(The Review is divided into two parts, wherein the first talks about the experience of watching it in the theater and the second tries to explain that what actually is meant by a SEX COMEDY…!)
Part One
This Friday I got the chance to watch the first show of GRAND MASTI in a small city’s multiplex out of Delhi and the venue was flooded by mainly boys from colleges and local surroundings eager to buy the tickets for its first show. The house was full in just a few minutes and there were some couples and a girls group too opting for the film instead of the 2 other Hindi flicks released on the same day. Now the moment the film started with its very first scene explaining the new meanings of alphabets A, B, C & D (post its initial credits song), there was a deafening noise of shouts, hoots, whistles and energetic cheers in the whole theater all of a sudden. The screen was showing some cheap shots of a woman’s body taken from different angles and the crowd was cheering its each new angle and dialogues just instantly.
At first I thought that since its only the beginning, so may by these scenes are there to make a ground for the presented sex comedy in the next reels. But as the film progressed from its one dirty sequence to the other, I started feeling the discomfort as felt by the few couples and a girls group sitting in the row next to me. Within the next half an hour, the whole ‘Grand Masti’ simply turned into a ‘Desperately Sasti’ B-grade kind of film featuring some known names of the industry, very surprisingly. The fun got converted into vulgarity and all its so called comedy simply entered the ‘over the limit’ zone crossing all the possible boundaries, not yet broken in our Indian Cinema till date. So to say the least, GRAND MASTI gives you something which was never tried before in a Hindi mainstream Sex Comedy film ever and it goes way beyond your wildest cinematic imaginations to be precise.
Admittedly, the experience of GM’s first show, made me recall the good old decade of 80s because even after 40 minutes of the film, all those shouts, hoots and whistles were still coming constantly and the ‘young boys crowd’ scattered all over the seats was simply going mad, like anything. Looking at this changing state of the audience (fast turning into a scary mode), firstly the few couples sitting in the theater left the hall silently and then the only girls groups sitting beside me stood up to leave the film for the obvious reasons. Now the moment they started marching towards the exit gate, the noise of those shameless cheers even got louder and few also stood up to blow their whistles with the full force. Sitting in this strange, weird and unexplainable kind of ambience, surpassing all my set expectations……., I was frankly feeling ashamed and truly confused about the film’s questionable content and its visible impact on the audience right away.
For a few minutes, I had my attention completely lost and just when I again got back into the film, there came intermission written on the screen and the lights were all on. But within those bright lights, as all the laughing faces became visible and their mutual conversations started coming into my ears full of lusty comments & jokes, I really felt as if I am sitting in a ‘Gents Toilet’ instead of a movie theater, witnessing the ‘Sick Catharsis of Men’ being practiced by every single person around, quite carelessly.
However the fact which amazed me a lot more was that as the film was moving from its one level of craziness on to the other, the whole crowd was equally getting mad and even noisier than before, without losing any kind of energy quite astonishingly. In fact listening to the similar cheers and shouts in the last sequence of the film too (after 2 hours), I was forced to accept that I had not seen such kind of weird yet energetic response, even in any of the biggest Star’s movie in the last 2 decades ever.
Next, the film got over, the crowd started moving towards the exit and it was like a whole bunch of sexually charged & dangerously provoked brats were coming out of the theater recalling all those disgusting names used in the film having double meanings. But what scared me like hell was that now the same lusty remarks, laughs and shouts were being made loudly, aiming at the other couples roaming in the shopping mall in a completely different mood, which even forced many girls to simply enter whatever showroom came their way just to avoid the boys.
The scene at once reminded me of a recent seminar where many reputed names of the film industry strongly opposed the thought that “Hindi Cinema is badly influencing our present young society in a very dangerous manner.” The reputed panelists there, were simply not ready to accept this severe allegation and had their own arguments for the same which were also quite logical. But looking at this ‘Loud, Wild and Fanatical’ kind of audience response witnessed both within and outside the hall, due to Inder Kumar’s GRAND MASTI……….I would like to say, that the issue surely needs to be addressed in the right perspective at the earliest, before it becomes worse, resulting in more depressing & shameful situations in the near future.
