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Main Aurr Mrs Khanna

{ October 16, 2009 @ 5:48 pm } · { main aurr mrs khanna, movies, review }
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The recent movies made by the Khan brothers and their production house have been all ‘Challu’ commercial Bollywood movies. Main aurr Mrs. Khanna is no different, it is an average movie with very little story. But still there is something charming about this movie that makes watching it pleasant.
Kareena Kapoor plays the role of Raina Khanna and Salman khan acts as Samir Khanna. Right from the beginning of the movie, the Melbourne based couple is shown to be going through marital problems. Mr. Khanna has run his company into the ground and seems to be struggling to make any headway with his career. After losing all hope for reviving his career in Australia, Samir decides to move to Singapore, though he leaves Raina aghast when he informs her that she would be returning to India instead. Hurt by her husbands decision, she decides to stay back in Melbourne and slug it out till Samir can call her to Singapore.
Things take an interesting turn when Aakash (Sohail Khan) falls for Raina knowing very well that she is already married, and tries his best to win her heart.
The movie at times seems to be unnecessarily emotional, so much so that it almost pushes the audience away; though the introduction of Sohail Khan’s character does bring a much needed dose of humor into the movie. Aakash’s attempts to win Raina’s heart never stop to amuse the audience. In fact one can say that Aakash is the most important character in the entire movie. Kareena Kapoor doesn’t have much to do besides acting like the clichéd ideal woman and Salman is absent from a great portion of the movie.
The story of the movie is scanty, silly, and besides the twist at the end, rest is pretty much predictable. But this is not one of those movies that rely on its storyline a lot. Its effect is one of charm and not of wow.
The soundtrack is decent and it’s nice to see Preity Zinta’s item number on the silver screen. The background score too does not seem repetitive but is at best average.
Watch this movie for a light fun weekend with your family, but don’t expect to be dazzled.

New York

{ October 15, 2009 @ 2:03 pm } · { movies, New York, review }
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The Bollywood has long been criticized for not being able to roll out serious movies as often and not being able to make anything else but what can be dubbed as ‘Commercial Cinema’. New York tries to change all that.
Themed around the illegal detention and torture of innocent civilians post 9-11, one can appreciate such an attempt at a socially relevant topic. But unfortunately that’s all that we can do… appreciate the effort and maybe patronize the movie.
The entire movie is filled with giant loopholes, and certain scenes seem to appear just for the heck of it. Neil and Katrina Kaif thoroughly show their ineptness in acting, while John is barely tolerable. Besides, the biggest flaw that this movie suffers from is the Bollywood style melodrama that has been stuffed down its throat.
The story is about 3 college friends Sam a.k.a Sameer Sheikh (John Abraham), Omar (Neil) and Maya (Katrina Kaif). There is also Irrfan Khan who plays the part of an FBI agent Roshan.
The movie begins with Roshan interrogating Omar over the guns found in his cab. He orders Omar to tell him everything about his past with Sam and Maya. With time, Omar realizes that Roshan expects him to spy on his old college friends to uncover a terrorist plot.
This flashes us back to pre 9-11 when Omar first entered USA. But their story is probably one of the most typical love triangles that the bollywood has been using since the dawn of time. Even their college life appears to be so lame that one has difficulty relating to these characters. All three of them behave like 25 year olds rather than college students. This is probably one of the movie’s biggest flaws; it fails to make the audience relate to its characters, who would go through hell over the rest of the movie’s duration. It seems this entire part has been created just for the heck of it; there is even a lack of total correlation between certain scenes. For example, just out of the blue, Sam gets shot in the leg trying to rescue Maya’s purse from a New York Mugger (The whole White Knight routine to win the lady’s heart!). But instead of showing Sam in the hospital, the next scene is about how heartbroken Omar is now that Maya has fallen for Sam! That’s right; the director chooses to ignore his lead character, that has been shot, to show an ungrateful punk too self-centered to realize that his best friend is lying in the hospital suffering from a gun shot wound!  
Even after Sam is falsely imprisoned on charges of terrorism, the movie hardly inspires any emotion. The torture scenes have already been used a lot of time in western cinema. The characters who do not communicate in Hindi are conspicuously quiet. This makes the scenes appear even less believable. There is also no subtlety in John’s acting, he shouts like a dog being whipped throughout the scenes.
But there are a few twists and turns in the movie that the viewer might not expect. These make the movie barely passable. I will be leaving them out of this review. Though I will have to add that most of these turns have been stupidly handled. There is melodrama throughout with total lack of originality.
Even the climax acutely suffers from these problems, the movie tries to rely on the audience’s connection with the characters to smudge over the obvious loopholes, but wait… there is no connection! The movie is too busy trying to be emotional to realize how stupid its certain scenes are.
After the pretentious climax, we are treated with a speech from Roshan on how USA is still secular and etc, etc. Which brings us to the movie’s last flaw… it doesn’t let you think. It shouts its message in your face and prints it on the screen. It’s not one of those movies where you leave with a subtle message which you need to think about, to properly understand it. The entire subject of this movie could be summed up in a Sunday editorial.
New York is Bollywood’s attempt at growing up… and the way I see it, it still has a long way to go; and one shouldn’t expect to see a mature movie being rolled out unless there is a serious attempt to get rid of its old annoying habits. All in all one cant do much but patronize the movie for its attempt to ‘try’ something new.

