Paa by R. Balki

Category: Hindi

My first Hindi movie in a while and how about it! While the melodrama got to my brain after a point and the ridiculous situations executed by the director and of course the pathetic acting by almost everyone in this film is only redeemed by the half decent performance put in by Amitabh Bachchan thanks to help from the make up artist.

While there are some genuine moments in the film that can tug on your heart much like Elephant Man by Lynch (in many parts, am not sure how many of you picked it up but he sounds a lot like Merrick portrayed by John Hurt. The film is pretty straight up, Abhishek Bachchan and Vidya Balan have a passionate affair in which Amitabh Bachchan's character is conceived.

After more than a decade of hiccups, Amitabh Bachchan finds his way to the successful MP's (Abhishek) line of sight.

Everything else is predictable after it and there's nothing special beyond a point. This film has some moments which include the explanation provided for the name "Auro" and err... some decent close ups and nothing else.

Recommendation level: 1/5 - Kinda sucked after a point, saw this in a cinema hall.

Veer Zaara by Yash Chopra

Category: Hindi

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Melodrama to the hilt.

Veer loves Zaara, he can't have her. 22 years later he gets it all fixed and he's with her.

3 hours to tell a simple story (literally). Well actually to be fair it could have been longer and more painful, the first half is really hard, root canal is probably nicer.

SRK is at his finest, making people sob their guts out, there's also Raani Mukherjee whos ok as the lawyer and Priety Zinta as the old Zaara and young.

There's also Manoj Bajpai, Amitabh Bachan and a bunch of others thrown in for good measure, cinematically this achieves nothing, really stop making such pre-historic movies by directors who should just be rolling over. Similarly don't let 90 year olds sing when they should also be rolling over (hi Lata Mangeshkar)

But, if you like sappy films - yeah watch this and cry your guts out. Damn emo.

Recommendation level: 1/5 - Yeah.

Saawariya by Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Category: Hindi

Dated by a few years I am sure, but this film had to come here some day, why? Because there's Sonam Kapoor in this one, and also because I had to eventually destroy Sanjay Leela Bhansali, somehow, somewhere!

Basically Bhansali is like Michael Jackson barring the fact that he's still alive. Why? Because he's living in such a delusional and child like world that he should be stopped from making such films, films like these are the reason why people are fine with anything they throw at us today. Someone said the biggest strength of Bhansali is his strength and I have to say it's quite probably the biggest reason why he's a crappy director, he moves away from reality right at the onset, fair enough he adapts a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky but he doesn't even do justice to anyone's understanding of cinema.

There's tons of melodrama and there's a lot of rubbish thrown in for good measure, characters which could be good actually end up becoming repulsive and annoying. Then comes the music which isn't at all engrossing, the set design is rich but what the fuck, French films in the 1920's had better set production than this. So basically his strong points are also his weakest...

Oh yeah the film is about Raj falling in love with Sakina and her being in love with Imam and going with him in the end but there's also Gulabji there somewhere. Ranbir Kapoor is ok, Raani Mukherji and Salman Khan are really out of place here. Sonam Kapoor is the saving grace of this film. But heck...

Recommendation level: 1/5 - Just the 1 for Sonam Kapoor, if not 0/5.

Kaminey by Vishal Bharadwaj

Category: Hindi

This is quite likely the best Hindi film I have seen in sometime and I have to say this is one film which is definitely a must see for any aspiring directors. Not because it's revolutionary - don't get me wrong it's still a 2/5 for me but there's something unique about this effort.

Firstly - Vishal Bharadwaj controls the film very well up until the crappy climax, keeps emotions in scenes going on perfectly fine until the end. Sigh - he should have ended it on an ambiguous note but he doesn't and gives in to the industry. Well fair enough but he needs to do some more works like these.

The film is purely based in Mumbai and there's some smart banter that comes up because of it. His characters are very lively and in a way long lasting in the mind. Lobo & Lele in particular are unstoppable and command such a massive presence, everyone else is well placed in the cast too. Shahid Kapur is surprisingly brilliant and Priyanka is just about OK.

Points to note - The duality of the brothers is present but there's way too much melodrama to unfold their story. He has such an interesting character in Guddu/Charlie but doesn't completely exploit it. The cold ruthlessness of the characters is displayed well but there are moments where you also wonder where the Bengalir brothers disappear for a good deal of time in the film. Also the end feels like a Priyadarshini film with every surviving character basically rallying up to meet his maker.

Recommendation level: 2/5 - Man of my word. Do watch it though, it's pretty much going to set the ball for hopefully better films in the coming future!

Love Aaj Kal by Imtiaz Ali

Category: Hindi

I don't get the opportunity anymore to cover any contemporary Hindi films so when I got a chance to just watch this I figured I'd do a few lines on this film.

