I Am Kalam Release Date : 05,Aug 2011

Producer    Santanu Mishra
 Director    Nila Madhab Panda
 Music    Abhishek Ray, Papon, Madhuparna, Susmit Bose
 Writer    Sanjay Chauhan
 Lyrics    Kishor Chanchal, Manavendra
 Release Date    05-Aug-2011

Remember Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam? I'm sure you do. The former President of India, with his charming personality and an inimitable kind demeanour, was and still is a source of inspiration to millions. I AM KALAM is a tale enthused by the maverick leader.

The film traces the life of Chottu (Harsh Mayar), a poor kid with a million dollar smile. He is very sharp and interested in studies, but his mother can't afford to send him to school. So, at an age when children play with toys, he starts working in a small road side food stall under Bhati (Gulshan Grover). Also working with him at the stall is the hardcore Amitabh Bachchan fan, Laptan (Pitobash Tripathy) who never leaves a chance to bully him. After listening to a speech by Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, Chottu changes his own name to Kalam and starts working towards his dream of becoming a bada aadmi one day.

He befriends a local price Ranvijay Singh (Hussan Saad), who hails from a royal family. The two kids become the best of friends and start helping each other. Ranvijay teaches Kalam English while Kalam teaches him Hindi. What follows is a heart warming story about friendship, perseverance and pursuing dreams.

Nila Madhab Panda's directorial debut is a sweet little gem. It's one of those rare films that is simple and yet very moving. It shows in an absolutely non-preachy way that dreams do come true. And it's karma and not kismat that helps in fulfilling one's dreams. The narrative includes many brilliant moments that you'll remember for a long time. It also tackles the menace of child labour in a very mature way. 


The film starts off on a light-hearted note and it doesn't take much time for you to fall in love with the adorable and witty Kalam. Watch out for the hilarious chudail sequence. He takes obstacles in his stride to achieve his goals, which is very moving. Even the bond that he shares with Ranvijay is very endearing. On the flipside, it does get a little too sombre towards the end. And Bhati's love track with Lucie (Beatrice Ordeix) has little to do with central theme of the film.

Ahishek Ray, Madhuparna, Papon, Susmit Bose and Shivji Dholi's music blends with the film perfectly. Mohana Krishna's cinematography captures Rajasthan beautifully. Prashant Nair's editing is spotless.

Harsh Mayar's shines and how! The National Award winner (well-deserved) plays his part very naturally. He carries the film on his able shoulders wonderfully and with great maturity. Gulshan Grover is dependable as always. Pitobash Tripathy, who impressed in SHOR IN THE CITY, is simply wonderful. Child actor Husaan Saad acts really well. Beatrice Ordeix plays her part superbly.

I am supremely impressed by I AM KALAM. Watch this film made with lot of heart for its poignant story-telling and incredible performances.

Warning Release Date : 05,Aug 2011

Producer    Ram Kudale
 Director    Karan Razdan
 Music    Sachin Gupta
 Writer    Karan Razdan
 Lyrics    Ibrahim Ashq
 Release Date    05-Aug-2011

There are films you watch and instantly fall in love with wanting to watch it again. Then there are films you watch and restrict yourself to watching it that one time never repeating it again. And then there are films which give you such a headache that you repent even entering the theatre for it. Aagah – The Warning doesn't come in any of those categories. Instead, it comes in a category where while watching the film you feel like hunting down the maker of the film and doing the most horrible things possible to him, torturing him even further for making such a torturous film you had to go through. Yes, Aagah – The Warning is that pathetic!

