Posterous
Vikram is using Posterous to post everything online. Shouldn't you?
Potrait_thumb
 

Film Reviews

Kurbaan is worth a Sacrifice

 

I wonder why Karan Johar stuck with his favorite letter "K" in Kurbaan while abandoning it for his last 2 produced (not directed) movies, it would have still worked with the name Qurbaan. Is he still not sure if he can make other styles of movies .... snap out of it Mr. Karan, you took a huge stride with Kurbaan. This movie has no resemblance of the classic "a Karan Johar movie" that everyone is so use to, it seems to be made just for the love of cinema, everything else takes a backseat.

Set in the backdrop of terrorism, it explores human relations. It is a intriguing and serious movie that keeps you glued to the screen with it's intensity. Avantika (Kareena) is a professor in Delhi where she meets Eshaan (Saif) who is also a professor, they marry and move to New York. Soon Avantika and Eshaan find themselves neck deep in a terrorism plot. Riyaaz (Vivek) is a investigative journalist who trips over the terrorist plot and tries to investigate this by trying to get into the terror network. The characters in the movie come from two sides of the terrorism coin. One side is hell bent in blasting to world (in this case US) because their family was killed by bombs dropped in Afghanistan, on the other side the focus is to bring an end to terrorism because their family were innocent victims of terrorism. Eshaan and Riyaaz are the two sides of the coin while Avantika is the innocent victim in the middle. Using these three primary characters, the movie builds enough intensity to make you sit up and pay attention even though the movie is more than two and a half hours long. The climax of the movie is very well done, it will linger in mind for quite some time. The drawbacks .... some of the sequences in the movie seem to be illogical and at times you can feel the slow pace.

Saif has the best performance in the movie, he gets into the skin of the character effortlessly. Kareena is also excellent but I think she handles non-serious roles better, Vivek needs these kind of performance to bring him back to relevancy. From the supporting cast Om Puri and Kirron Kher are at their usual best, Om Puri's intense face is perfect for the role. The background score done by Salim Suleiman is a major factor in building up the intensity, the songs are good although all the songs are in the background. The whole movie is very polished and professional looking, it will remind you of Hollywood thrillers (although personally I am not too thrilled about that, I like to see Bollywood movies maintain it's identity). The first time director Rensil D'Silva has done a great job, he has managed to focus on the plot/storyline without digressing into the usual cliches of terrorism. In the end kudos to Karan Johar for coming out of his comfort zone and making different movie. 

Overall this movie is worth a sacrifice of your time and money and for Karan, it is time to sacrifice the "K".

Posted November 23, 2009
// 0 Comments

Sankat City will amuse you but ....

The main reason I watched this movie was because of Pankaj Advani, the director of the movie, assisted the great Kundan Shah of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron fame. The movie has some influences of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, but somehow it falls short and you feel something was missing. On paper you can get a promising dark comedy when car thieves get mixed up with loan sharks, movie makers, godmen and a con artist; however the overall impact is average. The story itself is pretty good but in some streches it loses it's way.

 

The comedy revolves around ten crore rupees that car thief, Guru (Kay Kay Menon) who is fond of fishes (don't know why), finds in a trunk of a stolen car. This money was a loan from a gangster/loan shark Faujdaar (Anupam Kher), to a film maker Gogi (Manoj Pahwa), who is making a movie with fading star Sikandar Khan (Chunkey Pandey). The film maker wants to buy land using this money from a builder, Pachisia (Yashpal Sharma), and to make the circle complete, Pachisia owes the same amount of money to Faujdaar. To make things more interesting the con artist Mona (Rimi Sen) wants to steal the money from Pachisia. If this amalgamation of situations and characters makes you dizzy, you are not alone … however this intertwined plot makes the movie interesting and produces tons of comical situations. The bomb disposal squad sequence is one of those out of the world situations that will remind you of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron style of comedy and then there are many situational comedy sequences, with rib tickling dialogs that will remind you of Hera Pheri. The climax, I thought was not appropriate; the bad guy getting killed in the end does not seem to gel with the mood of the movie.

 

Kay Kay Menon comes out of his usual intense and serious characters and plays a comic role very well. Anupam Kher and other supporting cast have done a good job except Chunkey Pandey, who overacts. The surprise package is Rimi Sen, she has transformed herself in a witty con artist that makes you forget all her earlier roles.

 

Overall the movie will amuse you in many parts but as a whole will not fill your appetite for comedy. I think it loses its way in trying to follow different styles of comedy, however if you are bored over the weekend this can be nice rental.

