Filmi Review

Rock On!! Director Farhan Akhtar and TV star Prachi Desai's acting debut is directed by Abhishek Kapoor. Quite frankly I expected nothing from Rock On!! As the director's last movie on boxing titled Aryan (Sohail Khan) was poor. A text message from a friend, who had been to the preview show, came as a pleasant surprise. His message read "Rock on is too good. Must watch!" and fortunately that's exactly what it turned out to be.

Rock On!! is about 4 extremely talented musicians; Aditya (Farhan Akhtar), Joe (Arjun Rampal), Rob (Luke Kenny) and K.D (Purab Kohli). The four friends come together to form a band named Magik and are soon on a look out for that big break. Their dream is to make Magik the biggest band the country has ever seen, but they don't make it and due to a misunderstanding they part. A decade later, they come together and continue from where they left off... Rock On!! is about relationships, dreams, failures, fate and life.

Rock On!! has a few similarities to Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai. A part of the story is similar; a group of friends part ways due to a misunderstanding only to come together years later when their lives have changed. But what works for Rock On!! is it's a simple story with a heart and it connects. A refreshing change from all the masala movies that have been dished out over the past few weeks.

Abhishek Kapoor after the disastrous Aryan, has surely worked hard on Rock On!! His execution of the script and attention to detail is perfect. The characters are real, you identify with them. Emotionally too the movie is strong, there are scenes that make you cry. There are a few hilarious scenes, watch the scene wherein the band group perform dandiya.

The music, so important to a movie like Rock On!! is brilliant. The songs are beautifully placed, a great example of how songs add to the overall experience of a movie. Shankar - Ehsaan - Loy, you guys rock!

Like even the best of movies, Rock On!! is not without flaws. The pace is slow and to a certain extent the second half is predictable.

But the performances more than make up for it. Farhan Akhtar proves to be an extremely talented actor. A great debut. Ditto for Prachi Desai. It should be Arjun Rampal's best performance ever, just cant recollect any of his other note worthy performances. He's good throughout, surprisingly great in those emotional scenes. Luke Kenny and Shahana Goswami are good. Purab Kohli is fine.

Rock On!! is a movie that no one should miss!

I confess I am not a rock music aficionado. And I guess I am too young and with too little experience to completely identify with the theme of dreams and aspirations crushed by the cruelty of fate and life. I am perhaps still building my dreams, and maybe that's why I didn't respond as emotionally to Rock On as many others have.

For Rock On is really not so much about music, as it is about following your passion and living your dreams. It is about the regret, disappointment and frustration that inevitably haunt a life fueled by compromise, but as rocker-turned-investment-banker Aditya Shroff (Farhan Akhtar) says in the film- 'Compromise kaun nahi karta?'

The first half of Rock On is too glum for its own good, and having established Aditya and Co. as tortured, unhappy souls, one wishes that the screenplay writers Abhishek Kapoor and Pubali Choudhary spent more time and energy establishing the friendship and camaraderie among the band, and their past journey till when they fall apart. The fun, madness and humour are almost completely missing, and that's where Rock On fails to do a Dil Chahta Hai.

The male bonding just doesn't come across strongly enough, and the film turns soggy, even boring- I mean come on, the rock band in this movie is so unbelievably scrubbed clean, it is not funny- and in that context it is only perhaps fitting that they sing songs with embarrassingly nursery rhyme lyrics that go- 'Aasmaan hai neela kyon, Paani geela geela kyon, Gol kyon hai zameen' and have a name like Magik.

So while there are two instances of some cool great tongue-in-cheek humour- including that hilarious scene where the band is forced to do a dandiya gig to raise money, and another one that takes a dig at the corny and poisonous-sounding lyrics that feature in songs by young rock bands- the film struggles to find its feet and rhythm, uncomfortably shuttling between past and present.

That said, the second half, while equally predictable works way better than the first, and it's really a pity because provided a more solid foundation earlier, it could have worked wonders. The feeling of reminiscence and nostalgia doesn't quite reach our nostrils in the latter part of the film simply because the film doesn't give us enough to reminisce about in the former. Still, some clichés (and-spoiler alert- an unforgivably soppy and unnecessary brain tumour angle) apart, the nicely understated humour, emotional moments and most importantly, the performances keep you hooked on till the neatly drawn and fairly rousing end.

