Title: Hello

Vital Stats:
Director: Atul Agnihotri

Starring: Salman Khan (Plays no part at all), Katina Kaif (same as Salman), Sharman Joshi, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Amrita Arora, Gul Panag, Dalip Tahil, Isha Koppikhar (yup there is "h" in her name), Suresh Menon, Sharat Saxena.


Plot: Based on Chetan Bhagat's novel "A night @ the call center" this movie is about a night in the life of 6 people who work in the same call center. These are Shyam (Sharman), Varun (Sohail), Millitary Uncle (Sharat), Esha (Isha), Radhika (Amrita) and Priyanka (Gul). Their boss is Bakshi (Dalip Tahil) who runs the call center. Though it becomes a bit confusing towards the end whether he "owns" the center or is simply an employee himself. This is a story about these 7 characters and a special night in thei lives where nothing is going right. Shyam is in love with Priyanka who is now marrying a NRI because she wanted money in her life, Radhika has her own issues so does millitary uncle. Varun loves Esha who is mad after modelling and can not enter a commitment because of her passion. This one night brings a lot of chaos in their lives that leave them all changed people by the morning. Cant reveal too much about the changes else I would have to include spoilers!


My Psychobabble: This movie has so much to owe to Drona. Had I not seen Drona last weekend I would have probably brought out the big guns and would have shot this to pieces. But since my experience with Drona (that I survived, Oh yeah!) I am now more tolerant to the limits to which the directors can really lose their mind without being locked up in a mental asylum or shot by execution squad or boiled in hot oil for making us suffer the torture of the farce that they called movie etc. etc.

So then how is the movie really? Let us put it this way it is tolerable if you are suffering one of those evenings when everything is going wrong and basically you don’t give shite. The movie alternates between insanely boring to simply insane to mildly interesting. The characters are mediocre, the script week, direction poor, situations unreal and the whole appeal a big fat zero. My biggest problem is with the script and the direction both of which were horrible.

That being said, Sharman Joshi still comes out tops and very surprisingly I saw Sohail Khan act and I did not get the urge to slap him right across the face! Sohail Khan by his previous standards was amazing and actually managed to get some expressions on his face that didn’t include twisting his face into weird shapes. Sharman Joshi as I have already said was fantastic. I especially loved the way he played his alter ego, a small red devil that pops up during the movie and instigates him to tap the phone of the girl he loves. Man that character was awesome! If nothing else I would say that that small part by Sharman Joshi as his alter ego was worth watching the whole movie.


All the other characters are completely and absolutely wasted with special emphasis on Dalip Tahil. It is OK to portray a character that is madly in love with U.S. and would do anything to get there but to make him do all the idiotic things that Dalip’s character does is frankly disgusting. And seriously who ever came up with Amrita Arora’s character? Whoever that was, one small advise, dude get off the Star Parivar news channel and Ekta Kapoor stuff and get a life!

Verdict: I haven’t read the original novel but my experience tells me that novels usually aren’t anything like the movies are. If you loved the novel then by all means go and watch this one as the movie is not very bad. It is just not very well directed. If you miss this one though trust me you wouldn’t have missed anything minutely significant.

Title: Drona
Vital Stats:
Director: A real lousy one...lol! Actually Goldie Bahel
Starring: Abhishek Bacchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kay Kay Mennon, Jaya Bacchan

Plot: According to Indian mythology there was a time when Demigods (Devtas) and Devil's disciples (Asuras) combined their effort to churn the biggest ocean in the universe for they wanted to reap the myriad treasures and magical that were burried deep within the ocean. Amongst the many such magical things that came out there was one item that was the most coveted. This was "Amrut" or the elixir of immortality. Whosoever took one sip would become immortal and would never perish. Feared that if Asuras laid their hands on this elixir they would wreak havoc, the Devtas resorted to all kinds of trickery to hide this elixir. This movie claims that amongst such measures was appointing a human warrior to protect the elixir which was promptly hidden by Devtas. This warrior was given superhuman powers and physical strenght to be able to carry out his duties. This warrior was called "Drona". Throughout ages and generations this warrior and his offsprings (all of them became "Dronas") have played their part in keeping the location of this elixir secret and hidden from pursuing Asuras. One such Asura by the name of Riz Riazada has been after this elixir ever since it was found and still is lurking on the earth in human form to obtain this elixir. Long story short, Abhishek Bacchan is Drona (though he doesnt know it himself) and Riz Riazada can only reach Amruta if he can get its secret location from Abhishek (who again doesnt know it himself). Priyanka Chopra is basically a waste of movie reel space.



