Talaash – Movie Review

*The post does not contain any spoilers*

Aamir Khan always manage to ruffle an unparalleled euphoria with the release of his movies. When an actor works in one movie a year, sometimes the hype acts as a deterrent even though the movie is exceptionally well made. Talaash is one such case.

The movie begins with the death of superstar Armaan Kapoor. His car rushing on an empty road suddenly veers towards the sea and he drowns to his death. Enters inspector Surjan Singh Shekhawat (Aamir Khan) who is handling this high profile case with too many loose ends. Trails start going cold one after another and the leads are pointing nowhere. Armaan was not drunk that night, neither was he high on drugs. Surjan who has his own ghosts to fight in addition to this case is completely stressed out. He and his wife Roshni (Rani Mukerji) are drifting apart due to a personal tragedy. Surjan cannot sleep at nights and amble through the streets of Mumbai. It is during such a stressful night that he meets Rosy (Kareena Kapoor), a prostitute who works in an area near the site of Armaan’s death.

There are other tracks in the story like those of Tehmur (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a handicapped man living in the red light area  who hold clues to the jigsaw. The stories start converging as the movie proceeds and leads to a satisfying climax. Although I was able to guess it a few minutes before it actually happened, it came as a shock to some people.

A murder mystery need not be fast paced. Talaash is not an edge of the seat thriller but it grasps your attention from the first frame. The movie moves at a leisurely pace, establishing the characters and their dilemmas. Surjan’s character is going through a major turbulence in his personal life while handling this case. I heard a few people saying that the movie is a bit dull and slow but I do not agree. I found it well balanced and having a script which focused on character development – a term which most of today’s Bollywood script writers do not understand.

I believe that a major achievement of any movie can be when the audience forget that they are watching stars in action, when the audience is drawn into the movie, forgetting that they are sitting in a cinema hall. The movie worked for me in that sense as well. Even though the movie is almost 2.30 hours long, I was hooked and did not feel the passage of time.

Aamir has done exceptionally well because simple things are more difficult to enact. The pain Surjan is going through is stark and comes out as a raw wound. You feel pity for him. Rani plays Roshni in a restrained manner showing no histrionics. There is this scene in one of the songs where the couple is clicking a family photograph with their son. The family looks completely conventional with no traces of stardom on the lead actors. Despite Aamir and Rani’s superior performances, it is Kareena who stands out as Rosy. Her scenes with Aamir are beautifully done, especially the ones near the beach at night. I loved her dialogues in those scenes, the aura she creates while she shares Surjan’s anguish and her own.

It is a movie that I will count amongst the best which came out this year. The background score was great and set the mood and built up the suspense. Although I would have preferred no songs but surprisingly the songs were good enough and did not deter the pace.

I sincerely hope that the hype does not kill the movie because it is well made and enjoyable. People might have slightly different expectations from an Aamir Khan movie but this kind of well crafted and well enacted movie deserve its run and should be encouraged. I would give it a 4.5 out of 5.

Parting shot – If you loved Ek Tha Tiger and Son of Sardar, it would be better if you stay away from this movie.

Barfi

There is this scene in The Matrix Revolutions where Neo and Trinity are flying towards the machine city and are attacked by squid-like machines. Neo tries to destroy them but their number is too huge. He asks Trinity to fly towards the sky.  As the ship tears through the permanent dense dark clouds, Trinity sees the sun for the first time in her life, shimmering over the clouds. She says – It’s beautiful – and the look on her face is of peace, as if she is not scared of dying anymore.

Barfi is like that warm sun. It reminds us of that rare feeling which we have forgotten to attach with Bollywood – elation. I will not put any spoilers in this post because like wine, this movie has to be smelled and savored. Like wine placed in your mouth, it has to be placed in your thoughts and mulled over.

