Chakravyuh

Cast: Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Manoj Bajpai, Om Puri, Esha Gupta, Anjali Patil
Director: Prakash Jha

What do you do when you want to project an age long serious national issue, with its all shades of grey, because over the period of time, stark black and white have ceased to exist? What do you do to make it interesting enough to make the audience invest their time and money and also keep it respectable enough so that the pain, fear and dilemma of lakhs of Indians concerned with it don’t take a backseat in the name of sleaze and humour? YOU MAKE ‘CHAKRAVYUH’.

And how apt the name is. No beginning, nor end, just an ever going battle between fellow Indians, spreading fear and hatred amongst them, costing several Indian lives every year, most of whom take a bullet and/or undergo torture purely out of duty, without any personal greed or agenda! This is the present day scenario of Naxalite or Maowadi infected India.

Prakash Jha has done a superb job of showing the ISSUE from all possible perspectives i.e. that of the maowadis, the government, the police, the military, the tribals and the MNCs. He is right when he says that the movie is ‘not entertaining but engaging’.

We, the urban population, should definitely see it to realize how futile our own preferences and how petty our own issues are in the wide canvas of the nation as a whole. Actually it is not just a movie, but a ‘Social Service’. It may not much affect the current scenario, but will definitely provide much required awareness in the upcoming generation of aforesaid perspective holders. And that will make a difference.

With every new movie, Arjun Rampal and Abhay Deol are coming across as pretty strong actors. Manoj Bajpai and Om Puri are as per expectation. Esha Gupta is OK. But the surprise package is the new actress, Anjali Patil, a gold medalist from NSD , who has sunk in her teeth so deep into the character that it is difficult to realize that she is just acting. Body language, dialect, appearance, nonchalance, aggression – everything is just perfect. She defines perfect casting and also reminds you of Smita Patil! A long scene between Arjun and Abhay needs special mention, wherein the two best friends argue about their different ideologies i.e. taking the side of the Maowadis Vs. taking the side of the Government. The scene has the required impact and Abhay is a strong passive actor.

Joker

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade, Minisha Lamba
Director: Shirish Kunder

The director tried to re-create the magic of ‘Lagaan’, with his own style of showmanship, but Lagaan was not just an innovative script with good lead actors and showmanship cannot be achieved at once. Unlike ‘Joker’ each and every character (and there were so many of them) of ‘Lagaan’ was well developed with its specific own type and reasoning.

The movie is an honest attempt towards making an entertainer but it falls flat on face because of so many  reasons that it will be rude to point out all of them. Maybe with time the director will achieve what he actually seeks. All the best to him.

Student Of The Year

Cast: Siddharth Malhotra, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Rishi Kapoor
Director: Karan Johar

You know what happens with films like 'Heroine', 'Aiyaa', 'SOTY', you cannot deny them, but at the same time you can't even accept them whole heartedly. Resultantly, the review also comes in spurts :(

In 'SOTY', Karan Johar got so neck deep involved in casting, sculpting (their bodies) and dressing (again their bodies), that he got completely distracted with script and direction. Neither friendship, nor competition, the two core emotions of the film were portrayed even half-properly!

The film is a cross over between 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' and 'Kal Ho Na Ho'. Meaning to say that the story is kind of based upon the former and the casting and presentation has a big time hangover of the latter. Its like reincarnation of Shah Rukh as Siddharth, Saif as Varun and Preity as Alia! Between the heroes, Siddharth is a better looker (even a faint resemblance of Brad Pitt!) and Varun is a better actor. If there was any real acting in the film, then it was done by Rishi Kapoor, who has played the character of the Dean (gay) of the School with the right touch of fun required for such films. His brooch collection is to die for. TV stalwarts Ronit and Ram (with wife Gautami) are also there. Gautami’s strong and silent acting somewhere reminds you of Jaya Bachchan. Musicwise 'Radha' song is typical KJ stuff i.e. good to hear, well choreographed and with very good designer wear. It will be a hit in parties.

