Thank You

By Subhash K Jha

Starring Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Irrfan Khan, Rimi, Suniel Shetty, Celina Jaitley

Directed by Anees Bazmi

Rating: ***

Bow to the wow. Men, we are told, are dogs. They cheat on their wives. And have themselves the time of their lives. And the wives, poor creatures, are so devoted to their spouses they observe the Karva Chauth for their pati-devils even when they have no reason to do so. Such devotion in show motion.

Thank You is a kind of backhanded ode to the classic Indian wife we grew up watching in the films where the resplendent Nutan would sing Tumhi mere mandir tumhi mere pooja to her smug husband. Serene was the key them. Over-zealous is the mainstay now.

Times have changed. But mores and marital values have only shifted location. Inexplicably Thank You is shot in Canada . Caucasian girls steeped in a slutty splendour, fill up the fringes of the saturated frames. Blonde salad-dressing apart, the message at the heart of Thank You remains as desi as the Punjabi accent that Akshay Kumar doesn’t even try to conceal.

Since this is a film about the perils of skirt-chasing there are plenty of women of all shapes and sizes in skirts (including Sonam Kapoor whose dress code defies all analysis) and other designer clothes.

For that talented writer Anees Bazmi the theme of infidelity in Thank You is familiar territory. In the past he has done jokey takes on men who can’t keep their libido down with varying degrees of humour.

A certain higher level of intelligence is perceptible in the way the characters are put out for scrutiny in the light of their unfaithful characters.

Irrfan Khan as the sarcastic bully of a husband scores the highest marks in the acting department. His wry caustic responses to semi-petrified wife Rimi Sen make a mocking mark mainly for the way the lines are written and delivered. Irrfan is priceless in projecting parody. Rimi Sen, an underrated actress provides Irrfan valuable support .

Akshay Kumar plays the pied piper of the libido. He tries to teach the three womanizers how to check their carnal instincts. That is the best joke in the film.

Such selfrighteous cool roles of the social reformer are not new to Akshay. He delivers a rousing monologue at the end on the virtues of fidelity.

While his comic timing remains sharp and spot-on it is the way he tries to create an aura of suspense about his character’s motives as a man on a mission, that provides a cutting edge to the tale of three skirt-chasers.

Remarkably the dialogues remain free of innuendos. Surprising, considering how lurid films about infidelity have gotten in the past. The proceedings adhere to a sense of fun without getting cheesy. Suneil Shetty’s body language and comic timing in some sequences show his coming of age as an actor of mirthful value.

Thank You has moments that come close to illuminating the underbelly of infidelity. But fearful of forsaking the mood of a riotous farce writer-director Anees Bazmi pulls out of any serious statement to lounge languidly in his comfort zone.

As far as masala comedies go Thank You gets by on the strength of some smart writing, sassy dialogues and of course a handful of performers who try to balance out the lackluster performances of other actors who, lethally for a comedy, just don’t get it.

Courtesy: Santabanta.com

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Posted in: Akshay Kumar,Bobby Deol,Bollywood Movie Reviews,Celina Jaitley,Irfan Khan,Sonam Kapoor,Sunil Shetty

Thank You

Thank You

U/A; Comedy, drama

Dir: Anees Bazmee

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Irrfan Khan, Sunil Shetty, Sonam Kapoor, Rimi Sen, Celina Jaitly

Rating:**1/2

What's it about: Does Anees Bazmee need to make a No Entry 2 when he's put together what looks like an exact sequel to the 2005 release? Nothing changes, except the faces of the lead actors and the scenic locales of Canada.

The story revolves around three friends -- Sunil, Irrfan and Bobby who have a roving eye for everyone but their wives -- Celina, Rimi and Sonam. When they star falling short of excuses and their cover-ups are exposed, a pied piper (Akshay) playing a melody on his flute steps in. Why's he playing that tune, we don't know. But Bazmee finds some way to make the harmony a focal point in his climax. Confused? Don't be, because this comic caper really doesn't have any place for logic and reason. It's a no-brainer that works on the merit of its one-liners and some genuine funny situations.

What's hot: Thank You has some solid hilarious moments that work because of the right comic timing and some good writing. It's the classic premise of a cheating husband trying to fool his wife to avoid getting caught. Using it as a backbone to create some guffaws comes easy to Bazmee. The first half has a slow start, but once the ball starts rolling, it never stops. Irrfan has the best scenes and lines which he eats up with delight.

