November 25, 2006

Taxi 9211 - you know you could always give in, don´t you?

Stubbornness is not foreign to me. Nor the human habbit to blame anybody but oneself for all bad things happening. But Jai Mittal and Raghav Shastri take the cake here. In the Ramesh Sippy produced remake of Changing Lanes (which I have not seen) these two butt their heads until only the ruins of their lives remain.









But as always, why not start at the beginning (Especially if the narrator is mera FPMEMA Sanjay).
Jai Mittal (John Abraham) has lost his father and at the reading of his will finds out that all assets go to a partner of his dad. A heavy blow to a spoilt rich-kid playboy who kabhi nahin has done one minute of work in his live. You know, appearances have to be kept and the high maintance girlfriend and a bunch of freeloader friends are hard to keep satisfied if the money well is dry all of a sudden. So he challenges the will in court and on the day the story plays he has to produce another will to the judge or all is lost.









Raghav Shivastra (Nana Patekar) married to beautiful and sweet Sonali Kulkarni, is not very happy driving a taxi in Mumbai but that is what he does as the latest of the 25 jobs he had so far. Being a not too nice person who always offends his superiors and customers this latest job, one he did not even tell his wife of, is also in jeopardy.









So one day destiny puts those two losers together in a cab. Due to Jai´s nagging Raghav causes an accident. That a) makes him end up in a cell at the local police station and b) leads to Jai losing the key to the vault with his fathers will. And the war starts. Problem hai ki Raghav finds that key and keeps it, because Jai has run from the accident and left Raghav to bear the brunt for it.









And, oh my, here the male stubborness sets in. Neither of the two wants to take responsiblity for their actions and so instead of fighting to get their lives in order, they prefer to fight each other. And with every round they get themself deeper and deeper into trouble.









The interesting part in the narration is that the viewer or at least me, feels and to a big part sympathizes with those two characters.

Other things I liked about Taxi Nau Do Gyarah:
A perfectly cast John Abraham. Nana is fantastic (but what else is new). The flow of the story. The cinematography (again some great views of Mumbai in a R.S. production). The music. Especially Aazmale. The cameo. And the cross referencing to Bluffmaster (which is something I like veeery much because it reminded me that it has been at least two months that I have last watched it. A fact that will be changed immediately)

9 comments:

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

Somehow I have never heard anything about this movie at all, other than that it was good. Thanks for filling me in! I have yet to see John Abraham do anything interesting, so maybe this will do the trick.

babasko said...

This is my favourite John Abraham performance to date. Plus I think he has some really yummi moments here ;-)

But you´re right. Its sort of a sleeper film. A lot people have heard about it, mostly good stuff and still very few watched it. Could be that the "changing lanes/ben affleck" line might keep people from watching it. But i really can recommend it.

Anonymous said...

Hey, being kinda new to your blog, can you tell me what does FPMEMA mean??

Another thing, not to nitpick, but i noticed that in your introductory profile and also at several other times in this post, you use the word "loose" whereas you actually mean "lose".

With respect to the movie, I have seen changing lanes and i agree. Unlike other "remakes" which are blatant rip offs, this movie was actually well made.

"loose" as not rigidly fastened or securely attached versus "lose" as in to suffer some loss. e.g this shirt is too loose vs Salman Khan is a loser. ;-)

babasko said...

Hello Mumbaikar,

thanks for the loose/lose heads up. See, that´s exactly what my problem is :D

The FPMEMA/FPMBF is an insider thing between Beth, t-hype, me and some other blogger friends.

It all started with FPMBF which stands for F-ake P-retend M-ovie B-oy F-riend. But since I am (very happily) married Sanjay clearly has to be my F-ake P-retend M-ovie E-xtra M-arital A-ffair. But don´t be scandalized by the term...it´s all in good fun. Like Beth once said, if we would ever happen to accidently meet our "boys" we´ll most probably giggle like teenage schoolgirls and would need to fight the urge to faint LOL

Aparna said...

I liked the movie. Usually I like mostly masala movies, but this was unconventional, and I still liked it. Was it becasue of John Abraham? Or maybe because I like long dialogues and continuous conversations...whatever...not sure :)

Maja said...

Ha. Why did I think that Taxi 9211 was some kinda silly comedy movie that I should avoidyaar?? I'll do my best to find it now, it sounds good (though I haven't seen or even heard of Changing Lanes before), thanks for this review!

DJ said...

my favourite part of this film is when Sameera's character (who has already broken up with John) and her mother find out that he's found the will. "Shit!". haha

I gotta agree, it is a nice movie. while watching this one you gotta be ready to get pissed off cause those two are REALLY stubborn.

babasko said...

Its funny how this movie projects a totally different image to what it actually is. I only got it because I, as I mentioned once or twice, loved Bluffmaster, and Taxi was made by the same company/people and had Nana in it. Glad I did :D

and DJ, I love that scene too. Love the SMS: "see you in my next live" :D

Anonymous said...

This movie rocked.
I really liked the scene that DJ and you mentioned. And I really like Aazmale, both in audio and in video. It was an interesting (and different?) type of comedy.