Hundred (2020)

Hundred (2020)

It’s fashionable to be a liberal now a day and I guess that’s ok; but the definition of liberal is a whole different game.

And since the advent of Netflix and Amazon on Indian scene it has become apparent that no one is going to back down on what they consider is cool to present, which obviously includes nudity, profanity and absurdity.

And as a society big on feminism we need our own “Four More Shots Please” and “Veere Di Wedding” to define our take on the matter; however people may disagree!

And out of nowhere comes Hundred with a forgotten and irrelevant Lara Dutta in lead. And it swept me right out of my feet.

In the ere of average web series, with promising plots and not so promising executions; Hundred a subtle gem.

The story revolves around ACP Soumya Shukla (Lara Dutta) and Netra Patil (Rinku Rajguru). ACP Somya Shukla is a talented woman trying to make her mark in a man’s world, and Netra, she just wants to go to Switzerland.

They both live in completely different worlds, but one day they collide. Netra is diagnosed with Brain Cancer with only 100 days to live, that of course takes her to her wits end.

Never be the one to enjoy her life, Netra decides to change that by having a beer for the first time, where she accidently bumps into ACP Soumya Shukla, and then out of a small matter tries to beat the shit out of a Auto driver.

Sparks fly when a drunken Netra confesses to Soumya that in spite of her condition this has been the best day of her life, the excitement she felt today is something she would like to feel for the next 100 days of her life, and ACP sees in her a Police informant who don’t care for her life.

And a fragile partnership is formed.

Without going into specifics of the story which in itself is engaging; what impresses is the way the story develops organically, nothing is rushed or illogical or even forced.

But the cherry on the top is the characterization of both women, as in, the false feminism we have been witnessing so far, the interpretation of an independent woman is far away from the way one would like to see on the ground.

The empowerment lies in the fact that women being able to take their own decisions and putting their own lives in perspective, not looking at themselves from the lenses of other people.

And both our ladies do just that, they both take their own life in control without being overly dramatic. This never feels like women oriented show just because it is helmed by two women. It’s a regular thriller comedy, where protagonists just happened to be women.

Two dialogues I would like to specially mention, one when ACP Somya Shukla says “I do modeling for the Police Department.” When showing her frustration at not being given opportunities at big cases, and second again by her, when she finds out black money is being transported through washing machines she says “Hawala walo ka sense of humor bhi accha hai.”

The show has its own twist and turns, betrayals and characters which you don’t feel are from mars, and still are able to entertain you. Both women get into their own love triangles, but you don’t feel like judging them.

Parmeet Sethi as DCP is a beautifully played role, same goes for the guy playing the love interest of Netra (Second one).

The direction is best because even the tense situations have been dealt with humor, the back ground music of the show is light, and use of “Ek ladki bheegi bhagi si” as well as “Love, Sex or Dhokha Darling” is electrifying.

All in all go for it… Rating: ****

Andhadhun (2018)

Andhadhun (2018)

"What is life? It all depends on liver"

When these are the opening lines of a movie, you know it’s going to be wild.

Based upon and duly acknowledging 2010 French short film L'Accordeur (The Piano Tuner) Andhadhun is easily the best dark comedy thriller of Hindi Cinema. It’s unpredictable, it’s fast, it’s funny and it memorizes you from the very first scene and doesn’t let you go; not even to bathroom.

It’s tricky to write about it without giving away the plot but let’s try.

Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a blind piano player in search of inspiration, he accidently meets Sophie (Radhika Apte) and starts playing piano at her restaurant. One of the regular customer is Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan) a film star of old times, who invites Akash to play at his house for his wife Simi (Tabu), and things are never the same again, literary.

The story keeps on developing on its own; the situation keeps on getting out of control for every character. The characters are not caricatures but normal human beings mixed up in difficult situation. Even the negative characters don’t enjoy crime yet they are ruthless in pursuit of their goals. Even smaller characters are well placed and add flavor to the whole experience.

