This is a movie that I remember having seen when it was first released but do not remember it making any kind of impression on me. Recently when I came across this movie again I decided to give it another try. This movie stars Rekha (Sarita), Arjun Rampal (Dev), Preity Zinta (Shalu) and Mahima Chaudhary (Nimmi). The movie is about Shalu who from childhood feels slighted by her mother Sarita and continuously craves her approval. Nimmi and Shalu are ideal sisters and love each other immensely. Sarita is the mayor of a small town where they reside and there are some corrupt people who try to oust her from her mayoral seat.
What Shalu and Nimmi do not know is that Shalu is not really Sarita's daughter but she is the daughter of Sarita's husband and another lady whom her husband loved. They both meet with an accident and on his deathbed, Sarita's husband asks her to accept Shalu and raise her as her own. Sarita accepts to do it and raises Shalu as her own but is unable to show her the same love she shows her own daughter Nimmi.
Shalu meets Dev, believes him to be a driver and tries to pass him off as Dev Khanna, son of industrialist Mr Khanna who can benefit their small town in an attempt to help her mother. Initially Shalu and Dev do not get along but soon they both fall in love and Shaalu also realizes that Dev is really the son of Mr Khanna the industrialist. Around this time Nimmi also meets Dev and she starts liking him and believes he loves her too. Sarita grows aware of Nimmi's feelings for Dev and decides to approach Dev's father (Alok Nath) with a marriage proposal for Nimmi and Dev.
In addition there is Samir (Jimmy Shergill) a ventroloquist who is in love with Shalu and is unable to express his feelings for her.The rest of the movie is about whether Sarita is able to overcome her antagonism towards Shalu and accept her, whether Dev marries Nimmi or Shalu and whether Shalu realizes the truth about her parentage.
The movie is slow in the first half and does not engage the viewer attention entirely. The sequences between Shalu and Dev were mediocre and could have been far more interesting. Sequences that are supposed to be hilarious do not evoke even mild smiles like the two side kicks to Arjun Rampal that are both friends/comic relief and end up being neither.Arjun Rampal as Dev in the first half seemed so stiff and uncomfortable in his role you actually feel sorry for him and wonder why anyone would offer him a role he is so obviously uncomfortable doing. The second half of the movie is a decided improvement over the first. The story moves along faster, both Preity Zinta and Rekha gave really good performances in the second half and had a lot of meaty scenes where they could show their histrionics. Arjun Rampal in the second half too looked more comfortable and does not look as stiff as he did in the first half. Even though the story is predictable,but good performances by Rekha and Preity Zinta and a couple of hummable tunes make this a passable fare.
Rating
2.25/5
Here is the title song of the movie that is nice.....Enjoy !
Dec 30, 2008
Dec 11, 2008
Movie Review of Yuvraaj (2008)
This was one of those movies that I started to watch with no idea of any background nor had I watched any promos or heard any songs,as a result this movie was something that I went in with no expectations either way.Yuvraaj comes from the Subhash Ghai stable of movies and has been produced, directed and written by Subhash Ghai. In the past he has made successful films like Karz, Hero, Karma and Taal to name a few.
Yuvraaj which means crown prince is the story of three brothers, Deven (Salman Khan), Gyaanesh ( Anil kapoor) and Danny (Zayed Khan). Deven is in love with Anoushka (Katrina Kaif) and wants to marry her. But her father Dr Banton (Boman Irani) does not want his daughter to marry Deven. Deven has severed all ties with his own father who is very rich and is trying to make a living for the past twelve years as a singer. Anoushka is the daughter of a very rich father and her father wants her to marry an equally well to do person of his selection. Deven tries unsuccessfully to win over Anoushka's father. When Deven learns that his father dies, he believes that he is going to recieve his share of the inheritance and therefore signs a document with Dr Banton that he will become a billionaire in 40 days otherwise Anoushka is free to marry anyone her father chooses.