It is a story of a deaf and dumb boy who was named Murphy by his mother but it came out distorted from his own mouth, so Barfi it was. He is a strange boy who cuts electric polls to test friendship, who eat chocolates from the hand of a kid sitting in a train in Darjeeling while  he cycles holding a window pane of the bogie, who throws his shoe in the air to search for Jhilmil, who dances without knowing what music is, who propose to Shruti and reverses the arms of the clock to make her forget everything. Shruti comes in his life with her own baggage of apprehensions and to make matters worse, borrows a few from her mother. She ends up folding pictures and imagining her present. Jhilmil is autistic and circumstances lead her to spend a few months with Barfi, creating a bond that lasts beyond their disadvantages.

The movie is a case of cinematic brilliance. Every frame is like poetry and they melt seamlessly into each other. Whether it is the toy train in Darjeeling which is a character in itself or the upside down Howrah Bridge or the fireflies caged in a soap balloon or the game of reflecting sunlight from a mirror or the Chhau dance which makes Jhilmil jump with joy, every scene is a well thought out treat to watch.

What differentiates this movie from the crap we get nowadays is that the humor is not over the top but derived from everyday situations of the characters. There are scenes like Barfi wearing a Chhau dance mask and pulling a rickshaw with Jhilmil in it which will make you laugh. It is the simplicity which touches you in the end. You will be relieved that you still have the ability to smile and shake your head on humor so grounded.

Ranbir and Priyanka hardly have any dialogues in the whole movie but you never feel the absence of words. Both of them are a treat to watch, especially Priyanka. It is an achievement when the actors make you forget that you are watching a movie, when you forget the baggage which comes with stars. Ileana D’cruz, who plays Shruti is surprisingly poised and holds her ground. Saurabh Shukla as the police officer who has a love-hate relationship with Barfi is hilarious and raised quite a few laughs. I wish Barfi’s affinity towards his father was explored in more details.

The movie could have fallen flat because of the absence of dialogues but the mesmerizing background score holds the script together and so does the music by Pritam. Although the movie falters a bit after the interval but comes on track soon afterwards.

After watching Agent Vinod, Ek That Tiger and Raaz 3, this movie was godsend. This has been a sunny year for Bollywood with sensible movies like Paan Singh Tomar, Kahani, Vicky Donor and Barfi releasing in quick succession. Let us hope that better sense prevails and we see more quality movies this year and also that the numerous awards give recognition to talent rather than crappy money-minded cinema.

Thank you Anurag Basu for all the goosebumps and making me believe that Bollywood has not lost the knack.

Go and relish this masterpiece. It comes once in a blue moon.

[images from 1,2, 3]

The third Raaz of making Garbage

Let me categorically state that I had no intentions of writing about Raaz 3 but the movie was so downright stupid that how could I let go of a chance to butcher it with my bare hands?

*This post is not full of spoilers but is one big spoiler*

So, the movie begins with a top Bollywood actress cheekily called Shanaya (Bipasha Basu) desperate to get an award as she thinks she is falling behind in the race as new young and fresh actresses like Sanjana (Esha Gupta) are replacing her. She goes to astrologers and Babas and recites ‘Gayatri Mantra’ before opening the door of her car in the award function.

[Aren’t there around 163 award functions every year in Bollywood? If Shanaya could not get even one of them, maybe it was  time to quit?]

Shanaya also have this problem with Sanjana because they are step sisters with a common father. The paparazzi and the rest of the world is blissfully unaware of this fact. Aditya (Emraan Hashmi) is a successful director (!!) and gets awards too (!!!!!!!!!). Shanaya of course does not win and the award goes to – guess who – Sanjana. As Shanaya stomps out of the venue, an old servant of her (who is stalking her and lurking on the red carpet) gets all sentimental and asks her to visit a ghost who lives in a small pond inside a chawl (!). Shanaya meets the ghost, who has covered the entrance to all the temples of the chawl with black cloth so that the Gods do not disturb him and who is in the mood for philanthropy and agrees to help her. He gives her some water and asks her to give a few drops to Sanjana every day.

[Why will a ghost do black magic instead of simply scaring the shit out of Sanjana himself is a mystery]

Shanaya plants Aditya at Sanjana’s house after copulating with him and irritating him so much with her passionless kisses that he agrees to help just to get rid of her tongue cleaning his face again and again.

This is my happy face!! Now I will finally have my revenge!

