Movie Review: 'The Dirty Picture'

Let me take up the title first - If one believes that skin-show beyond the need and letting groaning button turned on while having or imitating sex is dirty, it’s certainly is a dirty picture. But, hold your horses folks, it’s not vulgar.

Detail:

The movie opens with a story of a girl named Reshma (Vidya Balan), an aspiring actress with a view why-think-twice-when-one-life, fantasizing age-old superstar Suryakant (Naseeruddin Shah) while showering. She goes on trying to be an actress believing that she has something which others don’t, but none offers her the role. Due to her persistence and confidence, she gets a break in a dancing number and she grabs the chance by both hands. In her first shot, she turns into the steamy dancing girl making the whip make way through her deep curves while leaving the audience with jaws dropped down, mouths open and eyes lustfully wide. She becomes the ultimate sex-siren on the block and gears up to set the mercury soaring with her steamy screen presence and thereby attracting a huge fan base of lechers. She gets famous as 'Silk'. This popularity puts her in a position to work with her old fantasy Suryakant, a big womanizer, self-proclaiming to have slept with half a grand babes and still shamelessly counting number in his years of religious tours. Such filthy man is born to take advantage of anyone with only x chromosomes, so just imagine the situation when he meets this bold newcomer who is more than willing to do anything for getting film projects – the warmth turns to heat and heat turns to fire. He leaves her when he realizes that she can be threat to his marriage. 

Silk on the other hand, unaffected by this, picks his younger brother and aspiring writer Ramakant (Tusshar Kapoor) but neither of them knows what they’re into and their ways are parted smoothly like none cares, including the director Milan Luthria. Now, there’s a proud director in the movie named Abraham (Emraan Hashmi) who royally hates Silk for her sleaziness as he believes in making films which hit either brain or heart and not any other part of human body in order to luring mass to the cinema hall. But his face-to-face encounter with Silk changes his ideology and he starts dancing to her silky smooth tunes of entertainment. As time passes by, due to her arrogance and audacity, Silk becomes an unwelcome pain to everyone and ignored by most including her mother which makes her shallow and lifeless. Finally, Abraham is seen realizing him falling in love with her but he gets late in stopping her from choosing her way out of this dirty world. 

Dissection:

Naseeruddin Shah and Emraan Hashmi do justice to their given roles. The song of Vidya and Emraan is totally uncalled for. It’s a bad, boring patch. Vidya is unquestionably the showstopper. Even though she proudly exhibits her pendulous fleshes which in today’s time is a mockery-material, her inviting body language with unrestrained straight talk, luscious lips-pressing and seductive eye-winking prove her unshakable self-confidence and make her click hard. 

There is a sudden character mismatch found in the letter which Silk leaves for Abraham at the end, which has her view of the world. She is, for a change and for a moment, portrayed sentimental but it doesn’t sink well or sound genuine as she only keeps on blowing the trumpet that she is ‘entertainment’ and continuously keeps on breaching her own character lows. So when people take you seriously for your way of entertainment, you can’t be the source of ‘enlightenment’ at the end to show your soft side! She comes across as a fluffy hare raring to find lion and dancing its way to his mouth to be eaten in order to be noticed by the world. So, no sympathy granted here. 

Tusshar looks as pitiable in the movie as in reality for lack of films. My sincere condolences are just for him for his real life situation than for Silk for her end. By the way, on this note, the way Abraham is attracted towards Silk despite he despised her all through the movie, is as mysterious as the need of Tusshar’s role for this movie.

Deduction:

In the dirty film industry, one aspiring actress comes, stumbles, learns, screws her life in every way and finally ends it. The Dirty Picture is a justification of why dirty pictures are made, why they work for mass audience and still why they’re not given an open welcome. It tries to portray that such movies are only embraced behind the closed doors of the house and not in public at large. But don’t apply your mind. No message is manifest unless you’re desperate to find one.

Go for this movie. It can’t belong to the best of the lot but it’s a sincerely brave attempt. It’s a total fun, especially when its super-bold one-liners with repartees only are worth your time and ticket and the foot-tapping, shoulder-jumping number ‘Ooh Lala’ with the ‘entertainment’ of 2 hours and 20 minutes becomes the big cherry on the cake!

Movie Review: 'Rascals'

If you want to take a severe revenge against someone in a good way, then gift them the tickets of Rascals. He’ll die watching, I bet. It’s a jerks-being-jokers drama.

