Ragini MMS Release Date : 13,May 2011

Producer    Ekta Kapoor, Shobha Kapoor
 Director    Pawan Kripalani
 Music    S D Burman, Shamir Tandon, Faizan Hussain, Agnel Boman, Bappi Lahiri
 Writer    Pawan Kripalani, Vaspar Dandiwala
 Lyrics    Majrooh Sultanpuri, Virag Mishra, Faizan Hussain, Agnel Boman, Indeevar
 Release Date    13-May-2011

Movie Review: The film has obviously been inspired by Paranormal Activity, the cult horror film that created waves with its grainy hand-held video footage. But rest assured, there is such a strong desi flavour to the film, you rarely end up thinking of the Hollywood indie film.

Ragini and Uday make an interesting couple. She's the fragile uptown girl, unabashed about expressing her sexual demands. While he's the desi boy who sprinkles his conversation with gaalis and cuss words and is no-nakhra about his hormonal rage. Also, he has no qualms about exploiting the pretty young thing who trusts him completely. Why should he? He's been promised a film career if he delivers: dream fulfilled for wannabe stars....

Most of the action transpires within the closed doors of the spooky house, where the lights come and go, the stairs unnecessarily creep and shadows flit across, when no one's looking. The chills factory gets in overdrive when the ghost decides to make her presence felt and begins to yank hair, fling bodies, and wound flesh in the middle of the foreplay.

The horror does work in places, although the persistent dim light and the grainy video effect tend to get a bit irksome. But the realistic performances by the lead pair more than make up for the lapses.

Watch it for its novelty and for the fact that Ragini MMS makes a heady cocktail of sex and horror that's so very different from run-of-the-mill Bollywood. 

Stanley Ka Dabba Release Date : 13,May 2011

Producer    Amole Gupte
 Director    Amole Gupte
 Music    Hitesh Sonik
 Writer    Amole Gupte
 Lyrics    Amole Gupte
 Release Date    13-May-2011

Movie Review: Amole Gupte is magical with kids. And that's because he seems to be as much a psychologist as a filmmaker. After writing Taare Zameen Par, he writes and directs Stanley Ka Dabba, another heartwarming film about children just being children, with all their cares and carefree abandon. And adults just being adults, with all their idiosyncrasies, quirks and secret anguish.

The beauty of Stanley Ka Dabba lies in its sheer simplicity and authenticity. The film creates a slice of life from the pages of any and every school in big and small town India where kids just want to have fun and teachers want to be the proverbial killjoys. Of course, there are exceptions, like the popular Miss Rosie (Divya Dutta) who generously sprinkles her conversations with terms of endearments and encourages every glimpse of creativity in the kids. The biggest bugbear however is Sir Babubhai Verma (Amole Gupte) who is more interested in gobbling the kids' food rather than teaching Hindi. Stanley becomes his pet peeve because he never seems to have his dabba, yet ends up having a daily feast with his friends. Why? Because he is the most popular boy in class and his friends simply adore him. Needless to say, Stanley's missing dabba becomes a metaphor for his mysterious life....

The other highpoint are the sterling performances. Almost all the adults have created picture perfect portraits of the various types of teachers all of us have grown up with. But in the end, it is the kids who walk away with all the laurels, specially young Partho whose Stanley remains with you, long after curtain call.

Don't miss this rich and nuanced soul curry for both, the young and adult heart. 

Shagird Release Date : 13,May 2011

Producer    Hussain Shaikh
 Director    Tigmanshu Dhulia
 Music    Abhishek Ray
 Writer    Tigmanshu Dhulia, Kamal Pandey
 Release Date    13-May-2011


There is this utterly delightful action sequence where Nana Patekar, playing a belligerent corrupt but effectual cop in a crime-infested small town of Uttar Pradesh run by the political mafia, barges on to a nefarious hide-out. He peeps into the room where the goons are watching a vintage black-and-white song on television. Then they switch to a channel airing a Himesh Reshammiya song.

Patekar slams into the room and shoots them all down.

“This is what happens when you listen to the wrong songs. ”

The savage humour of the above sequence stays with you in a film that could have made a much more forceful impact had Shagird come four years earlier.

Given today’s jaded political scenario with politicians of both genders perpetrating the most obnoxious deeds of corruption on the national exchequer, the Bunty Bhaiyas and the Shakeel Bhais of this film appear to be relatively harmless creatures of the underworld.

Like the cops in the films of earlier millennium this film arrives a little late after the action is over. The film exudes the scent of jadedness. That could also be because of the characters who are so steeped in corruption and debauchery they seem born for hell. However the feeling of experiencing something decadent seeps deeper into the narrative.

Much of the goings-on fall into the realm of ‘realistic’ cinema located in the cow-belt that has been a staple of a certain breed of directors like Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap and Tigmanshu Dhulia.

The absence of an inspiring budget repeatedly takes its toll on the narrative’s claim to credibility. There are innumerable sequences which jump out of nowhere, and not in a startling but annoying show of unpredictability.

The kidnapping of the tv journalist Rimi Sen and her two colleagues by militants looks so staged you wonder how seasoned professionals could fall for it.

What works are some of the dialogues and Nana Patekar’s wry cynical cop’s part. He brings in that familiar yet engaging element of intrepid defiance into the theme of corruption and compromise.

Here again, the role suffers from a sense of staleness. Patekar and his shagird from the police department were far more warmly portrayed in Shimit Amin’s Ab Tak Chappan by Patekar and Nakul Vaid.

Shagird is not devoid of merit. The Patekar characters affinity to vintage film songs gives a centre to an otherwise-doddering tale of desperate corruption.

They don’t make songs like they used to. Neither do the contemporary cops thrillers like Dum Maro Dum and Shagird match the brutal persuasive powers of past cops flicks like Zanjeer and Ardh Satya.

Khakee is a fading colour in our movies. The hero in Shagird doesn’t even bother to wear it.