Movie Review : Do Dooni Chaar

Directed by :  Habib Faisal.
Starring :  Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh.

After 30 yrs. of self imposed exile, one of the most romantic couple of the indian cinema decided to do a film together again and how. Do Dooni Chaar is a simple movie about a maths teacher, Mr. Duggal (Rishi Kapoor) his wife Mrs. Duggal (Neetu Kapoor) and their 2 children, the tomboyish college going daughter and the school going son. The imperfect great indian middle class.

The always aspiring for more, children. A mother, who holds the house together, working day and night, thanklessly and keeping a tab on every single penny being spent. A father, who works his ass off to provide for his family and more. This is something we all can identify with. Its our story, the everyday grind of life. Some dreams, some hope and lots of heart burn.

Duggals own a 2 room house and a 2 wheeler a dilapidated fridge and a TV which continuously blares either real life stings performed by TV journalists or some sappy daily soap. Their tiny lil bubble of life gets unstable with the arrival of a wedding invitation from Mr. Duggal's sisters' family and the condition put down by his sister that they should only come in a car.

Ah, the pressures of a fixed salary household. Every little penny is accounted for. Every single bonus is waited upon. A somewhat harrassed Mr. duggal decides that enough is enough and he will have a car for his family by hook or by crook. And So starts a series of events which will make you laugh with a lump in your throat. By the end of it you will have a warm feeling about it all. This is a movie that makes you feel good about yourself.

Rishi and Neetu fit the role to the T. They carry the whole film on their shoulders and their chemistry is still alive. Aditi Vasudev and Archit Krishna as the children of Duggals, shines in their respective roles.

If you ever seen that wonderful gem "Khosla ka ghonsla" and the epic Munnabhai series, you will know what I mean. We need more of this kind of cinema which is very few and far between. Just go for the kill. This movie is not to be missed, irrespective of low budget and botched climax. There are plenty of heart warming scenes to make you feel "paisa vasool". Long live consumerism.

Rating : 7.5/10

 

Movie Review : Inception

Directed by : Christopher Nolan.
Starring : Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page

Inception was the most awaited movie of 2010. There were two reasons for this. One Christopher Nolan and second Leonardo DiCaprio.

Nolan is perhaps one of the most talented directors in Hollywood, what with releases like the ground breaking Memento and Batman series (Batman begins and The Dark Knight) and Caprio (Titanic, Shutter Island ) is, one of the most celebrated actor. Their movie was bound to be explosive. Throw in a couple of fine actors like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Ellen Page and the dish becomes lip smacking delicious.

Inception not only fulfills the high expectations, very stylishly, but also exceeds them with a hurricane of a movie. The movie talks about a time in future when entering and doctoring dreams is possible due to technology. You can have a shared dream and remember it on waking up. You can not only construct a dream in your waking moments but also do improvisations while actually in the dream. Once this initial premise is out of the way, the movie takes you in its stride.

Caprio is a specialist in stealing information from the people's subconscious, by entering their dream, with Gordon levitt, his partner. After one such failed heist, their subject of robbery (Ken Watanbee) gives them an offer. Instead of stealing an idea from someone's mind, he wants to put and idea into somebody's mind. Inception, rather than deception becomes the theme after that.

Caprio accepts that offer because he, being a fugitive (for supposedly killing his wife), has not been with his children for a long time and asks for all charges removed from his name as his incentive for the job. He then puts together and team and the adventure begins.

The movie puts out an entirely new lexicon of jobs like "Architect" of dream, "Chemist", who gives sedatives to put you in deep slumber, "The Forger", who constructs the dream. Nolan spreads the pieces and takes 50 min. to set the movie up. So you can imagine how impossible it is to describe it in a one page review.

There are countless moments in the movie which will leave your jaw hanging in "shock and awe".
Especially the ones where Caprio teaches Page the basics of dream constructs, gordon's fight in zero gravity, the world when viewed in the state of "limbo". One set piece after another will take your breath away.

