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Avengers Infinity War Review: Villain Takes It All

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Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Evil is a point of view.

This contentious claim by Anne Rice in her book, Interview with the Vampire returns to haunt me as I hear out Thanos rationalising wiping out half the universe’s population to restore balance.

His voice (Josh Brolin’s sublime baritone) is like ice — smooth with a distinct chill to it. There’s a surprising serenity to his malice, something oddly convincing about his despotic ideas of census control.

As it may be, his nihilism plays on our embitterment at the general state of humanity as things stand and worsen in an increasingly unfeeling way.

Whatever ethical angle this conversation may carry, such nuance is rare and remarkable when coming out of a brawny purple alien.

Thanos is an embodiment of mindboggling power and profound darkness, consciously blurring the lines between method and madness, prophet and survivor, suffering and salvation.

In the tradition of memorable comic book villains, his violent soul is burdened by a melancholy that fuels his power but gashes his soul.

Avengers: Infinity War may peddle itself as a superhero smorgasbord but their solitary meditative foe is my biggest takeaway.

And what a nemesis the ribbed chin Mad Titan turns out to be.

Even where Thanos is not directly involved, the repercussions of his onslaught are explored and challenged in how we’ve come to perceive the invincibility of the countless costumed preservers of justice and their sophisticated weaponry.

Director duo — Joe and Anthony Russo — boldly examine the purpose of power at its peak as well as bottom — while relentlessly testing the mettle of their champions engaged in a war they may not win.

Talking about Infinity War is like playing a minesweeper of potential spoilers. Folks tend to get touchy about these tent pole beasts.

Without taking the name of a single superhero (even attendance amounts to spoiler) all I’ll reveal is that Thanos needs all six infinity stones in his gold gauntlet to achieve population chop-chop. And it’ll take every single MCU star to stop him, a imagery so forceful and urgent, you feel its punch most literally.

All the 18 movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe culminating into this elaborately assembled first installment of a finale exhibited varying degrees of excitement, relevance, culture, morality, dynamics and flippancy.

But it was as clear as day that they are all working towards a common ideal — averting the apocalypse.

As intriguing its allegorical pontifications are, Infinity War is ultimately and unapologetically a multi-billion dollar franchise with some obligations to fulfill.

Fitting in its army of superheroes in less than three hours at a scale that is fancy yet footloose, fan-friendly yet fearless, ranks high on priority.

Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely toss in untried character combinations, score humour in their insecurities before sending off the viewer on a grandiose, breakneck journey across planets, battles, creatures, sacrifices, heartbreaks, endeavours and ideologies.

Infinity War is mindful of its inherently bloated set-up where some characters receive more screen time than others while some may not appear at all.

But by giving us abundant superhero interplay to flip over, a sprinkling of groovy surprises and unforeseen shockers and some seriously cool action set pieces, the Russo brothers minimise the drawback significantly.

Sass, smarts, spectacle, MCU has the formula pat down.

Infinity War goes one step further and tries something bold. Maybe it is all a deception but this detour from blustering finishes towards an incomplete, unpredictable and unsafe course of events makes this one epic and the next one badly awaited.

Avengers Infinity War Review: Villain Takes It All


Movie Review: Daas Dev

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Now where did that come from?

Has Sudhir Mishra just given us Indian Cinema’s first Soap Opera Classic — a Soap Opera for all our daytimes and all our nightly longings?

In its essence, his latest, Daas Dev, is a reimagining of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel with more than one plot-point plucked from Hamlet. But what Mishra seems to recognise is how much his two source-materials resemble the stories we read in gossip magazines or the kind we tell each other in hushed voices by the water cooler.

(Once you drop the convenient reverence and read Shakespeare’s words carefully, you would realise that he too cared equally about eternal truths and petty gossip).

Mishra does not fight schlock and because he still has quite a sharp instinct for ‘those moments of pure art,’ he manages to give Daas Dev a distinct pop-consciousness: This is a flawed, maddening, but consistently rewarding piece of work.

Daas Dev’s directorial wheels may come off regularly — part of the movie is tonally messy; when the editing tries for swiftness the film ends up looking frenzied; and Chandni’s (Aditi Rao Hydari) Voiceover feels like a high-schooler doing line readings of a great classic — but the movie has such a mix of original, oddball characters that together they give the narrative a sense of derring-do, a constant forward movement.

The actors are kept so busy that even when their roles are stereotypes, they manage to escape their typicality.

A small-time goon pleads with a politician (Rahul Bhat’s Dev Prathap) but as he does so, he keeps chewing his paan casually. Later, when this goon shoots someone down, he grumbles, off the cuff, about bloodying his hands on a Tuesday.

Sudhir Mishra is out to subvert a cuddly theme, but he also identifies with the innocence of Devdas: He makes his hero a Devdas by temperament and a Prince Hamlet by fate.

After his father (Anurag Kashyap as Vishwambhar Prathap) explodes in mid-air and his uncle Avdesh gives him the wings, Dev Prathap grows up to be a man torn between two worlds: The righteous world occupied by Paro (Richa Chadda) and his dead idealist father, AND the world of politicians and political fixers.

Mishra is as cynical about Devdas’ innocence as he is wistful.

And so, after guarding his innocence all through the film, when Dev finally loses it, Mishra sees it as proper justice to disrobe almost everyone important to Dev.

This for him is the cost of killing innocence.

Dev’s disenchantment is his true coming-of-age, and isn’t Devdas, the tragic text, when read backward, a coming-of-age tale?

I must warn you, however, that to enjoy Daas Dev, you may have to resist the temptation to walk out during the first 20 minutes of the picture.

It is in these 20 minutes that Sudhir Mishra tries to reactivate the echoes of Devdas and Shakespeare, taking us from the dustbowls of Uttar Pradesh to the club lights.

It’s in this initial section, in which he shows us the excesses of Dev’s life — the booze, the drugs, the sex, and the self-flagellation — that he takes a grand flop.

How do you document debauchery without being judgmental? Isn’t that a question that has plagued all ambitious artists?

Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby’s parties with hundreds and hundreds of specific details and we got the underlying message: It’s a sad comedy.

Sudhir Mishra becomes Solemn Mishra when bringing to us the news of Dev Prathap’s debauchery and it can tire you out, those first 20 minutes.

Mishra here photographs Rahul Bhat with his cheeks always smack up against the camera and Aditi Rao Hydari as if the nerves of her body were continually smoldering.

Rao’s Chandni is robotically sexy — it’s her big gig — and she uses her thighs like a drug of love.

Wade through those painful minutes, and you will understand that Sudhir Mishra was actually setting up the apparatus for the real gags to pay off.

And that happens when Daas Dev shifts back to the pastorals of Uttar Pradesh.

It’s in the pastorals that Mishra crafts a mythic image of the country and its power structures.

He turns to the manners and mores of heartland politics, where politicians know each other’s bedroom secrets as much as their next big political move.

In the land of good-natured romantics who don’t get their due, Dev Prathap becomes a mere political lever to be pushed as the big boss deems it right.

Dev still plays the rugged card carefully, washing his face with tube well water en route to the interiors.

The character of Dev is like a pancake batter that was never meant to rise; and Sudhir Mishra and his writers smartly surround him with delicious, twisted, characters.

Enter Saurabh Shukla’s Avdesh who spends a good part of his character-life in a hospital feigning a ‘stroke’ with priests outside performing rituals for his recovery. But it’s Avdesh who will decide when he has recovered and the priests are warned of a 40% fee reduction in case the recovery is slow.

Saurabh Shukla is in that phase of his career where he just can’t do anything wrong.

This is an actor who can turn even the slightest of body movement into a ‘statement’. He warms up his shoulders in the hospital as he talks, and then fires a pistol after he has returned home — “just to check my reflexes, you see.”

Notice how everything Shukla does in front of the camera these days is so finely balanced — one degree this way or that way and his performances could get termed as either ‘listless’ or ‘overcooked.’

In this matter of delicate balance, the pudgy Shukla has to be, alongside the wiry Fahadh Faasil, India’s finest actor right now.

He takes odd chances with his character here, such as washing his face when narrating to Dev, a story of betrayal (Sudhir Mishra pipes in helicopter sounds at this point), and Saurabh Shukla has, by then, left the pastorals and is dancing and leaping off the Broadway stage.

As Dev swings from Paro to Chandni, and from bed to bed, Sudhir Mishra doesn’t let the storytelling turn stale (which has been the basic problem with Devdas and all its interpretations: The lack of momentum), and he starts telling the tragedy through the various rhapsodic comic types.

Vineet Kumar Singh makes an entry as Milan Shukla, nephew to local politician Ram Ashray (Vipin Sharma).