His timing is perfect as he uses his serious straight jacket face to pull off some really amusing scenes. Sunil is a pleasant surprise where he goes all out to make a fool out of himself in a no-holds-barred performance. He puts in more effort than just playing a regular hen pecked husband. Among the girls -- Sonam looks like she has a flavour for comedy which can be developed. Her pairing with Bobby is a bit off but works because it's so unconventional. Celina disappears in the second half, only to turn up in the climax. But it's Rimi who steals the show as she plays the 'sati-savitri' wife who has a wicked twist in the second half. Akshay looks his best in a long time and seems like he's having fun. There's a natural charm to his performance which doesn't seem rehearsed. The Razia and Pyaar Do songs are well choreographed providing the gasoline to fuel the masses.

What's not: Something Akshay needs to do is stop slapping -- be it a monkey (Housefull) or a woman. It just doesn't seem right when he whacks an extra dancing in the song on her face. We didn't get the joke! The second half needs serious trimming. The songs just keep popping out of nowhere. Once the humour starts waning out, we are presented with a romantic track that really doesn't do much for the story. Akshay's undercurrent of feelings for Sonam really doesn't hold any ground. Neither does his long drawn flashback explaining why he's become the messiah of the married folk sorting out their lives. Why does Bazmee need to hold an assembly of his actors in the climax? Right from the driver to the lead actors everyone is jostling for space as the story comes to a conclusion. He needs to break out of this hackneyed approach of winding up his films. Bringing a mafia don with an extremely screechy wife (Rakhi Vijan) was unnecessary and didn't do anything to make the story any funnier.

What to do: If you liked No Entry, Thank You won't disappoint. Go have a hearty laugh.

Courtesy:Mid-Day.com

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Posted in: Akshay Kumar,Bobby Deol,Bollywood Movie Reviews,Celina Jaitley,Irfan Khan,Rimi Sen,Sonam Kapoor,Sunil Shetty

Tarsem Singh discusses his version of Snow White

Immortals director Tarsem Singh has spoken about his approach to bringing fairytale Snow White to the big screen.

The filmmaker has been trying to get a version of Snow White into cinemas for a while now, and only this weekend found his leading lady in Lily Collins (The Blind Side).

With Armie Hammer also attached as the Prince, and Julia Roberts the evil Queen, it’s certainly shaping up to be an interesting project. Right down to the costumes, apparently.

“The stuff that I make people wear can not look ridiculous,” Singh says of the film’s wardrobe. “It looks ridiculous. I end up pushing it so much...

“It's amazing to get [Roberts'] trust. She just said, ‘No, I want to make a movie with you and in your style.’ So, for me, we threw everything out there and we'll just see how much is palatable.”

The visionary director went on to talk about the kind of look he’s going for with the rest of the movie, revealing that despite the amount of snow involved, it’ll be very colourful.

“If you look at Gaudi's architecture,” he says, “based in England, done like a turn-of-the-century Russian film and done by an Indian guy.

“It's kind of very monochromatic. Everything is in snow, but the costumes are very colourful, and so it's like, no colour and a lot of colour.”

Immortals opens 11 November.

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews,Celebrity News

Memories In March

Starring: Deepti Naval, Rituparno Ghosh, Raima Sen

Written by Rituparno Ghosh

Directed by Sanjay Nag

Rating: *** ½

Bereavement and memories are a great high for celluloid drama. Some of the most poignant and memorable films of our times have tapped into the wounds of grief for creative juices and emerged trumps at the boxoffice.

Think of Meena Kumari mourning for her impotent marriage in Guru Dutt’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam, or Supriya Choudhury’s smothered screams of protest for her wasted life in Ritwick Ghatak’s Meghe Dhaka Tara, or more recently, Nicole Kidman blaming the world around her for remaining normal while her own universe falls apart after her child’s death in The Rabbit Hole.

Strangely it is women who render themselves effectively to the cinema of loss and bereavement. Don’t men suffer when they lose someone precious? In a subtle sly way debutant director Sanjay Nag’s Memories In March poses this question on gender attititude towards loss and tragedy.

In a script tenderly and delicately crafted by Rituparno Ghosh, director Sanjay Nag has a woman and a younger man locked together in the chamber of shared grief.

Memory and its deeply-reflective recollection after death are a recurrent leitmotif in Rituparno Ghosh’s films. In Ghosh’s Sob Charitra Kalpunik Bipasha Basu got to know and fell in love with her husband Prosenjeet after his death.

In Memories In March which Ghosh has scripted, the mother discovers the dark side of her son whom she thought she was very close to after his death, quite like Jaya Bachchan in Govind Nihalani’s Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, though the thematic ramifications of Memories In March are emotional rather than political.

Aarti Mishra (Deepti Naval) a no-nonsense divorcee and mother from Delhi arrives in Kolkata after her only son’s sudden death in a car accident, to close the account of her son’s life and pick up the son’s remnants that would, perhaps, serve to sustain her for the rest of her life.

