Review: Non-Stop.

One star

How Could A Liam Neeson Movie Be Boring?


Mini Review: 

Non Stop boredom inducing predictable action movie that should be relegated to a midweek afternoon watch. And only when no other Liam Neeson movie is available.

Main Review:

The script bleeds to death non-stop. And there's no one to tie a tourniquet of logic to tell them 'I will kill one person every twenty minutes' is a threat bank hijacker TV dramas have used successfully. Here, you just want everyone to die. And this is a Liam Neeson movie. 

The setting is ridiculous. Liam Neeson has released the Kracken, chased his daughter's kidnappers across the globe, and saved planets by training Jedis. You stuff him inside an airplane full of passengers? It's like putting Dr. Bruce Banner in a bottle and then saying things to annoy him, hoping the bottle won't break. Who thought that it would 'okay' to put a large man in an action movie where the only thing he can do is drag someone across the aisle in the economy section?

The co-stars are downright moronic. The gorgeous Julianne Moore is so nosey, I wouldn't want her to stay in my neighborhood. Her story is waffle and her behavior is exactly like a gnat on a bunch of bananas. Speaking of those, the passengers on the flight are exactly like that. Only monkeys would find them interesting. A Muslim (prayercap, beard and shifty behavior) person who turns out to be a doctor who will save lives. A bald, suspicious looking militia-looking man turns out to be a cop. A mild mannered school teacher who is the bad guy. A decent, well-dressed African American man turns out to be a bad guy whereas a mean dark-glasses wearing, African American young man in camouflage turns out to be a wimp. How they missed the Asian American stereotype is a mystery... And they put Liam Neeson with this bunch? He who saved the planets across the Universe!

This movie does one good deed though. People who are actually plotting to bomb planes and hijack them and demand ransom money would be so bored if they were looking for inspiration from this movie, that they would change their plans and choose to study.

John Travolta acted in Broken Arrow for the cash, so he could showcase his talent in movies like Pulp Fiction. Maybe Non Stopn is Liam Neeson's Broken Arrow. 

Review: Shaadi Ke Side Effects

Three Stars

Married People's Wrongs Are A Riot!

Mini Review:

Other people's marriages are funny to watch. But tempus is meant to fugit, and this movie needs a push off a cliff...

Main Review:

'Time Flies,' they say, 'When you're having fun...' But this movie is like a fly caught in an open jar of jam. You want to swat it and end the misery, but you don't want to throw away the jam.

Farhan Milkha Singh does a great job of running away from the word responsibility that accompanies the word 'marriage', and you empathise with him too. And you watch Vidya Momzilla Balan's every move with 'oh mah gawd' and 'so true' and 'i know someone exactly like her' at the back of your head.

You are drawn irresistibly in this vortex of marriage and other mistakes and you will hear uncomfortable laughs from many parts of the theater from people who wish they had the courage to escape from their Godzilla wives. But as the wise man says, 'No one can control Go-jiro. He go as he pleases. He come as he pleases.' This movie too is like Godzilla. You are awed by the destruction of everything rosy about marriages but it doesn't go away. The movie goes on and on and on until you wish you were like Farhan's football friends. Gone after ninety minutes.

Why is Bollywood stuck on the two hour plus format for movies? It is in this dragging that they start making mistakes. Characters come into this marriage and vanish - families, neighbors, even friends - all smoking guns that don't really fire. You wonder what happened to all these people. But the film is so busy moving from one joke scene into another that the laughs are all it seems to be aiming at. The last forty five minutes are a hastily written pukeworthy lesson on how you'd better like being responsible and practical. It's just gyaan given by a hero who smells of baby powder and diaper rash cream. You come away vowing to watch Farhaan in the shower scene from Rock On!  

Vidya Balan is at so much ease in her role, you ignore her omnipresent weight and watch her perform. Her look has been designed brilliantly by Jayati Bose and you wish someone like her would find clothes for all the extra large aunties who wander about malls wearing the most inappropriate chiffon kurtis a la once size zero Kareena Kapoor.

Of course you should watch the movie, married or no. Whether you are thinking of procreating or no. Especially if you have friends who have just been hitched and are waxing lyrical about their new life. It's like seeing a lemming for the first time. It must be a cute animal, no? It has friends, it probably parades in front of you, doing many cute tricks. But soon you want to play Warcraft or Assassin's Creed on your gadget and push the darned lemming off the cliff...

As someone gorgeous and still single said: This movie is like a Hindu wedding. So long, it is like living all seven lifetimes at one go.