Milan is a lover spurned by Paro, and he still keeps his decency.

Sudhir Mishra’s narrative inventiveness peeps through in Milan’s back story which shows one of his minions kidnapping Paro just to impress their boss, and the boss, unimpressed, shoots him through the hand.

Mishra makes a running gag out of Milan Shukla’s maintaining of total decency.

In the movie’s best sequence, Milan visits Dev’s home with a fresh bottle of alcohol in tow, unaware that his love, Paro, is inside, making love to Dev.

He is taunted into realising this bitter truth, but Milan still keeps his cool.

He is cool likewise when a band plays at Paro’s wedding (Milan is not the groom), and he calmly asks them to not play.

It’s a wonderful character and Vineet Kumar Singh never gives us much evidence of the animal hidden inside the professional manner, and so it turns our stomach to watch him explode during the closing stages.

Vipin Sharma’s Ram Ashray of ‘Sabjan Kalyan Party’ (how’s that for a party name — a party that promises to be everything to everyone, and thus nothing to no one), is a man who sidles up to ghazal singers, and treats the dirtiness of politics as a matter of fact.

When he asks Paro to say something, and she enquires if it isn’t a lie, Ashray shoots back: “Of course it’s a lie. But won’t you say it?”

All through the movie I had the weird feeling that Sudhir Mishra knows his roots down to the pits, but his sophisticated characters, he comprehends only as outlines.

From Dalip Tahil’s political fixer, Shrikanth Sahai as a devil who’s just missing his horns to Chandni the cold kitten, Mishra’s urban swingers all seem to be mere Page 3 cut-outs.

It’s, however, in the courtyards, the green fields, and the tasteless political rallies that the black satirist in Sudhir Mishra awakens.

When a stone is hurled at Dev’s mother at a rally as part of calculated campaign and when Dev takes to the stage and resumes the speech, it feels as though he’s speaking from his own madness and emptiness. And yet, the crowd responds!

A portrait of Dev’s father hanging on the wall has clearly been recreated to give it the appearance of those great leaders in history textbooks.

We see faint touches of the public subservience that makes possible the longevity of many of our politicians.

There’s a beautiful passing shot of kids running after Dev’s car: Merryfaces that follow their young leader. His car speeds away but their smiles don’t let up.

Prabhunath (played by the much under-rated Deepraj Rana) has to be one of the scariest stooge characters in the history of Hindi cinema.

In a moment of glorious destruction, like many in Apocalypse Now, Prabhunath presides over a ghastly incident of land burning and massacre as he bumps off villagers by the numbers.

And yet, when Dev comes to have a one-on-one with this brute of a man, he uses his gang of women, including his 3 wives and 15 daughters, as a Bastille and hides behind them.

While it never quite reaches the heights of his Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Sudhir Mishra here, as in that masterpiece, is trying to go beyond just showing us how our political class controls the mind of India.

By keeping his good humour throughout, Mishra takes us into the dreams and fears of our politicians, into their self-deceiving pitches, and he shows us their demons and angels.

Supporting this sturdy inner core is the outer story of Dev, Paro, and Chandni, the soap opera carrying a great drama inside its shell.

But Sudhir Mishra gives the schlock its due too; Richa Chadda’s Paro adjusts her pigtails when taking a major life decision and cinematographer Sachin Krishn shrouds her in flickering bulb light as she takes in news of a personal tragedy.

As for Rahul Bhat’s cleft-chinned Dev Prathap, he had to be a descendant of Devdas maybe because Devdas is the ultimate silly, a man disillusioned, above all, by the ways of the world.

And as Sudhir Mishra sees it, this is a world in which ‘thinking politically’ has become the new normal.

An enchanting character is that of Paro’s mother, who out of nowhere devises a political strategy, and surprises everyone. She’s one moment a timid housewife and the next moment, a power-hungry leader.

Sudhir Mishra is perhaps telling us that we are all politicians waiting for our chance at the podium and that it takes a real silly to see the absurdity of it all.

Rating:

Movie Review: Daas Dev

Movie Review: Nude

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Movie: Nude
Cast: Kalyani Mulay, Chhaya Kadam, Madan Deodhar, Om Bhutkar, Naseeruddin Shah
Director: Ravi Jadhav

Ravi Jadhav’s film Nude (Chitra), is one of the most important films this year, and not only for the boldness of its subject, or the controversy it sparked at the time of IFFI, Goa, and at the International Film Festival of Kerala, prestigious festivals where Nude was selected to be screened and was unable to participate due to the adamant and non-cooperative approach of I & B ministry and CBFC. Ironically, this censorship and lack of understanding about art and culture in our society forms a large part of what the film is trying to say. Thus by rejecting the film, the ministry has proved the message right.

Ravi Jadhav is easily the most successful filmmaker in Marathi industry since his debut with Natrang (2009). Since then, he has handled a variety of subjects, from a period biopic to a young romance. If there was a unifying element in his earlier work, it was the commercial approach. Serious content or comedy, all his films were designed to please the mass audience. With Nude, he is experimenting for the first time with a theme suitable for art house cinema. With another eminent filmmaker, Sachin Kundalkar co-writing the screenplay, he has produced a work very relevant to this time and place.

There are two layers to Nude. At one level, it’s a story of Yamuna (Mulay), who comes to Mumbai from a small town on the Maharashtra — Karnataka border, with her son Lahanya (Deodhar), after a fallout with her husband. She stays with Chandrakka (Kadam) and after failing to find a job elsewhere, she starts working as a nude model at JJ School of Arts, a place where Chandrakka is already employed in the same capacity. It deals with the shame she faces initially, and the courage and confidence she finds eventually. It talks about her triumphs and disappointments, her hopes and regrets.

At another level, the film is about the place of art in our society. It recognises our failing in recognising the true beauty and art, and observes as we gradually turn into a society of hypocrites. The subtext becomes more evident in the post-intermission section. Leading to the climax, the film turns into a ruthless social critique. We have seen some incredibly brilliant endings recently, Court, Fandry and Sairat amongst them, and the ending of Nude is certainly as brilliant, if not more.

From the storytelling point of view, I liked the pre-intermission section better where the flow is smoother, without individual dramatic moments. The second half has a point to make, and that turns it into a series of episodes, than a fluent narrative. Individually, these work well, specially the one with Malik Saab (Shah) — a stand in for M F Hussain and other wronged masters. I personally found the college protest sequence a bit lame, being too brief and lacking the impact it should have.

With the subject being what it is, two of the most difficult tasks are allotted to Kalyani Mulay who plays the lead role of Yamuna, and the Director of Photography Amalendu Chaudhary. Previously seen in a small but important role in Ringan, this is Kalyani’s star turn. This is a difficult and demanding role, which is sure to win her many accolades. Shooting of the modelling sequences tastefully, without making the actors or the audience uncomfortable, and driving home the point using just visuals, is a spectacular achievement. Amalendu with his director Ravi, deserve full credit for the work. The film has a strong cast of solid actors, with a special mention to Chhaya Kadam in the role of Chandrakka.

With Nude, Ravi Jadhav has raised the bar for his own work as well as for Marathi cinema in general. The audience needs to support this film if we are to see more groundbreaking work in future.

Rating:

Movie Review: Nude

102 Not Out Movie Review

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Umesh Shukla, who made his directorial debut with OMG Oh My God starring Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal, teamed up with Amitabh Bachchan and Rishi Kapoor for 102 Not Out and the film, which brought two senior actors together on the silver screen after more than two decades, released today. But is the film worth a watch? Let’s find out…

The film revolves around 102-year-old Dattatray Vakharia (Amitabh Bachchan), who wants to send his dour son Babulal (Rishi Kapoor) to the old age home because he is too ‘boring’ and causes stress to Dattatray, who wants to avoid stress at all cost to live longer.

When Babulal objects to this, Dattatray announces a list of tasks for Babulal, which he needs to perform in order to stay in the house and not be sent to the old age home. What are these tasks? Will Babulal complete them or will be sent to the old age home?

Amitabh and Rishi, who have shared screen space in many films in the past, have teamed up after 27 years and the duo seem to be having a great time. Despite the fact that their Gujarati accent appears and disappears at will, it is fun to watch these two veterans on the screen. Jimit Trivedi, who plays Dattatray’s loyal sidekick Dhiru, lends able support to the two veterans.

As for the story, it cannot be denied that the film has its moments… the performances are decent, the writing is effective and the concept is novel. The film does make you laugh in its funny moments and brings a lump to your throat in the dramatic scenes. However, there is a flip side to the movie too…

What starts as an interesting tale about a father sending his son to the old-age home, soon turns into a predictable fare about ungrateful kids staying abroad and the plight of old parents who do everything for their kids and get nothing in return. Unlike OMG, which was entertaining and intriguing till the last scene, 102 Not Out turns out to be somewhat predictable and clichéd in the second half.

