Immortals (Movie Review)

Freida Pinto, I'm afraid, is turning into a bit of a running joke within the English film reviewing community, given her incredible luck of working with acclaimed Hollywood filmmakers and then delivering extremely forgettable performances.

In Singh's Immortals, she gets the longest screen-time of her career as Phaedron, the virgin oracle who can predict the future as long as she remains 'undefiled' by man.

Her best moment in the film, however, is completely unintentional. As she tends to the wounded peasant warrior Theseus (Cavill), it's clear that a sex scene is in the offing.

Suddenly, within the blink of an eye, Pinto is underneath Cavill and talking about how she wants to be 'defiled' by him. Cut.

Emotions, dialogue and logic go out the window, and a number of us at the press screening collapsed into a fit of giggles at this jarring transition. No credit to Pinto; full credit to the Indian Censor Board and its ridiculous policies.

Singh, known for making visually stunning films like The Cell (2000) and The Fall (2006), helms this gorgeous looking disappointment (from the makers of 300, say the ads) which is let down by a wafer-thin storyline, poor characterisation and inconsistent acting.

Set in ancient Greece, it revolves around the evil King Hyperion (Rourke, one of the few actors who can make sadism look awesome) and his search for the legendary Epirus bow, with which he plans to destroy all of humanity.

This bow is the only weapon that can release the Titans, a mythical race of immortal beings that has been imprisoned by the Gods. Theseus, who has been unknowingly trained by the god king Zeus in mortal form (Hurt), is the chosen one to save humanity.

There is a stunning sequence towards the end, where the Gods clash against the Titans, juxtaposed against a fierce hand-battle between Theseus and Hyperion.

Singh's visual sensibilities come out all guns blazing here as body after body is poetically slashed open, and it is glorious to behold. After more than an hour of underwhelming battle scenes that aren't even a patch on 300, this scene is an admirable attempt at redemption.

Except it can't, especially when it's that late into the movie and your hero is no King Leonidas. Cavill tries hard, but he has neither the screen presence of Gerard Butler, nor a line of memorable dialogue to deliver. The other actors range from bad (Pinto, Evans as young Zeus) to serviceable (Dorff as the thief Stavros). Rourke delivers the only really enjoyable performance here.

Much of the movie is uninteresting, with a few set pieces proving to be of brief interest. Immortals looks gorgeous for the most part (barring a couple of sequences where the CGI looks less-than-impressive), but what it lacks is cohesiveness and style. Singh may reputedly be a visual genius, but he's no Zack Snyder.

Credit: Mid-Day.com

Rockstar ( Movie Review)

Jim Morrison once said, 'Film spectators are quiet vampires'... and in case you are planning to catch his self-confessed disciple Janardan ‘Rockstar’ Jakhar (Ranbir Kapoor) in action this weekend, you are in for a feast.

In Imtiaz Ali’s most complex project till date, Ranbir has delivered a performance which hardly any of his competition can hope to emulate. From being a downtown North Dilli boy JJ to an angry and bitter Jordan, he makes up for all the holes you can pick in Imtiaz Ali’s plot with his brilliant histrionics.

Yup, Ali’s Rockstar lacks depth... just like its protagonist Janardan’s life. With a hairdo and clothes that resemble the fashion of the early 1970s, Janardan, or JJ as he calls himself, is constantly trying to ape rockstar Jim Morrison and is constantly seeking a formula to become one.

His confidants, college mates and college canteen owner Kattara Bhai tell him that to be a rockstar one needs to experience life altering love, heartbreak and self discovery. And his mind ticks till he spots Heer (Nargis Fakhri).

Heer is the diva of the college, poised and polished very lady like. Their union seems unfeasible. After a few scenes, we learn that she is to be married off within 20 days and wants to experience all that is forbidden.

The duo makes a list and bond over soft-porn cinema in a seedy Delhi theatre and country liquor but without emotions for each other. In due course, JJ is christened Jordan, which seems to be an apt name for a rockstar.

As the mystery unfolds over layers of flashbacks, it takes the story to a designated plateau and halts.

At stages, you feel you are watching a documentary, full of montages of memories lined up over good music. Be it Sufi music or the shehnai-guitar jugalbandi, A.R. Rahman's music touches your heart.

Performances are superb. Nargis is a sure threat to Katrina Kaif. Shammi Kapoor sharing screen space with Ranbir touches a raw nerve. Over all, Ranbir carries away accolades for his histrionics.

Coming from a director who has given wonderful hits like "Jab We Met" and "Love Aaj Kal", "Rockstar" fails to match the hype. It's evident that there is something amiss with the characterisation of this love story.

During the entire transition it is not revealed how Jordan becomes a symbol of rage nor does it reveal the 'junoon' of Nargis' character. But even Imtiaz Ali's non-linear and jerky story telling can’t eclipse the rise of a Rockstar.

With some beautiful wide angle shots, the film captures scenic Kashmir, Prague and Delhi in a way that has not been seen in the recent past.

The editing too is crisp but the last half hour is agonisingly similar to Shahid Kapoor's "Mausam". It just goes on and on.

The dialogues are refreshingly rustic and funny. An extra star in the rating for Ranbir's performance. He along with AR Rahman’s stellar music makes ‘Rockstar’ a great one-time watch.

The Adventures of Tintin (Movie Review)

The sheer thrill of seeing one's favourite childhood comic being transposed on to a different medium (film) combined with technology and the best of hands from Hollywood surely sets one's expectations soaring. Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin" features superb animation and the most refined use of motion capture technology thus far.

This film attempts to bond three different Tintin stories -- most notably "The Secret of the Unicorn" (which is the film's subtitle) as well as "The Crab with the Golden Claws" and "Red Rackham's Treasure".

What 'The Adventures of Tintin' boils down to is essentially an Indiana Jonesesque movie, and is very much in that vein; a rollicking tour around the globe, hunting for mysterious treasures with various complex outcomes and action set pieces.

Set in the 1930s, Tintin's (Jamie Bell) adventure starts at a market place in Brussels. A few seconds after he purchases a miniature sailing ship he gets exorbitant offers to sell it off. He learns that the miniature is a replica of a 17th century sailing ship called the Unicorn.

Apparently the Unicorn was navigated by Captain Haddock's (Andy Serkis) ancestor and was carrying huge treasures in its vaults when it was raided and sunk by the pirates. This ancestor was the only person who knew the exact location of the sunken treasures. So he left behind a clue on a parchment in the three identical miniatures of the Unicorn.

Mild humour is infused in this film by the bumbling police officers Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) and Tintin's faithful canine Snowy.

The treasure hunt takes Tintin along with Captain Haddock through exciting and visually delightful chases. Easily the most stunning and ambitious of these is a chase through the streets of a Moroccan port.

They are chasing a mysterious man by the name of Sakharine (Daniel Craig) who is also trailing the Unicorn treasure. The sequence is about five minutes long and is conducted in one single, unbroken shot which, given the ludicrous ambition, complexity and pacing of the action, would have been simply impossible if the film had been live action.

It also takes place in a photo-realistic environment, which gives the sequence a physicality that should be at odds with the exaggerated characters, but actually heightens the tension and excitement of the whole scene.

