Q2 2018 - Something for every One! Hindi Movies - No more 1 Dimensional

MAINSTREAM BOLLYWOOD

Sanju - 3.75 Stars - PG13 (Biopic)
आधी कहानी पर सेंटी कहानी

 

Director - Rajkumar Hirani.

Actors - Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal.

 

Trailer

 

It is not a Sanjay Dutt story it is more of a Ranbir Kapoor story. As told by an accomplished reviewer in my facebook feed (Poonam didi) - it is a disappointment to see the real Sanjay Dutt at the end in the credits song. Ranbir is such a cute Sanju that you forget that he is not the real Sanju!

 

Another well made movie from Rajkumar Hirani. Story is made very simplistic and focusses on acquitting Sanju of the criminal label on him. Some fans who are into life of celebs may not find it fulfilling because only few things have been shown in the movie and much has been left out. It is not a documentary of all juicy gossip you want to find. It is a typical Hirani movie focusing on Son-Dad and Friendship. scenes are well done and Ranbir and Vicky are great as usual. I thought the drug episode of his life dragged a tad bit too long otherwise the movie had its moments. Length is always a problem for Hirani. Struggles of a Star Kid and his missteps are captured well though they did not want to blame it on a strict and busy Dad. It is a fine line and Hirani did a good Job.

Baaghi 2 - 3.75 Stars. PG. (Action)
देसी रेम्बो



Director - Ahmed Khan
Actors - Tiger Shroff, Disha Patani, Randeep Hooda.

Trailer

Action and out and out Action. Tiger Shroff has a niche for himself. It is commercial masala at it's best. It is inspired by Rambo but obviously Desi Rambo ain't gonna take down the system without having something to do with a 'broken heart'. Ex-Girl Friend needs him, he can't say No! Obviously he is indestructible, and the war is on. In some what hilarious ending, for no reason the villain who is living in city suddenly decides to have a home in the jungle so that we can have some Rambo style war in jungle setting. But all is good, when are going all out to make a Action thriller. Disha has not much to do in this one, except to give that 'damsel in distress' look. Tiger is good, he can pull it off. But the cake goes to this blogger's favorite - Mr Style Bhai - Randeep Hooda. The guy is out of this world awesome, he plays an eccentric cop who has is own way of doing cop-giri. The guy is hilarious and has got some good lines as a - hippie-cop. perfect fit to a perfect masala filum...

Hate Story 4 - 2.0 Stars. R. (Thriller)
न हेट बची न स्टोरी



Director - Vishal Pandya
Actors - Urvashi Rautela, Ihana Dhillon.

Trailer

Honestly I don't remember what happens, all I remember I was disappointed. I liked this series, they had this low budget sleazy thrillers which had pretty good story lines with lot of twists and one liners. This one just was one too much this time. 2 brothers falling for the same girl and there are bunch of secrets as things open one after the other. But this time it did not make much sense.

Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweetie - 3.5 Stars. G. (Comedy / Drama)
दोस्त बनाम प्यार



Director - Luv Ranjan
Actors - Nushrat Bharucha, Kartik Aryan, Sunny Nijar.

Trailer

A movie that generally should have big stars like Ranbir and Ranvirs of the world. Somehow this has  similar upscale feel to the movie, even though it is not a Karan Johan movie. Kudos to movie makers for that. The movie is pretty good and has a good young and new age feel to it. Sonu and Titu are friends and then Titu falls for Sweetie. Sonu does not like it, Sweetie does not like it. Titu is smitten and he has no clue these both are on war for him. The movie does what it does to an extent but misses the final punch to it. It does support this stupid notion in our society that women are some how source of all trouble though all trouble makers are men, but then I don't like to pass judgements of film's intent because in the end it was made for entertainment. Watch it.

Fukrey Returns - 4.0 Stars. G. (Comedy)
चूचे  से दिल नहीं भरता

 

Director - Mrighdeep Lamba.
Actors - Varun Sharma, Pulkit Samrat, Pankaj Tripathi, Richa Chadha.

