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Category: MxM JOURNALISM REVIEW

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the Reviews: Housefull 2

    Housefull 2

     

    Key Cast: Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Riteish Deshmukh, Shreyas Talpade, Asin, Jacqueline Fernandez, Zarine Khan, Shahzan Padamsee, Rishi Kapoor, Randhir Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty, Boman Irani

     

    Directed By: Sajid Khan

     

    Written By: Sajid Nadiadwala

     

    Produced By: Sajid Nadiadwala

     

    Sajid Khan is one of those filmmakers who revels in making crude comedies that work with a section of the masses and that encourages him to make more.

     

    Of course, films like Housefull 2 are critic proof and everybody who writes about it acknowledges it. The film has got 1 to 2 star ratings and teeth-gnashing rants from all except the trade papers and a weird 4 stars from the Times of India, which unfortunately serious cinema fans don’t take seriously any more. Four stars for this film, then what would they do when faced with a real masterpiece?

     

    Kunal Guha of yahoomovies gives it 1 and writes, “People getting kicked in the behind and falling in a puddle of embarrassment. Laughter track? Yes, please. Anyway, the film is about four friends, three of whom are pretending to be the fourth person- Jolly, who is the son of UK-based millionaire, JD. Why? Because it’s the only way to charm any prospective father-in-law. And just for fun, the two sets of fathers of the bride are arch enemies. How does that alter the plot? It doesn’t but allows for bitter exchanges filled with pokey insults and ridiculing confrontations. So much for your hard-earned multiplex ticket.”

     

    Sudhish Kamath of The HIndu titles his piece Dumb and Dumber and says. “The plot does not matter, you know what you are going to see, you are familiar with the territory because well, the stars and the action is just a rehash of the previous part that was successful and the plot and the background is just an excuse to unleash that action you have come to watch.”

     

    Rajeev Masand –1-star– says that it is for four-year-olds. Surely not! Kids do have better taste and thins one got a UA certificate. “Housefull 2, directed by Sajid Khan, is ‘bigger’ than the last film, but not necessarily better. To be fair, you can’t use words like ‘better’ or ‘funnier’ to compare these films; and asking me which one I preferred out of Housefull and Housefull 2 is like asking me what I’d rather have between a migraine and a hernia. Thank you, but I’ll pass. ” Ouch!

     

    Raja Sen of rediff. com calls it Shamefully Bad, slams down 1 star and writes, “Look, I have nothing against stupid comedies. The keyword, however, for Khan’s films is that he stresses the stupid part much too much, and all at the expense of the laughs. Even a basic, childishly simple gag – where a compulsive thief walks out of a sauna and pinches a character’s towel – is turned flat by Khan’s perplexing decision to equip that character, and only that character, with a towel for his head, which basically means he can wrap it around his privates and saunter out instead of being genuinely starkers and embarrassed. And so we have Chunky Pandey hiding behind a towel – a towel he’s holding in his bloody hands – and crying about how he wished he had a towel. Come on, Sajid, at least try to see the joke through, foolish as it is.”

     

    Anupama Chopra of Hindustan TimesT gives it a kindly 2 and writes, “If you are wondering about the quality of humour, here are some sample lines: At one point, a character says, “I got your virgin, I mean version” and “Langoors have my angoors.” Another one remarks, “You have piles in your brain.” One sequence has Riteish Deshmukh being bit on the rear end by an angry crocodile while Shreyas Talpade’s crotch is sucked by a python. In another, item-queen Malaika Arora Khan serenades Chakraborty and Boman Irani. And just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, Khan springs a level lower. My vote for the grossest visual is Chakraborty romancing a dwarf maid.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gives it 1.5 and comemmts, “Several times in Housefull 2, random characters laugh at their own jokes and sing out: sense of huuuuumour. It pretty much says everything about the film, a sequel to the film of the same name which came out two years ago. You have to be able to find the doings of this vast cast amusing. And if you don’t, you have to be able to summon your funny bone to keep sitting, while pondering the cosmic corniness of the world according to Sajid Khan and other such weighty matters.”

     

    It’s all more in the same vein. The film makes money, Sajid Khan sticks his tongue out and goes from gross to grosser.

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Kahaani

    Kahaani

    Key Cast: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

    Directed By: Sujoy Ghosh

    Written By: Sujoy Ghosh, Advaita Kala

    Produced By: Kushal Kantilal Gada, Sujoy Ghosh

     

    Sometimes miracles are known to happen. Everything happened just right for Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani. After the success of The Dirty Picture, Vidya Balan was on a high. A day before the film was to release, she won a national award. This just compounded the high-powered promotion she did for the film, going to the extent of attending every media event with that unflattering ‘pregnant’ tummy – her look in the film.

     

    Critics and audiences were already favourably disposed towards the film, and though everyone pointed out the loopholes in the script, no critic was curmudgeonly enough to give it less than 3.5 stars.

     

    Gaurav Malani of Indiatimes.com gave it 4 stars and raved, “Kahaani rightly lives up to its name and reinstates the fact that the core criterion for a decent film is a strong story. And if that story is in competent hands, you don’t need anything else. No big stars, songs, budget or even a customary male lead. For a (pleasant) change, the script is indeed the hero here!”

     

    Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave it 3.5 and wrote, “Kahaani is a nifty thriller with an enjoyment quotient that is indirectly proportionate to how long you spend thinking about the plot. If you back-track and try to connect all the dots, the implausibility of the story amplifies – there’s even a piecing-together-the-puzzle moment that echoes The Usual Suspects but this riddle isn’t a patch on the intricate web of lies in the Bryan Singer film. However, if you’re willing to think less, there is some fun to be had here.”

     

    Sukanya Verma writing on rediff.com rated it 4 stars. “The concept behind a jigsaw puzzle is most fascinating. Its three-step model involves drawing an intricate picture laden with buried details and fine clues, cutting it into several unrecognizable segments and assembling a jumble that carries a seemingly simple challenge – to fall in place, to make sense. Suspense thrillers are just the same. But very few films belonging to this genre are able to fit the right piece in the right place. And that’s what makes Sujoy Ghosh’s accomplishment in Kahaani worth all the applause that comes its way.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of ibnlive gave it 3.5 and wrote, “As is integral to all good stories, Ghosh creates solid characters. There’s the do-gooder rookie cop Rana, played by Parambrata Chatterjee, who’s constantly by Vidya’s side. Their antagonist comes as the surly Intelligence Bureau officer Khan, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who wants the search abandoned. In Kahaani, there is attention to detail served to even bit characters like an impish errand boy in the guesthouse who becomes friends with Vidya, and a sinister contract killer who bumps off his victims after greeting them cordially.”

     

    Anuj Kumar of The Hindu also gave it 4 stars and offered fulsome praise. “A rare original story from Bollywood that engages both mind and heart, Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani lives up to the age-old adage that it’s not about what you say, it’s about how you say. On the surface it is a thriller about a pregnant woman’s search for her missing husband in Kolkata but its core attempts to revitalize a gender which is often clubbed with handicapped and senior citizens in public life. On the surface the four writers (Ghosh, Advaita Kala, Suresh Nair and Nikhil Vyas) plot a puzzle that you desperately want to solve but beneath it is full of moments that humanize a pregnant woman on celluloid.”

