Year: 2016
Category: Drama
Release Date: Feb 12, 2016
Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Cast: Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur, Tabu
Censor Ratings: (U/A)
Showing posts with label Movies Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies Review. Show all posts
Fitoor
Year: 2016
Category: Drama
Release Date: Feb 12, 2016
Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Cast: Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur, Tabu
Censor Ratings: (U/A)
Jai Gangaajal
Year: 2016
Category: Drama
Release Date: Mar 04, 2016
Director: Prakash Jha
Cast: Rahul Bhat, Priyanka Chopra, Prakash Jha
Censor Ratings: (U/A)
THE PLOT
Jai Gangaajal is a story of the police-society relationship revisited. It is the story of a policewoman who happens to be from todays day and age.
Kyaa Kool Hain Hum 3
Year: 2016
Category: Comedy
Release Date: Jan 22, 2016
Director: Umesh Ghadge
Cast: Mandana Karimi, Aftab Shivdasani, Tusshar Kapoor
Censor Ratings: (U/A)
THE PLOT
The movie revolves around Tusshar and Aftabs attempt to earn money. In order to turn their fortunes around, they approach their rich friend, Krushna who lives abroad for help. Although the duo plot several quick-rich-schemes, they always end up in trouble. The story follows their journey filled with masti and double meaning comedy.
Dum Laga Ke Haisha Movie Review
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Bhumi Pednekar, Kumar Sanu, Sanjay Mishra, Alka Amin, Sheeba Chaddha, Seema Pahwa, Sanjeeva Vatsa, Shardul Rana, Chandrachoor Rai, Shrikant Verma, Mahesh Sharm
Director: Sharat Katariya
Producer: Aditya Chopra, Maneesh Sharma
Production Co: Yash Raj Films
Music Director: Anu Malik
Here at last is a YRF film with some real dum. Dum Laga Ke Haisha packs a wallop of a simple yet unconventional story told from the heart. It’s a film that makes you laugh, makes you cry, and makes you root for the protagonists as they discover love in an unexpected way.
The film is set in the 1990s, when Kumar Sanu was the king of playback singing, when audio cassettes were the staple of music lovers, when the antediluvian Bajaj scooters were the coveted ride, and when Limca was the surefire relief from acidity. In those times in Haridwar, lives a meek and timid school-dropout named Prem Prakash Tiwari (Ayushmann Khurrana), who harbours the romantic dream of marrying a svelte, jeans-clad girl but is married off by his overbearing father to an overweight girl named Sandhya (Bhumi Pednekar).
The marriage obviously doesn’t take off, as Prem is embarrassed of Sandhya every step of the way, even though she likes him.
Sandhya is a contrast to her husband in many ways. He’s thin, she’s anything but that. He’s academically challenged; she’s educated. He’s a pushover; she doesn’t take hurt lying down. The marriage comes to the point of falling apart. But then a sliver of hope and love shines through.
Dum Laga Ke Haisha is not the least bit burdened by the trappings of a big banner film. It eschews not just the mainstream clichés but also the ones we’ve come to expect from the YRF films set in small-town India.
This Sharat Katariya-directorial has its heart in the right place and it tells us that beauty isn’t skin deep. At the core of the film is a touching story that spreads its tentacles around you slowly and then devours you in a heart-warming climax.
The film recreates the milieu of the 1990s with much conviction, thanks to a swell job by the production designer Meenal Agarwal. The writing is pretty spot on and laced with wit. My only gripe is about a few unnecessary deviations the film takes in the second half.
Ayushmann Khurrana redeems himself after the forgettable ‘Hawaizaada’ with a very ‘unheroic’ performance that makes one sit up and take note. But it is the film’s roly-poly leading lady Bhumi Pednekar who walks away with a resounding applause for her very natural, effortless and yet immensely moving performance. This debutante surely knows how to make her presence felt in more ways than one.
The support cast comprising Sanjay Mishra (as Ayushmann’s father), Alka Amin (mom) and Sheeba Chadda (aunt) chip in well.
Kudos to director Sharat Katariya for telling a moving tale simply and effectively. Kudos to producer Maneesh Sharma for backing this wonderful project. And kudos to Yash Raj Films for supporting a good film.
‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ is the best thing you can find at the movies this week. Don’t miss it.
Rating: ***1/2
Source: Apun Ka Choice
Chillar Party Movie Review
All the Pamela Andersons and Celina Jaitleys who strip to stop cruelty to animals and whose steamy PETA ads are like magnets to many eyeballs, now have competition from a very unexpected quarter: a bunch of feisty kids in a middle-class housing society in Mumbai.
