Chak De India review in Indian media

Hello hockey, hello hope
Khalid Mohamed in Hindustan Times
Rating:***1/2

Milk shake, rattle and roll. Sporty girls are bashing up a bunch of eve-teasers in a fast-food restaurant. The hockey coach doesn’t intervene, whips on his dark glasses and smiles lightly. His girls have scored a hit.
Cheers for Chak De! India, which may be predictable but compels you to root for a team of losers whom only an earth-angel can save from disastrous defeat. Written by Jaideep Saini and directed by Shimit Amin, this inspirational effort echoes Hollywood’s Hardball, The Replacements, and Escape to Victory whose influence has already been evidenced in Lagaan.
But what the hell? If a story is retold with varying riffs, a sliver of imagination and sufficient skill, just chill.
Over to Kabir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), the disgraced captain of the Indian hockey team, who’s out to redeem himself after seven years of vanvas. He lands the assignment, just by a whisker, of coaching the raggedy Indian women’s hockey team. So far, so hopeful.
The 16 girls from various states are a mess – either too raw or too cocksure. Begins the training which does get far too protracted, what with the girls snarling, whining and ready to tear one’s eyes out. Slowly but surely, Khan makes them understand their strengths and above all, their Indianness which alone can get them to the winning goal.
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Shah Rukh leads hockeybabes to glory
Raja Sen in Rediff.com
Rating:***1/2

The prodigal Khan returns.
Chak De! India is the basic, every-single-sports-movie story of a disgraced player, here called Kabir Khan, pulling together a team of misfits to do the impossible -- here winning the World Championship.
This is also a return to glory for Shah Rukh Khan, the superstar doing excellently as he tackles a cast with (almost) entirely deplorable acting chops and makes you believe. Director Shimit Amin shoves a hockey stick into the actor's hand, and -- fitter than he's looked in years -- Khan flies across cinematic AstroTurf, and shines.
Stop looking up Miracle, A League Of Their Own or The Mighty Ducks DVDs -- it's a straight sports film, and you walk into the theatre knowing how it's going to turn out.
We start, of course, with the fall. Kabir, India's most successful Centre Forward of all time, flubs a crucial penalty and is castigated by his nation -- an Islamic last name and a meteoric temper make for a media-unfriendly mix -- as Pakistan win the cup.
Thus surrounded by awful actors, Khan bids farewell to his beloved sport, even as insufferable little kids clamber onto shoulders to get a better look at the traitor. Insert typically strained background music here, and you're wincing for both Khan and the film.
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It's all about loving hockey
Sarita Tanwar in Mid-Day
Rating:***

What’s it about: Feel-good, emotion-stirring tales of victory — it’s almost a genre in Hollywood. Back home, you seldom find films based on sports.Nagesh Kukunoor’s Iqbal flirted with a new trend and Shimit Amin takes the effort on a much lavish platform. But while Iqbal was about personal triumph, Chak De! India highlights the significance of team spirit. Kabeer Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) misses a penalty shot and loses the hockey World Cup final to Pakistan.Angry spectators and the media label him a traitor and accuse him of match-fixing. Unable to bear the humiliation, Kabeer returns to his ancestral home to restore his sanity. Seven years later, he returns to his favourite sport, this time with the dream of getting the neglected Indian women’s hockey team to win the World Cup. He manages to become the coach against all odds. He fights for his team; his team fights with him and battling all adversities, together they embark upon a mission almost-impossible.
What’s hot: The film begins well and establishes its intentions in the first reel itself. It’s clearly all about loving the game. Although one would’ve liked to see a little more of Kabeer and the team’s background, the director makes up for it with his inspiring narrative. No loud melodrama, no unnecessary romantic angle for the protagonist and no excess baggage in terms of futile characters, Shimit stays true to his subject and that’s commendable. The second half of the film is exceptional; it has all the edge-of-the-seat moments you’ve been craving. Besides the final tense moments, the scene where the girls beat up guys at a restaurant is super. All the new girls deliver what’s expected, but Komal Chautala and the angry girl from Punjab stand out.But, of course, the star of the film is Shah Rukh Khan, who rocks it right from the first frame. This is yet another addition to his illustrious line-up of work after Swades and KANK. The actor breathes fire into his character; it’s Kabeer that stays with you long after the film is over. It’s Rock De! SRK all the way.
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Shah rukh hits a goal!
Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror
Rating:***1/2

