Movie Analysis : Bombay Velvet

Directed by : Anurag Kashyap
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2979920/


Anurag Kashyap can go wrong too, poor screenplay lets the film down. 

10 years in the making, a Anurag Kashyap movie with Ranbir Kapoor and Anushka Sharma in main leads, it would increase expectations of anyone who has followed Kashyap cinema closely. However, Bombay Velvet ends up as a major disappointment.

Its early 60’s of Bombay and Johnny Balraj (Ranbir Kapoor) wants to become a big shot. From earning a living through street fighter along with his friend Chiman (Satyadeep Mishra), they become henchmen for  Kaizad Khambhata (Karan Johar) who is editor of ‘Torrent’ and also a top wheel-dealer. Kaizad has a liking for Johnny and makes him in-charge of his club ‘Bombay Velvet’. Jimmy Mistry (Manish Chaudhury), editor of ‘Glitz’ and former friend of Kaizad, keeps coming in their way. And then there’s Jimmy’s mistress Rosie (Anushka Sharma) who he sends to Johnny and find an important negative that could ruin the entire city. Rosie becomes a Jazz singer at Bombay Velvet but eventually falls in love with Johnny too. Will Johnny succeed in becoming a Big Shot, and what will he do when he finds out the truth about Rosie?

Based on Gyan Prakash's book ‘Mumbai Fables’, there is so much to love in Bombay Velvet. For instance the brilliant production design by Sonal Sawant. The sets created in Sri Lanka gives you the feel of Bombay in 50’s and 60’s shown in the movie. Niharika Khan’s costumes reminds of good old mobster movies like Scorsese’s Goodfellas, he even gets a special mention before opening credits. Amit Trivedi’s soundtrack brings out the Jazz world post independence beautifully, and so does his background score. Also, Hollywood editor Thelma Schoonmaker (known most for her Scorsese edited movies) edits the movie pretty nicely.

But a movie can’t simply work on basis of technical brilliance. Its the screenwriting and Kashyap’s execution that fails the movie. Yes even Kashyap got it wrong. The screenplay is so shaky that it never engages you after the 1st act of establishing the characters is done.  The second act and the climax is disappointing, even the Tommy Guns homage to Scarface in few sequences makes no impact whatsoever. And it frustrates you a hell lot because the visuals are stunning, the atmosphere is well created and there are actors who give very good performances, yet it turns out to be not enough at all.

Johnny-Rosie love story is weakly handled thereby the chosen end to it doesn’t really affect you. Would had been better if they focussed on the crime drama and the political angle more instead. There’s a unwanted twin angle, a character trying to split two friends, climax involving strange funny villain-lead actor interaction, all these cliches in a Kashyap movie pretty much sums up Bombay Velvet.

Amit Trivedi’s music is fantastic, and is used in the narrative very well.  ‘Dhadaam Dhadaam’ stands out for the emotions and intensity Anushka brings out in it plus the drama Kashyap sets in that sequence. ‘Fifi’ different version used is good too. So, is ‘Sylvia’ again for Anushka’s lip syncing. Special mention to ‘Aam Hindustani’ track at opening credits which sets the mood for Jazz beautifully. My personal favorite ‘Bombay Velvet theme’ is used aptly at many places in narrative.

In the performances, Ranbir Kapoor is fantastic as power hungry protagonist,  watch the scene where he watches a movie on screen and later practices those two keywords in mirror ‘Big Shot’. Or when he decides to betray Kaizad without worrying about its aftereffects,  or when he loses someone very dear to him due to his decisions. Wish they worked on his greed angle in detail. Its sad that such a performance goes down wasted due to a bad movie.

Anushka Sharma gets the Jazz singing act perfectly, but its her character sketch that is inconsistent, for instance her first violent scene comes out of no where and you never come to know when and how exactly she fell in love with Johnny. Could had been great if her character was given more motives.

