Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Mai Tera Hero : David ki Masala Khichdi

David Dhawan has a set template for his movies. He has a formula and he is No. 1 in his formula (pun intended). He started with Masala action films, did emotional family films, however he found his foothold in Comedy with Govinda. I prefer his Aankhen and Shola air Shabnam any day than the movies he did later.

As I say, today’s mediocre work becomes tomorrow’s legendary work if it is alive for a long period of time. David is now projected as new reality show anchors or nostalgic 90 kids as some kind of legendary movie maker. However, I would associate him with all the wrong things in 90s movies. Bright colours, weird costumes, whacky characters, below the belt double meaning dialogs and only for eye candy heroines who accept same kind of roughness from the hero which they reject from the villain. If we cringe over today’s Rowdy Rathor style heroes mouthing derogatory dialogs and road side romeo style behaviour, the roots of it is in David’s movies.

I do not deny the fact that most of David’s successful movies are a laughathon but still they account for all the impurities in Bollywood mentioned above. Before we forget, add to it the randomly appearance of totally unrelated songs with ugly pelvic thrust choreography and classless lyrics. Recently on Koffee with Karan, Anil Kapoor mentioned “Khada hai Khada hai Khada hai” song from David’s film Andaz as the most ridiculous one he had to perform on. But all was served in the name of “logo ki pasand”. If we give credit of hearty laughs to David, we must credit for all such atrocities to the art of cinema to him only.

Having said all of this, now let’s discuss “Mai Tera Hero”. Templated in David’s comic formula, “Mai Tera Hero” is same story of a trouble maker small town boy (this time it is Ooty) who is happily sent off to a Big metro (Bangalore) for further studies. Here, the hero, Seenu, is replaced by Varun Dhawan instead of Govinda and Heroine, Sunaina, is replaced by Eleana D’Cruz instead of a Karishma/Ravina/Juhi. Seenu faces big trouble in the form of Inspector Angad (Arunoday Singh) who in love with Sunaina and does not allow anyone else near her. However, “Harami” Seenu, as he calls himself, gets rid of this obstacle and wins the heart of Sunaina. But a big twist comes in the form of Ayesha (Nargis Fakhri) which again puts their love story in trouble. How Varun gets out of all these troubles and wins back her lover, is the story you may like to watch on the big screen.

The story is same old same old with highly clever and chalu hero outwitting everyone to win his love of life. There’s nothing new in the story and screenplay by Tushar Hiranandani but he is able to bring few laughs in the first half and many more in second half due to quirky characters (including different Gods) and witty dialogs by Milap Zaveri. Surprisingly, the dialogs are cleaner this time.

David Dhawan’s director is as usual but is again marred by script with a dull first half. In second half he gets to showcase comic talent but still has some flat moments. Even though the film is a remake of Telugu film “Kandireega”,cannot there’s unmistakable stamp of David Dhawan on it. Overall, he did his job well.

This film is a showcase movie for Varun Dhawan. He shows his 6 pack abs, dances, romances and does comic and fight scenes. He has incredible confidence and does fair work. However, he has big shoes of Govinda to fill in and there he fails. Apart from just acting the part, he cannot bring something else to the table which can make him irreplaceable. Both the girls Eleana and Nargis has nothing much to do than using a set of expressions as per the order of the Director. They don’t seem to mind it and enjoy their work. Do we enjoy it can be a question.

Again this film is saved somewhat due to its character actors like Rajpal Yadav and Saurabh Shukla. They are able to bring out some genuine laughter. Anupam Kher goes back to his 90s style acting and is able to bring out few laughs for his quirky ECHO. Arunoday Singh as Angad is good enough and looks the part he plays. Shakti Kapoor who was integral part of David’s movies also gets to do a surprise chameo and is fine in it.

Sajid-Wajid does good job with few foot tapping numbers. Choreography by Ganesh and Bosco-Caesar is good. Background Sound by Sandeep Shirokar is good. I had a big problem with the Sound Designing/recording. It was high pitch and hurting ears. Production Design by Sukant Panigrahy is average. Cinematography by Sanjay F. Gupta is just ok. Action by Mahendra Verma is good.

Overall, a weak first half, good second half makes it an average movie. Common consensus after watching this movie will be “We miss you Govinda”

Rating :

Recommendation : If you like any movie by David Dhawan, Do watch this. Anyone else who is ok to spend 2 hrs for few laughs will also be fine with it. Everyone else expecting perfect products shall skip it. Information for Family Audience, movie is relatively clean but has 3 elaborate kissing scenes. So it’s unto you if you want to watch with kids or not.

Mai Tera Hero Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Bhoothnath Returns : voting awareness campaign

It is important to know the size of a film’s content. It does not mean that if the film runs 3 hrs, then only it is an epic good film. The biggest flaw of “Bhoothnath Returns” is its length of 2 Hr 45 mins.

Coming from an iconic media house like B. R. Chopra Films with stalwarts like Amitabh Bachchan (as Bhoothnath) and Boman Irani (as Bhausaheb), “Boothnath” also has the goodwill from the first movie in the franchise. Does it live up to the expectation?

After being freed from the shackles of unfulfilled desires, Bhoothnath goes to Bhoothland where everyone is laughing at him for his failure to scare the child in the first movie. So he requests to send him back on earth as a Bhooth again so that he can scare few kids and get back to Bhoothland with pride.

Bhoothnath comes to earth and befriends a boy Akhrot (Parth Bhalerao) who is not scared of him but helps in him in scaring other kids. Then Bhoothnath wants to help him to reduce his poverty and they both start clearing halted land development projects by city builders which are stuck due to being captured by a ghost. As their name reaches Bhausaheb, they’re called to vacate a property being suffered by Ghosts. The renumeration is unimaginably good. But when they reach to vacate the property, they find some heart wrenching facts about what happened in formation of the building. So what happens after that? Are Boothnath and Akhrot able to complete their task? How they handle Bhausaheb?

The story and screenplay by Piyush Gupta and Nitesh Tiwari with additional inputs by Shreyas Jain and Nikhil Mehrotra, is unique in its concept. It’s about a Bhooth who stands in election so that people can have an option of a good candidate. However, the concept is very lengthily crafted and tends to get dull and boring at places. Overall, they’ve done a great job at concept but shoddy job at screenplay.

Director Nitesh Tiwari does tries his hands at the lengthy writing material and does an average job. However, with his editor Chandrashekhar Prajapati, he should’ve been very brutal in cutting the fat from the content and making it slimmer.

On performance side, Amitabh Bachchan is loveable and infuses energy in his role. However, he deserves a better written role. The child artist Parth Bhalerao is good but does not have the connectivity like say Darsheel Safary of “Taare Zameen Par”. Boman Irani gets to do what he is best at and does full justice to it. As a mean and careless politician “Bhausaheb” he shines in his role but it feels similar at times to his earlier ones even after different body language. Usha Jadhav as Parth’s mother is wasted. There are many cameos in the movie by the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Anurag Kashyap, etc. They help in lightening up the screen for a moment.

On the music side “Party to banti hai” is already a hit. Choreography by Ganesh Acharya is good. Sound design of the movie is very good. Production quality is top notch and Cinematography by Kamaljeet Negi is excellent. Visual effects are good too.

Overall, It’s a film which could’ve been great but turned out only as average.

Rating :
Recommendation : If you need to watch it for kids, go for it. If you love to watch Amitabh Bachhan and Boman Irani, do watch it. If you need a good film which will sweep you off your feet, skip it.

Bhoothnath Returns review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Miss Lovely: Retrospective on C grade movie industry
Director: Ashim Ahluwalia
Story by: Ashim Ahluwalia
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Niharika Singh, Anil George
Screenplay: Ashim Ahluwalia, Uttam Sirur

There is mainstream commercial cinema which seldom is good on all aspects. There is quality cinema which entertains or engages too. Then there’s a cinema reflects real life as is sans any dramatisation or spicing up. Such cinema is generally popular in art film lovers, film scholars and festival circuit regulars. Miss Lovely comes from that orbit. Generally such movies do not reach from their orbit to earth of mass release. But times have changed and all types of cinema is getting wider release. Though with a delay, this film got a release. It is a good sign but I am not sure if such movies can ever enjoy patronage like other types of cinema enjoy. That eventually makes it harder to get released.

