Talaash

 

Directed by Reema Kagti, stars Aamir Khan(Surjan), Rani Mukherji(Roshni), Kareena Kapoor(Rosie)and Nawazuddin Siddiqui(Temur).

Movie opens with a big-bang accident which involves a car falling into the Arabian Sea in the middle of the night. Search operations reveal an upcoming famous movie star Armaan Kapoor (Vivaan Bathena). Surjan is entrusted the investigation of the accident, which kick starts the movie. Surjan and Roshni move into a new neighbourhood and Roshni is welcomes by nosy neighbor Frenny(Shernaz Patel). There is not much conversation between the couple and Roshni is spending a good amount of her time with the psychiatrist, to overcome a major tragedy in their life, for which Surjan holds himself responsible. Surjan is a workaholic and spends all day and night on the investigation. This leads him to meeting Rosie,a call girl and she enchants him, giving him certain subtle clues about the accident. He spends a considerable amount of time in the red-light areas since that’s where the common thread of the accident lies. Temur on the side wants to make a quick buck thinking he knows the cause of the accident.

Multiple encounters later, he seeks her to get his peace of mind and puts together the pieces of the puzzle that leads him to the reason behind the accident, and eventually closes the case.

What I liked:

The script is strong and does not need the usual song-dance routines or unwanted fate induced situations

Aamir Khan as the angry expressionless cop, with a heart of gold – only one scene has he beaten up a pimp

Kareena Kapoor – no overacting, pouting…just a subtle glam doll who seduces with her dialogues

What I did not like:

Second half had too much build up to the answers and ending was like a sudden drop of a cliff

My rating: 3/5

 

Cocktail

Cocktail stars Saif Ali Khan(Gautam Kapoor), Deepika Padukone(Veronica), Diana Penty(Meera), Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani. Directed by Homi Adajania (who earlier directed ‘Being Cyrus’) revolves around friendship, love, and all other complications associated with it.

Teary eyed Meera lands in London and bumps into the wild party animal Veronica in a rest room. Having nowhere to go, she ends up staying in Veronica’s house and they become soul sisters (haven’t they learnt from real life where 2 good looking women cannot be friends/soul sisters). One night of partying makes way for them meeting Gautam and surprise surprise, he too moves into the house. The 3 have a ball of a time living together, with Gautam having his interests with Veronica and a cordial respect for Meera. Mom Dimple suddenly turns up to find her son Gutlu(Gautam,obviously) living with 2 women and he convinces her that Meera is the love of his life.
On a weekend trip, Gautam discovers his feelings for Meera and things go into an emotional whirlpool. Meera allows them to re-discover each other. Veronica meanwhile, tries to turn things around and all emotions get complicated between the three of them.


What I liked:
Diana Penty- looks so waif-like and doesn’t want to let go of her Indian ness and reinforces that Silence is Golden
Deepika Padukone in a rare display of acting- one as a party animal, a rich spolit brat but with a heart of gold; another as a girl desperate to make the love of her life accept her as marriage material
Tracks - Daaru Desi & Tumhi ho bandhu


What I didn’t:
Saif trying to be 25 something at 40, and looking ridiculous
Movie could’ve ended 15 min earlier, and spared all of us the emotional atyachaar


My rating: 2.5/5(can wait till it comes on TV)

Force

Force is inspired from the Tamil movie Kaakha Kaakha…starring Suriya and Jyothika in 2003. The Hindi remake stars John Abraham – in one of those single hero movies and Genelia D’souza., and is directed by Nishikant Kamath , who earlier directed Mumbai meri Jaan.


Force is a story of ACP Yashwardhan, who is unattached to anyone in this world. He is tough cop and beats his opposition to pulp for good measure. After all he has the body built to that effect and is put to good use. He is part of the Anti-Narcotics team, headed by Raj Babbar, and puts together an inner circle to fight the drug mafia. They manage to wipe out the menace when they realize that the informer was making it too easy for their comfort. All that happened was set the stage for Vishnu (newcomer Vidyut Jamwal) to rule the drug empire. Meanwhile social activist Maya (Genelia) randomly bumps into him till he develops feelings for her and realizes when she meets with an accident. She then turns on her bubbly charm and makes all attempts to get him to reciprocate, which well takes a while. Why? ACP is a lil slow on the emotions department and thinks they are a distraction and he can lose his focus. But she will just not give up, till they finally decide to get married.


Vishnu’s brother is killed in an encounter and the rest of the movie turns into a run-catch-kill not just the team of the NCB, but their families as well.


What I liked:
Superlike: John’s awesome sculpted body
Masala movie with all the action – esp the opening scene where John tries a rock climbing thing like Tom Cruise in MI2
Amit Gaur as Mahesh (Khadak Singh) – very cute and nice to the eye


What I super dislike:
John cant emote or be romantic for nuts – too wooden, like his sculpted body
Monotonous characterization of Genelia – she has replaced Preity Zinta on the bubbly meter but is highly irritating
No chemistry between John n Genelia - looks very awkward
Story is too slow and can distract you from what’s happening on screen


My rating: 2/5 (just watch it if you wanna watch John’s abs and want a typical masala movie)

Mausam

Touted as one well planned movie, directed by Pankaj Kapur for starring his son Shahid (Harry),wife Supriya Pathak Kapur (Fatima) and Sonam Kapoor (Aayat). Set in a sleepy l’il village of Mallukot in Punjab takes you through a love story through more than a decade.