This film is almost entirely in its exquisitely mainstream yet intelligent piece of screenwriting (Jaideep Sahni). It's then about inspired pieces of casting (and acting thereby). Sixteen carefully selected but relatively raw players from different parts of the nation make up the Indian women's hockey team. They're the sorts, the administrators munching biscuits in their boardroom believe, should rather play the 'belan' in the kitchen. As region-specific selections go with Indian sports, members of the team come from everywhere: the tribal belt of Jharkhand, to the untouched hills of the North-East, to the richly chic environs of small and big cities. Nothing unites them but the colour of their sports jerseys. Put together on paper, they are unlikely to match skill and speed with a European school squad. On the practice field, they appear a bunch of uncontrollably nutter hooligans. The team also shares a coach that pretty much no one can stand (Khan). The coach has an immediate task at hand, the World Championship. He also has a wider point to prove.
This is perhaps the first film since Ashutosh Gowariker's Swades where Khan truly portrays a character (even if largely undefined beyond his given profession). He is Kabir Khan, a former India captain, fallen from grace. He desperately needs to settle the public humiliation of a lost penalty shot against Pakistan at a World Championship final. The central plot, it is said, is loosely based on one, Mir Ranjan Negi, the disgraced Indian goalkeeper, who conceded 7 goals against Pakistan at the '82 Asian games. This had led to speculations over his intent then. He had trained the national women's team to a Commonweath gold later. The premise is roughly retained. Talking of the protagonist again, or actually his name, this is also the first Yash Raj product since Kabir Khan's Kabul Express (last year) that truly sticks to sense and sensibilities of a story-line. A loser-coach with a losing team that teaches us the finer art of winning is an established Hollywood genre. You could think up a laundry list of films that make up the variety: Wildcats, Young Blood, Hoosiers … (Prakash Jha's Hip Hip Hurray is the best Bombay effort that comes to mind).
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CASH review

Such trash!
By Tushar Joshi in Mid-day

What’s it about: Remember the 4 Non Blondes song, “What’s going on?” That’s what comes to mind as I try to decipher what Cash is all about. Name-dropping comes easy to Anubhav Sinha as he puts together an ensemble cast of some of the most thankless characters ever created. Lucky (Riteish), Danny (Zayed) and Puja (Esha) play the cool trio, wearing hip clothes and showing off their camera-enhanced skills of being the smoothest thugs in the world. They work for Karan (Ajay) who looks like a cross between a failed hitman and a carnival dancer lost in Rio, traced back to Cape Town. Baddie Angad (Sunil Shetty, who I think has worn one single suit throughout the film) and his decked-up accomplice Aditi (Dia Mirza) have their eyes on three expensive diamonds. But hold on, that’s what Karan and his gang want too. Before you think this is the plot, hang on: there’s Shania (Shamita) who’s a cop (don’t let her hair extensions, lip gloss and kilos of make-up fool you). For over two hours, all these guys chase diamonds, blow up cars, dance, fall in and out of love to keep themselves occupied.What’s hot: Inspired by Michael Bay, Sinha goes for the kill with car chases, daredevil stunts, scenic locati- ons and even manages to get some foot-tapping music from Vishal and Shekhar. All this is of no avail thanks to the mindless plot.
Rating:*1/2
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Such a rash bash
By Khalid Mohamed in Hindustan Times

All right, get this straight – unless you want to waste two hours and more trying to decipher which diamond has been split into three. Why Devgan is looking stern? Why Riteish Deshmukh has regressed into childhood by going all over the place on a skateboard? Why Shamita Shetty and Esha Deol are in itsy-bitsy costumes?
Why Suneil Shetty wears itsier-bitsier expressions? Why there’s talk about Chinese mafia? Why there are Oceans 12 rip-off scenes? Why someone wants to steal the worst painting in the world? Why bombs are being planted around bridges? Why everyone’s having an intensely bad-air day? Why the action keeps switching to cartoon footage? And why..oh forget it.
Tip top tip: Don’t be RASH, don’t waste your CASH. Even an old CASHmera Shah movie would be better.
Rating:**

Indecipherable trash!
By Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

Since this film's songs began to appear on television a few weeks ago, I meant to check for my personal knowledge the lyricist's name. The hit-track reads, "Crazy with desire, You're my mind-blowing Mahia." There's another (the better one) that goes, "Cash meri aankhon mein, Cash meri baahon mein…" The credited writer is Vishal of Vishal-Shekhar fame, evidently much better with his music than with the pen. But as you enter the theatre, you realize that piece of writing is infinitely superior still for a film that is entirely unwritten. It's merely been shot. It's set in nowhere, and is truly about nothing. At an early scene, the heroine (Shamita Shetty), an Indian High Commission cop in Capetown (or whatever it is that she plays), solemnly looks at her hero (Devgan, a top crook), and suggests her admission of love, "I love you more than possible." "Any less would not do," the hero shoots back. The leading lady thinks of an adequately poetic retort for a second, a confounded expression on her face, and timidly whispers, "Mind-blowing." She rushes away. You know from here on, the cushion on your multiplex seat will remain your only friend through the show.
Rating:*
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Cash can't do the Tango
By Raja Sen in Rediff.com

They say money talks.
Cash evidently believes in brevity. A Little Less Conversation, as the King sang. Except in this film, the next line is cruelly paraphrased to: A Little Bore Action.
We're perfectly fine with senseless action movies. I put my feet up and completely grooved to Anubhav Sinha's last effort, Dus. Sure, it's a loopy ride, but we aren't looking for logic if the rollercoaster's fast enough. It's a genre Bollywood largely overlooks, and if it doesn't make sense, who cares? Neither does Die Hard.
So this review isn't a tirade against plot holes or item numbers -- we're more than used to overlooking both. We're not even going to assess the bloopers. It's just that this time the action -- which frequently flipflops into amateurish animation -- leaves you distinctively sleepy. The stunts are strictly okay, at best. And that just isn't done.
In essence, there are three diamonds, and six people -- capering around fancy sounding international airports -- out to get them. Fair enough. So let's have a fun and fast little heist shooter, shall we? Um, not quite.
Rating:*1/2
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Gandhi, my father review

