What's Your Raashee? Release Date : 25,Sep 2009

Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles! Sorry Captain Haddock, I had to borrow your oft-repeated phrase used in exasperation, or was it a mild way of using an expletive!

Watching Ashutosh Gowariker's WHAT'S YOUR RAASHEE evokes an exclamation of this sort. You expect much more from the director who gave us that mammoth hit LAGAAN and followed it up with SWADES and JODHA AKBAR. WHAT'S YOUR RAASHEE, is nowhere near these three films in terms of content or execution. A simple, logical shift would have been in getting 12 different girls with different Sun Signs to enact what Gowariker is trying to characterize on screen. But what you get is 12 Priyanka Chopras donning the garb from Aries to Pisces. Nothing wrong with that. But 12 sun signs will have their 12 different and distinct characteristic traits apart from the physical attributes and Priyanka tries her best but ends up repeating herself. She begins well with the first two Sun Signs. However, I wonder which girl, apart from the Scorpio girl, who I believe was decently portrayed, will ever associate with any of the Raashee's depicted by Gowariker.

CHECK OUT: Ashutosh Gowariker is a genius

Run for cover, Gowariker!

The ones for whom this film will do a world of good though, is Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja. Priyanka gets to don 12 different characters to display her acting skills. As for Harman, this lad has finally shaken off his Hrithik ka bhoot and is actually looking good and has put up a decent performance. Their chemistry here is very different from their LOVE 2050 disaster.

Based on the Gujarati novel 'Kimball Ravenswood' by Madhu Rye, WHAT'S YOUR RAASHEE? is Ashutosh Gowariker's first romantic comedy. Yogesh Patel (Harman Baweja) is happily pursuing his studies and working in the Big Apple. A phone call about his dad's state of health has him rushing back to India. His brother, it appears, had taken huge loans. The only way out is to get Yogesh married. They stumble on this idea when the pundit who is called to predict whether Yogesh's brother will face a jail term ends up studying Yogesh's kundli. He states that if Yogesh gets married by the 20th of the month, there will be a flood of wealth in the household. Right enough, when he is delivering his prediction, Yogesh's mother gets a call from her father in Gujarat that he is 'willing' his entire property to his darling grandson, Yogesh. From here starts Yogesh's dilemma. To cut the long story short, he agrees after much persuasion, but on the condition that he gets to meet one girl from every Sun Sign

The premise is silly, the plot frivolous and the execution lacks direction. It appears as though Gowariker has let go of the reins and is not aware of what is happening. The movie breaks the three-hour barrier. Each Sun Sign lasts for over 12 minutes and is most often punctuated with a song. And in every 'meeting' Yogesh is always helping the girl, either to be a model, marry the one of her choice, or pursue her studies. One even follows him and another tries to seduce him in the first meeting! And these are all shudh Gujarati belles.

There are also too many sub-plots; the pundit who turns jaasoos, the sidekicks of the don and the Kampala to Khandala plot.

The music is a huge draw but is overused, the start is terrific; giving one a Broadway feel but then comes the downer...

It's easy to predict the fate of this flick at the Box Office!

Dil Bole Hadippa!

Director : Anurag Singh
Music : Pritam Chakraborty and Joshilay (Guest Composer)

Lyrics : Jaideep Sahni
Starring : Shahid Kapoor, Rani Mukherjee, Poonam Dhillon, Anupam Kher, Dalip Tahil, Rakhi Sawant, Sherlyn Chopra and Vrajesh Hirjee

I don't know why, but I get this feeling that this movie has been cleverly crafted and executed to herald Rani Mukherjee's second coming. Producer Aditya Chopra along with director Anurag Singh has made sure this is a Rani fare all the way and she gets most of the screen time. After all, it has been a long time Rani has been seen on screen. And to be fair to the actor, she has done a brilliant job. Showing the fire of old and a spark that still glows, Rani lights up the screen every time she comes on. Be it in the get-up as a male cricketer or as the village belle. She has enough and more scenes and dialogues to steam ahead in the numbers game. Others beware, the GHULAM girl is back with a bang.