Robert Zemeckis' design and creation of this film knocks anything he has attempted before. Zemeckis' earlier films, "Polar Express", "Beowulf" and "A Christmas Carol" failed to create that photo realistic version of humanity, because trying to motion capture and animate real people in that photo realistic way just makes humans look plastic and dead behind the eyes. Here there is a valid reason for this use. It could be done in no other way.

The animation is attempting photo realism but still has that cartoonish quality. They have the Herge tropes, the funny noses and weird hairstyles. Captain Haddock still looks like Captain Haddock from the comics but it's Haddock as if he were a real life being.

That technique, however, is incredibly effective, and never distracting.

Unfortunately the sequences aren't the most inventive. Beyond its gorgeous visuals the film resembles a conflation of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" with John Williams's music always on the point of bursting into the Indiana Jones triumphal march, the film has very little to offer and it is a great shame.

Discussing Tintin's action sequences makes it sound like it's little more than a series of set pieces strung together around a wafer-thin plot.

The script is, quite frankly, all over the place, chock full of ellipsis which can sometimes be very helpful to a film but here it is just lazy and sloppy. The talented trio, Joe Cornish, Steven Moffat (of Doctor Who fame) and Edgar Wright haven't done a very good job of covering the exposition.

The plot depends heavily on too-perfect coincidences. It sets out to deliver thrills, spills and chills with as little extraneous stuff as possible, and at that it succeeds beautifully. Also, the dialogue delivery, I am sure would be an issue for the Indian audience.

This grand scale adventure story directed by Spielberg is a clean family film pitched to a much younger audience, probably those below eight years, for the slapstick comedy and good natured fun that does not resort to crass, lowest common- denominator pandering.

There are some very good parts in the film, but as a whole this film is disappointingly unremarkable.

Miley Naa Miley Hum (Movie Review)

There are some unexprected surprises in this sleeper rom-com, the newcomer Chirag Paswan being one of them.

In a tailormade role that projects him as an ideal son, considerate boss, supportive friend and sensitive lover Chirag doles out the schmaltz and the sweetness without tripping over his own goodness.

This is a benign film, innocuous in its intentions and harmless if somewhat pointless too. There are absolutely no villains in the script. In fact some of the people populating the plot seem to belong to another planet in their goodness.

Dalip Tahil in a turban stops his spunky daughter (Neeru Bajwa)’s engagement when he gets to know his best friend Kabir Bedi nursed a secret desire to see his hon-haar son (Chirag) married to the almost-engaged girl.

The hero is an angel in designer-disguise. He drives the best cars, wears the best sunglasses, romances a struggling model (Ranaut, struggling to shrug off her emotionally traumatized image) and yet sits with the staffers of his imperious father’s sprawling vineyard for a meal of roti and achaar.

The core idea of the film is to propagate a kind of picture-postcard bonhomie into the plot. The worst thing that happens in the hero’s life is that his parents are separated.

But that’s hardly a deterrent for his life being a seriously satirical celeberation of slow-motion joys that include romancing three ladies, two chosen by his respective parents and one chosen off a hoarding by Chirag himself.

Kangna as the struggling model who keeps bumbling into hard surfaces (including hero) has an interesting believable part. She starts off being a casualty of her own ambitions and then gradually gets closer to her real emotions.

Nice touch, that one. The tennis backdrop, though never done with the professionalism that hockey achieved in Chak De (and never mind Sagarika Ghosh the actress who played one of the hockey players in Chak De, surfacing in Miley Na Miley Hum as Chirag’s potential Biwi).

It’s all too pretty, too predictable and too soft and gentle to make a lasting impact.

But the heart is the right place. And you can’t help smiling at the world that the film encompasses with such tender hands that don’t want to brush against any evil.

Debutant Chirag Paswan is likeable when he isn’t caught out ‘acting’. He comes with the added burden of having to prove he isn’t just the brat with the golden spoon.

He conducts himself with reasonable aplomb in a film that’s just a wee bit different from the boy-meets-girl routine.

Loot (Movie Review)

There is a Don (oh, there are many of them peeping out of every nook and cranny of this abominable comedy) played by Prem Chopra who loves Meena Kumari and Pakeezah.

Sighing loudly he tells another Don played with lipsmacking relish by Mahesh Manjrekar, “They don’t make heroines like Meena Kumari any more. She was someone you wanted to marry. Nowadays the heroines are good for only one thing. ”

That is just about the most subtle dialogue you will get to hear in this in-your-face farce where three small-time wastrels, Govinda, Jaffrey and Mahaakshay, and a scowling goon Suniel Shetty take off to Pattaya. What follows is a fiesta of fatuous gags and dialogues including of course bad puns on ‘pattaya’ and ‘guard’…. Wouldn’t miss out on that.

Loot looks like an unfinished product from a group of actors and technicians who lost their way in transit. This one should have ideally remained in the cans. Just why Suneil Shetty invested into this piece of filmed garbage is anyone’s guess.

Maybe he thought it would be a fun caper, a sort of Oceans 11 with lots of lowbow jokes about ‘andar daal’ and ‘baahar khol’. Come on!

Crudity by its very nature requires a very high amount of discipline and dedication to be convincing and inoffensive on sceeen.

The crassness in Loot is simply boring. The characters are most frequently seen lolling around in hotel rooms, waiting for the dialogue writer to come up with some more oafish innuendos.

In the meanwhile there is a whole truckload of gangsters, goons, dons and hoodlums waiting to pounce on the plot at the drop of a hat. The world never seemed more unsafe.

Govinda’s habitual abilities to improvise do see some of the scenes to a kind of culmination. And Suniel Shetty remains true to his character Manjrekar along with his sidekick Razaak Khan share the film’s only genuinely funny sequence.

But most of the time, the actors seem as clueless about their next move as the scriprwiter. So they just decide to have fun with the pun.

Somewhere in the initial reels singer Mika and starlet Kim Sharma (long time no see) pop up as part of a street gang in Pattaya. They add considerably to the overall confusion of the proceedings.

Really, you’d need nerves of steel to sit through this mishmash of misdirected mirth and over-done cockiness . The actors try hard not took bored.

The performances in this deflated farce are better than the recent Rascals where the actors tried hard to be funny. Here no one makes an effort except the dialogue writer who seems to be falling off his chair in delight at his torrent of double entendres.

If only we knew what was so funny. Loot is a hoot. And a painful reminder of the collapse of the comic caper in Bollywood in a heap of inadequacy. The writing reaches a stalemate even before the actors warm up to their roles.

And then it’s downhill all the way.

Tell Me O Kkhuda is a dull fare (Movie Review)

The story of Tell Me O Kkhuda, revolving around a girl, who upon discovering she was an orphan goes in search of her parents, immediately reminds you of the Hollywood film, Mamma Mia.

In Mamma Mia, however, the central character (played by Amanda Seyfried) is only looking for her father while her mother (Meryl Streep) is by her side.

There are three candidates as the potential papa in the Hollywood flick, and there are three potential fathers in this one too. But hold it, that's where the comparison ends. While Mamma Mia was a delightful musical, with stellar performances, Tell Me O Kkhuda is more or less a drag.

Tanya's (Esha) search for her parents also reminds us of Hema Malini's earlier direction, Dil Aashna Hai. After 26 years of being wonderfully brought up by her adoptive parents (Farukh Shaikh and Deepti Naval), novelist Tanya discovers that she is an adopted child. So her quest to find her 'real' parents begin and this leads her to Rajasthan, Turkey and Goa.

