Movie Review: Mard ko Dard Nahin Hota.

No Pain Much Gain!

Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota.

How we all wish that somehow, we cease to feel pain and curse it when we do. So, to make a movie on pain that isn’t felt yet experienced, scores on originality of content. All content however are inspirations and references from other works. This defines the most genuine and true effort towards the art or craft  of Storytelling. “Mard ko dard nahin hota” is one of the lines from a famous movie, delivered by legendary Amitabh Bachchan and the strength of this dialogue still inspires film makers.  

Director Vasan Bala has used subtle and fine humor through out Mard ko dard nahi hota to narrate his version of a person if was not to feel the physical pain would not actually escape to experience pain in his life.  The editing, screen play and direction especially of the action sequence is excellent. The hilarious bits aren’t over the top and synchronized seamlessly in every screenplay. Mard ko dard nahin hota is very well made artistically and is extremely entertaining. All action sequences are great and flawless. Most of them are karate and hand kombat. The debutant Abhimanyu Dassani who plays Surya jisko dard nahi hota, doesn’t look like a debutant. His acting is perfect along with action. Radhika Madan who plays his childhood friend Supri is impressive with her action scenes. Not a single blow or punch is out of place and has preformed all her stunts on her own. Coming from the Tele world she is surprisingly the actor we all call an all-rounder. Mahesh Manjrekar as Surya’s Grandfather (Azuba) is excellent with his short jibes and comic timing. He creates the perfect masala for an entertainer. The two Characters (Jimmy and Karate Mani) played by Gulshan Devaiah is every rupee’s worth to watch.  He is the soul of the movie and his acting is effortless like flowing water he is flowing as well.

The movie could have been shortened as there wasn’t much to its story than what is revealed in its first hour. It sometimes feels deliberately stretched and can lead to some boredom. I will say that it is very well thought and executed concept that will leave a lasting impact after having watched it.

I recommend that it should definitely be a good surprising movie to watch, in spite of the heavy story it is extremely light for the eyes and brain. Enjoy it!

Movie Review : Kesari

Forgotten Reality of Indian Mettle!

 Kesari

We live in fortunate times where our scope and sphere are unlimited. The lost stories of our History that rust in dust are now screaming of its well-deserved glory. Patriotism in films is at its high. The content era is here. Kesari is content that can intensify emotions, sour heartbeats and waterworks at the end. However, the resurrection of the Hand combat battle is a time travel experience to it’s reality. That being said is not the only part of the movie that compels your body to sweat in the Air conditioning. Each character has its bravery transcend heroism making fictional super heroes look like play toys. There are scenes that engross your brain to the intensity of ignorance to the gore, however according to me Director Anurag Singh manages to balance this aspect to not let it look like gore and yet give the audience the exact virtual experience of the brutality suffered by the 21 brave soldiers of the 36 Sikh Regiment of the British Army in India. This battle is a tale of 21 Sikh Soldier’s willing decision to fight to the last to prevent the Afghani Afridi/Orakazi tribe that attacked the fort of Saragarhi with strength of about 10000-12000 men.

Kesari does carry the emotional elements to connect the audience to the human and emotional side of these Sikh men. The makers have tried to put few logical elements that may have influenced the invasion of this fort, but have missed the adequate impact, however the script is quite moving and does not have repetitive slogan or band wagon of patriotic upliftment. The satire has few hits and few misses. The Romantic angles are just case building, seemingly filling the reel time. Kesari could have been kept short and simple with merit in its content and absolute accuracy of its recorded event in the history. The extra parts are the safety commercial nets with an obvious section of Indian cinema audience that resonates with it. With Akshay Kumar as the lead Kesari as Havildar Ishar Singh is and undoubted winner. The fierce hand combat battle is an excellent piece and gives the audience glimpse of how Havildar Ishar Singh’s mental strength would have made him command a battalion of 21 soldiers to fight a battle with an obvious outcome against the invading 10000 men. There would have been simply no one else bringing Havildar Ishar Singh back to life on silver screen other than Akshay Kumar.  He justifies the other aspects of the character of a Jat Singh. The bravery of each soldier is depicted well and is compelling that one would want to look beyond the adjective called “Brave” and “confidence” for them.

This chapter out of our glorious history that our army has been so long demanding the government to include in our history text books seals their demand. The movie deserves the watch for its story which is made to provide the virtual experience of the never seen bravery and confident minds of soldiers to end the enemy at all costs is not even imagined in fiction. The documented claim of 21 soldiers killing at least 180 men of the enemy with only basic weapons is bravery beyond the realm of mind's eye. It is not a tale but an outcome of an intensified brave mind and souls that succeeded in its toughest ask. I strongly Implore to let it live and bask in the glory it deserves.        

Movie Review : Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga

Straight walk on wobbly grounds!

