Music Review : Jhootha hi Sahi

Cry Cry : Rashid Ali and Shreya Goshal
Very Different composition, a song that takes place as a conversation between lead actor and actress, where John trying to tell Pakhi that we people keep crying over small things, past life and etc etc. Rahman gives the song similar treatment as Tu hi meri dost with Rashid Ali over first major half of song and later Shreya joins in taking it to the end. Also, special mention to the trumpet(if I got it right) used in the song. The song though a fun based, has got a very good feel in it. It easily goes into the cheer you up kinda songs.

Maiya Yashoda (Jamuna Mix and Thames Mix): Javed Ali and Chinmayee
Its hard to review religious songs. Aneways, Both versions are quite similar except for some addtional beats used in thames mix. Chinmayee impresses the most in both songs, her  voice very much suits Pakhi. Its clearly visible when you listen song with Pakhi face as vision. Rahman does well but its not a song that I would remember much in a longer run.

Hello Hello : Karthik 
A very tough song to compose. But nothing is tough when its Rahman the composer you got. The reason its tough is the fact that he uses telephone tunes and rings during the song along with the background instruments and vocals of Karthik, and they all together gel so well. Composing a song having that many variations can so easily go wrong, but not the case here. Only thing that does bug though is the use of "Hello Hello" lyrics a bit too much during the song. Otherwise, Karthik the singer and Rahman the composer impresses immensely here. Also, a mention to the lyrics, "Mujhse zara baatein karo, halki zara raatein karo, suraj ki pehli kirno se meri zindagi ko bharo".

Do Nishaaniyaan : Sonu Nigam
Typical Slow Addictive song from a rahman album. Keep listening it, until you fall in love with it. I would still say that it could had been better in terms of lyrics, though composition is brilliant. Kinda of romance with feelings and emotions through later stanzas. I think this is the "Kahin toh hogi" of Jhootha hi Sahi, which will grow more on you after film.

Pam Pa ra : Shreya Goshal 
Its very rare when a shreya goshal solo track from a big album doesnt create any impact. And add to it the fact that the main background pieces from the 1st theatrical trailer are from this song only. But this song just doesnt impress, no matter how hard you try to. Only thing that I liked was all the background pieces that run throughout the song. The song would most probably be used after 1st phone call of Pakhi to John, when she shares her sorrows. May look better with visuals, as a audio not much.

I will be waiting : Vijay Yesudas
Combine "Tu bole(jaane tu ya jaane na) and Pari(saawariya)" and you get this song. No, I didnt mean that its a copy or inspired from them. Just that, the feel and rhythm of the song goes on the lines of those two songs. Its a touch slow but the mood is setup very well with the arrangements that the slowness never comes across. And then the trademark Rahman's use of just background in the final 1 min of the song without any vocals gives the song a very nice end just the way it started. Yesudas voice is very pleasant to the ears.

Do Nishaaniyan Reprise : Sonu Nigam
Sad version of the song, around 3 min long. Impressive, especially the lyrics "Main kaabil hi kab tha, teri chaahto ka.. hai jaayaz yeh tanhaaiyan". The background setup is exactly same as the original song, except for some additional background to make a emotional effect.Also, a alaap by sonu in the final portion of the song.

Call me Dil : Rashid Ali 
Final song of the album, and guess what, here is the Best Song of the album. Just like "Rehna tu of Delhi6", Call me dil touches your soul. The song has the protaganist i.e John trying to convey that he may be a lier but his heart never lies. The song if used in the narration of the story in film, then would most likely be very emotional. Very good rendition by Rashid Ali, but full credits to Rahman and the lyricist for making this song special. "Pooche dil mera, kyun yeh saza, dil toh nadaan hai" .. If one may recall, Rahman added the title track on special request, which in this case is Call me dil only. So, special thanks to Rahman that he convinced Abbas for this song.


