Kaminey: Movie Review

Cast: Shahid Kapur, Priyanka Chopra, Amole Gupte, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Tenzing Nima, Shiv Subramanium

Director: Vishal Bharadwaj

When was the last time you came out of a film wishing you could go back in and watch it again immediately so the excitement in your stomach stays longer?

Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey is a film you'll either love or passionately despise.

It's an unpredictable crime drama that combines violence and dark humor in a manner that's reminiscent of the films of Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and the Coen Brothers. And yet Kaminey is so original and inventive in the manner in which it takes Bollywood's favorite formula - twin brothers - and turns it on its head.

Shahid Kapur is cast as both twins, each saddled with a speech impediment. Charlie, the small-time gangster has a lisp, he pronounces every 's' as 'f'; meanwhile Guddu is a timid NGO worker who stammers when he speaks.

There's no love lost between the boys, who haven't seen each other for three years, so we follow their tracks separately, until suddenly their lives collide.

Charlie has chanced upon a guitar that contains cocaine worth 10 crore rupees. His life is made, he thinks.

Guddu, on the other hand, has got his girlfriend pregnant, and as luck would have it, turns out she's the sister of a local gangster-politician.

Take that as a cue for much mayhem which involves encounters with dreaded drug-lords, corrupt cops and the quirkiest set of henchmen any Hindi film has ever produced.

The real strength of Kaminey is its writing. The non-linear screenplay is filled with unfamiliar twists and confusing turns that are likely to baffle you along the way; yet they're all neatly tied up and culminate in a thrilling climax which is violent and comical in equal parts.

The film's dialogue is top-notch; writer-director Vishal Bharadwaj finds a way to make the lines humorous without ever seeming to ask for a laugh.

Take the scene in which Guddu squarely blames his girlfriend for getting pregnant, and she retaliates with an outburst, demanding to know if she'd raped him then.

Or the scene in which a cop Lobo coaxes Guddu to give a police statement in song, because that's the only way to get the kid to communicate without a stutter.

Kaminey boasts the best performance you will see by an ensemble cast in a long time, and that includes even the bit players.

Of the central cast, Amole Gupte is fantastic as the demented Jai Maharashtra-spouting gangster-politician Bhope, and Chandan Roy Sanyal hits all the right notes as the coke-addicted Mikhail.

Also delivering impressive turns are Tenzing Nima as the charismatic drug-smuggler Tashi and Shiv Subramanium as the vulnerable corrupt cop Lobo.

Shahid Kapur rises to the challenge of creating two entirely different characters out of Charlie and Guddu, and delivers a credible performance as each.

Breaking out of his chocolate-boy image, he gives evidence of his potential when trusted with well-written roles.

Springing a delightful surprise in a smaller part is Priyanka Chopra as the feisty Sweety, who sprinkles her lines with a smattering of fluent Marathi and emerges one of the film's most lovable characters.

For an audience numbed by predictable Bollywood potboilers week after week, Kaminey might take some time to settle into; go in with an open mind and enjoy the ride.

With unchoreographed action scenes and dances, and long portions with no background score at all, it's a wildly imaginative, original offering from a fearless filmmaker who doesn't insult your intelligence. Guys, It's a must watch movie.

Agyaat: Movie Review

Cast: Nitin Reddy, Priyanka Kothari, Gautam Rode, Rasika Duggal, Ishteyak Khan, Ishrat Ali, Ravi Kale, Howard Rosemeyer, Kali Prasad Mukherjee, Joy Fernandes

Director: Ramgopal Varma

At a running time of one hour and forty minutes, Ramgopal Varma's Agyaat is an interesting experiment that doesn't overstay its welcome.

When a film unit goes into a forest for shooting, an unknown, inexplicable entity begins killing them one by one. With everyone's lives at stake, hierarchal differences in the team no longer matter; each must fend for himself, and soon people's real personalities begin to surface.

Agyaat, interestingly, is as much a comment on human nature as it is a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase. Varma spends the film's first 45 minutes or so establishing his characters and the group dynamics.

Self-absorbed movie-star torments his spot-boy and generally behaves like the world owes him a favor, earnest assistant director is nursing a crush on the amiable leading lady, irritable action director can't stand the sight of the hero - 10 such oddballs with their own set of quirks and prejudices are introduced to us at an agonizingly slow pace, while the film's second half is marked out for the suspenseful killings.

This in fact, works against Agyaat which ultimately feels like two different films.

Varma might have done better to jump straight into the action, establishing his characters and their equations along the way, thereby giving this film the breathless, edge-of-the-seat tension that is sadly missing here. It's something he pulled off so well in Kaun, which dived straight into the tension, creating that ominous feeling at the very start.

Nevertheless, the pace in Agyaat picks up post-intermission as one after another the characters are knocked off in thrilling attack scenes that never visually reveal the attacker, but use excellent sound design to conjure up your imagination and confront your worst fears.

Now I've never been deep in a jungle, but I know if I was, every rustle in the trees, every snap of a twig would terrify me about who and what was out there. Varma taps into that fear to the fullest, and banks on the expressions of the characters to convey just what they've got themselves into.

