Movie Review: Student of The Year

For the past few years every movie produced or directed by maverick film maker Karan Johar has been awaited by every cine goers. It is a fast rule you can like him or hate him but you cannot ignore his movies or him. This week KJo comes out with his first movie that introduces not only the three main leads but also a horde of newcomers in the supporting cast. 

Student of the Year or SOTY is the only movie that doesn't cast his favorite King Khan and still has got all the ingredients to make it a full fledged BLOCKBUSTER. Coming to the story. SOTY is the story of Abhimanyu Singh [Sidharth Malhotra] and Rohan Nanda [Varun Dhawan], who traverse the path of competition, envy, triumph, failure, manipulation and heartbreak in their mini-universe of St. Teresa's High School, Dehradun. 

Rohan a.k.a. Ro is the son of a business tycoon who has the hots for every girl in the town although he has a devoted girlfriend in Shanaya [Alia Bhatt]. He is a popular guy in the college and for him the twists and turns in his life makes it a goal to become the SOTY. While Abhimanyu a.k.a Abhi comes from a middle-class family and wants to achieve great heights of success and prosperity, the first step to which will be the 'Student Of The Year' trophy.

The two protagonists with distinct backgrounds and clear goals clash with each other in the locker room, football field and the canteen. Things are further knotted up when Shanaya Singhania [Alia Bhatt], falls in love with Abhi who also is attracted to her even though she is his best friend's girl. This causes a rift in their friendship and, Abhi and Rohan are ready for a face-off and battle lines are drawn through the length and breadth of the campus, with only one goal in everyone's eyes -- 'Student Of The Year' trophy. 

The story is nothing great but the treatment by KJo is wonderful, every character gets a distinct role that is well defined. The supporting cast comprising of Sana Saeed, Sahil Anand, Kayoze Irani, Ram Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Ronit Roy etc are brilliant. 

Among the main leads Varun Dhawan is a performer while Siddharth Malhotra is someone to look for in the coming years. Alia Bhat is beautiful and has done a decent job. The music compared to KJo's previous movies are not great shakes but still 'Ishqwala Love' 'Velle' 'Disco Deewane' and 'Radha' are quite good. 

On the whole the movie is going to do very well at the Box Office and it will benefit everyone associated with the movie.

Movie Review: AIYYA

After watching a mind blowing 'English Vinglish' last week, comes a drab 'Aiyya' which infact even I am surprised how a director like Sachin Kundalkar (who won a National Award for the same story in Marathi) could make. I am wondering how Rani Mukherjee and Anurag Kashyap who are known for their brilliant script sense could actually go for a script like this?

To give you a backhand story, Sachin Kundalkar made a movie "Gandh - The Smell" in Marathi few years back that had three short stories woven together, revolving around 'smell'. One of the short stories titled 'Lagnacha Vayachi Mulgi' has been stretched and made into a 2hr 30 mins 'masala' potboiler in Hindi by him.

Like Rani's screen father says in the end of the movie, "That he could not understand what was happening all the while?" was the same thing I uttered to myself after the movie came to an end (actually I was waiting for it to end). The movie was neither a comedy nor a thought provoking drama or even a masala entertainer that it was being projected as, all through its promos and songs.

The story is about a middle class girl Meenaxi (Rani) who falls in love with a South Indian guy named Surya (Prithviraj) only because of his body smell. Her quirky or rather an over dramatic family fixes her marriage with a simpleton Madhav (Subodh Bhave) who loves Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval movies. Soon Meenaxi realizes that she can never be happy with Madhav as she is in love with Surya or rather his smell and what happens to Meenaxi and would she get the man of her dreams is what AIYYA is all about.

Performances by every actor including Rani is over the top, loud and dramatic. South Sensation Prithviraj has nothing much to do and has just a couple of dialogues in the entire movie. The songs are wonderful and they are choreographed well by Vaibhavi Merchant. Dialogues are too loud and at times too boring. Direction was average, I still want to believe that Sachin was either sleeping when he directed this movie or maybe he drank a bottle full of vodka from the water-bag named 'Jumbo' carried by Rani's colleague Maina in the movie.

On the whole this movie is not worth watching unless you want to hold your head and scream angrily "AIYYA". This movie will be a total loss at the Box Office, maybe a miracle can save it.

As for the other release of the week BHOOT RETURNS... I would rather say Mr. RGV can you please stop wasting your time and producers money by making such crass movies.... Please take a break and do some soul searching... We want to see RGV of Rangeela, Satya, Bhoot, Company and Sarkar series.... The worst movie I have ever seen so wouldn't waste my time and energy in reviewing it... At the box office this BHOOT will not make any RETURNS ;)

ENGLISH VINGLISH: Movie Review

At last the prayers of all Sridevi fans including me have been answered with the release of Gauri Shinde directed 'English Vinglish'. A simply and cute story told in a very simple and emotional way. Nothing new if you want to give a straightaway judgement, but that is the beauty of this simple movie.

Sashi (Sridevi) is a housewife and a small time 'Entrepreneur' who sells home made 'laddoos' and takes care of her family. However her biggest problem in life is not knowing English language because of which she is not valued by her children and husband.

On her sister's insistence she goes to US to help with the marriage preparations of her niece. There she happens to enroll herself for a short term English learning class. She discovers, like her there are couple of characters who have come from different countries to US for work and are struggling with their lack of knowledge of English language.

Soon she is on a roll and she learns the language to earn respect and dignity among her family members.

The story is very simple, the direction is wonderful although there are few glitches in the screenplay but that can be ignored when you see the end result.

Sridevi as always is endearing and she is as natural as she can be. It seems the character was tailor-made for her. Even after 15 years she is still in great form and will beat every competition to win all the awards and  maybe even the National Award for her potrayal of Sashi Godbole. The rest  of the supporting cast is wonderful so is the cameo by Amitabh Bachchan. The music is very good especially the title song and 'Navrai'. After 'Cheeni Kum' and 'Paa', R. Balki comes back as a producer for 'English Vinglish' bringing back the feel good quality of his past ventures.

On the whole this is one movie which everyone should watch and maybe after that our views about our mothers and housewives in general will change. As it is said, being a housewife is a 24 hour duty and even though a woman does her chores with dedication, still she never gets to hear a 'Thank You' or a word of appreciation from her family members, because she is taken for granted. I am not saying that suddenly the views towards the housewives will change however one will definitely think about it.

My verdict please do go and watch this BRILLIANT movie... as for box office numbers, it will definitely bring in good numbers and ensure everyone associated with this movie gets benefited.