Kai Poche Review
As a movie buff, I am always in the hunt for that defining moment in a movie that justifies its title. The film adaptation of Chetan Bhagat’s book ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’ by director Abhishek Kapoor has been aptly titled ‘Kai Po Che’. A victory cry that is screamed out during kite flying challenges that Gujarat is so famous for, ‘Kai Po Che’ is a heart-wrenching story of three friends and real life tragedies faced by the bourgeois of growing India. More »
Rooting the New India – I, Me Aur Main
I, Me Aur Main, the new John Abraham movie, directed by Kapil Sharma and produced by Goldie Behl, is an underwhelming rom-com, where the talent of two beautiful ladies is not fully utilized. More »
Love, Lust and Politics – What the Sequel to Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster has to offer
A rather underrated franchise of movies, the sequel to the critically acclaimed ‘Saheb Biwi aur Gangster’ meets expectations in all aspects of a great film. With an intriguing plot, highly impressive performances and impeccable direction, the movie breaks all norms of sequel movies. More »
Talaash Review
By no means is Talaash a complete end to your search for a perfect movie of talented star cast, screenplay, music, drama and a tinch of Mumbai in dark and in light. Not being an action-packed movie it is a suspense thriller with a paranormal edge –a movie where climax is far from correct predictions. You can barely take your eyes off the screen. More »
Chashme Buddoor An Insult to a Classic
Direction: David Dhawan
Actors: Ali Zafar, Siddharth, Divyendu Sharma and Rishi kapoor
Chashme Buddoor and David Dhavan are a complete mismatch and a disastrous combination.Re-creating a classic and churning the sweetness into mindless and utter stupidity is the best description for the movie.
It has been almost 32 years for the old Chashme Buddoor and still the memories are fresh and memorable. One would not like to forget two predatory friends who constantly look out for shikaar and Miss Chamko.
Their attempts in the movie for getting girls were too endearing that the term chamko never sounded offensive. It had certain lightness and fresh approach. However the remake is inevitably loud and noisy. Mr. Dhavan and his writers Farhad-Sajid and Renuka Kunzru have created a very clumsy story. There is absolutely no subtle frame in the movie including the costumes, background score and jokes. Lyrics of the song are high-pitched vulgar where they address Lillette Dubey as a ‘dhhaki Hui Mallika Sherawat’. It is a story of 3 roommates and their constant interaction with one girl which is extremely dragged and frenzied with songs on beaches and malls. A brainless comedy with Goa as the location complete with bikinis and alcohol.
Fatal flaw of this movie is the casting. Rishi Kapoor enacting the owner of a Tattoo Bar cannot cary his role due to his age and the main lead Ali Zafar tried hard to fit in Dev Anands character but has not even managed an iota of his image. Infact he shouldn’t have moved away from his usual character. Aping legends is not easy and young actors and experienced directors should keep this in mind while making a movie. Divyendu and Sharma and Siddharth have done a far better role to salvage the film. Tapsi Pannu saying ‘Dum hai, boss’ at regular intervals has not done a great job either. However, Lallan Miyan from the original movie by Saeed Jaffrey’s is a miss.
Though this movie delivers the occasional laugh at few scenes where someone is slapping someone else or a tired Bolltwood reference but the jokes are of a very mediocre. One cannot expect a sensible comedy or anything that makes logic. If you can settle for that, check it out.
If you have nothing to do in a weekend and is getting absolutely bored and not in a mood to apply brains, then go for a movie. Or else skipping it is more worthwhile.
Go Audience Go GO GOA GONE
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir das and Anand Tiwari.
Director: Krishna DK and Raj Nidimoru
A new genre of film-Zombies. Indian audience might have to Google the term and understand what’s, who’s and where’s to be in sync with a movie. Start of a movie is extremely hilarious with a tinch of adult dialogues and jokes. it is a story of 3 friends living together supported by Bunny (played by Anand Tiwari)-a nerd who helps them to get a decent job and supports them financially in lot of ways, Luv (Vir Das) dumped in love by his girlfriend who gets back to his life of a drug addict and the third character played by Kunal Khemu-Hardik who is the most spoilt of all.
Infact the names itself are quiet easy to judge the decent characters and the spoilt ones.
