Khap - Movie Reviews

Director: Ajai Sinha

Producer: Sangita Sinha, Siddhant Sinha

Starring: Om Puri, Govind Namdeo, Yuvika Chaudhary, Sarrtaj Shammi Aunty,Mohnish Behl, Alok Nath, Manoj PahwaRelease

Date:29-07-2011

Khap projects too many things at one time, and fails to garner the attention of the audience. The film doesn’t fall into the genre of serious honour killings nor a typical Bollywood story. The director has wasted producers resources and delivers a complete dull film.

The narration of the story is interesting but yet predictable. The sloppiness in the direction worsens the twists and turns in the screenplay. The film is not well written or performed; the romantic track also does not keep the interest of a viewer to its seat. The issue that needs to be addressed seriously gets lost somewhere in the entire film.

The film's story is set in a Haryana village and revolves around the family of Omkar Chaudhary (Om Puri), an important Khap leader and the head of the village community that zealously follows and enforces the community tradition of not tolerating Inter-Gotr marriages and even resorting to the practice of killing their wayward progeny for the sake of community honour.

His son Madhur (Mohnish Bahl) stays away from him in Delhi with his wife (Anooradha Patel) and daughter Ria (Yuvika Chaudhry) since he has serious differences with Omkar and his ways. He works for the National Human Rights Commission and is sent to investigate into the death of a young couple to his village. He gets killed in a case of mistaken identity.

The performances fail to impact on the audience. In order to give him a positive shade, Om Puri is marred by a confused portrayal. Govind Namdeo hams like always. Yuvika Chaudhary ensures she looks stylish even post her father's funeral in the film. Sarrtaj fails to grab your attention. Shammi Aunty struggles to deliver her lines. Mohnish Behl is regular. Alok Nath has no idea of what to do in the film. Manoj Pahwa is the only actor who attempts to act.

Khap is a film which does not address the issue directly but wastes time in a campus song, honeymoon song, separation song, what else and what not. In a nutshell Khap fails to lay the impact in audiences mind.

Bubble Gum - Movie Reviews

Director:Sanjivan Lal

Producer:Sushma Kaul

Starring:Sachin Khedekar, Tanvi Azmi, Sohail Lakhani, Delzad Hiravali, Apoorva Arora, Suraj Singh

Release Date:29-07-2011

Bubble Gum is a film which revolves around a sweet love story. The film is set in Jamshedpur of early 80s, in an era when there were no TVs, Internet or mobile phones.

It’s a sweet and sensitive epic to growing up in an age when there was no Facebook, no internet and no mobiles. Fourteen-year-old Vedant’s love story with Jenny, the local cop’s daughter has such an innocence and angst to, it brings a smile to your lips.

Vedant, who has just stepped into his teens, is going through a disturbed phase in his life, because of academic pressure and his infatuation with a colony girl Jenny (Apoorva Arora). To worsen the situation, enters Ratan (Suraj Singh), his competitor, a guy from the same neighbourhood. Adding another twist to the so called love story, is the return of Vedant’s elder brother Vidur (Delzad Hiravali), who is deaf and comes home for his Holi holidays.

Parents Mukund (Sachin Khedekar) and Sudha (Tanvi Azmi), get too engrossed with Vidur and Vedant starts feeling neglected. After the whole muddle, Vedant realizes that not only his brother, but also his parents are special for him. He understands why his parents are considerate towards Vidur. The title proves right, as the flick shows that things may be stretchable, but the bubble of patience bursts after a point.

The characters look pretty realistic. The bell bottom pants would remind you of that era and so would the fact that then, love was just about having a glimpse of your beloved. The director has maintained the simplicity of time, which makes the movie look realistic. In fact, one of the scenes that show the importance of treating teenage children as friends and building a rapport with them has been shot very sensitively.

The movie is surely about parenting.The lead Sohail Lakhani, looks his age and his portrayal of a confused boy torn between infatuation, parents and academics is good.

Actors like Sachin Khedekar and Tanvi Azmi, who play Vidur and Vedant’s parents, show a lot of poise in their performance. Sanjivan Lal, has touched upon a topic that would take one back to school, when Internet and mobile phones didn't form a part of our existence.

A sensitive issue like how parents of teenage and psychically handicapped kids should deal with their problems has been depicted tactfully.

This beautiful was spoiled by incorporating some sad music to it. Had the movie been made without the party song sequence it would have looked much better.

