De Dana Dan

Priyadarshan’s De Dana Dan joins his fairly long list of slapstick, helter-skelter comedies that make us laugh for a scene or two, but leave us exasperated for the rest of the movie. This one had the added pain of Archana Puran Singh, Paresh Rawal and Manoj Joshi competing for the loudest-voice-on-cinema award and gunning solely for your eardrums. I might have viewed the movie as a timepass, if only the shouting and screaming didnt give me a massive headache.

The theme is similar to his previous works (Hera Pheri series, Bhagam Bhag, Malamaal Weekly) – poor guys wanting to make the quick buck and getting involved with all kinds of random characters along the way – which culminates in a massive free-for-all in the climax. Here Akshay and Sunil Shetty kidnap a dog to strike it rich and then gatecrash into Chunky Pandey’s wedding at a hotel – who is marrying to escape debtors. Then there is a whole assortment of characters from the bumbling hitman, drunk waiter, hooker, an Indo-Chinese don to an investigator and the Indian Ambassador, no less.

The Bad
Priyadarshan’s attempt at hilarity by mixing up so many characters fails completely. The usual mistaken identities and misunderstandings are garnished with Tom-and-Jerry type chase sequences – but get you to chuckle only once every half hour. Akshay tries hard in his scenes but with so many other crazy things happening, he doesn’t sound any better than the others. And most of the other lead actors – Katrina, Sunil Shetty, Sameera Reddy etc do not have much to do and seem to be just going through the motions. If you were looking forward to the chemistry of the Hera Pheri trio, they never actually come in a scene together - and there is no spark between Akshay and Sunil to be seen anywhere.

The Good
The bright points of the movie are Rajpal Yadav and Johhny Lever – their scenes are mostly funny. And Asrani still gets a few good laughs in the end.

I have a pretty high tolerance for low-brow comedy, but this was asinine even by my low standards. The first half was especially dull, and the second half has most of the screaming, so its hard to recommend anything in this movie wholeheartedly. The rain song between Kat and Akshay in the movie has also been snipped off – just in case you were planning to go for that. And if you still HAVE to watch it, just take a good pair of earbuds along.



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Public Enemies

Sorry for the delay in the review
The weekend was spent in some outdoorsy activity and with such an insipid movie, sometimes writing about it becomes a chore.

Yes, Public Enemies – with its much vaunted cast of Johnny Depp and Christian Bale and fairly illustrious director Michael Mann - fails miserably as a movie. As a documentary covering the career of John Dillinger, maybe it works, but as a movie it doesn’t. By the way, John Dillinger was a famous bank robber during the Great Depression and was America’s first public enemy number one.

Michael Mann tries to capture the life in Chicago in the 1930’s and in this endeavour, he succeeds wildly ! Visually, its immaculate in its depiction of that era – the huge vaulted banks, the automobiles, the clothes – everything is superb. Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger – a flamboyant bank robber who bragged he took just one minute forty seconds to rob a bank – but always made sure the consumer at the bank counter got his money back. Cocky, brash and with a taste of the high life - Johnny Depp is on familiar ground here – with shades of Jack Sparrow visible at times.

Christian Bale plays FBI agent Melvin Purvis – a sort of encounter specialist who in entrusted the task to bring Dillinger to the books. This has a historical significance – FBI at that time was a fledgling institution and Director J. Edgar Hoover was trying to establish his force by capturing some notorious criminals – and Dillinger was the first one. Bale plays Purvis reasonably well – but almost all of Purvis is a complete mystery. We are never able to see if apart from dedication to FBI’s scientific methods, he has any other aspects to his character. Was he smart or just lucky ? Did he have any specific ‘encounter philosophy’ or if he was just doing his job ?

In a way, even Dillinger’s character is a bit of a mystery. He is shown doing things – robbing banks, going out with the cute hat-check girl and planning bigger train robberies – but there is precious little to be known about the man himself. Like whats his motivation ? For a person who doesn’t seem to care anything for the law, life or society in general, how is he such a romantic ?

As I have mentioned before, the treatment of the story is very documentary-like – where the happening’s are catalogued without much of a backstory or anything about the central characters – why they are the way they are. The action sequences are mainly gunfights using tommy guns – the favourite gangster weapon – and were nicely done.

