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.