Shattering Myths ... about Realism

Yuri Gagarin said "I could have gone on flying through space forever." Jaggu Chan, our beloved disciple of Prabhuji Mithun Chakraborty who has done much to propagate the 'faith' first in the East and nowadays even in the West has made this something of a motto for his entire career. Inside sources in the Hong Kong mafia claim that it was Jaggu's childhood ambition to soar the high skies and whistle at air hostesses, but unfortunately, he could not meet the height requirement of pilot school.

The Myth features him in his most mature role to date - an urbane archaeologist with a dashing bachelor pad complete with a moving roof overlooking the sea and yet you find no honies on any of his bean bags, mainly because of his narcolepsy. He falls asleep at odd times of the day and starts dreaming of a life lived centuries ago. A princess with a questionable choice in men, ignores royal passes and instead lusts over Jaggu, who is a general in the royal army but his only job is to protect the princess. What is special about the dreams are that they are as episodic as Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan. Also please note Jaggu's subtle ode to Satyajit Ray's Sonar Kella here and flirting with the classic debate over rebirth. The princess reinvents a new CPR technique which involves disrobing the woman's upper garment and hugging the dying male. This stable boy-rich Lady taboo love affair reaches unimaginable unidirectional proportions though when the princess decides to sit quite pretty on a carriage about to slip away to oblivion as Jaggu ties himself to the carriage when he is interrupted by a sword fight seeking enemy soldier.

Like every great story, The Myth also has a femme fatale - the irrepressible Mallika Sherawat with her chest that shares the same quality. Essaying the role of the rustically foxy and curiously named Samantha - a character who exclusively forces the story to move to a South Indian village with heinous extras who could crack mirrors with just their looks, brandishing shiny swords like children's toys. Incidentally, they do not use alarm clocks in rural South India. Men wake up to women practicing some form of suggestive aerobics style dance routine in minimal robes. The script did not explore how women wake up. Samantha's other vocations include teaching an elephant called Lakmshi how to give her a bath by spraying her with water and making a case for Ms. Sherawat as an entrant for the Miss World Wet Tshirt pageant, and emulating Reena Roy's Nagin dance moves. India is shown to have progressed from being a country of monkey brain connoisseurs in Temple of Doom to flying sadhus in 2007. The most memorable scene of this landmark film for me was an action sequence on a tarred floor in which Ms. Sherawat first strips herself partly and then Jaggu helps her finish half the job - all in the name of saving her life. Don't get me wrong. The scenes have been very tastefully shot, as every fan of Ms. Sherawat's assets will vouch for, because Jaggu only makes movies for the whole family.

Jaggu ends the movie with odes to two cinematic greats - Kulbhushan Kharbanda and George Lucas. The villain of the movie dons what can only be deciphered to be a Chinese version of the bandhgala that Mr. Kharbanda was wearing in Shaan as the inimitable Shakaal. If rumors are to be believed, Surf Excel has approached the actor playing the villain's part as he miraculously manages to maintain the whiteness of his attire after beating up half a dozen good guys in mud - the sight of which would be enough to elicit inconsolable scolding from all mothers around the world. The last half an hour or so of the movie pitches the charm of science fiction in a historical setting - something even Lucas had not dared to explore in his Star Wars series. Jaggu borrows the climax straight out of the general script of Priyadarshan's comedies but colors it with a serious touch. The combination of all the influences produces scenes never before seen outside the Bhojpuri film industry - a flying villain, clay horses, temperamental gravity and Jaggu's very own constipated facial expressions.