Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic

Starring Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Amisha Patel
Director: Kunal Kohlil
Rating: ***

TPTM is not a great work of art. It makes you feel warm and comforted about the… Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic (TPTM) is not a great work of art. It doesn’t cause ripples of revolution across the cinematic stratosphere.It does something even better.

It makes you feel warm and comforted about the quality of contemporary life. No matter how awful things seem, there’s always that core of goodness in the human heart to count on.

This one makes you count your blessings.

Kunal Kohli taps that noble core, so elusive in our cinema. The last film which was as nobly-intended as TPTM was Ashutosh Gowariker’s Swades. And Gowariker for all his acute sensitivity and storytelling acumen was awfully out of breath dealing with the child actor in Swades.

Kohli is delightly at-ease with his four child actors who have been selected not for their overt cuteness but their propensity to play the characters that they’re allotted with restrain and understanding.

Each of the four brats, forced by law to come and live with the man who accidently killed their parents, sparkle with a spontenous credibility. Kohli treats the kids as young adults.

And he treats the audience wuth as much respect. He gives us what we apparently want (emotions, laughter, drama). But he makes sure his plot doesn’t become a slave to conventional prescriptions.

It’s not easy to desist from using a patronizing tone for the children when they are orphans trapped in an adult situation that they don’t understand.

Kohli does a fantasy-spin where the sassy and spiffy words and storytelling offset the quaint arcadian story of the four orphans and a cantankerous tycoon who we soon discover is constantly unhappy on account of a girlfriend who only talks about designer clothes and Sunita Menon.

For enlightened conversation he must turn to a poker- faced butler (Razzak Khan), a business associate on the webcam (who talks in an indeterminate accent) and later the four children who are forced on his life along with a god-sent angel who infuriates him by constantly laughing in his face.

More than Mary Poppins Kunal Kohli is inspired by the Sound Of Music…and I don’t mean what Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have created on the soundtrack.

Saif’s ceaseless scowl could well be a spillover from what Christopher Plummer wore as a passion statement way back in the 1960s in the Roger & Hammerstein musical.

And Rani Mukherjee could be a desi Julie Andrews popping out of a cottony heaven run by a ‘God’ who looks a lot like Rishi Kapoor.

The idyllic theme often takes off into a realm of commodious fantasy with children prancing with animals, both real and computerized, in what could happily be seen as a modernday interpretation of Gulzar’s Parichay.

TPTM leaves you with a feeling of warmth and wellbeing. TPTM is an all’s-well-with-the-world anthem on celluloid sung at a pitch that pointedly avoids the higher notes and scales some sweet tender octaves in tones that sound like paens to heaven.

More than anything else TPTM bowls you over its nobility of purpose. Though inured in the condensed milk of human kindness the narration never plummets into becoming an occasion to flaunt some jaundiced utopia.

Not even when Kunal, very bravely inspired by Raj Kumar Hirani brings footage of the real-life Gandhiji into the narration.

That’s when our heavesent ‘Munnibai’ goes for the kill. Rani Mukherjee creates an aura of mischievous artlessness around the angel’s role. Saif is all scowls and pursed lips. But nonetheless emotive in parts. Amisha Patel’s benign bimbo’s act depends more on styling than substance.

Sudeep Chatterjee’s camerawork is gloriously wedded to gloss. Every hair on the head glistens with glamour.

Every scowl is on the prowl for perfection.

This is a film that no one can hate. It doesn’t have a single ‘bad’ character, not even badly-written characters. In just two sequences Sharat Saxena as the legal eagle lets you know all we need or want to know about his life.

The children tell us the rest.

Mehbooba

Starring Manisha Koirala, Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgan
Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali….oops, Afzal Khan
Rating: * ½

Manisha Koirala is the one reason why one would want to brave this prolonged homage to the cinema of Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

This one is a 3-hour long rag-carpet welcome to Sanjay Leela Bhansali Hum…Dil De Chuke Sanam. The plot, ambience, characters, music and even the interactive interludes between the main protagonists are all derived with lipsmacking relish from Bhansali’s film.

Why, Mehbooba (no relation to Shakti Samanta’s Mehbooba in 1977) even goes to Budapest where Bhansali shot the second-half of Hum….

Except, that Mehbooba goes to Budapest in the first-half and to the bustling screechy noisy food-laden haveli from the first-half of Bhansali’s Hum… in the second-half.

Ho hum…. The melodies (if one may call them that) flit in and out like unwanted guests after every ten minutes of dialogue.

If the songs were sacrificed on the editing table, maybe—just maybe—Mehbooba would be more bearable in its old-world love triangle ambience of two brothers (one idealistic and lovelorn, the other unscrupulous and ever-libidinous) who fall for the same girl.

The meat of the métier goes to the majestic Manisha…Still resplendent and lovely no matter where and in what they put her, Manisha never fails to infuse a poetic aura to her character.

Fetchingly photographed by that wunder-lensman Ashok Mehta at times Manisha looks as incandescent as she did in Bhansali’s Khamoshi: The Musical.

Alas, like this long-delayed film, Manisha too has gone through innumerable ups and downs in her career.

The inconsistencies in the narration are covered up with a lot of exterior gloss. To the director Afzal Khan’s credit the film’s scattered pastiche is woven into what can pretty much be described as a seamless ‘yawn’ about two men and a woman who should know better.

The sets and locations are opulent flamboyant and eye-catching. No subtlety is applied in the visuals or emotions. The song-and-dance numbers that come along with alarming rapidity are shot with an eye for unhampered opulence.

So who gets the girl at the end? That’s a question which must remain in the audiences’ mind in any love triangle.

Beyond a point we stop caring completely about these three compulsively conflicted characters, even though one of them is played by a star who brings in an element of the tragic and classic grandeur from an era gone-by.

And one isn’t referring to either of the two male leads. Devgan and Dutt behave like Devgan and Salman Khan from Bhansali’s Hum Dil… discussing the same woman with each other ad nauseam as though she were two different entities.

A case of a split personality? By the time the triangle is resolved (with one of heroes coming to a suitably stickly nemesis) the only ’split’ personality is the audience.

Most of them have fled the dread of watching a film that goes back the oldest traditions of Hindi cinema and emerges with a product that substitutes genuine emotions with elaborate props borrowed from a master storyteller’s creative godown.

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.

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!