SUSPENDED

This review site is suspended currently, hopefully temporarily.

Reason - I have become a DAD recently :-) So currently, I am busy with the best possible of all movies - the antics of my newborn son. So no movies and hence, no reviews.

Keep visiting. Will start something fun here soon.

Shrek the Third (English, 2007)

Murder! Sacrilege! Crime!

The whole point in Shrek was its originality, its inherent "different from the normal lore" stuff, an intelligent spoof on fairy tales. Shrek 3 commits the same crime that Shrek started making fun of - of being repetitive, unoriginal and just trying to cash on the existing popularity.

Shrek 3 adds more fairy tale characters to the storyline, gets Fiona pregnant and has Shrek coming to terms with impending fatherhood while trying to search for a successor to the throne of Far Far Away and thwarting Prince Charming's evil plans.

If you have not seen any of the Shrek movies, then you may like this one. It does have the same ingredients that the franchise has had till now. However, if you have tasted this dish before, the feeling is of having the same food again and again and again.

Recommendation - Avoid
Rating - ✘✘

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (English, 2007)

This is the Hollywood summer of sequels. And none of them live up to the mark. All my reviews this summer have been saying - sequels are bad. For a change, Fantastic 4 Part 2 is better than Part 1. Having said that, anything had to be better then Part 1, so that was not a difficult thing to achieve.

Fantastic 4 Part 2 is just that, another sequel. Slightly better graphics, perhaps; same old boring storyline; mediocre acting and nothing else.

Fantastic 4 Part 2 sees the group fighting Silver surfer, their arch-enemy Victor and a creature who eats planets. It also sees them coming to terms with each other and with their super powers. The only thing good that can be said about this franchise is that it treats comic book heroes like comic book heroes and remains at that childish level rather than making it too complex and too adult.

Hollywood has gone bankrupt for sure! I am dreading going to cinema halls these days.

Rating - ✘✘✘

Cheeni Kum (चीनी कम) (Hindi, 2007)

A good dish needs a delicate sense of proportion of its ingredients, and a meal needs the same sense of matching the dishes. So before I begin this review, let me tell you about one of the best meals I have ever had outside my home. It was at Tandoor, a Mughlai restaurant in Bangalore, India. We began with Jaljeera, which had just the right amount of salt and sugar and jeera, went on to have a kebab platter where all the kebabs were delicately done, melting in your mouth just as your teeth begin to feel the piece, and tantalising my taste-buds with just the right spices. Sheer bliss. Even though we were full, we did the mistake of ordering the main course which was the exact opposite - cold, bland and stale. Thankfully, we just left the main course as it is and proceeded to the fabulous deserts, thus leaving a good after-taste in our mouths and fond memories of the meal till date.

Now before you start thinking I have gone mad, let me tell you - that's exactly the review of Cheeni Kum. A wonderful concoction of light-hearted interplay of two interesting characters, portrayed beautifully by Amitabh and Tabu is what starts the movie and carries it through. Amitabh is a 64-year-young restaurant owner in London and Tabu is a 34-year-old software professional visiting the country. They start liking each other and decide to get married.

All is good up to this point. The courtship between an obviously mismatched couple is filmed amazingly well. Amitabh's relationship with his neighbour Swini Khara, a kid with cancer, is heart-winning. The second half of the movie is a drag, and this comes as a big surprise given that second half revolves around an actor of the calibre of Paresh Rawal, who play's Tabu's father in the movie and goes on a satyagraha to prevent his daughter from marrying an old man. Still, that small boring part does not reduce the overall enjoyment and you leave the movie with a good aftertaste.

Brilliant acting by Amitabh, Tabu and Swini. Paresh Rawal doesn't get scope to act. Imaginative, innovative screenplay that not only makes you laugh, it makes you smile as well.

Recommendation - Must see for those who like acting based light-hearted films.
Rating - ✔✔✔. Would have given 4 ticks if the satyagraha part was not there.

Ocean's Thirteen (English, 2007)

You got group of movie stars to act in the same film and you made a movie which was basically a stylish heist. For some vague reason which defies logic, the movie clicked. That's about the best I can say about Ocean's Eleven.

You should have left while you were ahead. Instead, what you did, you made not one, but two sequels. Bad move!

Ocean's Thirteen seems to be a prime example of the sequel ennui that afflicts Hollywood and which is at its full peak this summer. It offers nothing new, apart from a tired looking Al Pacino. There is a lot of technical mumbo-jumbo about creating artificial earthquakes and magnetrons and doctored dices and what nots. There is a lot of pregnant half-statements and cheeky tricks that characterise Ocean's series.

But there is absolutely nothing new. As you are watching the movie, you feel it is just dragging along. Dragging along for last 3 years.

Is there anything good about the movie? Yes, it shows a fabulous hotel.

Recommendation - Watch it if you have nothing better to do.
Rating - ✔

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (English, 2007)

Disgusting waste of time. With absolutely no indication of a main plot, the film keeps on jumping between various senseless sub-plots and entirely wastes the talents of a superb cast.

This movie has scared me about sequels. Hollywood, some originality please.

Recommendation - Avoid it, unless of course you owe a debt to Davy Jones or Jack Sparrow or any other stupid character in the movie.

And I am not wasting any more words on this.

Rating - ✘✘✘✘✘

Bridge to Terabithia (English, 2007)

In one word, Wonderful.

In our reminiscences, we always remember childhood as a time when everything was possible, when we were full of dreams and hopes and not touched by the bitterness of life. That's not quite true, though, is it? I am sure most of us as children actually faced an eternal doubt on whether anything is possible and being frustrated at not knowing the answer one way or the other. We were taught by everyone around us to be disciplined, tow the line, fit in and so on. All the teaching around us - at school, at home and the society in general - was targeted to classify things into good and bad, into possible and impossible.

Hats off to this movie's central thought - Keep an open mind and anything is possible. In a world full of prejudices, failures and disappointments, where one thing difficult to find is a person with an open mind, the movie brings to us this beautiful thought. And in a non-preachy way.

Jesse (Josh Hutcherson) is a misfit in school. Leslie (Anna Sophia Robb), the new arrival in the class, becomes his best friend. Together, they learn to open their mind and create the imaginary world of Terabithia and have adventures there. The story is about friendship and about opening your mind.

A beautiful story, beautifully portrayed. If any of you are worried about monster like creatures shown in the trailer, don't worry, that's not the focus. Good acting by the two protagonists and some very beautiful cinematography will leave you with a smile on your face when you leave the theatre.

Recommendation - Must Watch.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Magicians (English, 2007)

Just yesterday, I was watching The Peep Show on BBC - that's the famous British TV serial starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb - and I was laughing out loud throughout the show. I had been warned that Magicians, even though it is a Mitchell-Webb show, is not in the same league, but I did not expect it to be such a damp squib as it turned out to be.

Magicians has Harry (David Mitchell) and Karl (Robert Webb) playing two stage magicians, who are partners, then turn rivals and unite again in the end.

Don't get me wrong, the movie has its good moments; and laughable moments. If only it was a half-hour episode of The Peep Show instead of a full-length movie, it would have been wonderful. Unfortunately, in the process of making it a movie, the story looks so imposed and unnatural that the jokes seem like ones out of a cheap old joke book. Stifling and boring.

Recommendation - Avoid. Better rent a couple of DVDs of The Peep Show instead.

Rating - ✘✘

Ta Ra Rum Pum (ता रा रम पम)(Hindi, 2007)

Ta Ra Rum Pum is the story of RV(Saif Ali Khan), his wife Radhika(Rani Mukherjee) and children Princess (Angelina Idnani) and Champ (Ali Haji). RV is a star race driver, who likes to live life as it comes and does not believe in planning for the future. After an accident on the race track, he finds himself psychologically scarred and unable to get back into racing. As he does not know how to do anything else, he soon finds himself penniless. Ta Ra Rum Pum is the story of how the family fights the "poor" days together, how they keep their spirits high inspite of adversities and how, when faced with the issue of saving his son's life, RV finds his groove back and wins a race again.

That the movie is an "inspired" version of Cinderella Man is not news. What is news is that it is a good movie in its own right. The story of keeping up the spirits in spite of adversities is an age-old draw, but it still works. Saif and Rani come up with good performances, as do the kids. Javed Jaffery is very good in the role of a friend and supporter.

An interesting tid-bit. The movie shook me up to some degree. In the scene where the family moves from Manhattan to the poor cabbie district, a person comments - "Must be some IT guy having lost his job". Scary, isn't it, given that we also have everything on loan just like in the movie. God, please keep me afloat.

Recommendation - Nice fell-good movie.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Spiderman 3 (English, 2007)

Thanks God for someone finally recognising that Spiderman is a early-teenage comic book and not a complex grown-up relationship novel. Spiderman in my childhood was all about a superhero who has troubles with his own conscience, whose girlfriend is high-maintenance and who has difficulty maintaining a balance between various aspects of his life. Basically everything a young teenager faces, just that this guy was a bit older and he was a superhero. And given that we were children, all this background helped, but eventually it was about Spidey and his villains.