A tribe of tykes ride on bicycles, congregate in dusty sheds, and steamroll the enemy team on the cricket field. The gang is called Chillar Party and they have a new task at hand: a poor waif Fatka (Irrfan Khan) and his inseparable other half Bheedu (a dog).
Fatka enters the housing society and takes up petty car-washing jobs and comes under the crosshairs of the Chillar Party before securing his place in it by proving his pluck on the cricket field.
All is well in the first half and the audiences are laughing silly at the juvenile gags. But then the film moves onto a somewhat serious terrain as a dog-despising politician vows to clean the city of stray dogs, which means Bheedu, now an inseparable part of the Chillar Party, could soon be cooped and done away with.
That’s when the spunky kids decide to take the cudgels for the canine and hoist a banner of rebellion against the cynic and corrupt politician. Their way of protest -- stripping to their undies in public. And they do grab the eyeballs.
Chillar Party is a sweet little film that starts off very well but steers into a bumpy zone in the second half as the standoff between the kids and the politico begins. Of course, there’s a message or two squeezed in here by the director duo Vikas Bahl and Nitesh Tiwari.
The kids are all right, but it’s Fatka, Encyclopaedia and Mottu who stand out. The movie packs in funny moments aplenty, most notable being the ones where the kids begin to imitate Fatka’s style.
All in all, a film with a heart and ample humour. Quite canny for Salman Khanto back it as a producer - his first one and surely worth a watch.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
A tribe of tykes ride on bicycles, congregate in dusty sheds, and steamroll the enemy team on the cricket field. The gang is called Chillar Party and they have a new task at hand: a poor waif Fatka (Irrfan Khan) and his inseparable other half Bheedu (a dog).
Fatka enters the housing society and takes up petty car-washing jobs and comes under the crosshairs of the Chillar Party before securing his place in it by proving his pluck on the cricket field.
All is well in the first half and the audiences are laughing silly at the juvenile gags. But then the film moves onto a somewhat serious terrain as a dog-despising politician vows to clean the city of stray dogs, which means Bheedu, now an inseparable part of the Chillar Party, could soon be cooped and done away with.
That’s when the spunky kids decide to take the cudgels for the canine and hoist a banner of rebellion against the cynic and corrupt politician. Their way of protest -- stripping to their undies in public. And they do grab the eyeballs.
Chillar Party is a sweet little film that starts off very well but steers into a bumpy zone in the second half as the standoff between the kids and the politico begins. Of course, there’s a message or two squeezed in here by the director duo Vikas Bahl and Nitesh Tiwari.
The kids are all right, but it’s Fatka, Encyclopaedia and Mottu who stand out. The movie packs in funny moments aplenty, most notable being the ones where the kids begin to imitate Fatka’s style.
All in all, a film with a heart and ample humour. Quite canny for Salman Khanto back it as a producer - his first one and surely worth a watch.
Rating: 3 stars out of 5
Murder 2
Murder 2. “Just cut off the darned root of the problem.” Well, that seems to be the mantra of the psychopathic, misogynist, serial killer inMurder 2. He’s sure had a troubled past. When the sexual attraction towards women had the better of him, he cut off the damned root of it (if you know what I mean). But when the attraction didn’t cease, he turned the blade towards women and began abducting them and slicing them off in little pieces and packing them in big poly bags (not banned in Goa yet?) and dumping them in a deep dark well in the backyard of the creepy mansion he lives and kills in.
Meet the consummate nutcase Dheeraj (Prashant Narayan) who’s plain lame, and anything but his name. And meet the ex copper Arjun (Emraan Hashmi) who works with Goan pimps and druglords and sleeps around with a PYT named Priya (Jacqueline Fernandez). She loves him, but he reciprocates her affection by doing the obvious in the bed and later offering her a wad of money. “Rakh le,” he says with a deadpan expression.
But Murder 2 is more about Reshma (Sulagna Panigrahi), a young girl whom Arjun uses as a bait to trap the man behind the mysterious disappearances of prostitutes in Goa, not knowing that he was feeding the rookie hookie to a raving lunatic.
Far from being a crank with an ingenious methodology, the serial killer inMurder 2 is impulsive and even downright dumb, and his murders are artless despite him being a sculptor. So the hammer and chisel are mere props while his weapon of choice is something that will put a lot of kirtan-loving ladies at unease.