By the time I was finished with the movie – I instantly remembered two movies of not-too-recent-past. The first one is 3:10 to Yuma – Dillinger has a remarkable similarity to Russel Crowe’s character in the movie. The other and more logical comparison is Ridley Scott’s American Gangster. A very similar story line about one cop versus one gangster – but American Gangster is simply a much better movie. Both the protagonists have strong a belief in what they do and the showdown was a compelling watch. Here it just feels empty, you keep on waiting for something to happen but nothing does ..

The only thing I have to say about the movie at the end – what the hell was it all about ??


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Night At The Museum : Battle of The Smithsonian

If it were not for Kahmunrah, the crazy lisping Egyptian pharaoh, Night at The Museum : The Battle of The Smithsonian would be a killer movie – it would bore us all to death !!

The second edition of Night at the Museum features Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) and all his old pals – Jedediah (Owen Wilson), Octavius, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), the monkey etc. And some new characters – the aforementioned Kahmunrah, Ivan the Terrible, Napolean Bonaparte, Al Capone, General Custer, Amelia Earhart & Abraham Lincoln. If it seems like a who’s who from history – its exactly that, and nothing more.

The plot – well there is not much of it – is that Larry Daley has moved on in life and not much in touch with his museum buddies, till one day when he finds out that they are being shipped off to the Federal Archives in the Smithsonian and being replaced by 3D holographic thingies. However, the tablet also goes with them and they awaken some not-so-nice historical characters and so begins a grand good-vs-evil battle utilizing all of Smithsonian museum exhibits. And I didn’t mean it in any good way

You’d think having all great historical characters come back to life would be quite amusing – however they are as boring and one-dimensional as possible ! The acts are very insipid, with not an ounce of creativity. Particularly irritating is Amelia Earhart, played by Amy Adams. Too much time is given to her and her romance with Larry – it almost squeezes out life from this movie. From time to time, oxygen is administered in form of Kahmunrah, who is the only genuinely funny guy in the entire movie (and gets this movie an extra 0.5 stars). However with an average of one joke every half an hour, this movie is never quite recovers from its weaknesses.

Performances are again nothing much to write about. Ben Stiller does the slightly-bemused/befuddled look very easily and doesn’t look like he is trying hard at all. All the others hardly have any worthwhile screentime. Owen Wilson has nothing else to do apart from being trapped in a hourglass by Kahmunrah.

Unless you want to be half bored to death, avoid Night at The Museum 2. Catch all of five jokes on youtube if you want, but do not pay to fall asleep in the cinema.


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Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen

Take a hot chica Megan Fox and clothe her in really sexy clothes – and make her work on engines all day and a biker babe as well. So when she seductively says ‘camshaft’, the men just cant stop drooling over her. Then take a few giant robots and make them fight – with lot of slow-motion jumps and rollovers. And then fill in the gaps with explosions !! Big ones, even bigger ones and then some really big ones. Tadah – movie complete !!

Ok, I might have exaggerated a little, but Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen really feels like a script written by an 8-year-old. While movies without good scripts are dime-a-dozen, what sets this sequel apart is the singular disregard of everything that was right in the first Transformers movie. The transformers – neither the autobots nor the decepticons - are given any time for character development. The reason we were rooting for the autobots in the first Transformers movie was because each of them appeared to have a human soul – there werent just robotic machines. This time around, Michael Bay doesn’t give us any time to distinguish between the good and bad guys – its just fight on.

Valuable screen time, is instead wasted on the Sam (Shia LeBouf) and Mikaela (Megan Fox) love story – does it make ANY difference who says ‘I love you’ first in a relationship ?? There were too much time spent on the emotional relationship things – Sam and his parents, Sam and Mikaela and even Sam and Optimus Prime !! If only some of this time had been spent on the transformers or even smoothing out the jerky script ..

(And the ones who did get some screen time were the two stupid Mexican small bots who were almost completely irrelevant !!)

Even with allowance for plot holes (e.g. notice the security of the high-security facility, or the lack of self-safety instincts of the submarine crew), the scriptwriting cannot be condoned. Having no flow whatsoever, the movie seems almost episodic. There is no continuity between scenes, neither is there any time or device to allow intensity to build up before any big sequence. Consequently your involvement in the movie just doesn’t happen.

