Johnny Gaddar: Flashes in the dark

Johnny Gaddar is an open-end thriller with most common humane attributes–greed, money, love, and kill. A well-planned but failed betrayal brings everyone in a deadly trap; where the only escape route is Death.

Another master-thriller from Sriram Raghaban, who debuted with Ek Hasina Thi, shows how Indian cinemas are slowly making a paradigm shift towards Hollywood style of film-making; neatly packaged, fast paced, and innovatively conceptualised piece of work that keeps viewers’ interest intact till the credits appear; An end-to-end, value-for-money entertainer that perfectly suits its well-conceived plot while keeping the typical Bollywood overdoses at bay. Neil Mukesh, the grandson of legendary singer Mukesh, is truly a great find, and, if well guided, he may well be the face that the industry is desperately looking for.

Johnny Gaddar, the film, is in perfect rhythm with evolving urban lifestyle and taste, but may not suit the larger framework of Indian audience. The dismal performance indicators at Box-office MUST NOT deter you from watching this film.

The Story : Set in Mumbai, the film focuses on a small section of the city’s notorious nightlife. An ensemble group of five men, the eldest is 60+, the youngest in his 20s. They have their fingers in various legal and not so legal activities.

Dhol: Jo Baja-hi nahi…

A not-so-hilarious tale of four guys who want to make it big in life with the least possible effort. While trying to find a short cut to success, they embark on a comic journey of love, money, greed, crime, murder & suspense.

Priyadarshan’s Dhol is a mix bag, which largely disappoints and fails to excite, barring a few odd laughs. The most annoying part itself is the central theme of the movie which is kept away from the story till the fag end. May be the director tried to use the trick of unraveling mystery the old way; those stone-aged movies where certain objects were introduced out of nowhere just to keep the story going.

Though not a comedy trash like Priyadarshan’s recent flicks–provides a few gags after all–Dhol is certainly skippable.

[ Latest Box office Trend: Average ]

The Story: Sharman, Rajpal, Tushar and Kunal want to make it big in life but with the least possible effort. They have been doing all sorts of jobs with hardly any money. They decide that the only way to get rich (without working too hard) is to marry a rich girl. The four cannot believe their luck when Ritu (Tanushree) shifts into their neighborhood. All four of them try various methods to get close to the girl including impressing her grandparents but somehow nothing goes right. But the boys are persistent and end up discovering a spine chilling truth.

Dharm: A riveting portrayal of true religion

When swords are drawn to taste blood in the name of religion, knives are shrapened to rip apart the souls from the flesh with slightest of provocations, not for a moment anyone would think that we all came from ONE source. Religions are just different instances of a parent object — with shapes tweaked, colors changed, behaviors modified. Yet, in reality, the true secularism has always found extremists blocking the road of progress.

Pandit Chaturvedi, the most revered Hindu priest of Benaras, India, has always been a picture perfect symbol of Hinduism, treading along the traditional lines of religion. Despite his impeccable knowledge in Vaidic traits, never did he question his inner soul when it came to religion and its dictates. But a toddler, whom he incidentally adopts, would shake his beliefs when he realized that the godsent tiny soul he fell in love with is not a Brahmin boy as he was told by his wife so that she can adopt the boy, but a Muslim child who was abandoned by the mother. Shaken and raged, he heartlessly returns the son to his biological mother, and goes on performing every rituals to cleanse his body. mind and soul; but only to fail. Pandit’s life starts falling apart between love and his religion, where the later has had always the priority.

Amidst a communal flare and signs of brutality everywhere, Pandit Chaturvedi finally realizes that his understanding of religion was never right; the true duty of a religion is to love and be loved: unbiased. He dared the fanatics by embracing his beloved Karthikeya, the son he abandoned because of his religion.

Gist: Dharm is a very powerful movie with riveting thoughts that will shake the feigned secular beliefs. i personally feel that everyone must watch this movie, and the State Govts should have made it tax free rather than awarding movies like Chak De the same.

Imdb profile

The film’s music, composed by pandit Debajyoti Mishra, has a list of excellent renderings from the likes of Sonu Nigam and Sreya Ghoshal.

Chak De India: Revival of a dying game?

Just a Silly thought: why aren’t there many sports movies being made in Bollywood, despite the fact that it is a genre that sells pretty well all-over? Unfortunately, the ones that had been around hardly attempted to focus on the games; instead, used them as thematic context. Chak De India, perhaps, would be the first authentic and honest Bollywood attempt on a particular sport (also, as its sole selling point.) The fact that it’s more laudable is because the sport in question is also a dying entity. So, it was mandatory to use a massive star power to reach across the homes. SRK fitted the bill best; no surprise that he rode the audience solely on his magical PR charisma to the cinemas. But, from then the movie has been on its own — making clever moves, dodging obstacles with great finesse, and finally reaching smoothly to the viewers’ hearts!

