hindi movies

Salman Khan is on a dream run with back to back hits in Dabaang and Ready and is all set to ring the cash register and shatter the box office records with his latest release Bodyguard directed by acclaimed Malayalam director Siddique. The movie is a remake of the the director’s original 2010 release  in Malayalam by the same title that was also later remade by him in Tamil. The movie was a super hit in both the language and Hindi version would be no different coz the movie delivers a clean, romantic comedy and is a wholesome family entertainer.

Salman plays the role of Lovely Singh, a private security agent – a larger-than-life super hero type but  sincere, tough, loyal and affable character. He is assigned to be the bodyguard of Divya (Kareena kapoor), daughter of a Sartaj Rana (Raj babbar), a wealthy and powerful feudal lord. Salman has much respect for Sartaj as his father too was his bodyguard and he feels he owes his life to him. Salman takes his mallick’s words too serious and he follows Divya like a shadow and also frustrates her as her fitness trainer. Irritated Divya tries to emotionally play with Lovely Singh and distract him by making anonymous call. What begins as prank calls gets serious with love spreading its wings. When you think the movie is set for a predictable ending, you have a twist in the climax.

It’s Lovely Singh who carries the movie all the way and the chemistry between Salman and Kareena guards the movie. Albeit the super hero action sequences, the movie is a romantic comedy and breezy throughout, forget the villains who appear only to get beaten to pulp by Salman.  To the larger part of the movie till the climax, the script is simple, straight forward peppered with comedy, action and Sallu-isque dialogues but you would not cringe, yawn or get lost. Rajat Rawail as Tsunami Singh makes you laugh and don’t forget to miss the captions in his Tees.  The songs are already topping the charts, “I Love you” and “Teri Meri” being my pick.

GingerChai Verdict: A complete family entertainer that is tailor-made for Salman khan. This festive season get entertained by this lovable bodyguard.

If you liked Aneez Basmee’s No Problem, time to say Thank You.

Men are dogs and women are ever faithful – This is the one liner of the movie that has been woven into a brain dead comic script and which sadly entertains you too partially. Wonder why I mentioned sadly?  Sad coz the comic element of our movies has stooped so low that even a slightly better dim wit comedy starts appealing.  May be we are seriously carving for quality comedy movies.

Vikram (Irfan Khan), Raj (Bobby deol) and Yogi (Suniel Shetty) are thick friends, business partners and cheating mates who in spite of happily married to beautiful women are perpetually in heat and having affairs.  Yogi’s dominant wife Radha (Celina Jaitley) introduces Kishen (Akshay Kumar) , a Sauvé, charming Akshay Kumar to Sanjana (Sonam Kapoor) when Sanajan suspects her husband of having an affair.  The cat and mouse game begins with Kishen trying to catch the husbands during their sexcapades’ and Vikram masterminding their way out and finally Kishen reuniting the couples of course with the customary filmy dialogues of moral speak.

Among the three ladies, Rimi Sen stands out , while Sonam Kapoor cuts a sorry figure while Celina is miserable.  Among the men Irfan Khan brings some respect to the nonsense story while Akshay does his part with restraint and charm. But boy, he badly needs a rock solid hit with a good story line else his star status is sure to nose dive into pits. In the multiplex I watched the first day; first show the movie attracted a dozen people.  Hardly inspiring for a star’s home release.

The movie is shot entirely in Canada and is visually appealing.  Music by Pritam is uninspiring.  Malika Sherawat does an item number for the song Razia and is easily forgotten.

GingerChai verdict: A silly movie that you can watch only for Akshay , Irfan and Rimi Sen.  If only Aneez has cared for sensible script and not relied on voluptuous bodies and brain dead, slapstick comedy, we could have told him a Thank you but alas it is not to be.  With IPL entertainment started, you do have a choice but If you find cricket an over doze, you can watch once.

I cried. My friend cried. The couple next to me wiped the tears and I am sure almost everyone in the hall cried too. Guzaarish embraces us, stirs up the emotions and overwhelms us with powerful but controlled performances.

