Film Review: TOTAL SIYAPPA

The story idea is good; the treatment nothing short of terrible

Cast: Kirron Kher, Anupam Kher, Ali Zafar, Yami Gautam, Sara Khan
Director: E.Nivas

STORY

Aman (Ali Zafar) is a Pakistani Muslim and Aisha (Yami Gautam) is an Indian Hindu. Both are based in London and in love. He’s is a famous musician and his band is quite popular while Aisha has a job in the corporate world. He goes to meet her family at her invitation. All hell breaks loose, literally. You have to see the movie to find out more. (My advice is that you wait for it to come on TV if you care about your cash).

MY PERCEPTION

The film has a good storyline and spans about five hours of the characters’ lives. It could have been handled beautifully. Yeah, it could have been!

But no, it has to be a mess. It was, believe me. It was Kirron Kher who kept me in my seat despite wanting to run away. I have seen Ali Zafar in Tere Bin Laden, London New York Paris, Chashme Baddoor  and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. He has been a good actor consistently. But I can’t say the same for the roles that he chooses. While TBL & MBKD were excellent, the other two films were awful.

Total Siyappa also belongs to the second category. I don’t know whom to blame – the scriptwriter or director or maybe the producer who invested money to torture the audience. Extremely bad!

Yami Gautam looks lovely and acts well too. She was good in Vicky Donor but even better in this. But her role was zilch.

Kirron Kher was excellent as Yami’s mother. Sara Khan as Yami’s bratty married sister was not too bad. Anupam Kher has a minuscule role that’s not worth talking about.

Aisha’s brother’s hatred for Pakistanis, the way he and his neighbours gang together and trouble their neighbours; how the Indians and Pakistanis get together finally to bash the English policeman – the idea is good; the treatment nothing short of terrible.

The music was good – composed and sung by Ali Zafar. That and the short span of the film, 108 minutes, were probably the two saving graces of the film.

VERDICT: Watch at your own risk

RATING: **Shaky

*Silly
**Shaky
***Smart
****Snazzy
*****Super

Film Review: LONDON PARIS NEW YORK

This film will probably suit a youtube watch :( 

I know it’s been a while since the release of London Paris New York. But I got to see it only a couple of days ago.

THE STORY

The film begins with the release of Director Nikhil Chopra’s (Ali Zafar) first movie at New York. He gives an interview to the press and leaves soon to meet someone. Nikhil is the spoilt son of extremely rich parents.

The film goes in flashback to London 2005. Nikhil meets Lalitha Krishnan (Aditi Rao Hydari) at London airport. Lalitha is the only child of Brahmin parents and is a walking encyclopedia. She likes to read serious books. Lalitha is rather lost in London as she has missed her forward flight to New York and has no place to stay. Nikhil offers to go with her around London. The two of them are as different as chalk and cheese but get friendly over the next 24 hours.

While there is no contact between the two of them for two years, thanks to Lalitha’s insistence, Nikhil finds her in Paris in 2007. They go around town and land up in bed together. Lalitha leaves Nikhil in a huff citing the excuse that she had found him sleeping with someone else when she had decided to surprise him at his London apartment. A confused Nikhil is unable to persuade her to get together with him.

Present day at New York, Nikhil goes to find Lalitha. She joins him as they go sightseeing in New York. Much later, she springs the biggest shock of his life. Will the on-off romance work out between the two of them? Well, you can find out on the small screen very soon.

MY PERCEPTION

Well, to mention the good points – firstly, the film is just about 90 minutes in the running. Thank God for small mercies!

Aditi Rao Hydari had a role of a reporter in Rockstar and she was good. She is excellent as the first-shy and then-confident Lalitha. Her eyes are extremely expressive.

Ali Zafar sails through his role as Nikhil. I am sure it was a cakewalk for him.

The songs were good and well sung by Ali Zafar. They were fairly catchy if not earth-shattering.

While the film? I am amazed at the guts of the producer and director to make a film with absolutely no meat in the script. A meets B, keeps meeting on and off and finally get together. The film is about the conversation between them with a few songs thrown in. How did they believe that people will pay through their noses at multiplexes to watch this one?

They should have just uploaded it on youtube and competed with the ‘Kolaveri’ song for hits.

I saw that the movie had Ali Zafar and went to see it blindly without checking out any of the reviews. Ali had excelled himself not just in acting but choosing the right scripts with Tere Bin Laden and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. Why would he want to take the role of Nikhil? There are no layers to the character. If sporting a goatee is considered one, I don’t have an argument to offer.

VERDICT: If you really have time to waste, watch this film on TV where the film should be screened in the very near future.

RATING: ** Shaky

* Silly
** Shaky
*** Smart
**** Snazzy
***** Super

Film Review: MERE BROTHER KI DULHAN

A special congratulations to Ritesh Soni for editing the film so well!


Cast: Imran Khan, Katrina Kaif, Ali Zafar, Tara D’Souza
Director: Ali Abbas Zafar

Having seen the attractive promos, we decided to go to the film on Day One of its release. The theatre was packed, of course. Thanks to the manager Mr. Rakesh at Cinemax Sion, we managed to get tickets for the 10 pm show on Friday.