Sanjana stays alone with her maid and sleeps with all the doors and windows of her house open and has a photograph of a Joker scaring her when she was a child on one of the living room walls. Weird girl! As she unknowingly drinks the black magic-ed water everyday she starts screaming and running with such alarming frequency that the audience starts laughing instead of sympathizing with her.

 – There are televisions turning on and worm infested hands coming out of them.

– Her maid dies by stabbing herself with gigantic shards of glasses and then as if that was not enough to kill her, she hangs herself from the fan and switches it on.

– Then there are cockroaches coming out of the wash basins and carry out a coordinated attack on Sanjana during a party. Sanjana, dumb as she is, is not able to locate the bathroom door and ends up removing all her clothes to get rid of all the cockroaches who are now trying to get inside her from every possible opening in her body. Finally when she has taken off everything, she is able to locate the bathroom door and runs out naked in the party, gets on a table and slaps her butt numerous times, much to the amusement of the guests and the paparazzi.

Busy screaming eh? The door is right behind you.

– In another incident, Sanjana enters an empty shooting studio. Now instead of smelling something fishy and running out immediately, she ventures inside and finds a Joker running after her and scaring her to death. After she is scared enough, she finds the door.

Sanjana decides to take the help of a Baba types who sends his disciple into the world of the dead by making him sit in a graveyard/morgue and tying his wrist to Sanjana’s by a thread and mouthing a clichéd ‘Om Him Cream Chamundaay Viche’. This is like an anthem to communicate with ghosts and you will find it in all horror movies. The disciple ends up being decapitated with a shocked expression on his face. Sanjana goes crazy with horror and is calmed down by a sudden thrust of the infamous Hashmi tongue in her mouth. Even though she has just seen a man’s head fly off from his body, sex soothes her. Jab Hashmi Kare Pyaar, to koi kaise kare inkaar? (When Hashmi says go baby go, then how can the baby say no no no?).

Kiss me!! Kiss me!!! I just saw a headless body!

So Aditya falls in love with Sanjana, which pisses off Shanaya so much that she goes ahead and has sex with the worm infested ghost who promises to kill Sanjana for her. The ghost reaches the hospital and turns into a centipede and gets inside Sajana’s brain. Sanjana goes into coma and the doctor says that she won’t survive the night.

[Now if the ghost was bloody capable of doing this, why the hell did he waste my time by doing that water drops drama? Hrrrmph!]

So, our brave hero goes into the world of the dead to save Sanjana from the ghost. Bollywood finds its first doctor that believes in ghosts and he takes the hero to the morgue which is the perfect place to go in the world of the dead. The Baba types rub some gangajal on Aditya’s wrists (which he had conveniently forgotten in the case of his own disciple)  and gives him some superpowers. Our hero kills the ghost (it was a cakewalk) by just punching him with his gangajal soaked hands and finally by landing an axe on his head which he borrows from a Ganpati statue in the Ghost world! He also injures Shanaya in the process because she is now one with the Ghost after riding him. While our hero is beating the shit out of the ghost, Shanaya too is flying like Harry Potter and banging on walls in the real world.

In the end, Shanaya puts acid on herself and goes pitter-patter-splutter-hissssss and you are left wondering that why the hell didn’t she do that in the beginning of the movie when she didn’t get that godforsaken award?

The movie had loads of ‘Did you know’ moments like :

• Ghosts can be stupid.
• Bipasha’s thighs are huge. Like really huge. Just like those four pillars of the Taj Mahal.
• You can use the swearword ‘chutiyapa’ in front of two women in a fit of anger even if you are a sophisticated director.
• Doctors can believe in ghosts.
• Ghosts can be horny and you can have sex with a ghost whose body looks as if he was burnt for dowry and has worms slithering all over him.
• Ghosts can lift objects with their hands and even make calls by public telephones.
• Having sex will make you forget about a headless body.
• When scared, a woman can never find a door out of a room because she is busy screaming.
• The world of the dead is as shabby as ours.
• Kutta aur baccha pyar ke bhookhe hote hain (A dog and a child are hungry for love). *Who wrote this shit?!?*

After the numbness left my brain and after much pondering, I decided that Raaz 3 was THE worst movie I have seen in a theater. Ever. I had to come back home and watch Sophie’s Choice to calm my brain.