Surprisingly, Prashant Narayan isn’t bogged down by the sketchy character written by Mahesh Bhatt. Narayan lends edginess to Dheeraj’s lunacy, a discomforting menace to the madman. In comparison, Emraan Hashmi as the cop is mostly left huffing and puffing. His character is resentful towards God, and much like the Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) of Deewar he doesn’t step inside the church even when a semi-clad Jacqueline Fernandez eggs him to do so. In one scene when he stands in front of a statue of a crucified Jesus, you half expect Hashmi to say “Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum”.
Director Mohit Suri displays shocking amateurishness in a lot of scenes. There are continuity blunders like Hashmi’s stubble mysteriously getting bushier or lighter from one scene to another, or a scene where posse of cops appear out of nowhere at a temple just as Emraan rushes in to have a dekko at the dead body inside. And guess what? Once he sees the victim in the welter of blood, a song follows!
Jeez! At that point and threw my arms in the air and looked around to check what other people were doing in the theatre. A couple necking and petting in the front row. The guy next to me glued to his cell. The aunty in the front gorging on popcorns. The uncle looking around, just like me.
This was a film that was supposed to keep us on the edge of our seats and knock the very breath out of our lungs. It doesn’t. Not that we expected some sort of Hitchcockian suspense, or Hannibalistic chills, or John Doesque lunacy. All we bargained for was a taut thriller which Murder 2 is far from being. Yet, credit to Prashant Narayan for saving the day for the Bhatts. For once, the serial killer outshines the serial kisser.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
Delhi Belly
The camera scans through the cracked roof and the messy interior of a run-down room, through the musty bathroom and its antediluvian flush, and rests at last on the partly exposed bumline of the fatso who’s going to have the Delhi belly after eating a piping hot fried chicken handmade by a crotch-scratching vendor. Writer and associate director Akshat Verma sure has an imagination to cook up a plot that’s clever and hilarious without ever succumbing to the slapstick.
In this ramshackle room reside three chums - Tashi (Imran Khan), Arup (Vir Das) and Nitin (Kunaal Roy Kapur). Tashi is a journalist with a girlfriend (Shenaz Treasurywala) he doesn’t really want to marry. Arup is a cartoonist in an ad firm, and Nitin a photographer. The plot thickens when Nitin suffers from diarrhoea, and a package containing his shit sample is mixed up with another package containing smuggled diamonds.
In one of the best and yet yucky scenes in the film, the gangster (Vijay Raaz), after receiving the package, lays out a velvety cloth on the table, carefully brushes away the dust, and opens the container and upends it for the glory of sparkling diamonds, but what comes out is slushy shit.
The squeamish souls be forewarned. Delhi Belly is stuffed with scatological gags. There’s more orange juice in the refrigerator than water in the bathroom for the diarrhoeal Nitin to potty wash. And hardly a few reels go by when he isn’t scurrying to a seedy toilet to relieve himself, and also farting liberally on the way. This apart, there’s a lot of risqué humour. Like that scene when Arup, dumped by his girlfriend for a Canadian techie, imagines himself ruining her marriage with a revelation that’s simply ‘blows’ everyone’s mind. A lot of funny scenes involve the gangster Vijay Raaz and his cronies, particularly a nitwit baldie who calls laundry “lundry” and is caught up in the confusion of putting on and then taking off the gun silencer when the moment comes to pull the trigger.
Performances are pretty spot on. Imran Khan doesn’t crack much humour, but is verily the non-committal guy with the gumption to take on a gangster or rob a jeweller or simply concuss an irate brat with a flower pot. Vir Das does chip in humour in the edgeways but it is Kunaal Roy Kapur who takes the cake with his creditable portrayal of an immoral, blackmailing, shrewd character with an upset tummy. A special mention for Vijay Raaz and his gang of oddballs. Raaz is decidedly amusing yet has a subdued menacing streak. He’s particularly brilliant with the cuss words, which Delhi Belly is generously sprinkled with. Poorna Jagannathan does make her presence felt as Tashi’s colleague.
Songs only play in the background and the cinematography verily captures the essence of downtown Delhi. As someone who has shuffled through the grime of Delhi streets for a good part of struggling life, I did not watch Delhi Belly in its original English version. Nah! The spirit of Delhi, its gullies and gaalis, cannot be captured in a language that’s still at best cosmetic for Indians. You need the absolute vernacular of desi Hindi when mouthing cuss words of the G@, L# and Ch%%% variety. It’s a pity that the film is only dubbed in Hindi, which should have been its original language.
Yet, credit to producer Aamir Khan and director Abhinay Deo for making a film that’s unpretentious, crass, but extremely funny. Yes, it takes a few cinematic liberties which leave you a tad disappointed (like the trio going scot-free after a bloody shootout), but all in all Delhi Belly (Hindi dubbed) is a film that anyone who’s an adult and not a DK Bose, shouldn’t miss.