In Kolkata, the land of Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak and Rabindranath Tagore (not necessarily in that order) Aarti meets a gentle middleaged man Arnab (Rituparno Ghosh) who turns out to be a close friend of her son…much closer than she, the mother, would have liked them to be.

The sequence on a steep staircase where the mother is told by her dead son’s affable colleague (Raima Sen, as coolly and casually competent as always) that her son was in a gay relationship with Arnab, is expertly excuted to eschew tears while milking the situation for its insinuated poignancy.

Memories In March is excellent at building individual moments of crisis and catharsis between characters during a time that’s stressful beyond imagination for all concerned. However the sum-total of the moments does not quite add up to that tremendous eruption of emotions that one would accept in a film about a mother’s journey into her dead son’s secret life.

Often the narrative holds back emotions , more to appear European in spirit than to be in character with the script. As played by Deepti Naval the mother is a portrait of restraint, breaking down just once when no one is looking in an open refrigerator (a tribute to Vijay Anand’s Tere Mere Sapne where Hema Malini did a similar breakdown sequence) and that too with such furtive fury, you wonder if she’s holding back the tears for a time when the camera doesn’t pry.

The narrative’s structure and its journey from crisis to reconciliation is so tentative you wonder if this moving portrait of a mother coming-to-terms with her son’s death and dark secret about his sexuality doesn’t lose out on something vital in its effort to imbue a cosmopolitan hue to the emotions.

Having said this, the detailing of the emotions and the nuances inherent in the ambience cannot be faulted. The film creates a scintillating synthesis of suburban sounds and the intangible sound of hearts shattered by unforeseen tragedy.

Incidental sounds, such as children running down the stairs of the dead son’s apartment block, or the old-fashioned rickety lift creaking to a start at a decisive moment in the plot, lend a workaday grace to the poignant proceedings.

The time passages seem cramped uneven and, lamentably, unconvincing. The narrative crams in the mother’s bereavement, acceptance of her son’s homosexuality and her bonding with his gay lover (albeit, done in endearing shades) in a fashionably condensed one-brief-moment-of-grief weekend. Again, a European affectation.

The cinematography (Soumik Haldar) and music (Debojyoti Mishra) invite attention to themselves slightly more insistently than the characters who remain suspended in muted melancholy. At times you wish to push the proceedings to a higher octave, if for no other reason then to see if these internally-suffering characters can express their pain more forcefully.

Memories In March is a ball of impenetrable anguish that implodes once in while. When it does the little shards of pain and hurt pierce your soul. The bond between two unlikely mourners who become one in their collective grief remains with you long after the last shot of a fish tank lying bereft and a voice message unattended after an irreversible tragedy.

This is a work of bridled pathos made remarkable by Deepti Naval and Rituparno Ghosh’s delicately-drawn performances. If you enjoy cinema that provides emotional catharsis (a rarity in Bollywood today), this one is for you.

Courtesy: Santabanta

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews,Deepti Naval,Raima Sen,Rituparno Ghosh

Game

Starring Abhishek Bachchan, Kangna Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Jimmy Sheirgil, Shahana Goswami, Gauhar Khan, Introducing Sarah Jane Dias

Directed by Abhinay Deo

Rating: *** ½

“What a story!” Abhishek Bachchan, playing a cross between a fugitive and a guardian-angel, says wrily at the of this elegantly crafted whodunit.

What a story, indeed. And full marks to writer Althea Delmas Kaushal for crafting a jigsaw that would have made Agatha Christie smile. It wouldn’t be incorrect to say, they don’t make movies like this anymore.

Stylishly crafted, cunning in plot and nubile in its narrative thrust, Game is one of the most aesthetically-mounted Hindi films in recent times.

Huge efforts and resources have gone into shooting the murder mystery in places where intrigue seems infinite, escape seems undesirable and redemption appears as distant as the sound of the waves splashing against rocks that have centuries of stories to tell.

Welcome to the Greek island of Samos. Anupam Kher, looking pricey in his tycoon’s avatar invites four of the most distinguished elitist-outlaws on this side of Charles Sobhraj. Each has a past tense and a future imperfect.

Everyone has a history and a back-projection. This is a world defined by a wealth of unexpressed resentment and smothered anger waiting to erupt.

Debutant director Abhinay Deo displays a remarkable grip over the proceedings. Though the narrative moves through a number of continents and exotic cities (Istanbul jumps out at us from the James Bond movies) propelling his tortured characters forward into motions of restless salvation, there is a quietude and grace at the heart of the narration that we’ve scarcely ever seen in desi whodunits.