[Images from 1,2,3,4]

The Dark Knight Rises – Movie Review

It is rare that there is a pin-drop silence in the theater while a movie is playing. Usually there are people who are talking, giggling, making fun of one thing or another, people getting restless and banging your seat from the back and mobile phones ringing and being answered. It is rare that a movie commands your apt attention and that is what I witnessed in the theater as this mesmerizing last installment of the Dark Night Series unfolded. No one moved for 165 minutes.

The biggest challenge for Christopher Nolan was to at least match the benchmark of The Dark Knight. The absolute terror which Joker created in that movie will remain unparalleled in the world of cinema. This movie needed its own moments to make people forget Joker. I knew that if I would have missed Joker, this movie would not have worked for me. And I didn’t.

Set eight years after Batman disappears after taking the blame of Harvey Dent‘s murder, Gotham is peaceful and free of organised crime. Enters Bane and things go for a toss. I would not reveal the whole plot here as the movie connects to the Batman Begins at a lot of places, there are pieces of the jigsaw which fall into place, so it would be a good idea to watch it before going for this one.

There are a lot of sequences in the movie which gives you goosebumps, like the opening sequence in which an airplane is pulled up by a bigger aircraft, the first appearance of the Bat hovercraft when Batman is cornered into a dark alley, the moment when Bane hits the button and the whole American football ground caves in and cat burglar Selina Kyle driving the Bat Pod. Amidst all this mayhem, there are moments which gives depth to the characters, like the one between Bruce and his butler Alfred where Alfred tells him that he does not want to bury him and the one between Selina and Bruce where she tells him to save himself as he has given enough to the city.

Nolan uses three of his Inception cast members here – Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a Blake who is a smart police officer who inferred Bruce’s actual identity and one of the very few officers left on the ground (you will know what I mean when you see the movie), Marion Cotillard as Miranda who is one of the board members of the Wayne Enterprise and plays a key role and of course Tom Hardy as Bane. Anne Hathaway as Selina is an interesting grey character but finally joins the fight against Bane and God! does she look sexy riding that Bat Pod. There was quite a lot of whistling in the theater when she knocks down the enemy vehicles with it. Christian Bale is the perfect Batman. He has that sadness on his face.

The movie is fast paced and constantly keeps you engaged. There are times when the scenes rush and you feel that the movie is trying to squeeze in a lot of things but you can ignore such times. A lot of credit goes to the background score too. It pumps up the events, creating an aura of terror. All the recent Nolan movies like Inception and the Dark Knight had exceptional background scores too. These movies can act as a case study as to how a good background score can elevate a movie to a new level.

*spoiler alert*

I found the graphics a bit patchy in a few places like a few shots where the missiles are following the Bat Hovercraft. We have seen better. Also, Miranda’s death scene was comical. She died like a Bollywood hero – closing her eyes and jerking her head.

*spoiler ends*

As the movie ended, people clapped and whistled and let out the breath they were holding. Take a bow Mr. Nolan for giving us this epic finale of the masterpiece trilogy.

Rating – 4.5/5

[images from Google]

Vicky Donor – Movie Review

A few days back I posted this on my Facebook wall – “How is one supposed to leave his brain behind while watching a movie? This is one art I have tried to master numerous times and failed miserably.”

Everyone thought I might have seen Housefull 2.

Well, I am glad that I went to see Vicky Donor despite all my apprehensions because I laughed, not because I had paid 200 bucks for the ticket and had no other option. And the feeling was running throughout the crowd sitting with me. Everyone was enjoying the movie as if they were thankful that they were not forcing themselves to laugh. I heard a lot of claps and whistles too which are quite rare nowadays.

The movie tells the story of an unemployed youth Vicky (played by Ayushmann Khurrana) who is chased by doctor Baldev Chaddha (played by Annu Kapoor) who has a fertility clinic and is desperately in need of a super good sperm donor. He accidentally meets Vicky and convinces him to donate his sperms. What happens next and how ironical Vicky’s own life turns out to be is the story.