Miss Lovely is a story which brings to us the dark by-lanes of this shiny glamours film industry. It is about the C grade film industry of 80s. The audience of such films expected much more than titillation when they paid for their tickets based on their view developed from the posters and text lines on them in local ads by exhibitors. To keep them satisfied and hooked, such notorious exhibitors used to add after market reels of porn scenes into the movie. This way they guaranteed repeated and devoted audience and everyone in the supply chain is happy (the way, a character in this movie says “Maine kaha tha na, sabko khush kar dunga”). While theatre owners opted for such dubious ways to ensure business, investors were interested in easy access to sex it offered.

Story of this film by Ashim Ahluwalia, is rumoured to be based on Ramsey Brothers. Though the film scene shown do resemble the films by Ramsey’s in that era, I do not think it is about their life experiences. Story is definitely has a different background and subject does offer novelty.

The story is about 2 brothers with elder one, Vicky (Anil George) being the alpha male going for hunt and having big ambitions. But for achieving those, he has not calms use any wrong methods. While enjoying the benefits of casting couch himself, he rubs shoulders with horny investors who are more interested in skin taste than screen test. Younger brother Sonu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), who is reluctantly following orders by his brother with frequent protests which are ignored and crushed ferociously. Sonu is wants a cleaner life and dreams about directing a mainstream romantic film “Miss Lovely”. He falls in love with pinky (Niharika Singh) while dreaming to cast her as his heroine. To achieve this he follows some unscrupulous ways which lands not only him but the entire gang in trouble.

Screen play credits are shared by Ashim Ahluwalia and Uttam Sirur. The screen play is on the line of the treatment planned for this movie. Even though it uniqueness does keep audience interested in what next, it does not keep them glued to the screen. It does not sweep us emotionally nor delivers the story with dash of entertainment. It it successful in affecting us but the emotion it generates is disgust. It does make you unstable but does not give the fulfilment of watching a good film. It also does not give reasons or proper flow so sometimes makes it harder to understand the ongoings. It does have few highs but lows are more and persistent. So a mixed job done on screenplay here.

Ashim Ahluwalia again in Directors chair, is clear about how he wants to treat the film. He goes about it without compromise and is able to recreate reality as is on screen. He uses lifelike pace and holds camera in many shots for a lot longer than normal. He is able to create the atmosphere with all its dinginess and cringeworthy reality. He is unabashed and fearless in his vision and execution. From the first frame in projector room to the tiny box in the climax where a blue film is being shot on video, every detailing is taken care to recreate the world of C grade film industry and its even lower grade fraternity. However, the world is unwelcoming, disgusting and disturbing. Though the director is successful in generating these emotions in you as audience, I do not think if it is good cinema or not. Though credit must be given where due. A big applause for the Director to stick to his vision and make the film, the way he wanted to make. However, the editing again by him only could have been better. There are few places where we do not get link of why and what is happening. Though we are amused, we are not connected or involved in the movie. That’s what makes it unrecommendable.

While we talk about atmosphere and feel of the movie, let’s mention that production design by Tabasheer Zutshi is spot on. Be it the jungle set or horror movie scene or the cabaret dance set, it is as realistic as possible. Art Director Dhanya Pilo shall be given credit for it. Casting by Sharad Kalawar is perfect.

Most cast of the film is unknown except Nawazuddin but everyone has given good realistic performance. It is a tailor made role for Nawazuddin who does it with full sincerity and honesty. He plays the unhappy, good hearted Sonu convincingly. Anil George as his elder brother is excellent too. Niharika Singh as pinky/saloni/pooja is ok. Every other actor has done justice to their roles.

So “Miss Lovely” is an art house film which disturbs and unsettles you but does not give a feeling of watching a good film.

Ratings:

Recommendation : I will not recommend this movie to anyone except art house and festival cinema lovers. It may be different and realistic, but I will not spend my money on its tickets.

Showtimes for Nagpur, Maharashtra

Pvr Empress City Mall – empress city mall, opposite raman science centre gandhi sagar lake, Nagpur, India
‎8:10pm‎
Cinemax Eternity Mall – eternity mall, variety square, sitabudi, Nagpur, India
‎5:45pm‎
Inox Tuli Mall – kamptee road, nagpur, Nagpur, India
‎10:50am‎ – ‎5:05pm‎
Inox Poonam Mall – poonam mall, Nagpur, India
‎11:05am‎ – ‎7:50pm‎

Miss Lovely: Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Jai Ho: Violent Aam Aadmi

Director: Sohail Khan
Language: Hindi
Production company: Sohail Khan Productions
Cast: Salman Khan
Music composed by: Devi Sri Prasad, Sajid-Wajid

Salman Khan films are critic proof. Whatever critic says, still his movies will by default do 100cr+ business. He is a star who can do anything on screen and his fans will still cheer for him. I think he specially chooses such films which do not require to stress brain even a bit. However, this time, Salman has came out a film with a message. A message which can make the society better if followed with sincerity, honesty and compassion.

Jai Ho is a remake of Chiranjeevi starer South Indian Film Stalin written hence the story credit is given to A. R. Murugadoss. Story is is good at the idea level but it seems that no one bothered to develop it to its full potential. Dilip Shukla has written the screenplay and dialogues. He has done whatever he could with the undeveloped story. The film gradually grows on you till interval and raises expectation. Later, it goes down without lack of content. A beautiful idea is wasted because it is half baked and not fully exploited. Another problem I have is with comic scenes which mostly revolves around the child actor in the film. He has some cringeworthy dialogs (which his well educated father-mother ignores under the pretence of he being naughty). It seems that now a days comedy can not be written without going below the belt and special without mentioning undergarments.

The Story is about Jai Agnihotri (Salman Khan), who lives with his mom (Nadira Babbar) happily. Though his mother is angry with his sister Riya Agnihotri (Tabu) for marring against her will, Jai enjoys good relations with his Sister and Brother-in-law, Rehan (Mahesh Thakur). He’s specially fond of their son Kabir (Master Naman Jain). He generally spends time with them like aam urban aadmi by going to amusement parks, multiplexes, etc. With so much time together, he also falls in love with a girl, Rinky (Daisy Shah) who is his sister’s neighbour. While doing all this, Jai who is good soul, keeps trying to help people in distress all the time. Once he helps a girl (who saves a girl from some roughs in a club) caught by goons. When her family wants to thank him, he gets an idea and requests them to help 3 other people instead of saying thanks. This idea pics up and spreads. Jai keeps on doing good things where he confronts with many baddies in town. One such incidence involves him in fight with the son (Mukul Dev) of home minister (Vikas Bhalla) who then kidnaps Jai’s nephew, Rehan. While Jai saves Rehan, he kills home minister’s son. In all this confrontation, how Jai gets out of danger due to his own chain of good deeds is the story of this film.

Director Sohail Khan has done better job than his earlier films. He is able to keep good pace of the narrative. Even though the songs appear at wrong times and film gets slow and diverted at many places, overall he keeps audience interest alive till interval. Post interval he is paralysed due to lack of content and film gets dull. Swift Film Editing by Ashish Amrute is also not able to save the movie post interval.

Production value of the film is top notch. With most portions being shot at Ramoji Film City, Production Design by Sabu Cyril is ok. Cinematography by Santosh Thundhiiayil is pleasing. Casting by Mukesh Chhabra is epic due to access to all and any star actors in the industry. Action sequences (Anl Arasukumar, K. Ravi Varma and Dave Judge) are very well done. They can be gory for the week hearted and small kids (film has U/A certificate).

Music by Sajid-Wajid, Devi Sri Prasad and Amal Malik could not give any block buster song which is generally a main crowd puller in a Salman film. Still, ‘Photocopy’, ‘Baaki sab first class hai’ are foot tapping and ‘Tere naina’ may be on radio for a lot longer time period. Choreography by Remo D’Souza, Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru, Shaikh Jani Basha, Mudassar Khan and Shabina Khan is excellent and Salman has danced his heart out in those songs.

Jai Ho is a star studded film with Salman Khan in almost each frame. But there are many small roles for which well known actors/stars are used. Being a Salman Khan film, no one must have dared to say no to the role offered to them. Everyone has done good job in their roles. Only complain I have is with Genelia D’Souza who plays helpless handicapped girl without both four arms. Why on earth she accepted this role?

