Dev D

Dev D is one such flight of fancy from the filmmaker that definitely defies all conventions and demolishes all moulds. The director of the film Anurag Kashyap has always been a contrarian filmmaker, consciously steering away from traditional Bollywood with films like Black Friday, Paanch, No Smoking.

Dev D is like that heady cocktail which has the vodka pitched perfectly with the tang. Set against the rich rural backdrop of Punjab and Paharganj (Delhi), the film traces the self-destructive sojourn of a young, contemporary hero who mirrors the existential angst of the proverbial outsider, made legendary in the writings of Satre, Camus, Kafka, Kerouac and the ballads of Kurt Cobain.

But Dev D (Abhay Deol), unlike Devdas, isn't a blast from the past. Dev D is indeed a coming-of-age film, not merely for the protagonist, Devender Singh Dhillon, but it is a brilliant breakthrough for Bollywood too.

It really doesn't matter whether the film ends up as a box office scorcher. What matters is the fact that for the discerning viewer. Anurag Kashyap, however, gets even more adventurous and adds a progressive flourish to both the plot and the characters which are played to perfection by the three lead players.

If Mahi and Kalki are riveting new finds, assured of a long innings in cinema, then Abhay Deol adds a whole new meaning to the term `Unconventional Hero'. Dev D is the class act from the Deol who cleverly flew over the cuckoo's nest.

Dev D is purely a musical love story, with zany numbers like ‘emosanal atyachar', ‘saali khushi', ‘nayan tarse' and many more.

STOP

STOP is about four friends, three girls and a guy. The movie revolves around their lives as a unit and then steers off for an individual build-up. It's interesting in the beginning but before you know, it starts dragging. Songs are interspersed without need and plots lengthened, without any cause. The editor could have done with sharper scissors.

The star cast of the film are newcomer Rohit Bhatia, Dia Mirza, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Gauri Karnik, Ishita Arun, Kiran Janjani, Anupam Kher and Om Puri. The film is directed by Ajai Sinha.

The film attempts to be a modern day take on friendships amongst today’s youth. While the friendship chemistry amongst the four friends has come out naturally well and some small sequences and lines shared amongst them have come out very identifiable, the overall impact is missing.

Newcomer Rohit Bhatia makes a confident debut. Tejaswini Kolhapure impresses a lot despite having been badly presented. Ishita Arun and Gauri Karnik barely get scope to showcase their acting talents.

Dia Mirza in a small but important part is good. Harsh Chhaya is getting type cast in a lecherous boss roles. He has done similar type of parts earlier in Laga Chunari Mein Daag and Its Breaking News. Kiran Janjani fits the part. Himani Shivpuri, Om Puri and Anupam Kher lend able support as usual.

While the film may not exactly be worth a visit to the nearest multiplex, it isn’t that bad either and can be caught up on home video on one lazy Sunday afternoon to watch.

Zor Lagaa Ke Haiyaa-Pure Entertainer

Zor Lagaa Ke Haiyaa is about how a group of children, with the help of a homeless man, overcome all the obstacles to save a tree from being razed by a money-minded construction giant and his contractor. Their quest mirrors the apathy of contemporary society to such types of environmental issues. Through nonstop action, comedy and adventure, the children finally realize what it takes to stand their ground in the battle against concrete. '

The movie is directed by Girish Girija Joshi and produced by Basant Talreja and Kartikeya Talreja. The film casts Mithun Chakraborty, Riya Sen, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sachin Khedekar, Raj Zutshi, Seema Biswas and Gulshan Grover and child artistes Megan, Ayesha Kaduskar, Hardik Thakkar, Ritvik Tyagi and Ashwin Chitale.

AS filmmakers are devoted to the art of innovative storytelling aimed at achieving the goal of raising the standards of Indian cinema. Filmmakers wish to emphasise and encourage the growth of ingenuity within the industry.

Keeping this in mind, Zor Lagaa Ke Haiyaa has been made, which is particularly aimed at representing the power of perseverance and compassion. It’s pure entertainment that inspires today’s generation to value their environment and natural habitat. Through this film, GenerationNext opens the eyes of the people who are at the helm today.

"99"

99 is the story of two different men in two different cities, who are bound by a common feeling of always being stuck at '99'. They never seem to make it to a 'century'- figuratively speaking.

It is a journey of two men who want to break away from the rut and 'strike it big'. What follows is an unpredictable and hilarious ride through two cities with extremely likeable and very grounded characters, unbelievable circumstances, real twists of fate, small-time crooks, big-time conspiracies, fateful car crashes, ups of friendship, downs of love and a climax that will keep everybody on the edge of their seats."

99 keeps you engrossed in most parts. The only problem is, it's too slow-paced at times and lengthy too, towards the penultimate moments. Just when you thought that the film has ended, another chase follows, which eventually leads to the finale.

