View Full Version : Ashdoc's Bollywood movie reviews
Highway---
( I wonder if it is ' inspired ' by some Hollywood movie )
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Waiting to exhale---is Alia Bhatt's character ( Veera Tripathi ) in this film....
She is tired of the stuffy atmosphere of her household and of the malignant people she is supposed to call her own because they happen to be her relatives....
....So much so that she is willing to take a dangerous ride on an unsafe highway with her fiancee in the middle of the night just to breathe the fresh air....
Then the unthinkable happens---Veera is kidnapped by goons who get the jitters when they realize that she is the daughter of a powerful man....
And the responsibility of holding her is taken by one of the kidnappers ( Mahabir ) who is played by Randeep Hooda.....
But as they travel along the highway , Veera discovers a freedom that she never experienced at home....
As she and her kidnappers move from place to place Veera embarks upon a journey of self discovery and self confidence....
As Veera's astonishing naivete ( does she know that Mahabir initially had planned to sell her in a whorehouse ?? ) catches her kidnappers by surprise , it also tames them and brings out the human in them....
From being physically violent towards Veera the kidnappers change to maintaining a respectful distance from her....
And her womanly influence makes Mahabir remember his mother ; yes , a tender and loving and caring mother whose love and care and tenderness he had forgotten long ago in the midst of all the hell he went through in life as he became a criminal....
As Veera now begins to make her kidnappers dance to her tune ( and I mean that literally ), an exasperated Mahabir decides to get rid of her burden by freeing her....
But Veera has found happiness in bondage and she never wants to let go of Mahabir.....
She wants Mahabir to help her achieve her dreams---dreams of travelling on rooftop of a bus in the himalayan wind , dreams of sitting on a rock in the middle of a river watching the water gush by , dreams of climbing a snowy mountain in bitter chill , dreams of building a beautiful house on top of the mountain.....
So does Mahabir help Veera attain her dreams ??
And can they escape the police that her father has sent after them ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
Randeep Hooda plays his gangster act with menace in the beginning , and with increasing pain on his face as he realizes the hopelessness of his existence as compared with Veera's , and later with maturity as he realizes that the cultural and class differences between him and Veera are too huge to bridge . He is a man of the world , a man who has seen it all---the good the bad and the ugly , and he does not want Veera to see the ugly world....
And Alia as Veera---she displays all emotions ; naivety initially , and then increasing effervescence as her personality blooms with increasing happiness , and then warmth and understanding as Mahabir's pain becomes clear to her....
It is hard to decide who has acted better---Randeep or Alia....both deserve full marks...
But beneath Veera's naivety and effervescence and smile lies an ugly reality---an ugly reality she has experienced too early in life , an ugly reality that forms the turning point of the film as her decision not to part with her kidnappers is based on it....
What is it ?? I am not telling , and you will have to watch the film for that....
Music is good too , but you don't miss the lack of it in the first half---the film moves effortlessly even without it....
And the film gets better as it moves in the latter half to mountainous parts , for it gives the chance for the cinematographer to show some breathtaking photography----of narrow winding roads snaking through mountains covered with white snow , of streams gushing with chilled water in the deep valleys , and of Alia Bhatt looking gorgeous in ethnic clothes....
You only wish that Mahabir and Veera could have had a better chance of a life together....
Verdict---Really good .
Himmatwala ( Note---Himmatwala means courageous )
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I went to watch this film for 3 solid reasons---
1) Tamannaah
2) Tamannaah
3)Tamannaah.......
.......with the emphasis on the aah......:p
Yes , Tamannaah.....aah....
She with the milky white body.....
She with the luminous face lit like a million moons.....
She with the thousand watt smile....
She with the beautiful light eyes....
She with the silky brown mane of hair.....
She with the soft and tender skin.....
She with the slim waist and sumptuous belly......
She with the deep navel......
She with the delicious curves and delicate body......
Her first hindi film....
.......And even before it was launched she was already inhabiting the realm of my dreams.....
Not since Dia Mirza ( my fave ) and Aishwarya Rai has a woman caught my imagination like this one has......
So inspite of all the brickbats it was getting in reviews I was drawn to this film like a moth to a flame.....
Come hell or high water I was going to see this film....
And so I did.....
And I feasted my eyes on Tammannaah---with the emphasis on the aah , remember that.....
And I returned home a fulfilled man.....
What else do you want ?? The review of the film ??
Well it consists of the ugly Ajay Devgan who has come to his friend's hometown to save the town and his friend's mother and daughter from the evil clutches of Sher Singh ( played by Mahesh Manjrekar ) who had killed his friend's father.....
And he is one true himmatwala ( courageous ).....
Can beat several people at the same time with two huge metal bells hitting them in turn....
Can fight a beast of prey......
Can lift an entire bullock cart to attack his enemies......
And is protected by the mother goddess who sends her tiger to protect him at the same time Allah protects him with his taawiz (talisman ).....
What else can one want to see.....??
Well , one wants to see some coherent storyline and good entertainment which is sadly lacking.....
The director doesn't know whether to make the film comedy or serious , acting by most actors is not great , Tamannaah's exposed thighs are fat ( but she is still my Tamannaah.....) and the item song is needlessly thrown in.....
The only good performance is some great acting by Paresh Rawal who gives some real laughs in his act as the brother in law of the evil Sher singh who marries Ajay Devgan's sister to his son in order to bring Devgan to heel.....
Rest of the film is all nonsense....
But I went home a satisfied man.....
For I had seen a movie containing the gorgeous Tamannaah.....
But you wont get such satisfaction from the film.....
.......For Tamannaah is only mine......;)
Verdict---Bad .
christine
04-13-14, 02:47 PM
Ah Ashdoc I see you're following the fine Indian tradition of love poetry in your description of Tamannaah!
Ah Ashdoc I see you're following the fine Indian tradition of love poetry in your description of Tamannaah!
Beautiful women do awake the poet in me ;)
Aashiquie 2 ( aashiquie means love affair )
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Memories of another day.....nostalgia of the old times.....
In 1990 I had watched a film called Aashiqui having beautiful songs on my video cassette player with my school friends and dreamt of romance.....
And 23 years down the line I went back to see the second edition of the film and hoped to dream of romance again---relive those old times.....
And sure enough , Aashiqui 2 does deliver onto your expectations upto some extent bringing back as it does the simplicity of romance like it was in the old times---yeah , more than 23 years ago....
It delivers a romance that is untrammeled by the harshness of reality and by the considerations of practicality---the two lovers love each other with a utter simplicity that would make a cynic of todays times laugh with condescension.....
But many from the old times would appreciate , and an earlier generation of film critics and filmmakers would be giving approving nods from heaven.....
So whats the simplicity ??
A fading male singing star finds a sensational new singer singing in a bar and decides to make her the new star on the singing horizon.....
But why is she so young and beautiful and delicate to complicate matters ?? Wont that make him fall in love ??
And why does she return that love in equal if not greater measure ?? And that too even after becoming a singing star....?? A love that a cynical or even normal person would forget after achieving success....
And above all , why does she continue to love him even after he himself admits that he is a total and complete drunkard , and that he and his drinking would be a drag not only on her career but also on her personality and ultimately he would bring her down.....
Why ??
And why does he continue to love her even in the midst of his drinks and why does he take all the taunts and insults he has to take as failed alcoholic partner of a singing star....
Why indeed ??
Its just the simplicity of true love.....
A love they dont make anymore these days---the ingredients for making such love have long been lost and forgotten....
Ultimately one of them will have to take a very tough decision.....
But whatever that decision is and whoever makes it , its not gonna go down well with my aching heart....
So who takes the decision and what is it ??
Go and watch the movie for that.....
The movie has some good performances by Aditya Roy Kapoor as the male lead and Shakti Kapoor's daughter Shraddha as female lead....
And from where did that lecherous bozo Shakti produce such a lovely daughter ?? It must be the genes of her aunt Padamini Kolhapure and her mom Shivangi Kolhapure for sure....
.....For true to her mother's genes she plays a marathi mulgi rather than a punjabi kudi.....
Though Aditya plays a heart warming role as a person whose love never fades through thick and thin even though his health and career are on the decline and impresses as the lover who keeps his male ego in check as his career is lost even as his female partner's is on the rise, the fact remains that the viewers were finding some parts of the movie too silly and the romance overstretched---indeed the audience was sniggering during some scenes....
The new generation failed to empathise with the old world sensibility of the romance.....
Ultimately it was the fine climax which effectively silenced the sniggers.....
Its the music which makes the film a true successor to the Aashiqui of yore---for not only the music of this new edition is good but it has been effortlessly seamed into the narrative to make the film a true musical.....
Yet many may find the romance too corny and come out with only an okayish impression of the film....
Verdict---Very nice .
Inkaar ( Inkaar means denial---especially of guilt )
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Sexual harassment of women---the raging topic of the day in India.....
And at the precisely right time when this topic is gaining prominence , comes the movie INKAAR....
Whether it is really sexual harassment of a woman depends on the atmosphere of the place and situation the woman is in.....
If the office the woman works in is a conservative place and the woman is a conservative woman who wears only sarees or salwar kameez , then even the slightest flirtation can be construed as sexual harassment.....
But what if the office the woman works in is a glamorous place full of free mixing of the sexes and opening drinking together and dancing and partying together and late night working together....
And what if the woman herself is a party animal who wears sexy hot exposing clothes , has slept with men before marriage and opening flirts with her colleagues---then what does construe sexual harassment of her ??
Where do you draw the thin red line ??
This is precisely the question put before Deepti Naval , a social worker brought to take a decision in a charge of sexual harassment that has been made by Chitrangada Singh on her boss Arjun Rampal.....
.....For both work in an advertising agency , a place full of free behavior between the sexes .
As Deepti sits to hear both sides of the case , the movie unfolds as a series of flashbacks in which both sides describe their view of what really was happening.....
.....And Arjun's view and Chitrangada's view of what happened in each situation is different from the other's.....
.....And both are intelligent people capable of convincing the arbitrator that only their version of the event is correct and the other's version is wrong....
But the matter is more complicated than that---for they have had an affair in the past which led to deep intimate relations....
And as if to further the complications both are now rivals in the same organisation involved in a game of one upmanship with each other.....
And it is such complications which make a movie more worth watching.....:)
As the events of the past unfold in front of your eyes in flashbacks , so does the story begin to grip your attention.....
But whose version is true ?? Whom to believe ?? Chitrangada or Arjun ?? The accuser or the accused ?? For both give solid reasons for their accusations on each other....
And what is the role of other persons working in the office in the story ?? And more importantly , what is their version of what really happened ?? For their testimony has an important bearing on the case as some of the events described happened before their eyes....
And who is more popular among the office personnel ?? Chits or Arjun.....
Do other women in the office have had similar experiences with Arjun , or he is well liked and indeed loved among them is he ??
For answers to these questions watch the movie....
The triumph of the director Sudhir Mishra lies in making the person who is guilty not really look like a villain in the end.....Indeed your heart does feel sympathy for that person.....
And good movies are those with good endings.....so I feel....
Verdict---well worth the money spent...
The attacks of 26/11 ( film made on a Pakistan trained jehadi attack launched from the sea on Mumbai/Bombay on 26 november 2008 )
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It was a situation tailormade to be filmed by the Badshah of blood and gore---Ram Gopal Verma who else.....
Bullets flying , blood flowing freely and bodies getting smashed to pulp---Ram Gopal Verma must have been licking his lips in glee.....
No wonder he went wandering in Taj Mahal hotel ( which was the scene of a bloody battle between the terrorists and commandos ) along with the then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh in search of a plot for his future film . All this was done in callous disregard of the fact that such a huge tragedy had just unfolded . And after the uproar over his act of going on a reconnaissance of Taj hotel for filming his film has now subsided , he does come out with the film---again in callous disregard for the uproar ; thats Ram Gopal Verma for you....
So was the reconnaissance worth it ?? Has he come out with a film that was worthy of taking the tour of Taj and getting all the criticism ?? Not really....
Of course he has shown plenty of what he excels in---dollops of murder and killing and bodies getting punched by bullets and mayhem . The terrible gleam in the terrorists eyes as they carry out cold blooded acts of mass massacre is shown in a manner befitting the master of violent films in Bollywood . Blood oozes out from both sides of heads as bullets pass through them . And the director is not afraid or too politically correct to show how religion is shown to be misused as a tool for creating terror rather than mold society . The pitilessness and remorselessness of those who train jehadis in Pakistan and those who become machines in carrying out these acts is well brought out .
However the director stops at that---after the terrorists have killed people at CST train terminus and Taj hotel and Cama hospital , the film suddenly changes focus . The main focus then shifts to Kasab---the inhuman face of the whole event .
Yes , martyred constable Tukaram Ombale does receive his moment in the sun---how he captured Kasab is shown . But what about the NSG commandos like Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan ?? In fact , the fighting at Chabad house and at Trident hotel along with the bravery of NSG commandos is not shown at all.....
Is it because the director does not have the ability to show a military operation like the flushing out of the terrorists by NSG commandos ??
Or is it that he was short of funds and the budget of the film did not have the capacity to fund the showing of the whole bloody fighting ??
Or is it that the director wanted to spare us more doses of death ?? Now knowing RGV thats hardly possible is it....
But whatever the reason is , we get to see an incomplete version of what happened .
Instead , we get to see Kasab describing his point of view---how he was brainwashed into becoming a killing machine by all the fears of hellfire and promises of virgins and milk in paradise given by his trainers . One good point is that the actor playing Kasab looks uncannily like the real man and acts well in his role .
But then the joint commissioner then goes into a lengthy explanation of how these acts are unislamic and against what the prophet of Islam taught etc etc . In short , it becomes all talk and no action .
Of course , all this is to be expected from hindi films which are usually notoriously tardy in showing military operations with precision and deliver heavy only on the emotionalism part . Hindi film directors simply lack the technical finesse to show commando operations .
At the end I felt that the definitive film on 26/11 is yet to come . When it does , it should not waste its time in discussing as to how the acts of terror are to be juxtaposed with what religions say about them but should show the whole fighting in clinical precision . But knowing Bollywood's lack of expertise in this field , it will be a long wait....
Verdict---okay .
The iconic Taj Mahal hotel ( a favourite of westerners ) goes up in flames in the actual attack
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Rangrezz---
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I went to see this film because from the promos I gathered that it touches a topic that is important to young people ; a topic that was always on the mind when I was in the twenties---that of parental opposition to marriage between two young people who decide to marry , and elopement as a solution to this problem .
And what if the parents are powerful people who can bring enormous resources to bear against such elopement ?? What does the couple do then ??
The pundits of the art of elopement ( yeah ,there are pundits in every field ) say that in such cases the couple in question has to have three Ms---money power , muscle power and manpower.....
.....And all three come only if you have loyal friends....friends who are ready to take the risk of fighting and getting injured if a physical battle occurs , friends who are ready to risk police trouble if it comes to that , friends who are as steady as a rock....
Rishi is such a friend.....
So when his friend comes from Lalitpur to Mumbai to ask for help to get his girlfriend to him against both parents' opposition , Rishi is ever ready.....
And help comes from Rishi's bosom buddies who are ready to risk life and limb help a couple in love.....
Trouble is---Rishi is Rangrezz....or at least the director behind the creation of Rishi's character is.....
So what does Rangrezz mean ??
Google search revealed only that it means a person who dyes clothes---that is , gives colour ( rang ) to clothes.....
But if you see the film you feel that rangrezz means someone whose approach to the question of elopement has the fanaticism of a desperado.....
And Rishi is certainly one such person....
As the elopement unfolds in front of your eyes you feel that you see a bunch of ' love fanatics ' in action.....
Nothing will stop them from running away with the girl---yeah nothing....
No obstacle is too great.....
Big metal pipes are used to hit them till one of them becomes deaf due to the blows , a truck runs over the leg of another one of them , and goons are sent to kill another's grandmother......
Yet behold the chutzpah of our young heroes---they still elope with the girl.....
The sequence of the elopement forms a visually spectacular treat and is the high point of the film....
Full marks to the director and above all to the cinematographer for filming this brilliantly......
The actors playing Rishi and his friends act well and inject real zest and madness in their roles....
But at the end of all this comes betrayal---a betrayal that hits like a cold shower in the hot steam of true friendship....
So who betrays whom ???
Go and watch the film for that.....
At the end you feel that the whole concept of friends going to any length to help out the lover couple is a bit overdone.....
It is unlikely to get friends who make such sacrifices in real life , and the whole thing is unrealistic....
And as the film nears its climax , it becomes disappointing.....
Of course , it is a ' different ' film , one with its own unique take on love and elopement---you have to give that to the director.....
But it offers a grim lesson to those who want to help people in love....
....And the method of teaching this lesson was not to my liking.....
Above all , its a film that is disappointing for those who believe in true love---like I do....
Verdict---Some people may like it but I didnt ; to each his own.....
Cocktail ( Indian movie , not the Tom Cruise one )
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Is there justice in the world ????
The answer is no......
At least not for women in India.....
And certainly not for women who cross the limit in sexual relations with men outside marriage....or rather before it.....
Deepika Padukone has to learn this lesson the hard way.....
She is the original wild child , a girl as free as the wind---who openly sashays in revealing clothes , sizzles in red bikinis and changes boyfriends at the drop of a hat.....only after she has tried them and tired them out in the bedroom.....
While we pray at temples , her temple is the discotheque where she is the diva who brings zing and life to the dance floor.....
And the offerings she receives at this temple is the bottle of liquor which also fills up her refrigerator so much so that it is difficult to find even a glassful of milk there.....
But she has heart of gold , really.....
Otherwise who would give asylum to a poor benighted girl who has come from India to the US only to be told by her so-called ' husband ' that he has married her only for her dowry and now its time to kick her out ??
Coming to this so-called ' husband ' , one wonders what a fool he is to marry a girl like Diana Penty only for her dowry.....
.....For she's the perfect wife material---fair , delicate , pure---the type of girl one takes to your mother.....
In fact instead of taking dowry , I would have PAID dowry for getting her like the muslims do as meher
But after being dumped , Diana is given a home to live in by warm hearted Deepika.....
But little does Deepika know that her life is going to undergo a cataclysm due to this....
For through Diana she comes into contact with Saif who is exactly like her---a philanderer who moves from girl to girl and as Deepika confesses after he starts bedding her , is hot in bed.....
This first half is thoroughly enjoyable with wisely cracked jokes permeating the atmosphere---and adding to the fun is Boman Irani and Dimple Kapadia who play Saif's uncle and mom respectively.....
But the movie turns serious in the second half due to a predictible twist---its time for all to get mushy and fall in love.....
So Saif and Diana fall in love with each other , but there's a spanner in their works.....Deepika the sexy bad bitch has fallen in love too , and to who else but to Saif.....
But to again ask---is there justice in the world , and if there is then is it there for women.....?
Consider this---the director has no problem with making Diana fall in love with Saif who is a notorious womaniser who sleeps with woman after woman......
......But he has a problem with making Saif fall in love with Deepika who is exactly like him in all ways....
No no no no , not exactly like him ashdoc , have you forgotten the teeny weeny fact that she is a woman.....
And that fact makes a helluva lot of difference to the world's perception of her philandering ( thats called being used by men ) and Saif's philandering ( thats called being James Bond ).
And so the director settles for a disappointingly conventional ending.....
So you know who gets whom....and who is left high and dry in the end.....
Maybe as consolation the director gives the acting honors to Deepika who perfectly shows the pain of feeling used and abused and gives free vent to her feelings of jealousy like a woman scorned.....
Verdict---I must confess its a good watch.....
Dehradun diary---
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Dehradun---at the foothills of the mighty Himalayas.....
Where the majestic mountains meet the evergreen plains.....
Where the cool breeze of the misty mountains separating India from Tibet mingles with the heat of the broad subcontinent.....
Where the sprawling and leafy campuses of beautiful colleges brim with the excitement of youth......
A place where romance does not need to blossom---it just happens to you....
So is it such a surprise that it is here that a young man and a young woman decide to fall in love.....
A love that is as pure as the water from the brooks that spring when the ice melts in the nearby snowy mountains.....
A love that has the blessings of the boys parents---for who in his sane mind would begrudge a fine young couple their chance to live life together ?.....
Alas !! But the pure love that springs from the cool winds that flow from the misty mountains ultimately has to meet the heat and dust of the plains.....
And the heat and the dust of the sweltering plains brings with it hate and barbarism....
For the girl's father is a politician---and as politicians go , he's a mean and dirty one.....
But his sons who are the girl's brothers are even worse---hooligans and murderers to boot.....
And they frown upon this romance with a hatred that can come only from illiteracy and backwardness and crudeness.....
For the differences between the boy's family and the politician's family are too great to breach....
While the boy belongs to a cultured family with a good reputation , the girl's family is rough and mean and full of killers.....
And is it a sign of our times that it is the rude and uncivilized family of the girl that has the moolah that the boy's family just cannot match......
Angry at the blooming romance the girl's inhuman brothers kill the bright young man in a fit of rage one night.....an honor killing.....
Cut to real life------
When I heard of the story of the film I decided to go and watch it for one reason---it sounds suspiciously similar to the story of Nitish Katara , the young man alleged to have been killed by sons of infamous UP politician-gangster D P Yadav for daring to romance their sister .
And when the killers are from such a powerful family , do I even need to say that bringing them to justice is not a task for the fainthearted.....
.......For they can bring their powerful resources to bear and make each and every witness to the killing change his words in court---including the young woman too.....
And when the woman in love abandons the task of bringing to justice the killers of the man she loved , the idea of convicting her brothers seems beyond possible.....
......For no one in town can dare go against the power of the young woman's powerful father and point out the young man's murderers to the court.....
Its left to the young man's brother to undertake the mammoth task of unmasking the truth before the judge---and he gets help from a gallant lawyer and honest witness to try this.....
But not so easy !!!
The young woman will have to admit her love for the young man before everyone to set in course the wheels of justice.....
So does she do that ??
In real life D P Yadav's daughter refused to admit the truth , thus protecting her brothers.....
So do we see justice delivered at least in a goddamm movie ???!!!! Or are we supposed to wallow in the mire of the injustice of reality ???!!!
Watch the film for that.....
The film does show how difficult it is for ordinary people to get a fair verdict when faced with the corrupt and the high and the mighty.....
And the helplessness of the common man does provide some moving scenes.....
No hero comes to deliver them from the oppression of tyranny.....
And for the media its just a show to get sound bytes and video footage.....
Ultimately its upto the power of the people.....
The film has some good music to rhyme with the tragic theme of the film.....
But frankly , the good music failed to lift me out of my sadness---the sadness that came with the coming to terms with the harsh reality of real life.....
And when a film has such a effect on you , it means it does work....
Verdict---Watchable .
Paan Singh Tomar ( story of a real life dacoit in India )
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When Alexander the great was campaigning in outlaw country , he wrote to his mother---'' I am in the region of leonine ( lionlike ) people . You are justly proud to have given birth to me , but out here every man is an Alexander !! ''
......Welcome to the myth and the legend of the outlaw.....
But behind the myth , lies the reality.....
.....A reality of sleepless nights spent in fear of the police , of moving from place to place for shelter like a hunted animal , of unshed tears yearning for the company of loved ones left behind in towns and villages , of the danger of being betrayed by your own people at every turn , of bullets killing one by one of your gang and of days living without food or water.....
But there are proud moments too---of your son's marriage getting fixed and you asking your son as to whether your reputation as an outlaw didnt deter the girl's parents ; and the son's proud answer , '' Dad , it was YOUR reputation that attracted the girl's family......''
Welcome to the ravines of the Chambal---where dacoits proudly call themselves REBELS and say that the real dacoits are the ones who sit in the parliament
......And where you are proud of your uncle and others in your family being rebels and outlaws ( sshh.....dont call them dacoits ) and boast of the respect they have in their villages because of their feared deeds.....
In such a family is born Paan Singh Tomar.....
But he wants to serve the country---and spends some of the best moments of his life in the armed forces.....
Its a time when his sporting talents are discovered , and he brings medals for the country from foreign lands......
.....And comes back to oh-so-brief but secret rendezvous for romance with his waiting wife.....
And its a time of shortlived glory---of female fans in Japan saying ' I love you ' and making his wife deliciously jealous......
......And a time of Paan Singh being deemed too precious an athlete to be sent to war.....
This is also the most enjoyable part of the film---for it shows army life with all its glory and discipline....
But its like a dream that will come to an end......
Because ultimately Paan Singh has to return to the ravines of the Chambal.....
.....And those ravines---they have rules of their own......
Those rules consist of endless blood feuds with your own relatives that ultimately lead him to become a rebel---nothing but a glorified dacoit actually.....
And there are no dramatic charges on horses by these dacoits waving guns like they showed in the english western films....
In fact ,there are no horses at all.....
Instead , its the hard grind of moving from cover to cover on foot saving every bullet , and dodging death at every second.....
.....And ultimately dying a dogs death.....
Its to actor Irfan Khan's credit that he brings this dog....err dacoit to life by a splendid show of acting.....
And three cheers to the director too....
.....For he genuinely gets you to sympathise with the outlaws.....an achievement in itself .
One wonders if Alexander the great was watching this film when said his memorable words.....
Verdict---good .
Guaporense
04-16-14, 11:46 PM
Interesting reviews. I have only watched a half dozen Indian films in my lifetime so I still remain completely ignorant of Indian cinema. What movies would you recommend?
Interesting reviews. I have only watched a half dozen Indian films in my lifetime so I still remain completely ignorant of Indian cinema. What movies would you recommend?
of recent movies i would recommend---
talaash ,
kahani ,
dhoom 3
Guaporense
04-17-14, 12:05 AM
How about Indian science fiction movies?
How about Indian science fiction movies?
indian science fiction movies are technically inferior to hollywood . if you are used to seeing hollywood cinema then you wont find them interesting .
Guaporense
04-17-14, 12:17 AM
Most science fiction I have watched is anime, made on a budget of 1% of Hollywood movies. I don't care much about special effects as long as they are passable (the best science fiction films Hollywood made are all 30 years old with completely dated special effects by modern standards).
Most science fiction I have watched is anime, made on a budget of 1% of Hollywood movies. I don't care much about special effects as long as they are passable (the best science fiction films Hollywood made are all 30 years old with completely dated special effects by modern standards).
ok , i will search for indian science fiction movies . i cant remember any recent ones .
will take a few days to find out .
Guaporense
04-17-14, 12:22 AM
All right. Thanks for your efforts.
Indian cinema is the world's largest and simultaneously appears to be the most inaccessible to western film critics and buffs. Very few Indian films are watched here for example, while the much smaller and less significant Korean and Taiwanese film industries are quite beloved here by the arthouse fans.
ok , i remember---' krishh 3 ' is a science fiction movie recently released .
Guaporense
04-17-14, 12:25 AM
Doesn't appear to be good though:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029231/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
Doesn't appear to be good though:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1029231/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
here's my review---
Krishh 3
https://shyfyy.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/krrish3-4.jpg
With this film Rakesh Roshan seems to have the ambition to make an Indian superhero and sci fi film that can match Hollywood .
But can he match Hollywood ??
The answer is---not really....
The only thing Rakesh Roshan can do is---he can copy it....
....For the film's scenes seem to be copied from various Hollywood superhero and sci fi films and do not have anything original in them .
Hrithik plays Krishh---the superhero who doubles as a blue collar worker who gets fired from various jobs because he's too committed to his other self as superhero and arrives late for work . So then how can he maintain his lifestyle and what are his sources of income ?? SSHH....Don't ask uncomfortable questions....
He has a sexy miniskirted wife ( Priyanka Chopra ) who works for Aaj tak TV news channel and knows his secret identity . His father is played by himself and father works for a govt laboratory . The father also is experimenting with using concentrated solar energy to bring back dead creatures to life but his experiment is not successful because too much concentration of solar energy tends to destroy the dead creatures .
Trouble breaks out in this paradise with the entry of Vivek Oberoi who plays the character of Kal---a handicapped villain who can use his enormous mental strength to move and shatter objects and who has created mutant living beings from animals and humans combined ( called maanwars ) to carry out his nefarious objectives....
And his nefarious objectives include creating viruses which kill people in millions and then selling their antidotes to earn huge amounts of money....
So can Krishh and his father stop this villain ??
The most important question is---can the audience get some entertainment while they do the stopping ??
To be honest , some kids might love this film---but only urban kids....
I wonder how people from illiterate backgrounds and rural parts are going to understand the highfundoo terminology and sci fi shown in the film....
Part of the film and the special effects seem like a computer game which is not meant for the common masses....
Acting by Hrithik is good , but Priyanka does not have much to do except look pretty....
Kangana Ranaut plays the vamp who falls in love with Krishh , but she falls for him too quickly and unconvincingly---how come a person who was coldbloodedly killing people just few minutes ago suddenly develop such a loving heart ??
The fighting in the end is more like carnage and it dragged on too much for my liking....
The music by Rajesh Roshan is his worst performance as music director till date---nothing more should be said about the music...
The special effects have been done by an Indian company without foreign help and by that standard they can be called good . But the ideas are all copied from Hollywood . Couldn't they think of some original stunts ??
Verdict---Just about okay . Personally I wasn't particularly impressed....
People who watch the film can be divided into two parts---1 ) Those who watch Hollywood films 2 ) Those who don't watch Hollywood films .
Those who watch Hollywood films will know that they are watching copied scenes from Hollywood and will get bored .
Those who don't watch Hollywood films will be seeing these special effects and stunts for the first time and may like it .
christine
04-17-14, 02:01 AM
Thank you for your reviews Ashdoc. I've never taken time out to read Bollywood film reviews until now. It's interesting how there's films about love all over the world, but each culture reflects their own concerns.
How is the cinema industry in India? I know films are a hugely popular pastime in India, but has downloading films to watch at home started to take hold in urban areas?
How is the cinema industry in India? I know films are a hugely popular pastime in India, but has downloading films to watch at home started to take hold in urban areas?
in south india people are mad about films and film stars enter politics to become chief ministers of those states . temples are built where people pray to the idol of the film star .
in north india people are less passionate about films .
bollywood is all about promoting children of stars into films . thus several generations of the same family are in films . there is also the infamous casting couch .
yeah , downloading has started to take hold in urban areas .
Shahid---
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I had never heard of Shahid Azmi till this movie came along....
Even the media which is neck deep into secularism had not dared to create a hero out if him , which is why I had never heard of him....
Yet the director keeps the tall ambition of painting Shahid as a hero---as a man who stood out for the rights of those who were wrongfully accused of terrorism without caring for his own life....
Problem is , by the movie's own admission Shahid's own past was not anything to be proud about....
He is shown to have been affected by the Bombay riots of 1993 and gone to POK ( Pakistan occupied Kashmir ) to train for jihad .
Now this itself raises controversy in my mind as to how come such a person can be treated as a hero .
question is , why did he go to POK to train for jihad....??
Did he lose any family member in the riots ?? Any near and dear ones ??
At least the movie does not show any such thing....
I would like to ask the director---did those muslims who lost their family members in riots all turn to terrorism ??
The answer is , most of them didn't....
Then why did Shahid , who didn't lose any family member in riots ??
Then how can the director justify Shahid's stint in a jihadi camp in POK ??
Similarly , may hindus are illtreated and subjected physical humiliation in Pak....
How many of them have turned to terrorism against Pakistan ?? Answer is---practically nobody....
Then how can Shahid's stint as a trainee jihadi in POK be treated as ' natural reaction ' to Bombay riots ??
The director wants us to pull off the amazing feat of believing that a would be jihadi is some kind of hero here in India....
Of course , Shahid remains only a would be jihadi....
He becomes disillusioned with the brutality of the training in POK and returns home to India....
Here the police is waiting for him and not only arrests him but also gives him the treatment reserved for jihadis . He is stripped naked and beaten .
Once again , the director makes the perfidy of wanting us to believe that this is a grave injustice , that he is being singled out because he is a muslim....
Tell me , what else do you expect if you go to Pakistani controlled jihadi training camps in POK ?? To be welcomed back in India with bouquets of flowers ??
Then he is misled into signing a confession that he was involved in a terror plot , for which he has to spend years in Tihar jail....
Here he is again tried to be co opted for jihad by terrorists serving time in jail , but is saved by a former jihadi who himself was disillusioned by the jihad and who prevents Shahid from turning again to terrorism....
Instead he is encouraged to take up studies and becomes a lawyer....
The very fact that such a person with such a tainted past is eventually released from jail is testament to the fact that India has an impartial justice system , otherwise how could a former wannabe jihadi be set free by the courts ?? Yet the director acknowledges this fact only grudgingly , making one of the characters say that the justice system does work in India though it works only late....
Shahid Azmi takes up the opportunity to practice as a lawyer , where he is honest enough to refuse to take up cases of people who are real criminals---which costs him his job with a prominent lawyer....
His personal life is a major component of the movie , with his courtship with his wife Mariam leading to marriage . But the marriage turns upside down because he begins to get death threats due to the dangerous work he has undertaken lately....
So what is that dangerous work ?? It's that of taking up cases of people accused of terrorism against India....
Shahid proves to be a brilliant lawyer who is hard to beat in a courtroom debate , and the courtroom debates are filmed brilliantly....
The actor playing Shahid ( Rajkumar Yadav ) has acted all too well putting his heart and soul into getting into the skin of the character he is playing .
To be honest , the real life Shahid looks better than the actor playing him , but Raj kumar has compensated for his lack of looks by his superb acting , which may fetch him awards....
It is his high acquittal rate of those accused of terrorism which turns him into a hero , at least for some....
But he angers powerful people by taking up cases of those accused of being involved in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and as he begins to get death threats his wife leaves him....
His face is blackened by chauvinists...
Shahid is leading a very dangerous and charmed life....
So what will happen to him...??
To me the bigger question was , is he the hero that the director of the film has tried to make him out to be ?? Considering his past and considering the fact that he fought cases for the people of his own community , that is somewhat of a tall order....
Of course , at least some for whom he fought were declared innocent by the courts . So maybe he really fought for those he believed to be innocent....
And he didnt care about his life or his marriage in his pursuit of saving those people....
You certainly have to admit he had courage of conviction....
But a hero ?? That is for you to decide...to each his own.....
And like him or dislike him , you cannot ignore Shahid Azmi---not after this film , for it's that good....
Verdict---Good .
Chennai express ( means train to the south indian city of Chennai , formerly known as Madras )
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The coming together of three people made Chennai express such a much awaited film....
Shah Rukh Khan---The former Badshah of the box office ; his last chance to revive his fading stardom....
Deepika Padukone---The reigning queen of Bollywood....
And above all director Rohit Shetty---The king of the 1 billion rupee ( indian currency ) club , who's name is reputed to spell sheer mindless entertainment....
And when a film has raised the ante this high , the pressure is on the whole team which made the film to match up to the expectations.....
The 1 billion rupees will come , and much more....but does the film really deliver what it promised or does the filmmaking team choke under pressure of expectations like the South African cricket team usually does??
First things first....
This is a film not made to impress the high brow intellectuals or even the film critics....
It's made to appeal to those half literate masses inhabiting a third world country called India---the west would scoff at such a film....
Along the way if the classes do like the film then good for them---but even if they dont then still the movie watching prowess of the masses is enough to propel the movie to the status of a hit....
But belonging to the classes as I do ( I do have an excessively high opinion of myself ) I was not too sure that it would appeal to me and went to see the movie only hesitatingly and because the producers had applied the smart technique of releasing the film in practically every available cinema hall---there was simply no other movie to watch except those which had been released earlier and had been seen by me....
So does the director choke like the South Africans or prove a continual winner like the Australian cricketers who played under Steve Waugh ?
In fact , like Pakistani cricketer Javed Miandad who hit a last ball six at Sharjah stadium to silence his critics the director revels under pressure and proves himself to be king---once again....
And amazingly , the classes were applauding too....
As the interval of the film dawned the well groomed people whom I was surrounded by ( they were kind enough not to mind my not so well groomed presence ) took the opportunity of the break to try to speak some broken Tamil ( south indian language ) and mouth and shout some Tamil dialogues....it's as if Tamil had become the lingua franca of the cinema hall....
And as I went to pee in the toilet all that I heard in the toilet was non Tamil men trying their hand at Tamil....
I deliberately prolonged my pee to see if they would stop but the newer ones coming to pee also were trying to master the same language.....
Were they all practicing because they going to catch the Chennai express at the nearest station ??
Or was it the impact of the film ??
The director has pulled a real rabbit from the hat and shown several characters in the film speak only tamil---this has ensured a true blue Madrasi ( south indian ) flavour to the movie....
The jokes are surprisingly intelligent and really funny....
But at some point you are going to get tired of the jokes and feel bored---as I did....
But the director knew the pulse of the audience better than I expected....
As the jokes became boring and repetitive he switched the mood of the movie from comedy to some romance and serious emotion.....and lo !! once again the movie became interesting.....
And you seamlessly and effortlessly understand what is happening even if some characters speak tamil---a real triumph of direction I feel....
Of course , the hero is a hindi speaker of north indian from Bollywood heartland---Mumbai/Bombay what else....
But he wins the heart of a madrasi ( south indian )damsel....
And how ??!! By accompanying her on the Chennai express....
But not so easy !!
At first Shah Rukh's plan to get down at Kalyan and go to Goa from there to immerse his grandfather's ashes gets derailed in his effort to save Deepika from goons....
He in fact is forced to go with her and the goons up to south indian state of Tamil Nadu in the Chennai express....
His dead grandfather would have approved---he actually wanted to get his ashes immersed in Rameshwaram in Tamil nadu anyway.....( Beware !! up there high above the clouds the ultimate superpower is watching---and controlling our actions as he controls our destiny....)
The goons who kidnap both Deepika and Shah Rukh are her father's men---she has run away from home because her father has fixed her marriage with another Don ( her father herself is a Don ) whom she does not want to marry , and Shah Rukh has got unwittingly mixed up in this....
And as Chennai express rolls on and finally halts and even beyond that when the story moves on in Tamil Nadu , we see some breathtaking photography of peninsular India---all evergreen countryside and majestic waterfalls and South Indian temples and sari clad women ( Deepika looks so wonderful in a saree !! ) and bridges crossing the sea and finally the deep blue ocean at Rameshwaram....
But Shah Rukh is not only unwitting but unwilling---why would he help Deepika a complete stranger ??
But Deepika has introduced Shah Rukh as the lover she ran away with to her father escape his wrath ( no she doesn't love Shah Rukh , not so early....) and Shah Rukh is deeper into this mess....
And before he can try to run away he has to confront some tough people---and like the common man that he is he chickens out from the confrontations.....
No wonder---the tough people he has to confront are really tall and superhefty guys ; each guy can be called a man mountain actually.....
Who in his right mind would fight them ??
And as he finally manages to run away he finds Deepika tugging along with him at every turn due to some twists of fate---a headache really.....
And do I even have to say that when two goodlooking people are thrown together constantly in hindi films then they fall in love ??
But to consummate that love the couple will have to turn back to face the DON ( her father ) and his goons who are all man mountains , and the person whom her father has fixed her marriage with---the biggest man mountain of them all....
So does the power of love give Shah Rukh the common man courage enough to fight them all ??
And does his grandfather's wish to get his ashes immersed in Rameshwaram come true ??
I suspect you all already know the answers....
It's the manner in which this all is filmed by the producers so that it is enjoyed by the audience that is important.....
And the filmmakers do this job with aplomb....
Verdict---magnificient entertainment .
The dirty picture---
http://www.cinejosh.com/gallereys/bollywood/normal/the_dirty_picture_movie_new_wallpapers_2810110249/the_dirty_picture_movie_new_wallpapers_2810110249_002.jpg
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If Silk Smitha ,the sultry sex symbol of south India of the eighties is somewhere up there in heaven today , then nowadays she must be smiling.....
No , not just because she is still capable of raising the hots of everyone up there , including the gods , like she used to when on earth ( that I am sure she is still capable of ).....
......But because she has managed to do something that she could never even hope to do in her lifetime---become the leading lady of an A grade film !!
Like so many stupendous failures , she's achieved in death what she couldn't achieve in life---reached the pinnacle of success......
For it is certainly the controversial manner of her death ( by suicide ) that has inspired Balaji films to make a classy film on a woman who was branded a slut , if not a whore in her lifetime , and take a classy heroine like Vidya Balan for the role.....
And above all ,they have made a good and different film on Silk Smitha's life---full of some good performances from the cast......
But from amongst the cast , its Vidya Balan who stands out the most---giving a performance of a lifetime ; not just a performance but a role that many top heroines would vie for......( now when I look up into the sky , do I see Silk Smitha smiling again ?? )
What comes to her aid in making her performance more memorable are the razor sharp dialogues written by a brainy scriptwriter, delivered by Vidya with a fabulous sense of timing
She plays---with aplomb---the role of a girl who yearns to be a film star ; who escapes from her home before she is married off , to the big city , in search of a role in films.....
......A girl who is ready to bare all and dare all for reaching the top.....
......A girl ready to take off clothes at the drop of a hat , not just in front of the camera , but off it too , especially in the darkness of the bedroom at night.....
And when a girl is ready to do the latter part , but naturally a line of men is ready to line up to bed her.....
All of whom are ready to fulfill their lust with her in privacy , but none are ready to even acknowledge her existence in public.....
......For the fame and the adulation that she has achieved is of the dirty kind......
She's become a woman who raises the temperature of men , but in this hypocritical society of ours , she has neither respectability nor place.....
She is shunned in gatherings of allegedly ' decent ' people ( the same people who enjoy her at night become ' decent ' in front of their wives during the day ) , and increasingly , this fact begins to bite her.....
But what bites her more are the fickle ways of fame and fortune.....
The same public that lined up theaters to see her movies now moves on to the next sex symbol.....
What saves other people in such situations is family and loved ones.....
But her family she has forsaken long ago in her search for elusive success , and no one wants to fall in love with a slut.....
......Which means she has to lead a life of loneliness amidst failure---and failure leads her to drunkenness and penury......
But the greatest failure is the fact that the person who hated her success and the way she got it now loses that hate he had for her---he has no need to hate someone who's inconsequential , she feels.....
But she is SILK , born to live a life of celebrity and fame.....
.....And if celebrity and fame is going to desert her , she feels no need to live.....
Its time to say goodbye to the world......
A goodbye that fills your heart with pathos for someone who was only supposed to rouse the feelings in your private parts.....
Well ,thats what is called a powerpacked filmy performance , isn't it.....
Verdict---good .
Bandook ( means ' the gun ' )---
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'' My gun is not the useless male organ of a eunuch ; not only can it get up , but it can also fire.... '' ---said by Aditya Om playing Bhola Kewat.....
The rural hinterland of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh---heartland of the planet's largest democracy.....
But does democracy really work here ?? No....What works is the power of BANDOOK---the gun.....
The gun decides who enjoys the fruits of power in elections or not.....and it is the gun which gives a man respect and standing in society......
.......For the gun gives power......and in a brutalized and illiterate society a man without power is nothing......
......And not only a man without power is nothing , but he can be crushed and humiliated in a thousand ways.....
Bhola Kewat learns this the hard way......
For he is tied like Jesus Christ onto a cross and physically mutiliated in revenge for a minor misdemeanour.....
But a police inspector waves gun and the crowd which was baying for his blood submits Bhola to him.....
And just as the inspector is about to rape him in the police station ( yeah the inspector is gay ) Bhola is saved by another man with a gun.....
And when Bhola returns home to beat his father to pulp for not having tried to save him , he is told that he is not his son really---he is the son of an upper caste landlord who slept with his mother to produce him , a crime for which the father beat the mother mercilessly to no avail.....
......This is the baptism by fire for Bhola......
And uptil now we have already heard and consumed a mountainload of obscenities that sets the tone for rest the movie.....for this was just the beginning......
Yeah , dont bring a woman anywhere near this theater for seeing this movie unless she is used to being verbally abused on a daily basis and does not mind......
......For the censors have given a real leeway as far as the language in the movie is concerned.....
But all the language and suffering is worth it for Bhola Kewat.....
For having learnt the lesson of the gun hard , he joins a gang and sets about ruthlessly establishing his awe with the help of the gun......
And he shows that he has the brains as well as the brawn to aim a gun , shoot to kill and also to rise in hierarchy of the gang by earning the respect of his seniors.....
Of course , he has to shamelessly eliminate quite a few rivals , but that's part of the game---the deadly game of death.....
......For the rivals are planning to eliminate him......
But he is gentleman at heart really , if anybody can be at all in his situation and place.....
For when he sees a beautiful woman who has been raped , he saves her from further humiliation.....
And lo !! the beautiful woman falls in love with him---springing the most unbelievable romance in the unlikeliest of situations.....
An oasis of peace and tenderness in an ocean of war and cruelty......
And Bhola begins to care for her deeply---his love increased by the fact that she is a deaf mute and cannot tell even her name ( she remains nameless throughout the film )......
But outside the oasis of peace is the strifetorn world.....a world which says that the deaf mute woman has broken all rules of caste by living with bhola.....
And dangerous enemies and even more dangerous friends are plotting and planning to rid the earth of Bhola's burden.....
Its a real jungle out there.....and Bhola knows that there is at least one gun and one bullet out there that is marked for him.....the rule is to live for the moment.....not to worry what is in the future....
So does Bhola get to survive ?? And does he manage to save the woman he loves from the clutches of society ??
Go and watch this movie for the answers......
Part ruthlessly actionpacked and part tragic , the movie is garunteed to make an impression on your heart.....
The performances by all are riveting and the atmosphere of rural India well created.....
.......And even though it has not been flamboyantly publicized like other movies , it ranks no less than the more successful among them in my opinion.....
Verdict---solid .
Aakashvani---
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College life---a time to set yourself free....a time for liberation....
......A time to let your hopes rise and ambitions soar.....
......A time for fun and excitement and the heady feeling of youth.....
.....And also a time for romance and love.....
And romance brings with it secret rendezvous in misty hills and secret meetings in corners of college campuses.....
And it brings stolen kisses in unguarded moments and stolen moments away from prying eyes....
But once the college days are over , you have to face the real world.....
And the real world contains parents---parents rooted in Indian culture which frowns upon the notion of a girl going out with a boy.....
Parents who are more bothered about false notions of family honour than the happiness of their children.....
This is the situation faced by Vani , a goodlooking girl in love with Aakash who studies in her college.....
Her dreams of love and romance are shattered as her sister runs away with her boyfriend and her parents are so overcome by shame and by the taunts of neighbours that they decide to marry her off before she apes her sister !!
.....And Vani does not have the guts to break her parents' heart and tell them that she is loves someone else.....
Like an obedient daughter she goes into the home of the boy chosen for her by her parents....
Now things could have gone normally for her after this , like they go for millions of other girls who are forced to accept husbands chosen by their parents in this backward land .
But the director , in typical filmy style , deliberately juxtaposes the husband as a mean and hard man compared to the gentle Aakash . While Aakash is nice and caring and modern in his views , her new husband is orthodox and believes in insulting his wife again and again . Above all , he commits marital rape upon her , forcing himself on her against her will . But his greatest sin is hypocrisy !! He pretends to be liberal minded before the world when in actuality he is the opposite....
It seems fate had destined Vani to be nothing but a doormat of a dictator.....
But this is the 21st century.....and winds of liberalisation have begun to sweep the land.....
And behold the power of destiny......for the paths of Aakash and Vani are destined to cross again.....
And when they do , does Aakash still hold the same feelings for Vani that he did earlier ??
And if he does , then will Vani respond to them ?? And will she have the guts to confront her husband and parents and follow her heart....
Will the winds of liberalism that have begun to sweep the land kiss and caress Vani's life too ??
For answers to these questions , go and watch the movie....
The film is an indictment of those parents who force their children into unwilling marriages and presents powerful arguments against the notion of marriage for the sake of saving family honour .
Above all its a film made straight from the heart.....
And anything made straight from the heart is watchable....
Verdict---watchable .
Not a love story---
Film based on a real life murder ( crime of passion ) in Mumbai/Bombay
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One can almost imagine Ram Gopal Verma ( RGV ) rubbing his hands with glee when he heard the story of the murder of Neeraj Grover , especially the fact that his murderer Emile Jerome Mathew and accomplice Maria Susairaj had cut Neeraj's bloodstained body into 300 l-i-t-t-l-e l-i-t-t-l-e pieces before disposing it off .
Here was a story fit to be fit to be brought on celluloid by the badshah of blood and gore !! The king of countless underworld films in bollywood !! Some good , some bad , but all having the trademark RGV style......
But while showing the mayhem unleashed by a crime of passion in a flat in Dheeraj Solitaire building in Malad in Mumbai , RGV surprisingly shows a softer side of himself......
For he shows the three main characters of the film ( the murdered , the murderer and the accomplice ) as the victims of a situation rather than trying to pin the guilt on anyone .
His softest touch is reserved for the woman--Anusha , as Maria is called in the film . She is shown to be the unwitting accomplice who is helpless as Robin ( as Mathew is called in the film ) and Ashish ( as Neeraj is called in the film ) physically tussle it out after Robin suddenly lands into Anusha's rented flat to find a naked Ashish there--and a mere spectator as Robin overpowers Ashish and kills him with a knife .
Ashish is shown to be a nice guy who helps out Anusha in her film career , and is prompted to make love to her only when he lands in her flat in a drunken state and loses control of himself .
To return to Anusha--she is shown to have rejected advances of other film-makers earlier , only to be unable to stop Ashish from making love to her as she has to pay a debt of gratitude . After all , he is the one who has helped her realise her bollywood dreams......
And Robin--he is the one with glazed eyes all through the film, as if he knows that he is going to commit a terrible crime , even before he has commited it .
But glazed eyes and all , nothing has prepared him for the sight of a naked Ashish as he steps inside his girlfriends rented flat one fine morning in Mumbai.....
......A sight which makes him lose control of his mind , and what happens next is just driven by passion , pure passion--a passion which knows no rhyme nor reason......
The rest--sending Anusha out to buy a large knife to cut the body into pieces , then actually cutting it , and putting the pieces into plastic bags , and then disposing them off in a remote area ,then wiping off all the blood in the flat--is something that Robin and Anusha have to do only after realising the enormity of what they have done too late.....
But caught in an impossible situation ,seeing their lives , their careers on the line , what else can the two young lovers dooooo.......??
And seeing such a plot , what does RGV's camera do ??
It moves up and down the heroine's ( what else can we call her , even though she has taken part in such a grisly crime ? ) body like a voyeur , almost licking her at times.....
......And it is never steady , constantly on the move--A reflection of RGV's mind ??
Watching over all this is lord Ganesha ( Hindu God ) , or at least his idol in the rented flat--making us wonder if the lord has any control over what is happening in his universe......
In the end the sheer weight of the situation forces the two lovers to back opposing stories in the courtroom ( as told by their lawyers ) until a moment of passion ( here we go again !!) allows them to reunite for a heartbreakingly brief moment.....but the heartless society is all around to prevent it......
Verdict--watchable.....
Yeh saali zindagi ( This damn life )---
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Irfan Khan is hopelessly in love with Chitrangada Singh......in fact so, so, so much that he is willing to do anything for her.......
But alas......she is in love with somebody else !!
Aaaah !! The pains and the heartbreak of one-sided love....
But wait !!.....there's hope on the horizon !!......Chitrangada's lover is a double-crosser who is fooling her .......besides , he's too much of a big-shot to marry a poor singer like her......
But when will Chitrangada realise....... oh my darling darling Chits.......
Meanwhile Chitrangada's' boyfriend is kidnapped , and Chitrangada moves heaven and earth trying to save his life........
.......And who is there ever-ready to help her ??.......to comfort her in moments of despair ??
........Who else but our very own Mr bumbling wannabe hero---Irfan khan !!
And all the time he's hoping ......hoping......hoping against hope , that she will say those golden ......no , no silver words ( speech is silver , silence is golden , remember ) --' I LOVE YOU '.......
But the wait for those words is a interminably long one......
.......but does darling Chits really say those life shaking words to Irfan ???
Go and see the movie for that.......
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Sorry to disappoint you folks , but actually the movie is not so romantic as I made it out to be ........
But the Irfan-Chitrangada plot is the most important one in a movie having many sub-plots......
.......And a movie full of confusion......
The hots are provided by newcomer Aditi Rao , who kisses Arunodaya Singh with abandon , and looks so lovely , so delicate ......her skin seems so white , so soft .......a lot of people in the theater were wishing to be in Arunodaya's place !!
Now enough of daydreaming , and back to reviewing.......
The story unfolds in delhi and its environs, and director Sudhir Mishra does manage to get a grip on the confusion , while the movie goes on with generous dose of real-time uncensored obscenities delhi-north indian style , and doses of shooting and killing .........
All the characters ( and believe me , there are too many ), and even the minor ruffians ,are introduced by their screen names coming on screen , giving the movie a whacky feel as it moves from delhi to georgia in the former soviet union to climaxing in Bombay .......
.........where Irfan is still waiting for darling chits to say those words he's been waiting for all his life......
verdict -- alls well that ends well ( amen to that )
Saheb , biwi aur gangster ( Boss , wife and gangster )---
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Looks like the ban on showing smoking in Indian films has been lifted......
And as if to compensate for the lost years when smoking was not allowed to be shown in films , the film shows everyone smoking.....
......Including the women too.....
AAAHH the women......
They form the delectable part of the film......
......Showing off their sensuous curves in backless blouses , deliberately standing in alluring poses , showing desire on their faces , enticing their lovers and audiences with lipstick on oh so inviting lips , making wanton love on the double bed or even on bare rocks in the hills , behaving in a free , almost shameless manner and showing passion in every move.....
Leading the pack is Mahie Gill , a sultry woman waiting , waiting , just waiting for the husband who , quite unbelievably , is always the arms of his mistress !!
Now why would anybody neglect a woman as seductive as that and go into the arms of another woman ??
Thats because everybody , including the boss ( husband ) , wife ( Mahie ) is crazy and eccentric in this crumbling mansion--the ruins of a once powerful royalty , but now fallen on hard times.....
Doesn't matter--the fact that the boss goes into the arms of another woman gives the audience the chance to see another temptress ( the mistress ) in action.....
.....And action she gives--gives all the oohs and aahs while making love , and giving embraces with her lovely arms entwined around the saheb's neck.....
But what about the wife ??
Doesn't a woman filled with tempestous desire need to fulfill her passions , her needs--needs which just cant be fulfilled by whiling the time in smoking and drinking , and waiting for the love which will never come from the erratic husband.....
Enter the sex slave....or , err , gangster--in the form of Randeep Hooda--a person sent by a rival gangster to keep a watch on the boss , waiting for a chance to bump him off......
......Thats because the boss has entered the dangerous underworld of murders and contract killings in order to finance his crumbling monarchy--thereby earning a lot of dangerous enemies.....
But the movie veers off course as instead of concentrating on his job , the gangster becomes slave of the wife's heart.....
Who cares anyway ?? We get to see more passion in action , this time between the wife and the sex slave--on bare rocks in the hills , in secret hideways in lonely mountains ....naked bodies burning in desire....and happily for the audiences eyes ( and other body parts as well---you naughty ) , fulfilling it....
And its passion that counts.....
For who cares for the murder and the mayhem that is unleashed as the rival gangster tries to bump off the boss , the hopelessly in love slave hatches a plot to kill both the mistress and the boss in order to permanently get his ladylove the wife , and ultimately the wife has to choose between killing the slave or the boss......that stuff occurs in all films anyway.....
We had our fun.....now time to walk away from the theater.....its not a fantastic movie anyway.....good for a one time watch.....
Verdict-- not fantastic , but decent enough.....
Talaash ( The search )---
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Mumbai......the bustling economic capital of a populous and rising nation.....
But at the heart of it there is a sea of sleaze---a den of prostitution and pimps and whoremongers and middlemen.....
These people lead lives of zero value and emptiness and nothingness....
No one cares if they are alive or dead.....
But what if one of them had the power to reach out and tell us about what happened to that person ??
TALAASH takes us into the heart of the city's forbidden zone---forbidden for those who want to lead respectable lives but a heaven for those freewheeling denizens who lead a bohemian life.....
A zone where the ladies of the night ape the look of New York's streetwalkers---tight tops and miniskirts with highheeled shoes....
And leading our foray into this nightworld is Amir Khan---the maestro of intelligent cinema.....
He is the stern and intense police officer investigating the accidental death of Bollywood's rising superstar---Armaan Kapoor......
And he has a right to be intense---for he and his wife ( Rani Mukherji ) are dealing with personal tragedy in the form of death of their son.....
And taking them into the heart of the investigation and also the heart of the forbidden zone is a beautiful streetwalker---Kareena Kapoor.....
But she's not looking more beautiful than Amir's wife Rani---for the director has the chutzpah to show Rani in low back blouses even in her grief , thus giving us glimpses of her sumptuous back.....
But while Rani is the simple yet elegant wife , it is Kareena who is the glamorous siren---and Amir is the lucky one who gets to spend time with both.....
But as I said , he's a brooding and intense man---and he's more bothered about the investigation than the charms of Kareena and even the pain of his aggrieved wife....
Ahh !! the investigation.....its a case that is hard to solve---a mystery in a riddle wrapped inside an enigma.....
.....And mysteries are what I like....the more difficult to solve the better....
But the icing on the cake is the conclusion---if the real mastery of the director is in solving a mystery in the most surprising manner possible then the film is a work of genius.....
So is it a work of genius ?? Go and watch the movie for that.....
The director's triumph has been in effortlessly blending Amir's personal life in the mystery of the film---and amidst all the tragedies and pain he manages bring both to a successful conclusion.....
Music is good too....
But it is Amir Khan who towers above all others in the film , dominating every scene and every space---once again his acting prowess is in top form.....
And when Amir is in top form the film is a must see.....
Verdict---dont miss it , and above all dont reveal the suspense to others.....
2 states---
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Ever since ' Hum aapke hai kaun ' became such a superhit 20 years ago , showing marriage in movies has become the staple for Bollywood entertainment . Endless number of movies are made showing scenes of marriage and the rituals and customs associated with it . Indian audiences simply love the feelgood atmosphere of marriage ceremonies and the feast of colour that is displayed by people wearing extravagant clothes while dancing to loud music in the festivities of marriage . But usually the story has other angles like scheming relatives or villains or some dramatic event that forms the turning point in the movie .
This movie takes the Indian obsession with marriage in movies further by showing the ordinary story of the fixing of a marriage between two lovebirds . Other than the fact that the two lovers belong to different states and cultures in India , there is nothing interesting about the story . Nothing dramatic happens , there is no sudden twist in the story and above all there are no bad people or villains playing mayhem . Even the fact that the two lovers belong to diverse cultures is diluted for me by the fact that I have seen countless such marriages happen in a cosmopolitan city like Mumbai where I was born and raised and this sort of thing is not new for me .
Inspite of this the director does manage to hold your attention especially in the first half when romance blossoms---and it blossoms so effortlessly that you wonder why everybody doesn't have a love marriage....
And the romance blossoms in the rarefied atmosphere of IIM Ahmedabad---the premiere management institute of the country where the people are highly intelligent and their views and attitudes are above the ordinary....
So is it such a surprise that love makes a beeline to the bedroom and soon the lovers are Kissing and sleeping together....
And is it such a surprise that the dress code for the heroine ( Alia Bhatt ) consists of modern western clothes which expose some of her lovely flesh....
But once the education is over and the lovers are out of the hi fi campus of IIM Ahmedabad , they are back in the welter of backwardness that is the real India....
.....And this welter of backwardness contains parents who belong to a different and earlier generation and who are not exactly comfortable with the idea of marriage between different states and different cultures .
The words ' not exactly comfortable ' are important here---for unlike other movies , there is no dramatic opposition to the marriage by anyone . No major battle takes place or any blood is spilled . But there is initial hesitation by parents on both sides and a major culture clash always seems to be on the cards....
To be honest the movie does tilt towards the side of south Indian Tamils ( Alia Bhatt's ethnicity in the film ) by showing the tamils to be more civilized than hero Arjun Kapoor's parents---the Punjabis....
.....For Arjun's father is shown beating his mother like typical punjabi male . And like a typical punjabi , he is forever drinking....
Punjabis are shown to be greedy for dowry and gifts from the girl's side . And they bring racism in by frowning upon the tamilians as dark skinned while they pride themselves on having fair skin .
You almost empathize with Alia's tamil mother when she herself shows some narrowmindedness and scoffs at punjabis as ' uncultured '.....
So how is the culture clash that almost happened is just avoided ??
And does everything end well ??
Watch the movie for that....
The movie has good acting by Alia Bhatt who looks good enough to eat . But her dress code changes from western to ethnic once out of IIM Ahmedabad . Why so ?? Modern Indian women wear western clothes even after marriage don't they ?? Anyway she looks good in both clothes , though do I show typical Indian male mentality by saying she looks better in Indian clothes---I wonder....
Arjun Kapoor is decent and his acting is improving , though it does not match Alia's acting . Music is only so so .
The second half of the movie is less fun filled than the first half and in some scenes is somewhat depressing . The fact that Arjun's father is forever scowling and his relation with Arjun and Arjun's mother is fraught with tension is not a great sight to see . But some scenes in the first half are heartening to watch---especially when Arjun proposes to the whole of Alia's family bringing engagement rings for all of them rather than her alone....
In the end , one must applaud the director for bringing an ordinary love story to life by making it appear more interesting than it actually is....
Verdict---Good .
Lakshmi ( real life story of a young girl who was sold into a brothel )---
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Human trafficking---scourge of our time....scourge of all times since the beginning of history....
For human trafficking is what feeds what is reputedly the world's oldest profession---prostitution....
And some of these prostitutes are sex slaves---kidnapped and sold to feed the voracious lust of men....
The story of Lakshmi ( set in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh ) is similar to that of millions of other girls who have met the famous ' fate worse than death ' . Her father sells her off for a sum of money to human traffickers who force her into the world's oldest profession .
I would like to recommend this movie for seeing to the people who help this profession survive and indeed flourish---the men who visit prostitutes....
.....For the movie gives a real glimpse into the sickening life that the prostitutes are forced to lead in order to satisfy lust of men....
Because they are unwilling to become prey of lust , these women are beaten in the most gruesome manner to force them to sell their bodies . Myriad tortures are invented to prevent them from complaining to the police---like burning their private parts with cigarettes....
The men and women who run this profession are worse even than murderers---they are the scum of the earth literally....psychopaths without mercy....
And maybe after seeing this film some of the men who visit prostitutes will stop going there---for they are sure to be appalled by the savage treatment of these women and may realize what hell is the place they visit....
And Lakshmi is in this hell . Her attempts to escape are punished by increasing brutality . The worst part is the role of police in this . When she runs off and complains to the police , the police send her back to her masters !! Obviously the corrupt police is on the payroll of the human traffickers .
Finally a social worker saves her and other girls from the clutches of her tyrants . But to bring her oppressors to justice will require courage of a different kind . For they threaten her with violence and cajole her and try to give bribes to suppress the truth . And their lawyers ask embarrassing questions in court .
So will Lakshmi summon the courage to send the criminals to jail ?? Watch the movie for that....
The acting by Monali Thakur ( as Lakshmi ) , director Nagesh Kukunoor ( as Chinna , the man who pushes her into prostitution ) and Shefali Shah ( the madam of the whorehouse ) is realistic . Some scenes like the scene in which Lakshmi is raped for the first time and other scenes of the gruesome violence that is meted out to her and inmates the whorehouse are too painful to watch .
But the heroism of Lakshmi in court ( she is just 14 years of age ) will make you laugh of the so called heroism of Bollywood heros who beat up 10 men in cinematic unreality . For Lakshmi's heroism is real and not filmy .
The film gets more brutal as it progresses , and the brutality gets more and more unpalatable . Yet one should remember that this is what really happens in these places in real life .
The light hearted musical score is strangely in contrast to the grim proceedings and runs as background music throughout the movie , and sounds ironical to what is happening in the movie .
If you have a yen for realistic cinema , then this film is well worth a watch....
Verdict---Good .
Bullet raja ( king of bullets )---
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It has become director Tigmanshu Dhulia's favourite setting , the one he excells in showcasing---the mofussil town of the Indian state of UP ( Uttar Pradesh ) which is bristling with guns , where violence is a way of life and fortunes are created using the power of the gun....
....And lately it has become my favourite setting too , for watching movies at least ; for where guns boom , there ashdoc goes....
Fittingly , the movie is called ' Bullet Raja ' , for bullets are truely the hero's business....
.....Or rather , they become his business after he gets mixed up in violence inspite of his educated background.....
He ( Saif Ali Khan ) arrives at a wedding uninvited , for he is being chased by goons whose anger he has irked....
Why has he irked their anger ?? No one knows and it is not shown....in this part of UP everyone seems to be fighting everyone anyway.....( ashdoc approves )
.....For even in the wedding another fight breaks out ( habit of the townsfolk you know ) and guns boom like celebratory firecrackers....but not before the sultry Mahie Gill has shown her sensuous curves to us in an item dance.....( ashdoc not only approves but salivates and asks for more )
.....And Raja ( Saif ) not only partakes in the fight but outclasses everyone in rifle shooting , due to which he strikes an instant rapport with Rudra ( Jimmy Shergill ) who is present at the wedding....
It's a vortex of violence they can't escape ( ashdoc doesn't want them to escape either---otherwise who will provide the entertainment.....) and they have to go to jail to find safe haven....
Here too they can't run away from violence and have to pair up to take revenge for family members who got killed outside while they were in jail.....
Raja and Rudra---they form a formidable twosome who are practically unbeatable in gun combat....and they get the backing of a powerful politician ( played by Raj Babbar ) who is so impressed by their fighting skills that he ditches his old henchman ( played by bhojpuri superstar Ravi Kisan ) and takes the Raja Rudra combo under his wing....
And the whole of Uttar pradesh trembles at the mention of their name....
Upto here the movie was going well and it seemed to be set up for a wholesome gangster movie....
But the movie veers majorly off course as they take up a quarrel with a super rich businessman ( played by Gulshan Grover ) for the silliest of reasons....the build up of the enemity is corny to say the least and one would be amazed at the stupidity of the duo to fight with such a powerful person for a trivial reason....
This part is the major weak link in the movie and for a time reduces the whole story to a farce....
The phase also brings in the character of the heroine ( Sonakshi Sinha ) into the movie and boy....she is unimpressive even in the backless blouses that I love so much.....
Before the director loses control over the movie he gets Rudra bumped off by the duo's enemies---Jimmy Shergill puts in a fine performance and it's a pity he had to be bumped off to make the story move , for I certainly wanted to see more of his acting....
But this brings the movie on course as a blood and gore revenge saga was what I had come to see , and a blood filled revenge saga was what I got from then onwards....
So can ' Bullet Raja ' take revenge for his partner's murder ??
Can he alone fight his myriad foes without his partner ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
The movie perks up again with the entry of Vidyut Jamwal---our very own Indian Bruce Lee....
Man....even Bruce Lee would have been impressed by the somersaults and stunts that Vidyut Jamwal can pull off--- martial arts chops and flying kicks done in a completely new manner that at least I have not seen in any karate/kungfu movie even of the Hollywood or Chinese variety....
So Bullet Raja and our desi Bruce Lee are at loggerheads , and may the best win in this contest....
Saif Ali khan has put up a good show of acting and has held the movie together . Ravi Kisan holds his own as the gangster who has to act mad and pose in sarees like a eunuch to shake off his enemies . Raj Babbar is decent . Chunky Pandey surprises us with his acting skills .
The atmosphere of small town UP is well created , and more particularly the hallmark of UP---the emphasis on caste....
The hero repeatedly reminds us that he is high caste---a brahmin in fact , and dialogues are mouthed that reinforce the fact that he is a brahmin....
And only a Thakur ( another high caste ) can counter a brahmin---so Vidyut is a Thakur....
Everyone speaks hindi Uttar pradesh style---Mishra is spoken as Missra....
The director does well when he is in familiar territory---that of the badlands of UP/Bihar....
He fails when he tries to make it look like a comedy movie in some parts....
Acting by everyone except Sonakshi is good but the music is not worth listening....
All in all , a one time watch....
Verdict---okay .
Dedh Ishqiya ( one and a half love )---
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Dedh Ishqiya seems to be a muslim social---almost....
Dialogues in some parts of the movie are in chaste urdu language that recalls the bygone era of nawabs and begums....
And interspersed in between dialogues are urdu poems delectably chosen by born conneissuers of the language.....
It seems the era of old films like ' Mere mehboob ' is back.....
But alas.....the people inhabiting the film are nothing but crooks and charlatans of the first order....
And crooks and charlatans are bound to come down to street level language every once in a while....
....So the film swivels between the tongue of high class high brow royals in some scenes and coarse abuses in other scenes.....
And the boom of guns and the thud of beatings is heard every once in a while....
Typically , it ends in a free for all between the characters on a railway station where all pretensions of class have been dropped way back and the crookedness of the characters manifests itself....
Yet in the midst of all this , some of the crooks have time for falling in love.....
Yes , true love....
But is it destined to remain one sided love ?? Go and watch the film for that....
Of the two main crooks , Naseeruddin Shah can show class and charm in spite of his crookedness , while his sidekick Arshad Warsi is a street level thug....
And the interesting chemistry between the differing personalities of the two gives rise to a number of comic situations....indeed , the audience was laughing throughout the film....
Mirroring the chemistry between the two male characters is the chemistry between two females---Madhuri Dixit and her confidante Huma Qureshi ; or did I see a hint of lesbianism here.....??
Madhuri is Begum Para , whose husband the nawab ( ruler ) of Mahmudabad died long ago asking her to remarry so that Mahmudabad could have a new nawab---but under the condition that the new nawab must be a born poet who can invoke the choicest urdu verses.....
And Naseer and Arshad arrive at the venue where urdu poets from all over the country have assembled to impress the Begum and win her dainty hand....
Yes , inspite of her years Madhuri looks good enough to eat and so does her confidante Huma Qureshi.....
Not surprisingly , the two crooks Naseer and Arshad fall for the beauty and looks of the two women....
But there are other men in the fray for wooing the Begum---mean and dangerous ones at that , like a fake Nawab played by Vijay Raaz and his goons.....men who are not averse to using violence to get rivals out of the way , and who above all have far more money power and manpower to get what they want.....
As the competition for winning the hand of the Begum hots up , we see shayars ( poets ) trying to excel each other in shayaris and poetry.....
And when the competition hots up further , we see fights and kidnappings and daggers drawn....
So are the Begum and her confidante worth all the trouble ?? That I am keeping in suspense.....
The film has been made on a low budget and the sets are not impressive at all....
But real hard work has been done on the dialogues , both of the finer urdu variety and the gutter level obscenities....
Only one or two songs and only so so music....
But the film does give some entertainment.....
Verdict--- good enough .
Queen---
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Kangana Ranaut's dreams of happy marriage and romance on honeymoon are rudely shattered when her fiance Rajkumar Yadav abruptly calls off the wedding . The simple and sweet Kangana breaks down into tears and closes her room for one day while relatives try to calm her down . When she emerges from her room , she has taken a decision---to go on her honeymoon ( tickets have been already booked before ) alone....
What follows is a journey of self discovery in a foreign land . Of course ,the journey of self discovery has to be within limits---there are restrictions placed on the director . Those restrictions are based on Indian culture and upbringing---but of course . Kangana cannot lose her virginity and duly returns back with her virginity safe and intact .
But this is the 21st century and she can have some fun for herself---especially because she is alone . So she gets drunk and does some wild dancing in a rowdy pub . She changes her attire from demure to somewhat more exposing . She sleeps in a room full of boys and hangs out with them . She gets to visit a prostitutes den in the guise of delivering a parcel . And she even gets to kiss a man ( white man of course ) whom she has a crush on....
And all the while she is lucky because she meets sympathetic friends , who do not take advantage of her innocence but help her on the way . The gang of boys she lives with do not hit on her . And she meets a friend of half Indian origin ( Lisa Haydon ) who is wild and sexy and fun loving but has a heart of gold and eases Kangana's transformation from innocent damsel to smart woman . Note---such luck is to be found only in the fantasy world of Bollywood and other girls could find themselves in tougher situations if they try to emulate Kangana .
