Heroes: A Nice Family Film that redefines Patriotism

Star rating:

Cast: Salman Khan,Sunny Deol,Bobby Deol,Mithun Chakraborty,Preity Zinta,Sohail Khan,Vatsal Sheth,Dino Morea,Amrita Arora,Riya Sen

Director: Samir Karnik

Producer: Samir Karnik,Bharat Shah,Vikas Kapoor

It had been really long since I had taken my family for any movie. So, this Friday, I took my wife and young son to watch Heroes. While the promos of the film reminded me of Sunny Deol starrer Border, my son was excited to see Salman as a Sikh(Seems the trend started by Akshay Kumar in Sing is Kinng will continue for long). With great difficulty, I manged to get three tickets of a nearby multiplex for the first day first show. Soon after the film started, I realized how wrongly I had understood the promos. Just because the men were dressed as soldiers, I assumed Heroes to be similar to Border and other films based on war themes. But, Heroes is a not a conventional patriotic film. In fact, it delivers a great message in a unique style; you can love your country even if you are not a soldier.

Heroes is a touching story about two men Sammy(Sohail Khan) and Ali(Vatsal Sheth) who travel a long distance to deliver three letters to the family of the deceased. This assignment gives a new meaning to their life. Meanwhile, the film delivers highly emotional performances by Salman Khan and Preity Zinta. Some of the scenes where Preity is missing her on-screen husband salman, leave a strong impression on the viewer’s mind and heart. My wife was even moved to tears many a times while watching the film. The scenes between Sunny Deol and Bobby Deol are also quite moving. I was surprised to see that Sunny Deol is still as aggressive as he was in his earlier films. For all those Mithun fans, Heroes is a good film to see him again, although his is a short role.

Honestly speaking, Salman too looked great as a Sikh. His acting is as usual impressive. Although he has surpassed other actors in the film, Sunny Deol and Sohail Khan have also done a nice job. At the same time, Preity has also proved that she is a versatile actor. The ease and elegance with which she has carried her Punjabi character is worth appreciation. Others such as Amrita Arora, Riya Sen, Dino Moreo and Bobby Deol have also done a fair job.

Seems, after Kyon Ho Gaya Na and Nanhe Jaisalmer(great disasters!) , Samir Karnik has delivered a nice work. Heroes is a nicely made family film with strong emotions. Take your family to watch Heroes during Diwali Holidays. It really deserves it!!

Watch the Movie Karzz to Match It with the Original Karzz of The 1980s

star rating:

Cast: Himesh Reshammiya, Urmila Matondkar, Danny Denzongpa, Gulshan Grover, Rohini Hattangadi, Shweta Kumar

Director: Satish Kaushik

Producer: Bhushan Kumar, Krishan Kumar

Lyrics: Sameer

After the phenomenal success of his debut movie Aap Ka Surroor, singer-actor Himesh Reshammiya is all set to win the hearts of his fans with Karzz. The movie is a remake of director Subhash Ghai’s 1980 film Karz – a story of reincarnation which saw popular yesteryear actor Rishi Kapoor play the lead role Monty.

Reshammiya already has one hit film to his credit-Aap Ka Surroor which also starred yesteryear child actor Hansika Motwani. The Bollywood music composer now pins high high hopes on his new release Karzz which hits theatres today.

Himesh has taken lot of efforts to make the character look real. He has lost almost 10 kilos to give a young appearance to the character portrayed and secondly you would not see him in his usual black cap. The actresses paired opposite Himesh are Shweta Kumar and the hot Urmila Matondkar. Shweta Kumar is the daughter of film director Indra Kumar and this her debut movie.

Karzz is set in the beautiful and exotic locales of south Africa, where the film is shot entirely and is capable enough to catch your eye. The director of the movie has left no stones unturned and done everything possible to promote the movie. Himesh was recently seen in the program called ‘Big Boss’ aired on colors channel, where Himesh spoke about his movie and also sang the popular song ‘Loot Jao’. Karzzz idepicts all the important traits of a personality. It shows you a distinct balance of both positive and negative traits and what happens when a person has extreme negativity in him.

The movie’s central character Monty is an extremely renowned singer residing in South Africa. One day, at a party held in his honor he meets a beautiful girl called Tina, who is a ballet dancer. Monty falls in love with her instantly after seeing her. Then one day, while rehearsing for his songs, he plays a musical tune and starts visualizing things that happened long time ago. In his vision he sees a temple, a mansion, a road accident and a beautiful woman, Kamini. Upon trying to unravel the mystery behind his vision he comes to know that the house belonged to some one called Ravi Verma, who had died in a car accident years ago. On further investigation he comes to know that Ravi was married to Kamini. Monty gradually realizes that it is the case of reincarnation and that he is reborn as Ravi.

The beautiful girl he saw at the party is Kamini’s daughter. Finally his journey begins to unveil Kamini’s intention and put her behind the bars. Kamini had murdered Ravi to take over his property .Monty starts looking for his family members, who had been helpless since long. Monty also gets his lady love Tina which was his dream in the previous birth. Ultimately, Monty frees himself from all the debts he was born with. I am definitely going to watch this movie atleast once this weekend to see how the remake has been made and how far it has matched the audience sexpectations. So, if you are a fan of Himesh reshamiya just go for Karzzzz. After all, the movie is already storming the music market with the hummable numbers Tandoori Nights and the popular Ek Hasina Thi-an adapatation from the original Karz, The music of the film has already won many a youngster’s heart.

