Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

Reviewed by Debolina Sengupta

It is hard work for one Katrina Kaif and one Imran Khan to pull off a movie completely by themselves. While the former with her English accent tries to be the rebel turned good daughter turned rebelling dulhan, Imran Khan plays the good boy who arranges a match for his brother Ali Zafar, who has just broken up with his girlfriend.

Well honestly, the first sequence in the movie completely exposed the entire plot. While Ali Zaffar breaks up with his TV-breaking girlfriend in London because she isn't Indian enough, on the other side, promos of the movie showing the chemistry between Imran and Katrina made it obvious. The songs are very tacky though Ali's voice sounds magical in Madhubala.

But here is the fun bit about the movie- the two realise their love for each other after the engagement, making it a family issue if not handled carefully. Though polluted by Katrina's woeful acting and Imran's apparent indifference, I liked how the writer and director of the film Ali Zaffar takes the inside route to find a peaceful solution.

In comes the ex-girlfriend making Ali jealous with her nagin like moves for another man (read Imran Khan). So rather than Katrina and Imran running away to avoid the shaadi, the groom runs away with his love leaving a letter. The "duniya kya sochega" mindset of elders is tapped well and Katrina and Imran are set to get married to protect the dignity of the two khandans. A frivolous ego fight between fathers breaks that up to and to fix that, Ali couldn't think of anything but a tacky car scene where the two indirectly tell their fathers that they have fallen for each other too. Afraid that they might run away like Ali and his bride, the fathers ask them to get married.

What I loved about the movie was that similar plot movies of the past often glorify blood shed and tears. This is one film, where with the use of humour (though with bad acting), planning and plotting got the same results in a more amicable way. I just wish Katrina and Imran could act!

Rating: 2.5/5

F.A.L.T.U is not that Faltu

Reviewed by Sab Khan

The very title of the movie F.A.L.T.U is quite interesting as the dots between the letters says that it’s an acronym and when you pronounce it, it becomes faltu, means worthless. Vashu Bhagnani introduced Remo D’Souza, a choreographer, as the director of the film. The cast of the movie involves Ritesh (Jackky Bhagnani), Pooja (Puja Gupta), Vishnu (Chandan Roy Sanyal) and Nanj (Angad Bedi) with several special glittering appearances like Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Salman Khan, Mallika Sherawat, Sushmita Sen and others.

The movie is a steer clear inspiration of 2006 release Accepted. It focuses on youth and their educational activities like 3 Idiots. The four friends Ritesh, Pooja, Vishnu and Nanj are fun loving youngsters who have barely managed to pass their exams but couldn’t manage to get admission in any university. For that matter, they come up with a plan of making a fake university named as Fakirchand and Lakirchand Trust University aka F.A.L.T.U. To keep it real in front of their parents, they even publish advertisements in news papers and allotted a place to it, which results in actual interest of many other students, forcing them to face the actual reality of life.

A college life’s story manages to make you nostalgic. The director has done a great job arousing sentiments and excitement in the audience. F.A.L.T.U is a movie full of fun and frolic reminding you of your own golden days. All the actors displayed a light casual style with a tint of grim and gravity where required. If you aspire to have some playful time  to relax your mind, F.A.L.T.U is the right choice.

Rating:3/5

Gul Panag wedding: looking at Turning 30

Turning 30

Reviewed by Sab Khan

A lady Devdas in a Hindi film? It all felt bizarre. But thankfully, Turning 30 isn't a complete mess. Director Alankrita Shrivastava has taken the bold and the beautiful step in putting up a female oriented film but it seems like the overall making of the movie didn’t end up becoming what it was supposed to.

The movie is about Naina (Gul Panag), as she is turning to 30, who has just been broken up with her boyfriend Rishabh (Siddharth Makkar) and throughout the movie she has been trying to overcome the shock which is quite depressing for her. In the beginning, I related it to Sex and the City but no, not at all, this is more of Bridget Jones Diary. Naina tries everything to get  Rishabh back in her life, who in turn has moved on with a younger and prettier woman. And Rishabh is only part of her problems as her boss fired her from her job for no apparent reason.

Enter Jai (Purab Kohli) who is supposed to be a ray of hope for Naina but adds to her confusion. Overtly confused, as an audience I was awaiting Naina’s final decision when the movie becomes lengthy, drab and dragged. And the wait ends simple when Naina's book gets published, she becomes famous and Rishabh comes crying back in the last bit of the film.

