taSHUN

ta-SHUN

Let us first of all evaluate as to why would anyone be pleased with the paper ticket exchanged for some considerable amount that permitted the person to step inside the dark hall flickering images of Tashan.
A. He/She is insanely in love with either of the actors and that it is to be considered a sin to curse their movies.
B. He/She is an ardent admirer of Yashraj films (i know a remote possibility, but for a moment let us consider the category) and that it is beyond his/her imagination that Yashraj is capable of producing crap.
C.You think when it is action, it has to be the extreme where the boundaries of all possibilities fail to score a goal.
But if you dont fall in either of the categories, then its much advisable to save your buck by reading this article.



What went wrong with the movie that I am chanting its praises right from the begining of the review? Remember the good old days of our hindi films where the lead actor of the film had to be neccesarily a hero! His singing should create an electric atmosphere, his romance should melt down all of the women and most importantly he should be a rambo or a demigod when his fingers culr to form a fist that no one in this world can face. His one shot from the gun shall perish the evil and the converse shall never be true. Take 1000 snipers against this one guy and yet he'll emerge vitorious.

Well while watching Tashan i felt like i went back through the time machine where the villan with a cruel laugh kills an honest union leader and his son/daughter emerges after 20 years for the much awaited moment when he/she finally gets to kill the villan and his cruel laugh at the last fight and then everyone lives happily ever after. The difference with respect to Tashan lies with the fact that because thou is moving more and more towards Kaliyug, thou shan't find an honest union leader. That good honest union leader is replaced by the leader of today, the Don of the area.

This Don faces a well-planned murder, masterminded by Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor) who is the rickshaw driver of our Don. Bhaiyyaji then erects his own empire from ground zero with the help of the gold he just robbed from our Don. But Gudiya, the daughter of the Don, after witnessing this cold blooded murder, sheds off her charming, innocent, girlie type of skin to give birth to Pooja Singh (Kareena) charecterized by the vivacious and cunning qualities. This con lady fooling the globe has only one Lakshya in her mind, Badla (revenge). Hmm i know there are bells ringing in your mind, you now know the story and the climax.


But we'll talk about the climax later. Well the movie starts with Jimmy (Saif), a call center employee whose only weakness is girls. Melt down because of requests from the cute, charming Pooja Singh, Jimmy agrees to teach Bhaiyyajee (Pooja's Boss) the queen's language. Here in the process of achieving the impossible, Jimmy and Pooja start swiming in the pool of love to the extent that Jimmy plans to rob Bhaiyyajee off 25 crores, only to find out that the betrayal of the absconding Pooja and the money have left him stranded with police on one hand and Bhaiyajee the big time don of Mumbai and UP on the other hand. Now Bhaiyyajee assigns Bacchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) the job of accompanying the surrendered Jimmy to search Pooja Singh and the money. This is when Pande google's out Pooja and their lost love and then you of course know the climax of this typical Bollywood flick.

Here the character of our Bhaiyyajee bhakt Bacchan Pande is painted closer to that of our Raam bhakt Hanuman leaving apart fact that the climax differs from Ramayan. Pande is capable of jumping from any place to any place, escaping unhurt while tackling thousands of bullets making him an ideal God but playing the game on the wrong side of humanity. The action stunted out in the movie is as meaningless as David Dhavan's jokes which is certainly not to be preffered over doing something constructive. What you only get to admire in the movie is the ravishing looking Kareena and her improving acting standards, and some real good acting performances by Anil, Saif and Akshay. But on a larger scale the picture lacks the Tashan to make a genuine cinema.

We can surely conclude that the experiment made by the Yashraj banner to change the course towards making an action film has failed. I think they better stick to their side of expertise attracting at least their type of crowd.

KRAZZY kiya Re

KRAZZY KIYA RE

“Be a rebel !” shouted Mr. Sampath and slapped the Roshans with a charge of stealing his music track that he used for the sony errickson advertisement and vindictively came out of the court with a cheque of 1 crore and 70 odd lakhs. But imagine if everyone across the globe decides to take him as his role model! Roshans would go bananas behind the movie “Kraazzy 4”.
Because it is not just the title track that has been lifted directly, but the entire movie is the Indian version of a 1989 comedy flick “The Dream Team”. Well for a moment, Mr. Roshan, heave a sigh of relief cause I am not going to bash you for that. Let us come back to the valley and find out why have you been Krazzy enough to make this film?

