Review: GOOD NEWWZ

Thoda Funny, Thoda Tacky, Aur Bahut Misleading...

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Since when do doctors play anti abortionists? Which doctor in their right mind says, 'See your baby's tiny heart is beating, and you want to kill it?' Especially if it is a baby created by your mistake? Who advises against adoptions? There are so many things wrong with this film you cringe when the very obvious lifestyle jokes are cracked.

Main Review:

Last I heard, abortion was a woman's right in this country. No doctor will tell the patient against going through with the procedure by pointing out to a 'beating heart' and emotionally blackmail a patient from going through with the procedure. And more so in this case, because the psychological trauma is caused by a 'mistake' of the doctor! 

So at this fancy-ass fertility center, the fancy-ass doctor suggests to the obviously stressed out fancy ass patients Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor Khan to undergo the IVF. They agree because they've tried everything else from having sex during ovulation to saying 'no' to mumbo jumbo babajis.

(Having been through a similar push from family, I think it was a wasted opportunity for the filmmakers to have ignored the 'babaji ka chooran', 'mannat maangi hai' humor, which is way better than the tacky, 'Holi ke din paida hua so the baby's name is Holaraam', and fatty aunties insisting that now it's time to become fat. 

Which world are the filmmakers living in? How is that funny? Today young women are thinking of having babies because they can buy the Armani baby bag and go for baby and mommy yoga, and even show off their hot mommy bods because they went to a 'mommy moon'... That would have a funnier trope to explore than what we saw...

The other set of Batras are rich too, but they're not fancy, they live in Chandigarh in a bungalow with a pool, but they're loud - they wear matching leisurewear, in sequinned velvet - and they sing zumba songs in the gym. 

I actually liked this pair of Batras, even though you are supposed to like the Bombay Batras. Diljit Dosanjh and Kiara Advani make for a lovely pair what with 'mata rani's blessings' and living with mummyji who heard from this auntyji who heard about the pregnancy from that auntyji whose daughter works in the doctor's office.

There is a problem here: If Diljit and Kiara went to the Chandigarh branch of the fertility center, and Akshay and Kareena in Bombay, how on Earth did the sperm get mixed up? I chopped off two stars from five here...

Obviously no research was done here because rich couple go stay at the baby resort where couples who want babies live and eat and breathe and dream about having babies (they have everything from meditation and massage for harassed husbands and pink and blue fluffy rooms of love for wives) the whole thing is hormonal...

A mix up of sperms in real life would mean a cancellation of the doctor's licence anywhere in the world! The moral consequences aren't exactly nice... But first, which doctor is ever going to admit that it's their mistake? 

As the movie progresses, the Bombay Batras and Chandigarh Batras become neighbors, Akshay Kumar continues to be a horrid man, unable to connect with a baby growing inside his wife because it is not his sperm. This prompts a rant from Kareena who looks so lovely you forget the big mistake in this speech. 

She says, 'You don't know the pain we got through at childbirth!' 

What?! She's yet to give birth. How does she know pain? Besides, had they done a little research, they would have come across a word called the 'epidural'! It's the injection that eases the pain of childbirth.

So I wiped my moist eyes and ended up rolling them at Akshay Kumar suddenly smoking pot inside the house (I guess the humor was so thin they needed him to smoke up in order to laugh hysterically! Since when do potheads behave hysterically? Chop one star off for this pathetic, un-researched idea).

Of course the babies are born and everything is happy happy joy joy, but not before Akshay Kumar is rude to his parents while getting into the car enroute to the hospital... That much awfulness needs to get a kick in his arse, and half a star chopped off. This was just not necessary.

But there are three awesome things about this film: 
one: Kareena Kapoor, 
two: one really funny line, and 
Three: A lovely cinematic moment.

Kareena is simply lovely.   

Then there's a super funny line when Akshay Kumar sees giant baby pictures in the clinic and comments, 'Why do clinics show white babies?' 

The third is the lovely moment, the look the two women share when eating paani puri...

It would have been fun if families descended en masse on the two Batras and everyone wanted a hand in 'Bringing up Baby'... But the filmmakers did not take even half a leaf out of Steve Martin... Even better had they thought up of baby gift registry, or internet domain names for the babies or started an Instagram account for their babies... But that would mean research, and having women on your team who have been there, done that...

If you see lots of stars flying about, don't be fooled. These are the same people who loved the pathetic Bhai starrer recently released... Watch it for the limpid, glowing Kareena. 




      

Review: Dabanngg 3

The Slower Than Sloth Film. 
Ek Ghante Ki Story, Kheench Ke Dhai Ghante Ki Banai.


Stars? 
Iss Baar Bore Kar Diya Chulbul!


Mini Review:

Remember Raymond S. Persi, the sloth from the DMV in Zootopia? How exasperation inducing his slow motion is, no? Now imagine it in the film. Every other minute. Chulbul is slow, the bad guy Balli Singh is slow, action is slow, the romance is slow, deaths are slow, explosions are slow, even the dancing is slow. The story is as old as the hills, and not even this fan girl of Chulbul Pandey can justify liking this painful boring film.

Main Review:

Prabhudeva Ab Thakela Hai 

Once upon a time , when you said 'Prabhudeva', you expected super dance moves, and mad action. And when he makes an appearance on the screen, you cheered his dance moves... Alas, those days are gone.

He's directed other action films from Wanted to Rowdy Rajkumar and even Pokkiri. Remember the basketball court scene in Pokkiri? Where Vijay says, 'Both the gun and the girl are mine!' Pure action even when the bad cop and the hero are simply threatening one another. But that was good Prabhudeva. In this film, we got the thakela version... 

