English Vinglish Movie Review

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Cast : Sridevi, Mehdi Nebbou, Priya Anand, Adil Hussain
Director : Gauri Shinde
Producers : Sunil Lulla, R. Balki, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, R. K. Damani
Banner : Hope Productions, IBC Spotlight
Music : Amit Trivedi
Cinematography : Laxman Utekar
Editing : Hemanti Sarkar
Rating : 4.5/5










There are no villains in "English Vinglish". Only imperfect human beings like you and I, who make that common error of taking loved ones for granted.

Admit it. At some point in our lives we have all felt that if we don't speak good English, we are not destined to be successful human beings. Imagine a housewife - beautiful, efficient, charming, supportive - and imagine if she looks like, well, Sridevi and still feels she is being taken for granted just because she can't speak fluent Angrezi.

Shashi's children find her embarrassing at times. Her husband openly cracks jokes about her accent. Shashi's husband thinks he's just being urbane and witty. But it hurts. We see that hurt in Sridevi's eyes each time she is slighted and snubbed by those whom she loves the most.

We know this world. We know this woman too. Director Gauri Shinde brings to the comfort of the familiar a feeling and flavour of wonderment, discovery and beauty.

"English Vinglish" is a fabulous fable of a woman's self-actualization. Shabana Azmi used to do such films in the 1970s. The issues in those films about unfulfilled wives were largely socially-defined - infidelity, adultery and betrayal. The betrayal of the unforgettable woman in "English Vinglish" is far less dramatic and therefore much more profoundly deep-rooted.

Shashi breaks up a little every time the three most important people in her life - her husband, daughter and son - crack up at her vernacular accent.
Then comes the chance for redemption. A five-week vacation in the US, a clandestine crash course in English and best of all, a chance to feel wanted and special when a fellow-classmate, a quietly striking French chef, gives Shashi the attention she doesn't get from her husband.

This is the complete middle-class woman's fantasy. Go out on your own and find happiness. Shinde wins over the audience at the story level itself. And then as a bonus, she proves herself a master storyteller.

Sure, Shinde gets a tremendous boost from cinematographer Laxman Utekar who captures New York in its quiet mellow state of bustling grace; composer Amit Trivedi's music simply and fluently melts into the theme and storytelling; and editor Hemanti Sarkar cuts the footage the way Shashi would cut her vegetables, precisely, lovingly and without anxiety.


Finally it's really the director's call.
In what I rank as the best debut by a female director since Aparna Sen's "36 Chowringee Lane", Shinde imbues a majestic mellowness and an unostentatious glow to the story of Shashi's coming-of-age saga. Shashi's ennui is not the in-your-face tragic pathos of Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray's "Charulata" or Shabana in "Ek Pal". No case-history of domestic torture is built for our heroine. And no, the husband, played by Adil Hussain, brilliant in a thankless role, is not a cad sneaking into another woman's bed.


The narration doesn't try to pin its resplendent protagonist's life down to boomarked vignettes suggesting a violent need to be liberated from her domestic life. It's all very routine, recognisable and familiar.

The miracle of watching "English Vinglish" confer such a supple and contoured shape to Shashi's life is attributable to the director's high-concept theme and treatment. Shinde abhors overstatement. You hardly ever see Shashi break down. And so when the awards fall into Sridevi's lap at the yearend the nomination clip won't be the woman who suffers wracking trauma stereotype.
Nope. This woman is far more special than the bored housewives who look for an alibi to burst into their own version of 'Kaaton se kheench key yeh aanchal' to justify their succulent bites into the forbidden fruit. Sridevi simply sinks into the Big Apple, biting off juicy mouthfuls of New York's sobering cultural grace absorbing the cultural shock with a dignity that films about journeys tend to undervalue. Not this one.


"English Vinglish" a delectable geographical and emotional journey undertaken with a refreshing absence of bravura and selfcongratulation.
Much of Shashi's inner power comes from Sridevi owning the role. This actress simply vanishes into her character living every breath of Shashi's voyage from laddoo-making to self-actualisation. The journey is so excitng for us the audience because we feel a new world of experiences unravel for Shashi even as she savours the newness of it all.

Sridevi is the film's backbone. To her good fortune, and ours, the film is supported by a uniformly impeccable cast. Hardly ever in recent times have I seen so many wonderful performers in one film who don't seem to 'perform' at all. Whether it's Shashi's immediate family, or her sister's family in the US, and her classmates at the coaching institute - every character stays with us. Every person populating the plot is vididly sketched.
Finally, of course, this is Sridevi's film. In the past she has given outstanding performances in awful films like "Nagina" and "Judaai". Here her inviolable virtuosity and exceptional grace get brilliant support from every department of the film.

Specially memorable are her scenes with her French co-star Mehdi Nebbou who is so splendidly supportive, we forget what a major star he is in France.
Each time the two get passionate and emotional about one another, they speak in their native tongues, certain that their words would not impede the meaning of their thought expression.

Words, this beautiful work of unassuming art tells us, are redundant. More so, when the embodiment of silent eloquence Sridevi needs to express her inner thoughts. She never allows her character to look like a victim. That is the real triumph of "English Vinglish".

Sublime, subtle, seductive and thoroughly engaging "English Vinglish" is in some ways, a life-changing experience. It turns around the male gaze, making patriarchal tyranny seem like an acceptable tradition that we never thought we needed to break. With oodles of persuasive charm, the director breaks down the bastion of male pride with a film that generations will look back on with affection. As for the incandescent Sridevi, was she really away for 16 years? She makes the contemporary actresses, even the coolest ones, look like jokes with her flawless interpretation of a woman who seeks only respect because love, she already has.

Flaws? Yes one. Amitabh Bachchan's cameo, interesting as it is, overstays its welcome. Actually Shinde plays the Big B the best possible compliment in the opening credits: "100 Years Of Indian cinema 70 Years Of Amitabh Bachchan."

Verdict : If you watch only two films every year make sure you see English Vinglish twice! 

- IANS

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Barfi! Movie Review

Barfi! Hindi Movie Review, Barfi! Movie Review, Barfi! Review, Barfee Movie Review, Barfi! Movie verdict, Barfi! Movie rating, Barfi! Movie story, Barfi! Movie climax, 

Cast : Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D’Cruz
Director : Anurag Basu
Producers : Ronnie Screwvala, Siddharth Roy Kapoor
Music : Pritam
Rating : 4 Stars for 5


 

Silences seldom spoke so eloquently. It’s been a while since we saw a film that set style at a subsidiary state to substance, put the characters’ inner life ahead of the flamboyant manifestations of self-identity in a world governed by benevolence and charm.

“Barfi!” is a very charming film. It’s remarkably devoid of vanity. The story of a deaf-and-mute man who could have grown up watching Chaplin and Raj Kapoor’s cinema, and an autistic girl who has definitely not seen Shah Rukh Khan in “My Name Is Khan”, is told without the props of a loud background music and other prompters to get audiences’ involved in the proceedings.

This is a picaresque world of artless charm which invites you in without band baaja or baaraati. Fanfare is for the circus. “Barfi!” is pure cinema.

Goodness! I am already gushing. It’s the narcotic effect that Barfi has on you. Within no time at all you are swept into the protagonist’s world, the two lovely women who breeze in and out of his existence and various other characters, all etched with a compassion and vividness that one associates with the cinema of Frank Capra and Ritwik Ghatak.

“Barfi!” exudes the warm glow of a life well lived. This dazzling glow originates from the protagonist Barfi who lives his life king-size with many Chapliesque comic antics creating a chain of comicbook adventures for our happy-go-looking hero, even though he can’t speak or hear. But then speech was always supposed to be the least essential component of cinema. Ask Ingmar Bergman or Satyajit Ray. Their character spoke through lingering silences.

It’s been a while since any protagonist on screen said so much to us without speaking. Rani Mukerji in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Black” said it all through her muted mode of communication. But she had the formal sign language plus a voiceover for articulate support.

Significantly Anurag Basu, a master storyteller (and never mind the tormenting tepidity of his last film “Kites”) does away with the crutches of a sign language and a voiceover.

Ranbir Kapoor as Barfi or Murphy whatever!…is left to his own devices. An incredibly enterprising actor, he brings a Chaplinesque aura to Barfi’s character. Blending a very physical pie-in-the-face style of comic acting with an intangible poignancy, Ranbir turns his character and the film into a muted celebration of life. The tears are hidden from view. But they are there.

