Movie review

Anurag Basu’s Barfi has a lot in common with classic poetry. Everyone would agree classic poetries like say, Shakespeare’s poems are brilliant. But if you give a book of classic poetry to a common man to read, most probably he would get bored in a while, though he would never deny or question the brilliance of the book. It requires a frame of mind, an acquired taste to get lost in classic poetry. Barfi requires it to enjoy the undiluted, pure cinematic pleasure without any compromises for the mainstream pulls and demands. Undeniably, it’s a brilliant movie where silence speaks a lot through the performance of the characters, the poetic canvas captured on-screen, celebration of life in spite of the burden heaped upon, the simple of joys of life told in a chaplinesque style.

Of all the contemporary actors, Ranbir shows a rare strain of acting DNA who can perform various shades of roles with ease. Ofcourse acting runs in his genes but amongst all the star kids, he is a talent personified. Barfi is yet another proof for his acting prowess. Effortlessly he gets into the chaplin mode of performance reminding his grandfather Raj Kappor alongside. As a deaf and mute guy named Barfi, he is speaks a lot in silence with his expressions.

If Ranbir immerses you in an explosion of joy and happiness in silence, Priyanka as Jilmil suffering from autism moves us with a flawless performance and lives as the character. Devoid of any glamour hers is a controlled, admirable performance. You don’t see the usual Piggy chops but only Jilmil.

The other lead lady of the story, Ileana D’Cruz makes her debut in Bollywood but then she is no new-comer for acting, she is the in-demand, most sought leading heroine in Telugu film industry. In Barfi, she makes a strong performance.

It’s not just the leading characters but the rest of the characters also leave their imprints. Finally it comes to the pied piper, Anurag Basu who had woven the poetry on celluloid. Laidback and in lost in his own world  in his orchestration of characters and scenes. For pure cinematic pleasure Barfi gives, you can forgive and forget his  previous debacle Kites.

Finally, will you like Barfi? Is it worth your two and half hours? It depends on what kind of cini-lover you are. It also depends on with what frame of mind you are watching the movie. As I mentioned earlier, Barfi is a cinematic poetry, it requires patience, a taste to appreciate it. It is simplified in its soul, forget few flaws but it shines in its performance and undiluted orchestration of script in a classic, chaplinesque style.

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.

What is with this Rohit Shetty? First he took hold of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol maal title and made it into a money spinning franchisee. Atleast we can forgive him by asking what is in a name title?

This time though he makes a filmi harakiri in the name of paying homage to the Amol Palekar starrer Hrishikesh mukherjee’s 1979 classic Gol Maal. In this (mis) inspired movie, Ajay Devgn as the village feudal lord and pehlwan ‘Prithviraj Raghuvanshi’ who has an obsession with English and ends up muttering nonsensical phrases, the sole aim being a desperate attempt to make us laugh. Incidentally, he detests liars. It should be the only commonness with the original classic’s Utpal Dutt who reprised the role of an employer who is a man of traditional values, honest, principled but who hates irresponsible youth and especially men minus moustache. Bachchan Jr reprises the role of Amol Palekar while in the classic it is Ramprasad and Lakshmanprasad, here it is Abbas Ali and Abhishek Bachchan. So the plot follows the original and a comedy of errors follows allowing duplicity of characters due to spur of the moment lies and the need to justify it and ends up with what one can expect from Rohit Shetty – flying cars, footbal style kicks and flying men, singham Devgn and his facial close-ups and slo-mos and a ridiculously hanging-in-balance-on-cliff climax that we have seen many times before. Then we have the hapless Asin, who comes as  sister character of Bachchan Jr, who aimlessly and cluelessly makes appearances and in this Rohit Shetty’s scheme of ridiculous nonsense maximus resembles Pehlwan’s dead ex-gf and thus becomes his love-interest due the same reasoning. Prachi Desai gets to romance Abhishek Bachchan.

In between tolerating and occassionally LOL it out (that is the best we can say else would be a disgrace for the true meaning of laughing it out) at Ajay Devgn’s morbid english dialogues, what works partly is the effemiate act  by Abhishek Bachchan, who to his credit does it shamelessly enjoyable act. While Archana Pooransingh and Krishna Abhishek tries to enact a comedy circus into the movie.

Bol Bachchan is easily the weakest comedy circus amongst Rohit Shetty’s films.  If you are a gifted movie watcher who can instantly shut your brains and LOL at the shamelessly repeated mindless comedies Bollywood dishes out, go watch it. For the rest, you can wait and watch it on small screen when it is aired in a month or two.

