Tag: anushka sharma

I’ve always left the theatre a little confused after watching an Imtiaz Ali movie; always questioned whether I’ve liked it or not. There’d be something really good and something that just doesn’t make sense. But for the first time, I’m certain of how Harry met Sejal is. It is a badly conceived movie.

How I wished for a sad ending to make little sense of the story. But hey, the director assumes we all want a happy ending, right?

How I wanted a wee bit extra sadness, a little more pain to allow myself to feel as to why is Harry like this? For the puzzle to fit, on why Harry had to meet a Sejal, just doesn’t get answered! But that’s not the only problem for this movie. There’s just lack of depth in the story. Except in two characters’ chemistry. The only saving grace.

But how far do you think that can steer a story which is going nowhere but to the usual clichéd ending of most of Imtiaz’ movies. Sure, there’s a good dose of realism and few scenes just hit you real hard without being grand. The brooding Shahrukh is unmatchable and so is the ‘layak’ Anushka, both of them capture the nuance of their characters perfectly. But. Yes, and a big B.U.T. There’s just nothing else there in the movie! A couple of scenes, once-in-a-while, is all that’s good about the movie.

Being a movie where the tour guide is the main protagonist and the entire movie is shot in Europe, there’s hardly much of Europe that the lens captures. Maybe taking a leaf out of Zoya Akhtar’ ZNMD would have helped? But hey, Imtiaz wants to stick to his own formula of loving someone who is about to get married! How many more times should we be watching that same damn thing?

Songs get added to the movie out of no reason. There’s an entire addition to Harry’s colleague’ wedding, which is just not required. The only possible explanation for that is to make Shahrukh wear a turban and touch upon his ‘Punjabi roots’. A flashback on the same which doesn’t pan out into anything substantial again adds to the irrelevancy.

The story follows a boring direction which Imtiyaz has taken us on numerous occasions.

Shahrukh Khan embraces Harry and so does Anushka Sharma in being the Gujju-accented girl out to search for her ring. As stupid as the idea of her finding it across countries is how she finally ends up getting it back!

The script is stupid and if it weren’t for the two stars in the movie, would appear like written in a hurry. And it’s only because of them, I’m giving a 2 star to this film. Watch it only if you’re a fan or a weekend with nothing else to do.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Review: It’ll be mushkil for your Dil to not like this

By farooq

On October 28, 2016

In Movies & Entertainment

Heartbreaks are the USPs of a good love story. Add a dose of unequivocal love as the central theme and you have a story that clicks. Ae Dil hai Mushkil does just that. The time when the hero leaves with his bag, as firecrackers burst in the sky, with teary eyes and an Arijit Singh song in the background. You get the picture, don’t you?

It’s a drama minus the melodrama even with cliched caricatured characters to sell its point across. But it does succeed in telling the story in all its sincerity.

Karan Johar’s Ae Dil hai Mushkil is about One-sided love and the repercussions it can have on relationships.

The Cast includes Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Aishwarya Rai and the prodigy from across the border Fawad Khan, who is hardly there in the movie. Even Salman Khan had a bigger role in Kuch Kuch Hota hai than Fawad. But hey, whatever keeps the jingoism alive, right ?

Ranbir seems to have worked really hard to get into the introvert character of Ayaan and definitely succeeds. Aishwarya Rai brings out a good performance perhaps after ages. But it is Anushka who shines in a role with a matured performance. She keeps the story together and anchors it to make it work.

The film works because it connects with the audience by never loses its central theme of “one-sided love”. Subtlety of the screenplay reflects the emotions brilliantly. You never get to hate or root for any character but instead understand the story from their vantage points even when the lead character is of Ayan, played by Ranbir, who narrates the story. I’m glad that it isn’t pushing those views but involving you to paint the picture, and makes you believe that you’re painting your own story in some form.

You can relate to Ayaan(Ranbir) or Alaiza (Anushka) or even Saba (Aishwarya) or all of them at different phases of your life, which was perhaps how Karan envisioned the story.

The music adds to the charm of the flow of the story and the background score isn’t a hindrance to it. The dialogues, even though are poetic and include a lot of Urdu words, doesn’t sound filmy. Surprisingly.

Talking about surprises, well, special guest appearances should be expected.

However, the movie does falter in how it plans to end the saga. The way you start relating with the characters till this moment suddenly changes. It’s akin to someone taking over the steering of the car while you sit in the backseat. Of course, the director drops you at a destination, but you do feel something amiss about the way the journey ended.

Even with the few faults, mostly towards the end, the movie is a ride you should experience. It answers the questions it throws at you and convinces you of those answers as well. It is one of those movies which you’ll keep in your hard-drive to be watched again and you’d never be tired of it.

I’m going with a 4/5 for Karan Johar’s Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. It will be very MUSHKIL for your DIL to not like this.

Dil Dhadakne Do: My Review

By farooq

On June 6, 2015

In Movies & Entertainment

Director: Zoya Akhtar

Runtime: 170 Minutes (Really Long!!)

Great ensemble of star cast in Anil Kapoor, Shefali shah, Priyanka Chopra, Anushka Sharma and Ranveer Singh. Did I miss anyone? Oh yes, Rahul Bose. Someone else? Ohh yea, Director Zoya Akhtar’s brother Farhan Akhtar, who plays a cameo. (Yes, that was the one reason I went for the movie!!).