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga

Love cannot be Found Where It Doesn’t Exist, Nor Can it be Hidden where It Truly Does. – William Shakespeare.

We are a country obsessed with Love and its shenanigans, so many careers and businesses have flourished on the story telling about Love. Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisha Laga is one of those love stories with what they call in the movie containing the element of “ Syappa.” It in a way also elevates the present level of syappa being traditionally shown in Romantic movies. Two lovers trying to win hearts of the world and family against them, with a twist of inter-cast love-shove and finally they woe the audience with a message of undying eternal love between two individuals.  This time it is about the Family and world’s real acceptance of Love regardless of the gender mix.  

The movie opens like a typical romantic Bollywood movie with the fun and frolic of a wedding incomplete without Love sprouting out of first sight. All the incognito hormones raging and screaming for more of the intimacy with light touches and brushes of body make a fun mix tadka, with finally a watch full hot-headed brother with heightened senses of vision, hearing and morality, deciphers the love mystery and catches the culprit to hold captive with all means possible. So begins the same old merry-go-round of characters with escapes, chases, rage, tears and fears on the part of audience.  The escapee is Sonal K Ahuja who portrays ( Sweety Chaudhary ) Daughter of  (Balbir Chaudhary ) played by Anil Kapoor who is a forced business tycoon by his mother, nurturing the childhood ambition of being India’s best chef residing in a small town called Moga in Punjab. Finally, Sweety in one of her escapes meets (Sahil Mirza) Rajkumar Rao a struggling play writer in Delhi, son of a famous film producer who is set to create his own niche without family’s help or involvement. She seeks friendship while he interprets it as a sign of true love. This is pretty much the first half of the movie. But as the famous writer once wrote…

The course of True Love never did Run Smooth. – William Shakespeare.

The second half begins the journey of Sahil with help of (Chatro) played by the ever so talented Juhi Chawla who travel to Moga to win the Love of Sweety and her family. That’s when all the Shenanigans actually begin. The best scenes of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha toh Aisa Laga are between Balbir and Chatro who is a divorcee. They are the best bits of the film with marvelous set of comic and romance timing.  These are ever lasting actors with brilliance in their craft, that it is nearly impossible to associate them outside of the characters they play in the film.  The movie proceeds towards relaying its core civic message about the importance of family showing empathy and understanding towards a growing child confused by it's own internal mixed messages about the choices and attraction towards the same gender, and to let them live with the same amount of normalcy and affection as any and every child deserves. The romance between Sweety and her love interest Kuhu is shown beautifully without any awkward scene to avoid controversies and backlash. I particularly enjoyed this bit of love chemistry between two romantically involved individuals like in any good romantic film. The struggle however, in the movie is about the comedy which in most cases is average except between Anil Kapoor and Juhi Chawla. The story telling of the director Shelly Chopra Dhar doesn’t grip you to the movie, all the while easy predictability can give the boredom that even comedy fillers may not be able to lift. Overall it’s a good film to watch for some light time-pass and to watch if one has not yet grasped fully the message it portrays for the society at large. I end this review with this little quote I like.

 Trust your Intuition and be Guided by Love - Charles Eirsenstein

Movie Review Manikarnika : The Queen of Jhansi

One True Queen with Substance!

Manikarnika : The Queen of Jhansi

So much of our history is full of Courage and Heroics, which can be made into legendary films. Manikarnika is one of those Legendary films. We all have read about The Queen of Jhansi and know that she was the pioneer to sprout the idea of a free One complete  Bharat Varsha. Her courage and connect to the people at large made her the legend known as “Jhansi Ki Rani.”  A true Queen a rear Jewel in the Indian freedom fight with all the mettle of a fearless Warrior, Governor, Strategist and above all a True Leader. Manikarnika is all about this one True Queen with substance, hence you will see her occupy almost all the frames of the movie. I have no complaints as it is absolutely well deserved.

I don’t think any debutant director would have picked up a historical representation and portrayal of larger than life Hero like The Queen of Jhansi. Kangna Ranut gets full marks for directing along side Krish Jagarlamudi known for his work in Telugu Cinema.  Technically the war scenes and sword fight sequences are exceptionally perfected. However, the emotional side of the queen and her early life incidences require missing finesse. The initial sword tutorial sessions seem unfitting on Kangna who plays Manikarnika. But she pretty much makes up for them in the second half whereby she excels every move with extreme resilience and rigor making her credible for a warrior queen who has been playing with swords and horses since childhood. Every dilemma, emotion and helplessness of the situation that transforms into this courage that comes from within her, are these intense expressions of eyes, Kangna almost gives you goosebumps. The Patriotism that makes every woman in Jhansi fight for her queen is a voice that can shake the Himalayan ranges. Kangna playing this warrior queen is the ultimate tribute well given. Manikarnika may have well been dramatized and parts of other characters been reduced, but it’s purpose to show the life, choices, mental and physical strength of a woman with forward thinking, will give you an experience of history coming alive in front of your eyes. The dampener is the scripting for East India company whereby they have hardly any dialogues to deliver other than the few short ones on repeat mode.  The gruesomeness has been purposefully kept low. However, one can imagine the real intensity of these wars.

