Dabangg 2

Cast: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Arbaaz Khan, Vinod Khanna, Prakash Raj

Director: Arbaaz Khan

Ever experienced that family tradition, wherein all members get together during festival and order that ‘special’ dish from that ‘special’ shop which is patronized by them from years. And when they devour the dish together, the idea of enjoying it together is more important than the taste of the dish itself. Somewhere you desperately want each and every morsel to be ‘tasty’ and even if some (or most) are not, you don’t complain because you don’t want to kill the festival or expectations of the clan from the festival. Same is the case with Dabangg 2. Here Chulbul Pandey aka Salman Khan is that ‘special’ one which everyone has been waiting for, and the masses for whom this character has been created, so utterly want to enjoy it that they are actually enjoying it irrespective of the enjoyment available in bits and pieces in the movie irrespective of the movie in itself not being an enjoyable one. Large section of educated and thinking people who have not actually enjoyed the movie also ultimately have contributed to the box office collection and they cannot make excuses that they purchased the ticket because of exceeding expectation and/or absence of any other movie!

Undoubtedly, Salman currently is the golden boy. TV or movies, whichever media he chooses to play with, he comes across as a winner because of his unbelievable ‘connect’ with the audience. The movie happens to be a collection of dance and fight sequences, a desperate attempt by Arbaaz to generate ‘cetees’ of the masses and ensuring that his first directorial venture doesn’t fail, especially after the stupendous hit given by Danangg earlier.

Khiladi 786

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Asin, Mithun Chakraborty, Himesh Reshammiya, Raj Babbar, Johny Lever

Director: Ashish R. Mohan

Its again one of the mundane films that Akshay has been doing of late. Most aesthetic thing one could find in this movie is AK’s family truck. It has been painted and decorated real beautiful. Full marks to the concerned  Art Director for that. Bibi Russell (dynamic Bangladeshi fashion designer) recently had a show themed upon ‘Truck Designs’ and thus she perhaps will the happiest person watching this flick. Talking of designs, AK’s keffiyehs have been designed well too.

To do justice to his Punjabi superhero character, Akshay seems to have worked out enough to get that forbidding wrestler like personality. But he has always been so fit, that one tends to miss this special effort of his for this particular movie. After trying all the cards, to sustain himself in the acting line, Himesh, the unstoppable this time has tried to encash the popularity of a superstar. Given the fact that he is an absolute non-actor, he has managed to give a decent performance. It shows that this Gujju bhai can do anything that he sets his eyes upon. But someone please make him understand that he doesn’t need to do everything! Mithun as always has given a polished performance. His character may belong to any community, but his dialect unmistakably is that of a Bengali! Asin is unnoticeable.

Ever went through the emotion of laughing purely out of irritation? To experience this, keenly follow the movie climax which starts after Akshay gets his first punch. The producers have made this movie with the sole objective of raking in some quick moolahs.

Talaash

Cast: Aamir Khan, Rani Mukerji, Kareena Kapoor, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Shernaz Patel

Director: Reema Kagti

'Talaash' is one movie, which is not about plot but totally about characters and their respective quests i.e. 'Talaash'. All three main characters are well defined and fine layered, a rare sight in our Bollywood movies. And all three actors have done full justice to their roles. An added feather to their acting cap is Nawazuddin. Shernaz as usual is good with her job.

Aamir is in search of offloading his self imposed personal guilt, Rani is searching for lost emotional connection and Kareena is looking for justice. All three are in constant state of ache and despair and this has been beautifully portrayed. An extra point goes to Kareena for looking surreal in the film. Alongside,  an extra point goes to Reema, for aptly showing two parallel but different journeys of Aamir without any overlap or confusion. 

This may be Reema's second directorial venture, but she is all set to carve a niche of her own. As Karan Johar is a pro in portraying various shades and intermittance of friendship and love, this lady is a master craftswoman with different interpersonal relationships. Various type of connections exist between two souls and she can understand and direct them very well. Also there is fine detailing in production design. Reema has kept the film as close to reality as possible. There are no item numbers or star specific make-up.

Though the plot is new for the Indian screen, but Kareena's character is very much inspired from a Hollywood movie.

Hats off to Aaamir for constantly spinning out 'different' movies one after another. This is one star who keeps you guessing, even after 24 years!