The crime and its denouement are worked in graphic details. But the narrative is never bogged down by over-punctuation.

For a crime thriller that pays a homage to the best traditions of the genre represented by Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie and James Hadley Chase, there is a tightly-wound feel to the storytelling, as though the director were moving contrary to the dictates of the genre, without slipping up with the details.

If God lies in the details then why does the devil seem to have taken over Game? At heart Game is a love story about a high-profile gambler and his doomed lady-love…a kind of Bonnie and Clyde with the inherent desperation of the duo’s togetherness reined-in and qualified by ripples of elegant punctuation.

No hiccups, then, in Abhinay Deo’s directorial debut. Like all cinema by filmmakers who come from the ad-world Game is a visual feast. Contrary to films by other ad-turned-feature director Deo doesn’t unnecessarily abbreviate the shots in the fear of losing audiences’ attention.

The characters, specially Abhishek Bachchan’s, get sufficient breathing space in a script that favours flirting with fate rather than fornicating with flamboyance.

There is a delicacy in the textures and colours used to bring forward the tensions in the plot. Shashank Tere’s art direction and Kartik Vijay’s cinematography imbue a gritty cold edge to the spill of blood and the smell of greed.

The portions shot on the Greek island are particularly hypnotic, the splashing waves creating a ripple of anxieties in the turbulence of the characters’ lives without toppling the storytelling boat over into the sphere of the stormy.

Whether it is Anupam Kher as tycoon-host on the mesmeric island or Gauhar Khan as his seductive secretary, the characters never cease to appear glamorous on screen.

The performers are eminently watchable. Anupam Kher, Kangna Ranaut, Boman Irani, Shahana Goswami and the underrated Jimmy Sheirgil get the tenor of tantalizing terror right. Sarah Jane Dias is quite a find, though she needs to work on her dancing skills. Her fabulously choreographed dance number suffers from the Two Left Feet Syndrome (hint hint!).

Abhishek Bachchan proves once again a master of silences, his eyes conveying the pain of lost love, his lips curling up to convey the cynicism of a man who has seen it all and couldn’t care anymore. His two ey action key sequences are heart-stopping in their credibility.

Waltzing wickedly between the incredible and the inevitable Game succeeds in sustaining our interest right till the devilish denouement at the end.

Game is a film that never lets us forget that the whodunit attains an enticing aura only when the characters assume framed postures. Abhinay Deo’s narrative walks a fine thin bloodied balance between dread and delight.

Game is one helluva stylish knick-knack. We haven’t seen any Hindi film shot in these colours or with such an attitude of restrained resplendence.

Courtesy: Santabanta

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Posted in: Abhishek Bachchan,Anupam Kher,Bollywood Movie Reviews,Boman Irani,Gauhar Khan Sarah Jane Dias,Jimmy Sheirgil,Kangna Ranaut,Shahana Goswami

F.A.L.T.U. - Movie review

F.A.L.T.U.

U; Drama

Dir: Remo D'Souza

Cast: Jackky Bhagnani, Puja Gupta, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Angad Bedi

Rating: *1/2

WHAT'S IT ABOUT: Average rankers decide to create a fake university to get their nagging parents off their back. Their plan backfires when several students sign up for admissions.

WHAT'S HOT: Just one thing in this entire godforsaken excuse of a film. The last dance track in the film. Sadly, you'll have to put up with an hour and a half of intolerable un-original tripe before you get to it.

WHAT'S NOT: This film was supposed to be producer Vashu Bhagnani's son Jackky's launch vehicle. It was made and promoted for that express purpose. However, the film serves better as a showreel for director Remo's choreographing talents. The guy is excellent at group performances. Also, for a film that heavily borrows from a film like Accepted (starring Justin Long and Jonah Hill), the 'inspirations' are obvious and retained. The film's script and treatment are pretty much the same. Also, Jackky gets no scope to showcase his talents (or the lack, thereof) in a film that does nothing for him.

I watched this film with college students in a small town. From the sound of it, they'd be far more generous rating this film but equally unhappy with its content. FALTU is insufficiently desified. Arshad Warsi and Riteish Deshmukh appear stoned during most of the proceedings yet dole out gyaan by the truckload. Jackky's character Ritesh has no mind of his own until he lagaaos his kabaadi dimaag. The same can be said of the film. It does nothing differently than its inspiration until Remo displays his forte.

Also at least eight minutes is devoted to the film's website and Remo himself. Shameless self-promotion, boss! Why didn't Vashu see this coming?

WHAT TO DO: Safe to skip it. While watching Accepted would be a better option.

