What are the
elements of a Gangster movie? Firstly you need a story that is convincing
enough. So Sanamjit Talwar, in his debut
effort, picks the evergreen Gangsta City that never sleeps as his backdrop. Safe
bet considering that it has been fodder for million others before him. In the
city, he starts of with a game of Snakes and Ladders between Viki Kartoos (Harman
Baweja) and Lakwa (Sunny Deol).
Showing posts with label Anand Tiwari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anand Tiwari. Show all posts
Friday, 28 March 2014
Friday, 10 May 2013
Go Goa Gone
Predictably, the
page for Go Goa Gone (GGG) on www.bollywoodhungama.com
refers to the genre of this movie as Zom-Com.
It was obviously intended to be funny – the term that is – and does
strike as funny for a bit. Say it in
your head a couple of times. There were
RomComs and now there are ZomComs. Funny
no?
What you will
soon realize that the funny feeling lasts only upto the time that you walk into
the cinema hall. After that, it will
dawn upon your pea brain that the joke was actually on you. That you were the one who was conned by a
superb marketing effort by the producers who lured you into the nearest hall to
squeeze the living daylights out of you while you try and sustain GGG.
Hardik (Kunal
Khemu), Luv (Vir Das) and Bunny (Anand Tiwari) are close friends who work
together and stay together in what can be best called – A Bachelor Pad. Hardik and Luv are lazy as can be. They are also horny as can be. The 3 of them take off to Goa after Luv gets
dumped and Bunny gets called for a business presentation.
Here Luv
conveniently bumps into the sizzling hot Luna (Puja Gupta) who also invites the
gang to a rave party that is being organized by the Russian Mafia on a desolate
island off the coast. The main
attraction – the latest drug that is sold in a red capsule and costs $100 a
pop. The side effect – everyone turns
into a zombie the next day. WOW!!!!
Now if you don’t
find the story ridiculous then get a load of this. To test if you are a zombie, the following
tests have to be conducted. First you
find out what the person has had the previous night. Next you ask him to narrate multiplication tables. Then ask him the capital of Uganda and
finally show him blood so that you can find out if he gets excited by its
sight. Wait a minute. Why can’t we just jump to step 4 directly?
If you still do
not find the concept ridiculous, then by all means go ahead and watch Saif Ali
Khan making a fool of himself as a Russian Mafioso and drug dealer called
Boris. The music is nothing great. The only saving grace is Puja Gupta in a blue
2 piece bikini and some other shots with not too much of clothing.
Are we in for a
slew of Zombie movies in the days to come? We have had 2 in about a month or
so. I hope to god – and I seriously
would like to pray – that we get over our fascination with this genre. I have
never been a fan – Hollywood or Bollywood – of critters coming out of the
ground and roaming around trying to be scary.
And Bollywood isn’t doing much to change my opinion in any way. 3 on 10.
Watch the trailer
on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5zGNVRmaE
Friday, 28 January 2011
Udaan
I have no clue why I missed this one when it released. And I cant fathom how movies such as Lamhaa, Edge of Darkness, Knight and Day and I Hate Luv Storys would take precedence over screen time over such a powerful movie like Udaan. I can, however understand them giving precedence to Inception which released around the same time but which I am quite sure did not eat away into screen time so much that the movie houses could not have given Udaan more time. Surely there are more takers for quality cinema in India. Guess I am not right on that count.
Rohan Singh (Rajat Barmecha), Maninder Singh (Manjot Singh), Vikram (Raja Hudda) and Benoy (Varun Khettry) are four seventeen year olds who are in the last year in school. Obviously this comes with the excess baggage of a chip on their shoulders and raging hormones. They decide to play truant from the hostel @ Bishop Cotton Shimla and watch a soft porn movie – Kanti Shah Ke Angoor (ROTFL – reminds me of our days in college). As luck would have it, the school warden, Rathod (Sanjay Gandhi) is also in the same show. Our foursome cannot rush back to the hostel faster than Rathod on his moped thanks to one of them spraining his ankle. Since it is the 3rd time that they are in gross violation of school roles, all of them are expelled and now make their way back home.
