Spoilers ahead…
Midway through India Pakistan, Karthick (Vijay Antony) and Mellina (Sushma Raj) – Chennai-based lawyers both – find themselves in a village. Karthick is hanging out with some guys who think Mellina is easy: andha maadhiri ponnu. It’s the kind of cheap talk you hear all too often about urban women who have a mind of their own. Karthick says she isn’t, and as proof, he goes up to her (the others are watching) and begins a conversation. By now, she’s developed feelings for him, and she’s been wondering how to tell him – this seems like a good opportunity. After a while, he places a hand on hers. She places her hand on his. According to her, she’s saying she loves him. According to him, she’s failed the “test.” (He thought she’d snatch her hand away and shoot him the kind of look Saritha used to bestow on her tormentors.)
Even given the long tradition of misogyny in our cinema, this “test” looks like a new low – but Mellina gives it back to Karthick. She says, “Who are you to give me a test? Who are these other men to talk about my character?” The scene doesn’t have a payoff – she storms off, and it’s interval point. The thread is never really picked up again. But still, the mere fact that a generally empty-headed entertainer endows its heroine with spunk and spirit and does not make apologies for her made me want to give the director, N Anand, a small bar of chocolate – despite his making light of a rape incident, despite another moment where Karthick slaps Mellina.
Given these scenarios, you may think the film is about the romantic relationship between Karthick and Mellina, but that’s just one part. India Pakistan is insanely overstuffed with plot and characters. For a while, given that Karthick and Mellina are arguing for opposing sides of a case in court, I imagined we were in for an update of Adam’s Rib, where Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn played a couple who turned into warring lawyers. But soon, the story takes a detour into that village – and this is probably a good thing. The leads have no snap, no sparkle, and the only place we get some screwball energy is during the song India naan Pakistan nee. At least, the village gives us other, more interesting characters.
We get a chap who wants to marry Mellina. (He thinks “city girls” are beautiful.) We get two local big shots (Pasupathy and MS Baskar), who are fighting over a tract of land. (It’s this case that Karthick and Mellina have taken on.) Back in the city, we have a corrupt cop who’s after an incriminating DVD. Then there’s all the stuff between Karthick and Mellina, who can’t decide whether they’re meant to be together (cue: happy song) or not (sad song).
That’s way too much happening – nearly two hours and forty minutes – for a film that just wants to be a light-hearted entertainer. And the director doesn’t push his gags enough. Still, the laughs keep coming. It’s strange how a film that begins well and ends badly makes us feel it’s not so good, whereas a film that begins badly and ends reasonably well makes us feel it’s not so bad. India Pakistan is one of those not-so-bad films, thanks to solid contributions by MS Baskar (who holds his hands out and waits for the almighty’s sign before doing anything, much to the annoyance of others) and Manobala (the stretch where he loses his dhoti in a mall is a riot). I wished we’d seen more of them and less of the lazy comedy track written around Jagan. N Anand has a knack for the absurd. I’d be interested in watching a pure comedy by him – but please, nothing more than a couple of hours.
* * *
As an aside, can someone take a look at what constitutes “family entertainment”? India Pakistan comes with a “U” certificate, and it has a gag about a prostitute, a scene where an angry cop bashes up a goon with a long, rusty pole (the clang on the soundtrack is terrifying), and a bit where a sidekick watches a recording of an encounter killing and comments that it’s like a Vijayakanth movie. I laughed like everyone else in the theatre, but a second later, I felt uneasy about how numb we’ve become to violence. The cop’s bullet enters the back of the head. We see blood spray out. The camera shifts to the victim’s face. We see the bullet hole in the middle of the forehead. And we laugh when someone says, “It’s just like a movie.” Something’s very wrong.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
neena
May 8, 2015
Depiction of violence, it appears, is okay because it is ‘reality’ whereas a tiny bit of sex would incur an A certificate; unless of course, it is to do with a prostitute or rape. Sexual reality is either weird or disturbing in our society!
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Pranesh
May 9, 2015
Question/request: Can you write a blog post about how the censor board works?
I have always wondered if they have a default state (approved) for most directors. If director A or B known to have created controversy in the past makes a movie, then take a look.
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venkatesh
May 9, 2015
Well for some reason we not only in India but everywhere else are ok with real hard violence but show a couple (of whatever gender combination) doing something that comes naturally and all hell breaks loose.
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Priyangu
May 9, 2015
There are two ways to look at our tolerance to violence. First view, society has changed. Sorry to be stirring the class cauldron again. In my view, the amount of violence ( & rape etc as neena pointed out) in a U-cert movie is relative to which class views the movie most; and which class dominates the society currently. The audience might laugh the next time when they see a drunken hero run over some people on the pavement, in a movie, with his side-kick uttering some punch dialogs making the act seem more funny! The movie, of course, would be a U-cert one.
Another view, violence is ingrained in us the moment we step into this world. The food-chain is such that one living being survives by killing/eating another living being. May be, that is why we (including censor people) laugh when we see violence on the screen. After all, the sum total of energy is constant, by physical law. For every morsel of food that we eat there is somebody else who is deprived of it. Here is an old black-comedy by Nalan Kumarasamy (Director of Soodhu Kavvum). Funny yet disturbing. If Gautam Buddha (the saint) watched it, he would probably give an A-cert to it.
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aravind
May 9, 2015
I hate the title “India Pakistan”. When are we going to consider it NOT okay to project the two countries in metaphors and contexts as warring nations and archenemies?
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Anon
May 10, 2015
Depictions of violence is okay as long as the victims are men. Groin attacks on men will bring in peels of laughter and anything remotely similar on women will prevent the movie from releasing in the theatre,
Pranesh: Can you write a blog post about how the censor board works?
It’s simple, is it a commercial movie with popular names? Give it an ‘U’.
Anything else watch and decide.
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krishna
May 15, 2015
@Neena I up-voted your comment, but that’s just not enough. I had to put it on record how so absurdly true it is!
@brangan I read your post seeking opinion about comments and discussions and this gives me the perfect opportunity to lazily weigh in. This comments set-up is way too turgid. And what the reader had suggested may not really be needed. You need something in between. (the balance, the balance 🙂 )
Suggest you check out some of the stuff out there — like Prem Panicker’s blog/site — where comments remain where they are but offer a lot of ease of use.
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