What may work for the film is that it is a wholesome family fare sans any item numbers or crude humour or violence… so, if you are looking for a film to be seen with your family, 102 Not Out should not disappoint you.

102 Not Out Movie Review

Movie Review: Raazi

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Alia Bhatt - Raazi Movie Review

Raazi
Cast: Alia Bhatt, Vicky Kaushal
Director: Meghna Gulzar

A Delhi University girl follows her father’s footsteps and decides to become a spy in Pakistan. It’s not just the sacrifice of a life full of promises, but also the end of basic securities. This is a tradition she has picked in her house of Kashmiri patriots. Somewhere in the middle of being a vulnerable wife and a trained agent, she is walking the razor’s edge. One mistake and her cover is blown. What is even more scary is that she’s slowly losing out to her emotions, and it could cost her dearly.

This is 1971. The diplomatic relationship between India and Pakistan is tense because of Mujibur Rahman’s activities in East Pakistan. The two countries are on the brink of a war and information is their most lethal weapon. Sehmat Khan (Alia Bhatt) is married in a family of high-rank Pakistani army officers. Her assignments include trespassing the uncharted territories and making key information available to the Indian government.

Based on Harinder Sikka’s book Calling Sehmat, Raazi is an account of the life of Indian agents of that time. Though the focus is on Sehmat, director Meghna Gulzar also ensures that Raazi gives us a peek into the dangerous life other agents of the time led.

After a couple of initial scenes between Hidayat Khan (Rajit Kapur) and Khalid Mir (Jaideep Ahlawat), in which they document the generalised sentiments in India during that period, the focus shifts to Alia Bhatt, and she soon takes the charge. While Meghna keeps it simple by not going overboard and showing the agents in the most human way possible, Alia gets the mannerism of a conflicted agent right. Together, they embark on a journey where you understand the meaning of being behind enemy lines. It’s not your life, but it could be someone you know.

Alia’s Sehmat is far from the glamourised version of spies you usually find in Hindi films. She is gritty yet tears up frequently. She blinks before the opponent and acts faster than expected. She is lethal, but it’s not in her habit. Like other girls of her age, she also has desires, but they don’t dilute her determination. Her transformation is not dramatic, but a natural progression in dangerous circumstances.

You remember Talvar? Meghna concentrated on getting to a conclusion through a conversation. She presented her narrative through dialogue between all the parties. There wasn’t any definitive theory, at least in the beginning. In a way, she adopts a similar strategy in Raazi: She places her lead in adverse situations without making anyone the villain. She lets us take sides.

Vicky Kaushal’s Iqbal, Alia’s husband in the film, is the most transparent of the lot. He is yet to understand the situation in its entirety and that makes his situation even worse than Sehmat. Such finesse is character graphs make Raazi a powerful drama without going overboard. The audience walks alongside them.

Bhavani Iyer and Meghna Gulzar’s detailed screenplay slowly grows on us. It begins like Minecraft and every block finds its place as the game proceeds. Like pottery, Meghna supports the base first and then engraves it with colourful designs. In the process, actors like Jaideep Ahlawat and Vicky Kaushal are able to showcase their calibre.

The film is a welcome relief to our senses. Unlike other ‘spy’ films, Razzi refrains from being loud or jingoistic. The characters here don’t mention their motives in a menacing tone and spies don’t appear having a good time. They don’t break into a song either, but that doesn’t mean songs don’t contribute to Raazi. In fact, numbers like Ae watan and particularly Dilbaro help you realise the gravity of the situation.

Raazi marks another step in the right direction for Alia. It required her to be restrained and mature, and she simply grabbed the opportunity with both hands.

Raazi doesn’t try to be very cerebral and that works tremendously in its favour. The tactics of espionage are explained in the simplest manner. Also, the film chronicles a time where a lot depended on the agent’s mental prowess than the technological advancements. That way, actors also get a chance to explore their abilities.

Though Meghna’s comments on war, cross-border activities are very simplistic and obvious, she reinforces them for us with stretched scenes. She leaves her subtlety, the highlight of Raazi, towards the end, and makes her intentions known in as many words. However, her change of stance comes late in the 140-minute film, and by then, the audiences would have made up their mind.

The actors sometimes falter with their accent and dialect, but intrigue around Sehmat’s adventures doesn’t give them much time to complain. Raazi is a sensibly written and finely performed film that takes a close look at the ordinary lives of extraordinary people.

Rating:

Movie Review: Raazi

Review: Jurassic World 2

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Steven Spielberg’s ingenuity and vision in building a world of prehistoric awe and scale made us care. At the heart of its spectacle, Jurassic Park (1993) had something valid to say about man’s tendency to tamper with nature.

There are scores of dinosaurs in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom too — the fifth in the franchise and second of the Jurassic World trilogy — but the only thing to emerge out of their power play is Hollywood’s endless appetite for playing by the numbers.

Everything comes down to magnitude and prolonging an idea by shamelessly feeding off the original’s legacy and Jeff Goldblum’s spunk.

Fallen Kingdom is not a terrible movie, but an uproariously silly one where dinos love and hate collide around endangered and hybrid species to suggest some elusive ideas of coexistence and looming threat.

What distinguishes it from its 2015 predecessor, whose sexist stereotyping of its leading lady continues to rankle, is a refreshing lack of conceit and wholehearted acknowledgement of its B-horror ideals.

New director J A Bayona’s resolve to keep things cold and creepy is evident in an eerie opening sequence that evokes Jaws.

Everything about its dangerously dark, stormy night screams bad news except to the team diving under water to collect DNA samples.

Fallen Kingdom prides itself on such idiotic contrivances where characters make it point to go looking for trouble.

What kind of a moron walks into a cage of a work-in-progress Indoraptor?

Fallen Kingdom is every bit a horror film split into predictable hostility and periodic close calls. And so while the bad guys are point blank gobbled down, the nicer folks have to make a run for it.

Doors get jammed and open right before a ravenous beast can sink his teeth into a fella’s leg.

Molten lava nearly sears another.

Blood samples are drawn out of a tranquillised T Rex all the while teasing the viewer with the possibility of a potentially hazardous situation.

‘They don’t need our protection. They need our absence,’ believes Sir Benjamin Lockwood, an ailing partner of Richard Attenborough’s John Hammond.

His spooky, sprawling mansion is stuff gothic novels are made of and a significant setting for a bizarre creature auction and The Shining-like pursuit of a mysterious kid who knows too much.

As the unwitting ‘parents of the new world’ Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt channel all their energy in scramming through stampedes and saving the dinosaurs. Their oddball charm is lost on Fallen Kingdom’s humourless landscape and confused empathy.

Between the teeming clichés, corny exchanges and devised action, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom often feels like a job disguised as a movie.

Call it the curse of franchise or a line Goldblum says, ‘Genetic power has now been unleashed, you can’t put it back in the box.’

Review: Jurassic World 2

Race 3 movie review

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Before you all decide to book your tickets and grab a seat to watch much awaited Salman Khan starrer ‘Race 3’, here’s a little piece of advice—keep your logic at the backburner. The action thriller is a third part of the blockbuster ‘Race’ franchise and is directed by ace choreographer turned filmmaker Remo D’Souza.

The film is high on glitz, glamour and some kickass action—well, full marks on that department. This is Bhaijaan’s Eid release and the fans are surely going to throng the theatres during the weekend. But when it comes to being a wholesome entertainer—’Race 3′ falls short with a little margin.

Going by the kind of screenplay its previous parts had, ‘Race 3’ twists move faster than the speed of light. Salman as Sikander Singh is dashing, macho and super smart. Meet his family—the veteran Anil Kapoor aka Shamsher Singh, twin siblings Daisy Shah (Sanjana) and Saqib Saleem, Bobby Deol as Yash and Freddy Daruwala.

In this multi-starrer outing, Salman anchors the ship. It is the third instalment of blockbuster ‘Race’ series which had Saif Ali Khan in the lead role previously.

These are the central characters and the plot moves with a flashback story weaving the present scenario perfectly. This filthy rich dysfunctional family gets set on a mission and in between a lot of mystery unfolds.

Guns blazing, cars overturning, kickass action and some adrenaline pumping stunts. Now, the ‘Race 3’ chase will keep you glued but it lacks the grittiness required in a thriller of this kind. Salman as an action hero needs no introduction. In ‘Race 3’, he has been given some crazy heavy-duty dialogues coupled with Bhai-certified vogue. And yes, who can forget Daisy’s ‘our business is our business, none of your business’ dialogue.