The new lead actress, Daisy Shah, making debut through this big film who is apparently a Salman Khan find is good at dancing but totally zero at acting. Thankfully he does not have much role in the movie.

Salman Khan is in full form in this movie and sizzles on screen every time he is there. He is able to get a lot of applause from his fans in the cinema hall. The “being animal” part in his character came out properly but isn’t utilised fully. He did to go over the top (may be because the role is already over the top) nor he sleep walked through the role (as he does many times). Salman is backbone of this movie and this movie is much better treat for his fan following than many other recent one like Ready and Ek tha tiger. I would not hesitate to say it has more repeat value than those.

The film has many loopholes and cinematic liberty is used till it is abused (For example, Sunil Shetty who is Jai’s friend since army days, bangs a car in middle of city road with an army TANK). Being a remake of South Indian film, it has the typical south masala which can kill anyone who expects some substance from cinema. Overall, it is an out an out action packed entertainer which you must not watch if you take cinema too seriously.

Recommendation : Sallu Bhai ki film hai… Mai kuchh bhi bologna, aap dekhoge hi. Masala film lovers will watch the film because they love it. The ones who do not like such potboilers, but love movies, will still watch it to make fun of it. For others who really want to see ONLY good quality cinema, I have one word… skip!

Everyone else will watch it anyways.

Jai Ho showtimes for Nagpur

Cinemax Eternity Mall – eternity mall, variety square, sitabudi, Nagpur, India
‎9:00‎ – ‎9:45‎ – ‎10:15am‎ – ‎12:45‎ – ‎1:15‎ – ‎2:45‎ – ‎3:45‎ – ‎4:15‎ …
Raj Talkies – Nagpur, India
‎12:00‎ – ‎3:00‎ – ‎6:00‎ – ‎9:00pm‎
Pvr Empress City Mall – empress city mall, opposite raman science centre gandhi sagar lake, Nagpur, India
‎9:00‎ – ‎9:30‎ – ‎10:00‎ – ‎11:00am‎ – ‎12:00‎ – ‎12:30‎ – ‎1:00‎ – ‎2:10‎ …
Janki Theatre – near bank of maharashtra, sitabuldi, Nagpur, India
‎12:30‎ – ‎3:30‎ – ‎6:30‎ – ‎9:30pm‎
Rajvilas Cinema – nagpur mahal, Nagpur, India
‎12:30‎ – ‎3:30‎ – ‎6:30‎ – ‎9:30pm‎
Liberty – residency rd nr bishop ground, sadar, Nagpur, India
‎12:30‎ – ‎3:30‎ – ‎6:30‎ – ‎9:30pm‎
Alankar – north ambazari road, dharampeth, Nagpur, India
‎12:30‎ – ‎3:30‎ – ‎6:30‎ – ‎9:30pm‎
Panch Sheel – wardha road, Nagpur, India
‎12:30‎ – ‎3:30‎ – ‎6:30‎ – ‎9:30pm‎

Jai Ho : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

One by Two : Urban Diaries

One by Two has two parallel stories running side by side (many times literally shown by split screen). Amit Sharma (Abhay Deol) who works as a project manager in an IT company. He is recently dumped by his girl friend Radhika (Geetika Tyagi) who moves on in life with her new boy friend Ranjan Sadanah (Diwakar Pundir), who is a dance reality show producer. But Amit does not move on and wants Rahika back in his life. Amits’s colleagues and friends Anika (Preetika Chawla) and Mihir (Tahir Bhasin) always try to get him out of this idea.

In parallel happens the story of Samara Patel (Preeti Desai). She is a western dancer who is in casual relationship with her dance group leader Jonathan (Yudhishtir Urs). She too breaks up with him when he ditches her as lead dancer of the group and selects someone else. She lives with her mother Kalpana (Lillete Dubey) who is an alcoholic and needs Samara to take care of her. However, after Samara lives the dance group and decides to participate in Dance Reality show “Dance Wars”, Kalpana keeps her motivated.

When Amit knows that his ex Girlfriend Radhika’s boyfriend Ranjan is producer of “Dance Wars”, he makes a plan to hack into the voting system of the show and rig the results to make deserving candidates losers and vice versa. By doing this he wants to reduce the TRP of the show which can result is getting Ranjan hacked. He thinks this way Radhika can come back to his life.

Amit hacks the system with his friends and due to that Samara, who is supposed to win, looses the show. Show TRP decline and Amit succeeds in getting Ranjan out of the show. However, Radhika rejects him again saying he is the most boring person she has ever meet. However, she herself comes back to him to accept her after he becomes famous due to a coincidence.

What that coincidence is? How Amit becomes famous? What happens Samara? Do they ever meet? You can know all this when you watch the movie. The question is, shall we watch it?

This story and screenplay by Devika Bhagat is like urban diaries of 2 different persons who live in a city and happen to cross each others life many times without actually knowing it. The screenplay has many sub plots like that of Amit’s Mother Meenu (Rati Aghnihotri) trying to get him married with a plum Shishika (Yashika Dhillon), Samara’s father’s (Anish Trivedi) behaviour with her mother. Then that of a B Boying Dancer Bunty (Netrapal He-Ra Singh) who meets Samara on Dance Wars and that of Amit’s poet uncle ACP Dhawan (Darshan Jariwala), etc. These sub plots does not help take the story forward. The main stories strictly run parallel and the lead actors do not actually meet each other for a lot longer bit that you would expect. So we can only assume that Devika only wanted to show urban diaries of two people. The film has an open ending or scope of sequel (which shall not be made). Devika has also written the dialogs with Manoj Tapadia, which does to help in the film anyways.

Devika again takes the mantle as Director of the film and do not show much potential here too. Rather than the main story, Devika somewhat succeeds in portraying the relationships of Amit and his friends, Amit and his mother, Amit and his Uncle, Amit and his arranged marriage would be bride, etc. Barring that the movie is a drag and convoluted tale of urban people which is not narrated in an entertaining manner. Editor Shan Mohammed despite excelling in technically weaving the two stories together, could not save the film as the writer and Director was unsure of what she wanted to say.

Cinematography by Sameer Arya is glossy and glamourous. Production Design by Mustafa Stationwala is good. I must applaud the attention to detail in using ubuntu desktop on the computer screens (considering Amit manages forums and is a hacker). Music by Shankar Ehsaan Loy is average without any chartbusters. Choreography by Ashley Lobo is frustratingly bad considering dance and dance acts form major portion of the film. It is a total lost chance in that department.

The best part in the film is brilliant performances by the supporting cast like Rati Agnihotri, Darshan Jariwala, Lillete Dubey, Yashika Dhillon, Tahir Bhasin and Preetika Chawala. Abhay Deol’s earnest effort could not salvage the film as he does not get to show any other expression than boredom in most part of the film (which is induced in the audience too). Preeti Desai as Samara does not impress at all. She is said to be trained dancer but does not get to show her skills due to shoddy choreography. Overall casting by Panchami Ghavri is a hit and miss case. Great example of Miss case is B Boy Netrapal He-Ra Singh as Bunty.

Overall it is a yawn inducing movie which makes us “pakawoed” like Abhay Deol is in the movie.

Rating :

Recommendation : If you want to sleep, why to buy ticket and go to theatre. SKIP!

One by Two : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Hasee Toh Phasee : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

2 States Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Revolver Rani : Caught between caricature and realism Revolver Rani missed the target

A story must have a start, a middle conflict/twist and an end. It’s the bare minimum requirement for telling an interesting tale. But more often than not, creators miss it. Another aspect of a good story is its characterisation. Good characterisation adds to the overall value of the product. But characterisation alone can not produce a good story.

Sai Kabir’s Story and Screenplay has same problem. It has fascinating characters but lacks in narrative strength. It just does not have a a proper flow. It has a lot going on but you wonder: WHY?

