Movie Masala

Like the 2008 hit film Race, its sequel Race 2 too is all about mokka, dhokka and plan pakka with twists pe twists.

Armaan Malik (John Abraham) is a street fighter turned top Asian mafia who runs many casinos  in the picturesque city of Istanbul along with his co-sister, Elena (Deepika Padukone).  Enter the race ka original khilladi, Ranveer Singh (Saif Ali Khan) who manages to win the goodwill of Armaan Malik but with a sinister plan on his mind. Armaan comes to know about it through twists pe twists played by his girl friend, Omisha (Jacqueline Fernandez) and the fruit and nut combination of Anil Kapoor and his new secretary, Amisha Patel. With each one playing their own part in the maze of twists, the story sets the pace for a racy action-thriller with abundance of what I said in the begining, mokka, dhokka and plan pakka  but low on substance, logic and energy.

To set the adrenalin racing, Race  franchise relies on showcasing the bodies, glitz and glamour and double meaning dialogies along with convoluted twists.

We have abundance of all with John and Saif flaunting their beefcakes, the trio of leading ladies moving around in skimpy clothes and the fruit and nutty combination of Anil kapoor and Amisha Patel dishing out double meaning salads ridiculously.

Only racy element in the movie is the action sequences by Peter Hain, which has been executed very well although the lead up to the action sequences are sloppy.

Istanbul makes a pleasant backdrop for the movie and Ravi Yadav’s camera captures it well. One can only wish the directors had added dollops of creativity into the script.

So do you want to Race? Depends on the kind of movie buff you are. The movie to its credit has a decent pace but relies more on glitz, glamour and dizzy deliberate twists. Two and half hours of race with couple of yawn inducing pit-stops, might interest you if action, overdose of glamour, crude double meaning jokes and script lacking logic can excite you.

Every child has its own dream. Every father has his dream about his child. Ferrari Ki Sawaari is endearing story of a middle-class father and his cricket-playing son and how his father gets himself entangled into one  hilarious, bumpy ride on Ferrari when destiny bestows his son with a golden opportunity.

Kayo, played brilliantly by young Ritvik Sahore might be just a school kid but with a gifted cricketing talent.  His father Rustom (Sharman Joshi), a RTO head clerk is an affable, honest, single father who is nicknamed by Sri Harichandra by traffic cop when he volunteers and insists to pay the fine for jumping the traffic signal, even when no one notices it. When the cop asks why he wants to pay even though no cop had caught him or noticed his violation, Rustom says his son who was in the pillion noticed it and children takes their first lesson from their parents. That opening scene for me conveyed a lot about the true drive of the movie – a ride to remember! Destiny knocks the door of Rustoms when he gets a golden opportunity to get selected to a cricketing camp in the mecca of cricket, Lord’s MCC grounds, London. But if Kayo gets selected, he has to pay a hefty coaching fee. Though Rustom lives on a tight budget, he assures his son he would make it. Rustom’s father (Bomman Irani), a man who has turned bitter towards life and cricket in particular chides him for spoiling his child. Did Rustom’s dream come true? The answer would be obvious but how they manage it with Ferrari becoming an integral part of the movie makes the ride very exciting and immensely watchable.

Sharman Joshi is a fine actor that no one would disagree but he has always been casted in multi-hero roles and in Ferrari Ki Sawari he does a solo act as a lead and in a commendable way. As a single father who passionately nurtures his son’s dreams while at the same time silently and obediently bearing the bitterness of his father, Sharman pulls the act with remarkable ease. Supporting him ably are Ritvik Sahore and Bomman Irani as well as the entire supporting cast of the movie. One good thing I noticed in some of the recent Bollywood films like Kahaani, Vicky Donor and now Ferrari Ki Sawari are the interesting castings of relatively unknown faces in supporting characters and the way they perform it on-screen. Even in Ferrari Ki Sawari the characters like the watchman and his co-staff, the marriage planner, the politician and his cranky son all leaves a lasting impression through their characterization and act. And yes, you also has the feisty Vidya Balan performing a lavani dance for the  Mala Jau De number. The movie is enjoyable the entire length except for a 10 minute portion just before the climax that you can excuse it as a pit stop.

My final word… Ferrari Ki Sawari is an endearing ride that I would recommend you to hop on. While the masala flicks tops the box office, rarely you come across a movie that has its heart (and engine) in its right place. Enjoy the Vroooom!

When in one particular scene Sonakshi tells Akshay Shahrukh is for charisma, Amir for acting, Hrithik for good looks and Salman for his body, what are you? And Akshay replies ‘khilladi ka naam bhool gayi aap’. Yes the original khilladi is back and how! Prabhu Deva who gave Salman a much needed career altering hit with ‘Wanted’, remakes yet another Telugu super hit movie to bring back Akshay into his khilladi best.

Rowdy Rathore is nothing put pure ISO 9001 certified masala entertainer that makes no pretentions for any intellectual and critical acclaim. All it delivers is the language of ‘The Dirty Picture’ entertainment, entertainment and entertainment and it over indulges in it. The story is nothing to boast about but borrows from the 80′s mashed, remashed and rehashed formula but surprisingly for most part of the movie it manages you to keep entertained.

