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.

Just Married Please Excuse

To be honest, enjoying reading modern Indian writers is a bit of a rarity for me. Whisking aside books that have made a big impact worldwide like The God of Small Things, Interpreter of Maladies, Midnight’s Children, The Inheritance of Loss to name a few, I do not enjoy picking up an Indian author. Maybe the fact that they are all too mushy and are mostly about the various shades of love and are largely one dimensional has to do something with it. I have never read Chetan Bhagat and I took great offence when during a brainless game which our office HR made us play, a girl guessed my favourite author to be the said gentleman. I almost burnt her with my gaze. Now before you jump on me to be anti-Indian writers, let me add that irrespective of the country to which it belongs, the story is the real hero of a book. And India is such a vast country that it can never be complicated to find a story that touches you immensely. I am still on this quest and opening up to Indian novels with great caution.

Being utterly romantic myself, I am not against love stories but our cinema churns and throws out a substantial amount of them at us every month. So when it comes to reading a book, I would really not appreciate a nauseating Déjà Vu. In short, I would prefer Life of Pi over Five Point Someone, I would prefer something which gives me a different perspective, something which shows me a world I have not seen before. I did find The Mine by Arnab Ray quite chilling at places and Amish’s first two installations of the Shiva Trilogy decent enough but these were rare cases and not the norm.

So, I picked up Just Married Please Excuse with tonnes of apprehensions and was very confident that I would not be able to reach the conclusion. The story of this book is something a lot of us have experienced and lived. It is about a couple working for a private firm who fall in love despite their opposite approach towards life and family and how they cope with the differences. Maybe because I was not having very high expectations from the book, I was able to enjoy it. Despite having a very thin story-line the book was utterly humorous. Yashodhara Lal has a writing style which will make you smile throughout the book. It is not one of those books that rattle your brain but all it does is tickle you and that I believe was the sole purpose of the writer. As long as you do not compare, you will be pretty much content.

There are incidences like the one where the couple try to buy a piece of land near Bangalore, their ordeal with the maids and their sessions with a counsellor which will make you chuckle. It is difficult not to relate to the book because it reminds us of all such silly and funny incidences of our own life. Even when the writer is not narrating a story which is path-breaking, it does serve a humorous perspective to the everyday life of an urban couple. It might be something not worth mentioning, but I found that the book had a magnanimous usage of Hindi at a lot of places. I feel that this limits your readers. Pick up this book if you like reading light humorous books over a cup of coffee. It is a breeze. It has given me courage to include the untouched galaxy of Indian authors in my Books Universe.

Every time I see a blogger go ahead and publish his/her book, it gives me another boost to finish my own book which I am writing on and off from the last three years. Just Married Please Excuse gave it a final push. I finished the fifth draft of my novel which looked alarmingly mummified since the last time I had touched it. Not to mention that I will be entering the untouched galaxy myself about which I have been so critical. Scary.

[image from here]

Best Eateries for Bookworms – III

It has been ages since I have picked up the Best Eateries for Bookworms series. You can read the last two instalments here –

Best Eateries for Bookworms – I

Best Eateries for Bookworms – II

In the last few years, I have read some brilliant books. I have branched out my interests into fantasy novels (you can blame the unputdownable A Games of Thrones for that) in addition to some modern-day classics of English literature. I am not adding The Wheel of Time and A Song of Ice and Fire here because they are not a complete series yet. So, without much ado, here is a list of some extremely rich, thought-provoking and heart-rending books that I had the privilege to read.

Everything is illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)

This book is the most brilliant flash in the world of literature from the current set of writers. Turn a page and your heart will break into a million pieces and turn a page again and tears of laughter will roll down your eyes. Story of Jonathan who travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He has a very bad local translator, an almost blind driver and a malicious bitch to take him to his destination. Exceptionally hilarious and deeply moving.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

The story of a disoriented and unstuck-in-time Billy Pilgrim who can see past and future events of his life in no order whatsoever. Crammed with memorable characters, the novel explores the illogical nature of humans and the idea of free will. The book revolves around the Dresden bombings during World War II and was subjected to censorship and banning upon its release. Now it is ranked 18th in the greatest English language novels of the 20^th century.

Beloved by Toni Morrison (1987)

The Pulitzer winner of 1988, this novel tells a heart wrenching story of an African-American slave called Sethe who escapes from a plantation where she works. Years later, the ghost of her daughter whom she had killed with her own hands so that she is not enslaved like her mother, comes to haunt her. Written like a dream (and a very bad one) this book will leave you disturbed for a long time.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (2008)

The story of Nobody Owens who is adopted by ghosts in a graveyard after his parents are murdered one night. Nobody is a toddler and he walks into the graveyard that night as the killer search for him everywhere. The ghosts take him under their wing and take care of him as he grows up. Written with an inexplicable freshness, the book is filled with some amazing ghost characters and is quite a magical read.

