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.

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

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/

Monsters vs Aliens

A movie review of an animation film is the last thing you could expect out of me. But this movie is special, mainly because I wanted to watch something crazy this weekend and secondly because this is MY FIRST 3D MOVIE!!!!

Susan Murphy (Reese Witherspoon) is a happy girl who is about to get married to the man of her dreams when a meteor hits her(not metaphorically, but actually) on her wedding day. She starts glowing green and grows into a 49 feet giant. Labelled as a monster, she is captured by the military and shifted to a secret facility designed specially for monsters captured all over the world. There she meets Dr. Cockroach who is a scientist with the head of an insect(Hugh Laurie), a prehistoric fish-man (Will Arnett); Bob, a slimy indestructible monster (Seth Rogen); and Insectosaurus, a huge bug who stands 350 feet tall. Susan is heart broken and dreams of getting back to her normal life. 

Meanwhile, an alien ship commanded by Gallaxhar (Rainn Wilson) comes to an alarming proximity to Earth who sends a giant robot to find out the meteor piece that landed on Earth because it contained a valuable substance. The military is not able to control it and thus the monsters are let loose to fight the giant robot. What follows is a roller coaster ride of the fight between the aliens and monsters and how the monsters defeat the enemy.

The movie had a handful of funny sequences and it will always keep you engrossed.  There is a sequence where the President of the United States goes to talk to the alien robot. He climbs a lot of stairs to reach the big eye and there is a keyboard lying there on which he starts playing the tune from “Close encounters of the third kind”, thinking the robot might respond to it. When he does not, the president remixes the tune which further aggravates the robot. The missiles which they fire on the robot had “E.T. go home” written on it! 😆

Another piece of advice. If possible, watch the movie in 3D. This is the first movie which has been produced in real 3D instead of converting the movie in 3D after it is finished. The 3D graphics are mind blowing and you are going to love it. There are scenes of outer space and fight sequences in the alien spaceship which can be truly enjoyed because of the 3D effect. I would give it an extra half star just because of that. Watch the trailer below and you will know what I mean!!

On the down-slide, the movie is very predictable. Well, you can almost guess the story from the name. But then all cartoon movies are like that. 🙂 

Rating in 2D – 3.5/5

Rating in 3D – /5

Official website – http://www.monstersvsaliens.com/

Ghajini – Movie Review

After coming out of the theatre, I asked mom whether she liked the movie. Her answer was:

Isn’t this the kind of movie Sunny Deol used to do 20 years back? 

I told her that she was a genius and this was the best one line in which the movie can be described. Somehow, the movie reminded me of those dubbed Nagarjuna and Rajnikant movies which were released in Bollywood in the 80s and the 90s. Why Oh why do you have to do this Aamir!!!!?!!???!!!!

Ghajini is the story of Sanjay Singhania ( played by Aamir Khan ) who is the owner of a Mobile service provider company. He is super rich(owns a private jet, always moves with 5 cars around him etc etc) and falls in love with an upcoming model Kalpana ( played by Asin Thottumkal ). All this happens in the past tense. In the present, Sanjay is an ultra muscular, salivating, screaming, wide/red eyed human(??) who is suffering from short term memory loss and whose memory span is only 15 minutes. He clicks photographs to remember what he was doing 15 minutes back and is searching for a Mr. Ghajini ( played by Pradeep Rawat ) whom he is supposed to kill. A medical student named Sunita ( who is apparently the dumbest Medical student in the history of world cinema) helps him achieving his goal.

Ten minutes into the movie and the horror of the upcoming disaster became apparent. Thankfully, Asin’s role is the only saving grace of the movie. She brings in stability and novelty to the almost-gone-out-of-control script. The portion of the movie which unfolds in the flashbacks is much more subtle and watchable. For the rest of it, you actually feel like watching an old Sunny Deol movie where he fights with the goons, revenging the love of his life. 

Switching on my “logic” button, the movie took quite a few liberties completely banking on the we-go-to-see-movies-for-entertainment mindset of an average moviegoer. I can understand that showing Aamir’s body was essential and in sync with the story but why was a rich businessman folding the sleeve of his shirts till his armpits even when he is in his office was beyond me ( Aamir looked more like a don than a businessman ). Why would a Medical student go to a Don(Mr. Ghajini) and tells him that there is a man after him and he should be alert when she can see four of his goons standing behind him and might apply a little brain to understand that he is no saint either? Why won’t a woman run out of her house when the electricity fails and when she knows that there are four goons in her house ready to chop her? If someone is telling the whole world that the owner of the biggest mobile service provider company is in love with her, won’t she atleast Google it once to see what he looks like?

A very very irritating background score, some very jagged shots and a cliched been-there-done-that plot. Aamir, we thought that we are done with such movies. Taking up the same revenge drama with a short term memory loss splashed inbetween does not make it different. And in the climax, when you move out of the hospital with the dumb medical student, reach the Don’s lair, beat up his 20 goons ( and in the process, rotated the neck of one of them by 180 degree with a punch ) and fight with the Don himself, what happened to the 15 minute short term memory loss? Or are you saying that you did all that in 15 minutes? 

