Writing exhaustive reviews has not been possible lately, because of various reasons. Hence I’m trying to capture quick reviews and hence the name Snipper J. The below is still lengthy and you’ll hopefully see shorter versions next time around….
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Snip-In:
Vishal Bhardwaj’s best ever directorial work after Omkara. Climax of Omkara was soaked in a bloodbath and could have been less violent (as against the tragic Othello L). But Vishal is stunning in all the departments with Kaminey. I guess in his mind this time he was not comparing his work with numerous versions of Macbeth and Othello, as Kaminey seems to be an original one and not depiction of classics of Shakespeare (Maqbool and Omkara) or Ruskin Bond (Blue Umbrella).
The plot, editing (can be confusing at times for hardcore Desi movie buffs ;)) and storytelling is fabulous. I read somewhere that Vishal superseded Torantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill). Can’t say about that, but yes the pace and the overall treatment was at par with any Great Hollywood Action Classic.
The most remarkable aspect after direction was Shahid. I realized while walking out of the theatre that I was treating Guddu and Charlie as 2 distant characters and there was no Shahid involved even in scenes where the 2 brothers are in the same frame. Only in first couple of scenes (song - Bhanwraa) Shahid was prominent instead of the character. The biggest success in portraying the 2 opposite protagonists lies in not using any deliberate external differences like the makeovers or dress-code etc. Within Bollywood I am not able to recall any other double-role played with equal vigor at least in last 2 decades (a recent good one was Shahrukh’s DON – He played the two characters differently but Shahrukh was not able to separate himself from the character J)
Priyanka, Amol Gupte, Hrishikesh Joshi, Chandan Roy Sanyal (Michael) have acted superbly.
Shahid and Priyanka at picnic, captures one of the most intense and at the same time the wittiest scenes of Bollywood till date.
Cinematography was great. Some low angles and a few hand-held camera shots help in keeping up the pace of the movie. Gray and black hues have been extensively used throughout the movie which goes well with the theme – It subtly tells that in every one of us a gray shade exists and so is the title ‘Kaminey’. The sound effect of rain in the backdrop adds to the thrill. But one more time unfortunately we get to see the dark, ugly, and poor side of Mumbai. That could have been avoided to some extent.
Snip-Out
Climax
The climax revives memories of Tashan L, but thankfully it gets over quickly and is also more bearable in the background of the earlier great 2 hours of the movie.
Tashi in Taxi
Tashi is shown as a real BIG drug mafia and throughout the movie he is relishing in luxury. However in the climax he and his side-kicks get out of age-old Premier Padmini taxis, don’t know why ;-) Also till the end he appears to have South East Asian Origin, but in the climax he asks in Marathi ‘Bhope kuthe rahto?’ That sounds odd and funny.
Disconnect with the Charlie’s dad’s quote
Charlie at the start while narrating the story mentions, ‘Mere baap ne marte waqt hame ye bola tha…’ However later on when his dad commits suicide in the movie, he do not speak anything with his 2 kids while dying.
Sub-Titles
I guess the whole movie refers to incidents taking place within 1-2 days and mention of the date / time / place in sub-titles would have been great to involve viewers more and for keeping in-line of the pace.
Snip-o-meter
Dhan Te tan!
Take a bow to the ever revolving new-age Indian Cinema.
Overall a must see as it’s a great entertainer and for an acting marvel by Shahid. It’s a vrooming Ferrari ride.
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Yogesh Dixit
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na' - Review
‘Who’s Aamir Khan? Ask the girl next door’ – Hoardings flashing across Mumbai in the summer of 1988 before QSQT was released. 20 years later, Aamir himself could have redone the same while launching his nephew ‘Imraan Khan’ through his own production house. But the tag lines, teasers, and promos were on different lines, not to promote Imraan alone but the movie itself - ‘Jaane tu…Ya Jaane Na’. It may be a bold statement but it would definitely rewrite the history for Bollywood movies, especially in the ‘romantic- light-comedy’ genre. Also it has probably given the Bollywood 2 stars in Imraan and Genelia, a director and lyricist in ‘Abbas’ and another equally capable actor (guess who…?)