Daisy is the surprise package in this actioner as she nails it! Hope she gets to do a lot more stunts in next projects. Jacqueline Fernandez looks glamourous as Jessica and does exactly of what we have seen her do before. The background score looks heavily inspired by Hollywood in some scenes.

Bobby Deol is back and looks perfect in his part. The famous scene where Salman and Bobby go shirtless will get a thunderous response from the audiences as the whole feel is total paisa vasool!

‘Hiriye’ song is foot-tapping and the best one by far from the album. The action face-off between Jacky and Daisy is one of the highlights as seldom have we seen actresses fight it out like heroes.

This action thriller lacks depth. Saif lent a kind of intrigue to the character which was missing this time.

The makers have dropped a huge hint of Race 4 possibility. So, brace yourself for the chase is still on!

(Ratings: 2.5/5 Stars)

Race 3 movie review

Sanju Movie Review

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Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Sonam Kapoor, Dia Mirza, Vicky Kaushal, Manisha Koirala, Paresh Rawal

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

Rating:

It is but natural that a showbiz life less ordinary would yield high drama when it is placed at the heart of a Bollywood movie. But when the rollercoaster story in question is that of the life of an actor who has seen more than his fair share of personal and professional struggles and indiscretions in the course of a tumultuous career, it is bound to pack in moments of extraordinary power. In this scenario, control over pace and pitch is of the essence. Sanju does not fall short on that count.

In his fifth film in a decade and a half, Rajkumar Hirani brings all his proven storytelling skills to bear upon his fictionalised but candid exploration of the real-life adventures of Sanjay Dutt. Ranbir Kapoor, on his part, pulls out the stops in astonishingly effective ways, subsuming his own personality into that of the protagonist. The director is on the top of his game and the actor soars to dizzying heights. Sanju, as a result, is an entertainer that delivers more than just the superficial goods one expects from a mass entertainer. It sets a new benchmark for Bollywood biopics. It will be a hard act to follow.

The 160-minute film, essentially a touching father-son drama that also pays tribute to some of Hindi cinema’s greatest lyricists, glides through its busy, pulsating narrative without suffering anything akin to an ungainly wobble. Kapoor shines bright. That is actually an understatement. He dazzles us; he catches us unawares; and he sweeps us off our feet. In one word, he is luminous.

The other members of the principal cast are left scrambling to keep pace. Especially out of place is Paresh Rawal, bafflingly cast in the role of Sunil Dutt, an actor, director and politician who stood firm all his life in championing the cause of communal harmony. Anushka Sharma as a writer Dutt narrates his story to, Jim Sarbh as the man who pushes him into drugs, and Vicky Kaushal as the movie fan that the hero befriends in NYC are allowed their moments in the sun.

Sanju Movie Review


Soorma review: Diljit Dosanjh ups his game!

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Stories about sports icons are tailor-made for inspiration. The whole idea of succeeding against all odds commands glory and awe.

Biopics draw on its vigour and hardship to create a powerful symbol of watch and learn.

But our movies have a tendency to bask in reflected glory instead of revealing the man behind the medals.

Shaad Ali’s Soorma, which tells the story of ace Indian hockey player Sandeep Singh and his phenomenal return to form after a bullet left him incapacitated, does not make that mistake.

There’s a hands-on approach in Diljit Dosanjh’s delivery as Singh that makes it easy to invest in his character’s remarkable real life and his dramatized depiction endearing.

Whether it’s his naiveté as a lad genuinely surprised to learn his bird-shooing action is a bonafide hockey move or amusing logic in persuading the coach to let him play despite an injury or hilarious embarrassment after coming down heavily at a kabbadi player, Dosanjh plays out various stages of Singh coming into his own with nuance and simplicity.

Though far from perfect, Soorma benefits from the winsome appeal of its wonderful cast in telling a story that’s as much about starry-eyed romantics as it is about steel-willed resolution.

Set in a small town of Punjab where hockey is religion, Soorma centres on a young Singh’s renewed interest in the sport after sparks fly off between him and a pretty, plucky athlete, Harpreet (Taapsee Pannu is a combination of Singh’s wife and former girlfriend).

All flush and flirtations, the chemistry between these two is so sweet and substantial; the screen appears to have turned a shade of beetroot. Common local trainer and advocate of corporal punishment (a waspy Danish Hussain) grab every chance to growl with disapproval.

Although he starts out playing purely to woo his ladylove, Singh’s naturally dazzling drag flicker quickly realises its star potential amidst impressed new teachers and hockey bigwigs. And so a delightful Vijay Raaz struts into the frame mouthing crowd-pleasing threats like, ‘Bihari hain hum, thookh ke maatha chhed kar denge’ and Kulbhushan Kharbanda sounds like he’s waited all his life since Shaan to deliver his most badass line ‘Main hi federation hoon.’

The humour is abundant.

So is the heart — in Taapsee’s trusty warmth, Angad Bedi’s solid turn as Singh’s big brother and Satish Kaushik’s simple-minded daddy bear. Often it lends Singh’s rise more meat than the cursory glance at his victories deemed worthy of exploring only when playing against an ever-hostile Pakistan.

I cannot claim to have much knowledge of the game. But Soorma takes it for granted you do.

If it has deep grudges about cricket hogging all the limelight, it only mildly expresses. If it resents the lack of medical care and respect accorded to hockey players, it only fleetingly complains.

Hockey isn’t particularly cinematic to watch. Chirantan Das’s flatly shot sequences are anything but breakthrough and fail to whip up any excitement.

The blandness would be a lot more glaring if not for Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s pulsating soundtrack to Gulzar’s lively lyrics. The composer trio are masters of bucking your spirits up and Soorma’s playlist reflects that amply.

The biopic hits some high notes right until mid point, especially its depiction of the ill-fated moment when an accidentally fired bullet in a train compartment pierced through Singh’s back and leaves him paralysed waist down for two years.

It’s a deftly shot moment that avoids the typical ominous set-up to bring out the casual, completely unexpected nature of the incident.

What comes across is far more horrific than deliberate drama.

The second half of Soorma wallows in heartbreak, pity and a drastic decline of fortunes until ‘Flicker Singh’ resolves to put an end to the humiliation and get back on his feet.

Too much dependence on songs, gratuitous drama and formulas negates a great deal of good that Shaad’s earlier impulses have accomplished.

But Diljit Dosanjh’s striking self-possession, like the champion he’s portraying, doesn’t let it come in the way of a performance that screams g-o-a-l.

Soorma review: Diljit Dosanjh ups his game!

Dhadak Movie Review

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The film gets neither the love story nor the socio-political context of Sairat right.



Udaipur in Rajasthan functions as a battleground in Dhadak, the remake of Marathi hit Sairat (2016). Beneath its shining heritage hotels breathes a population that’s not free to fall in love, at least not outside the bounds set generations ago. The high domes of erstwhile palaces and the deep lakes are only a facade to conceal the real identity of its people that is defined by caste.

Parthavi (Janhvi Kapoor), daughter of hotelier and political strongman Ratan Singh (Ashutosh Rana), refuses to abide by these rules. She is strong-willed, evocatively boisterous and definitely not subtle. In true ‘90s style, she taunts and challenges Madhukar’s (Ishaan Khatter) masculinity and the lower caste boy decides to tread a difficult path.

It’s a familiar set-up. We have seen many such stories, but there is a reason Sairat clicked immediately and Dhadak lacks that instant appeal. Actually, it’s the difference between what you know and what you feel.

Sairat might have impressed Shashank Khaitan, the director, for its symbolism and its penetrating yet unpretentious tone, but when he decided to remake it, he focused on aesthetically shot scenes instead of building up a life-threatening conflict.

The complexity of relationships in Sairat was more natural and it went well with the locales. Nagraj Manjule, the director of Sairat, emphasised on getting the milieu right. He set things up step by step. First, Archie and Parshya met, weighed up their options and then jumped into it with everything they had, only to find that reality is not rose-tinted.

The adaptation suits Janhvi Kapoor and Ishaan Khatter in the beginning. An easy-breezy love story makes the audience laugh, mostly because of Ishaan’s innocent frolics. He keeps it simple by not going overboard. He is not film-y. In fact, he is like any other urban teenager who aspires for better things in life and isn’t on the same wavelength as his parents. He understands social intricacies, but decides to look beyond them.

Another tonal difference between Sairat and Dhadak is its treatment of male leads. The shy Parshya was a by-product of years of oppression, but Ishaan’s Madhu is more or less vocal. He is from a well-off family who never expects things to escalate beyond their control.