     

    Surprisingly, Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express gave it a relatively miserly 3. “Kahaani gives us not just a woman on the trail of a missing spouse, but a terrorist plot, data-crunching specialists, contract killers, evil moles, salt-of-the-earth guys. And it keeps us guessing, more or less. Which, for a Bollywood thriller, is quite an achievement, even if the terrorist angle turns out to have faintly ludicrous edges. In the first place, Hindi cinema doesn’t really attempt fast-paced thrillers with quite these ingredients, and when it does, they turn out clunky if not plain terrible. If Kahaani had managed to keep the edge of suspense as sharp in the second half, which falls prey to a few improbable plot contrivances and some gratingly explanatory scenes, it would have been very good indeed. But despite the hiccups, it remains engaging.”

     

    Another 4 from DNA and Akanksha Naval Shetye, “There are few filmmakers who can handle the genre, and the deft handling of the twists and turns as well as the flashbacks show Sujoy’s hold over it. The film proves that Jhankaar Beats was no flash in the pan and after the trial and error of his previous two films, he can clearly take a bow for this one. Watch it and you won’t be surprised if you see yourself making a trip to watch it again.”

     

    To top it, audiences have given it thumbs up too. Vidya Balan and Sujoy Ghosh have delivered that rare species – a critically acclaimed box-office hit. The awards will follow too.

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu

    Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu

    Key Cast: Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Ratna Pathak Shah

    Directed by: Shakun Batra

    Produced by: Karan Johar, Hiroo Yash Johar, Ronnie Screwvala

    Screenplay by: Ayesha Devitre, Shakun Batra

     

    After the very violent Agneepath two weeks ago, Karan Johar’s production house has produced newbie Shakun Batra’s Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, what is now known as, a typical Karan Johar film- a big-budget, empty-headed romance shot with lavish production values on a glamorous foreign location Still, some critics have found merit in this otherwise formulaic rom-com, because of an atypical ending.

     

    On the whole the film got positive reviews with 3 stars, with a few 4 and 2.5s thrown in for variety. The public inIndiawas, going by initial reports, not as kind, but the film got a better reception abroad, according to trade reports.

     

    Avijit Ghosh of The Times of India kept on with the 4-star tradition. “With only the faintest trace of theHollywoodhit, What Happens in Vegas (2008), Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu shows what first-rate direction and a cute but brave script can do to the done-to-death story of opposites getting attracted to each other. EMAET has heart, charm and an enviable lightness of being. And it certainly helps that the lead players are in fine form. Like quality wine, Kareena seems to improve with every passing year though you find shades of Geet (Jab We Met) in her part. And Imran brings just that right amount of balance to the difficult part of an uptight, gawky individual who evolves with every passing day. The movie is essentially his journey from boy to man. With its neon lights and flash,Las Vegastoo is an important character adding to the film’s mood and melody.”

     

    Aniruddha Guha of DNA also gave it a 4 star rave. “Director Shakun Batra shows rare deftness for a first-time filmmaker in Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (EMAET). It is full of honest, warm moments that – to their credit – work without the manipulation most directors resort to in films belonging to this genre. Instead, Batra relies on sharp dialogue, and some well-etched out characters. I’d go a step further and say that the film is the best you would have seen recently in the two genres it melds together – a romantic comedy and a coming-of-age-drama, something Wake Up Sid just about fell short of.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave it 2.5 and was left a bit cold. “Ek Main aur Ekk Tu is a half and half: it gets where it needs to with flair, but not enough surprises. The film passes by, pleasantly enough, all its expected roadsigns, providing a smile and an occasional chuckle (and one of the most rousing songs-and-dances I’ve seen in a while) but making you wish for more newness, both in its characters and in the way it wends its way onward.”

     

    Sukanya Varma of rediff.com went with 3 stars too. “EMAET is neither on the epic side like Dharma Productions’ great, grand ancestors nor weighed down by an overload of pop culture references of those that define the genre. Instead the confection’s appeal lies in its underplayed wit, quirky within plausibility protagonists and a refreshing disregard for conventional conclusions. Almost like a big studio flick with an indie mindset. Almost.”

     

    Taran Adarsh also gave it 3 and commented: “For those who swear by sentimental movies and are die-hard fans of rom-coms, who fervently wish Valentine’s Day is prolonged eternally, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu is akin to an answer to this yearning. Rom-coms relaxing in the splendour of harmonious compositions, a creative and innovative take on present-day romance, pulsating images and timed during the Valentine week… aah, you can’t ask for more!”

     

    Rajeev Masand with 3 stars found it light and breezy. “It’s fairly typical stuff, and first-timer Shakun Batra adds all the usual ingredients. If you’ve seen even three decent rom-coms, you know where this is headed. Yet these characters feel real, and they grow on you gradually despite their standard-issue problems – he has controlling parents, she only lives for the moment. But it’s the curveball that the writers throw at you in the end that displays a rare maturity about relationships that films in this genre seldom possess.”

     

    Komal Nahta of Film Information and koimoi.com gave it three stars and pinned the problem down from the trade point of view. “Ayesha Devitre and Shakun Batra’s story is quite new for the Indian audience because here, a girl and a boy get married and then come close to each other during the period needed to end the marriage. Their screenplay is designed to appeal mainly to the youngsters in the cities. In other words, the drama, like the thought, is very urbane and while it will be enjoyed by the multiplex and city audiences, it won’t quite be lapped up or, in some cases, even understood too well by the audience in the smaller centres and of the single-screens.”

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Ekk Deewana Tha

    Ekk Deewana Tha

     

    Key Cast: Prateik Babbar, Amy Jackson, Manu Rishi

    Directed by: Gautham Menon

    Produced by: Gautham Menon, Reshma Ghatala, Venkat Somasundaram

    Screenplay by: Javed Akhtar

     

    Gautam Menon’s Tamil and Telugu hit is remade in Hindi and gives the critics something to crack their whips. The Prateik-Amy Jackson starrer got several 1 star ratings, some grudging 2 stars, a minus 1 and the usual Times of India 3, which doesn’t mean anything. The film spells D for Disaster.

     

    Kunal Guna of Yahoo and the Minus 1 rating writes: “Pain and pleasure have the same facial expression. This is why you will share the same face with the lead cast of Ekk Deewana Tha through the entire runtime. Love stories that curdle, portray societal and familial tribulations. But here, there is a far graver issue beyond the usual jaat-paat, rich-poor etc: The lead duo can’t act to saveTibet. And as dismissive as it may sound, in the first paragraph of this review; it is, in fact, the iceberg that makes this painful love story crash as we endure the burn.”