The storyline is not a lot different. It’s a closely knit group of six college-going, new-age youths, 3 girls and 3 boys. Jaisingh Rathore (Imraan) is a middle-class, level headed, steady and little bit of out-of-the-place boy in the 21st century (he doesn’t carry a cell phone!). He has been brought up by his mother giving him a daily dose of being non-violent at every juncture of life. He never fights with anyone, instead he likes to resolve most of “pangas” dealing with others in an uncanny friendly way. Aditi (Genelia) always calls him “rats” because of his nature. She is completely opposite of Jai. She always likes to fight for small little things. She is a contemporary ‘Mumbaiyya’ girl. Jai calls her “Myaaw”. And there is Shalini, Mala, Rotulu Bombs, and Jignesh. Rotulu is a typical funny guy and Jignesh hails from a rich family with a heavy ‘Gujju’ accent (read ‘Jinges’). And both of them have better roles to play than just being usual sidekicks. Well everyone cares for others in that group. But Jai and Aditi are very close friends? of each other and share a love-hate relationship between them.
But the story has other multiple aspects to look at: Various relationships such as - between lovers and x-lovers, within the parents, parents and their youthful kids, between siblings, and other aspects such as corrupt system, social values and so on. And the beauty is, it is so wisely woven in the script that none of the character is preaching any values, morale in the movie but it still succeeds in passing on the messages, without making the viewers bored.
One of the strongest relationships came across through Jai and her mother. Jai’s mother Savitri Rathore played by Ratna Pathak Shah is a social activist and comes across situations where she has to fight it out with the system – AKA corrupt inspector Ghorpade (Paresh Rawal). And there’s her husband who keeps popping out of the full-sized poster hanging on the wall of their living room. He is a true ‘Rajput’ and appears in the poster with a big mustache, ornaments and is fully geared with swords et all. The husband is played by the real-life husband, none other than ‘Naseeruddin Shah’. Savitri and her husband keeps on debating about Raj’s upbringing and whether to make him a true Rajput or a non-violent (read timid) guy. Savitri’s scenes with her husband and inspector Ghorpade have come across really well in light hearted mode.
The next one is off-course between Aditi and Jai. They are being friends for all five years in the college. So much so close that Aditi picks up Jai everyday on her way to college. They are spending all the moments during their college life together in that group of six. The real story starts when both of them come to know that they can not meet regularly as the college is over. Hence Aditi invites Jai to meet his father to help him in his business. This scene has really came up very well, when her parents mistook him as their would be ‘son-in-law’. Both Jai and Aditi deny being in love, where everyone including the audience and their parents are already convinced about the same. This is where we start realizing the aptness of the movie title, the tag lines (‘When do you know you are in Love’) and director’s commitment to the script. Here onwards the story takes all the twists and turns where both of them choose the right? girlfriend and boyfriend for each other and to start a new life where they can still be friends, while being married to someone else. There are relationships being developed within this group which are again hovering over the borders of friendship and love and it portrays a lively chemistry between Aditi, Rotulu, Jignesh and Bombs.
The other equally interesting relationship portrayed in the movie is between Aditi and her brother Amit. It’s again having an angle of love-hate relationship. He is shown as an artist (painter) who is seen in the movie with colors applied all over his clothes and body and always carries a little white mouse as his pet. The mouse is his best friend in this world. Amit is aloof, overly possessive of her sister and hates all the friends of hers, especially Jai. The reasons for this are strikingly different and should be ‘felt’ while watching the movie. This guy has acted superbly. He is Smita Patil’s son – Prateik. I knew that Prateik has acted in the movie and was so desperate to find him out from shot#1. I have made every attempt to relate Prateik with the characters like Rotulu and others. But when he made an entry, I was stunned to see the huge resemblance with her mother Smita. He is all Smita’s child in every sense with the same expressive eyes, face and creative presence on the screen. He doesn’t have too much of footage, but makes it one of the memorable characters in the movie.
