Struggling lawyer Jagdish Tyagi aka Jolly (Arshad Warsi) moves to Delhi from Meerut for better opportunities but soon realises that things are as bleak as they were back home. Impressed by the high-profile advocate Rajpal (Boman Irani) and desperate to make things happen in his life, he files a PIL that is guaranteed to get him the media spotlight. It starts out as a publicity stunt but slowly turns into a life-changing decision for him. Encouraged by his girlfriend Sandhya (Amrita Rao), Jolly develops a conscience and decides to fight for justice.

A satire has to be genuinely funny to make an impact and that is where Jolly LLB fails. It does have a few moments of brilliance but they are overshadowed by the predictable and mostly boring narrative. Jolly’s change of heart lacks gravitas, the way he keeps getting leads and help is too convenient, and the ease with which good triumphs over evil is just laughable. Another gripe is the bad music. After Special 26, this is another film which would have been better off without the songs and romantic track.

What works for the film is its attention to detail in the courtroom scenes. The atmosphere of lower courts is captured very well and gives authenticity to the going-ons. Adding weight to the proceedings is Saurabh Shukla as the sardonic Judge. The only times the film truly comes alive is when he is on screen. His is the best written character in the film and Shukla sinks his teeth into the role with visible delight.

The rest of the cast is not so impressive. The usually dependable Arshad and Boman come across as strangely one-note here. Amrita is seen on the screen after a long time but neither her role nor her performance adds value to the film. The very talented Manoj Pahwa, Sanjay Mishra and Brijendra Kala are just wasted.

Jolly LLB has its heart in the right place. However, nobody enjoys a moral science lesson unless it is backed by either genuine wit or engrossing drama. Subhash Kapoor is undoubtedly a talented film maker and here’s hoping that his next (the third Munnabhai film) sees him back in form.

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Although I liked Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster moderately I felt it could have been better. In the sequel, Tigmanshu Dhulia fixes all that needed to be fixed the first time round and comes out with a cracker of a film which is bigger and better, much better.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns starts where the prequel ended. Saheb/Aditya (Jimmy Sheirgill) is crippled but does not let his disability stop him from ruling his ‘praja’ with an iron hand. Biwi/Madhavi (Mahie Gill) is as alcoholic and brazen as ever, strongly resenting still being a pawn of Saheb’s despite becoming the MLA of her district. Enter the Gangster/Indrajit (Irrfan Khan) who is an ex-royal and dreams of earning back the lost glory which was snatched away a few generations ago by Saheb’s family. That Saheb has set his heart on marrying princess Ranjana (Soha Ali Khan), Indrajit’s lady love, does not help matters.

It is difficult to put Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns in one genre. Is it a revenge tale or two love triangles playing simultaneously? Is it a political drama or a take on dying royalty and desperate royals? Watching this film is like watching a thrilling game on a chess board where each and every move is unpredictable, and one is left wondering till the last minute as to who will finally say ‘checkmate’. The morally corrupt characters go about their lives committing sins with such relish that it is sheer delight to watch them.

Dhulia creates an authentic world of intrigue and hardly puts a foot wrong. A good story is well complimented with a strong screenplay. The cherry on the cake is the excellent dialogues, capturing the irony and humour of situations perfectly. What is especially applause-worthy is that the dialogues do not stoop to cuss words or vulgar language to make an impact.  A special mention must be made for the costume designers who have attired all the characters just right. On the downside, a couple of scenes in the second half needed to be better explained. The music is bad and songs act as irritating speed breakers – especially the Mugdha Godse item number which is tasteless and totally unnecessary. However, these are small complaints when compared to the positives.

The eccentric characters needed very strong actors to be brought alive on screen, and the super-talented star cast does not disappoint. Irrfan plays his gangster with just the right amount of madness, slyness and vulnerability – as usual a delight to watch. Jimmy matches up to him with a Saheb simmering with frustration at his physical and social state, an egoistic man who is ruthless in power but sensitive in love. The leading ladies are not as strong performers as the leading men but manage to hold their own – Mahie with her scorching sensuality and Soha with her demure charms. The supporting cast is uniformly good. My pick of the lot is Rajeev Gupta who plays the silly politician – the scene where he is caught watching porn on his laptop is just outstanding.

Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster Returns is tragic yet a lot of fun to watch. It is bizarre but with a distinct method in its madness. And it ends with the promise of another sequel. I say bring it on!