     

    Preeti Arora of rediff.com is unimpressed too. “While there are directors who dig relentlessly for a new theme around which a rom-com can be built, there are others such as Gautham Menon who believe old clichés are the best plot points for a love story. For starters, the girl is a year older to the boy. Then they come from different religions. The boy is a passionate movie buff, hopes to make a career in films. The girl’s family doesn’t even watch films. The girl’s brother is a toughie who needs an excuse to start a fight. But there is something called love at first sight. You get the drift.”

     

    Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times, gives it 1 star too, and rightly wonders what the story really is about. “ The boy, an obsessive, relentless roadside Romeo, having chased the girl from the streets of Mumbai to Mallu-land, finally  holds her, jolts her up, pops the winning question: “Kamaal ki chemistry hai hamare beech mein (there’s huge chemistry between us). Can’t you see it?” No, she says. He obviously can. That’s a matter between them. Audiences couldn’t care less. We’re beyond midway through the movie: chuck chemistry, all you’re wondering is what the hell’s the story.”

     

    Rajeev Masand stretches it to two stars and writes, “Charming in a goofy sort of way, Prateik Babbar makes the film’s first thirty minutes or so watchable even though very little happens here. His awkward body language and his nervous tics are refreshing, especially as his character, Sachin, skulks around spying on Jessie, and stalks her even. The same, unfortunately, can’t be said for the film’s pretty but vapid leading lady, whose lines appear to have been dubbed by someone much older than herself. Surprisingly, the actress is poorly made-up, and for much of the film sports an obviously fake tan. The couple’s chemistry is lukewarm, and save for a few inspired moments their banter is grating.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gives it a surprising 2 – maybe for the memory of Smita Patil. “The old North Indian Hindu boy versus the South Indian Christian girl pole vault makes the movie feel mothballed. Whatever happened to the equally hoary Bollywood tradition of rebellion and elopement? Twenty five years back, this was a believable divide, with snarling patriarchs and a disapproving ‘samaaj’ guarding the posts. The movies made much of it, getting their lovers to leap off cliffs when there was no other way out. But to do this now?”

     

    The usually generous Taran Adarsh of bollywoodhungama.com goes with 2 stars as well. “What baffles the viewer is the character of Jessie. While the guy is crazily in love with her, the girl, in contrast, seems downright confused about her feelings for the guy. She appears indecisive about what she really yearns for and this aspect, to put it bluntly, sends out puzzling signals not only to the lover boy, but to the by-now-exasperated viewer as well. The screenplay totters and flounders the moment Jessie decides to part ways. The justification offered is least persuasive. Since the reason for separation is not forceful enough, it leaves the viewer feeling unsympathetic, detached and disconnected from the goings-on subsequently.”

     

    And finally Avijit Ghosh of the 3 star stamp: “The love story of Sachin and Jessie never becomes your own though the lead pair is okay. Prateik’s voice is evocative; Amy Jackson, a former Miss Liverpool, reeks of an understated sensuality, though strangely, her skin-tone keeps varying with every scene. But together they fail to synergize their performances. Ramesh Sippy’s presence too doesn’t add any sholay to the proceedings. May be the movie needed more spunk in Manu Rishi’s dialogues, to elevate itself. Even AR Rahman’s music wouldn’t figure among his Top 20 films.  Ekk Deewana Tha has its moments but it doesn’t really put you in the mood for love.”

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Deepa Gahlot: Reviewing the Reviews of Agneepath

    Agneepath

     

    Key Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Priyanka Chopra, Sanjay Dutt, Rishi Kapoor & Om Puri

     

    Directed By: Karan Malhotra

     

    Screenplay by: Ila Dutta Bedi & Karan Malhotra, based on Mukul S Anand’s Agneepath

     

    Produced by: Karan Johar

     

    It happens very rarely that critics are mostly in agreement and so is the audience. It was generally agreed that Karan Malhotra’s Agneepath remake, hit the spot, reminding everybody what was appealing about Bollywood formula flicks before filmmakers started trying to crossover. Simple revenge plots kept Bollywood chugging through most of the seventies and eighties, and it does look like moviegoers never forgot the taste of masala.

     

    With the exception of a couple of pans, and a couple of inordinate 4.5 kind of raves, a lot of critics gave Agneepath three star ratings, and everybody raved about Hrithik Roshan, Rishi Kapoor as villain; Sanjay Dutt as the bald-headed baddie got his share of kudos too.

     

    Was the 1990 Agneepath really such a cult film as it is now being made out to be?

     

    Karan Bali of Upperstall.com who obviously kept track writes, “One was surprised when the decision to remake Agneepath was announced. Especially, since though the 1990 version is (now) regarded as some sort of cult film (I wonder why), it is actually little more than a standard revenge story of the hero after his father is killed with several shades of Deewaar and Scarface thrown in already giving it a strong sense of deja vu. And of course there was the whole shoo shaa of Mr Bachchan’s ‘different’ voice (did not work) and his getting the National Award for Best Actor. With due respect to all, Agneepath (to me) has always been a highly overrated film as has been Big B’s performance. Sivakumar can rightly consider himself robbed when the National Awards for the films of 1990 were announced and his absolutely brilliant work in Marupakkam lost out to Agneepath.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express writes, “This one is more an adaptation than a faithful remake of the 1990 original. Which is a good thing, because with the new characters and plotpoints, and minus some of the old stuff, the 2012 ‘Agneepath’ becomes its own film, which works precisely because it’s both a tribute and a stylish re-invention of the 70’s-spilling-into-the-80s retribution formula.”

     

    Sukanya Varma of rediff.com also concurs, headlining her piece ‘Agneepath less of a remake, more of a tribute. “The name, the man, the voice, the aura bears a lot of weight, the kind that’s impossible to measure. Or live up to. A multitude of films, including Mukul S Anand’s Agneepath, celebrate this indescribable draw he enjoys enhanced through sharply-written scenes and/or technical wizardry. Not everyone has such resonance among the audience. Realising this inadequacy rather humbly, the makers of the new Agneepath take an altogether fresh approach to its 22-year-old source. Remakes, however, are a slippery territory. They invite inevitable comparison and yet aspire for an exclusive identity.”

     

    Mayank Shekhar of The Hindustan Times justifies his 3 stars thus: “An earnest Vijay Dinanath Chauhan delivers poetic justice before a nearly packed hall on the proverbial ‘first day first show’. Audiences at my cinema respond to the cues and lines. The comments passed sometimes distract you from the screen. Everyone guffaws at the same time. This is the kind of genuine theatre experience, now getting rare, which remains most precious in the life of a film-goer. Reason can take over later. I had a ball!”

     

    Komal Nahata of koimoi.com was one of the ‘ravers’. “Director Karan Malhotra has handled the revenge drama with authority and he makes a fantastic first impression in his debut directorial venture. He is in total command of the subject and his cast and not only extracts great work from out of the actors but also keeps the audience engaged in the drama which unfolds on the screen. The man knows his art and craft and also seems to understand the commercial side of filmmaking. He is producer Karan Johar’s New Year gift to the industry just as this film is Johar’s Republic Day gift to the audience.”

