Review of Kurbaan (2009)...

When one watches a movie like Kurbaan, one ends up wondering, what is the message of the movie, what is the director trying to say by using the movie as the means. I frankly did not understand what Renzil D'Silva was trying to convey. Was he trying to put a justification behind the Terrorist actions of his protagonist, or was he trying to show that there is still goodness amongst a particular community, which is generally associated with any kind of terrorism globally. He fails in both. The failure in the first is because there cannot be any justification to the killings of innocent people. Two wrongs don't make a right. Doing atrocities to people whom one holds responsible for the plight of your own can never be justified. He fails in the second as there is too much focus on the negativity of the characters, that one hardly thinks about the moderate or clean characters of the movie and there actions.

Kurbaan is the story of a group of people who are planning a series of terror attacks in America to avenge the what they feel are sufferings caused to people of Afghanistan due to the actions of Americans. The movie begins with Saif Ali Khan (Ehsaan) and Kareena (Avantika) starting their romance and then shifting to America for their career. Soon Kareena realizes that Saif is part of a Sleeper cell who are planning terror attacks in America. Meanwhile, Vivek Oberio (Riyaaz) begins his own objective of exposing this group, as they are responsible for the killing of his girl friend in a plane explosion. He becomes part of this group in order to understand their plans and get them caught them at the right time. There are multiple ups and downs in the movie with quiet a thrilling climax of around 30 mins.

The movie starts on a very dull note with the first 30 mins being extremely boring, then the next 30 mins are extremely exciting, when Kareena finds out the reality of his husband. Again the movie goes into slow motion to again become alive after sometime. The movie actually alternates like this for its entire duration of 2 hrs 40 mins, with the last 30 mins again being extremely thrilling. From a performance PoV, Kareena does not impress much, Saif has done a decent job, and Vivek is also so so in the acting area. Actors like Om Puri and Kiron Kher are wasted. The direction of the movie is sleek but in parts, and that is what keeps the interest a bit alive for the overall length of the movie. The title of the movie says, "Some Love stories have blood on them", frankly there is no Love story at all in the movie. The movie is full of flaws, How come Kareena does not find a way to escape and report the presence of this sleeper cell, even though she is left all alone in a shopping mall? How is a dreaded terrorist Khalid (Saif) able to roam openly in America, in spite of being on the most wanted list of FBI? Why does Vivek decide to take things in his hand, while he can easily expose this cell to FBI? How can Saif get away inspite of landing in the middle of a Gun fight with the Police and actually getting injured in the same? The list goes on actually.

I sometimes wonder the need to make such movie. With so much of hatred and misconception already afloat all around, is there is need to add to that. All this movie ends up achieving is creating a hateful opinion about a particular section of people and clearly for me, one could have done without having such a movie ever made. All that this movie spreads is not a message of peace or love, but rather a message a Hate, that is easily avoided in the current geo-political scenario of the world.

Watch it if you must, but please treat this movie as just a thriller and do not make any kind of opinions because of this movie. To which ever community you belong to, this movie cannot be taken on face value and the message of the movie should not influence you in setting an opinion about the other community.

PS: I have deliberately not named any community in this review, as that would defeat the whole purpose of the same. I regret hurting feelings of anyone because of this.

Review of My Name is Khan (2010)...

"My Name is Khan (MNIK)", one of the most media hyped movie in the recent years, which got released under a lot of speculation and hu halla!!! The only reason I was keen on seeing this movie was because in some of the reviews, the movie got compared to "Forrest Gump", one of my all time favorite movie. While the message of the movie is quiet appealing, the methodology used did not appeal to me much, thus making the storyline look very weak. The message "Every Muslim is not a Terrorist" has been shown in multiple movies in different ways and the same is the core of this story as well. The main protagonist of the movie sees the world with a filter of "Good" or "Bad" people, or in other words "Black" and "White". There is no place for "Grey" in there, which is probably the missing angle in MNIK. For me, a key part of being Human is the "Grey" area we all operate in, and react to similar situations in a different way given the current circumstances. The director has tried to show both sides of the story, the sufferings at both ends, be it Muslim or Non-Muslim and still he does not justify the actions of either of them. It is the circumstances which made people react the way they did.

