Saturday, December 4, 2010

Watch Online Movie Golmaal 3


Golmaal 3By Satyen K. Bordoloi

Cast: Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Mithun Chakraborty, Kunal Khemu, Tusshar Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Johny Lever, Ratna Pathak-Shah

Director: Rohit Shetty

Rating: ***

It is touted as the first trilogy of Indian cinema. It's about time that the distant cousin of Hollywood had one. Yet, what's important is that Bollywood did not need to have trilogies as one hit film has the habit of spawning a whole generation of films that look and feel like the original. "Golmaal 3" also suffers from that syndrome. Thankfully, it only feels like its previous avatars.

Despite retaining most characters from its previous outings, "Golmaal 3" enters a hitherto uncharted territory. Madhav (Warsi), Laxman (Khemu) and Lucky (Kapoor) are the three scheming sons of Pritam (Mithun) who manage to lure Vasooli (Mukesh Tiwari) into one scheme after another.

However, as luck would have it, in everything they start, they find competition from three other down-on-their-luck kids Gopal (Ajay Devgn), Laxman (Shreyas Talapade) and Dabbu (Kareena Kapoor) with funding from Puppy bhai (Johnny Lever). Gopal and Laxman are the sons of Geeta (Ratna Pathak Shah).

Inevitably, locking horns they end up destroying each others businesses. What the two groups don't know is that their parents are unrequited ex-lovers.

When Dabbu finds out she schemes and unites the two lovers in a marriage without letting their children know about their step-brothers.

All hell breaks loose when they finally find out and a hilarious war engulfs between the two groups right under their parents noses.

Like its predecessors "Golmaal 3" has enough laughs going through the film to keep the momentum.

Johnny Lever as the Ghajini-style forgetful don who adopts a new filmy avatar every few minutes has the audience in splits.

The few spoofs of old Hindi films, full of camera pans and quick zooms, will nostalgically tickle the funny bone. The twists of various popular phrases and known adages, raises more than a chuckle.

Mithun gets to do his "Disco Dancer" once again. Theatre veteran Ratna Pathak-Shah waltzes through the film with aplomb. Arshad Warsi is his usual tapori self while Shreyas Talapade and Kunal Khemu do a good job.

It is however the beefed up Tushar Kapoor who seems to be trying too hard, and despite raising giggles, fails to arouse laughter. In the first part he, looking the most vulnerable, was the funniest of the lot.

Director Rohit Shetty tries his best in merging comic vignettes into one comprehensible film. However, had it not been for the funny dialogues, his lack of directorial verve would have shone out.

He is spared the fate by some ingenious dialogue writing by Robin Bhatt ("Aashiqui", "Sadak", "Baazigar") and Yunus Sajawal.

Now that Bollywood finally has a trilogy, will it please also make one that also has some real standing in the world of cinema?

Watch Online Movie Anjaana Anjaani


Anjaana AnjaaniDirector: Sidharth Anand

Producer: Sajid Nadiadwala

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, Zayed Khan

Stars: ***

The challenge that film walas set themselves in today’s day and age is to create new parameters and break all the rules of traditional Bollywood film-making. And while they experiment, the audiences are served with a fine smorgasbord of feisty films to titillate their palette.

The experiment that director, Siddharth Anand, has tried in Anjaana Anjaani, is to use just two major characters in the entire film - Ranbir Kapoor (Akash) and Priyanka Chopra (Kiara). Both these gorgeous young people have been beaten by life and decide to end it all by jumping off the New York Bridge.

Of course they don’t finally do anything of the sort but make a decision to spend twenty days of their lives doing “things they have always wanted to” (now haven’t we heard that in a billion Hollywood films? The Bucket List leaps to the mind)

While fundamentally the script does have only two characters interacting with one another, changing each other and impacting each other’s lives, but there are a host of peripheral characters that make their appearance, sometimes to take the story forward, sometimes to provide the background of the characters of Akash and Kiara.

Akash, an investment banker feels that he is a failure because he took huge business risks thereby sinking the business and his partners as well. Kiara, on the other hand, has had a failed relationship with a lifelong partner.

Fed up, they both decide to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. However, both land up on the same bridge at the same time.

Anjaana Anjaani, is a fun film but it tries too hard. After the interesting start, it falls into the rut of the couple hitting the road, having a great time and falling in love with each other, and then (surprise!) deciding not to commit suicide.

Yes, they strengthen each other in many ways, more so by helping each other to get in touch with their deepest desires and fears, thus while exploring the other, and they also come face to face with a few things about themselves.

Ranbir Kapoor is spectacular but one can’t say the same about Priyanka, who seems to be showing the pressure to perform. Basically, there’s an overdose of cuteness by Piggy Chops, which can get a bit over the top sometimes.

The movie seems to be the college goer’s delight, and aimed at that class, since the lifestyle that every yuppy would aspire for is all there.

Though how, when Kiara is out of a job and Akash, bankrupt, can the couple afford their trips to Las Vegas and boating trips in the Atlantic, is anyone’s guess.