Abbas Tyrewala lives more than the expectation. He has painted the collage of relationships in a very effective manner without making it melodramatic, still imposing the audience to seriously think about life, and at the same time putting a dash of comedy to ease out the slightest tensions in the movie. The success of the movie is 3-fold, the way a) he has built the story as a Writer, b) narrated as a Script-Writer / thru Dialogues and c) the way he has directed it really makes all the difference. His writing credential include ‘Maqbool’ ‘Main Hoon Naa’ ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ and ‘Chupke Se’. He and the Producer - Mansoor Khan, have driven the others departments of the movie equally well, ‘lighting’ in the movie is one of the prominent aspects. But Abbas has gone beyond all this, while being a lyricist. All the songs in the movie are very well thought of and written to capture the exact mood of the moment and to make the storyline even stronger. A.R. Rehman is at his best while composing all the songs. ‘Pappu’, ‘Aditi’ are already big hits before the movie is launched. But ‘Najare Chura Naa’ is actually a master-piece in terms of audio-visual treat. Like you can’t forget the ‘harmonium’ tunes from ‘Kahenaa Hi Kya’ ( Bombay ), you won’t be able to forget the ‘Mouth-Organ’ played in ‘Najare Chura Naa’. This song has become my personal favorite and can definitely lighten up the gloomy moods at any times. Hats-off to Rehman. (There is a continuity flaw in this song though – Jignesh in one shot during this song, has seen taking off his T-Shirt to get into the lake, but in the next shot he is seen in some other T-shirt in the waters J)
Well there is a surprise in store to add more spice to the comedy. The cameo played by ‘Arbaaz (Bagheera) and Bhallo (Sohail Khan) are distinctly different characters and their roles can more closely be related to one of those in a Hollywood movie. While we see them for the first time, we assume it to be a one-scene cameo, but again Abbas has made very wise use of them by roping them in couple of other screens including the climax.
Genelia has played the role quite well. She has crafted all the shades of her character convincingly and also while delivering the dialogues in Hindi has not shown any accent. Manjiri Fadnis a lookalike of ‘Rimi Sen’ has played the role of ‘Meghana‘ – Jai’s girlfriend. She is another capable Marathi Girl making a promising entry in Bollywood.
The biggest find is however ‘Imraan Khan’. He has a resemblance with the Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix (‘The village’) and doesn’t carry the face of typical Bollywood hero. Unlike his uncle, he seems to be a very natural actor and even looks like a spontaneous one too. While seeing him in one of the interviews before the launch of the movie he appeared to be a very calm, less talkative (shy), middle-class boy. He was just enough confident of his work in the movie and was not claiming any big success during this interview. I can recall another such interview of Harman Baweja, before launch of his movie ‘2050’ (ironically both got released on the same day). Harman was talking like a business graduate from ‘ Harvard University ’ and like a Lead Manager doing a road-show for a Global IT/infrastructure ‘IPO’. The movie ‘2050’ was so futuristic that it vanished like a UFO without a trace of it in 2008. Looking at the promos of ‘Kidnap’, which is Imraan’s just second movie he is playing a negative / gray-shaded character and I’d say he has all the courage not to remain a stereotyped chocolate hero. This took his uncle Aamir about a decade to get into a role like ‘Gulaam’ and Shahrukh around 2+ years through ‘Bazigar’ when his first 4-5 films did just well and were not super-hits.
Imraan, Pratiek and Abbas are here to stay and will go a long way in their careers. I’d say the same for Genelia as well, but she might concentrate on movies in South than Bollywood. Net-net it’s a movie that will remain close to our hearts forever, and would definitely revive the similar feelings of famous love stories of our times such as ‘QSQT’ and ‘DDLJ’. But this I’d say is a more contemporary, realistic, less-romantic and more real-life package than these other movies. Also Aamir Khan Productions has given 3 big hits in a row and which is definitely a moment of pride and is making him most successful amongst all the Bollywood Khans.
Looks like the Independence Day ’08 long weekend is turning out good, as I was able to push this review off (Took around 5 hrs over the last few days to complete). Also I’m just returning back watching ‘Bachna Ae Hasseno’ and would rate the movie very high. Everyone including Ranbir, Deepika, Bipasha, Minissha, Hiten Paintal, director Siddhartha Anand and music director ‘Vishal-Shekhar’ have played their parts with clinical ease. The detailed review, some other time….
Yogesh Dixit
The storyline is not a lot different. It’s a closely knit group of six college-going, new-age youths, 3 girls and 3 boys. Jaisingh Rathore (Imraan) is a middle-class, level headed, steady and little bit of out-of-the-place boy in the 21st century (he doesn’t carry a cell phone!). He has been brought up by his mother giving him a daily dose of being non-violent at every juncture of life. He never fights with anyone, instead he likes to resolve most of “pangas” dealing with others in an uncanny friendly way. Aditi (Genelia) always calls him “rats” because of his nature. She is completely opposite of Jai. She always likes to fight for small little things. She is a contemporary ‘Mumbaiyya’ girl. Jai calls her “Myaaw”. And there is Shalini, Mala, Rotulu Bombs, and Jignesh. Rotulu is a typical funny guy and Jignesh hails from a rich family with a heavy ‘Gujju’ accent (read ‘Jinges’). And both of them have better roles to play than just being usual sidekicks. Well everyone cares for others in that group. But Jai and Aditi are very close friends? of each other and share a love-hate relationship between them.