On the whole, 99 appeals in parts, more towards the second half. The film holds appeal for the youth and should find patronage from this faction of moviegoers at multiplexes mainly. 99 is smart, good looking and interesting, in parts. Quite a ride this, if you don't go with much expectations!

Videsh-It's a kitchen-sink drama

Heaven on Earth isn’t exactly the plight of protagonist in this film, rather completely contrary to it. The alternate Hindi title Videsh too misleads into the notion that Indian woman in NRI families are essentially victims of domestic violence, as is the theme of the film. It’s as difficult to relate the title with the treatment of this film.

It's difficult to describe just how good Preity Zinta is in her role as a battered young bride in director Deepa Mehta's Videsh. Preity Zinta playing Chand, a Punjabi girl who travels from her home in India to Canada for an arranged marriage. She marries Rocky (played by Vansh Bhardwaj) has little affection or sympathy for his new bride.

Homesick in foreign land and hopeless of affection from people around, Chand begins to fantasize another version of her life inspired from tales of Indian mythology about a King Cobra.

Deepa Mehta scores in establishing credible characters of the Canadian Punjabi family with members that are neither sugar-sweet nor melodramatically bitter. Everyone in the film are open witness to domestic violence and remain absolutely indifferent towards the act.

The film clearly loses its audience when metaphorical mythological concerns overpower the underlying theme of domestic violence. Rather the flick imparts shades of gray to the supposedly black victimizer. Preity Zinta delivered a career-best performance as Chand.

The pacing is lethargic and the story takes too long to kick-start. Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens intermittently applies black-and-white frames to highlight some scenes from others but follows no particular theme, making the exercise futile.

Preity Zinta delivered a career-best performance as Chand. Vansh Bharadwaj suffers from shallow characterization. Balinder Johal as the insecure mother and cold-blooded mother-in-law is efficient.

Heaven on Earth, a kitchen-sink drama turns into a hell of a viewing experience.

Sorry Bhai

Sorry Bhai is about the complexities of relationships seen and felt in real life. That subtle tug or snap in relationships when people are drawn towards or pulled away from each other. These very moments captured with a telling effect provide the soul to ‘Sorry Bhai’ even though the film gets a little too tangled in the second half.

At the centre of the movie is a slowly developing love story between a woman and the younger brother of the man she is about to marry. Sanjay Suri as Harsh is set to marry Aaliya (Chitrangada Singh). His family comprising of a young, shy scientist brother Siddharth ( Sharman Joshi ), a disapproving mom ( Shabana Azmi ) and a chilled-out dad ( Boman Irani ) come to Mauritius to attend the wedding. While Harsh doesn’t seem to have much time for his family, Siddharth and Aaliya develop a bond that turns into mutual attraction. The duo fights this attraction.

More than just a romantic story, ‘Sorry Bhai’ taps on the bonding between two brothers, and between the two women in the story. Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani who charm you completely with their crackling chemistry and their natural act as urbane parents.

In a movie like ‘Sorry Bhai’, it’s more appropriate to judge the actors’ job from viewpoint of the chemistry between them rather than individual performances. Sanjay Suri is relegated to the background for a substantial part, but he too gets his moments. Boman Irani is superb in a relatively smaller but homour-filled role.

The film, with its above average music and eye-pleasing cinematography, has a somewhat boring ending preceded by a couple of sequences where you feel the director either lost his grip over the plot or became too self-indulgent.

But at the end of the day, ‘Sorry Bhai’ gives you a faint smile and doesn’t make you feel sorry for the money and time spent on the flick.

Gulaal

Gulaal is about a simple man’s anger and outburst against the corrupt, rusted system have been seen and forgotten by the dozen, and Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal turns out to be just a statistical addition to the list.

The movie is a telling statement on the degeneration in the political structure both at the micro level of student politics and the macro level of power-hungry, who stop at nothing to realize their political ambitions. The movie casts Kay Kay Menon, Raj Singh Chaudhary, Mahi Gill, Jesse Randhawa, Aditya Shrivastava, Piyush Mishra, Mukesh Bhatt, Abhimanyu Shekhar Singh, Pankaj Jha, Deepak Dobriyal and Ayesha Mohan.

The film 'Gulaal' is all about love, rage, power and politics. It unfolds the story of an innocent college student Dilip (Raj Singh Chaudhary), who is pushed into politics.

‘Gulaal’ is essentially a character driven story that seems to get too verbose at places. The dialogues are expectedly sprinkled with expletives because the director wanted them to sound ‘real’. The cinematography by Rajeev Ravi is superb. Music and lyrics by Piyush Mishra are fascinating.

