Tees Maar Khan

'Tees Maar Khan', or Tabrez Mirza Khan (Akshay Kumar) is one of the most wanted robbers of India (they insist he's a criminal but he's really only a thief). He's aided by his annoying cronies Dollar, Soda & Burger. He's hired by the Johri brothers (MTV's Raghu & Rajiv) to rob a train that's carrying 10,000 kgs of antiques worth several crores from Mumbai to Delhi. Since he can't steal all that stuff by himself, he stages a fake movie production where he convinces residents of an entire village to help rob the train. To lend credibility to his movie idea, he convinces his girlfriend Anya, a struggling B-grade actress (Katrina Kaif), and Atish Kapoor (Akshaye Khanna), an Oscar crazed actor, to act in the movie.

The thing is I love Farah Khan's movies. They're silly and have their fair share of laughs, emotions, comedy, drama and action. They're complete entertainers. And mercifully, they are devoid of the kind of toilet humor one associates with her brother Sajid Khan's movies.

With 'Tees Maar Khan' (TMK) however, Farah Khan has let herself and her audience down. And all for love - had she kept the story and screenplay departments to herself instead of making her husband incharge of them, she would have had a winner on her hands. For TMK is quintessential Farah material. It has a plot that's bordering on insane and offers ample scope for spoof, something she revels in.

As it stands though, TMK is a directionless movie that ambles along for 2 hours before suddenly deciding to sputter out a lame climax. The much hyped train robbery turns out to be mindnumbingly uncomplicated.

Some of the gags in the movie are in really bad taste - jokes on dark skinned people and albinos being paraded as Britishers. And the product placements! Gaaaaaaah! They're too in-your-face.

For all the negatives, TMK also has a few positives.

To begin with, Farah Khan is back to doing what she does best - spoof the movies of the 1970s. TMK grows up to be a thief because his mother watched a lot of "chor-police" movies while she was pregnant with him. For good measure, his dad also happens to be a cop.

Then there are the spoofs on celebrities. If 'Om Shanti Om' took off on Manoj Kumar, TMK pokes fun at SRK (Akshaye Khanna is constantly regretting letting go of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionnaire). There are jokes on Danny Denzongpa and Manoj Tiwari. And there is the song 'Mere Desh Ki Dharti', which I thought was a master stroke!

Finally, there's the typical Farah Khan happy ending and the credits where everyone involved in the making of the movie, right from the actors/ director/ producer to the technicians and spot boys get to smile and dance in front of the camera while the song 'Everybody loves a happy ending' plays in the background.

Farah Khan manages to get Katrina Kaif to act AND dance. This is Katrina's best performance till date. She plays the role of a drop dead gorgeous bimbo with aplomb. She bounces around and over-acts as she's required to do, in a role where her dialogues are mostly confined to "important scene hai, aur make up lagao" and the likes. Even the way she yells 'Tabreeeeeez' and calls him a "meanie" will make you laugh. And she burns the screen in 'Sheila ki Jawani'. The song looks way hotter on the big screen than it does on TV (there's even a tribute to 'Jumma Chumma' in there...yay!!) and Katrina Kaif has got herself a mind blowing body. At least I think so. The Boy would like her to get her boobs back.

Akshay Kumar does a better job here than he has in his recent movies. He's restrained and funny. I can't think of any other actor who would've suited this role better than him. But he's pulled down by poor dialogues, courtesy Shirish Kunder once again.

It's Akshaye Khanna who gives us the most number of laughs as the actor who's so desperate for an Oscar, he'll do any movie by anyone who claims to be a hot-shot Hollywood director, without even checking his/her credentials or hearing the script!

Raghu Rajiv have made complete asses of themselves in the movie. No one's going to take them seriously in Roadies anymore!!

TMK is better than the 'Heyy Babys' and 'No Problems' of the world but compared to what one expects of Farah Khan, it's a let-down. The story had so much potential for her to just take off on but she was let down by a poor script, poorer humor and pathetic dialogues. I can just hope that the next time she sets out to make a movie, she realizes the importance of keeping her personal and professional relationships separate.

Break Ke Baad

Bollywood suffers from a terrible illness - it's called 'milking the formula dry'. Once a formula clicks, you can rest assured the next two thousand movies coming out of Bollywood would sincerely adhere to that formula.

The latest fad doing the rounds in Bollywood is "slice-of-life". It started with 'Bachna Ae Haseenoo, continued with 'Wake Up Sid' and 'Rocket Singh', carried on further with 'I Hate Luv Stories'. And just when you thought the audience had lost interest in the genre, comes 'Break Ke Baad'.

Well, the audience had moved on. It's just a bunch of boys who grew up on a staple diet of Karan Johar-Aditya Chopra movies who forgot to. They've now grown up and turned directors. They want to make "cool" movies showcasing modern-day relationships that belong to the K Jo-YRF school of film-making but are toned down in terms of emotions and grandiosity.

'Break Ke Baad' is directed by debutant Danish Aslam and produced by Kunal Kohli. If you confuse it with 'I Hate Luv Stories', you'll be excused. For both these movies are directionally the same in terms of story, have similar production values, similar (mostly unimpactful) sound tracks, and the same male protagonist. And cool as their titles may sound, both are yawn-inducing.

Aaliyah Khan (Deepika Padukone) is a spoilt, self-centered, ambitious young girl who lives with her mother (whom she addresses on a first-name basis...why?). She shamelessly and unapologetically chases her dreams without thinking of the impact her decisions will have on those close to her. She even lies without batting an eyelid if it's in her interest. And herein lies the first problem with the movie - the poor characterization. How the hell does the director expect the audience to root/feel for a protagonist who's cold-hearted, manipulative and conceited? One can be ambitious without being any of the afore-mentioned things, but clearly that did not occur to anyone on the 'Break Ke Baad' team.

Abhay Gulati (Imran Khan) is a patient, understanding, goodness-personified though aimless and clingy (according to Aaliyah) boyfriend. He not only puts up with her brattiness, he follows her all the way to Australia to be with her while she a) lied to him all the while that she was planning her stint abroad, and b) made it very clear to him that her going away meant that they would be taking a break in their relationship. Clearly, the concepts of "space" and "break" are lost on Mr Gulati.

Apart from the befuddling characterization, the movie fails on several other counts. While there's still some humor and wittiness in the first half, the second half turns into a predictable Bollywood drama. Girl & boy are dating, girl breaks up with boy and moves to another continent, boy chases her across the seas, girl ignores him and asks him to get lost, boy goes through emotional trauma, boy finally moves on, girl realizes how stupid she's been, girl tries to win boy back, boy resists at first but eventually there's a filmy ending.

The dialogue delivery is forced. You see, 'tu' is a word not everyone can utter convincingly. You need to have a particular kind of attitude, a certain brashness to be able to carry it off. An attitude that Deepika Padukone definitely does not have.

The soundtrack by Vishal-Shekhar is pretty lame. 'I Hate Luv Stories' had a 'Bin Tere' at least. None of the songs in 'Break Ke Baad' are memorable.

As for the performances, Imran Khan has school-boy talent. He's no "actor". And he's doing his stereotypical stuff here. Deepika Padukone may seem to be improving with every movie but she's still far from being an actress to reckon with. Besides, she really needs to improve on her diction and dialogue delivery. Shahana Goswami is wasted in the role of a money-chasing-sometimes-pink-sometimes-blue-haired businesswoman. There's no explanation for why she gives long, wistful looks to Imran Khan throughout the movie.

On the positive side, it's nice to see Sharmila Tagore and Navin Nischol play the senior citizens, and Yudi brings some zany humor into the movie.

There isn't enough romance OR comedy in 'Break Ke Baad' for it to be a true rom-com. Imran Khan is no Richard Gere, George Clooney, Hugh Grant or Colin Firth. There is zero chemistry between the lead pair. And there's nothing differentiating the movie from the other 'slice-of-life' movies that have come before it. Watch the first half if it's aired on TV on a boring Sunday evening. Don't bother with the second half.

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se

'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se' (henceforth KHJJS) is a movie based on Manini Chatterjee's book 'Do and Die', which in turn is based on the Chittagong Uprising - one of a series of rebellions against British rule in India led by Surjya Sen, a school teacher, that went into the annals of history as being a revolt carried out mainly by teenagers.

The critics have not been kind to the movie. From Abhishek Bachchan's acting to the mispronunciation of Bengali words, many aspects of the movie have been criticized. But I think the real let-down is Ashutosh Gowarikar's direction.

The first hour or so of the movie seems quite comical. The dialogue delivery seems forced, even funny, and there are way too many songs - they seem really out of place, even jar at times. The title song and the new version of 'Vande Mataram' would've been enough - they play in the background, at the right times, and help carry the story forward. The other songs were quite unnecessary.

As far as the acting goes, I wouldn't say AB Jr. was stellar, but he wasn't as bad as the media made it seem either. He tries to play Surjya Sen in an understated manner. Understandably so, given that Sen wasn't a warrior/soldier/political figure in real life. He was a school teacher who dreamt of an independent India and advocated non-violent rebellion for a large part, violence to be used only for self-defense. Having said that, I think Abhishek Bachchan is capable of much more as an actor ('Yuva', 'Guru') but he needs a director of the caliber of Mani Ratnam to draw a first-class performance out of him. (On an aside, I like a clean shaven AB Jr. much more than a scruffy one, so I would've liked him in the movie irrespective :P)

Deepika Padukone has a small role - in fact she has lesser screen time than the other supporting characters - but she does justice to it.