So don’t think or blink. Just Bhaaag!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Bbuddah - Hoga Terra Baap
Charmi, Mahie Gill, Makrand Deshpande, Shahwar Ali, Rajeev Mehta, Rajeev Varma, Vishwajeet Pradhan,Atul Parchure , Abhishek BachchanDirector: Puri JagannathBanner: AB CorpMusic: Shekhar Ravjiani , Vishal DadlaniSound: Rakesh RanjanLyrics: Anvita Dutt GuptanCinematography: Amol RathodEditing: ShekharArt Direction: Aparna SudStory/Writer: Poori JagannathAction Direction: Vijay (3)Choreography: Remo D'SouzaCostume: Nahid Shah
Bbuddah - Hoga Terra Baap. Before the newly anointed superstars paved their way to stardom by doffing shirts or by their flared-nostril stutters, there was a mega star who at his best then could have been the baap of every self-proclaimed star today had he retained his pizzazz and had directors continued to come up with scripts and roles to match his talent. Director Puri Jagannadh tries to bring that baap back with a bombastic tribute toAmitabh Bachchan in the film Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap.
Alas Jagannadh’s idea of a befitting tribute doesn’t go beyond recreating the panache and swagger and paying token homage to the best cinematic moments of the superstar. So we have Amitabh Bachchan dressed in the gaudiest of togs, boogieing with a bunch of blondes to a medley of his popular songs from ‘Paan Banaras Wala’ to ‘Rang Barse’. In action, Big B bashes up the baddies singlehandedly and flaunts his ambidexterity with guns. And all this he does in the film that has a threadbare script to prop the comeback megastar’s shtick.
So a good length of the film unspools by with Big B just bumming around with pretty babes (Charmee and Sonal Chauhan) or training his gun on a copper (Sonu Sood) or impressing the goons (Makrand Deshpande and Prakash Raj) in seedy dens with his sharp shooting skills.
Bachchan plays an ex-hitman Viju who returns from Paris to Mumbai on his last assignment which seems assassinating the crime-busting ACP (Sonu Sood). However, as the story progresses new equations are unravelled and a family picture emerges.
The troubles with Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap are many. It’s disjointed, it’s hardly got any story or plot progression, and it hinges only on Amitabh Bachchan’s strut and swagger. The superstar doubtlessly delivers and saves the film from being an outright disaster, but one expected a better tribute to the man who’s immortalized many a role, many a dialogue in Hindi films, including a seething monologue with the almighty.
In supporting roles, Raveena Tandon (as Viju’s smitten admirer) is almost reduced to a caricature while Hema Malini (as Viju’s wife) rekindles the old chemistry of Naseeb days. Sonu Sood doesn’t do much more than woo Sonal Chauhan who looks pretty and acts okay. Charmee simply disappears after the first half.
All in all, Bbuddah Hoga Terra Baap is strictly for Amitabh Bachchan fans.
Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
All The Best Movie Review
Star Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan, Bipasha Basu, Mugdha Godse, Asrani Director: Rohit Shetty
Producer: Ajay Devgan
Banner: Devgan Entertainment
Music Director: Pritam
Lyricist: Kumaar
Release Date: October 16, 2009
There is no end in sight to the woes of Veer and Prem, played by Fardeen Khan and Ajay Devgan. Veer, a wannabe rockstar, and Prem, a car aficionado, are good at one thing - cooking up lies and fooling other people to cover up their own truth.
Veer has been footing the bills of his luxurious life in Goa besides helping the cash-strapped Prem from the pocket money he gets from big brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt) who doesn’t stay in Goa. Veer has lied to his brother that he’s married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse) to get thicker wads of pocket money. Prem, in turn, is married to Jhanvi (Bipasha Basu). She runs his ancestral gym with second hand treadmills that often speed up instead of stopping.
All is well, until Dharam shows up to meet his younger brother and his wife. Mistakenly, he takes Bipasha as Fardeen’s wife and Mugdha as Devgan’s girlfriend. What follows is a comedy of mistaken identities as Prem and Veer pile up lie upon lie to keep the charade going until times comes for Dharam to leave for his home in Lusoto. But then, there’s a coup in Lusoto and Dharam’s stay is extended.
On the sidelines there’s a menagerie of madcap characters including a tenant who’s eager to move into Veer’s sprawling bungalow. He’s turns up with all the furniture loaded in a tempo outside Veer’s house but gets a bashing from Dharam. Or the local don (Johnny Lever) who seems like the offspring of Sir Judah from Karz, for he talks with his cronies by jangling a spoon inside a glass.
