Entertainment and the Arts: Cinema: Film Review: Film Without Fire

Singh and Chaudhary: Song without situation

Bollywood grapevine on what Daag--The Fire means: the printer messed up -- it's actually "Aag -- The Fire"; it's Daag, not as in "blot" but as in the Punjabi daagna, or to take aim; the title Daag belongs to Yash Chopra, so producer-director Raj Kanwar tagged on The Fire and used it anyway.

The convoluted title, however, fits the snarled script perfectly. Despite the script, Kanwar -- who has earlier made a success of illogical tales like Judaai (remember Sridevi selling husband Anil Kapoor?) -- manages, incredibly enough, a passably interesting film. The basic plot is stolen from the 1991 Mike Nichols film, Regarding Henry, but Kanwar adds enough twists to serve up the quintessential Bollywood bhelpuri.

Chandrachur Singh is a slimy lawyer, who helps his even slimier father-in-law and his corrupt cronies in their construction business. En route to soaring mansions, slums are burnt and municipal officers bribed. One honest man refuses and ends up dead in a cell. Enter his commando son (Sanjay Dutt) spewing revenge from assorted automatic weapons. In the hail of bullets, the lawyer's wife (Mahima Chaudhary) dies and the lawyer becomes a vegetable. Doctors declare he can only be cured if his dead wife is resurrected. Enter a look-alike courtesan (Chaudhary again) who polishes up her accent, puts on some designer clothes and through her sheer dancing prowess and see-through salwar kameezes, nurses the lawyer back to life. Only, now the lawyer is a good man, aghast at his earlier evil ways and eager to make amends. After many bullets, car crashes and the age-old kidnapping-wife-and-child routine, the lawyer and commando join hands and the villains are vanquished.

Kanwar is no craftsman. Daag is crudely constructed. Many scenes, especially the lawyer's rehabilitation, are just plain silly and the songs, shot in the mandatory foreign locations, are stapled on without situations. But Kanwar does have a flair for emotions and occasionally creates some compelling melodrama. Chaudhary, last seen in a fracas with Subhash Ghai, gives a performance to make her mentor proud. Much of the fire in Daag comes from her. Dutt's finely chiselled body is put to good use but his role is confined to glowering and shooting. Singh, a bland hero, makes a surprisingly good villain.

Every Bollywood director insists that his film is hat ke (different). Daag re-jigs the formula just enough to be middling entertainment.

Glimpses of the Past
A gripping story of the Nizam's last days.

Movie: 1948--A Story of Hyderabad
Director: Lubaina Tyebji

Was the Nizam of Hyderabad cornered or did he strike a deal? To this day, Indians have no clue to why Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan, who remained the head of a separate state for 13 months after India's Independence, decided to merge with the Union in 1948. Now, for the first time, the monarch's attempt to hold on to power is portrayed in 1948 -- A Story of Hyderabad, an hour-long documentary by Lubaina Tyebji.

Tyebji, a US-trained TV reporter, captures the sunset on the Asaf Jahi rule in a gripping historical narrative through the accounts of eyewitnesses, freedom fighters and the grandchildren of the Nizam, besides archival material including footage from 16 mm family movies. What makes the Rs 4 lakh film -- Tyebji's first -- unique is the original recordings of music and prayers, press reports of violence during and after the government's police action and rare photographs.

However, the film ignores the plight of the people in villages and the circumstances leading to the revolt against the Nizam. It fails to address the crucial question: what made the Nizam change his mind? But that's not surprising. There are few witnesses alive, alert or willing to recall what happened before the Nizam finally bowed out of power.

--Amarnath K Menon