His grandfather, Raj Kapoor, has never been very far from Ranbir’s acting skills. Raj Kapoor was highly influenced by Chaplin. Ranbir brings both the legends into the same line of vision, and yet creates a character which is unique in its buoyancy and optimism, never mind the sleeping dogs. Just let them bark in their sleep.

Priyanka Chopra as the autistic Jhilmil steals the show from Ranbir, if that’s possible. Lately, she has been found to be guilty of overacting in “Agneepath” and “Anjaana Anjaani” (with Ranbir again). In “Barfi!”, all her recent sins of excess are washed away.

Priyanka’s inherent glamorous personality simply disappears into her character. We don’t see the actress on screen at all! We see only Jhilmil who reminds us in a very pleasant way of Sridevi in “Sadma”. This is one of the most flawless interpretations of a physical-psychological disability seen on celluloid.

While Ranbir and Priyanka effortlessly prove themselves the best actors of their generation, Ileana D’Cruz makes a confident engaging debut into Hindi cinema. Is she here to stay? Time will tell.

As for Basu, in his earlier films “Gangster - A Love Story” and “Life… In A Metro”, he proved himself a maestro of the inner life. “Barfi!” too is shot on location within the hearts of the characters. Not just the memorable protagonists, even the smaller players specially Roopa Ganguly and Akaash Khuruna and Haradhan Bandhopadhyay, leave a lingering impact.

“Barfi!” celebrates life without dismissing the dark passages and roadblocks that we often encounter as we travel through that craggy road to death.

To be able to celebrate life so warmly and sensitively the filmmaker has to know death closely. Basu, a concer survivor, has been there.

“Barfi!” comes as close to being a modern masterpiece as cinematically possible. To miss it would be a crime. To embrace it is to serenade the sublime.

Verdict - A modern masterpiece

 

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Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie Review

Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Hindi Movie Review, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie Review, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Review, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie Rating, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie Verdict, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie story, Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi Movie climax, 

Cast : Boman Irani, Farah Khan
Director : Bela Bhansali Sehgal
Producer : Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Sunil A Lulla
Music : Jeet Ganguly
Rating : 3/5





When two Parsis fall in love, there’s bound to be friction. They are such a talkative community. At least that’s what we get to know from the eccentric bustle that our movies tend to create when dealing with the community.

While watching Bela Sehgal’s sweet tender story of Shrin and Farhad - past the age of marriage, determined to find love and companionship in each other’s unexciting company, one immediately thought of Basu Chatterjee’s “Khatta Meetha” and Vijaya Mehta’s “Pestonjee”. The first, because it was a film about a widow and a widower from the Parsi community overcoming their children’s opposition for an autumnal marriage.

Mehta’s “Pestonjee” was remarkably accurate in portraying the benign quirks of the Parsi community. So is Sehgal. Though not a Parsi herself, she plunges into the centre of the dwindling community’s eccentricities without trying to give the characters any kind of a novel existence beyond what they are stereotypically known for.

The love story of Shirin (Farah Khan in a remarkably poised debut) and Farhad (Boman Irani, as natural as ever) holds no surprises. They meet, they smirk, they walk hand-in-hand, he mistakes her invitation for coffee in her home for suggestion for sex. While she makes him coffee, he waits for her undressed. And you know the rest.

The portrayal of Farhad’s mother (Daisy Irani) and grandmother (Shammi) reveals the film’s writer Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s penchant for loud extroverted singing, dancing, chortling ageing woman characters, e.g Helen in Bhansali’s “Khamoshi: The Musical” and Kirron Kher in “Devdas”.

Beneath all the feminine giggles (bras and panties, hee hee) and male guffaws (”tera rocket kab phutega”?) that surround the theme of courtship between a middle-aged couple for whom life is neither a picnic nor a funeral, Sehgal seeks out silent passages of undulating sensitivity.

Listen carefully. The film makes terrific use of silent moments that are becoming progressively rare in our cinema. Farah Khan is specially reticent, a mysterious smile hovering in her eyes constantly as though she knows that life, and life in the movies, is a secret joke. In her scenes with her comatose screen-dad, Farah’s eyes melt with affection.

Yup, she handles the emotional moments better than the comic.

Boman seems to be reined-in. It’s like a new singer, say Shailendra Singh when he had to sing duets with Lata Mangeshkar in Raj Kapoor’s “Bobby”. She had to hold back. Boman does that quite well to let his debutante co-star get comfortable with the camera.

Sehgal has cast true-blue Parsi actors in all the roles, big and small. In fact, I could hardly spot any non-Parsi in the cast!

The comic vein tends to get unwieldy at times, as if the attempt to be funny has taken a toll on the characters’ sense of self-identity. We get a Parsi wacko (Kurush Deboo) who runs amok with an antique gun threatening to kill anyone who comes in his way. He doesn’t make much sense in the scheme of the plot. But then, what makes sense in life other than the senselessness that we see see all around us?

Sehgal doesn’t try to make sense of the chaos. She flows with the chaos seeking laughter in the eccentricity. Hence when an old Parsi gentleman constantly writes love notes to Indira Gandhi, you know he has lost it. And you smile, because eccentricity is a pre-condition in a rom-com about two over-the-hill Parsis, one of whom sells lingerie and meets the woman of his dreams when she comes to buy a brassiere.

Laughter designed on innerwear can never fail.

Luckily, the film goes beyond innerwear and seeks a place in one’s heart. The director emerges with some truly heartwarming moments between Boman and Farah. Unki love story to nikal padi.

The debutante director has carved an endearing relationship between the unlikely couple. The romance is embellished with charming little incidents that add beautifully to the pacy perky pastiche of Parsi proceedings. And if Boman is confidently in character as a 45-year old who surprises himself by finding love, Farah is no less confident. Is this really her first film?

Verdict : Farah shines in pastiche Parsi romance 

 

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Ek Tha Tiger Movie Review

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Cast : Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Ranvir Shorey
Director : Kabir Khan
Producer : Aditya Chopra
Banner : Yash Raj Films
Music : Sohail Sen, Sajid-Wajid, Julius Packiam
Rating : 4/5




There is something about the Salman-Katrina pairing. Something that goes deeper than a real-life affection. Even deeper than that crackling pitch-perfect chemistry that we see among endearing star-pairs, like Raj-Nargis, Rajesh -Mumtaz, Shah Rukh-Kajol…you name it!

Here in “Ek Tha Tiger”, we see a look of genuine protectiveness in Salman’s eyes every time he looks at Katrina Kaif. That look suits the film’s purposes fine. “Ek Tha Tiger” is the love story of two spies from different sides of the border who during the course of their volatile sinister cloak-and-dagger work, fall head over heels in love.

As the lovers flee their enemies, they are pursued by do mulk ke dushman. Which is nine mulk less than where Shah Rukh’s Don was wanted.

Salman’s spy-hero code-named Tiger cuts through the chase, brings the secret agent’s role down to an amiably human level, drawing secret alcoves of childlike vulnerability and, yes, humour from his character’s secret life, making the spy’s double life look doubly redeemable.

Every time Salman looks at Katrina his eyes melt. Kabir Khan taps the actor’s potential to fill up the screen to great advantage. Even while flexing his biceps through four continents in some of the best staged action sequences in some never-seen rugged exotic spots of the earth (full marks to action director Conrad Palamisano) Salman gets lots of very quiet contemplative moments with his beautiful co-star. For once the superstar looks neither bored nor distracted. And he isn’t impatient to move on.

Ruminative reflective rich in self-mocking resonances, Salman’s spy in “Ek Tha Tiger” is a remarkably restrained and expressive character. He handles both the action and the romantic sequences with seamless empathy.

Katrina gets better with every film. As a woman who had a genuinely happy childhood that has been snatched away by the nature of her profession, her eyes convey infinite pain. She conveys pain and love with as much elan as she kicks ass when the need arises. Yup, this lady rocks.

Kabir Khan whose earlier Katrina starrer “New York” defined Islamic isolation during times of terrorism with gripping gusto, this time, decides to have fun with the espionage genre without trivialising it. The blend of action and romance is achieved with a fluency that we’ve seldom seen in the action-romance genre.

The storytelling is laced with a loads of humour. Aseem Mishra’s camera-work punctuates the pungent drama of lovers on the run, capturing the bustle and the festivity of Ireland, Cuba and Istanbul with much warmth and affection and a detached fascination that is the opposite of touristic curiosity.

