SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA, review by Sarita Tanwar in MIDDAY

Sharp shooter
Rating: ***
WHAT’S IT ABOUT: The Mumbai underworld is not longer Ram Gopal Varma’s domain. Apoorva Lakhia’s edge-of-the-seat bloodbath Shootout At Lokhandwala analyses every aspect of the cops-n-gangsters syndrome in a racy, semi-commercial and completely engrossing manner.

The story, based in the early 90s, focusses around the rebellious Maya Dolas (Oberoi) who was Dawood Ibrahim’s lead man in Mumbai. An extortion expert, Maya and his gang (Tusshar Kapoor, Rohit Roy, Shabbir Ahluwalia and Aditya Lakhia) become a terror team in the city.

Until cop A A Khan (Dutt) decides to go after them. Along with his close aides (Sunil Shetty and Arbaaz Khan) and the entire Anti Terrorist Squad, Khan eventually gunned them down in the most gruesome manner — all in an operation that lasted over six hours.

WHAT’S HOT: It must’ve been tough to adapt an entire film around a single incident but Lakhia weaves it cleverly by establishing the nuances of each of his characters, without hampering the screenplay.

The last 40 minutes of the film are rivetting. Apoorva captures the vulnerability of the gang and the cold-bloodedness of the cops.

Even when he tells the story from Khan’s perspective, Apoorva doesn’t flinch when it comes to exposing that the ‘elimination’ orders for Dolas actually came from the Dubai don.

The sequence where Maya and his pals personally threaten the ATS members and their families is handled with remarkable maturity.

Sanjay Dutt lives his character and plays the cold and calculative Khan to perfection. Shootout marks a huge comeback for Vivek Oberoi, who seems comfortable in a role similar to his debut film Company.

Oberoi’s stark performance immortalises Maya Dolas, the man who actually threatened Dawood Ibrahim. Tushar Kapoor, Sunil Shetty and Arbaaz Khan are convincing.

Amitabh Bachchan as Dutt’s lawyer has limited scope but his getting taalis in the court will get him all the accolades. Amrita Singh shines as Maya’s mother.

WHAT’S NOT: The few jerks that the film faces are in the first half where Lakhia tries to offer a backgrounder on the incident.

The Sikh terrorists angle could’ve been explained better and Abhishek Bachchan’s guest appearance seems rather forced. Also the two dance bar songs somewhat dampen the proceedings.

WHAT to do: Shootout transports you back to the time when Mumbai was ruled by the mob.

Lakhia’s film is a perfect tribute to those days of uncertainty. Awfully disturbing but recommended for every Mumbaikar.

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA, review by Syed Firdaus Ashraf in REDIFF

Shootout: Very pakao

Director Apoorva Lakhia, teri life toh ban gayee.
First, you make pakao movies like Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost and Ek Ajnabee, and yet, all the heroes gives you dates. So now, you have made your third movie, Shootout At Lokhandwala.
Tereko paisa kaun deta hai itni pakao picture banane ke liye? Abey, thoda akal toh istamal karne ka tha Abhishek Bachchan ko lene se paile! Abhishek goggle pen ke aaya aur khali bike chalaya. Phir phone pe phone kiya aur baad mein kuch Khalistani terrorist log usko tapka diye.
Role khatam in two minutes.
Chal usko chhod. Tell me what was the Mumbai police doing? They were shooting terrorists but none of them had any bulletproof jackets.
Humlog kya gaon se aayle hai?
And what was Sanjay Dutt (playing Aftab Ahmed Khan) doing in the film? Khali lecture de raha tha. Woh kam tha kya, jo tu kissan-turned-actor Amitabh Bachchan ko le aaya screen pe lawyer ke roop mein. Such a bore!
All Suniel Shetty did in the film was abuse the media. He kept saying the media never writes about policemen dying in encounters. Abey Suniel, has any policeman ever died in an encounter?
Heroine ke naam pe tu Dia Mirza ko liya, to play a television reporter. Abey, Apoorva, tu kabhi TV news nahi dekha kya? Do TV reporters talk like the way she did? Thoda homework toh kar leta.
Neha Dhupia was pakao in her tiny role.
Aarti Chhabria, usko tu kya kapde pinaya tha? Chal kapde chod, item number mein sab chalta hai, lekin usko thodi acting karne ka scope toh dena tha.
Mumbai police mein rah kar Arbaaz Khan Urdu, Hindi and English literature jhad raha tha. Have you ever met such a mamu in real life? What was the need for his role to be like this?
Suniel Shetty needs some training in acting. Khali-pili hooshyari maar raha tha. Uski biwi chod kar chali gayi toh ghadi-ghadi public phone pe jaakar blank call kyon de raha tha?