There are times when you simply differ with everyone's opinion. This is one of them. Everyone around seems to be saying - Spiderman 3 is not as good as Spiderman 1 and 2. Well, I differ absolutely. Spiderman 3 takes you back to that childhood feeling I described above. It is more simplistic, more silly, if you like - more comic-book like; than any of its predecessors. And I love it for that.

Spiderman 3 sees Peter Parker (Tobey McGuire) fighting his own demons, and Venom and Sandman and Green Goblin, while establishing a balance between his duties as Spiderman and the time he is able to devote to MJ.

The special effects are all there, the comic-book feel is finally there and you finally get closures rather than everything being confused all around.

Recommendation - Look out! Here comes the Spiderman.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Provoked (English, 2007)

There's a fashion these days of popular mainstream Bollywood actresses acting in "meaningful" films. Provoked is Aishwarya Rai's turn to do this.

Based on the true story of Kiranjit Aluwalia (Aishwarya Rai), a victim of domestic violence, Provoked traces the events starting from Kiranjit not being able to tolerate it any longer and trying to burn her husband and take us through her struggle - first with herself to realise that she is a victim, not a criminal; and then with the British judicial system to have them realise what "provoked" means in context of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a very serious issue. It is very appreciable that such movies are being made and are getting the appropriate limelight. Quite good acting by Aishwarya Rai and Miranda Richardson, accompanied by a good narration of a powerful true story make Provoked a reasonably good movie to watch.

If I have any complaint, its just this. For such a serious subject, the movie is not as hard hitting as you would think it to be. The perpetrators of domestic violence won't really have a "oh shit! this is me" feeling. People not feel like going out and just shooting anyone they know who inflicts domestic violence. Its a glamorised presentation of a very serious subject, and this tendency to sugar-coat serious issues with glamour to make them more palatable is not really something that I agree with.

Recommendation - A must watch, just for the issue it tackles and good performances.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Painted Veil (English, 2007)

Can a girl love a man simply for his virtue?

In one of the most beautiful and romantic movies of the year, the love that Dr. Walter (Edward Norton) and his wife Kitty (Naomi Watts) find for each other by discovering each other's inner beauty is a poignant story of rediscovering what love is all about.

Kitty gets married to Walter simply to get away from her surroundings, but when she accompanies her husband to Shanghai where he works as a bacteriologist, she finds him quite boring and uninteresting and gets into an extramarital affair. When Walter finds out, he takes up an assignment in a remote village in China where a Cholera epidemic is spreading and takes her with him. Painted Veil is the story of the unhappy couple learning to forgive each other, rediscovering their love, and eventually themselves in each other, amidst the sufferings and misery.

Absolutely wonderful acting by both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, backed by a touching storyline and some very good cinematography of what must be one of the most remote and most beautiful places on earth. Here's one that touches your heart.

Rating - ✔✔✔✔

Namaste London (नमस्ते लंदन) (Hindi, 2007)

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Why do I get conned into watching such movies? That it has Akshay Kapoor and Katrina Kaif should have warned me, and it did. Perhaps I was starved of Bollywood films as none had come to Ipswich in past couple of weeks, that I went into the movie thinking maybe, it will be semi-decent. पर नहीं, कौआ कितने मोती खा ले हंस तो हो नहीं जाएगा (An ugly duckling can't turn into a swan).

Namaste London, in its attempt to portray an Indian girl born in Britain and having supposedly British values being brought to appreciate the love that India and Indian men can give, ends up being a poor mockery of both Indian and British cultures. Some cliched pop-patriotic jingo, some badly shot scenes of London, some boring music and a stupid screenplay leave your head reeling.

Enough said. Just avoid the movie.

Rating - ✘✘✘✘

Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. (Hindi, 2007)

A friend asked me about the movie.
Have you seen Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd.?
Yes.
Is it good?
Average.
Describe it in two words.
Unfulfilled Promise.
Describe it in one sentence.
Enough good memorable well-executed moments in the movie, roughly patched together with enough extremely boring moments, leaving you with an overall "So-So" feeling.
OK, get on with your review

Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. is the story of a group of honeymooning couples travelling from Mumbai to Goa on a bus. Its the story of every couple's journey of getting to know each other, and in the process knowing oneself, in a way that only marriage can make you do. The movie is a comedy, and this nirvana comes with hilarious consequences for most of the couples. Be it a guy telling his wife that he is a gay, or a couple finding out that they are superpowered, or a wife running away with her lover midway through the honeymoon, or a guy becoming conservative once he is married, the fun continues. The story drags on at times, but overall its okay.

The chemistry between Nahid (Shabana Azmi) and Oscar (Boman Irani) as a middle-aged couple in their second relationship is very good, and these two wonderful actors leave their mark in the short roles they have. The superpowered couple Aspi (Abhay Deol) and Zara (Minissha Lamba) are shown are ultra-matched couples who think the same thoughts, wear the same dresses and never fight may seem funny or may get on your nerves, depending on your mood. Partho (Kay Kay Menon) and Mili (Raima Sen) give very convincing performances of an insecure middle-class male trying to dominate his wife by keeping her in the bounds of conservative behaviour.

Overall, some very good performances leading to some good moments in the film. Watchable.
Rating - ✔✔

Meet the Robinsons (English, 2007)

After a long time comes an animation movie with an all old-world charm, wrapped in a futuristic wrapper, just the way we like our animation.

Lewis is an orphan who is a bit different, he is an inventor. All his attempts to impress prospective adoptive parents through his inventions keep on failing with disastrous results. In his gloom, he meets a boy named Wilbur Robinson, who whisks him to future, where Lewis meets the Robinsons family and helps them fight the Bowler Hat guy. Lewis is in for one surprise after other, as every member of the Robinson family is weird, and in a different way.

The way Lewis learns that being different is OK, and that failures are to be celebrated as they are but a step to success, is beautifully portrayed in the movie. A very well executed movie with an interesting storyline and an inspirational message. It makes you laugh, it makes you smile. And to bring in the old-world feeling, the movie is preceeded by a short Mickey Mouse clip. Brilliant touch.

Recommendation - Thoroughly enjoyable.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Mr. Bean's Holiday (English, 2007)

The magic is broken. Having seen so many antics of Mr. Bean on the TV, I was soooooooo looking forward to this movie. And it ended up being the very definition of a damp squib.

Mr. Bean's Holiday is about Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) taking a holiday in South of France. Being Mr. Beans, there are of course a series of troubles, stupid mistakes, supposed-to-be-funny scenes etc. However, there is no fun. The movie feels like a 25 min. TV episode stretched to a full-length movie. It moves at a very slow pace. By the time you make up your mind to laugh at something, that scene os over and the next funny scene comes after 10 min and gets over immediately. Further, there is nothing new in the foolish sequences, it all gives a felling of being old hat.

Recommendation - Avoid the movie. If you are interested, go rent the TV serial DVD, much more fun to watch.

Rating - ✘✘

Illusionist (English, 2006)

Illusionist is the second big film coming this year with the protagonists being magicians, the other one being Prestige. Both are wonderful films, having some wonderful performances. But that is where the similarity ends. While the subject that Prestige deals with is competitiveness, Illusionist is a romantic film. It is one of that rare breed of romantic films where "love" is the basis of the plot rather than a cliched word being shouted infinite times.

Illusionist is the story of Eisenheim (Edward Norton), a poor peasant boy interested in magic, in love with his childhood sweetheart, Sophie (Jessica Biel). After roaming about the world learning magic, Eisenheim returns to find that Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) intends to marry Sophie. Eisenheim's growing popularity as a magician puts him at odds with Prince Leopold, who instructs Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to destroy Eisenheim. Eisenheim, however, has tricks up his sleeve and there starts a battle between Eisenheim's love and magic and Prince Leopold's power.

Illusionist comes with a very tight storyline with enough twists and surprises and quite a few wonderful magical tricks. While that is winner enough, where the movie really succeeds is the brilliantly understated performance by Edward Norton. He portrays a love which is not ruffled by his own popularity or the threat of the prince or the heat of a high-powered struggle.

Recommendation - Must see.
Rating - ✔✔✔✔

Eklavya (एकलव्य)(Hindi, 2007)

In the realm of Indian mythology, there is a constant need to define what "dharma" is or what is the right thing to do. Several instances of sacrifices are quoted where people do senseless, impractical, even wrong things in order to follow some stupid tradition or belief. In Mahabharata, the story of Eklavya, the tribal student who became a master archer just by his dedication to his goal but then sacrifices his thumb to his assumed teacher Dronacharya in the name of his duty, is an episode which very few sensible people have been able to digest.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra has named his protagonist Eklavya (Amitabh Bachchhan). His Eklavya is a guard of a Rajasthani prince Rana Jaywardhan (Boman Irani) and has the same sense of dedication to his duty and goal that his eponymous mythological character has. The movie begins with a disclosure, that Prince Harshawardhan (Saif Ali Khan) is actually Eklavya's son. Rana Jaywardhan plots to kill Eklavya with the help of his brother Rana Jyotiwardhan (Jackie Shroff) and nephew Udaywardhan (Jimmy Shergill); but gets killed himself. Eklavya is bound by his duty to punish the killers of his king, but when he finds out that prince Harshawardhan is involved, will Eklavya again sacrifice what is dear to him in the name of duty or will he realise that "dharma" is not a dead concept bound by traditions, but is defined by what is right in terms of the current context? Rajjo (Vidya Balan) plays Harshawardhan's love interest.

