Good story but poor treatment : I, Me aur Main

Directed by : Kapil Sharma
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2064816/

Story of a guy who behaves like a child and is not responsible at all, specially when it comes to relationships. Reason being, his childhood and the way his mother ignores all his mistakes. Though, just a single scene of his childhood is shown in the screenplay. This is quite a good plot to make a film on, even in Wake up Sid Ranbir played the character of Sid who changes his way of looking at life, and makes his father proud. But, in 'I me aur Main', the director loses way trying to please the mass audience and a weak screenplay.

Ishaan (John) and Anushka (Chitrangada) plot fails partly for the reason that their part is hurried up, and other Chitrangada's acting which for a change didn't appeal to me. Its Gauri (Prachi Desai) who brings joy into the screenplay, though have to admit many times it looked like Prachi was trying too hard to look and act as modern. Still, Ishaan and Gauri chemistry looked good.

The professional life of Ishaan was very weakly handled or I should say too filmy. Could had totally edited it out and given much more emphasis to the relationships Ishaan finds himself tangled in. The realisation of what he should be doing, comes too quickly all of a sudden.. not making it look real. But, the climax did please me.. not the sacrifice kind and more practical.

Songs are good, Capuchino though is inspired heavily from Shipping to Boston, still good listening to it. I didn't like its choreography though, looking into camera and enacting the real life events never makes it look cool to me. Saajna was my fav track, and it was very well used in the narrative. Najaane kahan se aaya video comes in end credits, and it proves two things.. one chitrangada should work very hard at her dance and other Prachi should not try too hard to change her sweet girl image.

John Abraham did a fair job, his comic timing still isn't great but at such times I always think of Garam Masala and think how much improvement has come in. Plus, there were lots of serious sequences and the childlike behaviour looked good on him.

Among the supporting cast, Mini Mathur only one worth mentioning.

Overall, I, Me aur Main turns out to be a average movie. John and Prachi keep you interested but direction and screenplay lets the movie down.


Verdict : AVERAGE

Ramu fails once more, poor depiction of the event : The Attacks of 26/11

Directed by : Ram Gopal Verma
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2635622/

Another Ram Gopal Verma movie loses out on account to the film-maker's stubborn attitude to play around with cameras, and not focus on the story in hand. Like always, lets take 'wierd camera angles' aside and then look at this film.. What I find then, is a weakly executed movie by RGV, who tries to show the terror of Kasab through Joint Commissioner's (Nana Patekar) slow speech,  forced sympathy at the killings of women and children (which thankfully isn't shown), and some over the top performance by Sanjeev Jaiswal (playing Kasab).

26/11 is one of the major incident that has happened in Mumbai, India.. so a film on it immediately targets the audience that was either part of it through television, or ones who had the misery of being there when it all folded out. RGV starts the movie without visuals, written lines with background voice of terrorists firing, the final line says 'this movie would show how those attacks happened'. Here itself, RGV lost one point from me.. he from the very start had decided that his focus would be mainly on how everything happened, instead of going into the emotional turnmoil of the event.

The taxi driver plot (very small one) by Asif Basra, Kasab's reasoning to his brutal killings to the Joint Commissioner and the reply he gets from him later were some of the bright points in the movie.

Sanjeev Jaiswal may have looked like Kasab, but I didn't like the way his character is highlighted. Instead how much RGV underplayed his partner at CST and Cama Hospital, that's how I would had liked Kasab to be. Even during his sole long dialogue sequence with Nana Patekar, he ends up hamming a lot.

Nana Patekar is expressive, but his way slow dialogue delivery was poor direction by RGV. Atul Kulkarni is wasted in a small role that is limited to CST event.

The kid sequence at Taj Hotel was very much well done, but to show it at CST and then the tent place also, ruined the earlier part too. Now for instance, the scene at Taj Hotel, the havoc terrorists do, the camera shows a god statue.. the camera keeps moving closer to it making me say that I got it what you wanted to say the moment you saw that frame, this zoom in was only trying to give the irritating feel.