Importance of being earnest
Review by Khalid Mohamed in Hindustan Times

A train’s about to leave. Rushing to a compartment, a desperate man hands a shrivelled orange to his mother. She asks lovingly, “Where..where did you get it?” as if she had been handed manna from heaven. And then the man tells his saintly father, “You are what you are because of her..and her alone.”
That’s one of the searing moments of Gandhi My Father, which marks the debuts of actor Anil Kapoor as producer and theatre wunderkind Feroz Abbas Khan as writer-director. The painstakingly-mounted duel between the Mahatma (Darshan Jariwala) and his prodigal son Harilal (Akshaye Khanna) has its heart in the right place.
It tells us that blood isn’t thicker than water – not when the struggle is to guide a nation towards its independence. If one’s own son is left by the wayside, so be it. That the nation’s father lacerated his son emotionally – with tragic results – was scooped by the stage play Mahatma versus Gandhi directed by Khan himself about a decade ago.
Now Khan goes at the story, ascribed to various authors, with an approach that’s overwhelmingly elegiac, stating that a man must sacrifice his own family at the altar of the greater good. The screenplay, at times tends to be patchy, jumping cursorily between South Africa and India. Despite that, the vignettes add up to a work which reminds you of one of the nearly extinct principles of filmmaking – and that is the importance of being earnest.
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Gandhi My Father: Brave attempt
By Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Rediff.com

With Gandhi My Father Anil Kapoor, has touched a subject that no Bollywood producer would have dared to.
The film is a brave attempt and director Feroz Abbas Khan has tried to bring out the complicated relationship between the Father of the Nation Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his eldest son, Harilal.
The film works because of the wonderful performances from the four lead actors: Darshan Jhaveri as Mahatma Gandhi [Images], Akshaye Khanna as Harilal, Shefali Shah as Kasturba Gandhi [Images] and Bhoomika Chawla as Harilal's wife Gulab.
Unfortunately, the script has many loopholes. A little more research on what the real problem between Mahatma and his son was would have made this film a classic. It is here that Feroz Abbas Khan disappoints.
To begin with, there was no justification for Gandhi opposing Harilal's decision to get married. Again, a little research on the reason behind Harilal's rebellion against his father could have taken the film to another level.
Another inconsistency is the part where the Mahatma advocates Indian students to go to London [Images] for a scholarship but when it comes to his own son, he sticks to Satyagraha and Indian values.
More questions come to the fore as the film progresses and no reason is given for the growing distance between father and son, though there are enough about the Mahatma being more concerned about the nation's interest than his family.
Rating:***
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Slice of history
By Sarita Tanwar in Mid-day

What’s it about: It’s not every week that you encounter a film like Gandhi My Father. Which is precisely why, when you do, you expect a lot from it. When a filmmaker undertakes a subject of such magnitude, you want him to focus as much on the film’s intricacies. But Feroz Khan’s debut venture leaves you somewhat cold despite its lavish mounting, authentic look and classic presentation. The film delves into Mahatma Gandhi’s (Darrshan Jariwala) complex relationship with his oldest son, Harilal (Akshaye Khanna). History remembers Harilal as a drunkard and a slur on the celebrated family. Khan offers to reveal his other side — as a loving son to Kasturba (Shefali Shah), a devoted husband to Gulab (Bhumika Chawla) and a doting father to his four children. For most of the film, Harilal struggles to understand his father and eventually ends up blaming him for his unfortunate life. What’s Hot: It’s heartening to see a mainstream actor like Anil Kapoor pick up a non-commercial subject like this for his banner. The film boasts of high production values. Everyone, from the director of photography, David Macdonald, to production designer Nitin Desai, deserve special mention for their contribution. Penny Smith does an amazing job with the hair and make-up, and costume designer Sujata Sharma is impeccable in her styling.
Rating:**1/2
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Loose experiment with truth
By Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

A tiny, unformed shrub stunted under the spread of an over-awed larger tree is a known phenomenon of public life. An offspring at logger-heads with a grand patriarch who he perceives as either negligent towards his own, or virtuously objective to a fault, is the stuff of mythology (Ramayana), and several contemporary Hindi films (Shakti, Sarkar, Apaharan…). Mahatma Gandhi's similarly turbulent relationship with his eldest son Harilal, though specific, is then universal at the same time. Harilal (Khanna) was, according to the film's account, an initial experiment for the elder Gandhi (Jariwal). He remained pretty much unschooled, which, to most extent, appear as his own academic weakness. The Mahatma wasn't disappointed. In his later years, Gandhiji saw western educationEducationTimes.com: Gateway to Successhttp://www.educationtimes.com as being capable of colonizing minds; hardly a weapon to fight discrimination and injustice in his adopted home South Africa, or thereafter in India. The latter were his all-consuming concerns by then. Just as the 'Bapu' to this nation, the Mahatma had wished a minor course for his own son.
Rating:**
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Salman Govinda have great chemistry