But these are a few minor glitches and you aren’t supposed to ask these questions anyway. You are expected to just sit doing ‘awww…’ at the cute couple; wishing you were there when they get drunk on beer, go party hopping, gamble at the casino, go to all night parties and what have you. Basically, though the surmise is different, there’s really no meat on the bones of the film.

The whole suicide bid scene by the couple, which by the way, carries on for pretty long, as they make one failed attempt after another, is just not serious enough. After all, it’s pretty serious to want to kill yourself, right? You have to be pretty sad to want to do it, right? So what are all the fun and games about? But that’s just another question you are not supposed to ask.

Siddharth Anand has handled the movie with style. He’s aimed at the young city Indian and I’d say a lot of sweet young things are going to love this film.

The look and feel is slick and stylish, with lots of trendy locales and situations.

Both the protagonists look very hot, (though now that we are on the topic, about it, what has Priyanka done to her lips? There’s a permanent pout there.) Ranbir does an uber hot, bare chested, muscled appearance; he also does a pole dance, in a gay bar, where he strips with abandon.

In fact, judging by the number of gay jokes and the fact that he’s lusted after by so many gays in the film, it appears that the attempt is to make Ranbir a pin up boys for the gays as well as the girls!

The end is predictable and falls into the rut of the love stories. The dilemmas are resolved, both Kiara and Akash decide to face their demons and go their separate ways.

Finally they realize that they cannot do without each other (of course the realization comes during a long and tedious song sequence). Then comes…what else?...the chase to the airport, the race to the meeting spot, and voila! The lovers unite, and the audience goes, ‘sigh!’

Sweet! Nice music by Vishal Shekhar, great weekend watch for the younger lot!

Final word? Shall we just say that Anjaan Anjaani is Chicken Soup for the Romantic Urbanites Soul

Watch Online Movie Crook


CrookBy Subhash K. Jha

Starring: Emran Hashmi, Neha Sharma, Arjan Bajwa

Directed by: Mohit Suri

Rating: **

Damn! Why didn't we think of sending the amazing super-hero Emran Hashmi to Australia before? Emran Saab's solution to global malevolence as provided in this disappointing mismash of masala and headlines is simple enough.

It's good to be bad. So says the smooth-sayer. Fair enough. If only the director had not decided to apply the motto to the treatment of this film.

At last our revenge on the Aussie attacks. This film is the ultimate comeuppance for the Australians… those so-and-sos who have been maltreating our hapless students who go to the firangi land to garner education and come back black and blue.

Blue is the colour that director Mohit Suri favours for his lurid leery look at gori babes in Melbourne. There's a gori chick and a brown chick for the Chick-let hero to chose from. He sleeps with the former and falls in love with the latter. As simple as that. Indian women are to revered. Foreigners are to be… you know!

In trying to do a ferocious flag-waving trick over the complex issue of racism and colour prejudice, "Crook" ends up making the Australian population look like a bunch of psychotic killers bashing and burning the good desi boys who have gone Under to gain gyan. Is this Australia or Chicago during the Prohibition?

But wait. Suddenly the script decides to tilt the imbalance. Now the goras are not that evil. It seems Indians too create an obstinate culture block when they go abroad. They just don't know how to blend.

Thoroughly confused in its politics, "Crook" is one of those films that attempts to combine conviction with entertainment and falls between the two stools in the absence of those tools that lend skilful curves and slants to the storytelling. The narrative is uneven lopsided and askew. The pace goes from sluggish to frantic within a few reels providing us with no space to observe the characters' motivations beyond a cursory glance.

Mohit Suri who revealed a substantial grip over his material and characters in "Kalyug" here seems undecided about where to take his plot. The people who populate the storytelling seem to start off on page 1 of the newspaper and then head towards the cartoon section.

Technical aspects, another strong aspect of Mahesh Bhatt's films, are on this occasion just about okay.

The performances miss the intensity of Bhatts' "Gangster" and "Kalyug" by a wide margin. But Neha Sharma makes an expressive Hindi-cinema debut.

As for our super-hero … Move over, Rajnikanth. Emran Hashmi is more robotic in his expressions than you can ever be.

Watch Online Movie Aakrosh


AakroshBy Satyen K. Bordoloi

Starring: Ajay Devgn, Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Bipasha Basu

Directed by: Priyadarshan

Rating: ***1/2

Caste based atrocity is one of the worst, chronic and a few millennia old injustice of the world. Yet its continuing prevalence, especially in India, is one of its best kept open-secrets. India's vibrant cinema has paid scant attention to it. The commercial venture "Aakrosh" comes as a late but welcome populist attempt to correct this gross neglect.

After three Delhi medical students disappear from a village in Bihar, two CBI officials Sidhant (Akshaye Khanna) and Pratap (Ajay Devgn) are sent for investigation. They encounter not just an inefficient police, but an openly antagonistic one. Their attempts to uncover the truth lays bare a Pandora's box of corruption, illicit power-play, ruthless casteism and murders and abductions to maintain the status quo.

When all official means fail to bring the guilty to book, the two committed men are left with no course but to resort to every alternate means possible to deliver justice in a failed state.