Karan Johar in his first major role as an actor (seen before in films like DDLJ), that too in a negative role does reasonably well, and is surprisingly so restrained. Watch out the scene where he is in conversation with Johnny and Chimman, and has to come out of room to have a loud laugh all alone. There are hints of homosexual behavior in just  a few scenes, one of its dialogue gives a good laugh too.

Raveena Tandon makes a special appearance, surprisingly was expecting a cameo, probably edited out. She looked extremely gorgeous in the jazz singer looks.

Kay Kay Menon is terribly wasted, and gets some of worst possible dialogues along with that unusual last scene.  Only Satyadeep Mishra shines among the rest cast, playing friend of Johnny effectively.


Bombay Velvet works only for its performances and specially the technical aspects but you expect lot more from a Kashyap movie. In the end he is also human, as his most ambitious movie turns out to be very much forgettable.


Verdict : 2.5/5 

Movie Analysis : Piku

Directed by : Shoojit Sircar
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3767372/

Lovely and sweet take on Father-Daughter relationship by Shoojit with excellent performances by all 3 leads. 

After giving successful and quality films like Vicky Donor and Madras Cafe, Shoojit Sircar is back with yet another terrific movie Piku.

An architect by profession, Piku’s (Deepika Padukone) day begins and ends with her father’s, Bhaskor (Amitabh Bachchan) highly irritating ideologies. They are Bengalis living in CR Park of Delhi. Rana (Irrfan Khan), is owner of Taxi company, whose taxi Piku always books for office or any other places she needs to go. And all the drivers are scared of her, because of her arrogant nature. Bhaskor decides to go on a road trip basically to his ancestral home in Kolkata, and Rana finds himself tangled into the trip as his drivers don’t turn up on the morning. And so begins the journey from Delhi to Kolkata, with Rana, Piku, Bhaskor, their servant and a special chair.

In the first scene of the movie, Shoojit shows a conversation between Piku and her dad, where she asks him to go inside toilet instead of roaming around house, to which he replies that he knows his system much better, she tries again but to no avail and annoyingly leaves for her office, and its followed by 'directed by' credits. Quite a wonderful way of telling viewers what kind of relationship to expect between Piku and her dad. Piku’s dad has a fixed thinking over various matters and has habit of bringing his constipation topic into the talks. While Piku shows frustration at not having her own life, with a child-like dad who even sends her office receptionist conspitation related message. She has no social life, and her dad doesn’t want her to get married because according to him marriage is meant for girls who have no I.Q.

What is beautiful about this movie is the subtle way Shoojit handles moments that in any other movie would be either very dramatic or over the top. For e.g., the romantic pairing of Piku and Rana comes across as very real despite no scene where they both admit love for each other. Infact, there are times when you think ‘Now they will, its surely going to go that way’, but it doesn’t. Add to it, the climax is so surprisingly good and unique to describe it in best way.

If you got a father who is ageing, who likes to stick to his beliefs and irritates you, would you stay together with him, or leave him because you also demand your own social and personal space? The movie touches this subject, but it never preaches us as we see Piku give her everything for her father whom she loves even though we see her get angry on him many times.

The plot of movie is pretty simple but its the narrative that keeps you hooked with excellent screenplay and dialogue writing by Juhi Chaturvedi. She gives us characters about a typical Indian family who are very relatable and whose conversations leads to many joyous and interesting moments.  Dialogues are witty at times, but always realistic making the conversations delight to watch.

In one of the scenes, Bhaskor gives reference to her daughter as ‘She is financially, emotionally and sexually independent'. And there’s a scene where Bhaskor is singing a Bengali song during road trip, with Rana driving as Bhaskor tells Rana meaning of song since being a non-bengali he (and we viewers) wouldn’t know. He tells its meaning ‘this journey should never end’, and Rana quickly tells him to change song ‘koi aisa gaana gao jiska koi matlab ho’.

Anupam Roy’s music and background score is simple and gels well with Shoojit’s vision. Bezubaan, the best track of movie has the cinematographer Kamaljeet Negi showing us some very good shots of Kolkata. No song is used in totality, as Shoojit uses them in background mainly.

