Aap Ki Khatir

Aap ki Khatir
Cast: Akshay Khanna, Priyanka Chopra, Suniel Shetty, Amisha Patel, Anupam Kher, Dino Morea
Director: Dharmesh Darshan
Music: Excellent foot tapping numbers by Himesh Reshammiya
Comedy: Sometimes bearable mostly unbearable. Anupam Kher’s role does bring a smile though
Action: None

Releasing a movie at the right time is fast becoming a real strategic decision similar to the decision that a Formula One team needs to make regarding a pit stop. Aap ki Khatir should see a decent opening thanks to being one of the very few movies to release this week and only big multi starrer.

The movie however is not that great. There is nothing much to write home about the movie except for Anupam Kher’s role which brings in a little bit of comic relief. The movie starts off with an attempt to recreate the chemistry that Saif and Rani shared in Hum Tum during their flight between Priyanka Chopra and Akshaye Khanna. The attempt is a total failure and puts the viewer to a lot of pain in the first 45 minutes. Add to this a very poorly sketched role for Sunil Shetty and even worse dialogues and the first hour of the movie makes you regret walking into the theatre.

The solace is that the first hour is so bad that the rest of the movie looks much better icomparisonon and helps you leave the film hall in a decent mood. The storyline is nothing great. Akshaye Khanna and Priyanka Chopra are colleagues and the former doubles up as a male escort as well. Priyanka hires him to take him to London with a view to make her ex boy friend (Dino Morea) who deserted her at the marriage altar jealous. The catch here is that the reason for him deserting her involves her step sister Amisha Patel, whose wedding with Suniel Shetty Priyanka and Akshaye are attending. Interesting plot isn't it.The movie also has Amisha Patel and a Kaun Kiska cousin trying to doBritishish accent which only adds to the pain of the viewer.

The best thing about the movie is the foot tapping music belted out by Himesh Reshammiya. All the songs are real good and are sure to be chart toppers. Watch the movie only if you have nothing to do at all. You are better off waiting for it to be aired on TV.

and SO it begins

Ive borrowed the title from a friend of mine who happens to be going through the same training stint as me. My corporate journey has begun…armed with a piece of hard paper that says that ive been conferred a degree from what is probably one of the best B-Schools in India ive set out to do almost every B-School grad does…make money.

We’ve been carted off to disparate locations across the country for what is called a Sales Officer (SO) stint. So from the cosy environs of the head office we have all headed off to places far and wide in the country including Bhilai, Ujjain, Patna, Rohtak, Lucknow (thats where I am)…to name a few.Im still not sure of where im going to stay initially in Lucknow. I knew I was supposed to be prepared for ambiguity but then… The thing is at my firm the Hr/Admin people (if available at a location) are supposed to handle such logistics regarding stay. However, the HR contact in Lucknow has been very happy to pass on the entire task to my already over burdened Sales Manager who after this last minute directive is frantically trying to find a decent accommodation for me which would also come at a price that i am entitled to…all this amidst handling one of the biggest and fastest growing mobile phone markets in the country.

A friend of mine arranged for his friend to go through the trouble of recieveing me and dropping me at the hotel. “”Misra told me you are not good at Hindi”, he says…as a reaction to which I start conversing only in Hindi to display my speaking skills of what is the national language. All ambiguities of initial stay done…I decide to take things in my own hands and go about searching for accommodation on the very first day of work and get lucky in landing a furnished annexe at a walking distance from my office.

Im all set now I think and head off into the city of nawabs in the weekend to try and explore the various places and happening place (if any) over here. The best things for me about Lucknow are the multiplexes it has. Atleast I’m much better off than a lot of my counterparts in this regard. I have some place to go and pass the time over the weekends. Food and local transport is pretty convenient here as well. Now for those who have stayed south of Madhya Pradesh all their life and despite having traveled extensively across India I would like to mention a few things about Uttar Pradesh (much of this is common to Bihar as well, only in much worse magnitude). Almost every third house in Lucknow and second family in U.P will have a set of rifles/revolvers/arms and ammunition/weapons call it what you may. Living up to the image of U.P in Omkara and movies of the past which featured dacoits on horses with rilfes on their backs, you would find lots of Motor cycles with the pillion riders brandishing a rifle or two. “Lucknow is a nice place. Just don’t get into any uneceessary squabbles and look the other way and you will be fine” is what my soft spoken Manager had to say to me. My mother has been worried about the Manjunath (May his soul rest in peace) incident repeating with me given my hot blooded nature. But then seeing the sheer volume of rifles here I think better sense would easily prevail over me (frankly, this country aint worth dying for).

