Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost (2003)

Name: Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost

Starring: Abhishek Bachchan & Lara Dutta

Director: Apoorva Lakhi

Language: Hindi

Did I watch this recently?Yes

Review:

Before there was Dhoom, before there was Yuva, before there was Bunty aur Babli and before there was Guru – Abhishek Bachchan starred in Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost, a city boy returning to his rural town with a tv.

Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost story revolves around – not Abhishek, not Lara Dutta BUT the protagonist of this film is a TV. Don’t believe me! Read the below summary of the plot…

When Kanji (Abhishek Bachchan) returns to his rural community (which only recently received electricity) he brings with him a TV and a satellite dish. The rest of the movie then track the impact this TV has on the lives of the villagers – from the barber, to the local Priest and to the Landowner of the village. Villagers start to mimic the characters and scenes of movies in their everyday lives (often to considerable failure). Most villagers are pleased about the arrival of the TV, which has brought entertainment and interest to their lives, with the exception of the local priest as the villagers are not coming to the temple to give money as they are pre-occupied by the TV.

So the Priest, offended that the TV is taking all his villager’s time and money, goes to the local Landowner of the village to help get rid of the TV and the problem. The Landowner at first refuses to help until he finds out that the TV in the village is in fact bigger then the Landowners. This then sparks off a violent campaign to take down Abhishek, his family and the TV.

There is also a side romantic plot whereby Abhishek falls in love at first sight with the landowner’s sister Kesar – played by Lara Dutta. Although not a very special romance, it does have considerably steamy scenes and there is definete chemistry between Abhishek & Lara in this movie. I woul love to see another movie (other then Jhoom Barabar Jhoom) properly explore their chemistry, because i think its one of the few interesting things about this film.

The movie’s plot is unintersting and at times rediculous. It does have its few scenes that can be quite funny – like the villagers trying to do actions and scenes from some classic movies to a disasterous effect. But this is repeated so often in the film that too soon gets boring.  There is also i’m sure a message about the impact of progress in rural town, but there are so many other films out there that do a better and more interesting job at addressing this issue.

Some more positive things to say about this film is Abhishek does a decent job as Kanji. He has certainly lost his wooden acting that plagued his earlier career by this stage, but unfortunately the screenplay makes you forget any great acting by Lara & Abhishek.  Also on a more vapid note, Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost marks the beginning of the bearded/stubble Abhishek which has graced the screen for many years now and my personal Abhishek appearance favourite.

Another positive of this movie is the cinematography of Rajasthan. Watching the beautiful scenary of Rajasthan was certainly a strength of this film and viewers might feel the itch to visit Rajasthan after watching some of the scenes. Director Apoorva Lakhia (now known for his 2007 hit ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’) both directed and wrote this film. I think of his as a decent director, but obviously he was the reason for the screenplay. He has obviously improved since then but his other movies Ek Ajnabee demonstrate he had room to improve before Shootout came along.  Also some of his experience in the movie ‘Karma Sutra: A Tale of Love’ incorporated into the movie when he shows more shots of Lara’s cleavage then her face.

Overall Score: 1.5/5 Hairy Anil Kapoors – Mumbai Se Aaya Mera Dost marked the improvement in acting for Abhishek Bachchan, but even he could not save this incredibly boring film whose main protagonist was a television. Lara Dutta & Abhishek’s chemistry is the main highlight of this film as well as the beautiful cinematography of Rajasthan. Other then these points though, the film is an all round boring dud.

Darna Zaroori Hai (2006)

Name: Darna Zaroori Hai (Being Scared is Necessary)

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Ritesh Deshmukh, Anil Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Rajpal Yadav, Sunil Shetty, Arjun Rampal & Bipasha Basu

Director: J.D Chakravarthi, Manish Gupta, Sajid Khan, Jijy Philip, Prawal Raman, Vivek Shah & Ram Gopal Varma (1 Director per story)

Language: Hindi

Did I watch this recently? Yes

Review:

True to it’s title, being scared is necessary. In this case in order to think this is a good scary movie it has to do one thing – make you scared. However Darna Zaroori Hai fails on this promise for about 95% of the movie. Its more interesting and comedic then scary and often turns potentially scary moments into characters saying ‘I’m just joking’. Which of course got predictable after the first 10 times.