A very beautifully shot film. Cinematography in Rajasthan's forts and desert background is simply amazing. You can see the movie just for that. You can also see the movie for its tight storyline and direction. It is a very short movie, going by Bollywood standards, in that its running length is around 90 minutes. A very effective movie, nonetheless. The performances are also quite good. Vidhu Vinod Chopra has come up with a winner here.

Recommendation - Watch it on big screen. Those scenes of Rajasthan are breathtaking.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Becoming Jane (English, 2007)

Becoming Jane is the story of the early years of Jane Austen, one of the most famous writers in English literature. It portends to convey the society and conventions of the late eighteenth century; the humble position of Jane's own family; the choice that she has to make between a rich noble and a penniless lover and how eventually her experiences transform her from a girl named Jane Austen to THE Jane Austen.

Anne Hathway plays young Jane to perfection and the movie does convey what it set out to convey, only its not movie material. At least not great movie material. Jane Austen wrote love stories wonderful enough to make movies about, she had the ability to alleviate her characters from the humdrum of everyday life and make them get what they wanted, eventually. The story-writer for this movie was not Jane Austen. So the movie is just another movie. Nothing great and wonderful about it.

Recommendation - Watchable, but you can wait for the DVD or for it to come sometime later on cable TV.

Rating - ✔

The Freedom Writers (English, 2007)

What is the difference a teacher can make? In a class full of teenagers most of whom come from difficult backgrounds and are involved in domestic and street violence and poverty; in a class which is divided into groups which can't tolerate each other; in a class where education is something forced upon, irrelevant to the daily struggles rather than something to be valued or something which can transform lives - into such a class arrives the newbie teacher Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) . Facing a group of disillusioned students, she gets them to trust her that she cares whether they study or not. By exposing them to know about things beyond their immediate surroundings, by exposing them to the sufferings and conquest of sufferings through literature, she gets them to learn the value of tolerance, to recognise the value of education and to pursue education beyond high school. Most of all, she teaches them to stretch themselves and develop the confidence that they can do bigger and better things.

A very inspirational story, especially as it happens to be true. The movie, given its inspirational remit, is reasonably good and keeps you involved throughout. With decent enough performances from Hillary Swank and all the students, and a reasonably well-told story, the film is a good watch. However, do not expect magic. After watching the movie, I developed a deep sense of respect for Erin Gruwell; but I did not feel as if I have seen a wonderful film.

Recommendation - Worth seeing, just for its subject.

Rating - ✔✔

Shark Bait (English, 2006)

Released as "The Reef" in UK.

If you search for this movie in imdb, the user comments would read, "the worst animation movie ever, ever, ever". And that would be right. Trust imdb, I tell you.

I cannot forgive the makers for this movie for sure. It has put me off animation. A weird combination of Karate Kid and Finding Nemo, The Reef fails on every count. It has no imagination, no excitement. The dubbing voices sound tired, dead in fact; and the story is as dead-pan as the desert-ish sea bed outside the reef. The animation, the colour seems to be a poor copy of Finding Nemo.

I don't intend to waste any more of my blog space writing about this useless movie.

Recommendation - Run away from it to save your life.

Rating - ✘✘✘✘✘

Music and Lyrics (English, 2007)

Something sweet! Something lovable!

Music and Lyrics is the story of a has-been pop singer Alex Fletcher (High Grant), who has got a chance to revive his career but for which he has to write a song and he doesn't have a lyricist. He finds a lyricist in Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore). The movie is them writing a song (music and lyrics) together and in the process helping each other with personal issues and finding love in each other.

Music and Lyrics brings back the same feel-good comic-romantic style of films that we know Hugh Grant for. Surprisingly, a movie has a freshness to it which makes you feel happy. The premise of matching music and lyrics to make a song gives us a movie which reminds us why the words 'musical' and 'lyrical' are terms of praise. With good performances from both Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, this movie is worth watching.

Recommendation - Go for it.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Salaam-E-Ishq (सलाम-ए-इश्क)(Hindi, 2007)

Someone told me this film is the biggest Bollywood hit outside India!!! It can't be true. In an year which has to keep up with last year's wonders like Lage Raho Munnabhai, Rang De Basanti, Dhoom 2 and so on, it is really regrettable that the year's first big release is a big wasted effort. An all-stellar star cast is wasted in a plot which does not know where it is going, and in spite of good acting by some of the cast, the lack of a coherent story and pathetic acting by those who got the maximum screen-time completely kills the movie.

Salaam-E-Ishq is the story of six couples, each going through various experiences and each having their love tested in different ways. A basically nice premise of showing different ways in which love is tested, the film flounders due the lack of a tight screenplay and direction. While Couple One (Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla) is going through mid-life crisis, Couple Two (Akshay Khanna and Ayesha Takia) has the groom having pre-marital commitment phobia. For Couple Three (John Abraham and Vidya Balan), the difficulty is that after an accident, the girl finds she has no memories of her husband (convenient, eh!). If they had stopped at this, it may have been a good film. Good performances by all these actors, with their stories making sense in at least a dramatic way. But we also have to cope with Couples Four, Five and Six. Couple Four (Sohail Khan and Isha Kopikar) find themselves meeting an accident every time they try to consummate their marriage (sic!). Couple Five (Govinda and some American Babe) is about an American girl landing in India in search of her boyfriend who has left her to get married to an Indian girl; and the taxi driver who dreams of marrying her but helps her find her ex-boyfriend (sic! sic!). Couple Six (Salman Khan and Priyanka Chopra), who hog the most screen time and are the most intolerable part of the film, have a film item-queen trying to fake a real-life love interest to show the world she can be 'girl-next-door' and get cast in a Karan Johar Movie (sic!sic!sic!sic!.......).

Enough said about a movie which I don't want to even talk about.

Recommendation - Avoid it.

Rating - ✘✘

Guru (गुरू) (Hindi, 2007)

The most anticipated movie of the year; a Mani Ratnam film with big stars; supposedly based on the story of Dhirubhai Ambani; the first film with Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai as a pair which has become a hit.

Is there a decent enough film behind all this glamour and propaganda? Yes, there is. Guru is the story of a villager who has a vision, a vision to make it big and a determination of getting over all the obstacles in his way, by hook or by crook. Abhishek does a wonderful portrayal of a man who refuses to apologize for his success. Mani Ratnam is a genius, but then that is nothing new.

However, and this is a big however, it is not a great film. It is not Mani Ratnam's best, Abhishek has the potential to do better and with an inspiration like Dhirubhai, much better movies can be made. Another jarring thing about the movie is Guru's self-righteous attitude without any logical arguments.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Baabul (बाबुल)(Hindi, 2006)

This is one movie that I have not managed to finish, even in the interest of writing this review. I mean, guys, give me a break. Widow-remarriage! I mean, when Ishwarchand Vidyasagar worked on it in 1800s, it made sense. In today's world and age when people make and break relations to suit their lifestyles, a movie on such an outdated topic is a pain at its best and a plague at the worst, and this meeting is towards the worst end for sure. A three hour story of crying, screaming, melodrama and senseless do-goodness which challenges basic sensibilities is best avoided.

Rating - ✘ ✘ ✘

Notes on a Scandal (English, 2006)

In one of the best movies of the year, Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett put performances that are sure to leave you impressed, in a screenplay that is shocking enough to get you interested and normal enough to keep you interested.

Judi Dench plays an old vampire-istic lesbian. She fancies a new teacher in her school, Cate Blanchett. So when she finds out that Cate is having illicit relations with a student, she uses the scandalous opportunity to get Cate under her power and influence. The movie is a story of this mash of relationships.

Wonderful acting, superb screenplay and very good direction. A must see.

Rating - ✔✔✔✔

Bhagam Bhag (भागम भाग)(Hindi, 2006)

Priyan Sir, congratulations on your hattrick of bad comedy movies this year. First, it was Chup Chup Ke, which we tolerated because of Rajpal Yadav. Then there was Malamaal Weekly, which we could not tolerate inspite of all our respect for your earlier ventures. Now there is Bhagam Bhag where you have tried to replicate the Hera Pheri formula by Akshay Kumar and Paresh Rawal and creating a movie around confused identities. You have also taken the yesteryears' king of street-style comedy, Govinda. Alas, it doesn't succeed this time as well. My sympathies with you, sir!

Bhagam Bhag traces the antics of Bunty (Akshay Kumar) and Babla (Govinda) as they run across London to try and find a heroine for their stage show owned by Champak Chaturvedi (Paresh Rawal). Bunty meets Munni (Lara Dutta), who turns out to be Mrs. Nisha Chauhan, wife of Vikram Chauhan (Arbaaz Khan) and later turns out to be Aditi. In the fray are Commisioner Mehra (Jackie Shroff), a gangs of street thugs, a Don and his goofing assistants and taxi driver Gullu (Rajpal Yadav). With everyone around behaving suspiciously and everyone running after everyone else, the movie is aptly named Bhagam Bhag, though you end up wishing someone had run away with the movie reels and you had been spared of watching this movie.

