Khusboo

*ing: Rishi Rehan, Avantika, Ninad Kamat, Himani Shivpuri, Prem Chopra, Raj Babbar, Chunky Pandey, Shakti Kapoor (Guest appearance)
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Music: Adnan Sami, Bappi Lahiri
Producer: Pahlaj Nihalani
Director: Rajesh Ram Singh
Ratings – *

2008 seems to be a year for fresh faces in Bollywood. Even the well-known producer Pahlaj Nihalani tried introducing two new faces through his latest flick Khusboo but the garbage, the film showcases, fails in hinting at the fragrance it has been intended to spread.

Raghunathan Iyer (Rishi Rehan) is a project manager at a multinational company. Being very with his job profile, his boss (Raj Babbar) wants to send him to New York but due to some emergency at a project in Chandigarh he has forget about New York and move for Chandigarh. Raghu meets Pinky (Avantika) in Chandigarh and despite having no faith in love he falls for Pinky (just like all the logically foolish love stories).

The representative of modernism in Chandigarh, Pinky slips straight to Raghu’s bed at their third meeting and after two months she returns only to say that she is pregnant with Raghu’s child.

She asks Raghu to meet her parents once so that she can later on easily tell them the reality about the child. Raghu marries Pinky immediately after meeting her parents. But they keep their marriage a secret.

When Pinky’s parents come to know about their marriage, they, like typical Punjabi, come to Raghu’s office to kill him. Being the only daughter in the family, Pinky easily wins the heart of her five brothers. But her father, subadar Arminder Singh (Prem Chopra) forsakes the relationship with her.

Afterwards, the story witnesses a lot of turns and twists and reaches the happy ending (as it’s very usual).

If films are always prone to have one or the other fault, Khusboo is the uncrowned king among flawed entertainers. It’s really sad that despite having keen eyes to find a better moment, the film doesn’t offer anything praiseworthy. Including direction and first appearance of Rishi and Avantika, all are very weak.

It’s quite unfortunate that all the talents, including the lyrics by Javed Akhtar, music by Adnan Sami and Bappi Lahiri and well known voices of established singers, are simply wasted just for the sake of the film. The film seems more an unsolved puzzle than an entertainer.

The reason behind the modern Pinky, willingly sleeping with an almost unknown guy and clad in modern outfits, declining to deport for New York just for the sake of her desh, is really beyond any psychological understanding.

It looks really bakwas to see Pinky thinking about giving birth to her child in this nation only and more than that, her intention of tagging her child as Shikh appears more intended and unfortunate fallacy. If she can ignore cast at the time of marrying Raghu, how come she insists on the same issue during the birth of her child!

The film is completely an unsolved mystery with so many questions like this. It creates question on the director Rajesh Ram and more than that Khusboo is a big question mark on the career of Pahlaj Nihalani.

Enriched with Punjabi culture, the film looks more a Punjabi flick than Hindi one. Being so inclined to Punjabi traditions, the film should not be able to pull the Hindi audience.

Albeit, watching the film is completely dependant on the audience, managing the fragrance in Khusboo will surely be an impossible task for them.

De Taali

Starring Aftab Shivdasani, Riteish Deshmukh, Ayesha Takiya, Riimi Sen
Directed by E Niwas
Rating: * ½

The funniest moment in this sporadically amusing outing into an ouch slouch is when all torture fails to intimidate the kidnap victim Rimi Sen. Then Riteish Deshmukh fishes out a copy of Ram Gopal Varma’s Aag.

Then the kidnap victim screams in anticipated agony.

That’s pretty much the best inhouse joke I’ve seen in a Hindi comedy. E Niwas not only assisted Varma he also made a semi-sparkling comedy Love Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega for Varma before branching out.

Niwas ab laughter ke liya kuch kuch karega.

De Taali is not quite De Gaali. It falls somewhere in between the taali and gaali. And not quite with a thud. Contrary to the promotional campaign De Taali is not a boys-will-have-fun kind of raunchy comedy we had expected.