Packaged and marketed as a new age chick flick with a lot of oomph and style, Turning 30 failed to impress me completely. If it was trying to show modern women, it should have shown Naina moving on and not looking back rather than her pining for her love. Gul Panag suits the character well, but her bike wedding is something that comes closer to  the concept of a "modern woman".

Alankrita did her best to come up with female jargons and Panag tried her level best to eliminate the monotones that are spread across the film. I would not give a very high recommendation but ah, yes, if you have ample time, then go for it.

Rating: 2/5

Hall Pass receives a failing grade

Hall Pass

Reviewed by Adam Minor

The Farrelly brothers pretty much owned the 90s. Providing cinema with risqué comedy that shocked and awed the audience. Unfortunately, they’ve never adapted to the trend in Hollywood. Their latest instalment, Hall Pass takes another stab at being surprising. Instead of shock and awe, however, Hall Pass is just shockingly awful.

The casting choices had filled me with excitement since I first heard about this project. SNL’s funniest cast member, Jason Sudeikis and constant funny man Owen Wilson spearhead this raunchy tale of two guys given a “hall pass” or a week off from marriage to engage in sexual romps with anyone they wish. Add in The Office’s sweet Jenna Fischer, Anchorman’s confident Christina Applegate, Ricky Gervais’ equally funny sidekick Stephen Merchant with a side of the always funny and talented Richard Jenkins, and you have the makings of a brilliant comedy.

Where this film fails is that the Farrelly brothers still think that graphic nudity and scatological humor is funny and surprising to today’s audiences. In a world where we get a new, grotesque Saw movie every October, and full frontal male nudity every other week, the devices used in their movies seem tame these days.

As always, the Farrelly brothers try to tie their film into some sort of real-world humanity and take it to a level where lessons are learned. They’ve been mildly successful in some of their films of making this transition, but in Hall Pass, the point is lost amidst the absurdity of the comedy.

I don’t believe that films from the Farrellys are completely on the brink of extinction, but they should definitely reassess the current state of comedy in cinema and reassess their game plan. They were once the forerunners of comedy, but now they’re left standing behind everyone else. Which, in a movie like Hall Pass, is a dangerous place to be. 

Rating: 1/5

Satrangee Parachute Review

Satrangee Parachute

Reviewed by Sab Khan

Unlike its colourful name, Satrangee Parachute is a very depressing children’s film. After watching the movie, I was thoroughly depressed by the fact that film makers have completely run out of impressive ideas to appeal to the younger audience. Unlike Hollywood movies like Wall E, Madagascar or Narnia, Satrangee Parachute was not even close to the being smart, clever and impulsive. Kids’ entertainment needs a major revamp in this industry.

Satrangee Parachute is about a bunch of boys from Nainital who travel to Mumbai from, in search of an amazing parachute for a blind girl. But when they reach Mumbai, the scenario is entirely different. The innocent boys are completely unaware of the darker sides of life and soon get stuck amongst gangsters and terrorists who plan on exploiting the kids.

There are some points to be noted hidden between the lines of the script but I think the genre was inadequate for the portrayal of such a grim idea. Being a children’s flick, it should be lighter, but it was far from being even funny, neither for the kids nor for adults.

I wouldn’t suggest any parent out there to let their kids watch the movie with the notion that it is a “kiddo type”. Avoiding the movie would be a better option.

Rating: 1/5

Tanu Weds Manu review: another Jab We Met?

Tanu Weds Manu

Reviewed by Sab Khan

Tanu weds Manu is an obvious love story which eventually ends up in pairing up the right heroine with the right hero. A common perception says that Tanu Weds Manu is another Jab We Met and to an extent this is true, as the story revolves around Delhi boy Manu (Madhavan), Kanpur girl Tanu (Kangana Ranaut) and Tanu’s already existed boyfriend Raja (Jimmy Shergill). The director Anand L. Rai has taken up the old-age ideal love story but it still leaves you with a tint of freshness and I couldn’t control the grin on my face.

The plot of the story is quite unsurprising but is still very fascinating. The sweet simple and sensible NRI Manu returns to his country after 12 years and like an obedient son, he is all set to marry the girl chosen by his parents. But Tanu is completely against the idea of arranged marriage and has plans to elope with her boyfriend. When the plan comes to live, Manu realises that he must call off the wedding. But while helping the girl he loves, the story takes the obvious turns and you end with a Jab We Met or Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

Though the story doesn’t offer any uniqueness, it still manages to be grasping. The direction by Anand L. Rai is blooming throughout the movie. Madhavan’s acting is compelling and Kangana’s deliciously outrageous role has glimpses of Jab We Met's Geet. But Kangana’s character is that of a more open-minded girl who is off to drinking and smoking but with the passage of time her personality changes and she ends up in being the quintessential Indian girl.

