Thu 15 Mar 2007
Red - The Dark Side
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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Red - The Dark Side
Movie Reviews
Archived Posts from this Category
Wed 7 Mar 2007
The Namesake review
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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Around 3 years back, there was a flurry of crossover films hitting Indian theatres at an alarming pace. The bubble burst soon after and films belonging to this genre were no more in vogue. The biggest thud was witnessed last year when even an Aishwarya Rai failed to pull off audiences for ‘The Mistress Of Spices’ both in Indian and foreign shores.The year 2007 could begin on a brighter note as ace director Mira Nair brings home ‘The Namesake.’
Based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, the film’s screen adaptation has been penned by Sooni Taraporevala, with whom Nair previously collaborated for MISSISSIPPI MASALA and the Oscar-nominated SALAAM BOMBAY.
‘The Namesake’ is about the Gangulis - Ashok [Irrfan Khan] and Ashima [Tabu]. Based out of Kolkata and being married to each other recently, they migrate to US to live a new life together. For them, US is the ultimate destination that would make them realize their dreams of a better existence and would provide them with all that they ever wanted. They reach New York and life was never meant to be same for them again.
For the two of them, it was an interesting phase in their lives since while on one hand they both were hardly known to each other before marriage, on the other they were also facing a new world altogether. Soon, their life takes a turn as a son is born to Ashima. They name him Gogol, based on a famous Russian author, and it serves as something that provides a link to a secret past.
Years fly by and Gogol [Kal Penn] finds himself to be a teenager at crossroads. On one end he has his Bengali roots while on the other are his American surroundings. He starts making desperate attempts in search of his identity and in the meanwhile, rejects the name given to him, starts dating a rich American girl [Jacinda Barrett], and moves on to Yale to study architecture.
All this while, Ashok and Ashima stick to their Bengali roots without being too hassled about the environment around them. Also, they and Gogol keep finding their paths being crossed which leads to numerous comical and revelatory consequences…
Where would Gogol’s life be headed from here? Would he be able to see the links between the world his parents left behind and the new world that lies in front of him?
In short, ‘The Namesake’ spans two generations, two clashing cultures and two very different ways of life that crash into each other only to become lovingly intertwined. And the ultimate question that the film asks is: “What does it mean to be an American family?”
Also starring Zuleikha Robinson, Glenne Headley and Brooke Smith, ‘The Namesake’ is produced by Lydia Dean Pilcher and Mira Nair and has been shown in number of film festivals including Toronto Film Festival and Tellurid Film Festival.
Wed 7 Mar 2007
Water - Reviews
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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Director
Deepa Mehta
Producer
Deepa Mehta
Music
AR Rahman
Cast
John Abraham, Lisa Ray, Seema Biswas
What do you say about a film that hits you hard where it hurts the most , so hard that it takes your breath away. Water belongs to that rare category of films that have the power to re-define the parameters of cinema, to re-align the function and purpose of the medium, and to re-structure the way we, the audience look at the motion -picture experience.
It’s no coincidence that Deepa Mehta’s heroine is named Kalyani . Lisa Ray as the tragic but irradiant widow seems to echo Nutan’s Kalyani in Bimal Roy’s Bandini. The tragic grandeur that Water wears on its resplendent sleeve is a quality that sets it apart from other reformist dramas.
The film has a great deal to say about the plight of socio-economically challenged women, specifically the widows of Varanasi in the 1930s . The burning ghats and the waters that flow from them, symbolize the ashes-and-embers predicament of Deepa’s ashram-bound women….all plagued by the pathos of dereliction , deprivation and yes, prostitution.
In telling it like it is, Mehta never flinches. When has she ever done that?! Her elemental trilogy(Fire, Earth & Water) reflects a harshly uncompromising sensibility. In Water Mehta doesn’t beautify the brutality of the widows’ existence.
There are bouts of humour, dance and music(watch Lisa Ray and little Sarala dance around their dingy room as the rain splashes romantically on the parched streets down below, or the eruption of Holi revelry in the ashram). A quality of luminous lyricism runs through the narration, specially in the romantic interludes between Narayan(John Abraham) and Kalyani(Lisa Ray) which are designed like a modern-day re-working of the Radha-Krishna mythology. The sheer purity and beauty of the central romance contrasts tellingly with the squalidity of the lives and settings that the plot negotiates with such slender but deft steps.
