Rock On !!!

‘Rock On’, as the name suggests, is based on a Rock band. The music draws its inspiration mainly from hard and raw rock. This particular genre remained untouched in Bollywood and for the first time something like this has been done.
The movie directed by Abhishek Kapoor has music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy.
The album is an experimental one with a fresh feel oozing out from the talented music directors accompanied with the master of words Javed Akhtar. Lyrics are wonderful especially in the song ‘Socha Hai’ and ‘Pichle Saat Dinon Mein’. The track ‘Socha Hai’ is a soulful rendition by Farhan Akhtar, stepping into the shoes of a singer for the first time.
‘Pichle Saat Din’ is again a solo by Farhan Akhtar. Now, it’s interesting to see that a first-time singer like Farhan has wielded microphone for four songs out of nine in the album. ‘Pichle Saat Din’ is a kind of college song with a good tune and impressive vocals.
The album has track ‘Sindbad’. It is a thematic song on Sindbad. Vocalists Farhan and Raman have done wonders with their vocals. A soothing number with complementary lyrics.
‘Zehreelay’ is the typical hard rock song. But as the genre of rock is particularly western, this hard core number fails to strike the right chord with not-so-supportive wordings. Suraj Jagan, the singer of the title track of ‘Johnny Gaddaar’, hollers on the top of his voice. The song is the weak point of this album.
‘Yeh Tumhari Meri Batein’ is a bit Bollywoodish kind of song with a touch of soft rock. Dominique Carejo has sung it effectively and captured the emotive appeal of the lyrics. A sensuous number, worth listening time to time.
‘Tum Ho Toh’ is a mellow number sung beautifully again by Farhan Akhtar. Director turned actor turned singer, Farhan has done a remarkable job of rendering the songs.
The title song ‘Rock On’ is a youthful track again crooned by Farhan Akhtar. His voice is well-suited to this song. This tells the story that why it’s a hit.
Another song which can score high is ‘Phir Dekhiye’ by Caralisa Monteiro. Her stylish and convincing vocals make this song a mesmerizing one. A track which is composed mainly on guitar, this number is a lovely one. Shankar Ehsaan Loy have done a good job with Javed Akhtar’s words.

Phoonk - The Black Magic

Once again Ram Gopal Varma treads one of his favourite territories – horror. His movie Phoonk doesn’t spook you as much as it intrigues you with its black magic theme and its unexpected conclusion.
Not that the story’s conclusion is unconventional or novel. Rather, it’s somewhat hackneyed. But what surprises you is that a man like Varma would endorse such a climax to his story where superstition holds a sway over scientific logic.
Every frame of ‘Phoonk’ has an unmistakable Varma stamp over it. The dimly lit rooms, the uncanny characters, the lingering shots of props like toys or statues or even crows or cats, the camera angles and the background music – all mesh together to give an eerie look to the movie. However, after a while, it becomes a tad too repetitive.
The movie tells the story of Rajeev ( Sudeep ), a builder and a staunch atheist with a family comprising of a loving wife ( Amrita Khanvilkar ), two kids Raksha ( Ahsaas Chana ) and Rohan (Shrey), and a religious mother.
A non-believer in God or Devil, Rajiv’s world and his belief system goes topsy-turvy when an evil is let loose in his house and the most affected is his daughter Raksha who begins behaving in strange ways.
The doctors say Raksha suffers from “psycho dissassociative disorder” but offer no conclusive cure. Not long before it’s clear that a black magic spell has been cast on Rajeev’s family by some malicious ill-wishers. It’s a spell that only an exorcist can break.
Unlike any pulpy horror flick, ‘Phoonk’ doesn’t scare you with its gory details but by gradually building up your anticipation regarding what would unfold on the screen. Varma’s technical prowess does come handy to this effect but there are a couple of scenes where the filmmaker overindulges in this style.
However, Ramu does manage to extract good performances from the cast – particularly from Sudeep and Ahsaas Chana. Sudeep is convincing as a man whose mind is muddled because all his non-beliefs turn out wrong one by one. Ahsaas Chana is excellent as a child possessed by an evil spirit. Amrita Khanvilkar gives a restrained performance while Zakir Hussain (as exorcist) is a bit over the top.
All in all, ‘Phoonk’ is an average horror flick that shakes and stirs you at times but doesn’t blow you away.

1920 - A Love Made in Heaven A Revenge Born in Hell !!!

Vikram Bhatt’s horror movie ‘1920’ doesn’t leave you zombied. But it does scare you enough to have a few sweaty, sleepless hours when you hit the bed at night.
The movie derives its title from the year it’s set in, when huge mansions (in present-day Yorkshire) stood tall on the suburbs of Mumbai and horse-drawn carriages plied on dusty grounds carrying dandy men in suits and women in Victorian gowns and hats. Sadly, there aren’t any buxom ladies in tight corsets here.
Rajneesh Duggal plays Arjun, an architect, and Adah Sharma plays his catholic wife, Lisa. The couple, wedded despite parental disapproval, arrives at a haveli that the suave architect plans to convert into a hotel as his big project. The only trouble is – the haveli is haunted by a spirit that eventually possesses Lisa. Even as the girl transforms from a beautiful bride to a withered zombie that talks in multiple voices and levitates in bed, the guy doesn’t run away but stands beside her, his love unshaken, until he finds a way to exorcise her of the demonic spirit.
Plotwise, ‘1920’ doesn’t offer anything remarkably novel or nightmarish. It abounds with clichés that collage any typical horror film – a large, empty and dimly-lit mansion with huge portraits staring down ominously at its audience. Or its rich architecture that glistens through the shifting shadows. Or a lantern-carrying housekeeper with mysterious facial expressions.
Despite this, the film works to an extent because Vikram Bhatt holds it tight until the very climax. The director lays the ground in the first half and shoots up the scare-quotient in the second half considerably enough for you to feel a full bladder mid-way through your carbonated drink.
The film also works because its actors, Rajneesh Duggal and Adah Sharma, deliver credible performances in aptly-suited roles. Adah’s blanched complexion particularly makes her well-suited to play a possessed girl. Raj Zutsi as the scowling priest is too stilted.
The music is quite evocative except the Rakhi Sawant number which stands out like a sore thumb in this sufficiently spooky tale.
Just don’t go expecting too much and there are chances that you might get some paisa-vasool scares.

A Wednesday !!

Starring :


AT Cop : Aamir Bashir
Jimmy Shergill
Journalist : Deepal Shaw
Commissioner : Anupam Kher
Common Man : Naseeruddin Shah
Writer-director: Neeraj Pandey

An angry common man wages his war against the system in ‘A Wednesday’.
Now, here’s a flick that could make your day. It doesn’t send you home romping with joy and crooning sweet songs shot at scenic locales in some distant continent. A Wednesday has none of that Bollywood guck and gimmickry. What it does have is a riveting plot, directed skillfully and imaginatively by writer-director Neeraj Pandey. And it has wonderful performances by its two unglamorous but charismatic leading men – Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher .
‘A Wednesday’ is a film set right in our backyard, in Mumbai. And it talks about terrorism from a new angle. The antagonist in it doesn’t come with a stereotyped religious label. In fact, he has no label at all. He is a ‘common man’ who vents out his angst by taking on the system and trying to bring it down to its knees. Only an obdurate Police Commissioner can foil his mission.
Anupam Kher plays that top cop. On a fateful Wednesday he receives a call from a man who claims to have planted bombs in different parts of the city, set to go off at half-past six in the evening. The caller (Naseeruddin Shah, the great) describes self as a ‘common man’ and demands the release of four terrorists if the impending calamity has to be averted.
The threat sends the cops into overdrive as the Commissioner, with the help of an ATS commando ( Jimmy Shergill ) and a tough cop (Aamir Bashir) and a journalist ( Deepal Shaw ), tries to foil the common man’s uncommonly dangerous plan.
What’s most remarkable about the movie is that it keeps you gripped despite opening its cards at the very outset. Yes, you are told at the start what the end is going to be. What keeps you hooked is how the plot meanders through many unexpected twists and turns before reaching its predictable denouement.
Kudos to Neeraj Pandey and his technical team for putting together a neat, cohesive and engrossing film about a subject that’s beginning to feature more than often in Bollywood movies. But hats off to Naseer bhai for yet another memorable performance. To the every inch of his skin does Naseer bhai look the angst-ridden antagonist who takes up cudgels against the system in an extreme way. Anupam Kher manages to bring about a calculated balance of calm, control and panic in his performance.
Jimmy Shergill is much better than what we saw last of him. Aamir Bashir shows only flashes of good acting. Deepal Shaw is okay.
What’s not okay is the slightly preachy mode the movie slips into at the end. After all, the last thing we need at the end of the day is a lecture. This, and a few foibles apart, ‘A Wednesday’ makes for a paisa vasool watch.

Bachna Ae Haseeno.........