Performances look completely tired. Akshay Kumar hams throughout the movie, Govinda looks a has-been, Paresh Rawal is repetitive, Lara Dutta is as confused as the multiple names she has in the movie, Jackie Shroff should have retired long time back. The story of the movie and its execution is as painful to watch as a cat dragging food from rubbish bin.

Anyone watching this movie complete should get an award for masochism. I was saved by the games on my mobile.

Recommendation - Avoid. Take a detour if your car is passing anywhere near to a theatre showing the movie.

Rating - ✘✘✘

The Pursuit of Happyness (English, 2006)

Down and Out in the U.S. of A. A rags to riches story is always a good draw. This film is different. Yes, it is based on a true life rags to riches story. For a change though, its not a riches through luck or inheritance story. It is the story of a down and out guy whose wife leaves him and he is left caring for his pre-schooler son, at a time when he is absolutely penniless and is just starting in a new, uncertain career. It is the story of his struggles, his determination and his love for his son. Its not the story of a man never breaking, its the story of a man breaking, then picking up his pieces again and starting again. Its not the story of success through determination, its the story of trying and failing repeatedly, of having so many setbacks that you feel like quitting and actually mentally quit a couple of times, but then start again and go on. It is the story of...

The Pursuit of Happyness is the story of Chris Gardner (Will Smith) and his son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith), a father's care of his son inspite of difficulties and a man's determination to the pursuit of happyness. To me, what Chris tells his son in basketball court symbolizes the movie and is a message for all of us "Don't ever let someone tell you, you can't do something. Not even me. Because when people tell you can't do something, it is because they can't do that thing".

Wonderful acting by the real life father-son duo of Will Smith and Jaden Smith, wonderful execution of the story line and real inspiring stuff of struggle and determination.

Recommendation - I am not writing too many complimentary adjectives here, you watch the film yourself and decide on your own. Its just too good a movie.

Recommendation - ✔✔✔✔

Kabul Express (Hindi, 2006)

Kabul has dominated world news headlines for quite some time now. Here was a Bollywood movie being filmed in Afghanistan, a place where just a short time ago, Bollywood movies were banned. So it was with a lot of expectation that I had gone to see the movie.

Now what happens if you take George Bush as a subject and make a movie whose main theme is intelligence? That's what happened to Kabir Khan. He took the subject of two Indian journalists in Afghanistan caught the current situation in Afghanistan where the local Afghan polulation is wirch-hunting Taliban supporters; and he gave the story a comic, emotional bend. If you are exclaiming, "That sounds interesting", you have obviously not watched the movie. In an attempt to put a comic twist to an inherently tragic environment, Kabir Khan has delivered a movie which is neither here nor there.

Kabul Express is the name of the jeep in which Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum), a local Afghan driver is taking Suhel (John Abraham) and Jai (Arshad Warsi) and which is hijacked by Imran Khan Afridi (Salman Shahid), a Taliban supporter trying to get across the border to Pakistan. The movie has some very witty moments in the dialogues between Imran and Jai, but otherwise, you are let thinking throughout the movie, where is this leading? Will this movie get on with it and say what it wants to say or not? No, it does not, it just leaves you feeling stupid, much like the donkey standing in the middle of the road obstructing the jeep at the end of the movie (you are supposed to laugh in that scene, incidentally).

The acting levels in the movie vary from John Abraham's can't-act-to-save-my-life to a brilliant performance by Salman Shahid. Arshad's timing is impeccable, as is the rustic-ness of Hanif Hum Ghum. The pace of the movie is very dragging, cinematography portraying a dry arid hills very well. The direction and the story are the film's weakest points.

Recommendation - Surprisingly, I met some people who liked the movie. So don't take my word for it, go watch the movie. But don't tell me I didn't warn you.

Rating - ✔

Main Meri Patni Aur Woh (मैं मेरी पत्नी और वो)(Hindi, 2005)

Every once in a while, a movie comes along which charms your way into your heart with just its simplicity. No big budget, foreign locations, exotic stories or stars with style. Just a bunch of good actors in an interesting story about people like you and me. There was this era of wonderful telefilms shown on doordarshan in '80s which somehow just ended.

Main Meri Patni Aur Woh is the story of Mithilesh Shukla (Rajpal Yadav), a short, average-looking, reserved sort of guy who gets married to a tall, beautiful, outgoing girl Veena (Rituparna Sengupta). The films traces Mithilesh's inferiority complexes and the doubts arising in his mind regarding his wife because he does not consider himself worthy of her. The arrival of her friend, the smart and charming Akash (Kay Kay Menon) intensifies his complexes.

The movie portrays the situation in a light mood, making us laugh at Mithilesh and sympathise with him at the same time. Absolutely brilliant acting by Rajpal Yadav, in a role which relies on his facial expressions a lot, ably supported by other actors as well. The movie is well-paced, the story very earthy, the language very normal and undramatic. It charms you with sheer simplicity of execution. And it charms with the simple love that Mithilesh and Veena share. No dying for each other stuff, simple living with each other.

Recommendation - Go get the DVD now!
Rating - ✔✔✔

Happy Feet (English, 2006)

This one is for you, my dear childhood friend Puneet. This one is for all those people who dare to be different, who do not conform to the norms of people around them just to be accepted, who do not accept things just because someone in authority is saying that, who try to discover what is unique inside them and then pursue that uniqueness.

Happy Feet is the story of an emperor penguin who cannot sing. Singing, which is the basis of penguin society, which is how penguin mates find each other, and here is the guy who can’t sing to save his life (NO, I am not talking about myself here). So what can he do? He can dance (See, I told you I am not talking about myself). He can juggle his feet, make music with wonderful tap dance. So what happens? He is shunted as a non-conformist, he is told he has caused a bad omen which has resulted in reduction of food supply.

Happy Feet is the story of a penguin who sets out to prove that being different is OK, that if you are determined, things will always work out and that you shuld not be afraid to explore things beyond your horizon.

Happy Feet is also fun, not all preaching. Good songs, good music, good animation.

Where the film lacks is a strong, terse storyline. The films seems to be dragging the same message throughout, and parts of it have you saying “get on with it, man”.

Overall, a good movie to watch and enjoy.

Rating – ✔✔

Dhoom 2 (धूम २)(Hindi, 2006)

What should I say about this movie – इश्क ने आर्यन निकम्मा कर दिया, वरना वो भी आदमी थे काम के (Love has made Aryan useless, else he was a very capable man). Or should I use the one that ACP Jai uses at the end of the movie - आशिक का जनाज़ा है ज़रा धूम से निकले (it’s a lover’s death procession, should have some bang in it)?

Dhoom 2 shows a gruff ACP Jai Dixit (Abhishek Bachchan) chasing the super-thief Aryan aka Mr. A (Hritik Roshan). Supporting Jai in his efforts are ex-mechanic, now sub-inspector Ali (Uday Chopra); Jai’s college-friend, now ACP Shonali Bose (Bipasha Basu); Shonali’s sister Monali Bose (again, Bipasha Basu), a brazilian beachcomber at Copa Cabana beach and a pregnant wife Sweety (Reema Sen). Supporting Aryan is a small-time crook Sunahri (Aishwarya Rai), who has been appointed by Jai to help catch Aryan but who falls in love with Aryan herself.

Mr. A is not an ordinary thief, though. Like Hritik says in his earlier movie, Lakshya, “Life में जो भी करना है अच्छे से करो”. तो चोर बनना है तो Mr. A जैसा बनो (If you have to be a thief, be like Mr. A). He just steals priceless antique pieces from all over the world, choosing his locations such that connecting them on a world map will form an A, the same symbol that he leaves as his mark at every place he steals from. A master of disguise, extreme sports and gadgetry, Aryan works alone and does not trust anyone, till Sunahri comes into his life. He plans a heist with Sunahri where Jai is expecting Sunahri to give Aryan away but Sunahri falls in love with Aryan and betrays Jai.

Dhoom redefined “style” in Indian movies. Dhoom 2 ups that style quotient ten times. Just as Dhoom belonged to John Abraham, Dhoom 2 belongs to Hritik Roshan. He is just too good. His style in executing the extreme sports sequences (I don’t even know the names of all of those), his dancing, his comfort with various disguises is just amazing. Other actors were as expected. Aishwarya Rai does a good rendition of a girl torn between two things, and the pair of Hritik-Aishwarya just rocks. Abhishek Bachchan is his normal cool self. During the movie, I was thinking what’s the difference between cool and hot in terms of style. Abhishek is cool, Hritik is hot. Uday Chopra is avoidable, as usual. Bipasha does what she is good at doing, oozing sensuality.

The action sequences are well-shot and are sure to draw a wow! The only drawback of the movie is its pace, which goes quite slow at times. The movie could have been better by focusing more on heists and less on the Aryan-Sunahri love story. To the extent that Jai in the end says – Love story hai, isliye… I would have loved to have a couple of more “steals” in the movie. That’s a minor point, however, in a movie which otherwise is thoroughly enjoyable. I found a lot of similarities to The Thomas Crown Affair, wonder why no-one else noticed that.

