Movie Review Mittal vs Mittal

Starring: Rohit Roy, Rituparna Sengupta, Suchitra Krishnamoorthy and Gulshan Grover Director: Karan Razdan Rating: ** High flying businessman and casanova Karan Mittal (Rohit Roy) sees Mitali (Rituparna) at a fashion show and flips for her. He strikes a friendship with her. Very aggressive in his approach, he tries to take her to bed in a very short time but Mitali doesn’t allow him to. She also distances herself from him. But then after a few months time he makes re entry in her life and proposes to her. Though she is not prepared for a marriage with him, she eventually decides to get married on her over enthusiastic mom’s (Reema Lagoo) insistence. Her mom doesn’t want to let go of such a big well known business house. But problems crop up immediately after marriage. Mitali’s mother in law (Dolly Thakore) is the typical high society types who looks down on Mitali’s middle class up bringing and leaves no chance of insulting her every day. But Karan finds fault in Mitali for the same and gets abusive. When Mitali resists making love to him, he forces himself on her. From then on marital rape becomes a daily thing by Karan. Finally, Mitali decides to call it quits and leaves his house. Aided by a women’s organization she decides to take him to court for marital rape. She is helped by lawyer Karuna Maheshwari (Suchitra). But their fight is against one of the most cunning defense lawyer, Salunkhe (Gulshan Grover) who on behalf of his client Karan leaves no opportunity to insult Mitali in the court of law. Mitali is almost on the verge of losing her case but finally the tables turn on Karan due to the appearance of Karan’s hideous past. The film may be well intended but it is badly executed by director Karan Razdan. It talks about marital rape but the camera goes voyeuristic during the rape scenes. Instead of making the audience feel angry about the rape, it tries to titillate. However, it is during the court room scenes when the film becomes more serious and bearable. Some important questions are raised and the subject thereon is tackled well. Technically the film appears shoddy as production values are very average. Music by Shamir Tandon is a big bore. Rituparna enacts her part well and brings out her helplessness effectively. Rohit Roy suits the role to the T. He is extremely natural. Gulshan Grover as the cool as cucumber defense lawyer is simply excellent. Suchitra Krishnamoorthy enacts her part well. Dolly Thakore is again a perfect casting. The makers need to be applauded for bringing on screen a necessary subject. However, the film could have been much better and a recommended watch had it not been for the frivolous execution of the marital rape sequences.

Movie Review Shaapit

Starring: Introducing Aditya Narayan, Shweta Agrawal, Shubh Joshi and Rahul Dev Director: Vikram Bhatt Rating: *** Aman (Aditya) proposes to Kaaya (Shweta) but soon after that, the same night while going to drop her they meet with a car accident. While luckily both escape unhurt, Kaaya's parents request Aman's parents to forget their daughter. They reveal to them the curse of a Brahmin father under which there family has been for the last 300 years. Due to this curse no girl in their family can get wed and if she plans to or does then death for her is inevitable. But a deep in love, Aman decides to fight this curse and free Kaaya from it. He along with his friend Shom (Shubh Joshi) decides to take the help of a famous occult professor Pashupati (Rahul Dev). The professor at first avoids helping Aman but after Aman shows him his dedication by taking a risk with a deadly spirit he decides to help him out. What shocks and thrills are in store for Aman, Shubh and Pashupati and what happens to Aman and Kaaya's love story because of that forms the rest of the film. Vikram Bhatt has already proved his mettle with the horror genre with super hits like Raaz and 1920. With Shaapit he takes one big leap forward in terms of story telling and technique. There are more than enough terror moments to keep you on the edge of your seats. Amongst them the best ones are Aman's daring venture into the haunted library, Kaaya's encounter with the spirit on the highway, all four venturing into a dilapidated cinema house and finally the 23 minutes long climax. Vikram is well aided with outstanding cinematography by his father, veteran cinematographer Pravin Bhatt. Dialogues by Girish Dhamija and the production design by Rajat Poddar is simply excellent. The costumes by Rahil Raja, especially in the scenes depicting times 300 years also deserve special mention. Raju Rao's background score is effective. Chirantan Bhatt's music is apt for the film. The problem area for the film however lies with the merging of two back stories which gets confusing towards the end. Aditya Narayan shows no signs of this film being his debut vehicle as a main lead star. He is extremely natural. Also, it's a rare thing for a Bollywood hero to sing his own songs and sing it really well which he does. Shweta Agrawal is impressive but sadly has nothing much to do in the second half after she is confined to a hospital bed. Shubh Joshi is just perfect for the part. Rahul Dev has portrayed the nonsense professor very well. Natasha Sinha as the wily queen is good. Murli Sharma, Nishigandha Wad as Shweta's parents act ably. Shaapit is the perfect film for you if you want to experience some real good chills and thrills. This film establishes the fact that when it comes to handling horror films there is no better director than Vikram Bhatt.