     

    So was Taran Adarsh of Bollywoodhungama.com: “On the whole, Agneepath is a fitting tribute to the masterwork. The movie has all the potential to scale dizzy heights of victory and catapult Hrithik Roshan as the newest member of the Rs100 crore club, besides providing the Hindi film industry with the first giant blockbuster of 2012. A definite winner!

     

    Rajeev Masand of IBNlive found it well made but too long. “Debutant director Karan Malhotra’s re-telling of Mukul Anand’s 1990 vendetta movie ‘Agneepath’ is a glossy, well-acted production. Compared to recent ‘mass entertainers’ that tend to lazily sacrifice story and plot for retro-style action and star appeal, this remake rolls along like a well-oiled machine. And yet, after watching three hours of stabbing, gunfire, blasts, and hand-to-hand fighting, you realize the film is somewhat crippled by its over-indulgent length.”

     

    Sanjukta Sharma of Livemint was, however, left cold. “The film is made on a wide, impressive scale, and the cinematography by Kiran Deohans and Ravi K. Chandran makes it visually a celebration of colour and chaos. Everything about this Agneepath is over-emphasized. And at a running time of 3 hours, it is a test of your patience.”

     

    And Mihir Fadnavis of Mumbaiboss rants: “Karan Malhotra’s debut sits in a patch somewhere between a shameless cash grab and a callow vanity project. What is certain though, is that the film is compulsively horrible and full of unintentionally hilarious OTT drama. It’s been over 20 years since Big B’s Agneepath released, but there is not a shred of freshness to be found in the new version. The movie leaves absolutely nothing whatsoever for the viewer to digest – Mr Johar and Co just offer a frozen cadaver of Bollywood tripe and expect it to be reheated by paying audiences who can find nothing else in their fridges to snack on. It’s hard to say what’s worse, the film’s utter lack of entertainment value or the unabashed condescension towards its viewers.”

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Chaalis Chauraasi

    Chaalis Chauraasi

    Key Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Atul Kulkarni, Kay Kay Menon, Ravi Kissen, Shweta Bhardwaj

    Directed By: Hriday Shetty

    Written By: Yash-Vinay

    Produced By: Anuya Mhaiskar, Sachin Awasthee, Uday Shetty

     

    This Hriday Shetty film got a decent amount of pre-release publicity because of the cast of good actors – not stars, but those who can be relied on for acting well.

     

    The cast is also probably why the film got mostly 2-2.5 star ratings, but also a 1/2 star by Komal Nahata and Nikhat Kazmi’s usual, over-generous 3.5.

     

    Most critics liked the performances, agreed that the script did not do justice to the actors. The film is hardly likely to be a big hit, it’s not one of those ‘sleepers’ in spite of three item numbers!

     

    Soumyadipta Banerjee of DNA gives it 2.5 and writes, “The best part of the film is its star cast. When you have powerful, experienced and talented actors like Naseeruddin Shah, Kay Kay Menon, Atul Kulkarni and Ravi Kissen in the star cast, they are bound to make good for all the lapses in the script. That is exactly what has happened here. All the above three (Zakir Hussain has also received a lot of praise lately) have formed an entertaining threesome who keep you engaged throughout the film.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta disagrees and gives it a low 1 star: “At one point in this film, we see lots of thrusting groins. Ravi Kishan has the most flexible one, beating all the female dancers in the row. Atul Kulkarni and Kay Kay keep up gamely. And then comes Chaalis Chaurasi’s ace tush-shaker, Naseer himself. He does this not once, but twice. The naach-gaana featuring the Shah comes and goes, and you wait for the movie. All in vain, because Chaalis Chaurasi is like an empty vessel, which rattles around noisily to no effect.”

     

    Gaurav Malani of Indiatime.com goes with the majority average rating and writes, “It would really take some effort to mess up a film starring four supremely talented actors in lead roles. An uninspiring script and a dreary director work overtime to achieve such lackluster results. At the outset, Chaalis Chauraasi looks promising with its atypical cast and chronicle. But the one-dimensional plot fails to tap the immense potential of both.”

     

    Sanjukta Sharma of Livemint gives a 2 but has a few kind words: “The screenplay is not flawless, and the story has some banal excesses. The editing is sloppy in parts, and the tacky flourishes in the execution ensure that it looks like a small film in every sense. It is meant to be a potboiler, but with a humour that never borders on the tasteless; the mindlessness in Chaalis Chauraasi has some fun to it.”

     

    Preeti Arora of rediff.com also gives it 2, but is not so kind: “The film which starts out as a comic caper straddles genres and turns into a display of blood and gore. Aiming at an over-the-top climax, the director only succeeds in prolonging the film with amateurish, badly executed action.”

     

    Komal Nahata hated it: “Yash-Vinay’s subject sustains the audience’s interest in bits and parts only. Although the film is designed as a crime comedy, the humour does not evoke laughter at too many places. Had the comedy been extraordinary and hugely entertaining, even the script may have worked but given that the humour is not very funny, the film remains ordinary fare. The second half and especially the action and crime portions are so long-drawn-out that they give the audience too much time to think – and that is another sore point.”

     

    Surprisingly Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times gave 3 stars and wrote, “Here’s the deal then. The drama is set in stretched real time. The gang has a common mission, a heist that may or may not go wrong. Each character in the group is loony in his own unique way. Their names are odder still. Blood-fest unnerves no one. The narrative isn’t entirely linear. Style determines the set-up. This motif has generated a gazillion crime capers/thrillers in the past. Quentin Tarantino gave it the modicum of high cool in the ’90s.”… which doesn’t explain anything.

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Players

    Players

    Key Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Bobby Deol, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Bipasha Basu

    Directed By: Directed by: Abbas Mustan

    Screenplay by: Rohit Jugraj, Sudip Sharma

    Produced by: Studio 18

    Doesn’ t happen too often that critics are unanimous in their panning of one film. This feat was achieved by Abbas-Mustan’s Players.

     

    It was laughed at for uinintentiona1 stupidity, made worse by the fact that is was an official remake of The Italian Job, which is classic heist thriller made in 1969 and 2003, of which the director duo have made a right roya mess. Another bummer for Bachchan Jr. 0ne and a half to two stars across the board, except for the over generous Nikhat Kazmi of the T0I, who gave it 3.5.

     

    Here s a selection of extracts:

    Sukanya Varma, of rediff.com found it lack’ustre and unimaginative: The real problem with this official remake of The Italian Job is that instead of reproducing a perfectly nuanced screenplay as it is, it tries to act too smart, with excessive elements and needless tampering, in the process making a complete fool of itself. Why can’t you stick to the plan, Bollywood? All this time we witness our filmmakers rip-off Hollywood scene-by-scene but the minute they acquire rights, they are hit by an army of brainwaves or an insuppressible need to improvise (read flounder).

     

    Gaurav Malani, IndiaTimes Movies:After making a career out of surreptitiously remaking foreign films forever, director-duo Abbas Mustan have proved their recycling capabilities credibly enough to win the opportunity of directing an ‘official’ remake of a Hollywood flick. They have stars, budget, virgin locations and also a readymade film (rather two of them) for reference. But that know-all impudence of the directors to Indianize The Italian Job is like having a pizza with Punjabi tadka topping.

