This would be a short movie review. Not even a review exactly but my opinion about the movie without going much into the technicalities.Dhobi Ghat is not a movie but an insight into normal characters of everyday life. There is nothing special about any of the characters or about the period which has been shown in the movie.
The english title of the movie "Mumbai diaries" is apt as the story and screenplay reflect what someone might have wrote in his diary had he been told to observe the characters.
There is no point in the movie and that is precisely what many viewers may not like. The movie is about picking 4 random everyday characters of Mumbai and providing an insight into their lives for a while and also displaying little bit of Mumbai in the process.
With that kind of plot what works in the movie's favour is brilliant acting and realistic portrayal. All the characters and elements look believable and their emotions are captured very well.
The movie has its elements of humor in between. Performances are good and direction is somewhat different. There are no songs. Theme background score which can be heard in trailers could have been used in a much better way in movie. Thats 1 area where movie makers missed the trick.
This is a kind of complex movie which would garner extreme opinions I believe. It would be loved by few and will land into their favourites list while many others would hate it and wont see what was the point of making the movie. I personally was bored at times while watching the movie and liked the movie at various other points of time. Overall opinion about the movie- Good. (On a side note I found the character of Yasmin very irritating in the 1st half.)
Rating- 7/10
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Almost everyone had high expectations from the movie and the stunning trailers raised the bar even higher. But how many times has it happened that the scene in trailers are the only ones to look out for in the movie! Credit should be given to people who made the trailers, stills and posters for the movie because they all look so extra ordinary while the movie itself is quite ordinary.
Raavan is one of those movies where everything could have gone right. One of the best directors, arguably the best music director, nice concept, a grand epic to base it upon, breathtaking locations, powerful star cast and what not. But this is 1 of the few projects where everything went wrong. Its like someone gave a challenge to the makers that " I will give you the best of resources and lets see how you can make a flop out of that!". Sadly it seems the makers accepted the challenge and won it quite convincingly because in the movie direction is poor, music is average, acting is ordinary and it would be a shame to call it an adaptation of Ramayana. It seems like some elements of the epic were desperately inserted into the movie to get some free publicity by promoting it as a modern adaptation of Ramayana. One may argue that it is indeed an adaptation of Ramayana as Raghini (Aishwarya Rai) is kidnapped by Beera (Abhishek Bachchan) and Dev (Vikram) comes to rescue her just like it happened in the epic. Well if a villain kidnapping Hero's wife and hero coming to save her is an adaptation of Ramayana then half of bollywood movies can be said to be adaptations of the epic!
Thankfully all is not bad for the movie. The viewers are in for a visual treat that they rarely see in bollywood movies. Cinematography is top notch, the locations are breathtaking and you have to give it to the cast and crew for filming almost 90% of the film drenched in water. In fact the true worth of this movie can be realised if there is no audio and people just watch the visuals on screen or if it is watched by people who don't understand the language and thus can enjoy the visuals without worrying too much about the story!
The 1st half of the movie is dull and slow. The kidnapping scene raises hope of interesting screenplay ahead but unfortunately the pace of story drops drastically after that. Also character development of various important people in the movie is poor. Things get interesting in the 2nd half though but overall it fails to keep the viewer interested. The story unfolds at such a pace that you don't want to know what will happen next, you just want it to get over. During intermission I was wondering if it was only me who didn't like the movie till I saw one person sitting few seats beside me sleeping peacefully!
Acting specially of the lead cast is ordinary. Abhishek bachchan fails to leave an impact on the viewers. He is given the same license to ham as Shah Rukh was given in 'Raam Jaane'. He seems more like a person with a serious anger management issue and a psychological disorder rather than a nemesis who has the wit and the gut to challenge the hero in something more creative than kidnapping his wife. His actions seem to be forced and overdone and someone was right when he said that it looks like he can't take even 1 head forget about 10! Aishwarya's acting skills are not worth talking but I am sure she could get an Oscar if they include a category "Who can scream the loudest" or "Who can break a glass with just her voice".
Of the remaining cast Vikram does a pretty OK job considering his character is poorly developed and have nothing much to do in the movie. Govinda who could have been a show stopper here shockingly doesn't even have a role to talk about. His entry scene and specially the lines he say at start to Vikram may give viewers goosebumps and raises expectation sky high. But apart from that Govinda doesn't have any significant scene in the movie! Mani Ratnam should really explain to people why he wrote such a poor character for someone who was supposed to play "Hanuman" in the adaptation. Only 2 actors that pulled it off were Ravi kishan and Priyamani. Ravi kishan played his part effortlessly and Priyamani gave one of the strongest performances in just 10 minutes of screen time. Her monologue where she describes the events in jail have made bollywood directors sit up and take notice.