I didn't think much of Sikandar Kher earlier but I quite liked him in this movie. He's managed to bring forth the grit, determination and obstinacy (to overthrow the British) of Nirmal Sen. He also gets brownie points from me for a good-boy-next-door look in the movie :)

I would give Ashutosh Gowarikar props for the following:

1. Researching the characters and the time period well. This wasn't one of the high profile rebellions of pre-independence India, so the material would've been hard to come by. The effort that Gowarikar & his team would have put into this deserves to be appreciated.
2. Having the guts not to provide sub-titles for the Bengali dialogues. The main characters do break into Bengali every now & then, and there is a fair bit of background chatter that happens in Bengali.
3. Keeping the focus on the uprising and not getting distracted by the romance between Surjya Sen and Kalpana Dutta, as Bollywood is wont to do.
4. Performance by character actors (playing Surjya Sen's band of men) and the child artists.
5. The credits at the end of the movie. The pictures of the real freedom fighters are shown along with those of the actors playing the part. I was appalled to see the audience start to file out of the theater even while the credits were rolling. Whatever our views on the movie, it's a shame we cannot respect people who lay down their lives so we could live in freedom!

Overall, I would say KHJJS deserves a watch because it dares to bring to light an event that has, for some reason, been completely left out of our history books. The Chittagong Uprising may not have been as hyped as the Jalianwala Bagh Massacre or the Sepoy Mutiny, but as far as I am concerned, no freedom fighter was less important than a Nehru or a Mahatma Gandhi because every single one of them lay their lives on the line for India's independence. And no one's life is more/less important than another's. For this reason alone, we should watch KHJJS. And please stay for the credits.

Lafangey Parindey

There are some things that, when spoken, make you turn around in slo-mo and give the person who said them an "are you for real?" look. The Boy saying that he wanted to watch 'Lafangey Parindey' b/c he thinks Neil Nitin Mukesh & Deepika Padukone are good actors was one such thing.

I wasn't too interested. For one, the movie has been wrongly publicized as being based on Mumbai's bike/street gangs. It is neither. It is a love story between two people who speak the street language of Mumbai, what's come to be called Bambaiya Hindi. Secondly, I find both Neil Nitin Mukesh & Deepika Padukone to be pathetic actors. Third, their pairing did not excite me...at all. And finally, I think Pradeep Sarkar + Yash Raj = DISASTER. Case in point, 'Laga Chunari Mein Daag'. Still, we trudged off to watch the movie.

One Shot Nandu (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is a boxer who works for a local gangster. Pinki Palkar (Deepika Padukone) is a lower middle class girl with big aspirations living in a chawl in Mumbai. She's skates, and sees that as her passport out of the chawl life. In an accident, One Shot Nandu rams his car into her. She loses her eye-sight but not her dreams.

Feeling guilty, One Shot Nandu decides to train her to "see" with her other sense organs. In the process, the inevitable happens - they fall in love.

They get selected to participate in India's Got Talent but on the eve of their final performance, a bomb is dropped on Pinki - the cops, having finished their investigation in to her accident, tell her that it was her boyfriend who blinded her.

Surprisingly, I liked the movie. The story is unique and barring a few filmy twists, it touches your heart. The movie is short & crisp - just under 2 hours. Deepika Padukone has acted better than in her earlier movies. 'Man Lafanga' & 'Nain Parindey' are beautiful soundtracks. But the best part of the movie is its execution - Pradeep Sarkar has handled the crucial scenes with a lot of sensitivity and tenderness (that's his USP, after all) so that the pain of watching a normal girl with dreams & aspirations suddenly lose her eye-sight for no fault of hers, comes through very effectively. The unfairness of it all hits you right in the gut.

The downside of the movie is the language. Not everyone can speak Bambaiya Hindi as convincingly as Aamir Khan did in 'Rangeela'. 'Tere ko', 'mere ko', 'dimaag mein keeda mangta hai' and 'main teri vaat laga dalegi' don't sit easy on the lips of the protagonists of this movie.

I would recommend watching 'Lafangey Parindey' once, but then I'd be part of a very small minority.

Udaan

You see, I'm kind of done with so called "realistic" movies. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to deride them. But they generally tend to be depressing and so much crap to deal with in life anyway, who needs to inflict more torture upon themselves.

Udaan is one such movie. That apart, it's got a good story, good performances. It's the story of a boy who gets kicked out of boarding school for watching a porn movie. He's sent home to a dad who he hasn't met in 8 years. On reaching home, he learns that his dad has remarried and he has a step brother. To make things worse, the dad is a tyrant who insists on being called "sir", is abusive and is totally against the boy pursuing his dreams. The rest of the story revolves around how the boy copes with his dad and forms a bond with his step brother.

Watch it if you hold a torch for such cinema.

Aisha

'Aisha' is an adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. That's the biggest thing the director had going for her - a story with immense potential. Yet, she screwed it up and how!

19th century rural England is replaced by South Delhi's high society. Sonam Kapoor plays the role of Aisha, a fashionable brat who lives in a bubble and spends her life match-making. She sees it as helping people and "doesn't even charge any money for it". Every single woman is a new "project" for her. She has spunky Pinky Bose for a best friend and a dishy Arjun for childhood friend (supposedly).

Enter Shefali, a small town girl whom Aisha must hook up with eligible bachelor Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar). But before that, she needs to convert Shefali into a diva. Only if Arjun stayed out of the way!

The story itself is great material for a blockbuster chick flick - it's got romance along with dollops of humor and huge doses of fashion - but the execution is quite poor.

For one, Aisha & Arjun are supposed to be childhood friends but they're hardly shown to share a bond. You'll never see them hanging out, there are no "moments" between them. So you never find yourself wishing that the girl ends up with the guy - something very essential to a chick flick. And when they finally profess their love for each other, you're left with a WTF feeling.

Secondly, people keep hooking up randomly throughout the movie, without any background or context. People who couldn't stand each other end up together after sharing a single car ride. People who meet each other at a party for the first time end up making out and in the next scene, they're getting married! It's completely random...more WTF moments.

And I didn't understand why everyone was showing up everywhere! Aisha goes to Mumbai to visit her sister who's about to deliver. There she runs into Arjun, who is Aisha's brother-in-law's brother. So far so good. But why is Aarti (Arjun's business partner) also in the house? Go figure!

Abhay Deol was perfect for the role of Knightly - suave, sexy, smart & sassy. Yet, he's completely over-shadowed by Sonam Kapoor in terms of screen time. What a waste! And he's so unconvincing in the last scene where he tells Aisha how much he loves her. Rightly so...he too probably would've realized that it made no sense at all!

Sonam Kapoor is good as the self-centered, ditzy, bratty Aisha. I loved her wardrobe. Ira Dubey is great as the bitchy Pinky Bose, and I loved her Manish Arora outfits! Amrita Puri is cute as the impressionable small town simpleton who looks up to Aisha, Cyrus Sahukar is your typical Delhi guy and Lisa Haydon is better off on the ramp. And Arunoday Singh...he's so not hot. Big burly guys are not my type anyway.

I really wish Rajshree Ojha had done a better job of this movie...it had the potential to be such a fun chick flick. Overall though Aisha is worth a watch if you're in the mood for some candy floss and are willing to overlook the flaws in the script.

Once Upon a Time in Mumbai

'Once Upon a Time in Mumbai' is the story of Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn), a smuggler with principles, and Shoaib (Emraan Hashemi), his over-ambitious protégé. But more than them it's the story of the betrayal of Mumbai by the "underworld".


Sultan Mirza is a Robinhood like character in some ways. He's a criminal but he helps the poor, and he won't smuggle stuff (such as drugs) that his conscience doesn't permit him to. The one big mistake of his smuggling career is to recruit Shoaib who can go to any lengths to control Mumbai. Kangana Ranaut plays a super star who is in love with Sultan Mirza while Prachi Desai is a middle class conservative girl in love with Shoaib.

The movie has enough drama to keep you at the edge of your seat, and in spite of being based on the underworld it stays away from blood & gore. The characters are well etched out and the performances, superlative.

Ajay Devgn oozes style and character throughout the movie, Kangana Ranaut plays an unapologetic gangster’s moll with élan, Emraan Hashmi essays the character of an unscrupulous don very convincingly (I love how they've built up his character right from a defiant teenager to a ruthless criminal), and Prachi Desai as the hapless girl in love with a bad guy is good though not memorable.

However, I was a little let down by the way the movie ended - it was not only abrupt, it was also a little unjustified maybe.

The dialogues are an entirely different story though - they were really cheesy! Straight out of a 70s Hindi movie. I'm not sure whether that was intentional given the retro theme of the movie, but saner dialogues would've definitely helped. Overall though, Once Upon a Time in Mumbai is definitely worth a watch.

The Twilight Saga : Eclipse

“Let’s face it, I am hotter than you are”

How hard must it have been for Taylor Lautner to say this to Robert Pattinson with a straight face? Yes, that is exactly the kind of movie ‘Eclipse’ is. Teeny bopper, immature, brimming with sexual tension, cudding-is-okay-but-sex-is-not kind of movie. But am I complaining? Hell, no! Neither are the other “Twihards” (a.k.a. fans of the Twilight series) across the globe, I presume.

Okay, so maybe that’s going too far. I wouldn’t go to the extent of calling myself a “Twihard”, but I did enjoy the books. They’re silly and that’s exactly why they're so much fun. They take you back to the time when love meant butterflies in the stomach every time you spotted the object of your desire, stolen glances in the classroom and stolen kisses in the corridors. There are enough 30-40 year old fans of the movie, and I suspect this is the reason why. Also one of the main protagonists - Edward. That kind of boyfriend/husband/partner doesn’t exist. Now, at any rate.

