Casino Royale

"The new bond will be very different",director Martin Campbell and producer Barbara Broccoli told the motley opined fans and critics before the release of the 21st official bond movie,which incidentally is based on the first novel in the James Bond series penned by Ian Fleming,titled Casino Royale.Daniel Craig sure is.
Casino Royale is the most gritty,gruesome and violent bond movie ever to hit the screens,thanks to the script,which the producres claim,held on to the original storyline unlike many where the similarity began and ended with the borrowed title and also to the pumped-up physique and the agility of Craig.Purists would defenitely twich their eyebrows,a la the legendary Sean Connery,when they see a blonde-haired,blue-eyed bond on screen,but it hardly mattered to the producers and to a large chunk of the audience since he has made the action sequences immortal.While Craig's predecessor Pierce Brosnan had mixed up the charm of the suave Roger Moore and the toughness of Sean Connery,though the latter to a smaller extend,Craig drifts away from the Connery-Moore-Brosnan brigade who had epitomised 007 as a charming undercover spy to a more overt MI6 agent complete with a crew cut and killer looks.There are some gilt edged sequences in the movie,bashing up the notion that action sequences are part-fun in Bond movies.A gory duel on a starway is craftly shot and so is a thriller of a chase featuring the world's best free-runner and shows Bond in his deadliest and ruthless best.
Though he gets his fair share of girls,Craig lacks the old world chivalry and certainly doesn't look like a womainser.But,maybe that's an indication of things to come.The movies to follow might be more bloody and less chocolatey.It is,of course,a consolation for many in an era where men are made to act like women on screen,heroes are turned into metrosexuals with loads of feminine traits,where 'new-age-women' prevail valuable screen space,the new generation will finally have someone to look up to;a cult hero,the tough,macho,testosterone-driven,ageless,the greatest ever secret agent in James Bond.

Lage Raho Munnabhai

Sequels are alien to Bollywood , but if this is any indication of things to come then i think i there might be quite a few movies to watch out for in the future.Its been three years since the movie 'Munnabhai MBBS' hit the screens and wooed our hearts.Following it up with another episode, which is no less charismatic than the prequel,is no easy task and the creators of 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' has done more than that.
Munnabhai once again plays agony unc to the common man,but this time he manages to get the support from The Mahatma along with his aide, the inimitable 'Circuit'.The term 'Gandhigiri' is already a hit with the masses and it tells us how the preachings of a man who led the freedom movement is relevant even today.It makes the viewer empathise with the Father of The Nation without showing footages of a dhoti clad,bald,bespectacled old man being beaten up or jailed by the British police as one would normally expect.Munnabhai also shatters the conviction (thanks to films like No Entry,Kya kool hai hum,Kal ho naa ho etc) that comic scenes should be laden with adult jokes or double entredes.And I never knew that the mumbai lingo was so rich until i heard circuit saying "Bhabhiji toh pichhu hai" (meaning-behind you) or Munna referring to the cause for his hallucination as "dimaag mein chemical ka locha".
Kudos to both Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Rajkumar Hirani for not repeating the characters from the original.Bomaan Irani once again steals the show,this time as Lakhan Singh.Arshad Warsi may don many other roles in years to come but he will be remembered most by many moviegoers for his role of 'Circuit'.And Sujay Dutt manages to turn the viewers into splits every time he utters something.
I think there is only one scene in the movie where i'm able to accuse the makers of plagiarism.Thats when Munna holds the son of a senile upside down so that he is forced to make a word on celebrating the old man's birthday.The shot evokes a laugh riot but it is a straight lift from the movie 'A fish called Wanda'.But then, that movie was copied in its entireity by one of the most accomplished (really ???) directors in India,Priyadarshan,into a disastrous Malayalam flick titled 'Kakkakuyil'.
I also suggest that we start a quiz on Munnabhai and Circuit with questions ranging from,"Munna aur circuit ne kitne haddiyan thodi hai"? to "Which name do you think is more suitable for a city 'Munna Nagar' or 'Circuitabad'"?.Lage Raho...

Rang De Basanti

There are two kinds of movies-those which have something new to say and those which vaguely attempts to say the things that have already been said and done to death by many.Then there is the third or in other words, there is "Rang De Basanti".

From the catchy subtext accompanying the title of the movie,"a generation awakens", a viewer is compelled to expect what is in store for him.But living up to that expectation and that too in such a novel fashion is no easy task.And to consider the fact that the director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra is only two movies old adds more colour to it.His directorial debut,'aks' came out at a time when Bollywood was beginning to experience a wind of change and hence its flaws seem excusable. A lot of things have changed in Bollywood in the last four and a half years,and its heartening to know that the director has come a long way.It's the treatment of the subject and not the novelty of it is what that keeps the viewer intrigued and leaves him spellbound.

The plot unveils slowly weaving bits and pieces of events from different periods of time together into a single thread.And simply yet magically it tells us how history can repeat itself.The editing,background score and cinematography falls into place with the storyline.Though age has added a few creases on his face,Aamir still can give the young actors a run for their money.The rest of the cast too comes up with memorable performances.Barring a few glitches the movie is a fine piece of work.Towards the end of the film it might seem a bit melodramatic (no eye-witness for a murder committed in daylight,intrusion to the AIR studio,no one attempting to interrupt the broadcast etc) but then there is no other way to put it through.A 'copy-and -paste shot' from 'the gladiator should have been avoided and so are some of the frequent hugs between the characters.Even then,these days you wont be able to watch too many movies which could leave you contented and that's where 'RDB' scores.The chants keep echoing in your ears even after leaving the cinemas,"Sarfarosh ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai....."

Zinda

"Zinda hoon main....." is what the average moviegoer hums with relief while walking out from cinema halls showing the latest Sunjay Dutt starer directed by the master of "Hollywood-inspired" bollywood movies,Sunjay Gupta.But this time,the word is out that he has looked up to a korean movie titled "oldboy" for "inspiration".I haven't seen the original(unlike in the case of 'sarkar' or 'musafir') and eventually missed the chance for inevitable comparison.From the promos thrown out through TV i had expected an out and out thriller only to find out that i had to sit through the first twenty minutes watching a helpless Dutt holed up in a dark and dingy room(yes,ever since bollywood learned to adjust the tone of a frame there's no dearth for dark shades in the movies).As one wonders whether this is a low budget movie shot entirely inside a room supposed to be in bangkok,the hero walks out in pursuit of his captors later to be armed with a hammer with which he chops several nameless characters(once again,there are only five or six characters who has names).Several body doubles(or dead-body doubles maybe) are used as skins are cut,teeth are pulled out and wounds are stitched without much conviction.
This isn't to say that its a bad movie.Like many of the new-age Bollywood movies 'zinda' does not have any song and dance sequences shot in Switzerland or the maa-beta,insaaf,farz,khaandaan etc, stuff which used to be the essential ingredients of an Indian movie.What seems to be lacking is a convincing motive behind the actions of the suave bad guy John Abraham.
Anyhow,the best part of watching this movie at Sridar theater at Cochin came during the interval in the form of a trailer of the much awaited movie of the year "rang de basanti".Watch this space for more as Aamir Khan,the true individualist of Indian cinema, soars in the skies in an attempt to touch a Mig-21.