WE ARE FAMILY HINDI MOVIE REVIEW

September 4, 2010 (Calcutta Tube): WE ARE FAMILY is a 2010 Bollywood Hindi Film starring Kajol, Kareena Kapoor,  and Arjun Rampal in lead roles directed by Siddharth Malhotra. Read the complete review of WE ARE FAMILY at Calcutta Tube.

Cast and Crew

• Film: ‘We Are Family’;
• Cast: Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal;
• Directed by: Siddharth Malhotra;
• Rating: 4/5

REVIEWSome films are good to look at. Some feel good at heart. Very few mainstream films manage to look as good on the surface and also capture the heart. ‘We Are Family’ is equally appealing from the outside and at the heart.

It doesn’t take us long into the narration to realize that the debutant director has his own ideas on how urban man-woman relationships work. Siddharth Malhotra brings the traditional compassion and large-heartedness of Sooraj Barjatya’s films into the same line of vision as the urban fables about the man-woman relationship of Gulzar’s ‘Ijaazat’ and Govind Nihalani’s ‘Drishti’. The brew is invigorating and often very very moving in the way movies stopped moving us a long time ago.

The basic premise and even chunks of sequences and dialogues are taken from Chris Columbus’ ‘Stepmom’. Are Kajol and Kareena Kapoor as powerful in portraying the wife and the other woman as Susan Sarandon and Julia Roberts in the original?

What if one says the two divas in the desi ‘Stepmom’ are far more empathetic in their understanding of the complexities of a marriage that has not quite terminated and the alternative relationship which doesn’t know where to go without disrespecting the earlier relationship? Kajol and Kareena share a compelling partnership in portraying a household that’s run by two women.

The intricacies of the triangle are worked out with heartwarming delicacy, so much so that you wonder why the director needed to keep any of elements from the Hollywood film. ‘We Are Family’ takes the ‘Stepmom’ saga to another level. It’s an urban fable told with subtlety and a softness of touch which completely avoids excesses of emotions until the last ostensibly gut-wrenching finale when the narration gets excessively melodramatic.

The rest of the film is remarkably devoid of extravagant emotions even though the situation described and defined by the plot is susceptible to acute bouts of overt emotion. Having three actors who know how to play down the pitch without taking away the edge in the narration surely helps the situation.

Kajol needs absolutely no recommendation. Her transformation from physically healthy but restless in soul, to a dying but spiritually healed entity happens right in front of our eyes. The little-little things she does with her eyes and lips just rips a hole in our soul. Yup, she is one of our all-time greats – without trying. The moments when she watches Shreya (Kareena) take charge of her children and husband find Kajol expressing a mixture of envy and resignation the way only she can.

But it is Kareena Kapoor who is an utter revelation. Never before has she demonstrated such a complete understanding of her character’s inner life. To the role of Kajol’s husband’s girlfriend Kareena brings a rare and reined-in passion. Everything that she has done so far on screen is undone as Kareena redefines the role of the Other Woman in Hindi cinema.

Admirably the 6(!!) screenplay writers have worked overtime on Kareena’s part. She could easily have been the bitch who steals Kajol’s husband away. As written in the script, Kareena comes across as flesh blood tears – and yes, as a woman of great beauty.

Arjun Rampal has been constantly evolving as an actor. Here he balances out the powerhouse performers on both his sides with a deeply felt emotional binding presence. And by the way, he dances better than Kajol and Kareena in the disappointing ‘Jailhouse Rock’ number.

Sensibly, Siddharth Malhotra has avoided the temptation of too many confrontational moments between Kajol and Kareena. We wouldn’t have wanted this tender-sweet look at a shattered family’s attempts to hold the fabric of their togetherness in place to end up looking like one of those T. Rama Rao mera-pati-sirf-mera-hai kitsch-kitsch-hota-hai stale-tales from the 1980s.

‘We Are Family‘ takes the story of a broken marriage to an area of poignancy where the outer edges remain as strong as the inner fabric of the three characters who find themselves trapped in a tragedy not of their making. From the opening birthday sequence where Arjun introduces girlfriend Kareena to his wife and children, with disastrous consequences, the film exercises a high cool-and-calm quotient in its structuring.

At the end, when Siddharth Malhotra has taken the family fable beyond ‘Stepmom’, you suddenly realize it’s been a while since we saw a film about Man, Wife and Other Woman tackle the layers of painful separation and reconciliation with such fluency and care.

Go for this one.

