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Jashnn lacks the style and depth of a typical Bhatt-production although it does have good music. Adhyayan is impressive in a poorly etched plot. Rating 2.5/5

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Cast: Adhyayan Suman, Shahana Goswami, Humayun Sayeed, Anjana Sukhani
Director: Raksha Mistry, Hasnain S Hyderbadwala
Producer: Mahesh Bhatt

Synopsis

Akash is a budding rock-star from a middle class family. His sister Nisha (Shahana) is a keep of a wealthy businessman Aman (Humayun Sayeed) and Aman is the benefactor who not only financially supports Nisha and her brother but also heaps insults on them. As predictable, Akash cannot stand the doormat attitude of her sister who cries for marriage and commitment just before the ‘pehli taareek’ of the month before she has to pay her bills. Akash, predictably falls in love with a girl Sara (Anjana) who turns out to be Aman’s sister. All hell breaks loose and Akash goes on a self-realization spree and evolves as a ‘somebody’ from a ‘nobody’.

Review

It was a good story though highly predictable. Shanana, Humayun and Adhyayan Suman all acted very well in well etched roles. The only sequence that faltered the film’s focus was the Adhyayan-Anjana love track that took away more than half of the film and Adhyayan’s self-realization and achievement were all cramped into the second half with a couple of sad songs. Had the love track been limited to only half of what it was it could have made sense. Anjana’s role seemed like a last minute addition to the story. Her character was flat and she didn’t quite do much.

Adhyayan acts well for his third film, the boy has ordinary looks but he has it in him to grow into a good actor. Shahana Goswami is impressive in her role after Rock On. Humayun Sayeed, the actor from Pakistan, acted very well in his role of an arrogant wealthy biz.

Verdict
Overall, the film is quite bearable.

Kambakkht Ishq is a perfect example of ‘all hype no show’. Even Hollywood biggies could not save this disaster. Rating 1.5/5

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Amrita Arora, Aftab Shivdasani
Special Appearances: Sylvester Stallone, Brandon Routh, Denise Richards
Direction: Sabbir Khan

Kambakkht Ishq is like one of those corny David Dhawan (flop) films with added cheesy humor BUT with a lot of gloss – exotic locales, expensive clothes, hi-fi action, and off course the Hollywood star power. Result: Well, nothing actually helps the stupid sexist storyline!

You have silly stereotypes for actors – Akshay Kumar is a super stuntman who thinks women are like paper towels and Kareena Kapoor is a bold, arrogant, successful super-model cum surgeon plus a man-hater. They are surrounded by even dumber stereotypes – Amrita, a completely dumb lingerie model and Aftab, a door-mat cum husband. These stereotypes are mobilized by the silliest ever storyline that would probably make you go ‘WTF’. Kareena Kapoor, while operating Akshay leaves her watch-pendant in Akshay Kumar’s stomach and in order to save her career she has to operate on him and get it back. You can imagine what a pain the rest of the film was.

Then you have legends like Sylvester Stallone doing a ‘Sunny Deol’ uprooting poles and fighting the gundas to save the leggy lass. And you have bimbettes like Denise Richards falling all over Akshay, wanting to make ‘golden babies’ with him! Arrghh!

Akshay Kumar did what he can do best – action but comedy, was below average. Kareena Kapoor is very unconvincing in her role of a surgeon cum super model. She tried a little too desperately to look hot, with her designer wear and of course that fake pout! But we can’t blame the actors for this, it’s all the story’s fault. Can somebody tell Sajid Nadiadwala that you need brains more than money to make a good film.

Overall – it’s a dumb dumb dumb film. if you really wanna watch this film, take my advice – Get the DVD and watch it in fast forward!

