Players: Twist in Oliver Twist

When you hear of 'The Italian Job' the very first thing that comes to your mind is a daylight robbery in the middle of traffic. Then you hear that it is being remade in India, the first thing in your mind would be what better place to set this up in other than Mumbai. Disappointingly the Indian filmmakers who made this remake set it up in Russia and New Zealand and even more disappointingly traffic has very little to do with it. I would have rather admired an Italian Job style robbery in Mumbai using Tata Nanos. Tata probably would have sponsored this few hours long ad-film. In that case the dialog "sau crore ki abaadi waale desh mein..." also would have made sense. But then, you do not expect sense from director duo Abbas-Mastan, whom I have fondly started calling Ab bas Mastan after watching their version of The Italian Job hoping they will get the message and stop making such senseless movies.

Lets go for gold guys.

Players starts exactly in the same fashion as the old Italian Job with Aftab Shivadasani getting killed by Russian (it was Italian in the original) mafia. His wife goes to Abhishek Bacchan, whose character has been creatively named Charlie (just as in the original), to give him a book, which is supposedly have coded message about a dvd hidden in the book with a plan to carry out the robbery of the century. We will later learn that the code was so stupid that anyone could crack it and get to know about the dvd and the plan. Anyway, moving on with the story, we are now introduced to Sonam Kapoor, who hacks into Abhishek's computer from her iPad while driving. How? Because she has studied computer science and apple is magic. Next we are introduced to Vinod Khanna, who is running the con-world through his jail cell just like Mr Bridger in original, without whose help we are told the great robbery cannot be executed. Vinod Khanna decides to help Abhishek Bacchan in his plan for a greater cause i.e. to build the world's best orphanage. Yes. That is his reason. You can imagine what he would have dreamt of about this great orphange since his share of the great robbery would be 4000 Crore. Vinod Khanna helps Abhishek set up a team of world's bests, which includes Sikandar Kher, world's best expert in explosives, who is deaf from his one ear; Omi Vaidya, world's best make up artist, who is still stuck with his 3 idiots character; Bipasha Basu, world's best seductress and Bobby Deol playing his real self as world's best illusionist, who is so bad that at the two occassions he tried to create illusion on one instant he ended up paralyzing his daughter for life and on second he ends up alerting one of the soldiers about the ongoing gold robbery. However at this point I was curious to know what kind of robbery Vinod Khanna had planned, that includes an illusionist as part of the plan. But there is only one problem they also need worlds best hacker Spider. Who is hiding and cannot be contacted. Computer engineer Sonam Kapoor comes to the rescue and locates Spider at his exact hiding place in Goa probably by logging into hacker.com and searching for Spider and getting his exact location on google maps. Or may be because she is a computer engineer and apple is magic. 

The Illusionist

With the team of world's best players set for the great gold robbery they leave for Russia and plan for the robbery in the most casual fashion, because casual is cool. Robbery does happen and again 2nd time after Ra.One we are made to believe that clocks run slower on a moving train. 

With the help of exit plan e-mailed by Vinod Khanna, they manage to escape and you check your watch thinking the movie is over but wonder why there was no interval. That is when Abbas-Mastan realise there is one more Italian Job movie and one from the group turns traiter to play the part played by Edward Norton and some characters are conveniently killed since there only 4 players needed for 2nd part of the movie. At this very moment you also realise that this is all set to be a very long movie. 

Sonam Kapoor trying to be sexy.

Second half of the movie is 2003 Italian Job with some mnior modifications that includes fucking up the whole traffic robber sequence and making it even more lame. In second half Neil Nitin Mukesh (spider) is Edward Norton, Abhishek Bacchan is Mark Wahlberg, Sonam Kapoor is Charlize Theron+the real napster (because she is computer engineer and apple is magic), Sikandar Kher is Jason Statham, Omi Vaidya is idiot and Johnny Lever the car mechanic. 

There is not much to look forward to Players. The entire cast seems to be competing with each other to win the worst actor trophy. The story is nothing but both the italian job movies back to back with some twists, which have made the story worse rather than improving it. Like any other recent movie of Abbas Mastan, dialog writer was told to use the key word Player in every three sentences and it gets irritating with every repetition. I would recommend you all to watch The Italian Job, either of them, rather than going for this irritating, laughable and senseless movie. 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Producer Tom Cruise: I don't rememeber when was the last time I was in a decent film. Lets make another of those mission impossible movies and since people in USA have already stopped watching my movies I will make it for the third world countries. 

Producer J J Abrams: Cool. A MI movie would involve a lot of computer stuff so lets hire the director of The Incredibles to direct this one.

Director Brad Bird: Wow. My first live action movie and I am working with Tom Cruise and J J Abrams. Dear Sirs! please tell me how do you want to go about it.

Producer Tom Cruise: Since we have already decided the movie will be for the third world countries who still believe I am a super star, we will base it out of Asia. 

Director Brad Bird: Cool. What's most famous in Asia? I have heard about this tallest building, Burj something they have in Dubai.

Actor Tom Cruise: Great. We can have a stunt scene in that building. I will get a chance to show that I am still the action hero I used to be. 

Producer J J Abrams: Nice idea. Since the building is already famous, it will help in our promotions. By the way, you are not thinking about shooting the entire movie in Dubai, right? What's a MI movie which does not involve some International conspiracy.