An innocent boatman Ramsharan (Karan Razdan) is captured on high seas by the terrorists and is shot down by the leader of the jihadis Azaan Khan (Atul Kulkarni). Ramsharan's family in the village consisting of his father Devsharan (Satish Kaushik), mother Dulariben (Ila Arun) wife Megha (Rituparna Sen) and daughter Muskaan (Jannat) , they all grieve the death of Ramsharan. Muskaan has a lot of innocent questions about her father death. Later on, a spirit begins to haunt Muskaan. The dead are trying to reach out to her. Why? Why is someone dead trying to reach out to her and her family. The Nawab of the district (Zakir Hussein) takes a keen interest in the family. A Moulana (Anang Desai) tries to help the Sharan family. He introduces them to Peer Jammatuddin Shah Baba (Anupam Kher). The Peer fakir tries to exorcise the spirit from Muskaan being but he fails. A strange thing happens one night. The spirit attacks, but the family fights back. The spirit escapes through the chimney. But the strange part is that the spirit has written something on the wall. But it's in ancient Urdu. Which even the maulana can't read. Whose spirit is it? Is it an ancient spirit? What is it trying to say or do?

My only question is, why? Why make such a product?! Nothing works for the film! The only good (if you could dare to use that adjective after watching the film) factor about the movie is Atul Kulkarni, Jannat Zuber, Satish Kaushik and Anupam Kher's performances. Firstly, the film is extremely overdramatic and loud. It has even beat Ram Gopal Verma in using torturous background music. Even in sorrowful scenes like those involving death, you just don't feel sorry for them. The boatman's family's after-death crying saga just goes on and on. It never ends! Considering the movie has actually given the ghost a colour – white, it reminded me of the washing powder Tide's ads. Also, everyone dying in the film just has to say 2 – 3 dialogues before dying. What's that? Are we doing a film from the 80's? Also, their family seems to be the only family in the whole village most of the time. Why, were the junior artists so expensive? Plus, Rituparna Sen Gupta's hands seem to be more powerful than any weapon in the world! Considering, she could actually prevent the ghost to enter her daughter's body with just her bare hands! Absolutely ridiculous!

By the end of the film where the actual message is delivered, even if you're still in the audience, you just don't care. Who lives, who dies, and who's the ghost, whatever! It's a nice message being suggested in the end, but the movie doesn't even keep you interested for the first 20 minutes, forget about doing so till the end.

Director Karan Razdan should be proud of at least making some mark in Bollywood by making one of the worst Bollywood movies of all time. The screenplay is not even worth mentioning. The editing is terrible, scenes start from nowhere in between. At times, you won't even realize when the next scene has started. Terrible! The cinematography is okay.

Coming to the performances, Jannat Zuber, Atul Kulkarni, Satish Kaushik and Anupam Kher are the best. Rituparna Sen overacts so bad that you wish she either takes an acting class right away, or quit the industry! Ila Arun is a pain! When she shouts, you wish you were deaf.

Overall, there's nothing to say about this film. It's an absolute waste of effort, time and money. The writer and director of the movie Karan Razdan says 'The film is born out of plain. The film, although a supernatural thriller, cries out for peace and compassion for human suffering.' I do understand the crying out for human suffering part (especially in Ila Arun and Rituparna Sen's torturous scenes) and am sure he meant born out 'for' pain! And let's not even go to the apparently being a 'supernatural thriller' part. In short, Warning: Don't watch it!

Bubble Gum Release Date : 29,Jul 2011

Producer    Sushma Kaul
 Director    Sanjivan Lal
 Writer    Sanjivan Lal
 Release Date    29-Jul-2011

A bundle of films on teenage life has been explored MERA PEHLA PEHLA PYAAR, UDAAN, TERE MERE SANG, ROCKFORD, KACCHA LIMBO , (the latest being) ALWAYS KABHI KABHI in the past however each having a different take and a different subject matter to deal with. Director Sanjivan Lal's BUBBLE GUM is yet another refreshing blossoming teenage tale. The best part about this age group is there's so much to babble on that it never appears repetitive and/or unexciting.

However, unlike other teenage films which highlighted current generation's issues BUBBLE GUM is set in an era (probably 80s) when varied modes of communication were just evolving. Forget social networking and mobile phones the world was not even introduced to TVs and Computers. When letters, telegrams, typewriters and using neighbour's telephone (old model) were the only means to communicate or express. When love was mere having a glimpse of your beloved unlike today's love which is instant, carefree, open and desperate to get involved quickly without any hesitation.

