Bollywood

“The Reluctant Fundamentalist makes us look within ourselves for answers to the chaos in the world around us.” – A Review by Subhash K Jha

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 20th, 2013

Starring Riz Ahmed, Kate Hudson, Liev Schreiber, Keifer Sutherland, Shabana Azmi, Om Puri Directed by Mira Nair The dubbing does subject the content to some tonal drubbing. And one wishes the Indian distributors had just let the characters speak the way they felt. Misguided vocalization cannot take away from the power and inner strengths of [...]

“The film tries to weave a tender gentle love story around an MMS scandal.” – Subhash K Jha reviews I Don’t Luv U

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 19th, 2013

Starring Ruslaan Mumtaz, Chetna Pande Directed by Amit Kasaria The trouble with a well-meaning film such as this is it cannot take the story and characters to their logical conclusion and somewhere ends up ‘tale’-diving at crucial junctures in the plot. To begin with, we are introduced to Yuvaan and his college friends in Delhi [...]

“A zombie fiesta that’s savagely funny and surreptitiously scary…” – Subhash K Jha reviews Go Goa Gone

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 15th, 2013

Not taking into account the expression-less “actors” who have infested Hindi films from time immemorial, zombies are a relatively new phenomenon in Hindi cinema. We did have a zombie film some weeks ago which, like most characters in films of that genre, died a swift death. Forget that. Go Goa Gone is a savagely funny take on [...]

“This is Gupta’s big-ticket comeback.” – Subhash K Jha reviews Shootout At Wadala

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 6th, 2013

Starring Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Tusshar Kapoor,Kangna Ranaut, Sonu Sood, Manoj Bajpai, Ronit Roy Directed by Sanjay Gupta Babli badmash hai, sings Priyanka Chopra in one of the 3 utterly wasted item numbers in this film about blazing guns, flaring nostrils, sanguinary revenge and bleak atonement. Babli is not the only one who’s a badmaash here. The characters [...]

“Bombay Talkies is that rarity which makes us thankful for the gift of the movies.” – Subhash K Jha

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 5th, 2013

A girl on a railway station who croons Lata Mangeshkar songs with aching luminosity, a stoic gluttonous ostrich, a flirty cocky gay entertainment journalist, a closet actor, a little boy who likes to dance like Katrina Kaif and a man from Allahabad who just wants to meet Amitabh Bachchan for a few seconds…Such are the [...]

Subhash K Jha: “Aashiqui 2 is a film with its heart in the right place.”

Written by Subhash K Jha on May 1st, 2013

Aashiqui 2 Starring Aditya Roy Kapoor, Shradha Kapoor Directed by Mohit Suri Rating: *** ½ It’s no coincidence that this surprisingly moving film is inspired by Frank Pierson’s 1976 drama A Star Is Born. And I deliberately mention the funky psychedelic 1976 version and not the older 1954 version of the same story. In spirit [...]

Subash K Jha: “Commando creates a climate of clenched conflict for Vidyut to vent his voluminous talent as a martial artiste”

Written by Subhash K Jha on April 12th, 2013

We’ve never seen anything like this before…Or have we??? Not since Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and,ahem , Akshay Kumar have we witnessed action of such riveting authenticity and intensity. Without the risk of exaggeration we can ‘safely’ say Vidyut Jamwal takes the kind of risks in his action scenes that we haven’t seen in [...]

Subhash K Jha: “Zilla Ghaziabad is an ode to mayhem and machismo”

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 25th, 2013

Zilla Ghaziabad Starring Sanjay Dutt, Vivek Oberoi,Paresh Rawal,Arshad Warsi, Chandrachur Singh,Ravi Kissan, Divya Dutta. Directed by Anand Kumar Rating: ** ½ Wasseypur’s gangs never had it so good. Seeing the glorious guttural outflow of gore blood bullets and profanities in Zilla Ghaziabad one could safely(?) assume, Wasseypur is safe. So is the other release this [...]

“When Prabhu dances time freezes” – Subhash K Jha reviews ABCD (Any Body Can Dance)

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 12th, 2013

Anybody Can Dance(ABCD) Starring Prabhu Deva, Kay Kay Menon, Ganesh Acharya Directed by Remo D’Souza Rating: *** “Indians don’t have a mind to think,” mock-whispers Kay Kay Menon, playing the sort of slimeball you thought went out of style with Prem Chopra. Menon, who once was a formidable actor, hams it to the hilt as [...]

“Special 26 achieves a rare synthesis of real-life credibility and cinematic flamboyance.” – Subhash K Jha reviews the movie

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 10th, 2013

Starring: Akshay Kumar,Manoj Bajpai, Anupam Kher, Jimmy Sheirgil, Rajesh Sharma, Kishore Kadam, Kajal Aggarwal Written & Directed by Neeraj Pandey Gimme raid, said the fake CBI officers who in a daredevil swoop-down on a well-known jewellery outlet in Mumbai in 1983, escaped with a loot worth lakhs. If done today it would have been a [...]