There's no dum in the story. It's a remix of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi and Chak De, both Yash Raj films. There are also enough references to the other hits from their banner, as is customary in all their films.

Veera Kaur (Rani Mukherjee) is a cricketer who can hit six sixes in an over. Gary Sobers, Ravi Shastri and Yuvraj Singh be damned. She works in a local theatre group but dreams of donning the India colours. Her argument is simple; if Indira Gandhi could run the nation, Kiran Bedi tame prisoners in Tihar jail and Sunita Williams land on the moon, why cannot she play cricket for the Indian team. Good question!

So to make her dream come true she turns into Veer Pratap Singh, complete with a moustache and a beard to enter the selection trials for a local club. Here she runs into (Rohan) Shahid Kapur, who has specially come down from England to help his dad's team, which has been consistently losing, get the winning edge. Dad and Mom are not on talking terms. Seems like she wanted to settle in England and he in India. So son spends most time in England

Rohan selects Veer Pratap Singh blissfully unaware that he is a girl, falls in love with Veera, thinking she is Veer's sister, realizes his folly during the all-important match, asks her to sit out, and then, when they are nine wickets down and on the verge of losing the match to a Pakistan team, requests her to pad up. No prizes for guessing which team wins

Wanted

Wanted: A tighter script. Wanted: Better editing. Wanted: A smooth flow of scenes. What you get instead is a 'leave-your-brains-behind' fare replete with frenzied plots, typical of Bollywood films of an era gone by, which cared two hoots about script or screenplay.

But Salman Khan fans need not fear, WANTED is all about the Khan. Here he is on a killing spree. One after the other, bad guys get bumped off, either to a bullet or to his fist. Last week BAABARR, did the killing, this week it is Radhe (Salman Khan) who works for moneybhai (meaning, he kills for money). And he kills with passionate glee!

There's also Gani bhai, Golden and Datta Pawle who do the killing. They are hardcore underworld characters who feed the cops and bleed the city. A bad cop is thrown in for good measure in the form of Inspector Talpade (Mahesh Manjrekar). Talpade decides which girl he wants to size up and does so in public! Of course there is also Ayesha Takia. Poor girl, she doesn't know if she is coming or going. I mean there are no links to her scenes and no meaning to her dialogues either. From a call centre where she works, she is either going to meet Radhe or to her aerobic classes. She has a kid brother who takes the 8pm local (empty). It is not clear whether he is going home or coming home!

There are songs, which bamboozle you just like the bullets and it is only in the last 10 minutes that there is some semblance of sense. One performance that will ease the pain is that of Prakash Raj who plays the international Don Gani Bhai. This guy is superb. Manjrekar, too, as the bad cop, steals the show.

As for the story, you are still trying to figure that one out even after the movie is over.

Three - Love, Lies And Betrayal

Only 3 question to director Vishal Pandya.

1) Is there no quality control check on the reels before the film is released? After all, one has to look into the finest details before the prints are released in the cinemas. Now this could be a fault of reels mixing up, or plain ignorance on the part of the director.

Let me explain:

Before the interval, when Anjali goes to meet Sanjay as they are about to run away from her husband to England, she is shown driving furiously in her car in the dead of night as she refuses to sign her house papers. She is shown coming out of a restaurant with Sanjay is in hot pursuit. She gets to a phone booth on the highway and screams "He has killed my husband." After the interval, it is business as usual between Anjali, her husband Rajeev and Sanjay, who lives with them as a paying guest. Confusing.

This same scene, where Anjali comes running out, this time from Leisure Club, is shown at the start. The next shot is of her and her husband in her home. Confusing.

I get a feeling; the director was trying to show the film in flashback and has fumbled with the point of contact. This is a grave error.


2) Why can't the couple get rid of Sanjay who is proving to be a pest by returning the deposit (rent of one-and-a-half years)?