I've always rooted for Edward but after watching 'Eclipse', I’m with Jacob all the way! And I have a feeling that Melissa Rosenberg - the scriptwriter of the movie - may have had a big role to play in this.

Now, the debate over the comparative hotness of the two males done with, let’s come to the movie. I liked the movie (gasp!).

The last two movies were real letdowns. For one, Edward has been portrayed as this gorgeous, sex-on-toast vampire in the books. He was made to sound so delicious, you couldn't wait for the hotness to drip down the screen. However, in the movies Robert Pattinson is made to look way too pale. The fact that he is a fairly bad actor didn't help matters.

Secondly, 'Twilight' & 'New Moon' were badly directed. 'Eclipse' on the other hand is reasonably well directed and fairly engaging.

The movie is bursting with sexual tension down to the last frame. It’s a lust triangle between two gorgeous men - one “cold” & the other "burning hot" - and on top of the triangle sits Bella, the morose, confused, spineless female protagonist of the novel who, apparently, loves Jacob but loves Edward more. But...how can she not love Jacob more???

1) He's pining for her & she knows it!
2) He risks his life to protect her, knowing fully well that she’ll choose Edward over him eventually (though he keeps hoping otherwise till the end!)
3) He saves her from freezing to death in an ice storm and the one kiss he shares with her towards the end of the movie is WAY more sensuous than all the kisses she has shared with Edward, combined.
4) His shirtless body can put any Calvin Klein underwear model to shame and he doesn't like wearing his shirt too much.
5) Unlike her boyfriend (Edward), he doesn’t reject her sexual desire, he welcomes it!! Stupid stupid woman.
6) He tells her that being with him would be as easy for her as breathing. B/c he’s the closest she’s got to human, in Forks. B/c he’s warm, not cold as marble all the time. But she’s not interested in breathing…or even being alive. She wants to have the life sucked out of her by a vampire so she could become cold & clammy too.

There are enough scenes in the movie that make you want Bella & Jacob to end up together. Like the garage scene where Bella asks Jacob if he’s imprinted yet (you feel for him, man), the scene where he tells her he loves her, the scene where he carries her into the forest (twice), the scene where he wraps himself around her to keep her warm, and finally, the kiss!!

The theater was packed during a non-peak hour show, that's the 'Twilight' craze. Though there were way more men in the theater than there should’ve been. I think they were dragged there by their gigling, squealing girlfriends. I genuinely felt bad for those men. Ladies, get a life! Go watch 'Breaking Dawn 1 & 2' with your girlfriends. It'll be much more fun and you won't have to listen to drivel about how dumb and tortuous the movie was, later.

Raavan

The only reason I went to watch 'Raavan' was because it was a Mani Ratnam movie and I'm a fan. Had it been directed by someone else - anyone - I probably would've skipped it. The presence of Aishwarya Rai in a movie is enough to deter me from watching it, Abhishek Bachchan notwithstanding.

Fifteen minutes into the movie I knew that I needed to see the movie as a work of art, an artist's free-flowing creativity rather than look for any kind of a story or script. That need to look for a story is what I think led to bad reviews of the movie, and had I done the same I too wouldn't have liked it. Because you see, Mani Ratnam had a pretty interesting concept in hand - Ramayana from Raavan's point of view - but he made some gross errors in its execution.

For one, he could not convey the ten sides to Beera's (Raavan's) personality effectively. The scenes where Beera's multiple personalities are having a conversation with each other make him look more like a psychopath rather than someone who has multiple sides to his personality! It also makes Abhishek Bachchan's acting look over-the-top.

Ratnam's second error was to make Beera fall so openly in love with Ragini (i.e. Sita). If I remember correctly, there were no indications in the Ramayana of Raavan falling so openly in love with Sita. Even if he was besotted with her, it was never explicit. That retained the element of demonry in his character. In contrast, Beera's character seems almost caricaturish because of his open declaration of love for Ragini. I'm sure that wasn't the effect Ratnam was aiming for.

Moreover, he made Ragini get attracted to Beera as well! She never admits to it verbally but it's more than evident in the last 15 minutes of the movie, where she gets off the train in the middle of the forest to go confront Beera about the lies she thinks he's told her husband (besides, who the hell does that??!!!) and is willing to take the bullet for him. Was Ratnam trying to show that she's suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome? Or was that really a filmy twist to the ending?

I also found Govinda's character extremely irritating. Hanuman was one of the central characters of the Ramayana but Govinda's character is reduced to being a sidekick to Ram. On top of that, he was made to jump from one tree to another, recite pathetic poems and crack completely deadpan jokes.

There were quite a few other flaws in the movie...where is this place Lal Maati? Who are these tribals? Why did they need to smear their faces with ash, coal, muck etc. whenever they wanted to celebrate something or sing & dance in the rain? I also didn't like the idea of hiring as talented a designer as Sabyasachi and completely wasting him.

If you leave these things aside, what I did like about the movie were the breathtaking locations (all in southern India apparently), the cinematography, the presence of water throughout the movie (almost 90% of the movie has been shot in/under water), and the message that there's a little bit of good inside every bad person and vice versa. Surprisingly, I also liked Aishwarya Rai!!! So something has got to be said for Mani Ratnam as a director. He's only the second director after Rituparno Ghosh who made me like Aishwarya Rai in a movie (Raincoat)!

Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Abhishek Bachchan. He just does not have the personality to carry off an evil role convincingly. He comes across as too much of a sweet, fun, chilled out guy even in scenes where he's threatning to kill her. And no, the eye liner didn't help.

Coming to Vikram...hmmm...I liked his personality - he has screen presence - but I didn't like his acting. Or lack thereof. He did little more than scowl throughout the movie, as far as expressions are concerned, and his eyes were hidden behind dark aviators for the most part, so we never got a chance to know what his eyes were trying to convey.

Every kid who's grown up in India has been doused with the story of the Ramayana - willingly or unwillingly. Mani Ratnam had the opportunity to make a blockbuster out of it. He didn't quite get there. Still, I would say 'Raavan' is worth a one-time watch for the simple reason that it's very different from other movies, and the visuals are pretty awesome too!

Shrek Forever After

Did I tell you I loved the movie?

Seriously, how could critics give it such bad reviews? They either didn't understand the movie (I swear that's possible. A friend of mine thought the movie was about Shrek day dreaming!) or aren't Shrek fans to begin with!

The story goes something like this: Shrek is bored of the whole feeding-burping-the-baby-and-nappy-changing routine his life has become and yearns for the time when he was a “real” ogre that could scare villagers and that people were afraid of.

Rumplestiltskin, the evil guy who wants to seize the kingdom of Far Far Away, tricks him into believing that he can give Shrek one such day again and makes him sign a contract. Shrek falls for the trick, only to realize that Rumple has sent him into a world where ogres are hunted, none of his real-life friends like Donkey & Puss-In-Boots know him, and where Fiona is not his wife but a warrior princess leading the rebellion of the ogres against Rumple. Shrek's only way out is to make Fiona fall in love with him and share a “true love's kiss” with him. And he has one night to do it! Unfortunately for him, she is completely focussed on her mission and does not entertain any distractions.

Isn’t this a cute story? It kept me engrossed and rooting for Shrek throughout. The 3D factor doesn’t really add much to the movie experience but 'Shrek Forever After' is just as cute as the previous installments, has plenty of ‘awwwwww’ moments and is totally watchable, if only for the fact that this is the last of the adorable Shrek movies. And I'm a HUGE Shrek Fan (not in size, only in degree :)

Kites

I watched 'Kites' after work on Friday. 8pm show. First day of release. And the theater was half-empty!

I may have nothing new to add to what’s already been said about the movie all over the papers & the internet, but I didn’t pay 310 bucs for nothing! So I’m going to trash the movie even more.

Here’s a quick no-brainer - What does it mean when you let off a man who's obsessed with killing you and has been chasing you tirelessly throughout the country, a country as big as the United States at that, and when you finally have him in your trap, you let him off by saying “Main tumhe maarne nahin, samjhaane aaya hoon. Mera peechha chhod do”? And then you let him off, just like that!

It means you will die and so will the others with you. And that’s exactly what happens in 'Kites'. Our hero is obviously stupid, and thanks to his stupidity he dies and so do his wife and his best friend.

There are many other loopholes in the story. How can a man have 11 legal marriages? How come the entire Las Vegas police department is running around the country along with the villian who's chasing the hero & heroine? Do they have nothing better to do? How can the unarmed hero single-handedly cause multiple police car crashes, roll cars off trailers onto police cars, jump from one moving vehicle to another, jump from a car he's driving onto a hot air balloon that's already in the air etc. while the cops are dying away like flies?

Then there are hilarious dialogue such as “Mujhe desert mein akela marne ke liye chhod gayi?”

And then there’s Hritik Roshan’s hideous attempt at doing an American accent. I say ‘hideous’ and not miserable, because I don’t think he tried hard enough in the first place. And that’s what gets me up the wall - Indian actors boast so much about being talented and dedicated and committed to their craft & their profession, but when the time comes to put in an effort to portray a character convicingly, most of them don’t go that extra mile. If you’re showing an Indian as an American citizen, implying that he was either born in America or moved there at a very young age, he should speak with an American accent. Not some strange put-on accent.

So what was the undoing of 'Kites', according to me?

