Knock Out...whom?

There are two kinds of producers in Bollywood. One, the likes of KJo who remake Hollywood movies & insert hit Hollywood tunes into their movies, but do it with dignity by purchasing rights. Then there are the rest, who simply rip off the concept and/or story and hope to strike it rich back home.

Sanjay Dutt starring Knock Out falls into the latter category, I presume. Borrowed right off Colin Farrel's Phone Booth, Knock Out flatters to deceive not in parts, but almost in full. Phone Booth's concept is Indianized, but the execution falls awfully short of class, glamour & substance.

Irfan Khan plays Bachchu Khan. An investment banker by day, he is also the politician's middleman, by day. His "do number ka dhandha" is to pick & drop money from here to there & earn commission to lead a lavish life. One fine morning he steps into a telephone booth to get instructions on his daily delivery routine. He's about to step out when the phone rings, he picks & is trapped there for the rest of the movie.

It's Sanjay Dutt, an unknown stranger to Bachchu. Thus begins the cat & mouse game. Bachchu is hard pressed to recall why the stranger is black mailing him. He tries to wiggle out his way by offering "dus pethi" (aka Rs. 10 lakhs) to the stranger. Angry old Dutt screams his head off fuming that the sniper rifle he's pointed at Bachchu's head (of course from afar, through the Windows of an adjoining sky scraper) costs 15 pethi. The stranger also knows all about Bachchu's lavishness; that his Rolex was bought at Piccadilly Circus in London (an all cash deal); that his shiny shoe was bought at a Dubai mall; that in spite of being faithfully married (faithful part is for his wife) Bachchu is two-timing and in this manner whatever Bachchu knows about himself the stranger knows them too.

To wiggle out his way, the money factor now increases to fifty pethi, but the stranger still refuses. The stranger also knows that Bachchu now has some several pethi's in the briefcase that he's carrying & that he got this from the Child Welfare Department's (CWD) secretary. Bachchu's bulb lights up & he knows that he is talking to CWD's chief Col. Gill. Fraught with fear & new found respect for the army men, Bachchu tries to wiggle out by singing "Yeh desh hai veer jawaon ka", by praising the Colonel's achievements in Indo-PaK, Indo-China & Kargil wars which the colonel has never fought. None of it works and the laser from the 15 pethi sniper is still trained on his head inside the phone booth.

Col. Gill channels his anger on Bachchu on how he has aided CWD goons & politicians & how they were involved in child trafficking. Bachchu is also made to realize that some long time ago when he had a jolly good time with some lass, it destroyed her life & drove her to suicide. By this time, the media, the police and the public are all around the perimeter of the booth. Its confession time. The colonel asks Bachchu to talk to a reporter, played by Kangana Ranaut in a teeny-weeny one-and-half bit role. But before the confession we ought to have some entertainment & Bachchu dances to the tune of "zara zara touch me touch me". Irfan does this jig so entertainingly that its hard to not break out into a laughter. 

Humiliation complete & confession over, we now have a man with new found respect for all the womenfolk. But Col.Gill's, who is actually not Col. Gill, job ain't over it. We learn that Bachchu is the sidekick of a politician (played by Gulshan Grover) & he has the secret 19 digit code to the politico's Swiss Bank account which is guarding a whooping Rs.32000 crore. Dutt talks to this newly righteous man, trying to convince him to bring back all that money back to India. Between all this we have some more masala thrown in. A good cop handling the case is transferred & killed instantly. A corrupt trigger-happy cop takes over the case. Nancy Drew inspired Kangana tries to involve in hunt on finding who's holding Bachchu to ransom, squabbling politicians who now fear losing their money & an attempt to kill Bachchu in broad daylight in full view of the audience. Phew! so much action for so nothingness of a plot!!!

What could have been a pot boiler, turns into the oft repeated Nationalism & Patriotic jingoism. New leaf turned Bachchu transfers all the 32K crore money into Indian Treasury's bank account. We are also shown a progress bar of the money transfer being done. That was enough for me to smack my forehead, once again but for the last time. The end titles urge use to knock out such corrupt politicians & I chose to knock out this movie from my mind as well.

Somewhere in the plot, Bachchu asks Dutt, who is he working with. Dutt responds "Mein insaanon pe bharosa nahin karta, mere liye technology hi kaafi hai". Someone should have told Mani Shankar, the captain of this titanic, that "plot churaane se kaafi nahin hai, story ko develop bhi karna padta hai".