3) And finally, why does not Anjali tell the police officer of the pesky paying guest in her house whose intentions have reached murderous proportions? Their car is involved in causing serious damage to public property and they shell out 8000 Pounds as fine!

This is very sad, because, though the film is a little slow in the first hour, as it is establishing the characters, it is a neat thriller, where the three main actors Aashish Chowdhry (Sanjay), Nausheen Ali Sardar (Anjali) and Akshay Kapoor (Rajeev) are involved in a game of Love, Lies and Betrayal. And though you guess the main villain in the beginning, the end is chilling.

Aashish Chowdhry is proving himself to be an actor of immense potential. This guy has it in him to thrill and chill. Nausheen is impressive in her debut.

This flick had the potential of being a 3-star thriller, but for the flashback goof-up.

Love Khichdi

Director Srinivas Bhashyam has tackled an interesting subject on 'commitment phobia' and 'lust over love', which plagues most of the youth of today. He has handled the subject with sensitivity, bringing to fore the many emotions and driving home a powerful point. Of course, the end is not what was expected; it's clich�d. A 'tadka' towards the conclusion would have made this LOVE KHICHDI, even more delicious.

All the same, he has managed his ensemble cast to perfection and extracted good performances from all of them. Vir (Randeep Hooda) is your typical hot-blooded 26-year-old from Chandigarh who is working as a chef in a five-star hotel in Mumbai. For him, life is all about discos and dating girls. His weapon is his English and his super-confidence in approaching any PYT. It's this journey of his in search of 'sex' that Bhashyam explores.

He has a friend who works with him, Sandhya Iyengar (Sada). Though just friends, for Sandhya, Vir is extra special. And even though she is aware of his escapades, her love for him is real. This love of hers is what changes the 'skirt chasing' Vir towards the end to tame him to domestic bliss.

While Vir thinks he is taking the girls for a ride, there are a few, who beat him to his game. Lost in lust, he is confused as to what he really wants.

Playing the modest Romeo, Randeep Hooda is a joy. From one relationship to another, he dishes out an interesting gamut of emotions. Be it with the girl besotted by him who lives in his building Deepti (Riya Sen); an NRI returned business woman Nafisa Khan (Kalpana Pandit); his landlord's wife Parminder Kaur (Divya Dutta), or Sharmistha Basu (Ritapurna Sengupta). From one woman to another, he displays the pain and pleasure of it all. This guy is one helluva natural and deserves his due.

Among the girls, it's Sada who steals the show. As the one who is silently in love with Vir, and as his constant companion witnessing all his romps, she demonstrates her hopelessness with a touch of boldness, which in turn has the desired effect on Vir.

Most scenes are sure to have an instant connect with the �youngsters' of today and I'm sure they will lap this Khichdi with glee. On the flip side, considering there is a khichdi of releases (six in all), it might be a little difficult

Quick Gun Murugan

QUICK GUN MURUGUN enthralled us with his lingo and distinct dialect almost a decade ago when he entered our living rooms through MTV. He was a creation of Shashank Ghosh. ''Mind it'' and ''We are like this only'' became popular lines and are used even today. The man has now made it as a hero, thanks to his creator who is also the director of this film.

The movie traces almost 25 years in the life of QUICK GUN MURUGUN who is bumped off by Rice Plate Reddy, the baddie. Rice Plate Reddy is forcefully turning all the pure vegetarian restaurants into non-veg ones and Murugun 'is not liking it' one bit. He polishes off his cronies 'Phatak se', with the subtle use of his guns and nimble hands. The bullets find its target after ricocheting off various objects. Rice Plate Reddy is angry and finishes off Murugun with a bullet to his heart. Yamraj descends to take his soul and all the way to heaven Murugun says, ''I want to go back''. At the registration counter 'Up There', he manages to convince the 'Heavenly Clerk' to send him back. He does come back, 25-years-later, but not in Kerala. Murugun is dropped at Gateway of India in Mumbai.