  



   

Darr @ TheMall

half star

Bored At The Mall

Mini Review:

Not horror, but it's a crime to make such a boringly predictable movie. Re-runs of saas bahu serials are more interesting.

Main Review:

So ghosts have killed nine random people at a mall. It is shut for a few months and the owners will reopen again without investigating why or how... So they have a party (yes, at the mall) with phoren girls (one of the characters actually says, 'Sir, ek bees minute ka item number bhi hai) 
dressed in skimpy costumes gyrating suggestively and singing, 'Pina Colaaaaadaaaa!' (really? that's what people are drinking these days?)

a standard ugly attempt at sex (a young man frantically groping phoren female as though she might vanish any minute with orgasmic sounds that look silly when you realise all their clothes are on and they were just... ugh!) happens and that man dies horribly by ghosts who seem to like to not make a clean kill but like gruesome.

Now gruesome is fine because they made an effort to pay some prostheics guy to create melting due to burning make up effects. So far so good. But why were the mannequins partially burned? If the ghosts died in a fire, wouldn't they want to stay away from it? why would they burn mannequins partially?

You ask such questions because people just don't die quickly enough. 

And if it is a horror film, then people need to die horribly and one after the other. It's tedious to see doors opening on their own, ghosts laugh ad giggle, ghoulish faces going splat on glass (Aren't ghosts formless? They run through people, but not glass doors? Where's the logic in that?)

You want to catch a nap, but a comment on the special sound effects of the main ghost (the crackling, sizzling and burning) makes you snort your carbonated drink: Is the ghost getting a tadka? 

While you are coughing and laughing, they characters in the movie still haven't figured out why so many burnt ghosts are chasing them. 

You sing, 'burning down the house!' quite inappropriately under your breath and begin to text your friends about dinner plans. Characters in the movie are now dying in tandoors and crawling about in extra large ventilation ducts. The movie is still uninteresting. You begin to admire the earnestness with which Jimmy Sheirgill plays out his part. You laugh for the last time at the overacting by the nun (i did prefer her partially burned avatar) and you nod at your neighbor assuring each other that we are still breathing.

Then someone mentions that another 'horror' flick is to release this week. You go home and watch Purana Mandir or even Zibahkhana again. And curse yourself for having laughed at these movies when you were kids.

p.s. The movie is so boring, I fell asleep three times trying to write this review

Highway

4 stars!

Captivated By This Road Trip

Mini Review:

This beauty and the beast on a road trip is a captivating tale well told. Imtiaz Ali takes his time to share all the secrets. The best film so far of 2014!  

Main Review:

Have you ever felt like escaping your own life? Finding freedom? Fleeing to a place in the mountains where you could stand on your tiptoes, reach out and touch the skies? Then this movie will find a place in your heart. 

It's a road trip movie, so unlike Imtiaz Ali's previous rom-com Jab We Met, that there seems to be an almost a DrJeykll/Mr Hyde thing happening here. Everything a shrink could take delight in is in this movie. And making you sit up straight (when you are not swallowing an emotional lump in your throat and secretly wiping tears) is this surprise package called Alia Bhatt. Stripped of make up, stripped of her 'Radha wants to paartyyyy' image, stripped of all fripperies that accompany a name on the marquee, Alia Bhatt makes you watch the screen as she holds your attention, scene after scene.

But what good is beauty without the beast? Randeep Hooda is perfectly cast as the rough, uncouth, and delightfully disheveled beast who takes beauty on a road trip and finds gentleness himself.   

Be careful what you wish for is what they say. And a young girl gets her wish and more when she makes a wish just to get away from the rituals and customs of her family.

But is it just wish fulfillment? A taste of freedom? Or a case for shrinks? Imtiaz Ali touches all parts forbidden and breaks off from his mainstream mode and takes the road less traveled. Literally and figuratively. We get to see stunning snow-clad mountains in Himachal and we visit cold, lonely places inside the hearts and heads of the two protagonists. You weep for the loss of childhood, the implied and exploited violence, the Stockholm syndrome (Is it? Or is it gratitude?). You smile because secretly you have wished for the same freedom, unbridled by time or money...

Yes, there are a couple of speedbumps on this road trip where you shake your head and hear Amitabh Bachchan say, 'Hain?' in his most melodramatic voice. But the rest of movie is a revelation: you don't feel the need to eat pop corn or drink coffee to stay alert. Even the minor characters are well cast. 