An intelligent filmmaker (Anurag Basu) directing a massy, nonsensical movie written by Rakesh Roshan, to show off his son's green eyes & six pack abs. The plot hangs by the thread, and that’s a real shame given that 'Kites' is based on a beautiful and very original premise – that kites always soar in pairs and one always ends up bringing the other down.

They could have had a gripping story about love and betrayal had they tweaked it a little bit and executed it better. The story was right up Anurag Basu's alley. In fact, he could’ve made the same movie in his own style - gritty, low budget and made with the aim of telling a story and not paying homage to Hritik Roshan's good looks & rippled abs - and done a very good job of it!

The best thing about 'Kites' is Barbara Mori. She's really pleasant on the eyes, emotes well despite the language barrier and puts in a restrained performance even in the most emotional & dramatic scenes. Not shrieking, yelling over the top like our Indian actresses, Kajol included.

PS: On an aside, multiplex tickets have become ridiculously high. 310 bucs for the fifth row from the screen!! To sit amidst popcorn & soft drink glasses littered all over the place!! They don't even bother to clean the theater before the next show. And I’m talking about Fame Adlabs, not some small time local multiplex. So Fame Adlabs, you guys suck. I think I am going to revolt - given the care-a-damn attitude of the staff at Indian multiplexes, I'm going to refuse to pay anything above 200 bucs for a movie. They don't deserve a penny more.

My Name Is Khan

It doesn’t matter whether I say it from the epiglottis or not because I’ll be going against the grain anyway. I did not like MNIK. I did like Shah Rukh Khan in the movie though. He is brilliant. It must have taken a huge deal of effort for an actor who has relied on his dimples, his charismatic smile & outstretched arms to sail his movies through for the past two decades, to pull off a character whose eyes are dead, whose face can’t betray emotions, and who walks & talks differently. And pull it off convincingly. It’s a brilliant piece of acting from Shah Rukh Khan, only to be let down by a flawed script and poor direction.

I will stick my neck out and say that MNIK is a badly directed movie when critics and reviewers all around are applauding Karan Johar for having made something different from his usual fare. This is Karan Johar’s first mature piece of work, and given that he is 40, it should’ve come a long time ago. Alas, he has always been a film-maker too trapped in his trademark style, i.e. exaggeration of emotions, grandeur and larger than life everything. And it is this failure to let go of his trademark style completely while making a film that necessitated he do so, that is the undoing of MNIK. And the over-simplication of things.

But, let’s talk of the larger than life-ness first.

It’s common knowledge that Karan Johar is obsessed with Shah Rukh Khan. Without getting into the debate of their sexuality (which, incidentally, I don’t buy into) we know that K Jo is in love with SRK. He can never give the man a character that is real, not larger than life, Autism notwithstanding. A man afflicted with the Asperger’s Syndrome will most probably not have the resourcefulness to mobilize relief efforts throughout America in a bid to rescue a village hit by a hurricane. He would probably not travel the length and breadth of the country chasing the President just because “his beautiful wife asked him to go and tell the President that his name is Khan, and he is not a terrorist”. He would probably also not be able to sell cosmetics to salons. He will kept his ‘autistic disability’ card at hand at all times, not only when it suits the script.

Rizvan Khan is shown to be flawless, godly and capable of almost anything, even though he is autistic. But in spite of these flaws in his characterization, SRK makes Rizwan Khan work like only he can. He makes you feel sorry for the guy from the opening frame itself, and he is the only good thing about the entire movie…because he is unbelievably restrained. Because he isn’t SRK.

I’ll be going against the stream once again when I say that I didn’t like Kajol in the movie (I think people are raving about her because we see so less of her these now). Her character is half-baked - she swings from being real to being really ditzy.

Sample this - Rizwan keeps insisting she marry him but she keeps refusing. And in the very next sequence, she asks him to marry her! Why? Because he showed her a view of San Francisco she hadn’t seen before (say what?)!

She promptly changes her’s as well as her son’s last names to Khan and then goes on to pin the entire blame of her son’s murder on Rizwan. The fact that SHE chose to adopt his last name doesn’t matter, of course (it comes across like it’s a given women will change their name after marriage and they have no choice about it). She’s too shrill in the happy parts and too shrieky in the sad ones. But the Kajol-SRK chemistry can’t be denied - even though it’s slightly wrinkled and fine-lined now.

There are other loopholes in the script as well. For instance, we don’t know why the two fell in love. Rather, why Kajol fell in love with an autistic character. Their romance is hasty and culminates into marriage way too fast. The question is, would a perfectly cognitively-abled woman fall in love with and marry a man with a very obvious personality disorder that impairs the sufferer’s ability to form & maintain interpersonal relationships, so easily?

When SRK is frisked at the airport at the beginning of the movie, he’s let off after the officers see his ‘Autistic disability’ card which he wears around his neck. Yet, the same card is missing when he is arrested, thrown into a cell and tortured by the police for saying “My Name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist” in a public gathering.

Rizwan Khan is able to free himself from the cops and exonerate himself of the accusation that he is a terrorist because he calls the FBI to report a fundamental Islamist who is recruiting terrorists in Los Angeles and because he is able to rescue a village after a hurricane. But what if he had been a real person suffering from autism and not the larger-than-life hero of this movie, who didn’t have the cognitive ability, the resourcefulness or the wherewithal to do either? Would he have been able to set himself free and meet the President in that case?

The other undoing of the movie lies in the over-simplification of life, people & relationships. According to this movie, there are only two types of people in this world - the good and the bad. There’s no one in between. There are no “grey characters”, so to say. And we know that’s anything but true in real life. There are no only good or only bad people in the world. All of us have some good in us along with some bad. It may be a lot of good with a little bad, or vice versa, but no one’s a godly Saint and no one is a completely goodness-stripped devil either. As per this movie though, Americans in post 9/11 America are all paranoid, cruel, bad, and our protagonist is all good.

And that’s where this movie, which attempts to deal with one of the most complex issues (terrorism) and defining incidents of our time (9/11) really fails to impress. The approach is too simplistic compared to what this subject warrants. In fact, I feel 9/11 as a subject or a backdrop to a film should simply be left alone. Yes, there was a lot of racial profiling and faith-based attacks on innocent people in the United States and across the Western world post 9/11, but the dynamics of it is too complicated to be captured in a two & a half hour movie. And certainly not by a director with a limited repertoire like Karan Johar.

There’s confusion regarding the message that Karan Johar wants to give out through this movie. Sometimes it’s said that the movie has tried to show that Islam is not a bad religion that preaches violence and terror, and at other times that it’s just a love story with the backdrop of 9/11 and how the incident affects the life of the protagonists. I would say it’s the latter. Despite what the promos would have us believe, MNIK is neither about autism, nor about the misperception of Islam post 9/11. The autism bit helps generate a lot of sympathy and support for the guy and religion forms the backdrop. This is a film about a larger-than-life hero is madly in love with his heroine and will do anything to win her back, even if that means traversing the length and breadth of the United States of America with very little money in search of the President. And he will not hug her even if he runs into her after days of separation because he hasn’t fulfilled his promise to her of telling the President that “His name is Khan, and he is not a terrorist”.

MNIK is unbearably long, almost 3 hours, and without much of a story to tell post intermission, it seems to drag. Now, you don’t want a sad movie which is meant not to entertain but to arouse pathos, to drag.

I’m not saying MNIK is a bad film, or a badly researched film. But the disability (Asperger’s Syndrome) has been twisted to suit the script, and along with the flawed script, Karan Johar’s obsession with Shah Rukh Khan and everything larger-than-life prevents it from being the movie it could have been. SRK shines though and surprises you with his performances like only an actor who is good at his craft but inconsistent can.

Sherlock Holmes

This post is a little late in the day but so what?

Guy Ritchie, the man behind movies like 'Snatch' & 'Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels' has come up with a completely original take on Sherlock Holmes - which isn’t Sherlock Holmes as we know it, at all!!

Note I didn’t say Sherlock Holmes as we know ‘him’ b/c the essence of the character is retailed. He still relies on his trademark deductive logic to solve mysteries.

Guy Ritchie’s interpretation is less Sherlock and more Da Vinci Code-meets-James Bond. And I loved it. I thought it was an intelligent script and very well-made though A, who is a big Sherlock Holmes fan (he went to visit 221B Baker Street when he went to London!) didn’t like it for the same reason. Also, he hates James Bond :)

Seriously though, is it possible to not like James Bond??

Coming back to the movie, the things to absolutely devour were the homo-erotic relationship between Sherlock & Dr Watson (the sexual tension increased by the minute!), Jude Law who remains just as edible in any ‘avatar’ (Ha! Take that Cameron!) whether it’s the droolworthy Graham Simpkins of ‘The Holiday’ or the moustached, nerdy Dr Watson, the élan with which Robert Downey Jr. has portrayed the eccentricity of Sherlock (he's sunk his teeth into this role he has), and the intelligent humor. These characters remain unfazed even in the face of death and manage to infuse humor in the dreariest situations.

The biggest challenge when it comes to adapting characters that are widely loved and have a fan following from books or older movie series, and when you are also coming up with a completely original story, is to get people to like it. And I think Guy Ritchie has managed to do that - I’m yet to read a bad review of the movie.

Apparently, the producers of the movie are trying to get Brad Pitt to play Professor Moriarty, the villian, in the sequel to the movie which is due for release in 2011. Imagine Brad Pitt & Jude Law in the same frame!! Poor Robert Downey, Jr.