Whether it’s in capturing the layer after emotional layer in this onion of a drama or in juxtaposing sequences of the shimmering river with the run-down ashram, Giles Nuttgen’s camera doesn’t flinch from the beauty and the grime. The cinematography could’ve easily converted the multi-layered character-study into a touristic over-view. Nuttgen takes us into the darkest areas of the human condition to search for the peace that prevails under the panic of existence. And A.R Rahman’s music, his best in (y)ears, uplifts the mood of tragic pathos to the sphere of sublimity.
Many moments in Water would comfortably qualify as Pure Cinema. That moment when the oldest woman in the ashram devours a laddoo that she had been craving for all her life could be seen as the most satirically tragic juncture in a film on soci-culturally challenged lives.
Water as the giver and the destroyer…that’s the predominant metaphor that cuts through heart of the fragile but for tale. Each time we see the porcelain Kalyani peep out of her dungeon-like window, we know she’s searching for a horizon that most of us never find in our lifetime.
Water contours and defines those glazed regions in our history that we would rather not sharp-focus on. In many ways its depiction of the plight of abandoned widows is a metaphor for the condition of women across the world, and also a microcosmic view of the human condition.
In one way or another we are all persecuted and haunted. A film like Water comes once in a while to negotiate that seemingly insurmountable space between desire and longing, between love and rituals. As in all works of true art, no character in Water is big or small. They’re all played by actors who know what needs to be done, and how to bridge that gap between delusional reality and illusional artistry.
The fine cast grabs your undivided attention. Seasoned performers like Manorama(playing the head of the ashram she’s a conniving scheming farting mass of vulgarity and self-interest), Seema Biswas(clenched controlled conflicted by fundamentalism and the Gandhian reformist that assails her existence) and Raghuvir Yadav(a whoop as a singing eunuch) blend beautifully with the central love story embodied with supreme sensitivity in the John-Lisa pair.
And to think that we always thought of John and Lisa as actors incapable of overcoming their inherent urbanity! It’s Sarala as little Chuhiya whom you’ll find hard to get out of your head. She is the most credible child performer ,on a par with Ayesha Kapoor in Sanjay Bhansali’s Black. Normally children in films respond to adult situations in an unnaturally knowing way. Chuhiya remains a child caught in a frightening world of persecution and perversion.
Like bolts of blue feelings , Deepa Mehta inter-cuts the wretched lives of the characters with glimmers of hope. Even when Mahatma Gandhi makes an unexpected appearance at the end the director doesn’t allow her vision of poetry to be crowded by postures of polemics.
While you grieve for these doomed disintegrating lives, you cannot miss the subtext of social reform that underlines their lives. The hallmark of a true work of art is the level of sublimity it achieves in its characterizations while conveying thoughts on the quality of lives. What Deepa Mehta has to say about the plight of women in India 60 years ago remains true to this day. Hopefully things will change before another 60 years pass.
Water leaves us with much hope, and some frightening misgivings.
Tue 6 Mar 2007
Undertrial - Review
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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| Taran Adarsh (IndiaFM) |
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| There are far too many stories in everyday life. While you forget most of them as a new day unfurls, a few stories find a place in some corner of your mind and are difficult to erase from your memory’s ‘recycle bin’. Nazim Rizvi’s UNDERTRIAL, directed by Aziz Khan, is one such story.Let’s give you a gist of this straight-out-of-life story: A man is accused of raping his three daughters. Worse, the mother of the girls also testifies in court against the man in question.
