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 This elaborate period drama set in 1946 India, a year before the country’s partition, is a treat to the eyes. If you like elaborate histor­ical dramas, à la Sanjay Leela Bhan­sali (‘Bajirao Mastani’, ‘Ram-leela’ and ‘Padmaavat’), then you will like ‘Kalank’ too. And yet it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The film revolves around long-bur­ied secrets of a family in pre-par­tition Husnabad, Lahore, where the majority of the population is Muslim. A tragic tale of six people whose lives are intertwined under the larger Hindu-Muslim conflict and the trauma of India-Pakistan partition, Kalank offers a magnifi­cent visual spectacle that transports us back in time.

In lead roles are all mega-stars and their talent is not wasted. After debuting together in ‘Student of the Year’ (2012), Alia Bhatt and Varun Dhawan have each grown a lot as actors, more so Bhatt. Lately, she has been able to nail even the most difficult roles.

 Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours

We have already seen Bhatt work her magic in films like ‘High­way’ (2014), ‘Udta Punjab’ (2016) and ‘Raazi’ (2018). She does not disappoint in Kalank as well. Here she plays Roop, who is married off against her will to an already married man and finds her­self badly torn between her heart and her mind.

Aditya Roy Kapur brings his trade­mark laid-back attitude to the table as Dev Chowdhury, a silent and loving man who as a newspaper editor is on a crusade against the imminent partition of his country. Varun Dhawan as Zafar, a philander­ing ironsmith born out of wedlock, gives a hot-and-cold performance this time. The audience never quiet connect with him. Completing the Kalank ensemble are Madhuri Dixit (the dance queen is, of course, a courtesan), Sanjay Dutt (a dour busi­nessman and father) and Sonakshi Sinha (a desperate wife).

Despite a complex plot and back­stories with multiple India-Pakistan conflict subplots, you can easily fol­low the storyline. If you can ignore some bad VFX work, the spectac­ular costumes, jewelry and set designs will have you oohing. The Alia-Madhuri dances are reminis­cent of that unforgettable Aish­warya-Madhuri combo in the clas­sic ‘Dola re Dola’ from the movie ‘Devdas’ (2002). Even though there are plenty of songs in this film you don’t feel like it because you will enjoy most of them.

At just under three hours, it does feel a little stretched though. Kalank’s major drawback is that in this day and age it is extremely hard to keep the audience hooked for three straight hours, no matter how good a film is. And Kalank is not perfect for that matter. The back­ground scores are mistimed. Essen­tial stuff like how a lowly courtesan owns the most lavish kothi, or why a newspaper is targeted by mobs for its simple reporting, are left to the audience’s imagination. Moreover, the sequence of events is hurried, with the viewers seldom getting a change to digest a crucial event.

There is no shortage of good music, great dancing and unexpected plot twists though. Director Abhishek Verman seems determined to pull off a Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and he has largely succeeded. This one is a cinematic treat!

Movie: Kalank

Genre: Drama/Romance

Cast: Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Madhuri Dixit, Sanjay Dutt

Direction: Abhishek Verman

Rating: 3.5/5

 ‘Hellboy’ is an action thriller based on the graphic nov­els of Mike Mignola and the movie franchise of the same name. Directed by Neil Marshall, the 2019 reboot revolves around the lead protagonist, Hellboy, who finds himself caught between the super­natural and human worlds.

After watching an hour of ‘Game of Thrones’ gore in the morning, I had assumed Hellboy would make for a fresh change of mood. Turns out, I had completely missed the ‘R’ rating on the movie and the fact that the director also has some Game of Thrones work under his belt. So, boy, was I in for a surprise!

The movie starts with a husky male voice narrating the plot back­ground, with the camera slowly moving towards the top of a hill. The color isolation in the first scene highlighting the red in Nimue (Milla Jovovich), a sorceress, with a pitch dark background, is simply fantas­tic. The first scene is really about how King Arthur has the body of Nimue dismembered and scattered in little chests.

Then you’re taken to the pres­ent, in Colorado, where we get the first look at Hellboy (David Har­bour) clad in a maroon hoodie with rock music blaring from his ear­buds; we’re taken to a boxing match. And did I tell you our boy is a product of hell? Given his devil­ish look, he naturally evokes the crowd’s xenophobia. This scene caught my eye for its fantastic use of translation subtitles: When the characters speak in Spanish, a bright yellow stroke text is displayed in a very natural way.