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In the late 80s, a gang of four con-men Ajay (Akshay Kumar), Sharma (Anupam Kher), Iqbal (Kishore Kadam) and Joginder (Rajesh Sharma) followed a unique modus-operandi of carrying out fake raids posing as CBI or IT officials. Since most of these raids were carried out on politicians and businessmen with loads of black money, they were never reported and the con-men had no fear of getting caught. However, one fine day the CBI wakes up to the fake raids being carried out in their name and a competent officer Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) is put on their case. He teams up with Sub-Inspector Ranveer (Jimmy Sheirgill), who is a victim of the gang’s misdeeds himself, and then starts a cat-and-mouse-game between the CBI and the rouge gang.

Indeed a very interesting idea on paper but the film was let down by lacklustre execution. A Wednesday worked because of the exciting tension it created in the very first scene and held on to till the end. Special 26 takes a long time just to introduce its characters and come to the point. Scenes are unnecessarily lengthened and we keep getting too many shots of various characters walking towards the camera with determined expressions. Still, the subtle humour and good dialogues do help keep boredom at bay.

What does not work at all is the romance between the leads. In fact all the Akshay-Kajal scenes are badly written and badly acted by both the actors. The film would have been better off without the whole track altogether. The songs too act as irritating speed breakers to the narrative. They seem to have been added only to give the film a commercial feel but, just like the romance angle, they are totally unnecessary. The film scores in capturing the 80s era well, especially Delhi and Mumbai. Kudos to the art director as well as the cinematographer. The costumes and styling too is mostly authentic.

The best part of the film is the last 45 minutes. The whole heist-planning is pretty well done. The twist in the climax is indeed shocking, even if full of loopholes. The competent supporting cast is in good form and it is their sincerity that keeps the audience involved in the film even when the writing lets it down. However, the same can’t be said for the lead stars as Akshay is inconsistent and Kajal plain bad.

If only Neeraj Pandey had done away with the songs and love track, and kept the film one hour shorter with tighter writing, this could have been a worthy follow-up to A Wednesday. What we get here is a middling thriller – which is still a decent watch, but it would be advisable to keep the expectations low.

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When asked whether the film was based on real-life incidents, Akshay Kumar answered that it was a mix of fake and real. Calling it a ‘toungue-in-cheek thriller’, he added that working on Special 26 was a very satisfying experience as he got to challenge himself as an actor.

Anupam Kher too shared similar sentiments about the film and even called it one of the ten most important films of his career! Kajal Aggarwal was not very forthcoming about her role in the film as she felt her director wouldn’t like her to talk about it, but insisted that it was a very interesting character.

Talking about the USP of the film, director Neeraj Panday claimed that it was Akshay in a never-seen-before role. Akshay added that he was not convinced with the script at first but Neeraj had a vision and he convinced Akshay with his narration. When asked why it took him 4 years to make another film after A Wednesday, Neeraj replied, “I didn’t plan it this way but somehow getting the whole ensemble cast together took a long time.”

Talk veered towards the controversy surrounding Vishwaroopan and Anupam came down strongly on what he called ‘appeasement politics’. Calling the controversy ‘completely ridiculous’ he lamented how the government gives in to a few unreasonable people shouting slogans. He went on to say that we are going through a phase which is taking us back to the dark ages. Akshay gave his own example of being forced to show his OMG Oh My God to a few people for approval. When asked how they were planning to support Kamal Hassan, Anupam quipped that the fact that they are talking about Vishwaroopan in a press conference for Special 26 is their way of supporting him.

Anupam also shared his experience of attending the Screen Actor Guild Awards in Los Angeles and how amazing it was for him to share a table with actors like Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. He expressed his happiness at being part of a film like Silver Linings Playbook which has received 8 Oscar nominations.

The press conference ended with the Special 26 team reiterating that it is an out and out commercial film and should not be mistaken for an offbeat one. Well, commercial or offbeat, we do expect a super film from the maker for A Wednesday!

Special 26 is set to release on 8th February, 2013.

Check out the trailer!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK3Ui8CdwIk

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Just when you think that Bollywood has finally grown up enough to tackle issues of sexual harassment at workplace, it gobsmacks you with an Inkaar – a film so inept and confused that I wonder what was director Sudhir Mishra’s intention in the first place.