The background music, which is so annoying and intrusive in most Hindi films, is practically absent. There is A R Rahman and his all too familiar addition of 'dargah' music, but you love the folk singers at the travelers tapri chai stop, and the lullaby (sung hauntingly by Alia Bhatt and Zeb of Zeb And Hania fame)...

Initially, the road shots from the passenger seat made me a tad roadsick. And I wondered if we would have to suffer the long and winding road shots all through the movie. Thankfully the story kicked that thought right out of my head and slapped the hand reaching out for Avomine.

It's one of the best road trip movies that I have seen, and it certainly the best of the year, so far. And it's a movie that made me sing: http://bit.ly/1ffTTkR all the way back home...

Do yourself a favor. Take that wilderness holiday you have been dreaming of for a while. But see this movie first. 

Monuments Men

2 stars

Monumental Cast, Not So Impressive Film

Mini Review:

It's an inspiring story in a commando comic way, a phenomenal cast, but as a film it's boringly predictable.

Main Review:

The idea of saving art from bombs and war is phenomenal, and the story of the non soldiers recruited to go into the thick of war to preserve and find stolen works of art is nothing short of monumental. 

With George Clooney directing the story and a stellar cast you'd want nothing less than The Ides Of March. Monuments Men is so straightforward, you could be reading a commando comic book. 

Geroge Clooney acts as well as directs this fabulous cast: Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and the legend himself: Bill Murray! And yet the inspiring story is told as if it were an everyday chore.

Each actor gets a 'wow' moment, each actor has a high 'kewl' quotient, each actor is given a quirk. Each actor gets a set piece to perform, and they are all adequate. They are so accomplished, these roles don't challenge them at all. There's no great mystery, no stumbling upon a secret which will help them save the world... 

You can almost predict who's going to die because the story stays true to war trope. For example: the soldier who shows pictures of his girlfriend/child/family or keeps talking about a quiet life on a farm or some day going up in his father's esteem will inevitably die. In this movie too, this happens, and you groan into your popcorn.

The Christmas song broadcast over camp was so cheesy, it took away the Bill Murray moment for me. But having seen the sculpture of Madonna at The Church Of Our Lady in Bruges, and having read the history of the statue, the movie suddenly became very interesting to me personally.

Even so, the movie is so straightforward, there are no surprises. It's like hating having to study Dickens, and then melting at the sight of pictures in the media of his great-grandkids posing for pictures with his statue.

See it for the great cast. If you have patience, then wait for it to appear on TV. 


P.S: hated Clooney's hair, loved Matt Damon's white shirt. 

GUNDAY

One and Half Stars

SHUDDH BLAH-SA BROMANCE

Mini Review:

You can the story from a mile away. But the two male leads bring bromance to bloom on the big screen rippling muscles, grunts and all. Watch the skin show but there's little else.

Main Review:

Had there been no Master Mayur who played young Amitabh Bachchan, no Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man flicks, no double crossing femme fatales in movies, never seen Amitabh Bachchan-Shatrughan Sinha's Dostana, no avenging brother infiltrating the gang, no coal stealing scenes in movies ever, or that maybe you have lived under a rock for the last sixty years, then and only then would you think that Gunday is a fabulous movie.

The story is so unabashedly unoriginal that you can see the twists in the plot a mile away. Also because everything in the movie happens in slow motion...

But the two boys, Ranveer Singh and Arjun Kapoor are so hawt, it's visual porn seeing the two partially undressed through the movie. Undressed is good, because there's coal mines and smoke spewing trains, thugs and fish markets that are not exactly romance inducing visuals to be distracted with.

Yes, there's Priyanka Chopra, who mostly walks into every scene like a crane ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxd-USeLSw4 ). And every time she opens her mouth to say anything, you think she's going into, 'I'm so exotic' and start bobbing her head to that tune. You want to ask her what she's doing in a fish market, in the flower market and indeed in the movie, but the two lads have lost their heart to her and yes you feel vindicated when a bullet hits her and it is interval.

Only the interval? You groan. And you realise you are not the only one. The hoards of boys that should have been cheering and hooting at Priyanka's cabaret act are actually glad she's dead. Is she? Or is she alive just to kill us with her enunciation, 'Nandita Sayngupta naam hai mera'...

But Ranveer's hair is so awesome, you borrow a scrunchie and tie up your own straggly strands. Then Irrfan shows up chewing dialog upon dialog without losing his shirt (literally, that is) and you wonder when your checklist will end. Hero walking away from explosions, check. Heroine asking hero to mend his ways, check. Hero telling heroine she is the most fragile thing ever, check. Policemen who can never shoot straight, check.