Hah! For a while in my head Imtiaz Ali & Anurag Kashyap seemed to be the messiah's of a dried up cinema. I clubbed them together because their friends as well... Then they made Jab We Met & No Smoking around the same time - completely different styles. Now they have Dev.D (and Gulaal) & Love Aaj Kal. It seems like they reversed roles somehow, because DevD is actually watchable and Love Aaj Kal isn't.

The film has a track about love in the past and love now, both in the same film, both with Saif Ali Khan and the film is really fail. Imtiaz seems so confused in this film, he either doesn't know how to end it or Saif (also the producer and lead) demanded he goes on. There are some scenes which are strongly executed, it's edited really crappily though. We always compliment our heroes and heroines but I think if the director made a better effort at controlling the script and where it was headed this movie could have been pretty okay.

I suppose you can go watch this film if you're really bored or on a first date! But if you are one of just lost the 'love of your life' you might just get really toasted. It's terribly sentimental and stacked with melodrama especially towards the climax. Oh there's also Rahul Khanna in a fail role & a Brazilian girl as a Punjabi Kudi.

Recommendation level: 1/5 - It's hard to rate hindi films, I might like them but others don't! Also the film isn't all that bad for a Bollywood film!

Aa Dekhen Zara by Jehangir Surti

Category: Hindi

Okay well - this movie sucked.

The plot has Neil Nitin Mukesh (NNM from now on) receiving a camera from his grandfather which allows him to take pictures of the future. The movie has some weird characters like Captain (Rahul Dev) and Baan (... a corrupt Cantonese cop, they go to HongKong right? or Thailand whatever, fuck it). The acting is below par and just about the first 20 minutes were entertaining.

Recommendation level: 1/5. To go from Camera Buff to this is such a huge waste of time. Oh well, the movie is not so long so people are put out of their misery a little faster than expected. NNM better make more movies, if he took so long to work on a crappy one like this. Bipasha is "OK". I was being generous and that's why the 1 rating is there.

What a god damn boring end to an awesome week of Cinema.

Khosla Ka Ghosla by Dibkar Banerjee

Category: Hindi

Anupam Kher has performed really well in this movie as a middle-class man on the verge of retirement. Set in Delhi where tons of scams happen this movie even though hard to believe at first is reality for many people.

The movie is based on Khosla (Anupam Kher) using the last of his provident fund to acquire a prime (facing South) property. His dream soon turns into a nightmare as Khurana (Boman Irani) just takes over the land and has all the right (forged) documents to the land. Khurana then expects Mr. Khosla to cough up a large sum to reclaim his own land. The movie is sprinkled with some unique characters including a theatre group, a son aspiring to go the US of A and many many more. The love story is a bit of a waste and wasn't really needed, Tara Sharma has the worst possible voice on any actress (JESUS CHRIST SOMEONE DUB HER PLEASE).

Recommendation level: 3/5 am going to be really generous because I think Anupam Kher and Boman Irani are really solid in their roles. Parvin Dabbas & Ranvir Shorey are also good from the rest of the cast which includes useful contributions from Navin Nischol & Vinay Pathak. I'd recommend this movie to anyone.

Malamaal Weekly by Priyadarshan

Category: Hindi

Yes, the day has come that I even watch a lot of hindi films, the truth is this movie is genuinely funny. Set in rural India where a village affected by years of poverty and poor crops. After giving it all up to a cruel LandLady (!) a lottery ticket seems to be their claim to riches. The only catch? The winner of the contest, a member of their village ends up dead. How they deal with this while also slowly having their humanity removed due to the greed of money forms the crux of the story.

Paresh Rawal, puts in another performance that reminds us all of Hera Pheri, while Om Puri is pretty stellar. The rest of the cast includes the regulars like Shakti Kapoor, Ritesh Deshmukh, Asrani and a host of others.

Recommendation level: 2/5 - The movie is definitely funny and a must check out, even though it's a little too long in places with crappy sub plots it's still over all funny than the average comedy you see these days which is littered with crass humour. The only problem with the movie is, it doesn't stand out and while I write this review I can't remember any funny moments aside from Baje's hair.

Dancer by Kishore Vyas

Category: Hindi

Jesus Christ, it wasn't even possible to get a proper poster for this movie, needless to say you can recognize Akshay Kumar's face in this long forgotten 1991 movie. Raja (Akshay Kumar) has his father murdered by Dalip Tahil, who makes Raja's mother confess to killing her own husband.

WHAT?

Exactly, this movie is sadly funny being so stupid at places, I had to check it out since it was just Rs. 28/- and it had Akshay in a movie I had not heard of. The women are weird and the acting is crap, heck Akshay Kumar sounds even more manlier than he is today (obvious dub).

Recommendation level: 0.5/5 (1/5 for Akshay Kumar fans) seriously this is a let down by anyone's standards. Still if you want to cash in on some "omg I watch crappy movies and laugh when I am drunk with friends" of that then the 0.5 rating is meant for you.