Courtesy: Mid-Day.com

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews,Riteish Deshmukh

Monica

Cast: Divya Dutta, Ashutosh Rana, Dadhi Pandey, Rajit Kapur

Writer-Director: Sushen Bhatnagar

Rating: ***

One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world.

A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the wonderfully nimble vision of the movie camera.

Alas, the camera, contrary to belief, does lie quite often.

In this interesting though flawed film about a deeply flawed woman who knows not what her body or mind wants, director Sushen Bhatnagar takes a real-life incident from the newspapers and converts it into a well-meaning cinematic treatise. It's done with much restraint but not enough of a grip to keep the slippery characters from slipping off the story board.

Frequently the characters appear on screen with very little to recommend them as mere human beings or even as flawed character-studies.

Bhatnagar's world of politicians and media persons in and around Lucknow and Delhi appears to be colonised by self-serving stereotypes, trying hard to appear subtle in their devious machinations. Failing in that endeavour, they appear more sinful than sinned against.

Frequently in the course of the narration we feel the characters are being let down more by a lack of creative and financial resources than by destiny.

The saga of the small-town girl's ambitious rise from salwar-kameez to skimpy skirts and tops has been done with far more grace in the past. Madhur Bhandarkar's "Fashion" created both the fury and passion of that journey into a hurling doom that small-town girls often undertake in implementing their big-time dreams.

Monica Jaitley, as played by Divya Dutta, comes across as a vulnerable vixen. Manipulated and manipulative Monica epitomises the strenuous gracelessness of over-pushy small-towners who topple over the brink in their pursuit of the designer-dream.

The nexus between Monica's world of journalism and the murkier milieu of politics and politicians, as represented by Ashutosh Rana's quietly conniving character, doesn't quite become the heady mix of art and 'vulture' that such cinema has often become in the past (in Ramesh Sharma's "New Delhi" and Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica").

The edges in this hard-hitting story of sex and politics are raw and uneven. The tone doesn't quite catch on the immediacy and urgency required of a docu-drama. The narrative pace sometimes slackens to a slow trot taking away considerably from the why-dunnit's cutting edge.

But the effort to recreate the life of a journalist who dared to dream is sincere. Monica is the kind of won't-tell-a-lie cinema that gets trapped in the labyrinth which separates the search for the truth from the truth itself. But the film does create an aura of doomed sensuality around the protagonist without resorting to lengthy cheesy shots of her journey into the bedroom.

The dialogues suggest deeper thrusts of anguish in Monica's life than the ones that she was apparently resorting to for self-enhancement. At the end one isn't sure what killed Monica - her ambitions or their inherently absurd nature.

For being able to bring out the contradictions in Monica Jaitley's personality, this film deserves some words of praise. The performances of Divya and Ashutosh are tuned well to the theme. But the gifted Rajit as Divya's reprehensible husband is uncharacteristically hammy.

The rest of the cast is stiff, self-conscious and unremarkable.

The authentic locations add a hue of familiar discomfort to the film's politics of sexuality. With better production values and more space for the characters to breed credibility, this could've been a remarkable political thriller rather than a film that gets lost in a maze of possibilities.

Nonetheless worth a watch for recreating an event from the proximate past that showed how closely and precariously politics is related to journalism. And sex.

Courtesy: Santabanta.com

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Posted in: Ashutosh Rana,Bollywood Movie Reviews,Divya Dutta

Life Goes On

By Subhash K Jha

Starring Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad, Om Puri, Soha Ali Khan, Mukulika Banerjee, Neerja Naik, Rez Kempton

Written & Directed by Sangeeta Dutta

Rating: ****

One of the many pleasures of watching this supple evocative elegiac family saga is to see the timeless Sharmila Tagore share screen space with her real-life daughter Soha, who by the way, has never looked lovelier.

That inner-glow comes from the company she keeps in this gentle drama suffused in melodious whispers and mellifluent suggestions of tunes long-forgotten and yet stored in the most inviolable chambers of the heart.

Luckily for us, and the film, the Sharmila-Soha togetherness is not harped upon. There are far bigger issues and virtues to do with family ties and cultural disaffectation, secreted in the storytelling, propelling our hearts to soar in ways that modern cinema doesn't allow.

When did Indian cinema cease to be about emotions? You wonder as you watch the silken cascade of debutante director Sangeeta Dutta's family secrets and emotions gush out in an Bengali family in London, when one fine morning the mother simply drops dead on the kitchen floor.

The mother-figure, a constant and non-negotiable pivot of every family, here seems to be much more in demand than usual. All her three daughters seem to be stricken with heart problems that no cardiologist can tackle. Blessedly the mother of the family Manju is played by the gloriously imposing Sharmila Tagore. She looks like a woman who can handle the problems of three demanding extra-sensitive daughters, and then some more.