And along the way Kangana changes from Rani ( her name in the film ) to the english version of her name---Queen.
When she returns to India she is a self confident young woman able to take her own decisions . And decisions she has to take---for estranged fiance Vijay ( Rajkumar Yaadav ) is trying to inch back in her life with a proposal of marriage....
Kangana has done the acting of sweet innocent girl learning to live in the big bad world really well and is heart of the film . The way she remains nice even after becoming smart has been enacted well . Actually everybody including Lisa Haydon have acted well and the film has strong performances from everybody . Music is decent too .
The movie is a women's movie but the director has played it smartly---other than the jerk of a fiance ( Rajkumar Yadav ) no man is shown to be a jerk or to be bad . So hopefully the men will like it too . At least I did....
Verdict---Nice movie .
Mastraam ( story of a writer of pornographic novels )---
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OH , The things that man has to do and can do for money and success....
Others cheat people , steal money , borrow and never return money---and still they lead respectable lives....
But when a man writes about everyone's ultimate fantasy---sex....then why does society look down upon him and treat him with contempt and condescension....why....?
He is not stealing or committing a crime or fooling anybody---then why ??
That is the question that must be haunting the writer who writes porn under the pseudonym ' mastraam ' when he is finally caught....
But till then , he is earning real money and having a happy time entertaining everybody by writing novels that fulfill our dreams and fantasies---of pleasure , of physical intimacy , of bodies burning with desire and ultimately fulfilling it....
However it has not been always so in his life.....
Actually he is the young man who begins his career as a person who wants to write real literature , and who is so respectable and shy that he is afraid to touch his wife on the first night after his wedding....
But no one is ready to publish his literature , and he is threatened to be kicked out of his job....
Yeah , the setting is the 1970s in north India and jobs are hard to come by in the stagnant economy of those times....
Yet a man with a growing family has to earn money to take care of his dependents....
And when such a man discovers his hidden talents of writing uninhibited stuff that tickles our pleasurable senses , and further discovers that he can mint real moolah by doing so---then can he be stopped ; can he stop himself ?? Naaaah....
The movie's finest moments are when the hero thinks about the people around him , especially the women---and lets his imagination run riot...just plain riot....
....And do I even have to tell you that the riot that runs in his mind is of the sensuous kind.....
....A riot of the mind that strokes flames in our bodies when he puts his imagination in writing on paper....
.....Papers that when published in the form of novels will be read by people in the thousands , though they will be read in secret....
Yeah , they will be read in secret because in a society full of hypocrisy it is sin to talk or read openly about sex....
But they will be read---by students using torchlight in darkened hostel rooms , in bedrooms away form the prying eyes of family by older people , and by anyone and everyone having ' feelings ' of some sort....
But we are the lucky ones....!!
Because not only we get to know what the hero writes , but we get to see it on celluloid as he imagines it in his mind before writing it....
And what we get to see on celluloid is not just imagination---it's lovemaking shot aesthetically without real vulgarity and nudity but lovemaking nevertheless , of bodies stroking kissing massaging pleasuring each other....
Society's hypocrisy was all around us in the theater too , for the audience was laughing and sniggering derisively at the sensuous scenes....
But even the audience was stunned into silence in one scene---when the hero sees his own wife and his friend talking to each other and begins to imagine them making love ; and we have to see his wife in action with another man as he again lets his imagination run riot....
....Riot that powers our adrenals and vitals.....
Is imagining one's own wife with another man acceptable while writing a novel or has the hero crossed the red line ??
Watch the film before deciding that....
For I found it to be a different and interesting outing well worth a watch....
Verdict---Not great but decent enough .
1920 Evil returns---
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The perils of seeing a horror movie in a virtually empty theater......
........No one beside you to hold your hand when you are supposed to shiver in terror......
I experienced that today......
And presumably the producers and distributers are experiencing the perils of virtually empty theaters too.....for it means the movie is a FLOP......
And the joys of seeing vulnerable delicate young girls like Tia Bajpai being persecuted by evil exploitative men.....I experienced that too today.......
In fact this is the third time I experienced the joy of Tia Bajpai being harrassed by bad men after her performance in films like HAUNTED 3D and LANKA.....
.......And I must say she has perfected the act of a cute young girl held in bondage by lusty men or spirits against her will---so much so that I would like to see her being exploited.....err , persecuted by more men in other films in future......
So her cuteness arrives at Aftab Shivdasani's sprawling house near Shimla in the state of being possessed by a spirit that has taken over her body.....
And Aftab falls in love with her much to the chagrin of his sister ( played by Vidya Malavade ) and Tia too reciprocates......
But Aftab is still brooding for the loss of his ex lady love whom he has loved through letters but has never seen---a fact that prevents him from consummating his and Tia's romance in bed ( though it does not prevent him from planting a sumptuous kiss on Tia's lips )......
And Tia's body may have been taken over by the spirit , but her mind and most importantly her heart still beats for a long lost love.....
It is upto Aftab to pull her out of the ghost's malignant influence.....
So can he do that ?? And who are the past loves of Tia and Aftab ? What is their impact on the storyline ?? Go and watch the film for that.......if you can.....for I didnt feel it was particularly great......
The first half is decent with some chills and shocks that make your hair stand on end.....
But the second half involves exorcism of the ghost from Tia's body......and inspite of all the howling and screeching sounds coming from her mouth and all the jumping and pumping up and down of her body , you dont feel terrorised at all......
Aftab looks decent enough with a stubble that makes you feel that he is still pining for his lost lady love of real life---none other that Esha Deol (no , she's not in the film and now she's dumped him and married Bharat Takhtani )......
Photography and the setting of the film in the time of British rule in 1920 is really good---all candlelights in grand and dark mansions and coaches driven by hairyhooved healthy horses.......
But I still was not particularly impressed.....
Verdict---not good .
Raanjhanaa---
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Raanjhanaa.....So what does it mean...??
It is nothing but an endearing way of calling someone as Ranjha---the tragic lover of the doomed romance of Heer Ranjha.....
What I did not know before seeing the movie was the intensity with which the title would be justified----both by the director who shows the hero love the woman he loves with a passion rarely matched by anybody even in the mushy romantic movies , and also by the actor ( Dhanush ) who puts up a superlative performance putting heart and soul into his acting .
The movie is tailormade for Dhanush....
.....For he looks exactly like the loafer he is supposed to be---a low life from Banaras who wastes his time pining for the girl he loves rather than make something of his life....
His foolishness does not stop there....The girl ( Sonam Kapoor ) he chooses to love is a muslim---a community that tore the nation apart and created eternal enemy Pakistan and is therefore doomed to be permanently at loggerheads with the hindus , the community of Kundan ( Dhanush's name in the film ).....
Not only that but he also falls in love with someone who belongs to a higher class than himself and is more sophisticated and urbane and classy than a small town bumpkin like himself .
In doing this he overlooks the affection that a girl of his standard ( played by Swara Bhaskar ) has for him---and the fact that Bindiya ( Swara ) looks good enough to eat makes you wonder about his monumental stupidity....
And the girl he loves ( Sonam ).....She is not a bad person but she looks at him with benign contempt as someone who can be a friend at best and someone who is a useful tool to achieve her ends at worst.....
.....And those ends include using him to ward off potential suiters brought by her parents and zero in on what she actually wants in life....
But Zoya ( Sonam ) has colossally misunderstood the madness of Kundan's love for her....
And the madness of his love leads him to do something that shatters her dreams and her life....
Its upto Kundan to make amends for his stupendous perfidy....
And his attempt to make amends for his past takes him in chase of Zoya from his hometown Varanasi to big city Delhi....
And in the nation's capital Delhi big things beckon him....He discovers a new side to himself and can make a success of his life and become equal to Zoya and even better than her....finally !!!
So can he make amends for his mistakes that cost Zoya so dearly ??
Can he become a success in life ??
But the million dollar question ( or should the amount be jacked up to a billion , considering the gravity of the question for Dhanush ) is---can he get Zoya ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
The triumph of the director lies in showing a seamless transition of Kundan's life in Banaras to the college politics of Delhi and from there to the big stage in the capital . The students and politics of Delhi university are well shown , and what is even better shown is small town bumpkin Kundan's effortless blending with city sophisticates .
At long last and after many flops it's a triumph for Sonam Kapoor as well---she has maintained her innocence in the film well even as she makes use of Dhanush for getting what she wants , and has acted even better as the grieving woman with a chip on her shoulder who has lost what she wants and is determined to get revenge in the later part of the film .
But lording over it all is the depth of Kundan's love for Zoya , and it is to the credit of Dhanush as an actor that we begin to have respect for his love as the film progresses---or maybe it is simple respect for his sheer persistence.....
The film goes through several twists and turns but never turns dull throughout ; keeps you interested all along....
Acting by everyone is good , and the atmosphere of Banaras is perfectly created .
Verdict---Really good .
Gulab gang ( Gulab means pink )---
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Gulab gang has something new in it---both the hero and villain are women , and that too not young but older women .
Yeah , hero is the right word for Madhuri Dixit ; because heroine merely means ' love interest ' of the hero . The leader of the good people who fight against villainy is ' hero ' to me , even though she is female....
The villain is played by Juhi Chawla , and that immediately will draw comparisons between the two yesteryear's rivals....
So who looks better in this movie , Juhi Chawla or Madhuri Dixit ??
At least to me , plain jane Juhi cannot match the raw sensuality of Madhuri Dixit , especially because Madhuri plays a rough hewn village woman and by her body language exudes a coarse sexuality especially in her backless blouses . Her whole gulab gang is full of such women---users of rough language and therefore exuding a coarse sensuality especially by showing their navels and backs . Their bodies look sweaty and dusty , their blouses stick closely to their bodies , and they have dusky complexions---all exuding oomph...
Coming back to Juhi , she is simply not cut out to play a bad person because she has the look of a ' oh so nice ' person on her face . One cant imagine her doing bad things and she has to twist her face to look bad---unsuccessfully of course....
On the other hand , Madhuri looks older than Juhi . But like old wine she has aged gracefully .
Other than the fact that both hero and villain are women , there is nothing much to crow about in the film . The fights show the same kicks and somersaults that male heroes do , but this time they are done by saree clad women using long stout bamboo sticks and sharp sickles .
What about women's rights and all that ?? Yeah , at the start Madhuri is majorly into women's rights and teaches many male oppressors of women a lesson they would not forget . And her gang solves other problems too , like a government officer cutting off electric supply to her village or a rapist who has raped a girl . In solving all this , violence is the key---violence done by tough village women , known as the Gulab gang because they wear gulabi ( pink ) sarees....
Of course , the gang makes many enemies along the way---all seething for revenge....
And the evil persons seething for revenge turn to cute looking villain Juhi for succor .
Madhuri's one dream is a school for girls in the village , a dream that she is willing to compromise for .
All this leads to one high road---politics....
As Madhuri and Juhi stand against each other in elections , the face off begins....
So what's new ?? Nothing , the same old good versus evil but between women . Yesterday was women's day after all !!
So does evil get demolished and does good become victorious ?? watch the movie for that....
Or better , watch some other movie instead cos I didn't like this one....
Music of the film is not anything to write home about , and if you didn't like this review don't complain because the movie didn't enthuse me to write a good review , nor was it bad enough for me to give you some entertainment by bashing it .
Verdict---nothing special....
Race part 2
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This is the good life....
......All fast cars and faster women.....
No ordinary stuff....
Yeah , snazzy cars giving hot chases to each other on mean streets......
Cars twisting diving ramming into each other at breakneck speed......
....Cars reminding you of Ferrari and Porsche and Mercedes and Rolls Royce....
And women in dare bare clothes.....
.....All cleavage baring and deep cuts showing and bare thigh flashing and sumptuous boob exposing.....
.....And in clothes like these---arching their backs , curving their bodies and striking sexy poses....
Hard muscled men hitting blows at each other and gnawing and tearing each other apart....
And them using guns of all kinds---long range ones with telescopic sights as well as latest pistols....
And gambling with obscene amounts of money in foreign casinos.....
And living in 7 star hotels in superposh rooms.....
Swimming in huge swimming pools with crystal clear water.....
And vacationing in superluxurious yatches in the deep blue sea.....
Partying with champagne in expensive restaurants.....
Dancing in cool discotheques as if there is no tomorrow.....
Going for holidays in exotic destinations....
Signing multimillion dollar deals with branded fountain pens....
Having one night stands with no inhibitions.....
Making love with beautiful women on satin sheets.....
Flying in and out of jet planes....
This is the life.....
.....The life you can only dream of....
And this is what you get to see in this film.....
The women ( Deepika Padukone , Jaqueline Fernandez and Ameesha Patel ) look sizzling.....
Their clothes are dazzling...
The men ( John Abraham looking all brawn and muscle , Saif Ali Khan looking dapper and Anil Kapoor looking fit as ever ) pack a punch , and a mean one....
The sets are super hi fi...
The colours are stunning....
Photography superb.....
Fights well orchestrated.....
Dances excellently choreographed.....
And a plot with all twists and turns as none of the characters can trust each other.....
All that the movie lacks is a soul , a real storyline.....
Above all what it lacks is real emotion , real passion.....
The acting and atmosphere is all superficial and sentences like ' I love you ' or even ' I want to take revenge ' lack any real meaning....
All good only for timepass....
But what time pass....
All edge of the seat action....
Never a dull moment....
Events occurring at rapid pace and shown in style....
And style is what I want....even though it is without substance....
.....And style is what I got to see.....
And when I get to see what I want to see I return home a satisfied man....
And satisfaction is all that counts in this world....
Verdict---Good enough for some entertainment.
Beth Anne
05-22-14, 04:31 AM
I have watched certain Bollywood movies like The Namesake but only a few, since we can't find good quality dubbed movies easily. Those with subtitles are there but then more than half the fun is taken away when subtitles come in and you spend all your time trying not to miss out what is written at the bottom of your screen, unable to pay that much attention to the visuals. Any idea where I could find proper dubbed movies? Wanted to watch a couple of big names like Karan Johar (if I am right, not very sure of the name).
Karan Johar (if I am right, not very sure of the name).
yeah , name is correct . he is a gay director who specializes in sentimental movies . about the dubbed movies---i will have to find out .
The xpose---
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It's the swinging sixties and a producer originally from south India ( director of the film Ananth Mahadevan playing the role of Subba Rao ) decides to introduce India's first sex symbol as India has never had one before .
Two babes are in the race for bagging the role . Interestingly both began their careers living in the same house as paying guests . But one of them ( Zara ) is ready to sleep with producers to get roles . The other ( Chandni ) is not . But naturally Zara bags the role of sex symbol .
So one of them is good and the other is not . No prizes for guessing then as to who gets murdered ( Zara of course ) and who wins the heart of the hero ( Chandni ) . The director could have hardly shown Zara as the heroine after she compromised herself for success by sleeping with men for roles . The heroine ( Chandni ) has to be pure and virginal even though she does show her sizzling body to us in bikinis . Inspite of this Zara looks better than Chandni---she simply is very stylish . Only in the bikini scene I found myself lusting for Chandni . Other wise Zara scores over her any day .
The hero---Himesh Reshamiyya is a man from UP who did well in south . Now he has been roped in Chandni's film as hero .
About Himesh---He looks leaner than before . But acting has not improved---presumably , because I didn't bother to see any of his films before and haven't seen him acting before . Delivers his dialogues with a deadpan expression throughout the film . Above all in the fight scenes it seems he is not moving his arms at all . Fights with only his legs like a robot or automaton without expression or feelings . Simply looks unconvincing because he hardly looks or acts like the invincible superstar he is supposed to be , and does not look like a man who can beat several men at a time or even one man . Yet he is supposed to be a police inspector in the past who has killed a corrupt politician and so lost his job , thus turning him to acting . He and Chandni fall in love with each other but their romance lacks soul and substance .
Anyway Chandni gets a role in a film by a rival producer and her film does well at the box office , while Zara's film gets a bad start---thanks to the dirty tricks played by Chandni's film producer . Serious catfights erupt between Zara and Chandni and Zara falsely accuses Chandni of sleeping with men for success .
There is the character played by Yo Yo Honey Singh who marries an older woman , but he does not act great either .
In the midst of all this Zara gets killed by falling from the top of a building . So who is responsible for the murder . Watch the film for the answer if you can....
The whole way the film has been directed seems to be odd and different . Himesh shows attitude with some genuinely cheesy dialogues---so cheesy that they gave some entertainment to the audience , who laughed at the sheer stupidity of such an unfit character as Himesh bragging about his so called 'invincibility' in those dialogues .
Music is nothing to crow about and I was unimpressed . No work has been done on making the sixties era look authentic . Instead of sarees which were in vogue with actresses in the sixties we have both actresses and other women parading in modern western clothes .
But the film does get better towards the end as the murder mystery deepens and the director has some interesting answers as to who murdered the actress .
Verdict---okay film .
Heropanti ( Heroism )---
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The jats of Haryana---stuck in the medieval age of caste and class and rules descended from ancient times.....
And also stuck in archaic marriage laws---of not marrying a person descended from the same gotra ( linage ) calling such a marriage marrying ones own brother and sister...
And the position of their women---not allowed to get education , to work in offices and sometimes not even allowed to live , for female infanticide is most common in Jatland....
Above all these rules are enforced by violence , by gangs of men roughing up any person daring to break the ancient codes and carrying out honour killings of those couples who dare to free themselves of the shackles of primitive bondage....
So when one woman ( jat headman Chaudhary's elder daughter) elopes with her lover in defiance of the barbaric mindset of honour , the jats unleash mayhem---they kidnap her and her husband's friends and keep them locked up among savage beatings hoping to force them to reveal the couple's whereabouts....
But they have made one mistake---big mistake....they have also kidnapped the Tiger Shroff ; and he is in one sided love with the Chaudhary's younger daughter( Kriti Sanon ) ---a cocktail for explosion , given the violence her kinsmen are likely to unleash if this fact becomes known to them....
But fortunately , we have hero fully capable of contending with violence , for he is a fighter himself---yeah Tiger Shroff can throw punches and kicks and somersaults like there is no tomorrow....
All the stunts and flying kicks he carries out are authentic , and can rival those of our very own desi Bruce Lee---Vidyut Jammwal....
Looks wise , Tiger's face has a feminine aura about it---and his appearance reminded one of Danny Denzogpa when he was young . Tiger in fact looks like he has arrived from the northeast or Ladakh....
And he has a chiseled hardened body with real muscles . He can dance okay---when he dances , he does not sway like other heroes but his whole body swings....
The girl he has fallen for---Kriti Shanon , the Chaudhary's younger daughter....She looks good enough , and I found myself staring and looking at her slim white waist with it's deliberately exposed navel---a treat for the eyes....
The movie has two dimensions in the first half---the Tiger dimension and the JAT dimension....
When Tiger is on the screen the background music is lighthearted and the proceedings frivolous---to the point where they seem like a farce....and Tiger doesn't have much acting talent....
But when the Chaudhary and his jats enter the screen , the mood of the film turns dark and sombre with sinister music and an atmosphere of violence....
And the two dimensions constantly overlap each other with alternate scenes of laughter and tension and tension and laughter---and the whole film looks corny for a while....
But the second half turns serious with Kriti discovering a new freedom in Tiger's company---freedom she has not had in her father's tradition bound household , freedom which makes her fall in love....
And as Chaudhary and his goons continue their search for Kriti's eloped elder sister and her husband wanting to finish their lives for sake of family honour , they have to face the storm unleash by Kriti's newfound love for Tiger and it's consequences....
But what about the millennia old customs and traditions of the land ?? What about the father's ( Chaudhary's ) love for his daughters ?? His missing them after their elopement ?? What about the fact that he cares for them deeply and wants the best for them ?? What about the fact the daughters' husbands cannot keep them in the luxury the father gave them and that hurts the father deeply ?? After having raised them for years and given them guidance does the father have no say in their future ??
So can a compromise be worked out between the aspirations of youth and the wisdom of old age ?? Are the lovers right or is Chaudhary's stand correct?? Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie is not so great in the first half but gives us some emotion in the second half , and I found myself interested....
Music is decent enough and I found myself humming some of the film's songs....
The movie gives a menacing impression of Jats in the first half but softens up towards them in the second . Acting by everyone is not fantastic--It can be called okay though .
Verdict---Decent .
Shanghai---
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This film is one which is on the border of parallel and commercial cinema---the pace and story of the movie is that of a commercial film but the acting and the lack of background music harks to art cinema .
In fact the film tries to straddle both sides---art and commercial cinema.....and the triumph of the director lies in the fact that it successfully combines both types of cinema . Without losing out on those aspects which will win it critical acclaim it also keeps the suspense alive and the pace fast , thus keeping the audience interested throughout .
Dr Ahmedi comes from the USA full of idealism to stop a state govt's pet project---a business park which will be built by removing the slums and shanties of people inhabiting the land earmarked for it .
Dr Ahmedi does not want the land to become another Shanghai.....
So what's the connection with Shanghai ??
For those who dont know , China's premiere port city of Shanghai was a city full of slums in the 1980s when China still practiced communism . When the Chinese govt decided to turn capitalistic , it decided that the rundown city needed a makeover . A gleaming new city was built on the former shantytowns---a city that was the envy of countries mired in socialism like India.....a city of glass towers , elegant roads , crisscrossing flyovers , shopping malls , business centers , restaurants , cafes , residential towers and whatnot . But what it hid was an ugly reality . Some 3 million of poor people formerly living there had been removed by brute force to the faraway countryside where they were forced to lead their uprooted lives by a brutal govt . They were forbidden to ever return to their ancestral Shanghai for fear that the presence of these poor dirty folk would make the city unclean and not only deter away foreign investors but would expose the harsh reality of the Chinese economic miracle .
But China is an exceptionally bloodstained communist dictatorship while India is a democratic nation where the poor man's voice can be heard.....or so Dr Ahmedi thinks......
How wrong can a man be ??!!
He has irked the powerful establishment which sees profits in billions of dollars endangered by his fiery speeches and his organizing of common people against the project---and pays for it with his life in the end.....
He leaves behind two women---his wife and another woman who loves him madly ( Played by Kalki Koechlin ).....and rather than the wife it is the woman in love who sets off in pursuit of those who tried to kill him . Its a pursuit which pits her against a range of powerful people and inevitably puts her own life in danger . And its only the mad passion of her love that sustains her in a mission that would have weakened the resolve of the fainthearted......
But those who dare to help her like a video film maker who has a damning tape of those planning the murder are swiftly killed by the all-powerful establishment....and so she has to turn to an unlikely character for aid---the video film-maker's assistant , a bumbling buck toothed character played by Emraan Hashmi . And she has to hope that Krishnan ( played by Abhay Deol ) , the officer assigned by the govt to investigate the murder of Dr Ahmedi has a little bit of conscience---so he would resist the tremendous pressure on him to close the case and find out the real culprits . Kalki and Emraan themselves are hunted down by the goons who want them dead and have to run from pillar to post in dramatic chases to save their skin .
So does Kalki succeed in finding out the killers of the man she loves so much ?? And what about the task of saving the poor peoples' houses for which Dr Ahmedi sacrifices so much ?
The movie has different answers for both.....
I for one found it to be a decent watch......
Ek main aur ek tu ( Just me and you )---
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With this movie producer Karan Johar takes us back to the world he's familiar with ; indeed , the world he's lived in and still lives---the world of high class high brow people whose lives are sheltered by money , who live prim and propiah lives , and for whom things like regular foreign travel , cutting big deals and attending society parties are day to day affairs .
And into such a family is born hero Imran Khan---our poor little rich boy....
Poor little rich boy's life is utterly controlled by his parents , who decide everything from his haircut to his career choice to the type of daughter-in-law they have in mind to what kind of job he will do in the US of A......
Needless to say , its a stifling existence which needs a breath of fresh air , and it needs it pronto.....!!
And what better than a beautiful girl like Kareena Kapoor to lease some fresh air to a dull existence.....
And what a touch of colour to a colourless life !!---She's a kiristao ( christian ) girl , drinks alcohol till she pukes , has had multiple relationships with men , and the icing on the cake is that she's not a virgin.....
Yippeeeeee !!! Just what the doctor ordered to bring disorder to Imran and his parents over-orderly existence !!!
Yeah , a free spirit whose high spirits and vivacious conversation brings light to our hero's life !!
And as I watched the movie I wished I was in the hero's shoes.....
And when I was in the hero's shoes Kareena married me while she and I were in a drunken stupor.....
.....And next day I woke up to see Kareena Kapoor lying on my bed......
And she took me back to India to meet her her equally free sprited parents......
.......And they were wonderfully understanding about the whole thing---the father even asking whether we were sleeping together ( blush blush ).......
And she took me to her former school and talked about her childhood dreams of being a ballet dancer.....
......And then she took me to the spot where she and her first boyfriend used to kiss in school.....
But when my lips rose to kiss her on that very spot , I was in for a shock !!
But never mind , she had given me the courage to fight my parents and change my life.....
But just after I had changed my life , the lights in the theater came on.....
The movie was over......and I had only been dreaming of romancing Kareena when the actual romancing had been done by the hero Imran......
For me , it was back home to my dull colourless existence.....
But wait !!! There was still this review to be written.....
And while I write this review I will remember every moment of this movie and will relive all the time I dreamt of being with that lovely girl....
In fact , at exactly this moment , I am doing just that......
Verdict---good .
London Paris New York---
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London....Paris.....New York.......Three of the world's great megacities.....
But if you are thinking of getting an epic love story spanning three megacities and two continents , something on the lines of Casablanca---well ,then you are not gonna get it......
Instead what you get is a lot of yak yak between hero Ali Zafar and leading lady Aditi Rao Hyderi---and yeah , you get it in all three megacities and both the continents.....
They first meet in London in 2004 when both are young and Aditi has missed her flight to New York , and hit it off instantly . They decide to take a day off seeing the sights of London , but instead of getting to see the sights of London with them , the audience gets to see ( or rather hear ) endless yak yak between the two.....
She's an intellectual and a feminist while he's a creative sort ( thats what all people in the film line call themselves ) , and so they are opposites---and opposites attract , dont they.....
So they fall in love , and they kiss in front of the big ben on the thames river---but....but.... the day is over and Aditi has to leave to New York......
But they cannot forget each other , and meet again in 2007 in Paris.....
AAHH.....Paris in spring......nothing is more fit for romance.....
But what we get again is endless yak yak between the two---yet again.....
This may be so , but by now we are used to the tone of the movie---all talk and less action---and the crisp dialogues and brainy retorts by the two have an endearing quality of its own by now.....
However Aditi has a grudge with Ali for ignoring her all these years , and leaves him after a night of passion to be hurt and dejected and above all rejected.......
But behold the passion of true romance---years down the line , Ali decides to meet Aditi once more to persuade her to lead her life with him.....in the third megacity , New York where else......
And this time its almost too late---for Aditi is about to get married to a American man the next day.....
So Ali asks her to do what with him what they did in London and Paris---spend a day seeing the sights of the city.....actually endless yak yak , but as I said the audience is beginning to quite like it by now......
But this time round Ali is a man on a mission---He wants to get his girl for good.....
So does our young man get the woman of his dreams ?? Does he manage to stop Aditi's marriage in Saint Mark's cathedral the next day ??
Go and find out in the movie theater for that ( Though I suspect anyone who watches hindi films already knows the answer )......
Verdict---I found the movie to be just about okay but who knows , if you are a die hard romantic you may find in it a rich vein indeed.....
But that you will find only if you are a die hard romantic.....
Diary of a butterfly---
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The promos of the film promised that Udita Goswami would do all the things she promised her mother she wouldn't do.....
When a girl decides to do this , but naturally a line of lustcrazed men will line up at her doorstep.....
And when a movie's promos promise something like this , a line of sex mad men will line up to the theater....
The list of such men this time included yours truely---your very own ashdoc......
Like a fool I actually went to see this movie !!
And what do I get......
With a begging bowl in hand I had gone to see some sex scenes and some naked shots of young women.....
And all I get is one measly shot of Udita in a bikini !!.....that too with her lower half inside the swimming pool and therefore invisible !!
Yeah the shot also had Sofia Hayat in full bikini---but who wants to see her ( of sagging breasts fame ) !!
And just one sex scene WITHOUT any kissing or passion or anything......
Thats all !!
Nothing else !!
What else you want ?? The story !!
Well whatever is dished out as a story consists of a girl coming from Jaipur to Mumbai leaving her parents and heartbroken boyfriend behind.....
The unabashed quest of the girl---to reach the top of her profession by hook or crook.....actually more by crook as she is ready to sleep with all those men who form her ladder to success......
But as I said---no sex scenes.....
And after having reached the top by these methods she feels hurt by taunts about the way she reached her position.....
So she tries to change herself , including asking her boyfriend to come down to Mumbai to give her company.....
But everybody disappoints her , including her boyfriend who has his fun with her and dumps her.....
So she decides to become mistress of a tycoon and sleep on the side with his business clients......
End of movie.....
And I came back home with empty begging bowl ( and unfulfilled desires ) in hand......
Verdict---probably the worst movie I ever reviewed.....
P.S.---But the review isn't so horrible ( I hope ).....probably the only good thing to have come out of the movie ( again I can only hope ).....
Chakravyuh ( The maze of war ) ---
This movie is a fictional story based on a real life communist rebellion in central India
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While newspapers and television blare out visions of ' India shining ' and people like me go to watch movies like Chakravyuh in posh multiplexes eating chicken sandwiches along with cappuccino coffee , there's a rebellion smoldering in the heart of rustic India....Its the cry of the havenots who are demanding their share of the pie which has been unjustly taken over by haves like me....
....And director Prakash Jha is the person fittingly capable of giving voice to this cry---for he among all the film makers of Bollywood is the one who knows the rustic heart of India too well , having filmed it brilliantly in films like Gangajal and Apaharan and many others....
.....And as the communist rebels run amok in central India under their leader Rajan ( played by Manoj Bajpai ),police officer Adil Khan ( played by Arjun Rampal ) is posted in their area to try to curb the problem.... The reason for this---big industrialists have one more plan to loot the mineral resources of the rebels' region in the name of development ; but they cant do it unless the rebellion is crushed....
Arjun's maverick friend ( played by Abhay Deol ) has a brainwave---he volunteers to become a Trojan horse among the rebels who will bring the Naxalite leader played by Manoj Bajpai into police custody.
But predictably he develops a sympathy for the communist cause when he sees the terrible conditions under which the people whom the communists protect are living and the way they are being exploited by the rich....and he thinks he has begun to find love for a woman among them....
But he does not change sides until a terrible incident involving the woman he likes forces him to....
So does Arjun Rampal's plan to catch Manoj Bajpai succeed ?? And how will Abhay's decision to change sides affect their friendship ?? Go and watch the movie for that....
To those who have a yen for romance---Prakash Jha is at his best when he is showing the understated and never-to-be-fulfilled romance between Abhay and his love interest ( played by Anjali Patil ). Its a romance that springs up while playing with death together and is shown in subtle undercurrents rather than moments of passion or expression . And newcomer Anjali Patil puts up an authentic performance as the girl who joins the communist rebellion to escape the lustfilled clutches of landlords---but only to tragically suffer the same fate that she wanted to escape....
And to those who have a tilt towards action---the action scenes are well executed too , with hordes of communists and policemen attacking each other with a hailstorm of automatic rifle gunfire in several well crafted sequences....INSAS rifles , Kalashnikovs and self loading rifles fire in tandem with latest guns having laser dot markers....
But why does Arjun's wife Esha Gupta hang about half naked in sexy clothes in the middle of rebel country in a couple of scenes?? Does she think its a metropolis like Mumbai or Delhi ?? And do even communist leaders have time to watch Item dances by hotties like Sameera Reddy ?? In reality these was no need to bring such aspects of commercialism in the film .
Manoj Bajpai's role is not that big and he is his usual self but it is not his film really....The film belongs to Arjun Rampal and Abhay Deol but their acting cannot be called fantastic...Om Puri is just about okay....
These glitches should not take away from the commendable performance of the director who seems to have recovered from the debacle of his earlier film---Aarakshan .
Verdict---I would give it a thumbs up...
Table number 21
( film against the practice of hazing in universities , which takes gruesome forms in India . Hazing is called ragging in India )
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Trouble in paradise---thats table number 21.....
And everytime Bollywood has to discover a new paradise to keeps its viewers interested , so this time its Fiji---the island half populated by those denizens of western India called Gujjus , and only half populated by its native population.....
And what about paradise as in candy for the eyes---an attractive woman who reveals her lovely figure in teeny weeny bikinis on the beach and kisses her partner with abandon ??
---Thats Tena Desae ( I hope I got the name right ) , the better half of a couple who have won a free vacation to Fiji ; and the the other half of the couple is Rajeev Khandelwal......
Aaaahh !! Youth , lovely beaches , romance and a beautiful woman.....what else can you want.....
Well , the viewer wants some trouble to break out in this paradise to get the movie going along
And trouble comes along in name of Mr Khan.....( dont we have enough troublemakers by this name already )
This Mr Khan ( played by Paresh Rawal ) gives the couple a tantalizing offer---to play in a reality show called table number 21.
The task seems simple enough---answer 8 questions and do 1 task for each question making a total of 8 tasks....
But the answers to each question must be true---if you lie you die....
And you cant walk out of the show in between---if you want to be free you have to complete the game....
The prize for winning---210 million rupees ( indian currency )
Now if an offer is too good to be true it probably IS too good to be true---obviously the game has a catch that would make the tasks too difficult and the money not worth the risks involved .But the couple is overcome with greed and is ready.....
And as the game unravels the couple is put through physical harassment and mental anguish beyond their wildest imagination.....
And Khan is not what he seems to be---he knows too much about their past lives....
Of course Khan is not a villain---can anyone with this famous surname be anything but a good person if not a hero.....given the current appeasement tendencies of Bollywood and the hold of the mafia based in a certain neighbour of ours on the film industry it would take a brave man to say " His name is Khan and he is a terrorist ( or bad guy at least ) '' .
So who is he ??
And does the harassment the couple goes through remind you of things we participated in the bygone days ( assuming you are in the thirties like I am ) ??
The film ends with a powerful social message that hits hard with a surprise---and that's the best part of the film.....man , I was impressed by the climax....
Now only if the other parts of the film were as good as the climax---sadly they aren't , and do not match upto the standard of the climax .
Performances wise Paresh Rawal takes the acting honours---these Khans cannot be ignored even if the names are not real ....but the rest of the actors dont meet the standard....
Verdict---okay.....
Rowdy Rathore---
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Devgad is crying out in pain in pain.....
Because Baapji and his evil minions are ruling the land.....
And if they dont even hesitate to kidnap a policeman's wife to satisfy their lust , what can be said about the condition of the common man.....
And their goons are everywhere in Devgad perpetuating Baapji's tryanny , even on the raliway station where they bully the passengers into paying huge amounts of money after first taunting them with lewd jokes of course......
The situation yearns for the arrival of a messiah , a protector---who will protect the weak and the meek and deliver justice Akshay Kumar style...
And hey presto !!...... even before the fast train coming into Devgad station comes to a halt the deliverer of justice jumps from it ,and his name is police officer Vikram Rathore aka Rowdy Rathore.....
He immediately shows the whole town his mettle by beating the goons on the railway station with sugarcane sticks after stripping them till they beg to him for mercy.......but before that he puts earphones on his daughter's ears so that she hears sweet music while he punishes the goons.....very caring of his daughter our Rowdy......
And then Rowdy Rathore uses some matrix like special effects fights to bring to book Baapji and send Baapji's cruel son into the clouds.....but not before the director has first shown us an item number in Baapji's den with three delicious babes gyrating in tandem......ah ha !!
But Baapji has a powerful protector in the govt minister who helps him and eventually Baapji gets the better of Rowdy and kills him , or so he thinks.....
Rowdy has only one wish in life---to die smiling while doing his duty tweaking his mustache on and on......and so he dies as he wishes tweaking his mustache on and on , but not before he has sent a few bad men to hell where they belong......
So his wish is granted.....
But who will take care of the daughter who cries out for her papa ??
No worries , in the big city is his lookalike Shiva who may be a thief but is going to leave thievery ( already ?? so early in his thief's career ?? ) because he loves the lovely damsel of saris fame and backless blouses fame and above all exposed navel fame---Sonakshi Sinha.....
......And Shiva and Sonakshi will take care of Rowdy's daughter.....
But the audience demands more fights and more entertainment.....
So Shiva steps into Rowdy's shoes and jumps from the train coming into Devgad station just in the same way as Rowdy does before the train stops.....
......And voila !! The terror of Rowdy's name is such that the moment Baapji's goons on the railway station see Rowdy's lookalike stride majestically out of the station , they themselves strip down humbly for a repeat sugarcane beating......whistle anyone ?? no the multiplex I had gone to see the movie in has decent crowd and whistling is not allowed.....
And Shiva sets out to finish Rowdy's task of cleaning the town off Baapji's men.....but not before he and Sonakshi do a vigorous song and dance full of jhatkas and matkas---now thats a must.....
And clean the town Shiva does ; in true khiladi style.....blowing up Baapji's illegal factories boom boom with bombs before delivering the killer punch......
But this does not happen before Sonakshi is kidnapped by Baapji's sidekicks and brought to his den.....
What disappointed me here was that she was not made to dance here----
But never mind......Sonakshi has already shown us enough of her navel and back to make us forgive the director for this perfidy.....
And Shiva has delivered enough jokes comedy action romance emotion ......
Verdict----Third rate :D
The world before her---
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The modern Indian woman---the world is before her....
New career choices have opened up for her....
From being a lowly ticket checker in public transport bus in Bombay to being a CEO of a corporation , she can try to become what she is capable of....
But not all women have got this choice---some are still not allowed to work outside home , while others are not even allowed to show their face which is supposed to be covered...
So a film titled ' The world before her ' should show the contrast between the two Indias isn't it...??
But isn't showing a covered woman's life and contrasting with that of a woman who works in a plush office a little mundane ?? Who is going to watch such a boring movie ??
So the film goes the path of sensationalism---it shows the life of girls who work for a hindu women's fundamentalist organisation and contrasts it with the life of girls who participate in a beauty contest....
Now that is spectacular and fit for making a film---one path has the chance for showing violence or at least the potential for violence , and the other gives the chance for showcasing glamour and women's bodies....
These above two choices are supposed to be the choices for today's Indian women according to the film---either you follow modernity whose ultimate high is become a model sashaying on the ramp , or else ( if you don't follow modernity ) you will become a gun toting militant of a hindu fundamentalist organisation.....
And this is the image of India that has been shown by the film to international audiences , for the film has been extensively showcased in foreign film festivals and presumably lapped by the foreign crowd---Indian women who don't follow modernity become hate spewing terrorists whose goal is violence and mayhem . There is no middle path like doing a job at an office....
Problem is---I had heard and seen plenty of the beauty contest that the film shows ( the Miss India contest ) , but I had never heard of the hindu fundamentalist organisation that the film talks about---an organisation known as the Durga Vahini . The contrast between the Miss India contest ( which is something that is very famous thanks to television ) and Durga Vahini ( which I had never heard of before ) is too much---not because they represent two extreme forms of lifestyle , but because the film's makers were presenting a totally unknown fundamentalist organisation as something equal in popularity to a well known beauty contest....
While Miss India contest influences minds of women all across urban India , Durga Vahini will have to first make itself known before it starts to influence women in rural India....
That is the film's greatest hypocrisy---lying to foreign audiences that Durga Vahini has huge influence over women in India when actually few if any have even heard of it....
And Durga Vahini is supposed to be the ' Hindu taliban '.....
So what weapons is the ' Hindu taliban 'shown to be carrying in the film ?? Some antiquated rifles probably fit only for shooting balloons at the local fair !!
Of course , the difference between the Durga Vahini girls and the Miss India girls is plentifully brought out---the Durga Vahini girls are given lectures asking them to marry as early as possible , are told to maintain their good character , and not to dream of equality with men . They are given training in physical combat , and taught to hate muslims and christians . Their leader has a father who beats his daughter with a hot iron rod if she lies to him , and he does not believe that she should have a mind of her own .
On the other hand , the Miss India contestants wear revealing western clothes and their bodies are taken care off to enhance their beauty . Their lifestyle is glamorous and their behavior oozes sex appeal...
Some of them go on to win laurels in foreign lands and become famous .
Above all ,their parents are proud of their daughters' freedom to choose their paths and are shown to be large hearted and modern .
But is not the contrast between a beauty contestant and a ordinary Indian woman woman who is forced to cover her face more real and correct ?? For forcing women to sit at home covering their face is somewhat more common in India....
How many Indians send their daughters to Durga Vahini camps anyway ?? How many women get military style training to do physical combat ??
The answer to this question is---very few .
At the risk of repeating myself , I will say again---how many Indians have even heard of Durga Vahini ??
Then why does the film raise hell over an obscure group or indeed even give publicity to it ??
The answer to this question is elementary---the Durga Vahini is incapable of doing any harm to the film's makers , and demonising them does not carry any risk .
Since the Durga Vahini is being called ' Hindu taliban ' , it might be interesting to speculate if a film on the real taliban is made . Not only would such a film be banned due to huge protests by the real taliban's co religionists , but the taliban or some other terrorist group can retaliate to cause physical harm to the makers of the film . For the real taliban does not have the museum piece rifles of the Durga Vahini , but has real weapons like AK 47 , RDX filled explosives and hand grenades .
On the other hand , it is so so easy to make a film on the Durga Vahini---little risk of the film being banned , for it is not easy for the co religionists of the Durga Vahini to get their act together....
Their are some funny moments in the film---like the father of the leader of the Durga Vahini seeing the Miss India beauty contestants parade on TV and exclaiming " See these half naked contestants , is this our culture ??!!'' , while himself sitting half naked in front of camera . The audience genuinely laughed at this point....
Of course , the real taliban would have scoffed at the freedom given to the Durga Vahini girls---freedom to wear western clothes and go unveiled and with uncovered hair in public , freedom to ride horses and parade on streets without covering their faces or hair , freedom to see the half naked contestants of Miss India on TV ( wouldn't that pollute their minds ?? ) and comment upon them , freedom to breath the fresh air without the encumbrance of a veil....
Maybe the Durga Vahini girls should be sent to the REAL taliban to get real lessons in fundamentalism , I thought....
For their fundamentalism was the juvenile fundamentalism of beginners....
And for that very reason , I was less afraid of them than I would have been of Mullah Omar and his real taliban....
The film has some saucy real life shots---of Miss India contestants parading in bikinis , something that is done in closed doors , and honestly shows their discomfort at wearing bikinis . And them wearing makeshift veils !!---for at one shoot the judges only want to see and evaluate their legs with the rest of the body covered....
And the film has graphic shots of real life too--of the men's hindu fundamentalist organisation Ram sene attacking women in pubs in Mangalore .
But then why no real life shots of Durga Vahini women indulging in real violence ( not just training ) ?? Probably no such shots are available and the organisation may be just a paper tiger....
As I said , the film reeks of hypocrisy as it equalizes an unknown outfit like Durga Vahini ( even my knowledgeable friends had not heard of it ) with an infamous but widely known terrorist organisation like taliban and contrasts an obscure outfit ( Durga Vahini again ) with the popular Miss India contest .
The film is more of a documentary with interviews of the main protagonists , but those who have a yen for movies made with real life politics in mind will like this film . Particularly emotional is the interview with Miss India winner Pooja Chopra's mother about how she was forced to walk out of her house and raise Pooja alone by her in laws because she had given birth to a female child , and about how she promised her in laws that the female child will become famous one day....
Verdict : If you don't mind your country being shown as a land where women are killed at birth and you don't mind seeing shots of the few lucky girls who survived being thankful before camera that in such a land they were at least given a chance to live , and don't mind the impression created in foreign minds that India has the worst women's rights record of all places ( no , the film makers haven't heard of Saudi Arabia )---then you might even like the film.....
Players---
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Go for gold !!---says one of the promos of the movie......
Thats what the moviegoer goes for---to the theater , I mean.....
Hyped and overhyped movies come and go---hyped movies sink fast and overhyped movies sink faster......
And the bechara moviegoer---he is in search of a good movie , only to be disappointed time and again.....
Only once in a while he strikes gold......
Thats what I did too---searching for a good movie among the mediocre stuff I was being forced to watch , Ashdoc finally struck paydirt.....!!
For this is a movie that lives upto the expectations created for it , and its publicists wont have to run away to Lonavala or wherever they are said to run away to escape from the uncomfortable questions posed by the press after their overhyped movie expectedly flops.....
So what gold are these players after ??
Its the gold owned by Romania being shifted back to its home country after being given to the Russians for safekeeping long ago .
......And the players mean to strike it on the train that carries it from Russia to Romania .
First lets make good and evil clear.....
Actually none of the players are good.....
For they plan to snatch the gold belonging to a sovereign nation......
But above all they kill ( or have to kill ) innocent Russian guards whose only mistake is to be guarding the train carrying the gold......
For example , Bobby Deol , who is supposed to be a nice guy who is stealing the gold only for raising money to make his paralysed daughter's life more comfortable actually coldbloodedly shoots a Russian guard trying to stop the robbery.....
But directors Abbas-Mustan pull off a coup by convincing the audience that some of these players are nice guys....
This is of course something they have pulled of even more successfully in the past , when in their movie Baazigar Shah Rukh Khan goes on a spree of killing innocent people in his quest for revenge and yet wins the sympathy of the audience .
The filming of the robbery is a coup in itself , for it has some genuine heart-pounding nerve-wrenching moments as the players bring another train parallel to the gold carrying train and steal the gold while both trains are still moving fast.....
......And the photography is excellent throughout as the movie moves from the icy winter of Russia to the warmer climes down under in New Zealand......
For the movie doesn't end with the heist in Russia , as predictibly there is a twist....
Typically for a crook , the bad guy then reveals himself , raking the moolah all for himself and leaving the others high and dry while he scampers off to New Zealand.
Thats not gonna stop our intrepid players---they track him down and plan to steal what the director has led us to believe is rightfully theirs ( all stolen gold belonging to someone else , but sshhh....its just a movie....) .
Not so easy, guys---the bad player has an accomplice working for him among the good guys ; an accomplice telling him the good guys' every move.....
.......All twists and turns as the movie goes along.....
And the twists and turns do deliver the surprises at key moments , giving some sound entertainment.......
So go watch it......
Verdict---good.
Agyaat ( The unknown )---
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Today---or should I say tonight---I decided to give myself a hair raising experience.....
.....Decided to watch a horror movie alone in the late evening ( from 8.30 PM onwards on enter10 channel) when everyone else was out of the house.....
.....And to double the fun that comes from fear I decided to watch it with every window and door of the house closed and every light off.....
And boy !!! You see an ordinary movie become a fear raising experience in such conditions....
As the screen darkens and the horror in the movie starts and shadows begin to play on the walls then the mind comes alive.....
Yeah alive.....alive to every small sound coming from dark corners of the house.....
Every gust of wind hitting the window chills the senses....
A feeling of impending doom and danger clouds the thinking....
You constantly look behind to see if anything is standing behind you....
Ordinary sounds you would ignore at other times grab your attention and fill you with apprehension.....
Unlike in a movie theater there is no one to reach out to when something terrifying happens on screen.....
All stuff that doubles the entertainment.....
So on to the plot of the movie.....
A film crew moves into the jungle to shoot a film....
The hero of the film being shot is a super haughty guy named Kapoor ( forgot the first name ) who constantly shouts and berates everybody showing off the his star status at every opportunity.....
So that confirms one thing.....he may be the hero of the film being shot in the movie , but he's not the hero of the movie
In fact his insufferable temper is more likely to make him main villain....
But in fact he's not that too....
The main villain is in fact the mysterious power that controls the forest---agyaat, the unknown.....
As the crew lands in the forest , the guide suggests that the shooting of the film be done in a spot of scenic beauty deep into the core of the forest....
He's a strange one , this guide....looks in a strange way and speaks even strangely.....
Yet the gay sounding director of the film agrees to go with the guide....
So off they go---deep inside the forest , in the realms of agyaat the unknown....
The first to be bumped off is the guide , at the scenic spot where the shooting was to take place.....
As everyone screams and howls in terror , the differences in status slowly begin to unravel.....people who are underlings begin to shout at the hero of the film being shot without caring for his star status.....
And relationships begin to reveal themselves---the real hero of the movie ( assistant director of the film being shot ) confesses his love for the heroine of the film ( who is also heroine of the movie ) the role of whom is played by the sexy Nisha Kothari....
....But before that , a girl from the unit reveals her love for the assistant director....
But it is a hell of a time to fall in love.....
.....For with the death of the guide the only person knowing the way out of the forest is gone....
And the unit is receiving daily doses of horror---they encounter a hot spring oozing blood instead of water and hear sounds all around them that fills them with terror....
And as one by one each one of them is dragged to death by the unknown powers their numbers begin to dwindle and the remaining members fight between themselves.....
So who will come out of the forest alive ?? And who will not ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
As far as I am concerned , the other members of my house are back and the fun filled night of horror is over---I have survived....
Next stop ?? watching a horror movie in a cemetary at night ?? Naah---not gonna push my luck ; better quit while you are ahead....
Verdict---just about okay.
Mirch ( Red hot chilli )---
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This is one unabashedly feminist film.
A struggling scriptwriter tries to convince a producer to make a film based on his script , which consists of four separate stories, and the film shows the stories unfold on screen as he tells the producer .
All four stories are of women who unabashedly cheat on their husbands and have sex with other men , but in most cases the husband's deserve the treatment they get . If you really got a heart ( and most males dont , when the topic is of women's rights ) , its not difficult to sympathise with those women ....
One is a beauty married off to a short , ugly man ; second is a youthful woman married off to an man old enough to be her grandfather ,presumably against her wishes , who has no capacity to satisfy her ; third is a loving , caring wife whose husband suspects her to the point of testing her loyalty by coming disguised as another man to her and trying to entice her ; fourth is the wife of a man who regularly visits prostitutes .
Mind you , all this is attempted to be shown in a entertaining manner , and the tone of the film is of light-hearted entertainment......much of the audience was laughing and sniggering through the movie , as the women use their wiles to lure other men into bed , and make fools of their husbands.
Amazingly ,all stories are claimed to be lifted from the ancient Indian book of knowledge called 'panchatantra'.......I really did not know that India had reached such high heights of wisdom in ancient times.......
Raima Sen looks sensuous , especially as it is she who has done all the exposing and love-making in her scenes ,while konkona sen is not so good as she has exposed less......well ,to be frank , she doesn't look as good as Raima anyway........
Where the director fails is the ending ,where , as the producer tells the script-writer ( and the director seems to remind himself ) , the four stories need some point where they connect with each other ........but the connecting point is so weak , that you feel disappointed......
I read somewhere that people remember a novel if it has good opening chapter , and a movie if it has a good last scene......if that is true , then inspite of some good parts ,people wont much remember this film.....
However , the director can take satisfaction in the fact that he has made an ' adults ' film ( yeah , it has an A certificate , I saw two kids being barred from seeing the film ) without any vulgarity
Verdict--okay to watch , if you are in a naughty mood
Antardwand ( Dilemma )---
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How would you feel if one day you wake up from a daze to be told that the decked up girl you have never even heard of before ,but sitting on the bed in front of you, is your newly married wife ...........
............and on refusal to sleep with her , are taunted about your ' impotency ',and are drugged and forced to rape her practically at gunpoint.......
And how would you feel if your father is confronted during his morning tea ,by a procession bringing along with it ,a girl 3 months pregnant , whom he has never seen before ,and is told that unborn child in the girls womb is his grandchild........
Thats exactly the situation a handsome and bright young man ( a would be IAS officer )finds himself in this movie which is situated in .........where else.........bihar.......
It is about the custom known in the hindi language as pakdau shadi , in which if your daughter is not good enough to get a suitable groom , the groom is kidnapped and beaten and forced to marry her in a hooch-drunk stupor.......
And if you feel that its all a nightmare ,you can pinch yourself and find yourself in reality.....
Its a movie that certainly should have been made ,given the awesome reality of the topic........
And happily ,the director has done justice to the topic ,as he has made a movie on a real topic look very very real......
The ending is insipid though , and is the only ' bollywood ' touch in the film.
That should not take the credit away from the performances of akhilendra mishra ( father of the girl and kidnapper ) , and swati sen ( the bride ) ,who put heart and soul in making the film eminently watchable.......
The director keeps the film's twists and turns churning with skill ,and fails only at the end ,as if he does not know how such a sordid tale can be completed.......
Its not regular bollywood fare however ,and is only for the art-movie lovers
And for them , its a must see...........
James---
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A straightforward action film from the Ram Gopal Verma stable---even though he is not the director .
Mohit Alhawat plays the hero with a deadpan expression in the film throughout.....and does not change expression at all , even in scenes which require some acting--and this is the film's biggest drawback .
......For a hero with an expressionless face can take a film only so far....
But the villain is terrific , with loose hanging hair and an uneven beard , looking like a wild dog on searching for his next meal , and showing all the expressions of a brute hunting for his prey....
And his prey is the supersexy Nisha Kothari , the bombshell of the town , who sashays in discos with mouthwatering ease--only to come within the sights of the villain and his horde.....
The hero is without question the one who has to save the damsel in distress ,for its his job as a bouncer of the disc, and his prize for doing so is the love of a beautiful girl....
But the hero is new to town , and does not know that he has offended the mob that rules the city.....
.....And the mob now is searching for the young lovers....
The lovers elope to escape the clutches of the mob , but their pursuers are unrelenting , and literally send dogs to hound the young couple out....
As the howling dogs chase the lovers endlessly , and the mafia applies its endless resources to capture them and fulfill the lust of the villain , its a love story that has to end in tragedy.....
.....But tragedy also brings out revenge that is destined to end the mob's rule over the metropolis.....
True to Ram Gopal Verma's style , the fights and the nastiness on the villains' faces are truely real.....
And the action is really really RAW.....
I liked one dialogue of the film--when the hero arrives from Goa to take up the job as bouncer of the discotheque , the owner of the disc tells him '' Those who say India is a poor country , they haven't seen Bombay's nightlife . Money flows like water here....''
I also liked the zany music that plays whenever the villain makes his entry.....anyway , whats that actor doing nowadays ?? Haven't seen him lately.....
Verdict--good .
Go Goa gone---
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Goa---the haven for pleasure , for parties , for bold babes in bikinis and drinks and drugs....
So three friends ( including Soha Ali Khan's boyfriend Kunal Khemu ) drive to Goa to partake in all this . Problem is---except one , all are bankrupt and have no money.....
But a sexy girl ( played by Puja Gupta ) lures them to an underground party organized by the Russian mafia on an island where drugs and babes are going to flow freely and with abandon....
Thats where the fun starts---and the movie starts to look good....
Frankly , I was not impressed by the done-to-death jokes about screwing multiple girls and condoms and whatnot at the beginning of the movie and was getting a little bored---though only a little.....
But once they get to the island and to the party , then the jokes suddenly seem more intelligent and funny and perk up your sense of humour.....
And to add to the fun is the element of horror....
.....For a new and formerly untried drug is distributed at the party which turns people into bloodsucking zombies the next morning---and soon everyone is sucking the others' blood and infecting more people and leaving them useless for further life except for killing people....
That where the bankruptcy of the heroes helps---for because they have no money to buy the drug , they remain uninfected in an island full of infected and biting people .
But the catch is---they can get infected if they are bitten , and running away from zombies in an island which is full of them seems to be an impossible task....
They are joined by Saif Ali Khan , who is a drug smuggler and organiser of the party and also by the lissome Puja Gupta---all of whom have the task of escaping from the island ahead of them....
So do they escape ?? Watch the movie for that....
The triumph of the director lies in the way he has effortlessly blended comedy with horror.....
While a horrific situation unfolds ( like a group of bloodlustcrazed zombies on track of the heroes trying to bite them ) , the characters still pepper the situation with cheeky oneliners that keep us in splits.....
.....But still there are some situations where the horror sinks into you and you feel the chills....
Its funny to see the heroes try to have one night stand in a house with Puja Gupta even with zombies searching to kill them outside.....
......and the directoral ability of the director makes this situation believable.....
There are practically no songs but acting by everyone is above par....
....And the zombies look real too.....
Verdict---Thoroughly entertaining .
Ram Leela ( Indian version of Romeo and Juliet )---
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Ranjar---a town in Gujarat that is India's equivalent to Pakistan's barbaric north west frontier province in the art of violence ; a place with an endless supply of bullets , a place where manufacture of desi replicas of Kalashnikov rifles vies for attention with that of long range sniper rifles with telescopic sights , a place where the population drinks to excess , a place where people are rowdy and boisterous , and a place where they dance with a gusto that can only be matched by the abandon with which they press the trigger of their guns....
Now from where did Sanjay Leela Bhansali get the idea of showing the pacific gujarati who does not even kill animals and eats vegetarian food as a trigger happy desperado who lives and breathes bullets ?? Gandhi must be turning in his grave to see a part of his state shown as a hotbed of such violence....
Fortunately such a place exists only in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's fertile imagination and is not a reality.....
And in such a land are two rival clans who are after each other's blood . Now the question is---how to make the story of a cinema out of this ??
Simple---take one goodlooking person each from both clans and make them fall in love with each other , what else....
.....And to make it more spicy make the two lovers smooch and kiss with intensity and heat , and take two actors ( Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone ) for the respective roles who make the intensity and heat look believable.....
Yeah ,the two do inject some real uninhibited passion into their embraces making them the perfect choice for playing Ram and Leela/Romeo and Juliet---the two star crossed lovers....
Ram is the brother of the head of one clan while Leela is the daughter of the head of the other....
But it is set in the modern age of twitter and facebook---so is it a surprise that it begins more as physical desire for each other ??
But before the lovers can elope , a fight occurs which results in deaths of kin on both sides---a fight which increases the enemity between the two sides....
So the two clans are hardly going to forgive the elopement of Ram and Leela and let them alone....
They are captured and brought back , and the director puts and interesting twist to the story as they become heads of the rival clans....
So do they stop loving each other or they continue to do so....
Can they use their newfound power to bring sanity to the troubled land and make the people of Ranjar believe in peace ??
Or are age old enemities going to crush their lives ??
Go and watch the movie for that ?? It wont be a bad outing....
Sanjay Leela Bhansali does what he can do best---he dishes out a colourful cultural extravaganza that shows people dancing in vibrant colours , the colour red standing out the most....
And when they dance with abandon wearing colourful clothes , it's a treat for the eyes....
Acting by everyone is good , but Supriya Pathak is the one who stands head and shoulder above the others---she injects real evil and menace in her demeanor and voice as she plays godmother called Baa to perfection . Watch the utter ruthlessness as she crushes her daughter's finger with a betelnut crusher---though the camera moves away from the act to her face ( it gets splashed with blood ) at the last moment....
Ranveer looks brawny and muscled and Deepika looks sensous---though she has serious competition from Priyanka Chopra who sizzles in an item number....
Richa Chadda also plays her role with passion---passion in bed with her spouse and even better acting as the grieving widow who bats for peace and love even though she has lost own husband.....one question though---why can't she get remarried , especially because she has no children of her own ?? Indeed Deepika ( Leela ) asks her this very question and her answer is no---even in the age of twitter these people still live by outmoded customs and traditions about hindu widows being unfit for remarriage....
Barkha Bist as the sister in law of the other clan who as also lost her husband does play her role well too---the movie scores in the acting department....
But Gulshan Devaiah as the turncoat villain who tries to kill Baa is only just about okay....
Music is more worth seeing than listening---especially for the energy with which people of Ranjar dance on the music .
What shines through is the hard work that the director , the cinematographer and the choreographer have put to film every scene . But the ending is disappointing---it is deliberately contrived to make the film a desi rendition of Romeo and Juliet and was totally unnecessary....It reduced my verdict of the film from good to only decent...
The posters of the Hindu god Ram and other religious imagery has been excessively used in the film---no wonder the film has been banned in those states where devotion to Ram is greatest.....
Inspite of these faults the film is worth a watch---for the showcasing of real Indian culture Gujarati style and for it's rich and vibrant colourful scenes...
Verdict--decent .
Dhoom part 3 ( Dhoom means uproar )---
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Nowadays Yash Raj films seems to have started making films keeping the international audience in mind : ' international ' meaning the Pakistan and middle east audience allied with Indian and Bangladeshi muslims....
.....For almost all the characters in the film are shown to be muslims---including the hero , the heroine , the father of the hero and the sidekick....
Only the cop ( inspector Jai Dixit ) played by Abhishek Bachhan is hindu---that too because his character is a leftover from former ' Dhoom ' films and cannot be changed now....
The villain of course is Bollywood's favourite bogey for international films---a white man who else . He is the banker responsible for the downfall of the hero's father ( played by Jackie Shroff ) and the father's suicide , which is the result of the banker's callous decision of forcing the closure of the magic show called ' great Indian circus ' owned by Iqbal ( Jackie ) for defaulting on debt .
The son named Saahir ( played by Aamir Khan ) grows up to take revenge on the bank by looting it repeatedly ' Dhoom ' style---meaning by the most unbelievable stunts using a rope and a flashy motorbike , and leaving a shower of notes for poor people to pick like a modern day Robinhood .
.....And because he leaves a note in hindi after every robbery , two Indian cops are called in---Jai Dixit and his sidekick Ali ( Uday Chopra ) who else....
With this the chase begins....
The stunts are frankly far far out from what can be attempted in real life and seem too much to believe at times , but do keep the adrenaline pumping in the movie . But it is in emotion that the movie scores !!---and the director surprises us by giving a romantic and emotional angle to the movie that far surpasses the action sequences in making the movie look good .
And where there is romance there has to be a woman---a dazzlingly beautiful one at that . Katrina looks like a dream and dances like heaven . Her introduction in a stupendously muscle arching and body curving dance sequence where she sheds her clothes one by one left everyone in the audience transfixed on their seats in the theater just like it left the hero just watching on his seat in the movie . There was pin drop silence in the cinema hall for 5 minutes....
But the introduction of such a heavenly beauty also shores up jealousies among two men in the movie as to who should romance her , and really gives a kick start to the emotional core of the movie .
But the jealousy is between whom and whom ??
I am not telling---for the movie has a surprise in store at the interval , a trick commonly used in magic shows but something that the common man is unaware of....
Aamir Khan acts well , Katrina looks dazzling and that's enough....
Abhishek Bachhan acts his usual stern self as inspector Jai Dixit and Uday Chopra is more like a monkey with his eyes permanently popped out at any woman....
The action sequences may be unbelievable and the motorbikes which can change shape look frankly unreal , but everything in the movie is on a spectacular scale and that helps in glossing over the unreal parts of the film .
The climax is heart touching and shows the importance of human relationships above all the action and emotion . No sex and lack of blood soaked violence make is suitable for watching by a family crowd .
I didn't see it in IMAX form , but from the scenes I could make out that the motorbike somersaults and chases will look better in IMAX .
Verdict---good .
Ek villain ( One villain )---
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This movie had already crossed the Rupees ( Indian currency ) 1 billion mark in money earned when I finally went to see it.....personal events had prevented me from seeing films for a month and a half , and the movie was already out of most theaters near my house . But since it had become such a hit , I was going to see it even if it entailed walking ( actually riding , but I wanted to sound melodramatic ) miles and miles---for I had promises to keep , of writing reviews and entertaining friends . And so off I went , to a multiplex far away from home to watch this movie and write this review....
So was it worth the wait and worth covering the long distance ?? You bet !!
So what's the story ??
Actress Shraddha Kapoor does not have long to live . Some terminal disease ( which is not named ) is killing her slowly day by day . But before she dies , she wants to live out her dreams---and her dreams are the stuff poetry is made of . Dreams of holding butterflies in her hand before letting them fly , dreams of seeing the peacocks spread their wings in all their glory at the first hint of monsoon , dreams of marrying off couples who have pined long for each other , dreams of turning round some lost soul's life....and taking photos of them all , maybe because this is the age of putting photos on whatsapp and facebook !!
And the lost soul she saves is Siddharth Malhotra , who plays Guru---a criminal who was orphaned in childhood and raised by a gangland boss ( played by Remo Fernandes ) .
Guru falls in love with Aisha ( Shraddha's name in the film ) . Who wouldn't ?? For Shraddha looks so delicate and flower like and so lovely and with such soft skin ( even without touching her flesh I could realize that !! ).....only a fool would not fall in love with her !!
And Guru decides to help Aisha ( Shraddha ) in realizing her poetic dreams . And as if poetry would be incomplete without a mention of romance , she begins to reciprocate his love . All her attempts to distance herself from him because of her failing health are useless , and the couple gets locked in holy matrimony !! As if to complete the circle of happiness , her health begins to improve !! Dreams that were seeming like fantasy now come close to reality and the earth seems like heaven....
But on the other side of heaven there is hell , and the denizens of hell consist of villains who don't like the residents of heaven to live peacefully....
And one such resident of hell-on-earth is the villain Ritesh Deshmukh , a man who has failed in life---failed to earn a decent living for himself , failed to give a good life to his child , failed to do his job properly , and failed in the eyes of his wife....
Ritesh can't bear the taunts of his co workers and his bosses , but above all he can't bear the taunts of his wife ( Aamna Sharif ), who henpecks him to no end . Because of this he turns into a psychopath who kills women so that he can get his hands on their expensive jewelry , so that he can fulfill his wife's demands---such is his love for her....
And one of the women he kills is Aisha ( Shraddha )....
This movieshaking event is shown at the beginning of the film , and the rest of the film moves partly in real time and partly in flashbacks....
So what will become of Guru ( Siddharth Malhotra ) ?? Will the power of the violence that Aisha's love had just tamed resurface in an orgy of revenge ??
And will revenge be delivered on Ritesh , who has just committed such a dastardly crime ?? What will become of his wife and son ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
Ritesh Deshmukh has tried to put up a commendable performance as Villain of the movie who is a psycho but loves his wife to no end , but he simply lacks the evil and menace of real cinematic villains like Amrish Puri and Pran....
Siddharth Malhotra looks ruggedly handsome , but his acting lacks the firepower . Of course , he and Shraddha look cute together .
Which brings us to Shraddha . The movie is at it's best when she is around , and the scenes pictured of her reek of cinematic fantasy rather than reality . Which is exactly what I want....
Or maybe I like her so much that I can't bring myself to say anything bad about her . Maybe she's not as good as I say . You decide for yourself.....
Aamna Sharif looks mouthwatering too , and Kamal Rashid Khan plays what he does best---play the role of a loudmouth and braggart....
Music is good enough , and many of the songs are hummable and worth a repeat hearing .
The movie does drag in the later parts as the revenge saga of Guru and the villain has too many twists and turns , but the director still has saved it by giving us a nice tidy ending....
Yeah...a good movie has a good ending , and the director has not only put a twist in the tale at the end , but that twist has a touch of poetic justice . Aisha ( Shraddha ) would have given an approving nod from heaven....while I just sat transfixed on my seat even as the others in the theater left...
The movie is dreamily romantic when Shraddha is around ( and I wished she was always around ) , but otherwise is a thriller with some blood and gore in other scenes .
Verdict---Good .
Hate story---
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Its a thriller movie with some body exposure ( by leading lady Paoli Dam ) and some love making scenes---none of which cross the limit but do give some hots along the way.....but people coming with the hopes of an erotic movie will be somewhat disappointed .
But the photography is really good and so are the sets .
.....And actress Paoli Dam looks good as a dusky beauty and acts well---especially in the semierotic scenes . But the acting honors go to the villain ( played by Gulshan Devaiya ) who has put up a really commendable job as a industry magnate showing some mouth watering no-holds-barred cruelty to anyone who dares cross him---like Paoli does.....
She's a reporter who carries out a sting operation exposing a person from his company---its a scandal that might hurt his company bad . But he manages to cover it up and invites Paoli into his company , because as he says---its better to makes friends with those who can hurt him .
And Gulshan then ensnares Paoli with his charm and lands her into his bed---making her fall in love with him left right and center.....
But Paoli soon discovers that its a plot to take revenge on her for the sting operation---as Gulshan reminds her , he screws those who screw with him---and screw them royally too.....
Paoli , who is pregnant is aborted in such a way that she is not able to conceive again , and left on the door of death.....
But Gulshan has made a big mistake---as his father tells him , the sting operation by Paoli was just business , and you should not take revenge for business problems personally.....mixing business and personal issues is forbidden......
And because Gulshan has mixed business with personal issues , indeed taking business personally , he has to contend with an avenging angel in Paoli----an angel who will destroy him in the end.....
And helping Paoli in her quest for revenge is her everloyal friend ( played by Nikhil Dwivedi ) who has put up a fine performance himself.....
So the film has a lot of things going for it.....
But where it does not completely work is in the showing of various plans that Paoli churns out for revenge---they are all corny and unrealistic.....
Is it so easy to sleep with a minister like a common whore and become a director of the bank which finances Gulshan's company ?? That way many prostitutes would be on the board of directors of banks......
And is it so easy to transfer data from mobile to mobile while having sex with the guy ( in woman on top position ) from whose mobile the data has to be transferred ??
And is it necessary to barge into the gents toilet in provocative clothes to give information and cut a deal with the head honcho of a rival company and catch him while he's peeing ??
Yeah , I know about cinematic liberty and all that but this is all too much.....
In the end the movie shows the same age old stereotype from old Bollywood cinema of a woman who sleeps with too many men not being fit to remain alive.....
......Disappointing for those who thought that in this new age such a woman could live again to start a new life after taking lust and sex soaked revenge.....
The more things change , the more they remain the same dont they ??
Verdict---decent enough .
Jab tak hai jaan ( Till my last breath )---
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Welcome to the world of superlative romance.....courtesy the greatest exponent of it---director Yash Chopra who else......
The world of making love on satin sheets in luxurious bed......
.......Of wild kissing in telephone booths in blinding rain.....
.......Of motorcycle rides on smooth roads in supergreen countryside with arms outstretched in impossible joy......
........Of romantic confessions in beautiful churches while it is snowing outside.......all picture perfect.....
........Of waiting for your beloved for years without batting an eyelid.....
........Of love between people of different classes---between a rich girl and poor boy.....
Welcome to that world one last time......for the man who made us so familiar with that world is no more.......yes , director Yash Chopra has breathed his last.......:(
And he has left a void no one can fulfill.....
For no one could make a woman look more beautiful than Yash Chopra.....a fact that you can appreciate when you see actress Katrina Kaif look absolutely stunning......
Yeah , she looks divine in sarees , in nighties , in revealing clothes and also in covering clothes.....
And watch her do dirty dancing in micromini and exposing top---her body exudes fire like no one else......
The antics of the other actress Anushka Sharma pale in comparison with the super beauty of Katrina , the softness of her skin , the smoothness of her white face and the pain in her eyes.....
This even though Anushka has worn what is practically a bikini in her first scene in the film......thats because Anushka's character is a little too talkative and over the top---a little too much.....or maybe thats what the director intended it to be , for Anushka is not the one Shah Rukh is in love with......
He's is love with Katrina , and she is with him to---in her majesty's heartland , London....
But a twist of fate separates the two and he goes to Kashmir to risk his life again and again defusing bombs for a living in order to prove something to himself---where he meets Anushka the chatterbox ten years later when she comes to shoot a film for discovery channel.....
And its upto Anushka to bring them together again.....
And how ?? Go and watch the movie for that......
Its the reason why Shah Rukh and Katrina separate that forms the weakest link in the chain of events that can be called the story......the reason seems to be silly and unrealistic and based on superstition......
And unfortunately , the chain is strongest only as its weakest link.....
Of course , Yash has pulled in all stops to bring in maximum support for his film from maximum audiences---by including too many muslim and Pakistani characters to make the film popular among muslim audiences around the globe......even while dying the old man could not cure his itch to appease the pakistanis......
But from my side all that is forgiven.....after all , it his last film we will get to see and I am a getting a bit senty.........
Music is good , and the photography and colours of the film are stunning to say the least.....so are the clothes worn by Katrina......
The hero of the film ( Shah Rukh ) retains his naughtiness of old times in some scenes and does act well.....
