Tag: srk

In Dilwale, Shahrukh‘s character, Kaali (Yes!!), takes out Kajol (Meera) on a 5-minute date in a typical European setting in Bulgaria. Romatic! And given SRK-Kajol, you’d expect it to work, huh ?

Not when the Car-izmatic Rohit Shetty is the director.

Dilwale has too much of Rohit Shetty and less of SRK’s charm, something which saved Chennai Express and made it bearable. A song like “Gerua” picturized in an overtly photoshopped setting. I mean how hard is it to get it done in an actual location? Allocating a little extra budget to this, instead of those cars might have helped! Rohit?

The biggest crowd puller of Dilwale, SRK-Kajol, just doesn’t click together. The magic one would expect from the pair seems to be vacationing somewhere.

It’s not even one of those story-less movies, because (Surprisingly) it has a STORY!

The Plot of Dilwale is filled with layers of unnecessary complexity and would give a South Indian masala movie complex. The platter comprises of action, the kind where SRK fights like the Arrow and beats the baddies mercilessly, there’s Bhai-Bhai and Behen-behen drama too and comedy inserted to keep you laughing once-in-a-while and take your attention off your watch, which you keep looking at!

It’s good to see Johny Lever and the amazing Sanjay Mishra who gets the best lines anyway in a Rohit Shetty Comedy. Comedy, of course, of Rohit Shetty standard.

Songs are good, and the background music as well. Kajol looks ravishingly beautiful in every frame and is so pleasing to the eyes. SRK in the movie appears super casual and is akin to Salman acting in one of those South Indian remakes.

Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon fill in the scenes to take the “story” forward. Varun still appears in the Modern-day Govinda mode, while Kriti does decent in whatever little she had. However, the central characters of Dilwale, SRK-Kajol, fail to make you fall in love with them, like they’ve done always.

Yes, you can go down into a few nostalgic trips as thy appear onscreen, but the “old-wine-in-a-new-bottle” doesn’t work this time.

Dilwale just doesn’t deliver and being this long (155 Minutes!) doesn’t help at all. It is not as bad as Happy New Year, but then that’s no benchmark. Especially not for SRK! The movie just doesn’t seem to end!

I’m going with a 1.5/5 for Dilwale. It is watchable (Bearable is the correct word) , but it’s wiser to not waste your money on this one. You’ll need a big heart to like this movie.

Chennai Express: My Review

By farooq

On August 10, 2013

In Movies & Entertainment

Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone

Director: Rohit Shetty

RunTime: 141 minutes

Entertainment is what you should seek before boarding the Chennai express and you might just get it, for the most part of it, albeit some tamil-telugu movie rip offs and clichés put together in many of the scenes. Nevertheless, the pace, Shahrukh’s performance, Deepika’s attempt in tamil and of course the Entertainment quotient attached through the journey keeps you seated in your berth, although doesn’t offer anything different.

The story is about Rahul (Played by Shahrukh Khan as always: P) and his accidental trip to a village near Chennai where Meena’s Dad, a don (Meena played by Deepika padukone and Sathyaraj playing her Dad) rules and forcefully wants her to be married off to another of his kind. She flees her home, only to be caught by the goondi (as she calls it) of her powerful dad. But this time she has company, Rahul ending up becoming a part of it all. The whole saga of running away, ultimately falling in love in the due process and fighting for their love in typical south-Indian movie style is what Chennai Express offers you.
Shahrukh charms his way through with witty one liners delivered effortlessly and this might just be the funniest that you have ever came across him before in a complete comic role. The king shows why he is called a king.