Movie takes a kick when Luv losses his girlfriend, Hardik is thrown out of his job for getting caught making out at work and Bunny has a presentation in Goa. They all travel together on Bunny’s expenses. The surprise opens up in a rave party organised by a Delhi based goon portraying himself as a Russian Mafia using their Russian-English twisted accent with blonde hair played by one of the producer of the movie-Saif Ali Khan. Guest of the party turns Zombie after consuming a blue colour capsule drug. After effects unknown to anyone.
Now the movie turns into a nightmare when the zombies are all over the place trying to eat living human. And these 3 along with a debut actress with Saif are their prey. With all the hardships of running around, hiding, imitating zombies, walking in their pattern, hitting bullets on their head as that is the only part that keeps them alive apparently they return safe after discovering that you can completely get rid of them by intoxicating zombies with another drug. Don’t use your brains here or any logic.
Weakness of the movie: absolutely no story, a complete waste of Saif’s and Anand Tiwaris talent and the movie loses the plot in the second half. Honestly too much of Zombie.
Strengths: Comic timing, background score and new concept.
This movie is a good trial for different genres. If it is accepted by the audience in a positive way, Indian Cinema will be motivated to try new things in the movies. It will encourage movie makers to get over legacy and typical films and explore and experiment different options. Kunal Khemu is a surprise package. Would like to see more of him. Vir Das is a perfect character to the role and can be given more room to act.
An overall good movie with a different concept.
Shootout At Wadala Watch the Making of Manohar to Manya
Cast: John Abraham, Tusshar Kapoor, Kangna Ranaut, Anil Kapoor, Sonu Sood and Manoj Bajpai
Direction: Sanjay Gupta
The movie ‘Shootout At Wadala’ is a film based on S. Hussain Zaidi’s book on ‘Dongri to Dubai’ where Mumbai Police records their first encounter of the goon ‘Manya Surve’ at Wadala on November 1, 1982.
The story unfolds the life of ‘Manohar’ played by John Abraham who was a sincere college student and wanted to decently pass out and get a job for his smooth living for his mother, but was unfairly accused of a crime and put into jail. From thereon he decides, if the life of doer of no crime is this, he will now on get involved in crime and live a free life. So his journey of revenge commences from thereon. He trains himself to fight from the co-jailer and one day escapes with a jailhouse friend to start his own gang as ‘Manya Surve and company’.
Logically, John Abraham was designer perfect as Manya the hunk hero who is emotionally vulnerable but shrewd as a goon. John tries to gives his best to the film, by his action hero avatar but has not been able to deliver the punch required.
The heroine Kangna Ranaut does not get much exposure as Manya’s lover, also as it is a male dominated subject. The inclusion of three item songs done by Sunny Leone, Priyanka Chopra and Sophie Choudhry just come and go and does not add any major entertainment value.
The supporting characters are portrayed by some of the big names that include Manoj Bajpai who seems to be enjoying his comeback. People expected more of the funny angle of cop played by Mahesh Manjrekar. Anil Kapoor plays the senior-most cop for the task of getting hold of Manya and a small mention of Jackie Shroff shows up.
Audience who know the real story of Manohar turning to Manya and all those who enjoy explosions, the goon language, the lines commonly used in 70’s, few item songs, the solid action sequence of running through jumping on trains, shots at point blank range, the genre will be satisfied with the typical Sanjay Gupta movie. Dialogues such as ‘Dua karna ki who din ‘Gudi Padwa’ ya ‘Id’ na ho! reflects some spiritual sentiments in gangsters.
Since the script is based on real story, one cannot expect larger than life sequences, just the machismo act of Manya Surve.
Tribute to Horror Ek Thi Daayan
Actors: Emraan Hashmi, Huma Qureshi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin
Direction: Kannan Iyer
This movie simply reminded me of Rapunzel- long locks and beautiful and pretty women. The only difference is she was like an angel and they are witches. The rationale of raising hair on back of the neck is portrayed extremely well in Ek Thi Daayan co-produced by Ekta Kapoor and Vishal Bhardwaj. The motto of the movie is well gripped in the first half. However, it fades in the next half.