Yes there are two boys Aftab Shivdasani and Riteish Deshmukh, both in spirited form as friends, one rich and the other an unselfconscious parasite.

They remind you of Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna in Namak Haraam.

Rest assured, De Taali doesn’t aspire to be a serious study of spaces that separate capitalism from serious exploitation.

So relax. Put your feet up in the empty chair in front and let that popcorn do all the talking.

Here’s a film that goes from goofy definitions of asexual bonding to purely corny sexual bonding.

The tree-house bonding among Shivdasani, Deshmukh and Takiya (in ever-sprakling form and showing terrific timing in both the light and serious moments) is punctuated by spasms of satire on bonding among a trio that seems to have borrowed its primary rules of friendship from Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, and then turned it on its head. Though alas, no bed.

Somehow the bondings never get deeper than the shallow and skittish. The dialogues are deliberately casual and trendy. And ‘cool’ in a rather thanda way. And the first-half delivers some tangy tendrils of narration that never quite grows into a tree of titters.

The second- half where Deshmukh and Takiya, out of a feeling of misbegotten friendship kidnaps the gold digger who wants to marry their naively sentimental rich friend, gets out of hand and finally runs of breath.

The director E Niwas’s penchant for black humour gets the better of the plot. By the time poor goofy Shivdasani realizes he loves the girl on the tree-top we’re well past the stage of caring about this woozy anthem on sharing.

The sequence where Deshmukh visits Rimi Sen’s monstrously malfunctional family is so over-the-top you wonder which came first, the family or its psychosis. The jokes on Alcoholics Anonymous are hopelessly inadequate, better left alone.

The talented Pavan Malhotra who was so powerfully perched in E Niwas’ My Name Is Anthony Gonzalves makes a cameo appearance as a lecherous tutor who gives Rimi Sen lessons on the dining table whike she licks an icecream with suggestive languor.

Yipes….a bit of Mr Bachchan’s Bemisaal here.The Big B pops up ubiquitously throughout the narrative. And that includes a fancy-dress party where everyone dresses up as a character from a Bachchan film.

And Aftab’s character is even named Abhishek. Cute.

You could enjoy the spurts of wit that keep cropping up here and there.Soon it becomes hard to keep up with the improvisations and innovations in the script.

The quartet of principal actors keep the comedy afloat. Riteish is in specially good form displaying a razor-sharp comic timing in acrowd of faces.

Yup, this guy has got the ‘IT’ factor. The film misses the bus by a wide margin. But nevertheless makes us smile a while.

Haal-e-Dil

Amita Pathak, Nakuul Mehta, Adhyayan Suman
Rating: *

A bespectacled ’serious’ girl on a rigged rail yatra. She seems to have borrowed her demeanour from Kajol in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and Preity Zinta in Kal Ho Na Ho.

You know, studious bookish and grumpy…It takes the exuberant won’t-take-no-for-an-answer stranger on the train played by new comer Nakuul Mehta to draw the prissy missy our of her frigid emotionalism. This girl is waiting to be liberated. Kaaton se khinch key eh aanchal.

Enter our modernday Raju Guide with more on his mind than melodious music (considering the sporific quality of the songs, he has no choice). He thinks babbling non-stop is a symptom of joie de vivre. Just because extra-volubility suited Kareena in Jab We Met. I tell you!

Helping the couple to come together is a train compartment filled with stereotypes including one over-acting Bengali housewife (Bharti Achrekar), a kindly ticket collector (who behaves as if he just saw Imtiaz Ali’s Jab We Met and of course Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Ltd and learnt his etiquettes in station mastery from them ) dancing-singing beggars (in newly –stitched ghagra-cholis) and yes, Ajay Devgan and Kajol who clap a few beats at a railway platform and beat a hasty retreat.

So, I am afraid, should we. Before we swear off romantic film forever.This tedious transperantly derivate romance chugs on and on with no respite in sight. The songs are like opium for the snoring masses. Dope in drag.

As some relief in this snail rail trail, in flashbacks newcomer Adhyayan Suman shows up as the bespectacled girl’s college lover-boy. He has a sweet sincere presence and should have had more to do in this loco- motivated talkathon shot most on the train parked at Kamalistan studios.