Movie Review Lahore

By Subhash K Jha Starring Aanaahad, Sushant Singh, Farouq Shaikh, Shraddha Das, Saurabh Shukla Directed by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan Rating: *** Combining sports and politics is not an easy thing to do. But then it's not that difficult either considering the two are inextricably intertwined specially in the Asian sub-continent where Pakistani cricketers are forbidden from participating in Indian sports events and Indians don't get visas to visit across the border. Debutant director Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan dares to visit the forbidden territory. Lahore is about sports and politics and characters from both the spheres getting embroiled in a terrible fight to finish. The script accommodates a great deal of the sporting spirit as seen in the perspective of Indo-Pak politics. Within that ambitious framework Chauhan weaves in the human relationships that make a leap for warmth and then stay stuck in semi- sterility. The film has too much to say on sports, politics and human nature. It isn't able to say all of it in a lucid language. Chauhan has chosen a unique sport like kickboxing to spotlight the process of cultural assimilation that underscores all the perverse politicking that goes on at the surface level between the two countries. The Indian and Pakistani coaches played by Farouq Shaikh and Sabyasachi Chakavarty are seen to be sportingly at loggerheads, a bit like the coaches in Yashraj Films' Dil Bole Hadippa, though Lahore takes the spirit of sportsmanship across the border with more seriousness of purpose. In the boxing ring the game gets deadly when the Indian kickboxing champion Sushant Singh is delivered a deadly blow by his Pakistani opponent. A churning-point in the narrative arrived at in restrained rhythms. This is where Chauhan's narratives comes into its own. The dilemma of the deceased kickboxer's younger brother Veeru (newcomer Aanaahad) to preserve his sporting spirit in the midst of high-voltage mutually-destructive Indo-Pak politics is built into the plot with architectural astuteness. Not all of the material outside the central conflict where Veeru forsakes cricket to pursue his slain brother's dream in the kickboxing arena, works on the scripting level. Does Veeru only want to use the boxing ring to avenge his brother's death? Though the characters falter in quantitative excess, the opposition of sports and politics and politics in sports is put into a persuasive perspective. The rest of drama tends to get tedious mainly because there are too many characters swarming the Indo-Pak map. We see people from both countries trooping in to scarcely record their presence in the plot before dissolving in the unresolved space that occupies the No Man's Land. Veeru's romantic attachment to the Pakistani girl (newcomer Shraddha Das) is skirted across in a few scenes where they exchange veiled pleasantries. Passion is seriously forfeited in the flurry of squeezing in a large canvas of characters. It's in the kickboxing scenes that the film exudes blood sweat and tears. The debutant Aanahaad and his opponent Mukesh Rishi reveal a skill in the ring that cannot leave the audience unaffected. The newcomer does well in the sports scenes but needs to brush up his skills in the emotional moments. Of the rest of the cast Nafisa Ali, Ashish Vidyarthi, the late Nirmal Pandey and several other talented actors are wasted in sketchy roles. The film's surface is over-populated. But its inner life suggests a sincerity of purpose. Wayne Sharpe's background score and Neelabh Kaul's cinematography are first-rate.They add to the feeling of a film that goes beyond sports, but stops short of making a statement on life lived on the border of hostility. Lahore is not only about kick-boxing. At times you wish it was.