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (2003)

A clever, cynical and the blackest laugh-out-loud book of recent times. You will love the humour which will jump out from every page. The book tells the story of 15 years old Vernon who runs away to Mexico because one of his friends (Jesus Navarro) commits suicide after killing sixteen schoolmates. Vernon lives in a small town in Texas and somehow the police are suspicious of him after the murders.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee (1999)

This Booker Prize winning book is the story of David Lurie, a South African professor of English living in the post-Apartheid South Africa. As the balance of power shifts in the country, David’s daughter is raped and he is badly assaulted. He has to come to terms with his changing country at an age when he is too old for it. A classic Coetzee novel with undertones of violence and exploitation and exploring the conflicts within South Africa.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010)

Winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2010, the comic novel follows the story of Julian Treslove, a bland BBC radio producer, his Jewish philosopher friend Sam Finkler and their former Czech teacher Libor. Libor and Finkler are recently widowed. They dine together one night and Treslove is attacked while he walks back home which somehow opens him to a lot of introspection. An uproariously funny and equally complicated book. One of the best that has come out in recent years.

Life and times of Michael K by J.M Coetzee (1983)

This Booker winning novel tells the story of Michael K, who is a gardener during the apartheid era in South Africa in 1970s. Michael is a very simple man and lives in Cape Town when riots break out and he decides to leave for his mother’s native place. The novel depicts his journey through the civil war torn South Africa. The novel does not lean on racism and you will not be able to decipher the race to which Michael belongs. It leans more on the value of human life and the passage of time. A heart tugging story.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)

The novel won the Pulitzer in 2007. It is a terrifying story of a father and son walking through the breadth of America. A catastrophe has hit Earth and most of the human civilisation is dead. It is the story of their survival, their coming face to face with other survivors amidst inhuman revelations. It is the story of our possible future if we remain as reckless as we are right now. Terrifying at places, the novel depicts the last desperate bid for survival and the death of humanity.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)

Probably one of the greatest American novels, The Great Gatsby is about the ‘roaring twenties’ before the Wall Street crash. Nick, a young Yale graduate, rents a house next door to the mansion of an eccentric millionaire (Jay Gatsby). Every Saturday, Gatsby throws a party at his mansion and the rich come to his doorsteps to indulge themselves. In his heart, Jay is lonely and trying to get back his love that he lost 5 years back. It is the story of a decade before the downfall.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)

The Pulitzer winning novel and one of the most famous works of Hemingway tells the story of an old fisherman named Santiago who has gone without catching a fish for 84 days. He is losing his respect amongst fellow fishermen. One fine day he gets up and leaves for the sea to catch a fish and to earn his respect back. It is a story of courage, bravery and man’s fight with nature.

Have you read any of these books? Do you find any of these books interesting enough to pick up? If you want to read more about them, please click on the Titles.

[images from 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]

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.

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/

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!

Dostana – Movie Review

I think I am getting old, because the people around me were laughing and enjoying the movie while I was yawning like a hippopotamus(I almost took a nap in the second half). Is this what happens when you are exposed to world cinema and have a yardstick to compare? Or am I seriously getting old!!! 😦

 

Dostana is a story set up in Miami where Kunal (played by John Abraham) works as a fashion photographer (Although for the first 20 minutes, I was in an illusion that he was playing a model), Sameer (played by Abhishek Bachchan) is a “male” nurse (Although he keeps on telling everyone that he is a nurse and everyone in turn keep on asking him whether he wears a skirt to work. He never uses the word MALE nurse!!) and Neha (played by Priyanka Chopra) works for a fashion magazine. Neha needs to sublet her house because she can’t afford the installments. Kunal and Sameer are in desperate need of a house but they are refused an entry in Neha’s apartment because only girls are allowed. Both pretend to be gay lovers and gain an entry. Kunal and Sameer slowly fall in love with Neha but soon enters Abhimanyu ( played by Bobby Deol ) who is Neha’s boss and who is in love with her too!!!! (Very Original. Ain’t it??) Who gets the girl in the end is the darn story!

In the first half there are two things which are shoved right on your face – The word GAY and John’s chest. The word has been used unnecessarily in so many places that it starts getting irritating after a while. Ok! Its great that the movie is making a point but can you please stop underlining it until the pencil breaks??  And what is it with John? He is hardly wearing anything in the movie! In some scenes we can almost see the line separating his two newly acquired tight bums! Again, its great that he got a Firang trainer and did a lot of hard work n all to get that physique but if I have to see a skin show, I’ll go and see something called P-O-R-N. 