"Aakrosh" is loud and sometimes crass in typical Bollywood fashion and, as they say, its fiction. What it is not - is a lie. In its own way, it lays bare the power structures that obstruct justice and thus the true growth of India, all because of the corrupt collusion of the police, bureaucracy and politics that uphold age old casteism. The film thus uses a lie to tell the ugly truth of our society.

"Aakrosh" is also rife with analogies. The Batman and Robin team of Sidhant and Pratap is a team of an upper-class Brahmin and a lower-caste Dalit fighting for the same cause but in their own ways.

When the straightforward methods of the no-nonsense Brahmin fails, they have to resort to the street-smart ways of the Dalit to bring the guilty to book. This is perhaps a message to the subjugated masses of the country that justice has to be delivered at any cost, and it is the oppressed that have to use any means available to do so.

There are factual inconsistencies, like the brazen manner in which the local police insubordinates a CBI inquiry.

Akshaye Khanna is unconvincing while Ajay Devgn is believable as the quiet but angry ex-army major who has suffered the consequences of being a Dalit. Paresh Rawal, the master-key like actor who slides into any role, plays a slimy but smiling police officer with aplomb and epitomizes the rarely acknowledged truth, that in rural areas the police is not part of the solution, but is often the main problem.

Robin Bhatt and Akash Khurana's writing is crisp and direct. They spare the audience needless preaching, thus giving the message that it is time for some action and justice instead.

Sometimes you have to like a film just because its heart is in the right place, and because it dares to say something few have said before. "Aakrosh" is one such convincing film whose demerits are swept under the carpet of its boldness.

Of course, even a commercial venture like this cannot correct a few thousand years of injustice. But at least it can hold a mirror to the disgust in our society. Thankfully, if not gracefully enough, Aakrosh holds a correct and sturdy mirror.

Watch Online Movie Hisss


HisssCast: Malika Sherawat, Divya Dutta, Priyanka Rawat, Irrfan Khan, Jeff Doucette

Director: Jennifer Lynch

Rating: ** 1/2

Mallika Sherawat has sizzled on screen again with her ‘naagin’ avatar in Hisss, which got released today both in India as well as in other counties. The movie is all about the usual revenge taking story of a female snake, played by the sexy Mallika. Her partner was taken away from her by an American scientist when they were in the most pleasant situation of mating.

Jeff Douchette plays the scientist, George States, who dares to enter this forbidden jungle in the Malabar Coast. Unable to gauge the result of his act, he takes to his hi-tech lab for conducting experiments on it.

He is unaware of the fact that the female counterpart of this python sized cobra is hunting for her partner and is in mood of taking revenge from the entire human civilization in the cities.

One will surely enjoy the transformation of a snake to a strikingly beautiful and attractive woman (Mallika Sherawat). Her desperate search for her lover makes her full of vengeance and she instantly becomes ready with her fangs to destroy any person coming her way.

Mallika has played the role of a snake woman very convincingly as she was seen kissing and licking her partner, the great cobra. She also shed the bare essentials she used to wear for the sake of turning a ‘naagin’.

Irrfan Khan in the role of a detective called Vikram Gupta keeps chasing this sexy killer ‘snake woman’ and he is in his usual form. We can’t term it to be an excellent performance.

A talented actress like Divya Dutta has nothing much to do in the film but she has enacted it sincerely.

Lots of special effects can be seen, which never have seen in Bollywood earlier. The later part of the film will reveal whether ‘naagin’ becomes successful in taking her revenge.

Even though lots of hype was created about the nude scenes of Mallika, there is nothing new or exciting to watch in the film. The new generation that has grown up listening to the ‘Ichchadhari naagin’ stories might just give a look at it but that may also go above their heads.

It’s just an effort to revive the ‘naagin’ stories, which have hardly any relevance in today’s life. Well, if you want to feel frightened by those sexy and angry lenses of Mallika then go ahead in this weekend for Hisss!

Watch online Movie Rakht Charitra


Rakht CharitraBy Subhash K Jha

Starring Vivek Oberoi, Shatrughan Sinha, Abhimanyu Singh, Radhika Apte, Zarina Wahab

Directed by Ram Gopal Varma

Rating: *** ½

Like exhilaration appreciation and charity, injustice has no bounds.

Ram Gopal Varma’s Rakht Charitra is arguably the most violent Indian film ever made. Humanbeings get their heads crushed in sugarcane grinders (this sequence comes long before Darshan Zariwala playing a contented cop, sucks benignly on a piece of sugarcane), heads are crushed with large boulders (easy enough, considering the film is shot on rugged rocky terrain) legs and hands are chopped off with sickles and hatchets…In brief, human life seems to be snuffed purely for anarchic purposes.

The violence in Varma’s new film could be considered overpowering in another context. Not here. Not this time.Violent tension is the crux and the core spirit of Rakht Charitra. You cannot take away the arms from the man, unless it’s one of those aforementioned limb-choppers at work again.Ouch.

Returning to a territory that Ramu knows by heart (if heart is the space you can mention in this film’s extra-aggressive context) the director has fashioned a bludgeoning homage to Coppola’s The Godfather. This is the Sicillian mafia transposed with frenetic fluency into the semi-rural Andhra milieu where the caste system fosters the most barbaric acts of violence that man has ever conceived.