Rohan’s dad, Bhairav Singh (Ronit Roy) is Hitler personified. In the words of his brother, Jimmy (Ram Kapoor), every dad wants his son to grow up to be like him and no one else. Add to that the frustration of having lost his first wife over 8 years back and a 2nd failed marriage that has left him with another son, a 6 year old - Arjun (Aayan Barodia). He hasn’t made an effort to visit Rohan in school over the past 8 years. And Rohan is blissfully unaware of Arjun’s existence. But after the initial friction, Rohan and Arjun both realize that they are both on the same side. Rohan wants to be a writer / poet but Bhairav will have nothing of it and forces him to work @ his factory in the day and study at the local engineering college in the afternoon. Despite Jimmy’s best efforts, Bhairav doesn’t budge.
Udaan traces the story of how Rohan tries to break free from the shackles of his ruthless father. But one cannot really help but feel sorry for Bhairav and is also compelled to think from his side – not that his actions are justified in any ways – purely with a perspective of intent. Ronit Roy truly deserves the Star Screen Award that he got for his performance in a “Villainous Role” although it would be very harsh to call the role of a Villain. They should be fair and actually give him the best performance for the year is what I say. I don’t think anyone who is nominated for the Best Actor this year in any of the awards has performed as well as Ronit Roy has. Full credit to him and the fact that Vikramaditya Motwane has extracted the performance from him. Motwane joins the list of first time directors this year. But what makes him different is the attention to detail, the ability to hold a story line and the courage to cut the riff raff. Udaan runs for a compact 134 mins with nothing which seems unnecessary and maybe a couple of instances of inconsistency – for instance, how did Rohan get into an Engineering College without passing class 12 (irrespective of the best efforts of his father).
I don’t mean to undermine Rajat Barmecha’s performance – which was quite solid – but it was clearly over shadowed by Ronit Roy. Purely my opinion. Ram Kapoor comes up with yet another super sincere performance – an attribute that one has started associating with him over the years. And a gem of a performance from the kid, Aayan Barodia which got him an award for the Best Child Artiste this year. Truly deserving. It is not for the heck of it that Udaan has received the best movie award @ this year’s Star Screen awards. Its truly a good movie. Was it the best in the year – probably not. Pipped @ the post in my books by Do Dooni Chaar and Tere Bin Laden both of which were super quality cinema. I would nevertheless give Udaan the same rating as these 2 – 7 on 10. Put it to your must watch list folks.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1334248985/
Rohan Singh (Rajat Barmecha), Maninder Singh (Manjot Singh), Vikram (Raja Hudda) and Benoy (Varun Khettry) are four seventeen year olds who are in the last year in school. Obviously this comes with the excess baggage of a chip on their shoulders and raging hormones. They decide to play truant from the hostel @ Bishop Cotton Shimla and watch a soft porn movie – Kanti Shah Ke Angoor (ROTFL – reminds me of our days in college). As luck would have it, the school warden, Rathod (Sanjay Gandhi) is also in the same show. Our foursome cannot rush back to the hostel faster than Rathod on his moped thanks to one of them spraining his ankle. Since it is the 3rd time that they are in gross violation of school roles, all of them are expelled and now make their way back home.
Rohan’s dad, Bhairav Singh (Ronit Roy) is Hitler personified. In the words of his brother, Jimmy (Ram Kapoor), every dad wants his son to grow up to be like him and no one else. Add to that the frustration of having lost his first wife over 8 years back and a 2nd failed marriage that has left him with another son, a 6 year old - Arjun (Aayan Barodia). He hasn’t made an effort to visit Rohan in school over the past 8 years. And Rohan is blissfully unaware of Arjun’s existence. But after the initial friction, Rohan and Arjun both realize that they are both on the same side. Rohan wants to be a writer / poet but Bhairav will have nothing of it and forces him to work @ his factory in the day and study at the local engineering college in the afternoon. Despite Jimmy’s best efforts, Bhairav doesn’t budge.
Udaan traces the story of how Rohan tries to break free from the shackles of his ruthless father. But one cannot really help but feel sorry for Bhairav and is also compelled to think from his side – not that his actions are justified in any ways – purely with a perspective of intent. Ronit Roy truly deserves the Star Screen Award that he got for his performance in a “Villainous Role” although it would be very harsh to call the role of a Villain. They should be fair and actually give him the best performance for the year is what I say. I don’t think anyone who is nominated for the Best Actor this year in any of the awards has performed as well as Ronit Roy has. Full credit to him and the fact that Vikramaditya Motwane has extracted the performance from him. Motwane joins the list of first time directors this year. But what makes him different is the attention to detail, the ability to hold a story line and the courage to cut the riff raff. Udaan runs for a compact 134 mins with nothing which seems unnecessary and maybe a couple of instances of inconsistency – for instance, how did Rohan get into an Engineering College without passing class 12 (irrespective of the best efforts of his father).
