Judwaa 2

We left the theater 20 min before the climax, not because we knew the end, which is obvious, since it is a carbon copy remake of the 90s hit film Judwaa, but because we just couldn't take it anymore.

Judwaa 2 is the same 90s Judwaa movie with different locations and actors ( note: I said different and not better). The industry has seen a increase in trend to remake movies from hollywood or tollywood, which makes sense since the remake either has a twist or the director uses a different time zone to tell the same story as original. For instance Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar was a remake of the classic God Father. It was a remake but was yet a original at so many levels. Or Anurag Kahyap's Dev D, a remake of Devdas. So now the question is, does it make sense for the same director to remake his own movie in the same language for the same audience? Well it depends, only if the director is ready to make it to match the current audience taste. For instance George Miller's Mad Max, what a lovely day it was indeed.

Frankly there was no need for David Dhawan to create a remake of Judwaa, if he was not ready to make it for today's audience. The story is strikingly same as the original. Sometimes even the screen play is resembling.
Varun Dhawan tries hard. It looks like he is not copying salman, but at some-places one can easily see him mimicking the Bhai. The actresses are easy on the eyes and do all the nakhraas and thumkaas to perfection. They hardly have a solid scene where they could have showcased their acting skills.

The comedy is mediocre and hardly makes you laugh or even grin. The writers have tried to add current affairs in dialogues to make the movie look in-time like references to "Ab ki baar- Aap ki sarkar" and "De-monitization". The editing is bad and some scenes are just misplaced in the film as they were not required. Even for a brain dead movie, it is not good.

The film makers should understand that just by casting Super Stars and filing abroad will not lure the audience to theaters.

2 star

Toilet : Ek Prem Katha

Movie : Toilet : Ek Prem Katha
Director : Shree Narayan Singh
Actors : Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar

Toilet : Ek Prem Katha, is a story about showcasing the problem of  open defecating, non availability of public toilets and social stigma of having toilets in house -  revolving around a love story. 

The movie does well in terms of highlighting the above problem, even showing the humiliation women have to go though every morning.

In terms of sending a social message and spreading awareness, the movie does well. But fails as a movie in whole. 

The first half is good and basically creates the plot and sets the tone. Words like Sandaas, Laterine and Shauchalaya are used so frequently that after some time you do not feel awkward to hear it.

The second half is much of lecture baazi and gyan. Which should have been not more than a hour movie, is dragged for more than 2 hrs. Needless to say, some comic scenes and songs are added to glue scenes together. Which ultimately do not offer much help loosing the films intent somewhere.

It is Akshay Kumar who adds value to the movie and make you sit for the complete film. Anupam kher plays a small role of pervert grand father. But does best with what was offered.

The movie is a one time watch, specially for Akshay Kumar fans.


Rating : 2.5 stars

Kaabil

Director: Sanjay Gupta
Cast: Hrithik, Yami, Rahul and Ronit Roy

Plot: Two visually impaired pure souls meet each other and marry. Taking advantage of their disabilities, the girl is raped by Amit(Ronit Roy) and Aslam. Ronit Roy is brother of local corp-orator-goon Rohit Roy and gets away with it.

The girl commits suicide and rohan (hrithik) avenges her death against all odds.


Fist the good things: Hrithik has done really well playing a blind person. He is spot on. Yami does a dissent job too. Ronit roy plays the Marathi corp-orator-goon well. Looks natural.

That is it.
The story lacks depth. This is a story that would have clicked with audience lets say 15 years ago. It is very predictable and lacks twists.The CGI effects used are mediocre. Any person with little knowledge of animation can guess scenes which are real and digital.
The songs are forgettable and the item song is unnecessary.

It has many flaws like why was no postmortem done for the girl after suicide. That would have proved she was raped. Also what about the Ronit Roy's accomplice who falls down the elevator shaft?

People come to see a intelligent movie, specially if the plot is about a blind man killing people. But kaabil lets everyone down.

2.5/5

Gajini - Review

Gajini

First things first - it is not a remake of christopher Nolan's Momento. Not the story nor the narrative.

Yes, it is a story of a person with short term memory loss on a quest to kill his wifes killer, but lacks the twist. The movie not even takes twist in the climax as most audience predict or hope to happen. The story lacks the depth.

Yes, Aamir khan has gone to extreme to build up the muscles with all the supplements he can have. But actually that was not required since he was not playing a boxer or a gymnast. He is playing a buisness tycon who falls in love with a simple girls and then kills the killers of his wife.

Apposite to Momento which was a thrilling Neo-Noir movie, Ghajini is a typicall bollywood movie with a love story, some dancing, some comedy scenes and finally the revenge.