She has two friends (Arjun Bajwa and Chandan Roy Sanyal), who seem unemployed enough to accompany her wherever she goes.

In the course of her self-searching trip, she meets potential dads in the form of royalty (Vinod Khanna), a doting husband (Rishi Kapoor) and a don (Dharmendra).

A wonderful way to bring together three of the best looking yesteryears actors only if they had been utilised better. And of course, it is nice seeing Farukh and Deepti back together.

But only the feel-good factors (there are plenty) don't make a movie worth watching.

The story is outdated and not really exciting. I liked the first part better, because it deftly deals with the issue of female foeticide and also because of a gripping camel race.

The protagonist Tanya is largely a weepy character, even though she shows some gumption in parts. So there is not much that Esha Deol could do. Even then she could have done better.

Largely insipid, with some rare exciting moments, makes this film a dull fare.

Courtesy: Mid-Day.com

Be-Careful - Don't watch this movie!

High on testosterone and low on IQ, "Be-Careful" is an eyesore. Inspired by films like "Masti" and "No Entry", this comic drama is the story of two promiscuous and wanton husbands Sameer (Rajneish Duggal) and Anand (Zaid Hamid).

The movie begins with Sameer, a businessman, interviewing a prospective employee. "What's your name?" he asks. "Meri lele," comes the reply. Sameer pounces on the woman, she resists. Following the commotion, Sameer's business partner Anand enters the cabin, only to repeat the sequence.

Later, the candidate clears the confusion that her name is Mary and she is married to one Mr. Lele, hence her name in Mary Lele.

Fed-up with the antics of their husbands, their wives -- Anjali (Tanisha Mukherjee) and Kiran (Kiran Rathore), along with their fathers-in-law Asrani and Tiku Talsania, try to teach a lesson to the wannabe studs.

The men are banished without money to a Thailand hotel with several restrictions that would even put a monastery to shame. But Alas! They are hard to reform.

All the comedians in the film, right from Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra, Asrani, Tiku Talsania to Shakti Kapoor are wasted. With a wafer thin and a shoddily put script, non-energetic performances and a jarring screenplay, the film gives a jolt to one's sensibilities.

The film tilts heavily on done-to-death scenes, puns and linguistic errors. With heavy punning on names like - Lele, Bure Lal (Shakti Kapoor), Kujlee, U-ganda, this film is no laugh riot by any imagination. Also with dialogues like, "Hey, smart, dashing, handsome, awesome, how have you changed the mausam?" This film is sheer trash.

On the technical front, though Najeeb Khan's cinematography is decent, the visual impact is lost due to the various special effects, making the film look gimmicky.

The music is nothing to write about. The item number "Will you be my Maahiye" starring Tulip Joshi is run of the mill. The loud screechy background score and hollow audiography is another sore point of the film.

A word for director Chandrakant Singh. He has not improved since his first film "Rama Rama Kya Hai Drama".

My Friend Pinto (Movie Review)

"Zindagi khwab hai khwab mein sach hai kya aur bhala jhooth hai kya?" Remember Motilal's staggering existentialism in 1956's "Jagte Raho"? Some such philosophy underlines the key goings-on in "My Friend Pinto" -- a wispy, nostalgic comedy about a Goan simpleton's one night of zany adventures in the mad mad bustle of Mumbai during New Year's eve.

This isn't the first film that explores Mumbai by night. From Khwaja Ahmed Abbas's "Bambai Raat Ki Bahon Mein" to Sudhir Mishra's "Iss Raat Ki Subah Nahin", the dark comic side of the city's underbelly has ceaselessly fascinated Bollywood since long before the term 'Bollywood' was invented.

Debutant director Raghav Dar switches on the innovative mode full-blast. The first and most conspicuous component in his comic romp is the director's sense of fun.

He is fearless about the fun quotient that he has while going with one sumptuous swoop into lives as different from one another as any two homes, families that live in Mumbai can be.

A semi-retired gangster (Makarand Deshpande) and his never-been star-actress mistress (Divya Dutta), his twin assassin-goons Ajay and Vijay (played by real life Amin and Karim Hajee who were last seen together on screen dancing in a Sufi trance to A.R. Rahman's devotional number in Jodhaa-Akbar), an old taxidriver and his gambler-son (theatre actor Shakeel Khan making a stellar screen appearance), a lost girl Maggie(Kalki Koechlin) abandoned by her small-time crook boyfriend on the railway station, the competitive couple (Arjun Mathur and Shruti Seth) coping with the sudden appearance of an unwanted guest from Goa, even as they try to cope with the fissures in their own marriage... These, then, are some of the characters who show up one night in Dar's 'Mumbai raat ki bahon mein' (Mumbai at night).

There are many others. Oh yes, characters pop out of every nook and cranny like rabbits from a hat. Bringing them all together is the Goan Mama's boy, the simpleton Michael Pinto who we're informed, with tongue firmly in the scriprwriter's cheek, is the nephew of Albert 'jissko bahut gussa aata tha' (who gets very angry).

The reference to Saeed Mirza's 1980 cult classic "Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai" is not lost in the film's melee of bustling adventures. The film is knowledgeably laden with references to cinema and cinematic devices from the past including a very pointed allusion to a corpse's journey across Mumbai from Kundan Shah's "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron".

"My Friend Pinto" is a very complex script to write and an even more complex act to pull off on screen. Dar manages the chaos created by Michael Pinto's misadventures across the celebratory streets of Mumbai with fluency and grace.

The awkwardness that we encounter in the storytelling is purely by design. Pinto is put into all kinds of bizarre and embarrassing situations. Like Charlie Chaplin in the silent films, he walks out of the chaos unscathed.

He is a Goan angel in disguise. He's Chaplin, Raj Kapoor and Guru Dutt from "City Lights", "Jagte Raho" and "Pyasa". He is all of those and none of them.

Prateik with his waif-like quality truly finds himself as an actor when he plays a lost character. "My Friend Pinto" needed his vulnerability and uncertainties.

The supporting cast is impressive, with Divya Dutta and Makrand Deshpande having a ball with their guns and games. They are like two bulls in a sex shop. Arjun Mathur as Pinto's desensitised Mumbai friend creates quite a graph for his character within the limited space provided by the restless script.

Quirky, capricious, whimsical and at times magical (watch those Broadway-styled musical performances), "My Friend Pinto" conveys the key comic patterns of Kundan Shah's "Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron".

Prateik echoes the innocent adventures of Raj Kapoor in "Jagte Raho". Dar's directorial debut is endearing in its eccentricity.

When you leave the crazy comic cosmos of Pinto's world behind, you take away with you a film that is fiercely original in concept and designed to deliver tongue-in-cheek swipes at all those scared cows of Bollywood that we grew up watching and loving without knowing why we loved them in the first place.

There is something about "My Friend Pinto". But you don't really know what.

Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge (Movie Review)

"Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge" is a sweet teen romance in the times of broadband connection, social networking sites and fake IDs! It explores the pros and cons of the proposed 'fraaandship' networking in our lives. It offers food for thought with - "SACH is the key word and face to face connection is the best connection."