IBN review by Rajeev Masand
Step into la-la land for director David Dhawan's Partner, a leave-your-brains-at-home comedy that's been blatantly ripped off from the Will Smith starrer Hitch.
In this desi version, Salman Khan stars as a love guru who doles out romantic tips to those who can't woo their sweethearts left to their own devices. Everything from how to charm a lady, to how to behave on a first date… Everything from dancing skills to bedroom manners… Love guru is the one-stop problem-solver for geeks and freaks.
But when dumpy Govinda shows up for advice on how to win the affections of his cute-as-a-daisy boss Katrina Kaif, even Love Guru can't seem to come up with a good enough plan.
Clearly Govinda is aiming for the sky, evidently the dumpling has bitten off more than he can chew. But determined to find a place in her heart, gol-matol Govinda convinces Love Guru to take up his case.
Now in between training his new student, Love Guru himself falls hook, line and sinker for tabloid photographer Lara Dutta, who's always on the run from a midget gangster whose pictures she's secretly taken. In the end, both men learn that it's only good old-fashioned sincerity and a big heart that it takes to woo your girl.
When David Dhawan's in form, there's nobody who can do comedy quite like him. But truth is the director's been slipping up lately.
(Read full review)
Rating: **1/2

Overdose of laughter

Partner review by Khalid Mohamad in Hindustan Times
Just imagine. Milord, the accused in the court today are David Dhawan, Govindaji and Salman Khan saheb. I come to defend them because I am quite fed up of hurling accusations at them. Mr Dhawan has been left off scot-free every time.
Sir, Partner is his Movie No 38. Since I have never ever received justice, I have resolved to go over to their side. I want to sing the praises of this Dh-company.
(Pandemonium breaks out in court, the Ram Gopa Varma - lookalike judge shouts, “Order! Order!..silence returns) Milord, this time around Dhawanji has to be absolved of all charges. So what if a small boy—as in Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy — is shown urinating all over a rest-o-pizza joint’s restroom? I will never eat a pizza again.
Second, Govindaji is Bhaskar and Salman Khan is playing Love Guru. So what if the name Bhaskar is used for some terrible puns? All the Bhaskars of the world don’t mind, so why should you? And then this mastana duo wonder which part of a woman should be looked at first? I am sure that no double meaning was intended. Ha ha, I laughed till my belly ached..ha ha.
(Courtroom erupts in guffaws.. the judge orders, “Order! Order!”) Now milord, it’s no point in accusing Dhawanji of purloining Will Smith’s Hitch, no? So what? Have fun, time-pass man! Okay, so, Govindaji is a 40-year-old virgin (excusez the French, sir) who meets this Prem Guru, and wants to be hitched with his boss lady, Katrina Kaif. Prem tells him to buzz off.(Read full review)
Rating:**1/2

Partner is a laugh riot

Partner is yet another David Dhawan laugh riot.
REDIFF review by Syed Firdaus Ashraf

Inspired by the Will Smith-starrer Hitch, Partner, starring Salman Khan and Govinda, works wonderfully because of the chemistry between the two central characters.
Prem (Salman) plays a love guru, who gives advice to people who cannot win the hearts of the women they are in love with.
Enter Bhaskar (Govinda)who is in love with Priya (Katrina Kaif), who is worth Rs 1,000 crore.

Bhaskar asks Prem for some love advice. Prem turns dissuades him because he feels Priya will never fall for Bhaskar because of their financial disparity.
The way Govinda manages to convince him is a treat to watch. His comic timing, his dancing abilities -- despite of the evident flab -- makes you wonder why our film industry has ignored such a talented actor for the last four years.
Salman, on his part, plays the dude, and gives Govinda -- who seemed to have been overshadowed by Akshay Kumar in his last film Bhagam Bhag -- enough scope to perform.
I repeat, the actors have great chemistry -- you never feel one is trying to outdo the other.
Sajid-Wajid's music and the lyrics and dialogues by Sanjay Chhel make this film work even better. The one-liners are hilarious, and very original.
Katrina does not have much to do except smile.
Lara Dutta, who plays a reporter, clicks more pictures than writing stories. One wonders if she is a reporter or a photographer. Her chemistry with Salman is great, however, and it's time she gets her due like her contemporary, Priyanka Chopra.
Among the film's low points is Rajpal Yadav's character, Chotta Don. It is an imitation of Shah Rukh Khan's Don. Later in the film, Yadav's character just disappears.
Also, the film's end is very abrupt.
But despite the shortcomings, you will not feel disappointed because you will have had a good laugh through most of the film.
A must watch.
Rating:***1/2

