Film Review: ONCE UPON A TIME IN MUMBAI DOBAARA!

The dialogues were sharp, smart and interesting!

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Sonali Bendre Behl, Mahesh Manjrekar, Bala Manian
Director: Milan Luthria
Writer: Rajat Arora

I have not seen the first one starring Ajay Devgn and Emraan Hashmi as I am not too keen on action films. As this time Akshay Kumar had promised that ‘it is personal’ and after the Chennai Express fiasco, I decided ‘what the hell!’ and went to see the movie along with Venkat and Vini on August 15 itself. I am glad that I did!

THE STORY

Set in the 1990s, Shoaib (Akshay Kumar) is a ruthless gangster who would do just anything to have his way, whether for money or women. Shoaib meets Aslam, a street smart kid and takes him under his wing. Twelve years later, Shoaib, who had been in the Middle East, returns to Bombay to kill his rival Rawal (Mahesh Manjrekar). Aslam (Imran Khan) is now a young man who is totally loyal to Shoaib. Jasmine (Sonakshi Sinha) has recently moved to Bombay from Kashmir and is trying to become a film heroine. She meets Aslam and soon the two are attracted to each other. In the meanwhile, Jasmine meets Shoaib and he falls for her innocence. She gets a chance as heroine in a film that Shoaib backs. Watch the film to see who gets Jasmine – Shoaib or Aslam.

MY PERCEPTION

I am a sucker for romance and so the film worked for me. The best thing about the film were the dialogues. They were sharp, smart and interesting. Congratulations to Rajat Arora for the same. I so wished that my grasp of Hindi was better than what it is so that I could have appreciated it better. I will probably catch the film again on TV just for that.

The music was good and so were the songs. I especially enjoyed the sequence, “Tayeb Ali Pyar ka Dushman…” The scene was also very well made.

Akshay Kumar has been improving with age. That is probably because he is choosing good roles. I have seen a consistent improvement with Oh My God!, Special 26 and now Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara! In this film, the actor plays the negative role of a cold-blooded gangster. And he has enacted the part perfectly – with a chilling smile on his face and cold-blooded to the hilt. Good one, Akshay Kumar!

Sonakshi Sinha is excellent as Jasmine. She has a very expressive face and she has used it well to portray different emotions. Her dialogue delivery is just perfect.

Imran Khan! Well, I am never confident that the actor will perform in every film. He was superb in Jaane Tu… Yaa Jaane Na, Meri Brother Ki Dulhan, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Delhi Belly and I Hate Luv Storys. In contrast, Imran Khan was terrible in Luck, Kidnap, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola  and Break ke Baad.

But Imran Khan was simply superb in this movie as Aslam, Shoaib’s protégée. He has a chunky role and he has delivered. Kudos! Hope to see more of great acting from Imran Khan in the future.

I have to mention here that the role of Vardhan was played by Bala Manian who is my maternal uncle. He is my mother’s youngest brother. He also goes by the screen name of R. Balasubramanian (Monsoon Shootout – Click here to read review of the film). Balu, as we call him, has been acting since many years and has acted in Tamil and Hindi films as well as in TV serials. He was very good as Vardhan in Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Dobaara! Even if it was just the one scene, he has a few dialogues in it. Congratulations Balu!

Two other really good things were that the film was not too long and the fight sequences were also relatively short.  

VERDICT: I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

RATING: ***1/2 (Better than smart)

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

Recipe: DAHI VADA (North Indian style)

Dahi Vada

While I have eaten Dahi Vada a number of times, I have never made it before. Thayir Vadai in South Indian style is what I know how to make and have done a number of times. Venkat said that he would like to have Dahi Vada - the North Indian way, a few days ago and that’s when I decided to give it a try on Independence Day as it was a holiday for everyone. It was quite yummy and not too difficult to make.

INGREDIENTS

For Vada:

Urad Dal – 250 gm (soaked for 2-3 hours)
Red Chillies – 3
Curry Leaves – 6-8
Salt to taste
Oil for frying
Curd – 4-5 cups
Sugar – 3 tbsp

Chutneys:

Green Chutney
Khatta-Meetha Chutney
Chaat Masala

For Garnish:

Kara Boondi – 50 gm
Kotmir – 2 tbsp (chopped)

1. The dough for the vada; 2. Frying vadas; 3. Vadas soaking in curd & water; 4. Vadas in sweet curd

METHOD

1. Drain the water completely from the soaked urad dal.
2. Add the dal, red chillies, salt and curry leaves to the mixer. Adding water little by little, grind the mixture into a smooth and thick dough. You need to be careful while adding water as a watery dough will not make proper vadas.
3. Take a couple of spoons of curd and beat it in a large bowl. Add 3-4 cups of water to it and mix well. This is for soaking the fried vadas to make them soft.
4. Heat the oil in a kadai. Keep the flame on medium once it’s hot. Now wet your hand and shape the dough into small balls the size of lemons and deep fry till golden brown.
5. Remove the vadas from the oil and put them directly in the curd mixed water. Turn them around a couple of times to make sure that they fully wet. You will find that the vadas sink down in a few minutes.
6. Beat the rest of the curd along with the sugar in a large bowl.
7. Add the water-soaked, softened vadas to the sweetened curd. Take spoonfuls of curd and pour over the vadas to ensure that they are fully coated.
8. Refrigerate the Dahi Vadas for about half an hour before serving.