Overall, Jhootha hi Sahi, is not a typical Rahman album yet its a typical Rahman album. It falls short of last Rahman-Abbas combo Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na but as a new fresh album, Jhootha hi Sahi lives upto its reputation. Give it a long try, as the songs takes a while before making you like them a lot.


My Picks : Call me Dil, Cry Cry and Hello Hello.


Rating : 3.85 Out of 5 

Film Review : Crook

Mohit-Emraan pair didnt completely rock last time with Raaz the mystery continues. They were awesome in Awarapan but didnt get audience support then. So, whats up this time around with CROOK.

The story of Crook does deal with Australian attacks on Indians, racists and stuff. But it also has few other plots going, like Jai(Emraan) thoughts on his father, Suraj(Emraan) trying to settle in Australia finding ways to obtain the passport through shortcut formula or Arjan Bahwa having a hatred towards Australians and their culture. 

The starting of Film is good, infact more often then not Emraan Hashmi has best entry scenes. The narration of the film is very good, to manage so many plots simultaneously isnt easy. But, the place where the film lacks is that it just doesnt engage you totally, it keeps you there but always keeps missing out. Except for few scenes, one would end up not loving the sequences, its limited to just a certain liking. Writing needed to be much better then it was. 

What's worth though in the film is the direction skills of Mohit Suri, I for certain have liked his work a lot in past films. Only problem I find in his direction is that he ends up overdoing some scenes, a kind of over sensalising the scene. The interval sequence for eg shows how good a director he is, while the climax which does looks good ends up getting over done. 

There is good chemistry between Emraan and Neha, but the romance doesnt really come out that well. Also, I dont know why one bald guy is repeated in every Vishesh films, he was there in Raaz tmc too. Aneways, every camp have some regulars. 

Dialogues were kinda of okay, there were few very good ones in between, rest were pretty much normal. Editing was good.

The film gives away a very good message in the end that One should always identify the bad side instead of ignoring it. Though, this message was there in Delhi6 too. But, what was good is the way this message comes across. Wish Arjan Bahwa character was properly written then it could had been a deeper impact too. 

Songs are very well used, whether its dreamy "Kya" , or the romance build up through "Tujhko jo paaya". And then, there was "Challa" to bring in a shift to the story. "Tujhi mein" catches the emotional content of the film. Also, background score at some places were worth a note, especially my personal favourite in the climax where "Tujhi mein reprise" version's final few seconds piece is used as the film ends.

Performances wise, 

Emraan Hashmi continues to be good in acting department, leaving asides 2-3 scenes where he could had been better. 

Neha Sharma looked very confident as a debutant, the lipstick style representing Angelina Jolie to some extent worked on her. As a newcomer, she was pretty good. 

Kavin Dave impresses in a cameo, he was there in IHLS too. Though, people will find making fun of him in climax, but its more so due to overdoing emotions by suri then kavin's fault.

Gulshan Grover is hardly there for 1-2 scenes. Arjan Bahwa was touch too loud, infact I would go on to say that he was miscasted in this role. 

Supporting cast i.e Goldie, Nicol and Russel did a nice job. 

Crook may have been weaker in writing but it excels in direction and the message it gives in the end. Wish, it was bit engaging too in the end.

Rating : 2.90 Out of 5 

Film Review : Robot

Important thing, I am not a fan of Rajni at all. Infact for that matter, I dont prefer Kamal Hassan either. Still, I went to see this film due to excellent reviews it was getting. And I was totally satisfied in the end with film or more than satisfied.


The story is about a scientist (Rajni) who makes a look alike Robot, which is very powerful and can be used in a good way for betterment of the country. But his Guru (Danny Denzangpa) has some other evil plans in his mind which if succeeded can destroy the country in a minute. The film takes us through the journey of Robot, who comes into this human world and how it tackles human emotions, makes mistakes, corrected upon by scientist and falls in love too.

One of best thing about Robot is, that its not too much predictable. There are some twists and turns that keeps you guessing, atleast you are given surprises at various stages, whether its the disapproval by Guru scene or the fire sequence or the making of simultaneous robots or the climax getups.

