Movie Preview : Aashayein

Aashayein is another experimental movie from talented young director- Nagesh Kukunoor who ropes in John Abraham, masculine and handsome model turned Bollywood actor for the main lead for the first time.
Aashayein starts with Rahul Singh (John Abraham), a compulsive gambler   winning Rs.20 million from a bet. He throws a lavish party to celebrate in which he also proposes Nafisa (Sonal Sehgal). He announces their engagement to all present, then collapses on the floor. In hospital, he learns that he has only 90 days to live. Here story takes philosophical turn as Rahul sets for a journey to live remaining last 90 days of life to the fullest which eventually turns out to be a truth seeking experience. In 90 days as he meets different people, experiences different shades of life – love, hatred, hope, despair, death, light and dark and discovers the truth of life.

Releasing date- June 20, 2008
Language- Hindi
Genre- Drama
Cast & Crew: Cast: John Abraham, Prateeksha Lonkar, Shreyas Talpade, Anaitha Nair

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Movie Review : Sarkar Raj (2008)

Ram Gopal Verma had a point to prove in the bollywood after the disastrous sequel of Sholey- RGV Ki Aag and he does it with style by his newly released movie – Sarkar Raj. He is the best in the business when it comes to the movies of duo of politics and crime genre.

With the sequel of earlier box office successful and critically acclaimed Sarkar, he had a bigger task of taking the legend ahead while narrating a new drama; and to a decent degree he succeeds in carrying the legacy forward. While prequel was inspired from Francis Ford Coppola’s classic Godfather 1, sequel draws no inspiration from Godfather 2 and it’s an original script by Ramu himself and Prashant Pandey. The script is tightly held throughout the movie and is almost flawless.

In the sequel, Sarkar aka Subhash Nagre (Amitabh Bachchan) takes a backseat as son Shankar Nagre (Abhishek Bachchan) takes hold of the family empire. An NRI industrialist Anita Ranjan (Aishwarya Rai) approaches the Nagre family with a power plant project to be set in the local lands of Maharashtra under Sarkar’s domain. After initial reluctance, Sarkar gives a go ahead to the venture which soon takes shape of a political conspiracy.

Ramu’s narration of the story has its own style. His stories are strongly bonded with strong characters still characters never supersede the script. Every character neatly performs under the boundaries of the story and superb narration makes a perfectly glued characters and story.In this movie also RGV has kept the theme of the prequel intact with popular “Govinda-Govinda” chanting. In some parts movie takes repetitive tone of its prequel especially in the portrayal of villain characters. Characters are moulded in same set of minds like in the prequel and it quits the freshness of the script.

Ramu adopted new character responsibility when he reversed the roles of Amitabh Bachhan and Abhishek Bachhan in the sequel. While Abhishek Bachhan is side watcher in the first half of the prequel and take the front lead in later half, in sequel Abhishek leads in the first half and Big B takes command in the later half.
Though entire movie is well knit with its marvelous script, what leaves you breathless is the climax of the story when new surprises emerges leaving you amazed with beautiful and logical explanation. Dialogues are meaningful and well though of. Screenplay of the climax is flawless and work of Amitabh Bachhan on the screen pays off well.

From acting’s point of view Aish is better, Govind Namdev, Saiyaji Shinde and Upendra Lamaye typical RGV characters. Amitabh Bachhan is ever evolving and anything is insufficient to describe his acting prowess. But the major attraction of this movie is Abhishek Bachhan’s performance. We have seen the hint of talent he has in his earlier movies – Yuva, Guru and Sarkar. He has grown better and better with every movie and it seems Big B can be proud of the way junior B has commanded in his past movies. This movies marks the new beginning in Abhishek’s career. He is definitely in the race of country’s finest acting talent all time. He is calm, evolving gracious and self confident. He can become true successor of Big B , if continued on this path.

Overall must watch for all who enjoys movies. A masterpiece to watch.

Cast
Cast: Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan,

Crew
Publicity Designer: Rahul Nanda, Himanshu Nanda
Story Writer: Prashant Pandey
Sound Designer: Debashish Mishra
Director: Ram Gopal Varma
Producer:  Pravin Nischol, Z Picture Company, Ram Gopal Varma

Music
Music Director: Bapi – Tutul
Background Sound: Amar Mohile
Music Company: T-Series

Rating – 4.5/5

Movie Review : Aamir (2008)

Aamir is an intriguing tale of politico-conspiracy thriller genre. It’s a debut movie for Rajiv Khandelwal.

It’s a story of a doctor who was living his peaceful and comfortable life in London and all of a sudden he is amidst of enigmatic conspiracy, criminal world and scapegoat of terrorist activities. Aamir Ali who returns from London is surprised to see no one at air port to receive him at the airport from his family. In a dramatic scene, he finds out that his family has been kidnapped by a terrorist group and if he wants to save their life he will have to follow their instruction. Horrified and scared Aamir follow their instruction and thus start his never ending- traumatic journey through narrow , dirty, unknown Mumbai lanes.

Eventually he figures out that he is being involved in a bombing conspiracy. Story also draws inspiration from the theme of Muslim Victimization in the wake of terrorism in the movies of this year like Shaurya, Khuda Ke liye, Black and White, A Hope and Little Sugar. Movie ultimately tries to raise the ubiquitous question – do you choose your destiny or does destiny choose you?
The movie does well in the first half when the story is fast, well bound and well shot with technical excellence. Cameragraphy is good with disturbing camera effects, focus on eyes of Aamir who is running wildly in strange lanes of Mumbai,-horrified, scared and confused. His run scenes are exceptionally well shot and Rajiv’s natural acting is a delight to watch as a common man. The background is well placed with the pace of the movie.