It’s the season of Super-heroes and now is the turn of Spider-man to amaze us in this Mark Webb directed ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ but this re-spin is more humane than super-amazing.

Its only ten years back when Sam Raimi’s Super-Man with Tobey Maguire in the lead caught us in the web of Spider-Man’s origins. Have we forgotten it yet? After Spiderman 3 (released in 2007), all the spidey fans expected the fourth instalment of the series but Sony and Raimi parted ways and Sony announced the reboot of the Spiderman. And re-boots are essentially revisiting the past but the problem is the past is still mint fresh for most hardcore comic and spidey fans and in ‘Amazing Spiderman’ though Mark Webb tries his best to bring in a freshness to the origins with more stress on the humane side of the super-hero divulging more into his character,  past, romance etc. First half of the movie re-spins what we all know the origin of spider-man and how a spider bite turns the teen college kid into a self-doubting super-man and then proceeds to his encounter with the Lizard man.

For any actor who has to don the spandex red and blue masked suit and cast the web it’s going to be a tough act since like it or not the comparison with Tobey Maguire is inevitable. Tobey’s Spiderman looked nerdy, boyish, innocent, introvert, goofy at times and felt awkward and unease to woo girls and as Spiderman in 3 instalments, his spider-effect is quiet strong to erase and replace.

In Mark Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield  dons the spider suit and gets a different character treatment. He skateboards, wears a contact lens, defends others and gets beaten even before he gets his super powers, he is playful and though still bit awkward not entirely shy of wooing his crush.  Prod me deeper, I  would declare my Spider-man votes to Tobey between the two.

Mark Webb delves more into the past of Park Peter. He is plagued, unsettled by the memories of the past and the unknown reasons that compelled them to leave him as kid with Uncle Ben and Aunt May. His trails leads to Dr. Cutts Conors who was his father’s co-scientist and friend both of whom together researched upon cross-species genetics. After making us wait for a long time almost into the second half of the movie Dr.Cutts transforms into Lizard man. For those who have not seen Raimi’s Spider-Man, you will be thoroughly entertained and fascinated by Andrew Garfield’s transformation into Spider-Man and for the rest of us, it is a bit of a yawn inducing wait, though to Mark and Andrew’s credit, there are moments that comes as a fresh deviations. Especially this Amazing Spider-man is not shy of being a playful bully when tackling criminals and unlike the earlier Spider-Man who had his organic web shooting up from his wrist, Mark Webb’s Peter Parker invents a device that is armed in his wrist and shoots the web. Hmmm… more realistic eh?!

Super-heroes needs super-villains to match with. Rhys Ifans performs as Dr. Cutts Conors and is very convincing and impressive as the scientist. Though it might seem like an eternal wait for him to transform into Lizard man and when he does I felt the Lizard man a mix of Lizard-lla, those dinosaurs from Jurassic park and Hulk! Ha! A villain character similar to Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2 is badly missed.

The biggest meh moment of the movie? When the spider-man is wounded and he has to cross many blocks to reach the villain while the city is being evacuated, the city crane operators move the cranes to provide a bridge for Spider-Man to web and swing his way to the villain.

As for the 3D effects, it is restricted more to the few sky rise jumps and swings and Mark seems to be bit disinterested on its usage elsewhere.

What works for the movie is the casting especially the supporting characters and though my leanings are for Tobey as Spider-man, Andrew has put his best spandex to live as Spider-man.

My final word, If you have seen Sam Raimi’s Spiderman, Amazing Spider-man might not amaze you, though it is a decent effort to re-boot the spiderman franchisee but for those who had missed out the previous installment, you might get amazed erm … I repeat you MIGHT!

‘Are we alone in this universe?’ ‘Is there any alien life beyond us?’ These questions have always riddled us ever since we stared at stars, moon and the vast sky. Though the questions remains unanswered, it has given way to many a fictional books, theories and films.  Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi film Alien was a classic that spawned at least three sequels and two prequels by various directors and inspired many to walk into the Alien territory. Now the ace director is back with what can be called the prequel that resurrects the towering insect-monster-alien.

After unleashing the Alien some 30 years back and instilling within us a sense of cringe, anxiety, horror and many unanswered questions Ridley is back into his own universe of mystery. Ever since the promos of Prometheus appeared on internet and the cast and crew started talking with lots of suspense without unraveling the plot, the movie has captured everyone’s imagination. Everyone wanted to know Ridley’s riddle who are we?’ who created us? Where did the creepy-alien-monster came from?. Though Ridley chose not to call Prometheus not a prequel in true sense, he upped the ante by saying the Alien DNA would be sprinkled throughout the movie to unravel the mysteries.