Vivek Oberoi, who played gangster Maya Dolas, try mara acchi acting karne ki. But screenplay and story ke naam pe poori picture ki vaat laga di.
Amrita Singh, playing Vivek's mother, cannot seem to get her Marathi accent right.

Tum log aur pak nahin jao isiliye ek cheez sun lo: When the Mumbai cops storm the building where the gansgters are hiding, they come with gunfire, bombs and even a rocket launcher! Yet, the phone lines aren't jammed until the very end. Probably, the considerate director wanted his filmi gangsters to say their final goodbyes to their girlfriends.
Apoorva, ab ek phookat mein advice sun. Don't make a movie again. If you still want to make one, then don't cast so many actors. Poori khichdi banaya tune, kasam Ganpat ki.

Rediff rating: *1/2

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA, review by Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

MIRROR RATING: *1/2

Everybody our age knows where they were on November 11 that year (1991)," this film's director says in an interview I read. The said incident was a cross-fire between a Bombay Police team and some of Dubai don Dawood Ibrahim's men at a residential building in Lokhandwala, Andheri (West), Mumbai. No one in the world but the neighbours in the area are likely to know where they were on the day. In fact, for the lack of widespread television news in 1993, most outside Mumbai are unlikely to remember where they were on March 12.

More bombs go off in an average action blockbuster than did in the Bombay bomb blasts. Yet, Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday worked for the scope of available research on the conspiracy.

This film starts off inspired by the aforementioned docu-drama (if I'm not mistaken, even Dawood's the same). It details the 80's Punjab militancy problem, and its influence on Bombay's crime scene; religiously trails incidences with a timeline and coordinates of moffusil locations. Since there aren't actually enough plots and dynamics to speak of thereafter, the history descends quickly into a derivatively degenerate, run-of-the-factory cop, bhai, item-number, beer-song pic any of Ram Gopal Varma's former protégés would be happy to re-film.

The allusion to Varma isn't for the subject alone. The patented jarring sound (Amar Mohile) is pretty much the same; so is the gruffly look of the movie, and its principal, shady characters, their manners, dialogues and delivery.

So, there is a villain with the puffed-up traits of a hero here, Maya Dolas (Vivek Oberoi). Each time he enters the screen, he wants to score the Filmfare black-lady; absolutely no subtlety to this steal, no pizzazz to his posture. Never will he shock you more than when he breaks an open jaw against a concrete slab. You won't be shocked still if you've already sampled the scene from Tony Kaye's American History X (1998).



There is then Maya's antagonist, or actually the hero with almost a non-existent trace of villainy, cop Khan (Dutt; mildly crackling). Never the twain shall meet but for a bit at a coffee shop if you've watched Michael Mann's Heat (1995); or at a restaurant, if you watch this.

Over a while, the fake, acquired atmospherics will lead you to the obvious query: Why would anybody repetitively make this film? It's the reason all blindly violent B-grade 'actioners' are made: a few dance-bar songs, thumping fisticuff, quick chases, accelerated shoot-outs; the one at Lokhandwala, styled as if real, is as much an excuse for a plot, as every protagonist and their back-stories, terrible excuses for a character.

In journalism, stories, if confirmed, are true; if not, they stay rumours. This movie-fantasy, according to its poster, belongs to a vague genre called "true rumours". Whatever that means to films, the case of bad journalism is evident in the conclusion.