This movie will easily glue you to your seat and in few scenes will get you goose bumps. Until the intermission debutant director Kannan Iyer has successfully created horror in the theatre. In the fast half one might find it difficult to get over the name of the lead actor and the hero of the movie BOBO-The Magician played by Imran Hashmi. He suffers from hallucinations which bothers him during his act and hence undergoes hypnosis to understand the real reason of it. He discovers that the cause lies in his childhood where he was terrorized by a woman called Diana, who apparently is the first daayan of the movie played by Konkana Sen Sharma. She has done an extremely good job and makes you believe in the whole gamut of witch life and Satan no-666. The threads of the story is a Lift that goes below the ground level to Hell, witches turning into lizards, they walking reverse feet are extremely well shot. Screen players Mukul Sharma and Bhardwaj have been able to maintain trusted ambiguity.
Set up of a story is done extremely well where Bobo’s father gets married to Diana and on the 29th of Feb (leap year) she kills his daughter as a sacrifice for her existence. There are moments in the movie which can make anyone jump and hold on to your neighbour. Konkana is deliciously wicked with her witchy smile. At one point, you might even shut your eyes to avoid the horror.
Biggest disappoint in the movie is Kalki. Though she is a talented actress but her potential is not utilised anywhere in the movie. Looks like she doesn’t fit in the story at all. Huma Qureshi presence is decent in the movie. Second half movie is a little drag. They planned to get a twist in the climax which dint turn well. The pace of the movie slackens which is a major drawback. It loses complete focus. Climax looks like typical Ramsay movie where the witch is jumping from one place to the other and reading some unknown witch notes. Climax could have been a little more well drafted and shot.
It is an opportunity lost as a A-grade horror movie. Still, I would recommend it. Scare in the night is for sure.
Himmatwala
Even if Sajid Khan repeatedly screams from the rooftops about how his ‘Himmatwala’ is not a remake of the 80’s Jeetendra starrer but simply a ‘rewrite’ that has the original’s essence, there is no excuse for him to even have made this film, forget christen it with the same name.
The film is indeed intended to look like the 80’s flick, what with the typical dancing on the beach in elaborate mermaid type costumes and the ‘pallu’ tearing scenes to tie on the hero’s wounds but what he fails to realise is that it did not work then and it certainly does not work now!
In fact, this Ajay Devgan starrer is neither a spoof, nor a tribute to the original. It is a disaster!
The movie is about a village Pujari with a ‘pure as the Ganges soul’ and picture perfect values. All he intends to do is protect his co-villagers from the bad man of the village the villainous Sher Singh. He once witnesses Sher Singh murdering a villager but before he can warn the community, the goon’s men have already reached them and spread lies about the pujari being a thief. What follows is devastation as the innocent priest hangs himself to death, not being able to face the wrath. His young son Ravi, barely over 3 feet high, manages to sneak into Sher Singh’s house and axe his arm. Revenge takes new form as the goon’s men burn his house down and yet Ravi manages to escape and run away….. only to return to Rampur many years later, to avenge his father’s death.
However, as always there is a twist…. Ravi isn’t Ravi. The real Ravi played by Ritesh Deshmukh dies in a weird car accident the day he decides to return to the village. His friend played by Ajay Devgan promises to take on his identity and return to the village to avenge his father’s death and protect his mother and sister!
Ravi falls in love with goon’s daughter who miraculously turns into an angel from a hunter whipping, ‘I hate Garibs’ mouthing spoilt brat, when she is saved from a tiger by Ravi. The same Tiger that she had unleashed on to the villagers!
Nothing, not Ajay’s acting talent, not the supposed slapstick comedy and not even Sonakshi Sinha’s ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ number make the movie worth watching.
Save yourself some time and money, stay home and avoid Himmatwala. As the joke doing the rounds rightly says, you need a lot of ‘Himmat’ to watch this one!
Frankenweenie a Heart Warming Tale of Spooky Town
Director – Tim Burton, Cast – Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara
Famous gothic director, Tim Burton ventured into his first animated film – ‘Frankenweenie’ by continuing to exhibit a magnificent story in darker tones of greys and blacks. His first even filming venture without Johnny Depp since 2005, this story revolves around Victor, an awkward schoolboy. This character is believed to be inspired from the filmmaker’s younger self.
