Movie Reviews - March and April

It has been an unbelievably long time since I have posted a movie review of a Bollywood film, even though I have seen quite a few of them. Today, I sneaked out some quality keyboard time in office while my colleagues were attending a training programme and wrote out movie reviews of some films that I have watched over the past two months.

Movie Reviews of Films

Raaz - The Mystery Continues - Horror - 6/10 - Starring Emraan Hashmi, Kangana Ranaut and Jackie Shroff. Emraan Hashmi plays Prithvi, an artist with a gift for making paintings about the future of Nandini, a model played by Kangana Ranaut. He attempts to warn her about some 'horror' paintings that he has made about her.....and from here on starts the saga of dark lobbies, hidden lighting, gothic decor, sharp instruments, blood and screaming.

The songs of 'Raaz - The Mystery Continues' were good. Acting was better than most acting shown in Bollywood movies nowadays. Storyline was action packed and interesting while direction was not bad. The line, 'Tum Ashudh Ho, Sadh Chuke Ho', from the movie, which was written on the walls by possessed characters before they kill themselves, is something that will stick in the minds of viewers for some time to come.


Aa Dekhen Zara - Action/ Paranormal - 2/10 - Starring Neil Nitish Mukesh and Bipasha Basu. The movie is about a photographer who inherits a camera that takes futuristic photographs of the subject or person photographed. The movie was quite slow paced and the director was unable to capitalize on making moments of suspense and action look exciting. Neil Nitin Mukesh has a cunningly sharp look and was badly cast as the innocent photographer. I watched it up to the scene where the magic camera starts taking black photos of the subject. Later, the movie was unable to hold my attention.

Golmaal Returns - Comedy - 4/10 - Starring Ajay Devgan, Kareena Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Celina Jaitley, Tusshar Kapoor and Amrita Arora. I don't remember just how bad 'Golmaal 1' sucked, but this installment seemed to be a wee bit better, basically because of Shreyas Talpade's expressions. The movie is a slapstick sort of cheap comedy with lots of gay jokes about the life of four guys. The story revolves around Kareena Kapoor's character of a soap watching wife who suspects her husband (Ajay Devgan) of infidelity. He in turn attempts to prove her wrong, with the help of his friends. Golmaal Returns was mostly irritating, but won some laughs in certain parts - like the Anthony Gonsalves Scene. It is an ok timepass sort of film to watch on a hot, boring, lonely Sunday afternoon...if you have absolutely nothing to do.

Delhi 6 - Drama - 1/10 - Starring Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor. Just like all Abhishek Bachchan films minus John Abraham, this too was a damp squib. The story is about the visit of an NRI to his ancestral home in India.The narrative was snail paced, unrealistic and boring. Abhishek Bachchan's fake foreign accent and 'strolling on sets' acting sucked big time. The music, sets and look of the film were very old fashioned. Costumes especially, were totally wrong - eg. Delhi women usually wear salwar kameez and not saris, Abhishek Bachan's clothes didn't look 'Made in USA' whereas Sonam Kapoor's hippie look was just so not Delhi-ish. Those scenes about the cow giving birth, monkey man and ramlila were so lame.... it's a shame they were included in the film. Gosh, what was the director smoking???

Billu Barber - Drama - 2/10 - Starring Irfan Khan, Lara Dutta and Shahrukh Khan. The story is about a village barber's attempts to attract the attention of a filmstar - who was once his childhood friend, when the movie star visits his village for the shooting of a film. The village part of the movie and Irfan Khan's acting was realistic. However, the movie soon moved into avoidable melodrama, and reached it's peak when Shah Rukh Khan gave a tearful boring speech about his friend 'Billu' at the end. Songs were hummable. King Khan should have stayed out of this bit part role of a movie.

DevD - Drama - 2/10 - Starring Abhay Deol and Kalki Koechlin. This remake of the Bengali classic Devdas was really vulgar and crass. True, it may reflect a certain type of reality which, to my good fortune I have never experienced. However, I was so embarrassed watching the scenes and abusive dialogue in the first 10 minutes, that I just gave up watching this film. Songs, however, were refreshingly different. I forwarded the movie to the end, and saw that 'Dev' does not die, but rides merrily into the sunset on his bike with Chanda, his Chandramukhi. I was really disappointed coz I really wanted to see a loser guy like Devdas suffer and tragically meet his end...

Have you watched any of these movies? What did you think of them??