In this film the villain threatens hero, but the writing is tired and the only trick Prabhudeva uses is slow motion. No surprises, just slow threats,'ek taraf maa hai, doosri taraf ladki. Kisko pehle bachayega?' Blah! Batman had to make this choice years ago...

You get so bored of the slow motion, you don't feel like cheering when Prabhudeva shows up in a dance scene. And yes, he's still Micheal Jacksoning. Meh!

And he uses the same sound as Ramesh Sippy did in 1975 for Gabbar. Come on! Kichha Sudeep is good, but he's not Gabbar! 

Salman Khan, Needs Better Dialog, Better Action

Computer generated muscles on Salman Khan are a sad thing to see but I'm a fan and I still think he looks terrific in formal shirts that he wears in the movies.  

I think he's sweet when he giggles as his girl hugs him, or offers him chocolate, or when he ogles his own wife in the shaving mirror. He's funny when he realises it was his mum not the mean aunt he sent off on the train. And yes, he can still dance! But there's no song that's memorable. Not even, 'Munna Badnam Hua!' And I don't remember the words to the song which happily talks of 'set wet hair gel' in a product placement way.

He is great in the action scenes and even though I know they are unreal, they are enjoyable. But why has suddenly action turned into Gore?

Oh yes, instead of the pecs twitching this time he's made to twitch his butt. I love Salman Khan, but even I don't want to see him twitch buttcheeks to music.

Kiccha Sudeep Whyy Are You The Bad Guy?

From Veer Madakari to this? From fighting the spook in Phoonk to burying girls in this film? I mean Sudeep's Kannada films like Huchcha and even Swati Muthu show his acting chops, but here? It's a good casting but he doesn't come across as someone who would be raping girls and burying them in the rose garden. It's just a terrible trope added in because it will make him look scary. 

He makes for a pathetic villain even though he gets the sneers and the cruelty right. He's too well dressed to be in the open pit mine. He just looks out of place in small town politics.

The story is confusing. The bad guy lives in a Rajasthani palace, and is rich because he supplies girls to the rich guys. He keeps smelling cigarettes as though they're something special, and chews on toothpicks (he gave up tobacco or something?). Why he runs someone down we don't know but he meets Salman's first girlfriend by staging a knockdown... Totally stupid, couldn't he just have rushed to save the guy and made friends with the nosepin girl?

Single Expression Nosepin Girl Saiee Manjrekar

The tepidest debut ever as a girl who wants to be a doctor and is never shown to study or take an entrance exam to become one... But wait, this is a Salman film. Who cares about details like that? Isn't it enough that she does innocent things like give him a chocolate as 'Shagun', shakes her head when Salman pretends to smoke and gives him a rudraksh beads 'mala' as a gift. Plus she talks like she's searching for words in her empty head. In fact she's so slow, I got up, left the theater, got coffee and came back in and sat down, and she was still saying, 'Thank you for paying for my admission and four year ka medical college fees, Chulbul.'

I was so happy she dies. Tsk. They show it in the trailer naaaa! And that's why the gorgeous Sonakshi Sinha becomes the wife...

Thankfully Chulbul married the fiesty Rajjo and not the silly nosepin girl.

Sonakshi Sinha. How Cool is she?!

'Pyaar se dar lagta hai sahab' has now turned into this cooking diva who looks simply awesome. Some sarees she's made to wear are so loud, you begin to understand why Chulbul wears sunglasses at all times. 

She used to be fiery, and if you've seen Akira, you know she can be feisty. But she's suddenly the bharatiya nari and perfect heroine who cooks and screams for help and snivels 'kasam hai' type of stuff even though there is one scene where she beats up some chap and lectures him about wasting water...

But then you realise that this film is so stuck in a time warp where the heroines have to damsels in distress... I wish wholeheartedly that this gorgeous woman would choose better films.

Other People In The Movie

Chulbul is Dabanngg and Rajjo is his sexy and sassy wife, how do they produce such a stupid kid? He's old enough to wash his own butt but won't. What is that? Makkhi is there, and his role is so transparent, you don't buy the 'sautela bhai' shtick at all. 

There are some big bad South Indian baddies (don't ask why they're in Rajasthan!) who get beat up, there are men in cop uniform who get beaten up because they're bad... and so on... Poor Dimple Kapadia has to be mom and agree with soon to die masi who says, 'Jaisa Naam, waisa hee chehra'...Or is it, 'Jaisa chehra, waisa hee nature' something...

The songs are blah. The dances even more dull. And as a fan of Salman Khan, I feel cheated. 

As I said, all this is mish-mashed together and is presented in slow motion again and again and again... 

Such an exhausting morning. But there was a young man sitting in front of me who laughed whenever Chulbul Pandey put his glasses on or giggled or was backlit for 'hero entry'... Perhaps there is an audience for this... 






  

Review: MARDAANI 2

You'll Love It. You'll Hate It.
But Will Definitely Wish This Film Were Better.

(Love For Rani Mukerji Spilleth Over!)

2 stars

Mini Review:

Rani Mukerji needs to show up oftener on the big screen. She's so good. She's SP Shivani Shivaji Rai posted in small town Kota pitched against patriarchy and a serial rapist played by a young lad Vishal Jethwa. It's a dark and violent film that reflects our dark and violent time, but... It falls short in my eyes because it relies on lines about women written for whistle podu...

Main Review:

Best part of the film? Rani Mukerji of course. She's great as a woman cop who speaks her mind, and is posted in the middle of small town patriarchy. The trouble is, the damned trailer gives away too much. 