How closely you witnessed the harsh realities of life formed the base of Sairat. Dhadak tries to replicate it, but doesn’t go all guns blazing to address pertinent questions related to caste. It’s more of a class distinction than caste in Dhadak.

Shashank Khaitan’s film has gloss and brightness. Vishnu Rao’s postcard images in Dhadak are soothing, charming and in sync with Dharma Productions’ popular perception. Janhvi’s accent aside, she has been beautifully presented. It seems like a very urban view at times, but then Janhvi and Ishaan were probably misfits for a rural setting.

Interestingly, the songs work in Dhadak, but emotional scenes don’t, especially in the first half. Humour also follows a familiar curve. When a drenched boy encircles the girl in a pond with eyes passionately locked, you know it’s going to end with him falling in love. Old Bollywood tricks are leisurely employed.

Further, Dhadak is not about caste ideologies and how people are defined by them. Though Khaitan has tried to deliver subtle messages by showing Janhvi irritated when she fails to get simple household chores right or by presenting Ishaan as a working class hardworking youngster, in the end, all this boils down to launching two potential future stars.

Dhadak Movie Review

Review: Mission Impossible Fallout

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Tom Cruise’s inspiring dedication to daredevilry is the backbone of the Mission Impossible series.

Many jaw-dropping, eye-popping, spectacles have come off it unswervingly, unbelievably.

In the age of instant gratification and waning memory, the greatest challenge is to rouse repeat value.

Ethan Hunt’s nail-biting escapades and kinetic feats deliver on it instalment after instalment despite an onslaught of tentpole entertainment.

Mission Impossible: Fallout, the sixth movie in the franchise that kick started with Brian DePalma’s enigmatic adaptation of Bruce Geller’s television series, continues the tradition of raising the stakes of insurmountable odds and, I am happy to report, shows no signs of a slowdown.

If the ruthless vigour and interpersonal dynamics in Rogue Nation paved the road for breezy, director Christopher McQuarrie’s return in Fallout is all about going full steam and surviving worst-case scenarios.

What unfolds is a flat out feast for the action buff.

Breathless action is the only script a 56-year-old Cruise needs to work on as he jumps off from building to building with an agility and assurance that could put Spider-Man to shame.

His marvellous stamina as he dashes through the streets of London, rides a cool bike through nastic Paris traffic, rams a van inside its narrow by lanes, sky dives some 20 thousand feet above air, climbs a steep mountain or participates in a crazy chopper chase atop snow-covered Kashmir landscapes (that’s New Zealand and Norway, by the way) is a thrilling reminder of Hollywood’s golden age of action movies before green screen and CGI sucked the joy out of devil-may-care exploits.

Mission Impossible: Fallout peaks when it’s engaged in ceaseless adventure boosted by Rob Hardy’s spirited camerawork and Lorne Balfe’s pounding background score.

There’s very little time for strategy or survey as operations go bust, terrorists are bartered, identities are faked and countries are trotted in the recovery of lethal plutonium.

Hunt and his reliable aids (a robust Ving Rhames, a anxious Simon Pegg) at Impossible Missions Force resume business to seize the bad guy (Sean Harris, more pawn than peril) while a brawny special activities agent Henry Cavill appraises their proficiency. Cavill’s stuck-up Clark Gable-ish machismo more than keeps up with the nimble-footed Cruise.

Mission Impossible’s frail female presence got a dazzling facelift in Rebecca Ferguson’s feisty introduction in Rogue Nation. Though a little less potent, the punch is still there.

The other women — Vanessa Kirby, Angela Bassett and Michelle Monaghan — show up sporadically, but maintain a strong and productive profile.

Tom Cruise is a perfectly good reason to catch any and every Mission Impossible movie.

The exhilaration his death defying stunts provides, ones he so insists on doing on his own, give Ethan Hunt that unmatched credibility which separates action heroes from action figures.

Review: Mission Impossible Fallout

Mulk Movie Review

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NEW DELHI: Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Ashutosh Rana, Prateik Babbar, Rajat Kapoor, Manoj Pahwa, Neena Gupta
Director: Anubhav Sinha

Not that it broaches everything that there is to say about Islamophobia and its terrible repercussions – in fact, it really isn’t possible for a single 140-minute film to cover all the dimensions of the theme – but Anubhav Sinha’s Mulk is a compelling, uncommonly courageous drama that gets as close to the truth as a Mumbai film ever can, especially given the times that we live in.

When Hindi cinema willingly crawls when it is asked to bend and a majority of India’s television news channels shy away from speaking up against organized forces that peddle communal hate as political strategy, the relevance of a film like Mulk, which goes hammer and tongs at poisoned mindsets, cannot be overstated.

Mulk articulates the prejudice of those that are quick to tar an entire community with the same brush for the violent actions of a few, but see no wrong in the systemic violence – political, social and economic – that is perpetrated day in and day out on those that are condemned to the fringes of a counterfeit development story designed to serve narrow interests. Mulk is an important film because it reflects the concerns of those that hold humanity dear and abhor binaries fuelled by WhatsApp-driven fear-mongering.

The writer-director employs the character of a perennially smirking public prosecutor, Santosh Anand (Ashutosh Rana), to represent majoritarian assertions born out of unbridled prejudice. Muslims live in poverty, are poorly educated, and their young men are prone to being swayed in the name of religion: that is what the lawyer submits to the judge more than once while trotting out half-baked facts about a family he has decided to make an example of.

There are others, too, who let their bigotry get the better of them, notably Chaubey (Atul Tiwari), a paan-shop owner who has been a friend of the film’s principal character Murad Ali Mohammed, a retired Varanasi advocate, for four decades and tucks into meat dishes on the sly. Inspired in part by his militant son, he turns against his buddy and his family.

Early in the film, the superannuated lawyer celebrates his 65th birthday with the entire neighbourhood joining in. One woman at the party, however, thinks nothing of othering the host’s family: “vnaachne-gaane ke liye toh theek hai, par hum khaana nahin khaate in logon ke yahaan (the music and dance is all very fine, but we do not eat in the homes of these people).” That is exactly where it all begins.

This intense courtroom drama, which tends occasionally to err on the side of a degree of theatricality but without suffering too much damage, is, principally about Murad Ali Mohammed (Rishi Kapoor) whose life is thrown into disarray when his nephew Shahid (Prateik Babbar) is drawn into a jihadist conspiracy. It results in a bomb blast that kills 16 innocents, ‘HINDUstanis’, as the public prosecutor repeatedly harps on.

Murad’s brother Bilaal Mohammed (Manoj Pahwa) – the two ageing siblings are barely on talking terms – is taken into custody for questioning. Anti-terror squad officer Danish Javed (Rajat Kapoor), himself a Muslim, is bent upon proving Bilaal’s complicity in the terror attack. The family, which has lived in a Varanasi house erected in 1927 and chose not to leave India at the time of Partition, is hounded, ostracised and even subjected to an attack by a stone-throwing mob.

His Hindu daughter-in-law Aarti (Taapsee Pannu) by his side, Murad comes out of retirement to fight his embattled brother’s case. The old man is himself quickly dragged into the case and finds himself having to prove his patriotism. Aarti steps into the breach and becomes his defence lawyer. In conversations strewn across Mulk, the principal characters attempt to define jihad (holy war), deshdroh (treason) and aatankvaad (terrorism), among other dreaded notions. The spotlight, however, remains firmly on the story of a family increasingly painted into a corner.

During the court proceedings, Anand summons Shahid’s sister to the witness stand and asks her how she felt when her brother died. I felt very bad, she replies. Why? Because he was my brother, she says. See, the lawyer thunders in an unthinking, I-told-you-so tone, she has no remorse for her brother’s murderous act.

Mulk is certainly no Garm Hava or Shahid. It doesn’t strive for subtlety. It places all its cards on the table, faces up. So we know exactly what is going on and what is about to come, yet the film holds one’s attention as much for the urgency of the theme as the sustained quality of the acting and the mood-enhancing camerawork (Ewan Mulligan, who also filmed Sinha’s Tum Bin 2) that takes in the hustle-bustle of the markets and streets of a small-town to create an apt backdrop for a drama that otherwise primarily unfolds indoors.

Rishi Kapoor is consistently on the ball as the protagonist who wears an identity-marking beard, prays five times a day and asserts that he is answerable only to his imaan (faith) and mulk (country). The veteran actor provides the bulwark upon which Mulk builds itself. He receives solid support from Manoj Pahwa, who is generally pushed by Bollywood to the comic cameo zone. Here, he grabs the opportunity offered by a meaty role with both hands and leaves a very deep imprint.