The story is about Alka Singh (Kangana Ranaut) who is a revolver trotting goon and politician in Chambal. Story starts without giving us any reason to root for her. Her political rivals Uday Bhan Singh (Zakir Hussain) and his brothers Pankaj Saraswat (Monu) and Kumud Mishra (Sonu) are thirsty for her blood. Though Uday Bhan Singh wins the election against Alka Singh by many wrong doings, Alka is very popular in public due to her no holds bar personality. She gate crashes Uday’s rally shoots vehemently at them. Uday gets her in the jail but this event is used to rise her popularity by Alka’s Mama Balli (Piyush Mishra) by portraying her as “Aung san suu kyi” of Chambal. Alka never does anything against Balli as he has brought her up since childhood after she shoots her Parent’s Killer and shaped her business as mafia and career as a politician. Alka make allegations of 200 cr of bribery on Uday. Due to her rising popularity, Uday orders her release on insistence by Home Minister (Sanjay Singh).

While all these political activities of Alka are in progress to get control over her land, she controls the life of her boy toy Rohan Mehra (Vir Das) who actually got into her life for her money so that she can produce films for him. Rohan is cheating with Alka as he is involved with another girl Nisha (Deana Uppal) to whom he promises to be making a heroine. Rohan gets caught by Alka and is thrown in house arrest by her. Later when she comes out of jail, she tries to win him back by showing her plans for him.

In the meanwhile, Balli gets Uday to resign due by doing a sting operation regarding the 200 cr bribe issue. While in celebration of this event, Alka who is infamous for being “Banjh” i.e. unable to bear a child, gets the news that she is pregnant. Is she able to bring her child into the world? Does Rohan accepts his responsibility as father and her husband? Is Alka able to win control over the land?

The screenplay goes haywire in narrative style. It lags at many places and appears to be moving at snail’s pace. Still, witty dialogues and quirky characters keep us involved in the proceedings. Kabeer seems to be very impressed by Anurag Kashyap style of film making and his epic work “Gangs of Wasseypur”. It’s evident from the treatment of this film that Kabeer is under heavy influence of Anurag. However, he lacks in the story telling prowess of his idol.

The biggest problem is the director’s confusion about the treatment of the film. His touch of sarcasm and caricature to the characters make the lose the gravity. Hence the suspension of disbelief is harmed at many places especially in Alka’s character. If it she was treated as seriously as other action heroes, it could have been more effective.

Kabeer should’ve also been brutal at the editing table with his editor Aarti Bajaj to reduce the fat from the body of the product. But he goes in self indulgent way harming the effectivity of the film.

However, he extracts great performances by a great cast selected by casting Director Rohit Nag who did a fabulous job on casting. Every actors even in small roles like Mishka (news reader Payal Parihar), Deana Uppal (Nisha), Sanjay Singh (home minister), Nikunj Malik (Zaheera Shaikh), Preeti Sood (Gutki), Syed Zeeshan Quadri (Michael Jackson loving Pilot) and Saroj (Haseena Bano), Rahul Gandhi (as Jai), Abhijeet Shetty (as Veeru), Rahul Mittra (as Dr. Bhalla) has ample scope to get noticed. Credit goes to the Writer-Director for that. One can not miss the funny scenes by Uday Bhan Singh (Zakir Hussain), Kumud Kumar Mishra (as Sonu) and Pankaj Saraswat (as Monu). You will carry those characters with you.

As far the lead actors, Kangana impresses again with her balanced portrayal of powerful but quirky don and vulnerable lover/mother who yearns for a norma life. While she looks glamorous in her italian fashion lingerie and tub bath scenes, she appears like Death Goddess in the climax fight. However, the role is hampered by bad writing and confusion in Director’s mind about the treatment. Kangana cannot be blamed for that.

Vir Das who gets a solo lead role, mostly has to react which he does perfectly. He shows the charming as well as selfish sides of Rohan effortlessly. Piyush Pande impresses as Balli but again this role seems similar to his role in Gangs of Wasseypur.

Music (by Sanjeev Srivastava) is again on the lines of GOW but not that great. Surender Sodhi’s background could be better. Action by Kaushal-Moses is good. Production design by Mayur Sharma is apt. I also loved the title sequence.

To sum it all, one definitely enjoys this movie in bits and parts but comes out unsatisfied and dull from the theatre. So the effort is good but not great.

Rating : 2.5 stars
(0.5 extra is given for the quirky characters otherwise it’s a 2 star movie)

Recommendation : If you crave for something different and love unusual characters (or if you are a Kagana fan), you can watch the movie but will have to bear with the dull portions of it. Movie is rated U/A and I would say avoid watching it with kids and parents. Others who want perfect product, can skip it.

Cinemax Eternity Mall – eternity mall, variety square, sitabudi, Nagpur
‎9:00am‎ – ‎2:45‎ – ‎11:00pm‎
Pvr Empress City Mall – empress city mall, opposite raman science centre gandhi sagar lake, Nagpur
‎11:30am‎ – ‎2:20‎ – ‎7:30‎ – ‎10:15pm‎
Liberty – residency rd nr bishop ground, sadar, Nagpur
‎12:45‎ – ‎3:45‎ – ‎6:45‎ – ‎9:45pm‎
Inox Tuli Mall – kamptee road, nagpur, Nagpur
‎9:15am‎ – ‎2:20‎ – ‎7:45‎ – ‎10:30pm‎
Inox Poonam Mall – poonam mall, Nagpur
‎9:00am‎ – ‎2:10‎ – ‎7:30pm‎

Revolver Rani : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Director: Subhash Ghai
Running time: 142 minutes
Cast: Mithun Chakraborty
Music composed by: Salim & Sulaiman, Ismail Darbar

Till 15 years back, Subhash Ghai was called the showman of Bollywood, a title that was once associated with Raj Kapoor. He did justice to it with blockbusters like Karz, Hero, Ram Lakhan, Saudagar, Khalnayak, Pardes and Taal.

Cut to 2014, there’s little buzz around Kaanchi which is a launchpad of Mishty. Did Subhash Ghai do justice to his showman tag?
You cannot miss the Ghai flavor in Kaanchi. Mishty plays a typical Subhash Ghai heroine. Merge the personalities of the female protagonists of Taal and Pardes in your head, and you will get Kaanchi. Like his previous films, Ghai has also played a cameo in one of the songs. But what we missed in Kaanchi was Ghai’s magical touch that transformed an ordinary tale into a gripping one.

Kaachi is a village belle from Uttrakhand’s Koshampa. She is free-spirited, innocent and challenges established norms. It is Binda (Kartik) who stands up against corrupt brothers Shaam Kakra (Mithun, a politician) and Jhoomar Babu (Rishi, a businessman). Kartik’s brutal murder transforms Kaanchi from a vulnerable girl to a fighter who will not give up till she changes the system.
The narrative of the film is way too slow to capture the attention span of most sections of the audience. The film that lasts for 2 hours 20 minutes could have been easily wrapped in less than 2 hours. Ghai for sure needs a good editor for his next. There’s something wrong with the storytelling style as well, as it doesn’t hook you enough.

The film has a message though – if you are determined enough, you can win any battle.

The most impactful scene of the film comes towards the interval, when Kaanchi declares she cannot bear the injustice anymore and disconnects from her mother to connect with her true self.

The climax of the film is stretched though. By then, you desperately want the film to end.

For a debut venture, Mishty has done a decent job, but she has a long way to go. Mishty’s performance is not as natural as her face. Veterans Mithun and Rishi steal the show, especially Mithun who plays a subtle but crooked character with aplomb. Rishabh Sinha who plays Mithun’s son has a very good screen presence. Chandan Roy Sanyal (of Kaminey fame) delivers a strong performance.

Overall Kaanchi has a soul that is lacking in a lot of films today. It has a message also, which one can take back home. What it lacks is the grip, the magic and the experience of a Bollywood film.

