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Naaka

Crime, Drama

CAST: Bipin Karki, Thinley Lhamo, Prakash Gandharva, Robin Tamang

DIRECTION: Amit Shrestha

 Among the new crop of Nepali actors, Bipin Karki is some­one who has made a giant leap in just few years. Starting with minor character roles, he has now established himself as a leading man in Nepali movies. He started off with a blink-and-miss role in ‘Loot’ (2012); the following year we saw him sink his teeth in a meatier role in the colossally disappointing ‘Chhadke’. But his breakout performance came in ‘Pashupati Prasad’ (2016), where he portrayed Bhasmey, a low-life gang leader operating inside the premises of Pashupatinath temple. If we sift through the characters he has played in his ten films so far, apart from Jatra (2016), he’s mostly played goofy delinquents.

In his latest film ‘Naaka’, his char­acter is—no surprises for guessing—a smuggler named Goldie, donning a mohawk. Goldie ticks off every box in a stock Bipin Karki character: a small-time crook with a colorful name, a flamboyant sense of style and a speech impediment. Goldie is a menacing anti-hero in this black-crime comedy featuring Nepali smugglers and Tibetan refugees.

Goldie and his lackey Hanuman (Prakash Gandharva) agree to help two Tibetan refugees (Thin­ley Lhamo and Shiva Mukhiya) cross the Sino-Nepal border into Nepali. Goldie is making the delivery on behalf of Lata Bob (Robin Tamang) and his henchman Ganesh (Ram Bhajan Kamat), who have promised Goldie five lakh rupees in return.

But the seemingly easy task turns into a migraine for Goldie, as he has to “karate chop” his way through revenge seekers, bent cops and double-crossers.

Director Amit Shrestha has plucked the news pages to ground the story in a contemporary context. He takes up the issue of Tibetan refugee influx and the theft of dzi beads (highly prized Tibetan stones) that have led to the murder of many Tibetan refugees. Shrestha with the help of his cinematographer Chintan Raj Bhandari resourcefully captures the world of the protagonists. The film’s grungy and grimy look must not have come easy.

There are number of odd-ball characters here and only a few are good-natured. The bonding scenes between Hanuman and the refu­gee girl Sonam make up the film’s most poignant moments. In an early scene, Hanuman makes a puffed face to make Sonam understand he is named after the Hindu mon­key god, not realizing that Sonam only speaks Tibetan and may not be familiar with any Hindu god.

Naaka largely stands on the broad shoulders of Bipin Karki, who gives the film everything in his acting arsenal. Karki’s blend of humor and menace is so compelling that movie-goers often end up rooting for a morally corrupt character. This is a clear sign that today’s audience is ready for bold, complex and nuanced roles in Nepali films.

But Naaka is also marred by prob­lems. It relies on a plot that is wafer thin and highly inconsistent. The first half is slow while the second is filled with hackneyed plot twists, as if the makers were in a rush to get to the climax. Many viewers may also feel that overreliance on slapstick humor undercuts the film’s other­wise serious plot.

It’s not a perfect film and I must say its characters deserved a better plot. But Naaka is a welcome change amidst the cornucopia of terrible mainstream Nepali films that have come out in recent times.

*** Three stars

In 2014, an investigative article titled ‘The Law School Scam’ was published in ‘The Atlantic’. The story brought under the radar Flor­ida Coastal located in Jacksonville, Florida in the United States while talking about the disturbing trends in the for-profit world of legal edu­cation. Citing the example of the said college, the article mentioned that law schools admit underqualified students who then take millions of dollars in loans annually to fund their course. Since many students will never be able to repay much of the loans due to a dismal job market, it’s the taxpayers that will be stuck with the tab as law schools them­selves continue to reap enormous profits.

Replace Florida Coastal with Foggy Bottom and you have the premise for Grisham’s ‘The Rooster Bar’. In the novel, Mark Frazier, Todd Lucero and Zola Maal are third-year law students in D.C., enrolled in a bottom-of-the-line, for-profit legal institution, who realize they have been duped. Their school is one of a chain owned by a shady New York hedge-fund operator who also owns a bank that provides student loans.

Each of the three students is drowning in debt as they had all borrowed heavily to attend a law school where graduates rarely pass the bar exam. To slip out of the grasp of the law school scam, and escape their debt while exposing the school and bank and making some money in the process, they skip their last semester at Foggy Bottom and, with new identities, pose as lawyers and get to work.

