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Jhoom Barabar Jhoom(2007)
Director : Shaad Ali Sahgal
Cast : Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Preity Zinta, Lara Dutta
Producrer : Aditya Chopra
Music Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Busy London station. Delayed train from Birmingham. Two strangers waiting for the train... Rikki Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan) born in Bhatinda, living in London; and Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) more Brit than the Queen herself, however with Lahori blood in her veins.
Crowded café. One table to share. Two hours to kill. Perfect setting for the start of a love-story. Hitch? Both Rikki and Alvira are engaged and have come to pick up their fiancés who are coming by the same train. To kill time, they end up telling each other their “how I met my fiancé” stories.
Rikki met his fiancé Anaida (Lara Dutta) at The Ritz (Paris), the same night that Princess Diana and Dodi walked out of the hotel and into the paparazzi. As Rikki says, “When two lovers die, another two are a born”. They dance... they sing... they're in love!
Alvira, a princess by nature discovers her prince at Madame Tussaud’s. When a gigantic wax model of Superman falls from the ceiling, Alvira is a sitting target. But Steve the Prince (Bobby Deol), a lawyer by profession saves her life but steals her heart! They also sing, they also dance and they also fall in love...
Stories unfold, time passes, the two strangers start enjoying each other. That Alvira is a Pakistani Brit and Rikki originally from India... that Rikki is crooked, earthy, and rakish: dabbler in various businesses; that Alvira is prim-n-proper, wannabe blue-blood, stiff upper-lip: Asst. Manager at House of Fraser’s... none of these details matter. They have gotten alarmingly attracted to each other!
Their brief encounter has created a complicated quadrangle... Rikki Thukral and Alvira Khan have gotten themselves and Steve and Anaida into a lovely mess... To get out of it both of them bend over backward, thinking quickly on their feet, dancing around each other’s emotions... After all when you’re playing musical chairs with love, there’s nothing you can do but... Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (Dance Baby Dance)!
The incandescent Tabu makes Amitabh Bachchan run across the London fields... "Just to see if you've the energy to do anything else," she tells him, her tongue firmly in cheek.
"Cheeni Kum" is probably the sauciest, slickest, and most scrumptious romantic comedy you'll see in the Hindi language in a long time.
She's in London for a holiday. He is a cantankerous sarcastic chef who can't take a snub even when it's served up on a platter.
"Cheeni Kum" makes you forget there's a difference of 30 years between the woman and the man. That's the magic of pure acting. The magic of two of the finest actors at work as they create an ebullient alchemy.
Also in this mellow ode to love, are an 85-year-old mom (Zohra Sehgal) living life king-sized, and a seven-year-old terminally-ill girl called Sexy (Swini Khara) who takes the chef as an intimate friend and watches all adult DVDs he gets her, since she won't get a chance to do so later.
Then there is the heroine's Gandhian father who can't stop reminding his son-in-law-to-be of his autumnal age. And last but certainly not the least, there's the churlish chef's kitchen staff comprising some of the most sparkling cameo-actors you've seen.
Unarguably, one of the finest directorial talents in this millennium, Balki just sweeps that age gap under the carpet.
It's hard to decide in which capacity Balki scores higher marks - as director or dialogue writer. Caustic and crisp, modern and passionate, the words weave magic across this intelligent yet spontaneous comedy of romantic errors.
The flavour of the exchanges between the surly chef in London and the serene Indian girl from Delhi, who makes the cardinal mistake of criticising the arrogant chef's Hyderabadi biryani, are distinctly pungent and peppery.
Just like the dishes from the kitchen of the Indian restaurant, the brilliant banter between Amitabh and Tabu is light on top, cooked just right and served at the right temperature.
As the relationship between the couple grows, you sense undercurrents of defiant and mischievous feelings trickling out of the verbal banter.
But then Amitabh and Tabu are that kind of actors. They imbue every encounter on the rain-slickened streets of London into an occasion to celebrate life.
Tabu is a natural scene-stealer and there seems to be no end to the surprises Amitabh springs on us. To imagine "Cheeni Kum" without Amitabh is to imagine that pivotal Hyderabadi biryani that brings the couple together without saffron.
This intimate, amusing and warm character-study of love and its sudden appearance in lives that have accepted its non-presence derives considerable energy from the supporting cast.