Agyaat is neither The Blair Witch Project nor Cloverfield which may be obvious inspirations but were different because of the real-time, documentary feel that both films had. Agyaat reminds you more of the early seasons of the hit TV series Lost, where even the audience has no clue what it is exactly that is attacking the characters.

What surprises you about this film is the sharp characterisations. It's as if Varma is holding up a mirror to how a film unit operates, complete with monstrous egos and fickle relationships.

As the spiteful movie-star who alienates the entire unit with his high-handed behavior, the relatively unknown Gautam Rode shines through with an accurate caricature of some of our own starry Bollywood types. The rest of the ensemble too delivers convincing performances, especially Ravi Kale as the short-fused action director who needs the slightest excuse to tip over.

Agyaat makes no pretences about the fact that it's only goal is to rattle you, and it achieves that several times with some chilling moments that make you jump out of your seat.

It's not great cinema, it isn't intended to be; Agyaat is an event picture which delivers a few good thrills. With a tighter first-half and a slicker pace and minus those two redundant item songs, this might have been a more compelling ride.

Public Enemies: Movie Review

Cast: Johnny Depp, Billy Crudup

Director: Michael Mann

Public Enemies directed by Michael Mann is a sprawling period piece, a crime drama set in the 30s-era of gangsters and lawmen, and it stars Johnny Depp as Robin Hood-style legendary bank robber John Dillinger.

The film blends a lot of fact and a bit of fantasy to tell the story of Dillinger who robbed the rich and occasionally gave to the poor, eventually emerging as a larger-than-life folk hero whom the feds swung into action to capture.

The filmmaker shoots Dillinger as a cocky fugitive who enjoys outwitting the law and is practically impervious to capture.

Much like our Hindi movie heroes, he manages to escape even when outnumbered, he dodges a flurry of bullets, and brazenly taunts the feds by hiding in plain sight.

Billy Crudup stars as the young J Edgar Hoover, then the head of the fledgling FBI, and Christian Bale plays Melvin Purvis, the agent in charge of bringing Dillinger to justice.

If the film had focused on these three men and the battle of wits between them, there might have been room to develop them as characters, but director Michael Mann crams the film with numerous side players who appear just long enough to be blown up by the cops.

For those who just want to see gun battles, the love story angle between Dillinger and Billie, the beautiful hat-check girl played by Marion Cottilard, may drag towards the middle of the film, but Depp and Cottilard have palpable chemistry and their romantic scenes are some of the movie's finest.

Filmed in a deliberately 'digitial video' style to capture the immediacy of the action, Public Enemies does full justice to the period it's set in by delivering flawless production design in terms of sets and props and costumes.

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger with a subtly simmering charm, and Mann shoots him in tight close-ups to heighten his appeal. But in the end it's the action set pieces you remember because sadly this film fails to establish a genuine emotional connection to the characters. And without that depth, you really couldn't care less about whose blood is getting spilled.

Public Enemies doesn't hold its own against some of Mann's previous films including Heat and The Insider, but it's an enjoyable enough blow-em-up picture for action fans.

Love Aaj Kal: Movie Review

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Rahul Khanna, Rishi Kapoor

Direction: Imtiaz Ali

There's a funny scene in Love Aaj Kal in which its protagonists Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone having just broken up amicably, take the liberty to reveal to each other what they've always liked and disliked about the other, now that there's no romantic pressure on them anymore.

"You really shouldn't drink on dates," Saif tells her. "You have no idea the advantage I've taken of you when you've been drunk."

Deepika responds, "Actually I don't get drunk very easily. I was always awake and quite enjoyed what you were doing. I realized that pretending to be drunk might be the only way to get you to do something."

It's witty, charming moments like these peppered throughout the film that are the best bits in writer-director Imtiaz Ali's Love Aaj Kal, which is in fact a standard Bollywood love story disguised as a realistic take on modern love.

Saif and Deepika play Jai and Meera, a pair of practical, career-driven Londoners who realize they feel true love for each other well after they've split up, gone their separate ways and hooked up with other partners. Nothing unusual about that, except that the film opens with their break-up and follows them up to the point when they are finally reunited.

A second love story is narrated in flashback by Rishi Kapoor who plays Veer Singh, a Sikh restaurant owner in London. In his heyday, he wooed a pretty sardarni who lived in his neighborhood in Delhi, but eventually relocated with her folks to Calcutta. Consumed by love, he followed her there and despite opposition from her parents, eventually brought her home with him.

DDLJ you're thinking, and you're right. Except for the twist that the younger version of Rishi Kapoor's Veer Singh is played by Saif Ali Khan again, wearing a turban this time so you can distinguish between the two characters he plays. It's an interesting device, and the logic used to justify it is that Saif's character Jai reminds Veer Singh of himself in his younger days.

Using chatty dialogue and smart tools like parallel narratives and jumping timelines, Imtiaz Ali tells us a familiar tale with a worn-out message. It doesn't work for the most part because there's no inherent drama in the plot and barely any depth to the relationship Jai and Meera share.