A new era love story, the film revolves around four characters - Vishal Bhatt (Saqib Saleem), Rahul Sareen (Nishant Dahiya), Preity Sen (Saba Azad) and Malvika Kelkar (Tara Dsouza).

Set in a college campus, Vishal with pal Hacky (Prabal Panjabi) are up to pranks with fellow classmates. These initial scenes are a direct rip-off from the Hollywood film "The Social Network".

After a few complicated moments one realises that prankster Vishal is a good writer who pens lyrics for rockstar pal Rahul. Girls are crazy about Rahul, but Rahul seems indifferent towards them.

Also on campus is an odd, boorish and unladylike Preity Sen who is good at photography. She happens to be friends with the hot and happening Malvika Kelkar.

It so happens that Malvika's id pops up on Rahul's profile page and since he is disinterested in adding friends on his Facebook, Vishal takes the initiative. But unknown to him Malvika's id is being operated by friend Preity. And that's where the complication in the love story begins.

Vishal chats with Preity thinking it is Malvika. And Preity chats with Vishal thinking it is Rahul. They are head over heels in love in their virtual world.

Meanwhile, the college is celebrating its silver jubilee. The theme for the evening is - A photographic documentary of the romantic history of the college. Vishal and Preity are forcibly thrown together for the project. The inevitable happens. They are attracted to each other, but they still fantasise about their virtual relationship.

But how long can fake identities sustain the real love? Reality bites when they confront each other.

Nupur Asthana has deftly handled this complicated love story. In the beginning one does get a bit disoriented trying to establish the complicated relationship. But after the initial hi-cups, the story sets in. The first half is nothing to write home about and the second half gets you hooked.

"Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge" is a hackneyed love story but excitingly brewed with fresh faces. With an expressive visage, the film belongs to Saqib Saleem and Saba Azad. They are faces to watch out for in the long run.

The bright attractive cinematography adds to the visual impact that captures the spirit of a foreign college campus.

The dialogues are witty but at times seem to go a bit off tangent especially during the bar scene between Rahul and Malvika.

Music by Raghu Dixit makes a commotion of ear-splitting happening on dance floor. The lyrics by Anvita Dutt is 'Yuppie' and unusual. Vishal Dadlani's coarsely vocals gels well with screechy voice of Aditi Singh Sharma and evokes out the musical confrontation in Hinglish "hip-hop" melodic mode.

The film tries honestly to create a bond of friendship with its set of urbane viewers and succeeds to a large extent in delivering it. A movie worth a dekho.

Aazaan (Movie Review)

As we see rescue operations post a bombing attack being carried out in slow motion, the soundtrack goes almost inert in a show of frozen protest…And you know there and then that "Aazaan" has something out-of-the-ordinary to offer to the action genre.

Tackling global terrorism and Islamic isolation as seen through the eyes of a tormented Muslim secret agent, "Aazaan" heads towards its flaming phases of flash-points with the least amount of fuss or ostentation. The narrative knows all the sign posts.

The screenplay by Shubra Swaroop is gritty and gripping, ensuring that every episode stays a step ahead of the audiences' expectations. The characters speak a language that belongs to the world of terrorism and anti-terrorism.

And yet the spoken words in various languages including Hebrew and French do not obtrude or impinge on the harmony that the narrative creates in the discordant disembodies world of serial bombing across the world.

Explosive as the theme is, no one is here to have a blast. The most remarkable aspect of the action in "Aazaan" is the lack of flamboyance. The hero (debutant Sachiin Joshi, decent and modest) is a one-man army but no super-hero.

He bleeds, he hurts, he feels the lashes on his soul of a world hell bent on destroying itself. We feel him feeling all of this, partly because the screenplay doesn't shy away from emotions when required. Men do cry. But not for long. Really, guns don't go with violins.

There is a touching but distant story about two brothers ideologically separated by extremism in Taliban-torn Afghanistan who come together towards the end in a show of strength where the script emerges the real hero.

Post-interval the clenched tactile plot (no comic relief here) introduces a brief romance between the hero and Caucasian woman, who we are told, practices a very unusual vocation.

Afreen (Candice Boucher, eye-catching) is a sand designer (not to be confused with a sound designer who does a fine job on this film).

Afreen's little daughter could possibly save the world from a deadly viral terrorism. Don't ask how. The action moves with quiet dexterity from Morocco to Agra. The Taj Mahal is under threat. Luckily the action genre is safe.

The merger of the themes of global terrorism and the personal demons that drive the characters beyond the edge, is achieved with a surprising lack of brouhaha. Though "Aazaan" is arguably the best-looking action film shot in India, it neither flaunts its resources nor takes the narrative on a world tour just for the heck of it.

Every location from Morocco to Germany to Hong Kong and Poland is shot by cinematographer Axel Fischer to stunning minimalist effect.

What we are looking at is not the countries and cities that the protagonist visits. But the country of the soul where a battle rages between religious and cultural allegiances and a quest to come to terms with a civilization that needs to stop killing in the name of God.

"Aazaan" takes the action genre in this country to a new level of finesse and restraint. The script is layered, though not quite free of inconsistencies and of questionable moral and political tenets as it would like us to believe.

The action is implosive opting for understatement where extravagant mayhem would have been the more obvious choice. The editing (Amitabh Shukla, Humphrey Dixon) is razor-sharp. There is no room for humbug in the narrative. Every character that populates the swarming plot has a job to do. It's done by actors who know their jobs.

The background score by Salim-Suleman and the sound design are remarkably bridled.

Debutant Sachiin Joshi knows his limitations as an actor and works way around them by playing a character who would rather be closer to realism than larger than life.

The other performances particularly Aarya Babbar, Ravi Kissan and Aly Khan too are in keeping with the films less-is-more mood. But what on earth is the talented Sarita Choudhary doing in a role that looks like James Bond's M on steroids.

As for Prashant Chadha's direction, not for a second does it allow us to feel we're watching a film that tells us, terrorism is not a formula for entertainment and violence is not an occasion for choreographed splendour. Style and substance come together in an explosive clasp that doesn't give us a chance to gasp.

"Aazaan" is not a film which wastes time in self-congratulation after staging one more terrorist explosion. It moves on relentlessly. The world has to be saved. Self-importance is miraculously averted.

Super 8 (Movie Review)

Steven Spielberg is the original master of the mixed-genre movies. His films like "ET" and "Close Encounters…" are sci-fi, action, mystery, thrillers with a very generous dose of children's cinema. With "Super 8", he returns to the same, with a delightful vengeance. Only this time he is the producer, with J.J. Abrahms sitting in the directorial chair.

Set in the 1970s, the film shows a train carrying a mysterious cargo derailing outside a small town.

A bunch of kids, who were shooting a film with their 8mm camera, not only record the events, but have to get behind the scenes to unravel the mystery even as the entire US military descends on the otherwise sleepy town.

In the age of digital cinema, "Super 8" is not just about the nostalgia of filming on prints, but is also a throwback to the films made during those times. Films that were not only good on action and mystery, but were also good-hearted and sensitive.

You thus have a story told through the eyes of a bunch of kids, which also serves as nostalgia for your childhood and the mystery one felt about everything at that age.

And the film has got the heart of a child as well and it takes the innocence and openness of a child to see it for what it is, a scared being in a hostile world.