Maya (Chitrangadha Singh), the National Creative Director of a successful advertising agency, accuses her boss Rahul (Arjun Rampal) of sexual harassment. Scared of the negative publicity it will get the agency, the head honchos decide to set up an internal inquiry into the matter. The committee consists of Maya and Rahul’s colleagues and is headed by a NGO representative (Deepti Naval). As they talk to Maya and Rahul by turns, we get two different perspectives of the same story. Turns out that Maya was Rahul’s discovery and his protégé. A short affair was followed by a bitter break-up and Maya got herself transferred to the agency’s Delhi and later New York office to get away from Rahul. Six years later she returned as an ad-world veteran who could give Rahul tough competition for his place in the agency. Two ambitious people with a bitter past working together in a highly competitive environment was a perfect recipe for disaster and that’s what happened.

A very interesting idea on paper sadly ends up as a frustrating film. It shows some promise in the first few minutes but fizzles out soon after. Though it was a good idea to see both the sides of an argument, the way the film goes about doing it is merely yawn-inducing. The main culprit is the poor writing.  Add to it Mishra’s lacklustre direction and the unintentionally funny dialogues. I could just not get myself to sympathise with either of the protagonists and you know a film is dead when you are indifferent to its characters.

It didn’t help that both Arjun and Chitrangadha were such boring performers that it was a relief whenever the focus shiftedto the side characters. They are exceptionally beautiful people yes, but those repeated close-ups only ended up highlighting their lack of acting talent. In fact it seems like the lighting and camera angles were meant to give the audience a headache. The pre-climax scene has both the protagonists having a long argument in a washroom with flickering light. Not only was it totally unnecessary, I needed eye-drops for my tired eyes by the time the scene ended.

A badly made film can still be forgiven to an extent if its intentions are good. However, Inkaar flatters to deceive. It promises to take on sexual harassment but dishes out a boring saga of office politics instead, which further turns out to be a convoluted love story. Handling a sensitive issue with sensitivity was something I thought I could expect from Sudhir Mishra, but his refusal to take a strong stand and then ending the film on such an infuriating note left me feeling thoroughly let down.

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Mandola village is lorded over by an eccentric industrialist Harry Mandola (Pankaj Kapur). When not drinking himself silly, he dreams of usurping the villagers’ land and building an industrialist town there. Helping him achieve this dream is the scheming politician Deviji (Shabana Azmi) who wants her son Baadal (Arya Babbar) to get married to Mandola’s only daughter Bijlee (Anushka Sharma). Mandola’s Man Friday Matru (Imran Khan) seems like the perfect servant but has a hidden agenda of his own. MKBKM is basically a simple story about the common man vs the big bad system. What sets it apart is how it is told – slowly, whimsically, crazily.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is as frustrating as it is enjoyable. It is downright banal in places but then springs such wonderful scenes and hilarious cuss-words-filled-dialogues that it is difficult to not keep smiling. The tone of the film keeps varying so much that it never lets one settle down to one mood. Unseasonal rains bringing misery to the helpless farmers and the absurd UFO sighting – both belong in different films. Bhardwaj tries to merge the pink buffalo with Special Economic Zone issues seamlessly but the satire just doesn’t work.

Unusually for a Vishal Bhardwaj film, the characterisation too is not strong. While Deviji is a political caricature, Harry Mandola is plain ambiguous. While the drunk Mandola is kind and compassionate, the sober man is a cruel and greedy tyrant. One never gets clarity on who exactly is the real Mandola and what drives him – love or ambition. Bijlee too comes across as strangely directionless despite being strong minded and well educated.

And yet the film works because it keeps throwing these odd little surprises that are so delightful that they don’t let one give up on it. The little touches like a eunuch being treated as just another person in the village, Mao-Lenin being used in a sentence originally worded as Maa-Bahen, the Macbeth reference.

A Vishal Bhardwaj film promises two things – good music and good performances – and MKBKM lives up to both. Gulzar’s lyrics weave their magic and Bhardwaj’s music provides ample support. Though Imran and Anushka are the token lead pair, the film truly belongs to Pankaj Kapur and Shabana Azmi. Despite an ambiguous role, Mr. Kapur owns every scene he features in and is a delight to watch. Shabana Azmi takes a caricature and raises the character to another level with her sheer brilliance. Anushka plays the same role here that she has played in all her films till now, and to her credit she manages to not look repetitive. Imran Khan is miscast as a Haryanvi but his sincerity and good-boy-screen-presence help him hold his own among the thespians. Arya Babbar is the surprise package with his perfect comic timing.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola is a noble attempt, though the treatment is not everybody’s cup of tea. The film is quirky in both a good and bad way. At times absurd, at times too clever for its own good. Watch it for its originality if nothing else.

