Filmi Review

Cast: Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao
Director: Shyam Benegal




Welcome to Shyam Benegal's world of enchanting social comment. Every character in this village of the damned, the doomed and remarkably redeemed is a stereotype. And yet, miraculously, every character is an individual, eccentric, quirky, blemished and yet so full of vitality vigour and energy that you wonder which came first...life, or life as seen through the eyes of Benegal's camera of innocence, candour and credibility.

This isn't Benegal's first broadly-designed, warmly-panoramic ensemble film. Earlier, the prolific director excelled in depicting the life of a specific community in "Mandi" and "Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda" as a microcosm of a larger reality.

"Welcome To Sajjanpur" is enormously high on simplicity. To be simple in cinema is the most difficult thing in the world - especially when you attempt a film that subsumes an entire ethos of socio-political and cultural ideas on a rural society in tricky, torrential transition from blind faith to globalisation.

So, here in an exceptionally well-scripted film (Ashok Mishra), there's Ila Arun (deftly effective) as a woman determined to marry off her spunky daughter (Divya Dutta) to a dog to fob off a bad horoscope.

Bad karma nudges delicious satire in "Welome To Sajjanpur" as a closet-author whiles away his time writing letters for the illiterate, misguided villagers in a sleepy village that comes alive only at election time when a spirited eunuch takes on a local gangster at the elections.

The spirit of the missives, some sad, some satirical, others a bewildering Benegalesque blend of both, comes across in episodic overtures that lead us gently but persuasively from one issue - of widow remarriage (Ravi Kissan giving coy glances to Rajeswahri Sachdeva is a paisa-vasool sight) to another issue of rural migration.

Amrita Rao, in loud parrot-coloured saris and mannerisms suggesting an unspoilt naivete, is the bride-in-waiting whose husband has been gone to Mumbai for four years.

Shreyas Talpade is the letter writer given the task of informing Amrita's husband that the bride can wait no more. In a spurt of blinding self-interest, Talpade goes from detached letter-writer to attached Romeo and then to the penitent martyr with an ease, fluency and sauciness that the actor seems to muster up with a magician's flourish.

In a film flush with accomplished performances, Talpade holds the plot together like a voluminous book's spine - giving his bucolic character heart, charm and chutzpah.

This is Talpade's coming-of-age film. You really can't imagine any other leading man achieving the same level of connectivity with the character, plot and audience.

All the Benegal regulars - from Ila Arun to Rajit Kapur - show up in Sajjanpur with gratifying humility and warmth. Ravi Jhankal as the election-contesting eunuch and Yashpal Sharma as the eunuch's uncouth opponent stand out, if 'stand out' is the right term for a film where the actors become one with the characters in a seamless design celebrating life's most recognisable and basic emotions.

The costumes (Pia Benegal) tend to get a little touristy at times. And the dialogues (Ashok Mishra again) sometimes lean towards the lewd to salute the boorish rustic ambience. These are not traits you would expect in Benegal's film. But then he needs to keep up with the times. A fact that seems to have bypassed the soporific slumber-dwellers of Sajjanpur as they battle between hand-written postcards and sms communications, finally allowing the former to rule the roost until further notification.

This is a film where every character - big or small - stands tall in his or her naïve insularity from forces of corruptibility that threaten to break down their doors.

Sajjanpur echoes a 1977 film "Palkon Ki Chaon Mein" where Rajesh Khanna played the village postman trying not to get too involved with the local people's domestic problems. Talpade doesn't try that hard.

This is not Benegal's most subtle work of his prolific career. But it is one of his warmest, funniest and raunchiest pieces of cinema - where every character is a human being you'd bump into if you visit a Sajjanpur. Not too many films do that these days.

Cast: Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao
Director: Shyam Benegal




Director Shyam Benegal, better known for his films like Manthan, Sardari Begum and Zubeida, has decided to venture into a new stream of cinema and make comic satires, as it is one of the most appreciated genres by the audiences today.

His directorial first in comedy titled "Welcome to Sajjanpur", originally titled Mahadev Ka Sajjanpur, is a movie about few characters from the Sajjanpur village with a perfect blend of rustic comedy and drama. Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao, Ravi Kishan, Ila Arun, Divya Dutta and Rajeshwari Sachdev form the different characters of this small village.

Mahadev is one of the few educated young men from Sajjanpur. His ambition is to be a novelist but finds it easier to make a living by writing letters sitting next to the post office. His ability to write persuasive letters makes him popular with the largely non-literate population of the town. Aware of this power, he soon uses his talent to manipulate people with amusing and sometimes not such amusing results.

With this as the narrative frame, Welcome to Sajjanpur shows in an entertaining, musical and comic way, characters and events that are at once hilarious and poignant. A delightful satirical take on a contemporary Indian village.

I entered the movie hall wondering if a director who has always concentrated on thought-provoking serious movies successfully directs a comedy flick. And as the reels of Welcome to Sajjanpur unveiled I was taken by surprise by the Benegal has handled this movie. His experience and talent as a director is evident in his very first attempt in a new genre.

Welcome to Sajjanpur stands out for its simplicity and its characters with whom you can easily connect and relate to. The movie doesn't have a strong plot, no glam and no action either. But the way each character and the life and sensitivity of the characters is portrayed makes it worth a dekho on the big screen.

No, Welcome isnt without its share of flaws. At many situations the village seems to be quite open minded. The villagers keep their mouths shut when Kamala, a married woman, goes on a cycle with a young and unmarried long lost friend of her's Mahadev who in turn is known for his mischievous nature. When in reality, such things are a taboo in Indian villages. Many such cinematic liberties have been taken which are quite hard to digest.

The songs too act as speed breakers and slow the pace considerably. To be frank, the songs werent great and unnecessarily added to the runtime.

Shreyas Talpade is the soul of Welcome to Sajjanpur. He is brilliant with his comic timing and performs the emotional scenes to perfection. Its hard to imagine anyone, other than probably someone as versatile as Aamir Khan, in the role of Mahadev. Amrita Rao has worked hard for her role, again Shyam Benegal has managed to extract a praise-worthy performance from the beautiful actress. There are so many characters in this character-driven film and almost all have done a comendable job. Except Ravi Kishen, he's over the top throughout.