Friendly to the source, the film, having glorified the Mafia thus far, verbally argues for encounters as a way to deal with deadly criminals. You know the juvenile world-view then. And by now, you know the rumour part was actually the hype around this flick.

SHOOTOUT AT LOKHANDWALA, review by Khalid Mohamed in Hindustan Times

Kill kill, bang bang
Rating: **
This one is about 10,000 bullets, 20,000 knives, 50,000 split-screens, 80,000 bleach-outs, 1,00,000 Unsteadicam shots and a singularly disjointed, out-as-Oliver-Stone narrative style. And since it's a Sanjay Gupta production, it’s also about men who walk like cowboys straight into the camera. Come to think of it, there’s helluva lot of walking going on here.
So, Shootout at Lokhandwala, directed by Apoorva Lakhia, is said to be inspired by the massacre of the Maya Dolas gang by a police task force, circa 1991. Okay, so the police ‘heroes’ -- Sanjay Dutt believable, Suniel Shetty absolutely unbelievable wearing a stubble-beard which cops don’t and Arbaaz Khan in a fluttering moustache – are doing their job by walking, smoking, glaring, staring.
The ubiquitous Mr Bachchan is listening to their story – and you’re not sure whether he likes them or not. Can’t blame him.
And there are the baddies Maya Dolas (Vivek Oberoi), Tusshar Kapoor (hopelessly miscast) and some severe unwashed types who look like the adopted children of Ram Gopal Varma. Now, the M Company walks all over Bombay, killing, smoking, dancing, dancing, dancing (there are three items, all of them with one Aartiji), saying bad bad mc-bc words. And only Maya’s mum (Amrita Singh) cooks fish for them.. and doesn’t believe that the fish’s mum will cry in the sea. Bangda fry all this.
Anyway, the Good and Bad Walkers have this showdown which is duly reported by Dia Mirza as TV journo Nuttu Mattu (who’s that?). The opening two reels are engaging, the climax has its thrilling flashes but tends to go yawn till you want to run into a bullet yourself.
Finally, after making gangsters exotic – Mr D is inevitably seen with underfed blondes in bikinis – Lakhia glorifies the mass police encounter. Simple yaar.. make both the parties feel good, no jhagdampatti.
The best-etched roles and performances, in any case, come from the Dolas bunch. Vivek Oberoi is outstanding, ably supported by the steel strong Amrita Singh. The other women are as decorative as Chinese lanterns.
Clearly, here’s a case of wanting to have one’s cashew cake and eat it to. Come on, let’s get real Lakhia/ Gupta and Co. Even if it’s just entertainment, let’s look at an incident of human bloodshed with some amount of objective film reportage. There’s really no point in relying on rumours, true or untrue.

CHEENI KUM, movie review by Khalid Mohamed in Hindustan Times

Cook cook hota hai
Rating: **1/2

No yum, only glum. Sweet rice just isn’t nice in a Zaafrani Hyderabadi biryani. And thereby hangs a kahani.. in which everyone yackety-yaks till you want to yell, “Bak bak bak bum.” Shhh, quiet, stop that jabber-jabber.. this is cinema, not a stage play. How about letting some glances, silences or even a piece of music speak?
Perhaps the most overwritten script to hit your year drums in ears (see what so much excessive dialogue can do), R Balki’s Cheeni Kum is a curio – you like it in moments, you hate it in many more moments, but one thing is consistent – the characters talk-talk-talk.. and that too on serious philosophical matters like how to be sad when you’re happy.. and happy when you’re sad. Wow.
This psycho-babble, believe it or not, emanates from a tiny tot kid who oddly has this lust for “adults only” DVDs. Plus, she traipses in sleeveless clothes through a London winter guaranteed to freeze even an Eskimo.. but hang on guys.

