Kaamyaab
Directed by : Hardik Mehta
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7881550/
Just enjoying life.. aur option kya hai?
Spoilers ahead..
In a random interview with a journalist, Sudheer (Sanjay Mishra) a yesteryear's famous sideactor learns that he did 499 films and with a friends suggestion he gets motivated to complete 500 movies and come out of retirement. There's a lovely tribute done at starting credits with many popular Hindi movies sideactors from Samba to others shown. Some of them are in the film too like Viju Khote, Birbal, Lilliput, Avtar Gill etc, the latter in a long role. Love Avtar's pretending to be Hirani scene or when he is with Sudheer at a place to do some stupid advertisement to earn some money. The starting scene is hilarious way Sudheer tries to define a side-actor also known as potato or someone whose value is nothing in comparison to stars, before journalist gets annoyed and asks him to be positive and motivate people with something better and we see him put on his character face. His character 'Shera' clearly felt like depiction of Sholay's iconic 'kitne aadmi the' scene with different setup and dialogues, and quite well done. I had problems with the star they kept, Rahul Chopra (Vikas Verma), unless there was money issues, a real star like Hrithik or maybe Shahrukh would had worked better, specially for that climax scene when the audience turn face and forget Sudheer performing for them on stage. Also, we get to see very less of Sudheer's daughter, Bhavna.. played very well by Sarika Singh who in one of the scene tells Sudheer that doing an extra film won't change his old status. Isha Talwar as the neighbour living in same building also gets some nice scenes with Sudheer, my favourite when he tells her how her wife was heartbroken when she learned the song 'Jab koi baat bigad jaaye' was a copied song and then both start humming the track, one in english and other in hindi. Deepak Dobriyal as Dinesh Gulati who believes in only casting and no couch, is fun to watch too, lovely dream sequence between him and Sudheer, and that funny Steve Bucknor reference. There's a lot to like in Kaamyaab, yet you can't help but feel it never reaches a level up from where it starts, maybe the director wanted to keep it lighthearted with less conflicts. Should watch it, you won't regret.
My Rating : 6/10
Extraction
Directed by : Sam Hargrave
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8936646/
You drown not by falling into the river but by staying submerged in it.
Mr Mahajan (Pankaj Tripathi), a druglord gangster who is in prison gets information that his son Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) got kidnapped by his rivalgang leader Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli) in Dhaka. He asks Saju (Randeep Hooda), who works for him, to go there and get his son back at any cost. Saju hires a fearless mercenary, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) who is a broken man and got nothing to lose on this suicidal looking extraction mission. If a movie without plot and emotions but just action works for you then Extraction would be a decent timepass movie. I got tired very early, there's the cliched Tyler's flashback with something bad that had happened with his son. Then the very quick bond developing between Ovi and Tyler. Pankaj got just one scene in entire film, while Randeep Hooda's hairstyle is irritating and also has a long fight sequence that I assume is one-take (getting too repetitive, didnt we have 1917 already?), only to see him join Tyler later on to save Ovi from the streets of Dhaka that have been locked down with Amir Asif having control over army and police. By the way Priyanshu Painyuli felt awfully miscast for this role. Also, I am not sure if it was true depiction of Bangladesh way it was shown. Nice to see Golshifteh Farahani (playing Nik Khan, leading the extraction), last time I saw her in a film was long ago in Paterson which I had loved a lot. Unfortunately like others, her character also is under-written. Even Chris Hemsworth fails to impress. Easily a movie I will forget I had watched.
My Rating : 3/10
Directed by : Hardik Mehta
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7881550/
Just enjoying life.. aur option kya hai?
Spoilers ahead..
In a random interview with a journalist, Sudheer (Sanjay Mishra) a yesteryear's famous sideactor learns that he did 499 films and with a friends suggestion he gets motivated to complete 500 movies and come out of retirement. There's a lovely tribute done at starting credits with many popular Hindi movies sideactors from Samba to others shown. Some of them are in the film too like Viju Khote, Birbal, Lilliput, Avtar Gill etc, the latter in a long role. Love Avtar's pretending to be Hirani scene or when he is with Sudheer at a place to do some stupid advertisement to earn some money. The starting scene is hilarious way Sudheer tries to define a side-actor also known as potato or someone whose value is nothing in comparison to stars, before journalist gets annoyed and asks him to be positive and motivate people with something better and we see him put on his character face. His character 'Shera' clearly felt like depiction of Sholay's iconic 'kitne aadmi the' scene with different setup and dialogues, and quite well done. I had problems with the star they kept, Rahul Chopra (Vikas Verma), unless there was money issues, a real star like Hrithik or maybe Shahrukh would had worked better, specially for that climax scene when the audience turn face and forget Sudheer performing for them on stage. Also, we get to see very less of Sudheer's daughter, Bhavna.. played very well by Sarika Singh who in one of the scene tells Sudheer that doing an extra film won't change his old status. Isha Talwar as the neighbour living in same building also gets some nice scenes with Sudheer, my favourite when he tells her how her wife was heartbroken when she learned the song 'Jab koi baat bigad jaaye' was a copied song and then both start humming the track, one in english and other in hindi. Deepak Dobriyal as Dinesh Gulati who believes in only casting and no couch, is fun to watch too, lovely dream sequence between him and Sudheer, and that funny Steve Bucknor reference. There's a lot to like in Kaamyaab, yet you can't help but feel it never reaches a level up from where it starts, maybe the director wanted to keep it lighthearted with less conflicts. Should watch it, you won't regret.
My Rating : 6/10
Extraction
Directed by : Sam Hargrave
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8936646/
You drown not by falling into the river but by staying submerged in it.
Mr Mahajan (Pankaj Tripathi), a druglord gangster who is in prison gets information that his son Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) got kidnapped by his rivalgang leader Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli) in Dhaka. He asks Saju (Randeep Hooda), who works for him, to go there and get his son back at any cost. Saju hires a fearless mercenary, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) who is a broken man and got nothing to lose on this suicidal looking extraction mission. If a movie without plot and emotions but just action works for you then Extraction would be a decent timepass movie. I got tired very early, there's the cliched Tyler's flashback with something bad that had happened with his son. Then the very quick bond developing between Ovi and Tyler. Pankaj got just one scene in entire film, while Randeep Hooda's hairstyle is irritating and also has a long fight sequence that I assume is one-take (getting too repetitive, didnt we have 1917 already?), only to see him join Tyler later on to save Ovi from the streets of Dhaka that have been locked down with Amir Asif having control over army and police. By the way Priyanshu Painyuli felt awfully miscast for this role. Also, I am not sure if it was true depiction of Bangladesh way it was shown. Nice to see Golshifteh Farahani (playing Nik Khan, leading the extraction), last time I saw her in a film was long ago in Paterson which I had loved a lot. Unfortunately like others, her character also is under-written. Even Chris Hemsworth fails to impress. Easily a movie I will forget I had watched.
My Rating : 3/10