But Paresh Rawal, who as Amitabh's outraged father-in-law-to-be, is surprisingly bland. Zohra Sehgal, as Amitabh's spunky mom, and little Swini give life to the narrative.
There are moments in this quirky, captivating and curvaceous cinema that touch the highest notes of drama without getting hysterical. However, one does notice flaws in the second half.
What makes "Cheeni Kum" so unique?
While Balki's word-spin takes the romance into areas of absolutely seductive brightness, London and Delhi have been captured by P.C. Sreeram's articulate cinematography. Ilayaraja's talcum-fresh melodies add to the emotions.
It could also be the magic between Amitabh and Tabu, who seem to look into each other's eyes and souls with such warmth that you forget their age difference completely.
But there's more to it. "Cheeni Kum" is a film where the words match the thoughts of the characters so well that you forget someone else wrote the dialogues for the unlikely lovers.
The attempt at experimentation in ‘Ek Chalis Ki Last Local’ is laudable, but at some points the film falls slightly short. The film has every bit of masala—funny scenes, thrilling scenes, nail biting scenes…but one wishes the editing was ruthless.
Nilesh (Abhay Deol), a call centre employee, misses his last local and gets stuck at Vikhroli station for two and a half hours, till the next local arrives. What follows is a rollercoaster ride.
He has Madhu (Neha Dhupia), a damsel in distress for company. There is an auto strike so the two have no choice but to wait for the next train. The two bump into the mafia that is involved in extortion, gambling, kidnapping, prostitution, encounter, gangwars—all in one night!
The film’s pace picks up when Nilesh and Madhu enter a bar and start gambling. While the chain of events accidentally traps the guy in a murder charge, what shocks him further is when his dream girl turns out to be a sex worker on the prowl.
Debutant director Sanjay Khanduri is impressive and has handled some scenes deftly, especially the ones involving the main protagonists. Abhay Deol has come up with a remarkable performance. Neha Dhupia, though unconvincing in the beginning, gives a mature portrayal as she converts from an innocent girl to a sex worker.
Apart from the lead actors, it is the small characters that hold the movie together—be it the police inspector Malvankar (Ashok Samarth) or the don Ponappa (Vijay Apte).
The film’s biggest asset is the hilarious dialogues and catchy one-liners written by Raghuveer Shekhawat.
Though there are some gaping loopholes, which might leave you disgruntled, all in all the film makes for decent viewing.
‘Ek Chalis Ki Last Local’ is worth one watch and memorable for a few thrilling scenes—something that multiplex audiences will relate to and enjoy.
From director Anurag Basu's "Metro" last week to Anurag Singh's "Raqeeb" this week - what a gigantic leap in terms of vision, intent and impact!
Outwardly both "Metro" and "Raqeeb" are contemporary in content. They make more than whispering mentions of sex, sexuality, cyber-sleaze and other supposedly scandalous and hitherto-taboo subjects.
In one of the initial sequences, the benign Rahul Khanna shouts, "I'm not gay!" to Tanushree Dutta across an eatery and then proceeds to smooch her to prove so.Well Mr Director, tongues do lie, you know!
"Raqeeb" is so busy trying to shock us with its high-voltage wantonness, it forgets to pause for refuelling its creative motors.
The narrative moves at a breakneck speed creating a highly charged sexually-defiant version of Abbas-Mustan's "Humraaz" about the benevolent husband, the adulterous wife and her amoral lover. Jimmy Shergil sports theatrical rhetorics, and flowing henna-coloured hair that really doesn't suit him.
There are three heroes, one heroine, two item songs, three romantic songs, three attempted murders and a couple of funerals. There's also a rather vulgar item song by starlet Sherlyn Chopra.
Even the film's only main female lead, Tanushree, dresses and acts like an item-girl. And to impress the naïve millionaire Rahul Khanna, she also claims to enjoy Shakespeare.
Sure, we believe you. As much as we believe in the fast-paced film's perverse quadrangle, featuring three besotted men and one girl. Tanushree does have potential... if only she would stop doing such inconsistent roles.
Director Anurag Singh cuts his material with the relish of a chef carving turkey for a thanks-giving dinner.
Alas, there isn't much to be thankful for in "Raqeeb". Unless you're looking at the scenic locations where the songs are shot - the pristine-blue waters and pure-white sands.
