Race (pehle FACE dhoke aaiye)

Rating: (1/5)


Alright, I fell for it (rather IN it). The reason I went for this movie was friends. Dost kya kahenge 'India gaya aur ek Hindi movie bhi nahi dekha'. So, despite stiff resistance from within, I decided to take a positive frame of mind (which means dimaag ghar pe rakhke jaao) and a couple of "movie theek hai's" to the movie. Okay about the movie. No, wait: first about the plot. Hang on, lets begin by playing 'Abbas Mustan' here. I'm trying to understand their psyche here. Okay I'm Abbas (and Mustan too).

3 months ago, somewhere in south Mumbai::
Abbas: Hey Mustan, lets take 3 heroes and 3 heroines for our next project.
Mustan: Abbas bhai, awesome idea. But what about the script.
Abbas: Lets take Saif, Akshaye and Anil as actors and Bips, Katz and Sam as the actresses.
Mustan: Perfect. But, have you thought about a subject?
Abbas: Lets shoot in the exotic locales of South Africa.
Mustan: Should do. But(almost given up), will the movie have a script.
Abbas: Arre kya bhai....6 characters and 2.5 hours movie. Introduction of all characters itself will occupy 20 mins easily. May go up to 30 mins if shot in slo-mo. 6 songs will occupy another half an hour. Half an hour action scenes and stunts. All we now have is an hour to go Mustan bhai. Since there are 6 characters, we'll pair up characters and form groups and pit these groups against each other, thus confusing the audience. Busss, movie khallas.
Mustan: Wow, sure HIT hai bhai

Okay, so psyche, motto and mission understood. With that, lets cut to the plot. Ranvir(Saif) and Rajiv(Akshaye) are step brothers, one a go-getter, the other an alcoholic and a loser. An upcoming model(Bips) who woos Ranvir and an attractive secretary(Katz) are here for company. So, the flow goes with the 2 brothers fighting for each others lives and deceit with the 2 lasses switching sides (with beds too). A crime takes place and cop RD (Anil) and his dumb secretary (Sameera) trying getting to the bottom of it. I would not like to divulge in more details as there's not much to say. There was a very interesting question that was eating my brains. Why does a narrator have to explain each character in the movie with his profession, motives etc in Hindi movies? Cant these characters evolve as the actors speak (or rather, act)? One hour into this movie and I got my answer. Coz, all of them are actually characterless. Hence, its very difficult for an average movie-goer to understand the character just by his acting is almost impossible. So, smart move.

A couple of songs in the movie are good whereas the others seem like music video like the 'Baby Doll' albums.

Now about the actors:
Saif: Talks less, poses more. Ranvie is decently potrayed by Saif and turns out to be one of the few plusses for the movie.
Bips: Ahh, hot body and decent acting.
Katz: Still learning to act.
Akshaye: Disappointing. Acts as if the director duo is still shooting for 'Humraaz'.
Anil: Hams through the role with inane jokes and not-so-wisecracks galore.
Sameera: The lesser said the better.

All in all, I'd rather watch an F1 race on a Sunday evening with my family/friends rather than watching this farce with my girlfriend (even if I'm offered corner seats).

Bipasha baby, your HEART might be RACING but my HEAD is ACHING re:((

Michael Clayton: Must See

Rating: 8.5/10

Movie making is one of the most comprehensive styles of storytelling. One of the most important characteristic of a good movie is how clear the director is regarding what needs to be said.
Michael Clayton is one of the best movies I have come across.
This is story is about a lawyer who works as a successful fixer and is known as the miracle man, though things in his own life are in turmoil and far from smooth. Things go for a toss when his lawyer friend uncovers a disastrous act of the large corporate and is murdered. Clayton needs to find truth underneath the thick haze of constraints, people and situations.
The movie is focused on the key characters and situations. The direction is immaculate. The movie also boasts of some great performances by George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkinson. A simple, not very different yet very interesting which never loses its focus, no wonder it had seven Oscar nominations.

Movie Review: 10000 B.C. - An utter waste!

Rating: 3 / 10

The much awaited 10000 BC by the much acclaimed director of "Independence day" and "Day after tommorow" , falls flat on its face and never recovers. Its got the most boring and cliched script, amazingly toothless dialogues and sonorous background score.

The story is about this tribe, where a small girl arrives from a far far land as a profecy of the impending devastation. A small boy - our hero falls head over heels for her. Then when they grow old, the prophecy comes true and the Villians drag many of our hero's tribe mates and ofcourse the heroin away. So our valiant hero trudges through Snow capped mountains, carnivorous birds ridden forests and miles of desert to reach the villians den. Here the villian - who is considered to be god, has lakhs of slaves belted to make huge Inca temples. And our hero brings out a revilution and kills the so called god. Happy ending!

You would probably laugh your head off at the utterly dumb dialogues and situations. This director seems completely inspired by some Old Hindi film, where villian picks up heroin, hero goes on mission with sidekick, side kick dies, hero fights the villian, villian manages to kill heroin, hero in rage kills villian and then heroin comes alive due to some heavy duty praying to god!!! Spare us mr.Roland Emmerich. Apart from some excellent graphics this is a total waste of time, money and effort.