Well, I don't know whether they will actually be able to get Brad Pitt to play an evil character - which will be delicious by itself. What I do know is that the first intallment was gripping, fast-paced, witty and very typical Guy Ritchie. You’ll like it if you’ve liked his earlier work & aren’t too hung up on the Sherlock Holmes books. If you haven’t & you are (respectively), well you’re on your own then, my dear Watson :)

Pyaar Impossible

Pyaar Impossible is the kind of movie where the protagonists talk in terms of “Yeah whatever”, “Like, you know?”, “Shut up, really?”, “You know, what?” etc. and the director has paid more attention to the accent with which Priyanka Chopra speaks English (Indian-meets-American) rather than the story or the script.

Like, really!! To give you a synopsis, the movie is about a geek - played by Uday Chopra who really doesn’t need thick glasses & braces to look ugly - who continues to nurture secret feelings for college beauty Priyanka Chopra (guys, you can really go ahead & call her a sex bomb) even 7 years after they have graduated. PC on the other hand isn’t even aware of his existence (though he once saved her life!!) and has moved on to get married, have a kid, get divorced & work at a Singapore technology firm as their PR & Marketing head!!

The geek lands up in Singapore chasing a suave fraud (an appropriately cast Dino Morea) who has stolen his software and is about to sell it to the same company that PC works at, for a record amount. Geek boy follows PC to her house and agrees to become a nanny to her precocious daughter.

For one, it’s a story Hollywood has shown us many times before. Divorced woman, mother to a child falls in love with her child’s (male) nanny / housekeeper or her co-worker. So the movie has nothing new to offer in terms of story.

There are too many loopholes in the script, many WTF moments. For instance, no one - in any corner of the world - goes to work wearing beach/resort/party wear, where the skirt is barely long enough to cover the butt and the top buttons of the shirt are always popped open to reveal push-up bra induced cleavage. Not even in the US of A, leave alone Singapore.

Secondly, Priyanka Chopra’s character comes across more as an airhead rather than a smart, independent young woman who is a single working mother, drawn out on all strings trying to manage a demanding career, a home & a super brat of a child. She has spent her entire life seeking only attractive men and wonders how people can be so shallow so as not to look beyond a person’s looks / appearance. She leaves her 6 year old daughter in the care of a male she doesn’t even know after meeting him for two minutes! She works at a technology company but doesn’t know how to operate a computer. The list goes on.

Why did I go to watch this movie, you ask? It has Uday Chopra in it, so I was suitably warned after all.

Well, I thought it would be a breezy romance given the candy-floss feel of its posters & previews. Little did I know that there would be an OD of Uday Chopra (there’s just Uday Chopra & more of Uday Chopra on screen!!) Couldn’t we have had some more of Priyanka Chopra?? Coz, you know, she’s been getting to wear the most awesome clothes since Dostana, and with her mind-blowing body and her chic short hair she totally works the screen.

Pyaar Impossible is the kind of movie which ends with the girl saying “I’m just a girl but with you I feel like a princess”, and where people say “Shut the front door” rather than “Shut the fuck up”. It’s too superficial and hollow to tackle the subject of how people give so much importance to looks and the concept of Prince Charming. It hardly shows a romance growing between the beauty and the beast (who insists on calling himself a “geek”) to warrant an ending where she falls for him. You wait for the film to mature at some point but it doesn’t.

Overall, Pyaar Impossible isn’t unwatchable…I never felt bored in the movie as I did during Avatar…but I’d suggest watching it when they show it on TV on a Friday night when you have no other plans, rather than watching it in the theater. The only good thing about the movie is Priyanka Chopra. She’s confident, stylish, sassy and super hot.

To conclude, I’d like to say two things to Yash Raj : 1. No one wants to watch Uday Chopra on screen (and that too so much of him!). I mean, it’s not his fault that he looks the way he does, but it IS his fault that he thinks he still should be an actor in spite of his looks and repeated audience rejection (No, the Dhoom franchise is not a hit b/c of him), and 2. No matter how many movies you make for him, he’s just not going to cut it as an actor. Impossible hai yaar!

Kurbaan

Our stories are getting more intelligent by the day, production values are getting slicker. Budgets are humongous, so our movies are a visual treat, being short in US, Europe, Australia etc. However, there is a reason why we’re still miles away from attaining the same standards in movie-making as Hollywood – lack of attention to details. Our scripts abound with loopholes, unanswered questions and illogical sequences. In a bid to get star power for their movies, even big banners ignore the soundness of the script. And trust me, details matter!

Kurbaan reminds one of New York because both movies revolve around the genesis of Islamic terrorism and are shot in NYC. However, I personally preferred Kurbaan over New York because I felt it was more engrossing than the latter, and it seemed like more research had gone behind its making. Maybe also because I no more have the patience for campus romances!

Still, I found a number of glitches in the movie.The first 30 mins of the movie are used to show the build-up of the romance between Kareena & Saif. The pace is slow, the sequences weak, the actors unconvincing, and if you’re going to show a couple who decides to get married within a few months of knowing each other (or was it a few weeks??), the romance needs to be heady & passionate! A couple of insipid coffee dates won't get the message across. And oh, I’m yet to come across a college in India where professors openly kiss & make out in the staff rooms. Have you?

Secondly, any man with a sane mind – leave alone a journalist who is accustomed to covering war zones & knows the risks associated with not following security protocol – would never agree to track down dangerous terrorists who’re capable of blowing up planes & subway stations, on his own, rather than letting the FBI/police know about them!

Then there are other small lapses...Kareena Kapoor goes snooping around the house of her neighbor, who she suspects to be a dangerous man capable of murdering his wife, and sneaks into his basement at night (a normal person would call the cops)....she asks Vivel Oberoi, who she knows from before, to rescue her from her terrorist husband but instead of doing so (or taking her to the police who can keep her safe), he asks her to go back to her husband because he has some smartass plan in mind! She is never shown going to work after marriage though she moves back to New York from India because she has to start teaching at NYU again (and she's not supposed to have quit either). And she is pregnant without a bump!! Ever heard of that? Apparently, it’s possible if you’re living among terrorists in New York!

Overall, Kurbaan is engaging if you get past the first 30 mins that are unconvincing at best. The story is predictable but manages to make an impact. The music is fantastic. Vivek Oberoi has acted well & pulled off an almost genuine American accent without sounding stupid doing so (as is generally the case). While Kiron Kher fails to portray an Afghan. The performances by Saif & Kareena are good, though their pairing lacks chemistry. However, the movie's undoing lies in the many ignored details. OK for a one-time watch.

Love Aaj Kal

The movie is old hat. I stayed away from watching it in the theater. My cousin had it on her iPod and since we had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon, we decided to watch it. We love movies after all :)

Someone please tell me how 'Love Aaj Kal' could’ve been the biggest hit of Saif Ali Khan’s career?? More importantly, what went wrong with Imtiaz Ali?? The man who gave us the refreshing ‘Socha Na Tha’ & the lovable ‘Jab We Met’ (the only movie where I liked Kareena Kapoor) …how could he give such a dud as ‘Love Aaj Kal’? Did the law of averages catch up with him?

I understand the man when he says he’s over JWM but that doesn’t mean he’ll give us such a bad movie. The story of JWM wasn’t exactly path-breaking - just another romantic story - but the execution was brilliant. The contrast between the loud, vivacious, full of herself Geet & the silent brooding Aditya breathed life into the movie.

The things that let 'Love Aaj Kal' down, according to me, were the following:

The execution – JWM’s strength is Love Aaj Kal’s weakness. That Imtiaz Ali belongs to the neo school of cinema that propagates understated scenes & contemporary dialogues shot in surround sound is common knowledge. He had a decent story on hand but he went horribly wrong in executing it. Weaving the story of the young Rishi Kapoor seamlessly into Saif Ali Khan’s story was something new but the movie had little else to offer.

Casting Deepika Padukone – Probably the biggest mistake. Whoever convinced him that she could act!! Deepika Padukone is a terrible actress - she can’t emote, nor modulate her voice. There’s this one scene in the airplane where she’s speaking to Saif Ali Khan on the phone. She’s so terrible in that scene, you want to gag her pretty much! Kareena Kapoor made a lot of noise about why Deepika, and not she, was in the movie....I hear her totally! At least the chick can act.

The decision to make Saif play the young Rishi Kapoor – C’mon, some variety would’ve been nice! There was way too much of Saif in the movie, and for God's sake, he can't speak Punjabi to save his life! His Hindi itself is so anglicized.

If you haven't watched the movie already, stay away from it.

Kaminey

I thought the movie was good. Quite good, but I do feel critics got slightly carried away in their reviews. I don’t blame them though, given that there hasn’t been a single decent Hindi movie out all of this year.

I won’t get into the plot but I’ll tell you what I liked about the movie…

The realism. Charlie is a small-time crook & that’s what he’s depicted as throughout the movie. He’s never glorified just b/c he is Shahid Kapoor, the hero of the movie, and the Indian audience likes their heroes & heroines to be glorified. Remember the scene where Charlie goes back to his house to get the guitar so he & Mikhail can sell it to the Bangla gangster brothers (right before the face-off between Bhope & Mikhail)? You expect Charlie to be the brave invincible hero who’d give two hoots about Bhope. Instead you’re presented with a Charlie who is timid, maybe even a little scared in front of Bhope, a much bigger crook vis-a-vis Charlie himself. Similarly, Sweety is not a goody-two shoes heroine. She’s fully capable of conning her boyfriend into marrying her. Remember the scene where Guddu agrees to marry her & immediately she gets a call from the priest who would be presiding over the marriage, whom she has already spoken to & made all arrangements? Brilliant! She’s also doesn’t hesitate before lying to her boyfriend, and she’s no shy bride either!