After so much of build up, suspense and smart promos that ignited everyone’s anxiety, Prometheus sees its friday today and I booked by ride to the mysterious universe to lean who seeded our Earth millions of years ago and what happened in the ill-fated distant universe from there they came.

The year is 2089 and archeologists Elizabeth Shaw and Charlie Holloway discovers a star map that they identify in carvings and archeological remaining of various civilizations. They conclude that the map must be an invitation from a civilization who might have seeded our earth. Our creators. After 2 years, their spaceship arrives at the distant planet. Are they alone now? What inhabited the planet? What happened to them? What happened to the crew of the spaceship that arrives there?

To his credit, Ridley has created a spacecraft and universe look far more convincing and visually appealing in Prometheus than the one he created 32 years ago. Unfortunately the movie lacks the cringe, horror and the suspense the original classic brought upon us. It still remains unanswered many questions especially who our creators are and thereby allowing room for many more sequels to come up. There are few cringe-worthy scenes far and wide and one notably a cesarean scene that would make any pregnant women in the hall make a hasty run to the exit door but mostly the film lacks the horror inducing scene and its mostly all about the production quality rather than the plot and the shock values.

To enjoy the movie, one has to be updated of the movie where it all began and that is the 1979 Ridley’s Alien, then you get the missing links and the complete thought and work of the maker. Having said this, I still feel Prometheus is all visual gloss but lacks  substance though not entirely. Ridley is less convincing in his alien riddle this time around. Don’t expect a complete shock and awe effect on you that many Alien franchise has followed. It is more about mind over matter and the quest for an eternal question.

If RGV continues to make his crime genres and explore further the nexus between law and underworld, I won’t be surprised if an ‘Underworld Rights Association’ pops up and sue him for continued mockery at them.  On the other hand, RGV also deserves appreciation for tirelessly finding new methods to shoot his favourite genre in all blood and gore.  Caught between the crime genre and RGV are the poor audience who brave to see him. The good news is audience are getting ‘intelligent’ enough that the first day first show I watched saw barely half dozen ‘brave hearts’ in the movie hall including the ‘duty bound’ not-so-lucky me and my unfortunate friend.

RGV yet again plots a script wherein he implores the nexus between criminals, policemen and politicians and how at times the ‘working’ relationship gets blurred for ‘convenience’ . Shivnarayan (Rana Daggubati) is a tough cop who believes in fixing the crime through encounter deaths. He is roped in by Mahadev Bhosle (Sanjay Dutt) into his crack team – a special department constituted by government to deal brutally the criminals taking control of Mumbai. In due course, Shiv comes across the reality where there is a nexus between certain elements of police and polticians with the underworld. Shockingly he also realizes Mahadev himself  works for a deadly don turned terrorist, Ghauri while Sarjerao Gaikwad (Amitabh Bachchan), the willy criminal turned politician says Government has made a deal with another don, Sawatya (Vijay Raaz) to check the growing power of Ghauri. And Shiv is sucked into the commotion, blood and never ending gun-fires in all camera angles, leaving all of us poor audience battle for our own survival.

RGV explores unconventional camera movements and angles that goes behind butts, under legs and all possible place in the name of ‘unconventionalism’ and ‘experimentation’. When I saw a dhoti clad Vijay Raaz I expected some unconventional ‘don’ism only to find him fizzle out to a sorry stage. Well, reduced to sorry figure is not just himself but almost the entire cast barring Big B. Abhimanyu Singh tries his best to be a hysterical don with a side kick love interest, a lady cheetah who purs, dares and also shakes her butt and sends the movie into a B-grade stuff along with Nathalia Kaur whose item song stands cheaply on its own league aided by the prowling camera. Coming to Big B, he seems to have had his last laugh in the movie as a poltician and remdinding his Sarkar performance, he is one his own league inspite of some unintentionally ‘funny’ dialogues. Last man standing, I don’t know for what reason he still has a huge faith in RGV at this stage of his long  illustrious career.

My final word…

RGV has lost it. Department is an suicidal attempt and a DOT – Department of Torture.

It is quiet refreshing to see an earthy, rustic love story set amidst an Indian landscape with all its desi elements  at a time when most movies suffocate us with phoren locations, glitz and gloss. Ishaqzaade could be yet another adaptation of true blood love stories that derive inspiration from Romeo and Julliet.  But it proves again if the script is well adapted with local flavour, supported by brilliant acting and live wire energy, engaging music a timeless love story will never bore you.