Kabir Khan has an eye for everyday details. Though his frames are arranged to convey aesthetics, the beauty of the moments shared by lovers is never defined by their surroundings.

It’s a very commonplace attraction seen in umpteenth Hindi films of every hue and variety. What makes director Kabir Khan’s telling of this routine love story come alive, is the presentation and packaging, both unique but never over-punctuated.

Epic in design the film has a surprisingly low number of main characters.

Kabir works on building the love story through the intelligently-written interaction between the two protagonists rather than their exotic environment or the incidental characters. Still, Girish Karnad as Tiger’s boss and Ranvir Shorey as Salman’s buddy-in-arms are first-rate. Never letting the script down.

It’s not easy to make an intelligent film on intelligence without tripping over the barbed wires of politics and espionage jargon. Kabir Khan strips the love stories to its bare necessities without diminishing the density of the drama.

“Ek Tha Tiger” is more a passionate love story than an actioner. Brilliantly scripted and deftly directed it’s Salman Khan’s best film in ages. As for his chemistry with Katrina Kaif, it is the stuff legendary love stories are made of.

Very few films make you sit at the edge of your seat when the hero fights and then makes you recline in sighing submission when he romances his sweetheart, in equal measures.

Verdict - Ek Tha Tiger gets it right

 

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Cocktail Movie Review

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Cast : Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diane Penty
Director : Homi Adajania
Producer : Saif Ali Khan, Dinesh Vijan
Music : Pritam
Rating : 3/5





Out of the three protagonists in this wacky menage a trois, two people are not as beautiful inside as they are from the outside.

Gautam and Veronica are deeply flawed characters. He, a certifiable jerk who thinks of women , good times and partying, in that order, all the time. She, Veronica quite like her namesa e in the Archies comics, is a sexy, naughty, loud siren But then what happens when the party ends? What happens when the constant search for that elusive state of being known as Good Times bores you to death?

Veronica soon finds out. In painful revelations of the darkness under the neon.

It’s a dream role for any actress.And Deepika Padukone, facing the biggest challenge of her career, sinks her beautiful teeth into the role with the hunger of a tamed tigress who has been let loose in a jungle for just one romp. She gets out of her comfort zone and lets the mascara run down her distraught face with a couldn’t-care-less gusto that glamour girls don’t generally adopt. It’s a performance to be admired.

In truth, Deepika would have been far more comfortable playing the butter-won’t-melt-in-the-mouth Meera (a hugely impressive debutante Diane Penty). Deepika has apparently chosen to play the fun-loving bitch who somewhere down the line, realises she wants all the things that he had so far scoffed at.

Not surprisingly, the film is written by Imtiaz Ali in whose “Socha Na Tha” and “Love Aaj Kal” we met the commitment-phobic hero. In fact, there is really no difference between Saif Ali Khan in “Love Aaj Kal” and in “Cocktail”. Except that the womanizer in the new avatar makes a lot more faces. Experience makes for expressiveness. They both shun true love when it stares them in the face. And then of course, the rest that follows is predictable.

“Cocktail” is not high on surprises. The two main characters are prematurely jaded, bored out of their wits by an excess of hedonism. Into their lives arrives the timid golden-hearted jilted bride who needs a home and a place to call her own. The film is really about three unmoored characters finding their bearings. That it has been shot in London is a happy circumstance for the characters. Cinematographer Anil Mehta makes them look ravishing in their rain-washed lives with glimmers of sunshine peeping out in tantalizing scoops.

Unfortunately Saif silhouetted against the London’s quaint bustle is a bit of a cliche. He brings nothing new to his role, and he isn’t entirely to be blamed for it. Saif’s is a thankless part. He moves in with the vixen Veronica where Meera is already ensconced after being deserted by her caddish NRI husband (Randeep Hooda, struggling to impart substance to his wafer-thin role).

By the time the triangle concludes everyone is in love with Meera. Audience included. Diana as the angelic girl from Delhi who is left bereft on foreign shores (many shades from Aishwarya Rai’s Aa Ab Laut Chalen) is the discovery of the year. She stops her Good Girl’s role from becoming sickeningly sugary. And that’s no small achievement for a newcomer.

“Cocktail” is not quite as intoxicating as it sounds. But it’s a heady brew about beautiful people trying to find themselves in places where life is an endless party.The music is effective in conveying the pseudo-euphoria of people who drown their solitude in noise. Saif is likeable when he doesn’t try too hard to be the roving-eyed rogue. His performance in drag to “Sheila ki jawaani” is brave.The performance on the whole is more smug than brave.

Boman Irani and Dimple Kapadia playing siblings are brilliant, specially the former who seems incapable of giving an under-done or over-done performance. Like Deepika, Dimple is remarkable for getting out of her comfort zone and doing a role that would traditionally go to Kirron Kher.

Deepika and Diane are gorgeous in their respective spaces. “Cocktail” is a very good-looking film about people who constantly seek a good time and then realise what they thought to fun was a farce. The emotional transitions are achieved with a fair degree of smoothness. You kind of grow to like all three protagonists, blemishes and all.

Director Homi Adjania who made the eccentric “Being Cyrus” shows a casual familiarity with the realm of the rom-com. He takes the basic ingredients of the genre and plays around with the components, to emerge with a concoction that is quite appealing in its self-deprecating humour and a rather unusual appetite for partying.

Verdict : Tale of ennui told well, sparkling performances by cast

 

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Bol Bachchan Movie Review

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Cast : Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan, Asin, Prachi Desai, Krushna Abhishek, Archana Puransingh
Director : Rohit Shetty
Producer : Dhillin Mehta, Ajay Devgn
Banner : Fox Star Studios
Music : Himesh Reshammiya, Ajay-Atul
Rating : 3/5

Like that cute little boy who holds his father’s face in both his hands to get attention, “Bol Bachchan” just doesn’t let go. Its relentless quest for a rolicking time is infectious. The comic confusions are put forward with a giggly gusto. You can see the team had a great time shooting this subverted version of a 1979 comic classic.

Hrishikesh Mukherjee would be unable to recognize this version of his comedy ‘Golmaal’ on which Bol Bachchan is based. Hell, he might have even sued for subversion of his creative property. But then, he always loved the Bachchan family. And there are the two Bachchans in the film - Abhishek Bachchan and his likeable comic partner Krushna Abhishek. No, make that 3. At the very start the senior-most Bachchan, the Big B himself, makes a gracious song-and-dance appearance where the director Rohit Shetty lets us know he loves the Bachchans.

In one way or another.

The film casts Abhishek Bachchan in a double role of Abbas and his doppelganger double Abhishek Bachchan. Yes, that’s the name given to Abhishek’s character when he comes face-to-face with the village head-honcho Ajay Devgn, a kind of benign mukhia who is goofy and rather dumb, so dumb that he actually believes the on-screen Abhishek Bachchan’s cock-and-bull story about how his parents named him as such because they were big fans of Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan.

Right.

Devgn’s character, a not-so-gentlemix of a pehelwaan and Anil Kapoor in Virasat is as far removed from its origins, namely Utpal Dutt in Golmaal, as Archana Puransingh is from Dina Pathak. The former steps into the latter’s role with the kind of defiant toss of her head and bosom that makes the transition more of a humorous takeoff than a homage.

Indeed, some of the funniest scenes in this fair comic romp into Hrishida’s backyard feature the excellent Ms Puransingh.

The tongue-in-cheek tribute to the original film is quite often so cocky it makes you wince. Rohit Shetty has stripped away the gentle amiable wit of Hrishikesh Mukherjee and replaced it with a raw and ripe humour that takes swipes at anything that comes in the way of the satire.

Yes, the original featuring Amol Palekar and Utpal Dutt plays on television in a sequence. And there’s a play being staged in Rohit Shetty’s imaginary village where two actors impersonating Dutt and Palekar enact the original film.

That is as close as we get to Hrishikesh Mukherjee in this punk-parody of the original comedy.

Valiantly, the dramatic tension in the comedy is based on a communal divide. The hero Abbas has to invent a Hindu phantom-double to avoid a religious backlash. Unusually for a comedy, the filmkeeps making sharp stinging remarks on the communal issue without causing offence. In one specially audacious sequence, the film’s writer targets two minority communities, the Muslims and gays, in the same range of vision without tripping over.

Now, that’s no mean achievement.

The cute Prachi Desai playing Devgn’s kid-sister remarks that some of our biggest names like Abdul Kalaam and Shah Rukh khan are “like that”. Devgn has the other minority community in mind.