But aren’t the Transformer movies all about cool fight sequences between huge robots ? Yes, they are supposed to be – but even that isn’t a redeeming factor in this movie. First of all, there are just too many explosions in the movie. With director Michael Bay, huge onscreen explosions are a given – so lets not crib about that too much. But because of this explosions fascination, the transformers seem to prefer fighting firepower to a slugfest. So you don’t actually get to see too many hand-to-hand combats so to speak.

The second reason why even the slugfests aren’t impressive is that because so little time has been spent distinguishing the good bots from the bad bots, that its impossible to make out who is fighting whom. And because all the fights are captured in the same slow motion way, the fights appear a bit repetitive after sometime.
Not all is gloom and doom though – the franchise throws up a new tiny robot who is very amusing as well as an old surprise – Agent Simmons. He produces most of the laughs of the movie - though the roommate Leo is a waste. And some of the fight sequences with Optimus Prime are still a killer

This movie could easily have been as good as the first one – only if they had tweaked the script a little to introduce some flow – and done some character development for the autobots. In its current form, it’s not an recommened movie.


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Terminator Salvation

The first Terminator movie without Arnold Schwarzenegger. How will it be – especially since the last one with Arnold was pretty terrible ?

Well, Terminator Salvation manages to uphold the tradition of the third millennium Terminator movies – it is a disaster too (the first two good ones were made on the other side of 2000). If you want to cherish your memories of the ubercool Terminator, then better buy/rent/download T2-Judgement Day and watch it again. While Terminator 3 : Rise of The Machines might have somewhat sullied your Terminator memories, Terminator Salvation will change them forever.

That is because, unlike the first three movies which had our present day timeline and Terminators were sent back in time, Terminator Salvation is set in 2018, in a post apocalyptic world - after Judgement Day (where Skynet precipitates a nuclear holocaust and wipes out the majority of humanity). Some of the survivors organize themselves as The Resistance and fight Skynet – but Skynet unleashes an army of terminators to hunt and kill humans. Yes there are scores of different terminators, flying/swimming/motorcycle-like etc. And they all are very vicious, but they behave exactly like the dumb inanimate robots that they are – totally devoid of any character.

Terminator Salvation has Christian Bale playing John Connor – not the leader of the resistance yet, but revered by most of the Resistance as the guy who knows the future. Bale brings his enormous talent into play and his reading of John Connor is spot on – he looks like a man who knows that on his decisions depends the fate of mankind. However this very mood also makes the character very dry and devoid of charisma – making it difficult for the audience to connect with him,.The surprise package of the movie is Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). A new character, he is an unknown entity at the beginning of the movie – though by the end of the movie, he has had slightly more screentime than John Connor himself. Acting overall, is good all round.

The setting of the movie is the first thing that probably puts your off the movie. As you can imagine the world after a nuclear holocaust, its dry, dreary and completely devoid of life. Cities are in ruins and human survivors behave more like rats – hiding under the ground and scrapping around for food. And ofcourse, they have to evade the terminators who are programmed to kill any humans sighted.

The biggest disappointment was the terminators themselves. While they are bigger and badder – some of them are huge machines which resemble the transformers while others are flying Hunter’n’Killer units, there is just no wow factor in any of the battle scenes with these machines. The CGI is good, but there is just no involvement !

The plot isn’t much either. After giving us a good idea of what post-apocalypse life will be like, it tries to align itself with the Terminator franchise by focussing on the young Kyle Reese (the guy who fights the Terminator in T1). And tragically, it hinges everything on the last climax battle between the humans and the Terminators/Skynet. But that fails to excite us too. The ONLY time the audience was on its feet hooting was when the T900 Terminator is revealed – a CGI mockup of Schwarzenegger. It sort of shows what the movie lacked …

The problem with Terminator Salvation is that it’s a pretty ok post-apocalypse movie. It just isn’t a good Terminator movie …


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New York

After reading/hearing decidedly mixed reviews about New York, my curiosity got the better of me and I watched it last night. (The other option was the preview show of Kambakkht Ishq – thank god didn’t go for that. Looks like its an unmitigated disaster)

Going by our post-movie discussion (me and wife’s), this is surely not the final word on New York. Our usually convergent views were decidedly not so – wifey insisting it wasn’t a bad movie and I couldn’t find a more pithy description than ‘crap movie’. And now that you know my views about the movie, I will try to explain why I think the movie is not worth your time.