All in all, the movie is not-so-very un-tempting, but it’s not a movie you should regret missing. The music by Krsna isn’t moving enough to boost up the romance quotient. Tanu Weds Manu simply is a radiant comedy with generous doses of good screenplay and acting.

Rating: 2.5/5

Just Go With(out) It

Just Go With It

Reviewed by Adam Minor

  

Contrary to what his last film would suggest, Adam Sandler has never grown up. Sandler rose to fame in Hollywood in his juvenile but hilarious Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore. Since then, Sandler’s comedies have been hit-and-mostly-miss. It seems as though Sandler just isn’t content with his dramas. 2007’s Reign Over Me was a refreshing breath of fresh air and really showed Sandler’s dramatic abilities.

Just Go With It is the latest in lazy romcoms that put “Do something unique” at the bottom of their to-do list. In it, Sandler plays Danny, a well-to-do plastic surgeon that pretends to be married to bed beautiful women. When one of them gets too curious, Danny is forced to recruit his assistant to play his soon to be divorced wife. The plot that follows is, dependent on your willingness to suspend your disbelief, a bit improbable.

Just Go With It adds itself to the list of romantic comedies that ultimately bring nothing to cinema. Their lack of originality and hackneyed devices do nothing to add on, or even hearken back to, cinema as a whole. A complete copy of the Hindi film Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, the only things Just Go With It adds are incessant fart jokes and groin hits.

Just Go With It just further solidifies Sandler’s stagnant position as a 10-year old boy with millions of dollars.

 

Rating: 1/5

Utt Pataang Review

Utt Pataang

Reviewed by Sab Khan

Srikanth V. Velagaleti’s Utt Pataang is an exciting attempt to chronicle events occurring in one night just like in the movie Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin. Though the latter was a tense and grave movie, the former is much lighter.

Utt Pataang does not focus singularly on any one character, but rather on incidents which drag the movie at a snail's pace towards the so-called climax. The story revolves around a mysterious bag full of money, and how each character ends up in the same room (where the money bag is) for the whole night. Vinay Pathak, the popular hero of non-popular movies, plays a double role; one is Ram and the other is Lucky.

Ram, who has just broken up with his girlfriend Sanjana (Mahie Gill), meets Koyal (Mona Singh), who has also been ditched by her boyfriend, in a restaurant. Nandu (Saurabh Shukla) is the guy who sets up their rendezvous. He is a detective and Ram’s best friend. Sanjana’s latest boyfriend is Lucky, the gangster with an awful French accent, which reminded me of one of my most favourite characters Detective Jacques Clouseau (Steve Martin). There are no details as such provided for his French connections but I guess the director wanted to bring in the laughter in some ways. :) Well, somehow all the characters manage to assemble in the same house where the glue of the movie is.

The flashbacks in the story make the movie slower and less intriguing. But gradually the story shifts gears upward. The language is slightly open which (in my opinion) has been used to bring about the flavour of comedy amid drama. But the purpose has remained unfulfilled. Yet, there were scenes which made me laugh out loud in the silence of the cinema house.

Altogether, the movie is not a “must watch” but a nice time pass for quenching your thirst of a novelty release. Utt Pataang is one of a kind with its own unique way of keeping the audience involved for three hours.

Rating: 3/5

Run Bhola Run – full of laughter and joy!!!

Run Bhola Run

Reviewed by Sab Khan

Dhilin Mehta, the well-known producer from Golmaal 1, 2, and 3, and director Neeraj Vora wisely chose my all-time favourite Govinda, and Tusshar Kapoor as the two main male protagonists in this absolutely hilarious comedy. It seems Tusshar has proven to be a lucky charm for Mehta lately. Ameesha Patel and Celina Jaitley are the female leads with Rahul Dev, Sharath Saxena and Upen Patel also contributing to the success of the film.

Run Bhola Run sounds similar to Run Lola Run (1998), but don’t worry, there is no possible connection between the two. The movie is based on two very cute criminals who are assigned to abduct Ameesha and have only seven hours to do it. How and what they do to catch her is what makes this movie. With great punches and facial expressions, Govinda surpasses all. The criminals are trying to earn their freedom off of a crime!