Also, the police was highlighted in such a bad taste, the instance of hawaldaars throwing stones. The helplessness was to be showed, but not in such a way. One real fact RGV didnt use, when the terrorists went past a police chowk, the police switched lights off because they didn't have weapons at their place and terrorists had ak47 and heavy loaded guns. Such scenes would had been better to show the police errors.

Except for 'Raghupati raghav' track, the rest background scores/songs were very ordinary. Editing was bad if there was no footage of shots where extreme close up shots were taken, but even if it was available chances are that Rgv might had his say in it.

RGV should sit down in a closed room, and have a 1-2 hour session to know where his films are going wrong. Until he changes his attitude and accepts that I am making bad films... I feel there's much more pain to come for viewers, Satya2 is the next one in line.

26/11 would work only due to the emotional feeling one has towards the event, but if you take that aspect aside then you are most likely to see all the problems this movie has. The misery of Rgv continues.. He could had easily exploited the emotional content related to the event, but his focus was on un-neccessary things instead.


Verdict : AVERAGE

This gangster rom-com works for me : Jayantabhai ki Luv Story

Directed by : Vinnil Markan
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2622130/

After having seen his last romantic comedy 'KLPD', I went to watch the movie expecting another film on same lines. Maybe, that is one of the reasons why I liked Jayantabhai ki Luv Story.

Jayantabhai (Vivek Oberoi) is a street-thug, a small time gangster who works for Altafbhai (Zakir Hussain). Then, enters Simran (Neha Sharma), his new neighbour who is in look-out for new job after her last company got involved into scams resulting in company shutoff. The usual hatred interaction in start turns into friendship and eventually both fall in love.

The conversations Jayantabhai and Simran have when they meet, the hesistancy Simran has to live when she comes to know his profession. The 'anda bhurji' scene, Jayanta getting new umbrella for Simran, zaalim spray and numerous other sequences between them are highly entertaining and fun to watch.

If their pair strengthens the film, then the sub-plot of Jayantabhai's gangster world weakens it. The fight between two rival gangsters, and one of them having a habit of using filmi names while talking.. spoils the rhthym that the love story has set up. The best thing though is that the screen time given to this sub plot is much less, which is quite right given the title of the movie.

Also, the father-daughter cliche of 'that guy is a gangster' is restricted by the director, though I wonder if it could had been completely done away with instead. The climax intends to surprise, but the pace goes too slow. That interview scene made me think if those company people without verifying allow random guys to sit inside, specially knowing its a guy going inside instead of a girl.

The songs are good, my fav being 'aa bhi jaa mere meherbaan' by Atif.

Vivek Oberoi gets his act right this time around, by combining the gangster and lover duo together very well, his chemistry with Neha Sharma was superb. Neha Sharma always amazes me with her looks, beautiful and cute at same time.. and her acting is good too. The supporting cast is okish.

Leaving aside all the cliches and flaws, Jayantabhai ki Luv Story at heart is a entertaining rom-com movie, with some great fun moments.


Verdict : NICE 

They dance well, but can't act : Any Body Can Dance

Directed by : Remo D'Souza
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2321163/

Predictable plot, but could still had been a good movie only if the performances of the actors was good. Kay Kay Menon and Prabhu Deva were wrong choices to play the main leads. Though Kay Kay Menon has just one flashback dance sequence that too few seconds one, his tone was very over the top. Prabhu Deva had his dance moves working, that scene where he dances to get money back. But his dialogue delivery and expressions never invoke any feelings towards his character.

Actors like Hrithik Roshan or Shahid Kapur are a must in such movies, or atleast one of them with rest cast having actors who could act much better. You can't make a film just on dance, acting is a must. Its like making a film on sports, having actors who play sports well but no acting skills.

