Dabangg2 (2012)...

Chulbul Pandey is back, and he is back with more Charisma, more Energy and more Power. Back are also, Rajjo, Prajapati Pandey and Makhi. What has changed, the Director is now Arbaaz Khan instead of Abhinav, the villian has also changed and so has the Jurisdiction of Robinhood Pandey, he has moved to Kanpur. Is Dabangg2 a Big Bang over Dabangg1, well will reserve the comment for the closure.

Dabangg2 opens with full recap of Dabangg1 and sets up the stage on what to expect from Dabangg2. Full on action, Full on masti and Full on style of "Chulbulle Pandeyji". He is still the Robinhood of people, even though now it is people of Kanpur. It would not be wrong to say that Dabangg2 is Chulbul Pandey and only Chulbul Pandey overloaded. Am I minding that though, not at all. Till the time the Pandeyism is on in the movie the movie races through and keeps you glued with full on entertainment. The big difference between Dabangg2 and Dabangg1 is the storyline. This version is very lean on Story and complex drama between relationships. Most of the relationship issues got sorted out in the previous part and hence there was not much left for Chulbul to resolve in this version. While Dabangg1 had multiple stories crossing each other, whether it was Chulbul and Rajjo, or Chulbul and Makhi or Chulbul and Prajapati or Rajko and her Father, or Chulbul and Rajjo's Father, or Chulbul and Chedi Singh or Makhi and Chedi or Chedi and Chulbul's mom, Dabangg2 from story perspective is Chulbul and Bachcha Bhaiya and that is about it. So this kind of tells you the depth of Story line in this version. 

Story in nut shell is Chulbul Pandey has moved to Kanpur along with his Wife Rajjo (Sonakshi), father Prajapati (Vinod Khanna) and his brother Makhi (Arbaaz Khan). While the jurisdiction has changed, Chulbul has not and he makes life of local goon and soon to be politician Bachcha Bhaiya (Prakash Raj) miserable. The rest of the story is about antiques of Chulbul Pandey and Bachcha Bhaiya. Whenever Chulbul is upto his Dabanggism, you are glued with the movie, and the moment the Dabanggism fades into a song or villian's action time, the movie looses you immediately. 

So then is Dabanng2 worth it, The first half is a breezer and for me made it worth it in itself. The Second half slows down a little and there is a effort by Arbaaz to create some story line with other characters, but fails to do so. Mainly because the persona of Chulbul Pandey is so big that anything else feels boring. You want Chulbul Pandey to carry on with his dhulai and cleaning mission for the entire 2hrs and 20 mins duration. Munni is back for a special appearance and so is Kareena with Fevicol Se. Personally disappointed by the Fevicol song picturization and performance of Kareena, though some of the other songs specially Pandeyji Seeti, in which Munni makes a special appearance are worth the watch.

Action in Dabangg2 is Dabangg style and worth the entertainment quotient expected from it. It would have been better had the climax had a bit more kick, it missed the Red Bull effect of Dabangg1 and kind of ended too soon. May be because Chulbul comes into form in the Second half only in Climax and you expect him to take that to a larger than life performance, but alas!

From Performance perspective, Salman as Chulbul Pandey is amazing, there cannot be any other Chulbul Pandey anymore. Prakash Raj as Bachcha Bhaiya has done ok, and rest of the caste hardly has anything to do worth mentioning. Only Vinod Khanna as Chulbul's father has a decent role and has done well, Sonakshi looks stunning. Arbaaz as Makhi has scenes you can probably count on fingers of one hand.

How do I sum up Dabangg2, when the movie started for the first 45 mins, every scene of Chulbul Pandey was welcomed with Whistles, Claps and screams in the hall, you could easily witness the Rajni-ization of Chulbul Pandey. By the second half though they were all missing and even Chulbul could not energize the crowd in the Climax with his Antiques.