The alien that wreaks havoc on the small town becomes a metaphor for the person, the community or the subject that is a perennial outsider to the world and its ways and is not only prejudiced against, but hated vehemently.

At a very ethereal level though this almost seems like a film that Spielberg forgot to make during the 1980s when he was rising to the top. And it is a mistake he is correcting now.

Unlike the benevolent alien of "ET", here you have a violent one, but violent only in self defence, for the alien is nothing but a creature trying to go back home; remember 'ET going home'?

Yet, it is different and often better than "ET" and "Close Encounters…" in many ways. It's quicker on its feet and has great special effects. The initial scene where a high speeding train derails and the kids are scrambling for cover in a place that has no cover to give them, is scintillatingly done enough to bring you to the edge of your seat.

The difference is of course director J.J. Abrams, whose last outing as director was the delectable and delightful rewinding of the "Star Trek" sage. Abrams is a self assured and confident director who knows his strengths and how to play them, enough for a viewer not to look at the flaws.

The performances in the film are good. Yet the ones who are exceptional are the kids. Their acting and innocence rendered on them by a good script also makes it a very delightful children's movie.

Doraemon in Nobita and the Steel Troops: The New Age ( Movie Review)

There's an old tradition of treating children's content with lightness. The usual justification given for making bad children's films is that put anything moving in front of kids, and they will like it (by that logic, there's no need for any specialised content for kids).

And it is this same malady that "Doraemon..." suffers from, with a substandard story and execution. And it's a greater sin considering that it comes from Japan, the nation that has made some of the most cutting-edge animation films ever. Yet, it does uplift itself a bit with a good message in the end.

Nobita and Doraemon discover a plot by a robot race to take over the planet. They manage to fool the robot army but have to contend with a female robot who can make or break their plans. Can Nobita, Doraemon and his gang of motley friends stop world destruction?

Japan has a very rich tradition of animation films. So much so that it has created a unique identify for itself with 'anime'. Masters like Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki among a host of other luminaries come to mind.

And in that genre, the robot anime genre was and still is the most popular Japanese export to animation. It is hence disturbing to see a film that does not match up to the high standards set by these masters, both in terms of animation and story.

There are other problems with this version of Doraemon. A female robot is objectified as a pretty, young thing in the film. Later, she is shown stark naked in the scene. Yes, it is a robot but it has a female body with a bust and curves.

Showing her naked in front of children should not have been permitted, even in Japan. It almost borders on child pornography and is like surrogate advertising of alcohol. Though it is mineral water or music that is seemingly being advertised, the whole world knows that it is actually alcohol.

Yet, the humanity of the film rescues it a bit from its pits of darkness. The message is love, compassion and humanity. If robots can develop humanity, surely humans can develop a little more of the same for each other.

Thankfully, unlike other Hindi dubbed films, Disney has done a decent job of dubbing the film. The Hindi in the film does not feel jarring to the senses.

In the end, thus, the ones who will really like the movie are die-hard fans of the TV series. Though as a film it may not totally work, seeing their darling robots doing antics not on a little TV screen, but in cinemascope, would be worthwhile for fans of the series. The rest can conveniently give the film a miss.

Love Breakups Zindagi (Movie Review)

There is only one death in Love Breakups Zindagi (LBZ) and it isn’t the death of our faith in the power of the romcom to move and engage us.

When during a long wedding festivity in Chandigarh the affable Beejee (Fraida Jalal) quietly passes away you are suddenly awakened into a world beyond the love and breakups that consumes the zindagi of the average 20-something urban youngster today.

Blessedly the characters who inhabit debutant director Sahil Sangha’s plot are young urbane hip and happening, but not annoying in their shallow concerns. This is the world that the writer Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla knows inside-out. Sangha occupies the rom-com territory with confidence dignity and pride. But it isn’t the arrogant pride of a filmmaker thinks he knows it all.

Sangha seems to share our bemusement and curiosity about the characters. He seems to explore their world with inquisitive candour, giving them space to grow even as they graon and whine and dine their way through a series of well-written misadventures that never end in an embarrassing deadend.

Yes, you know the culmination. You know Jai (Zayed Khan) will get rid of his bossy fiancée and Naina (Dia Mirza) will be out of a suffocating association with a man who loves her but not in the way she yearns to be.

You know how it will finally turn out. And yet you get involved with the lives of these mismatched pairs looking for love warmth and togetherness in a fast-moving world of cut-throat dreams.

Sangha lets the lives of his protagonists take their own time to get to know their hearts and mind. He is in no hurry to tell his story.

The pace is steady and the flow of events not quite out of the rapidfire round in a quiz show. Cinematographer Aseem Bajaj shoots the characters in warm detail. The cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh are never accentuated by the visuals. The characters inhabit their world unselfconsciously.

There are questions to be answered on what makes the urban relationship an endangered phenomenon. As the characters explore their own befuddled emotions and their misplaced devotions, the narration acquires its own momentum.

Here is a director who is not apologetic about letting his characters speak their hearts out Sangha keeps intrusive devices such as the background score at a bare minimum.

Love has its own reasons. So does this lovely, aesthetic and decent exploration of love and relationships. The characters speak a language and words that you’ve probably overheard between couples at cafes and in the lift.

There’s no straining for effect. As the film builds to a foregone conclusion (blessedly the hasty reunion at the airport is avoided) there is no apology for having adhered to the rudimentary regulations of the rom-com.

LBZ is a mellow and lingering look at lives that don’t seem borrowed or faked. The film’s title says it all. Happily this juicy slice of urban life delivers its drama with minimum fuss and optimum insight into how relationships tick and get tweated in today’s troubled times.

Curiously there isn’t a hint of sexual intimacy between the protagonists, or for that matter between the protagonists’s friends, played with a casual confidence by Cyrus Sahukar and Tisca Arora who discover belated love.

The characters convey the warmth of a breakfast meeting conducted in the fresh outdoors under a mellow winter sunshine. Zayed Khan and Dia Mirza slip so effortlessly into their parts, you wonder what keeps them from reaching the top.

Zayed has worked on getting his timing right. He is a revelation. Dia’s empathy with her character’s innerworld is visible in her smile and eyes. She is a far better actress than she’s made out to be.

There are endearing cameos by Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani and Shah Rukh Khan. But that isn’t the reason why you’d want to see this amiable film. Treating his in-love twosome with genuine warmth, director Sahil Sangha displays confidence and sensitivity.

Here’s a take on that thing called love that’s urbane, intelligent, sassy and involving. Go for it.

Soundtrack ( Movie Review)

Hear this. DJ Raunak loses his hearing ability and gets to hear the voice of his conscience. Great premise for an onscreen human drama? Debutant director Neerav Ghosh, with incredible support from his leading man Rajeev Khandelwal, creates an engrossing defence of anti-hedonism.

Excessive self-indulgence is dumb. It can also make you deaf. So says the film's well-crafted screenplay. The message is driven home with a refreshing absence of self importance.

A lot of the film's drama, if not all, is derived from Canadian film "It's All Gone Pete Tong" released six years ago. That film's inspirational thrusts are transferred with fluency and virility into Ghosh's art attack on the wages of excessive pleasure-pursuit.