Partner movie review

Partner review in indiafm.com
Some do's and don'ts you need to follow while watching PARTNER…
-Lock your brains in the almirah, before you head for the nearby movieplex to catch this zany entertainer.
-Don't look for logic. Don't ask questions. Don't raise eyebrows. .
-Don't argue with what the master chef David Dhawan serves on your plate. .
-Do carry some earplugs/earwax if you're allergic to noise. The cineplex will reverberate with high decibels of laughter, which could tax your ear-drums if you're overtly sensitive. .
Welcome to PARTNER, David Dhawan's new comic caper. It's stylish, it's crazier, it's a bigger entertainer than David's last two laughathons, MUJHSE SHAADI KAROGI and MAINE PYAAR KYUN KIYA. Making people laugh is an art and David has mastered this art over the years. Like wine, he has only matured with time. Let's come straight to the point. PARTNER is for those seeking non-stop entertainment. It's targeted at those who swear by masala films. Those who want to get transported to a world of make-believe in those 2 hours. It's definitely not for those who actually know what to expect, but pretend to rubbish escapist cinema. Also, it's not for certain critics [looking for art cinema in a masala entertainer] whose star ratings are a much bigger joke than the one David Dhawan pulls off with élan. The film works, and works big time. In a nutshell, if you're into escapist cinema, if you're looking for laughter unlimited, if you're curious to watch the bonding between Govinda and Salman Khan, if you're a big fan of David Dhawan movies, if you believe in shelling out Rs. 150 for a ticket and expecting entertainment worth Rs. 200, PARTNER is just for you! Prem [Salman Khan] is a 'date doctor' who, for a fee, has helped hundreds of men woo the women of their dreams. In his childhood, he understood a woman's likes and dislikes in food, clothes or men. His aim is to help those men who like or love women, not to take them to bed. The ultimate professional bachelor, Prem discovers that his tried and tested tricks are no match for Naina [Lara Dutta], the one woman he truly loves, who works for a newspaper as a journalist. He comes across Bhaskar [Govinda], who is in love with Priya [Katrina Kaif], the rich and famous daughter of a tycoon [Dilip Tahil]. Prem helps Govinda find his lady love and eventually also finds a soulmate in Naina. Inspired by director Andy Tennant's likable Hollywood hit HITCH [2005; Will Smith, Eva Mendes, Kevin James, Amber Valletta], PARTNER is a true-blue David Dhawan film. It's glossy, has some stunning visuals, boasts of very catchy and hummable music and of course, hardly has any tense moment in those 16 reels. What works is the casting of the two characters, who're as dissimilar as chalk and cheese. Although the romantic portions have the right chemistry between Salman and Lara and Govinda and Katrina, the USP is undoubtedly the terrific bonding between Salman and Govinda, whose on-screen escapades take the film to dizzier heights. Besides, the witty one-liners [Sanjay Chhel] are another ace that has the viewer in splits. The dialogues are truly funny and actually accentuate the impact of every sequence. Any 'hitch'es? Yes, there's one! The track that leads to the misunderstandings in the climax looks unwarranted. Writer sahib [screenplay: Yunus Sajawal, David Dhawan], this track [Rajat Bedi, Aarti Chhabria] compels you to break into a yawn. Also, it adds to the length of the enterprise. But the subsequent portion [Govinda's honeymoon travails] is rip-roaringly funny. David Dhawan gets it right yet again. He's on familiar ground and like a seasoned cricketer knows the game inside out. He hits a boundary yet again. Sanjay Chhel's dialogues are superb. Sajid-Wajid make a terrific comeback, with every song having the stamp of a chartbuster embossed on it. Even their picturizations [choreography: Bosco-Caesar] are excellent. Cinematography [Johny Lal] is first-rate. The film bears an opulent look all through. Costumes of Salman and Govinda [Alvira Khan Agnihotri] are stylish. The question is, who steals the show? Actually both! Salman performs like never before. Sure, he looks dapper [one compliment he's heard umpteen times], but he packs in a solid punch whenever he's on screen. His fans will only multiply with this film. Govinda sets the screen blazing with an incredible performance. Although the actor has featured in a few films after a hiatus [BHAGAM BHAG, SALAAM-E-ISHQ], PARTNER is his comeback film. He has the viewer eating out of his hands actually. Those who felt that he's a spent force will have to eat back their words. Lara Dutta looks gorgeous and pairs off very well with Salman. Katrina Kaif looks gorgeous and pitches in a natural performance. Rajpal Yadav is really funny. Puneet Issar is alright. Dilip Tahil is okay. Suresh Menon is excellent. Child artiste Ali Haji is wonderful. His confidence level is astonishing! On the whole, PARTNER is a winner all the way. This one's a laugh-riot that will have the viewers laughing in the aisles and its distributors, laughing all the way to the bank.
Rating:A sure-shot 'Hit'
courtesy:indiafm.com

NAQAAB review

The film's promos very correctly describe it as the most shocking thriller
CNN-IBN review by Rajeev Masand

From prolific filmmaker duo Abbas-Mustan comes this week's brand new release Naqaab. In this film that's set in Dubai, newcomer Urvashi Sharma and Bobby Deol play a young couple engaged to be married. It's another thing he's a multi-millionaire with a home the size of a palace, and she works at Burger King and pays him rent to live under his roof. Just days before her marriage to Bobby, she meets and strikes up a friendship with an aspiring actor played by Akshaye Khanna. Sparks fly between the two, but on Urvashi's insistence their friendship is kept strictly platonic. On D-Day, however, just moments before she exchanges marriage vows with Bobby, Urvashi has a change of heart.
Up until this stage, the film made perfect sense to me, but it's from this point onwards that Naqaab turns truly bizarre. It would be unfair to reveal any more of the plot because that would give away the surprise element of the film. But believe me, you'd never have guessed where this film was going anyway, because it's so ridiculous and unimagineable. Now you're probably wondering why I'm complaining if the film is unpredictable, because unpredictable is a good thing, right? Well, there a difference between unpredictable and ridiculous, and the thing about the twists and turns in Naqaab is that they're absolutely ridiculous.
(Read full review)
Rating:*
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Naqaab is a watchable thriller
REDIFF review by Raja Sen

