Stanley ka Dabba

Not a lot of movies are made in India for children, and when they are made they either lack proper promotion, or big names, and even budgets many times. This may be the reason why we don’t have any established name in this particular genre.  However when a talented man like Amol Gupte (Creative director of Taare Zameen Par) makes a movie for children, the expectations are sky high. So does ‘Stanley ka Dabba’ deliver what it promises? The answer is a bit tricky.

The story revolves around a young school boy named Stanley, he has a lot of friends in the class, who don’t mind sharing their lunch box with Stanley, because he never brings a Tiffin with him. There is yet another man in the school who is not in a habit of bringing tiffin “the dabba”, the Hindi teacher, role played by Amol Gupte himself. Now the teacher like to eat the tiffins of other teachers and students as well, the problem starts when the other kids have to choose between Stanley or the teacher to share the lunch, as both cannot be accommodated.

It’s difficult to criticize a movie which has been largely appraised by a lot of people; but you can’t change your opinion just because it doesn’t go with the majority. However ‘Stanley ka Dabba’ is not such a bad movie that i need to go out and fight the world to prove a point. But the movie has its own problems.

The story is wafer thin, with an ok ok script. The first half drags, but the second half brings on some interesting moments. However the performance of kids is flawless, they never look like they are in a movie, and they look like kids out of daily life. There are other teachers played by known names like Divya Dutta and Raj Zusti, but their significance to the story is not much. The climax of the movie is so farfetched that it looks like a pathetic attempt on the writer’s part to create a social message kind of a thing, this part is just not acceptable on the ground of common sense.

Was it an attempt to make a movie with a message or just another trick to touch the sympathetic side of the audience is hard to tell, however a better and logical climax was possible with all certainties.

The movie is low budgeted with a lot of favourable reviews, so it won’t be difficult for the producers to recover the cost. It may have already been recovered as we talk. It’s not such a bad movie, but the climax drowned the 150 bugs I spent on the tickets.

Rating **.

The Practice

One thing about American television that I appreciate most is the fact that, they work hard for their serials, whether that is to do with the story line, character development or just taking the serial from one season to another. They make about 20 to 24 episodes on higher side in one ‘season’,  which means in one year, just compare that to the crap that comes to Indian television 5 times a week. We make about 220 to 250 episodes in one year with no near possibility of its end. Our serials have become eternal and we actually don’t mind that.

And here I started watching ‘The Practice’, because of my natural flair for court room dramas, I was pleasantly surprised, not only because of its entertainment quotient, but for the very fact that the serial dose not deviate from being factual. The cases may seem unrealistic in various episodes, but the approach with which they are handled gives you a close look at the American legal system, and the very basis on which it works. I learned a lot about court proceedings through this serial, and this has made me curious about Indian legal system as well. I really hope someday someone will make a serial as gripping and as realistic as ‘The Practice’ in India with Indian law context.

The serial is about a firm of attorneys, who generally specialize in criminal defence; now in Indian movies a lawyer defending a guilty accused is considered a villain from the very first scene. A notion that is hard to get by, but here in this serial, the side of those lawyers are shown, the moral obligations that they are required by law to fulfil. Defending the guilty with all the efforts, even when they personally don’t want the accused to be acquitted. And the use of loop holes in the American law to their aid.

The situations shown in the serial are sometimes just amazing, you may yourself feel entangled in them, and start wondering what you would have done in that situation. By now i have completed 3 seasons of this serial out of total 8 seasons. And I am loving it.

Highly recommended for a person with a law background, or even with an intention to make a career in this field. And for people who appreciate good work that not only entertains but educates.

Rating ****.

Shagird (2011)

I am a big fan of director Tigmanshu Dhulia since his first movie “Haasil” the movie which placed Irfan Khan on the map of Bollywood. However this time he comes with another wonderful actor Nana Patekar. The director has a certain style of film making, stories with heavy doses of politics and violence. This movie is also special because it features famous director “Anurag Kashyap” in a prominent role.

Nana Patekar as ‘Hanumant Singh’ plays an ‘old song loving’ and ‘corrupt as a politician’ cop, who carries out all the dirty works for a minister named ‘Rajmani Singh’ (Zakir Hussain) without any questions of morality or dignity, enters Mohit Alawat a quite subordinate who does not wants to be the part of corruption, but nobody is asking for his opinion anyway. Then there is a famous criminal Bunty Bhaiya (Anurag Kashyap) who has been caught by police recently. In a plot to release two terrorist and Bunty Bhaiya alongside three journalists are kidnapped including Rimi Sen, the love interest of Mohit Alawat. What follows is story where all the characters are entangled in a tale of conflict, deception, blood and betrayal.  

