Delhi Belly is an Aamir Khan production and stars Imran Khan as Tashi,Vir Das as Arup and Kunal Roy Kapur as Nitin. Add to this is Shenaz as Sonia and Tashi’s girlfriend.
Tashi,Arup and Nitin are flat mates and always try to pass on responbilities of the household to each other. Even something as simple as opening the door to visitors and keeping buckets in place to fill water. And they are behind the rent schedule (nothing new). Sonia drops in to let Tashi know that he needs to meet her parents that afternoon for lunch and meanwhile drop off a package for a friend. Tashi delegates it to Nitin. Nitin meanwhile falls sick after eating some road side fare and hands over the package to Arup.
Trouble sets in when Arup switches the package with the stool sample from Nitin. The package was diamonds smuggled into the country for a local don. Tashi meanwhile gets chased and shot at by colleague Menaka’s(Poorna Jagannathan) ex-husband and ruins his newly gifted Santro.
Sonia gets kidnapped and the goons need the diamonds as ransom. Just when they had sold it and got a lot of money for it. They attempt to steal it back, in order to release Sonia. A very staged gunfight later, all the bad guys are killed and the trio with Sonia are miraculously alive. Has to be, it’s a Bollywood movie after all.
The movie is written with language that maybe alien to most of the audience. Has a gross factor in some scenes and swearing that comes matter-of-factly to the cast. It is fast paced and perfect for the multiplex audience.
My rating:3.5/5
I am is yet another Onir creation. It’s more in the critical acclaim category than for commercial. Onir casts his favorites: Rahul Bose, Sanjay Suri, Juhi Chawla
Movie has 4 parts, each with a story of its own.
Afia (Nandita Das) wants to have a baby desperately, only to find that her husband is going to divorce her shortly. Shattered but determined, opts of artificial insemination. Against warnings from friends, goes ahead to know the sperm donor (Purab Kohli) at a personal level. Her anxiety in knowing his personality and family, sort of makes him go on a backfoot, which is not explained well.
Megha(Juhi Chawla) returns to Kashmir to sell off her ancestral property. She meets her long time neighbours (Manisha Koirala), who wants Megha to remember her past in Kashmir. All that Megha remembers and is hurt by is the fact that her Kashmiri Pandit family were forced to flee and wants to have no connections with the place now.
Abhimanyu(Sanjay Suri) is a photographer and is a victim of child abuse. His step father is dying and his mother wants him to be home one last time. She doesn’t know the true nature of the relationship between her second husband and her son as she thinks everything was rosy from her view. Only when he gathers up the courage to go meet her, it is too late. She also doesn’t believe him on the abuse. What is portrayed is very subtle and not in your face to scandalize you.
Omar (Rahul Bose) is gay and a chance encounter with a wannabe actor (Arjun Mathur) gets him into trouble. They get caught by a cop and he ends up coughing up a huge amount of money. He doesn’t know he has been duped till he meets Arjun again at a later point in time.
The story ends with this episode without a typical climax. Nevertheless, well written and keeps you engrossed.
My rating: 3/5
Vinay Pathak as Bharat Bhushan is back. This time around he is on a reality show like KBC and is the lucky winner. He is very impressed with the Exec Producer of the show Ranjini (Minnissha Lamba), and kind of owes his success on the show to her. He wins a weekend cruise,and the simpleton that he is, is impressed with the hospitality. The cruise also has the fraudulent business tycoon Ajit Talwar (K K Menon) on-board, who discovers that Bharat Bhushan is an IT inspector. Now all that Ajit wants to do to Bharat Bhushan is get rid of him so that he doesn’t get caught for IT frauds. After a series of miss-haps, Ajit and Bharat end up on a deserted island and need to find a way out. Enroute, they meet a monkey which steals Ajit’s trousers. They use his underwear as a flag to attract attention. And at nightfall, end up walking into Amole Gupte (Raghu Burman), who is obsessed with his mom, love of his life and a radio that doles out songs on AIR. He has a fixed time table and a gun and is ready to shoot down any trespasser. They try to make a phone call in his house for rescue and end up blowing it up. Somewhere in this melee, Suresh Menon (Bharat’s boss) who is righteous as ever ends up on the marooned island to arrest Ajit. By this time, they are spotted and all’s well that ends well.
The story is very sketchy and the easy humour in the Bheja Fry 1 is just missing. Ends up too stressful for on the audience, which has not accepted this well.
My rating: 2/5
Produced by Ekta Kapoor and stars her brother Tusshar, is all about the seemingly normal city of Mumbai. The dark alleys exist along side the well-lit houses of the rich and famous. Righteousness exists with the wrong. Innocence co-habits with harassment and threats to life. The movie starts and ends with the 11-day Ganesha festival , with a befitting ending.
The film has 3 sub-plots: Tilak (Tusshar), who has a book publishing business, Sawan Kumar (Sundeep Kishan), a cricketer who needs money to ensure a place on the U-22 team and Abhay(Sendil Ramamurthy), an NRI entrepreneur who is setting up business in India and is being harassed by goons(Zakir Hussain).
Tilak and his 2 cronies are suddenly in the possession of a bag full of fire-arms that the cronies have picked up from a local train. They need to sell it off t make some quick money and are on the look-out for a buyer. Otherwise, he is a righteous book publisher, to the extent of threatening a famous wrietr in parting with the manuscript for exclusive publishing rights and newly-wedded man. He discovers “psychology” through “the Alchemist” and is surprised that he didn’t even know that his wife was educated. He has certain values in place and wants to let go of all nefarious activities, which his cronies think is a result of his marriage.
