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FORMULA (NO.) 1
A race car driver faces lifeâs ups and downs in a predictable drama that couldâve used less gloss, more grit.
APR 29, 2007 – IS THERE some sort of medical condition that afflicts only the very beautiful, making them see style where everyone else senses silliness? Iâm talking about hairstyles like Rani Mukerjiâs in the early portions of Ta Ra Rum Pum. (What a curious title, as if a musician were humming the outline of a tune that hadnât yet crystallised in his head; it turns out just right for this film, which hits high notes every now and then but never quite coheres into a resonant whole.) Looking like a cross between the Sadhana fringe and a few dozen strands of limp fettuccine, this is easily the worst tonsorial decision by a major actress since Aishwarya Rai stuck burnt sausages onto her head in Kyon… Ho Gaya Na. It is so awful and so distracting, I just couldnât look past it â and looking past surfaces is something youâve got to be able to do in this Yash Raj production (or, probably for that matter, in any Yash Raj production). Youâve got to look past the fact, for instance, that the story is one half sporting drama (specifically, Days of Thunder), one half survival saga (specifically, In America) â and that it takes the unlikeliest of plot conveniences to make these genres mesh. Itâs not that these premises cannot come together â thereâs a good instance of that in the irresistibly old-fashioned Cinderella Man â but the reason for the cross-breeding in Ta Ra Rum Pum seems less to make a movie than to appeal to a market. The hot-blooded racing is for the young, the warm-fuzzy emotions are for the older crowd â add to this an animated sequence with teddy bears for the kiddies, and thereâs all the evidence you need that covering every possible audience base is the first and foremost motto of the Yash Raj house.
Itâs quite startling, really, how Ta Ra Rum Pum goes about this objective. Even Karan Johar sets his films in America, but his Americanness is mostly veneer. Scrape it off and youâll find that his heroines still wear the occasional sari, they still observe the occasional Indian tradition, his heroes still love their parents â thereâs at least a bit of a nod to the Indian roots of his characters. But thereâs very little of that in this Siddharth Anand film. I was most intrigued by the scene in which Radhika (Rani Mukerji) marries Rajveer (Saif Ali Khan, who, like his costar, coasts along on comfortable autopilot, though his jokey shtick is getting a little wearying). Sheâs wearing a bridal dress in white, clutching the kind of bouquet that is tossed after the ceremony and caught by the next bride-to-be. And heâs in a white suit, repeating man-and-wife vows after the minister solemnising the wedding. And when they slip rings on each otherâs fingers, all I could think was: with all the temples in the US, they couldnât have gone through a little Hindu ceremony? This isnât about religious allegiance so much as cultural appropriation â and my jaw dropped further when I learnt that they called their kids Champ and Princess. (Whatever happened to Bittu and Pinky?) Iâm not sure, but this may be a historically important moment in our movies â these depictions of the utter assimilation into a Western lifestyle (something that we saw in Anandâs earlier film Salaam Namaste as well, with its no-fuss treatment of a live-in relationship).
Thereâs a lot of Salaam Namaste in Ta Ra Rum Pum. The hero is one of those chronically irresponsible, never-on-time characters. (There may be a bit of irony lurking there somewhere, for his profession as a race car driver demands that he bring in his vehicle under time.) Thereâs Jaaved Jafferi spouting English with shades of a vernacular accent. Vishal-Shekharâs Ab to forever â the first song in a ho-hum soundtrack â brings together the hero and heroine amidst a dance-ready group of strangers-yet-friends (just as Vishal-Shekharâs first song in Salaam Namaste did), and the next one, Hey Shona, reminds you of My dil goes mmm. Itâs quite something, really â not only do these songs sound like their earlier counterparts, they are even sequenced in the same order in the screenplay. Talk about formula filmmaking⦠Also fantasy filmmaking. Rajveer is a lowly pit stop tyre changer who becomes, almost instantaneously, the Number One race car driver in America â in other words, from zero to hero in sixty seconds. And it is nice, even in a far-out fantasy such as this, to see an Indian being cheered by a stadium full of whites. I guess thatâs what they call a willing suspension of disbelief â and as long as the film courses around in these privileged lanes, itâs mostly fine in an impersonal manner (for nothing actually reaches out and touches you).
