bollywood movie review

Having recently lost his mother, Michael Pinto an innocent, gullible twenty-something  from a small village somewhere in Goa, visits his childhood friend in Mumbai. He does not realize that his friend has moved ahead in life and has buried the childhood warmth, even though he receives him and takes him to his pad much to the chagrin of his wife.  Pinto is left alone in his house while the couple goes to attend a new year’s party. The night turns eventual for many people’s life when Pinto get lost in the city.  So we have a ‘retired’ don, his ex-heroine sweet heart,  his twin assistants, a side kick who wants to eliminate the don, two men fighting over a girl, a gambler and did I miss any other? May be.  And also,  Kalki Kochelin who wants to be a dancer.

That sums up the story plot of My Friend Pinto, c0-produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and directed by his assistant Raaghav Dhar. If you think the story plot has a potential the problem arises with the screenplay and the direction. We all know Sanjay Leela Bhansali has a penchant for theatrical  costumes and performances in his intense movies.  Raaghav Dhar being his assistant has the hang over of it and presents this comedy in a theatrical way, which has a disaster effect in the final watch.  So it is like watching a stage play on screen. It could have been tolerated if it had the proper comedy ingredients that would not yawn us the entire length.

Poor Prateik babbar looks stifled and tries his theatrical best but something just didn’t work well and the drub screenplay does not help either. God only knows why Kalki chose to work on this script, for a talented actress who made a strong impression in off beat movies, My Friend Pinto is neither Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara, a mainstream movie nor an off beat movie which gives her a meaty role. Tsch.

Ginger Chai Verdict: My Friend Pinto is frustrating. There are movies which make two hours seemingly a long, long time and Pinto gives you that feeling.

Predictable. Clichéd. Unoriginal. Flawed. The movie has it all but… but… it is not all that bad, it is watchable. Strange but it is.

Keeping behind the failures of Tashan, Pyaar Impossible, Dil Bole Hadippa, Badmaash Company YRF camp tries their luck in this Neil Nitin Mukesh-Deepika Padukone starrer with Pradeep Sarkar (his earlier stint being Parineeta and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag) calling the shots.

Audience of singleplex to multiplex and in small towns to cities love tapori language. Have we not enjoyed all mammu and aati kya khandala dialogues?  And loved the tapori names like we have in this movie chaddi, gulkund and diesel? And we do love those stories of under dogs triumphing right? As well as the numerous Chinese martial arts movies where a drunken monk teaches his protégé tricks in his own ingenious way to become a champion. Well, LP has it all. LP is a story of group of friends living in one of the wadis of Mumbai. Neil is a street fighter who fights blindfolded his opponents and knocks them out in one shot – so he got the moniker “One shot” Nandu. While, Pinky is an employee in a mall who dreams to win India’s Got Talent show with her skating skills. For her it is the passport for better life and getting away from the wadi life. Fate has its own scheme of things for their life. In a sudden turn of event, Pinky looses her sight in a freak accident. Step in Neil who teaches Pinky to see through her other senses using ingenious techniques we have seen in Chinese martial art movies. Add to it the predictable romance and a climax.

Neil is a complete mismatch for a tapori. He is made for a man in suit and urban casuals but the director has chosen to cast him anyways. He does his best though our mind refuses to see him as a tapori. Add to that his unwillingness to learn acting – makes things worst. But still you can watch it for Deepika and Neil’s friendly gang. Especially, I liked the madrasi character.  Deepika is remarkable especially in the skating sequences. The credit goes to the choreographers. The skating sequences are beautifully done.

GingerChai verdict: A below-average movie but does not bores you either. Watch it if you have money in pocket and nothing else to do.

A rich, care-free Delhi girl who zips the town in her yellow Beetle car, sports trendy designer labels, parties hard, wears pretty hats for the Sunday polo matches and yes, also visits poor animal rights centre like a perfect rich-socialite thinks she is good at conjuring up hearts together and thinks match making as social service. Between all these, she and her best friend the petite Pinky (Iris Dubey) thinks they may have to be single forever. A whole khandan in designer dresses – papa, mausi, chacha, didi, jiju, jiju’s brother, jiju’s new beta, chacha’s son from first marriage, a distant cousin from Haryana, a rich heir who is in love with Aisha  makes the life complete in Aisha’s world. Who is the hero in this inner coterie? Its Jiju’s brother, Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol) who also happens to be childhood friend of Aisha and who is at constant loggerheads with Aisha. Arjun is against Aisha’s way of interfering in others life and cooking their life. Meanwhile he dates his NRI colleague and friend Aarti (Lisa Haydon). In a sea of events unfolding partly in an expected manner, Aisha discovers her fault line and finds her true love calling in a Romeo Juliet way.

