Originally Posted at Abhi’s Space
Nothing new with this but I fail to understand why are these producers/ directors considered top shots.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who brought a new dimension to Indian Cinema with Amitabh Bachchan-Rani Mukherjee starer Black and revived memories of old Devdas with his version of Devdas, failed miserbaly to deliver this time.
Farah Khan, made a dream debut with entertainment movie “Main Hoon Na” but seems like she used up all the masala in her first movie. Om Shanti Om, is terribly tasteless.
Saawariya: (Rating at the end)
Following the tested funda of narrator, movie starts with Gulabji(Rani Mukherjee) telling the story of true love although she sells false love every night(being a call-girl by profession). The movie is about Raj,a singer (who God or may be SLB knows does what to survive-had a job of singer at bar which he left for Sakina) and Sakina, who still lives in ancient era and waited for over a year for a person she had met for a few hours. Don’t get surprised, there are a lot more elements like this in the movie. The movie marks a debut for two new Kapoors in the industry, Ranbir Kapoor, grandson on Raj Kapoor and son of Rishi Kapoor, played Raj while Sonam Kapoor, daughter of Anil Kapoor, played Sakina. Sonam is beautiful but failed miserably to make an impact with her acting. Ranbir looks cute (Handsome or not..subjective!) and I would advise him to take some inspiration from Shahid, who started of in a similar fashion with Ishq vishq and then made a image makeover with his subsequent movies and definitely avoid becoming another Sonu Nigam(wrt acting). In such a role, it is difficult to comment on acting skills, although he looked pretty natural in most of the frames.
OK. So the story goes as: Sakina goes daily to a small bridge in the area to see if her love, Imaam (played by Salman Khan), is back to take her. On one such night, Raj met her and fell in love with her (I thought this was a thing of past!) She also felt good in his company and and made friends with him. The next night, she tells him about Imaam. (I dont understand this as well. She tells a stranger about her love life in second meeting itself!!). Our hero is hurt but after listening to the complete story makes a ridicule of the girl for she fell in love with Mr. Imaam in just a meeting or two, who then left her without even telling about his whereabouts and when, if at all, he will come back?!. She asks Raj to help her find Imaam and the ship(movie) sinks further.
Finally when she is all set to get along with Raj forgetting Imaam, Imaam reappears. She goes to Imaam. He proposes, she accepts and movie ends.!
Add further to this ‘jhelao’ story line the fact that no 10 mins of movie go without a song. Too much of trying audience patience!!
Om Shanti Om:(Rating at the end)
Rishi Kapoor did wonders with Karz 30 years back but the concept of something from this and something from that killed this movie. Farah Khan gave an impression from her debut that probably she knew the recipe of making a good masala entertainer but this time she disappointed as this time, it was all disproportionate. OSO features a story line which probably is a mixture made from a dozen movies or so.
SRK is a junior artist, so is his mother(Kiron Kher) and so was his late father. He had ambitions to become a star and his friend suggested him change his name from Om Prakash Makhija to Om Kapoor, making ridicule of ‘Makhija’ (as Makhi-ja). [ I do not understand why is not there any protests against this and in fact, even not being Makhija, felt it as like a ridicule on an ethnic group.] He is also in love with a star ShantiPriya(Deepika Padukone), who is secretly married to the producer “Mukesh Mehra”, played by Arjun Rampal. Mukesh Mehra was planning his next movie as the biggest movie ever and had the sets ready for the movie but since ShantiPriya tells her that she is pregnant with her child, he planned to get rid of her. She took her to show the sets of this new movie titled Om Shanti Om and set the sets on fire and locked her in. Om saw it all. He tries to save her life but lost his life as well. He takes a re-birth as child of one of the most successful heroes in the industry and goes on to become a hero himself. During shooting of a movie, he starts getting memories of his past life back. He also happened to visit the sets of Om Shanti Om and that brought back all the memories from his past life. He decided to take revenge from Mukesh Mehra and found Sandy who looked exactly like ShantiPriya. He planned some mind games for Mukesh and succeeded significantly till Mukesh finds out that this girl was alive and not a ghost or something. Om threatened Mukesh but Mukesh had realisation that nobody will believe the incarnation story of Om Kapoor and the ghost of ShantiPriya appears and killed Mukesh Mehra at exactly the same spot where whe was buried. The movie ends!
There were still a few good points in the movie like the dressing sense, styles, sets, language etc looked contemporary to correct periods. SRK showed that he can act as well (Yes you read it right..he acted well this time and showed some diversity in his acting this time).
He died in the movie and that suggests the movie should make good business but I have a feeling that his lucky charm might not work this time.