The least you do in a travel film is to make the transportation and the locations look authentic.

Director Anil Devgan makes this one purely an exercise in self-indulgence for matronly spinsters who still think Prince Charming is a artificially exhilarated dude in designer togs giving everyone in the compartment and in the audience a gala time.

Or so he’d like to believe.

Mere Baap Pehele Aap

Starring: Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Shobhna, Genelia D’ Souza, Rajpal Yadav, Archana Puran Singh, Manoj Joshi, Naseeruddin Shah.
Director: Priyadarshan
Producer: Mansi Maroo, Ketan Maroo
What To Watch For: Hilarious Comedy by Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, Akshaye Khanna……..etc
What Will Bore You Away: At times a little over acting by Archana Puran Singh and Rajpal Yadav
My Analysis:

After a week of serious releases, here is a movie which is to make you laugh your way along the movie. Mere Baap Pehele Aap has proven itself to be a complete entertainer. The movie as the typical Priyadarshan movies has made people laugh n laugh n laugh. It’s a story about Janaradhan (Paresh Rawal) and his younger son Gaurav (Akshaye Khanna). Janardhan is a single parent who has brought up his two kids Chirag (Manoj Joshi) and Gaurav and now that the kids are old enough, Gaurav has started helping and managing the business his father owns. Gaurav is keen on keeping his beloved and innocent dad away from his “Tharki” friend, Madhav (Om Puri) who is determined to get married at this age. Janardhan and his Tharki friend Madhav always land up in troubles and are rescued at the right time by Gaurav; whenever Madhav tries hitting on babes who would’ve probably been Madhav’s daughter’s friend had he had a daughter (and the troubles also include their encounters with the cop played by Archana Puran Singh.). Amidst of this, one day, janardhan happens to meet Anuradha (Shobhana), who is gaurav’s college friend, Shikha’s (Genelia D’ Souza’s) guardian. And with that starts the story of our older hero, Paresh Rawal. Anuradha is supposedly Janrdhan’s long lost first love. Gaurav and Shikha notice the shyness and change in behavior of both Janardhan and Anuradha when they meet or talk to each other and decide to get the duo married. The way though is not easy.
The movie comes with a package of comedy, with Paresh Rawal and Om Puri giving their best at comedy. Om Puri is marvelous with Rajpal Yadav and Archana Puransingh being a little louder. Naseer Uddin Shah’s guest appearance is also a good one. All in all, the movie is a pleasure to watch.
My rating: 3.5/5

aamir

Starring Rajeev Khandelwal
Directed by Rajkumar Gupta
Rating: *** ½

If you are one of those super-selective moviegoers who watches three films a year then make sure Aamir figures on your list. Varnaa….

This is by far one of the finest attempts in recent times to explore the psyche of a modern ‘foreign-returned’ Indian as he’s plunged headlong into the Kafkaesque nightmare of crime grime extremism and fanaticism in the underbelly of that big bright and bewildering city known as Mumbai.

A Swades on skids hurling down into an abyss of unpatriotic instigations.

From the moment Aamir (Rajeev Khandelwal) touches down on Mumbai’s international airport, what assails you is that overpowering sense of an individual’s struggle to survive in a pitiless and often unforgiving city.

That debutant director Rajkumar Gupta is able to muster a fair amount of smiles and chuckles in this tale of one day in the life of a man caught in a nightmare that even Kafka would find hard to create let alone condone, is entirely providential.

Aamir could’ve easily slipped into being a heavyhanded polemical study of the isolation and persecution of the Indian Muslim and his constant battle to remain part of the mainstream even as he’s provoked and instigated from both ends to keel over and surrender to forces of chaos anarchy and annihilation.

Ironically a work of art like Aamir embraces the chaos to create a universe that is in a strange a stirring way, the opposite of destruction.

Persistently, Aamir repeatedly invokes images of ominous doom as we see the protagonist wind his way through a dreadful day that would end in abject tragedy.