Paul Kaye, who had played the lead in the original film, had delivered a pitch-perfect loss-of-hearing gain-of-soul performance. Khandelwal goes beyond the exigencies of his character in search of his lost character's tortured soul.

In the sequences where he comes to terms with his deafness, the actor brings to his face and physique the unmitigated anguish of a man watching himself topple over the edge.

It's a brilliant performance, by far the best male performance this year.

Whether it's the body language of a wild DJ partying the nights away in a haze of alcohol, or sharing those tender moments with Soha Ali Khan (cute, gentle, sensitive and effective), Khandelwal's face maps out the character's tormented flight into terrifying stillness.

Playing a man who watches his life spin out of control, the performance could have easily toppled over the edge. It holds.

The director uses a fabulous soundtrack. There are startling rock ballads punctuating Raunak's voyage into the damned.

Old songs like "Yeh jeevan hai iss jeevan ka yehi hai rang-roop" or, for a beautifully crafted romantic interlude between Rajiv-Soha in the park, "Khullam khulla pyar karenge hum donon" are used to endearing effect.

The narrative moves in three predictable but pulsating sections.

Raunak's descent into a hedonistic hell, his shattering deafness and, best of all, the redemption that he finds through a haze of self-loathing as he takes flight into a world of idyllic love (a touch of Guru Dutt's "Pyasa" in the end when Raunak simply vanishes from the world of ruthless self interest) -- for a first-time director, Ghosh displays remarkable control over his scattered material on his shattered protagonist.

Admittedly the storytelling device (well-known real-life DJs and VJs are roped in to talk about 'Raunak') is borrowed from the Canadian film. But what the hell!

Nothing in life is original. Not heaven not hell. Not pleasure, not pain, and certainly not art.

The absence of over-sentimentality and the self-mocking humour applied to Raunak's predicament imbue a wealth of mellow maturity to the storytelling.

Yup, "Soundtrack" gets it right. In telling the story of a man who stops hearing the world outside to finally start hearing his own inner voice, the film's strong sense of drama and redemption are comparable with the cinema of Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

"Soundtrack" is a soul-stirring tale of a musician's voyage into deafening hedonism and a quiet redemption.

The director suffuses the soundtrack with snatches of a music that transports a fairly routine inspirational story to the sphere of a modern moral fable.

As for Khandelwal, his performance is so accomplished that he proves, not for the first time, that he's among the most engaging actors today. For the money, time and attention, he is the true rock star.

Rascals (Movie Review)

At some point in this pointless parody of all of David Dhawan's Tom and Jerry comedies from the past, Devgn and Dutt, playing a pair of warring, snaping, snarling, sneering con-persons, call for each other. 'Chetan? Bhagat? Chetan? Bhagat? …."

In that pause between the last blast and the next you know the script writer (Yunuz Sajawal) is thinking of how to carry the plot to the next gag.

Wish they had actually roped in author Chetan Bhagat to write some of the episodes.

We would at least be looking at more than just an endless raunchy wordy ramble into the realm of toned bikini bodies. And these include the two leading ladies Kangna Ranaut and the striking Lisa Haydon.

In fact the film looks like one long excuse to let the camera ogle at semi-nude female figures in Thailand and Bangkok. The laughter, if it was ever intended, is strictly incidental.

The gags in "Rascals" are so stale and tasteless and the situational comedy so devoid of any kind of originality or freshness, you wonder if David Dhawan just made this unfunny comedy to please his friends who play the major roles in the film.

As Chetan and Bhagat, Sanjay Dutt and Ajay Devgn get to ham to their hearts' content. Not their fault. It's the need of the hour. Make that two hours. Two long painful hours of mirthless gags and skits adding up to no sense of hilarity.

Kangna Ranaut is the funniest thing in the film. And not in any intended way.

But nothing matches up to the brazen insulting nature of the dialogues.

At one point Chetan or Bhagat (hard to say which one speaks, as they're constantly interrupting and shouting down one another) look at a dark-skinned man and comment: "How did this black gulab jamun get a white rashogolla for a daughter?"

Go get a laugh, Mr. Dhawan. The prolific and trendsetting director has clearly run out of tricks to make the Tom and Jerry act any further. And really, Anil Kapoor-Govinda in "Deewana Mastana", Salman-Govinda in "Partner" did the sniping and snarling, so much better.

The film is carpeted with dreadfully unfunny jokes that insult every community including, of course, the movie-going community which is expected to laugh at a scene where Sanjay Dutt puts on an unconscious woman's underwear on and wonders: "Why is it so much easier to take off a woman's clothes than put it on?"

Really, Mr. Sanjay Chhel, what were you thinking when you wrote such embarrassing lines taken straight from the wall of a private toilet?

Any silver linings? Yes, Arjun Rampal. He's so cool and in control, you wonder what he is doing in such an uncool rudderless comedy.

And poor Hiten Paintal. An actor with considerable comic timing, is stuck among actors who seem to be totally out of rhythm. Hiten is reduced to being Sanjay Dutt's sidekick.

Wanted urgently: A makeover for David Dhawan's brand of comedy. Seriously, this comedy is not funny.

Speedy Singhs (Movie Review)

A star is almost born. Debutant Vinay Virmani has a natural charm and an easygoing bonhomie to his personality that goes a long way in furnishing speed to Speedy Singh. Regrettably there are too many potholes and roadblocks in the narration leading to a kind of plot that doffs its heart at all the films on the spirit of sportsmanship and the parental opposition that it faces.

Though this is a story applicable to numerous second and third-generation NRIs in Britain, US and Canada the story is littered with clichés and stereoptyped characters. …You know the loud boisterous Punjabi joint- family whose joints are so creaky you can hear the Bhangra beats groaning out all the way from Bollywood to Birmingham.

Young Virmani tries to bring in a certain subtlety and lightness to his cliché- burdened role. But the film doesn’t really hold together.

Bend It Like Anupam? Remember Anupam as the Sardar-father of the girl who would sneak off to play football when he wasn’t looking in Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham? What’s the difference between the Sardar Anupam played in that film. And the one he plays in Bend It Singh Is King…sorry Speedy Singhs?

Go, figure. And while you’re at it do find out what Akshay Kumar is doing being associated with a film that seems like a not-so-distant of Akshay’s Patiala House.

In that film Akshay’s father disapproved of sonny-boy playing cricket in England. In Speedy Singhs (no, that’s not a grammatical aberration) debutant Vinay Virmani’s father (Anupam Kher) frowns at his son’s ice-hockey ambitions.

The ice-hocket tournaments are filmed with more warmth and affection than the relationship between younf Virmani and his pretty girlfriend (Camilla Belle). The two behave more like squabbling siblings than lovers through most of the film. Then you can’t blame them. They’re catering to a vegetarian Punjabi NRI audience.

Speedy Singhs is strictly meant to be Babloo’s Day Out with his entire joint family. The Punjabi household is swamped with stereotypical colours flavours rhythms and characters. The clamour of Singhs gets unbearably deafening as the plot creaks forward in an all-too-familiar language. And we aren’t about the angrezi splattered with Punjabi.

Vinay Virmani’s screenplay (yes, the boy has written the film) brings into play every cliché from the Book Of Disapproving Dad, including, yes, the match at the grand finale where the boy’s father finally realizes his son’s worth.