September 3, 2010 (Calcutta Tube):  “The Film Emotional Atayachar“, is a2010 Bollywood Hindi movie starring Mohit Ahlawat, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak and others directed by  Akshay Shere. This is a ROAD THRILLER WITH BLACK HUMOUR. It is an ensemble film set on the deserted highway between Mumbai and Goa and revolves around incidents that take place in one night to four sets of travelers. Read the complete review of “The Film Emotional Atyachar” at Calcutta Tube.

Cast and Crew:

• Film: ‘The Film Emotional Atyachar’;
• Cast: Mohit Ahlawat, Kalki Koechlin, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak, Anand Tiwari, Ravi Kishen, Abhimanyu Singh; Director: Akshay Shere;
• Rating: 2.5/5

Review:

The Film Emotional Atyachar Hindi Film Review

Every character in debutant director Akshay Shere’s funny, bitter and violent ode to the road movie wants money. Sometimes they also crave for sex. For example, there’s this incidental character (the film has drug dealers, racketeers and criminals crawling out of every frame) who’s force-doped by Ravi Kishen, who is very at home playing the revved-up psycho.

The zonked-out sociopath asks Kishen, ‘Koi launadiya milegi, kya?’

You hope for his sake he never runs into Kalki Koechlin. There is one very smart and manipulative woman in this wicked and wacky road movie. Koechlin seems to enjoy herself playing the woman on the run She ain’t no nun.

And boy, does she have fun! She is the casino-owner Abhimanyu Singh‘s mistress. But happily gets kidnapped by the extortionists Ranvir-Vinay duo (yes, they are back together again!). Then when she runs into Mohit Ahlawat and his backseat wealth, she snuggles up to him as though she was Marilyn Monroe on speed.

Speed is paramount to the mounting tension in ‘Emotional Atyachar‘. Everyone is in a hurry to get to the end of the road. Short-cuts are most welcome. The characters range from the strange to the deranged. This is quintessential Quentin Tarantino territory soaked in the oozing blood of Vishal Bharadwaj‘s storytelling.

Add a dash of cruel humour — for instance a fat man dying on the backseat whose friend, played by Jimmy Viryani, cuts open an artery while trying to remove the bullet. And you have a work that gets its target audience charged up and ready to go.

A hurried impatient narrative edited with brutal austerity, ‘Emotional Atyachar‘ is not every one’s cup of tea. Really, one doesn’t see people rushing for this strange tale of blood, gore and vendetta situated in the greyest moral zone of the modern wounded civilization.

While the screenwriting (Bhavini Bheda) and dialogues (Kartik Krishnan, Bheda) are quite often funny in a weird and quip-friendly kind of way, the performances are uniformly engaging. Ravi Kishen and Abhimanyu Singh are the pick of the lot. But the unknown theatre actor Anand Tiwari, who makes the mistake of offering the wounded Ahlawat a lift on the deserted Goa-Mumbai highway, and who plays the only morally conscious character, is outstanding.

The plot is self-consciously complicated. The wheelerdealers who swish in and out of the plot charting a bloody course are not quite the people you want to meet at a party let alone on a deserted highway. They don’t seem to know the knack of quitting while they are ahead.

Fortunately, the film does.

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0"><tr><td><img src="" /><td></tr><tr><td><td></tr></table>Shemaroo Entertainment remembers the Legend on his 34th Death Anniversary, falling on 27th August’10. A bouquet of beautiful lyrics like “Jeena Yahan Marna Yahan Iske Siwa Jaana Kahan…” portrayed with the intimate voice of Mukesh are all put together by Shemaroo to be relished by his fans. Shemaroo brings a range of his works on DVDs and VCDs namely – Mukesh – The Immortal Collection, Mukesh – Ultimate Unremix, Golden Collection – Mukesh (Vol. I, II and III) and Tribute to the Legend – Mukesh (Vol. 1 to 5)

Mukesh – The Immortal Collection (6 VCD pack) & Mukesh – Ultimate Unremix (2 DVD pack) feature the best songs from the RK Films banner. The songs range from the black and white days of the silver screen where Raj Kapoor could be seen moving on the footpath singing “Awara Hoon..” to colourful days of Rajesh Khanna featured in the Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s classic – Anand,  humming “Maine Tere Liye Hi …”. It also features song – “Chhoti Si Ye Zindagani …” which is picturised on Mukesh himself playing a tangewala.

Golden Collection – Mukesh (Vol. I, II and III) are single DVD packs. Vol. I and II have fantastic collection of Mukesh solo songs as “Mera Joota Hain Japani..” and “Kisi Ki Muskurahaton Pe Ho Nisar..”. Golden Collection Vol. III includes songs sung by the magical Duet – Lata Mageshkar and Mukesh featuring some of the evergreen songs like “Dil Tadap Tadap Ke Kah..” and “Tum Roothi Raho..”A Tribute to the legend – Mukesh (Vol. 1 to 5) are all single VCD Pack with a huge collection of Mukesh Video songs that will also suit every pocket. The VCDs include songs like “Duniya Banane wale kya..” and “Jaane kahan Gaye who din..”