In the movie, Victor is able to bring his dead dog Sparky back to life with an experiment associated with lightening. The movie is ‘Frankenstein’ version 2.0 with a softened version of the American suburbs. The movie also acknowledges the mid-century American horror movies that the director of the film grew up watching.
In spite of being a children’s movie, it comes with a fascinating sense of ghoul. The movie also highlights some highly pleasurable messages associated with creativity, science, reason and the thirst for knowledge which often works against convention and dogma.
Victor fights his way through the movie to make his science project happen against challenges in the form of anti-intellectual behaviour which is well elaborated through the gym teacher who claims that ‘Sometimes knowing too much is problem.’
From the perspective of the director, this movie was an extension to this short film which he created back in 1984. The story continues in black and white, using simple techniques in stop-motion 3D animation. This tool has enabled him to bring in a sense of simplicity in his work which is contradictory to his conventional movies.
For adults and children alike the movie grips you from the very beginning. With well detailed characters such as Victor’s friend Edgar, who comes with wiggly legs and oversized teeth; and his intriguing European science teacher, Mr. Rzykruski.
The irony of this cartoon is that by highlighting the power of science, ‘Frankenweenie’ takes a sideswipe at creationists. At the same time, he has been able to do so by taking inspirations from Frankenstein, the ultimate spooky creator of all.
All in all, this movie is one of Burton’s most pleasing films which is evidently extremely personal even to him.
With releases such as Paranorman and Hotel Transylvania also releasing around the same time, there is an evident trend in the themes that were picked for animated movies this year. Frankenweenie definitely scores on the top of the list when it comes to must watch animated movies from 2012!
Life Of Pi Survival of the Fittest
Cast: Adil Hussain, Irrfan Khan, Rafe Spall, Suraj Sharma, Tabu Gerard Depardieu and Shravanthi Sainath
Life of Pi is an exact narration of a struggle of a boy named Pi in middle of a lost sea with a Bengal tiger. The filmmaker must have required a lot of courage and eye for detail to develop this film and with great sense of screenplay.
This story has a story within. It is a movie that makes you believe in God and self-determination. This movie is a narration by Irrfan Khan (Pi) to a Canadian author about his extraordinary life incident where spirituality meets reality.
Life of Pi revolves around a two central character who obtains their names by comic accident. Piscine named after his uncles favorite swimming pool in Paris which then later gets changed to a Greek letter Pi after being teased by his schoolmates as ‘pissing’.
The second character is the Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker which accidentally gets exchanged during delivery to the zoo. Is this chance or fate?
Pi from his childhood is shown as a firm follower of different religions like Hinduism, Christianity and Islam rejecting his father’s rationalism. His faith is tested when the entire family is relocating to Canada along with all the zoo animals and gets struck by a storm leaving Pi as an orphan on a boat with a hyena, a female orang-utan, a zebra and a gigantic Bengal tiger-Richard Parker as a company.
The beauty of the movie lies in the portion where he is trying to win over all the obstacles in Mariana Trench-the deepest point in Pacific Ocean and winning his command over the tiger. (Others become prey to the superior canine)
In his journey of survival he confronts a mighty storm where he loses all his food, a fleet of flying fish, a humpbacked whale, night illuminated by jellyfish, galloping dolphins along with training the fierce tiger and teaches him lessons of survival.
It’s a thriller and and a perfect adventurous movie where 3-D effect adds to the excellency of film making. The 227 days in middle of the sea is a challenge to mental and physique adaptation to faith. Suraj sharma has done justice to Pi’s spiritual journey and nocturnal nights. A perfect tribute to Darwins theory.
It is a sure win for awards and international nominations. A strong recommendation and a must watch.
Rangrezz Is it Really Adding Colour to life
‘Rangrezz’, the representative meaning being someone who adds colour to life is a movie full of social drama. The three friends bound together with the concept of ‘diaper dost’ childhood buddies find nothing wrong in risking their lives for friendship.
The location was meant to be the Mumbai chawls and the characters happy with their middle class ambition of finding a job and happily settled ever after. The plot revolves around 3 friends; Jackky Bhagnani leads the trio as Rishi, striving for a policemen job because the would-be father in law expects him to be in a government job. Amitosh Nagpal as Vinu is a simple man in the trio, who wants to open a computer centre and the third played by Vijay Verma as Pakkya, is a person with no major goal in life but always on the verge of nervous breakdown.