Varma doesn’t flinch from the sight of unimitigated brutality. Often you wonder if the dark recesses of the subconscious that Varma manifests are actually the spaces that the director enjoys peering into. But then when you look closer into the eyes of his ravaged and ravaging characters, you see profound regret and fear barely dicernible to the naked eye.

As usual Varma’s cameraman (Amol Rathod) treats the masculine hinterland like a voyager walking through virgin territory with proprietorial arrogance. The semi-rural setting is captured in lazy greys and toasted browns. These are colours that are typical of Varma’s badland where marauders from the world of politics and crime rub shoulders.

The mayhem is disturbing in its majesty.Remarkably Varma avoids slow-motion slayings.The hardhitting impact of the killings comes from the normal tone and unadorned shot takings which signify a disturbance in the environment too deep to be dramatized and yet too fascinating to be ignored.

In one sequence while the villain Bukka (Abhimanyu Singh, outstanding) crushes a victim’s leg, Bukka’s mother casually leaves for a prayer meeting truning around to ask her son if he’d like to accompany her. Humour in unique-form?

Drama there is in plenty in the narrative. Taking Coppola to the Naxalite belt couldn’t be easy.Varma has earlier taken The Godfather to the underworld (in Company) and to the world of extra-constitutional politics (Sarkar). In fact many of the domestic scenes in Rakht Charitra with the ladies of the house cooking and serving meals impervious to the murderous discussions on the dining-table, remind you of Sarkar.

However the familiar tone and territory do not assume a lack of novelty in the narrative. Though Ramu walks the known path in Rakht Charitra he nonetheless infuses the drama with layers of virgin velocity.

The introduction of Shatrughan Sinha’s character as a wily star- politician who uses Pratap (Vivek Oberoi) to settle his own scores, comes at a very clever juncture in the plot when the narrative could lose momentum. Sinha’s imperious politician’s part is an act of bravura done as a sly homage to Andhra Pradesh’s immortal neta N T Rama Rao.

Besides Shatrughan Sinha, Zarina Wahab, Sushant Singh, Ashwini Kalsekar and the unknown actor Omkar who plays the Muslim casualty of Bukka’s barbarism are unforgettable in their expressions of elemental angst.

Some sequences such as the villain Bukka’s murder in a congested apartment in Hyderabad are done with such savage grace that you wonder if the director has entered the territory to savour its shock-value along with the audience. After Bukka is gunned down Pratap’s men leave the apartment turning around to throw a ball back at mute child.Innocence during the time of retribution?

The film’s all-too-familiar drama of doom and depravity is delineated with demoniacal passion.

While Vivek Oberoi turns in a restrained performance, aligned and aggrandized by a smouldering sense of injustice and vendetta, Abhimanyu Singh as his utterly depraved adversary turns in an amazing animalistic performance. In his savage bestial and psychotic affinity to self-gratification Abhimanyu Singh is the most terrifying villain seen in Hindi cinema.Take bow, Mr Brute.That’s quite a rousing performance there.

Men being yanked out of rickety busses in the middle of the wilderness as women watch helplessly…such are the nightmares on which a society founded on inequality renews its licence to kill the human spirit.

Varma excels at conveying the despair of the damned. Not much room for tenderness here. But hang on. Varma weaves a sweet little love story between our outlawed hero Pratap and his college sweetheart (Radhika Apte, expressive and endearing). How he creates space for sensitivity in a canvas cluttered with brutal creatures, is a miracle.

Rakht Charitra enters a world of oppressive lawlessness. It chokes the very breath out of every definition of justice and benevolence and makes the comic violence of the badland in Dabangg look like a bad joke.

Yes, Ram Gopal Varma is back in ferocious form. Not much to rejoice here. The joy of watching a film on people on such a joyless journey into self-destruction is in picking those shards of broken glass out of our savagely mutilated social order.

And yes there’s the jot of watching Vivek Oberoi return to the intense form he had displayed in his debut performance in Varma’s Company.

Watch Movie Online Jhootha Hi Sahi


Jhootha Hi SahiStarring: John Abraham, Pakhi, Raghu Ram, Manasi Scott, Anaitha Nair, Omar Khan, Alishka Varde, George Young, Prahsant Chawla, Madhavan, Nandana Sen

Director: Abbas Tyrewala

Rating: ***

Who says lying is bad? Watch Jhootha Hi Sahi and you will come to understand that lying will get you everywhere. In the twenty first century when everyone is desperately seeking their soul mate, lying is perhaps the best way to find that perfect someone for yourself.

After the phenomenal success of Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Abbas Tyrewala is back with his next romantic comedy about a simple guy who lies his way to love.

John Abraham plays the role of Siddharth aka (Sid) who runs a bookshop in London with his Pakistani friend Omar (played by Raghu Ram). In true Bollywood style the bookshop is called ‘Kagaz Ke Phool’. Sid is already in a committed relationship with Krutika (Manasi Scott), who controls all aspects of his life.

Accidentally, Sid’s phone number gets listed on a suicide helpline flier and he starts getting calls from unknown people attempting suicide. Being the good guy that our hero is, he starts counseling these lost souls.