Vishal Jethwa is rather creepy young fellow (great debut), who would have been even more villainous had he been given a you-talkin-to-me Travis Bickle kind of madness instead of Frank Underwood talkin-to-the-audience style menace. That's the writer-director's decision, and it then falls into overacting ki chai ki dukaan type situation.

The third character in this film is patriarchy, that is rather crude in its depiction with constant mention of the word 'aukaat'. The senior cop Shekhawat, the other cops at the station (who mostly eat wada pav in Kota, Rajasthan are all patriarchy. 

What?! Wada Pav?

No pyaaz kachoris or mirchi ke pakode in sight? 
Who did research for the film? 

NO SANE PERSON WILL SHOW A DUSSEHRA MELA IN KOTA ON FILM WITHOUT FEATURING PANNALAL KE PAKODE IN AT LEAST ONE SCENE. 

But I digress. Let me come back to patriarchy. And this is where the film gets boring. Erm... Predictable. The film seems like you've seen these things like... Forever. Women who work, women who study and want to be professional, men who want to undermine a woman at work... blah blah blah... And yet, somewhere inside you know it needs to be shown for the crap that it is and what horrors women put up with every day. 

This just means, I heard tons of cliches through the film. From both the heroine and the villain and the patriarchy ke patr.

Of course I cringed when the policewoman with Rani pukes at the sight of the mutilated corpse of girl, and the woman forensic pathologist says, 'I hope you catch the bastard.' (I almost puked at the cliche there!)

The most horrendous part is the awful TV anchor played by Rajesh Sharma who asks Rani Mukerji: If a man had been in your place, would the villain bait him? 

When Rani launches into how women have to work twice as hard etc and Rajesh Sharma does the 'If men are Raavans you think you are Seeta maiyya?' 

Ugh!

Rani Mukerji thankfully did not say, 'Sometimes Seeta, sometimes Durga'...

At this point someone in the audience was clapping hard and whistling too. So I shrugged, and watched.

Perhaps I watch too many cop shows on Netflix. But these are things to ponder: 

If a girl's corpse has been submerged in water, will the semen evidence be not contaminated?

How did the two women in the last act free themselves to do the final brave act? 
With what did he tie Rani up? Plastic ties? Are they easily available in Kota? 

How did the Bomb rescue happen? Why were we not treated to 'blue-wire green-wire' sweat on the brow moment?

Where did the baddie find Rani mask? It's not like there are Kinkos ready to help you download pictures and print masks? Where did he find the time to do this stuff? He's from Meerut, How does he know his way around Kota? Did he take training from Jason Bourne?

I loved the ease with which the villain did things, including get into her house. And yet again, I hated him speaking directly to me. It would have been creepier for us to know what the bad guy was doing and cringe when the good guys were falling into his trap...

To conclude: 

5 Stars For Rani Mukerji Belt Whip
2 Stars For Creepy Lad In Magenta Saree

Minus 3 stars For breaking fourth wall
Minus 2 stars For trite, ghise pite 'Woman is Seeta also Wonder Woman' type dialog

Total: 2 stars.

Review: PATI, PATNI AUR WOH

Yet Another Small Town Tale That's Trying Too Hard To Be Funny...

1.5 stars


Mini Review:

Indore, Bhopal, and now Lucknow/Kanpur telling us how families will promise 'acche din' and ruin lives of young men who continue to hanker after 'Western kapde' wali mem, even though they are happily married to Indian saree wali babe. Kartik Aryan is distinctly uncomfortable playing 'madhyam varg ka aam aadmi' caught between Bhumi Pednekar and Ananya Pandey. Only Apartshakti Khurana saves the sad state of that almost affair.

Main Review:

PLEASE TRY TO READ THIS WITH A GRIN. BECAUSE THE HERO GOES THROUGH 2 HOURS OF SPEAKING AND SMILING.


The young husband and wife call each other 'Tyagi' and 'Tripathi', offer to put 'lotion' on the other's hand, and have squabbles about how he's happy to live like a king in a small pond and how she wants to spread her wings in Delhi, so she calls him frog in the well and tells him that he should not expect tadpoles if that's what he is happy being...

The husband's friend is happy being unmarried and offers us, the audience relief from the 'madhyam vargeeya aam aadmi' and his tedious shaadi ka haal. Aparshakti Khurana crackles as this wisecracking friend (none of his lines though are memorable, except that you remember him getting ragged at the husband's constant regret about a certain 'Neha' who left him...)

Kartik Aryan is rather uncomfortable playing the young husband Abhinav Tyagi (he played another husband in Luka Chhupi ), and he holds lots of khunnas because he has had to tow the line papa tyagi has thrown at him. 

I am still trying to figure out how the lad can smile and speak at the same time.

Bhumi Pednekar was ordered to be the slutty bhabi, Vedika Tripathi, who talks like she's seducing all the time. Even when she's teaching physics to teenagers like 'Rakes Yadav'. 

Why she allows the student to write her love letters is just beyond imagination. It's not like that child was promising her a life in Delhi, innit?

And it bothered me why she wore sarees in that odd way. 

That brings us to the friend Faheem Rizvi played by Aparshakti Khurana. He's very very good. And takes away from the tedious life of Tyagi-Tripathi.

The 'Woh' shows up to get a licence for a leather factory. And the Pati who is fed up of his moffussil life and the nagging 'Patni' is enamoured by her 'Western' outfits. Ananya Pandey looks more like Student of The Year than businesswoman in small town.

Abhinav Tyagi wants his wife to be like this attractive girl and his dilemma is very clear in the gifts he buys for the two women: he buys a 'western dress' for his wife and a 'saree' for his now 'almost girlfriend'.