Cinemax Eternity Mall – eternity mall, variety square, sitabudi, Nagpur
‎11:45am‎ – ‎8:00pm‎
Pvr Empress City Mall – empress city mall, opposite raman science centre gandhi sagar lake, Nagpur
‎9:00am‎ – ‎12:00‎ – ‎5:00‎ – ‎10:40pm‎
Inox Tuli Mall – kamptee road, nagpur, Nagpur
‎10:15am‎ – ‎4:15‎ – ‎7:15‎ – ‎10:15pm‎
Inox Poonam Mall – poonam mall, Nagpur
‎10:30am‎ – ‎4:30‎ – ‎10:15pm‎

Movie Review : Kaanchi demands patience to touch your heart

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Hawaa Hawaai : Of Hopes, Dreams and all the goodness in this extremely bad world

Cast:Partho Gupte, Saqib Saleem, Pragya Yadav, Makarand Deshpande, Devraya Gole, Neha Joshi, Rekha Kamat
Director: Amole Gupte
Writer: Amole Gupte

Amol Gupte who started his film career from Amir Khan Production’s “Taare Zamin Par” and then Directed “Stanley ka Dabba”, has come up with his new offering “Hawaa Hawaai”. This Writer-Director-Producer has unique knack of dealing with child actors and presenting the world of children with great sensitivity and compassion.

Amol Gupte has written the story-screenplay-dialogues for this movie. Story is a often told tale of a poor boy triumphing it in the sports world with the help of a passionate teacher. What makes it different is the screenplay which proves that movies are Director’s medium. Screenplay is focused and grippy. Though it is not edge of the city, it keeps you glued to the narration.

Story is of Arjun Harishchandra Waghmare (master Partho Gupte) from a lower middle class household from a small village in Yavatmal District. His family is happy and he gets very good values and manners from his father Harishchandra Waghmare (Makarand Deshpande) who is a hardworking good farmer with devotion to Marathi Saint’s teachings. Only people who know the background of “Tulashi-maal” wearing devotees of Marathi Saints known as “Warkari” tribe will understand the happiness of the not very rich but happy farmer family. These values make Arjun a hardworking and self respecting kid.

Due to some unfortunate incidence (which is revealed in the climax), Arjun’s family has to face loss of his father and migrate to Mumbai for livelihood. Arjun joins a tea vendor at Bandra Kurla Complex as a tea supplying boy.

At his workplace which is near a car parking lot, every evening rich kids gather flaunting their imported skates to practice for skating competitions on the empty parking space, under the able guidance of their coach Aniket ‘Lucky’ Bhargava (Saqib Saleem).

Arjun is fascinated by this magical sport which gives feeling which is close to flying. He develops a desire to learn skating and be a champion. When his friends Gochi (master Ashfaque Bismillah Khan), Bindaas Murugan (master Thirupathi N. Kushnapelli), Bhura (master Salman Chhote Khan) and Abdul (master Maaman Memon) know about is wish, they get together to make it happen. From their efforts and with the help of the Garage owner, Usmaan Chacha (Razzak Khan), they create their own indigenous Skate akin to the imported ones and name it “Hawaa Hawaai”.

Can this hawaa hawaai help Arjun achieve his dream? How does Aniket get involved in the dream of this poor boy? Can he help him make a champion? You can get answers to all these question in very entertaining, hart warming manner in this movie.

Amol Gupte excels in the Directorial seat and handles the subject very maturely. It’s incredible how he mixes the stark and dark reality with the innocence and happy faces of the kids. We just can not help wonder the zest for life in the worst possible situation by the kids who are stars of the movie.

Amol’s narrative style is visual and lets the story unfold scene by scene without explicitly explaining anything. He infuses a strong comment on “Farmer suicide” and ill effects of Genetically Modified seeds in a very subtle manner which, I am afraid, can be missed by not so keen audience.

Amol’s world is simple and good. Here the reality created by system is dark but the people enduring it are happy, compassionate and righteous in possible ways. While you have smile on your face due to the sparkles in the eyes of these poor kids, your heart burns watching the disparities and socio-economical injustice. Still Amol manages to avoid melodrama and over-preachiness and sticks to simple and entertaining story telling which gives us a pleasant experience with an understanding to be more compassionate.

The star performer is of course Gupte’s son Partho who plays the well raised kid Arjun who faces every obstacle with smile and sincerity. He is cute and a very good actor. He lends the required earnestness and incense to his character. He makes him come alive on the celluloid. He is ably supported by Gochi (Ashfaque Khan), Bhura (Salman Khan), Abdul (Maaman Menon) and Murugan (Tirupati Krishnapelli). However, Ashfaque Khan steals the show which is author backed role.

Another impressive and honest performance is by Saqib Saleem who plays Aniket. Anuj Sachdeva who plays his brother is good too. But the actress who plays his girlfriend is unimpressive. Razzak Khan gets a good role to play to which he gives justice. Makarand Deshpande and Neha Joshi as Arjun’s parents does good job. Divya Jagdale (as the doctor) marks her presence.

Editor Deepa Bhatia has done a good job keeping the movie to just 120 mins. Background score by Hitesh Sonik is impressive so is the sound design. Cinematography by Amol Gole and Vikas Sivaraman is outstanding. Production design by Amit Ray and Subrata Chakraborty is good.

Overall, it is an important movie which needs to be seen because of its honest portrayal of reality sans melodrama. I request every parents to watch this movie with full family so that their kids know the real life problems and still get a message to fight each of them with a smile on their face.

Recommendation: It is a must watch film. It’s clean, entertaining and heart warming film which must be seen. Do watch it.

Hawaa Hawaai movie review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Heropanti : Tiger Show Off

Rating :

Heropanti Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi : Feel-good entertainer

Delhi is a new favourite backdrop for Bollywood which is in search of different flavours and stories. It not only offers different visuals but also offers different dialects of Hindi. It also gives way to portray new type of quirky characters. Do duni chaar, Band Baja Barat, Delhi Belly, Fukrey and many more movies used this opportunity and succeeded. This week’s release “Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi” also presents the characters and story from this region.

Balaji Telefilms’ ALT Entertainment, being true to its name and aim of presenting alternate entertainment, again supports and presents a film with all newcomer actors and non mainstream storyline.

Story by Vijay Kapoor and Aman Sachdeva is a about two teenager friends Kuku Mathur (Siddharth Gupta) and Ronnie Gulati (Ashish Juneja). Kuku is devastated when he knows that his life till now was rocking because of his friend Ronnie who is a businessman’s son. When Ronnie gets busy in his own business of Matching Cloths Centre, Kuku comes to know that his own life is very uninteresting and full of struggle. With turn of events, he develops animosity against Ronnie and his family. Under influence of these bitter thoughts, which are further fuelled by his cousin, Prabhakar (Amit Sial), Kuku takes an action which brings the twist in the tale. What happens there after is the story of the film.

Story is little different and few characters too are unique and quirky. However, screenplay seems little bit stretched even after the film is below 2 hrs. Still there are few scenes and gags which shows the spark in writing and dialogs too are good and use of local dialects by different characters add to the authenticity of the scenes.

Director Aman Sachdeva shines in few scenes like Prabhakar’s Story about how he took revenge of his friend who stole his girlfriend and later when he gets hit by the door repeatedly. The director also succeeded in extracting good performances from his newbie cast. Only thing he could have done better is trying to make the movie faster with the help of his editor Bakul Matiyani. Overall, we can expect better work from Aman in future.

Performance wise, Siddharth Gupta as Kuku Mathur looks the part of the vulnerable, gullible and clueless teenager. Ashish Juneja as Ronnie also does justice to his role. Though both of their age does seem more for 12th pass students, they do fair job in portraying the characters. Another actor who leaves impression is Amit Sial as Prabhakar. Alok Chaturvedi and Roopa Ganguli as the guard of the godown and his wife, does impressive job. Brijendra Kala is able to bring out good laughs while essaying a character similar to Nirmal Baba.

Shazia Zahid has done fine job in Production Design which recreates the lower middle class environment. Cinematographer Uday Singh Mohite captures it beautifully. Background score by Amar Mohile is good though the film lacks in good songs. If it had 1-2 good chartbuster songs, it would have got more footfalls in the cinema hall. Balaji Production excels in bringing in another product which is focused on story telling sans any stars. There is no other way such actors will get any chance.

Overall, Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi is a sweet little entertainer which leaves a feel good taste when you are out of the theatre.

Recommendation : I recommend it to the audience who likes stories set in realistic and different environment with tiny little world of its own. If you do not want to watch the heavy on emotion CityLights, this can be your choice for this week.

Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Holiday : Terrific Action movie with Stale Love Story

A. R. Murugadoss is a big name in South Film Industry. In Hindi Film Industry too, he made his place in history through his “Ghajini”, the first film to cross 200 cr. After Amir Khan, now he ties up with Akshay Kumar and brings his new offering “Holiday : A Soldier is Never Off Duty” (Yeah, that’s the full name of the movies. As big as its duration)

Story of Holiday can be given in a brief. It’s about an Armyman, Captain Viraat Bakshi (Akshay Kumar) who comes to his home in Mumbai on Holidays to get married. His meeting with Nisha (Sonakshi Sinha) is arranged by is parents but Viraat rejects her initially. While he falls in her love again and tries to woe her, he roams around with his sub-inspector friend (Sumeet Raghavan). Once, while helping him in his work,  Viraat finds a sleeper cell agent and gets sucked into a mission of diffusing their mission. Can he do it? How he does it? Is he able to win over his girlfriend? All this and more is answered in the movie.

Story, Screenplay, Dialogues and Direction is credited to A. R. Murugadoss. The man sure knows his art and craft. He has a good story to tell but this time he could not bring the magic of “Ghajini” into screenplay. Ghajini had great love story. In fact, whenever that movie comes on television, I prefer to watch the love story part of it only. “Holiday” lacks in the lite portions of the screenplay. Other gags too are not funny enough. But Situation is totally different in the Action, Suspense and Thrilling part of the Screenplay. Things are tight and edge of the seat here. Audience is engrossed in these scenes. However, his efforts of emphasizing on sacrifices by army has gone overboard and only few may like that melodrama.

Again in the Direction Department, Murugadoss creates mixed experience. Surprisingly, he has chosen a very slow pace for such an action film which had the potential to be taught action thriller. With a better pace sans the songs (particularly in second half), the Director should have told his editor Amitabh Shukla to reduce the film duration from 170 min to around 120-130.

On the performance side, it is an out and out Akshay Kumar talent showcase. He looks young and fresh, dances energetically, acts smartly and does unbelievable stunts with extra ordinary ease. We can not help but like him. He makes us impressed by his attitude, acting and sincerity. A good film from Akshay Kumar after long time. Freddy Daruwala plays the cool headed, clever antagonist with matching finesse. He has very less dialogs and that’s a good part in a debut film to show sheer acting prowess. Watch both of them, especially Akki, in the climax fight.

Sonakshi Sinha is same as usual but here she gets to do way less than her other films.

Sumeet Raghvan is good as the sub-inspector friend. I was happy to see Govinda at the start of the movie. But he’s totally wasted. Govinda sure deserve better and bigger role. All other cast does justice to their roles.

Pritam Chakraborty’s Music lacks chartbuster songs and acts as a big hindrance in the already slow paced movie. Background score by Dileep Subramaniam is good. Production design by Sukant Panigraphy is excellent and so is the Cinematography by N Natarajan Subramaniam. The highlight of the movie is action. Hollywood Action Director Greg Powell shows why he was hired to do this job and delivers spell binding stunts.

Overall, an action packed film with sluggish pace and ineffective love story, Holiday is still able to entertain the audience.

Recommendation : A must watch for action lovers. Good watch for Masala film followers. Strictly passable for art and serious film affectionados. Overall, a clean movie which can be watched with family. Just bear with the slow pace.

Holiday Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

F*ugly : Over pretentious product of over thinking

Today’s generation (at least in Bollywood films) is confused between the western party culture and Indian values. Maybe because while catering to the materialistic (Read lustful) desires of the audience, film makers also want to touch their emotions. But unless one is a veteran and seasoned enough to handle and present best of both the worlds, the efforts fall flat.

Story of F*ugly written by Rahul Handa, seems “inspired” by multiple movies like Shaitan, Rang De Basanti, Fukrey, etc. We have seen many movies in which life of few friends who live on the edge for the kick of it goes haywire after they get caught into a seriously dangerous situation. Lately, we have also seen many movies using Delhi and northern landscape/dialects as backdrop with eccentric characters to complete the mix. F*ugle trades on similar path but tries to be serious with a patriotic undercurrent. Unfortunately, that’s where it fails. Screenplay is convoluted and goes out of control after initially hooking up the audience.

While the protagonists, Dev (Mohit Marwah), Gaurav (Vijender Singh), Aditya (Arfi Lamba) party hard, they have their own dreams like running an adventure camp, winning Boxing championship, etc. The heroine, Devi (Kiara Advani) who enjoys skimpy cloths, she is a serious girl with strong ethics. Every now and then she delivers lectures on moral science, fights against eve teasers and wishes happiness for her widow mother. While they enjoy exploiting the system by using the name of Gaurav’s Minister Father, they talk about how system is bad in India. It looks over pretentious and output of overthinking.

Director Kabir Sadanand shows promise with the start of the movie itself. The different shots in the starting titles demonstrating how ugly things are becoming across the society and age group and everyone is trying to adapt to the new world which is totally different from the one they are born and live in. He is in touch with lifestyle of today’s generation and uses it in the presentation. The adventure camp, going to Leh on Bullet, etc shows today’s aspirational youth. Kabir has the skill and craft but he needs a better screenplay and better actors.

The film generated enough buzz and curiosity due to its title and the title track. Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar extended their hand to promote the movie. However, the movie has all new star cast. The lead actor Mohit Marwah is unimpressive and so is the lead actress Kiara Advani. Boxer Vijender Singh shows potential and is actually has better screen presence in these 4.Arfi Lamba is good as the ever fearful friend. Anshuman Jha who plays role of the Party organiser and drug peddler Cheeni does good job in small role.

Jimmy Shergill, as R. S. Chautala, the evil inspector, is the highlight of the movie. He makes you want him dead every time he appears on screen. I am sure he will be nominated for best actor in negative role in few award functions. However if his role had some graph, it would have been better for the actor to do even better.

Music of the movie is average. Background music by Alok Punjani is apt. Choreography is too in same category. Editing by Shounak Ghosh is good enough. Production design by Vintee Bansal fair. Production Quality is good.

To sum it up, F*ugly does not live up to the expectation. It is an average movie which tries to be bigger than it can be.

Rating : 
Recommendation : Can be skipped. Wait for Satellite or DVD released. If you must watch a movie, it’s ok for a one time watch.

F*ugly : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Ek Villain : Gripping but unexciting

Rating :

Ek Villain : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Bobby Jasoos : More of a lite family entertainer than detective suspense thriller 

Vidya Balan is one of the only few actresses who gets to do films written for her. After strong female oriented films like “Parineeta”, “Kahani” and blockbuster “Lage Raho Munnabhai”, audience now expects a great film experience from her. After her last few films fizzled out, Vidya is here with “Bobby Jasoos”. Let’s she how it fairs.

Bobby Jasoos is about Bilkis/Bobby, a girl from a middle class family from old Hyderabad (Precisely Mughalpura) who is obsessed  with the idea of being a detective. She tries hard to get a job at G-Force Detective Agency but is insulted by the owner Sodhi (Sukesh Anand) and she challenges him that she will open a detective agency in front of his office.

Operating from a small cyber cafe run by Shetty (Prasad Barve), Bobby tries to solve various cases (Mostly related to background check for marriage proposals) with the help of Aakash Dahiya (Munna) and an electronic gadgets guy. She soon get a high paying job to find few people with just name, birth year and birth mark. Using her cleverness and unique ideas, Bobby does find 2 girls but then when she builds doubt for her own client, Anees Khan (Kiran Kumar), she tries to find the truth on why these people need to be found in first place.

While all this is happening, her father (Rajendra Gupta) is against all her activities, but she continues to do it due to the support of her mother (Supriya Pathak). Apart from this family track, there is a love track between Bobby and a a TV show host Tasawur (Ali Fazal), who is also her client who does not want to get married to the girl in same locality and social strata. Similarly, there is another small track of Lala (Arjan Bajwa) who is a local goon looking to marry Afreen (Anupriya).

All these tracks are intersected with each other and reveal the connections at the end.

Story by Samar Shaikh has interesting premise but has a week suspense track. Screenplay by Sanyukta Chawla Shaikh is good but again let down by the suspense blunder. However, the writing swiftly mixes various elements like the detective track, family track and the lover story and is interesting at many points even if it fails at few. We would have also loved more funny hyderabadi dialogs.