One night Mishka (Pakhi) calls up the suicide helpline and Sid stops her from committing the act. The two become good friends and start having regular phone conversations every night.

One day Mishka comes to Sid’s bookshop, Sid recognizes her immediately but Mishka cannot. The duo start dating, John puts up a nice double act in this movie.

During day he dates Mishka as the stammering bespectacled geek while in the night he has phone conversations with her as a confident young man. The movie has the light and fresh feel of the Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan starrer ‘You’ve Got Mail’. Will Mishka forgive Sid when she finds out about his lies? You will have to find that out for yourself.

The film has strong ensemble cast that has put up some really good performances. John Abraham looks convincing in his guy-next-door appearance. Raghu Ram of the ‘MTV Roadies’ fame puts up a commendable act with his superb comic timing. The scenic beauty of London and its locales are used extensively to add to the fresh appeal of the film.

AR Rahman’s music does a bang-up job and stays in your mind long after you leave the movie hall. However the movie gets tad bit boring in the end thanks to its extended and over-the top climax. Overall Jhootha Hi Sahi is the perfect weekend rom -com to watch with your family and friends.

Watch Online Movie Guzaarish


GuzaarishCast: Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Monikangana Dutta, Suhel Seth

Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Rating: ****

Breathe a sigh of relief. During a year when cacophonic crassness masquerading as comic entertainment has been sanctioned by critics and the masses, "Guzaarish" comes along to remind us that excellence is alive in our cinema.

Ironically this wonderful work of art, nuanced and magical in its portrayal of an unstoppable spirit's quest to juice life to its fullest, is about dying. If the journey towards death in art can be so mystically explored, then let's embrace mortality as a stepping stone to immortality and a film about dying as a sign of cinema not dying on us. Not yet.

Only those who suffer the numbing pain of isolation would know what it feels like. Dilip Kumar in "Devdas", Guru Dutt in "Pyasa", Meena Kumari in "Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam" and Nutan in "Bandini" communicated to the audience the indescribable pain of solitude.

Ethan, as played by Hrithik Roshan in "Guzaarish", is so bemused by adversity that he can actually look at his own suffering with dispassionate humour.

"Guzaarish" is a joyous, rapturous and ecstatic celebration of life. Those familiar with the art of Sanjay Leela Bhansali know how ably and ecstatically he transports his characters into a universe of seamless drama played at an octave where most cinematic symphonies crack up and topple over into high-pitched extravagance.

Not Bhansali's cinema. Played at the highest possible scale, his drama unfolds in wave after wave of rapturous splendour. His characters occupy a space that defies definition and seduces audiences into celebrating a state of sublimity and splendour.

Ethan's inert physicality is alchemized into an ambience of animated joy. His spirit dances and sings at the sheer pleasure of every moment that is given to him to live. He radiates joy. We feel his profound happiness at the gift of life.

No film in living memory has brought out the sheer blessing of being alive with such spirit and glory. While Shah Rukh Khan's "Devdas" in Bhansali's opulent opera was a character broken in spirit, Hrithik's Ethan in "Guzaarish" is irreparably damaged in body. But his spirit soars, his eyes light up like thousands of stars every time Sophie walks in.

That Sophie is played by Aishwarya Rai is a stroke of genius that goes a long way in giving "Guzaarish" its flavour of exceptional elegance.

No other director brings out the quiet grace and the understated beauty of this screen diva's personality with as much intelligence and spontaneity as Bhansali. In "Guzaarish", Aishwarya is far more delicate and nuanced in conveying the unspoken pain of a love that has no tomorrow than she was in "Devdas".

Aishwarya imbues her role with a resplendent grace. Love in "Guzaarish" is expressed with subtle smirks, gentle smiles and hints of a smothered passion that could erupt any time, if only destiny didn't choose to be so mean to the spirited.

The scenes between Ethan and Sophie, the backbone of Ethan's spine-challenged life, radiate an inner beauty and wisdom and underline the director's enormous understanding of the self-negation that a love relationship requires.

"Guzaarish" is Bhansali's most tender and evocative film to date. It layers the pain of a dying body with the passion of an unstoppable spirit as manifested in Hrithik's skilled and effortless performance as a quadriplegic who pledges to make every moment of his limited "sau gram zindagi" pleasurable for himself an those around him.

Barring Amitabh Bachchan in "Black" there has never been a better performance in a Bhansali film than Hrithik's in "Guzaarish".

He grabs Ethan's role and makes the dying character come alive in delightful waves of provocative histrionics.

And if we're talking chemistry between Hrithik and Aishwarya, then let's get one thing clear - this ain't "Dhoom". It's something far deeper and satisfying.

The other performance that catches your attention is Aditya Roy Kapoor's. He is natural and vivacious and in-sync with the film's spirit of celebrating life. Monikangna Dutt is a looker. In her limited space, she lends some appeal to the proceedings.

Suhel Seth, Shernaaz Patel and Rajit Kapur also make a lingering impact in a film that you carry home with you in an inviolable place in your heart.

A word about Bhansali's music score. The songs communicate the rich tapestried emotions of lives that are determined to smile through an extraordinary tragedy. Every piece of music and song in "Guzaarish" echoes the film's incandescent soul.