Recommendation – Has to be seen in theaters
Rating – ✔✔✔

Jaaneman (जानेमन)(Hindi, 2006)

Remind me to thank Cineworld Ipswich that they did NOT screen Jaaneman while I was in Ipswich, and I was spared of watching this movie in a theatre. You have to wonder, why do some movies get made? OK, granted that you have made the mistake of producing a bad movie, shouldn’t you see it once yourself to see if it is worth springing on an unsuspecting public? Shouldn’t you be banned against going ahead and promoting the movie as the next best thing since Big Bang?

Perhaps I should direct my comments more at Star News, on which I had seen rave reviews of the movie and had seen so many viewers praising it. Obviously fabricated! I mean, sensationalist journalism is one thing, deliberately leading the viewers towards a torturous path is a crime. Having missed the movie in theaters, I saw it on DVD and had to really fight the temptation of shutting it down.

OK, I hear you shouting, “Get on with the review”. Well, Jaaneman is the story of two guys, Agastya (Akshay Kapoor) and Suhaan (Salman Khan), both of whom love Piya (Preity Zinta). Agastya is a studious nerd who can’t open his mouth in front of Piya, while Suhaan is the rock-star who loves and marries Piya. At the start of the movie, Agastya has returned from US after seven years to find Piya, only to find that Piya and Suhaan are now divorced because of some misunderstanding due to Suhaan’s career aspirations. Suhaan, who is now out-of-job and hence cannot make alimony payments, plots to help Agastya to impress Piya so that they get married and he gets away from alimony by declaring Piya is no longer dependent on him. However, in the process, he finds out that Piya has a child. Twist - now he wants both the child and Piya back in his life. A sickening hackneyed love triangle, with the standard ending of Agastya returning back to US after reuniting Piya and Suhaan. The much-talked-about unique ending is nothing more than Agastya finding a Piya-lookalike and pairing up with her. Sick!

On the acting front, Salman disappoints as expected, Akshay and Priety are ok. Anupam Kher has this talent of doing very good and very bad acting, and this time, it’s the turn of bad. On a story execution and directorial front, the movie never grips you to empathise with any character and to wonder what will happen if he does not end up getting the girl. Cinematography is average.

Recommendation – Avoid it, unless you are a die-hard Salman or Akshay fan and have to watch all their movies.

Rating - ✘✘✘

Casino Royale (English, 2006)

Sirs and Mademoiselles! How would you like your Bond today? Rare, as in Roger Moore; or well-done as in Sean Connery? Do you like your Bond to be a suave, smooth metrosexual like Pierce Brosnan; or would you like to move back to the masculine, handsome hunk image of Bond with a well-chiselled body, hair on the chest and a rough, unsure edge to him? If the last one, sir, we have today in our Casino Royale - Daniel Craig.

Any long running franchise worth its salt has to keep on redefining its protagonist’s image with the times, and with the death of the feminine metrosexual man on the style scene, it was time for Bond to go back to the basics, to start being manly enough to be the man every woman wants. To achieve this, the producers picked up Daniel Craig as the man and the first Ian Fleming book as the story. Casino Royale tracks Bond chasing a terrorists’ financier who has lost terrorists’ money on stock markets and has to recover that money in a high-stakes poker game in Casino Royale.

I am not going to say anything more about the story, because story is not what we go to watch Bond films for. I am not a Bond fan, so I really don’t know what does one go to watch Bond films for anyway? Pathetic stories, pedestrian acting. Perhaps it’s the style, the impossible smoothness with which Bond behaves in impossible scenarios. If that, then Casino Royale fails. Daniel Craig simply does not have the style quotient of any of his predecessors. Or perhaps it is the contradiction of a man that Bond is –caring towards his girls and yet always two-timing them. If that, this movie is wonderful. Craig portrays the “women are his only weakness” part of Bond very well. Or is it the famous opening sequence of a Bond movie? If so, this movies opening sequence is superb. A stylish presentation of Bond acquiring his 00 status, followed by perhaps one of the greatest chase sequences ever.

Casino Royale is a welcome move away from the extra-gadget-friendly that Pierce Brosnan’s Bond had become. Casino Royale is a welcome move towards a manlier Bond. But it stops short somewhere. It does not make you go wide-eyed at the things Bond does, neither does it bring the smile on your face when you used to see a Bond getting out of a fight, straightening his tie, and walking into a party, his suit unblemished. In the attempt of going back to basics, Casino Royale becomes a movie too much like a ’80s Dharmendra (a Bollywood Actor) flick.

Recommendation – GO watch it, it’s a Bond flick, after all. You have to watch it even it is Bad, and this one is quite decent by Bond standards.

Rating – ✔✔

Borat (English/ Kazhak, 2006)

Once in a while, there comes a radically different movie which becomes a major success, though half of the people are left wondering if the success is because of some real content or just the “being radical” part. The praises in reviews just spirals, sometimes because a reviewer can’t bring himself to criticize the movie lest he should be considered outdated or old-fashioned. Borat is such a movie.

Borat is a Kazakhstan journalist who is tourist USA to learn American culture and convey it to his people. The movie is a hilarious satire on the prejudices that Americans hold themselves – these being highlighted by showing the American reaction to a loud portrayal of supposed Eastern European prejudices.

The basic premise of the movie is quite good, and it makes for several funny scenes in the movie. However, the movie was just too loud for my taste. The good scenes from the film – like Borat asking to a set of feminists, “You mean Woman are equal to Man even when they have smaller brains?”, or Americans talking of equality over a Dinner party but getting offended when Borat gets a black prostitute as his guest – are quite enjoyable. I certainly draw a line though, at seeing a man’s face buried in a fat man’s bum on a large screen.

The execution of the movie is very loud, and in your face. The movie attempts to be funny throughout and ends up being funny most of the time. You can always close your eyes for the scenes you don’t like. There is not much to act, as it’s a movie of one gag after another, but the Borat guy does it well. Please excuse me for writing an uneducated review this time, I simply did not find the movie interesting enough to find out more about it.

Recommendation – Go watch it. You will never find such a movie again.
Rating – ✔✘✘✘ (✔ for what I liked, ✘s for the rest of the movie)

Prestige (English, 2006)

Are you watching closely? If not, do, or you will miss one of the best films of the year. Prestige is the story of two magicians – Alfred Borden aka The Professor (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier aka The Great Danton (High Jackman), from their starting years working together to their becoming bitter rivals, always trying to outdo each other in magic tricks, pitting Professor’s superior magic tricks against The Great Danton’s showmanship.

I had gone in with the expectations of seeing a war of magic tricks. That would have been crude. This movie is anything but crude. It is the story of the inner passion of two men – similar in many respects but fundamentally different. Similar in their pursuit of better magic, different in the ways they adopt to achieve their goals, different in the kind of sacrifices they make to achieve superiority. Even the motive for one-upmanship is different – for one it is to have better tricks, for other to have that ultimate applause.

The magic in the movie in not in tricks, but in the men playing those tricks, or preparing for and planning those tricks. In a superb performance from Hugh Jackman, the magic that a man’s ambition can be is portrayed on the screen. With good performances from Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson and Michael Caine, the movie leaves us spellbound with admiration for these actors.

The execution of the movie is superb. Christopher Nolan knows how to pace his movie, what to show and what to reveal when and how and how to get the best out of his cast and crew.

The only weak point of the movie is the fanciful use of Tesla, the scientist to create a magical machine which… Let me not spoil the movie for you, but let me tell you that whatever it does sounds as unscientific as can be.

Recommendation – Don’t miss it.

Rating – ✔✔✔✔

A Good Year (English, 2006)

Romance is not dead! Even in the world full of money and sex, life can still stand still on viewing a beautiful sunrise, or a chess table on which you played in childhood, or for that matter, a girl who is a vision.

A Good Year is the story of Max Skinner (Russell Crowe). Max Skinner is a London based bonds trader. Max Skinner does not do weekends, Max Skinner does not take holidays; Max Skinner makes money. So when Max Skinner inherits a vineyard in Provence, France, the place where he says, “All my memories begin within 100 yards from this spot” – all he can think of is how to go and sell it as fast as possible. However, once he reaches there, he is unable to get away. Slowly he realises that it is not the place which doesn’t fit his life, it is his life which doesn’t fit the place; and it is the decision that he has to take for himself – money or his life?

As clichéd a story as can get, perhaps so outdated that it is now new. A romance fitting into the basic definition of romance – totally impractical, but so charming that you stop thinking of practicality. That’s exactly what happens in the movie. With the charming beauty of Provence, yet another stellar performance by Russell Crowe and the execution of a romantic plot which reminds you of everything you have left behind to run in the rat race of modern times.

Recommendation – For the eternal romantic inside all of us, the movie is a must. Those who have managed to kill that inner romance, please avoid the movie.

Rating – ✔✔✔

Don (Hindi, 2006)

What’s with Sharukh Khan and remakes? First, he goes ahead and becomes Devdas, a role which used was Dilip Kumar’s signature role. Now, he is the Don, again a signature role of another of the greatest actors, Amitabh Bachchan. The result is the same – the remake is a good movie on its own; as long as you don’t keep on comparing it to the original movie. I am not going to compare it to original movie, apart from one statement – even Sharukh Khan in his right mind would not say Shahrukh Khan was as good as either Dilip Kumar or Amitabh Bachchan.