The story is gripping, with a lot of twists and turns, some even unexpected. However a better editor could have done wonders with the final cut, the movie becomes lengthy after a while. But taking nothing out from the director, there are a lot of praiseworthy sequences and a lot of good dialogues.   

Nana Patekar is just fabulous, a ‘10/10’ performance. Mohit Alawat shows good temperament; Anurag Kashyap does his role with relative ease and Zakir Hussain excels in his role as well. Rimi sen is just ok, no fireworks there, even i feel, her role could have been spared, i.e. to say, her character is kind of forced on the story, and few sequences between Rimi and Mohit actually drags the narrative.

Overall the movie is a nice watch, however the climax is kind of a letdown, still a better movie than a lot of stuff available now a days. A fan of Nana Patekar should not miss this one.

Rating ***.

I Hate Love Storys

Indian love stories always have a lot of formulas or, “cliché” as some people call it, and we love them for that. Bollywood is not exciting without these masala movies, although we know what the climax is going to be from the start of first frame. Still these movies are fun. Now, is there any difference between those movies and IHLS???? Well who cares. Give me some great visuals and melodious soundtrack with a lead pair who shows some chemistry, some ‘rona dhona’ and ‘dramebazzi’ and of course an Airport in the climax, and we have got a winner.

We all know that 90% of times a love story will have these things but we still go out and enjoy them, nothing wrong in it as well, we pay to get entertained and if a movie can entertain us with all the above formulas than I don’t care about originality. Of course treatment of a subject makes it worth watching.

Now coming back to our movie in question IHLS, is more of a romantic comedy with the hero always having a sarcastic look on the popular formulas in a typical love story because he dose not believe in love, but his problem is that he works for Veer Kapoor, a very famous movie director who is known for his masala romantic movies with all the ingredients from Yash Chopra to Karan Johar. And then we have a heroine of course, who actually believes in a perfect love story, who believes she is living in one of them, and then these two meet and story begins, which we all know is going to end with these two getting together. Anyhow the good thing about this movie is that it uses a lot of popular music and famous scenes from other hit movies of Chopra and Johar and make sarcastic remarks about them being cliché and the director of this movie has taken a lot of pot holes at the producer of the movie itself i.e. Karan Johar and also at Shah Rukh Khan. This is commendable, because we in Indian cinema are prone to such things, and there are potential deformation claims in waiting (Remember the Manoj Kumar incidence from Om Shanti Om). So better make mockery of the inside people.

To be frank this movie makes me remember ‘Love Aaj Kal’, in that movie it was shown how a today’s man who does not believes in love starts believing in it after he could draw parallel with the story of an old guy. And understands in the end, that love has not changed, even though time has changed. Likewise the hero in, I Hate Love Storys, feels all the romance shown in movies is false, but slowly starts believing in it when it starts happening to him.  

   

Overall the freshness of visuals with melodious music with ok ok performances from the cast, makes the movie one time watch, if you have not seen it already.

Rating **1/2

Chalo Dilli

Chalo Dilli is the first movie produced by Lara Dutta and Mahesh Bhupati, a movie made with careful financial planning and market scope. The leading lady is the producer so no money required to be paid, the other main character is very popular yet economical. No need to build big sets as the movie is shot on real locations and other characters involved are not very expensive as well, however there were two mistakes made by the producer, for one it was released with as many as 8 to 10 more movies on the date and other being stretching a good idea long enough to dilute the effect.

The story revolves around a sophisticated and successful lady who wants to reach Dilli and her unwarranted yet inseparable by destiny co-passenger during their journey towards their destination. Frankly the two characters are so predictable that the burden falls entirely on the story, which for the matter of fact could have been good if a better screen play was used to support, but the situations are dragged and the impact is lost. The movie takes a lot of time to come to the point, and the climax is so lengthy that the noble intentions of the writer goes for a toss.

Performance vise Vinay Pathak is superb and Lara Dutta compliments him in most of the places, but could be seen overdoing the act in a few sequences as well. However supporting cast does its work good enough, but the movie overall lacks in impact to a great extent, however lower cost, fan following of Vinay

Pathak and moderate entertainment may be able to cover the cost and may show a bit of profit for the producer as well.

On the whole an OK-OK type of movie, which may appeal to few because of the packaging.

Rating **