Jai Ho

What do you expect in a Salman Khan movie? If this question was asked of a focus group, one answer would always be a shirtless fight sequence and in the climax of Jai Ho, the audience was chanting, “Shirt Utaar! Shirt Utaar! Shirt Utaar!” and our hero gladly complies in a matter of a few seconds.  Totally awesome!!!

Krrish 3

Let me be honest at the very outset. I walked into Krish 3 expecting a disaster. In fact I was hoping that it would be a disaster. So much that I am beginning to believe in that dialogue from Om Shanti Om, "agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho toh poori kayanat usse tumse milani ki koshish mein lag jaati hai" (if u sincerely wish for something then the universe conspires to ensure that you get it).

Desi Boyz

I never managed to watch Desi Boyz till a couple of days back when I caught up with it on TV. I cannot remember the channel for the life of me. But I don’t think it really matters. I was told all sorts of things about how I should avoid the movie like the plague and I should not consider watching it even if I was paid for it – amongst other heinous things.

And I guess that age old rule applied once again – If you don’t set your expectations of a movie then chances are that you may not find it that bad. I must say that I found Desi Boyz to be a movie that could be tolerated. And quite comfortably at that. Probably because I saw it without any expectations whatsoever. But there were some other factors that helped in getting my expectation so low.

I have not been much of an Akshay Kumar fan in the past few years. I strongly believe that he has lost his comic timing. If memory serves me right, the slide began with either Garam Masala and then all was lost by the time we came to CC2C. The good comedian in him has over time been replaced by someone who is quite slapstick and seems to be struggling to keep even himself humoured. Desi Boyz was probably a bit better than his recent disasters.

My expectations from John Abraham the actor have never been too high. Sincere effort always put in. Definitely lots of hard work. But I believe he can at best be eye candy and nothing more. And what candy!!! As regards Deepika, I have been a fan of the confidence and will continue to be one – despite the fact that it seems to be deteriorating over the past few movies. And Chitrangadha in this new sultry avatar was a surprise – if only the strip teaching exercise would have continued just a bit more.

Desi Boyz is a cheap effort at mimicking The Full Monty but only with 2 people and a lot of Desi Masala also thrown in which doesn’t help much. Jignesh Patel (AK) is left with the task of taking care of his sister’s son after an accident takes them away. Jignesh works in a security services company. His best friend is Nikhil Mathur (John) who is an MBA from London School of Economics (WOW!!!).

Both are hit by the “recession” and find themselves jobless. Nikhil has to take care of his girl friend Radhika’s (Deepika) utopian expectations of marriage and a family after. Jignesh has to prevent Social Security from taking away his nephew. Desperation drives them to Boss (Sanjay Dutt) who runs a high level escort service and they start making the big bucks after a lot of reluctance.

If you are willing to ignore the basic errors and cheesy dialogues that come with most movies of this kind, Desi Boyz can actually be a great watch. The music is quite decent with some popular songs in the recent past. Overall as I said earlier – not disappointing because my expectations were lower than what I got. I thought you could tolerate it. Watch it if you have nothing better to do. 4 on 10.

Watch the trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlorjdK8cI

Force

This is the 2nd movie involving Nishikant Kamat that I have seen this year. The first one was 404 as an actor where he was quite solid. But Nishikant Kamat the director has probably not translated his acting talent or for that matter his directorial talent - from his the Marathi Cinema repertoire (I hear Deool is really good and will be watching it soon) into Force. The direction is sincere no doubt but I would rate it as average at best. Not impactful in any manner. Plus the lack of emphasis on consistency just keeps getting to me. Do Indian directors really believe that the population is naïve enough not to catch up with some of them – maybe they are true but I guess that’s what differentiates the great ones from the good ones. So if Nishikant Kamat wants to be a great director the I guess he has to start paying attention to the finer details.