THE STORY: Luv (Ali Zafar) lives in London and has been having an affair with Piali (Tara D’Souza) since five years. The two of them break up after a quarrel and Luv decides that he wants to get married to a girl from India. He calls up his brother Kush (Imran Khan) who works as an assistant director in Bollywood. Luv persuades Kush to find him a bride and that’s how Kush lands up looking for ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’. After running through a number of suitable girls, he hones in on Dimple (Katrina Kaif) and feels she is the best for his brother. Luv and Dimple meet over skype and approve of each other. Wedding preparations happen in a frenzy and Kush and Dimple end up spending a lot of time with each other getting things organised. And then… the two of them realize that they are in love. Watch the film to see the obvious ending.

MY PERCEPTION: The film was a fun-watch from beginning till end. I love romances and Yash Raj Films are famous for the same, even though some of their films bombed at the box office and were painful to watch. This one was bang-on with good direction and better editing.

Imran Khan was very good in his role as Kush and I hope this will be a continuing trend, as I feel the actor keeps sliding back to bad acting sometimes. Congrats!

Ali Zafar was excellent. I thought he was very good in his Bollywood debut, Tere Bin Laden. He was even better in this one with his sharply honed acting skills. Kudos!

Hmm… Katrina Kaif! Well, the young lady has come a long, long way. She was simply amazing. She’s lovely, sexy and now, she can act too and very well at that. It was her film throughout even though the guys were good.

The music by Sohail Sen was catchy and fitted well with the film. The songs were good and my favourite was Naache re naache Madhubala. I heard on Star News that the song was not choreographed. It was very nice and Katrina has proved that if she can do a Sheila ki jawani, she can be equally good at dancing to Madhubala too. Simply loved it!

The story was cute and the film was well-directed both thanks to Ali Abbas Zafar.  A special congratulations to Ritesh Soni for editing the film so well! It was a tight fit running for 2 hours and 20 minutes and kept the audience entertained throughout with absolutely no excesses.

VERDICT: A fun-watch romance, just my cup of tea!

RATING: **** Snazzy

* Silly
** Shaky
*** Smart
**** Snazzy
***** Super

Film Review: TERE BIN LADEN

Cast: Ali Zafar, Praduman Singh, Sugandha Singh, Barry John, Nikhil Ratnaparkhi, Piyush Mishra, Rahul Singh, Seema Bhargava
Director: Abhishek Sharma

The film is a tongue-in-cheek take on the desperation the Bush administration showed in getting their hands on Osama Bin Laden and how the protagonist Ali uses this to his advantage.

The Story: Ali Hassan (Ali Zafar) from Pakistan has always dreamed of moving to Amreeka and settling down there as a reporter on NBC or CNN. He gets his visa and boards a flight to dreamland only to be deported after a chance incident on the flight. Ali returns home with his tail between his legs, but never stops dreaming.

Seven years hence, after his visa application rejected umpteen times, Ali is found working for a small time television channel. The unhappy Ali has still not given up on his American dream. Along with his friend and colleague Gul, he meets an agent who could arrange for a new passport and visa for a sum of 2 lakh.

Not having enough funds, a dejected Ali goes to make a report on a Cockerel fight. While editing the video, he is shocked to see that the owner of the winning cock is a Osama Bin Laden look-alike. What happens after that is to be seen to be believed. Catch the film to find out whether Ali ever moves to America.

My Perception: The low-key film runs for barely an hour and forty minutes. We went to the theatre without many expectations and were pleasantly surprised. It was a fun watch that had been directed and edited extremely well. All the actors have done their parts perfectly, right from Ali to Qureshi (Rahul Singh), the RJ who gives the voiceover for Osama.

The innocent looking Noora (Praduman Singh) who shakes up the US of A in a video footage has given a superb performance. It’s fascinating to watch the man interacting innocently with his hens and cockerels while on video he appears to be the vile Osama.

Sugandha Singh has a sizeable part as Zoya, the make-up artist and she has done a wonderful job. Nikhil Ratnaparkhi plays the sleepy Gul who is ready to follow in Ali’s footsteps wherever he leads him. His body language speaks for itself and makes the audience laugh every time he moves on screen.

Barry John as American officer Ted is an ideal fit for the role. One can well relate to Ted’s character as he does his best for the country with the sole purpose of improving his own status with the government.

If my memory serves me right, I last saw Rahul Singh (RJ Qureshi in this film) playing villain in the Karishma Kapoor starrer Zubeidaa. He plays the RJ Qureshi who hates America and all things American. Ali persuades Qureshi to give the Arabic voiceover to the Osama video and Rahul Singh fits the role perfectly.

The music by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy needs to be mentioned as it complements the film beautifully. The songs and their lyrics are just right for the scenes and the tunes very catchy.

All in all, the casting is faultless and Kudos to Abhishek Sharma on this fun movie that has you laughing your heads off throughout.

VERDICT: It’s still running in the theatre folks. Do catch it! It’s most definitely worth a see.

RATING: **** Snazzy

*Silly
** Shaky
*** Smart
**** Snazzy
***** Super