With a tighter screenplay and treatment like suspense thriller, it could have been better. But I think the writers did not had a suspense thriller but a small lite family film in mind. This is a classic case of disappointment due to marketing image projection and actual film content.

Director Samar Shaikh does a fine job though he should have made the film slicker by editing out unnecessary songs and by making the film tighter. Sometimes there is confusion in remembering so many characters and their motives in the multiple tracks which distracts audience from the flow of the story. First half of the movie is interesting and I liked the post interval parts till pre-climax more. In future, we can expect better movies from the Director.

The film has huge cast and Vidya herself plays many roles (or getups) in her detective endeavours. She is top notch though does look older to her hero in love scenes. She must do something about it. She does amuse the audience with her various getups and characters. Ali Fazal as Tasawur does equally good job. He is a natural. Similarly Supriya Pathak as Bobby’s mother does a very loveable job. Tanvi Azmi and Zarina Wahab are a delight to watch. Rajendra Gupta as Bobby’s father does a good job too. I liked the supporting casts Prasad Barve and Aakash Dahiya too. Arjan Bajwa as Lala also impresses in his small role. Everyone in every small role does a good job. In short, casting by Shruti Mahajan and Parag Mehta is spot on.

On the technical side, Cinematography by Vishal Sinha is remarkable. Production Design by Tariq Umar Khan is admirable. Vidyadhar Bhatte as Special Makeup effects artist must be mentioned. Editing by Hemal Kothari could have been better. Music by Shantanu Moitra is average and passé. Overall, a good production effort by Producers Dia Mirza and Sahil Sangha.

To sum it up, Bobby Jasoos is a good film if you do not go in theatres with prejudice to watch a detective suspense thriller. In fact it is a fun, lite, family entertainer with interesting love story.

Recommendation : If you like to watch lite entertainment and can live with few dull moments, then you will enjoy the film.

Bobby Jasoos : Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Siddharth Shukla
Music: Sachin-Jigar, Toshi Sabri
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Producer: Karan Johar
Writer: Shashank Khaitan
Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt once again hit the screen together with another entertainer ‘Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya’. The two had previously paired up in their debut ‘Student Of The Year’.

Feisty Ambala girl, Kavya Pratap Singh, daughter of an automobile mechanic-turned-transporter, wants an expensive designer lehenga for her impending wedding.
Brash Delhi boy, Rakesh alias Humpty Sharma, whose dad owns a small college bookstore, craves the new car that his old man has been saving up for.

When the two severely cash-strapped youngsters meet, they strike an instant rapport and resort to means fair and foul to help each other out in the pursuit of happiness.
Sure enough, love happens while they go about chasing their material desires. And just before it is time to part, they kiss and make out.

That is only one half of Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania. It is reasonably watchable.

The next half unspools in Ambala and it is all over the place. After the interval, it becomes another story.
The title tells us that the film is yet another ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ variant, so we can’t complain when the plot points start feeling the same, even if the details are different. So there’s your coming together of the girl (Alia) and boy (Varun Dhawan), initial smart-alecky backchat melting into passion.
Humpty (Varun Dhawan) and Kavya’s (Alia) turning up the heat makes Raj and Simran’s dalliance in those two decades-old mustard fields almost chaste. It makes the film feel real, and current. It tells us that time has passed, and things have changed, especially when it comes to showing young love on screen.
But the change is fleeting. In Bollywood, the more things change the more they stay the same. So there’s your stern ‘bauji’ (Ashutosh Rana), flanked by your ‘beeji’ and ‘veerji’ and company. From Dilli, the action shifts to a large homestead in Ambaley (if you are a true blue Punjabbi, you will not call it Ambala), which is all set to receive a suitable, ‘well-settled’ NRI groom (Sidharth Shukla), and act as a barrier to true love.
Debutant director Shashank Khaitan’s sure hand (and good ear) helps paper over a couple of improbable sequences in the first half, letting us in into the street-smart ways of Humpty and his besties, Poplu and Shonty (Sahil Vaid and Gaurav Pandey respectively, both excellent). But it deserts him when the romance kicks in, and the ‘dulha’ and the ‘dulhan’ and assorted characters are left dangling in a tiresome second half. So are we.

Johar and Khaitan do a decent work in reprising the Shah Rukh-Kajol starrer `DDLJ` and one can quite obviously see the resemblance between the two. If you ignore the weird end, the movie is a mass entertainer packed with romance, drama, action and comedy. It`s a typical larger-than-life Bollywood movie, the kind that Dharma Production is well known for and sure will attract young couples in love, even though it can not possibly leave an impact like `Dilwale…` did in the past.

Its a flat movie with some warm passages. Avoid if you have some other option to spend your weekend.

Movie Review : Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Hate Story 2: Revenge Story of an wounded mistress

First movie of Hate Story created a good buzz and did decent business owing to its clever marketing, good execution of plot and music. Vikram Bhatt who is Producer of that movie is also a Bhatt camp prodigy. Similar to the angst driven broken heart hero of Mahesh Bhatt, his heroine centric films are mostly bold, erotic stories having either the horror or the thriller genre. Vikram Bhatt excels in both and even after branching out of Bhatt Camp, he continued with these 2 genres.

Second instalment of Hate Story promises similar erotic thriller experience in a bolder version. Does it live up to the expectations created by the marketing buzz (that the hot scenes in the movies are so hot that those are banned by the censor)?

This time the story is about Sonika (Surveen Chawla) who is a mistress of Mandar Mhatre who is a politician ruling Mumbai. Mandar practically owns Sonika’s life under the threat that he will hurt her Grandmother if she tries to run away. While passing her suffocating life in the Golden Cage given by Mandar, Sonika meets Akshay at her photography class and they fall in love. Mandar finds this out and what happens next is anyones guess.

Screenplay by Madhuri Banerjee starts on a promising note. It does have its pluses but slides down spirally as movie progresses. Sonika and Mandar parts are good and but the love story between Akshay and Sonika is lacklustre. There is nothing in the screenplay which gives us reason to love Akshay and root for Sonika to take her revenge. However, writing is showcased shaping up Mandar’s Character. Dialogs by Girish Dhamija are good.

Director Vishal Pandya gets a weak script which lacks emotionally. However, Vishal misses the chance to make it for it by providing good quality erotica as promised in the marketing buzz. The much touted hot scenes are total flat. Having said that, he shows promise in packaging of the movie. So with a better script, he could show some magic. The editor of the movie Kuldip Mehan did a fabulous job. I specially liked the way he does transition from flashback to the the main story.

Vishal did good work in extracting good performances by his cast. The lead Surveen Chawla does good job considering the movie revolves around her. I would have liked more emotions in her eyes which does not speak but overall she did decent work. But same can not be said about scorching the screen due to hotness. But then there are a lot of things which makes a scene hot and the actress alone can not be blamed for that.

Jay Bhanushali is total miscast and has minuscule role. He gets to kiss a lot and that’s what is the only benefit he could get from this movie. Another miscast is the actor in the role of inspector. He looks too pretentious and is impact-less. Everyone else has done justice to their job.

The best part of this movie is Sushant Singh who plays the baddie Mandar Mhatre. He is pure evil and is impressive till the Director decides to waste it all by Singham like fearful reactions from him in the climax. If he had continued the pure evil stance, it would have been better. Still, the Half star is given specially for Sushant. Event the actress who plays his wife is good.

Production Quality of the movie is good. Cinematography by Kedar Gaikwad is apt. Music is average. The saving grace is the remix of “Aaj Phir Tumpe Pyaar Aaya Hai”. However, Pink lips by Meet Brothers featuring Sunny Leone is not that good. Also the placement of the song is too abrupt.

Overall, It is an average movie with good first half and bad second half.

Rating :

Recommendation : Watch it when it airs on satellite television or on DVD. Save money !

Hate Story 2: Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Kick : Devil Wears a Mask

“Kick” is Salman’s Eid Release. This sentence is sufficient to describe the scale of the movie. Apart from this, Kick has another reason behind excitement (for avid movie goes who knows behind the scene information too). Sajid Nadiadwala is in a big ticket producer in Hindi Film Industry. He has a long list of credentials as Producer and Writer. With “Kick”, he debuts as a Director. Both these things make “Kick” to be a grand movie.