I began pitying him then, and the fun simply vanished. Are Indian men so confused? Will they marry a smart woman and still ask her if she can cook...

Of course the movie behaves like 'madhyam varg' (middle class) because Abhinav Tyagi does not have the cojones to see his 'affair' through. He cannot forget his wife.

The wife has discovered his 'affair' and like all 'madhyam varg' women leaves home, and flirts outrageously with her ex.

And the damned ex is sober too. He will not cross the 'mangalsutra' boundary.

It's all very tedious.

The color palette of the film is very, very refreshing. The events unfold really well, so there's not a moment's respite. It's just that the predictability of the events is tiring. And the morality, is boring.

Thankfully there aren't small town shaadi songs to add to the 'feels'. 

There are women in the audience who cackled with delight when the reveal about how wife and woh got together and shame the guy. But there are also men in the audience who whooped when Kartik Aryan goes off on the painfully familiar rant about 'patis' being forced to understand consent or be labled balatkaris...

The film will show up on Amazon Prime soon, so as New Yorkers say, Fuhgeddabout it'.  
   

Review: Commando 3

Very Good Action Set Pieces, The Rest Is Kuch Bhi Dikha Do.


Throw This Film Back Into Time. Even Then It Won't Earn More Than 1 star


Mini Review:

There's a cool knife fight, fights with local white thugs, car chases, bike chases, helicopter rescue but the filmmakers forgot to chase this thing called logic and no one told them it is 2019 not the 70s. 

With all actors doing whatever they feel like, little wonder the camera person left his camera on close ups. Watch if you want to get really familiar with everyone's skin, or if you have friends who laugh at every dialog by saying, 'TWHS' and 'TWSS'!

Main Review:

'Ooooh... Gulshan Deviah!' I said, 'Oooooh! So talented he is... Wasn't he fab in Mard Ko Dard?' I gushed right before the film, 'He might bring some sense to the senseless display of muscle expected in this movie...'

How I wish I had not opened my gob.

He plays the Mad Muslim NRI Terrorist as if he had taken acting lessons from GIF selector. He displays ALL of the emotions in ALL of their glory ALL the time. 

No one told him ki bhaiyya terrorists do not have to be grim reaper walking the ramp all the time. 

But no one told all the other terrorists how to NOT overact either. If you are a bad guy in the film, you had better have a sneer ready. 

Learn villainy from Gulshan Deviah: '(Snarl!) Maine Biryani banayi hai... (Sneer)...Taste karoge? (Mad Eyes!)...No? (Narrow Eyes)... Eat! 

He has all the accents too: 

Urdu bhi, Hindi bhi, 'Gonna-wanna' type American English bhi, and whenever he remembers it, thoda Brit accent bhi...

But there are others in the movie too. The Hero Vidyut Jamwal has the propensity of choosing the worst scripts ever. A script where everyone talks. And talks. And talks. And you begin to laugh even at the seemingly simple dialog like: Koi Commando hai?

You automatically answer, 'Nahi bhai, chaddi pehen rakkhi hai!

And it doesn't help when he beats up langot clad pehelwaans on 'hero wali entry'.

To his credit though, he is a great action star. And I don't say this lightly. His jump across the balcony towards the guy re-loading his machine gun is full on paisa vasool, as are the knife fights. But the rest...

So there's an angry Brit Indian Muslim man who wants to create terror in India via messages on VHS tapes. YAS! The Internet is only mentioned. Perhaps they knew how bad cell phone service is...

They assume all Muslims in India wander about in skull caps and can be converted to the ways of the jihad by butchering calves... I mean seriously?! Have they never seen Tik Tok videos where young people thrive on doing contrary things?

So Commando and his partner with an appearing and disappearing South Indian accent (she says 'Roy garu', but also wears the very North Indian Chooda to show she's undercover in London) reach London (suspiciously empty during vehicular chase scenes)

The British Intelligence (they also know it's an oxymoron the way this film treats everyone) has to have one cliche officer (oooh! yeh bhi Muslim hai, but 'uski ungliyaan sirf computer par chalti hain')...

Okay I fell asleep trying to explain...

But it's fun to see Indian Intelligence chief and his British counterpart yell at each other over skype. Super fun how the Indian Intelligence HQ looks like NASA / ISRO operations room and you expect Akshay Kumar to show up any moment and save Chandrayaan.   

Almost forgot! The terrorist loves his one expression kid and hates his ex-wife (if my ex-wife spoke Hindi like that, I would hate her too). She runs a flower stall, and the British court granted custody of her minor child to the dad... Happens only in movies...

Never mind all that... The final encounter is so laughable I have to tell. 

So something big is going down on Diwali day. But they've got Ravans everywhere in India. Whaaat? Baaaad looking Muslim men indoctrinated by VHS tape messages are hiding AK47s, so you know they're going to shoot people... But it give Vidyut Jamwal a chance to get real close (remember camera is set on CU) to Gulshan Deviah and ask him 'When? Where?' How? and so on as the very rich baddie with a ten rupee digital watch does face yoga as answers...

While bad foreign guy uses VHS, the good Indian guy does Sat phone video call that shows up on everyone's cell phone in India (except the bad guys). Clearly better technology wins and bad guys are caught by the common people...

Do you want to wait for the Raamji beating Ravanji for Seetaji dialog?! 

Am only glad they don't go Modiji ki jai...

I know there are plot holes in the film the size of Nazca lines, the scriptwriter is a wannabe Kader Khan, but you should watch this movie to be gobsmacked by the changing size of Vidyut Jamwal's man bun. 