Farhan Akhtar may not exactly be a great singer (and while he doesn't sound awful, I do hope he restricts any future singing to the shower), he impresses with a confident and mature debut performance. Prachi Desai also scores in her big-screen debut, and she is delicate and vulnerable without turning into saccharine. Arjun Rampal (looking every inch a rock star) and Luke Kenny are nicely restrained, while Purab Kohli is his usual endearing and affable self, adding that dose of cheer when the film needs it the most. But the standout here is clearly Shahana Goswami, who despite having a brief role manages to more than make her presence felt, every glance of hers effectively portraying the pain and angst of a woman who sacrifices her own dreams for her family's sake, forced to be harshly pragmatic, take charge and wear the pants in the house as her husband (Rampal) struggles with his failed idealism.

Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music while decent could have been way better, and the love ballads work way better than the other tracks which lack that quality to lift us off our feet. What really deserves applause is Jason West's superb photography that is as stylish and textured as it is beautifully evocative.

Rock On is a lovely, almost fable-like story that uses music as a metaphor for life and all we hold dear in it, and would probably be loved by many viewers for various personal reasons- and I can completely understand why- because when a film's story touches that chord deep within, the heart takes over the head and the film transcends its cinematic artifice.

For someone like me, however- Rock On is, after all, another movie and there is no denying that the cinematic potential contained within the story is far from exploited to its fullest. Rock On takes way too long to take off, and when it finally does, the sheer adrenalin rush we deserved from this film is missing, and hence, while Abhishek Kapoor's second film is a laudable effort which often surprises you with its subtle layering, it does fall short, and that makes me feel sad- for this could truly have been Magik.

Balaji Motion Pictures the producers of C Kkompany promise to entertain with the comedy featuring Tusshar Kapoor, Raima Sen, Anupam Kher, Rajpal Yadav and Mithun Chakraborty. Sanjay Dutt has a small role; Celina Jaitley has an item number. There are also a host of television actors in special appearances.

Akshay Kumar (Tusshar Kapoor) is a crime reporter, Ramakanth Joshi (Anupam Kher) is a retired accountant trying to deal with his ungrateful son and Lambodar (Rajpal Yadav) are friends. These three share their respective plight with one another and find solace in each other's company. On one occasion, they play a harmless prank to tackle their problems. One thing leads to another, and before they realize, the incident becomes news.

But things don't stop there. They put their new founded fame to good use, and this in turn triggers off a series of incidents, which propel them to such heights that the three become the talk of the nation. Things get beyond their control, and the three are left with no choice but to be mute spectators to their newly acquired fame, especially since no one knows their identity.

Was Ekta Kapoor trying to promote her television soaps through C Kkompany? Quite a few renowned television actors from her serials make an appearance. The movie takes several digs at her K serials and what's more Ekta Kapoor herself makes an appearance. We have an underworld don (Mithunda) who gets all emotional and sheds a bucket of tears while watching Ekta's tele-soaps.

There are spoofs on almost everything. Amitabh Bachchan and his Kaun Banega Crorepati, under world, Karan Johar, Talk shows... the list is endless. Unfortunately though, nothing is funny or entertaining. The dialogues are some of the worst I have heard in recent times. The lesser said about the music, the better.

The only positive about C Kkompany is the performances by a few actors and no prizes for guessing who. Anupam Kher, Rajpal Yadav and Mithuna stand out but you can't expect them to rise above the below average script. Tusshar Kapoor is poor, as expected. His mannerisms just don't work anymore. It's really high time he quits acting and gets into production.

Raima Sen is wasted. Although she looks beautiful and those super expressive eyes are enough to make you fall in love with her.

To sum up, C Kkompany is poor in every department; except for decent performances by the veterans, NOTHING is worth a mention.