Bubble has a charm to it, spilling over with mood, sentiment and message. The film offers a satisfying experience.

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Collects Rs 108 Crores

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, has kept the cash counter ringing since the day it has released.

A story of three friends and their adventurous road trip in Spain is spinning magic at the box office - grossing Rs.108 crore in 10 days.

Thefilm starring Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Abhay Deol, Kalki Koechlin and Katrina Kaif has earned Rs.86 crore at the domestic box office (net collection Rs.60 crore) and Rs.22 crore overseas.

The film released in over 1,800 screens on July 15.

'We are ecstatic with the audience as well as critics' reactions to 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara'. The superb run of the film so far, especially across multiplexes, has superseded all expectations and we are expecting the film to continue its excellent performance in the coming week as well,' Nandu Ahuja, senior vice president (Distribution), India, Eros International Media Ltd, said.

The film opened to rave reviews and raked in Rs.52.50 crores worldwide in the very first weekend.

Read more at www.bollywoodchaska.com

Movie Review - Singham

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Director:

Rohit Shetty,

Producer:

Reliance Entertainment

Starring:

Ajay Devgn, Kajal Aggarwal,

Release Date:

22-07-2011

Full Review

The film is about a humble village cop, Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgn) who enforces law like a preschool moral science teacher. All accused and convicts are let off with a warning, as they're usually his friends and/or belong to the good ol' gaaon ki mitti, which is later distinguished from shehar ki dhul through a clichéd reference.A certain degree of dramatic excess is only to be expected in a Bollywood action flick. But Singham, aimed at those who like their cinema stirred and shaken in familiar and simple ways, is a rare cop-and-crook drama that carries little excess baggage.

It could quite easily have turned into yet another turgid turn-off. It is anything but. Singham is refreshingly crisp and utterly uncluttered all the way through to the bitter end. It does take a few minutes to warm up, but once it does, there’s no stopping Singham.

An honest young policeman shoots himself in the head when he is falsely hauled up for corruption. The cop’s widow publicly accuses the local extortionist Jaikant Shirke (Prakash Raj, reprising the role he played in the Tamil original) of causing her husband's death. But, given the enormous clout the criminal and wannabe politician wields, he goes scot-free.

Away from the city, in a small outpost on the Maharashtra-Goa border, another no-nonsense cop, Bajirao Singham (Ajay Devgn), is on a one-man mission. He is a friend in need, a willing do-gooder, a mediator between feuding villagers and the violent nemesis of all wrongdoers in town. He puts away his service revolver when he fights. His blows pack the punch of a tiger’s paw and his belt is a whiplash that serves to rub insult to injury when his prey is down and out.

When Singham's path crosses that of the gang-lord, he wins the first round hands down. The humiliated baddie goes on the rampage. The cop is transferred to the city. Singham walks into the lair of the hunter, tides over a few initial hiccups, and then, egged on by his girlfriend (Kajal Agarwal), declares all-out war on the criminal and his evil empire. What’s the big deal? To be honest, Singham has little to offer by way of original ideas. In fact, the film makes repeated allusions to other cop films – Zanjeer, Dabangg and Ajay Devgn’s own Gangaajal. It revels in the clichés that have forever been a part and parcel of the genre. Yet, Yunus Sajawal’s screenplay and Shetty’s treatment manage to deliver many moments that catch you by surprise.

Shetty plays up the epic quality of the good vs evil clash without letting go of the strong streak of humour that is the Golmaal director's obvious forte. Thoroughly entertaining and consistently watchable, Singham delivers more than your money’s worth. If a feral analogy could be applied to a film, Singham is like the roar of a lion, unsubtle, unambiguous and power-packed.

The film draws much of its fizz from the outstanding central performances. It is difficult to imagine any other Mumbai actor lending quite the kind of conviction that Devgn does to the character of the teed-off lawman. Devgn’s eyes do the talking; the six-pack, mercifully, remains a footnote.
Just as impressive is the mercurial Prakash Raj, who flips from menacing to comical and then back to menacing with such effortless aplomb that you can only sit back and marvel.

But the real soul of Singham is provided by the slew of Marathi actors in the cast, who breathe life into even the most minor of characters. Especially worth a mention is Ashok Saraf as a cynical and ageing constable who decides to give redemption a final shot.Singham is an old-fashioned but rousing Hindi commercial film. It has super-duper hit written all over it. No matter how dismissive you might be of films that have no space for shades of grey.