Pritam's soundtrack goes by the crass requirements of the narrative
Film: "Life In A...Metro"
Director: Anurag Basu; Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Shilpa Shetty, Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut, Konkona Sen Sharma, Irfan Khan, Sharman Joshi
Rating: ***
Director Anurag Basu seems to have an obsession with heights. In "Murder", "Gangster" and now "Metro", characters are seen hanging down or just sitting on ledges of skyscrapers.
In "Metro", he even gets his rock band to climb atop a building and strum guitars. And when it isn't guitars, it's Irrfan and Konkona getting on a rooftop to scream their lungs out.
It's meant to be therapeutic and we'll take Anurag Basu's word for it. "Metro" falters only in parts. Some of the narrative's punctuation marks are overemphasised. And the spiral of human relationships often seems to replicate Mike Nichols' "Closer".
And yes, Billy Wilder's romantic comedy "The Apartment" serves as a direct reference point for the Kay Kay-Kangana-Sharman triangle.
But make no mistake, this is a highly original film with a voice that seems to reverberate across a limitless canvas of feelings of people in a concrete jungle.
You know you are being sucked into the lives of characters who are largely losers in the garb of white-collar dreamers, looking for love and warmth in a cold, heartless city.
After "Gangster", Anurag Basu has got another winner in "Metro" - a subtle, sly look at a bunch of characters locked in the throes of infidelity.
Basu harnesses his narrative into a fiesta of reined-in feelings, all indicating the growth of a city that cares little about one's sensitivities.
He has an incredible eye for performances. Every actor is nearly flawless in the chaos of corroded commitments in the city. Always witty, "Metro" moves through a laconic labyrinth of laughter and some stifled sobs.
Sanjeev Dutta's dialogues are very indicative of the characters' inner world.They slice right into the characters' hearts and give us an insight into the machinations of people so busy realising their dreams that they even forget to sleep.
On the negative side, "Metro" fails to connect us with the characters beyond their love life. If they have a life beyond their heart, we don't see it.
The film should be seen as a mellow, melancholic and sharp look at love and sex in the city. The characters move in and out of some skilfully written scenes.
Despite a frail chemistry with Shiney Ahuja, Shilpa Shetty gives a nuanced performance. Bobby Singh's camera captures Shilpa in agonized silhouettes. Kay Kay, as her insensitive husband, has a thankless role that he performs with rare understanding.
While Sharman and Kangana are surprisingly chemistry-less in their screen relationships, Irrfan and Konkona come across as the warmest couple of this jigsaw of life. Watch them in the seashore sequence and savour their outstanding emotive faculties.
"Metro" is manoeuvred forward by a melee of delicious ideas ... like composer Pritam and his rock band appearing as narrators to sing their songs. The rain-motif pelts down on the plot, creating pockets of pain, desire and longing.
But the film could have done with better editing. Akiv Ali cuts the material brutally ... but not deep enough.
Film: "Kya Love Story Hai!"
Starring: Tusshar Kapoor, Ayesha Takia, Karan Hukku
Directed by: Lovely Singh
Rating: *
Two of 'hero' Tusshar Kapoor's sidekicks look at each other and say, "Nowadays, only Yash (Chopra) uncle has successes." No truer words are spoken in this bogus love triangle that goes from corn to corniest with no break to feel the ache caused by every tepid take.
There's something immensely graceless in a film about a loser who befriends and courts with pursed lips and tight jaws, signifying that strange and outdated concept known as "silent love".
In comparison, the other man (played by agreeable newcomer Karan Hukku) comes across smelling like roses. He reminds you of all those lonely eligible bachelor-tycoon types from Vinod Khanna in "Chandni" to Himanshu Malik in "Tum Bin". The spunky lass Kajal (played by the spunky Ayesha) loves the loser who has a permanent hangdog expression, as though he has just come out of a terrible illness and is in desperate need of sympathy.
Sympathy is what the makers of this anaemic love story need for attempting a tale like this.
Material for a tele-film is turned into a baggy feature bogged down by cardboard characters and sidekicks who chase everything in skirts and bikinis.
The South African beaches offer the director a chance to focus his creaky vision on butts and bosoms. Alas, voluptuous female forms cannot compensate for a lack of vigour and contours.
