Ashdoc's Bollywood movie reviews

→ in
Tools    





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---



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....



Yep, this sounds ridiculously silly in a way that attracts me greatly. I'd like to see this. Thanks, ashdoc.
__________________
5-time MoFo Award winner.



Fireflies ( 2014 )





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



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 ).....

So do I need to say more....

Verdict---not good .



Ek thi daayan ( Once was a witch )





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 .



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.



Question mark---



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 )



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







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



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



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



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)



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





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 ) 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



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



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 )....

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 ??

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







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 )





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 )....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 )

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

No problems however ,Sonams father proclaims that this guy will also reject the girl on the same grounds of smalltownness....and so he does !!!

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....

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



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



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.....