And everything about the film exudes class modernity and forwardness, especially that fact that Katrina smokes and Anushka has had sex with multiple partners ---in fact it is a film that is not for the masses and is strictly for the elite audience and non resident Indians living in the west.......
But still I was not fully impressed by the film---the weakest link in the chain did make things a little unimpressive......
But hey !! Its Yash Chopra's last film.....and he being the badshah of romance........so all is forgiven !!
Verdict---decent .
Supermodel---
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Modelling---Glitz and glamour.....
Hot female bodies sashaying in style on the ramp in teeny weeny skirts.....
And showing off their flesh in bikinis near swimming pools.....
Or soaking in their sweat in tight clothes which hug their skin on hot beaches.....
Curving and arching their delicious curves while striking sexy poses in front of the camera.....
Bodies to lust for....
Bodies to die for.....
Bodies that come in your oh so sweet dreams.....
Silken bodies that fuel your uncontrollable desire.....
Desire of making love on soft beds and on satin sheets.....
Bodies that can only belong to supermodels.....
SIGGHHH......I really wish I had gone to see this movie for these reasons ; that the movie was worth saying all the things I said above....
But the actual reasons I went to see this movie are far more mundane.....For it was the only movie that was fitting into the little time I had today---the movie is only 1 and a half hour long , which was the exact amount of time I had in hand.....
So I went and sat in the cinema hall with little or no expectation---because I already knew that the movie was a B or C grade movie....
What else can you expect from a film containing Ashmit Patel and Veena Malik....??
So Monty ( Ashmit ) is a in demand photographer who photographs models to convert them to supermodels.....
And he is a playboy.....So what's new ??
And he is having an affair with a model ( Jia ) with whom he has some mouth to mouth kissing scenes.....
In walks Rupali ( Veena Malik ) with dreams of making it big courtesy Ashmit's photos.....
She is a real lady who isn't ready to compromise on her values to reach the top ; in other words is not ready to sleep with the bigwigs to get success.....
And they all go on a modelling shoot to Fiji....
And in the paradise of sun and sand Monty and Rupali begin to have feelings for each other.....
But what about the jealousy of Jia with whom Monty is having a relationship ??
To complicate matters somebody is killing the models in the shoot one by one.....
So what will happen next....??
Who cares.....the movie is not worth pondering about these questions.....
The film does show some delicate feminine flesh and some love making scenes.....
And Veena Malik exposes upto some extent....
But acting is rank bad....
The romance between Ashmit and Veena lacks soul ; their performance is emotionless.....
The film seems to have been made on a shoe string budget.....
Story is practically non existent.....
Dialogues are of poor quality.....
The murderer of the models is caught too easily without any build up of suspense---for that person talks loudly to oneself and the audience about how the murders were committed.....
After seeing this film I feel that Veena Malik should be paid to go back to Pakistan and the rest of the cast should be paid to retire in order to save audiences from further torture....
Verdict---Bad .
Mardaani ( The 'manly' lady )---
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'Mardaani' tells the story of a goodlooking female cop ( played by Rani Mukherjee ) who literally wears the pants in her house and also in the film---for her husband is reduced to a sidekick as far as his role in the film is concerned . From her language at least , she seems to be marathi police officer married to a bengali doctor and living in Bombay along with her niece . Her husband neither has her fighting skills ( she can throw punches and kicks with abandon ) nor does he object to her erratic work schedule which includes the occasional late night out on work .
As expected from a 'Mardaani' ( manly lady ) she can deal with hardened criminals by coming to their own level---and the only level they know is the level of violence....
But a major twist comes into her life as a girl she considers almost to be her daughter ( called Pyaari ) is kidnapped by the sex trafficking mafia and sold to be a prostitute . Shivani ( Rani's name in the film ) is hellbent on finding the whereabouts of Pyaari , and this sets her on track of finding out the kingpin of the sex trade .
As every move by Shivani is followed by the kingpin's countermove , a deadly game begins....
But the kingpin has a major advantage in this game---while Shivani's identity is well known , his own identity is unknown . Because of this , while he can strike at Shivani at will and can target even her husband ( as he does ) she has the onerous task of finding out who he is before she can actually get to him . And even if she does find out who he is , the task of actually finding out proof of his misdeeds seems to be almost hopelessly impossible . Especially because he is being protected by powerful politicians , like these human traffickers always are....
So does Shivani find out who the kingpin is ??
And what is her way of bringing him to justice ??
What has happened to Pyaari ??
The movie has some answers to these questions , and I found myself interested....
The movie does move like a thriller with blow followed by counterblow by the police officer and the kingpin , and punch countered by counterpunch . And in the midst of all this , the kingpin has the chutzpah to phone Shivani to intimidate her regularly--- and the conversation between the two on mobile phone is peppered with some hard taunts and witty retorts .
As the movie moves towards it's climax it begins to get bloody , but that is only to be expected . But it's a movie that takes itself seriously ( a commodity that is becoming rarer in Bollywood , especially among the list of successful films ) , something borne out by the fact that it has practically no songs . Rani Mukherjee playes the role of a dynamic female police officer with confidence , and the villain is played by Tahir Bhasin with sophistication menace and unparalleled ruthlessness in equal measure .
There are some shots of barenaked female backflesh , but the bare backs wont give you the hots unless you are a pervert . For those female backs are uncovered by sex slaves in the midst of the cruelty of force being applied on them , and the circumstances of the body exposure seem gruesome .
All in all---I found myself interested throughout , and there is never a dull moment in the film .
Verdict---Not fantastic but good enough .
Rakhtacharitra ( Rivers of blood )---
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Welcome to the world of superviolence .........courtesy the greatest exponent of it ,Ram Gopal verma........
As the name suggests , this film is not for sissys ,kids or vegetarians
........And Ram Gopal Verma himself has gone on record to say that ,as far as this film is concerned ,women should stay at home.......
That explains why the theater was 2/3 rd empty.....on the second day itself....
Because the audience has been cut down to only MEN ,that too the non-veg eating ,blood and gore loving types......
And what a feast for them !!
Rivers of blood flow ,enough to make a vampire overnourished for weeks.......
Women are abducted , literally in daylight ,and raped like sluts.......
Boulders are smashed on peoples heads ,and other innovative methods of killing people like boring holes through their skulls are invented......
The place seems to be alive with rifles ,knives ,pistols ,sickles,and other such weapons.......
And masterminding all the mayhem is Nagamani Reddy ( played by Abhimanyu Singh ) ,the villain of the film......
His performance is the stellar performance of the film ,what holds the film together.....
..........For he plays with with absolute perfection , the role of a sadistic ,savage ,absolute brutal despot of a small town ,with animal-like instincts ,that too the carnivore type............
The small town is in South India, and the film is based on a true enemity.........
Which means that such a person really existed !!
And who's his enemy ??......Vivek Oberoi ,who else ,who also has to murder and kill in equal measure to take revenge........
And he does that with determination and skill........a good acting performance from him too
Shatrughan Sinha does a brave effort to fit into the mighty shoes of late politician N T Rama Rao.........but only a south indian can tell if he succeeds........
And what a south indian can enlighten us is also about the real-life happenings in the small town in the past........since they were considered worth making a film on them......
Verdict--not bad , if barbaric violence is your cup of tea......
Sheen---
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In the Kashmiri language Sheen means snow , and it is a popular name given to girls there too---for their skin is as fair and white as snow .
It is also the name of the film's heroine....
And by showing the story of a fictitious beauty called Sheen , director Ashok Pandit tries to showcase the story of the Kashmiri hindus---a minority who have become refugees in their own country . May be the film will confirm to the English meaning of it's name ( sheen means to shine in reflected light in the English language ) and throw some light on the plight of the hindus of Kashmir.....
It's a plight that the nation seems to have forgotten , and is a fitting reminder to the fact that people who are non violent ( like the Kashmiri hindus are ) have no voice or weight in the world....
Those whose voice carries weight are the ones who have taken recourse to the gun , and the booming guns have changed the destinies of the Kashmir valley forever.....or so it seems....
The story begins in the late eighties when our heroine Sheen lives a carefree life in Kashmir valley . Her father is the local school teacher and teaches in an open school set in the midst of a sylvan countryside . She falls in love Mannu who is son of her dad's friend .
And what could be more fit for falling in love than the gorgeous countryside---all magnificent snow capped mountains and stunningly beautiful valleys and superb forests of Chinar trees and rivers and lakes flowing with ice cold water.....not for nothing is Kashmir known as the Switzerland of Asia , a destination for a life long romance or at least a honeymoon....
It seems the rarefied air of Kashmir and the beauty of the countryside can breed nothing but pure thoughts of tranquility ; and the Kashmiri people are indeed a gentle people---a world away from their formidable martially inclined neighbours in Punjab and the Pathan regions .
But the scientific and technological advances of the 19th century brought contact with these very neighbours to the formerly isolated Kashmiris , and the 20th century brought the clash of civilizations---one civilization being hindu and the other being muslim....
And into the vortex of this 20th century clash is caught our heroine Sheen....
Actually she wants to do nothing but lead her life along with her family and her love in the midst of the sylvan countryside , but can an individual resist the tidal wave of history ?? Especially when the history is being created by that scourge of the 21st century called Islamic fundamentalism....
Director Ashok Pandit does make a brave attempt show the world the trials and tribulations of the Hindus of Kashmir valley---a minority driven away from their land by islamic terrorists trained and abetted by Pakistan . Their tragedy is shown in all it's glory and it's pity.... It's a story of near and dear ones killed , of women's honour defiled by rapists , of administrative and police callousness towards them , of homes lost and futures destroyed , and above all of the pain of being driven out of the lands in which their ancestors had lived from thousands of years....
And Sheen has to bear this pain in all it's solitude and with fortitude---She has to bear the sight of her nation's flag burnt by traitors , and Pakistani flags raised in it's place....her lover is kidnapped by terrorists , her father is forced to close down his school to give way for a madrasa ( islamic seminary ) , her brother is brutally killed by militants , and she and her family have to leave the comforts of home to lead a life of destitution in a refugee camp in another part of the country....
Her own Hindu co religionists from other parts of the nation look down upon Kashmiri hindus , and she and her family have to live off packets of food thrown at them from trucks like they throw dog food to dogs . Worse , policemen try to prey upon her beauty with lecherous advances , reducing the life of a lady from a respectable family like herself to a den of dispair....
Yet she remains bold and courageous and outspoken among all her sorrows , just like a her father....and above all she remains a patriot---never loses her love for India....
This very courageousness sets her on a final mission---to try to reach the man she loves and who is in the clutches of terrorists , who are led by his childhood friend Shaukat , a Kashmiri muslim who has turned to the path of revolt against India . It's a mission in which Sheen is about to risk her very life....
So does she succeed in reaching and freeing Mannu---the man she loves ?? Watch the movie for that....
The story of Kashmir is tragic , and therefore the story of the film is bound to end in tragedy ; tragedy above all for the home grown Kashmiri terrorists---who do not realize until too late that those who live by the gun ultimately die by the same weapon , and do not realize that they are just an expendable tool of war for their Pakistani masters .
Music of the film ( by Nadeem Shravan ) is good , and so is the photography . Acting is decent---by everyone . The film has certainly been made with purpose if not passion.....and the purpose is laudable without doubt.....
Verdict---decent enough .
Aurangzeb (' Aurangzeb' was also the name of a cruel Mughal emperor )---
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The success of telling a complicated tale on celluloid lies in being able to successfully bring all the complications to an end whether good or bad , and being able to tie up all the loose ends of the story at the climax . The more convoluted the story becomes , the more difficult is this task---and the ability of the director can be judged by his capacity to make the viewers understand the movie amidst the complications .
Aurangzeb is such a film . It does not have a simple plot but unfolds in a complicated way until it feels overstretched at one point , but the director does help us make our way through the story .
So what is the connection with Aurangzeb , the controversial Mughal emperor who still provokes debate among historians as to whether he was good or bad ?? Is the title , grandiose as it is , justified ??
The Aurangzeb connection lies in the fact that some characters in the film are ready to kill even their relatives in their greed and lust for power in a manner in which Alamgir ( as Mughal emperor Aurangzeb liked to call himself ) would have applauded----for he himself killed all his brothers in his bid for the throne.....
So whats the story ?? Aahh !! here come the complications.....
To try to make it sound simple , Arjun Kapoor plays the double role of twins separated in young age . One lives in poverty with his mother and the other is the arrogant heir to his father's multi crore illegal empire . But the enemies of his father plot to replace his heir with his twin who is their agent and will help to bring down the father's empire .
But as expected , the plot loses its simplicity as the replaced twin begins to have respect his father ( played by Jackie Shroff ) and decides to dump his father's enemies for whom he was working earlier . But those for whom he was working earlier ( Rishi Kapoor and Prithviraj Sukumaran ) are no losers either and they are not going to give up on him so easily.....
Another problem is that the heir's girlfriend played by the delicious Sashaa Agha ( Salma Agha's daughter ) falls in love with his replacement and he begins to feel the same for her.....
.......For she is worth it ; all light eyes and pink skin and soft flesh---she has it all....
.....And not only she has it all but she displays it all by going about half nude in sizzling bikinis and revealing clothes , and kissing Arjun and dancing with abandon.....
The list of problems grows as the movie progresses , and new twists and turns are added to the plot.....In the end its time for those who have conscience to stand up for their ideals to confront those who are unscrupulous and fight for what is right.....
All we can say is---may the righteous ones win.....Amen to that !!
So do the righteous people win ??
Go and watch the movie for that.....It does throw up some interesting situations along the way.....
Arjun Kapoor does act well in both roles , but Jackie looks tired in the movie . Rishi Kapoor does a decent job of acting , but what about his expanding girth....
Prithviraj Sukumaran does play his role of an a forever unsmiling police officer in a gritty manner fit for his character in the film .
What I liked was the fact that the name Aurangzeb has somewhat negative connotations in the film---a negativity that is being erased in our history books to appease some ' peaceful ' folk . And coming from Yash Raj films which is a bastion of appeasement , its a feat unto itself....
Verdict---decent enough .
English Vinglish---
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Beautiful actresses mature like old wine---they look better as age catches up with them . Just look at Hema Malini.....
But what about acting skills ?? Do they get better with time ?
THEY DO !!!....That is , if Sridevi's performance in this film is anything to go by....
......For not only she puts up a magnificent acting performance but it is she who holds the film together for a whole two and a quarter hours as she takes us through a range of emotions---first mild contempt at her lack of english speaking skills , then sympathy for her plight , then increasing pride at her bravura attempts to learn the language , then the sweet smell of romance as she begins to bond with a guy and then adoration as you sit spellbound in the cinema hall watching her acting prowress......
She's the archetypal Indian woman bound to tradition and family and old customs---to the point of having to bear unquestioningly the taunts from her pesky daughter who forever has a chip on her shoulder about her mom's english speaking skills---or her rather lack of them.....
But freedom comes in the land of the free....!!!
As she lands in New York for planning a wedding without her family she decides to learn english.....
And in her English learning class Its time to meet new friends from different places across the globe---whites , blacks , pakistanis , French and even gays.....
And its time to get attention of a Frenchman ( who else wouldn't leave even a married fortyish woman alone ) and its time to seek success.....
But her world---her family---is not far away.....ultimately an typical Indian woman cannot forget her roots her home and her hearth.....
But when they meet her again---do they meet a changed woman or not ??
I am not telling---go to the cinema hall and find out for yourself.....I did and with happy results....
The movie is full of politically correct messages---friendship between Indians and Pakistanis , beginnings of love between a white gay and and a black gay man....
Now which of the other yesteryears actresses are gonna make a comeback ??---I dont mind having wet dreams ( again !! ) of ladies I used to fantasise about in tenth standard in school.....
Verdict---Nice , real nice .
Student of the year---
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Movies for the bubblegum crowd and candyfloss romance---that's the world of Karan Johar.....and that's the only world he knows.....
Or maybe thats the only world he SHOULD know---for he's pretty good at making movies ( and most importantly moolah ) on it.....as this effort shows.....
So lets immerse ourselves into Karan Johar's world.....
.....all designer clothes costing in the several thousands---branded clothes are for only for poor people.....and nonbranded ?? sshh !! those who wear nonbranded clothes dont exist in Johar's world.....
And college proms and games with cheerleaders and girls in bikinis....you might be forgiven for thinking you are in some american college.....
Only problem ?? the characters have to speak not in english but hindi !!
......for Karan Johar may live in his high brow world but his moolah comes from the indian audience !! how sad for poor Karan.....
And into this world of super-rich Rohan Nanda and his girlfriend Shania ( Alia Bhatt) comes Abhimanyu Singh from a middle class family.....
Middle class means he probably wears only branded clothes instead of the designer ones which Rohan and Shania wear.....
Ahh---Shania( Alia )....so how is she compared to her older half sister Pooja Bhatt.....??
Well....Alia lacks the spunk , the verve and above all the attitude of Pooja---the very facts that made Pooja such a hit among the hip crowd before she began to date too many boyfriends and lost interest in acting.....
But for that very same reason Alia has innocence.....and looks like a pretty doll.....in fact I found myself thinking about her on my way home......
Also thinking about her in the movie is Abhimanyu.....for after initially befriending Rohan he falls for Shania ( Alia ).....and worse , she gets attracted to him too---invoking jealousy in Rohan the poor rich boy who has the misfortune to be also hated by his domineering father......
And Rohan and Abhimanyu the goodlooking hunks come to blows over Shania.....and they promise to beat each other in the ' student of the year ' competition of the college to teach each other a lesson....
So who wins the competition ?? and who gets the girl ??
Go watch the movie for that.....
The movie is made funny by some light hearted moments courtesy the gay dean played by Rishi Kapoor.....
In fact too many gay moments in the movie.....is Karan Johar planning to come out in the open about his preferences.....??
This is the kind of movie that will play well in multiplexes and will be liked by classy women.....
And where there are classy women there will also be ashdoc the connoisseur of class.....
So I liked the movie too....
Verdict---decent .
Khubsoorat ( Beautiful ) 2014---
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Sonam Kapoor is the perfect material for livening up your dreary life !!
The shot of adrenaline that changes your mundane existence and brings back zest and vigor in your household !!
The livewire that livens up dead things bringing back the energy !!
But you got to be liberal with her to get all this....
For you have to listen to her endless yak yak around you....
And tolerate her bumping into everything in your house....
And also tolerate her unsophisticated behavior Punjabi style....
And also tolerate her Punjabi mom and her aggressive charm....
And also tolerate her boozing and getting drunk and falling asleep in the unlikeliest of situtations....
So what do you get in return for all the toleration ??
You get to watch and see a girl with real joie de vivre , a beauty with no brains but a heart of gold....
A cutie pie with loads of laughter and not an ounce of malice in her soul !!
A girl who may kiss you when she is drunk if she has set her heart on you....
And openly propose you without further ado---not a bashful babe is she....
I am waiting for somebody like Sonam Kapoor to come in my life---where is she ??
Well she is the heroine of this movie and I am unlucky because she has already chosen her hero---Fawad Khan....
And what a hero---all dapper and smart and intelligent and a gentleman....
He is the prince of a royal household in Rajasthan , and his family is the one which needs a desperate livening up....
For his father is grieving for his son whom he lost in an accident and has deliberately confined himself to his wheelchair....
And his mom is a dominatrix who believes in old customs of regulating her daughter's life with rules and restrictions.....
All stiffnecked people with a stiff attitude....
But not bad people really....
Just need someone to kickstart some action in their lives....
And help is on the way---for Sonam is coming as physiotherapist for treating Fawad's father's legs....
And her mother has openly asked her to try to get hitched to Fawad because he is too good a catch---not too coy are we....
So all that you have to do is to sit in your seat and watch Sonam's and her mother's antics in action....
And those antics lead to but one goal---fall in love....
But before that goal is reached we get to see some frivolous melodrama---of Sonam getting kidnapped and her prospective mother in law refusing to accept her and Fawad being forced to choose between Sonam and his soon to be ex fiancee.....all storm in a teacup really....
So is that goal reached ?? Do you even have to ask ??!!
Sonam Kapoor forms the heart of the film---but naturally , for the film is made by her father Anil Kapoor and is vehicle for showcasing her talent.....
And she does prove capable of lifting the entire film on her shoulders without feeling the weight....
Indeed she makes the weight seem so light....
And the whole film is lighthearted and without a touch of seriousness---no heavy dialogues and no real emotional scenes....
But some nice little entertainment....
If your expectations are not too high the film does deliver some timepass and some fun....
No villains come to disturb the fun and indeed there are no bad people in the film....
It's film that will be appreciated by the multiplex crowd....
But the small town audiences may not like the scenes of the heroine drinking and getting drunk....
But I being from the multiplex crowd , I liked it....
Verdict---Not great , but some full to timepass .
Daawat e Ishq ( A feast of romance---2014 )
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For the first time I realised that dowry is a pan Indian phenomenon . I used to think that this pernicious custom is prevalent only among the hindu community . But the movie shows even muslims taking dowry from a girl's father in exchange for marrying their sons to the daughter. And it is custom of taking dowry that forms the basis of the story of the movie .
The setting for this feast are the partially muslim cities of Hyderabad and Lucknow---fittingly so , for they are justly famous for their nonvegetarian cuisine....all mouthwatering kebabs and tasty biryanis on which your very own ashdoc has feasted many times.....
And living in Hyderabad is Gulrez ( played by Parineeti Chopra ) , a smart and spunky gal who has a doting father . He allows himself to be dominated by his feisty daughter largely because he is big hearted . Yes big heart and all he may have , but he does not have a big bank balance . And because he does not have a big bank balance , he can't assemble enough a dowry to marry off his daughter . Daughter has big dreams too---of finding her prince charming and living in America , but all she manages to land is a job as saleswoman in a shoe store....
It is at the shoe store that Gulrez falls in love with the handsome man she has been waiting for , but his parents ask for the same old curse---dowry....and the handsome boy turns a wimp as he cannot find the willpower to go against his parents' wishes , leaving Gulrez shattered....
But wait !! There is a very strict law against dowry in the Indian penal code , and other and more smarter and indeed more sinister women have been taking advantage of it to take their husbands to the cleaners by leveling false charges of dowry against them . And an embittered Gulrez decides to use the law to marry a guy and level false charges against him and get rich quickly by getting an out of court settlement .
Here the corniness begins.....the whole plan of posing going to Lucknow and posing as a rich expatriate from some Gulf country by using false passports and taking interviews of prospective candidates for husband material in a five star hotel---this plan is so silly that I wont bother pointing out the loopholes in this plan to you....suffice to say that is it so ridiculously easy to fool people ??
It is while meeting prospective candidates that Gulrez finds the perfect gentleman---Tariq , played by Aditya Roy Kapoor....a man who is open hearted and honest and opposed to the centuries old curse of dowry that is plaguing the land....a man who wants to marry not for money but for love....a man who wants to treat Gulrez like a queen....a man whose rustic charm has the capacity to sweep Gulrez off her feet....a man who not just has bountiful amounts of money but a bountiful heart....and above all a man who can serve delicious melting in the mouth kebabs in his restaurant ; for doesn't the title of the movie promise a feast of food and romance and of love....??
Gulrez has unwittingly stumbled upon the man of her dreams....indeed of every girl's dreams....
But does she have the sense to feast upon the rich pickings of romance lying in front of her ??
Alas !! The director fails in making his heroine do what is just naturally correct for her , and in an unnecessary bid to propel the story forward he makes her do things and take decisions that any sensible girl would reject....
So what are those decisions ??
Does the story end well ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
Some parts of the movie are downright silly , but it does have it's moments....
And some of those moments are provided by Aditya Roy Kapoor , who plays the role of a not so well educated guy having rustic charm with ease---looks like a muslim from Lucknow with kohl lined eyes and half shaven beard and earrings in his ear all too well....
The other moments being provided by Parineeti---all fiery and spunky and booby and busty with her assets jutting like tennis balls inside her top in one scene....
Music is nothing to write home about....
The social message of the film---laudable , and shown in an entertaining manner....
This feast I would say , was sumptuous enough to make me return home a reasonably satisfied man .
Verdict---Very decent .
Desi kattey ( Indian homemade revolvers---2014 )
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The state of Uttar Pradesh---rustic heart of the real India....
And at the banks of the Ganges river is a small town which is the center for the manufacture of home made revolvers known as 'kattey' in plural....
......For the 'katta' plays an important part in the politics of the region....
The 'katta' revolver can hold only one bullet at a time , and has to be reloaded to fire again.....but sometimes it gets damaged in one firing itself and cannot ever fire again....sometimes it explodes while firing in the hand of the person holding it.....now isn't that uniquely Indian !!
.....That's what I felt on seeing this film----even though my native state is not Uttar Pradesh , after a long time of seeing films with glamour made in glitzy locations I felt that I was in the real India ; in my land , among my people !!
And the photography made me feel even more so---photography of the river Ganga flowing serenely through the evergreen countryside ; photography of bridges over the mighty river being crossed by overloaded railway trains which are the lifeline of the nation....
In this town are born and bred two inseparable friends---Pali and Gyani....
They learn to live fight and eat together....and naturally they become expert in the art of firing the 'katta' revolver which has made their town both notorious and famous....
And as they grow their expertise in firing guns and fighting foes increases and so does their friendship.....
And they believe they can't do without each other....
Opportunities beckon people with such remarkable skills---for the ganglords of the region notice their talents and give them a chance to work for them.....
And as the ganglords turn into politicians the power and aura of the deadly duo increases....
It's a life of crime---of pumping bullets into their bosses' rivals and punching hard those who offended their masters....a life of deadly games with death and vows of everlasting vengeance....
But somewhere in the heart of one of the two ( Pali ) is a gentleman and a romantic.....for who other than him would dare to fall in love since childhood with an older woman who has been used and abused by a dozen men if not more( played by Tia Bajpai of woman-getting-exploited roles fame )and then proposing her and marrying her.....
It seems life has set a course of violence for the two of them....
.....Until an an army major ( played by Sunil Shetty ) comes to them with the idea of using their astonishing skills with the gun to win medals for India in distant lands and in international championships....a life of respectability and success....a life of firing pistols of international quality instead of inferior homemade revolvers....
And to add to the rewards he has a delicious sister ( played by Shaseh Agha ) with smooth pink skin and light eyes who looks good enough to eat , and who begins to like Gyani....
As hard training using the new high class weapons is being enforced on them by the major , at the same time the gangland boss ( played by Ashutosh Rana ) wants to make the two his partners in his multi million rupee business as enforcers....
So on one side is a life of ambition and normalcy with the major who wants the two to become sportsmen....
And on the other is what the two dreamt of becoming all their life before the major and his delicious sister came in their lives ....
On one side is the glory of triumphing with medals carrying the the nation's flag in the whole wide world....
On the other is the fear and power of becoming crimelords of their own little corner of the world....
And it is left for one of the two friends to choose one kind of life and the other to choose the other life....
So who chooses which type of life ??
What happens to their inseparable friendship ??
Does the underworld let go easily of it's tryst with them ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie has melodious musical score sung well by the redoubtable Kailash Kher .
And it has some emotional scenes towards the end---of friendship , of love ; and of holding steadfast to that love and friendship in the midst of betrayal....
Acting by Akhil Kapur ( as Pali ) and Jay Bhanushali ( as Gyani ) was not good in the beginning and this fact was compounded by their weak voices . But as the movie moved on their acting improved and became better---just in time for the emotional scenes....
And as the scenes turned emotional the movie looked better , because even in the midst of emotion it was never short of some gun toting action....
Stayed true to it's name....
Verdict---I quite liked this story of innocent old fashioned actionpacked friendship set in the not-so-innocent 21st century .
Pizza 3D ( 2014 )
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Usually we ( especially the women ) are told to be careful about any kind of courier or delivery boy coming to our house , especially when we are alone . Who knows , the delivery boy may be a thief who may steal things when we go inside to take our wallet to pay the delivery bill , or he may even be more unthinkably dangerous .
But this is the kind of film that will make the delivery boys themselves think twice about delivering goods to anybody's house---who knows , the recipients themselves may turn out to be more dangerous than imagined....
So a pizza delivery boy goes to a house to deliver a pizza , but the house he enters harbours unimaginable horrors….or so it seems….
He and his wife have had a marriage by elopement , and his wife spooks him daily because she is a struggling writer of horror stories and has created a world of seeing horror films daily and being permanently engrossed in the subject of horror . He gets nightmares because of this---of spirits and ghouls . These scenes are well picturised and give you the thrills you need .
The pizza delivery boy’s boss is a superstitious man and believes in ghosts and spirits too much , and his wife gets possessed every once in a while by a ghost named Anjali . He keeps on conducting numerous prayers and poojas all the time to avoid this . But he is not so simple as it seems . His real business is some shady business along with some smugglers , which he conducts in the garb of being owner of a pizza eatery .
So one day the pizza delivery boy goes to a house to deliver pizza , and comes back with this tale of horror…..He says that as he entered the house the door got locked from outside and he got locked into a world of horror…..
This part is the best part of the movie---the spooky scenes give you real chills , and some of them are new tricks . The hostess who welcomed him into the house , her husband and child---all give you the spooks . The scenes of him getting chased up and down the house by spirits , of strange sounds and voices emanating from everywhere , of strange writings on walls , of the TV in the house playing some spooky programs , of the colour of the lights in the house changing to red , of pair of hands rushing to grab him….I found myself getting scared inspite of myself….
When he finally manages to run away his whole behaviour has changed . His wife has disappeared too . His boss investigates about the house and finds out from the neighbours that the owner murdered his wife a few years ago as she was cheating on him and the police officers who went to arrest him were found dead too . No one goes there for fear of the spirits allegedly residing there .
But then who called the pizza delivery joint from such a place for some pizza ??
Why are the pizza eatery owner’s criminal cohorts so bothered about the visit to the house ??
What was in the box that the pizza delivery boy carried with him to deliver ?? Was it only a pizza ??
For answers to these questions , see the movie….
But once the answers to these questions are revealed , the movie fell flat on it’s face at least for me. To me this was true at least as I was already begining to realise what was in store towards the end much before the end itself came . But to some people ( those who are not as intelligent as me---he he he ) the end may give a surprise .
The entertainment towards the end depends on being NOT able to figure out the end before it comes---if you can’t then you will enjoy the movie . So don’t rack your brains too much like I did and reduce your enjoyment of the movie ---like I did .
Acting by everyone decent and the pizza delivery boy’s wife looks good . Photography and special effects are decent enough .
Verdict---Okay .
Full movie in hindi language on youtube---
http://youtu.be/-AUYxe261Sg
Bang Bang---
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Bang Bang is pure make believe stuff with not an ounce of reality .
Consider this---the villain is whisking away the heroine taking her far away from the hero .
And at that very moment , the hero sees a formula one car being unloaded from it's container and promptly grabs control of it and gives chase....
From where did the car arrive on the scene ??
Another situation---the hero and the heroine arrive at a restaurant but are surrounded by the villain's men . The restaurant is on a snowy mountain and there is no way to escape....
No problem....the hero simply jumps out of the window of the restaurant into the valley dragging the heroine with him and she directly wakens up in a beautiful beach resort with the hero making delicious food for her...
How did they manage to survive such a fall ??
SSHHH !! Don't ask uncomfortable questions !!
And if you don't ask them , then you can relax in your seat getting some frivolous easy-on-the-brains entertainment .
The story begins with the villain ( Danny Denzongpa ) being informed that his stay in a comfortable prison in the UK is being threatened by the new extradition treaty that India and UK are going to sign , and he will have to go to a cell in India where he will have to live in atrocious conditions . But the prison in UK itself is attacked by the villain's henchman ( Javed Jaffery ) and not only the villain flees but he burns alive the Indian officer ( Jimmy Shergill ) who informed him about the treaty , just as the officer is receiving a call on his mobile from that most emotionally important entity of any hindi film---MAA ( mother )....
Considering the fact that the villain can escape from prisons with such ridiculous ease , why can't he simply move to some other country which does not have an extradition treaty with India ??
SSHHH !! Don't ask uncomfortable questions !! Cos then you will ruin your own entertainment !!
So the villain decides to make an Indian steal the prestigious Kohinoor diamond from Britain so that relations between the Indian government and Britain are threatened and no extradition treaty is signed .
And the diamond is promptly stolen !! Just like that !! ( In this film anything happens )
The thief is the hero ( Hrithik Roshan ) and he meets the villain's men in a eatery in Shimla in the high himalayas to give them the diamond for a price . But a fight breaks out and he has to escape....
And the CCTV footage of the eatery is taken to the police and they see the Kohinoor in it---so they are after him too...
While he is escaping from these troubles , the hero sports the heroine ( Katrina ) waiting for her anonymous date in a restaurant---and he decides to pose as the anonymous date !!
Doesn't he have other things on his mind , like all the people chasing him ?? How come he has the absence of mind ( you can hardly call it presence of mind can you ? ) to date a girl and bring her in trouble in the midst of his fights with and flights from dangerous people ??
I TOLD YOU that in this film anything happens !! ( mind it !! )
Then do I even have tell you that the girl then never leaves his side and is with him in every situation and place and falls in love with him and all that....!!
And egging her in all this is her large hearted grandmother who has sent her out on precisely this mission---to find out and date the man of her dreams and love him and romance him kiss him and make love....
But what a man---the hero Hrithik Roshan !! All muscles rippling out of a bronzed body topped by a mane of golden brown hair....a Greek god with slim waist below a super perfect physique covered by fair skin and light eyes....
The perfect man who would ignite dreams and desires and awe struck lust in any female....
And as the story moves on from mountainous Shimla to a beautiful sea side resort to history enriched Prague to an unbelievable palace in the desert , Katrina never ceases to look at Hrithik with dreamily romantic eyes and above all with love....her grandma would have approved !!
But he is thief !! Or is he....??
And how come the two are to escape the police and the villains who are both chasing them ??
Relax....the invincible Hrithik is there to save Katrina in every situation and every place....he never goes wrong anywhere....
And even if he does go wrong , the director is there to help---as I told you , formula one cars appear out of nowhere and jumps from mountains are made risk free by the miraculous opening of parachutes....
And while the whole thing was going on , I was looking at Katrina with love too....could not let go of my attraction for the romantic dreams in her half sleepy eyes and her broken hindi interspersed with english sentences and innocent demeanor and her lovely face....what a cutie pie !!
And I wished nothing bad should happen to my cutie pie....
And I was frankly jealous of Hrithik---for his awesome body and royal looks , and above all for possessing Katrina !!
And I was jealous of him for being in such superb places...or was it the photography that was making the places look extra stunning ??
Is the sea so blue as the film shows it to be , and the sunlight so golden ??
Are the colours so striking when you see those places in real life ??
Indeed , I don't want to see the places seen in the film in real life---for surely they are not so magnificent as shown in the film....
And I do not want to do the stunts that Hrithik has performed too , for they are dangerous even though on camera they looked absolutely mindblowing....
What I wanted to do was to enjoy the cinematography and camerawork and stunning visuals and locales shown in rich colour....and I did that...
What else do you need ??
Well , what the film needs is some proper editing---for in the beginning you are left confused by the pace of events and the disjointed way in which they scenes and situations are presented....
The romance between Katrina ( ladies first !! ) and Hrithik is as unbelievably filmy as hell , and so are the fights....
Music is only okay , and acting is not even needed in such a film....
But who cares....I quite enjoyed the breezy way in which things happened , and liked the fact that there is never a dull moment in the film...
And if enjoyment without coherence is all that matters to you , the movie delivers on that part pretty well .
Verdict---Some real fun .
Antardwand ( Dilemma )---
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How would you feel if one day you wake up from a daze to be told that the decked up girl you have never even heard of before ,but sitting on the bed in front of you, is your newly married wife ...........
............and on refusal to sleep with her , are taunted about your ' impotency ',and are drugged and forced to rape her practically at gunpoint.......
And how would you feel if your father is confronted during his morning tea ,by a procession bringing along with it ,a girl 3 months pregnant , whom he has never seen before ,and is told that unborn child in the girls womb is his grandchild........
Thats exactly the situation a handsome and bright young man finds himself in this movie which is situated in .........where else.........the badlands of India.......
It is about the custom known in the hindi language as pakdau shadi , in which if your daughter is not good enough to get a suitable groom , the groom is kidnapped and beaten and forced to marry her in a hooch-drunk stupor.......
And if you feel that its all a nightmare ,you can pinch yourself and find yourself in reality.....
Its a movie that certainly should have been made ,given the awesome reality of the topic........
And happily ,the director has done justice to the topic ,as he has made a movie on a real topic look very very real......
The ending is insipid though , and is the only ' bollywood ' touch in the film.
That should not take the credit away from the performances of akhilendra mishra ( father of the girl and kidnapper ) , and swati sen ( the bride ) ,who put heart and soul in making the film eminently watchable.......
The director keeps the film's twists and turns churning with skill ,and fails only at the end ,as if he does not know how such a sordid tale can be completed.......
Its not regular bollywood fare however ,and is only for the art-movie lovers
And for them , its a must see............
Citylights---
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This is truly a sordid tale as tales go , but it does offer a glimmer of hope in humanity as it shows to what extent a man can go for the sake of his home and his family and his hearth....
It is officially a copy of 'Metro Manila'---an english film .
Rajkumar Yadav ( the leading actor's real name , though he goes by the name of Rajkumar Rao nowadays ) and his wife are down in the dumps in the worst way possible---financially of course....
So they decide to try their luck to the only place where immigrants come from all over India for their pot of gold---Bombay , what else...and they travel all the way from their native place in Rajasthan .
The naivety of these simple townsfolk from small places is exposed in Bombay as they get fooled instantly---they are shown an apartment for rent , where they pay money without any papers being signed . Of course , the people who take money from them disappear and Rajkumar's wife is evicted from that apartment in heartless fashion by it's real owners....this scene is truly heartrending , and my father ( with whom I was watching the movie on TV ) walked out from the living room because he could not bear to see the movie any more....
They are helped by a bar girl , who finds them temporary accomodation . But the couple's future seems to be bleak . And desperation because of shortage of money can lead a person down any path....Rajkumar's wife finds a job as a dance bar girl using the contacts of the bar girl who helped them , or rather she is lured by the bar girl into that path....
The scene in which she meets the bar owner for the first time is another cringeworthy scene---a woman like her who comes from a respectable family is forced to show her body parts for visual examination by the bar owner ; the size of her belly and breasts and buttocks are visually eyed by the bar owner who leeringly approves and then forces her to dance in front of him on a bollywood number . She has to dance in front of drunk men who touch her inappropriately when showering her with cash .
Finally Rajkumar lands a job as a security guard who guards boxes of cash being transported for the rich in vans . He is helped by another guard who teaches him the intricacies of the job . The man also gives him an apartment to live . But obviously there is nothing like a free lunch , and the man has ulterior motives in helping Rajkumar Yadav . In fact , Rajkumar is going to be caught in a web which will ultimately lead to his doom....
So what web is Rajkumar going to be caught in ??
What are the motives of the security guard in helping Rajkumar ??
More importantly , will the couple and their daughter who is accompanying them survive in the big bad world of the big city ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
This is one bleak movie , and I fully understand why my father walked out....
Of course , acting by everybody is good . But the proceedings feel as if they are constantly moving towards impending tragedy....
Does not put you in a good mood , this movie....
Some of the scenes are meant to make you cringe , like the scene where the hero is taken by his security guard friends to a dance bar and he realizes that his wife must be dancing in a bar like this in another part of the city---and he begins to imagine her that way among leering drunkards and goes home frustrated and tries to taunt her about that , only to be slapped by her....
Ultimately the hero manages to triumph in the end , and it is the surprising climax that makes the movie a good movie . But the triumph comes at a terrible price for himself....
This movie has some art house movie features , but I found it hard to say whether it is an art film or commercial ; more art house I think...
But the second half of the movie is more like a thriller and the climax is actionpacked , something that would not disappoint commercial cinema lovers .
Rajkumar Yadav is good as usual , and I am now looking forward to see his films in future . He spoke hindi in rajasthani accent all too well , as if he was a rajasthani .
In the end you walk out with memories of how a good but desperate man went to astonishing lengths to secure a future for his family/children and succeeded....but I didn't have to walk out , for I was in my own home watching the film in HD on big screen TV---The experience of watching was as good as watching in theater....
Verdict---sordid but good .
Guaporense
10-26-14, 10:36 PM
Interesting poster design's these Indian movies have. Also notice the erotic content is quite high as well.
Interesting poster design's these Indian movies have. Also notice the erotic content is quite high as well.
just like indians like extra spice in their foods , they also want a splash of colour in their films and erotica in posters of the films .
even if a hollywood film is remade in indian languages it has to be indianised to make it colourful and erotic .
Roar !! Tigers of the Sunderbans---
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Where there is ambition there is effort to achieve that ambition , and if the effort yields results ashdoc is there to applaud---especially if the effort is a film....
So I launched myself into seeing director Kamal Sadanah's ambitious film---Roar !! Tigers of the Sunderbans....
So what are the Sunberbans ??
They are the forests straddling the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent where the Ganges meets the mighty Brahmaputra river to form the largest delta on earth---a region crisscrossed by thousands of rivulets and canals and inhabited by scores of animals including the Royal Bengal tiger . Bengal also has the famous white tiger , and though the Sunderbans region does not contain any white tigers it is a white tiger who forms the core of the story....
A young photographer goes to photograph tigers and stumbles upon a white tiger cub from being poached by poachers , only to save it and bring it to his camp . But the tigress mother thinks that he has snatched the cub and attacks and kills him . The photographer's brother ( Pandit ) swears revenge on the tiger and forms a team of like minded individuals who descend on to the Sunberbans like a pack of wolves to kill the tiger....
Of course , the premise that it is right to kill a mute animal for fulfilling the lust for revenge is as corny as hell---whatever be the sin of the tiger....
But it is a premise that propels the story forward , and as the story turns interesting you forget the silliness of the premise....
So Pandit and his swarm move into the tiger territory of the Sundarbans despite the warnings of the female warden not to do so---and they move in on motorboats carrying the most sophisticated arms and gadgets like automatic rifles and infrared detectors and parachutes propelled by engines and whatnot....
And they also move in with the most sexy women possible....
AAAHH !! The women....
One is the tracker ( Jhumpa ) whom they have hired for showing the tiger tracks leading to the tiger...
The other ( CJ ) is an important component of the expedition....
So who is more sexier of the two ??
Of course , Jhumpa does try her level best to entice us by spraying her legs apart at the head of the boat and wearing skimpy navel exposing clothes and dancing sensuously at a tribal dance....and she is pretty good too...
But it is CJ who scores because she has more bouncier tiits and a more protruding butt....
And is it because Jhumpa cannot equal CJ in delicious charm that CJ is killed early in the film to let Jhumpa fulfill her role as heroine of the film---I found myself mourning for CJ's early exit from the film...when was I going to see those bouncy tiits again....??
Back to the story....
As Pandit and his team moves into core of the tiger sanctuary into territory from where no human has ever escaped before, they begin to find that their technowizardry is not a match against the forces of nature....
One by one the tigers begin to kill the members of the hunting party....
All the tricks they employ to trap tigers fail and it is the hunters who become the hunted....
The tigers are being helped by other animals in the forest , like crocodiles and poisonous snakes....
And even humans are against them too---for the leader of a gang of tiger poachers wants to get them bumped off , and Jhumpa who has been fooled into thinking that the group had come to photograph tigers realises the truth and is hellbent of stopping them from murdering tigers....
The odds seem stacked against the hunting party....And that seems to be divine justice ; punishment for embarking on such a spiteful mission of killing a white tigress mother who was only trying to protect her cubs....
So does the group succeed in it's mission to kill the white tigress ??
Or does it perish in the wilderness ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
The movie is embellished with some great photography and visual effects---photography of green dense forests and wide rivers and of golden sunsets and misty dawns ; visual effects of ferocious tigers pouncing upon their unsuspecting prey and crocodiles lunging undetected from ancient rivers and of snakes snaking around in the undergrowth and biting those who trample on them....
I dare say even Hollywood would not be ashamed of such cinematography and special effects....
The action scenes seem authentic and the firing of modern weapons by able bodied men seems real....
Also real is the almighty roar of the tiger in the film---enough to put the fear of God in you...
Acting by everyone lacks depth , but such a film does not require any great histrionics....
Music is only so so....
But the film does have an emotional core , and does build towards an uplifting climax...
So does the film mark a personal triumph for director Kamal Sadanah after all the misfortunes of life ( his father producer Brij Sadanah shot dead his mother and sister and then committed suicide 24 years ago after his sister's engagement party ) ?? A coming of age as director after not succeeding as an actor ??
That is question only the audience can answer by making the film a hit or flop at the box office....
Maybe Kamal can take leaf from the Bhagwad gita which says---you should only do your task ; should not bother about fruits of the actions....
And as far as the task is concerned , one can say that Kamal has put his best foot forward....
Verdict---The film rip roaringly delivered , at least for me....
honeykid
11-01-14, 10:53 PM
Yep, this sounds ridiculously silly in a way that attracts me greatly. I'd like to see this. Thanks, ashdoc. :up:
Fireflies ( 2014 )
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I went into the theater to watch Monica Dogra.....Ever since I saw her in 'Dhobhi ghat' I was hooked onto her sensuality , her anglicized manner of speaking hindi , her charm and her class....
But I came out of the theater wanting to see another beauty again and again in her next films---Shivani Ghai , who did the amazing feat of outmatching Monica in all those departments , though only by a slight margin....
For those interested in the male species ( women I mean ) , there are two goodlooking hunks too---for Vinod Khanna's son Rahul has turned out to be a fine looking man , and he is given serious competition by the man who plays his brother ( Arjun Mathur ).....
Acting wise , the film scores too---for all four have put up commendable performances , and are especially exquisite in acting out scenes of pain and anguish .
But the mood of the film is dark , and the climax really does not lead anywhere....
Inspite of this , the film keeps you engaged throughout while you are watching it , and the sensuality of the women and chemistry they have with the men goes a long way in keeping you engaged....
It's a 'Hinglish' film---which means the characters come from hindi speaking backgrounds but speak in english in most parts of the movie...
The dark mood of the film is due to the fact that the relationships of both the pairs are not working out . And also due to the fact that the two brothers don't like each other , their animosity increased by a tragedy that occurred years ago .
The two brothers don't like each other because Rahul is more successful , and what is worse is the fact that he is acid tongued and forever hurling taunts at his younger brother---just like he hurls at everybody else , especially his wife....
Yeah , Rahul's marriage with his wife is on the point of breaking down---and this fact puts him forever in a foul mood....until he meets Shivani Ghai , whom he had loved and lost earlier....
And old flames are rekindled....
Why wouldn't they be , considering the delectable charms of Shivani.....
But Rahul's wife , who is more upper class than Rahul , reacts with anger and refuses to divorce him---leaving him frustrated to the point of desperation....
On the other hand , younger brother Arjun falls like ton of bricks for the succulent charms of Monica Dogra , who exudes sensuality in every shot . But she has the baggage of the past haunting her , and his relationship with her goes nowhere....
Having reached the crossroads of life and going through difficult times , both brothers land at the same spot where the tragedy that created a rift among them had occurred years ago....
So what happens next ??
Can all the relationships which are breaking down everywhere in the film be re-established ??
Watch the movie for that....
The director creates a world of breaking relationships , and what doesn't help the cause of the relationships is the fact that the people involved are highly independent---though they all obviously need each other....
But the ending of the movie , though coherent , is not uplifting.....and is the weak point of the film....
The songs are in english too , but nothing great about the music....
What saves the film are the fine performances by the cast....
Verdict---Okay .
3G
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The sun kissed sands of the half Indian islands of Fiji seem to be Bollywood's favourite new destination---'Table no 21' was shot here and so is this movie....
And when they are shot beautifully with glorious colour they take on a beauty of their own....
Yeah , the photography and camerawork along with the colours of this film are truely breathtaking.....
Add to all this a hot and sexy woman....
And the film becomes a visual treat that titillates your senses.....
Sonal Chauhan does do her very best to give us this visual treat and really succeeds....
Their are some real scenes of red hot kissing and lovemaking between Sonal and Neil Nitin Nukesh....
And Sonal looks smashing all the way....
She looks mouthwatering in bikinis and shorts and hot pants.....
This film really lives up to all the pre release hype about the hot scenes between the lead pairs .
But sadly there is little else worth appreciating.....
The story begins with Neil buying a ' haunted ' second hand high end phone that begins to give him nightmares during the night and even during the day....
Strange apparitions begin to appear before him....
Its somewhat unmacho to see a strong man being reduced to quivering jelly but thats what happens to Neil.....
Every time the phone rings he is possessed by the ghost in the phone.....
And even if the phone is thrown away or destroyed it strangely comes back.....
The first half does hold some of your attention with some chills that give you the heebie jeebies....
But the second half consists of tracing the earlier owner of the phone which leads to some mumbo jumbo about that person having invented a method to communicate with the dead by mobile phone and then killing his girlfriend who he has found out to be a prostitute.....
And the second half is rudderless....
Editing has not been properly done and some scenes look disjointed.....
As the story loses direction the audience loses interest....
In fact only 7 people were in the cinema hall and 4 walked out after the interval leaving only 3 of us ( no we didnt do a threesome :D).....
So do I need to say more....
Verdict---not good .
Ek thi daayan ( Once was a witch )
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The film takes the concept of witches (who are known as chudels and daayans in the hindi language of India )and witchcraft seriously---just like other horror movies take ghosts seriously.....
We are supposed to believe that these witches and daayans really exist , and that they have got a neither world of their own from where they come....
Worse , the film would like you to believe that this neither world exists at the bottom of our buildings , where the evil spirits have a macabre land of their own....
To me , steeped in rationality as I am this is not a good portent---for this country is well known to brand certain women in rural and backward parts as chudels and daayans ( witches )and give them savage physical punishment .
What is the difference with ghost movies then ??---after all even ghost movies take ghosts seriously.....
But in those movies ordinary people or women are not branded as ghosts---not the woman next door , not the wife of your neighbour.....
In a country where people are ready to brand ordinary women as chudels and daayans (witches )in villages and ostracize them , a film that takes shows the stepmother of two children as a daayan ( witch )has to be taken seriously indeed---for its troublemaking potential , its ability to infect minds with the thought that such women can exist among the ordinary women who try to eke out an existence in this land....
So this daayan ( witch ) comes into the life of Eemraan Hashmi and his sister when they are young children---as their stepmother.....
.....And she makes a pointless sacrifice of his sister and his father for no other reason than the reason that daayans ( witches ) are supposed to kill their most loved ones....
But Eemran has read a book about the supernatural and knows a way of destroying her powers and herself---and he is able to do that....
The daayan ( witch )dies predicting that she will come back and that Eemran Hashmi is one of her own !!
Years later Eemran has grown up and he has a goodlooking wife ( Huma Qureshi ) and he is this successful magician---but the visions of the daayan ( witch ) keep on recurring.....
So has she come back ??
And who is Eemraan really ??
And who is this lovely young lady ( played by Kalki Koechlin ) who claims to be his fan and wants to buy the same place where his father and sister were killed ??
To get your answers watch this film....
Some of the parts of the film do give you the chills and the film does spook you in certain scenes .
Of course , the film shamelessly parades ordinary sounding women as witches and daayans who kill innocent people out of sheer evil....
If such women really existed I would prefer Hitler and Chinggis Khan to these women as they at least had a reason for their killings---fortunately such women dont really exist....but in small towns and villages are they going to believe this fact ??
If you are willing to go with all this , the film does give some entertainment....
Verdict---okay .
honeykid
11-07-14, 12:52 AM
You don't have to explain the chudels and daayans every time you use the word. Once you've explained it at the beginning, we're all on board with it. :) Thanks for the review. :up:
Question mark---
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Welcome to the expectation of a long boring sunday morning on which you have nothing to do except sleep.....
.......But how to go to sleep on sunday mornings ?? Simple..... Remain sleepless on saturday nights !!
But how to spend a long saturday night sleepless when the drinking companions have abandoned you for a weekend.....??
Simple.....spend the night jittery with fear after seeing a good horror movie preferably at night show to increase the fear....
Thats what I did....
So I am here writing this review hoping to quake in my boots as the night gets deeper and deeper and it gets more chilly and eerie.....
So whats the movie ??
Its nothing but our desi ( desi means---person coming from the Indian subcontinent including India , Pakistan , Bangladesh etc ) version of Paranormal activity suitably adapted for Indian audiences......
These films are cheap to make because of new actors who take hardly any money as pay , have no costly foreign locations and do not even have any costly sets---and thus deliver more bang for the buck , earning quick profits with least investment on whatever meagre run they have at the box office .
But while the original '' Paranormal activity '' relied upon subtle sound effects and an eerie quiet in between to create the tension , this film is for the primitive and presumably illiterate Indian audience.....
And keeping this audience in mind , the film is loud , garish and relies on creating a lot of noise in its attempt to create fear in the mind of dimwit desi......
And yeah , typically for the desi audience whose intelligence quotient is supposed to be low , there is the ubiquitous '' possessed woman '' spinning her head round and round and making shrieking noises all the while .
In fact , like a typical desi spirit , the spirit attacks women more of the time , and some of the actions they make while being '' possessed '' make you think that as usual the desi ghost is some lusty rapist who is raping them......but you soon realise it isn't raping them but only is in their bodies......no , not the way you think ( naughty , like a typical desi ) but only controlling their bodily actions .
And yeah , there are some guys too , in fact more in number than girls , and all of them have come to a remote bunglow in some remote hilly region to film a low budget film.....
The mornings are full of mist in these mountains , but its the darkness thats more scary.....
For the spirit comes to full action in the evenings.....
Just like Paranormal activity , the film is filmed by video camera , which has a night mode so that you can see things filmed at night......
And none of the people who have gone to the mountains are going to make it alive.....
The film really comes alive after the interval , and one by one all the young people are affected by the spirit which resides in the house.....
......And their attempt to escape from there comes a cropper as they mysteriously lose the keys of their jeep which is their only way to get out of this place which is remote and has no contact with civilization and no other means of transport.....
......And so they know there is no escape from here or from death.....they only have to wait.....
......while we wait for the movie to end.....the end of our audiovisual torture.....
Verdict---not good .
Shuddh desi romance ( Pure Indian love )
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Calling out to all the free spirits out there....
Generation X....
What China calls the ME generation....
The commitment phobic generation.....
This is a film made for you.....
For the lovers of pure unadulterated romance and even purer physical intimacy with no strings attached.....
And who else would dare to make it other than Yash Raj films---the unquestioned Badshahs of romance.....
But even they had to wait for their founder Yash Chopra to fade away to make such a film---maybe , just maybe , the old man would have disapproved.....
For he belonged to the 20th century.....
And this is love of the 21st century.....
But some smart alec thought of mocking the audience and calling it '' Shuddh desi romance ''( pure Indian love ).....
Or maybe that's the director's way of telling us to take the issue lightly.....
For it's not a film that discusses the issue of live in relationships seriously.....
Rather it takes an entertaining take on them.....
And keeps you interested throughout.....
Mind you---the budget of the film must be low....
For there are no foreign locations....
No big and posh sets.....
Only the camera doing close ups on the characters as they talk....
But the ones who are doing the talking are lively people.....
Lively and interesting too.....
For they lead interesting lives....
Interesting things we dreamt in our youth....
Like sex without marriage....
Endless mouth to mouth kissing---that too filmed so seamlessly and done so effortlessly that it doesn't feel vulgar at all....
And all this acted out by all the actors in top class fashion....
With those actors acting in a film peopled with some real cool characters....
Waaaay cool...uber cool....
There's Parineeti Chopra---she's lost count of her boyfriends in the midst of her cigarettes , though she remembers the one whose child she had to abort....
And there's Sushant Singh---he hears about the multiple boyfriends and sees her smoking and promptly decides to ditch the girl he is going to marry , to get hitched ( but without marriage ) to Parineeti.....Sooooo coool....
And when they finally decide to marry each other and arrive at the marriage venue , they are so afraid of commitment that flee from there and from each other !!
Boy !! Are things really cool or are they getting cold out there.....??
Enter Vaani Kapoor---the girl Sushant ditched for Parineeti to hotten up the cool atmosphere by her mesmerizing beauty....
You soak in her beauty and wonder why Sushant decided to ditch her at all....
And you are not alone in doing so---for Sushant wonders the same.....
She wants revenge for Sushant's ditching by making him pine for her and dance to her tune.....
And her obliges her....who wouldn't , considering her ravishing looks ??
But fate has destined for Sushant's and Parineeti's paths to cross again....
When they do cross , who will choose whom ??
And who will be the loser ??
Relax....No need to get vexed up on this issue.....
For this is the new generation....
All that this generation needs to forget someone is a cool or rather chilled drink....Coke anyone ??
Amidst all this Yash Raj films stays true to it's old habit of showing marriages and shows several marriage sequences even though many of the characters in the film don't believe in the concept of marriage at all---this is done by conveniently showing the lead characters as ready for hire baraatis( people who accompany the bride and groom to the marriage venue---usually with great pomp and dancing and music ) who have to constantly attend marriages as part of their profession....
The film does not do any in depth discussion of the issue of live in relationships at all , and is light hearted all the way.....
That's the way I like it too.....
Verdict---some solid timepass .
Rang rasiya ( colourful and passionate )2014
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Rang rasiya---the two words certainly describe the personality of Raja Ravi Verma ( played by Randeep Hooda in this film ) , the celebrated painter who is justly celebrated for making God accessible to the common man in the 19th century . For Ravi Verma's life was full of colour and passion.....on one hand he was a ladies man , a man who openly had relationships with numerous women in his youth....and on the other hand he was a master artist ; a painter who spent a lifetime painting vignettes from religion and tradition , thus making it easily reachable to the people....
He was born in what would become the state of Kerala in independent India , in a place which at that time was part of the kingdom of Travancore in British India.
Artists have always thrived in the court of Kings , and Ravi was fortunate that the king of Travancore was a great patron of the arts . It was the large hearted king who gave Ravi the title of 'Raja' , which means ruler---making him effectively a potential successor to the throne . And it was under the king's tutelage that Raja Ravi Verma's artistic talents first thrived....
But he was unlucky in the fact that his wife was a woman who totally hated the arts , and he gradually grew estranged from her . Instead he became a rang rasiya---a man who cavorted with lower caste women and had intimate relations with them . Being free from the prejudices about exposing flesh that upper caste women had , these women would pose in daring exposing poses for Ravi's paintings and thus allow him free expression of the arts .
And this experience would be the defining one for Raja Ravi Verma---he would spend a lifetime trying to make religion and God reachable to the common man , as opposed to the elite who had exclusive rights to the Gods till then....
But naturally , reaction from the reactionary elite keepers of tradition would follow suit---much of the film deals with the lawsuit filed against Ravi Verma for daring to paint the Gods who had previously been unpainted , and painting the females among them in such dare bare fashion....
The other main theme of the film is his relation with his muse---a kept woman of a rich old man , named Sugandha ( played by Nandana Sen ) . This time a fallen woman would be his obsession , and it she who poses nude for him in paintings meant exclusively for his private artistic pleasure , thus giving us the nude scenes of the film---something that some members of the audience had shamelessly come for watching , for they got out of the theater after these scenes....
But when hard times fall upon Verma , he is forced to give up these very nude paintings to the person who bails him financially out . And the person remorselessly sells copies of the nudes to lay people in the thousands....
The so called elite keepers of morality and tradition are aghast....
Sugandha is taunted by lecherous men on mean streets about her nude poses---she feels betrayed and is in dispair...
Raja Ravi Verma is summoned to the courtroom as a case of immorality and defamation of hindu culture is launched against him...
The Gods are supposed to be angry at this brazen portrayal of them in Verma's paintings , and a recent epidemic of plague is blamed on him....
So how does Verma deal with the allegations ?? Is he found guilty ??
Watch the film for the answers....
To be honest , I found the early scenes in the film ( of Verma cavorting with several women ) to be corny to say the least---looked liked he was indulging is debauchery to me....
But the director more than counterbalanced these scenes with scenes which brought a lump in the throat---
.....Scenes of a man who sees Verma's painting of Lord Ram ( hindu god ) for the first time and lies down prostate in prayer for he feels the Lord is actually in front of him....
......Scenes of low caste people who are never allowed inside temples visualizing God's image for the first time ever in their lives in Verma's paintings and becoming spellbound chanting God's name---finally they got to see the God who they had been never allowed to get close to....this scene is my favourite from the film....
......Scenes of Verma defending his art and his life's work in a emotional speech in court---talking about India's rich tradition of nude art from the Sun temple of Konark to the magnificent sculptures of Khajuraho....
......And above all , the scene of a humiliated Sugandha still standing as bravely as she can before the judge and proclaiming that she posed for the nudes because it was only Verma who could find a goddess within a fallen woman like her and paint her as one....
Yes , it is in Sugandha that Verma finds the true love of his life---but because of her position in life , that love can't completed by marriage....
It is a love hate relationship---Sugandha getting jealous because of Verma getting attention from other women , and in the end blaming him for getting her publicly branded as a slut by not being able to stop publication of her nude paintings....
And it is a relationship that has to end in tragedy---this is art film and not a commercial film for everything to turn all right in the end....
Acting by the lead pair and supporting actors is good , and Nandana Sen looks just divine---like the goddess she poses as...
The people who came searching for titillation in the nude shots left empty handed , for the nude shots were filmed aesthetically and were not vulgar .
Verdict---Good .
Rockstar
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So what does it require in you to become a star ??
What's that special thing ??
What makes you different ??
What makes you stand out among the less-than-ordinary folks , so that people will say--look , this is a STAR !!
The hero ( Ranbir Kapoor ) goes about searching for the answer to this question in his quest to become a rock singer and gets the answer from a wise old uncle---you need to have some special pain , some real loss , some desperate unfulfilled longing in your life that fuels the fire of creativity in you , that makes you churn out memorable numbers and performances , again and again....
So he goes about searching for this special pain , and thinks that this can be found only in falling in love with this girl.....
But where's the pain ??
It can only be found after he gets to romance her , and yet loses her to someone else---again and again and again.....
AAHHHH !! now thats real pain !!
But what a pain....err , girl !!
She is a real wild one , and wants to fulfill her wild fantasies before she gets married---to poke the behinds of people peeing on the streets to their embarrassment , to do strip tease in strip joints , to tease whores in the red light area....phew !!
Now if only I got introduced to such a girl , I too would give up my profession to become docstar....err , rockstar.....
But whats required to become not just a star but a rockstar is to be a bad boy.....
And that bad boy behaviour should displayed on the streets , in open brawls with fans , in fisticuffs with police officers.....
The credit must go to Ranbir Kapoor for playing this role all too well , powering creditable intensity and zany madness into his acting .
But the real rockstar is singer Mohit Chauhan !!
For he sings some memorably hummable numbers giving playback singing to Jordan---the name given to Ranbir Kapoor's selfdestructive avtar in the film.
And the girl ( Nargis Fakhri )??
She meets Jordan again and again in the film--in the campuses of Delhi , in Kashmir's beautiful countryside , in parag ( as the city of Prague is called in the film ) , to fuel his wanton passions , to give impetus his budding creativity.....
But he never gets her.....not really.....and what we get to listen due his pain of not getting her is some really nice music....
In the end she dies with him at her bedside.....
Question is---will the pain of this loss be enough to power a lifetime of rocking and singing ?? The answer is a resounding YES !!
But why be selfish for listening to good music and want him to lose her ??
Relax....
As the Turkish poet-philosopher Rumi reminds us in the film---'' In some time and place in the next world where the normal laws and rules of this world don't apply , we will surely and certainly meet.....''
Certainly so....amen to that !!
Verdict on the movie--decent enough.....
6-5=2
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The name of this horror movie is designed to create suspense as to what happens---6 people go into a forest , but 5 of them are eliminated....so how come 2 return ??
Obviously the one who comes back returns haunted by the ghost , what else....
Otherwise how come would he continue to experience strange things even after he has moved out of the zone of danger---he has obviously come back in the company of the spirit...
The film is a total copy of the 'Paranormal activity' genre of horror movies without a trace of originality . And just like in the original genre the people who are in the danger zone are doomed from the start---there is no escape....
Only difference is that the danger zone is a forest....
So 6 friends including 2 luscious girls go for a trek into a forest to the top of a mountain .
The first half hour of the movie attempts to ape the 'Paranormal' series by not showing any problem cropping up . The trek goes normally for some time .This is unlike Bollywood movies which show the ghost making it's appearance from the start .
Of course , since all the characters are young , there is lot of leg pulling and also bickering over minor issues .
One guy is the fat and funny guy , while one is the character who is butt of most jokes all the time .
The girls are there to plainly add mild sex appeal , dressed as they are in hot pants and tops that show off part of their alluring bodies .
Just like in 'Paranormal activity' the whole trek is being shot by video camera .
Once the first half hour ends , the paranormal presence makes itself felt , but even before that skulls of humans found in the forest give us the the inkling as to something sinister present in the jungle....
As the trek starts one of the guys falls sick and is left behind . He becomes the only one to survive the trek....
The rest have gone too far into the zone of danger , or rather the zone of doom.....they won't be coming back....
There are no spoilers here because the publicity of the film had made it clear as to the fate of the 5 even before the film was released .
So the question is not what will happen ( that has already been decided ) but how it will happen....
Sudden flaring up of campfires , exploding cans of food , burning backpacks.....yes , fire is the trick that the director has attempted to use to scare the audience---and it does work for some time due to the surprise element of the horror striking when least expected....
But then he falls upon the usual tricks of scary looking dolls and voodoo symbols to try to give the spooks .
The end of course , is all too predictable.....and is the worst part of the movie due to it's all too expected nature....
But the photography is good---of the jungle , and of the view when they reach the mountain top....
Sound effects are good too , especially the flooding noise when the ghost makes it appearance..
But all this does not save the movie , which will appeal only to die hard horror film aficionados---of which I am one .
The film will give some on-the-spot entertainment to such die hards . But you will not remember anything memorable from it .
Verdict---Nothing special .
The last act
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Somewhere on an isolated road on a godforsaken night is found the utterly mutilated body of a dead man---his face crushed beyond recognition . But along with him are twelve different pieces of evidence pointing to twelve different cities of India from where the killer came from---and pointing to twelve different groups of people , who could potentially be killers .
So where do we search.....?? Everywhere in India, of course.....
So we find police of twelve different cities searching for the clues which the evidence offers---and thus showing us vignettes of different parts of India , with its different colours.....
So we move from the mofussil parts of India like Hisar in Haryana to the urban landscape of Bangalore---and from posh parts where english is spoken to parts where even the native hindi language is crude and vulgar....
And the movie in different parts of India speaks different languages---Marathi in Maharashtra to Bengali in Kolkata to Tamil in Chennai ; and English subtitles are added to those parts which are in vernacular . Indeed the director for each part is different , showing his style.....
All types of characters are there---from Hindu to Muslim and from college students to female receptionists to abuse spewing watch makers in the city of Lucknow.....
........And all of them have one thing in common---that they have been defrauded by someone......
......And police investigation in each part of India unearths one crime or the other......
So who is it who has been involved in so many illegal capers in so many cities ?? Is it several people or is it one man ?? And if it is one man , then do the police succeed in tracking him down ??
Go and find out in the movie for the answer.....
But is the movie worth it ?? To some it is , but to others it's not.....
......Because for some people its the journey which is more important than the destination....
......And for such people the movie is worth it , for it does keep you engaged and engrossed till the end as the investigation gets interesting and springs up new facts....
But the end is rather disappointing , and so for some people the journey through the movie may not be worth it.....
I for one found one fact interesting---that the culprit had escaped.....
......Escaped into the mists of space and time.....
And how I wondered if I could do the same.....be free from the consequences of the actions I had done in my lifetime , be free from the responsibilities thrust upon me , free from the burdens of the world.....free to roam without being weighed by anything.....
And if I could do so even for a brief time , I dont mind if it is the last time I do anything---the last act.....
Verdict---good presenting style of the movie but ending falls flat.....not great.....
Dam 999 (3D)
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Its the southern Indian state of Kerala , so beautiful that it is called by it's people as god's own country.....
All lush green vegetation with coconut trees breezing in the landscape
......And picture postcard scenes of boatmen rowing boats in the idle backwaters......
And to watch it all in 3D.....
You just want to soak in the landscape and watch the beautiful scenery......
......And above all you want time to move slowly....
......Or better still , you want time to stand still.....
Because you wouldn't want trouble to break in this paradise , would you ??
Trouble that would be like a nightmare disturbing your oh so sweet dreams....
Dreams of forgetting all the cares of the world and being one amidst nature.....
Thats what the first half of the movie does to you......
It moves at a wonderfully slow pace relaxing your body and mind....
And when it does move , it shows a wonderful old man practising the ancient arts of the land in the ancient countryside.....
From the art of ayurveda ( indian herbal medicine) to swordfighting to astrology---he teaches it all.....
People come from far and wide to heal themselves here.....
From persons bitten by poisonous snakes to patients with incurable diseases---he makes them all well.....
And he has a beautiful daughter....
.....Who looks even more beautiful and so wonderfully south indian in the traditional sarees that she wears so well.....
.....And she is in love with her childhood friend.....
But alas.....!! the father , whose astrological predictions never fail , like his medicine never does , predicts that if they ever marry , a great catastrophe will befall their people.....
So they can never meet.....
So the heartbroken boyfriend packs his bags along with his memories and heads for a sailor's life in the distant oceans ,hoping the roll of the waves on the high seas will heal his heart.....
And he marries a white woman and has a son.....
But he never does forget his first love.....
And when his son is struck with an incurable disease , he knows that only the old man with the awesome medicinal powers can cure him......
So he has to return.....and return he does.....only to find that the woman he loved and lost never really forgot him.....that she waited and waited and never got married.....
And so romance begins to blossom in a land fit for a honeymoon.....
And to romance in this cradle of bountiful nature is a different experience.....
Its like dream that you wish would never end......
But which movie-dream would be complete without a nightmare in the end ??
And the nightmare is this dam that is being built nearby .....
A dam that is going to shatter and kill people in the hundreds of thousands....
......Thus bringing to fruition the old man's theory that when the two star crossed lovers meet , the gods will literally rain death on his people.....
Of course ,there are more earthly reasons for the dam to shatter---like the politician ( Ashish Vidyarthi ) who pockets all the money being earmarked for the dam , building it with substandard material.....
To be honest , I wish the movie hadn't come to this part.....
......That my mind had remained vacationing in kerala which looked even better as monsoon approached.....
.....For the second half of the movie is not so good....
.....And the end , with all the deaths due to the dam-burst , is frankly depressing....
Just like a tsunami ruining a dreamworld.....
Verdict---not good.
James
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It's a straightforward action film from the Ram Gopal Verma stable , even though he himself is not the director---for you can see touches of his style of film making throughout .
Mohit Alhawat plays the hero with a deadpan expression in the film throughout.....and does not change expression at all , even in scenes which require some acting--and this is the film's biggest drawback .
......For a hero with an expressionless face can take a film only so far....
But the villain is terrific , with loose hanging hair and an uneven beard , looking like a wild dog on searching for his next meal , and showing all the expressions of a brute hunting for his prey....
And his prey is the supersexy Nisha Kothari , the bombshell of the town , who sashays in discos with mouthwatering ease---only to come within the sights of the villain and his horde.....
The hero is without question the one who has to save the damsel in distress , for its his job as a bouncer of the disc, and his prize for doing so is the love of this beautiful girl....
But the hero is new to town , and does not know that he has offended the mob that rules the city.....
.....And the mob now is searching for the young lovers....
The lovers elope to escape the clutches of the mob , but their pursuers are unrelenting , and literally send dogs to hound the young couple out....
As the howling dogs chase the lovers endlessly , and the mafia applies its endless resources to capture them and fulfill the lust of the villain , its a love story that has to end in tragedy.....
.....But tragedy also brings out revenge that is destined to end the mob's rule over the metropolis.....
True to Ram Gopal Verma's style , the fights and the nastiness on the villains' faces are truly real.....
And the action is really really RAW.....
I liked one dialogue of the film--when the hero arrives from Goa to take up the job as bouncer of the discotheque , the owner of the disc tells him '' Those who say that India eej ( is becomes eej in a drunken state :D ) a poor country , they haven't seen Bombay's nightlife ; money flows like water here....''
