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 ****.