Posted September 25, 2009
// 0 Comments

Kaminey redefines "masala" movie

Fasten your seat belts and get ready for thrill ride, one of the best caper movies made in Mumbai. Kaminey breaks the classic "Bollywood masala" stereo type and creates it's own definition of "masala". In this masala the basic ingredients (romance, action, comedy, emotions and songs) are still there but the way they are mixed and presented makes your taste buds wanting for more. Thanks mainly to Vishal Bhardwaj, the multi talented director, who before Kaminey had made children films, films on Shakespearean and Ruskin Bond literature, but with this film he proves his metal in the "commercial" cinema format (Second biggest hit this year).

This movie has multiple plots running in parallel, all of them converge on twin brothers Charlie, who has a lisp and Guddu, who stammers (Shahid Kapoor). Charlie works with the bad guys and dreams of making quick money while Guddu, the only nice guys in the film, has planned his life in advance and is happy. The trouble starts, or you could say the thrill starts when Charlie bumps into corrupt cops and Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) disrupts Guddu's planning, all this take you on a roller coaster ride ands ends in an apocalyptic ending. The speech defects of the brothers and some of the wackiness of the crazy supporting cast gives the comic relief from the fast pace of the movie.  

Shahid Kapoor is the star of the movie, he has stepped out of his lover boy image and given a great performance, Priyanka Chopra in a de-glamorized Marathi girl is great. The entire supporting cast is one of the highlights of the movie. Considering that almost the entire support cast is made up no name actors, it is great feat by the Vishal Bhardwaj. Watch out for Bhope (Amol Gupte, writer of Taare Zameen Pe) and Mikhail (Chandan Roy Sanyal), Charlie's partner in crime.

Dhan-Te-Nan, the song, is another star of the movie whenever it comes up in the movie it gives you an adrenaline rush. Gulzar's lyrics as usual are very poetic and thought provoking. All the songs are mainly in the background and do not hinder the flow of the movie. On the whole this movie belongs to Vishal Bhardwaj, he is the director, producer, co-writer and the music director. Cinematography by Tassaduq Hussain is very raw and keeps the pace of the movie alive. 

In future if my masala movies are going like this I am ready to lap it up. In the movie there is dialog "Life gets screwed up not by the path you take but by the path you did not take", so folks take the right path and watch the movie :-).

Posted August 23, 2009
// 2 Comments

Watch Love Aaj not Kal

 

When it comes to romantic movies, all of them have more or less the same story, the difference is how the story is told. Love Aaj Kal is wonderfully told romantic story, for which Imtiaz Ali (director) should be given a lot of credit. This movie follows two romances separated by a generation (one is current the other in 60s), both these romances are very different (sometimes in funny ways) and very similar at the same time. Raj (Saif) and Veer (Rishi Kapoor) are of different generations, they both go through a journey to get their life partners. Their journeys and social environments are very different but ultimately their experiences and feelings along the way is exactly the same.

The movie has a good cast, direction and cinematography. Saif (Raj) has done a wonderful job, specially in scenes where he is in a dilema whether to express his emotions or not. This is by far the best performance by Deepika (Meera), and looks gorgeous in the  movie. Rishi Kapoor  (Veer) plays his role perfectly, however his sikh make-up was not well done in some scenes. Finally the "secret" actress that plays Veer's love interest, Harleen, is a Brazilian girl by the name of Giselle Monteiro, she fits well in a the role of a sikh kudee.

The movie is shot beautifully, it makes Delhi and Kolkata look colorful and refreshing. In the direction department, as I mentioned above hats off to Imtiaz Ali, he is also the story and dialog writer. In my opinion he has outdone himself when compared to his last movie Jab We Met (except for the Kareena Kapoor character, that was a classic). The story is very concise (2 hours only), actually too concise in few places specially in the start it seems to be going too fast. Dialogs are very urban/metro and at times very funny, actually there are quite a few funny scenes in the movie that are based on dialogs, not situations.

Music by Pritam is good, for me it sounds better after I watched the movie. The "Twist" number is really foot tapping and the "Dooriyaan" number is heart warming. In the movie all the songs just blend in the story and "Chor bazaari" number is the best shot song.

Over all Love Aaj Kal is a refreshing and colorful movie the will appeal to all generations, in my opinion it is worth watching.  So watch Love Aaj not Kal you Mango People :-).

Posted August 7, 2009
// 0 Comments