My memory of Dabangg1 is when 5 of us guy friends got together for a Friday evening Dabangg DVD get together, which had Vodka, Rum and Chulbul Pandey. Dabangg1 was thoroughly enjoyed and so was Chulbul Pandey. Will I be happy to do the same with Dabangg2, Oh Hell YES! It has everything to make it a full on entertainment.

So, watch Dabangg2 for sure. The news that Dabangg3 will be a Prequel to Dabangg1 makes it sound interesting, but the Director surely needs to be someone else, till then "Hud Hud Dabangg Dabangg Dabangg Dabangg, Kamal Karte ho Pandeyji!!!"

Talaash (2012)...

Talaash means to Seek. Not necessarily what is visible should be taken on face value. Not everything that you seek is right and not every that you find is the way it seems. That is the message from Reema Kagti with Talaash - The Answers lie within!.

Talaash set in Mumbai, is the story of Surjan S Sekhawat (Aamir Khan), married to Roshni (Rani Mukherjee) who is seeking answers around an accident of a famous movie star. How the story unfolds around his whole investigation sets the context of the the movie, but not the premise. The key premise of the story is the inner struggle that Surjan is currently having, to come to terms with the loss of his 8 - 10 year old son. He is in constant state of self blame about the accident of his son and how his one small action could have avoided the same. This state of mind puts tremendous pressure on his mind and at this juncture enters a prostitute in his life Rosy (Kareena Kapoor), who helps him come to terms with reality in both the cases he is handling at the same time. 

The role of Rosy in the movie is the key pivot around which the story starts to revolve. Surjan starts getting leads from Rosy to make head way into the accident of the movie star, but some-where creates a bond with her where in he starts to share his inner remorse about his son's death. The remorse he is not able to share with his own wife, causing a major upheaval in their married life. Roshni, Surjan's wife is undergoing treatment after her son's loss and is shown seeing a skrink as well in one of the scene. She befriends a neighbor whom Surjan despises.  Apart from this, there is'nt much for Roshni to do in the movie.

The major pie though gets taken away by Rosy, as she is this enigma in the movie which keeps you guessing whether she is guiding Surjan towards solving the mystery or getting him more distracted and away from a conspiracy being played out. The third main character of the story is Taimur (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), a limping servant of a pimp, who lives in this red light area and is running a parallel investigation of his own, not to solve the mystery but make some quick bucks so that he can get away from this life of his in the red light area. The underbelly of the Mumbai Red light area comes out at your face, and you even with all your efforts cannot ignore the Neon lights, the stinky bars and the hookers and pimps living in some pathetic environments. This sets up a fantastic background to the whole story, the movie also plays almost 80% of the time in the night, an active time for this side of the city. It is in this background that the lives of Rosy and Taimur cross each other, lives of Surjan and Rosy are completely entangled and luckily, Rosy and Roshni never come face to face.

From a performance perspective, Rani has very little to do in the movie, from Nawazuddin we have come to expect a lot more due to Kahaani and GOW, does a good job in a small but significant role. Aamir plays the whole serious cop role to perfection, somewhere that energy of the Cop from Sarfarosh is missing in this one though. His whole look and feel is that of the character and he looks like a serious cop doing his business. The find for me though is Kareena. Done a fabulous job and the credit for that will entirely go to the Director of the movie. She has made use of Kareena's various strengths to the maximum and made her come out as the key to unlock this mystery. 

Cannot disclose much beyond this and also will not talk about some of the hi-impact scenes from the movie as there interpretation can give away the suspense, and I have no intention of spoiling the suspense for people who have not seen the movie. All I will say is that Reema Kagti has done a good job, and the music of the movie is A-one, simply awesome and appropriate for the sequences. 

Talaash is not an over the edge Thriller that keeps you guessing what next and there are no major twists coming every 2 mins. It is a suspense story that runs at a slow and steady pace, but does not seize to surprise you in the end!

A must to watch once atleast, and watch it before someone spoils your fun by leaking the mystery out. I have not done so, but have left enough hints for you in my first paragraph of this review. Read it again and carefully and you might be able to understand some of it!!! Happy Mystery Solving and may you succeed in your Talaash!!!