Music surprisingly is strictly average. You don't expect that from a music director of A.R. Rehman's calibre. There are 1-2 songs which can be hummed for a while but nothing like Rehman's earlier works like Taal, Swades or Guru. Also the background music is not convincing. A jungle except for looking should also sound like a jungle. But during the whole movie voice of an animal is not heard even once! Maybe the director also wanted to highlight the serious problem of species getting extinct!
Finally to consider the movie a modern adaptation of Ramayana is just nonsense. What sort of adaption is it where "Ram" is not good, "Raavan" is not bad, "Shrupnakha" is the victim!, "Lakshman" is the culprit and "Hanuman" doesn't have any significance. The main plot is completely different while unimportant stuff is added to movie to portray it as an adaptation. Whether its Raghini being kept for 14 days or Jamuniya (Priyamani) being dragged by nose to the police station. When you resort to such tactics it implies that the director himself isn't sure about the movie.
To conclude Mani ratnam totally messed it up this time. If you missed this one you haven't missed much. To be fair to Mani Ratnam he admitted that during the making he was "lost as a director" . People thought he was joking until they saw the movie.
Rating- 4/10
PS: It seems that the people associated with the project were too influenced by the epic that after the movie a different sort of Ramayana took place! Here Mani Ratnam was Raavan (the evil character), Abhishek was Ram and Amitabh played Hanuman who stood behind Ram with all his might to prove Raavan wrong so that no finger is pointed at Ram! But this was 1 battle where audience decided who was right and who was wrong and no prizes for guessing what they chose!
Twelve people go off into a room:
twelve different minds,
twelve different hearts,
from twelve different walks of life;
twelve sets of eyes, ears, shapes, and sizes.
And these twelve people are asked to judge
another human being as different from them
as they are from each other.
And in their judgment,
they must become of one mind - unanimous.
It's one of the miracles of Man's
disorganized soul that they can do it
and in most instances, do it right well.
God bless juries.
twelve different minds,
twelve different hearts,
from twelve different walks of life;
twelve sets of eyes, ears, shapes, and sizes.
And these twelve people are asked to judge
another human being as different from them
as they are from each other.
And in their judgment,
they must become of one mind - unanimous.
It's one of the miracles of Man's
disorganized soul that they can do it
and in most instances, do it right well.
God bless juries.
Just 1 word can be used to describe the movie- POOR. 45 minutes into the movie when you start looking at your watch you know that something went wrong somewhere.Raavan is one of those movies where everything could have gone right. One of the best directors, arguably the best music director, nice concept, a grand epic to base it upon, breathtaking locations, powerful star cast and what not. But this is 1 of the few projects where everything went wrong. Direction is poor, music is average, acting is ordinary and it would be a shame to call it an adaptation of Ramayana. It seems like some elements of the epic were desperately inserted into the movie to get some free publicity by promoting it as a modern adaptation of Ramayana. The only saving grace for the movie is cinematography. The locations are breathtaking and you have to give it to the cast and crew for filming almost 90% of the film drenched in water.
The 1st half of the movie is dull and slow. It begins at a slow pace and maintain that till the intermission. Thankfully for the viewers things get a bit interesting in 2nd half but fails to keep the viewer interested. The story unfolds at such a pace that you don't want to know what will happen next, you just want it to get over.
Acting specially of the lead cast is ordinary. Abhishek bachchan fails to leave an impact on the viewers. With the make-up and close camera shots even a child could have done that job. His actions seem to be forced and overdone. Aishwarya can't act which was evident from the trailer itself but her acting in the movie is irritating to say the least. Extremely poor dialogues doesn't help her cause either. Vikram starts off ordinarily but his overall act is OK. Anyways he hasn't got much to do here. Govinda who could have been a show stopper here shockingly doesn't even have a role to talk about. His entry scene and specially the lines he say at start to Vikram may give users goosebumps and raises expectation sky high. But apart from that Govinda doesn't have any significant scene in the movie! Mani Ratnam should really explain to people why he wrote such a poor character for someone who was supposed to play "Hanuman" in the adaptation. Only 2 actors that pulled it off were Ravi kishan and Priyamani. Ravi kishan played his part effortlessly and Priyamani gave one of the strongest performances in just 10 minutes of screen time.