Thatâs the thing about these Yash Raj films. As long as they confine themselves to the lives of the privileged in some moneyed la-la land, they work to an extent as undemanding fantasies. If we donât question Preity Zinta being eight months pregnant and yet dancing wildly to Whatâs going on in Salaam Namaste, itâs because we donât take the movie very seriously. Sure, it tries to make points about commitment and all, but the tone is lighthearted and that helps us keep our distance. But if thereâs one thing that is at odds with glitzy packaging, itâs poverty. I donât think there can be such a thing as suspension of disbelief when youâre trying to sell hard times, for poverty is all around us â thereâs nothing not to believe about it. At one point, Rajveer loses his job and all his money â this is preceded by a great visual during a race; he takes his foot off the accelerator and slows down until every other contestant has passed him by, literally and figuratively â so he moves his wife and kids from tony Manhattan to a Harlem-ish neighbourhood. (His daughter looks at their cramped quarters and exclaims, âFive people in one room!â? The fifth is their dog Bruno, and itâs a lovely touch that she refers to him as part of âpeople.â? Thatâs really how indistinguishable from siblings pets can be to a child that age.) So after this move, we think things will get serious on us, but every dramatic episode is followed by a mandatory bit of clowning around. (The memo passed around before the project was greenlit must have read: Donât let things get too serious.) Despite being about a penniless immigrant father who desperately tries to provide for his kids, In America managed to be light on its feet because it coated its drama with fairy-tale whimsy. But Ta Ra Rum Pum coats its drama with big, ritzy, Bollywood production numbers, as if wanting to cancel out the low spirits with high energy â and it doesnât work. (The only film I can recall offhand that attempted this was the highly-stylised Pennies From Heaven, which contrasted Depression-era life with musical-comedy lushness â and that didnât entirely work either.)
Iâm not the kind of viewer whoâs going to get all real and demand that Rajveerâs kids be reduced to images of snot running down a nostril or matted hair teeming with lice. This isnât that kind of poverty, and this isnât that kind of movie either. But when youâre trying to milk tears by showing a child pick food out of a dustbin â and when youâre trying to milk more tears by showing said child stand in front of a bakeryâs window display (I guess this is for those who didnât get the point the first time around) â and when you follow this with a song sequence with happy, dancing teddy bears in a Willy Wonka land of chocolate rivers and candy-cane walking sticks, we end up remembering more of the fantasy, less of the reality. This makes the film feel strangely incomplete. The dark themes (and the resulting dark emotions) are never allowed to fully develop and itâs only when the characters refer to themselves as being poor that we are reminded that they are. Until Rajveer launched into this bit of dialogue about the depths to which heâs sunk, I never quite realised that heâd sunk any depths at all. The scams he indulges in to make money for his family, they are presented almost like little capers. You smile at them the way you would at a roguish hero in a heist movie. You never get a hint of the depths of desperation behind this act. And that desperation is why you root for the underdog. Itâs why you got up and cheered at the end of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar and at the end of Lagaan. (These references come about because Ta Ra Rum Pum invites us to cheer for Rajveer as he attempts an against-all-odds comeback to the racing circuit.)
Throw this accusation at the director and heâd probably point to a sequence midway through his film, where Rajveer goes job hunting and no one will hire him â and the song in the background isnât a sad number but an oddly optimistic one, with lyrics that go Aayenge phir se din khushiyon ke / badlega yeh mausam. Heâd also point to the racing sequences and say that the way he stages them is an indication that this is like Salaam Namaste, that nothing here is meant to be taken seriously. (As Rajveer passes a driver, he smiles and waves and mouths a bye-bye. As Rajveer makes a pit stop, he uses the time to wolf-whistle to his girl in the stands. And as Rajveer finishes, he drives circles on the grass, his wheels carving out an I Heart You. I think itâs safe to assume these events werenât taken from the life of Schumacher.) And one thing you have to give the people at Yash Raj â they know how to keep a movie moving with well-oiled professionalism, which is not altogether a bad thing. Thereâs a moment when Rajveer carries his new bride Radhika over the threshold of the house heâs just bought for her. Heâs barely gone through the door when the camera floats lazily to the window of a first-floor bedroom, through which we see Rajveer and Radhika and their two children engaged in a pillow fight. A few years get compressed into a few seconds, and itâs clear that thereâs some kind of brain behind the scenes â that itâs not amateur hour. And after enduring, in quick succession, the likes of Red, Delhii Heights, Shakalaka Boom Boom and Kya Love Story Hai, it is a relief that someone at least knows what theyâre doing â even if we know that, with their clout and with the resources at their disposal, they should be doing a whole lot better.