     

    Aniruddha Guha in DNA: It takes a lot to rip off a film and make it palatable for Indian audiences, and the Men In White, Abbas bhai & Mustan bhai, have done that all their lives. But it must really take a hell lot to buy the official rights of a film, have the license to remake the film scene-by-scene and then say, “You know what, we have the rights to screw with it, so let’s do it.”

     

    Rajeev Masand, IBN 1ive: Abbas-Mustan, who’ve successfully delivered some engaging thrillers over the years, know a thing or two about pace. ‘Players’ is packed with relentless car chases and plot twists, and the directors throw in their usual stock of skimpily dressed babes and seductive item songs. What they grapple with, unfortunately, are the little details….What fails the film after all, is the over-enthusiasm of its makers, who overstay your hospitality by dragging the film on for an unforgivable 2 hours and 45 minutes. Also, harsh as this may sound, the film suffers considerably on account of its dull cast.

     

    Mayank Shekhar, HT: With movies per se the scene gets quite muddled up and murky. Almost always. Nothing could’ve prepared you for the moronic mayhem that follows here either. Computer hacker villain (Neil Nitin Mukesh) is now the new-age Shakaal with voice-reognition software across his deadly mansion, “Open the door, baby.” Door opens. “Shut the gate, baby.” Gate shuts. He gawks at girls at various nightclubs from his media room, flicking on screens of his giants iPads, choosing one girl for every night. BMW’s Rs 25 lakh MINI Cooper gets to insert the world’s longest 70 mm commercial through this pic, incidentally on the week of the car’s launch in India.

     

    Karan Anshuman, Mumbai Mirror :Good films are about bringing new ideas to viewers, and Players is antithetical in this respect. In the remake, the writers substitute what little logic was there to begin with, with songs and add deliberate cheesiness to make the film more accessible for the masses. Indian filmmakers have a tendency to speak down to their audiences, but with Players one suspects that the makers truly believe that this is what cutting-edge is. Two stars, one word: random.

     

    Shubha Shetty-Saha, Mid-Day : If English is a phunny language, Bollywood is a really phunny place. For several years, it blissfully went through a phase when Hollywood films would be copied scene by scene, with the filmmakers even while blatantly credit stealing, pretended to be making an original film. Now that our conscience is clear and we have the fear of getting sued (whichever comes first), we have started acquiring official rights of Hollywood films. And what do we do with that pricey legal document? We cock a snook at the original script; make it so Bollywoodised that the end product seems the far removed desi bred poor cousin of the original. What is the brilliant idea behind this? No idea sirji!

     

    Shubhra Gupta, Indian Express: The guys have zero impact. So do the gals. Bipasha is same old, despite the stringiest of bikinis, and the only surprisingly not-bad thing Sonam Kapoor does is to dance dirty. In other places, she is part of the furniture. Even the iconic chase scene starring the colourful Minis, faithfully lifted from the earlier films, is long and dull. Just like the film.

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the reviews: Don 2 is poor man’s Mission Impossible

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    Don 2

    Key Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta,Om Puri, Kunal Kapoor, Boman Irani

    Directed by: Farhan Akhtar

    Produced by: Farhan Akhtar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Shahrukh Khan

    Written by: Farhan Akhtar, Ameet Mehta, Amrish Shah

     

     

    To confuse moviegoers again, Don 2 got madly mixed reviews with the highest rating being 4.5 and the lowest 1.5.  On an average, however, most reviewers gave it 2.5 and everyone agreed that Shahrukh Khan looked cool, the film was slick, the music was mediocre and it was a poor man’s Mission Impossible. Strictly for SRK devotees who, like good fans, don’t necessarily look for logic in his films. The way this film was promoted, logic is the last thing to look for in any case.

     

    The big gush came from koimoi.com’s Komal Nahata and his 4.5 stars. “Don 2 may not give the discerning audience a great high but it will be loved by those who like style, intrigue, suspense and attitude. It will score at the box-office and yield good profits to Reliance Entertainment (worldwide distributors). The producers, of course, have already made a huge profit by selling the worldwide rights and also by getting heavy subsidy from the German government. Business in big cities and multiplexes will be far better than in smaller towns and single-screen cinemas. The film will work wonders in the overseas circuit.”  Let’s see if his prophecies come out to be true.

     

    Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India, expectedly gave it 4 stars and raved, “Don 2 is a classic action/crime thriller that doesn’t let go, even for a moment. More importantly, the plot has been finely crafted, with every twist and turn falling into place like a complicated albeit neat little jigsaw.” But then, she usually raves.

     

    Slightly lower in the ratings game was Bollywood Hungama’s Taran Adarsh with 3.5. “Don 2 rides on star power and brand value. The film has a bland first hour, but the second half takes the film to another level. There’s no denying that a cohesive script would’ve made a world of a difference to the film, but the tremendous hype, star power and the lucrative period (Christmas and New Year celebrations) will make its investors reap a harvest.”

     

    DNA’s Aniruddha Guha goes with 3 stars and writes, “Characters say boring, random things to each other, there’s a pointlessly long dance sequence and the attempt at dialoguebaazi is laughable. What keeps Don 2 alive, then, is its pulsating action.”

     

    Surprisingly, India Today’s Kaveree Bamzai also gives it a generous 3 and writes, “The movie seems to have been made only to allow the actor to say and do all the things he ever wanted, be it a James Bond and Ethan Hunt rolled into one. What it does come across as finally is a Mission Impossible meets Abbas Mustan.”

     

    IBN Live’s Rajeev Masand gives it the more-or-less standard 2.5. “Don 2 is nicely shot, and there are moments where Shahrukh Khan is riveting. But that’s not enough to hold your interest for well over two hours…even the actor’s most loyal fans will find themselves yawning. I’m going with a generous two out of five for director Farhan Akhtar’s Don 2. Although packed with fast cars and bikes, this is one slow ride.”

     

    Aseem Chhabra writing in rediff.com: “For an action film with the central plot setting us up for a robbery inside a major bank, Don 2’s pacing is very slow. Coupled with that, the script explains everything to us step-by-step. And if anyone was paying attention, following the convoluted plot where Don always manages to sweet charm the morons at Interpol, in the last five minutes Akhtar sums up the film with a quick recap, revealing many more details that were never shown to us before.  It is an old fashioned gimmick to make the audience say “Wow, we were fooled!”

     

    Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express: “Don 2 needed an energized, crackling plot. What it has, in almost too much abundance, is SRK dripping dimpled coolth. But cool can only take you so far.”

     

    Piyali Dasgupta of NDTV.com writes: “There’s an easy way to describe Don2 without any spoilers. Think of great action flicks from the Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and MI4 series. Shake them up. Replace Nakatomi Plaza with Berlin’s leading bank and there it is – Don 2, a Bollywood take on great action flicks where Shahrukh wants to show that being a bad-ass is fun.”