Trailer

I am sure all of you won't put it at 4 stars, but I can't help it. I am not done with Chuchha. I have lived with many chuchhas in my life and it is hilarious to watch. Fukrey returns doubles down on Chuchha, but it still does not make an overdose. As is the want with all second comings the Fukreys are back in trouble, this time bigger trouble with politicians and cities running after them. Obviously messing up stuff because chuccha is dreaming stuff and the interpretations of what he dreams in not straight forward. It is complete non sense and it works, this time Mr Pankaj Tripathi has a extended role too and it works. Watch it, and don' think too much.  

MukkaBaaz - 4.5 Stars. PG13 (Action / Drama)
मुक्का मार, दिल हार

Director - Anurag Kashyap
Actors - Vineet Kumar Singh, Jimmy Shergill, Ravi Kishan, Sadhna Singh.

Trailer

Anurag Kashyap directing a rugged UP lifestyle Love story, you cant go wrong here. This blogger has bias towards Kashyap and UP based movies, this one tops with awesome regional folksy songs. the product is ugly, sad and beautiful love story. A regular guy wants to become a boxer if that is not tough in a corrupt system, that's not all, he is an eccentric and falls in love with a girl who as eccentric as him. Troubles mount on them, Jimmy Shergill proves he is perfect in any role, but when it comes to villainy he has made a name for himself. Jerk, corrupt and typical UP politician all in one, you loath him and more. You root for the Boxer and the lover in protagonist 'shravan' but it is too much of a stretch to think he will win it all. Ending is something straight out of Anurag Kashyap's eccentric mind. Watch it!

Aiyaari - 2.5 Stars. PG. (Thriller)
वतन से आशिकी का ओवरडोज़


Director - Neeraj Pandey
Actors - Sidharth Malhotra, Manoj Bajpayee.

Trailer

Neeraj Pandey has made patriotic spy thrillers his own. He has had some good success and has got the blue print down on these movies. This one checks all the boxes, if you like this genre then go for it. This blogger does not particularly enjoy international espionage patriotic thrillers unless they surprise me. There is a secret force doing illegal stuff internationally for Indian intelligence. It kind of feels over the top the stuff they are doing, but o well... it is a movie! Guru Manoj Bajpayee is a patriot but chela Sidharth has other things on mind. The game starts, what happened to Sidharth what is going to happen? Will international arms trafficker win? etc etc... I think problem to an extent is Manoj Bajpayee, he is not fit for the role. Lately he looks jaded, old and tired. He has this fake hair that don't look good and his acting has come down a level. Second problem is the movie is a little too jingoistic at times. Again, not a bad one. Its good time pass.

NEW AGE HINDI MOVIES

Pad Man - 3.5 Stars. PG13. (Social Drama)
आदमी हो तो ऐसा



Director - R Balki
Actors - Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte.

Trailer

The man is crazy, this guy can go to any extent to alleviate the troubles women go through making for some hilarious situation. A social reformer who created menstrual pads out of nothing but pure will and passion. The film has a documentary feel to it and hence does not rise beyond a certain level. A good and entertaining movie and always shocking to see where rural India is at.


Lust Stories - 4.0 Stars. R. (Mature Adults Drama) - NETFLIX
लस्ट के सामने प्यार क्या चीज़ है?



Director - Dibaker Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar.
Actors - Kiara Advani, Radhika Apte, Bhumi Pednekar, Manisha Koirala, Vicky Kaushal.

Trailer

4 directors try there hand at Lust story, not Love but Lust and what a varied, vivid, different pictures they paint. All 4 of them have their moments and are master pieces in their own right.

Karan Johar's is the most entertaining with a great message, girls have desires! he directs a funny and smart movie about a girl who is married to a guy who loves her but does not understand that she can also have needs. Their hilarious journey of love and lust ends with some lessons. This is the last one so you can jump to it in case you don't want to sit through more darker, artsy ones before it.

First one is Anurag Kashyap's expectedly whacky movie of a teacher (Radhika Apte) stalking a student after a one night stand.

