(Romance)
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You will not hate this love story, a spoof on ace director Karan Johar from his own production house. Hats off to Karan for daring to produce a film that makes fun of his kind of cinema. Samir Soni steps into his shoes with great ease in the film.
Director Punit Malhotra takes a pot shot at everything - designer sets, boy meets girl sagas, actresses singing in chiffon saris in the Alps - that made directors like Karan, Aditya Chopra and Kunal Kohli a name to reckon with in the industry.
In terms of content, nothing is new. But the treatment is fresh, the backdrop is interesting and it's fun watching the romance brew between the lead pair Simran and Jay on the sets of a movie. Yes, the film is about the making of a love story where Simran works as an art designer and Jay as an assistant to highly successful director Vir Kapoor (Samir), known for his candy floss romantic sagas.
Imran Khan as Jay Dhingra and Sonam Kapoor as Simran fit the bill quite perfectly.
First time director Punit Malhotra proves his mettle by narrating a predictable story in such an interesting manner that you are hooked till the end.
A romantic by heart, Simran is contented with life. She is engaged to banker Raj, played by Sammir Dattani, and loves her job. But her life turns topsy turvy when the weird but funny, bratty but lovable Jay walks into her life as her assistant.
They have nothing in common. While Simran is highly disciplined, organised, professional and takes her work seriously, Jay is laid back and always late on the sets.
Yes, opposites attract here too, and they eventually fall in love.
The first half is pacy and director infuses enough energy in this otherwise predictable love story. But some scenes in the second half drag.
Another flaw in the film is that Imran is given too many dialogues to speak, but then he delivers them with just the right expressions. He suits the role of a spoilt brat perfectly and keeps tickling your funny bone. Especially when he breaks down like a girl while talking to his mom (Anju Mahendru) on phone.
Editing could have been better, but never mind.
In sum, the witty dialogues, on screen chemistry of the lead pair and performances of the supporting cast - Kavin Dave, Bruna Abdullah Aamir Ali and Pooja Ghai - make it a good watch.
Sonam may not have hits in her kitty so far, but this film should change things. In every scene, she complements Imran.
In terms of music, Vishal-Shekhar's pacy numbers add zing to the narrative and background music adds a nice flavour to this predictable love story.
I Hate Luv Storys proves that one can make good film without lavish sets, foreign locales and mega budgets. In short, a commendable effort by the first time director.
You may not be a great fan of candy floss cinema, but do watch I Hate Luv Storys... it's refreshing.
Review: Raavan Director Punit Malhotra takes a pot shot at everything - designer sets, boy meets girl sagas, actresses singing in chiffon saris in the Alps - that made directors like Karan, Aditya Chopra and Kunal Kohli a name to reckon with in the industry.
In terms of content, nothing is new. But the treatment is fresh, the backdrop is interesting and it's fun watching the romance brew between the lead pair Simran and Jay on the sets of a movie. Yes, the film is about the making of a love story where Simran works as an art designer and Jay as an assistant to highly successful director Vir Kapoor (Samir), known for his candy floss romantic sagas.
Imran Khan as Jay Dhingra and Sonam Kapoor as Simran fit the bill quite perfectly.
First time director Punit Malhotra proves his mettle by narrating a predictable story in such an interesting manner that you are hooked till the end.
A romantic by heart, Simran is contented with life. She is engaged to banker Raj, played by Sammir Dattani, and loves her job. But her life turns topsy turvy when the weird but funny, bratty but lovable Jay walks into her life as her assistant.
They have nothing in common. While Simran is highly disciplined, organised, professional and takes her work seriously, Jay is laid back and always late on the sets.
Yes, opposites attract here too, and they eventually fall in love.
The first half is pacy and director infuses enough energy in this otherwise predictable love story. But some scenes in the second half drag.
Another flaw in the film is that Imran is given too many dialogues to speak, but then he delivers them with just the right expressions. He suits the role of a spoilt brat perfectly and keeps tickling your funny bone. Especially when he breaks down like a girl while talking to his mom (Anju Mahendru) on phone.
Editing could have been better, but never mind.
In sum, the witty dialogues, on screen chemistry of the lead pair and performances of the supporting cast - Kavin Dave, Bruna Abdullah Aamir Ali and Pooja Ghai - make it a good watch.
Sonam may not have hits in her kitty so far, but this film should change things. In every scene, she complements Imran.