If there’s anything truly worth watching in ‘Gulaal’ it’s the performances by the ensemble of talented actors from Kay Kay Menon as the devious Dukey Bana to Deepak Dobriyal as his assistant or Mahi Gill as his mistress.

Newcomer Raj Singh Chaudhary has an unassuming persona and very well portrays the inner transformation of his character. Ayesha Mohan and Aditya Shrivastava as the brother sister duo are terrific in their individual performances.

All said, ‘Gulaal’ is a seething, simmering, but tortuously predictable tale of all that’s rotten in the system. The director has pooled all his anger and cynicism against the system and revealed it on the screen to be smacked at the faces of hapless viewers in the form of ‘Gulaal’.

Frankly, with Gulaal, Anurag Kashyap has once again proved himself; his versatile, prolific and ardent direction is utterly commendable.

It's A Mismatch

It's A Mismatch is directed by Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad and produced by Dalip Singh Sethi and Harbinder Brar. The star cast of the movie are Anupam Kher, Boman Irani, Nandana Sen and introducing Anubhav Anand.

Aman (Anubhav Anand) is a talented young architect. Raised by his Uncle, he has all the love and care a family could offer but Aman takes it for granted. While working towards his dream, his life takes a beautiful turn when he falls in love with Neha (Nandana Sen). The two fall in love, and nothing seems able to come between them.

A disaster strikes when the hyper-vibrant Mr. Bhalla (Anupam Kher) and Mr. Patel (Boman Irani) meet. Both are hilariously different and both are mismatched.
The lovebirds must find a way to bring their families together and this leads to a comical series of misadventures of the two disapproving, faultfinding fathers. In the process Aman realizes the true definition of family and what it really means to love someone. Will Aman be able to bring the two families together? And will he succeed in achieving his dream?

Its A Mismatch invites you to Join Mr. Bhalla, Mr. Patel, Aman and Neha, along with their families as they celebrate life, love and everything in between.
It's a funny movie and Anupam Kher and Boman Irani are excellent actors in comedy. The movie is all set to be released on June 30,09. Let's see whether this film would make a perfect match with it's audiences or not...

Kambakkht Ishq

Kambakkht Ishq is a romantic comedy about an Indian stuntman Viraj Shergill (Akshay Kumar) who ,becomes a huge star in hollywood ,but cannot find true love in his life. Opposite to him is Kareena Kapoor ,who plays the role of Simrita Rai, she strongly trusts “There’s no such thing as love”. The movie also cast several hollywood stars like Silvester Stallone ,Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carmen Electra, Brandon Routh and Denise Richards.

The romantic comedy, is directed by Sabbir Khan,and produced by Sajid Nadiawala. The film is a full of fun, frolic. The film takes us straight into the relationships between couple of individuals. Kamini (Amrita Arora) is ditzy, innocent and beautiful. She in one of the top models but her dream is to get married to a man who loves her.
Lucky (Aftab Shivadsani) is Viraj's younger brother, he is genuine and loveable. He has been protected his entire life by Viraj and isn't as hard and practical as Viraj is. He is madly in love with Kamini and wants to marry her. But that is one thing that Viraj is against.

Imagine the situation when these stubborn characters encounter each other at Simrita's best friend Kamini's and Viraj's brother Lucky's wedding. It’s a wedding that both Viraj and Simrita are violently opposed to and desperate to stop.

Sparks fly, absurd, hilarious situations until one dramatic twist of fate binds the two together in a manner that they could have never ever even dreamed of in their wildest fantasies.

Zara Thrilling, Zara Timepass-Aa Dekhen Zara

'Aa Dekhen Zara’ is a fast-paced, romantic musical thriller that promises some great edge-of-the-seat action. Neil Nitin Mukesh and Bipasha Basu played the lead role on-screen for the first time, in Jehangir Surti's directorial venture - 'Aa Dekhen Zara'. The movie is produced by Viki Rajani.




Neil Nitin Mukesh plays the role of Ray Acharya Ray who is a photographer by profession and struggles to establish his name and his identity. His luck starts going from bad to worse, by that he inherits his grandfather’s (Biswajeet) special camera which changes things overnight for him.

The camera has the unique ability to reveal the future through the photographs taken from it. Ray He uses the camera, not only to save his girlfriend's life, but also to make millions by clicking lottery tickets and race horses to know their future.

Bipasha Basu plays the role of Simi who is a attractive, sizzling DJ. An independent woman, she has a mind of her own. Everything is hunky dory between Ray and Simi and the duo seem headed for a 'happily ever after' life.

As they say, with great power comes great responsibility and in Ray's case, also great danger. He must now face up to the dark side of reality and win not only against the evil forces but also against fate.


It's a smart new concept. The film tries to give you something new, but the lack of creative imagination while writing the screenplay, especially the second half, ends up making the film just about an average watch. Enter at your own risk.