Govinda’s dance and expressions need no introduction, especially when he is cast in a comic role. Tusshar, on the other hand, does have clear dialogues in the movie – unlike his character in the Golmaal trilogy. The scene where Govinda reveals the truth to Ameesha is hilarious. There are other similar situations that are fun-packed with super-duper dialogues which made my stomach hurt with laughter. Govinda and Tusshar make a great comic duo on screen and though this is their first appearance together, the director left no stones unturned to make the movie a laugh-a-thon.

The lyrics by Sameer and music by Monty Sharma contribute to the liveliness of the script. Though there are a few blunders happening in the film, it all gets drained out as new jokes and punches surface. Govinda was simple fantabulous!!!

You must watch the movie if you wish to spend your weekend in a lively frisky manner.

Rating: 4/5

Yeh Saali Zindagi Review

Yeh Saali Zindagi

Reviewed by staff reviewer

Let me get this straight first. I absolutely love Chitrangada Singh and the fact that she left the film industry right after something like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi left me wondering what went wrong. But then one fine morning while on a flight I got to see her in Onir's Sorry Bhai and actually believed she did the right thing by leaving. But now after joining hands with Sudhir Mishra and coming out with something as twisted as Yeh Saali Zindagi, I am left to wonder again, "Why did she leave again?"

I don’t know whether it’s about me not trying hard enough for details or the film makers not revealing enough, but I had little idea about Yeh Saali Zindagi, except for the fact that it managed to outdo Mallika Sherawat’s record number of onscreen kisses (17 for Khwahish). Well, in 2011, that didn’t make it a big deal for me. I mean I do watch enough English movies and TV shows to be immune to any passionate or slobbering kisses. What intrigued me was the pairing of Irrfan Khan and Chitrangada Singh. While Khan has his own macho manliness without the good looks, Singh is hotness at a different level.

The entire movie is quite dark and probably shadily funny in the sense that majority of characters are rogue businessmen, criminals or corrupt politicians and policemen. But don’t think Ram Gopal Verma dark and shady- Mishra manages to make a dark plot stylish as well. It’s a Delhi based movie and the last one I saw (No One Killed Jessica) left my mother struggling to believe curse words had become “normal”. Yeh Saali Zindagi has its own liberal share of curse words as well. With the kind of characters in the movie, it probably would have looked weird if they talked in Gulzar Hindi in the first place.

Calling Chitrangada Singh only the love interest in the film would probably be wrong, but you watch and you decide. With the amount of plots, sub plots and maybe sub sub plots as well, you tend to lose track once in a while but Mishra’s films are seldom no-brainers and you need to be alert for Yeh Saali Zindagi as well. I wish the movie was either a little more tightly edited or the characters defined more. Still would like to know what Irrfan Khan’s business was in Yeh Saali Zindagi. 

Rating: 2.5/5

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji - Not hilarious, but fun to watch

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji

Reviewed by Sab Khan

“Men never get old”.

Madhur Bhandarkar, with his new movie has tried to break free from the serious, real-life inspired films he has made in the past. Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji is a light-hearted romantic (read non-sense) comedy movie which is now the “it” genre in Bollywood. You mostly don’t expect grim directors to be into a film which is a complete humour to watch, but Bhandarkar has made utmost efforts to make people laugh and feel good about themselves (especially the men).

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji, the very title is self explanatory and lets you peep into an expected story. The movie is simply about three different men, from three diverse walks of life, and apparently from three different age groups. The movie’s lead characters are Naren (Ajay Devgn), Abhay (Emraan Hashmi) and Milind (Omi Vaidya). The movie is about love and relationships and stereotypically, the jokes and the punches are crammed with sexual implication and unnecessary connotations.

Naren is a banker, recently divorced, and is falling for a charming young girl who joins his company as an intern. Abhay is a typical Emraan Hashmi playboy character who works as a gym instructor. He lives his “colourful” life at the expense of his rich girlfriend but lands up falling in love with her stepdaughter and decides to leave behind the money and all. And Milind is after a girl who works as a radio jockey, but is not as seriously involved with him.

All the actors have put in brilliant performances that justify their characters, the script and the demands of the director. Devgn, as the main attraction in the film has displayed deliciously light, humorous and droll scenes with his lady love June (Shazahn). His efforts for gaining her attention, confused by her cute behaviour around her friends (who are very young), and some intimate scenes, are the most attractive parts of the movie. And for that, Ajay gets all the credit.

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji should have been a shorter movie. It being more than three hours felt like a complete waste of time. For people who like leaving their minds outside the theatre, there is little to regret in the film. Just don’t walk in thinking Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Ji as a Bhandarkar film.

Rating: 2.75/5