Life Goes On captures the suddenness of bereavement in snatches of sounds, visuals and dialogues done in hurried snatches. There's far more austerity in the expression of the anguish and despair after the sudden bereavement than in Mira Nair's masterly study of coming to terms with death in The Namesake. At times you long for more time between the members of the grieving family.

There are no big breakdown sequences in Life Goes On after the mother's death. Everyone gets busy with trying to pick up the threads of life through the guiding-signs of recollective silence and dialogues. Everyone is a bit selfish in this family. That's the family secret that the film doesn't get judgemental about.

A lot of the vignettes connecting the mother's memories to the present times appear predictable even pedestrian…The director, fearless in her maiden endeavour, does not shy away from making her film look familiar. In doing so she creates a comfort zone between the audience and the characters' collective and individual grief.

From the death to reconciliation, Life Goes On moves at a gentle pace creating pockets of interesting if unfinished dialogue and emotions between characters whom the dead woman touched and influenced infinitely.

The echoes and resonances of a life that lingers after death is created through a blend of sounds and visuals capturing the feeble but flamboyant light of London at dawn and dusk. The parks, bridges, two-storeyed residential areas and their incriminating quietude are ably captured in the film, as are the pain and postures of grief and mourning.

The Rabindra Sangeet in the original Bengali and a rather quaint Hindi translation suffuse a warm and endearing quality to the proceedings. The cross-cultural references resonate across the film's somber skyline with unobtrusive emphasis.

The film creates a fine balance between real-life elegies and their cinematic rendition. A lot of Sangeeta Dutta's mise en scene project a first-time director's effusive affinity to creating a defiant poetry out of the prosaic rhythms of life. But the selfconsciousness of a debutante never distracts from the film's elegantly laid-out pastiche of pain hurt and their healing…if at all the pain of loss ever goes away.

Life for the Indian Bengali family in Britain never seemed more complex.

At times you feel the director has 'Britain' more than she can chew. The sub-plot, on Islam-phobia brought in through Soha's boyfriend's character Imtiaz (Rez Kempton) and the rock band that Imtiaz and his friends put together despite Mullahs' objections, seems to go off into tangent away from the Bengali's family's bereavement.

But at the end when we see the band playing a punk version of Hemant Kumar's Ganga aaye kahan se laced with a French rap section, you smile for the cultural shifts and translocations that the plot endeavours to establish without falling off the map of the human heart.

The performances by the veterans Girish Karnad, Om Puri and Sharmila Tagore are uniformly skilled and supple. Among the younger cast members Soha Ali Khan as the youngest Cordelia-like daughter to Karnad's King Lear emerges strong and yet vulnerable. But it is the unknown young actress Neerja Naik who plays Soha's lesbian sister who proves a complete natural.

The subtle delicate tender and utterly disarming play of light and shade, of mellow memories and the hard present-reality, of the various cultural cross-generation clashes…. all these could have made any film topheavy. Not Life Goes On.

It is a gloriously polished and poised look at the chaos that rules the bereaved heart in our troubled times. This film is a triumph on many levels and layers. And you don't have to be a Sharmila Tagore fan to realize how resonant her presence can be even when she is lost to the plot.

Courtesy: Santabanta.com

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews

Tanu Weds Manu' Movie Review

Watch this for Madhavan's perfect performance

Cast: R. Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut, Jimmy Shergil, Swara Bhaskar

Director: Anand L. Rai

Why should you watch 'Tanu Weds Manu'? For R. Madhavan who will win you heart as a sweet lovable NRI doctor Manu who has the misfortune of falling in love with a Kanpur-girl Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) who not only rejects him as a suitor but also uses him to elope with her ruffian boyfriend.

Hiding his heartbreak and disappointment behind a smile, Madhavan fits into the role of a goody goody NRI like a glove. He is hopelessly in love with Tanuja who doesn't miss a single opportunity to hurt him. Rules, they say, are meant to be broken and that's what Tanu's agenda in life is - to break all rules that a middle-class family swears by.

Well, an NRI coming home to find a suitable bride for him is very common in Indian society and director Anand Rai's comedy opens with the same. He tries to be as close to reality as possible - from the backdrop, to clothes, to character artists - all bring out the element of a middle-class setup perfectly.

With a marriage in the background providing a perfect place for Tanu's second chance meeting with Manu, the movie traces the relationship between the girl and the NRI. Surely, perfect material for sentimental romances with 'comedy ka tadka'.