My Psychobabble: I don’t really know where to start. Lately none of the movies that I saw seem interesting. They all almost bored me to death. And so after watching Taken I thought to myself that maybe I ought to bring the bar down. So for Drona I did. I brought the bar down before I went in the cinema. Half hour in the movie, I placed the bar on the ground. Another half hour and I jumped on the bar, buried it in the ground six feet deep. Another 15 minutes, the bar penetrated the core of the earth came out the other side and floated gloriously away into the unknown depths of the universe.

Behold the contribution of Goldie Bahel to Indian cinema. Ladies and gents he has given Bollywood a new standard of “low”!

There are so many serious judgmental errors that I would be writing a complete series of Brittannicca encyclopedias were I to go into details. But to bring home my point that the movie is completely, uttely, absolutely, totally and truly “rubbish”, here are a few

1. The movie is set in a Hindu mythology setting of Devils (Asuras), Demigods (Devtas), holy men (rishi muni) and ancient secrets written in Sanskrit. But here we have an old as time Asura (devil reincarnate) living on this planet who speaks nothing but Urdu!

2. Dialogues make no sense at all. Totally and utterly. For all you care the characters might recite ABCD, 01234, do re….rather than talk to each other.

3. Abhishek Bacchan’s attire was again as old as time and was supposedly given to the first Drona by Devtas themselves. Yet the dress includes stylish leather boots that have zippers on them to put them on.

4. The first fight scene featuring Priyanka Chopra..what the fock was that contraption she used, who the fock designed it and how the fock can that do anything else other than serve as a stupid trinket to compel monkeys to dance.

5. At this point the bar was out into the Universe

The movie is totally horribly wrong. The director himself was confused whether scenes were supposed to introduce thrill or humor so he basically tried to put both in and left it upon the audience to either be amused or get thrilled. The movie steals the best sequences from Hollywood hits like the Mummy, Scorpion King, Harry Potter etc and gives them a distinctively visible “Bollywood movie for the kid” feel thus rendering them horribly wrong for the majority of the audience. Abhishek's supposedly fierce warrior stances look more like positions in Bhangra dance while Priyank Chopra is as graceful with her action sequences as my 70 year old granny doing Thriller dance on top of a moving train.


Verdict: If you do go to watch this movie make sure you are not carrying any such thing that you can use to harm yourself for trust me you would feel like killing yourself during the course of the movie. Kids would love it though and if you are one of them parents whose sorry posterior would be dragged by their kids anyways then basically all I can say is cheer up! at least your kids didnt force you to suffer RGV's Aag!

After a long interval which was mostly unavoidable I am back!

Presenting without any unecessary ramblings, the review of the new
movie titled Taken. As always, the star below the post are for the movie and not the content of the post!



Title: Taken

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson ... Bryan
Maggie Grace ... Kim
Leland Orser ... Sam
Jon Gries ... Casey
David Warshofsky ... Bernie
Holly Valance ... Diva
Katie Cassidy ... Amanda

Plot: Bryan(Neeson) is a retired undercover agent/spy (they never make clear who he really was) who has given up the shadowy dark world of covert operations to spend time with his daughter who is turning 17. His wife left him for a billionaire and took the daughter with her. Neeson is left with nothing really other than a bunch of old work colleagues, beer and you know general misery.
His daughter Kim (Grace) goes out to Paris with one of her friends from where they plan to go around Europe following a rock band tour. Both these girls are underaged and alone in the friend's cousin's upmarket residence in Paris. They befriend a guy at the Airport who leads to them getting kidnapped by a gang who specialize in kidnapping young girls. This gang kidnaps the girls, put them on drugs and then sells the girls to the highest bidder in the underworld.