To sum up, Welcome to Sajjanpur is average. It has its moments, the concept is different. The movie will hold more appeal to the 25+ (age) audience. At the box-office, the only chance of survival is strong word of mouth!

Cast: Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao
Director: Shyam Benegal




Bhelcome, o, bhelcome- all you sajjan members of the audience. Benegal Babu's latest phillum is one rather unsatisfying chillum and leaves one with mixed feelings, as by its end it clearly overstays its bhelcome. Welcome To Sajjanpur is that breeze of fresh air that doesn't quite blow you away.

What it's about: The film is a social satire set in a quaint North Indian village with its unique bunch of colorful characters- or as many may argue- caricatures. The film unfolds through the eyes of Mahadev (played by Shreyas Talpade), an aspiring novelist, who being the only literate individual in the hamlet earns a living by writing eloquently worded letters for the many illiterate people in the village. The film and its characters thus unfold through the protagonist's bittersweet encounters with them.

What didn't work: Okay, bad things first. There's not much of a story here, in the first place, and the film depends almost totally on its characters, most of which are hardly memorable or exceptionally performed. The satirical yarn is more preachy than sharp, and at nearly three hours, it clearly begins to descend into tedium. Perhaps the makers realized this, and hence we have an abruptly wrapped up end that leaves us even more dissatisfied. Shantanu Moitra's music, barring the peppy and upbeat Sitaram number, is tepid and eminently forgettable, besides the fact that the listlessly picturised songs only hamper the narrative. The film also often feels oddly staged and the writing very play-like, and while this may be deliberate, it somehow doesn't really work. But the main flaw here is the screenplay, which meanders way too much into fickle subplots, many of which are pretty pointless.

What worked: Shreyas Talpade. The actor mostly reduced to playing sidekicks finally gets his due in a film again after Iqbal and Dor, and he doesn't disappoint. Talpade is endearing and earnest and he is definitely the glue that keeps you on your seat and the disjointed screenplay from falling apart totally. Writer Ashok Mishra may have faltered otherwise, but he writes with an assured hand, and his dialogues even when risqué have an old-world charm and understated quality to them. Of the supporting cast, watch out for Ravi Jhankal who is clearly the standout in the supporting cast for his stellar and spirited portrayal of the feisty eunuch Munnibai. While it lacks it depth or coherence, Welcome To Sajjanpur is clearly both well intentioned and socially responsible, both salient features of all of Shyam Benegal's films.

Bottom line: People expecting too much out of Shyam Benegal, considering his past body of work are bound to be disappointed. Still, the weight of expectation aside Welcome To Sajjanpur is not a bad watch- it's honest cinema that's rare to come by these days, even if it is ultimately deeply flawed.

Cast: Kirron Kher, Farouque Shaikh
Direction: Shona Urvashi



Shona Urvashi made her directorial debut in 2003 with Chupke Se. After a long hiatus she makes a comeback with Hollywood giant Warner Bros. Pictures sharing their banner along with PLA Entertainment Pvt. Ltd for her new flick "Saas Bahu Aur Sensex". The movie has a diverse mix of young neophytes like Ankur Khanna, Tanushree Datta & Masumeh Makhija along with seasoned actors like Kirron Kher, Farooq Shaikh and Lillette Dubey amongst others. With an unusual and unique story, backdrop of Sensex running parallel with a love triangle of the young ones, novel treatment and low making cost like 'Bheja Fry' and 'Mithya', does 'Saas Bahu Aur Sensex' work?

After her divorce with her husband, Vinita Sen (Kirron Kher) and her daughter Nitya Sen (Tanushree Dutta) are forced to shift from Kolkata to Navi Mumbai. Nitya abandons her ambition of studying MBA in US and with the help of her newly found friend Ritesh she manages to get a job in a call center. Meanwhile, keen to start a new life for her daughter, Vinita adapts a new lifestyle - she starts going to kitty parties and also takes a plunge into the volatile world of stock markets with the help of a stockbroker, Firoz Sethna (Farouque Shaikh).

Ritesh (Ankur Khanna) is head over heels in love with a colleague cum locality friend Kirti (Masumeh Makhija), a middle class girl who dreams of becoming big in life by marrying a billionaire, Yash Modi (Sudhanshu Pandey) who owns the call center they work for.

The movie is about how housewives indulge in investing in the roaring stock market with an intention to make quick money and the love triangle between Ritesh, Kirti and Nitya.

Shona has the talent but needs to be nurtured. Saar Bahu Aur Sensex has a unique theme, but the pitfalls in the narrative let it down. Any which way, Shona manages to convey the message, the theme of the movie, of encouraging housewives and in general everyone to invest in stocks for the progress of the nation, but also criticizes its monetary manipulation on human mind as the movie nears the climax.

Saas Bahu Aur Sensex has no hero, no heroine, rather a number of characters who come face to face due to some connection that develops with one or the other. The first half of the movie is entertaining and has few comic moments that kindle laughter, but as the reels unfold and the film indulges itself deeply into the share market and the perplexity in the love triangle, the storyline starts dragging and gets tedious to sit through. Not just that, the movie has a lot of dubious situations. How is it possible that everyone from that residential apartment work in the same department of a company? With many such situations and too many fluctuations in the market, the entertainment quotient in the movie goes for a toss. If the narrative was kept short for say 1 hr and 30 min, the movie would have made a better impact. The music is nothing worth mentioning. The only thing good about the tracks is that, no track was longer than a minute, which helps not to break the continuity of the movie.

Amidst all the performances, Udayan Mukherjee - India's most famous financial analyst and television presenter of CNBC, stays back in your mind due to the archived footage given to him by flashing him after almost every scene.