Let me list out the positive points of the movie first – it has three really good looking actors. Although Neil Nitin Mukesh comes across as rather pansy-looking compared to John Abraham in his rippling muscles, overall they make a very pretty trio. Much better looking than .. Dostana for example (Neil Nitin vs. Abhishek Bachhan is not even a contest and Katrina can more than match Priyanka Chopra)
The other positive is the depiction of the torture scenes – the sequence is very well shot and seems extremely realistic. It really involves you as a viewer, showing the claustrophobic dimensions of the cell – the crouching position that you are forced into …

And … well … er … that’s all the positives I can count for this movie. To be fair, the leading actors John and Neil exceeded my expectations in the acting department, but then my expectations were set a little low because some people had already criticized their performance in the movie. On absolute terms, none of the acting was stellar.

If you are wondering if I forgot Irfan Khan, I havent – I just don’t think his performance was laudable. The stoic police inspector role has become routine from him. While the Slumdog Millionaire role might be fresh in memory, if you think back a little, there was A Mighty Heart and then there was Rog. I am sure there were a couple of other movies where he plays a similar role too. Simply put, it was a humdrum performance. And it was made worse by his character, a typical Asian cop who is sent in to play the good cop while the firang officer plays the bad cop. His views about America’s high handedness on its Muslim citizens were also something that I couldn’t digest ..

Since we are on the topic of negatives, lets list some more. The plot had huge holes in it – if the FBI knows so-and-so is running a terrorist sleeper cell and is about to commit some terrorist activity, why not arrest him ?? Not detain, just legally arrest him !! They didn’t exactly hesitate to throw so many people illegally into Guantanamo, did they ? And if you are a terrorist who sole reason of existence is vengeance, why not explode the bomb when you are surrounded by the cops ?? Then there is Maya angle of keeping quiet even after knowing everything … things just wouldn’t make any sense to any logical person !!

The movie begins in New York State University in 1999, when a fresh faced Omar (Neil Nitin) has just arrived from Delhi after winning a scholarship. His first contact and then deep friendship begins with Maya (Katrina Kaif) and then Sam (John Abraham). Omar is the shy-silent type who has a major crush on Maya, unaware that she likes Sam. His heartbreak coincides with 9/11 and Omar withdraws from their life. Only to be rudely pushed back into Sam and Maya’s life 7 years later, because the FBI suspects that Sam might be a terrorist.

The entire sequence of Omar agreeing to be FBI’s undercover agent was unconvincing at best. The college sequence is the okay part of the movie – but then the second half just doesn’t cut it. There are just too many plot holes and allowances to be made. If you remember Kabir Khan’s first effort Kabul Express, it had a good idea at the core, but the implementation wasn’t tight. The movie was about a relevant topic, shot in authentic locations, but wasn’t gritty enough to be the real thing – it was too much of ‘bollywood film’. Similar is the failing with New York. It tries a serious contemporary topic, but cant manage to keep it realistic.

Throughout the movie, I kept on waiting for something in the movie, some sequence which would redeem it. After all, some people had liked the movie and there must be something that’s good about. But I kept on watching and the movie ended … and if anything, the end was more infuriating. In his bid to make a political statement about Islam and America in the end, director Kabir Khan strikes a unconvincing peace between Omar & Roshan (Irfan Khan). But if you take a minute to think about the relations between Omar, Sam and Maya after watching the movie, the idea of peace with Roshan seems downright ridiculous to me !! And can someone please explain why John Abraham and Katrina Kaif’s kid is a 100% firang ?

I guess this has become more of a rant than a review – but then all movies do not agitate me so. Not worth your money at the theatre. Wait for it to come on TV


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3:10 To Yuma

While the producer-multiplex strike drags on and on, cinemas are desperately hunting around for something to show. And among other things, they came up with the 2007 Russel-Crowe-and-Christian-Bale-starrer 3:10 To Yuma. (For those who do not recognize the name Christian Bale, a hint – Batman !!)

It is a classic western – set in the wild west in the late 19th century when the railroads are just making their way across America. Like every good western movie, 3:10 To Yuma is ultimately about the man – who would go how far and where would one draw the line ? And yes, it does end in a shoot em’ up !

