FROM HOLLYWOOD TO KOLLYWOOD #1- PHONE BOOTH

Its vacation time, the perfect time to catch up on some movies and chat with friends. The idea for this blogpost(or rather this series of blogposts, hopefully) sprung up when i was chatting with my friend as to how different a hollywood movie would be if directed and/or acted by our kollywood directors and heroes.

First up in the series of FROM HOLLYWOOD TO KOLLYWOOD is PHONE BOOTH, an American psychological thriller about a man who is held hostage in a telephone booth by a sniper. It stars Colin Farrell, Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, Radha Mitchell, and Katie Holmes. The film was directed by Joel Schumacher, with music composed by Harry Gregson-Williams.

DISCLAIMER: The passage given below is a work of fiction, done basically out of boredom. References to any person living or dead, is purely unintentional.

Here goes nothing.

PHONE BOOTH(ENGLISH)

PLOT:

check out the link below if u aren't already aware of the plot

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_Booth_%28film%29

Now here's the flip.


தொலைபேசிச் சாவடி(THOLAIPESI CHAVADI- the phone booth)

(taking into account the tamil nadu government's rule to have only tamil names as film titles. and also, kollywood filmmaker's pattern of having a caption that more often than not happens to be the literal translation of the title itself. ;P)


PLOT:

Stu Shepard is a minister/very highly ranked government official who is contemplating cheating on his wife Kelly. After work, he calls Pam, a young actress, from a phone booth. When a man tries to deliver a pizza to the booth, Stu rudely dismisses him. After the phone call with Pam, the phone rings and Stu answers it. The caller warns Stu not to leave the booth. The man doesn't tell Stu his identity, only that he loves to watch him. Stu, again dismissive, is skeptical toward the mystery caller, thinking it is a prank, and tells him he is going to hang up. The caller calls up pam, with whom stu has an extra marital affair. He then tells Stu to call his wife and tell her the truth, or else he will. Angrily, Stu does so. Before he has a chance to tell Kelly the truth, Stu is distracted by two prostitutes who want to use the phone.

INTRODUCE: 1)item song with the 2 prostitutes gyrating to the beats of a happening music director. the item song would preferably be a late night-open to all-public stage-i don't care if kids are around type.

The prostitutes become hostile due to Stu's refusal to leave the booth, and they start banging against the glass. Stu becomes agitated and finally hangs up on his wife and yells at the prostitutes to leave him alone. As the two girls leave, the man calls and warns Stu that if he hangs up again, he will shoot him. Stu doesn't believe him but is convinced when the man cocks his rifle.

The situation escalates further when the prostitutes and their pimp, Leon, approach the booth and demand that Stu leave.

INTRODUCE: 2)over dramatised fight scene including crashing lamp posts, water billowing out of hand pumps and flying bodies.

Leon is shot in the back by the sniper and the horrified prostitutes call the police, accusing Stu. The police arrive and Stu is instantly the suspect.

Kelly arrives at the scene and the sniper makes Stu confess to her about his infidelity, which Stu does.

The police finally track down the sniper by tracing the call the sniper made to Kelly, and Ramey tells Stu through a cryptic message that they have done so.

INTRODUCE: 3)high speed crisply cut shots to vigilance departments, cyber crime wing and other police departments that might not even remotely have anything to do with tapping a telephone number! also include, a call from the chief minister(man, y do they always pull the poor guy into this! :$ :D)

The police official(who btw, happens to be the hero in the tamil remake) tells stu to continue with the conversation while the police raid the adjoining buildings. Stu foolishly informs the sniper that the cops are coming to get him and the now enraged sniper chooses to take stu's life. stu hears the cocking of the gun. the next moment a shot is fired. stu stares at the sky, wide eyed in shock and falls down to the ground. the picture fades out into a dull black.

SWITCH TO FLASH BACK MODE

(once again, include high speed camera zooms to the 2nd window on the 3rd floor of the 4th building to the left of the booth)
at the exact second the villain cocks the gun, the hero enters the apartment, and rite when he pulls the trigger, our hero shoots him in the head(as vadivelu says in the tamil flick 'winner'. "thambi, idhuvum timing uh" ;D. shocked by the impact, the villain loses his target and the bullet gets deflected off course and hits stu on his shoulder(leading to blood loss and the reason he falls down unconscious(damn, the guy didnt actually die, he was just unconscious!genius!)

As the film draws to a close, the camera once again pans to a bird's eye view of the room, where a body is shown lying 5ft away from the hero, who stands there with his gun pointed to where the villain was(duh, before he was shot dead by our hero!). the smoke still rising from the barrel of his gun!

NEXT SHOT:AS THE END CREDITS ROLL OUT, the hero is shown being presented with a state award by the CM(duh, again!? :/) for saving the life of the minister/very highly ranked official(who by the way happens to be an adultering lecherous scumbag who has done no good to the society! damn, did u really have to save him mr.hero :$), with the remix of the hero intro song being played as BGM.

add to this a duet between the hero and his love interest, a reporter more often than not(who btw happens to hog 8 minutes of screen space in a movie spanning a little over 120 minutes(the 8 minutes include a 1 minute intro, 5 minutes song sequence, 1 and half minute of screen space when she is shown covering the phone booth fiasco and a half minute at the end when she is shown running towards the hero in slo-mo, a scene that eventually ends in an embraceful bear hug from the heroine and a nonchalant one from the hero ;P)

include all this and a bit more, expand the originally 81 minutes long movie into a 2 and half hour 'never before seen' (don’t they get tired saying this all the time, even for a remake!, well for god's sake, go check the meaning of a 'REMAKE' first!) movie that has incredible humour(yes humour, never mind if this was originally a psychological thriller), romance and action and you have a moolah raking, silver jubilee run completing super hit on the cards.

P.S.: names of the characters and the food being delivered might be changed to suit local taste. so instead of the pizza delivery guy, you might have a guy on a brightly coloured moped delivering you freshly made idlies from MURUGAN IDLY SHOP© :D :P


P.S.S: Wondering why i haven't posted a hindi version of the remake, guess what, its has already been remade into hindi as



but guys, the least you could do was accept that it was a remake, or atleast an adaptation. :P ;D


UNTIL NEXT TIME,

ADIOS!