Having said that the actors have done a good job. Specially Asin looks natural in a happy-go-lucky girls role.

Ghajini, the villians charachters lacks the depth. He hardly looks frightning.

2.5 star

Momento review

Momento

A story about a man who suffers from a condition called short term memory loss is on a hunt for a man who raped and murdered his wife.

Director : Christopher Nolan

Apart from the story being brilliant, the actual brilliancy lies in the narrative and direction. You are presented with 2 stories, one shown backwards and one forward chronology. One in colour and one in black and white. Both the stories are shown as small clips switching between each other. At the end of the movie both the stories get merged.

The protagonist can only remember something for 10-15 min. Also he is incapable of creating new memories after the incident in which his wife got killed. In the quest he meets people who offer to help him. He takes pictures of things that are improtant like his Car, House, Friends etc. His body is engraved with information which is his investigation. Random Names, car registration number etc.

While watching the movies one has to keep on arranging the reverse chonologically shown movie in correct order to understand the sequence of events. I sometimes had to literally pause the movie and think what has happened and rethink the movie again.

The movie requires intense concentration, you will not understand the story if you decide to go out for 5 min and grab a packet of popcorns.
The movie is packed with suprises and twists.

Only a director like Chistopher Nolan can pull off something like this.

T3n - review

T3n - review

Based in calcutta, an elderly man (john) is on a mission to unearth the mystery of kidnapping and murder of his grand-daughter angela. While he makes regular trip to police station asking for the progress in the case, the police has long given up the case as un-resolved. Meanwhile a similar kidnapping occurs. Trying to catch the kidnapper this time, thr police realises the resemblance of events with the kidnapping of angela.
John by-luck gets a clue while shopping. He traces it to unearth more clues.
The director very intelligently like a neo-noir movie, carries both the story forward, switching between them.

Finally the police catches the kidnapper of the second child ( or a person they think is the kidnapper).
I will not give up the suspense, but there is a 'twist' here.

As the twist gets revealed, the audience feel betrayed by the gimmick played by the director in the narrative.

Indian in South Africa

Indian in South Africa


Cultural shock
If an Indian, for the first time is going abroad to a western country, some of the differences are very obvious. The number of people a scarce. Verry!
As it was not my first time outside India(I was in UK for 2 years), It was not a big surprise for me. Also since In SA most of the infrastructure like governent offices, universities and hospitals were made by europians,( or I should say British and Europians as British is no more a EU country) the infrastructure is very similar to EU. Big buildings with pointed chimneys at the top and  small windows were much similar to CST station of mumbai.

Transportation
In SA people seldomely use public transport. Everyone has a car here. So if you have to stay in SA for even a week, make sure you know how to drive.

You will not see 2 wheelers on the road. Not even a single one. The cars follow strick lane rules. Singals are called robots. In India giving indicator signal alone is not enough if you want to take a left/ right turn. You have to time honking precisly with the indicator lights as well. In SA a honk means you are making the car in front aware that it has done something wrong(it actually means swearing the car in front) since cars here do not break rules that often, you will hardly hear honking.

So driving in SA is much much easier as compare to India if you can control the urge to overtake every car, stop honking insenisbly or to a bappi libari song tune, maintain lanes and offcource stop whe the signal is red.

People:

One thing you will notice is the diversity of people here. There are black, brown/coloured, asians and white. SA has a interesting history of freedom from EU rule and Uprising by Mandella and everything. After freedom both white and black decided to stay togetger with peacefullness and love.

So if you go to a mall or a grocery shop, you will atleast see people from 3 to 4 ethnic groups. People in SA are friendly as compared to british. They are aleays looking to start a conversation with a stranger. If they identify u r a indian, they will start with either IPl or bollywood. If not both they wipp definelty talk abouth the weather today. It is a great skipp we can learn from them. They are very polite and will make sure you are not slightly offended, which indians get very easily.

Indian food

Indian dont like to experiment very much when it comes to food. Even if they have had a burger from MacD, there always space for daal makhni or butter chicken. SAns love indian food. They crave for mexican and indian food since it is spicy. So there are many indian restaurant throughout cape town. They might not serve authentic indian food but it still looks indian and is spicy. Some pakistani restaurant have also named restaurants as Taj and Bombay cafe. Dont know why. May be because people would not have gone to a restaurant with name Karachi cafe.

Things to bring to SA:
1. A big smile
2. Reminder on ur cell phone to say either sorry or thankyou after every sentense. Or sometines both in a single sentense.
3.  No need to bring indian spices or lentils as everything is available here.
4. Definetly bring a pressure cooker if you like to cook rice with a whistling sound.