Rating:
OSO gets 1.5 stars
Why to watch?:
Consistency in styles as per time
SRK finally acted!
Why not to watch?:
No entertainment with no storyline
You watch almost the same twice (Post-interval =Pre-interval after 30 years)
Read the above post, if you haven’t
Saawariya gets 1 star
Why to watch?:
Melodious songs
Cute Hero, Beautiful Heroine
Why not to watch?:
No storyline at all
Melodious songs! (The frequency makes it very frustrating)
Drags are there
Rani Mukherjee and Salman Khan both wasted!!
So overall a poor week for Bollywood and for cinema lovers. Do not bother your pockets for any.
BTW my placements start tomorrow morning 7:30 a.m. and I have been writing this for now over 2 hours since 10:00 p.m. Definitely a stupid time to do this but anyways this is who I am! 
December 17, 2007
Posted by
abhitaneja |
2007, Bollywood, Movie review, Poor Ratings |
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Originally Posted at Abhi’s Space
It is evident from my posts that I generally dont write many movie reviews but again like it happened as with Blood Diamond, I am deeply touched by the simplicity, by the screenplay and more importantly by the message conveyed by the movie. This time it is ‘Dil Dosti etc.’.
I dont know how many would have even heard the name of this movie or even if heard how many would have seen. Further, even if seen, I doubt how many would have seen the value in the movie.
Introduction: The movie is simply about Politics and Sex! That’s what those who have seen will tell you. My perspective is different. I believe the movie is about the values and the mindset of different economic castes.
The upper class believes in freelancing and living-in while the middle class believes strongly in values like trust, bond, love, relationship. However, I do not comment anything on what is correct and what is not. Neither did the movie. I neither comment on which one is better. Nor did the movie. It just brings out these aspects in a very touchy and emotional setup. The movie also seems to be following my line of thought that nothing is wrong and it is the perspective which makes it right or wrong. The story teller tells it as a high class individual but more from a middle class perspective. (which ensures it doesnt touches any of those extremes)
About the Story: There is not much in the story as such. The story revolves around two individuals: One from a very rich family in Delhi, who has only one ambition in life – SEX and other from a middle class (or may be lower middle class–The whole point being not a rich/upper class) family from Bihar who wants to become student council president and may be join politics. Thanks to the ragging in campus, these two get into a friendship and the rich guy ends up helping the other in election campaigning. The middle class person tried preaching his values to the high class dude and ended up challenging him to have Sex thrice in a day before the elections. With self-respect at stake, both sincerely get set to their missions.
In the meantime, the middle class guy also finds a love(as likely to be used by upper class people) in a high class babe who aspires to be a model in recent future. The conflicts in their thinking are apparent as well.
Finally, the movie ends with guy from Delhi having sex with Bihari’s girlfriend(third sex on the day of election), which meant nothing to the two high class people but meant his life to the middle class guy from Bihar. The poor guy had even lost the meaning and excitement of having won the election.
Plus: Smooth Story telling, No major breaks as such, Songs much into the story line of the movie, No explicit content (Plus from middle class point of view, although may be minus from upper class point of view [:P]), Good screen play, Decent pace, No preachings, Overall Well executed
Minus: Nothing much into story, No well recognised stars(although acted well), Somewhere between a commercial and an arts movie.
Recommendation: Recommended for people who like to watch movies that make some sense, that give some message. If you liked ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’, you are quite likely to like this movie as well.
Additional Remarks: Not many movies impress me enough to write a review for.
December 17, 2007
Posted by
abhitaneja |
2007, Bollywood, Good Ratings, Movie review |
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Originally Posted at Abhi’s Space
Kitne aadmi the?
Sardar ek(RGV)…wo ek aur tum karod.. phir bhi torture sah liye.. kya soche the oscar milega..
Having seen the review of AAG at IBNLive, I thought it was probably an exaggeration when Rajeev(watch CNN-IBN review) called it sholay-bhature. Still curious to verify that, watched it to realise that it was probably an understatement– the movie is even worse than that. More so coz RGV made a mockery of a timeless classic.
To start with, Lets look at the characters he chose:
Nisha Kothari as Ghunghroo to replace Basanti Hema Malini, with his tanga(Dhanno) to be replaced by an auto-rickshaw(____). Add to it the arbit things like naming as per numerology(U seem to be quite advanced Mr.RGV), too much use of “too much”, etc. Overall a poor imitation of the character of Basanti.
Some newbie to play the legendary role of Jay Amitabh Bachchan is a stupid idea, any person who even knows who Amitabh Bachchan is would be able to tell. He could not even generate 1% of the aura of Jay. No fake coin to toss with.