The film's technical excellence, particularly Sudeep Chatterjee's cinematography, is not dazzling and flamboyant in the way it was in "Devdas".

In "Guzaarish", the appeal is far more delicate and subtle. The deep but sober colours on screen reach out to you to enrich your life in ways that cinema was always meant to, until it was waylaid by the hooligans and imposters posing as filmmakers.

"Guzaarish" is the real thing. A big, beautiful, dazzling emotional movie experience. You won't see a better film this year.

Watch Online Movie Allah Ke Banday


Allah Ke BandayStarring: Naseeruddin Shah, Sharman Joshi, Faruk Kabir

Written & Directed by Faruk Kabir

Rating: ***

A feeling of foreboding and damnation builds up in the narration from the first frame itself. Here’s a gloriously gutsy film exploring the underbelly of Mumbai through the lives of two slumkids who grow up in identical circumstances but with somewhat disparate values.

First-time director Faruk Kabir displays remarkable skill in creating a pastiche of mammoth crime and little punishment. The pace leaves meager space for grace. And yet Allah Ke Bande creates a world filled with acute aggression repression and damnation with a reasonable amount of paciness to the edgy narrative.

The world that Faruk Kabir’s characters inhabit is reminiscent of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, Irrfan Kamal’s underrated Thanks, Maa, Mahesh Manjrekar’s City Of Gold and Chandan Arora’s Striker. Deriving its lingering study of juvenile delinquency from these sources Allah Ke Banday moves forward and acquires a life of its own.

The gripping narrative takes us through the world of petty crime and underage lawlessness non-judgementally. Faruk Kabir’s deeply-felt concern for children who dodder dangerously on the edge of society is never over-done. This is a hard and disturbing look-see at quicksand existence. The director creates a world of uncertainties with unwavering confidence.

The nervous anxiety of the characters is rather aptly replicated in the film’s rough and unvarnished look. Kabir’s cameraman Vishal Sinha goes through the rugged merciless slums searching for only Allah-knows what.

The actors wear their unwashed demeanour casually, so much so that at times we forget the existence of the camera. At the same time there are uneven sections in the narrative that mar what could otherwise have been a stand-out exposition on the genesis of social outcasts.

Sharman Joshi and Faruk Kabir play the two driving forces of the plot with a deep understanding of their characters and the milieu. Both seem to have got right their characters’ physicality and then proceeded to explore their inner worlds. For a first-time actor and director Faruk Kabir handles both his jobs with more than a reasonable amount of compelling confidence.

The others in the cast merge into the relentless mileu. As usual the extraordinarily brilliant Naseeruddin Shah is under-used. Whenever he shows up on screen an extra dimension is effortlessly added to the proceedings.

Notches above the run-of-the-mill entertainer Allah Ke Banday reveals a genuine concern for juvenile delinquency. The lives on the streets never looked more dangerous and less glamorous. This time crime is not glorified. Thank God for small mercies.

Watch Online Movie Break KE Baad


Break KE BaadBy Satyen K. Bordoloi

Cast: Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sharmila Tagore, Lillete Dubea, Shahana Goswami, Navin Nischol, Yudhistir Urs

Director: Danish Aslam

Rating: ** 1/2

Bollywood has a sub-genre of romantic-comedies meant for urban, chic teenagers, first pioneered with its full frontal glory by our very own coffee drinking Karan Johar.

These films, and the people that inhabit it, are nothing like you have ever known, or are ever likely to know. But the reality inside it is so glossy and Cinderellaesque that everyone aspires for this free floating, un-rooted, but super fun unreality.

"Break Ke Baad" is a fun example of that.

Aaliya (Deepika Padukone) and Abhay (Imran Khan) are childhood sweethearts whose sweet course of sugarcane love encounters the roadblock of youthful ambition. Aaliya, a fiercely independent, risk-taking person decides to go to Australia to pursue her acting ambition, thus breaking the relationship. Both make mistakes, but eventually discover themselves only to realize that it's not that easy to say 'talaq' to a love, that has now matured.

"Break Ke Baad" is the ultimate, teenage, escape, love fantasy of 2010, much like "Jaane Tu…" in 2008 and "Love Aaj Kal" in 2009, in whose magical world, almost everything happens coincidentally and all loose ends are tied up perfectly in the end and all that you see makes sense. But we know that such a mythical, unreality can exist only in Bollywood.

Yet, the film is good in its own sub-genre. The strongest part of the film is a well-baked script; tight, crisp and thankfully contemporary and often rooted dialogues of Renuka Kunzru, which are funny at times, and profound in a cliched way at others.

Yet the film will never make it to the annals of Bollywood greats. Neither does it have the cuteness of Aamir Khan's launch vehicle "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak", or the undertone of class struggle depicted with extreme melodrama in "Maine Pyaar Kiya", the overtone of struggle against tradition of "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" or the excessive sugar-pulp and totally nonexistent reality of "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (KKHH) - a film which this one pays hearty tributes to.

The conflict is mostly in the minds of the protagonist, and not real. Ironically its fault would perhaps be that it is not unreal enough like KKHH.