New York fails to break new grounds on the issue of illegal detention post 9/11 and the plight of innocent Muslims who are affected by it. It’s a very weak film for a sensitive issue.. Rating: 2/5

Synopsis:
New York begins with Omar Aijaz (Neil Nitin Mukesh) being illegally detained by the FBI officer Roshan (Irrfan Khan) for being a terror suspect only to realize that the FBI has tricked him and is using him to reach another terror suspect Sameer Shaikh (John Abraham). Sameer was Omar’s best friend at college along with Maya (Katrina Kaif) and after 7 long years Omar discovers that Sameer is a terror suspect. Omar is the only way FBI could uncover Sameer’s truth.

On his undercover mission, Omar discovers that Sameer Shaikh, who on the surface has a successful career and a very happy family life is actually a secret terrorist who wants to seek revenge from the FBI for illegally detaining him and torturing him for 9 long months. Sameer is fighting for his dignity and justice, Maya is fighting for Sameer, Omar is fighting for friendship and Roshan is fighting for America. Who wins the fight?

Review
New York is a weak film despite all the efforts and could not match up to the prior work done on this issue by films like Khuda Kay Liye and Shoot on Sight. I can’t help but compare this film with Khuda Kay Liye and regret how New York fails to ‘weave-in’ its characters and their story in its central theme. There by, director Kabir Khan fails to come up with a well structured plot and story, while trying to address sensitive issues of American Muslims, illegal detention, terrorism and religion.

The film’s focus wobbles and none of the issues is addressed properly. Sameer and Omar could have been more substantial and deep characters, in order to strike a chord with the audiences. It was as if their identity as Muslims (which was so crucial to theme) made no difference to their characters except for the fact that their religion made them a soft target for the FBI.

It seemed as if the Yash Raj’s utopian and eye-candy style of filmmaking did not gel well with a sensitive theme like this which was only glided upon. John Abraham tried his best to do justice to his role. Katrina Kaif delivers an impressive performance as an actor. Neil Nitin does his bit well.

Verdict
The film doesn’t leave that haunting impact on you, yet its watchable.

Kal Kissne Dekha hit the famished movie screens only to disappoint us with bland and boring college romance. Rating 1.5/5

Starring: Jackky Bhagnani and Vaishali Desai, Rishi Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh
Direction: Vivek Sharma
Rating: 1.5/5

Vashu Bhagnani gave his son Jackky a debut vehicle that does no good to him like Harry Baweja’s Love Story 2050 for his son Harman Baweja. Silly story and unimpressive performances is all that is noticeable in Kal Kissne Dekha.

Nihal (Jackky) is a quintessential big-hearted Punjabi munda who leaves his ‘pind’ and his annoyingly talkative ‘bebey’ (Archana Puran Singh) to join a Beverly Hills kinda posh college with upper class kids driving in with their ferraris and girls in short skirts.

As expected our munda saves a snobbish and rich college belle Vaishali from a bomb explosion and thereby falls in love with her. What is different about our Punjabi munda is that he not only is brave (ala Sunny Deol) but also has an extra-sensory perception aka Vijins (read: visions) that helps him spot the bombs around the city and the munda will jump of the cliffs, chase cars, fight terrorists etc…. Huh… I can see you dont wanna read any further…

Anyways… the bottom line is – Jackky Bhagnani doesn’t impress so – AVOID!!!

If there is anything good coming out of the war between producers-multiplex owners is that we have some of Bollywood’s old classics hitting the screens all over again. And since we have been Hindi-movie-starved from past so many weeks, its quite an experience to watch a film like DDLJ all over again on the big screen when you have already watched it a million times before.

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge released in October 1995 and earned over Rs 580 million in India and Rs 175 million overseas, and became one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time. DDLJ remains the longest running film in the history of Indian cinema. In March 2009, the film set a record by completing 700 weeks of continuous play in Mumbai theatres. Now that’s a record!!!

This was the film that established Shahrukh Khan as the cute, dimpled, effervescent lover-boy – so romantic that he would become the dream man for every teenage girl. This was the film that is remembered for fresh and evergreen chemistry between Shahrukh Khan and Kajol – A simple girl-next-door type who has intense eyes, a sound mind and an innocent face. She is coy yet firm; she is flamboyant yet sensible; she is simple yet intriguing.