Harry is a carefree and chilled out guy, who is just waiting for his letter to join the Indian Air Force. He bumps into Aayat when she just lands up in the village to be taken care of by her bua, as her father is in hiding due to the Babri Masjid issue.


Harry keeps watching her while she is going to school but does not have the courage to have any conversation with her. The first time he does is with small notes while she is putting mehendi on his sister’s hands for her wedding. He gathers up the courage to confess his feelings for her, but the next day she leaves the village suddenly. Coincidentally he gets his letter to the Air Force on the same day and the movie moves into Scotland where he is there on an exchange program. There he bumps into Aayat and the story continues. Unspoken feelings keep them together and when things seem to be getting serious, he gets called into the Kargil war. They lose touch all over again, till he sights her in Switzerland. But loses her again due to a misinterpretation.


They finally reunite in the backdrop of the Godhra riots, where he saves her life. And a heroic stunt later where he rescues a kid, they walk off into the sunset as a happy couple.


The whole movie didn’t require an imagination since it covered all major mishaps in India and affecting India (from Babri Masjid demolition, to Godhra massacre) with a bit of glamour factor put in. Not at all impressive for what was touted a great romantic story.


What I liked: nothing much, except the first 2 songs


Binod Pradhan’s camera work


What I did not like: Sonam’s anorexic look


Too many predictable breaks in the movie


Reasons of separation that makes you tell them to get an email id/FB account


My rating: 2/5 - avoidable

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

Yashraj is back again this time with Mere Brother ki Dulhan, with Imran Khan (Kush Agnihotri), Ali Zafar (Luv Agnihotri) and Katrina Kaif (Dimple Dixit). Slated as a Rom-com and a family entertainer as usual.



The movie starts with Luv, the investment banker in London, breaking up with his girlfriend Piyali (Tara D’Souza) of 5 years. Suddenly reality strikes him and he calls up younger bro Kush to find a girl for him to be married to. Reason: when they were kids, they both liked Madhuri Dixit. So he trusts Kush’s choice in women. Kush and parents go on a bride hunting spree and finally land up with Dimple Dixit as a choice.


But here lies a shocker. He knows Dimple from his college days where she was as wild as she can be. Predictably, the family likes the alliance and they are all set to get Luv married to Dimple. With the preparations, Kush feels attracted to Dimple but is not really aware of it. Kahaani mein slight twist happens with Luv coming down to India for the wedding. And with that Kush n Dimple realize their feelings for each other but do not know how to get out of the engagement.


Putting their brains together, and infused laughter situations to sort this out is the rest of the story. And since there is no cog in the wheel, one gets created to just extend the story. All’s well that ends well.


My rating: 2.5/5 – very average


What is likable?
Kat is improving in the wardrobe and dance department


What is not likable?
The Imran of Jaane tu … and Delhi Belly is missing… Please come back soon
No memorable music
Zero sparks between Imran and Kat

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara directed by Zoya Akhtar is smooth and effortless on the viewer. It brings the entire Akhtar family together in their various specialties. Zoya with her direction, Farhan with the acting and dialogues and of course daddy Javed with lyrics.
The Akhtar movies have mostly centered around relationships, especially friendship and how vital it is to our lives. The movie is spun around Kabir Dewan (Abhay Deol), Arjun Saluja(Hrithik Roshan) and Imran (Farhan Akhtar). Kabir is in the construction business and has just proposed to an interior designer Natasha (Kalki Koechlin). As part of his bachelor party, he wants to execute the pact they had made while in college. A pact that will make them try an adventure sport of each one’s choice while not revealing it to the other till the moment, which leads them to Spain. Arjun,the financial broker, comes in reluctantly while Imran, the writer has no such hassles.
The first sport is Kabir’s choice, where they meet Laila (Katrina Kaif) a diving instructor. Arjun is not very thrilled by the choice but Laila guides him through the experience. At the end of the dive, Arjun gets very emotional and feels liberated. They soon become friends and accompany her to the Tomatina festival. Amidst all the fun and frolic, Natasha crashes into the happy party, creating a sticky situation. Laila gets Arjun out of his shell and he learns to let go…and becomes more relaxed. This sets a start to their relationship as well.
Next choice is Arjun’s which Imran is petrified of doing, but does it anyways. Post this, they set out to fulfill Imran’s choice, which is seriously life-threatening but has to be done in order to liberate themselves totally. It dawns on them that this is their only chance to live and with the friends that they are and go ahead to enjoy themselves.
The movie does remind you of DCH, but only in the friendship angle and the road trip. Each character has its own insecurities and demons to handle, but it lets you feel that they are after all human. These are the people we all are.
Through the entire story, Farhan exhibits excellent comic timing and light heartedness. Hrithik is stuck-up initially but loosens up towards the end. Abhay plays the perfect balance and is quite goofy himself. Katrina is content being a part of the story and is not in the limelight. Music by Shankar- Ehsaan - Loy is calming and soothing to the ear, and refreshing.The entire journey makes u want to pack your bags and holiday with your buddies.
My rating: 4/5 – Only for all the men in this movie – this is going to make for one of my favorite movies of the year

Delhi Belly

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