Vishnu (Prabhu Deva) is thrown out of Swish Dance Academy which he had set with his business partner Jehangir (Kay Kay Menon). Vishnu plans to return back, until at Ganesh Utsav, he watches bunch of guys having kind of dance moves that if worked on could bring a lot of fame and glory. Vishnu decides to train them freely, and make a team that could win competition in Swish Dance Academy. But, there are cliches like a guy's father against him dancing, two guy's having fight against each other for a girl, and one guy is after drugs.

The team that Vishnu has for dance competition, acts pretty fine.. specially Chandu played by Punit Pathak. Pankaj Tripathi does well in a small comic cameo. Ganesh Acharya was good, though most of the time the attention went to his overweight size, that moment when he takes chair to sit.

The songs are very average, Bezubaan and final dance song are likeable to certain extent. The twist in the finale was very good one, and also the choreography of final song was fantastic. Something I would say wasn't spectacular type in rest movie.


Any Body Can Dance, has very few good moments, and expectedly they are all dance sequences. Good casting could well had made the film appear much better.


Verdict : BELOW AVERAGE

Crap B-Grade movie : Zila Ghaziabad

Directed by : Anand Kumar
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2171454/

This film can easily be labelled as a b-grade movie that has well known stars acting in it. The first sequence is of a gangster, Fauji (Arshad Warsi) returning back to Ghaziabad.. in ultra slow motion, giving us insight to the torture the rest film is gonna give. The side kicks to Fauji shoot gunshots in the air, and they do that a lot in entire movie making me wonder if they are so rich to waste that many bullets uselessly. There's one scene where Fauji shoots a rifle and says 'bahut din ho gaye saala goli ki awaaz hi nahi suni thi'.

There's Satbir (Vivek Oberoi) who is a master by profession, wants to improve the village instead of going to Delhi and have a good job with all his qualifications. Expectedly, he gets tangled into the world of crime of Fauji. The laugh out loud moment comes when its his turn to use ultra slow motion, and roar like a lion, fight like a superman and declare to us that he is no longer a master, but a gangster who is after Fauji.

Now, to stop these two, there is Preetam Singh (Sanjay Dutt) who is presented as more of a gangster like personality, quite apt. Might well had put the title of movie as 'Three Gangsters'. Preetam like other two isnt let down, his entry is also with a super slow motion, and since he is bigger star, he gets a heavy dialogue too to allow his fans blow seetis in the hall (which some did in the theatre I saw the film in). And then, he carries forward the superman action scenes Vivek did. He is transferred to Ghaziabad to control the terror, and he uses chess to narrate how he would slowly remove both out of Ghaziabad.

All these 3 heroes are given dance numbers too, Arshad looks funny in his dance song, while Vivek very much looks okay. Sanjay is made to imitate Salman's hud hud dabangg, ironically the singer is Sukhwinder too. There are 2 item songs in the movie, one has Geeta Basra and other Shreya Saran, both choreographed in a very vulgar way, but then the film is for masses, they would like it. Actors can do anything when they are in need for money, easy example.

Terrible screenplay, heavy dialogues that makes you yawn, and action that gives headache. Only Paresh Rawal and Ravi Kissan acted well, or to put it properly their characters had very less crap dialogues with no action sequences. Also, the actor who manipulates Fauji against Satbir, he was quite good. Divya Dutta once more in a small cameo, though not effective this time around. Vivek is good at places. Sanjay overacts, like that madhuri dialogue, one of few good moments in film. Arshad Warsi could had been evil, the director made a total mess. The actresses are only there for giving respite from heavy dialoguebaazi, action and have some romantic moments for the characters.

The climax just doesn't matter, who dies, who doesn't. There's no concern, no feeling towards any character. Only person I felt bad dying was Paresh Rawal. In the end, one is more interested for the film to end, and leave the theatre quickly.

Films like these make me think if I should seriously start omitting films that from the trailer itself gives a 99% negative vibe. Why waste time on such films..

If you are a blind fan of Vivek or Sanjay, go watch the film, blow whistles and make yourself look like a joker. Zila Ghaziabad is a total nonsense movie, with nothing to praise about.