The biggest strength of this gritty espionage thriller is also its primary weakness. So real and bleak is the world of espionage created by writer-director Mani Shankar, that you wonder if the sheer sexiness of being a spy that we saw Dharmendra and Tom Cruise experience in "Aankhen" and "Mission Impossible" was a cinematic hoax created to hoodwink us into believing in the heroic hi-jinks of people who risk their lives for the sake of national security.

"Mukhbiir" creates a universe of continual searching and annihilation, where heroes are made and unmade with the passage of one bullet from gun to temple, and god help the temple.

The young protagonist Kailash (Sammir Dattani) is young, vulnerable and so brutally thrown from one ruthless organisation to another (legitimate or otherwise) that at the end of his anguished journey in search of a self-identity, we want him to be liberated of the pain that seems to be his only constant companion.

The characters come and go in episodic eruptions. Silence is Kailash's final ally.

What "Mukhbiir" does to the spy genre is to turn it inside out. We aren't looking at James Bond's stirred-and-sexy world of the spy who loved the good life.

"Mukhbiir" takes us into the murkiest depths of the espionage business where survival isn't a craving. It's a fugitive option offered to a few lucky ones.

Luckily, for the gripping and gritty script, the protagonist is a boy-man constantly thrown into situations of severe uncertainty and terror. The tension never slackens.

The reluctant young spy survives by sheer instinct and guts. The screen time is segregated into various episodes from Kailash's life as a government informer in action.

The shoot-outs, somewhat amateurish in their chaotic eruptions, do not define the protagonist's life as much the human contact.

Every encounter written for Sammir's character creates a new level of existential summit in his doomed life until we come to the finale where on Kailash's life (and death) hinges the survival of a city.

The director fills up the awkward ill-defined spaces in the narrative with pockets of humour and bridled drama all signifying the dynamics of an individual life's relationship with a troubled and violent society.

The final dialogue on Islam and violence between Rahul Dev lingers after the film.

Mani Shankar's storytelling is highly original. There're no false moments in the discursive yet clenched drama of dissociation where Kailash becomes so distanced from his original identity that he eventually forgets who he is.

The powerful script lets us know there is no mercy for the weak in this grim and unsettled world of espionage and extremism. The two fatally-compatible worlds meet in strange eerie places where Kailash's masquerade as a man removed from his natural roots is so complete you wonder if he can ever go back to a 'normal' life.

Immense warmth and empathy are created in Kailash's interactions with people like his mentor Om Puri who first tutors Kailash into being a mean machine and then lets the poor boy loose in a world where death is the only certainty.

Alok Nath, Suniel Shetty, Raj Zutshi and Sushant Singh play various other characters, who come in and out of Kailash's life, with wonderful warmth or wickedness.

There's also a bit of diverting romance in Kailash's life when the pretty Raima Sen shows up for a while and departs, leaving the desolate protagonist to his own devices.

But it's the mentor-turned-tormentor Om Puri's relationship with the boy-man-misinformed-informer that holds the plot together providing it with a sensitive centre.

The sequence where the Mukhbiir must watch his mentor being tortured and then kill him with his own hands without giving the game away is devastating in its intensity and impact.

Mani Shankar's narration provides the hero's journey from disembodied salvation to abject doom and near-damnation with an energetic reined-in adrenaline that flows across the narrative's veins in restrained motions.

What you go away with is the protagonist's pain heartbreak vulnerability and an untraceable reserve of inner strength that he uses to survive in a constantly treacherous world.

The doom and the doomed eventually merge into one in "Mukhbiir".

Cast: Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Prachi Desai
Direction: Abhishek Kapoor



Come, go off your rockers. Vibe to the Zeppelinish scene, ignite a purple haze, bang a thousand tin cans, heaven’s knocking at your door. Here’s a ‘today’ movie with slay-the-guitar riffs. And band member tiffs.

The cool news is that the Abhishek Kapoor-directed Rock On!! (did a numerologist insist on the two exclamation marks?) is hard candy. You love it, especially in the pre-intermission segment. And the uncool news is that you do have some massive reservations. It’s the performances are of the highest order. Farhan Akhtar doesn’t exactly have a range of expressions to display but is more than competent and convincing. Arjun Rampal gives his angst and ecstasy a lifelike edge. Way to go! Ditto Purab Kohli who has a sprightly screen presence. Luke Kenny, for his first time out, is remarkably in sync with his character.
about as much pure rock as a woolen sock.