Sanjay Leela Bansali creates yet another magic land to portray the struggle and pains of a quadriplegic who was once a legendary magician-illusionist. An accident due to professional rivalry while performing a professional act shrinks his world to bed and his room and paralyzes him completely down the neck. Ethan Mascarenhas (Hrithik Roshan), the quadriplegic fighting bravely the life for 12 years, inspiring people as a Radio Jockey and authoring a book, finally gives up his will-power and files for euthanasia. Sofia D’Souza (Aishwarya Rai), his nurse all through the 12 years, cares him, loves him, acts tough without pity in controlling his anger and finally stands by his decision along with his lawyer frined Devyani (Shenaz patel)

The opening scene of the movie showing Sofia in an orderly manner opening the window, brushing, bathing, dressing and caring Ethan has a poetic element to it and sinks us into a world crafted by SLB’s now trademark style of film making. One early scene that really got me into the movie was when a small fly moves around Ethan’s face and his inability to shoo away the fly and finally giving up to the fly with a smile. It says all beautifully about the character. There are many scenes that move you and stir up our emotions. I am not saying much about it rather would like you to see the performance on screen.

Hrithik has lived as Ethan and wins over us. After the Kites debacle, this is a movie that will surely lift his spirit.  After long time, Aishwarya Rai has performed remarkably well with controlled natural ease. May be the credit goes to SLB to extracting the talent in her. So does the other co-actors Shenaz patel as the lawyer friend, Nafiza Ali as Ethan’s mother, Suhel Seth as Ethan’s doctor. Moni Kangana Dutta comes in a small role as Ethan’s ex-lover and the role is nothing much to talk about. Only flaw I felt was the appearance and sudden disappearance of Markand Desai. His character was unwanted and very well could have been knifed under editor’s table.  Cinematography by Sudeep Chatterjee is poetic on its own, weaving poetic lyrics visually. Music by SLB goes very well with the flow and theme of the screenplay.

GingerChai Verdict: For me Guzarish is an outright winner for stunning performance, compelling screenplay and cinematography. Watch out, the movie is going to bag hands full of awards for the year 2010.

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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.

When the title says I hate luv storys and the promo shows the heroine’s character as mushy mushy die-hard romantic and hero as one who hate the four letter L- word, you are pretty sure what to expect from a Bollywood movie.

Under Karan Johar’s banner debutant director Punit Malhotra starts by spoofing Bollywood love stories and especially the king of mushy times KJo’s flicks but unfortunately the movie itself charts the predictable, clichéd time tested formulae of Bollywood.

So I hate this love story coz after a promising start of mocking at Bollywood stories it ends up being one of the same kind.

I hate this love story coz the director could not extract anything from Sonam kapoor except her glossy smile and adorn her with pretty dresses.

I hate this love story coz the movie is boringly dragging.

I hate this love story coz the movie is interspersed with unnecessary songs when the going is already slow.

I hate this love story coz the movie has a quiet predictable script.

I hate this love story coz the hero like in many other Bollywood movie especially KJo movie has a “mere paas maa hai” tonic

I hate this love stoy coz the move inherits the same over dramatic and silly plot.

I hate this love story coz though this Kjo’s production has taken a pot shot at KJo himself, it ends up as nothing different.

I hate this love story coz few instances like Imran teasing the watchman of the house reminds of other movies and actors and Amir khan in this particular scene.

Is there anything left to love this love story?

I love this love story coz the canvas is bright.

I love this love story coz for the supporting characters played by Samir soni, Kavin dave etc

Well, I may teens may love this love story coz Imran fits perfect as a chocolate boy hero.

GingerChai Verdict: A below average candy floss  movie with predictable, boring script dragged too long to drown you into boredom. If you have time to kill, watch it.

There was a director by name Mani Ratnam who gave wonderful movies with his forte being strong script and story telling. Raavan credit titles shows it is Mani Ratnam movie but the director is completely missing in this movie.

Beera is a fearsome tribal leader liked and equally feared by many. Dev is posted in Lal Maati , the fiefdom of Beera on a mission to finish off Beera. Soon, Beera kidnaps Dev’s wife Ragini. And what follows is a Ramayan with a twist, bad becomes to show traces of  good but in end  good triumphs over bad cunningly. This is the story in nut shell.

The problem with Raavan is that the  simple story is taken in a picturesque location but over-dramatized and scripted badly and painfully told lagging at many times and ending up with yawns in theater. Neither the action scene are compelling nor the acting of the lead characters captivating.

