Q3 - Awesome Year Continues and a Review from Savi

2015 Top Performers -

Rules - scores will be posted with the reviews how many marks did each actor and director earn. These will keep getting added over the year and one will be crowned the "Actor / Director / Music Director of 2015".

Best Actors (Male) -

1. Amitabh Bachchan (Piku)
2. Ronit Roy (Guddu Rangeela)
3. Sushant Singh Rajput (Detective Byomkesh Bakshi)
4. Ranbir Kapoor (Bombay Velvet) 

Best Actors (Female) -

1. Kangana Ranaut (Tanu Weds Manu2)
2. Deepika Padukone (Piku)
 

Best Director -

1. Dibakar Banerjee (Detective Byomkesh Bakshi)
2. Shoojit Sircar (Piku)
3. Anurag Kashyap (Bombay Velvet)

Worst of the Quarter -

1. Sunny Deol (I Love NY)
2. Naseeruddin Shah (Dharam Sanket Mein)

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• Detective Byomkesh Bakshi - 4.5 Stars.

Actors: Sushant Singh Rajput, Anand Tiwari, Swastika Mukherjee

Director: Dibakar Banerjee

The movie takes you back in 1940s Bengal. It is very difficult to do a period movie and make it work at least in hindi films. This one makes it look easy, very well done, beautifully set. Detective Byomkesh is our own Sherlock Holmes the story drags in the start and then gets confusing and completely chaotic before making sense of everything. A typical whodunit movie. Perfectly done. No sly tricks by the director at the end but just a very taunt script done well. Sushant Singh Rajput does an awesome job and fits the role perfectly. Other support roles are very well done. the story is about a detective whose casual interest in a young man's father's disappearance turns ugly and way serious than anyone expected.

• Piku - 4.0 Stars.

Actors: Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Irrfan Khan

Director: Shoojit Sircar

The movie self confesses to be heavy on toilet references. The entire movie does not have a single scene that does not talk about gastric problems! it is understandable that some people got "nauseated" because of it. But the movie on the surface is talking toilet but has a beautiful soul. The Daughter Father relation is cute, between Bachchan and Deepika. The movie is more from the eyes of the daughter and hence some people may think it makes mockery of an old man. But if you can rise above this, it is a beautiful movie about love for parents. Old people become kids and kids become parents as life goes on. Deepika frets about how the old man has no responsibility because he leaves whenever he likes!! typical of all kids who think there parents after a certain age should tell them everything about where they are going! (like kids). Old people think they still can do everything on their own when clearly that is not the case! they are stuck on one or two major things which they obsess about. All these may be clichés but somehow it all works for this movie.

• Tanu weds Manu Returns - 4.0 Stars.

Actors: Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut

Director: Anand L. Rai

The movie starts off at a hilarious note! They are married now and they have issues and it is hilarious. The first 30 minutes of the movie is a laugh riot. Look for the first scene when Tanu and Manu fight at the asylum. Then later when Manu's Dad tells him why he should stay married and just somehow find a way. It is hilarious. the movie can't keep the hilarity all through and becomes a little of a drag in the second half with some subplots that stretch too far. but over all it's a good timepass movie. Manu's friend is as awesome as in the first movie, this guy is a crack up anytime he opens his mouth. Obviously the star of the movie is Kangana, she can do anything if given the space to do it. She has double role which may be a spoiler because for sometime I could not make out that the second girl in the movie is kangana herself. Her dialect and transformation is unbelievable. She is like a Batsman in purple patch, she just can't do anything wrong right now in her career.

• Rahasya - 3.5 Stars

Actors: Kay Kay Menon, Tisca Chopra, Aashish Vidyarthi, Mita Vasisht, Ashwini Kalsekar, Nimai Bali

Director: Manish Gupta

The movie is based on Aarushi Murder case with some twists. It is almost same story ine for most of the film. Lifting a real life story as inspiration is different to almost make the story exactly as the real life case is another. The movie does have grip but something is lacking. If you don't know much about the real life case I think you enjoy the movie more. It is pretty good whuddunit thriller with lot of twists. This is the era of thrillers and suspense movies and Bollywood is doing pretty good job at it. Kay Kay Menon plays the CBI officer who needs to crack the case of whether parents killed their own daughter or not. I have high expectation of him and that's why he disappoints, he plays a typical detective but does not give his own flare to the role. Anyway the movie is a good watch.

• Hunterrr - 3.5 Stars

Actors: Gulshan Devaiya, Radhika Apte, Sai Tamhankar, Sagar Deshmukh

Director: Harshavardhan Kulkarni

This is all Marathi movie, it seems everyone in the movie is Marathi. It has a pretty heavy Marathi influence and it works pretty well. I did not expect this movie to be anything but 0 stars but it surprised me! The guy is a player and all he wants to do is play the field and not get married. He is commitment phobic in fact he loves to use anyone and everyone. Then things change, he starts getting old and the field starts drying his friends are married. With middle age new challenges come and so does new love. If you like low budget and can take some shoddy productions value this is a pretty good one to watch.

• Dharam Sankat Mein - 1 Star.

