Ishqiya: Review

When Ishqiya‘s trailer came out in October last year, I got hooked, just in one go. It was clearly one the best trailers I’d seen in a long time! So today was the D-Day, the star studded premier of the movie, and I was lucky enough to get the passes.

Well, I’ll try to keep it simple and write what was my opinion. First of all, I thought it was a great ensemble of artists, from Naseeruddin Shah Sahab (Khalujaan) to Vidya Balan (Krishna Verma), Arshad Warsi (Babban Hussain) and of course, Vishal Bharadwaj, even though he wasn’t the director, yet you could make out it was his writing, it had his “essence”. This was Abhishek Chaubey‘s debut movie as a director, before this he wrote screenplay for Vishal Bharadwaj‘s earlier movies like Kaminey, Omakara etc. so probably that too justifies the “essence” I mentioned above.

Even though it was an ensemble of one of my all time favorite artists, unfortunately the movie didn’t work for me, and I’m all heartbroken writing this. I really had high expectations from it, but the whole storytelling went haywire. Half way through the movie I was looking for pieces of puzzle to put together, just so it could justify what was happening on the screen. First half was somewhat an intro, with hilarious dialogues, which is how most movies are. But, the main story and confusion began in the second half when things started to converge. Instead of converging at one point, the stories started to overlap each other. What could have been a great story, became complex for no apparent reason, plus there were some glitches in the movie, the kind of glitches I didn’t expect this movie to have. After the movie, there was small session with the entire cast of the movie, where Vishal Bharadwaj mentioned that this project was being worked on for over 2 years. Well whenever that happens, either we a get Great story or a Confused story. That’s probably what happened with Ishqiya, and when the movie was about to end, in my mind an episode of Entourage was running, because of the similarities. The one where Meddellin premiers at Cannes Film Festival and people walk in with big expectations post all the hype, and come out disappointed, but here people seemed to like it, or at least they said so. The freaky part: Abhishek Chaubey does resemble Billy Walsh (Character in Entourage, played director of the movie Meddellin) .

Anyway, back to the story, movie has been set in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, which happens to have the perfect small town feel to it. Like Vishal Bharadwaj‘s previous movies this too has the raw earthy feel to it, be it the accent, locations, dialogues, everything. Other than the story, what did work perfectly, were the performances, the three in lead were undoubtedly brilliant, but special mention to Alok Kumar, the kid who played Nandu, and Rajesh Sharma, owner of the KK Steel Co. (You might remember him as Munjal from Khosla Ka Ghosla), even though small roles they did deliver perfectly. However, it was really hard to catch Salman Shahid‘s dialogues (Mushtaq – Brother in law of Khalujaan), because of the accent he had in the movie.

-Tiny spoiler-

Apart from great performances, do look out for a passionate kiss between Arshad Warsi and Vidya Balan, well I’m mentioning this because I have NEVER seen such a kiss before in ANY Indian movie. I don’t know how elder people watching the movie took it, but I certainly found it as a sign that Filmmakers have started showing intimate scenes like they happen in real life, but not throw in just for the sake of showing it. Also, make sure you watch the movie without any distractions, because there are some really hilarious dialogues and strong language (read curses) in the movie which you might miss out if you don’t pay attention, and yeah, super songs as well.

Even though the movie fails in storytelling, watch it for the performances and dialogues, sheer brilliant. I still feel sorry, had so wished for the movie to be great. But yeah, one thing is certain; director Abhishek Chaubey has great potential.

P.S. Special thanks to my good friend Priya Mishra, for the passes.

Rating: 2.5/5

Year: 2010

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345777

Acid Factory

No, I wasn’t waiting for this movie, nor did I spend a penny on it. [Thanks to people at PVR, they invited me for Premier].

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Just when you thought the era of “inspired” movies was over, along came Acid Factory! Oh, what waste this movie was. Even though I haven’t seen the Unknown (The movie Acid Factory is inspired from) but just by reading the Plot, you can tell it is an exact copy, even the duration is same [95 mins (Acid Factory) 98 mins (Unknown)].With a cast like Fardeen Khan, Dia Mirza, Aftab Shivdasani and Dino Morea in the lead, I bet no had any expectations from it, but just to compensate that it had Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa and Irrfan Khan, but their presence really didn’t help. Former 4 actors had a same expressions on their face, or should I say no expression on their face. The “suspense” can easily be decrypted just half way though the movie, which makes seating for the second half unbearable. Anyway, other than the movie I have a constant thing running in my mind, how does the Censor Board work in India? I recently saw an interview of Madhur Bhandarkar who said, he had to edit out the movie in order to get it passed by the Board, even the nude scenes by Neil Nitin Mukesh, which were in total relevance of the story [Unreleased Movie: Jail]. Whereas we have Board passing insanely inappropriate half naked girls dancing around in an “Item Number” (Yeh Jism), which of course we all know, have no relevance in a movie moreover they give the U/A certificate! Major glitch in the system.

Getting back to Acid Factory, avoid it! With a little humor thrown in and no story present, this movie so not worth catching it. I wonder how did they manage to get producers.

Rating: 0.5/5 (Very generous)

Year: 2009

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1201557

Inglourious Basterds

Another movie for which I got only good things to tell!