DON, 2006 is a movie with style. It brings to an old plot the technology of 2006, and the movie is more chic, more sexy for that. Sharukh Khan looks so desirable (that’s from my wife), Priyanka Chopra, Isha Kopikar and Kareena Kapoor add to the glamour quotient. Shahrukh has always excelled in his portrayal of negative roles, and he once again proves that he has not lost the touch. Boman Irani is wonderful in the role of a police inspector with devious ways. The plot is well known, but the twists in terms of deviations from the original are quite good. Finally, the Malaysian locations and the cinematography around them are breathtakingly beautiful.

Well, that is saying a lot of good about a movie which can be termed average at the best. I genuinely liked watching the movie, I got from it what I expected. Like most of the remakes, the movie lacked a certain spontaneity, a certain life of its won, as if the actors themselves know that they are copying someone. Try as I did not to compare with the original, the movie deliberately reminds you of the original in every scene, every dialogue. It becomes very difficult to appreciate the movie if you are thinking all the time, “I would rather be watching the DON DVD kept at home”. There’s hardly anything special about the movie, hardly any magic.

Recommendation – Go watch it, it’s a well-done remake.

Rating – ✔✔

The History Boys (English, 2006)

We are so inundated with English movies from Hollywood that we hardly ever think of UK film industry as a significant one. This month, though, I had the privilege of watching two good movies from England. One was Queen, about which I have written earlier, and one this. Both very English in nature, and nice to watch.

The History Boys is the movie adaptation of a famous West End play by the same name. It traces the preparations of a group of intelligent but undisciplined boys from Sheffield Grammar School preparing from the Oxbridge exam (the exam to get into the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge University). The boys oscillate between the teaching styles of their English teacher, Hector (Richard Griffiths), who has won multiple awards for portraying this role in the play), who teaches for knowledge sake and not for achieving some goal and that of Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore), a teacher hired specifically by a results-hungry headmaster to get the boys into Oxbridge and who trains the boys to modify their answers, their thinking purely from the point of view of impressing the examiners.

The theme of the movie is wonderful. In this age of achievement and goal-oriented actions, the question of what is education really for is haunting. Its nothing new of course, but it's a pertinent question, nevertheless. Is education supposed to make us better human beings or help us earn more money? I know the answer is both, but when it comes to drawing a line, which side should we lean to? And which side do we actually lean to in real life?

Does the movie convey the theme of the movie? Does it raise these questions in our mind? Yes it does, and to a reasonably effective degree. With good performances from all the actors and a lot of funny moments thrown in, the movie is one of those which takes you to your school days and makes you compare what you are today to what you thought you would be back then (and I am not talking careers here).

The movie has its negative points. The theme of homosexuality is a bit overdone, the literary references, which the movie is full of, are beyond most people not so in-love-with-literature and the movie at times seems dragging. All these put together, however, are but a small dent on an otherwise fantastic movie.

Recommendation - Watch it, if you like this kind of a movie.

Rating - ✔✔✔

Hoodwinked (English, 2006)

OK, here's another of those I-want-to-ride-the-animation-movie-success-bandwagon movies and end up leaving the viewer, as the name of the movie suggests, hoodwinked. The concept is simple, take a famous fairy tale, in this case Little Red Riding Hood. Put on a contemporary set-up. So, make all characters suspects in a CSI investigation. Then put some twist of the characters personalities. So is the big bad wolf really bad or just a journalist? Is the Granny really a helpless creature or an extreme sports champion? And who is the actual villain?

A short review for a short movie. Nothing great.

Recommendation - Not worth it.

Rating - ✔

The Departed (English, 2006)

Imagine for a moment that you are a director and you have a star cast of Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen.... Then you go ahead and make a movie about the police cracking down on organised crime. Well, you can do only two things. You can either be a run-of-the-mill director who keeps struggling with balancing so many greats and ends up making a movie where things keep on happening and characters keep on coming in and going out without too much sense. Or, you can be Martin Scorsese (you can't really be Martin Scorsese, very few people can match that level of filmmaking, but that's neither here nor there) and make The Departed.

The Departed is the story of 2 people - Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). Both cops and both Mob. It is the story of Boston police department, specifically Captain Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Seargent Dignan (Mark Wahlberg) of Special Investigation Unit supported by Captain Ellerby (Alec Baldwin), trying to get the better of the Mob head, Costello (Jack Nicholson). Costigan is the undercover cop who has infiltrates the Mob and rises fastly in Costello's trust. Sullivan is the criminal who gets recruited as a cop and is rising fast in the Special Investigation Unit. Police and Mob both realise that they have a mole in their midst. The movie is a gripping story of the double life the two men lead and their chess game of outwitting each other.

Amazing performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson. It was ten years ago that Jack Nicholson's As Good as it Gets had stolen the best actor award from Leonardo's Titanic. Now this movie is not on the soft, emotional side of life as those two were. In fact, The Departed is quite gritty and a bit gory, my wife averted her eyes from screen several times. But the performances are certainly Oscar winning, with Leonardo having a slight upper hand. Matt Damon is also brilliant and gives one of his all-time best performances. Ably supported by the rest of the cast, these three people keep you on the edge of your seat, guessing what will happen next and giving you a lot of those "I didn't understand what just happened, what does that mean?" and "Wow! That's clever. So this is what that meant" moments which make any intelligent thriller a thrill to watch.

The movie moves at a good pace, the plot keeps you engaged every moment. The dialogues are a bit rough, with swearing almost of the level of Scarface. A bit gory, as the movie has a lot of bloodshed and shooting in the head scenes. Violence is paramount, it is a movie about cops and Mob killing each other.

Recommendation - Don't go to the movie if you can't see blood. Don't go if violence on the screen puts you off. But if you don't go, you would have moved one of the best movies of the year.

Rating - ✔✔✔✔

Da Vinci Code (English, 2006)

Every once in a while comes a phenomenon which captures popular imagination like crazy. Anywhere you go, people are talking about it, discussing it, analysing it, selling merchandise in its name, and so on. Da Vinci Code, the book was such a phenomenon. The next step normally is for Hollywood to take the theme and make a movie of it, normally trivialising the concept so much that the movie marks the beginning of the idea getting out of people's heads. Da Vinci Code, the movie, is such a movie. I won't go into the plot of the movie. For that, go and read the book review, or better still, the book.

Let us have the basic point clarified upfront. It is a good movie. Granted it is no Godfather, where u could debate whether the book was better or the movie. Here, clearly, the book is much better. It is still a good movie. Well paced, wonderful acting, very nice editing, nice cinematography, keeps audience involved and interested and intrigued about the next step. If you have read the book, and are not expecting the movie to be as good as the book, you can follow the plot better than Dan-Brown-newbies and hence enjoy a bit more than newbies. Brilliant performances in the roles of Teabing and Silas quite match the mental image you would have drawn on reading the book. The roles of Robert Langdon and Sophie are also well performed. Tom Hanks seems the right choice for any role that he performs, as usual.

Where the movie fails is - its not larger then life. The book is. The characters are not developed as carefully, the whole imagery of the supposed Christian suppression of sacred feminine fails to come out, the brilliance and sheer beauty of Robert's symbological interpretations that left you dazzled and wanting for more in the book is not emphasized. At the end of the book, you feel an aura of two millennia hanging on you, at the end of the movie, all you feel is having heard a good longish story.

Recommendation - Go watch it, but don't expect the magic.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Click (English, 2006)

Adam Sandler - What can you expect from him? American Pie, American Pie II, American Pie III.... Does the guy grow beyond that or not? Apparently not. In Click, he gets a universal remote control. And what does he use that remote for? To fast forward sexual night with his wife (Kate Beckingsale in an insignificant role) to the point of climax. I mean, how weird can weird get?

Anyway, that apart, the movie is basically the story of Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) , a man constantly sacrificing his personal life for the sake of his career, and feeling so stretched with conflicting demands on him that he just wants the troubling parts to fast-forward themselves. So when he gets a universal remote control, he sets to do exactly that. He fast forwards himself to his next promotion, then next and finds that he has missed whole his life in between. The remote actually controls his life while he watched from remote. And it is the end that he realized that life is all about family and the struggles they face together.

The way Hollywood talks about work-life balance feels anyone who likes his work to feel like a criminal. But if you have to make a statement, any statement, do it with panache, do it with style, do it with conviction, do it with at least some level of sincerity and sense. Click is neither a no-holds-barred comedy nor a sensible message movie, for that matter nothing in between. The best that can be said about it is that it is another Adam Sandler movie.

Recommendation - Avoid
Rating - ✘✘✘

The Wild (English, 2006)

It had to happen. Last few years have seen so many animation movies that sooner or later, they were bound to run out of ideas. And that's what happens to the Wild. A cross between Finding Nemo and Madagascar, this film The Wild will drive you wild with frustration as you see the antics of four animals from a zoo - a lion who has the reputation of being wild and ferocious but was actually born in a circus, have never seen a forest and has no hunting instincts; a she-giraffe, a self-absorbed koala and a squirrel who thinks he is the God's gift to females and is attempting to date the giraffe. The plot is that the lion's son has been taken to the wild, and these four animals leave the zoo to find him and get him back.

