to kill her if she leaves or, worse, take Mahtob away from him.
The book details Betty’s escape to Turkey with her daughter, through the snowy Iranian mountains—a journey of 800 km—with the help of many Iranians she meets along the way, and it even reads like a thriller in bits and pieces. The book also narrates Betty’s struggle to understand how her husband suddenly turned into a monster, as well as how she shielded Mahtob from all that was happening around her.
Fortunately, Betty makes it back to the US in 1986 and files for divorce.
However, there’s that lingering fear that Sayyed is on their trail and will manage to hunt them down and kill them, just as he promised. For years after their return, Mahtob played with an alarm button around her neck and Betty carried a gun. They lived under assumed names and kept their past a secret, until Betty wrote Not Without My Daughter and it was made into a film in 1991.
I have to admit that Not Without My Daughter isn’t well written. But then again it doesn’t matter. You will find yourself cheering for Betty as she plans her escape and, all the while, you are reminded of a mother’s unwavering love for her child.

“Chhapaak,” in Hindi, is the sound of liquid splashing into something. The episode is short and the effect unknown. But a splash made by a glass full of acid resonates forever in the victim’s body, mind and soul. This sound of the corrosive liquid splashing on the faces and bodies of numerous women in India is the motif of director Meghna Gulzar’s “Chhapaak.”

In the film, Deepika Padukone—who has previously played princesses and queens and orthodox Bollywood damsels—shuns all her glamor and glitz to take up the role of the acid attack survivor turned activist “Malti”. Sans designer dresses, exorbitant film sets, trending hairstyles, makeup, voluptuous choreography, and all the stuff associated with typical Bollywood divas, Deepika is left to solely rely on her acting, supported by Gulzar’s narrative skills, in a role she will probably forever be remembered for.

Based on the life of acid attack survivor Laxmi Agarwal, Chhapaak centers around the 19-year-old high-schooler Malti who is attacked with acid for rejecting her pursuer. The 2005 incident in Delhi has Malti battling for years to get the culprits punished. Her struggle to fit into the society and daily routine after the incident leaves her deeply traumatized—both physically and mentally.

The film is basically about a crime and the following trials and tribulations to get the perpetrators punished. But as simple as the story sounds, writer/director Gulzar and co-writer Atika Chohan have creatively layered Chhapaak to tell representational stories of thousands of oppressed and victimized women in India. The messaging is strong, without letting the visual storytelling flounder. The film neither takes a one-way, documentary narrative, unlike “Crime Patrol” episodes, nor too many creative liberties to project Malti as a larger-than-life character, unlike in most fabricated Bollywood biographies. The storytelling is grounded, organic and helps the audience relate to the scenes and situations picturized.

Deepika starring as the only ‘star factor’ from Bollywood proves she exists in the industry as much for her acting skills as for her looks. If convincingly portraying a youthful teenager was not challenging enough, Deepika—who has been voted as among the most beautiful women in the world several times—takes on the more difficult challenge of personifying an acid attack survivor who has completely lost her facial features. Yet she skillfully blends into every scene. With a host of talented supporting actors in the film, Deepika is not an outcast but an integral part of the realistic cinema. She characterizes the naivety of a teenager, the ferocity of a fighter, and the splendor of a winner as Malti in this poignant coming-of-age story.

While Deepika takes center-stage as Malti, Vikrant Massey as “Amol,” a journalist turned activist for acid attack survivors, is a strong male character who is not glorified to befit a masculine narrative. Madhurjeet Sarghi playing “Archana Bajaj” has a much stronger presence in the film as Malti’s unrelenting lawyer but her character does not get a backstory or sub-plot of her own, which is one weakness of the film’s storytelling. A bold, assiduous and unyielding lawyer on whose arguments the whole case rests definitely deserved more script. 

Using Malti as the central character, Chhapaak sheds lights on many underlying social issues. It challenges the patriarchal Indian society where women are punished for having a voice, where the character of a victim is assassinated even as she fights for justice, and where a bottle of acid, which costs almost as much as a bottle of water, can change a woman’s life forever. But the film doesn’t make you miserable while watching it. It’s not a sob story. It only makes you more compassionate, more understanding, and more awake.