Zoya’s two previous movies, the perfectly written and charming Luck by Chance and the more famous Zindagi na milegi Dobara. Sadly, she’s more known for the latter. While LBC, was an insight into Bollywood through an outsiders’ perspective and how he gets lost in that. ZNMD was about three friends on a journey looking at their own existing lives through borrowed glasses.

In this new movie, Dil dhadakne do, Zoya attempts to capture the high-society Delhi family of Mehras. But this time, she just takes us directly into their world. A world of phony unapologetic characters. She definitely tries to bring the outside perspective in the form of a dog, brilliantly voiced over by Aamir Khan, something which appears to be a feather borrowed from Raju Hirani’s book.

Coming back to the plot, A family where the son is given preference even though the daughter seems to be the qualified one. A family where the women feel they are at the mercy of their husbands. A family where marriage decisions are subject to business deals. And a lot more clichés which one might have heard of, or seen in movies from time to time. This Mehra family is a mix of all those into one.

Anil kapoor, who tries to look really old as part of the role, plays the part to perfection. Ranvir Singh is brilliant in his act, playing the role of the Anil’s son. But apart from them, there are no notable performances. Anil Kapoor and Ranvir Singh seems to have the meatiest roles. While others have been tried to fit into allotted roles. Farhan Akhtar, is not even there!!! And the kind of heavy-duty dialogues being given to his character is just pointless!! Don’t get me wrong, everyone acts well. You’ll end up laughing on a lot of occasions. But, oh yes there’s that but, you’ll feel out-of-place to relate to any of it. The story is so-much centered on the high-society social drama that even with so many important issues raised, you’ll still come out with a confused expression.

ZNMD, made us go wow over Spain. It made us be part of their travel journey. But with D3, it is so focused about the issues plaguing the Mehra Family, when even though it has a travel-backdrop, doesn’t do any justice to Istanbul or any other place the cruise takes the story forward. It sure has its moments which make you laugh and appreciate the issues being raised about women-empowerment, but they are very disconnected in the long stretch of the film.

It is not a bad movie but isn’t very entertaining too, just a one-time watch to have a few momentary laughs. I’m going with 2/5 for Zoya Akhtar’s cruise which didn’t quite reached its destination as I would have liked it to.

Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola- My take

By farooq

On January 13, 2013

In Movies & Entertainment

Going with a lot of expectations might just ruin your “long time” in the theatre if you are going there to watch “Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola”. And yes, let me clear this out first, if you are going in with watching three bollywood actors in action on the big screen, i.e, Pankaj kapoor , Anushka Sharma and Imran khan, well you are in for another disappointment because there are just going to like just two.

One, of course being THE Pankaj kapoor and the other, well neither Imran (which is expected) and nor Anushka ( yep, another disappointment), it would be” Gulabo”. If you don’t know who is Gulabi, let me spoil the suspense, its just a Bhains and that too a pink one. 🙂

The movie’s plot is “aimed” at being a satire, but in course of getting it right and also trying to give a Vishal Bharadwaji touch, of showing both the good and the bad side of a character, it ends up becoming just a meaningless long journey.

The story is about, Mandola, a village named on the family of Mandola and Pankaj kapoor plays the heir of the family. named Mandola, who suffers from “split personality issues” after drinking. And yes, the liquor that the village drinks is also named “Gulabo”. When, sane (i.e without drinking), speaks in english and is bent on making his Car plant project see getting approved, while when drunk, he ends up becoming a Haryanvi bursting bhen*** every sentence. And his partner in crime is, Imran khan’s character Matru, who happens to be fighting for the rights of the farmers, whose land is going to be taken away by the government for the car project, by disguising as an accomplice. And yes, the title does speak about “bijli” (one prime reason, I went to watch the movie in the first place), played by Anushka, who is the daughter of Mandola. A girl, who just wants people’s attention, is ready to marry a politician’s idiotic son even knowing all that, someday or the other goes in just her kachaa baniyan to bathe in the local pond while the villagers cheer.

The story shows, rather tries to show the struggle villagers have when vested interests try to take away their land, politicians and corruption, reasons for the rise of Naxalism, etc but yes fails on many counts. If delivering haryanvised accented dialogues with almost the same emotion is what Imran khan was roped in, then he did a pretty good job. Anushka, well acting wasn’t an issue, but some of the key scenes that she had, were with Imran where there was an evident lack of chemistry. But yes, the most paisa vasool thing of the movie was Pankaj kapoor. His range as an actor in just this one role is so amazing, that watching him shift effortlessly from one to the other is just speechless. The way, in which he delivers the dialogues, those little drunk dance and antics that he does, comic scenes or the ones with drama, he just changes gear at the click of a second.

Won’t say the movie is a total disaapointmnet, but the entertainment quotient is very limited and it all lies on the shoulders of Pankaj kapoor. Along with that, Shabana azmi plays a very greedy and cunning politician’s role who is ready to marry her son to Bijli just for the sake of more Power. Her flirtatious role with Mandola, is enjoying and would have been better if Vishal could have put a little more effort of extension in this direction rather than filling it with other things to make it this long.

Well, if my review sounded too long for you to keep your patience intact, you might just be disappointed. if you want to watch a gem of a character played by Mandolas, then go have a one-time watch. Otherwise, it’s up to you.

My rating- 1.5/5 stars.

Tag: anushka sharma

JHMS Review: When Harry and Sejal don’t meet a good story

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Review: It’ll be mushkil for your Dil to not like this

Dil Dhadakne Do: My Review

Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola- My take