In terms of music, Vishal-Shekhar's pacy numbers add zing to the narrative and background music adds a nice flavour to this predictable love story.
I Hate Luv Storys proves that one can make good film without lavish sets, foreign locales and mega budgets. In short, a commendable effort by the first time director.
You may not be a great fan of candy floss cinema, but do watch I Hate Luv Storys... it's refreshing.
(Drama)
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The low-caste Beera rules the forest in Raavan, Mani Ratnam’s richly atmospheric adaptation of the Indian epic The Ramayana.
Though the film takes place in the present, Mr Ratnam’s forest remains an appropriately primeval place for mythic doings, full of fog and mists and rain and Beera’s mud-painted followers (shades of “Apocalypse Now”).
Raavan (Ravana in Sanskrit), as every Indian knows, is the demon in The Ramayana who kidnaps Sita, the wife of Rama: king, deity and model husband (as Sita is the model wife).
Early on in Ratnam’s film the question is asked: Is Beera (a gleefully hammy Abhishek Bachchan) Robin Hood or Raavan? He’s both — and more a hero in this telling, set on his turf, than is the Rama character, a cop called Dev (Vikram), who matches Beera in brutality and cunning, but not in heart.
Raavan has Bollywood glamour aplenty, with the lovely if occasionally dramatically challenged Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek’s wife, playing the Sita stand-in.
The real star, though, is Ratnam, a talented visual storyteller who directs action crisply and fills the screen with striking images. (One, of Bachchan’s falling body landing gracefully on a tree branch, is so good he uses it three times.)
Artful but not arty, Ratnam, whose films include Dil Se and Guru delivers the goods: There are songs and dances (A R Rahman of Slumdog Millionaire fame did the excellent score), and an eye-popping climactic battle, between the bad-good Beera and the good-bad Dev, on a teetering suspension bridge. And that, folks, is entertainme
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Raajneeti, writer-director Prakash Jha’s sprawling portrait of a political family, is a mixed bag. The film has moments of ferocious power and just as many flaws.
The narrative has a propulsive movement in the first half but becomes dramatically inert in the second. Jha, who has fought elections in Bihar himself, creates a real sense of the machinations and sordid deals that fuel politics but then hobbles it with outlandish twists and some decidedly ‘filmy’ moments – like a ridiculous love-making scene that is triggered because the characters get wet in the rain.
Apparently getting soaked in Bollywood still equals sex. And, as almost all the female characters in this film find out, having sex even one time, still equals babies.
The performances are strong—especially Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Nana Patekar—but the characters are largely one-note.
There has been much hype about Katrina Kaif learning lengthy Hindi dialogue for the film. She’s clearly worked hard but her luminous looks rather than acting are still her trump card.
Raajneeti is a film with ambition and scale but it works in fits and spurts. Jha’s political epic is too busy and bumpy and never quite fulfils the potential inherent in the story.
Raajneeti sources as much from The Godfather as it does from the Mahabharata. So we have sets of cousins whose rivalry spills into the open as soon as the head of the family suffers a stroke.
The film begins with a back-story of Sooraj Kumar, the Karna-like figure played by Ajay Devgn. Abandoned at birth, Sooraj is adopted by a Dalit family.
In quick succession, so many characters are introduced that Jha uses a voice-over to explain who is connected to whom and what the political affiliations are. It takes a good 15 minutes to take in the details and place the characters but the story-telling is engaging and soon you’re caught up with this Machiavellian family in which the plotting begins even as the father is still being treated by doctors. As the stakes get higher, the moves get bloodier.
Eventually, Samar Pratap, the Michael Corleone figure played by Ranbir Kapoor, the young brother who is working on a PhD on Victorian poetry, gets sucked into the murderous struggle for power.
Until here, Jha and his co-writer Anjum Rajabali tell the story with assurance and flair. But then the momentum dips and the intrigues become less and less interesting. Critically, Samar’s conversion to a ruthless murderer isn’t convincing. One minute he’s the student and the next, he, like everyone else is trigger-happy with bombs and guns.
Jha even borrows The Godfather’s famous severed horse-head scene.
Only here, a politician wakes up to find his male lover’s throat slit. Sadly, the gut-wrenching twist, when Kunti reveals to Karna that he is her son and therefore warring with his own brothers, is not done very effectively.
For the true power and emotion of that moment, watch Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug, in which the Mahabharata is transported to a business milieu. Shashi Kapoor who plays the Karna figure crumples slowly as he becomes aware of his own tragedy.