Who should watch it?

For this movie, we humbly request our readers to ignore all online audience reviews. It faces a boycott campaign in India because Deepika dared show solidarity with JNU students protesting against an attack on them by ‘unidentified’ goons. As of Jan 14, the movie’s IMDb rating fell to 4.4 following 4,000 1-star reviews. (Deepika’s punishment for having a voice).

For the unbiased audience, Chhapaak is a beautiful visual-story that highlights the vulnerability of the human body and the resiliency of the human soul. If not for Deepika, watch it for the thousands of women in India, and maybe hundreds more in Nepal, who have survived the barbarian assault and have lived to become braver, stronger and more beautiful.

Rating: 4 stars

Director: Meghna Gulzar

Actors: Deepika Padukone, Vikrant Massey, Madhurjeet Sarghi

Genre: Social Drama

Run time: 2hrs 3mins

Who should watch it?

This is one of the films we can recommend to the ‘ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages.’ Trust us, you don’t want to download the movie from the internet later and miss watching our spies in action, in 3D!

Animation/action

SPIES IN DISGUISE

CAST: Will Smith, Tom Holland, Ben MendelsohnKiara Advani

DIRECTION: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Length:1h 42m

“Spies in Disguise” is an all-out detective movie, with a cocky yet successful sleuth saving the world time and again, a nerdy sidekick assisting him in his quirky endeavors, a powerful villain set out to destroy the system, and all that technological jazz to help the heroes. And to make the visuals as imaginative as conceivable, this one is computer animated and in 3D.

Directed by the debutante duo of Nick Bruno and Troy Quane, Spies in Disguise draws multiple parallels with the 007 James Bond series. Our hero Lance Sterling (Will Smith), the secret agent for H.T.U.V. (Honor, Trust, Unity and Valor) is an obnox­iously over-confident, tuxedo-clad detective who sets out to recover an attack drone from a Japanese arms dealer. Although the mission is fairly successful at the start, Sterling discovers he has been outwitted by Killian (Ben Mendelsohn), a terrorist mastermind with a bionic arm which controls an array of weaponized drones.

Then enters into the scene Wal­ter Beckett (Tom Holland), a sci­entific genius who designs gadgets for H.T.U.V. A young genius who is socially inept and a pacifist, Beckett has been termed “weird” by his col­leagues and contemporaries all his life because of his attempts to create peaceful weapons that protect and not kill—so not appropriate for a crime-fighting agency!

The two don’t quite hit it off but when Beckett’s newest discovery, the “biodynamic concealment”, is put to test accidentally by Sterling and which then turns him into a pigeon. The Sterling one-man-army is forced to unwantedly team up with Beckett and a small group of pigeons to save the day.

The plot of Spies in Disguise, although inspired heavily by hi-fi detective movies, holds a ground of its own when it comes to a unique narration. Even in its animated form, the message is subtle yet pow­erful. While most action movies demonize the ‘villain’ and glorify the ‘hero,’ Spies shows Killian in a grey area and his perspective is not entirely dismissed, unlike in many orthodox action movies. As Sterling says in a scene, the story is wrapped in a “good guy, bad guy vortex.”

Also, the ‘heroism’ surrounding violence and vengeance is dispelled. While Sterling believes in “fighting fire with fire”, Beckett—who lost his cop mother to a violent incident early in life—holds that there are no good or bad guys in the world and people are just people. This is the film’s central conflict which is expertly resolved in the end.

When it comes to performance, although the film has multiple char­acters, it is basically a Smith-Holland show. Both actors who’re giving voiceovers to their characters prove their versatility. Smith’s Sterling is aggressive, assertive and wrapped in self-gratification. Likewise, Hol­land’s Beckett is submissive, subtle, and quaint, yet when it comes to taking a stand for what he believes in, he is relentless.

With excellent performances, exciting 3D visuals and groovy back­ground score that mixes hip-hop and old school funk, the film is an entertaining package. The only let down, if we may call it that, is the length. 1hr 42mins seems long for the story and some scenes feel a bit stretched. And for an animated movie, the humor quotient is a bit low, even though the film does have its hilarious moments