Although I haven’t seen Darna Mana Hai i’ve been informed its essentially the same premise – 6 scary stories by 6 different directors. I have watched a few Bollywood horror films with one i’m ashamed to say got me quite scared which was Vaastu Shahstra (2004). But most of the time these horror films suffer from lack of originality and tight budgets. When I watch Hollywood scary films, the bollywood attempts just look pathetic in comparison. But Bollywood i think is pretty strong at doing good thrillers so i hope they stick to that instead of horror.

The best thing I can say about this film is its only just over 1.5 hours. It also has some good ‘ohhhhhh’ moments (twists) at the end of the stories when the pieces of the stories puzzle suddenly link up. If i had to pick the best story for me it would be the Arjun Rampal & Bipasha Basu story, that one was semi-scary and had a good twist at the end.

So here are my quick thoughts on stories:

1. Introduction: Pahwa a film buff goes off to see Darna Mana Hai in the cinema but he is running late so wants to go to a short cut through the cemetery despite the fact his mum cautioned him against doing it on the 13th moonless night. This story is not really meant to be scary, its more of a introductory story which pokes fun at the Ram Gopal Varma movies. The director of this story, Sajid Khan (not known as director of Heyy Babyy) does a good job at poking fun at RGV and at least RGV can laugh at himself because the end moment of this story i found quite funny.
2. Story 1: Amitabh Bachchan plays a professor who sees someone in his house ‘trying to be him’ and Ritesh Deshmukh plays a student trying to figure out what the professor is seeing. This storys ending was a total let down and most of the time was just Amitabh saying ‘look over there’ for about 10 minutes. Quite a boring and anti-climatic story.
3. Story 2: Arjun Rampal plays a man whos car has just broken down and has to go into this big old house to use the phone to call a mechanic. This is where he meets Bipasha Basu. I found this story the best by far, it got me a bit scared in places and had a really good ending. Both Arjun and especially Bipasha were creepy in it.
4. Story 3: Sunil Shetty & Sonali Kulkani play a couple that gets an expected guest one day from a wierd salesmen played by Rajpal Yadev. An insurance salesmen trying to sell life insurance to Sunil. It has an ironic twist at the end, but all round was quite stupid and not scary at all.
5. Story 4: Anil Kapoor plays a filmmaker about to make his first horror film so is off to see the shooting location at Khandala. On the way there he meets a strange yet beautiful girl, Mallika Sherawat, who needs a lift there as well. At times i found Mallika quite scary so was totally disappointed with the twist at the end and to be blunt was just stupid.
6. Story 5: Randeep Hooda plays a man driving along the road at night and then sees a woman on the road. He goes over to her but finds himself petrified. He wakes up the next morning charged with the murder of a man. This story is not scary, but is quite interesting. So at least it has that going for it.
7. Story 6: For me probably packed with the most scary bits involves 5 children being lost in the woods after trekking so they go into this old ladies house where she tells them the scary stories. I found the grandmother quite chilling and I found some moments involving the children quite scary. So this story would have been my 2nd pick for most scary out of all the stories and this one is an overarching story that goes for the whole movie.

Overall Score: 1.5/5 Hairy Anil Kapoors – Darna Zaroori Hai has a couple of chilling moments and some good story twists but most of them are a major let down. More cheap thrills and comedic moments then any decent scary moments. Highlights of the film are the Arjun Rampal & Bipasha Basu story, some comedic moments and the Grandmother’s story. Overall though a pretty big waste of time that is luckily quite short.

Aap Ki Khatir (2006)

Name: Aap Ki Khatir (For Your Sake)

Starring: Akshaye Khanna, Priyanka Chopra, Amisha Patel, Dino Morea & Sunil Shetty

Director: Dharmesh Darshan

Language: Hindi

Did I watch this recently? No

Synopsis:

Anu (Priyanka Chopra), a London based NRI who is living in India has just broken up with her boyfriend Danny (Dino Morea). Now, she’s to come back to London to be a part of her stepsister Shirani’s (Amisha Patel) marriage, to the New York-based, Gujarati businessman Kunal Shah (Suniel Shetty), who is also Danny’s best friend.

In a plan to get back to Danny and to make him jealous, Anu convinces her colleague Aman (Akshaye Khanna), who’s also a male escort, to accompany her to the wedding as her new beau.

The wedding date and what happens between Aman, Anu & Danny forms the rest of the story.
Review:

Aap Ki Khatir is a Bollywood rip off of the movie ‘The Wedding Date’ starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney. The Wedding Date to start off with is no Hollywood Blockbuster or A-Grade romantic flick like Sleepless in Seattle or the Notebook. It was a pretty average romantic comedy to start off with, so when i saw the Bollywood equivalent it went from average to disaster.