The background music is exceptional and provides tremendous mood for the movie; I would specially like to mention the music piece which is being played during a scene in which people are trying to mop the floor of blood and trying to dispose a body.

The screenplay is amazingly tight and the story keeps on throwing twists on you at a more regular basis than you can handle. It is a director’s medium and Sriram Raghvan uses it well. He even pulls up an ‘inception’ in the end.

Performance wise Tabu is exceptional; it would be a shame if she wins an award in supporting actress category, she deserves better. Ayushmann is perfect, it’s not his expressions but non-expressions which is praise worthy; you will understand when you watch the movie.

Overall watching this movie is like driving very fast on the wrong side of the road, you never know what would hit you.

Rating ****1/2

Avengers : Infinity War (2018)

It is challenging to write this review. Well, let me rephrase it, it is challenging to write this review without giving out important plot details, but it a big movie to miss, so I am going to try anyway.

It goes without saying that reviews seldom matters in Marvel Universe, continues 19 super successful movies stand testament to that fact. People who want to see this movie will, and I am not standing in the way unless I want to be stampeded.

Avengers: Infinity War starts moments after Thor: Ragnarok ended; a ship containing Thor, Loki, Hulk and assorted Asgardians is faces with other unidentified ship.

As diehard fans of Marvel Universe expected the ship turns out to be of Thanos. Remember that guy, who generally comes in the post credit scenes in different shades of purple face and talks about ruling/controlling/destroying the universe; talk about ambition huh.

Inspired by Reliance India Mobile he is on a mission to collect all six infinity stones, literally to ‘kar lo duniya mutthi main’. But obviously we have the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr Strange, Spider Man, the Fat Chinese/Japanese/Korean friend of Spider Man, Stan Lee, Bald African Tribe and God knows who to stop him, right…..Right, please please please RIGHT!!!!!!!

Well ……………

However action quickly stats and bodies start to fall from the first scene, and I don’t just mean the expendable types (Like hero’s sister character in Hindi movies, who only destiny seems to be getting molested).

Moving on, different superheroes starts meeting previously unacquainted life forms, and forging new partnerships in a bid to stop the big bad Thanos. Will they be able to do that forms the rest of the story.

As usual the movie is filled with Easter eggs and reference of past movies, the high point of the movie is the interactions between different characters, notably Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man and Doctor Strange. Bruce Banner/ Hulk have their own moments.

Superhero movies are doomed with predictable storylines and outcomes, but that is not the case here, running approximately 2 and a half hour and handling Dozens of characters, movie still find time to show the emotional side of Thanos and his point of view as well.

9 out of 10 people going to watch this movie will have more question than answers, and the makers of the movie seems highly inspired with Game of Thrones, if you know what I mean.

The next couple of movies like Ant man and the Wasp and Captain Marvel will have time lines previous to the climax of Avengers: Infinity War, so the sequel will start right were this one ended.

Movie needs to be seen goes without saying and waiting for the sequel will have its own set of conundrums like “Kattappa ne Bahubali ko kyon mara”.

Rating ***1/2

Dunkirk (2017)

There are times when man ask profound questions like, “What is the meaning of life?” or “What is my purpose?” or even “Balbir Pasha ko Aids hoga kya” bur rarely it happens that after watching a Christopher Nolen film you ask yourself, “Why the hell did he make this movie?”

To have expectation from a Nolen movie is understandable, even statutory; however while watching the movie we felt like young teenagers ready to jump from the 5^th floor in the expectation of being rescued by a Superhero, alas Shaktimaan never came. We kept on hoping for some drama to unfold, which never happens.

We kept on waiting for something to happen, story to keep moving, to have some extra ordinary dialogues appear and make our mind numb. What we got was a documentary without a voice over.

Nolen is the master of non liner storytelling, nobody does it better than him and Quentin Tarantino; however to watch same events from 3 perspectives and 3 different camera angles without actually getting any new insight makes it worst.