Movie Review Love Sex Aur Dhokha

By Joginder Tuteja Cast: Anshuman Jha, Shruti, Raj Kumar Yadav, Neha Chauhan, Arya Devdutta, Herry Tangri, Amit Sial Director: Dibakar Banerjee Rating: *** The million dollar question making the rounds is - Does "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" have a story?' The answer is yes. In fact, there are three stories, each of them being shown in episodic manner with 'Love', 'Sex' and 'Dhokha' being the plot drivers for the respective tales Do they work? Yes, they do though it is apparent that there are ups and downs in the pace of these stories. While each of these stories starts with a bang and has a valid culmination, there is a slight dip that comes in occasionally and makes you pine for some faster movement. So there is a young couple who fall in love during the shooting of a diploma film, get married secretly and then face the wrath of their family. Since the film is set in a filmmaking school, the presence of a camera right through this story does come across as quite valid. The second story is about an unemployed young man stationed at a retail shop who takes advantage of a naive girl by capturing their lovemaking moments through a security camera. The third story is about a sting operation where an aspiring dancer gets back on a superstar by capturing the entire casting couch proposal on film. Both these stories have seen quite a few predecessors in real life. Does the film work with disjointed episodes like this? Certainly yes, if one is willing to drop all preconceived notions about how a feature film should look. This is why after 15 minutes, one has to get used to a shaking camera, sync sound, leading to quite a few audio disturbances and random frame capturing. However, one does feel that treatment like this comes with its own limitations. Since the film is about how a camera follows the lives of people in every nook and corner, the narrative has to be real and there cannot be any dramatisation of an event. Nevertheless, this very limitation also works as a strength for Banerjee. Whether it is body language, intimate moments or the framing of a scene, done excellently by Nikos Andritsakis, everything is captured 'as-is'. Also, be warned that the foul language in the film is as explicit as it gets. Never before in a Hindi film has one heard the kind of cuss words that one hears in "Love Sex Aur Dhokha". Again, quite justified since this is the first film that truly fits into the bracket of 'slice of life'. "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" couldn't have been what it is without the effort of its cast. Everyone - Anshuman Jha (Rahul), Shruti (Shruti), Raj Kumar Yadav (Adarsh), Neha Chauhan (Rashmi), Arya Devdutta (Naina), Herry Tangri (Loki Local) to Amit Sial (Prabhat) - everyone is superb. "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" has one factor which completely works for it - its genre which is unconventional, unprecedented and unheard of. This is a kind of film where a filmmaker can afford to play around without worrying much about universal acceptance. That's exactly the route that "Love Sex Aur Dhokha" takes as it is made for a very niche audience that wants something non-Bollywood.