The script (by Rahul Singh) is what a love-struck adolescent would write for a school competition. It portrays the characters as a bunch of nerds best left in the pages of a pavement pulp novel for girls between the ages of 9 and 12.
Last week, we saw a superbly knitted script in "Life Mein Kabhi Kabhee". This week we see a film in search of a script.
The editing by Steven Bernard alternates courtship scenes between Kapoor and Takia with comic relief. But what relief do we obtain from the tedium of watching a feature film that mistakes cinema for the home medium?
The performances leave you cold and shivery, waiting for one moment to connect with the characters. That moment never comes.
A word of advice. Watch Kareena Kapoor's sizzling item song at home and stay away from this dead-at-the-centre love triangle about a boy who deserves no love, a girl who deserves more love, a suitor who deserves no-more love and an audience that deserves the cinema that it gets.
"Good Boy Bad Boy" or "Dhoop Chaon..." - last I remember Ashwini Chowdhary had made a lovely sun-kissed film called "Dhoop".
So what did we miss here?
"Good Boy Bad Boy" is like a prescription to eternal cine-phobia. There's no reason why this film should've been made in the first place. And if it has been made, there's no valid reason for us to sit through the ordeal of good boy Tusshar Kapoor with oiled hair, button-up shirt taking on bad boy Emraan in scruffy jeans, stubble, sundry sunglasses.
For a while the twosome frolic in the campus to Himesh Reshammiya's 'young', noisy and breathy tracks. Then they decide to join up and have fun. They do. We don't! Simple.
The campus is a textbook of idiocy. The teachers, flirty and buxom Sushmita Mukherjee and sundry clowns, are balanced out by principal Paresh Rawal who comes up with arguably his most unaccomplished performance in five years.
It's not that Paresh doesn't try to lend credibility to his role of a principal. He tries to bring a sense of order to a campus infested by punks and other street-vile types who don't seem to know how to hold a book right. And the only test they seem capable of passing is the HIV-positive one.
It's tough to tell what director Chaudhary hoped to achieve through this classroom of compulsive craziness. Maybe he wanted to make a "Main Hoon Na" of the punk generation. Maybe he wanted to build a pyramid of laughter out of youthful angst. Maybe he wanted us to forget he made "Dhoop" not too long ago.
The director fails on all counts, but one. It's easy to forget that this director had not too long ago displayed enough sensitivity to make us hopeful for his future.
What works is the principal casting. Tusshar and Hashmi are good and bad without trying too hard. But their efforts to remain true to 'tripe' defeats their very purpose of being in the film. The two leading ladies try to be glamorous and sassy.
Isha has lost a lot of weight, even on her face. Gone with the avoirdupois is her ability to emote that we saw in Subhash Ghai's "Kisna". Tanushree Dutta is so badly styled you wonder what keeps her from toppling under the weight of her clumsiness.
Ditto the film.
Tackily produced and clumsily packaged "Good Boy, etc is an embarrassment to producer Subhash Ghai.
Film: "Tara Rum Pum"
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji, Ali Haji, Angelina Idnani, Jaaved Jaffri; Director: Siddharth Anand
Rating: ***
Hrishikesh Mukherjee meets Walt Disney in this utterly heart-warming take on life's most serious and cruel jokes.
There's a moment in Anand's film where Rani plays that clichéd sequence where the hero's fallen-on-hard-times wife rejects a fat cheque from her rich father.
"I did the right thing, didn't I?" Rani asks her screen-husband Saif, who looks aghast. "You turned down a cheque for $50,000? For that sum of money I'm ready to be compromised every day."
The above sequence is a strangely subverted interpretation of the sequence from Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Satyakam" where Dharmendra's idealism was weighed against Sharmila Tagore's ability to ward off temptations.
"Tara Rum Pum" is like a romp through the highest emotional summits of life's blows. Anand situates this riches-to-rags drama of a spendthrift car racer, his cautious and principled wife and his two adorable kids in New York where the economically challenged family moves from up-market Manhattan to downtown Queens.
Cinematographer Binod Pradhan captures the underbelly of New York and the racing driver's family story in a restrained rush of emotional adrenaline. In true Walt Disney tradition, the family makes the best of its challenged morality when it falls on hard times.
