One of the reasons why I cut down on my film viewing drastically in the last couple of years was to do with the alarming consistency with which new films managed to bore me. I didn’t know (and still don’t) whether it was a function of me growing older, or of more bad films being made. Either way, when I decided that I’d go back to the old ways of movie viewing in 2010, I knew it won’t be an easy ride. And it certainly hasn’t been so far, with Chance Pe Dance giving way to Veer.
I didn’t find Veer boring. And that’s probably because I found it unintentionally funny. Veer also taught me a few things that will come in handy if I were to ever consider making a film:
1. If you are Salman Khan, you can come drunk to the shoot and read your lines to the camera, to the extent you inebriated state allows you. The editor can then use long shots or reactions on parts where you slurred too much.
2. Dialouges like “Jahan se pakadta hoon, paanch ser gosht nikal deta hoon” will not work even if they are said 15 times. Hence, it is important that they are acted out (after being said 15 times, mind you), with the hero pulling out someone’s spleen and saying in his parting shot: “Tol lena, paanch ser hi hoga.”
3. Bad Bollywood screenwriters think alike. So within a year, we have two evil characters will a metal hand. In Himesh’s Karzzzz, Sir Juda’s silver hand was also his communicator. In Veer, Jackie Shroff’s golden hand has gold rings and bracelets. At one point, our hero pulls it out of its slot with vengeance, in full public view, only for someone to later comment: “He (Jackie) is such a sport. His had came out by accident and yet he didn’t say anything.”
4. If you break up with your girl in real life, you can get her look-alike to romance you on screen. Since there is only one Katrina Kaif, you can settle for a chubbier version. And then to make the chubbiness seem less obvious, cover her up with gloves, socks and as many pieces of clothing as you can possibly find.
5. All Britishers actually know random Hindi words. It allows them to use “paseena” in the middle of a long diatribe against Indians, spoken otherwise in English. And the word “paseena” is then the perfect cue for our hero, who till now was speaking in his uniquely accented English, to break into heavy duty archaic Hindi. Every word of which the paseena-man obviously understands.
6. If you have a “big twist” moment in your film, you can drive the message home by freezing frames when the big twist is revealed. But the freeze frames have to be dramatic as well. So they should include things like a man in mid-air over a bonfire, and an item girl in the middle of a suggestive pose.
7. You can kill your hero in the climax, and yet have a happy ending to the film by showing him being reborn as his own son. This way, your star officially gets a double role, and your heroine can appear in white hair and glasses, and claim she also played a mother in her debut film.
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