Editing is one aspect that Robot fails, its a extremely long film especially when one can notice places where audience are bored, such scenes should had been removed. Also, too many songs come up at places where they are not required at all.

Special effects were very good, especially the various climax getups shown, all were worth a watch in theatre.Screenplay was good, keeps you guessing, mixing plots of scientist-aish with aish-robot and scientist-robot before danny's role comes in. Also, there was a emotional feeling put in too. The dismantle of robot was quite a emotional scene.

Performances wise,

Rajni and Aish were brilliant. Aish looked stunning. Danny was nice. While the two workers in scientist lab were quite irritating.

Overall, Robot works a big way. It entertains, though you need patience to sit 3 hrs but a good screenplay quite much makes up for that.


Rating : 3.75 Out of 5

Film Review : Khichdi the movie

I have always been amazed by the comedy of the characters in this serial. And when a film was made on it, I knew it would work except a little doubt whether they would make a mistake of putting songs into narrative. In the end, they didnt do such a mistake.


The narration of the film is done by two small kids of family who tell a story about their family. How much duffer and brainless their family is and keep presenting various funny incidents that includes meeting god, court scene, murder, marriage and some drama too.

There is just 1 song in the whole film, and that too makes a fun watch even though at first you would feel it wasnt needed, but the lyrics and funny picturisation makes up for it.

Both halves were equally good, cant single out one.

Performances wise ..

Supriya Pathak(Hansa) was at her best again .. specially her lines "hello hi .. khaana khaake jaana" and "haaye main toh thak gayi bhaisaaaab".

Rajeev Mehta(Praful) was amazing, though at starting scene I felt a overconfidence kinda of face but as the scene progressed the thought went away for full film. Ofcourse, my fav was "Culture hansaaaaaaaaa... culture" and then those funny explanations. And that signal to babuji he does.

Janmadas (Himanshu), I always liked him due to his accent that he brings and same the case here.. very good and well done specially because the film actually revolves on his character only.

Nimisha (Jayshree) was probably weak link of film.. didnt like her performance much whether its due to old character or its her not being able to mingle up that well with the rest characters.

Anang (babuji) was very good, the same confusing and irritated and yet himself doing funny things too.

Kirti was beautiful.. she looked like a perfect duffer kinda of girl for himanshu .. acting wise she was nice, hardly had too bigger role.

Parminder family cameos were great ..

Farah Khan was okay, little bit overdone though I loved that scene .. yeh daal nahi :d ..

Satish Shah was superb in a special appearance ..


Dialogues were good .. Direction was excellent, never tried to do too much. Screenplay was amazing, loved the way they told the entire story and included so many aspects of comedy scenes.

Overall, Khichdi has all the ingredients to make for a fun and timepass comedy film. Not sure if it makes for a repeated viewing or not but its totally worth a watch once especially if you are fond of Khichdi since T.V days.


Rating : 3.60 Out of 5

Film Review : Anjaana Anjaani

The craze level for this film increased with promos. So, there were some expectations, not sky high. And I wasnt happy with the film as it turned out to be.


The story revolves around 2 people, who have lost hopes of a good life, Akash(Ranbir) due to his bad tackling of Share business leading to loss while Kiara(Priyanka) coming to know about betrayal of her love. Both decide to die, and coincidentally meet at same death venue. But destiny keeps stopping them and as a result they decide to accept it, and abandon death for 20 days till 31st dec. Now, will 20 days make them realize importance of life or not, is what rest story is with dose of fun, romance and emotions.


I quite hated the way opening scenes begin. Though, have to appreciate the cinematography here, the way those scenes are presented with Ranbir walking in that dark night. Great camera angles too. But all the praise ends once Priyanka comes into the scene. The death attempts looked very silly, instead of being real.. I so loved the dialogue where Ranbir even says this to Priyanka.