Hello: A Poor Adaptation of “One Night @ A Call Center”

Star rating:

Cast: Sohail Khan, Zayed Khan, Sharman Joshi,Isha Koppikar, Gul Panag, Amrita Arora, Salman Khan (Special appearance),Katrina Kaif (Special appearance)

Director: Atul Agnihotri

Producer: Atul Agnihotri

Lyrics: Jalees Sherwani

Cinematography: Sanjay F Gupta

Screenplay: Atul Agnihotri, Chetan Bhagat

Last Friday, Atul Agnihotri’s second film as a director hit the cinema theaters. I went with one of my close friends to watch it on Sunday. We both had a lot of expectations from this movie as it was based on the novel, “One Night @ A Call Center”, written by Chetan Bhagat. This novel is one of our favourite books. We could actually connect with the story as we both had worked in a call center. There was one more reason to watch this movie. I liked the song in this movie, where Salman Khan was shown in a rock star avatar. Even my friend found him very impressive and we both were eagerly waiting for the movie to get released. However, all our excitement vanished after we watched the movie.

The book written by Chetan Bhagat on the life of six call center employees was so touching. I read those pages many a times which described how that one call from God changed their lives for better. However, the cinematic adaptation of the same looked boring and lacked flow. However, we both liked the performance of Sohail khan, Sharman Joshi and Sharat Saxena. The girls’ brigade comprising of Isha Koppikar, Gul Panag and Amrita Arora managed only to look pretty. They could not deliver the warmth as that of their literary characters in the book. The blame entirely lies upon poor direction and cinematography. Even the screenplay penned by Chetan Bhagat could not bring the magic as his book.

After coming out of the theater, me and my friend were constantly thinking about the special appearance of Salman Khan, Arbaaz Khan and Katrina Kaif in the movie. What a sheer wastage! In the book, we could think of Chetan Bhagat narrating the story to a girl. However, in the movie, Salman Khan as a rock star narrating the story to a ghost like figure (played by Katrina Kaif) made no sense. It was actually looking completely redundant. To add more to the audiences’ plight, there were a couple of irrelevant songs. If Atul Agnihotri wanted to make a movie based on a famous novel, was there any need to add useless filmi masala to it? By doing so, he has killed the very essence and flow of the story. I am happy that the movie has not been given the same title as that of the Chetan Bhagat’s novel (which was planned initially); otherwise it would have been a great injustice to all those readers like us, who have loved this novel.

Goldie Behl’s Drona in News for its Story as well as Off-the-Screen Drama

Star rating:

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Kay Kay Menon, Jaya Bachchan

Director: Goldie Behl

Cinematography: Sameer Arya

At last, I managed to see the first-day-first-show of the fantasy thriller “Drona”. The movie revolves around its central character ‘Drona’, played by Junior B, Abhishek Bachchan. As a carrier of a legendary heritage to save the Earth from evil powers, and to fight for truth, Abhishek Bachchan looked quite impressive in this role, something I did not expect. Prior to watching this movie, I always felt that Hrithik Roshan would have done justice to a superhero’s character,like that of Drona. However, some great special effects and Goldie Behl’s direction made the character of Abhishek Bachchan, a delight to watch. Priyanka Chopra, as the bodyguard of Abhishek Bachchan in the movie took off her character quite well. There were in fact, very little doubts about her credibility to play the character of a tough bone, as she had already proved her mettle in her earlier action packed movie, Don. Her action prowess in the movie complemented the bravery shown by Abhishek Bachchan as Drona. On the whole, I liked the movie for its wonderful depiction of a modern fantasy fable, something which no Bollywood Movie has ever tried to portray till date, other than “Drona”. According to me, this movie will especially appeal to children, who have always been a huge fan of “Shaktimaan”, “He-Man”, “Power-Puff Girls” and serials like this.

It is not only the special affects and story of “Drona” which are in news, but also some interesting instances related to the movie, which have caught enough media attention. For instance, on Thursday, all news channels talked only about the premiere of the movie. Media’s attention to the premiere was due to Shahrukh Khan and his wife, Gauri Khan, who too participated in the premiere and were looking very eager to watch it. For me too, it was an interesting scoop as I had been following the news about the rift between King Khan and the Bachchans. This incident again ignited speculations regarding the relationship between the two film fraternities. Amidst all this, Goldie Behl’s “Drona” received quite a publicity.

Well, Junior B did a lot of hard work to take the crowd to cinema halls. I was very surprised to see Abhishek Bachchan promoting his movie in a big way for the first time. For instance, last week, he paid a visit to the reality show, “Big Boss”. His entry into the house of “Big Boss” added a great attraction to the show. Throughout his stay inside the house, I could hear him only talking about this movie “Drona”. I must admit, it was a great promotional effort. That is not all. This Thursday he made a guest appearance in the popular television serial, “Balika Vadhu” on “Colors”. Although, his main purpose was to promote his film, but I liked the way he was made to speak about child marriage, one of the social evils still prevalent in many parts of our country.

Whatever be the reason, good publicity, Gandhi Jayanti or nice star cast, Drona drew large number of people to the theaters on day One!!