The packs cover a wide range of his work and are sure to be loved by each of his fans!!

About Shemaroo Entertainment

Shemaroo Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. is an integrated Film Production, Post Production, Distribution and Animation player. With an excellent library of Hindi films, it has penetrated into the television content syndication scene. It also has state-of-the-art studio facilities and has successfully leveraged emerging technologies like the Broadband, Internet, IPTV and Mobile among others.

The Home Video catalogue includes more than 1000 titles, several mega-hit films and some of the best names in the industry like Raj Kapoor (RK Films), Subhash Ghai, Bimal Roy, Hrishikesh Mukherji and Dev Anand among others. Whether it is – Romance, Comedy, Drama, Suspense or Classics – we have the best in every genre. We also have a full-fledged anti-piracy team that spearheads raids and enforces the laws against piracy.

Shemaroo’s A&R [Artiste & Repertoire] Division churns out audio-video musical albums. These songs are beautifully compiled on VCDs & DVDs, including premium packs. Over years this song compilation catalogue has grown richer with nostalgic and current tracks based on singers, legends, artistes and themes among others.

For further information, please visit www.shemaroo.com
OR Contact
Ekta Kumari – PR & Corporate Communications
Shemaroo Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.
Tel: (91 – 22) 4031 9911
Email: ekta@shemaroo.com

August 27 (Calcutta Tube): AASHIYEIN is a 2010 Bollywood Hindi Film directed by Nagesh Kukunoor starring John Abraham, Prateeksha Lonkar, Ashwin Chaitale and others. Read the complete review of Aashayein at Calcutta Tube.

Cast and Crew

• Film: ‘Aashayein’;
• Starring: John Abraham, Prateeksha Lonkar, Ashwin Chaitale;
• Written & Directed by Nagesh Kukunoor;
• Rating: *** 1/2

Review:

This is a film about coping with dying. But that’s not what makes it such a special experience. It’s the writer-director’s profound understanding of human nature that furnishes the simple story with a lucidity and coherence even when the protagonist’s mind is so numbed by physical pain he can barely think straight.

Aashayein Hindi Movie Review

‘Aashayein’ is structured as a journey from a bright delusory light into a place where the radiance comes from a consciousness of why mortality is not to be feared.

In John Abraham’s eyes are mapped the entire history of the human heart, its follies and foibles as it struggles to make coherent the indecipherable logistics that define our journey across that bridge which everyone crosses from this world to the next.

As that very fine actress Prateeksha Lonkar (a Kukunoor favourite) says, ‘The only difference between the healthy and the ill is that the former don’t know when they are dying and the latter do.’

Between that state of blissful oblivion where we all think life is forever (and a day) and that one moment when our delusions come crashing down, there resides some very fine cinema. Hrishikesh Mukherjee‘s ‘Anand’ where Rajesh Khanna smiled his way through that wobbly bridge taking us to the next world, is an interesting reference point in ‘Aashayein’.

I also thought of the actress Supriya Choudhary shouting into the dispassionate mists in the mountains, ‘I want to live’. The echoes reverberate all the way to Kukunoor’s heartwarming, funny and elegiac exposition on the truth that lies on the other side of that illusory mountain we call life. Kukunoor pays a homage to life per se, and life as we know in the movies about death.

Even in the most poignant places in the art Kukunoor ferrets out some humour. When John’s lovely girlfriend (Sonal Sehgal) hunts him down in his exilic place of the dying, John quips, ‘So you are not going to behave like one of those heroines in films who dumps the dying hero?’

The fantasy element creeps into the hospice (yes, that’s the spotless space that the story inhabits ostentatiously) with the least amount of fuss. There’s a little boy (the bright and expressive Ashwin Chitale) who weaves mystical tales borrowed from the comic books for the desperate and the dying. Here Kukunoor brings in an element of rakish adventure borrowed from the edgy hijinks of Indiana Jones.

Who says money can’t buy love? John uses bundles of cash to bring a smile to these doomed lives. When he doubles up with pain in womb-like postures of helplessness we feel his pain.

John in Harrison Ford’s hat and whip cuts a starry figure. He has never been more fetchingly photographed. John’s smile reaches his eyes, makes its way to his heart and then to ours. This film opens new doors in John’s histrionic abilities. It’s a performance that heals and nurtures.