     

    Shubha Shetty Saha of Mid-day was not impressed either. “There’s one thing that irks me the most in Bollywood action thrillers, and Don 2 carries the tradition. The smart moves by the characters is tediously explained again and again to show how the move was engineered, thereby diluting the whole effect. The audience is treated like a four-year-old brat, who doesn’t concentrate and forgets what has been told to him five minutes back. Subtlety is an art and moreover, we are not as dumb as you think. Wish the filmmakers instead concentrated on filling those gaping loopholes.”

     

    Finally, nailing it, Mayank Shekhar of Hindustan Times gives it 1.5 and says, “It (the first Don) was Vijay’s story. Salim-Javed’s tight script had a striking plot. The writers here have sub-plots. They continue to stretch and add thought to thought. The picture promises to never end. It gets hard to carry on with inane inventiveness, when you just couldn’t care less.”

     

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the Reviews: Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

    Ladies vs Ricky Bahl

    Key Cast: Ranveer Singh, Anushka Sharma

    Directed By: Maneesh Sharma

    Written By: Devika Bhagat, Habib Faisal, Aditya Chopra

    Produced By: Aditya Chopra

     

    Coming out with the notable YRF stamp, Ladies vs Ricky Bahl got mixed reviews, mostly on the negative side. The director Maneesh Sharma’s first film Band Baaja Baraat had been such a delight, that the second one had trouble matching up.

     

    The one who came out a clear winner is Parineeti Chopra who played a loud, chatty Delhi brat, and is likely to bag all supporting actress awards next year.

     

    Gaurav Malani, in the Times of India online, feels, “The major hiccup in this otherwise engaging film is that it falls prey to the typical trappings of Bollywood. As romance takes over the con-games, the smart-n-saucy film is substituted by a tepid tale where the conman wants to come clean and change his ways for that one girl in life. That makes for a lame climax and a conventional end. The graph of the narrative drops somewhere in the second half and plunges even further as one realizes mixing con with cupid might not be the best of ideas. Thankfully the pacing is perfect and the film never seems stretched.”

     

    Sanjukta Sharma of Livemint is left cold. She writes, “The screenplay … gets tiringly predictable from this point. Forget being similar to Frank Abagnale, the smug, glorious con man in Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can. Sunny starts showing signs of a weepy lover boy. The film falls right into the Yash Raj formula of hinging all stories on soppy romance. This guy is not even a patch on the smiling assassin he is in the first hour.”

     

    Bollywoodhungama’s Taran Adarsh is uncharacteristically tepid. “On the whole, Ladies vs Ricky Bahl is, at best, decent fare, which appeals in parts. The film starts well, even ends well. It’s the in between that’s plain ordinary. One definitely expected more from the director of the immensely likeable Band Baaja Baaraat. Ideally, the film merits a two-and-a-half star rating, but that extra half star is for Ranveer and Anushka, who steal your heart with truly striking performances.”

     

    Rajeev Masand found the film watchable and went with2-1/2 stars, but also pointed out flaws. “Ladies vs Ricky Bahl nosedives further post-intermission because of script holes the size of craters. The trio of women track down our hero way too conveniently, and you can’t help but question how a seasoned conman could so easily be charmed into parting with his cash. Doesn’t help either that the narrative is interrupted far too often with unnecessary songs.”

     

    Raja Sen found it sluggish and predictable and gave it 1-1/2 stars. “It’s always tragic to see those who defy the cookie-cutter mould try and sanitise themselves in an attempt to fit in. Ranveer Singh, who was fantastic in last year’s Band Baaja Baaraat, here has his rough edges blunted by the generic sheen of wannabe stardom, and the result is most unfortunate. ”

     

    Shubha Shetty Saha of Mid-day settles for 2-1/2 stars too. “The script should have been as clever as it is trying to portray its lead man to be. For Ricky, cheating comes naturally, but disappointingly, it seems like he doesn’t even have to exercise his brain cells to cheat any of them. Ricky gets so lucky every time that things easily fall into place or his victims are so foolishly gullible that they are more than willing to fall into his trap, again and again. Also, the track where he becomes an art dealer, Deven Shah and cheats Raina (Dipannita Sharma) seems highly improbable.”

     

    Mayank Shekhar is kinder than usual with 3 stars. “The young Ranveer Singh plays Ricky Bahl, his character’s real name, which we don’t know yet. Given almost all Bollywood leading men now are forced to play proper characters (something they used to do back in the 1950s), as against portray merely themselves: a back-story might become slightly necessary. We know nothing about the motivations of this conman, besides what we see: he is single, looks like a loner, is pretty much sexually uninterested in the women he takes for a ride, and is interested in money for money’s sake. Placement of this kind of guy was handled much better in Yashraj’s previous, similar flick, Badmaash Company (2010), which had suffered for completely other reasons.”

     

    Soumyadipta Banerjee of DNA didn’t dislike the film at all. “Right from the first shot to the last shot, the film has stayed real without the usual loopholes that draw it away from reality. And yet, the film has stayed on top when it came to the entertainment quotient. It has been edited well which doesn’t let the pace slacken and engages you till the last moment. It seems that the film has been developed after consulting a lot of DVDs of Hollywood rom-coms, but who cares? Everybody does that and yet comes up with a shoddy film. This time, all the home-work seems to have paid off.”

     

    Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu nails it. “How good is a con if the stakes aren’t high? This is the safe, family-entertaining Bollywood film where the hero is virtuous even if he’s a con man (he wouldn’t even let the girl he’s conning kiss him) and turns out to be smarter than four women put together. The makers aren’t even in the mood to play Bluff. The film unfolds in a linear fashion and we are privy to all that’s happening and the only twist coming our way is that there is no twist.”

     

    And just by the way, none of the mainstream critics found similarities with Mohan Sehgal’s 1974 film, Woh Main Nahin.

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the Reviews: The Dirty Picture

     

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    The Dirty Picture

     

    Key Cast: Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Emraan Hashmi

     

    Directed By: Milan Luthria

     

    Written By: Rajat Arora

     

    Produced By: Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor

     

    The promotions of Milan Luthria’s The Dirty Picture were such that nobody had any doubts about its content-for once the audiences get what they expect-an uninhibited Vidya Balan in a sex-on-toast film loosely based on the life of Silk Smitha, who blazed a trail as a voluptuous siren and then, shockingly, committed suicide.

     

    The film got 2 ½ to 4 star ratings and from all accounts a smashing opening. Which proves once again that sex sells and Ekta Kapoor knows that. If sleaze comes with a big banner attached, it ceases to be ‘dirty’. Everyone is unanimous in praise of Vidya Balan, however, and all awards next year will go to her-she has left the competition far behind.

     

    Shubhra Gupta of the Indian Express was one of those who was left underwhelmed by the film and gave it 2 ½ stars. “What ‘The Dirty Picture’ does is to place Vidya Balan and her heaving bosom, complete with the dirtier, orgiastic ‘ha-aaa’ sound, so much a fixture of so many oomphy ’80s tracks, at the centre of the narrative. Which is fine, and we are quite taken in by the sight for a while. But then we start looking for something more, and find it, only towards the end, only very fleetingly.”

