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!!!

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.