Sabse Bada Khiladi by Umesh Mehra

Category: Hindi

This is the third in the "Khiladi" series and is definitely one of the finer Khiladi movies in which Akshay Kumar has acted in. If it wasn't for Akshay Kumar's stunts the wafer thin plot would have collapsed under the weight of it's stupidity.

But Akshay Kumar, his presence and timing backed up with dialogues like, "Yeh Kotha hain, Kasai thana nahi", propel this film into the entertaining cateogry. There's a plot somewhere about murder, revenge and familial ties but I'll leave that for you to discover. The film also stars Mamta Kulkarni, Gulshan Grover as Kekda and a few other regulars including Mohinish Behl who in my opinion re-invented the spoilt brat for Indian cinema, in a brilliant way.

Recomendation level: 2/5 for non-Akshay fans & 5/5 for Akshan Kumar (yes, an original) fans. This movie is really available anywhere but you should get it if you want some fights, funny songs and funnier dialogues.

Dev.D by Anurag Kashyap

Category: Hindi

Dev.D is Anurag Kashyap's take on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic Bengali novel Devdas. The movie is adapted to portray a Devdas of 2008 apparently but the movie eventually falls to some poor music and a long drawn out conclusion.

Okay, so am going to be honest here, I've not seen any of the previous movie adaptations of this novel but like most people these days I badly wanted to see this one. The movie follows the life of Devdas who returns from London to his child-hood love Paro. Things fall apart and Paro is married off to someone else while Devdas takes the path to self-destruction to cope with her loss. He finds love in a commercial sex worker named Chandramukhi (Chanda).

The movie is a really good attempt but somewhere it seems like Kashyap's style to just indulge in something a little too much, as if he wants to kill his own plot. The songs were praised a lot but aside from a few numbers I found most of them pretty stupid.

Recommendation level: 3/5. The execution is pretty good, also we get to see some good acting from a new cast. Then there's always Emosonal Atyachar... Pick up the DVD version since it's cheap and available anywhere!

Delhi 6 by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Category: Hindi

I liked this film, I like Sonam Kapoor even more and that's the truth. This is going to be a biased review (mostly!). Delhi - 6 is about a grandmother who is suffering from a terminal disease, she wants to live one last time in her ancestral home in Delhi, India. Her grandson tags along to take care of her and since he's never lived outside the US of A he finds it an experience to remember.

There's a few twists in the plot, the film is a bit choppy in parts but overall managed to retain my attention throughout. For once am going to comment on the songs, the track Dil Gira Dafatan is of particular importance since I thought it was one of the best songs I've seen (sue me for this!) in Bollywood. The director is completely out of control and I don't think much of his previous work either (Rang De Basanti), don't get me wrong his ideas are good his execution is mediocre.

Recomendation level: 2/5 (for Sonam Kapoor fans 5/5!!!). The movie is available on DVD with a bunch of extras for a good price so you guys should head to your nearest Crossword and grab a copy if you liked the film on the big screen.

Today's bonus

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Water by Deepa Mehta

Category: Hindi

I've read a lot about this film, hearing how it got rave reviews and it's director being so awesome and bla bla. So I decided to pick this up. The movie was fine.

So the basic premise: It's about widows and their lives, it's set during the Gandhian era so that is an interesting twist to the entire film. There's Lisa Ray who's acting is actually not so bad, John Abraham is good and Seema Biswas is impressive as always. There are many familiar faces for Hindi film goers and interesting characters ranging from Vinay Pathak's Brown Sahib to Raghuvir Yadav's Eunuch. It just got a little too much for me at the end so I had to not bother till the titles come out. But I think the real performance of this film had to be the young girl Chuyia, there's something really extra-ordinary about her.

Recommendation level: 3/5. I got bored towards the latter half of the film, maybe the pace seemed a little too slow. It should be available in any Crossword or Landmark you come across in Mumbai/India.

Khiladiyon Ka Khiladi by Umesh Mehra

Category: Hindi

I was pretty pumped to watch this movie, after seeing a little of it and hearing about it for many years as a toddler I was really excited to catch the movie.

The basic premise is Akshay Kumar's brother played by Inder Kumar is held hostage by Rekha's character in USA. Akshan Kumar (I hereby lay claim to this new nickname for him) heads there and settles things Akki Style.

Loads of action and brain dead scenes and jumping from continents to continents, I have seen almost all his movies from that era and this is by far one of the most entertaining. There's Raveena Tandon & Gulshan Grover also thrown in for good measure.

Recomendation level: 4/5 (Only if you like Akshay Kumar) , otherwise its a 2/5 rating. I guess this movie is available almost anywhere in Mumbai but you will need to really dig deep into the VCD stacks.



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I personally was pumped to see Crush and Undertaker duke it out in a Hindi movie until I found out that the Undertaker we see (barring from a few scenes) is a fake and it's played by someone else, a close friend of UnderTaker in real life. I felt gutted, really gutted, oh well the Crush in the movie is the real deal but who ever cheered for Crush?