I don’t mean to undermine Rajat Barmecha’s performance – which was quite solid – but it was clearly over shadowed by Ronit Roy. Purely my opinion. Ram Kapoor comes up with yet another super sincere performance – an attribute that one has started associating with him over the years. And a gem of a performance from the kid, Aayan Barodia which got him an award for the Best Child Artiste this year. Truly deserving. It is not for the heck of it that Udaan has received the best movie award @ this year’s Star Screen awards. Its truly a good movie. Was it the best in the year – probably not. Pipped @ the post in my books by Do Dooni Chaar and Tere Bin Laden both of which were super quality cinema. I would nevertheless give Udaan the same rating as these 2 – 7 on 10. Put it to your must watch list folks.
Watch the trailer at http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1334248985/
Monday, 16 August 2010
Aisha
I was really really looking forward to catching up with the first day show of Aisha. I had been listening to the music for the past 3 weeks. Set up Aisha songs as my caller tune coz the music was really good. Very typical Amit Trivedi. A nice mélange of several genres of music. 6 neatly packed songs into what seemed to be a fresh and exciting movie to watch. Professional commitments and then a week long illness kept me away from the screen till last evening. The movie started off as I had predicted with the foot tapping chick number – By the Way (Anushka Manchanda). But what started off promisingly and sustained the momentum all through the first half kind of just fizzled out into – I would be harsh if I were to call it a damp squib – but it almost got there.
Aisha Kapoor (Sonam A Kapoor) is your average rich semi spoilt kid from South Central Delhi whose Dad (M K Raina) is rich enough to buy her a Volkswagen Beetle. Probably as her 21st birthday gift or something. She is bestest friends with Pinky Bose (Ira Dubey) who is a self confessed man lover but also commitment phobe – I already like her . She is also close friends with Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol) who has kind of grown up with the family. Arjun is now an investment banker – I sometimes find it extremely difficult to digest these fancy professions which get credited to characters in movies, lead or otherwise. Do the people involved in making movies even know what goes into the life of an I-Banker or what does an investment Banker’s schedule look like? Or does an I-Banker even have the bandwidth after her/his 18 hour work days to spare time on some random weekend for a polo game? Maybe I am wrong but my impression of these corporate slaves is far different from what was shown.
Nevertheless, completing the entire shebang are Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar), Aarti Menon (Lisa Haydon) and Dhruv Singh (Arunoday Singh). Randhir is the usual rich bum whose dad owns a massive sweets business. He is totally smitten by Aisha. Aarti is the NY return colleague of Arjun who is “just friends” with him. And Dhruv is the nerd grown hunkie. Son of Col. Singh (Yuri Suri) who has just married Aisha’s Maasi – Chitra (Anooradha Patel).
Now Aisha is fully capable of finding herself a job but as I had mentioned earlier, she is the semi spoilt rich kid. Semi spoilt coz she restricts herself to spending 53 grand on her dad’s credit card without batting an eyelid. 53 grand is like peanuts for the average rich Delhi household. In most cases the response would have been, “Bas Itna hi??? Jawaan Beti hai, aaj nahin kharchegi toh kab karegi. Aur itna paisa kis liye kamaaya hai”. She instead, indulges herself in what she calls – Social Service i.e. setting up couples together. She claims to run an event management firm but honestly the movie does not give any indications of this other than her claiming it. Her current pet project is Shefali (Amrita Puri) who has come to Delhi from Bahadurgarh with the sole intent of getting married. The movie revolves around Aisha’s attempts to get her hitched first with Randhir and then with Dhruv. In between all of this there is Saurabh (Anand Tiwari) who is smitten by Shefali but thanks to Aisha is not allowed to even get close simply because he is too middle class. Arjun doesn’t like this interference one bit and keeps giving Aisha a piece of his mind which is to no avail.
Aisha is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. I have read Emma a really long time back and tried to get my hands on the book so that I could go thru it once again before I saw Aisha but guess what – out of stock. I somehow don’t think it is due to Aisha. I do have a vague recollection of the book and I think the story is quite similar and Rajashree Ojha & Devika Bhagat (Screenplay) have done it some justice. Most importantly, they have credited Jane Austen with the script and story which is very unlike most Bollywood production houses. I guess it was Anil Kapoor’s attempt to increase his credibility in Hollywood.
