Dhada Review

Young Yuvasamrat Nagachaitanya is quick to come back this year for second time with his new flick “Dhada” after hitting the bull’s eye with 100% Love for summer. He pairs with lucky mascot Kajal.  New comer Ajay Bhuyan handles the direction and movie produced by Akkineni’s almost the home banner Kamakshi films.

Let’s check out if Chai really about to make the box-office shiver with his Dhada…

Plot: Viswa (Naga Chaitanya) just completes the graduation in USA. He lives with his brother who loves him the most. He falls for a rich but lonely girl Ria (Kajal) and in parallel messes up with a cruel don RD (Rahul Dev) who runs a huge sex racket and other illegal stuff in Las Vegas. How he wins his lady and puts an end to the villain is all “Dhada” about!!

Actors:  

 Nagachaitanya...(Let’s go with his pet name chai to make it simpler going forward)…so far was seen in pretty cool zone just romancing the girls either in colleges or going around trees tries to do action-oriented stuff this time. Well if you just look at chaitu leaving aside the things around…he improves a lot in dances…steps up to the next level in romance scenes…But there’s still a lot of space for improvisation in all other regular scenes. He could gel well with action sequences with good physique and lure his lady fans with cool looks and costumes that suit him the best.

Its relief for people who are bored watching Kajal in choodidhaars...as she sheds some inhibitions and increases the glamour quotient in songs there by heating up the surroundings for a while. But her sober character remains the same in this movie too and off-song, her hair-do just irritates us. Over all, just loved her in the songs than never before.

Rahul Dev puts up decent act. Kelli Dorge the helicopter boy does his favorite past time here too. Tamil actor Sriram though played pivotal role looked very dull throughout. Samiksha who is seen as his wife is adequate.

Brahmanandam, Ali are forcefully forced to enhance the torture…so it is just additional pain to what we see on screen. Mukesh rishi as Kajal’s father had meaningless role.

Simple plot screwed by jumping screenplay!!

Well the story is rather simple one, Boy meets girl for songs and he beats up bad guys in frequent intervals and he feels emotional for his family. And the movie is exactly made up of few scenes each for the Heroes romance, fights and family which come one after other every 10 min. And there is neither perfect sync nor fun element that ties these repetitive scenes.

“Dhada” is actually Ajay Bhuyan’s second, while his first film “Houseful” is still mugging in boxes for long time. He did not come up with any surprises and he is fine with scene by scene. But while summing up the things together, they are not in order. Nor there is effective camerawork or engaging background score that sets up interest for the audience.  


While First half flows ok which ends with a simple twist in hope for better second. Second looses track by the time we get to extended climax.

Songs are the savior….

In this bumpy ride, songs come to our rescue in regular intervals…All the songs composed well by Devi Sri Prasad are still colorful on screen. “Hello Hello Laila” which is chartbuster is superbly pictured (although the song creeps in for no reason). “Bhoome gundranga” and “Telugu Bengali” throw light on Chai’s effort in dances. Let’s cheer him for that. “Deewali Deepani” shows the sensuous side of Kajal.  So songs are the best part of the entire film and One scene where Chaitu asks Kajal for date using set of photographs adding up to say “What About A Date” seemed little innovative.

Finally…

Well if only for looking at chai as to how he could handle action genre, He has done his job well. But sad he is not amply supported by technical team. People looking only for Chai’s looks, Kajal’s glamour and colorful songs should just sit through the movie patiently and wait for that, 5 minutes when song plays.


More effort on screenplay and trimming the dragging parts would have made a crispier and better film.

Rating:

2.25/5. Dhada ...going up title might not shiver the box-office but should get good openings for Hero's good track record and for Dhada big direct Telugu release after a gap

Hindi Singham Review

Here comes yet another remake of south Indian cinema “Singham” that hit the screens this week. Thanks...It’s not Salman this time, But AjayDevagan who exhibits his 6-pack for this Cop-flick. Rohit Shetty of Golmaal directs this flick and Prakash Raj who played the villain in the Original repeats the same here. Original had Tamil top star Surya as hero.

