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.