I have always underlined the fact that the most important actor in a movie is its story. The issues raised in this movie was a serious one. It was about how our society looks down upon sperm donors. How people have misconception about the whole process and what it entails. Even though the topic was a serious one, at no point the movie turns into a documentary. It never misses its funny undertone. Of course there are a few glitches but you won’t get much time to think over them.

There are so many small nuances in a movie which elevates the whole product and this movie is filled with them. The scenes between Vicky’s mother and grandmother are the soul of this movie and extremely hilarious. Annu Kapoor is perfect as Baldev Chaddha and I especially liked the sperm hanging in his car (I am still laughing when I am writing this). Vicky’s love angle played by Yami Gautam brings with her the side-splitting clashes between her Bong family and Vicky’s loud Punjabi family. It’s not only the actors who bring life to the movie but the dialogues too, which set the impeccable mood of the movie.

The movie turns a bit serious in the second half but it doesn’t drag and the climax will touch your heart. Ayushmann and Yami Gautam are consummate performers and are really good, well supported by the rest of the cast.

This was an extremely enjoyable movie for me. And I say this about Bollywood movies as much as you have seen Manmohan Singh open his mouth. Which is not very often. Go and enjoy yourself.

Rating – 4/5

A Mess called Agent Vinod

The first thing that will come to your mind after this movie ends is  – Thank God it’s over!

It’s completely bland. There is a stupid storyline which I vaguely remember as it is completely forgettable. The chemistry between the lead pair is conspicuous by it’s absence. The songs are stupid. There is even a romantic song in which Agent Vinod is killing the goons with the lady by his side. It was truly a WTF moment. The background score is ridiculous. Editing is shoddy.

The story(!) is about a RAW agent who is after this device called 242 and he has no idea what it is. So he hops from country to country, following trails. The trails include Ram Kumar who is an Indian who speaks to Russians in Russian accented English. Why can’t he bloody speak to them in Russian or in normal English? Then there is Prem Chopra, who kills his pet camel inside his own house in his introduction scene. As agent Vinod follows various leads, the country hopping starts to get on your nerves after a while. The agent hopped at least ten countries which left a lot of people confused after a while. Soon, no one (villains and audience alike) had any idea which country he was in.

The only interesting part of the movie were those two aunties who get into the wrong autorikshaw and were tossed through half of Delhi. Many good actors were wasted in small, inconsequential roles. The villain is completely made of wood.

The female lead is so implausible that it’s not funny. She goes ahead and spends one whole night with a bald, fat stranger believing that he would not even touch her and he doesn’t! He spends the whole night dancing with a bottle of something! She visits her home after 15 years and is all tears and sobs and the next moment she is dancing in a marriage with another dancer, who was incidentally rescued by Vinod from a huge jute bag some days back. She was so casual about being kidnapped and kept in a jute bag as if she was born in one. Well its a Bollywood movie!

The action sequences are mediocre. The camera seems to be out of control and is shaking violently as if all the action happened during a 9.6 magnitude earthquake. Some stunts were downright preposterous, like the one in the beginning where Vinod skids while holding the door of a moving Jeep and kills some terrorists.

I wish the last three hours hadn’t happened. I would give anything to someone who could erase the memory of watching this abomination.

Rating – 1.5/5

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu & Dinner table discussions

Who could have thought that Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu will spark off dazzling dinner table debates at home? I saw the movie with mom, dad, sis and Geet (yeah! Polly has been rechristened Geet. It was long overdue). Although the movie was above average, it broke many boundaries around how girls are expected to behave in our society. The movie projected the female protagonist as someone who had 6 past relationships, who had a great capacity for beer, who likes her personal space, is not worried that she is 27 and not married and can talk freely of sex and can rate a guy’s and her own butt.

*spoiler ahead*

I loved the fact that even though the guy acted like a typical guy and took she-is-roaming-with-me-and-introducing-me-to-her-family as she-loves-me, the girl stood her ground and did not buckle under the pressure. She wanted him as a friend and that’s that. They still annul their marriage. And she does not care that he is super rich.