But the story has other multiple aspects to look at: Various relationships such as - between lovers and x-lovers, within the parents, parents and their youthful kids, between siblings, and other aspects such as corrupt system, social values and so on. And the beauty is, it is so wisely woven in the script that none of the character is preaching any values, morale in the movie but it still succeeds in passing on the messages, without making the viewers bored.
One of the strongest relationships came across through Jai and her mother. Jai’s mother Savitri Rathore played by Ratna Pathak Shah is a social activist and comes across situations where she has to fight it out with the system – AKA corrupt inspector Ghorpade (Paresh Rawal). And there’s her husband who keeps popping out of the full-sized poster hanging on the wall of their living room. He is a true ‘Rajput’ and appears in the poster with a big mustache, ornaments and is fully geared with swords et all. The husband is played by the real-life husband, none other than ‘Naseeruddin Shah’. Savitri and her husband keeps on debating about Raj’s upbringing and whether to make him a true Rajput or a non-violent (read timid) guy. Savitri’s scenes with her husband and inspector Ghorpade have come across really well in light hearted mode.
The next one is off-course between Aditi and Jai. They are being friends for all five years in the college. So much so close that Aditi picks up Jai everyday on her way to college. They are spending all the moments during their college life together in that group of six. The real story starts when both of them come to know that they can not meet regularly as the college is over. Hence Aditi invites Jai to meet his father to help him in his business. This scene has really came up very well, when her parents mistook him as their would be ‘son-in-law’. Both Jai and Aditi deny being in love, where everyone including the audience and their parents are already convinced about the same. This is where we start realizing the aptness of the movie title, the tag lines (‘When do you know you are in Love’) and director’s commitment to the script. Here onwards the story takes all the twists and turns where both of them choose the right? girlfriend and boyfriend for each other and to start a new life where they can still be friends, while being married to someone else. There are relationships being developed within this group which are again hovering over the borders of friendship and love and it portrays a lively chemistry between Aditi, Rotulu, Jignesh and Bombs.
The other equally interesting relationship portrayed in the movie is between Aditi and her brother Amit. It’s again having an angle of love-hate relationship. He is shown as an artist (painter) who is seen in the movie with colors applied all over his clothes and body and always carries a little white mouse as his pet. The mouse is his best friend in this world. Amit is aloof, overly possessive of her sister and hates all the friends of hers, especially Jai. The reasons for this are strikingly different and should be ‘felt’ while watching the movie. This guy has acted superbly. He is Smita Patil’s son – Prateik. I knew that Prateik has acted in the movie and was so desperate to find him out from shot#1. I have made every attempt to relate Prateik with the characters like Rotulu and others. But when he made an entry, I was stunned to see the huge resemblance with her mother Smita. He is all Smita’s child in every sense with the same expressive eyes, face and creative presence on the screen. He doesn’t have too much of footage, but makes it one of the memorable characters in the movie.
Abbas Tyrewala lives more than the expectation. He has painted the collage of relationships in a very effective manner without making it melodramatic, still imposing the audience to seriously think about life, and at the same time putting a dash of comedy to ease out the slightest tensions in the movie. The success of the movie is 3-fold, the way a) he has built the story as a Writer, b) narrated as a Script-Writer / thru Dialogues and c) the way he has directed it really makes all the difference. His writing credential include ‘Maqbool’ ‘Main Hoon Naa’ ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ and ‘Chupke Se’. He and the Producer - Mansoor Khan, have driven the others departments of the movie equally well, ‘lighting’ in the movie is one of the prominent aspects. But Abbas has gone beyond all this, while being a lyricist. All the songs in the movie are very well thought of and written to capture the exact mood of the moment and to make the storyline even stronger. A.R. Rehman is at his best while composing all the songs. ‘Pappu’, ‘Aditi’ are already big hits before the movie is launched. But ‘Najare Chura Naa’ is actually a master-piece in terms of audio-visual treat. Like you can’t forget the ‘harmonium’ tunes from ‘Kahenaa Hi Kya’ ( Bombay ), you won’t be able to forget the ‘Mouth-Organ’ played in ‘Najare Chura Naa’. This song has become my personal favorite and can definitely lighten up the gloomy moods at any times. Hats-off to Rehman. (There is a continuity flaw in this song though – Jignesh in one shot during this song, has seen taking off his T-Shirt to get into the lake, but in the next shot he is seen in some other T-shirt in the waters J)
Well there is a surprise in store to add more spice to the comedy. The cameo played by ‘Arbaaz (Bagheera) and Bhallo (Sohail Khan) are distinctly different characters and their roles can more closely be related to one of those in a Hollywood movie. While we see them for the first time, we assume it to be a one-scene cameo, but again Abbas has made very wise use of them by roping them in couple of other screens including the climax.
