2004, India. Starring Arjun Rampal, Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah, Sharat Saxena, Milind Gunaji, Mohan Agashe, Mukesh Rishi, Tej Sapru, Chetan Hansraj, Tom Alter, Arif Zakaria. Directed by Rajiv Rai.

Here at Teleport City, we are not exactly what you would call experts on Bollywood. In fact, with only a few recent films, a passle of actioners from the seventies starring Amitabh Bachchan, and a couple insane Ramsay Brothers horror films from the eighties under our cinematic belts, we're still more or less neophytes lost amid the swirling colors and opulent song and dance numbers. But that doesn't mean we haven't done our theoretical research, read up on the subject, marveled at the number of academic books that have been written in English on the Indian film industry, and gasped at how few non-academic, popular entertainment books have been written about a cinema that considers popular appeal so vastly important. In short, we've done some homework, but we're not yet at the stage where we cease to be dazzled by the simple display of vibrant color, overblown spectacle, and writhing, scantily clad Bollywood beauties.

Originally, the term Bollywood referred to a very specific, albeit large, category of film, that being commercial pop movies made in Bombay (Mumbai if you're nasty) and filmed in the Hindi language. The term has lost much of it's original selectiveness, however, and is now often applied to any film from India, be it arthouse or popular, be it filmed in Hindi, Tamil, Bengalese, or what have you. In a weird way, this is almost appropriate. Though India is a vastly diverse country with equally diverse cultures reflected in regional cinema, the overarching goal of the original Bollywood films was to create sort of an "uber-India," where the various cultures and people came together and existed in a quasi-real or completely fantastic India. So it is no big surprise that the term now refers to pretty much anything that comes from the Indian sub-continent.

While we may not be seasoned veterans of the Bollywood scene the way we are with old Hong Kong films or the collected works of Bruno Mattei (my goal is to make a Bruno Mattei joke in every single thing I ever write, from this moment on), and while I myself may at least still be swayed toward enjoyment by the bright colors and pageantry of a Bollywood production, that doesn't mean I'm completely blind to a film that takes missteps. Case in point: Rajiv Rai's high-tech terrorist thriller, Asambhav. It's been said that in an effort to appeal to as massive a population as possible, the average Hindi film tries to cram every film genre into a single movie. Asambhav is the rare entry that maintains a relatively narrow thematic focus -- this is an action film, stripped of the romantic comedy and estranged mother that appear in almost every other film, be they action or horror or whatever -- but it makes up for its lack of schizophrenic genre-hopping by trying to cram every single editing and camera trick from the last ten years into one film, and often into one scene, and occasionally into a single shot. The result is a dizzying nightmare of over-direction that turns an otherwise average action film into a complete wreck that could almost amuse you if it wasn't so busy inducing seizures.

Arjun Rampal plays Aadit Arya, super-duper Army commando and part-time international spy. When evil Kashmiri Muslims hatch a scheme to kidnap the President of India while he is in Switzerland, it's up to Arya, and for some reason only Arya, to foil the dastardly scheme. You might think that the kidnapping of a country's president would inspire a slightly more forceful reaction and better security, but I guess the security here is orchestrated by the same people who arranged the security for the transport of weapons-grade plutonium in James Glickenhaus' The Soldier. And I also thought the whole evil Pakistani/Kashmiri Muslim thing was played out in Indian cinema a few years ago. Didn't Sonny Deol single-handedly defeat the entire Pakistani army and all radical Muslim terrorists groups simply by staring at them in an intense fashion with a flag waving behind him in slow motion? Years after the fact, however, Rai returns to that seemingly eternal well, though frankly, the whole Kashmiri/Pakistani thing is really little more than window dressing by this point. It doesn't feel like the movie's heart is really into it, not like it was in Border or Maa Tuj Salaam, which if I'm not mistaken, actually had evil Pakistanis twirling their moustaches and relishing the thought of blowing up Indian women and children. Now there was some jingoistic idiocy you could really get behind. Trotting out the evil Pakistanis again, especially during a ceasefire, is sort of like if John Milius had just gotten around to making Red Dawn this year. I mean, it's not like tensions have dissipated, but the timing just seems way off.

But it doesn't really matter, because this film really has nothing to do with politics. It is even less informative about Indian-Pakistani-Kashmiri conflicts than the glut of "dastardly Pakistani" films that came out in the late nineties and early part of this decade. I reckon they assume you pretty much got the gist of things at this point, so they throw the Kashmiri terrorists in as a way to get the ball rolling without having to explain motivation.