Abhishek tapping his head and uttering bak bak bak as a mannerism fails to impress us and Vikram, a good actor he is in Tamil films,  is undermined and looses the command over the character but it can only be  blamed on the director. Aishwarya looks hapless and awkward with her dialogues (blame it on the script and not her)  Govinda comes as a forest guard who guides Dev and his team through the forests. In his introduction screen, he jumps around like monkey and also manage to meet Ragini at Beer’s den.  Hanuman’s inspiration eh? The only character that looks at ease with himself is Ravi Kishan who comes as Abhisheks’ brother.

Another biggest let down comes with A R Rahman’s back ground music. At times , he tries to bring a more dramatization with his music but the end result in screen just does not go well.  Maniratnam’s movie boast of good cinematography so does this one too. Santhosh Sivan and Manikandan have handled well their portion but the settings of ancient temple and Vishnu sculpture in river etc deprives the movie of the rustic original charm that movie like Omkara reflected. Maniratnam seems to have fallen into the trap of Bollywood’s glamour and over-doing things where it is not required.

GingerChai verdict: I can’t still believe this is Maniratnam’s movie. Highly disappointing.

Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti is a feudal dynastic politics played in mafia style. The film is compelling, powerful and intense but at same time flawed. The movie takes a cue from our greatest epic Mahabharat mixes it with Mario Puzo’s  Godfather in the field of dynastic politics that reminds erstwhile bloodstained struggle for crown in the emperor’s days.

The movie begins with a chapter reminding of Kunti. The daughter of a mainstream politician is attracted to a leftist revolutionary  (Naseerudin Shah) and end up making love in one rainy day (a filmy obsession for rain and love that even Jha could not escape) But he leaves her soon after, the baby born out of the one-rainy night stand is abandoned in a boat wrapped in a cloth by uncle Nana Patekar. Time moves. The daughter gets married to another politician. And Jha’s Kunti has two sons Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) and Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) While Prithvi is a hot headed, temperamental politician, Samar stays away from politics and pursues a PhD in where else? Ofcourse Bollywood’s next door – US of A. The political head of the party falls ill and he nominates his younger brother (Prithvi and Samar’s father) as party chief much to the dismay of his own son (Manoj Bajpai) Meanwhile Sooraj (Ajay Devgan) is a rising dalit leader who is ignored by Prithvi. Your Bollywood mind would have pulled in the missing knot by now – yes Sooraj is Jha’s Karna – the infant who was abandoned in water and now raised by a car driver. Manoj takes Sooraj into his arms and elevates him to his right hand man in politics. From then, the dynastic politics enters the terrain of dirty politics, gun and blood.

The movie lists an array of actors and everyone has done a commendable job. I don’t understand what issue Nana had with Jha but if at all there is one person who should have enough reason to be angry with Jha it should be Naseerudin Shah. The talented actor is simply wasted in his 5 minutes role left only with a ridiculous lip lock in rain. Arjun Rampal as the temperamental, hot headed politician and a caring elder brother, equally temperamental Manoj Bajpai, under-stated but serious Ajay Devgan and Ranbir, the cool cucumber with an inherent negative shade and cunning Chanakya, Nana Patekar all have brought life to their character. Katrina sports a bubbly character in the beginning, then becomes a pawn in the board of politics and sports the much talked about Sonia look in the last 5 minutes of the movie.

The movie scores in the fact that you never get bored right from the word go. The story is gripping, compelling and racy. The big let down is politicians themselves go gun-trotting and fire at each other as if there is nothing like police or CBI to worry about and we are talking about big politicians getting eliminated. That is something very filmy, logic defying and makes the movie Sarkar-ish.

GingerChai Verdict: Rajneeti makes you sit and watch but the neeti in it is deplorable but then at the end of the day it is a commercial movie and a pop-corn  thriller. So go watch it.

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.

What happens when a gorgeous woman from Venus lands up in your arms that too when you are ignored by all other women in this world! Well that out of the world jackpot happens to Ritesh Deshmukh in this movie. And the woman from the Venus is Jacqueline Fernandez.