P.S: 

Q. Why does Vidyut Jamwal take off his shirt while fighting baddies?
A. He can't take off his jeans because he's Commando.



    
  

Review: MARJAAVAAN

Starting With Riteish Deshmukh's Vishnu, 
There's Not A Single Original Thought In This Film.

Rating: Stabbing yourself is more entertaining

Mini Review:

They paid the screenwriters so much they had the gangsters on verbal vomit mode all through the film! And not just gangsters, the heroine (who speaks through a friend), the hero, the hero's friends, the cops... AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHH! They retain the audience by getting them to fall asleep. I started counting unoriginal stuff coming at us and then gave up. 

Main Review:

Hero has an Amitabh Bachchan hangover, right from fighting the baddies and the ambulance bit (choreographed here because he brings a first aid box to a fight) to the matchstick in the mouth. 

Then we gag when the great Nasser who is big bad guy Anna who gives us the Laawaris spiel. But his name is not Heera after the dog, but Raghu. I hear Kamala Haasan's voice in my head saying, 'aappdiyaa!' 

Yes, there's a nautch girl (Rakul Preet Singh) who is in love with the hero. Hardly original that. And the songs she sings are so not new you don't really care if the name of the bar is Dilbar.

but as the song goes ek toh kam zindagani is wrong! This film goes on and on and on... and a dumb but not deaf (apologies for not being politically correct here) girl from Kashmir whose name is Zoya and she wants to take talented kids to Kashmir for a song contest (aaaaaaaargh Riteish Deshmuskh did not tell the writers about Banjo the film!). 

The film is so lazy, they show close ups of Siddharth Malhotra's hands which are so well cared for, they don't have a trace of a hard life. 

Poor Siddharth Malhotra! he is made to wear a leather jacket in Bombay heat, but I guess it is handy to ward off a pathetic Molotov cocktail that is barely effective. What kind of stupid goons are these?

There's Tara Sutaria who plays Zoya who wants to change the future of the basti kids with music. Move over Gully Boy and Banjo we choose kids because they eve tease other kids. Ugh! And the Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram is poor man's version of Rani Mukerjee in a short dress singing Om Jai Jagdeesh Hare. Original my...

Poor Ravi Kissen is reduced to spouting crap like 'Hamare Bihaar mein ek kahavat hai...' 

The only thing good about this movie is Vishnu, the dwarf son of the big bad guy who is jealous of Raghu's loyalty to his dad. Riteish Deshmukh plays Vishnu really well but they gave him so much dialog, the menace is reduced. And yes, none of us have seen Game Of Thrones to know where the idea must have germinated, no?

The final fight (Wow! So new!) goes on and on until we begin collecting our things (including a shoe I almost threw at the screen seeing that very tired idea of sending goons to kill a hero who has been incarcerated). Then the villain and the henchmen and the hero die. But not before dead heroine shows up to give the hero darshan... Rani Mukherji outdid that in DDLJ like a hundred years ago,no?

Last cry for help: Grammar check dialog, please! it is not 'Is dusshehra ka din' but 'Is dusshehre ke din...'

Review: MOTICHOOR CHAKNACHOOR

Small Town Shaadi Tale About Average Joe (And Jane) 
That's Too Long And Too Average.


Rating: Two Surprises Many Groans


Mini Review:

When I was happily surprised, people around me asked, 'You didn't see the trailer? It's in there!' Am glad I hadn't seen. Because the film has gin-ke two twists. And the rest is ghastly predictable. If you can get over the Bundelkhandi (or is it Malwi) Hindi spoken, you will fall in love with the heroine's spunky Mausi and the hero's Bhai, and it will be on Netflix soon. 

Main Review: 

I love and respect Nawazuddin Siddiqui as an actor but his Puspinder's sex face was hard to handle. And they show it not once but at least four times. 

So he's a Dubai returned Pushpinder Tyagi (pronounced, 'pus-pinder') , thirty six year old (way past 'marriageable' according to family) who seems to want to desperately get married. The colloquial term they use again and again, 'Naada dheela' is so ghastly you puke into your popcorn. Is that why he looks so uncomfortable in the role? How often through the film I wished he'd turn into Faizal Khan of Wasseypur and get us all out of this small town misery. 

His family is what most supposed small town families are meant to be: A managing mom, uncle and aunt, a bhabi (her husband is in Muscat), a younger brother (a wonderful actor, not credited on IMDB) and a sister who is still doing her BA (six years and counting). Plus a grandmother who wears the post-cataract sunglasses. There is also an annoying kid called Ikka (obviously the bhabi's kid)

They stay next door to Ani or Ankita (Athiya Shetty, in a surprisingly good fit) who dreams of upping her friends and posting her 'foreign life' photos on facebook, and will reject any 'rishta' with anyone who won't take her abroad.

Her family has an unmarried mausi, Karuna Pandey in a brilliant, brilliant role, a dad and mum (both very Hindi TV serial parents). They are all totally involved in trying to get Ani married off. 

See you are already tired. So were we. Watching these people interact really is tiresome. Because the 'shaadi karaa do' thing is so passe you groan into your coffee. You have seen Puspinder's sex fantasy (a girl's hair moves off and you see his sex face) and you puked into your popcorn, so you cannot eat that any more. 

The winner in the movie are clearly the jalebis and kachoris and cashews which everyone in the family keeps consuming through the film. And yes, Pani Puris. 

You want to forget the awful pani puri flirtation like, 'Bhaiyya give her sweet pani because she's so hot' and her saying, 'Bhaiyya, give him sour pani because he's sweet!'

Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!