The taut and tense narration finds supreme sustenance from its outdoors. Indeed apart from Khandelwal and his portrayal of the the reluctant hero, the real protagonist of Aamir is Mumbai city.

The crowded congested chawls and gullis, the reek of deprivation and the stench and sweat of anxiety assail your semses in a way that we last saw in Anurag Kashyap’s Black Friday.

Squalor seldom seemed so splendidly evocative. As the protagonist winds his way through a day in the city that would lead to his inevitable doom, the camera captures crowds of bored bystanders and curious passersby looking at our man on the run with a tell-tale red briefcase….or shall we call it the grief case?…in his sweaty hands.

First-time cinematographer Alphons Roy has done to Mumbai what most movies set on the city have not. He has made Mumbai at once the perpetrator and victim of a socio-political perversity that goes beyond crime and punishment.

Editor Aarti Bajaj cuts the film with a ruthlessness that echoes the film’s subliminal mood.. There’s no room in the narration for question marks.

Every shot is punctuated by an exclamation mark, every moment means a move forward to an unknown destination. Every glance on the road seems to suggest danger. Every peep is a peril. It’s an amazingly constructed labyrinth of crime and commitment.

The narrative harnesses faces on the streets with the expertise of an unrehearsed trapeze artiste’s walk across a ragged rope. There’s very little to keep the plot from going over the precipice. And yet director Raj Kumar Gupta pulls it off with a full-throttle drama that leaves us gasping for breath.

Indeed, we’ve never seen a screen hero- run so fast and so relentlessly. Rajeev Khandelwal chases fugitive taxis and petty criminals through highways and gullis which stretch into acres of aching squalor.

Physically and emotional taxing, the role gives Khandelwal a chance to make the kind of debut actors dream about in their worst nightmare.

The debutant doesn’t let go of his character for even a split second.

From those skillfully shot long-shots of Aamir running on the highyways to those tight close-ups expressing hurt, anger anguish desperation and occasional gratitude (watch him when the prostitute helps him out, or towards the finale on the bus when looking out of the widow he thinks his ordeal has ended) Khandelwal knows what his job thoroughly.

There’re hordes of smaller actors, like Gajraj Rao barking orders into poor Aamir’s burning ears through a cellphone that has no outgoing calls. Only incoming fanaticism.

Aamir is that kind of a rare film which provides us food for thought without burdening us with calories of polemics and sermons on the quality of existence. The thriller element presides over the message.The disturbing undercurrents just flow out of the storywith a virile fluency.

At the end you aren’t watching a film about extremism but a rare take on life at the edge that doesn’t topple over into the abyss.

Humse Hai Jahan

Starring: Mashhoor Amrohi, Vishakha Singh, Jackie Shroff, Shahjad Khan, Kiran Kumar, A K Hangal, Mack Mohan, Prem Chopra and Mukesh Rishi
Music: Abuzaar, Sidharth Suhas Director: Mashhoor Amrohi
Ratings: **

Mashhoor Amrohi has attempted real task acting under his own direction in his debut film as a director. Trying to prove his mettle in winning the world, Mashhoor, in his debut film Humse Hai Jahan, has set an example to follow for the youngsters who want to act in their self-directed films.i

Don Gary Rosaria (Jackie Shroff) gets emotionaly hurt by Sameer (Mashhoor Amrohi) as he makes a mess at Gary’s hotel during an action and in order to reimburse his mental gash the don forces Sameer to work for his illegal operations. i

During this span Sameer needs fifty lacs rupees but he doesn’t have guts to ask Gary for that amount. Sameer plots to kidnap Esha (Vishakha Singh), the daughter of flop superstar Gyaneshwar Singh i.e. G S (Shahjad Khan), to bag the amount. i

But he fails all the time he goes to kidnap Esha with his friends. Then he traps Esha in his love and eventually succeeds in kidnapping her. But that success makes him confident enough to attempt more such things to earn more money. i