He sets out to claim his inheritance only to find that his father has left all his wealth to Gyaanesh who is his first born with an additional clause that if anything were to happen to Gyaanesh all the wealth would be distributed amongst charities. Both Danny and Deven are very upset about this will and plot various schemes to take away the wealth from their elder brother. Gyaanesh is autistic and is a musical genius and wealth has no significance for him and he is not able to see through the schemes that both Deven and Danny are playing with him. In addition there are assorted uncles and cousins who too have expected vast sums of money, who try to further muddy the relationship waters between the three brothers.
The rest of the story is about Deven's and Danny's dawning realization about their elder brother and how they all three manage to find their way back to each other.
Here is one of the songs from the movie.....
The positives of this movie have to be performances by Anil Kapoor and Boman Irani who as always, do the job they were given well, and the music by AR Rehman who turns out a few interesting tunes.
The list of negatives is going to be substantially larger unfortunately. The story and screenplay of the movie is very weak and does not hold the attention of the viewer, it takes a great deal of effort to just sit through the movie. The director seems to have relied on large and grand feel to the movie as a substitute for a logical, coherent and an interesting story. Notice the scene with Mithun Chakraborty when he reads the will and you will see large mirrors lining one entire section of the wall and soaring ceilings. Yet the scene seems to be completely devoid of the emotion and drama it is supposed to evoke.
The departed father seems to be trying to inculcate great values of brotherliness and affection from the grave and through Mithun, but makes you wonder why this person would not have tried to do the same when he was around and raising his sons.
There does not seem to be a coherent reason as to why both the younger brother loathe their elder brother to this extent. There is some vague explanation about the father favoring Gyaanesh a great deal when they were younger but nothing that seems to cause the two younger siblings to behave as they do.
Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan do the job of window dressing and have no substantial role especially Katrina who seemed to be attached to the cello for most part of the film.
Watching paint dry might actually be more interesting than watching Salman and Katrina together...
I was amazed that a movie that had such a lot of reputed names associated with it, starting with Subhash Ghai to Gulzar to AR Rehman and Anil Kapoor would be such a a waste of time and frankly seemed like a waste of effort on the part of the filmmaker to even attempt to make this movie. As I watched the climax of the movie, I kept wondering, what were they thinking....making a movie like this :-)
This one is definitely not worth the price of the ticket.
One word summation of this movie : Snoozefest
Rating
1.5/5
Yuvraaj which means crown prince is the story of three brothers, Deven (Salman Khan), Gyaanesh ( Anil kapoor) and Danny (Zayed Khan). Deven is in love with Anoushka (Katrina Kaif) and wants to marry her. But her father Dr Banton (Boman Irani) does not want his daughter to marry Deven. Deven has severed all ties with his own father who is very rich and is trying to make a living for the past twelve years as a singer. Anoushka is the daughter of a very rich father and her father wants her to marry an equally well to do person of his selection. Deven tries unsuccessfully to win over Anoushka's father. When Deven learns that his father dies, he believes that he is going to recieve his share of the inheritance and therefore signs a document with Dr Banton that he will become a billionaire in 40 days otherwise Anoushka is free to marry anyone her father chooses.
He sets out to claim his inheritance only to find that his father has left all his wealth to Gyaanesh who is his first born with an additional clause that if anything were to happen to Gyaanesh all the wealth would be distributed amongst charities. Both Danny and Deven are very upset about this will and plot various schemes to take away the wealth from their elder brother. Gyaanesh is autistic and is a musical genius and wealth has no significance for him and he is not able to see through the schemes that both Deven and Danny are playing with him. In addition there are assorted uncles and cousins who too have expected vast sums of money, who try to further muddy the relationship waters between the three brothers.
The rest of the story is about Deven's and Danny's dawning realization about their elder brother and how they all three manage to find their way back to each other.
Here is one of the songs from the movie.....
The positives of this movie have to be performances by Anil Kapoor and Boman Irani who as always, do the job they were given well, and the music by AR Rehman who turns out a few interesting tunes.
