Holly Inspirations

This is not a movie review.

The lists of Bollywood remakes of Hollywood movies are endless. Sometimes they are directly lifted from a Hollywood hit. Other times it gets its inspiration from another Hollywood movie (which means the plot is partially picked-up). But have you ever seen any Hollywood movie which is picked up from Indian movies? Well, here is one.

The release of the film “Wanted” created a lot of excitement among my friends. Some die-hard Jolie fans (mostly guys) would not let go any movie of hers. I hate any Angelina Jolie film. Or to say Aishwarya Rai films. They both look so abnormally beautiful. I guess Jolie looked much like a normal human being in “A Mighty Heart”. Keeping aside Ms Jolie, I became a fan of McAvoy’s eyes (after seeing “Atonement”) and loved his cute Irish accent in the film “Becoming Jane”.

I should admit that with a star cast of James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman the film “Wanted” looked promising. The trailer was also sizzling enough to drag us to Odeon. With mixed love-hate feelings in my heart, I gave into my friend’s desire and gave up a Friday evening for Wanted. The film started with a scene where a man leapt from one building to the terrace of Metropolitan Building which was approximately 1000 metres apart. I solaced myself that the producer/director might have read the epic “Ramayana” and is a fan of Hanuman. The movie carried on and Newton carried on turning in his grave.

Most of the action scenes are a direct pick up or (more appropriately) inspired by our Bollywood and Tamil movies. I have heard a story of a Mithun Chakraborty film here, where he was shot by a villain with a gun. The bullet passed Mithun Da’s ears and took away the life-threatening tumour away. Likewise, in the film Wanted, McAvoy’s wounds heal overnight in a wax-bed.

I specially liked the scene where Jolie and Freeman are training McAvoy to be an assassin and avenge his father’s death. They not only teach how to hold the gun, pull the trigger, and shoot the bullet, but also teach how to “bend it like Rajnikanth”. So, McAvoy targets the victim from the roof-top of a running train and the bullet bends in mid-air and shoots the target in pin-point precision. Wowww. By the time the film ended, I had forgotten I ever attended any Physics class. I was apprehending what Dr. Barin Kumar Dey would say about the film. Sure missed him a lot.

So, three cheers for our Indian superstars who are inspiring Hollywood movies. I am waiting for few more Hollywood remakes to come. Till then, let’s enjoy an SRK movie. Ta-Da!