Review: Robot [Hindi dubbed version of ENTHIRAN]

Originally for NOWRUNNING.com

Cast: Rajnikanth, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Danny Denzongpa

Director: Shankar

Producer: Kalanithi Maran

Music: AR Rahman

Rating: ***1/2

Robot

Rajnikanth is back. And what a bang he makes! At 61, the much worshiped Indian star does the unthinkable. If you thought only Sylvester Stallone could do an action film at 60 plus, you got to watch Robot. The film is yet another show-reel for the star who so effectively went on to become one of the biggest India stars internationally. But more importantly it is a show-reel for director Shankar and an example for other Indian directors to emulate.

Robot (Enthiran) does not essentially have the most interesting story. Nor is it believable. It’s about a robot, which is developed by ace scientist Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth). Vaseegaran invests 10 years of his life on the robot with a dream of gifting it to the Indian army. But when he is done the robot is branded as dangerous as it does not have emotions. Vaseegaran works on it and tried programming emotion into it. While his experiment works, it creates clashes in his personal life as the Robot falls in love with his girlfriend (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). There is also Vaseegaran’s guru Professor Bohra (Danny Danzongpa) who has his evil motives and wants Vaseegaran’s creation for himself.

We have seen emotions in a robot in Bicentennial Man (1999) and we have also seen machines going bad in movies like I, Robot (2004). But Robot is not similar to any and has its own storyline.

The screenplay moves to a definite end. The dialogues (Hindi) have been done well and they manage to keep the comic element alive, wherever necessary. The film is shot extremely well – money spent on it showing on each shot that is taken. It is edited stylishly. Sound designing – a key area in a science fiction like this – is top notch. And so is the background music. The only glitches probably are the songs. They lyrics are not exactly poetic and neither is it AR Rahman’s best work. But then, you would hardly listen to lyrics considering the visuals are as arresting and choreography as grand.

Rajnikanth scores in his performances. He carries two roles really well. While on one hand he needs to play an absorbed scientist he plays the mechanical robot with equal ease. Aishwarya looks ravishing and does her bit very effectively. It’s remarkable that both leads don’t look anything close to their actual age. Ditto with Danny, who looks dapper and puts up class act.

But then the real star of the film, while giving due respect to Rajnikanth, is the special effects in the last half an hour. The final action sequence is equivalent to top-grade VFX shown by a top grosser internationally. Director Shankar truly deserves a pat on his back for his vision and managing to pull this up. This is easily the best in Indian films ever.

Overall, Robot is going to be a trendsetter. Shankar shows that he could very well keep the Indian sensibilities intact while making a top of the line science fiction in line with Hollywood films. Of course at almost 3 hours long Robot is a very long exercise and that takes away some marks. But watching Rajnikanth - the boss perform is priceless!

Review: Benny and Babloo

Originally for NOWRUNNING.com

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Rajpal Yadav, Rukhsar, Anita Hasnandani (Natassha), Riya Sen, Shweta Tiwari, Hitan Paintal, Kiran Janjani, Richa Chadda,

Director: Yunus Sajawal

Producer: Umesh Chouhan

Rating: **

Benny and Babloo

There are actors who get their due and there are non-actors who get more than what they are due. And there are also actors who keep struggling to get their due. We have quite a list of such actors in Bollywood. And Kay Kay Menon easily fits into this list. The actor who has given memorable performances in films like Shaurya, Gulaal and even Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd rarely gets a film which gives him scope. And yet he continues to do mediocre films, providing them a silver lining.

Benny and Babloo happens to be one more mediocrity laden film. The difference this time is that it is not Kay Kay Menon alone but also another deserving actor Rajpal Yadav who come together to create the silver lining effect. There are also a host of others who provide good support, making the overall acting department score.

But that’s where the major problem with this film lies. The director overlooks his story and starts developing the characters individually wasting precious time where he is supposed to take the story forward. As a result though all actors have a have backing to perform well the story suffers. Also the director goes on an overdrive to prove that dance bars are actually better than five star hotels – which are shown to be places where rich fulfill their not so ‘to-be proud of’ activities.

The film takes the audience into lives of people related to a dance bar and also a five star hotel. Benny (Kay Kay) is a bell boy at a five star hotel and he looks down upon his friend Babloo’s (Rajpal) job, which is that of a waiter at the dance bar. However soon he realizes that what he abhorred about dance bars in actually happening far more actively in his own hotel. Somehow it looks like a mix of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Page 3 and Chandni Bar.

While the concept is very much to prove how dance bars were actually good and girls were ‘earning money by displaying their art there’ the director fails to create any sympathy for the bar girls. A good thing to do would have been to keep half the number of characters.