The list of negatives is going to be substantially larger unfortunately. The story and screenplay of the movie is very weak and does not hold the attention of the viewer, it takes a great deal of effort to just sit through the movie. The director seems to have relied on large and grand feel to the movie as a substitute for a logical, coherent and an interesting story. Notice the scene with Mithun Chakraborty when he reads the will and you will see large mirrors lining one entire section of the wall and soaring ceilings. Yet the scene seems to be completely devoid of the emotion and drama it is supposed to evoke.
The departed father seems to be trying to inculcate great values of brotherliness and affection from the grave and through Mithun, but makes you wonder why this person would not have tried to do the same when he was around and raising his sons.
There does not seem to be a coherent reason as to why both the younger brother loathe their elder brother to this extent. There is some vague explanation about the father favoring Gyaanesh a great deal when they were younger but nothing that seems to cause the two younger siblings to behave as they do.
Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan do the job of window dressing and have no substantial role especially Katrina who seemed to be attached to the cello for most part of the film.
Watching paint dry might actually be more interesting than watching Salman and Katrina together...
I was amazed that a movie that had such a lot of reputed names associated with it, starting with Subhash Ghai to Gulzar to AR Rehman and Anil Kapoor would be such a a waste of time and frankly seemed like a waste of effort on the part of the filmmaker to even attempt to make this movie. As I watched the climax of the movie, I kept wondering, what were they thinking....making a movie like this :-)
This one is definitely not worth the price of the ticket.
One word summation of this movie : Snoozefest
Rating
1.5/5
Nov 11, 2008
Review of Producers Guild Apsara Awards 2008
I got a chance this past weekend to see the Producers Guild Apsara Awards. This is the first time I have had a chance to see this particular award show and I understand these awards are being given by the producers and other members of the film industry, so it is a little different from the other awards that are normally given by different media like Filmfare, Screen India etc.
The show was okay and went the way most shows go these days , with so many performances between awards that sometimes we forget that it is an awards show not just a variety entertainment show. There were a couple of cringe worthy performances by Rakhi Sawant and Katrina Kaif that could easily have been replaced with something better and more classy. Kareena Kapoor dancing to the songs of Jab we met is becoming a drag, almost every award show this year had one performance of hers to this same song from the same movie.
On the positive side Jaaved Jaffry as host is almost always a good bet as he entertains and does some really good impressions. His impression of a Punjabi who runs a salon was hilarious.Here is the video of Jaaved doing the Punjabi impression, it comes on after a few minutes (at about 3:35) into the video...
And here is his another short impression of his that was entertaining, it comes on after Bipasha's dance performance (at about 1:06)
Ganesh Hegde, a choreographer whom I have heard a lot about, but saw performing for the first time gave a pretty good performance.
The most surprising thing about the award ceremony was not so much what was there as what was not there. The awards were for movies released in 2007 yet not in one single category did I see a mention of the movie Taare Zameen Par, the music of the movie was not nominated, the singers of the movie were not nominated, the actors, director and producer, none of these people were nominated in a single category. Amazing isn't it ? I really thought the movie was pretty good and would at least be nominated in some categories. Chak de another good movie of 2007 seemed to sweep the awards in a lot of categories.
The show was okay and went the way most shows go these days , with so many performances between awards that sometimes we forget that it is an awards show not just a variety entertainment show. There were a couple of cringe worthy performances by Rakhi Sawant and Katrina Kaif that could easily have been replaced with something better and more classy. Kareena Kapoor dancing to the songs of Jab we met is becoming a drag, almost every award show this year had one performance of hers to this same song from the same movie.
On the positive side Jaaved Jaffry as host is almost always a good bet as he entertains and does some really good impressions. His impression of a Punjabi who runs a salon was hilarious.Here is the video of Jaaved doing the Punjabi impression, it comes on after a few minutes (at about 3:35) into the video...
And here is his another short impression of his that was entertaining, it comes on after Bipasha's dance performance (at about 1:06)
Ganesh Hegde, a choreographer whom I have heard a lot about, but saw performing for the first time gave a pretty good performance.