Now I agree that one can probably do only this much with a chatterbox who speaks through her teeth and thrives on saying, “ACP Sir” all the time so much that you forget that the ACP is actually called Yashwardhan (John Abraham). After a point of time Maya (Genelia D’Souza) starts sounding like the chalk scratching the black board which makes the kids cringe and clamp their ears shut. Not that the hunk of meat is far superior. But at least he isn’t a put on. I have always believed that John Abraham is one of the most sincere actors in Indian cinema. That he will stick to commercial cinema that may require him to take his shirt off (he gets paid for it unlike Sallu Bhai who does it gratis) is not a surprise. And then there is the supporting cast of a constipated Raj Babbar, a mature looking Mohnish Bahl, a less irritating Sandhya Mridul, A young Shashank Shende, a crass and unpolished Kamlesh Sawant and an insignificant Anaitha Nair (please please start finding more meaty roles – I would love to see you on screen more often. I think you have looks and talent. Why waste it )

A typical formula movie of a lead good looking inspector, a young upstart who will get killed, An older mature officer in the team and a crass hot blooded honest cop to complete the quartet. Sincerely made for certain. Could have been better. Has generated enough interest in me to look for the Tamil DVD. But not a bad way to spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and its playing on TV. Not required to watch on the big screen at all. It’s a little weird but I just noticed that this was a remake of a Tamil movie by a Marathi director in Hindi – anyone knows if other such combinations exist? Never Mind my “google swamy” avatar speaking. 5 on 10 to Force

Trailer on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MpB95_ArXA

Khap

There was a 30 minute segment in a movie that released last year (or was it year before last). A movie that was not taken very well by the masses because most of the audience didn’t understand it at all. I had, on my blog, described Love Sex Aur Dhokha as a very brave movie. But more importantly, the treatment of the super sensitive topic of Honour Killings by ace director Dibakar Banerjee was simply brilliant. In sharp contrast, Ajai Sinha makes a mockery of such a strong topic. It doesn’t take too much time to realize why Mr. Sinha was without a movie for over 6 years. His last one was this obscure movie called Stop! Now I haven’t see Stop! yet but the direction in Khap doesn’t inspire me at all to watch it.

What Dibakar Banerjee took less than 30 minutes to communicate, Ajai Sinha could not achieve in over 2 hours. Primarily because he spends truck loads of time to show us a useless love story between 2 barely legal kids (as per the movie they have just entered college). An extremely corny and of course predictable story unfolds through part of the movie between Ria (Yuvika Chaudhry) and Kush (Sarrtaj). Ria’s parents Madhur (Mohnish Bahl) and Komal (Anuradha Patel) have moved to the city 16 years back after Madhur fights with his father Chaudhary Saheb (Om Puri) over ways that can only be described as Jungle Law. Chaudhary Saheb is the President of the Khap – a collection of 40 villages where everyone is related to the other in some convoluted manner. A boy and a girl from the same Khap cannot get married. And if they are of the same “Gotra” then it is sacrilegious and calls for the death penalty – remember what I said about Jungle Law. Needless to say, Madhur had to run away because the rest of the clan refused to change its ways. But 16 years later, he returns as the lead of a Human Rights Commission group to try and find evidence. Easier said than done right?

Pathetic acting is the hallmark of Khap. And what beats me is that the likes of Om Puri and Govind Namdeo seem to have forgotten how to give any kind of performance. Doesn’t take much to figure out that Yuvika Chaudhry cannot act no matter how hard she tries. Add the ridiculous name of Sarrtaj to the same list that Yuvika is part of. Alok Nath comes in with a cameo about how the Khap also does lots of good (which is true by the way), falls flat with his acting, makes a fool of himself even with only 2 minutes of screen time and runs away with his tail between his legs – exceptionally embarrassing performance. He should stick to being the doting daddy of a girl child (which he has been doing forever). Direction, Editing, cinematography, screenplay, music and all the other aspects of good film making were all but absent throughout the 2+ hours. Horrible way to spend a Saturday morning. Sorry for posting the review late (if you saw the movie between Saturday afternoon and today). 2 on 10 and that’s only because it isn’t as bad as Milenge Milenge.

Watch the trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE7T4rrBCi