Ahista Ahista

Cast: Abhay Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Shayan Munshi
Director: Shivam Nair
Music: Himesh Reshammiya (one would have been surprised if it was somebody else) nothing great.
Action: None
Comedy: Painful attempt at giving comic relief now and then

Its been a while since ive seen a movie which made me repent spending money and time and effort on watching it...Ahista Ahista finally ends that trend. The sole point of my review is to provide a warning to all those contemplating watching this movie...STAY AWAY!! You are much better off whiling away your time watching the pointless news being flashed in the zillion desi news channels we have.

Abhay Deol, of Dharmendra’s nephew fame (though he would like to be known as “of Socha Na Tha’ Fame) stars in a most horridly slow paced pointless movie which has Soha Ali Khan as the romantic lead. The marketing team of the movie has got it right by carefully keeping Shayan Munshi (of “I know who killed Jessica Lal… but I don’t tell” fame) off the promos and airing shows talking about the great chemistry that Abhay and Soha share to try and orient the viewers towards a conclusion regarding the climax of the movie.

Unfortunately everything about the movie is woefully wrong and the climax just makes things even worse with its abrupt and poorly written plot. The movie lives upto one thing though…its name. The story moves on so slowly remindful of serials on Dorrdarshan. The performances of the actors also are nothing to write home about. Abhay Deol just can’t seem to deliver dialogues right and would do well to have someone with a different voice dub for him. Soha tries her hand at acting but her role is more so limited to weeping carefully so that the kajal in her eyes doesn’t spoil the make up and otherwise look pretty. Shayan Munshi (who???) does a good job of being himself…looking dead and pale and just running around displaying an extreme sense of urgency and desperation.

Trust Himesh Reshammiya to have an extremely high pitched number for the title song as well. The title Ahista Ahista (Slowly Slowy) is howled out in a song contrary to the pace of the movie. The most irritating role in the movie is that of Moti (an elderly lady who is Abhay’s friends mom) who figures in a set of totally rubbish so called comical scenes.

If one would still want to watch this movie even if it is aired on TV then God Save him!

Himesh's source of Inspiration...

There is a deafening high pitched nasal sound based cry, the dark setting is now slowly being replaced by a faint light…the camera zooms into an old worn out Baseball Cap, the cries become louder and the Cap slowly begins to rise. With growing intensity of the nasal shrieks, the cap rises higher and it reveals a chubby, bearded guy closing his eyes with an expression akin to that when one whines in pain, The camera zooms out and we are presented with a flabby unshaven entity who is still crying out loud hysterically into a microphone kept at a hair’s breadth from his nostrils, the entity wears a jacket over his attire to cover the excess flab…the camera zooms out further…and there he stands..Himesh Reshammiya!
Himesh has suddenly emerged as the trump card for many a producer wanting to rake in good money through music sales. The number of critics and detractors that he has might just equal the number of fans he has for his music. If somebody were to do a research on the most viewed personality on TV he would easily win the race hands down far outnumbering even politicians and film actors much more famous than him.
Himesh Reshammiya seems to have perfected the art of giving great foot tapping numbers in every movie’s sound track. In addition to this, his penchant to load the soundtrack with remixes of the songs as well gives a lot of dance numbers and additional revenues as well. Although his critics may go hoarse ranting about his high pitched nasal tone and loud music, they will not be able to deny that Himesh Reshammiya SELLS and probably SELLS better than any other music director in the industry today.
I have absolutely no issues with his brand of music, Infact I listen to his numbers a lot and am a fan of his music as well. There is however one major problem and a real painful one at that - Himesh’s urge to feature in the videos of his songs and if that was not bad enough... even worse is his attempt to actually try and act in those videos! There will hardly be a gap on 15-20 minutes that you would find in most TV channels wherein either Himesh Reshammiya himself or his name, do not feature on screen.
The other day when, as is the case while channel surfing, I happened to chance upon yet another Himesh Reshammiya video and noticed his expressions and style of singing. I started thinking why does Himesh Sell? Where does he get the creative inspiration or ideas from? A few more music videos of Himesh were viewed and many songs of his heard...and then it struck me…I found the answer…Himesh Reshammiya is what we would generally call a bathroom singer…but he uses his bathroom and the time he spends there to come up with innovative tunes and expressions for his videos. Take for e.g. the Jhalak Dikhlaja song…it starts of with a UMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAH and Himesh in the video totally focused on relieving himself of some heavy matter in his body/mind, he slowly raises his crouched face and as he comes to the AAAH part of his song you can see the relief on his face, and after that the master stroke..”Ek baar aaja aaja aaja aaja…” this song had to be crooned when Himesh was busy with his morning rituals, if you know what I mean. And if you were to actually look at lot more songs of his...they would all have this common thread in them. Also Himesh is probably the easiest Music Director for a lyricist...all the lyricist has to do is give him a couple of words or at max one stanza and Himesh will weave his magic and come up with a 4 minute song plus 3 remix versions as well. Lets take a few songs of his…Naam hain tera tera is repeated a zillion times in the song, just give Himesh the words Ishq Kiya and he will repeat them 25 times in his song…on the same line you have the famous Jhalak Dihklaja, Tera Suroor to name a few…
Of late there has been a new dimension to Himesh’s songs…his extensive use of English sentences in the songs…some of them being “I’ll love you unconditionally… Soniye”;”I love you Oh Sayonee Whats up? “ ;”I’ll love you till I die” and so on…Lets just see how long and to what extent would he carry on this trend as well…
There you have it…Himesh’s sources of inspiration and creative inputs...the good old bathroom!