After that, the film became a good watch, with aas paas khuda song and the wishes of Ranbir. But the film dies out in 2nd half, when it tries to land into the same old love-leaving-comes back stuff. Though, all this happens before a very good tumse hi song picturisation comes.

Rest part of film is pretty much slow, boring and uninteresting. Even the emotions dont come up for those scenes. To make it worse, tujhe bhula diya I feel was undone with a average picturisation. Though, a bonus of 2 lines was given in return.

Climax was sort of tribute to Titanic, infact at one time I thought it was going to be same too :d .. But I liked those water scenes, that one and one earlier where priyanka tells about her past. Those for me are the best directed scenes of the film.

Screenplay for me is the weakest link of this film. I feel story had in it to be presented well. Had the director gone for a new territory in 2nd half, the film would had been liked more, atleast by me. Editing was fine, cant blame too much.

Siddharth Anand needs to do a better job next time as a director, very average stuff this time by him. Songs were just used in such a bad way, it was like 3 songs in 25 mins during 2nd half. Wonder what that was done for, or maybe they never saw one final draft of the film else editing would had been done.

Having said all this, cant take away some of very good scenes of the film, apart from those water sequences and Tumse hi song, loved the disco sequence, the one where Ranbir tells his wish and ofcourse the doctor's speech to Ranbir.


Performances wise,

Priyanka Chopra was quite good though little bit inconsistent. And same for Ranbir Kapoor. Maybe thats the reason I quite liked their pairing while watching the film, as both were doing mistakes and at same time doing great scenes too. Zayed Khan was nice in a cameo. Maybe small roles works better for him.

Overall, Anjaana Anjaani is worth your money till 1st half, after that change theatre and see Robot's 2nd half because you are most likely to sleep aneways in 2nd half of Anjaana Anjaani. Better luck next time Siddharth, you dissappointed me this time for sure.


Rating : 2.25 Out of 5 

Film Review : Dabangg

Dabangg lived upto my expectations. The only thing I was worried about was whether the plot running with the action would be good enough or not as Wanted lacked the story inspite of been a very good action film. But Dabangg didnt dissappoint on that level.


The film is about Chulbul(Salman), a corrupt policeman who fights for the right and can go against even his brother or dad. He falls in love, and keeps dealing with the various things that come in front of him, whether its his brother's deeds or the politician Chedi(Sonu sood).

The entry scene of Salman pretty much reminds of Wanted, almost similar setup with wanted jalwa tune used too in the scene to add to it. It was just a touch too long scene I felt though it was worth to see it. Interestingly, there are around 4 main action sequences in the film, with 3 been put at main points i.e beginning,interval and climax while 4th one is placed in middle of 1st half. My fav though will be climax one.

There are lots of sub-plots that keep running in the film. One is Salman-Vinod relationship, other is Salman-Arbaaz relationship, then there is the envy between Sonu-Salman and another minor plot of Arbaaz-Maahi which I felt was the only one that wasnt justifed properly.

The scene where Maahi's dad cancels marriage was one of the weakly directed sequence of the film. Dimple Kapadia hams a bit in the breathing lost dialogue scene with Salman.

Apart from these few blemishes, Dabangg is full of entertainment and joy.

Abhinav as a 1st time director, succeeds in using action as a backdrop instead of using it as everything that Wanted did. The dialogues are very good specially some of the punchlines like "Haramzaade se yaad aaya", "Kamaal karte ho" or "Bhaiyya ji smile" etc.


Editing was good, never appeared any rhythm problem throughout the film.

Songs were very well used. I specially liked Humko peeni hai which I originally didnt like. Its very well choreographed too. Title song wasnt really that great, though one can say its a imaginative type of picturisation but I felt it lacked something. Munni was ofcourse magical in theatre. While the romantic songs especially Rahat one were beautifully used.

Performances wise, Salman Khan rises as Chulbul Pandey, wont say its his best performance till date but it can easily be one of his best performances. Hard to find any scene where he didnt act well.