Rice Plate Reddy has by now set up a chain of McDosas all over the city of Mumbai and is also going international. Murugun's search for him leads to a volley of explosions and countless dead bodies. Yes, Murugun finishes off Rice Plate Reddy. He came from heaven on a mission, you see!

At best, you can enjoy this flick, mainly in English, partly in Malayalam with a little bit of Hindi and a few English sub-titles, for over 15 minutes. Then it gets bothersome. It's like the joke has gone too far. The violence is gory and you don't even see a joke in it. If it was a television film, you would not have 'Mind It'! As a full length feature... well, 'They are like that only...''

a billingsgate knows exactly how it wants it

a billingsgate knows exactly how it wants it

Kaminey

Kaminey is the best Bollywood film I’ve seen this year. It’s an audacious, original rollercoaster ride. Written and directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, Kaminey requires patience and attention but the pay off is more than worth it.

Kaminey is about Charlie and Guddu, twin brothers played by Shahid Kapoor, both of whom suffer from speech impediments and who can’t stand the sight of each other. Charlie, who pronounces S as F, is a small time gangster. Guddu, who stammers, is a mousy NGO worker. Guddu’s life plans, chalked out until 2014 on a chart stuck in his cupboard, are wrecked when he impregnates Sweety, his fiery girlfriend who until now has neglected to tell him that she is the sister of a powerful gangster-politician, Bhope, played by Amol Gupte. Meanwhile Charlie has come to possess a guitar containing cocaine worth 10 crore. The quintessential gambler thinks he’s finally hit the big score. What follows is a frantic, convoluted journey through Mumbai’s mean streets which are of course populated by many Kamineys: corrupt cops, nasty drug dealers, gun wielding henchmen. Eventually, the brothers’ determinedly separate narratives collide and they are forced to come together.

Be warned: there are stretches of Kaminey that will thoroughly confuse you, starting with the first fifteen minutes. The film has eleven-odd characters that you need to keep track of. Snatches of dialogue are in Bengali and Marathi. If you look away from the screen to send a text message, you might miss another twist in this very, very tangled tale. The first half moves slowly. You might be bewildered and perhaps even bored. But stay with the film. Because the pacing picks up in the second half and Vishal ties up the threads in an exhilarating climax, which, incredibly enough, manages to combine stunning violence with humor.

Kaminey is that rarest of things: an unpredictable Hindi movie. Vishal, referencing the crackling gangster dramas of Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie, keeps it gritty and dark. Violence looms large over Kaminey but the tension is layered with black humor. The film reworks Hindi cinema’s favorite formula - twins - into a bloody theater of the absurd. Charlie and Guddu are unlike any twins you’ve seen before. Each one is willing to sacrifice the other to get what he wants. This is the role or roles of a lifetime and Shahid Kapoor, best known for innocuous chocolate-boy romances, sinks his teeth in. Kaminey does for him what Omkara did for Saif Ali Khan. A star has evolved into an actor.

Sweety is this year’s most exciting heroine after Paro in Dev D, and Priyanka plays her with aplomb. Only her perfectly manicured nails struck me as out of synch with her character. Vishal has equal affection for the smaller players: from the coke-addled Mikhail played nicely by Chandan Roy Sanyal to the Jai Maharashtra-spouting Bhope. Each one is flesh and blood.

Kaminey will take some getting used to. It isn’t the comfort food that Bollywood normally dishes out. But I strongly recommend that you see it. This taste is worth acquiring.

Chintu ji

You may or may not know that a film called Chintu ji is playing at a theatre near you this week. It has released with minimal marketing and no marquee names, except for Rishi Kapoor who plays the lead.

But don’t let this lack of fanfare dissuade you. Chintu ji is an unassuming and delightful film that will keep you smiling long after you’ve left the theatre.

Written and directed by theatre director Ranjit Kapoor, Chintu ji is a part-factual, part-fictional story set in a small town called Hadbahedi. This is a Utopian town with no cell phones, one weekly newspaper and half an airport.