Darwaaza Bandh Rakho

Cast: Aftaab Shivdasani, Chunkey Pandey, Zakhir Hussain, Snehal Dabhi, Isha Sharvani, Gulshan Grover, Kota Srinivas Rao and many more…
Action: Has a few fight sequences but then the film promos call it and edge of the seat comedy so don’t expect too much on action front.
Music: Now that I recollect, there are no songs in the movie
Comedy: Out and out comedy film but quality of humor not that great
Tragedy: Zilch

J.D Chekravarthy (another name change...Formerly J.D Chakravarthy) of Satya fame comes up with a well woven plot and has picked up good actors for the different roles. The story and incidents about how things keep going bad for a motley gang of four when they kidnap a millionaire builder Raheja’s daughter and choose a bankrupt gujju'stock broker's house is entertaining. The comical thread is very good and some of the jokes and dialogues are sure to have the audience in splits.
The problem with the movie is that though the train of incidents, the jokes and the performances are pretty good nothing stands out as exceptional. Telugu audience would find Kota Srinivas Rao’s performance hilarious. On a different note, the door bell does stand out in the movie as it is heard in alternation with every dialogue throughout in the movie.
The sequence in which the number of hostages held captive by the gang to avoid the kidnapping from coming to light is one of the attractions of the movie. Chakry does not go overboard with the comical element and there is nothing that would classify as slapstick but if compared with the recently released Golmaal then the movie does look a bit pale.
What lets the movie down is the hype in the initial promos of it being an “Edge of the seat” comedy. There is good comedy in the film but not really an edge of the seat laugh riot.
The good thing is that the movie is short so is light on your mental bandwidth and does serve the purpose of giving you a relived and fresh mind once you are done watching it.

Anthony Kaun Hain?

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Minisha Lamba, Anusha Dandekar
Action: Very Little action, a few gunshots and couple of punches
Music: Good foot tapping numbers with the usual Himesh Reshamiyya zing
Comedy: Bearable and decent amount of humor
Tragedy: None in the end, it has a few sad set of events though
Attractions: Anusha Dandekar’s skin show, Himesh Reshammiya's music and a Red Ferrari.