There are moments, like when Saif's hungry little son, played naturally by Ali Haji, devours a half-eaten burger retrieved from a trashcan, where eyes can't but turn moist.
You can't fault the director for pumping up the tears. Commercial cinema is all about the pleasure you derive in bringing the fundamental emotions of love and life together.
"Tara Rum Pum" does just that. Anand's screenplay is original from far. Get closer and you see scenes from "Days Of Thunder" and a whole chunk from the Russell Crowe boxing film "Cinderella Man" packaged in vibrant colours.
Saif, I feel, is a better actor than Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe. He plays the role of the rugged, dare-devilish fallen hero with pathos and parody.
It helps to have Rani as a co-star. Though her make-up and clothes are all wrong in the first half, she brings an emotional resonance to her supportive wife's part in the second-half. Here, she has to stand by a man who has lost his heroic sheen and is a bit of an embarrassment to the mirror.
Jaaved Jaffri replicates the role of a star manager from dozens of Hollywood films. Though his penchant for doing accents (this time Gujarati) is admirable, he doesn't quite blend with the film's fabric.
Victor Banerjee is outstanding. He stands out of the script, trying to give a semblance of originality to the role of the heroine's rich, snobbish father.
The inspirational tale is buoyed by a bewildering array of songs and dances, including one where the protagonists dance with animation figures. They highlight the happy family undergoing distressing times.
The initial 15 minutes could have been more inspired though. Nothing, not even the tepid songs by Vishal-Shekhar can take away from the sheer weightlessness of the narrative as it moves through several superbly written scenes.
Scenes like the one where Saif and Rani pretend to be satiated at a family dinner so that the kids can eat properly and another when the kids stare longingly at a confectionary stall makes you wish all your cynicism would dissolve.
"Tara Rum Pum" is true feel-good cinema. Siddharth Anand gives us a slick slice-of-life that swings from joy to sadness. A must-see family film!
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Ayesha Takia, Sharmila Tagore, Vivek Oberoi, Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav
Director: Ahmed Khan
Rating: *
There are some comedies that make you wish laughter had never been invented. "Fool & Final" is the most grotesque travesty of tinsel titters that man ever had a chance to invent.
It's ridiculously blasé about its brainlessness and pointedly brazen in its burlesque. The comic-book mode of filmmaking is far from amusing. In fact the purpose and pacing of the humour is embarrassingly awry.
Very honestly, I thought I had gone to see a comedy. But hey ... this is a suspense thriller! It just makes you scratch your head in disbelief. Why did they make this film? Why did actors of varied means and talent agree to be in this fatuous farce? Who's the biggest fool? The people who expect the audience to sit through this giggly garbage, or the audience?
The suspense just assails and finally numbs your senses.
So much brain-dead slapstick packaged into one film ... Gosh, who thought of this fearful oddity? The producer, known for his stylish comedies set in Dubai, or the director? Known to make stars with two left legs dance, this time Ahmed Khan makes a truckload of stars shake more than just shake their legs.
Every 'actor' (if we can call some of the cheese-and-ham performers actors) is at his or her hammiest summit. Every sequence has at least a dozen or more stars making faces into the camera. It's truly heart-rending to see actors like Shahid Kapoor(Vivah) and Ayesha Takia (Dor) peering into the lens as though it were a barbed fence dividing sanity from profanity?
As for the senior brigade, you cringe each time Sharmila Tagore goes 'Beta' to Shahid and Om Puri goes 'Puttar' to Deol.
Paresh Rawal and Johnny Lever, doing Dumb and Dumber (the audience for this dumbed-down comedy being considered the dumbest) are supposed to be the human equivalent of Tom and Jerry. The characters speak Anurag Kashyap's dialogues with an acute stress on the punctuations.
The exclamation marks leave their mark on the frames. Fool & Final is the cinematic equivalent of a loud tattoo being drilled into a beefy arm. An image emerges painfully. But the picture on the forearm is frisky.
The cartoon-strip format is stripped down and robbed off the playful and parodic aura. What we see is what we regret.
Not all of the 59 (or is it 61?) characters fit in. But are they meant to belong in the first place?
Ahmed Khan directs the characters in what's arguably the corniest caper ever produced, as though they were all Dubai-bound tourists who are lost in transit.
You wish the same could have happened to the prints of this pathetic parody