Kim manages to get a message to her father who immediately dashes to Paris to find and take his daughter back. He now must penetrate this dark world of drugs, rapes, killings and other evils of the world while managing to keep himself alive and find his daughter. And he must do it within 96 hours else he would never be able to see his daughter ever again.

Fun! My Psychobabble: Here is a scene from the movie. So I am this super cool, ultra deadly, trained to kill in my sleep with my bare hands (or loud snores) kinda ass kicking expert in hand to hand combat who is calling upon his years of experience doing dark, dirty, hush hush stuff for the US of A government (who else!). I am hunting for my daughter who has been kidnapped from Paris and I have a lead on a guy who is usually found at Charles de Gaulle airport (the busiest airport in France and possibly the most secure). Great! So what do I do then? I wait keeping my trained eyes on the dude whom I have spotted at the air port. I lurk in the shadows relying on my experience to keep me invisible from security cameras, police and any backup the dude might have. I then follow the dude out till I can corner him in an isolated place (smiling secretly and rather perversely to myself that even disturbs my twisted sense of self realization) and torture him like Daniel Craig was tortured in the last Bond movie (kick those balls baby! Oh yeah!) until he screams the whereabouts of my daughter.

Good plan!

But hold on it is not I whose executing this hold up is it? It is Mr Neeson under the expert guidance of Morel. So what Mr Neeson’s trained, deadly, invisible character does is he pounces on the bad dude in front of the airport, police, cameras, security, dude’s backup and then starts beating the shit out of him! Right in front of the entire Paris and in broad day light! The result!? The dude's backup jumps into the fight, the dude manages to escape, falls from a flyover and is dispatched to the netherworld by a loving hug from an 18 wheeler.

Hmmm nice plan. Neeson might not have the whereabouts of his daughter but hey this was more fun than just lurking in the shadows! And lets face it, nothing interests the sickos in the audience than to see a nice man on man action.

This probably summarizes my review of the movie. The movie is an absolute bore with almost every second sequence torturing your waking conscience making you ask yourself things like “what the heck is this guy doing? My grand mother can do this better than him. Oh weight my grand mother would have never lost my mother like this to begin with. Boy this guy truly sucks.”

The combats fail to impress, the chases are boring, and the plot is overdrawn and poorly conceived.
A lot of dialogues in the movie are spoken in French. Sometimes when you are lucky you do get to see sub titles while the other time you are expected to make educated guesses as to what the characters are trying to say to each other. I am quiet sure in one such situation Neeson says to his friend in the French police something on the lines of "Ahh I am so constipated! All this bloody French food has gotten into my gut and made a bloody concrete bunker in there. Damn you! Damn all your food!"

I personally think that the script was actually written as a lullaby for mentally retarded but when they shunned it the director tried to feed it to us gullible people out on the streets who would sit tight during the course of the movie for nothing else but to recover some cost from that hard earned money we spent on the ticket.

Verdict: If you really want to kill time then please rather go and see paint dry than watch this movie. Give me Bourne series any day!

What a weekend! I saw two movies back to back this Saturday after a real long time. I honestly can not remember the last time I did something like this! The first one was Singh is King (review coming shortly) and the second one was this. In fact the Singh is King ended at 4:45 and this one started at 4:40. We jumped straight out of Singh is king and dashed straight into the auditorium showing Bachna Ae Haseeno(BAH from now on) and man was this movie worth it! But obviously my psychobabble would come in its relevant section. One small thing I would like to mention here - from this review onwards I am along with the review I shall also upload the music of the movie for you to download. I am working on a separate section on my blog which would let you download stuff easily but until that gets done I shall post the link for the music files right in the middle of the review. For this one however here is the link to download music. Click here

That said, let us roll...