Only low points of the film would be, the bengali accent at places was missing and the 2nd half was slightly on slower side though the screenplay and performances negates that to larger extent.

Performances wise, the trio Deepika, Amitabh and Irrfan are fantastic. Its a dream star-cast, and as expected they didn’t falter even in a single scene. Deepika Padukone gets larger screen time, and its one of her best performance outdoing ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’.  Amitabh Bachchan is so lovable in a role where he plays his own age, and behaves like a child like character who gets sad to know that nothing bad came out in his medical reports. Irrfan Khan may have lesser dialogues, but his body language is enough to impress. His unusual pairing with Deepika works so well specially the silent moments he shares with her, he effortlessly brings a smile on your face.

Moushumi Chatterjee is in top form playing Piku’s maternal aunt role with utmost ease. Good to see her in a hindi movie after a long gap. Jishu Sengupta is effective too in his small role, playing partner of Piku at her work place.


Piku is a lovely sweet movie that you will enjoy. Its entertaining and at times it also makes you emotional. With powerful performances by everyone, its a movie to be watched in theatre. In 10 years time, Piku would be talked along with classics like Golmaal, Angoor, Chupke Chupke etc.


Verdict : 4/5 

Sneak Peek : Piku - Father-Daughter Jodis in Hindi Movies

With Piku releasing tomorrow,  lets have a look at some of best Father-Daughter Jodi’s in our movies since 1990 (seen very less movies before that).



1. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge 

Amrish Puri - Kajol
Amrish played a very strict father to Kajol, who would believe that his daughter would never disagree or hurt his feelings. That was the time when Amrish Puri was most likable actor in father roles (before Amitabh took over). And who can forget that dialogue ‘Jaa simran jaa, jee le apni zindagi’.


2. Maine Pyar Kiya 

Alok Nath - Bhagyashree
Bhagyashree was like that sweet and innocent daughter, with Alok Nath coming to her rescue in a scene where Salman’s family questions her status. Apart from that, another scene that I love is when Alok realizes Salman is perfect guy for his daughter. I know these days Alok Nath is just a person to make fun of for those sanskaar jokes, but for me he remains as one of very good actors our Industry has had, this movie just a small e.g. of it.


3.  Gupt 

Paresh Rawal - Kajol
So here was a father who tried every possible way to protect and hide his daughter’s wrong doings. He even  takes the blame of murders she commits on himself. Kajol’s performance in negative role was widely praised, and Paresh Rawal was quite effective too.


4. Kya Kehna

Anupam Kher - Preity Zinta
Priety played role of a pregnant girl whose lover refuses to marry her. There was the routine drama ‘what will society say’ scene from Anupam when she decides to give birth to the child. Anupam Kher’s love for her daughter was seen in one of best scenes of movie where he gets angry at Priety’s brothers for keeping her chair at dining table, and few minutes later he apologizes to them as they start finding her together. Easily one of those films where father-daughter plot had a bigger part to play.


5. Mohabbatein 

Amitabh Bachchan - Aishwarya Rai
Although they both shared very less screen-time in movie, it was so lovely to watch the duo together. She plays role of a girl who falls in love with a guy from Gurukul that is run by his father. The same ‘You can’t love/marry someone against my wish’ comes into play.  Love the final emotional scene in the flashback where Aishwarya kills herself telling she can never betray his father but she can’t live without him either. Special mention to how beautiful Aishwarya looked in the Indian attire in this movie.



Most of these movies have Father-Daughter relationship as sub-plots, but Piku looks like completely based on it from its excellent promos and could well be the movie to talk about in future if it turns out to be very good.

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Dialogue Promos : Bombay Velvet

With 10 days to go for the release of the film … Three new Dialogue Promos of Bombay Velvet are out ..

1st one has Vivaan Shah dialogue with shots of Ranbir-Anushka fights.



2nd covers the main theme, and Ranbir’s ‘Naaice to meet you’ line. New shot of Karan too.



3rd has a fun conversation between Ranbir and Anushka that is pretty non-interesting, could well do with chopping this one off the film.