Ho-hum. Watch it for the debutant hero. As for the rest of the cast, stand-up comedian Russell Peters has been quoted as opining that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan can’t act.Has he looked at himself in this film?

'Moneyball' scores a home run

This is something that American men are never supposed to admit, but here goes -- I don't care about sports. I never followed a team, I've never cared who won the Super Bowl or the World Series, and I can count on one hand the number of games I've watched from start to finish on television.

So it's really saying something that I was riveted by "Moneyball." And yes, it's set in the world of pro baseball, exploring how Oakland A's manager Billy Beane subverted the dominant paradigm by assembling a team of inexpensive, non-flashy players who could make it to base rather than spend millions on celebrity hot-shot ballers who might or might not deliver on the field.

But really, "Moneyball" is about throwing out the established conventions of doing business and trying something new. So it could be about the iPod or the Obama 2008 campaign or the Fox network's decision to air new episodes of "Beverly Hills, 90210" during summer rerun season.

This isn't a sports story, it's a tale of bold visionaries, so it's a perfect follow-up to "The Social Network" for screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, collaborating here with the equally acclaimed Steven Zaillian ("Schindler's List," the upcoming "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"). Baseball fans will, presumably, enjoy a peek behind the curtain of the 2002 season, but you don't need to know a bunt from a sacrifice fly to enjoy the movie, any more than you needed to write HTML code to follow "Social Network."

"Moneyball" begins with Beane's disappointment at the end of the 2001 season - not only do the much-better-funded New York Yankees knock the A's out of the playoffs, but Oakland is also about to lose its star players (Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen) to teams that can offer them higher salaries.

Attempting to replace these stars with a minimal budget, Beane visits the Cleveland Indians head office and finds some unexpected talent: Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a number-cruncher who graduated from Yale with an economics degree and who has formulated an entirely different way of evaluating players. Brand doesn't care about their confidence or their handsomeness or their fielding skills or their throwing arms - everything boils down to whether or not they can get on base, even if it's by walking. The more players on base, the logic goes, the more runs scored and the more games won.

The scouts for the A's refuse to believe that the process can be boiled down to statistics, but Beane believes in Peter's theories, particularly since Beane himself was a once-promising young player who gave up a full ride at Stanford to play baseball right out of high school, only to disappoint once he'd made it to the big time. The flashbacks of his lackluster career as a player underscore the older, wiser Beane's decision to rely on past performance rather than future potential in choosing players.

So when Beane winds up with a roster filled with rejects, has-beens, old guys, and injured players, everyone from the front office to sports radio thinks he's lost his mind. But as 2002 moves from spring training to the games of summer to the playoffs, the nay-sayers are in for some surprises.

"Moneyball" is based on Michael Lewis' book, and while the movie could have been an endless series of phone calls and people staring at screens, director Bennett Miller ("Capote") keeps things percolating, mixing in disparate elements like Beane's family life and his conflicts with team manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman, all buzz-cut and red-nosed and looking like George Dzundza) and making everything feel organic to the story.

Which is not to say the phone calls aren't riveting as well - there's a scene where Beane and Peter juggle three different teams in an attempt to close a trade that's a little masterpiece of managerial chicanery.

If "A River Runs Through It" was Pitt channeling young, golden-boy Robert Redford, then this film represents Pitt growing into his predecessor's later roles in films like "Three Days of the Condor" and "The Candidate," where he took a somewhat bemused and cynical look at the world around him.

Having come up through major league baseball on both sides of the bench, Beane knows how entrenched the sport is with doing business in a certain way, but he nonetheless forges ahead with his (and Peter's) radical notions. Whether Beane is berating a losing team or spending quality time with his daughter (Kerris Dorsey), Pitt gets every moment just right.

Somewhat surprisingly, Hill more than holds his own opposite Pitt, exercising comedy muscles we've never seen him use on screen before. In movies like "Accepted," "Superbad," and "Cyrus," Hill generates a wonderful brand of manic-nebbish energy, but here he's a tamped-down, tie-wearing, soft-spoken Ivy Leaguer, and yet even within those constraints, his comic timing is perfect, turning the most disposable throw-away lines into nuggets of hilarity.

The best of the "based on a true story" films manage to make things suspenseful even when you're aware how they turned out in real life. And while I was completely unaware of these events, even baseball fans may be surprised at the aftermath of the 2002 season and its ongoing impact on Beane's life. "Moneyball" is a witty and captivating look at thinking outside the diamond. (Reuters)

Mausam (Movie Review)

There is an absolutely devastating moment of pure drama in this eagerly-awaited romance where Shahid Kapoor espies from a train the lost love of his life, Sonam Kapoor, standing forlorn in the snow with luggage waiting for god knows what! The next train? Love? Death? Or the next life?

It's a moment that defines "Mausam", a film that has some serious flaws, but finally holds together as a work of renaissance art, more remarkable, in parts outstanding, for what it attempts rather than what it finally achieves.

Pankaj Kapoor takes the Muslim-Hindu love story between a Kashmiri refugee girl and a Punjabi boy through an arching sweep of history. Every historical trauma that has defined and defiled India and Indians in the last 30 years props up as a vital image to underline the love story.

And what "Mausam" finally says is, love becomes impossible in a civilization that chooses to define itself by violence rather than peace. Gandhi? He could be just a spectre that never existed in a world where two young people cannot come together in a clasp of love for the fear of falling into a terror trap.

We have award-worthy performances in "Mausam" by the hero who happens to be the director's son. But that is just a karmic coincidence, like much of what transpires between the lovers in "Mausam".

The film goes from one phase in the couple's life to another, not quite smoothly but not strenuously either.

The transitions in their estrangement are mapped out in some finely-written scenes where the couple's smothered affections for one another are manifested in moments of sublime beauty.

The ever-brilliant cinematographer Binod Pradhan captures the couple against breathtaking backdrops in rural Punjab and Scotland.

"Mausam" is one of the best-looking films in recent times. The transitions in time and topography are brought about with a fair degree of inner conviction and outer resplendence.

The synthesis of the lovers' inner and outer world is not always stress-free. The couple's inability to come together through various tragic and traumatic historical conflicts is depicted in scenes that range from the rivetting to the mundane.

Visually the film is a feast.

The film's strong sense of purpose and its love-defining affiliation to socio-cultural incidents leave little space for the incidental characters (of whom there are many) to grow in the plot.

That, in a way, is the need of the plot. But you do crave to see more of the lives around the couple and how these lives and the relationships qualify the love story at the film's centre. You want to see the long-lasting friendship between Aayaat's Muslim father (Kamalnain Chopra) and the Kashmir Pundit (Anupam Kher).

And there is a plenty of quality of that sublime stillness in the storytelling - the film's extraneous correctness hides much of the film's intrinsic inconsistencies. Then there is Shahid, standing tall with a performance that puts him right up there among the finest contemporary actors.

Shahid takes us through the film's and his character's romantic odyssey, inconsistencies and all. Forget Tom Cruise. In the Airforce uniform he reminds us of Rajesh Khanna in "Aradhana". And that's the highest compliment any contemporary star can be paid.

The director tries hard to merge Sonam in the resplendent ambience. Her performance has enchanting echoes of Kareena Kapoor in "Refugee". The camera gives her no room to complain. But in the intensely romantic moments, she looks lost rather than lovelorn.