The music is no great shakes either. “Tu meri adhuri” is the only memorable number. And don’t even think about comparing this one to the original movie – Memento. Infact, there are no parallels. Only the same basic thread. 

I am disappointed because I was expecting something Earth-shattering. I know I am an average stupid moviegoer, but I am not THAT stupid.

Rating – 2.5/5

Director – A. R. Murugadoss

Official Website – http://www.rememberghajini.com/

p.s. This is not something related to the movie, but in the Mall where I was having lunch after watching the movie, the following announcement was being made repeatedly – “We urge the owner of the car number XXXXXX to immediately contact the guard at the underground first level parking area. There is a child locked up in you car who is crying!!”

Sigh! What is the world coming to!

Rab ne bana di jodi – Movie Review

I hate to be the harbinger of bad news but someone has to do the job. The movie could have been the “coming of age” of love stories and it was steering that way in the initial 30 minutes but then somehow nosedived and went deep into the abyss of the cliched. Before going into the details, the basics first.

Rab ne bana di jodi is the story of Surinder Sahni ( played by Shahrukh Khan ) who works in Punjab Power in Amritsar. He is an introvert, down to Earth, simple and sincere man who does not know what love is because he has never known any “ladies”. He goes to attend the marriage of the daughter of his old teacher and ends up marrying her because of the death of the groom. His wife, Taani (played by Anushka Sharma ) is an extrovert, fun loving, ever-smiling-and-laughing girl who is his complete opposite. Taani accepts her faith and tries to be a good wife(although she tells Surinder that she will never love him), but soon gets bored of her monotonous life and enters dancing classes to participate in a dancing competition. Surinder, who is madly in love with Taani, wants to win her over and with the help of his close friend Bobby ( played by Vinay Pathak ), revamps himself into Raj ( I am sick of this name now ) and becomes Taani’s dance partner. What happens next is the (predictable) story.

The movie was great in the initial 30 minutes. Infact, it had that Aditya Chopra stamp and the Rate-o-meter was racing towards a 5/5, but then something went very wrong. Accepting the fact that this was a Bollywood movie and there are certain things which we are supposed to take with a pinch of salt but I think this rule does not apply to a man who gave us DDLJ.

I could never understand why Taani was not able to recognise her husband when he appears as the over the top, eccentric, gaudily dressed Jat who keeps on cracking inane jokes and keeps on doing that Main-hoon-na-hand-over-head jig. Won’t you be able to recognise a family member from his voice and eyes even if he does a complete makeover?

I could never understand how an introvert and inarticulate Surinder can turn into someone completely flashy and gregarious on the snap of  a finger. 

And I could never understand that how a girl who has just lost the man whom she loved and her father, can be in a mental state to think about marrying someone who is a complete stranger.

The problem with directors like Aditya Chopra and Suraj Barjatya is that they are not able to come out of the shadow of their trend setting blockbusters and keep serving old wine in new bottles. They are not able to realize that the audience has moved ahead and people yawn when they hear sentences like – “Ek ladki sirf yehi chahti hai ke koi usse bahut pyar kare”, when they see characters talking to themselves in long monologues with a voilin playing in the background, when they see the hero fighting a Sumo Wrestler for no apparent reason and when they bear a song thrown inbetween a sequence just because the director wants his 5-lucky-heroines to make a guest appearance. And if you hear – “Hum hain raahi pyar ke, phir milenge, chalte chalte” repeated n number of times in the movie, then just pretend that you never heard it. Don’t worry, its just Aditya “trying” to create the – “bade bade shehroon main aisi choti choti baatain hoti rehti hain” magic.

The movie drags in the second half and why not? There are only three main characters and the running length of the movie is over 2.30 hours. Shahrukh is very believable in the role of the simpleton Surinder and equally unbelievably inadequate in the role of Raj. The movie is worth watching only because of the adorable way in which he portrays the role of Surinder. Vinay Pathak is good in his role and seeing him in the same frame as Shahrukh is like watching Tom Cruise and Woody Allen together. Both of them belong to such different genre of movies. Anushka is very confident inspite of being a new comer and has the capacity to go places. The music of the movie is average and “Haule Haule” is the only song which would make you smile.

After watching movies like A Wednesday, Rang De Basanti and Taare Zameen pe, movies like Rab ne bana di jodi seem to be inadequate and below standards. “Mushy” and “Romantic” also has a new definition and it is called “Jab We Met”. Another good story gone down the drain. I hope it works somehow, just for Surinder. 

p.s. Don’t forget to watch the photo album of the honeymoon in Japan in the end. 

Rating – 2.5/5

Director – Aditya Chopra

Official Website – Rab ne bana di jodi