Telugu Movie Review: 'Madatha Kaja' has nothing new

Film: 'Madatha Kaja';

Cast: Allari Naresh, Sneha Ullal, Jayaprakash Reddy, Ali, Dharmavarapu Subramanya and Vennela Kishore; Director: Sitarama Raju; 

Producer: K.K. Radha Mohan; 

Music: Vasanth;

Rating: ** 

Telugu film makers are weaving the same type of stories and remixing the content of films already released. They end up making silly movies, but yet complain that well made films do not run. 

'Madatha Kaja' featuring Allari Naresh in the lead role may well remind you of films like Ravi Teja's 'Mirpakaay' and 'Don Seenu' released just a few months ago.

But one thing that is distinctly clear in 'Madatha Kaja' is that the film is made with very poor production values and the hero Naresh just looks like a poor man's Ravi Teja. 

That is the real tragedy of 'Madatha Kaja' as Naresh is really talented and can be a great entertainer if he is properly supported with a good script and if the film is handled by a competent director. 

This is amply clear from the number of hits Naresh and his famous father E.V.V. Sathyanarayana have delivered and you will understand the potential of the former in author-backed roles. 

Besides the hollowness of the script, 'Madatha Kaja' suffers from other aspects as well. 

The dialogues lack the punch and many sequences in the film fail to make any impact. Comedy films need to have good, quality dialogues of great entertainment value. With passive dialogues, the predictable comedy sequences are not hilarious enough to make the audience laugh. 

The film's heroine Sneha Ullal, a look alike of Aishwarya Rai, struggles with acting. 

Kalyan from Visakhapatnam is a police informer who is in love with Sneha. As his mission in catching criminals by tipping off police is hugely successful, the police chief wants him to go to Hyderabad to give information about a notorious don Nanda who is controlling illegal activities in Hyderabad by remote control from Bangkok.

His trusted lieutenants J.P. and K.P. running separate gangs are always fighting which results in bad execution of activities and losses to Nanda. 

Nanda wants to bring in some unity between JP and KP. He decides that KP's daughter Sneha should marry J.P.'s son. 

Then Kalyan decides to bring Nanda from Bangkok and uses his intelligence and guile to eliminate the don's gang. He also gets his lady love Sneha. 

Allari Naresh tries to deliver justice to his routine role and he evokes laughter through some of his funny mannerisms and dialogues. Sneha Ullal is ordinary, but looks good in song sequences. The veterans have put in a good show. 

'Madatha Kaja' is certainly not in the same league as Allari Naresh's earlier films like 'Kitha Kithalu' and 'Seema Thupaki'. 

If you have no other better alternative, you can watch 'Madatha Kaja' once.

Movie Review: Hum Tum Shabana

Movie : Hum Tum Shabana

Cast: Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba, Satish Kaushik

Direction:Sagar Ballary

Production:Sunil Chainani, Sameer Chand, Srivastava, Subhash Dawar

Story /Screenplay: Farhajaan Sheikh

Music:  Sachin-Jigar

Rating:           **

Hum Tum Shabana is intended to be a comedy movie revolving around two boys – Rishi (Tusshar Kapoor) and Kartik (Shreyas Talpade,) competing against each other in the office at work; as well as outside the office, to woo a beauty pageant contestant – Shabana (Minissha Lamba). Shabana’s uncle (Satish Kaushik), an underworld don, is adamant to find the right groom for his niece. Now, race between the boys, instead of winning the lady, takes turn to get out of the clutches of this gangster.

Sagar Ballary seems to be losing his proven expertise at simple mindless comedy of Bheja Frying, and has to hide behind silly slapstick in Hum Tum Shabana.  The first half fails to tickle; while the second half makes you to join the race of fleeing the flick.

Outdated story with patchy writing and countless ramp walk rounds substantiates the writer’s obsession of Madhur Bhandarkar’s ‘Fashion’ sans its glamour and charisma; and screenplay, with dreary jokes, fails to entertain the viewers.

