Golmaal 3 – Or should I say Tod Maal?

Rohit Shetty is back again with the third version of his Golmaal series. The promos did give a clear indication that it would again be that “forget-your-brain-at-home” kind of movie. But are the audience that stupid? Or is the Director stupid? Golmaal 3 is a clumsy effort of making people laugh… Sheer waste of money and of course – talent!

Shot in Goa, the story revolves around two notorious groups of siblings – Gopal [Ajay Devgan] and his brother Laxman [Shreyas Talpade] and their best friend Daboo [Kareena Kapoor], and Madhav [Harshad Warsi] and his two brothers, Laxman [Kunal Khemu] and Lucky [Tusshar Kapoor]. They incidentally end up starting the same kind of business financed by two different underworld gangsters [Johny Lever and Tiwari] and in trying to outdo each other, find themselves in serious quarrels which are supposedly funny!

In between the quarrels, the Mother [Geeta – Ratna Pathak Shah] and Father [Pritam – Mithun Chakrawarthy] remember their 30-year old incomplete love story and decide to marry. The marriage invites more (to audiences’ dismay) quarrels… and the rest is… no not history, but forgotten.

Claimed to be a laugh riot, Golmaal 3 seems to rely upon cheap comedy like tumbling cars, breaking stalls, shops and glasses, pants falling down and slaps. The dialogs also look like they have been borrowed from a book of children’s jokes or comics -“Jiske ghar sheeshe ke hote hai, woh basement mein kapde change karte hai” and referring an aged man as “Doobti hui Titanic”… to mention a few.

During the entire movie I could only see things breaking and cars flying and bursting and people thrown in the air as if they are made of paper. In fact there is nothing that is not left broken in this movie. They didn’t even spare the fingers! The movie would have been better named if it was called – Tod Maal.

Of the cast, Ajay Devgan and Harshad Warsi are the most noticeable, but yet they can perform little apart from shouting aloud. The other lot of actors are all great actors, but they have very little to show their talent. Even the veterans- Mithun and Ratna Pathak Shah are wasted. Technically, the kinds of stunts shown are seen a zillion times in Hindi movie. The story- well there is none! There is certainly a better way to make people laugh! You don’t need to break tens of dozens of cars and tens of stalls. If you don’t believe me Mr. Rohit Shetty, then watch Golmaal by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and learn a lesson or two about quality humour.

My Rating: ½ (Half the star, just for the sake of rating)

My Reality Check: Not eligible

Karthik Calling Karthik: A Pretty Descent Call

Farhan Akhtar’s fondness towards off-beat cinema mixed with entertainment continues with Karthik Calling Karthik. The film is aptly so named, which gives the idea of the unusual nature of story that’s in store!

Somewhere in Mumbai, there hails Karthik [Farhan Akhtar], working in a construction company called ACL Constructions. A loser in life, he is bullied by his landlord [Vipin Sharma] for not paying the extra deposit, looked down upon by his boss [Ram Kapoor] who expects miraculous performances from him, setting unrealistic targets. He is so short of confidence and temperament that he remains un-noticed by his love interest Shonali [Deepika Padukone] working in the same office as him. He is not able to gather enough confidence to start a conversation with her. The professional advice from the psychiatrist he visits too bears no fruit. Karthik is pained by the way life shapes up for him, but suffers in silence.

Till one fine day, Karthik receives a mysterious call from himself! He hears his own voice on the phone, and the caller identifies himself as Karthik. But this Karthik counsels him on phone day after day, which turns his life upside down. He becomes a winner from a loser. He takes care of the landlord’s tantrums, gets his lost job back with a better designation and even wins the heart of his silent love – Shonali.

Things then change in the later half of the movie, when Karthik reveals to Shonali about the mysterious calls. This disturbs the “calling” Karthik and he ruins his life. How the mystery of the calling Karthik unfolds forms the rest of the movie.

Direction by Vijay Lalwani is refreshing. The screen play is patchy at times. The songs portray the theme and the situation of the story, and are more like back-ground score. Music by Shankar Ehsan Loy is not too catchy, but that suits the requirement of the script. Of the cast, Farhan Akhtar performs well as the frustrated Karthik. The character of Karthik can give a lesson or a two to Aditya Chopra and Shahrukh Khan that you don’t have to have a funny walk or oily hair combed flat, or wearing a spectacle with a thick black frame to portray a simple or a nerdish man (Remember Surinder Sahani of Rab ne..?). Deepika Padukone as Karthik’s love is also excellent. The supporting characters of Ram Kapoor (Boss), Vipin Sharma (Landlord) and Shifali Shah (Psychiatrist) are cast accurately and executed well.

