Movie Review - Vantage Point

Last night, I went to watch Vantage Point with my friends. I must admit that prior to couple days ago, I hadn’t even heard of this movie. The only reason we went to see this movie was because this was the only movie that was remotely interesting and playing at a time that suited our schedules. Some may not consider this a good reason to watch a movie but it works as any other.
This movie focuses on the assassination of a president and the story is depicted from 6 different perspectives. More and more information is revealed in each vantage point with it culminating in the last. The movie has good actions and some good thrill but has too many loose ends and farfetched action scenes. While it is revealed that the attempt at assassination is by a terrorist group, the reason for this is conveniently left unexplained. Another thing that is hard to swallow is that the terrorists who without mercy killed thousands of people earlier in an explosion suddenly don’t want to run over a little girl………..GIVE ME A BREAK!!
Another thing that is quite farfetched is the action sequence in this movie. The car chase in the climax of the movie certainly defies all known laws of Physics. The only cool thing about it was that it reminded me of the video game: Need for Speed with all the chasing and smashing into buildings and other vehicles.
All in all it was good times as we had the theatre to ourselves and thus could freely make comments throughout the movie without worry about disturbing others.

Jodhaa Akbar

Jodhaa Akbar stars Hrititk Roshan as Akbar and Aishwariya Rai as his wife Jodha. The story focuses on how Jodha and Akbar married for a political alliance but were fortunate enough to find LOVE within their union. While the whole getting married for a political alliance seems rather far-fetched these days, many people can associate with entering a marriage and learning to trust that person. One of the key points that they focus on in this movie is that a relationship needs the foundation of TRUST to become stronger. One person should trust the other person and there should be open communication between them to prevent misunderstandings. This key point should be taken home by all the viewers of this movie.

I had mixed feelings about watching this movie in the theatre. From the promos that I had seen, the set design looked very elaborate, the costumes and jewelry: breath taking, the scale of the production: grand and the actors who starred in this historic drama: beautiful. As for the story, I knew it was a historical subject matter and a ‘love-story’…now this was a hit or miss in my opinion. Not to mention the little fact that the movie was almost 4 hours long and watching it in a regular theatre meant no intermission breaks!!! Anyhow, I bit the bullet so to speak and went to see the movie in the theatre. It was a smart move on my part as I consider it time well spent.

Aaja Nachle - Comeback of the dancing diva of Bollywood

Madhuri Dixit is BACK and what an interesting mode has she chosen to come back with. Let me first just say that she looks absolutely GORGEOUS!!! No one ever doubted her dancing or acting skills so I won’t even discuss them.

The concept of the movie Aaja Nachle is very unique. It focuses on the world of theatre and how Madhuri’s character brings together a group of misfits and pulls of a successful production of ‘Laila Majnu – the Musical’. Infact, the best part of the movie is Madhuri’s performance on the title song ‘Aaja Nachle’ and the play that is shown in the climax of the movie. Focusing the story of the play on Laila Majnu was a very nice touch as it most likely introduced this pair to today’s generation.

When discussing Aaja Nachle, one must simply discuss the surprise package of the film – Konkona Sen. She is an absolute treat to watch and suited the role of ‘Anokhi’ perfectly. Kunal Kapoor was thoroughly wasted in the movie in my opinion but he did fit the role of ‘Majnu’ quite nicely so maybe that’s why he was chosen for this role. Akshaye Khanna does justice to his small role in the movie; I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of a romantic angle between him and Madhuri.

By no means is this movie a masterpiece; very few rarily are. This movie has more than its share of flaws but in my excitement to watch Madhuri's movie, I managed to overlook them. As with all Indian movies, I encourage the viewers to give their brains a break by simply sitting back and enjoying.

Russian Stories not meant for Indian Cinema.

I thought I should start writing my reviews of movies on this blog as one of my favorites pass times is to do film analysis. After months of anticipation, I went to see the movie Saawariya last night and let me just tell you that the movie fully lived up to my expectations of being a disappointment. Initially, when the promos were released for this movie about a month or so ago, I was super excited about this. As it is a Sanjay Leela Bansali film, the promos were a visual treat to the eyes. Granted the actors were newcomers in the movie and hence no expectations existed for them, the expectations were still there in terms of the story. Not to mention the little fact, that one of my favorite actors, Salman Khan was in the movie as well but this turned out to be a disappointment as well.

So many things went wrong with this movie; the major being that Russian stories are not meant for Indian Cinema as they are too surreal for us. While those of us who are connoisseurs of Indian cinema enjoy watching make-believe cinema, we also expect some type of realism from the movie. The set designs can be as grandeur and unrealistic as possible and we won’t even make a comment but even we draw the line at seeing the same set for 2+ hours.

This movie also proves that having good actors in a movie will do nothing for its success if the characters of those actors are not developed. For example, let’s take a look at Rani Mukherjee’s character ‘Gulab ji’. She is supposed to be the best of her trade in prostitution, yet one always finds her lurking around the streets by herself. This makes it very hard to swallow, how is she the best in her trade when she is always by herself? Not to mention the fact that there are like 40 + prostitutes in this red light district and one only sees about 4 or 5 men total in that area. How the hell do these women make a living?

Then we have Salman Khan’s character of Imaan. The viewer never gets to know who is Imaan, what he does for a living, why does he leave Sakina, where does he go and why in god’s name is he shown praying namaaz in the rain? Couldn’t he find a place of shelter to pray? Whenever he came on screen, I was distracted with questions/thoughts such as ‘why is he wearing so much eyeliner when she has none? His diamond studs are amazing although a little too big for a guy. He has a gorgeous smile, why wasn’t he given a chance to portray the smile in the movie? The fact that his character is fanatically religious and his mention of the word ‘camp’ made me think he might be a terrorist.’

All of the above combined with the lack of acting /expression by the main lead Sonam Kapoor made for a not worthwhile movie. The girl seriously needs to work on emoting. I also found her laughter to be quite annoying; my companion compared her laughter to that of a witch one sees in Halloween movies and I cannot help but concur.

One character in the movie that I enjoyed immensily was Zohra Sehgal’s character of Lillipop. She did a phenomenal job and her character was purely a treat to the viewer. Speaking of treats, one cannot help but mention Ranbir Kapoor. He shows potential of becoming a good actor although someone should tell him to lay off of imitating his grand father because I didn’t really care for Raj Kapoor acting that way and thus certainly don’t care to see it repeated.

The best part of the movie was the company I had while watching the movie. All in all, we enjoyed ourselves while making fun of the movie and I guess that’s all that matters at the end of the day.