Inglourious Basterds

{ October 14, 2009 @ 10:13 am } · { Inglourious Basterds, movies, review }
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Firstly, I must concede that I was a little skeptical to watch a movie based on the same old tried and tested formula of World War II, especially when I had been told that most of it was in some foreign language.
I was pleasantly surprised!
Inglourious Basterds is a historical fantasy that relies heavily on conversational sequences and the mettle of its actors. It is not a movie that will be remembered as an epic war movie, unlike many in its class. It is far from being historically accurate, or being as sentimental as the other movies of its genre, but it nevertheless delivers a great first watch! The movie is based around a certain Colonel Hans Landa of the SS and SD, nicknamed “The Jew Hunter”. As his name would suggest, he has been assigned the task of ‘rating’ out the Jews from the Nazi occupied France. And as you’d expect, he’s as savage as the history books would suggest the Nazis were. The part has been played by Cristoph Waltz, who by far produces the best acting performance in the movie. He converses with characters in either french or german for long durations without losing the audience’s interest.
Then there are 8 US soldiers who have been air dropped into France as civilians to cause panic and fear amongst the Nazi soldiers, by being as savage as possible… They are the Inglourious basterds!
They inflict onto the Germans, what Germans inflict onto others! They brutally beat German officers to pulp and collect their scalps as souvenirs! They act with absolute impunity with utter inhumane callousness. Brad Pitt plays the part of Aldo Raine, the leader of the Basterds. He handles the role with great aplomb and swagger. His charm makes you root for him even when he’s brutally carving a swastika on a german soldiers head, or torturing a double agent.
And then there is Sashana, a Jew, who is running a theater in Paris under an alias. When she was young, her parents had been killed by colonel Handa and his men in front of her eyes.
The basterds soon become a part of a plot to burn down Sashana’s cinema in Paris, loaded with German officers, to the ground. The rest of the movie is based around the basterds plan, and all the unforeseen consequences that come before them.
It’s not a movie where you should expect to see the heroism of the allied soldiers, or the sentimentality associated with war. It is a Nazi ass kicking fiesta aimed solely to make you enjoy the pain that is inflicted onto the Germans! It’s a n expression for the hatred many people have stored for the Nazis for generations. But it’s not just that! Even though most of the movie has to be watched with subtitles, and a lot of it is just people talking, it is filled to the brim with excellent direction from Quentin Tarantino and marvelous acting by Cristoph Waltz (The Jew Hunter). Its one movie that is a one time must watch! Especially for all the Jews, the African Americans, or anyone else that wishes that they could beat the crap out of a German soldier with a baseball bat, because the Basterds do just that!