The movie is AMAZING. There is no other word to describe it. The cinematography is astoundingly beautiful and Hans Zimmer's music is haunting. The story is layered and multi dimensional. The characters are well thought out and the special effects are mind blowing. You havent seen anything like this in the past 10 years. And apart from MATRIX (1999), there are not many peers to the movie as well.

Easily the best movie of the decade. If you havent seen it already, you are missing something huge. Go for it, already.

Rating: 9.5/10

 

Movie Review : No Problem

Directed by : Anees Bazmee.
Cast : Sanjay Dutt, Anil Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Sunil Shetty, Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Kangana Ranaut.

This movie is brought up by Anees Bazmi of No entry, Singh is King fame. Perhaps you could see a trend here. The no-brainer, goofy fun with some spicy songs. The same formulae is being applied to this movie as well.

Anil kapoor is an honest but a foolish inspector. Sanjay & Akshaye are two small time crooks who rob paresh rawal's bank and so he comes after them to recover the money. Suniel shetty is high end criminal with a gang consisting of Neetu chandra (in a sexy role) and Ranjeet (pity).

The story goes like this. Suniel and his gang steals a bag ful of jewelery from a store with support from a local politician. Sanjay and Akshaye steal those diamonds from that politician after much tom foolery and so the gang goes after them. In between we have Kangana thinking of herself as the most beautiful girl in the planet and her sister sushmita married to Anil Kapoor. Sushmita got a split personality because of being married to a fool. And her other part wants to kill Anil all the time.

There are fair amounts of funny moments in the movie. Like the one Kangana was comparing herself to miss universe (Something has happened to her face, dont know what, but shes not the same innocent/beautiful face from Life in a metro) or most of the scenes where Sush is trying to kill Anil. Or the friendly neighbourhood conversations between Paresh and Akshaye and Sanjay.

The songs also dont compare favourably with "No Entry" with only one "Mast Punjabi" making some mark.
The movie is set in South Africa (mostly in Durban) and its a beautiful setting.

Overall you might get the value for your money depending on your mood. But dont have high expectations form it. The comedy is not as good as No Entry but is average, clean, family humour. If not for the rushed/abruptly ended climax, the movie could have done better.

Rating **1/2

 

Movie Review : Action Replayy

Directed by : Vipul Amrutlal Shah.
Starring : Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Neha Dhupia, Om Puri

Action replayy is a mish mash of a sci-fi and rom-com genre. It has Akhsay and Aishwarya as the main lead and Om puri and Kiron kher as support cast.

Now, about the movie.You expect the movie to be a no-brainer coz of the presence of akki baba. But I dont think its his fault anyway, its the producers and directors who flock to him with money and think that his presence alone will suffice in box office success. Well, if they dont even learn from the fiasco of Housefull or Chandni Chowk to China, then I dont know how they ever will.

The story goes like this. Bunty(Aditya Roy Kapoor) is a commitment phobic young man. He thinks that post marriage relationsihps degrades to the level of what he observes at home. The continuous fights between his father Kishen(Akshay kumar) and Mala (Aishwarya) is driving him nuts and when on their 35th anniversary a big fight breaks up between them, he decideds to go to their past using his girlfriends dad's time machine and fix up their marriage. phew.

So the movie is extremely dumbed down version of Back to the future. The movie was ruined to me since I am such a fan of the fun filled original. But still, I thought the beginning was not that bad. But once the initial euphoria of 70's fashion and atmosphere dies, you begin to realize its the same sad treatment all over. Over simplifying things for the masses. (Why cant they just treat the audiences with some respect, is beyond me.)

The music is the only saving grace of the film and that too because Pritam always puts in 1-2 catchy songs in every movie he does. Here they are "Zor ka jhatka", "O Bekhabar" & "chhan ke mohalla"

Akshay is over acting (As usual) Aishwarya and Neha showing their thighs in 70s (Blasphemy). And the rest of cast bumbling along. You know the outcome from the beginning, and the journey is painful to say the least.
Avoid it if possible.

Rating *