Your neighbor sticks her elbow in your side. Pssst, the boys are topless again... Wow! Let's forgive them everything. 'I'm so exotic!' Priyanka Chopra is still singing while pulling out a gun...

You wonder if you have missed friendly appearances by other shirtless men like Upen Patel, Uday Chopra, Randeep Hooda, John Abraham, Salman Khan... But you like Ranveer's moustache and Arjun's biceps... Is that enough to pull crowds into the theater? Don't know. Logic says it's trying too hard to be a macho movie. But who can deny the cuteness of two brawny topless men wearing pants that have hearts emblazoned on their butts?

  

The Lego Movie

4 and half stars!

You can't Leggo of its Awesomeness!

Mini Review:

This movie is so much fun, you'll see it again! And after you have seen it, you will go buy a Lego set and create many Lego worlds...

Main Review:

I admit it. I was snobbish and did not visit the Altenberg or Windsor or even the Legolands in Malaysia and Singapore. I thought it was childish and a waste of time when one could catch a more grown up Broadway musical or eat exotic foods at fancy restaurants instead.

Then I saw The Lego Movie.

I wept on the way back home for all the fantastic adventures I could have had just walking through miniature cities built from little Lego bricks. What the filmmakers have done with their imagination is build not just fantastic cinema, but their filmmaking has pushed the boundaries of animation and computer graphics. My mind is completely blown.

And just as relentless as the action is, there is humor. Tons of it. When you think you are recovering from one funny line, they deluge you with more. And it's not limited to the little guy saying, 'I'm Batman!'

I am amazed at their vision. Each sequence is impeccable. You cannot find fault with any scene. Actionwise, this is a roller coaster ride (made with Lego, of course!). And humorwise, this movie is better than what Hollywood funnies churn out in summer (like the Hangover sequels).

You should simply book yourself twice to see the movie. Once for the humor, and the second time to marvel at the fabulously shot movie.

I will never again curse if I step accidentally, painfully on a Lego piece ever again. 







  

HASEE TOH PHASEE

two and half stars

Like Finding Macarons in Soggy Bhelpuri!

Mini Review:

A soggy bhelpuri of shaadi stuff is the framework for this movie. Thankfully redeemed by the delightful lead pair, who are effortlessly engaging.

Main Review:  

Take every hateful cliche you can find in a shaadi: weird relatives, shaadi songs, clothes with zari and jewelery, chhed-chhaad and food. Then add to this mostly blah setting, the most amazing lead pair with behavioral problems. It’s like finding Macarons in your bhelpuri. You don’t know if you want to hate it or love it.

Parineeti Chopra is so effortless you love the ease with which she fits into any role. She is brilliant in fact with the material she is presented and performs like a dream.

Trouble is, Valley Of The Dolls got it right many, many years before this film does. The Uppers and the Downers are so easy to understand. Here, every time the heroine mentions ‘Serotonin’ as her choice of antidepressants, and is made to behave badly as a result of popping those pills, I remembered my doctor saying, ‘Eat a banana when you are feeling depressed, because bananas have Tryptophan that releases Serotonin which is a feel happy chemical in the brain.’ If she’s as good with Chemistry as she’s supposed to be, then the filmmakers should have recognised that the side effects are more Ritalin (the nervous tap-tapping, the widening of the eyes to see better because vision is blurred) and Norepinephrine (needing to eat sugar, the fight or flight response, the not-caring about consequences) and Serotonin makes you happy, not turn you instantly into a Priyanka Chopra in Barfi person.

Chemistry arguments aside, the track of the two lovers is simply awesome. Siddarth Malhotra is so good, I’d advice young women to watch out for anyone who looks at them the way Siddarth Malhotra looks at Parineeti in the movie, kidnap them and keep them in the basement until they agree to be theirs for ever and ever. He wears his clothes well and makes the rest of the cliched family look good.

Mohan Joshi, the brilliant actor, mostly seen in forgettable movies, makes us believe in the love between fathers and daughters and his logical, ‘Why can’t she have the money?’ made me reach out for the box of tissues.

There are some beautiful moments in the movie which come at you unexpectedly: Adah Sharma’s moment of realisation when she sees the fifty phone messages, the hug Siddarth and Parineeti share in the locked room, the late night daru and snack place scene where Siddarth goes alone, the mosquito infested guest house scene... And that’s when you realise the director is a veteran of ad films, and these moments are well made.