Grisham’s tale is thoroughly engag­ing and does its bit to expose the workings of for-profit law schools, banks that exploit students, and even addresses unfair US immigra­tion policies. You don’t have to be a fan of John Grisham or have read any of his other works to enjoy The Rooster Bar.

ANIMATION, ADVENTURE, COMEDY

Peter Rabbit

CAST: James Corden, Domnhall Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Margot Robbie

DIRECTION: Will Gluck

‘Peter Rabbit’ is the big screen adaptation of British author Beatrix Potter’s much-loved children’s book featuring the adven­tures of a naughty country rabbit and his family, whose adventures includes running havoc in the gar­den of their grumpy old neighbor. Potter’s first Peter Rabbit book hit the shelves in 1906 and has since gained tremendous popularity as a bedtime storybook. This modern retelling by director Will Gluck, who also co-wrote the screenplay, is a mixture of CGI ani­mation and live action. Throughout the movie, Gluck relies on a rather puerile display of violence to elicit humor. This backfires as the story doesn’t give us enough space to show affection towards its protag­onist, Peter Rabbit. His slapstick antics are far from hilarious and rather mark him as an annoying character.

The movie begins with Peter Rab­bit (voiced by James Corden), his three sisters—Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail—and his cousin Ben­jamin intruding on (and stealing from) the vegetable garden of old Mr. McGregor.

The cat-and-mouse game between Mr McGregor and Team Peter con­tinues until, one day, the old Mr. McGregor dies and his estate is transferred to his nephew Thomas McGregor (Domnhall Gleeson), a Londoner who intends to clean up the place and sell it. With that money he intends to open his own toy-store opposite the toy-store that fired him.

But when Thomas reaches his uncle’s house in the countryside, he discovers it’s in a sorry state. Unbe­knownst to him, after Mr. McGre­gor’s death, the place is being used by Peter and his friends for wild parties. Thomas makes it his mission to cheer the place up and keep it free from intruders, especially those devilish carrot munchers.

Not all humans are baddies in Peter’s eyes. Bea (Rose Byrne) is a cheery next-door-neighbor who is like a mother figure to Peter. She’s a struggling water-color painter and the rabbits regularly pose for her pieces. With Thomas waging war against Peter, the plot shifts gear when both Thomas and Peter start envying each other for Bea’s affec­tion. From then on, the movie nar­rows its focus to a ‘romantic rivalry’ between Thomas and Peter.

Adults or childen?

While watching the movie, I was curious: Who was this movie made for? It doesn’t play out like the typ­ical Pixar animated movies with themes that captivate both adults and kids.

Peter Rabbit reminded me more of the old Wiley E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons that churned out laughs by putting its characters in physical danger and blowing things up spectacularly. The makers whole­heartedly adhere to the principle that kids will laugh if the film is filled with Tom and Jerry clichés.

So we have people stepping on rakes and knocking their foreheads, and those accidently getting their foot caught on mousetraps. There’s also a sequence where a dynamite ambush is set up inside a rabbit hole. These tricks feel cheap and repetitive.

Peter Rabbit isn’t ambitious enough to give deep layers to its characters. The humans in the movie feel cartoonish and wacky, while the animated characters aren’t given enough scope to make us care about them. Thus their interplay only pro­vides few comedic moments. The rest of the film tries too hard to please the audience.

1 and a half stars.

 FICTION

Home Fire

Kamila Shamsie

First Published: August, 2017

Language: English

Pages: 264, Hardcover

 ‘Home Fire’ is essentially a sto­ry about love and the lengths we go to for those we hold dear. A contemporary reimaging of Antigone, a tragedy written by Sophocles in or before 441 BC, Home Fire explores what happens when love and loyalty are pitted against each other. Shamsie, who has previously writ­ten six novels, has based Home Fire on two Pakistani emigrant families from completely different commu­nities in London. On one side of the spectrum is the devout Isma Pasha, daughter of a jihadi fighter, and then there’s Eamonn Lone, son of the British Home Secretary who is a secularized Muslim.

Eamonn’s family has the power to save Pasha’s family from a horrible fate and that’s what Aneeka, Isma’s sister, initially has in mind when she initiates a relationship with Eamonn. Aneeka wants Eamonn to help bring her twin, Parvaiz, back to London.

Narrated through the perspectives of five different people, Home Fire that tells the haunting tale of what happens when love and politics col­lide was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.

Review by APEX BUREAU