From the moment you're introduced to them in that break-up scene, you long to root for these characters; you're meant to believe they're making a foolish mistake by going their separate ways, but alas the lack of chemistry between Saif and Deepika and their surface-level emotions never quite convince you that they're made for each other.

The film refers to sexual compatibility but chickens out from using it as an important factor for their mutual attraction.

On the other hand, Veer Singh's romantic track is engaging because it's innocent and it's simple and it doesn't try too hard.

There' s an earthy charm to those scenes between a younger Veer and the delicate Harleen Kaur, played by a new actress whose name, strangely, has been kept secret.

Silences convey so much more than irreverent banter, and nowhere is this more evident than in the interactions between Veer and Harleen, whose romance is conducted almost entirely through their eyes and longing expressions.

There is such tenderness in that scene in which she sneaks him a glass of black tea under her dupatta, and he brings her sweets from her favorite mithaiwala in Delhi. Or those Romeo & Juliet-like moments where they gaze at each other affectionately, she at her balcony, he outside on the street.

Love Aaj Kal is not a bad film. It's got its heart in the right place, but its other parts seem scattered. The screenplay, for one, is far from foolproof.

The incident that drives Jai to realise where his heart lies is ridiculous, and equally unconvincing is Meera's hurried marriage. The young Veer and Harleen track is wrapped up with a convenient culmination that isn't even dramatic enough to justify how much time has been spent establishing these characters.

For a film trying so hard to capture the attitude of the current generation, Love Aaj Kal relies too heavily for its key plot points on such Bollywood hits as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil Chahta Hai, and even Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

I can't speak for others but I don't think I can take one more film in which a wise old man scolds s a younger fellow for not knowing his heart. "Trust me, you don't know it yourself but you love her," Rishi Kapoor's Veer Singh tells Jai.

It's the oldest cliché in the book and I wish Jai would turn around and tell the old man to mind his own business.

Love Aaj Kal suffers also because the writers fail to develop Meera's character entirely, which explains your bafflement at her sudden decisions. Deepika Padukone lacks the maturity or the skill to make up for the lapses in the writing and to construct a credible character out of Meera.

Saif Ali Khan, meanwhile, effortlessly pulls off the restless, footloose Jai, and brings depth even to the part of the love-torn Veer.

It's a joy to watch Rishi Kapoor take ordinary lines and deliver them convincingly, and never miss a beat.

The film in the end is ordinary stuff, watchable but never memorable like the director's previous efforts, the far superior "Socha Na Tha" and "Jab We Met". It's like that plump mango you bite into only to discover it's not ripe yet. Watch it nevertheless for the sharp dialogue and some clever humor.

Night at the Museum: Movie Review

Cast: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson

Direction: Shawn Levy

Even more hare-brained than the first installment, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian stars Ben Stiller once again as Larry Daley, who has quit his job as a museum night guard to become a rich and successful businessman whose company specialises in such novelty items as glow-in-the-dark flashlights.

When Larry pops into New York's Museum of Natural History where he previously worked, he discovers that many of his friends – those wax statues, stuffed figures, miniatures and artifacts that come to life after the place is shut down in the night – are being packed up and sent off to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington for storage. On receiving a distressed call the following night from miniature cowboy Jedediah (played by Owen Wilson), Larry heads to DC to check what's bothering his buddies. As it turns out, Egyptian ruler Kahmunrah (played by Hank Azaria) is bullying the new arrivals and threatening to take over the world.

Underutilising an interesting premise for the second time, the makers of this film opt for a tired old tale about a grand battle between the good guys and the bad guys, completely ignoring the possibility of exploiting some of the great figures of history who pop up in the film as characters. So although you've still got Teddy Roosevelt (played by Robin Williams again), and although Amelia Earhart turns up in this film (played by the charming Amy Adams), the script doesn't use them very smartly at all.

At best this sequel cranks up the spectacle value with some big set pieces that might woo the kids – like Amelia flying off in the Wright Brothers' plane, and a giant octopus smothering Larry with its tentacles. For those looking for smart laughs though, there's barely a handful of clever moments. Like Kahmunrah's touchiness about his tunic which everyone refers to as a "dress", and Napoleon Bonaparte resenting references to his diminutive height, and even Kahmunrah's perplexity on meeting Darth Vader. These jokes though are few and far between.

The film's biggest disappointment is Ben Stiller who looks like he was forced to be in this film. There is none of his usually manic energy on display here. The best bits in this picture are provided by Jonah Hill and Ricky Gervais who have one and two scenes respectively, but demonstrate remarkable comic timing. Jonah Hill appears as a portly security guard at the Smithsonian who Larry gets into a scrap with so he can steal his access card, and Ricky Gervais as the curator of the New York museum who's thrilled about Larry's change-of-heart at the end of the movie, but is too stuck up to say it.

This film is ultimately a difficult watch because it just retreads many of the old jokes, and compensates for a lack of novelty by upgrading location and gimmicks. It's a big plodding bore for anyone seeking original, engaging entertainment.