What one loved the most was the humor. And I am not talking about the weird uncle who keeps asking everyone, ’And then?’ or the weird small town cousin with big dreams (he’s a good actor that guy, but why are all small town cousins in Hindi cinema so weird?)... Watch out for the balcony and terrace scene, the spoof of a TV show, the shopping expedition, the tea tray scene, the general repartee between friends - all written in delicious good humor.

I hated the Shaadi scenes. Overdressed people and overdressed sets, the overdone ‘Gujjuness’ and ‘NorthIndian-ness’, things going wrong at weddings, last minute panic, people sleeping on the floor and crammed in an apartment... This goes on and on and on (at one point I thanked the Lord that there was no Haldi ceremony or the ghastly stealing of footwear) ... 

Thankfully, the two lead characters and their escapades made the movie delightful. I should have dug deeper for a Chemistry or drug related headline and punchline. But like Parineeti who does not find the wet towel, I too can think only of food metaphors. This movie is a hotch-potch soggy shaadi bhelpuri and you find delicious macarons in the mess.

One By Two

half star

'I'm Pakaoed, I'm Pakaoed!'

Mini Review:

One Hundred and Thirty Nine minutes of contrived situations and cringe-inducing dialog later, the cinematic meet-cute happens. Except that you have been ready to go home an hour earlier.

Main Review:

It's a Bollywood tradition, we ignore all logic, ignore all young newcomers (from Pyar Ka Punchnama, Love Sex Dhoka to Student Of The Year) and will continue to cast heroes like Rajendra Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Jeetendra, even Sanjeev Kumar as college dudes. Here, thankfully, Abhay Deol is not a college dude, but close. He's a sort of copywriter/creative person who works in a cubicle, and clearly years older than his two young colleagues. I don't mind if he lives with his mum and dad and watches TV with them, but he's clearly too old to be the lad whose mum buys underwear for him. It's not cute to see a grown up man waking up with an undie over his face.

Also not cute is the constant reference to bodily functions and scenes set in toilets. Salman Khan letting go of one on the terrace when he thinks he is alone in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was actually funny. You remember the dialog, 'Sameer! Hawa ka jhonka!' and giggle when Aishwarya Rai catches him in the act. Here, it's not once, not twice, but four or five times that Abhay Deol farts. And they do not sound funny. The people sitting next to him in the scene vanish saying that the farts stink. You wish you could do the same from the theater, and exit before you see both the hero and heroine exchange metaphors related to the Coeliac Flux, the Bondi Cigars, the Chocolate Bananas, the Fart Surprises, the Grunties, or Tatti, if you are feeling particularly desi.

The movie did start rather stylishly with a song and one settled down in the seat hoping for a another crackling Abhay Deol movie like Dev D. And when you get over silly toys and well appointed rooms (take half a star, production design team), you find yourself wishing this were Aisha (the desi Jane Austen wallah Emma).

The meet-cute is so contrived, you want to hit someone over the head. Yes, we got the idea of two parallel lives and 'almost-met' moments. But all that cleverness gets drowned by the horrendous reality show plot. You can see from a mile away that the heroine can't dance sala. And you've seen Lafangey Parinde years ago to know the reality show thing doesn't work. It works only if you have Prabhu Dheva and a bunch of real dancers being directed by choreographer Remo D'Souza in Any Body Can Dance. The heroine's dance is just outtakes from a shampoo commercial. Shaking your curls from side to side in slow motion or wearing leg warmers is not dance. And screaming inside the waters of the swimming pool distracted more than this reviewer into wondering, 'where did I see this before?' (thanks to Google, we have the answer: The Descendants: http://bit.ly/1ig0daG , and also in Dario Argento's Inferno: http://bit.ly/MD7W8g )

Agreed that this movie stays true to the Bollywood tradition of launching girlfriends and wives on the big screen. You saw the recent disaster called Jai Ho, where the heroine (allegedly Salman Khan's latest arm candy) is a trained dancer in real life, and on screen begins to dance in every possible frame whether required or no! Remember the John Abraham starrer Jhootha Hi Sahi? That was the launchpad of the heroine who is the wife of the director... Here Preeti Desai and her ghastly 'London-born-and-brought-up' accent ('brought up by who?' is a question you are not allowed to ask in a Hindi film) makes you yearn to hear London returned Rani Mukherjee sing Om Jai Jagdish Hare...