So this was about my experience of watching GRAND MASTI in the theater today which again reminded me of the two most famous phrases used to define our part of the world repeatedly as ‘Sexually Starved” or “Sexually Repressed” society, very aptly. Therefore, being a film made strictly for the men, by the men and of the men, I would not like to recommend GRAND MASTI to any of the readers here, as I do respect the Identity of a Women in our society with much high regards and cannot support any such cowardly act treating them as mere objects or means of entertainment with a sick attitude.
But elaborating on the same, I am also not against the genre of SEX COMEDIES as it may seem, if only they are made with a balanced vision, equally enjoyable by a man and a woman together without any gender bias. And I have tried to explain this further in the following part.
Part Two
In this second part of this review, I would like to bring to your kind notice the wrong term used to tag Indian films like GRAND MASTI as SEX COMEDIES, whereas they don’t really qualify to be included in this particular genre from any angle because of their biased focus.
If the bitter truth be told then such films are not SEX COMEDIES but SEXUALLY STARVED COMEDIES since they wrongly & entirely focus on only the female participant of the act in a disgusting manner showing their repressive, obsessed and male chauvinist nature quite hilariously.
Hence in India we actually make IMBALANCED SEX COMEDIES, which solely and purposefully aim at ridiculing the females taking part in the sex-act only and not the man. In other words, here its just the woman, who is targeted, presented and enjoyed as an object of entertainment in all the comic sequences of such film. Plus these films are specifically planned, written or designed to make use of ‘The Girls’ only in a enjoyable manner alone, so that the man’s sexually repressed state of mind gets hugely satisfied and the film is declared a hit all over, especially in the smaller centers with more single screens having a bigger capacity. And that is the reason here a SEX COMEDY is not bearable, watchable or enjoyable for the female section of the viewers equally, since they are solely made with a one-sided mindset alone in a defective manner.
However this doesn’t stand true for the SEX COMEDIES made in the west like the famous AMERICAN PIE Series in the recent times and EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX before the 80s. Because there, both men and women are considered to be equal partners in the sex act and therefore have an equal right to enjoy a sex comedy together made with a healthy mindset. So the SEX COMEDIES made in the west are quite balanced considering both male and women involved in the process with the same passion. Whereas in our part of the world they are all IMBALANCED SEX COMEDIES, since here we don’t like to consider women as the equal participants in the act, but prefer to take them only as a means of entertainment or an object to facilitate our sexual release and nothing else. As a result, films like GM are simply made in such a style that only a man can enjoy them watching in the theater but not a woman.
So looking at it from this concerning viewpoint GRAND MASTI doesn't exactly qualify to be called as a SEX COMEDY since it only provides the entertainment for all the men sitting in the theater and ridiculously uses the woman as a source to provide the same, following an imbalanced pattern. As a matter of fact, it is not any movie as such (without any story or characters) but only a desperate act of gaining some instant eye balls and quick bucks, titillating our male dominated society just at the right place. So unfortunately, condemn it or celebrate it, the film is going to be a GRAND HIT as it seems unless it is pulled down after possible objections raised from all the women organizations working in the major cities.
Besides, its indeed unfortunate for our country that at one end, a historical judgment is passed against the 4 rapists in last December’s wicked case showing us a ray of hope and on the other a film crossing all limits of vulgarity gets released, disrespecting the identity of a women so boldly on the same day. Anyway, the choice is all ours and I hope we don’t become a part of those confused, educated males who have no thought structure of their own Or who can praise the Death Judgment on all the social networks and enjoy films like GRAND MASTI together like a bunch of fools!
Rating : Doesn’t Really Deserve Even A Mention of Any Star.