Taapsee Pannu is outstanding in the role of Murad Ali Mohammed’s Hindu daughter-in-law and lawyer. In a perfectly balanced performance, she conveys the anger and the anguish of an independent-spirited woman who is aghast at the way her entire family is put in the dock. The last quarter of the film hinges almost entirely on her. She carries the burden with aplomb, putting her Pink performance in the shade by a fair distance.

The first thing that strikes you about Mulk is that it is the sort of film that has no precedence in Anubhav Sinha’s career. But that certainly is of no particular importance when compared to the pluck that it displays in articulating truths about a nation of magnificent religious, cultural and linguistic diversity that is being pushed to the brink of destruction by forces that have taken upon themselves the right to decide who fits in and who doesn’t.

At the heart Mulk is a fearless spirit that is a far cry from the abject timidity of Bollywood, an industry that believes in upholding the status quo even if it threatens to endanger the precious pluralistic ethos that lies at the foundation of this vast nation. In making its extremely timely statement, this film allows itself to lean a tad towards conventional melodrama. But it makes its point with such force that it is difficult not to be impressed. Go watch Mulk for its stout-hearted espousal of sanity. It isn’t often that Bollywood shows such spine.

Mulk Movie Review

Review: Vishwaroopam II

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Vishwaroopam II opens with Kamal Haasan launching his new party.

We are shown crowds that he has attracted from every district of Tamil Nadu.

Rajinikanth had the single agenda of attracting Muslim votes with Kaala, but Kamal Haasan wants them all.

So we have him in a fishermen’s colony, then in a Nadar college. And, in true Dravidian style, we have Brahman baiting where a double-crosser is a Brahmin.

His first movie of the same name had Muslims up in arms for showing them in a bad light.

Here, the message is clear as the one Taapsee Pannu spelled out in Mulk: ‘Terrorism is a criminal act, not a communal one.’

Kamal Haasan uses the same line.

He must have saved a lot of money in making the movie as he is its Director, Writer and Hero. And he shares credit for Choreography and Lyrics.

As is the trend with big stars these days, we have two heroines.

You cannot make sense of the script because half of it is in flashback mode, moving back and forth in such a manner that you don’t realise where you are.

As my philosophy professor used to say, “You don’t know you are dreaming until you wake up. So how do you know you are awake now and that this is not a dream?”

Kamal Haasan possibly studied the same philosophy.

But let me make an attempt to understand the story.

There is this guy who infiltrates a terror group in Kashmir and goes to Pakistan where he tracks down… hold your breath… Osama bin Laden!

Then, he moves on to defuse a bomb in London and finally comes back to defuse 64 bombs on our 64th Independence Day, implying that the film is set in 2011.

Since they don’t even attempt to connect the dots from Kashmir to Osama to London and back to Delhi, I won’t either.

We must, however, appreciate the fact that he got a world renowned director like Shekhar Kapur to act in his movie. And it’s not a small part either.

Even bigger kudos for getting Waheeda Rehman back on the big screen. The legend acts as if she was never away from the camera. Many in the Chennai theatre where I watced the film didn’t know who Waheedaji was. It was heartbreaking.

And how did he get an actor of Nasser’s caliber to come on board just for one scene?

Talking about the cast, Andrea Jeremiah does well in the action sequences and in scenes where she has to use her wit to needle Kamal and Pooja Kumar.

Rahul Bose looks clearly uncomfortable as the villain.

None of the songs ring a bell and none will be remembered once you leave the theatre. The background music sounds like noise delivered using musical instruments.

The film’s makers have spent a lot of money on cars, aircraft, ships, diving equipment and underwater cameras.

And the cars are really sturdy. Twice, cars roll down mountain but nothing happens to the passengers.

The car manufacturers should thank Kamal for showcasing how safe their cars are. And they must pay him as well, since he is not going to make any money at the box office.

It is telling that the first show on the first day saw a lot of empty seats. And this is not a film that can depend on word-of-mouth to increase its viewership.

I give it one star and that’s only for the wonderful Waheeda Rehman.

If snacks during the interval counted, Vishwaroopam II would have got a second star… the vada pav I had in the interval was almost as good as the Mumbai original.

Review: Vishwaroopam II

Review: Gold

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A national hockey team captain (Vineet Kumar Singh) forced to leave his town and team after Partition and play for its newly created neighbour.

An aristocrat (Amit Sadh), who excels at the game but is too smug to realise why he must not exert his privileges on the field.

A hot-tempered Sardar (Sunny Kaushal) lad blessed with extraordinary talent frustrated by his under-utilisation and internal politics.

Gold has three noteworthy stories to tell.

Yet, it sidelines their potential to say something pertinent about a freshly freed country, its hopes and uncertainties, to focus on a drunkard manager’s flimsy contribution in Independent India’s victory at the 1948 Olympics.

Tapan Das or Tuppen, as he likes to pronounce it, is nursing a dream since 1936 after his hockey team got gold for British India before an elated crowd that includes a world-famous German tyrant (more like Bertie Wooster with a toothbrush moustache).

A decade goes by as India becomes free from British rule, Pakistan is born and World War II cancels the 1940 and 1944 Olympics.

In this time, a disappointed Tapan has taken to the bottle and bets against wrestlers.

When he finally lands an opportunity to put together his dream hockey team with star player-turned-coach (Kunal Kapoor), a surly senior creates problems for no legitimate reason.

Director Reema Kagti, who put together a quirky ensemble in Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd and combined sorrow and supernatural so sublimely in Talaash, struggles to give her distinct voice to Gold’ wishy-washy complexity.

As a consequence, Tapan’s disillusionment feels exaggerated and grating.

Nationalistic fervour is pretty much thrust upon him after the tricolored flag fortuitously lands in his hands.

But since those hands belong to Akshay Kumar, rest assured, it shall not be taken lightly.

Bollywood’s go-to crusader reminds us repeatedly of his plans to avenge ‘Do sau saal ki ghulami’ by speaking in a jarring accent that is clearly more Bollywood than Bangla, breaking into a dhoti-clad bhangra as though he’s confused Gold for Singh is Bling while being a hockey hero from the sidelines.

It is a sloppily written role performed with equal ineptitude, a rare misstep from the actor, who hardly gets it wrong anymore no matter how partisan or embarrassing the contents.

As Gold grows into a timeworn underdog tale, the British emerge as the unanimous bad guys having changed their objective from divide and rule to divide and defeat.

It is nice to see Kagti remembers that India and Pakistan break up is too recent to view its common enemy differently. It gives the climatic scene’s communal cheer a heartrending unity, years before it would be looked upon as romantic idealism in Bajrangi Bhaijaan.

Barring these little details, her recreation of the era feels more postcard than living.

Gold’s glossy, sepia toned rendition of retro revelries is fancy, but the contemporary energy they betray is telling of how accurate the endeavour is.

Characters are dressed in vintage, set designs throws in the decade appropriate props and knick-knacks, but one never gets a sense of those times or the wave of patriotism it so conveniently whips up to suit its purpose.

Gold’s other issue is the game it builds itself around.

Hockey isn’t a visually exciting game for everybody.

Unless its stakes and soul are smartly and shrewdly woven into the narrative like Chak De! India, viewers are unlikely to invest.

Half-hearted depiction of the sport, a moment of epiphany to showcase barefoot bravado and starstruck fan following of a former legend among Buddhist monks do very little to promote its cause.

The only thing Gold borrows from Shimit Amin’s deeply layered classic is the Sabharwal-Chautala rivalry.

Luckily for Kagti, her supporting cast stands her in good stead and does well in bringing out the vulnerability and ambition of their characters.

If only they’d get a little more screen time.

At 150 minutes though, Gold digresses too often to accommodate a bizarre episode of Amit Sadh’s philanthropy, Mouni Roy’s domestic chatter and heavy-handed federation politics.

It is only when Gold moves away from Akshay Kumar’s blundering Bangla and hockey humbug to become a story of grace among go-getters that it comes close to becoming the movie it should have been.

And then the national anthem plays and manipulation wins once again.

Review: Gold

Satyamev Jayate Review

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A mysterious man in a hoodie drags an unconscious fella towards a wooden pyre. As soon as the latter regains senses, he discovers he is tied to the logs, loud sounds of Sanskrit shlokas are booming all around and the tall hunk is going on and on about some matchstick analogy.

Meet serial corrupt cop killer John Abraham, a character born out of Aakhri Raasta and Shahenshah’s leftovers that strains to evoke Deewar and Shakti-reminiscent sentiments out of Manoj Bajpayee, the only decent policeman in all of Satyamev Jayate.

While Abraham’s fire-breathing dragon sends off few more bribe-taking officers to direct hell, Bajpayee gets cracking down on his case and reveal the initial reason the film is called Satyamev Jayate.