Set in a rural landscape of Uttar Pradesh, where the language well understood is guns, two feudal politicial families belonging to different religion fight elections. We cannot deny a reality that as we aim to be a superpower in the making, there are elections won or lost in the name of religion and caste, family honour upheld by blood and inter-religious and inter-caste marriages are still a taboo in many areas, which hunts down the love and bay for its blood.

Parma (Arjun kapoor)  and Zoya (Parineeti Chopra) belongs respecitively to warring political feudal families – the Chouhans and Quereshis. Like their family, naturally both of them develop contempt and hatred for each other. While Zoya is a bubbly, studious yet a strong headed girl who aspires to become a MLA one day like her dotting father and protective brothers, Parma from the clan of Chouhans whose grandfather is a hardened, canny politician. During an election campaign where both the clans eye the seat, a care-free, trigger happy Parma falls in love with Zoya or does he really? What follows is high voltage events of treachery, love, bullets and blood.

Its a time tested love story but refreshingly scripted, executed and enacted. It is hard to believe its debut movie of Arjun Kapoor, son of Bonney kapoor. He is rustic with an infectious smile and as Parma a care-free and daring youth, he stands tall amidst all the star kids in the industry.  He is one actor with lots of originality and potential and an promising actor to watch  in coming years. As far Parineeti Chopra, though its her second movie, she is all natural and at ease donning the grease. Together both of them  bring a  rustic flavour of love this season you better not miss.

Yes at times, the move is bit predictable but then all is forgotten with a very well planned out, scripted and enacted story aided by Amit Trivedi’s music. While Pareshaan and Ishaqzaade are already chart toppers, Chokra Jawaan and Jalla walla are rustic foot tappers. Cinematography by Hemant Chaturvedi is another highlight of the movie.

GingerChai Verdict: A high voltage rustic love story that is sure to win over you.

I always fancied watching a movie all alone in a movie hall. It realized today. Unlike the big budget movies, Bittoo Boss had a limited screens in Bangalore and that meant I had to hunt for the right multiplex for the first day, first show and zeroed in on the nearest one. Enter the screen, I was the only one. I presumed a couple of movie-watchers might lazily occupy seat when the movie started but it never happened, so for 120 bucks I had an exclusive first day, first show experience just for me.

Ok now about the Bittoo boss v.d.o shooter.  Going by the trailers many persumed it would be yet another Band Baaja Baraat, unfortunately Bittoo boss fails to charm you. The only saving grace of the movie is the promising, young actor Pulkit Samrat who though bit rustic is endearing on-screen. And the terrible miscast is Amita Pathak, the heroine who also happens to be the producers daughter. No guessing how she got into the scheme of things. But then one can’t just pick her as miscast, almost the entire co-actors seems like they are selected without auditions and made to act without rehearsals.

For a refreshing change, we have a hero who is bit brattish, rustic but the same time sincere, idealistic and righteous. He is a most sought after talented  marriage videographer sorry v.d.o shooter, who has the charm to win the hearts of the families he shoots and bring laughter in the crowd. In his own words, he does not shoot marriages but emotions and feelings within. So this small town ‘Sesky Video Shooter’ goes around town shooting kodak moments and along the way in the opening fat punjabi shaadi where the aunties and their daughters laughs and dance around he comes across rich Amita Pathak who is practical still vulnerable to fall in love with the odd one, who smokes, drinks and confident north Indian girl likes of whom we have seen in the lead heroine roles of Band Bajaa Baraat and Tanu Weds Manu. Call it a new bollywood trend! The young actor scorned by his girl friend for being too idealistic and not having the right attitude to make it big has a brief brush with negativity when he opts to take shortcut in life  but ends up bringing smiles into few people’s life in the process redeeming himself  and also claims back his lady love!

So what lags the movie? The culprit is the screen play which is jarring, uneven and aimless. Feels like the director had first sketched the role of Bittoo boss, the v.d.o shooter and then moulded a story around him but confused if to make it a out and right romance or bring a conflict in the character testing his idealism. In the end thought Bittoo and Pulkit Samrat are endearing, the story is lackluster and the rest of the cast pulls it down further.

GingerChai verdict: Bittoo boss is a endearing as a character but fails as a movie to strike the chord.

