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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  The art of smart mindless
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The art of smart mindless

A round-up of movies that have perfected the art of taking nothing seriously

‘Wanted’ created the Salman Khan we know now.Premium
‘Wanted’ created the Salman Khan we know now.

The latest Salman Khan movie, Kick, promises to be an Indian version of the seemingly mindless but actually smart action thriller that Hollywood excels at—the kind of movie that is all too aware of its silliness, sends up the image of its A-list lead, never stints on high-octane action sequences, and has punchlines that work nicely as ice-breakers and stress-busters. Here’s a round-up of movies that have perfected the art of taking nothing seriously—except the art of bringing down the house and the business of making money.

Wanted

Telugu and Tamil film-makers and writers have mastered the smart-mindless entertainer. Bollywood is only just catching up, but until it does, remakes of southern hits will have to fill the gap. Wanted, first made in Telugu as Pokiri and Tamil as Pokkiri, created the template for Salman Khan as we now know him—devil-may-care, cool, witty, super-fit, near Buddhist in his detachment from worldly matters but in full warrior mode when required.

Die Hard

Bruce Willis plays John McClane, wearer of the sweat-and-blood-stained singlet, originator of several great one-liners, and first among equals in the lone wolf pack. As he single-handedly takes on a band of criminals that has taken a skyscraper’s inhabitants—including his estranged wife—hostage, McClane handles punches and punchlines with dexterity. As does John McTiernan’s movie, which balances its crowd-pleasing action scenes with witty observations on the limited intelligence of the American law and order machinery.

The Rock

Nicolas Cage, one of the greatest epicures of punchlines, gorges in Michael Bay’s The Rock, in which a renegade military general takes hostages in an impregnable prison and threatens to send San Francisco to Pluto. Before that, Cage, in hot pursuit of Sean Connery’s fugitive, who is the only man to have escaped the prison nicknamed “The Rock", destroys half of San Francisco in a high-speed chase. Cage has the best lines, Connery hash hish momentsh, and, since we are in Bay’s world, the action is spectacular.

Hard Boiled

John Woo might be best known outside Hong Kong for that marvellously madcap confection Face/Off, but his Hong Kong films are hardly anything to sneer at. Hard Boiled, the best of his insouciant and stylish actioners, features Hong Kong stars Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as policemen trying to take down a triad. This is the movie in which Yun-Fat handles a baby during a hospital shoot-out.

True Lies

It’s hard to believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger can carry off a punchline, but he is in full flow in James Cameron’s remake of the French movie La Totale! Schwarzenegger plays an undercover counter-terrorism agent who’s pretending to be a computer salesman in front of his wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. The zany plot packs in nuclear warheads, a double-dealing art dealer, Art Malik’s buffoonish Arab terrorist, and Curtis’ valiant attempts to save her marriage.

This fortnightly column looks at news through the prism of cinema.

Also Read | Nandini’s previous Lounge columns

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Published: 26 Jul 2014, 12:12 AM IST
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