The individual letters of the title signify the location of the incinerated cops — something Bajpayee miraculously deduces on the basis of a homophone. Of course there are just too many letters to prolong the ploy in a script that cannot even pretend to be clever.

I’s not long before Satyamev Jayate completely abandons the idea and brings on board good old baap ka badla

Director Milan Milap Zaveri’s dreadful lack of originality would be a little more bearable if it wasn’t so tedious about its nostalgia.

Every single phone call between a duty-bound cop and self-appointed vigilante is a gabby round of steal a march versus rain on your parade.

It’s only marginally less laughable than John Abraham attempts to look sly.

The film labours to paint him as this model citizen volunteering at cleanliness drives and rescuing stray puppies yet his mineral water-glugging, needless plastic amassing and flirting with the vet (Aisha Sharma who sounds like Suniel Shetty every time she opens her mouth) has a different story to tell.

Satyamev Jayate is so committed to Abraham’s pyromania it happily overlooks all the damage his irresponsible justice seeking leads to.

From blowing off petrol pumps to causing stampedes in public places, his so-called valour reeks of hypocrisy.

It’s foolhardy to expect nuance from a jaded action drama that not only recycles 80s clichés, but also expects to pull off a reckless revenge in the absence of Amitabh Bachchan’s charisma and Sunny Deol’s fury.

Only Satyamev Jayate’s predictable twists and superficial emotions have absolutely nothing new to offer.

What it does is test your threshold of pain.

Zaveri’s energy-sapping hysterics pitting Islamophobic cops and Abraham’s saviour act (‘Patil ho ya Qadri, sabki ek biradri’) during a bombastic, blood-soaked Muharram ritual is where I threw in the towel.

John Abraham has Popeye’s muscles and Bluto’s scowl, but how many times can you watch a deadpan Hulk pull out a van door or burst forth from a truck tyre?

And if Manoj Bajpayee chitchats on one more phone call as the gyaan spewing, exasperated, righteous law enforcer with a soft spot for his outwitting adversary, it qualifies as stock character.

If the anti-corruption baloney isn’t agonising enough, the writer in Zaveri over-rides the film-maker and stuffs the scenes with excessive verbosity.

After 141 exhausting minutes of unending appeals, phony revelations and long-winded dying words, the only satya I cared about is there is a cab outside the theatre waiting to take me home.

Satyamev Jayate Review


Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi Movie Review

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Two years after Mudassar Aziz won our hearts with the sleeper hit Happy Bhag Jayegi starring Diana Penty, Ali Fazal, Jimmy Sheirgill, Piyush Mishra and Abhay Deol, the director is back with a sequel comprising most of the previous cast plus two new characters played by Sonakshi Sinha and Jassi Gill. But will the sequel prove to be as entertaining as its predecessor, considering the fact that Bollywood has mostly fumbled when it comes to sequels? Let’s find out…

This time, Happy (Diana) and her husband Guddu (Ali Fazal) are in China for the latter’s concert and a case of mistaken identity has led to the kidnapping of another Happy (Sonakshi Sinha). If this was not all, Daman Singh Bagga (Jimmy) and Pakistani cop Usman Afridi (Mishra) too have landed up in China against their will. When Sonakshi’s character manages to escape from her kidnappers and runs into Indian Embassy employee Khushwant Singh Gill (Jassi), it leads to a comedy of errors involving all the characters…

Though the film boasts of a stellar cast, I must say that the sequel belongs to Jimmy and Piyush Mishra and their banter is the highlight of the film. Both the actors are so endearing as Bagga and Afridi that I want the makers to make a third film in the franchise only for these two whacky characters, who will have you laughing till your sides hurt. Gill, who makes his Bollywood debut with this film, is fresh and earnest while Diana, Ali and Sonakshi are strictly average, though in their defense, Ali and Diana don’t get much screen time. Aparshakti Khurrana, who plays Sonakshi’s runaway fiancé, is a delight to watch.

happy-3As for the film itself, Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi is one of those comedies that may not make much sense plot-wise, but will entertain the hell out of you from the first scene itself. The dialogues are super funny, even if there is a liberal dose of Pak-bashing and the characters are crazy and lovable (even the bad guys).

On the flip side, there is a bit of slapstick comedy that may not appeal to everyone and the plot is somewhat haywire, as mentioned earlier. happy-5 happy-6However, if you enjoyed the prequel, be sure that ‘Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi’ will ensure a ‘Happy’ weekend…

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi Movie Review

Stree Movie Review

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Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Film: Stree; Starring Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurrana; Directed by Amar Kaushik;

A new language in the horror genre burgeons as we watch this quirky cocktail — or shall we call it a quirk-tale? –of strange eerie mysterious goings-on in a minuscule town somewhere in Madhya Pradesh.

First off, the narrative acquires its judiciously-harnessed strength from the lazy serpentine locations. The congested claustrophobic gullies and lanes of Chanderi lend themselves effectively to the plot that quite literally loses it.

This is a film where supernatural beliefs are dragged to the extremes of self-parody and then dragged back up panting puffing and gasping for breath. It’s a delicious voluptuous mishmash of terror and titillation all titivated in loads of guffaws.

To sustain the mood of mirth during times of terror is not easy. Stree manages it. It also squeezes in a piercing message on gender dignity and women’s empowerment, proclaiming the ill-treatment of women to be the root cause of all evil perpetrated by ghoulish feminine spirits wandering aimlessly in the night.

The writing, in this case, is clearly and literally on the wall, as every home in the spooked town has a message ‘Stree Kal Aana’ painted on the raw brick wall. Well, Kal or not, this Stree rides the train of mystery with bloody-thirsty bravado.

Many passages play for anti-climactic scares. And these get annoying when repeated. Even when the deadends to the frights are too frequent the film never ceases to be fun. Barring Shraddha Kapoor who is listless pale and wan (and not necessarily because the script demands her to be these) the entire cast gets the spirit of spooked satire dead right.

While Aparshakti Khurrana has shaped into one of the strongest supporting actors of contemporary Bollywood, what appealed the most to me was this self-effacing actor’s accent. So North Indian in its wackiness, I was left decoding his words long after Khurrana finished uttering them. Pankaj Tripathi as a local scholar-exorcist with a penchant for alcohol and caller tunes that remind us of beautiful ghosts from Raj Khosla’s cinema, has the film’s best lines. Tripathy chews on them for all the meat they’ve got and spits them out with loving care.

As for Rajkummar Rao, he takes ownership of the film and its peculiar flavour of fear and fun, instilling the two elements simultaneously in several scenes. I dare any other actor to have so much fun with fear. Watch him and Atul Shrivastava in the sequence where ‘Deddy’ tells son to not go to prostitutes for ‘Frandship’, but opt for self-help instead. It is priceless.

Stree moves in mysterious ways through a labyrinth of lip-smacking interludes, some razor-sharp others blunt to the point of blandness. Even when the momentum of the eerie gets overly airy, there is still enough steam in the storytelling to keep us interested, if not enthralled, to the end.

And when all fails, there is always Rajkummar Rao. An actor we can depend on to rescue even the most inept scene from doom. Luckily Stree for all its audacious dips and curves through mofussil anxieties never stumbles too hard to fall fright on its face. And watch out for the final twist in the tale. You will agree this quirk-tale, shot with vinegary vibrancy by cinematographer Amalendu Chaudhary, is no mock-tale.

Stree Movie Review

Laila Majnu Movie Review

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Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

In the picturesque valley of Kashmir, there are two lovers – conceptualised as the modern-day Laila Majnu. They meet, admire the beauty around, only to be separated later due to raging family rivalries. But, as the fate has it, they meet again, until the two get lost in oblivion, in search of the ultimate bliss – something that only the other-worldly lovers get.

Director: Sajad Ali
Writers: Imtiaz Ali, Sajid Ali
Producers: Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor, Preeti Ali
Actors: Avinash Tiwary, Tripti Dimri, Parmeet Sethi, Benjamin Gilani, Sumit Kaul

Laila, played by Tripti Dimri, is the city’s heartthrob. She enjoys the attention she gets from men while on her way to college. Qais, played by Avinash Tiwary, is a known rich-brat, allegedly famous for breaking hearts and using women as commodities. The two accidentally meet each other and love strikes. They decide to get married but their plans are marred by the old enmity between their fathers, who are two biggies of the town. What follows is years of wait and a process of self-realisation. Only when the two are finally going to be together forever, Qais sets on an unbelievable journey of finding love with the Laila of his dreams. He no longer lingers on the actual presence of his beloved. For him, Laila is always with him, and he is able to see her the way the world can’t.