Farooq Sheikh is once again back on the big screen after a long time. He has immense talent, but is wasted in this movie. Kirron Kher is competent but again this role isn't something challenging for her talent. Unlikely, Tanushree Dutta is less glamour but as usual no talent, poor acting. Ankur is okay. Masumeh in a glam role has nothing much to offer. Lilette Dubey and Sharon Prabhakar manage to make their presence felt.

On the whole, investing your time on Saas Bahu Aur Sensex might not reap you huge benefits but few moments of laughter is assured.

Cast: Shreyas Talpade, Amrita Rao
Director: Shyam Benegal




It’s a wonderful word. Whether it’s a political piggy, a demented woman who can only cry through her nose (?), or a clinic ‘compounder’ who flips out for the village widow, they speak a lingo that’s absolutely earthy, downright bingo.

In fact, the spine of Shyam Benegal’s Welcome to Sajjanpur is its rustic, colloquial dialogue. Co-written with Ashok Mishra (who must be saluted for the dialogue dexterity), Benegal’s screenplay pauses to spare a thought for the near extinct art of letter writing. Sure, you may sense some echoes of Brazil’s Central Station and even the French classic Cyrano De Bergerac. The long-nosed Cyrano played Socially concerned as always, Benegal articulates several points. Take widow remarriage which culminates in a tragedy and is so resonant of today’s headlines
Cupid there, here it’s just the opposite.

The letter writer (Shreyas Talpade) is being deceitful and loving it. He’s a wannabe Premchand in a surrounding that’s as conducive to writing as a pen without a nib. Ergo, he dreams big but lives in a hamlet that doesn’t know its ABCD. And right now, he’s attempting to snatch his childhood sweetheart (Amrita Rao) from her husband who hasn’t been back to the muluk for ages. Aah, the letter writer could do with some romancing. But sorry, there are too many assorted nuts around, including a hilarious snake medicine man who carries a rubber cobra. Why? Just.

Socially concerned as always, Benegal articulates several points. Take widow remarriage which culminates in a tragedy and is so resonant of today’s headlines. In Sajjanpur, also enter and exit, a headstrong scooter-riding girl, the gangster-like politician, and heavens, even a group of eunuchs out to contest the elections and assert that they’re human too.

Because of the restraint in directing potentially David Dhawanish material, Benegal frequently gets away even with risqué humour. Throughout the comedy, there’s no indulgence in slapstick. Instead, there are wise and witty moments that make you smile or guffaw at human foibles.

Quite clearly though, the song situations and their picturisations are super-tacky (like the blingy white curtains as backdrop for a dream sequence). Oddly, the background score often breaks into an American country-and-western jig. And towards the finale, certain aspects are much too hokey pokey – like a publisher’s smarmy questions about the intricacies of the story that you have just seen. Indeed, there’s something much too contrived about wrapping up the loose ends. Did Benegal run out of stock or inspiration, or both?

But then who’s perfect? Besides spinning a charming yarn, Benegal bankably draws a first-rate ensemble performance. Shreyas Talpade, after Iqbal, gets a role worthy of his calibre. He’s terrific. Amrita Rao is sweetness personified. Cameos from Ravi Kissan, Divya Dutta and Yashpal Sharma are lifelike.

Yup, so Sajjanpur is different, it has a conscience, and merits a ticket from those who have one too.

Cast: Kirron Kher, Farouque Shaikh
Direction: Shona Urvashi



Celebrate. For once there’s a very caring mum who doesn’t actually offer her sulking daughter, a tub of gaajar halwa. But if your memory serves you right, there were heaps of laddoos and rosogollas around. They vanish in a flash. Must have been yum.

That’s Shona Urvashi’s Saas Bahu aur Sensex. Probably well-intentioned as a movie about women bonding, it just doesn’t have an original voice or sharp style to keep you engaged.

Besides, so much footage is spent on establishing the characters that you long to move out of the Navi Mumbai (or is it Pune?) housing society where these women gossip, host kitty parties and are ultra-curious about the new tenant (Kirron Kher, displaying a cool collection of saris). She has arrived with a tetchy daughter (Tanushree) who gets a job with a call centre, falls in love with a goatee but goatee loves a glam gal (Masumeh). Misery.

In between all this, somehow Kirronji connects with a stockbroker (again!) who’s portrayed by Farouque Shaikh as a babbling Parsi. Shaikh does it extremely well, and Kirronji is efficient. Tanushree, without dollops of make-up, is eminently likeable. Now if only these guys had been given another script. How about a medical thriller like Gas Lahoo aur Sex?

Cast: Sushant Singh, Rajat Kapoor
Director: Jaideep Varma



Friends, countrymen and Shakespeare,

Ear ear. Jaideep Varma’s Hulla is not the poorer sister of Hulla Bol. It’s not about the good old hulla hoops either. It’s about a man who can’t sleep because a security guard keeps blowing a whistle way beyond midnight. What a fright. Just sit tight, take some cotton buds along. Because they keep blowing the whistle in Dolby surround, and don’t let you sleep either.

Once Bangalore’s Girish Kasaravalli had made the strangest movie ever (called Mane) about snooze-deprived Naseeruddin Shah-Deepti Naval because of machinery sounds. Gratifyingly, machines have given way to whistles. And stick banging, too, in order to nab any Raj Kapoor from Jagte Raho. Oho.

Admittedly, you can identify with the noise business, you go through it every day. Manoj Kumar did too in Shor, Farah Khan too, but a full-length feature film on a man and a whistle? After a few chuckles and giggles, you wish they’d bring on the main movie. Doesn’t happen.

So you’re stuck there with Sushant Singh (Stockbroker) and Kartikadevi Rane (Working Wife). She doesn’t mind the ancient security guard blowing a whistle lustily. Stockbroker does and launches this one-man crusade against whistles, which means combating Rajat Kapoor (Cooperative Housing Society Chairman) trying for a Gujarati accent. In vain.

Next: Society Chairman is busy organising two college girls to meet up with a shady business contractor – the most tantalising twist in the plot -- that’s not shown at all. Maybe the girls had whistles too.