Rohit Shetty, the director of ‘Golmaal’ series, comes up with a breezy, bouncy comedy that abounds with silliness but still packs in ample laughs. True to his signature style, the young director spices the comedy up with tons of action. Cars turn turtle, get blown, and even do the pirouette.
Ajay Devgn (with an ‘a’ flicked out of his surname) does some dangerous stunts besides showing his comic flair. He is best in the scenes with Sanjay Dutt. Playing a suspicious brother given to groping the women around him in moments of panic, Dutt becomes the catalyst for humour in many a scene. Fardeen is lovable as the over-the-top goofball. Bipasha and Mugdha are mainly there to glam up the comedy. Johnny Lever and Sanjay Mishra chip in with their brand of humour.
The movie could have done better without a song (Pritam) or two - they’re peppy but nothing to hum about. The action is good but the climax - when a bunch of Africans land up in Goa - gets a bit chaotic.
Still, the movie is fun to watch.
Rating: ***
Bollywood Movie Wanted Review
Cast Salman Khan, Ayesha Takia, Mahesh Manjrekar, Asseem Merchant
Director Prabhu Deva
Rating: **1/2
‘Wanted’ is Salman Khan’s Ghajini. No, he doesn’t suffer from any short-term memory loss in the film. Rather he mouths about half a dozen times the dialogue: “Ek baar maine jo commitment kar di, phir main apni bhi nahin sunta”. But, like Aamir, Sallu does get to flaunt his rippling muscles, his biceps, triceps, abs, and what not (including the glint of his Vicco-vajradanti teeth), in a series of bone-breaking, jaw-crushing, blood-spluttering fights that makes you feel he’s the ‘last action hero’ that sadly came too late in the day.
Salman Khan, the darling of masses, plays to the gallery in Wanted. To an extent, the movie is a showcase of Salman’s looks, his brawny bod, his dance moves and his overall personality, save his acting. And the star, whose career obit has already been penned and will now be edited by his detractors, manages to pull it off with the flamboyance that will get wolf whistles and catty squeals from his loyal fans. Ceetee!!!
A remake of the South hit Pokkiri, ‘Wanted’ tells the story of a sharpshooter and serial bone-breaker named Radhe (Salman Khan), the man who shoots his gun and pumps bullets into his rivals as if he was forwarding an SMS joke to a pal. Cold blooded and only loyal to those who offer him the most wads of money, Radhe switches sides from one gang to another and makes his entry into the gang of Gani Bhai (Prakash Raj), the dreaded gangster on the most wanted list of Mumbai police.
The handsome killer loses his heart to a cute call-centre employee Jhanvi (Ayesha Takia) at first sight. When Radhe saves her from the frisky hands of a corrupt and testosterone-driven cop Talpade (Mahesh Manjrekar), Jhanvi too feels her heart beat and soon is in love with Radhe.
Even as the duo’s love story keeps hitting speed bumps, Radhe is sucked inside a deadly gang war.
Be ready for a twist in the second half that might hit you harder than Salman’s punches hit the baddies.
It’s strongly advisable to rest and resign your thinking faculties while watching ‘Wanted’. Alone, Salman bashes up a dozen goons blue and black in his intro scene and in the next scene is shaking his leg with the likes of Anil Kapoor, Govinda and Prabhu Deva (who pop out of nowhere for this cameo) in a Ganpati song. More than once in the film, a romantic song or a club number is thrown in at the oddest of places. The most bizarre is the end, when Salman walks into the den of the Mafioso Gani Bhai and goes bang, bang, bang, and shoots down everyone without getting as much as a scratch on his shirtless body (yes, Sallu doffs it again).
But then, given that ‘Wanted’ is no cerebral challenge to its viewers, but just a harmless, full-on masala entertainer, a viewer can flush these flaws down with cola and corns.
‘Wanted’ rests on the strong muscles of Salman and powerful performances by Prakash Raj and Mahesh Manjrekar. Ayesha Takia is a treat to the eyes and she can act as well (a combination hard to find). Vinod Khanna is wasted in the most shoddily written role in the film. In fact, some of the dialogues in the film leave you cringing. Sample this - Salman takes on a bunch of goons single-handedly and says “Sooar (pigs) jhund mein ghoomte hain, par sher ekele shikar karta hai.”
Thankfully, director Prabhu Deva sprinkles ‘Wanted’ with regular doses of humour to keep the violence-filled movie light-hearted. Even until the very end when Sallu shoots his last bullet, there’s some silly laughter to be had.
So even though the film is senselessly violent at times, you’ll find some fun in the edgeways.