Vital Stats:

Title: Bachna Ae Haseeno (BAH)

Director: Siddharth Raj Anand

Length: 162 minutes
Starring: Me (LOL! my lady love swears that Ranbir Kapoor's character is completely me :D)

Seriously

Ranbir Kapoor, Minnisha (Not Manisha) Lamba, Bipasha Yumm Basu, Dipika ConicalFeet (Padukone), Hiten Pental (Pental Jr).

Plot: The story revolves around Raj (Ranbir Kapoor). And yes they indeed called the character Raj and what's more, Raj is really thankful to his mother for giving him this name as it makes his task of getting girls to fall in love with him much easier courtsey Shah Rukh Khan and DDLJ(If you don't know what this means, die now). Raj is a perfect playboy, a max chilled out boy who is doing well in his career (employed by Microsoft he is in their gaming division), who looks fab and who knows how to get a girl to dance to his tunes in this utterly cute chocolate boy devilish kinda way. His best friend is Sachin (Pantel Jr.) who endorses Raj's philosophy about life and girls and career etc. Raj goes about breaking hearts in the first half of the movie from Switzerland (Minnisha Lamba as Mahi) to Mumbai (Bipasha Basu as Radhika) until fate takes him to Sydney where he chances upon Gayatri (Deepika). As fate would have it he falls heads over heels over Deepika who dishes his dish to himself. She leads him on but brutally turns him down when he proposes wedding to her. This makes our Hero realize how much pain and anguish he caused Mahi and Radhika when he broke their hearts. He is now a changed man. The protagonist must now travel from Sydney to Amritsar and to Mumbai to seek repentance and suffer any pertinence that he so deserves for his past actions.

My Psychobabble: Ranbir Kapoor ROCKS! Have no doubts my readers here is one young dashing ultimate killer boy who has not only recovered fantastically from the disaster that was Sanwariya but has left no bloody stone unturned in his quest for excellence. He looked amazingly handsome in a very young cute boy kind of a way and has delivered a character performance that is second only in comparison to the commercial industry maestros. He has completely gelled into his character and has played the part beautifully. What made me wonder however was what made him unbutton his shirt so much in the movie!? I mean throughout the first half, barely would be a sequence where Raj's torso was not on display.

The movie is quiet well done. For quiet some part it does look like a DDLJ rip off but then unlike some recent directors who would go to any length to claim their movie is not based on any Hollywood movie whatsoever (kudos on making such humans God, tussi sachchi great ho!) our Raj here actually thinks out aloud about DDLJ and makes sure he does all that the Raj in that movie did to get his girls. After all the character of that Raj was and still is a screen legend! What's even better is that all DDLJ rip offs are so amazingly done that they actually make you feel good about ripping off a movie! The movie maintains a decent pace in the first half and though it does seem to drag in the second half still it rarely ever gets boring. One piece of advise however I have for director - two songs back to back - Nada. Not good! Na nope never and no not even if one of them features Yumm Basu.

Nope.

Never.

Nada.

That was one big flaw in the movie, these two songs that almost come back to back. They hit you when the movie has just begun slowing down and when you are beginning to realize that uh oh Raj got screwed big time man, the funs gone! They together with about 10 more minutes until the third song really kill your interest for a while.

Bipasha Basu (Sigh!) has looked her usual Yumm self. Lets admit it, the lady aint no great actor but then when you look like that who gives two hoot about if your eye brow was arched one degree too little while you frowned or not. Trust me, I for once ain't looking at your eye brow babe ;). And I know I aint alone here. Whenever you see the movie, watch out for the scene where Raj meets her for the first time. Take Raj out and put any straight man in the scene. Nothing would change, nothing at all! That was perhaps my favorite sequence in the whole movie. She has played her part good. To be honest her character in the second half of the movie did seem like a rip off from Devil Wears Prada but then even if it was who cares! John you lucky dog!! Gym here I come.

To Deepika Padukone - Babe come out of Om Shanti Om now please. You aint no red carpet dominating diva or a super star or some princess of Timbaktu or something so please stop behaving like one. I am not sure if it is just me or do others can also sense this fake regal aura that she tries to put all around her even if she is playing a character that drives taxi and works in a super store. Her portrayal of Gayatri was way way off the mark. Besides I am not sure whose stupidity was it, the director or the designer but what girl can drive a taxi for a living the whole night long wearing 6 inch heels!