Ben Wade (Russel Crowe) is a famous outlaw who is captured in a small town called Bisbee and needs to be taken to Contention City and put on the 3:10 train to Yuma to face trial. For $200, rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) agrees to be one of the escorts for Ben Wade. However, Ben’s gang is hot on their heels and are desperate to free their leader. So the final shoot em’ up is easy to predict …

The relatively straightforward plot lends to a faceoff between the two stars of this movie. While characters like the old bounty hunter Bryon McElroy and Ben’s sidekick Charlie Prince are interesting, the movie mainly revolves around Ben Wade and Dan Evans. Ben Wade is easily the more engaging of the two, showing a light demeanour and jovial mood, but capable of surprisingly vicious violence. Dan Evans is the more silent type, but it is him who reveals more layers at the end.

However, this is where the good things about 3:10 To Yuma end. It suffers from one plot hole too many in the second half and makes for a WTF ending. With all the movie building up to the final shoot em’ up, the last exchange between Dan Evans and Ben Wade left me scratching my head and made the climax an extremely unsatisfying experience.

Not much to recommend in the movie except for the acting by the stalwarts. Watch it only if you HAVE to watch something on the big screen

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Straight

Parvati Balgopal's Straight tries to break the romantic comedy mould by bringing in a gay angle - but it doesnt succeed in making much of an impact on the viewer - atleast it didnt work for me. Wifey thinks it wasnt a bad timepass but I think the flaws overpower the good parts.

The movie opens with a very innovative aeroplane graphic to show the generations of the Patel family who emigrated to all corners of the world. Pinu Patel's parents landed up in London and he becomes a restaurateur (I kind of got a Cheeni Kum deja vu sometimes - but ofcourse, no comparison between Mr Bachhan and Vinay Pathak). Sticking to his simplistic image, Vinay Pathak plays Pinu Patel, simple and honest, who still shies away from girls and doesnt have much social life.

Till two people walk into his life - stand-up-comedian-cum-cook Kamlesh (played by ) and cartoonist-cum-accountant Renu (Gul Panag). Pinu is happy to have two good friends - and his restaurant also starts booming - till an accidental kiss happens. And as trailers have already revealed, Pinu Patel is horrified to realize he just might be gay.

But he just doesnt want to even consider the fact that he might not be straight and so begins com the misadventures as he desperately tries to lose his virginity.
The movie does generate laughs at some points - mostly of the sexual kind - and seemed to really entertain a group of guys sitting in front of me. Maybe thats the way to see this movie to make the most of it ...

But for me, the laughs were few and far between - rest of the movie was a slow drag mainly because of the way Pinu Patel's character is written. I really hope Vinay Pathak stops accepting there loser kind of roles - because stretched beyond a point, they lose the audiences' sympathy/interest. I am not saying that all movies about gay issues should be a Dostana, but does the gay guy have to be really sad loser in life ? Why cant a dashing handsome dude also be gay - atleast a normal guy ??

The other thing that really irritates in the movie are the songs - I think there were 5 of them in the movie and not one of them hummable. Yet, the director insisted on picturizing all the songs in full ! It was probably more of a torture than the loser act of Pinu Patel.

The good parts of the movie are the laughs - mostly by Vinay Pathak himself. The man can definitely act - like Dasvidaniya showed. The other cool part was Pinu's cousin Rajat - who is a pub singer - and mostly, he had a ubercool way of saying 'Pinu Baiiyya'. Ketki Dave refrains from going Ara-ra-ra-ra and acts well, especially in the climax. Gul Panag doesnt make any impression.

I dont think its especially worth your money at the theatres. Watch it when it comes on TV a few months later.


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Ghajini

For all those who are curious about similarities with Memento (debut movie of Christopher Nolan), let me tell you straight - Ghajini is not a copy of that awesome flick. And unfortunately, Ghajini is nowhere as good as Memento either....

The common thing between the two movies is the 'short term memory loss' syndrome - a condition where the person is unable to form new memories because of damage to the brain. In both movies, it happens because the villain clobbers the hero on his head with an iron rod - while killing his wife/fiance. And the hero swears vengeance ...