Starring
Ranbir Kapoor ........ Raj Sharma

Deepika Padukone ...Gayatri

Bipasha Basu ............ Radhika

Minissha Lamba ....... Mahi

Director : Siddharth Anand

Producer : Aditya Chopra

Friends, it’s Independence for Yashraj Films from its jinxed series of sub-standard films that has by now dented the reputation of the elite production house known for telling its stories against the backdrop of nothing less than Swiss Alps or Sydney Harbour or even sarson ke khet in saada Punjab.
Not that Bachna Ae Haseeno doesn’t have all this. But before all this it has a sound, well-written script and superb performances by its cast. If only the film wasn’t that long. If only a song or two were chopped off from this 16-reeler. If only the second half was less predictable. If only the final reunion of the protagonist with his ladylove wasn’t that unromantic. Aaaah! All these damn ifs. They always come between the movie and the great entertaining experience it could have been.
‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ comes pretty close to being an engaging rom-com with a generous smattering of YRF’s in-house Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in the first romantic episode of its protagonist Raj, the (lady)-‘killer’ (as dubbed by his friends).
The Raj ( Ranbir Kapoor ) here is not Malhotra but Sharma and the girl is Mahi ( Minissha Lamba ), not Simran. The two meet on a train ride in Switzerland. Later she misses the train (obviously, yaar) and he accompanies her to Zurich on a…scootie (not a red convertible). Love blooms. And as it often happens in life, the guy screws it up. The girl flies back to Amritsar (where else) and he moves on with his life.
Year 2000. Raj works late nights in Mumbai and sleeps the mornings away on his stretchable sofa. That is until a barely clad bombshell Radhika ( Bipasha Basu ) moves next to his apartment and practices her dances to blaring music, robbing Raj of his sleep more because of her hot bod than the loud music. Raj’s charm works on her. She falls in love and soon marriage is on the cards. But Raj, being Raj, screws up again and flees to Sydney.
Time passes and Raj falls for Gayatri ( Deepika Padukone ) a cabbie in Sydney who’s clear about what she wants from life. And what she certainly doesn’t want is marriage. The trouble is – this time Raj falls in love and proposes her, only to get the taste of his own medicine.
Thereafter, our jilted but reformed hero goes on a repentance trip to mend his past mistakes by…well…much more than just apologies.
‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ works very well in the first half when the three romantic episodes unfold. My favourite was the one featuring Ranbir and Minissha. It’s a clever rehash of the situations from DDLJ incorporated into a different plot. Here too the guy eventually goes to Amritsar and makes himself a welcomed guest at a Punjabi wedding. But his intention is different. It’s not to win love, but to help Mahi rediscover love. This episode is my favourite also because of Minissha, whose performance is the best among the ladies in the film.
Bipasha Basu looks hot but her chemistry with Ranbir is thanda thanda…cool cool. Deepika Padukone is surprisingly confident and at ease in her performance. Kunal Kapoor is delightful in a guest appearance.
And lastly – coming to the ‘killer’ – Ranbir lives up to the Kapoor blood flowing in his veins. The guy has good looks and screen presence to carry the whole movie on his shoulders. Here’s truly a bundle of natural talent waiting to be explored.
Coming to director Siddharth Anand , it must be said that he shows a remarkable improvement since his last outing in the flop Tara Rum Pum . For starters, he rids ‘Bachna’ of any mawkish sentimentality that often peeves even the most flippant viewer no end. Secondly, he laces ‘Bachna’ with a liberal sprinkling of good humour – like the tearing down of the wall between Ranbir and Bipasha’s apartment to signify that they are entering a live-in relationship. The director does lose his grip on the film in the second half when the sub-plots (particularly the one with Bipasha) become taxing for a viewer.
All said, ‘Bachna Ae Haseeno’ is an eminently watchable film with its own share of glitches. The movie’s isn’t exceptional. But it’s definitely, definitely worth a watch.

Mission Istaanbul.....Daar ki aage JIT hain...

Starring:

Zayed Khan .... Vikas Sagar
Vivek Oberoi .... Rizwan
Sunil Shetty .... Owais Husain
Shriya Saran .... Anjali
Director : Apoorva Lakhia
Producer : Sunil Shetty

Guys and gals! Please put your hands together to felicitate the one and only Apoorva Lakhia for making the worst film of the year so far – Mission Istanbul .
First of all, my sincere congratulations to the audience and the critic brethren who have survived this two hours of sheer stupidity, inanity and cinematic profanity. Forgive me if I sound harsh, but I feel battered and bruised, and my heart swells with sympathy for those who have already endured this torture and caution for those who are about to make the same mistake.
To put it mildly, ‘Mission Istanbul’ is the murder of cinema. It has such a cruelly contrived story that you wonder if the writers of the script are truly in touch with the real world. Guess what! Al Qaeda roams free in Kabul post the American invasion of Afghanistan and the public killings still take place in football stadiums under the rule of the new Afghan government. Not just this, Northern Alliance is still fighting its battle with Al Qaeda. I truly feared that Lakhia would next show Ahmed Shah Masood alive and kicking the sh*t out of Al Qaeda. Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
Welcome to the world of ‘Mission Istanbul’, where Turks speak fluent Hindi, and Arabic news channels work clandestinely as terror network.
At the center of the story is Vikas Sagar ( Zayed Khan ), a top class Indian journalist who takes up a job at Al Johara news channel in Istanbul much against the wishes of his journalist wife ( Shriya Saran ) back home.
Al Johara is a news channel that honours its slain journalists by putting their framed photos in its ‘hall of martyrs’. It is a channel that keeps its secret well hidden on the 13th floor, the entry to which is strictly prohibited.
Vikas goes on his first assignment with colleague Owais Husain ( Sunil Shetty ) to Afghanistan where Owais gets killed while fighting the terrorists. Upon his return, Vikas meets a stranger who tells him that Owais’ death was no coincidence and was preplanned by the channel itself. The stranger happens to be Rizwan Khan ( Vivek Oberoi ) a long-haired Turkish commando fighting his own personal war against the terrorists.
As Vikas digs deep into the secrets of Al Johara, he discovers a terror network working in the guise of a news channel. But it is a discovery that makes Vikas himself a target of the terrorists.
From thereon follows mindless action – heroes jumping off from buildings, dangling by flying choppers, chopping off the hands of the baddies and blowing up buildings.
Apoorva Lakhia’s style of filmmaking is to take stylish shots and put them in quick succession to each other and add the remaining impact by loud background music. He really needs to work as an assistant under some truly qualified director to get the basics right.
There are so many flaws in the film that one review may not suffice. But here are just a few examples. Zayed (as Vikas) lands in Istanbul, gets a short briefing from his boss who then announces ‘it’s time to party’. Enters Tanyeli, the flabby belly dancer. And our brave and much-married journalist on his big job in Istanbul decides to make merry with a tempting colleague (female, obviously).
Or check this out. Zayed and Sunil Shetty on their assignment to Afghanistan decide to switch over from journalists to soldiers and fight with the Al Qaeda terrorists to save the foreign hostages.
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.The performances by Zayed and Vivek are nothing to write home about. But yes, Vivek gets a role that is likely to evoke whistles from the front-benchers. Shriya Saran is totally wasted as a journalist who takes phone calls from her husband in between her live reporting. Mercy again.
The true hero of the film is the audience who brave sitting through it.
The best part about ‘Mission Istanbul’ are just two scenes showing the Bush-lookalike Brent Mendenhall who plays George W Bush aboard his Air Force One on his way to India. Brent steals the show with his superb dialogues like ‘we don’t interfere in other countries, unless, of course, we have to invade them’.
The movie deserves just half a star and that too because of Brent.

Kistmat Connection

Starring

Shahid Kapur .... Raj Malhotra
Vidya Balan .... Priya
Juhi Chawla .... Haseena Banu Jaan
Om Puri .... Sanjeev Gill
Director : Aziz Mirza
Producer : Ramesh Taurani
Music Album : Kismat Konnection