And considering the movie a modern adaptation of Ramayana is just nonsense. What sort of adaption is it where "Ram" is not good, "Raavan" is not bad, "Shrupnakha" is the victim!, "Lakshman" is the culprit and "Hanuman" doesn't have any significance. The so called "Raavan" doesn't have any traits like the original one so the characters in the movie are made to say idiotic dialogues like "Sir log kehte hain Beera (Raavan) ek saath 10-10 jagah rehta hai! " to force the audience to believe in the character.
And I couldn't stop myself from mentioning it here. Check the jump of Aishwarya rai from the cliff. Such ordinary effects make you wonder if it is really a Mani ratnam movie or you are watching some low budget movie.
To conclude Mani ratnam totally messed it up this time. If you miss this one you wouldn't have missed much.
Rating- 4/10
1 Line Review-The story and pace of narration kills the movie. Avoid this flick.
Detailed Review-
Though the trailers looked impressive I didnt have plans to watch Ishqiya before as I suspected the story wont be too good. But then I was intrigued by statements from the director, cast etc that Vidya Balan's character is "Raw". She portrays the completely different side of Indian women!
So I decided to give it a chance. The movie surely belongs to a different genre and is an offbeat movie with crude dialogues and powerful performances from the cast. But even that doesnt help as the story is slowly paced and never amuses or intrigues you.
Set in Western Uttar Pradesh, the movie is a tale of romance between individuals caught in a web of crime, suspense, passion and deceit. Two thieves, Khalujan (Naseeruddin Shah) and Babban (Arshad Warsi), are on the run from their boss, Mushtaq (Salman Shahid).They seek refuge with an old friend but instead meet his widow, Krishna (Vidya Balan). As they plan their escape, their time spent together draws the duo to her, Khalujan with his vision of old-fashioned love and Babban with his lascivious heart.
The movie never really picks up pace. The story is narrated more like an essay and even the twists are told in such a plain manner that they doesnt surprise you or build your interest in the movie. The story could have been very good had it been executed properly. If you think about the story and the twists later you would feel that they could have been very interesting but are integrated so ordinarily in the movie that it fails to interest you.
The dialogues, scenes from interior parts of India and offbeat nature of the movie would attract many and infact may hide the principal flaws! I feel that a very poorly executed story is presented wrapped in good dialogues, music and raw characters with power packed performances.
Rating-
5/10
Awsome, Spectacular, Timeless. It can't get better than this!!Going into the movie I didn't have much expectations because of the reason that the movie was hyped and also I didnt want to watch a movie of Comedy genre. But I dont generally miss movies these days so I decided to go and what better than to watch the movie 1st day itself.
3 Idiots is a movie about 3 friends and their life and experiences at the engineering college. The movie starts a bit slow but picks up pace after 1st 10 minutes. After that its an amazing experience till the very end. The 1st half is a total laugh riot. 2nd half is a bit slow as compared to 1st half but it goes very well with the story of movie.
Direction and dialogues are superb. The story is narrated in a very interesting way using flashback extensively. 2 dialogues by Sharman's mother and the speech in Hindi are worth mentioning. Gladly the songs are not forced and go with the pace of the movie.
The movie maintains a consistent pace throughout and at no point you feel bored or distracted. Much attention is paid on detailing and connecting the dots so any thing that may look unnecessary or forced at start has relevance later in the movie.
Acting by everyone in the movie is good. Some have done a great job while others have done an excellent job. But Aamir Khan has certainly stole the show here! You can't even imagine some other actor in that role. I dont know if its the best work by Aamir khan but it would be certainly among the top 3.
All in all an amazing and great movie. Completely original story and not even a hint is copied from any MOVIE. Rajkumar Hirani is a great director and he shows it once again. Movies like this are not made often so dont miss it at any cost!
RATING-
10/10
(I would have given more but the rating ends there! )
1st to put it straight I don’t watch much English movies so this won’t be exactly a review but just a general post about the movie. I had high hopes from Avatar ever since I heard about it and had pretty much decided that would watch the movie on the 1st day itself. Got the tickets for the movie Review on Thursday and was glad that Avatar didn’t disappoint me at all.