Plot: Jaykanth Shikre (Prakash Raj) …a ruthless Kidnapper-smuggler controls the Goa city with political and police support. And BajiRao Singham (AjayDevagan) an honest inspector in a small village treats his fellow villagers as his own family and enjoys their love and respect. What happens when destiny makes these different poles clash while Singham is transferred to the city where he is all alone?

Actors:

AjayDevagan left no stone unturned to fit the role of Cop. Though he has done it before in Gangajal, He leaves his signature firmly on Singham with his new toned body, sharp eyes and powerful dialogues. Though there were few unintended laughs when he tried doing few dance moves imitating Salman and while jumping with invisible ropes every now and then, overall it is remarkable effort.

PrakashRaj is the show stealer…Witty punch lines seemed wittier than in script, thanks to his slang that blends Tamil with Hindi. A commanding villain could elevate the hero and Prakash as JayaKanth Shikre effortlessly accomplishes his task. And Bollywood is freshly enjoying this great actor who proved a lot in south.

Kajal Aggarwal, who rarely acted with heroes of age 40+ in south cinemas and always enjoyed dancing in handful of songs in each film in south, has barely got a role in her awaited Bollywood dream. I wish, but not sure if someone notices her!!

Other actors who played other cops, Prakash Raj’s side-kick etc, wicked politician all acted decently.

High octane Cop Flick…

  Yes, there is seriously anything we have never seen so far, That Singham brings for us. Indeed we have seen all this much before in 80’s. But again…It’s the impact that a film has on you, while watching it counts.  Singham has many such situations which boil your blood and a common audience just wants to get up from his seat and kick the villain and here Devgan does the same on behalf of us. Thus this Tom and Jerry fight between Jaykanth Shikre and BajiRao Singham was made thoroughly engaging during the latter half.  And unlike Dabangg which is more of family drama, Singham has a broader canvas involving police and politicians.

Direction and other stuff…

   Rohit Shetty did a quite many modifications in the script first to suit the nativity and then made it really racy and crispier than the original. And poor girl Kajal has to face the brunt, as her screen presence is nullified in the process. While the first half has nothing much but to establish the characters leisurely, movie catches the pace in the second and runs firmly till the end. Climax should have been bit better.

Farhad-Sajid score well for dialogues written for both Singham-Shikre while Screenplay by Yunus Sajawal is much better than the original. Nothing to speak about the songs, but back ground score given by Ajay-Atul is appreciable

Final Say…

So this is Devagan’s Dabangg in one word…while Singham offers nothing stunning or refreshing, It neither let’s you down. But will definitely satisfy your senses if you are in for an action.

Rating…

Let’s go with 3 stars

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

  The story of 3 guys, I guess it all started with “Dil chahtha hai” and the numerology goes on continuing from “3 Idiots” to very recent “Delly Belly” and Let’s not count the countless crap comedies with three guys leading them. And now we are again there this week with “Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara” ….and here our “3” played by Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol and Farhan Akthar and the movie is directed by Farhan’s sister, Zoya Akthar who earlier directed “Luck by chance”.

Plot: When Kabir (Abhay Deol) is engaged to Natasha (Kalki Kochlein…Remember Chandramukhi in Dev D), He with his two good friends...Arjun(Hrithik) and Imran(Farhan) who are collectively called as 3 musketeers set on to a much awaited bachelor trip(Idea probably derived from Hangover) to Spain. This fun trip where each has a fearful sport they like and other two are bound to play it, helps them discover themselves!!

Actors and Characters…

Hrithik plays Arjun…a financial broker for whom money means everything. Role really does not need much of him as it goes very smooth with subtle emotions and moreover his fans will be happy to see him cool on screen. And he meets Laila, played by Katrina. She loves to live the life to the fullest and choose to work as Deep sea diving instructor for some time every year.  Stunning looks...Simple sentences…make her absolutely comfortable like at home.