I judge a movie on what I took away from it after it ended, was it entertaining, was it informational, did it gave me a new perspective, what kind of emotions did it provoke? In present case the answer will be disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong, people are praising the movie like anything for its artistic beauty, I literary had to open Wikipedia to understand what the director wanted to say, it turns out what he wanted to say was nothing interesting.

My friends who went with me to watch the movie kept on looking at me with vicious glances as if accusing me of not only dragging them on a Sunday, but also as if I personally gave advice on story and presentation of the movie's director.

 Rating *1/2.

Akira (2016)

The first question that arises after watching the movie is, “Who names her child Akira?" It looks more like a Japanese Ninja’s name than that of a baby girl.  

The story follows Akira, who is a school girl from Rajasthan; one day she witnesses an unstylish, paan chewing, illiterate looking, disheartened lover throw acid on a beautiful young lady, disfiguring her for life. Akira identifies the perpetrator in front of police, sending the dead weight on the earth to his obvious incarceration.

Disillusioned by the lack of safety for Indian girls her father enrolls Akira for self-defense classes, which results in a miniature version of female Jackie Chan. Once again confronted by street goons, this time Akira performs makeup of the guy with a dash of acid, now resulting in her visit to Juvenile detention for a couple of years.

Story takes a time leap and many years have passed, Akira is now a college going student, she moves to Mumbai with her family and enrolls into a college. There due to a twist of fate she becomes entangled into a situation where some corrupt cops want her dead. But of course whom they considered to be an easy target to eliminate, refuses to die.

Story move at fast pace and screenplay is good most of time, but the story falters in the second half, the pace dulls and screenplay takes a backseat. Altogether a decent movie has a climax that is unsatisfying. We wanted more revenge from Akira, better punishment for the criminals (oops, cops I mean) but the writers and directors fail at this crucial juncture.

Performance wise Sonakshi does well, she obviously has worked hard for this role including the stunt scenes, Anurag Kashyap the famous director plays villain, and he is turning out to be a competent actor as well. It was nice to see Konkona Sen after a long time. Her role as an honest and simultaneously pregnant police inspector made me fear for her safety throughout the movie, normally such characters have a clichéd ill-fated end, which pleasantly was not the case here.

Music wise one song stands out “Baadal”. Action sequences are nicely done. At least they don’t look like parody scenes.

In all a one-time watch.

Rating **1/2

Badrinath Ki Dulhania (2017)

A movie or a story needs conflict; good v/s bad; right v/s wrong; fight v/s flight; so on and so forth, but the most prominent movie conflict, we as a viewer of 1980’s and 1990’s cinema had to endure was love v/s family. And believe me when I say that, it was unbearable.

What we saw every time was a nice meaning boy meeting a nice looking innocent girl, their initial bonding, hero inevitably rescuing heroine from a purse snatcher/ robber/ potential sexual offender (just take your pick) to be followed up by a romantic song.

Then begins the conflict of the story, Parents. The objections ranging from, rich girl poor boy; rich boy poor girl; different religion/cast/sect; family history (some uncle killed some other uncle/ someone ran away from pre arrange marriage) or any other factor standing in the way of perpetual love. Alas, same story every time, guess where Ekta Kapoor took inspiration from.

But things changed and now we have movies with different themes and stories with new kind of conflicts, like ‘Kattappa ne Bahubali ko kyon mara’, or ‘Uski keh ke loonga’ or ‘Risk to Spider man ko bhi lena padta hai, main to salesman hoon’ etc etc

But once in a while filmmakers get nostalgic and come up with old formula movies with new packaging like “Badrinath ki Dulhaniya”. So the question remains, do this movie gets public’s love? And the answer is, ‘yes, it does’. Now this gives birth to a new question, why?

Although the movie follows old tradition of love v/s family, but the makes were smart enough to incorporate contemporary issue of woman liberalization and their place in current society and particular in our homes. To convey a strong social message without getting preachy is a tricky thing and nobody does it better than Rajkumar Hirani, but in this case the director Shashank Khaitan performs a decent job.