But there is something missing to make it a perfect romantic comedy. First, the script is punctured, then there is no chemistry between Madhavan and Kangana and if that was not enough, the narrative doesn't flow at the desired pace - it's slower than it should be.

Though the director picked up an interesting subject, he has not succeeded in executing his story effectively on screen - there are not enough laughs in the film. Whatever funny scenes are there, credit goes to the chemistry between Madhavan and Deepak Dobriyal who plays his friend Pappi.

Kangana's dialogue delivery puts you off and she lacks the spunk and spark to play the free bird that she is in the movie. In fact, Swara Bhaskar, who plays her friend Payal, holds the fort as the Bihari girl who is marrying a sardarji (Eijaz Khan) who also happens to be Manu's best friend.

Payal is impressed with Manu and even tries to drill some sense into Tanu's head but Tanu, a rebel, doesn't want to admit her feelings for the man who is picked by her parents.

Critics won't appreciate the plot but Madhavan fans would find enough material to enjoy the film.

Music plays an important role in a wedding-based romantic comedy and the director could have got it right if he had opted for fast-paced peppy numbers.

In the performance department, full marks go to Madhavan, Deepak and Swara. The supporting cast of K.K. Raina, Rajendra Gupta and Navni Parihar don't have much to do, but whatever roles they have, they carry it well. Jimmy Shergill as Kangana's ruffian boyfriend is wasted, so is Ravi Kishen as his sidekick.

If you are looking for a great romantic comedy, this is not the one, but watch it for Madhavan and his chemistry with Deepak.

Courtesy: Masala.com

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews

7 Khoon Maaf

The trailer of Vishal Bhardwaj's much-awaited film 7 Khoon Maaf is finally out. Check out the trailer and find out more about the film. After watching the trailer of the film, we're not sure if the mystery has been solved or in fact become more complicated. We all know the film 7 Khoon Maaf is an adaptation of Ruskin Bond's book Suzanna's Seven Husbands. But the trailer is enthralling enough to make you curious about the film and wonder why Suzanna does what she does.

A catchy track inspired by a Russian song Kalinka plays in the background as Suzanna's various husbands and her plans to kill them are revealed. The role of Suzanna is played by Priyanka Chopra and among husbands are John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Irrfan Khan and also Naseerudin Shah. One of her husbands is even a Russian, played by Aleksandr Dyachenko.

Director Vishal Bhardwaj has made adaptations of books in the past as well, Maqbool (adapted from Shakespeare's Macbeth) and Omkara (adapted from Shakepeare's Othello) both of which were critically acclaimed and won several awards. This one also seems promising.

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews,Bollywood Trailers,Movie News

Tanu Weds Manu

Cast: R. Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut, Jimmy Shergil, Swara Bhaskar

Director: Anand L. Rai

Rating: ** 1/2

Why should you watch "Tanu Weds Manu"? For R. Madhavan who will win you heart as a sweet lovable NRI doctor Manu who has the misfortune of falling in love with a Kanpur-girl Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) who not only rejects him as a suitor but also uses him to elope with her ruffian boyfriend.

Hiding his heartbreak and disappointment behind a smile, Madhavan fits into the role of a goody goody NRI like a glove. He is hopelessly in love with Tanuja who doesn't miss a single opportunity to hurt him. Rules, they say, are meant to be broken and that's what Tanu's agenda in life is - to break all rules that a middle-class family swears by.

Well, an NRI coming home to find a suitable bride for him is very common in Indian society and director Anand Rai's comedy opens with the same. He tries to be as close to reality as possible - from the backdrop, to clothes, to character artists - all bring out the element of a middle-class setup perfectly.

With a marriage in the background providing a perfect place for Tanu's second chance meeting with Manu, the movie traces the relationship between the girl and the NRI. Surely, perfect material for sentimental romances with 'comedy ka tadka'.

But there is something missing to make it a perfect romantic comedy. First, the script is punctured, then their is no chemistry between Madhavan and Kangana and if that was not enough, the narrative doesn't flow at the desired pace - it's slower than it should be.

Though the director picked up an interesting subject, he has not succeeded in executing his story effectively on screen - there are not enough laughs in the film. Whatever funny scenes are there, credit goes to the chemistry between Madhavan and Deepak Dobriyal who plays his friend Pappi.

Kangana's dialogue delivery puts you off and she lacks the spunk and spark to play the free bird that she is in the movie. In fact, Swara Bhaskar, who plays her friend Payal, holds the fort as the Bihari girl who is marrying a sardarji (Eijaz Khan) who also happens to be Manu's best friend.

Payal is impressed with Manu and even tries to drill some sense into Tanu's head but Tanu, a rebel, doesn't want to admit her feelings for the man who is picked by her parents.