Abhay Deol as Kabir gives a balance of jovial and matured act. He, who seems capable of controlling his friends, is himself not very sure about his love life. Kalki Kochlein fits the bill for the short role.

Farhan Akthar plays vivacious chap among three…his romantic encounters with Nuria (played by Spanish actress Ariadna Cabrol) are witty. He keeps us engaged throughout with a loud role while the poetic lines he spills in frequent intervals are good.

Nasiruddin shah played a guest…not so memorable.

España está espléndida...

Haha the heading means “Spain is splendid”. What that makes this very predictable journey a very refreshing one is the back-ground chosen for it. Full credit goes to cinematographer Carlos Catalan for bringing the picturesque locations of Spain, live and raw on to the screen. Deep sea diving in Costa Brava…Sky diving in Sevilla...Tomatino festival and Running of the bulls in Pampalona …every episode gives us a good feel. Though the fears of the three friends are similar and lesson learnt after each sport is same…It’s just the wonderful work by Carlos that glues us to the screen…

Lets Sum up other things….

Hrithik-Katrina….sure this beautiful pair is much awaited and we are lucky at last to have them here…And chemistry is rocking as expected. Music too goes according to numerology that is “Trio” Shanker Ehsaan Loy…No big surprises but “Senorita” sounds sweet while all others are good on screen. Screenplay is quick in the first while slows down in the second half, but is good enough to sustain the interest. One big disappointment is, there are neither too loud laughter’s nor the heartrending moments, But then the perfect timing between the 3 musketeers bonds the audience to the movie to make it cool one-time watch if not “Dobara”

Rating…

Will Slightly deviate from "3" factor ....and will love to go with "3 and Half" stars

  

180 Movie Review

After two debacles in the row, Siddardh comes back with new movie 180. This time he brings his mentor Jayendra as the director, while cuties Nithya menon and Priya Anand pair up with him. Let’s check out if luck favors this Lover boy.

Story(Slightly spoiler!! check before you read this section):  Mano (Siddardh) comes to Hyderabad for a short stay. Vidya (Nithya Menon), A press photographer is fascinated by happy going nature and cute antics of Manu. Their relationship turns into love quickly. But Manu who is diagnosed with a disease (No guesses what it is –obviously cancer) has just 180 days (6 months) to live. On top of it, Manu is already married to Renu (Priya Anand). So what’s the end to this tragic saga is left for your guesses!!

Actors:

Siddardh plays two shades … as a happy going guy in the first part and facing the agony in the second. He is very comfortable playing the first as that was always his comfort zone.

Priya Anand is one solid plus in the film. She excels in all ways…The way she mimics; her costumes and her own dubbed voice are all perfect. She should get some more films.

Nithya Menon seems to be a few film wonder. It’s just a half cute face with No heroine stuff. May be she playing girl falling damn easily for a boy and then running behind him for no reason still irritates us.

Old man who played Siddard’s house owner spills few laughs. Geetha plays his wife. Tanikella plays Priya Anand’s father. Siddard’s friend did decent act.

Everything in slow motion!!

The pain begins with the hero’s intro song where we see everything in not just dragging but killing slow motion. And movie follows the similar slow motion while revealing the two similar love plots one in Hyderabad and other in USA. Interval bang is placed without revealing much...by then the patience is lost. But a minute curiosity of whether your guesses about the twist to be revealed would be right or not still remains. But the later half though makes your guesses right but proves you wrong for choosing this film, thanks to the torturous twist that’s revealed.

 Few Songs in first half are just drum beats that are pictured even slowly especially the title song and a song that’ starts as “AJ Avo”. There’s a child labor episode, but it too lacks the realistic approach. While Love plots with no novelty wastes the first half, overdose of tragedy sinks the second.

