Delhi 6 – A Courageous Attempt

It requires great courage to dedicate an entire movie to Monkey man (the kaala bandar episode which occured in Delhi in 2001) and using it intelligently to deliver a strong social message to the people. A lot was expected of Rakesh Mehra after the brilliant Rang de basanti and Delhi 6 has been more or less lived up to the expectations.

Delhi 6 is the story of a young American Roshan (Abhishek bachchan) of Indian origin, who comes to India for the first time accompanying his ailing grandmother (Wahida Rehman). Little does he know that the quick trip will turn into the longest journey of his life - a journey within. Being born and brought up in America and having lead a very western lifestyle Roshan is not familiar with the sites and smells, the food and culture, the religion and beliefs, and customs of India . He thought that Dadi had left her family and loved ones back in America, only to realize that how wrong he was. The warmth and affection of the neighborhood embraced him with open arms. Amidst all this he meets the beautiful Bittu (Sonam Kapoor), who is looking for identity and expression (she wants to win the Indian Idol) and wants to break free from the typical Indian social structure, to whom Roshan is destined to lose his heart.

There are several parallel tracks in the story such as the rivalry between the two brothers, Pawan Mahlotra and Ompuri and Bittu’s dream of becoming an Indian idol but Mehra has woven all the tracks quite beautifully and has executed the screenplay brilliantly. The use of the Monkey man episode to deliver a strong social message is simply commendable although Mehra gets too preachy in the end. Abhishek does full justice to his role except the avoidable American accent. Sonam, in whatever screen time she has, is brilliant and is looking stunning. Mehra deserves special accolades for extracting special performaces from the brilliant supporting cast comprising Rishi Kapoor, Pawan Mahlotra, Om Puri, Waheeda Rehman, Supriya Pathak, Divya Dutta, Atul Kulkarni and others. Further, Binod Pradhan deserves a special award for the beautiful cinematography and the way he has captured the beauty of Delhi and specially Chandni Chowk on the camera. But Mehra loses his way a bit in the climax by the uncalled introduction of Amitabh Bachchan and the childish scene involving him and Abhishek Bachchan. On the whole, there may be some flaws in the movie but this is a movie made from the heart and succeeds in delivering message to the people while being entertaining at the same time.

Positives

• Rakesh Mehra’s brilliant Direction
• Binod Pradhan’s cinematography
• A R Rehman’s spell bounding music
• Sonam Kapoor dazzles in the small role
• Outstanding performance from the supporting cast
• Abhishek Bachchan sans his fake American Accent.

Negatives

• The Climax – Amitabh in the Bruce Almighty avtaar
• Repeated Occurrence of the Ramlila sequence
• Too Preachy in the climax

Rating : ***

Billu Barber - A simple, moral tale

Priyan (Priyadarshan) doesn’t believe in originality and new scripts and he is back after a long gap after the 2007 hit Bhool Bhulaiyaa (according to Priyan standards who is used to delivering 3 to 4 movies a year) in his trademark style wth a remake of a super hit malayam movie. This is the first time Priyan and Shahrukh have come together The script is more or less like the original Malayam (with some scenes an exact replica of the original) but Priyan revamped the script a bit and increased the presence of Shahrukh after the debacle of the Tamil remake of the same movie (Kuselan) starring superstar Rajnikant . At the outset, the movie seems to be an average bollywood Masala movie with Priyan Trademark Style.

Billu is the story of Bilas Rao Pardesi (Irfan Khan) who is a barber in the village of Budbuda, a small village in U.P. and has a wife Bindiya (Lara Dutta) and two children. He is poverty ridden and finds it hard to make ends meet. His life changes when a superstar Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) comes to this village to shoot his latest film. A word spreads around the village that Billu is a childhood friend of Sahir Khan and billu becomes a man of the village- everyone longing for some chance of a meeting with Khan. Initially Billu refuses any favours and keeps mum about his association with Sahir, but he he starts to enjoy the ride, telling himself that he did not start anything. Billu tries to meet Sahir on repeated insistence from his family but is unable to do so.In the climax, at a school function, Sahir tells people about Billu and how he owes his success to him. Khan visits Billu's house and promises to keep in touch and to live their lives together again. Billu becomes the Hero of the Village.