In Switzerland, Arya poses as a reporter and meets the obligatory hot female pop star, Alisha (Priyanka Chopra). Since this is a Bollywood film, we can't have just one plot. So Alisha is the unwitting drug mule for slick Switzerland-based Indian criminal Sam Hans (Naseeruddin Shah, who steals the film, though that's no big feat considering the rest of the cast), who works with her handlers to hide the drugs inside musical instruments. Having Alisha in the movie means that we now have our excuse for gratuitous musical numbers, though in all honesty, they're pretty tame by comparison to many musical numbers. Most of them are just passed off as club performances or video shoots, which is kind of weak even if it is more "realistic." None of the songs are all that catchy, and the choreography is pretty listless. In an effort to add to the realism, we frequently cut from people who do look hot and are able to dance to people who don't and can't. Seeing big hulking gangster henchmen beaming big, goofy smiles and doing that "I can't really dance" dance is pretty funny, though.

Eventually, we learn that Sam is involved with the terrorists who kidnap the president, but he's hardly in the scheme for political reasons. And since he's the coolest character in the film, you can also figure that he'll be the one with ulterior motives and depth of character that allow for the obligatory "moment of redemption." There's another subplot that unveils the fact that someone in the Indian Embassy has betrayed their country as well and is in league with the terrorists. Incidentally, the Indian Embassy in Switzerland is apparently staffed by a number of incredibly leggy bombshells in micro-skirts and cleavage-revealing tops. Let's pray they never discover the boxy, ill-fitting pantsuit.

Will Arya be able to uncover the truth of this conspiracy? Can Alisha team up with him to escape the grips of her drug-meddling, murderous captors? Will Arya be able to kungfu so many different villains?

Naseeruddin Shah seems to be channeling a bit of Gary Oldman crossed with Graham Norton's wardrobe in his portrayal of Sam Hans. He's almost flamboyant, but stops just short of scene-chewing or going needlessly over-the-top, though he does wear lots of lavender silk suits and whatnot. Whatever the case, he turns in a good performance made better by the fact that everyone else is pretty bad. The hitman in the long shiny blue trenchcoat is just silly, and he looks sort of like Benny Urquidez mixed with Christian Slater, but with none of the menace such an abomination would actually exude. Our hero Arya is pretty much a non-entity through most of the film. He shows up from time to time to kungfu the crap out of people, but Arjun Rampal really isn't much of an actor at this point in his career. He looks good, he handles action believably, but his character is thoroughly uninteresting. Villains are always the better and more complex characters, and it takes an actor of tremendous talent or a very good (for the hero) or bad (for the villain) screenwriter to make the hero more interesting than the villain. Compared to Sam Hans, Arya barely even registers. For long stretches of film, you'll forget that he's even in it.

As if often the case in an action film from any country, Priyanka Chopra has little more to do besides tag along, get captured, and look hot. She does all these things well, and also handles most of the movie's musical numbers. The one that doesn't involve her is also the only one that isn't set in a club and grounded in some daft semblance of reality. Upon successfully kidnapping the president, the vile terrorist organization retires to their lair of villainy to celebrate with a musical number that involves a very hot, very scantily clad woman singing and dancing with a whole cast of bald gay guys in short shorts, combat boots, and chain mail. It's like these terrorists pack an entire dance troupe of Right Said Fred clones with them. Maybe they should have just unleashed their nightmarish Right Said Fred army on the world. No one would be expecting some Islamic Fundamentalist to stand in front of a camera and broadcast through Al Jazeera that he's "too sexy for this Jihad!"

But then, this terrorist organization does have a martial arts hitman in a shiny blue trenchcoat, and a squad that drives around Switzerland in generic "mercenary" fatigues, including a woman in camo booty shorts and a halter top. And you thought the revolution was all chadors and guys with scraggly beards. This is by far the battiest musical number, and as such, the best. Alisha's first and third numbers are OK, but her duet with Arya (again, in a club where they have been urged to sing together) is completely lackluster. To his credit, Arya looks like he can't wait to get the musical number over with so he can go kick someone's ass.

There are a couple things this film does differently than the average Bollywood film, and even the average Bollywood action film. Most noticeable is the more or less complete absence of a romantic subplot. Oh sure Alisha and Arya are going to fall in love, but the film spends hardly any time at all on this. There's not even a musical montage of them set against the various famous landmarks of the world. No, they simply meet, and then we assume they're in love because this is a movie and they're the male and female leads. Some Bollywood films would spend a good hour on a romantic comedy subplot, but Asambhav is content to simply take the well-worn path all action films take, and just say, "Look, they fall in love, OK?" Then it's on to some kungfu.