Let’s talk of the cinematic interpretation, UNDERTRIAL. Now the bad news: Despite genuine intentions and captivating execution, the story isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Although UNDERTRIAL is the celluloid interpretation of a real-life incident, a section of the audience would find the goings-on disturbing, calling it dark and depressing. Yet, despite the pros and cons, a film like UNDERTRIAL drives home the point that some people succumb to weaknesses and take the wrong path in life, trying to reach the winning post via shortcuts. But at what cost? At the cost of sacrificing your self esteem? Losing out on your dear ones for materialistic pleasures? Sagar Hussain [Rajpal Yadav] is an undertrial prisoner at the Central Jail. He is accused of raping his daughters continuously for eight years and also for conspiring to murder them. The evidence is stacked up against Sagar. The last witness is Sagar’s wife Sameena [Monica Castelino], who wants to ensure life imprisonment for him with the help of Public Prosecutor P.P. Verma [Prem Chopra]. Amidst a guaranteed guilty verdict enters Ravi Vishnoi [Kader Khan] to, perhaps, Sagar’s rescue. Does Justice Jaya Reddy [Pratima Kazmi] pronounce him guilty? Any film that boasts of a hard-hitting and compelling story ought to be handled with equal conviction. Although the initial portions of UNDERTRIAL aren’t captivating, primarily because the film gives more-than-required footage to the jail inmates and assorted characters, a few moments between Rajpal Yadav and Mukesh Tiwari are interesting nonetheless. But UNDERTRIAL takes a leap in the second hour. The courtroom sequences — Kader Khan cross-examining the chief complainant [the mother of the daughters] — is attention grabbing. The flashback — the mother’s past [already married to someone else – a fact she hid from Sagar], the murder of the eldest daughter, the prostitution racket — are sure to give you goose bumps. The execution of the material is also first-rate. The film concludes on a positive note — the man is freed — but it instills sadness in you as the jailor questions the man: “Where do you go from here?” And the dejected man, who has almost reached the sunset of his life, replies helplessly: “I don’t know. Jahan raaste le jaaye.” It moves you! Making his Hindi film debut with UNDERTRIAL, director Aziz Khan handles a complex subject with conviction. The execution stands out during dramatic portions towards the second hour. The screenplay [Nazim Rizvi] is strong, although the entire exercise of capturing the death on a mobile phone looks a bit far-fetched. Although there isn’t scope for music [Anu Malik, Shamir Tandon] in a film of this genre, the two songs [one filmed on the jail inmates and the other, on bar girls] are completely justified. Cinematography [Tapan K. Basu] is just right. Rajpal Yadav doesn’t get many lines to deliver, but emotes through his eyes. The anger, the pain, the anguish, the agony, the disgust, the will to fight back… the varied emotions surface convincingly all through those two hours. If you thought that the actor is cutout for comic roles only, you need to correct yourself. Watch UNDERTRIAL. Monica Castelino gets a meaty role and although she goes over the top in a few sequences, you can’t overlook the fact that she’s enacting a role that demands an actor to be loud. Yet, in all fairness, she’s excellent in a role that shows her in various ages: Youngster, middle-aged and reaching the sunset of her life. Kader Khan enacts his part with gusto. You rarely see the actor in movies these days, but it’s a pleasure watching him fight it out in the courtroom sequences in UNDERTRIAL. Prem Chopra is efficient. Pratima Kazmi is wonderful. She suits the character to the T. Mukesh Tiwari shines yet again, although the makers should’ve given the viewer a background of his character. Sunil Rege and Rajesh Puri are okay. The actor enacting the role of the social activist is effective. On the whole, UNDERTRIAL has a bold storyline and an engrossing second hour to stay in the viewer’s mind. At the box-office, the lack of face-value will tell on its business, although the film has the merits to rise with a strong word of mouth. |
Tue 6 Mar 2007
Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd.
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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| It’s fluffy, intermittently funny and mostly inane. Debutante director Reema Kagti tries out something slightly off beat in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., but then she lets her subject down with a thump by giving it gives it a humdrum treatment.The film could have been a light, tongue-in-cheek but insightful portrayal of modern urban marriages. Instead (slightly inspired by California Suite), she collects a few ‘types’ middle-aged couple on their second honeymoon, one set each of newly weds who had an arranged marriage, one love marriage, arranged-cum-love marriage, one net-dating pair, one runaway bride. A whole bunch of regional caricatures and none of them can be identified with.