Tusshar Kapoor and Shreyas Talpade can’t add any spark, neither can Minissha. Veteran comedians Satish Kaushik and Sanjay Mishra hold the burden of providing some hilarious moments in the second-half with their witty gags; however, poor script does not provide much scope to them either.

Overall, if you are looking for some light comedy, Hum Tum Shabana is not it, for sure!

Movie Review: Force

Film: "Force"
Cast: John Abraham, Genelia D'Souza and Vidyut Jamwal;
Director: Nishikant Kamat;
Rating: ***

A raw rugged cop's tale of vicious vendetta fused into a tender romance seems like a hard act to live up to. But Nishikant Kamat, seeking inspiration from a hit Tamil film "Kaakha Kaakha" manages just fine.

He gets incredible support from dialogue writer Ritesh Shah, who infuses every exchange on love (with the girl who won't take no for an answer) and war (against drug peddlers) with a kind of lived-in warmth and familiarity.

Kamat, who earlier made "Mumbai Meri Jaan​" on terrorism and the city of Mumbai, here has a blast bringing back the old-fashioned action hero. John Abraham has worked hard on his physique and his expressions too look like a cop who thinks falling in love would take him away from his line of duty.

Enter the vivacious effervescent girl nextdoor. Genelia with her multiplicity of expressions aptly plays "Bubbly" to this duty-bound "Bunty" who would rather not get entangled in human foibles like love and family. But the inevitable happens.

Kamat lovingly weaves the love story between the impish girl nextdoor and the gentle giant into the persistent call of duty, making sure the film's claims to be an action film doesn't get drowned in mush.

While the first hour is a loose bag of striking shootouts staged in crowded localities of Mumbai and some highly dispensable romantic songs, it is the second-hour where the narration really gathers momentum pitching the relentless cop against his chief adversary a drug dealer named Vishnu, played with arresting elan by debutant Vidyut Jamwal.

The man-to-man confrontations between Abraham and Jamwal have a rousing rugged resonance to them. They may make you squirm with their brutality. But the two look like well-matched opponents. Action director Allan Amin devises combats that convey a bone-crunching realism.

The two adversaries take care of the rest. John gives a finely pitched performance looking every inch like the action hero who can deliver that punch. He handles both the brutal and tender moments in the violence and romance, with ease.

Newcomer Vidyut Jamwal makes a formidable adversary. The menace is not only in the physique but the tone. This man means business. Some of the supporting cast is interesting too.

"Force" is a full-on action film with balls, brawn and brains. It's the kind of virile cinema where action speaks louder than words. Blessedly the narrative secretes some fine dialogues and tender love story that goes with the turbulent territory. Nishikant Kamat balances out the colour khaki with sharp colours of humour and romance.
(IANS)

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster review: Heady mix of passion, power and politics

A wonderfully gripping trip into the hinterland where life is cheap, death is free and sex comes at a premium. Be ready to cheer and whistle as this one comes with punchlines galore

The best thing about director Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster (SBG) is the fact that it is placed in a milieu that he is well-versed with; the language, the look and the characters, all rarely seen on the big screen, make this film a treat to watch. Shot aesthetically, the content is aimed at a fairly mature audience. SBG is one of the few Hindi films that has done justice to the acting prowess of Jimmy Shergill, who does look like a king; a lot has been spent on his styling in the movie and it certainly is worth it.

The telling of the story is as simple as the title of the film – it is about a king (Jimmy Shergill) whose coffers are empty, his wife (Mahie Gill) whom he doesn’t love and a rookie gangster (Randeep Hooda) who lands up in the madhouse that was once a sprawling palace. The king is going through an all-time low and has to somehow manage to live up to his royal stature, for which he uses his power and doubles up as a gangster.

Like all self-respecting kings, he also has a courtesan who knows exactly which buttons to push to ensure that he eats out of her hands.

The king is left with very few loyal subjects and has to compete with a local gangster Genda Singh (Vipin Sharma) to reclaim respect and power. The world created by the director is dark and almost everyone in it seems to be comfortable with a twisted way of life. The only character with a spine is the king’s driver, who ends up becoming a helpless witness to an ending that is a rare spectacle in Bollywood.

