Aaja Nachle: Only Madhuri Nothing else
Ever seen a movie which you feel is not a great movie but when you exit the theatre you certainly feel good about it. Aaja Nachle is one of those.
The movie marks comeback of arguably one of the best actress in Bollywood, Madhuri Dixit. She makes a comeback after 5 years and undoubtedly the movie will benefit from the fact that she is still a crowd puller. Not even Shahrukh Khan or Salman Khan or Aamir Khan have so much of fan falling, forget about actresses.
The movie is about a girl, Diya (obviously Madhuri), who runs away with a US photographer after falling in love with him in just a couple of days only to realize later that the person did not love her truly. By that time she was already pregnant. They divorced and Diya started training people in dance(in US) to make living. Her Guru was dying and she flew back to India to see him but before she reached he had already passed away. Now she comes to know that local people are going to demolish Ajanta Theatre (an Open Air Theatre) to build a shopping mall at that place. [Ajanta Theatre is the place where she learned dance and hence carries emotional importance to her]
She comes to rescue that and took up a challenge with local MP. Either she performs with local people within 60 days (i.e. get people support within 60 days) or the Ajanta becomes history. She stages a show to get people to the place and there asks for their support. Everyone ridiculed and left. Local ex-MP even goes to the extent of trying to destroy it the very next day. Diya shows the politician a political motive in saving the heritage and gets his support. With a few people in her team, she starts getting support of local public as they get enthusiast to participate in the drama- Laila Majnu. She takes screening tests of all the interested people and builds her team. The team works with dedication towards making the event a success till the time the constructor who had the contracts for building the mall played trick by bribing ex-MP (who was playing an important part in the play). The contractor also manages to do some negative publicity of Diya through his wife (who was a good childhood friend of Diya). The wife’s conscience scolds her after she does the act and she decides to join the play as well. D-day comes. They do the play and do it well. In the meantime Laila and Majnu had already got into real life love as well. The event is a success and Ajanta remains. Diya returns to US and movie ends.
Nothing in movie as such but the play towards the end of the movie is good. Songs are good and obviously Madhuri rocks. The Laila Majnu play is a musical play and engages viewer well (atleast engaged me very well). It runs for about 20 minutes and includes 3 of the songs in the movie but never looked like dragging or something and in fact, director manages to make movie run faster during those 20 minutes. The movie drags during the mid part of the movie and viewer almost loses interest (if any) at all but with no choice sits through. The director tried to explain each and everything no matter how trivial it is and that sometimes looked irritating.
Overall as I said, the movie has no content to boast of but still manages to give a happy ending feeling to the viewer and viewer comes out of theatre happy and smiling.
Overall I rate Aaja Nachle 1.5 on scale of 5
Brownie points include:
Madhuri Dixit!!
Good songs and Beautiful dance sequences (Again Madhuri!!)
Laila Majnu play is good but not worth 150 bucks at all
Brownie turned black for:
Slow pace and drags
Unnecessarily complicating the relationship dynamics (Many relationships did not make any impact on movie in general)
Under-cooked story and Under-utilized actors
Recommendation: Watch it only for Madhuri (She rocks!). No point looking for story etc.
We call him Third Umpire!
Now this is something that never happened before and I think would not be repeated again atleast in this decade or may be century [:P]
Watch and tell if he is out or not-out.
Goal missed the ‘time-goal’
Dhan dhana dhan GOAL
If I have to speak it in a line, it is a remake of Chak de India!, released this year. Chak de India was based on a hockey player who created a World Cup winning team out of a losing team after being accused of match-fixing and _________. Goal is about a football player who made a losing team win the league championship, after himself having skipped the final game in 1985 due to threats.
The concept is good but another movie of the same kind in a year!! Definitely not a good idea and the second mover had to lose for sure.
The Story: The movie is about Southall Football ground, which was to lose its existence if the management fails to pay 3million pounds in 11 months. Players from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh origin play for this club and this club is an identity for them. They now have only one chance to get this amount and that is by winning the league championship. But it is not that simple. They do not have a coach, the team is good for nothing- physically and mentally, the manager died of heart attack. And here steps up our hero- The Captain- Shaan Ali (Arshad Warsi). He approached a veteran player of the club,Tony Singh(Boman Irani), and somehow convinced him to coach the team. One of the player mortgaged his garage to raise funds for the player kits, team bus etc. The coach worked hard on the team and brought them in shape. He also brought in a player from other club- Sunny(John Abraham).
Same as in Chak de, they start with losing first game due to no coordination among team members and then coach inspires them to play for team and forget about personal grievances. The team finally turns into a team, which nobody can beat. But with two matches to go in the championship, Sunny signs up with another club. The team manages to end the second last game in a draw but needs to win the final match to win the league championship. Sunny comes to know the story about his father and his dedication to the Southall club and he joins back Southall in the final match. He played in spite of having line fracture in nose. The opponent team targets his nose but he, being the hero of the movie, doesn’t really bother and inspired by his father’s dedication, he keeps on playing and takes the team to victory.
Southall wins and the stadium and club are saved.
As far as performances are concerned, Arshad Warsi is just fine, John doesn’t look very natural and Boman Irani is unnecessarily loud. Other actors put up an average show in overall. Director did a fine job but Producer needs to be blamed for late timing of movie release. Had this movie released before Chak de India!, it could have been a different story altogether.
Overall the movie scored 2.5 out of 5.
Why to watch?
If you have missed Chak de India!, then the movie is definitely worth watching
Inspiring movie
Why not to watch?
Remake of Chak de India!
Anout average acting performances
A lot of inconsistencies and movie drags at times
Recommendation: Your wish [:)]
No Smoking – A miracle or a fluke!
NO SMOKING (2007)
Genuinely speaking, I did not expect a Bollywood movie to be of that class. Deeply impressed by the concept and the way abstractness is handled in the movie. HATS OFF!! -
A miracle indeed.
The movie switches on and off dreams so beautifully that sometimes you just can guess it being real or illusion. The movie runs in good pace and the surprise factor is created beautifully as well. The acting department has certain glitches at places but still it manages to score above average in that. The characters had their roles to play and none of the character looked under developed. Although the director failed to show the emotions properly at places (As for example, the scenes with Ram, Shyam, Balram could not depict what the director really wanted to). And more importantly, I failed to understand the purpose of keeping the names as K and J..may be trying to imitate James Bond (I am K..only K) or may be trying to portray the ego (which was clear from the actions and hence did not make any impact).
The Story: Mr. K(John Abraham) is deeply into smoking and feels ashamed even about the idea of leaving it. His wife( also secretary) (Ayesha Takia) decides to leave him and it was then that he decides to quit smoking. He is referred to ‘Baba Bangali’ by his friend and then the real drama begins. Beyond this point the movie runs into illusions and imaginations. Mr. K is put to agree to condition that he will do whatever being asked to do. What happens next: watch it for yourself!!
The movie does preach of downsides of smoking but does that in a style. It talks about the cost one incurs on cigarettes etc.. It talks about the impact it has on friends and families. It talks about the diseases it spreads. It talks about the impact on health and expenses due to that. It talks about it all but in such a style that it never looks like some preaching. Well Done!
Phoonk de!
Ratings:
Overall No Smoking gets 4.5 out of 5
Why to watch? (I hope you dont need a reason after reading the plot above)
- If you want to quit smoking
- Good concept
- Well executed
- Decent acting
Why not to watch?
- If you do not want to quit smoking [:)]
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