FilmyReviews

Dangerous Ishhq ventures into the domain of past life regression in a rather overstuffed narrative about a supermodel who sees strange visions and must decipher them quickly in order to rescue her lover, the scion of a business family. The guy has been abducted by a foe who has been gunning for the woman for centuries. The screenplay is consistent in its convolutions and the further back it goes in time the less sense it seems to make. You could watch the film for one or the other reason. Karisma makes a fair fist of it. The plot is a problem. It is all over the place.

Agent Vinod is not quite the overwhelming experience that you would want a global espionage thriller to be. More thoughtful than thundering, more la Carre and less Bond it nonetheless take the spy genre in Hindi to a new level of finesse. Finally, the cool quotient in Raghavan's chic spin on the espionage thriller is so high that you forget Bond and all his bloody brothers.

First, I can’t classify the film. The makers have said it's a film about dysfunctional relationships. It's neither a love story, nor a sex comedy. A "twist" in the "plot" is timed just before the interval, when you are seriously wondering if leaving midway in an empty theatre is an option. Some form of reprieve to see Milind Soman and Dipanita Sharma on screen.

The pace falters in both the first and second half despite the action. It doesn’t escape the usual Hindi film fail – it’s too long. A pointless song, a few extra flashbacks spoil a hardcore Bollywood masala flick. But watch this film because this one is unadulterated Bollywood entertainment.

Players ends up as a fun weekend flick, especially for action buffs. Don’t expect much from Pritam’s music – there’s none of the head-bobbing of Dhoom 2 or Race. In the second half, the movie meanders and you almost wish Abbas-Mustan would have trimmed some of the desi fat to enhance the impact of the movie.

It wasn’t hard to tell where Farhan Akhtar’s 2006 remake of Chandra Banot's Don (1978) was coming from. The director, among India’s most talented, could interpret an old, clever story on a contemporary visual scale: Common man Vijay, who’s a Mafioso look-alike, gets planted into a dead don’s den. He’s stuck now. The cop who put him there is also dead!It was Vijay’s story. Salim-Javed’s tight script had a striking plot. The writers here have sub-plots. They continue to stretch and add thought to thought. The picture promises to never end. It gets hard to carry on with inane inventiveness, when you just couldn't care less. At some point it becomes essential to wonder, as the adorable Vijay might, from the original: "Ee Down Sahab hain con? (Who is this Don?).” Truly. So much for a franchise.

Then the predictable story line hits, with Anushka Sharma thrown in woman who can counter Ricky with a con of her own. By now you may have guessed, how the film is likely to end, but I’ll tell you why you should still watch it. Parineeti Chopra scores as brash nouveau riche Delhi girl Dimple Chaddha. The endearing dialogues are all here (like the film begins with her trying to adjust a choli to show cleavage-shevage).

Rockstar is a gig gone wrong. And that is sad. For there is much in the film that is worth commending. Anil Mehta’s cinematography is flawless all the way through, across the varied locations, settings and moods. AR Rahman’s outstandingly lively and eclectic musical score presents a wide range of sounds blended into a harmonious whole. Ranbir’s Shammi Kapoor act on a boat on the Dal Lake (he sings Chand Sa Roshan Chehra) is probably worth the price of the ticket, if the recently deceased Bollywood icon’s cameo in the film isn’t. Rockstar has a Sufi soul. If only it had been set free and allowed to go the whole hog!

RA.One is like a colourful Popsicle that looks tantalising, tickles the palate while it lasts, but leaves no particular after-taste. Sound and fury? Loads of it. Significance? Not much. Two and a half stars would have been in order – the extra half is for the sheer scale of the film’s ambition. So what if it falls short?

Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge is a sweet teen romance in the times of broadband connection, social networking sites and fake IDs! Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge is a hackneyed love story but excitingly brewed with fresh faces. With an expressive visage, the film belongs to Saqib Saleem and Saba Azad. They are faces to watch out for in the long run. The bright attractive cinematography adds to the visual impact that captures the spirit of a foreign college campus.The dialogues are witty but at times seem to go a bit off tangent especially during the bar scene between Rahul and Malvika.

Mod is like a gentle sonnet played on a cosy winter morning. It is the tenderest love story in ages with a central performance by Ayesha Takia that strikes a chord deep in your heart. It's a film you want to adopt embrace and hold close to your heart.

Mausam could quite easily have ended up being a stodgy, strenuous and self-conscious drama. Writer-director Kapur, the accomplished actor that he is, orchestrates the emotional ups and downs of his tale with a commendable degree of moderation for the most part. Mausam is certainly worth a viewing.

Director Anurag Kashyap projects this den of exploitative red-tape as a microcosm of sorts of a pitiless city that breeds social and moral deviants who think nothing of riding roughshod over the destinies of the defenseless. The superbly crafted, wonderfully acted and consistently evocative That Girl in Yellow Boots paints a dark, dismal and desperate portrait of life inside Mumbai’s daunting entrails where Ruth hopes to find salvation and a father who went missing from her life when she was only five.

The roots of Bol lie firmly in Pakistan’s contemporary reality, but its heart seems to be more in consonance with the traditions of commercial Mumbai movies than with the cinema of protest that it aspires to be. But that isn’t necessarily undesirable especially because the message that the film delivers is urgent, heartfelt and of considerable import.

The director is merciless: he loses no opportunity to exploit Salman’s shirtless action-hero image. Bodyguard has three protracted fight sequences. The hero is a one-man army. But Siddique is unable to decide whether he wants the star to project his Wanted and Dabangg ready-for-battle persona all the way through or adopt a softer, more romantic manner in the second half. Either way, the male protagonist and the film end up looking rather moronic.The script makes feeble attempts to raise some laughs by throwing in a corpulent comedian