The best thing about Naqaab is that it's just two hours long.
The incredible thing, though, is that it still manages to overstay its welcome -- with a climax lathered on and on, the final twists merely being the facts that the film isn't over yet. Or yet. Or yet. Sigh.
For all that, Abbas-Mustan (credited in the film's titles as Director Duo) have done their fair share of contrived countertwisting. The proceedings are breezy and while nobody really cries bloody murder -- this isn't really a thriller -- the film is never tedious and the actress is pretty.
So yeah, it's watchable
(Read full review)
Rating:**
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Twisted intelligence
MUMBAI MIRROR review by Mayank Shekhar

Since over two decades now, the Burmawalla siblings, a curious twosome in the Tinsel Town north of Bandra, have amusingly shared their parents, the director's seat, and their suit-length to make films together
Of over a dozen in their filmography, quite a few were noticeably impressive for their times; and almost all reveal two hard-boiled commercial Bollywood directors that the twins are. I use the word Bollywood as much as a pejorative, a masala rehash of Hollywood fare, as the song-and-dance movie projects that it's come to signify now. Almost all known Abbas-Mustan movies somehow find their way to an American pot-boiler of the past, the plot sufficiently curried to suit mainstream Hindi audience tastes: Baazigar (A Kiss Before Dying), Humraaz (The Perfect Murder), Aitraaz (Disclosure), Badshah (Nick Of Time), Ajnabee (Consenting Adults)… Viewed purely from the perspective of a film trade punter, each preliminarily works at the level of a "proposal", usually a two-hero-one-heroine or two-heroine-one-hero service contract to light up posters. The pivotal moment in almost each film is the "twist", or the "kahaani mein twist, hee haa haa" (in the end, or at the interval) that turns an entire plot of unfaithful love on its head into a clever ploy, and nearly every character reveals itself as an unforgiving picture of deceit. Naqaab is at best a valuable addition to that formula's library. (Read full review)
Rating:**
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Ha ha, Hee Hee!
MIDDAY review by Bryan Durham

What's it about: It's not one thing. It's many. Anyway, here's a start: Karan's rich, Sophie's poor. He tells her he loves her, wants to marry her. She agrees. At an engagement party for her friends, she senses a kindred spirit in Vicky, a wannabe actor. The two revel in each other's company even as Karan's still besotted with Sophie. It turns out Vicky was employed to bait Sophie into falling for him by a shadowy voice named Rohit Shroff. Things get ugly as Sophie leaves Karan high and dry at the altar and runs straight into Vicky's arms and his bed. The next morning, Sophie goes to meet Karan to say she's sorry. He tells her to get out. Minutes (or is it hours, in screen time) later, Karan blows his brains out. End of story? What's that!
What's hot: It's an Abbas-Mustan film. Which probably is the film's USP as well as its undoing. You expect to be entertained. You expect the twists and turns. The cloak-and-dagger stuff that's now stuff of legend. You expect too much. The film delivers, to a point. And then they go and throw elements of a black comedy at you. Hmmm.... (Read full review) Rating:*
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Harry Potter review

Harry hits a black patch

HT review by Vinayak Chakravorty

Seriously, at the rate this series is going from dark to darker, they’ll need Scorsese to wrap up the finalé.If you are one of the Potteratti, the book had already given you an idea of what was coming, by way The Order Of The Phoenix the movie. For those not sold on Pottermania, here’s a current affairs update: the boyish grin is out, furrowed frown is in. The sunshine years are over, darkness is setting in. Dementors threaten, the Dark Lord edges in his eerie nose into the story with more menace, and Hogwarts has turned into an oppressive medieval institution.Harry Potter’s life just hit a black patch. (Read full review)

Rating: ***

Some magic at last!

REDIFF review by Sumit Bhattacharya

There's magic, and then there's magic.
The real charm of the Harry Potter books, as any Pottermaniac will vouch for, is not so much in the fantastic spells the boy wizard and his friends learn at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but the magic of human emotions.
You don't have to be a fantasy fan to like Harry Potter; the core of the books is closer to P G Wodehouse school stories than Tolkien. That's what the four films before Order Of The Phoenix failed to grasp.
There were special effects galore, but you didn't feel Harry's emptiness every time a school year ended. You didn't feel his goodness, and you didn't grow with him (Read full review)

Rating: ***1/2

It is a highly entertaining watch

CNNIBN review by Rajeev Masand

If you're not a fan of the Harry Potter films then you've got to watch the new film in the series. If you are a fan of the Harry Potter films, then you're going to watch it anyway. The thing is, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film in the series, is nothing like the previous movies. If the first two films by Home Alone director Chris Columbus were adventure-filled kiddie films, then the third by Alfonso Cuaron was slightly darker but quite stylish, and the fourth by Mike Newell only got grittier. This fifth film, however, directed by David Yates, is the darkest of them all. And that, of course, is great news because even the most hardcore Harry Potter fans - like myself - were getting a little tired of all the fun-and-games, all the gimmicks, the silly magic tricks, the Quidditch matches… I think everyone's really been waiting for Harry Potter to grow up and for the story to move forward (Read full review)