Kabir Khan (SRK) — failed, discarded and despised, is a former captain of the Indian hockey team, who vows to savage his lost honor by transforming the national women hockey team into a winning one. Kabir, however, faces an uphill – if not impossible – task ahead. The team he has got is at best can be described as a collection of sixteen different state players: fragmented and individualistic, who don’t even have the self-belief; forget about the skills. As if that’s not all, Kabir and his team also has to fight the acute indifference and negligence from the board officials, who refuse to provide adequate support, leveraging the populist belief that Indian women are better suited in kitchen than playing a sport. All Kabir has left with is his belief and the will to bring the Gold for India.

What could be easily described as the best performance SRK has ever produced on screen: drives the entire story so brilliantly that at one point — when Kabir motivates the girls to bring out their best on the field, one feels the nerves getting pumped up and the fists tightened as if watching an India-Pakistan thriller. The rest of the cast were equally outstanding with each one bringing their characters live and so believable. And, that’s also what makes the movie appealing — the believability, unlike other Bolly-products, which would not think twice before flying a cow in the sky

Go for it!! Who knows, it might have just etched the turning point for Indian hockey…

Chak De

Badal Pe Paon Hai

Maula mere

Sattar Minue

Paris Je t’aime: Cinema 2.0?

How would you describe an assembled package of eighteen five minute shorts, neatly woven and transitioned? a next generation of cinema i.e. cinema 2.0?? The stories, directed by different directors around the world, show 18 (originally planned for 20) arrondissements of Paris, and are woven with a single narrative in interstitial sequences. the main theme, as the name suggests, is Paris and Love, and eventually becomes the common thread among the stories. each story ends with the following one’s opening shot, and starts with the last one’s ending. the music and narration at the background prepare the audience for the next change. A unique way of making film, indeed. Although many of the individual stories are brilliant and thought provoking, the cohesive experience from the viewer’s perspective is not equally enthralling. it, somehow, stops just short of being a whole – leaving the mind unable to connect its parts into a schema. but, for the ones who thrive for the new and innovative, this one is a Must Watch.

Water: Are you thirsty?

If there’s one movie that has quenched my thirsty soul in a long time, it would be Deepa Mehta’s Water that I had for long ignored and kept under the wrap. To be honest, i am not much fond of depressing cinema, however good or critically acclaimed that they may be. It was under that condition when you don’t know what to do in a rain-soaked Saturday evening that I reluctantly played the disc. For once I didn’t repent for not catching up with a current movie playing at the nearby multiplex. I was completely absorbed by the experience I had have in that two hours.

After a huge controversy in India, makers of Water had to complete the shooting in Srilanka, which was nominated for Oscar (under foreign film category) as a Canadian entry and went very close to wining it. I have no clue what the controversy was all about. Did we try to hedge the dirty past, which had suppressed women for centuries – sometimes in the form of sati, the child-marriages, disgraced widowhood and many more we’re not probably aware of – because we found it like a potential threat to our emerging image? I think somewhere we are scared to even admit the past, forget discussing.

Coming back to the movie, Water provides a very powerful snippet of these cultural blotches of our society during that early twentieth century time frame, where widowed women were denied their rights to live a respectful life. What could be termed as a gross violation of humanity, they were shoved and quarantined like harmful viruses, once their husbands would die – most of them were of their grandfather’s age, counting their last few days, at the time the marriage happened; sometimes the brides would be so young that they wouldn’t even know what marriage was all about. Imagine how inhumane it would be when an young widow – a playful little girl – was sent to a filthy widow home to spend rest of her life performing pujas (self purification that is!) to make amends for the sins from her previous life that supposedly caused her husband’s death. The home, located at one of the ghats of Varanasi, was already cramped with veteran (sarcastic) oldies. The wealthy men, many of them were revered figures, would use agents like Gulabi to bring the younger women from the home to fulfill their lust. So, as you see, a such ecosystem was created by men in the name of religion for their own purpose. The story walks you through this system through its characters – chuiya, a child widow (played by Sarala Kariyawasam, a Srilankan girl), Kalyani, a beautiful young woman (Lisa Ray), Shakuntala, a middle-aged woman (Seema Biswas), and Madhumati, the oldest of the lot, who ran the ashram (Manorama) – all of whom were primarily the victims of this system. The iconic representation was so strong in the movie that you will feel your skins crawl at some point, visualizing the women in your life in such context. The movie also shows a positive transition of the society towards the end, which were mainly leveraged by the great reformers like Mahatma Gandhi, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Raja Ram Mohan Roy, and brought through the characters of Narayan (played by John Abraham), an young man from the upper-class society and an ardent follower of Gandhi, and Sadanand (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), a priest who would later provide the inputs to Shakuntala that helped her finally realize the truth; ultimately giving her the strength to liberate the child from this infested system – a metaphor that the director used brilliantly to showcase the uplift. this is where it succeeded too – for being able to radiate the positivism. At least, it worked for me.

