The Krypt won’t lie to you, he indeed had over sped, but cut him some slack, he had just had his first re-date with his ex-flame Tuna Fishface (and it was beautiful. Sigh.) so, naturally, he was really excited. And, errm, as one of Hell’s efficient cops, Sir Prisinglee Flattummy, found out, slightly drunk. Gah.
‘Could you get off the car, sir, ’ he asked.‘Nope. Nooo, nope, ’ The Krypt offered, drunk and politely refusing.
Flattummy blinked for a second, before he continued, ‘Listen, sir, you’re making it tougher for both of us. You’d best get off the car.’ ‘Ha! You’re hic wrong, offisher. The Krypt’sh best at something elshe. Ask Tuna. stares and smiles at the backseat of the car Tunaaa...’
It was dark when he woke up. VERY dark. What room was this? He saw the grilled door and he realized. The hand of Hell’s law is very merciless when it twists your ear. Sigh. That’s when one of the cops came in at the door.
‘Kryptus Morceillanus? The Enforcer wants to see you.’
Now, The Krypt’d never been to jail before, so he didn’t know what an Enforcer did, but the name sounded at least half as scary as Govinda’s clothes, so he had reason to be nervous. He wouldn’t budge. Ten cops had to lift him and drop him in the Enforcer’s office. It was more of a dungeon. With a giant screen T.V and a home theater setup.
‘Mr. Morceillanus, please take your seat, ’ he said pointing at a chair right in front of the screen. ‘We’re going to try, on you, a new method of correcting criminals, called Kubrick’s Ludovico Technique. We don’t need to attach pins to keep your eyes open as you, errm, have no eyes, so we’re at an advantage here. Watch. We’re pretty sure you wouldn’t want to commit a crime again. Guards, strap him on!’
Suddenly, The Krypt’s handbones were strapped onto the chair, the lights dimmed and the opening credits were brought on…
That Priyadarshan has made as many original movies as The Krypt has white teeth is a known fact. So, it came as no surprise to anyone when he announced that he was going to be remaking ‘Kadha Parayumbol’, a much-loved and respected Malayalam film. Now, Priyadarshan had only recently managed to make a truly moving film called ‘Kanchivaram’ and finally proved he can use his own brains if he wants to, so it was with a sad sigh that The Krypt received the news. However, he wanted to see if the Xerox machine would not just remake it but make it his own. The Krypt had his doubts about that, though.
Ah, and he wasn’t wrong. :)
Now, you all know that ‘Billu’ is a play on the Krishna-Sudama legend. So, we have the title character who’s a barber in a village called Budbuda. Now, Billu is poor guy. And The Krypt’s not talking of him being poor from just the monetary perspective. Poor Billu is surrounded by, just like the name of the village itself, incredibly moronic villagers who HAVE to be loud and garish. Yeah, well, how else would you evoke laughter from the audience, right? On a parallel plane, we have Sahir Khan who hams more off-screen than on it. Sigh. So, anyway, one fine day this actor guy comes to the village and… ah well, you know the story, screw it.
Irfan Khan, thankfully, hasn’t gotten a raw deal. Priyadarshan lets him keep his acting style intact, resulting in extracting the ONLY subtle performance in the film. Lara Dutta as a low back blouse sporting villager was hot (though, under Kubrick’s Ludovico Technique, The Krypt’s mental state was too damaged to even notice that), but entirely unconvincing. Shahrukh Khan has almost the same role he had in the second half of Om Shanti Om and he revels in a role that, in Priyadarshan’s version only, mind, actually REQUIRES him to ham to the best of his ability. Ah well, he would have done it anyway, so… The final scene, which was beautifully picturised in the Malayalam version and had an amazingly controlled show of emotions by Mammooty, is plain pathetic here. Shahrukh Khans lips start trembling in his trademark way within not even a minute of reminiscence. Even for the carefree Sahir Khan character he portrayed, that’s plain bull, let alone speaking realistically of a man speaking of a friend lost DECADES ago. Gah. The Krypt remembers, that was the one scene The Enforcer was eagerly waiting for so as to see The Krypt cringe and struggle hard. That sadistic man! Now, we get to the ‘director’ himself – Priyadarshan. ‘Billu’ has, probably, his worst directed sequence in the form of the riot that ensues at the set. Right from the haphazard way it was handled, to the frames and images he chose to show, everything kept whispering to The Krypt, ‘Kanchivaram was one-off...Kanchivaram was one-off…’ Also, the lengths to which Priyadarshan has commercialized the story is unpardonable – the loud acting, the 3 ‘item’ songs, Lara Dutta’s lack of clothes and the extremely-melodramatic-even-by-the-story’s-standards climax. Wow.
‘Billu’ is one of those films the Hindi film industry frequently churns out that ought to be illegally downloaded, sent to every contact in the downloader’s list and then, without being seen, deleted.
=-=-=
The Krypt is, now, a teetotaler. Stanley Kubrick’s Ludovico technique is not recommended.