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Farhad (Boman Irani) is a 45 year old lingerie salesman who lives with his mother (Daisy Irani) and grandmother (Shammi). His unmarried status is not only the cause of his loneliness but also embarrassment in front of his Parsi family and friends. One fine day, 40 year old Shirin (Farah Khan) walks into his lingerie store and Farhad falls head over heels in love. However the path of true love is never easy, is it?

Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi is a noble attempt but painfully amateur. The film needed a director who could balance the quirky and whimsical quality of this ‘bawa’ love story with the right doses of romance and humour. What we get instead is a half-baked romance and humour that is not goofy enough. The erratic screenplay aside, barring a few instances the dialogues too are a let-down. The songs are particularly irritating, so bad that one wishes for a fast forward button every time one pops up.

A romantic film needs good chemistry between its leads to be convincing. Farah and Boman do share a good comfort level but that’s a different thing from chemistry. Still these two actors are the best thing in the film and their adorableness quotient is what keeps the interest of the audience alive. Boman’s earnest and nuanced performance ensures that the audience can’t help but care for Farhad. Farah Khan looks lovely and does well for a newcomer but is no match for Boman’s histrionics – and the difference shows. The supporting cast is full of talented actors and it helps that most of them are really Parsis. However, they are let down by the director who fails to capture the sweet eccentricities of the Parsi community, as a result of which they come across as loud instead of endearing.

Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi had its heart in the right place but the execution left a lot to be desired. Watch it if you must for Boman’s sweet charm.

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Tiger (Salman Khan) is a RAW intelligence officer who believes in letting his punches do the talking. His latest assignment takes him to Dublin where he meets Zoya (Katrina Kaif), part-time caretaker of the scientist he has to keep an eye on. The two fall in love, but along comes a twist in the tale which turns Tiger’s life upside down. Now Tiger has to choose between his love and his duty towards his country.

Ek Tha Tiger is primarily a love story with huge doses of action thrown in. The action part works, and how! The film has some of the best action scenes in the history of Bollywood. However, they are brought down a notch by Salman’s low-on-energy body language. It doesn’t help that he looks paunchy and too out of shape for some of the stunts. The romance part just doesn’t work – neither the romantic comedy of the first half, nor the intense love story of the second half. A big part of the blame for this goes to the poor screenplay. It completely fails to engage the viewers and it is only during a handful of action scenes in the second half that one feels totally involved in the proceedings.

Since the screenplay is not engaging enough, the loopholes in the story itself become more apparent. And they are so many that they make the intelligence officers (of many countries) look plain dumb. Unfortunately, the dull and poorly picturised songs do nothing to brighten up the proceedings. The cinematography does deserve brownie points to highlight the local flavours of all the countries the protagonists travel to.

Kabir Khan made Katrina give her career best performance in New York and here again she shines as the spunky Zoya. Be it the light moments or the emotional ones, she hits the right notes. The biggest surprise of the film is how well she does the action scenes – in fact she trumps Salman in quite a few. Salman, on the other hand, looks quite uncomfortable playing the sauve intelligence agent. His dialogue delivery is monotonous and his expressions are all wrong most of the time. Like I mentioned earlier, the trademark Salman charm is missing. The supporting cast of Girish Karnad, Roshan Seth and Ranveer Shorey gives the film a next-level respectability, though none of them seem convinced with what they are doing.

Ek Tha Tiger is a film that had everything going for it – two biggest stars, high production values, immense hype, but once again the lack of a good script brought a potentially good film down. This Tiger doesn’t quite manage to roar.

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Adi (Tusshar) a struggling actor, and Sid (Riteish) a struggling DJ, are best friends and roommates. While Adi works in humiliating tele-shopping ads while waiting for his big break, Sid earns a living by renting out his horny pet dog Vicky-Donor-style to vets since his DJ gigs keep ending disastrously for one reason or the other. Life takes a turn when Adi falls in love with Simran (Neha) and Sid with Anu (Sarah). After this nothing happens in terms of a story but risqué gags and madcap characters keep popping up, trying their best to make the audience laugh at any cost.

KSKHH is not what one calls ‘good cinema’ and it does not pretend to be one. The film is honest in its intention of being a brainless entertainer. With not much of a plot to speak of, what we get is a series of running gags – some funny, some not so funny. While some bits are really hilarious, quite a few jokes just fall flat. It doesn’t help that a lot of jokes are the ones we have already heard or read on forwarded emails and smses.

