'Laal Singh Chaddha' was released in theatres on Thursday. In this section, we are going to review the latest box office release.
Story:
If the film's Wiki entry says that the story is all about events in India's history unfolding through the perspective of Laal Singh Chaddha, a low-IQ achiever who has a great understanding of emotions, it is because that's how the makers might want the audience to see the story. The film, actually, doesn't give any detailed or deep glimpse of the events. It's about how Laal Singh achieves, in fact, over-achieves, everywhere. He becomes a soldier, an entrepreneur, a religious reformer in his circle, and finally a proud father.
Analysis:
'LSC' is an unabashed and unalloyed Indian adaptation of 'Forrest Gump', the 1994 American comedy-drama headlined by Tom Hanks. At the time of the film's 25th anniversary, many sections of the American media lampooned it as an overrated classic. Its supposedly problematic politics was blasted by liberals and Wokes.
One criticism struck this reviewer. Writing for Collider, Matt Goldberg observed, "Forrest Gump’s simplicity is the movie’s guiding ethos, so it can’t dwell on anything that matters unless it personally matters to Forrest. This creates an odd kind of selfishness even though Forrest is not a selfish character." This sort of story-telling doesn't suit the sensibilities of the Indian audience. Laal Singh comes off as a carbon copy of Gump. And that's the biggest undoing.
The Indian adaption is pointless for the reason that writer Atul Kulkarni doesn't attempt to build gravitas or conceive Indian-ish plot points. The randomness and novel-like features of the original have been zealously retained as if Indians are dying to watch such stories where lack of depth is passed off for feel-good dialogues, feel-good bonds, and feel-good emotions.
Gump, as a millennial wrote in a review of the film recently, behaved as though he is capable only of sadness or happiness. There is no third emotion. Laal Singh, too, comes across as no more capable.
In Hollywood movies, characters develop unreal bonding pretty fast. The same standard has been used in 'LSC', where Balaraju Bodipalem (Naga Chaitanya) bonds with the protagonist as suddenly as he dies. And Laal Singh comes out of the shock as suddenly as he moves to the next vocation.
Director Advait Chandan fails completely in Indianizing the comic flavour of Hollywood, something the Indian audience are not fond of. Their humour is bookish compared to that in our movies. Even the BGM by Tanuj Tiku follows a borrowed style. Pritam's songs, to an extent, are Indian.
Verdict:
'LSC' suffers from performances that are hardly bona fide. The borrowed nature of the film puts off the audience.
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