SBG is in the zone of filmmaker E Nivas’ Shool or Anurag Basu’s Murder and the twain meet in such a poetic way that it makes for a great watch. Stunning visuals, bravura performances, shock value, skin show and the mandatory item number – this movie is a glowing tribute to the warring-Rajput-clan genre. Though the director has only shot at about three locations, the way the film has been edited avoids any hint of repetitiveness.

The refined camerawork and catchy music add to the darkly pulpy concoction and it was a surprise to see actor Deepal Shaw almost pull off a Basanti a la Hema Malini. As the tagline of the film goes, “this weekend do spare time for this royal threesome”.

Movie Review : Tere Mere Phere

Movie: Tere Mere Phere

Director: Deepa Sahi

Cast: Jagrat Desai, Sasha Goradia, Vinay Pathak, Riya Sen

Rating: *1/2

 In the very beginning of this film ”a debut venture by actress-turned-director Deepa Sahi ”a young boy of about 14 spouts a worldly-wise dialogue, something to the effect of how making love is a rubbish term and what a couple actually wants is sex. I just wish we were more sensitive about not only the kind of messages we send out to our young kids via films, but also about what we make them speak on screen.

To its credit, the film has a novel story of a couple who have all the right romantic notions before marriage, but start fighting soon after they discover each other's shortcomings. So without wasting more reel time, they decide to divorce each other while on their honeymoon. Besides this storyline, however, everything else falls flat. The first culprits are the lead actors, Jagrat Desai and Sasha Goradia. While Jagrat is plain wooden, Sasha is irritating as well.

Even as the couple fights with each other, the plane in which they are travelling is taken back to its original destination because the sole airhostess on the plane and the two captains freak out! This can only happen in a bad Hindi film.

Vinay Pathak as the love-struck, happy-go-lucky person could have been the saving grace, but too much is dependent on him. Riya Sen plays a Himalayan rustic beauty, but acts like she has just landed from some foreign shore with an accent that is incomprehensible.

There are certain scenes (very few, I must add) that get you interested in the couple's lives, but after a point you wouldn't care less. Better actors and perhaps a little more experienced director may have worked for this script. Hopefully, next time Sahi takes a few tips from her husband Ketan Mehta, one of the finest directors in our midst.

A predictable ending and an unwittingly hilarious climax do the rest of the damage.

Movie Review : Speedy Singhs is a Bend it like Beckham on the ice rink!

Film: Speedy SinghsDirector: Robert Lieberman
Cast: Vinay Virmani, Anupam Kher, Camilla Belle, Russell Peters and Rob Lowe
Rating: ***

The film evokes a strong sense of déjà vu right from the word go. It’s Bend it Like Beckham meets Patiala House. So you have a typical Punjabi family settled in an Indian community abroad, a dictator-like-dad maha-unhappy with their daughter/son’s choice to pursue their passion for sports, a wedding in the family and a predictable climax in the stadium. But once you overlook all this, Speedy Singhs takes you on an entertaining ride.

So there’s Rajveer Singh (Vinay) whose heart beats for ice-hockey, while dad Darvesh Singh (Anupam) wants him to join his brother’s transport business. 

Though settled in Canada, the family is seeped in Indian culture and that includes considering every sport other than cricket a waste of time. To add to this woes, there’s Sam (Peters) his cousin sister’s fiancé, who considers Rajveer competition in their family business.

When the chances of Rajveer making it to the top team, Hammerheads, seems impossible thanks to his Indian roots, Harry forms his own team Speedy Singhs with fellow Sikhs under coach Dan Winters (Lowe). Dan’s sister (Camilla) is Rajveer’s love interest. How the Singhs take on the Hammerheads forms the rest of the story. 

The highlights of the film are definitely the super-crisp dialogues topped with an impeccable comic timing, that’s maintained consistently on a high tempo all through and the film’s fast pace. 

The audience is spared of the technicalities of the sport, but is kept aware of what’s going on in the game. The music is tappy enough to enjoy and the beats stay in tandem with the highs and lows of the film. 