The music is also gracious and regarded as one of the best from AR Rehman, which he himself rated as 10/10. Listen it here.

Here is a video on Deepa Mehta talking about the cinematography from the film.

Apne: Welcome to Deol family reunion!!

After a long break of few weeks, I was finally able to watch a film. The backlog was quite heavy already due to the gap, which had already started giving me the itchiness. And boy, how the hell did I make a start-over! I sat through a long 173 minutes to watch a family reunion!! YES, it’s the tri-deol ‘Apne’!! The team of Gadar, a huge blockbuster, sort of reunited and ill-conceived a plot which intended to cash in on their favorite jingoism called ‘patriotism’.

There’s no denial that the story have had a good potential. And it started well too. Baldev Singh, a silver medal winning Indian boxer, was desperately holding on to life in a bid to wash the stigma that West had wrongly inflicted upon him. His hopes, first by his elder son Angad (Sunny Deol) and later through a local boxer he coached, were all crashing down as they ditched him; though, for different purposes. Baldev was getting more and more depressed until an accident brought him a blessing in disguise, when his younger son (Bobby Deol), who was partly paralytic, had had a miraculous recovery. The son decided to bring his father back the honor by joining boxing and participating into an international boxing challenge.

All was well until then. As the plot progressed further, the film was suddenly out of gas and looked like dragging along. Fighting scenes, which could have been the main draws, were below standard with unnecessary slow motioned stuffs, very predictable outcomes and over-sentimental touch-ups; eventually ruining the good foundation. The music was only worth reaching out for the mute button as Himesh Reshamiya was likely focusing on his own movie – aannp knaa snurooooooor!!

Finally, Apne fails to connect as a whole barring a few occasional glories lying amidst a pile of disposals. i personally feel that it’s the poor presentation that crippled a good storyline. While the seniors – Dhramendra, Victor Banerjee and Kiran Kher sparkled, the younger Deols were consistent in delivering stupid and forgettable performances.

Trade reports, however, indicate an ‘Above Average’ status, possibly due to its strong show in northern India. It has also been a ‘success’ in the overseas – a fact that makes me wonder if the NRIs have collectively acquired a flair for non-substantial gimmicks (another example being Namaste London).

Songs i liked:

Mehfooz

Dekhhon tumhe to

Apne

Aankh Vich

Awarapan: So close yet so far…

From the Bhatts’ stable, ‘Vishesh’, comes another not-so-special movie ‘Awarapan‘, directed by Mohit Suri of ‘Woh Lamhe/Kalyug/Zeher’ fame. Mohit Suri is one of the finest emerging story-tellers, so i believe, who knows how to deliver a commercially viable package, mixing the right ingredients at the right places. Though he does that quite well in Awarapan, but somehow loses it down the line; too much of blood and violence become spoilers at the end. However, Awarpan comes with a few good things that should see it home with a ‘Should watch‘ label around; an interesting though lifted/inspired story (Korean Film – DALKOMHAN INSAENG), some refreshing musical tracks by Pritam, few good performances including otherwise-intolerable Emraan Hashmi (Ashtosh Rana is cut above the rest), and a seasoned handling of characters within a neat flow of events. though the movie starts very well in the beginning and keeps you on the edge, it somehow fumbles in the second half leaving the viewers wanting for more…

[Trailer]

Listen Songs:
Maula mera maula

Toh Fir aao

Tera mera rishta

Mahiya

Jhoom BarAbar Jhoom: Booms to the Doom!

“I have class…”, insists Rikki (Abhiskek Bachhan) in every possible opportunity he gets, though he completely lacks it. And so does ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’; Ditto. Yes, that’s how I can sum up the entire movie and possibly end the infuriating tumult inside me that it caused. But some insipid yet big-mouth entity like this needs a bit more assaults for the loss, shock, and agony it offers for our hard-earned money.