Second one is Zoya Akhtar's section showing a slice of lust life with not much of beginning and the end. But life it what it is, it does not really begin and end crisply.

Third one is interesting one from Dibaker Banerjee, and probably the most interesting of the lot with Manisha Koirala getting what she wants after she has an affair with her hubby's best friend, she plays her game well! Watch it, but be patient with this movie.

Ajji - 3.5 Stars. R. (Revenge Drama)
सुपर गर्ल, वंडर गर्ल अब देखो आजि गर्ल


Director - Devashish Makhija
Actors - Sushama Deshpande

Trailer

A disturbing tale of real life. A slice of real life that plays itself every day in streets. A poor 8 year old girl is raped by local thug. Life is such a burden on the family without the 'incident' that now with it, no one has time to care for the girl, except for Ajji. Old and struggling to help family meet ends something breaks in her. She wants to do something about it. Sadly that's when reality shifts to Film and Ajji goes about trying to plot revenge. Gory and disturbing the movie is definitely made with a revulsion towards what we have come to know as society. Still it is worth a watch, because some times you can be shook out of your comforts and face reality.

Missing - 3.0 Stars. G. (NETFLIX) - Thriller
सस्ती जुगाड़ू थ्रिलर


Director - Mukul Abhyankar
Actors - Manoj Bajpayee, Tabu, Anu Kapoor

Trailer

What's up with Netflix, they are taking movies that are made on dirt cheap budget! Come on guys keep some standard. More on Netflix choice later in the blog. A couple come to a resort and their toddler daughter goes missing. Search starts and everything starts looking shady. Are they married? is there a daughter? is the neighbor weird? is the cop crazy? This is the good part of the movie. The bad? once the producer decided to sign Tabu and Manoj he said to director - No more money for you. The resort is empty, the staff is like 5 people. I think the entire movie has 15 people total. No music nothing. Tabu can't carry the entire movie!! especially when Manoj Bajpayee has become a huge liability for all his movies. He has forgotten how to act. Don't know what's wrong with him. The guy who once mesmerized us with a out of whack performance in 'Aks' has dropped down to being a non-actor. Anyway if you are doing nothing and you have a Netflix account you can fast forward half of it and watch the rest. It has good twists in the end.

Raid - 3.75 Stars. G. (Drama / Thriller)
एक रेड ने रेड मार दी


Director - Raj Kumar Gupta
Actors - Ajay Devgan, Saurabh Shukla, Illeana D Souza

Trailer

This is a perfect movie for Ajay Devgan, made for him. Finally a good selection Ajay! North India in 80s, an honest IAS officer in a corrupt system and some dialogue baaji. The movie is well made straight out of 80s. I was surprised to see an entire movie made on one income tax raid! The movie though slow.. keeps your interest and I finished in one sitting - a definite sign of a good engaging movie. How many crores can you find in one raid? go watch it.

Kaalakandi - 4.0 Stars. PG13. (Drama)



Director - Akshat Verma
Actors - Saif Ali Khan, Neil, Amyra, Sobhita, Deepak Dobriyal, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Vijay Raaz.

Trailer

I like Saif in these movies, his big budget spy movies flopped, it was a boon in disguise. He did some good cinema. I am in awe of the new writers and directors on hindi movies, Akshat Verma has written and directed this one, and he is good at his craft. Now you have seen enough of these movies, this genre got popular with 'life in a metro'. Movie is about 4 stories intertwined together in one night. A lot happens in one night, Saif is just one of the stories there is an engaging one going on between great duo of Vijay Raaz and Deepak Dobriyal. It is entertaining and fast paced and a lot happens to keep you engaged all the way to a cracker of an ending.

Hichki - 2.5 Stars. PG. (Social)
आइये सीखिए कुछ


Director - Siddarth Malhotra
Actors - Rani Mukerjee, Neeraj Kabi.

Trailer

Now you have seen many of these kind of movies too. Underdog fighting against all odds. Problem is we have seen too many of these and now we need them to be really good to make an impact. Rani plays a girls who has Tourette syndrome (which I found out what it is during this movie) and she wants to be a teacher. Her passion and her handicap are not on the same page. She gets to make a change to lives of kids who also are fighting a battle where they are handicapped by society. You get the gist. It is a feel good story but you know what is happening, and once you know what is happening that's what is happening. So.... it happens.