Aisha is like Page 3. All glitz glamour and high society. There is nothing middle class about the movie, saving Anand Tiwari who appears as Saurabh who has a huge crush over Shefali (Amrita Puri), the distant cousin of Aisha. The movie could have been very well a brand ambassador for many a high fashion items in India.

Music composed by Amit Trivedi is a big plus point and so is the cinematography. Aisha is producer papa Anil Kapoor’s gift to his beti. The movie revolves around Sonam, her world and her choice with all the designer labels to accompany.

GingerChai Verdict: When I watched the movie, I was the only guy in the entire row flanked by rows of giggling girls – that says it all. Aisha is a sweet movie, though not perfect but will definitely make you smile. Makes a good popcorn time for this weekend.

Once upon a time Mumbai was called Bombay and this movie is set in one of those period 70’s – the period that witnessed the rise of organized mafia syndicates.

The story begins as a flashback narration of a police officer who witnessed the rise and shift in the power centre of the Mumbai underworld. There is no guessing on whom the two lead characters are loosely based upon – Haji Mastan, the people’s mafia and Dawood Ibrahim who eventually became India’s most wanted. Once upon a time in Mumbai, Haji Mastan was a prominent smuggler who also had people’s support in his area. Then came the rise of Dawood Ibrahim – ruthless and power hungry. Director Milan Luthria, picks both this characters to weave a story along with real facts and splendid dash of filmi fiction.

So we have Ajay Devgan as Sultan Mirza playing Haji Mastan’s role and Emran as Shoaib , the Dawood’s character. One is a bad man with ethics and another trigger happy, power hungry, uncontrolled and ruthless. The movie has loads of filmi dialogues but that clicks well with the audience. The retro glamour is extravagant in parts but unlike many Bollywood flicks it is controlled and acceptable.

When a character requires powerful but understated intensity, Ajay Devgan is the best bet for it. A gangster role is tailor-made for Emran Hashmi and inspite of donning the role multiple times, he still manages to bring a fresh energy into it. Kangana must be happy that finally a director captured her as a beauty incarnated in retro style costumes and look. Prachi Desai as Emran’s love interest torn between love and his evil side sizzles too. Overall, the movie has got its actors right and the actors have got their act right.

The songs by Pritam are already topping the charts. Aseem Mishra’s camera work ins commendable.

GingerChai Verdict: A well packaged movie with brilliant star cast. I felt the ending of the movie was literally an instant death kind and fills a vacuum in you but it could be a plus point too. You can definitely watch it to spend you weekend.

Priyadarshan is a director of contradiction. In 2008 his Tamil movie Kanichivaram won the national award and in 89’s and 90’s he has many commercially successful Malayalam movies to his credit. Then he ventured into Bollywood taking the safe route of remaking his Malayalam hits and turning many into hits again. But the problem in rehashing the old movies is that few of the movies thought successful during that time frame would fail to entice the present audience. Khatta Meetha is one such story, where the audience finds nothing new in it.

On other hand we have Akshay Kumar a super star on his own right but aware of leveraging it. Unlike the Khan stars, Akki is a common man when it comes to show biz who cannot position his star value to pedal up further. So you see him in big ventures like Blue and then you also see him in a seemingly low budget movie like this. I am not suggesting he gets trapped into stardom but he could do well by choosing movies that justified his new found stardom. Khatta Meetha definitely is not a movie meant for superstar like Akki.

Sachin Tichkule (Akshay kumar) is a struggling civil contractor who seems to be eternally doomed since he does not have money to bribe and get his files moved. While his brothers are successful civil contractors thanks to political connections and greased palms. Sachin is mocked and disrespected by everyone at home except his sister who loves him. To make matter worst, the new municipal commissioner (Trisha) happens to be his ex-girlfriend. With all this we have a khichidi of events like the bridge built by his brothers collapsing leaving many dead, the brothers framing their driver (Tinu Anand, a talent gravely wasted), death of Sachin’s sister, a character trying to expose the corruption in the bridge collapse (Makrand Deshpande, yet another talent wasted)  etc.

I fail to understand how a smart dressed, cool looking Akshay as a college guy as shown in the brief flash back turns to be a caricatured, or to borrow the words of Rajeev Masand “Jackass” character, when he becomes a struggling civil contractor. Does the body language turn so Jackass including the walking style?

Trisha looks pretty but the dubbing voice plus the lip sync seems like a mismatch. Couple of songs by Pritam is good to hear but boring to watch.

GingerChai Verdict: Low in Meetha.

The much awaited and annoyingly very much delayed movie finally hits flies into the movie halls. My eagerness took a beating twice when I could not attend the Thursday preview and when I took the First show of the Friday; I was told the show is cancelled since there was some issue in releasing the movie in Bangalore. Luckily with police security beefed up, I got the tickets for the noon show. With expectations flying high,  did kites fly miles high too ? Well read on further.