Aamir Khan plays Sanjay Singhania, a rich tycoon, who is smitten by the charms of a do-gooder, upcoming model Kalpana (Asin). He befriends her without revealing his identity and theirs is a sweet little romance (no kissing scenes and no cleavage show :) ) Then the unfortunate incident occurs and Aamir transforms into an animal - powerful and full of rage. His only motive in life is to hunt down Ghajini .... and he tries to find a trail to him with the help of tattoos, polaroid photos and notes.
Aamir's acting is superb as usual - one wonders how much time and effort he must have put in to make that beefcake body. His expressions, especially in the final sequences are frighteningly animal-like - and the action pulse pounding. He just literally smashes all the tamil-baddies with brute power. Its been sometime since we have seen such raw violence in mainstream hindi movies.

However unlike the previous few Aamir movies, this one disappoints big time. His acting notwithstanding, the plot is so full of holes, that even the simple linear storyline doesnt make sense. Lets start with his exact mental condition. Its not clear exactly what all can he remember - the professor at the start of the movie indicates that he doesnt remember anything personal apart from his love life. Yet later when Aamir loses his notes and photos, he doesnt remember anything about Kalpana as well !

Then more controversial is his short term memory - he is supposed to be able to remember things only for 15 min - yet this 15 min apparently can be stretched as long or squeezed short, as per the director's wishes. Neither is there any hint about how Aamir was able to trace Ghajini - there are maps and photos galore but no actual investigation shown.

But the most obvious plot hole is the final sequence. Doesnt it sound more than a little stupid, that not ONE among the 20-odd bodyguards of Ghajini would have a gun, when Aamir already warned them he was coming ?

There are other silly mistakes in the plot as well - but I think these are enough to give you an idea about whats wrong in the movie. And if the plot holes are not enough, there are the songs. Atrociously placed, each song is a drag on the storyline and has absolutely no requirement in the movie. Its almost as if Asin signed a contract that said she will have 3 songs picturized and Jiah Khan's contract said one song - so there ....

Among performances, Asin does a competent job, doing a few scenes well enough - but her role was quite dumbly written. Jiah Khan's role had nothing difficult and she is again competent. The villain Ghajini (I dont know his name but he used to appear in hindi movies before) does well too - especially the disdain with which he labels Aamir as 'short term memory loss'.

The movie is too long and the romantic track takes up too much time - especially at the end, with another needless song and closeups. The revenge track, which is supposed to be the main theme, unfortunately doesnt impress. The action can get you on the edge of your seat a few times, but with so many convenient shortcuts in the script, you stop believing the story. I personally found the final vengeance scene quite underwhelming too. Do yourself a favor and miss this movie - multiplex tickets are way too costly nowadays :)


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Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi

I think my view of 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi' was greatly influenced by the trailer of ‘New York’, that was shown before Rab Ne. I hadnt heard of it before - it’s a Yash Raj movie and stars John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh. The trailer starts off very Dostana-ish (minus the gayness, ofcourse) - two cool guys and one girl having a gala time in New York City. Then suddenly everything changes and we see 9-11 and torture scenes and then Neil Nitin Mukesh talks about 'our qam'. It was then that it struck me .... that maybe the Chopras were in a sort of deep slumber and one day, woke up to a movie market that had changed from DDLJ to Khosla Ka Ghosla. So they try to make a movie with the times (think Khuda Ke Liye), but cant help adding their magic secret success formula – candyfloss looks !!!

Which leads me to today’s movie – Rab Ne – and you can see the same theory at work. The honchos at Yash Raj studios read a market report – which says that the common man (‘Bheja Fry’) look is in, so lets put that angle in and set up the movie in a small town, but we will make Shahrukh Khan dance, add our special secret ingredient and ta-dah !!! Superhit !!

Unfortunately for the Chopras, movie audiences now have better taste and can separate actually good cinema from a wannabe. Yash Raj’s competency is stylish, glossy, escapist fare - and there is a good market for it, as Dostana proved. They should probably just concentrate on that.

And just to prove that I have nothing against Yash Raj movies, I confess that I am a sucker for feel-good, happy movies. I really liked Aaja Nachle and thought Tara Rum Pum was quite ok (and didn’t watch Laaga Chunari). But Rab Ne, even with its happy ending, has just too many things working against it. First being the ethereal love concept – ‘aap jisse pyar karte ho, usmein rab dikhta hai’. The notion that love is so pure and god-like is SOOOOO nonsense !!! Have these people ever actually been in love? In this age, love is about connecting with each other, clicking, or being on the same wavelength – whatever you call it. And its not just a big town phenomena – the days of falling in love, just by seeing a pretty face is long gone and everyone knows it. Everyone, except the Chopras, ofcourse.

