RAAZ 3 - Movie Review

RAAZ 3 the latest movie to come out of Vishesh Films and Mahesh Bhatt's stable is another story set to cash in on the famous RAAZ franchise they formed 10 years back. However like all recent Vishesh Film movies or the movies made by the Bhatt family, this one too turns out to be a big Rumble in the Bronx.

The story is about a fading actress played superbly by Bipasha Basu who seeks revenge on another upcoming actress played by Esha Gupta, who also happens to be her half sister. To regain what she has lost out to the newbie Bipasha's character resorts to Black Magic and to execute her plan successfully she chooses her boyfriend / lover played by Emran Hashmi.

As the story progresses Emran Hashmi has a change of heart and falls in love with Esha's character and instead of taking the plan ahead of killing her, he enters the world of Spirits to get back her spirit.

There is nothing new about the plotline as every Vikram Bhatt movie has got the same old story treatment and the 3D is just used merely for marketing purpose, as there are not many 3D usable material in the movie. The entire movie revolves around the three characters and after sometime it tends to be boring.

As far as acting goes, Emran is okay, he has given much better performances in the past. Bipasha is good in whatever role she has however the biggest disappointment here is Esha Gupta who really needs to pull up her socks. Vikram is a good storyteller however Shagufta Rafiq lets him down. The cinematography by Praveen Bhatt is very good while the music by Jeet Ganguli and Rashid Khan disappoints considering the fact that the music of RAAZ 1 & RAAZ 2 were good. The 3D effects are good but not much scope for using thrills barring a couple of sequences.

On an average the movie is just a one time watch and considering the hype around the movie, it wouldn't be a wonder if it turns out to be a winner for Vishesh Films, Emran Hashmi and Bipasha.

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.

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.

Kahaani: Movie Review

After 'The Dirty Picture' the buzz around Vidya Balan has grown ten fold. I don't think there was ever a best phase in her career when people are more interested in knowing more about her and her upcoming projects. In the same wave another master stroke performance has been delivered by her in the latest release KAHAANI.


I went with a lot of expectations to see Kahaani as now I consider Vidya as equal to Aamir Khan after the spate of well made and well performed movies that we saw in the last 3 years starting from Paa, Ishqiya, No One Killed Jessica, The Dirty Picture and now Kahaani. I was not disappointed a bit as my expectations were fulfilled and I loved every minute of the movie.


The story is about a pregnant woman's search for her missing husband. In her search she is helped by a newly recruited policeman Rana (Parambrata Chattopadhyay). This thriller comes up trumps in the climax when the real mystery and story unfolds, who is Vidya Bagchi, does Arnab Bagchi exist in real life? Or it is all a story aka Kahaani narrated by Vidya? You have to see the movie to find out the same as revealing anything further will be spoiling the fun of watching such a fast paced thriller.


Kahaani has a very simple story with a lot of twists and turns written by Advaita Kala and Sujoy Ghosh. The screenplay by Sujoy, Suresh Nair and Nikhil Vyas is superb and at no point do you get any time to think or feel bored. The performances are first rate, the director has seen to it that no one in the movie is wasted and therefore even a small part played by the two kids and the actress who plays the role of Agnes is also well written and performed. However the entire movie rests on Vidya Balan who comes up with another award winning performance. I especially loved her in the climax, can't reveal the scene or anything about the climax, so I am just holding onto it.


The music by Vishal-Shekhar is good and goes perfectly with the mood of the movie. Kolkatta has never looked so beautiful and the entire credit goes to Cinematographer Sethu and the editing by Namrata is another high point. The background score is gripping and on a whole I would say this is a 'Must See' movie for everyone. At last Sujoy Ghosh gets back his mojo after back to back flops like Home Delivery and Aladin. Go for it!

Movie Review: Mausam

Last three weeks I have just watched movies that are high on publicity and promotions however zero in content and novelty.

After being cheated by Salman Khan and Imran Khan in their recent releases Bodyguard and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan, I mustered courage and went to watch 'Mausam' starring Shahid and Sonam Kapoor. I have always been a huge fan of Pankaj 'Karamchand' Kapoor who happens to be the father of Shahid and also the director of Mausam. After watching the promos, listening to the songs and checking out interviews given by Shahid and Sonam, about how they have poured all their acting talents into this much in long making movie, I was determined to watch it.

The movie starts with a bang and that's that. There is no story, there is no novelty and there is nothing to look forward to. The movie is an endless saga of 'hide and seek' between Shahid and Sonam. The movie is one that checks your patience, I think the last such movie I saw was 'Sawariya'.

Everyone in the audience was squirming in their seats, waiting for the movie to end. It was such a pathetic fare that I didn't know what to do, whether to sit and watch or go off to sleep.

The cinematography is wonderful, music is fantastic, acting by Shahid and Supriya Pathak is good, Sonam is okay (I think I liked her more in I Hate Luv Storys and Aisha - although both were equally pathetic).

Story, dialogue, screenplay and direction by the GREAT Pankaj Kapoor is very BAD. I think he should just stick to his acting and never ever venture out directing movies in future, if he does, I am sure, I would not want to ever watch it.

Overall, the movie will not do that well at the box office and please avoid it completely.