It is the onscreen konnection between Shahid Kapur and Vidya Balan that saves this film from a doomed kismat.
Imagine a funny farce where the out-of-luck protagonist battles one misfortune after another until a girl enters his life as a lucky charm! Aziz Mirza’s film Kismat Konnection tells such a tale that is enjoyable in parts but has several dragging disconnections in between.
Set in Toronto, the flick has Shahid Kapur playing a struggling architect whose own life is out of structure because of his phooti kismat. The poor lad has to brave a barrage of misfortunes in doing even as mundane a thing as using an ATM card or rushing to office in his car. A defeated victim of endless misfortunes, he is told by a hamming crystal ball reader ( Juhi Chawla ) that a lucky charm is about to enter his life.
Enters Vidya Balan, a goodie-goodie gorgeous girl who makes things go right for our hero whenever she is around. The luckless architect feels he has found his lucky charm. But unlike other charms, he can’t keep her wrapped around his finger. He loves her. But then, he’s also ambitious.
Thereby begins that legendary divide between ambition and love that has spawned tomes of romantic stories both on paper and celluloid. The protagonist follows his ambition and manipulates love with a sweet lie. And when the lie is exposed, there’s heartache and that customary late realization that success is where love is. So is kismat.
‘Kismat Konnection’ begins quite well – funnily highlighting the blows of fate the hero has to survive in daily life. It plods when Juhi Chawla enters the scene and hams with no holds barred. It almost comes to a grinding halt when the subplots (like the passionless romantic track between Vidya and her cheating fiancé, or the track surrounding a couple of geriatrics fighting to keep their community home intact) swell out of proportion and overshadow the main plot, which is the bonding between Shahid and Vidya that begins with fighting, turns to friendship and blooms to love before being torn asunder when his hidden lies are exposed.
The plot-holes are far too many to overlook. The end of the movie has Shahid giving a preachy speech about global warming and selfishly profiteering business corporations to convince the board of directors that it is wise to let the old folks keep their community home where a mall is to be built. Sounds ludicrous? Wait, there’s more. In the end, the final twist of fate plays out when Boman Irani (in a guest appearance) takes the dais and set things right for our hero.
If the movie becomes watchable it’s because its humour works to an extent and also because of sparkling chemistry between Shahid and Vidya.
The two actors not just look good with each other but also play their parts wonderfully well. Shahid is particularly funny as the hapless, luckless, jobless and chickless guy trying hard to turn his bad kismat around. Vidya wins you over with her incredibly believable expressions of a girl falling in love with someone she didn’t expect to.
Om Puri is given a poorly etched role but the actor even breathes life into it, playing the character of a business tycoon and a henpecked husband. Juhi Chawla is simply over the top. Vishal Malhotra, as Shahid’s sidekick, is just about tolerable.
Thankfully, the film doesn’t have many songs and they come after long intervals. The cinematography is pretty average.
Aziz Mirza has the right story idea but he gets trapped and tangled in its telling. Too many subplots keep veering the movie off its main course. And whenever it happens, a viewer feels diskonnected.

Hastey Hastey !!!

Starring:
Jimmy Shergill .... Neel
Nisha Rawal .... Maya Fernandez
Rajpal Yadav .... Sunny Malhotra
Musician : Anu Malik

It’s no laughing matter – to make a gripping romcom. Director Toony tries this in his light-hearted but mawkishly sentimental Hastey Hastey , but fails miserably.
The cheesy punchline ‘Follow Your Heart’ in the film’s posters is just an indication of what’s in store for you. Here’s a story that treats love like it was ten years behind the contemporary times. The tale has a cocktail of comedy, romance and scandal, but none has been dealt with convincingly by the writers. And with a shoddy story in the first place, no director can work miracles unless he happens to be someone with the caliber of a Speilberg, which Toony clearly is not.
The movie stars Jimmy Shergill with newcomers Nisha Rawal and Monishka Gupta.
Neel (Jimmy) is a brilliant student at Columbia University. His pedantic personality and his charming looks have Maya (Nisha), an upper-class Catholic-Indian girl, floored. It is a two-sided love which looks like headed to the altar until Neel’s career ambition gets the better of him.
Sunny (Rajpal Yadav) is Neel’s roommate and a close friend with an incurable inclination towards flirting with girls. Though he flirts, his heart beats only for one girl – a stunning blonde named Tina.
Neel and Maya’s love story is put in limbo when he travels to India to start a call centre. In this initiative he is helped by an enterprising Tanvi (Monishka) who has a crush on Neel. But when Neel rebuffs Tanvi’s advances, she plots revenge. She hatches a conspiracy and Neel finds himself stuck in a scam.
‘Hastey Hastey’ becomes somewhat watchable thanks to Jimmy Shergill and Rajpal Yadav . Though Jimmy’s performance appears half-hearted at places, overall he manages to carry the film on his shoulders. Rajpal Yadav chips in some light moments. Newbie Nisha Rawal and Monishka Gupta have great scope for improvement as far as acting is concerned.
At best, ‘Hastey Hastey’ is a mere timepass flick when you have nothing better to do with your time. There are two good-looking girls in love with a single man. There are sporadic funny moments, thanks to Rajpal Yadav in a triple role. To soothe your eyes there are pleasing shots of foreign locations aplenty, and there is some lilting music as well. But there is hardly any touching, engrossing development in the plot to win your heart.

Woodstock Villa

Starring:


Sikander Kher .... Samir
Neha Oberoi .... Zara
Arbaaz Khan .... Jatin Kampani
Sanjay Dutt .... Special appearance
Director : Hansal Mehta
Producer : Sanjay Gupta
Music Album : Woodstock Villa

Hansal Mehta’s film ‘Woodstock Villa’ is an audio-visual assault on your senses. The movie is a tasteless slaughter of the film noir genre.
Producer Sanjay Gupta’s fixation with style over substance seems to have rubbed off on the otherwise talented Hansal Mehta who shows an over infatuation for stylish shot-composition and jarring background music to such degrees that it gives you headache by the end of ‘Woodstock Villa’. The entire film looks like an extended, elongated, stretched-out music video.
And if you thought the over-dramatic “vroom vroom” background sounds in the melodramatic TV soaps couldn’t get worse, you gotta watch ‘Woodstock Villa’ to know how a loud background score can ruin an entire movie.
The only saving grace of the film is newcomer Sikander Kher , who may not have the looks of a Greek god, but has an arresting presence, a charming persona, a deep voice, and – most importantly – a talent for acting.
The film tells the story of a jobless youth Samir (Sikander) who sleeps around with his ex-boss’s wife (which explains why he’s jobless). He lives in a rented apartment but can’t pay the rent and he owes money to a don who frequently gives him “tonic” (read thrashing) for not paying the dues.
At a discotheque, he falls for a stunner named Zara ( Neha Oberoi ), who makes him an unusual proposal to kidnap her because she wants to test her husband’s love. And the husband here happens to be a rich businessman, Jatin Kampani ( Arbaaz Khan ).
Hard-pressed with need for money, Samir laps the offer only to find himself in a mess after Zara dies in captivity. He buries the body, erases the evidence, and leaves the city. But then another surprise awaits him.
‘Woodstock Villa’ is one of those movies that try desperately hard to jolt you with repeated twists in the tale. But the way those twists unravel takes the punch out of the plot. For instance, the final twist, when the camera specifically focuses on a bag with money on two different occasions when it changes hands kills the suspense for a discerning viewer.
But the major hara-kiri that Mehta commits is his over-indulgence in the film’s audio-visual form. The hand-held jerky camera shots, the sudden zoom-ins and zoom-outs, the sepia tones, the deafening background score – that’s not what film noir is about. You can’t find a single continuous shot that lasts more than five seconds in this film. All this calls for skill and Mehta has it. But there is more to filmmaking than that. With its slick editing and ultra-imaginative camerawork, the movie tries to keep a step ahead of itself and never gives time for the story’s characters to gather roots, thereby robbing the plot of its emotive appeal.
To put it in other words, ‘Woodstock Villa’ is a vain and superficial work of cinema.
Thankfully, Sikander Kher is the silver lining in this dark enterprise. The guy has it in him to carry a movie on his sole shoulders. There are a few moments in the movie that show glimpses of his potential. It is a pity that ‘Woodstock Villa’ is his launchpad.
Neha Oberoi is eye-catching and manages her part without hamming. Arbaaz Khan has at last begun to act in the real sense of the word.
‘Woodstock Villa’ is a film that will appeal to those who are a sucker for style. Those who want substance should better steer clear of this movie.

Jannat----Finding Heaven on Earth !!

Starring
Emraan Hashmi .... Arjun
Sonal Chauhan .... Zoya
Director : Kunal Deshmukh
Producer : Mukesh Bhatt
Musician : Pritam

Jannat’ is an engrossing, touching tale of an intuitively gifted bookie who loses his love in pursuit of his idea of heaven.
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, let me confess at the outset that I, being not a fond admirer of the game of cricket, had my apprehensions before watching the Vishesh Film’s latest presentation Jannat which was touted as a film on cricket match-fixing with ample incidents and characters from real life squeezed in the narrative to give the movie a semblance of realism.
Thankfully, I liked the film more than expected solely because it sticks to the rocky love story between the protagonist and his ladylove, while cricket and match-fixing forms just a backdrop against which this romantic tale unfolds.
Writer Vishesh Bhatt deserves a pat on his back for writing a simple story and providing it two distinct yet continually intersecting layers that eventually unite at the end with a dramatic climax. First-time director Kunal Deshmukh ought to be commended for his controlled and smooth handling of the subject and for giving the love story a tone of impending doom.
However, what mars ‘Jannat’ is the lack of sufficient development in the romantic track. After a while the story seems to go in circles. On top of it you don’t strongly relate to the emotional turmoil of the lead characters.
Arjun ( Emraan Hashmi ) comes from a middle-class family, but his dreams are big and he doesn’t mind taking the short route to riches regardless of morality, or the lack of it. He graduates from being a gambler to bookie, solely by the dint of his intuition to predict correctly. He falls in love at first sight with Zoya ( Sonal Chauhan ) and eventually goes on to win her heart, her trust, and her respect with his love and his riches. But when she comes know the source from where the riches come, she hands him over to the cops.
Arjun goes to jail and vows to reform himself – all for the sake of love. But then, one sight of jannat, one last temptation to fix a match, gets the better of his senses. And situations turn around so unexpectedly that he finds himself sinking just when he was about to come ashore.
Like all the Bhatt films, the story of ‘Jannat’ steers clear of the good-versus-bad formula. It is a subject in which both good and bad coexist inside the leading characters. There is no moral message, no sermonizing, but just the poignancy of a tragic love story.
Without doubt the man-of-the-movie trophy goes to Emraan Hashmi – the blue-eyed boy of the Bhatts – who gives a skillfully restrained performance, playing an ambitious man with shaky morals and firm equanimity in the face of success or failure.
Newcomer Sonal Chauhan catches your attention more because of her looks than acting. Samir Kochar is terrific in his role as an Indian cop in Cape Town, on the trail of bookies. Javed Sheikh brings an imposing demeanor to his character of a kingmaker don who takes Emraan under his wing.
The songs by Pritam may not be chartbusters, but they go along well with the mood of the film.