The second is plot holes – the idea is to entertain, I get it – but can we have a little more sensible story please? Something which credits the viewers as having more intelligence than dumb goats - or sheep ? Its not like we do not like fantastical or outrageous storylines – we do. Om Shanti Om was an example of one. But the way the makers of Rab Ne try to convince you that its a non-fantasy, everyday love story just doesn’t hold. It feels complete like a complete eyewash.

The feeling of the me-too returns when you watch the retro “chalte chalte” song. “We can do what Farah Khan can do, and we can do it with better heroines” – but sorry Aditya, Farah does the stuff better. The self-referencing jokes work for the first couple of times, but they are far too many and there is only so many times a Dhoom gag will work. And arent there any other movies worth referencing ?

However there are some gems in the movie as well. The scene after the office party when Shahrukh thanks Anushka is very heartfelt and a scene Shahrukh should be proud of. And half a star is just for the ending credits with the commentary :) Anushka Sharma is a superb find I think – she is very confident and acts really well. Vinay Pathak is great as usual, but he doesn’t have much to do apart from act Shahrukh’s buddy.

But I cant help but wonder – how would the movie have been if it had Vinay Pathak in Shahrukh’s role ?


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Tourneuse de pages, La : The Page Turner

After happening to like the last two foreign movies we watched, I was all enthusiastic about catching this one this weekend itself, and dragged the less-than-enthusiastic wifey all the way to PVR. However I guess law of averages catches up pretty soon :)

(Lately PVR has been taking the distribution rights of a lot of international movies in India and releasing them first at PVR cinemas. While this has meant that people like me always keep a lookout at the PVR website on Fridays to see if they are screening a new international movie, it also means that most of the time, the movies go unnoticed by the majority of the viewing public.)

However nothing is lost with the ‘Tourneuse de pages, La’ or ‘The Page Turner’ this week. It’s a movie about a gifted young piano player Mélanie Prouvost, who stops playing after she fails an all-important exam – due to Ariane Fouchécourt (the head of the jury and a famous pianist). The 10-year-old Mélanie falters because Ariane was signing autographs for fans in the middle of her performance. 10 years after this incident, Mélanie happens to get a chance to become a governess in the Fouchécourt residence and a chance to extract her revenge.

The story is not very unique, sharing elements with ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ and its numerous remakes (including our Indian adaptation “Khal-naikaa” starring Anu Agarwal & Jayaprada).

However where The Page Turner fails is the thrill and suspense department. It shows us the reason for vengeance by young Mélanie at the beginning of the movie itself. But the revenge is never remotely exciting – you never get edgy about what is she going to do next. Probably because she never declares her true intentions. There ARE a few scenes here and there which do sit up and watch – like Mélanie pushing Tristan's head down into the pool when he is trying to surface, but these scenes are really rare. The blame for it goes to the screenplay. It chugs along at such a monotonous speed – neither accelerating nor braking – that it makes for extremely dull-viewing.

Revenge is a dish best served cold indeed.

But the revenge employed by Mélanie almost borders on the bizarre. She depends completely on luck to get her revenge – she couldnt have possibly predicted that Ariane would take her as her page turner when she was employed just as a governess. Or predicted any of the other thorns that she plants in Ariane’s life with any certainty. Basically Mélanie got ridiculously lucky in her revenge.

Both the lead actresses do their parts well. Mélanie as the wronged woman who is seething inside, but forced to act normal. Her intense facial expressions however, give some hint that things are not what they seem. Similarly, Ariane as a famous piano player who doesnt really care about anything else – her friends, house, her own son – or her loving husband. She’s does the egocentric part very well, looking haughty and imperious throughout the movie - except where she is taken over by stage fear (caused by a road accident 2 years ago)

However what was really the breaking point for us in the movie was the ploy Mélanie uses to destroy Ariane’s marriage. I mean how could Mélanie have possibly been sure that it would turn out the way it did ? I cant say more without giving away the main revenge, but trust me – its absurd to even consider Mélanie planned it out.
(I have noticed an attribute in other French movies and which was reinforced here - was that the French, as a people, are decidedly colder - less jovial and happy – slightly wooden.)

