Movie Analysis : Chittagong

Directed by : Bedabrata Pain
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1785333/

Another of those history based movies that I enjoyed watching. Though, this movie reminded me of 'Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey' specially the portion where they attack the British places.

The movie is narrated through the point of view of 'Jhunku', one of the leaders in the movement against the Britishers. How he in his early childhood felt the ways to fight against Britishers weren't right, plus he acted as a traitor helping Britishers as he was learning English from the family of one of the British officers.Its matter of time when he realizes Britishers have to be fought against, and he joins army of Masterda played by Manoj Bajpai.

The screenplay is tight, and also good editing. Cinematography is excellent.

How good Manoj Bajpai's performance is, can easily be stated by the fact that in a starcast of many actors that impresses, he still manages to leave a big mark. Soft-spoken, polite and always ready to give advices like a teacher would.. Manoj appears deeply into his character making Masterda very appealing.

Also, Delzad Hiwale who plays younger Jhunku delivers a superb performance. I somehow didn't like the older Jhanku, probably one of the reason why I didn't like the climax that much. Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Raj Kumar Yadav, Dibyendu Bhattacharya and Jaideep Ahlawat were efficient in their supporting roles. The conversation of Nirmal Sen (Nawazuddin) with Pritilata (Vega Tamotia) where he conveys his love for her in a hesistant way.. pretty much reminds of the famous scene in GOW, though the execution here is much different. Also, Vega Tamotia looks very cute in her just 2nd film. She does very well in that police sequence she has in the 2nd half.

I have always slept during History lectures in school, so any film that's well made on a history topic appeals to me very much.


Overall, Chittagong is a very good history based film backed with great performances.


Verdict : VERY GOOD

Movie Analysis : Aiyyaa

Directed by Sachin Kundalkar
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2255934/

A marathi girl Meenakshi (Rani Mukherji) falls in love with a Tamil guy Surya (Prithivraj) who is a painter by profession. Meenakshi's engagement is fixed to another guy Madhav (Subhodh Bhave) by her family which in itself has all the qualities of madness. But Meenakshi doesn't know how to convey her feelings to Surya, but she can't resist him as he smells just too good.

There's a character Maina (Anita Date) who speaks in a total childish way with wierd fashionable dresses and dance moves. At start I liked her, but as more of her scenes started to come.. the uneasy feeling crept in. Plus, 'What to Do' song filmed on her dissappointed me, as that was the song I loved the most in the album. Couldn't they find a way to picturise it on Rani..

Meenakshi following Surya everytime, through the smell also is over-done big time. Same applies to the family, who keeps doing things that appear too mad. Only the dream sequences was something that I didn't mind being consistently done throughout movie. Maybe, the director wanted to tell the story about characters that are mad in their own ways, but as a viewer it just doesn't help me in clicking. Even the ending looks ordinary.

For sure, the comedy is present in most of the sequences.. but in totality, the film fails to make a mark. Meenakshi buying drugs, meeting the crazy Maina for 1st time, meeting Surya's mother, and conversation with Madhav during 1st meeting were some of the best scenes in the movie.

Background score is good. Editing is poor, too many long sequences and many un-wanted scenes.

Rani Mukherjee looks so confident, those dance moves she has done in numerous item songs in this film, plus the way she imitates 'Madhuri' in opening credits or 'Rekha' in sava dollar song. Its only her performance that kept me interested in a total dull 2nd half.

Prithviraj has minimal dialogues, but he looks quite effective. Not sure yet though, if he could be successful in Hindi films.

Nirmiti Sawant, mother of Meenakshi was excellent among the rest supporting cast. Also, Ameya Wagh was quite good.


Overall, Aiyyaa has some very good moments and Rani's great performance but the film ends up as a big dissappointment.


Verdict : AVERAGE

Movie Analysis : Bhoot Returns

Directed by : Ram Gopal Verma
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2406636/

Tarun (J.D. Chakravarthy) and Namrata (Manisha Koirala) shift to a new house along with their children. Namrata's sister, Pooja (Madhu Shalini) pays a surprise visit to stay with them for few days. But, they aren't aware about the spirit that exists in the house which would haunt and cause lots of problems to them.

The film is full of same old cliches related to horror genre as well as Rgv cinema. The noise created by the opening of door, dream horror sequence, loud background score, the irritating voice of spirit 'bhooooooo' and ofcourse the wierd camera angles of Rgv. The sound mixing was bad too, making every noise loud isn't the way to bring horror, it just turns you off and irritates you, for eg the telephone ring noise is intentionally kept so loud. Clearly, the idea of Rgv was to keep the action of spirit for the final 20 minutes, but holding together for rest 70 mins was the key part. You just can't show one day dialogue scene followed by 1 night invisible spirit scene, and then continue this loop for 3-4 times in a row. It got too monotonous for my liking, plus very predictable.

And, when that time comes where all three Tarun, Namrata and Pooja are scared at night, why does Pooja even sleep in a seperate room. As is the case, the unintentional comedy happens at many places, like when they all are searching for spirit in different directions of house, and when they see each other its followed by a loud laugh, which then gets shortened by the 'bhooooo' noise.