Trailer : Hamari Adhuri Kahani

The story is based on real life love triangle between parents of Mahesh Bhatt and his stepmother.

I am slightly disappointed with the trailer, as I didn’t knew Rajkumar Rao would be playing a husband who treats his wife (played by Vidya Balan) badly, and tortures her. Plus, the starting dialogues of Emraan Hashmi are soooooo loud, why?

Leaving that asides, the trailer is still pretty likable. There’s that very good romantic feel in the scenes of Emraan-Vidya, good chemistry they share which was visible even in ‘The Dirty Picture’ as well as ‘Ghanchakkar’.

Also, the emotional side to Vidya’s story, although its slightly manipulative due to that husband character they have put on, but the dialogues are very good ‘yeh raatein mujhe ghere huye hai, kya tum mujhe mera ateeth bula sakte ho’.

And then, there is reliable music of Mithoon and Jeet Ganguly, the title track used in trailer sounds good, will have to wait for its promo though to make a proper opinion.

Important movie for Emraan and Vidya, whose films in last 2 years haven’t been memorable at all.

Hoping director Mohit Suri delivers a great romantic movie this time, something on the lines of ‘Awarapan’, his last three movies did give a hint that he is coming closer to it.


Isse jyada takleef kya hogi mujhe ki maut nahi, zindagi daraati hai tumhe… 
Akelapan nahi, pyar daraata hai tumhe!
Nahi kar sakti pyaar, kuch mehsoos nahi kar sakti.

Movie Analysis : Gabbar is Back

Directed by : Krish
Imdb link -> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2424988/

Not a good follow-up to Baby, yet another forgettable Akshay movie. 

We saw Akshay Kumar in ‘Baby’ just 3 months back, and how much did we loved him doing that movie. One look at his filmography and you would notice that his best films are followed with 2-3 bad movies. The pattern continues here, as ‘Gabbar is Back’ fails to make any mark.

Aditya (Akshay Kumar) is a professor at National college where he teaches his students how to fight against corruption. Its a college where police is not allowed inside, yes! Aditya’s mission is much bigger, he is a vigilante in the name of ‘Gabbar’ (the iconic Amjad Khan character from Sholay) who wants to kill the most corrupted government officials just to create his terror amongst them and eliminate corruption from the system. Is Gabbar doing all this just to help the youth, or there are more reasons behind his actions?

Why would you reveal entire action scenes through graphics right at the opening credits? Then you see Shruti Hassan being a lawyer knowing how to deliver a pregnant woman’s kid in a car. There are higher ranked police officers who sit in Police Station and do nothing to find Gabbar, except for constantly making fun of constable Sadhu (Sunil Grover), and there are Samosa/chutney jokes.  Gabbar hangs dead bodies high up in air in public places, but no one ever notices, how come? Digvijay Patil (Suman Talwar) who plays a industrialist, keeps shouting one dialogue ‘I am the brand’.  And he invites people at his birthday party with his face masks on them knowing Gabbar is looking to find a way to reach to him, wow so smart! Also, his performance was way too loud. I can go on and on with the loopholes.

The only scene worth praise was the hospital one where Gabbar deals with corrupted doctors in best possible manner.

Many cliches like cameo of Kareena Kapoor Khan involving  a flashback sequence which only reduces the impact of ‘Gabbar’ angle or Shruti-Akshay romantic angle that doesn’t work too, infact I am still wondering why was she even in the film. Also, the social message is carried out with a long preaching dialogue sequence. And there’s a very comical building collapse scene too.

Since 'Gabbar is Back’ is a remake of Tamil movie, Ramanaa, we see plenty of south style action which isn’t new to us. The background score is loud, but the reworked 'Sholay Gabbar’ signature tune used at various places is a respite to ears. Rajat Arora once used to give powerful punchlines, his dialogues are again a huge disappointment in this movie, the only one that stays with you is ’naam se villain, kaam se hero’.