If you are thinking that the movie is addressing any sort of serious issue, then forget it. The movie has all the stereotypical Gay cliches expected in an Indian movie. Priyanks do say something like – “I am cool with it! Its a personal choice!” and Sameer’s mother (played by Kirron Kher ) also accepts John as her “Bahu/Damaad/whatever” and makes John perform the “Grihapravesh” and given him her “Khaandani kangan”, but that’s it! That is the extend to which the movie goes to address the issues. 

There is something very disjoint and unsettling about the whole movie. There are certain sequences and background sounds whose reason of existence was beyond my comprehension. For example, when Priyanka is introduced, the background music had a lady singing – “Kiss me baby!!!!”. What was that?? She was just saying hello to her new flat mates. And there is a background score which goes – What the F*ck!!! Yes, you read it right! 

All in all, a completely watch-it-on-dvd-later kind of a movie. It was enjoyable in parts, specially when all the three guys were trying to woo Priyanka and a few scenes where Kirron Khen and Boman Irani make an appearance. The music is topping the charts and is peppy – another reason to watch the movie, although the song “Desi girl” is completely misplaced(There was an auction happening there. Damn it!!!). Priyanka is cool, what a Bollywood heroine is supposed to be. Nothing more, nothing less. Abhishek does his part well. John is naked.

A great story gone wasted. This movie could have been much better. But, I have a feeling that it is going to work. It will be a hit because people were enjoying it! And Oh! Yes, there was this couple(boy-girl) sitting just in front of me in the theatre, whom I took to be conjoined twins. You know, the ones who are born with conjoined heads and which can only be separated by surgery? It was only during the interval when one of them got up to get the popcorns, that I gasped in horror and realised that they were lovers and their heads could actually be separated!  

I am DEFINITELY getting old!

Rating – 2/5

Directed by – Tarun Mansukhani

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

Rock On – Movie Review

Some old photographs in a box – forgotten friends and dreams – a compromised life – success without happiness – a chance meeting with an old friend and nothing to talk – picking up the pieces of an unfinished story – that’s Rock on.

Many of us have gone through such feelings, when we have lost our most dear friends because of reasons beyond our understanding. When we pick up old photographs of those lost friends and find them meaningless and meaningful at the same time. What a time it was!! Did all that happened in this birth? Somehow, that is where this movie connects. Infact, that is why movies like Jaane tu and Dil Chahta Hai connected. All of us saw ourselves right there on the screen.

Rock On is a story of four friends who create a rock band called Magik. Aditya Shroff is the lead vocalist (played by Farhan Akhtar) who pens down unconventional poetry and give the band a unique voice. Joe is the lead guitarist (played by Arjun Rampal) who is very idealistic and does not believe in compromising with his principles or music. He is talented but does not know how to do the lobbying. Kedar Zaveri or K.D. is the drummer (played by Purab Kohli) who is the sole successor of a family of jewelers but prefers his drums to the suffocating family business. He is the joker of the gang and the most lively character in the movie. Rob is the keyboard player (played by Luke Kenny) who is the most level headed member of the band, someone you can rely upon to resolve the problems in minutes.

Everything was going fine and the band won the Channel V contract for an Album when the Band disintegrated and the success story died before its inception. The four of them went their own ways forgetting each other and leading a life which they never wanted to lead till Aditya’s wife (played by Prachi Desai) meets Kedar by chance ten years later and then comes across some long forgotten photographs of her husband’s life about which she was completely unaware. And thus starts the uphill task of the band’s reunion.

Rock on does not have the flamboyance of Dil Chahta Hai but is more grounded in reality. It does not reaches the standards set by DCH but is very believable in its own way. Yes, you can draw parallels but then you can do that with 99% of the movies in Bollywood. The movie works at many levels. The strings of your heart will be stirred.

The movie does not belong to a single actor. All the four lead actors never leave the skin of their roles. Arjun Rampal shows a maturity which was unexpected while Farhan is able to bring out the subtle difference in his character during the ten year span even though this is his first movie as an actor. Although he is the most successful of the four members of his band after the split, he is still angry about the way his life has turned up and it shows in his strained relationship with his wife. Prachi is the surprise package of the movie. She acts like a seasoned actress and it does not look at all that this is her first film. The scene in which she tells Aditya that she is pregnant is her best. Shabana Goswami Koel Purie as Joe’s wife is also perfect in her role of a frustrated woman who has to give up her dreams to run the business of her failed husband.

On the negative side, the movie picks up pace in the second half and does not have much of a comic dose which seems to be quite essential for the Indian audience(specially since they are lapping up crude movies with 15 over the top comic sequences). Also the movie trudges too close to the abyss of a typical Bollywood movie towards the end and it is on the verge of loosing its unique identity.

The music composed by Shankar Ehsaan Loy is very apt and suits the mood of the movie like a glove. And the concert at the end of the movie will want you to get up and dance. A good story, crazy music, well etched roles and good acting. What else do we want?

Directed by – Abhishek Kapoor

Rating  – 3.5/5