Movie Review: The Lunch Box - You Will Savour This One

Rating: 4.5/5

Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox is a movie about a love that blossoms by accident - it all begins when the Mumbai Dubbawalas mistakenly deliver the Lunch Box prepared by Ila (played by Nimrat Kaur) to Mr. Fernandez (played by Irfan Khan). But, this movie is not just about the love between the placid widower and the forlorn housewife;  it is also a movie about relationships that our day to day life gifts us with - those beautiful bonds that cannot be named but add substance to our life - the neighborhood 'aunty", the office colleague, the cigarette buddy or the morning train companion, we all have these people around us, enriching our lives in ways we might not even notice.

Mr. Fenandez' lunch box and the movie are both full of delectable desi flavors -while the "next-door Aunty" flavor  is the best of them all, it is the "Mumbai daily life" tarka that completes the recipe.

The brilliance of Irfan Khan and Nawazuddin  Siddiqui put together is the best thing that can happen to a debutant director.  Playing the character of a reticent man meant that the feelings of the character had to be depicted more though expressions than dialogues - no one except Irfan could have done justice to this character - each emotion and each thought had been expressed so well that it turned the movie into a masterpiece. Nawaz and Nimrat too have delivered a phenomenal performance. Nimrat beautifully depicts the agony and loneliness of all those housewives who spend their lives playing the role of a dutiful wife and mother with near perfection while their souls crave for that little bit of time and attention from their husbands.

The screenplay is all about attention to detail; this makes a few scenes in the movie too slow for an impatient viewer - especially the first lunch time scene where Infan's character spends a lot of time looking at and smelling the food before taking the first bite.The cinematography that ensures that the audience experience hunger pangs every time the lunch box is opened is worthy of a mention too.

This Lunch Box truly deserves a place is Bollywood's treasure box.

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai Dobaara

Milan Luthria's OUATIMD gets a rating of 3/5 - star one for dialogues , star 2 for dialogues and star 3 for dialogues! The dialogues by writer Rajat Arora are so powerful that they have overshadowed the performances by all the actors in the movie. Yet, if I were to pick one performance from to the movie as the best I would say Sonakshi's acting fairly stood out.

This sequel is almost like the first one except for the following differences:

The "Maashuka": In the last movie Mumbai city was Shoaib's "Maashuka";however in this one clearly all his energies are focused on his new love Jasmine.

The Magic of Ajay Devgan: I terribly missed Ajay during the movie. It took me some time to accept Akshay as the lead actor in the sequel. Akshay's acting is not bad but he clearly lacks Ajay's conviction.

Here is my advice to the movie goers:

For those of you who crave for action and thrill - steer clear of this one

For those who need enjoy love triangles - this is a one time watch for you

For those who need a dose of dialogues - go and watch this one, you will not be disappointed. 

Movie Review: Chennai Express – Rohit Shetty manages to get SRK do some comedy

A North Indian man helps a South Indian girl board the train in DDLJ style,  and soon finds that he has given a helping hand to a don’s daughter. Through the series of events that follow - involving a good mix of drama, action and comedy – the two eventually fall in love. Yes, you are right, there is nothing great about the story. However, “Chennai Express” stills gets 2.5 stars from me for the movie did manage to make me laugh at regular intervals , beautifully presented  the  rural locations in South India and successfully kept  the non-Tamil speaking audience engrossed even with no subtitles for the plenty of Tamil dialogues in the movie.

After having watched Ra.One if you had lost faith in SRK’s comedy acting skills and dreaded the cheap humor in his films – this one will likely restore your faith to some extent – all credit goes to Rohit Shetty’s direction. Though, SRK still needs improve a lot - maybe take a lesson or two in drunken comedy from the Deols, I am glad that he has at least moved up a few levels from “horrible” to “bearable”.