Music by Yo Yo Honey Singh, Chirantan Bhatt and Manj Musik is ordinary with only ‘Teri Meri Kahaani’ track that sounds okay, while there is a regressive item song ‘kundi na tharkaayo’ which features Chitrangada Singh, a fine actress busy doing these songs these days, what a pity!

Sunil Grover impresses the most among plenty of T.V actors in the movie, might just help him get good supporting roles in future which would be really nice.

Govind Namdev, Nikitin Dheer and Jaideep Ahlawat are wasted in the movie.

Akshay Kumar is always lovely to watch in action oriented plots with perfect dose of humor, his beard look is pretty good too but I wasn’t pleased with his dialogue delivery that looked more filmy than real, and it didn’t help either that some of those  dialogues were Amjad Khan’s famous lines. Yet he lets you survive the film till the end, a statement very common with his movies more often than not.


'Gabbar is Back’ is a movie that has no logic, no romantic plots to emotionally invest in and it entertains in small parts only. Watch if you are a die hard Akshay Kumar fan, else skip it.


Verdict : 1.5/5 

Missed Reviews (Jan-Apr) - Hindi Movies

I hate to say this, but it has happened again.. missed writing on time and so here are my views on all the films I saw in few lines. There are films which deserve a complete review, and I certainly will do so whenever I re-watch those movies.

There will be spoilers in every movie post, so be careful.. read at your own risk only!


Baby :

Akshay likes doing 1-2 surprise movies where not just his performance but the film can be praised too and Baby falls in that category. Based on covert Counter Intelligence Unit, Ajay (Akshay Kumar) is part of an elite team whose job is to stop the terrorists who are a threat to India. Entire 1st half is consumed in setting all the characters with one un-necessary sub-plot of Ajay and his wife (Madhurima Tuli). The director Neeraj Pandey has this weird habit of spoiling movies with un-necessary romantic drama, remember Special Chabees, how the brilliant Manoj-Akshay tussle impact was affected with Akshay’s love for Kajal. Same happens here,  ‘Main pyar nahi karti’ melodramatic song and to make the matters worse, Ajay’s wife says dialogues like ‘bas marna mat’ again and again in movie. Phew! Keeping her aside, there’s not much to complain in this movie. 2nd half is edge of seat thriller, and does remind you of Argo a lot. Ofcourse they changed a lot to that, with a patriotic touch to it which to be frank I didn’t like. I would had liked the inspector go after the team and fail with the flight take off in time, a valid argument here would be that it would had been ditto Argo climax. Anupam Kher’s cameo is brilliant. Special mention however to Tapsee Pannu who totally surprises you in a very unexpected action sequence. Kay Kay Menon is kinda of wasted, Danny Denzongpa scenes with Murli Sharma were hilarious, specially when Akshay slaps Murli and later Murli is scared at his sight. Baby is worth a watch, if you liked Special Chabees then most likely you will like or love Baby too.
Verdict : 3.5/5


Rahasya :

Surprisngly good movie as the trailer looked average to me, plus I am more keen to watch Meghna Gulzar’s ‘Nyoda’ which is also on Aarushi murder case. Actually, Rahasya is loosely based on that incident, it does show a young girl murdered with her father accused and the police doing very loose job making CBI enter i.e Sunil (Kay Kay Menon). But the amount of fiction added is larger, plus the real culprit and its reasons comes as a surprise too. Kay Kay Menon is ofcourse the scene stealer, and good to see him in such a big role after quite a while. Climax is a let-down but still definitely a film that can be seen once. And yea, there are no songs in the entire movie, if I remember correctly.
Verdict : 3/5


Hawaizaada :

One of the most boring movies I have seen this year. It looked like Ayushmann Khurana was trying hard to imitate Ranbir as the lover boy, instead the scenes became utterly hilarious specially that scene ‘isse shaadi kar le’. Pallavi Sharda is much better in her performance after the debacle of Besharam. But its Mithun Chakraborty who gives some good fun moments. The plot of 1st plane built by an Indian had in it to be atleast a very good movie if not classic. But the first time director Vibhu Virender Puri needs to learn a lot about film-making and specially building a screenplay that doesn’t put audience to sleep. Even the music was a big let down, only ‘Maazaa my Lord’ was a decent track. Hawaizaada is pretty much avoidable movie, only Ayushmann fanatics will disagree.
Verdict : 1/5