Road, Movie Review

Starring: Abhay Deol, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Mohammed Faizal and Satish Kaushik Director: Dev Benegal Rating: *1/2 Road, Movie is about the journey of Vishnu (Abhay Deol) who travels miles in a very old truck which often breaks down along the way. Driving through the desert state of Rajasthan, he first befriends a young boy (Mohammed Faizal) who works as a helper in a roadside tea stall. The boy hitches a ride with him as he wants to go to another village to hunt for a new job. When the truck breaks down for the first time, the boy walks a long distance in the barren land to hunt for a mechanic. He finally gets one, Om (Satish Kaushik), who agrees to repair the truck on the condition that he would then hitch a ride to the village where a fair is being held. Along the way, the three meet a gypsy woman (Tannishtha Chatterjee) who is walking in the scorching heat and has a small pouch of water. She shares the water with the thirsty threesome and also joins them in the truck. The truck, which doesn’t belong to Vishnu, has a touring cinema inside. Vishnu uses the touring cinema in the truck to show movies to the villagers when he is in a tight spot. Om helps him in starting the dilapi dated projector and, in the process of showing movies in the villages, they also make money. Vishnu is first confronted by a difficult policeman (Virendra Saxena) and later, by the water mafia (Yashpal Sharma and group) along the way, but he manages to save himself, his truck and his travelling friends, thanks to the touring talkies and to the hair-oil bottles he is carrying in cartons to sell at his destination. He finds himself attracted to wards his woman passenger and they even get physical. At one stop, Om passes away while enjoying a movie. Finally, it is time for Vishnu to bid the woman and the boy goodbye. The story (Dev Benegal) offers hardly anything to the audience in India which is not used to watching such road films. Even the screenplay, penned by Dev Benegal himself, is so slow-moving that it actually tests the audience’s patience. Even a climax in the traditional sense of the word is missing. Frankly, since the hero doesn’t set out on a great mission in the first place, the audience does not experience a feeling of fulfilment in the end, something the public in India is so used to experiencing in every film. In the same sense, there is no heroism of the hero, Vishnu. Even fans of Abhay Deol and his kind of films would feel let down by the fare on offer. Dialogues (Dev Benegal) are natural and witty, but only at places. Abhay Deol does a fine job and gets into the skin of his character. He is completely in synch with the mood of the film. Satish Kaushik is also just too natural. He endears himself to the audience with his raw audacity. Tannishtha Chatterjee gets limited scope and is good. Mohammed Faizal is cute and supremely confident. Yashpal Sharma leaves a mark. Virendra Saxena is effective. Michael Brook’s music and background score are good. Michel Amathieu’s cinemato graphy and Yaniv Dabach’s editing are nice. But on the whole, Road, Movie is too dull and dry to make an impact among the audience in India.

Well Done Abba

By Subhash K Jha Starring Boman Irani, Minissha Lamba, Sammir Dattani Directed by Shyam Benegal Rating: *** Drawn from the innermost recesses of its extraordinarily versatile profound and prolific creator's mind, somewhat like the water that emerges from Boman Irani's well at the end of this delicately-drawn satire on babu-giri and redtapism, Well Done Abba is a little sparkling gem of a film. Its humour warmth and tenderness are not as easily obtainable as in Benegal's last comedy Welcome To Sajjanpur which was far more readily and immediately engaging. Well Done Abba takes longer to settle and sink into our satiated sensibilities. Long parts of the film describing the Hyderabadi protagonist Armaan Ali (Boman Irani)'s close encounters with babu-giri and the bewildering maze of the bureaucracy (somewhat like Pankaj Kapoor in the serial Office Office) are done with a sense of insouciant indulgence that takes the bite away from the cruelty of watching a man run from one musty office to another trying to get a well dug into his parched backyard. Everyone wants a bribe. No one wants to do what's right. A world waiting for water to emerge from Mother Earth was recently created in Shayam Benegal's nephew Dev Benegal's Road Movie. Unlike Dev's film Shayam Benegal's parable on a soul waiting to be nurtured never remains as dry as the landscape it describes. Thirsty famished Hyderabad is no strange hinterland to the ultra-perceptive Benegal. One of his first feature films Ankur (still considered by many to be his finest) was set in rural Hyderabad. It was real grim and relentlessly dark in showing subjugation and injustice. Now Shayam Babu—God bless his jaunty soul—has mellowed. His vision is far more forgiving of our beaucratic trespasses. He even chuckles over sex through the characters of Ravi Kissen and Sonali Kulkarni who are forever at it. Cinematographer Rajen Kothari goes through the cluttered lanes of old Hyderabad with jaunty steps. No one is looking for despair here. It's a life lived at the edges with a zest to seize the day. The flawed and aberrant characters in Well Done Abba ranging from the embittered police inspector (brilliantly played by the Benegal regular Rajit Kapoor) to the self-serving but not evil politician (Rajendra Gupta) are characters who move dexterously away from the realm of the grotesque and caricatural to becoming signs and representatives of our times. Standing non-judgementally over the delicate satire Shyam Benegal seems to say….this is the way we are, what to do? Benegal's characters are not hopeless losers. The director with some skillfully subtle sensitive and sharp writing from screenwriter Ashok Mishra lifts his people from the clammy clutches of corruption and dejection. These are people who exude the sweaty aroma of lived-in people eking out a dignified life from the morass of anarchy. Benegal's narration is steady tender and in no hurry to make its point. The pace is even and delightfully devoid of anxieties, but sometimes far too crowded with inner explanations. The canvas is crammed with semi- pivotal characters in the bureaucracy. We are subjected to vignettes from the bureaucrats' home life which seem to unnecessary prolong the film's inevitable progress towards a triumphant finale. Boman Irani in both his avatars as the Armaan Ali and his seedy twin Rehman Ali renders rollicking wrinkles and creases to the film's over-smooth edges. He's delightful as the bewildered working-class soul, the over-protective father and the near-nirvanic soul at the end who realizes the struggle to have justice is actually a journey towards God. Minissha Lamba as Boman's spirited daughter gets into the skin of her character with a career-defining determination and emerges with a character who is feisty modern and, yes, Muslim. Sammir Dattani as the sweet-tempered do-gooder who supports the father and daughter shows a discernible growth as an actor. This film is actually the beginning of a new phase for Dattani. All three characters hold their Hyderabadi accents in place without slipping out of character for even a minute. Watch out for all the usual Benegal actors like Lalit Tiwari, Ila Arun, Yashpal Sharma and Ravi Jhankal to newer entrants into this super-prolific director's hall of films like Ravi Kissen (playing an over-sexed Bihari engineer) …they all know what we've known for years. The world of Shyam Benegal is filled with an anguished realization of moral and political corruption. But by God, Benegal knows how to juice our social milieu in his cinema without seeming exploitative or melodramatic. Well, done Mr Benegal!