J (Hrithik Roshan) is a dance teacher in Las Vegas who also does marriage of convenience with illegal immigrants who wants permanent citizenship and their by makes extra bucks. He aspires big and like many chasing dreams in Las Vegas awaits his lucky charm. The luck comes in the form of Gina (Kangana Ranaut) daughter of powerful, rich Casanova Bob (Kabir Bedi). She falls in love with J and J decides to pretend to love her and marry her all for the huge wealth she inherits. During the engagement ceremony of Gina’s brother Tony with Natasha (Barbara Mori), he falls in love with her. Natasha happens to be the same Linda, a Spanish speaking Mexican illegal immigrant whom he marries once for convenience for her citizenship. From here follows a story of finding true love and the haunting after-effects.

The movie begins with J falling off from a wagon train with bullet injuries and the workers rescuing him. From there the movie oscillates into flashbacks and J’s search for Linda. Kites does not have any extra-ordinary story, the Hindi/English speaking J and the Spanish speaking Linda reminds of Kamal Hasan and Rati Agnihotri of Ek Duje Ke Liye but what makes Kites still fly is the packaging. There is no unwanted glamorization, slapstick cheap comedy but the movie looks rich. The New Mexican locations are carefully selected and captivate us in the screen with some amazing cinematography by Ayananka Bose.

Much has been talked about the chemistry of Hrithik and Barbar Mori and it is there in the screen for you to see. Hrithik is unbelievably handsome with his Greek God like body and green eyes and Barbara looks lovely, sprightly. Together they compliment well each other.

There are some very enjoyable scene like when Hrithik asks Barbara on the night before her marriage day with Tony, if she really loves Tony and the answer she gives in return. Along with this the movie also has some pretty bollywoodish silly scenes like the Casanova and his son giving a gun to J and egging him to kill a man who cheated in their casino and the shootout in an inn between cops and cow-boy styled thieves. Even the climax shoot out in rain la Max Payne style was not befitting the movie.

GingerChai Verdict: The story is ordinary but the way the Roshans and Anurag basu has presented as a whole package is extraordinary and wonderful. When you watch the movie with the massive hype weighing in your mind, you might be slightly disappointed but Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori holds the movie soar high helped with a good production quality. I would recommend you to watch but shed the baggage of hype and expectations.

The heyy baby team is back with yet another low IQ mindless crapper but this time it makes you say oh no baby!

Akshay is a born looser. Bad luck is written all over him and everywhere you go.  Dejected and rejected in love, he goes to London to spend some time with his best friend Ritesh who works along with his wife, Lara Dutta in a casino run by Randhir  Kapoor.  After some initial hiccups (with again some idiotic good old comedy scenes) Lara understands Akshay’s good heart. They both gets Akshay married to Randhir’s daughter who wants a perfect Indian boy for his girl. On their honeymoon to Italy, Akshay’s wife Jiah Khan introduces to him her boyfriend. Rejected and dejected again,  Akshay attempts suicide only to be saved by Deepika. What follows from here is an often seen in bollywood movies –  mistaken identities, confusions and finally all is well that ends well. Some directors pull the good old knot very well but Sajid khan fails in this movie.

The biggest flaw of the movie is the characterization of Akshay.  Who wants to see Akshay being a loser all through the movie? Akshay cuts a sorry figure with a character that makes no justice to his screen presence. Ok, for half n hour into movie or so you make Akshay a looser but his fans would definitely like a turnaround but it never happened till the very end. Atleast an original comedy in the form of Akshay, the looser? You are disappointed again.  I just felt sorry for him and whatever comedy he tried to make just did not click.

The script has gone horribly wrong, ofcourse it is taken for granted that in most Bollywood comedies,  especially in Akshay kumar’s comedy flicks there is no room for logic but a good script can pull the movie through. Sadly, this movie holds a painstakingly bad script with no effort made for some original madness.

The only one who steals the show is Chunkey Pandey who comes briefly as Akhri Pasta,  an Italian hotelier and makes you laugh with his words “am just joking” and yes, though the laughter gas technique to bring a comic scene is told since black and white movies, it was a change to see Queen Elizabeth laugh out and say Jai Maharashtra but as a climax it does not cut ice.

GingerChai Verdict: Akshay sports a loser character but  the movie is a loser too.

City of Gold by Mahesh Manjrekar treads the path between a classic movie and commercial movie and hits you hard. Packed with powerful performances, characterization and an earthy cast the movie wins over us in most of the scenes barring few jerky moments that can be excused.