Don’t get me wrong there are plenty of Hollywood movies that i think have been ripped but somehow doesn’t feel like i’m watching the same movie but an inferior version. Hum Tum takes alot from ‘When Harry Met Sally’, Chori Chori takes from ‘House Sitter’ and Ek Ladka Ek Ladki from ‘Overboard’. The point is these movies stole the story from hollywood, but made it their own – they made a right for bollywood remake.

Aap Ki Khatir has its moments with the highlight of this being Akshaye. I have enjoyed Priyanka in many films, but for me i feel she just cannot pull off Comedy. It feels forced and she just does not have natural comedy timing. Lara Dutta (Miss Universe 2000) and Priyanka Chopra (Miss World 2000) are forever being compared. If i was to compare them i would say Lara Dutta is much better then Priyanka at comedy, but Priyanka i feel can do the full on romance and drama better.
Overall I wouldn’t say Akshaye & Priyanka were bad as leads, they had their moments but viewers come to expect more from them. But i guess they are only as good as their script. As for the ‘supporting’ cast – Sunil = character came across as lecherous/creepy, Dino = wooden and Amisha = annoying. They try to make Amisha’s character out like this really simple faithful girl and then expect the viewer to believe her character did all these horrible things.

As for music i can like the occasional Himesh song, but the music was boring and uninspiring. You forget it as soon as the songs over. Plus if Himesh’s voice irritates you just mute/skip the songs entirely.

The problem with this film was it was boring and slow with little to fill in slow scenes for the viewer. There was so much potential for the romance story between Akshaye & Priyanka (which saved its Hollywood counterpart), but for me the central romantic plot fell flat. There were some cute bickering scenes and fake couple scenes, but they didn’t even really show Priyanka falling for Akshaye, its like she just woke up and went for him. So the romance storyline is unconvincing for the viewer. The 2nd half especially dragged and because the viewer doesn’t care much for the characters like me you might find yourself utterly bored and tempted to fast forward the weepy melodrama bits.

Overall Score: 1.5/5 Hairy Anil Kapoors – 1 star for the Akshaye & Priyanka scenes that made parts of the movie interesting and an extra 0.5 star for Akshaye himself.

Aashiq Hoon Baharon Ka (1977)

Name: Aashiq Hoon Baharon Ka

Starring: Rajesh Khanna & Zeenat Aman

Director: J. Om Prakash

Language: Hindi

Did I watch this recently? Yes

Synopsis:

Ashok Sharma (Rajesh Khanna) gets an opportunity to travel to Switzerland for research purposes. Once there, he meets with Chandidas Rai, a businessman, who would like Ashok to work for him in his uranium laboratory, which Ashok accepts. Ashok meets with Chandidas’ attractive daughter, Veera (Zeenat Aman), and both eventually fall in love and would like to get married. While the two are busy making plans, Rai descends on them with the police and has Ashok arrested for stealing uranium, after seducing Julie, another employee of Rai. Did Ashok really steal the uranium? And what of his romance with Veera?

Review:

To understand my feelings on this movie it must be known – I LOVE Rajesh Khanna!

Since seeing him in my first classic film (Aradhana) i have been in love with this ultimate romantic hero. Amitabh has more style and is more fun to watch, but its Rajesh for me is the one who does the romance of the movie better.

So i see on IMDB that Aashiq Hoon Baharon Ka (with Rajesh & Zeenat Aman) got 8.5/10, so i figure how bad can it be! But boy was this movie the biggest let down! My aim for this review is to prevent further people who are fans of Rajesh from making the same mistake as i by watching this awful movie.

The biggest victim of this movie was the story/screenplay. Disjointed, the story was a mess. Riddled with stereotypes and cliched events i see in so many 70s film. This movie offers nothing new. Second victim was the faith i had in Rajesh to somehow even redeem the worst films.

The romance between Rajesh & Zeenat is unconvincing. They make Zeenat’s character so bratty and annoying that even when they try to pair the two up, you want Rajesh to run as far away as he can from her. Zeenat’s bratty rich character ‘Veera’ is brought up in Switzerland so therefore the normal sterotype of her being devoid of all humanity cause she is angloised indian. Also shows alot of Switzerland men just wanting to rape the good indian girl (with thank goodness Rajesh coming to her rescue to save her sensibilities). So despite the writers efforts to make the viewer suddenly like her, they just went too far at making the character obnoxious and annoying.