Yardi keeps the pace of the film fast so that if one gags fails to amuse, the other one follows soon after. However, the songs, though hummable, are not the kind to take the story forward and act as speed breakers. Though they are well choreographed, the fact that they are forced into the narrative only because a Hindi film is supposed to have songs makes one feel impatient with them. The dialogues are a mixed bag with some being extremely witty and some blatantly copied from various sources.

While Riteish and Tusshar played off each other really well in the film’s prequel, here the camaraderie seems off as the latter is not in his element. Riteish is bang on with his comic timing and boyish charm but Tusshar looks lost and comes across as trying too hard. Neha and Sarah are perky and confident, also very pleasant to the eyes. Anupam Kher brings the house down with his eccentric-millionaire act, it was good to see him in an out and out comedy role after a long time. Chunkey Pandey is decent. However, good comedy actors like Razzak Khan and Kevin Dave are wasted in bit roles.

Sex comedy is a genre not much used in Bollywood and the novelty factor works in favour of Kya Super Kool Hain Hum. While the film goes the whole hog in terms of shamelessness and is delightfully unapologetic about it, what disappoints is that it limits itself to a series of puns and gags when it had the potential to be much more. A one-time watch for its sheer outrageousness.

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Eight years have passed since the death of DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Batman’s (Christian Bale) last sighting. Batman’s alter ego Bruce Wayne has turned into a crippled recluse mourning the death of the love of his life. Gotham is at peace. However, things are about to change. A sexy burglar Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) warns Bruce that a storm is coming. It comes in the form of Bane (Tom Hardy) who not only lays siege on Gotham, but threatens total annihilation of Batman’s beloved city. Now the crippled and rusty Bruce/Batman must find his lost strength to rise once again as Gotham’s protector. Helping him are his trusted friends Police Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) along with a rookie cop Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the ever faithful Alfred (Michael Caine).

Nolan pushes his audience to the edges of their seats in the very first scene with a thrilling mid-air heist and then ensures that they don’t sit back until the end. I never had any doubts about the quality of special effects and action pieces we would get in TDKR, and the visuals of destruction and chaos are indeed jaw-droppingly good. Hans Zimmer’s background score and the excellent dialogues (especially Anne Hathaway’s lines) add to the awesomeness. Ah yes! Batman gets a new automobile called.…ahem….the Bat. See it to believe it!

The thing that has set the Batman trilogy apart from the other films of this genre for me is that very few superhero films make the audience emotionally invest in so many characters together. TDKR is not just about its hero, it is about the hero within. Fittingly, Batman is not the only hero here. The strong moral centre of the Batman trilogy remains intact, so does its emotional core – even the most horrific villains feel genuine love and don’t shy away from sacrifice for their loved ones.

On the negative side, TDKR suffers, like the first two films, with pacing issues. Some unnecessary subplots could have been done away with without taking away anything from the film. Too many issues are juggled together and that makes the film a bit too heavy for its own good. The action is clever for sure, but gets a bit repetitive at times, which adds to the weightiness of the film – though to give credit to Nolan’s genius, never once does the going gets boring.

As unbiased as one tries to be, it is impossible to not compare Bane with Joker. And Bane falls way short. The creepy mask on Bane’s face does give him an air of mystery, but does not leave any scope for any kind of expressions to come through. It doesn’t help that half the time, maybe because of the mask, it is difficult to understand what Bane is saying. Joker was not just evil, he was deliciously wicked. He was so complex that he made the audience really, really want to figure him out. Bane on the other hand is so simple and straightforward, it is downright disappointing. While Joker’s confrontations with Batman were the high points of The Dark Knight, when Batman and Bane confront each other all we get is fist fights. Thankfully, as I said earlier, TDKR is more about the hero this time and the underwhelming villain doesn’t quite spoil the party.

The rest of the performances are brilliant be it the wonderful Christian Bale or the ever dependable Morgan Freeman and Caine. There are a few new additions too. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is earnest and extremely likable as the rookie cop. Anne Hathaway as the nimble cat-burglar is so delightful, I couldn’t help feeling let down by the very little screentime she got.

For me The Dark Knight Returns is a better film than Batman Begins though not as good as The Dark Knight. Still the closure is immensely satisfying, so much so that it leaves one asking for more, wishing for one more instalment. Don’t miss it!

PS. Added bonus for us Indians – if you pay attention, you may just spot our very own Jaisalmer!

4 stars!

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