The story of MNIK is about a man who suffers from Asperger syndrome (autism spectrum), and his life's struggle to overcome his inhibitions, from his childhood to his role as a father and husband. The character Rizwan Khan(Shah Rukh Khan (SRK)) grows up in a small mumbai neighborhood with his brother and mother. He then moves on to US to be with his brother, played by Jimmy Shergill (very unconvincing performance by him). There he bumps into Mandira Rathore (Kajol) and after upteen attempts convinces her to marry him. While all this is happening pre-911, their life suddenly changes post-911. Post a very tragic incident in their life, the only mission of Rizwan is to meet the President of United States and tell him that he is not a "Terrorist". On the path, Rizwan touches lives of multiple different kinds of people, some of whom become his fans and some don't.

The first 30 mins of the movie were actually a complete bore for me, but post that the movie is a little more bearable. There are certain incidents in the movie that do touch your heart, though just slightly, the general depth of emotions related to Karan Johar's(KJ) movie is missing here. Most of the scenes seem incomplete and very superficial. It is only in the last 30 mins of the movie that saved it slightly.

On the performance front, both SRK has given a good performance and Kajol has done a tremendous job. Certain scene in the movie Kajol has done so well, that you can call the movie "My Name is Kajol". :-)) Let me be candid here, I am not a big SRK fan, for me he has given only 2 good performances in his entire career, "Swades" and "Chak de India". I would put MNIK as the third good performance by him. The most surprising performance of the movie though was by Sonya Jehan, playing the role of Jimmy Shergill's wife. Her portrayal as a racial victim and the changes she undergoes have been captured by her very well, and she has also done a fabulous work to portray the same.

The music is by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and is OK. Certain songs like "Sajda" and "Tere Naina" are good, but nothing great to rave about. May be good to listen to for a few weeks on your Ipod and surely by then something better will come over.

Now coming back to the comparison with "Forrest Gump", well there is no comparison. It is like comparing BMW with a Maruti 800. I did read somewhere, (i think in TOI), where the review said that MNIK has gone beyond "Forrest Gump" and SRK beyond Tom Hanks. I can just say this to the person who wrote this, "Get your eyes tested" or go and see "Forrest Gump", because either you are blind or you have not seen "Forrest Gump", just heard its story from someone. MNIK is not even 10% of "Forrest Gump".

Overall, it is not a bad effort by SRK and KJ combination. If you do not have anything important to do, please do catch this in the theaters, but frankly, if you were to do that over the DVD, that won't be a big loss either.

Review of Ishqiya (2010)...

What Ishqiya brought back for me is the "Mitti ki Khusboo". The Rustic rural setup, the calm and quietness of a small town and the simple looking complex problems of its people. Living in Bangalore now for the last 10 years, some how I have gotten cut off from the farm lands and rural part of India. The days I used to spend in my Grandma's house, with people living a really carefree life. I had started to believe that in this mad progress that India has made in the last 2 decades, that kind of India has been lost somewhere. Ishqiya has brought back those days and the belief that that India still is very much there, may be not in the Bangalore and Delhi's of the world, but certainly in the Gorukhpur's and Lucknow's of India.

Ishqiya is a story about 3 key characters Vidya Balan(krishna), Naseeruddin Shah (Khalujaan) and Arshad Warsi (Babban), and how there lives get entangled in Love, Lust and Deceit. There is the plutonic style love of Naseer for Vidya, and also the Lusty love of Arshad for her. Both the love stories progress together, and one cannot understand why Vidya is playing with the emotions of both of them, clearly she has an agenda of her own. All this going on with a Maoist movement, Murders and kidnappings happening in the background, A business man having an affair outside of his marriage, a young boy having his own dreams, a small time Bhai trying to recover his money or blow off the brains of our characters and all these characters being involved with each other in some way or the other. I will not reveal the plot of the movie further, as there enough twists and turns in the story, incase I was to reveal them, it would make your movie experience predictable. All I can say, the story is like a Onion, with each peel coming of, the story becomes more and more interesting. Just that in this case peeling of Onion does not bring tears to your eyes, but rather a smile to your face.

The screenplay is co-written by Vishal Bhardwaj along with Abhishek and Sabrina Dhawan, and is the main strength of the movie, like all the previous Vishal Bhardwaj ventures. He has not taken the role of Director this time, instead it is Abhiskey Chaubey who has directed Ishqiya. Inspirations from Vishal's previous works, Omkara, Maqbool are clearly visible though. Vishal has in the last few years has managed to create a handsome following for himself and a unique moving making style. In his movies, it is the characters of the movie that are in the limelight and not the stars playing them.