Why Manisha Koirala kept shouting so much, specially at such a little daughter of hers ? Too loud acting, a performance I didn't expect from her. J.D Chakravarthy makes a comeback of sorts, and is pretty good.

Madhu Shalini is decent. Alayana Sharma who plays the daughter Nimmi of Namrata, was very effective.

Some of the best scenes were, Nimmi telling everyone about the imaginary friend (ghost), Shabbo with whom she could interact, and the first major attack by Shabbo along with the pre-climax scene.


Overall, Bhoot Returns is a very loud, non-scary and typical rgv film. Even though its 90 mins in length, the film appears to be too long. And after watching this film, one may just wonder why Bhoot3 is gonna be made.


Verdict : INTOLERABLE

Movie Analysis : Jism2

Directed by : Pooja Bhatt
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2226666/

Duniya pyar ki sirf baatein karti hai .. chalti jung pe hai.

The first thing I did after watching the movie was, unfollow Pooja Bhatt from Twitter, though somehow I stopped myself from doing the same to Mahesh Bhatt.

To start off, the plot is ridiculous. I agree Jism was completely inspired (or copy as people like to say) from a Hollywood film, but its plot and the feel was very good. But, in Jism2 the main plot is silly, asking a porn star Izna (Sunny Leone) to help the Intelligence Bureau in catching a criminal, Kabir (Randeep Hooda) who was once a police officer and lover of Izna.

Inspite of such plot, had they written interesting dialogues and choosen right female lead.. maybe film would had been atleast 25% watchable if not more. There is too much of unintentional comedy throughout the movie. The screenplay is also too simple, with a predictable end if you ignore the silliest twist done for the sake of it.

Editing is very average, fast cuts would had made the film little bit bearable as the narration gets slow at many places. The cinematography is excellent, love the way they have captured Sri Lanka, specially that location where Izna asks Kabir to come. Even, the camera-work was good and different at various shots.

Though, I loved most of the songs.. the kinda of feel Jism songs had never comes in this film, also the background score was a total let down. Only, 'yeh jism hai toh kya' was a song that I could totally connect to, and it was among the worst picturised song in the movie.

Sunny Leone just couldn't act, though she appeared to have worked very well on her hindi diction. It was completely visible how much effort she was trying to put in most of her scenes, which shouldn't be the case for a actor. Also, what was the case with her breathing so fast in almost every scene.. was it the nervous Izna or nervous Sunny ?

Randeep Hooda in the role of police officer was good, but as a assassin he went very much over the top. Felt dissappointed after having loved his last performance in 'Jannat2' to such a great extent. Arunoday Singh was decent in the start, but once he starts to fall in love with Izna, his hamming started big time too.

That final confrontation scene between Izna and Kabir is so poorly directed and written (the only thing consistent throughout the film), I still remember and adore the final scene of John and Bipasha in Jism.. but here I kept looking for something good in the scene, and it never comes.

This is the second film I have seen of Pooja Bhatt, the other being 'Dhokha' which I liked quite a lot. She would need to be really good in her next outing to remove my anger now.


Overall, Jism2 is a complete nonsense movie, with no good acting, story, screenplay or direction. You need a proper story otherwise exotic scenes (though they are very few too) won't have any impact. Its only the beautiful locales and nice music that you take away after watching the movie. The director of Jism though would be happy, pooja bhatt has made his film looked hundred times better.


Verdict : INTOLERABLE

Killing Them Softly [Views]

Directed by : Andrew Dominik
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764234/

Another gangster based movie, but this time it fails to make a mark on me. I felt the director tried to experiment a bit too much, for instance the scene where Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) has taken drugs and his point of view shots are shown where the frame blurs, goes black, and takes time for him to realize his friend Frankie (Scoot McNairy) said something to him. Even the conversation between Mickey (James Gandolfini) and Jackie (Brad Pitt) appeared very dull.

The robbery sequence executed by Russell and Frankie, was one of well directed scene in the movie. Also, the one where Jackie kills 2 people, from a distance as he likes to call it. The final dialogue scene of Jackie against Obama was good too. Though the ending was very abrupt, as if the director was forced to edit out proper ending.

Also, the title never goes with the movie.. there's hardly a killing that could be termed 'soft'. Brad Pitt gives a good performance, but not as impressive as he was in 'Moneyball', though less screen time is also a factor in that.

Ray Liotta, looked totally out of touch, maybe to give him a weak looking character was the idea of director, as I remember him for his great performance in 'the goodfellas'.

Even the conversations between Frankie and Russell were kept quite comical, maybe pulp fiction influence if it can be said.


Overall, 'Killing them softly' was a touch boring for me. Except for some good scenes, I just couldn't feel connected to the characters or the story.

Movie Analysis : Kismet Love Paisa Dilli

Directed by : Sanjay M. Khanduri
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2402131/

When you are in a theatre with only 4 people, it leads to only two conclusions.. the film hasn't got the right promotion or the film is too bad. Unfortunately, it was the latter case for me.