People might have expected Ajay Devgan to do some justice to the role of ‘Veeru‘ Dharmendar but ‘Hero‘ equally competed with others. This is what happens when you try to imitate some character which does not suit ur personality. Veeru’s live personality could have least matched Ajay Devgan’s serious part-gangster kinda image. I pity ‘Hero’ for trying suicide with gun.
Sushmita Sen had a very serious role, similar to her image in Hindi Cinema, but probably she got deeper into the character than it was required. Her character, in turn, turned out to be dull and boring!!
RGV remembered his friendship of Company days with Telugu actor ___ to cast him now for Thakur Baldev Singh. And he came just to give some far from good (and even far from mediocre) performance. Hands to be replaced by fingers this time..another poor imitation!!
Rajpal Yadav as Chhota Don(Soorma Bhopali of Sholay) also set up a poor show for a change and with no substance in his roles and dialogues, he is not the only one to blame for that.
Thank God there was no Jailor(Angrezon ke zamane ka jailor)
Sholay produced a timeless character in Gabbar Singh and Aag produced an easily forgettable character in Babban Singh. With poor script and worse dialogues, there is very little Amitabh Bachchan could have done here. To add to it, Gabbar was a character close to perfect while Babban has no connection with practicalities. More people know Amjad Khan as Gabbar than by his name but for sure Amitabh would not like to keep these haunting memories with him.
If the selection of characters was not enough, RGV arranged for some pathetic Background score. I dont understand how did he manage to find such a poor background score- more than remake of Sholay it looked like remake of Company.
Before discussing the worst part, I would like to give due credit to Mr. RGV for the only high point in the movie- Item number by Urmila Mantodkar (Mehbooba song). Urmila looked even better than what she looked like in Rangeela. Please to ignore Mr. Amitabh Bachchan’s desparate attempts to dance in that and sorry Abhishek Bachchan but just because ur father is in the movie, u dont necessarily have to be in there.
So finally getting to the worst part: Dialogues
Selecting star cast might be called a mistake but selection of script writer was surely a blunder.
None of the charcters in the movie had reasonable dialogues regardless of dialogues being new or adapted from Sholay. Some of the worst lines (adapted or otherwise) are:
- mujhe lagta hai maine tujhe kahin dekha hai..
mujhe lagta hai maine tujhe kahin nahin dekha..
haan to theek hai naa balance sheet barabar ho gayi..
- ae rajnikant khali hai kya
nahin peeche khatmalon ki shaadi ho rahi hai..dikhta nahin tere ko
ae shani driver kidher hai
tu andha hai ki yeda.. pata nahin kahan kahan se chale aate hain
tere ko kya lagta hai main yahan pe tere jaise chhokre logon ko entertain karne ke liye baithi hoon..main hi driver hoon
lekin tum to ladki ho
ladki auto nahin chala sakti aisa bhagwad gita mein likha hai kya
- waah ghunghroo kya gadi chalati ho
tunhari driving ke saamne to yeh mard driver kuchh bhi nahin
maloom hai kyun?
kyun
kyunki jab se ghar chalane ki zimmedari muhjpe aa gayi hai na tab se auto chala rahi hoon
- “ghunghroo kisi ki madad nahin leti”
“lekin ye ghunghroo hai kaun”
- “ye to ‘too much’ ho gaya”
- “tu ‘too much’ nahin, tu to ‘3 much’ hai”
- maar doonga maar doonga tujhe
dekh teri dushmani mere saath hai ladki ko jane de
dam hai to mujhse lad marna hai to mujhe maar
- kya khati hai ri tu.. sab asli ghee ka
kahan hai tera wo..tera wo kahan hai
- tu kya sochta wahan inspector shirt utha ke chhati dikhayega tujhko.. saala thanda na karo to jal hi jata hai
main wo galti nahin karega jo america iraq ke saath kiya
- kitne? (for Kitne aadmi the?)
- tension nahin
tension nahin lene ka
ja raha hai
- choohe billi ke khel mein bada mazaa aata hai
billi bil mein ja nahin sakti aur chooha andar rehna nahin chahta
Forgot to mention, the dance scene when Gabbar has captured Veeru, has been replaced by a rape scene. What a pity!!
As CNN-IBN puts it,RGV makes sholay bhature out of Hindi cinemas most endearing classic. RGV ki Aag is a recipe of disaster.
Unlike Rajeev, I do not have an option of throwing egg on camera so I can only write @#$#%$# RGV.
December 17, 2007
Posted by
abhitaneja |
2007, Bollywood, Movie review, Poor Ratings |
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