The movie is so tedious, you don't care about any character or their forced quirkiness. Not the table tennis playing parents, not the poetry reciting parents, not even the idiotic colleague Debu. Forget about the tapori dance boy or the we-fight-because-we're-attracted-to-each-other friends... You just want to kneel in front of the Reality Show Gods and ask for forgiveness, promising them that you will watch Rakhi Sawant's wedding show again and again but no more movies with reality shows as a plot device. Because everything in the movie is summed by Abhay Deol himself when he sings (in his undies): 'I'm Pakaoed! I'm Pakaoed!'     

JAI HO!

not seeing stars, but

putting one bullet in my brain 
to escape moralizing

Abbatoir Ho!

Mini Review:

In the beginning, Bhai’s intense stare stops three cars. His shirt comes off at the end as planned. In between there is slaughterhouse of storytelling.

Main Review:

‘Arre! yeh toh woh hai… Whatshisname...’

‘I remember seeing that whatshername in that movie...’

‘Oh! This one’s here too?’

‘Haw! And this one? Wasn’t he on TV?’

‘And why is she here?’

You’d need to watch this movie with a wiki cast list because anybody who is a nobody in the movies has a role in this movie, except for the beautiful Genelia who literally has no hands and she goes to the same school where Salman’s obnoxious nephew studies. She is his history teacher but is taking an exam. ‘Hain?’ Your confused brain asks in an Amitabh Bachchan baritone.

There is no answer because the script has no legs to stand on. There are however, many disabled kids shown on wheelchairs, and a mention of how Bhai has donated his eyes and you keep hoping these guys show up at the door ( http://bit.ly/1l4Xci1 )

What is awesome about Jai Ho is its complete lack of embarrassment about everything. It’s not like Besharam where there was massive error in judgement, here there are dvds of Stalin and Pay It Forward to fall back on. This movie banks on the Salman Khan craze, and treats him like a performing monkey. I love how he carries his 'bad boy who's really a good boy' thing in Wanted and also in Dabangg. But here, he's just awkward, dancing to inane songs, being the 'reaction guy to the smartass lines his precocious nephew spouts (the beautiful Tabu and the decent Mahesh Thakur produced this mannerless thing?). There are no memorable 'ek baar commitment kar dee' type dialog to take home.

There is however, a brilliant, simply brilliant moment when the annoying nephew sings a tune: pink panther song because he knows the heroine has a penchant for pink panties. It is explained, because the daft heroine doesn't know the tune. I wish they'd just let that tune play each time she showed up on screen... It would have been more fun than the gaandi gujju woman gig...

I found myself missing Sonakshi Sinha and muttering 'Iske dance se dar lagta hai, sahab' each time this heroine burst into a desperate dance at the most inopportune moments. At least Katrina Kaif had a reason to burst into the liquid electricity thing in Dhoom 3. 

Salman's fans want to see him fight. And dance. And the audience wants to go home with their Ray Bans stuck on their collars. There are fights, but we don't know why the goons hate him (he was as stuck in the traffic and didn't really do anything to piss the baddies), or why... 'Hain? Logic toh kabka mar chuka hai,' Amitabh Bachchan's Bade Miyaan voice tells me again...

Oh, I do wish to explain why I say (right on top of this reveiw) that I ought to be seeing stars and why I put a bullet through my brain:

It must have been a great idea from a poor misguided PR person when he said in the script translating committee that Salman's bad boy image needs a makeover because in reality he does charity. Yes, he does, really. 

In reality he's all about 'neki kar, dariya mein daal'. In the movie, it becomes 'thank you mat bol, good deeds multiply kar'. But it is not said once, not twice, it is repeated by as many times as there are stupid goons of Danny Denzongpa's fighting 80s who come at Salman to get slammed. 

I'd rather be pounded into the ground by Salman than take the awful moralizing of 'do something good for three people'. 

Do something good yourself. If you see really love Salman, and insist on watching this movie (and most people will, despite the reviews), tell three people not to. This way some screen somewhere will be free to show a smaller, more meaningful movie made by someone you don't know.

Sheesh, this moral science thing is as infectious as it is tedious. I will just go watch Itchy and Scratchy kill each other.

JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT

two stars

Non Stop Action! Paisa Vasool!

Mini Review:

If you don’t want deal with the intricacies of thought that make spy stories fascinating, then this action packed chase filled drama is perfect paisa vasool!

Main Review:

After Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck, the Jack Ryan franchise seems to get another boost with Chris Pine and his piercing blue eyes.

In this movie based on Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan series, we see how Jack gets recruited into the CIA and gets called upon to save the Western world.