Genelia has played the role quite well. She has crafted all the shades of her character convincingly and also while delivering the dialogues in Hindi has not shown any accent. Manjiri Fadnis a lookalike of ‘Rimi Sen’ has played the role of ‘Meghana‘ – Jai’s girlfriend. She is another capable Marathi Girl making a promising entry in Bollywood.
The biggest find is however ‘Imraan Khan’. He has a resemblance with the Hollywood actor Joaquin Phoenix (‘The village’) and doesn’t carry the face of typical Bollywood hero. Unlike his uncle, he seems to be a very natural actor and even looks like a spontaneous one too. While seeing him in one of the interviews before the launch of the movie he appeared to be a very calm, less talkative (shy), middle-class boy. He was just enough confident of his work in the movie and was not claiming any big success during this interview. I can recall another such interview of Harman Baweja, before launch of his movie ‘2050’ (ironically both got released on the same day). Harman was talking like a business graduate from ‘ Harvard University ’ and like a Lead Manager doing a road-show for a Global IT/infrastructure ‘IPO’. The movie ‘2050’ was so futuristic that it vanished like a UFO without a trace of it in 2008. Looking at the promos of ‘Kidnap’, which is Imraan’s just second movie he is playing a negative / gray-shaded character and I’d say he has all the courage not to remain a stereotyped chocolate hero. This took his uncle Aamir about a decade to get into a role like ‘Gulaam’ and Shahrukh around 2+ years through ‘Bazigar’ when his first 4-5 films did just well and were not super-hits.
Imraan, Pratiek and Abbas are here to stay and will go a long way in their careers. I’d say the same for Genelia as well, but she might concentrate on movies in South than Bollywood. Net-net it’s a movie that will remain close to our hearts forever, and would definitely revive the similar feelings of famous love stories of our times such as ‘QSQT’ and ‘DDLJ’. But this I’d say is a more contemporary, realistic, less-romantic and more real-life package than these other movies. Also Aamir Khan Productions has given 3 big hits in a row and which is definitely a moment of pride and is making him most successful amongst all the Bollywood Khans.
Looks like the Independence Day ’08 long weekend is turning out good, as I was able to push this review off (Took around 5 hrs over the last few days to complete). Also I’m just returning back watching ‘Bachna Ae Hasseno’ and would rate the movie very high. Everyone including Ranbir, Deepika, Bipasha, Minissha, Hiten Paintal, director Siddhartha Anand and music director ‘Vishal-Shekhar’ have played their parts with clinical ease. The detailed review, some other time….
Yogesh Dixit
Death of 2 Words - Tashan the Review
Cut 1 – A big time company in the easterly Silicon city. IT folks working hard throughout the year, and finally getting the award for best annual project of ‘07. The prize money was to be spent on something ravishing to make it a memorable event. The young and enthusiastic in the team plan for a combo deal of movie + dinner for 100 odd member team. They initially plan for Krazy4, and then give it a thought to wait for another 2 weeks to watch the most awaited movie of the year. The movie is supposed to be shown only at the single screen theatres and not the multiplexes. Our lads do a herculean task in snatching the tickets to watch the 1st day 2nd show and booking 4 rows in an uptime Pune theatre. The stage is all set for the Giga event.
Cut 2 – Just before the start of the movie I throw myself into one of the chairs and I am about to start getting a proud feeling of facilitating this event. Amit and Makarand are sitting alongside me in the theatre. The man behind the projector is generous, doesn’t spend too much of time and starts beaming the titles without showing any trailers. And immediately a sound echoes in both my ears “It’s a flop!!!” - Courtesy Amit and Makarand. I thought it’s their STYLE (Wait… before stumbling, please get to know the meaning of the once widely used English word “style” from your parents). I was pretty sure that the YR banner, the Great Writer, foursome Super Stars (together worth around 25 crores), and the musician duo of Vishal Shekhar would definitely be a rock-solid entertainer. Like an avid movie geek as always, I put all my senses to watch the movie.