Two people, engaged to different people, arrive in Europe to get married, but fall in love with each other instead. That’s the movie plotline, and the moment you read something like this, expect nothing. Lesson One!

Then you see a bizarre looking Big B in tight pants humming a song like an erratic nomad. By now, you already have the feeling that you’ve actually bought a moronic fart machine thinking it as a hi-fi music system! Still you go into the ‘denial’ mode and think that it’s just an aberration—a temporary glitch—that will go away. “Hope feeds broke”; so you hold your breadth and prepare yourself for a story to emerge. The clock ticks. The idiotic duo, Abhishek and Preity, are still caught up in telling stories to each other at Waterloo station, as they wait for their respective fiancées to arrive. Sr. Bachhan wanders in between to croon. And the situation predictably turns into a romantic (or comic, or stupid?) one. “wat the hell!”, you think, “Where’s the damn story?”

Then you remember the tagline—This June dance… jump… shout..—and you suddenly feel an upward pressure at your rump to jump out and shout loud “B-A-****-D”!!!! But by the time you do that, the Yash Raj gang has already sucked into your wallet, and are raising toasts somewhere else, while their paid critics are busy inserting a few extra stars into the ratings.

Way to go bollywood. It’ll take another 100+ years to arrive at the international landscape, despite IAFA and the cine-stars continually and comically boast of doing that, if such movies continue to be made, sold and encouraged.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, now you know, is worse than going to a filthy public toilet under pressure; though, both such ordeals evoke the same expression at the end (“Thank God it’s OVER!”), but in the later case you eventually thank it for being there…

That makes me wonder if YRs would better build public toilets than movies! For now, they got no one to Jhoom with which reminds me of our men in blue…

[trailer]

Listen Songs:

Jhoom

Bol na halke halke

Ticket to Hollywood

The Train: Travel at your own risk!

Another Hollywood rip-off. this time the victim is Clive Owen-Jennifer Anniston starrer ‘Derailed’. yes, victim!! because, this localised photocopy cant even stand out in the other aspects of what we call ‘movie’, and eventually dampens the (ripped) storyline. i think it’s time that the indian film-makers understand that their multiplex audience also see f-o-r-e-i-g-n philims!!!! and besides, a little more rationale also needs to be applied. For example, can can someone explain me how come all commuters in a train, or every working personnel in an office in Bangkok are Indians? Since when did we add Bangkok in our growing list of states in India? yeh baat kuch hajam nahi huyee…

Coming back to the movie; so, if you already dont know the story of ‘derailed’, this is a mingle-mangle of a couple of adulterous affairs between hashmi (Vishal), Anjali – Vishal’s wife (sayali Bhagat), and Roma – the ‘other’ woman (Geeta Basra). The crumbling marriage leads Vishal to Nikki, whom he met in ‘the train’ and eventually runs into a complex web of incidents…

the movie has at-its-best a few moderate performances, an OK story-telling flow and a few good songs, which as usual are cinematically un-necessary. you’ll, of-course, find lots of umm-amm-ohhh smooches (thanks to Emraan Hashmi, who has ripened up as a fine soft-porn actor) and a few trying-to-be-bold scenes as a bonus for watching this movie. well, all said and done, this train needed steam to run, not kisses!!

—-Trailer—-

Songs i liked:

Beetein Lamhe

Teri tamanna

Mausam

Fool n Final: A Fool and his Final movie?

Believe me, i could last only about 30 mins before every spirit tucked under my flesh started biting the poor soul. it was when Shahid Kapoor started descending from a 20 story building that my every effort to defeat this evil called ‘Fool-n-Final’ shattered. you may wonder, what’s wrong in that? Ahh, he was cycling down all the way from top!!!! i wish that choreographer-turned-director fella (the Fool) has done his Final movie here. This rare asset must be immediately deported to Dubai, so that he can shoot, at his will, with the camels, bedwins and cactus, in the desert! Will someone take the pain to let him know how bad an Ass he is, who might have thought that shaking bums and making movies require the same girth of talent; though, i doubt if he has anyat all…

But i urge you to take a look at the movie; not that there’s anything good, but you can measure your level of tolerance… and i bet, if you can survive through all the three hours, you’d know that you’ve had conquered “pain”, and inched a step forward to attain Nirvana like Lord Buddhha did

On the music front too, Himesh Reshmaiya’s scores are disappointing. Much appreciation to be given to the promotion team, who did a smart job in packaging before it actually arrived in theaters. And by then, nothing much can be done – all you have is a load of dirty yellow stuff packed in a sexy looking wrap.

Tere Layee

Yeh Dooriyan

Cheeni Kum: healthy and tasty!