In that way he gets strangled among Dabar (Mukesh Rishi), Samba (Mack Mohan) and Pran Panwara i.e. P P (Kiran Kumar). Having no other option, Sameer decides to get helped out by his uncle Prithwiraj Khanna (Prem Chopra), who is a retired Indian ambassador.i

To avoid the long questionnaire of his uncle Sameer presents Esha as his wife. On the other hand G S, being very morose with the kidnapping of his daughter, contacts his long time friend Gary for help. i

Gary comes to think of Esha as his god daughter. Without having any hint about Sameer having his hand behind everything, Gary appoints him in search of Esha. Unfortunately Dabar and Pran inform Gary about how Sameer, acting as Esha’s boyfriend, has kidnapped and killed her. i

At last the story reaches its endpoint and like many other Bollywood films this film also ends on a happy note.i

As a writer Mashhoor never left a chance to make the audience bored. Acting and direction of the film was also up to the mark. Considering Humsey Hai Jahan as Mashhoor’s first film, he can be allowed a little freedom. i

Vishakha has acted well in accordance with her character. A K Hangal looks well in his new look of Mr. Wild West. On the other hand Kiran Kumar and Prem Chopra are such actors who these days are seen less on screen. i

Mashhoor has used them very well in this film. It won’t be wrong to call Prem Chopra the rising item boy because of his tapping toes in a song. i

But the sad note of the film is that Mashhoor, in keeping his eyes on portraying various characters, failed in creating perfect choreography. The story is well built but having it missed the comic touch it would have been very tough to sit and watch the film.

If you are a fan of Kamal Amrohi films then you would really love to watch his grandson’s film, only if it’s not otherwise. The rest is obviously upon the audience and their way of accepting the masala from the grandson of a classic maker.

Summer 2007

*ing: Sikander Kher, Gul Panag, Ashutosh Rana, Uvika Chaudhary, Arjan Bajwa, Alekh Sangal, Vikram Gokhle, Sachin Khedekar, Neetu Chandra (Special appearance)
Producer: Atul Pandey
Director: Suhail Tatari
Ratings: **1/2

The cluster of the society, who travels in its air conditioned car and spends peaceful nights in their air conditioned houses, finds newspaper and few minutes of television news as their only source of information about the country.

They even don’t bother to know about the section of people belonging to the lower sectors of the society. Director Suhail and his colleagues have understood and depicted the scenario very well in Atul Pandey produced movie Summer 2007.

Life is mere a name of fun and enjoyment for five friends namely, Rahul Sharma (Sikander Kher), Vishakha (Gul Panag), Priyanka (Uvika Chaudhary), Kanteel (Arjan Bajwa) and Bagani (Alekh Sangal), all of whom are final year medical students at Kasturba Medical College.

They know about how to rein their ego and that’s how, without thinking for the second time, they all jump into the college politics. When they realize the bleak of the otherwise alluring excitement, they evade making an excuse of projects.

Next, being invariably keen on having fun and having less interest in final year project, the five of them reach a hospital in a village near to Goa. There they meet Dr. Mukesh Jadav (Ashutosh Rana) who single handedly runs the hospital which is on the verge of closing down due the absence of help from government.

People in the village are so much indebted for monetary helps that they prefer to engulf poison than to ask for money for buying food. The person responsible for the dwindling condition of the village is the moneylender of the village Bagh (Vikram Gokhle).

If someone cannot reimburse his amount then he thinks killing them as one of his responsibilities. He doesn’t want the villagers to be self-dependent.

That’s why he tries to kill Shankar Gaetonde (Sachin Khedekar) who endeavours on development of the village. Dr. Mukesh, alias Mukya, who also dreams about independence of villagers, comes at the right time and saves Shankar. In that mission of saving Shankar all the villagers come in helping Dr. Mukesh without even thinking twice about their lives.

Suhail deserves claps because of his meticulous eyes on the beauty of Maharashtrian village along with the balance he maintained through his characters, their outfits as well as the language. Sikander Kher, Gul Panag, Uvika Chaudhary, Arjan Bajwa and Alekh Sangal are well in tune with their characters.

We especially can talk about Alekh, who attracted the maximum number of eyeballs because of his nonpareil performance in the film.