I also liked the zany music that plays whenever the villain makes his entry.....anyway , whats that actor doing nowadays ?? havent seen him lately.....
Verdict--good .
Commando---one man army
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This movie has been made to showcase the actionpacked potential of
Vidyut Jamwal , who aspires to be our Indian Bruce Lee . He makes his
ambition to be the next action king of Bollywood clear by dramatically
erupting out of the poster of the action movie---Force .
So does he succeed ??
Certainly his capacity for action is world class , and all the kicks and
chops he hits and the somersaults and stunts he pulls off are
impressive---far outclassing anything that Akshay Kumar ( the other
martial arts expert in Bollywood ) can produce or Action Abraham ( as
John Abraham calls himself ) can emulate . His physique looks hard and
wellmuscled .
But he is failed by his acting , which has become wooden in this movie
after a good showing in the movie ' Force ' where he was villain . But above all
he is failed by the director who simply does not deliver a good movie ,
and in fact creates some corny situations .
For example , songs are thrown in without creating any situation for
them---and even the villain gets to dance in a song wooing the heroine
along with his henchmen .
And at the very opening of the movie , Vidyut excapes from the enemy's
military's custody too easily . Why would they carry a suspected spy in a
completely open jeep , thus giving easy escape chances to him ?? Not
convincing....
The best acting in fact is by the villain---who provides doses of comic relief
along with menace by telling a hilarious SMS joke to every victim
before he kills him , and by playing angry birds game on his mobile
even when prowling for a kill . But why did the director have to overdo
the villain act by showing him as a person without eyeballs in his eyes
and therefore a ' demon ' from birth.....??
The item number however is good and the dancer is slim and with a curvacious body which she shows for good effect.....
......But if the director thought that all this will add up to a decent movie , then he is mistaken.....
The story really kickstarts with the heroine trying the escape the villain's lustful clutches .
.....And the hero appears from nowhere to save her without reason....
The reasons he gives for saving her are unrealistic to be least and again the director fails to convince you .
As the hero and the heroine escape into the jungles , you get to see
some techniques used by commandos for survival in tough situations---for
the villain and his minions are forever on the prowl to get to them ,
setting dogs on their path .
Needless to say , Vidyut rises above all challenges and smashes his way through every situation....
......And do I even have to say that the chatterbox heroine falls in love with him along the way....
But Vidyut's attempt to play a strong silent man does not fully work due to his below par acting.
What works for him is his fighting skills , and if he improves his acting we could see our very own Jackie Chan.....
But till he improves them , we have to make do with this---a not so
great effort in film making which left the audience sniggering at it....
Verdict---not good .
Zid ( Obsession )---New release---2014
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Back to the world of psychos stalking the people whom they obsessively want to possess....
But this time it's a woman who does the stalking ( then why wasn't I the one being stalked :D )....
And the one being stalked is Mr Rohan Achrekar a.k.a. Ronnie---played by Karanvir Sharma....
He comes as a paying guest to the outhouse in Goa of Maya ( played by Mannara ) of sumptuous body fame....
She misunderstands some photos he took of her , and hey presto !! That's all she requires to fall in love with him---obsessively of course.....now where was I when these obsessively stalking babes were being created ?? :D
She befriends him and then entices him by prancing wet and wild in front of him---with her melons coming almost completely out of her wet clothes.....
But to no avail....unlike me ( both my heart and vitals were responding heavily to the enticement ) , his heart and his vitals seem to be made of unresponsive stuff....
He instead dances with someone else at a party he came to with Maya ....
And that some else ( her name is Nancy ) gets collided with the same vehicle that Ronnie and Maya are travelling in that very night---is this a mere coincidence or is Maya upto her tricks....??
But Nancy ( the girl who got killed ) was also sister of Ronnie's ex girlfriend.....and his ex grilfriend ( Riya---played by Shraddha Das ) stands to inherit a lot of money and property due to her death....
So who was really involved in her death ??
Who cares ?? For the entry of Shraddha Das brings another sexy babe into the sensuous proceedings.....and then the proceedings get way too sensuous....
Red hot kissing scenes are accompanied by lip smacking smooching and breast heaving and wanton loving making on satin sheets....Needless to say , I had shamelessly come to the theater to see these things only.....
These proceedings ( I sorely wished that they hadn't been interrupted ) are interrupted by some dead bodies piling up , including those of animals....
As if I care about the piling dead bodies ?? I don't....I had come for one thing only---to see some action in bed from some half nude babes and I got that....
So who is responsible for the dead bodies piling up ?? Not worth going to the theater for that....
Of course , Goa does look nice and green in the monsoon....
And the music of the film is good too---some nice hummable songs....
Acting by all three lead actors ( Karanvir Sharma , Mannara , and Shraddha Das ) is decent enough....
But the nice views and nice songs and decent acting do little to save the film---for the twist in the climax is so stupid that it washes away even an okayish impression of the film .
You go to theater for only one thing----some nice exposure of feminine flesh , and some hot bed scenes....
I went for that and returned home satisfied.....You won't...
Verdict---Not good .
Jism ( The body ) part 2
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Where there is a beautiful woman the first thought that comes to mind is of romance, But when the woman is Canadian born porn star ( of Indian origin ) Sunny Leone the first thought that comes ( but naturally ) is of the jism ( body ).
But is she all about jism ??
What about the emotions in the heart beneath ??
And sure enough , Sunny surprises us by showing a vein for romance that none thought existed in a woman famous for oohhing and aahhing doing explicit sessions in bed .
......And she acts well too---even though I thought the director made her do too much breast heaving too much of the time....
Above all she is helped along by some eye catching photography of Sri Lanka , some good music and some meaningful lyrics in the songs in the movie .
Consider these lyrics---
What is this body ??
Its just the clothing on the soul....
What is this pain all about ??
Its just the search for true love....
So what about the jism ?
Well , it has to take a little bit of a back seat as the director goes about weaving some story and some emotions into the movie.....
.....And to be honest I preferred it that way.....
For the beautiful scenery of Sri Lanka photographed well put me in a relaxing mood wherein I did not want too many exercises for the excitatory parts of my body
But in a movie titled jism ( body ) you cannot entirely escape seminudity can you ?? And you expect some lovemaking and some mouth to mouth kissing dont you ??
So it is there but aesthetically photographed so that you dont feel it to be vulgar . So this may be the most respectable film Sunny has acted in so far....
So here goes the story in short......
Sunny is hired by the law enforcement agencies to get the secrets of Randeep hooda , who is her past lover but also a terrorist now . Arunoday Singh is the officer who has to accompany her to her destination---Sri Lanka .
But does he have to test her succulent charms in bed before hiring her ??? Oh , i forgot the film is titled '' the body ''.....
And while testing her Arunoday falls in love with her....who wouldn't ?? She looks ravishing and delicate like a fresh fruit ready to be plucked so much so that you forget for a while that she's been tested a hundred times by hundred men in front of camera in real life....
And when Randeep Hooda confronts her he falls for her too---again.....
And both are ready to die rather than hurt her.....but it is Randeep who is more largehearted and ready to let her go back to Arunoday who on the other hand gets boiling with jealousy with the thought of her sleeping with Randeep.....
So who gets her?? And what about her mission to kill Randeep ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
Its a decent watch.....
Aisha ( Bollywood adaptation of the novel EMMA written by Jane Austen )
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Actually I wasn't planning to see the movie , but then I saw this review where this movie was compared to an art house movie (peepli live )....the writer was whining about how aisha lives in a different world where no dirt or beggars are seen on the street ,how unrealistic it is , blah blah blah....and how the real world is shown in 'peepli live' etc...
Then I decided to see the movie for one reason --- We go to movies to escape from reality , not to encounter it.....I mean ,what is the point in seeing movies if the same dreariness of real life is shown in them , the same poverty ,injustice....we go to indulge in our dreams ( which are never going to turn to reality ) ,like marrying beautiful women or rich men ( depending on the gender you belong to --sorry for being presemptous ,but here I am taking the liberty of thinking that all women want rich men :D)....thats why the old movies many a times showed rich people marrying poor people breaching the wall between rich and poor and all that....they allowed the poor to indulge in such dreams for three hours....( Yeah , a Bollywood movie is that long :rolleyes:)
Coming to the movie , it shows Sonam kapoor as a scatterbrained rich girl who is forever into matchmaking , but without ever achieving any results...
Who cares anyway....life powered by money is good ,there are lots of parties ,vacations to attend ,polo matches to watch and cheer, shopping malls to visit and run expensive bills , handsome hunks are around to escort you ...above all ,time to play around with...
Her fave project is to fix the marriage of a small town cousin of hers to some rich guy ....here too she fails ,and a small complication develops as the girl ,after other guys have rejected her for precisely her small-townness , falls for the guy sonam is angling for.....oh poor little Sonam :o
No problems however ,Sonams father proclaims that this guy will also reject the girl on the same grounds of smalltownness....and so he does !!!:eek:
Who cares again , Sonam gets to wear fancy clothes , act like a fashion model ,play beach-volleyball in skimpy clothes ....and we get to watch all that....:yup:
One nice point though ....the parents are non-interfering in the whole movie.....a welcome change from other Bollywood movies where where fighting against parental opposition about the marriage takes up half the time ....i was tired and sick of this ( seen too much of it in real life again ).....
rest of the movie is good enough....
Gangs of Wasseypur part 1
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When a British director ( I forgot his name ) was shown the Raj Kapoor ( Indian director ) movie AAN , at the end of it when he was asked his opinion about it he answered ,'' It just goes AWN and AWN and AWN.....''
He could have well been talking about this film.....
For it certainly goes on and on and on.....
This is certainly the longest movie I have seen in some time .
And if the director wanted to show the futility of attempting revenge in a bloodsoaked dog-eat-dog land where everyone is pointlessly killing each other then he has been certainly effective in that----for the leading actor's ( such a violent character can hardly be called '' hero '' ) attempt to take revenge for a past crime is so tedious and long lasting that you will surely get convinced about its futility towards the end......especially because the whole attempt is unsuccessful in the end .
And in showing this attempted revenge the director has been successful in giving epic treatment to the movie---for the movie spans three generations.....all generations indulging in bloodlust , for such is the character of the badlands that are the coal mines of Bihar.....
The movie begins during British rule and ends in the late twentieth century.....but does it really end ??? for the director says in the end that the story is incomplete---obviously the cycle of revenge and counter-revenge and violence is going the continue , far beyond the span of the movie.....indeed it is a saga without end---the saga of Bihar/ Jharkhand......
The movie is violent , but not as violent as publicised---for in between the bouts of violence the male characters find time for romance with goodlooking women....indeed the leading character finds time to marry two women , the second one being sexier than the first....
Indeed , you cannot show violence all the time in such a lengthy movie.....and in fact all the permutations and combinations in such a long movie cannot be retold here---I am not going to agonize myself by trying to tell the complicated story here.....
What holds the film together is the bravura preformance of Manoj Bajpai---indeed its a role tailormade for his type of acting.....one cannot imagine the film without him.....
There are some killer dialogues which will win whistles and claps , and overall the atmosphere in Bihar is well picturised in the film---but whether these things will be sufficient to take it far at the box office is something that only time will tell.....
My opinion---just about okay.....
Gangs of Wasseypur part 2
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In my review of Gangs of Wasseypur part one I had said that the movie goes awn and awn and awn ( on and on and on ).....
After seeing part two I wish it really went awn and awn and oooonnn......
For in part two director Anurag truely delivers.....and how......he delivers by delivering the killer punch.....
If you want to see and indeed understand the meaning of true and real bloodletting you should see the scene in which Faizal Khan kills Ramadhir Singh.....
......And if you want to see what real action means you should watch the whole movie.....
And if you want to see how an actor comes of age you should watch the performance of Nawazuddin Siddiqiue as Faizal Khan in this film.....
If people like Nana Patekar ( in Parinda ) and Manoj Bajpai ( in Satya ) thought that only they could act like real gangsters then they would better watch their backs.....for they have real competition in Nawazuddin......
And if writers of english dictionaries thought that they had completed recording the meaning of words then they better watch the film.....
So what does tangent mean.....??
When a guy has a habit of cutting up a person with a blade in a angle that forms a tangent to his body he is called tangent....
And what does perpendicular mean ???
Simple....when a guy uses his blade to cut up a person in an angle that is perpendicular to his body he is known as perpendicular....
And what does definite mean ??
When a guy has a definite goal to kill someone he is called definite.....
What does Kashmiri sev mean ??
While you were thinking about it , it just exploded.....
For it's a bomb made by terrorists in Kashmir....
And new proverbs come to light....
For example---just like iron cuts iron , an arsehole cuts an arsehole
And new dialogues come to light too....
For example----my hands were tired thinking and lusting for you in jail.....think masturbation
The director pays the ultimate tribute to hindi songs---every funeral procession ( and needless to say there are many funerals ) has accompanying it man singing a sad and famous hindi film song as a tribute to the dead person .....so funny !!
......And every time a mobile rings its ringtone is another famous hindi film song of yore.....the director seems to have lived and breathed hindi films all his life....
But what takes the cake is the sound of bullets banging into bodies , into doors and windows , into walls......bullets fired first from pistols in the earlier part of the movie and then graduating to automatic rifles and then to Israeli Uzis......bullets whose bang bang sound is sweet music to the ears of an aficionado of slam bang action especially in a theater equipped with digital sound.....
But it all ultimately has to end in death---death for many of the characters in the film including females....
......For people who live by the gun die by the gun.....and a story of revenge and gore is to end in a pool of blood.....
But wait !!!....the new generation of killers has been born in this movie....wait till they grow up....just wait.....For who knows....a third edition of the film will work wonders for my aching heart.....
Verdict----calling all the die hard action movie lovers....this one is a must see.....
Raaz ( Secret ) 3D
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Its raining 3D movies this season and I love soaking in such a rain---or should I liken a horror movie to a thunderstorm.....??
So off I went to see this thunderstorm....err , movie....and sure enough , I wasnt disappointed to see a few flashes of horror striking like lightening due to the 3D effects.....
So whats the story ??
Bipasha plays the role of a siren who has dominated the film industry---but as she moves into the late thirties age begins to take over and newer younger divas are ready to upstage her . But such is her addiction to glamour and adulation that she finds it a hard time dealing with it.....actually , who doesn't ??
So is it time for a Bollywood remake of '' Sunset Boulevard '' the Hollywood movie of yore that beautifully showed the pain and the loss felt by a fading female former movie star ??
Naah.....
It's a Bhatt production and you can trust the Bhatts to come out with a sensational solution to Bip's problem.....
.....And the solution is black magic.....
So Bip's baby meets a practitioner of the occult---nothing less than the evil spirit of a dead man , who gives her some water to be given to her chief rival to drink.....water that begins the black magic once ingested by her rival....
And who's the rival ?? She's the voluptuous Esha Gupta with the sumptuous body---the star who is rising on the horizon and walking away with the awards.....she's the leading lady of the film and Bipasha is reduced to playing the negative role.....( I guess age is taking a toll on Bipasha in real life too )
The person who has to administer the magical water is none other than the Bhatt's in house hero Emraan Hashmi , who is director of Esha's film.....
And once he does that , the fun starts.....
Esha's house is rent by her shrieks at night as horror strikes---and it strikes again and again.....
Some women plainly walked out of the cinema hall---and when they do that , you know the thrills and chills are really making an effect.....
Some shocks did make my hair stand on end---and I literally began to wait for the water to be administered to Esha again and again.....though I also waited with trepidation , as the 3D effects were bringing the horror perilously close to me and making me squirm in my seat.....
But masochist that I am ( every movie review reveals a new side of my personality ;) ) , I wanted the director to bring it on with more and more spirits appearing out of nowhere and more screaming.....
The girl sitting besides me seemed to want to reach out and hold my hand during the horror session and I sat there salivating and dreaming of holding her hand but she managed to control herself---leaving me disappointed.....:mad:
And the director was disappointing too---the horror stopped after a while and reappeared only at the end of the movie because Emraan fell in love with Esha and stopped giving her the water.....
......And this happened just as the girl next to me was going to lean on me.....Now why did Emraan have to fall in love ??:nope:
The director tried to fill the gap between the horror scenes by some luscious mouth to mouth kissing between Emraan and Bipasha and Emraan and Esha ( no the girl besides me didnt get inspired by that :D )---but we are used to such kissing scenes nowadays aren't we....nothing new and in fact boring......
Its the sound effects that trump over the visual effects and the movie has the effect of making us expect and wait for the horror to begin with breathless anticipation---I wish however that there was more of it.....
Verdict---okay for some on the spot entertainment if cinema hall has 3D and good digital sound . People watching on TV or DVD will be sorely disappointed .
Action Jackson ( 2014 )
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As far as this film was concerned---all roads led to Manasvi Mamgai.....!!
For she seemed to be the only good thing in this movie---judging from the promos at least , and from the fact that people were not saying good things about this film....
So I went to see her....
And she did deliver onto my expectations up to some extent , by dancing sensuously spreading her legs apart in high heels and giving sizzling bikini shots showcasing her tall slim soft body and kissing with abandon with her luscious lips reddened by red lipstick . But her entry came only after the interval , and though she looks like a sexy vamp from all quarters , her acting was not great...
But her dancing skills do make up for her not-so-great acting , and that is not a surprise ; her teacher is the master---Prabhudeva himself....for he has directed the film .
Until the interval however I had to make do with Sonakshi Sinha and her exposed fat thighs , but I didn't mind that too---Sonakshi looked okay to me .
The other beauty ( Yami Gautam ) is wasted in this film , for even though she looks as good as ever , her only acting is to get repeatedly beaten up by the villain's goons .
So Ajay Devgan gets to romance three beauties in this film , and for a man of his not-so-good looks this is no mean achievement....
But he rejects the attentions showered on him by the hot Manasvi Mamgai , and that's what sets the story of this movie on course....
But all that is only after the interval , for as I already told you---Manasvi's eagerly anticipated entry ( anticipated by me at least ) is only after the interval....
Then what is before the interval ?? Lot of nonsense....
A silly romance begins to develop between Ajay and Sonakshi---silly because it starts with the belief of Sonakshi that only by seeing Ajay's ding dong jangling from his naked body will her bad luck change to good luck....and what better situation to fall in love than chasing a guy daily in order to see his ding dong daily to get the daily dose of luck...
If you thought this was corny , the fights are even cornier---the blows and punches are 'choreographed' according to the rhythm of music beats , and the whole atmosphere is totally non serious....
The jokes vary from ones which really make you laugh , to the ones which are ridiculous....no they don't make you cry , though I was tempted to say that....
The villain looks really suited for his role however , with a big red mark on his gleaming bald head and menacing wrinkles on his face....
Ajay Devgan has really built up his body , and looks every inch a fighter ; you really pity the fact that he got such stupid fights to fight....looks more like dancing to the rhythm of bongo beats than fighting---it's a Prabhudeva film after all....
And the mighty Prabhudeva may be a great dancer , but he fails in direction....
Music is only so so....
But hey !! Manasvi Mamgai is a sexy find....
Verdict---Not good .
One and a half stars rating .
I enjoy Bollywood movies a lot- they are a fresh break from films that we are used to. A couple of them is one of my favorite movies, the best one being Three Idiots which is currently in 32nd place. With a little bit of polishing I think India can be a country mass-producing masterpieces.
Interesting reviews, will keep reading them when I have time. :)
Barfi ( Sweetmeat )
http://www.tamilstar.com/photo-galleries/tamil-cinema-barfi-movie-wallpapers-barfi-hd-wallpapers/images/tamil-cinema-barfi-movie-wallpapers-barfi-hd-wallpapers05.jpg
We are the dream merchants---says the film industry.....
And in this film the director sells a fantastic dream of love---a story of love between a girl and a deaf and dumb guy.....not just a story of love , but of love fulfilled ; of the lovebirds getting locked in holy matrimony and living life till old age caring and sharing for each other ; of living life to the full in each others arms and dying on the same bed ; of sharing tears and laughter together till the end of their time on earth ;of holding each others hand and protecting each other.....all because they dared to follow the path led by their heart without question and without thinking.....
.....or have i talked too much already and played spoiler ??
maybe i have.....
but then right now i am under the spell of the film and decided to follow my heart just like the film asks us to.....and my heart wanted me to talk freely about the film....
If any film has been made to pass on the message to follow your heart without thinking of practicalities then this is it.....
But actually so many films have been made saying the same thing.....
The triumph of the director of this film lies in making the idea heartrendingly and eyeswettingly believable.....
As for those who let practical matters take precedence over matters of emotion---its loneliness for them.....as Ileana D'Cruz finds out.....
She is the one who loves the deaf and dumb guy ( played by Ranbir Kapoor ) first , but loses him as she listens to her mother who wants her to marry a rich and normal guy .
.......And Ranbir is everything but that....
He is the son of a chauffeur who is forever in motion.....forever running and jumping and falling and making faces and dancing---as if all this hyperactivity would make up for his defects....
But he has no money or future---and Ileana goes out of his world....
.....only to return years later as she finds out that the call of the heart was stronger than the pull of reality.....
But now Ranbir is involved in a complicated case of the kidnapping of an autistic girl ( played by priyanka chopra ) who is now no more....or is she ??
Now Ranbir and Ileana have the chance to live life again by getting together . But do their hearts beat together again just like they did 6 years ago ?? Or will somebody play spoiler ?? Go and find out by seeing the movie....
The acting honours go to both Ranbir and Priyanka Chopra---it was difficult pulling off the role of a deaf and dumb guy and autistic girl but both pull it off with aplomb.....Priyanka especially is in top form.....
The scenery of Darjeeling is well picturised as the story unfolds in convoluted flashbacks ; but the director does manage to tie up the loose ends together as the climax approaches.....the songs too are hummable.....but what remains etched in the mind is the moviemaker's call to follow your heart.....
As I walked out of the cinema hall I thought '' All this is stuff of dreams and fantasy . The real world is all about being practical ''......but the dreams wouldn't go--of finding true love ; of living without a care in the world in the arms of your beloved.....
Well , I told you these moviemakers are dream merchants arent they....and the director is the master of them all.....
Verdict---What a beautiful movie :)
Rise of the zombie
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Rather than calling it ' Rise of the zombie ' this film should rather be called ' Fall of the human ' to animal like status .Or maybe it should be called ' Rise of the animal ' .
Yeah ,that's what the zombie in this film does---fall from its human status and start acting like an animal.....
......And that too become a carnivorous rather than herbivorous animal and start attacking people and eating their flesh after going for their jugular in true carnivore style---only the cameramen from National Geographic and Discovery channel were missing for filming this.....
That's totally different from what I had heard about zombies---that they are dead people whose bodies have been taken over by voodoo practitioners , and who are being made to do what they want.....
OF course , the real truth is said to be that the so called ' zombies ' are actually drugged people who are not dead but alive....
If that is true , then the film comes slightly closer to the truth , in the sense that a live person is doing something under the influence of something injected in his body.....
And who is this live person ??
He is Neil Parker played by Luke Kenny , who has a passion for nature photography.....
......And his passion for nature photography outclasses his passion for his goodlooking girlfriend ( played by Kirti Kulhari ) to the point that she gets totally annoyed and breaks up with him for neglecting her ( somebody give me her phone number please , for I am interested in satisfying the emotional needs and physical wants of such bored and neglected girls with priority given to the physical wants :D)......
So he stupidly goes back frustrated to the himalayan jungle of what seems to be the Indian state of Sikkim instead of being smart and trying to cajole back his girlfriend ( good for my chances with her....;) )......
Here something bites him---though what bites him is not shown....
Now when will that be shown ?? For that , we will have to wait for part two of the film presumably.....!!
As his wound becomes covered by blisters and becomes worse , the point arises in the mind---why does he not see a doctor instead of covering up his wound whenever anybody approaches him.....??
This from a person whose father and best friend are doctors....!!
Who cares , its a stupid film anyway.....
The bite has injected something into him that converts him from a fun loving person who dances with foreign dancers on his lap at sports bar in Malad in Bombay ( are there really foreign dancers who cavort on clients' laps in Bombay bars ?? Since I happen to live in Bombay , I want to go to to Malad right now instead of writing this review---thinking of keeping the review incomplete ;) ) and makes him a flesh eating zombie.....
So what happens to the zombie ?? watch that in part two that is going to come next year.....
......For the director is crazy enough to think that we will wait with bated breath till next year to see this zombiehood spread in the whole land---the next part is called ' Land of the zombie '......
While watching the film I felt that---forget to wait till next year....
.....I should not even have waited till last year---the end of the world predicted in 2012 should have happened , so that I would have been spared the pain of watching this film.....
Verdict--not good .
Matru ki bijlee ka Mandola ( Meet Mr Mandola---father of Matru's girlfriend Bijlee )
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It is because we dream that we do......and Harry Mandola ( Pankaj Kapoor ) has but one dream---to convert the farming land near his mansion ( its more like a palace actually ) into a concrete jungle of modern factories, office buildings and shopping malls ; in short , expand the city into his village and earn tons of money.....
And helping him fulfill his dreams is politician Shabana Azmi and her son ; of course , they dream of raking in their share of the money too......and in fact plan to relive Harry of his share and become the sole profiteers themselves in the end---though Harry does not know this....
But the simple people of the village in which Harry lives have their simple dreams too , of growing bountiful crops of wheat on their land and the bountiful crops earning them good money , of electricity being regularly supplied to their village and they be allowed to lead their lives in peace.....
......And these simple dreams of village people come to directly clash with the grand dreams of Harry and Shabana---for it is on the lands of these poor innocent folk that Harry and Shabana plan to build their concrete jungle.....how inconvenient for Harry and Shabana !!
So who is the stronger party ?? The powerful and rich people or the poor innocent villagers ??
The answer to this question is easy--- the rich people have big connections and can squeeze the village folk by forcing the govt to not allow their wheat to be bought by deeming it substandard , or by bringing supply of electricity to the village to a standstill.....
Bur wait !! These are the times of revolution and a figure calling himself an avtar of Mao Tse Tung ( played by Imran Khan ) is ready to bring revolt and red revolution to the land seething with injustice.....
Heavy topic ?? Well , the movie tries to make it light by showing the whole battle in a comic-farce style.....
And to keep the mood whacky we get to see the bold and beautiful side of Anushka Sharma who is Harry's daughter---deliberately taking a half naked dip in the village pond in front of the assembled villagers and emerging wet and wild to their whistles and cheers , dancing with abandon in village dances and coming drunk to her own wedding.....and above all falling in love with the new avtar of Mao Tse Tung......
But does he reciprocate her feelings ( she is the capitalist's daughter after all ) or remain true to the revolution ??
And her father Harry Mandola ?? He loves two things in life---one thing is drink.....
......And when he's drunk he loses his senses and empathizes with the villagers and their problems and is ready to lead the revolution himself , only to reverse his stand and become ruthless businessman when he becomes sober----all in keeping with the nonserious and whacky mood of the film.....
The other thing that Harry loves is his daughter---but he never is able to properly show it.....
The crunch comes when he learns that his feisty and lovely daughter loves the leader of the revolution and is secretly aiding the revolution.....
So when the crunch comes who will Harry side with ?? His daughter and her revolution or his capitalist friends and his dreams ??
Go and watch the movie for getting your answers....
But I am not recommending it much to you---for it carries it's comic and whacky style too far and reduces the whole thing to a farce.....some of the so called ' jokes ' fail to evoke laughter.....
The whole language is in coarse style with full scale obscenities thrown in---though the director has been careful that the obscenities are not given in offensive style .
Pankaj Kapoor and Anushka do put in good performances---and the climax of the film does try to warm the cockles of your heart with some genuine moments of warmth .
Verdict---okay .
Badmaash company (Rogue company)
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Back in the mid eighties , it was the time of the cold war . And the economic reforms had not been launched . India was still grovelling in the chains of socialism . During this time , one young man dreams of big , indeed spectacular success.
Indians are strangers to high quality imported goods , the common man cannot do air travel , foreign countries are still ' foreign ' because it is too expensive to go there, and even a call from Mumbai ( oops.....its still called Bombay ) to Indian capital Delhi costs a bomb ( by the standards of those times anyway ).......and even if you are willing to pay , you have to wait half an hour for a trunk call.......
How is one supposed to achieve success in this stifling atmosphere ?
But behold the ambition...........Our hero dreams of snazzy cars , superposh houses ,gambling in casinos , cool drinks in glitzy bars......and above all he dreams of a sexy woman......though he is willing to go massively underambitious on the woman part ......in short ,is willing to stick loyally with one woman ( to the extent of refusing to go to massage parlours while in bangkok , a temptation many cant resist in mumbai/bombay nowadays :D ),especially becos she delivers on the sexy part.......wearing bikinis......opening her clothes in the middle of a volleyball match to entice him......kissing him uninhibitedly in a car in blinding rain......living and fcuking with him without the entrapment of marriage.....and saying FCUK OFF in style......
And there is only way to achieve this undreamed of success in socialist india........crime , of course......and crime , in the beginning , does pay.......
So out hero teams up with his cool friends and his woman and launches one scam after another........till india becomes too small for him and he has to go big in the land of the free.......America , what else.....
The scams........interesting stuff .........but go and watch the movie.......i am not telling them.......
The film delivers what it promises in the first half, but turns preachy in the second half........robbing you of all the fun :(
Director Sir ( this to the director )........the name-- badmaash ( rogue )company ........and the promos........ promised cool babes , even hot babes , shady but lovable characters living life to the full......and some real partying.....some real entertainment......and to be honest , you delivered up to some extent in the first half........but do you think the college kids who swarmed to the movie hand in hand with girlfriend / boyfriend came in for preachy sentimentality in the second half ......
The film ,in short , promises ......but does not deliver.......
PK
http://im.rediff.com/movies/2014/sep/17pk-poll3.jpg
In all of Amir Khan's films his hard work shows . PK is no exception .
A lot of toil and hard work has been put into every scene , into every dialogue , and into every expression on Amir's face . He certainly carries the whole weight of the film on his capable shoulders , but I would not dare say that he does this effortlessly....
In fact , he has done a lot of effort in fleshing out every scene , and so has the director .
Of course , Amir's trademark expression---that of gouging his own eyeballs almost out their sockets while staring at people---has been tried out before from films like 'Ghulam' to 'Rang de basanti' , but here it did not strike me as odd like it struck me in the earlier two films.....for in this film he plays the role of an alien who has landed on earth , and since everything is new to him on this planet , it is not surprising to see him staring at things with wide eyed awe and amazement and wonder .
And his inability to comprehend things , or more rather his 'alien' way of comprehending things that occur on earth in a different way , gives rise to some really laughable situations especially in the first half of the movie keeping you in splits for some time . This happens because his remote transmitter for communicating with his mother ship gets stolen by a human being immediately after he lands on earth , and he has to spend a lot of time on earth to try get it back---time that he spends discovering new things and giving his own spin on understanding them ; a spin that seems ridiculously funny in the first half but becomes intelligent in the second half of the movie.....so intelligent that powerful people are shaken when begins to question them....
Inevitably , for an alien like him the chief question is human beings' belief in God.....and his own vain search for that God in the hope that God would help him get back his stolen remote transmitter is what gives rise to the funny situations . But his landing on this planet from his mother ship in completely naked condition , his learning about humans' need to cover themselves with clothes , his inability to speak any of the earth's languages and his eventual acquisition of the ability to speak not in any sophisticated language but a queer rural dialect of the Indian state of Rajasthan---all speak volumes about the extraordinary ability of the director ( Raj Kumar Hirani ) to entertain us and the stupendous acting ability of Amir himself .
In the midst of his travails on earth , Amir meets the woman who would eventually make him feel like not wanting to leave this planet ever---Anushka Sharma . Her hairstyle ( what in India is commonly called by those like me who are ignorant in women's hairstyling techniques as 'Bob cut' ) put me off for a while , but gradually I warmed up to it .
And Anushka is the one who discovers the explosive potential of Amir's different but mindblowing take on humans' belief in God , and his ability to hit the bulls eye in questioning the manner in which humans of different religions worship different gods , and the manner in which godmen act as middlemen to rake in financial and other profits while devotees are lured into a fools' paradise of fake promises and false hopes . And like the savvy television anchor that she is , she decides to convert all this in a television show....
But what Anushka does not know is that what happens on the television show would affect her own life....for she has her own past....
So will Amir the lovable alien be able to get back to his planet ?? And will his sojourn on our planet irreversibly change our belief in the way we worship God ?? Does Anushka make an impact on Amir or he will make an impact on her ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
There is no doubt that this is a highly intelligently made film , and it has been made to make us think . It delivers the entertainment and the churning of our minds in equal doses . And it never fails to make us laugh---at our own stupid beliefs . Above all it takes on those manipulative peddlers of religion called godmen , and it takes on them with aplomb . And it never fails to engage the audience---to the very last reel .
Some scenes like a person wearing the clothes of the Hindu God Shiva running away from Amir and cowering in the midst of a crowd may not be liked by orthodox persons , but I didn't mind them . I am not a religious person by nature anyway....
If you are expecting the film to be anti hindu like the hindu nationalists are complaining , your experience will be underwhelming....In fact I found nothing anti hindu in the movie . If you are a believer in some godman and find the film anti your religious beliefs , then your belief in the godman is your own stupidity anyway.....
Of course , the part of Anushka's boyfriend ( Sushant Singh ) being Pakistani is clearly aimed winning over the Pakistan/middle east audience and earning more moolah . Somewhere it hurts to give our Indian girls in marriage to Pakistanis who regularly send terrorists to attack India , and I didn't like that part .
Once again Amir Khan has put heart and soul in acting for a film , and once again he is a winner . Hopefully he shall continue that for years to come....
Verdict---Absolutely brilliant .
Four and a half star rating .
The Rodent
12-26-14, 06:52 PM
I haven't seen many of your films Ashdoc, so I might be behind on +reps for the review you've written... but I have you down for a MoFie for the best written reviews thread, buddy.
:up:
I haven't seen many of your films Ashdoc, so I might be behind on +reps for the review you've written... but I have you down for a MoFie for the best written reviews thread, buddy.
:up:
I feel truly honored :)
Ugly ( 2014 )
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After 'Gangs of Wasseypur' director Anurag Kashyap turns from the badlands of India towards Bombay---the economic capital of India....
But the feel of this movie is the same---dark , gripping and gritty....
He had the chance to show some nice and glitzy locations , and some high octane action using modern gadgets---this being the economic capital after all....
But no....the locations in which the fighting ( it isn't glamorous enough to be called 'action' ) takes place are dark and dingy if not downright filthy....
The people doing the fighting---they spew the choicest abuses and obscenities...all gutter level language....
No fashionable clothes are worn---very few people are well dressed here....
And hardly any person is good---all have either some problem in their relationships , or their ego is too big for them to think in the right direction....
The ending of the movie is sick enough to make you puke....
No wonder the film is called UGLY....
In the midst of all this is caught an innocent little girl who has been kidnapped....
Her step father ( Ronit Roy ) is a big police officer who chronically ill treats her mother , leading her mother ( Tejaswini Kolhapure ) to contemplate suicide....
A man as problematic as him is bound to take the wrong step , and instead of searching properly for the girl he tries to implicate the girl's real father ( his wife's ex husband ) in the kidnapping....
The ex husband ( Rahul Bhat ) tries to upstage the police officer by using extremely high handed tactics to search for his daughter....and he is helped by his friend ( Vineet Kumar Singh ) who has brainwave after brainwave of stupid ideas to get back the daughter---more like brainstorms actually....
Their are several other characters with an axe to grind in the situation...
In the midst of all this the kidnapped girl is nowhere to be found....
Tonnes of blood is leaked , tables and chairs smashed , and mayhem unleashed in this explosive cocktail of a situation....
Several people do several things in order to get what they want out of the situation....
No wonder you feel that people are interested in satisfying their own stupid egos and ambitions rather than rescue the kidnapped girl....
Among all of them , the one who puts a stellar acting performance is actor Girish kulkarni , who plays a policeman who is sidekick to the big police officer---his dialogues ( in marathi accented hindi ) dripping with sarcasm are the only ones that make you laugh for some time in the movie....
Acting by everyone else is decent too---care has been taken by the director to make the acting and the situations look as realistic as possible and not filmy....
The twists and turns keep you hooked on to the movie for a considerable time....
But towards the end the director tries a twist and a turn too many , and loses grip over the situation....
The climax hits you like a cold shower after a hot bath , leaving you stunned....
Mercifully , no songs interrupt the movie ; music is not an important part of the film....
It seems the director got overambitious and lengthened the film too much for it's own good....
So what about the girl and who is her kidnapper ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
But even if you don't , it does not really matter---for I was not particularly impressed by this effort .
The film has been given an 'Adults' rating chiefly for it's violence and bad language , but their are no sex scenes.
Verdict---Just about okay .
Two stars out of five .
PK
http://im.rediff.com/movies/2014/sep/17pk-poll3.jpg
In all of Amir Khan's films his hard work shows . PK is no exception .
A lot of toil and hard work has been put into every scene , into every dialogue , and into every expression on Amir's face . He certainly carries the whole weight of the film on his capable shoulders , but I would not dare say that he does this effortlessly....
In fact , he has done a lot of effort in fleshing out every scene , and so has the director .
Of course , Amir's trademark expression---that of gouging his own eyeballs almost out their sockets while staring at people---has been tried out before from films like 'Ghulam' to 'Rang de basanti' , but here it did not strike me as odd like it struck me in the earlier two films.....for in this film he plays the role of an alien who has landed on earth , and since everything is new to him on this planet , it is not surprising to see him staring at things with wide eyed awe and amazement and wonder .
And his inability to comprehend things , or more rather his 'alien' way of comprehending things that occur on earth in a different way , gives rise to some really laughable situations especially in the first half of the movie keeping you in splits for some time . This happens because his remote transmitter for communicating with his mother ship gets stolen by a human being immediately after he lands on earth , and he has to spend a lot of time on earth to try get it back---time that he spends discovering new things and giving his own spin on understanding them ; a spin that seems ridiculously funny in the first half but becomes intelligent in the second half of the movie.....so intelligent that powerful people are shaken when begins to question them....
Inevitably , for an alien like him the chief question is human beings' belief in God.....and his own vain search for that God in the hope that God would help him get back his stolen remote transmitter is what gives rise to the funny situations . But his landing on this planet from his mother ship in completely naked condition , his learning about humans' need to cover themselves with clothes , his inability to speak any of the earth's languages and his eventual acquisition of the ability to speak not in any sophisticated language but a queer rural dialect of the Indian state of Rajasthan---all speak volumes about the extraordinary ability of the director ( Raj Kumar Hirani ) to entertain us and the stupendous acting ability of Amir himself .
In the midst of his travails on earth , Amir meets the woman who would eventually make him feel like not wanting to leave this planet ever---Anushka Sharma . Her hairstyle ( what in India is commonly called by those like me who are ignorant in women's hairstyling techniques as 'Bob cut' ) put me off for a while , but gradually I warmed up to it .
And Anushka is the one who discovers the explosive potential of Amir's different but mindblowing take on humans' belief in God , and his ability to hit the bulls eye in questioning the manner in which humans of different religions worship different gods , and the manner in which godmen act as middlemen to rake in financial and other profits while devotees are lured into a fools' paradise of fake promises and false hopes . And like the savvy television anchor that she is , she decides to convert all this in a television show....
But what Anushka does not know is that what happens on the television show would affect her own life....for she has her own past....
So will Amir the lovable alien be able to get back to his planet ?? And will his sojourn on our planet irreversibly change our belief in the way we worship God ?? Does Anushka make an impact on Amir or he will make an impact on her ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
There is no doubt that this is a highly intelligently made film , and it has been made to make us think . It delivers the entertainment and the churning of our minds in equal doses . And it never fails to make us laugh---at our own stupid beliefs . Above all it takes on those manipulative peddlers of religion called godmen , and it takes on them with aplomb . And it never fails to engage the audience---to the very last reel .
Some scenes like a person wearing the clothes of the Hindu God Shiva running away from Amir and cowering in the midst of a crowd may not be liked by orthodox persons , but I didn't mind them . I am not a religious person by nature anyway....
If you are expecting the film to be anti hindu like the hindu nationalists are complaining , your experience will be underwhelming....In fact I found nothing anti hindu in the movie . If you are a believer in some godman and find the film anti your religious beliefs , then your belief in the godman is your own stupidity anyway.....
Of course , the part of Anushka's boyfriend ( Sushant Singh ) being Pakistani is clearly aimed winning over the Pakistan/middle east audience and earning more moolah . Somewhere it hurts to give our Indian girls in marriage to Pakistanis who regularly send terrorists to attack India , and I didn't like that part .
Once again Amir Khan has put heart and soul in acting for a film , and once again he is a winner . Hopefully he shall continue that for years to come....
Verdict---Absolutely brilliant .
Four and a half star rating .
PK has been branded as anti hindu by hindu nationalists . the fact that the Indian hindu heroine loves a pakistani muslim in the movie has been branded as promotion of 'love jihad' whereby muslim men convert hindu girls to Islam by marrying them.
read more---
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Saffron-wings-protest-against-anti-Hindu-scenes-in-film-PK/articleshow/45680709.cms
copy/paste from another site---
5 reasons to protest against ‘PK’?
1. Movie Insults Hindu Gods and Customs : for example – scene of Aamir Khan (PK) chasing a person dressed as Lord Shiva)
b. Movie makes mockery of customs in Hindu Dharma like Serving fodder to cow, Offering milk for ‘abhishek’ on Shivlinga etc.
c. Movie says that ‘Those who fear, go to temples’ thereby insulting Hindus’ belief on God
d. Movie mocks Hindus who visit a pilgrim site or shrine which is hundreds of kilometers away from their home
2. Insult to Hindu Saints : Movie depicts Hindu Saints and Sadhus in very poor light. It also shows that Hindu Sadhus are fanning communal hatred among Hindus against non-Hindus.
3. Encourages Love Jihad : Love Jihad is mocked and termed as imaginary. The female actress is in ‘love’ with a Pakistani Love Jihadi. One should note that Aamir Khan himself is Love Jihadi who married 2 Hindu women (Divorced the first one)
4. Glorifies the Enemy : Movie tries to establish that Pakistani men are very nice and non-violent (even though most of the terrorists in India are backed by Pakistanis and the school curriculum in Pakistan teaches hatred against Hindus and Bharat).
5. Anti-national links : Dr. Subramanian Swamy has questioned the source of funding for the movie; saying that it has been funded by Pakistan's spy agency through muslim
gangsters .
here is a muslim person's take on the controversy---
http://www.ndtv.com/article/blog/pk-protestors-have-a-wrong-number-642377
Bombay talkies
http://www.impawards.com/intl/india/2013/posters/bombay_talkies_ver3_xlg.jpg
Spoiler alert !!
Bombay talkies is a film about the power and the hold of cinema on ordinary people's lives . It seems that in the 100th year of it's inception by the legendary Dadasaheb Phalke , Bollywood wants to pat itself in the back for all the soft power it has been able to generate among the country's teeming millions .
Four directors come together to direct four different short films packaged into one , and each tries to show the influence of cinema on ordinary folk in his own style .
Of course , one should not forget that the cinema folks are the most unnecessarily self important folks in the world . They will try to create their self importance where none exists . Not for nothing has Mario Puzo remarked in his landmark novel ' The godfather ' that in places where there real economy works like for example a car factory , the work happens in absolute silence . On the other hand , in a film studio everyone is making a lot of noise to make himself or herself sound important even though the film industry's contribution to the economy is scant.....
This film is certainly another attempt by the film industry to make itself sound as important as possible---in some parts by showing some outrageous scenes seeming to showcase the extent to which cinema influences the commoners....
Take for instance , the part directed by Zoya Akhtar---where a child begins to discover that he is homosexual/transsexual and wants to be like a girl more than a guy . He idolizes actress Katrina Kaif and wants to dance like her wearing sexy clothes with sexy moves titillating and ensnaring the audience , but with totally feminine gestures . The attempt here is to show how Katrina can be a powerful influence over young minds . But does it have to end in a grotosque show where this little boy organizes a dance where he gyrates like a woman ( who else but Katrina ! ) in front of a stunned gathering wearing lipstick and openly declares his gayness/transsexuality at such a tender age in such a shocking manner ??
The part directed by Karan Johar is also about ( but naturally ) gay pride---since Karan is a well known homo....
In this case a young gay man unsettles the marriage of a couple ( Rani Mukherjee looking sensational in backless blouses and exceptionally full body along with Ranadeep Hooda ) by wooing the husband and bringing out his gay tendencies . The wooing is done by making a beggar girl sing old romantic Lata Mangeshkar songs thus signalling attraction , thus again showing cinema's influence on people . But does it have to end in open mouth to mouth kissing between Ranadeep and the gay man ( played by Saqib Salim ) ???
I found myself squirming in my seat in embarrassment while seeing this male on male kissing scene as also during the gay stage dance of the small homosexual/transsexual boy . So is the film about the power of films on the population or about the power of homos in the film industry ?? There was no need to show two parts out of four concentrating on gays .
The other two parts are better . One part shows Nawazuddin Siddiquie playing a marathi man living in a chawl where his past dreams of becoming an actor have been ground to dust . One day he gets to play an insignificant role opposite a major star and his dreams are awakened and recharged . He completes the scene by adding his own fine touches to it but goes back without accepting monetary payment to tell his daughter about the experience---doesnt care about the money but about the sheer joy of being a part of the film industry for however brief a moment.....thats the passion , the glamour of celluloid.....
The fourth part pays homage to the Amitabh Bachhan---the superstar...and also to his superstardom.....
A man travels from Allahabad to Mumbai just to fulfill his father's wishes of making Amitabh taste his homemade food---and spends weeks trying to reach out to Bachhan.....
......And when he does manage to do so , it becomes a story to tell to his fellow passengers on the way back again and again---only to evoke the jealousy of someone who shatters his dreams....literally....
Oh , the pain of strugglers and the ultimate disappointment for many---beautifully shown as never before.....
Typically , movie reviewers have flocked to sing praises of the film because it celebrates the film industry---and they consider themselves as part of it.....
Who in his right mind would speak ill of what gives him his daily dose of moolah ??
Well , I dont consider myself as part of the film industry and dont earn any money from it---so I beg to differ.....
I found the film brilliant in parts but overall not so great....
Verdict---Okay .
Shootout at Wadala
http://media.santabanta.com/newsite/cinemascope/feed/shoot-out-at-waadla25.jpg
Manya Surve---a gangster the public has largely forgotten though he was a big name in the late seventies and early eighties Bombay crime scene , eclipsed as he is now by the Dons who rule from Dubai and most importantly Karachi.....
He's been forgotten because he is dead---shot by the police.....and unlike in the case of the Dons who rule Mumbai from Karachi , that gives a chance for the police to brag about their exploits of killing him and film makers to show them on celluloid.....
.....And showing them on celluloid is our very own would be quentin Tarantino---who goes by the name Sanjay Gupta of white feather films.....
So whats the story of Manya Surve ??
If the film maker is to be believed , its the usual Bollywood story of a decent well educated guy who lands in trouble with the police not through his own choice , and is forced to take up a career in crime.....
So what's so special about this film ??
Its the manner in which the action is shown that makes the movie better than average films---though it's all slam bang action with bullets flying and corpses piling and blood freely flowing , the action has a coherence of its own.....
The movie unfolds as a series of flashbacks as the police officer played by Anil Kapoor is taking Manya ( played by John Abraham ) to hospital as he has been shot---and both Anil and Manya ( John ) tell their life stories to each other.....
And John proves that his ' action Abraham ' title is no joke as be once again excels in super action packed sequences.....
Manya's best friend Munir who helps him escape from jail and later joins his gang is played by Tushar Kapoor---whose voice and acting simply lack the power to make his presence felt.....He is here because of his powerful sister Ekta Kapoor's influence......
......And Manya and Munir have to fight their way up against a series of rivals to make their mark in the city.....
Frankly , its an underworld largely though not completely controlled by muslims , and Munir has to resists appeals of common religion from rivals asking him to ditch Manya and join them.....
Happily , he resists and he and Manya form a formidable team which claws its way up in the crime scene of the metropolis.....
But in the end crime never pays and they find their nemesis in the cop played by Anil Kapoor.....
He's the cop frustrated by the police department's lack of ability to catch the criminals , until he gets to lets off his steam by going after Manya.....
In between there are so many Dons that Manya has to tackle ; myriad names that once evoked terror in the seventies and eighties---Batla , Mastan and so many others.....the ones that stand out are the ones played by Manoj Bajpai and Sonu Sood.....
Especially Sonu , who ultimately proves to be Manya's nemesis as he uses his connections with the police department to get the police on to Manya.....
But until he does , we see John play a blood fest---first escaping from prison in a dramatic manner more fit for a western movie , and then taking revenge for those who put him in trouble by killing them , and then forming his own gang....
Anil Kapoor displays the swagger that he did during his earlier days , and his voice does not lack for firepower nor do his guns....
Ultimately he had John have to confront each other.....
But before they do , there is also an interlude of Manya's romance with his love interest played delectably by Kangana Ranaut.....
Not only she looks good but she raises your temperature by some hot love making and kissing scenes.....
Anyway , the temperature of this film is always high as violence spirals---but not out of control.....
Indeed the director has supreme control over the violence and gives us some sound entertainment.....
What really raises the hots is the item song by the uninhibited Sunny Leone who else.....
Not only she looks stunning but moves her curves so deliciously that she can even awaken a dead man.....
Sophie Chaudhary tries to rival her in sexiness in her own item song and nearly succeeds---that's no mean achievement....
The path to hell ( that's where all those gangsters killed in the movie must have gone ) is strewn with roses---at least for the audience , as it gets to see some decent action without too much emotion in this film .
Verdict---good enough for some entertainment .
Haunted 3D
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oQQWJCkL8pY/TbbWsLup1NI/AAAAAAAABj4/V73Sf9B4uFU/s640/huanted+atozmp3.in.jpg
This movie can be enjoyed only with 3D and dolby digital soundtrack . So remember to watch it in a good theater .
With these effects its pretty good , with the jolts and shocks coming regularly and keeping you interested .
At first the movie starts dispiritedly , with the hero with his face having a really rotten expression throughout the film ( we will call him 'rotten face' throughout the review :D) having made a deal for an old haunted mansion ( so whats new ?? :rolleyes:) and coming there to confront some strange happenings in the mansion .
As the movie progresses rotten face realizes that the soul haunting the mansion is that of a beautiful girl who has undergone some terrible misfortunes 80 years ago , and she looks up to him to be her saviour---go back 80 years in time to prevent those from misfortunes from ever happening.....to turn the clock back ,almost literally . The terrible misfortunes consists of being held in sexual bondage by the spirit of a vile man who takes advantage of her innocence to commit rape upon her again and again.....the director does not shy from showing graphic scenes of rape committed on the young girl by the evil sexual predator repeatedly.....
But will rotten face want to return back to the present time after completing his task , especially after being introduced to such a beautiful girl ......??
Interested ??
Well ,the movie does get interesting , especially in the second half , as it shrugs off the lethargy of the first half .
The special effects and shocks and jolts are what keep the movie alive . Trouble is , at least in the first half you feel that the director has paid more attention to the 3D effects rather than the story .
But the deadly spirits that suddenly appear to almost hit you on the face due to the 3D effects do keep the action alive .
There was a lot of laughing and sniggering going on among the audience , especially in the first half , but the girls were doing it more to hide their nail-biting nervousness---a nervousness increased wherever the graphic scenes of rape by the evil spirit on the young girl were shown .
But watching this movie on TV or computer is no good--it can be enjoyed only in theater......
And in the theater it is good enough to give you a few scares......
P.S--
To tell a funny incident , the chief evil spirit is that of a man known as Aiyyar .When rotten face is told that taking the name of the spirit increases its power , he deliberately decides to invoke and challenge it by calling ' Aiyyar ' . But it does not appear , and he begins to repeat the name again and again. It still doesn't appear , and the audience began to laugh and snigger and began to chant ' Aiyyar , Aiyyar ' ......And this was supposed to be a serious scene !! I wish the director had avoided such inanity .
Photo of 'Rotten face' from the film :D ---
http://123tamilforum.com/imgcache2/2011/05/imagesphpi9772_11-1.png
Mere brother ki dulhan ( My brother's bride )
http://www.join4film.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Mere-Brother-Ki-Dulhan-2011.jpg
When George Bernard Shaw was angrily asked by a playwright as to why he had slept throughout his play when he had invited Shaw to tell his opinion about it , Shaw replied , '' My dear fellow , sleep is an opinion '' :bored:
My opinion about this film is a little different.....
It is--I should have gone to sleep.....
In short--Why did I take that mugfull of piping hot coffee that I drank before the start of the movie..... :mad:
That cuppa coffee that kept me awake to endure 2 and a half hours of audiovisual torture that they called a film :eek:
So what about the film.....??
As the title says ,its a usual Bollywood film about marriage , marriage procession , love , romance and the rest......
Year after year , they make the same kind of films.....
And women still flock to the theaters to see mushy romance.....
......bringing with them their longsuffering menfolk......
Yours truly being one of them......:o
Difference is--the quality has gone down since earlier times.....
And the chemistry between Imran Khan and Katrina does not even begin to match the one between earlier heroes and heroines.....
Yeah--Katrina is the brother's bride....
Now why does the brother send the hero to India to select a girl for him ??
Obviously , younger brother ( Imraan ) selects a girl of his liking , and she being of his liking , ends up falling in love with her.....
Katrina is the bold one , giving Imraan sleeping pills and kidnapping a reluctant and sleepy Imraan in order to elope with her.....
Like the film , this idea too fails....
Imraan is the smarter one , he invents a plot to make his brother fall out of love of his bride....
So whats the plot ??
Go and watch the movie for that.....
On the other hand , no harm in telling it--who's gonna watch the movie after this review ?? :D
So Imraan brings out his brother's ex-girlfriend from London , who arrives at the marriage venue to create problems....
......And then the brother is the one who elopes with her.....
Leaving the door clear for the consummation of Imraan-Katrina's third-rate romance....
....Also mercifully leaving the door clear for our exit from the theater.....
Back to home sweet home and beauty sleep.....
Oh no !! The coffee's gonna keep me awake until I complete this review !!:eek:
Now dont say you went to sleep while reading this review for the writing of which I sat in front of the desktop burning the midnight oil....
After all ,sleep is an opinion , according to George Bernard Shaw.....
christine
01-07-15, 02:52 PM
Great reviews Ashdoc. I said on another thread how much I always enjoy reading yiur reviews, it's like you're sitting right next to me having a laugh :D
Keep up the great work, I don't always remember to thank you enough :)
Great reviews Ashdoc. I said on another thread how much I always enjoy reading yiur reviews, it's like you're sitting right next to me having a laugh :D
Keep up the great work, I don't always remember to thank you enough :)
Thank you Christine :)
Yeh Dooriyan ( These separations )
http://www.impawards.com/intl/india/2011/posters/yeh_dooriyan_xlg.jpg
And you thought a 40 year old divorced woman with two kids in India leads a shiitty abandoned life ??
Welcome to the new India.....
This 40 year old smashing divorcee with two kids ( Deepshikha )wears miniskirts and even more exposing clothes , has parties with friends where she has male admirers who wish they hadn't been married so they could flirt with her , makes women younger than her jealous of her beauty and charm , keeps herself fit by running a dance school where sexy babes and goodlooking hunks vie for her attention , and goes to exotic vacations with her friends.....
......And while doing all this , does the job of being a good mother to her two kids.....
.......All of which calls for the attention of a goodlooking younger man who falls for her hook ,line and sinker......
And then life turns into a bed of roses , with candle-lit dinners , champagne on the beach and those midnight sessions on the double bed the kind of which leave lovebites on the body and an exhausted feeling of physical happiness in the mind....
And the young man then charms his way into the hearts of the children who yearn for his company , all under the encouraging eyes of liberal , indeed liberated grandparents who dont mind their daughter getting her second chance of love in her life......
To complete the circle of happiness , all this has the approval of her friends , including even the men who had dreamt of being unmarried so that they could one day flirt with her , but now are happy just seeing her joy.....
It all seems a dream......
Well actually , it just is that--its just a dream......:(
For then enters the dragon......
Actually the dragon enters in the form of the mother of the young man who scowls at the relationship and dins into his head the fact that this backward society of India is never going to accept a younger bachelor's marriage with an older woman with kids.....
And she puts her foot down and demands that he call the whole thing off.....
But not so easy !! He's a young man in love.....
On the other hand , there's also the ex-husband ; the real father of the kids , who is sorry over his earlier behaviour which led to the divorce and wants his wife back......
So what path does our lady choose ?? --The husband or the lover ??
Go and watch the movie for that......
Actually , dont watch--for the ending is disappointing , and disappointing ends make disappointing movies.....
And movies which dont disappoint are a rarity to find......
Just as rare as husbands who really accept their past mistakes , and as rare as boyfriends who have the guts to go against the society.....
In fact , such husbands , such boyfriends , and maybe even such movies dont exist.....
What exist are dreams , but dreams dont ever turn into reality.....
So , dont go to this movie and disappoint yourself.....:(
Note---
The film is based on leading actress cum director Deepshikha's personal real life experiences . She wanted to marry a younger man after her divorce with her husband but the younger man's mother prevented the marriage .
Now she has gone ahead and married the actor who played the role of the younger man in the film---another younger man . A cougar , isn't she ?;)
Vicky donor
http://vpdot.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/vickydonor.jpg
http://www.media.glamsham.com/download/wallpaper/movies/images/v/vicky-donor-wallpaper-07-12x9.jpg
Let me say that this is the first movie I am reviewing on public demand . Too many people were demanding that I review this film and hence I went and saw the film .
Problem is that whenever too many people say that a particular film is good it builds up a lot of expectations in the mind......and the problem is that when you go with too many expectations in mind the experience is distinctly underwhelming.....
The film rarely matches upto the expectations and you feel it has been overhyped......
Mostly it is better to see a film without expectations , good or bad , and let the goodness or badness of the film sink in your mind.....
What compounded the increase in my expectations are the box office reports of the film---and this film is doing really well at the box office.
One thing about the film---it carries punjabification of hindi films to its furthest and many of the dialogues in the first half are partly in the punjabi language.....at least until the arrival of the heroine with her queen's accented english and polished manners .
So the hero ( played by Ayushmann Khurrana ) is a typical punjabi from Delhi with typical punjabi manners and punjabi mom and grandmom---all largehearted folks leading life merrily , drinking ( even the mom and grandmom ) and not letting the death of the hero's father affect their fun , their little joys and their life .
In barges Dr Chaddha ( Annu Kapoor ) who for no reason at all , feels that Vicky ( Ayushmann ) would make a good sperm donor for women with husbands who have some....err....problem , and need the sperm of another man to conceive. The reason why Vicky is chosen is frankly unconvincing and we will have to leave to cinematic liberty to understand as to why only Vicky fits the bill when too many other men can do this job .
But Dr Chaddha wants only Vicky and only him . And this opens the floodgates of money for Vicky as money pours in from Chaddha .
But what about his personal life ?? He falls for a babe ( Yami Gautam ) who is as different from him as cheese from chalk---while he and his family are roughhewn earthy punjabis , she is classy and beautiful and cultured and a real lady . You have to give credit to the director that he manages to make two different people from different backgrounds look like a real couple---you soon begin to feel its a match made in heaven.....until Yami finds out that she cannot ever become a mother......
Amazingly , she and her family do not know Vicky's real profession and marry him thinking he's a businessman. Only now does the secret tumble out.....
Now will Yami accept this fact about her husband's life ??
Will she come to terms with the fact that her husband literally shags for a living ( using her words ) ??
Go and find out in the theater or on DVD for that.....
The film is enjoyable only if we accept that the director has to be given a lot of cinematic liberty . For example , in real life a sperm donor is not allowed to meet the children he fathered , but in the film a full scale party is arranged where all his fathered children come with their parents and he is allowed to mingle with them !!!
However one must admit that the director has handled the whole topic of sperm donation sensitively and one must give full marks to him for that . Acting by everyone is top class , including Vicky's mother and grandmother who inject real humour in their roles .
Why the film is doing well at the box office is easy to understand . People nowadays like feelgood subjects and this is one of them .
I for one found it to be only a decent film , not fantastic . However this is my personal opinion and people are welcome to differ---there is something in the film because of which I feel others might like it more than I did .
Verdict---decent .
Humpty Sharma kee dulhaniya ( Bride of Humpty Sharma )---2014 release
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Humpty_Sharma_Ki_Dulhania_Poster.jpg
This is one film with a massive DDLJ ( iconic Bollywood movie called 'Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge'---meaning ' the one who has the heart will take away the bride' . Released in 1996 ) hangover . And it has no qualms about admitting that fact openly , but does not have the budget/money to reproduce ithe magic of DDLJ . While DDLJ showed us Switzerland , this film shuttles between Delhi and Ambala in India .
However it would have been all right even if the director didn't have money to match DDLJ's resources . What hurts your pocket ( since your money is wasted ) is the fact that the director does not have the directorial ability ( to say it in gentle words ) or more correctly the brains to recreate the magic .
Worse , he does not have even the ambition to match upto DDLJ . While seeing DDLJ was like flying by first class to Switzerland by Swissair , then this film is like taking the third class seat in a train from Ambala to Delhi by Indian railways .
Of course , times have moved ahead since DDLJ . The heroine's older sister has already openly defied her father and married a guy she wanted . But the failure of her marriage puts her father ( Ashutosh Rana ) in Amrish Puri ( villain of DDLJ ) mode---become dead set against love marriages .
So second daughter ( Alia Bhatt ) is going to be forced to marry to a person of her father's choice , and the only choice she is allowed to exercise is that of the clothes for her wedding . But for these Punjabis and Sindhis ( both communities crazed for hypershowmanship---that's why they dominate the film industry which gives us the entertainment , so I should not be really complaining ) a matter of a simple dress is a big issue , and daughter insists on going from Ambala to....Delhi , where else....for getting a designer dress worth half a million rupees ( Indian currency ) .
.....And our journey by third class seat on Indian railways ( oh , I mean the movie ) also starts....
Alia has no money to buy the dress , but does a beautiful girl need money for that ?? An admirer has to crop up obviously , and he is ready to pull off all tricks in the book to get her the dress and use that as an excuse to win her heart....
But what about the fact that Varun Dhawan ( the not-so-secret admirer ) lives in India , and Alia's fiance is from America ?? So we not only have a third grade version of DDLJ , we have DDLJ in reverse !! DDLJ extols the benefits of marrying USA based boys in comparison with India based ones , but now we have a film extolling India based boys in comparison with USA based ones . If the film was any good or even okay then I would have been more than happy since I am India based . But it wasn't to be....
Anyway times have moved ahead and what Shah Rukh and Kajol didn't do in DDLJ is what the lovers do in this film---they have sex and Alia loses her virginity . And off goes Alia to offer herself second hand to her fiance ; maybe it is poetic justice since most of these USA based Indians are second hand themselves anyway , having had multiple relationships in a free society .
But Alia has lost her heart in Delhi !! And the one she has lost her heart to ( Varun ) is not going to give it back . In fact he is now Ambala bound ( the viewer's third class journey continues ) to confront her father....
So what happens next ?? Does father Ashutosh Rana finally agree to the match between Alia and Varun ?? Watch the movie for that....
In one respect the film remains true to the original theme of DDLJ---that of harking to ancient Indian tradition that says that marriages must not take place without approval of parents and society , and that the girl's father ( not mother mind you , she is just an female in a patriarchal society ) is and must be the final arbiter of the girl's destiny . Varun himself is a great believer in all this and he refuses to marry Alia until her father will approve . And he stays in Ambala in order to win the father's approval by socializing with him , just like the hero of DDLJ did with the father of the heroine in the original film . I am not a social reformer , but it does not take a social reformer to realize how unjust this is . Younger generation has different expectations that the elders simply cannot understand , and yet they must abide by the elders !! Why ?? And above all , why is this rule applied far more strictly to women ?? Isn't it against human rights to take away the right of an individual to marry as per her wishes ??
Of course , harking to ancient Indian tradition is what brings in the audience steeped in old customs to the theaters . But the director makes the stupendous mistake of applying this backward rule to a modern female ( Alia ) who sashays in discotheques and has slept with her boyfriend---how unreal can a film be ??
And the air of unreality continues in the film . All the time when her marriage preparations are going on and even when her fiance arrives from America , Alia continues to meet Varun and coochie coo with him and kiss him ; does her father and her fiance notice this ?? No....how come , since this is going on practically in front of their eyes ?? Both of them must be blind , what else....
.....Or the better explanation is that the film is a waste of time....
Actually I had a somewhat better option to watch---'Pizza 3D' movie . But I had never been able to review the original DDLJ---the iconic romance . Was too young at that time . With this film I had gone to relieve those memories---of watching DDLJ . And then reviewing a film which reminded me of it . But what I got was this....
Alia , Varun and even her fiance all look good . Varun's freinds ( who share in his adventures ) are funny . Music is good too , especially if you like it Punjabi style . All this does not save the film....
Of course , I may be too harsh on the film . The film is supposed to be a light hearted take on DDLJ , and the atmosphere is frivolous . Not meant to be taken seriously , unlike DDLJ which took itself seriously inspite of it's funny moments .
Verdict---not good .
Azaan ( Muslim call for prayer is known as 'Azaan' )
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AZAAAAAAN.....at least to a politically incorrect person like me this muslim call for prayer to the devout sounds like a terrible call for jehad that reverberates across the ages......
Images of gun-toting men attacking my hometown Bombay or planting bombs elsewhere and masked terrorists creating mayhem in kashmir or chechenya flash through my mind......
That's what I went to the movie for---to see the heady cocktail of islam , Kalashnikovs , violence and terrorism.....
But lo.....Azaan Khan is actually the name of an Indian spy , a 'muslim patriot'.....:eek:
And what is the task set before this 'muslim patriot' ??
It is to save the country from biological warfare--a deadly strain of the ebola virus that China has spread across the country to kill people in millions.....
And to do that he has to go get a girl in Morrocco whose blood has been inoculated by Dr Maifooz ( another 'muslim patriot' ) against the virus before he was killed by the anti-national forces . Replicating her antibodies in laboratories will give India the cure to the Ebola infection .
But to get to her and save his country Mr Azaan Khan will have to fight against the agents of those who want to destroy India--dangerous mean people who have high tech weapons , and whom Azaan has to counter with brains and brawn.....
.....And counter them he does.....
In the bhojpuri accented english of his RAW handler (actor Ravi Kissan )--He faaught like a lian against aaal aaads ( he fought like lion against all odds ):D
But while countering them he has to fight against turncoats from his own indian spy agency who are working for the enemy , and against his own younger brother Aman Khan the muslim traitor.....
But one word about this mega muslim patriot......why was such a wooden , expressionless actor chosen for this lead role ?? For he is an actor who is not able to show any emotion even when his lover ( some european actress ) dies in his arms , ending a brief and tragic romance.....
What hold does he have in the film industry that he was chosen inspite of his obvious incapacity to act ??
The fight sequences are the only somewhat interesting part of the film , but even they are made uninteresting by the hero's ( Sachin Joshi ) expressionless acting......
In the end the hero saves the country at the cost of his life.....and I really wish he's dead so that I dont have to see him in more films in the future....;)
As far as YOU are concerned......you dont have to see him in this film too....
......For I am not recommending it to you.....
Verdict--not good.....
Force
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Here's an action film that takes itself seriously---at last.....
The fights ,the punches , the shootings , the broken bones---all seem real.....
Unlike other Bollywood movies , where there is no seriousness to the fighting and the film seems to be mocking itself and also the audience , this film is a no holds barred blood and revenge story.
And the action happens at an electric , breathless pace....
But when the action is not happening , there are moments of romance too.....
.....And those are provided by Genelia D'souza , who plays a bold and mod ' forward ' city girl , but without any vulgarity ; instead displays a joie de vivre and charm that instantly makes her performance endearing.....
The action is provided by the confrontation between two handsome bodybuilders---John Abraham and Vidyut Jammwal ; John is the cop from NCP ( no , not Nationalist Congress party , but Narcotics control police ) , and Vidyut is the drug smuggler . Both have their motives for revenge on each other , but only one is bound to survive....those are the rules of the game......
While John is bound by his duty and his passion for his job , Vidyut is bound by his need and greed to control the narcotics business alone--and neither is willing to back down......
....Which leads to some real shootings , killings , murders and even rape.....
John Abraham fully justifies the title of 'action Abraham' that Bollywood has bestowed on him , by throwing some hard punches and real kicks at his opponents using the rippling muscles of his awesome body . Vidyut Jammval on the other hand is the martial arts king of Bollywood---the new kid on the block who can match every blow of John .
But Vidyut crosses all limits , breaking the old unwritten laws by which policemen and criminals don't target each others families , and both begin to lose their close relations and friends to the mayhem.....even women are dragged in to the mess , for the drug mafia is utterly unprincipled and makes it an utterly ruthless confrontation....
.....Thus it is a fight to the finish......
The photography is excellent and the songs are hummable , and John is looking all brawn and muscle .
However ,unlike other Bollywood movies , it does not look like a film made for the masses ; John looks too westernized , and so does Genelia , and so does the pace , rhythm and look of the film....
But the classes wont mind it at all.....
Verdict---Good .
Baby
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It's a gripping and tense and taut thriller that gets tauter and tauter as it gets going....
And it keeps you on the edge of the seat at the climax approaches....
It shows hard muscled men delivering crunching blows and battle trained women matching them punch for punch....
And it shows men who deserve to die being killed without any ado....
No long dialogues and spoken or said....But instead , dedicated men and women are ready to lay their lives in the line of duty without any theatrics....
It's not a film for the softies and the liberals....for the neighboring country is openly shown harboring those who wish ill for our nation....
And it's not a film for the pseudosecularists either....
.....For it's a film on terrorism....
And all the terrorists---they are shown belonging to only one religion....
No filmy explanations are given to prove that the religion to which the terrorists belong does not support terrorism ; but instead , that message is conveyed to us by the quiet dignity with which some right minded people who belong to the same religion as the terrorists do their duty towards the country without question and acquit themselves with honour....
Director Neeraj Pandey comes back after the hard hitting film 'A wednesday' with another film that tackles the theme of terrorism ; and he proves that he is no one film wonder by making a film that sends out the same loud and clear message as the earlier film---that there can be no softness while dealing with terrorists , and no liberalism while dealing with traitors....
And unfortunately , traitors do exist among us....as Ajay Singh Rajput ( played by Akshay Kumar ) finds out....
They are being used as pawns by those sit in our neighboring country hatching plans to kill us , and Ajay learns of terrorist plots being planned during interrogation of one of these traitors ( and Indian who belongs to the same religion as our neighbour ).....
This leads to an ISI agent ( an Indian really , but again---belonging to the same religion as the ISI )....
The scene in which Ajay barges into the house of the ISI agent who lives smack in the middle of a locality of his coreligionists and forces him to confess his crimes ( inspite of his coreligionists raising hell outside ) is dramatic , and sets the tone for the rest of the film .
But the terror masterminds are not quiet either , and bring the plan to free one of their men ( Bilal---played by Kay Kay Menon ) to a successful conclusion....
So the task before Ajay and his team ( a group of dedicated individuals who agree to be disowned by their own country if they are caught ) is to bring Bilal back from foreign shores , so that further attacks are stopped....
But will the attacks stop ?---especially if the terror mastermind is still openly giving hate filled speeches in our neighboring country calling for holy war....
When will the mastermind be caught ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
The action moves from Mumbai to Nepal to Saudi Arabia , and the lens of the photographer gives a rare beauty to both Nepal and Saudi Arabia---the cinematographer has obviously not shown the grimmer aspects of the two societies , like poverty and unrest in Nepal and the harsh religious laws and trampling of women's rights in Saudi Arabia....instead , we are shown shots of Nepal's beautiful tourist places and the superb roads and bridges and desert resorts of Saudi Arabia....
There are no songs in the movie , and no songs means no romance---I told you this film is not for the softies ,and it's not for the romantics either....