Special Feature: Subhash K Jha shares memories of Abhishek Bachchan on his birthday!

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 5th, 2013

Today, as Abhishek Bachchan grows a year older and pretends to be much older than he really is, I think back to the day almost two years in April 2011 when he came to my home in Patna. At around 6 pm when Abhishek taken off his shoes and had plonked himself comfortably on the [...]

Subhash K Jha: Bejoy Nambiar bleeds brilliancy into the film David

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 4th, 2013

David Starring Vikram, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vinay Virmani, Tabu, Lara Dutta, Nasser,Rohini Hattangadi, Monica Dogra Directed by Bejoy Nambiar Rating: **** ½ Bejoy Nambiar’s second feature film after Shaitaan interconnects the lives of three characters named David, played with outstanding conviction by actors belonging to three different generations. They three protagonists who by chance share [...]

Subhash K Jha: “Vishwaroop is edge-of-the-seat entertainment”

Written by Subhash K Jha on February 1st, 2013

Vishwaroop Starring Kamal Haasan, Pooja Kumar, Rahul Bose Directed by Kamal Haasan Rating: **** First things first. Kamal Haasan’s enormously controversial film doesn’t hurt Muslim sentiments. In fact it doesn’t hurt the sentiments of any section of the people except those party-poopers who think having a ball at the movies went out of style with [...]

Akaash Vani Takes On Race 2

Written by Subhash K Jha on January 21st, 2013

Is the independent film directed by a fresh talent and featuring names that are not the marquee rulers here to stay? Judging by the curiously heightened appeal of this Friday’s release Akaash Vani, one would think that the small film with under-exposed faces has finally found its bearings towards the box office. Some would say [...]

“There are seeds of a gripping cops thriller in Mumbai Mirror” Subhash K Jha reviews the movie

Written by Subhash K Jha on January 17th, 2013

Starring Sachiin Joshi, Gihani Khan, Vimla Raman, Prakash Raj, Mahesh Manjrekar Directed by Ankush Bhatt If Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg were to be merged wuth Anant Velankar in Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya we would probably get Abhijeet Patil in Mumbai Mirror. Patil, played by entrepreneur-actor Sachiin Joshi, is the product of Mumbai’s underbelly. He is [...]

Subhash K Jha Selects His 10 Favourite Films Of 2012

Written by Subhash K Jha on January 17th, 2013

That 2012 began with an overwrought hyper-melodramatic brutal and tumultuous remake of Agneepath and ended with Yash Chopra’s muted mellow all-heart-no-malice ode to romance Jab Tak Hai Jaan seems indicative of the direction that Bollywood seems headed for. The journey, as we can see, is unpredictable and largely exciting. Looking back, some films of 2012 [...]

“This is an enjoyable and eventually disturbing riches-to-ragging story to start off the year” – Subhash K Jha reviews Table No. 21

Written by Subhash K Jha on January 5th, 2013

Starring Paresh Rawal, Rajeev Khandelwal, Tena Desae Directed by Aditya Dutta The last 30 minutes of this gripping thriller has a life of its own. In fact the end-game is so stunning and so overpowering in its message that it makes us overlook the ingrained improbability of the rest of the film. Not that Table [...]

“You’ve never quite seen or experienced a film like Talaash” – Subhash K Jha reviews Talaash

Written by Subhash K Jha on December 2nd, 2012

Starring Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rajkumar Yadav Directed by Reema Kagti If God lies in the details, then by God, Talaash gets it foot into the temple-door all right. A film about …well, search, pursuit, exploration and salvation Talaash throws forward the kind of “entertainment” that mainstream Hindi cinema was never conceived to be. Walking [...]

“It is that slice of cinema that bedazzles, beguiles and bewilders the senses.” – Subhash K Jha reviews Life of Pi(dubbed)

Written by Subhash K Jha on November 25th, 2012

Starring Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Adil Hussain, Rafe Spall Directed by Ang Lee Some epic novels should never go into movie adaptations. Majestic magnificent and moving as it is, I am not too sure that Yann Martel’s novel was ever meant to be filmed. Trust the amazing Ang Lee to move into non-cinematic literary [...]

“JTHJ is an ambrosial autumn sonata done in colours and moods that redefine Mr Yash Chopra’s legendary levels of aesthetics” – Subhash K Jha reviews Jab Tak Hai Jaan

Written by Subhash K Jha on November 15th, 2012

Starring Shah Rukh Khan,Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma Directed by Yash Chopra Flawed but fabulous, the pasha of romance Yash Chopra’s swan song – may God rest his rhapsodic soul—is a swoon-worthy ode to that achy-breaky feeling called love. Reams of poetry and volumes of prose have been written on it. But no poet no author [...]

“Son Of Sardaar is a rollicking rumbustious wild and wacky action-comedy” – Subhash K Jha