Rajesh’s character is slightly better, but he’s a very one-dimension ‘hero’ type character with a mixture of annoying superiority complex. No other sides to this character other then his fight for good and justice, which for 2 hours + gets boring quick. Please writers tie in a story that we care about to his fight so we want him to win. The thing that made me most sad in this film was Rajesh’s charisma i usually enjoy in his films, was gone in this film. I’ve heard one should avoid his 1975+ films, but i’ve heard he still has some other good ones like Mehbooba, so i will not make a judgement on that till then.

Anyway this was also my first experience with Zeenat so i hope my other films i intend to watch with her improve my opinion of her acting after this.

Overall Score: 1/5 Hairy Anil Kapoors – So we have learnt from the pictures Rajesh has a hair cut like Doctor Spock, Zeenat goes from drunken ‘pardesi’ to good indian girl — woops i think i just gave away the whole story by the pictures. Either way save yourself the disappointment and stay away.

Afsana Pyar Ka (1991)

Name: Afsana Pyar Ka

Starring: Aamir Khan, Neelam & Deepak Tijori.

Director: Shahjahan

Language: Hindi

Did I watch this recently? Yes

Synopsis:

Raj (Aamir Khan) is the only son of a rich industrialist Mr Behl. Raj can get any woman he wants at college but he is only interested in waiting for someone special. Enters new student Nikita (Neelam), she resists the charms of the college playboy and as a result Raj enters a bet with college playboy and bad guy Vikram that he will kiss Nikita within 15 days. Raj starts to develop real feelings for Nikita but soon enough his bet is exposed and Nikita cannot forgive him. Will Nikita ever forgive Raj? There is also a secondary plot involving Raj’s dead mother – or is she dead?

Review:

I already had my apprehension about seeing this movie, i’ve had it in my head a long time its one of Aamir Khan’s worst early films. I’ve seen alot of his earlier stuff but have avoided this, Daulat Ki Jung and Love, Love, Love for as long as possible. Despite the fact the last two have Juhi and this one Neelam in it i’ve heard they are truly horrible movies – after of course i buy them just cause Aamir Khan is in them!

So i begin the dvd and first scene is an Aamir bopping to a shameless rip off of ‘La Bomba’, synthesizer, 80s outfits, Aamir electric guitar solo and everything. I start to groan in anticipation for the movie ahead.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The movie is pretty much all round a waste of time, but lets just say i didn’t turn it off. I did want to see the ending, thanks to my fast forward button however i got there quite fast. Skipping the occasional song and the 20 minute 80s styled fight scenes (over the top and fake), this was a quick journey. But still feels very long.

Bollywood is known for having multiple storylines happening at once. I can safely say Afsana Pyar Ka might be a first of its kind – a mono storyline. There was one storyline – Raj wooing Nikita. It lasted for almost 2 hours, full of poetic songs, Neelam crying, Aamir pining, Neelam crying, the occasional fight scene and Aamir whinging. Oh and Neelam crying. There was a funny scene involving Aamir being a boxer, if you thought he would win the fight by going under the oponents legs, he looks taller then he is in the movie. So his technique for winning the fight is more along the lines of a bopping Kangaroo. Very entertaining!

So after watching almost 2 hours of the same story, the movie suddenly does a 360 and introduces a secondary storyline involving Raj’s mum and their family history. Previously normal characters turn psycho and violent plus of course more melodrama and tears.

Although i’m glad Aamir has moved on to better movies, its a shame that Neelam didn’t have that much of a movie career. I would say though for anyone interested in Neelam check out Ek Ladka Ek Ladki with her and Salman, now that was i movie i loved with her in it. If you are a die hard Aamir fan who has to see all his movies then i guess hire it out, but make sure its at the bottom of your list. I did think it was better then the Madhuri & Aamir movie Deewana Mujh Sa Nahin.

Overall Score: 1.5/5 Hairy Anil Kapoors – Rather then bad dialogue, bad acting or stupid storyline, this movie just suffers from being a boring, uneventful monostoryline. Aamir & Neelam do have chemistry, which mostly shines in the few scenes when the Neelam isn’t crying in the movie.

Did I mention Neelam cries? I actually couldn’t be bothered to screencap most of her crying scenes – these were just a select few!

Anyone else seen this movie? Am i being too harsh or not harsh enough? Feel free to drop a comment below.