Sonakshi looked too sweet on screen, a bit overweight for my liking. She looks like a traditional indian actress, very confident in her screen presence. Maybe she will give competition to Vidya Balan in future.

Sonu Sood was awesome, with each film I keep getting impressed by him. Maybe time to see Aashiq banaya aapne once again when I used to feel he is such bad actor. Just notice his expressions during entire Munni song or the one where Arbaaz is walking alone on road and the conversation that takes place between them.

Anupam Kher and Om Puri were good in cameos. Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia also made a good mark. Arbaaz Khan played well as per his character sketch. Mahie Gill had nothing to offer thanks to some heavy editing to her role.


Overall, Dabangg is one of those films that just entertains you and at one-two places makes you emotional too. A typical masala film meant for the masala film lovers only and ofcourse the diehard Salman fans.


Rating : 3.75 Out of 5 

Film Review : We are Family

We are family is a adaptation or inspired by Stepmom. I havent seen that film neither its trailer etc, so no comparisons can be made by me.


The plot of the film is how Arjun gets sandwiched between 2 ladies, one who he used to love once and one who he loves now. How he tries to get both Kajol and Kareena like each others company, the children and Kareena(his new love) to gel with each other. And how the rest story goes on ...

The screenplay of the film is interesting, there is not too many surprises in store except for one maybe which atleast I wasnt aware of coming. The treatment by the debutant director is good. The best thing that I liked about his direction was that he kept the melodrama out of the scene. It appeared quite real.

There are some places where the pace slows up, specially towards the pre intermission and the pre climax. Editing could had been better there. Dialogues were good, especially the ones on the relationships. Some good Locales, though I wonder why some locations are repeatedly shown in films like the opening scene one.

The look of Arjun in the climax was quite weird. Wonder if there was any need of that big change.

Talking of weak points, I feel the decision to go back to old love by Arjun.. that wasnt really shown with full conviction. It happened way too quickly. Also, there were 1-2 scenes of kareena-kajol less in the film. Those would had made it a more powerful film. Just like the scene where Kajol accuses Kareena when she will learn to behave like a mom.

Performances wise, Kajol was brilliant. Look at her expressions especially in two scenes. One where, she asks Arjun why he feels he can manage this new relation when he couldnt do so with the old one. And the other, when she throws the kitchen utensils releazing the coming life. Though, I didnt like the over-kiddish scenes that she is given again and again in films.

Kareena Kapoor looked really gorgeous. She appeared more like a second fiddle or supporting role character in the film. And she did it very well.

Arjun Rampal had a tough role I feel. Firstly, it was the 2 highly rated actresses to compete with and then a role where he has to shine through his performance with script not really offering too much for him. Though, I liked his character sketch a lot which went very well with his performance. Loved two scenes the most, one where Kareena asks him when will he learn to say things that are in mind. And the other, where he tells Kajol, what the real problem is.

Among the kids, I loved the smallest girl Anjali. She was simply too cute, too adorable. Anyone would feel emotional when she would say a dialogue with such a cute face, like a real innocent child. I feel like watching the film again thinking of her.

The rest two kids too had their moments, the boy mainly when he tells arjun about the mess, scene present in the trailer too and a scene in the climax with kajol.

While the elder girl who was more of a rebellion type, somehow irritated me in the start. Dont know how I should think of her role. I feel her character sketch wasnt upto the mark. She appeared too much confusing.


Songs were very well used in the narrative. I really loved Lets rock song, Kajol was simply amazing in it. Very well supported by Arjun and Kareena, and superb choerography. Reham o karam was emotionally used at places. Also, same with Hamesha forever. Though, I wish quality of latter two songs was good too.

I specially loved Sun le dua song background theme which was used at 2 important situations. And they really invoked lot of emotions into the scenes. Thats the power of that theme.


Overall, We are Family is a very good watch. It isnt a come, watch and cry kind of a film. But it has some good emotional moments with a good screenplay and very good performances that keeps you interested till the end of the film.


Rating : 3.65 Out of 5