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Review: ‘Atrangi Re’: Intriguing narrative keeps you hooked (Rating: ***)

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Film: ‘Atrangi Re’ (Streaming on Disney+ Hotstar); Duration: 138 minutes.

Director: Aanand L. Rai. Cast: Akshay Kumar, Dhanush, Sara Ali Khan, Seema Biswas, Ashish Verma and Dimple Hayathi.

Rating: ***

Treated like a light-hearted romance-comedy, ‘Atrangi Re’ promises a love story with a difference, and it is a familiar but not a different tale to an extent.

To enjoy the film, you need to empathise with Rinku (Sara Ali Khan), an orphan from Bihar who is forced to marry the kidnapped Dr. S. Vishwanath Iyer (Dhanush), a Tamilian from Chennai visiting her hometown.

Competing in this love story is Vishu’s girlfriend Mandakini, aka Mandy (Dimple Hayathi), who is the daughter of his dean, who is supposed to get engaged to Vishu in the next few days. And the other member in this love-quadrangle is the magician Sajjad Ali Khan (Akshay Kumar), with whom Rinku is head-over-heels.

The narrative leads you through an intriguing path. It allows you to fantasize about myriad possibilities ahead. That is what keeps you hooked. But by the end, you realise that while the concept is interesting, the narrative is frothily shallow and a bit disappointing.

The film begins on a dramatic note with Rinku frenetically running away from home, and ever thence you notice especially during the first half, every frame seems to be designed in a frenzy. Someone or the other is running across the screen. These long continuous shots are skilfully captured, and they only add drama to the scenes.

Sara Ali Khan, as the rustic and boisterous Rinku, delivers a relatable performance, but when, in a scene with Sajjad, she breaks into English, you apprehend that her character has not been chiselled, to perfection.

Similarly, Dhanush is charming all the way, there are times where your heart goes out for him, but once again, his character seems to be short-changed by the script, for there are moments when his emotional arch is cut short.

Dimple Hayathi is a competent actress but with limited screen time, her histrionics is not brought to the fore.

After a long time, Akshay Kumar looks fresh and young on-screen, and he delivers a fairly buoyant performance not overshadowing either Sara or Dhanush.

Seema Biswas as Rinku’s feisty and autocratic grandmother Dhulhayen, Ashish Verma as Vishu’s friend and colleague Madhu, and the rest of the supporting cast leave their mark on the screen.

Technically the film is astutely mounted with great production qualities. Also, the songs and the background score are loud and upbeat, and they mesh with the narrative seamlessly.

Overall, Atrangi Re speaks about the language of the heart, but with no Hindi or English subtitles to the Tamil dialogues spoken by Vishu and his ilk, the finer nuances of the words spoken are lost in guesstimation.

Bollywood

When Ajay Devgn talked about his equation with his late father: You think they are stupid

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Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn appeared on the adventure reality show ‘Into The Wild With Bear Grylls’ back in 2021. During the episode, Ajay shared that children see their parents in a different light once they grow up. He added that their perspective especially changes once they have their own children.

Ajay also opened up about his relationship with his late father, Veeru Devgan.

Bear Grylls commenced the conversation by asking Ajay, “You have lost your dad recently.”

“Yes, two years ago,” said Ajay.

“So the last two years must have been very difficult,” Bear Grylls added.

Ajay explained how a person’s understanding of their parents can change as they grow up.

“It’s tough to lose parents, because you don’t care about them till the age of 20 in your life. You think they are stupid. They don’t know anything. You know everything,” he shared.

Ajay added, “Then when you have your own children, then you understand what parents are. They want the best for you. By then, it takes a lot of time to understand this.”

When Bear Grylls asked Ajay what had happened to his father, the ‘Golmaal’ actor said that his father suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. He added that his father also suffered many physical injuries while working on stunts in his films.

“Yes, he had Alzheimer’s,” Devgn said. “He had a lot of injuries due to stunts,” Ajay told Bear Grylls.

Recalling one particular incident, he added, “Once during the shooting, he had to go across a car, and he had an injury on his head.

Ajay explained that real cars were used for stunt sequences at the time, causing some serious injuries. “Because at that time, they used real glass. Now we use toughened glass. It also hurts. But the real glass hurts a lot.”

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Naseeruddin Shah backs SRFTI students’ protest: BJP trying to frighten future filmmakers

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Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah extended his support to students of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute who are currently staging an indefinite sit-in after a violent incident on campus recently.

Naseeruddin claimed that the BJP wishes to take revenge on all who do not subscribe to its beliefs and policies, and SRFTI students are the latest targets.

On Saturday, the veteran actor dropped a video on his official handle saying, “Namaskar, adab, I’m Naseeruddin Shah. The BJP, the bloody jhooti party, after its manipulative victory in the Bengal elections, now seems all out for revenge on anyone who does not subscribe to their beliefs and their policies. The latest victims of this vendetta are the students, the aspiring filmmakers of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute. In return for their demand for accountability from the administration, they have been served show cause notices, put under surveillance, threatened and now have even been asked to vacate the hostels.”

Naseeruddin added that BJP wants not just to back and encourage the shameless propaganda in its favour, and it is now hoping either to brainwash or frighten the future filmmakers of this country.

“I can promise you that is not going to happen. These are the young people who in the future will tell us the truth about themselves and about our country and about the state we are in,” he assured.

“I urge all right-minded citizens to support the demands of the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute students,” the actor said before ending the clip.

For the unversed, SRFTI students have been staging an indefinite sit-in outside Vice-Chancellor Santosh Ajmera’s office since October 12, demanding his resignation.

Students and members of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP), an RSS-affiliated consumer awareness group, got into a clash during a programme on September 27.

On October 4, another tussle took place as a protest was organised by the members of the Bangiya Hindu Jagaran Mancha. According to reports, a few protesters attempted to force open the gate of the institute after police stopped them.

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Janhvi Kapoor admits she gained weight after Karan Johar stopped talking to her

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After Salman Khan, Vijay Deverakonda and Rashmika Mandanna, Bollywood actors Janhvi Kapoor and Varun Dhawan will be seen as guests on the third episode of the popular chat show, ‘Koffee with Karan’.

As the makers unveiled the teaser of the forthcoming episode on Saturday, Varun and Janhvi revealed that filmmaker Karan Johar had stopped speaking to them both. The ‘Mili’ actress added that she even ended up gaining weight when the director was not talking to her.

During the teaser, Karan shared the reason of his silent treatment, saying “I was hurt with both of you.”

Janhvi pitched in with, “I gained weight when we stopped talking.”

Accusing KJo of being too dramatic, Varun added, “Karan, you said very dramatic shit. You became Bachchan from K3G: ‘Mein bada hoon, haq hai mera.'”

While it is not clear why the filmmaker stopped talking to both Varun and Janhvi, it seems like all is well between them now.

As a fun twist to the episode, actor Arjun Kapoor joined Varun and Janhvi for the rapid fire round on the show.

As Karan asked Varun, who will he like to take career advice and marriage advice from, he immediately took Arjun’s name.

Additionally, as Janhvi was asked to name one Instagram account that is ‘giving’ all the time, she replied, Ravi Kishan. After that, she also went on to imitate his viral punchline: ‘Money follows my brother!’. Arjun also accompanied his sister.

Sharing the teaser of the next episode of ‘Koffee With Karan’ on his Instagram handle, Karan wrote the caption, “@varundvn & @janhvikapoor on my couch…need I say more? This one was all madness and love + a very special (longstanding) guest. Koffee with Karan Season 9, Episode 3, streaming Wednesday at 7pm, only on The Peacock Hub on JioHotstar.”

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