Though the characterizations, at least in the beginning and in a few side characters, has the smell (or stench if you consider the escapist drama) of reality, it flies off to KKHH land. At least the old films were caricatures, exaggerations of people you would have encountered somewhere. No such luck with "Break Ke Baad".

But it is fodder for teen fantasy, seeped in the dual confusion of maturing while finding true love. It's over two hour ride is fun, full time-pass and paisa vasool.

Movie Review Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Jee


Dil Toh Bachcha Hai JeeCast: Ajay Devgn, Emran Hashmi, Omi Vaidya, Shruti Hasan, Shazahn Padamese, Shraddha Das

Director Madhur Bhandarkar

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai Jee is a movie, which as the title suggests, is about the essence of a human heart which almost always retains its child like quality. The heart is where life's entire essence is.

Thus to prove this point, director Madhur Bhandarkar has significantly dealt with the subject of love in a very humorous way.

The movie stars Ajay Devgn portraying the character of Naren, a middle aged manager of a multinational Bank. There he falls head over heels in love with a young girl barely out of her teens called June Pinto, played by Shazahn Padamese.

Omi Vaidya as Milind Kelkar is the typical idealistic poet living in his own transient world has a deep crush for a girl called Gungun Sarkar played by Shraddha Das. Gungun who is a very ambitious and career minded gal has a thing for the playboy Abhay played by Emran Hashmi.

Abhay or Emran is strongly attracted to a young and vibrant gal called Nikki, played by Shruti Hassan who is an out and out loud mouth. Nikki does not hesitate to call a spade a spade, a trait which is simply loved by the Casanova Abhay.

This entire gamut of affairs and secret liaisons creates a total chaos and as each event gets entangled with the other the movie becomes one big platform of drama and melodrama.

Madhur Bhandarkar, who is known for making realistic cinema, has put in the flavor of realism in this movie too, with the characters all very believable and something which a common man can relate to. The music has been scored by Pritam. The movie releases on the 28th of January 2011 so watch out for this one!

Download Free Songs Tees Maar Khan


Tees Maar KhanMusic Directors: Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani

Lyricists: Anvita Dutt, Vishal Dadlani and Shirish Kunder

Singers: Sonu Niigaam, Sunidhi Chauhan, Vishal Dadlani, Sukhwinder Singh, Shreya Ghoshal, Suzanne Dmello, Shekhar Ravjiani, Kamal Khan, Raja Hasan, Prajakta Shukre, Harshit Saxena, Debojit Saha, and Abhijeet Sawant

Rating: ***1/2

If you thought that "Munni badnaam hui" from "Dabangg" will take the cake for being the most popular item number this year, then think again! The song "Sheila ki jawani" from the forthcoming film "Tees Maar Khan" is ready to give it a tough competition.

The film has music by composer duo Vishal-Shekhar and offers five originals and four remix tracks. All the songs from the album are fun, energetic and pacy.

The album starts with a bang with the energy-packed title track that is the only song written and composed by Shirish Kunder. The highlight of the song is singer Sonu Niigam has crooned it all by himself in many different voices including that of a woman. The song has all the ingredients of being a chartbuster with a change in tempo. With engaging beats and dialogues, the song gives a good start to the soundtrack.

The title track has a re-mixed version too.

Next comes "Sheila ki jawani" sung brilliantly by Sunidhi Chauhan by ample support from Vishal Dadlani. It is an instantly likeable song. The beats are very interesting that makes the listener get up and shake a leg. It's sure to be a favourite at the DJ consoles.

This one too has a re-mixed version.

The album takes a slight change with a qawwali, which has become a novelty in film albums nowadays. The song called 'Wallah re wallah', has Kamal Khan, Raja Hasan, Shreya Ghoshal and Shekhar Ravjiani behind the mike. The song has good beats, making it pacy and interesting.

There is a remix of this song too.

Then comes an average track titled "Badey dilwale", which is sung by Sukhwinder Singh and Shreya Ghoshal and additional voices by Suzanne Dmello, Vishal and Shekhar. It is also a fast-paced and high on beats song, but it fails to create the same impact like other songs in the album.

The remixed version too adds nothing extraordinary to the original.

Finally, there is "Happy ending" that has been sung by the participants of music reality shows. The singers include Prajakta Shukre, Harshit Saxena, Abhijeet sawant and Debojit Saha. It is quite an average song.

On the whole, the album is a must hear and a fun package of dance numbers that will keep the energy high.

Watch Online Movie Phas Gaye Re Obama


Phas Gaye Re ObamaCast: Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dhupia, Amol Gupte, Amit Sial, Sanjay Mishra, Manu Rishi among others

Director: Subhash Kapoor

Rating: ****

Bollywood has proved yet again that it is not always an ensemble star cast and a big budget that works for a film.

Phas Gaye Re Obama is the perfect example of a film where it is the content made better through superb performances that wins the hearts of not only the audience but also the critics.

It may be recalled here that many films hitting theaters in 2010 were critically acclaimed movies in spite of the fact that they were made at a paltry budget (read Udaan, Tere Bin Laden, Love Sex Aur Dhokha).