Post interval the second half is truly gripping ; it is a no frills thriller which concentrates on one subject only---that of terrorism.....
Akshay Kumar has realized his own limitations as an actor , and tried to act within those limitations ; and his effort has paid off....
However the film becomes too high tech as it moves towards the climax , and it's use of technology may prove too much for the illiterate masses.....
But the classes will appreciate it's use of technology....
The main sticking point is the massive use of cinematic liberty to overcome many hurdles in the film , and this overuse of cinematic liberty did rankle me....
But the overuse of cinematic liberty did not come in the way of the entertainment which the film offers us , but rather I daresay that it helped the film to entertain us....
And entertain us it did....
Way to go , Baby !! ( Now that was a silly name for a terror movie )....
Verdict---Baby delivers big time !!
Four star rating .
Baby NDTV review ( This review accuses the movie of pandering to hindu nationalist forces )
SPOILERS ALERT
A central minister's smug personal secretary unthinkingly belittles the sacrifices of India's brave spies.
As his boss looks on, the protagonist, an undercover agent who revels in playing with danger, gets up from his seat, walks up to the door, shuts it, walks back to the impertinent official and slaps him.
The act sums up this film's firm belief that the 'heroism' of the violent 'patriot' is not to be trifled with.
But there is no way of telling if this scene is meant to be merely funny, or does it have the greater purpose of eliciting applause for the cool insouciance of the no-nonsense hero?
Baby, written and directed by Neeraj Pandey, is a tricky film in more ways than one.
It might have been hailed as just another innocuous, smartly-packaged, competently shot espionage thriller if only the politics at its heart not been so dangerously dodgy.
Early in the film, the unstoppable spy hisses: "I can do anything." A little later, the terror mastermind he is up against declares: "India cannot do anything".
So, in this all-out everything-or-nothing battle, the onus falls squarely on the invincible hero to prove the enemies of the nation wrong.
In the bargain, the courageous man of action, under official but covert orders, scythes down everything and everyone that comes in his way.
The point that Baby seems to make is that it isn't just trained killing machines, but also the nation as a whole, that can, and should, do 'anything', collateral damage be damned.
The hero barges into minority localities, uses extra-legal methods to extract confessions and leads from suspects, and eliminates anybody who is remotely troublesome.
Baby unabashedly reinforces the mainstream media's worst stereotypes and constantly plays on the collective fears of a populace that is only too willing to find and hang scapegoats for the troubles of our contentious times.
What makes Baby doubly problematic is that it presents the story as a reflection of reality, and not just as a piece of fiction.
There are umpteen references to 26/11, the killing of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, and to other actual figures and incidents that have made the headlines in recent times.
When the film opens, a crack team of 12 secret agents is down to just four, and Operation Baby - the name stems from the fact that the counter-terrorism mission is meant to run for only five years - is now on its last legs.
Maulana Mohammed Rehman (Rasheed Naz), modelled on the real-life Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, is planning a big terror strike in India.
Ajay Singh Rajput (Akshay Kumar), right hand man of counter-terrorism strategist Feroz Ali Khan (Danny Denzongpa), traverses the globe to thwart the conspiracy.
In the bargain, he has to contend with enemies without and rivals within the ranks.
Baby has actors of the calibre of Kay Kay Menon, Anupam Kher, Danny Denzongpa and Sushant Singh in the cast. Thrown together into a tedious storyline, they can do little to make it work.
Baby is a dreary drama that meanders from one action sequence to another without making the audience any wiser.
The only scene that is mildly surprising involves a female agent (Taapsee Pannu) giving a terror suspect a taste of her fighting prowess.
It becomes amply clear where Baby is headed when, right at the outset, Indian spy Rakesh is mercilessly pummeled in Istanbul by rogue agent Jamal and his accomplices.
But even as our man Ajay sends the Taufiqs, Bilals and Javeds of the world scurrying for cover, there is that token patriotic Indian Muslim hovering in the background - the hero's unwavering superior who calls the shots from Delhi.
And there is, for good measure, a contrite Muslim, too. A young engineer, after a stint in a terrorist training camp, has a change of heart and decides to help the cause of the undercover agents.
Baby also has one blazing confrontation scene that might particularly thrill the new saffron-tinged censor board.
A terrorist tells the hero that in the religion column of government forms he writes MUSLIM in bold and capital letters.
The agent responds with a story about how he fought for 24 hours to save a Muslim family during the Gujarat riots.
He then goes on to stress that on government forms he writes INDIAN, in bold and capital letters.
One can only cringe. Baby is a superficial cinematic condensation of the shrill television images, newspaper headlines and communally-charged political posturing that we are subjected to day in and day out. Who needs more?
Verdict---two stars .
Kahani ( Story )
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Calcutta---the city of joy.....made famous , despised and controversially celebrated by novelist Dominique Lapierre in the 20th century....
....And in the 21st century , Kolkata as it has been renamed now has been celebrated again , probably less controversially by this classic film.....
....Because as the film moves , we see more and more vignettes of the city---a city rich in colour and made resplendent by festival.....
But for a heavily pregnant Vidya Balan , its not a city of joy ; but in fact , its a joyless city.....
For she has arrived from London in search of a missing husband , and has to waddle around in this heavily pregnant state from place to place to see if he is alive.....
It is not difficult to sympathize with this helpless woman who has neither relative nor friend in the city to help her.....
It is precisely this sympathy that is aroused in a young police officer as he decides to help her in her mission......
Its another matter that in typical filmy fashion , it later turns into onesided love....but that happens in all films anyway......
But what about the missing husband ?? Its a name the Intelligence department wants to erase from memory as it may bring something else to light.....
And Vidya is asked to forget all about it and pack her bags and go home.....
But some more dangerous people want her to forget it too , and Vidya's life is in deadly danger.....
But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned !!---all this only pushes the intrepid Vidya to further explore the mystery......all with the help of the lovelorn police officer who finds time from his work to be with her in all times and situations....:D
And a deadly game of cat and mouse begins.....
....And it continues in the alleys and bylanes of Calcutta , each step making the whole thing more complicated and enigmatic instead of unravelling the mystery while all the time giving us glimpses of the city's life and its zest....
Thats the hallmark of a true suspense movie anyway---its ability to keep the viewers engaged till the end....
Happily , the movie does that in bountiful amounts , helped on by a powerpacked performance by Vidya Balan who oozes charm and fizz in every situation....
And the ending is a triumph in itself , for it ends the movie in a bigger bang than one thought---a high note of the bang of justice delivered....
As the audience walks out of the theater , instead of the usual sniggers and laughter , there is hushed silence---a tribute to the impact of the film ??
Verdict---powerfully super:yup:
christine
01-26-15, 02:59 PM
Kahaani sounds like a decent film Ashdoc. I'l have a look for that one
Re:Humpty Sharma kee dulhaniya
...But what about the fact that Varun Dhawan ( the not-so-secret admirer ) lives in India , and Alia's fiance is from America ?? So we not only have a third grade version of DDLJ , we have DDLJ in reverse !! DDLJ extols the benefits of marrying USA based boys in comparison with India based ones , but now we have a film extolling India based boys in comparison with USA based ones . If the film was any good or even okay then I would have been more than happy since I am India based . But it wasn't to be....
Anyway times have moved ahead and what Shah Rukh and Kajol didn't do in DDLJ is what the lovers do in this film---they have sex and Alia loses her virginity . And off goes Alia to offer herself second hand to her fiance ; maybe it is poetic justice since most of these USA based Indians are second hand themselves anyway , having had multiple relationships in a free society .
What about the fact that Varun is now at least second hand or maybe even third or junk bond status...or doesn't that count as he's a bloke??
What about the fact that Varun is now at least second hand or maybe even third or junk bond status...or doesn't that count as he's a bloke??
i DO believe in male female equality , christine....
just was trying to make the review more interesting :D
anyway , i did make the comment about USA based males also being second hand , and that being poetic justice .
christine
01-26-15, 04:02 PM
Ok I'll let you off then ;)
Lokmanya ( The acknowleged )
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This film deals with the life and times of Bal Gangadhar Tilak , one of the luminaries of the Indian independence struggle against the British . But it begins in the modern era .
A young man ( played by Chinmay Mandlekar ) who is a journalist by profession , stumbles upon a book on Tilak . He gets so mesmerized by the personality of the great man that he forgets everything else and begins to research Tilak's life . As he does so , he gets so inspired by the leader that his whole personality undergoes a change . His fiancee ( played by Priya Bapat ) initially gets stupefied by his change , but gradually learns to adjust to it . The movie unfolds before us in scenes of Tilak's life as this young man digs deeper and deeper into his era and learns of new incidents .
The personality of Tilak that emerges out of the movie is that of a strident nationalist , proud of his hindu roots and doubly proud of the ancient traditions of the land he was born in . A dreamer of a unified and free India , and having the chutzpah to actively work and struggle for those dreams . A man with ambitions as tall as the himalayas and courage to fuel real fire in those ambitions .
To realize these ambitions Tilak starts two newspapers spreading his message---'Kesari' and 'Maratha' . He asks Indians to boycott British made goods and use only Indian made goods . The idea of starting to celebrate the festival of Hindu God Ganesha openly on streets is his , but the platform of using the religious festival to give fiery speeches exhorting his countrymen to resist British rule is nothing short of inspirational .
But he calls the nation 'Hindustan' ( land of the hindus ) rather than 'Bharat' or 'India' , thus showing his tilt towards hindu nationalism . And he opposes social reform on the basis that the British do not have the right to interfere in Hindu traditions . This gives rise to severe differences with his lifelong friend Gopal Ganesh Agarkar , who believes that social reform must precede the march towards independence . While Agarkar wants to end oppression of women by changing the laws , Tilak opposes this by saying that trying to change laws means going to the British rulers for asking for that change , thus legitimizing their rule .
And Tilak not only opposes foreign rule , but is ever ready to use strong arm tactics to revolt against it . The crisis comes when plague strikes the country , and the British appoint a brutal officer called Rand to try to suppress it . Tilak is outraged by the manner in which Indians and particularly women are dragged by British officers out of their houses in an effort to quarantine their houses . And he is hell bent on using violence to avenge this dishonour....
So what is the violence that Tilak resorts to ?? What is the British government's response to it ??
Watch the movie for that....
Actor Subodh Bhave puts real meat in the role of Tilak , roaring like a lion in his speeches and silencing everyone around him with the firmness of his stance and power of his personality . Subodh makes Tilak look every inch a leader , born to lead the masses around him . Not surprisingly , Tilak is titled 'Lokmanya'---meaning 'acknowleged by the people' .
But due to the limited budget , the movie fails to show Tilak on the grand stage---as a pan Indian leader . He is shown mainly in the city of Pune , surrounded by people of his own caste---brahmins . Some scenes of Tilak meeting Swami Vivekananda and Bipin Chandra Pal in Calcutta do not fully bring out his leadership of the Indian independence struggle in the pre Gandhi era .
Inspite of this shortcoming , you do get a real feel of those times ( the movie is set a century ago ) and that era . Acting is good , by everyone . Colours and photography are commendable . No songs are there but music is appropriate for the situation in every scene . Not a bad watch....
Verdict---Very decent effort .
Three stars .
Hate story part 2
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Hate story part 1 had delivered on both storyline , acting and above all on the oomph and sex scenes . The promos of part 2 promised the same . So off I went to the theater licking my lips in anticipation of some mouthwatering skin show and explicit sex scenes between the hero and heroine .
But as the movie started what do I get ?? The leading actress Surveen Chawla is being hunted like an animal by villain Sushant Singh's men , and she has to run from place to place hiding her face which is looking less and less attractive as events move forward....
.....And Sushant Singh and his men indulge in violence that made me cringe , primarily because I had not come with the expectation of that . The story moves forward like a thriller , and a not particularly good one at that .
When the sex scenes come , they come in the midst of violence on one hand and the expectation of future violence on the other hand---and because of this , they do not give us the hots ; who in the audience is going to get some sexciting feeling when one knows that the ones doing the sex are going to get beaten up within minutes and most probably killed in the worst way possible.....?? Not me at least .
The heroine is not particularly good looking , while her acting is only so so . It is left to porn actress Sunny Leone to give us what we want ( at least what I want , and you all know that , don't you ) in some measure , and she does succeed upto some extent in an item song which left me asking for more of her....
The male actors are better than the heroine .
Jay Bhanushali playing the heroine's romantic interest looks good with his half shaven face and acts decent too , but his role is too short as he is killed too early in the movie . Later he is needlessly brought in for some scenes , but they seem to have been inserted to give him some scope for acting--so short is his role .
The villain Sushant Singh looks like he has carried on from his acting in Ram Gopal Verma flicks like 'Rakhtacharitra' ( saga of bloodshed ) . His menace and capacity for violence looks all too real . Above all his ruthless lack of empathy for other people's feelings and crazed obsession to get what he wants all cost---all this was well acted out .
Siddharth Kher as police inspector acted well too , and didn't look too bad sporting a goatee .
One woman I forgot to mention was the actress who played Sushant Singh's wife . She looks lovely in sarees and especially the sleeveless ones---to the point that I began to wonder why the director has to show Sushant lusting for the heroine when he has such a lovely wife . Must be really crazy---I mean Sushant .
Which brings us to Sushant's crazed lust for Surveen Chawla ( the heroine ) . He is a politician of the fundamentalist mould , complete with photos or statues of fundamentalists hanging in the background . He hasn't probably heard of stuff like ' If you love somebody then set her free , if she comes to you then she was yours or else she wasn't yours to begin with.....blah blah blah '. What he wants he must have , and he holds Surveen as a sex slave .
When Surveen tries to break free by falling in love with Jay , he kills Jay and tries to kill Surveen . Now that was the corniest part of the film . On both occasions when he has the chance to kill Surveen he leaves her only half dead , and in typically filmy fashion she manages to rise as a phoenix from the ashes---otherwise how will the film move forward anyway....??
And when Surveen does manage to rise back like a phoenix---hell hath no fury like a woman scorned....She takes terrible revenge by killing Sushant's men one by one . But the manner in which they are killed is competes with the manner in which Surveen was left needlessly half alive for being corny . None of Sushant's men are killed in a convincing manner . That is the weakest point of the film .
So who wins in the battle between good and evil ?? Not worth watching....
Verdict---Not good .
Rakhtacharitra part 2 ( Rivers of blood part 2 )
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How do you feel if a host invites you again after giving you a sumptuous meal ?.......and lo !! , surprises you with a feast that is more lavish than the first....:)
Well ,thats how you feel after watching Rakhtacharitra part 2.....
Except ,the word feast should be replaced by Ram Gopal Verma's hallmark , violence and gore.....and more violence and gore.
One would have thought that the first edition of the movie could not be surpassed in bloodletting , but in the second edition our host serves it in dollops.
But the dollops are more digestible in the second part than the first ,for unlike the first part , where the villain Nagamani Reddy indulges in pointless barbarism , this time the violence has a meaning , a purpose.
The purpose is revenge , what else.......a purpose that is as old as the hills that stand in the countryside......and as an arbiter of violence , will probably outlive them......in fact ,will last as long as humanity does , which I hope will be a pretty long time ( unless we all go down in nuclear armaggeddon ).
And who wants revenge ??.....The son of the man ( Veerbhadra Reddy whom )the hero ( Pratap Ravi played by Vivek Oberoi ) had killed in the last film......
His name is Surya ,and he is after Pratap's blood......
By this time Pratap , the rebel-with-a-cause in the last film has turned into a semi-villain , as the arrogance of power and the need to hang on to that power makes him sanction the murder of innocents .
Many of the shots are taken in slow-motion , and help to accentuate the violence.......especially the expressions on the actors faces in slow motion as they indulge in bloodlust leave a lasting impression .
Ram Gopal verma tries to convey the same message as that of ancient epics , namely that war is futile , and if seeing scene after scene of murder and a pile of dead bodies doesn't convince you of that message , nothing else will !!
Verdict---decent .
Bhoomika ( The role---1977 )
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This movie is based on the autobiography of Hansa Wadkar , an actress who ruled cinema in the 1940s . Her autobiography ( titled ' Listen while I am telling ' ) , when it was released , caused a sensation due to the graphic revelations of her bedroom dalliances with various men---something that no actress would have dared to do in those backward times when Indian women feared being branded as sluts and shunned by society if they revealed their sexual encounters . It is said that Hansa Wadkar was heavily addicted to drink and needed money to buy her alcohol as she was in poor financial shape at the end of her days---hence she wrote her biography , hoping the sensational revelations would sell her book in large numbers and get her money for alcohol . The book sold well , but she died in poverty anyway .
She was born in a family of dancing girls . Though not prostitutes , these girls were not considered fully respectable as they danced in provocative attire and with suggestive movements in front of men . And for that very reason , she was considered perfect material for the film industry . For films required women who danced and frolicked in a similar manner , and women of respectable families did not have the guts to expose their bodies during those backward times .
In the film Hansa is named Usha Dalvi . Her husband ( Keshav Dalvi ) is the one who discovers her , as he realises that she has fine acting talent as well as dancing skills . Her mother opposes her entry in the film industry because she has a premonition that the wicked ways of this industry will spoil her , but her grandmother is all for it . She soon turns into a overnight success , and fame and fortune is bestowed on her . Keshav secretly lusts for her , but it is she who takes the lead in taking him to bed ; and she is soon pregnant though unwed .
Keshav and she get married before her daughter is born , and Usha now wants to leave films and only take care of Keshav's household and live as a housewife . But Keshav is now addicted to the money he is getting as Usha's business manager , and forces her to act again . He begins to live off her money , and his greedy selfish nature now comes out .
Her disgust at Keshav's behaviour forces Usha into the arms of a long time admirer ( played by Anant Nag ) , invoking Keshav's jealousy . He physically beats her for infidelity , leading her away from him into the bed of another admirer ( played by Naseeruddin Shah ) . But both her admirers are men of straw and ditch her when it comes to commitment .
Finally she finds a real man in a rich landlord ( played by Amrish Puri ) who treats her well as his second wife , and she manages to win even the heart of his family to the extent that they become emotionally dependent on her . But he is too orthodox and restricts her freedom in every way possible . She wants to break free from this bondage , but receives sound advice from his sick bedridden first wife---'' If you break even this relationship , you have no future . Men will come and go , and the beds that they will enjoy you on will keep on changing . But no one else other than my husband will form a lasting relationship with you . Accept your fate adjust to this relationship permanently . '' But Usha has lived a glamourous life---been the heart and soul of filmy parties and been a free bird . Can she accept restrictions on her freedom ?? Watch the movie for the answer .
Actress Smita Patil , who was the doyen of Indian art cinema in the 70s and 80s , has capably brought to life the personality of Hansa Wadkar in this film . It is regarded as one of her best performances . Smita was not beautiful , but what she lacked in beauty she more than made up in acting talent . And 'Bhoomika' is no exception as far as her acting is concerned....
One wonders if the fault for her misfortunes lay in the bold personality of Hansa Wadkar ; whether she was too forward in those backward times.....For later in the film there is a poignant scene in which a much more mature and much chastened Usha is shown explaining to her daughter the need for a woman to not stain her 'character' . But by that time it is too late in her own life....
There are no songs in the film . Master director of art films Shyam Benegal added one more feather to his growing cap with this film . Of course , it can be appreciated only by those with a yen for art films . Commercial cinema aficionados might not appreciate this film .
Verdict---Good .
sumantra roy
02-02-15, 04:24 PM
Wow, this is a mammoth work you seem to be putting up here...GREAT JOB.
I have a request to make though...if you expand your horizons a little and talk about films that are Indian but not in Hindi and not made in Bollywood...I hope you agree that most great Indian films and filmmakers aren't Hindi speaking and don't belong to Bollywood (a fact that many non Indians are not always aware of)...it would be nice if you can include regional films into consideration as well...I know the thread says Bollywood Movie Review...but still :)
Wow, this is a mammoth work you seem to be putting up here...GREAT JOB.
I have a request to make though...if you expand your horizons a little and talk about films that are Indian but not in Hindi and not made in Bollywood...I hope you agree that most great Indian films and filmmakers aren't Hindi speaking and don't belong to Bollywood (a fact that many non Indians are not always aware of)...it would be nice if you can include regional films into consideration as well...I know the thread says Bollywood Movie Review...but still :)
other than hindi films , i can review marathi films---since it is my mother tongue . however i cannot understand other indian languages like tamil , telgu , bengali etc .
here is my thread reviewing english films---
http://www.movieforums.com/community/showthread.php?t=32604
sumantra roy
02-03-15, 02:57 AM
[QUOTE=ashdoc;1250182]other than hindi films , i can review marathi films---since it is my mother tongue . however i cannot understand other indian languages like tamil , telgu , bengali etc .
i also don't know all the regional languages of India...but one can the help of the subtitles...
Rahasya ( Secret )
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This movie is supposed to be based on the real life Aarushi murder case that happened in Delhi , but the director has changed it to a action packed murder mystery that keeps us guessing about the identity of the murderer till the very end .
The setting has been changed too--it's in Mumbai , and some of the characters are marathi who speak hindi in a highly marathi accented style .
So , a young girl whose both parents are doctors is found murdered in her bedroom by her female servant one night . She was a hindu girl in love with a muslim boy , and it seems to be a straight forward case where the father caught her with her lover in her own bedroom and killed her in a drunken fit of anger as he was opposed to the inter religion relationship . The father ( played by Ashish Vidyarthi ) is duly convicted by the court . But he is an influential person whose friends raise hell and the case has to be reopened and given to the CBI .
Enter CBI investigating officer Paraskar ( played by Kay Kay Menon ) . He immediately finds loopholes in the case , and starts reinvestigating it . His first hurdle---the girl's muslim lover has disappeared , and can't be found . Soon Paraskar finds other suspects for the murder , but runs into a bigger hurdle---the suspects are bumped off one by one by somebody , thus deepening the mystery . The personal life of the doctor parents of the murdered girl and their friends is also complicated by a string of infidelities , and nothing is as it seems....
It is Kay Kay Menon who holds the film together with a redoubtable performance , showing alternating shades of both toughness and humour in the same situation by making the audience smile at the same time his opponents are quivering in fear....
The performance of the rest of the cast ranges from vampish (by Meera Vashisht ) to crass ( by the actor who plays the marathi police inspector who originally investigated the case ) to understated ( by the murdered girl's mother played by Tisca Chopra ) .
The action seems real , and the blows showered pack a punch . There are no songs and dances , and no really romantic scenes . In the end Kay Kay Menon assembles all characters ( those who are still alive at least , though many have been already bumped off ) in a room to unravel the mystery , just like Hercule Poirot does in Agatha Christie Novels .
....But the director is no Agatha Christie , and fails to end what could have been a gripping film in a convincing manner . I did not feel that the solution to the mystery was coherently presented , and the climax was most unimpressive . It in fact , unravelled some of the good work that the director had done in the earlier part of the film .
Where the director scores is the distinctly unglamorous look of the film , which will keep the budget of the film low and the profits high even if the film has a modest run at the box office . The sets of the film have a dull colour , and the clothes worn by the cast are not flashy at all .
Verdict on the film---Decent .
Three stars .
Striker ( 2010 )
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Striker is the story of a hindu boy growing in the rough slums of malvani in Bombay under the shadow of the islamic mafia.
Chandrakant ,a good looking young man grows up playing the game of carrom in the clubs of malvani ---a slum area of Bombay ---as Mumbai was known in the 80s........much of the film is in flashback mode.
Of course ,the key to playing carrom is the ability to hit the disks accurately with the STRIKER.........and Chandrakant knows how to do this with deadly effect.
The muslim don who controls malvani , Jaleel bhai ( played by aditya pancholi )wants him to play for his clubs by betting money on him ,but chandrakant initially refuses the temptation.
But he is in bad company of his muslim friend Zahid .......who lures him to the don's clubs.
But Zahid's murder prompts chandu to break free from the don's influence......until the two are destined to confront each other in the hindu muslim riots.....
The life ,and the dangers and pitfalls of growing up in a typical slum area of Bombay are certainly shown well in the film.The atmosphere of the slum is authentically picturised.
Initially Chandrakant has a affair with a muslim girl whom he wants to marry , but her family is so opposed to marriage outside their religion that they shift lock stock and barrel out of the slum to some other city . Chandrakant is left shell shocked . The fear of communal tension is forever there whenever hindus and muslims live cheek by jowl with each other....
A particular controversial scene in the movie is when the hero rapes the female owner of the bar he frequents ,under the heavy influence of drink and in a rare fit of anger ; he does not realize what he has done until he wakes up in the morning . But the raped girl forgives him and asks him to marry her !! She becomes the heroine of the film .
The end is a bit disappointing though ,as it comes too fast.
But Ankur Vikal truely shines in the role of chandu's friend Zahid , which he has played with rare spontaneity .
All in all ,a watchable film.
Knock out ( Inspired by Hollywood movie 'Phonebooth')
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Knock out delivers the knock out punch !!
Director Mani Shankar does it again !!
Mani had given India's first high-tech film in '16 december' a few years ago.
This time he outdoes that effort by delivering a film that keeps you enthralled for 2 and a half hours.
Using high tech gadgetry and techno-wizardry he manages to keep you on the edge of the seat throughout......
Coming back to ' 16 december ' ,what the film lacked was a core ,an emotional content ,which seemed to be missing among all the high-tech action.......which is why the film didnt do so well at the box office.
This time he gives a film packed with sophisticated gadgets ,but one which does not forget to have a emotional content , a heart........something that every film ,especially a film made for the indian audience needs......
To give the story in short.......
Irfan Khan plays Tony Khosla , a union minister's point man who handles all the money matters for him ,including his swiss bank account ,where the minister has stacked his billions.
One day at a telephone booth he gets a call from an unknown assassin ( Sanjay Dutt )that he has a super-accurate gun pointed at him from long distance........and bullets are fired to prove it.
He is asked to confess his own ,and the ministers secrets to the public on the spot........on pain of death ,of being shot at long distance......
But before that he is asked to sing ,and dance in front of the assembled public to raise a few laughs.....
As secrets come tumbling out ,so does the temperature rise ,as also does the entertainment.......
Irfan Khan gives a terrific performance as a crooked guy whose world is turned upside down in a moment.......held hostage by someone whom he cant even see.
The real fun is to watch the movie in the theater ,as it is interesting to watch the audience reaction as each twist unfolds.
People watching the movie on DVD are likely to complain that the movie was not as good as expected.
But dont tell me I didnt warn you.........
Messenger of God ( 2015 )
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The baba ( religious leader ) of the 21st century !!
The baba who wears outlandishly fashionable clothes , sports reflective goggles over his eyes , goes cycling like an olympian followed by a camera on a mini helicopter....
The baba who dances in rhythm with psychedelic music in rock shows amid flashy multicoloured lighting and laser lights....
The baba who organizes rubaru nights where his followers dance the night away to the beats of modern music...
The baba who does not ask women to stay indoors but instead trains them in martial arts to face the dangers of outdoor life....
The baba who wants the law to recognize the rights of eunuchs and call them transgenders....
The baba who goes into brothels to liberate prostitutes and then marries them to young men in order to rehabilitate them....
The baba who sings like a rock star in concerts where his followers wear trendy clothes....
The only thing that was missing in the rock concert was the alcohol and the drugs....
...For the baba is against alcohol and drugs big time and exclusively forbids it.....
And he organizes programmes where his followers renounce these intoxicants totally....
And it is the renouncing of these intoxicants that angers the drug mafia , which decides to kill him....
And the drug mafia hires a foreign killer who attempts to assassinate the baba....
But the baba is a messenger of almighty god !! and he has divine powers that can thwart those attempts....
Sharp weapons turn into rose petals when confronted with the power of this baba , and poisonous gas evaporates away....
But the drug mafia has another ace up it's sleeve---it's a suicide bomber living in the baba's camp trained to explode and finish off the baba...and the identity of this bomber is unknown....
So who is this suicide bomber ?? Is it the stunningly beautiful and tall blue eyed blonde who has come to film the baba's miracles from a foreign land and has become so mesmerized by the baba that she has become not only an indispensable part of his entourage but also is being called by the baba as his daughter....all the while interrupting my precious sleep with dreams of her heart stopping beauty and luscious red lips and the softness of her smooth white skin and slim body....
And can the suicide bomber succeed in her mission ?? More importantly , does the baba care about that ?? Does a baba who claims to be nothing more than a fakir ( religious beggar ) bother about something as fickle as his own life on earth ?? Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie can be enjoyed only if you utterly suspend your sense of belief , for the baba uses his divine powers to to the most impossible things---like flying his motorcycle in the air , using magic to put electric current on doors to prevent goons from breaking them , fighting hundreds of armed men singlehandedly , and knowing the identity of the suicide bomber from the start !!
And the baba forgives all those try to harm him , not killing a single one of them but trying to win them with love....
So I suspended my own sense of belief and disbelief and saw the film---with happy results....
I discovered that once you suspend your own sense of belief you enter a zone close to nirvana....and you begin to enjoy the unbelievable things that occur in the film ; things that occur only in the realm of illusion and magic.---of the baba doing impossible stunts and unimaginable things....
But hadn't the ordinary Indian fan already discovered this nirvana long before I did....?
How else would I try to reconcile with fans liking Salman Khan's nonsensical antics in film after film and Rajanikanth's superfantastic stunts...?
If fans could like Rajanikanth throwing a knife at a bullet fired at him and splitting the bullet into two and make the film a hit , then why should not I like this film ??
If fans could digest a scene where a bullet fired at Mithun Chakravarty's brain takes away his brain tumour and cures him of it , then why should not I like this film ?? Just because in this case the hero is a baba and we are supposed to scoff at babas ??
At least in this case the baba was loudly and shamelessly proclaiming his love for India flying the national flag in hand , unlike the khans who are busy making films where they make Indian girls fall in love with pakistanis....
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insaan ( I hope I got the name right ) does make an impact with his bravura performance as heart and soul of the film , a performance which gets better and better with every passing frame....
The songs are foot tapping....
Sadly this is not matched by the editing of the film , which is rank sloppy .
Acting and performances by some of the cast are juvenile....
Some of the scenes are nonsensical....
But what caught my attention was the strong emphasis on the issue of rescue of prostitutes trapped in brothels and their remarriage to willing men in order to rehabilitate them ; it was ending the film on a strong emotional pitch---somewhere it tugged to my heart....
Of course , the film is without question made for clearcut self promotion . In that sense it can be called a long advertisement of the Dera Sacha Sauda cult rather than a real film .
But if I like what I saw , what can I do ??
Verdict---I enjoyed the film .
Three stars .
Badlapur ( The city of revenge---2015 )
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Raghav's ( played by Varun Dhawan ) life and career is going great guns , till a bizarre and cruel twist of fate tears it apart totally . A pair of bank robbers (Liak and Harman played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vinay Pathak respectively ) try to escape the police in his wife's car and in the mayhem one of them kills both his wife and son....
While Raghav is left to try to pick up the pieces of what is left his life , Liak is captured by the police and blames the murders on his partner Harman---who has escaped . The movie then follows the trajectories of the life of the three protagonists in the situation---Raghav , Liak and Harman .
Liak remains in Jail for years on end , justly paying for his sins . Harman escapes with the money to start a hotel business with a sexy and hot young wife---Koko , played by Radhika Apte . But the victim Raghav just cannot cope with the loss of his family and just wanders off into the wilderness , and finds succour only when he reaches a city with a strange name---Badlapur , the city of revenge....
....And when the victim finds his refuge in a city with such a name one can be sure that at some point in the film he is going to go for what he truly wants---revenge , what else....
So for how long does he wait for his revenge ??
And whom does he take the revenge against ??
Is he successful in his bid to take revenge ??
But the real question is---is the revenge worth it ?? Is it right to remain ruminating over past events ( however brutal they are ) and waste your life ?? Didn't a great man from this very nation tell the world that an eye for an eye will turn the whole world blind ??
So who is going to show Raghav the light---about the futility of revenge ??
Watch the movie for the answers , for it delivers this message with grit and also in a surprising manner .
Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Liak ) is the one who makes us laugh at his taunts to the other jailbirds and anger us with his evil ; he is the one who frustrates the police with his refusal to tell his partner's name even after savage beatings at the same time he blames the partner for the murders , and he is the one who surprises us by loving his girlfriend with unexpected passion....So the movie rests squarely and fairly on the shoulders of Nawazuddin to deliver an acting performance , and he comes up with a super performance . For his enemy ( Raghav ) is played by the inexperienced Varun Dhawan , and even though Varun has tried his best , his inexperience clearly shows....Especially when the movie moves to 15 years later in time , Varun ( who is a young man ) looks too young to be in his 40s . The effort to make him look older with a beard has failed .
But the others ( like Liak's girlfriend played by Huma Qureishi ) and Radhika Apte ( Koko ) play their roles all too well , and they play their roles with sensuousness....I found myself remembering Radhika in a sexy blue negligee and in a sari with backless and sleeveless blouse and above all half nude in a bra and panty almost going to be raped---all scenes which she has done in the film . The film is clearly for adults only and not for children....
Yami Gautam ( the murdered wife ) is beautiful as usual , but she does not have to accept such smallish roles---considering her beauty .
Divya Dutta wears backless blouses too , and looks enticing for her age .
The music is mostly in the background , but is entirely appropriate for the situation . The songs are worth remembering .
The film has no fancy locations , and the budget for making it must have been low . Hopefully even a modest run at the box office will give it a profit .
....And a profit it does deserve , considering the fact that it is gripping and has twists and turns that keep you guessing as to what will happen next till the very end . It cannot be called a true action packed thriller . But the violence when it comes , does make an impact .
Verdict---Good .
Yeh jawani hai deewani ( This young age is crazy )
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I went to see this movie to see Ranbir Kapoor inch closer to superstardom.....
After all ,the Khans are getting old and are looking jaded and we need fresh blood to be injected into the star system....
....And Ranbir for now looks like the best bet for that purpose , especially after his performances in Rockstar and Barfi---maybe he will fulfill the hopes that Hrithik Roshan dashed a decade ago , of supplementing if not replacing the Khans...
And I think the audience went for that reason too....
Of course , they also went to see the magic of his pairing with ex flame Deepika Padukone.....
.....For the audience response to this movie at least on the opening weekend has been simply thunderous....
There were not tickets available for any shows of this movie in my regular multiplex on Sunday , or in any theater for miles around.....
Ultimately I had to go a long distance to see this movie....
So was it worth all the trouble I took to see this movie ??
Lets see....
The director reveals his mediocrity by inserting an item number by Madhuri Dixit just after the beginning of the movie---not only does Madhuri look old but the item number looks totally out of place ; one of the most pointless item numbers I have seen....
The movie reveals itself to be nothing new---
the boy ( Ranbir ) is someone who has his heart on his sleeve and is endlessly in search of new girlfriends to screw , which is something that he accomplishes with aplomb.....and it goes without saying that this is exactly what Indian men would like to do , at least in their youth.....
and the girl ( Deepika ) is studious and nice and caring and a homely and in search of true love and of the type that wants to remain loyal to only one man---which is exactly what Indian men would like their women to be.....
So is their anything new in this ??---nothing actually.....
In fact haven't we seen this in endless movie after movie---superflirt boy meets good character girl....
So they meet and go to Manali ( shot in Gulmarg in Kashmir actually , as Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah wants to remind us ) and have a helluva time---they enjoy , they go trekking on a mountain on which ghosts are supposedly present , they get into fights with locals , they drink and they make merry.....
Along with them is the lovely Kalki Koechlin who looks stunning in every scene and Aditya Roy Kapoor who seems to be destined to play semi tragic roles.....
And the inevitable happens---the girls fall in love with the guys....
But while they are all having a ball in Manali , is the audience enjoying it all ??
To be honest , at least I was not greatly impressed by these scenes---they can be called all right but nothing fantastic....
Coming to the story , do the guys respond to love ??
At least in Ranbir's case , the answer is definitely no....
He is filled with wanderlust , and wants to travel and film the world....
And has no time for homebody Deepika.....
So she senses his lack of attachment and never confesses her love and he goes off to foreign lands....
And Kalki too realises her mistake and ceases to follow Aditya who is destined to be a drunkard ( is that going to be his fate in all films he acts in ?---I hope not.... )
But they are all destined to come together eight years down the line in Kalki's wedding with another man---in the lake palace of Udaipur which is a now a five star hotel no less ( in Karan Johar's world supply of money for paying bills of 5 star hotels is never a problem ).....
So will old flames be rekindled ?? And who will respond to true love ??
Go and watch the movie for that....
The real magic lies of the film in the scenes between Ranbir and Deepika---and the scenes get better and so does the magic as the movie nears its end.....
The two look really good together , and one wonders why Ranbir's parents are opposing the pairing in real life....here's hoping they come together again the future in real life ; to hell with Rishi and Neetu Kapoor's opposition.....
But the rest of the movie does not work well---it is too long and tedious and is stretched too much....
Of course , it panders shamelessly to every Indian man's dream---after having fun with all the loose women all over the world they want a vestal virgin waiting for them back home.....
The film gets better towards the end with some genuine moments but the mid part is lengthy and somewhat slow....
.....And haven't we seen the marriage scenes in all of Karan Johar's films---again they are repeated while showing Kalki's wedding but I found nothing new in them either.....
So will Ranbir Kapoor become superstar ?? Judging from the hordes coming to see this film he will become one in future I suppose.....
But this is not really the film that I would like to remember as having made him a superstar---it's simply not that great....
Till a better film comes , .the superstardom can wait....
Verdict---decent .
Yaariyan ( Friendships )
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The only thing interesting about ' Yaariyan ' is the songs . Like so many movies in the past from Dev Anand and Mala Sinha's 'Maya' to Ajay Devgan and Madhoo's 'Phool aur kaante' this film too hopes to ride onto box office success on the strength of it's music inspite of a mediocre script.
.....And indeed the music score is memorable , and is almost capable of lifting the film alone on it's shoulders....
Of course , for people of naughty tastes there is the other temptation---plenty of half naked girls....
Girls in hot pants and shorts and lingerie try their best to bring the audiences to the theater by gyrating their bodies so that the more ample parts are on show.....
Sadly , that did not manage to bring any people to watch the movie---for the theater was practically empty on a weekday nightshow.....
To be honest , the audiences were smarter than me in staying away---for I was regretting my decision to see the movie halfway through....
Lookswise , the cast of the film is rightly chosen---the hero looks like a nice little puppy and the heroine is a cutie pie....
Above all , the heroine's Australian rival who manages to steal the hero's attention for a while reminded my of my fave actress Dia Mirza , and I was lost in her dreams for a while....
.....But beyond dreams there is reality , and the reality is that I had landed myself into seeing a mediocre film....
The acting by everyone is unconvincing , the script is badly written and the direction is stupid....
The sequence in which many of the scenes are shown is disjointed , and the story is corny as hell....
So what's the corny story ??
It's about a boy studying in a college in the Himalayas in the state of Sikkim who dreams of and is indeed surrounded by girls and girls and more girls....
He has contempt for his father who had laid down his life for the country in the past and his ambition is life is nothing but to have fun with girls....
And the movie is awash with girls in various states of undress curving and arching their bodies....
The first half is so stupid that I was laughing at the stupidity of the movie and the stupidity and laughter was giving me some enjoyment---that is , until I laughed and laughed too much and began to cough....
Finally the story began to move with a contest between the hero's college and an Australian college for which the hero and 5 others are chosen to go to Australia . Here the hero falls for the Girl who reminded me of Dia Mirza---but unlike Dia she shows off her sensational body in red bikinis....
But the Australians are not fair contestants and the hero suffers a personal tragedy while contesting with them which finally turns the film into serious mode....
But why did the director put the huge clonking sound in the film when the tragedy occurs ??.....Oh , I forgot she ( yeah , it's a 'she' ) had decided to make the film as silly as possible and was staying true to form....
The second half has some half hearted patriotism as the Australians come to Sikkim for the remaining part of the contest , and the hero comes to terms with his father's sacrifice for the nation . There is some melodrama about upholding the nation's flag in face of the Aussie challenge....
But did the director have to interrupt even this with the second romance ??---that of the hero with the heroine , who is shown to be a typical Indian girl who ultimately wins the hero's heart after he has had the fun with all the bikini babes in the typical hypocritical style of Bollywood where modern girls are shown to be only for fun while marriage is done with the homely girl.....
The only thing that was modern about this was the fact that the mother of the hero is the one who encourages the hero and the heroine to fall in love . This a pleasant change from the era of films showing parental opposition as the main obstruction to love....
So does the hero manage to uphold the nation's honour in the high Himalayas ??
And what about the fact that there is betrayal in his own camp ??
To go to see the movie for answers to these questions is not worth it even if you like music and semi naked girls---better buy a CD for the music and watch 'Bikini destinations' on TV if you like semiclad girls....
The second half is somewhat more bearable than the first half due to the theme of patriotism but does not manage to salvage the film .
Verdict---Waste of money and time .
How super cool are we
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Tushar Kapoor and Ritesh Deshmukh try to recreate the magic of their superentertaining movie ' kya cool hai hum '( how cool are we ) years later by adding the word ' super ' to the title .
'' sigh '' --if wishes were horses beggars would ride.....
And just adding the word ' super ' does not enhance the entertainment of the movie.....
The earlier movie had a powerpacked performance by Isha Koppikar as inspector Urmila Martodkar , who looked mouthwateringly enticing in red saris and acted with the practised ease of a veteran . But this movie has two novice actresses in lead roles and they simply lack the experience to fit the mighty shoes of Isha Koppikar .
So the load of shouldering the movie rests on acting talent ( whatever it amounts to ) of Tushar and Ritesh ; on that and on a lot of corny sex jokes----its a sex comedy after all.....
......and together they fail to deliver , inspite of desperate attempts to crack dirty jokes in every situation .
So what dirty jokes ?? For those desperate to know about them here are some---
Anupam Kher is father of one of the heroines and his name is Marlo ( means 'sodomize me' in hindi language ) and he has an uncanny habit of turning around and showing his protruding ass after saying '' maar lo '' .
As if this is not enough , his dead mother is named 'Rose Mary Marlo' ( sodomize me daily ) .
And he believes that his mother has been reincarnated as a female dog !! ( The word '' bitch '' is too much for a respectable lady )
Such a person can also be fooled to believe that his father has also been reincarnated as a male dog---and that dog is the dog which is in possession of Ritesh.....anything goes.....
So a wedding is of the dogs is duly arranged---but not before the two dogs have had a roll in the hay , or rather grass.....
Its upto the two heros to bring Anupam of 'maar lo' and 'roz meri maar lo' fame to his senses and make the right matches---those of the two heroes to the heroines.....
But for dullards such as these two its not a easy job especially if Ritesh who is a DJ has a horrible habit of called his compact discs as dics ( dicks ) and lands up at gay parties talking of his liking for hard dicks....oh he really meant hard discs you see.....
The one good thing is that both heroes dont seem to have aged since the last film . Ritesh must have complained through his politician father about the lack of footage given to him in the last film and the screen space being hogged by Tushar in that film for he gets good footage in this film .
Sadly that does not help make the film any better....or does it make the film worse ?? ( evil thought ;))
Tushar has improved his body.....but in his haste to do that did he forget to do the same to his acting skills ?? ( evil thought again ashdoc )
He is once again like in the last film in search of a lucky female soulmate but this time without the black spot on her heart that was supposed to bring him good luck in the last 'non super' version of the film .
Question is---does the black spot bring real luck ?? For without it the film is going to sink faster than the titanic at the box office.....
Verdict---not good .
Coffee bloom ( 2015 )
http://static.dnaindia.com/sites/default/files/2015/03/07/316131-coffee-bloom-crop.jpg
SPOILER ALERT
'Coffee Bloom' is set in the lovely coffee plantations of Coorg , a mountainous and scenic region of penisular India . And the cinematographer does justice to the scenery in which the film has been shot , by showcasing the verdant land full of lush greenery and lakes and beautiful forests . One gets in to a relaxed mood on seeing the superb landscape , and does not want to see any trouble break into this paradise....
....But trouble does come , in the form of a troubled young man ( Dev Cariappa played by Arjun Mathur ) who has a permanently skewed expression on his face . His life has gone off course years ago , after his elopement with his girlfriend was derailed by her parents and she was separated from him by brute force . He then sold his coffee plantation in Coorg in a fit of frustration and retreated into renouncement of the world altogether to try to become an ascetic . But the death of his mother forces him to face the real world , and he realizes his mistake in selling the lush green coffee plantation that was family property . And he comes back to Coorg---the land of his ancestors , the land where he grew up , the land with so many childhood memories...to try to reclaim the land .
And what does he come face to face with in his land ?? His woman....or rather his ex girlfriend Anika ( played by Sugandha Garg )....It is her husband who owns the plantation now , and he is known as Vas ( actually Vas is short form of Srinivas Panicker , played by Mohan Kapoor ) . Vas is a jolly good fellow who may be a nice guy but has little in the way of brains . He dreams of having a coffee bloom in his plantation without any technical knowledge of growing coffee and hires Dev the coffee growing expert , not knowing that it is Dev's former land....
Hmm....Dev's former land and Dev's former woman---Vas is in possession of them both....And Dev is determined to get them both back , by hook or crook....and sparks fly between Dev and Anika , who looks good in chest hugging and cleavage baring tops....but the situation is complicated by the entry of the Bengali woman who loves Dev , and who outmatches Anika due to her buxom figure and her full body and her wet saris and her sleeveless blouses....
So who what happens next ?? Will Dev get his land and his woman and his revenge over his wrongs and his life.....will he get them back ?? What about the innocent Vas who is not party to any of these secrets ?? What is the role of the bengali woman in all this ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
All the actors act out their part well , but the best acting is by Mohan Kapoor . He puts joi de vivre in his role , endlessly yak yaking from his mouth and seeming like a genuine person . You really feel sympathy for his character , completely oblivious to the storm brewing around him while he is dreaming of brewing coffee !! Compared to him , Dev ( Arjun Mathur ) looks like a selfish and self centered person constantly brooding over past wrongs . Anika maintains her composure even though she is caught between two men , Sugandha Garg has acted that role well . Ultimately it is the Bengali woman who urges Dev to do what is right....
I was pleasantly surprised by the lovely locations and breathtaking scenery of the film , the acting of the actors , and the good direction and storyline , and above all by the fine ending !! And I was happy that there are little gems to be discovered in the world of film making and this film is such a gem....
There is only one song and it is hummable , and the music is good and apt for the situations .
One day I hope to visit Coorg ; but if I can't then I will watch it in this film....
Verdict---Good .
Three and a half stars .
Jigariyaa (Beloved--- 2014 )
http://movie.webindia123.com/movie/2014/Bollywood/August/Jigariyaa/still/Jigariyaa16.jpg
Agra---famous for the world's most iconic monument for love , the Taj mahal built by mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory for his lost wife Mumtaz mahal....and therefore a fit setting for some old fashioned no holds barred romance that seems to have happened in another age....
....But that age still lives in India , for this story is supposed to be actually inspired by true events that probably occurred in the 20th century....
So we head towards the state of Uttar pradesh where Agra is situated , to those backwaters of India where practical matters rarely rule young lovers' minds like they do in modern cities like Mumbai/Bombay and Delhi , and people are ready to do and die for love....
.....And where such stories exist , there ashdoc goes---for somewhere inside me there is the heart of a hopeless romantic....
I could not watch this movie in the theatres when it was released a few months back , and all my efforts to get a DVD/VCD of it failed for the simple reason that the film has not been released in that version....so I was forced to watch it in youtube , where a grainy video of the film exists....
So Shyamlal Gupta ( Shamu---played by Harshvardhan Deo ) is the son of the owner of a sweetmeats shop . He is a wastrel---fails in college repeatedly , does not help his father in the shop , and spends his time idling the time away with his good for nothing friends . His only passion is creating poetry , a talent in which he excels and in which he is really original---to the point of dreaming of becoming a writer . But one day he lays his eyes on Radha ( played by Cherry Mardia ) , the goodlooking daughter of a rich man .And he falls in love with her . Showing an enthusiasm which he rarely shows in studies and work , he chases her rentlessly with the help of his friends till he locates her , and then claws his way into her house by winning the admiration of her grandmother using various tricks . Radha is initially reluctant to befriend him , but he is helped by a stroke of fortune----she turns out to be a aficionado of poetry just like him , and she is so impressed by his poetry that she gradually falls in love with him .
And then life gets the soft and endearing glow of requited romance....a romance that is played out in the magnificent monuments that the city of Agra possesses ; historical monuments that are the legacy of the rule of mughal emperors who had made Agra the capital city of their sprawling empire . It happens in the shadow of the Taj , and in a fashion which the emperor Shah Jahan would have approved....Shamu sits on an imaginary throne with a rose in his hand in the fashion of the great mughal , and Radha dances in front of him as if she is a dancing girl dancing in front of a mughal emperor ; and at the end of her performance , the emperor of her heart bestows her with his rose....needless to say , such scenes are possible only when both lovers are fond of poetry....
Uptil now , the film had a lighthearted tone and was full of funny scenes ; but suddenly the movie became intense as reality strikes....and that reality is all too familiar to people in these backward parts of India---the girl's family comes to know of the romance , and predictably they are appalled by their daughter's love for a person of a status that is not equal to them....
To be honest , I must congratulate the director for not showing violence being unleashed at this point ; for the situation was ripe for that . Ultimately the violence does come however , though only towards the end....
So what happens to the romance of the two lovebirds ?? Can it overcome all the obstacles to fulfil it's destiny ??
Watch the movie for the answers....I waited a long time to see a pathetic quality video of this film on youtube , but still felt that it was worth it....
And unless the film comes on TV , only that video is available for watching it....but those who have yen for romance as well as poetry will not regret watching this film .
The director and the actors excel in showing passion of love , a passion that may seem far fetched for those with practical minds ; and passion that can make the lovers cross the threshold of the impossible....but that passion seems fit in the shadow of the world's most iconic monument for love---the Taj mahal , what else....
Photography and music is good , and acting by everyone is good too .
At the end of it all , my only wish was that the film should have had a happier ending . But the film is supposedly based on a real life incident , and reality is always grim....so sometimes is life !!
Verdict---Good .
Three stars .
ayushchandra
03-23-15, 04:03 AM
Highway---
Waiting to exhale---is Alia Bhatt's character ( Veera Tripathi ) in this film....
Verdict---Really good .
Yes, really good. Screenplay is great and Randeep did well (his rural language). Its producer looks smart enough, that he made a film like this in a low budget.
ayushchandra
03-23-15, 04:08 AM
Badlapur ( The city of revenge---2015 ) .
Verdict---Good .
This is a different movie which tells things with a silent, for those who like serious films, Badlapur is worth watching.
Dozakh in search of heaven ( march 2015 )
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''It is in the the midst of conflict that I found my peace''....or rather , I found my entertainment....
Nothing interests me more than films about religious conflict ; I never fail to watch a film that shows religions in rivalry with each other , it is cinematic heaven for me....So as soon as I heard about 'Dozakh in search of heaven' , I went to the multiplex in search of this nirvana...err heaven...
It deals with the story of a mullah who lives in a town near the holiest of holies for hindus---the city of Varanasi , called Benaras by the local people . The town where the mullah ( played by Lalit Mohan Tiwari ) lives is separated from Benaras by the mighty Ganges river .
But the gulf between the religion of the mullah ( Islam ) and the religion of the majority of the people around him ( Hinduism ) is greater than the width or the depth of the Ganges . Daily the mullah competes with the priest of the neighbouring Hindu temple to produce the maximum noise during morning prayers .
But his son Jan Muhammad ( played by Garrick Chaudhary ) , fondly called as Jaanu is too small and innocent to understand the differences between religions . He is fascinated by the Ram leela ( play enacting the Hindu epic Ramayan ) that is enacted by the neighbouring hindus , and takes part in it as the character of Hanuman the devotee of the Hindu God Ram . He has a friendship with the priest of the Hindu temple who gives him food and teaches him about Hindu customs and rituals . All this is not liked by his father , who beats his own son occasionally for the perfidy of partaking in Hindu habits .
But Jaanu continues his interest in Hindu customs and is convinced about the superiority of the Hindu custom of burning the bodies of the dead compared to the Muslim custom of burying the body . He develops a phobia of being buried in a dark grave after his death , and tells his father innocently that he does not want to be buried but rather would like to be cremated after death .
The crisis of the movie occurs when the boy loses his mother in an accident . He does not want her buried , and tries to dig her out of her grave after burial . Above all , he really believes the Hindu priest's story of the holy river Ganga ( Ganges ) being the mother of everyone , and begins to think that if he dives into the Ganga he might be able to meet his lost mother....
So what happens next ?? Where will the path taken by Jaanu lead him to ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
The path taken by the innocent Jaanu and the mullah's decision to do as Jaanu would have wanted it to be , will make the fundamentalists of both religions hang their heads in shame....
The movie is embellished with some fine acting performances by Garrick Chaudhary as the sweet little boy Jaanu and Lalit Mohan Tiwari as his father along with Ruby saini as the mother and Nazim Khan as the Hindu priest .
Editing however is rank sloppy , and voice synchronization with lip movements is not at all correct . This is because of the shoe string budget of the film . All this does not take away from the film's message and emotion . It has already won awards in film festivals and justly deserves them . However it will be liked only by the art movie lovers .
Verdict---Very decent .
Three stars .
NH 10 ( National highway number 10 )- march 2015
http://photos.filmibeat.com/ph-big/2015/02/nh10-poster_142313288210.jpg
http://media2.intoday.in/indiatoday/images/stories//2015February/nh10_650_020515110024.jpg
It is the age of demonizing the Indian people by painting the worst stereotype about them . The BBC has already made a documentary hinting that the typical Indian male is a potential rapist . But why blame the BBC ?? There are plenty in the Indian media and film industry ready to co operate in creating the worst image of India . They have all discovered that common Indian people are too mild to protest against the act of painting their society as barbaric , or they are simply don't care....
Only those who ape the west ( like Anushka and her husband in this movie ) are good enough to be above this barbarism , while those who lead traditional Indian lives are nothing but monsters....
And since most Indians still stick to the traditional modes of life rather than be westernized , therefore any movie painting India in it's 'true' colours has to show most Indians as savages....
Can you blame Bollywood for cashing in on this new trend in town ?? Can you really ?? Naah....
So the moment you step outside the big city Delhi ( just like Anushka and her husband Neil Bhoopalam do ) with all it's westernization , you step into barbaro-savage land....
It is land of honour killings of those couples who dare to fall in love , of savage beatings of young women with all the blood and gore....a land of brothers killing sisters without mercy , where even the police are in cahoots with the barbarians and elder women too rentlessly co operate with the upholders of barbarism....those women who dare to go out of their homes and use public toilets are taunted as prostitutes ( the word is written on the doors of women's toilets ) , and in the whole barbaric countryside no person is okay enough to answer properly if road directions are asked to him---such questions are answered back by rude taunts....
So as Anushka and Neil step out of their home and city to drive on National highway 10 , they step into another world....
....And hey presto , they promptly tread onto the harsh toes of those who are carrying out a honour killing....
As Neil tries to stop it , he gets involved in the mess much to Anushka's distress and against her opposition to the involvement....
His confidence increased by his possession of a gun he has acquired to protect Anushka from goons ( they are ever present In India you know , as the opening scene where Anushka's car is attacked by mobsters shows ) , Neil tracks the people who are carrying out the honour killing to their lair....
But he has bitten off more than he can chew , as the barbaro-savages are more barbaric and savage than he can even imagine....
A huge fight erupts between Anushka and her husband and the barbaro-savages....and Anushka and Neil are left fending for their bare lives....
So can the good westernized people who don't even know their own caste ( like Anushka ) survive their encounter with the barbaro-savages who kill anyone who dares to trifle with the ancient codes of caste and tradition ??
Watch the movie for the answers.....
The movie is real edge of the seat stuff , and is filled with thrilling moments of genuine action and real violence . It's a clear cut adults film due to the rough language and bloodshed . Acting by everyone is good , but especially by Anushka who shows a range of emotions from fear to dispair to anger....
Darshan Kumar is good as the villain , and Neil Bhoopalam is decent too .
Ultimately it is upto Anushka to show that hell hath no fury like a woman who smokes ( like she does in the movie ) , or rather hell hath no fury like a woman scorned....and believe me , the movie is replete with moments where women are scorned by men---all Indian males are like that only ( don't mind it !! I mean the Indian male does not mind being demonized this way and so the media is going to continue stereotyping him as such )....
There are only two songs and the music is appropriate for the situation . The enemies of the nation will applaud this well crafted effort to make the nation appear far worse than what it actually is....
Verdict---Good .
Three and a half stars .
Dum laga ke haisha (Put effort to carry this weight---March 2015)
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The setting is in the 90s and India is still mired in backwardness . So much so that a young man ( played by Ayushmann Khurana ) in a city near the Himalayas is cajoled coerced forced and bullied into marriage with a girl he does not like .
This violation of human rights is mitigated by the fact that it does not happen with a woman....for such force being applied on the weaker sex would have made the matter too painful to bear and the film would have failed to gain sympathy of the audience . Instead we are asked/expected to look at the matter in a light hearted way as a force being applied by simple well meaning parents who want the best for their son .
And the woman in this case is ever ready to marry the young man , even though she is superior to him in education . Reason being---she is deemed not capable of getting a better husband as she is superior to most young men a matter she should not be , her weight....
Yeah , the young man has been forced to marry a fat woman double to him in weight . And he massively/excessively resents this , his resentment growing with every passing frame of the film . And your heart also reaches out to the woman ( played by Bhumi Pednekar ) who tries hard to win his heart and his affection .
Ayushmann runs a music cassette shop and dreams of being the next Kumar Shanu ( a famous Indian singer of the nineties ) . But actually he cannot pass from school and hence his parents and aunt feel that it is right to marry him to this overweight girl because she is a teacher by profession and can bring good money to the household . And you are inclined to agree....for these are lower middle class small town people with meagre income and limited horizons . It is all right for me to dream of human rights sitting in my posh house , but for these little people the prospect of a working daughter in law is too good to pass even if the son is to be bullied physically into accepting a wife double to him in size....
It is upto Bhumi Pedneker to win over the audience by gaining their sympathy---and she does so with aplomb....
You applaud and cheer her efforts to make her husband fall in love with her , and applaud and cheer more when she takes the lead in making love in bed ( every man dreams of a wife who takes the lead in bed , doesn't he....) ; but you applaud and cheer the hardest when she refuses to take her humiliation by him lying down and serves him a stinging slap.....yeah , our leading lady is one who is ever willing to stand up for her rights and is not shy to throw her (over)weight around because she is better educated than her in laws....
Sanjay Mishra plays the father of Ayushmann , and he pulls off the feat of being physically bullying towards his son but seeming well intentioned at the same time . This is done partly by showing his bullying scenes as light hearted stuff and partly by him never behaving badly with his daughter in law---in fact he is always siding with her....and siding with the weaker sex is the surest way of winning the audience's sympathy....
But matters take a worse turn and the situation reaches the divorce court .
So will the marriage end ??
Relax....there is the 'dum laga ke haisha' ( put effort to carry this weight ) contest round the corner---where the husband has to run across a series of obstacles carrying the weight of his wife on his shoulders....a chance to win real moolah for these small town folk....
And being able to carry the overweight of his wife on his able shoulders would instil a lot of confidence in our young man....so all hope for the marriage is not lost....and man lives on hope doesn't he....
The music is hummable and I found myself singing some of the songs in my bathroom---they could make the next Kumar Shanu out of me yet.....Budget of the film must be low , judging from the lack of stars in the cast and the decidedly unglamorous settings.....
Bhumi Pednekar looked good enough , especially when she wore that satin nightgown . Ayushmann has acted well .
Verdict---Good , especially for a family audience .
Four stars .
honeykid
04-16-15, 10:54 AM
I'll keep an eye out for that, ashdoc. They play modern Indian films over here late at night sometimes.
Ek paheli Leela ( This girl ( named Leela ) is a puzzle ) April 2015
Note---The film stars a Canadian born porn star of Indian origin named Sunny Leone , who has come to her parents' homeland India to act in Bollywood films .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Ek_Paheli_Leela_(2015)_Film_Poster.jpeg
Yesterday I had gone on a pilgrimage---pilgrimage to get a sighting...actually numerous sightings...of the sex goddess , Sunny Leone....
And this devotee of the sex goddess returned home blessed , for the goddess had smiled upon him....
Not only she had smiled , but she had heaved and panted with her breasts coming up and down in low cut blouses , she had entwined her legs around various men and writhed in orgasm , and she had danced showing her bare thighs and bare belly and deep navel like a heavenly damsel....
And this devotee had come close to the high altar of the sex goddess---actually I had got a seat close to the screen....so this devotee had a magnificent view of the perfect contours of her body....the breasts seemed like mountains and the navel like a deep valley when the huge screen was so near to me....
And she looked like a dream , she really did....so much so that I am dreaming of having wet dreams of her , of me worshipping her magnificent mountains and deep valleys in person at least in the dreams....oh goddess , please come in my dreams....
But do you know when she looked the most divine ?? When she was wearing a simple salwar kameez !! With red lipstick and a demure expression on her face !! Looking glorious with red bindi and simple makeup !! I wish I could have taken her to my mother in that form !! Mother would have approved of her....blush blush !!
What else do you want ?? The story !!
Well , it consists of Sunny flying down from London to Jaisalmer in India to come face to face with her past life---a life when she loved a man ( Rajneesh Duggal ) and became ready to pose for his mentor ( Rahul Dev ) who wanted to carve her statue in stone , so beautiful was she....
But the mentor began to lust for her...who wouldn't....
That is the past life....But who is the singer ( Jay Bhanushali ) who has come in this life and gets tortured visions of beatings by Rahul Dev in this life ?? And who is really the prince she has fallen in love with in this life ( played by Mohit Ahlawat ) ?? And his rival prince ( Jas Arora ) who openly lusts for her and who also has a property dispute with Mohit ??
Phew !! So many men !! That is Sunny Leone for you !!....no I am not gonna take her to meet my mother---that programme is cancelled !! :D
So in the midst of all these men and Sunny what happens ?? And how come the past and present lives of Sunny and these men are intertwined ??
Watch the movie for that !!
What you get is an extravaganza of colour in the desert---Sunny leone cavorting in stunning dresses and dancing and prancing on the sands and in the palaces of Rajasthan....even the parched desert will become wet after seeing Sunny Leone the way our dreams become wet....
The photography is good and music is even better , giving visual and sonic entertainment....
What else do you want ?? Well , one wants some good acting which is missing ; and one would like someone to dub in hindi for Sunny....for her hindi is too english accented ; and one would like some good storyline---all of which is sadly missing....
The ending especially is insipid....
But who cares !! The pilgrim had reached his destination , and had been rewarded with a vision ( numerous visions actually ) of the sex goddess....
And the pilgrim had returned home a satisfied man....
Now if you are such a pilgrim of Sunny Leone , then and only then will you return home satisfied....
Otherwise , the curse of the sex goddess will be upon you....for the film ain't that good....you will feel your money wasted....
So to not waste your money , why don't you become her devotees like me ??;)
Verdict---Just about okay .
Less than two stars .
Ishq kay parindey ( april 2015 )---
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo/47031448.cms
'Ishq kay parindey' ( The doves of peace ) is a Indo Pak love story set in the city of nawabs---Lucknow . Embellished with soulful music and poetry , the film truely showcases the royal culture of Lucknow .
Unlike other Indo Pak love stories where the religious angle is important , here it is not ; both the hero and the heroine belong to the same religion . But the hero Faiz ( played by Rishi Verma ) is an Indian who makes it clear in some dialogues that his loyalties lie with India , while the heroine Sheen ( played by Priyanka Mehta ) is a Pakistani .
SHEEN !! The name brings Kashmir in mind....for in the kashmiri language sheen means snow , and there has already been a film on Kashmir called Sheen which was made in 2004 ( I have reviewed it ; search for the review if you want ) . However in the arabic language sheen means beautiful .
If Sheen is taken to represent Kashmir , then director Shakir Khan has played a deft hand indeed....for Sheen who comes from Karachi in Pakistan is fond of saying that even in Pakistan she used to say that she was half Hindustani ( Indian ) because she had relatives in India . And now that she has come to visit India , she never intends to leave ; she is in love with the land and it's people---heartwarming stuff for Indians indeed....
And she is in love with an Indian too---for the director effortlessly weaves an old fashioned romance between Faiz and Sheen ; old fashioned because it starts with love letters sent on kites and carrier pigeons before Sheen takes the lead in giving her mobile phone number to Faiz . And the romance continues amidst the old world charm of Lucknow , in the picturesque locales that dot the city---Rumi Gate, Bara Imambara, Hazrat Ganj, Sheesh Mahal, Qaiser Bagh, Begum Hazrat Mahal Maqbara, Residency, Jehangirabad Palace, Sultanat Manzil, Dada Miyan Dargah, Teelewaali Masjid and many others .
The relaxed mood which the romance puts you in is heightened by the lovely songs and beautiful poetry in the film , with dialogues laced with the urdu language . The photography of the green countryside and historical monuments is good too , with shots of doves flying in the air....
And frankly , I never wanted the spiel of romance to break ; I wanted to soak in the romantic atmosphere and go to sleep with dreams of romance....
But beyond dreams is the real world , the the real world consists of some cruel people....Sheen has to come to terms with the fact that the pacific Faiz has a brother who is a gangster....and she cannot come to terms with that fact !! For she has come to India to escape the endemic violence in Pakistan that has claimed the lives of practically all her relatives there , and is not mentally prepared to live with Faiz's violent relatives .
So she prepares to marry another man , leaving Faiz shattered....
So does she marry another man ??
Or are we in for the Romeo and Juliet of the 21st century , given the violent propensities of both her new fiance and Faiz's relatives ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
I particularly liked the soulful songs and fine poetry of the film , and it's nice photography....but the beauty of the heroine Priyanka Mehta was worth a watch too--large blue grey eyes and silken pink skin....
Acting was decent by everyone .
The message of the director is---peace....peace between India and Pakistan , peace for the lovers immerse themselves in love , peace for Kashmir---if Sheen indeed is meant to represent it....
And unlike the trend today , the director is not shy of saying or at least hinting that India is a better place than Pakistan....that did make me a little bit happy....and biased me in favour of the film....
Verdict---decent .
Three stars .
Mandwa Mona Rudao
04-26-15, 04:26 PM
Had you done a reviews of the following movies?
Commando One Man Army
Asoka
Dhoom 1
Agneepath
Guru
Khakee
Firaaq
Aankhen
Shabri
Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap
Sheitan
Any english podcasts about Bollywood movies?
Had you done a reviews of the following movies?
Commando One Man Army
Asoka
Dhoom 1
Agneepath
Guru
Khakee
Firaaq
Aankhen
Shabri
Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap
Sheitan
Any english podcasts about Bollywood movies?
only of commando one man army . thats because i started reviewing in 2010 , and have never reviewed any movie before that .
McSocca
04-27-15, 12:10 AM
Your reviews are good so far, but you should use 3.5 these. It makes you look more professional and it makes the admins jobs easier.
Your reviews are good so far, but you should use 3.5 these. It makes you look more professional and it makes the admins jobs easier.
thanks for your appreciation of my reviews .
i use the popcorn rating for my english movie reviews . but i dont use it for bollywood reviews because i dont want to flood the reviews section with bollywood movie reviews . after all , this remains a primarily hollywood movie forum .
Mr Minio
04-27-15, 03:30 PM
I'd say it's primarily arthouse-heavy forum.
I'd say it's primarily arthouse-heavy forum.
i would like to correct my statement and say that those who read reviews here are more into reading english movie reviews . i dont think there is any point in having bollywood movie reviews in the reviews section .
Mr Minio
04-27-15, 03:42 PM
Why? Wouldn't it increase their popularity and therefore make more people interested in them?
BA pass ( degree holder in arts ) 2013
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I went to see this movie because the professional reviewers were going to town saying how good the movie is blah blah blah....
On the other hand I being part of the common public ( and you know what is the mindset of the public ) was frankly enticed by the prospect of seeing an experienced older woman deflower a young college going boy's virginity , at least on screen---a promise that was held out by what i had heard about the film.
A common comment made by young males about such adulterous ' aunties ' is---'' Where was she when I was in school ??!!!!! ''
Indeed , it is every young male's dream to meet such an ' aunty ' who will give uninhibited pleasure without attachment and take him to the gates of heavenly carnal bliss .
The movie blows away those dreams by exposing the dark underbelly of such dalliances with momentarily pleasure giving ' aunties ' and the hell that they can lead to....
So our hero Mukesh ( played by Shadab Kamal ) loses his parents and comes under the guardianship of his kindly aunt in Delhi where he pursues his BA ( bachelor of arts ) degree . He is only in first year of his BA course . His aunt's son does not like his presence however and there is constant friction between them . Besides this , his younger sisters are kept in a girl's hostel and Mukesh is their only protector .
And to his aunt's kitty parties comes the delicious ' aunty ' Sarika ( played by Shilpa Shukla ) , who constantly begins to invite Mukesh to her house for some pretext .
......And when Mukesh finally goes to her house , what happens next made me ask the same question asked by untold men when they hear about the escapades of such ' aunties ' ---'' Where was she when I was in school ??!!!! ''
.....For without further ado , Sarika takes Mukesh directly to bed and climbs on top of him and its '' Bang bang thank you young man ''.....
Mind you , hardly any foreplay.....
The sex is rough , direct and to the point .
And it happens again and again....
But before you start to think that at least one boy called Mukesh has unlocked the gates of heaven , reality comes hitting home....
.....For Sarika sends him to another such ' aunty ' who forces him by means of threats to unwillingly have sex with her.....
......And the price and prize of such sex---money showered on Mukesh in copious amounts.....
Mukesh has become nothing but a male prostitute---a gigolo !!
He is now nothing but a piece of meat to be used and abused by other older women who devour such young boys .
But fate has yet to strike its cruelest blow....
When Mukesh comes to Sarika's house to safekeep the money he has earnt by peddling his body to women , Sarika's husband walks in only to see the horrific scene of his wife in bed with this boy....
From then on is the path to catastrophe as things go from bad to worse to hellish in Mukesh's life.....
The movie is dark and nightmarish and likely to put you into the dispair of depression.....
Amongst all this depression Mukesh is aware that he has to also fend for his younger sisters---who are themselves under threat of being trafficked into the den of prostitution.....
To save them Mukesh is ready to go to any lengths , any.....
And the lengths Mukesh goes to save his sisters makes some really bad viewing....
To be honest , some of the audience was in titters as Mukesh goes into the depths of depravity to earn some money....
......But I was not enjoying seeing these parts at all.....
Mukesh's only friend in these times is a chess player named Johnney.....His only beacon of hope....
So can Mukesh survive with the help of Johnney ?? And what about his sisters ?? Can he save them too ??
Watch the movie for that...
Or dont watch maybe.... For this is the kind of movie that can put you in a really bad mood after watching it.....
The director creates a world of scheming lust filled older women and pimps and prostitutes and shady characters and fear of the law.....and the insight of this world fills you with foreboding.....
You feel relived that you dont belong to THAT part of town but also ashamed that you lead comparitively secure lives while not caring about others who suffering.....
.....And the plight of those who suffer is mot something that you would like to watch....
Verdict---Dark and depressing ; not recommended .
Sidenote---All those professional reviewers are saying the movie is good because it has a ' arty ' feel to it . There is something in it for the art movie lovers .
But I am not such a highfundoo person , so please forgive me....
Aandhi (The storm ) 1973
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Saw this movie on DVD recently , but have already seen it so many times before....and would like to see it again !!
It is based on the life of Indian Prime minister Indira Gandhi , and the hoardings of the movie when it was publicized openly promised ' Watch Indira Gandhi in Aandhi !! '
In real life Prime minister Indira Gandhi had a love marriage against her father's will , and married Phiroze Gandhi . But the lure of politics drove her away from her husband , and one day she walked away from him with her children....