On the other hand Sachin Khedekar and Vikram Gokhle are up to the mark depicting their Marathi characters. Ashutosh Rana throws his Marathi dialogue very well (maybe having a Marathi wife has now been cashed with this film).

Mere two scenes depict the chemistry between Ashutosh and Gul but the mere moments are enough to prove their maturity as actors.

People, who think farmers attempting suicide is a mere forgettable issue, should go and watch the film as the film can tell them well about how the issue is derogatory for the prestige of the nation.

Woodstock Villa

Starring Sikandar Kher, Neha Uberoi, Arbaaz Khan, Gulshan Grover
Directed by Hansal Mehta
Rating: ** ½

One thing is for sure. The image of the leading lady in our cinema has changed beyond recognition.

Barely months after watching Bipasha Bsau sleep her way to the Big O (opulence, not what you think) in Race, and weeks after Kareena Kapoor in Tashan showed us it’s okay for nice small-town girl to covet that big villa in Vermont, we now have the ultra-confident semi-debutante Neha Uberoi (she has done a bit part in Dus Kahaniyan) who walks away from the mess she partly creates with a bagful of money.

No she doesn’t get away with it. And that’s not because the screenwriters got cold feet in drawing that svelte line between Sati Savitri and Slutty Savitri.

But only because the ‘hero’ (if we may call the glib-tongued amoral dude from ‘drown’-under a hero) turns out to be smarter shrewder and more ruthless than the lady who doesn’t believe in glancing backwards.

Woodstock Villa isn’t a great work of art. It doesn’t aspire to be. Its affectations in visuals, treatment, background score and characterization are so nakedly unsheathed and freed of the elements of realism that the posturing becomes a form of artlessness.

The films has a specific look and style. Granite walls, rusted floors,screaming desires and smothered conscience…what would a Sanjay Gupta production be without these?

Vikash Nowlakha Anshum’s cinematography and Wasiq Khans’s art design bring a sense of imminent peril into the plot. As though the characters were framed against a wall that separates humanity from doom.

Hansal Mehta’s films specially that underrated ode to Chinese actioners Chhal have always been created on the editing table. Bunty Negi cuts the material down to a stark minimum.

The people who populate Woodstock Villa are crowded not by a supporting cast but their inner worlds which simmer to the surface in swirls of indignation.

I specially loved the pre-titled ten minutes when Arbaaz Khan with his bagful of ransom money is tracked down by his wife’s kidnapper.

There’s something about Mumbai under siege. Mehta holds the suspense at an arms (and ammunitions) distance. An inherently violent film, Woodstock Villa doesn’t have too much blood spilling on the expensive wooden floors.

The ambience reeks of unchecked affluence where a wife takes off with a man who almost rapes her before he dumps her body in ravine where the slush and silence seem borrowed from Vikram Bhatt’s Raaz.

The two newcomers execute their immoral unscrupulous distraught parts with a confidence that imparts an edge of erotica to the relentless action. Arbaaz Khan has one really difficult sequence where he has to break down at the end and bawl like a baby on the floor.

Meena Kumari in Guru Dutt’s Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam had fallen to the floor with an anguished cry because her husband leaves her.

Arbaaz’s screen wife and his mistress have left him at the end. He’s the loser in this tightly-knitted game of cat and mouse.

And the ‘hero’ flies off with money that he didn’t earn.

Gee, what a wonderful world we’ve gifted to the coming generations.

Sarkar Raj

Cast – Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Tanisha Mukherji, Govind Namdeo, Upendra Limaye, Dilip Prabhawalkar, Sayaji Shinde
Director- Ram Gopal Varma
Rating-**1/2

Looks like Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘one of a kind’ cinematic sensibilities have flown out of the window. ‘Sarkar Raj’ is laden with star power and some good characterizations, yet it’s not impressive enough.

‘Sarkar’ was a landmark film of the year 2005. But the sequel can hardly be considered an apt follow-up. Maybe making the sequel wasn’t a very great idea after all (is that why creatively crazy Ramu has been telling the world that the film’s not a sequel?).