Deepika tried hard to match up the Tamil accent and language, the effort is visible, but appears a stereotypical caricature in most of the parts. But makes up for it, with her chemistry with Shahrukh. Emoting has always been a big addition to her role-play, and she does it beautifully apart from looking beautiful in kanjeevaram sarees.
When it comes to direction and depiction, Rohit Shetty has used Tamil language as it is used, rather than accented Hindi version which hardly anyone in the rural parts of TN speak. Kudos to him for not falling prey to “making tit easy for the audience” rather than telling the story the way it should be. Scenes where the characters shift to Antakshari mode in order to talk something secretive are done creatively.
There’s spoofs filled in between from old SRK movies, the famous DDLJ train scene being one of the highlights. Ridiculous for times like ours but works surprisingly. The south’s’ version of North-stereotyping has also been shown, perhaps a first for a mainstream Indian-movie.
Cinematography is an integral part and helps the narration sail with Srks way of letting the story come to life. Shots are breathtaking, the south was never shown with so much elegance, and the sets are made amazingly well.
First half is entertaining and funny, while the second half tried to describe the romance between SRK and Deepika. The idea here was that deepika fells for srk before he does. Rohit tried to this “love bloom”, and the climax all in the second half. Like his Golmal brand of comic movies, where everything is fitted at the end of the spectrum. Although this makes it looks a little shabby. Not that the chemistry between the pair doesn’t work, but it’s the story that finally decides that it just cannot forego all the tried-and-tested tricks of movie making, and falls in the trap of giving an ending which we have seen many times.
Songs are good and few for a Shahrukh movie, but does their job of lending support to the plot and are a way to celebrate the North-south diversity, differences and unity. The shots taken in some of the songs are breathtaking.
The film works due to the banter between the lead pair, and resonate the north-south tiff but finally giving way to love. Instead of continuing with the slap-stick comedies, the come-as-it-may funny banter does well in the film. If not for the clichéd ending, with almost the same dish to offer eventually, it falls short of being a great entertainer. Not that it doesn’t provide you that, but in packets mostly spanning the first half of the movie.
For a festival season and a commercial tone underlying, Chennai express is fun to board if you are okay with eating the same dish for dinner, which you had in lunch, served with genuine jokes which are fun.
I’m going with a 2.5 for Chennai Express, enjoy your weekend if you don’t mind watching “nothing-new-yet-entertaining stuff”. It’s sure to “Ready-steady-po” towards box-office success.

Jab tak hai Jaan Movie Review

By farooq

On November 19, 2012

In Movies & Entertainment

Low expectations always helps. Watched “Jab tak hai jaan” with the same mindset of low expectations. Although my die-hard-SRK-fan siblings, who had already watched the movie, were not helping at all in keeping those expectations low. Still, managed to keep my brains intact before entering the cinema hall. One of them even said, “You should leave your brain and only go with your heart to watch a Yashraj movie”. Classic, I tell you.

Yeah, Right!

What would you expect from a Shahrukh-YashRaj film?? Romance!! right??

Well, you do get that from the script. Flawed, but still the script is designed to be romantic. Film starts off with Shahrukh, in Indian army uniform defusing a bomb, actually successfully defusing (Indian hero, how can you not expect him to diffuse that).

A stubble-carrying SRK looks uber cool. The poetry recited in his voice is amazing.

Anushka Sharma’s entry is surely a mouth-watering one. She is vivacious and lively in the character of Akira, which she plays. Displaying that “makeup-breakup-generation-girl-attitude” is what she does quite beautifully. Making you smile at the way she goes about her “fitoor” (passion) of filming SRK for her documentary.

In the backdrop runs SRK’s never dying love for Meera (played by Katrina) who tries her best to act apart from looking glamorous. But fails, miserably. Acting is something that you should least expect from her (and I know, you won’t).

The chemistry between Samar (SRK’s character) and Meera is unconvincingly boring. Even with liplocks being planted in between. (Yes, SRK’s first onscreen kiss!!!) But it all looked too unconvincing and the romance that could have actually taken the movie to the level that you do expect from a Yashraj movie falls flat.

Songs are good, if not A.R Rehman-isque but with Shahrukh being the one on whom it was picturised, a Sonu Nigam would have appeared better. Picture a song like heer on an emotionless-katrina!! Many of these things take some of the magic already away from the songs.

Dialogues are good, but some scenes, especially when SRK angrily challenges God in the church could have reached that Amitabh-God talk in Deewar.

But, even with all these flaws, be it in terms of script, acting, song picturization, etc. what stands out is the man in the centre of it all. The SRK. Delivering a solid performance as someone who is in love. Love which never dies. Each phase that he lives through in the movie makes you connect with his rage, his anger and the reason of all this, his love for Meera. The stubble-look reminds you of Chak-de, and he lives to that performance, although the script does not make him go beyond that.

There should always be something that you can take back from a movie, and Jab tak hai jaan will make sure you do. Watch it for the love-struck SRK, the bubbly Anushka and glamourous doll Katrina. There was one joke that was going viral on twitter a few days back, “Human beings love jab tak hai jaan, while Being humans didn’t”. 🙂

Tag: srk

Dilwale Review: You’ll need a big heart to like this movie

Chennai Express: My Review

Jab tak hai Jaan Movie Review