Actress Suchitra Sen plays the role of Indira Gandhi , and like Indira she too is involved in her father's politics . Her father has big political ambitions for her , but they all are shattered when she falls in love with a commoner !! The commoner is played by the redoubtable Sanjeev Kumar , who is a hotel manager by profession . Her stern father opposes the marriage , saying that falling in love and marrying for love are things done only by the middle class ; upper class ladies like her should not fall prey to emotions of the common man....
But Suchitra is young and in love....and gets locked into holy matrimony with Sanjeev . They have a daughter together , and are seemingly headed towards marital bliss....
But destiny and her own nature have different plans for Suchitra . After having lived the heady life of a wannabe politician , she finds the humdrum of family life too tedious and begins to get bored . She is after all the scion of a powerful political family , and fate has huge plans for her....
Her husband would like her to settle down as a normal wife , but her upbringing draws her naturally to politics . He , a non politico , cannot bring himself to understand her desire to become part of a profession for which she has an inborn genetic flair . One thing he knows , and that is---that he loves her deeply....and cannot imagine life without her . But her father calls upon Suchitra to rejoin politics , for he knows that she has in her the makings of a fabulous politician .
Caught between her husband and her father , Suchitra one day takes a momentous decision---she decides to leave her husband....but unlike Indira Gandhi in real life , Suchitra also abandons her daughter to the care of her husband !! The young woman who was once in love with a man now becomes a cold calculating politician , and all is fair in love and war and also in politics---including abandoning your family for political ambitions .
Suchitra's husband Sanjeev is shattered , and retreats away from his city and her life---not to be heard of for years....
The daughter he sends to a boarding school . The common public and press do not know about Suchitra's husband and child , and she climbs the high ladder of national politics .
Years later , Suchitra has become a famous political figure with a mass following . She has also grown middle aged . One day she goes for electoral campaigning in a remote corner of India , and checks a hotel there....only to come face to face with the manager of the hotel---Sanjeev !! And she cannot keep her hands off him , and she cannot hide her emotions for him---especially because he has not remarried and has waited for her all these years !! And this leads to secret rendezvous in lonely places where they go on outings at midnight , and leads to romantic moments in the moonlight....
But the opposition parties are getting wind of her romantic meetings with this mysterious man , and gossip is on that the great national leader has abandoned her duties towards the nation and is having an affair with this man in her middle age . A scandal is brewing....or is it an 'aandhi' ( storm ) , albeit a political one....?? Many people want to know the answer....
So what will happen to Suchitra's political career ?? Will she leave politics , or can politics ever leave her ?? What will happen to her relations with her husband and child , and what about the fact that the lay public has not heard about them both ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
This film , embellished with many emotional moments , remains a classic for all times to come . The acting performances by both Suchitra and Sanjeev are just about perfect , and a poignant touch is added by the daughter never being shown in the movie.....one just yearns to see her in person....
Their venerable servant ( played by A K Hangal ) who has left Suchitra's father to take care of Sanjeev and her daughter , adds his own touch to the movie by some great acting . Suchitra's political advisor ( played by Om Prakash ) plays the crafty politico to the core .
The music is such that even now after so many years the music channels keep on repeating the movie's songs on TV ; suffice to say that it is sheer magic , and today's songs and music sound so shallow in comparison to it .
Indira Gandhi got the film banned in it's 13th week after release by court order. But later the courts realised that they were preventing the public from seeing a great film , and today it can be seen in all it's glory on DVD .
Verdict---fabulous .
Four and a half stars .
Kuch kuch locha hai ( Some trouble is brewing ) may 2015
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Sunny Leone ( Indo-Canadian porn star )....I would go miles to see any movie of hers....
The fact that she is totally uninhibited in her body exposure gives her the edge over other heroines , and not only she has a delicious body but she is also genuinely goodlooking .
And like me , others are crazy about Sunny too....one of them being Ram Kapoor , who plays a gujarati patel living in malaysia . He wins a contest to date Sunny , and to him it is like a dream come true....
To add to his cup of joys , Sunny wants to live with his family in order to get a taste of gujarati life because she is going to play a gujarati in a film .
But complications arise as Ram has already claimed to be unmarried and living with old parents , though actually he has a wife and a grown up son . So the wife has to be packed off and the son and his girlfriend ( Evelyn Sharma ) have to dress up as his parents .
The first half is boring and Ram Kapoor hams repeatedly . The second half is better , as some laughs arise when Sunny arrives at his house and the son and his girlfriend try to pose as old parents . Ram's friend Mehul Buch arrives too , and gives some real entertainment posing as a lecherous old man who cannot keep his hands off Sunny and repeatedly keeps on wringing them in front of her trying to reach her .
Evelyn Sharma looks sexy , in blue bikini showing off her stunning figure . But the star of the show is Sunny , and her charms are on fully display in the movie . She undresses in front of everyone in a scene , and she plays seductress in a flaming red saree that just scorches the senses as she dances in a sexy song made famous already by Dimple Kapadia in the film 'Sagar' . Always wearing hot clothes , she gives you what you came for---real titillation .
But sadly , there is little else in the movie . The jokes and comedy are good only in certain scenes of Mehul Buch and the son and Evelyn posing as old people , while Ram Kapoor utterly fails to look funny inspite of trying hard---a little too hard perhaps . One wonders why this fatso has such a importance in the television and film industry even though he cannot keep his weight under control .
Music is okay however . Once again I went on pilgrimage to see the sex goddess Sunny Leone and got my quota of titillation . That quota is gonna last me many nights . Your satisfaction will depend on how much you are a devotee of the sex goddess . If you are not , or are plainly envious of her ( like many women are ) then you can safely give the movie a miss .
Verdict---Bad .
one and a half star , extra half star is due to sunny .
Piku ( motion sey hee emotion ) [ Piku ( name of the heroine ) the emotion is in the motion] May 2015
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After all the praise and hype I had heard about the movie , the experience was underwhelming....
Worse , P Jani/Jagmohan ( a blogger like myself who writes movie reviews on the internet using various IDs ) revealed the ending in his review , and I already knew what was going to happen....no surprises were in store for me as the movie progressed . That further reduced my enjoyment of the movie . Had I not known the ending , I would have certainly felt some emotion at what happened at the end of the movie . And that would have made me like the movie more . This P Jani talks too much on the internet....is he like the character of Amitabh in Piku ??
For Amitabh talks too much too---does not care about the other persons feelings....diplomacy is not his forte , not by a long way....
He openly chides the owner of the taxi company from whom he has hired a taxi ( Irfan Khan ) about having put his father on ventilator on doctor's advice , claiming that it causes suffering for the patient . He deliberately tells suitors of his daughter named Piku that his daughter has slept with men and that she is not a virgin . And he is talking about his bowel movements for all the hours he is awake....no not 24 hours like I was tempted to call it , for he must be sleeping some of the time....
To all those reviewers who have been saying that piku's dialogues are like everyday conversation , how many old men ( however eccentric and modern they are ) talk about their daughter's sex life like this so openly ?? And some people's lives do centre around bowel movements , but how many of them talk nothing else ?? Not too many....
The daughter ( Deepika Padukone ) is supposed to be eccentric too , judging from the fact that Irfan's taxi drivers are reluctant to drive her to work . But the fact that she puts up with her father's oddities and loves him inspite of them , makes her character more endearing . Or is supposed to make it more endearing . Whatever...
Deepika is supposed to be this liberated female , empowered and all that---but all that is happening because she is cushioned by her father's money , lives in a big house , has slave like servants and yes men ( yes, even Delhi men are reduced to yes men in the movie ) at her beck and call , and has drivers drive her to work ( forget travelling by public transport , she does not even like to drive her own car ).....with such comforts , empowerment is easy....
So this old coot and his goodlooking daughter decide to go to Calcutta from Delhi by private taxi , and because Irfan's drivers refuse to drive them , it is upto Irfan to drive them all the way---a task that he is only too willing to do , since he is shamelessly attracted to Deepika....
So he refuses to drive till Deepika sits besides him , and then the journey starts....interspersed by endless yak yak about constipation and consistency of stools and all that . Amitabh carries a chair with a hole in it for the bowel programme , until Irfan teaches him a novel method of going to latrine---that of sitting 'Indian style' on a western commode....
The talk about colour of stools and frequency of going to WC between the three was so much that I felt that at some point I would be able to smell the smell of Amitabh's excreta in the theatre---fortunately that didn't happen....
And the talk was giving some entertainment to me as well as the audience , as was the chemistry between Irfan and Deepika .
There are some genuine moments when the affection between Amitabh and Deepika is brought out , and some fun is created by the bowel habits of Amitabh . You do go into a relaxed state where you like the flow of the film and wish the journey from Delhi to Calcutta would never end....
There are other liberated women in the movie too , like Maushami Chatterjee who has had three marriages and jokingly asks Irfan for a fourth...
It is the ending that really delivers on the emotional part , and the emotion is towards the climax and not in the motion ( whether loose or hard ) as the movie's title suggests....
Music is good , songs are truly hummable ( though all of them are in the background and not shown to be sung by the characters , in tune with the 'realistic' touch of the movie ) and photography is good too---of course, good photography is part of all films nowadays . Acting by everyone is great , but Amitabh is still the best...
The audience in the theatre was liking the film even more than I did , and I can sense a money spinner at the box office . Even I did get some entertainment and was glad to have seen it .
Verdict--decent .
Three stars .
honeykid
05-14-15, 07:17 PM
And like me , others are crazy about Sunny too....one of them being Ram Kapoor , who plays a gujarati patel living in Malaysia.
What's a gujarati patel?
The other film sounds like it could be a British comedy/drama. :)
What's a gujarati patel?
The other film sounds like it could be a British comedy/drama. :)
patels are the dominant business caste of the indian state of gujarat . nowadays they have become an extremely rich community due to their proficiency in business .
today they are in some numbers in the USA . read about them---
http://www.dailywealth.com/50/how-patels-dominated-us-motels
http://www.firstpost.com/world/how-the-patels-took-over-the-motels-299287.html
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2012/06/11/why-indian-americans-dominate-the-u-s-motel-industry/
Guaporense
05-17-15, 03:18 AM
I might guess based on projections of long run economic trends that Indian film will displace Hollywood as the largest film industry in the world in 40 years or so.
So many films I have never heard of, I think that when I became bored of animation I might change focus into Indian films for a while.
I might guess based on projections of long run economic trends that Indian film will displace Hollywood as the largest film industry in the world in 40 years or so.
So many films I have never heard of, I think that when I became bored of animation I might change focus into Indian films for a while.
yes it might . after all , this year india has even outmatched china's performance in economic growth to become a best performing economy among the bigger economies .
but some of bollywood's films and scenes in other original films are copied from hollywood . will it be able to become more original as it gets bigger or will continue to play second fiddle to hollywood---that is the bigger question .
Veer ( Brave )2010
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the audience was laughing and making jokes on the film throughout,so laughable was the film.
salman khan's antics were nothing short of pathetic ,and his acting ,or what goes for it ---unwatchable.
newcomer zarine khan ,lookalike of kats baby( salman's ex girlfriend katrina kaif ) ,whom sallu has brought in the film to spite katrina ( which means their affair is truely over ) ,is hardly as goodlooking as the original - she's chubby compared to kats .
sallu ( salman khan ) is a pindhara.
now what is pindhara ?
the pindharis were ancillaries of the maratha ( a hindu caste ) armies when they ruled over malwa region of india and lorded it over rajputana ( another region of india ) ,who used to follow the main army and utterly ruin the countryside in their wake, leaving behind heaps of corpses.
when the marathas were finally defeated by the british ,the pindharis were crushed in a brutal war.
just because they fought against the british , in the film this bunch of locusts have been glorified into a tribe of freedom fighters.
the british of course are magnified in the film as cruel and brutal ........as is the trend in bollywood nowadays ........the reason being obvious .........the british were one bunch of foreign conquerors who well and truely left the country leaving no minority behind to take care of their ' interests '..........so the film-makers who have no guts to show the barbarity of the muslims ( as they are scared of that HUGE minority ) greatly magnify the british as super-tyrannical rulers and show them as villains hell bent on destroying india. this is truely unjust to the british , for they were the most civilized of india's various rulers down the ages and were responsible for bringing the modern age to india . but because today's india has no british minority and very few british descended voters or audience members , it is considered politically acceptable to vilify and demonize the british because no one is going to protest against this .
coming back to the film.......sallus father ( mithun ) has taken a oath to destroy the british and the rajput ruler who supported them in destroying the pindharis ( jackie shroff ).
he sends his son sallu to britain to learn the ways of the 'firangees '( whites were called as firangees in those days by indians ) .
predictibly sallu falls in love with the daughter of jackie who is also studying there.
after many stupid twists and nonsensical turns ,sallu manages to bring about his real goal --to make the rajputs realise that all indians ,whether rajput or pindhara ,must unite against the white man to drive him out of the country...........
verdict---laughable.
half star rating out of five .
Welcome to Karachi ( May 2015 )
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Pakistan---a land bristling with guns of all calibre....
Where it is easier to get your hands on bullets than it is to get life saving medicines....
Where the boom of gunfire and explosions of bombs are easier to be heard than the celebrations of firecrackers.....
Where a happy event like a marriage is heralded by fire from automatic rifles....
Where every Tom Diick and Harry is in possession of a deadly weapon.....
Where children are taught to play with guns rather than toys since childhood....
Where rocket launchers and Stinger missiles are available like vegetables on the market....
Where having a kalashnikov like an AK 47 is considered necessary for sheer survival....
Where Americans play deadly cat and mouse games with the barbaric taliban and the murderous ISI....
Where drones attack militants from the air picking them off one by one....
Where the pathans are in hate filled rivalry with the mohajirs and the baluch lust for the blood of the punjabis....
Where minorities like hindus and sikhs have long been ethnically cleansed to near extinction....
A land prowled by thugs and thieves and terrorists and murderers....
A where suicide bombers are a dime a dozen....
The most dangerous country on earth....
And the most dangerous place in the most dangerous country is the port city of Karachi....
Where rival gangs play deadly games of death....
Where treading on the territory of another community ( like a mohajir going into pathan territory ) is tantamount to be given the death sentence....
Where every few days a massacre of innocents ( is anyone in pakistan innocent really ? ) is unleashed....
Where anti India anti west and anti Israel hatred is a mark of citizenship....
Where roadside and drawing room conversations discuss whom ( India or the west or Israel ) to nuke first....
Where kidnapping is a regular pastime....
Where wolves in the shape of human beings roam the streets searching for prey...
It is remarkable that Bollywood has so far kept mum on the unspeakable horrors that inhabit Pakistan---proof of the hold that the islamic mafia of Dawood Ibrahim ( based in Karachi what else ) has on the hindi film industry....
But one day someone is going to show the truth on celluloid....and that day has arrived....
At least Vashu Bhagnani has the guts to call a spade a spade and show the reality of Pakistan , though it is shown in a comic manner....
And the comedy starts when two dumbos ( Jacky Bhagnani and Arshad Warsi ) are washed off the shore of Karachi when their ship coming from India gets swept away in a storm....
Their arrival is heralded by a huge bomb explosion and the name of the film 'Welcome to Karachi' explodes into view through the smoke ; and such a spectacularly explosive welcome sets the tone for the rest of the film....
For throughout the rest of the film the two are seen only dodging bullets and rockets and bombs when they are not firing them....
And they are caught continuously in the crosshairs of warlords and criminals and terrorists and goons and politicians and whatnot....
The two Indians first try to hide their identity ( being identified as Indian brings certain death in Pakistan ) , then hunger takes over and they search for food....but the food packet they steal contains a pistol ( what else did you expect in Pakistan---food !!?? ) and that pistol leads then to a baluch gang....from here straight to the Afghan border to get training for jihad ( training for jihad is like training for school exams in Pakistan---every self respecting Pakistani has to do it )....then some more bomb explosions ( these explosions happen every few minutes in the movie ) ....then being caught in the crosshairs of americans after being chased by unmanned drones flying in the air....but the americans have no use for them and they are set free like a pack of wild dogs to try to reach their destination....
And their destination is their motherland India what else....
But you feel no sadness for the plight of the two---for their antics and those of the Pakistanis around them are enough to keep you in splits throughout the movie....
Jacky Bhagnani wins the dumbness contest by a fair margin , cheering for India in cricket matches in front of Pakistanis almost inviting their wrath , asking for vegetarian food ( he is a vegetarian of the gujarati Patel community ) thus revealing his hindu ( being hindu is unofficially a crime in Pakistan ) identity , and depending on Arshad Warsi for everything....not that Arshad Warsi is far behind in dumbness , as he shows by abusing pathan sportsman Shahid Afridi in front of pathans and nearly getting killed in the process....
In the midst of all this the dumb duo start rounds of gunfire between rival embassies of enemy countries due to their foolishness , give birth to a pregnant woman's baby with help of vaccum cleaner , dance with half naked girls in parties ( a Bollywood must , even when located in Pakistan ) , and save passengers who are about to be killed by the eternal scourge of Pakistan---terrorists....
And they never lose their cool or their hope or their zest for life....and give us entertainment by raising laughs in every situation....
In the end it becomes a little too tiresome---the stupidness of the antics , the jokes in the movie ; but what really tires you out is the endless violence in Pakistan !!
But before that tires you out , you get to see some funny situations and some mindless entertainment....
All frivolous but keeping you engaged....
The songs and music and cinematography is nothing special , but acting is good by everyone...
The Pakistanis in the film never look menacing inspite of all the machinery of destruction they carry , and some characters like the mullah Nasrullah who is leader of the taliban are really funny...
And the women in the film are beautiful , like they really are in Pakistan---one good point about their country....
The liberal lobby of reviewers of various media houses have been howling against the film because it shows the truth about Pakistan , and knowing their credentials I decided that if they are howling so much against the film then I must watch it....and so I had my little dose of fun...
So why don't you show the middle finger to the hypocrites by watching the film....
Verdict---decent .
Three stars .
Lootera ( Stealer---of the heart )
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Women in the movies---why dont women in real life resemble their personas....??
In the movies its the women who on many occasions take the lead in wooing and pursuing love , and they fall in love so deeply that they never stop loving.....
That's what Sonakshi Sinha does---fall in love and never really stop loving even though the man she loves does not deserve it.....
Now why haven't I met such a woman in real life ??
LOOTERA---The title of the movie is fully justified....
The hero ( Ranveer Kapoor ) is not only a lootera of the heart but a real one....
And Sonakshi is the daughter of a zamindar ( landlord )who has lived a pampered life with her every demand being met by her indulgent father , and who falls in love with a guy who is a charlatan.....
He comes with his suave charm and smashing looks and sweeps her off her feet to the point that she goes to bed with him.....
And he falls in love too , but cannot go against those who control him and ditches her leaving her father devastated and dead.....
To question again---why haven't I met such women in real life ??
Because Sonakshi continues to love him deep inside even though she is angry and hurt that he did what he did to her father.....or so it seems from what happens in the movie....
And of course , their paths are destined to cross once more---don't they always do in the movies....
Only this time , he is getting payback for his sins and needs a safe haven to survive....
So does Sonakshi give him the safe haven he requires ??
And what happens to their love story ?? How does it end ??
Go and watch the movie to find that out....
The film has a depressing hang to it , and the mood of the movie throughout is dark and sombre....
Of course , the era of the fifties is well captured on celluloid and photography is good....
But the movie moves at slow pace as if to complement that slow paced era , and the events that occur seem to go from bad to worse....
The action , when it comes does little to lift the film's mood and in fact fills you with melancholy.....
.....For if there is justice in the world ( and there is , at least in the movies ) then the lootera will get his comeuppance for his deeds....
But the problem is , the lootera is also the hero !!
Sonakshi has acted really well and has put a convincing performance even though it was difficult to portray a woman who loves a person who has destroyed her life---how can you love such a person ?? But she alternates between loving and loathing him and does convince us of the authenticity of her emotions....
And Ranveer---this was the first film I saw of him....
He may have the looks but does he have the voice ?? In my opinion at least his voice is somewhat on the weaker side....
In fact I liked the voice of his sidekick more because he mimicked Dev Anand perfectly---yeah its the fifties and Dev Anand was such huge film star then....
The film starts off in Bengal and ends in Dalhousie in the himalayas , but it never picks up pace....
The perfectionists among movie fans may however find something to admire in it as the moviemaking style of the director spells class....
The music and background score is something to be admired too---especially the haunting violin music that plays at poignant moments of romance between the couple....
But to me at least , the class of the movie didn't make up for what it lacked in content....
Verdict---not good .
Tanu weds Manu returns ( Tanu weds Manu---part 2 ) June 2015
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The movie rests fairly and squarely of Kangana Ranaut's power packed performance....while in one avtar ( that of an england returned mod babe who has the chutzpah to divorce her husband on the flimsiest of reasons ) she displays a bold personality who wears temperature raising backless blouses and openly flirts with young men , in the other avtar ( that of a earthy girl from haryana who speaks in a rural accent and has come to delhi to train as an athlete ) she plays an outspoken and gutsy and good hearted person who has the guts to defy her backward family to fall in love....
....And you can only say that may the best of the two kangana's win the race for the best acting performance---for it is difficult to choose between the two , though the heart beats for the rural kangana who displays a bravery and a large heartedness that wins your heart....and she wins the heart of the hero ( madhavan ) too at least for a while....
Madhavan has been divorced from Tanu ( the england returned kangana ) and comes to delhi only to fall in love with this haryanvi girl ( datto ) who looks largely the same---except for the cut hair and the buck toothed appearance....
And wedding bells are about to ring for the two , for datto has the courage to fight with her family and villagers to win her love....and has the ability to triumph over their opposition....
And all this while what has tanu ( the england returned kangana ) been doing ?? well , she has been painting the town red with available guys including her old flames....
But who is going to tell tanu that divorce over trivial reasons is not done , and ultimately she must go back to her husband for she has not really gotten over him and in fact never will....and who is going to tell madhavan that his love for datto is nothing but his longing for his wife , for why has he chosen a girl who looks the same....who ??
In the midst of this , the other guys tanu has been flirting ( played by jimmy shergill and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub ) with have got themselves into a heart losing situation with a tanu that they do not deserve , and datto has got her self into a heart breaking situation over a manu ( madhavan ) whom she will not get....
And such is kangana's acting that your heart goes out to datto....and if you are a guy ( like i am ) you want someone like datto to be in your life---someone who stands upto her ideals , and has the daring to fight the whole world for her lover....
I wish the movie was about only this , and it would have been a fine movie indeed....but the director crams a lot of corny situations and corny characters ( played by swara bhaskar and deepak dobriyal and eijaz khan ) and stupid incidents into the movie....and a lot of time is wasted in this nonsense....
Some parts of the movie are like a farce , and I am not a fan of farcical situations....
To me the best parts of the movie were when datto was around for they were memorably emotional , and I especially liked the ' old school girl ' english song that she sings in a haryanvi accent---been listening to it again and again and can't seem to let it go...
Rest of the movie does not match up , but it can still be watched for kangana as datto , or even as tanu....
Music is decent , and acting is the strong point of the movie---for it is good by everyone....
No great locations are filmed , and photography is only so so....does not seem like a big budget movie....
Okay for watching once....
Verdict---Decent .
Three stars .
I particularly liked this english song from the above movie sung in the accent of a rural dialect of north india called 'haryanvi' .
https://youtu.be/G7xudY_1KV4
https://youtu.be/gjBzeSJnuM8
Ragini MMS part 2
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Sunny Leone has come of age---finally !!....I mean , as a star....
Bodily she had come of age a long time ago ( he he :D )...and how !!
But now she gets to showcase all her delicious curves and her alluring charms as a heroine in a film that comes in the decent-to-good category , unlike ' Jism 2 ' and ' Jackpot ' which failed and the better made ' Shootout at wadala ' where she just had an item song .
And Sunny does what she does best---all the oohs and aahs in bed are done with the mastery of practice , and the wild embraces and the passionate scenes are enacted with the consummate ease of a professional.....
But Ragini MMS 2 is more than just soft porn---it's a combination of horror and sex and comedy that is nothing more than frivolous but does it's job of delivering entertainment neatly .
And you get regular doses of all---the ghost gives us the jolts and the chills every now and then , Sunny delivers on the sex part , but the surprise package is the acting of Parvin Dabas , Karan Taluja and Sandhya Mridul ( I hope I have got the names of the actors right ) who keep us in splits with their funny one liners....
Yeah , Parvin Dabas plays the role of Rocks who decides to make a film on what happened in the film Ragini MMS part 1 by taking Sunny Leone ( playing herself ) as heroine . And he is convinced by the writer of the film ( played by Saahil Prem ) to film it in the same haunted house where the earlier drama happened .
This Saahil Prem plays the role of hero but it is Parvin Dabas who entertains more....
....For Parvin is loud , leery and over the top . He openly makes sexual advances towards Sunny without any encumbrances---and that is exactly what we want . For Sunny Leone is no vestal virgin is she....
Above all Parvin's acting is comedy and keeps us laughing .
Ditto for Karan Taluja and Sandhya Mridul . Karan Taluja is funny as hell , a sex predator without inhibitions , and his one liners are a treat to listen to . Watch the scene where he amorously rushes into a lake wanting to have sex with Sunny ( Sunny Leone not actor Sunny Deol ) and saying in Dharmendra's ( Sunny Deol's father ) voice ' Sunny , come to papa....'' !:p
Sandhya has her eye on Rocks whom she wants to take to the casting couch to further her career and speaks perfect broken english---perfect to make us laugh though it is broken....
But she gets something even better than to bed the loudmouth Rocks ( Parvin Dabas ).....She gets to kiss Sunny Leone in person---only the third female to female kiss in hindi cinema ( hoping to see more in the years to come ;))....
In contrast to Karan Taluja and Parvin Dabas who make no bones about their desire to bed Sunny Leone ( Karan even brings out a pack of Manforce condoms made by Mankind company , presumably advertising for them ) , the hero played by Saahil Prem walks with a distressed expression throughout the film . His acting---I didn't like it . Looks like hypocrite by pretending to not like Sunny at the beginning---must be out of his mind to not like her....
And as the shooting of the film starts , the ghost slowly starts to make its appearance felt among all these all these people---and it makes it's presence clearly felt by killing them one by one . But the audience was giggling sneering and sniggering at the horror scenes for the film is more funny and sexy than fearsome....
Music ( these are only three songs ) is good enough though not great .
The film itself can by no stretch of imagination be called great . Nor is Sunny Leone ever going to crave a niche for herself as a great actress . But both the film and Sunny give us what we want---some entertainment ,some titillation .
Verdict---Good entertainment .
Three and a half stars .
Hamari adhuri kahani ( Our unfinished story ) June 2015
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The film has been hyped to be be a semi autobiographical film based on the relationship between famous director Mahesh Bhatt's mother ( who was second wife of his father ) and his father and stepmother . But I frankly could not understand where the similarities between the film's story and Mahesh's real life story are to be found . It has been directed by Mahesh's nephew Mohit Suri presumably with inputs from Bhatt .
The similarities between Mahesh's real life story and the film can't be easily found because instead of one man having two women ( like Mahesh's father had , which is a commonplace occurance ) the film shows a woman having two men , or rather caught between the two .
Vidya Balan has been brought up in a hyper conservative family which forces daughters to marry husbands selected by their fathers without the daughter having a say in her marriage . So Vidya is married off to Rajkumar Rao , who himself is a fundamentalist and gets his name tattooed forcibly on Vidya's arm . But after a few years he is kidnapped by militants in the remote jungle area of Bastar and has his name falsely implicated in a murder case with the police while he is kept as a prisoner by the militants . Clinging to the ancient customs and traditions of the land , Vidya remains waiting for him along with her son instead of finding a man for herself as advised by her feisty and outspoken mother in law.
But her work as a florist comes to the attention of Emraan Hashmi ( who plays a big businessman who owns many hotels across the globe) due to their shared love for the same lilies . The reason for the attention---Vidya and her son's story is similar to that of him and his mother....and Emraan finds an emotional connect with Vidya . And he soon proposes to her , introducing her to his mother who coaxes Vidya to fall in love....
The lilies....sorry roses have just begun to bloom in Vidya's life when her husband makes his reappearance , and even though he is an innocent man falsely framed in a police case he behaves as a villain by refusing to accept Vidya's relationship with Emraan and harking to the ancient asiatic traditions which keep women bound forever to men in the backward east .
So what will happen to Vidya's romance with Emraan ?? Will love triumph over the odds ?? Can Vidya break the ancient shackles of tradition to reunite with her love ?? Or , as the movie's title suggests the story will remain unfinished waiting perhaps for a part two ?? What will her long lost husband do to stop her relationship ??
The movie has some interesting answers in true Mahesh Bhatt style....
While watching the movie I did feel that the director sure had the ambition of making an ambitious movie which would take us on an emotional roller coaster ride while raking up the issues of women's rights and the fallacy of holding on to useless outmoded customs and traditions . The combo of Mahesh Bhatt and Mohit Suri wanted to make a film that cries out against the injustice of it all....
Sadly , the women in the audience who were obviously being targeted for gaining their sympathy were not feeling any sympathy while much of the movie was happening....
Instead , the women were openly sniggering at some of the scenes and dialogues of the film , for they seemed so cliched and staged rather than spontaneous . Some of the male characters seemed excessively regressive in order the make them appear villainous .
But the director Mohit Suri was rentlessly persistent in his attempts to give an emotional touch to the movie and he finally silenced the sniggers with a fine climax that really finished the unfinished story and gave us the 'Mahesh Bhatt touch'---something that I had come to see in the movie . I was able to return home with some satisfaction on my face , for what is a Mahesh Bhatt backed film without a complex twist in relationships that crosses the line of the ordinary---something that I got to see in the end of the film .
Problem is , the first part of the film was without the intensity expected ; where was the depth of the emotion called love that was supposed to exist between Emraan and Vidya---it was not present . The dialogues seemed shallow and the audience was not able to empathize with the happenings in the story.
It was with the entry of Rajkumar Rao that the story got real impetus , and the audience was able to connect with the movie .
Of course , the director was nothing if not rentlessly persistent and the level of sacrifice to which Vidya goes for her husband Rajkumar Rao and the extent to which Emraan goes for helping Vidya and the fact that Rajkumar Rao is forced to admit the reality of the relationship between Emraan and Vidya in a most curious manner does take the film to a certain level....
Acting not really special by anyone , though no one was bad . Photography was okay , but not great either . But music was decent and songs were really hummable.
The film has many flaws , especially the fact that many characters seemed unnecessarily orthodox for educated and urbane people . It seemed that the orthodoxy was deliberately staged in order to try to make a compelling tale of a much wronged woman . But in the end I got what I wanted , a coherent ending to a complex and twisted tale . That the ending came in a beautiful field of Emraan's and Vidya's favourite lilies in the middle of nowhere made it all the more palatable....
Verdict---Decent .
Two and a half stars .
Dil dhadakne do ( Let the heart beat ) june 2015
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The setting of this movie is among the upper class punjabis who dominate Delhi's elite . Anil Kapoor plays a self made businessman who never forgets to trumpet that he is self made . Shefali Shah plays his much suffering wife .
These elite probably consider themselves as the ones who are bringing India into the 21st century , but actually their morality is more like that of westerners in the first quarter of the 20th century . So the marriage between Anil Kapoor and his wife may not be going well , but divorce is out of question . They have to put up appearances of happy marriage for show purposes , though Shefali's friends make snide remarks behind the back as they know the truth...
Similarly , women are allowed to wear partially exposing clothes ( sshh no bikinis though !! ) but sex before marriage is not really appreciated .
And even the new generation cannot divorce....their daughter Priyanka Chopra's marriage with Rahul bose may be on the rocks , but she is firmly told that no one in the family has ever divorced....
Indeed her childhood romance with the son ( Farhan Akhtar ) of the business manager of the family has been broken by sending him abroad for studies , as he was not considered equal in status .
And the son ( Ranveer Singh ) is also a commodity to be sacrificed on the altar of the well being of business . His marriage is sought to be fixed with a beautiful girl ( Ridhima Sood ) who is daughter of a financial magnate as Anil Kapoor's business is in debt , even though Ridhima has begun to like the son of her father's business rival...
But the younger generation has different ideas and they want to lead their lives differently . So Priyanka is secretly hell bent on divorce and wants to reunite with her past love . Ranveer is destined to fall in love with a muslim hailing from Birmingham in England ( Anushka Sharma )---a quick search on the net revealed that Birmingham has a large muslim population that is 74 % Pakistani....aha !! so the Pakistani angle is ever present as always to keep the audiences in the neighbouring country interested....
Ridhima does not want to marry Ranveer....
And all the characters are invited to a fabulous cruise off Istanbul in Turkey to celebrate the lead couple's anniversary . And what does happen on the cruise ship ?? The younger generation is going to rebel , what else...
But how are they going to rebel ?? Watch the movie for that...
Of all the ladies in the movie Anushka Sharma ( who plays a dancer on the cruise ship ) looked the most divine , especially when she swam like nymph in the swimming pool wearing swimsuit . Acting wise Priyanka Chopra expressions are superb . Anil Kapoor acts every inch like a business magnate.
The movie does have some interesting moments and some entertainment , really . The twists and turns in the story mean that the party is spoiled for the older generation characters of the movie as some uncomfortable truths come out , but it is all for the better in the end . Photography is good too like it is always nowadays . Music is okay and songs are okay too . The movie will be appreciated by people in the cities and big towns , while rural folk will find the movie's setting a world apart from them...
Verdict---good .
Three stars .
Rang de basanti ( Colour this spring ) 2006
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'Mohe Rang de basanti' was a poem sung by some of the most heroic fighters who laid their lives in India's struggle for independence against British rule . It means ' Lets us give colour to this spring with the colour of sacrifice ' .
In Britain one young woman named Sue is struck by the diary written by her ancestor , who was a British officer involved in suppressing the uprising against the British rule in India and had seen the deaths of the Indian heroes at first hand . She is particularly engrossed by one line in the diary , which says that her ancestor had seen two types of people dying---those who died without saying anything , and those who died begging for their lives ; but the Indian revolutionaries had died a third type of death---smiling and laughing without a care in the world . Sue is so interested in researching the lives of these young revolutionaries that she learns Indian language hindi and contacts an Indian young woman ( Soha Ali Khan ) and flies down to India to film a documentary on the revolutionaries .
But it is not easy to find actors for the roles in the documentary until Sue chances upon Soha's group of friends---who are led by a guy named DJ ( Amir Khan ) .These happy go lucky characters who live life without a care in the world and are always horsing about and dancing and having rowdy fun seem to be the ideal people to play the roles of revolutionaries who had died with laughter in their eyes and a smile upon their lips...
At first the filming of the documentary is not easy as the group finds it difficult to bring on the seriousness to their roles because they are fun loving rowdy guys and like to take life easy . But gradually as the filming progresses the group realises the depth of the sacrifice of the original freedom fighters and begin to fit their roles . Sue sees before her own eyes the transformation of a group of carefree individuals getting inspired by the freedom struggle of a bygone era and sinking neatly in their roles . And the roles change their carefree outlook towards life ; they begin to become modern day revolutionaries , but since the British have long left , they are without a cause...
But where their are rebels , their is a cause....and a cause does come along .
Already the young men have begun debating as to what has changed since the country's independence happened ; and the answer is nothing---the British have been replaced by corrupt rulers who do nothing for the country but are busy filling their own pockets with money . But a dramatic twist occurs in their lives as Soha's boyfriend Madhavan who is an ace fighter pilot in the Indian air force is killed in an air crash .The plane in which he was flying was made by faulty parts bought by a corrupt defence minister who bought cheap bad quality spare parts while pocketing most of the money meant to buy good quality spare parts .
But the government declares Madhavan to be a bad pilot who flew irresponsibly thus tarnishing his good name ; it tries to hide the true culprits behind Madhavan's death because they form part of the government . When Madhavan's friends and his girlfriend Soha and his mother and our young group try to organize candle light marches in protest , the government sends heavily armed police who brutally beat the group and send Madhavan's mother to almost her death by the injuries sustained . What the government does not know is that they have handed the young rebels ( who were hanging without a cause until now ) a real cause for revolution....
The young new era revolutionaries inspired by the roles of the British era revolutionaries they have played in Sue's documentary now decide to assassinate the corrupt defence minister who was responsible for death of their fighter pilot friend . But after they succeed in assassinating him , the government which cannot track the killers claims that the defence minister was killed by terrorists and declares him a great hero who died fighting against terrorism !!
It is clear that even if the young men decide to surrender before the police to let the common man know the truth , the government will suppress it by dispatching them without the trial where they can accuse the government . So the young men decide to take an extraordinary step ; they decide to storm they national radio station ( All India radio ) with weapons and take over it and declare the truth on live radio---how the government is responsible for deaths of fighter pilots by buying cheap quality fighter jet parts and why the young group has assassinated the defence minister because he was such a crook . They would like to start a revolution against the Indian government....
So does the plan succeed ?? Or is it too ambitious ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie is embellished with top quality acting and fabulous photography and heroic scenes....what more can one want....??
Want ?? What I wanted was to pick a gun in my hand and join the revolution !! Finish off the corrupt and crooked people in the government who are draining the lifeblood of my nation....Bring a new era of justice !!
I watched with tears brimming in my eyes as the cruel government sent troops armed with the most modern weapons to kill my heroes who had stormed the radio station and declared the truth before an astonished and stunned and outraged public....
But it was too late for the villains who ran the government ; even as my heroes were dying tragic deaths ( but with a smile on their lips and laughter in their eyes , just like Sue's ancestor had described in his diary ) the public was in the mood for revolution....
The colour of this coming spring was one of sacrifice , and the sacrifice of these heroes not going to go in vain !!
Verdict---Awesomely inspiring .
Nothing less than a five star rating....
Bahubali---the beginning ( The man with the strong arms , part one ) July 2015
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The costliest and biggest film ever to be made in India is finally here....promising special effects that even Hollywood would envy....
And it does live upto it's mighty name....producing an extravaganza of war and legend on celluloid like never before....
A roaring waterfall is beautifully shown falling from a height that is ten times that of naigara , with waters which cascade like milk over a slippery mountain that seems to head endlessly upwards...
And for the hero ( played by Prabhas ) who manages to climb the slippery heights of the waterfall to the roof of the world among snowy hills lies the ultimate prize---the kingdom of mahishmati , which is a wonder on earth with mighty bastions and magnificent palaces and superbly crafted temples....
And also waiting for him in the high heights beyond the waterfall is the beautiful Tammanah , a damsel with pink skin and smooth belly with a deep navel that would be dream to explore....
And it is Tammanah who eggs him on to invade Mahishmati alone...
But waiting for him in Mahishmati is another secret---that he is the one who has been chosen by destiny to lead the people of the kingdom towards liberation from the evil clutches of the villain ( played by Rana Daggubati ) ,who has kept many in the chains of slavery and unleashed tyranny upon the rest....
Yes , he is Bahubali---the ultimate warrior and the rightful heir to the throne of the kingdom....for he was whisked away as a child from the kingdom after his father who king was killed by the villain....
And he then hears the story of how his father fought an epic battle to save the kingdom of Mahishmati from a horde of barbarians---a battle that is brought alive on celluloid like no battle has been ever before....
He hears how his father tamed a giant bull---a huge bull with massive size and built , and a scene filmed with such spectacular skill....you really feel that bull's angry snorts as his attack is brought to a grinding halt by the hero's father ( Prabhas in a double role )....
And he sees really tall statue of gold being raised in the city---another superb effort of photography....
But the piece de resistance of the film is the epic battle fought with cruel savages who are crude enough to dream of violating the women of Mahishmati....
Precise battle plans are brought to perfection on the battlefield ; soldiers armed with gleaming pikes and shields form a impenetrable wall of steel....
Giant balls of stone are thrown by gigantic catapults onto the enemy , and a storm of fire is unleashed in the enemy's ranks....
Dramatic cavalry charges are made onto the plains filled with enemy soldiers , and sharp arrows are fired by huge bows....
Shining swords strike enemy bodies drawing red blood from them....
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are shown cramming the plains of battle like a dark cloud of locusts....
And all of this is filmed with magnificent special effects the kind of which India has never seen before....a literal splurge of money....
The music is pleasant too---all melodious songs and soothing instrumentation that pleases the senses....
Prabhas looks good too---muscled and leader like ; a true Bahubali....
Rana Dagubatti looks strong and beefy ; a strong contender for the throne that he wants....
But at the end of it all comes the real disappointment---that the film has not ended at all ; it has been left incomplete....the second part will complete the film in 2016 , a part named as 'Bahubali the conclusion'....
Some in the audience were swearing to themselves in sheer disappointment....for the first part of the film had raided the bar of entertainment high , but the incomplete ending had left audience feeling high and dry....
Many will return in 2016 however , hoping to watch another epic battle filmed in the second part like never before....
I will return too...
Verdict---spectacular entertainment .
Four stars .
Masaan ( Funeral ground ) July 2015
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Masaan---that was an unusual name for a movie set in Varanasi , the holiest of cities in hinduism....for Masaan means funeral ground , and boy !! that was unusual for a holy city that one associates with temples and Gods .
Or maybe that was the director's way of shaking me out of my upper caste world and reminding me of the existence of the lower castes even in the holiest of holies , for Varanasi is also the place where people want to be cremated after death....and that task is done by people of the dom caste who earn their livelihood by that profession .
And out of the two parallel story tracks that run through the movie , one is the love story of a boy of the dom caste ( played by Vicky Kaushal ) with a girl belonging to an upper caste ( played by Shweta Tripathi ) .
The other track is that of a daughter ( played by Richa Chaddha ) of a sanskrit scholar who wants to explore sex after watching a porn film and goes to a seedy hotel with her boyfriend , only to be caught in the clutches of a police officer carrying out a raid on the hotel and who blackmails her and her father ( father is played by Sanjay Mishra ) to get money in exchange for not letting out her deep dark secret---that of having sex before marriage....
Yes , this is Benaras (other name of Varanasi ) on the backs of the Ganges river....and it is situated in one of the most traditional parts of India , where a woman who has sex before marriage is branded a slut....
And the theme of the movie---is that even in the most backward parts of India , there are people trying to lead lives of freedom....free from caste barriers and free from taboos of virginity and sex...
It shows the prejudices they face in breaking the barriers , and their struggle to lead their lives in their fashion inspite of the backwardness of the surroundings and the taboos enforced by the people around them....
So do the new age people trying to lead an advanced life in a backward region succeed in their quest of achieving freedom with dignity ??
And do the two parallel story lines intersect anywhere ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
The track of the inter caste love affair raises your hopes of rebellion against the caste system....only to squash them disappointingly in a most unexpectedly tragic manner....but this gives the director the chance to show some stupendous acting of grief and loss by Vicky Kaushal in the background of some breathtaking photography of a train crossing a bridge in the night .
The difference in the upbringing of the upper caste girl from the lower caste boy is beautifully brought out , with the girl dishing out some fine poetry by high class poets while the boy admitting that he never even has heard of the poets or poetry....and his his heartfelt honesty in admitting so making the girl fall in love....
The director excels in showing moments of tenderness and love---of the lovers shyly taking their first kiss , and of vowing to run away to escape from the prejudices of the caste system....but my main grudge against the director is that he failed to carry this track to the much awaited fight against the parents who will naturally oppose the affair....
On the other hand , the director is much better in showing the attempt of Richa Chaddha to escape the prejudices of small town people against physical intimacy before marriage and takes that track to a more satisfactory conclusion . Sanjay Mishra as her father is absolutely redoubtable .
Above all , the director ( Neeraj Ghaywan) has solidly shown as never before the life in small town north India as personified by the city of Benaras .The ethos of the city , the sights and sounds and smells and the life and atmosphere of the city has been shown truly well . To me , that is the greatest triumph of the film .
The message of the film---that we must move on even after life shaking events and achieve our goals , even though small minded people around us may try to make it sound to us that the life shaking events are the end of everything.....that life has to go on and nothing must stop us....
And the director has really succeeded in showcasing that message....reason enough to see the film....
Verdict---Good . Three and a half stars .
However , the film will be liked mostly by art movie lovers . Not so much by commercial movie aficionados .
Bajrangi bhaijaan ( My brother , the devotee of God ) July 2015
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After seeing this film I must say straightaway that it is about what Bollywood is best at---trying to build bridges between India and Pakistan....futile bridges of course, for no film has succeeded in making the two countries even an inch closer . But at least this film can't be accused of being anti hindu like PK was by some people ( not me ) and is not anti India like HAIDER .
I liked Salman Khan in the film ; that's because he plays what he is adept at playing due to his real life personality---a moron....
Of course , in the film he is a lovable moron unlike his real life where the moronic traits of his personality have gotten him into trouble with the law . Due credit must be given to director Kabir Khan because he has extracted maximum possible acting from some one like Salman who is just an entertainer and not really an actor .
And such is the film that it requires some acting....above all it is a very non Salmanisque film . For it requires Salman to get beaten up on a number of occasions and not play invincible superstar like he has played in other films . And the film has some real emotional scenes that bring you close to tears---again , very non Salmanisque .
So on to the story---
Sweet little Shahida who cannot speak since birth is brought to India from Pakistan by her mother to visit a holy place in the hope that the holy visit will cure her inability to speak . But she gets lost in India as she is separated from her mother when she alights from her train , and then she meets Pawan ( Salman ) who decides to help her get back to Pakistan.
Pawan is a devotee of the hindu God Hanuman ( also called Bajrang bali ), and is so simple and honest that he never speaks anything but the truth . This makes his landlord's daughter ( played by Kareena Kapoor ) fall in love with him . To complicate matters comes Shahida . Is it so easy to take her back to a country India is perpetually at loggerheads with ?? Watch the movie for the answer to this question .
The scenes of Pawan and his fiancee discovering that Shahida is not just a muslim but also a Pakistani , his various attempts to send her back to Pakistan , his meeting of mean people with devious intentions on the way , until he is forced to decide to take her back himself---all this does build your interest in the story .
Of course , there is the usual Bollywood angle of showing the Pakistanis as better people than they are depicted in the news that daily comes out of that country ; but in this film one feels that the story would not have moved forward if they had been shown as no holds barred India haters .
All this sets the stage for the heavy emotionalism towards the later part of the movie ( and very effective emotionalism at that ) in the setting of the region on which the two countries are at loggerheads---Kashmir what else....
Acting by everyone is effective , though no one can be called fantastic . But the scenes of emotion towards the end would move even a hardened person , so moving they are .
Songs and music is really good , and perfect for the emotional and moving scenes in the film . Photography is splendid , of the the Thar desert silhouetted by the golden sun and of the lengthening and shortening shadows over snowy valleys of Kashmir as the sun rises and sets . Technically , the film is very good---just like you expect from a Kabir Khan film .
The one who steals your heart is Harshali Malhotra who playes Shahida . She is just cuteness personified , with rosy cheeks and nose that turn red in the sunlight .
The journey of an honest God fearing Indian from 'Bajrangi' ( devotee of Bajrang bali ) to 'Bhaijaan' ( Pakistani word for brother ) is well worth a watch....
Verdict---Good .
Four stars .
Drishyam ( The sighting ) August 20015
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Both Tabu and Ajay Devgan have matured sufficiently to play parents of young boys and girls , even when the Khans and Kumars are romancing young girls .
Drishyam tells the story of a self made man ( Ajay Devgan ) who may be half educated , but has a brain which works like a razor....and his heart is in the right place , for it beats only for his family....
And his family is the world to him , consisting of two daughters and wife ( played by Shriya Sharan )....the setting is Goa....they are middle class maharashtrians who live life within their limited means and do so happiliy....
But one day the members of this family get involved in a terrible incident , though the incident is not of their making....
Vijay ( Devgan ) has been bold enough to confront a police officer over his corruption earlier , and now that police officer is on to his tail to get Vijay's family arrested for the incident....
And powerful people ( Tabu , who plays a very high level police officer ) want to see the culprits arrested because they and their near and dear ones are are personally involved , while all needles of suspicion point towards Vijay....
Vijay and his family are subjected to gruesome forms of police methods of interrogation , including brutal beatings of the ladies of his house and himself . The audience was squirming in it's seats as this savagery was going on in front of their eyes .
Due to this ultimately your sympathy goes towards the suspects , while the police will be looked with fear and loathing....and such are the power packed performances by the family to protect each other that the task of sympathising with them becomes too easy....
The police officer named Gaitonde also evokes your hatred by his performance as the face of evil .
The story is slow in the first half , but boy!! when it picks up momentum it just arrests your attention in the second half....
The music I found to be almost nonexistent , or maybe my mind was too much absorbed in the story and skipped through it....
What I remembered was Tabu's breasts jutting through her police uniform , something that was evident even in the film's promos....but her situation was such that I wondered why she had been made to wear such a figure hugging dress ; was not a more demure dress correct for such a situation....??
Whatever be the mistakes , the film moves at a electric pace once it picks momentum , and is superbly crafted....the ending is most satisfying especially , for it bring closure to the people involved....
So why the name Drishyam ( the sighting ) ?? That I think is because Vijay cleverly succeeds in convincing many people that they have sighted him in some other place than where the incident took place on that day , and their alleged 'sightings' of him form a formidable stumbling block in the police investigation .
The film has been made on a smallish budget , for it has no fancy locations and no fancy photography even though the setting of Goa was ideal for that . The director has concentrated on making it a thriller , and his concentration has worked brilliantly !!
Verdict---Real good .
Four stars .
Ya Rab ( Oh Lord !! )
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A controversial film is best seen with the people among whom it raises a controversy , so I changed my usual venue for seeing films and off I went to a multiplex situated in the muslim area of Kurla and watched it with an audience containing a majority of muslims....
And straightaway , I must say that this is one film made straight from the heart ; by people who's heart is in the right place , especially because they are muslims....
It dares to take the bull by the horns and accuse maulanas having tremendous respect and standing in muslim society of fomenting jihad and terrorism by preaching hate in speeches and privately inculcating hatred in impressionable minds , thus encouraging and indeed brainwashing them to become suicide bombers....
And it shows hordes of muslim mobs getting incited by this hate and go on the warpath destroying property and endangering lives.....
It shows videos of hindus attacking muslims being shown to muslims in order to incite hatred for hindus among them....
When a hindu police officer ( played by Ajaz Khan ) tries to reason with one of the jehadis that muslims enjoy more freedom in India than muslim countries , the jehadi retaliates by saying the truth---that muslims enjoy freedom here because hindus are afraid of them....
And the jehadi openly spells the beans on the jehadis' amibition to bring the entire world under the ambit of their fanatical version of islam....
Of course , this is countered by showing liberal muslims too....
An adorable little muslim boy who quotes verses from the Quran to prove that islam does not allow suicide bombing.....
A muslim scholar denounces the fanatics who breed hate....
And a doctor ( played by Manzhar Sehbai ) who is a very conservative muslim in practice ( to the point that his modern wife leaves him ) shows himself to be good man in the end by refusing to listen to the fanatics when it comes to saving lives....
Inspite of this counterbalancing of the fanatics by liberals , it is still a brave film....
For the fanatics are given ample screen space and are shown to have a booming and powerful voice by the redoubtable acting prowess of Akhilendra Mishra , who plays the villain---a radical preacher in cahoots with the ' neighbouring country ' who plans terrorist attacks on Indian soil with the neighbour's help....
Such a film could have been directed only by a muslim and backed by muslims ( like Mahesh Bhatt ) for it to be acceptable , for if a nonmuslim directed it and the film was backed by nonmuslims then it would create a communal uproar....
It shows the story of a beautiful muslim woman ( played by Arjumman Mughal ) who has gone into coma due to a suicide bombing , and who on coming out from it may recognize the suicide bomber---hence the terrorists want her killed along with the fetus she is carrying....
And Inspector Ran Vijay Singh ( played by Ajaz Khan ) leads the efforts to save her , backed by her husband ( played by Vikram Singh )....
But not so easy....!! For muslim mobs incited by the fanatic maulana are playing mayhem on the streets baying for the woman's blood and of those who are trying to save her....
It is Akhilendra Mishra who dominates the film with his booming voice , but Ajaz Khan does look like a dynamic police officer and walk with a swagger though his acting is only okay...
When things turn critical for the beautiful muslim woman's baby , even the good doctor throws his hands up and is forced to beseech God to save the child....
And it is upto muslims themselves to teach a lesson to those among them who spread hate against other religions....
So does God and does the muslim community do the right thing ??
Watch the film for that....
There are of course some silly things shown in the film , like an operation done on the patient in a moving ambulance which is waivering due to an attack by a mob---how can such a thing be possible.....
But I thought to myself---there are even more silly things and stupid scenes in films featuring Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar , and yet we help them make it to the 100 crore 200 crore and even the 300 crore club , then why not ignore these scenes in a film made with true intentions instead of cribbing about them.....
Interspersed in all this is some heavy duty discussion and dialogue about the role of Islam in encouraging or discouraging terrorism , and verses from the Quran and other islamic quotations are liberally thrown about by both parties to back their stand .
The muslim audience with whom I was watching the film was cheering every dialogue denouncing terrorism and clapping as the fanatics got the punishment they richly deserved....
Maybe like the film's makers , they had their hearts in the right place too...
Glad I watched the film with them....
Verdict---Certainly watchable .
The last act ( 2012 )
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Somewhere on an isolated road on a godforsaken night is found the utterly mutilated body of a dead man---his face crushed beyond recognition . But along with him are twelve different pieces of evidence pointing to twelve different cities from where the killer came from---and pointing to twelve different groups of people , who could potentially be killers .
So where do we search.....?? Everywhere , of course.....
So we find police of twelve different cities searching for the clues which the evidence offers---and thus showing us vignettes of different parts of India , with its different colours.....
So we move from the mofussil parts of India like Hisar in Haryana to the urban landscape of Bangalore---and from posh parts where english is spoken to parts where even the hindi is crude and vulgar....
And the movie in different parts of India speaks different languages---Marathi in Maharashtra to Bengali in Kolkata to Tamil in Chennai ; and English subtitles are added to those parts which are in vernacular . Indeed the director for each part is different , showing his style.....
All types of characters are there---from Hindu to Muslim and from college students to female receptionists to urdu abuse spewing watch makers in Lucknow.....
........And all of them have one thing in common---that they have been defrauded by someone......
......And police investigation in each part of India unearths one crime or the other......
So who is it who has been involved in so many illegal capers in so many cities ?? Is it several people or is it one man ?? And if it is one man , then do the police succeed in tracking him down ??
Go and find out in the movie for the answer.....
But is the movie worth it ?? To some it is , but to others it's not.....
......Because for some people its the journey which is more important than the destination....
......And for such people the movie is worth it , for it does keep you engaged and engrossed till the end as the investigation gets interesting and springs up new facts....
But the end is rather disappointing , and so for some people the journey through the movie may not be worth it.....
I for one found one fact interesting---that the culprit had escaped.....
......Escaped into the mists of space and time.....
And how I wondered if I could do the same.....be free from the consequences of the actions I had done in my lifetime , be free from the responsibilities thrust upon me , free from the burdens of the world.....free to roam without being weighed by anything.....
And if I could do so even for a brief time , I dont mind if it is the last time I do anything---the last act.....
Verdict---good presenting style of the movie but ending falls flat.....not great.....
Manjhi the mountain man ( August 2015 )
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An eccentric man undertakes an impossible mission---to build a road alone through a mountain that blocks direct access to the neighbouring town . For that town has the facilities like hospitals etc that his village lacks , and it was because of the lack of these facilities that he ( Dashrath Manjhi played by Nawazuddin Siddique ) lost his beloved wife Faguniya ( played by Radhika Apte ) .
And for Dashrath , Faguniya was life...she was his soulmate....and he was the partner that women dream of , who never remarried after her death and instead spent a lifetime trying to rectify the cause of her death so that others would not suffer her fate...
The setting is Bihar , the badland of India...and Dashrath has the bad luck of being born in the low caste that lives eating rats for food---yeah , in some parts of India , they still do that...
And the period is of 50 years ago , when the upper castes ruled the roost and Dashrath and his father and their caste had to suffer indignities that would shock today's people....like their women being kidnapped and raped any time....
Any lower caste who went against the upper caste masters had horseshoes nailed to his feet , and Dashrath's intended destiny was to be a bonded labourer . But he escapes to another town and comes back only when equality of castes is declared in India...only to receive a sound beating at the hands of the goons of the upper caste landlord ( Tigmanshu Dhulia ) .
But he has another reason to come back---the girl he was married to in childhood who is being forcibly married off to another man . And it is only after an epic struggle that he gets her....only to lose her after having two children....
And such is his love for her that he decides to tame the mountain which prevented him from reaching the nearby town for medical aid....and he begins to cut the mountain all alone , in what is termed a mad quest by the townsfolk....but it is quest that will turn him into a legend , a man whose name will be be etched on the road that he will build and on whom this movie will be made....for it is true story !!!
It is quest for which he toils 22 years , and he has to undergo numerous difficulties along the way....when a cobra bites him , he cuts off the toe on which it bit him for there is no other way to stop the flow of poison !!....when police arrest him for encroaching on government land for cutting the road , a newspaper reporter organizes a protest that frees him....the politicians of the town hog all the money that the government has earmarked to help him build the road and leave him penniless....famine strikes the land and leaves him alone digging for water because the people flee the place...and yet he keeps digging on....and he wins our sympathy....
Egging him on are visions of his wife who appears to him like an angel in dreams....and the dreams are pure fantasy---of a thinly clothed Radhika Apte in white...
But beyond dreams is the real world , and the real world for him is the state of Bihar in north India....and the barbaric atmosphere of rural Bihar that the movie creates would frighten anyone from visiting the place ever....
The ones who do visit , like the then prime minister Indira Gandhi do not even get a decent stage to stand on and it is upto Dashrath Manjhi and his friends to hold up the creaking stage which may fall down....
Indira Gandhi repays in the same coin by forcing the emergency ( a kind of martial law ) on India forcing one of the villagers to join the naxalite ( communist ) rebellion to kill the upper caste landlord , and Dashrath Manjhi is shown to march barefoot to Delhi for protest against this....actually this incident did not occur in his life and the director has taken pure cinematic liberty....
All this does not unswerve Manjhi for his aim , and you begin to applaud his efforts and his devotion to his task in the later half.... and happily so do his townsfolk ---the same people who once threw stones on him castigating him as a madman now want to help him...
So does he succeed in his goal ?? Watch the movie for that....
Nawazuddin and Radhika have mastered the rural dialect of Bihar quite well and acting by both is top class as expected . Pankaj Tripathi acts superbly as the evil politician who lusts for Falguniya and rapes women and tries to foil every plan of Dashrath---and above all never gets punished for it....remember this is a real life story and real life villains are not subjected to poetic justice....
And it is the stark realism of the film that will bring in the audiences....or so I hope , for this film deserves the accolades....
Verdict---Damn good .
Four stars .
Phantom ( august 2015 )
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The moment I read that most reviewers were panning this movie for it's so called ' jingoistic ' tone I knew I was going to watch the movie . The mafia of reviewers of the liberal variety usually gang up against any movie that shows Pakistan in a poor light , and them attacking such a movie is like showing a red rag to a bull---the bull being me....once they criticize it , to me it is a sure shot signal to watch the movie....
So what is the so called 'jingoism' in the movie ?? It is the fact that Indian intelligence agency RAW decides to take a unilateral ( without permission of the government ) decision to kill those involved in the terrorist attacks on Mumbai in 2008---a terrorist attack planned and executed by Pakistan . What caught the goat of the liberal critics was the fact that instead making an 'India Pakistan are brothers' film , a film showed the Indians having the spine to take revenge on the perpetrators of terrorist attacks who originate in Pakistan .
So a disgraced Indian ex army officer who is suitably a patriotic muslim is chosen---Daniyal Khan played by Saif Ali Khan , and he is 'phantom' the one who does not exist for the mission is unauthorized and therefore is nonexistent in theory . Helping him is a Zoroastrian female ex RAW agent ( Nawaz played by Katrina Kaif ) . The film is based on the novel 'Mumbai avengers' by S Hussain Zaidi . His other book on terrorism ' Black Friday ' has already been made into a film .
The movie moves at an electric breathless pace in the first half---from London to the United states to Syria....and it deals death ( at least cinematic death ) to those involved in the Mumbai terror attacks . And straightway I must say that it has been slickly made....a little too slick perhaps , for the lower classes will not identify with the style of the film . But the educated classes will like it's style , and will of course empathize with the message of the film---that India should take revenge for those who dare to terrorize it , and that revenge should be taken America style....just like America sent it's agents into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden , India should also kill the masterminds of terror by going into Pakistan....
Yes , the second half of the film is in Pakistan....and the stakes are higher for the movie directly targets the terror kingpins . And as the stakes are higher so are the dangers involved....
In the midst of all the higher stakes and greater dangers a subtle romance begins to develop among the lead pair.... but no romantic songs or kisses , only one or two brief moments of tenderness---for they have their task to complete....
Indeed there are no songs or dances---or rather they are left incomplete in the film....maybe I will be able to listen to their complete versions on youtube , for I thought that one or two of them had some potential to be worth listening....
And where is the jingoism....I found none of it....Does saluting a person who killed a deadly terrorist who perpetrated terror on your country qualify as jingoism ?? There are no chest thumping scenes or loud patriotic songs like in other movies , no heavy duty dialogues or raving and ranting against Pakistan . Indeed , sane Pakistanis who realize how the cancer of fundamentalism is fast eroding their society are seen co operating with the RAW agents---no wonder the film has been banned in Pakistan , for if right minded Pakistanis decide to heed the message of the film then the whole Pakistani establishment would crumble....
So does the mission get completed in the film ?? Watch the film for that....
The film frankly admits in the end that none of the terror kingpins have been brought to book---so the film is all fiction and fantasy....
But what is wrong in indulging in your fantasies for a while ?? Since I come from Mumbai and the terror attacks occurred in my city , I found this particular fantasy of a film well worth indulging....
Verdict---Good .
Three and a half stars .
Anwar ( 2007 )
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' Anwar ' begins with a tantalizingly mysterious opening . A young man , apparently emotionally scarred and disoriented , gets off a bus in the middle of nowhere and parks himself in a temple for the night . He is obviously disturbed due to some past events .
But he is a muslim !! And he is carrying sketches of hindu gods and temples with him.....
This gives opportunistic politicians the chance to claim that he is a terrorist , and next day the whole thing blows up as a political charade in which chauvinistic politicians try to cash in on the fact that they zeroed in on to this ' terrorist ' .
The chauvinistic politicians are no one else but the hindu nationalists , and from the start it is clear that even though the film has a message , it has an even bigger agenda....
...And the agenda is nothing but demonisation of hindu nationalists....
For they are immediately shown whipping up the communal frenzy and inciting religious passions . Hordes of people in saffron robes are brought near the site where the alleged terrorist is holed up and the scene is set up for an outpouring of anti muslim hatred . A maulavi brought to talk to Anwar openly tells Anwar that ' these people ' ( meaning hindus ) deliberately kill muslims to forget their dire poverty for a short while by indulging in religious fanaticism which distracts attention from their own problems . The whole hindu mob gathered outside the temple is shown to be incited to become thirsty for muslim blood by the politicians .
The police is brought in , and so is the media .
But everyone is involved in some problem in his or her's personal life . The police officer's wife is dying and he is more bothered about her health than the situation outside the temple . The TV anchor ( Manisha Koirala ) is heartbroken over her relationship .
The politician is in a adulterous affair with another man's wife , but as he goes to give her a Valentine's day gift she rejects him . This enrages him and suddenly the Hindu nationalist within him is roused and he orders a brutal campaign against couples celebrating Valentine's day . Oooohh so mean , these hindu nationalists....
And guess who does the politician's paramour move on to after rejecting him ?? His superior in his political party who else !! Oooooh so loose charactered these hindu nationalists.....
And caught in the midst of all this is Anwar , whose past slowly comes out....
And the past is truely sordid....
This dreamy eyed young man has been responsible for 2 deaths....
And he has lost his way in life and stopped at the temple to reflect and repent.....
Siddharth Koirala has put up a remarkable performance as the dreamy eyed young man who dreams of true love , but fails in the ultimate test---that of loving even when rejected by the object of love . Instead he reacts by sheer jealousy and realises his mistake only when it is too late....
His hindu mentor who teaches him to love and longing for love is himself rejected and he ends his life over the rejection.....
So what happens to Anwar ??
Can he find out a way from the crossroads of life ??
What about the confrontation between him inside the temple and the police waiting with guns outside who have been forced to brand him a terrorist ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
So what is the message of the film ??
The message seems to be that everyone is more involved in his personal life rather than bother about communal issues , and it is those with vested interests ( like politicians and media ) who bring a communal angle to our personal issues . Or so I think....
Two songs in the film impressed me greatly---' maula mere ' and ' tose naina lage re ' . I kept on rewinding the parts with these two songs in order to listen to them again and again.....
Nauheed Cyrusi as Anwar's love interest looks good and Hiten Tejwani as her lover acts well . Sudhir Pandey as the politician is impressive as always....
The locations of the film in rural north India and Lucknow city are hauntingly beautiful and realistic as well as dreamily romantic .
Particularly artistic is the way the love between lord Krishna and Meerabai is used in imaginary flashbacks to draw parallels between Anwar's real life and his unfulfilled love . Above all , the director builds up the suspense about what was Anwar's past for a long while and keeps us hooked onto the film .
What I didn't like was the repeated demonisation of hindu nationalists in hindi movies . So unpatriotic....
But I guess I will have to get used to such demonisation as the hindi film industry is dead set against hindu nationalists .
In the end the movie tries to show muslim fundamentalists in a similar light to keep a balance , but that is a case of too little too late....
What I liked was the pace of the film and the mixing of romance with communal issues done very well....
Verdict---decent .
Dhobi ghat ( Laundrymen's ground )
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This is a film set in the muslim quarter of Bombay......Mohammad Ali road , where Arun ( played by Amir Khan ) , a brooding painter , comes to live in an old house , and finds old video films left by the former tenant , a muslim young woman .
But before he comes to live there, he has a one-night stand with a rich , vivacious young woman (Monica Dogra ),who has come from USA to film Bombay , and she develops an attraction for him .
Near to Mohammad Ali road is the famous 'Dhobi ghat' of Bombay---the only area in the world which has been demarcated exclusively for laundrymen and washermen to ply their trade . The laundrymen/washermen are called 'Dhobis' in India .
And as Shai ( Monica Dogra ) takes the help of a young dhobhi ( Played by Prateik Babbar ) to film dhobhi ghat so that she can show it on TV to western audiences back in USA , she practically goes dating with him , predictably making him have all sorts of ideas about her ( which guy wouldn't , in such a situation )....and thus a story of sorts begins to develop....
Amir in his house begins to view the old films left by the former tenant , and a sense of mystery begins to overhang the film....you wonder what explosive revelations are going to be in the films....but it is all overshadowed by the melancholy of Amir's character , which works against the film....
And when the revelations come , you are left wondering what connection they had with the main story.....
The other revelation is the 'night profession' of Pratiek---he is a rat killer ( yes , professionals who kill rats which infest cities at nights do exist in India ), a lowly profession that he is ashamed of admitting to Shai out of fear of losing her affection , but she finds out anyway in one of her night outings .
Yes , It is left to Shai ( Monica Dogra ) to lift the film.....and she is the one who does it with a demonstration of such spontaneous acting and natural charm that makes you wish to see her in more films in bollywood in the future , especially because she is so attractive....
Prateik Babbar acts well ,in the role of a muslim boy who allows Shai to take him for a ride , and ends up falling in love with her even though the class differences between them are obviously too much to bridge.
All this does not change the fact that its a dull , though not outright boring film....
Amir Khan is simply too intense , and his acting skills could have been better utilised....
Verdict--you can safely give it a miss......
Side note---The film has no intermission , and the joke going on in Bombay is that the film was deliberately not given an intermission because the audiences who left in the intermission wouldn't have come back.....:D
Talvar ( Sword ) October 2015
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In 2008 a girl was found dead/ murdered in her bed near Indian capital city Delhi . Her name was Aarushi Talvar . Also later the servant of the house ( who was from the neighbouring country of Nepal ) was found dead/murdered too .The police and courts eventually ( after major flip flopping ) convicted her parents . The conclusion of their investigation was that the parents suddenly came upon the sight of the fourteen year old Aarushi having sex with the 40 plus aged servant and were so horrified and shocked that they tried to hit the servant ( who was on top of Aarushi ) on the back of his head with a golf club , but the servant heard the noise of them coming and rolled off her---so the golf club hit Aarushi instead and killed her . But the parents didn't spare the servant and killed him too .
Now this film has come which turns the court's verdict upside down and points the finger to others as the perpetrators of the crime . It is based on the flip flopping on the investigation done by the investigating agencies in real life . It tries to recreate the murder scene and actual events based on accounts told by the various people whose testimonies were taken .
The police who handle the investigation at the start are shown to be most inefficient in their job . The chief policeman is shown to be chewing an Indian eatable called pan ( which contains betelnut and some spicy ingredients enclosed in a leaf ) while actually doing the investigation , and seems to be more engrossed in eating this than doing the investigation . At any rate , he is shown doing this in a most desultory manner because he has not realised that the case would create such a sensation in the media . Also the policemen come from the backward parts of India and looks at the westernized lifestyle of Aarushi's family as decadent .
But the sensation in the media forces the government to hand over the case to the CBI ( Central bureau of investigation ) , which consists of officers who are more professional in their approach and are more sophisticated . Irrfan plays the lead role are CBI officer in charge . This comes at a totally new conclusion based on interviews of suspects under influence of sodium pentothal .
But the CBI head is changed due to retirement of the old head , and the new head wants his own stamp on the investigation . He is shown to make a man in the old investigating team change his sides by promising promotion , and is shown changing entire forensic reports . He again charges the parents of murder---of honour killing in fact .
The two teams of CBI ( both old and new ) are brought in front of each other and the verbal tussle between the two of them is a treat to watch---well timed repartees are given by both sides to the other's points . But the repartees of the first CBI team ( which exonerates Aarushi's parents of the murder ) are better than those of the team opposing them . And therein lies the bias of the film . It is obvious that the whole film has been made to prove that the parents are innocent . The various points in the investigation that point to the parents as killers have been ignored .
Of course , the film is damning towards the CBI and shows the country's premier crime investigating agency as full of politics . It lowers the name and prestige of the CBI dramatically in it's portrayal of the agency . The police are of course shown to be morally corrupt---a fact that is not new to public knowledge . So craven are the police in front of the CBI that CBI officers can even cane them ( as shown in the film ) for mistakes .
So are Aarushi's parents really innocent ?? God only knows....
Of course , the film makes a formidable case for their innocence inspite of it's biases . Irrfan's acting as usual is top class and the film moves at a crisp pace without any frills . It is intelligent cinema without the frills of songs and dance , and will be liked only by educated people .
Verdict---good .
Three and a half stars .
Katyar kaljat ghuslee ( Dagger pierced the heart ) November 2015
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I never understood Indian classical music nor ever have listened to it . And this film was publicised to be a heavy duty musical of classical music . But after seeing this movie I almost fancied myself to be a aficionado of it---such is the impact of the music .
Not only music but also the acting and the emotion of the scenes . All the protagonists come together to put such splendid performances that it is hard to criticize even one of them .
The film is based on an old play written and staged 40 years back . But the setting is even more back in time....when kings ruled the land and poets and artists graced their courts .
So in Vishrampur in the 19th century ruled a just king . And his magnificent court was the haven of singers of classical music . But the doyen of the singers was panditji---played by singer Shankar Mahadevan no less . The fireflies would gather glowing the night when he sang , and tears would flow from the listeners' eyes . While other singers merely won applause when they sang , when panditji sang the audience would be mesmerized into silence .
And panditji had a great heart too---when a poor singer ( khansaheb ) came to him , panditji opened the gates of the royal court for him by introducing a contest where he could display his talents . The prize of winning---the post of court singer no less , along with his house . But the Khan could never manage to beat the pandit in singing---and people's taunts hurt him so much that he resolved to kill himself....
But the Khan's wife played a devious game due to which pandit's name fame and fortune went to the Khan . And he also got the permission to use the royal dagger given to him once without getting punished even if he killed anyone with it---a privilege that only the court singer could get .