Khamoshiyan :

The start of this movie till the end of ‘Kya khoya’ track made me think this could be a good horror movie, but not so as the movie from that point on derails down heavily. Sapna Pabbi irritates with her poor acting, she does look pretty hot though. The usual cliches of horror begins, and you know where they will be taking story. Gurmeet Choudhary actually suited the negative role a lot, unfortunately he got very less screen time. I have liked Ali Fazal in past films, like Fukrey and Bobby Jasoos but in this movie he fails to impress. The best thing about the movie, which isn’t new with a Bhatt camp horror movie, is the music, almost all songs are pleasant to listen to, and actually give you a good breather from the not so interesting plot. The wait for a good hindi horror movie continues.
Verdict : 1.5/5


Shamitabh :

A very good performance oriented movie, where Dhanush matches the scale of Amitabh Bachchan so well. Watch out how Daanish (Dhanush) shows his passion for movies in the track ‘Ishq e fillum’. R.Balki gets the humor spot on, as long as you accept the scientific solution shown for Daanish getting a voice in form of Amitabh (Amitabh Bachchan). The jealousy Amitabh goes through, for being rejected as hero once due to his looks, and now its his voice being a reason for Daanish success is to watch for.  The part where Daanish and Amitabh separate their ways due to the disagreement to each other’s way of working, and then try to work their way alone could had been avoided. I mean why show so much of both trying to make a unsuccessful movie and then let Akshara (Akshara Hassan) teach them why both are failing, and why their ego is not letting them say sorry to each other. Just like happens in Band Baaja Baaraat. They work best in team, and fail miserably when do on their own. The climax you can say is too emotional, I don’t think its bad though. But yea, I wasn’t happy with the way R.Balki reached to that part. All the songs that looked very average, are fun to listen with the movie. Amitabh’s performance is very good, specially good to see him in drunk role after quite a while. Akshara Hassan looks cute, and acts fine but her hairstyle was kinda of irritating to see, wonder how she manages it. Shamitabh ain’t as good as R.Balki’s last movie Paa, but with the kind of irritating trailers it had, I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a good movie in the end.
Verdict : 3/5


Roy :

Okay, this one beats Hawaizaada too in boredom. Yes the trailer wasn’t good but still Ranbir Kapoor movie, you don’t expect this. Why the hell did he sign this movie, I didn’t mind Besharam at all. Only other movie of Ranbir I hated to see him do was Anjaana Anjaani. Director Vikramjit Singh was hell bent on confusing the narrative, making it hard to know what is real and what is reel as he shows one story of Kabir, film director (Arjun Rampal) and Ayesha, documentary director (Jacqueline Fernandez). Other one of Roy, a theif in Kabir’s film (Ranbir Kapoor) and a look alike of Ayesha who falls in love with Roy in the Kabir’s film (not in real). So, the question is, all this confusion was necessary? A huge No! Forget Roy, even the movie Kabir makes was looking utterly crap, with a weirdly done action scene. The songs are good though, not talking of the over-rated ‘Tu hai ke nahi’, hate that track. But the other ones are pretty good! Arjun Rampal was pretty good in his performance, if the script and screenplay were good, it would had got noticed much more. Jacqueline looked uncomfortable to me, in a role that was harder for her to do. Lets just hope this is the last time we saw Ranbir in such a bad movie.
Verdict : 0.5/5


Dum Laga Ke Haisha :