It’s a second movie in a row which put me in an annoying confusion as to what words to choose for showing the deepest disgust. This puts Mausam in a much respectful light. The meaning of the movie’s title is much better than the feeling after facing the movie. Ajay and Sanjay are shown as filthy, characterless dogs continuously wagging their tails while sticking their tongues out, salivating in front of the hot babes throughout the movie. To attract these jerks, girls are shown in least possible clothes. The desperate duo keeps on looting innocents and takes pride in that. They even engage in a competition with each other with a view to proving who the better rascal is. Without a weightless story and hummable songs, the crap sucks even more.

The movie makes you go through a tough tolerance test. It’s a total torturous time-waste on god knows what. Save this money. Have two more sweets on coming festival or if you can’t control and dying to spend, then help the first beggar you come across with whatever money you want to. There’s nothing in the movie. The difference between being funny and being a joker is not at all there. Except for a few handful scenes, the actors are not able to carry off the comedy, mostly because the script was completed like a dumb school kid finishes his homework in the last minute. ‘Irritating’ would be the compliment and ‘Pathetic’ is the word for the movie. Beware of the ‘Rascals’.

My view: Book - 'Revolution 2020' by Chetan Bhagat

Revolution 2020

What’s in it?

At first, the book’s title seemed a bit serious to me unlike most of his earlier books and after reading, I changed my opinion from serious to thought-provoking. Yes, it definitely is. With this book, Chetan seems to have gone forward to shake the things up in the society through his genuine effort of igniting the silent spirit of youth. I’m not going to kill the charm of reading a book by letting out a story but here is what builds the plot. 

The story revolves around three friends; two boys and a girl. As they grow, their situations change and so priorities change. Friendship is confused with love and questioned with jealousy. Love is formed, confused and replaced on the basis of inadequacy-filling future safety. Ambition is directed by forced situation and is driven by the loved ones. Passion is always fearless and finds its own way to get there. It shows how miscommunications in real life invite misperceptions and create mishaps which eventually lead to misery. Corruption is a captivating game which involves most if not all and this is boldly displayed through many categorical remarks. 

Must say that Bhagat once again successfully proves himself the master of pressing right buttons of “Indian” emotions through his brilliantly narrated observations. It’s a real page-turner, unputdownable mature tale which poses burning questions the very fundamentals of the systems; be it human value system or inhuman political one.

Movie Review: Mausam

Confession time: I didn’t know that I dragged my day to the worst corner of hell. I unknowingly punished myself which still hurts. I saw the movie Mausam. Why in the damn world did I assume this a sensible romantic love story and went ahead to spoil the best-formed image of the finest actor Pankaj Kapur? Okay, so here I undergo my self-abasement by spreading the hate-review or a bit modestly, dislike-review. 

This is a story of two old-school love birds – a Kashmiri girl and a Punjabi boy. First time they come across each other in the small town of Punjab. They never clearly admit that they sense naughty adrenaline flowing when they even see each other. Till more than half of the movie they sneakingly see each other, especially Harry (Shahid) who otherwise is cocksure but initially shown chicken in front of Aayat (Sonam).Then they take their own time in graduating the shy and yet-to-be-admitted courtship. After a short period of playing hide-and-seek, they have to separate. First they don’t deliberately meet, then circumstances don’t let them, then misunderstandings take over and finally when they do, you’re tired and the movie is over. Few good things include the old romantic way of exchanging notes in those few moments of their mostly accidental meet, charming ways of nicely showing affection and the initial two songs which I forgot by the time the movie was finally finished.

The director has put his heart and soul in making this couple look as much pitiable and luckless as possible. But, the point is: Devil lies in the detail. The attempt to showcase the excessive misery calls for the emergence of totally impractical story-plot. This so-called script covers the protagonists go through all the possible misfortunes happened in India since 1982 to 2002. The director shows the tragic events in the utterly boring or should I say, death-seeking installments. In the span of two decades, this love survives, matures silently with the never-flickering hope of being together. They are shown the best examples of the demand raised for the cellphone and its existence for the human life. God spare me if I say, the director did not seem in a mood to give them any even if the period taken were between 2001 to 2011. It is a comprehensive history book picturized through the eyes of two lovers frustrated with their lives and which moves forward with a snail speed – may be because Pankaj Kapur creatively thought of giving ample time to the audience to be equally empathetic as the characters were!

It is advised to invest in this turbulent stock market which may give you some positive return rather than in this case, where you’re sure to lose money as well as mood.

Won prizes for 'Aarakshan'

My sincere thanks to Television Eighteen India Ltd. for this appreciation for my utterly casual review of 'Aarakshan'.