Copyright ©2007 The New Sunday Express
Sujith
April 28, 2007
Baradwaj, i have to say Shakalaka in all its disco ball dropping glory was more entertaining
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Karthik S
April 28, 2007
This must be one the very few reviews of TRRP that doesn’t have the words, ‘Life is beautiful’!
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brangan
April 28, 2007
Sujith – er, are you talking about the movie or the review 🙂
Karthik – oh my god, a comment from a TV-certified celeb. I’ve really arrived! 🙂 Seriously, though, great going man. And about Life is Beautiful, that is such a teeny part of TRRP, I didn’t find it worth mentioning.
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Vivek
April 29, 2007
after wotchin the trailer, i thot the movie was a rip off of days of thunder +usual overdose of crap from YR films..thank god they din disappoint me 🙂
n whn ru gonna review a decent hindi movie?? r u waitin for the hindi dubbin/remake of Sivaji? 🙂
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Theo
April 30, 2007
I just got back from the theatre. I think the director was just confused. The best way to describe it, would be to call it an overcooked kichidi of Days of Thunder or In America.
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Abhinav
May 1, 2007
” Rajveer is a lowly pit stop tyre changer who becomes, almost instantaneously, the Number One race car driver in America”
I think you haven’t seen Talladega Nights:The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby.Will Ferrel is a tyre-changer and then during mid-race the driver walks out of the car because they are running last and it wouldn’t make a difference what he does.So Will Ferrel steps in and then he becomes the best driver in USA.He even makes some figures on the grass.
I was going to watch it but I seriously hate movies which make racing look like childs play.Waving with one hand,eh.Do that in NASCAR(because the cars here pose quite a similarity to NASCAR,maybe they just are NASCARs) and you will end up putting your car into the wall.
Hey,champ and princess are nicknames or are they realnames?Because I am sure I have heard champ in hindi movies before.
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brangan
May 1, 2007
Vivek – don’t ask me, ask the people who make these movies 🙂
Theo – “overcooked kichidi” is right, or maybe “undercooked…”
Abhinav – Haven’t seen Talladega Nights, but a couple of friends mentioned the resemblance. Yeah, I’ve heard champ before too, but it just was so “yuppie” here.
Disclaimer: And let me also take this opportunity to assure my readers that girls have every right to be called “Princess” and that there is absolutely no gender bias in my invocation of this aspect of the film, which was merely to comment on a sociological phenomenon.
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Gaipajama
May 1, 2007
“Disclaimer:” LOL
You are going from a sexist to a paranoid sexist. :-)) All this PC bullshit is killing this blog.
btw, I can’t believe you are being so charitable to this movie. It stands for everything I hate about bollywood and I haven’t even seen the movie yet…watching javed jaffery talk about the car crash as the biggest thing in the movie put me off it completely.
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brangan
May 1, 2007
Gaipajama – what charitable? The entire piece pretty much talks about why it doesn’t work, except in a plasticky, barely-watchable way. At least, that’s what I thought…
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rs
May 1, 2007
your disclaimer sucks.
very funny for u guys i guess
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munimma
May 1, 2007
I wondered the same thing about Rani’s hairstyle(?).
Can you now review some good movies please? Any out there?