Cut 3 - A decent looking retro convertible red Mercedes traversing through the snow deserts of Ladakh appears on the screen. My mind registers the number on car’s front number plate which reads “UGR …”. And then during the course while watching the movie when I try hard registering something in my mind, the harder it became as my brain started getting duped because of the …….. insignificant, irritating, irrelevant, mad use of the word Tashan and so is the act as well. Next 2+ hours everyone in the theatre was bolted to their chairs so as to find a single moment to cash-on their hard earned money. For me it was a mammoth 25 Grand just on the movie tickets! And I could see all of it going for a waste. The crowd was cheerful though and it find it’s ways to “enjoy” the movie (by clapping and hooting during the romantic, comic, tragic and action scenes). Well there’s nothing to write about it, at least nothing good. But what’s provoking me to write is the same 25 Grand J. This is also the first movie I watched after a gap of 3 weeks J!!! (I’ve been watching movies on DVDs every single weekend for last whatever months. And I was expecting a real big one this time after the prolonged gap.)
Cut nnnn - So it’s a story about a super-urban dude working in a call center -Saif, an itsy-bitsy-revengeful girl-disguised-behind-cute-face- Kareena, a wannabe-English-speaking-big- Mumbai-Don - Anil, and a suburban-small-time-thug - Akshay Kumar. We should show this movie to the people in the 1st world (I don’t know whether such a word exists, it’s an opposite of the 3rd world). Saif (Jimmy Cliff) who is a FTE J in a call center + part-time English language teacher, roams around Mumbai flaunting his ultra-modern cruiser bike which must be as costly as a “D” segment car in India. Same is the case with his lavish condominium. (Insane I’m, who do not understand about director’s “Creative Liberty”) But wait… if we show this to the “firangs” we’ll loose all the forthcoming off-shoring jobs which are already diminishing rapidly. (I’ll leave that to Kiran Karnik of Nasscom, Chopras, and CEO’s of Offshoring companies.) Saif’s character must have been intended to be carved out as a simpleton, but he can not provide justice and gives a lot more glamour to the character unnecessarily.
Kareena works as Anil Kapoor’s personal secretary. Anil Kapoor (Bhaiiyyaji) wants to become a fluent English speaker to impress his fellow businessman. Well Anil hails from Kanpur and carries heavy Kanpurriyya accent. Kareena introduces Saif (as her own secret plan J) to Anil as his English teacher. The initial scenes of Anil learning English have come up very well and reincarnation of the famous “Diwar” monologue (“Khush to bahut hoge tum…”) would be one of the best scenes Anil must have delivered till date. The linguistic and phonetic variations create a lot of interest initially, but then overshadow the character and the movie as well. We have seen such characters in “My Fair Lady”, “Chup ke Chup ke (Dharmndra), Goal Maal (Utpal Dutt) and none of these appeared to be doing linguistic circus as in Tashan.
Akshay’s entry is probably the other best part of the movie. It reminded me of one of my favorite Hindi movie “Jaane Bhi Do Yaron”. But pretty soon our friend Vijay Krishna Acharya makes a worst mockery of the legendary mythological sequence from the masterpiece. Akshay appears to be the coolest dude in the movie and has actually portrayed it close to the character - A small time thug in Kanpur and aspiring to be a #1 shooter in the Mumbai underworld. But again Acharya does the trick and dilutes the role along the length of the movie.
Acharya couldn’t repeat the success of Dhoom(s) in terms of weaving the storey. The script and direction is simply horrible. Though he creates some waves sporadically with the dialogues. When the same number plate of the red Mercedes appears in the movie one more time it reads something like “MH 03…” (which should have been UGR…). By this time I already have lost the interest and the winning feeling of catching the continuity related flaws in the film.
Music doesn’t appear to be entirely of Vishal-Shekhar (They must have off-loaded the same to small time music cookie-cutters in Ulhasnagar). One of the songs – “Dil Hara” is audible, but that’s lost due to the ill-coordinated choreography and visual effects. It has a flavor of Indian folk song and is shot on the backdrops of seashore in Greece. That fusion doesn’t go well at all. “Dil Dance Mare” is another one which is a cheap entertainer. The background music and voice overs eat up most of the dialogues.
Some of the scenes are visual treats but it’s not because of any particular camera angle, or frame, or light effects, but merely because of the beautiful locations in Ladakh, Greece, Rajasthan and Kerala.