For serving:

Take 3-4 vadas in a serving bowl. Pour some sweetened curd over them. Add a few blobs of Green Chutney over this. The next layer will be a couple of spoons of Khatta-Meetha Chutney. Take a pinch of Chaat Masala and spray over the Dahi Vada. Spread some Kara Boondi over all this and then some chopped kotmir. Now the Dahi Vada is ready to eat. It looked lovely and tastes absolutely delicious, I promise you!

Recipe: KHATTA-MEETHA CHUTNEY

Khatta-Meetha Chutney

Khatta-Meetha Chutney is yet another ingredient that adds flavour to chaat items. It is used in Ragada Pattice, Dahi Vada, Pani Puri, Bhel Puri, etc. I don’t know of any shop that sells this readymade. Then again, it’s quite easy to make.

INGREDIENTS

Tamarind – 1 ball (the size of a gooseberry)
Jaggery (Gur) – 100 gm
Seedless Dates – 6
Salt – ¼ tsp
Mirchi Powder – ¼ tsp

METHOD

1. Soak the tamarind in hot water for about half an hour.
2. Extract the juice twice to have about a large cup of tamarind juice.
3. Heat the tamarind juice, jaggery and dates for 2-3 minutes and switch off the gas.
4. Allow the mixture to cool down before running it in a mixer to make a smooth paste.
5. Add mirchi powder and salt to the mix and stir well.

Delicious Khatta-Meetha Chutney is ready to be used in any of your chaats.

Recipe: KOTMIR-PUDINA CHUTNEY

Kotmir-Pudina Chutney

While I am calling this Kotmir-Pudina Chutney, a whole lot of other ingredients go into it. This super-delicious chutney can be used in sandwiches and chaats.

INGREDIENTS

Kotmir (Coriander leaves) – 1 large bunch (cleaned and cut)
Pudina (Mint leaves) – 10
Roasted peanuts – 1 handful
Onion – 1 (medium, cut into pieces)
Garlic – 6 cloves
Green Chillies – 6-8 (add or minus according to how spicy you want the chutney to be)
Salt – ½ tsp
Sugar – 1 tsp
Juice from half a lemon

METHOD

Blend all the ingredients to a smooth paste in the mixer. Aromatic and yummy Kotmir chutney is ready. It’s as simple as that!

Recipe: CHAAT MASALA

Chaat Masala

Chaat Masala adds punch to many dishes, especially items like Sev Puri, Ragada Pattice, Dahi Vada and the like. Of course, this is available readymade with many brands. But I prefer the Chaat Masala that I make at home.

INGREDIENTS

Jeera – 50 gm
Pepper – 1 tsp
Black Salt – 50 gm
Salt – ¼ tsp
Mirchi Powder – ½ tsp

METHOD

1. Roast the jeera well till it turns brown.
2. Add the pepper and mix well just a couple of minutes before you turn off the gas.
3. Allow the jeera-pepper mix to cool down.
4. Add jeera, pepper, black salt, salt and mirchi powder together in the mixer and grind to a fine powder.

If you think you might use this quantity over a couple of months, store half of it in an airtight container in the kitchen and the other half in another container that can be kept in your freezer.

You can even make delicious chaas by adding Chaat Masala to it.

Film Review: CHENNAI EXPRESS

There’s a very strong divide between ‘class’ and ‘crass’. Shah Rukh Khan bridges the gap with total ease

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sathyaraj, Nikitin Dheer
Director: Rohit Shetty

I was not too sure that I wanted to see the film after looking at the promos. But Venkat is an ardent fan of Shah Rukh Khan and wanted to go. I tagged along out of curiosity for the paid premiere on Thursday, August 8, 2013. That’s right! Curiosity did kill the cat. And as you can see, it has taken me four days to post the review.

THE STORY

Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) has been orphaned since he was eight and brought up by his grandparents. The family owns and runs a sweetmeat shop. Rahul is tied down to his grandparents till he is 40 years old and his life revolves around them and the shop. His grandfather dies on his 100th birthday. Rahul is set the task of taking the old man’s ‘asthi’ to Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu. He plans to have fun with his friends in Goa instead. As his grandmother insists on taking him to the railway station to catch a train to South India, Rahul pretends to travel on Chennai Express. His life goes totally out of control from then on.

MY PERCEPTION

I used to adore Shah Rukh Khan – please note the past tense. He’s an excellent and versatile actor. DDLJ is my most favourite film till date. Of course, there have been some debacles – especially under the helm of Red Chillies Entertainment – such as Ram Jaane, Guddu, English Babu Desi Mein, Paheli, and Ra.One, to name a few. I personally liked Paheli, but the film was not a success.

I so wish the actor will take up interesting roles as he gets older. Chak De was an excellent film and SRK’s performance was just brilliant. If I remember right, the budget for this film was not too big and there was not too much marketing involved either.