Sawan Kumar is an upcoming cricketer, who needs to get into the U-22 team, so that he can continue his relationship with his girlfriend, who otherwise will be married off to some guy chosen by her parents. They meet at the usual Mumbai hang-out for couples, Band-stand for some personal time and to resolve issues. He needs 10 lakhs to buy himself a place in the team and has no clue on how to get it. He approaches banks and then hits upon a plan to loot one, in a bid to make quick money
Abhay, an NRI, in Mumbai to set up a business, is harassed by goons for money to ensure his well-being and smooth functioning of business. They even follow him around and know all details of his model-girlfriend. He feels claustrophobic and cannot seem to arrive at a solution. He wants to get rid of this menace called mafia by himself, since he cannot find any other way out.
While you are trying to figure out how these three tracks are going to intertwine, the story arrives at an insipid climax and ends quite abruptly.
My rating: 3/5 – takes a while to grow on you
Ready is directed by Aneez Bazmee and the movie revolves only around Salman Khan (whose fave dialogue is Duniya mein teen cheezon ko underestimate math karna – I, me, myself). Anyone whose not a Sallu fan can watch this for sheer mindlessness.
Also in the movie is Mahesh Manjrekar, playing Sallu’s dad and who with a memory problem makes most of his dialogues “fill in the blanks”, bordering on under-the belt jokes. Anooradha Patel as the sensitive mom, who can look good only and is supportive of anything her son does, except for the fact that she wants him married to someone who has him under control. And 2 uncles and aunts fill in the family picture perfectly. Add to this, a guruji, whose words the family sticks to syllable for syllable.
Enter Asin, into their family, while escaping from her maternal uncles, who are looking to usurp her property by their plot of having her marry their respective brother-in law, but obviously she’s not interested in them. She straight away lands into Sallu’s picture perfect family and actually fits in (am not surprised)
Few squabbles, silly fights later, the uncles are brought to task in terms of their appearances and attitude towards Asin. And all’s well that ends well!!
My rating : 1/5 – not cos I’m not fond of Salman – it’s more like the masala movies that have skipped 2 decades.
Possible bright spots: Songs – Character dheela and Dinka Chika – all mass appeal.
Po is back and how… the adorable roly-poly Panda who loves his friends and food is back, this time in 3-D, making this an awesomeness experience regardless of age.
Po finds out from his Master that he has to fight Lord Shen – a peacock to save China. His dad, Ping is reluctant to let him go and in an emotional moment reveals that Po is adopted. Po with his gang Furious Five, set out on a mission to rescue China.
Before they encounter Lord Shen, they need to battle the pack of wolves as part of Shen’s army. They also discover that Kung Fu experts, Master Croc and Master Ox have been jailed in a bid to wipe out Kung Fu. They do not want to be freed citing that even if they were out, it was impossible to fight Shen who has a weapon that breathes fire and spits metal. Po manages to take on Lord Shen, who has been warned by the Soothsayer goat that a Shen is to be defeated by a warrior who is black n white.
While fighting Shen, Po is distracted by certain flashes of the peacock’s feathers and realizes that they figured in his childhood memory. At the end of round 1 of the battle, Po is severely injured and rescued by the goat who then explains the past behind Po’s traumatic childhood, which he has not yet come to terms with. His friends are captured and it looks like it’s all over.
Lord Shen, while on the way to destroy China, is suddenly confronted by a rejuvenated Po. His friends are rescued, and then a bitter battle ensues. Po dodges cannon-balls fired at him with such grace that it’s a treat to watch. All this as he has found his “inner peace”.
Good wins over evil and Po goes home to be with his dad Ping.
My rating:3.5/5….actually 4/5 – for Po’s calisthenics while displaying inner peace and the 3-D effects.
Posters and promos look attractive and has the biggest selling point – James Cameron. That is only one of the 2 things that seem big, other than the aerial shot of the cave which is our protagonist of the movie. Nothing else quite matches up to the mass appeal of Titanic in terms of story & emotion or the special effects of Avatar. Why was it on 3-D? dunno…can’t say..
Simple storyline…. Frank is an expert explorer who has taken up a mission to find a way from the world’s largest cave, Esa-ala in Papua New Guinea, to the sea. Accompanying him are his son,Josh (who cannot relate to the father’s greatness), Carl (millionaire who has invested in the expedition) and his girlfriend Victoria. He also has George and Jude from his earlier team, who are experts and are willing participants. Now they need to find this connection before the storm and take over the cave and the river flowing through it.
Through the so-called adventure, they need to deal with situations that test their emotional reserve along with their physical one. In the end, it triumph of the mentally strongest smartest.
What works:
You will be awe struck in certain patches – like the opening scene of the cave and the camaraderie that leads to father-son bonding.
What doesn’t:
You go in with expectations of Titanic and Avatar, and it’ll go poof…within a few minutes of screen time.
3-D was not needed
My rating:
2/5 – Maybe you can give it a miss… and the world will still be a beautiful place
Delhi Belly is an Aamir Khan production and stars Imran Khan as Tashi,Vir Das as Arup and Kunal Roy Kapur as Nitin. Add to this is Shenaz as Sonia and Tashi’s girlfriend.