They all get on a garish Honeymoon bus to Goa and park themselves in a tacky hotel. Much too soon, the group has its first shock when a weeping bride (Dia Mirza) runs off with her lover (Arjun Rampal), leaving a befuddled husband (Ranvir Shorey in a regrettably tiny role). Then each has his or little crisis, none of which matters by the end of the movie—including one bride (Sandhya Mridul) being told by her husband (Vikram Chatwal), that he is gay, which she accepts with equanimity and decides to stay married. The other gay groom (Karan Khanna), married to a garrulous twit (Amisha Patel, irritating) just suppresses his inclination and carries on normally. It seems the homosexual angle was put in just to give the film a contemporary feel, but it doesn’t work, because it is not resolved satisfactorily. There a couple of funny moments and one unexpected sci-fi twist, but on the whole the film is populated with a bunch of inconsequential characters. The director’s inventiveness just shines in one or two back stories, shot in back and white and narrated by a radio jockey. The story of Aspi (Abhay Deol) and Zaara (Minissha Lamba) is cute and witty. But on the whole, the film just makes you wonder why these people even got together. Why, for instance did the middle-aged widow (Shabana Azmi) marry the middle-aged widower (Boman Irani), and if she did so happily, why does she spend her first night at the hotel weeping copiously in the bathroom? Why did the smart and individualistic Milly (Raima Sen) even marry the oily-haired conservative Partho (Kay Kay Menon)? Then again, how come Aspi and Zaara did not suspect each other’s superpowers for the 16 years they spend together? The film is about married couples discovering each other on their honeymoon, but the film has so few intimate moments, and when there is a scene of a couple alone, it’s in the jokey style of Aspi and Zaara making dog-and-cat sounds! There is hardly any of the joy, confusion, maybe disappointment or doubt that would perhaps assail a newly married young man or woman. So Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. remains at the level of seen-and-forgotten. |
Tue 6 Mar 2007
Black Friday Review
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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| Deepa Gahlot |
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| After a two-year wait, Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday, a blow by blow account of the Mumbai bomb blasts of 1993 makes it to the screen.The timing is just right— the blast accused have been convicted (or released as the case may be), and the memory of the train blasts last year is still fresh—so the reminder of the terror Mumbai went through is even more disturbing.
Based on S Hussain Zaidi’s book, Anurag Kashyap makes a thorough and very long film on the planning and implementation of the blasts and then the cops’ steady unraveling of the conspiracy. The people are real— Dawood Ibrahim (Vijay Maurya—starling resemblance), Tiger Memon (Pawan Malhotra), Badshah Khan (Aditya Shrivastava), cop Rakesh Maria (Kay Kay Menon) —and the dozens of others on both sides of the law, whom Kashyap chases down in meticulous detail. But what is interesting in a book, need not be so in a film—Black Friday is a fabulously crafted and superbly enacted film, but not stark enough to be documentary and not fictional enough to be a feature. The verite style, casting mostly unknowns and shooting at real locations has been popularized by the Ram Gopal Varma school, from where Kashyap also emerged as co-writer of Satya. His grip on Mumbai’s lifestyle and language is remarkable, but Kashyap makes the film with a detached air—this is what happened, this is how it happened, now step back and watch without intervention. A story like that, told in such a clinical manner, without taking a humanistic stand is unsettling. It almost seems to justify Memon’s theory that unless the Muslims took revenge for the post-Babri Masjid riots, they would never be able to look the Hindu majority in the eye. Typically, in the media coverage of the blast cases as well the film, the sensational aspect of the event is so strong that the victims are almost forgotten. Several films have been made on the 9/11 incident in the US and UK–United 93 is part of the Oscar shortlist, there’s Hamburg Cell, World Trade Centre, Flight 93– and with none of them do you get the feeling that the planners and perpetrators are being glorified or sympathized with in any way—Black Friday gives that feeling that Kashyap, either deliberately or inadvertently, wants to portray them as heroes–as much as Maria and his band of dedicated cops who hunted down the criminals, broke down defences, got confessions and nabbed most of the men, except, of course the leaders. Reservations aside, Black Friday is brave ‘journalistic’ cinema, made without keeping an eye on the box-office. |
Mon 5 Mar 2007
Nishabd -review,critics opinion
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL BUT BLUSHING
By Pankaj Shukla - Eye TV India Bureau
Critic’s I-view
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Every Friday, after the first day first show, I get calls from producer friends, dearest directors and they ask as to what is the fate of the film just released. They get shock of their life when I tell them ‘Vivah’ is going to be a Super Hit film and ‘Eklavya’ will lose its sheen just after Sunday. They have faith in me and so I appreciate their inquisitiveness. This relationship has flourished over the years and I got routine calls today also. My cell rings, and I say hello and then I hear the usual question, ‘Kaisi Hai? (How is the film?).
