The Name's Bond. Vijay Bond.
Today's review: Fakira.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to get when I sat down to watch Fakira, a Bollywood movie. It sounded like an action drama or a melodrama to me, though presumably it would still have the musical numbers the genre is known for. Well, I got the musical numbers, but the genre (and execution of said genre) was a bit of a surprise.
After a fourteen minute prologue where we see a boy named Vijay lose his family and swear revenge on the thugs that did it, we cut to the then present year of 1976, where Vijay (Shashi Kapoor) now calling himself Fakira, is robbing from the criminal organization plaguing his hometown. We get the impression that he’s acting as a Robin Hood type, since he returns most of the money he stole from his opening heist to the police, though his good guy status is pretty much a case of tell don’t show. At any rate, both crime boss Chiman Lal (Madan Puri) and the police want to stop Fakira, and they go about it in similar yet different ways. Lal hires a mercenary named Toofan (Danny Denzongpa), while the police chief sends in his own daughter Neeta (Shabana Azmi), who’s also a policewoman, to go undercover and spy on Fakira and his gang until the police are ready to take him down. As you can probably guess, Fakira and Neeta eventually develop feelings for each other, and there are some other plot beats you’ll most likely predict. What’s slightly less apparent, both from this summary and in the initial going of the movie itself, is that this is apparently the Bollywood take on James Bond movies.
The movie really does hit a whole bunch of the classic Bond tropes. There’s the elaborate lairs (though somewhat surprisingly, Fakira and his gang have one too), complicated and slightly ridiculous death traps, a few gadgets (including a car with a surprise), car chases, and various fight scenes. Furthermore, the movie has an incredibly 60’s aesthetic, most notably in Fakira’s lair. Since Bond’s heyday was in the 60’s, that just strengthens the connection. Yet, it’s got a lot of comedic bits (including cartoony sound effects) that you probably wouldn’t see in most Bond movies, so it’s harder to suspend your disbelief in those moments when the movie is trying to be serious (which admittedly is sporadic). And that’s before we get into the musical numbers…
Said musical numbers are mostly either blah or baffling. Bollywood musical numbers continue to go against my expectations for them*, so instead of elaborately choreographed song and dance routines, we wind up with songs that go on for several minutes that generally contribute nothing to either plot advancement or sheer spectacle. Yes, Fakira and Neeta have three musical numbers that are supposed to indicate that they love each other, but for some weird reason two of them wind up taking place outdoors, even though they started out in Fakira’s lair for the first one and there’s no indication that this is supposed to be a dream sequence. There’s also a routine at a dance club that winds up being bizarre, both because it randomly uses slow-motion, and because there are moments where the dancers appear to teleport around the dancefloor to the beat of the song. And it doesn’t appear to be a smoke and mirrors trick in-universe, so it really stretches credibility, though it’s right at home with everything else if you embrace the ridiculous factor. That all being said, I do like a late musical number where both the police and Fakira’s gang are in disguise as musicians at Lal’s birthday party (Fakira’s there to rob Lal, the police are there to catch him), and the two groups get into a sing-off where they make veiled references to what they’re planning on doing. It’s catchy, it’s plot relevant, and it’s fun, and is clearly the musical highlight of the movie. The fact that it contributes to the increasingly campy air of the movie is all to the better.
Some other little things worth mentioning. Early on, we discover that Fakira’s hideout has lights that are activated by clapping. You’d think this would be utilized more, but other than a slapfight between Neeta and the female member of Fakira’s gang (Aruna Irani), it doesn’t come into play, which feels like a missed opportunity. One big dramatic moment revolves around Fakira smearing vermillion paint or powder on Neeta’s head, which I gather from context clues is/was a big deal in India but seems odd from my American perspective. This isn’t the fault of the movie per se, but it does contribute to the quirkiness for me, which it might not for audiences more familiar with Bollywood. Then there's a moment where, after at least two scenes where Fakira has successfully evaded Lal and the police, Lal gives Toofan a way to try to find the rogue-apparently Fakira has a habit of snapping his cigarettes in half before smoking them. First, how did they figure that out; second, unless that’s a more common way of smoking a cigarette than I thought, I would think that would have allowed someone to catch him long before Toofan got involved; and three, you’d think Fakira might have at least made an attempt to change that particular quirk of his, given his line of work. Not that it matters, because it never comes up again after the first encounter between Fakira and Toofan. Though it is somewhat indicative of the random, haphazard nature of some of the elements of this movie, so I guess it fits in that respect.
While there are times the movie feels a bit overlong (predominately the prologue and the romantic songs), I think I’d overall recommend this movie. Granted, you can’t take the movie seriously at all, but if you’re in the right mindset and are willing to keep an open mind, there are plenty of enjoyable moments. So give it a try sometime and enjoy an old genre with a new coat of paint, albeit in a shade most of us aren’t familiar with.
*Which probably means it’s high time I throw out said expectations. Though now I wonder how I wound up with those expectations in the first place.