Critics won't appreciate the plot but Madhavan fans would find enough material to enjoy the film.

Music plays an important role in a wedding-based romantic comedy and the director could have got it right if he had opted for fast-paced peppy numbers.

In the performance department, full marks go to Madhavan, Deepak and Swara. The supporting cast of K.K. Raina, Rajendra Gupta and Navni Parihar don't have much to do, but whatever role they have, they carry it well. Jimmy Shergill as Kangana's ruffian boyfriend is wasted, so is Ravi Kishen as his sidekick.

If you are looking for a great romantic comedy, this is not the one, but watch it for Madhavan and his chemistry with Deepak.

Courtesy: santabanta

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews

Tees Maar Khan

Director: Farah Khan

Cast Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Akshaye Khanna

Rating*1/2

Movie Review: Tees Maar Khan Five minutes into the film, and I wanted to flee. At which point I decided to suspend every single critical faculty, lie back, and see where ‘Tees Maar Khan’ took me. And I am here to report that it propelled me to a place where I had to search long and hard for my brains, them having been bludgeoned into submission by an unending onslaught of puerile gags and harebrained characters defined by their stunningly slim lines, not too many and not too tough : this is not a film, you can tell quite quickly, which has a long and complicated script.

So everyone in the film is instructed to call Akshay Tees Maar Khan. Including Akshay himself, just in case he forgets who he is, even if he’s the kind of crack thief that can get his handcuffs off in a second. His big task in the film is to loot money off a train, manned by a bunch of bumbling cops. He is helped by his trio of sidekicks, a knock-out bimbette ( Kaif), an Oscar-crazy hero ( Khanna) and a whole posse of villagers. And a couple of star turns by Salman Khan ( all the better to make Kat jokes) and Anil Kapoor ( who else can be made the butt of Oscar jokes?).

This kind of madcap plot where everything ( and everyone) is stirred together till the masala is just right is what Farah Khan did so well in ‘ Main Hoon Na’, and most of ‘Om Shanti Om’. Her unapologetic Bollywood shtick and her large star-studded dance ensembles made both those films complete entertainers : I can happily see ‘Put you hands in the air’, from `OSO’ in a loop. ‘Tees Maar Khan’ could been a corker because it’s taken off from the 1966 ‘After The Fox’, a great Peter Sellers farce. But it is hobbled by poor, tasteless writing, and a leading man who seems to have lost his sense of comic timing.

The two people who help you make it through, just about, are Akshaye Khanna and Katrina Kaif. The former plays a top star desperate for an Oscar, dying every time he sees the famous Anil Kapoor ( post the ‘Slumdog’ win) jig on TV. The latter is an item girl who plays silly with such abandon, you can’t help smiling, not even in that Shake It Till It Drops Sheila Item Number, which, pssst, comes very soon after the film opens. ‘Tees Maar Khan’ will go down as the movie which got her to Kaif to say ‘lakhtey jigar’. No, really. And when she goes` nahiiiiiiin’, in classic Hindi filmy heroine pose, she makes you laugh.

The rest of it is wince-making.

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews,Katrina Kaif

Golmaal 3

Starring: Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas talpade, Kareena Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Kunal khemu, Johnny Lever
Director: Rohit Shetty
Rating: 3 out of 5

Rohit Shetty brings back the highly successful franchisee of the Golmaal series to the big screen once more. Golmaal 3 brings back all the popular characters from the previous movie and there are some additions to the ensemble crew as well. As a Diwali release Golmaal 3 promises to be a major crowd puller. The Golmaal 3 star cast has done a wonderful job and this time Tusshar Kapoor has outperformed himself with the fantastic acting prowess.

Golmaal 3 primarily tries to highlight the sibling rivalry between two groups. The first group consists of Ajay Devgn (Gopal), Shreyas Talpade (Laxman), Kareena Kapoor (Dabboo). The world of Gopal frequently collides with that of Arshad Warsi (Madhav), Tusshar Kapoor (Lucky), and Kunal Khemu (Laxman).

The movie is an out and out laugh riot that will keep you engaged for the entire length. The inclusion of Johnny Lever as an absent minded thief is fantastic and it adds to the confusion. Johnny Lever shows the audience that he is the master of slapstick comedy and comes back to claim his crown. The climax however is not that imaginative and could have been a lot better. Kareena’s dog has been named Facebook and the scene where it tries to get a bone out of Mithun’s pocket is hilarious.

The scene where the siblings threaten each other without saying a single word is a masterpiece in itself. This movie is a highly recommended Diwali family entertainer which will bring a wide grin on your face.

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Posted in: Bollywood Movie Reviews