Give us this Ayushmann Khuranna (Prem) more often, how good it was to see him in a character that speaks shuddh hindi. Also, the entire movie shooting happened in Haridwar. The other limelight of the movie was actress Bhumi Pednekar (Sandhya) who is so impressive in her debut, and how often do you see an actress gain weight for her 1st role as lead. And then there is the brilliant supporting cast of Sanjay Mishra, Seema Pahwa and others. Love the scene when Sandhya-Prem keep changing the songs on cassette. How cool it was to see the opening credits with Kumar Sanu song as Prem plays a fanboy of Sanu, and Prem working at his cassette shop, rewinding us back to the 90s era when there was no cds or cd players. Also, the music by Anu Malik was a huge plus, specially Moh Moh ke dhaage. And the climax gets a huge lift by the inspiring voice of Kailash Kher with Nooran Sisters chorus in the title track during that lifting your wife competition and running.  I liked how they changed the track into the male version of Moh Moh ke dhaage once the race got over, that feeling of joy and love was wonderfully done. Yash Raj movies are definitely on a high these days, attempting projects you least expect coming out from them, lets just hope the pattern continues.
Verdict : 4/5


NH10 :

I had seen director Navdeep Singh’s last movie Manorama Six Feet Under, which I found way too slow despite being engaging. So, was worried if NH10 would go the same way, but its not the case, except for a very long opening credits which was good to watch too as Navdeep starts to build the atmosphere. Thats the beauty of this film, Navdeep is so good at creating that fear atmosphere even before the road journey of Meera (Anushka Sharma) and Arjun (Neil Bhoopalam) begins, the mood is already set. One must applaud the sound design for it, the background score and also the fact that Navdeep never changes the track of story after that well done night scene of Meera where she just escapes death. By now you know that Meera is going with Arjun on a trip with her mind-set not good, as seen by that swimming scene or the comment passed by a office colleague. Mostly I expected from the trailer that the bad incident happens due to Satbir (Darshan Kumaar) at NH10 road after Gurgaon, but it turns out to my surprise that it was Arjun’s ego that took them into trouble and there was no turning back then. The movie serves purpose of a great road journey horror movie where you are scared for the characters who have landed at a place where they will get no help, can they survive or not is the question that is in the mind. The scene where Satbir kills his own sister along with her boyfriend is the point where you feel sorry for Meera, for what is to come. Its hard to imagine how they even made Deepti Naval scare you when she comes to know about who Meera is. Love the final scene, beautifully done with ‘Maati ka palang’ track, and the extra moments Meera takes to kill Satbir, lighting a cigg and waiting to see him struggle to survive. Anushka’s performance (finally) was worth applauding, be that scene or the one where she says ‘Fuck you’ to the bad guys or the way she struggles on the night of her birthday. That birthday angle was a very good way to set the Interval too. Also, notice how at one stage, Satbir’s sister comes to Meera for help, but Meera stays away thinking she is a stranger so I shouldn’t step in any kind of trouble by helping. And later Meera becomes the one who seeks help from others but she doesn’t get any, not even from Police. Also later on, she refuses to take help from bunch of guys in a Jeep who looks wise didnt appear good guys, but turns out they were actually willing to help and weren’t bad, irony! Special mention to the Shilpa Rao version of ‘Le chal mujhe’ song, one of my favs. And nice of them to not include the popular ‘chhil gaye naina’ track in end credits, a mistake the makers of Badlapur did. NH10 continues the good run our Hindi Movies are having so early in 2015, not a film to be missed.
Verdict : 4/5


Hunterrr :

A movie on a sex addict, Mandar (Gulshan Devaiah) would had been terrific if and only if director didn’t go with a narration style that shifts from Present to 15 yrs back to present to 6 months back to 3 months further back to present to 10 yrs back and so much more. How the hell did the makers not realize that this kind of viewing would be a burden for the audience. Just when you concentrated and were about to love a portion of movie, they do a back jump to earlier life of Mandar. A linear narration would had worked lot more for the movie, with 1-2 past jumps at most. Gulshan Devaiah is a actor whose performances I have liked in past, and here too he is spot on in the kind of troubles he gets into at times specially when he goes after married lady, Jyotsna (Sai Tamhankar). Radhia Apte (Trupti) once again is very likable in a longer role after that cameo in Badlapur. Without a doubt, Mandar-Trupti jodi works the most for me, love the scene where Mandar is dreaming how she would react when he would tell her ‘Main vasu hoon’.  The climax is well constructed too, however I felt that ex bf angle of Trupti was unwanted. The humor and dialogues are wonderful, like the scene where Mandar tells 'always go for the 2nd best' among group of girls during his teenage times. Nice to listen Altaf Raja voice again, even though composition was pretty average. I liked the Gunmaster G9 kinda of feel given to title track, which is sung by Bappi Lahiri too. One thing is sure if I have to re-watch the movie, I would edit and remove all the past jumps, make the narration simple, should be a good watch then.
Verdict : 3/5