The only chink in the armour is the story that could’ve been worked on, but on the upside the film is minus the melodrama that happens in the wake of the protagonist ditching his father’s dreams to fulfill his own. 

Also refreshingly, Harry is unapologetic about his passion and takes on all obstacles with his smarty-pants attitude, so you don’t feel sorry for him, but are with him all through hoping that he succeeds.

The director handles all the relationship angles between the hero and his father, mother, brother, cousin, her fiancé, the opponent, uncle, girlfriend, coach, his team rather well and there’s no beating about the bush as far as emotions are concerned. 

All actors give convincing performances and a thumbs up to the high-on-energy-new-kid-on-the-block Vinay, who looks promising. Camilla and Lowe do good jobs too.

Overall, it’s a fun two-hour watch with friends or family over a bucket of popcorn.

Movie Review : Mausam (2011)

Movie: Mausam

Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor, Supriya Pathak, Anupam Kher and Aditi Sharma; 

Writer-Director: Pankaj Kapoor;

Rating: **** 

 

There is an absolutely devastating moment of pure drama in this eagerly-awaited far-from-disappointing romance where Shahid Kapoor, playing one of the most deliciously challenging roles of his career, espies from a train the lost love of his life, Sonam Kapoor, standing forlorn in the snow with luggage, like Meryl Streep in 'The French Lieutenant's Woman' or Manisha Koirala in 'Dil Se', waiting for god knows what! The next train? Love? Death? Or the next life?

It's a moment that defines 'Mausam', a film that has some serious flaws, but finally holds together as a work of renaissance art, more remarkable, in parts outstanding, for what it attempts rather than what it finally achieves.

Pankaj Kapoor takes the Muslim-Hindu love story between a Kashmiri refugee girl and a Punjabi boy through an arching sweep of history. Every historical trauma that has defined and defiled India and Indians in the last 30 years props up as a vital image to underline the love story.

And what 'Mausam' finally says is, love becomes impossible in a civilization that chooses to define itself by violence rather than peace. Gandhi? He could be just a spectre that never existed in a world where two young people cannot come together in a clasp of love for the fear of falling into a terror trap.

We have award-worthy performances in 'Mausam' by the hero who happens to be the director's son. But that is just a karmic coincidence, like much of what transpires between the lovers in 'Mausam'.

The film goes from one phase in the couple's life to another, not quite smoothly but not strenuously either. The transitions in their estrangement are mapped out in some finely-written scenes where the couple's smothered affections for one another are manifested in moments of sublime beauty.

The ever-brilliant cinematographer Binod Pradhan captures the couple against breathtaking backdrops in rural Punjab and Scotland.

'Mausam' is one of the best-looking films in recent times. The transitions in time and topography are brought about with a fair degree of inner conviction and outer resplendence.

The synthesis of the lovers' inner and outer world is not always stress-free. The couple's inability to come together through various tragic and traumatic historical conflicts is depicted in scenes that range from the rivetting to the mundane.

Visually the film is a feast.

The film's strong sense of purpose and its love-defining affiliation to socio-cultural incidents leave little space for the incidental characters (of whom there are many) to grow in the plot. That, in a way, is the need of the plot. But you do crave to see more of the lives around the couple and how these lives and the relationships qualify the love story at the film's centre. You want to see the long-lasting friendship between Aayaat's Muslim father (Kamalnain Chopra) and the Kashmir Pundit (Anupam Kher).

And there is a plenty of quality of that sublime stillness in the storytelling - the film's extraneous correctness hides much of the film's intrinsic inconsistencies. Then there is Shahid, standing tall with a performance that puts him right up there among the finest contemporary actors.

Shahid takes us through the film's and his character's romantic odyssey, inconsistencies and all. Forget Tom Cruise. In the Airforce uniform he reminds us of Rajesh Khanna in 'Aradhana'. And that's the highest compliment any contemporary star can be paid.

The director tries hard to merge Sonam in the resplendent ambience. Her performance has enchanting echoes of Kareena Kapoor in 'Refugee'. The camera gives her no room to complain. But in the intensely romantic moments, she looks lost rather than lovelorn.