The happen to come together for the cause of love when Rishi’s friend Joy comes to Mumbai for seeking help to reunite him with his love and also attempts suicide. Joy and his girlfriend (Jasmine) who belongs to strong political backgrounds with a father played by Pankaj Tripathi and a mother Lushin Dubey who do not want their kids to go ahead with their relationship.
To make things work smoothly for the couple in a town called Lalitpur, Uttar Pradesh they take the help of Rajpal Yadav who gives them Lodging and boarding free and involves him in the planning to kidnap Jasmine with her consent and marry them in a temple and send them off to Goa. Here comes the flavor of Priyardarshan movies of some car chases, gun-wielding goons, wounded body parts and heartfelt monologues about friendship. In the track to sacrifice for friendship Rishi hurts his eye, Venu has to amputee his leg and Pakkya loses his hearing ability.
Jackky Bhagnani plays the character with ease, Vijay Verma is spot-on with his roadside youth and Rajpal Yadav at his best with fiery one-liner and providing enough comic relief. Priya Anand who plays Bhagnani’s love interest is slightly underwhelming. The initial two songs in the first half, one romantic number and the other Govinda (Mumbai style) song are entertaining. One of the highlights of promotion and probably the song to drive audience to theatre the ‘Gangnam Style’ comes right at the end, so you need to sit through the closing credits.
There was dramatic twist with a punch and some comic timing, while the intention may be honest, the implementation had the deficit of the same emotion. One certainly expected more!
A ‘Jolly’-Good Movie
Jolly LLB is a complete feel-good movie and a remarkable satirical act. It is a story which is prevailing in the society as a dark patch on Indian jurisdiction and other lawful parties of Indian government.
It s story which talks about a small time lawyer from Meerut-Jolly (Arshad Warsi), who dreams of becoming a rich and successful litigator. He moves to Delhi to chase his dreams supported by his brother in law. After working hard for a month and attending trials he tries the easy and smart way to get famous and popular by roping himself in a high profile hit and run case handled by country’s top lawyer Rajpal (Boman Irani). A lawyer, who can twist and turn the case by manipulating the evidence to win it. Jolly’s first case is against Rajpal. This in itself becomes difficult for him where he is not even aware of lot of facts and rules of the trials in a court.
However he refuses to get intimated and finds his inner hero or a Bollywood hero to prove the real picture and give justice to people living on footpaths. This is a rare case in Kafkaesque Indian courts.
Movie becomes interesting with its transformation from a comic act to a serious one. It’s a treat to see Jolly Succeeding on celluloid. There are lots of punch lines in the movie which depicts dark humor of Indian justice and court trials. Especially when the judge reminds us by stating there are more than 3 crore cases pending, policeman have to bid for their locations and transfers and Rajpal reminding jolly by saying” Yeh court hai, yahan kuch jaldi nahi hota”. At one point in time it makes the audience laugh, but certainly leaves a very strong message of how corrupt, slow and irresponsible the system has become. The movie offers a strong storyline with a climax of justice over all the elite and the lies.
Quarrels between both the lawyers in the court have been able to steal the show and have succeeded in pulling out laughter. One enters the theatre after watching the promos with an expectation of comedy; however it turns out to be an inspiring and motivating movie. Leaves behind lot of questions unanswered.
The clumsiest track in the movie which is absolutely not required is the love angle of Jolly. Amrita Rao, stumbles badly in the scene where she confronts his unlawful and unethical motives. Songs are forced in the movie.
Movie runs on 3 important and deserving shoulders -Arshad Warsi, Boman Irani and Saurabh Shukla who has played an extremely convincing act of a judge. The scene where he complains of not having an air conditioner in a court is portrayed well. The only drawback of the movie is Jolly’s struggle doesn’t last for too long and he wins over the case in last 20 minutes of the movie which doesn’t look too convincing. There are absolutely no obstacles and Rajpal is shown extremely helpless in the last run.
This movie has a heart and that is one good reason to buy a movie ticket. Subhash Kapoor writer and director of the movie has skillfully created a theatre of satire.
