The Bollywood Furniture Mart - Acting Skills that Kills

God Bless Hollywood! If some remarkably talented entrepreneurs of yesteryears haven’t decided to use Hollywood as the base for all their movie making dreams, we wouldn’t have had a very uncreatively named Bollywood. Anyways the name has stuck and we carry the legacy forward of naming many of our movies with the same uncreative excellence (cases in point will be Shakalaka Boom Boom, Tara Rum Pum, Good Boy Bad Boy, and many more).

The name Bollywood, through years, have come to showcase that we are more than a B-Grade ripoff of Hollywood; but also true to our name we have got some B-Grade Wood in this jungle. The acting talents of some of our leading lads are so awesomely wooden, that it reminds me of what Terminator would have been if he was frozen for a thousand year and then made into wooden sculpture when humanity is reborn. I try my best to figure out some of the most valuable piece of furniture that we have in this very wooden exhibition.

Exhibit A – Bobby Deol

The rains in his debut movie Barsaat might have washed away Twinkle Khanna’s makeup, but it failed to make Bobby Deol twitch. This Deol is equivalent to the everlasting plywood; heat, water, sea wave, microwave, brainwave – nothing can deter this Deol from his everlasting pursuit for being wooden beyond Treebeard. Coming to think of it, Peter Jackson could have saved a lot of money if he had used Bobby Deol instead of the half animated, half whatever monster creation for his Lord of the Rings. I dread myself as I type this, but Bobby Deol could actually have brought ‘life’ into Treebeard. Ah the humanity!

Bobby Deol is one actor who almost always have gotten it wrong. If he had played a soldier in any movie other than the one titled Soldier (Abbas Mastan dread alert), his part would have been passé at least. But this particular soldier had to crack jokes and flirt and dance and romance, and; oh, this one is huge, he had to act drunk. Now acting drunk is not that big a deal; any Hindi movie Hero worth the generations before him can do a drunk scene in their sober sleep. But Bobby Deol was notches above being drunk. He acted so drunk that the effect transcended on me and I started feeling a little dizzy. Leaving all that, I seriously believe that Bobby Deol nailed his acting skills (on its head) in his portrayal of Bhagat Singh. In one very emotional scene, I believe I could see his fake moustache shake a little. Now before you start accusing me of blasphemy, this is just my opinion, you can go through the torture of checking it yourself if you don’t believe me; talk about a catch-22 situation.

Exhibit B - Upen Patel

This guy is not really bad when hes being interviewed, and that was when I first saw him talking and moving and ‘emoting’. Guess this guy needs some really chilled down atmosphere to bring out his histrionics skill. There are a few things that Bollywood heroes need to survive. First is a good physique. Second, will be good dancing skills. Third is something we are ready to give time for improvement if found lacking; that’s acting skills. Upen Patel has a good body (ok ladies, stop ooh aah-ing). Before I even get into his acting skill, I want to stop by his dancing skills. Now this guy would be beaten in a dance competition by a two legged drunk hippopotamus in knee-deep water. Maybe Upen Patel has too much wood, oops muscles, in his body (girls, once more, please stop that). The guy worked out a lot and hence lost the capability to completely bring down his hands to his body; which is oh-so-essential when it comes to dance in Bollywood.

This Patel boy has a dimple, no no its not the cute John Abraham-ish dimple. This one is a chin dimple. If you have the bad luck to catch Upen Patel in a DVD or something to that extent, make sure you zoom in on his face during a scene which requires acting skills. Below is a little guide to deciphering the acting skills of Upen Patel:

Scenario 1 – Chin Dimple is the size of a mini-disc

Emotions portayed – Extreme anger, sadness, astonishment, happiness, loneliness.

Scenario 2 – Chin dimple is the size of a 2Rs (Indian) coin

Emotions portrayed – Loneliness, sadness, astonishment, extreme anger, happiness.

Scenario 3 – Chin dimple is the size of a cellphone numeric key

Emotions portrayed – Happiness, loneliness, astonishment, sadness, extreme anger

Scenario 4 – Chin dimple is the size of; where the hell is the chin dimple

Emotions portrayed – Sadness, extreme anger, astonishment, loneliness, happiness

Now now, I can go on and on about the furnitures exhibited in Bollywood; but it requires a lot more time and space. But in pure Bollywood style I declare, the forthcoming attractions hold a lot of promise with:

- The lead protagonist of a movie shot entirely in slow motion (yes, it was a Really Grave Vision)

- An actor who could make us laugh when we were supposed to be scared and made us flee theaters with his emotions.

- The offspring of a jumping jack who rarely jumped himself.

- And a mixed bag of other artistes who almost made the list, but then again redeemed themselves.

All this and more, in days to come.