*spoiler ends*

We have seen similar movies before – Salaam Namaste, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, Kya Kehna, Jab We Met and many others where the female leads are strong. Similarly Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu made the female protagonist much powerful than her male counterpart which is very rare in Bollywood movies. It gave her the right to decide in the end.

Now, before I indulge you with our dinner table debates, I must tell you that dad is quite cool with guys and girls befriending each other and going out for movies and parties. He has never stopped me or my sister from enjoying ourselves, although they are more cautious with sis. They are also comfortable with the whole girlfriend-boyfriend-affair-shaffair scenarios. Of course, dad and mom say things like it’s against our culture and stuff but they hardly believe it themselves. They just have to say it to maintain the Indian-culture façade (the same way you mechanically brush your teeth when you wake up) so that we don’t mistake them to be dangerously liberal.

The whole debate was about Dad having a problem with couples staying together without marriage. Okay, I know this doesn’t go with what happened in the movie but he was commenting about Kareena Kapoor and Saif Ali Khan. He could not understand Bipasha and John also who were together since the Big bang and then separated. He might have a point here but then I reminded him that everyone in question were adults and we do not have any right to question what they do in their personal lives. You know where this is going right?

Dad thinks that we live in a society and we have to live by its rules. Why do you have to live with a guy for 5 years and then jump partners after you get bored with him (he meant – after you had sex with him)? There is nothing sacrosanct in the whole affair.

I told him (in less obvious terms) that maintaining your virginity before marriage does not make the whole affair sacrosanct. That is a bit outdated. Secondly, everyone look out for new partners if things do not work out between couples. You don’t have to turn into a nun after your first breakup. Thirdly, our society is the most nosey and hypocrite society in this world. We are fine with girl infanticide, child labor, rapes, corruption, riots, dowry and so many other evils but we find it very objectionable when two consenting adults (who have the right to choose our Prime Minister) live together. It’s actually none of our business. *mom, sis and Geet nodded vigorously*

And this went on and on. It was funny because although dad saw my point in the end, my parents find it very hard to believe that our society has changed so much. I did not tell them that a lot of people have sex with their partners before they get married. I also did not tell them that Geet and I saw a college going couple kissing each other for 1 ½ hours as we watched Source Code in the theatre. It might be too much for them.

I can understand where he is coming from. He was brought up by a disciplinarian who locked up his daughter in the toilet if he found her talking to a boy. My parents were not very liberal with me and my sis initially. They had their apprehensions. Giving their son certain freedom might lead to their daughter asking something similar. But they loosened up and thankfully so. They still raise their eyebrows at sis at times, but she is a maverick. And I am outside their radar ever since I married Geet.

Frankly speaking, I myself would not have been very comfortable about a live-in but that certainly does not mean that I would pass judgment on anyone choosing it. It is also important to understand that movies like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu explore just one end of the spectrum. India is too diverse in its thoughts and opinions that accepting what happened in the movie as a norm would be foolish. Also, we have to understand that only a small percentage of our generation (especially urban) has moved ahead and understood that the nose is to smell the roses and not to poke in someone’s affairs. The rest of the present generation and a majority of the older one is tied to its belief system. They live in a matrix of society, wired into its complicated circuit.

But yes, whether we like it or not, there is a change and it’s happening right under our nose.

Rockstar Review

After raising my expectations to the tip of Qutab Minar, I finally plunked myself in a smelly multiplex to watch Rockstar. I don’t know if it was the multiplex or someone’s shoe but I desperately wanted the oxygen masks to drop from the ceiling of the hall. Finally, the attendants had to spray the nauseating jasmine room freshener to make everyone breath properly.

“Deja Vu”, I said after the movie finished, remembering something similar which happened when I watched Satya a year after its release. I had such high expectations from Satya that I found it very average and couldn’t understand what the hu-ha was all about.

Rockstar fared a little better. I liked it in parts but had major problems otherwise.