The fun happens (yes, the first plot twist) when both show up married. After all the mausi has said, 'You are not getting anyone who will take you to London-Amrica, so Dubai hee sahi, And the lad is decent.'

The post marriage thing could have been interesting, but everyone in the audience has guessed already that he's lost his job abroad... More tedious events later (like she can't do it with him because there isn't 'love') he just leaves after showing up (second plot twist) from under razais. 

And you just wait for the last supposed to be comic event - that looks like terrible homage to Anees Bazmi - the run around the home to end, and it finally does. Everyone cries and hugs one another. 

You groan. Then you remember Puspinder's sex face and you run out of the theater. 



P.S. Whoever chose the sweaters for the cast should get a super pat on the back!

NO MORE EASY STARS! WE WILL MAKE PEOPLE READ WORDS.

Generally fed up of being asked KITNE STARS DIYE.

I mostly want to land one on their noses so they see stars. Thankfully I'm a pacifist.

After taking a break from the 'give stars business', I'm back changing the format a bit and offering you words to read instead.

Make up your own mind if I'm asking you to watch the film or not.

See y'all at the movies!

Review: WAR

SHREDDED ABS, SHREDDED SCRIPT. YOU CHOOSE. WILL MAKE MONEY.

Phir na kehna bataya nahi... 

Mini Review: 

Sweaty heroes. Check. Walking away from explosion. Check. Gaddar to 'vatan'. Check. Fast cars. Check. Babes, combat guys dancing. Check. Last point nahi samjha. Watch the Sequel...

Main Review:

HOT SWEATY/SMOLDERING INTROS

Hai hai! Hrithik kills good guy who looks more Kapoor than Naidu (plus he ate North Indian food at dinner!) instead of obviously Paki villain (mullah type beard and robes). Hai! Hai!

Action then takes us to another location.

Woah! Baby Tiger all grown up kills seven men rolling and punching breaking stuff. It's drug dealers in foreign lands who wanted to sell drugs in India, so it's okay I guess. I feel bad for the briefcase full of Indian cash he leaves lying there though. Why foreigners want Indian cash? I squash that thought because Baby Tiger is smoldering at the camera. But he fell into swimming pool... he's steaming hot...

Then super sweaty guy in torn tee and combat cargoes (read Military green) emerges from military helicopter with others similarly clad. But he's got sunglasses. So he's hero. And he emerges last... So he's a polite dude. Niice. He's hot.

Ashutosh Rana has to eat humble pie in front of over-dramatic Raksha Mantri who asks him, 'Main PMO ko kya jawaab doongi?'

GIRLS IN AN ACTION FILM? WHY?

We're Indian. So we have to tell action dudes, 'Family honi chaahiye.' So one hero has Vani Kapoor, and the other has dukhi mom. 

And the third woman is in military tank top briefing hot sweaty men. We even see her in burqa with a machine gun walking from left of screen to right during a mission, without ever using the gun. 

And who will dance with hot dudes after the mission is successful? 

HOT, SWEATY, SMOLDERING DUDES IN ANY SETTING

The film takes these hot guys to everywhere from Delhi to, Morocco to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Arctic Circle, Kerala, Sydney.

Also unlabeled locations such as abandoned stone (not wood) church near Arctic Circle, super secret commando training on top of a mountain far away from civilization, hospital. morgue that looks like a locker room, bar with dance stage, beaches, boat, shacks.

But no matter where you put them they look hot, sweaty and smoldering.

GOOD ACTION SET PIECES. LEKIN KYON? 

That Hrithik and Tiger Shroff can haz action is a given. But the sameness of their moves is boring. The same use wall to climb and then smash head of opponent happens at least five times. Same with Hrithik. His duck from a swinging punch and then smash opponent gets tiresome too. 

Why on earth is a villain carrying two supercars in an icebreaker up in the Arctic circle? Oh, for the chase sequence of course! 

The motorbike chase sequence in the city is terrific but when a good guy is chasing a bad guy, on a bike, and you can see both of them, how in a split second or two or even three does the bad guy manage to install a tripwire strong enough to trip a bike?

But the chase is fun. But Manoj Bajpayee in The Family Man chasing a running baddie as a pillion rider on an aunty's scooter is smarter.  

WHEN HEROES ARE HOT, SCRIPTS DIE.

Why is there a holi dance to celebrate their victory over a man mountain type villain who is dressed perhaps should be in a Bahubali type movie than here.

How did a remote commando type training center on top a mountain turn into a venue for a disco holi party? Where did all the blingy girls and men with drums come from? 

Who made one hero lieutenant in one scene and captain in the next? And what a strange salute he has...

How did hero manage to get cameras inside the accountant's home in every place like Big Boss house? What was his security doing at that time?

Have the filmmakers not seen Mission Impossible? Smarter to use prosthetic make up rather than give scars to hero? Best doctor in the world leaves such scars? Even local surgeons are proud of sutures that dissolve and barely visible scars these days... 

Who cares? The heroes are hot.

A SEQUEL? YEH IDEA HAI BHAYANKAR...

The hero does not hint at sequel any more, but says blatantly. I will continue working like this...

This idea of scriptless action movies is an idea that is bhayankar...

I am horrified at lyrics like, 'Jai Jai Shiv Shankar, Aaj Mood Hai Bhayankar' but get really pissed off at fake operatic music being used everywhere. Bas karo yaar...

Of course the movie will make money. Hot men who chase one another on bikes and cars and planes rakes in moolah. I'm hoping next time they use some of that money to buy a story...