Pari - 3.5 Stars. R. (Thriller / Horror)
ऐसी परी से डायन अच्छी



Director - Prosit Roy
Actors - Anushka Sharma, Parambrata Chatterjee.

Trailer

Kudos for even trying this. Anushka is great, the girl is not ok with what she has. As is the problem with most hindi movies ... they lose you in first few minutes. You need to work through this movie's first half. It was probably trending towards a 1.0 stars until halftime, then it takes off. Don't watch it as a horror movie but more like a thriller. Horror aspect of movie is not that good.

The movie is about a girl who is found chained at her Mom's jungle home. Mom dies in a car crash. The girl has no one left and the guy who's car was involved .... gets involved. As you have often heard, if a movie has Rajat Kapoor it can't be bad. Rajat Kapoor is the twist in the tale, he is the crazy guy searching for the girl... or is he the only sane one? Watch it!

B.A. Pass 2 - 1.0 Stars. R. NETFLIX (Drama)
बी ए पास और एक्टिंग फेल



Director - Shadab Khan, Shabaad Khan.
Actors - Kritika Sachdeva, Sanghmitra Hitaishi, Sasho

Trailer

One of the worst Netflix has bought. They need some quality control now that they have started a heavy influx of hindi movies. The movie had some terrible actors. Generally a movie has a unifying theme to it, this one just went on and on and I could not find why the movie is made? What's the point of it all? A girls fights with her parents and runs away from home to come settle in Mumbai. She has no plan and hence becomes an actor. Then the weirdness starts .... I have no clue what was going on after that, and in case you reach the end. If you had any hope from the movie, that hope will be sucked out of you. If anyone figures why the movie is called BA pass .. please call me.

ARTSY
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Rukh - 4.0 Stars. PG13. (Drama.)
ऐसे कैसे जाने दू?


Director - Atanu Mukherjee
Actors - Adarsh Gaurav, Smita Tambe, Manoj Bajpayee.

Trailer

His Dad dies in a car accident. Just like that one fine day his life goes for a toss. There are times when you can't let things go or things won't let you go. He keeps obsessing and things keep getting complicated. Truth sometimes let's you make it go away. In one day things can go back to normal and you can start breathing, but you have to go through a grieving period and some more. Slow paced and a little haunting but the movie does a good job.

October - 4.5 Stars. R. (Drama.)
दर्द की कीमत चुकानी पड़ती है


Director - Shoojit Sircar
Actors - Varun Dhawan, Banita Sandhu

Trailer

Some movies get over and you sit there and don't move. You sit there and you can't shut off the TV. You move and go to bed but the movie is with you, not because it was exciting or entertaining but because it just made you feel something which you lose in day to day life.

Varun Dhawan does a Judwa2 and then he does an 'October'. He plays a regular person you can so identify with. He is not good at most things in life, but his human is alive in him. He is not successful in any way but he has something good about him. Then an incident happens on a new year. A co worker girl is critical in the hospital, something breaks in him. He can't let it go (similar to Rukh), he gets stuck with one thing. The regular stupid life which people live he can no longer live. He is stuck in his head and heart. No he is not in love, he just has love in his heart! O.. so beautiful. Watch it if you got loads of time and you still have something alive in you besides running around in your mechanical life.

Gurgaon - 3.0 Stars. R. (Drama)
पागल फॅमिली की पगली दास्तान


Director - Shanker Raman
Actors - Akshay Oberoi, Ragini Khanna, Pankaj Tripathi.

Trailer

 Though the movie has it's moments, but the movie just doesn't move after few initial reels. A rich crazy family has issues like all other but this one has too many issues going. If you think the start is weird wait till the end and things get more and more weird with a weird ending. Not badly made but somehow the depressing nature of the movie got to me. It was very weirdly depressing movie. fast forward and watch is my recommendation on this one.