Let me sum up few positives…

Balasubramaniam's Cinematography is first-class. But that needs patience to appraise it. Surely there are some good laughs here and there especially scenes with siddard’s house owner. And of course few accidental laughs that comes out of pain. I should tell you two songs “Nee Maatalo Mounam Nenenaa” excellently sung by Karthik and Swetha Menon is excellently pictured. Other song “Ninna leni vinthale choopene” is hummable. So overall music by Sharreth scores pass marks. And as I said, it’s Priya Anand that’s little saving grace. Dailogues by Umarji anuradha who penned for Ye Maaya chesaave has very little scope here. 

Final Say…

With the story that lacks no fresh point and with dragging screenplay...180 do not make a delightful watch. And now why the title 180…It takes your brain away to find that. I guess 108 should have been the apt one.

Rating…

Yeah...one more advantage of the title...It gives me the Rating = 1.80

Hollywood : Summer: X-Men-Hangover-KungFu-Pirates

Hope you guys are enjoying the summer at its best!! And this summer in Hollywood is growing excited week by week. Here’s a gist of coolest releases of early summer…

X-Men First class

Plot: This is the prequel to all X-Men series so far…where we see the origin of interesting characters of X-Men i.e.  Professor X was Charles (James McAvoy) and Magneto was Erik (Michael Fassbender) etc. How together the mutants with variety of skills prevent the World War to happen is interesting.

Goodies: Tightly woven screenplay, interesting story telling, cool performances by youngsters and above all excellent graphics make it the best installment of X-Men Series. One will be thrilled in the scenes where submarine is pulled out of sea, or Pulling back a ship with the giant anchor, Stopping millions of missiles with the Magnetic power…and what not..Everything the young mutants do is exciting and is must a delight to watch.

Rating: 4/5 Strong Go…

Kung Fu Panda -2

How can one just forget the sweet sluggishness of our dear Po? And now he is back in the sequel to save China and Kung fu from evil Lord Shen. In the process Po learns his past and realizes the inner peace. Check out how Kung fu can stop something that stops Kung fu!!

Goodies: With Jack Black dubbing for Po and Angelina Jolie dubbing for Tigress and Jackie Chan for Monkey, Kung Fu Panda 2 has sufficient dose of funny action sequences choreographed in streets of china. Frankly Second installment is not as endearing as the first part, but Po’s journey from being innocent to the winning hero who master’s inner peace with help of his friend’s the Furious Five has good chances of charming you again.

Rating: 3.25/5 Watch it at Leisure

Hangover-2

Plot: This time, our funny four Stu (Ed Helms), Phil (Bradley Cooper), Doug (Justin Bartha), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) head to Thailand to attend Stu’s wedding. That night, they sit over a campfire and have a beer and roasted marshmallows. And the next morning, they end up waking up in dirty hotel room in Bangkok along with Chinese gangster Chow. And the Adventurous tracking of “what happened Last Night” continues!!

What’s Good/Bad: Seriously the second installment just made in very similar fashion to encash the expectations set by the Original released 2009. This one though was not that rocking because of predictability, is still a great fun.  This time they are given company by chain smoking monkey, silent Buddhist monk, a trans-gender Prostitute and what not that keeps you engaged at its best.

Rating: 3/5  Alas!it’s a Copy of Original!!

Pirates Of Caribbean: Stranger Tides.

Captain Jack Sparrow(Johnny Depp) is back in the fourth installment, in an unexpected adventure to the “Fountain of Youth”. Joining him in the adventure are beautiful Angelica( Penelope Cruz) along with Hector Barbossa, Captain Teague and of course the entire bunch we see in the series.

Goodies: If I guess right, Half of the patrons of pirates have already lost the interest with the series while other half naturally jumps at every release. But trust me, “Stranger Tides” offers way much better than the preceding two parts. Uninvited joiners this time are mermaids,  where a lengthy action sequence where mermaids attack the pirates is mind-blowing. Then we had a romance blossoming between a trapped mermaid and a captive. Johnny Depp with the growing ease provides us more fun with his silly antics.