The Bong gangsters – Hallelujah! The Bong gangsters were an innovative concept. Do you remember having seen a movie with a Bong gangster or even a Bong villain in it? I certainly don’t. We’ve had plenty of Maharashtrian & South Indian gangsters but never a Bong gangster!
Loved the fact that Vishal Bharadwaj didn’t feel the need to add subtitles where the dialogues are not in Hindi…dialogues by the Bangla brothers, the drug dealers, Priyanka Chopra’s dialogues in Marathi etc. The audience is left to fend for themselves, and while we may not have understood each & every word, we were able get the gist of the whole thing. That’s showing some respect for the audience’s intellect - an alien concept for Bollywood.

It was great to see a movie where no single character dominated. There was surprisingly not much of Priyanka Chopra (I’m wondering whether she’ll be nominated for an award in the Best Actress category at all). 'Kaminey' was as much about Bhope & Mikhail & Taashi as it was about Guddu or Charlie.

The humor - 'Apna haath Jagannath’ written on the bathroom door, Sweetie having conned Guddu into marrying her & having made all the arrangements already, Guddu getting stuck on Charlie’s name while being interrogated by the cops (he keeps going ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’, ‘Ch’ & one of the cops who thinks Guddu is taking them for a ride goes “Ch*****, that’s us!)

I’ve said this before & I’ll it again – Vishal Bharadwaj is just such a talented man!!

Public Enemies

The movie revolves around the notorious bank robber of the Depression era (1930s), John Dillinger, who became such a huge problem for the United States government that they had to get the FBI involved in capturing him “dead or dead”. Of course, as in all movies that have the battle between vice & virtue as their pivot, this movie too has a predictable ending, but the cat & mouse game keeps you engaged. More than that you marvel at the self-confidence of the outlaw – manifested in the number of times he escapes from jail, walks into the room of the ‘Dillinger Hunting Squad’ at the Chicago Police Department (without a disguise), asks for the score of the baseball game & walks out, and how he sneaks out undetected (again without disguise) even when he’s surrounded by the police!

I won’t rave about the movie but I found it reasonably good. It’s engrossing throughout, has a brilliant background score & a smoldering Johnny Depp (no surprises there :) Christian Bale (Batman) was suitably subdued. Marion Cotillard is far prettier in real life than she’s looked in the movie.

If you love Johnny Depp, go watch it! The movie is no ‘Finding Neverland’, ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ or ‘Charlie & the Chocolate Factory’ but it’s still worth watching for Johnny Depp.

The Hangover

Go watch it!

If you haven’t already that is.

‘The Hangover’ – the low profile, low budget (?) movie that has taken theatres the world over by storm based mainly on word-of-mouth publicity, much like ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ did 7 years ago.

If I have ever seen a funny movie, 'The Hangover' has gotta be it. The movie is crazily hilarious! It’s about four guys - one of whom is getting married - who spend a crazy night in Vegas to celebrate a bachelor’s party. When they wake up the next morning, they have no recollection of anything that happened last night. They wake up to a room wrecked beyond recognition, a tiger in their bathroom & a baby in their cupboard! And they have lost their friend who is about to get married in a few hours!

They need to find their friend ASAP but with no recollection of what happened the night before, that is just a little bit difficult. They are left with no choice but to retrace their steps. Their journey back into time includes bizarre revelations about each of them, strippers, drug dealers, the Chinese mafia, the works!The movie is insane. There are a few loopholes – things that are left unexplained – but you don’t question them b/c your sides are aching laughing. It’s a movie you can see over & over again and laugh just as hard every time. It’s Hollywood at its low-brow best but when they do it, they do it so much better than we do!

And oh, may I add that Bradley Cooper is H-O-T. In a very blue-eyed-white-American-boy way but he is smokin’ hot. And Zack Galifianakis (Alan in the movie) – he is fatal.

New York

‘New York’ is a pathetic movie. The acting – horrible. The script – stupid. I think Aditya Chopra is in a state of decadence since 'Mohabbatein'. 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi' was equally stupid but it did have its funny moments. This movie has none.

It’s a known fact that John Abraham is a wooden actor & Katrina Kaif can’t act to save her life. The revelation (for me at least as I haven't seen any of his earlier movies) was that Neil Nitin Mukesh can’t act either. He cannot emote, has no voice modulation & is too pink to be on screen! Someone please ask him to get off the screen & get behind a microphone, if he’s halfway good at it that is!

The script is extremely retarded. They assume the FBI is made up of a bunch of morons who have evidence against a suspected terrorist who is planning a major terror attack on their land but won't arrest him. Instead they would wait for a cab-owner-turned-accomplice (who happens to be a long-lost friend of the suspected terrorist) to get back into the life of the terrorist in order to find out the details of the planned terror attack. I mean...HELL-OW...they're the FBI for Chrissakes! If they have evidence against a terrorist & information that he’s planning a terrorist attack, THEY WOULD ARREST HIM!!!

People in the FBI, according to Yash Raj, apparently also do not notice when some random person is scaling their glass windows planting a bomb.

The script goes from bad to worse. Sample this – the terrorist’s wife has uncovered her husband’s secret (that he is a terrorist) but would not stop him, knowing fully well that his actions could get him arrested & cost him his life if convicted. Did she expect him to get away with 1 month’s imprisonment or $1000 fine? Maybe, for all you know, given the size of her brain, which was illustrated by her bizarre logic for not having discouraged her husband. It will blow away any sane person’s mind, I tell you.

According to her, as long as her husband didn’t tell her about him being a terrorist, there was a chance that he was into terrorism only temporarily and will stop his terrorist activities in due course of time. WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?????????

I felt like yelling “God please shred my brains apart. Women have reached new depths of stupidity in Hindi movies & I can’t bear to see it!” while watching the movie. This is worse than Anushka Sharma not recognizing her husband in a different look in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

Which brings me to the point - the script has been written by some Sanjay Shrivastava but I bet my money that it’s been ghost-written by Aditya Chopra. After all, it’s not easy breaking into the Yash Raj camp without any strings attached, right? And what does Aditya Chopra know about the intricacies of terrorism & counter-terrorism, residing alternately in his Juhu bunglow & the Swiss Alps. The Swiss are known to be neutral & not ones who would be experts in the politics of terrorism.

And then you have the climax where Neil Nitin Mukesh, instead of telling Johnny why he shouldn’t be blowing up the building he is about to blow up (trust me he’s got a very solid reason), spends precious last minutes telling Johnny to hand him the trigger.

I think the casting of Irfan Khan was just a safety measure for Yash Raj. After all his equity is such that his presence in the movie lifts the movie out of the candy-floss genre by default. BTW, I have a question - can a non-American be a part of the FBI? And if Irfan is an Indian-American (born in America) & therefore an American citizen, why doesn’t he have an American accent??

Angels & Demons

Much better than 'The Da Vinci Code' though by the same director, Ron Howard.

The movie takes you on a mad chase across Rome, at break-neck speed. It stays fairly true to the book and chances are that people who haven't read the book will not be able to grasp the movie completely. An example was a friend of mine who went..."It was OK. I didn't like it too much. The story isn't very interesting...something about religion & science." She obviously hasn't read the book!

I loved the arial shots of Rome. Just LOVED them! The shots of St. Peters Square, the Duomo, the Colosseum, the scenes inside the chapels. Makes my desire to visit Italy (and Europe) even stronger. Such history the city has!

Anyway, coming back to the movie...this one was much better directed & edited than 'The Da Vinci Code'. It was crisp & thrilling, ensuring that the audience doesn't lose attention for even a minute.

As far as the acting was concerned, all the main characters stepped on the gas pretty hard. One doesn't need to mention Tom Hanks. Ewan McGregor played the Camerlengo very well. Even the Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer did a good job of being the "exotic element" in the movie. This movie...or the book...was never about Vittoria Vettra anyway.

The hero of the movie was of course, the book. Dan Brown is probably the only author apart from JK Rowling whose imagination I think is truly out of this world. It's not something they could have acquired, it's something they are totally blessed with. It would've taken an insane amount of research on Catholicism, The Illuminati, The Knights Templar etc. to put the story together, no doubt, but a mindblowing imagination to even have thought of something like thisIf you haven't watched the movie yet, I highly recommend doing so. But it would be better if you've read the book first. I think I'm going to go back and read the two books all over again. You go race across Rome!!

Slumdog Millionnaire

Mumbai, the city we all LOVE, has an ugly underbelly and it's about time we accepted it.
'Slumdog Millionnaire' is a beautiful movie & it takes a very special person to make a movie like this.

The initial few scenes in the movie may be a bit overwhelming - the intense poverty, the sight of a boy covered in human excreta, all for an autograph of Amitabh Bachchan, shots of kids sleeping on a pile of rubble, the luring & decapitating/blinding of slum children by gangs intent on putting them on the streets to beg - these might be repulsive to some, may give goose pimples to others, may make yet others to cry. But these things happen in the world which we try to distance ourselves from as much as possible, and which we love to pretend does not exist - just so our own existence doesn't become uncomfortable for us. They have been beautifully captured by Danny Boyle on film. Within minutes into the movie you get so engrossed in the characters and the story, you forget about the grossness of it all.

Did I feel the movie is overhyped? No, not at all. The only actor who I thought was overhyped was Freida Pinto. Her character has less screen time than the other protagonists, and Freida Pinto herself did not have much to do in the film.

I did not like Anil Kapoor too much either as the game show host. I think SRK would've been a better choice. He did a splendid job of hosting KBC, and I think he would've brought the required amount of arrogance and meanness to the character. SRK talks with a flair, something Anil Kapoor was not able to do to the required degree inspite of putting on an accent. SRK would've done it naturally.