Performances are quite acceptable. Sonam A Kapoor has increased her level just that one bit in her 4th movie. Abhay Deol as usual is completely at ease in front of the camera. Ira Dubey too has done quite a good job as the forever spiteful, Randhir hating, Pinky Bose. Stand out performance is by Amrita Puri who in her debut movie who has done full justice to the role of Shefali from Bhadurgarh. My friends from Delhi would agree with me when I say that she has actually captured the nuances of such a character very very well both in demeanour as well as dialogue. Good show Amrita.
The editing, consistency and sound editing are however atrocious to say the least. Come on guys at least ensure the movie is finished well. Could have easily gone upto 6 on 10 with proper finishing and some cuts in between to ensure the movie was of the right length. Thoda overboard chala gaya. Khinch gaya. 4 on 10 final verdict.
Aisha Kapoor (Sonam A Kapoor) is your average rich semi spoilt kid from South Central Delhi whose Dad (M K Raina) is rich enough to buy her a Volkswagen Beetle. Probably as her 21st birthday gift or something. She is bestest friends with Pinky Bose (Ira Dubey) who is a self confessed man lover but also commitment phobe – I already like her . She is also close friends with Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol) who has kind of grown up with the family. Arjun is now an investment banker – I sometimes find it extremely difficult to digest these fancy professions which get credited to characters in movies, lead or otherwise. Do the people involved in making movies even know what goes into the life of an I-Banker or what does an investment Banker’s schedule look like? Or does an I-Banker even have the bandwidth after her/his 18 hour work days to spare time on some random weekend for a polo game? Maybe I am wrong but my impression of these corporate slaves is far different from what was shown.
Nevertheless, completing the entire shebang are Randhir Gambhir (Cyrus Sahukar), Aarti Menon (Lisa Haydon) and Dhruv Singh (Arunoday Singh). Randhir is the usual rich bum whose dad owns a massive sweets business. He is totally smitten by Aisha. Aarti is the NY return colleague of Arjun who is “just friends” with him. And Dhruv is the nerd grown hunkie. Son of Col. Singh (Yuri Suri) who has just married Aisha’s Maasi – Chitra (Anooradha Patel).
Now Aisha is fully capable of finding herself a job but as I had mentioned earlier, she is the semi spoilt rich kid. Semi spoilt coz she restricts herself to spending 53 grand on her dad’s credit card without batting an eyelid. 53 grand is like peanuts for the average rich Delhi household. In most cases the response would have been, “Bas Itna hi??? Jawaan Beti hai, aaj nahin kharchegi toh kab karegi. Aur itna paisa kis liye kamaaya hai”. She instead, indulges herself in what she calls – Social Service i.e. setting up couples together. She claims to run an event management firm but honestly the movie does not give any indications of this other than her claiming it. Her current pet project is Shefali (Amrita Puri) who has come to Delhi from Bahadurgarh with the sole intent of getting married. The movie revolves around Aisha’s attempts to get her hitched first with Randhir and then with Dhruv. In between all of this there is Saurabh (Anand Tiwari) who is smitten by Shefali but thanks to Aisha is not allowed to even get close simply because he is too middle class. Arjun doesn’t like this interference one bit and keeps giving Aisha a piece of his mind which is to no avail.
Aisha is an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. I have read Emma a really long time back and tried to get my hands on the book so that I could go thru it once again before I saw Aisha but guess what – out of stock. I somehow don’t think it is due to Aisha. I do have a vague recollection of the book and I think the story is quite similar and Rajashree Ojha & Devika Bhagat (Screenplay) have done it some justice. Most importantly, they have credited Jane Austen with the script and story which is very unlike most Bollywood production houses. I guess it was Anil Kapoor’s attempt to increase his credibility in Hollywood.
Performances are quite acceptable. Sonam A Kapoor has increased her level just that one bit in her 4th movie. Abhay Deol as usual is completely at ease in front of the camera. Ira Dubey too has done quite a good job as the forever spiteful, Randhir hating, Pinky Bose. Stand out performance is by Amrita Puri who in her debut movie who has done full justice to the role of Shefali from Bhadurgarh. My friends from Delhi would agree with me when I say that she has actually captured the nuances of such a character very very well both in demeanour as well as dialogue. Good show Amrita.
The editing, consistency and sound editing are however atrocious to say the least. Come on guys at least ensure the movie is finished well. Could have easily gone upto 6 on 10 with proper finishing and some cuts in between to ensure the movie was of the right length. Thoda overboard chala gaya. Khinch gaya. 4 on 10 final verdict.
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