Asambhav [DVD]

The plot, short and sweet: When the President of India and his daughter are abducted in Switzerland, it falls on supersoldier Army Captain Aditya Arya (Arjun Rampal) to come to the rescue. ASAMBHAV (Impossible), released theatrically in 2004, tries its darndest to be a slick, cutting edge secret agent film but falls short. Oh, the story is mildly interesting and convoluted enough as the movie introduces various conniving factions who cross into and out of each other's paths. I was kept somewhat diverted at the schemes and betrayals of the villainous cast. And it's quite a large assortment of bad guys. Because this is an Indian spy movie, we are presented with the token terrorist group, led by a Pakistan general and the stiff-shouldered, hiss worthy Youssan Baksh. Then there's the kidnappers, led by their suave leader who does sit-ups with the requisite evil hot girl. Not to mention, a gang of drug smugglers and dealers and record producers. Then, the film writer evidently felt an added plot complication was required because, on top of all these obstacles for our hero, there's also a fiendish traitor skulking in the Indian embassy.

Arjun Rampal (DIL KA RISHTA) fits the bill as the one-dimensional action hero. With his display of unremarkable acting here, he ably channels action film cheeseheads Jean Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal. Arjun is handsome, well-muscled, and can sort of fake his way thru a martial arts showdown (although the nunchuk was overdoing it). But he's got the personality of a doorknob. Of course, we need a good looking female lead and that role falls to Priyanka Chopra, of whom I've stopped expecting great stuff in the acting department. She's beautiful, has a gorgeous body, and dances quite well. I'll settle for that. And she's actually not bad here as the singer Alisha, who stumbles into the plot in a roundabout fashion. Sadly for her, her romance with Captain Arya is given very short thrift. To me, the highlight performance of ASAMBHAV belongs to Naseeruddin Shah (KRRISH) who makes his over-the-top character of Sam Hans very fun to watch.

ASAMBHAV makes copious use of split screens, to a fault. In the end, it comes off as gimmicky. It also borrows a page from the MATRIX in several of the fight scenes, but the results end up as being laughable. And this film does something which always annoys the bejesus out of me. There were several scenes where the victims could've had a chance to get away but instead opts to stick around and be gaping onlookers, which leaves them stuck in a pickle. The climactic sequence where Arjun does combat with a terrorist is particularly vexing, as the whole time the fight was going on, the President had tons of opportunity to make a run for it. Instead, he not only stayed in place but moved even closer to the fight! Little things like that lowers my overall opinion of the movie, because it should know better. I also hate horror movies where the fleeing person trips.

Bollywood viewers seeking a more technically proficient and polished production should check out KRRISH or the DHOOM series. This one, ultimately, is a mediocre effort and merits a rating of three stars out of five. The real rescue mission here is accomplished by Naseeruddin Shah, who's got one of the more interesting and expressive faces around. Thank goodness for Sam Hans, who enlivened things. I even liked his musical number with Priyanka (where he says "Boom!" a lot).

But, listen, I want to end on a positive note. My liking for Bollywood started with my wanting to watch films with Aishwarya Rai (now Aishwarya Bachchan, dammit). Gradually, I branched out to other Bollywood stars (Abhishek, Amitabh, Lara Dutta, Priyanka, Hrithik Roshan, Ajay Devgan, Anil Kapoor, etc) and it's gotten to the point where, now, I'll watch almost anything Bollywood. Man, I am so hooked on Bollywood movies, which are bright and colorful, and tell grand love stories, and have a tendency to drop in musical numbers, sometimes simply for the hell of it. In ASAMBHAV, I think it's pretty nifty that even despicable terrorists get their turn at a musical number. No wonder Aditya so easily stormed the impregnable fortress - the bad guys were too busy getting their dance on.

This film has one of the most beautiful casts of any Hindi film I have seen. Arjun Rampal is one of the two best looking men in Hindi cinema (the other being John Abraham), and Priyanka Chopra is the most beautiful woman. The head kidnapper (played by Shahwar Ali) and his female hench-woman (Olga -- played by Anupama Varma) are also great looking, as is the Indian President's daughter, played by Dipannita Sharma. There is also a secret traitor who is quite stunning, and a number of bikini-clad girls are seen lounging around whenever there is a swimming pool present. The overall story has promise, and there are some intriguing plot twists. These qualities would seem to make for a satisfying action-adventure movie. However, as the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe famously said, "God is in the details," and the details are all bad.