U Me Aur HUM !!!

Ajay Devgan .... Ajay
Kajol ............ Pia
Divya Dutta .... Reena
Karan Khanna .... Vicky
Isha Sharvani .... Natasha
Sumeet Raghavan .... Nikhil

Director : Ajay Devgan
Musician : Vishal Bharadwaj

Music Album : U Me Aur Hum










Watching Ajay Devgan’s directorial debut ‘U Me Aur Hum’ is an emotionally stirring experience.

What’s up with Bollywood actors? One after the other they are proving to be better directors than those already in the business for years. After Aamir Khan , it is Ajay Devgan who stumps you with his finesse behind the camera (in front of it as well) in ‘U Me Aur Hum’, which is a moving, evocative, passionate, and painful tale told straight from the heart. Hats off to you, Devgan, for that.

Not only is the film rich in emotions, it is full of witty humour, thanks to intelligently and imaginatively written script, dialogues, and fine performances by the supporting cast.

‘U Me Aur Hum’ is a simple story told in a well-structured way.

A bespectacled, middle-aged father of a young teenager bets with his son to woo a woman sitting alone on a restaurant table. The man (Ajay Devgan), somewhere in his mid-forties, walks up to the lady ( Kajol ), as old as him, and strikes up a conversation. He tells her a story – a story of love at first sight between Ajay and Piya.

Ajay (Devgan) is aboard a cruise liner on an excursion trip with his two friends ( Karan Khanna and Sumeet Raghavan ) and their female companions ( Isha Sharvani and Divya Dutta ).

On a night of revelry, Ajay spots Piya (Kajol), who serves drinks in the bar. It is love at first sight for him. But she rebuffs his advances. He tries various ways to woo her. He breaks into her cabin and reads her personal diary, her ‘Book of Possibilities’. Being a psychiatrist he learns what she desires and then uses the right tricks to win her heart. Win it he does, but only to break it himself by telling her the truth. After some heartache the couple gets together again and gets married. Thereby begins the journey of U and Me.

As the protagonist says in the film – “Problems never cease. But they are never bigger than a person”. So is the marriage of Ajay and Piya hit by a calamity, a medical one. Will they pull it through and become Hum. Or will they drift apart.

Devgan follows a non-linear path to tell the story. Told almost in a flashback, the tale acquires wheels within wheels as the protagonist recounts the instances of his marital tragedy to his friends. And very imperceptibly, Devgan throws hints about Piya’s muddled mind from the start. The small ‘reminder’ notes pasted on the mirror of her cabin – to remind her of small tasks – when he breaks into it, or her forgetting the right time of her morning Salsa practice – they all point towards her impending fate. And you connect the dots as the story unfolds.

This is intelligent storytelling, supported by incredibly well-written, thought-provoking dialogues from Ashwani Dhir . Vishal Bharadwaj ’s music complements the story well, but the movie could have done without the song “Saheli Jaisa Saiyyan”. It seems deliberately squeezed in the narrative.

I have not yet seen Ajay Devgan act better in any other film. His performance, particularly in the second half, is arresting, when he looks to a ‘T’ a man struck by an unfortunate tragedy. He convincingly brings forth the pain, the dilemma, the inner turmoil and even the selfishness of his character.

Kajol fares pretty well, playing a complex character. She mostly keeps herself restrained but still goes over the top at places. But a commendable performance overall.

The two get solid support from Sumeet Raghavan and Divya Dutta who play an unhappily married couple, perpetually bickering about one thing or another. And there is also Karan Khanna and Isha Sharvani, playing happily unmarried couple. The best thing about all these characters is that they are well-etched and provide a lot of humour to the film.

Here is a sample – Divya and Sumeet are fighting furiously when a passerby asks: “Are you mad?”. Divya replies: “No, we are married.” Or when Karan riddles his friend: “What would be the name of a girl jo apne baap ko dhakka deti hai”. When no one is able to guess, he replies: “Pushpa…Push..Pa”.

See, it has that kind of humour.

To sum it up, ‘U Me Aur Hum’ is mostly a well-crafted film, barring a few rough edges that don’t stand out much. Above all, it is a touching, moving tale that will change something inside you and make you a better companion.

Don’t miss it.....

Tashan

*ing:

Akshay Kumar .... Bachchan Pande
Saif Ali Khan .... Jimmy
Kareena Kapoor .... Pooja
Anil Kapoor .... Bhaiyyaji

Director : Vijay Krishna Acharya
Producer : Aditya Chopra

Music Album : Tashan





Once in a while comes a film that offers itself openly for slaughter by critics. Tashan is one such. Towered by a colourful cast comprising the ever-dependable Akshay Kumar , the super-svelte Kareena Kapoor , the mustachioed Saif Ali Khan and the scraggy Anil Kapoor , ‘Tashan’ is like a package that is beautifully wrapped to conceal its crappy content.

Butlet’s take the good things first.

Three reasons why ‘Tashan’ overcomes your urge to walk out of the theatre – 1) Akshay Kumar. 2) Funny dialogues. 3) Vishal Shekhar’s music.

These apart, there is hardly anything in the film that makes you feel that it is an ambitious project by country’s biggest production house (arguably), which apparently seems to have stamped its own foot on the axe once again after a couple of such blunders that we saw last year. Perhaps it is the YRF tashan.

But Apun Ka Tashan is different. It demands value entertainment for time and money spent. Money lost can still be forgotten and forgiven. But not time.

Mostly set in the dusty towns of India, ‘Tashan’ tells the story of four people, none of who trusts the other.

Bhaiyaji (Anil Kapoor) has graduated from being a local goon in the badlands of UP to a suited-booted don running a thriving extortion racket. But he hasn’t been able to graduate from his desi, rustic lingo. He wants to learn English and speak it like George W Bush does. Make no mistake, Bhaiyyaji will have his own “axis of evil” to battle.

The first pivot in this axis is Pooja Singh (Kareena Kapoor) who works for Bhaiyyaji but has other plans cooking up in her devious mind. She helps Bhaiyyaji find an English tutor whom she enamors and convinces to swindle a huge amount of money from Bhaiyyaji.

The English tutor, Jimmy Cliff (Saif Ali Khan), falls for Pooja’s charm while teaching Bhaiyyaji. To help her, he robs Bhaiyyaji and finds himself facing the barrel of Bhaiyyaji’s gun after Pooja runs away with all the loot.

Enter Bachchan Pande (Akshay Kumar), a countryside goon, expert at stealing electricity and recovering stolen or missing goods. He idolizes Bhaiyaaji and immediately takes the mission to find Pooja and bring all the loot back.

So Bachchan Pande and Jimmy Cliff hit the road to find Pooja. Find her they do. But the only problem is that Pooja has divided the money and hidden it in different parts of the country. Phew!

The remaining song and dance is about how they retrieve the money. In doing so they discover that their lives are strangely linked.

‘Tashan’ is undoubtedly high on style and attitude. The clothes, the makeover, the oomph quotient – and not to forget Miss Kapoor’s teeny-weeny bikini – they all gel together to make the movie eye-candy. The dialogues are full of funny lines lifted straight from the streets. But they do not form the part of a gripping, moving, progressing plot because there is none to speak of in the first place. The whole hoopla called ‘Tashan’ is about a long road trip and senseless action scenes. Imagine Bachchan Pande single-handedly taking on scores of black-cat commandos or decimating dozens of don’s men.

Akshay Kumar, however, turns out to be the saviour of ‘Tashan’. With one hand scratching his crotch and the other on the trigger of a gun, the actor delights you with his superb sense for comedy. Keeping an innocently straight face, Akshay delivers some ‘killer’ one-liners with such flair that he leaves you in splits.

