Monday, June 16, 2008

Page 61

Mr. White Mr. Black
Movie
Mr. White Mr. Black
Director
Deepak Shivdasani
Producer
Bipin Shah
Cast
Sunil Shetty, Arshad Warsi, Sandhya Mridul, Upasna Singh


Sonia Chopra

The makers of Mr White Mr Black want us to believe it�s a comedy. Sadly, it's anything but one. Here's a taste of the film�s ingredients � judwa brothers that is actually one person, three Charlie�s Angels in various stages of undress and malnourishment, a sardarji dressed in all-red, a comic don, and precious pachees crore ke heere encased in a velvet pouch that everyone�s after.

Kishen (Arshad Warsi) does the twin brother lying, as he woos a damsel and does hera-pheri, blaming the latter on his non-existent twin. A village bodybuilder-type Gopi (Suneil Shetty) is after Kishen to sort out a court case back home in their village. While looking out for him, Gopi meets Paris Hilton, sorry, Tanya (Anushka Khosla) a hotel heiress who�s seriously into dancing and drinking and has friends who scream `let�s paaaarty�.

Gopi launches into a song about how she has no sharam and haya, and she even explains to him that she is `spoilt� `cause her dad never read her a bedtime story. Honestly, the only thing spoilt here is the story. They fall in love and she even loans her dad�s hotel to him so that Kishen can lie to his sister�s fiance about him being a badaa aadmi. Somewhere, inexplicably, a Sikh man with a South Indian wife appear and the diamonds keep changing hands. The climax is the kind where all the assorted characters, by a thick stroke of coincidence, land up at the hotel and finally end up in a line with a gun on the other�s head.

Though the story is quite hopeless, the actors have gamely given good performances. Arshad Warsi�s comic timing is well-known, and he truly deserves better projects, which allow him roles other than the same con-man routine. Suneil Shetty is good in a role that�s made for him. Ashish Vidyarthi is alright in the role of the don who�s obsessed with his deceased mother. The girls are all pretty, falling into the stereotypical tall, fair, slim, pretty mould, but are complete non-actors. One hopes Sandhya Mridul will save her talent for better, more deserving films.

Mr White Mr Black�s sub-standard story is rivaled only by its technical aspect � the cinematography is archaic, music is average, and editing non-existent. The background score by Sunil Singh is imaginative.

There are only a few minutes of dark humour, when the don Laadla goes to tell his mother that he�s finally become a don and accidentally causes her death. Thereafter he wears a huge locket that says `Maa� and is super-senti about the issue. Other than that, the dialogues include 'don�t say maa, he�ll go into coma.' And a Gujarati saying 'stop this rape' (actually rap).

Mr White Mr Black is a mish-mash of a dozen quickie comedies you might have had the misfortune of watching. And as always, there�s a character who keeps mouthing a pet dialogue. Here a cop Mr Brown keeps saying ` you are confusing me�. Quite the viewer�s sentiments, really.

A couple of people left halfway through the movie � this writer had to stick on for the job plus the melting chocolate ice-cream she had to bribe herself with to stay. One now fully understands Tanuja Chandra's noble message in Hope and A Little Sugar, that one can surpass anything with them. Keep both handy, if you must watch the film.

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