Our friendly beast has a great sense of humor. Mid-fight, trying to calm his best friend down, he says “remember the old times, you played that acoustic crap, while I played real music?”

Shortly after we are treated to our first gore scene. A beast, seek­ing revenge on Hellboy, goes on a quest to resurrect Nimue. In this scene, he breaks into a church and kills the priests merciless­ly. At times, the thriller feels like a horror movie. When the beast takes out and eats the brain of a priest in order to chant the holy verse I knew how mistaken I was about the movie’s nature.

When the beast brings back the sorceress to life the trio of Hellboy, Alice (Sasha Lane) and Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) go on an adventure to hunt down the sorceress, with the support of the protagonist’s father Trevor (Ian McShame). Kim, in his character of a martial Jap­anese-American, gives a wonder performance too.

The movie also has a fair share of ‘fourth wall breaking’, not a new thing since the advent of Deadpool, but Hellboy has it even in serious scenes. Hesitant to kill, Hellboy keeps asking Alice why he should really kill the sorceress. The answer: “To make sure she doesn’t come back for the sequel”. There’s also a fair share of pop culture reference here and there with an old wizard being referred to as Gandalf.

It is a spectacular movie in the first half. Really. It had me with the dark visuals, the gore, the funky rock music, and a clever plot. The second half felt underwhelming though. In this half, character development was poor, the emotional scenes failed to con­nect with the audience, and the movie just felt bland. I feel that is not the fault of the comic characters but the director.

Movie: Hellboy

Genre: Fantasy/Action

Cast: David Harbour, Milla Jo­vovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim

Direction: Neil Marshall

Rating: 3/5

 ‘Shazam!’ is not just a super­hero movie, but a cre­ative blend of effortless humor, family drama and sus­pense, all packed into a compact action film. Based on DC Comics character of the same name, this movie is the seventh installment of the DC Extended Universe.x

In the wake of such successes like ‘Wonder Woman’ and ‘Aqua­man’, expectations from DC movies have risen and this film doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it rais­es the bar higher for upcoming DC films.

The movie revolves around the 14-year-old foster kid Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who can turn into a superhero, Shazam (Zachary Levi), by shouting ‘Shazam!’

In his life before his super­stardom, this pure-of-heart boy is desperately searching for his birth mother from whom he had been accidentally separated during childhood. Away from his parents, he finds real home with a foster family.

By and by, Billy gets cho­sen as ‘the one’ by an old wiz­ard who is keen to transfer all his superpowers on to a decent human being.

The wizard wants to give his powers to Billy so that the young man can fight the super-villain Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), the embodiment of the seven deadly sins.

In the first half, Billy as Shaz­am is shown trying to discover his superpowers—Can he fly? Can he produce electricity with his bare hands?—which gives us some hilarious moments.

The second half is more action-oriented as Shaz­am finds himself locked in a pitched battle against the evil Dr Sivana.

The casting does justice to a strong script. Levi is a perfect fit for Shazam, as he ably channels the innocence of the 14-year-old Billy into a muscular adult body with multiple superpowers. Levi is hilarious, heartwarming and, above all, believable as an ‘adult child’.

The brilliant use of VFX in this 3D film completely transports you into the DC Universe

The character development of Billy, and Levi’s comic chem­istry with his ‘sidekick’ foster brother Freddie (Zack Dylan Grazer) are also interesting. Freddie, a sickly boy in a crutch, helps keep Shazam grounded, reminding him that “with great power comes great responsi­bility”. Mark Strong as Dr Siva­na is scary as hell, and the per­fect embodiment of a comic super-villain.

The brilliant use of VFX in this 3D film completely transports you into the DC Universe. A mas­ter of the horror genre, Director David Sandberg (‘Lights out’, ‘Annabelle: Creation’) effortlessly blends some creepy stuff—in the monstrous depictions of the sev­en deadly sins, for instance—into this superhero film as well, and as such will hook lovers of horror as well.

Besides this, with a sunny couple fostering five homeless children of diverse backgrounds, ‘Shazam’ offers a poignant picture of model foster families.

A complete package of action and comedy, this mov­ie is good enough to win many new fans, appealing even to those not normally into superhero genre.

 Who should watch it?

DC Comic fans will love it. Even those not into superheroes and fantasy should watch. You are sure to like big chunks of it, if not the whole thing. Go get Shazammed!