‘The’ Anil Kapoor comes second in winning you over. His twisted English and his rustic manners stand in sharp contrast to his attire, and Anil portrays well the humour and the dread of his don.

Kareena Kapoor – may God bless her body – is alright in capturing the nuances of her character that bluffs without as much as a wink. She looks a clever fox to a ‘T’. And in the name of action, all she does is brandish shotguns that she seldom fires.

Saif Ali Khan is okay playing a Casanova but his character seems an appendage to the plot after a while. It is hard to figure out why Jimmy lugs around Bachchan and Pooja when he is no longer needed for the progression of the story. Pooja knows where the loot is hidden. Bachchan is there to recover it. But what is Jimmy doing? Flaunting his own tashan?

A few words need to be said about director Vijay Krishna Acharya (aka Victor) who has written Dhoom and Dhoom 2 for Yashraj Films . No doubt, Victor has got punchiest of dialogues in right places. But he has an utterly flimsy story to begin with. And Victor doesn’t have a unique style of directing. The cinematography by Anayanka Bose is a visual treat, and music by Vishal-Shekhar is superb. But Victor fails to yoke all the elements together into a riveting yarn. There are rough edges one too many. Take, for instance, Kareena Kapoor’s “Chhaliya” song in which she appears in a skimpy bikini, and right after the song she is clad head-to-toe immersing the ashes of his deceased father in the holy Ganges.

All in all, ‘Tashan’ is strictly a timepass film. It wouldn’t have been even that had it not been for Akshay.

To put it in the film’s parlance: “The I like Tashan of the Akshay”.

Race --- Either its with Cars or its the Race of Life?

================================================================================================

Saif Ali Khan .... Ranvir Singh

Akshaye Khanna .... Rajeev Singh

Katrina Kaif .... Sophia

Bipasha Basu .... Sonia

Anil Kapoor .... Robert D’ Costa

Sameera Reddy .... Mini
Director : Abbas-Mastan

Musician : Pritam
Music Album : Race

================================================================================================

Subtlety and restraint have never found a place in the movies of director duo Abbas-Mastan . Their latest thriller ‘Race’ is so much crammed with unexpected twists and turns that after a while you naturally begin to expect the unexpected from the film.
And that is the trap that any suspense thriller can fall into. In a bid to shock the viewer, ‘Race’ keeps unraveling one surprise after another. So much so that after a while the surprises lose their shock value and the movie ceases to be a thriller.
This is the only major problem with ‘Race’. Apart from this the movie is a fine entertainer with pretty good action sequences and a superb performance from Akshaye Khanna. He is the man you would love to hate in the film.
Set in picturesque cities of Durban and Cape Town, ‘Race’ tells the story of two brothers – Ranvir Singh ( Saif Ali Khan ) and Rajeev Singh ( Akshaye Khanna ).
Ranvir, the eldest of the two, is a shrewd businessman who owns a ranch named Stallions where horses are bred for races. He is a fierce competitor and he doesn’t forgive anyone who double-crosses him.
Rajeev, on the other hand, is more interested in alcohol than family business. He likes to wake up to a glass of beer every morning to recover from the hangover of previous night’s drinks.
Sonia ( Bipasha Basu ), a fashion model, walks into Ranvir’s life and wins over his heart. On the other hand is Sophia ( Katrina Kaif ), Ranvir’s gorgeous secretary who is always vying to get his attention, but without any success.
The ball is set rolling when Rajeev falls for Sonia and promises his brother that he would quit drinking if she agrees to marry him. Ranvir, like any true-blue big brother, sacrifices his love and becomes a matchmaker between the two.
But beneath the surface, evil plans are taking shape in the minds of the protagonists. One of the two brothers will die. And the other will inherit the huge insurance claim of 100 million.
The murder takes place. Enters detective RD or Robert D’Costa ( Anil Kapoor ) and his pretty and dumb secretary Mini ( Sameera Reddy ) who try to crack the case and get to the bottom of the mystery.
‘Race’ has a riveting first half, when the characters are introduced and their murky sides revealed. The plot in this half leaves many open ends, to be connected and explained when the mystery is finally unraveled in the end. The movie reaches its high point when one of the brothers is pushed from the terrace of a high-rise building.
This momentum continues for some more reels in the second half. But then the film’s plot takes a serpentine route and passes through many unexpected bends, some of which are reasonable while some are deliberately contrived to surprise the viewer.
That is when Abbas-Mustan, the men in white, show their true ‘colours’. The director duo doesn’t care to be subtle. They pull out all the stops to squeeze in as many twists in the plot even when there wasn’t any need. As the plot meanders through its many turns, it begins to lose its credibility. And you resign yourself to the fact that anything could happen. Even the dead can resurrect. After all, it’s Easter time.
Akshaye Khanna deserves a special mention for a terrific performance in the film. He is the scene stealer. His pursed lips, his sarcastic smile, his raised brow and his funny demeanor make even the villainy of his character likeable. He plays the guy who has something funny to say even in the face of grave danger.
Saif Ali Khan is glum and uptight for most part of the movie (perhaps the requirement of his role). But you sense that his heart is not in playing his character. And he looks a little overweight in the action scenes when jumps from dizzy heights.
Katrina Kaif is incredibly good looking. But she is equally incredibly bad at acting. Bipasha Basu has more meat in her role (both figuratively and literally). But her role doesn’t put any great histrionic demand on her.
Anil Kapoor is becoming quite predictable playing the desi-guy-inside-foreign-suit kind of roles. Yet he adds some good humour by playing his fruit-munching detective. Sameera Reddy is required to look sexy and sound dumb. She does both convincingly.
Two more driving forces of ‘Race’ are Pritam’s music and Allan Amin’s stunts. The car accident at the very beginning of the flick has been choreographed superbly. However, the freefalls and giant leaps could have been better. You can notice the use of cables in a stunt when Saif jumps to save Bipasha from a killer.
Pritam’s music is loud and rocking and suits the mood of the film.
All in all, ‘Race’ is not a bad watch at all. Yes, it could have been much better if the director duo had incorporated more intelligent twists in the story.

Jumper : "A guy, who can teleport."

The basic plot of Doug Liman's alternately dry and ridiculous new action thriller Jumper, and the film takes great pains to NOT introduce anything that might distract from that one paltry premise: One really uninteresting guy can teleport wherever he wants (including bank vaults, beaches, and the head of the Egyptian Sphinx) -- up until the day that a ferocious (but also ridiculous) villain shows up to ruin all the teleport-y fun. And then we get a half-decent chase, a bunch of hyper-kinetically edited action, and a sequel teaser. For a 90-minute flick that focuses on a guy who moves real quick, it sure doesn't move all that slick.

It’s impossible for outsiders to know who deserves most of the blame for this dud — its director, Doug Liman, its three screenwriters, its multiple producers or the various studio executives who might have done far too much meddling or not nearly enough. Whatever the case, “Jumper” — a barely coherent genre mishmash about a guy who transports himself across the globe at will — is of interest only because it revisits a theme that Mr. Liman has explored in films like “The Bourne Identity” and, if reports about his troubled productions are true, speaks to his own reputation as an escape artist: the character who wiggles out of trouble.

The trouble here starts when a likable high-school loser, David Rice (Max Thieriot), discovers that he can do an end run around the space-time continuum, teleporting from here to there faster than Dorothy can click her sparkling red shoes. Before long he’s zipping from Detroit to Tokyo (and into bank vaults) and has transformed into a materialist slacker (now played by a somnolent Hayden Christensen) whose rooms are filled with goodies and walls are papered with images of his fave jump spots. One minute he’s cruising a blond sylph in London; the next, he’s hanging with the Sphinx in Egypt. It’s all good, except that it’s all bad, from the subliterate dialogue to the chaotic direction and heavily edited points in between.

Then, you know, something happens. In this case, the something is mostly Samuel L. Jackson, who, as a mysterioso avenger, arrives barking his lines and wearing the latest addition to what has become a notorious collection of extreme hairpieces and looks. Snow white and close cropped, Mr. Jackson’s hair in this film dominates its every scene (it’s louder than the predictably voluble actor), rising out of the visual and narrative clutter like a beacon. It glows. It shouts. It entertains. (It earns its keep.) It also suggests that someone here has a sense of humor, as does the casting of the persuasively thuggish Michael Rooker (“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer”) and the woefully misused Diane Lane as David’s estranged parents.

Luckily for Ms. Lane, her character doesn’t get much screen time, largely because she appears to be on hand only to help humanize David, to counterbalance the brutal father with the sentimentalized mother. She’s as disposable as the pretty bland thing (Rachel Bilson) who tags along with David for a while and has been written into the screenplay for all the reasons female characters are usually written into male coming-of-age stories, namely she looks good in her underwear and establishes the hero’s heterosexuality. Ms. Bilson fills out her bra nicely, but is nowhere as seductive as Jamie Bell, who, as a British jumper called Griffin, gives the film a jolt of energy along with a heartbeat. When he jumps, so does the film.