How far would you stretch LOVE when it comes to age? When a 64 years old man falls in love with a 34 years old woman, heads turn, warnings are issued, hazards are told, and disasters are forecasted. Romance in such a scenario is ill-perceived as a man of such age is only supposed to be fatherly or grand-fatherly. So, when you take up a dry story like that to make a film, you’ve already en-routed towards a commercial blunder. The writing is on the wall.

But Cheeni Kum is among that rare list of films made in bollywood that attempts to showcase ‘romance’ from a different angle – a mature relationship, or as it says, a sugar-free romance. It’s a very bold attempt by the debutant director – the adman Mr Balki, who brings sparks in almost every fold. Be it the scene where ‘colgate’, the big tooth waiter in the restaurant, is snubbed by the chef, or the humorous verbal war between Amitabh and Tabu – the film infuses real-life quotients so effectively that you never feel this unusual love story out-of-the-world kind. The conversations hold the fort here as you see an amalgamation of some of the finest actors on screen – Amitabh, Tabu, Zohra Sehgal and Paresh Rawal – all of them make things work for this film that seriously challenge the spicy tantrums that typical romantic bolloywood films would offer. Tabu really is the sweetest euphony in this two-hour film with Amitabh Bachhan at his witty best.

[trailer]

My fav songs: Illaiyaraja’s music is soothing and brings that ‘simple’ touch to the ear.

Cheeni Kum

Baatein Hawa hai

Jaane Do na

Life in a Metro: has a life!

Genre: Romance/Dramma/Comedy | IMDB Profile | Director: Anurag Basu

“Yeh sahar jeetna humhe deta hai, kambakt us-se bahut zyada le bhi lete hain, …”

.. says Monty (Irrfan khan) to Shruti (Konkona) as they stare at the gigantic cityscape from a high-rise terrace; an unthawed pain rinses her mind, wondering if her existence has any meaning at all in this harsh fast-moving urban world.

Anurag Basu’s ‘Life in a Metro’ is an attempt to embark on a journey that runs through a busy city-life, discovering its beauty and filth concurrently. The strength of this movie lies in the way the story is told within a set of different inter-linked characters; smooth tranisitions – never letting you feel lost; brilliantly handled emotional modulations – leaving out the typical b’wood melodramas. I loved the way songs are synchronized, though not many I believe will think that it’s a good idea to have a set of musicians appearing from nowhere to sing the tracks. But, in a complex flow like this, I felt, it helped to make seamless transitions between the criss-crossing stories. the songs, on the other hand, are well used and blended within the story. The tracks, which have a definitive Rock influence, clearly indicate Pritam’s growing confidence on infusing different genres.

Without a doubt, Metro is an out-and-out entertainer that will keep you on the edge for a little over two hours with its brisk pace, neat presentation, good performances and some well-intended humor. Though it slips out on a few occasions towards the end, it’s nevertheless a good paisa vasool for you.

My fav Songs:
Alvida

Rishtey (James)

Meri Jaan

In Dino

Last Train to Mahakali: Anurag Kashyap’s first movie

An accidental find, that is. this video (running time 50 mins) was made by Anurag Kashyap, who shot into fame with Black Friday (and threw it away with same intensity with ShaKaLaKa ), way back in 1997-98 with a meager budget of 2 lakh; it took four days to complete this short film, he claims. So here it is, the directorial debut of very talented Anurag Kashyap.

American Blend

IMDB Profile | Genre: Family dramma | Directed by Varun Khanna

Raj (Anupam Kher), an Indian immigrant to Los Angeles, runs a family restaurant – ‘Bollywood’ with the help of his American wife Jaymee (Dee wallace Stone) and his three children Vijay, Maya and Nikki. Jaymee is a Katthak dancer, who trains girls on Indian classical dance. theirs is a closely knit family with a traditional Indian family values. that is, until, one fine day, Raj & Jaymee discloses a closely guarded secret to their children. everything that they saved over the years, ostensibly, starts falling apart…

Honestly, i have grown a flair of these small independent movies that usually go un-noticed from the main-stream. unlike the quintessential bollywood flicks, these movies dont try to sell the fantasy in a much percieved way that we have fed over the years. the realism is a core part of them. American Blend, though fail to grow beyond the ordinariness, is something that emits a positivism. it’s vibrant and meaningful. i liked the scene where they mix the kathak with tap dancing. that was really good. performances, however, are average. but nevertheless, you’d not regret to watch American Blend that delivers a feel-good, jolly-jovial experience on-a-whole.

For a detailed review, read this.

Music: my fav Songs