IPL killing Bollywood?

Aaah, now these are indeed terrible times for Bollywood. One can't pin point on one thing in particular because at the end of it all, this is a vicious circle indeed. Due to IPL, big films are staying away from release. Due to vacant slots available, medium budget and smaller films are left with no choice but to come in now. Due to coming together of so many films, (most of the) buyers are thinking thrice about investing any more money into the promotion. Due to lack of promotion, audience are not even aware about the release dates, let aside getting enticed enough to step into theaters. And due to empty theaters, the industry is pretty much heard wailing - 'Oh no, the IPL is at it again. Humein cricket ne doobaa diya'. My question is - "Why not have a biggie like a 'Houseful' or a 'Kites' or a Shah Rukh/Aamir/Salman starrer dare to release during this period? If that does happen, will the situation not see a major upswing? Won't a viewer come out of home and step into the dark auditorium to land into the world of fantasy? Won't the situation completely reverse and IPL (or any other sporting event) get defeated off the ground? Why make excuses when you haven't tried at all? Why, why, why?" This is why when films like 'Well Done Abba', 'Hum Tum Aur Ghost', 'Mittal V/s Mittal', 'Prem Kaa Game' and 'My Friend Ganesha 3' release (how well are they released is a different question altogether) and are met with empty theaters all over, it is no more a case of sympathy that sets in. Instead one feels like going back to the makers and ask them all the 'why-s' as detailed above. Seriously, can one blame the makers of the films, especially in cases like 'Hum Tum Aur Ghost' and 'Well Done Abba', when buyers like Studio 18 and Big Pictures apparently didn't even go all out in their marketing and promotional campaign. Ok, so these were not masterpieces in the offering but then they deserved much more than approximately 20%-30% opening that they fetched. As for the remaining three films, well the shoddy production values and treatment made them just the right candidates for an early exit from theaters. Well, the only introspection point is, the next time a sporting or any other event is blamed, let's look at what industry is itself doing to the products coming out every Friday!