Imagine a rock band which doesn’t even know about drugs, doesn’t touch a cigarette and generally behaves like aunties at a high tea party with cucumber munchies. Really, for rock music, the group Magic is so squeaky clean that it’s CUTIE POOH.

And innagadda-da-vida can you call the Ehsaan-Shankar-Loy music ‘rock’? Only by pumping up the volume madly or comparing it to a wedding band’s. And the lyrics, man! Javed Akhtar, also glimpsed in a photo-frame, writes about Sinbad the sailor, laundry bills..taash se heart ka king….chandni ka ring.. na na na na. Na na is right.

Now, if you don’t mind a simplistic script, incredible tragedy (brain tumour strikes) and thousands of resemblances to Dil Chahta Hai , then you’ll be fine. Because at the end of the show, you’re rocked, shaken and stirred. Also, there are nostalgia-oozing references, say to the vintage hit I will survive. And there’s that stray Bob Dylan album cover and vignettes of group bonding, reminding you of the music and friends that were.

Here boys meet boys, form Magic a glitter pop-ish band, win a V-channel contest, are asked to make compromises, squabble and go their separate ways. Lead vocalist Adi (Farhan Akhtar) becomes a buttoned-up executive and ignores his sweet halwa wife (Prachi Desai, appealing). Lead guitarist Joe (Arjun Rampal) becomes bitter, just hangs around and is constantly berated by his wife (Shahana Goswami, excellent). Drummer K D (Purab Kohli) sleepwalks at his father’s designer store, and keyboardist Rob (Luke Kenny) composes jingles for Anu Malik. Oh, oh.

Ten years later, despite differences, the Magic friends kiss, hug, make up and head for that V-channel contest once again (presumably, V’s make-compromises policy has altered). Suffice it to say, the last concert is terrific, marvellously photographed by Jason West and performed with livewire zeal by all the four Magic members. The styling, the locations and editing are all upbeat.

In fact, the performances are of the highest order. Farhan Akhtar doesn’t exactly have a range of expressions to display but is more than competent and convincing. Arjun Rampal gives his angst and ecstasy a lifelike edge. Way to go! Ditto Purab Kohli who has a sprightly screen presence. Luke Kenny, for his first time out, is remarkably in sync with his character.

Yeah, so Rock on..four exclamation points.

Cast: Bobby Deol, Priyanka Chopra
Direction: Kabeer Kaushik



He’s sullen, an eyebrow is permanently arched and the lips are tightly-shuttered. A man of few words and moods, Chaman aka Chamku (Bobby Deol) has been programmed to kill. To be fair, director Kaushik orchestrates several action scenes with chutzpah, along with Tinu Varma. A slug-out on a train, for instance, pushes you to the edge of the seat.

Director Kabeer Kaushik, who earlier helmed the gutsy Sehar, is not a smooth storyteller this time. Picking elements from Zanjeer (child watches family murdered) and the French jawbreaker La Femme Nikita, he strives to tell you about a kid who grows into an adult, programmed by the government, to kill. So far, so bang-bang.

Trouble bubbles at a shopping mall when Chamku finally sees the thakur (Snake Eyes) who had exterminated his family. Flashback, flashback, flashback. Too many, and also there’s an excessive use of fade-outs, which slacken the pace.

The romance between our male Nikita and Priyanka Chopra is strictly sing-song-sang. The project could have been a gutsy, feel-angry actioner like Ghayal. En route, Kaushik lost himself in the back alleys of the screenplay and couldn’t find his way out. Surely Bobby Deol and Priyanka Chopra could have done with better-written roles and some chamak in this Chamku.

Cast: Tusshar Kapoor, Raima Sen, Balaji Telefilms Signboard
Direction: Sachin Yardi



Hello, this must be the first of its genre in the world – an entire movie devoted to making fun of its flagship concern, Balaji Telefilms.