Now no one’s yet doubting his capabilities as a filmmaker though! He was an avant-garde filmmaker of his times with movies like ‘Satya’ and ‘Company’ to his credit!

Untill creative diarrhea happened to him and he decided to churn out stuff like ‘Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag’ and ‘Shiva.’

‘Sarkar Raj’ takes off where the earlier movie ended and has similar half lit settings (which becomes irritating after a point)!

Shubhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan)’s power regime in Maharashtra has happily continued. His Bal Thackrey inspired ‘father of Maharasthra’ character has come to terms with the death of his elder son (Kay Kay in the earlier film) and is satisfactorily doing his duties towards the people.

Abhishek’s Shankar Nagre has aptly taken over his father’s mantle (as shown towards the end of the earlier film) and is married to the homely Avanatika (Tanisha).

The family rules the hearts of happily citizens.

Until Aishwarya Rai’s power woman character enters! She is Anita Rajan whose multinational company is looking at building a huge power project which would cover some rural areas of Maharashtra.

The problem is that the project would make a million families in the surrounding villages homeless. That leaves the ground open for the start of a struggle for supremacy between the Nagre family, the various power brokers and political pawns.

The actual condition of people and the environment in Mumbai and Maharashtra’s villages has been explored well in the story and a whole lot of things appear very very authentic!

Wish Ramu hadn’t loaded the story with unrealistic things like the abrupt beginning to the Abhi Ash dosti. Just after the first meeting, Abhi is mighty impressed by Ash’s project and Ash of course. So much so that she joins him as he tours a dozen villages of Maharashtra.

Looks like Ramu was seriously trying to cash in on the miya biwi real life pyaar.

Also unrealistic are the murders happening left, right and center. Wonder what happened to the law of the land!

In the Godfather, The Corleones were a mafia family, so the bloodshed was kind of justified. But for God’s sake, this is a political family based in the heart of Mumbai!

The way the wife gets killed by the car bomb (which was meant to be for the hubby) again reminds one of the ‘The Godfather’ effect!

Amitabh Bachchan yet again delivers a flawless performance and Ramu quite literally gets what he expects from an actor like him. Abhishek essays the Shankar part pretty well, as well as in the previous film.

Their chemistry of the father–son jodi is heartwarming and excellent.

Same can’t be said of the Abhi-Ash chemistry though, which comes across as superficial. Ash looks the sophisticated corporate women’s part and her beauty shines through here, too.

Only the characters looks jumbled up as from a steely foreign bred business woman, she turns into a big sympathizer and ‘too close a friend’ of the Nagre family. As a whole, she doesn’t really come across as a strong character (the way it was portrayed in the media by Mr. Varma!)

Tanisha looks the Maharashtrian wife’s part but as guessed by many she has very little to do. Supriya Pathak is amiable as in the earlier film. Rukhsar (the elder bahu)’s and her little son’s characters just get mentioned here. But the mention of their names very well leave the option for another sequel open!

There is a gamut of good character roles written in the film and the character actors from Upendra Limaye (Vora), Dilip Prabhawalkar (Rao Sahab) to Bala (Sumeet Nijhawan), Sayaji Shinde (Karunesh Kaanga) and the Raj Thackrey kind of character stand out. They make the otherwise confusing proceedings quite interesting.

The entire premise of the movie is mighty dark and depressing and there’s a hell lot of violence happening around. If you’re a fan of feel good movies, this ain’t your cup of tea.

The cinematography (by Amit Roy) is again Ramuish (you can almost categorize it as that, after all these years, especially post ‘Sarkar’) but there are a lot of haphazard and out of focus shots (must be all for the sake of Ramu’s ‘over’ creativity).

The music doesn’t have a great role in a film like this one, so that way, it’s alright. They try to cash in on the ‘Govinda Govinda’ track here too. Though the effect isn’t the same this time around! The background score is decent (and almost similar to the earlier film).

If you are a huge fan of the Bachchans and intricacies of a political power struggle interests you, this movie sure is a one time watch!