Rating: 3/5 Pirate Lovers should never miss it!!

That's the fun for now....See you soon!

Badrinath Movie Review

Ufff….Finally we reached the end of summer spree of movies with Badrinath that released this weekend. Badrinath which has stylish star Allu Arjun and Tamanna in the leads, and being produced by successful banner of Geeta Arts (Allu Arvind) and equally successful director VVVinayak carried enough expectations. But sometimes expectations turn out to be bigger spoilsports. Let’s see how?

Plot: Badrinath is chosen as a guardian to protect Badrinath temple by an old saint warrior Bheeshma Narayan (Prakash Raj).  Alakananda (Tamanna) who comes to the holy town Badrinath due to the threat from her maternal aunt falls in love with the hero. Now Badrinath has to choose between Alakananda’s love and his master’s faith on him?

Weakness List goes on!!

Let me list out the weaknesses of the cast and crew to explain what all went wrong…in a different style.

Ok....start with central character Badrinath. His weakness is his 10 Kilo sword he carries. When he holds that sword, he could easily pierce the bullets, cut off the limbs and arms of innumerous terrorists and factionists and even Chinese warriors.  But don’t dare to make him devoid of it, for he jumps on mountains and into rivers now, flexing his muscles.

Then comes Alakananda…beware don’t ever pronounce “Badrinath” in front of her, for there is high chance she could go into an irrelevant dream sequence. So her duty is to either scream at her enemies or get into dancing, the moment someone reminds her of Badrinath or if she feels the touch of her love.

And we have PrakashRaj if I figured him out correctly as he is fully covered by very odd white beard. His weakness is Kungfu and he does nothing except calling Badrinath now and then asking him to do some samurai stunts with his sword

The villain Kelli Dorji has a weakness of Helicopters…as he is rarely seen coming out of it and his wife has weakness of madly shouting at him.

Similar weak are comedy gang, Brahmanandam, MS and Krishna Baghwan who play tasteless sequel track to the comedy they did in Indra. Raghubabu had some handful of witty dialogues.

Now coming to crew!!

Biggest culprit among the crew is Story-writer Chinni Krishna who gets inspired by his own films Narasimhanaidu and Gangotri and ofcourse recent Shakti and even Indra. May be one can figure it out the reason easily as he has now become “Genius” with his weakness for TV anchor Omkar.

Then we have Vinayak bitten by Kungfu bug and thus cook this no-where plot with Gunasekhar’s style of costly background and Meher’s style of heartless making. 

Peter Heins had flying sickness I guess…as he never allowed our hero to be on the ground for the action sequences.

Allu Aravind’s weakness is his own success; he tasted with magnum-opus Magadheera. And he thus forcefully hands over the sword to his son and asks him to repeat the magic in an irrelevant plot set up in this contemporary period. 

Film has its Strengths by the way…

Allu Arjun really rocked with his stunning dance moments almost in every song. And one should appreciate his hard work put into toning his body to suit the warrior role. And Gorgeous Tamanna entertains us to the core and seriously she is one damn reason for her admirers to look at the movie.

Music by Keeravani is good for couple of songs…And I really liked the picturaization of all the songs. “Omkareswara” is beautifully choreographed giving justice to its lyrics.  “Nachuvaaraaa” is mouth watering rain song and “chiranjeeva chiranjeeva” pictured at lavish foreign locales. While “Ambadhari”,”Nath Nath” and “In the night” are shot indoor have rocking dance moments from Arjun.

I am sad and happy at the same time as my favorite number “Vasudhaara” is not used in the movie.

Art direction by Anand Sai and Cinematography of Ravi Varma offer grandeur and pleasantness. The sets are natural. Movie has some good Production values.

Finally I Conclude...

With nothing to offer with the story, Badrinath still can be watched at leisure for Allu Arjun and of course white beauty Tamanna. And for nice songs but alas they come hand in hand with annoying fights.