Bol Bachchan dares to carry its sense of fun to an extreme of playfulness without toppling over into crassness. It takes on the scared cows without putting its feet in the cow poo. The elderly are often a brunt of ridicule in the plot. But again, no offence meant. Asrani’s rapport with his screen-son is truly funny.

However what doesn’t work is the enforced action sequences where just to simulate a climax in the trademark Rohit Shetty style, cars leap into the air, buses crash into windows - Shetty’s stunts are becoming predictable in their execution. A change is needed there.

What works are the performances. Ajay Devgn as the endearing bully is in top form. His mongrelized use of the English language is the cheekiest subversion of the original film’s content. In Hrishida’s Golmaal Utpal Dutt spoke only the purest form of Hindi.

Abhishek Bachchan pulls off the double role with the right blend of the subtle and the saucy. This is his second film after Dostana where he has to impersonate homosexuality.

Abhishek is dead-on.

A special word for Abhishek Krushna and Archana Puransingh who provide plenty of chuckles with their comic timing.

Hrishida may not approve. But this is Golmaal without the innocence of those times.And that’s the way we like it.

Verdict : A modern day ‘Golmaal’

 

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Maximum Movie Review

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Cast : Naseeruddin Shah, Sonu Sood, Neha Dhupia, Amit Sadh, and Vinay Pathak
Director : Kabeer Kaushik
Music : Amjad Nadeem, Devi Sri Prasad
Rating : 3/5

With a kind of brisk business-like immediacy and the least amount of fuss, “Maximum” takes us into the world of shoot-out killings and the internecine war in Mumbai’s police department which threatens to destroy the very institution built to mend the wounds and fissures in the social fabric.

Writer-director Kabeer Kaushik seems to be a born minimalist. His earlier film “Saher” was also steeped in the khaki colour.In “Maximum”, the world of legally-enforced corruption is created with such a lack of back-projection, history and vocalized subtexts that you often feel the director takes his audience for granted.

This is not the case. Kaushik presumes that we are intelligent enough to enter the murky morally ambivalent world of his characters without being led by the hand.

Naseeruddin Shah, who plays a ruthless encounter cop Arun Inamdar, is introduced to us when a victim lies bleeding in front of the cop. Characteristically the director plunges into the scene of crime when the dark deed is done. We see Inamdar watching the victim bleed to death and then pumping two bullets into the chap to ensure there’s no unfinished business here.

This is a world of unmitigated immorality. Bullets are fired not to stop but to merchanidise crime. And the lawmakers are shown to be as corrupt as the ones they set out to nab and mend.

Pratap Pandit, as played by Sonu Sood, is a man of a few words, much action. We are not given a chance to know him closely. He shifts gears so often we’re often left looking briefly at gaping wounds that can never heal in our socio-political system.

The narration assumes a peculiar pace. As guns roar and Daniel George plays out an elegiac evocative background score to underline the senselessness of the violence, we can see the characters’ self imposed emptiness in the face of the volatile noise that they’ve created around their lives. The hollowness hits you in the head more than the heart. And when the emotions seize the plot in a vice-like grip we feel terribly sorry for the characters for the death trap that they’ve built for one another and finally themselves.

The film opens in 2003 at the height of the encounter killings in Mumbai. Two encounter specialists played by Sonu and Naseer are at loggerheads.

Admirably the director doesn’t use the two principal characters to form a central conflict. Kaushik’s narration is as ruthless and stripped of humour and other sources of cinematic solace as the world his characters inhabit. A certain amount of familiarity with the world of encounter killings is assumed on the audiences’ part. We are expected to understand the subverted value-system of the encounter cops who do their social cleansing and in the process get so embroiled in blood, their hands are soaked in the very blood that they are meant to wash away.

Hence our ‘hero’ Pratap (based on a real-life encounter specialist) is shown to kill criminals, extort money from builders and businessman and hobnob with the powerful and profance. And yet he returns home to a loving wife (Neha Dhupia) and a daughter. The father-daughter scenes are done with a tremulous tenderness.

Sonu invests immense emotion in these scenes. His performance takes him through several moral dilemmas. Years pass. Sonu’s body language expresses the deplorable shift in power equations. Here’s a performance that again proves this underrated actor’s unimpeachable versatility.

“When you are slipping you either fight back or you keep quiet,” he tells his journalist-friend, played by Amit Sadh. They share keema-paoat an Irani restaurant. As the years pass, earlier the cop paid, later the scribe does. A subtle illustration of a power-shift that says so much about the socio-economic equations of Mumbai.

The journalist’s character remains a kind of sutradhar. By the end of the film we really don’t know who is in the crime folds for the money and who’s there for the power.

“Maximum” is a film that’s far more in-charge of its out-of-control sharp-shooting cops than it seems. Yes, there have been any number of films about encounter cops. But this one gets at the underbelly of desolation and isolation of such cops as effectively as Shimit Amin’s “Ab Tak Chappan”.

There are some brilliantly executed shootouts.

A layered sharp and sagacious look at the internecine world of encounter cops, “Maximum” is a minimum-fuss crime drama where the characters are so austere in their emotions they somehow seem to be constantly shadow-dancing with their conscience.

The performances by Sonu and Naseer Shah propel the plot to a gripping summit. But there isn’t enough of Naseer. Vinay Pathak as a Uttar Pradesh politician and Amit as a journalist, both trying to make sense of Mumbai’s confounding cosmopolitanism, add considerably to the film’s powerful personality.

For Sonu “Maximum” is a new beginning.

Verdict : A minimum-fuss crime drama

 

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Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie Review

Gangs Of Wasseypur Hindi Movie Review, Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie Review, Gangs Of Wasseypur Review, Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie Rating, Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie verdict, Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie story, Gangs Of Wasseypur Movie climax, 

Cast : Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Richa Chadha, Huma Quershi, Reema Sen, Piyush Mishra and others
Director : Anurag Kashyap
Producer : Anurag Kashyap, Sunil Bohra
Banner : Viacom 18 Motion Pictures
Music : Sneha Khanwalkar, G. V. Prakash Kumar
Rating : 4/5




Bleeding brilliance in almost every frame, breathing fire through every available orifice that the characters possess, and whipping up a kind of frenzied, flamboyant bloodshed that was once associated with the Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, “Gangs Of Wasseypur” is, briefly, one huge gang-bang. No protection provided.

From its bludgeoning opening when merciless marauders ambush a powerful enemy’s fortress-like home with army-like meticulousness, “Gangs Of Wasseypur” takes us into a world where compassion is a dinosaur, forgiveness a faux pas, and kindness an unforgivable sin.

Welcome to Kashyap’s Wasseypur. This is no country for the weak-hearted. Country-made guns go off without warning, bombs are hurled from two-wheelers and abuses fly out even faster than the bullets. If you are the kind of moviegoer who doesn’t enjoying hearing and seeing the unimaginable things that can’t be done to various parts of the human anatomy, then I suggest you try something more sugary and safe.

The world of Wasseypur is soaked in blood and revenge. The mafia in one form or another rules the little town. To mainstream Hindi moviegoers, this is not an unknown territory. At least four other recent films - “Paan Singh Tomar”, “Ishaqzaade”, “Rowdy Rathore” and “Shanghai” - have hurled audiences right into the notorious anarchy of the North Indian small-town where the barrel of the gun speaks an irresistible language of mayhem.

It’s a strangely dichotomous world where music and songs (Sneha Khan walk) mock the characters’ subverted ‘herogiri’. While the characters indulge in their unmanned violence, audience become numbed participants in the rites of the wrong-doing.

The almost-ritualistic slaughter of all rules of civil conduct in “Gangs Of Wasseypur” is not redeemed by the presence of any hero.

Even the main protagonist in the blood thirsty saga is a certifiable rogue named, Sardar Khan. As played by Manoj Bajpayee in what is arguably his most feisty and filled-out performance to date, Sardar Khan is a second-generation criminal and social outcast.

In the film’s unforgettable prologue, Sardar’s father (Jaideep Ahlawat) serves as a henchman to the powerful local politician (Tigmanshu Dhulia). Politician has daddy killed by a hired assassin and Sonny-boy grows up swearing revenge.

This in a nutshell, could be the plot for a cheesy 1980s’ potboiler. In taking the grammar and language of the formulistic vendetta drama from the 1970s and 1980s and converting it into a crackling saga of compelling contemporary currency, Kashyap turns all the rules of mainstream Hindi cinema on its head. He uses the language of Manmohan Desai and Narinder Bedi’s cinema. But he applies these to characters who are as far removed from the world of escapism is Sicilyis from Wasseypur.