Anyway, thanks to the believable performances by Stockbroker and Chairman, you don’t actually run out of the auditorium to check your own ear drums. In addition, there’s an excessively funny housing society guy who’s always threatening to tear his shirt. He brings the house down. Indeed, the society meetings are a riot. For such throwaway vignettes, it’s okay to check out this Hullabaloo. Of course, you must carry your own whistles along.

With the success of Ram Gopal Varma's 'Phoonk' there is renewed hope for horror movies. In the current decade there have been just a handful of films from this genre that have succeeded at the box-office and the 2 names who have successfully directed horror flicks are Ram Gopal Varma (Bhoot and Phoonk) and Vikram Bhatt (Raaz) who is also the director of 1920 that released today. 1920 features newcomers Rajneesh Duggal and Ada Sharma.

The year is 1920 and the house is isolated in the wilderness has a secret. It is waiting for the curse to come true. For years everyone who has bought the house and tried to pull it down has died under strange circumstances. It is like the house has a will and a life of its own.

Arjun (Rajneesh Duggal) and his wife Lisa (Adah Sharma) move into the house and he has been given the task of pulling it down and making a hotel there. The haunting begins.

Strange and inexplicable events start taking place. The curse says they will not survive. The only thing they have that is true is the love they once shared, which is now under the shadow of doubt. They will have to depend on the love and faith if they are to come out of this alive.

Horror movies must be one of the toughest genres of movies to make. The script has to be tight; execution has to be such that it should succeed in scaring the hell out of the audience. The camera work, background music and dialogues have to be perfect too. Else, the result could well be what I experienced while watching the second half of Vikram Bhatt's 1920. The audience in the theatre was laughing their heart out. The post-interval portions suffer due to its slow pace and bad direction.

Amongst the positives; in the first half Vikram Bhatt did manage to scare, he also succeeds in making the movie unpredictable to a certain extent. The cinematography is one of the best in recent times. The special effects are easily up to Bollywood standards; background music (Salim Suleiman) too is great.

Ada Sharma rocks in her debut with a great performance; she sure has a brilliant screen presence and was a perfect choice for her role. Rajneesh Duggal is good for a newcomer but not very consistent. Raj Zutshi is good.

To sum up, 1920 doesn't manage to hold your attention throughout. It's scary in parts and funny at times. Don't expect much at the box-office.

Greatness, they say, is never thrust on you. You are either born with it. Or you are not. Amitabh Bachchan is at a place today where nothing and everything he does surprises us.

The Bachchan saga gets one more twist in the tale as the ageing, cantankerous, flamboyant, eccentric and embittered Shakespearean actor battles old age, unwieldy hair and a receding genius.

And what a tale! Rituparno Ghosh specialises in telling stories that pitch two utterly unmatched characters against each other in a battle where the lines are drawn between the egos of the two individuals.

"The Last Lear" is actually a series of dramatic dialogues sewn together in a pastiche that suggests pain to be the constant subliminal text of all human interactions.

So we have this bearded 'intense' director Siddharth (Arjun Rampal) who decides to make a film on the life of an unemployed ageing clown. For the role, he approaches the reclusive wacky stage actor Harish Mishra (Amitabh) who sneers wryly at the very thought of entering cinema at his age, and then warms up to the idea and gives the part his heart and soul.

Interesting possibilities pitching cinema against theatre examined, explored, searched and dissected by the director with the microscopic manoeuvrings of emotions that the camera ferrets out of the human heart and makes visible to our eyes.

In Ghosh's incandescent world of human suffering and redemption, you won't find more than two people in the same room at any given time. Sometimes there are three. But then the third individual is so still in her space, you hardly notice her/his presence beyond a shadow.

Such is the truth of Divya Dutta's character. As the benevolent nurse on night duty to look after the dying Shakespearean actor, she gives the actor's mistress Vandana (Shefali Shah) and his co-star Shabnam (Preity Zinta) quiet company. The two women talk the night away on the man they're both fascinated by.

Ghosh goes backward in time from the night the film featuring Harish Mishra is premiered to the interactive events leading up to his selection and shooting for the film.

The narration is purposely loose-limbed. Even the one-to-one interactions that are the backbone of this beautifully layered chamber-piece are done with the casual grace of a trapeze dancer walking the familiar tightrope blindfolded and not fearful of the fall.

The characters are all in desperate need of redemption. Whether it's the jaded but still-spirited Shakespearean actor or his unhappy overworked mistress, or the model-turned actress Shabnam, or even the young journalist (Jisshu Sengupta) trying to piece together the opulent mystique of the Shakespearean actor's ego and enigma - the characters are perched on the brink of self-destruction, holding on to that thread of self-esteem, which keeps them from that fatal fall.

"The Last Lear" is Ghosh's second film in a row after the Bengali movie "Khela" to be located in the film world. The distance between the 'reality' of the acting world and the realism of the real world where people are often acting before one another, is covered by the sensitive director with supple grace.

The English dialogues are spun in spoken sensitivity. But the words do get in the way of the characters sometimes.

When the film starts Shabnam is on the verge of breaking up with her suspicious husband. By the time she starts shooting with Harish Mishra in a scenic hill station, she's in an off-camera dialogue with her aged co-star and ready to scream out her angst in a war-cry of articulated liberation.

Preity does here what most actors shy away from. She actually listens to her co-stars as they express their angst.

The film is littered with luminous performances. If Divya is quiet and warm in her small role, Shefali simply takes over the screen each time she walks into the frame.

And after "Rock On", Arjun Rampal delivers another pain-lashed performance.

As for Amitabh, he goes from venom to vitality in quick succession, creating for his character a kingdom of theatrical yearnings.

Ghosh has created a world carved out of mahogany-like glistening surfaces, hiding fears and anxieties that have little to do with Harish's age, and everything to do with the rage that the experience of life brings in its wake.

Indranil Ghosh's artwork and Abhik Mukherjee's cameras write out the poetry of the motion picture.

Watch "The Last Lear" to see the layerings of emotion that the director extends into his narration without losing sight of the lightness of touch in the outer crust.