   


  


      

Review: Chhichhore

Tiresome Nostalgia Trip

1.5 stars

Mini Review:

Why is it that men cannot get over 'hostel life'? Kya dost thay, yaar! Kya din thay! And it's bleddy annoying because these films come at you again and again in the form of Hyderabad Blues, Rockford Files, Faaltu, Dil Chahta Hai, 3 Idiots... Same chaddi buddies thing all over again...

Main Review:

The movie begins with Varun Sharma in his chaddis. 

Not fat shaming, but this is hardly something you'd want to see at ten in the morning! (Mera FDFS wala problem hai!) But it got me mad thinking how much achiever dads expect out of kids. Very obviously these guys have not read Harry Potter's Cursed Child because they're still living the dream all Indian dads dream: My son will go to my college and live my life.

Blecchh!

Of course Sushant Singh Rajput's son cannot deal with the burden of his expectations and...

Bleddy, dad has to then rope in his hostel guys to save his child. They have cute names: Sexa, Acid, Derek The Baap, Bevda, Mummy...

Of course they are stereotypical friends: the oversexed one, the drunk, the sporty one, the mama's boy and of course the hero who gets the girl.

Blecchh!

The girl is Shraddha Kapoor in curls. Looks quite nice, and says mean things to husband quite nicely. But then, she has the role of a girl in engineering college. Not exactly Hermione there... 

But she loves her son and makes bhindi ki subzi for him. She's also engineer like her husband, but son goes to her house for food, not math.

Blecchh!

The hostel stories are so tired, even good writing brings not any lump to the throat. You can see manipulative writing a mile away: Usme itna acid bhara tha... (goodlooking lad this Navin Polishetty)

The story they're telling the child in the hospital is so unoriginal, I'm sure if I were that kid listening to these stories, I'd want to pull my life support off all by myself when hearing about 'being losers'. 
But when all seems to be lost, Sushant Singh spouts off a line I have yet to hear a dad say in Hindi cinema:

'We are prepared for successes, but never for failure.'

That shook me up. Could there be something to this movie after all. Perhaps the four stars other reviewers have chipkaoed on this film is jaayaz...

But Prateik Babbar happens. And there's a Student Of The Year type challenge shield that will help this bunch of losers prove that they are not that. I facepalmed so hard, it resounded in the theater populated not too well with older Bandra folk. I pretended that it was my umbrella falling down...

And just like Lagaan we watch the 'losers' take on the Maradona of Hostel 3 in football. They win by taking the fall like real footballers to send the competition off the field and other Tikdams. You wonder why Shraddha Kapoor does not dump this guy the moment Varun Sharma tells her 'Usne tumhe daanv pe laga diya. (because you are his dearest thing!).

Blecchh!

Of course daddy-o and his now cool pals suddenly look like winners and child wants to be like dad again... I cannot pretend I hated it completely, but dammit... kuch toh original hota! I mean Legally Blonde had more original writing than this pathetic nostalgia trip!

The clothes retrofitted on the bunch are very, very well done. Thankfully there are no songs to annoy us, a couple of funny moments (Varun Sharma's gladiator skirt falling off on stage, the canteen guy pretending to be Kabaddi coach) are funny in passing, but they get cancelled out because the other 'funny' moments are used undies being put on another person's face. Ugh! 

I know two things for sure:

One. Never, never ever sign up for a class reunion. 

and two: 

Run far, far away when men begin to talk about 'Woh bhi kya din thay, yaar?!' 

Review: SAAHO

350 Crore Ki Jyaadati, Kyon Saho?!

1 star

Mini Review: 

Cool dude saves a baddie in a gareebon ki The Raid: Redemption style fight. Cool dude turns out to be super cop. He's invited to solve strange robberies and chooses a woman in his team and behaves outrageously with her. The rest of the team is too enamoured with him to scream sexual harassment. Turns out robber wants to rob 'black box' type key to billions stolen from crime boss from some foreign shores. After many convoluted, windy events later when you are bored out of your wits at the slow pace of the film you see the end: Saaho sit down on a big chair in a blue leather suit. 

Main Review:

From Game Of Thrones to The Matrix to every other cop show on Netflix offers the story of Saaho conceived perhaps by a committee. Or should I say, there isn't a single original thought in this 350 crore 175 minute mistake.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Prabhas since his Chakram days, and I loved him in Bahubali. But this film is not his fault, especially because he looks uncomfortable in many scenes.  

The film begins with a bunch of bad guys sit around like the Yakuza Council from Kill Bill as the head guy announces he's going legit. Before you can say The Godfather he's killed by a truck ramming into his car when he's talking to someone. Dammit! That was Jackie Shroff! How can you kill him so quickly?!

Cut to Prabhas the super cool dude going into a building full of baddies to save someone who looks like a failed GOT baddie about to be hung if he isn't saved by the time five seetis blow on a pressure cooker full of khichadi. Should have taken that as a hint of the fight where he fights baddies like The Raid: Redemption and has a Harry Potter dog. 

Turns out he's a super cop sitting in a super cool car asking the GOT baddie for information. 

Cut to super cop forming a super team that includes a woman cop - believe it or not - Shraddha Kapoor. All because super cop is enamored by her naak-naksh. Sad to report that her casting is as sad as putting Shahid Kapoor in the role of Mohammed Ali. Her role is so badly written, you want her to die by a stray bullet or something. And you wonder why Prabhas is attracted to her. She's got sex appeal of a leaky tap. To her credit, she doesn't even try. 

Then there's Neil Nitin Mukesh who is the thief who has been behind all those robberies. Apparently the clue to his identity is that he wears matching clothes. Facepalm!