Isha was very professional in doing half naked scenes with me: Arav Chowdharry

Arav Chowdharry tells Jyothi Venkatesh that though there were quite a few hot scenes in Right Yaaa Wrong, where Isha Koppikkar and he roll on top of each other half naked passionately kissing each other, both on the bath tub and on the bed, the scenes could be deleted because they are inherent part of the script. Were you confident about making an impact with your role in Right Yaa Wrong in spite of stalwarts like Sunny and Irrfan? I had absolutely no doubt that my role in Right Yaaa Wrong will put me in the map as an actor to reckon with. It is a bold subject, which is on par with any International film with a fast pace and a lot of twists and turns. Is it true that you did not take up even a single project as long as you were working in Right Yaaa Wrong? For the past three years ever since Right Yaaa Wrong was launched, I chose not to do even a single frame of any thing, though in the past I had acted in films like Dhoom 1, Lakshya, The Perfect Husband, The Deadly Disciple and 88 Antop Hill, for the simple reason that I have had this courage of conviction that this film will work wonders as far as my career is concerned. How was the experience of doing the passionate love making scenes with Isha Koppikkar? I found Isha very easy going and we shared quite a good camaraderie on the sets. She is quite a professional actress. Though there were quite a few hot scenes in the film, where we roll on top of each other half naked and passionately kissing each other, both on the bath tub and on the bed, the scenes could not be deleted because they are inherent part of the script. Tell me about your days as Mr India and your stint as a stage artiste! Though I won the crown of Mr India way back in 1999 and have walked the ramp for Provogue, Muzafar and Meera Ali, Araya etc and have appeared in countless ad campaigns as a model, I hail from Jaipur and am basically from theatre. Both Irrfan and I have done theatre in Jaipur at the Ravindra Manch. I have acted in the play Dil Ka Haal Sune Dilwala, directed by Nikhilesh and an adaptation of The Westside Story. It had twelve songs sung by Shankar Mahadevan and Sapna Awasthi. You have acted in TV serials too! Though I had also done TV serials like Captain Vyom for Ketan Mehta and Dil Na Jaane Kyon for Zee TV, I'd like to call myself more as a model, who has also done a lot of music videos. I cherish the experience of having done quite a few ads for acclaimed directors like Shekhar Kapoor, Prahlad Kakkar, Kailas Surendranath, Kunal Kapoor, Shantanu Sheorey etc for products like Zodiac, Vimal, Old Spice, VIP Briefs and Suitcases. How do you look back at your career over the years? I am learning every day. I see myself on the screen and keep on learning not only as an actor but also as a person. I feel that I am evolving every day. The reason you would not find me wooden as an actor though I have been a ramp model and have modeled is that I was first an actor and then a model. Today the biggest of actors do ramp modeling, including Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan and the days of classification are over. What kind of roles do you seek as an actor, after Right Yaaa Wrong? I aim at anything that gives me exposure and is good stuff to get my teeth into it as an actor. In today's times, there are only script driven roles and there is nothing as such which can just be termed as negative or positive roles. I am a trained actor. I dance well and am in good shape and as such I am game to do whatever role is offered to me, whether it is out and out black or out and out white. I am self taught. Though I did not learn from any acting guru, my stint as an actor in theatre has stood me in good stead. I have to my credit five years of theatre with various groups. It made my foundation as an actor. I am an actor. I am no star son and hence have to work on my own steam to survive as an actor in the industry. I am game for whatever cinema I am called upon to do as long as I get good work. Is there any other film up your sleeves after Right Yaaa Wrong? Besides Right Ya Wrong, which has now seen the light of the day, I have one more film called Season's Greetings in which I play a super rich, successful and also good looking dude, with whom Tabu is obsessed to the point of no return, so much so that Tabu makes it a point to even keep my pictures in her desktop as screen saver. Tabu and I are in a relationship which turns sour in the film. Season's greetings is a romantic comedy which has multiple tracks, with actors like Shreyas Talpade, Sohail Khan, Ashish Choudhary, Javed Jafferey, Saurabh Shukla, Vatsal Seth, Raima Sen and Ria Sen and has a story which happens in two days. Who are your favorite directors? My favorite directors are Imtiaz Ali, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra and last but not the least Shaad Ali. I would love to work with them and be a part and parcel of their projects, whatever the role they offer may be, because I am one hundred per cent sure that even the tiniest roles in their films will take the actors who play the roles to the next level.