We should be watching Manikarnika along with our children, as this tale should replace fairy tales. Our children ought to know, what real courage and being fearless means? In today’s world where petty issues become the deciding factors for governance, and hashtags rule. The reality of what it real means to stand for something right and making hard choices needs to be reminded. I am glad that creative arts allow and make space for Manikarnika to remain immortal and our privileged generation to inspire and course correct. I never give stars to any movie in my review but I would give Manikarnika : The Queen of Jhansi 4 stars out of 5 for the fact to have been made. It will be a shame for any Indian anywhere in the world to ever miss an opportunity to watch it. The review would be incomplete without the mention of the end that left me feeling and thinking “Khub ladi Mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani.” Jai Hind!

Movie Review : Bumblebee

Rumble of Emotions!

Bumblebee

Who isn’t a sucker for Blue round Iris full of vivid Emotions? We all have treated our gadgets, cars, vehicles etc with lot of love and emotion. If ever they returned the favor? Who wouldn’t love to see their car’s mechanical face with big, blue eyes full of emotion reflecting the same love you hold for it? This prequel part of Transformers is all about the emotional connection and chemistry between a teenage girl and the first Transformer that landed on earth and how B-127 became Bumblebee.

Travis Knight the Oscar Nominated director for best Animation film sets the emotional tone for Bumblebee. The look and every shot of emotion is captured and executed to perfection. According to me this exceeds expectation to be the best among all the Transformer movies so far. Bumblebee will definitely give us the vibe of revisiting ET. We will learn why exactly the transformers landed on the planet earth and their planetary history reminds us of the Alien Superman and the destruction of its planet Krypton. Bumblebee is flawless synchronization among Emotions, Comedy and Action giving you a wholesome package and satisfaction of watching a complete movie the way it should be. It is all in the details. The story of Bumblebee the movie is set in the 80’s San Francisco where B-127 crash lands in the middle of military exercise led by secretive government agency and its commander Jack Burns (John Cena). Followed by the arrival of a deception pursuer intent on destroying Bumblebee, threatens to tip the movie over into the series of overindulgent action set pieces. Bumblebee escapes, and ends up losing its memory and ability of speech turns into a Beetle. Later a teenage girl Charlie played by (Hailee Steinfeld) from a dysfunctional American family mourning her father’s death finds it among car wreckage. She wanted a car that her mother couldn’t afford so she decides to repair the Beetle the way her father had taught her to.  Comically B-127 reveals itself that makes both Charlie and Bumblebee afraid of each other, only later to help each other emotionally as both try to adopt. In the process what entails are a series of hilarious, emotional and comic instances similar to that of ET. Knight has served the audience a gleeful movie with wit, warmth and whole bunch of heart. It’s a skillful shaping of what’s essentially a coming of age story for both Charlie and Bumblebee.

The filmmakers portrayal of Bumblebee as the mid-‘60s Volkswagen Beetle may seem like a strange choice, but this model was the character’s original configuration in early stages of the Transformers timeline before morphing into the more muscular Chevrolet Camaro in later movies.  Knight adequately incorporates the Beetle’s familiar, friendly shape into both rowdy action sequences and the more emotional dramatic scenes to form Bumblebee’s immediately recognizable secondary character.

But Bumblebee’s generally warm demeanor isn’t the prequel’s only appealing upgrade. Where earlier Transformer Movies often objectified its female characters, Bumblebee gives us a young woman who’s smart, vulnerable and nuanced. Some of the strokes in the story are stiff and the awkward shift into action pieces can be shaky but Bumblebee has such obvious fondness for its characters that those shortcomings can mostly be put aside. Who Knew underneath all mechanics and action this franchise cultivated a little heart?

Movie Review : Simmba

The Rise of Super Hero Cops!

Simmba

Indian Cinema has always been big on cop capabilities. Relentless, Dashing, Aviator flaunting non-cape crusaders are the Indian Cops. Rohit Shetty the Director with Simmba adds a “tadka” personality to this Super Hero cop who is little over the edge, bad boy, with a crazy bone among obvious traits like strong in action sequence, can deliver a “kadak” punch, emotional enough to care, and gives “tagda” speech.