First half of the movie is funny, with ample light moments; especially the scene on the bus is the cherry on the top. However the problem lies with the second half of the movie where suddenly the story changes its tempo and converts into a serious drama, the length of this part is the hindrance in the natural progression of the movie. The director takes its sweet time to establish the story which he could have easily done by reducing the time of the movie by let’s say 10 minutes. However in the later part the momentum returns and climax is entertaining.

Acting wise Varun and Alia have given competent performances, I would specially like to mention the role of elder brother of Varun Dhavan, he looks like the modern incarnation of Mohnish Bahl from a Suraj Barjatya movie. He and his wife are immensely likeable. Script and dialogues are good, music is soulful. In all, a nice movie to spend a holiday with family. Watchable.

Rating ***1/2

Jolly LLB-2 (2017)

There is nothing new about a fight between good and evil, the story has been going on since the birth of time. Only the way we perceive good or bad has been constantly evolving. Like in 1970’s if Pran was consuming alcohol, it was evidence enough of him being the bad guy however sometimes the hero also consumed alcohol, but only in his weakest moments, and that too, to be followed up by a tight slap by his mother or fathers’ sermons which eventually led to hero shedding tears and promising not to divert from the path of righteous ever again.

 But today, our hero in this movie is the one who himself brings whiskey for his wife, but that doesn’t disgust us, because it pales in comparison to the real issue of this movie, which is Judicial malpractice, Police atrocity and everybody in between trying to get their share in the loot in the name of justice.

 There are two unique things about  the disclaimer of the movie, the part where the producer of the movie claim that the movie is an product of fiction and any resemblance to any person is unintended. However during the promotion of the movie it was claimed to be based on a real case, secondly the movie claimed it doesn’t want to hurt the feeling of any State of our country, this kind of disclaimer is unheard of, I thought the intended state was Jammu & Kashmir, but it turned out to be Uttar Pradesh. Why? Because of rampant corruption or deplorable law and order situation, no sir, because the way children are shown how they cheat in their final exams, you will be astonished to know that there is a contract given for final exams to people who will facilitate cheating during the exam in state which claims a large share of IAS and IPS recruitment in the country.  

The movie follows Lawyer Jagdishwar Mishra a.k.a Jolly (Akshay Kumar) from Lucknow who is a different person from Lawyer Jagdish Tyagi a.k.a. Jolly (Arshad Warsi) from Delhi from Jolly LLB-I. The only 2 recurring characters from last movie are Justice Sunderlal Tripathi (Saurabh Shukla) and Guruji (Sanjay Mishra).

 Jolly is a talented lawyer with limited opportunities, in his quest to get ahead in the world he cheats a widow who herself is in quest of justice for the unlawful execution of her husband. However shamed by his action and resulting consequences, Jolly takes on the fight to corrupt system and its protectors to redeem him. What follows is a engaging drama with electrifying climax.

Akshay is natural in his role, although it hurt when Arshad Warsi was replaced for this role, but Akshay carried the burden with ease. Saurabh Shukla as Justice Tripathi who was on fire in the last movie carries on in the same momentum as if the two movies were shot back to back. Annu Kapoor is a revelation; this highly talented but underappreciated actor was the surprise casting for this movie, a role previously rumored for Paresh Rawal. Annu Kapoor gives a power packed performance after his amazing entertaining act in ‘Vicky Donor’. Please look out for the showdown between Saurabh Shukla and Annu Kapoor during the culmination of the movie, just amazing.

The music of the movie is a letdown, just go and  take a snack during any song. But the screenplay and dialogues more than compensate for that. This is a story and performance oriented movie with limited scope for Huma Qureshi. I would however like to praise the role of Fahim Butt, a J&K Policeman; we need more characters like that to change perception about Kashmiris.

All in all a must watch from my side.


Rating ****.