The feeling you get in watching the movie is ennui. The centerpoint of an animation movie is imagination. It has to pull be back from these stupid adult years and take me to those wonderful days when anything was possible, anything was believable and there were so many exciting things that could happen. Well, this movie doesn't. It fails to recreate the magic of Finding nemo, the pain of a father and his bravery in taking on the world is simply not there. It fails to portray the friendship of Madagascar and it fails to stand as a good original cinema on its own. The dialogues attempt to be witty, but sound street-wise and shallow. The animation is good enough, but does not bring you those wondrous sceneries possible only in animation movies. And the narrative is repetitive and uninteresting.

Recommendation - Avoid it, unless you have kids who have nothing better to do.
Rating - ✔

Cars (English, 2006)

It was said about Sergie Bubka, the legendary pole-vault champion, that the question is not whether he will win, the question is whether he will better his previous performance. That is exactly what we can say about the Disney Animation films. Pixar Studios has established a reputation of turning out one good animation movie after another. Cars is no exception.

Animation movies have experimented with animals and toys having human personalities. Now its the turn cars. Cars is based in a world where the main species is cars. Where there are cars, there's car racing. Lightning McQueen is the hotshot rookie car competing against two seasoned pros for the Piston Cup Campionship. McQueen is the typical young professional, wanting to quickly rise above his current circumstanced, aspiring for fame, money and bigger contracts, full of personal pride and considering pit-stop-crew as appendages rather than team. As he is travelling to California to attend the big race, he gets lost and ends up in a small sleepy Town called Radiator Springs. And it is here that he realises that life is not all about running and winning, but about enjoying it, making friends and helping them, paying and gaining respect, and love.

There are many people in this world (yours truly included) who consider thier cars as living beings - as things of beauty, as mean vast machines, as objects of desire. It is the magic of Pixar to expand on our feelings for cars to understanding thier emotions, and to start loving a rusty tow-truck for tis friendliness. The beauty of Cars is the perfection with which it connects us to all its characters, the smoothness with which it puts feelings into these metal objects we call cars and the flow of a story which reminds us of that which is beautiful in all of us.

In Cars, Disney and Pixar have a new winner.
Recommendation - ✔✔✔

The Night Listener (English, 2006)

Robin Williams has a knack of being in movies which explore human thoughts at levels you did not know existed. Whether it is exploring the mind of a pedophile in Insomnia or depicting what does obsession mean in One Hour Photo, Robin Williams always comes up with performances which leave us dazed with their sheer intensity and real-ness. There's hardly ever that you feel the guy is "acting".

The Night Listener is another great psychological thriller with Robin Williams in the lead. What it explores is something very distressing - the need of human beings to lie to themselves and to others, the action of human mind of distorting reality to make the world seem a better place than it is. All of us do this to some extent, at the other extreme is delusion. Its the area in between the so-called sane perception of reality and delusion that movie investigates.

Gabriel Noone (Robin Williams) is a celebrated late-night radio show host. He develops an intense relationship with a young listener Pete and her adopted mother, Donna (Toni Collette) and because of his own domestic problems, becomes mentally dependent on this relationship. However, questions soon arise whether Pete exists at all or not. In a bid to resolve this, Gabriel goes to meet Pete but is met by Donna and is told Pete is in hospital and cannot be visited. The film's plot is all around the psychological interplay between Donna and Gabriel regarding Pete's existence.

Marked by brilliant performances, the film leaves you thoroughly impressed. Don't be surprised to realize that there's Robin Williams in the film and you end up appreciating someone else's acting more. And that someone is Toni Collette. Her depth of portrayal of a role where here emotions can either turn out to be mother's grief or a delusional person's rambling is absolutely great.

The movie is nothing about a plot or any happenings or any great chases or cinematography. Its sheer acting of these two lead characters that carries the movie through.

Recommendation - Watch it if you appreciate psychological thrillers and/or individual acting brilliance.
Rating - ✔✔✔

The Queen (English, 2006)

Its the year 1997, Tony Blair has just become the Prime Minister and Princess Diana has died. Endless miles of film-reels have been spent talking about Diana, her affairs, her trials and tribulations and frankly, enough is enough. However, here comes a movie which takes an absolutely fresh look at the incident - from the point of view of British Monarchy; from the view that the incident affected British people's relationship with their Queen.

The Queen revolves around the political public relations handling by the Prime Minister's office and the Queen. The huge public uproar about the British Monarchy distancing itself from the death of the famous Princess Diana at the time of her death and the effect this uproar had on the Queen is what this film is all about.

Helen Mirren in the title roles gives performance of a lifetime, portraying a monarch torn between the traditions of monarchy and the demands of public. The pathos of being a powerless head of state is beautifully conveyed; as is the suppressed anger at being forced to sacrifice personal beliefs and long-held traditions for public appeasement. The irony of the situation - the queen considers Diana to have tarnished the image of royalty by flagrantly violating all norms, when royalty is all about norms and traditions; and the same queen is told that her handling of the death of the same Diana is what has spoiled the image of British Royalty beyond repair - is certainly worth appreciating and watching well portrayed on the screen.

Recommendation - Good Enough to watch once, but can wait for the DVD.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Little Miss Sunshine (English, 2006)

Little Miss Sunshine is a comedy about a dysfunctional American family trying to live as a family dealing with their individual issues and issues with each other. 7 year old Olive (Abigail Breslin) is the only loved-by-all in the whole family and the movie traces the travails of the family traveling in a broken-down van from Albuquerque to California to make Olive participate in Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant.

A wonderful collection of characters - a heroin-snorting, sex-magazine-addict grandfather; an inspirational speaker of a father who himself is a failure and a nobody; a suicidal Proust-scholar of an uncle; a silent, angst-ridden family-hater brother; a high-strung mother (Toni Collette) who is trying to adjust to all these varied people and sweet little Olive, an ordinary girl with extraordinary ambitions, whose beauty lies in her nature rather than in face.

A good acting by all the people make you love all these characters in spite of their faults, and enjoy the darkish-comic situations that present themselves to these interesting set of people. The movie will make you laugh, and at the same time connect to the failure of each individual and then as a family.

Recommendation - Worth watching, though can wait for the DVD
Rating - ✔✔✔

Flightplan (English, 2005)

Very few actors have the capacity to do a good comeback. Jodie Foster comes back after a long gap, and does that with aplomb. Flightplan is one of those terse thrillers which fool you into thinking that you have got the plot, and then do a U-turn.

The movie begins with Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) looking absolutely dazed and jerky. We soon come to know that her husband has just died and she is going back from Berlin to New York with her daughter and her husband's casket. Mid-air, in a huge aircraft, she wakes up from a doze to find that her daughter has vanished. And apparently, her daughter was never there on the plane - the passenger manifest doesn't have her name, the ground staff don't have any record of checking her in, no crew-member or passenger remembers seeing her, and the clincher - the morgue director when contacted says that her daughter died along with her husband.

The movie is a story of a rude awakening. Kyle, who has more or less switched off after her husband's death, is surrounded by evidence that questions her sanity. Everyone around her is implying that she believes in a daughter who is already dead. She has to get out of her "hung" state, get her senses back and find out what's really happening. A tough role, amazingly well done by Jodie. I won't tell you the story further because that will spoil the movie if you haven't seen it already.

The movie is brilliant on several counts. First and foremost is the superb performance by Jodie Foster. This movie is an intelligent thriller. Any thriller relies on four points - its pace, its plot's twists and turns, the portrayal of characters stretched to their limits and the cinematography. This movie is not very fast, though it keeps on moving at a nice enough pace. But the plot, you cannot help admiring the twists as they unfold. The performances are brilliant. The movie revolves around Kyle and Jodie does an wonderful job of it. And the cinematography, the attention to details is amazing. The whole movie is inside a large aeroplane, mid-air, and is about exploring all its parts to search for a missing child. And all the time, you keep on saying to yourself - hey, this plane is beautiful.
Rating - ✔✔✔

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (कभी अलविदा ना कहना)(Hindi, 2006)

After a long time, a Karan Johar movie. With Shahrukh and Rani. A supporting cast of Preity, Abhishek, Amitabh and Kiron Kher. The trailers showed a story around love and triangles, Karan Johar's speciality. Expectations all around were for a reasonably good movie, at least worth a dekho. And then came the first surprise. The day before I went to see the movie, I go to a party and all the talk there is about how bad the movie is. Big disappointment. Not having a high opinion of either Karan Johar (let's admit it, I was going only because of my wife) or of these critics' movie acumen, I did not worry too much about it. I went into the movie primarily to see good sets, beautiful actresses and colourful dresses. Then came the real surprise. What I saw was neither some syrupy love story about love at first sight, nor the nautanki of Ekta-Kapoor-serial-type extramarital affairs. What I saw was a very mature narration of the story of two people in uncomfortable relationships falling for each other and how the relationships progress. It was not half-bad! Not bad at all.