But everyone lives in harmony because they follow the path of truth, non-violence and always listen to their hearts.

Hadbahedi’s only claim to fame is that Raj Kapoor happened to be visiting when his wife Krishna went into labour and therefore Rishi Kapoor, also known as Chintu, was born there.

The kindly citizens of Hadbahedi invite the actor to the town. The arrogant, insufferably spoilt, past-his-prime actor, who now wants to make a foray into politics, accepts.

What follows is a superbly funny culture clash that becomes an insightful exploration of stardom in India, the relationship between God-like stars and their audience and the hollowness that exists behind the larger-than-life image.

Ranjit, whose best work includes the dialogue of Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, creates a satire with heart. There are moments of absolute genius here, including one in which a Bengali doctor treating Chintu ji after he has had a fall, insists on narrating his script to the actor who merely gets drunk and passes out.

The film industry isn’t spared either. Saurabh Shukla plays a harried filmmaker who shifts shooting to Hadbahedi only so he can finish quickly. When an actor asks him the motivation for a particular scene, the filmmaker replies, "Actor ka ek hi motivation hota hai, money".

There’s also a power-broker, tellingly named Amar Sanghvi who persuades Chintu to come to the rival town Triphala by handing the actor a check of one crore. At which point, Chintu ji requests, "Please TDS mat katna".

Chintu ji of course wouldn’t exist if Rishi Kapoor did not have the courage to play this frankly unattractive version of himself. Rishi plays the greedy, narcissistic actor to perfection.

The supporting players - Saurabh Shukla, Grusha Kapoor and an elderly actress who plays the mid-wife who delivered Chintu - are also very good.

Chintu ji doesn’t have craft or technical finesse. In parts, it is wobbly and theatrical. The romantic track, which has a patched on sub-plot about the Parliament shooting, doesn’t work.

But Chintu ji is a film with heart and an inspired strain of lunacy.

In the second half, the filmmaker shoots an item song with his cast dressed as tribals. The film he is shooting is called Khooni Khazana but the song is a long list of the world’s best filmmakers: so names like Tarantino, Vittorio de Sica, Visconti, Mizoguchi have been set to music. It’s deliciously mad.

I’m going with three and a half stars and strongly recommending that you watch it.

Fox

The good news is that Fox might be Deepak Tijori’s best film. The bad news is that Tijori’s earlier films include gems like Oops and Tom Dick and Harry.

Fox is a hugely convoluted and dim-witted thriller about a criminal lawyer named Arjun Kapoor, played by a stone-faced Arjun Rampal.

Kapoor is called a Law ka Genius and a Mujrimon ka Messiah because he manages to get criminals off the hook with his acumen. One day, he develops a conscience, throws it all up and moves to Goa. Here an elderly stranger hands him an unpublished novel and promptly dies.

Kapoor publishes the novel under his own name, becomes a best-selling crime author and then finds himself in jail because every murder in the novel is an actual unsolved murder which the police claim, Kapoor could have only written about in such detail if he were the murderer himself.

The novel incidentally is called "Find the Fox" and the cover features - I am not making this up - an actual fox in lawyers’ robes. The book’s publisher is a heavy-breathing, mini-skirted Udita Goswami who doubles up as an item girl when necessary.

The trouble with Fox is that it makes very little sense. The big reveal at the end is likely to draw more laughs than gasps.

The story, also by Tijori, is compounded by the bad acting. Each actor goes through the motions wearing forlorn expressions and bad wigs. The camerawork is patchy and for reasons unknown, Tijori spends a lot of time focusing on his actor’s hands.

There is nothing foxy about Fox. I’m going with one and a half stars.

Aagey Se Right

The promos of Aagey Se Right have been misleading to say the least. While it has been projected as a Shreyas Talpade-starrer, Kay Kay Menon has an equally important role.

Not that it really leads one to cheer. Reason being that what seemed like an innocent tale of a newly recruited cop (Shreyas) hunting for his gun takes an altogether different dimension with a terrorist (Kay Kay Menon) from border ke uss paar coming into picture.

