Monday, April 23, 2012

Movie Review: Vicky Donor

Wow a movie on sperm donation is something not many would love to venture out in India. The first time we heard or saw about the same was in Onir's 'I AM' where Purab Kohli played the role of a sperm donor and Nandita Das as the receiver. The serious take on the issue was not accepted by the general public but I still maintain that it was a very sincere and sensitive take by Onir on this subject.

Now coming to Vicky Donor, this serious issue has been tackled in a comic manner without making it sound boring or preachy. Dr. Chaddha (Annu Kapoor) runs a infertility clinic in Delhi and he is in search of a person who has a good and healthy sperm count. He accidentally meets Vicky (Ayushman) one day and he is sure that his search for a healthy donor is finished. He undertakes different ways to convince Vicky to donate his sperms in bringing happiness to such couples who cannot conceive. After a lot of cajoling and convincing he agrees for the same.

Vicky's mother Dolly (Dolly Alhuvalia) runs a beauty parlor and she also takes care of her mother-in-law (Kamlesh Gill). The bickering and love shown between the saas-bahu is hilarious and the best scenes of the movie are between them. The scene where the saas-bahu are downing few pegs or fighting over a 42 inch LED TV etc. are very funnily written and executed.

Vicky meets Ashima (Yammi Gautham) at a bank where she works as a customer service executive. They fall in love and decide to get married. Initially both the families are against the match as Ashima is a 'Bong' while Vicky a true blue Punjabi. The families give their consent in the end however Vicky's past as a sperm donor breaks the marriage.

The story is very simple but the screenplay and dialogues lift up the entire premise coupled with fantastic acting by debutante Ayushman and Yami, as well as the talented supporting cast played by Dolly Alhuwalia, Kamlesh Gill, Annu Kapoor and the actors who have played Yami's father and aunt. The music is fantastic and with the mood of the movie, especially the song composed by Ayushman 'Pani da Rang' and 'Whiskey and Rum'.

Shoojit Sircar again springs a surprise after a beautiful start with his debut movie 'Yahaan'. On the whole the movie will definitely do well at the box office as majority of the multiplex janta would love it. Overall a good movie for a good weekend watch. Please go for it.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Movie Review: Agent Vinod

After watching some not so good movies in the last few weeks out of which Agent Vinod was an exception. Like all Sriram Raghavan movies Agent Vinod happened to be a fast paced thriller and I being a huge fan of his earlier movies 'Ek Hasina Thi' and 'Johnny Gaddar' could find much flaws or maybe I just chose to ignore it even if there were any. 

The story is of a secret Agent named Vinod (Saif Ali Khan) who pulls the strings right in front of the villians' nose and turns table at the drop of a hat. He is assigned a job to find out a bomb which is highly destructive and can cause bigger damages to the world than what the Atom Bomb did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

So up he goes cracking the mystery of the whereabouts of the bomb in 12 different countries, falls in love with another Pakistani Agent (Kareena Kapoor) who works with the terrorists in unraveling the mysterious bomb. She helps Vinod to track the bomb which is transported to India and in an attempt to foil the plans of the terrorists even loses her life.

The pace of the movie is very fast and there are many characters popping in and out of the frame. The screenplay is very tough and hats-off to the writers who have worked on this difficult screenplay. The music is just average out of which 'Pungi' has turned out to be a chart-buster. The other two song's are well placed in the script and doesn't look like a forced intrusion to the slick script.

Acting-wise it is a Saif Ali Khan movie from start to end and he proves that he can be our answer to James Bond (I hope they are not disheartened by the box-office results of the movie and not plan a sequel). Kareena is good with whatever screen space she gets. Rest of the cast and crew have also justified their roles.

On the whole Agent Vinod is a great movie to watch that leaves no time for you to think or feel bored as it is a edge of the seat thriller. Box Office wise the movie has not done well but it did deserved more as it is a far better product than last week's HouseFull 2.