Verdict : INTOLERABLE

P.S - Saw this comment at a website, some more laughing medicine - 'May this movie cross 200 cr, Vivek is back with a bang and how!'

Good movie, but Neeraj tries to be too commercial : Special Chabbis

Directed by : Neeraj Pandey
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2377938/

The post contains spoilers, read at your own risk. 

Neeraj Pandey's A Wednesday was hardhitting, entertaining and very real without songs or dance numbers. With Special Chabbis, he tries to go commercial keeping his intent to keep the settings and tone real.. and that's where he goes wrong.

The plot is based on fake CBI raids that took place in 1980's in various parts of India. Neeraj tries to cheat a lot with the characters, why would a character in a movie behave like a stranger to another character when they are talking one to one with no one around to look at them ? The answer is simple, the audience i.e us are looking so they are made to act differently. There's one character in the movie that changes, and due to it the climax turns..

Then, there is the love angle of Akshay and Kajal which very much feels like forced one, only weakens the movie. Something like Shaitan (Rajeev love life) was required here, minimal dialogues, no backstory, 1 small scene every now and then and keeping the main focus on the cbi raids plot.

Also, the climax was too normal, a chance to make it dramatic missed. There was scope of making Wasim Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) seal all stations and airports, and follow Ajju (Akshay Kumar) upto the airport and make Ajju struggle though eventually manage going off. Maybe, its Hollywood Argo in my mind saying this, but Wasim Khan accepting he was made fool, doing nothing and ending the scene there, didn't go well to me.

Every song slows the narrative. Though, Mujh mein tu is a very good song. Also, Dhar Pakad that comes at the end credits. Background score is good, leaving apart the loud moments here and there.

Editing is too bad, what is the point of showing in excess the cbi people walking, going to car, the journey of car. The first raid built-up was delayed way too much.

What works for me in the movie are the performances, Akshay Kumar is effective in a role that is far away from his regular comedy movies. Manoj Bajpayee was slightly off-track, just a wee-bit.. maybe the standards he sets for himself made me feel that way, nevertheless his scene with Akshay was a delight to watch and special reference to that Rishwat lena shuru kar dun dialogue.

Anupam Kher easily was the star of the movie, vulnerable, surprising, fearful, faltering (wrong house they went to raid) and leading the team from the front.. he was doing almost everything so well in that character. Not to forget, the father of so many kids as he says Tv kahan hota tha uss time..

The supporting cast did a good job, Divya Dutta though was restricted to one dialogue throughout, which changes over course of time with twists. Jimmy Shergill was good but then its the question of would you accept the fact that director cheated with you on this character, I can't.


Special Chabbis is by no means a bad movie, it works but the reason why I feel dissappointed is that a director who made 'A Wednesday', could end up spoiling a movie due to commercial aspects. Still, watch it.. chances are you may like it much more than me.


VERDICT : NICE

Good action sequences, but weak script : A Good Day To Die Hard [Views]

Directed by : John Moore
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606378/

John : You got a plan ? 
Jack : Not really. I kinda thought we would just wing it, you know. Running in, guns blazing! Make it up as we go. 

Action sequences alone can't constitute a movie, this statement holds true for this movie. A Good Day to Die Hard is filled with car chase, explosions, massive gun firing but all this works if there is a good plot to support it. A father going to Moscow to help his son who has gone into trouble working for wrong guys, but only later he discovers that his son is working as a CIA for a mission and now he has to help him out.

Bruce Willis has some great one liners  that makes you laugh, specially the first two actions. The car chase action sequence was the best of all, thrilling and it begins with that massive car explosions. Jai Courtney was decent. There was no outright villian who could bring evilness into the plot, another major problem in the movie. Yuliya Snigir looked pretty sexy.

All the slow motion scenes involving Sergei Kolesnikov was irritating, it didn't add any style to the screenplay.

Only for Bruce Willis (to some extent), and action sequences.. one may watch this movie which is pretty short one too. I haven't seen previous 4 parts of this series but I doubt that would had in any way made me like this movie. Weak script and direction lets the film down.