Its a simple boy meet girl story that for the first time decided to tell the story of an NRI family settled in London. One of the first films that told the story of first and second generation British Indians. It emphasizes the need for British Indians to uphold their ‘Indianness’ in a western country. His only dream is to one day wrap up his business in London and go back to Punjab to wed his daughters, who he raised in the traditional Indian way. On the other hand, there is Raj Malhotra (Shahrukh Khan), another second generation British Indian, who is distinctly western in outlook.

The real test of our lover boy is to prove himself in the eyes of Simran’s father with essential puritan values of old traditionalism. A pure charmer that he is – he makes his way through Simran’s family and wins everyone’s heart and towards the end of the film – wins his girl!

I loved watching on big screen, the vintage and characteristic Yash-Chopra-Style movie based in the heart of warm yellow fields of Punjab and the heart of a warm Punjabi joint-family who sings, dances and celebrates life like no other. Jatin-Lalits music shot around picturesque snow-covered mountains and grassy meadows of Switzerland is sure delight to watch. The film, in one way is the casual girl-meet-boy love story, but it has a heart – Shahrukh’s winning of Kajol in the end symbolizes that the new Indianness is the best of both worlds – the modern and practical and also the traditional and virtuous. Raj was the face of this new Indianness who wins the heart of the traditional Indianness of Baldev.

Its amazing how Shahrukh Khan and Kajol have improved overtime as seasoned actors. If you are really movie-starved like I am… You can go and watch DDLJ on an idyllic weekend and enjoy it with a tub of popcorn and a glass of cold coffee.

Its delightful!

After making beautiful films like Iqbal and Dor, Nagesh Kukunoor decided to experiment with a murder mystery cum psycho-thriller. Is it as good as his previous films or not. Rating: 2/5

Starring: Akshay Kumar, Ayesha Takia, Javed Jaffery, Sharmila Tagore, Girish Karnad

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Synopsis:
8×10 Tasveer is different from all the films Nagesh Kukunoor ever made. Probably he wanted to experiment with the Abbas-Mustan kind of a murder-mystery style. Jai(Akshay Kumar) is a forest officer in Canada. His father Jatin dies by falling off a boat and drowning in water. There are four other people on the boat including his mom (Sharmila Tagore), uncle (Anant Mahadevan), his father’s lawyer and friend (Girish Karnad) and best friend Ajit (Rushad Rana). Jai with the help of Hyderabadi inspector Happi (Javed Jaffery) realizes that his father was murdered but who did it? Jai has a supernatural ability to get into a picture and watch the happenings of a moment captured in a picture. And Jai will solve the murder mystery by going into the past through an 8×10 Tasveer.

Review:
On paper the whole idea of a protagonist who possesses supernatural powers of going into the past via a picture (as the person in the picture).  He will then unfold a murder mystery using his powers. However, the final outcome of this concept is not so impressive. The sequences and gripping suspense build up towards a climax where you have a bizarre secret revealed. Ala old Hindi films!

The film loses control at some points and by the end of the second half, I had almost lost interest because it took forever for the mystery to unfold and when it did – It turned out to be really unconvincing and unimpressive.

It was well shot in the very picturesque locales of Canada and the general look and feel of the scenes was very soothing to the eye. Except for the regular and unnecessary advertisement of Godrej security systems. Also at times the film felt a little bland.

Akshay Kumar did not do any exceptional job.  He was just okay. Javed Jaffery was very impressive in his Hyderabadi role. He is a really good actor whose can do great if offered a good role. Ayesha Takia is good. Sharmila Tagore is wasted and so is Girish Karnad.

My Verdict:
Its a good experiment that could’ve been better in a lot of areas. You can try it out but have very little expectations. It is strictly average fare.

Nandita Das’s directorial debut Firaaq is a film that touches your heart and also a film that hits you hard on your mind. Rating 4/5.