It's the other girl, the spirited Punjabi kudi Rajjo, in Shahid's life played by Aditi Sharma, who fills up the small space provided to her character.

"Mausam" is about the thwarted love between Harry and Aayaat. When they finally meet during the Gujarat riots, they seem to discover not love but its aftermath, which is a far greater thing than love.

Where the film seems to lag behind is in creating emotional pockets for the couple's mutual feelings to develop.

Shahid playing Harry the Punjabi wastrel turned air-force officer and Sonam playing Aayaat the refugee from Kashmir, have several shared tender moments.

The stand-out ones all come towards the second-half when loves grows impossible between the couple.

The climactic reconciliation during the Gujarat riots, enacted with supreme passion by Shahid, stands out for its stark dialogues that intercut between the couple's long pent-up feeling of separation and the socio-political forces that have kept them from each other.

The climax on a ferri's wheel appears a trifle manufactured.

Editor Sreekar Prasad's smooth flow in the narration is suddenly stymied in the search for a jolting finale.

But you have to hand it to Pankaj Kapoor. In his directorial debut, he tells an old-fashioned story of love, separation and reunion with flourishes and flashes of great cinema igniting what would in lesser hands, appear to be a trite tale of love gone frightfully cliched.

And yes, Pritam's music is apt. But the best tunes "Abhi na jao chod kar" and "Ajeeb dastaan hain yeh", are not his. Credit : Santabanta.com

Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (Movie Review)

Somewhere in the vast spaces of mainstream Hindi cinema, the North Indian shaadi with its band baaja and, yes, baarati, seems to have made a permanent place in our cinema. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan(MBKD) is the third film in the last 8 months after the delightful Band Baaja Baarati and the surprising Tanu Weds Manu to weave a rom-com around the sights sounds scents stress chaos and satire of a big fat Hindu wedding.

Must say, the other two films got it right dead-on. MBKD flounders in its frisky fusion of a love triangle and plea for an arranged marriage. Debutant director Ali Abbas Zafar knows the subtexts in his script well enough to conceal the rather glaring discrepancies in the storytelling.

The narration quite frequently relies on jump cuts, retro music and other external ploys to make the goings-on appear more involving than they really are. The recurrent use of R D Burman’s Piya Tu Ab To Aaja has no relevance after a point. It just becomes a tiresome inclusion.

The three main characters, played by three watchable stars one of them from across the border, manage to take the plot’s improbabilities into the province of the palatable. But the situational humour doesn’t quite have the delightfully disarming naturalness of Band Baaja Baraat.

But the characters exude a contagious warmth, more in their individual capacity than in combinations. For a film about love warmth togetherness and family bonding during the time of a wedding, the interative warmth between characters is strangely missing. Besides one memorable sequence towards the beginning in front of the Taj Mahal(a recurring cultural and sociological symbol in the film) when they share cold chai, there is little to suggest any serious bonding between Katrina Kaif and Imran Khan…or for that matter, between the two brothers played by Ali Zafar and Imran Khan.

Zafar who delighted in the satirical mode of Tere Bin Laden, returns with yet another performance that knows how over-the-top to go without toppling over. Yup, Zafar gets it pitch-perfect all the way. The same cannot be said of the film which occasionally slips into becoming a stretch.

What really redeems the film’s blind spots is Katrina Kaif who brings a very spcial transparency and dazzle to her role of a wild child who wants to have all the fun that she can before she settles into a comfortably arranged marriage with the rakish NRI Ali Zafar.

Fun, as it turns out, leading to falling in love with her brother-in-law-to-be. The turn of events may surprise the characters. We remain largely detached from the synthesis of celebration and drama.

“What will I tell everyone? That I fell in love with my Bhabhi?” the embarrassed and horrified brother-in-law tells his untamable Babhi-to-be.

That’s Imran Khan, playing the sweet-tempered benign do-gooder once again. Khan stays in his comfort zone while Katrina comes out of it to give herself and the audience the time of her life.

There is nothing seriously amiss in MBKD. It gets right the camerawork (Sudeep Chatterjee), music (Sohail Sen) and the outdoor locations in and around Delhi. What it misses out on is that element of unpredictability during the time of a wedding that Band Baaja Baarat and Tanu Weds Manu managed to capture probably because the couple at the helm was supported by any number of splendid supporting stars. Here the supporting actors are serviceable. Parikshat Sahnni and Kanwaljeet as the couple’s fathers try to be coic and filmy. They just looke jaded.

By the time the Brother walks away with the Dulhan we really have nothing we would like to say to them, except, what took them so long?

The help - no grey areas (Movie Review)

The Help is a dramatic tale of a white woman writing a book about the experiences of the black women who work as maids for the rich, white inhabitants of Jackson, Tennessee. This movie stirs up controversy about the apparent ‘white saviour’ complex it fuels, like fellow offender, Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side.

Eugenia Phelan (Emma Stone), affectionately known as Skeeter, is a young woman who forsakes the traditional route of marriage to a suitably wealthy young man and instead escapes to university. The story begins with Skeeter’s return to Jackson when she first starts noticing the blatantly horrible treatment of ‘the help’ by her friends. She then decides to write a book about their stories to help propel herself to her dream job at a major publishing house in New York. The story escalates as she is egged on by the head honcho at the New York publishing house, Elain Stein (a brief but effective appearance by Mary Steenburgen).

In her quest to break through the world of the help, Skeeter approaches Aibileen (played to understated perfection by Viola Davis), who works as a maid for one of her friends. Initially reluctant, Aibileen predictably comes around. The audience is then slowly exposed to the emotional stories the maids have to tell as Aibileen is joined by her friend, the indomitable Minnie (Octavia Spencer). Further gems include the overdone villainy displayed by the leader of the white ladies and primary supporter of the act to force non-white people to use separate facilities, Hilly Holbrook. Bryce Dallas Howard plays the villainous Hilly to shrill perfection. Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain) also has a very believable turn as the not very bright but large-hearted girl who desperately wants to be part of the clique of women who spurn her advances at every turn.

One of the most impressive performances is by veteran actress Cicely Tyson, who plays Constantine, the maid who served as a mother, friend, confidante and advisor to Skeeter. While Constantine’s disappearance is a constant theme of Skeeter’s narrative, she appears in a mere three scenes, all of which will move you tears.

Thanks to the power-packed female performances, The Help will play you like a finely-tuned stringed instrument in terms of inducing tear jerking moments, and laughs and cheers for the plucky characters. On the other hand, the men of this movie are as disappointing as cardboard cutouts. The male characters serve merely as plot devices (directing the protagonist to an important location when required), as remembered memories (Aibileen’s son, as she recounts his story) or as caricatures of domestic abuse (Minnie’s husband Leroy).

 The white men are cut from the same mould, be it Skeeter’s suitor who balks in the face of what she has covertly accomplished, or Hilly’s husband, who simply cowers as his wife plots, schemes and screams.
Despite the somewhat predictable storyline, The Help is a movie worth watching, not just for the message it provides, but because it is filled with some of the best performances you will see this year. Despite running over two hours, the movie keeps you emotionally invested — so much so that you may find yourself sitting quietly till the end of the credits — as many were during this writer’s screening, unable to just casually walk out and immediately forget what we had just seen.