Darling.......... hard too classify !!!

Esha Deol ....... Gita Menon

Fardeen Khan .... Aditya Soman

Isha Koppikar ... Ashvini
Director : Ram Gopal Varma

Darling’ is not exactly a horror film. Besides the spooky angle, the movie has ample moments of light humour. But it is the unpredictability element in the story that makes the movie watchable.
It wasn’t with many expectations that I went to see this film. The horror of Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag still haunts me. But Ramu, being a man who can even prove himself wrong, surprises yet again with this week’s release ‘Darling’.
It is hard to classify ‘Darling’ in any genre. It is neither a horror movie, nor a comedy nor a love triangle. Yet, in an eerie way, the movie is all of these. It has a comic track that begins in the first half and returns again in the second half. In between, there is an accidental murder followed by some spooky horror. Completing the pot-pourri is the customary song-and-dance, with Nisha Kothari adding the glamour quotient.
Fardeen Khan , Esha Deol and Isha Koppikar play the main characters in the story.
Aditya (Fardeen) is happily married to Ashwini (Isha Koppikar) and has a son from her. Yet, at his office he has a secret affair with his gorgeous secretary Geeta (Esha Deol).
Aditya lusts for Geeta and soon manages to bed her. As he enjoys the best of both worlds, Aditya maintains a fine balance between Ashwini and Geeta through well-crafted lies.
But then things go awry. He accidentally kills Geeta. And the unsatisfied lover returns as a ghost to haunt Aditya. Everywhere he goes, he finds her – underneath his office desk, and in his bedroom. And he is the only one who can see and hear her.
Ram Gopal Varma maintains an unpredictability factor throughout the film. The horror in the film isn’t gory or macabre. But yes, it does hit you at times, making your heart skip a beat now and then. And all credit for this should go to Esha Deol.
Esha really looks convincing in her part as the ghost of the dead mistress. Her brooding expressions, her steely glances and her ruffled hair give her an air of an apparition. She is superb in the sequence when she appears besides Fardeen and Isha in bedroom when they are about to make love.
Fardeen Khan acts well but his dialogue delivery is very mechanical. His diction is flat and has little modulation to express thoughts and emotions. Yet, Fardeen digs his teeth well into his complex character and brings out his many shades (from philandering to phobic).
Isha Koppikar is somewhat marginalized but she enacts her part of a middle-class wife with conviction.
The film’s music is pretty average. Tadap Tadap and Aa Khushi are the two songs that stand out. Varma doesn’t rely too heavily on background score to create a shocking effect. Rather he uses camera angles to build an eerie atmosphere on the screen.
‘Darling’ works because all its ingredients fall into right places.

Strangers

Starring

Jimmy Shergill .... Rahul
Kay Kay Menon .... Sanjiv Rai
Sonali Kulkarni .... Nandini
Nandana Sen .... Preity

Inspiration from a Hollywood classic apart, director Aanand Rai’s film ‘Strangers’ is a fairly engrossing thriller with a riveting denouement.
Only in parts does the film remind of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Strangers On A Train’. Mostly, Rai’s film chugs on a slightly different track and has a thrilling departure from the original after the two strangers in the story decide to become stranglers.
The movie follows a non-linear narrative approach – its story flits back and forth. In the very beginning the film catches you off-guard with the arrest of one of the protagonists for murder. From there on the story is developed at different reference points and the dots are connected in the last 30 minutes of this thriller.
Two strangers share their life-stories while traveling together on a train in England.
Sanjiv Rai ( Kay Kay Menon ) is a businessman and a frustrated husband who feels tethered to a depressed wife ( Sonali Kulkarni ) who keeps ruminating over the death of their only son. Rahul ( Jimmy Shergill ) is a failed writer whose marriage with his gorgeous wife ( Nandana Sen ) is on the rocks over the issue of having a baby.
Both the men are harried and tired of their wives and want to get rid of them. That is when one of them tosses an idea: they should kill each other’s wives. In this way the finger of suspicion would not point at them.
What follows from then on makes for an interesting watch.
Director Aanand Rai deserves credit for maintaining a tight grip over the movie’s pace and direction. ‘Strangers’ has a very Hollywoodish look, and a lion’s share of credit for this should go to the cinematographer (Manoj Gupta) and the editor (Sanjay Sankla).
Another good thing about the film is that its story is told in such a way that your interest does not wane throughout the film’s running time. The most gripping, rather riveting, are the last 30 minutes. The finale leaves you with your jaw dropped in surprise.
‘Strangers’ features good performances from its starcast. Kay Kay Menon, dependable as ever, brings about an interesting mix of suave and sinister in his character. Jimmy Shergill holds his place with flamboyance and maturity, playing a troubled and suspicious husband.
Nandana Sen looks gorgeous in a role that doesn’t put huge demands on her acting skills. Sonali Kulkarni has a small role but still she leaves an impression with her simmering intensity.
‘Strangers’ is one of those less-publicized films that catch you by surprise. In all likelihood, box-office will find few takers for this film. But if you are a lover of thrillers, you will enjoy the time and money spent on ‘Strangers’. Just don’t go expecting the moon.

Jodhaa Akbar

Starring
Aishwarya Rai .... Jodha Bai
Hrithik Roshan .... Akbar
Kulbhushan Kharbanda .... Raja
Bharmal Sonu Sood .... Sujamal
Ila Arun .... Maham Anga
Director : Ashutosh Gowarikar
Lyricist : Javed Akhtar
Musician : A R Rahman
Music Album : Jodhaa Akbar

Jodhaa Akbar is a brilliant work of cinematic excellence. Period

Ashutosh Gowariker goes two more centuries back from his Lagaan era to deliver another magnificent masterpiece by weaving a gripping narrative around the Mughal Emperor Akbar and Rajput Princess Jodhaa. The beautifully recreated 15th Century period doesn’t give any scope at pointing fingers and perfectionist too might feel it pointless to debate on historical facts, especially when the final output is conveniently convincing and equally entertaining.
The film expectedly starts with the mandatory prologue in Amitabh Bachchan’s voiceover on India being intruded since the advent of 11th Century and the Mughals arriving in five hundred years later. Clearly the Mughal invaders are shown in a positive light since they settled in India. And thereon emerges the third generation Mughal Prince Jallaluddin Mohammad (Hrithik Roshan) who grows up as a ruthless warrior and brave ruler but simultaneously possessing a heart of gold and a clean conscience. Right from the outset his character is established in heroic conduct which doesn’t seek any transformation of sorts. So the story gets ample scope to focus on his love with Jodhaa.
The Mughals strategize war with neighbouring Rajput kingdoms whereby Rajput King Bharmal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) plans a peace treaty with Mughal by a marriage proposition of Jallaludin with his daughter Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai). The alliance initiates love between the two but war with the remainder Rajputs. Both at the audience’s advantage! That’s the simplest you could summarize the three-hour plus script.
Ashutosh has a skillful sense of vision and connects with the viewer with equivalent ease. The well-etched screenplay (co-written by Gowariker and Hyder Ali) maintains a perfect poise between historical relevance and contemporary entertainment. The film at no point becomes a lesson from history textbooks and at the same time doesn’t take prose liberty either. Special mention should be given to the meticulous effort put in by K P Saxena in penning dialogues in chaste Hindi and unblemished Urdu dialect that re-erect the bygone era and in unison is also easily assimilative to the current generation.
Right from the opening war sequence the film sets the ball rolling for an engrossing series of events to follow. Despite its long runtime, the film doesn’t drag at any instance and uses the blitzkrieg technique of nonstop bombardments of episodes in its narration. Hrithik’s taming of the elephant, swordfight with Aishwarya, dagger-combat in the climax and the magnanimously mounted battlefield sequences are some of the spectacularly executed scenes of this glorious effort. The minute detailing in Kiran Deohans’ cinematography, Nitin Desai’s production design, Neeta Lulla’s costumes, Ravi Dewan’s action and A R Rehman’s background score is superlative, to say the least.
On the flipside, the first 20 minutes of the second half tends to get a little slack with Akbar’s attempts at gelling with his junta. The love duet in the latter reels acts as a dampner. Sonu Sood’s death sequence turns out to be conveniently clichéd and the final fight is fashionably filmi.
With the entire movie revolving around Akbar, Hrithik has all in his favour and does complete justice to what he gets. One cannot think of a better Akbar as Hrithik effortlessly gets into his character, which the audience can easily identify with. Aishwarya appears as the ethereal beauty and does well. Sonu Sood has a conventional character but plays persuasively. Nikiten Dheer promises good potential. Ila Arun is impressive as the vicious foster-mother. But why does Poonam Sinha bear an accent? Other members of the cast are pretty convincing.
Aishwarya and Hrithik bring to life the splendid chemistry between Jodhaa and Akbar as it is delicately simmered amidst a political backdrop. While the romance doesn’t get mushy, the action doesn’t get too heavy. The film very smoothly switches genres from a war drama to a love story with no palpable jolts.
Everything is not just fair in ‘love and war’. It’s fabulous!