Oh, did we really say “Gangs Of Wasseypur” was derived from “The Godfather”? Nah. The two worlds are inter-connected only by their legacy of lineage and violence. Beyond that Kashyap’s mode of storytelling, and the way his characters loo mover the proceedings without become caricatural, are frighteningly original and as liberated of reference-points as any of the path-breaking films on gangwars that have emerged out of Hollywood in the last 25 years.

Kashyap celebrates the drama of the grotesque with the relish of a seven-’coarse’ meal. We can count the number of thuds and stabbing sounds every time a victim is cornered and done to death. Violence on this level has never really been a part of mainstream Hindi cinema before. The end of cinematic niceties is here. Take it or leave it.

Kashyap, in Wasseypur, legitimizes gore with glorious gusto. In the gang war that he portrays with such feral immediacy, victims are chopped up piece by piece, their body parts sent to the butcher’s to eliminate legal evidence. A finger floating in a cesspool of stale blood is a commonplace sight in the world of unchecked mayhem that Kashyap has constructed with such casual resplendence.

His team of technicians are unconditionally mired in the mood of violence. Rajeev Ravi’s camera mows through the imaginary world of Wasseypur with a devilish dispassion.

The film looks layered and even luminous in texture. But the tone of narration is detached. The dereliction of the damned and doomed characters is neither romanticized nor demonized.

Indeed “Gangs Of Wasseypur” invents a new language of cinematic expression. It creates a world where the characters inhabit a universe of vapid stagnant violence. And yet the narration, never short of breath even in the most breathless state of violence, exudes a kind of vibrancy that comes from neither rejection not acceptable of an undesirable situation. It comes from within the characters. As they battle each other in bitter futile feuds, they also seem to be battling the demons within themselves. The synthesis of what lies within and without is devastating.

And yet for all its outward show of ruthless machismo “Gangs Of Wasseypur” is a film with a heart. There is a rather enticing love story featuring Manoj, his screen wife(debutante Richa Chadha) and the other woman (Reema Sen) tucked away in the folds of the ferocious tale.

Manoj’s wife is a very happy happening in this sad but savagely funny tale. She is quite the discovery of the year, and that too in a film mottled with exceptional performances by Manoj, Nawazuddin as his son (more of him in “Wasseypur 2″), Tigmanshu Dhulia who is clenched, controlled and combative as the villain in chief, Pankaj Tripathi riveting as Manoj’s belligerent enemy, Piyush Mishra remarkably restrained and wise as Manoj’s mentor and guide and Huma Qureshi, another whammy performer whom we will see more of in the sequel.

In fact, every character, big or small, is cast with what looks like first-and-last options. You can’t imagine any other actor playing any of the myriad parts.

Brutal, brilliant, dark, sinister, terrifying in its violence and yet savagely funny in the way human life is disregarded “Gangs Of Wasseypur” is one helluva romp into the raw and rugged heartland. Not to be missed. I can’t wait to see the sequel. But be warned. Avoid meals half an hour before and after viewing.

Verdict : A romp into raw, rugged heartland

 

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Shanghai Movie Review

Shanghai Hindi Movie Review, Shanghai 2012 Movie Review, Shanghai 2012 Review, Shanghai Movie rating, Shanghai Movie verdict, Shanghai Movie story, Shanghai Movie climax, 

Cast : Chatterjee, Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi, Kalki Koechlin, Supriya Pathak and Farooque Shaikh
Director : Dibakar Banerjee
Banner : PVR Pictures
Music : Vishal-Shekhar
Rating : 3.5/5





Watching “Shanghai” is revisiting your daily local newspaper, full of scams, conspiracies and crime stories. In short, the film is a slice of today’s India.

Adapted from “Z”, a 1966 novel by Vassilis Vassilikos, Dibakar Banerjeer brilliantly exposes the reality behind the irony of India Shining.

The scenes are verbatim daily newspaper briefs.

Set in present day nondescript shanty called Bharatnagar, it sees Dr. Ahmedi (Prosenjeet Chatterjee), a US-based professor and activist, visiting Bharatnagar to enlighten its inhabitants about ‘pragati’ (progress).

He opposes the transformation of the shanty town into a zany township, a la Shanghai. But he is murdered by the opposition who try to pass off his death as an accident.

After that the story moves ahead with Shalini Sahay (Kalki Koechlin), Ahmedi’s besotted student and daughter of an ex-army general who is involved in a scam, IAS Officer T.A. Krishnan (Abhay Deol), videographer Joginder Parmar (Emraan Hashmi), Ahmedia’s wife Aruna (Tillotama Shome), chief minister (Supriya Patak) and her PA (Farooque Sheikh).

While the film grips you, it’s the system that gets to you.

“Why did you do commit the murder, when you knew it is wrong,” Shalini asks the murderer.

Another dialogue - “Jeene se haraam lagta hai. Par marne se darr bhi lagta hai…” clearly shows the hunger for survival. It’s a sorry state of affairs, where the common denominator is the victim.

There is a simplistic nature to the narrative and archetype.

The performance of every character is realistic and matter-of-fact. Emraan impresses with his rustic portrayal, quite different from his usual flamboyant characters. Abhay Deol, as the IAS Officer, bowls over the audience with his grit and, of course, unmistakable Tamil accent. Kalki slips effortlessly into the character, yet again, revealing her versatility.

However, what you take home is not the memories of a character well-performed, but the story.

The film is frighteningly true.

The strength of “Shanghai” is its tight screenplay by Urmi Juvekar and Dibakar Banerjee and the meticulous details leave no scope for arguments.

What adds to the flavour is excellent cinematography by Nikos Andritsakis and the marvellous use of sound, both ambient and otherwise, to build up the tension in the political drama.

The controversial song “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and the item number “Imported Kamariyaa” are well-picturised and the latter is on the way to become the next favourite numbers at all ‘basti’ celebrations.

Despite its simplistic and down-to-earth locations, “Shanghai” has a nice hard-boiled vibe and a sense of semi-exotic danger. Definitely gives you a lot to ponder about.

Verdict : A slice of today’s India, Don’t miss this one

 

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Rowdy Rathore Movie Review

Rowdy Rathore Hindi Movie Review, Rowdy Rathore Movie Review, Rowdy Rathore Review, Rowdy Rathore Movie Rating, Rowdy Rathore Movie verdict, Rowdy Rathore Movie story, Rowdy Rathore Movie climax, 

Cast : Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Yashpal Sharma
Director : Prabhu Deva
Producer : Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Ronnie Screwvala
Banner : UTV Motion Pictures
Music : Sajid-Wajid
Rating : 3.5/5

“Rowdy Rathore” races on the premise that heroes are made by circumstances, not design. That’s how the street-smart Shiva ends up in a town run by garish goons, where homes, humans and hopes are burnt in effigies mocking human rights.

It is an old-fashioned good-versus-evil comedy-action-drama with paisa-vasool written in every frame.

Prabhu Deva, who earlier directed Salman Khan’s cop-on-a-rampage saga “Wanted” puts Akshay on the same page. To his credit, Akshay manages to create his own world in that Salman-space. Never letting go of that twinkle in his eye, Akshay sinks his crooked teeth into the meaty double role with the warmth, affection and relish of a dinner guest who knows all the yummy dishes on the table have been cooked only for him.

Akshay goes for the sumptuous meal with the hunger of a man who may not see tomorrow. It’s high-octane performance full of warmth and fury, never over-the-top, even when all hell breaks loose.

The fights are ferocious, but never gut-churning. You can watch the bloodshed with the kids. They’d know, Uncle Akshay is going to win.

The thing about “Rowdy Rathore” is it never takes itself seriously. The cop and his double won’t kow-tow to the powers-that-be. Ironically, the film grandly bows its head to the Great Bollywood Formula. The dialogues are bombastic, bordering on the corny, nevertheless fun in their intended ideological inferences.

A profound reverence for every trick in the book of filmic formulas sees the accelerated narration to its breathless finale. Even when the going gets gory, there is a tongue-in-cheek humour in the violence.

It’s not the arrogant aggression of Salman in “Dabangg” or “Wanted”. In “Rowdy Rathore”, Akshay creates a new language of heroic aggression. He is goofy, wonky, clumsy and oafish. He has no respect for the rules of the office. But his character loves doing what he does, because a man has got to do what he has to do, and really someone has to do the dirty job of cleaning up the mess we’ve created.