Hiten Pental has delivered a good performance. I wont call it extraordinary simply for the fact that his character was played a bit down in the movie in comparison to Ranbir's (which is of course obvious). But whatever little time he gets on the screen he makes his mark. I especially recommend one particualr scene when he is shown talking to Raj in men's toilet (what you want me to call it a rest room now? Seriously, do you go there to rest!? Gross!) advising him on a certain situation with Bips. His expressions as he delivers his dialogue were priceless! Kudos man good going.

Minnisha...urmmm what do I say. She has done good no doubt but not as amazingly good as the others. By the way whoever made her wear those salwar in the first half..dude sorry but that really was bad designer sense there.

Verdict: Not to be missed. I don't care what the critics are saying about this one (I ain't a critic if you are wondering by the way, I am an "apperciat-or") I would definitely recommend catching this one. In fact I am already planning to see this again very soon!

As always, please click one of the stars at the end of this post to rate the movie!

Where the fock have I been! What happened to my effing commitment to publish movie reviews and just what the heck do I think I am!

What else eh my bona fide, beloved reader ;)!? Yes I have been away for a real long time but trust me it was not by choice. I have been so utterly busy with my new job that it was nigh impossible for me to find out time for anything else at all. But I do apologize for this disappearance and without further ado let us get on to the review for this week.

Describe the movie in one word: Imoteph-Ownes-Dragon-King-Any-Day

Vital Stats;

Title: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Director: Some real lonely dude…

Nahh..*grin*

Director: Rob Cohen

Starring: Psychos and some real ugly babes

True

LOL! Seriously

Starring: Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Michelle Yeoh, Isabella Long, Luke Ford, John Hannah

Runtime: 112 minutes

Plot: Nothing new or innovative really. Alex (Luke Ford) is Rick O’ Connell (Brendan)’s son who is really messed up by the tall shadow cast by his father. Portrayed as a bit of a rebel (a real ugly one by the way) he ends up digging an ancient Chinese Emperor (Jet Li). Now this emperor dude (Han) was cursed by a witch back in his time and was frozen in time along with his army of 10,000 strong terracotta warriors (is it just me or do these guys sound something that is made up of 60% cotton and 40% polyester or something?). Trailing Alex’s find is a rogue Chinese Army general who manages to break the curse on the emperor and bring him to life. The reason – this general wants “order” bestowed on this rogue chaotic world. Well this is it. Now it is upto the O’ Connell’s along with a mysterious Chinese girl who can summon the abominable snowmen etc to stop this mad emperor from resurrecting his army of cotton warriors and taking over the world.

My Psychobabble: I MISS RACHEL WEISZ! I am sorry to say but Brendan Fraser had no chemistry with his onscreen better half Maria Bello who was just awful. Accepted that every individual has his/her own special personality traits and while some have excellent looks (aka yours truly ;)) while some have exceptional talents (ahem!) but then there are people like Mario Bello who are truly exceptional (in the sense that they have neither!). Her portrayal of the character was week and left much desired. Somehow even Brendan Fraser looked quiet uncomfortable playing this part which he played amazingly in the first two movies. Luke Ford seriously could be Maria Bello’s real son for he had all the qualities of his on screen mother viz. nothing! He acted bad, looked bad and worst – had the longest role really.

Michelle Yeoh – oh well wont go into details on her as this would invariably lead to spoilers. But suffice this to say that Michelle Yeoh, Jet Li and John (Jonathan) are truly wasted in the movie.

Other than bad acting and badder (don’t you dare frown over my seemingly incorrect English) looking actors the movie has too many week points. The script is poor and does little to hold one’s interest during the length of the movie. The direction is week and the characters are poorly written. I don’t even want to start pointing mistakes made in the movie as many sites already have this information. However special effects of the movie are commendable. They are better than the first two indeed.

Verdict: If you liked the mummy series then watch this simply for the reason that this is unfortunately one of them. This is like the ugly duckling of the family but then alas! It is family.