The plot is different, but not exceptional. When the mystery is revealed, then there are certain questions or arguments that can be raised about the story which can even be regarded as the flaws of the script. Conceptually, the film doesn’t have a moral or a message, nor does it educate or portray any issue. It just attempts to be different. If you are tired of those stereotyped movies and are looking for something unusual, then this is certainly what the doctor advised.

My Rating: **1/2
My Reality Check: ***

A Note For The Readers

Dear Readers,

Thank you for reading My Reviews!

My Reviews have a different but simple yardstick to rate movies. “Realism” forms the basic crux of My Reviews. The more a movie is close to reality, the more it will score in My Ratings.

So, if the film has those typical running round the trees songs, or a single (so called) hero beating 20 well-built people black and blue, “item songs” or songs just popping in creating a hindrance, fairy-tale scenes, these films will loose points in My Ratings.

In My Reviews from now on, I am introducing another score for the movies along with “My Rating”. The new score will be called “My Reality Check”. This score will again be out of maximum 5 stars. But this score will rate the movie on “how close” the movie is to reality. The more a movie is “realistic”, more stars it will score in “My Reality Check”. The movie will also score on how well the realism is executed.

The “My Rating” score will continue to rate the movie as an overall package – the End Product, inclusive of the story, concept, music, screen play, direction, acting and others.

3 Idiots : Don’t be the fourth

Yet another movie based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel. And this time it’s his maiden novel (5 point someone) that made waves with its popularity. The setback that “Hello” based on “One night at the call centre” had hit me really hard, and the pain could still be felt. But it helped too. Because, if you go with a mindset of having a visual treat of the novel that you have already enjoyed reading, then you’ll be the fourth idiot.

Somewhere in Delhi, there is this no. 1 engineering college of India, called – “Imperial College of Engineering”. Farhan Qureshi [R. Madhavan] has taken admission in this elite college half-heartedly, because parents want him to become an “Engineer”. He meets his room-mate Raju Rastogi [Sharman Joshi] who spends more time praying to God for success, then studying. They soon meet a guy who is different. A young man who has a very strange philosophy of life. He comes to college in search of learning new things. He believes that a person’s heart is full of fear, and only way to overcome this fear is, fool the heart by saying “All is well”, or rather as he says it, “Aal izz well”. This person, Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad [Amir Khan] or “Rancho” soon mingles with the other two lads, and continues to make an impression on their minds with his out of the world attitude.

Amid the funny pranks and typical college-type songs that you often find in Hindi films, Rancho continues with his unusual ways of convincing the strict Director of the college, Viru Sahastrabudhhe [Boman Irani] or (fondly?) called by his students as the Virus, that education is all about teaching new things and not scoring marks. Evidently, Rancho is in bad books of the Director and consequently his other two compatriots.

Their friendship then sees various ups and downs. As the story unfolds, the Director’s daughter, Pia Sahastrabudhhe [Kareena Kapoor] also falls in love with Rancho, despite (or may be because of) him breaking her engagement.

The rest of the plot just tells about following your passion in life, accompanied with a few clumsy and “filmy”-kind of scenes.

On acting front, obviously, Amir Khan as Rancho is way ahead of the rest of the lot with his class and excellence. The success of the movie if at all can be credited solely to him too. Sharman Joshi as the frustrated student also does well. Sharman has shown by now that he is one actor with serious talent and not to be written off. R. Madhavan doesn’t have a meaty enough role to prove his mettle. Kareena Kapoor as Rancho’s love interest is bearable. But she is the same as we have seen her in many other movies. Nothing different, or in Rancho’s language – ‘no innovations’ with this role. Boman Irani as the strict Director is apt, but may sometimes remind you of the Dean from Munna Bhai MBBS.

Rajkumar Hirani’s break from Munna Bhai series doesn’t separate the flavour of his direction. He has some good ideas, but has relied on those many typical larger then life kind of sequences like “Halting the flying plane”, “Riding the scooter in the hospital corridors” or worse, hold your breath, “Engineering students carrying out a successful baby delivery”. These add to some of the major drawbacks of the film. But the thing working in the favour of the film is the “Entertainment factor” that is present in Hirani’s direction.

Shantanu Moitra's music is catchy in some places, but is not hummable under the shower. Lyrics by Swanand Kirkire in the song "Give me some sunshine" is simply superb and nicely conceptualized.