The last 15 minutes is the high point of the movie which show the reunion of the two child hood friends. Priyan made an honest approach but deviated a bit from the story by focusing too much on Shahrukh and unnecessary item songs. Screenplay of the movie is below average with item numbers and random action scenes thrown here and there. Irfan Khan is the real hero of the movie and is the best choice for the role. Lara also puts up decent performance. The chemistry between Irfan and his children’s is endearing an d believable. The rest of cast include Rajpal Yadav , Om Puri and Asrani have nothing new to offer and are not exploited to the fullest in the movie. Shahrukh plays the usual self in the movie and his superstar portrayal is infact inferior when compared to OSO.

Positives :
• Last fifteen minutes of the movie
• Irfan Khan – Simply Outstanding
• Peppy Music

Negatives :
• Screenplay
• Too much focus on commercialization subdues the emotional undercurrent in the movie

Rating : **1/2

DEV D – Bold… but not engaging

Anurag Kashyap doesn’t belive in conventional cinema and he has proved this once again in Dev D. Dev D is sure an experimental cinema which is mainly targeted towards multiplex audience. Kashyap takes the basic premises of Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's original Devdas, but updates much of the film's narrative to set in the present world, and makes the characters' actions and motivations more relatable to the today’s audience.

Dev D is story revolving around three characters namely Dev (Abhay Deol), Paro (Mahi Gill) and Chanda (Kalki Koechlin). Dev is the son of a rich Businessman from Punjab. He and Paro are childhood friends cum sweethearts. However, Dev leaves Paro after he hears rumours of her alleged affairs with another men. Dev goes to Delhi after Paro is married off to a rich widower. In Delhi, he indulges himself completely in drugs, alcohol and sex. Dev meets the prostitute Chanda but despite an apparent emotional connection, remorse drives him to excesses. He is not able to forget Paro and thus not able to come out from his frenzied lifestyle. However, the climax deviates from the traditional Devdas and Dev ultimately unites with Chanda.

On the whole, movie is average with the first half being pacy and engaging while the second half of the movie dragging a bit. One gets bored a bit after repeatedly seeing the boozing and smoking in the second half and the film loses its momentum gathered in the first half. Use of music instead of dialogues is a refreshing and interesting tool for narration, but song-after-song; one’s patience is bound to die. Personally speaking , second half of the film was non bearable and on the whole film is not able to keep one interested through the long 150 minutes.

Positives

• Abhay Deol is effortless as an actor and is simply superb as Dev.
• Emotional Atyachaar song is highlight of the film
• Paro is perfectly casted for her role

Negatives

• Second half of the movie is repetitive to the point of being excessive. This being the major drawback of the movie
• Excess of songs.
• Kalki Ghosh as Chanda - leaves much to be desired as an actor


Rating : **

Victory…Once Watchable

Victory is yet another sports film (post Lagaan, Chakde , Goal, Iqbaal etc), this time choosing cricket as the backdrop. As the opening credit of the film rightly acknowledge “Cricket is not a game, its passion, obsession and way of life in India “, director Ajitpal Mangat sure had an interesting and dependable theme for his film. And the director has put forward an honest effort in his directorial debut.

Victory is the story of Vijay Shekhawat (Harman Baweja) and his father Ram Shekhawat (Anupam Kher). Ram has great aspirations for his son Vijay, whom he wants to see in the Indian Cricket team; one day. His dream eventually comes true after some usual drama shama when Vijay finally gets into Indian team. However, this happiness is short-lived as Vijay after a stunning debut in International cricket soon loses his place in the team, as well as the respect he has earned, when he lets his new-found fame get the better of him. The villain behind the debacle being his manager (Gulshan Grover). Vijay soon discovers how quickly the media and the public can change the fortune of a man (from hero to zero). Unable to bear the shock and humiliation, Vijay’s father suffers a stroke. The rest of the film is about how Vijay redeems himself in the eyes of his family and his fans by regaining his lost spot in the Indian team, and then leading it to a splendid victory in the airtel champions trophy final (a bit too dramatic).

As far as the performances are concerned, Harman has definitely come of age and has put up a sincere effort. Most importantly, he has has stopped imitating hrithik. Amrita Rao has been type casted as the girl next door. Anupam Kher and Dilip Tahil (The Indian team coach) are average. The film is the biggest film set against the backdrop of cricket in Bollywood with as many as 40 international cricketers registering their presence.

Some of the downs of the film are

• The storyline is too predictable
• Music of the film is simply forgettable
• Overdramatic and impractical at times (Harman mostly dealing in 4s and 6s …Harman even scores 6 sixes in 6 balls against Stuart Clarke in the airtel champions final…hammering bret lee for sixes every time he plays against him)
• Use of lots of Clichéd stuff
But on the whole, Victory is once watchable for all the Indian cricket fans but don’t expect an Iqbal from it.

Rating: **