Movie: Shazam

Genre:  Fantasy/ Science Fiction

Cast: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Zack Dylan Grazer

Direction: David Sandberg

Rating: 4/5

‘Saili’ is a rom-com dealing with the social repercus­sions of foreign migration in rural Nepal. Based in a beautiful village in Kaski, director Ram Babu Gurung (‘Kabaddi’, ‘Kabaddi Kabaddi’, ‘Purano Dunga’) has once again aced a rural theme. Saili is exactly what cinema should be: a piece of art.

It is a feminist movie while not screaming of forced “Naari Shakti”, basically a tale of a Muna who falls in love with the wrong Madan.

The movie opens with two men and a woman inside what appears to be a ‘bhatti’. They are both hus­bands to women who are away on foreign employment. They go on a misogynistic rant about the soul-crushing reality of having to live at their wife’s expense, when the Sauni promptly reminds them who pays for their alcoholic life. The scene then contrasts to a face of a young woman navigating Tribhuvan Airport, cautious in her steps and innocent in her emotions.

And with a quick scene transition we travel back. The story starts with Saili (Menuka Pradhan) and Suni­ta (Kenipa Singh) sitting beside a river when Saili loses her slipper to a wave. Following the route of the slipper, Saili meets Pitambar (Gaurav Pahari) and his friend Bir­man (Dayahang Rai), who are both bathing downstream. Pite is instant­ly smitten by Saili. When asked for the slipper, Pite refuses, upsetting the women who then head home.

The male duo are then on a quest to woo the two women and head to Saili’s home on the pretext of giving back her slipper. After a rather awkward conversation with Saili’s father, who happens to be a lender to his own father, Pite plants a love letter inside one of Saili’s shoes. He writes of his feelings and proposes a date over ‘Jhol Momo’. Saili, with a knack for romance nov­els, is instantly wooed. For his part, Dayahang Rai or Bire, with his typi­cal ‘bango humor’, keeps the tone of the movie light.

And there are plenty of oth­er light moments. In one notable scene, Sunita can be seen taunt­ing Saili that she might take away her lover because “Ajkal ko Madan lai Muna haina Munni chaincha” (No, we won’t even try to translate that). The entire movie hall thunders with laughter.

The romance borrows elements from Nepali rural society—indirect approaches to romance, reluctance to public display of affection, inabil­ity to express love with a straight face. The Pite-Saili affair progress­es steadily until Saili’s father gets a wind of it. He senses a ploy by Pite to null out his father’s debt by marrying his daughter. Time and again, Pite is reminded to pay off his father’s debt, and even offered a job oversees by an ex-wardman.

By and by, Saili’s father fixes her marriage with someone else. Pite’s father in turn suggests he elope with Saili. “Everything is fair in love”, his father says as the audi­ence go wild again. On a rainy eve­ning, Pite arrives at Saili’s, with Bire in tow, to rescue his princess. The three run away.

To pay off his father’s outstand­ing debts, Pite then decides to go abroad. But as luck would have it, Pite is denied a passport because of the unrealistically similar looks between Pite and his father.

After the middleman (the ex-ward­man) proposes Saili go abroad to work instead of Pite, the movie takes a melodramatic turn and the misogyny of the lead male character comes in full display. The propo­sition hurts his male ego and he is mad with anger. Nonetheless, in having to make this tough decision, Saili can be seen as representing all Nepali women working abroad to feed their family back home.

The filmmakers could have done more justice to the character of Saili by giving her more screen time and delving more into her strug­gles abroad. And the only problem with storytelling is towards the end, when the filmmakers try to white­wash Pite’s previous actions.

The musical score is fantastic at the start. But as the movie is filled with many renditions of the Saili song, it feels super-repetitive and loses its charm. There are also some noticeable faults in sound mixing. Of course these are little things on the grander scale. But when you’re watching a movie this good, you’re only left with bread­crumbs of criticism.

Who should watch it?

Fans of Ram Babu Gurung’s rural storytelling. You don’t need to watch ‘Saili’ just to support the Nepali film industry. First, it’s a good movie, and only then a Nepali one.

Movie: Saili

Genre: Romance/Comedy

Cast: Gaurav Pahari, Menuka Pradhan, Daya Hang Rai, Kenipa Singh

Direction: Ram Babu Gurung

Rating: 4/5