Chetan Bhagat’s novel “Five Point Someone” tells much more then just following the passions. 3 Idiots may not say it all, but is able to give that same essence to some extent (ignoring all those filmy alterations). Atleast it was a much better attempt then the previous “Hello”, which had really murdered the plot of the novel. And after all, the film is making business too... As they say, "Aal izz well" that ends well.

My Rating : ** 1/2

Paa – “Auro” Steals the Show!

It’s quite often that we have dreamt of living our childhood again. To go back to those good old school days. To play pranks on our friends, to play cricket, to spend hours in front of TV playing games! “Paa” takes you to a two-and-a-half hour ride of experiencing those days. Paa is a simple story of relationships, emotions, love – told with innocence.

Cut to King Edward VII School, Lucknow, UP – a school that comes into an unexpected limelight after it organises an exhibition – “The Vision of India”. The school invites a young, dynamic and promising leader and MLA – Mr. Amol Arte [Abhishek Bachchan] as the chief guest for this event. The young leader selects the winning entry into the exhibition, and co-incidently the piece of art turns out to be by a 12-year old kid with a very genetically rare disease – “Progeria” that causes accelerated ageing [Amitabh Bachchan, Mind-blowing!] who lives with his unwed mother [Vidhya Balan] and grandmother [Arundhati Naag]. Thus Auro gets exposed to a sudden publicity and the media keeps on hitting the school gates hunting for “Auro”. All these events and series of incidents triggers a very rare bond of friendship between the diseased Auro and the young politician, as they start to converse through emails, chats and phone.

As the friendship grows, and Auro begins to discover that his MLA-friend is ready to fulfil his innocent and stubborn demands, he discovers another thing – the MLA is none other then his very own “Paa”, who did not want him to be born. With this, starts Auro’s quest to find his Paa again, and re-unite his Paa with his Maa. How Auro does it forms the rest of the story.

The story is quite simple, and told from the perspective of the innocent kid. The sub-plots of the story – the Abhishek – Vidhya love story and break up, is cut shot into a song and a few scenes. Understandably, the motive was not to deviate too much from the main plot. The other sub-plot, Abhishek’s political life and his struggles with the opposition and media is also very well handled (with a message to the media too), that may remind you of the Anil Kapoor's super hit – Nayak.

The songs are not a hindrance, and go well with the narrative. There are a few very well shot moments – like Auro’s entry is one of the best scenes of the film, wherein Auro heads on towards the stage with fright and anxiety on his face in the begining, but when he receives the prize, starts doing the monkey dance by looking at his friends. Director R. Balki's direction deserves a word of praise here.

The dialogues are very well written, with just the type of innocent questions that children ask. Music by the south maestro – Illayaraja also builds up the mood and essence of the story.

On acting front, Vidhya Balan does well as the mother of the diseased child, who moulds herself the way her child wants. Abhishek Bachchan role, very much inspired by Rahul Gandhi of the real world. A young and dynamic leader, who dreams of making politics a better place, and who goes on to the slums and meets the people to hear their grievances. Abhishek is very sincere and accurate in his role.

But the real show-stealer is Amitabh Bachchan. This movie entirely belongs to him. The way he has jumped into the skin of Auro has no words of praise. The innocence, the mannerisms, the walking style, the voice, the facial expressions, the naughty chuckle with shrugging shoulders and hands covering his face – they all are too exact to guess it was a 65 year old man playing a 12 year old kid. Amitabh Bachchan has done a variety of roles and this is yet another feather (quite a big one) in his cap. He is a real maestro and a living legend of the acting world! He is simply stupendous.

On an ending note, Amitabh Bachchan is very lucky. Not because he is a super-star or that he is blessed with talent. But because, with Paa, he could relive his childhood again! I would term this movie as a must-see.

My Rating : *** 1/2

Front of the Class - An Ocean of Inspiration

A very few movies leave their imprints in your mind. And when that happens, we know that we have just seen a masterpiece. Today, after seeing the movie “Front of the Class”, I have the same feeling. This Hollywood movie from the production house “Hallmark” is a masterpiece in itself. It’s based on a book an autobiography by Brad Cohen (with Lisa Wysocky)

Cut to Georgia, USA, where we are introduced to Mr. Brad Cohen, who’s ambitious, focussed and a dreamer. This story is about Brad and his “constant companion”.

Brad’s constant companion is a rear mental disease that he is suffering from, which is called the “Tourette Syndrome”. As a result of this disease, Brad can’t help but doing funny noises that sounds like barking accompanied with twitches and jerky movents of head and legs. He does it everywhere – including the classroom, and that’s where his challenges begin. No one around Brad, are able to understand his behaviour – his teachers, fellow students and even his father. This makes his life a living hell!