Please click one of the stars below the post to give your rating to the movie.

Describe the movie in one word : SleazyYetFun

Vital Stats:

Title: MERE BAAP PEHLE AAP
Director: Priyadarshan

Starring: Akshay Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Genelia D’souza, Shobhana, Rajpal Yadav

Length: 165min

My Psychobabble: If you have been reading my reviews for a while (if you did nod your head then you so rock and I am so thankful to you and maybe I will include you in my will) you would know that I am the kind of person who would always find out something or the other to say about anything. I mean I am one of those criticizing jacka$$es whom just won’t shut up.

And I know that.

But this time I just don’t know what to say. This movie is so spot on its name. Cheap, crass, rude, borderline sleazy and yet funny. Some scenes and situations in the movie do pack a few good punches while most of the others are insanely stupid. Of course having seasoned actors like Paresh Rawal and Om Puri help big time but then they are neither the SRKs, Akshay Kumar’s of Bollywood who can pull a complete movie on their own nor are they the Mallika’s and Rakhi’s of our fraternity who can pull crowds. But then bundle them together in a pot, add some good looking garnishing to it, light a moderately sleazy fire underneath, give it a few stirs and you would have a mildly amusing concoction bubbling back and forth in the pot. Give it a ridiculously stupid name and you might be able to pass it around which is what this movie tries to do.

One thing however was not clear to me. Why in the name of God did all the actors just keep shouting!? Trust me the moment the movie begins to the very moment it ends, everyone (and especially Akshay Khanna) just keeps yelling at the bloody top of their voices. It seems the script writer of the movie wanted to get the perfect blockbuster formula and ended up mixing an “angry young man” typed character with a “Akshay Kumar brand” humorous character. The mix my dear readers is not good, not good at all. At times I felt like getting up and giving a tight one across AK’s face and yell myself “for the freaking love of some God, SHUT THE F**K UP YOU IMBICILE!!!”

There are so many obvious flaws in the movie. For instance AK keeps on getting calls from this mysterious girl who is driving him mad. He is desperate to seek her out. He keeps yelling and shouting on the phone and towards the middle of the movie he does get seriously constipated with tension and anger. Yet he makes no attempt to use features like Caller Line Identification of modern day phones. And finally when the girl does send him a letter (and there is a sender’s address on that letter) AK promptly beckons his minion (Rajpal Yadav), learns some real bad swear words from him, writes them down in a letter and gives the letter to Yadav to deliver. Now one would think that after all the weeks of misery and anticipation, AK would have dashed himself to the sender’s address but no sir, not for this young man. I have my doubts that probably as soon as he sends Yadav away maybe he dashes to the lavatory to you know release the pent up tensions of the past days (ahem!).

Om Puri’s character is completely useless and probably the cheapest in the movie. But then Om Puri has played it with such a flourish that you do actually laugh at some ridiculous moments of his character. One advise to the director of the movie though – please for heaven’s sake and the sake of all humans alive, please never ever ever again shoot a sequence where Puri is topless. It was gross! He is a brilliant actor but is a middle aged average Indian male with a perfect pot belly and ultra ugly sagging man boobs. It was a nightmare having to survive that scene that seemingly stretched into infinity!

Paresh Rawal is as always a genius. This is one actor who knows acting. Cast him as an evil villain in a movie or a confused pakka maraathi or a cowering father, he can play the role as if it is his first nature. Kudos Rawal sir, kudos! I am a big fan of your acting and shall always be!

I won’t go into the leading lady of the movie and her character because frankly I think it is not worth it. But for the sake of completeness here is my advise – either learn to act or to strip or get out of Bollywood. It ain’t a place for you lassie.

(Take my advise please!)

Verdict: Besides the obvious flaws like a weak script, poor direction, lose characters, situations and dialogues the movie still is watchable. It is a perfect for one of those lazy summer days when you have absolutely nothing to do, when you feel like a Royal King or Queen in the mood to wave your hand in the air and say “chalta hai yaar”, have just found a rolled up 100 note in your old trouser pocket and are wondering what do I do with it.