CAT ALERT, sort of: Chiman Lal has a huge, what I presume to be taxidermied tiger in his home, probably to add a sense of power or menace. It doesn’t ever become plot relevant, but it’s prominent enough that I thought it was worth mentioning.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to get when I sat down to watch Fakira, a Bollywood movie. It sounded like an action drama or a melodrama to me, though presumably it would still have the musical numbers the genre is known for. Well, I got the musical numbers, but the genre (and execution of said genre) was a bit of a surprise.
After a fourteen minute prologue where we see a boy named Vijay lose his family and swear revenge on the thugs that did it, we cut to the then present year of 1976, where Vijay (Shashi Kapoor) now calling himself Fakira, is robbing from the criminal organization plaguing his hometown. We get the impression that he’s acting as a Robin Hood type, since he returns most of the money he stole from his opening heist to the police, though his good guy status is pretty much a case of tell don’t show. At any rate, both crime boss Chiman Lal (Madan Puri) and the police want to stop Fakira, and they go about it in similar yet different ways. Lal hires a mercenary named Toofan (Danny Denzongpa), while the police chief sends in his own daughter Neeta (Shabana Azmi), who’s also a policewoman, to go undercover and spy on Fakira and his gang until the police are ready to take him down. As you can probably guess, Fakira and Neeta eventually develop feelings for each other, and there are some other plot beats you’ll most likely predict. What’s slightly less apparent, both from this summary and in the initial going of the movie itself, is that this is apparently the Bollywood take on James Bond movies.
The movie really does hit a whole bunch of the classic Bond tropes. There’s the elaborate lairs (though somewhat surprisingly, Fakira and his gang have one too), complicated and slightly ridiculous death traps, a few gadgets (including a car with a surprise), car chases, and various fight scenes. Furthermore, the movie has an incredibly 60’s aesthetic, most notably in Fakira’s lair. Since Bond’s heyday was in the 60’s, that just strengthens the connection. Yet, it’s got a lot of comedic bits (including cartoony sound effects) that you probably wouldn’t see in most Bond movies, so it’s harder to suspend your disbelief in those moments when the movie is trying to be serious (which admittedly is sporadic). And that’s before we get into the musical numbers…
Said musical numbers are mostly either blah or baffling. Bollywood musical numbers continue to go against my expectations for them*, so instead of elaborately choreographed song and dance routines, we wind up with songs that go on for several minutes that generally contribute nothing to either plot advancement or sheer spectacle. Yes, Fakira and Neeta have three musical numbers that are supposed to indicate that they love each other, but for some weird reason two of them wind up taking place outdoors, even though they started out in Fakira’s lair for the first one and there’s no indication that this is supposed to be a dream sequence. There’s also a routine at a dance club that winds up being bizarre, both because it randomly uses slow-motion, and because there are moments where the dancers appear to teleport around the dancefloor to the beat of the song. And it doesn’t appear to be a smoke and mirrors trick in-universe, so it really stretches credibility, though it’s right at home with everything else if you embrace the ridiculous factor. That all being said, I do like a late musical number where both the police and Fakira’s gang are in disguise as musicians at Lal’s birthday party (Fakira’s there to rob Lal, the police are there to catch him), and the two groups get into a sing-off where they make veiled references to what they’re planning on doing. It’s catchy, it’s plot relevant, and it’s fun, and is clearly the musical highlight of the movie. The fact that it contributes to the increasingly campy air of the movie is all to the better.
Some other little things worth mentioning. Early on, we discover that Fakira’s hideout has lights that are activated by clapping. You’d think this would be utilized more, but other than a slapfight between Neeta and the female member of Fakira’s gang (Aruna Irani), it doesn’t come into play, which feels like a missed opportunity. One big dramatic moment revolves around Fakira smearing vermillion paint or powder on Neeta’s head, which I gather from context clues is/was a big deal in India but seems odd from my American perspective. This isn’t the fault of the movie per se, but it does contribute to the quirkiness for me, which it might not for audiences more familiar with Bollywood. Then there's a moment where, after at least two scenes where Fakira has successfully evaded Lal and the police, Lal gives Toofan a way to try to find the rogue-apparently Fakira has a habit of snapping his cigarettes in half before smoking them. First, how did they figure that out; second, unless that’s a more common way of smoking a cigarette than I thought, I would think that would have allowed someone to catch him long before Toofan got involved; and three, you’d think Fakira might have at least made an attempt to change that particular quirk of his, given his line of work. Not that it matters, because it never comes up again after the first encounter between Fakira and Toofan. Though it is somewhat indicative of the random, haphazard nature of some of the elements of this movie, so I guess it fits in that respect.
While there are times the movie feels a bit overlong (predominately the prologue and the romantic songs), I think I’d overall recommend this movie. Granted, you can’t take the movie seriously at all, but if you’re in the right mindset and are willing to keep an open mind, there are plenty of enjoyable moments. So give it a try sometime and enjoy an old genre with a new coat of paint, albeit in a shade most of us aren’t familiar with.
*Which probably means it’s high time I throw out said expectations. Though now I wonder how I wound up with those expectations in the first place.
CAT ALERT, sort of: Chiman Lal has a huge, what I presume to be taxidermied tiger in his home, probably to add a sense of power or menace. It doesn’t ever become plot relevant, but it’s prominent enough that I thought it was worth mentioning.