Ru Ba Ru promises to be a simple love story directed by Arjun Bali starring Randeep Hooda and Shahana Goswami. Randeep Hooda last made an impact in D (2005) in a role of a gangster he excelled. How well does he carry the role of a love boy? Also, the chemistry between the lead pair is so vital in a romantic movie. Shahana Goswami of the recent Rock On fame is Randeep Hooda leading lady.

Ru-Ba-Ru is a modern day story of two ambitious individuals finding their destiny through the greatest human manifestation love, but of course with a twist! The film revolves around a modern couple Tara (Shahana Goswami) and Nikhil (Randeep Hooda) who are in love; Tara wants to cement the relationship by seeking commitment in marriage. But Nikhil, a workaholic, is always pre-occupied with his clients and work and he is happy with the way things are between the two of them. The trouble in paradise starts off with Nikhil constantly forgetting small little things that make a relationship work. He starts taking his girlfriend, her family and friends for granted. And the day comes when Tara cannot take it anymore. As she decides to take matters in her own hand, a strange magical, mystical force intervenes, and the drama unfolds!

Yet another Bollywood film that is heavily inspired by an English movie. The makers of Ru Ba Ru are clearly inspired by If Only (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Vanilla Sky (Tom Cruise). It is unfortunate that Bollywood lacks good original writers.

Anyway, if you're married or in a relationship for quite some time now, you could give Ru Ba Ru a try. The director has skillfully managed to show how some long terms relationships lack love, as other priorities in life have now taken over. The message the movie puts forward is live life for today, not for tomorrow!

But if you expect Ru Ba Ru to be a love story devoid of typical Bollywood masala, you will be sorely disappointed as it suffers mainly due to the over the top and unrealistic masala scenes. The action begins only after the accident, nothing much happens in the first half. The post interval portions are good with Nikhil's (Randeep Hooda's character) desperation convincingly shown. The music is average. None of the songs stands out.

Shahana Goswani who made her debut in Rock On... continues to rock! Her performance itself makes Ru Ba Ru worth a watch in theatre. She is a very talented actress and should have a promising future with the right roles. Randeep Hooda is good, but his body language and looks are better suited for darker roles. Jayant Kriplani is good. Rati Agnihotri is wasted.

To sum up, Ru Ba Ru works to a certain extent if you walk in with zero expectations. A few unnecessary scenes ruin what could have been a much better watch.

Cast: Randeep Hooda, Shahana Goswami
Direction: Arjun Bali



If only someone hadn’t seen the video of the crummy If Only, you would have saved yourself from this hu-ba-hu snooze-o-rama.

Neither Nix (Randeep Hooda) nor Tara Pum (Shahana Goswami) are established as particularly worth-knowing people. He’s a busy executive at power presentations, she’s a time-pass actress in a play by Shakespeare (he’s contagious). After hundreds years of living in, she wants a marriage, he doesn’t. Groan and bear it.

Because, yipee, the long-lost Kulbhushan Kharbanda shows up as a taxi driver, drops some nuggets about Sigmund FRIED (really now), and drives the couple at top speed into another car. You’re not at all sure what director Bali wanted to say and why neither Hooda nor Goswami deliver half-decent performances. Kharbanda, mercifully, stays behind the wheel. A-void.

Cast: Rajneesh Duggal, Adah Sharma, Ballu the Ghastly Gardener
Direction: Vikram Bhatt



Boo, tywhoo and all that. Vikram Bhatt’s 1920: A Ghost Story is about Elizabethan carriages, horses with the furriest feet this side of a panda, a haveli in Yorkshire which is supposed to pass of as Purani Mumbai, and best of all, Raj Zutshi who glares at the camera as he always does, to announce, “We have to do exorcism!”

About time Zuts, because the newly weds (Raj Duggal-Adah Sharma) are being shocked out of their coats and petticoats. Indeed, the man’s so devoted to his bride that he nearly has a fainting fit at a Rakhi Sawant dance nite. She should sue.

There are no surprises for anyone who has seen spine tinglers from Bees Saal Baad and The Exorcism to Whatever-Ramsay-You, but to Bhatt’s credit, after the intermission he goes full blast at the spooky, Satanic-possession stuff. In fact, the climax is one of the best executed attempts in special effects in recent times. Body bending, wall scaling, and booming sound effects, you bite your nails with worry at the flurry.

Adnan Sami’s music is several cuts above the commonplace with vocals by Pandit Jasraj and Shubha Mudgal. Of the newcomers, Rajneesh Duggal has a striking screen presence and goes at his role with absolute sincerity. He’s here to stay. Adah Sharma, in a difficult role, is likeable. If you’re into desi horror, here’s a more satisfying ticket than Phoonk 2008.

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Arjun Rampal, Preity Zinta, Silver Wig
Direction: Rituparno Ghosh



Friends, countrymen and Shakespeare,

Lend me your ears. I come neither to bury director Rituparno Ghosh, actor Amitabh Bachchan, supporting artiste Divya Dutta,nor to condemn them.

The good that men do lives with them. So let it be with The Last Lear, a pedestal for the histrionics of Mr Bachchan. You all do love him not without cause. So doth me, your Mark-Akbar-Anthony who doth know a trifle about Oberon and not Oberoi as boorishly muttered by a ciggy-puffing journalist in the movie. The puffer also confuses the bard’s Robin with Robin Hood. What kind of journos is Ghoshda acquainted with, anyway? The sort who think When the aged theatre stalwart Harish aka Harry (Bachchan) falls on his feet to beg a film’s director to let him perform his last scene – a stunt – your eyes truly moist.
Shakespeare is a milk shake?

Alright fair is foul and foul is fair. From the two-and-a-half stars crowning this bard-di-dah review, you might have guessed that this Learda leaves the viewer with remixed feelings. On the upside, there are at least three extraordinary moments for which it might still be worth enduring the roundelay of three ladies chattering away like magpies, on Diwali night. Flashbacks keep going up in the black Kolkata sky like baby rockets, the bard-challenged journalist pops in with his voice-over intermittently. And a movie about a very aged clown titled The Mask is being premiered. If that’s a tribute to Raj Kapoor, Ghoshda confirms that by giving his Lear a Satyam Shivam Zeenatam-like face burn.