*Few spoilers ahead*

Lets start with the female lead Nargis. She makes Katrina Kaif look like Meryl Streep. Somehow, her expressions never reached her eyes. Even though she was capable of making a total of like 3 expressions, her eyes remained blissfully ignorant of the awful splutter of emotions on her face. Her best scene was when she was in a coma.

I found the screenplay shoddy at a few places. Imtiaz Ali wanted to show the relationship between the lead pair but he did that at the expense of mutilating the rest of the cast. So many threads which could have made the story more rich and the characters more believable were snipped off to show the lead pair taking a thousand bike rides. Jordan’s family was one-dimensional and hardly got 30 seconds of screen time. Shammi Kapoor’s role could have been more. Much more. Jordan’s introduction scene to Heer’s mother was snipped so badly that I thought someone fast forwarded the movie. The relationship between Jordan and the female reporter was terribly castrated and vague. Heer’s husband’s frustration was annoyingly underplayed.

The second half sagged like an old man’s skin for quite a while. Somehow, I was tired of seeing the couple going to dance bars and prostitutes and strip clubs. And why did they have to do it twice? Whatever happened to bungee jumping and paragliding as adventures instead of saying hello to a guy pissing on a wall?

Coming to the positives, I liked the story. I liked the fact that there was a story. Somehow, the boy taking the girl out before her wedding so that she could have some fun before the mundane married life takes over, looked clichéd as we have already seen that in “Mere Brother ki Dulhan”, but the Kashmir backdrop made it a treat to watch. Cinematography was great. Ranbir did really well. He moved from one end of his character’s graph to another with smoothness. It was his movie all the way. The songs were a nice mix. Somehow, I couldn’t understand a few of them but it’s Ok considering the fact that A.R.Rehman gave the music. It will grow on me, I am sure.

Overall not bad at all, considering the horse shit Shahrukh and Salman are throwing at us these days. The movie definitely had its moments. Don’t bother if you liked Bodyguard.

Rating – 3.5/5

Love Aaj Kal – Movie Review

I don’t know if it was because I was Bollywood starved from the last six months or if it was because the movie was really good, the fact remains that I immensely enjoyed the movie.

The Aaj and Kal of it (no spoilers)

Jai(Saif Ali Khan) and Meera(Deepika Padukone) are a modern day couple living in London who believe in the philosophy of take-life-as-it-comes and do not believe in tying each other down just because they are in a relationship. They know that their real preference is their careers and thus end up breaking their relationship with a break-up party when Meera decides to move to India to work.

Veer Singh(Saif Ali Khan) falls for Harleen(Simran) the moment he sets his eyes on her. It was love at first sight. Harleen liked Veer but was too shy to respond. That does not defer Veer from following her on his bicycle while she travels to college on a rikshaw and let Harleen know that he was madly in love with her. One day, Harleen shifts to Calcutta with her family.

The story of Jai and Meera is set in the present time while that of Veer and Harleen is set in 1965. There is a connection between the two stories but you better watch the movie to know that.

The differences or no differences

The underlying theme of the movie is that no matter how much the times must have changed and how differently we might look at love, the feeling is still the same. You will still end up in a whirlpool when it happens. It will still turn your world upside down. The story of Jai and Meera is completely different from Veer and Harleen. Jai and Meera are in love with each other without realizing it. Meera knows that if she asks, Jai won’t say no but then one day he will feel guilty that he let go his dreams and career. Jai is completely confused. Veer on the other hand had made up his mind that he is going to marry Harleen. The only question is how?

As the movie proceeds, the scenes shift from the past to the present and vice versa and you can see the stark differences and the similarities. The switch between the two stories is done brilliantly. You realize that how different and then how similar the two stories are.

The Performances and the Wasted Role

Saif Ali Khan and Deepika are good in their respective roles. Saif has played the confused modern day man in many movies earlier(Dil Chahta hai, Hum Tum, Salaam Namaste), so this was nothing new for him except for the role of Veer Singh. Although his Punjabi was not perfect but he did the role of a madly in love Sikh man, who starts working in a ‘phactory’ so that he can marry Harleen and who travels to Calcutta just to look at her once, quite well. Simran(Harleen) was also good in her role of a meek Punjabi girl. She left an impression even though she hardly had any dialogues in the movie. Rishi Kapoor had a very good role(can’t reveal more about his role right now. :P). Rahul Khanna was wasted. I am not sure why he took the role.