Akshay dons the double role of a cop and a petty thief.  In first half of the movie, Shiva a small time conman is happy indulging in his petty con jobs and inbetween falls in love with Sonakshi. With no logic or reasoning and making the vintage phrase ‘love is blind’ true, Sonakshi falls in love like a magnet inspite of her knowing his con activities. Hey he confessed and so Satyameva Jayate err or is is love alone triumphs?! But the love in the air gets disturbed with the arrival of a little girl who identifies Shiva as her dad and also a bunch of murderous goons bays for his blood. Who are they and why are they behind Shiva and who is the girl? ACP Vikram Rathore gets into the picture in a rustic bad land of Bihar where the writ of Bhai ji rules (Southern veteran actor Nasser)  and the movie ends with Shiva taking vengence with loudness, madness, blood and gore  and alongside Akshay’s trademark antics and also couple of songs (What else is Sonakshi for? except to dance around and flaunt her flabs around waist, in a movie that offers her no other scope otherwise)

After having watched Akshay in all his hillarious best in last decade, it comes a bit difficult to adjust to his back-to-khilladi mode but then he tries his comeback well.  Did I say tries his best? Yes, actually he is not to be blamed but the director Prabu Deva to force him to do some of very highly southern masala film formula on him, which the some of the southern mass super stars are fluent to do but Akki falters a bit into that persona. Yet, he tries his best and manages to shoulder the film and deliver the max impact.

The songs of Sajid-Wajid duo compliments well to the uninhibited masala quotient of the movie and the songs are hit numbers with catchy tunes and crazy lines. The movie has mass written all over it in all departments and Prabhu Deva does not get embarassed in delivering it on a over dose.

My final word Rowdy Rathore is not perfect in wholesome masala entertainment but still holds well in delivering a pasia vasool fare. Akshay reinvents a new khilladi in him albeit bit embarassing in few places but you can be guaranteed of pure filter kaapi in a strong souther flavour.

Hollywood’s affable Men in Black duo dressed in super slick black suit and black sunglasses are back together after a decade doing what they best do, policing the aliens and saving the world but then this time, its the Agent J (Will Smith)  who gets most of the suiting err filming. If you thought MIB2 over killed it with the Alien madness, MIB3 is more human both emotionally and with less Alien show pieces. Yes, MIB franchise cannot get away with its famed line-ups of aliens-of-comic-very-animalistic-protypes, so earlier in the movie. we have a chinese restaurant scene where in you get your diet of Alien creatures fighting it out. But then it mostly ends there. A dynamic shift in this edition of MIB seems to be some lessons learn a decade back and so the movie does not over kill or overwhelm you with ‘alien creatures’.

Agent J (Will Smith) can never stop himself from nagging his senior, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) over his stiffness and lack of emotions in his life and towards him, while in a lunar prison camp Boris ‘the Animal’, the villain and the last remaining member of a roughe alien race  breaks free after being locked up for 40 years and revisits Earth with vengence to destroy it as well as kill Agent K, who had captured him and also reason for loss of an arm. So how does he plans to go ahead with his revenge? he goes back to past exactly July 16, 1969 the day Agent K had captured him. His plan to kill Agent K in past and destroying earth in the process that K had undone it during that time. This scheme ofcourse takes our Agent J to crash land into the past to save his partner in black as well as our planet and thereby us in the future. Head spinning eh? Well, its all the time travel jet lag, I suppose! In the end though Agent J comes out knowing a bit about his own past and that of Agent K, which adds to the sentimental, emotional value to this MIB fare.

Its Will Smith all the way who outshadows his aged senior. And another noteworthy casting is Josh Brolin, who does a pretty neat impersonification as the younger version of Tommy and also the character as well as casting of Michael Stuhlbarg as Griffin, an extraterrestrial being who call it a curse or boon or both can see and be in  any moment of past,present and future and calculate the probability of every possible outcome of a situation in all the linear and non-linear combinations.While the bigger let down is the villain, who just fizzles out after a big bang intro and a lunar jail break. Ofcourse he is beasty with his own unique  (?!) alien dart-board-styled killing method but then it just fails the MIB funda. Though visual graphics are more refined in this movie compared to the the previous two (ofcourse the technology has come a long way since the last two movies), seems like the underline given to the production team is not to overkill as they did in the MIB2. So it is more of a controlled visual effects here be it in characters and their execution. The back to the past does has its few funny moments especially when Will Smith is told ‘its propably not the best of his times’ for men of his color and also when he finds his ‘younger’ senior drastically different than how he knows him to be in the ‘future’ present. Though not very hillarious, at best you can smile and go on.

So the final word MIB3 is better than MIB2 but fails to live up to the uniqueness and the originality MIB1 had, still it can be watched once, you won’t regret too if you don’t.

The promos promised an action packed thriller and Priyadarshan does indeed give you some gripping, well executed chase sequences but then a weak script knocks out the movie.