O judgement! Thou art fled to brutish beasts. Do discourse on the positives yaar. When the aged theatre stalwart Harish aka Harry (Bachchan) falls on his feet to beg a film’s director to let him perform his last scene – a stunt – your eyes truly moist. When the intense, realistic-type director (Arjun Rampal) cajoles him to return from three decades of retirement, you marvel at the actor’s brilliant, theatrical rendition. And you care for the old man’s foibles as he sits before a CVV screen, watching passers-by urinate on the wall. Street watching is very Satyajit Rayesque (please see Charulata) and it’s done with quirky humour here.

Heart-bracingly the cinematography is topnotch. The sound design is on the pretentious side though. Who would be listening to Waqt ne kiya kya haseen sitam late at night on Diwali, pray? And the screenplay has more potholes than the roads nowadays. And shiver me timbers, Shefali Shah and Harryda are supposed to have sparked a scandal, 30 years ago. Not very flattering to Ms Chhaya’s age status but well. And what’s all that hullabaloo about the stunt shot? And please why are women always being tormented by men, especially Preity Zinta being stalked by a gruff phone voice and nurse Ivy Dutta’s hot date who vanishes like Aladdin’s genie?

Essentially, the frisson between Bachchan and Rampal work. Bachchan is flamboyant, assured and catty. Rampal, restrained and implosive, is excellent.

So friends, countrymen and Shakespeare, to be honest Bachchan’s shout into a valley is on the embarrassing side though (check out Liza Minnelli’s yell fest in Cabaret). All said and a bit slept through, The Last Lear merits a toss of the coin. Heads you see..tails you don’t.

Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Anupam Kher
Direction: Neeraj Pandey



A man with a slight hunch, frizzy hair and a vegetable shopping bag is nagged by his wife, “Don’t forget the tomatoes.” The man grunts, plants a bomb in a police office, walks coolly to the empty terrace of a building under construction and is about to kick off a plan of mass destruction. That’s first-time director Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday, which could well be the story of any day in any metropolis. It has a walloping impact – and despite some sections which could be interpreted as Muslim bashing – is absolutely A-grade. It has speed, energy, technical dazzle (never mind some cheesy split screens) and it’s the kind of medium-budget enterprise we should be seeing much more often at the multiplexes. What a relief to get away from the pan caked poppets and imitation Rambo Bambos! Essentially here, two old men match their cunning and wit. And their performances are sensational.

Naseeruddin Shah, with intuitive ease, plays that duplicitous tomato shopper who threatens the city with serial blasts. And Anupam Kher, as the beleaguered police commissioner, is flawless, concealing his anxiety under a cool stealth. Shah was terrific in a cameo in Khuda Kay Liye just a few months ago. Now without much fuss or fret, he demonstrates that he’s the most valuable actor on the scene today. Kher is a marvellous counterpoint, his body lingo, talkative eyes and voice pitch defining a first-class performance.

Indeed, Pandey extracts bravura performances also from Jimmy Sheirgill, concentrated and convincing, as a rough-tactics cop, Deepal Shaw whose Hindi dialogue delivery is incomparable in the part of a TV news reporter, an attention-grabbing turn by Aamir Bashir as a ramrod-straight cop, and a strikingly expert cameo by Kali Prasad Mukherjee in the role of a taunting terrorist.

The plot could be from Die Hard with a Vengeance, or a page from the screenplay of any cat-and-mouse Hollywood thriller. Pandey’s triumph is in relating it to our current conditions, avoiding speed breakers and pinning your interest as the scenes zoom from that empty terrace to the police headquarters and to the jam packed streets.

All of 100 minutes with first-rate photography by Fuwad Khan, however, the effort’s closing segment is extremely questionable. Like it or not, there is in-between-the-lines Muslim thrashing here besides the ongoing obsession of associating terrorism with Islam (“They are cockroaches”). Are they talking pest control?

Without revealing the end, suffice it to say it has been used before in Kamal Haasan’s Indian. Also, several points are indigestible, like the absence of all TV crews but one at the hot spots, the police commissioner zooming off on a solo car ride, and the finale kick-off which is more fantasy-like than believable.

Indeed, the conclusion is the sort that could only happen in the movies. And that doesn’t work is an effort steeped in reality. Oh well, then, who’s perfect? A Wednesday has to be seen, absorbed and debated. Go for it.

Cast: Purav Bhandare, Sarika, Birbal the Donkey
Direction: Santosh Sivan



Stretching snowscapes, flickering lives that could be extinguished at any moment, a fatherless family and the adorable kid who wants to bring his pet donkey back home – these are just some of the elements of Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan which deals with innocence versus violence in the valley.

Narrated from the point of view of the child, throughout, strife-torn Kashmir is his magical playground till he loses his pet, always standing there haplessly. Boy Tahaan travels across perilous terrain, making the viewer hope desperately that the boy is reunited with his buddy. Whomever he encounters -- be it a moneylender (Rahul Khanna, very miscast), a fruit trader, a lovelorn Romeo or an older kid who has his own agenda -- the child trusts them like you’d trust a neighbour.

Quite a few points of the screenplay are contrived though. Like chucking a grenade into a conveniently available stream, mum Sarika being speechless and father dear stepping out of detention in the nick of time. None of these count though in the face of the enterprise’s purity of purpose – like the Iranian films of the 1990s --and its poetic execution.

Meant as much for adults as well as kids, Tahaan has two other major strengths. An absolutely endearing performance by Purav Bhandare in the eponymous role. And the genius cinematography of director Santosh Sivan. Every frame is painterly. It’s meant for everyone who has the heart for compassionate and visually staggering cinema.