“Kick” is about super genius Devi Lal Singh (Salman Khan) who can not stick to any job as he does not get the necessary KICK out of it. He changed over 30 jobs and still trying to find something which can give him a KICK. So he keeps doing stuff which is abnormal for normal people. But he does all this to help others. In one such effort, he meets Shaina Mehra (Jacqueline Fernandez) who is a poland based psychiatrist and falls in love with her. However, she is looking for a stable and sensible partner and Devi leaves her one day citing reason that he can’t be moulded into something that she wants and he isn’t. Shaina goes back to Poland but even after an year or so she can’t forget him and lives a sad life.

Shaina’s father, Brijesh Mehra (Saurabh Shukla) succeeds in convincing her to try and meet the husband prospects they arrange for her. Through one such arrangement, she meets Himanshu Tyagi (Randeep Hooda) in a train journey. While discussing each other’s past, she tells Himanshu about Devi and his weird but interesting activities and their love story. Similarly, Himanshu tells that he is a cop and not in Poland for just marriage but on look out a genius thief, Devil, who steals crores of money using high tech gadgets and unbelievable technics.

While Devi Lal and Devil both has clever intelligent ways to get things executed, Devi does it either for pranks or to help others. While Devil does it to steal crores of money. So is there a connection between Devi and Devil? Are they twins (like in Dhoom 3) or are they same (like in Krishh?). What happens to the love story between Shaina and Devi and the arranged marriage effort between her and Himanshu? Who wins her finally? Does Himanshu succeeds in nabbing the Devil? All such questions can get answers when you watch the film.

“Kick” is (not surprisingly) a remake of the Telugu Blockbuster of the same name. Written by Vakkantham Vamsi, it has a baseline story somewhat similar to Dhoom 3 but the revenge is not for a very personal reason here. Screenplay has a team of writers working on it with big names like Chetan Bhagat for Additional Screenplay along with Rajat Arora, Keith Gomes and Sajid Nadiawala himself. The screenplay is interestingly structured and reveals the content layer by layer. But many a times, things seems stretched and makes the on goings dull. The love story track has not much meet barring Salman Khan who pulls it off through his sheer charisma and talent.

Director Sajid Nadiadwala could have opted for sharper edit with the help of his editor Rameshwar S. Bhagat who did a good job but could have made it even crispier being more ruthless and stylish. Though such glitches are there, Sajid no where feels to be a debutant Director. This project has so big a canvas that we must applaud him for pulling it off with such ease in his first effort as Director. A Multilayered, Non-linear narration keeps the movie flowing and what works even more for it is the choice of actors.

I always say that having good actors in strong supporting characters is a big strength to any movie. Casting is one of the great plus points of Kick. Sanjay Mishra as Inspector, Saurabh Shukla as Shaina’s Father, Mithun Chakraborty as Devi’s father and Archana Puran Singh as Devi’s mother pulls of the first half. While Nawazuddin Siddiqui in his outstanding performance as Shiv Gajra and Randeep Hooda in his measured performance keep the second half interesting. Hats off to Sajid Nadiadwala for casting such brilliant actors. But then he chose Jacqueline Fernandez for such big role and that can be said as a mistake. She simply can’t act. She looks great, has fabulous and toned body, gyrates unbelievably to the musical beats but is an wood face. Such a waste. A better actress and better written love story would have elevated this movie to next level.

Salman is all over the movie and in almost every frame. And he proves that he is worth it. He gets a great entry which fills the theatre with applause and whistles. He is looking fresh, energetic and seems he has put real interest in this project. We get a hint of innocent Prem in Devi (is this preparation for Barjatya’s movie?) and I must say it is refreshing. Salman does everything with finesse including all the dance moves, action sequences, emotional scenes and shows great comic timing. He tries to give a message whenever he can using this purely commercial platform and also does brand promotion of his “Being Human” enterprise. And rather than shrugging his efforts off, one shall appreciate the intention. It is an out and out Salman movie, a perfect Eidee for his fans.

Another outstanding performance is by Nawazudding Siddiqui. Though his character gets confusing entry and we know what part he is actually playing after a while, he shows his mettle and proves he is one of the finest actors today. With this role, he secures his position in commercial cinema, but I hope he gets few awards too.

Technically, Kick is a superb production. Production Design by Rajnish Hedao, Cinematography by Ayananka Bose and Alexander Witt is brilliant. Anl Arasu and Stefan Richte is outstandly good. Music by Himesh Reshmiya, Meet Brothers and Yo Yo Honey Singh is good and Choreography by Ahmed Khan is innovative and fresh. But the songs are awkwardly placed and if removed will not affect the film anyway.

Overall, it is a big canvas, big budget movie to be watched on big screen with whole family and friends. It is  clean entertainer. May not have repeat value due to lengthiness but is a good one time watch.

Recommendations : Good pop-corn entertainment and one time watch. Enjoy!

Kick Movie review by Prashen H. Kyawal

Nagpur Today : Nagpur News

Its Entertainment: Not that Entertaining

Akshay Kumar is an action star who turned into a fine comic actor with slew of comedies in past. Though it has given him success, he got type cast in similar roles. In Priyadarshan and Aness Bazmee movies, he played almost similar characters with same kind of acting. Now he has changed his style a bit and he is looking fresh and young day by day. After good run of “Holiday” at box office he is back with “Its Entertainment”.

It was a rumour in film circuit that the film is mostly based on a Dog and Akshay has very small role in it which is being leveraged for marketing purpose. But the film makes that allegation false. He has a full length role as usual.

In this movie, he plays Akhil Lokhande who works day and night to make sure he has enough money to treat his ailing father (Darshan Jariwala) in a good hospital. His friend played by Krishna Abhishek and girlfriend Sakshi (Tamannaah Bhatia) is always in support of him. One day when both go to see his father, they come to know that he is cheating on Akhil by saying he is sick just to enjoy the 5 star treatment at hospitals. After some more probing, Akhil finds out that he is not his real father. He had found him in a train accident where Akhil’s mother died. Soon after that, Akhil finds out that his biological father is Pannalal Johri (Dilip Tahil) who is a businessman of 3000 crore worth empire in Bangkok. But as soon as Akhil knows this, he gets a news that Pannalal Johri died.

Akhil goes to Bangkok to claim inheritance of the 3000cr empire. There he finds out that his father has given that whole property to a Dog named “Entertainment”. What happens after that is the story of the movie.

Story by K. Subhash is turned into screenplay by Farhad-Sajid who is the writer duo behind all Rohit Shetty’s movies. With this movie they are debuting as Director too. The story is far fetched and screenplay runs into trouble in second half. At 140 mins, it is a too big movie for a such small storyline. The saving grace of the movie are witty Dialogs by Farhad-Sajid themselves and many gags in the movie. However these are more in first half which is entertaining but the second half is tad boring due to less such effective gags.

In the Director’s role, Farhad-Sajid seem to be fallen in love with their own written material and forgot that it would have been better to have a crisper and shorter movie. Though they have kept the speed and energy in narration in first half, the second half feels lengthy even after introduction of villains (Prakash Raj and Sonu Sood as Karan and Arjun). This Writer Duo needs to definitely write something better for their next movie to prove their prowess in Direction too.

On the performance front, Akshay Kumar is good as usual. He is looking good, infuses energy in his character and does good action. He is ably supported by Krishna Abhishek who gets very funny dialogs to mouth. He does complete justice to his role. So does Mithoon Chakraborty in role of Sakshi’s father. Sonu Sood and Prakash Raj are good in negative role with comic treatment. Tamannaah is ok. And yes, the Dog is good too.

Songs in the movie by Sachin-Jigar are not that good except ‘Johny Johny’ which too won’t have much shelf life. Background music by White Noise Production is good. Cinematography by Manoj Soni is excellent. I think VFX is used in many portions of the movie and those are done adequately. Editing by Steven Bernard should have been crisper and more ruthless.

Overall, Its Entertainment is enjoyable in parts but lengthy and dull in second half. It can be a good one time viewing for family and kids or with large group of friend who can compensate for the dull moments.

Recommendation : Unless you are watching it with large group of fun people, skip it and wait for DVD or Satellite Broadcast.

Its Entertainment: Movie Review by Prashen H. Kyawal