Sajid Khan is back with his trademark brain dead comedy genre in his sequel to 2010 super hit movie Housefull. The movie was panned by critics that includes yours critically but it reaped a bumper box office collections. And in the sequel Sajid Khan promises more madness and hillarious, low IQ entertainment. This time though, Akshay and Ritesh are joined by more than one dozen co-actors. So we have John Abraham, Shreyas Talapad, Asin, Jacqueline, Zarine khan, Shazhan Padamsee and veteran actors  Rishi Kapoor, Mithun Chakraborty and add to the list  Johnny lever. If this list is not exhaustive, you also have Randhir Kapoor, Bomman Irani and Chunky Pandey all three who were also in the earlier Housefull. Remember? Aakhri Pasta … I am just joking!!! You have it here too!

However you choose to call comedy of errors, comedy of confusion, comedy of stupidity, comedy of idiocracy, comedy of goofups, comedy of lame jokes – Housefull 2 does manage to entertain in larger part provided you throw out all your logical minds and just, sit, relax and laugh out at the antics, bafoonery and stupidity all the characters engagingly enact and the funny dialogues lavishly thrown at.

Plot or no plot is a noodle of jolly(s) with each father of the brides thinking their would be son-in-law is the Jolly, the son of multi billionaire, JD (Mithun Chakraborty) who has his own mad flashback as Jagga Daaku, once upon a time bandit. The confusion is masterminded by Sunny (Akshay Kumar), who schemes a plot to take vengeance at Chintu (Rishi kapoor), a money obsessed father who insults Sunny’s friend, Jai’s father. Together with the other friends the real Jolly (Ritesh Deshmukh) and Max (John Abraham) they land up in a comedy of confusions with the father of brides thinking each of their to be son-in-laws as Jolly. Ok, to reveal the plot itself would be a comedy of confusions and would require a comedy of a idiocratic review, that I would rather allow you to watch than read.

Akshay is at his comical best and thankfully does not come as a looser like in Housefull 1. He is amusing, entertaining and comes very confident at his insane comical acts. John seems to have learnt a lot on entertaining acts with his teaming with Akshay after Desi boyz, though he still fails at mad caper act. Ritesh as the marathi guy is good and he is one natural actor at comic timings. Together with the rest of the co-stars its madness, madness and madness minus IQ. Baffled Johnny plays havoc on your stomach muscles in couple of scenes. As far Kapoors it is not a very convincing role, considering the roles they have played in their acting careers and Mithun as JD aka Jagga Dakku is quiet amusing in his brief role.

A comedy movie needs good songs to keep the momentum going and music directors Sajid- Wajid takes the credit for the chart toppers Anarkali disco chali and Pappa toh band bajaayei.

GingerChai verdict: Housefull 2 is more entertaining than the earlier one and Sajid Khan delivers exactly what he promised – entertainment, entertainment and entertainment though this one had loads of madness and stupidity written all over it. If you can give your critical mind a rest, you can be assured of a good dose of laughter riot of a low IQ. With the stressful life we all live, it comes a welcome change. You can laught out once this weekend.

Finally the wait is over. The much anticipated Tamil film 3,  starring Dhanush and Shruti Hassan thanks to the  Why this kolaveri Di viral video that went on to became a global phenomenon on youtube, hits the movie halls today.  Directed by Dhanush’s wife and Super star Rajinikanth’s elder daughter Aishwarya who makes her directorial debut, the movie undoubtedly has a huge expectations which might actually backfire but does it?

A short peep into the story without letting out the obvious.  The movie opens with tragedy striking the life of young married Jnani (Shruti Hassan). While she comes in terms with the tragedy, she recounts her past unravelling the blooming of a love story. The love blooms during the high school days and soon after college they get married. The first half of the movie breezily moves with the love in air, reminding many of us our own school crushes and love stories. From high school and to college days and then they get married against the parent’s wishes, though they half heartedly agree. Second half revolves around the tragedy and unrevealing it. I am not going into the depth as it makes the integral part of the movie 3.

Very few actors can transform themselves into a school boy.  Did I say very few? I feel only Dhanush can. Thanks to his physical features, he is one and propably only actor of his calibre in contemporary Indian films who can flawlessly and unackwardly make a screen apperance as a school boy convincingly. It’s not the first time he has done it though in Tamil films, infact his film career began with a school boy role, though it was a decade back and he was 18 then but for a 28 year actor to do it now is a remarkable transformation indeed. Even Shruti hassan manage to be effortless in her school girl role.  The movie has a controlled acting from all the characters be it the lead pairs or the other co-actors, especially both the friends in the first half and the second half. The friend who comes as his school friend did crack the theatre with his lively one liners.