Overall, all that Benny and Babloo manages is to become a good example of times when there is a good story concept but it is not written and executed well.

Review: Anjaana Anjaani

Originally for nowrunning.com 

By Noyon Jyoti Parasara

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra

Director: Siddharth Anand

Producer: Sajid Nadiadwala

Music: Vishal Shekhar

Rating: **1/2

Anjaana Anjaani

There has been much talk about Anjaana Anjaani being a copy of The Girl On The Bridge. However after watching the film I can vouch that it’s not true. Anjaana Anjaana is not a copy of any particular film. Rather it is a mish-mash of ideas that may have been borrowed from various movies. Hence though the story is not something we have seen in Hindi cinema before, neither does it seem completely fresh. At various moments through the film you will feel you have seen it before.

The film is about a boy and a girl who meet for the first time on a bridge – where they had reached to commit suicide. Both fail repeatedly at ending their lives and come to a conclusion that probably these are signs that they are yet to complete something in life. A deadline is set – 20 days from then, on the New Years eve they will commit suicide and till then they will live together and help each other fulfill their wishes.

No it is not a Bucket List or a Dasvidaniya where they go about tick-marking their to-do list. Rather it’s a journey to understand life and love and also each other better. Anjaana Anjaani makes an out and out love story. And it has a fair dose of comedy to keep it going. The wish however is for the going to have been faster than what it was. The film on the whole has loads of winning moments but the first half does not see the story moving anywhere. It only gets moving later in the second half. The screenplay is not consistent.

Among the good parts include some super song, great cinematography and visuals, cool dialogues and effective background score. But the real highlights of the film are the Anjaana and Anjaani – Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra. It probably is a dream for any actor to get so much of screen time. And this film is almost entirely meant of them. And they excel. Ranbir Kapoor proves yet again why he is being termed as the next superstar. It is really hard to look at anyone else when Ranbir is on screen. But this time he will have to accept that Priyanka took away the eyeballs – mine at least! Priyanka Chopra, who has come up with memorable performances in the past, reminds again that she is indeed in contention for one of Indian cinema’s best actresses. The only problem I had – she comes out of the sick bed in complete make up. But then again is a directorial blunder!

Siddharth Anand has given us Salaam Namaste and there is no doubt that he is capable in telling a story telling. But there are certain liberties taken in the film which deducts from his ability as a storyteller. Anjaana Anjaani works for the die-hard romantics and fans of the lead stars. For the rest it is an average storyline with good amount of repetitiveness embedded with superlative performances. 

Review: Khichdi

Originally for NOWRUNNING.COM

Cast: Supriya Pathak, Anang Desai, Rajeev Mehta, Girish Sachdev, Nimisha Vakharia, Kesar Majethia, Markand Soni, Kirti Kulhari, JD Majethia,

Director: Aatish Kapadia

Producer: JD Majethia

Rating: ***

KHICHDI - the film

There have been so many instances when Indian television has copied content from the big screen and used it, in the regular elongated and extended forms. But turning a movie out a show concept is surely new. There was news of Anand Mahendroo doing it with Dekh Bhai Dekh, but JD Majethia has clearly beaten him by miles… and in style!

Creating a film out of a show is in no way an easy task. But it definitely easy when you have characters which don’t need to be build. Khichdi to it’s advantage had extremely popular characters – ones established in the audience’s mind over the last few years. Hence when you go to watch the movie you already know that it’s going to be madness and that’s why you decided to watch it first place.

The question hence is – Does it live up to the expected madness? And the answer most certainly is –YES! On a flip side, some of gags seem used and repeats.

Getting into the story Himanshu desires to fall in love and so does his neighbor Parminder and then they fall in love with each other. But suddenly Himanshu has a change in heart and hopes to have conflicts and separation in love – in true filmy style – so that his love story too turns memorable. And that’s exactly what his family decides to help him in.

This is one fun ride throughout keeping the audience in splits. The screenplay is kept simple in tune with the genre of the film. One criticism however would be that unlimited gags do stretch the film. Fans of the show are also likely to miss the original jayashree – Vandana Pathak. While Nimisha Vakharia who plays Jayashree in the film does her part well, it is quite huge task to live up to a character like this. The others are just as good as they are on small screen. Supriya Pathak, JD Majethia, Anand Desai are in top form. Satish Shah comes in as a pleasant surprise.

Overall, if you have wanted to laugh aloud since sometime, this surely is a good chance to unleash that. Khichdi fans of course can’t give this a miss. Kudos to director Aatish Kapadia and producer JD Majethia for making this film, the way they did it.