Movie Review: BODYGUARD

The festive season has begun with a bang with the much awaited Salman-Kareena starer, BODYGUARD.


Like every Salman fan even I was waiting for the movie to release and I was damn sure the movie would be worth a watch, as I had already seen the Malayalam version some 5 times and I was totally floored by the story, acting and music in the original.


To tell you frankly, I was tad disappointed. The Hindi version lacks soul. There is no connection between any scenes and the love story falls flat. The movie that was 2 hours 40 mins in Malayalam was reduced to a 2hour movie in Hindi.


The story was altered to showcase the ongoing Salman massy wave. Unnecessary fights, unnecessary characters and situations which were not there in the original was included and in turn the soul of the movie i.e. the story was killed. 


The original story in Malayalam had superstar Dileep playing the title role. He is shown as a weird guy who from his childhood has developed a strange interest and passion to be with the brave and the powerful, taking any amount of risks. He jumps out of college and starts learning to become a brave goonda by becoming a bodyguard for famous anti socials. He accidentally hears about the ultimate don of the city Ashokan (thyagarajan) and finds ways to get to him. 
A lot of confusion is created by the heroine's character played by Nayantara and he ultimately loses the job as a Bodyguard and he is asked to leave the village. To prove him, Jayakrishnan saves Ashokan and his family from a murder attempt and becomes the favorite bodyguard of this man, who has retired from goonda activities and is presently engaged in other business.


The chemistry between the hero and the heroine is developed from the first scene itself where the hero is in awe of the heroine because of her simplicity and her kind nature and in turn the heroine is very impressed with his innocence and protective nature towards her. 


Even when she starts playing the prank on the hero posing as his girlfriend over the phone, her intention is to get his attention diverted so that she can spend more time with her friends and have fun in college, as she and her friends are tired of him and his bufoonary.


A lot of funny scenes and situations are shown over the screen when Dileep who is irritated with his self proclaimed girlfriend (who calls him everyday) starts suspecting every girl in the college and goes in search of her. Ultimately he falls in love with the voice of the girl and he is ready to do anything for her once his duties towards the heroines family is over.


She falls in love with the hero when she slowly, over a time, understands how much he worships her and how much she means to him while they talk over the phone. She tries to talk bad about the heroine's character to check his devotion towards her and that is when she is amazed to see that he is even ready to split up with her as he cannot hear anything bad about the heroine.


Even when the mystery unfolds in the end, it comes as a jolt to the audience about the girl who the hero marries thinking it to be the heroine.


In the Hindi version, the story has altered a lot from the first scene to the last, there are no moments created to make the viewers understand how Kareena's character got to love the Bodyguard. If they would have stuck to the original screenplay the movie would have been equally enjoyable in Hindi too.


After seeing the original, the Hindi version is something one wont be able to digest. It seems as if the movie was made in a hurry to release it on Eid to cash in on the 5 day weekend.


Salman has done a fantastic job and Kareena gets a half baked role, I still dont agree with her when she says that this is one of her best roles, even better than Jab We Met. 


Rest of the cast does a decent job and the music is a BLOCKBUSTER, especially Teri Meri Prem Kahani, which is my favorite track but the songs are shot as music videos and then inserted wherever they wanted to insert, in short there was no connection between the scenes and the songs.


Overall the movie will be a huge hit over the Box Office (the movie has made 20 crores on its opening day itself) because of the current Salman Khan wave but this is not a great love story that the makers and the actors were claiming to be.

Movie Review: Not A Love Story

After a long time I felt like watching a RGV movie and the movie happened to be 'Not A Love Story' inspired by the now famous Neeraj Grover murder case. The promos and the controversy surrounding the movie was not only a major motivation, however the fact that I had been keeping track of this case since 2008 was also another reason for me to watch this movie.

Gone are the days where lovers jilted in love or lovers who got cheated in love resorted to alcohol a la Devdas style. It was an unusual case where two lovers did a heinous act that the entire nation woke up to one morning.

'Not A Love Story' is a total RGV movie from the word go. Like in his previous movies like Satya, Kaun, Ek Haseena Thi or even Bhoot, where the first half of the movie is slightly slow and then the movie moves faster in the second half,  he uses the same technique here. In the first half he tries to establish the characters and the premise and therefore the movie tends to drag, however in the second half the entire movie moves faster and holds you to your seat till the end.

RGV has tried to give an interpretation of what might have happened in that flat, among the three characters on that fateful day. Performance-wise this will show to the world how good an actress Mahie Gill is. She has lived the role and the performance just grows on you from the point the movie starts till the end. Deepak Dobriyal is first rate, no other actor would have suited the role of Robin, the way he has. Amit Gehi in a brief role is very powerful and so is Nasir Hussain who plays the role of a cop.

I won't say that this is one of the best movies of RGV but yes after all those experiments gone wrong movies like RGV Ki Aag, Phoonk, Agyaat, Contract etc, Not A Love Story comes as a fresh breath.

Technically there are many flaws as the camera is shaky in almost every scene and sometimes it is out of focus. Background score by Sandeep Chowta is amazing, he had shown his musical brilliance earlier too in movies with RGV like Satya and Kaun.

All in all an above average movie and at the box office it might find average success considering the fact that the movie was made at a shoe-string budget.