There’s more in the jabber-jabber section here, led by a wonder Indian cook nicknamed Ghas Phus.. though the pronunciation on screen keeps going Ghaas Poos. That’s our Amitabh Bachchan, of course, a Chutney Chamatkar, who breaks forth on the art of khaana pakana to his minions if they burn an onion. Pyaaza anyone?
.Anyway his mum (Zohra Sehgal) keeps talking, hectoring him to go to the gym. And when Ghaas Phus.. or Poos meets this Delhi gal Tangdi Kabab (Tabu), they keep talking too, all about chhatris, vegetarianism (a speechlet is made on how fish should be avoided because the fish’s mother cries in the ocean…pleaaase!) and before you can say Kheema Sutra, they’re gabbing about sex. “You want to do it on the grass?” Phus asks.
Indeed, Bachchan’s reprise of Sexy Samosa is embarrassing. The nervous condom-buying scene at a drugstore (reminiscent of Mallika Sherawat’s Khwaish.. eeeks), casing a by-hour sex hotel and lying awake in bed next to unused condoms -- hello, what’s happening out here? When he’s not in frame, jokes are cracked about ribbed and banana-flavoured condoms and “it’s the time to get wet.”
Forget being prudish, the screenplay of the old man-30ish girl in London, is just another male fantasy that’s unconvincingly told. Balki also carries a Mani Ratnam hangover: the Ilaiyaraja music seem to be retreads from Mouna Ragam.. and the terminally-ill child is straight out of Anjali. Also, it’s no surprise that the cinematography is by Ratnam’s oft-used lensman P C Sriram. The visuals do have a distinct moody look.. but what do you do with the perenially magpie-like chattering characters?
Tangdi Kabab is sweet and sane.. but after the intermission point, just hangs around to look defiant. She even tells her father, “So, when are you dying?”.. a bit much.. redeemed by a brisk apology. As her zany dad, Paresh Rawal (wearing gold saucer spectacles), goes on a satyagraha to protest against the union, stretching the plot into a farce

CHEENI KUM, movie review by Mayank Shekhar in MUMBAI MIRROR

Sweet enough!
Mirrior Rating: ***

I don't know if you've noticed Bachchan in some of his television interviews recently, especially ones where he quips to a group of reporters as they repetitively delve into questions he doesn't wish to answer straight, or is tired repeating: the likes of when's his son getting married, the Sonia rift ("raja, runk") etc. Or as it were, a reporter asked him to recall an interesting incident from the shoot of this film.

"Nothing happened, that's the problem. What do you really want to know, tell me," he said, dead-pan expression, casual mock in his famed deep voice, though never quite rude. That's relatively new for a public-figure who's made a living off rehearsed answers for equally rehearsed questions.

It's this innately quiet but biting sarcasm in Bachchan's personality that Balki breezily and brilliantly taps into here. He scores, hence does the film. Tabu, though occasionally odd, jams well almost all the way through.

The romance is hard to comprehend, if not wholly contrived. Why would a reasonably cool and sassy top chef choose not to marry for 64 years of his life? Evidently, he isn't quite opposed to the idea after all. Or why is a 34-year-old Delhi girl, immediately attracted to a sexagenarian Indian Londoner, been single so long? None is hard to believe of course. It's just that we aren't told. As it turns out, we needn't be.

This is not a romantic comedy. It's situational humour strictly by the text-book, where usually two permutations of events are possible.

First, a character may find himself in the unlikeliest circumstance: an old man in lust or love with a much younger girl here; just as a don and his sidekick may find themselves among docs, patients and students at a med-school elsewhere (Munnabhai MBBS).

Second, an interesting character is pit opposite his least likely other; like a rough don who meets Mahatma Gandhi (Lage Raho Munnabhai).

Here, Bachchan's Buddhadev Gupta, a stern but teen-at-heart coolio meets his girlfriend's father, a morose bore six years his junior. He must ask for his daughter's hand too. Paresh Rawal's Omprakash Verma, burdened by age, is a staunch Gandhian but a strict non-vegetarian. He also prefers his whisky with club soda.

The connection between the said actors drip quick-wit and pointed humour. So does the chemistry between Budhadeb and his charming mother (Zohra Sehgal); or Buddhadeb and his terminally-ill kid-friend (Swini Khara). The little girl is sharp. But quick as kids are with instructions, rarely do they let you down. It's the loss of restraint dealing with a terminally ill child that may bother you sometimes: such a manipulatively strong emotion played up in a light-hearted comedy sticks out, while you fumblingly search for intentions.

