Gold director Reema Kagti vs Satyameva Jayate helmer Milap Zaveri: A primer on their work so far
Reema Kagti’s Gold and Milap Zaveri’s Satyameva Jayate are set to clash at the box office on Friday and here’s all you need to know about them.
This Friday, theatregoers all around the country will decide the fate of Akshay Kumar’s Gold and John Abraham’s Satyameva Jayate. While a lot has already been said about the two directors’ clash at the box office, it’s time we started considering what the directors are bringing to the table.
Gold is helmed by third-time director Reema Kagti. She has previously made the heartwarming multi-starrer Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and detective drama, Talaash. Meanwhile, Satyamev Jayate is also Milap Zaveri’s third film as a director. He has films like Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai and Mastizaade to his credit.
Kagti has a very fresh and keen eye for the little things and it is seen in both her movies. Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd (2007) is a road film we hadn’t seen in a long time. It rolled in India’s regional and religious diversity in a single hilarious thread. The story revolved around a bunch of newly married couples, on a trip to Goa, for their honeymoon. The highlight of the film was the way it explores the insecurities of a vast spectrum of people without once losing its sense of humour. In a bittersweet manner, it laid bare human frailties, regional peculiarities, personal flaws, failed relationships with empathy and humour.
In many ways, it was a love microcosm of the world we live in. While it didn’t really spell magic at the box office, it definitely showcased Reema’s immense talent.
However, her second film, Talaash (2012) did not receive a lot of love. For the film, she roped in the biggest names in Bollywood—Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukerji and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. While every actor gave a performance worth all the accolades, the story was what ruined the film. It starts off as a murder mystery but at the very end changes genre to a supernatural thriller. And everyone knows the one sacred rule for all detective mysteries: there can be no divine intervention, neither from God nor from ghosts.
However, Zaveri needed all the divine intervention he could get in both his films. For Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai (2010), he roped in Jacqueline Fernandez as a woman from Venus and Riteish Deshmukh as the man who falls in love with her. In his review for Hindustan Times, Mayank Shekhar wrote “Somewhere you forget, or not that it should matter, this movie’s about a beautiful alien who lands up on Earth, looking for a man to take home to Venus. This alien, given she’s a foreigner, of course, speaks in an accented Hindi... cut to… You feel like a bit of an alien, sitting alone in that audience.”
With his next, things got even worse. In Mastizaade (2016), starring Sunny Leone, Tusshar Kapoor and Vir Das, was raunchy comedy at its worst. Rohan Naahar in his review for Hindustan Times wrote, “To call the women in this ‘movie’ objects is an insult to objects. They are the walking, talking, jiggling butt of all the jokes. No pun intended. If I was locked in a room with Hitler and Osama and had one bullet I would shoot this movie.”
What is common between both the directors is that they have more experience as movie writers than as directors. Reema has written screenplays and dialogues for popular films like Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Bombay Talkies, Dil Dhadakne Do and Zoya Akhtar’s upcoming film Gully Boy. Milap’s filmography is riddled with even more sex comedies like Masti, Grand Masti, Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3 and Hate Story 4.
Both Reema Kagti and Milap Zaveri cater to a very specific section of audience. However, with Gold and Satyameva Jayate, they are venturing into new tropes: sports drama and action thriller. Could they prove themselves third time lucky?
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