Fight sequences are more of a comedy including the one inside a fort in Rajasthan, where Saif kareena and Akshay all start gunning their AK47, revolvers and 303 look alike without ever seen those. Akshay mimics Keanu Reeves of Matrix which in fact reminds me of ninja series movies such as “shadow less snake” or “monkey less shadow”, or “shadow’s shadow” etc. The super-stretched fight sequence towards the climax is a lifetime tribute to the action heroes such as Mithun and Rajani, and directors such as Ramu (Aag fame) and David Dhawan.
While coming out of theatre I had a tale to narrate to my younger one “Once upon a time there lived 2 words, “Tashan” and “Style” which were vanished on 28th April 2008………………………”
I literally had to cover my face while entering the dinning hall. Half an hour after the movie I could see that the team has already started enjoying the food. The restaurateur was eligible for a hefty tip which he got in the end, as the food really salvaged the situation - elevating the mood of 100 odd loosers.
Well for me NOW it’s time to go to sleep and dream about Acharya being whacked by Sr. and Jr. Chopra’s, Chopra’s being whacked by distributors, Anil who is giving his first and the last impressions together, Akshay reciting Hanuman Chalisa and Tulsi Ramayana every morning and enacting Ram in the Ramleela pandals somewhere in North this Dushera, so as to pay homage to the Almighty. Also Twinkle divorcing him for doing all the manly Kanpurriya and sachin-making-pad adjustments-on-the-cricket-pitch, kind of acts on the screen. Kareena going on pilgrimage to Haridwar to do rituals of the movie, Saif obviously following Kareena but in the midst changing tracks and going after “marina” (whoever…what’s in the name anyways?). And then I’m getting out of the bed next day having a great feeling of giving ways to my frustration, writing this review after spending 7 some hours over last 8 days.
Regards, Yogesh Dixit
Cut 2 – Just before the start of the movie I throw myself into one of the chairs and I am about to start getting a proud feeling of facilitating this event. Amit and Makarand are sitting alongside me in the theatre. The man behind the projector is generous, doesn’t spend too much of time and starts beaming the titles without showing any trailers. And immediately a sound echoes in both my ears “It’s a flop!!!” - Courtesy Amit and Makarand. I thought it’s their STYLE (Wait… before stumbling, please get to know the meaning of the once widely used English word “style” from your parents). I was pretty sure that the YR banner, the Great Writer, foursome Super Stars (together worth around 25 crores), and the musician duo of Vishal Shekhar would definitely be a rock-solid entertainer. Like an avid movie geek as always, I put all my senses to watch the movie.
Cut 3 - A decent looking retro convertible red Mercedes traversing through the snow deserts of Ladakh appears on the screen. My mind registers the number on car’s front number plate which reads “UGR …”. And then during the course while watching the movie when I try hard registering something in my mind, the harder it became as my brain started getting duped because of the …….. insignificant, irritating, irrelevant, mad use of the word Tashan and so is the act as well. Next 2+ hours everyone in the theatre was bolted to their chairs so as to find a single moment to cash-on their hard earned money. For me it was a mammoth 25 Grand just on the movie tickets! And I could see all of it going for a waste. The crowd was cheerful though and it find it’s ways to “enjoy” the movie (by clapping and hooting during the romantic, comic, tragic and action scenes). Well there’s nothing to write about it, at least nothing good. But what’s provoking me to write is the same 25 Grand J. This is also the first movie I watched after a gap of 3 weeks J!!! (I’ve been watching movies on DVDs every single weekend for last whatever months. And I was expecting a real big one this time after the prolonged gap.)
Cut nnnn - So it’s a story about a super-urban dude working in a call center -Saif, an itsy-bitsy-revengeful girl-disguised-behind-cute-face- Kareena, a wannabe-English-speaking-big- Mumbai-Don - Anil, and a suburban-small-time-thug - Akshay Kumar. We should show this movie to the people in the 1st world (I don’t know whether such a word exists, it’s an opposite of the 3rd world). Saif (Jimmy Cliff) who is a FTE J in a call center + part-time English language teacher, roams around Mumbai flaunting his ultra-modern cruiser bike which must be as costly as a “D” segment car in India. Same is the case with his lavish condominium. (Insane I’m, who do not understand about director’s “Creative Liberty”) But wait… if we show this to the “firangs” we’ll loose all the forthcoming off-shoring jobs which are already diminishing rapidly. (I’ll leave that to Kiran Karnik of Nasscom, Chopras, and CEO’s of Offshoring companies.) Saif’s character must have been intended to be carved out as a simpleton, but he can not provide justice and gives a lot more glamour to the character unnecessarily.