The coming of age teenybopper, BUBBLE GUM, which is set in the backdrop of Jamshedpur, is a film that revolves around first romances, friendship, parent-child relationship and peer pressure. It is a story of a brash, aggressive and bold yet innocent 14 year old teen Vedant (Sohail Lakhani), who is torn between his parents, academic pressures and his first crush/love or rather infatuation towards the very beautiful and charming Jenny (Apoorva Arora), daughter of a local cop residing in the same colony. And like all love-stories there's a twist in Vedant's naive love life too. Ratan (Suraj Singh), the evil-eyed guy of same age from the neighbourhood, is Vedant's competitor. Both try their best to woo Jenny. However, Vedant's complication doesn't end here. Vedant's elder brother Vidur (Delzad), 16, who is deaf and mute, returns home to celebrate his first holi with family. Parents Mukund and Sudha (Sachin Khedekar, Tanvi Azmi) get too engrossed with Vidur and leave a feeling of neglect in Vedant's mind which only builds insecurity and anger in him. But after all the ups and downs and the twist and turns and battle against ugly circumstances to win his love, Vedant discovers the true meaning of life, love and his relationship with his loving & caring parents and a doting brother.

Director Sanjivan Lal's BUBBLE GUM has a very simple, sweet and a sensitive storyline. The incidences, the characters and the happenings are very relatable and real and hark back to your times. It is packed with every emotion of jealousy, insecurity, excitement, attraction, love, joy, attitude, hatred, aggressiveness, etc which a teenager goes through in his/ her growing up years.

Gandhi to Hitler Release Date : 29,Jul 2011

Producer    Dr. Anil Kumar Sharma
 Director    Rakesh Ranjan Kumar
 Music    Arvind (1), Lyton
 Writer    Nalin Singh, Rakesh Ranjan Kumar
 Lyrics    Dr. Pallavi Mishra
 Release Date    29-Jul-2011

Here at long last is a Hindi film that loves India so unequivocally that it goes and paints the entire world brown. Every single character in Gandhi to Hitler, whether a dreaded Third Reich minister, a marauding Russian Red Army soldier, a trigger-happy French infantryman or a patriotic Azad Hind Fauj volunteer, is portrayed by an Indian actor.

What’s more, the film uses what looks suspiciously like the Garhwal Himalayas and the Punjab countryside as stand-ins for sundry European locations. Bollywood’s long-nurtured expansionist designs assume alarming proportions in this spectacularly daft account of the last months of Adolf Hitler’s life. For this film, India is the world.

The intentions are lofty enough, but Gandhi to Hitler has the feel of a Z-grade quickie destined to be quickly consigned to the dustbins of movie history. The concept is hare-brained and the execution ham-handed and that’s putting it mildly.

Taking off from two epistolary appeals that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi made to the Fuhrer during World War II, the film seeks to underscore the contrast between the Mahatma’s non-violent struggle against the British and the Nazi “an eye for an eye” philosophy. As if we didn’t know!

It is utterly silly and unintentionally funny. You want to laugh, but you squirm. The trouble with a film like Gandhi to Hitler is that its makers seem to hate the audience just as much as they claim to love Mahatma Gandhi’s pacifist teachings. Why else would they foist this monumental monstrosity on us? The film piles one agonizing sequence upon another with gay abandon and deadly earnestness without the slightest hint of a let-up at any point in its two-hour-plus run time? The audience would need a bomb shelter to escape the relentless onslaught.

Gandhi to Hitler, directed by Rakesh Ranjan Kumar, meanders aimlessly from Hitler’s bunker to a forested battle zone to congregations addressed by the Mahatma (played by Avijit Dutt) and intersperses all this with documentary footage of the Allied Forces’ attacks on Nazi Germany in the dying stages of the World War. What is it that this film is trying to tell us? There is no way of guessing. If there is a point that it’s trying to make, it’s too well concealed for ordinary mortals.

While the Mahatma Gandhi’s perambulations in the film with his followers add no real value to the film, the focus seems to be on painting a rather sympathetic, human portrait of the Nazi dictator.

