Movie Critics: In Conflict
Reading movie reviews have been a favorite weekend pastime. Two great critics whose reviews I read since I started reading anything, were Iqbal Masud and Khalid Mohammed.
The late Masud used to write in Indian Express while Khalid wrote in the Times of India. Masud had a serious -say it direct manner of approaching a movie. Khalid on the other hand had the tongue in cheek kind of reviewing a movie, a master of playing with the English dictionary, I got introduced to a new style of writing by reading Khalid’s reviews. If Khalid is as good a movie maker as he was a movie reviewer is highly debatable, but both Masud and Khalid had the depth of knowledge in the craft of movie making and this showed in their reviews.
Sunday morning tea, while reading Khalid’s reviews had become an addiction. Some of his headliners still talked about by Gen X movie buffs, I get to chat with were:
For Naam: (dir: Mahesh Bhatt) – Amazing Achievement.
For Dacait: (dir: Rahul Rawail) – Technically Terrific …..and so on.
Do critics of today have the same talent to not only critic a movie from the audience point of view but also in their critique show the audience what they would not notice or do notice. I don’t see the depth of critiquing in any of today’s reviews…well atleast the ones I go to. Namely: Rediff.com and IndiaFm.com
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But over the last two years I have found that both these websites give approximately opposite views of the same movie. And many a time it’s a question of which website the movie in question aligned itself with or gave more information/interviews to. Taran Adarsh reviews movies on Indiafm.com whereas rediff.com has an array of critics chiefly among them being Sukanya Varma. Their reviews do match up and are the same when it comes to super-trashy movies, but in the event of a major movie or a movie which has generated a lot of buzz, the differences in opinion crop up every time.
I find Taran Adarsh’s reviews cash register based. If the movie will click at the box office then that movie is good and seeing it is recommended. Else its uh…so..so or very bad. That doesn’t come as a surprise since Adarsh comes from some Movie Trade paper in Bollywood. But then why project yourself as a movie critic when all you are doing is telling us if the movie is bad or good based on what you feel - if the movie will flop or succeed. I don’t see anything new which I may miss in the movie in Adarsh’s columns neither does he get into technicalities.
Rediff.com critic’s aren’t quite different, but I haven’t seen them being as bad as Adarsh on the basis that they don’t base their reviews on whether the movie will succeed or flop, but they aren’t any better either.
But as mentioned earlier there is a conflict of interest involved in how they will review a movie and most of the times they publish opposing views on their sites. We are not talking about Democrats and Republicans here. Two different websites who consistently publish opposing reviews on the same movie. Here are a few examples:
| MOVIE | REDIFF.COM | INDIAFM.COM |
| PAGE 3 | “Madhur Bhandarkar proves himself again!â€â€¦. To Konkona’s credit, she proves to be Page 3’s trump card. She brings a sense of ground reality to the subject. |
…. when compared to Madhur’s earlier works, …. PAGE 3 pales in comparison. Konkona is restrained, but it’s not a performance that you carry home. |
| KISNA | â€The story is refreshingly different…â€
it’s inevitably fitting that his (Amrish Puri’s) last celluloid moments are as a memorable villain. |
where KISNA falters is in its undernourished and uninspiring screenplay… Amrish Puri is wasted in an insignificant role. |
| LAKSHYA | Watch Lakshya. You won’t be disappointed | …. On the whole, LAKSHYA will meet with diverse reactions. While the intelligentsia/gentry/classes will love the film, those looking for typical Bollywood masala entertainer will be disappointed. |
Opposing reviews like the above lead me to doubt if both the critics were watching the same movie or different ones! Opposing views from the audience is one thing, but views on a craft where you use the craft’s tools, checks and balances to finally total a movie as good, bad or ugly (or whatever ratings you give…) should be approximately close to each other. But that doesn’t happen here. Interestingly movies at both the sites (good or bad ones) are trashed when they don’t get the exclusive movie interviews and peeks which they could then publish on their sites. Is there some kind of a war between these sites where they don’t seem to want to share the same stance as the other? Or is it the fight to finish…capturing the maximum online surfers?
The cutting edge reviewing of movies is missing. Khalid is into making movies himself while Masud, tragically is no more. The new internet media should have brought forth many reviewers/critics in the league of Masud or Khalid but what we have now is critics I would give a 1 star out of 5.
May 3rd, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Hi Aamir I am great fan of your movies Lagaan and The Rising. But I am deeply shocked by your movie “Rang de Basanti”. I dont know what attitude it depicts, it is was a very irresponsible movie, in which the youth have over exagerrated the meaning of freedom and have crossed all the boundaries of ethics, moral code and personal sense of respect for India. Killing ones father and killing the defence minister of any country, that too by educated youth is a very shameful thing to do in any situation. The point I am trying to make is that being patriotic or changing our counrty is very important, but the movie is a very wrong way to do it. The comparision of the roles to Chandra Shekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and other leaders is a very disrespectful way of showing your feelings. What people can learn out of your movie is drink and fall off the forts and castles. Drive a car at 140 kmh and disrespect the freedom figthers, The analogy you have tried to draw is totally shameful. I am sorry Aamir for such a movie which is so fanatic, that it makes no difference between us and Jaish-e-Mohammad. We should invite them openely to kill our political leaders before we make our hands red with their blood. There is a way of doing things and with this movie we have left a very bad and fanatic mark on the heads of youth of this country. Try to make 100 types of Lagaan and The rising only then can we wash away the shameful RANG DE BASANTI. Gaurav Garg