Movie Review: Aarakshan

It’s an ideal picturization of a true teacher who is portrayed beautifully in the movie. This teacher, in his personal capacity, dauntlessly gives a strong fight with his robust principles to the airheaded and discriminatory dolts who are anti-quota and pro-outside-coaching. But why is it titled ‘Aarakshan’ when it was just a small morality-tester? It should have been ‘Shikshak’ or ‘Shiksha’ or whatever better-suited but this. Given title might have been expected to work out as a marketing tool but it backfired instead and got the movie banned in three states. There are a few good punches relevant to the subject chosen and a lot of unnecessary emotional hammerings, totally irrelevant to the subject which created uncalled for hoopla. It is a movie made to highlight the ironic game between the politicians’ power and today’s teachers’ greed, naming it an Education!

Bachchan smoothly carries the centre of gravity of the movie on his shoulder and Bajpai effortlessly pulls off his cunning bit. Saif's character, grown up under the shadow of his school principal and mentor, Bachchan, is a promising dalit-representative who does justice to the pressing-issue related dialogues assigned to him. Deepika, as tough teacher’s daughter, has nothing more to do with words than expressions which also are not challenging enough to demand her acting skills. Movie overall is okay but honestly, easily ignorable. May be that’s why even I didn’t bother going into the depth for telling a story which has a diluted topic and a different preaching.

Movie Review: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

ZNMD is a get-up-my-dear-take-on-your-fear kind inspiring, engaging and musical tale of three friends struggling through inadequacies and finally succeeding to cultivate the ideal approach to life. It is awesomely architected story which effortlessly and convincingly portrays the fact that it is not difficult to re-programme your mind regardless of your age, especially when your best buddies are around!

It’s a story of three different-minded yet emotionally-connected friends getting together after a long time before one of them ties the nagging knot. The victim is Kabir (Abhay) and this tying the knot is a knotty affair for him as it is nothing more than a funny accident. He lets himself slide through others’ overpowering emotions and ends up proposing a girl named Natasha (Kalki) who ecstatically agrees to this proposal as she claims to love him. Before virtually hanging himself by the mundane marriage knot, he plans of arranging a bachelor trip – a boys’ hangout to some fab place. 

This hangout just can’t happen without either of his two closest pals, his pact-mates Arjun (Hrithik) and Imran (Farhan). Arjun is totally into money-making as he’s a financial broker and enjoys keeping himself proudly stuck in his business drudgeries. Imran, on the other hand is a facetious freak by nature, freewheeling flirt by behavior, writer by profession, poet by passion and yes, a royal pain in Arjun’s ass. The trio heads on for a 21-day road trip to the beautiful Spain to enjoy the seventh heaven. Men turn to boys (bwoyz) and go crazily “mental”. Three of them break their comforting shells and quench for the thrill of the moments full of uncertainties. State of uncertainty has its own excitement and charm. All put themselves in top gear before plunging into spine-chilling adventures. During this trip, one charming babe, the diving instructor, Laila (Katrina), a totally contented and never-regretting soul joins the pack and shares the life-secrets through easily understandable demos, especially to her love-at-first-sight Arjun.

Now, everyone, sooner or later, comes across one solid transformational threshold in his life which takes him to the state of fearlessness; a state of being so light yet so powerful that gives him the courage to boldly go for what he wants. Here, our three heroes experience the same Buddha-moment in this Spain trip of three weeks. Nicely woven by Zoya Akhtar, all these independent realizations are immediate results of the encounters with their greatest individual fears. Hydrophobic Arjun, having deep-dived in the mid sea, washes him off his fears and finds the beauty of life while his swimming underwater translates to pleasing introspection. Acrophobic Imran gets rid of his fear in skydiving by nosediving from the plane. Socio-phobic Kabir overcomes his problem by being true to his ownself rather than pretending for society in order to please everyone. 

Overall, Abhay is really good. Hrithik is really cool. Farhan is super-duper-cool. Katrina, for a change, is a hot life-coach and Kalki is a role-filler. The movie certainly has the potential to touch a chord with the audience of all ages. The concept is fresh and the contexts are new; for instance, showing gift for mom being misinterpreted as engagement ring by a girl, silly school pranks, punching situational poems, catchy adventure sports of surmounting shortfalls, Tomatina festival and emotional bonds within the bounds of practicality etc. Bollywood was thirsty of something so refreshingly youthful since long. This movie for which a few may gently complain of being a little overstretched is yet undoubtedly very much enjoyable. ZNMD claims by meaning Zoya Nailsdown a Master Director.