The whole movie is like a big eye candy without any impactful scene. The guest appearance by Kajol in a dance sequence, was the most powerful star presence that I could detect in the entire film! It seems that you need to belong to the 'right' age group to make such movies and KJ has moved past that. Indecisiveness, passion, short term goals and haste of adolescents is not easy to portray forever. No wonder Yash Chopra is a legend with love stories because he has been able to capture and re-capture the beautiful emotion of love across multiple generations.

Aiyya

Cast: Rani Mukherjee, Prithviraj
Director: Sachin Kundalkar

Rani has worked pretty hard for the film, but the outcome is not that good in all the scenes, specially the ones wherein she imitates famous (read 'sentimental' for movie buffs) scenes and dance sequences of Sri, Madhuri and Juhi. However the emotion of 'complete bliss of innocence' is well captured by her in many scenes. The director's effort of showcasing regional sensibility needs lot of fine tuning. Actually this is not an easy task, and thus Mani Ratnam is considered a pro. A short narration about Rani's sensitivity towards 'smell' in the beginning of the film would have saved the audience a lot of confusion, since most of them would be unaware of the director's previous work 'Gandha'. Malayalam actor Prithviraj looks good and supporting characters are designed to be very loud! Last but not the least, good effort Rani.

Oh My God

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Paresh Rawal, Mithun Chakraborty

Director: Umesh Shukla

OMG - Oh My God - This is a film wherein the 'concept' is more powerful than the movie and the characters. The adaptation from a Gujrati play is pretty good and Paresh Rawal seems very 'real'. Primarily because he is a good actor, secondarily because he has played this character umpteenth times in the aforesaid play, and thus he seems to understand the character to the core. Akshay Kumar as God is different and as usual has a commanding presence. Hats off to him to manage to not appear like a fool, which is highly probable with such roles. I am sure that Mithun in his wildest of dreams never imagined that he would ever play a 'gay type' God man. Also, the whole character was neither funny nor believable.
Now the concept - the film is majorly based upon the atrocities bestowed upon the mankind by the mankind (read God Men) in the name of God and relegion. Towards the end, it has been rightly pointed in the movie about the sad fact that, in general people do, what they do, out of FEAR and not LOVE for God.

Bol Bachchan

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Asin, Abhishek Bachchan, Prachi Desai
Director: Rohit Shetty

Ok movie. An amazing dance parody by Junior B and few funny/hilarious fumble English dialogues by AD. Absolutely loved Asin's salwar suit collection.

Ek Tha Tiger

Cast: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif
Director: Kabir Khan

Watched first day first show of  Ek Tha Tiger :) One of the best opening scenes (before this saw such magic in Pukar, starring Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit), cool fight sequences, Katrina's action scenes are a pleasant surprise, kinda ok romantic scenes - in fact boring at times, no passion between the leading actors which completely disagrees with the storyline. Salman has immense star power. Promising promo of Shah Rukh Khan's Diwali release.

English Vinglish

Cast: Sridevi
Director: Gauri Shinde

What a comeback by Sridevi in 'English Vinglish'. It was a treat to watch her act - such beautiful display of emotions - hesitation, fear, control, resignation ... She was wise in choosing the script and did full justice with it. Special mention goes to a small and simple scene between her and AB (guest appearance) - they took a very very simple scene to an altogether different level. No wonder they are the real superstars. Good direction and choice of character artists too. Seems that the movie is a tribute to the shedding of 'silent tears' by women worldwide in order to bind their family together and/or carve an identity for themselves. As Shashi (Sri) rightly sums it all by saying that 'she is not looking for love but respect'.

Heroine

Cast: Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda
Director: Madhur Bhandarkar

Saw 'Heroine' coupla days back. Seems that somewhere MB has repeated the same mistake that JP did with 'Umrao Jaan' sequel. One's directorial sensibility should stay separated from one's getting besotted with the 'muse'. Great directors, amazing heroines, tons of hard work ... still you don't get the 'great cinema' that you look forward to. However 'good cinema' is at least better than 'pathetic cinema'.