Synopsis

The film opens to the scene just after the Gujrat Riots. A huge pile of dead bodies collected together like a mass of garbage and mass buried. The trucks bring on corpses like they bring waste and dump ruthlessly as if they were just bodies and never had a soul. Soul and soul searching is the most prominent motif of the film against the background of the Gujarat Riots of 2002.

The story unfolds into parallel narratives of the stories of characters -Muneera (Shahana Goswami) a young Muslim girl who is trying to cope with life after her family was burnt alive by a mob of Hindu communists. She wants justice but how? A Hindu Gujrati wife (Deepti Naval) is trying to overcome her guilt of  closing her doors to a woman frantically seeking refuge from an angry Hindu mob!

Firaaq is also the story of a contemporary Hindu-Muslim couple (Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra) whose beliefs are shaken by the turn of events so much so that they fear for their identities. They decide to shift from Gujarat to a more communally secular and secure place.

But there are also people the caretaker (Raghuvir Yadav) and devout Muslim musician who remain positive about the future despite the horrifying riots.

Review

There are five major tracks that run parallel in the narrative of the film. Some characters are well sketched while others are not. Some tracks are well essayed while others are incomplete. Naseeruddin Shah’s character is initially annoyingly positive about the whole thing but suddenly he is critical. Similarly Sanjay’s character who was so skeptical about his minority identity overnight takes a stance and decides to come to terms with it in a Hindu majority. Certain changes in the characters are unpersuasive. Deepti Navals and Shahana Goswami’s characters seem rather incomplete.

But the most touching and thought provoking track is the one with the orphaned homeless little kid wandering through the streets of Gujrat after the riots. It makes us think how this young boy would grow up to be like after witnessing so much of hatred and violence.

Performances are amazing – what else can you expect from the likes of – Naseeruddin Shah, Raghubir Yadav and Deepti Naval.. Absolutely wonderful. There are flaws in the script and story but certain scenes are so powerful that they can hide those flaws. In the end its a film from the heart and it touches your heart. So go watch it… its definitely worth it!

Little Zizou is a colourful docu-feature on the alluring lifestyle of the Parsi community. But what stands out are the life-like performances by the ensemble cast — the kids are brilliant — and the gentle comic strain that carries the film forward with a chuckle and a grin. Don’t miss it. Rating: 3.5/5 – Nikhat Kazmi – Times of India.

After penning some of the most gripping scripts for crossover films like Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala and The Namesake, Sooni Taraporevala tries her hand at direction. And what a deft hand! For, her debut venture is a sheer delight, both stylistically and content-wise. It’s a small yet sensitive cry against fundamentalism — and hate-mongering fundamentalists — who have no place in a melting-pot society where anyone who raises the cry for racial or communal purity is akin to a modern-day Hitler.

Now that’s a lot to say in a world that’s dangerously veering towards orthodoxy and fanaticism. But Sooni does it with such delicacy and finesse that you leave the audi with a lightness in your step, a lilt on your lips and a lot of love in your heart, ready to embrace the world in all its diversity. That’s the power of this little big film that sees the world through the eyes of a nine-year-old and concludes with his fairy-tale view of angels and fairies winning over demons and devilish godmen.

Young Xerxes (Jahan Bativala) — known as little Zizou — doesn’t really like the life he is living. He hates his father, Cyrus Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir), a Parsi fundamentalist who launches a Parsi Liberation Army to preserve the purity of the fast-dwindling community. The motherless kid plays truant from school and prefers to spend the day with Uncle Boman Pressvala (Boman Irani), a crusading journalist and surrogate mom, Aunt Roxanne (Xenobia Shroff), even though their young daughter (Inayah Bativala) hates his presence. The only other bright spots in his life are his elder brother, Art (Imaad Shah), a graphic novelist and Zinedane Zidane, his icon who must come to Mumbai, at least for his sake. He is sure his mother will manoeuvre this from heaven. The film is completely episodic in nature and takes you on a trip with Xerxes as he watches the power of love and tolerance, represented through Boman uncle’s little magazine, prevail upon his father’s fraud and fundamentalist movement.

