Crook Release Date : 08,Oct 2010

Producer Mukesh Bhatt
Director Mohit Suri
Music Pritam Chakraborty
Writer Ankur Tewari
Release Date 08-Oct-2010

Crook scores due to its extreme topicality. Director Mohit Suri picks up a tale drawn straight from the current headlines and narrates it with characteristic grit and edginess. It's a familiar playground for Emraan Hashmi too as he gets to essay the role of the enfant terrible all over again. And that isn't rocket science for Emraan, since ever since he hit the marquee with his maniacal act in Murder, the actor has been antsy on screen in almost all his avatars. Even his last outing on screen was a reincarnation of the grimy Dawood-ish don in Once Upon A Time in Mumbaai.

In Crook, he re-essays a character he's already played earlier in Jannat. Emraan's cabbie-man act in Crook sees him going through the entire graph of a callous bad boy turning good. But before he can set aside his amoral ways, he must take the rough ride on the streets of Melbourne which are buzzing with an underground war between Indian and Aussie gangs, baying for each other's blood. The Indian students find a leader in the hot-headed Arjan Bajwa who is determined to uphold desi culture in phoren shores, even as the Australian goonda insists on protecting his native culture from the foreign onslaught.

It's here that Mohit presents a new take on the issue. He depicts both of them -- the Indian and the Australian -- as equally racist and argues for introspection on both sides. Of course, eventually, it's left to Emraan Hashmi to play mediator between the two warring camps and douse the fire that threatens to burn down the neighbourhood. Time for the crook to change colours and turn hero....

The film isn't a smooth ride altogether. Unlike Kalyug , Mohit's earlier film, Crook begins on an incoherent note and takes time to get its focus right. Most of the first half of the film is spent -- and wasted -- in the romantic escapades of Emraan with the Indian student and the Australian night club dancer. The story picks up mostly in the second half and makes a meaningful noise: integrate or perish.

Do Dooni Chaar Release Date : 08,Oct 2010

Producer Arindam Chaudhuri
Director Habib Faisal
Music Meet Brother, Anjan
Lyrics Manoj Muntashir
Release Date 08-Oct-2010

If you're not a Delhiite, your first reaction on watching 'Do Dooni Char' would be, thank god for that! And this has nothing to do with the questionable infrastructure or the corruption. One of the most important revelations that this film quite unintentionally portrays is the neighbourhood culture of Delhi. This abominable society dictates that your neighbours would always be clinging to your hair, passing judgments on your daily affairs and taunting you on everything (including your rather modest salary). This could lead you to question if man could avoid being a social animal. The film revolves around the middle-class life of the Duggals, who happen to reside in one such neighbourhood. The family includes Papa Duggal (Rishi Kapoor), Mummy Duggal (Neetu Singh), their cocky-yet-upstart son (Archit Krishna) and their brand-conscious-teenage daughter (Aditi Vasudev).

Being a super low-budget project, one can imagine it would be easy to furnish the middle-class-ness required to tell this story convincingly. So Algebra teacher, Papa Duggal's paunch is almost always covered under a filthy sweater and Mummy Duggal is perfectly happy confined to household chores in her simple nighties and salwar kurtas. This is a point worth mentioning as the Kapoors have never been seen in such a light (not even in a fancy dress competition). And both of them are a delight to watch, as they go about coping with their daily adventures of getting past life with limited means.

The plot of the film is wafer thin to discuss. And if you've seen the promos, you know that the film is about the Duggals' journey towards purchasing a four-wheeler. Predictably you know how the film would conclude. But while delving into why it's nearly impossible for Papa Duggal to afford a car, we bump into a serious issue- the state of teachers in our country. Although laced with comical incidents and satirical jabs, this film sensitizes us about the fact that teaching as a profession may offer a bundle of nobility but that's all that it offers. And whether we admit it or not, we've all had one teacher in our academic life who has moulded us into the people we've become. This would, in any society, be the most important function of all. Yet, the deplorable remuneration offered to teachers over time hasn't changed at all. So, despite resorting to tuition classes after school, Papa Duggal is seen struggling to make ends meet. The idea of purchasing a car on account of societal pressures seems too fantastic a dream to him. Yet, he has to give in.

So this film is not just about an everyman quest for purchasing a vehicle. It's about dreaming beyond what life offers you and throwing in the last punch in order to achieve it.