Metal rods from rickety machines are wrenched out and used to teach the anti-socials a lesson. The ‘ouch’ is never unwelcome. Akshay creates a ‘no wince’ situation.

Whether its wooing a Patna girl (Sonakshi Sinha) all over Mumbai streets and right into a wedding venue, or in the second half, taking on the vile villainy of a self-appointed lord of diabolism named Baapji (Nasser), who is so uncouth, unwashed and unmannered that he is downright funny in his obscene rowdyism.

The generous splash of colour and music (Sajid-Wajid at their peppy pinnacle) pitches the film at a massy level without toppling over into a revolting rowdyism.

Formulistic cinema has never been celebrated with more gusto.

“Rowdy Rathore” revives the years of Eastman colour cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, when movies were crazily colourful and rollicking fun, when you knew the villains would get their cacaphonic come-uppance.

Pulling out all stops to give us a spicy meal, Prabhu Deva succeeds in putting a dizzying spin into Akshay’s double-role act. Twirling his moustache in Rajputana pride, romancing the spirited small-town chick or beating up 23 goons with one weapon (self-determination), Akshay delivers a performance that makes you want to jump out of your seat, clapping, whistling and cheering in appreciation.

While the fights are brilliantly conceived and executed, it’s Akshay’s courtship with Sonakshi that had me giggling non-stop. If he is outrageously coy in his wooing act, Sonakshi gives him tit-for-tat, matching steps with her far more experienced co-star, never letting the age difference daunt her.

The rest of the cast only has to stand around to extol and cheer our down-to-earth superhero cop. All the while, the narration never loses its tempo, warmth or humour.

The choreography ensures that the dances merge with seamless elan into the action.

“Rowdy Rathore” is quite a gravity-defying feat. It often finds the villains being hurled into the air. But the narration manages to keep its feet on the ground. Really, Akshay as the angry cop is more entertaining than intimidating.

Three cheers for producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali for coming out of his comfort zone to celebrate the spirit of Hindi commercial cinema at its dizziest and craziest.

Verdict : Action with no gore, but doesn’t bore

 

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Ishaqzaade Movie Review

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Cast : Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra
Director : Habib Faisal
Producer : Aditya Chopra
Banner : Yash Raj Films
Music : Amit Trivedi
Rating : 4/5




What does one do when love strikes during times of war? And make no mistake. Elections time in a small dusty town of Uttar Pradesh is akin to war. Guns are fired randomly at enemies, real or imagined. Enemies fall to the ground. Morals lie crushed under heels. And finer feelings are buried under a rubble of trouble.

Into this town, here named Almora, enters love on silent feet. Well, maybe not so silent. “Ishaqzaade” is a very noisy film. The hero Parma (debutant Arjun Kapoor) is an uncouth animal, whose disgusting habits include kidnapping the town’s nautch girl from a rival’s party to dance at his grandfather’s wedding. Later, his moral temperature dips to an all-time low when he takes loathsome revenge on the girl he loves to hate.

As the Muslim girl Zoya, Parineeti Chopra fills the screen with a tempestuous charm. Naturally spontaneous and vivacious, she reminds you of the early Jaya Bhaduri. Her character is a sharp-shooter with a tongue to match. And when she gets brutally compromised by Parma, she reacts like a wild cat raging against the promised full-cream milk that curdled when she was not looking.

Habib Faisal, who made the mellow, mild-mannered middle-class comedy “Do Dooni Chaar” about a college professor’s dream of buying a scooter, here shows a completely unexpected side to his cinematic vision. The landscape he paints in Almora is so volatile and violent, you pray for atonement for these characters.

The lovers don’t exchange chaste glances and furtive kisses. They embrace passionately and smooch each other’s lips off. And when they make love, it seems they are waging war on the world. Full-blooded, voluptuous and eminently earthy, “Ishaqzaade” is a pickled, aromatic roller-coaster ride through the badlands where blazing guns mean families are at one another’s throats.

The first-half of the narration builds up to an engrossing case for Parma to inflict his uncouth and aggressive malevolence on Zoya. The confrontation scenes between the two, written with the right amount of zing and sting, are first-rate. Remarkably the adversaries-turned-lovers keep drawing attention to each other’s religion without mincing words. The two religions are almost thrown at one another as taunts. Riot or wrong, who can tell?

What Faisal wants to say, and we would be better off if we pay heed, is — it is imperative to address the Hindi-Muslim divide headlong, or else blood would continue to be spilt each time two people from different communities ‘dare’ to love each other.

“Don’t even think of it. An Indo-Pak war will break out,” the Muslim girl warns the Hindu boy. And then proceeds to break the self-imposed rule with a rush of rebellion and passion that seems to replicate the flow of adrenaline in the virile script.

“Ishaqzaade” is written in blood, dipped in passion, and shot in vivid colours of life, strife and other bitter embers of the communal fire. The director constantly attempts to bring alive the cluttered milieu of a lawless north Indian town. Faisal succeeds to a remarkable degree.

His characters speak an easily recognisable language from Uttar Pradesh’s heartland where even daughters are taught to fire a gun before they learn the alphabet. The supporting characters don’t fake it even for a second.

Many scenes convey warmth and empathy without a jot of self-consciousness. The characters are all played by unknown local UP actors who are born to the milieu. The director builds a believable arc of love and revenge. His lovers are so well-conceived on paper, it would have taken two truly idiotic actors to ruin their characters.

Luckily, Parineeti and Arjun are anything but incapable actors. They imbue the violent ambience with their own peculiar chemistry.

The bloodshed never stops, and the action is relentless. Hemant Chaturvedi’s cinematography creates a world that is real and at the same time, highly cinematic.

There are many reasons why “Ishaqzaade” is a remarkable film. It enters the killing fields of Uttar Pradesh. It chases down our two protagonists and then watches them get into a crisis with no end. In the end, we are looking at two young vibrant people whom we love because they love one another irrespective of the differences.

This is not a film which offers a pretty love story with gentle love songs. Even the music (by Amit Trivedi) sounds like a war cry. As for Parineeti and Arjun, never mind the destiny that lies in store for their characters in this film. They are here to stay.

Verdict : Love beyond boundaries in UP’s badlands

 

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Jannat 2 Movie Review

Jannat 2 Hindi Movie Review, Jannat 2 Movie Review, Jannat 2 Review, Jannat 2 Movie verdict, Jannat 2 Movie rating, Jannat 2 Movie climax, Jannat 2 Movie story, 

Cast : Emraan Hashmi, Esha Gupta, Randeep Hooda, ..
Director : Kunal Deshmukh
Producer : Mahesh Bhatt, Mukesh Bhatt
Banner : Vishesh Films, Fox Star Studios
Music : Pritam
Rating : 3/5





There is a memorable moment of flushed pain at the end of this textured film on arms and the mangled, when Randeep Hooda symbolically throws out his wife’s memories from the car window.

Life’s life that. Sometimes you need to just roll down the window and throw away the extra baggage that you carry around in the name of love and commitment.

Shorn of artificial affectations “Jannat 2″ is easily the best film from the Bhatt camp since “Gangster” years ago. Neither as gruesome as “Murder 2″ nor as bland as “Blood Money”, “Jannat 2″ brings forward some inspired writing and two watchable performances that lend a blend of the bitter and the biting to the proceedings.

Let’s get one thing straight. “Jannat 2″ leaves behind the world created in “Jannat 4″ years. This is hell, for sure. Shot in the dark ember hues of a scorching humid sweltering May evening when all things bright and beautiful shrivel up in the heat, “Jannat 2″ is not for the squeamish. Once you stop wincing at the volley of MCs and BCs(some of them quite unnecessary, I thought) “Jannat 2″ (ironical title, if ever there was one) sucks you into its murky world of illegal arms and other soul-bartering deals with the devil.

Don’t believe the silly promotional trailers of “Jannat 2″. There is nothing funny, flippant, flighty or farcical about this film. It’s a brooding intense study of the troubled relationship - or a bro-mance, if you will - between a burnt-out alcoholic cop(Randeep Hooda, spectacular in his devastated avatar) and a gun dealer who turns police informer when love hits him where it hurts the most.

Emraan Hashmi as Sonu Dilli (whatever!) kind of takes over the film from the first frame. He loves his character and embraces it unconditionally. He gets to play all the roles that his fans like to see him in-including the incorrigible kisser’s part - and he does them all effectively.