He grows up wanting to achieve his dream job – the teacher. But his constant companion always poses the biggest hurdle. He is rejected in each and every interviews one after the other because of his Tourette syndrome. But his dedication of never letting his constant companion to win, keeps him going. The journey of Brad Cohen, right from his childhood, to the struggles of finding a job and then eventually getting one, and then his success is very well portrayed by Director Peter Werner.

The screenplay of showing Brad’s present life-story and his childhood in parallel is done quite nicely. Jimmy Wolk playing as the diseased Brad is fantastic, and does justice to his character. Treat Williams as the frustrated father also does well. The legendary Patricia Heaton as Brad’s understanding mother is sincere in a very significant and supporting role to the central character.

The Best thing about the movie that makes it a classic, is it’s message. It conveys a message that one should keep on chasing the dreams despite the hurdles and hardships life offers. It also gives a lesson on how to cope with your disabilities and learn from them, don’t let it stop you, and how to keep going. And last, it educates about the rear disease of which many of us are oblivious of – The Tourette Syndrome.

This movie is one of the best I have seen, and certainly the one which I am going to remember and take inspiration from, for a very long time to come.

My Rating: ****

Kaminay - Age old plot, with a sprinkle of novelty

Sibling rivalry, gangsters and dirty politics… make up the main ingredients of Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Kaminay”. Vishal Bharadwaj has maintained his usual style of film-making – that is, story telling, along with raising some important issues of the society. And with Kaminay, Vishal has raised a couple of issues.

Cut then to New Bombay… sorry… Navi Mumbai where the story starts, with the narration by one of the two twin brothers – Charlie [Shahid Kapur]. Charlie is involved in the dirty business of fixing horse races. The company is led by three Bengali brothers. The company finds itself in a big loss as a result of a double-cross by one of their jockey. The jockey reveals a name – Francis who threatened him to fix the match against the Bengali Brothers. Now, the Bengali brothers along with Charlie, are in the quest of Francis – or rather as Charlie calls it – “Franfif”.

Over to Guddu [Shahid kapur again], the second of the twin brothers, who is sober, and works in an NGO. If his brother pronounces “S” as “F”, Guddu, also has a speech deformity and that is – Stammering. Guddu is involved in a love affair with a girl named Sweety [Priyanka Chopra], and is in a deep soup when he discovers that his girl is pregnant from him – at a time when he is not ready for marriage. Ill fate has it, when he discovers that his girl is the sister of a political leader [Amol Gupte] of Maharashtra, who hates North Indians, especially from UP, hailing in “Mumbai”. Sounds familiar? It did to me as well. Now, the UP-hater discovers that his sister is planning marriage with a UP boy, and is all set to catch hold of the boy.

The plot then unfolds with some gang wars taking place, gun shots, things falling, people running here and there, and the camera moving too fast to comprehend what’s going on. Understanding the gang-wars was much more difficult then understanding the software source-code in my office. All I know is that, Charlie, trying to find Franfif, gets involved with a fight with another gang involved in trafficking of cocaine, which is in a guitar case. Charlie somehow gets hold of this guitar case, and the gang is on the lookout for Charlie and of course the Guitar case. And as all the “twin-brother” plots, the politician’s gang who is on the lookout for Guddu, finds Charlie, and the Drug-trafficking gang, finds Guddu. What happens next is best explained by watching the movie.

With this plot, Vishal Bharadwaj has tried to raise two issues – Hating of the UP and North Indians hailing in Maharashtra is not called for, and that these politicians get involved in such a movement only to garner votes and not for the welfare of “Marathi Manus”.

A second issue that Vishal is trying to highlight is that of speech deformity. Charlie cannot pronounce “S”, and Guddu stammers. He has highlighted how speech deformity can be laughed at. Also, for the first time, I'm glad to see that stammering is projected in the right way, in a hindi movie. It’s projected as it is, and not as a comedy. The issues that stammering people tend to lock themselves in their own shell is also highlighted beautifully in a scene.

On acting front, Shahid as the two twin brothers is sincere in his role. He gives his best with both the roles. Priyanka as Guddu’s beloved has also a meaty role, and plays it quite well. The only other character to leave a mark on the audiences is the UP-hater politician – Bhope [Amol Gupte]. The actor plays the role quite well, and will get noticed.

Music is mediocre, with only one song – “Pehli baar mohabbat” catchy enough. The cinematograhy of the movie may sometimes make you feel dizzy. All in all, the movie may not be a must watch, but good enough for a one-time watching experience.

My Rating: **