Phas Gaye Re Obama begins from where we see the NRI character Om completely bankrupt in the recession hit America. Om, played by Rajat Kapoor, returns to India to acquire the necessary amount of money required to keep his house in the US.

But as soon as he lands on Indian soil, Om is kidnapped by underworld dons. The gang who has kidnapped Om are of the idea that he is still a rich man and therefore he will give them money to cope the recession.

Phas Gaye Re Obama is the first film which deals with the innovative subject of recession hitting a terrorist gang! And it is this subject which makes the film a must watch.

Something that all film connoisseurs can look forward to is the brilliant screenplay of Phas Gaye Re Obama. Though the cast is nothing to boast about, their acting skills completely overshadow their image.

The editing of the Subhash Kapoor project which hits theaters today falls short of expectations at certain places, but the story and performances make up for minor glitches.

Watch Online Movie Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Se


Khelein Hum Jee Jaan SeCast: Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sikandar Kher, Vishakha Singh

Director: Ashutosh Gowariker

Rating: ****

There's ongoing sense of serenity compounded by a feeling of sincerity and transparency in the cinema of Ashutosh Gowariker. This filmmaker never hides life's most essential truth in cinematic subterfuge. Rather, Gowariker goes the other way.

He strips the emotional content of cinema of its accessories and trappings and leaves the screen with just that right amount of drama that does complete justice to the characters without making them a casualty of excessive creative freedom.

Celebrate the creative freedom of a fearless and honest cinema. "Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" (KHJJS) is an inherently dramatic story about a large group of young people who fought an unknown chapter in India's freedom movement, told on screen with a minimum amount of flag-waving bravura.

The source material, Manini Chatterjee's novel, is open to an acutely pompous and self-important treatment. But when has Gowariker's cinema ever been a prey to pomposity?

If he can make Akbar's court look so cool, casual and muted in spite of its inbuilt flamboyancy, the super-committed sepoys of self-government in KHJJS are not capable of even a second of verbal or visual overstatement.

Going to a world that is strongly redolent of historic ramifications, Gowariker pulls the real-life material out of the textbook and transforms it into an eminently engaging story about anti-colonialism.

This is certainly not Gowariker's first visit into Colonial India. Who can forget the director's neo-classic "Lagaan" where one villager gathered a whole team of ragged villagers to beat the Brits at their own game.

KHJJS is not as playful, lyrical and lush as "Lagaan". This time Gowariker tells his story with brutal straightforwardness, a quality that is a hallmark of this exceptional director's cinema, here more prominently on display than in any of his earlier works.

The epic satire of "Lagaan", the grandiosity of "Jodhaa-Akbar" and the transparent nationalism of "Swades" peep out of Gowariker's latest work in measured doses, though never in a way that suggests any calculated attempt to create a pre-given ambience.

The setting, Chittagong in Bengal in the 1930s, is created with a fluency, virility and scrupulousness that make us believe in the characters and their mission from the word go. Watching out for those sleeping-dogs of over-statement, the narrative moves across a an artless criss-cross of patriotic plotting without tripping over in anxiety and nervousness.

A sense of calm camaraderie prevails even during moments of unsettling bloodshed. This is no one-day mataram. The patriotic zeal never felt more tranquil before. This is history without hysteria. In KHJJS, each one of 70-odd characters seems born into his or her respective parts.

Much of supporting cast does what it is expected to. It supports the drama and the tension with restrain and skill. Standing tall in the supporting cast is Sikandar Kher expressing indignance and ire without going over-the-top.

Deepika Padukone sheds her pouty movie-siren's image confidently. She gets unexpected competition from debutante Vishakha Singh who seems to get under the skin of her character.

But the film finally 'belongs' to Abhishek Bachchan in the way that films become the property of actors who own characters not for a display of histrionic vanity but because they grasp instinctively the world which the character inhabits.

Abhishek's empathy with his character is complete and unimpeachable. As Surjya Sen, he conveys a muffled but obstinate idealism. Abhishek's eyes become his window to a world where pain governs the journey to a greater glory.

Just as it's impossible to imagine Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" and "Guzaarish" without Amitabh Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan, or Gowariker's "Swades" without Shah Rukh Khan, what, we wonder, would Surjya Sen be if Abhishek had not played him with such quelled anger, dignity and grace?

Or for that matter where in our cinema today would history find a place if Gawariker was not committed to making compelling films on the indelible relationship between the present and the past?

On the technical front, Kiran Deohans' cinematography and Nitin Desai's art direction are subtle delicate but evocative. Sohail Sen's music fits in like a glove with the film's theme and mood of restrained revolution.

Don't expect the bombastic patriotism of Manoj Kumar's "Kranti" or the tax-exemptible desperate nobility of "Gandhi - My Father". The effectiveness of Gowariker's drama is drawn from the director's determination to keep his drama denuded of exhibitionism.

"Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey" is the kind of rare and precious cinema on the theme of idealism, nobility and nationalism that is being progressively pushed out of our cinema by crass boorish comedies.

It must be seen not because it retrieves a forgotten chapter from our history, but simply because it's a story so well told you forget it's a true story.

The truth of the moment in the cinema of Gowariker is the only truth that matters for the audience. The rest is history.