At one level, the film also works as a colourful docu-feature on the alluring lifestyle of the Parsi community. But what stands out are the life-like performances by the ensemble cast — the kids are brilliant — and the gentle comic strain that carries the film forward with a chuckle and a grin. Don’t miss it.

Jai Veeru is one of those idiotic blood boiling films you can use to bore a sane person to death. Or recommend it to someone whose precious money and time you would want to waste!

Jai Veeru is the story of two friends Jai(Fardeen Khan) and Veeru (Kunal Khemu). Jai is an undercover cop who wants to reach underworld kingpin Tejpal (Arbaaz Khan) through Veeru. When Veeru discovers this he shoots Jai right on his forehead with a gun. We see the bullet going into Jai’s head and blood oozing out. There is a cut and the next seen Jai is in the hospital because the bullet didn’t kill him. Reason – Jai has some metal plate is implanted in his head.

Pathetic! There is hardly anything good about this film. Fardeen Khan and Kunal Khemu as Jai and Veeru come nowhere close to the proverbial Jai-Veeru of Sholay. The plot is outdated with shameless lifts from everywhere – the 70s Bollywood films (Don) to the 90s Hollywood films (Bulletproof). The end result is idiotic.

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Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal is an intricate and multi-dimensional political drama woven between the dark layers of emotions of characters who are driven by the hunger for love and power, so much that they are willing to do anything to have it their way. The film addresses many issues concerning contemporary Indians in India. RATING 4/5

Dilip Singh (Raj Singh Chaudhary) is a nerdy yet nice student of law at Rajpur. He gets unwillingly involved into campus politics and college elections when his roommate Rananjay Singh (Abhimanyu Singh) gets murdered. The local kingpin Dukey Bana (Kay Kay Menon) is a political leader who wishes to get Rajputana back from the control of the government of Democratic government of India and restore aristocracy and kingship back. He backs Rananjay and then Dilip to contest elections so that he can mobilize the youth towards the cause of Rajputana.

Dilip competes with Kiran for the elections but Kiran loses to Dilip. She then tries to charm and lure him with her sexual charms. She pretends to be in love with him and provokes him towards Dukey and when he resigns she takes over as the General Secretary of the youth party. Once she takes charge of the party, she shuns Dilip and starts luring Dukey Bana. Feeling cheated and betrayed Dilip turns hostile.

The multi-dimensional story of Gulaal is the story of power struggle and motives of Dilip, Kiran, and Dukey Banaa

First lets start with the negative points of the film -
1. The length of the film bothers a lot especially when things start getting a little to intense and heavy on your head.

2. Kashyap ends up juggling with too many characters and too many issues at the same time and thus towards the end he ends up losing grip. He could not connect his dots well.

3. The relationship between Kiran and Dilip should have been more detailed to justify Dilip’s hostility in the end.

Now coming to the positive points -
The number of positive points outnumber the negative ones and the best things about this film was -

1. Very good cinematography by Rajeev Ravi.
2. Excellent lyrics and music that becomes an effective narrative technique (as also seen in Dev D).
3. Brilliant and crisp dialogues, the best we have seen in a long time. There is humor, sarcasm, philosophy, history, irony, and poetry accessorizing the dialogues of this film – lovely!.
4. Amazing performances – Raj Singh who is also one of the writers of the film is very convincing as a debutante and Ayesha Mohan is a really good actress for a first timer. My vote for the best performances goes to -
i) Deepak Dobriyal as Bhatti (Dukey’s sidekick) – he conveyed a lot with his simple expressions.
ii)Piyush Mehra as Prithvi Banaa for superb dialogue delivery (he has the best dialogues in the film).
Kay Kay Menon as usual is superb with his towering screen presence and performance. Very good film in terms of performances.

Verdict:

Its a good film for those who love to watch intense dramas with complicated plots.