I wouldn’t even like to talk about the “science” part of the movie that whether its possible or not the whole thing about the Avatar program and all. Its a sci-fi movie and one should be pretty much happy to see the creative work of the story writer and director in that case. I expected it to be a great visual treat along with amazing action sequences and the movie was top notch in that! The movie grips you from the start and I never felt a single moment where I was bored or had lost interest in the movie. It was such great work that I was looking at my watch and was happy that this is a long movie which meant more entertainment.
Many people were not impressed because they say its the same old story and they have seen enough of Star wars, Alien v/s Predator etc. Now I haven’t seen any of those films so cant compare with them but even though it might be a similar story a great attention has been paid to detailing which is good as you don’t wonder later that something was forced or not explained in the movie.
Watch it for the exclusive beauty of Pandora. Watch the movie for a story that has comedy, action, Sci-fi, love and what not. Watch it for a story that keeps you glued to the screen till the very end. And if you have a cinema hall showing the movie in 3d in your city there’s nothing better than that.
Rating- 9/10
If you have got brains leave them at home if you intend to watch this movie. I have seen movies like "Welcome" which are referred by many as Ridiculous but they doesnt come close to this! Having said that it does not mean that the movie is not funny.
De dana dan is a movie about 2 friends- Nitin (Akshay Kumar) and Ram (Sunil shetty) and their need for money in order to get married to the love of their lives Anjali (Katrina kaif) and Manpreet (Sameera reddy). They plan to do a small kidnapping inorder to get rich which goes awkwardly wrong and the story takes it from there.
The first half of movie begins with introduction of characters which takes some time and therefore the movie is slow and boring specially in the 1st half. But the 2nd half is a complete laugh riot with all the confusion creeping in. There are many scenes where you cant stop laughing. Being a Priyadarshan movie all know that in climax all characters will show up and there will be total confusion and thus I was expecting more laughter in the final 15 min. The climax was ok but was nowhere near climax of Films like Hera pheri, Hungama or Malamal weekly.
The acting in the movie is OK.Though Akshay Kumar is the "Lead hero" he doesnt have much screen presence in the movie. Sunil shetty and Katrina kaif are fine. Sameera reddy cant act though her role in the movie is also minimal. Archana's acting looks forced. Chunky pandey, Tinnu anand and Shakti kapoor should have been avoided. Its high time Priyadarshan realizes that India is fed up of Shakti kapoor's style of comedy.The side characters does the job for this movie. Paresh rawal, Rajpal yadav, Asrani all have done a very good job. But Johny lever, Manoj joshi and Vikram gokhale steal the show!
ALL SONGS IN THE MOVIE ARE FORCED but apart from 1-2 others are quite good. The best of them are Rishte naate by Rahat fateh ali khan and Paisa by RDB.
FInally its definitely worth a watch if you are looking for some light hearted comedy.
RATING-
7/10
Dostana was 1 of the much awaited movies this year since one saw its trailors. An expected laugh riot and the movie does some justice to the expectations. 1st half of the movie is very good. Funny scenes, tricky situations, nice songs and some good acting gives the feeling that this movie would be a good watch.
In the second half the movie transforms into a typical bollywood movie with the same old story!! But the best part about the movie is its twists. Whenever the story starts becoming predictable theres a twist which isnt expected at all!! Thats what makes the movie interesting and can be a good one time watch.
Only if the movie had a better 2nd half and a bit different story it would have been surely a bigger hit!!
rating-
Hello is a movie about the events that takes place 1 night @ the call centre. I have not read the book so i wont compare it with the story of the book and would just discuss it as a general movie. The movie starts out pretty ordinarily. 1st half is filled with many light hearted silly comedy moments which you will enjoy if you are not too much into logic. The movie starts picking up pace towards the end of 1st half as things start going wrong for everyone.
The 2nd half starts with more suspense and there is much anticipation for "the call from GOD". But what could have been the strongest point of the movie seems to be the weakest. The scene isnt impressive and the movie just go down and down from there and the last half an hour is poor to say the least. Its like taking the entertainment level to 95% (before the call from god) and then dropping it to 0% in the last half hour.
Sohail khan has been the pick of the actors. Sharman joshi is also ok. Gul panag is looking gorgeous and has done well. One wonders where she had been all these years!!!!! Sajid-Wajid has again done a good job after "Partner" and the music is good. The songs to look out for are "bang bang bang" and "karle baby dance wance".
Rating-2.5/5
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