However , the Khan was not the man panditji was , for he never understood the real purpose of the dagger---which was to kill not any human being but to kill one's ego , for ego is the ultimate destroyer of any artist . And he became a vain man....
The khan's daughter Zareena ( played by Amruta Khanvilkar ) was however good friends with panditji's daughter Uma ( played by Mrunmayee Deshpande ) . Enter a young man ( director Subhod Bhave himself ) , who wants to learn music from panditji and take revenge on the Khan by using the royal dagger . But Zareena calms him down and urges him to beat Khan in singing---for that will be a real revenge that will crush the ego of the Khan . And as she helped Sadashiv ( Subodh Bhave ) in getting closer to his goal , it seemed to be that his different religion was the only hindrance stopping her from falling in love---even though in her heart she knew that he belonged to Uma....
So does the Khan get the comeuppance for his evil deeds ?? Does Sadashiv get to learn the music he wants ??
Watch the movie for that....
Acting wise , the one who comes on top is Sachin Pilgaonkar . He has played Khansaheb with a range of emotions , and has seemingly mastered each of them . But it is music which is king really . The age old traditional music of the land is brought alive like never before for the new generation . The movie is full of songs and music , but I never got tired of them . Both Shankar Mahadevan and Mahesh Kale have put heart and soul in their efforts , which have paid off handsomely .
But what surprised me was the photography and the colours and the beauty of the sets . Watch the river surrounding the city photographed stunningly at the very place it curves to surround the city . Watch as fireflies beautifully light up the night when singers sing . And see the magnificent court of the king with all it's rich detail and colour . And admire the looks of the two young women who love one young man.....Technically the film is just too good . As the film finished , the audience in the jam packed theatre was still not in a mood to go---it was still soaking in the music . Need I say more....
Verdict---Damn good .
Four stars .
liamcolemax
11-26-15, 07:15 AM
Recently, I had watched Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. It is the Bollywood superstar Salman Khan's Family oriented drama film, which is continuing its victory march at the box office. This film is running successfully in theatres and entertaining the fans with good music.
www(dot)Jogimara(dot)com/latest-bollywood-movies
Tamasha ( Performance ) December 2015
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This is a film that will appeal to only a niche audience---those denizens of the world who are called by ordinary normal folk as 'filmy' people , at least in India . These are the people who could have done normal 9 to 5 office jobs and earn't regular money , but chose not to . Instead , they chose to follow their dreams and some of them remained strugglers---but they remained steadfast to their goal of being an artist . One of them ( Bollywood actor Anupam Kher ) was once asked what would he have been if he had not got any work as an actor , and he said ''I would have been an actor without work !! '' . It is as simple as that....
In this film director Imtiaz Ali asks us to follow our dreams , and not just remain a cog in a money making machine . He mocks those people who dance on their bosses' tune to earn their daily bread as nothing but robots , and says that their every movement is robotic . Needless to say , his ideas may not appeal to many of us , but he is a dream merchant---the industry he is a part of ( the film industry ) gives him the licence known as cinematic liberty....
So the hero ( Ranbir Kapoor ) grows up watching plays showing epic romances and listening to epic stories told by a story teller....and somewhere in him there is an actor yearning to play a part in them on stage , but his parents and upbringing force him to take up a boring routine job after a routine education . But one day on a vacation to the island of Corsica he meets a like minded person ( Deepika Padukone ) who is not only a beautiful woman but also a free spirit .
They two agree to spend the vacation together without telling each other their real names . So he becomes 'Don'---a gangster from a movie...and she becomes 'Mona darling'---the gangster's moll . And they have a whale of a time together . frolicking and dancing and enacting filmy scenes mouthing filmy dialogues among the friendly people of the island . When he says in the filmy style of erstwhile Bollywood actor Dev Anand that the 'valley of her beauty ( cleavage ) is exposed' she exposes it more by removing her outer clothes rather than cover her modesty . And when he changes his role from 'Don' to agent of interpol , she asks outrageously if the interpol agent has a pole !! They drink the fresh water from streams on the island by putting their mouth in the flowing streams and break into parties and make friends . But at the end of the vacation it is time to kiss and say goodbye....
But back in India Deepika feels that she has found her soulmate and her lifemate in Ranbir , and she would never find anyone like him again....She comes searching for him to a cafe he had mentioned he frequents and finally finds him....
And as they begin to date again , he finally proposes to her in front of his assembled friends....
But Deepika refuses !! She has found that back in India Ranbir is nothing but a money earning robot , a cog in a bread earning machine...a person who does a boring job in a boring office....a person who has lost his vitality in front of his boss and parents and his superiors....a person who takes time to switch off his mobile phone so that calls from his office would not disturb them before becoming physically intimate , rather than a passionate lover....
But Deepika refuses to give up on Ranbir however , for she feels that the Ranbir she met on Corsica was the real Ranbir....and the Ranbir she met in India is just playing the part meant to keep his parents and superiors happy....
She urges him to discover his real self and become an artist again , even if that means giving up on his dreams of climbing up on the corporate ladder.....and thus she sets him on a journey of self discovery....
So where will the journey of self discovery end ? Is Deepika's version of Ranbir his real self ? And will the two live life together ?? Watch the movie for the answer , even though the answer is an all to predictable one....
The first half of the movie is interesting , with Ranbir showing his acting skills amid the gorgeous photography of Corsica ( the streams are so crystal clear and the view of the sun from the rocky coastline is stunning ) and Deepika looking divine as usual....the second half is less interesting and slower paced but the climax is rousing . What I liked was the fact that the director stayed true to the message of the film throughout....Whether that message should be liked or heeded by us is another matter altogether.....after all , not all people are filmy and others may prefer normal humdrum lives...to each his own....
Why I found the film to be decent ?? Maybe somewhere inside me resides a filmy too...after all , I write all these film reviews...
Verdict---decent . Songs and music is good too .
Three stars .
Horroist
12-09-15, 04:41 AM
Talvar ( Sword ) October 2015
It is obvious that the whole film has been made to prove that the parents are innocent . The various points in the investigation that point to the parents as killers have been ignored .
Of course , the film is damning towards the CBI and shows the country's premier crime investigating agency as full of politics . It lowers the name and prestige of the CBI dramatically in it's portrayal of the agency . The police are of course shown to be morally corrupt---a fact that is not new to public knowledge . So craven are the police in front of the CBI that CBI officers can even cane them ( as shown in the film ) for mistakes .
So are Aarushi's parents really innocent ?? God only knows....
Of course , the film makes a formidable case for their innocence inspite of it's biases . Irrfan's acting as usual is top class and the film moves at a crisp pace without any frills . It is intelligent cinema without the frills of songs and dance , and will be liked only by educated people .
Verdict---good .
Three and a half stars .
**SPOILER WARNING**
Seen it recently with my wife. And...that's one hell of a depressing ending! As the film was made in favor of the parents and mostly in their 'point of views' so it's really sad to see them get convicted at the end. After watching the film, I briefly checked on wikipedia and read about the original case and how it unfolds. I think it'd be better if they made the film with a neutral point of view & let the audience decide or speculate about whether the convicted parents were actually guilty or what actually happened at that night?!..We may never know the 'actual truth' but the whole case was really gripping as well as disturbing & sad.
R.I.P Aarushi.
Kabhie Kabhie ( Once upon a time--- 1977 )
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This is a movie made by the emperor of romance---Yash Chopra . And it has it's soul in poetry .It's songs are nothing but sheer poetry itself , and as luck would have it they have been embellished with fine music .
Amitabh is a poet . The poetry he makes in college days attracts a young woman ( Rakhee ) to him . And they fall deeply in love . Their love is not the fervour of physical passion but the pleasure of taking long walks in the woods together , of reading poems while in each others arms . Their love is the pure love born out of companionship and out of common interest in poetry .
But fate has other plans for the two . Rakhee's parents want her to marry another man . Rakhee wants to revolt but Amitabh refuses !! He says that he does not want to build his love nest by hurting near and dear ones . He asks Rakhee to marry the person chosen by her parents and asks her to not even recognize him when they cross paths again . Rakhee marries a wealthy businessman ( Shashi ) chosen by her parents and remains loyal to him . At the time of marriage Shashi does not know about Amitabh's relationship with Rakhee and gifts a book of Amitabh's poems to her on their wedding night as he is his fan . The book is titled ' Once upon a time...'
Amitabh may have taken a steely decision to not marry Rakhee but inside he is heartbroken . He decides to renounce poetry altogether and makes one last poem .
Translated into english the poem reads like this---
'' I am a poet of only one or two moments ,
only one or two moments is my youth ,
only one or two moments are my episodes ,
only one or two moments is my story...
Tomorrow their will come others who will make poetry ,
better poetry than me ,
better will be the quality of those who say the poetry ,
better will be the quality of those who listen to it...
The world should not wait for me ,
why waste time on me....''
If Rakhee would have heard this she would have been pained , and pained deeply . She wanted Amitabh to continue poetry even after leaving her and wanted him to become a famous poet . If she had her will then Amitabh's last poem would not be his last and would have read like this---
'' I am a poet of all times to come ,
each future moment is my youth ,
each future moment is my episode ,
and each future moment is my story.... ''
Years pass by and Amitabh marries Waheeda and they have a daughter ( Naseem ) . Amitabh has become a rich man as he has devoted time for his construction business . But what he does not know is the fact that Waheeda has hidden a secret from him---that she had borne an illegitimate child ( Neetu ) from another man before marriage , who had been adopted by a childless couple . And the boyfriend of Neetu is none other than Rishi , who is son of Shashi and Rakhee....
So decades down the line , the two couples are destined to cross each others paths and the two old lovers Amitabh and Rakhee are meant to meet again . The meeting is hastened by the fact that Neetu wants to spend time with her real mother and her boyfriend Rishi wants to spend time with her . So Neetu comes to Amitabh's and Waheeda's house in the guise of a relative and Rishi follows her and takes up a job in Amitabh's construction company to remain close to Neetu . The whole situation comes to boil when Amitabh's and Waheeda's daughter Naseem falls in love with Rishi and wants to snatch him from Neetu bringing the situation close to explosion....
Of all the characters in the film I liked Shashi's the best ; he is a large hearted person who takes the fact that his wife Rakhee loved someone else ( Amitabh ) before meeting him without any hint of jealousy and is ready to make friends with his wife's former lover and share drinks with him without malice . He looks handsome too even in middle age and acts with flamboyance .
Amitabh on the other hand takes the news of his wife's love child Neetu very hard and is pent with bitterness that his wife Waheeda did not tell him of her former relationship . And his daughter Naseem takes it even harder that the person she loves ( Rishi ) is in love with the same person who has caused havoc in their life---her mother's illegitimate child Neetu .
So will Amitabh find the reserves of liberalism and continue his relationship with Waheeda inspite of she having hidden her illegitimate child from him?? After all even had a past relationship with Rakhee didn't he...Or is he just an armchair poet who cannot bring his high philosophical thoughts into action when confronted with real life ?? And will his overpampered daughter Naseem give up her obsession for Rishi and accept that he belongs to her elder step sister Neetu ??
The movie takes a stand against male chauvinism and asks men to accept that their women had relationships in the past before becoming their wives , relationships whose existence they should accept and move on . A love story spanning two generations , the movie has beautiful songs and music and great acting from all protagonists . Obviously it was loved by women of all ages and classes when it was released and went on to become a box office blockbuster....well deserved success , in my opinion .
Verdict---Very good .
Four and a half stars out of five .
Bajirao Mastani ( December 2015 )
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'Bajirao Mastani' is the love story of Bajirao the warrior peshwa ( prime minister ) of the hindu maratha empire with mastani who was the princess of a kingdom in north india---muslim daughter of the hindu rajput king's muslim wife . But Bajirao was already married to Kashibai and Mastani became his second wife .
So who was Bajirao ?? To those who haven't seen the film and don't know the history , he was the prime minister of the hindu kingdom of west India called maratha kingdom . His time saw power slipping into the hands of the peshwa as the king was not an active ruler and let Bajirao handle most of his campaigns . Bajirao led the tide of maratha conquest into north India until his forces began to knock on the gates of Mughal empire's capital Delhi by attacking it's suburbs .
Now there have been some objections raised against the film---that the peshwa's first wife has been shown dancing like a dancing girl in the film , and that the great peshwa who was a mighty warrior who won 41 battles without losing any of them has been reduced to just ' lover of Mastani ' . My answer to those objections is---
Even though the peshwa is shown in the film as mainly 'lover of Mastani' he was anyway largely unknown outside west India . The film at least gives publicity to his name all over India and lets north Indian people know that maratha armies once invaded north India to liberate them from Mughal rule . Yes , it is not right to show a royal lady like the peshwa's wife dancing like a dancing girl , but director Bhansali has to sell his film isn't it . Since Bhansali has made such a grand film on a huge budget giving good publicity to Bajirao's name all over India , what is wrong in giving cinematic liberty to him to show a few songs and dances to help his film recover the money spent ?? Nothing is wrong in that .
The thing that strikes you about this film is the absolute grandeur of the settings and beauty of the photography and the lavish scale on which everything has been picturised . The costumes of the maratha warriors are splendid , the rhythm in which they dance is perfect and there is an orgy of colour everywhere . The women look good , the men are smartly dressed , their horses gallop with speed and the orange coloured flags they fly billow in the wind magnificently . The mansions and the palaces and the forts in which the scenes are set look superb . Every scene looks like a work of art---the earthen oil lamps in the vast rooms , the chandeliers , the jewellery and the saris of the women , the flowing robes of the royal men...all has been painstakingly picturised . The battle scenes are less spectacular but good enough .
The first half moves with pace , and it is Mastani ( Deepika Padukone ) who initiates everything---war , peace , love , travel from north india to maratha capital Pune , marriage , confrontation with the peshwa's family , and sacrifice for love . Ranveer Singh looks every inch a peshwa and has made every effort to look like Bajirao himself---the style of walking and talking , the manliness , and above all the arrogance . He fights his enemies with fervour and dances with gusto . His words are sharp and his sword is always gleaming---except when it is reddened by the opponent's blood . His arrows always find their accurate mark .Priyanka Chopra acts as Kashibai and her acting is even better than Deepika and perfectly shows the pain of a wife who has to contend with her husband's philandering---but even in her pain she never loses her dignity . The obnoxious Pune clergy who are always outraged over something ( they are outraged over the film ) are in full form---refusing to accept Mastani because she belongs to a different religion and refusing to give her son a hindu name . Tanvi Azmi has really cut her hair and become bald to play her role as Bajirao's formidable widowed mother---widows were balded in those times to make them unattractive to other men .
In the second half the film becomes tragic and the beauty of the scenes lose some of their sheen . Bajirao seems to fall in love like a warrior rather than lover---with a sense of duty towards his beloved who has come from far to get him and crossed boundaries of religion to meet him . Music cannot be called the strong point of the film . The songs don't impress . But the film does , and should be watched on the large screen to be really enjoyed for it's cinematography .
Verdict---Good .
Three and a half stars .
Chauranga ( The four colours / castes ) January 2016
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This is a typical art film made for the international festivals circuit---full of overdosing about the illiteracy and ignorance and crime and above all upper caste prejudice against lower castes and the injustices they inflict upon them in India . The western audience comes to these films to feel good about how fortunate they are to live in the west while Indians are mired in superstition and poverty and backwardness . In return they give some awards to the film in international festivals that are eagerly lapped up by the makers of the film to market their film in India . Even in India the audience who had come to watch the film was similar---mod babes in miniskirts or other flesh showing attire who had come to feel fortunate about being westernised when other Indians were living life in the darkness depicted in the film . The critics in India also have applauded the film---presumably to show how 'liberal' they are to like a film that shows their own kind ( upper caste Indians ) inflict misery upon the lower castes .
So the film is based upon an incident in India ( in Bihar , where else ) where a lower caste boy was killed for having written a love letter to an upper caste girl . Obviously the film makers could hardly let go of the opportunity to make a politically correct film about how upper caste hindus are villains in modern India ; the degree of political correctness being higher if you rant more against them .
So typically , the highest of the castes is shown as most depraved in the film . Yes , the blind village brahmin ( played by Dhritiman Chatterjee ) is so sexually depraved that he gropes the pretty daughter ( played by Ena Saha ) of the landlord of the village ( played by Sanjay Suri ) while she takes him to his home from her house supporting him because he is blind . But on reaching home he also gropes the black goat he keeps in his house !!
The landlord himself is a predator who has a sexual relationship with a lower caste woman called Dhaniya ( played by Tannishtha Chatterjee ) even though he has a wife and daughter . But his goons beat up Dhaniya's son regularly even though the landlord himself finances the son's education in return for Dhaniya's sexual favours . The landlord presides as virtual dictator in a system where lower castes are systematically excluded from any function , and he indeed fosters the system . When a lower caste boy ventures into the village temple , angered upper caste goons dump him into a well badly injuring the boy---but the landlord and the priest are more bothered about purifying the temple because a lower caste person has defiled it .
The situation is ripe for rebellion , and a rebel arises in due course---Dhaniya's younger son Santu ( played by Soham Maitra ) , who refuses to touch the landlord's feet and looks at him and other upper castes with defiance even though the landlord refuses to finance his education for his defiant attitude . And he casts covetous eyes on the landlord's daughter forcing his older brother to write a love letter to her in his ( Santu's ) name which he hands her himself---an act of extreme chutzpah by a lower caste in the upper caste dominated world which the director has created .
So an explosive confrontation is about to occur , but a venomous snake that is always lurking near the village has plans of putting a spanner in the works of everything by coming to the same place where the landlord and Dhaniya are having their session of sizzling sex in the fields outside the village---and the snake comes armed with it's poisonous bite...
So what happens next ?---watch the film for that...
While watching the film I could not but admire the creativity of the film maker and the acting of the actors . No songs are there in the film and the film is only one and a a half hour long . But even the one and a half hour is enough for the film to make an impact---an impact that will leave a foreigner with the most disgusting impression about India . Westerners walking out of foreign film festivals will talk about India as the land of horrible disease and filth . I wondered that if these same film makers had applied their talents ( and the maker of this film is undoubtedly talented ) to show something good about our nation , then they could raise it's worth overseas . But it is sad they use their talents to peddle such degrading impressions about India....
Verdict---Good .
Three and half stars .
Maximum ( 2012 )
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In the movie '' The good the bad and the ugly '' there is an iconic dialogue---'' If you want to shoot , shoot . Dont talk ''.....
I wanted to give the same advice to the director of this film.....
....For one goes to the film in the hope of seeing some mind blasting ear shattering heart crunching shooting of criminals and their associates in mindblowing encounters---but what does one get ??? One gets to see endless yak yak---I mean talk---between the various protagonists in the film .
The publicity promised an epic rivalry between two cops for maximum headcount of criminals shot dead in maximum city Mumbai ( bombay ).....
But what one gets is more talk and less action---more of strategising and planning to win the so called '' epic '' rivalry rather than action.....
......And when the shooting does come , there are no dramatic encounters between cops and criminals---bus press the trigger on the criminal and that's all.....he's dead.....
And the rivalry is shown over a period spanning years and increasing with time---a slow burn rather than an explosion......
The rivalry starts in 2003 when ladies bars ( bars where female dancers danced in front of customers ) were part of the night scene of Mumbai.....and that gives the director of the film the chance to show some chammiyas in action.....and also brings nostalgic memories of nights spent ogling at the dancing beauties of Tandoor bar to your very own Ashdoc.....I could almost feel the tears of nostalgia well up in my eyes---where is my Mumbai of the bygone days ??
Anyway the ladies bar scene gives the chance to the director to showcase the '' aa ante amlapuram '' song with a mouthwateringly well endowed dancer----but he ruins it by showing the song incomplete....what a waste....
He had a potentially superhit song in his hands and he smashed it !!
For those who want the complete song hear the original version in south indian language.....
I wish the director of the original song was dead so that i could use the phrase '' he would have turned in his grave '' but he is most probably alive:D
To come back to the story Sonu Sood is the north indian cop and Naseeruddin Shah is the south indian one----and both are backed by politicians of their communities mirroring the rivalry between the south indians and north indians for control of the city. Also various officers in the department side with either cop. The two cops also kill each others informers so that the other gets less info about criminals .But the rivalry lacks zing and substance---no fun in seeing it.....
Sonu has a educated but traditional wife in actress Neha Dhupia---and she looks beautiful enough in sarees to make me dream about women in my life ( who dont wear sarees ) wearing them.....good acting from her.....
But Sonu still has the affair on the sly with bollywood starlets and his wife has to forgive them like a traditional indian wife....what else can she do ??
I will tell what I would have done if I had such a wife.....I would have QUIT going to ladies bars and QUIT meeting bollywood starlets....but Sonu does not have ashdoc's heart ( I still wish I had his wife ).....
Finally towards the end there is some real fighting.....maybe the director woke up to the fact that his film lacked powerpacked fisticuffs---but he woke too late.....
And between whom is the fighting towards the climax?? between cops and criminals ?? naah....
Its between cops and cops and with politicians thrown in between for good measure.....the rivalry has got a little too bitter.......
Verdict----out of five stars how much should I give the film ?? maximum ?? baah !!! I would rather give minimum.....
Wazir ( Queen of chess ) January 2016
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On the chess board , wazir is the most dangerous opponent . It can literally make and break a game . So in a movie where the main protagonists play chess , it is ideal that the villain who breaks lives should be called wazir , isn't it ?? So in this movie anti terrorism officer Daanish Ali ( Farhan Akhtar ) has to confront the villain wazir ( Neil Nitin Mukesh ) , who is playing havoc with his friend Pandit Omkarnath Dhar's ( Amitabh Bachchan ) life . How he comes to the confrontation is a convoluted tale in itself....
Danish loses his daughter in a gunfight with terrorists from Pakistan , and his crusade for revenge costs him his job , for he is suspended . But his loss is far worse , because he also is now reviled by his wife ( Aditi Rao Hydari ) because he involved his daughter in an anti terrorist gunfight . By coincidence he comes into contact with Omkarnath , who bonds with him over games of chess and tells him of his own daughter's death in mysterious circumstances at the home of a Kashmiri politician . Danish decides to confront the politician and the politician responds by sending a person to terrorize Omkarnath---who else but wazir....
So who is this mysterious entity called wazir ? What is the mystery of the death of Omkarnath's daughter ? Is the kashmiri politician guilty ? Will Danish be able to uncover the truth ?
Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie has a powerful start with good action sequences , but drags in the middle---until the appearance of wazir....then again the movie picks up pace as wazir ignites the proceedings....
But there are too many coincidences in the film , and many of the happenings appear way too filmy because they are too convenient for the storyline to proceed . You lose interest in some parts , though other parts of the film are interesting . The movie moves from Delhi to the flashpoint of the subcontinent---Kashmir what else , where the final fight takes place .
But we are left with a real surprise in the end....yes , it is the end that packs the real punch and injects much needed zing to the movie . And what happens at the end ? Well I am not about to reveal that....
But it is the climax that makes you feel that the movie is good .
The photography is decent , but no great shots are shown . Actually Kashmir in winter would have made the perfect setting for great photography , but the director was more concerned about action . Background music is okay . But the songs are very good , and after some time an action/suspense movie had good songs . Some of them are worth listening again and again .
Acting is okay from everyone , and as usual Amitabh steals the honours .
Aditi Rao Hydari looks stunningly delicate and fair and so lovely---she would be the ideal model for 'fair and lovely' cream !! Her flowing dresses have been wonderfully designed .
The theme of the movie is chess , and the player who uses wazir for achieving his goal is a deft player on the chess board . But this is the deadly chess board of life and death , and wrong use of the wazir can have fatal consequences indeed....
Verdict---Very decent .
Three stars .
i forgot to add that amitabh is playing a physically disabled person on wheelchair in the film , and that aditi rao hydari looks so good even though she is in her mid thirties---not a trace of age on her !!
Airlift ( January 2016 )
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Airlift is a film based on a true story---the aerial evacuation of one hundred and seventy thousand Indians trapped in Kuwait after Saddam Hussein invaded that country in 1990 and that region became a war zone. The feat of evacuating such a large number of people by civilian aircraft remains the largest such civilian airlift in world history. But strangely this very real fact has not been given prominence by either the Indian media or government , and it is only a quarter century after the airlift that someone has woken up to make a film on it. Giving oneself a pat on the back is apparently an art forgotten by Indians , who are more busy making films glorifying dons based in Karachi or denigrating the country's image overseas.
And the pat on the back is not given to the real persons who were involved in the making of the evacuation , for the simple reason that they do not fit the stereotypical image of the Bollywood hero---neither do they look like heroes nor do they seem to be punjabi. So a punjabi ( community that dominates Bollywood ) hero is invented out of thin air , and he is shown to be the main protagonist of the evacuation. The real heroes get their photos shown only at the fag end of the movie when finally due credit is given to them. So we have to endure a completely fictitious punjabi hero doing the heroics rather than the real persons , and this is the biggest flaw of the film.
So Akshay Kumar plays a Kuwait based punjabi businessman who is not in love with his Indian roots , named Ranjeet Katiyal. He considers himself more Kuwaiti than Indian apparently because Kuwait is more rich. But very soon an event occurs that makes him remember his Indianness---Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi army invades Kuwait...and while Kuwaitis are dying dog's deaths at the hands of Iraqi soldiers , Indians are safe. For the Indian government had gone to great lengths to cultivate good relations with Saddam Hussein in the past , he being the only ruler in the islamic world to support India on the Kashmir issue. So Indians are not going to be killed for the time being. But time is running out even then , for if the Indians are not evacuated quickly then they will become trapped in a war between the Iraqis and American led coalition that is hell bent on liberating Kuwait.
Since Ranjeet is shown to be a rich and influential man , it is upto him to safeguard the people who work for him---and like a responsible person , he starts to so exactly that. This even though his wife ( played by Nimrat Kaur ) is exasperated by his taking so much responsibility and not looking only for his family's safety. And he is soon forced to look out for other Indians who come to his office to seek shelter , including some really pesky ones like the character ( George ) played by Prakash Belawadi. As the Iraqi army goes on the rampage in Kuwait , the task of looking out for Indians' safety involves kowtowing to the demands for bribes by the Iraqi officer stationed in the area , trying to arrange food and other supplies for the trapped Indians , making trips to Iraq to get the permission from Iraqi authorities to allow the Indians to leave Kuwait , in the meantime trying to smuggle Indians out of Kuwait , phoning the Indian government back home to try to get the lethargic government officers to work on organizing the airlift , and hiding the lone Kuwaiti woman who has come to him seeking refuge to the extent of taking grave personal risk for himself because the Iraqis almost rape his wife when they realise that he is sheltering a Kuwaiti---forcing him to fight them in filmy fashion in what is a completely fictitious scene.
Needless to say , Ranjeet does his task with aplomb---our Bollywood punjabi heroes never fail do they....and slowly even his wife comes round to admire what he has been doing , to the point of shutting up the mouth in a verbal duel of the pesky person ( George ) who has been mouthing his platitude of complaints in front of Ranjeet every now and then.
The film has some real moments of emotion---when the efforts of Ranjeet to save the Indians come close to failure , and above all when the efforts meet success....you get real goosebumps when the Indian refugees see the tricolour ( Indian flag ) flying high in the wind in their refugee camp on reaching Jordan , the flying of which is signal that Indians will get the passport to sit in the planes which will take them home. The Indian pilots who are ready to take the risk to pilot their planes to the middle east ( which is on the brink of war ) are the heroes too , and so are the government officers who work tirelessly to get the airlift organized.
The hero as far as the film is concerned is the director , who has made a film that gets better and better as it progresses and gives us an emotional high at the climax---reminding those Indians who live in the gulf and who have forgotten their homeland that ultimately it is the nation's flag that comes to their rescue in the troubled lands of the middle east where fortunes can change at the whiff of a dictator's or king's whim and where stability and money is a fickle thing. Subtly , it also is an advertisement for India's much maligned ( even by myself !! ) foreign policy of non alignment---for those Indians could have been held hostages by the Iraqis if India had been an ally of America.
Akshay Kumar acts well , and so does Nimrat Kaur . Purab Kohli acts well as the Indian muslim who has lost his wife but saves a young Kuwaiti woman , ultimately posing as her husband to save her. Music and songs are good. The belly dance should have concentrated on the belly dancers rather than the antics of Akshay Kumar !! Kumud Mishra puts up a restrained performance as the ( again fictitious ) government officer who convinces the government minister to organize the airlift and arrange for money to finance the airlift.
Ultimately the pat on the back given to a fictitious person is still a pat on the back , and even though the film neglects the real heroes of the airlift it at least remembers a glorious episode in our annals. Something that we should be proud of. That the film is a good effort at remembering that episode is the icing on the cake.
Verdict---Good.
Three and a half stars.
Mastizaade (Emperors of fun ) January 2016
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Two sex maniacs ( Tushar Kapoor and Vir Das ) roam from place to place looking for sex . They have learned their lesson from their self chosen guru played by Ritesh Deshmukh . However their sexcapades end when they fall in love with two twin sisters ( Sunny Leone in double role ) , with one sister having a stammer and being more chaste by Sunny Leone standards ( which means she wears revealing clothes which reveal slightly less that that of the other sister ) and the other sister wandering nearly naked .
But the two former sex maniacs are in for trouble as they meet the sisters' father ( Asrani ) and their gay brother ( who falls in love with one of the the two males ) and the chaste sister's fiance---these three form an impediment to love .
The film has only a few funny moments when the two males are crazily searching for sex , but begins to utterly bore you when the two fall in love . The film soon goes from bad to worse and becomes worser and worser with every frame .
Sunny Leone has now begun to lose her sheen and her body exposure fails to excite or sexcite---all her oohs and aahs and all her poses arching and curving her body almost completely naked do not make an impression . One wonders if it is now time for her to pack her bags and go back to where she came from---Canada . Her gay brother is even more horrible and his oohs and aahs are plain stupid .
Most of the ribald jokes seem to be forced and do not evoke laughter , except briefly in the initial part of the movie .Having wasted my money , I was waiting for the torture to end as I sat in my seat in the theatre .
Acting department wise , the movie cannot be called bad . But lack of storyline and bad script ruin the movie . Music and photography are just about okay .
Verdict---Bad .
One star .
Fitoor ( Obsession ) February 2016
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Fitoor can be remembered for it's gorgeous photography , it's superb colours , it's good music and it's overall class . Never before has Kashmir been filmed so brilliantly . The whiteness of the snow in winter , the ochre colours of the leaves in bright sunlight , the beauty of the chinar trees of the region , the scenes of the lovers romancing in the hollow of broken tree stumps , the mansion in the middle of nowhere---all has been filmed brilliantly . The superb paintings in the movie , the style and clothes of the jet set crowd of the capital city Delhi , the visuals of London---all look so good . The music is almost memorable with good songs . The women look nice and the men look dapper .
But should the movie be remembered at all ?? The first half does hold your interest with a strong build up to the story and at the intermission the bar of expectations has been raised high . However post the intermission the movie and it's story meander hopelessly in the second half . The director does not deliver coherent explanations to the happenings and overcomplicates the story with needless confusion .
A young boy living in Kashmir dares to fall in love with a young girl who is above his class , and continues his love even when she is sent far away from him . Years later his talent for painting is discovered by the capital city Delhi , where he meets his childhood love again . Both have grown up , but what has spectacularly grown is his love for her---in fact it has grown into an obsession ( fitoor ) . And even though she ( played by Katrina Kaif ) is now engaged to another man , she is westernised enough to look after him and flirt with him and reciprocates his advances to have a one night stand with him . But is he ( played by Aditya Roy Kapoor ) going to be satisfied with just that ?? No , because he has an obsession for her called fitoor....
But standing in the way is the heroine's formidable mother ( played by Tabu ) who has a past of a broken heart and a broken relationship which failed horribly , and wants to wreak revenge by destroying the love of the next generation too . I was reminded of the pointlessness of ragging ( hazing ) in college , where one batch which cannot punish their seniors who ragged them wants to wreak revenge by ragging their juniors . What's the point....??
So does Katrina realise the depth of the love/obsession that Aditya has for her and reciprocate ?? You will have to watch the movie till the end to know that...and watching it till the end is not worth it---for as the movie moves further it becomes less and less interesting .
The Kashmir militancy and the Pakistan factor makes some fleeting appearances in the movie , and Aditya is driven by his jealousy for Katrina's Pakistani fiance to taunt him with the Indian nationalists' favourite jingo---''Doodh mangogey to kheeer dengey , Kashmir mangogay to cheeer dengey !!'' ( ''If you ask for milk , we will give a very sweet concoction of it ; but if you ask for Kashmir , we will tear you apart !!'') I know this jingo does not rhyme in english , but it does rhyme in hindi . So at least the film has the credit of having a Kashmiri character who declares loyalty to India , which is a pleasant surprise in the days of films like 'Haider' where open separatism is preached . Also Kashmir's islamic ethos and culture has been shown well in the film .
But does this above fact save the film ?? No , it does not....and acting by the various actors is not particularly fantastic either . Aditya Roy Kapoor is not even fair skinned enough to look like a Kashmiri---who are all famous for their rosy white complexion . Katrina's anglicized hindi ( she grew up in Britain ) seems to get worse in this film . Aditi Rao Hyderi looks lovely as the young Tabu , but her role is too small . Ajay Devgan's role is totally wasted .
Verdict---Not good .
One and a half stars .
Yaariyan ( Friendships ) 2014
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The only thing interesting about ' Yaariyan ' is the songs . Like so many movies in the past from Dev Anand and Mala Sinha's 'Maya' to Ajay Devgan and Madhoo's 'Phool aur kaante' this film too hopes to ride onto box office success on the strength of it's music inspite of a mediocre script.
.....And indeed the music score is memorable , and is almost capable of lifting the film alone on it's shoulders....
Of course , for people of naughty tastes there is the other temptation---plenty of half naked girls....
Girls in hot pants and shorts and lingerie try their best to bring the audiences to the theater by gyrating their bodies so that the more ample parts are on show.....
Sadly , that did not manage to bring any people to watch the movie---for the theater was practically empty on a weekday nightshow.....
To be honest , the audiences were smarter than me in staying away---for I was regretting my decision to see the movie halfway through....
Lookswise , the cast of the film is rightly chosen---the hero looks like a nice little puppy and the heroine is a cutie pie....
Above all , the heroine's Australian rival who manages to steal the hero's attention for a while reminded my of my fave actress Dia Mirza , and I was lost in her dreams for a while....
.....But beyond dreams there is reality , and the reality is that I had landed myself into seeing a mediocre film....
The acting by everyone is unconvincing , the script is badly written and the direction is stupid....
The sequence in which many of the scenes are shown is disjointed , and the story is corny as hell....
So what's the corny story ??
It's about a boy studying in a college in the Himalayas in the state of Sikkim who dreams of and is indeed surrounded by girls and girls and more girls....
He has contempt for his father who had laid down his life for the country in the past and his ambition is life is nothing but to have fun with girls....
And the movie is awash with girls in various states of undress curving and arching their bodies....
The first half is so stupid that I was laughing at the stupidity of the movie and the stupidity and laughter was giving me some enjoyment---that is , until I laughed and laughed too much and began to cough....:D
Finally the story began to move with a contest between the hero's college and an Australian college for which the hero and 5 others are chosen to go to Australia . Here the hero falls for the Girl who reminded me of Dia Mirza---but unlike Dia she shows off her sensational body in red bikinis....
But the Australians are not fair contestants and the hero suffers a personal tragedy while contesting with them which finally turns the film into serious mode....
But why did the director put the huge clonking sound in the film when the tragedy occurs ??.....Oh , I forgot she ( yeah , it's a 'she' ) had decided to make the film as silly as possible and was staying true to form....
The second half has some half hearted patriotism as the Australians come to Sikkim for the remaining part of the contest , and the hero comes to terms with his father's sacrifice for the nation . There is some melodrama about upholding the nation's flag in face of the Aussie challenge....
But did the director have to interrupt even this with the second romance ??---that of the hero with the heroine , who is shown to be a typical Indian girl who ultimately wins the hero's heart after he has had the fun with all the bikini babes in the typical hypocritical style of Bollywood where modern girls are shown to be only for fun while marriage is done with the simple indian girl.....
The only thing that was modern about this was the fact that the mother of the hero is the one who encourages the hero and the heroine to fall in love . This a pleasant change from the era of films showing parental opposition as the main obstruction to love....
So does the hero manage to uphold the nation's honour in the high Himalayas ??
And what about the fact that there is betrayal in his own camp ??
To go to see the movie for answers to these questions is not worth it even if you like music and semi naked girls---better buy a CD for the music and watch 'Bikini destinations' on TV if you like semiclad girls....
The second half is somewhat more bearable than the first half due to the theme of patriotism but does not manage to salvage the film .
Verdict---Waste of money and time .
director of the above film 'yaariyan' ( divya khosla kumar ) is a looker though
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Coffee bloom ( 2015 )
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SPOILER ALERT
'Coffee Bloom' is set in the lovely coffee plantations of Coorg , a mountainous and scenic region of penisular India . And the cinematographer does justice to the scenery in which the film has been shot , by showcasing the verdant land full of lush greenery and lakes and beautiful forests . One gets in to a relaxed mood on seeing the superb landscape , and does not want to see any trouble break into this paradise....
....But trouble does come , in the form of a troubled young man ( Dev Cariappa played by Arjun Mathur ) who has a permanently skewed expression on his face . His life has gone off course years ago , after his elopement with his girlfriend was derailed by her parents and she was separated from him by brute force . He then sold his coffee plantation in Coorg in a fit of frustration and retreated into renouncement of the world altogether to try to become an ascetic . But the death of his mother forces him to face the real world , and he realizes his mistake in selling the lush green coffee plantation that was family property . And he comes back to Coorg---the land of his ancestors , the land where he grew up , the land with so many childhood memories...to try to reclaim the land .
And what does he come face to face with in his land ?? His woman....or rather his ex girlfriend Anika ( played by Sugandha Garg )....It is her husband who owns the plantation now , and he is known as Vas ( actually Vas is short form of Srinivas Panicker , played by Mohan Kapoor ) . Vas is a jolly good fellow who may be a nice guy but has little in the way of brains . He dreams of having a coffee bloom in his plantation without any technical knowledge of growing coffee and hires Dev the coffee growing expert , not knowing that it is Dev's former land....
Hmm....Dev's former land and Dev's former woman---Vas is in possession of them both....And Dev is determined to get them both back , by hook or crook....and sparks fly between Dev and Anika , who looks good in chest hugging and cleavage baring tops....but the situation is complicated by the entry of the Bengali woman who loves Dev , and who outmatches Anika due to her buxom figure and her full body and her wet saris and her sleeveless blouses....
So who what happens next ?? Will Dev get his land and his woman and his revenge over his wrongs and his life.....will he get them back ?? What about the innocent Vas who is not party to any of these secrets ?? What is the role of the bengali woman in all this ??
Watch the movie for the answers....
All the actors act out their part well , but the best acting is by Mohan Kapoor . He puts joi de vivre in his role , endlessly yak yaking from his mouth and seeming like a genuine person . You really feel sympathy for his character , completely oblivious to the storm brewing around him while he is dreaming of brewing coffee !! Compared to him , Dev ( Arjun Mathur ) looks like a selfish and self centered person constantly brooding over past wrongs . Anika maintains her composure even though she is caught between two men , Sugandha Garg has acted that role well . Ultimately it is the Bengali woman who urges Dev to do what is right....
I was pleasantly surprised by the lovely locations and breathtaking scenery of the film , the acting of the actors , and the good direction and storyline , and above all by the fine ending !! And I was happy that there are little gems to be discovered in the world of film making and this film is such a gem....
There is only one song and it is hummable , and the music is good and apt for the situations .
One day I hope to visit Coorg ; but if I can't then I will watch it in this film....
Verdict---Good .
Three and a half stars .
https://youtu.be/Ud1II8qulV0
Main aur Charles ( I and Charles ) October 2015
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'I and Charles'---so many people had this to say about Charles Shobraj . For he had the knack of winning the confidence of anyone he came in contact with , making the person feel that he or especially she was special to Charles . And all of them were to later regret this confidence , if they survived at all....for Charles main occupation was to first become friendly and win confidence of people , and later spike their drinks with drugs and then kill them after looting them . This he did to so many hippies in Thailand , especially western bikini clad women , earning the title of bikini murderer .
And inspite of this record , or maybe because of it , the movie shows Charles literally surrounded by women in various stages of undress . Wherever he goes , he charms his way into womens' hearts , only to break their hearts , if not break their life . The men fare little better , and if they survive at all ( the men have a better chance of survival ) then they have stories of being tricked to tell.
Yet the movie does not show a single murder actually happening , for it's main purpose is not to horrify you but to glamorise Charles' life and times ; cinema sells on a cocktail of sex and glamour after all....
It is Randeep Hooda who plays Charles , and he has delved into the skin of the character so much that he looks and acts like the real Charles . You feel the charm oozing out of him , and people seem to be ready to sacrifice themselves to fuel the cause of Charles . Take the case of the character played by Richa Chaddha , a good looking female who falls in love with Charles and helps him carry out his plans of escaping from jail and is willing to be caught by the police . Or the case of a British man who Charles befriends in jail , and who becomes his accomplice in prison .
The police are utterly frustrated trying to knock out Charles from the head of Richa , who is head over heels in love . And his repeated escapes from jail keep them playing catch up . But even in this we have a surprise in store in the end ; a surprise that leaves you in awe of the genius of Charles Shobraj.....
This is a slickly made movie ; a movie that gives the publicity to this criminal that criminals are always craving for . Watch how police officer Sudhakar Zende of Bombay police becomes a media sensation just because he apprehended Charles ; and watch him excitedly telling the account of his capture to others listening in rapt attention . Watch the slickly planned escape from jail by Charles ; how all jail guards and jailor is fooled by him . Watch the police officer ( played by Adil Khan ) who is in charge of Charles' case getting dumbfounded by Charles every time . And watch beautiful women remove their clothes for him . And watch his hypocrisy in front of media ; he claims in interviews to have given up sex and living the life of a monk !!
Music is nice , and plays to the drum beats of Charles' hedonistic lifestyle---all semiclad women dancing on western tunes . Photography is okay . Acting is decent by everyone .
Verdict---decent .
Three stars .
Barkhaa ( march 2015 ) ( Rainshowers )
Barkhaa is a common name for girls in India and is the name of the heroine .
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I saw this movie on youtube because I heard that it is based on ladies bars , which meant that there was a personal connection....after all , I was a patron of ladies bars in Mumbai before they were shut down by the government . To those who don't know , ladies bars are bars in which there is a dance floor in the middle and flashing lights above . Beautiful girls dance on the dance floor in sexy exposing glamorous clothes to the beats of Bollywood music , and patrons sit around the dance floor watching and drinking .
But the story starts in the himalayas where the hero has gone on vacation to the picturesque state of himachal pradesh . Here he sees the heroine ( pakistani actress Sara Loren ) whose fair skinned beauty mesmerises him and he falls in love instantly....and to the end of the movie he remains madly in love . To be honest there is a corny feel to this fact of the hero falling in love with a woman whom he does not know , and the feel then extends to the entire movie .
On returning to Mumbai he is surprised to spot her there again , but she rebuffs his advances . However he is destined to spot her again , this time in more controversial circumstances . He is actually shown to be a person who leads a straightforward life and does not visit the fleshpots of the city , but a chance visit to a ladies bar makes him come face to face with the heroine who dances there....and he begins to go there again and again .
The hero's growing infatuation makes the heroine call him to her room and tell her life story , in which there had been a man in her life and from whom she had a daughter....but the man had abandoned her when she needed him the most....
No problem...the hero still wants to marry her , and he takes her to his parents . The parents reluctantly ( reluctantly because obviously bar girls don't have a good reputation ) have to agree to the match , but fate has other coincidences in store....
To be honest , the coincidences in the movie were by now too much for me and the movie had begun to drag . The rest of the movie is cliched and the end predictable .
The cinematography is good and colours of the movie and the beauty of himachal and the beauty of the heroine are well shown . Sara Loren is not just beautiful but entices us with exposure of her lovely body . The hero Taaha Shah looks decent enough . Acting is okay by everybody . But music is worth listening . I found myself humming the songs of the movie , which are emotional and sentimental .
The scenes of ladies bars were nostalgic for me , as they brought out memories of times when they were the heart of Mumbai's night life . The politics of closing them down is discussed in the movie , with the bar owner who is sympathetic to the bar girls' cause ( for their entire families are dependent on their income from the ladies bar ) cursing the politician who forced them to be closed but also justifying the closure by saying that many bars had become associated with the flesh trade and were ruining young men who visited them wasting all their money on bar girls---and this included the politician's nephew , prompting him to close the bars .
But all this did not make me have a better-than-okayish impression of the movie . The movie is watchable but not great .
Verdict---Okay .
Two stars .
Full movie on youtube---
https://youtu.be/CG74F3nrEY8
Neerja ( February 2016 )
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After the movie ‘Airlift’ India remembers one more hero/heroine on whom a film ought to have been made 30 years ago . But maybe the Indian film industry had not come of age at that time . Or maybe the Indian people had not developed the maturity to cherish our heroes at that time . Be as it may….better late than never….
So this time the story is of Neerja Bhanot , an air hostess who saved hundreds of people on a Pan Am aircraft which had been hijacked by Palestinian terrorists belonging to the Abu Nidal group at Karachi in Pakistan after flying there from Bombay….
So the story picks up in Bombay where Neerja was the light of the life of her parents and her brothers ; and she was the heart and soul of every small event that was happening in the neighborhood….she had the personality and the charm that made her so….
But beneath her smile there was a past in which there was an abusive husband whom she had divorced , who had given her tears which she left hidden behind her smiles ; indeed it was her job as air hostess to keep smiling all the time and look happy….or maybe what made her happy was the new admirer in her life….
Air hostesses are supposed to have glamorous lives , but I didn’t see any glamour in her life in the movie other than her modeling assignments . Yes , she was a model who had modeled for TV ads and street hoardings….but no smoking or drinking or discos or late night parties for her . Her father was the one who encouraged her to be independent , but that independence was only by the standards of the times . India even in a city like Bombay was a backward socialist country….
If there was anything in which her father encouraged her the most , it was to never tolerate injustice . It had helped her survive the trauma of her bad marriage . And it was to prove mighty useful in the drama that was to unfold….
So the movie picks off with the parallel tracks of the hijackers preparing for the mission and Neerja preparing for the flight . Among other things it entails praying to their respective Gods . And the two tracks are about to meet….
……For as Neerja’s Pan Am flight lands in Karachi , the hijackers come into action as they hijack the plane and terrify everyone . The tense and terrified atmosphere in the plane and the fear and uncertainty have been portrayed all too well . Neerja immediately proves her mettle by giving the signal for the pilots to escape by using an overboard hatch , thus preventing the plane from flying to Cyprus . And she does not allow the hijackers to know that there is a radio operator on board , thus preventing them from contacting the airport authorities by radio . Above all , she helps hide the passports of the Americans on board and thus prevents the hijackers from identifying them and using the threat of massacring them release their comrades from jail .
A tense stand off of 17 hours occurs between them and the airport authorities , and every moment is fraught with tension . The differing personalities of the hijackers are well shown . One of them is calm and cool and the other is hasty and quick to anger . The third is a coward . The angry man beats the coward for his cowardice , and this leads to mayhem . Ultimately the terrorists begin to lose control over themselves out of sheer frustration . As they begin to kill people Neerja opens the doors and lets loose an escape chute to help slide the passengers out , saving most of them . But as she goes to shield some children , she has to pay the ultimate price….She could have saved herself by running away first but she sacrificed herself….heroine indeed….
The last speech by her mother ( played by Shabana Azmi ) brought me close to tears and definitely increased the emotional quotient of the movie . Acting by everyone is good as expected . And the movie may give a boost to heroine Sonam Kapoor’s flagging career .
Neerja won many awards from America , India and Pakistan posthumously . Today there is an awards instituted by Pan Am airlines in her name , which is given for bravery . Now the question is , how many awards will this movie win ??
Verdict---Good .
Four stars .
Ishqedarriyan ( The deep ravine of love ) 2015
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I saw the movie on because I was impressed by the name---'Ishqedarriyan' , the deep ravine of love . I wondered what profound 'depths' of love was I going to find here....
Of course , the I went knowing the fact that the hero is Mimoh , who I had derided as 'rotten face' in another review . He has changed his name to Mahakshay . But does that change the 'rotten face' ? :D
Let us find out....
The hero plays an exceptionally successful Indian-American whose father had migrated from India to America decades ago , and the son had got stupendous financial success . His motto even in America is Indian however and it is 'satyameva jayate', which means truth always wins . But one day a magazine reporter claims that the hero's father had moved to USA after committing a fraud in India where he had fooled a family out of a large sum of money , and his American empire is built on that ill gotten wealth . The hero decides to go to India to investigate .
On reaching India the hero finds out that the person who his father allegedly fooled has died years ago and his daughter runs a school in the himalayas . On reaching the school he is mesmerised by the simplicity and the genuine nature of the daughter (played by Evelyn Sharma ) and decides to keep close to her by becoming a teacher in the school . So a corny situation of an empire builder in America becoming a ordinary school teacher in India develops....but to those who have seen Bollywood films this situation is not unfamiliar....countless Bollywood films have shown cornier situations than this....and all cornyness from the director is forgiven if it is for love....and do I even have to spell it out that the hero is in love....
But alas...the heroine ( Evelyn who else ) is in one sided love with another boy ; a boy who sings and plays a guitar better than our hero , and worse !! he is handsomer....remember our hero is 'rotten face' !!:D
But that boy's father is opposed to the match , for the girl is not as rich as him....
However behold the depth of love !! Our hero uses his financial power to not only arrange much needed donations for the heroine's financially sinking school , but also uses his financial muscle to force the father of the boy whom the girl loves to agree to the marriage ; this after using all his skills to first make the boy fall in love with her !!
But from inside he is in pain....the woman he loves is in love with another man !! And he screams out his agony in the loneliness when he goes to the edge of a ravine that lies nearby in the high himalayas---the deep ravine of love....
So will the heroine find out about his love ? How will she respond ? And what will be her reaction when she discovers that he is son of the man who allegedly fooled her father out of a large sum of money ?
For answers to these questions watch 'rotten face':D....err , I mean the film....
What strikes you is the beauty of the state of himachal pradesh in which the film has been filmed , and the cinematography which is full of lovely colours and beautiful scenes . The songs are good enough and several are hummable and worth listening to again . But neither Mimoh/Mahakshay nor Evelyn Sharma can do justice to their roles , for they simply lack the acting skills !!
Mahakshay is son of yesterdays star Mithun Chakravarty , but he has not inherited his acting skills . The climax of the movie is all too predictable .
Verdict---two stars .
Pinjra ( The trap ) Old film re released 2016
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The film deals with the age old problem of men getting seduced by dancing girls and ending up ruining their lives over wine and woman....
Sriram Lagu plays an idealistic school teacher who has vowed to keep his village free from alcohol and prostitutes , and with the help of the village headman has gone to great lengths to curb these vices . Lagu teaches the ideals of India's heroes down the ages to the people of the village and tries to bring literacy and education to this poor and backward part of India .
But trouble breaks out when dancing girl Sandhya comes with her troupe of enticing dancing girls to the village and the beauty of her troupe begins to attract the young men of the village . Lagu and the headman force the troupe out of the village , but the troupe parks itself outside the village boundary and begins it's show ; the seductive dances made with lascivious movements by the lovely girls makes the men forget the classes taught by Lagu and they all make a beeline to Sandhya's dances . This forces Sriram Lagu and the village headman to use strong arm tactics to kick out the show , literally destroying the equipment of the dancers in a bid to throw them out .
But Sandhya is made of a different mettle and she vows to trap Sriram Lagu in her charms and break his reputation . Lagu does succumb to her enticement and from thereon begins the path of his ruin....
The film shows the destruction of the name and persona of a good man , a man who has won the respect of his people . The journey of destruction leads from --1 ) getting ensnared by the woman to--2) getting embroiled in a case of murder to--3) running away from the police like a hunted animal along with the dance troupe to --4) getting humiliated by the members of the troupe to 5) hitting the bottle to forget the humiliation....
In the end the hero decides to go to the gallows for the murder charge ( of which he is innocent ) because he does not want to reveal who he really is---his appearance is so changed by his travails that he is not recognized in his own village . His prize for doing so---his good name in the village will not be tarnished and the statue they have built in his name will remain . Another consolation---the dancing girl Sandhya has realised her folly in destroying such a good man and has repented for her sins , falling in love with him along the way .
But it is too late to save him , and too late save her too....they are destined to meet in heaven , if there is such a place....
I had some problems with some parts of the film however . For one thing , if Sriram Lagu is so idealistic with such a strong stand against vices then how come falls victim to them relatively easily ?? The manner in which he gets involved in the murder charge is not fully convincing too . But the tragedy is convincing , for the simple reason that in the rural parts of the country it is all too familiar....
Music I did not like because I am not a fan of the music of songs on which dancing girls dance , it being appreciated by those who live in the rural parts of the country . The songs and dances are all the same---called lavani in my part of the country . But they are regarded as classics by those who understand them .
The film's message is to maintain family values and not go down the path of whoring....but it also brings out the neccessity of the dancing girls to earn money to run their families and their yearning to be treated as a profession like anything else . The film is truly tragic , and is regarded widely as a classic today .
Verdict---three stars .
Rocky Handsome ( march 2016 )
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The film revolves around the John Abraham playing the title role and taking on the drug mafia which has taken on a new business---that of dealing with the vital organs of human bodies . The mafia have taken away a little girl ( Diya ) who wants to share a special bond with him....she has been taken away because the mafia wants to harvest her body for her eyes , as punishment for her mother ( Nathalia Kaur ) having stolen a consignment of drugs from them along with her boyfriend .
John plays a person with a tragic past , for he was an intelligence officer who lost his wife ( Shruti Hassan ) in the war on drugs....and the tragedy of his past puts a permanently brooding expression on his face , to the extent that his brooding expression hampers the action sequences in the first half---he looks too brooding to look confident enough to deliver the blows and punches . And his brooding nature prevents Diya from forming the bond which she wants to make with him---while she looks up to him as a father figure who can stand by her while her mother is hooked on to drugs , he is too lost in his own troubles to respond to her .
It is left to the women to make the first half interesting ; while wife Shruti Hassan looks beautiful in exposing clothes like mini skirts , Diya's mother Nathalia Kaur gives us the hots by dancing to sizzling item numbers . Also looking hot is female dancer Nora Fatehi in dance numbers . So what about 'action Abraham' ? When is he going to deliver the action we want ?
It is only after the little girl is kidnapped that 'action Abraham' wakes up from his slumber of brooding and puts some expression on his face and delivers the kicks and the punches . And post interval he comes on to his own---first he shows off his awesome body in all it's glory to us , rippling muscles and all....and he begins to smash hard blows on his enemies....
The enemies are played by director Nishikant Kamat himself and Teddy Maurya , and they are not easy to catch....and so a cat and mouse game begins interspersed by some hard fighting . The police are not far behind , and mayhem erupts between John and the mafia and the police ; mayhem that goes on to nearly the climax .
But it is the emotional bonding between John and the little girl that steals your heart , as John finally shows real emotion to break all hell loose in order to get back the girl . And it is the emotion that finally forms the core of the climax , and it is emotion that triumphs when all the action is over....
Songs and music is decent but photography of the natural beauty and beaches of Goa is not shown ; it is on the sleazy side of the state that the director concentrates---that of the drugs and the trade in human body parts . Acting is okay by everyone though nothing special about the performances .
Verdict---three stars .
'batman vs superman' crushes 'rocky handsome' at indian box office---
http://www.hindustantimes.com/hollywood/batman-v-superman-v-rocky-handsome-bo-superheroes-destroy-john-abraham/story-Z7NdmY2azs6J5nVgHQ4UFI.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fbpost&utm_campaign=hollywood
Prahaar ( The hardest blow ) 1991
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Nana Patekar is known to be one of the most eccentric persons in the film industry . But for this very reason when he makes a film it is truly from the heart---no commercial considerations hamper the making of the film . This film is an offshoot of the personality of Nana Patekar---it shows his idealism in it's full eccentric glory , and it also shows the reserves of violence that are within the depths of his crackpot persona .
He plays a an army officer ( Major Chauhan ) who trains some of the finest commandos for the Indian army . But his past and his life have been tainted by the memories of his illegitimate birth and the fact that his mother was later kidnapped by goons who sold her into a brothel . Thus he plays a person with a traumatic past which has left him emotionally and psychologically scarred . The injustice he suffered as an illegitimate child who had to bear the taunts that society throws at illegitimate children and the fact that his mother was forced into prostitution , makes him a person unwilling to ever bear any injustice again . He has joined the army to become an ace commando because it makes a person physically fit to fight against injustice , an injustice he has resolved never to suffer again .
And he forces the men who train under him to undergo a really gruelling training regimen . Soldiers fear to train under his command . In such an atmosphere comes to train commando Peter D'Souza ( Gautam Joglekar ) . Peter is an idealistic young man who has high dreams of fighting for his country and has joined the army in opposition to his fiancee's ( Madhuri Dixit ) and father's opposition .
The training of the commandos is really exhilarating and shows the regimen of the commandos with breathtaking detail . This part is really the high point of the movie . How boys who are initially scared of jumping from heights convert into real men who can climb high obstacles , kill snakes for food , can march for miles on end carrying huge luggage on the shoulders , can fire deadly weapons , and can undertake combat with their bare arms and legs---all this is superbly shown in the movie . The glory of army life and the way that Chauhan instils discipline into his men is something you watch with pride . There are plenty of lighthearted moments too in the training , which keep you entertained . At the end of the training Peter is awarded the best commando award .
But just as training is complete , Peter and Chauhan are selected to thwart a terrorist attack . They do so successfully , but in the fight Peter loses both his legs . He is honourably discharged . Shirley ( Madhuri Dixit ) still insists on marrying him inspite of his lost legs . Peter invites Chauhan to his wedding .
But when Chauhan comes to Bombay to attend the wedding , he finds that Peter has been murdered !! The murder was committed by goons who wanted 'protection money' to let Peter run his bakery , but which Peter refuses to give .
Chauhan tries to get witnesses to tell the police of the murder , but no one comes forward fearing the goons . When he fights the goons himself , common people throw stones on him because they fear that his activities will bring the goons' wrath on them !!
But Chauhan stays at the home of a widow ( Dimple Kapadia ) who helps him , and he sets about reforming the society around that part of Bombay . And that reforming is done in true Nana Patekar style---by dollops of extreme violence . He literally starts killing all the anti social elements in the area , including Peter's killers . However , given the vast number of anti social elements this is clearly a hopeless task....
Patekar has tried to bring out the necessity to fight the 'internal enemy'---the criminal mafia that erodes the inside of any nation . This he shows by showcasing the tragedy of Peter---a soldier who had fought the nation's external enemies and wanted a life of honour and dignity , but had to suffer a dog's death at the hands of the mafia .
In the end Chauhan is shown to be brought to court , where he is asked to be kept under the supervision of a psychiatrist---for the court feels that though he had good intentions , his methods were flawed and his ideas came from his unstable mind . He dreams of building a new society of courageous people who have the guts to stand up and fight for their rights .
The movie was acclaimed by the critics for its straight-from-the-heart performance by Nana , and for the real pain which he showed at the inability of ordinary people to stand up to the tyranny of criminals . But women from all walks of life panned the movie for it's showcasing of violence , and the brutal methods shown to cure the ills of society . To some people , the fact that the new society that Nana wanted to build was so pure that it consisted young people who were completely naked reeked of his real life madness . But the film will remembered for it's superb showcasing of army life and commando training , it's fine acting performances , great photography and technical perfection , and decent music .
However , the film remained destined to be hailed as a good film only by reviewers like myself....for it failed at the box office . Another irony is that it was funded by the mafia itself ( :D) , for the producer of the film ( Sudhakar Bokade ) was well connected with the mafia . It remains a matter of debate as to whether the movie can be classified as art or commercial , because it had elements of both .
Verdict---Great .
Four stars .
One night stand ( May 2016 )
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Tanuj Virvani's career and family life is going great guns . He is at a high salary position in his company , and waiting for him at home is a hot and sexy wife---Nyra Bannerjee .
But at a work related trip to Thailand he is mesmerized by the ultimate seductress---Sunny Leone . His friends egg him on to seduce her and he charms his way into her bedroom . Not just her bedroom but also her couch and her bathtub . And they bathe together and they lie together and they make love . And when Sunny Leone makes love then a man reaches nirvana...or heaven . A heaven that other women like the hero's wife just cannot help a man reach . And from then on Tanuj is hooked / addicted . Addicted to that endless fountain of pleasure that is Sunny Leone .
But Sunny does not tell him her real name or address . Like a dream that can come only once in a lifetime she disappears before he has woken up . He remembers her like an angel that has come to give him heavenly bliss . And he can't let go of her from his mind....he just can't....
But things just do not stop here . When he returns home he is confronted by the fact that Sunny is his client's wife....and she has a child to boot....
From then on begins Tanuj's path of obsession . He begins to chase Sunny rentlessly from pillar to post . He begins to lose concentration over his work . Begins to get angry at his colleagues at work . Starts to shout on his wife . Begins to imagine all women including wife Nyra as Sunny . Forces marital rape on Nyra in a drunken state thinking that she is Sunny .
But on reaching and entering Sunny's home he finds that she is a dutiful wife and daughter in law who is also an attentive mother to her child . That like him she has made a mistake in embarking on a one night stand . That she accuses him of stalking her .
So what will happen between Tanuj and Sunny Leone ? What about Nyra---will she take things lying down...?? and I mean literally....
Because both the writer and the director of the film are women , we get to hear some dialogues as to why should only women be looked down upon by society on embarking on one night stands when men are equally responsible too . But the climax leads nowhere as both the writer and the director seem clueless as to how to end the film .
On the other hand photography and colours of the film are great , and all the three main characters are so goodlooking . But body exposure by Sunny is less than in her other films . Music and songs are a treat to listen to . Acting is okay by everyone .
Verdict---Okay .
Two stars .
Traffic ( may 2016 )
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The task---
---to first convince the parents of a young man almost dead in an accident that he is no longer going to survive , and his heart is needed to be transplanted into that of a young girl desperately in need of a new heart .
---then to take out the heart after getting the parents' permission and transport it from the city of Mumbai ( where the young man is lying in hospital ) to the city of Pune ( where the girl is admitted ) in double quick time , for time is running out...
---but the above task can't be done by air because there is fog because of which all flights are cancelled .
---so the police have to clear way through the traffic of maximum city Mumbai and reach the expressway connecting Pune , a task daunting enough for those who know the traffic snarls of maximum city .
---find a policeman having the guts to do the task of driving at high speeds without causing an accident .
---and be ready to face unforeseen dangers on the journey , for they will come ; after all this is film after all , and what is a film without unforeseen dangers !!
The director had all the ingredients of a hit movie in his hands , plus he already had the film in his hands---for it had already been made in malayalam language , and according to those who saw the original film it is quite a good movie .
But somehow this remake in the hindi language does not have the zing of the original---here I am relying on hearsay , for I don't understand the malayalam language and haven't seen the original film .
The girl is daughter of film star Dev Kapoor ( played by Prosenjit Chatterjee ) and his wife ( played by Divya Dutta ) , and the parents of the young man are played by Sachin Khedekar and Kitu Gidwani . The constable who drives is played by Manoj Bajpai , and he has a point to prove to his own daughter who feels disgraced by him having been caught doing corruption and suspended earlier . The doctor ( Parambrata Chatterjee ) holding the icebox containing the heart has his own huge personal issue to deal with---something that erupts in the middle of the drive and threatens the whole enterprise . And an accident then derails the journey , forcing Bajpai to drive through a communally sensitive area---something that requires the co-operation of the local politicians .
The whole movie does keep you engaged , but does not really keep you on your toes . There is no dull moment , but the dangers that are going to come seem predictable . In the end it gives you a climax that warms the cockles of your heart---only somewhat though .
The photography and colours and not good , and the proceedings were grim---after all , who likes the atmosphere of hospitals and dying patients ?...not me at least...Acting wise , the movie is better as everyone is convincing in his or her role . Best acting is by the confident looking Jimmy Shergill---who plays police commissioner of Mumbai . Music is not memorable .
Verdict---one time watch .
Two and a half stars .
Nil battey sannata ( zero divides nothing ) May 2016
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In a small town in north India , a single mother ( Swara Bhaskar ) raises a daughter all alone . The daughter ( Ria Shukla ) is a normal kid , but is more interested in pasting cutouts of Bollywood stars in her house and dance and frolic with her friends on Bollywood numbers . Her interest in studies is nil . Mother is hardworking and wants daughter to become something in life , to escape the drudgery of being a maidservant---which is the profession of the mother .
But daughter thinks that mother has no money and resources to help her get into higher education , and when mother tells her of her dreams for her the daughter tells her pointblank that maidservants' daughters are meant to be maidservants only--leaving the mother stunned....
In order to shame the daughter into studying more , mother enrolls into the same school and class as her daughter---an idea which is brainwave of her mistress ( Ratna Pathak ) who is a doctor . Daughter is too ashamed of admitting that the new student is her mother .
The mother's attempts to learn are inspiring to say the least---making friends with the best student in the class , making a deal with him that she will bring him food in return for his help in studies ; for he has no one in his house to cook food for him . In the midst of all this she continues to work hard in sweatshops to earn money .
Mother's efforts are appreciated by daughter's friends in class , to the daughter's chagrin . They too improve their grades with mother's help . Finally daughter agrees to study if mother will quit after she gets better grades .
But after all this come bitter disappointment and tears , for daughter refuses to change ways . And she humiliates mother by accusing her of having a illicit relationship with the man who drops her from work because it is late night when she returns .
So will daughter ever mend her ways ?
Will she accept her relationship with her mother before the class---something that she is loathe to do ?
When will mother be proud of daughter ? Most importantly , when will daughter be proud that she has got such a mother ? When will she realise the kind of struggle mother has to put up to raise her and hope for a better life for her than she got....?
The struggles that mother has to put for daughter are heart rending....watch her trying to meet the high government official of the district just to know how he studied to reach such a position , fighting and arguing with his security guards so that she can tell her daughter how to study to become a high government official . Watch her working in a roadside hotel with sweat dripping down her brow so that she can earn enough money to educate her daughter .
Acting is good by everyone---Swara Bhaskar is good but Ria Shukla is even better for her age . The headmaster of the school ( Pankaj Tripathi ) puts a comic touch to his acting quite effectively . There are no songs but music is still the strong point of the film and is quite effective in keeping you engaged in watching the movie .
But it is a small movie with no songs and no expensive sets and decidedly unglamorous settings . Only people with an interest in off beat and art movies should watch this movie---or so I thought . But this idea was belied by the large number of small children who had swarmed the theatre---they had been presumably brought by their parents to show them a mother's efforts to make her daughter study and thus the parents were hoping the movie would induce the children to study too....
Verdict---Good .
Three stars .
Sairat ( wild ) may 2016
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If selective outrage is your cup of tea , then 'Sairat' is the right filmy destination for you . It is made by dalit moviemaker Nagraj Manjule . The dominant hindu castes are of course the villains for him , as they are for so many dalits . The film is typically a film that will be applauded by the politically correct crowd , for it shows the dominant hindu castes as the evildoers---exactly what the politically correct crowd would like it to be portrayed . It was already selected by the Berlin film festival for screening , probably because it showcases what the western crowd would like India's image to be permanently be etched as---as a land where the barbaric dominant castes tyrannise the lower castes all the time .
The director would like to create the image that the situation in India was always like this---dominant castes ruling the roost and lording over the others .
However while attacking the dominant castes for this tyranny , the director conveniently forgets one thing---India was ruled by foreigners for 1000 years until recently and during this time all Indians ( including the dominant castes ) were at the receiving end of tyranny . Barbaric turko afghan invaders ruled the roost for 700 years and even the upper castes saw their temples demolished and their women raped . But this is truth that the politically correct crowd would like to hide . The same critics who are praising 'Sairat' to the skies attacked films like 'Phantom' and 'Welcome to karachi' because they were critical of pakistan---a country which sees the barbaric turko afghans as it's ideals .
So what is it about 'Sairat' that the critics and the politically correct crowd would like to praise ?? It is the particularly the ending scene that must have made them like the film---for it shows the honour killing of a couple who has eloped . The boy is lower caste and the girl belongs to the dominant caste , and they have eloped years ago and have a son now . Relatives of the girl come to meet the couple , look at pictures of the couple's son---but still they do not waiver from their aim....the girl's brother who kills his own sister and her husband knows that he is going to orphan his sister's son but still does the gruesome act of murder . The awards are obviously going to pour in....
Acting wise the heroine ( Rinku Rajguru ) has done a great job . She is the one who calls the shots in the relationship---initiating the relationship by inviting the boy to a walk in the fields and saying ' I love you' , telling her cousin who opposes this to back off from beating her beau on pain of punishment , saving her boyfriend and his friends from being held by police by creating a scene in the police station , initiating the elopement by running away from home with lots of money , and driving a powerful motorcycle in style !! She is dusky in complexion , a change from Bollywood heroines who are either fair in colour or are made to look fair if they are not .
The hero ( Akash Thosar ) is fairer in colour---the typical chocolate hero . But he is over shadowed by the heroine , both in the film and in the acting department .
The heroine is named Archana but is called Archie . The boy is named Prashant and is called Parshya . They speak marathi in rural style . Archie is a maratha by caste---not a true upper caste like brahmins , but the dominant caste in maharashtra since the days of Chhatrapati Shivaji . Once again , I would like to point out that the marathas themselves lived under the tyranny of the turks until Shivaji taught them to fight for their rights and hence were victims themselves . But the director and the critics would like us to not remember this fact .
Love between the star crossed couple brings about savage beatings on the boy and his friends , and he is saved only by the feisty heroine who fires a gun to ward off the attackers . They run away to Hyderabad and build a new life there . The couple fight and argue because they find it difficult to adjust there and the boy becomes jealous and insecure . Inspite of everything the heroine remembers her father and brothers as good people . And she pines for them . It is her attempt to re establish contact with her family which brings on the tragedy....
Photography of the film is really good , with wide shots of green sugarcane fields and magnificent sunsets over calm but mighty rivers . Songs are good too , and so is the music . The flavour of rural Maharashtra is shown so well in the film . Acting is damn good by practically everyone .
The age of the couple is barely eighteen at the time of elopement---so they are kids , just teenagers . The climax is set deliberately to surprise you---it explodes suddenly . But I being experienced in seeing films could see it coming....things were moving far to smoothly for the couple towards the end for something terrible not to happen....
Verdict---good .
Three and a half stars .
Baaghi ( The rebel in love ) May 2016
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At last we have our very own Indian martial arts action hero---and he is none other than Tiger Shroff , the son of veteran actor Jackie Shroff . The stunts he can pull , the chops he can hit , the punches he can throw , and the flying kicks he can showcase would leave all the martial arts experts from the far east nations flummoxed .
And with the martial art form from the south Indian state of Kerala known as kalaripayattu , we have our own Indian martial arts form---something that has existed for centuries but Bollywood has discovered oh-so-late....
And when the two ( Tiger Shroff and kalaripayattu ) are mixed what we get is---super action !! Action that would leave all other action heroes from Bollywood far behind....
And Tiger Shroff has an amazing body too---every inch is sinew and muscle . The only thing he lacks as yet is---the fire in the eyes and anger in the soul , which was the hallmark of the acting of the ultimate martial arts icon Bruce Lee . Once he manages to get that , we could have our very own action superstar .
And an action star who can romance too---as Tiger does with Shraddha Kapoor . He is the rebel without a cause , sent by his dying father to his friend in Kerala . The friend is called as Guruswamy and is played by Grandmaster Shifuji Shaurya Bharadwaj . On the way in the picturesque journey to God's own country ( the people of the south Indian state of Kerala like to call their state as God's own country , such is the beauty of the state ) he falls in love with Shraddha , and she with him .
