Wanted (2009), Dil Bole Hadipaa (2009)

Wanted – The preview, where Sallu kicks up a table with an assortment of things on it, and then selects which item to kick on the baddie - was scary! No, it did not inspire fear, but it made the mind numb… Oh my God!! Kya shot hai…. Pop! There goes my brain!

Sallu who danced so well in No Entry, was reduced to doing  idotic and vulgar pelvic thrusts in the movie! While these steps are a hit in Tollywood, they didnt look fly in bollywood… It reduced him to an ape who was mimicking what was being shown to him… Not suave and smooth at all! Too much movement, no finesse!

4 stars for this piece of crap .. ha ha ha ha ha.. how much was paid for these reviews Sallu bhai? Movie did well coz of the timing of its release during Navratri and Eid….

Ayesha Takia breaks her way into being reduced to a screaming, crying, voluptuous bimbo, for her role required little acting skills… Just a tight top to show off the plump chest! The face required some acting to milk its Oomph, so Sallu bhai asks her to take out her tongue and puts his hands in her mouth to teach her to whistle… And then the bimbo grabs his fingers and holds them lustily in between her teeth while keeping a thoroughly innocent expression! Whew! Thanks to the censors for giving it an A!

The action was atrocious, yet satisfying… Given that I like violent movies, the spray of blood from the baddie’s mouth as Sallu kicks him was a nice touch. Great imagination (or inspiration from various hollywood movies – makes me wonder why didnt someone patent that blood spray shot! Imagine the royalty wealth he could have amassed from such a patent!)

Story was totally unimaginative and more twist than the curls in Maggi noodles! If the movie was a building, it had a 1970′s structure (story) coated in 2009 Asian Paints colours (action)! It reeked of innumerable Amitabh Bachchan movies. In fact, one can easily replace Sallu with Amitabh, Ayesha with Zeenat/Parveen, The baddie with Shakti Kapoor and viola! You have an Amitabh movie from 1970 with an equally mind-numbing story with contemporary action scenes and vulgar pelvic thrusts dance moves famous in South Indian cinema!! It even has a rape scene with the commissioner’s daughter in it! Perhaps Prabhudeva had not seen “Taken”, else he could have had the tough talking Police Commissioner taking to the streets in a hunt for his daughter! HA!

The humor is atrocious and UN-wanted! No connection to the story at all…. Fail to see humor in a fat guy trying to woo Ayesha and her making fun of him! Also fail to see another roly-poly fellow interacting with an inspector who are chasing a robber and the fattie giving maa-behen ki gaalis (Mother-Sister Bad-words) to the inspector at the behest of the robber! Wonder how the censors passed this piece of crap for humor and how come the Police didnt object to it! Thoroughly insulting to the cops! It was almost as if the director forgot to introduce humor in the movie and then when some people queued up outside his office and expressed their desire to be in the movie that he choose to give them these comic roles!

4 stars? My ass! This gets 2 stars out of 5! How can the (so called) critics dish out 4 stars for this after they have watched Kaminey in the same year? Were they brain dead? Or did their brains really get fried with that “pop” I heard while watching the previews??!

Dil Bole Haddipaa : Touted as a comeback vehicle for Rani Mukherji, DBH sees her getting paired with the HOT Shahid Kapoor! If Ayesha looks like Sallu’s daughter in Wanted, Rani looks like Shahid’s Aunty in DBH… Fortunately she can still act, but in DBH, rani goes overboard while trying to please…

The scenes in the movie are raw and feel chopped! The dance steps are good and will be copied by many… The nautanki scenes were also done good… This is a family movie with Cricket as its backdrop… However, the level of cricket shown in the movie is equal to gulli cricket and the movie fails to utilise the sport the way it was used in Lagaan! It also cashes in on Shahid’s recent success after Kaminey… He was wasted in DBH.

Fun fact: I was confused to find Sherlyn’s looks getting changed in the movie and kept wondering why…. It was at the end that I realised Rakhi was also in the movie! Between the three of them, they managed to have an average cup size of C!

Dil bole haddipaa? Naaa… Dil maange a better movie!! 1.5/5

Movie Review: Kaminey (2009)

No doubt, this is THE movie being talked about in every form of communication! There is a high dose of Kaminey being dished out to the Indian people! But, unlike the “Pardesi” song from Raja Hindustani, it is not at all irritating!

Kaminey is the movie with which Indian Cinema has woken up! It is an intelligent movie. I liked it so much that I have already seen Kaminey twice.. ! That in itself is a compliment because it has been years since I say a Hindi movie twice in as many days! As we all know how good the movie is, I will not go into praising it and dashing out superlatives like Amazing, mind-blowing, etc etc!

Kaminey is good cinema, but its no pulp fiction! Pulp fiction I saw thrice – it bowled me over each time!
To me, Kaminey was about as entertaining as an Amitabh movie in his hey days…. (Lawaris, Amar akbar anthony, Hum, etc)
Sure, the last fight scene was mind blowing… the movie was very nicely done, and the loose ends were tied up nicely… wait, its apt to say, there were no loose ends left in the movie!
To say “the movie made u think” (as per paper reviews) means one’s brain has been kept idle OR one didn’t watch good movies for a fair amount of time… To say that it is an intelligently made movie is putting it more realistically!

The key to Kaminey’s success is its subtlety! If you go to the theater expecting to Priyanka heave her chest in your face, then you will get to watch it, but you will be disappointed later on because there is very little in the movie for audience titillation!