Main Aurr Mrs Khanna
Movie:Main Aurr Mrs Khanna
Star Cast:Salman Khan (Sameer Khanna)
Kareena Kapoor (Raina Khanna)
Sohail Khan
Preity Zinta (Haseena Jagmagiya)
Produced By Sohail Khan and Ronnie Screwvala
Directed By Prem Soni
Music By Sajid Wajid
Main Aurr Mrs Khanna is upcoming Indian Hindi Film that stars Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Sohail Khan in leading roles. It is a joint production of Sohail Khan Productions and UTV SpotBoy Pictures. This film is produced by Sohail Khan and Ronnie Screwvala and Directed by debutante Prem Soni.
This film is revolves around the theme of extramarital affair. Sameer Khanna (Salman Khan) and Raina Khanna (Kareena Kapoor) who have a fairytale marriage. They have a great life but one wrong decision leads them to parts their ways.
New York - New Bollywood Movie
Movie: New-York
Cast: John Abraham, Katrina Kaif, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan
Writer: Aditya ChopraCostume Designer: Rocky S.
Director: Kabir Khan
Producer: Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra
Banner: Yash Raj Films
Singer: Kay Kay, Sunidhi Chauhan, Mohit Chauhan, Pankaj Awasthi
A star-spangled film that starts off well, builds the plot nicely, but goes completely hay wire in the second half, New York is long, tiresome, but well intentioned.
It opens with the distinctly unique skyline of New York, with the twin towers ominously missing. The SWAT team sweats overtime to round off a terror suspect, Omar ( Neil Nitin Mukesh ), who finds himself in the FBI net after arms and ammunition is found from the trunk of a car owned by him. FBI agent Roshan ( Irrfan Khan ) grills Omar and wrings out all info about Sam ( John Abraham ), Omar’s friend, who the FBI agent claims, is running a sleeper terrorist cell that could strike America anytime.
As Omar narrates the story of his friendship and unrequited love with Sam and Maya ( Katrina Kaif ) we are flashbacked to the year 1999 and on to the campus of New York State University where the three friends (studying god knows what!) bond over chess and American football. They seem like the happiest bunch of buddies in the world until the clock ticks to that fateful day, 9/11, 2001, when, just like the twin towers of WTC, their world comes crashing down.
Back to the present, Roshan, the FBI agent, convinces Omar to go back to Sam and Maya – who are now married and have a cute, long-haired kid – and infiltrate Sam’s sleeper cell as an undercover FBI operative.
Omar, who is sure that his friend Sam could never be a terrorist, takes up the offer, not so much to expose Sam’s truth but prove his (Sam’s) innocence. Little did he realize that his buddy Sam or Sameer Sheikh has a past he doesn’t know of!
From then on, director Kabir Khan tries to delineate the insidious process of the making of a terrorist – how a security-obsessed nation, in its bid to prevent terrorism, ends up creating new terrorists. Alongside it unravels the dilemma of Omar who can’t betray his friend but is willy-nilly drawn to prevent him from committing any terrorist act.
It all boils down to a climax so shoddily imagined and executed that you cease to relate to any of the characters. And the end, which should have ideally given you goose bumps only leaves you itching to get out of the theatre, the heat outside notwithstanding.
Irrfan Khan and Neil Nitin Mukesh are the two towers of ‘New York’. Irrfan, despite being given a few preachy sequences (in which he talks about introspection within the Muslim community and also the new America which is more accepting) lives up to his mettle, while Neil holds the film together with an earnest and sincere performance punctuated with flashes of brilliance.
It’s John, all butt and biceps, who’s the weak link. I know girls love him but John fails to internalize his character of a seething, simmering man who’s been done wrong. Katrina Kaif takes a leap from being all beauty and no talent. Now, she can cry convincingly. A special mention must be made of actor Nawazuddin who plays John’s assistant named Zilgai, an emotional wreck haunted by the torture he underwent under police detention.
Its flaws apart, ‘New York’ does have some very nicely executed sequences. One such is when Zilgai is cornered by cops atop the terrace of a high rise and decides to jump to death. In his final moment as he remembers his god, the last thing he sees is a church in a distance. Or that sequence when John goes to the downtown Brooklyn market with a codeword to contact a sleeper cell. The torture sequences (filmed on a nude John) are more shocking because of their content than execution.
The film’s music is pretty good and unlike other Bollywood flicks it doesn’t impede the story’s progression. The cinematography is nice but the director overdoes the slow-motion shots.
Saddled with a plot-holed script and poor performances from half of its starcast, ‘New York’ falls short of expectations. Watch it if you have three hours to kill.