I have heard lots of good things about the director's last (or his first) film 'Ek chalis ki last local'. Hence, the expectations were definately there. But a poor script, cheap scenes and bad dialogues meant all hopes were gone in the first 20 minutes of the movie only.

Even the suspense they built with Neha Dhupia's character didn't bring any joy because till then I had already started to feel exhausted. Even the thought of leaving film in interval came, and this happens very less for me.. Nevertheless, watched the entire film.

To name a few positives in the film, it would be Ashutosh Rana's 1st dialogue.. he is so effective yet directors don't give him right roles. The 'Appy Budday' song was very fun and nicely choreographed, only song that I liked in the torturous album from a tortuous film.

'Dhiskiyaaun' song comes from no-where into the narration, maybe director thought we are in 80's-90's era. The over-dose of pee sequence, the double meaning references with Vivek Oberoi's friend too often, the extended Ashutosh Rana-Punjabi's fight (if you can call it that) scene. The humour can easily be described as utterly disgusting in this movie. While, the romantic angle between Vivek and Mallika hardly works.

I felt bad for 'Anshuman Jha', to have his character named 'Nunna' and then the sick background run with his each scene. And not to forget, the sudden powers he gets as he starts flying, so when people lose their mind and get mental, they start flying like this ? Anshuman was very good in 'Love Sex aur Dhokha', so bit dissappointed to see him in this nonsense role.

Vivek Oberoi and Mallika Sherawat are okay, they couldn't lift this film with their performances, no scope at all.


Overall, Kismet Love Paisa Dilli is one of the films that you don't want to remember that you saw it.


Verdict : INTOLERABLE

Movie Analysis : English Vinglish

Directed by : Gauri Shinde
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2181931/

Jab apne aap ko pasand nahi karte hai na, 
toh apne se judi huyi har cheez acchi nahi lagti,
nayi cheezein aakarshik karti hai ... 
jab apne aap ko pyar karne lagte hai, 
toh wahi purani zindagi nayi lagne lagti hai, 
achi lagne lagti hai.

Sridevi's comeback movie, and for actors of her talent you never feel that this actor wasn't into films in past few years.

The story revolving about a housewife/mother Shashi (Sridevi) who initially ignores her inability to speak proper english, only to realize that she needs to learn english by joining a coaching class so that she may not be insulted time and again from her own family members.

The ploy of director to delay showing face of Sridevi when opening credits begin was good one. This kinda of film can easily become either preachy or very dramatic. But, thankfully Gauri Shinde opts for a simple storytelling. She never tries to over-build the romantic track between Shashi and one of her class-mate in class, also the climax where Shashi's husband Satish (Adil Hussain) is not shown apologizing to her for making fun of her.. instead there's a plane scene where he feels happy to see the confidence in her.

Satish over-emphasising that her wife was born only to make ladoos and, Shashi's daughter Sapna (Navika Kotia) talking in a rude manner to her mother who's always so kind and sweet with her. These were sequences that didn't please me. But, I guess such families would exist in real.. so to treat it as just 'fiction' may  be wrong.

Shashi speaking to the french guy in hindi, and the guy in french with her.. was another very good thought. As shashi describes why its used in the film 'acha hai na, kuch samajh na sako aur sab bol do jo dil mein hain'.

Its never a movie about transformation from hindi to english speaking, its just a way of telling how one can regain self-respect on their own will power and the confidence in themselves comes right with it. English learning is used just as a metaphor.

Amit Trivedi's music is very good to ears, 'Manhattan' song in the context of the film appeals a lot, and so does 'Gustaakh dil'.

Sridevi so easily displays the uneasiness to speak english, the feeling of dissappointment when she speaks 'Jazz' in wrong way at dining table with her family, how she corrects the servant's english word 'gift' or her son's hindi, making the english professor speak in hindi showing how he also struggles in communicating in a language he ain't good at, the cafe scene where she finds herself in total uncomfortable situation and she quickly runs away from the place bursting into tears,  the 'eagerness in her eyes to learn' when she watches english dvds or weather forecasts on tv. Even in the climax, kudos to director.. she learns only to speak english, not proper english. And yea, her micheal jackson dance move too. Plus, how gorgeous Sridevi looked in those variety of sarees throughout the film.

Adil Hussain gives another effective performance in a supporting role. Shivansh Kotia, who plays Sagar, young son of Sridevi brings some of the lovely cute moments in the film.. special reference to the scene where he tries to tell Shashi about her sister Sapna 'aapko gussa nahi aa rahi' ?

Also, the small cameo from Amitabh Bachchan was very nice.. to see both Sridevi and Amitabh in same frame, and the fun moments they share.

Priya Anand looked very beautiful, and played a nice supporting role who helps Shashi a lot when she reaches New York.


Overall, English Vinglish works for me big time, mainly because of Sridevi and the way Gauri directs the film.


Verdict : VERY GOOD