Kareena works as Anil Kapoor’s personal secretary. Anil Kapoor (Bhaiiyyaji) wants to become a fluent English speaker to impress his fellow businessman. Well Anil hails from Kanpur and carries heavy Kanpurriyya accent. Kareena introduces Saif (as her own secret plan J) to Anil as his English teacher. The initial scenes of Anil learning English have come up very well and reincarnation of the famous “Diwar” monologue (“Khush to bahut hoge tum…”) would be one of the best scenes Anil must have delivered till date. The linguistic and phonetic variations create a lot of interest initially, but then overshadow the character and the movie as well. We have seen such characters in “My Fair Lady”, “Chup ke Chup ke (Dharmndra), Goal Maal (Utpal Dutt) and none of these appeared to be doing linguistic circus as in Tashan.
Akshay’s entry is probably the other best part of the movie. It reminded me of one of my favorite Hindi movie “Jaane Bhi Do Yaron”. But pretty soon our friend Vijay Krishna Acharya makes a worst mockery of the legendary mythological sequence from the masterpiece. Akshay appears to be the coolest dude in the movie and has actually portrayed it close to the character - A small time thug in Kanpur and aspiring to be a #1 shooter in the Mumbai underworld. But again Acharya does the trick and dilutes the role along the length of the movie.
Acharya couldn’t repeat the success of Dhoom(s) in terms of weaving the storey. The script and direction is simply horrible. Though he creates some waves sporadically with the dialogues. When the same number plate of the red Mercedes appears in the movie one more time it reads something like “MH 03…” (which should have been UGR…). By this time I already have lost the interest and the winning feeling of catching the continuity related flaws in the film.
Music doesn’t appear to be entirely of Vishal-Shekhar (They must have off-loaded the same to small time music cookie-cutters in Ulhasnagar). One of the songs – “Dil Hara” is audible, but that’s lost due to the ill-coordinated choreography and visual effects. It has a flavor of Indian folk song and is shot on the backdrops of seashore in Greece. That fusion doesn’t go well at all. “Dil Dance Mare” is another one which is a cheap entertainer. The background music and voice overs eat up most of the dialogues.
Some of the scenes are visual treats but it’s not because of any particular camera angle, or frame, or light effects, but merely because of the beautiful locations in Ladakh, Greece, Rajasthan and Kerala.
Fight sequences are more of a comedy including the one inside a fort in Rajasthan, where Saif kareena and Akshay all start gunning their AK47, revolvers and 303 look alike without ever seen those. Akshay mimics Keanu Reeves of Matrix which in fact reminds me of ninja series movies such as “shadow less snake” or “monkey less shadow”, or “shadow’s shadow” etc. The super-stretched fight sequence towards the climax is a lifetime tribute to the action heroes such as Mithun and Rajani, and directors such as Ramu (Aag fame) and David Dhawan.
While coming out of theatre I had a tale to narrate to my younger one “Once upon a time there lived 2 words, “Tashan” and “Style” which were vanished on 28th April 2008………………………”
I literally had to cover my face while entering the dinning hall. Half an hour after the movie I could see that the team has already started enjoying the food. The restaurateur was eligible for a hefty tip which he got in the end, as the food really salvaged the situation - elevating the mood of 100 odd loosers.
Well for me NOW it’s time to go to sleep and dream about Acharya being whacked by Sr. and Jr. Chopra’s, Chopra’s being whacked by distributors, Anil who is giving his first and the last impressions together, Akshay reciting Hanuman Chalisa and Tulsi Ramayana every morning and enacting Ram in the Ramleela pandals somewhere in North this Dushera, so as to pay homage to the Almighty. Also Twinkle divorcing him for doing all the manly Kanpurriya and sachin-making-pad adjustments-on-the-cricket-pitch, kind of acts on the screen. Kareena going on pilgrimage to Haridwar to do rituals of the movie, Saif obviously following Kareena but in the midst changing tracks and going after “marina” (whoever…what’s in the name anyways?). And then I’m getting out of the bed next day having a great feeling of giving ways to my frustration, writing this review after spending 7 some hours over last 8 days.
Regards, Yogesh Dixit
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