The plot: The Indian President secretly flies to Switzerland with his daughter for a vacation on a secluded island in the middle of a Swiss lake. An unknown spy (or spies) in the Indian embassy in Switzerland sell this information to a band of criminals headed by Ali who is under contract to a Muslim terrorist group, Al-Hamas, to kidnap the President. During the kidnapping, the daughter is able to make a phone call, alerting the Indian authorities unbeknownst to the kidnappers. The Indian government sends in Rampal, a Captain and elite commando in the Indian army, under cover as a journalist. Meanwhile, the terrorist group must raise the money to pay Ali and his gang for the kidnapping, so they arrange to smuggle drugs into Switzerland with the aid of an expatriate Indian criminal played by Naseeruddin Shah. Shah accomplishes this by inviting a naive, beautiful singer (Priyanka Chopra) to come to Switzerland and sing in his club. The plan is to secretly smuggle the drugs in the musical instruments for her band, and if the drugs are found, she takes the fall. Seeing this as her big break, she agrees, over the strong objections of her good friend and traveling companion. Once in Switzerland, the friend finds the drugs and tells Priyanka before she is killed. Priyanka feigns total ignorance and is not suspected, although she remains thoroughly frightened. Rampal comes to her aid and together they battle to free the President and his daughter, encountering quite a few plot twists along the way.

Now for the problems. First, the fighting sequences are not very believable. Hindi cinema couldn't manage decent fight sequences and special effects until Don and Dhoom 2 in 2006. Second, some of the plot twists are unnecessarily convoluted and detract from the story. The biggest problem, however, is the overall stupidity of some of the scenes and some of the characters. To begin with, Priyanka's character is simply too silly to be taken seriously as the heroine. Her early decision to run off to Switzerland for this fabulous job offer in spite of sound advice from her friend shows her first instance of bad judgment, resulting in her friend's death. Later, she hooks up with the hero, Rampal, who arms her with guns and solicits her help, so she runs around and occasionally pulls out a gun and points it at a bad guy who promptly disarms her, leaving her helpless and in need of rescuing again and again. Why make your heroine such a bimbo? This is just stupid.

The silliest scene: Rampal, under cover as a journalist, arranges to interview the kidnapped President. He calls the hotel on the island where the President is being held captive and requests an interview. The kidnappers don't want the crime exposed, so they agree to the interview, telling the President to pretend to be on vacation or his daughter will be killed. Rampal, who wants to reconnoiter the situation and assess the President's health, is pretending that he doesn't know about the kidnapping either. Rampal decides to take Priyanka along without telling her what is going on, who they are interviewing, or anything else. She is to pretend to be part of Rampal's journalism crew even though she knows nothing about the job. Miraculously, and unbelievably, the bumbling Priyanka doesn't give the game away, but the entire premise of the scene is so silly you just want to shoot the writer.

There are one or two good songs, but overall this remains a bad film populated with beautiful people.

Other notes: This film was released one week before Priyanka's breakout romantic comedy, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi in 2004, and four months before the release of her spectacular performance in Aitraaz. It is hard to find any traces of these future performances in her silly character here. Arjun Rampal would make another bad movie with Priyanka, Yakeen, the following year. Not until Don in 2006 would they appear together in a good film, and there they shared almost no screen time with each other. Naseeruddin Shah would return and play with Priyanka in two more notable movies, Krrish in 2006 (a very popular and pretty good super-hero film where he would play the arch-villain and Priyanka would be spectacularly beautiful) and more importantly in 7 Khoon Maaf in 2011 as the sixth husband murdered by Priyanka's character. 7 Khoon Maaf is a flawed film (about two husbands too long) that features Priyanka giving perhaps the greatest acting performance by any Indian actress ever.

A note on the DVD extras. No english subtitles are available for this section on my disc, but this still made for some interesting viewing. First, you get to see the fake tattoos being painted on the the two beautiful villains, Ali and Varma. Then you get to watch the clothing being selected for the characters. Notably, Anupama Varma goes through several wardrobe changes trying to get just the right look and accessories for her evil, tough girl slut look, and she gets it just right. Also, Priyanka looks much darker-complected in some of these extra sequences than she ever does in her films. She is shown learning her choreography, diving into a swimming pool, and generally clowning around, and illustrating why she is referred to as a "dusky beauty." In many respects, watching these extras was more entertaining than watching the movie.

The cover says uncut but it is not so in reality. The print quality of the DVD is horrible. Should have purchased a VCD instead of a DVD.