But Hashmi is best at expressing the wonderment and self-abnegation of love.
The courtship scenes with the self-important doctor (debutante Esha Gupta) find Hashmi expressing a kind of bewildered intensity that makes you believe this guy can give up a life of crime for the girl.

But the film belongs to Randeep Hooda, make no mistake about that. Every word he speaks is delivered with a sledgehammer’s impact. Playing a cop grieving for his murdered wife Hooda’s angst spills out of every shot. You can’t take your eyes off the screen when he is around.

The resonant writing (Shagufta Rafique) restricts the dramatic tension to the two principal male actors. These two guys love to hate each other. All the energy that the narration so effectively exudes emanates from the two main actors and then spills out into various directions. Somewhere in the mid-section the plot begins to get somewhat predictable and baggy, what with arms dealer Manish Choudhary snarling his threats so loud, you wonder if villainy in our films got stranded in the 1970s.

But then comes the end-game. The climax chase shot in a mosque’s courtyard is absolutely heart-in-the-mouth. And then comes the end-game where Mahesh Bhatt’s masterly touch comes into play with such luminous alacrity that that you are left finally with a film that tells us it is easier to live with hatred then pain.

Director Kunal Deshmukh demonstrates a far firmer grip over his characters and plot this time than he did in politically correct “Jannat” and the soggy “Tum Miley”.

Besides Hooda and Hashmi who bring to the narrative a rugged immediacy, the film pitches forward some brilliant supporting performances by little-known actors like Zeeshan Mohammed Ayub (playing Hashmi’s sidekick) and Brijendra Kala (Hooda’s right-hand man).

Delhi, the city that houses many Bollywood tales of late, is shot by cinematographer Bobby Singh in shades of grey and dusty brown.

Verdict : Decent crime caper

 

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Fatso! Movie Review

Fatso! Hindi Movie Review, Fatso! Movie 2012 Review, Fatso! Movie Review, Fatso! Movie Rating, Fatso! Movie Verdict, Fatso! Movie story, Fatso! Movie climax, 

Cast : Ranvir Shorey, Gul Panag, Purab Kohli, Neil Bhoopalam
Director : Rajat Kapoor
Producer : Pritish Nandy, Rangita Pritish Nandy
Banner : Pritish Nandy Communications, Daily Multimedia Limited
Music : Sagar Desai
Rating : 3/5




Some fine actors, who know how to look at home even when placed in outlandish circumstances, carry this quaint tale of love, death, separation, resurrection and reparation to the level of a fairly engaging comedy.

Films about near-death and after-life have a tendency to be flippant in tone while showing a world beyond the one that we know. It’s the same fear of the unknown that makes us laugh loudly when we are in a pitch-dark room looking for an exit.

This romcom makes its way out of the comfort zone of a love triangle (actually, quadrangle, and then one more angle added somewhere down the line), gets sassy about laughing all the way to after-life and then comes down to earth with a soft thud.

There are no sharp curves or twists in the plot. Even when Purab Kohli goes to a place close to heaven, his dialogues with his hosts up there (Brijendra Kala and gang) resemble a high-school debate on how to fill up the admission form rather than an existential discourse.

“Fatso” is at best a sweet harmless comedy about Purab Kohli’s character almost dying and returning to earth to assume his obese friend Ranvir Shorey’s body. Yup, that’s it.

The main challenge in the narration is to convince the grieving girlfriend (Gul Panag, sweet and restrained) that Purab is not who he looks like though he now looks like Ranvir Shorey, 40 kilos fatter than usual. The complications are kept at a bare minimum. The love quadrangle is played out at a manageable octave, which you know, will ensure a comfortable ending for all.

One can see that the narration comes to a dead-end, no pun intended. Left with no precise way to conclude the love triangle, the film simply asks Ranvir to take over. He delivers a discernibly improvised I-love-life monologue which ends with a cute kiss with Gul. That’s how you shut all protest up when life threatens to get complicated.

You simply shoo away all the misgivings and the dark patches that present themselves in the course of life and cinema. And you simply celebrate the magic of the here-and-now.

That’s what “Fatso” does with the least amount of fuss. It is not a film that pushes far enough in any direction, dark or light. But manages to make sufficient space in its range of vision to ensure that the characters don’t appear contrived .

There are no laugh-out-loud or sob-out-hard moments in the film. The tragedy of the girl losing her lover on the eve of their marriage is drowned in a pool of mock, surreal situations created more from a sense of mischief than profundity. But the film is fun to watch. It makes the right moves and noises. No one speaks out of turn. And you don’t come away from the film offended in any detail.

Technically, the presentation and packaging are reasonably neat. The film is shot in apartments rather than on sets. That helps to make you believe these are real people. Not actors who have just mugged their lines on the sets.

“Fatso” is a natural, sweet, tangy and tender rom-com about a near-dead lover and a pretender. A just-right ensemble cast makes the proceedings look larger than laugh.

Don’t go looking for “It’s A Wonderful Life” and you may come away quite happy with this film.

Verdict : Sweet, tangy, tender romantic comedy

 

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Tezz Movie Review

Tezz Hindi Movie Review, Tezz Movie Review, Tezz Movie Rating, Tezz Movie verdict, Tezz Movie story, Tezz Movie climax, 

Cast : Anil Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Zayed Khan, Sameera Reddy, Kangna Ranaut, Boman Irani
Director : Priyadarshan
Producer : Ratan Jain
Music : Sajid-Wajid
Rating : 3/5





What do you do when a country, a culture and their purveyors wrong you irreparably? You plant a bomb in a speeding train and hold the establishment to ransom.

Taking a cue from Hollywood’s most watched bomb-maro-bomb rush-hour excursions into plunder-land “Tezz” springs forward a nicely-packaged expertly-cut he-dunnit. And that’s a very different genre from the whodunit.

Here we know Ajay Devgn is the closet terrorist. But since his fans won’t like it, Devgn is, with due respect to Mira Nair, a reluctant terrorist… how reluctant, we won’t reveal fully.

Devgn has a back story with screen wife Kangna Ranaut, who in keeping with her character’s British domicile, sports blonde hair. No, this is not a joke.

Luckily, Priyadarshan’s plot has a lot more going for itself than its leading lady’s hair-to-stay problems. The director creates a taut cat-and-mouse game between ‘terrorist’ Devgn and cop Anil Kapoor who in true Hollywood style, is on the verge of retirement from service when duty beckons.

There are enough men on duty on both sides of the law here to fill up one section of Tihar jail. The narration allows elbow-room for an army of actors laden with anxious motivations and tense expressions to match, all hurling like the speeding train towards an uncertain nemesis. Luckily, the plot finds itself a convincing finale. And we can go home feeling all is not lost for the slick action genre in Bollywood.

There is hope.

There are some jaw-dropping action sequences here. Some of them, like Devgn and Kapoor’s fist-to-fist in the grand finale and the search for Devgn in a hospital’s car park, are so expertly executed they make you forget how far Bollywood lags behind in the action genre from its firangi counterpart. But then again some of the stunts like the one where passengers from the bomb-threatened train climb into a safe train, are done clumsily enough to bring us down with a thud.

Curiously, Zayed Khan and Sameera Reddy who play Devgn’s accomplices in the terror crime are given one extended heart-in-the-mouth chase sequence each. They show remarkable agility in their given space. Ditto the film’s technicians. Thiru S. Appan’s camera looks at London with keen anticipation.

Aditya Dhar doesn’t come up with one memorable dialogue except, “Teri Maa Ki…” when Devgn while negotiating his ransom money with train executive Boman Irani drops his cellphone.

“He’s Indian, not Pakistani,” Boman confidently informs cop Anil Kapoor with a straight face.

The absurdities don’t swamp ‘Tezz’. True its title, the tale of a bomb and a Boman trying to diffuse the crisis, whizzes by at breakneck speed.

Priyadarshan’s tackles what’s a new genre for him, with pleasure and aplomb. Ajay Devgn, Anil Kapoor, Boman Irani, Sameera Reddy and Zayed Khan furnish a flavour of slickness to a story that holds your attention till the end.

Not quite edge-of-the-seat, the thrills in Tezz are engaging enough to keep us watching.

