7 Khoon Maaf

Well, I watched this movie twice, and on both the occasions I missed the start! So I don't know how the movie takes off. But yes, after that, till the intermission, the movie is rightly paced with sufficient air-time to each of the stories. Probably the most interesting stories or rather the most interesting husbands were the first three. A compulsive love-seeking character at one end and three extreme characters at the receiving end. The whiplash fight, the circumstances in which each of them were murdered, and the plot that led to these respective climaxes, were different, really different! Each of these characters had a flip-side to which they fell prey to! One of these stories evoked pain and therefore sympathy, something which the audience would really not anticipate. The next two stories were rendered weak due to a poor plot, a poor background that built a story around them, and as a matter of fact, some relatively less popular actors (although Annu Kapoor is a really good actor). The sixth story, however, seemed a little different, with a different story  associated with the husband and a great actor playing the same! But, if you are looking for the seventh murder, be ready to massage your brains, as it would require a little brain storming to do!

About the performances, I actually don't believe Priyanka Chopra performed exceptionally, with the character and the make-up playing a major part in her role. Neil Nitin Mukesh and  Naseeruddin were good, Irrfan Khan, as always, was at his best, while John and Annu Kapoor gave an average performance. Vivaan Shah, was okay, with actually nothing much on his plate. However, the three chelas of Priyanka in the movie viz. Maggi, Ghalib and Gunga, did an exceptional job with each character portraying and therefore playing a unique role in the protagonist's so-called mission. A couple of songs, Bekaraan and Awaara, and probably Tere Liye and Yeshu too, demand special mention. Kudos to Rekha and Vishal Bharadwaj to have sung these songs (not all of them :) ).

But all in all, I would describe this movie as a bit heavy, as you are left wondering as to what did you just witness! Some extreme personalities, including the protagonist herself, make things a little difficult to digest. You would actually dread to face such characters in reel life, forget real life!

Avoid this one, if you can, you won't miss anything, I would say. If you don't, you can still enjoy it! :)

Rating: 3.5

Yeh Saali Zindagi!

A brilliant script, exceptional dialogues and outstanding dialogue-delivery are the USP of this movie (some of you might beg to differ, especially girls (and only girls for that matter :P)).

With a brilliant cast, of the likes of Irrfan Khan, Chitrangada, Saurabh Shukla, Prashant Naraynan (another brilliant TV actor), Arunoday Singh (relatively new comer, needs a little refining as an actor, but does justice to his character in this movie), the gorgeous Aditi Rao Hydari, Sushant Singh and Yashpal Sharma, at his disposal, Sudhir Mishra has once again shown his class. He has definitely lived up to his reputation of a wonderful film-maker, the reputation he built with movies of the likes of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Chameli and Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi to name a few.

The movie is exceptionally paced and you hardly find time to find any logical errors per se. And trust me; you don’t want to do that to this movie! Let me tell you, I, for once, thought that there is no break in the movie for I had thought we had gone for around one and a half hour on the trot without a break, where in fact, we had just spent 45 minutes with the movie. The dialogues strike you right from the word go! All the characters in the movie are lively and fun to watch. They all have a backdrop against which their lives till date have been painted, barring a few, the ones of lesser importance. Again, what makes the story more interesting is the fact that you have all kinds of characters - a lover, his boss, his love-interest, a local small-time bhai, a mafia, a police-inspector, a businessman and his brat, a politician and his daughter - a perfect recipe for an exquisite cuisine. And given a brilliant script, all you can expect later is some out-of-the-blue twists (which are very much the heart of the story) in the tale, some really good songs - Dil Dar-Ba-Dar, Kaise Kahein Alvida - that are not out-of-the-world in nature but that gel really well with the context of the movie.