Now if logic is your forte, you’ll wonder how he hacks into some super smart villain’s bank account, figures out passwords, copies files easily, and does not once call tech support…

But if you love action, then you will be happy. Motorbike chases, car chases, sniper shots, bomb disposal, people evacuation, hand to hand fight, super awesome location shooting is all there to keep you riveted to the seat. There’s also cool spy stuff like handing over files and pen drives and stealing wallets and access cards and…

Kevin Costner looks so good in uniform, I missed a Keira Knightley scene after that visual. But she’s just the annoying love interest in the movie, whose job is to get kidnapped by the villain. And the scene where he asks Chris Pine if he could stop smiling… I was positively a puddle of fangirl mush. Thank goodness for press screenings. Am glad women have something to ogle at when their boyfriends/husbands are whooping at the car chases...

The movie has non-stop action which is great fun. It’s a good weekend watch and you will be one among the crowd emerging from the theater sighing either over Kevin Costner, Chris Pine’s blue eyes, Kenneth Branagh’s delicious villain-ness (directing himself after Hamlet), or Keira Knightley.

p.s. don’t watch the film with geeks. if you like this movie they will bring you down to your knees by changing the passwords on your computer as revenge.

HERCULES

half star

Hercules Is Ridiculous

Mini Review:

A mish mash of everything mythological. Made funny only because the audience has a sense of humor.

Main Review:

It’s a potluck of all Hollywood movies where men wear sneers, skirts and sandals and women wear transparent sheets tied together with ropes.

It’s a mythical world where Greeks, Romans, Egyptians speak American. So much so, you expect Hercules and his band of merry men to be eating cheeseburgers at McDonalds.

Hercules is an all American hero in the spirit of Luke Skywalker. It is so awesomely American you imagine the scene where Darth Vader… I mean… Zeus tells Hercules, ‘I’m your father!’

Zeus does not speak alas in the voice of James Earl Jones, but you do hear the funniest American accents on actors wearing skirts: ‘They’re waitin’ at the gates!’, ‘Are y’all with me?’, ‘How could you do this to me?’, ‘I’m never gonna to forgive you!’. You laugh as the rabble chants, ‘Fight! Fight!’

The romance is so silly and affected you laugh when you watch the hero woo his heroine. And there is so much pollen in the scene you wonder how they’re not sneezing their heads off…

They’ve even got the mythology mixed up. Since when did Hera, the supposed jealous wife of Zeus, give blessings to Hercules’s human mom?

The half star goes to the hard-working CGI artistes who make the war scenes look more real than the ones you saw in Jodha Akbar, the lightning bolt fight scene, the fight between Hercules and the King, and even the cities are rather nicely created.

There’s not a dull moment… of unintentional laughter though. There is more chemistry between Hercules and Sotiris than Hercules and princess Hebe, and dialog like, ‘I will give you hope.’ when the two men’s faces are but a breath away… After the supposed arty (unfortunately hilarious) orgasm scene with sheets billowing above the writhing queen, dialog like, ‘Zeus has planted his seed inside my welcoming womb.’ only makes you fall out of your seat.

Apparently in the Hindi version of the movie, Sonu Sood has dubbed for Hercules. It may offer additional laughs or not. But I am sure y’all have better things to do with your time.

AMERICAN HUSTLE

4 and a half stars. Yes.

Pros At A Con

Mini Review:

There’s nothing more delightful than a con film where the cleanest guy is a politician! The film hurtles at breakneck speed down a mountain of awesome performances, giving you just enough time to enjoy plunging necklines, shocking toupees and Duke Ellington

Main Review:

Dere’s a man who’s growed up on the wrong side of da tracks and he’s made it big. And dis Irving, he’s led b-aye a g-hurl who slips into a poh-sh Brit accent and bats her saucer eyes to seduce Irving to the tunes of Duke Ellington into making more money. This girl is called Sydney, and she puts an arm around the FBI agent making Irving insanely jealous. But Irving is already being driven to insanity by his wife Rosalyn who is, according to Irving,  the ‘Picasso of passive aggressive karate..’ The FBI, the mob and politicians want a finger in the pie too. And with each of the characters hustling each other, there’s nothing to do but to be swept away by the events on screen. And the director assures us that ‘some of these things really happened’.

Why did I give the story out in the review? Trust me, this con movie has so many twists and turns that you might thank me for offering a guide map on the back of a cheese-popcorn stained napkin.