     

    Mumbai Mirror’s Karan Anshuman is equally unimpressed: More Dirty Less Picture is the title and a 2 ½ star rating. “It just doesn’t quite come together. What gets plated is an entre overdone on the outside, and not entirely cooked from the inside. Director Milan Luthria falters. He is just in such a tearing hurry to tell us the dizzying story of the rise and fall of Silk and the hot-and-cold behaviour of her fans, detractors, and co-stars – inconsistent one-liner upon one-liner, the flashback in negative image (why?), just the lack of any buildup or lingering – that he doesn’t take a breath for the audience to appreciate and unravel Silk’s mind until much later. Because the film focuses so much on dressed-up cliches of sleaze in tinseltown and Balan’s carefully constructed look, there is precious little else to take in. Fewer incidents focusing to get the viewer involved would work better than too many repetitive ones packed in for the sake of impact.”

     

    Sukanya Varma of rediff.com gives it 3 stars, but writes, “The Dirty Picture, despite the comprehensive objectivity implied through its title, is not a full-fledged biopic. Instead of painting a layered portrait of Silk, it draws an outline of an unapologetic resident of a flesh-obsessed film industry responsible for her rise and ruin. But Vidya lends her so much transparency, aplomb and sauciness, the outcome is far more awe-inspiring than it deserves to be.”

     

    Commenting on the actors, the usually acerbic Kunal Guha of yahoo.com, gives it 3 and writes, “Vidya is scrumptious as the imperfect and unrestrained Silk, while Naseer is convincing as a superstar out to play shepherd to every newcomer. Tusshar may have dropped his surname for the credits but that hardly undermines the fact that he’s been cast in his home production, again. Emraan’s character gives itself more importance than you or anyone else does. Luckily, his presence is limited and tolerable.”

     

    From Chennai, Silk Smitha’s playground, Sudhish Kamath of The Hindu writes, “The makers (Milan Luthria and writer Rajat Arora) seem a little too afraid to get into the darker aspects of the tragic life of a star like Silk and most of the sadness is limited to showing the dark circles under her eyes. Even when her life is spiralling down, the film wants to go away from the tragedy and show you a love song. Clearly, they don’t want to depress you because depressing films don’t do well at the box office. However, The Dirty Picture makes up for lack of depth with spirit and attitude.”

     

    Rajeev Masand also gives it 3 for Vidya. “What it suffers most from, unfortunately, is lazy writing. With a plot straight out of a Madhur Bhandarkar film, and a screenplay that follows a familiar graph, The Dirty Picture offers a superficial, simplistic view of the seamy, exploitative side of the 80s film business. There is little attempt to treat this material with sensitivity and depth. No sir, this film unfolds as a series of provocative scenes strung together on the strength of their sexually loaded dialogues.”

     

    Mayank Shekhar also comes up with a reluctant 3. “The film however, even when not mimicking its subject, somewhat retains its ’80s feel: excessive dialoguebaazi, often loaded with double entendres, some loud scenes with actors always in a state of emergency, and the ‘serial kisser’ (Emraan Hashmi) who must land a Sufi song, and a girl’s lips to satisfy his core audiences. Sometimes we remain suspended too much in disbelief. It starts to match the film within the film! This irony is oddly intriguing. It won’t be lost on anyone.”

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot casts a critical eye over media reviews of Bollywood releases… in Reviewing the Reviews

    Reviewing the Reviews: Rockstar

    Rockstar

    Key Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri

    Written and Directed By: Imtiaz Ali

    Produced By: Ronnie Screwvala, Dhillin Mehta

     

    Imtiaz Ali whose Jab We Met got him a great fan following, had Love Aaj Kal in between and now Rockstar, which has united critics and the general public in their adoration for Ranbir Kapoor, who is a star actor and superstar material; poor Nargis Fakhri came in for an equal amount of battering.

    The film itself got madly mixed reviews with rating from one to four stars that must have confused the reading public.

    Aniruddha Guha of DNA loved it. “For about 15 minutes in Rockstar, the narrative tends to resort to ‘Bollywoodism’; true love having the power to cure a terminal illness (almost), for example, doesn’t exactly fit with what the rest of the film has to say. Yet, Imtiaz makes it work somehow, interweaving the fantastical romantic part of the film with the more gritty, dark bits deftly.”

    Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama, is left cold, “Alas! Rockstar is a sumptuously shot movie that is disjointed on script level. The problem with Rockstar is that it starts off most impressively, has some terrific moments in between, but the writing gets so erratic and incoherent as it heads towards the conclusion that you wonder, am I really watching an Imtiaz Ali film?” Strange coming from one who is otherwise generous with praise.

    Saibal Chatterjee, NDTV.com observes, “The film, nearly three hours long, traverses long physical distances – from Delhi to Kashmir and from there to Prague and then back again to Delhi as JJ follows his lady love (who gets married quickly enough and settles down to drab matrimony in faraway Czech Republic to make matters difficult) halfway around the world, singing and dancing his woes away. But despite all the frenetic movement in space that Rockstar offers, the film really goes nowehere. It feels strangely static.” Which is one of its major problems.

    Shubha Shetty Saha of Mid-day pins down another problem area, “The film that is supposed to be following the journey of a nobody later turning into an insanely famous musician, leaves you uninvolved as many milestones in that journey have been left out. One day, Jordan is in Pitampura trying to regale a few bystanders on the street, a few months later, he is this huge phenomenon running away from the paparazzi.”

    Sumit Bhattacharya of rediff.com found it in the Devdas mould. “Don’t let the title fool you. This movie is more an old-school Bollywood love story than the advent of heavy metal in Hindi cinema. Jordan is more like Devdas than his idol Jim Morrison….On the surface, the film is about a guitar-toting dimwit transforming into an angry ‘rock star’, an expression that can perhaps give ‘awesome’ a run for being the most misused term in the English language …But this film is devoid of any insight into an artiste’s anguish, try as it might by quoting Jalaluddin Rumi.”

    Mayank Shekhar gives it three stars but a tepid review. “From its start, to the way it progresses, you can tell, the film’s been through various stages of editing and several second thoughts. Sometimes the patchiness shows. It’s a stretch. Anything that’s 18 reels long (close to three hours) in a flickering world of low attention spans would be. Something fizzles out towards the end. You still don’t begrudge a movie that’s been this engaging, entertaining thus far.”

    Komal Nahata is critical of the extra-marital affair of the heroine which is without justification, and says, “The extra-marital affair may have been overlooked by some of the orthodox audience if that affair would’ve had a magical effect on Heer’s illness in the end but when that doesn’t happen, the audience is unable to stop itself from seeking reasons for the affair – and not finding any. The narrative style is also a bit confusing for the audience as overlapping scenes have been used to further the drama.

    On the plus side, the making is fresh and the canvas, big and wonderful. Dialogues, penned by Imtiaz Ali, are very natural. The film is extremely colourful and youthful and for that section of the youth, which won’t question the morals of Janardhan and Heer, the film becomes a veritably enjoyable fare. Again, a minus point of the drama is that comic and light moments are few and far between. The second half, especially, becomes dark and even depressing. Emotions don’t draw tears.”