Though the story line is complex, it is told in a really calm and realistic way, and it grows on to you slowly as every leaf of the story unfolds. Each of the 3 main characters have an equally strong role to play and each of them try to outdo the other with their performances. There are equally strong support characters in the movie, which contribute to the movie becoming more and more gripping. For me the second half of the movie is more interesting than the first half. This does not mean the first half is boring or anything. Its just than the movie takes off beautifully in the second off, and does not look down after that.

On the performances, while we all are aware of the acting ability of Naseeruddin Shah, it is Vidya Balan and Arshad Warsi, who have come out with some mind blowing performances. Arshad Warsi has clearly given the best performance of his career yet. Vidya Balan has shown that one does not need to be Size zero and wear small clothes to look sexy and seductive. A village girl can be as Seductive and attractive as a big town girl wearing designer clothes.

My favorite performance of the movie though was by Salman Shahid, playing the role of Jijaji in the movie. A person whose money has been stolen by Arshad and Naseer and he is after them to get his money back or blow off their brains. The way Salman has played his character is really fantastic. He has brought in so much of realism to his character with his Dialogue delivery and suttle nuances, that one looks forward to his return to the screen. We surely could have done with another 10 mins of his additional screen presence.

The movie flow is crisp and with a running time of hardly 2 hours, is aptly timed. The music is nice and simple and the camera work great. Another feather in the Cap for Vishal Bhardwaj, looking forward to his next movie now. Net net a great story, some sleek direction and great acting by the actors, make Ishqiya a must watch in the Theatres. Incase you can't catch it on the Theatre, Wait for a the DVD release. A good item to add to your collections.

Beware, the dialogues are very realistic (very U.P. like) hence it will not be a good idea to watch this with your Kids (what ever be there age). Strictly for Adult viewing.

Review of Love AajKal (2009)...

Might be coming a bit late, but happened to see Love AajKal now only. Has been sometime since I wrote a review, actually a full year, last one I wrote was in Feb'09. Lets hope I can write a little more consistently this year round.

Coming back to Love AajKal, well, in a nut shell, a crisp movie, great editing and some good acting by the protagonists of the movie. On the Story side, it has a lot of gaps, and not very convincing. The story runs on two parallel tracks between two Saif Ali Khans, one a hip and modern Saif set in 2009 and the other a Sardar Saif set in probably the Late 1970's early 1980's. The movie actually starts with a break up between Saif and Deepika, and that kind of sets up an interesting context for the movie. The story that follows is about the changing feelings and relationships that both of them have, still continuing to remain in touch, sharing every minutest details of their lives even now.

The 1980 story is that of a current Rishi Kapoor (Saif pays his younger self as a Sardar), a restaurant owner in London. Rishi is telling the love story of his times and how he took almost 1 year before even speaking to the girl of his dreams, and how he traveled from Delhi to Kolkatta, just to catch a glimpse of her and came back without even exchanging a word (instead exchanging a lot more without even saying a word). Something the current generation is unable to relate to. There is a conversation between Saif and Rishi to describe the difference in relationships of their respective times, where Rishi says, in his times, the Relationship start with "looks/ observing", moves to "Following each other" to "Romance" and then Marriage, post that the "SOMETHING" happens, where as the relationships of the current generation actually start with that "SOMETHING" and then if there is any future, there might be some "Romance" coming in. It would be right to term them as companionships more than relationships.

The factor where the movie fails is the way stories of Both Saif end. Very unconvincingly. I personally felt there should have been at least another 10 mins given to both the stories to make them end as dramatically as each of them started.

The story telling on parallel tracks is quiet interesting, which is why I commended the Editor of the movie, for surely he had a lot of work to do. The second person who stands out in the Movie is Deepika Padukone. She has given a Rocking performance, having a lot of scenes where only her eyes say everything. The music of the movie is very hum-able and actually stays with you much after the movie has ended. Big Thumps up for Pritam for having a rocking 2009. Saif definitely looks better in the Sardar role than the normal self. He has captured the essence of being a Sardar quiet well. Frankly a few close up scenes of his Normal self could have been shot with Soha instead and you would not be able to make that out. The most forgettable performer of the movie is a Brazilian who plays "Harleen", Rishi Kapoors romantic angle. The less I say about her performance the better. Can't understand why so much noise was made about her being the best kept secret of the movie. It is better to keep her presence in the movie a secret actually. :-))

I would say, watch it on Home on DVD or DTH surely, certainly not worth spending movie on the expensive tickets in Multiplexes.

PS: I deliberately have not compared Imitiaz Ali's two works Love Aajkal and Jab We Met, as I don't see any point in comparing works of the same person made at different times. Once the Circumstances are different, the outcome is always very different.