Anirudh Ravichander,  the debutant music director got his dream launch. With 50 millions views and counting and countless remixes and viral acts, Why this kolaveri Di is something of a phenomenon that does not happen frequently. Ask him, he might feel cursed by the excess expectations the song has created. Enough has been talked about kolaveri D but surprisingly , the other songs lilted pleasantly into the ears onscreen rather than the hit song.

About Kolaveri Di, which I was eagerly waiting for and which came soon after the interval, the picturization in short is  just “epic fail”  I know the expectation was high but come on I have seen better choreographed gaana songs in Tamil film industry even for unheard songs. The choreography is horribly mediocre and shame for a song that went globally viral.

As for Aishwarya, she does have the controlled directorial touch especially for a beginner but then one can’t fail to notice she seem to have been enchanted with her husband’s acting skills that she focussed more on capturing the emotions than the pace of the movie.

So does 3 lives up to its hype? My verdict is mixed. The movie does packs in brilliant and controlled acting. It has wonderful songs, though kolaveri D was a big disappointment onscreen. It has a good story line. But a certain magic is missing. Does it to do with the length of the movie? It is a long movie and peppered with songs, it could have been little more sleekly done but then I can’t even pinpointedly mark it as drag. The plot takes its own time to unravel though not boring, though at the end of the movie you find it stretched a bit. The main drawback may be the huge expectation or for the matter the treatment of the story or the story in itself.  I frankly looked for a breezy romantic story but the movie is strong in flavour with romantic breeziness touching it gently. May be it did not simply live up to the huge expectation the song created and Kolaveri Di has set in a pre-conceived opinion about the movie, which the story line does not match with.

Am i confusing in my verdict? Well, that is 3 for you and if you are wondering why the title 3? It is about the 3 shades of Dhanush’s behavioural traits in the movie.  And my verdict is also a 3 – A concoction which is 1. breezy 2. strong and still 3. not entirely convincing, still it makes a one time watch.

Being a home production, Saif Ali Khan got a licence to do a bond-like movie, a licence to do a solo hero movie, a licence to have his fiancée as co-star. Fair enough, but then would have been great if he had a licence to good script, licence for more facial expressions, licence for a, well a good movie.

You might have read “Around the world in 80 days” but Agent Vinod takes you around to more than a dozen countries including Afghanistan, Russia, Morocco, Pakistan, and Latvia and faithfully, patriotically ending in our New Delhi. Oh wait, I thought the movie climaxed here but then our Agent wanted a last minute travel to London too and along with it send out dozens of people dashing towards the exit gate of the movie hall. Poor souls!  By now had lost all their patience and also cheated into believing the movie was over only to find it get extended another 10 minutes or so extracting all the bits of remaining patience out of their weary souls.

When not being caught and get interrogated by ruthless mafias and war lords, our Agent Vinod is happy to shoot his way in and out of countries reminding you all the action games you would have played.  If not it would not be a bad idea to play some action games at home, this weekend. While globetrotting, he also bumps into Iram Billal, a Pakistani spy who is also behind what our Agent Vinod is and that is “242”. And what is “242”? It is a sophisticated, compact, portable nuclear bomb for which our Agents and the villains globe trots, while the villains wanting it to bring it to our capital city and play havoc, our all performing, all capable, indestructible, Agent Vinod stands between them and their mission.

Having said all this, yes there were indeed a few shades of brilliance. The production was sleek but then the cat-mouse-chase affair was too dragging and uninspiring. While watching a good action thriller especially a spy movie we all know the hero would be almost indestructible and heroes never fail at the end. But what makes a good thriller movie is the ability to make the audience engaged with the pace of the story and keep the adrenalin rushing. Unfortunately, though Saif tries all the Bond and Bourne tricks it just fails to connect with the audience.

If Saif comes across as a poker faced spy, who has a limited expressive ability, his co-star Kareena out does him with better, listless expressions except for her plastic smiles. And then we have dozens of villains including Prem Chopra, Ram kapoor, Gulshan Grover,  Dhritiman chatterji, while few have a longer stay, some are just guest villains.

The mujra dance just reminded me of good old 70’s and 80’s movie wherein the glamour dolls dance and charm their way to spy the villains.  And if you are waiting for the “Pungi” song like my friend who accompanied me, you need to patiently wait for the credit titles at the end.

GingerChai Verdict: Agent Vinod is a spy who lost the plot.