He gets all moony-eyed for a bar girl Shenaz Treasury (who has dropped 'vaala' from her surname). He begins with his sher-o-shaayari only to turn into a full-on tapori.

From here on the film becomes an assortment of a series of coaching classes where a South Indian don Vijay Maurya, who operates as an entrepreneur with the promise of 'customer delight' and 'satisfaction guaranteed', teaches some tricks of the 'love trade' to Kay Kay.

Yes, there are quite a few scenes that invokes chuckles and even full-throated laughter as Kay Kay goes through a heart transformation. His dialogues are witty while Vijay Maurya is a riot. In fact it's the latter's presence that keeps the momentum despite a wayward tale that debutant director Indrajit chooses to tell.

One understands Indrajit's intent though -- which is to tell a story that is whacky, quirky, utterly unbelievable and on-your-face nonsense.

Aagey Se Right aspires to be right in all these departments. It's just that the direction is all over in the second half of the film and the momentum that had built up in the first half doesn't remain as the film progresses.

Change in heart for the terrorist, his accomplice flying into the country in search of him, a mother (Bharti Achrekar) who is always there to give direction to the novice cop, a bunch of DJs who play mischief mongers - there are too many characters and incidents that spoil the show.

In fact, the entire track revolving around a struggling actor (Shiv Pandit) and his girlfriend (Shruti Seth) was completely unwarranted.

One also wonders what made Mahie Gill sign this film. As a gossip news channel reporter, she makes an appearance every now and then in a thankless role. On the other hand, Shreyas is good but hardly has a role that can be compared to many of his earlier superior performances.

Indrajit's direction becomes a little patchy, especially in the scenes that require multiple actors in one frame. So whether it is the shooting of a Bhojpuri film or a stampede that follows in Vijay Maurya's den or the suicide attempt by Shruti - there is an all around amateurism that is more than just apparent.

However, in scenes that have only two actors interacting (Shreyas and his mother, Kay Kay and Vijay Maurya), he manages to get it right most of the time.

Aagey Se Right starts off as a sweet fun film but becomes tiring once it loses focus.

Vaada Raha

Bobby Deol is a genius cancer specialist named Duke Chawla. That itself should give you some idea what Vada Raha has in store for you. I'm not sure where Duke lives-the action cuts from Grecian ruins to snazzy yachts in dazzling blue seas to a Sardar neighbour.

But Duke is successful, in love and seriously happy. Of course it can't last. One rainy night, Duke has an accident and ends up in a hospital bed with neck-down paralysis. His love interest, played by Kangana Ranaut, promptly dumps him and Duke becomes a bitter man, who in one unintentionally hilarious scene, tries to commit suicide by chewing on his IV tubes.

A precocious child, played by Dwij Yadav, brings the light back into Duke's life by teaching him the importance of hope and love. In case you still haven't got the point, the kid is called Roshan.

The film, which is inspired by a Russian fable, could have been a reasonably moving hospital drama. But director Sameer Karnik, who also co-wrote the screenplay and dialogue, creates a dim-witted, staggeringly tedious soap opera. Duke's supine condition is an endurance test, not just for him but also for us.

To begin with, the medical situations in Vada Raha are comically disconnected from reality. At one point, Duke, still paralysed, supervises a heart operation from his hospital bed, because there are no heart surgeons available at the hospital. He gives instructions like: position the valve, make the incision. And if that isn't enough--Duke then begins to do research on bone marrow cancer, again from the bed.

He stares hard at the computer screens and says: Eureka I've done it. Yes, Duke has found the cure for cancer. The actors can't shore up the story much. I think Kangana decided to make up for the brevity of her role by applying as much eye make-up as is humanely possible. Bobby works hard to be convincing but the outlandish plot outdoes him.

The role also requires him to weep copiously on screen. Some men can pull off full-frontal crying but Bobby isn't one of them. Vada Raha has little to offer. I'm going with two stars.