Dev (Shahrukh Khan) plays an ex-footballer who is bitter with life because he has injured his leg in an accident and can't play any longer. He is married to Rhea (Preity Zinta), who is a high-flyer at a fashion magazine. Dev is absolutely uncomfortable with Rhea's success and his own failures, and has become a very negative person. Maya (Rani Mukherjee) is a school teacher and is married to her childhood friend, Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan), who loves her madly. Maya's feelings towards Rishi, however, are that of a friend rather than a lover. Rishi is an events organiser and hence is into a party-every-evening kind of lifestyle, and Maya is a very reserved kind of a person, hating these parties. Their relationship is summed up by a statement from Rishi - गलती मैं भी करता हूँ, गलती तुम भी करती हो; फ़र्क ये है कि मैं हमेशा रिश्ता बनाने की बात करता हूँ और तुम हमेशा रिश्ता तोडने की (Both of us commit mistakes, but I always talk about making relationships, while you talk about breaking them).

The movie is about these two quite negative people (negative not as in villian, negative as in negative-frame-of-mind), how they find an immediate attraction to each other, how they decide to help each other save their existing relationships but instead find themselves coming closer. Even though Rishi and Rhea very much want to save the relationships, the inherent negativity in Dev and Maya leads to those relationships ending. The extent of negativity is such that these two individuals, inspite of loving each other, don't tell each other of these break-ups and drift apart. They meet in the end, of course, its a Hindi movie after all, perhaps that is the only discordant note in the movie.

I can understand why many people do not like the movie. For one, most people cannot/ don't-want-to identify with either Dev or Maya. Second, it goes absolutely against all the family values that most Indians hold dear. Third and perhaps more important, most Indians go to a movie to have fun, not to see a serious movie about how personalities affect relationships. I can understand all that. But that does not make it a bad movie in my view. These things happen, people do develop negativities in them which affect their relationships, and people do get attracted to each other inspite of everything.

It is a very mature plot, with very mature performances by all the actors concerned. I don't see myself ever in Dev's shoes, but that does not stop me from admiring Shahrukh's portrayal of the character. (For that matter, I can't see myself in Superman's shoes, does that mean I can't like Superman?). Good acting, good direction, nice costumes, nice cinematography.

Recommendation - A very heavy-going movie. Go see it, but be prepared for serious stuff.
Rating - ✔✔✔

The Legend of Zorro (English, 2005)

While Bollywood seems to be getting the knack of sequels, Hollywood seems to have lost it. The Alejandro/ Zorro (Antonio Banderas) and Elena (Catherine-Zeta Jones) that we all loved in The Mask of Zorro are still there, the swashbuckling sword-fighting, the comic timing of actions and dialogues is still there, but the soul of the movie is missing. The movie gives you the feel of an aging performer doing "one more gig".

The Legend of Zorro picks up ten years after the point where The Mask of Zorro left off. Alejandro de la Vega has been fighting for last ten years, California is about to become a part of the USA and its time for Zorro to hang up his sword and live happily with his wife and son. However, Count Armand (Rufus Sewell), a dashing French aristocrat intervenes, steals Elena from Alejandro and plots to cause a civil war in USA. Now its upto Zorro to save the country as well as win his wife back.

The performances are good enough, the direction of scenes is good enough. But the audience watching a sequel is cruel. Good-enough is not good enough. A sequel has to be linked to the original, yet have some originality of its own. And that is where The Legend of Zorro fails. The movie has nothing new to offer. Throughout the movie, you have a feeling - I would rather watch the original again. And that makes this movie an absolute drag.

Recommendation - Watch it if you must watch all Zorro movies, otherwise avoid it.
Rating - ✘

Aap ki Khatir (आप की खातिर)(Hindi, 2006)

This review comes at a great personal sacrifice. I mean I sat through (tolerated is a better word) this whole movie just because I thought it will be unfair to write a review for a movie without seeing it completely. I mean, the first ten minutes of the movie were bad enough for me to want to get out, but I braved it. I thought the next ten minutes will be good, then the next ten minutes, but the good ten minutes never came. Thankfully, the movie ended.

The fault is all mine. Why did I ever go to see a movie with cast like Priyanka Chopra, Amisha Patel, Suniel Shetty and Dino Morea, I cannot understand. I expected nothing from them, and got nothing. I can't for the life of me understand how Priyanka has become the hottest property in Bollywood, when she can't act to save her life and the music album girls are way prettier than her, but then that's life. What I can't digest is that the man who gave us Sid of Dil Chahta Hai or the Manav of Taal is looking so uncomfortable on screen. I can't for the life of me understand why Akshay Khanna took this role. Anupam Kher, the actor-par-excellence, must be on some record making spree of doing maximum number of films and hence is accepting any film. That's the only explanation I could think of for his pathetic role in the movie.

For those who still want to know the plot, Anu (Priyanka Chopra) is in love with Danny (Dino Morea) but they have had a break-up. She is going to the wedding of her step-sister, Shirani (Amisha Patel) and Kunal (Suniel Shetty). As she knows Danny will be there, and she desperately wants him back, and she thinks that he will get jealous if he sees her with someone else, and that jealousy will bring him back to her, she hires Aman (Akshay Khanna) to be her escort. As the movie progresses, we get to know that Shirani and Danny have had an affair while Anu was away, that Shirani is now over Danny but he is not, and Aman and Anu fall for each other in their acting. Things reveal themselves one by one, cause a lot of heartaches interspersed with comic scenes. In the climax, all is revealed, Danny is thrown out and the two couples, Anu-Aman and Shirani-Kunal get married. Anupam Kher and Lillette Dubey play Anu and Shirani's parents.

The movie has no saving grace, apart from the songs being hummable and a few comic scenes which you can grasp at like a drowning man grasping at straws.

OK, I have done it. I have written this review. Now I will try to forget about the movie.
Rating - ✘✘✘✘

The Devil wears Prada (English, 2006)

I never thought I will ever even watch a movie on fashion, forget actually enjoying it and then writing a review for it. But here I am, having watched The Devil wears Prada last night, and praising it in this review. In this, I am somewhat like the leading lady, Andrea Sachs (Anne Hathway) who, at the begining of the movie, thinks of fashion as - "I cannot understand the fuss people make over clothes" and as the movie progresses, begins to appreciate what this multi-billion-dollar industry is all about. The likeness (I and Andrea Sachs) stops there. Anne Hathway is breathtakingly gorgeous as her sense of fashion graduates, while I am a fat guy.... But then the review is not about me.

So the movie starts with Andrea, aspiring to be a journalist, being recruited as a co-assistant to the Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep, at what age will she stop looking attractive?), the editor of a fashion magazine, Runway, a person so powerful that designers alter thier whole collection if she doesn't like it. The plot is about how Andrea adjusts to the eccentric, impossible and demeaning demands of her boss, because she is told that "any girl will kill for the job" and that "one year in this role and you can get any jornalism job you want". The plot is about how she begins to appreciate and enjoy the world of fashion and the perks which come with her job, namely free designer dresses. But most of all, the plot is about how she realises that she is on the path of becoming the woman she used to hate and how it affects her personal life.

It is an out-and-out chick-flick (how chauvinistic!), based on a novel of the same name, involving all the standard girly twists of a second handsome guy; a need to decide between what am I doing, what I want to do and what do I do about my personal life; and a vision of what i want to do with my life about as clear as the outline of an amoeba. And you will love the movie for these very reasons.

Recommendation - Go watch the movie, preferably with your partner, if for nothing else then for ogling at Anne Hathway (guys) or the dresses she wears (girls).
Rating - ✔✔✔

Black (Hindi, 2005)

(review written in 2005)

Bollywood has arrived. When mainstream movie makers like Bhansali get top stars like Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee in a movie and then go ahead and make a movie which does not conform to the standard categories of romance, action, suspense and so on; a movie which does not have even one of the the mandatory five songs of Bollywood movies; a movie which is based purely on the acting ability of its two protagonists; a movie which forces you to think without preaching; a movie which is about hope and despair together - then you have to say - Bollywood has arrived. And unlike my last sentence, the movie is quite short by Bollywood standards - just 2 hours. And not one moment of those two hours is your mind distracted from the screen. The brilliant role of a blind-deaf girl essayed by Rani will leave you spellbound. It will not ask the non-handicapped out of you for pity, or support, or even understanding, it will not preach to you to go out and donate to the local handicapped support association. It is the story of a handicapped girl taking charge of her life, and the enabling of this action by a determined and dedicated teacher. Amitabh surpasses himself in the role of God in the movie, for that's what all of us have been taught as children to treat teachers as.

In writing this review, I wanted to compare the acting levels to some good movies in Hollywood. However, I can't. I can't recall even a Hollywood movie where the acting has been so high class. Amitabh today can confidently stand at par with Anthony Hopkins and Jack Nicholson in his acting calibre.

What I can recall is a Sanskrit shloka (verse) that came to my mind while watching the movie गुरूः ब्रह्मा गुरूः विष्णू गुरूः देवः महेश्वरः गुरूः साक्शात् परब्रह्मः तस्मै श्री गुरवे नमः (My teacher symbolizes GOD and the Holy Trinity, to such a teacher, I bow my head)

What I am hoping now is that the Indian audience will appreciate the film. I am also hoping that some newspaper would be printing an article on some girl who is the real life Michelle MacNelly or some teacher who is the real life Mr. Sahai, the names of roles portrayed by Rani and Amitabh respectively. I am praying that my India is already at a level where such things can happen.

Recommendation: See it in theaters, and then on DVD.
Rating - ✔✔✔✔✔