It's a feat however that you remain non-judgmental over the larger theme that may not otherwise expect you to remain indifferent.

A fan of cinematographer P C Sreeram (Alai Payuthe, Thiruda Thiruda, Mauna Ragam) I met once told me about a standing joke in Chennai that you should carry a torch to watch films shot by him. Sreeram usually shoots incredibly dark, gritty sequences.

Uncharacteristic of his oeuvre, this film appears spotlessly clean and neatly sharp. That could be said of the rest of the Cheeni Kum as well.

There is enough sugar here to keep you going for a while; down it with pleasure.

CHEENI KUM, movie review by Raja Sen in REDIFF

BigB-ittersweet Symphony

Tabu has balls.
Cheeni Kum could have been just another romance between an arrogant old perfectionist and a smitten waif, but the woman here has spirit. She rides the patriarch into a corner, constantly putting him on the spot, and her stoically unblinking, deadpan retorts are a perfect match for her cocksure suitor. That character, Nina, lends the pair contrast, gives it chemistry, makes the film work.
R Balki's debut is, thus, a deftly made May-December love story that ends up being both relatable and romanticised, both honest and hysterical. A mostly delicious repast of repartee and repercussions, the script isn't over-baked and the characters simmered to perfection. Although, for a film with that title, there are indeed a couple teaspoons sugar too many, by the very end.
But we get ahead of ourselves. Lets start from the beginning:
Amitabh Bachchan plays Buddhadeb Gupta, a London restaurateur who prides himself on the finest Indian food. His is a cellphone-free kitchen, where the master believes a perfect biryani is more monumental an achievement than Da Vinci's Last Supper -- the former impacts several more senses. And while his British waiter struggles over the nuances of mouthwatering frontier food names, Buddha's bar serves up magnificent desi dishes to London.
One typical evening, while the ponytailed, preachy perfectionist holds forth to his white-hatted troops on the unbearable lightness of hing, or some such, he gasps at the realisation that a customer has actually sent back a dish. Tabu is the strongwilled Nina Verma, a confident woman currently visiting a friend in London. Buddha storms out and laces the lady with unsubtle sarcasm, laying it on thick and making said friend aghast, leading to the ladies storming out of the restaurant.
Buddha, forced to acknowledge his staff committed a cardinal sin, is compelled to offer an apology, an act he is not used to. Meanwhile Nina, conveniently caught up in London's trademark squall, frequently borrows the chef's umbrella. Romance is obviously -- underscored more than adequately with shots of Tabu walking and turning back (wash, rinse, repeat, repeat) -- in the rainy air, and the days get pleasanter as the wit flies freely and the evident is never quite that.

Which brings us to the premise: He's 64, she's 34, and all is hunky dory. Except her 58-year-old father, played by Paresh Rawal, who objects to this union in as melodramatic a manner as is possible. Thus, as they say in Bollywood script sessions, 'Conflict.' This results in much chaos, a second-half with far less steam than the pre-interval opening, and a contrived, heavy-handed approach the film really didn't deserve. Add to that a cancer subplot and a nice supporting character turns into an emotionally manipulative angle Cheeni Kum should have done without.
It's a crisply written film, the dialogue mostly working very well. For all the talk of sarcasm, the lines aren't likely to bowl you over with superb irony, but occasionally a clever gem shines through. The repartee between the lead pair is tight, as are Bachchan's conversations with Sexy, his 9-year-old neighbour played by an impressive Swini Khara -- the former are earnest, as funny as real life often it; the latter tend towards the pithy, but usually stop short of it. It's a very unBollywood script, and it takes some stellar actors to pull it off.
A big wow then to Amitabh Bachchan, the film's marvellous pivot. We shouldn't be surprised by anymore Bachchanism, but the man -- currently, constantly pushing himself onto a limb, decidedly making 2007 his own -- is an undisputable rockstar. His Buddha is smooth yet suffers from occasional social awkwardness, and Bachchan manages both the rough brat and the annoyed old man tones with such ease. He's arrogant and self-assured, yet feels the need to impress her -- while never admitting it. This is one of his finest performances to date, because he sticks to the consistent key of the character, and while the film itself changes genres in the end, he stays Buddha. And is irresistible.
Tabu is a great actress, and with a role that calls for far less bravura than her leading man, she is comfortably understated. As mentioned, their banter runs deep through the film, and her Nina, whom you never know when to take seriously, is a perfect foil to Buddha's don't-ask-the-obvious derision. There is a fantastic moment where she berates Bachchan for being too forward, for daring, like all men would, to ask a girl out and assume she's available, just because she's smiled at him a few times. The tension is palpable as Bachchan falls silent and you wince, suddenly ill-disposed toward her character. 'I do hope you won't be late,' she ends, still deadpan, immediately confirming both date and smirk.