This is definitely a movie I would like to own. Come to think of it, it took a foreigner to come to our country and make such a touching movie on our people. We could never have made this movie because we wouldn't have found the concept to be saleable enough. And that is why we it's highly unlikely we'll make it to the Oscars anytime soon. We don't have a vision & we're not able to take risks in life.

Ghajini

An hour into the movie I thought I didn’t like it, but then I thought it was too early to dismiss it because after all, it WAS an Aamir Khan movie, and he generally chooses his movies well. After watching the movie I was quite certain I didn’t like it.

The killers : the love story between Sanjay & Kalpana (the lead protagonists), the 3 hr 15 mins running time, the misplaced songs & Asin.

First things first : Aamir Khan is absolutely brilliant in the movie, both as Sanjay Singhania the industrialist & the revenge-obsessed Sanjay Singhania. It’s amazing how at 43 he still retains his school-boyish charm. Watch the scenes where he’s with Kalpana. He’s in love, yet displays a lot of maturity & mellowness. And within minutes he transforms himself into a yelling, screaming, out-for-blood monster. There is a reason why he needed a body like he has in Ghajini. It’s not there for effect or to make women (or gay men) swoon. It’s there because the Anterograde Amnesia-inflicted character of Sanjay Singhania who is on a killing rampage (where he can knock down people who are twice his size) would have been comical had Aamir Khan not gotten himself a body like that. So a word has to be put in about the dedication of the actor. Secondly, I felt NO OTHER actor could’ve carried off the role convincingly.

Now the spoilers…The love story between Sanjay & Kalpana drags the movie down. It’s shown in two installments & impedes the pace of the movie. I found the action parts much better (though they’re violent & gory).The movie was way too long. The editing could have been much crisper & the length could have been chopped down to 2 hrs 45 mins or so. Maybe by removing a few songs – one where Asin is introduced, the ‘Laddoo’ song with Jiah Khan & the ‘Kaise Mujhe Tum Mil Gaye’ song in the end which is good but a repeat.

None of the songs in the movie carry the story forward. In fact, they pop out of nowhere & disrupt the flow. It might have been a good idea to retain just one or two songs in the movie & release the rest as part of the music CD. That would’ve helped reduce the running time as well.

As for Asin, probably the most awaited debutant of 2008 (in Bollywood that is) after Deepika Padukone….I found her quite irritating in the movie. Her character was so jaded…she’s this selfless, kind-hearted young woman who helps blind men cross the road, helps disabled children across bridges, saves young girls from flesh trade etc. I mean, being kind & selfless is all good but there’s nothing refreshing about her character. Her character required her to be loud to a certain extent but she has overdone it in the movie. She's pretty in a very Indian way...reminds one of Revathy in a few scenes...but I didn’t find her to be all that she was purported to be!

There was one innovative thing about the movie though…for the first time I’ve come across the movie which is named after the bad guy!!

Dostana

Dostana...Hmmm...

Watched it today with a bunch of friends. I generally have issues with movies that use homose*uality as comic relief. 'Dostana' does that too, but the humor in the movie is so over-powering, I decided to just let go of my hang-ups & flow with the tide. Afterall, they were just acting gay for Chrissake! Once you take that in your stride, the movie is what you'd call "full time-pass" or complete paisa vasool!!

The first 10 minutes of the movie are ridiculously outrageous! They're only about John Abraham's abs & his butt. There's so much of Johnny boy on display that you completely forget Shilpa Shetty in her item song.

John Abraham comes out of the sea in Speedos, pulls his shorts up his butt, is shown walking around in his underwear which is halfway down his butt. And all this isn't subtle. It's right in your face as the camera follows his butt!! I mean, he has a nice butt & all but come on, that' was just ridiculous! We're not exactly a bunch of 16-year olds here, are we?

Even the climax was ridiculous! I don't even want to write about it. See it to believe it.
Apart from a few inconsistencies, such as Abhishek Bachchan saying he had to drink Pudin Hara after eating the food Priyanka Chopra had cooked for him (in Miami), and Bobby Deol, who is the Editor-In-Chief of the fashion magazine 'Verve' sporting a Fast Track watch, the movie was hilarious!!

The entire gay act between Abhishek Bachchan & John Abraham (must watch the scene where AB narrates the fabricated story of how he & John met and fell in love, the guy has done his research on gay mannerisms well) was over-dramatic but very well done without being vulgar or cheap.

PC has done well what she was required to do, i.e., 80% look hot & 20% act. Man, her outfits are just so H-O-T. I mean, I would've paid 250 bucs just to ogle at her outfits in the movie! Me and this friend of mine were salivating over her clothes & shoes throughout the movie. And did I mention, SHE IS THIN.

I can't usually stand Kirron Kher. Over-the-top seems to be her USP. She's played an over-the-top Punjabi mom in this movie too, and her ultimate scene in the movie, where she finally accepts her son Abhishek & John to be a gay couple, welcomes John into the family but doesn't know whether to refer to him as her 'son-in-law' or 'daughter-in-law' is outrageously funny!! She even takes off her golden bangles that she had saved for her 'daughter-in-law' and gives them to John. Lol!!!

Boman Irani as M (short for Murali, if you please), the gay editor of 'Verve' is adorable. Wonder how the man manages to win over the audiences' hearts time after time after time.

Another part of the movie I liked was that men (John Abraham in this case) has been 'objectified' or made an object of se*ual attraction just as much as women. About time, I say! Way to go, K Jo!

The movie might get its humor from homosexuality, but at one level it is also trying to make the Indian audience more open about the issue by taking a light-hearted look at it. And in a country where issues such as homosexuality are brushed under the carpet, this is one step in the right direction coming from one of the leading production houses in commercial Hindi cinema.

The only let down in the entire movie was Bobby Deol. Really, couldn't they find ANYONE else to play Priyanka Chopra's love interest? I mean, why him?? Anyone else...just about anyone...could've done!!

The soundtrack of the movie is upbeat & peppy. Apart from the 'Desi Girl' number, the other one I liked was 'I'll be alright'. It's a cute song on friendship.

My favorite part of the movie : Priyanka Chopra's outfits without a doubt. Can I have them please, Mr Malhotra? And while we're at it, can I also have her body to carry them off? :-)

Fashion

Fashion did not surprise me. It kept me interested & engaged, yes, but it did not show me anything I didn’t already know about the fashion/modeling world thanks to my ex-roommates in Bombay who were in PR and were closely associated with the glamour industry, and by the sheer dint of having lived in Bombay where Bollywood & glamour are by default an integral part of everyone’s life.

Priyanka Chopra was definitely a revelation. The movie was about her, with support from other characters, and she made the most of it. She sunk her teeth into the role. At some places I felt her face lacked the attitude of a model (unlike Kangana Ranaut who had it down to the T) though she had the right body language.

Coming to Kangana Ranaut, I think she SERIOUSLY needs to work on her diction. Her Hindi is terrible!! She’s been around for a while, done quite a few movies…so it’s about time she took some Hindi speaking classes. I thought she rocked in the ramp walk scenes, where she’d switch from a drugged-out waste to a ramp model with the attitude that can freeze a million people on their spots, in a second!!

Mugdha Godse was good for a first-timer but I think she got slightly short-changed in terms of character development. There were a lot of things with her character that were left unexplained. For instance, why did she agree to marry a gay guy? He wanted the marriage for convenience but what was in it for her? What about HER needs from a life-partner? And not that he gave her the biggest break of her life. He made her the show-stopper for one of his shows, but that certainly couldn’t have overshadowed the life-long need for a companion who loves you truly?

Secondly, why was she okay with him not making her the show-stopper for the biggest show of his life at the fashion week given that she was his wife? She didn’t even purr about it, leave alone make an issue out of it.

Another issue I had with the movie was why Meghna’s father would encourage her to go back to the world of glamour after all the drama he did in the beginning? And especially after seeing that his girl came back from that world in ruins. The point that your family & a handful of true friends are the ones that stick by you through thick & thin could have been made in other ways too!

To Madhur Bhandarkar’s credit, the wardrobe malfunction scene was brilliantly done!

Overall, Fashion is a “realistic” movie with cinematic liberties taken in good measure, but I’m not complaining because every Madhur Bhandarkar movie need not be an expose. And it was heartening to see actors such as Harsh Chhaya & Samir Soni play the role of gay men with such aplomb and not shy away from it, unlike most Bollywood actors. Way to go, guys!!

A Wednesday

Trust Bollywood to take an original, innovative script and ruin it (well, almost) with over-dramatization & overacting. ‘A Wednesday’ is a case in point.

It’s a story of a common man, a Mumbaikar in this case, who has had enough of being the victim of bomb blasts in different parts of the country and wants retribution….because he thinks it’s unfair that it’s the common man who becomes the sacrificial lamb in the war between religions. He is sick of living his life in fear & uncertainty. He thinks there is no reason why he should be worried about the safety of his family members when they step out of home. He should not feel afraid to travel by bus or train in his own country. He is appalled that the government we elect to take care of us is powerless in front of terrorists & only reacts to gruesome acts of terrorism such as bomb blasts by condemning the blasts, sending out condolence messages & praising the famed “spirit” of the people. He bemoans the fact that the pulverized police force gets down on bended knees when it comes to implementing an effective counter-terror policy. He is saddened even more by the fact that the common man has become “used to” terrorist attacks & the loss of lives they entail, and “adjusts” to them & to the apathy of the government. And he thinks it’s about time that the common man shakes himself out of his slumber & gives it back to the terrorists as good as he got. How he goes about doing this is the material of this story.