The rom-com starts well with intro by Ritesh who is a third camera assistant to director Farah Khan. Ya, Farah khan play a cameo as her real self. We have comical guest appearances by Akshay Kumar, Priyanka Chopra, Karan Johar talking about Desh (the bollywood super star character played by Ruslaan Mumtaz) Ritesh falls in love with Desh’s sister who joins as a camera assistant to Farah Khan. When he proposes to her, she tells him that he just considered him as a best friend. Rejected and dejected, Ritesh stands alone in a Drive-in when Jacqueline lands up in his arm. He takes her to his house but hides her from her parents. Ritesh and his friend (Vishal Malhotra) names her Tara after failing to get a name from her mouth. Soon, they realize Tara is infact from Venus who has come to earth to understand the meaning of Love that has been long forgotten in their planet. She says she has got 2 days in Earth to understand love. So Ritesh suggest her to understand love by wooing Desh. Desh falls for her too. What follows is reel of romantic-comedy that makes you enjoy for most part of the movie.

 Ritesh carries a boy-next-door image that is quiet heartening in this age of superstar screen presence. Jacqueline Fernandez comes throughout sporting a “toothpaste advertisement” smile. The super star character played by Desh by Ruslaan is a bad casting. Vishal Malhotra comes good as Ritesh’s friend. He is out of sync with the superstar character he plays. Though the story has no logics (but then who cares, if the movie is entertaining) the movie is enjoyable almost throughout barring some 20 minutes before climax. 20 minutes of typical Bollywood sentiments, emotions and love dialogues. Ofcourse, the movie script could have been better woven as a fantasy. It lacks creative fantasy, sequences and treads an anticipated path. But still, you can enjoy ¾ th of the movie. The designers could have thought of a better Venetian dress. As someone comments in the movie, it looked straight out of a fancy dress competition. Music by Sajid-Wajid is hummable.

GingerChai Verdict: The movie could have been made a better fantasy but still watchable, if you forgive the last 20 minutes.

A high-tech, savvy international thief, Prince, wakes up one day with all his memories lost. At his beach house where he wakes up, he is told a version of his past by his servant. He discovers that his memory has been infact “robbed”. He finds himself chased by two different groups who are in look out for an antique coin that is in possession with Prince but Prince has no clue about the coin since he has lost all his memories. Between, this he comes to know that he had a girl friend by name Maya. He meets 3 girls who proclaim to be Maya and they give different versions of his past life. Who is the real Maya? What was the real flashback of Prince? What is special about the antique coin everyone is behind of? Did Prince get back his past memories? – Is what Prince movie is all about.

Prince the movie was supposed to be a make or break movie in Vivek Oberai’s career which has hit a very rough patch for years now. The interest of the movie directed by debutant director Kookie V Gulati, was heightened with the talks of big budget and breath-taking stunts sequences in the movie. Frankly speaking, the movie falls short of the hype and anticipation. The main draw back of the movie unfortunately is Vivek Oberai himself. His screen presence fails to impress us. Remember Hrithik Roshan in Dhoom 2 and even Akshay Kumar in Blue? Well, it may be unfair to compare Vivek Oberai with them but then his screen presence and the delivery of the dialogues fails to hold your attention and lacks the punch. No doubt, the movie holds a very potential thriller subject and executed well partially. The memory loss has been a subject dealt with many times but here we have a story where the memory has infact been robbed. Yes, It is robbed and stored in a chip! Ok this is a movie and anything is possible in the imaginary world. But the way the memory transfers are shown like you plugin your sim card makes it ludicrous.The second big let down is the supposed to be amazing stunt sequences. It’s a mixed bag, actually. The movie no doubt has some briliant action sequences but then there are many ordinary ones. Especially the car-bike chase holds nothing special about it and even if we know that none of the villain’s bullet could hit the hero, it could have been made little more convincingly. Among the recent movies, the bike chase in the Blue movie has raised the notch much higher. Nandana Sen comes as a glamarous lady villain  reminding you of the bad girls of the James Bond series. The movie has lip-lock scenes between Vivek and Aruna Shields who comes as the original Maya. Infact, Aruna is quiet impressive in the stunt sequences as well as in bikini shots in a song sequence. Isaiah as Sarang makes his presence felt as the lead villain. Vishnu Rao has done a good job with camera capturing great visuals in South African landscape. Music by Sachin Gupta is good but the background by Sandeep Shirodkar fails to impress. The movie has no dearth of glam, wonderful visuals, and production richness but then throughout the movie something is amiss.

GingerChai Verdict: It’s a thriller and it’s a masala entertainer, well its supposed to be. Not up to the hype or anticipation but partially good. Watch it if you have loads of time and bored to death or wait until I make the review of the week’s other release jaane kahan se aayi hai