I see a kind of desperation in the marketing tactics for Chennai Express. Is it because the content is so ‘khokla’ that it is so? Every TV channel you tune into is talking about Chennai Express, while they are trying to get Kashmir and Kanyakumari together by selling it all the way from the North Pole to the South Pole.

Yes, I also heard the news that they have crossed the 100 crore mark. Why not? Ticket rates are soaring, especially so for the Eid weekend. Everyone wants to see the film – including me – because SRK is starring in it. But does that mean I made an intelligent decision when I spent Rs. 250 for seeing this crap? Most definitely not!

I do like masala flicks – the Rohit Shetty kind – Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (only the first one in the series, mind you); Singham and Bol Bachchan were quite good. But there is a limit to which one can tolerate beefed up thugs, smashed jeeps and prolonged fight sequences. They get more ridiculous with each film.

Chennai Express takes the cake! The thugs are taller and wider with Nikitin Dheer topping the list. I wonder what kind of steroids they must be consuming to be like this. They stand around like baboons with vacant expressions, not adding an iota of value to the film.

Shah Rukh Khan insists that Rahul is all of forty years old. Why the hell does he not behave his age? Rahul’s antics suggest someone who is in Junior College. Need I say more?

The ‘kashin bradhars’ don’t understand Hindi anyway. Rahul and Meenamma (Deepika Padukone) could have comfortably conversed in the language. Why sing antaksharis and torture the audience? If they thought it was comical, they surely have another think coming. Many of the dialogues were in Tamil and then translated into Hindi. To someone like me who speaks both languages, it was prolonged agony. I am sure they could have handled it differently - maybe with captions.

I originate from Chennai and have travelled by Chennai Express at least a hundred times. I have not once noticed the scenes that unfold in the film. Yes, they are scenic, but absolutely inauthentic. Kathakali is the regional dance of Kerala; a Tamil woman wears her nose-ring on her right nostril; a guy carrying his wife up the staircase of a temple is probably borrowed from Karnataka. While Meenamma wears a nose-ring on the left, the other sequences don’t have anything to do with Chennai or Tamil Nadu. Well, these are the goof ups that I noticed. There could have been many more. Shoddy research indeed!

The final fight sequence was the extreme limit. Rahul is a ‘halwaai’ and quite small in stature. He is just a ‘common man’ as he screams to us at least 30 times during the film. He is forty. How could he fight thugs who are thrice his size just to prove his love? Bizarre!

Among all this mess, I was truly impressed with Deepika Padukone’s performance. The actress has obviously been working hard and improving her skills. She’s excellent as Meenalochani despite the stupid accent. In fact, it quite adds to her charms. And she looks gorgeous too! Kudos Deepika! You are truly a Bollywood Queen today!

I would like to believe that Shah Rukh Khan is quite bright. Did he not see the final cut of the film? Anyone with half the intelligence would have seen it for the crack-pot film that it is. The film will probably appeal the people in the slums, thanks to its slapstick humour and sickle-wielding thugs.

While SRK has grown in years, it does not appear that he has matured as an actor. If you want to do romance, do one as a fifty-year-old or have a script written for you in the lines of Amitabh Bachchan’s Cheeni Kum. Do not torture us with this kind of a stupid film.

VERDICT: Watch it at your own risk

RATING: ** Shaky (one star belongs to Deepika Padukone and none to SRK)

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

Sharing: 6D THEATRE @ R-City Mall

Vini had an office programme at R-City Mall on Friday last. She went early to reach there before two pm. I left later and got there by 5 pm. The crowd was incredible as it was Eid. It took me a while to enter the compound.

I waited for her programme to get over outside Starbucks while I read a book – The Krishna Key. I attended the tail end of their show and then we took off checking out what R-City Mall had to offer.

One of the attractions was 6D Theatre. I am not sure what they mean by 6D. But we decided to check it out anyway. The tickets came for Rs. 150 per person for a half an hour show. I have been to one such show at Imax Wadala some years back.

We got in at 8.15 and took our seats. They gave us 3D glasses. We had been warned that the seats would move and we would feel sprays of water as well as air blown into our faces. All of that happened and it was such fun! I have not laughed so much since long. Vini kept swearing as she got scared a few times. I had promised myself that I would close my eyes if I got afraid. Well, I did not bother as it was anything but frightening.

There were three small movies. The first – Snowy Rocket Mission – was of a rocket travelling too close to the surface on snowbound peaks. We escaped so many near-crashes. It was exciting as I could feel my body moving in tune as if I was piloting the craft myself.

The second was in a jungle – African Jungle Safari. It was quite pathetic with a couple of spiders, a prehistoric mammoth and a few snakes. But quite amusing!

The third was the best of the lot – Roller Coaster. It was a roller-coaster ride. The only time I sat on a real one at Esselworld, I had sworn to myself never to take this type of ride again. But this virtual trip was simply fabulous, with my feet barely a few inches from the floor.

Actually speaking, all the three films were of mediocre quality. But what the hell! It was pure unadulterated enjoyment. I felt like a kid.