Normally, I reply either in affirmative or in negative but this time it took time. I was speechless (’Nishabd’) for a moment. Yes, ‘Nishabd’ cannot be judged by sounds around the film. It can just be felt. And, for this, one has to belong to the breed who care for good cinema and not just a good entertainer. Please note. ‘Nishabd’ is not an entertainer, but it is for sure a good film. More if you are a creative person because this specie is tending to fall in love with the younger breed more than often. Shekhar Kapur, Salman Rushdie and many others have shown it.
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‘Nishabd’ dares tread on this path though not socially; it shows some tender moment, it comes like a breeze, makes some froth and then settles down. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t raise any question on the relationship; neither does it try to justify this kind of attraction, infatuation or lust (whatever one may name it). Raj Kapoor did it decades ago in ‘Mera Naam Joker’. Others tried it in ‘Lamhe’, ‘Ek Choti Si Love Story’ and ‘Ek Nayi Paheli’ many times. But, if the directors of these films tried to put their perceptions of these relationships, Ramu defies the norm and leaves the question to the audience as to how they take Vijay’s love to them.
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Yes, Vijay of Hindi Cinema has relieved many of pains; sometimes as a police inspector, sometimes a ‘Don’, and as a spoiled brat. But, now he wants you to share his pain. He has turned photographer. Vijay (Amitabh) is a rich person owning a tea estate; photography is just a passion for him. He has a well natured wife (Revathy) and bubbly daughter. During the vacation with his daughter, arrives her daughter’s close friend Jiah or J as she loves to be called. While Revathy gets busy polishing her nails, her mother watches ‘Saas Bahu’ serial.
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Meanwhile Jiah takes interest in lonely Vijay. They discuss photography, life, happiness and pain. They fall in love in spite of more that 40 years of age difference between the two. The intensity deepens and relations start cracking. But, Vijay takes a firm decision and admits before his wife that he loves a girl who is actually his daughter’s best friend. The family is shattered. To unite it again, Vijay kills his feelings and sends Jiah back to her home. Now, Vijay is shattered. However, this isn’t unusual as many don’t get what they wish just like Vijay’s short voyage with a teenager girl! She comes in his life, gives him some moments to cherish and leaves with some memories for ever.
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Vijay too wishes to live the rest of his life with those tender moments he spent with Jiah. The film reaches its pinnacle because of its presentation. Even if it did not have Amitabh Bachchan the impact would have been the same, because it is not the character but the narration that makes ‘Nishabd’ reach this status. Amitabh has in the past done better roles than this. How can we forget ‘Silsila’, before praising him for this role in ‘Nishabd’? He may not have earlier played with his image like this time since he seems to be desperate now to earn maximum before the retirement. As an actor Amitabh Bachchan’s best was noticed in ‘Sarkar’.
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If he does something better as Gabbar, it is okay, else ‘Eklavya’ has been the last over of his last innings. Those who have seen Amitabh’s films like ‘Chupke Chupke’, ‘Saudagar’, ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’, ‘Sharabi’ and ‘Kala Patthar’ know how variable he was in his acting those days. Now, every director wants him to cry on the screen. They make him a sufferer and these roles don’t suit him. No doubt, he works very hard to play his part, but he gets tense, too. The tenderness of his eyes is missing . When he cries in pain in close up, we know it is because of glycerin. In ‘Nishabd’ too, he does this in the climax; in another scene he tries to do that but fails as he hadn’t used glycerin.