But movie ends rather meekly with some illogical and unsolved questions like why Aamir was chosen for this mission. Its fails in the climax as story becomes loose and untidy.

Movie has its plus points in the acting of Rajiv Khandelwal’s performance as he has played the role of common man. He has shown remarkable talent and we will surely see more of him in coming future.
Despite its all setbacks movie should be applauded for its daring steps and keeping it away from the typical bollywood masala of love angle, item numbers, and songs. Those who like experiments and movies different from Mundane bollywood stuff , are advised to watch the movie.

Casting

Producer : Ronnie Screwvala

Associate Producer : Ram Mirchandani, Alpana Mishra

Co-Producer : Zarina Mehta, Vikas Bahl, Deven Khote, Siddharth Roy Kapur

Creative Producer : Anurag Kashyap

Director : Rajkumar Gupta

Cast : Rajeev Khandelwal

Music Director : Amit Trivedi

Lyricist : Amitabh

Story Writer : Rajkumar Gupta

Dialogue Writer : Rajkumar Gupta

Screenplay Writer : Rajkumar Gupta

Editor : Aarti Bajaj

Production Designer : Wasiq Khan

Playback Singer : Qadir Khan, Murtuza Khan, Amit Trivedi, Neuman Pinto, Shilpa Rao, Amitabh

Movie Preview : God Tusi Great Ho

‘God Tusi Great Ho’ is the debut movie for writer turned director Rumi Jaffery who has written scripts of Chalte Chalte , Mujhse Shadi Karoge, Aa Ab Laut Chalein and Rang. Movie has super-natural touch in its theme.

The story revolves around Arun Prajapati (Salman Khan) who wants to be a successful TV anchor but faces failure at whatever he does. He is in love with Alia ( Priyanka Chopra) who is a TV anchor. Arun portrays very unhappy character who blames God for all of his failures. Story takes a dramatic turn when rocky (Sohail Khan) joins as TV anchor in the same TV channel in which Alia works. Arun becomes desperately hopeless since he believes that he will loose Alia to Rocky. Circumstances become worse when Arun is thrown out of channel and he again blames it all on God. At this things take supernatural turn as Almighty God appears before him and both get involved in an argument about God’s efficiency in running worldly matters. Arun claims that he can do the job better and at this God hands him over the charge of world for seven days to check his claims. After Arun takes the charge, he starts taking advantage of Godly powers to become successful. First he fix rocky to an uneasy spot and then win over Alia’s love. Everything starts coming back on the track but then he faces extreme challenges to manage worldly affairs as millions of people around the world keep praying to him every second and he can’t ignore. Godly power becomes curse for his life and he learns the lesson that everyone has his share of the problems. Movie ends with a happy note and universal message of love and humanity.

From the story line movie looks like Hindi Version of Hollywood comedy “Almighty God” starring Jenifer Aniston and comedy star Jim carry. Salman khan is believed to put extra hard work for this movie as director claims. Amitabh Bachhan is not playing the role of God as it might appear. Instead he is Godfather of Salman Khan in this movie. Other cast – Anupam Kher, Amita Nangia and Sohail Khan also have small but significant role to play in the movie.

Casting

CAST: Salman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Amitabh Bachchan, Manisha Koirala, Anupam Kher, Beena Kak, Rukhsar, Dilip Tahil, Sohail Khan, Satish Kaushik and Sanjay Mishra
DIRECTOR: Rumi Jaffery
MUSIC: Sajid Wajid
Genre: Comedy / Romance

Movie Preview : Drona

Drona is upcoming movie of Abhishek bachhan and its being dubbed as one of the most important film of Abhishek’s career. Junior Bachhan who is drawing positive feedback from critics for his newly released Sarkar Raj is playing the cameo of Super-Hero in this movie, similar to what Hritik played in Krrish.

Like Hritik’s character in Krrish, Abhishek has super natural power in this movie but the storyline is contrasted to the Pro-Western theme of Krrish.

Drona is the tale of a superhuman who faces extreme trials of legendary mystical labyrinths, evil force, lethal magicians, and deadly curses but still he is determined to carry the legacy of mythological heroes forward.

Universal and ubiquitous theme of good-evil struggle is the main plot of the movie and Abhishek is projected as the super-human guard of the good.

ironically to add to the drama, Abhishek is guarded by Priyanka Chopra who is his bodyguard in this movie, Though its still difficult to fathom why a super hero need a bodyguard (A fresh approach , since we have never seen this concept in super hero movies). Priyanka Chopra has been given special martial art training for this movie. News is hot that the stunt scene performed by Priyanka Chopra will leave viewers breath-less. Movie is claimed to have superior special technical effects than Hritik’s Krrish.

Abhishek bachhan will be seen for the first time as son of Jaya Bachhan in this movie though its not the first movie together for them. They have worked previously in ‘Laaga chunri mein daag’ but Jaya was not mother of Abhishek Bachhan in that movie. Movie is expected to release soon in this month or next.

Casting

Director- Goldie Behl
Cast- Abhishek Bachhan, Priyanka Chopra, Jaya Bachhan, Kay Kay Menon
Screenplay- Goldie Behl, Jaydeep Sarkar
Cinematography- Sameer Arya
Music- Ashu Dhruv
Production House- Rose Movies
Distributor- Eros International