“Yeh ishq nahin aasaan, bas itna samajh lijiye… Aik aag ka darya hai, aur doob ke jaana hai.” The poetry written by Jigar Moradabadi, is the basis of most Imtiaz Ali films. Even this new one, that’s directed by Sajad Ali. Laila Majnu is a glossy attempt to bring in front the ages old popular Persian folklore. Ali, however, fails to make it relevant today. In the first place, the lovers in the film never even appear to have fallen in the kind of love which is capable of self destruction. The characters don’t evoke empathy, even when Qais is wandering in woods talking to himself, terrorising the local people around. Avinash seems effective at places, but his Majnu is overstretched and over-acted.

While Imtiaz keeps the flavour of his style of cinema alive in Laila Majnu, the story lacks the modern-day connect. The idea of becoming a ‘deewana‘ for somebody in love is too-outdated-to-believe.

There are major ups and downs in how Laila’s character evolves in the narrative. She’s shown as a girl, who’s excited about life, and doesn’t fear in exploring anything new. She’s like a pretty blooming flower in a much conservative settings of a Kashmiri Muslim family. That is established when she’s asked to have her dupatta in place by her mother. Or her sister’s continuous resistance to her increasing proximity with Qais. Her lively answer to everything objected: ‘Chal na, try karte hain‘.

Now, when the same Laila, who’s full of life, decides to let go of his lover so easily – it does raise questions. Why doesn’t she see that her man needs medical help? What happened to the rebellious Laila who didn’t shy away from telling her father that he has no business in the decisions of her life anymore? In a scene when he tries to stop him from eloping with Qais, she tells him “Raat ke andhere me ja rahi hun, piche ke darwaaze se ja rahi hun… isse zada main aap ke liye kuch nahi kar sakti.” The same courage gets lost in oblivion later and you are left to rediscover Ali’s Laila again and again in the plot.

Lost Performances
Take it as it is — For the most part in the film, Avinash seems to be copying Ranbir’s Jordan; while Tripti’s Laila is an absolute rip-off of Nargis’ performance as Heer – her over-pouty lips overshadowing her acting skills. The two are never able to establish the we-will-die-for-each-other connect to the audience. Neither do they hold on to the Kashmiri accent for long. Together, Ali’s Laila-Majnu lack both lustre and life.

Verdict
Imtiaz Ali’s Laila Majnu doesn’t have anything new to set on the table for you. It has the story which is widely discussed and the treatment which is cliched and predictable to describe. Even when you aren’t appreciating anything about Ali’s cinema, you are taking music that stays with you for long. Here, you don’t even get that much. One thing the film does for you though, as most Ali’s films do, is that it makes you want to pack your bags and explore the stunning locations of the valley. But, just that.

Laila Majnu Movie Review

Manmarziyaan Movie Review

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Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Anurag Kashyap gave Bollywood one of its best stories of love and lost love in Dev D. He lent the classic love triangle his own twist and Dev D developed a cult following. His last film too was a love story with the backdrop of boxing, Mukkabaaz.

With the Kashyap signature, conventional love stories become memorable.

So when Anurag Kashyap returns with another love triangle in Manmarziyaan, comparisons with Dev D are inevitable. He dedicates his newest film to Amrita Pritam, the precocious poet who herself is known for her unconventional, trailblazing love story.

Manmarziyaan is set in small-town Amritsar where Vicky loves Rumi loves Robbie. The who loves whom equation is fluid here, with Taapsee playing the erratic and moody Rumi – the pivot of this tale who oscillates between the two. Rumi symbolises manmarziyaan. ‘Mann’ and ‘marzi’ form ‘manmarziyaan’. Do what your heart says. Kashyap’s heroine does exactly that, and leaves a trail of destruction and heartbreak behind.

Hockey-player Rumi ‘manipulates’ her family for her own gain. She is unapologetic about it. She smokes, chugs drinks and has sex like there’s no tomorrow. Her partner in crime is the local guy with tattoos and piercings; the entire f**kboi package, Vicky (Vicky Kaushal in terrific form). Enter goodboi Robbie (Abhishek Bachchan in a passable comeback) who doesn’t talk much but doesn’t let that keep him from fighting against all odds to acquire the woman he likes.

Rumi and Vicky love each other. But Vicky is commitment-phobic. Rumi waits for him right till the end of time but stops short. She turns back and takes her own decision. “Rumi khud gayi thi,” she scribbles in rage for Vicky to tell him that she left him and not the other way round. But ishq da rang hai grey wala shade. Kashyap tells us what comprises the grey. Not convincingly.

The film, much like its lead heroine, suffers from a curious case of being too dependent on its director’s manmarziyaan. Kashyap picks up elements from Dev D and strews them here and there in Manmarziyaan. The teenmurti from Dev D become the twins in Manmarziyaan. A heartbroken person walks into a bar as the twins shake their head in pity while a heavy number plays in the background. We have seen these before.

Manmarziyaan is fabulous in its first half. There are little moments that warm your heart. Rumi lights up the screen with her energy. Rumi brands herself on to the viewer. Vicky Kaushal roars and proves yet again why he is one of the best we have in Bollywood today. The frames with Taapsee and Vicky are ones to cherish.

Among the three leads, Abhishek Bachchan is weak. He impresses but not quite. He is brooding and silent most of the time and you are expected to expect a storm whenever he speaks. When the crescendo finally reaches its climax, Junior Bachchan does a poor impression of the Angry Young Man.

There is more of Abhishek in the second half, and the film loses steam post interval, largely because of the silences and the patchy writing by Kanika Dhillon. We are left to deal with the whims of Rumi and by now, we’ve seen way too much of them. You feel restless. You want the explosion to happen just so you can leave. But all we get is a whimper.

The film benefits from Amit Trivedi’s fabulous soundtrack. Songs like Daryaa and Halla stay with you after you leave the theatre. Rumi and Vicky stay with you after the end credits roll. But Manmarziyaan lets you go with the feeling that you’ve just seen Dev D from a Paro’s point of view. Except, a mediocre version.

Three stars for Manmarziyaan.

Manmarziyaan Movie Review

Review: Batti Gul Meter Chalu

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Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Batti Gul Meter Chalu is a hero’s journey in his fight for social justice.

Set in Uttarakhand, this social drama is a common man’s fight against the corrupt system, especially the company supplying electricity to the State.

Sushil Kumar Pant (Shahid Kapoor) is a crooked lawyer who makes his money by blackmailing businessmen whose products don’t match their advertising claims. And he is happy with his lifestyle. But when his best friend Sundar Mohan Tripathi (Divyendu Sharma), a budding entrepreneur who has a printing press in an industrial zone on the outskirts of the town, is driven to the brink after receiving an inflated electricity bill, Sushil fights a legal battle against the company. How he delivers justice to his friend, forms the crux of the tale.

Crafted with good intentions and strong, hard-hitting messages to the requisite people of the society, the plot takes a circuitous route that makes its 175 minutes of run-time, tedious for viewing.

There is obviously a story in the narrative, but the director does not make it compelling. He has gone overboard with gimmicks developing the characters. And by doing so, the first half of the film lacks focus or purpose. Each scene is lengthy, overtly dramatised and pretentious with talk-heavy exposition. Also, the Kumaoni dialect after a while becomes a sore point.

The second half does pick up momentum with interesting inciting moments. But it is the courtroom drama that is the focus of the act. If only court cases were as simple or as smooth as projected in “Batti Gul Meter Chalu”, the acceptance of this film would have been a totally different ball-game. Also, the frivolous direction of the courtroom scenes takes away the seriousness of the said messages.

On the performance front, Shahid Kapoor is one of the most robust and powerful actors in the film. He emotes exquisitely with his delicate facial expressions. But at times, like a typical Hindi film hero, he goes over-the-top, making his entire exercise appear staged.

Divyendu as Sushil’s “timid” and “bust friend”, is sincere with his efforts and is subtle as a second fiddle.

Shraddha Kapoor as the fun-loving and bubbly Lalita Nautiyal aka Naughty offers a romantic angle to the narrative as the love interest of both friends. She is confident and earnest but unfortunately her on-screen chemistry with both, Shahid and Divyendu, is zilch.

Yami Gautam as Gulnar, the corporate lawyer of the electricity company is dramatic and over-the-top. With her quirky and bored demeanour, Sushmita Mukherjee makes her character of the Judge, funny.

On the visual front, the director uses black and white scenes to kick off the narrative, as an artistic leitmotif, to distinguish the story from the editorial. Here in a bus journey, two co-passengers — Vikas and Kalyan — are used as ‘sutradhars’ to propel the narrative forward. These double-entendre names and other poetic applications make this satire stimulating and amusing.

Overall, despite excellent production values, the film does not cut the mark of distinction.

Review: Batti Gul Meter Chalu

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