The inimitable Zohra Sehgal plays Bachchan's wrestling-loving mother, a terrible cook who lectures him on gymming and knows him inside out, and is evidently the source of his scornful tongue. Paresh Rawal unfortunately plays the film's sole caricature, an over-written character working more for ha-has than realism, and while the actor is inevitably good enough to make us chuckle, his character needed to be leaner. As mentioned, Swini Khara is pretty good, holding her own in demanding conversational scenes.
The crackling first half coasts along wonderfully, relying almost solely on Bachchan's formidable charm. The second half sees trouble with a hammy third act.
Cheeni Kum is a very neat film, but the messy end -- the last three lines of dialogue exchanged by Bachchan and Tabu are the film's very worst -- leaves a peculiar aftertaste.
This isn't a groundbreaking film, but it didn't set out to be. It's a maturely written film with great characters, tremendous performances and some fantastic moments. It could have been perfect, but the lesser said about that end the better.
Watch it. A brilliant sequence involving the chef, a chemist, chhatris and chachas is absolute movie magic, and in itself well worth the price of admission. Bravo.

Rediff Rating:
***1/2

CHEENI KUM, movie review by Sarita Tanwar in MIDDAY

Kuch Meetha ho jaaye!

Rating: ***

What’s it about:
With the newer lot of filmmakers coming into the industry, there’s fresh vision and more innovative ideas.
R Balki who makes a breezy debut with Cheeni Kum, displays a unique style — the romance between a 64-year-old guy and a 34-year-old woman is laced with dollops of humour.
Buddha (Bachchan) is a chef-cum-restaurateur who lives in London with his mother (Sehgal). Things change one day when he encounters Shalini (Tabu), a Delhi girl visiting a friend in the city.
They meet at his restaurant and end up arguing. Many fights later, they discover feelings for each other. He’s arrogant and difficult; she’s strong and inde- pendent. Hell breaks loose when her dad (Rawal) finds out they want to get married.
What’s good:
The best thing about Cheeni Kum is that the romance just happens. There is no mandatory wooing and singing around the trees.
There’s none of the ‘I love you’ or ‘marry me’ stuff. Director Bali has stepped away from the way romance is usually portrayed in Hindi films and succeeds in making the otherwise difficult-to-swallow love story between an older man and a woman thirty years his junior, edible.
The screenplay is novel and original. London looks heaven-like and the scenes between Amitabh and Paresh have their own distinctive touch.
Amitabh Bachchan is in his element as he breathes fire into his role with some of the wittiest lines in a long time. Tabu slips into her part brilliantly. However, the surprise gem is Zohra Sehgal. She’s absolutely delectable. The child artiste Sexy (Khara) is also super.

What’s not:
The length of the film is the biggest dampener. Some snappy editing could’ve helped a lot.

It’s almost as if Balki was at a loss after a while and just stretched the film. What’s also a bit confusing is the tone of the film in both halves — it begins on a different note and ends on another. The disjointed feeling almost makes it look like two different films.

What’s that:
A suave man living in London finds it difficult to ask for a condom in a medical store? Yeh baat kuch hazam nahin hui.

What to do:
Watch it for the novelty in content and the sparkling chemistry between Amitabh and Tabu.

simply cinema

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