Rating: **1/2
Movie Trailer
99 Bollywood movie review
Cast :Vinod Khanna, Kunal Khemu, Soha Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Mahesh Manjrekar, Simone Singh, Cyrus Broacha
Nothing is more frustrating than being stuck on 99, where only one run can bring you glory or the lack of it can make all your hard work seem like a waste. The Laurel and Hardy of this Friday’s release 99 are stuck in a similar situation. The world is their playing field, and con is their game.
The year is 1999. Sachin ( Kunal Khemu ) and Zaramud ( Cyrus Broacha ) are the Laurel and Hardy of our story. They make fake SIM cards and are sucked into a bigger mess when they steal and crash a gangster’s Mercedes while running away from cops. To save their skin, the duo are forced to work for the ganglord AGM ( Mahesh Manjrekar ), who is a bookie and has a long list of people to recover his money from. In the list is Rahul ( Boman Irani ), a gambling addict always looking for ‘signs’ and ‘signals’ as favourable or unfavourable omens to bet or gamble his money, if he has any.
AGM
sends Laurel and Hardy to Delhi to recover money from Rahul. Before the duo go about their dirty job, Laurel loses his heart to Pooja ( Soha Ali Khan ). Not just this, the two crooks also end up losing the money they forcibly recover from Rahul. Thereafter, begins a mad chase, where Laurel faces robust goons with fists and kicks, while the barrel of a Hardy spends most of his time in toilet, unloading himself of the butter chicken of previous night.
The director duo of Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. must be lauded for making a refreshingly delightful film with ample funny moments. The humour in the film – expressed in situations and crispy dialogues – is not of the kind we see in typical Bollywood no-brainers. At times it’s witty, at times pure slapstick. Note that sequence about Delhi being a strange city where girls are either named Pooja or Neha, where it’s cold in March, where spoiled brats play loud music in cars, and where everyone is out to steal your stuff. All these things actually transpire in the unraveling of the plot.
Though the pace of the film slackens at few places, the performances by the cast keeps you hooked for most part of the film. Kunal Khemu is totally at ease playing his character while Cyrus Broacha goes over the top a few times. Boman Irani gets the meatiest role in the film and he slips convincingly into his character of an employee in a forex firm whose wife has left him because of his gambling addiction. Soha Ali Khan has a brief role and she plays it well. Mahesh Manjrekar is a delight to watch.
The most surprising of the lot is an actor named Amit Mistry who plays a pint-sized goon out to recover his money from Rahul. There’s also an impactful cameo by Vinod Khanna , as a cricket match fixer.
The film’s music and cinematography are top grade and not once do they hamper the story’s flow.
With its tight script, fine performances and refreshingly different story, ‘99’ turns out to be a total paisa vasool film not just for its characters but also for audiences.
Do give it a shot.
Rating: ***
Firaaq - Movie Reviews
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, Sanjay Suri, Shahana Goswami, Raghuvir Yadav ,Tisca Chopra
Cinematography: Ravi K. Chandran
Editing: Sreekar Prasad
Art Direction: Gautam Sen
Screenplay: Nandita Das, Shuchi Kothari
Story Writer: Nandita Das, Shuchi Kothari
Director: Nandita Das%20of%20DSC_0065.JPG)
Shocking, disturbing and thought-provoking, Nandita Das’s movie Firaaq touches a raw nerve.
Admittedly a work of fiction claimed to be inspired from thousands of true stories, ‘Firaaq’ (meaning quest, or separation) mirrors the gruesome reality of the Gujarat riots in which many Muslims and Hindus were slaughtered.
‘Firaaq’
provides us a peek into the after effects of the riots by taking us into the minds of the characters that populate its parallel stories. The gravity of the subject is established in the opening reel when a truckload of dead bodies are dumped into a mass grave.
A homeless boy Mohsin wanders the streets in search of his Abu. A middle-class housewife Aarti ( Deepti Naval ) battles her guilt of having shut the door on a desperate Muslim woman pleading for life. A Muslim-Hindu couple, Sameer and Anu, ( Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra ) grapple with the altered reality of their surroundings and plan to leave the city. A group of Muslim men gang up to take revenge. An ageing musician Khan Saheb ( Naseeruddin Shah ) is unable to comprehend the senseless violence and massacre. Two sahelis, Munira and Jyoti ( Shahana Goswami and Amruta Subhash) manage to stick together in the environment of communal hate and suspicion.
With calculated restraint, sensitivity and subtlety, ‘Firaaq’ tells the story of these characters in a bid to rattle the conscience of the viewers and make them realize the horrendous crimes that took place in the Gujarat of 2002.