Anthony Kaun Hain? Doesn’t quite live up to the expectations associated with a Sanjay Dutt-Arshad Warsi starrer. For starters, he movie revolves completely around Champ (Champak Chowdhry), played by Arshad Warsi with Sanjay Dutt having a supporting role to play. The comical standards set by Arshad in his recent movies such as Golmaal and that set by the duo in Munnabhai are found missing in AKH?.
Raj Kaushal has made decent strides from his earlier attempts at film making. He also ensures that he makes the viewer aware of him being the director by casting wife Mandira Bedi in a totally pointless, out of context, 10 second-5 word dialogue cameo. Her appearance is utterly pointless that it leaves you thinking why on earth she comes and then the connection strikes!
The screenplay by Soumik Sen wherein he carefully merges the flashback and background story and connecting the same to the present events is pretty good. Although there is comical relief in the movie it is not really funny enough. Minisha (name changed from Minisha) Lamba plays the romantic lead opposite Warsi but there is only so much that the script offers and hence has a minor role.
The key point of the movie is Arshad Warsi around whose performance and character the whole story revolves. Arshad Warsi after this year’s successes can finally say that he has arrived and the transition he has made from his first role in ACL’s debut venture Tere Mere Sapne to being a well acclaimed commercial actor is commendable. However there seems to be a stereotypical element in his characters of late and he would do good if he were to look for the superb roles such as those is Seher and Waisa Bhi Hota Hain – II.
Overall the viewers can afford to stay away from the film and wait for it to be broadcast on one of the TV Channels. Ardent Sanjay Dutt fans may want to hit the theatres but then all they can do is look forward to September 1st when Lagey Raho Munnabhai releases.

Golmaal-Fun Unlimited

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Tusshar Kapoor, Sharman Joshi, Rimi Sen, Paresh Rawal
Action: Decent bit of fights although they are all laced with humor
Music: Decent
Comedy: Outstanding, a movie which promises laughs all the way through right on till the end.
Tragedy: NONE WHATSOEVER!! This is an out and out fun movie

Rohit Shetty’s remake of a Telugu movie is a clear cut winner. It is sure to have the viewers laughing out wild all through the movie. Golmaal is a fun filled hilarious movie. Arshad Warsi stands out with a superb performance. TussharKapoor'ss portrayal of a dumb person is also worth mentioning. The plot is about 4 misguided youth who indulge in some or the other nefarious activity to live their lives. They end up living in the house of an elderly blind couple pretending to be their grand son. The movie with its dialogues and hilarious antics kept the entire audience in splits.
The movie is a must watch especially after a tiring week as it helps you have a great hearty laugh and feel relieved.

Omkara

Cast: Ajay Devgan, Saif, Viveik Oberoi, Konkana Sen, Kareena Kapoor, Naseerudin Shah, Bipasha
Action: Good amount of action and tends to be violent at times
Music: No jing bang dance numbers but very good background score complementing the plot
Comedy: Good humor and excellent delivery of sarcastic dialogues
Tragedy: People who have read Othello would know better. Let me put it this way, it is not exactly a happy ending.

Vishal Bharadwaj’s adaptation of Othello with a very powerful cast and strong script despite indianizing the plot is a must watch. The movie is set in Uttar Pradesh with elements of the rifle raj, student politics and caste based politics mixed very well to throw up a good engrossing but predictable storyline. The story is about the henchman of a strong politician and other powerful members of his gang involved in a struggle for power. The story is based on the age old concept of a disgruntled member of a gang spewing venom and bringing about a rift in the gang. The pawn used in this battle for power is Dolly (Kareena) who is Omkara’s (Ajay Devgan) fiancé.
Vishal Bharadwaj has got a lot of things right but most commendable would be the cast. Saif Ali Khans portrayal of Langda Tyagi is outstanding and his performance is certainly one that will be talked about a lot. Konkana Sen’s performance also deserves a lot of credit. Her portrayal of a bubbly housewife with a mature head is very good.
The essence of the movie and its plot lie more in the dialogues and the dialogue delivery as well. Every character in the movie is powerful not just because of a strong portrayal by the actor but mainly because of the dialogues. The music and rural U.P setting add to the charm. Naseeruddin Shah plays the strong politician and does not disappoint the viewers with his performance.
The movie is a must watch for Saif Ali Khan fans. Ajay Devgan takes a back set to the more critical and better enacted role of Langda Tyagi. Viviek Oberoi is just lucky that he figures in the movie. He has nothing much to do in the film except for driving around in an Enfield Bullet flashing a smile and looking macho.
The surprise package of movie for me was Kareena Kapoor. Kareena's performance in the movie is really good; for once Kareena actually has the look of a good actress and is great with the portrayal of emotions.

The movie has a rather generous dose of abusive language which have passed the censor board's scissors but that’s what makes the movie much more realistic and effective.