I don’t know to what process in the film-making do they belong to (probably editing, somebody can help me make enlarge my knowledge base), but the way the characters were introduced with their credentials, the way the locations were described (hideout-1, hideout-2, and etc.), probably set the mood for the movie. I know this is a common practice and one of minimal importance in many of today’s movies, but then doing away with this editing stuff in this movie would have probably robbed the movie of its rhythm. Again, this is my take and anybody is welcome to differ on the same! J

Talk about performances and you cannot find a better person than Mr. Irrfan Khan himself. He simply overshadows other short but brilliant performances from the likes of Saurabh Shukla and Sushant Singh. Chitrangada is good as always, Arunoday is learning to laugh :D, Aditi Rao, ummm.. I would rather adore her beauty ;) than comment anything about her performance. You actually feel for Irrfan’s character, the way he pursues his love-interest. As an audience, I couldn’t expect more entertainment, and as a critic, I frankly do not want to tear apart this movie. This movie has definitely set a benchmark to match up to for the rest of the movies coming up this year.

Nonetheless, one thing that could have been done to make this movie more interesting was to chop off the last 5 minutes from the movie. Come on, not every movie has to be a Happy-Ending types and then the title of the movie would have been justified. But then again, I change my stance because the end justifies the tag-line!

The dialogues are so good that they once again command some more attention and praise. Some of the dialogues, for instance, the one where Arun (I am using the character’s name on purpose to not divulge much details about the plot, neither do I want to reiterate the dialogues verbatim, as I know, I won’t be able to do justice to these brilliant dialogues) decides to help out Priti, in spite of the fact that his mind didn’t want him to do so, speaks volumes about human emotions and how people behave irrationally (or rather rationally for that matter when you are in love). Another one is where Satbir talks to Kuldeep about gifting a diamond necklace to his wife Shanti to avoid her objections, the fact which is then eventually justified in the 2.5 crore dialogue at the end.

Looking at the bigger picture, this is a MUST-WATCH movie for boys (some fun-loving girls can enjoy the movie too). This is one movie you cannot afford to miss this year! Mr. Sudhir Mishra – Kudos to you!

Rating: 4.5

P.S.: I have been waiting to write this review for long for I wanted to do complete justice to the movie. I hope I did. Sorry to have kept waiting my lovely readers!

Dhobi Ghat

The best thing about the movie is that it is a snapshot of the happenings in the lives of the characters of the movie. This movie neither starts nor ends. The promos showed some promise with some excellent music. The movie might have fallen below par as all that promised in the movie wasn't actually shown. The parallel 'documentary' must have raised some eyebrows but what was different was the way the idea was conceived, i.e. through tapes. The end was tragic for the protagonist in the tapes though, but it was the same for the other 'live' characters in the movie too. Nobody actually got what they were looking for, and probably so did the audiences. Nevertheless, I liked the movie for the way it was pursued and an off-track story-telling experience. I know this won't make sense, but neither did the movie for most of the audience. I was a pretty satisfied person but could hear buzzes about how stupid the movie was. This was of course from people who were expecting some masala from the movie. This movie is a must watch for art-lovers as they can easily relate to the ideas the director wants to portray. Masala-seeking audience will be for-sure disappointed as there were no songs. I personally wanted to watch the movie because the music in the promo was really promising. Nonetheless, a one-time watch movie. Full marks to Prateik Babbar. Aamir Khan was a bit too professional in a not-so-demanding role. The newbies did a great job too!

Rating: 3.5

Patiala House

What is the success mantra for a Bollywood movie? Big stars, cricket as backbone of the story, big names from the Cricket fraternity and Bollywood, a strong story. If you miss out the story part, all that the producers have done is to have wasted their money. You cannot ignore Akki’s desperate efforts to get back to serious roles and shed his stereotyped identity. With a really good base-concept, with little support from a pretty mediocre script, the movie heads nowhere but towards a predictable climax. Rishi Kapoor is the only actor who does justice to the character he portrayed. And would you cast Hard Kaur in a deglamourized role just to later shoot a couple of raps to add to the movie’s hip-hop tracks? Again, sporting England Cricket Board’s credentials as EBC on the team jerseys only adds to the overall immaturity that was being displayed. A star from each of the teams being used just to showcase the level of reality/authenticity of the play is simply unacceptable. ‘Iqbal’ did really well with no major stars being shown taking part on the field. Anushka Sharma looks gorgeous, but with very little meat in her role.  The one thing that stands out for the movie is the background score and a really good track that was played at the start of the movie. No award winning script, no award winning performances as such. A bad or rather immature attempt to exploit the hottest selling topics in the country.


Rating: 2.5