The brilliance that lies in the Quentin Tarantino‘s work is distinctive in it’s own commen

dable way! He is known for overdoing certain things, like the bloodshed, fight sequences which work perfectly, for him, and of course throwing in some awesome dark humor (Pulp Fiction – best example), you will get to see all this in Inglourious Basterds. I might have little bias for the movie, probably because of the duo, Quentin Tarantino–Brad Pitt, and come on, I bet just first look of the movie would have got you hooked on for sure!

I personally find the movies set in the Nazi era very fascinating and also the ones based on racism, like The Pianist and Schindler’s List [Both Oscar winning flicks – must watch btw] based on former, and American History X & Crash, based on latter.

Now coming on to Inglourious Basterds, movie is set in Nazi era showing slaughter of the Jews by the SS and Nazi Army but not to the extent of Schindler’s or even Pianist, more than the Jews, it has gore filled with slaughter of Nazi army, and that too, Gore-Tarantino-Style!

Even though it might appear that the story’s protagonist is Brad Pitt, I really didn’t find that way, in fact I found the story somewhat revolving around Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus) (who btw is a French actress) and what amazing performance she delivered, I’m a fan!

Speaking of performance, do look out for Christoph Waltz, the guy in “negative role” – Nazi Col. Hans Landa, sheer brilliance!

The characters or the “Bastards” if you may, have been hand picked and have done perfect justice. Take for example Eli Roth who played Sgt. Donowitz aka The Jew Bear, great screen presence.

Now, Brad Pitt – Lt. Aldo Raine, supporting a thick Southern accent, gave out a great performance, as always, but didn’t really have a lot of screen time, as I said earlier, not really the protagonist. Mike Myres has a “guest appearance”, nothing that’ll stick to your memory.

There are some really hard hitting sequences in the movie, like at the end when the projector keeps rolling but projection comes on to the Smoke with the sound still on, it sent chills down my spine. Or the one where The Jew Bear lashed out on a Nazi Officer in the middle of the Jungle, whoa!

Now having said all this, the movie did not leave a mark in my memory, which obviously I expected it would. And what could have been better, the background score, there was so much possibility there.

Anyway, this one the biggest movies of this year and worth catching on big screen, and a little heads up, movie has lot of French and German, so keep an I on the screen – subtitles .

P.s. I still have to confirm if Inglourious Basterds is remake of the Italian movie – Quel maledetto treno blindato.

Rating: 4/5

Year: 2009

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748

Kaminey

A remake of Pulp Fiction? Yes and NO! Yes, because it does have the “feel” of Pulp Fiction and you can relate Kaminey to it. No, because even though it does feel like Pulp Fiction a little, it doesn’t matter since the movie has way more to offer! Kaminey is a great package, in terms of performance, plot line, humor, romance and action, which was much needed by the Industry and the viewers as well. It definitely reaches the top watch of this year, after Dev.D (In case you missed this one, then you have no idea what I’m talking about).

A “masala flick” which is perfectly directed, and so well, that it gives a whole new definition to “masala flicks”. What I personally feel, Vishal Bharadwaj tried his best that no one could typecast this movie; he molded two to three different genres of every aspect, in it. Ok, let’s start from the star cast first: Shahid Kapur & Priyanka Chopra, who are out-and-out “mainstream” actors, then Amole Gupte and Shivkumar Subramaniam (I remember his movie Parahar, brilliant!), the ensemble of actors was made from different forte. Then the humor in this movie is again a mix of different kinds, from lame jokes to dark humor to strategically placed punch lines, and situational comedy. There are loads of moments in the movie where you’ll really laugh-out-loud! And, same thing goes for the music (which is very good by the way)!

As for performances, kudos to Vishal Bharadwaj for squeezing out the best from Shahid Kapur and Priyanka Chopra, now both of them can proudly go around saying they are “good actors”. Both of them have performed with such an amazing ease, watching them on screen makes it a delight! Amole Gupte too has done an amazing job! Speaking of actors, I just realized Kaminey has just 6 characters out of which only 4 have names.

Now comes Vishal Bharadwaj, ok, I’m going to be a little biased as I’m a big fan of this guy! He has done a great job on this movie, not his best but definitely great! But the movie does have brilliant cinematography! Very well balanced movie yet the second half feels a little dragged, and the masses might find the movie “dark colored”, you’ll find the whole movie has been shot either in dawn, dusk or at night. One more special mention goes to the sequence when both the brothers confront each other, for a moment you’ll forget there’s only one Shahid Kapur in real.

Even though the movie has the title which translates to Rascal in English, and it’s a Vishal Bharadwaj‘s movie, surprisingly it doesn’t have any strong swears like Omakra and Maqbool. So you can watch this one with your family without any awkward air.

What I personally feel, it’s because of Directors like him, Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee, Indian Cinema has a meaning!

That pretty much sums up the whole movie, but I still feel there’s lot more to be mentioned here, but it might work as spoiler. One special mention and thanks to PVR guys who sponsored this movie for me. So, catch Kaminey at a PVR near you!

Rating: 3.5/5

Year: 2009

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1274295