Alliens Vs Predator - Requiem

Two Predators load several live Alien facehuggers and his dead comrade onto a ship, intending to return to the Predator homeworld. Unbeknown to him, the dead comrade was impregnated with an Alien before dying. The alien bursts from the corpse's chest, then quickly grows into a Predator-Alien hybrid (Tom Woodruff, Jr). The hybrid attacks the crew, killing them and forcing the ship to crash land in Gunnison, Colorado. Before one of the Predators is killed, he sends a distress call to the homeworld. His message is received by a Predator warrior (Ian Whyte) who immediately embarks on the journey to earth to rectify the situation. Meanwhile, the facehuggers escape from the crashed ship and impregnate a father and son hunting team (Kurt Max Runte and Liam James) and, later, two homeless men living in the sewer system.
Dallas (Steven Pasquale) returns to Gunnison after a stint in the state penitentiary. He is picked up at the bus station by Morales (John Ortiz); Dallas and Morales used to be partners in crime, but Morales is now the county's sheriff. Also arriving home is Kelly (Reiko Aylesworth), after a tour of duty in Iraq. Her husband, Tim (Sam Trammel) is overjoyed to see her, but their daughter, Molly (Ariel Gade), is unsure of how to react to her mother's return. She does, however, enjoy the night-vision goggles Kelly brought home as a souvenir. Meanwhile, Dallas's younger brother Ricky (Johnny Lewis), is beaten up by Dale (David Paetkau) and his friends. Ricky has been flirting with Dale's girlfriend, Jesse (Kristin Hager). The fight is the last straw and Jesse breaks things off with Dale. She invites Ricky to go skinny-dipping with her at the high school's pool later that night.
The Predator arrives and scavenges weapons from the downed vessel then destroys it. He uses an acid to destroy the corpses of the alien's current victims as well as the facehuggers he finds. When Deputy Ray stumbles upon the scene, the Predator kills him and skins his corpse. When Morales and Dallas find Ray's body, they realize that something horrible is stalking the town.
The Predator tracks the aliens to the city's sewer system. He dispatches several but is caught off-guard by the Pred-Alien. The Pred-Alien and other aliens escape into the city and begin to attack the citizens. The Predator follows one to the city's nuclear power station. In the ensuing battle, the station is damaged and the city loses power. Morales realizes that the entire county is in danger and orders the town evacuated. He also requests National Guard assistance. The Pred-Alien realizes he can use fertile women to create hordes of aliens without needing facehuggers. At the local hospital, it injects alien larvae into all of the pregnant mothers in the maternity ward. Within hours, a small army of aliens has been created.
At the high school, Ricky's swim date with Jesse is interrupted when Dale and his friends arrive and attack Ricky. Before they can drown him in the pool, an alien arrives and kills Dale's friends. Jesse, Ricky and Dale escape and find Morales and Dallas at the power station. They tell them what has happened, which Morales and Dallas largely confirm by visiting the school. They don't find any corpses, however, as the Predator has already been there to kill the alien and destroy the evidence. Morales, Dallas, Ricky, Jesse and Dale realize they need weapons to protect themselves and break into a local sporting goods store. They are joined by Kelly and Molly, who have been attracted by the flashing lights on Morales's squad car. Earlier, an alien had attacked their home, killing Tim.
Morales makes contact with the arriving National Guardsmen. All he hears, however, is the sound of them being slaughtered by the aliens. Then aliens appear in the sporting goods store. However, the Predator has followed them there and kills the aliens. Dale's face is melted off by alien acid blood but the others escape. They make their way to the scene of the Guardsmen slaughter. Kelly knows how to drive the tanks, so they all climb in. Morales contacts Col. Stevens (Robert Joy), who tells them to head to the center of town to be airlifted out of town. However, the plan is not to airlift anyone to safety but instead to use the townspeople as bait to draw the aliens to one area and then destroy everyone with a small nuclear bomb. Kelly realizes that they will all die if they do as Stevens tells them but Morales doesn't believe her. When they encounter a number of other people headed towards the center of town, Morales joins them; Kelly, Molly, Dallas, Ricky and Jesse head for the hospital, where they will use the med-evac helicopter to fly to safety.
The hospital is overrun with aliens, and the Predator arrives to destroy them. Making their way up the stairs, the humans run into the middle of a Predator-Alien battle. Jesse is impaled by the Predator's flying daggers. Enraged, Ricky attacks the Predator with a machine gun but before the Predator can kill him, the aliens knock it down an elevator shaft. Ricky is wounded but will live. The Predator leaves behind a pulse rifle, which Dallas picks up. They make their way to the roof, but aliens block their path to the helicopter. As Dallas uses the pulse rifle to hold off the aliens, Kelly gets the helicopter started. Just as the aliens are about to surround and kill Dallas, the Predator arrives and kills off the remaining aliens. Dallas boards the helicopter and they fly away as the Predator and Pred-Alien duel to the death.
At the center of town, the humans are surrounded by aliens. Looking up to the skies in hopes of seeing rescue helicopters, Morales instead sees a jet fighter drop a bomb; he realizes Kelly was right as the town and all of the remaining aliens are incinerated, including the Predator and Pred-Alien who are locked in each other's death grip. Kelly manages to pilot the helicopter to a fairly safe crash landing. They are surrounded by other Guardsmen who disarm them and provide medical care to Ricky. They confiscate the Predator pulse rifle from Dallas.
Col. Stevens takes the Predator pulse rifle to Ms. Yutani (Francoise Yip). She tells him that the earth is not ready for the technology it represents. Col. Stevens knows Yutani doesn't want the technology to use on earth.

'Dus Kahaniyaan' -An interesting medley

Sanjay Gupta’s ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ is an interesting, engrossing and entertaining watch. The movie is a rare experiment, comprising of ten different short stories by six directors.
The tales in ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ almost reminded me of short stories by O Henry. Though there is no Henry-esque humour in the film, every story has some coincidence, contrived circumstance, or a twist in the tale. And the best part is that every short film has been shot and presented realistically, lending a strong credibility to each tale.
It would be unpardonable to give away the stories in detail, so here are just the rough outlines of them.

Matrimony

One of the best short stories in the film, ‘Matrimony’ by Sanjay Gupta has Mandira Bedi playing a bored wife of a businessman ( Arbaaz Khan ). Secretly, she is having an affair with another man (Sudhanshu Pandey). The affair comes to an end when he has to leave the city. But before leaving he gives her a gift that coincidentally unravels a new, shocking secret to Mandira.

High On the Highway

This film by Hansal Mehta is slightly ambiguous as the doped minds of its protagonists – Jimmy Shergill and Masumeh Makhija , film students who like to get high and hit the highway. But their lives change on the fateful, farewell night after an incident on the highway.

Puranmaasi

Of the ten kahaniyaan, this short film by Meghna Gulzar is the best, solely because of its superb story. In a small village in Punjab, a mother ( Amrita Singh ) gladly conducts the engagement ceremony of her daughter ( Minissha Lamba ). As Amrita’s rude talking husband leaves to buy things in city, the daughter (Minissha) dresses her mother with her own engagement dress and choodiyan, just to see how Amrita looked as a bride. It is the night of the full moon, the night when someone from Amrita’s past comes calling on her doorstep.

Zahir

Except for the twist in the end, the story of ‘Zahir’ looks plain and dull. Manoj Bajpai , a struggling writer shifts in as the next-door neighbor of Dia Mirza . In no time the two become thick friends. He makes the first move and kisses her. She rebuffs and walks away. Then a disturbing truth about Dia comes to the fore. But there is another truth that is more shocking than this one.

Strangers in the Night

Beautifully shot, this short story by Sanjay Gupta is a tad disappointing. Neha Dhupia plays a wife telling one of her secrets to her husband Mahesh Manjrekar . This is a ritual the couple follow every year on their anniversary. The secret looks like a sexual episode from the wife’s past. But it is more than that.

Lovedale

This is the dullest short story in the medley. Neha Uberoi gets down a train following a mysterious woman and ends up at the house of Aftab Shivdasani , a painter living alone in a house in the hills. The two share many tender moments but then comes the time for her to leave.

Sex On The Beach

This one is a bizarre film by Apoorva Lakhia . Dino Morea finds a book on a beach and what he reads in it comes to life in reality. A sexy girl ( Tarina Patel ) walks up to him and puts forth the proposal of the three-letter word. But what turns out knocks the daylights out of Dino.

Rice Plate

Directed by Rohit Roy , this is one of the best short stories in the film. A devout Hindu woman ( Shabana Azmi ), who abhors Muslims, quarrels with a Muslim man in a railway canteen over a rice plate. It is an incident that changes her belief.

Gubbare

The appeal of this short film is more emotional than intellectual. After a petty squabble with her husband during a busride, the wife sits next to a peculiar stranger ( Nana Patekar ) with many balloons. The stranger tells her the balloons are for his wife who is cross with him. But a different reality unfolds when the stranger gets off the bus.