In the meanwhile, back in Baddietown, Arun Vijay shows up at the baddie council meeting as Jackie Shroff's son and heir. There is Tinnu Anand and Chunkey Pandey, Mahesh Manjrekar, and others who are being gleeful about Jackie Shroff's death. By this time you have stopped caring about why they're all cackling even though the money is missing. All you remember is a shot of watery soup swirling and how Arun Vijay's pants (all of the costume changes) are two inches too short and that he's not wearing any socks. Odd design choice, you think...

Then you see our hero too wearing pants that seem to have shrunk by two inches... Could they be related? Perhaps it's a clue...

Lots of convoluted things happen. Everyone is after a 'black box' but not before Shraddha Kapoor gets to wear Rang De Tu Mohe Gerua type costumes which have long flowy, floating in air type pointless extensions and the hero and the heroine sing a Punjabi song and pretend to dance on top snowy mountains on neat wooden platforms to stand on and railings to lean on. Thankfully there is a car chase across a bridge. 

And yes, the hero is really the villain and the villain the hero. The shock should have killed the heroine, but she too looks as comfortably numb as the audience. But the Villainous Hero sings, 'I'm a bad boy be my bad girl' type song with many girls and Jacqueline Fernandes convulsing as if under the influence of some Baba Bangali black magic.

Oh yes, Mandira Bedi is also there and she's called Kalki. But she really wants to be Trinity from The Matrix but with a saree. There's a scene where Kalki... I mean Mandira walks as she shoots like she were auditioning for Hindi Matrix... She wants to double cross the boss with funny pants but the photos of Jackie Shroff in the vault scare her to death. 

Our hero does a Fast & Furious chase through baddie town with a bank vault within a truck and he's on a motorbike. There are Robocops too and they think they've got the hero but they haven't. But Chunkey Pandey captures hero and gets all the GOT Russian extras to beat up the hero with medieval weapons. Hero beats them all up slowly. And we see last of our collective strength leave the theatre when the hero opens one glorious eye and stares into the camera hoping to gain your approval for the sequel. 

That's how you spend 350 crores, folks. They forgot of course to pay the CGI guy to cover mistakes, or the screenwriter to come up with a new story and dialog. They probably were too drunk or scared of Bahubali to direct him. Perhaps the burden of shooting every scene three times in three languages made everything trite.

I so wanted to see Prabhas in something other than an outfit made for Bahubali. But we ended up seeing him in dated cargo pants and an ugly blue leather suit. His voice gets the half star this film deserves. And the other half for his beautiful hands.  


(watched Saaho at Movietime Suburbia in Mumbai, FDFS )

Review: KHANDANI SHAFAKHANA

It's Sex Ed Gone Bad

2 stars

Mini Review:

Sonakshi Sinha does it again! Carries a film on her able shoulders, even though the script for a sex ed comedy goes from 'could be interesting' to 'jeez wtf just happened' in real slow motion. The nudge-nudge wink-wink subject of a girl running her uncle's sex clinic goes on and on and ends limply...

Main Review:

That Sonakshi Sinha is a good actor is of no doubt at all. Even if she's pulling faces at everything around her. She plays Baby Bedi who is a medical representative, taking care of her mother and brother and is under debt to an uncle from her sister's wedding.

Now the lad who plays brother seems to be unabashedly the same in every movie. Every. Single. Time. He's the asshole sidekick in Arjun Patiala, the asshole friend in Fukrey, Fukrey Returns... He's turning into the Omi Vaidya of small town movies. And he's gotten simply annoying. 

Nadira Babbar plays the mom, aggrieved, widowed, and debt ridden after the older daughter's wedding. 

Annu Kapoor is a lawyer called Tagra, and he is redeeming in his Punjabi-English dialog where he often quotes himself by saying, 'Tagra says...'  He's the genuine comedic thing.

So Sonakshi inherits a sex clinic owned by her uncle Kulbhushan Kharbanda who shows up ever so often as a ghost who guides her... She needs the money but can only do so if she stays there for six months and dispenses the Unani powder medicine mostly to his patients of 'wiggly wiggly' problems. 

Trouble is, beyond the 'nudge-nudge wink-wink' part there's a problem here. Sonakshi has learnt from her unc and his copious notes symptoms of other diseases like liver and thyroid problems, piles and so on. Then why is the clinic called 'Sex Clinic'? For 'respectability's sake' couldn't they just call it a ' Unani clinic' and shown shady clients visit regularly?

Of course there are so many quacks who practice this kind of dispensing of herbal powders that the legitimacy of this kind of medicine is suspect. 

The encounters with patients of erectile dysfunction and other male libido oriented problems and Sonakshi are funny enough, but how long can you keep them funny to keep the narrative going? I imagined all kinds of bad whatsapp jokes about meds being accidentally so strong that the man is 'up all night' but complains to the doc that he's not getting enough sleep... And so on. Alas, the jokes are a bit tacky whatsapp forward like and the cringe factor grows and grows as the movie seems to slow down to a crawl.

There is a great germ of an idea in 'Baat toh karo' (talk about it) that Sonakshi says when it comes to sexual 'problems', but it is frittered away and how.

The best part of the film came out of nowhere in the form of Badshah who plays a rap star Gabru Ghattak. (last name pronounced like 'attack' rather than the hindi word for lethal).

He looks great, acts well and is a completely natural. Iloved, loved, loved the elevator which has a giant poster of Gabru plastered...

Anyway, the film goes on and on and just when you think it is happily over like some bad sex ed class, they have sort of an epilogue/outtakes where Sonakshi Sinha has to offer sex advice: Agar soup bahut garam hain use phoonk phook ke phir piyo. Only when you are comfortable.'

I was rooted to the seat for five minutes. Jeez. Jeez. Jeejus!