However, it needs to be said that some might find the film one-sided because it repeatedly portrays the victimization of Muslims – be it a cop telling a Sameer Shaikh (Sanjay Suri) to buzz off to Pakistan, or a local resident dropping a heavy stone slab on a man’s head just because he is a Muslim.
But all in all, Nandita Das does a fairly decent job of telling a multi-layered story with seamless clarity. The performances are top notch, particularly by Deepti Naval, Shahana Goswami, Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal , who plays a middle-class, anti-Muslim Gujarati trying to cover up the rape committed by his young brother.
Looking beyond the film’s theme, ‘Firaaq’ is a cinematic gem with excellent cinematography (Ravi Chandran), well-penned screenplay (Nandita and Shuchi Kothari) and evocative background score.
Despite its somewhat narrow perspective, it’s a film made with conscience and noble intention, as reflected in a scene in which Raghuvir Yadav (a domestic help) tells Naseer that Muslims are being killed. Naseer replies: “Insaan Insaan ko maar raha hai, gham toh iss baat ka hai. A statement that entreats us to see humans beyond their religions, it pretty much encapsulates the soul of ‘Firaaq’.
Definitely worth a watch.
Rating: ****
Gulaal
Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Aditya Shrivastava, Piyush Mishra, Deepak Dobriyal, Ayesha Mohan
Producer: Zee Limelight
Director: Anurag Kashyap
Music Director: Piyush Mishra
Lyricist: Piyush Mishra
Cinematographer: Rajeev Ravi
Editor: Aarti Bajaj
Art Director: Wasiq Khan
Story: Anurag Kashyap, Raja Chaudhary,Aparna Chaturvedi
Stories about a simple man’s anger and outburst against the corrupt, corroding system have been seen and forgotten by the dozen, and Anurag Kashyap’s angst-ridden Gulaal turns out to be just a statistical addition to the list.
True, the movie is hard-hitting and a telling statement on the degeneration in the political structure both at the micro level of student politics and the macro level of power-hungry, tyrannical megalomaniacs who stop at nothing to realize their political ambitions. It starts off pretty well as Anurag Kashyap introduces the characters, and it develops momentum as the murky motives are unveiled. The movie, however, becomes a hodgepodge in the second half as it climaxes to a blood curdling crescendo all because of a one-sided love story gone horribly wrong.
Dilip
Singh ( Raj Singh Chaudhary ), a simple, soft-spoken nerd comes to Rajasthan to study law but gets unwittingly sucked into the vortex of student politics after his roommate Rananjay (Abhimanyu Singh), a candidate contesting college elections, is bumped off.
Dukey Bana ( Kay Kay Menon ), an influential figure who dreams of wedging out a splinter Rajputana state, takes Dilip under his wing and makes him win the post of General Secretary through rigged elections.
Dilip’s rival in the elections, Kiran (Ayesha Mohan), and her cunning brother (Aditya Shrivastava) are unable to digest their defeat. Kiran lures Dilip with love and sex. And he – like any able man in his right senses – succumbs to the temptation. But gradually the dirty, murky political game is revealed to Dilip as he finds Kiran take over political powers from him and dump him and move on to play her amorous tricks on the bigger shark – Dukey Bana.
Hell hath no fury like a lover scorned. Dilip, the simple, gullible, bespectacled wimp who was ragged into spending days naked inside a room with a female professor ( Jesse Randhawa ) when he joined the college, now takes to the gun after realizing that he’s been used as just a pawn in the bigger game.
‘Gulaal’ is essentially a character driven story that seems to get too verbose at places. The dialogues are expectedly sprinkled with expletives because the director apparently wanted them to sound ‘real’. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi is superb. Music and lyrics by Piyush Mishra are intriguing.
If there’s anything truly worth watching in ‘Gulaal’ it’s the performances by the ensemble of talented actors from Kay Kay Menon as the devious Dukey Bana to Deepak Dobriyal as his assistant or Mahi Gill as his mistress.
Newcomer Raj Singh Chaudhary has an unassuming persona and convincingly portrays the inner transformation of his character. Ayesha Mohan and Aditya Shrivastava as the brother sister duo are terrific in their individual performances.
All said, ‘Gulaal’ is a seething, simmering, but tortuously predictable tale of all that’s rotten in the system. All through the movie you get an uncanny feeling that the director has pooled all his anger, angst and cynicism against the system and spewed it on the screen to be smacked at the faces of hapless viewers in the form of ‘Gulaal’.
Frankly, there’re better things to do with your time and money than have a taste of someone else’s angst.
By Nikhil Kumar
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com
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