Director Brad Bird: We can hire that guy from Slumdog movie and give it an India connection.

Producer J J Abrams: Now you are talking like a businessman Brad. We sure hired a smart guy as director for this movie Tom.

Director Brad Bird: I also have some leftover gadgets from my Incredibles movie, we can use them too.

Actor Tom Cruise: Like?

Director Brad Bird: Like a pair of gloves which sticks to walls.

Actor Tom Cruise: Hey. Why don't I climb that burj building using these gloves? Would be super exciting. Are we using masks in this movie? I don't want to wear a mask again.

Director Brad Bird: Don't worry. We will make someone else wear the mask this time. What is a MI movie without a mask otherwise?

Producer J J Abrams: Now since we have decided everything lets call our script team Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec.

Director Brad Bird: Guys! We are making a MI movie. The movie needs to have an action scene where Tom clims the burj building in Dubai using sticky gloves, it has an insignificant Indian character, it involves an International conspiracy something that could end the world. Something like a third world war. 

Writer Josh Appelbaum: A third world war. Then that must be between USA and Russia. Since it has always been that way in Hollywood.

Director Brad Bird: And also, it has to be Tom Cruise all the way. 

Writer Andre Nemec: Should we show that he doesn't have any help from IMF and does everything on his own? 

Writer Josh Appelbaum: Cool dude. You got some ideas.

Writer Andre Nemec: I got that from Burn Notice.

Director Brad Bird: We cannot call it Burn Notice. Oh dear! burning reminds me of that stupid Nicolas Cage movie Ghost Rider.

Writer Josh Appelbaum: We can call it Ghost Protocol. 

Biometric Authentication

It's a new year so I decided to start with something new. So far whatever I have written in this blog had very little to do with what I do professionally. This is the first post in the series of multiple posts I intend to write hoping that they reach out to relevant people.

With UID coming into picture and being discussed everywhere for reasons good or bad; there is another related topic gaining popularity, which is Biometric Authentication. I have had multiple discussions in the past, some dating even before UID became a hot topic in payment industry, related to authenticating the customers using their biometrics with people from varied backgrounds. I have even worked on and implemented one such solution for my organization couple of years ago. Some of the points put up by various people during those discussions surprised me. Here is what others suggested and what I believe.

Biometric Authentications is required more in rural India. 
One common point that most of the people seem to agree is that the need for biometric authentication is more in rural India. I beg to differ. First lets talk about why it is not as much a requirement in rural parts than in urban parts.

The primary reason given to support the above argument is the level of literacy and exposure to technology among rural population. They say that an illiterate person cannot handle the PIN. I say being illiterate and being stupid are two different things and they are not co-related. I have seen semi-literate people running successful business and I have also seen very educated people writing their PIN on the face of their cards (which is very risky and should not be done under any circumstances). I am assuming the assumption is that the group of population we are talking here are semi-literate because we are expecting them to perform banking transactions. So they understand numbers and also basic mathematics. Even if they don't PIN is not a 4 digit number, what I mean is if your PIN is 2645, it is not two thousand six hundred forty five; it's two six four five. As long as each of these images look different and can be matched with the images on the keypad of an ATM or a handheld device, anyone can punch the PIN with or without any education on mathematics.

They also fear that a rural person might not be able to keep the PIN secure. There could be two meanings to it. One, he may share his PIN with others. Well, tell a person that this is the key to access all your hard earned saving and sharing it with someone with mean you risk all of it and then see what they will do. They will keep it as their best kept secret. Two, someone could fraudulently get hold of the PIN. For this I am relying on the assumption that a fraudster is supposedly a smart person and no smart person would go through so much trouble to steal few hundreds/thousands while he can by using the same methods steal lacs from urban population.

So, as per my logic a rural semi-literate person can handle PIN very well and in many cases even better than  his urban literate counterpart.

Why biometric authentication is a bigger need for urban India?
This should be easy to explain, since most of the people reading this belong to this section and will be able to relate to it. Here we are talking about a population who needs to remember so many passwords that these days many mobile phone manufacturers have launched smartphones with in-built password keeper application. A common urban person who regularly uses his debit/credit card for transactions also is the person who needs to remember a bunch of passwords. For example: Debit Card PIN, Credit Card PIN (which I presume very few bother to remember and are lost when they need it for some specific transaction), telephone banking TIN, Internet Banking IPIN, e-mail password, workstation password, passwords to many social networks he might be a part of and so on. The list is endless. Now if to such people I tell that they need not remember a few of these passwords and they can be authenticated using their finger prints when they are using their card at ATM/POS and they can be recognized using their voice while using telephone banking, I personally believe they will be delighted. It will also save them the trouble of changing their password every few month for fear of compromising it.

Another point in support of my argument is the level of identity theft and skimming frauds, which are on the rise. As long as there is a PIN it can be compromised, if the fraudster is smart enough. Urban population is more likely target to such fraudster simply because they offer better return on investment to the fraudster. Now if there is no PIN and only my finger print can allow withdrawal of cash from an ATM, what any fraudster can do. If we manage to build a strong biometric authentication mechanism we may even be able to do away with cards. No cards, no card frauds.

Hoping for a brighter future and a happening year ahead for payment Industry.