Siraj Syed reviews Machine: Misguided Machinations and Mechanical Malfunction

Abbas Burmawalla-Mustan Burmawalla are a director-brother duo that gave an early hit to Indian Superstar ShaRukh Khan in the shape of Baazigar (Player/Gambler). Khan, never averse to accepting negative parts, lapped it up in delight, and a hit ensued. All those who cried foul, that the film was plagiarised from A Kiss before Dying, were mere spectators as the film, and its dizzy, snazzy sound-track jingled at the box-office. In the 25^th year after Baazigar was released comes Machine. A romantic thriller like its earlier incarnation, the film launches Abbas’s son Mustafa, as a wild card. This time around, the brothers Burmawalla  deal out all the wrong cards, and the gambit of using Mustafa as a trump card boomerangs like the proverbial joker-in-the-pack.

To be fair, it’s no fault of the young man. Dad and Uncle are bent on recycling (read milking) the Baazigar legacy (Bourne, anyone?), but run out of steam at the halfway mark. As the film bumps along self-claimed the 200 km/hour speed, it reaches a dead-end at the point where Indian audiences are given an intermission, and then takes off at a tangent, undoing the reasonably enjoyable hormone flooding puppy love/teen flesh display/gyrating girl power/rich landscapes/gorgeous cars/ultimate fashion statement narrative. Anything a little more imaginative would have been acceptable, even an acknowledged remake f Baazigar—not what they let the film peter out into.

Machine begins with a Sarah Thapar (Kiara Advani) handing over a cheque to a nun at a Christian missionary charity, then just about managing to avoid skidding her car on a thick oil spill and then warning Ransh (Mustafa), whose car comes speeding down the mountain slope right after her just in time to save his life. Turns out that she is a racing maniac, but restricts her Formula 1 skills to the tracks. Well, if Sarah is a Formula One, then Ransh is Formula None, ’cause he is a racer too, only he never uses the brake. Why? “I have nothing to lose!”

When Ransh beats Sarah at a race, by taking the aerial route at the finishing line to bag the chequered flag, instead of becoming bitter rivals, they become lovers. Sarah is a billionaire (Ronit Roy)’s daughter, and an only, spoilt child. Nothing is known about the mysterious Ransh. She is stunningly beautiful (could it be otherwise?) and is pursued by two other suitors: Adiyta (Eshan Shankar) and Vicki (Mayuresh Wadkar). A secret admirer starts sending written-in-blood messages, poems and pictures to Sarah, and she is almost sure it is Ransh, but it could well be either of the other two. The suspense is about to end when he asks her to meet him at Love Lock bridge, where lovers meet, bring along a lock and key, exchange pledges, lock the symbolically, and, again, symbolically, throw away the key into the stream below, so that none would be able to ever find it.

Horror of horrors, the man who advances towards Sarah, huge rose in hand, is Aditya! But a Greek tragedy unfolds in the next one minute, as a speeding car knocks him dead, even as the car itself careens and rolls down the embankment, resulting in a body being fished out. That used to be Vicki. The road is now clear for Ransh and Sarah to tie the knot. Of course, they take a million ‘I Love You’s and love locks to get there, but the knots are finally tied. That is where the writer decides to get naughty (a knotty pun intended), and even as Sarah awakes from her wedding night to find Ransh missing from the nuptial bed, he ties up the viewers in Gordian knots that no King Gordius of Phrygia or Frigeria can unravel. Sarah calls out to him and runs around her hillside mansion looking for him. Gone? No such luck. He appears in just a minute, lifts her in her arms, spouts the most banal filmy dialogue, reiterates I Love You, just in case she still had any doubts, and flings her into the gorge. There she goes, and, along with her, any hope that Machine had of making it to audiences’ sensibilities sinks into a morass.

Next to no information is available for the writer of this misadventure, Sanjeev Kaul. Similarly, next to nothing can be made of the story and screenplay, while something occasionally surfaces in the dialogue, albeit marginally. Sadly, scoring self-goals, Kaul’s unintentionally funny lines have viewers often rolling in the aisles. On some other instances, they merely ‘lol’. Logic and realism are conspicuous by their absence, and I am allowing for suspension of disbelief. Pretention, posturing, inanity and bombast abound, and a large part of the back story is glossed over in one flash-back scene.

A full 29 years after arriving on the scene, the Burmawalla Brothers Abbas and Mustan (Agneekaal, Khiladi, Baazigar, Race, Kis Kisko Pyar Karoon), who belong a family that has at least six male members in the industry, seem to have lost their bearings. Glitz and glamour, racing cars and running blood, stunning Georgian locales and zillionaire life-styles, remixed and reloaded music tracks are no substitutes for the real thing. One huge production house, Rajshri, discovered this at its own peril, when they made Uuf Kya Jadoo Mohabbat Hai, in 2004. It’s time A-M awoke too.

Accusations are bound to fly around that this mess was caused by their desire to launch Abbas’s son Mustafa in the lead. Factually, that is the least of their guilt. He is soft-spoken, boy-next-door like, common-looking, with no hero material standing out. The beard and the glasses are get-up that could have been avoided, had he not been seen as an ace racer who romances Mr. Moneybags’ daughter and gallivants across Georgia on another murderous, mazuma-gathering mission. Mustafa, at least at first impression, is like an unaffected Saif Ali Khan. Audiences who have yet to see him cry in a scene find their funny bone tickled when he mock-cries after hurling his wife to certain death. Also, clap-trap romantic lines need élan to be pulled off, a quality he has yet to acquire.

Kiara (Alia in real-life; niece of Juhi Chawla and daughter of late Saaeed Jaffrey’s brother Hameed) Advani’s face easily blends Eesha Deol and Deepika Padukone, with more of the former. In her third starring role after Fugly and M.S. Dhoni, she is effortlessly sexy, so why have her gasping with embarrassment when a gush of wind blows up her dress to reveal shorts inside? Eshan Shankar is a tall Ranveer Shorey, but finds it too much of an effort to stride two characters convincingly.

Ronit Roy has a meaty role and holds his own, in the face of some corny scripting, as does Johnny Lever, who digs out all the punches he can to stay afloat playing a part that is grafted on to a script that already had too many patches that needed both better material and expert darning. Carla Dennis a Serina fits the bill, but it is pathetic watching Dalip Tahil (Mr. Alter; Tom Alter, were you to play this role?) remaining poker-faced in the midst of the melée, lest his real emotions get seen through. Mayuresh Wadkar manages to stay in character. Kishori Shahane has little to do, and Viveck Vaswani, even on his death-bed, draws unintentional laughter.

Shabbir Burmawalla (bearing a Mustafa stand-in persona), Mridanjali Rawal and Sharat Saxena have inconsequential roles. As the life of the gang, Lucky, Rishabh Arora is passable. Supriya Karnik is a good choice for the role of the song and drama teacher.

Machine’s credit titles are super-imposed on a longish scene, tracing the human anatomy from the inside, and linking it to the heart. It’s a metaphor for a man becoming a machine, an order-taking waiter or robot,  just because he was brainwashed and emotionally by his father, when he was a little kid. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists need to work out that one.

It would be unkind to dismiss the efforts of the technical team out of outrage at the dereliction of duties by the top management, so here is honourable mention: Music by Sandeep Shirodkar, Cinematography by Dilshad V.A., Film Editing by

Hussain A. Burmawalla, Art Direction by Ashok Lokare and Costume Design by

Vikram Phadnis. They contribute the extra (better) ½ in the rating below. Search Engines, by and large, are not likely to find this machine worth even a test drive.

Rating: * ½

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm31a5c3qyw