3 Idiots: Review

First of all, apologies for not posting anything for almost 2 months, blame: Exams. A lot happened during this time. Will post all that stuff, soon!

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This post has nothing on the controversy between the makers of the 3 Idiots and Chetan Bhagat, pure my take on the movie. Interested in reading that? Check out these posts on PFC and moifightclub.

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Now, again I’m too late for posting a review on 3 Idiots, much has been said already, from being the best movie of 2009 to “it’s better than Rang De Basanti“, to what not! Here’s my take, I’ll quote what I read on another blog, moifightclub, because that’s exactly what I thought after watching it last night: “RajKumar Hirani lied to all of us and made the same film again. Its Munnabhai B Tech.”.

People have been talking about how the movie is based on Chetan Bhagat‘s novel Five Point Someone and not, but I don’t know how many of you noticed how the movie is very similar to Munnabhai MBBS! Raju Hirani and Aamir Khan continue to make movies on social issues, which of course is not a bad thing. In 3 Idiots, issue that they tried to raise is the glitch in Indian Education system. As for the movie, to make things easier for you, what the movie is actually about, I came up with this small equation:

3 Idiots = FPS(Book) + Munnabhai MBBS + With a hint of Taare Zameen Par + Lots of Emotional moments + A superbly graphed script.

But does that mean it’s a bad movie? Not all! It’s the kinda movie you go to laugh, laugh and apparently learn a thing or two about life. Rajkumar Hirani and Amir Khan made sure to tickle the emotional and the comic balls of the audience at the same time! Which seems to be the new trend in all the Comedy movies these days, which I mentioned in the Ice Age 3 post as well.

3 Idiots is a good watch, but definitely not the best of 2009. You are sure to walk out the theater repeating some of the dialogs, laughing and remembering the some of the moments, like:

-Where students pray to God before their results are about to come out.

-The Silencer‘s “Balatkar speech”.

-One where Joy sings “Give me some sunshine“. The emotion and situation shown was brilliant! (That actually gave me goosebumps)

Being an Engineering student, I could relate to certain parts in the movie. But having said this, there ARE moments where the makers went overboard with “intelligence” of the IIT students or was it I.C.E., you’ll know what I’m talking about once you watch the movie.

As for performances, Aamir Khan (Rancho), R. Madhavan (Farhan Qureshi) and Sharman Joshi (Raju Rastogi), did complete justice to their characters, except for not “looking” their age. You cannot possibly make a 40 year old play 18, oh come on! Boman Irani did go a little over the top playing Veeru Sahasrabuddhe, whereas Kareena Kapoor (Pia) didn’t have any significant role in the movie, any other “pretty” looking actress would have been just fine. The surprise packages of the movie were Omi Vaidya, the actor who played Chatur Ramalingam (Silencer), Mona Singh (Pia’s sister), and Rahul Kumar (Millimeter), what smooth performances!

Despite all the humor and comic moments, movie failed to leave a mark on me, probably because using the same formula with a different wrapping paper doesn’t always work, but you are sure to have a good time watching it.

Rating: 3/5

Year: 2009

Director: Rajkumar Hirani

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1187043

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

Love Aaj Kal

Haven’t we’ve had enough of all the “guy meets girl, separate (enter the song “Dooriyan”), realize they’ve made a mistake when it’s too late” bullcrap movies? Unfortunately, NO! And sadly enough, I don’t even see it happening anytime soon, especially after looking at the box-office opening of Love Aaj Kal. To put it simple for you, picture a movie with Hum Tum & Jab We Met sorts humor, and cheesy dialogs of any corny Hindi movie, with usual London in the background and some “peppy” soundtracks and of course, a “Mr. Cupid” (Rishi Kapoor in this case, same as Hum Tum but not as Saif’s father this time), you have Love Aaj Kal. By the way, by “Cupid” I mean the guy who puts all the sanity in the actor to go after his “love” and also, he’s been through the same and blah. Movie has some witty jokes thrown at the right moments but that’s about it. No. of times I saw my watch: 5 [In a 2 hrs movie, that’s a lot, it felt neverending]. Saif Ali Khan (Jai Vardhan Singh) has sort of replayed the character of Karan Kapoor (Hum Tum). As for Deepika Padukone (Meera Pandit), to put it subtly, she doesn’t know how to act. She looks great on the big screen and knows how to dance, but story ends there. The girl has potential but it can only be tapped if she joins an acting school.

By the title Love Aaj Kal, they simply mean how love stories used to be in the past and how they are now. Anyway, if you don’t have anything better to do (like today, I didn’t) go for this one, better yet wait for the DVD.

Rating: 1.5/5 (Generous)

Year: 2009

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1275863

Andaz Apna Apna

Poster

You think most of us have seen this movie, well that’s the illusion you live in! There are people out there who haven’t even heard about it, leave aside watching!

This is by far the most hilarious movie I’ve ever seen, and I can say that because I’m a total sucker for comedy movies. Trust me; no list of comedy movies is complete withoutAndaz Apna Apna in it! In case you doubt it, well here’s a fact, this movie is listed on #27 on the IMDB list of top comedy movies of all times. The story revolves around two small town boys who try to make it BIG in the World, how? For that watch the movie. What dialogs, what brilliant comic timing, one word Awesome!

Amir Khan and Salman Khan at their very best, and so are Paresh Rawal, Shakti Kapoor & rest of the cast. Some of my favorite dialogs:

“You are very jokey”

“Gogo ji apka ghagara”

“Sawaal ek, jawaab do. Sawaal ek, jawaab do. Sawaal-jawaab, Sawaal-jawaab, chup.. lambi khamoshi”

😀

Rating: 5!

Year: 1994

Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/com/2032577

Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109117