The movie starts with Baba (Ankush Chaudhary) taking you back to 80′s and recounting his life in the urban poor chawl and how his family consisting his parents, two brothers and sisters fought for survival during the time when mills where shut down due to mill owners-mafia-politician nexus capitalizing on the real estate boom.

The director captures the family as the canvas to showcase the grim reality that creeped in the life of thousands who lost their job and whose lives took a turn to despair, bad and ugly.  Seema Biswas brilliantly sketches the role of the mother who helplessly sees the life crumpling around and her children caught in various circumstances of despair.  Scenes like when the mother beats his son who returns from police station and night when everyone is asleep weeps and applies medicine to him, when the family discovers that the unmarried daughter is pregnant,  and her silent weep in hospital when her daughter gets the abortion done numbs the audience…

Yes, the director traversing various characters and sub-plots of the characters have wavered from the core theme of the movie that is the plight of the mill owners and rather made it appear like a plight of a family but then as it is the movie did strike chord. Karan Patel as Naru,  Siddharth Jhadav as Speed breaker stays in your thoughts even after the movie is over. The background score works brilliantly and a big relief is the movie has no song except for the title track.

The one thing that let me down was the ending scene of the movie. The director could have dealt it differently but then criminals do exists so even that could be excused but the flaw is it hijacks the emotional chord the director struck throughout the movie.

GingerChai Verdict: A de-glamorised movie with no star appeal but strikes the chord with raw power.  A hard hitting movie that you might well watch. The move may not be appealing everyone. If you like a serious subject made with a dash of commercial mix, you will like it.

Unfortunately, there were only 6 people  in the entire hall watching the movie along with me.  So if you want to watch it, rush this weekend,  it may not be in theaters for long.

Well, I liked the movie title Paathshaala and the opening screen showing the newspaper clippings of student abuse, student pressure etc made me sit straight in anticipation of a movie on the lines of Tarre Zameen Par.

Shahid Kapoor joins Saraswati Vidya Mandir as an english teacher and later doubles as music teacher too. Nana Patekar is the head master of the school. The first half of the movie is breezy with school romances, short skirts, dances with no seriousness of the subject of education. Then the movie gets further depromoted with the advent of the trustees who want to make the school a money spinning venture. The children are discriminated on the basis of “best payers”. We have a young student made to stand under sun the whole day since he did not pay fee. The whole school watches him almost fainting. Except our hero Shahid, who appears cooly much much later offering his months salary for paying the fee.  The management hire some PR people to do school branding. So the children are forced to participte in reality shows, made extras in TV programmes. Oh wait , even they are made to act in movies when shooting happens in their school premise and ya in one scene when red chilly powder falls ino the eyes of a child a director of the TV cookery programem insist on shooting the scene for better TRPs instead of first aid ! Over exaggarated? Yes and the second half is damn boring too. I lost count of my yawns. After having enough of this exaggarated attrocities,  the students lead by teacher Shahid starts a strike! Finally, we have Nana Patekar justifying his monster tactics all to save the school from the clutches of the commercial minded trustees! And all is well that ends well.

*sighs* Director Milink Ukey had started the script in an earnest and right intention but lost it in its execution. The first half is non-serious like a campus entertainer with even a gal having a crush for Shahid. In second half, he tries to shift gear to his actual intended subject but over exaggarates it and goofs it up.  Shahid as music teacher reminds of his role in Chance pe Dance movie.

GingerChai Verdict: A potential good subject badly treated. Boreshaala.

Planning to make a horror movie? Well, there seems to be some  standard ingredients that goes into  horror movies. Let me list them for you.

• Cat/wolf/dog/crow.
• Some characters with blank looks.
• Slow camera movement.
• Dramatic background music.
• Quick shadow movements.
• Slow door movements / or screeching sound of doors or windows.
• Sudden voice change.
• Sudden close-up shots.

Mix all this into your script and you are ready to shoot a horror movie. Well, atleast that is what debutant director Milind Gadagkar and his producer Ram Gopal Verma seems to have believed in  while making this movie.

Sudeep along with his wife and kids moves to their newly brought secluded beach facing old house and behind the house is a jungle. So the setting is set for a formulaic story. And then the formula that I mentioned in the start takes over. The ghost of Madhu (the witch-lady who was killed in Phoonk 1) returns as ghost to take revenge. She goes on a killing spree. Blood gushes like water. From servants, friend to relative the ghost killer runs riot. Sudeep’s wife is possessed with the Madhu’s spirit and hunting down her own family. Finally, all is well that dies well.

What more to say about this movie? From start to end it is a disaster. What is wrong Mr.RGV? Anticipated events, poor acting, lousy artificial dialogues – the movie has everything that merits negative marks.

GingerChai Verdict: A horribly made horror movie.