So KMithun KChakraborty, shows up behaving like Don Muthuswamy, who’s nuts about the K-serials. Saas-boo-hoo, he goes, and flirts with Sakshi Tanwar whose latest role is as a plastic surgery bandage.

Anyway, Don’s reign is threatened when three dumbos (Tusshar-Anupam Kher-Rajpal Yadav) become the town’s new extortionists. How that happened would require a University College course in Lunacy.

Anyway, you see Karan Johar, Ekta Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Raima Sen and Celina Jaitly running in and out of the movie. Chances are that you’ll be doing just that. Or you could just watch the ceiling lights on the multiplex Kceiling.

Cast: Sameer Dattani, Om Puri
Direction: Mani Shankar



Eerily, the subject is similar to Chamku. A hapless kid is transformed by the Establishment into a killer-cum-informer. Alas and alack, in director Mani Shankar’s script, there’re so much gloom that you feel even your life’s under doom machale doom.

Neither the visuals nor any department of technique elevate Mukhbiir beyond the commonplace. Characters mushroom and then become instant soup, like Suniel Shetty who’s hit by more bullets than yesteryear’s Coolie. Om Puri shows up in one of those bizarre roles (he even pretends to be a street beggar) which he isn’t likely to highlight in his bio-data.

The last 10 minutes are directed with a certain amount of passion. But that’s it. In other words, you can walk in very, very late into Mukhbore if you must. Incidentally, Sameer Dattani is quite efficient and vulnerable. Surprises never cease.

REVIEW


It may be cos I had watched Bruce Almighty, I found God Tussi Great Ho amazingly boring & bad attempt of cloning the same. Just mix Indianised copy of Bruce Almighty + Overacting of Khan Brothers + Mistimed Songs and you got God Tussi Great Ho. Forget Salman matching Jim Carrey even Big B didn't matched Morgan Freeman's performance The whole movies is just crap and sheer wastage of time and money The worst thing is that theres no skin show, no kiss from priyanka




RATINGS

If I give Bruce Almighty I'll give God Tussi Great Ho


VERDICT

Don't bother to download 700MB for it

Director Rumy Jafry's directorial debut pretends to say something deep and indelible, but ends up being as profound as a bowl of soggy noodles staring at you for edible nirvana.

Arguably one of the most botched-up comedies in recent times, "God Tussi Great Ho" takes us into territory that the Khan brothers - Salman and Soahil - have been together in David Dhawan's "Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya".

The cartoon-like cat-and-mouse game between Salman and Sohail to get the perky Priyanka Chopra's attention is completely devoid of zing despite the familiar ring. Though admittedly Sohail, who's rapidly emerged as one of our most delightful comic actors with films like "Salaam-E-Ishq", "Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya" and now this where he gives big brother a run for his money, takes the lead.

The in-house channel war between the two Khans is reminiscent of Shah Rukh Khan-Juhi Chawla's comic competitiveness in Aziz Mirza's hugely underrated "Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani". In fact, Sohail is wickedly inventive in a plot that pulls the characters down with each creaking push of the writer's pathetic pen.

Who wrote this garbage? You wonder. And why must Amitabh Bachchan be subjected to this sort of tripe trip at this juncture of his career?

After Rishi Kapoor in Kunal Kohli's "Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic", it's the Big B's turn to play god on a set that has a cascading waterfall, cotton-candy clouds and Salman suitably dressed in a formal suit.

What's missing is the fizz in this askew cocktail. As a writer Rumy Jafry is on shockingly shaky grounds. Just like Salman's Volkswagon, which changes colours from drab pink to bright red in the second-half when Salman gets godly powers from the 'real' god.

Never mind. Because Priyanka's nose-ring changes from left nostril to right.

That's about all that the narrative gets right in the trite second-half.

The second half of the film is so crummy and scattered that you wonder what happened to the director. Was he on leave while god ghost-directed the second-half?

Appalling in structure and abysmal in content, "God, Tussi Great Ho" is somewhat bearable for Sohail's comic aptitudes. And yes, Priyanka is easy on the eyes.

Wish our directors would know where to stop before comedy becomes a travesty.