In its second hour, Raajneeti lets go of logic. We know that politics is an amoral, brutal cesspool but even so, leading politicians themselves murdering their rivals on a street in broad daylight is a bit of a stretch.
In a climactic shoot-out, we even have a perverted version of the Gita sermon in which the Krishna figure, played by Nana Patekar, insists on cold-blooded murder. Come on, finish them, he says.
Of course there is no one to root for in this gallery of rogues but more troublesome is the specious morality of the film. After a few feeble apologies, Samar Pratap finds a semblance of redemption.
Review: Kites The narrative has a propulsive movement in the first half but becomes dramatically inert in the second. Jha, who has fought elections in Bihar himself, creates a real sense of the machinations and sordid deals that fuel politics but then hobbles it with outlandish twists and some decidedly ‘filmy’ moments – like a ridiculous love-making scene that is triggered because the characters get wet in the rain.
Apparently getting soaked in Bollywood still equals sex. And, as almost all the female characters in this film find out, having sex even one time, still equals babies.
The performances are strong—especially Ranbir Kapoor, Arjun Rampal and Nana Patekar—but the characters are largely one-note.
There has been much hype about Katrina Kaif learning lengthy Hindi dialogue for the film. She’s clearly worked hard but her luminous looks rather than acting are still her trump card.
Raajneeti is a film with ambition and scale but it works in fits and spurts. Jha’s political epic is too busy and bumpy and never quite fulfils the potential inherent in the story.
Raajneeti sources as much from The Godfather as it does from the Mahabharata. So we have sets of cousins whose rivalry spills into the open as soon as the head of the family suffers a stroke.
The film begins with a back-story of Sooraj Kumar, the Karna-like figure played by Ajay Devgn. Abandoned at birth, Sooraj is adopted by a Dalit family.
In quick succession, so many characters are introduced that Jha uses a voice-over to explain who is connected to whom and what the political affiliations are. It takes a good 15 minutes to take in the details and place the characters but the story-telling is engaging and soon you’re caught up with this Machiavellian family in which the plotting begins even as the father is still being treated by doctors. As the stakes get higher, the moves get bloodier.
Eventually, Samar Pratap, the Michael Corleone figure played by Ranbir Kapoor, the young brother who is working on a PhD on Victorian poetry, gets sucked into the murderous struggle for power.
Until here, Jha and his co-writer Anjum Rajabali tell the story with assurance and flair. But then the momentum dips and the intrigues become less and less interesting. Critically, Samar’s conversion to a ruthless murderer isn’t convincing. One minute he’s the student and the next, he, like everyone else is trigger-happy with bombs and guns.
Jha even borrows The Godfather’s famous severed horse-head scene.
Only here, a politician wakes up to find his male lover’s throat slit. Sadly, the gut-wrenching twist, when Kunti reveals to Karna that he is her son and therefore warring with his own brothers, is not done very effectively.
For the true power and emotion of that moment, watch Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug, in which the Mahabharata is transported to a business milieu. Shashi Kapoor who plays the Karna figure crumples slowly as he becomes aware of his own tragedy.
In its second hour, Raajneeti lets go of logic. We know that politics is an amoral, brutal cesspool but even so, leading politicians themselves murdering their rivals on a street in broad daylight is a bit of a stretch.
In a climactic shoot-out, we even have a perverted version of the Gita sermon in which the Krishna figure, played by Nana Patekar, insists on cold-blooded murder. Come on, finish them, he says.
Of course there is no one to root for in this gallery of rogues but more troublesome is the specious morality of the film. After a few feeble apologies, Samar Pratap finds a semblance of redemption.
(Romance) | | Print A+ A- |
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Special:Kites
Without doubt, Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori are two of the prettiest people you’re going to see on screen.
Hrithik is staggeringly handsome and director Anurag Basu frames him in the tightest of tight close-ups. There is of course the requisite dance sequence and bare torso scene but even in moments of anguish, Hrithik’s blue-green eyes are ablaze.
Barbara is lovely with real texture and a feisty spirit. Together they are so luminous that the frame lights up when they are in it. Their crackling chemistry keeps Kites soaring.
Developed by Basu, from a story by Rakesh Roshan who has also produced the film, Kites is about Jai and Natasha, two street-smart hustlers who are marrying into a rich and brutal Las Vegas family purely for the money.