Dharam Sankat Mein : 

There are films where you ask yourself ‘Should I watch it or skip it’, and when you decide to watch, it turns out to be so good. Thats how it was for me with ‘Dharam Sankat Mein’, glad I went ahead to see it. The movie does remind you of Oh My God and to a lesser extent PK too. We again have Paresh Rawal (Dharam Pal) who aint religious and his family is very religious, and he finds all the babas dhongi, a particular Neel Anand Baba (Naseeruddin Shah) is whom his son worships because the girl who his son loves has her father following Neel Baba too. But this is just a sub-plot that aint much interesting, the main plot is the identity of Dharam Pal, i.e a Hindu, and suddenly he comes to know that he is a Muslim, which shakes up his life. He has a Muslim neighbor Mehmood (Annu Kapoor) whom he hated uptill now, but it is he who starts to help Dharam and ease out his tension, find his real father. There’s one excellent sequence where on one side Mehmood is helping Dharam all the things a Muslim guy should know about, including the language, namaaz etc, because the owner of place where his father is hospitalized asks Dharam that he can meet his father only when he turns into a complete Muslim person. So one one hand he learns from Mehmood to become a complete Muslim, and on other hand Dharam’s son brings a pujari home to make Dharam learn everything a hindu religious guy should know about. This creates plenty of laughable moments. Also, the scene where Mehmood takes Dharam to a friend’s gathering for a event to test how Dharam talks and behaves like a proper Muslim person. Paresh Rawal is outstanding once again, and brilliant supporting act by Annu Kapoor, the duo scenes together are a delight to watch. Naseeruddin hams as he has to in this role of baba, also has a very over the top entry scene, almost reminded me of Msg - the messenger. The last 10-15 mins is the weakest part of the movie, didn’t like the way they reveal Neel Anand Baba real identity, to be frank I wasn’t even interested in it, should had gone for a different ending. Leaving that asides, Dharam Sankat Mein is a pretty good watch.
Verdict : 3/5


Margarita with a Straw : 

Laila (Kalki Koechlin) suffers from cerebral palsy and has got a supportive family specially her mother played by Revathy. She lives in Delhi and has a crush on one of the band singers for whom she writes lyrics for. Love the scenes where she shows how much she loves him, and then how broken she feels to know he doesn’t love her. Also, one of her interesting  conversation with her male friend who suffers same problem telling her that she shouldn’t be trying to be close with normal people. The new and very different angle comes when Laila goes to USA for higher studies and meets Khanum (Sayani Gupta) who is blind. How Laila goes on her sexual discoveries, and feels in doubt thinking whether she loves Khanum or is she bi-sexual. There’s a brilliant scene where Khanum is heart-broken to know what Laila had done without telling her. Its in scenes like this where you admire this film, because it never tries to show sympathy for disabled person or trying to show how sweet/good they are. Instead we see Laila as like any other human, full of feelings, desires, wrong actions and betrayals too. I liked the bonding scenes of Laila and Khanum a lot, both Kalki and Sayani performed very well. Revathy was brilliant, love the scene when Laila thinks she has fooled her mother and doesn’t go inside college, while Revathy is hiding behind to see where she is going, and also her reaction when Laila tells her that she is in love with a boy. Its easily one of best performances from Kalki, love the scene where she tries to tell her mother 'main bisexual hoon’ and that last scene, her date with herself!
Verdict : 3.5/5 


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