SRK fans can watch the movie to get a few glimpses of his earlier romantic hits. Like most of the recent SRK movies this one too was scripted with just SRK in mind; however, kudos to Deepika,  who still has managed to leave a lasting impression as the accented Meena.

My final take on the movie is – “time-pass for a dull, uneventful weekend”

Movie Review: D-Day – Go and Watch it Now!!

Rating: 4/5

Very rarely do you see Bollywood come up with a thriller that actually qualifies to be one. D-Day is one of them – a very engaging plot from the beginning to the end. It is the story of 4 RAW agents on a mission in Pakistan .

Nikhil Advani has not only succeeded in keeping the thrill alive throughout the movie but he has also comfortably managed to add a large pinch of emotions to  the script to take care of an average Indian movie goers taste buds. For all of you who think that A Wednesday is a brilliant movie, you can safely assume that this one will not disappoint you either.

And its not just the plot, the performances are stellar too . Irfan Khan – effortless performance as always, Rishi Kapoor – flawless dialogue delivery,  Arjun Rampal – his performance is great too (and I am not being biased here). Huma’s and Aakash’s characters demanded more attention, but that is not the actors’ fault because the performances are good.

I give this movie a 4 out of 5, and urge you to watch it soon. 

Movie Review: Bhag Milkha Bhag - Lengthy It Is!!

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" is a LENGTHY (3 hr 8 mins) portrait of Indian track and field sprinter Milkha Singh.

The movie’s screenplay, is an amalgamation of the screenplays from  other biopics  like “Chak De India” and “Paan Sigh Tomar”.The movie does touch the patriotic cords  a few times and instills faith in success through perseverance;  however, the movie would have had the desired heart-melting effect had it not been presented as a flashback - an unnecessary attempt to create suspense around the obvious reasons for Milkha's reluctance to go to Pakistan as the leader of a sports delegation  The movie’s script gives too much information, sometimes without serving any purpose. I do not understand why Prasoon Joshi decided to show Milka’s sister’s harassment by her husband during in the first half of the movie when he did not have anything to tie it to in the second half. 

The two really good things about the movie are Farhan’s acting and the fine compositions by Shankar – Ehsaan – Loy.

There were a few misses by the make-up artists and costume designers too – Divya Dutta (Milkha’s sister in the movie) looks too young for her age in the second half of the movie and Milka’s turbans are too trendy for the 50’s and 60’s ( tie & dye turbans, really?)

Well, I do not want to write a review as long as the movie, so I would conclude with a 2.5 rating for the movie – you can watch it to pay respect to Milkha Singh and to admire Farhan’s committed performance.

Movie Review: Ghanchakkar - Good Performances, Poor Direction!

Three robbers pull off a bank loot, decide to share the booty after 3 months when things settle down, the robber entrusted to keep the bags safe suffers a memory loss and so the booty goes missing. A good enough plot, but still the movie fails to engage.

Ghanchakkar Review @ Cine Essence

The movie in its essence is a overstretched comic thriller. Oh wait, let me think again. Okay fine, just because the director attempted to make a thriller, I need not be kind to tag it so. The movie is actually a clumsy comedy.A disclaimer, when classifying the movie as a comedy, I am assuming that a few laughs here and there are enough for a movie to be tagged as a comedy.

You will begin watching the movie thinking that Emraan's character is the movie is the "Lazy lad, but you will walk out convinced that the "lazy lad" in the movie is actually the scriptwriter.

The first thing that comes of my mind when I think of the movie is the loudness of Vidya's Character - though she far exceeds the expectations of the role, her acting cannot change the fate of the poorly directed movie. Rajesh Sharma too delivered a fine performance. Well, the others were not bad either. However, the best performance in the movie was given by the robbers' paper masks - I just loved those expressions!

I found myself looking at my watch thrice over during the movie, thinking if watching this absurd movie is the best use of my free time on a Sunday afternoon. For those who have not seen the movie yet, don't worry, there is nothing much that you are missing.