Thursday 26 January 2017

The chronicles of typical Indian mass-entertainer movies

Most of the wood-suffixed movie industries have at least one film to boast off as a mass entertainer. These films always remain as a hodgepodge--romance, humor, melancholy, melodrama--name any genre, and it’ll be present in these movies. Most of them turn out to be commercially hit films, while a sizable chunk of the list flops big time. Such movies are binary--they’re either too good, or too bad and there’s no midway ranking.
Most of these films manage to lure the watchers either through a grandiose star cast, best-of-the-class music composers, jet-speed story line etc. But a typical anatomy of the so-called Indianized masala movies (as they’re popularly termed) is very simple--it just has a hackneyed script studded with predictable characters and at any point the plot never becomes irresolute.
The protagonist, antagonist, families and ties, cupid strikes, random stunts, handful of whims--this pretty much sums up any mass entertainer film. Where the change occurs between the films is how much of each type is being taken and what kind of priority is given to each of them.
It’s not surprising to see a happy-go-lucky hero whose only work, for a pre-decided epoch of the story, is to go around wooing ladies. Or rather, just show off his good-for-nothing skills, and goof around trying to be smart and savvy. Out of the blue, this guy turns responsible either after his family becomes impecunious due to huge debts, or the love of his life goads him to reach up to her societal status to marry her. Then he succeeds and becomes rich as all’s well with his life. Ludicrous I should say, when there’s such a clean sweep in one’s character within just few minutes of the plot--makes me think, “Are opportunities available always? If so, why are people like me stuck at the same place?!”
Time for some stunts, when the daring, adroit villain fights with our hero. Scenes like these are extravagantly shot and matched with background sounds so that people get to enjoy them. Sadly, these scenes turn into a travesty as most of the times it’s not one-on-one or one-on-many but one-on-zillion. The hero beats up troops of people, gets stabbings and gunshots and yet remains active as ever to perform his plot-demanded sequences.
The heroine sometimes becomes the superfluous character of the film. Either she’s the sanctimonious, naive, go-traditional type or the social, ultramodern, bedizened type. Whichever way it is, the heroines have a common thing--their brains are dormant and all they know is to act silly. Predestined for few musical numbers, a couple of romantic scenes paired with a few sober looks, the heroines are the additional fittings for most of the films.
Item songs, fast beat songs, songs shot in other countries...the list is endless. Most of the songs are shot with gaudy attires and grand sets. The musical album can make or break the august image a movie carries. Movies, especially mass entertainers, are exemplified based on the songs and it’s crisis of survival in the industry if the songs fail to become chartbusters.
Deaths and revenge plots. Ah! This is the favorite for these kind of films. The heroine is mostly given the prestigious job of dying early and a part of the movie revolves around how the hero with his sagacious and ulterior moves takes revenge for his love’s death. Gear up your heart as the reasons for revenge can vary from genuine ones to utter nonsense.
How can mass entertainers be without including whimsical and punch dialogues? The fiery, sassy lines that make you want to laugh insanely and the actual humor-mixed lines that make you want to bang your head against the hardest wall--yeah, sometimes these dialogues work in reverse.
Last but not the least, the happy endings. That’s like an icing on the cake for the commercial, mass-audience films. There may be uncountable characters waltzing their way throughout the movie. But finally, they all tend to interconnect and come together just as the seas meet the ocean. Die-hard enemies become cronies and the gloomy families suddenly resurrects to a happy ones. All your confusions and never ending questions about the confounding plot may remain unanswered, but these movies have climaxes that can convince you, at least for the time being.
With things being said, some mass entertainers have really managed to capture the audience’s hearts with a good mix of all elements and some have even annoyed people with it’s haphazard mix of characters and emotions.

1 comment:

  1. Well to be honest we all could use a little non believable content in movies. It makes it interesting. Movies and books are modes of escape from the real world. So a litle bit of non sense can be tolerated I guess.

    ReplyDelete