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Gaipajama
May 2, 2007
I keep forgetting your review appears on print and you have to appear to have given the movie a chance :-). I felt you didn’t trash the movie enough (unlike delhi heights or Shakalaka) and you were going out of your way to find something good (dog referred to as people, Yash raj’s professionalism, etc…). At least, that’s what I thought 🙂
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brangan
May 2, 2007
munimma – good movie? what’s that 🙂
gaipajama – “I felt you didn’t trash the movie enough” But then, I rarely trash a film unless it’s downright atrocious, with zero things to recommend for it. I hated Traffic Signal and Baabul, for instance, but they did give me enough to talk about without needing to trash them in a sarcastic manner. If there’s something to discuss about a film, I try to focus on that – at least, I *try* to.
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munimma
May 2, 2007
Eggjactly! Now that was a fun movie to watch!
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Vivek Gupta
May 3, 2007
“keep a movie moving with well-oiled professionalism, which is not altogether a bad thing”
Is it ever?
Great writing Rangan. A friend recommended your blog to me and now I am somewhat of a fan.
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Padawan
May 3, 2007
What are you upto these days? Hindi movies are no long good (As you said to Munimma)… tamizh movies are also not good 🙂
Dance, Drama, Poetry is also okay…okay…
Ennadhaan panreenga?
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Ph
May 3, 2007
Very miffed that I didn’t know the existence of this blog before.
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Dharmendra
May 5, 2007
Rangan,
Looks like Bheja Fry is releasing in Chennai. Can’t wait for your review.
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brangan
May 6, 2007
Vivek Gupta – Thanks. And keep visiting.
Padawan – “What are you upto these days?” In the overall sense of life or in terms of what I’m writing? 🙂 Saw UU finally. I’ll have a review up sometime.
Ph – Now that you know of the existence of this blog before, hope you’ll continue dropping by.
Dharmendra – I won’t be doing a review for the paper, but I’ll try to have one up for the blog. I really want to see this movie.
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BooTCaT
May 8, 2007
being a tamilian , i thought i could not get the full essence of the movie , from , watching it . ( or maybe i need a translator friend ) . But your review really helped the thing out of me .
Thanks and great work .
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NeeliAankhen
May 9, 2007
Your review as always a pleasure to read, both before and after.
A tiny factoidal correction from a US native (if NYC counts): the wedding in the moving car was definitely not Hindu, so you’re right of course about it not being Indian, but it wasn’t Christian either I don’t think – I think it was a Justice of the Peace wedding, i.e. a civil ceremony — you’re married by him with “the power invested in me by the State of New York,” though he left off saying the NY part of it.
In reality, I think they can actually say anything they like in the ceremony (you are married by signing the paper basically),so in movies they say some of the “do you take this man” stuff from church weddings.
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brangan
May 10, 2007
Thank you NeeliAankhen. I was referring more to the white bridal dress, the bouquet etc., which are “Symbols” of a non-Indian wedding. But thanks for the clarification
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Ajay
May 10, 2007
I think movie borrowed a lot from ‘Taladega Nights’ too. It’s a comedy with Will Ferell as the car driver.
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Harminder Gill
May 13, 2007
i just Love that movie TTTTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much
want to c again & again
every 1 act very well
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devashish makhija
June 16, 2007
brangan, you certainly are a rare breed… the reviewer who accords credit for even the slightest of pluses in a cake so half baked the minuses stick between your teeth. being as i am in the thick of the film ‘manufacturing’ industry it seems to me the ‘craft’ (if it can even be called that anymore) is worming it’s way towards being firmly entrenched in the economics of supply and demand. ta ra rum pum is a prime example of a film that tosses in (self consciously and gratuitiously) every imaginable ingredient to elicit the emotion required of it by way of a money-spinning brief. it got cooked perhaps only once the ingredients were collected in the dish. and this is what, to my mind, separates most of the filmmakers of today from those of all the decades till the seventies (including yash chopra himself). they made a film because they had something to say. the new lot makes films because films make them money without them having to sit through corner office teleconferences discussing sales graphs. unfortunate.
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Antique Ring
April 17, 2009
I usually do not comment on blog posts but I found this quite interesting, so here goes. Thanks! Regards, P.
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Roshan Humagai
April 23, 2009
This film “Tara rum pum” is my hatest film. It is so bad. The whole story plot has been cheated from the English hit film “Taladega night:Ricky bobby is the actor.
But that hindi one is so flop and bad.
Taladega nights is a very good film.
Thanks.
-Roshan Humagai
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