He Carries The Film With Obvious Enjoyment

1) Do Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play brothers with the surname Step in their latest film? (“From the people who brought you Two Weeks Notice”?)


2) “I can’t stand to watch one more movie that looks like it was shot by a third grader who has to pee.” Film comment I can agree with, from pulp fiction writer Christa Faust.


3) One theater in Novi, owned by an Indian family, has been showing Bollywood films for a few years, and now theater chains nearby have begun to book them too, probably trying to cut into the Indian family's profits. The films get no notice in the local English-language press -- in fact the theaters didn't even include the films in their listings in the newspapers until recently -- but I like to check out the "reviews" on Yahoo movies. Singh is Kinng (yep, that's the spelling) is the current big hit:

Prolific Bollywood writer Anees Bazmee, quickly earning a reputation as a director of comedy hits (NO ENTRY), brings back WELCOME's good-looking duo of Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif in another comic action soufflé, SINGH IS KINNG. Kumar turns in a winning performance as the accident-prone but goodhearted klutz Happy Singh. His fellow Punjabi villagers, sick of his destructive mistakes, send him on a fool's errand to bring home gangster Lucky Singh (Sonu Sood), a former neighbor now giving the village a bad name as the king of the Australian underworld. Having arrived down under, Happy befriends a woman who sells roses, temporarily replaces Lucky as the crime boss, and sets up an elaborate deception designed to convince the flower-seller's daughter that her mother owns all of the hotels, clubs, and real estate that are actually Lucky's.

Kumar carries the film with obvious enjoyment. He gets able support from veteran actors Om Puri as Rangeela, a friend (and enemy) from Happy's village, and Kirron Kher as the flower lady. Location shooting in Egypt as well as Australia ensures picturesque backdrops for both song and action sequences. Bazmee certainly aims to please Western audiences--large chunks of the dialogue, and most of Mayur Puri's lyrics, are in English, and the high-speed chases and often uproarious slapstick need no translation. At the same time, he appeals to the sensibilities of Indian viewers, who may be more likely to get the full benefit of the film's Sikh jokes. The soundtrack from hitmaker Pritam (JAB WE MET, the DHOOM series) includes hip-hop and bhangra beats designed to fuel dance-floor mania worldwide. To cement the film's goofy gangsta cool, Snoop Dogg--who looks perfectly at ease with Happy Singh and the reformed Punjabi bad guys--raps over the closing credits.