One of the small positives in the movie was that Ariane doesn’t know what hit her or why, at the end – Mélanie quietly walks off into the morning, just before the final chapter of her revenge. The soundtrack, classical western, was pretty good too.
To sum it up, the director fails completely to keep the audience involved in the proceedings with the flat screenplay and the story itself cannot be called a planned-revenge by any stretch of imagination. This movie is therefore probably better ignored.


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Quantum of Solace

I have not seen enough James Bond movies to make sweeping generalizations about the secret agent - or the standing of this latest movie in the line up of 22 Bond movies. But I know a rotten tomato when I see one - and this Albert R. Broccoli production is one. (As an aside, why on earth would someone have a family name as Broccoli ?)

Quantum of Solace opens with a car chase sequence - with bad guys trying to gun down 007 in his Aston Martin on Italian alpine roads. In doing so, it fulfills the norm of all Bond movies opening with a action sequence. But while the Casino Royale chase across a construction site was memorable, the car chase sequence, while good, is quite similar to a lot of other such sequences - and doesnt have the same impact.

The story begins by establishing that a there is a new group called Quantum, about which the MI6 has very little information, but who has people in all places - ALL places. This is the same organization that was responsible for killing Vesper, Bond's love interest in Casino Royale. Bond is hankering for revenge and once he finds a trail in Dominic Greene, he doesnt stop in his quest for this shadowy group - even when it brings him in conflict with his own MI6 or the CIA.

The action moves around the world - from Haiti to Bulgaria to Bolivia. The Bulgaria opera sequence is performed very slickly - and so is the aerial dogfight. There are lots of others - infact the movie begins to feels like its one long action sequence - but the others are not that remarkable.

Now onto things which are not so cool - when was the last time you saw 007 without using a SINGLE gadget ?? I mean his gadgets are part of the Bond identity ! Yet Quantum of Solace has absolutely zilch - nada - zero gadgets. No rocket launchers in his car, no laser watch or grenade pen - nothing. The only time he user something remotely resembling technology is when he takes photos of villains and sends them to headquarters - any phone with GPRS can do that !!

Onto Bond himself. Daniel Craig brought some rawness to the usually dapper, suave Bond character - and was appreciated for it in Casino Royale. But in this movie, the creators have unfortunately gone overboard with the rough-and-tough appeal - and Bond has lost all his suaveness and his unflappable looks. For me, Bond was defined by Pierce Brosnan in Golden Eye - driving the tank through the streets of Moscow - suit and tie perfectly in place. Daniel Craig is just a little too brutish - his penchant at plunging into fistfights headlong without a thought - make you fatigued after a little while. All he does is get chased by bad guys, get into fights with them, and beat them comfortably - without getting anything more than a scratch. Or get into gunfights and easily pick off all the opposition one by one.There is no variation - only the settings and countries change.

The new Bond girl is probably the only one who doesnt sleep with Bond. She has her own agenda of vengeance for her family's death - a general plotting a coup in Bolivia. And frankly, I didnt think much of her looks. But then lot of people liked her - so its an individual choice.

And the final failing - the story/screenplay. The only answer I got from my friends when asked about the story - "What story ?" The movie has almost a non-existent storyline - there are only shadowy details on the Quantum group - no explanation on how they control so much money - and neither are we any wiser at the end of the movie. Its as if the writers started out with the Quantum group as a octopus-like organization with tentacles everywhere, then midway realized that they needed a solo villain for Bond to fight with - and so focussed everything on Dominic Greene. The villain's scheme in Bolivia - unfortunately I cant elaborate on how stupid it was because it would give away the storyline. But if you do watch the movie, when the plot is revealed - just remember that he spends millions of Euros, plots a coup, just to do THAT !! And the grand scheme that is revealed at the end of the movie - seems very trivial compared to what is implied about the reach and power of the Quantum group. Makes you wonder what was happening in the rest of the movie. I mean c'mon!

The repetitive action sequences and the lack of any intelligible storyline meant there was nothing to look forward to in the movie after sometime. Soon we were looking at our watches and frequently wondering when the movie would end. Not a good omen for any movie - and especially for a Bond one. After Casino Royale, I had pretty high expectations from the next Bond movie and maybe thats why I am being a little more critical, but if asked to sum up the movie - I'd say boring.


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Singh is Kinng

You can sum up the movie like this -
"you goto a swish party - but instead of the expected spicy cocktails, you get served plain water instead :)"

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