Go to the theater at your own peril , but if you have to, take along loads of crazy friends. Then you can enjoy this boring but unintentionally filmy and funny movie. Then you can hoot, clap, shout, laugh and make the rest of the audience enjoy this prehistoric crap.

Movie Review : Black and White - Juvenile

Rating: 4.5 /10

You almost feel like this movie is a child , with its heart in the right place but extremely cliched and juvenile. This is made by the yesteryear master Subhash Ghai, and surely he is way past his prime. It seems that the world has moved ahead, but he is stuck back in his Ram Lakhan, Khalnayak years. I have loved his films like Karz ( awesome) and Kalicharan, but it seems he has lost his magic. If a new-age director would have directed this film (Like Anurag Kashyup - in the slick Black Friday format) this would have been a much better film.

But alas Subhash Ghai falls to the much followed, over-used and obsolete cliches. His Militant from Afghanistaan is here to blow himself up with many innocents at Red Fort on 15th August, to avenge the death of his parents! He is ruthless, he is angry young man and he is focussed. That is untill he meets a Bengali baabu who teaches Urdu at a muslim college near Chandani Chawk and his activist wife. The professor is his ticket into the Red fort. So he finds an amazingly hillarious way to endear himself to them. By GOD , if you ever find a more juvenile technique, do let me know! So he becomes their beloved. They feed him, give him shelter and give him love, which finally melts his heart and predictably he does not carry out his mission. The police try to blow him away, but Prof helps him escape. So the Prof is nabbed by the police, until he tells us all his motive behind it.

His message: They send their message by making him a Suicide Bomber, and we have sent ours by converting him into a good man.

As I said the moral is excellent, the intentions well placed, but the execution is cliched. There are pitfalls in the dialogue, the screenplay, the direction. Subhash Ghai is not able to justify why this Hardcore terrorist completely turns on his heels at the last moment. Its inexplicable to you and me, but Subhash tries with the help of some good deeds by the Prof and his wife. The songs are forced in and there is an absolutely waste of a Love track! Anil Kapoor and Shefali Chaaya are forced to "Ham" and over act in parts and Anil only leaves an impact towards the end. The single expression role works well for the new comer Anurag Sinha, but its hard to explain his character who looks like a terroris - acts like a terrorist but is never identified as one!

An average movie at best. Watch it only if you want to go to the cinema and there is nothing else on offer... A DVD viewing would suffice.

Flash Movie Reviews - Vantage Point , Lives of Others and Sweeney Todd

No 1... Vantage Point :
Rating: 5.5 / 10 ... The movie is about this peace conference, where terrorist plan to shoot the U.S. president and blow up innocent people. Another Run of the Mill , hollywood production with the age old cops chasing terrorist story with an unorthodox screen play. Every 10 minutes the story starts over again, everytime through a different persons perspective. So you can say that there are around 8 main characters, so the movie repeats the same 10 minute story, 8 times!!! Though the screen play is brisk and the action is slick, but after 2 to 3 times, you are sick of the clock on screen turing 12 pm again and then all over again. Bits and pieces of the plot are revealed with every viewpoint, but towards the end the story turns comical! You seriously think why these U.S. guys give themselves so much importance. The conference is held in france and all the footage is grabbed by the U.S. president and his gang of security agents... Watch it if you wanna do some serious timepass.

No 2: Lives of Others:

Rating:6.5 / 10. Its been some time since I have seen this German movie. This movie won the oscar for the best foreign langyage film last year. Set in East germany, its during the times when the agents of Stasi(German democratic republic's secret police) used to crush every artistic talent in their country. Its just a simple story centered on 3 to 4 characters tops. During that time, the Stasi used to keep secret vigilance over all the people they felt were traitors and could rise against their regime. They bugged their houses and had 24 hour surveillance over their homes. This story is about one such Stasi agent, who is given the duty of spying over a Director of Plays who is suspected of being a revolutionary. During several nights of his vigilance, the agent is amazed by the idealogy of this director and realises that he is the one who is on the wrong side. Check this movie out for its amazing performances by the main leads. The director plays with human emotions, backed with a terrific script. The movie is stark and the screen play is slow. Recommended only for connoisseurs of movies, because this is not a movie to have fun over the weekend.

No 3: Sweeney Todd, The deamon barber on fleet street

Rating: 7 / 10

First and foremost, this is a musical. Based in London, this is about an honest man who has been robbed off his happiness(wife and daughter) by an evil judge and now he seeks revenge. Its about this man, who has lost all his sympathy and belives that the rich abnd powerful must die, but his ultimate ambition is to kill the judge. So he sets up his Barber shop with the help of a devious lady who runs a bakery. Together they kill mercilessly and bake cookies of human meat - which are an instant hit. The end is not as predictable and is rather ironic, but then thats the whole point. Watch this amazingly brilliant dark comedy on DVD with subtitles. I say this because it has some amazing lyrics which you might miss on screen due to the heavy british accent, along with the really really fast flow of the words during the songs. If you listen to it carefully, you will realise the witty depth in the pathos. Johnny depp and Helena Carter - it seems have sung for the first time, but have done an exceptional job. This ones really worth the watch.