Blue, gave me blues

The trailers of the movie was inviting to take a dip in its suave cool blue Bahamas waters, savour its story, locales, action; the music is funky, full of beats and smacked of signature AR.Rahman tunes. And add Kylie Minogue to the charm and the producers ensured that I took the fatal bait. I watched the trailer on the idiot box many a times and wanted a dekho at this newest Rs. 80 crore bollywood flick.


The movie opens with the sequence of a shipwreck in 1947 followed by Kabir Bedi's grim face. We get back to the present times where Akshay Kumar (Aarav) & Sanday Dutt (Sagar aka Sethji) chit chatting on their boat about the last night's party where Akshay got to ride two chicks back home. They are fishing for their livelyhood when Aarav's cap gets blown in by the breeze into the blue. It being his favourite cap, Sagar tries to retrieve it and out of the blue swims up a shark bearing its jaws. Net mein hole to jeb mein hole is the mantra and both of them dive in. Aarav tames the shark & drives it away and you are ensured that the movie isnt short of style.


Aarav is the rich businessman who employs the faithful Sagar, who knows the ocean like the back of his hand. They are friendly, but fight a bitter boxing match; they are the employer-employee but share a friendly rapport and all their conversations are steered by Aarav to the Lady in Blue. This is enough to make Sagar's blood boil enough to make a cuppa tea! 


Cut to some glam quotient, and muse if Lara 'Mona' Dutta whose dream is to save the marine life and setup some kinda marine museum in Bahamas. Phew! whatta dream mate, the muse wants to save while the guy is catching fish!!!


Cut once more to east Asia, Bangkok. We get a glimpse of Sagar's chhota bhai Zayed 'Sam/Sameer' Khan who we immediately know is a brat and will get into trouble and its because of him bada bhai has to do the unthinkable. Meanwhile Kat Kaif is added for some more glam quotient. Whatever her role length is, she definitely sizzles. Action follows, Sam races Rahul 'Gulshan'Dev, wins, agrees to do a sleazy job for him, zooms again on his bike, cops chase & the streets of Bangkok see a truck overturn and balls of fire. Yup, Sam doesnt finish the job & enters Bahamas to be under the protective care of bada bhai.


Aarav, Sagar, Mona & Sam have some fun in the islands. In a happening night club, we see a stunningly beautiful Kylie singing & gyrating to chiggy-wiggy. More fun follows to the theme song of Blue. The song is very well shot with cool underwater cam scenes, corals, colourful fishes, hitchhiking a ride on a tortoises's back and adds oodles of panache & style to the movie. But does it add any to the story, hmmmfff!!!


One more bike chase follows which is rather stupid. Who has ever heard of bikes landing on the roof of a moving train, then jumping off in front of the monstrous engine, out running the train and then moving to safety! Its clear by now Sam is in trouble and the troika of boyz need to help Sam & themselves. Needless to say, we know what the second half has in store.


The first half has as much story to tell as the length of Lars's bikini.  Something that could have been said within 10 minutes is stretched to an hour. Though, there is no dearth of style the story falls flat. Second half is equally rubbish. The underwater stunts could have been done much better. The much touted scene where Akshay had to swim underwater while there is an explosion above, appears hardly for a second or two. India's officially first underwater movie managed to pour gallons of cold water over my  expectations of the movie.


Like numerous Akshay's movies, this one too has a very weak story line. Logic has no role to play at all. Imagine calling the coast guard for a may-day help in Bahamas. The climax of the movie is as stupid as in 8x10 Tasveer. First time directory Lawrence D'Souza needs to do his homework. 


The only good thing about the movie is the music and good underwater cinematography. Apparently the makers roped in the same cinematographer as of Pirates of the Caribbean fame and thankfully they got it right. Chiggy-Wiggy, Blue & Fiqurana are foot taping songs.


Lara Dutta is in purely for the glam factor. Sanjay Dutt looks ingloriously unfit. His bulging muscles have moved from his arms down to his stomach. Akshay bares his fit body & his son Aarav's tattoo on his neck. Zayed is just about ok, as ok as he was in Dus or Main Hoon Na. A highly disappointing flick worth giving a complete miss. I would rate it only 2/5, not that my opinion really matters to the Rs.50 crore that the movie has already collected!!!