John’s finest moments are reserved for a hot-tempered sharp-tongued 17-year-old girl on a wheelchair, played with intuitive warmth by Anaitha Nayar. He guides the relationship between these two unlikely comrades of unwellness with brilliant restrain and candour. She wants him to make love. He does with his eyes using his unshed tears as lyrical lubricant.

Here is a performance that defines the character through immense measures of unspoken anguish. Rajesh Khanna in ‘Anand’? Nope. John pitches his performance at a more wry and cynical world where true feelings are often smothered in worldly sprints across a wounded civilization.

This is unarguably Kukunoor’s most sensitive and moving work since ‘Iqbal’. We often find little sobs pounding at the base of our stomachs. Not all the characters or situations are fully formed and fructified. But even the partly-realized truths in ‘Aashayein’ convey more common sense and uncommon affection for life than the ‘entertainers’ of today’s cinema where laughter is generated through cracks in places very far removed from the heart.

This one takes us straight to the heart.

Antardwand (2010)

August 27 (Calcutta Tube): ANTARDWAND is a 2010 Hindi Film directed by Sushil Rajpal starring Raj Singh Chaudhary, Swati Sen, Vinay Pathak and others. Read the complete review of ANTARDWAND at Calcutta Tube.

Cast and Crew:

• Film: ‘Antardwand’;
• Cast: Raj Singh Chaudhary, Swati Sen, Vinay Pathak, Akhilendra Mishra, Himanshi;
• Writer-Director: Sushil Rajpal;
• Rating: ** 1/2

Set in rural Bihar where nothing works except the law of the lawless, ‘Antardwand’ takes the firm and gripping route to expose a hinterland-headline – the kidnapping of marriageable boys by desperate fathers of wannabe brides.

This was a prevalent malpractice in Bihar until some years ago. Not so much any more.

Debutant director Sushil Rajpal’s film works more for its deeper resonances than just the surface sincerity. It is not so much the sensational value of the theme (‘dulha uth gaya’) that makes ‘Antardwand’ watchable as the treatment of the layers of socio-political irregularities and caste aberrations that generate a society of anarchy where kidnapping an aspiring groom is serious business.

The narrative is punctuated with bouts of savage humour. When the Delhi University civil service candidate Raghuveer (Raj Singh Choudhary) with a pregnant girlfriend (Himanshi), is kidnapped just yards away from his parents’ home in rural Bihar, his confoundedness, and rage at the bizarre confinement is expressed in bouts and spasms of indignance.

The director knows the milieu well. He doesn’t waste time exploring rural Bihar just because he has chosen to film his story on location.

The narrative never loses its momentum. Rather than opt for a dry docu-drama tone, director Sushil Rajpal has chosen to format the film as a thriller. The pace from the moment of Raghuveer‘s kidnapping to his escape is largely relentless.

The second-half of the plot gets more introspective as it becomes the story of the humiliated bride (newcomer Swati Sen, well cast) who finds herself with a man who has been forced to marry her. The rage of confinement and the anguish of rejection ooze out of the tense frames.

Sequences in the couple’s bedroom with a gigantic tell-tale double-bed at its centre, capture the ironical nullity of a marriage based on bullying tactics. There is an element of naive desperation in the couple’s shared space.

The writing is hard-hitting but relentless, supple and slender. There is ample room for innuendoes in the dialogues and situations.

‘Antardwand’ avoids the easy road to realism. The ambiance does not depend on how the actors pitch the accent in the spoken word or their body language. Though these are authentic, it’s the deeper malaise of a society buried neck-deep in prejudices and superstition that the director focuses on.

The camera work by Malay Ray is exploratory but non-judgemental. Scenes of characters moving in and out of dark old-fashioned interiors are shot without wallowing in symbolism.

The performances are thoughtful. Akhilendra Mishra and Vinay Pathak pitch into the ambiance of rousing realism as the father of the bride and the kidnapped groom, respectively. Raj Singh as the precious groom last seen in Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Gulaal’ again reveals an admirable ability to blend into the bleeding fabric of mofussil mayhem.

The film is suffused with sincerely sketched characters. Jaya Bhattacharya as the bride’s far-from-persecuted bhabhi (sister-in-law) and for that matter the unknown actor Dadhi Raj Paney who plays Akhilendra Mishra’s faithful servant, bring a kind of fringe fertility into the storytelling.

The finale is self indulgent in its idealism. A society so breached by gender and caste biases cannot be lit up by a sudden beam of optimistic light.

But no harm in trying.

‘Antardwand’ is a commendable attempt to examine the underbelly of rural Bihar. It doesn’t purport to shake up the status quo. The film only wants to remind us that we need to heal our collective social conscience before curing the discrepancies that feed into our dream of emerging from the darkness into the light.