Rating:***

A treat for non-readers as well

MUMBAI MIRROR review by Roshnee Desai

Finally, a Harry Potter movie is out, which captures the details of Harry’s amazing wizarding world that makes the book such a joy to read, page after page.
While the previous two movies, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ and ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ attempted to do this as well and did manage to finally give us a taste of magic, the first two movies were a complete waste of resources and disappointed the audiences greatly.
Like any movie adaptation of a book, as detailed and comprehensive as Harry Potter, this movie, too, miss out on a lot of the exciting bits and sometimes the entire episodes.
Leaving that aside, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, makes for an entertaining and engaging viewing. Some superb camera work teamed with excellent animation makes you finally get the feel of being in Harry Potter’s amazing world. Also, the background detailing in the scenes and the varied magical activities taking place add to the excitement and will surely be appreciated by those who have read the book, word by word. (Read full review)

Rating:***1/2

Apne review in Mumbai Mirror

Bout of depression
Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

Fairly early on in this movie, a desi event-manager and television channel head briefs Dharmendra's retired, boxing Olympic gold-medalist and coach, on his plans of a global boxing champion. If you're interested, he intends to fight a contender each from every continents. The winner would face the reigning king, whose name you hear recurrently thereafter: Luca Gracia. Immediately the final sequence of the film springs to your mind, though you're at least an hour away from the climax. It has to be Sunny Paaji, with his bare, hairy chest knocking out the said (but not yet seen) black beast to a thunderous applause. Since there isn't much else to do here, you wait for the inevitable final bout. It's better than gazing at an uncomfortably fumbling Dharmendra, a poor parody of his younger days. He plays an obsessive, depressed, almost psychotic father. Given half an opportunity to turn on the histrionics, he smashes his knuckles against glass. Back in the day, he had almost made it as the heavyweight boxing champion of the world, but for unjust doping charges levelled against him. He now pines for the same belt that his son could never earn him. The eldest one (Sunny Deol), gave up the sport because there is no money in it in India. If you see the media attention given to boxing in this movie, you would disagree. The younger one (Bobby Deol), meanwhile, has lived with a disabled hand since childhood. He whacks his numb limb in desperation, watching his drunk, depressed dad. This is when he is not dancing with that hand sewn to the pockets of his jacket. The house-wives weep abundantly meanwhile. This too shall pass. In a moment to befit movie miracles, the younger son's hand gets cured out of thin air, almost in a jiffy. Bobby's Karan Singh, a singer otherwise, begins to train through the day. He'd never held a glove in his life before. Before you can spell Mohammed Ali, our man is out there challenging the world champion in America: Lucaaa Garciaaa… Finally, the moment has arrived. The younger one suffers an unfair injury. Be certain, the wait is over, and thank the screenwriter, we can all go home. The elder brother, Sunny Paaji, will roar like a lion, if not sting like a bee, or float like a butterfly. But he will do the rest. The movie is Apne Bhai Ka Badla! Works. You get the plot (or its lack thereof). You get the picture. At best there's a word to be spared for some boxing sequences. I noticed a name credited against "boxing choreographer" on posters. This perhaps explains a rare professional touch on this tearful tacky-land. Given the setting, references to Hollywood textbooks (Rocky series, Million Dollar Baby etc) are expected. Especially when a song called Bull's Eye plays in the background, as if it were a tribute to 'Eye of the Tiger' from Rocky 3. But don't let that confound this hinterland movie's genre. This is your family-action flick, an erratic mixture of machismo and melancholy. It means that whenever the ladies and gentlemen of this family are home, they sob their hearts out. On a ring, they knock the rockers off. Pretty much a serious bout of depression all the way, I say.
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Aap Ka Suroor, review in Mumbai Mirror

No way!
Mayank Shekhar in Mumbai Mirror

It's been over two years since you've held this newspaper, the film reviews on this page, and a little metre that appears below it every weekend. Most reviews, I suspect, are cursorily glanced for their "star-ratings"; few actually bother with humble efforts beneath those linear constellations.

Yet, I am willing to bet my bottom buck you haven't quite paid attention to what those "stars" against film-titles on these pages literally stand for. Look over it now. Five stars on the indicator suggests a movie that could leave you speechless, at least it did the reviewer. By every measure of success, this one deserves those rarest of the rare ratings, never deflowered since its inception. Truly, I am speechless.

Some have waited this notable moment of world cinema for a while. Most have seen the excitable promos of Bombay auto-rickshaws chasing fast cars in Europe. You pretty much know what to expect. So did I. My two-word report on this monument would still read: No way!

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I just watched the curio, and I am still not certain if I actually watched it. Already, it seems a blurry figment of my own nightmare. When I recover, I may tell you better and more.

But if this is a true story as claimed in the posters, then Himesh bhai, our country singer, is actually the globe's greatest, yet "humble", rock star. He flies a private jet; drives the centre of a huge limo convoy. Goris of Germany just can't get enough of him; neither can Mallika Sherawat. Most women get so intimidated by his status, they don't even entertain a warm thought of him as a harmless dream.

If the story is true again, Himesh bhai is jailed for murdering a reporter, who attempted a television sting-op on him. Of course, that's a carefully cultivated conspiracy.