Of course their gold-digging scheme falls apart when they
fall in love with each other. Basu builds this hesitant relationship beautifully.
They can’t speak each others language—he doesn’t know Spanish and she can’t speak English—but their smouldering looks are louder than words.
They know their path is fraught with danger but they can’t put the brakes on their desire. Inevitably the bad guys find out and then the chase begins.
Which is pretty much where Kites starts to falter. The weakest link in the film is the villains, who seem like the NRI cousins of the Thakurs from Rakesh Roshan’s Karan Arjun.
The entire family is woefully underwritten and badly enacted. At one point, the father, played by Kabir Bedi and the son, played by newcomer Nick Brown, are egging on Jai to kill a man.
They cheerfully say: ‘Go get him’ and ‘You can do it.’ As a welcome present into the family, the father hands Jai a new car and a gun. And did I mention that the daughter, whom Jai is pretending to love, is played by Kangna Ranaut, who is of course Bollywood’s go-to girl for any mentally unstable character.
The second half of Kites has way too much of the son who chases his fiancée and her new lover over stunningly stark new Mexico landscapes.
Meanwhile those two have morphed into Bonnie and Clyde – they rob banks and steal cars. And the plot settles into a repetitive cycle of chase scene—love-scene—chase scene.
There is one particularly weak shoot-out between cops and bounty hunters, which feels like a left over from B-grade American television and an over- stylised climactic shoot-out in the rain, which echoes Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition.
This is a real shame. Kites is sumptuously produced, painstakingly crafted and in its own way, ambitious. The Roshans and Basu are trying to stretch the boundaries of the Bollywood love story.
Hrithik Roshan is spectacular. And yet the film doesn’t become more than the sum of its parts because the second half is flat and in places, outright foolish.
Still I recommend that you see Kites. It’s far from brilliant or even fully satisfying but it’s easily one of the better Bollywood films I’ve seen this year.
Without doubt, Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori are two of the prettiest people you’re going to see on screen.
Hrithik is staggeringly handsome and director Anurag Basu frames him in the tightest of tight close-ups. There is of course the requisite dance sequence and bare torso scene but even in moments of anguish, Hrithik’s blue-green eyes are ablaze.
Barbara is lovely with real texture and a feisty spirit. Together they are so luminous that the frame lights up when they are in it. Their crackling chemistry keeps Kites soaring.
Developed by Basu, from a story by Rakesh Roshan who has also produced the film, Kites is about Jai and Natasha, two street-smart hustlers who are marrying into a rich and brutal Las Vegas family purely for the money.
Of course their gold-digging scheme falls apart when they
fall in love with each other. Basu builds this hesitant relationship beautifully.
They can’t speak each others language—he doesn’t know Spanish and she can’t speak English—but their smouldering looks are louder than words.
They know their path is fraught with danger but they can’t put the brakes on their desire. Inevitably the bad guys find out and then the chase begins.
Which is pretty much where Kites starts to falter. The weakest link in the film is the villains, who seem like the NRI cousins of the Thakurs from Rakesh Roshan’s Karan Arjun.
The entire family is woefully underwritten and badly enacted. At one point, the father, played by Kabir Bedi and the son, played by newcomer Nick Brown, are egging on Jai to kill a man.
They cheerfully say: ‘Go get him’ and ‘You can do it.’ As a welcome present into the family, the father hands Jai a new car and a gun. And did I mention that the daughter, whom Jai is pretending to love, is played by Kangna Ranaut, who is of course Bollywood’s go-to girl for any mentally unstable character.
The second half of Kites has way too much of the son who chases his fiancée and her new lover over stunningly stark new Mexico landscapes.
Meanwhile those two have morphed into Bonnie and Clyde – they rob banks and steal cars. And the plot settles into a repetitive cycle of chase scene—love-scene—chase scene.
There is one particularly weak shoot-out between cops and bounty hunters, which feels like a left over from B-grade American television and an over- stylised climactic shoot-out in the rain, which echoes Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition.
This is a real shame. Kites is sumptuously produced, painstakingly crafted and in its own way, ambitious. The Roshans and Basu are trying to stretch the boundaries of the Bollywood love story.
Hrithik Roshan is spectacular. And yet the film doesn’t become more than the sum of its parts because the second half is flat and in places, outright foolish.
Still I recommend that you see Kites. It’s far from brilliant or even fully satisfying but it’s easily one of the better Bollywood films I’ve seen this year.
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