Hollywood Vs Bollywood: Two Movies In Unabashed Glorification Of The Antihero!
‘Pushpa: The Rise’ is focused on the smuggling of a rare
variety of wood, red sanders, that is found only in the Seshachalam Hills in
Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, by a syndicate headed by a politician commanding
an assortment of mafia lords spread over Southern India. The protagonist Pushpa
Raj, the antihero, is played by the Telegu superstar Allu Arjun who carries the
movie forward effortlessly and successfully in more or less as a one-man show. An
ambitious daily laborer Pushpa, with his birth shrouded in illegitimacy, in his
immaculate showmanship masculinity and a creative genius opts for the high-paying
and high-risk smuggling of red sanders job, and starts to rise in stature and
power. He finds an equally ambitious Bihari laborer Kesava (played by Jagadeesh
Prathap Bandari) who is Pushpa’s devout admirer and the duo sticks on till the end
of the movie with really enjoyable comic interludes.
In the process of his ‘rise’
Pushpa wins over a prominent mafia lord displaying his ‘genius’ in evolving
unique cost-effective ‘smuggling of the wood’ methods which involve passing the
police network sans bribing them too much and then on to the international destinations
like Japan and China. His eternal quest for a higher price for the precious wood
as the ultimate objective Pushpa comes into conflict with other mafia lords leading
to inter-gang rivalries. This opens up a saga of bloody violence, murders,
rampant corruption in the cops and moral decadence which finally culminates
with the syndicate head declaring Pushpa Raj as the chief of all smuggling operations.
With a sequel of the movie already slated for release by end of 2022 the story
ends with Pushpa’s marriage and an unusual climax with the new police chief
Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat (played by Fahadh Faasil, appearing only toward the end)
which had better stay unrevealed.
And what are Pushpa’s ‘humane’
qualities? Well, his compassion for his the downtrodden; his devoted love for
the dignity and position of his mother; and his chivalrous love and admiration
for the part-time heroine Srivalli (played by Rashmika Mandanna) whom he
rescues from the clutch of a sick womanizing son of a mafia lord. The entire
storytelling is predictable and a run-of-the-mill approach all the way; but as
we said earlier the film is a thorough entertainer with hardly a dull moment.
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’
tells the biographical story of a real-life personality, Jordan Belfort (played
over the top by Leonardo DiCaprio), in a crime black comedy genre that Scorsese
comes back to after the pure crime-gangster genre that yielded several significant
films in collaboration with actor Robert De Niro since the early eighties.
Jordan Belfort too is a very ambitious antihero who believes in making the quick
bucks irrespective of any scruples involved in the process. His starts his
career as a stockbroker in a New York in firm where he finds his Guru who
preaches using the drug-sex syndrome combined with the ‘pump and dump’ policy
for success in stockbroking, and fully imbibes the glorious principles of
success. After several stints he finds a devout admirer-friend-neighbor of his,
Donnie Azoff (played by famed comedian Jonah Hill, representing a real-life
person named Danny Porush), and the duo creates their own brokerage firm ‘Stratton
Oakmont’ bringing in several like-minded trainee brokers.
Inspired by the ‘pump
and dump’ policy the firm initiates a saga of cheating thousands of potential
investors of their millions, creating their own millions distributed in various
international bank accounts, inducing or forcing relatives/acquaintances into
helping them keep the money safe in the Swish accounts, orchestrating the drug-sex
fueled maniacal motivational speeches by Jordan to keep his Heads and employees
ever focused on the phone, and unleashing an endless graphic depiction of
rampant drug abuse, foulest of words, machismo, objectifying women, unsparing
nudity and explicit sexual orgies.
Without being an
official part of the New York stock exchange, the saga of frauds goes on
unabated with the narrative never preferring to take a look back at those cheated
mercilessly and the sins of the protagonist who from the beginning boasts of
his immense wealth and properties including prominently, his luxurious yachts. Although
the movie tries to show the antihero’s supposed downfall with the investigating
FBI and a court case indicting his frauds, the antihero manages a ‘deal’ that
results in his imprisonment for effectively only 22 months, and the film ends
with the glorious return of Jordan Belfort as a motivational speaker; what exactly
he is ‘motivating’ the young people for is, however, not made clear.
Of course, the
real-life Belfort went on making money by his role of a celebrated motivator
after the imprisonment, earning millions by writing a book of memoir and then more
millions by selling the book’s film rights. What then are the ‘humane’ values
of Belfort apart from being a sex and drug addict? Well, he is compassionate to
fellow human beings coming to him for help; he loves his wives at various points
of their togetherness; he really expresses his gratitude to his friends; he has
a strong sense of humor; and he is an exceptional orator.
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