Cast: Shiney Ahuja, Esha Deol, Bearded Aatankwadis
Direction: Kunal Shivdasani



Fasten your seat belts, at home that is. Kunal Shivdasani’s Hijack is meant only for those who haven’t ever seen a Hollywood movie in their lives. It’s part Executive Decision, part Con Air.. oh forget it.

And it’s about Shiney Ahuja looking very gloomy. Plus meet hijacked hostess Esha with a sparrow sitting on her hair, a kid star going “Deddi, deddi, dedeeeee”, those black-dye beards killing a post-honeymoon husband, a Home Minister snorting, “Ees these a jock..joke..jerk?” And finally there’s leapfrogging from plane wings already done by so many Singhs are Kinngs.

Debutant director Shivdasani could have avoided the Hollywood-copy-karo trip. As for Shiney Ahuja, he deserved a better deal. Airhostess Eshaji, on noticing that he’s somehow reached the plane’s insides, asks, “What are you doing here?” EXACTLY.

'A Wednesday,' is a story that happens over a couple of hours one Wednesday in the career of city commissioner of Police, Mumbai, Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher). On the eve of his retirement, Rathod looks back on his career as he shares this unusual story, a story that was never recorded.

That Wednesday, he received an anonymous call and the caller (Naseeruddin Shah) stated that he had planted several bombs in the city. And if his demands were not met with, he would trigger them off. The caller then demands the release of four militants arrested and in jail.

Initially Rathod wonders if it is a crank call, but a second call from the unknown person, alerts the police to the presence of a bomb placed at the police station right opposite the Police headquarters.

Meanwhile the anonymous caller also tips off a television news reporter, Nayana Roy. She arrives at the police headquarters with her cameraman.

Innumerable lives are now at stake and it is Rathod's responsibility to trace the man behind it. With his two trusted aides, Arif Khan (Jimmy Shergill) and Jai (Aamir Bashir), Rathod jumps into action, while ensuring not to create panic in the minds of the public. A young hacker is called in to trace the address of the caller while the police make arrangements to transport the four militants to the airport as agreed upon. You also get a glimpse of the bureaucratic hurdles that the police often encounter.

Just when you start wondering if it is another militant story, showing the minority community in poor light and indicating the involvement of a foreign country, the story springs a surprise. Who is this unknown caller and what does he want?

'A Wednesday,' questions the injustice done to the common man, when innocents meet their end, following bomb blasts. The story rests on the shoulders of two stalwarts, Anupam Kher and Naseeruddin Shah supported ably by Jimmy Shergill and Aamir Bashir. As the city police commissioner, Anupam lends the role dignity and he has executed it brilliantly.

Naseeruddin Shah steals the show with his character. Jimmy Shergill is every inch the cool guy. Aamir Bashir leaves a mark too. Even the characters of the four militants has been portrayed well, especially Kali Prasad Mukherjee, the main terrorist.

This film sans duets or item numbers, sans heroine, sans vulgarity is an edge of the seat thriller. There is never a dull moment in the film as you wait with bated breath for the next scene to unfold. And of course the climax was a real surprise. There are nice moments especially those scenes between Jai and his wife.

Well made, neat editing, a story that concerns you and me, a film you cannot miss.

Kudos to Neeraj Pandey on his debut for this thought provoking plot.

First things first. "A Wednesday" is not about the train blasts that rocked Mumbai in 2005. It isn't so much to do about terrorism and counter-terrorism as it is about making these grim socio-political facts into digestible riveting cinema.

And that's where "A Wednesday" scores over "Mumbai Meri Jaan" and other recent films on the wrath of extremism.

Debutant director Neeraj Pandey turns the grim reality of terrorism into an engaging cat-and-mouse game played between a master blaster (Naseeruddin Shah) and a senior cop (Anupam Kher).

Just the pleasure of watching Naseer and Anupam against the backdrop of a teeming bustling sinisterly jeopardized Mumbai city is ample reason to discard all our other misgivings about the sheer feasibility of the plot.

Cleverly the narration manoeuvres all the physical action away from the two aging protagonists to a couple of hot-blooded young cops played effectively by Jimmy Shergill and Aamir Bashir, who hurl into camera range in a meteoric rush of adrenaline to remind us that the streets of Mumbai have always created a flutter in the clutter in our films. Just go back to every film from "Satya" to "Aamir" and see what we mean.

Cinematographer Fuwad Khan captures the blood on the roads of Mumbai with a disaffected relish. A lot of the film has been shot in stylish top-shots where the terrorists and counter-terrorist manoeuvrings appear larger than life and yet miraculously shrunken in the cosmic scheme of things. Violence in this way is made both comic and cosmic.

Most of the film cracks the entertainment code through the ongoing dialogue between the cop and the master-blaster, quite in Clint Eastwood and John Malvokich in Wolfgang Petersen's "In The Line Of Fire", triggering off a thought-provoking chain of ideas on the common man and terrorism and how far the violence of extremism affects the self-worth of the middle class.

The closing lap of the edge-of-the-seat is a clever plot-defining twist, perhaps too clever for its own good. For, what we get here is terrorism turned inside out, the anguish of extremism facing upside-down. It's an interesting but unacceptable end game, more suited to Quentin Tarantino when all the while we were looking at Pandey's film as belonging to Mahesh Bhatt's genre of cinema.

By the time Naseer's eruptive enthusiasm climaxes, the narration goes into the realm of the improbable, contriving to create an atmosphere of utter escapism in a film that you thought was stubbornly wedded to reality.

But that's where Pandey has been heading all along. His narrative hurtles towards a photo-finish where the newspaper headlines are swallowed up in a swamp of thriller-rituals that take the plot aback to create an aura of unstoppable suspense.

Sanjoy Chowdhury's background music over-punctuates every sequence. But then that's precisely what this out-of-the-box terrorist-thriller was looking for.

The humour, when it strikes, is like the bomb blasts. Sudden and unexpected, though a little on the grimmer side.

Veejay Gaurav Chopra as a shit-scared film star getting extortion calls is mousy enough to remind us that heroes don't come out of the movies. But heroic movies surely do come along once in a while from the movie industry. "A Wednesday" is certainly one of them.