The movie is centered around four lunatics that have one common role model, Dr. Sonali Saniyal (played by Juhi Chawla) a psychiatrist treating them. Now to introduce each one of them, may I call upon the stage Dr. Sonali Sanyal? But where is she? Oh! Yes I forgot, she just got kidnapped. Well let us finish off the introduction first and then we’ll crack the mystery of her kidnapping case. The first lunatic is Raja (played by Arshad Wasi). Raja an angry young man falls in love with a girl Shikha (played by Diya Mirza). But their hopes to tie the knot are shatteed because Shikha’s dad lacks the manner to smoke cigarette. Sounds weird isn’t it? Annoyed by the smoke coming on his face Raja’s right hand swivels in the air and hits the palm part on Shikha’s dad’s cheek with a lightening speed. Disrespected by the behaviour Shikha claims that Raja is a lunatic and off he goes to seek solace under the shade of Dr. Sonali.

Our next contestant is Gangadharji (played by Rajpal Yadav). Stuck with Schizophrenia Gangadhar loves to walk around the lanes of freedom movement keeping Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Tilak etc as his role models.
Patriotic by heart, he knows how to respect the national anthem, the national flag and is determined to teach the world their importance and value. Next I call upon the stage Dr. Mukherjee. Well this is a case where the doctor himself is a patient and that too a lunatic. Obsessed with cleanliness and neatness the doc here wants to make sure that everything is at the right place. Last but not the least, may I introduce Mr. Dabboo (played by suresh menon). Dabboo hasn’t spoken for years and is always in the frightened mode.

Now imagine these four characters that cannot behave the normal way, are left lose in the suburbs of Mumbai! That is exactly what the movie talks about. Well, now how do we make this happen? The movie channelizes this through the kidnapping of Dr. Sonali Saniyal and this is when these four guys realize that we are here as a team to crack the kidnapping. Whom do they approach? The hospital authorities! Who are under impression that it is these four guys who have done the kidnapping? The police! Who have done the kidnapping themselves? Sonali’s husband! Who is the mastermind in the kidnapping case? Our four Krazzy guys are now caught surrounded by all of these on one side and the whole of unwelcoming Mumbai city on the other side.



In these circumstances that director has managed to tickle few funny bones, although by and large the movie is quite kiddish in nature and at times melodramatic. The climax of this melodrama occurs at the climax when Dr Sonali talks about “Bedard Duniya” and “Paapi Sansaar” in front of a dozen camera lenses. I would say this is where the story differs from the script of its parent film “The Dream Team” . Songs are not really attractive except for the ones where SRK does a hip-hop. Even the dance steps done by Hritik are captivating. Arshad Warsi has given a good performance, and so has Rajpal Yadav. Irfaan Khan is again at his best. But I feel that casting of Suresh Menon was not proper. The guy has amazing talents when it comes to tongue and speech, he can act out and smart out any actor very well. But we seldom notice him in the movie, and my expectations from someone like him were crushed mercilessly.

One message that I would want to give to the Roshans is that, Hindi cinema has matured a lot since those old time melodrama days of 90s. Please don’t go back to the time machine.

To Times Of India & Pritish Nandy

The 60000 crore fiasco

In his article "The Politics of Profligacy" in Bombay times dated March 12 2008, Pritish Nandy sounds more like a politician than a well sound journalist.
His theory that the government should not favour the rural poor comes with a base that its the urban population that fills up the country's booty.

Politicians so far have been telling us fellow Indians that, "You are a Dalit" , "You are a Bihari" ,"You are a marathi", "You are a Hindu", "You are a muslim". Just when I felt, we have had enough, comes another certificate from Mr.Nandy, "You are an URBAN poor", "and you gentlemen commiting suicides are called as RURAL poor". Whatever the politicians do, we, the people of India certainly don't expect to see Media - the pillar of our contitution to breed divide and rule type of politics. Yes of course, our initial attempts should be to make them stand on their own feet, but if they fall despite of that, then Mr. Nandy it is our duty to support them to the extent that they can again stand.The farmers, me and you are all the part of the same constitution, and thus it is our moral responsibility to come u with a concrete solution for their problems rather than widening the Urban -Rural divide.

Although I d agree that the UPA have failed to come up with anything close to a solution. Ministers have lined up to take credit of the 60000 crore donation, but rather they should simple play the old game of pointing fingers as we need to know who gets to be blamed for this fiasco? Today's Times of India has reported increased number of suicides amongst the farmers ever since the politicians have started beating drums about the 60000 crore gift. For petty politics, the UPA simply came with a tractor and ran over the disturbed farmer's family. Giving waiver to a certain section of farmers means pressurising the other section to the other extreme. They cant fight the money lenders without the government help and support. You cant fight the tiger while in his cage. Here either the tigers eats you, or you commit suicide. We need some good brains to come up with a blanced solution.