Verdict : A slick action film with engaging thrills

 

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Housefull 2 Movie Review

Housefull 2 Hindi Movie Review, Housefull 2 Review, Housefull 2 Movie verdict, Housefull 2 Movie Rating, Housefull 2 Movie story, Housefull 2 Movie climax, 

Cast : Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Ritesh Deshmukh, Shreyas Talpade, Randhir Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Asin, Jacquelin Fernandez, Zarine Khan, Mithun Chakraborty, Boman Irani, Johhny Lever
Director : Sajid Khan
Producer : Sajid Nadiadwala
Music : Sajid Ali,  Wajid Ali
Rating : 3/5




Gags galore. Laughs? Well, not as many as you’d expect in a 180-minute marathon mirth machine. Somehow, the jokes get choked in the comic ritual of repetition. Once you figure out who’s who and who’s ha-ha in the farce fest, the attempts to cram as many characters into every frame as humanly possible begins to take its toll on the comic equilibrium of this tale of intermittent titters and some genuine laughs.

So what’s “Housefull 2″ about? Wrong question. Beyond a point, it’s only about keeping the embers of satire alive by hook or by over-cook. Somewhere down line the witticism wears thin. But there are comic actors of terrific aptitude holding aloft the thinner segments in the farcical fabric.

Just look at the lineup. Real-life brothers Randhir and Rishi Kapoor on screen for the first time together. Wow wee!Each time they appear on screen the theme from Raj Kapoor’s cinema plays slyly in the background. As brothers turned enemies sharing a wall of history in ‘Great’ Britain, the Kapoor brothers take much longer to thaw and embrace one another than the other actors.

The plot is propelled forward by pairs of hostile actors who come together by the mid-point…Asin and Jacqueline playing blathering bimbos who also happen to be warring cousins, seem to find no pleasure in their characters beyond swooning in their screen-lover’s arms once too often. Akshay Kumar and John Abraham (the former getting the comic timing right, the latter trying so hard the effort shows) hate one another because at their college dance John caught his girlfriend with Akshay in the closet.

Once out of the closet the fun quotient never really stops for Akshay. He is in his rogue’s element running helter-skelter between dacoit-turned-English aristocrat Mithun Chakraborty and his Man Friday Johnny Lever.

The male actors get the sur of the steep satire right. But the ladies, they’re a little lost in the melee of mirth. Asin who has the meatiest role among the girls is listless. Making 25 faces in every frame doesn’t constitute money’s worth acting.

Sajid Khan shoots the ladies in exotic locations. The camera is never voyeuristic. The mood is often slapstick. But the gags never cross the limits of vulgarity. The verbal exchanges are largely free of double meanings. Yup, this comedy could be watched by the family without the dialogue writing band-bajaoing Papa and Mama’s censorial rules.

It is interesting to see how Sajid Khan employs old traditional Bollywood conventions, like a flashback where two friends swear to give away one another’s kids in marriage when the time is right, and an incredibly lengthy and pointless fight sequence where Dara Singh’s son Vindoo jumps out of a wheelchair and gets beaten up by our bunch of belligerent heroes.

Such archaic formula-baazi is synthesized with more contemporary concepts of cinematic entertainment. All in all you come away from “Housefull 2″ with a feeling that the vast cast seems to get the mood of riotous fun. They seem to have such fun that the audience can’t help getting infected by their non-stop party mood.

“Housefull 2″ takes the comic vein further than the first Housefull film. Sajid’s plot, characters and situations keep the chuckle fest vibrant and alive till the end. This is at times a wicked and funny farce with sparkling comic talent displayed by every male actor.

Verdict : Too many characters crowd this comic caper

 

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Agent Vinod Movie Review

Agent Vinod Hindi Movie Review, Agent Vinod Movie Review, Agent Vinod Review, Agent Vinod Movie verdict, Agent Vinod Movie rating, Agent Vinod Movie story, Agent Vinod Movie climax, 

Cast : Saif Ali Khan , Gulshan Grover , Ravi Kishan , Ram Kapoor , Dheerender , Kareena Kapoor , Adil Hussain , Leeann Roberts
Director : Sriram Raghavan
Producer : Saif Ali Khan , Dinesh Vijan , Tomas Makaras , Prem Pillai , Shwetanjali Rai
Music : Pritam Chakraborty
Rating : 3.5/5





Believe me, it’s really a small world.Even though a film purporting to be as epic in proportion as “Agent Vinod” travels all across the world to capture some of the most never-seen spots in the world, the plot - an intelligent clever, urbane and wry melange of Bourne and Bond, “Farz” and “Mission Impossible”, finally finds its most assured resting-place in apana jahaan Delhi.

The last half hour where an international terrorist outfit attempts to blow up Delhi, gets the grammar of an espionage thriller so riveting and so right, you wonder what took director Sriram Raghavan so long to get there.

“Agent Vinod” is the kind of meticulously crafted spy drama where cerebral considerations mesh into more earthy demands of commercial Hindi cinema, like item songs in smoky bars, shootouts in dust toasted-brown locations that are as treacherous as they are daunting and, wonder of wonders, a clumsily-choreographed Mujra which doesn’t quite fit into the smooth storytelling.

Smitten more than we can eschew.

From its opening in a Taliban-infested area, there is no dearth of intrigue in “Agent Vinod”. Agents, counter-agents, moles and molls, open-air flea markets and shopping malls jostle for attention in a script that appears to know its John le Carrre as well as its Nick Carter.

Raghavan spins a delicious yarn of guns and growls, but blessedly no gadgets. The action is crackling. The soundtrack is a chirpy mix of cheesy retro (RD and Asha Bhosle “Meri jaan tune kaha” from the film “The Train” pops up unannounced) and contemporary techno sounds.

The plot, perched precariously on the brink of self-indulgence, never spins out of control.

Clearly Sriram and Saif adore the spy genre. We can see the fun they’ve had in doing this film. But beneath the boys-having-fun mood is an undertone of reverence for all the espionage films from our own “Agent Vinod” in 1977 to Hollywood’s Mission Impossible series.

Holding the restless plot in place is Saif’s clenched and controlled performance. He desists from playing the spy to the galleries. He is urbane cool, yes. But he doesn’t enjoy shooting the enemies for his country and really, patriotic jingoism is left far behind in the race to save civilisation from a nuclear catastrophe. There’s a job to be done.And no room for fornication and fun.

Agent Vinod must be the only spy film from India where the Indian flag is not saluted or even mentioned in passing in hushed or shrill tones. This guy with a funny name would rather get along with the job .

Saif’s performance is unfussy, no-nonsense and largely humourless. The end-title when he attempts to do a funny song seem so out of character, you wonder why the spy is trying so hard to be comical when we like him Martini-dry .

Ambling from one exotic location to another with the irradiant Kareena Kapoor in tow, Saif is a portrait of restrained heroism. He gets much-needed support from a cast of actors who seem to have been chosen without a second option. Every player knows his job and does it without looking distracted or self-important.

Raghavan’s direction is deep-focussed on the inner world of people who live on the edge. There is no room for romance or emotions. In the only meaty sequence that she has, Kareena moves us to tears when she tells Saif she wants a normal girl’s life. Significantly Saif eats as she weeps.

No, he isn’t rude. Just honest. Life doesn’t just go on. It goes on uncaring about those moments of tearful stock-taking which moviegoers would like to think of as the essence of life.

For all its sharply-defined interludes of counter-intelligence manoeuvres, “Agent Vinod” tends to get long-winded, though miraculously the narrative never gets out of breath. On the contrary it takes our breath away towards the end when in a climactic bomb-defusion end-game that is reminiscent of Mani Shankar’s “16 December”.

The globally-shot material is edited by Pooja Ladha Surti with more room for the narrative to sprawl and recline than necessary. Really, how much of the disconnected derring-do can we take before we throw our hands up in unresisting surrender?

The action sequences by Peter Heins and Parvez are sometimes heart-in-the-mouth. Other times they seem to have been put together on the editing table.

Life’s like that. You are either swept away in circumstances beyond your control. Or you create situations that you choose to be swept away in.

“Agent Vinod” is not quite the overwhelming experience that you would want a global espionage thriller to be. More thoughtful than thundering, more la Carre and less Bond it nonetheless take the spy genre in Hindi to a new level of finesse. Finally, the cool quotient in Raghavan’s chic spin on the espionage thriller is so high that you forget Bond and all his bloody brothers.

Saif imparts a dry devilish dispassion to his spy’s part,. He doesn’t get time to tell Kareena how much he loves her.

That’s for the best. We already know that.

Verdict : Bollywood espionage genre comes of age

 

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