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Director Ram Gopal Varma may have added some intimate scenes in the film from his own experiences, that he has shared with his heroines (Urmila, Antara, Isha, Katrina and now Jiah), and they have filled the ambience with some real charm. His color tone in the whole film has given the film a feeling of intrigue. The camera angles are low when Vijay does right things, otherwise it goes high. The locations of Munnar in Kerala are just perfect for these kinds of stories. The only disappointment for those who go in search of Lolita will be that Jiah exposes nothing more than her legs.
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She looks confident on camera but the depth of her acting will be tested when she does something that she is not in real life. Revathy and Nasser provide ample support to the film. As I said earlier ‘Nishabd’ will be liked by the loners but it will be a flop of the year because no one will wish to take his girlfriend for a movie that shows how to fall in love with an uncle living nearby. Ramu has delivered a flop in ‘Shiva’, a slow one in ‘Nishabd’ and now all eyes are on his take on ‘Sholay’, even today he is shooting for it. Everyone knows what a hat trick of flops means in film industry. And, Mr Bachchan knows it better.
Mon 5 Mar 2007
Nehlle-pe-Dehlla movie review,critics opinion
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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SANJU-SAIF PAIR DISAPPOINTS IN FLOP SHOWBy Satyajit - Eye TV India Bureau
Critic’s I-view
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Slapstick falters again! The much delayed ‘Nehle Pe Dehla’ has finally seen the light of the day. This has come at a time when the aura of cinema has completely changed. Once again the viewers are requested to forget their thinking caps to watch and enjoy the show. Besides, the viewers are requested not to expect anything special from their favorite actors as the project was materialized at a time when they hadn’t met with their respective super stardom. Despite its low profile hype, the film’s biggest USP proves to be its high-profile star cast but the concept is too outdated. ‘Nehle Pe Dehla’ charters the path of David Dhawan style of slapstick comical cinema where two crooks mastermind the ideas to befool
Director Ashok Chandhok who worked as an assistant to David Dhawan might have materialized the concept in late 90’s but unfortunately it faced roadblocks in its pre-production and release. The success barometer of such comedies lies in its comical quotient and to a large extent in comical timing of the actors. It fails on both accounts and never delivers the needful. The A-list actors might create hype among multiplexes but the rush will be limited to the first three days of the release. Thereafter, it will add to the series of late releases and flops and then disappoint actors as well as the director.
Audiences have viewed the same comical drama in all Govinda-David Dhawan films but in ‘Nehle Pe Dehla’, the comical zing is completely missing. Rumi Jaffery’s dialogues are neither hilarious nor crisp and fail to tickle funny bones.
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It was earlier titled ‘Jimmy Aur Johny’ named after the characters of lead actors -Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan. Unfortunately, the year has opened for them with below average results of ‘Eklavya’ and still worse with ‘Nehle Pe Dehla’. The concept was too stale that neither of them felt the need of promoting the film. Their earlier two ventures (’Parineeta’ and ‘Eklavya’) were full of aesthetics and were well supported by melodious music and daunting background score. Their third offering ‘Nehle Pe Dehla’ walks on wafer thin storyline with disappointing musical scores. The biggest disappointment lies in the predictability of the events and the weak screenplay that never lives up to the standards of deserving comical entertainment.
‘Nehle Pe Dehla’ is a comical entertainer where two small time crooks (Sanjay Dutt and Saif Ali Khan) use a dead body (Shakti Kapoor) to acquire wealth. The concept may sound interesting but the treatment is below average. Director Ashok Chandhok tries to mince all the comical formulas into one package but overall the results are disappointing.
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It was seen before in films like ‘Ek Aur Ek Gyarah’, ‘Haseena Maan Jayegi’, ‘Deewana Mastana’ etc where the comical duo’s buffoonery lands them in trouble but their heroics wins them their lady love. The film fails to offer novelty but works with an indifferent plot. In all successful comedies of David Dhawan, the comical quotient has been high with brilliant comical timing of actors. Both the leading actors have delivered their finest comical work in ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ and ‘Munna Bhai M.B.B.S’ but their talent was underplayed with poor scripting.