Its high time, Bollywood comes out of its obsession for American and European backgrounds. Its almost getting to a point after seeing Bollywood movies, we can safely say “When in UK, learn Hindi“. Better our phoren loving directors move out to Hollywood before we have a Hindi speaking American president or British Queen in future Bollywood movies, if this obsession continues. Back to Tezz, the movie opens with Aakash Rana (Ajay Devgn) being deported from UK for staying illegaly and thus separated from his British born wife, Nikita (Kangana Ranaut). 4 years later, he returns again to England to get back to his wife and then goes on to plant a bomb in a  train running between London to Glasgow with a bomb (may be after watching movies like Speed and Unstoppable) with the help of his ex-employees Adil (Zayed Khan) and Megha (Sameera Reddy) .  Chief  Traffic Controller, Sanjay Raina (Bomman Irani) has just seen off his daughter in the same ill-fated train and the just retired counter terrorism chief, Arjun Khanna (Anil Kapoor) is brought back just when he boarding his flight back to India to deal with the emergency case. Yay! All the top guys happens to be Indians and yes, Hindi speaking Indians so that this Bollywood movie can speak with less subtitles!

What clicks for the movie is some well executed chase sequences. Especially one that involves Sameera Reddy on bike chased by cops. It is easily one of a neat sequence next only to the one seen in Akshay Kumar movie, Blue.

What lets down the movie is unsurprisingly the script. Wonder when would Bollywood producers and directors start having faith on script rather than phoren locations and star powers.

Why would Ajay Devgn who wants to be just with his wife want to execute a train bomb?

Why would his ex-employees Sameera Reddy and Zayed Khan risk their life by helping Ajay in his plan?

By what logic is justifief illegal staying in a country and then justify it with sentiments?

If you want to be back with your wife, don’t you have an option to just take back your family to your own country?

He says he lost everything but he has enough resources to buy bombs, plan etc but cannot trace his wife eh?

There are many more such questions that just fizzles the bomb out of the story.

And ofcourse you do have the racial and patriotic angle with this bleedy firangi office doubting our desi patriotic duty bound cop. How dare! And again don’t this bleedy firangis know to speak Bollywoodish Hindi, the global language! When in NewYork or London, learn to speak Hindi huh!

And yes, Priyadarshan better hide away from Malayalam superstar Mohan Lal’s fans for reducing the superstar to an ordinary cop role that was better offered to any other burly firangi unknown actor. Point is why would Mohan lal agree to do this role?!

Ofcourse if you can stay blind to weak script, the action sequence especially the Sameera Reddy chase sequence and Thiru’s cinematography would keep you engaged with the movie.

GingerChai Verdict: ‘Tezz’ is an action thriller fizzled out by weak script

In the land that gave the world Kama sutra, discussing sex is still a taboo and sperm donation a bigger taboo. And here is a small budget Bollywood movie that tries to break the taboo by delivering a very entertaining, meaningful movie with a warm heart and a good intention.

Vicky Donor is a light hearted rom-com that revolves around sperm donation as the main subject but without getting preachy about it. The soul of the movie is in the wonderful script that is endearing and light hearted,  the characters very real and the emotional chord tucked in right places and the laughter sugar-coating the meaningful intention.

Dr Baldev Chaddha (Annu kapoor) runs an infertility clinic and many childless couples rest their hopes on him and dream of their bundle of joy. But the Doctor knows in practicality, its only a probability based heavily on the sperm quality and chance. And then as a good doctor he needs to also take in count various pre-checks on the quality and nature of the donor. So the hunt for the Mr.Right Donor continues for Chaddaji whose clinic’s future as well as the hopes of many of his patience rest on it. Enter Vicky Arora (Ayushmann Khurrana), a 25 something Punjabi, living in refugee colony in Delhi, with his boisterous but loving mother and “a progressive thinking modern” grandma is a happy-go-lucky jobless guy. Dr.Chaddaji spots him and then begins a hillarious journey where he tries to convince him to be a donor. And then Ashima Roy (Yami Gautam), an independent working  bengali and a divorcee breezez in romance into Vicky’s life and resulting in an inter-cultural marriage after a bouts of very entertaining cultural shocks for both the families. What happens when the neighbourhood, family and Ashima came to know about Vicky’s donor act makes the second half of the movie that has no one dull moment nor a typical masala quotient. A quality sperm of a movie!

If the script of the movie is a winner, the other highlights of the movie are the cast. The entire cast of the movie has done a commendable job with Ayushmann,Annu kapoor and Yami deserving a special mention. It’s one rare movie where you cannot fault one single actor, right from the grandmother to the staff of the clinic everyone impresses with their small roles but linger in our thoughts for long! And the best part no one over acts but at ease with their characters. a A wonderful sperm of a show!

I was never convinced with John Abraham as an actor but as a first time producer and for spotting such a script and having faith on it, take a bow John!  And a special bow for the director Shoojit Sircar.

GingerChai verdict: Vicky Donor is one brilliant sperm of an entertaining movie that has the right genetic mix of entertaiment, story, heart and soul into it. Go watch it, you will never be dissappointed and the movie deserves to win in box office.

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.