But never mind that. Never mind his supposed love story. Never mind the precious reason behind his sulk (he lost his laugh on his brother's death). Never mind your mind.

The true, terrible conspiracy in this movie is actually directed against Himesh Reshammiya, the actor. When he is on screen, you'll look at nothing else. Hear his spoken voice that's deliberately dubbed to sound a vague cross between a cow's moo and a horse's nay. Listen to him sing the Gayatri Mantra and the track 'Darde Dil Darde Jigar' solo over a guitar (please do it for me). Watch him awkwardly gesture and aimlessly gaze throughout in a jacket, a baseball cap and half a fool's cap page for a dialogue sheet. Check him out when he smiles once. Ogle at him match Mithun's steps. You'll be convinced the makers of this movie don't like this gentle soul too much. In the annals of pop-cultural history, this will go down as the lamest joke played on one man for this long.

I am told the filmmakers have even considered a sequel to this punishment, were it to pack theatres. Amen! But really, not fair. Last I read, making bad music wasn't a crime.
Courtesy:Mumbai Mirror
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Aap Ka Suroor review in Rediff

AKS: Only for Himesh fans
Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Rediff

Aa aa acting mein teri, Jaan jaan jayengi jaan meri.
The rephrased lines from 36 China Town best describes Himesh Reshammiya's acting debut, Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story.
Himesh's acting and the film's story is quite weak. Yet, AKS will work very well for audiences. Despite the film's shortcomings, it will not bore you.
Director Prashant Chadha has managed to balance the songs with the story, and also capture Germany beautifully.

Himesh plays a rockstar in the film, who arrives in Germany for a concert. A chance meeting with Riaa Bakshi (Hansika Motwani) who is his event manager in Germany, results in love at first sight. There's no background to HR's life -- there's no reason why he fell in love with Riaa or why he was single all the while before he met Riaa.
To play spoilsport in their love story comes Ruby James (Mallika Sherawat who has also fallen for Himesh. But of course, he's not interested in her.
The story goes that a television reporter is murdered in Himesh's room, and he gets arrested. Now, he has to prove his innocence to the world and to Riaa's father (Sachin Khedekar). If he cannot, Riaa will be married off to someone else.
The story is very ordinary. What saves it is the music. All the songs have been well-placed in the film, so that you never lose interest.
Hansika Motwani does not impress. Her emotions are restricted to excessive smiling or crying.
Himesh's sidekick Shravan does good work.
More screen time for Mallika would have made the film better. She rocks in Sholay's Mehbooba song.
Himesh is too stiff and needs to loosen up if he wants to continue acting. He has a good screen presence, but at times, looks too conscious in front of the camera.
Anyway, like Himesh promised in his interview, the reason for him not smiling is revealed in the course of the film.
If you are a Himesh fan, Aap Kaa Suroor is a must-watch. If not, avoid
Rediff verdict: ***

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Aap Ka Suroor review in Rediff

There are many reasons to make a film but when the reasons are to explain why Himesh Reshammiya always wears a cap or why he never smiles, then God save us!
Two years ago, Himesh and his childhood friend Prashant Chadha decided to make a video of the smash hit single Aashiq Banaya Aapne, featuring the singer-composer. What followed was an unparalleled success story. Now, we have a film that tries to explain the cult of Himesh Reshammiya aka HR.
Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story is about HR, a widely successful rockstar now on the German leg of his world tour. He is a simple God-fearing, non-smiling cap-wearing Indian, who imagines his dream woman in a salwar kameez even though she's walking up to him in a pink party dress! HR not only hears the Gayatri Mantra every time he comes face to face with Riyaa, he also hums a jazzed up version of it when he realises he's in love.

In between singing at every occasion and trying to save his izzat from his man-eater manager Ruby (Malika Sherawat), HR manages to get embroiled in the murder of a television reporter. The dead girl's father (Raj Babbar) is convinced that HR is the killer. So is HR's prospective father-in-law (Sachin Khedekar).
Now, it's up to HR to prove his innocence, otherwise Riaa would get married off to someone else.
The film offers nothing except a bad concoction of everything avoidable -- bad acting, clich�d dialogues, terrible one-liners and a cute terminally ill kid who smiles her way into our hearts.
The much-talked about Mehbooba song featuring Himesh with Mallika has no connection with the film's story.
The movie suffers on so many fronts that after some time, you lose the number of problems just like I lost count of the number of caps Himesh sports. He hams his way through the film as if he started acting in the 1980s but finally completed the film 20 years later. Even the songs offer nothing new.
The rest of the cast is passable. Hansika Motwani aka Riaa tries to look cute and manages to successfully employ the same done to death 'am so cute' nuances. But I could not understand why she was trying to copy Sushmita Sen !
Raj Babbar has four scenes, two of them featuring him in the same place, watching the same TV report and holding on to the same emotion.
The film seems disjointed and it's evident that the people behind it just wanted to cash on the Himesh wave. Why else would nicely photographed songs be separated by an inanity trying to masquerade as a script?
The only thing worth remembering in the film was Himesh's sidekick mentioning commenting: 'Agar naak cut gayee, toh gana kaise gayega?' Well, Himesh still has his khatarnak for that
Rediff verdict: **1/2
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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