Actors: Naseeruddin Shah, Paresh Rawal, ANNU KAPOOR, Murli Sharma

Director: Fuwad Khan

This idiotic movie plays on the recent trend of anti-religion movies like OMG and PK. This one doesn't add anything but continues on the same godman is a cheat and already used clichés about religion. Paresh Rawal and Naseer act like cartoons, which makes you wonder if the product is substandard can seasoned actors not act substandard? Please no more Anti-Religion movie if you have nothing new and original to present.

• ABCD2 - 5.0 (REVIEW BY SAVI BANSORE)

Actors: Varun Dhawan, Shraddha Kapoor, Prabhu Deva, Lauren Gottlieb, Raghav Juyal, Dharmesh Yelande

Director: Remo D'Souza

The Movie is about Dance and how winning isn't everything. Perseverance and how fair-play is important too and Any Body Can Dance (ABCD) and Dance for fun! I liked the awesome Dance moves in the Movie! I liked how they showed that you should always play fair.

The Story starts out with this Indian Dance group and they are in a competition against a different country and the judges say they copied the other team and that they were eliminated. They all had jobs and when they did there jobs everybody called them cheaters! People quit the group and they find this awesome dancer (Prabhu Deva) and begs him to choreograph them. They go for a championship and they learn Dance from him.

I think Varun Dhawan had OK acting and Dharmesh Yelande did awesome dancing and awesome acting and was super nice in the movie. Shraddha Kapoor was pretty and she did great hiphop dancing for a actress that you haven't seen Dance that much and she was very responsible in the movie against irresponsible boys on her dance team. Lauren spoke really good hindi for an American and did great dancing too. Prabhu Deva did awesome dancing and he did good acting for the character he played. My favorite character were Dharmesh, Varun and Shraddha Kapoor. I watched the most exceptional dancing I have ever seen and if you are looking for good dancing then go watch this movie!

• Hamari Adhuri Kahaani - 3.75 Stars.

Bombay Velvet

Actors: Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan, Raj Kumar Yadav, Madhurima Tuli

Director: Mohit Suri

The most reliable star in Hindi films delivers again. Emraan Hashmi never has a bad movie it seems. This one starts slow and directionless and you wonder this one is going to fall flat. But slowly the movie picks up and ends up on a great note. Now this is not your typical Hindi movie so you have to give it some time and patience, it has a very different story, it is kind of in the same genre in treatment of the movie as "Badlapur". As always Emraan falls in love, but this time with a married woman. She has a lot of baggage and her past comes to haunt her when everything looks rosy. Watch it.

• Bombay Velvet - 3.75 Star.

 Actors: Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Naseeruddin Shah, Kay Kay Menon, Karan Johar, Siddhartha Basu

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Anurag Kashyap is one of the favorite director of this blogger and this was probably the movie a little bit out of his comfort zone as it involved big stars. Anyway he did not disappoint it was a pretty good movie. The movie is set in 60s and the entire movie is shot beautifully making that era look and feel dreamy and jazzy. The entire soundtrack and songs are Jazz music. This itself lifts the movie above a lot of other movies made, they have took pains to create this era of jazz from firs to the last screen. The master stroke is to cast Ranbir Kapoor in the movie, because all we know about that era is his own family. So he is an instant fit, you can see he is completely invested in the movie just like he was in "Rockstar".

It is about life and times of a road side thug who becomes the most important criminal in the 60s and the movie tracks his rise and fall. Don't have pre-conceived notion sit back relax it's a different era and enjoy the ride.

• Guddu Rangeela - 4.0 Stars

Actors: Arshad Warsi, Amit Sadh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Ronit Roy, Dibyendu Bhattacarjee, Amit Sial, Brijendra Kala, Rajiv Gupta

Director: Subhash Kapoor

Another bankable star is Arshad Warsi, you are guaranteed a good time with this dude in a movie. I don't know why moviemakers misguide the audience with the posters and movie name that don't gel with the movie content! Arshad Warsi has a reputation of being comic actor, that does not mean you name the movie and advertise it like a comedy when it is not!

Anyway movie is a typical Bollywood potboiler with a real and awesome 100% villain in Ronit Roy. If you did not yet, you will hate the Chhap panchayat culture of some states in India. Ronit Roy does a great job of making sure you do. It is a little bit like sholay with 2 friends small time crooks out to get a big time villain. Arshad is good as usual but Amit Sadh needs to make his sadak chhap role more believable. This blogger has high standards when you try play a small time crook, then you can't show that you are stylish city kid. It is a pretty gripping good movie, go watch it.

• I Love NY - 0 Stars.

Actors: Sunny Deol, Kangna Ranaut, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Navin, Prem Chopra, Virag Mishra, Manoj Joshi, Reema Lagoo

Director: Radhika Rao, Vinay Sapru

The movie must be in the cans for years and now that Kangna is a big star they released it. Pretty bad for Sunny papaji who is horrible in this. This is a low budget cute love story, generally reserved for Rahul Bose, what are you doing in it Sunny??? AND you are really old to play that! you were not good at this anyway! Well.. I did not complete the movie ... I refuse to. Just because I am a reviewer does not mean I can sit through anything.