There's also precious little comic relief. Arya gets saddled with a comic relief sidekick agent in Switzerland, but his mugging is graciously limited. I mean, it's still never funny when he does get to do his comic relief shtick, but that's the same for action films the world over, and at least this one is quick to shut the guy up.

Even with all that, the director must have thought that the real star of the film was the director, because he crams every cheap trick and technique he can into the film. It's like watching distilled essence of 24 mixed with Mission: Impossible, which seems to be this film's main inspiration, especially since "mission asambhav" translates more or less to "mission impossible." Or if that's too good for you, then Mission: Impossible 2.

For starters, this film can't go ten seconds without a split screen. Sometimes, it's five or six different frames in one shot. And it's not just in scenes where split screen might heighten the tension or give us an alternate point of view. No, much of the time, it happens when something as mundane as a guy reaching for a tissue is all that's going on. Need to pick up a pencil? Show three different angles, and make sure one of them is in slow motion with thumping techno music in the background. This movie also loves that thing where you start in slow motion, then the action speeds up to super-hyper fast motion for a second, then goes back to slow motion. Once again, this is used at the drop of a hat, often with no meaning at all. Walking down the street? Why not shoot it slow-hyper-slow? And it's not like anyone is walking to a fight or anything. They're just walking down to the mailbox to see if their new issue of India Times has arrived.

There's also the tendency to have "ghost images" of a person appear, again for no real reason. Rather than augmenting or working with the action in the movie, all these goofy tricks simply distract you. They muddy the waters. They stink of a first-time music video director getting final edit on a feature film, though Rai is not a first-time director. He's just a bad director, apparently. The one thing I will say in his defense, however, is that as far as I remember, there was not a single instance of "bullet time." And let that be a lesson to all other directors: if bullet time is too tired even for Rajid Rai, who has never seen a stupid editing trick he didn't like, then it's really past its prime. So let bullet time go, people. Let it go. Rajit Rai did, and he replaced it with doing four-thousand split screens in one shot. Or roughly around that number.

It's amazing just how crippling over-direction can be. The Bourne Supremacy was an excellent thriller made nearly unwatchable by an awful director who couldn't stop quick-editing and shaking the camera around. Asambhav would not be an especially good film even if it had a good director, but Rajid Rai's relentless over-indulgence really pulls the carpet out from under what was otherwise an unimpressive-but-enjoyable action film. At the same time, I might have been bored if this movie had been competently directed. The sheer insanity exhibited by Rai does, I must admit, turn this film into an absolute disaster, but one that is largely entertaining. I don't like to pull the "so bad it's good" card all that often, but it sort of applies here. You have an average film. It's made awful by an over-indulgent director. But then, it becomes so over-indulgent, so awful, that it comes full circle and manages to be sort of entertaining in a way. It's by no means much of a recommendation, but it's the best I can do. The fight scenes are solid but uninspired. The acting is mostly below-average. The musical numbers are largely unengaging. But you know, the whole thing is such a hideous eyesore that it kept me watching.

Plus, Sam Hans was all right. Every single time he shows up on screen, no matter how mundane his appearance, the soundtrack blares with "O Fortuna." And it can't bear to stop the song. They thought it was so cool that even when Sam talks, they keep "O Fortuna" rolling, only at a nearly inaudible level. As soon as Sam pauses, the song volume rockets back up, then back down if he speaks again.

So Asambhav really has few redeeming features (Naseeruddin Shah's hamming is the only one I can think of at the moment. Well, that and Priyanka Chopra's midriff, and that crazy-ass hard gay musical number the terrorists put on). It's a crummy action film with awful direction. It's a completely soulless, paint-by-numbers action film that could have been churned out by a computer. It's never thrilling, and the lead male and female character disappear for large swaths of film, and you don't even notice or care because they were pretty boring anyway. This movie is a total bomb, and that didn't stop me from enjoying it for the same reasons that I enjoyed Gymkata and Treasure of the Four Crowns and Pray for Death. That reason: complete, twisted sickness. Don't listen to me, because I'm going to tell you to go ahead and see Asambhav. The near universal chorus of bad reviews this movie received are right, and I am wrong. Don't do it. I told you to watch Zombie 4: After Death, and now I'm telling you to try Asambhav. Why do you even trust me any more? For God's sake, man, that's the road to madness!!!

Asambhav -- pretty much the greatest movie ever made.

Labels: Action, Bollywood, Espionage, Musicals, Netflix Diary, Stars: Priyanka Chopra, Year: 2004