    Anuj Kumar of The Hindu is also unimpressed. “A film works when the pain experienced by the characters on screen permeates into the darkness of the theatre. No such luck here. After an explosive opening, you become restless for lack of ingenuity on the part of the writer-director even when he has got the ingredients to turn it into a never-before experience. A. R. Rahman’s soulful tunes, Anil Mehta’s breathtaking camerawork and a malleable lead actor, but still it remains a glazed canvas. It has a lot to do with inappropriate casting and an overtly indulgent director, who seem to have started with the idea of making a global blockbuster with Ranbir Kapoor and then started work on the content.”

    Rajeev Masand of IBNlive also slams the script. “The film’s chief lapses are its meandering script and its less than impressive leading lady both of which cost the film dearly… “

    Sanjukta Sharma of Livemint notes, “The second half is a mess, as it travels picturesquely but cluelessly from Kashmir to Prague in search of ideas. And it goes on for much too long, as we wait for something better to happen. Nothing of the sort does. Whatever happened to Imtiaz’s sure-footedness which made ‘Jab We Met’ such a breeze ? Shakiness was evident in his next ‘Love Aaj Kal’. Here, he seems to have very little idea of how to get his lovers to smoulder despite the liplocks : most of the romance feels constructed, and contrived.

    Kunal Guha one of the first to review it on Yahoo with a brutal one star, writes, “Watching ‘Rockstar’ once is like watching it many times over, thanks to the repeated montages that sporadically recap the film. If you thought being stabbed once was bad, here’s what a knife set can do. The film drives home an unscientific hypothesis that people who’ve endured sufferings/ heart break/ loose motions etc will reach their creative best. By this logic, each person in the audience will be blessed with superhuman creativity as they step out after watching ‘Rockstar’.”

    Nikhat Kazmi, of the Times of India is predictably soft. “The fact that this romance unfolds on screen in the form of an explosive musical, capturing JJ’s transmutation into Jordan, the edgy artist, makes the film an absolutely engaging affair.”

  • Every week, Deepa Gahlot reviews the reviews that film critics subject us to in print and on the Web.

    Reviewing the Reviews: Desi Boyz

    By Deepa Gahlot

     

    David Dhawan’s son Rohit Dhawan makes his debut with a film about two London-based, recession-hit dudes who become male escorts with a peculiar (for that profession) no sex policy.  Yet, bevies of semi-dressed writhing babes pay good money just to see them… dance and in one instance, play cards.  Really!

     

    The film with its mild dose of amusement and full on hokey-ness got between one-and-a-half to four stars-and as it usually happens, the audiences don’t know what to make of it.

     

    DNA’s Soumyadipta Banerjee gives if two-and-a-half stars and writes, quite aptly, “This film is a nightmare for the thinking audience. People who are used to world cinema, parallel cinema or intellectual cinema will squirm in their seats as some of the critics did when we were watching a press show of the film. But they are not the audience this film is looking for.”

     

    Rajeev Masand of IBNLive calls it a generic, indifferent comedy. “‘Desi Boyz’ borrows scenes from ‘The Full Monty’, ‘Back To School’, and ‘Fight Club’ even, but at its heart it’s not very different from Sajid Khan’s similarly unremarkable ‘Heyy Babyy’. Akshay Kumar and John Abraham perform earnestly and get a few moments to shine, but the gorgeous Deepika Padukone gets none. The greatest disservice, however, is done to Chitrangada Singh. Clothed in fancy designer togs, buried under pancake, and saddled with a thankless part, the actress is robbed of her smoldering presence, and homogenized into the mould of a typical Bollywood starlet.”

     

    Surprisingly, Komal Nahta gives it a generous four stars and writes, “The best part of the screenplay is that it treats the subject of recession, break-up of friendship, heartbreak, and family drama in a light-hearted manner and keeps the audience entertained throughout.”

     

    His trade mag counterpart Taran Adarsh is uncharacteristicly harsh with two stars. “Desi Boyz is a lot of fun as the male protagonists take to pleasing their female clientele. The first hour, frankly, is akin to a roller coaster ride with lots of fascinating developments unfolding at a feverish pace. The best part is that a tinge of realism [economic crisis] has been injected to the plot, which makes the motives appear convincing on screen. In fact, it’s pretty evident that this is not a no-brainer rom-com. But it’s the second half that does a complete somersault.”

     

    Of course, three-and-a-half stars are expected from The Times Of India’s Nikhat Kazmi. She writes, “Desi Boyz goes beyond the fair sex. It makes everyone smile most of the while. The editing (Nitin Rokade) is seamless, bringing together the four principal actors’ individual charms into a collective space without crowding the canvas. To their credit every principal actor, and that includes Anupam Kher (playing Deepika Padukone’s zany dad) and Omi Vaidya (as her wimpy fiance) seems to get into the film’s vivacious frothy mood without letting the dark underbelly of the film be squandered in frivolity.”

     

    In Hindustan Times, Mayank Shekhar is unimpressed. “One unrelated song follows another. You wonder why producers don’t just release albums with starry music videos instead. Why bother with a willfully moronic movie attempting to string a soundtrack together. Songs survive. Films rarely do. Filmmakers themselves don’t care enough about the characters. Why should the audience, so what’s the point?”

     

    The Hindu’s Anuj Kumar writes, “The son of David Dhawan, who gave us some mindless comedies in the last decade before missing the trick, lives up to expectations. He has given us a sleek, upmarket version of what his father has been dishing out all these years. A cute orphan, a staple patriotic moment, a court-room climax and that at the end of the day, heroes can’t go morally wrong – it has all the chapters from Bollywood’s book of clichés but is packaged in the proverbial new bottle.”

     

    India Today’s Kaveree Bamzai’ gives it a zero rating and rants, “Two men become male escorts but because they’re good Indian boys they don’t do sex. Every supposed female fantasy of men dressed as Dhoni and Yuvraj, firefighters, Tom Cruise from Top Gun and police officers is addressed in a series of songs which see Akshay Kumar and John Abraham jiggle their pelvis and shake their butts. These are Bollywood superstars? Watch them behaving like porn stars, flaunting their chests and their lack of acting talent in an assault on sense and sensibility.”

     

    Shubhra Gupta goes with one star and sneers, “Dhawan Jr hasn’t learnt a lesson from Papa Dhawan on how to make you laugh in spite of you. He unleashes a Desi Boyz holding everything in spite. So a middle-aged star and another more than halfway there strip down and gyrate among equally underclothed women in song after song. The aforesaid Jerry (Kumar) and Nick (Abraham) are working as “male escorts”, you see, after recession took care of their jobs. Recession is a word that occurs most often in this film, followed closely by sex one way or the other. One of their rules, not surprisingly, is that they won’t sleep with these women. But then again, Jerry leaves a woman in the morning as she lovingly hands him a card saying “thanks for last night”.  Presumably he danced all night, around a bed?”