Watch it to see how cleverly the director subverts the real-life headline-driven genre of cinema into a riveting race to the finish line.

Most of all it's the performances of the two principal actors that holds "A Wednesday" together. Moving away from his recent comic antics, Anupam delivers a controlled performance as a cop who has seen it all. He happily allows Naseer to take over many scenes giving his co-star some riveting reactive cues.

Naseer is back in full form after a rather embarrassing gap of cameo-commitments. Naseer in his element is an experience that needs no definition. He plays the jaded but spirited bomb-planting anonymous caller with a wry blunt and edgy sardonicism creating for his character a space that pitches his angst in the wide open loosely defined crowds of desolation in Mumbai.

"A Wednesday" is not quite the seamless little masterpiece on terrorism that you expected. It resorts to many wild swipes in the plot. Some characters like the dude-like computer hacker and the TV journalist, played by Deepal Shaw, give embarrassing single-note performance.

Watch Naseer and Anupam to know how a one-to-one drama works when two actors provide a psychological and emotional equilibrium from the two ends of the moral spectrum.

Hmm. I wonder if RK Laxman would approve. The legendary cartoonist's mild, submissive and quietly accepting Common Man finds a voice and a startling new avatar this week in Neeraj Pandey's debut feature A Wednesday. This 'Stupid Common Man' is superbly embodied and brought to life by Naseeruddin Shah- undoubtedly one of the finest actors this country has produced- and it's truly a casting masterstroke, as Shah's unnerving presence defines the soul of the film.

A Wednesday is about well, as the somewhat cheesy sounding title puts it- a Wednesday, but needless to say; this is no ordinary day of the week. The Mumbai Commissioner of Police, Prakash Rathod (Anupam Kher) receives a call from an unknown number, and the cold voice at the other end calmly informs him that he has planted a number of bombs throughout the city, and demands the release of four terrorists in return for disclosing the exact locations of these bombs.

A Wednesday is a no-frills thriller- tightly scripted and directed by Neeraj Pandey for the most part- and makes for a fairly impressive first for the filmmaker. Even though the film is often conveniently naïve and simplistic, and often resorts to some unnecessary loudness and repetitiveness, the film makes a strong statement- one that is rather politically incorrect, and even terrifying in its leaning towards anarchy- without being blatantly didactic.

So even while I find myself complaining and cribbing about the film's lack of significant depth, A Wednesday does make an eminently watchable film despite the fact that it neither has the emotional heft of Mumbai Meri Jaan or subtle sophistication and subtext of Aamir. It's short, riveting and mercifully never pretends to pause and think too much and is crisp and crunchy enough to make a good popcorn watch.

Much of this is thanks to the very competent cast including Anupam Kher (in pretty good, no-nonsense form), Jimmy Shergill and Aamir Bashir who give the film substance and credibility, something that Deepal Shaw's terribly annoying lip-glossed reporter act constantly threatens to take away.

The rest of the supporting cast is pure cardboard, but frankly- it hardly matters when Naseeruddin Shah's out there sitting on top of a desolate building, chewing the scenery with alarming nonchalance. It's clearly an author-backed role, and Shah is at his effortless best here in a lean, solid performance that is both chillingly convincing and filled with humor and unpredictability as he delivers a knockout punch.

It is probably on purpose that Shah's character is kept as a menacing shadow instead of being a full-fledged, flesh and blood character, but his performance actually made me wish that the film was about him and delved deeper into this potentially fascinating character. Because while it's none of my business to dictate the story a filmmaker chooses to tell, I can't help but get the niggling feeling that that could truly have made this A Very Memorable Wednesday.

Ad Film maker Kunal Shivdasani chose to make his directorial debut in a genre that is presently less seen in the Bollywood movies with senseless comedy flicks taking over the stage. Hijack, an action thriller directed by Kunal stars Shiney Ahuja, Esha Deol and Kaveri Jha in the lead. So does this fully fledged action film succeed in appealing to the masses?

Before we go any further, here's the story in brief:
Hijack is an action thriller that revolves around Vikram Madan (Shiney Ahuja), a ground maintenance officer at the Chandigarh airport. His social life is limited to one friend, Rajeev, who is the Security Chief of the same airport. As luck would have it, the flight in which Vikram's daughter was traveling to Amritsar from Delhi, is hijacked in demand of the release of Maqsood (KK Raina) a terrorists.

Vikram sneaks into the aircraft with the help of the airhostess, Saira (Esha Deol), to save his daughter Priya and others. He starts plotting and killing the terrorists one by one and in this attempt innocent passengers too become victims of the gunshots by ruthless terrorists in the process. How Vikram and Saira manage to save the plane and the passengers forms the story.

Kunal Shivdasani has the talent and the skill but needs to be a little coherent in his subjective decisions. Although the choice of genre is rare for a debutant director, the flaw in the writing lets him down. One man cracks the entire hijack plan and the hijackers remain unaware of their men missing, is something very unlikely and hard to accept. But to keep the verity (fact or reality) essence of the movie alive, the movie from time to time shows the hero's efficient and planned approach to the entire situation. Also just another potboiler kind of ending kills the fervor.

Superficially, Kunal succeeds as a story teller with an equal mix of reality and fancifulness. The first half of the movie is slightly slow paced and meanders unnecessarily around the plot with scenes and songs that are not required. But the pace quickens in the second half suiting the air of the genre. Music by Justin-Uday is average and a romantic song in an action thriller seems completely out of proportion. But the background score is topnotch. Allan Amin's stunts are first class.

Shiney Ahuja fits into the skin of the character easily and put across a wonderful performance. He is the soul of the movie and manages to carry the movie. But his look is inconsistent and completely messed up throughout the movie.

Esha Deol's role is restricted and doesn't require any acting talent. Supporting actors are good in their respective roles.

Overall, Hijack has a slow take off but a swift landing. It takes you on a decent ride and even manages to entertain in parts. The movie definitely is not up to international standards but good enough to appeal to the Indian audience.