The most surprising thing about the award ceremony was not so much what was there as what was not there. The awards were for movies released in 2007 yet not in one single category did I see a mention of the movie Taare Zameen Par, the music of the movie was not nominated, the singers of the movie were not nominated, the actors, director and producer, none of these people were nominated in a single category. Amazing isn't it ? I really thought the movie was pretty good and would at least be nominated in some categories. Chak de another good movie of 2007 seemed to sweep the awards in a lot of categories.
Oct 31, 2008
Songs from Welcome to Sajjanpur (2008)
For those of you who haven't had a chance to check out the songs of Welcome to Sajjanpur here are a couple of songs that I found were very pleasant and melodious. The video is simple like the movie but the tunes are what I find more interesting. For a review of the movie check here
Source thanks to Youtube
Source thanks to Youtube
Oct 22, 2008
Movie Review of Kidnap The Film (2008)
Sonia (Minissha Lamba) lives with her mother Mallika (Vidya Malvade) and grandmother (Reema Lagoo). She yearns to meet her father Vikrant Raina (Sanjay Dutt) who has been divorced from her mother since she was ten years old and whom she has not seen since that time. Angry with her mother for not allowing her to approach her father she goes for a swim on some deserted beach and gets kidnapped from there. She finds herself in a boarded place kidnapped by Kabir (Imran Khan).Initially she believes that this is some kind of a prank by her friends,but when she finds that she has really been kidnapped she is stunned.
Kabir calls Mallika and tells her that she needs to get her ex husband Vikrant Raina to Bombay so that he can talk with him and that he will tell only Vikrant his conditions to release Sonia.Vikrant arrives in Bombay on his ex wife's request and receives the call from Kabir. He is told to do a series of things one thing at a time including getting on a train and apologizing to a nun and helping an inmate in some prison escape.After he completes each task Vikrant is given an incomprehensible clue that is supposed to lead Vikrant to Kabir. Vikrant is an arrogant and successful businessman who hates being pushed around but loves his daughter enough to want to try anything to help secure her release. He also has some of his security personnel working on trying to identify who Kabir.
Even with each clue Vikrant finds it difficult to find out who Kabir is, but realizes that Kabir is motivated by wanting to settle a personal score and tries to remember the people he has antagonized in the past ten to fifteen years. He begins to narrow it down to 3 or 4 people and with the clues provided he is able to find out who has kidnapped his daughter. In the past when Kabir was young about fourteen to fifteen years old and living in an orphanage his friend falls down and the orphanage vehicle is not working so Kabir runs to the nearby home that happens to be Vikrant's holiday home and "borrows" their car without permission. Vikrant's daughter Sonia then a young kid gets into the car with Kabir with a view to stopping him from taking the car. Kabir is so worried about his friend that he does not stop, their argument though results in Kabir crashing the car and Sonia getting seriously injured. Vikrant is so angry about the situation with his daughter that he has Kabir arrested on kidnapping charges and Kabir is jailed.
Sonia too realizes Kabir's identity because Kabir reveals it to her. The rest of the story is about Kabir and how he makes Vikrant pay for his mistakes and how Vikrant learns his lessons and gets his daughter back in the process reuniting with his ex wife too.
Overall this movie while attempting something different from the usual run of the mill love stories fails to evoke either sympathy or empathy for its lead characters. The pace of the movie is considerably affected by the unnecessary and badly positioned songs in the narrative. Moreover Sonia seems to be in desperate need of a wardrobe makeover since you find her prancing around in clothes that can only be described as atrocious during the entire movie. By the end of the movie Kabir is shown to move on with his life and get employed in a software company, but of course there is no explanation as to how Kabir acquired this education when he is said to have spent a long stretch of time in prison or when he finds the time to educate himself when by his own admission he has spent the last few years after getting out of prison planning his revenge. This movie would have definitely benefited from a tighter script and a tighter pace.
Both Sanjay Dutt and Imran Khan perform competently enough and do a convincing job of playing their roles as Vikrant and Kabir respectively. Minissha Lamba fails to impress and Vidya Malvade and Reema Lagoo have too minuscule roles to make a difference.
Rating
1.5/5
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