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‘Nehle Pe Dehla’ opens up with the introduction of two lead protagonists - Johny (Sanjay Dutt) and Jimmy (Saif Ali Khan). Johny is fond of expensive watches, so he deceives big shop owners through his con acts. On the other hand, Jimmy is professional thief who steals at night. They land up in jail and plan to get richer. They encounter with one dying drunkard man (Avtar Gill) at roadside where he discloses the secret of an astronomical wealth of Rs 300 million. The dying man was manager of crooked hotelier Balram (Shakti Kapoor), who has hatched a murder along with his terrible trio (Mukesh Rishi, Asif Sheikh and Shiva). Sonia (Bipasha Basu) is Balram’s niece and has big plans to open a hotel in Mauritius and for this she needs the huge Rs 300 million.
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She is accompanied by her best friend Kim (Kim Sharma) at the hotel. Jimmy and Johny’s con acts succeed in deceiving Balram by entering his hotel as waiters. Predictably, Johny falls for Sonia’s charm while Jimmy is besotted by Kim’s innocence. Balram tries to physically eliminate his niece but his plans fail. In hot pursuit to acquire colossal wealth, Balram plans to kill Jimmy and Johny through his three deadly friends. In return they murder Balram for wealth and then plan to kill Jimmy and Johny. All their plans fail and finally they seek the help of a “tantrik” (Supriya Karnik) to know the secret of hide-about of Balram’s wealth. The film ends with slapstick comical work where the heroes win over villains.
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After viewing the film, one wonders why reliable actors like Sanjay Dutt, Saif Ali Khan or Bipasha Basu accepted such a film. It’s a proven fact that comedies work better than other formulas but even they require sense of mellowness of scripting and treatment. The comical sequence works briefly but overall it fails. Sanjay Dutt’s con acts in watch showroom sound prankish and hard to believe. Saif Ali Khan’s stealing act is borrowed from his role in ‘Tu Chor Main Sipahi’. It’s sorry to see both brilliant actors losing their sheen with under-scripted roles. Their stealing act in Shakti Kapoor’s office sounds prankish and their love chemistries never germinate properly. Bipasha Basu delivers a miniscule performance where she is denied of singing and dancing. The actress who has been a hot selling property has been completely underutilized. Kim Sharma gets more footage with a couple of body gyrating beach songs. She has displayed he physical assets without inhibitions but the sensuality is missing. Shakti Kapoor delivers a mechanical performance. Mukesh Rishi is at his villainous best while Asif Sheikh and Shiva irritate with their silly acts. Neha Dhupia and Shweta Menon are completely wasted in itsy bitsy item songs.
Choreography (Bosco-Ceaser) appeals the most in hot beach numbers. Action (Mahendra Verma) is apt for the situations and offers some chilling moments. Music is pathetic and disappointing and at many times sounds too jarring for ears.
Director Ashok Chandhok has failed to materialize strong line up of actors in this shoddy comical act. The film was released with zero hype and there were no big hopes from it. It will hardly face any competition from RGV’s ‘Nishabd’, but still its box office prospects are feeble and poor.
Mon 5 Mar 2007
Hattrick music review
Posted by lijogk under Movie Reviews
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MUSIC REVIEW OF HATTRICK
By Satyajit - Eye TV India Bureau
Juke Box
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World Cup fever is on and so is cricket mania on the silver screen! ‘Hattrick’ brings out different facades of human characterizations with strong impulse and zest of cricket. Director Milan Luthria takes plunge into sports-based entertainment after delivering action-packed thrillers (’Kachche Dhagge’, ‘Deewar’), love story (’Chori Chori’) and hit and run chase thriller (’Taxi No.9211′). ‘Hattrick’ promises brilliant acting performances from Nana Patekar, Paresh Rawal and Danny Denzompa in the lead roles. Kunal Kapoor and Rimmi Sen is the romantic lead pair. The film is an eye-feast for cricket lovers as it arrives in the month of I.C.C World Cup Cricket and based on four different lifestyles. The four stories from across the globe connect with World Cup happenings and believe in the “triumph of human spirit”. Pritam punches another fine set of peppy and hip-shaking musical number that targets pop genre. The music director made impressive start this year with ‘Just Married’ and the remarkable feat continues with ‘Hattrick’. The album delivers eleven original soundtracks and can be heard on Sa Re Ga Ma music cassettes and CD’s.