Kisaan

Kisaan does not delve deep into the problems of farmers in remote India (read suicide) but scratches gingerly on the surface. It's sad, because this film had the potential of being taken rather seriously; entertaining as well as educating.

Although it briefly touches on the malady of farmer suicides and land sharks, it does not go the distance. It ends up being a 'typical Bollywood masala flick'.

The film is about Dayal Singh (Jackie Shroff), a widower, who raises his two sons Aman (Arbaaz Khan) and Jigar (Sohail Khan) singlehandedly. He faithfully toils with his sons on his ancestral land as a true farmer would. One day, his neighbour commits suicide because he had taken a meager loan and could not repay it. Also, he had given his thumb impression on a blank piece of paper to the loan sharks. That paper turned out to be his noose.

Deeply disturbed, Dayal decides to send his elder son to the city to get a degree in law. Fifteen years later, when Aman returns to his village, with a law degree in hand, he is facing a rather peculiar problem. Sohan Seth (Dalip Tahil) an industrialist wants the farmers to sell their land. He is willing to pay more than the market rate. While most agree, others are being forced. Dayal and his sons are of the opinion that no one should be forced. In one such meeting, the melee, Dayal is slapped by a local goon who has teamed up with Sohan. Being the lawyer that he is, Aman stops his dad from retaliating. However, when Jigar, who was not at the scene, learns of the incident, he exacts revenge by cutting the hand of the offender.

	view KISAAN movie stills

From there on the film sinks into melodrama with Sohan befriending Aman and causing a rift in the family. To add glamour, there is Dia Mirza paired opposite Arbaaz and Nauheeh Cyrusi as Titli (cute) who is Sohail's love interest.

Jackie Shroff is solid, giving off a very good performance as the father and farmer who is protective of his land and fiercely proud of his sons. After his debut flick HERO and later GARDISH, Jaggu stands out yet again. There's something about Sohail Khan that strikes you. I think it is the sincerity of his performance. As the hotheaded son with an immense love for his father and land, he is a powerhouse. Arbaaz's vague wig casts an unreal air around him.

The music has a distinct feel of eighties, which goes well with the theme. With over five releases this week, the film will hit bulls-eye in the rural areas of India. Producer Sohail will have to make sure they get a tax-free entry onto the theatres.

Rating - 2.5/5

Movie Review : Baabarr

BAABARR is the story of crime set with Lucknow as the backdrop. It is also the story of how crime is nurtured for political gains; how vote banks are developed and protected and of the good cop and bad cop.

Shot in the by lanes of Uttar Pradesh, this crime fest is loaded with gunshots and dead bodies. You lose count after the first reel. It is also the story of a 12-year-old boy who fires his first shot to save his brothers from being killed. There on, at age 22, he roams the streets fearlessly, protecting those who pay their �protection fee' and eliminating those who refuse.

As expected, there is violence galore. But our hero Baabarr (newcomer Soham Shah) looks more a lover boy than a killing machine. There is no meanness in his eyes and his body language is that of a teenager who has just set his hands on a revolver; not that of a seasoned killer. Though heavily bearded, he is allowed to enter a school dressed in a uniform. He is there to assassinate the Chief Minister's brother. At another instance, he dresses up as the groom and sits besides the bride's father! Even when he is shot from a point-blank range with the gun placed at his temple, he survives with a scratch on his cheek. What cheek!

Though Soham has a screen presence, his choice to play the lead was a bad one. In fact, Tabrez, Baabaar's rival, portrayed menacingly by Sushant Singh has enough fire in him to give Soham a complex.

There are also shots of Baabarr's elder brother Sarfaraz (Shakti Kapoor) making frantic calls to a Mayawati lookalike from his prison cell when Baabarr has been captured. What one cannot understand is how Sarfaraz became so powerful in prison. He was sent to jail when Baabarr was 12 years old. Sarfaraz then had accidentally killed a goon in a fight, which got out of hand.