The story is unique because we haven’t seen anything like this in Indian cinema before, and it is only befitting that the director got Naseeruddin Shah to play the protagonist. Needless to say, Naseeruddin Shah has done a marvelous job of playing a man who packs sandwiches & a flask of tea, buys vegetables for his home, tells his wife he will be home soon & that even if he gets irritated with her for calling him every couple of hours to check whether he has had his lunch & to ask him to run errands, he has the entire city of nameless, faceless people to vent his frustration on, and gets down to the business of sending the police force of Mumbai on a wild bomb chase, with precision. His monologue in the climax is spine-chilling! Absolute knock-out!!

The other pivotal actors including Anupam Kher, Jimmy Shergill & Aamir Bashir too have done a good job.

The things I liked about the movie were:

• It's less than 2 hours including the intermission
• It does not lose it's edginess or pace at any point, thanks to the short length
• The performances, especially the face-off between Naseeruddin Shah & Anupam Kher
• The fact that there were no songs in the movie, not even an "item" song!!
• The story was completely original & had no similarities to any movie we've seen before, except a couple of take-offs from Die Hard 4.0 here & there
• That it was shot completely in Mumbai
• It highlights the role that the media CAN play when there is a terror threat in the city, rather than creating unnecessary panic among people
• The fact that the protagonists's name is never revealed to prevent any allusions to religion, and to emphasize the fact that he is an Indian first & a Hindu or a Muslim later
• The movie makes jibes at every organization right from the media to the police to the government. It does not even spare the common people for having become accepting of terror attacks as a way of life.

What I didn't like about the movie were the lame title (A Wednesday?) - though there was some justification for it, it wasn't convincing enough, the background score which was too loud & jarring at places, and the overdramatization which made it look like a typical Bollywood movie.

Overall, the movie is a slick, racy thriller with a reasonably high IQ. The script was so strong that it had the potential of becoming an understatedly impactful thriller along the lines of Hollywood thrillers. The Bollywoodization not withstanding, 'A Wednesday' is definitely worth a watch.

Bachna Ae Haseeno

Every once in a while there comes along a movie that redefines the term “bad movie” (I’m not even including the movies that tumble out of RGV’s closet, they belong to a different league altogether!!)

'Bachna Ae Haseeno’ is one such movie.

What’s surprising is that it’s a movie by Siddharth Anand who made ‘Salaam Namaste’, which I thought was a sensible movie that tackled the concepts of live-in relationships & having a child out of wedlock – concepts that are still bold for a majority of the Indian society. The least he could’ve done was to make a half-decent movie this time around.

Mahi, 1996 – Minnisha Lamba can’t act. She can’t speak in Hindi (in reality, she’s a Punjabi from Delhi, so I wonder why she speaks Hindi like an alien). So why the hell did she become an actress??? Her character is stupid to stay the least. She plays a 17-year old touring Europe, when she meets a guy (another 17-year old), spends one day with him, falls in love with him & thinks he’s going to marry her. He doesn’t obviously, and she’s scarred for life. Literally because she makes life hell for the guy she eventually marries.

Radhika, 2002 – Bipasha Basu does well what she’s hired to do, i.e., look hot. Her character is well etched-out - girl from Ranchi who has come to try her luck in big bad Bollywood, is open to live-in relationships, seems progressive but at the core she’s a small-town girl who dreams of getting married & settling down. She does a good job of being a bitchy diva with starry tantrums, in the second half of the movie. But she’s given the most retarded scene EVER...she’s all decked up for her wedding, the groom fails to show up, she’s sitting on the stairs of the court crying when it starts pouring in true Bollywood style, and she outstretches her mehndi-laden hands as if to symbolically wash away the mehndi. Didn't we see similar stuff in the movies made in the 60s-70s when women would rub off their bindi or break their bangles against the wall when they came to know that their husband passed away! Phew!!!!!

Gayatri, 2006 – Independent girl doing an MBA in Australia, attends b-school during the day, drives a cab & works at the departmental store at night. Believes in love but does not believe in marriage because of the trappings that come with it. She feels that after marriage the guy will try to control her life to some extent, not let her do things she wants to do...whereas she wants to live her life the way she wants to!

The problem is...Deepika Padukone can’t act. She has a pretty face so the camera tends to linger on her face, and this highlights her lack of expressions.

There are flaws in her character too. She dumps Ranbir Kapoor, then slides “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how much I loved you” notes under his door for 6 months. Without any response, of course. Any woman with even half a brain would get the hint...the guy is either not getting your letters (i.e., he’s not in town) or he’s ignoring them. Either way, STOP WRITING!!!

As for Ranbir Kapoor’s chemistry with Deepika Padukone...no great shakes. Bipasha Basu looks much better with him.

The movie is boring, ridden with flaws, there’s no story whatsoever & the songs are completely unnecessary. Khuda Jaane is the only decent song in the entire movie.

The movie is unbelievable too! Check this out...after Deepika dumps Ranbir, he realizes how he’s hurt the other two ladies in his life (Minnisha & Bipasha) who he had dated 12 years ago & 6 years ago respectively. He packs his bags & goes in search of them to apologize to them. Which guy in today’s times goes to apologize to a woman he had wronged 12 years ago??!!! Come on man, where are these guys? Show me one & I’ll show you a guy who is misplaced in time & out of his mind!!

Rock On!!

Watched ‘Rock On!!’

On the recommendation of a friend who thought the movie was “deeply moving & emotionally satisfying”, and was accompanied by another who had seen it just the night before & couldn’t wait to watch it again!!

After having watched the movie I was completely clueless as to why either of them loved it so much. ‘Deeply moving & emotionally satisfying” it definitely wasn’t, and unlike ‘Jaane Tu…’ it didn’t make me want to go back to the theater to watch it again. So I have concluded that both those friends of mine are W-E-I-R-D.

So, on to the movie….

The story flowed easily. It was simple & something that HAS been told before but the strength lied in the execution.

I thought the casting was perfect. Farhan, Luke, Purab, Arjun, Shabana Goswami (Debbie) – all fitted their roles to the T. They sunk their teeth into their roles. Must have taken someone capable of out-of-the-box thinking to conjure up images of Farhan Akhtar, Purab Kohli & Luke Kenny in their respective roles!! Hats off to the casting director (IS there something called a ‘Casting Director’ in Bollywood?)

Farhan Akhtar did a great job. His acting was restrained yet impactful; his body language never betrayed his voice or his character. He sang amazingly well for a non-professional singer, his raspy voice adding to the appeal of the songs. Farhan Akhtar, in short, was a revelation for me. One more tiny observation that might be of small interest to women & inspiration to men….he has an amazing body!! Lean is so much more in for men than body-builder type bodies.Arjun Rampal did well as a loser. The character was required to be thick, and his acting didn’t betray his intelligence even once.

Luke Kenny was a surprise and quite likeable. Must say he looks much better with long hair than short.

My favorite character in the entire movie was that of Purab Kohli, a.k.a. Killer Drummer (KD). Not because he played a Gujju & Gujju character are of late being used as a comic relief in many movies, ‘Jaane Tu…’ being a brilliant case in point. But because his character was the most happy-go-lucky of them all, took life as it came, hardly ever cribbed, didn’t make a big issue of things, and always had a smile on his face. The only time he lost his cool was towards the end of the movie when Joe fails to show up for their performance.

Shabana Goswami did a good job too. There were quite a few times in the movie when I went “What is this woman’s problem in life?”, “Why is she so bitter?”, “She’s got issues!” I guess that is a compliment for Shabana, the actor.

I did not like Prachi Desai’s character OR her in the movie. Her much hyped-make over didn’t suit her at all. The lipstick was too loud. You can’t have stylish, straightened hair like that, dress like a Page 3 woman, live in a house with such tasteful, classy interiors & say “Who aaj nahin aa payenge, unko kuch kaam hai” (while referring to your husband) or say “Mujhe English gaane nahin aate, main sirf Hindi gaane gaati hoon”. I mean, nothing wrong with not knowing English songs, just that your actions should be compatible with your personality. What I also didn’t understand was why she wasn’t happy or excited at even one point in the movie. Surely, the fact that she had finally started to get her husband back (after the band re-unites) must have been enough to bring some joy to her life!!

The other crib I had with the movie was the use of language. The bull-headedness with which the director stuck to Hindi was jarring at places. Sometimes it just didn’t suit the characters. Luke Kenny & Arjun Rampal were both playing Catholic characters, and having lived in Bombay for years I know for a fact that Catholics don’t communicate in Hindi at home. In fact, most of them can hardly speak a sentence in Hindi without grammatical errors! Farhan Akhtar too said some things that, in the context of his character, would’ve sounded much better & more believable had they been said in English. I understand the “you-can-reach-more-people-through-Hindi” theory, but there lies the dissonance – Rock On!! wasn’t meant to be a mass movie. Rock music isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea yet in India.

Finally, the music. If it’s a movie based on rock music, you’ve got to talk about the music. I find Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to be immensely talented, apart from Vishal-Shekhar. Connoisseurs of rock music would be better qualified to rate the music on the scale of “rock” but I personally found the music to be OK. Not something that would want to make me buy the CD, though I did like ‘Meri laundry ka ek bill’, the title song & ‘Sindbad the Sailor’ (out-of-box thinking again!!).

Overall, the movie was good for a one-time watch, but if you find it to be “deeply moving or emotionally satisfying”, you’re W-E-I-R-D. ‘Coz it’s got none of that shit.