Fatta
Now that we have DISH, I spend a lot of my free time watching TV. Today we watched I, Robot. I don't know if I liked it because of the action/sound/story or because it was shown in High Definition. But this post is not about that movie.
The title of this post is a word that is usually used to describe a lot of bollywood movies, especially the action sequences. It basically means "no one is stupid enough to believe this". You remember those old kung fu movies.. well many bollywood movies have those backwards jumps from ground to the second floor. If they are not in a Shaolin Temple setting in ancient China, they are called, well, Fatta.
This is not to say that Hollywood does not have fatta scenes, but yesterday I saw a few minutes that surpassed any fatta in recent memory. The movie was "Torque". I had seen a preview of this movie earlier. At that time, I thought it was a preview of some new action video game. The CG looked so fake! Anyways, let me describe the chase sequence and you decide if it was fatta or not.
Martin Henderson (Bride and Prejudice-wala) is being chased by Ice Cube (this is the name of a rapper/actor).
Both of them are on bikes. Ice Cube wants Martin dead for some reason that I missed. The chase is going at full speed (I know this as they even show speedometer). They are now one on one.
Enter train.
Now they are riding alongside a train. Henderson has a brilliant idea. A strategically placed inclined bar, motor cycle, train.. well you got it. He jumps on the train and manages to stop the bike on the roof. Any Hindi movie would have stopped at this with Henderson waving at Ice Cube who mutters "kab tak bachega?" under his breath.
Torque went an extra mile.
Ice cube does the exact same thing (its a long train). Then there is a chase on the top of the train ( keep in mind that they are on their bikes until I say otherwise). They jump their bikes whenever they reach the end of a compartment onto the next one. Then Ice cube starts shooting and to save himself Martin falls in between two compartments and gets stuck. Check and almost mate! Ice cube now is about to shoot him from the top when our hero manages to set himself free and rides his bike into the compartment at full speed. Now one guy is over the top and another inside the train with people on both sides, riding at full speed.
Fast Forward..
Somehow MH falls to the side and IC falls on the tracks in front of the approaching train. His leg is stuck just like er.. Gulshan Grover in RamLakhan?? The train driver who knows nothing about this so far, tries to apply brakes when it is useless to apply brakes. But in a flash, MH manages to release IC and they are now on opposite sides of the train (which BTW has stopped the attempt to stop and moving at full speed)with IC looking at MH during the inter-compartment gap with confused gratitude. MH is smiling as if he is going to say "yeah to mera farz tha" ('it was my duty', one of the most used dialogue in 80s bollywood). And then another deja vu: When the train ends, MH has vanished.
I stood up, applauded and changed the channel.
The title of this post is a word that is usually used to describe a lot of bollywood movies, especially the action sequences. It basically means "no one is stupid enough to believe this". You remember those old kung fu movies.. well many bollywood movies have those backwards jumps from ground to the second floor. If they are not in a Shaolin Temple setting in ancient China, they are called, well, Fatta.
This is not to say that Hollywood does not have fatta scenes, but yesterday I saw a few minutes that surpassed any fatta in recent memory. The movie was "Torque". I had seen a preview of this movie earlier. At that time, I thought it was a preview of some new action video game. The CG looked so fake! Anyways, let me describe the chase sequence and you decide if it was fatta or not.
Martin Henderson (Bride and Prejudice-wala) is being chased by Ice Cube (this is the name of a rapper/actor).
Both of them are on bikes. Ice Cube wants Martin dead for some reason that I missed. The chase is going at full speed (I know this as they even show speedometer). They are now one on one.
Enter train.
Now they are riding alongside a train. Henderson has a brilliant idea. A strategically placed inclined bar, motor cycle, train.. well you got it. He jumps on the train and manages to stop the bike on the roof. Any Hindi movie would have stopped at this with Henderson waving at Ice Cube who mutters "kab tak bachega?" under his breath.
Torque went an extra mile.
Ice cube does the exact same thing (its a long train). Then there is a chase on the top of the train ( keep in mind that they are on their bikes until I say otherwise). They jump their bikes whenever they reach the end of a compartment onto the next one. Then Ice cube starts shooting and to save himself Martin falls in between two compartments and gets stuck. Check and almost mate! Ice cube now is about to shoot him from the top when our hero manages to set himself free and rides his bike into the compartment at full speed. Now one guy is over the top and another inside the train with people on both sides, riding at full speed.
Fast Forward..
Somehow MH falls to the side and IC falls on the tracks in front of the approaching train. His leg is stuck just like er.. Gulshan Grover in RamLakhan?? The train driver who knows nothing about this so far, tries to apply brakes when it is useless to apply brakes. But in a flash, MH manages to release IC and they are now on opposite sides of the train (which BTW has stopped the attempt to stop and moving at full speed)with IC looking at MH during the inter-compartment gap with confused gratitude. MH is smiling as if he is going to say "yeah to mera farz tha" ('it was my duty', one of the most used dialogue in 80s bollywood). And then another deja vu: When the train ends, MH has vanished.
I stood up, applauded and changed the channel.
posted by Nikhil at 10:39 PM
5 Comments:
Damn! I think I'm speechless. Just out of curiosity, why was MH chasing IC ? And then why did he rescue him ? I would think the chasing was meant with some intent to do harm.
.... why am I typing this ? <hypnosis>Forget what you read.</hypnosis>
All this reminds me of Gadar where Sunny Deol stops a horde of Pakistanis by just raising his palm and screaming.
Why pick on Torque? There are other good fatta movies out there ... My favorite is XXX ... "boarding" on a silver tray on rails ... skiing in front of an avalanche ... who can forget the dirt bike jumps in front of the Columbian huts?
But the ALL TIME REIGNING CHAMPION OF FATTA is ....
Transporter 2!
Trust me! Watch it Nikhil. You will applaud in the theater and go in front of the screen and bow before it going "Gaaaaaaawwwwdddddd!!"
I am not very sure why he is MH's "khoon ka pyasa" but MH has been framed for someone's murder who was friend/family of IC.
Axe, I just happened to catch Torque while channel surfing. Thankfully I have not seen XXX so far. I recently watched Transporter so will watch Transporter2 sometime. Transporter is a perfect example of how a movie can make money solely on action sequences, absolutely no story whatsoever. I will catch the sequel on DVD.
Don't make the mistake of watching either XXX, or the sequel!
XXX is definitely off the list.
I will watch Transporter2 on DVD though. I hate to admit it but I liked the couple of fight sequences in Transporter. The bicycle pedal fight reminded me of, Shiva, the movie that inspired teenagers all over India to break their cycle chain and beat the crap out of anybody who they felt like beating up.
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