And there’s cheese. Delightful conversations with rollers in the hair, confrontation between wife and lover, dancing so close you wonder if the heroine had to make her stomach concave to accommodate the hero’s paunch, femme fatale acts on willing macho men…

This movie has so much, you have to see it again, if only to enjoy the crackling dialog. To watch Batman, Hawkeye and Katniss Everdeen having so much fun in not being Batman, Hawkeye and Katniss is a thing of joy. And when Bradley Cooper admits hesitantly that he may have a fiancee, you want to run to the projectionist and beg him to rewind the movie so you could watch the scene again.

Whether there was a real life scam involving the FBI agents bribing a rich, foreign person is for pundits to decide. You will simply love the madness of the hustling, which peels of layer by awesome layer until the very end.

Go watch the movie already! I will go back to standing in front of the mirror practising and elaborate combover…


(we are almost at the end of server and other problems at FilmOrbit. hopefully by next week the site should be up.)

DEDH ISHQIYA

Their perception: 10 stars

What we saw: Dedh stars

QUATL HUYE JAATE HAIN SMUGNESS SE!

Mukhtasir Review:

We like daastaan-e-double cross, and we love mushaairaas as much as the next person of good tarbiyat does. But the movie is smug, it cracks a joke, plays a clever card and waits for the audience to understand… tauba aisi khud-pasandi se!

Tafseel war Bayan-e-Review:

Boss, I love khalis zubaan wali Hindi. And the movie is an aural orgasm. No doubt about that.

It also has the coolest villainous shakhs to have come out of a UP based movie. Vijay Raaz is a pleasure to watch, his long locks, his shervani, his majnu with a magnum 44 persona… What a character he is! He’s crazy enough to do whatever it takes to win the girl, but does not act like he’s a cool guy playing a crazy character. Clearly outshines the zaroorat se zyada adakari dikhane waale Khalujaan. Koi Khalujaan ko samjhaaye, ki making weird faces could work in silent films, here it is like shouting at the audience, ki dekho, kya kamaal ki comedy karta hoon main. Alas, it is Arshad Warsi who is mindblowingly funny as Babban.

There are set pieces like the Mexican Standoff and the late night kiss episode that are brilliantly done…

Phir is film ke mouaine ka anjaam sirf ‘dedh’ sitaaron tak kyon seemit hai? Aapne toh badee tareefein suni hongi somwaar se hee Vishal Bhardwaj ke khair khwaahon se is film ke baare mein? Pata nahi kaun sa version inhone dekha… Yeh film jannat ka waada toh karti hai, lekin it falls short by miles. And there’s only one word that explains the ristee huyi quwwat e amal. And that fault, that hubris is: smugness  

Like a nausikhiya, like a person who just cracked a superb joke, this film waits, the story pauses, and the characters say: Look at me! I’m so cool. I said ‘penis; ten times without batting my eyelash, I introduced such cool characters like the bug-eyed, almost dead hakeem, I am so cool, I even have cool names for highway pubs. This film cracks jokes and then smugly explains the joke…

The fun of watching the movie ends when we figure out the double cross really early in the film. But then the filmmakers think audience is toh ahmak, chalo inhe thoda detail mein bata dete hain.

So they tell us why a kidnapping is being set up. They also hint at childhood love stories  in pictures, then show it as flashback. The audience can figure out by the peeling paint and the general unkemptness of the haveli, but they are not satisfied with that. They hammer the begum’s impending poverty with the villain rubbing it in not once, not twice but four times.

What is most irksome, is the desperate need to have a Tarantinoesque shootout in these art house films. Annoying because they don’t have the cojones to show pools of blood. Bullets are fired, but majaal hai ki koi mar jaaye! A man who lives by the gun hides behind glass when there’s bullets flying everywhere. How clever is that? Not once have we seen a drunk Arshad Warsi in the movie, and yet he chooses to pick up a booze bottle (where did it come from?) instead of the gun in the scene.

And although it was cool to see the nawaab with a shotgun, plunging angrily into the bullet fest, it would have been more nawabi, to have appeared with a retinue of servants carrying a chair, for the nawaab to watch the gun battle. It would be as aristocratic as could get.

Which takes us back to the beginning of the film. Why start this film with a ghisa pita joke and a scene ( http://bit.ly/1fhFxRy ) ‘inspired’ from  Blazing Saddles?  As they said in the first film: there’s a whole lot of Chutiyam Sulphate being spread in Dedh Ishqiya. Khao toh four stars, na khao toh dedh..

PS. Botox failed.