It's the other girl, the spirited Punjabi kudi Rajjo, in Shahid's life played by Aditi Sharma, who fills up the small space provided to her character.

'Mausam' is about the thwarted love between Harry and Aayaat. When they finally meet during the Gujarat riots, they seem to discover not love but its aftermath, which is a far greater thing than love.

Where the film seems to lag behind is in creating emotional pockets for the couple's mutual feelings to develop. Shahid playing Harry the Punjabi wastrel turned air-force officer and Sonam playing Aayaat the refugee from Kashmir, have several shared tender moments . The stand-out ones all come towards the second-half when loves grows impossible between the couple.

The climactic reconciliation during the Gujarat riots, enacted with supreme passion by Shahid, stands out for its stark dialogues that intercut between the couple's long pent-up feeling of separation and the socio-political forces that have kept them from each other.

The climax on a ferri's wheel appears a trifle manufactured.

Editor Sreekar Prasad's smooth flow in the narration is suddenly stymied in the search for a jolting finale.

But you have to hand it to Pankaj Kapoor. In his directorial debut, he tells an old-fashioned story of love, separation and reunion with flourishes and flashes of great cinema igniting what would in lesser hands, appear to be a trite tale of love gone frightfully cliched.

And yes, Pritam's music is apt. But the best tunes 'Abhi na jao chod kar' and 'Ajeeb dastaan hain yeh', are not his.

IANS

Movie Review : Crazy Stupid Love

Film: 'Crazy Stupid Love';
Directors: Glenn Ficarra, John Requa; 
Cast: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Julianne Moore; 
Rating: **** - poignant and hilarious

There's good news in the air for cinema fans. The rom-com genre, a strong forte of Hollywood that was sadly dwindling thanks to some totally lacklustre films in the past few years, is back with a bang. The proof is 'Crazy, Stupid Love', one of the best romantic comedies of our new millennium, and a laugh riot to boot.

Cal's (Steve Carell) world turns upside when his wife for over 25 years Emily (Julianne Moore) reveals that she has slept with a co-worker and wants a divorce. He moves out of his house and frequents a bar where a casanova Jacob (Ryan Gosling), taking pity on his self-pity, teaches him the moves to make women fall for him. To complicate matters are Cal's children, their baby sitter's crush on him and a mad English teacher.

It's been some time that a romantic comedy has either been romantic or comic. Many of them are witty or have slap-stick humour. But genuine, situational humour, funny observations about life and relationship and a true squeezing of a story's potential to make you laugh your guts out have been rare. That is the reason that this film shines amidst dull contemporaries.

In terms of poignancy, you can call it the 'American Beauty' of rom-coms. While 'American Beauty' manages to get the satire out of marriage and its fall out, this one gets the humour out of it.

And what's more, it's got a totally unexpected twist in the end like a thriller and a scene after that which will totally sweep you off your feet with its humour.

The shots are conceptualized beautifully and best of all the directors - Glenn Ficarra and John Requa - know the importance of silences and pauses even in a comedy that usually rely on a lot of dialogues. It ends up being as poignant as it is hilarious and totally natural in its execution.

Yet, at the core of it, this one is a film for the family. What it is to fall in love, to stay in it, to fall out of it and to fall back in again. It analyses the concept of love from various viewpoints, that of a young boy in love with a much older girl, a young girl lusting for a man more than double her age, of a long married husband and wife now bored with each other and a lustful smooth-talking man who always has his way with women.

It shows how our viewpoint of love is influenced by the loves of those around us.

And it is to the credit of a stellar cast that brings the eccentricities and love in their character out front. Steve Carrell and Juliana Moore are at their usual best, while Ryan Rosling will steal many pretty young things' hearts with his antics.

Yet, beyond it all, it is the smart screenplay of Dan Fogelman that, despite its flaws, manages to keep you focused on its strengths.

This one's bound to go down in history as one of the most original rom-coms of all time. And that is no small achievement.

IANS