History's most hated despot is played by a far-too-twitchy Raghuvir Yadav. You hate him all the more. The Nazi rogues’ gallery is overcrowded. Hitler's mistress Eva Braun (Neha Dhupia), trusted associate Joseph Goebbels (Nalin Singh, co-producer and writer of the film), Magdalena Goebbels (Nikita Anand) and architect and Reich minister Albert Speer (Nasir Abdullah), among a host of others, float around the bunker as if life is one big party until the lights finally go out.

As ill tidings filter in from the battlefield, Hitler, on his part, raves and rants, releases steam by thumping on tables and other pieces of furniture, comes close to shedding a few tears and even shares some moments of tender affection with Eva. Hitler’s love story has never been told with such cavalier disregard for history and the viewer’s sensibilities.

One strand of the film – it deals with a group of runaway Indian soldiers stranded in Germany during the War – could have yielded a full-fledged drama. But Gandhi to Hitler botches up this sub-plot by throwing in a half-hearted love story about a young Gandhian wife pining for her absent warrior-husband and a raucous Holi song celebrating the three colours of the Indian flag. Like everything else in the film, it has no apparent rhyme or reason. Watch Gandhi to Hitler at your own risk.

Read more at: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_Review.aspx?id=639&cp

Khap Release Date : 29,Jul 2011

Producer    Sangita Sinha, Siddhant Sinha
 Director    Ajai Sinha
 Music    Annujj Kappoo
 Writer    Ajai Sinha, Ishan Trivedi, Vinod Ranganath, Vijay Verma, Ashok Lal
 Lyrics    Yogesh. Nida Fazli, Kumaar, Panchhi Jalonvi
 Release Date    29-Jul-2011

Issue-based films tend to get themselves into trouble.And we don’t mean just the trouble caused by disgruntled parties, political or otherwise. The balance that needs to be struck between headlines and their cinematic interpretation often tends to get lost thereby defeating the noblest of purposes and the best intentions of conscientious filmmakers who look at the cinematic medium as more than just entertainment.
Ajai Sinha who has his roots in meaningful television entertainment, boldly takes on the theme of khap (community) justice in rural Haryana, whereby any marriage between two individuals of the same gotra (clan) is punished by local village panchayats. It’s a powerful subject that needed a singleminded, uncompromised treatment.
Sadly Sinha dilutes the theme with dollops of formula-baazi. There’s a teenybopper love-angle featuring two relative newcomers who need a crash-course in basic acting and grooming. The young love-birds chat online with what they feel are sweet cute and funny lines.
If only they knew! The entire treatment and development of their romance is redolent of amateurishness. Precious time is frittered away in gawkily composed and choreographed song and dances where the love birds coo sweet-nothings into one another’s ears.
You feel like pushing these two campus wannabes out of the way to watch the impending drama in a village of Haryana where the panchayat is a law unto itself. The interweavement of characters into a dramatic circle embodying outdated customs and their clash with contemporary mores, could have acquired a greater validity if the narrative had focused more on hard hitting rural prejudices rather than jejune urban affectations.
Om Puri as the village sarpanch is the pick of the plot. He gets the meatiest part with the best emotional graph. He doesn’t need to make much of an effort to make the part his own, and he doesn’t even try. Nowadays a kind of laziness has crept into distinguished actor’s repertoire. It’s wonderful to see the talented Manoj Pahwa grab a pivotal role. Pahwa was hilarious as Ayesha Takia’s delusional suitor in Wanted. Here he sinks into the role of a village elder who once watched his daughter being slaughtered for the village honour.
Ajai Sinha’s antecedents from television make themselves evident in the way the drama unfolds in episodic overtures covering huge time-frames with soft punctuation marks.
The film would have worked better with a more confident cast of younger plays. The elders can only take the drama so far. Khap is finally betrayed by the wimpish and awkward portrayal of the urban young and by too many attempts to draw out a soap-opera-styled drama from situations that seem to plead for more finesse in presentation.
Nonetheless Khap should be commended for attempting a socially-relevant theme with some amount of detachment and equanimity. Should love between cousins or people from within one family be sternly discouraged just because the village panchayat feels it is damaging to the social framework?