Why do I say this? I first saw Kaminey in a swanky multiplex. The audience got up for the National Anthem and I was left stunned by an Inspirational Instrumental National Anthem jig done against the backdrop of Kargil showing the Indian Army! As much as I am against the idea of playing the anthem in a movie theater, I was touched! If patriotism will be forced upon the audience, this is how it should be done! Show a youthful India, A dashing India, A powerful India – and not a bunch of talented oldies crooning away while shaking their wrinkled faces and bald heads in an attempt to ‘show’ emotion while they display it in their talent. Its too emo, its too mushy! Its weak! I digress!

The multiplex experience was controlled! silent! mute! It was interrupted by people talking on their cell phones saying “yes sir, ho jayega sir”. God damn it! Turn the fucking thing off! I was tempted to grab one cell and throw it, but (thankfully) none were in arms length! (back to the movie) – At the end, no one clapped, no one expressed what they felt about the movie… they walked away in silence – Me and my friends sat they the end credits. Some educated idiots 2 rows ahead of us stood up to leave, then decided they want to watch the credits standing – result….? I saw a bald head alongside Priyanka and Shahid! I stayed silent and didn’t let my mouth get the better of me! It was a multiplex after all!

Just to get a perspective of a different audience, I saw it in a singleplex where one would not go with ones family coz its too run down! The Kaminey experience there was amazing! The audience took part in the movie, they hooted, jeered when things happened in the movie. They even booed when Shahid launched to tell a tale at a crucial time, or dug in to find protection while piggy chops was getting hot and heavy and was all ready for action! Yes, they too talked on the phone during the movie, but they said “Movie dekh raha hoon. Baad mein call karta hoon” (Am in a movie, will call later). They scratched their heads during the interval because the movie was too intelligent for them! It was either that OR it was because Priyanka was already done shaking her bosom and they were wondering, now what!?

The common thread in both the experiences was – no one was asking any questions on the plot! That speaks a lot for the director and the guys responsible for the screen play and for the story writers! This is what gets Kaminey MOST of its points! Taut story telling! No loose ends left for the audience to tie up! One reason i watched it a second time was to find faults and I did find one… but it was a fact and not a flaw – Just before the interval, Shahid does not say SH as FA while singing a song – 2 explanations…. it was an English song OR he was singing! Who cares! The sequence that follows is absolutely brilliant! Bhope-tope exchange is THE highlight of the movie for me! Smooth flow! High tension! The movie runs like a finely tuned sports car! Blows your mind away!

The audience in the multiplex did not say much during the regional dialogues in the movie about Mumbai/Bombay and about Marathi Manoos and the so called ‘outsiders’! However, the ones in the singleplex were not afraid to voice their support during the  ‘outsider’ moment and during the ‘Jai Maharashtra!” moments! It is Sweety in the movie who says it best when she chooses her man over regional politics! At the end of the day, it is about being happy and feeling loved and wanted! Nothing else matters!

Fact is – 1) Aids and pregnancy will get you if u don’t use protection! 2) Vada pav rules over McDonald! 3) Changing Bombay to Mumbai will not give the city more power! 4) Politics is a (dirty) game! Don’t get played by it. 5) Drugs dealing is still rampant everywhere in the world 6) There is no high like a power trip!

Vishal Bhardwaj has touched these topics and presented them very nicely in Kaminey. The movie is as much educating as it is entertaining! The director took a chance by making such a brilliant caper and its paid off well! Kaminey is THE movie of 2009! GO WATCH IT! It is no Pulp Fiction! VB is still a long way from QT…. but the road chosen is fantastic!

err.. did I say I was not going to use any superlatives? Who cares! They were FUperlatives! Go figure!

My rating: 4/5

PS: For those who thought there was too much Marathi in the movie (Smita), it was the Bengali that got to me in the movie! If a movie is made in Hindi, it should have sub-titles for ALL the other languages in the movie! However, this tiny caveat is not at all a deterrent to stop me from watching Kaminey again!

Movie Review: Race (2007)

Lets say that there is a race. The important emelents of a race are the drivers and cars, right? While that may be true, the race track too provides a big part of the entertainment. A good racetrack should have a blend of straights and twists. Too much straights and the cars just zoom past the audience… Too many twists and there is not enough thrill of speed. The right blend of straights and twists and you get a good racetrack that provides good entertainment. In a movie, the racetrack is the story.

The story in Race just has too many twists to pick pace… The viewer kind of feels like get a serving of noodles after being promised jalebis! The good thing is that the twists in the plot are spread well apart but the comedy is just horrendous! Instead of giving relief to the audience and allowing them to digest the twists, it adds to the headache and makes one cringe at the pathetic humor. With Akshaye Khanna cracking SMS jokes about alcohol being a slow killer while being drunk… to Anil Kapoor giving sexual “hints” to his secy using fruits as a metaphor in “not so subtle” dialogues that dont make you laugh most of the time. At one point, he even gropes her boobs under the guise of checking her heart rate… seriously?! Why can’t I do that in my job without the fear of getting sued… (and a black eye!)

Saving grace! Skin, skin n more skin! Good locales. A race tracks and cars. Nice designer outfits!

The babes provide good eye candy – at the end of the movie, it was difficult to judge who was better looking, a wet Bipasha or a wet Katrina! Tough choice indeed! Feel free to cast ur vote in the comments (multiple selections allowed). Sameera was wasted as was Johnny Lever. [As a friend put it - Sameera can't even play dumb properly] Ladies can pick between a shirtless Saif, a shirtless Akshaye or a fully clad Anil for ogling.

Verdict:
All the horse racing and the car chasing was lost in the stripping as the twists spun out of control! The mish-mash made the 2.5 hour movie feel like a 3.5 hour movie that came with a free headache. Really, thats all I have to say about the movie… Its not worth wasting any more brain power! The poor comedy killed most of the few brain cells I had left! (most of the few – see, there’s your proof!)

2.5 / 5