Simmba a signature style Rohit Shetty film that has all the masala in it. Yet you are left with a question to Mr. Shetty where are the Cars flying scenes? Which is what Rohit Shetty loves showing in most of his movies. Personally, I was really looking forward to the car wreckage. May be the budget didn’t permit him this time. One is sure to find good hearty laugh and emotional drama with minimal super strong action sequence to give it the masala movie viewing experience. Ranveer Singh Played as Sangram Bhalerao Aka Simmba an orphan, is a corrupt ACP always creating opportunities to extract more and in style, as a funny quirky, singing, dancing, cheerful bad boy making his way into your hearts. He also has his typical lines that he delivers so perfectly like “Tell me something I don’t know” “Jey mala mahit nahin tey sanga”. There is no bigger delight than watching him in the first half and laughing at the sheer fun vibe that is Simmba.

Simmba through his good connections with the minister gets transferred to Mirmar Police station known to be a gold mine for corrupt officers. This is where he meets Sarah Ali Khan (Shagun) who plays his love interest. She is  the daughter of an encounter specialist Father. She is now an orphan running a catering service that supplies lunch dabbas to the cops at the Miramar police station. Like most movies where the hero is made to look larger than life the heroine has very little to do than to dress well, sing and dance.

The chemistry however is between Simmba and Ashutosh Rana (Nityanand Mohile) the head constable who is a lone non-corrupt hawaldar at Miramar Police station. They banter like the married couple each trying to influence the other with their theory on becoming corrupt. Mohile keeps refusing to honor his grade and pushes him to become righteous with his police duty. 

Aakruti Dave is a medical Student that teaches children in the evening outside the church in goa. Simmba considers her to be his little sister. The story changes when she dies of rape in pursuit of evidence that children were being used to transport drugs.This is when Simmba turns to likes of Singham  and stands up against the rapist brothers of  a drug mafia Villain (Durva Ranade) played by Sonu Sood. The entire second half is about him rising to the occasion getting justice for the father and doing the right for the greater good of the society. The real Singham that is Ajay Devgan specially appears to show how it’s done. He is the state appointed in charge for investigation of encountered Ranade Brothers by Simmba; suspects of rape and Murder of Aakruti. You will not want to miss out on this action sequence where Singham pulls out Simmba from a tough situation with Durva Ranade . In all it’s the making of the Cop super heroes in all its glory doing the right, and standing by the right. There are bouts of emotional drama to show how a corrupt cop turns into doing right. These scenes can make you count seconds to just get it over with. Emotional Drama is definitely a weakling in the story and not a strong forte of Rohit Shetty in an otherwise a pretty power packed film. There isn’t a dull moment in the entire first half for which this movie shouldn’t at all be missed and second half for Ajay Devgan.

Movie Review : Zero

Odds that Even out

Zero

What is confidence in life? Bauua played by Shah Rukh Khan will tell you. The world has changed from being underdogs to believers in exploring every thought and idea that pops to the head. Extremes tread on thin lines and so does Bauua a loud, eccentric, extremely confident with a tall ego and short height.

One thing to give out is that you will not fall short of enjoying the various facets of this character Bauua who keeps landing himself in to difficult situations on his own accord and gets out of it through his little rough charm. I have to give it to the director Anand L. Rai to bring out such rough around the edges characters in his movies. I simply can not imagine anyone other than Shah Rukh Khan playing this character, it is so him. The king of romance even with his short height weaves the magic we have always demanded in every one of his movies. This triangle  though, is so reverse from the last Yash Raj directorial (Jab Tak Hai Jaan). We have Anushka Sharma as scientist named Afiya with cerebral palsy stuck on a wheel chair, illustrating a very close resemblance to Stephen Hawking . Katrina Kaif plays Babita Kumari an actress jilted in love and unable to move forward. Anushka fails to sell her character whereas Kartrina woes us with her near perfect performance. Most intriguing aspect to Bauua and Alifiya falling in love with each other is their ability to joke on themselves and their disability or them being differently able. The story is about three odd characters damaged in their own ways eventually finding their balance for themselves and what they truly as individuals are.  The first half of the movie is completely signature style Anand L. Rai and keeps us glued to explore all the three characters and their odd traits. However, he chooses to flip these characters in the second half which is a stretched continuation of the story line. The film should have been a two hour affair and would have been precise with its story but looks forcibly extended.

The dialogues and self jibes are hilarious in the first half and seem little over the top in the second half. The characters that seem real in the first half develop super capabilities in the second half and tend to look a little out of place from logical progression stand point.  Yet, the build up from the first half of the story keeps you rooted to know the unfolding of the characters and their romance. The dialogues for the part of Katrina Kaif are the most interesting and well delivered. I liked the part where she narrates a very complex made up story about her parents, and the second instance where she drags Bauua out of her house by his collar, are extremely fresh and flawless scenes. So, for me Katrina is the show stopper for this film. 

Zero falls short to sizzle in our heads because the complexities and tangles become difficult to manage and entangle from. It is still a great effort at a story line of differently able, yet confident people making the same ordinary mistakes as our species normally do. I will therefore implore to watch Zero for a differently able perspective to romance and its shenanigans.