But her father has betrothed her to Sudheer Babu , who is Guruswamy's son---and thus a future clash is in the wings . But as if to prepare Tiger for the clash , Guruswamy ( who runs a martial arts school teaching kalaripayattu ) trains him personally in the art of physical combat...and the training for it is really really raw . Once the training is complete , Tiger is a literal fighting machine and can hit and beat anybody---except maybe Sudheer Babu , Guruswamy's own son .
And the two have to come to blows over Shraddha , for she is that good....sweet and delicate and luscious . So good that I dreamt of being the third party in the clash for Shraddha :D...maybe I could get her for myself....
But before the two come to blows , Sudheer Babu has to contend with the opposition to his marriage with Shraddha of his own father Guruswamy , who does not want him to force himself on a woman . So how does he deal with his own father ? And what is the outcome of the clash between the two contenders for the girl ? Watch the movie for the answers....
The movie moves from Kerala to Bangkok , with glimpses of romance in the virtual sea of action . Whenever the two lovers meet there is rain , and whenever there is rain it is a signal that the two lovers are going to meet !! Which gives us a relief from the non stop action . Sunil Grover acts as Shraddha's father and he gives us does of some really well acted comedy in between .
Acting wise , the movie cannot be called great....but who cares....Sudheer Babu and his various sidekicks ( all killers ) are mean , Tiger is tough , Shraddha is beautiful and Kerala is even more beautiful !! Music and songs are only decent not great , and photography is okay .
Verdict---Good .
Three stars .
Phobia ( may 2016 )
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Radhika Apte is a young and talented painter who exhibits her paintings in art exhibitions . She is hot and sexy and likes to wear exposing clothes , especially because she has the body to show off . But after an art exhibition she is a victim of attempted rape in a taxi . Because of this she develops psychological problems---specifically agoraphobia , which is an irrational fear of open spaces . So she remains locked up in her house all the time , fearing to go out . Her sister gets fed up of her fears and so Radhika's boyfriend ( Satyadeep Mishra ) shifts Radhika out of her apartment to another house .
Here she gets acquainted with new neighbours---specifically a young girl ( Yashaswini Dayama ) and a man ( Ankur Vikal ) . She and the girl quickly become friends , but she is convinced that Ankur has murdered his girlfriend (Amrit Bagchi ) in whose now empty apartment she has shifted in . This is because she has found the girlfriend's diary and it's notes convince her that she was killed .
But Radhika's own problems are far from over and she begins to have visions of things happening in the house . From a cat straying around in the apartment to the ghost of the murdered girl , Radhika begins to see things . The friendly young girl is a nosy busybody and she begins to co operate to search for these happenings . Radhika's boyfriend however is exasperated by these efforts . The neighbouring man is a pesky type who increases Radhika's suspicions of being a murderer by having anger management issues for which he resorts to laughter therapy .
So has the girlfriend really been murdered ?
Are Radhika's visions real ?
Is her agoraphobia going to get cured ?
Watch the movie for the answers .
The film rests on the acting of the main protagonists , and they have all performed well . Otherwise it is a small budget film with neither any big stars nor any costly locations or sets . The director does manage to inject real suspense in the proceedings , and the humorous situations that sometimes spring up from the proceedings do liven up the film for a while . There are few jolts in the film too , but the film cannot be called a regular or typical horror film because you are left wondering whether the happenings on screen are imaginations of Radhika's mental situation or are really happening . But that is what makes the film different too...
The film's main lead is already in the limelight for bold scenes in films and giving exposing photos . Here Radhika however has no bold scenes and her body exposure is not that much . Rather this is a chance to show off her acting capabilities . I found her acting good enough , but not as much the critics are gaga-ing . Music and photography is okay .
Verdict---decent .
Three stars .
Azhar ( may 2016 )
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One wonders why cricketer Azharruddin gave permission to make this film---for even though it purports to remove the stigma of the match fixing scandal from him , it actually once again reminded me of the whole gory saga and the endless speculation about the whole thing in media about 16 years ago . And once again the movie brings back the days when Azhar was accused of match fixing and puts his infamy in focus . At the end of the whole movie some ingenious but ridiculous explanation is given as to why he took money from a bookie and how he was really a patriot after all blah blah blah....does he really expect the public to be such a fool as to buy such explanations....one would have wanted him to not support the making of such a movie and let sleeping dogs sleep and not wake up....
Ravi Shastri and his family are sure to be angry at Shastri's portrayal in the film---he is shown to be a womaniser who has to be saved by Azhar ( who else ) from the scrutiny of his wife when he is philandering with women . It seems Azhar is taking revenge for the fact that Shastri was caught by Manoj Prabhakar on camera in a sting operation in 1999 saying that Azhar is being protected by Dawood Ibrahim , the Pakistan based don . Of course , Ravi was a well known womaniser , but what is shown in the film is too much .
On the other hand , no pot shots are taken at Azhar's real enemy in the cricket world---Sachin Tendulkar , for whom Azhar has expressed open hatred in real life . It seems the makers of the film did not want to explode a further controversy in what is already a film on a controversial topic , because Tendulkar is considered God by some people who would have been doubtlessly irked if his name had been dragged ; the director of the film is no Tanmay Bhat after all....
Kapil Dev also has escaped Azhar's wrath , because he came out in support of him later---or so the film shows...
Manoj Prabhakar obviously has not fared well .
The film shows Azhar's pain at not having been able to play 100 matches for India , something that he had promised his beloved grandfather whom he missed dearly after his death . Reason---the match fixing allegations , for which he was banned . Later half of the movie shows Azhar and his lawyer friend fighting a court case for years to get the ban lifted .
It being a movie , there is ample scope for romance ; both his first wife Naureen ( played by Prachi Desai ) and second wife Sangeeta Bijlani ( played by Nargis Fakri ) are shown . Prachi Desai acts well ; Nargis is horrible . Azhar is plainly unapologetic about leaving his first wife for his second ; the movie shows him openly declaring his affection for Sangeeta on live television without caring for the pain and hurt it would cause to Naureen .
So does Azhar manage to get the ban lifted by court ?
And does he manage to get his named cleared in the eyes of the public by means of the film ?
Watch the movie to answer to the second question for yourself , for the answer to the first can be found by simple google search .
The movie is clearly Azhar's version of the story , for it leaves out his perfidies like his claiming that he was targeted for match fixing allegations because he belonged to the minority community . Eemraan Hashmi has tried his best to act like Azharuddin , and has mastered his various mannerisms well . But he sounds too confident compared to the shy person he was supposed to portray .
Music is decent , and photography is okay . The film does not bore you and keeps you engaged throughout . But it focuses on the match fixing scandal and hardly shows the otherwise glorious cricketing exploits of it's leading character .
Verdict---okay .
Two and a half stars .
SeeingisBelieving
06-06-16, 05:40 PM
Tonight, the film Bubble Boy was on and a character is driving a van which has a green statue on the roof of a six-armed deity. Weirdly, he describes it as the "Goddess Siva". Hopefully I'm not going mad but that sounded a bit wrong to me:).
Tonight, the film Bubble Boy was on and a character is driving a van which has a green statue on the roof of a six-armed deity. Weirdly, he describes it as the "Goddess Siva". Hopefully I'm not going mad but that sounded a bit wrong to me:).
we hindus are liberal and dont mind some fun being made of our gods . in the film PK a character playing siva is shown running away like a coward from the hero and the underclothes are seen . we dont mind . anyway siva is male god not goddess :)
SeeingisBelieving
06-07-16, 04:12 PM
we hindus are liberal and dont mind some fun being made of our gods . in the film PK a character playing siva is shown running away like a coward from the hero and the underclothes are seen . we dont mind . anyway siva is male god not goddess :)
Ah, well I'm not sure whether they were making fun or just didn't know;).
Do lafzon kee kahani ( A tale of only two words ) June 2016
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'Do lafzon kee kahani' is a simple and predictable love story set in Malaysia , and stars Randeep Hooda and Kajal Agarwal in the lead roles .
Randeep is a boxer by profession , who becomes an enforcer for a gangster because he is fooled out of his career by another boxer and his wife . But in the midst of this violence , he becomes unwittingly responsible for the blindness of a sweet girl ( Kajal ) . Unknowing of this , the blind Kajal falls in love with Randeep , who himself does not know of what he had unwittingly done . But when Randeep comes to know of this , he resolves to raise money for a costly operation that will restore Kajal's eyesight . But it is lot of money and Randeep literally has to stake his very life for it .
So does Randeep succeed in raising the money and still surviving at the end of it all ? Will Kajal be able to see Randeep with her very own eyes , someone whom she only managed to feel with her hands earlier ? Watch the movie for that....
There is a lot of violence in the movie , yet it seems like a love story all the time . That it self is the triumph of director Deepak Tijori . Even though the storyline is predictable , the director has also managed to keep things simple and sweet as far as the love story is concerned . You also tend to overlook a lot of things that are unrealistic in the movie while you are immersed in seeing the movie , and that itself is another triumph .
The chemistry between the lead pair is really nice and Kajal Agarwal looks so sweet and vulnerable and delicate , even though actually she is no beauty . Randeep has pulled off the act of looking real hard in the exterior but having a soft heart and he has pulled this off really well .
Music is good and songs are really nice---it is they that set the mood for romance rather than violence in the movie . No spectacular scenes are filmed , but still photography is decent .
But in the end the unrealism of the movie and the predictability does catch up with you , and the impression of the movie is not really great . Not worth writing a even a long review over it . However it has it's sweet moments .
Verdict---Okay .
Two and a half stars .
Shorgul ( Uproar ) July 2016
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Once again I am attracted to my favourite cinematic destination---the mofussil towns of Indian states of Uttar pradesh ( UP ) and Bihar . And my favourite cinematic recipe---those towns burning with the conflagration of communal conflict .
This film is supposed to be based on the Muzaffarpur hindu muslim riots of 2013 , but deviates from showing the rumoured real cause of the riots . Instead it shows the riots to be caused by a one sided love story . The town also has been renamed in the movie---to Malihabad . The name of the chief minister of UP has been changed too , though only barely---to Mithilesh .
Even before the unrequited love story comes to a gory end , Malihabad sits on a communal tinderbox . Jimmy Shergill plays the stylish leader of the hindu right wing party that is hell bent on making it's mark in the town , and he and his acolytes duly appear at every occasion that hints at communal antagonism . The most vile of his acolytes is a lame man ; lame men are typical villains in Indian stories starting from Shakuni in the ancient epic Mahabharat....
The antidote to the communal politics of Shergill is played by Ashutosh Rana , a calming sage like figure who has no distinction between caste or religion in his mind---this even though he is of a religious bent , thus harking to Mohandas Gandhi . And just like Gandhi , he is shown to lose his life in the midst of communal conflict . Rana has a goodlooking son ( Aniruddh Dave ) who has a friendship with the beautiful Suha Gezen , who comes from a muslim family that has close relations with Rana's family . And not surprisingly , Aniruddh is in secret love with Suha who does not know of that . But alas !! Suha belongs to someone else---a liberal muslim ( played by Hiten Tejwani ) who does not mind the friendship between Suha and Aniruddh and steers clear of orthodoxy by refusing to keep outward marks of the muslim religion like beard .
Enter the troublemaker---a muslim refugee from the communal riots that have occurred in another state ( Gujarat ) who has a huge scarred piece of skin on his neck as a mark of those riots . He makes clear his hatred and resentment for hindus from his entry onwards . He also is in contact with a muslim fundamentalist leader who is ever ready to stir up trouble in the town and has the stockpile of weapons for that . This refugee makes Suha's fiance come to know of Aniruddh's secret love for Suha , this stirring up the fiance's jealousy . And leads him on to a violent confrontation with Aniruddh , which leads to murder....
Predictably , the entire town goes up in flames as all the communal actors who have been introduced play their predictable parts . The situation goes totally out of control of a sane leader like Rana , and Suha is forced to become a refugee in her own land . But the film that was going on very interestingly till now , begins to drag at this point....
Of course , the scenes of violence have been well pictured . Photography of mobs going out of control seem all too real . Houses , vehicles and humans are set on fire . The destruction of the town seems to be total . Victims running for cover from savage mobs chasing them seem really scared . Rabid politicos like the muslim home minster give inflammatory speeches designed to be rabble rousing for the islamic crowds . This is matched by Shergill who rouses the hindu pride and anger among his followers . Both leaders hark to the same theme---of people of their respective religions having been too understanding to the aggressive behaviour of the other . And now the time having come to act---for the brave are the ones who inherit the land , or so the leaders say .
Problem is , there seems to be no coherent end to the violence and bloodletting . It just drags on purposelessly . Nothing good comes out of the mayhem , and the entertainment factor becomes less . The director has tried to make the point that leaders who live by extreme violence also die violent deaths . But not before their propensity for violence has shattered entire regions and spilled innocent blood . However , the mindlessness of the whole violence in the second half makes the audience lose interest and attention . On the other hand , the first half is better and more coherent .
All actors play their roles all too well . Jimmy Shergill looks confidently stylish and urbane taking massages from semi clad young women and drinking scotch . Ashutosh Rana looks as if he has inherited royal blood and acts in an extremely sophisticated manner . Suha looks so fair and delicate and soft and lovely . Songs and music is good too , all filled with melodious tunes . Worth hearing more than once later .
But the whole film cannot be called a special effort . The director has no solutions to the endless Hindu muslim feud . In fact , he feels that fundamentalists of both religions will grab power by flaming sectarianism and will work to mutual benefit . The feud will go on....
Verdict---Okay .
Two and a half stars .
Rustom ( August 2016 )
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This is a film on the sensational real life case that occurred in Mumbai ( the city was then called Bombay ) in 1959 , where a commander of the Indian navy shot dead the man who was having an affair with his wife . The navy officer was K M Nanavati and his wife was an Englishwoman---her name was Sylvia . They had three children . Due to Nanavati's long absences while on duty on the high seas his wife used to feel lonely and fell in love with Nanavati's friend Prem Ahuja and they had a passionate affair . Prem ( Prem ironically means love in many Indian languages ) had other girlfriends and Sylvia felt acutely jealous of them as she was deeply in love with Prem . She wanted to divorce her husband and marry Prem but Prem Ahuja was a philanderer---he refused to marry her , leaving her distraught . Deeply disturbed , one night she confessed about the affair to Nanavati who was so shocked and hurt by the confession that he wanted to shoot himself dead . On being calmed by Sylvia , Nanavati dropped her and their children to Metro theatre for a movie as the parents had promised the children a movie treat . Then Nanavati went to confront Prem , but not before he had gone to the naval base to get a pistol . He asked Prem to marry Sylvia and accept their children . Prem refused . Angered by this Nanavati shot Prem Ahuja dead and surrendered himself to the police .
The ensuing case brought to confrontation two rich business communities of Bombay who were both refugees from other lands---the Parsi community to which Nanavati belonged were people of the Zoroastrian religion who came from Iran centuries ago , and the Sindhi community to which Prem Ahuja belonged were more recent Hindu refugees from Pakistan . Parsis made huge demonstrations to free Nanavati . He was publicised as the upholder of the asian concept of honour and the killing was presented as upholding family values and honour . The fact that Nanavati had given Ahuja the chance to marry his wife , that he still wanted to spend the rest of his life with his wife inspite of her perfidies , the fact that his wife now stood by him , the fact that he had surrendered immediately to the police---all this was presented as proof of his high moral character and upbringing . A Parsi owned newspaper ( The Blitz ) ran a passionate campaign to free Nanavati . This tilted popular opinion in favour of freeing him . The jury was influenced by this and voted to free Nanavati . But this was not accepted by the court . Jury decided trials were banned in India and remain banned till date . Nanavati was given life imprisonment . But public opinion stoked by the Blitz newspaper was not ready to accept this . Finally three years later Prem Ahuja's sister was induced to ask for a pardon for Nanavati , in return for freeing a Sindhi man also---this to placate the powerful Sindhi community which was baying for Nanavati's blood . After he was freed , Nanavati and Sylvia remained together but migrated to Canada to escape the repercussions of the scandal . Nanavati died in 2003 while Sylvia is still alive today .
Coming to the movie , it shows a large part of this and is good when showing the real life events . The first half of the movie holds your attention with some good scenes and decent acting , but the movie meanders and is too longish after the interval / intermission .
Begins to falter when it adds an angle of Nanavati ( he is called Rustom in the movie ) unearthing corruption in a military deal of buying an aircraft carrier from Britain , and then unexplicably and unconvincingly protecting the officers involved . The prosecuting lawyer ( Sachin Khedekar ) acts in too melodramatic a manner and so does sister of the murdered person ( Esha Gupta ) . They are too loud in their overacting . On the other hand Ileana D'Cruz acts well as Cynthia---as Sylvia is called in the film . She looks so sweet and delicate and vulnerable . Akshay Kumar is okay as Rustom / Nanavati . Obviously his patriotism is hyped to the maximum extent in the movie---he was a volunteer to the navy not a conscript . Some real fun is added by the comical performance of the editor of the Blitz , who sits in the court every day to influence the proceedings of the trial—to the extent that he is jailed by court order on several occasions ; not a real life event but a cinematic liberty taken by the director . Also comic is the performance of the maid of Rustom’s house , who pointblank asks the judge what he would do to his wife’s lover if he caught them cheating !! Songs and music are good and sentimental---appropriate for the situation . Overall the film can be called as a decent watch , but not too fantastic .
But women are liking the movie a lot more than men as they have liked the fact that Rustom / Nanavati is shown to be deeply caring about his wife even after her affair with another man , and chooses to live with her after all the saga . Also he is shown to be protective about her even during the trial , seeing to it that her named is not dragged in the mud in any way . Generally he is shown to be a strong proponent of women's dignity and honour throughout the movie---a smart move by the director , which may yield rich dividends at the box office in the coming days .
Verdict---Decent .
Mohenjo daro ( The ancient Indus valley civilization ) August 2016
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The real cracker of the movie Mohenjo daro comes in the ending . Instead of being destroyed by waves of Aryans from south Russia and central asia ( as the leftist historians claim ) , the great civilization of Mohenjo daro is drowned in a great flood that sweeps water from the river Sindhu ( Indus ) onto the cities . So the aryans ( who intermingled with dravidians to form hindu civilization ) were not the villains who destroyed the great Indus valley civilization !! How the movie must be biting the leftists !! Instead the Indus valley people themselves cross the flooding river sindhu by a bridge of boats ( a spectacularly photographed scene ) and push east to create a new settlement on the banks of the Ganga---the beginnings of hindu civilization . Needless to say , that is what must have exactly happened . But I could see the leftist critics getting angrier and angrier as they saw the movie , which casts aside their carefully built version of history which paints aryans killing dravidians . Furthermore , the leader of the Indus valley people ( Hrithik Roshan ) uses a trishul ( trident ) to fight his enemies !! The same trishul which is weapon of Hindu God Shiva !! Perfidy !! Now I know why the leftist critics have been howling against the movie , which is better than they claim .
The movie is the story of Hrithik living in a village far from the great city of Mohenjo Daro , but always feeling that his destiny is in the city . And him having visions of a one horned animal that is emblem of the city . Of him marching to the city and falling in love with the daughter ( Pooja Hegde ) of the city's priest and she responding to his overtures . Of him then coming to a clash with Kabir Bedi and Arunoday Singh , who control the city with great tyranny . They have built a dam that diverts the water of the sindhu river , so that gold can be excavated . As Hrithik fights and wins against the evil duo , powerful rains bring a huge flood on the river Sindhu---a flood that will overflow the dam and swamp the Indus valley civilization . It is upto Hrithik to lead his people ( for he is son of their former leader who was killed by Bedi ) to safety .
The fight sequence of Hrithik with the crocodile is good to see when above the water , but it's special effects are not great underwater . Better executed is Hrithik's fight with two huge ferocious cannibals using the trishul . The city of Mohenjo daro is shown authentically and looks awe inspiring . It is divided into the lower city for poorer people and upper city for the affluent . The upper city is more elegant . Photography of the city is really nice . It trades with the Tajiks of central asia ( who bring horses ) and the civilization of Sumer .
Hrithik looks bronzed in the film , and Pooja Hegde looks fair . Kabir Bedi looks every inch an ambitious tyrant , while Arunoday lusts for Pooja . The clothes of the people and the dances---all look good . The truly ancient era of India has been well created by the makers . Music is decent and songs are hummable . The film is a little long , but I was never bored watching it . Acting is okay by everyone .
Verdict---good .
Rajjo ( 2013 )
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Rajjo is the love story of a prostitute---and as expected , it is full of problems for her and the man she loves and marries . But the problems are more the ones created by the director rather than the expected ones . In fact sympathy for the love story pours from the ones who are least expected to be in favour of it---the ones who control the brothel of course . They actually solemnise the marriage between the couple and allow the girl ( who had been sold to the brothel owner in her tender age ) to go !! The movie seems far from real at this point ; why would a brothel owner let go of a girl he has bought without asking for his price ? It is upto the director to prove that he can make a real story beyond this point , and surprisingly he does make us empathise with the love story for a while , failing only at the end .
Paras Arora plays a young boy who comes from a household of priests . Once on winning a sports event he is taken to the fleshpots of Grant road in Bombay for seeing a dance by prostitutes . And on seeing the dance by a beautiful girl named Rajjo ( played by Kangana Ranaut ) he is simply mesmerised . To be honest I was mesmerised too....Kangana's exposed belly looks so deliciously delicate , her navel so attractive , her cleavage oh so inviting , her soft back in backless blouse so fair and lovely , and her movements while dancing so lascivious , that I kept on looking at her slim white body that is so perfect for dancing....
With the brothel owner being paid to allow him to meet Rajjo , Paras strikes a rapport with her and soon it develops into love . Encouraged by a politician's speech asking young men to come forward to marry sex workers and liberate them from their profession , Paras decides to marry Rajjo especially because the politician promises a job and a house for doing so . But the politician's promises are false , and his own parents predictably throw him out of his house for marrying a prostitute . To make things worse , another politician and his thugs are after Rajjo because that politician ( Prakash Raj ) lusts for her . Even though the couple flees away to a village , the politician and his goons rentlessly harass them there . The brothel where Rajjo grew up also is destroyed by property developers...in short trouble strikes everywhere . How the couple manage to extricate themselves out of this forms the rest of the story .
Paras Arora really looks innocent enough to not know the consequences of marrying a whore . But it is Kangana whose charms as Rajjo are delectable enough to make us watch the movie . Many actors in the movie are from the marathi community ( people living in western India ) because the director is from the marathi community . But the ending is disappointing , even though the saga of the couple does hold our interest midway in the movie . Colours of the movie are good , and songs are okay . The highlight of the movie are the three dances by Kangana in sexy clothes .
The movie majorly flopped at the box office , but interestingly scored at the box office at one theatre even after other theatres had stopped showing it . That theatre was situated in Falkland road , the heart of Bombay's red light district . Even in failure , the movie was honoured by the people it depicts---some cold satisfaction for the makers of the movie....
Verdict--okay .
Two stars .
Pink ( September 2016 )
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Three mod babes go to a resort with some young guys they meet at a rock concert . The three seem to be from the bubble gum crowd---wearing miniskirts or shorts showing off their lovely legs and thighs , wearing sleeveless tops that show off bra straps....but are actually more than just that , having had experience of sex with multiple partners before . The guys are not from their class---sure they have money , but are a world away with their feudal mindset of considering mod babes as 'usable material' and not allowing women of their own family any freedoms .
A scuffle breaks off between the girls and the guys which leaves one of the guys badly injured and being rushed to hospital . What could have happened that led to the fight---this the audience is left wondering , for both sides have different views of the matter and until the end of the movie what happened is not actually shown . Rather , it is reconstructed in front of the audience as their opposing versions in court .
So what could have happened ? Considering the obvious political correctness that such a movie is bound to take , shouldn't it be clear to the audience from the start that the guys must be in the wrong and the women in the right ? That the guys were about to rape the girls....
But the movie stretches the political correctness to the limit . What if I told you that the girls actually agreed to take payment for sex and changed their mind at the last moment because when the actual moment for physical intimacy came they were repelled from selling their bodies by their own conscience ? What does that make the guys who had already paid for sex , but found their advances thwarted at the last moment---victims or villains ? That is the question that is to be solved by the honourable court .
And helping the court solve this question is a lawyer played by the superstar Amitabh Bachhan himself , and he solves it in his own inimitable style---showing the judge how different rules are applied to girls and boys along with double standards of morality . And showing how girls of the regions on the chinese border ( one of the girls is from north east India ) are treated as 'loose and easy' .
Of the three girls , Tapsee Pannu looks best . Kirti Kulhari has become somewhat bloated since the days when I had reviewed her movie 'Jal' ( water ) , where she was a slim beauty . Andrea Tariang looks okay . Of the guys , Angad Bedi looks smart and tall but menacing . The rest look like his hangers on but some are menacing .
The mindset of the feudal Indian male is shown . Angad is ready to use his political connections to tweak the evidence in his favour and even female cops do not have any qualms in helping him in doing that . And of course , the whole system looks at girls who wear certain clothes and have certain lifestyle ( like alcohol and multiple relationships ) as sluts .
Music is good and so are songs . What is riveting is the courtroom drama that Amitabh dominates . His acting is in good touch even at this age . Actually all act well . What is pathbreaking in the film is , the message that a 'no' by a girl should be treated as 'NO' in capital letters . Even if the 'no' is said at the last moment .
Verdict---Good .
Three and half stars .
Star ( 1982 )
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'The only thing that I have liked from Pakistan'---singer Nazia Hassan and Zoheb Hassan.....and I grew up listening to their songs , especially from the movie 'Star' . When one cassette ( it was the era of music cassettes ) broke down from overuse , I forced my father to buy another one...and in the end the cassettes stopped being available in music shops , to my eternal chagrin...
So when the era of the internet came to my home , the first thing I searched was the songs of 'Star' on youtube...and imagine my joy when I found them...just listened to them over and over again...my childhood fascination with glamour started with the songs---because they were among the first hindi pop songs , some of them fit to be listened to in discos and nightclubs....
But the movie itself was another thing ; it was a major flop at the box office...the only thing that was worth remembering was the songs....
However , the movie is available on youtube....and it being available on youtube , one day I was bound to see it....and as I was bound to see it , I was bound to review it....so here it is , the review....
Once you see the movie , it is easy to understand why it was such a flop . While the story has some substance , it is hampered by bad direction , sloppy editing , bad dialogues and bad acting . The fights feel not altogether badly shown , but that is because you compare with the horrible choreography when dancing on the songs . And the dancing is truly horrible . Some of the dance moves look like P T exercises !! Left right up down---the hands go and so do the faces....is this really dancing ? Totally laughable....
The story is that of a young man ( Kumar Gaurav ) obsessed with music , so much so that he dreams of being the next Elvis Presley . He is kicked out from a job because he is more interested in listening to music on his walkman ( yeah , it was era of walkmans ) rather than working . He tries to get a job as singer at a disco called Club 54 , but is rebuffed by the arrogant owner ( Saeed Jaffrey ) . Then he goes to Charlie's disco and is mesmerised by the singing of the singer there ( Rati Agnihotri ) . Not surprising , because she is singing 'Boom Boom' playbacked by Nazia Hassan , one of my all time favourite songs . Rati introduces him to Charlie , the owner of the disco . His singing in turn mesmerises them both ( he sings 'Ooie Ooie' , another likable song sung by Zoheb Hassan ) , and he lands a job as singer in the disco .
As Kumar Gaurav's singing attracts crowds in the hordes , so does the popularity of Charlie's disco go up , and the moolah begins to roll in Kumar's pockets . His parents are not happy with his singing in clubs , because it was 1982 and India was mired in the depths of socialism ; clubs and discos were considered symbols of the capitalistic west and it's westernization . But Kumar's brother ( Raj Kiran ) supports him .
But there is another danger lurking , and that is the growing jealousy of the owner of club 54 ; his disco is running half empty because everyone is flocking to Charlie's for Kumar's singing . Saeed tries to entice Kumar to his disco with greater pay , but Kumar refuses . So Saeed has Kumar beaten up and his voice choked . But Raj Kiran takes revenge on those who beat his brother by soundly trashing them one by one . Rati and Raj come close in all this and fall in love , shattering Kumar who is in love with Rati .
But they all have to unite when Saeed's men come together to attack Raj and he has to be hospitalised ; this happening on the very day Kumar has to sing on national television , something that will make him what he dreamt of being---a Star what else...and get the love of another girl who has been angling for him---Padmini Kolhapure , who is more of an afterthought in the film as her role is very small .
In the midst of all the juvenile direction , I found myself lost once again in the songs....and it seems I will never tire of listening to them again and again....it is as if in the midst of all the socialism in my childhood I was secretly dreaming of a capitalistic liberation !! of westernisation !! of dancing with beautiful babes in the discos and nightclubs !! of grooving to rock and pop music !!...happily , my dreams came true after I grew up....
However the movie is rank bad , you have to admit that....but as I saw it for my first and only time , I was on a trip of nostalgia....and thanking music director Biddu for all the music !!
Parched ( October 2016 )
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This film is a a typical film made for the western audiences who shower awards on it after lapping up all the grime and poverty that is showcased in the movie . It is a well oiled machine ; a film maker makes a film showing the horrid life of people in some corner of India , shows it at western film festivals , and the awards come tumbling in . This gives the chance to publicise the film in India and earn moolah at the box office . Critics duly write favourable reviews in order to boost earnings of the film . In all this the image of the country takes a beating ; India becomes known as the land of poverty stricken people living with all sorts of unimaginable injustices . Forget that Africa is poorer , that the middle east has more violence , that China has more repression ; India is shown as the epicentre of the world's horrors because it has a population that does not care about it's own image in the world .
So in a rural and semi desert part of the Indian state of Gujarat live three women who form the centre of the story . They live among men who are the worst specimens of humanity---presumably only India produces them according to the director . The director packs all sorts of injustices forced on women by men into two hours of the film--women are beaten , sodomised , raped by their fathers in law , married off at early age , are neglected by their husbands who go to prostitutes , forced to marry with persons not of their choosing . One is forced to wonder why such an overload of tyranny is shown in the haste to lap up the awards .
Tannishtha Chatterjee plays Rani , Radhika Apte plays Lajjo and Surveen Chawla plays Bijli . Rani is a widow in her early thirties , and marries off her son to find out that his wife has her hair cut off . This angers him and he begins to go to prostitutes and being physically abusive to his wife . Lajjo cannot produce a child , and this brings on savage beatings from her husband . The two women have a friendship with the local whore---Bijli . The three women have to live lives restricted by age old customs , but in their private time they talk about sex and relationships . If there is anything remarkable about these women , it is that they are parched---parched for love , parched for kindness , and parched for physical intimacy and sex . The scenes between them have a touch of homoeroticism as they are free and intimate with each other caressing each other's half nude bodies in private , though they don't actually cross the limit .
Bijli's profession allows her the freedom to do what she wants and the restrictions on the other two women do not apply to her , because she is considered beyond the pale of society . This brings her into contact with a man who can fulfil the dreams of Lajjo of bearing a child---and she takes Lajjo to him...and thus is created a passionate rendesvouz in the middle of the desert ; Lajjo has a night full of passion with this mysterious man in full glory of her nudity , and afterwards the three women frolic in their joy fully naked in a lake nearby . The Indian censors have blocked some portions of their bodies in screen , but I was able to get my hands on a whatsapp clip of part of the scene . One must say that Radhika Apte ( Lajjo ) has a really lovely body and watching her shamelessly show it on screen without inhibitions is a treat . A sex kitten has been born on the silver screen !!
But what will be the reaction of Lajjo's husband on hearing of the pregnancy caused by the passionate encounter ? It can well be imagined . And what about Rani's daughter in law---the girl who has been abandoned by her husband because she has cut hair ? When her story comes tumbling out , then Rani shows a humanity that can be seen only in works of fiction like films . But the violent reaction of her son is another matter altogether . Bijli secretly hopes that her pimp loves her and will bring her out of her miserable life , even as another younger girl now threatens to upsurp her position as town whore . But like all men in the film he is a hypocrite .
As the three women find themselves at the receiving end of increasing physical brutality , they realise that they have reached the crossroads of life . And the three decide to shake off their past and their relationships and begin a new journey together....but this ending is too filmy and belies the claim of the film to be an art film ; it is more fit for a commercial film .
Acting is good by everyone , and music and photography is good . Only two men in the film ( lover of Rani's daughter in law , and another who brings jobs for the women in the village and marries a woman from the state of Manipur in the north east ) are good , and message of the film is that rural Indian men are bad bad bad ; of course , none of the bad men belong to India's minorities---the film is a politically correct film after all and political correctness requires that no blame should be put on minorities . The director has some directorial talent , and I wished that it had not been wasted on maligning the already bad name of the country---a name made bad by a slew of such so called 'art' films made in the past .
Verdict--decent .
Three stars .
Mirzya ( October 2016 )
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From the land of Punjab in northwest India comes the legend of Mirzya---of a warrior named Mirzya who won the love of a beautiful girl ( they are always beautiful in these stories ) who was forbidden fruit as she belonged to another community . Because marriage between people of different communities was forbidden in ancient times , they had no choice but to elope . Mirzya was a great warrior whose arrows unerringly found their mark . As men from her own community closed in on the spot where Mirzya and his love were resting , the girl was fraught with apprehension as to what would happen if it came to a fight between Mirzya and her kinsmen . Surely Mirzya would kill them all with his sharp arrows . Fearing a slaughter of her own people by her lover , she broke his arrows into two while Mirzya was asleep . But when her kinsmen closed on to the lovers , they showed no mercy while Mirzya looked helplessly at his broken arrows and then to his love in dispair . They killed him with their arrows , and thus the legend became a famous tragedy....
Now this legend has been brought to the silver screen by Bollywood , and leading the cast are Harshvardhan Kapoor as Mirzya and Saiyami Kher as his love . But the story has been created with an interesting twist . While the ancient legend of Mirzya is shown in all it's glory and it's tragedy , as a parallel the whole story is shown recreated in the modern era . Both stories are shown with one part of the ancient legend being followed by a part of the modern story .
So in the modern era Suchitra (Saiyami ) belongs to a royal family and is best friends with Munish ( Harshvadhan ) from their young days in school . But Munish loves her so much that he kills his teacher in school because he has beaten Suchitra . He escapes from reformatory school and takes refuge in a poor muslim family taking the name Adil . Suchitra grows up to be betrothed to a handsome prince . But chance brings Suchitra and Adil together and he reveals that he is really Munish . Suchitra can't take her hands off him and soon the two resume their childhood love...but love between a poor boy and a royal is like tasting forbidden fruit , and once again the legend of Mirzya is repeated with the lovers being forced to elope and the old situation of arrows being broken replaced in the modern era by bullets being removed from gun....
The story begins with great promise and the idea of showing the same story in two parallel tracks and mixing parts of both tracks one after another is simply novel , at least to me . I found myself relishing the story of Mirzya as shown on screen even though the end was bound to result in tragedy for both tracks . Saiyami Kher , who is the granddaughter of yesteryears marathi actress Usha Kiron and Dr Manohar Kher ( who was my professor of anatomy in medical college ) reminded me of her grandfather in looks at least---though I hope she does not match him in temperament , for Dr Manohar Kher was a very hyperstrict Professor ; he failed me once in my anatomy exams in college . Harshvardhan Kapoor is hirsute like his father actor Anil Kapoor at least on face ; he is bearded with thick hair , though he did not get a chance to show whether his body is as hairy as Anil Kapoor's is .
Somewhere along the line , the movie which began raising some expectations loses steam . The proceedings in the second half lack the zest raised by the beginning . Acting is okay by both Saiyami and Harshvardhan without being anything special . Photography is decent and so are the colours . Music is okayish . Problem is---nothing is notable , everything is somewhat better than ordinary . But it would have required a much better than ordinary effort to make the movie a hit because it has no stars but newcomers . Result is that the movie has already flopped within a few days of release .
Verdict---Okay .
Two and a half stars .
31st october
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31st october deals with the aftermath of the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi , the prime minister of India---an event that occurred in the year 1984 . The subsequent massacres of the sikh community that occurred in the capital city Delhi have remained a bitter memory that has forever marred relations between the sikhs and hindus , judging from the attempts that are going even now to stoke the embers of separatism in Punjab .
One wonders why the film was not titled '1984' , since that is the year that most sikhs invoke when they put forth their grievances . Maybe that title has been taken up earlier by some other film .
The film starts with life going on as normal for the sikh residents of Delhi . Morning chores are being done , but the lack of background music does create a sense of dread for those like me who know what is going to happen next on that day . You wait with trepidation for the news to break out...
The one thing that is shown is that news is coming out already in newspapers of the militancy in Punjab that is taking the lives of hindus at the hands of sikhs . But the principal character of the film ( Vir Das ) calls the militants a blot upon the name of the community . Director Shivaji Lotan Patil and producer Harry Baweja would like to remind us that not all sikhs were in favour of the Punjab militancy at this point .
While this was going on , at the other end of town the bodyguards of Mrs Indira Gandhi were getting ready to take her life . Before that the killer of Mrs Gandhi pays obeisance at a gurudwara and the words 'waheguru waheguru' ring at the same time . Does the director want to say by this that the act has the blessings of sikh gurus' tradition ? Something that is not clear to me .
Once the news spreads of the assassination , attitudes towards sikhs rapidly change in the nation's capital . Vir Das finds his loyalty to the nation questioned abrasively by a man in his office , and even another who is sympathetic to him asks him to go back home . Later the sympathetic man refuses to help him out when Vir's family is in danger because he does not want to risk his own life .
Mobs which attack sikhs are given directions to do so by politicians . I could recognise two of them from the trademark goggles of one actor and the distinctive beard of the other actor---H K L Bhagat and Jagdish Tytler .
As mayhem breaks out in the city , the movie focuses on the saga of Vir Das and his wife who is played by Soha Ali Khan . Their life is in danger at the hands of rampaging mobs . The one tragic feature that the film shows is that sikhs with hair which are cut are likely to have their life saved , as the episode of a Canada returned Sikh shows . So sikhs can save their lives only at the cost of forfeiting the main mark of their religion !!
The film reminds us through a dialogue by a character that sikhs had defended the hindu community on several earlier occasions . But the film honours itself by not blaming the hindus as a community for the massacre . In fact , it shows some hindus ( played by Deepraj Rana , Lakha Lakhwinder Singh and Vineet Sharma ) either risking or laying down their lives to save the life of Vir Das and his family . And the perpetrators of the massacre also back this fact by repeatedly giving warnings to those hindus who are saving sikhs that they will not be spared too as they are 'traitors' .
But bad apples do abound , as evidenced by the uncouth and foul mouthed police inspector ( played by Nagesh Bhosale ) who puts an impediment to saving Vir Das , another police inspector who flatly refuses to help the Canada returned sikh , a doctor who refuses to treat sick sikh patients , and a drunkard who pretends to give succour to a sikh only to call the mob baying for his blood .
At the end of it all , the film says that none of the people behind the genocide have been brought to justice . That the government figures for the dead are more than 2000 but independent sources say they are 9000 . But it also accepts that many hindus helped sikhs survive the massacre , and calls on them to help the sikhs again by backing the cause of bringing the perpetrators to justice .
The film does portray the terror that the sikhs must have felt on that day and in that night by repeatedly showing gangs armed with sharp weapons going on a killing spree and burning sikh owned establishments by fire . They literally patrol the streets searching for sikhs to kill . Soha has to disguise herself by putting on sari and red bindi like hindu women , and Vir Das has to hide in the trunk of a car .
Acting by everyone is okay but no one puts any spectacular performance . Music and songs are okay and photography is okay too , but nothing special . Colours are dull however .
As a person who likes to watch films with politically and especially communal inspired violence , I did find the film interesting . But the film has no new insight to the happenings and the drama does not fully touch your heart ; the drama is not high enough in the film . Maybe that is because the film exclusively concentrates on the massacres and has no romantic or emotional story at it's core .
Verdict--okay .
Two and a half stars .
Shivaay ( October 2016 )
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Ajay Devgan plays Shivaay who is a mountaineer capable of extreme skills ; no wonder , because he is virtually the modern incarnation of the hindu god Shiva---with long hair and trishul ( trident---Shiva's weapon ) tattooed on his body . He shows his flair for extreme mountaineering in some fabulously photographed scenes in the beginning of the movie---all shots of white snowcapped mountains taken from several long range and close out angles .
I was laughing however when some firangee girls who came for mountaineering said that Shivaay looks so hot and sexy ; Ajay Devgan is ugly enough for a laugh at such statements . He openly flirts with one of them ( the bulgarian heroine ) who looks good with roses and milk pink complexion . While saving her from an avalanche they make passionate love in a tent that is hanging in a crevasse---another ridiculously unbelievable scene .
But she wants to go back to her native Bulgaria , and does go back after reluctantly giving birth to an unwanted love child---wanted by him because he is in love with her and wants a memory of his moments with her , but unwanted by her . But when the girl child ( who is dumb but not deaf ) grows up , she wants to meet the mother who did not even want to see her face...and the father agrees under pressure from the daughter to take her to Bulgaria .
Until now the movie was actually going well with some real story and sentiments and emotion ; I was engrossed . Even though the movie has been marketed as an action movie , it is actually in the emotional and tender moments that Ajay Devgan has excelled in direction...and he should have stuck to that . Because when he turns to action which is supposedly his forte , it is then that the movie unravels . For the actions scenes are nothing special and they are far too prolonged .
While photography continues to be good , I found the action not so entertaining . It is hampered by the permanent expression of distress that Ajay has on his face . The action itself seems to be veering on tragedy all the time . The punches and kicks that Ajay throws seem too tired in their execution . Shiva ( Shivaay ) has opened his third eye , but where is the smoulder in the look and the fire in the soul ? Instead it is just a tired looking and distressed Devgan .
In Bulgaria the daughter gets kidnapped by human traffickers , and Shivaay moves heaven and earth to get her back from the hell she is in . And mayhem does ensue . He is helped by an Indian embassy girl . And Shivaay has such divine powers that hundreds of bullets fired from a helicopter fail to hurt him for they fall all around him but don't hurt his body or his daughter's body while they are on the run---how ? only God Shiva knows....
The villains are the russian mafia , but there is no Indian villain---another mistake on Ajay's part . For with no famous Indian actor as villain and no famous Indian actress as heroine , Ajay has to carry the entire film on his shoulders . And he is no superstar to do that . Especially when the competition is 'Ae dil hain mushkil' with Aishwarya Rai , Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma .
On the other hand music is good and some songs are really hummable and worth listening to again . Acting by everyone is okay but nothing great . But the Bulgarian mother and daughter look real cute .
Verdict---average movie .
Two stars .
SeeingisBelieving
10-30-16, 06:00 PM
Ajay Devgan plays Shivaay who is a mountaineer capable of extreme skills ; no wonder , because he is virtually the modern incarnation of the hindu god Shiva---with long hair and trishul ( trident---Shiva's weapon ) tattooed on his body .
Oh, I like that. This is quite a way-out connection but it reminds me of seeing the opera singer Bryn Terfel performing on TV and guessing he was playing Mephistopheles because his character was wearing a red scabbard, almost like a devil's tail :p. When I was looking at the Hindu gods a while ago I found it interesting that Siva's third eye is vertical rather than horizontal, which actually makes it a more powerful image I think.
I was laughing however when some firangee girls who came for mountaineering said that Shivaay looks so hot and sexy ; Ajay Devgan is ugly enough for a laugh at such statements .
That's a bit like Danny Trejo's hilarious animal magnetism in Machete.
When I was looking at the Hindu gods a while ago I found it interesting that Siva's third eye is vertical rather than horizontal, which actually makes it a more powerful image I think.
yeah , it is powerful . hindu mythology says that the world will be destroyed when shiva opens his third eye and anger and fire emanate from it .
brahma is the creator who creates the world , vishnu is the preserver who periodically has to come in various avtars on earth to save it , and when the world has to be destroyed ( because sin has exceeded all limits there ) shiva just opens his third eye....then brahma recreates it again .
it all fits nicely with the astronomical theories of big bang and big crunch , so hindu religious figures are cozy with those theories....just like the pope is too , or so i heard .
SeeingisBelieving
10-31-16, 03:12 PM
yeah , it is powerful . hindu mythology says that the world will be destroyed when shiva opens his third eye and anger and fire emanate from it .
brahma is the creator who creates the world , vishnu is the preserver who periodically has to come in various avtars on earth to save it , and when the world has to be destroyed ( because sin has exceeded all limits there ) shiva just opens his third eye....then brahma recreates it again .
it all fits nicely with the astronomical theories of big bang and big crunch , so hindu religious figures are cozy with those theories....just like the pope is too , or so i heard .
Ha ha, well that figures :).
That's the first time I've heard the term Big Crunch and yet I remember about the theory of the universe ultimately contracting instead of expanding – good to know the terminology :p.
Ae dil hain mushkil ( It is difficult for the heart ) October 2016
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Review has spoilers
'Ae dil hai mushkil' very literally translates into 'O heart it is difficult' , though the people with greater understanding of poetry will doubtlessly find deeper meanings into the title . What is important is the fact that it does live up to it's name . For director Karan Johar does make the situation of Ranbir Kapoor's heart difficult through a unique take on love and relationships .
Ranbir Kapoor plays Ayan , who is a wannabe singer who also dances well . He is befriended by Alizeh ( Anushka Sharma ) who is modern enough to chill out with a guy who is not her boyfriend . They hang out all over town , laughing and crying and having fun together at discos and restaurants and fulfilling Alizeh's dreams of dancing on bollywood songs wearing chiffon sarees in snowy mountainous locations . And the inevitable happens---Ayan falls in love with Alizeh .
But Alizeh has not gotten over her past relationship and wants Ayan just as a friend . She loves him but is not 'in' love with him , with the absence of the 'in' being of seminal importance to the situation . This was a situation that I had read in a Sidney Sheldon novel before , but it takes the skills of a Karan Johar to expand it into a full scale movie .
And once Alizeh sees her old love again , she at first wants to run away but on being confronted by that person ( played by Fawad Khan ) she goes back to him . When Alizeh invtes Ayan to her wedding Ayan explodes the truth to her---about his love and his longing . And she is left in tears and the ruins of what she dreamt would be a platonic relationship .
On the rebound Ayan gets into a intimate relationship with a beautiful divorcee ( Saba played by Aishwarya Rai ) , and this leads to some passionate scenes between the two---but the publicity machine of the film had hyped those into much more than what I got to see . It is enough to be said that there is not much that Aishwarya's husband Abhishek Bachhan has to complain about . But when Ayan tries to make Alizeh jealous about Aishwarya's beauty , she is simply happy for him dating such a stunning beauty . And he loses Saba too because she realises whom he really loves....
Brought to the crossroads of life by his multiple failures in love and longing , Ayan channels his pain into creativity and becomes what he wanted to become in the start---a famous singer . But what will push him to even greater heights of creativity and singing ??---a greater tragedy of course...we just have wait for it to happen....
What makes the movie watching experience better is the lessons the director teaches us in this journey from pain to success and from tragedy to greater success . If there was ever a university for exploring relationships then I would undoubtedly recommend Karan Johar for position of it's chancellor . The guy does give new insights every time he makes a movie .
The people inhabiting the movie are all goodlooking---from the beauty of Aishwarya Rai ( even at this age ) to the good looks of Ranbir to the kohl lined eyes of Anushka . But it is left to Shah Rukh Khan ( playing Saba's ex husband ) to teach Ranbir the ultimate lesson of falling and being in love .
Colours and photography are okay without being special . Acting is decent by all . Songs and music is decent too . The movie is less interesting in the first half but becomes better in the second half , with a nice ending . That is where it scores over 'Shivaay' . 'Shivaay' is better in the beginning but meanders in the second half . And people like movies with good endings rather than good beginnings .
Verdict---good .
Three and a half stars .
Rock On ( November 2016 )
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'Rock on' is a demonstration of how westernised director Farhan Akhtar is....and yet he has managed to keep in touch with the Indianness within---a perfect blend of east and west .
He plays a brooding ex rock singer who has given it up after something bad that happened in the past , something that normal people would not allow to change their lives . But he is a sensitive soul who cannot forget it , and that is real enough at least to me---for creative people have the license to be sensitive souls . His wife ( Prachi Desai ) lives in Mumbai trying to keep the relationship alive because they have son together , but Farhan has left Mumbai for the far away state of Meghalaya in the north east of India . He builds a business in Meghalaya , but typically like creative people he fails to be practical and does not sell his produce to the powers-that-be in this part of India where people are not exactly fully respectful of the law . And those people burn up his holdings and destroy the lives of those who work under him . His own life is saved by Shraddha Kapoor .
Left with no choice , Farhan comes back to Mumbai to reunite with his old rock band buddies Purab Kohli and Arjun Rampal . Rampal is now the owner of a nightclub and is most successful financially . But their lives are set on a rebound course when they are again confronted with Shraddha Kapoor in Mumbai and they discover that she is deeply connected with the tragic happenings of the past ; happenings that had veered Farhan off course away from Rock music and away from Mumbai to Meghalaya .
However , Purab Kohli sees this as an opportunity to reignite their life's passion---Rock music , what else . With Arjun Rampal willing to not only co operate but also to pour money into the enterprise , they are on course to have a rock concert in Meghalaya whose proceedings will financially help those people whose lives were destroyed by goons in the fire there . But the youth that is required to put life into this old rock band is Shraddha....and will she be able to get rid of the ghosts of the past to become a rock star ?? More importantly , will the lawless powers-that-be of Meghalaya allow this rock concert to happen ??
The movie has some good photography of Meghalaya to obviously promote it as a tourist destination---wide lakes and green forests and tall mountains and deep valleys . It looks all nice during the day but I have experience of living in remote areas and believe me it is scary to live in such remote outposts at night . And while the tranquillity of streams of crystal clear water and the idea of being alone with lush greenery all around is enticing , the north east of India also has rebels in these isolated parts .
Amazingly however , the capital city of Meghalaya ( Shillong ) is also the capital of Rock music in India . And it is rock music that is the heart of the film , and also obviously it is in the heart of director cum lead actor Farhan Akhtar . The movie does do justice to it's title by belting out some decent foot tapping numbers . The songs are like Farhan himself---a blend of east and west .
Acting is okay by everyone without being special . The movie meanders for quite some time in the middle but it does give an emotionally uplifting and rousing climax---a climax that ends with the high of Rock music what else .
Verdict---okay .
Two and a half stars .
Force 2 ( november 2016 )
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John Abraham plays the brooding cop who still broods over his now dead wife , who was killed in the war against drugs in the first edition of the movie . So much so that he still has visions of her talking to him....And now he receives another shock ; his friend is among three RAW ( India's innocuously named covert operations agency , for the full form is 'research and analysis wing ' ) agents who have been killed in China .
But his friend has sent a clue to him that means that the person who revealed the names of RAW agents and caused their deaths at the hands of the Chinese is in the Indian embassy of Budapest , which is the capital city of Hungary . It is a job for RAW and not a cop like John , but 'Action Abraham' has the FORCE to break through all barriers and protocols and he is the one who is sent to Budapest with a lass---Sonakshi Sinha .
The action of course has started way before John even enters the screen , and it is breakneck and breathless . Once he enters , the fights hot up at double the speed . From putting the fear of hell among mean goons in dusty construction sites , to fighting with highly trained men firing accurate shots from sniper rifles mounted on helicopters---John does it all .
Sonakshi proves more a clownish character who cannot fire her gun at the nation's enemies at the decisive moment , but she proves mighty useful flashing her RAW agent I card to get inside restricted places....now do they carry an I card in foreign countries , these RAW agents ? Are they really THAT secret ? LoL . Sonakshi also inadvertently gets to fix a one night stand between John and a hot babe , but 'Action Abraham' is only pure action and not bang bang if you know what I mean....more like Rambo and less like James Bond is he....
And Rambo would be proud of Abraham's body---so powerfully well muscled that it can carry the entire weight of a film on his admittedly broad shoulders . And he has to carry that weight , for the villain ( Tahir Bhasin ) is an unknown and Sonakshi just doesn't fit the bill .
Tahir acts totally cocksure , taunting and sniggering at the two agents all the way . He is not bad acting wise . And the taunting and sniggering goes on all the time as the chase for catching him goes up and down buildings and alleyways . The firing of guns is outclassed only by the thumping of feet while giving chase to the elusive quarry . In all this , Sonakshi feels more like a dead weight chained to John....it's a manly world , this world of spies and secret agents . Women are not of much use here and our action Abraham is not even James Bond to use them for sex . He is a one woman man , and even the vision of his wife prodding him towards Sonakshi does not have much success .
The film does make an emotional pitch however , asking us to not forget the sacrifices that RAW agents have done for the country . Asks us to acknowledge the fact that their sacrifices are not recorded like those of soldiers because they have died on covert missions . Wants the names of RAW agents who died for the sake of the country to be declared so that their families can be proud of them in public . And says that India is changing and is not afraid to attack the enemy in his lair , as the surgical strike to take revenge for the Uri terror strike shows . This made me up the rating of the film from two to three stars , though some in the audience were sniggering at Bollywood's attempt to cash in on the surgical strikes .
Photography of the film is decent and the colours are okay . The music is not impactful and the one or two songs are forgettable . Acting is decent by everybody .
Verdict---decent .
Three stars .
Dear Zindagi ( Dear Life ) December 2016
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Alia Bhatt plays a cinematographer in the film industry . Her career is in Mumbai but she is from Goa . Her problem is that she moves from relationship to relationship but shirks away from commitment because of past psychological issues .
Alia really likes Kunal Kapoor and he proposes to her , but because of her issues she misses the bus---she rejects him , and by the time she realises her mistake it is too late . This and problems with the landlord of the house she stays in force her to shift back to Goa , where her parents try to fix her match with various boys without success because her personal issues are with them . But by chance she meets Shah Rukh Khan who is a psychologist . He helps her deal with her past and look at life with a new perspective . He changes her relationship with her parents as she begins to look at them in a new light . Many of her therapy sessions with Shah Rukh occur in the outdoors , and even those in the indoors mesmerise Alia so much that she again falls in love....
Acting is nice by everyone , especially by Alia , SRK and her best friend ( Yashaswini Dayama ) . Because of the semi westernised settings many of the dialogues are in hinglish ( mixture of hindi and english ) . It is the kind of movie that will be liked more by women , though men won't mind sitting with them too...
Songs and music is decent and photography is okay . Alia looks cute in short clothes . SRK looks mature and wizened with a beard . Some of the conversations between Alia and SRK are endearing and the moments of bonding with Yashaswini are really cuddly .
All in all , a decent movie . I will give three stars out of five . Women will give more .
Dangal ( Wrestling zone ) december 2016
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Amir Khan plays Mahavir Singh Phogat , a former wrestler who hopes for a son , because that son could potentially turn out to be the wrestler who could deliver what Mahavir couldn't---a gold medal for India in wrestling , a sport that Mahavir had to give up playing due to financial difficulties . But his wife delivers only daughters---four of them .
However one day when his daughters beat up a neighbouring boy , Mahavir realises their fighting potential and decides to make them female wrestlers who could win a medal or two for India in international competitions . His harsh training includes cutting off his daughters' hair , which is thought to be equivalent to loss of femininity in the patriarchal region of Haryana to which he belongs and is resented by his daughters . His passion for making them sportswomen in a sport dominated in India by men is not shared by the daughters , and they decide to refuse to co operate with him---until a teenage bride shows them how their father wants to make something of their lives in contrast to other girls like herself who are forced to marry at 14/15 years in that backward region of India . This makes them train for sports in real zest to make their father's dream come true .
Father makes his daughters wrestle against boys inspite of the sexual taunts that they have to face , and wins the grudging respect of crowds by beating the boys . The elder daughter Geeta goes on to win the national championship in this manner . As she moves to the national sports academy she has to train under a new coach---Pramod Kadam ( Girsh Kulkarni ) . Pramod is a highly egoistic person who brooks no interference in his method of coaching , and is dismissive of Mahavir's methods . Geeta ( played by Fatima Sana Shaikh ) is also impressed by the lifestyle of the sports academy with it's glamour and becomes dismissive of the father , growing her hair and liking the mild attraction that boys show in her newfound femininity .
This leads to a ferocious bout of wrestling between Geeta and her father , and breakdown of relations between them to the chagrin of her mother ( played by Sakshi Tanvar ) and her sister Babita ( played by Sanya Malhotra ) . But as Geeta starts losing her wrestling bouts in tournaments , she runs to who else but daddy dearest for rescue . But daddy's re entry in her training raises the ire and jealousy of her coach , and almost leads to Geeta's eviction from the academy .
So does Geeta go on to win a medal for India ? If so , then which---bronze , silver or gold ? Who is responsible for the win---father or coach ? To what despicable extent does the coach go to stop Amir from hogging the glory of Geeta's success ? Watch the movie for the answers .
The highlight of the movie are the intense wrestling bouts that are shown in the film , showing the indepth study that Amir Khan has made of the sport and it's various techniques and methods---something that is the hallmark of his style of moviemaking . As usual , it seems Amir has directed the movie and the director is a mere figurehead . For the first time in my life I started taking an interest in watching the sport of wrestling , and was watching all the wrestling bouts with rapt attention and admiring them in detail .
Even with cut hair Fatima Sana Sheikh looks real attractive and her full breasts can be made out through the tight clothes of a wrestler , a point that I noticed was not present in other female wrestlers . Now were any special efforts made for her , like padding etc ?
Acting by everyone is decent , and the haryanvi accent is well picked up . Obviously , the movie plays up to the audience's patriotic instincts and we fall hook line and sinker for that , cheering in our hearts for India when Geeta wrestles in international championships . There are no songs and music can be called okay . Photography is okay too though colours are bit dull .
Verdict---Good .
Four stars out of five .
Tee sadhya kaay kartey ( What does she do now ? ) January 2017
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This movie has a name that intrigues the mind---'What does she do now ?'. Obviously it is calculated to remind us of all the old flames we loved and liked in school and college days , but whom we never got to romance because we were too young to so that . And asks us to try to bring those old flames into our minds again , by forcing us to wonder and find out what they are doing right now .
One wonders what a romantically mysterious movie it would have been if it was made in the eighties or nineties , before social media made it easy to contact old friends again . The sheer difficulty of searching for the one loved and lost would have made the cinematic journey exciting . Today in the age of facebook and whatsapp the photos and happenings in the life of old acquaintances are available to us at a click of a mouse .
But nostalgia is nostalgia , isn't it ? At a reunion of old friends Anurag comes to know of his old flame having returned to India for a short break from her residence in a foreign country , and his mind is filled with memories of the old times he spent with her while they were growing up in the same neighbourhood together . She was his close friend , confidante , and also his first love---but love was something that neither of them could confess to each other at that age , and that was the catch....
But it is not just about love , but about the times they spent as friends---he finding excuses to take her scooter to take rides with his various girlfriends in the city , she stealing her father's alcohol because he wanted to have his first drink , his father having a heart attack and she helping out like a family member in the hospital till she tired out and slept with her head on his shoulders , she scolding him for his various misdemeanours in school and college , them fighting and then making up....
But the last fight is when the relation crumbles , with she shifting to another city and later to a foreign land . But now she is back , albeit for a short while . So does the hero manage to meet her again ? And what does he want to say ? And what is her reaction ? Now that both have their own households , what is the point in reconnecting again ? To find out the answers , it may be necessary to watch the movie .
The movie makes a fine emotional bonding with the audience , with the characters on the point of tears on several occasions in the movie . And the songs are appropriately nostalgic , evoking tears of nostalgia . Reunions become not just meetings with old friends , but rewinding of old happenings and mistakes . And some of those mistakes could have been life changing , like not having expressed feelings to the right person at the right time . So is it possible to turn the clock back , and recant for some of the lapses in judgement done in the past ?
The movie has decent acting throughout , from the hero played by son of yesteryears star Laxmikant Berde to the heroine played by Arya Ambekar . Music and songs are likeable if you like them to be nostalgic , and photography is okay . It is not a regular love story , and is worth watching if you like something different .
Verdict---Good .
Three stars .
mahesh102
01-18-17, 04:49 AM
Not surprisingly, we saw a rather successful end of 2016 with the Aamir Khan starred Dangal that continues to rule the box office even after the New Year has begun. But Salman Khan's Sultan movies record of Top Opening Week Grossers of 2016 is not broken by Amir Khans 'Dangal' movie to know more about Bollywood Box Office go to Bollywood Hungama here - bollywoodhungama/news/box-office-special-features
Raees ( Wealthy ) January 2017
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This film is said to have been made on an obscure ( obscure at least to me , though probably well known to local people ) Don from the Indian state of Gujarat named Abdul Latif , though the film makers have denied this .
Gujarat has prohibition implemented in it's territory , a legacy of being the birth place of Gandhi who was totally against alcohol . But the people of the state drink heartily , and this has led to the state becoming a place where illegal liquor selling is a business in itself .
Raees ( Shah Rukh Khan ) grows up helping an illegal liquor supplier , and later moves to another seller named Jayaraj ( Atul Kulkarni ) who uses his skills to move illegal liquor from one place to another . But when Raees tries to start his own business along with his friend Sadiq ( Mohammad Zeeshan Ayub ) , Jayaraj does not take it kindly . After some convoluted happenings involving a some real violence , Raees gets to become independent of Jayaraj . But the fortuitous manner in which he is saved from getting ruined by a bigger Don named Musa is not impressive .
Later Raaes gets a chance to show his own ingenuity . When he is fooled by a couple of politicians , Raees forms his own political party and outwits them . A particularly persistent police officer named Majmudar ( Nawazuddin Siddiqui ) however decides to target Raaes and a contest of wits develops among the two .
Some of the dialogues of the film from the mouth of the two protagonists ( Raees and Majmudar ) are good , and remind of older action/crime films when dialogues from both the hero and villain ruled supreme . Raees rises higher and higher in Gujarat's criminal hierarchy while this is happening .
In the end however , crime does not pay . Raees is fooled into becoming a much bigger criminal than he thought and his career comes to an end . So he is not invincible and the aura that has been built around him in the film does not live upto it's hype . The 'baniye ka dimaag' ( brains of a sharp shopkeeper ) that he is supposed to have does not work when it is needed most .
The attempt towards the end to prove how fair minded he was sounds fake . If the film is based on a real life Don , then did he really decide not to escape to a foreign country when given the chance just because he was feeling guilty ? And was the real Don so clean that he kept himself away from terrorism ? Not believable . The attempt to prove how secular he was also sounds fake too .
Songs and photography are decent , and Shah Rukh Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui act decently too . But Mahira Khan is not good as Raees' wife , though she is extremely fair in colour . Sunny Leone is more enticing in her dance however . The film itself cannot be called a memorable film .
Verdict---okay .
Two and a half stars out of five .
Kaabil ( Capable ) January 2017
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To be honest I am reluctant to see movies of physically handicapped people , and it was not easy to coax myself to see this movie in which both the hero and the heroine are blind .
Hrithik Roshan and Yami Gautam play a blind couple , who have got married recently . Hrithik gives background voice to animated movies and has the ability to speak in a range of voices and imitate several people's voices .
But Yami falls prey to the lust of Rohit Roy , brother of a local politician ( played by Ronit Roy ) . Rohit and his sidekick violate Yami's honour , and derail the medical investigation so that no evidence is found of the violation .
The police are not supportive , and one of the police officers ( Girish Kulkarni ) is openly in league with the villains . Ronit Roy is a powerful politician and no one can touch his brother Rohit .
Under these circumstances how to bring Rohit and the other violator ( Rohit's friend played by Sahidur Rehman ) to get just punishment for their heinous crime ? The manner in which Hrithik takes revenge on the villains by using his ability to imitate people's voices and causing fatal misunderstandings among them is interesting to watch .
The first half of the movie is not great with me feeling uncomfortable seeing the struggles of the couple to lead a normal existence inspite of being blind , and then the tragedy . The second half is more gripping with some real violence and revenge saga .
Poor Yami Gautam seems destined to act in roles in which she dies on screen in repeated number of films . But she continues to look good . Hrithik acts decently . Ronit Roy acts well as the lawless politician and speaks in a marathi accent as if he was born with it . Rohit Roy plays his rogue brother confidently and has built his muscles . Akhilendra Mishra is redoubtable as the father of Rohit's friend and shows fire in his eyes . The corrupt police inspector Girish Kulkarni is actually a popular marathi film industry actor and seems to be getting more and more negative roles in Bollywood as he already played a villain in Dangal .
Music is good and some of the songs are hummable . Photography and colours are okay but nothing special . The film is worth watching due to the action scenes in the second half .
Verdict---Three stars out of five .
The ghazi attack ( february 2017 )
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This film is a fictionalised account of the sinking of Pakistani submarine Ghazi ( holy warrior ) during the India Pakistan war of 1971---the liberation of Bangladesh . The Indians have said that Ghazi was sunk by Indian naval warship INS Rajput while the Pakistanis have said that it was sunk either by it's own mines which it hit by mistake or by internal explosion . But the real happenings are a mystery , and thus fodder for a fiction film . The film is in hindi officially , but since many of the officers in the armed forces rely on english for orders and communication it can be called a bi lingual film .
The film starts with a RAW ( Indian spy agency ) agent ( Milind Gunaji ) giving information to the top brass of the Indian navy ( headed by Om Puri ) that the dreaded Pakistani submarine Ghazi is headed to the bay of Bengal to threaten the Indian navy aircraft carrier INS Vikrant . The Ghazi is justly dreaded because it is more advanced than Indian submarines and was capable of protecting the entire Pakistani navy from Indian naval attack in the previous ( 1965 ) war .
The Indian navy submarine S-21 is sent to challenge it , and the result is a classic battle of maneuver and countermaneuver and fire and counterfire . Even though the technology of making the film is a bit inferior by western standards , it a kind of film that authors who have written novels of sea warfare like Alistair Maclean and Tom Clancy would relish . And what it lacks in technology is made in terms of emotion and patriotism .
The Indian submarine is headed by a passionately headstrong officer Ranvijay Singh ( played by Kay Kay Menon ) . And to control his rash nature is sent another officer Arjun Verma ( Rana Daggubati ) . As if to moderate the clash between the two is a third officer Devraj ( Atul Kulkarni ) . In the first half it is the hot temper of Kay Kay Menon which dominates . From countermanding orders by high command to putting his gun on Daggubati's head , he does it all . Rana Daggubati gets chance in the sun only when Menon is out of the way . The Pakistani commander Razzaq is played by Rahul Singh , who is as wily as it gets . The Bangladeshi refugee played by Tapsee Pannu is forgettable .
As the movie heads into the second half , so do the stakes get racked up . And as the stakes become higher , so does the high voltage drama . This is film that gets better and better as it nears it's climax , which is exactly what makes for a good film .
The real winner is the recreation of the interior of a 1970s submarine , and the exact detail to which the naval atmosphere and working and language is neatly shown . But all this is understandable only to educated urban audiences , and uneducated and rural folk might be out of sync with the proceedings .
The film ups the ante of patriotism by making the crew sing patriotic songs as the film reaches the climax of tension ; songs which are faintly heard across the waves by the crew of the enemy submarine . This is not total fiction as it sounds but there have been occasions in real warfare when crew of sinking ships and downing subs have sung national anthems before everything came to an end....
By Bollywood standards of course , the film scores high on technical perfection with majestic shots of submarines going underwater and rising up again against the backdrop of the setting sun . The cat and mouse game of torpedoes being fired from various angles , the 'ping' on the sonars when they approach , the tension on the crew's faces when the torpedoes come close , the relief when they miss---all seems real . As a person who has seen Hollywood films on submarine warfare , it is familiar to me . But to an Indian who has never seen such stuff---will he or she understand it ? That is the big question .
Acting by everyone is good , but patriotic songs and national anthems are all you get as music ; in fact there are no other songs though background score is authentic . Photography is good and colours are decent .
The director has produced a real war movie that military buffs will appreciate ; a film that pushes the right buttons of nationalism at the right moments without going too far into jingoism and showing some real action under the water without the tearjearking sentimentalism that has been the hallmark of Bollywood war movies in the past---no waiting wives singing lovelorn songs and no wailing widows crying on bodies of returning soldiers . Just plain war with all it's glory and fight .
Verdict---Good .
Four stars out of five .
Anarkali of Arrah ( March 2017 )
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The moffusil towns of the backward states of UP and Bihar---ashdoc's favourite haunt cinematically....physically i would think twice before going there , given the law and order situation in those parts . But that is the heart of India , and the heart of India is where ashdoc's heart lies....cinematically , of course...
So in Arrah ( or is it only Ara ) in Bihar sings a beautiful damsel called Anarkali ( played by Swara Bhaskar ) . And she also dances and sways and entices the crowd with her lascivious movements....for she is nothing but a dancing girl....
But naturally , she has truckloads of admirers who are ready to sigh on her every move . And they are ready to applaud and whistle on the words of her songs . But the harsh reality is that as a dancing girl who gyrates sexily in front of crowds , she is considered as public commodity .
And so the inevitable happens---in front of just such a crowd , a powerful politician ( played by Sanjay Mishra ) misbehaves with her and molests her under the influence of liquor . But Anarkali is not one to take things lying down and she slaps him and walks off the stage .
But the politician is too powerful to let this insult be forgotten , and he has the local police under his command . He begins to hound Anarkali so much that she is forced to leave Bihar and flee to India's capital city Delhi .
The movie was engaging enough till this point , but at Delhi it begins to drag....Bihar has way of making things interesting in the movies like no other place....
And maybe the director sensed this too , for he has Anarkali deciding to go back to her hometown and face the politician and face her destiny....
The movie rests fair and square on Swara Bhaskar's performance , and she does deliver with aplomb . Her acting is perfect as a feisty dancing girl who wants to maintain her dignity ; watch her pout in moments of happiness , and explode in moments of anger....and anger and situations for expressing it are forever round the corner . Only while on the run and in Delhi do her high spirits sag , and then the film sags too---she is the adrenaline of the film . Wearing backless blouses and arching to show her cleavage , she does look inviting....
Pankaj Tripathi is now a staple in movies showcasing UP Bihar ; he plays Anarkali's sidekick and does a decent job as always . Ishtiyak Khan plays a Bihari person who helps her in Delhi and acts fairly too . The witty poems that are recited in the movie are funny to hear .
But music is not fantastic , or maybe I am not used to the local flavour of it that is sung in the movie . Photography and colours are okay , but the ending was not as dramatic as wanted by me . The critics will applaud Swara's acting , but as a commercial film the movie is not great . I came out with an okayish impression .
Verdict---one time watch .
Two and a half stars out of five .
Trapped ( march 2017 )
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Rajkumar Rao gets inadvertently trapped in a lonely apartment in a high rise in which no one lives . So no one to turn to for help . The lone watchman is hard of hearing---how very convenient for making the situation difficult for the hero....
So Rao has to survive without food water etc , and electricity very conveniently ( for the director ) goes off to make the situation more difficult . The very fact that Rajkumar is allowed to live in a skyscraper where no one else lives is too convenient for the director to make such a 'trapped' situation anyway...but yet the apartment is well furnished !!
Soon Rao throws the TV from the balcony , sets fire to many things in the apartment---all this in order to attract attention , but to no avail . He throws cardboards with 'help' written on them , and this attracts the attention of a woman .But she too creates hope in his mind but ultimately does not come up to help .
Soon he has to resort to methods of survival which make you cringe---he drinks his own urine because water is not available , kills and cooks a pigeon for lack of food even though he is vegetarian , has to fight a rat , eats even insects , and all this makes him vomit severely .
In the midst of all this he dreams of being with the girl ( Geetanjali Thapa ) he has rented the apartment for , dreams of eating food in restaurants with her , dreams of being back in normal life in the bus he travels in when going to work , dreams of being in his office....
Ultimately he manages to escape by risking his life , but by this time he has lost his girl....no matter , if you are alive the there are other girls to chase ( ashdoc's advice ) ....
The movie has been made on a super low budget . Rajkumar Rao acts and speaks in his usual bumbling stumbling manner . But the atmosphere of the film is claustrophobic due to darkness brought about by lack of electricity in the flat .
Verdict---Just about okay .
Two stars out of five .
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