Music and everything else

‘Chor Bazaari’ is already up on the charts. I personally liked ‘Ye dooriyaan’ a lot. The songs are a nice mix of soft romantic and dhinchak dhinchak songs. Thankfully, most of the songs blended well in the movie and were not like a su su break song. Even the ‘Main kya hoon’ which started off as one ended up being quite well done. You will know why when you see the movie.

Dialogues are the plus point of the movie. Some very well written scenes like the one in which Saif asks Rishi Kapoor about how couples did not had sex before marriage in the past and Rishi Kapoor retorts back – ‘Jaanwar nahi the hum!’.

And, yes, thankfully, the movie had a story!

Finally and Eventually

Imtiaz Ali surely does not disappoint. I am in two minds and I know I should not compare, but was the movie was good as Jab We Met? I think yes it was. It had its moments.

Rating – 4/5

Director – Imtiaz Ali

Official Website – http://loveaajkal-illuminatifilms.erosentertainment.com/

Harry Potter and the half blood prince – Movie Review

I was quite adamant to see this movie on IMAX and in 3D and not in some ordinary theatre. What surprised me was that the booking of the movie opened last month on the 15th. Yes, you read it right! That is when the enormity of the mania hit me. And to make things worse, the seats of the first week’s shows were filled within seven days! Yeah! Harry Potter is Britain’s Rajnikant.

*I don’t know why but I just imagined Harry wearing his glasses in Rajni’s style. Uff! That’s dizzying!*

Anyways, back to topic. So, how did I manage to get the tickets, you may ask. Well, none of my flatmates are remotely interested in Harry Potter series. Yeah! I know! Just don’t get me started on this. Its as if they have just been freshly transported from Mars. And, then I decided to go alone. Believe me searching for a single ticket is much simpler because there are always one or two single seats left here and there. And, so, I booked my sole ticket on the 1st of July.

I haven’t read the books. Now wait a second before you raise your eyebrows and widen your eyes. Its always better this way. A movie can rarely compete with a book. So its always good to watch the movie and then read the books. That way the movie won’t disappoint you. And that is why this movie was not at all disappointing.

The first 15-20 minutes of the movie are in 3D. So, if you have a 3D theatre near your house, its worth watching the movie there. Its amazing! Although frankly speaking, I don’t understand why the whole movie was not in 3D? Atleast the climax should have been.

Now, coming to how the movie was.

The trailer of the movie might have given you an impression that its a very fast paced and dark movie. Apparently, its not. Infact, this might be the only movie of the series which was devoid of an over-doze of wizardry and action. It was more like a prelude of the sharp twists and turns which are about to come in the last two movies. I had a feeling that the director deliberately played it down. The climax was subtle, not rising to the chilling crescendo it reached in the previous installments. It was like the lull before the actual storm begins.

There was more romance in the movie. The kids acted well! The sets were beautiful. I loved the scene where Ron is kissed by Lavender Brown, much to Hermione’s distress. She walks away and sits in a stairway and Harry comes and sit with her. She had birds fluttering over her head whom she throw towards Ron as darts. Then, there was this scene where Harry gets a smack on the head for saying – “But I am the chosen one!”. There was definitely a substantial amount of humor, love potions and weird coloured glasses.

No. The movie was not boring. It had its own pace and you start enjoying it after some time. The story dwells into Voldemort’s past when he was a student at Hogwarts, the creation of the Horcruxes, Draco’s secret plans and Ginny’s and Harry’s love story(which started sooner than that in the book, they say) and the death of you-know-who. And yes, the tussle between Ron and Hermione continues with Lavender playing the third angle.

Not the most brilliant of them all, but worth watching none the less. And, oh yes, I missed the animated creatures. There were none except for a huge dead spider!

Rating – 3.5/5

Directed by – David Yates

Official Website – http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/harrypotterandthehalf-bloodprince/