Rise and Fall

Old habits die hard. Sanjay Gupta shows his old penchant for making stylistic crime movies in this short film starring Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty as two gangster friends divided by power. It is also about two kids who came to the city and got sucked in the whirlpool of crime. It is literally about their rise and fall.
The appeal of ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’ lies in the novelty of its concept. Almost all the stories are about ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances. Sanjay Gupta emerges the frontman with five stories directed by him, ‘Matrimony’ and ‘Gubbare’ the best of his lot. Meghna Gulzar and Rohit Roy share the second spot with their impressive films ‘Puranmaasi’ and ‘Rice Plate’. Hansal Mehta does a commendable job in ‘High on the Highway’, but he leaves a few questions unanswered. Apoorva Lakhia’s ‘Sex on the beach’ is spooky. Jasmeet Dhodi disappoints with ‘Lovedale’.
Among performances, the ones that stand out are by Amrita Singh, Nana Patekar, Shabana Azmi (if you ignore her contrived accent), Mandira Bedi, Jimmy Shergill, Manoj Bajpai and Dia Mirza. The rest, including Sanjay Dutt, are ordinary.
All in all, with the exception of a few dus kahaniyaan, the movie is definitely worth a watch.

Welcome ~~~ A comedy of errors ~~

StarringAkshay Kumar .... Rajiv

Katrina Kaif .... Sanjana

Paresh Rawal .... Dr. Ghungroo

Nana Patekar .... Uday Shetty

Anil Kapoor .... Majnubhai

Mallika Sherawat .... Ishika

Feroz Khan .... RDX
Director : Anees Bazmee

Producer : Firoze A. Nadiadwala

Exit from the hall at the end of the movie was the better part of watching ‘Welcome’, director Anees Bazmee’s latest comedy film. The movie falls way short of expectations.
Firstly, the film does gross injustice to an actor like Akshay Kumar , someone who has time and again proved his prowess at comedy. In the crowd of characters in the story, Akshay’s seedha saadha Rajiv gets lost somewhere. Not because Akshay is incapable of holding his own, but because the writers do not care to give more meat to him.
Secondly,the comedy in the film is so childish that I felt embarrassed watching most it. Please bear this sample: Katrina tries to make an April fool out of Akshay and pretends that she has lost her priceless necklace somewhere. Akshay spots the necklace next to a teddy dog alongside a pool. As he is about to pick the trinket, the stuffed dog lets out a bark, and scared Akshay falls into the pool while Katrina laughs at him and wins the April fool contest. Now, this was supposed to be funny. But it left me with my jaw dropped disappointedly.
There is not much to write about the film’s story. Rajiv (Akshay Kumar), a handsome, robust and eligible man has remained bachelor so long, thanks to his uncle Dr. Ghungroo ( Paresh Rawal ), who wants a bahu from a decent family in which no one has ever been to a police station.
But Rajiv falls for Sanjana ( Katrina Kaif ) without knowing that she is the younger sister of the biggest don in the city – Uday Shetty ( Nana Patekar ). And there is also Uday’s henchman Majnubhai ( Anil Kapoor ), a toughie who likes to hold people still at gunpoint and then paint their portraits. “Live Painting” is what he calls it.
While the two don bhais try to make the match between their sister Sanjana and Rajiv, there is a strong opposition from Rajiv’s uncle. So the two lovers decide to reform the dons. Following their plan, Ishika ( Mallika Sherawat ) enters the lives of Uday Shetty and Majnubhai. Expectedly, the two dons fall in love with the bimbo, and their crime business takes a backseat.
But then comes in the biggest don of them – RDX ( Feroz Khan ) to set things right.
Anees Bazmee pulls every possible string to make you laugh. But he fails to give the right strokes. He concentrates only on providing one hilarious sequence after another, but he completely ignores relating the sequences together. As a result, ‘Welcome’ ends up like a poor collage of comedy scenes, lifted shamelessly from Hollywood film ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’.
The saddest part in this purportedly humorous film is that Akshay Kumar has been denied the punchy lines and funny sequences he is best known for. The actor has been used like a prop in the huge cast ensemble. Still, he makes you grin ear-to-ear whenever his Rajiv blushes.
Rather, Nana Patekar’s role has more meat. And the actor does make you chuckle with his impulsive don who once aspired to be an actor. Anil Kapoor, too, is funny at times, playing a somewhat caricaturish Majnubhai. Paresh Rawal is just about okay.
Katrina Kaif looks terrific and hasn’t been burdened with scenes that require her to act. The same goes for Mallika Sherawat, who plays a bimbo without getting to flaunt what she is best known for. The two ladies, however, do add glamour to the film. Feroz Khan does the same for men.
The less spoken of the film’s music the better it is. With the exception of a Himesh Reshammiya track, the songs come and go like mandatory eyesores in this directionless film.
Anees Bazmee has done nothing but put several assorted funny sequences back-to-back in the name of directing this unoriginal movie. And he goes completely over the top in his attempt to make you laugh at the end of the film – in the dangling-house-on-a-cliff sequence, lifted straight from a Charlie Chaplin classic.
To see ‘the end’ of Bazmee’s film was a welcome relief for me. And when the movie’s after-effects faded away, I felt my sense of humour returning back.

Taare Zameen Par ! ~Every Child is Special ~~

Director : Aamir Khan
Producer : Aamir Khan
Musician : Shankar Ehsaan Loy

Very rarely do you get to see such great films that touch your heart and make you a better person. Hats off to Aamir Khan for giving us an exceptional film. Exceptional, because it serves the higher purpose of art, cinema in this case.
‘Taare Zameen Par’ is about a little boy, or shall I say a little flower that has been nipped so many times in the bud that it begins to wilt. But then comes the gardener, the man who lets, and helps, the bud to flower fully.

Ishaan Awasthi ( Darsheel Safary ), an eight-year-old naughty kid is often scolded and scorned at by his teachers and parents for being poor in studies. Life and its joy begin to seep out of him under the burden of the expectations of his parents (his demanding father, in particular) and teachers.

Through the bars of his classroom window he often sees nature and life outside in its natural and free progression. He gets to taste this freedom for one single day when he bunks the school for not getting his test papers signed from his parents.

Punishment – much against Ishaan’s wish, his father sends him to a boarding school, where whatever little glimmer of life’s joy that remained in Ishaan begins to fade away. And he even turns his back to his passion for painting.

But then comes a new arts teacher in the boarding school. Ram Nikumbh (Aamir Khan) knows how to reach out to children and make the process of learning enjoyable for them. He spots the silent and brooding Ishaan in class and decides to help the boy.

The rest of the film is about how the shattered confidence of Ishaan is restored and how he overcomes his disabilities and how he even surpasses his teacher in his favourite passion – painting.

‘Taare Zameen Par’ is a film made with enormous sense and sensibility. The story by Amole Gupte never intends to arouse in you sympathy for kids with lesser abilities. Rather it gives examples of great personalities, scientists and artists, to drive home the point that even a dyslexic child has a great potential.

The film is full of amazing moments that will make your eyes well up. An angry, bleeding and helpless Ishaan runs to the terrace of his building after being beaten by other kids. Or when his father slaps him after finding out that he bunked from school. Or how Ishaan keeps running around the sports ground in silent anger and frustration when his parents visit him in the boarding school. Or how Ishaan tries to hide his face when his arts teacher spots him kneeling in punishment outside a classroom. The killer scene comes in the end when Ishaan’s talent gets recognition and everybody looks out for him but he sits fearfully hidden in a crowd of children.

Darsheel Safary is the real hero of the film. No two thoughts about it. Aamir Khan is the second fiddle.

It is incredibly difficult to make a child act. And how good a job Aamir has done as the director is apparent from the stunning performance he has extracted out of Darsheel. In my opinion, Darsheel’s performance is the best we have seen from any male actor this year in Bollywood, including the Khans and Bachchans. The range Darsheel brings about in his character – from notoriety to vulnerability, and from buoyancy to lifelessness – is truly the work of a genius. Writer Amole Gupte and Aamir Khan have found a diamond in Darsheel.

Aamir, the dependable Khan, is up to his credentials as an actor. But it is as the director that he scores. Aamir has handled the subject with great sensitivity. His cinema is not about style but substance. Without straying into the usual trappings of a regular Bollywood film and at the same time blending the superb songs by Shankar Ehsaan Loy smoothly in the narrative, Aamir keeps TZP focused solely on the story and its essence.

And what a story it is. Amole Gupte deserves no less credit for penning such a touching tale. It is a story that shows the helplessness of a kid who is not able to perform tasks that are beyond his abilities. It also shows the lack of understanding on part of teachers and parents while dealing with such kids. And, last but not the least, it is a story of hope. It is a story that not just touches you but also transforms you. That, for me, is the higher purpose of art. And that is precisely why ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is an exceptional film.