 Rating

I give it 2.5/5. So Half century for good things I mentioned.

Salman's Ready Movie Review

Salman Khan, after shaking the box-office last Christmas with “Dabangg” is back again with his new movie “Ready”. Nowadays he’s more inclined towards the South Indian hits…and now “Ready” too is the remake of a Telugu film with the same title. Aneez Bazmi directs this flick, while Asin pairs with Salman.

Plot:

Prem(Salman), a happy-go-lucky guy falls for Sanjana(Asin)  after few regular cat-mice fights between the couple. Sanjana is stuck between her greedy uncles who want her to marry their respective brother-in-laws to grab her property. How Prem manages to solve her problem by turning her uncle’s good with an intelligent game played with the help of Balidaan Bharadwaj(Paresh Rawal) is the entire movie about!

Sallu bhai Rocks…

Sallu goes with his lucky on-screen name “Prem Kapoor” and he’s got more time to romance his love and play around the house like in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. He’s there in almost every scene, loud enough in his full form doing all sorts of nakras. It’s only Salman who can go to “Pee” on-screen and call“Pee-time” to declare the intermission, place his glasses to the back-collar to remind us of “Dabangg”…or not to say the least ..take off his shirt at the climax and ask the audience/Asin …”Mazaa ayaa kya..” and of course his repeating dialogue  "Life mein kabhi teen cheese ko underestimate mat karna I, Me And Myself". That’s Salman for his fans, he who holds up the film firmly till the end-titles scroll.

What about others…

Asin obviously is not Madhuri of HAHK, but she does her best to match the Prem. With not much to play, she convincingly does her role.

Paresh Rawal does a decent job, if not dominated by Salman. Huge supporting cast comprising Mahesh Manjrekar, Paresh Rawal, Sharat Saxena, Akhilendra Mishra, Aarya Babbar, Puneet Issar, and Manoj Joshi did well too.

But seriously a good female casting is missing opposite them…Likes of Kiron Kher or Fareeda Jalal would have been effective…

Luckily audiences have an item number and a cameo by Zareen Khan. AjayDevgan, Sanjay dutt, Arbaaz khan and Kangana Ranauth make a brief appearance in the beginning. So don’t be late to theatres as they vanish within first 15 min!

Dhinka chaka ….Dhinka Chaka ..

Other cool stuff in the movie are the songs…”Dhink Chaka..Dhink chakaa” composed by Devi Sri Prasad, which topped chartbusters in last month is very good on-screen too. Then we have “Character Deela” with Salman dancing with his Katrina’s look alike Zareen Khan.”Humko Pyaar hua” is soothing one.Pritam composes them

Direction and Screenplay…

Director Aneez Bazmi deviates a bit in first half to suit Salman’s stature and age of course. That leaves few blind spaces in between and Love angle of the lead pair is not much established. He sticks to the original in second half mostly, tackles the huge cast efficiently without much confusion. He gives enough space to funny one-liners to rejoice the audience in frequent intervals. But he comes up with an idiotically extended climax far from the original. And Emotions take back seat which does some damage. So overall he scores just pass marks

Let’s compare with the original(This section for Telugu friends…)

“Ready” in Telugu has budding star Ram as hero. So it’s more of story that is aptly supported by the good cast. And ace comedian Brahmanandam who plays the crucial role lifts the original to the next level, similar role played by Paresh Rawal in Hindi version is not that great as Salman takes over all the control here. So among those who saw the original, only Salman fans would like this Hindi version. Zareen and Ajay plays the cameo played by Tamanna and Navdeep in original.

Final Say

Huge but not so attractive cast, lack of depth in emotions or love scenes, few dull moments will definitely drag it badly from it becoming other “Hum Aapke Hain Kaun”. Nevertheless it is Salman’s omnipresence and chartbuster tracks and decent storyline that will help it sail the Box-office safely.

Rating

I go with 3 stars…And Thanks to Salman’s craze post “Dabangg”, it will be a hit if not a block-buster.